Mark Thomas wrote:Wonderist- I'm going to respond to a couple thing here then get off this thread - there have been complaints and I have a feeling we could have a couple beers and talk about this all weekend, boring the shit out of everyone else.
Take the complaints with a grain of salt. There's always somebody who'll complain about something. You pretty much can't do *anything* at all without some asshole like Lsuoma whining about it. ;-) Seriously, the Pyt, even before Lsuoma so graciously took over hosting of it, has been dedicated to non-censorship as much as reasonably possible. A lot of people already get pissed at my wordiness. I still post. You can still post too. Nothing will happen except some people will complain. Others might pipe up in support, you never know. (Honestly, if it goes off thread, I'd be unlikely to follow it. I'm not interested in the political part of it, I'm interested in the beliefs/epistemology part of it.)
This, I gather, is the gist of your argument "If by 'intelligence community', you mean the ones Bush/Cheney got to say "yes".
No, again, you're missing the point. It really is not an us vs. them thing. It's about what *you*, Mark, have believed, based on concocted stories you've been told. Don't make too many assumptions about me here. I already see people assuming I'm American, for instance.
If you read the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report I cited earlier, you'll see that this isn't true. The "Bush lied, people died" meme is a myth. The intelligence community was not pressured into reporting as they did.
More 'facts' you might want to double-check. And when I use 'Bush/Cheney', yes I'm putting responsibility on Bush and Cheney, but there's lots more groupthink going on that I'm also accounting for. When I criticize the PZ/Watson brigade, I'm not just talking about PZ and Watson. There are at least hundreds of people involved in our current shenanigans. The names are just placeholders. Nixon's Watergate wasn't just about Nixon either, though he surely bore a lot of responsibility for it, esp. being the President. Do not mistake my critique as being about two individuals. It's not "Bush lied, people died." If that's your impression of my argument, I'm sorry to say you're way off base.
My critique ultimately isn't even about Bush or Cheney or the exact circumstances of the Iraq war. It's about the whole culture and atmosphere of US politics and media and persuasion, and the bizarre right-wing slant that is totally apparent to people not living inside the belief bubble. Just like it's totally apparent to atheists that theists gain no benefit from prayer, even if they think they do. To think that such a perspective would amount to "Paul lied, people died", or "Hey hey, Ho ho, Jesus Christ has got to go!" simple-minded slogans would be an incredibly narrow perspective. Get back to the facts. Stop trying to speculate about my motives. I guarantee you are wrong on them.
Full disclosure - I'm a veteran of both the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. When I was watching Colin Powell testify my unit was packing up to deploy to Kuwait (we didn't actually deploy until later). I studied the initial invasion war plans, they included a "red line" around Baghdad beyond which planners expected Saddam to employ chemical weapons. It has been reported that Saddam's own generals believed that the units to their left or right had WMDs (
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hi ... hell-game/).
I've been to the Tuwaitha nuclear research facility in an effort to figure out how to dispense with the 550 tons of yellowcake uranium stored there (I wasn't with the group noted in the article)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Nu ... h_Facility
I spent a lot of time with the Kurds - who are very familiar with Saddam's propensity to use WMDs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack
Despite all this (and other things I haven't mentioned), I'm still ambivalent about the decision to go to war. I don't believe it was the right decision, but I do believe we did an objectively good thing.
I don't think your beliefs about the war are false - "dredged up by Bush/Cheney in a glaringly *obvious* effort to shift attention away from actual terrorism and towards that old punching bag with oil barrels under his petty throne" - I know they are.
Do you not see how this in no way addresses my argument at all? First of all, you're focusing on the *results* of the Iraq War, when you need to be focusing on the *reasons* given for starting the war in the first place, the *factual claims* that were made. The *false* claims that were made. Claims that have been retracted by Colin Powell himself. Can you not even accept the confessions of the actual man who made the claims? From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Powe ... e_Iraq_War (heavily snipped for brevity, but it's short to read on Wikipedia to double-check context):
... Powell asserted that "there can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more."[43] Powell also stated that there was "no doubt in my mind" that Saddam was working to obtain key components to produce nuclear weapons.[43]
... Britain's Channel 4 News reported soon afterwards that a UK intelligence dossier that Powell had referred to as a "fine paper" during his presentation had been based on old material and plagiarized an essay by American graduate student Ibrahim al-Marashi.[44][45] A 2004 report by the Iraq Survey Group concluded that the evidence that Powell offered to support the allegation that the Iraqi government possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) was inaccurate.
In an interview with Charlie Rose, Powell contended that prior to his UN presentation, he had merely four days to review the data concerning WMD in Iraq.[46]
A Senate report on intelligence failures would later detail the intense debate that went on behind the scenes on what to include in Powell's speech. [Um, cherry-picking evidence, anyone?] State Department analysts had found dozens of factual problems in drafts of the speech. Some of the claims were taken out, but others were left in, such as claims based on the yellowcake forgery.[47] ... Powell later recounted how Vice President Dick Cheney had joked with him before he gave the speech, telling him, "You've got high poll ratings; you can afford to lose a few points." [Um, Dick Cheney him-fucking-self pressuring Powell? You don't think that's political pressure? Coming from the Vice President? It's not a key point, but it's part of a pattern of contradiction of your claims.] Powell's longtime aide-de-camp and Chief of Staff from 1989–2003, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, later characterized Cheney's view of Powell's mission as to "go up there and sell it, and we'll have moved forward a peg or two. Fall on your damn sword and kill yourself, and I'll be happy, too."[48]
In September 2005, Powell was asked about the speech during an interview with Barbara Walters and responded that it was a "blot" on his record. He went on to say, "It will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now."[49]
Now, that isn't even the most important part. The most important part is this, requoting for context:
I don't think your beliefs about the war are false - "dredged up by Bush/Cheney in a glaringly *obvious* effort to shift attention away from actual terrorism and towards that old punching bag with oil barrels under his petty throne" - I know they are.
The *entire reason* sold to the American public for the war was as an active 'war on terror'. The real fucking terrorists, Osama bin Laden and his crew were suddenly pushed aside to make this bogus case to make a first strike invasion on a country that had *no means* at the time of engaging in WMD terrorism.
Rewind your mind to before the war. Forget that, yeah, sure you deposed a terroristic (previously, but not presently) dictator. *Remember* that at the time bin Laden was still at large.
Was the American public's attention "shifted away" from real terrorism towards a guy sitting on a ton of oil? Yes or no? It's a factual question, not a value judgment. Osama bin Laden: Engaged in terrorism at the time. Saddam Hussein: Not engaged in terrorism at the time. True or false? OBL: Not sitting on a bunch of oil. SH: Sitting on a bunch of oil. True or false?
You may continue to deny this, and I expect you to, just as I expect creationists to deny the facts of evolution. But eventually, the cracks will start to deepen in the facade. If you keep up the skeptical thinking, it will eventually crumble. Evidence has a way of eroding fantasy.
Last point - you bring up evolution. I entirely agree that a good deal of the Republican Party is completely off base on this one. You won't get an argument from me over that. But it also doesn't prove your point. The left ignores facts about social security or Medicare just as easily when it doesn't suit their policy aims.
And haven't I *already stated* exactly that, multiple times in this thread? I agree *already* that the left makes shit up. I'm already a step ahead of you on that point. Just like I believe in one less god than a theist, I believe in one less US political party than you do.
Agreed. Right makes shit up. Left makes shit up. Remember what I said? It's just that the right makes up more and stinkier shit than the left. Doesn't mean the left has stopped making shit up. Just means that if you weigh the piles of shit, the right pile will weigh more. And would have a cherry on top.
We could do this all day - you pointing out something the right is wrong on and me doing the opposite.
Why do you think that's what I would do in response? I have no dog in the fight. I'm not defending Democrats or American leftists in general. I'm talking about *facts*. Can you bring it back to facts? You're getting distracted by the piles of shit in American rhetoric.
In the end we'll be left with the fact that one party has a vision of how to govern this country, and the other group has a different vision, and each make public policy choices accordingly.
Ah, see, there's that assumption you are making about me again. Which country? I've never said I was American. Are you surprised that I'm not? I think you are. And I think that should give you pause to start to check your *other* assumptions you've been relying upon too heavily.
