Quote of the Day

[alphamale]

Carl von Clausewitz:

The fact that slaughter [battle] is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but [it does] not provide an excuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity. Sooner or later someone will come along with a sharp sword and hack off our arms.

Demosthenes:

Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master.

[ManM]

Should immorality be the proper response to the immorality of others?

[Godless Dave]

I agree with both quotes in the OP. It takes only one foe to breed a war. War is terrible, which is why it should be always be a last resort. But refraining from violence will not protect you from violent people.

Unfortunately right now my government is the one proving that point, by using violence against others without sufficient cause.

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by Godless Dave

I agree with both quotes in the OP. It takes only one foe to breed a war. War is terrible, which is why it should be always be a last resort. But refraining from violence will not protect you from violent people.

Unfortunately right now my government is the one proving that point, by using violence against others without sufficient cause.

Just a minor point about your signature GD - nobody has ever proven, that I've seen, the antiwar mantra that Bush lied. Maybe you can be the first?

[Leesifer]

Hhhmmm, alphamale, did they find any WMD's in Iraq? That might answer your question.

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by Leesifer

Hhhmmm, alphamale, did they find any WMD's in Iraq? That might answer your question.

Well, no they didn't, and no that doesn't answer my question. Bush assumed there was WMD from faulty intelligence. He turned out to be wrong.

"Wrong" not= "lied"

[Leesifer]

alphamale, we have the same thing here - Tony Blair is blaming faulity intelligence for our involvement in Iraq. Don't you think they know it's faulty but go ahead anyway?

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by Leesifer

alphamale, we have the same thing here - Tony Blair is blaming faulity intelligence for our involvement in Iraq. Don't you think they know it's faulty but go ahead anyway?

Do you have any proof they knew it was faulty? (Remember, the burden of proof is on the asserter.) Also I'd read that about five intelligence services, including the french, said they had them. Good lord! Do you think the neocon cabal has infiltrated ALL of them?!

[godfry n. glad]

Hans Blix and the investigators, including American investigators, said there were no WMD in Iraq. Before hostilities began. Other nations supported the investigators. We ignored them. Overnight, our purpose switched from seeking WMD (although the pretense was continued - unnecessarily) to "Liberating Iraq". So far as I can tell, the Iraqis don't appreciate being "liberated".

It's my understanding that Wolfowitz, Cheney and the neo-cons inside the administration pushed for an attack on Iraq from before 9-11, and Dubious George was in it from the get-go. Can anyone confirm that?

[Adora]

Awh, he's a racist and a warmonger. How cute.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by godfry n. glad

It's my understanding that Wolfowitz, Cheney and the neo-cons inside the administration pushed for an attack on Iraq from before 9-11, and Dubious George was in it from the get-go. Can anyone confirm that?

Are you familiar with the very hawkish Project for the New American Century? Founding members include Elliot Abrams (Deputy National Security Adviser), Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Eliot Cohen (member of the Defense Policy Board), Paula Dobriansky (Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs), Steve Forbes, Aaron Friedberg (Vice President Cheney's Deputy National Security Adviser), Francis Fukuyama (member of the President's Council on Bioethics), Fred C. Iklé (member of the Defense Policy Board), Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Zalmay Khalilzad (Ambassador to Afghanistan), I. Lewis Libby (Cheney's Chief of Staff), Dan Quayle, Peter W. Rodman (Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs), Henry S. Rowen (member of the Defense Policy Board), Donald Rumsfeld, John Vincent Weber (member of the National Commission on Public Service) and Paul Wolfowitz, among others.

The PNAC has been zealously urging the U.S. to attack Iraq since the Clinton Administration.

Cheers,

Michael

[godfry n. glad]

Thanks, Michael...

I was introduced to the Project for the New American Century by lunachick, right here at FF.

I heard a rumor that the first meeting held in the White House, once Dubious George had taken residence, was a planning session on how to pull off an invasion of Iraq.

Our government has been hijacked by war profiteers.

[The Lone Ranger]

Two Years Before 9/11, Candidate Bush was Already Talking Privately About Attacking Iraq, According to His Former Ghost Writer

GEORGE Bush’s former treasury secretary Paul O’Neill has revealed that the President took office in January 2001 fully intending to invade Iraq and desperate to find an excuse for pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein.


The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.


Beginning in late December 2001, President Bush met repeatedly with Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks and his war cabinet to plan the U.S. attack on Iraq even as he and administration spokesmen insisted they were pursuing a diplomatic solution, according to a new book on the origins of the war.

[alphamale]

Distortions.
From the Washington Post (well-known hotbed of neocons) on the 9/11 commissions conclusions (my bolding):

".... the report also appears to rebut earlier accounts that Bush coerced a reluctant Gen. Tommy R. Franks, head of U.S. Central Command, to pursue Iraq war plans while the general was busy with Afghanistan. According to the commission report, Franks wanted military planning against Iraq "because he personally felt that Iraq and al Qaeda might be engaged in some form of collusion and because he worried that Saddam might take advantage of the attacks to move against his internal enemies." Bush, Franks told the commission, turned down his request.

The commission dealt gently with the Bush administration's early interest in Iraq. The report describes that while Bush decided on September 16, 2001, to make his focus Afghanistan, "he still wanted plans for Iraq should the country take some action or the administration eventually determine that it had been involved in the 9/11 attacks."

[Godless Dave]

Originally Posted by alphamale

Well, no they didn't, and no that doesn't answer my question. Bush assumed there was WMD from faulty intelligence. He turned out to be wrong.

"Wrong" not= "lied"

But he was told the intelligence was faulty. I figured out it was faulty, and I'm just some guy who reads the newspaper. I concede that it's possible Bush didn't lie. The other possibility is that he's really, really, really stupid. But if he was misled by faulty intelligence, why did he give a medal to the guy who gave him the faulty intelligence?

Originally Posted by alphamale

Do you have any proof they knew it was faulty?

Yes. Lots.

Originally Posted by alphamale

Remember, the burden of proof is on the asserter

Funny you didn't hold Bush to that standard when he asserted the following:

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." - George W. Bush

"Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." - George W. Bush

"Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaeda." - George W. Bush

Those are all lies. They were known to be untrue at the time Bush said them. Joseph Wilson had already told him Iraq had never tried to buy uranium from Africa. The DOE had determined in 2002 that those aluminum tubes were not suitable for nuclear weapons production. There was never any evidence that Saddam aided and protected members of al Qaeda. Most importantly, the UN weapons inspectors had full access to Iraqi sites and by March of 2003 had determined that Iraq had no WMDs. Bush lied.

Originally Posted by alphamale

Also I'd read that about five intelligence services, including the french, said they had them.

Then you read wrong. By March of 2003, everyone except the White House and a few rogue CIA agents had concluded that Iraq had no WMDs. Remember those UN weapons inspectors Bush succeeded in getting back into Iraq? They were right, and Bush ignored them.

Originally Posted by Washington Post

By the time President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein of the deadly weapons he was allegedly trying to build, every piece of fresh evidence had been tested -- and disproved -- by U.N. inspectors, according to a report commissioned by the president and released Thursday.

The work of the inspectors -- who had extraordinary access during their three months in Iraq between November 2002 and March 2003 -- was routinely dismissed by the Bush administration and the intelligence community in the run-up to the war, according to the commission led by former senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.) and retired appellate court judge Laurence H. Silberman.

[Godless Dave]

Originally Posted by alphamale

The commission dealt gently with the Bush administration's early interest in Iraq. The report describes that while Bush decided on September 16, 2001, to make his focus Afghanistan, "he still wanted plans for Iraq should the country take some action or the administration eventually determine that it had been involved in the 9/11 attacks."

But Iraq didn't take action and it wasn't involved in the 9/11 attacks. So why did Bush invade?

[Godless Dave]

Broken link in my post above should be this: Lots.

[Godless Dave]

So which is it, alphamale? Did Bush lie or was he stupid?

[Godless Dave]

I thought of an additional possibility: Bush was drunk.

So which is it, alphamale? Lush, liar, or lunatic?

[ceptimus]

There is also the possiblity that it could be some combination of those three.

[Godless Dave]

Well alphamale hasn't responded, so I'll just assume that he's conceding that Bush did in fact lie about WMD in Iraq. I can't believe anyone is using the excuse that Bush didn't lie because he actually believed the faulty WMD evidence. If he actually believed such obviously bogus evidence then he wasn't doing his job as president.

Bottom line, the president of the United States should be smarter than Godless Dave. I knew the evidence was fake just from reading newspapers; Bush should have known too.

[Paul H.]

War is the highest expression of a truly cultured people.

- Frederick von Bernardi (Buddy of Clauswitz)




I am afeared there are few who die well, who die in a battle.

All those arms and legs and heads cut off.

Some lay crying on the field. Some for their mothers. Some for their sons or daughters. Some…

...And in the latter day, they all call, “we died, at such-a-place.”

Now. If the cause of the war be not just. It is black matter for the soul of the king that led them to it.

(From memory, could be slightly wrong: Henry V)



Quotations are truths; by other means.

[Megatron]

Originally Posted by Godless Dave

Well alphamale hasn't responded, so I'll just assume that he's conceding that Bush did in fact lie about WMD in Iraq.

Methinks he's busy trolling elsewhere...

[seebs]

Originally Posted by Godless Dave

I agree with both quotes in the OP. It takes only one foe to breed a war. War is terrible, which is why it should be always be a last resort. But refraining from violence will not protect you from violent people.

Maybe it won't, but it might lead to a change in circumstances that will protect you.

Perhaps more importantly, the correct standard is not "will it protect me perfectly", but "will it protect me better". Thus far, I am not at all convinced that a policy of rejecting violence entirely will not, in fact, protect you better on the average than a policy of fighting when you believe yourself threatened.

We can obviously show that, in the case where everyone practices one or the other, nonviolence results in less danger to you than some amount of violence. The question is what happens with some mix of strategies. But... To the best of my knowledge, I have never in my life had genuine cause for violence. I suspect my experience is not particularly atypical.

[ceptimus]

Originally Posted by alphamale

Do you have any proof they knew it was faulty? (Remember, the burden of proof is on the asserter.)

Blair was the one asserting the ridiculous 45 minute claim. Even his intelligence advisors had warned him that there was insufficient evidence for it. But there's no burden of proof on him, right? Even though he took a skeptical country to war on the back of this horseshit?

Much simpler to accept that he's a liar. It's always difficult to nail a person with so much power as a liar. Unless there is the smoking gun of clear documentary evidence, they wriggle out of it. As they have so much power and so many toadies in high places, most such evidence gets suppressed before it can reach the public domain.