Lies and the Presidency - Page 12  

As of today, he's still living in fantasy land.


Please explain how we disarmed him if we haven't found any weapons. Please explain how Saddam chose not to disarm when we haven't found any weapons. Oh. I know. "We'll find them!" The fact is, until we do find them, statements like the one here are lies.

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" jimmac:


quote:
Ok, preemption is one of the problems so many people have with this. It's not the way we operate.



It is now. "


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This just won't fly.



You're just moving your mouth now.

Still in check!

tonton:


And they were proscribed by the UN and their destruction was ordered by the UN. Not the US.

It doesn't matter if the missiles were tested to 94 miles, that's over the limit. Case closed. Iraq wasn't anywhere close to disarmed and they were making very little if any progress. FACT.

That you would nitpick to this degree is amazingly stupid and hypocritical considering your moral chest-pounding re:lying.

"What's the big deal?"
"Lying is never allowed! Except when it helps ME!"



Stick with your hypocritical moral arguments about Bush and his lying. If you want to start getting into disarmament and UN resolutions re:disarmament you're walking into a gunfight with a slinky.

No, genius. I'm stating two things:

a) that the Bush admin provided fictious and skewed information in order to take over Iraq

b) that Iraq was not a threat and, therefore, the war was unnecessary and unjustified.

First, I thought Iraq destroyed them when asked. There wasn't a big deal. They said 'no', but ultimately did it anyway. Second, I thought the missles didn't fly past the limit, but the UN inspectors said some of them might because they were so close to the range. Either a strong wind, better fuel burn or whatever could potentially push some missles a few extra miles, and that's why they were ordered destroyed.

I don't know where this argument is coming from though, because I wasn't here to see it start.

Exactly. It's all semantics with ceratin posters here. There is no one person today that can say with a straight face that Iraq disarmed cooperatively and fully. That is the only real issue here. The UN didn't back its resolutions with any credibility. Iraq demonstrated clearly its contempt for inspectors and its lack of total cooperation. More time and/or more inspectors were therefore uttelry useless notions. The UN couldn't back its resolutions, so we did. This WAS a justification for the war. So was the imminent threat of Iraq giving WMD to al-Queda. So was the fact that Iraq targeted and fired upon our aircraft literally every single day. So was the brutality of the regime. Pfflam, giant, jimmac and tonton: You can try and paint the picture the way you'd like. All of these reasons were given. It wasn't just WMD.

Now this by BR:


Some slippery arguments are valid. I don't feel yours is.

Your statement about Iran and Syria is pretty unbelievable. Essentially, you are comparing these nations to the US. That's insane. Iran and Syria are suspected, possibly even known to support terrorists which delibrately target civilians, national landmarks and treasures, etc in the United States. For all our faults, we don't do those things. We are not on the same moral level as these countries (specifically, the governments of these countries). You know as well as I do that if Iran and Syria were stable nations that didn't support international terrorism, we wouldn't be invoking the possibility of preemption. In other words, preemption on our part is a response to a significant threat. There has to be some reason (as in the case of Iraq), some provocative action on the part of the nation to be preempted in order to invoke the policy. But, I'm sure in your eyes the US is no better than those two nations. To you, we're on the same moral ground. That's where we disagree. Iran and Syria do NOT have the right to lauch an attack on us, because we are the ones responding to THEIR support of terror.

As far as the policy itself, I'd like to ask you to show us a better one. I'm not willing to let another 9/11 happen, are you? Despite what you may think, we weren't attacked because " a lot of the world doesn't like us right now". That's idiotic. We were attacked by a sect of Islam that would still attack us no matter what foreign policy we engaged in. The goal of this groups(s) is literally to destroy "the infidels". Guess who that is? These people cannot be appeased. No amount of negotiation or change in foreign policy is going to change that fact. They must be destroyed. Period. If it takes preemptive military action against governments who support these terror groups and/or seek to provide them with WMD, then so be it.



It's been fun fighting/talking with everyone, but I'm done now.
My support of the war isn't going to change. I still don't think the Administration lied. I still think we'll probably find WMD in Iraq. And, most importantly I say anyone who actually thinks Saddam didn't have any weapons within months of the war is forming a position which flies in the face of all logic and reason.

Have fun all! It's break time for SDW!

bunge:


They started destroying them, very slowly. Just one of dozens of unresolved issues.


The missiles were tested by Iraq past the limits allowed and they were larger than allowed (large enough to allow additional engines to the missiles, increasing its range).


Then perhaps you shouldn't respond to every goddam thing I say as if it's directed at you. I'm not a moderator anymore, you can cut off your unhealthy obsession with me.

You see "tonton" above the last post? You're not tonton, tonton is.

all this nitpicking is amusing.
the president and the administration are on the line to find WoMD's.
he did not equivocate in his state of the union. he didn't say maybe, or sources think.... he said they were there and they were an immediate threat to the united states.
in a short period of time he went from saying iraq was pursuing a program to having a program in place.
i'm beginning to think iraq was not about WoMD's, or oil, but a smokescreen or misdirection from the administrations failure to act on intelligence prior to 9/11.

I know it's not directed at me, but it's a public forum.

It's only when you're wrong that I respond, and I agree, that must feel like it's every goddamn thing you say.

The argument is really if they were disarmed to the point of no longer being a threat. I think we're finding out that Iraq was not a threat, and thus, effectively disarmed.

bunge:


"effectively disarmed"?

Did you make that up yourself?

He didn't have to. It's common sense.

So effectively disarmed that they sent inspectors back in.

Fair enough but, still in check.

And they found nothing.

jimmac:


If you can find that in anything official at all relating to Iraq's disarmament that would be great.


Again you show your ignorance of how this works. They aren't supposed to FIND a damned thing. Iraq is supposed to answer every question they have.

They are not hunters.

Blix:

3/7/03 Report:
Mr. President, Iraq, with a highly developed administrative system, should be able to provide more documentary evidence about its proscribed weapons programs. Only a few new such documents have come to light so far and been handed over since we began inspections.

On 14 February, I reported to the council that the Iraqi side had become more active in taking and proposing steps which potentially might shed new light on unresolved disarmament issues. Even a week ago, when the current quarterly report was finalized, there were still relatively little tangible progress to note.

However, I must add that the report I have today tells me that no destruction work (al-Samoud) has continued today. I hope this is a temporary break.

One can hardly avoid the impression that after a period of somewhat reluctant cooperation, there's been an acceleration of initiatives from the Iraqi side since the end of January. This is welcome. But the value of these measures must be soberly judged by how many question marks they actually succeed in straightening out.

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And as I've told you freaks dozens of times; the issues of disarmament and threat status are not inextricably linked.

One can be "disarmed" and still be a threat. (Iraq wasn't anywhere close to disarmed)
One can be non-threatening and still not be disarmed. (No one can prove a damned thing either way on this with WRT Iraq)

If Bush can't say that Iraq was a threat then you can't say Iraq wasn't. The best you idiots can do is say that Bush was lying/wrong/stupidhead when he said they were a threat.

And you've called a politician a liar. WOOHOO!

Exactly, that is what the UN was "anxious" about.

You mean how you think it should work. Well what Bush has done is past. Now we'll see if he pays for it. And make no mistake one always pays for lying. One way or the other. I guess you never learned that lesson.

You mean that's what everybody's yawning about. There's obviously nothing to find. This was a contrived, blown up situation. Constructed for Bush's advantage.

Even as late as November?

How was Iraq a threat? It wasn't.

You, like Bush, trivialize war. It's a very strange and dangerous way of thinking.

Interesting read.

Speaking about hypothetical states doesn't matter. Iraq was not a threat. Plain and simple.

As far as you citing the UN, I've already pointed out numerous times that the UN did not approve and would not have approved the invasion and occupation. Blix himself has been a very vocal critic of the war.

While nothing can be definitvely proven, when all available evidence points in one direction logic dictates that that is the most likely scenario. Rumsfeld tried to circumvent this by creating the specter of 'unknown unknowns'


Wrong. all evidence pointed to Iraq not being a threat. The bush admin had to flat out make up 'evidence' (add to the long list powell's 'this is a chem facility') to try to create the image of threat.

jimmac:


No, how the UN-SC said disarmament would be handled in all of the relevant resolutions. I would do the work in going through the resolutions AGAIN but I doubt you'll pay any attention to it. (Try UNSC resolutions 686, 687, 1153, 1154, 1175, 1284 & 1441 or Blix's reports to the SC if you're interested in actually knowing what the hell you're talking about.)

Iraq was supposed to destroy proscribed weapons in front of inspectors. It didn't. Just before the war the cluster document outlined all the issues. click

Iraq wasn't anywhere near disarmed, nowhere close and the "threat" issue is a white elephant WRT the UN-SC.

You've got Bush lying, that's it. That's all you have.

"Although I can understand that it may not be easy for Iraq in all cases to provide the evidence needed, it is not the task of the inspectors to find it. Iraq itself must squarely tackle this task and avoid belittling the questions."
- George the war-monger Bush or Hans Blix?

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bunge:


You can prove Iraq wasn't a threat?

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giant:


Says who? In what sense?

What "hypothetical states" are you talking about?


I never said the war was UN approved and Blix has no bearing at all on whether or not to make war. His concerns are disarmament, that's all.

Nice job beating up that straw man.


What evidence? What kind of threat?

The hypocrisy here is just astounding.

you know, I found the following post really telling:


see, you obviously don't care about participating in an exchange of ideas and information. To you this is a battle, and either you win or lose. But that is exactly what has made you a loser in this discussion. Meanwhile, those of us in the real world go on living while you continue believing that you can make the world flat just by arguing that it is.

You know, I have been waiting for someone, anyone, to point out what the Bush admin claims about Iraq's chemical weapons really are. It seems no one that supports the bush admin has ever really looked at the claim.

Really the only substantial claim made by the Bush admin regards a stockpile of 100-500 tons of chemical weapons. Doesn't anyone wonder where this number comes from?

Really it all comes from one 'Air Force Document' that had a different accounting of number of bombs dropped in the war with Iran.

One document!

But let's just assume that it is correct, the Bush admin still talks about VX, Sarin, etc. There are chemicals that would have been in these warheads. HOWEVER, Iraq never produced any stable agents except for mustard gas. Mustard gas would only have been a percentage of these weapons, assuming that they actually exist.

So no matter what, anyone familiar with the actual sources of the claims sees that even the most solid of Bush admins accusations is in fact entirely decietful. The fact of the matter is that the nerve agents couldn't last 15 years, so Bush citing them as a threat is a downright lie!

PS: groverat, even that document you keep citing (but haven't really read) says this.

Groverat, you keep saying, "Iraq wasn't anywhere close to disarmed". This I don't understand. How do you know that? You know Bush lies. Now you are saying you believe anything his administration presents as evidence.

And 1998 is not 2002. We didn't invade Iraq because of 1998. The UN inspectors found nothing. Saddam said he had nothing. He had something in 1998, but whatever it was was destroyed.

This is a far more obvious theory than Saddam having "tons" of weapons and being a huge threat to the US, then not using any weapons when his country is on its last thread, then there being no weapons to be found when the dust settles.

The likely truth is that Saddam had weapons somewhat recently, but he was too proud to admit he ever had the weapons since he first denied it in the 90's. To account for their destruction would be such an admission. He wouldn't allow that. He doesn't want to be called a liar. It's obvious (because we found nothing) that he had destroyed all the weapons before the latest UN inspections.

What's more likely?

A proud Saddam had actually destroyed all the weapons secretly to hide his lies.

or

Tons of weapons "mysteriously" disappeared or are yet to be found. Meanwhile 100% of the Bush intelligence regarding Iraq having WMD at the time of invasion would turn up completely fruitless.

Since Groverat is picking and choosing I'll ask him this one more time:

If we go just back a very short time in history we will find that we supported, and quite heavily, groups that we would now call 'terrorists':

in fact we worked with an Iranian terrorist group in an assasination attempt that blew up a crowd outside of a mosque in Lebanon, missing its target and killing 25 civilians . . . this was right before the Marines explosion.

And then there was the very heavy support of Iraq.

And also, in Bolivia, Chile, and Guatamala and El Salvadore: heavy support for paramilitary groups that regularly targetted civilians in campaigns of intimidation . . .
argue with that if you will . . . but years later our own government acknowledged our complicity and apologized

Anyway, yes we are supposed to be on another moral level entirely . . .and I would say that we are . . . however, usually that moral level would discount the notion of pre-emptively invading a country.
The jury is still out but I just want to be a burr in the side of the self-appointed righteousness that seems to permeate everything these days . . .

We're talking about why the president said we should go to war. Remember? His main reason was WOMD and a threat to us from Iraq. If it had been for any other reason he wouldn't have got past go.

Why are you still trying?

You lost this argument a long time ago.

So, if Iraq had disarmed, who fooled the UN Security Council in November into thinking they hadn't?

Bush.

jimmac, you crack me up!

giant:


I would if someone would present some ideas or *gasp* some actual freaking information.


And you still can't argue my points, just how I argue them.

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tonton:


Bush? What in blue **** does Bush have to do with Iraq's disarmament?

You know we had this war with this guy named Hussein in 1991, right? A whole 12 years before Bush went to war. Right?

The UN, my friend. Hans freaking Blix the head of UNMOVIC saying Iraq wasn't anywhere close to disarmed. The freaking cluster document outlining dozens of unresolved issues 2 WEEKS before war! click

The world didn't start on Bush's inauguration day, my friend!

Read from Blix's reports to the UN-SC; I'll happily provide them for you. Oh here's part of one from 3/7/03:

Mr. President, Iraq, with a highly developed administrative system, should be able to provide more documentary evidence about its proscribed weapons programs. Only a few new such documents have come to light so far and been handed over since we began inspections. It was a disappointment that Iraq's declaration of the 7th of December did not bring new documentary evidence.

But I guess Blix is secretly a war-mongering member of the Bush administration.

We now know that Blix was dead-set against war and he still couldn't make it seem like disarmament was anything but stalled at best.

Not a single goddam thing I present is from the Bush administration, not a single goddam thing.


What did he have?


What the hell does it matter?

Sorry, but "I'm prideful" doesn't mean a damned thing.


No need to find a damned thing WRT disarmament.

It's obvious you don't really know what the hell was going on with the UN process. Why argue things you don't know about?

The UNSC has admitted that they were under intense pressure from the US government to use specific language and to emphasize specific details in their reports. Does that answer your question?

You can't even figure out lying is wrong. This war was based on a lie. End of story.

Groverat, please take the time to consider this idea:

Saddam had two choices:

1 - Release documents proving the destruction of the weapons and prove himself as a liar. That's assuming there had been documentation of the weapons being destroyed in the first place (isn't it possble he called a general and said "do it" and it was done, with no paperwork whatsoever?), or that any such documentation hadn't already been Oliver Northed.

Or

2 - Simply state they had been destroyed without documentation.

He did number two. That doesn't mean they weren't destroyed. That doesn't mean Iraq was a threat. That just means he couldn't prove they were destroyed. And that is exactly what the UN stated as being "unresolved issues". But it didn't have anything to do with what the Bush admin had stated, which was that Iraq was an immediate threat and had stockpiles of weapons. The lies that you agree they pushed.

So if the weapons were destroyed, only Saddam couldn't prove it, then I repeat, how was it, as you state, that "Iraq wasn't anywhere close to disarmed?" In all likelihood Iraq was disarmed but Saddam simply couldn't prove it or chose not to. That in itself is not enough for Bush to justify an invasion. So he fabricated the rest.

Since I know you believe in lying, perhaps you don't actually believe your statement at all. It just doesn't sound like something an intelligent person without an "honesty optional" agenda would actually believe.

You're going deeper and deeper into denial, my friend. WE WENT TO WAR BECAUSE BUSH SAID SADDAM WASN'T DISARMED. Not because Saddam wasn't disarmed. How in blue Texas is that not clear to you? How is that not related to Bush?

We didn't attack Iraq because of 1998. We went to war because Bush said Saddam wasn't disarmed in 2003 (the UN didn't say Saddam wasn't disarmed, just that he couldn't prove he was). And Bush said he could prove Saddam wasn't disarmed. And that's where the lies came in.