quote:When you take the lack of evidence as evidence of successful deception, you are well down the road to insanity.
quote:Poison gas is not destroyed without leaving behind evidence. The lack of evidence of poison gas when we invaded Iraq does not suggest its nonexistence.
posted
Maybe that was kind of his point. Aren't all great creative people and geniuses a little wacko anyways. I know I am, but maybe I shouldn't admit that? Oh well too late now.
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I belive his point i with the poison gas is that since the poison gas was known to exist before, and there is no evidence that it was destroyed then the Posion gas didn't go "poof" and disappear and probably still exists somewhere. But yes the way he worded that sentance does make it sound strange.
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A more interesting quote from the latest article is this one:
quote:How many years now have we heard Democrats in Congress accusing the Republicans of being "partisan" -- when it is the Democrats who so often vote as a perfect bloc, enforcing party discipline in a completely partisan way?
It's rare for OSC to make claims which are actually testable/verifiable; generally he sticks to opinion. In this case, he's simply factually wrong, and wrong in a way that indicates that he didn't actually spend any time checking the numbers. The Republican Party is actually (fairly justifiably) proud of the fact that its members rarely stray from the "official" voting line; it votes as a bloc more often, more effectively, and more dependably than the Democrats do, and its leadership is open about how they consider this a strength.
I can't obviously prove him wrong about his assessment of the motives of total strangers; his guess is, from a numbers standpoint, exactly as good as mine. But when we're talking about voting records, there IS in fact a voting record to be examined. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I find the quotations preceding each more interesting in contrast:
quote:Likewise, the many people who accuse President Bush of lying might say, "Your demand for evidence is ridiculous -- the lack of evidence that Bush knowingly deceived us merely shows how effective his deception really is." To such reasoning, there is no answer. It's like the old joke: "Why are you ringing that bell?" "To keep away the elephants." "There aren't any elephants around here." "Then it's working, isn't it?"
quote:It turned out that there was no serious nuclear threat from Saddam. But the fact that we did not find the poison gas did not mean he never had it -- we know he did. What it proved was that he either destroyed it, concealed it, or moved it to another country -- with Syria the most likely candidate.
The most suspicious fact is that we found no evidence of the destruction of the poison gas. There would have been no reason for Saddam to conceal such destruction -- he could have invited international observation of such actions and the world would have applauded.
Poison gas is not destroyed without leaving behind evidence. The lack of evidence of poison gas when we invaded Iraq does not suggest its nonexistence.
But we know that Hussein was lying when he said that he didn't have poison gas. And that we didn't find it means he was successful in deceiving us, that he hid it or smuggled it out of the country. But we know that Bush has deceived us on many counts. And that we haven't found evidence of his deception means that he was successful in deceiving us. But the first is wrong, while the second is right. Why? Because he said so? Not buying it. I'd say that the lack of evidence of poison gas suggests, though it might not prove, that the intelligence was incorrect and that he did not in fact have poison gas. So I'd say that both examples are incorrect; it's certainly not unreasonable to say that Hussein might not have had poison gas any more than it's unreasonable to say that Bush may have deceived us. Except that with Hussein, we know for certain that if he could have done it and gotten away with it, he would have, whereas we don't know the same for the president.
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Crud, there's actually something I'd like to buy in a google ad but nothing happens when I click on it.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: A more interesting quote from the latest article is this one:
quote:How many years now have we heard Democrats in Congress accusing the Republicans of being "partisan" -- when it is the Democrats who so often vote as a perfect bloc, enforcing party discipline in a completely partisan way?
It's rare for OSC to make claims which are actually testable/verifiable; generally he sticks to opinion. In this case, he's simply factually wrong, and wrong in a way that indicates that he didn't actually spend any time checking the numbers. The Republican Party is actually (fairly justifiably) proud of the fact that its members rarely stray from the "official" voting line; it votes as a bloc more often, more effectively, and more dependably than the Democrats do, and its leadership is open about how they consider this a strength.
I can't obviously prove him wrong about his assessment of the motives of total strangers; his guess is, from a numbers standpoint, exactly as good as mine. But when we're talking about voting records, there IS in fact a voting record to be examined.
So Tom, why don't you go through all the congressionsl voting records over the last 5 years, run a statistical analysis of party line voting and prove OSC right or wrong on his assertion.
Until then I'll maintain the belief that both parties follow pretty much along party lines on about half to two thirds of the issues and on the remaining bills there is little correlation between the parties. Meanwhile, the whips on both sides are up in a frenzy when there is bipartisen coopperation, because it threatens their political power.
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quote:So Tom, why don't you go through all the congressionsl voting records over the last 5 years, run a statistical analysis of party line voting and prove OSC right or wrong on his assertion.
Well, for one thing, because Congressional Quarterly already has, and it's available on the web for your perusal if you're interested.
Seriously. Go Google it.
(And for what it's worth, the percentage of non-procedural votes that actually fall along party lines is even smaller than half; in general, only about nine or ten votes a year are that fractious, and those tend to be the "major" ones that "define" party platforms. In fact, it's those votes that are used by researchers to track the kind of party cohesion we're talking about here.)
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The poison gas was known to exist. The first quote refers to people who have no evidence of anything every existing, and take that lack of evidence as proof of a successful conspiracy.
Or are you suggesting the victims of Saddam's poison-gas attacks were actually play-acting?
This is the kind of cheap high school debate technique that makes civil discourse nearly impossible. When two quotes are taken out of context, stripping them of much of their meaning, you can always find seeming contradictions. But it does not reveal a REAL contradiction, because both my statements are true, with plenty of evidence behind them. Since they are both true, they are not contradictions. So what exactly are you trying to say, King of Men? That Saddam's poison gas NEVER existed? Or that the people who fantasize vast nonexistent conspiracies with zero evidence are sane? Or are you making no point at all, merely saying "aha" because you're so very proud of catching your opponent in a "contradiction"?
You don't actually argue FOR any position, or make any serious attempt to answer any of mine. You are merely taking a couple of sound bites and then mocking. Letterman's technique. Ridicule rather than discussion. Sniping rather than attempting to understand the speaker's actual intent and engage his actual arguments. It's kind of sad when people gloat without bothering to win first.
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(I don't know why I'm responding to this, since OSC is usually a drive-by poster, but oh well.)
Actually, your second assertion is false:
quote:Poison gas is not destroyed without leaving behind evidence.
A very simple method of destroying gases without leaving evidence is to dump 'em in the ocean. No fuss, no muss, no bother except for the fish.
It is also worth pointing out that gas which kills people in 1988 does not imply usable war stocks in 2003. War gases have a very limited shelf life.
In short, you have set up a false dichotomy. "Either Saddam destroyed the gases, and we'd know about that. Or someone still has them." There are two other possibilities : Saddam destroyed the gases in such a way as to leave no traces (if you don't like disposal in the ocean, consider that he could just have buried the damn things; Iraq's a big place with a lot of desert to dig up). Or he didn't have any production facilities after 1993, and therefore did not have any gases to distribute.
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quote:This is the kind of cheap high school debate technique that makes civil discourse nearly impossible. When two quotes are taken out of context, stripping them of much of their meaning, you can always find seeming contradictions.
Being a high school debater, I find this hilariously funny and absolutely true.
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quote:This is the kind of cheap high school debate technique that makes civil discourse nearly impossible. When two quotes are taken out of context, stripping them of much of their meaning, you can always find seeming contradictions.
Being a high school debater, I find this hilariously funny and absolutely true.
I would guess that dumping mustard gas into the ocean would leave some evidence: people in Kuwait would have probably noticed a bunch of dead fish. As for burying them, well that means the material still exists. As for usable chemical weapons, the US is now disposing of chemical weapons from WWII. Linky
posted
As far as I understand it, weaponized mustard gas has an effective life of something around 2 years given optimal conditions. After this point, about the worst it can cause reliably is 1st or possibly 2nd degree burns on the skin.
Weaponized sarin, again if my understanding is correct, has an effective life of 9 months when stored in optimal conditions.
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I don't know what kind of gasses Saddam used on the Kurds in the mid-90's. But some of the stuff they were disposing of in Utah wouldn't just evaporate harmlessly into the ether.
Which, I guess, supports neither side. I'm not really sure. Just "War Gasses" is a pretty vague term.
And by "High School Debate" he might have meant the kind of debate where you are arbitrarily given a goal without actually needing to believe in it, and you use anything that will support it, however false it may be. And somehow, if you do so strongly enough, you "win" according to the judges. The other kind of high school debate might be a debate that happens in the natural course of a high school, and not in special training after school or on Saturday field trips. Though I'd consider either to be fairly called sophmoric.
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I'm just disappointed that he didn't reply to the obvious factual error I pointed out in the same essay. *shrug*
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Gwen, you nailed the contradiction on the head:
quote:it's certainly not unreasonable to say that Hussein might not have had poison gas any more than it's unreasonable to say that Bush may have deceived us. Except that with Hussein, we know for certain that if he could have done it and gotten away with it, he would have, whereas we don't know the same for the president.
One small nitpick - we don't know for certain what either of them would have done. Though given what I have heard about each of them deception would be consistent with their characters.
The whole argument around whether or not there was deception involved in this is kind of moot since it's quite obvious (to me at least) that WMDs had little, if anything, to do with the invasion of Iraq. They were a convenient excuse and when there were no WMDs found the reasons given for the agression quickly shifted.
Israel's recent invasion of Lebanon followed a similar pattern. The orignal reason given for invading was as retaliation for (or recovery of?) the capture of 2 IDF soldiers by Hezbollah. Not long into the conflict this reason was all but abandoned except for references to it being what triggered everything. Israel was now retaliating for Hezbollah rocket attacks (which were a predictable response to Israel's crushing attach on Lebanon) and intent on disarming\destroying Hezbollah.
U.S. government hipocrisy in relation to Iraq is despicable. I found that bumper sticker quoted by Pooka to be particularly poignant:
quote: We know there are WMDs because we kept our receipts
The story follows a familiar pattern: 1) Set up a dictator in a foreign country that you need influence over 2) Provide him with military aid and other support 3) Dictator kills thousands and thousands of people 4) As long as dictator is serving your purposes continue to provide him with support and turn a blind eye to his tyranny 5) As soon as dictator no longer serves your purposes denounce him as a tyrant (no irony necessary) Note: the same thing can be done with terrorist organizations (ex: Osama Bin Laden) The Iraqi people wanted the members of the governemt who had supported Hussein during his terrible reign to be put on trial beside him. This suggestion was of course laughable to the U.S. government.
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Since we're talking about lies, maybe I should mention that the claims made did not stop on the level of "We suspect Saddam has WMD or programs for getting them." or "We know he had WMD (that would have degraded by now) that he hasn't accounted for." but rather, to quote Donald Rumsfeld:
quote:RUMSFELD: Not at all. If you think -- let me take that, both pieces -- the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
Of course, when confronted with this Rumsfeld just lied about it:
quote: RUMSFELD: The president spent weeks and weeks with the Central Intelligence people and he went to the American people and made a presentation. I'm not in the intelligence business. They gave the world their honest opinion. It appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there.
McGOVERN: You said you knew where they were.
RUMSFELD: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were and we were just --
McGOVERN: You said you knew where they were -- near Tikrit, near Baghdad, and north, east, south, and west of there. Those are your words.
We were given assurances that Saddam has WMD and WMD programs that were greater than "We strongly suspect" or "Our sources indicate" or any such thing. We were told "He has them." and "We know he has them." and "We know where they are." and "Let me quote from this IAE report (turns out the report didn't exist). Saddam is clearly trying to obtain nuclear material." Those are lies. Of course, now, as Rumsfeld has demonstrated, the strategy from the White House and many of its supporters seems to be to lie by claiming never to have made those claims.
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To be fair, George W. Bush's administration (as a whole. I know that several members were involved in them.) didn't have anything to do items 1-4 on your list and didn't initiate 5:
quote:The story follows a familiar pattern: 1) Set up a dictator in a foreign country that you need influence over 2) Provide him with military aid and other support 3) Dictator kills thousands and thousands of people 4) As long as dictator is serving your purposes continue to provide him with support and turn a blind eye to his tyranny 5) As soon as dictator no longer serves your purposes denounce him as a tyrant (no irony necessary)
Global politics isn't a case of only those who are without sin casting the first stone. That the U.S. government in the past has made mistakes doesn't preclude us from acting in those areas and perhaps trying to ameliorate those mistakes.
There is no country out there with clean hands. The way we handled Saddam in the past was flawed in many ways and I hope we have learned from that. But I don't see how this works as an indictment of the current situation.
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I would guess that dumping mustard gas into the ocean would leave some evidence: people in Kuwait would have probably noticed a bunch of dead fish.
In the Persian Gulf? Indeed so, they'd go "My God, since when did we have fish around here?" I also think you are rather overestimating the amount of damage gas weapons would do to an ocean. There's quite a lot of water there, you know.
quote:As for burying them, well that means the material still exists.
Right; so where is it?
quote: As for usable chemical weapons, the US is now disposing of chemical weapons from WWII. Linky
Just a thought.
Sergeant
Your link does not suggest that these weapons are still in a condition to be used in war. Also, the US chemical weapons program was a lot more advanced than the Iraqi one; Iraq relied on unitary agents that break down quickly, while the US with its greater resources was able to make two-step gases that mix when the weapon is actually fired. The individual components are a lot more stable.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: To be fair, George W. Bush's administration (as a whole. I know that several members were involved in them.) didn't have anything to do items 1-4 on your list and didn't initiate 5:
quote:The story follows a familiar pattern: 1) Set up a dictator in a foreign country that you need influence over 2) Provide him with military aid and other support 3) Dictator kills thousands and thousands of people 4) As long as dictator is serving your purposes continue to provide him with support and turn a blind eye to his tyranny 5) As soon as dictator no longer serves your purposes denounce him as a tyrant (no irony necessary)
Global politics isn't a case of only those who are without sin casting the first stone. That the U.S. government in the past has made mistakes doesn't preclude us from acting in those areas and perhaps trying to ameliorate those mistakes.
There is no country out there with clean hands. The way we handled Saddam in the past was flawed in many ways and I hope we have learned from that. But I don't see how this works as an indictment of the current situation.
I would like to think that mistakes could be learned from, however, in order to do so they first have to be recognized as such. I don't think that the U.S. is currently in Iraq to fix past mistakes as I (or I expect the Iraqis) would understand it though there is the question of what the mistake is. I would contend that as soon as you start with step 1 you are already making a "mistake".
I think what we are currently witnessing is a new round of this pattern. Bush is at step 1 again. The official rhetoric is the U.S. and U.K. are in Iraq to help establish democracy (a reason with very little credibility after the whole WMD debacle). What they really want is to establish a government that is ostensibly democratic but is willing to do what they want it to. They're going to really oppose withdrawing their troops until this is accomplished. This is why the occupying forces pushed as hard as they could to delay elections until they were essentially forced by the Iraqi people to hold them. They aren't interested in real democracy.
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Because when communists go in to take over a country, they don't wait a year or 18 months. They just do it.
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pooka, As often, I have no idea what you are trying to say. What do communists have to do with anything anyone has said?
dd, Everything you said could be true. The problem I see is that there really isn't anyway to prove any of it. And it's not like there aren't of plenty of other explanations.
From what I can see, there's plenty of hard fact reasons out there that make the President and his people look really, really bad. The whole extreme speculation thing issomething I see hurting critics of the president more than helping them.
Also, in the interest of fairness, a lot of the accusations that people throw around seem far too extreme to me. Now, after I had to go around apologizing to people for things I said during my staunch support of the necessity of invading Iraq because I trusted my government not to baldfaced lie to me, I've lost the idea that there are depths that this administration won't sink to. However, even though that is true, that doesn't mean they are always sinking to those depths. They are still human beings and while I doubt their integrity, honesty, discernment, and character, I don't think they are actually out for evil.
But that's just my opinion.
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