posted
I think you have some dubious logic in that post David. When the president beats the drums, the world general assails him with criticism. And I think even the dumbest advisor in Iran could have told the Ayatollah that the US was in no position to launch any serious attack on Iran after Iraq.
They aren't stupid, but I'd bet a lot of them think Pres. Bush is.
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posted
David, a quick answer: 4) In your original list #2, you said:
quote:Second, perhaps our abandoning the current diplomatic pressure on Iran, and the additional pressure the U.S. currently is lobbying for, under the misplaced belief that Iran no longer is a threat, would convince Iran to restart its weapons program.
Yes, perhaps it might. But I know of no one arguing for that, and neither do you by your answer to my question. It's a blatant straw-man argument.
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posted
It's not just the drum-beating: it's the 4-year drum solos. We don't need another one of those. If NATO isn't going to jam with us, we might as well cancel the whole gig.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Nope, David. We were fooled with the whole "we need the drumbeat so we won't have to go to war" thing with Iraq. I no longer trust this President with drums.
Exactly! When this President beats the drums, the world believes him - which makes his drum beat credible. If you beat the drum, but back down after exhausting all other practical remedies, then you lose credibility and your drum beating no longer means anything.
Like I said, following through on the threat to go to war with Iraq made Bush's threat to go to war with Iran credible - and may have contributed to Iran's halting its nuclear weapons program. And so maybe the Iraq war saved us from going to war with Iran.
And resulted in hundreds of thousands of people dying, more being maimed, a country's infrastructure being devastated, untold billions of dollars wasted, considerable loss of respect for the US, a degradation of our safety...
quote:
(I expect that there are many who will dispute that Bush "exhausted all other practical remedies" - as stated above - before invading Iraq. They may be right. But the invasion nevertheless may have lent considerable credibility and force behind the diplomatic pressure applied elsewhere.)
EDIT: kmbboots - I hear what you are saying. You don't trust this President to refrain from invading Iran when there is evidence suggesting that it has halted its weapons program. That distrust is based, I presume, on your belief that this President invaded Iraq on the premise that Iraq had WMD when, in fact, it did not. But the question is what did President Bush believe at the time and what was the basis for his belief. This opens up a whole other set of issues to be debated, but I think (or at least hope) that Bush will not invade Iran unless it is absolutely necessary to do so.
Bush believed what he and his advisors wanted to believe. What makes you think that Bush will restrain himself this time?
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quote:Originally posted by Morbo: David, a quick answer: 4) In your original list #2, you said:
quote:Second, perhaps our abandoning the current diplomatic pressure on Iran, and the additional pressure the U.S. currently is lobbying for, under the misplaced belief that Iran no longer is a threat, would convince Iran to restart its weapons program.
Yes, perhaps it might. But I know of no one arguing for that, and neither do you by your answer to my question. It's a blatant straw-man argument.
Morbo, your original question to me was, “what American is advocating abandoning diplomatic pressure on Iran?” To that question, I answered, nobody I know of.
But I was not advocating against abandoning diplomatic pressure on Iran. I advocated in my original post that, perhaps, we should not abandon the CURRENT diplomatic pressure, AND THE ADDITIONAL pressure the U.S. currently is lobbying for. Moreover, I advanced the argument that the NIE may support the Administration’s policies as opposed to undermining them.
If you had asked me, “what American is advocating: (i) abandoning the current diplomatic pressure, (ii) abandoning the additional pressure the U.S. currently is lobbying for, and (iii) that the NIE undermines Bush’s policies to date, the policies he is pursuing, and proves that he cannot be trusted?” then my answer would have been different.
quote: Bush's critics at home seized on the Iran report to attack the Republican administration's Iran policy and urge Bush to engage in more active diplomacy.
Top Democrats seeking the party nomination for next year's presidential election, speaking at a forum in Iowa, accused Bush of "saber-rattling" over Iran and of undermining U.S. security in the region and its credibility in the world.
"It is absolutely clear that this administration and President Bush continue to not let facts get in the way of his ideology," said Sen. Barack Obama. "And that's been the problem with their foreign policy generally."
I believe I have seen other attacks on the Bush administration arising from the recent NIE report, and I will find them for you if you want me to.
And by the way, why don’t you answer the first 3 questions I posed to you on the previous page. Perhaps that will reveal that I articulated an argument that does, in fact, refute a position taken by some Americans.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: And resulted in hundreds of thousands of people dying, more being maimed, a country's infrastructure being devastated, untold billions of dollars wasted, considerable loss of respect for the US, a degradation of our safety...
I recognize that the Iraq war has resulted in horrible consequences at great cost. I have not even argued that those costs were, necessarily, worth it (although I have some complex views on that issue which I do not have the time to articulate just now).
But whether the Iraq war was worth the cost or not, one positive consequence may have been the rendering of diplomatic pressure on Iran more credible and effective.
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Bush believed what he and his advisors wanted to believe. What makes you think that Bush will restrain himself this time?
I think you may be wrong when you say that "Bush believed what he and his advisors wanted to believe," but I apologize for not having the time to get into it right now. For now, though, suffice it to say that I hope you're wrong.
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That's okay. I'm afraid you will have to understand that I don't find that a compelling argument.
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quote:Bush believed what he and his advisors wanted to believe. What makes you think that Bush will restrain himself this time?
I think you may be wrong when you say that "Bush believed what he and his advisors wanted to believe," but I apologize for not having the time to get into it right now. For now, though, suffice it to say that I hope you're wrong.
When the CIA and Defense analysts wouldn't give him the excuses to invade Iraq, Dubya got his political appointee Wolfowitz to set up an Office of Special Plans under political appointee Feith to manufacture a report out of already discounted lies.
"Uncounted billions" is misleadingly low when the minimum cost of the IraqWar will be over a trillion dollars.
posted
aspectre: your link hardly supports your claim as far as I have read.
quote: The INC’s primary intelligence organization is its Information Collection Program (ICP), which conducts about 20 percent of all US intelligence’s verbal debriefings of Iraqi prisoners, insurgents, and defectors. Some of the INC’s intelligence on Iraq is reportedly funneled directly to the office of Vice President Dick Cheney by Francis Brooke, the DC lobbyist for the group.
So we are talking about the Office of Special Plans, and you are claiming its' stated purpose from the start was to create a report based on already known lies so that our president could start a war SOMEWHERE. This report based some of these "lies" on A group responsible for 20% of a section of our intelligence efforts that "reportedly" sends some of it's data straight to Dick Cheney. And of course President Bush boned up on EVERY single group that works in conjecture with our MULTIPLE intelligence gathering agencies and did not rely on his advisers to feed him information he could trust so that he could make a decision.
I really think you are overstating to what extent you know what happened.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Bush believed what he and his advisors wanted to believe. What makes you think that Bush will restrain himself this time?
One difference appears to be that this time the intelligence agencies are not going out of their way to feed him confirming data. That might help. It's easy to believe what you want to believe when your subordinates give reports according to that belief.
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quote:Originally posted by David G: But whether the Iraq war was worth the cost or not, one positive consequence may have been the rendering of diplomatic pressure on Iran more credible and effective.
While the threat of American invasion is likely more credible, I'm skeptical that the threat of American invasion and victory in Iran is credible.
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posted
I am applauding the fact that other people (Congress, the press, and so forth) are not counting on him to restrain himself and instead are doing their jobs.
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