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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: tejek who wrote (187148)5/5/2004 3:23:13 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (1) of 1573435
 
The lack of WMD doesn't say anything about wether Bush was lying or mistaken.

It does to me and countless other people.

Your conclusion based on that lack, and based on your opinion of Bush's body language, and trustworthiness and other things is that Bush was lying. The lack of WMD itself doesn't say anything about whether or not Bush was lying for any reasonable people. That doesn't mean that thinking Bush is lying is unreasonable it just means you need a better argument for it then simply "Bush said Iraq had WMD, we have found no WMD, therefore Bush was lying.

You admit as much when you say " All the things that you think don't support the proposition that Bush lied are legitimate ways people could come to that conclusion."

Of course you then go on to say -

If so, as president of 280 million people, he had a responsibility to determine if HIS conclusion was correct before going to war. If determining without a shadow of doubt was not feasible, then he needed to explore every option at his disposal to get as close to "without a shadow of a doubt" as possible before starting a costly war. He did not do that.

"Beyond a shadow of a doubt" was not possible. As for using the resources at his disposal that was what had been done for over 10 years with no conclusion. Its the president's responsibility to make decisions based on what information he has available and to use his judgment as well as he is able to make the right choice. Even if I agreed that invading Iraq was clearly the wrong choice I don't see how that would elevate making the wrong choice to malfeasance. The president did what he thought was in the best interest of the country. The proper response for those who disagree is to campaign and vote against him. If enough people agree with you then Bush will be looking for a new job in January but he will not have been guilty of malfeasance.

"What sort of benefit would, in your opinion, justify the loss of about 700 Americans and 100 or so billion dollars?"

The defense of the continguous US.

Nothing short of that??

" Apparently freeing 20+ million people from a brutal dictator, removing a potential threat to a vital region, and ending over a decades worth of low level war and harmful sanctions is not enough."

That's right..........esp. because the above conclusion is based more on your bias rather than logic.

All of those things I listed are based on facts and logic. But they don't deal with negative possibilities that could theoretically be as bad or worse. Over 20 million people where freed from Saddam and a threat or at least a potential threat was removed from the region. You might argue that a worse threat might arise because of our actions but the hypothetical assumed that everything is quickly and positively resolved. If peace and stability came to Iraq in short order then none of those negative possibilities would be likely to occur. The point behind this exercise is to split the idea of being against the war in Iraq because of negative possible repercussions that might happen, and being against it because even the current cost is far to high to gain the benefits that we have gained so far. Apparently you fall in the latter group. You might also believe that many negative things will happen in the future because of the invasion of Iraq but it seems that even assuming that none of these things happen you are still vehemently against the invasion. Right?

"Was the Korean war worth the cost we paid then?"

No. That's why Eisenhower got elected.........he promised to bring our troops home.

We disagree about Korea as well.

Tim
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