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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mistermj who wrote (173915)	11/2/2005 12:08:16 AM
From: bentway	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

"It makes the Bush lied argument rather hollow." Not at all. The chimp had inspectors in Iraq telling him THERE WERE NO WMD'S. He didn't listen, and rushed to war. That intel was much better and more accurate than the guesses that led to the earlier statements by Clinton, we had NO spies in Iraq before the inspectors - and history has proven Hans Blix and El Baredea were the ones that had it right. Once the chimp was in office, he WANTED to go to war, and was determined to package a case that justified it. He wasn't going to listen to the inspectors on the ground inside Iraq that had inspected hundreds of sites. What the Dems were commenting on later was the chimp's slanted, packaged case, using a lot of highly suspect intel with the caveats REMOVED. At the time, they couldn't believe that the chimp would present a bogus case, and it was the chimp presenting the case - they only know he lied to them NOW. A lot of it was provided by Chalabi, who wanted us to invade and set him up as a new Saddam. The CIA knew Chalabi was lying, but the chimp and the military didn't care. They WANTED TO INVADE. That's what he's desperate to continue to keep concealed. That's why Libby went to jail, and what he lied to hide.

To: mistermj who wrote (173915)	11/2/2005 9:10:51 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

If Bush and his admin pressured the intelligence agencies to come up with data which supported what they wanted to do (and we know that happened, it's in the reports), and suppressed data that did not, then no, it does not make that argument hollow. Of course if the republicans in congress refuse to look in to the matter further, as they have been doing, we'll never know anything close to the truth on this, will we? And refusing to investigate something makes it look as if there is a reason for not investigating. Generally innocent people don't stonewall investigations, but I say "generally", not "absolutely". There was, and still is (typified by some on this thread), an hysterical "If you're not with us, you're with the enemy" attitude in this country with regard to the "ideas" on how to respond to terrorism after 9/11, especially at the time this silly war was started. That kind of attitude, combined with poor access to good intelligence, and structured disinformation, makes a real opposition almost impossible. Sure, the democrats could have tried to grow some balls and stand up to all the PR the White House was putting out, but 9/11 was used so effectively to cow the country and the congress, I find it hard to blame people too much for their stupidity. It's the old madness of crowds problem. If you say the opposition to a political idea makes people "traitors", it's unfortunate, but true, that few people are going to stand up and oppose something, even if that sort of thing is desperately needed in a real democracy. Unopposed and unexamined ideas are often sloppy and stupid. Lucky us, now we're stuck with sloppy and stupid.