There is no other conclusion. Barbara Boxer is either an utter moron or bald-faced liar. Or worse, both. In her cross examination of Condoleeza Rice earlier today, it makes you wonder if she ever read the resolution authorizing George W. Bush to remove Saddam Hussein, or just happened to hear about it from Dan Rather. This…is CNN:
Rice insisted the war in Iraq was not launched solely over WMD. Deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, she said, welcomed terrorists, attacked his own neighbors and paid suicide bombers in the conflict between Israel and Palestinians.
But Boxer said the bill passed by Congress authorizing the war in Iraq was, "WMD, period."
"Let’s not rewrite history, it’s too soon for that," Boxer said.
The race was close, with Patty Murray and Rick Santorum taking the early lead, but with her next six years now secure, Barbara Boxer is the clear winner of Faintest Bulb in the Senate. As Charles Johnson helpfully points out, the text of the Iraq War resolution puts the lie to the statement that the war was about "WMD, period". And I guess Ms. Boxer must’ve somehow missed those other 22 reasons stated by the Bush administration via the press for removing Saddam. After the embarrassment of her pathetic protest of the presidential vote in Ohio, she compounded her reputation for lightweightedness with one of the worst encores in Senatorial history.
Update: The full text of the Iraq War Resolution is here. I won’t link to crushkerry.com because they’re too vitriolic, but they do provide a summary of the non-WMD reasons for removing Saddam, not including Iraq’s non-compliance with binding UNSC resolutions, which to me was the primary casus belli.
1. Iraq’s harboring of Al-Queda terrorists
2. Iraq’s support for International Terrorism
3. Iraq’s "brutal repression" of its citizens
4. Iraq’s failure to repatriate or give information on non-Iraqi citizens detained and captured during Gulf War I, including an American serviceman;
5. Failing to properly return property wrongfully seized during the Kuwait invasion
6. The attempted assassination of former President Bush in 1993
7. America’s national security interests in restoring peace and stability to the Persian Gulf
If Boxer had said it felt like "WMD, period" in the run-up to the war, that’s one thing and excusable. But she didn’t. She stated that the rationale of "WMD, period" was historical fact, inferring that anyone who disagreed with her was "revising history". That is not excusable, especially for a US Senator. Captain Ed has more on Boxer’s poor performance.
Uh, Bird?
Take a look at this:
http://www.yourcongress.com/ViewArticle.asp?article_id=2686
… and then tell us WMDs weren’t the driving force in Bush’s hurry to go to war.
Actually what the resolution says, what Bush’s motivations were, and what reasoning of the people who actually voted are very different thiings. Boxer was there, Charles Bird wasn’t.
Probably a US Senator deserves a bit more respect than the above post demonstrates. As a lowly commenter I try to refrain from calling Bush an utter moron and Cheney a bare-faced liar despite much better evidence.
For the record: Charles Johnson quotes mostly the parts of the resolution that aren’t about WMD, leaving out well over half the resolution. As I read the resolution, WMD is clearly the main issue. Of the parts Johnson quotes, the most weighty are about Hussein’s support for al Qaeda, about which Boxer might have raised exactly the same questions she raised about WMD, since Hussein did not, in fact, support or harbor al Qaeda (Ansar al Islam was based in a part of Iraq not under his control), nor did he support any terrorists who “threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens” (from the resolution.) (Abu Nidal was retired, and the payments to suicide bombers in Israel were not targetting Americans.) The rest consists of things that would not, as best I can tell, be a justification for war, or (as in the case of the attempted assassination of President Bush) that might have been a good reason for going to war a decade before, but would have been an odd one in 2003, but which were nonetheless among our many complaints against Saddam Hussein, and were thus added to the list. But the clear majority of the resolution was about WMD. So I think her claim is exaggerated, but not inaccurate. And since she was talking about the resolution, any reasons the administration might have adduced on other occasions don’t seem relevant.
CaseyL: and then tell us WMDs weren’t the driving force in Bush’s hurry to go to war.
Oh, get with the program. The WMD couldn’t have been the driving force in Bush’s rush to war because
(a) there were no WMD in Iraq, so if Bush had used them as a primary reason, he’d have been wrong, and it’s not possible for a Bush supporter to accept that Bush was wrong.
(b) Bush knew there were no stockpiled WMD (or else made no plans to deal with stockpiles of WMD…) and so anyone quoting Bush saying there were stockpiled WMD in Iraq must be misquoting him.
Even when the real-world evidence shows Bush lied, it is necessary to rearrange the record to show he didn’t.
Even when the real-world evidence shows Bush was wrong, it is necessary to rearrange the record to show he wasn’t.
And of course, anyone actually pointing to reality to show Bush lied and Bush was wrong must be mocked and insulted.
I anticipate a good many more posts like this in the right-wing blogosphere: it’s not a reality-based community. So long as it supports George W. Bush, it can’t afford to be.
The WMD couldn’t have been the driving force in Bush’s rush to war because…
well, it was certainly the driving force in the marketing campaign.
“After the embarrassment of her pathetic protest”
This post is pathetic also. If you are going to use derogatory language, be prepared to have it used on you. I’ve left some questionable comments on here before but I’ve tried since to clean up my act. I find that phrase you used to be provoking and ill mannered.
Generally I find the other posters here refrain from such comments. I would hope you could do the same. This isn’t tacituts.org. That place degenerated, I hope this one doesn’t also. Edward’s last couple of posts stear clear of calling Bush pathetic, and Sebastian seems to be able to stear clear of this kind of inciteful language also.
Speaking for myself, I did not find her protest embarrassing, I was rather proud that someone took a stand, token as it was.
It just strikes me as trying to get a dig in and piss people off, rather than a real analysis. It also makes me inclined to ignore your whole post and not even consider any merit.
Can we now say Bird Dog sucks and is ruining the site?
The story of the scorpion and the frog seems rather appropriate here, I think.
Dantheman: Can we now say Bird Dog sucks and is ruining the site?
No. Read the posting rules. Barbara Boxer is not (AFAIK) a commenter or a poster here: she’s a public figure whose actions and character are up for criticism as much as Condi Rice’s are – though naturally I have my own opinion as to who has behaved badly and who shows a lack of character.
Bird Dog is a member of the ObWing collective: you may not attack him personally, nor any other regular poster/commenter.
(I may just be losing my sense of humor, of course. It’s possible this was a joke. If so, not a helpful one, IMO.)
I did an analysis of Bush’s primary “we gotta invade now” speech (the one in Cincinnati) once, and the references to WMD outnumbered all other reasons to invade Iraq by three to one, as I recall. Also, there was nothing approaching the alarming quality of the rhetoric used to describe WMD.
The administration may have technically covered its butt by noting other reasons, but it unquestionably sold the invasion on WMD.
Boxer’s neither a moron nor a liar.
… and then tell us WMDs weren’t the driving force in Bush’s hurry to go to war.
Thanks for the link. I’ve read it many times. In no way is the language in it “WMD, period”. WMDs were a primary reason, there’s no dispute about that, not the sole reason as Boxer wrongly suggests.
Probably a US Senator deserves a bit more respect than the above post demonstrates.
Probably a nominee for secretary of state deserves a bit more respect than the above US Senator demonstrated.
Probably a nominee for secretary of state deserves a bit more respect than the above US Senator demonstrated.
When watching the Boxer bit, this was my first impression as well. Boxer was impolite to the point of being beligerent.
Then I stopped and thought about the dynamics. If Rice had been a man, would I still feel that way? Or would I have thought Boxer was being appropriately tough?
Don’t know exactly, but I think both Boxer and Rice deserve respect for what they’ve accomplished and in the end, if you can’t stand the heat…
and the references to WMD outnumbered all other reasons to invade Iraq by three to one, as I recall…
Then you agree with me, Edward. It wasn’t “WMD, period” as Boxer specifically stated.
Look, folks. I realize this post was on the intemperate side, but what Boxer said yesterday highly irresponsible and disengenuous, and quite frankly her behavior ticked me off. Agree or disagree with Rice as nominee, there is no place for US Senator to revise history herself all the while accusing the nominee of doing the same.
Probably a nominee for secretary of state deserves a bit more respect than the above US Senator demonstrated.
Nope. A nominee comes before the Senate to be challenged by the Senators. Senator Boxer is doing her job in challenging Condi Rice’s fitness for the post of Secretary of State by pointing out Ms Rice’s past history, actions and statements. Are you seriously arguing that Senator Boxer should “show respect” by ignoring Ms Rice’s record?
Agree or disagree with Rice as nominee, there is no place for US Senator to revise history herself all the while accusing the nominee of doing the same.
Except you (and Ms Rice) have failed to point out accurately any place where Senator Boxer “revised history”, have you? As has been pointed out to you already in this thread.
I think Boxer’s a hero, actually. She’s got little to lose so she’s saying what a lot of the other Democrats in congress are thinking but are too afraid too say. She’s painted a big round bulls eye on herself in the process.
Someone is finally standing up to the bullies, and it’s a wonder and a shock.
I just compare her to my state’s roll-over Spectre, too cowed to even speak up to his own party, and just shake my head.
Then you agree with me, Edward. It wasn’t “WMD, period” as Boxer specifically stated.
Not totally.
I can see a context in which it was “WMD period.” The argument about “why now” was always answered in the context of 9/11 and how, it having “changed everything,” we could no longer afford to let any of Hussein’s weapons fall into terrorists hands. I don’t know of anyone who felt Hussein himself was going to try and use his alleged weapons against the US. The other reasons (his human rights abuses, his instability, etc) were not the reasonx Congress approved war…it was definitely the WMD.
Bird Dog sucks and he’s ruining the site.
I gather there are a few lawyers/aspiring lawyers roaming the halls here. I hope you don’t mind answering a quick question.
If one looks at the resolution [non-thomas, non-timed out link], all of the non-wmd reasons for war are scattered among the multitude of whereases that precede the ‘resolved by the congress’ part, which offers only WMD and UN resolution enforcement as reasons for acting. Here’s my question. Do the “whereases” ‘count?’ Or are they a prelude to the actually legally binding bits of the law?
There’s a little better post at
Captain’s Quarters regarding Boxer’s questioning. Actually Bird Dog, the Republicans might be better off letting her continue to represent liberal positions in the public forum.Sadly, as a lawyer, the kind of analysis you’re asking for is prety much always going to get you an answer of “Which side do you want me to argue.” I’m not impugning lawyers generally — there are certainly legal questions with clear right and wrong answers, but that isn’t one.
Bird’s position here is unreasonable — he’s reading “WMD, period” as meaning “No other arguments were ever made for the Iraq war” and then saying that that is literally untrue. As posters above have pointed out, and as I am sure Boxer meant, the WMD arguments were primary and necessary to the case for war. In the absence of the WMD arguments, any remaining arguments were self-evidently insufficient, and the war would not have takem place.
After looking at that last comment I posted, my only excuse is that I am using an unfamiliar keyboard (and one that appears to have some quirks). Really, I can generally type much better than that.
The reason that WMDs were a big deal was that BushCo made the case that by virtue of their existence Saddam posed an “imminent threat” to the national security of the USA. That’s why congress backed him up. Because “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”, to quote. Invading Iraq was thereby a defensive action.
If one takes the position that WMDs were not the only reason for invading Iraq, this raises the question of whether the USA is free to invade a sovereign country for reasons other than it posing an imminent threat to the USA.
My position on this is question is no.
“(I may just be losing my sense of humor, of course. It’s possible this was a joke. If so, not a helpful one, IMO.)”
Yes, it was meant to be a joke, as a reminder of the response to his posts at Tacitus.
perfectly stated votermom. That should be engraved somewhere on the Hill and in the White House.
But the Administration knows this, which is why, although if you’re asking the question one way, they’ll insist that WMD were not the main reason they invaded, but if you ask it another way, they’ll insist everyone thought he had ’em.
Trying to have it both ways elevated to a art form.
Thanks Edward. 🙂
There’s a lingering assumption that had we not removed Saddaam, and he continued to grease European Security Council members as the energy for sanctions waned, that the inspection process would have made everyone convinced that there were absolutely, positively no WMD hidden anywhere in Iraq, nor would there reasonbly ever be. I’m not sure we would have gotten to that conclusion without the hindsight that this war insured.
blogbudsman: that the inspection process would have made everyone convinced that there were absolutely, positively no WMD hidden anywhere in Iraq, nor would there reasonbly ever be.
As we discovered is the case.
I’m not sure we would have gotten to that conclusion without the hindsight that this war insured.
As it turns out, we now know that Bush had already gotten to the conclusion that there were no stockpiled WMD in Iraq well before the invasion was carried out. We know this, because the invasion force had no units assigned to the duty of securing those stockpiles once they were discovered. So sincre the President of the United States and his administration had already been convinced that there were no stockpiled WMD, don’t you think he might have succeeded in convincing an already-skeptical world that in fact the rumors of WMD in Iraq did not justify invasion – indeed, as far as he knew, did not exist at all?
If that’s what he’d wanted to do, that is, rather than present the stockpiled WMD he didn’t believe in himself as an excuse for invading a country that was no threat to the US.
A nominee comes before the Senate to be challenged by the Senators.
That goes without saying. The problem is that Boxer chose to grandstand rather than mount a credible challenge.
Except you (and Ms Rice) have failed to point out accurately any place where Senator Boxer “revised history”, have you?
Yes, I did, twice, with links.
The reason that WMDs were a big deal was that BushCo made the case that by virtue of their existence Saddam posed an “imminent threat” to the national security of the USA.
That is also revising history. The term “imminent threat” was not used (except for one or two mistaken references). In fact, the absence of an imminent threat was one of the reasons the anti-war crowd used to oppose the war, because the administration deliberately went short of calling the threat of Iraq imminent.
As posters above have pointed out, and as I am sure Boxer meant, the WMD arguments were primary and necessary to the case for war.
Well, I would not presume to mindread about what Boxer meant. If she meant that the WMD arguments were the primary rationale, then she should’ve said it. The spoken and written word is the main tool of her trade after all. Personally, I’d rather not be in the shoes of her apologists, trying to interpret the few thoughts that are coursing through her head.
A question: Boxer’s claim that the Iraq War Resolution was ‘WMD, period’ was just a bit of her questioning of Rice. A much more important bit was this:
Do any of the people criticizing Boxer think this was an illegitimate question? And do any of you think that Rice gave a convincing answer to it?
Charles Bird: The term “imminent threat” was not used (except for one or two mistaken references).
So, are you saying they didn’t say imminent threat, except for when they said it…?
Classic.
The term “imminent threat” was not used (except for one or two mistaken references).
Then can I get a refund? Because regardless of whether they used the term or not, what else would you call saying that So&So has nuclear, chemical, and/or biological weapons that he _is_* going to either use on us or give to terrorist to use on us if we don’t get him first, and soon? Whatever happened to truth in advertising?
(*As opposed to countries like say Pakistan, which we know has nuclear weapons but they’re not going to use it on us so they’re cool)
In fact, I can’t get it out of my head that I did hear “imminent threat” tossed about in the press befroe the Iraq invasion, so googling on it, here’s the first link that comes up.
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=24970
But you are mindreading. Boxer said “WMD. Period,” a colloquially phrased statement whose meaning is formally ambiguous. You read it as an assertion that “The administration’s claims with regard to WMD were literally the only arguments in the congressional resolution in favor of going to war with Iraq,” and then get all exercised because that assertion is false. I read it as an assertion that “the administration’s claims with regard to WMD were the primary arguments in the congressional resolution, and were the sine qua non for its passage.” Neither interpretation is compelled by her wording, but given that she is speaking to an audience that knows perfectly well what was in the congressional resolution, your interpretation seems unlikely: it attributes not only dishonesty, but crippling idiocy to Senator Boxer.
I see many accusations of dishonesty of this format: Fact A (say, in this case, the contents of the congressional resolution) is objectively ascertainable and publicly known before the relevant statement is made. Public figure X makes a non-rigorously phrased statement which is compatible with the truth of Fact A, or, under an alternative interpretation, with an assertion of its falsity. Commenters seize on the second interpretation (no more intrinsically compelling that the first), and call X a liar. This is always a weak argument, and particularly so in this case.
So, are you saying they didn’t say imminent threat, except for when they said it…?
What part of “mistaken references” do you not understand?
The part where the administration gets a free pass for saying things that aren’t true because they were mistaken.
But you are mindreading.
‘Fraid not. She said what she said. The “period” in this colloquialism means “nothing else”, “no other reason”. It’s an absolute. Your interpretation of a “primary” in her phrase implies a gradient that does not exist when an unequivocal word such as “period” is used. Finally, it is up to Boxer to explain herself, not you or me, and she didn’t.
“Then can I get a refund? Because regardless of whether they used the term or not, what else would you call saying that So&So has nuclear, chemical, and/or biological weapons that he _is_* going to either use on us or give to terrorist to use on us if we don’t get him first, and soon? Whatever happened to truth in advertising?”
Nope you can’t get a refund. Bush specifically argued against an imminent threat standard in his State of the Union Address when he said that we can’t wait until the threat become ‘imminent’ because we don’t get as much warning as we would need to counter it.
Probably a nominee for secretary of state deserves a bit more respect than the above US Senator demonstrated.
Would you extend this grace to ANY nominee for SecState, BD? If George Bush named Barney the dog his nominee, should senators show austere respect to the nomination of the president’s terrier to head up one of the highest cabinet posts in the country?
No, of course not, because Barney the dog is grossly unqualified for the position of Secretary of State. So is Condoleezza Rice. Not as unqualified as Barney the dog – Rice has a degree, can speak english, has served in government before, is far more intelligent, is a human being – but neither is qualified to be Secretary of State. Barney’s excuse is biological limitation; we don’t expect a dog to be able to run the State Department. Rice is simply incompetent, as she’s demonstrated over the last four years as one of the most disastrous and ineffective National Security Advisers in history.
Rice was supposed to be coordinator between State, Defense and the CIA. She was supposed to smooth things over between them, make them play nice. Instead we got the Pentagon running on top of everyone and State and CIA backstabbing everyone in sight out of sheer desperation. In fact, I’m more irritated that Boxer didn’t grill Rice on Rice’s simple inability rto do her old job. Why are we giving this woman a promotion for failing so miserably?
The rest of her testimony gives me no confidence that she has any clue as to how to deal with the rest of the world. Her “outposts of tyranny” include Cuba but exclude Pakistan and Saudi Arabia? Are we fighting a global war on terror here or are we fighting Florida ’08? She has never understood the threat of Islamic terrorism, and I see no signs that she ever will. She should go back to writing trite papers on the Soviets.
Whose mistaken references, Charles? Who made the mistake?
Finally, it is up to Boxer to explain herself, not you or me, and she didn’t.
Really, what do you envision Boxer’s thought process to be here? “If I cleverly misrepresent the contents of the congressional resolution, maybe none of the hundreds of people watching who were involved in drafting that resolution, or the millions of people watching who have access to the contents of the resolution will check, and I’ll fool them all! Bwahhahaha!!” Doesn’t “As everyone knew at the time of passage of the resolution, the WMD arguments were the only significant arguments, the only weight-bearing arguments in the resolution,” make vastly more sense? I’m not asking you to credit Boxer’s good faith, just that she’s communicating in English and knows what her audience knows.
And Sebastian, saying that Bush did not always describe the threat from Iraq as imminent does not mean that the administration never explicitly or implicitly made that claim. Whether he made it in the SotU or not, he and those who work for him made it on other occasions.
Charles Bird: What part of “mistaken references” do you not understand?
I may be wrong here, and I’m certain you’ll be happy to correct me if I am, but I can’t for the life of me recall any administration official coming out and saying the references they made to imminent threats were a mistake.
Clarification on the previous post…
Saying it was a mistake AFTER the invasion is not a mea culpa in my mind, it’s a bait and switch.
No, Charles remembers sorta correctly: that the exact words ‘imminent threat’ were not actually uttered by Bush, and the reason those specific words were not actually uttered is because they’re a term of art with a specific meaning and entail a defined level of threat and response if made part of an official policy speech.
So, only WH surrogates were allowed to say ‘imminent threat.’
The Prez, and other WH senior officials, were always careful to use smoke-&-mirror words like ‘grave,’ ‘growing,’ and ‘gathering’ threat. None of which have any specific meaning and, therefore, can mean whatever you want them to.
But, yeah: The nu-ku-lar stuff is different. There, the alleged ‘risk’ of mushroom clouds was claimed to be less than one year off. Can’t mealymouth your way outta that one.
Well, I mean: sure, you can TRY to mealymouth your way outta that one. But it’ll be just as transparent as the other obfuscations.
“And Sebastian, saying that Bush did not always describe the threat from Iraq as imminent does not mean that the administration never explicitly or implicitly made that claim. Whether he made it in the SotU or not, he and those who work for him made it on other occasions.”Shark Blog. The summary is: “The administration was criticized before the war for not making a case that Iraq was an imminent threat, denied at that time that war was based on the supposition of an imminent threat, and was criticized after the war for having lied that Iraq was an imminent threat.”
No, he explicitly argued against an imminent threat standard. The concept of imminent threat was used by Senators to attack the President’s plan to invade Iraq. Again and again opponents said that Iraq was not an imminent threat. Bush agreed and said that it was a mounting threat and that we ought not wait for an imminent threat. See this very useful outline at
See, Democrats can manipulate the media too! 😉
Bush specifically argued against an imminent threat standard in his State of the Union Address when he said that we can’t wait until the threat become ‘imminent’ because we don’t get as much warning as we would need to counter it.
He – and Rice – also explicitly framed this argument in the context of a nuclear threat. Not only was there no imminent nuclear threat in Iraq, there was nothing remotely close to a nuclear threat in Iraq. Remember how many countries David Kay said were at the “weapons of mass destruction-related program activities” stage? About fifty.
So please, don’t talk about how the president told us we needed to invade Iraq because it was close to being an imminent threat. It wasn’t, unless there are a good four dozen other countries we’ve missed invading by now.
To go around in a circle:
Then can I get a refund? Because regardless of whether they used the term or not, what else would you call saying that So&So has nuclear, chemical, and/or biological weapons that he _is_* going to either use on us or give to terrorist to use on us if we don’t get him first, and soon? Whatever happened to truth in advertising?
Could have nuclear weapons in less than one year? Has stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons now? Wants to use them on us now? The administration said all those things, and those statements describe an imminent threat.
Could have nuclear weapons in less than a year does not describe an imminent threat.
What about ‘has stockpiles of biological weapons that he wants to use on us or to give to terrorists now’? Is “now” imminent?
I haven’t read the full text of the Iraq War Resolution, but I was following fairly closely the public arguments made by the administration leading up to the war. I never heard any mention by the administration of #4, 5 & 6 above. (Not saying they never mentioned them, but if they did, the percentage of mentioning them must have been pretty low.) #2 was mentioned fairly frequently,although often in the context that Saddam might give WMD to the terrorists. #3 was mentioned, although not as a primary reason (also no mention was made of why the U.S supported Saddam and sold him WMD at an early time when he was just as brutally repressive.) #1 wasn’t really accurate. #7 is vague enough to be essentially meaningless. The U.N inspections which Saddam kept dodging were all about looking for WMD. 80-90% of the war marketing was based on WMD. You can certainly make the argument that 80%-90% WMD should be described as “primarily WMD”, rather than “WMD, period.” That would certainly be the degree of precision I would expect in a scientific setting. By the standards of politics, however, “WMD period” is close enough for government work.
I guess calling Boxer a liar or a moron sounded more exciting than putting up a post accusing her of rudeness and imprecision.
LizardBreath “…Really, what do you envision Boxer’s thought process to be here? “If I cleverly misrepresent the contents of the congressional resolution, maybe none of the hundreds of people watching who were involved in drafting that resolution, or the millions of people watching who have access to the contents of the resolution will check, and I’ll fool them all! Bwahhahaha!!”
Well, yeah! Although that assumes a thought process!
I really have to say, once again, that I would honestly like anyone who still supports the decision to invade Iraq to show me what they think the net positive of this war has been. Not the capture of Saddam Hussein. Not the schools and the kittens rescued from Baathist trees. I want to know how all of that outweighs:
-the resulting Islamic state or failed state that will come at the end of this war
-the opportunity cost of not being able to do anything real about North Korea or Iran
-the massive loss of diplomatic capital that comes from alienating our allies
-the massive loss of diplomatic capital that comes from losing a war
-the further destabilization of the Mideast
-the added credibility we’ve lent to the words of Osama bin Laden, and the resulting spike in terrorist recruitment
-the improved position this gives to genuine threats and possible allies of al Qaeda, such as Iran and Pakistan
-the increased hatred of America by moderate Muslims
-the 1300+ American troops, and thousands of Iraqi citizens, now dead
Could have nuclear weapons in less than a year does not describe an imminent threat.
You’re missing the point, Sebastian. “Could have nuclear weapons in less than a year” did not describe a threat that existed with regards to Iraq. With North Korea, sure. With Iran, almost. But Iraq? Not a chance.
Given that intelligence that was available to the administration at the time indicated as much, why were they making claims to the contrary?
It’s all moot anyway. Senate just voted to confirm Condi 16-2; Boxer and Kerry (!) were the only hold-outs.
the resulting Islamic state or failed state that will come at the end of this war–which Islamic or failed state?
the opportunity cost of not being able to do anything real about North Korea or Iran–I don’t mean to be rude, but do you advocate invading either of those countries? If not, which opportunity cost? We can still bomb if we have to.
the massive loss of diplomatic capital that comes from alienating our allies–you’ll have to be more specific. Diplomatic capital to do nothing is worth practically zero. The UN is the do-nothing capital of the world when it comes to real threats, and as we have recently rediscovered natural disasters.
the further destabilization of the Mideast–this is kind of silly. The Mideast was not stable in the first place, and the stability it had isn’t the kind of stability we would want to encourage.
the added credibility we’ve lent to the words of Osama bin Laden, and the resulting spike in terrorist recruitment–once again you are going to have to be more specific. In a region where more than 50% of the people believe Israel committed the 9-11 attacks we are already dealing with almost wholly irrational thinking. Which is precisely the problem.
the improved position this gives to genuine threats and possible allies of al Qaeda, such as Iran and Pakistan–Typical al-Qaeda only thinking. Al-Qaeda is a symptom of a much scarier problem. A huge part of that problem is the impression that the US has a glass jaw–put up just a little resistance and we cave. The absolute most obvious example of that was Saddam in Iraq due to our disinterest in dealing with him after Gulf War I.
the increased hatred of America by moderate Muslims–we should probably define ‘moderate Muslim’ before pursuing this further.
the 1300+ American troops, and thousands of Iraqi citizens, now dead–at least you finally raised a real objection. 1300+ American troops is bad, but not awful for a long term Middle East policy. You may argue that we don’t have that…but that is a different argument. I conted that there is no possible effective Middle East policy that would not have included at least one major war. 1300+ troops is amazingly low for that. It was going to have to be Iraq, Syria or Iran. Iraq made the most sense because of Saddam’s unabated resistance to UN inspections, his prior activity in fooling UN inspectors, his prior invasion of Kuwait, and his propaganda status as proof that Americans back down at the slightest resistance.
Actually, I think that’s just the vote out of committee, allowing a full Senate vote.
I’m frankly surprised (in a good way) Kerry voted ‘No.’
Maybe Boxer has set an example, and now a few male Dems are growing a pair 🙂
Actually, I think that’s just the vote out of committee, allowing a full Senate vote.
You’re correct, but making out of committee is essentially a confirmation given the Senate demographics. We’d have to see the mother of all filibusters to stop her becoming Secretary.
One more time, with feeling, Boxer said
Now offering the text of the resolution is one way to interpret “what we voted on” in this context, but another way to interpret it is the evidence that convinced the Senate to approve the resolution. In other words, what convinced the Senate to vote the way they did was the evidence on WMD, period. None of the rest of the resolution was convincing enough without the WMD part of it.
Oh, I expect Rice will be confirmed. But she’s just an incompetent, and a mouthpiece, who might actually do less damage at State than at NSA.
Gonzales is a more clear and serious menace; certainly, more of an enabler in undermining the rule of law, and more of what conservatives refer to as “someone who hates our freedoms.”
If I thought we had the votes for one, but only one, rejection, I’d rather reject Gonzales.
Bird: The problem is that Boxer chose to grandstand rather than mount a credible challenge.
So your argument is that it is not a “credible challenge” if it’s “grandstanding”? Well, that’s an interesting argument: but you would have to define “grandstanding” first. According to my dictionary, “to grandstand” means “To perform ostentatiously so as to impress an audience” – what, exactly, makes an impressive performance somehow not-credible? Do you feel that Boxer would have been more credible had she been a duller public speaker? To argue that a politician should not be an impressive public speaker does seem to be a little stringent. George W. Bush is an extraordinary exception to the general rule that most people who become politicans are able to speak well in public and impress an audience – that’s how they become politicians. This part of the argument reminds me of those SF stories about futures where gifted people are deliberately loaded with handicaps in order to make competition between them and less gifted people “fairer”.
So: Senator Boxer made an impressive performance, and you don’t like it: you want her to have been duller, and you claim that you would have found her more credible if she had been more dull. (Or perhaps you’d have cared less, because if she had been more dull fewer people would have paid attention.)
Yes, I did, twice, with links.
You managed to prove that George W. Bush and the rest of the administration did not give Iraq’s WMD as a primary reason why the US should invade? Where and when exactly did you do this? How did you do this? Should I cite, again, all the speeches made by Bush and other senior members of the administration prior to the invasion which claim that Iraq must be invaded because of the stockpiled WMD that they knew were there? Or are you attempting to revise history and claim that none of those speeches, not even those on the White House website, actually happened?
The term “imminent threat” was not used (except for one or two mistaken references).
Oh, come off it. This was gone into over and over again, establishing that (over and over again) the Bush administration had claimed that the threat from Iraq was imminent, which was why the UN inspection teams had to be pulled out of Iraq with the job unfinished: the invasion couldn’t wait. No use trying to revise history: it’s a matter of public record that the US invaded Iraq in March 2003, insisting that it was impossible to wait. Playing with words – insisting that because the phrase “imminent threat” wasn’t used it doesn’t matter that Bush & Co claimed an imminent threat made it impossible to delay the invasion – is just wordplay. As Joshua Micah Marshal observed
So, let’s see: Your problem with Senator Boxer is that her performance in the Senate was too impressive for your liking, and she was more accurate that you like to think. This of course is why you calling her a moron and a liar: verbal abuse is so satisfying when your opponent is so much better than you are.
Boxer and Kerry – now there’s a pair to draw to. $50 million on any Inaugural that doesn’t include John Kerry is a bargain. Next on Condi’s resume, Senator from the State of California in 2010.
Look, this is so weak, Bird. Very few would have voted for the war had they known there was no nuclear program, and plenty of Senators have said so.
Hmmm. Ari Fleischer, official spokesman of the President, April 10, 2003:
“But make no mistake — as I said earlier — we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found.”
Paul Wolfowitz, May 2003:
“Wolfowitz: No, I think it happens to be correct. The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason.”
How quickly we forget history so easily searched for on Google.
Seems like the Pres believed that WMDs are what the war was all about – period. And it seems like Mistah Bird owes Boxer a well deserved apology.
Not that I expect one.
Charlie,
Interesting comments from Jes… the other day Jes was claiming that Bush was working hard trying to portray himself as a war time president. I guess Jes at some point will atleast acknowledge that he dislikes Bush’s impressive performance that has endeared him to over half the voting population and that like Boxer Bush’s grandstanding is really okay.
Jes,
“Oh, come off it. This was gone into over and over again, establishing that (over and over again) the Bush administration had claimed that the threat from Iraq was imminent, ”
I guess you missed the State of the Union address where Bush explicitly says, “We cannot wait until the threat is imminent…”
So please, come off it yourself and and acknowledge that this appointed administration express that point in the most widely listened to speech the President gives.
the record is sufficiently rich that, rashomon-like, we can each see in it what we choose to see.
the proof of the pudding, however, is in the eating. and oh how we are eating our pudding.
so we went to war to prevent a grave threat from becoming an imminent threat. and we have discovered (a) the threat wasn’t so grave and (b) winning the peace is harder than winning the war.
now, tacitus and others argued that democracy could be brought to a foreign country at the point of a gun, citing japan, germany and the american south(![yeah southerners are different, but not that different]) as examples.
but merely because a thing is possible doesn’t mean that the desired outcome is inevitable, and explanations on HOW to achieve democracy were thin on the ground.
and now we know the truth — we have absolutely no idea how to impose democracy. whatever lessons were learned folloiwng WWII were forgotten. The sunnis rightly believe that they have nothing to lose by civil war, and so we are doomed to 2-a-day fatalities (and about 6-a-day wounded so severly that they are combat ineffective) plus watching over a civil war we don’t understand and cannot stop.
are we safer now than before the invasion? No. Saddam was deterrable and had been deterred. We are providing a training ground for the next generation of jihadis much as Russian-occupied Afghanistan did for ObL. And with every civilian death, we create another enemy.
great. thanks so much. before we launch the next invasion, could we PLEASE have a better idea how to win the peace?
as the NSA and head of the Iraq Group, Rice was personally responsible for devising a strategy to reduce America’s exposure to security risks. She failed.
Francis
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hey, because I can…
fdl: We didn’t need a war to inform us of our chances of actually successfully building a democracy. Just look at our actual track record
Those who refuse to learn from history are destined to repeat it. . .
Smlook: So please, come off it yourself and and acknowledge that this appointed administration express that point in the most widely listened to speech the President gives.
*shrug*
Wordplay. Bush & Co wish to be judged not by their actions – rushing to invade Iraq, claiming it’s impossible to wait for the UN inspection teams to finish because Iraq is such a threat – but by a precisely defined phrase which they can plausibly claim rarely to have uttered. It’s a similar kind of wordplay that led Bill Clinton to claim that he spoke the truth when he said he never had sex with that intern. Except that Bill Clinton’s sex life, and how he defined “having sex” was a matter that properly concerned only the participants – Bush’s wordplay with “imminent threat” has, so far, killed at least a hundred thousand people.
But the same kind of wordplay, I grant you. Tawdry, in Clinton’s case: criminal, in Bush’s case.
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hey, because I can…
Hah! Too late! I already read it, you history revisionist you. ;-P
Actually, I’m getting a little sinister enjoyment from Mr. Birds stint in the viper pit. He will be a better man for it. Rants are therapudic, necessary and wrought with danger. It will give him some idea why there are far more moderate conservatives than moderate liberals. I’m sure Senator Boxer represents her constituents well. I’m looking forward to hearing more and more from her.
Edward reeled me back in with this:
“7. America’s national security interests in restoring peace and stability to the Persian Gulf
er, uh, when the hell exactly does this begin?”
Isn’t that the $64,000 question? Isn’t that part and partial why the Bush administration attempted to grab any argument that had any thread of validity to pursuade all the various factions involved that we needed to do this terrible, bold action. The invasion of Iraq, Bush’s subsequent re-election and the initiation of the initial phases of a democratic process in Iraq has had to rattle every terrorist premise ever held. Talk about miscalculation. Our country’s ‘all in’ bet in the face of whatever the terrorists gameplan was may be the most decisive response to aggression since Normandy.
Edward finishes with ” Honestly, the war was supported solely because of the threat of Hussein’s WMD. Any other argument is wishful thinking.”
“Solely” makes me cock my head a notch, but I’ll mostly agree. The Bush administration’s argument was successful by all accounts.
Hah! Too late! I already read it, you history revisionist you. ;-P
guilty as charged…
just thought better of it after the fact…as someone else noted, its a moot point
dammit, I’ll have to delete my comments faster next time.
Edward finishes with ” Honestly, the war was supported solely because of the threat of Hussein’s WMD. Any other argument is wishful thinking.”
“Solely” makes me cock my head a notch, but I’ll mostly agree.
Let me clarify. If you take the WMD totally out of the equation, I do not believe our Senate would have voted to empower the president to go to war. If, however, you take everything else out of the equation, except for the details that relate to Husseins history with WMD, I believe they still would have.
Therefore, I think it’s perfectly fair to conclude that the reason we went to war was solely the WMD issue.
LOL!
Wow. Cut back on your blogreading for a month or two, come back, and ObWi is linking admiringly to LGF while simultaneously (who says irony is dead?) condemning crushkerry for being too vitriolic. Is that hysterical or what. It would appear that my main gal Barb is really scaring the crap out of the wind machine. Mark my words, there will be a significant Boxer smear by this summer… Probably something to do with her mental health.
And I’m not kidding that Charles’ assertion that “Iraq’s non-compliance with binding UNSC resolutions, [was to him] the primary casus belli” is the funniest thing I’ve seen in days.
Okay, Charles, if that’s the case then these three questions should be softballs.
1) Is there any contemporary evidence that this was your position prior to the actual invasion? Posts at some other blog? Letters to the editor in your local paper?
2) Is there any current evidence that Iraq was not in point of fact complying with binding UNSC resolutions?
3) Do you sincerely believe that an almost-identical War Powers Act authorization (lacking only the WMD language and proposed in the absence of a constant stream of “smoking mushroom cloud” rhetoric issuing forth from the bully pulpit) would have passed?
Ha ha ha haha. Gorblimey, there’s tears in my eyes, and I don’t know why… I’ll take my answers off the air…
The invasion of Iraq, Bush’s subsequent re-election and the initiation of the initial phases of a democratic process in Iraq has had to rattle every terrorist premise ever held. Talk about miscalculation. Our country’s ‘all in’ bet in the face of whatever the terrorists gameplan was may be the most decisive response to aggression since Normandy.
The central problem with this ingenious plan to outwit the terrorists meme, bbm, is that it cost the deaths of thousands of innocent lives that were not ours to spend.
If you take the WMD totally out of the equation
But for me that was impossible. Heck, I’m still concerned that Khaddafy is just playing rope-a-dope.
Jes, “…so far, killed at least a hundred thousand people.” Where did you get that number? Not from here:
Iraq Body CountIf you take the WMD totally out of the equation
But for me that was impossible.
Yes.
But here I’m using it as a parallel device to make my point crionna. Whereas the case for war requires some aspect of WMD to pass the laugh test. It does not require any individual or combination of the other so-called reasons.
I’ll note, Sebastian, that you didn’t respond to my point about “the massive loss of diplomatic capital that comes with losing a war.” Is this because you can’t come up with a response, or because you think the US is winning? Under what realistic outcome do you see the US “winning” in Iraq at this point? When we commit to propping up another Islamic dictatorship? When that Islamic dictatorship orders us out of the country? When “Iraq” collapses into a civil war that breeds even more terrorists?
Typical al-Qaeda only thinking. Al-Qaeda is a symptom of a much scarier problem
Yes it is – namely, militant Islam and anti-modernism. Do you think the Iraq War – and Abu Ghraib and everything that accompanied it – has hindered the cause of militant Islam or furthered it? As a clue for the clueless, I might point out that the expected winners of this month’s Iraqi ballot are not secularists in any sense. I’m not doing “al Qaeda only” thinking, but you seem to be doing “rogue state only” thinking, and not considering what the war and its outcome are doing to spread what we’re nominally opposing.
A huge part of that problem is the impression that the US has a glass jaw–put up just a little resistance and we cave. The absolute most obvious example of that was Saddam in Iraq due to our disinterest in dealing with him after Gulf War I.
Do you think the US looks tough right now? Picking a fight only makes you look tough in the short run. Losing the fight you pick makes you look both foolish and weak, and again I ask, under what realistic outcome does the US not lose in Iraq?
I don’t mean to be rude, but do you advocate invading either of those countries? [North Korea and Iran] If not, which opportunity cost? We can still bomb if we have to.
The opportunity cost of negotiating from a position of strength – that is, using the credible threat of force, as opposed to negotiating with an empty gun. “We can still bomb if we have to”? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but is there any realistic circumstance in which bombing Iran or Korea at this point won’t escalate into a full-scale war – one we can’t provide troops for? And as for bombing North Korea, the best time for threatening that would probably have been before they build a bunch of nukes they can land on Seoul and Tokyo, wasn’t it?
you’ll have to be more specific. Diplomatic capital to do nothing is worth practically zero.
As I noted with opportnity cost, the option here wasn’t to do Iraq or to do nothing. It was to do Iraq or to do something that would have actually helped. In the war on terror and the greater fight to defeat radical Islam, the US needs allies. America can’t freeze bank accounts by itself, it can’t shut down a terror cell in foreign countries by itself, it can’t spread its message by itself, it can’t stop nuclear proliferation by itself, and as we’re finding out in Iraq, it can’t occupy countries by itself. If ever there were a cause that demanded the unity of great nations, it’s the war on terror. That the Bush administration blew that unity on a fool’s errand is one of its lasting tragedies.
The Mideast was not stable in the first place, and the stability it had isn’t the kind of stability we would want to encourage.
A couple questions for you here: (1) Do you honestly believe that the Mideast is more stable, or just as stable, as it was before the Iraq War? (2) If not, do you really think there’s no causal connection between our invading Iraq, leveling its infrastructure, and torturing and killing a bunch of people there? (3) Do you think there’s any relationship between instability and the rise of terrorist organizations? If so, should the US be working to increase or decrease instability?
There’s degrees of instability, Sebastian, as there are in most everything. I’m assuming, for instance, that you wouldn’t make the claim that carpet bombing Damascus wouldn’t decrease the stability of the region because after all, the region is fairly unstable. But perhaps I’m being generous.
once again you are going to have to be more specific. In a region where more than 50% of the people believe Israel committed the 9-11 attacks we are already dealing with almost wholly irrational thinking. Which is precisely the problem.
Alright, I’ll be more specific. There’s no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that Israel committed the 9/11 attacks. There is overwhelming evidence, however, to support the claim that the US military is torturing, degrading, and killing Muslims. So when Osama bin Laden gets on TV and talks about the great evil of the United States, he doesn’t have to make as much stuff up anymore; he can just show the pictures he pulled off CNN. If we don’t want to perpetuate the narrative that we are the Great Satan, we might want to stop acting like the Great Satan.
we should probably define ‘moderate Muslim’ before pursuing this further.
For the purposes of discussing the war on terror, I define moderate muslims as those muslims whose religious beliefs and religious indoctrination have not lead them to hostility towards the West or to modernization/democratization. Hostility towards the US has increased among this demographic not because of religious reasons, but because of reaction to US action in Iraq. Rephrasing this: the increase in anti-American sentiment since the war doesn’t have its basis in religious opposition to our culture – sometimes sloppily put as the “they hate our freedom” argument. It has its basis in the war.
which Islamic or failed state?
Do you think a secular, stable Iraq is in the cards? Please tell me how. In fact, do me one better: don’t just answer this as a random comment. I challenge you – I implore you, because I’m desperately trying to understand how someone who appears to be intelligent can be so persistently obtuse – to make a post on what you believe, based on facts on the ground and your own sound judgment, will be the outcome of this war. Make a post by Sebasitan Holsclaw called “How Iraq Will Turn Out” which explains away all the ickiness we keep hearing about, how Iraq will end up both secular and stable, because I think that kind of revelatory insight deserves the attention of everybody.
I dunno, Edward: I thought that Iraq had WMD (chemical), but didn’t think that was a good enough reason to invade. By contrast, had I thought that al Qaeda was based there (in significant numbers, as in Afghanistan), I might well have thought differently. (‘Might well have’ to leave room for considering the details of any proposed scenario.)
It will give him some idea why there are far more moderate conservatives than moderate liberals.
There are? Do you have a cite for this? Is this based on poll numbers? What population are we talking about? How is a person’s “moderateness” determined?
I dunno, Edward: I thought that Iraq had WMD (chemical), but didn’t think that was a good enough reason to invade. By contrast, had I thought that al Qaeda was based there (in significant numbers, as in Afghanistan), I might well have thought differently. (‘Might well have’ to leave room for considering the details of any proposed scenario.)
Hmmm…guess I never thought al Qaeda was there in significant numbers long enough to consider this.
You have a good point though.
Edward feels “The central problem with this ingenious plan to outwit the terrorists meme, bbm, is that it cost the deaths of thousands of innocent lives that were not ours to spend.” My God fearing answer, yes Edward, I know you’re right. My snark answer, better them than us. I think Sebastian responded up the thread a little (I have to boogie so I can’t go find) that whatever is in the cards for the Middle East, it was probably going to involve a conflict and the loss of life at some time. I have no trouble blaming this on Saddaam and a host of terrorist interests.
“There are?”, yes KenB, it just has to be that way. The nature of the beast, you know. Bye, I’ll have to return fire later.
My God fearing answer, yes Edward, I know you’re right. My snark answer, better them than us.
To think that sentiment would define who we are is a fate worse than any I can imagine the terrorists inflicting upon us.
Seriously.
To think that sentiment would define who we are is a fate worse than any I can imagine the terrorists inflicting upon us.
I agree with Edward.
blogbudsman: “…so far, killed at least a hundred thousand people.” Where did you get that number?
From the Lancet‘s study.
“The central problem with this ingenious plan to outwit the terrorists meme, bbm, is that it cost the deaths of thousands of innocent lives that were not ours to spend.” My God fearing answer, yes Edward, I know you’re right. My snark answer, better them than us.
Oh really? Under what circumstances are you envisaging not invading Iraq leading to the deaths of over a hundred thousand Americans? (Or rather, proportional to the population as a whole, over 3.3M Americans?)
Sebastian writes: “I conted that there is no possible effective Middle East policy that would not have included at least one major war. . . .. It was going to have to be Iraq, Syria or Iran.”
2 thoughts:
By what right does the US get to remake the Middle East in its own image by use of force? What ever happened to the principle of self-determination? How is it possible that this is a position held by conservatives?
Did it cross your mind that, when given the opportunity for self determination, the citizens of those countries might elect a govt even more anti-western and anti-democratic than what was there before?
Gratitude is a very dangerous emotion; it slips quickly into jealousy and rage. Witness, for example, those ungrateful bastards the French.
somehow, i suspect that iranians, freed from the chains of their own taliban, would NOT elect a social democrat. counting on their gratitude seems to me to be an insanely high-risk strategy.
there is no doubt that much of the leadership in the middle east and africa has done a wretched job of bringing opportunity and prosperity to their people. there is also no doubt that some responsibility lies on the US for its cold-war conduct.
where the doubt lies is what to do now. Sebastian apparently cannot resist the desire to meddle. I can.
Francis
Whereas the case for war requires some aspect of WMD to pass the laugh test.
Agreed, but the argument seems to be that since our best efforts show that there are no WMDs in Iraq right now, the war could not have been sold. My point is that the “some aspect” encompasses a lot. Frankly, I’m more concerned about someone like Saddam, comfortable in his palaces, working to get the sanctions removed and desiring WMDs so greatly that he would fool the world to the point where he loses everything, than I am of Al-Qaeda…at least as far as the use of nukes is concerned.
Now that Saddam’s gone my concern shifts to Iran. I’m really not so concerned about NK. IMHO, nukes to them are a bargaining chip to get Chinese aid by stirring up their fears that the Japanese will go nuclear just in case. Its a tightwalk Kim’s walking, but one that doesn’t include attacks. Saddam and Iran however have discussed the desire to use their nukes offensively against their neighbors. That and the events that would follow is what concerns me.
Now, Devil’s Advocate—-In the end, maybe us beating Saddam quickly and then losing to an insurgency is a good thing. On some level maybe it shows Middle Easterners that no government can stand up to the overwhelming will of the people. Perhaps that knowledge will lead to people led changes in Egypt, SA, etc. Hopefully that will would be towards the freedoms we enjoy. If not, well then I guess we live with it (assuming they’ll allow us to live with them in peace). I’d be disappointed (to say the least), but would respect their decision so long as they threatened no one. As soon as their leadership decides that the way to stay in power is to threaten their neighbors they earn a visit from the folks in green, only this time its just to do the surgery leaving the recovery up to the patient.
“Under what circumstances are you envisaging not invading Iraq leading to the deaths of over a hundred thousand Americans? (Or rather, proportional to the population as a whole, over 3.3M Americans?)”
Well that’s easy enough…
How easy it would be for Hussein to obtain biological agents and allow AQ using 15 teams of 4 terrorists working independantly in the major metro areas in the U.S and dispersing these agents into our water supplies to get revenge on the U.S.
Let me try again…
After the UN sanctions were lifted how easy it would be for Hussein over the next 10 years produce a nuclear bomb that could be smuggled by AQ into a major metro area in the U.S and killing millions.
I guess Jes is one the few Americans going to work the morning of 9/11 and thinking… How easy it would be for AQ to take out 3,000 Americans by just flying planes into the WTC. I can do the same thing now post 9/11, while it seems Jes can’t.
ite neatly do
Smlook: How easy it would be for Hussein to obtain biological agents
Sorry. Not a valid argument. First, you have to explain why Hussein would obtain biological agents in order to pass them to Al-Qaeda in order to have Al-Qaeda attack the US.
Given that, as we know (and as Bush knew before the invasion took place) Iraq had no means of developing biological agents on its own, you’re arguing that Saddam Hussein would obtain biological agents from somewhere else. But if the ability to do this made Hussein a threat, any government round the world who hated the US is an equal threat to the US. So, how did invading Iraq make the US any safer from this hypothetical threat? Any other government could do the same.
After the UN sanctions were lifted how easy it would be for Hussein over the next 10 years produce a nuclear bomb that could be smuggled by AQ into a major metro area in the U.S and killing millions.
But again – you haven’t shown why Hussein, of all the dictators in the world, should do this. Even granted your claim that Iraq, if sanctions had been lifted, was only 10 years away from producing a nuclear device, how many other countries round the world are now only 10 years away from producing a nuclear device? How did invading Iraq make the US any safer from such a scenario?
I can do the same thing now post 9/11, while it seems Jes can’t.
Why do you think that invading Iraq had any connection with protecting the US from al-Qaeda? That seems to be the major flaw in your hypothetical scenarios: you seem to be asserting a special link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda which never existed.
Quick note on Abu Ghraib. It was awful because it showed what we were stooping to. Its propaganda value in the Middle East isn’t nearly as high (or rather low) because of the prevalance of torture throughout the region.
“By what right does the US get to remake the Middle East in its own image by use of force? What ever happened to the principle of self-determination? How is it possible that this is a position held by conservatives?”
It isn’t a matter of ‘right’ it is a matter of necessity. It wasn’t a matter of necessity until the cultural problems in the Middle East spilled over into the streets of New York City. As far as I am concerned, if the Middle East wants to wallow in a civilizational disaster-area I would be fine not to invade if it hadn’t spilled over to hurt my country. But it did, and will continue to do so for the next couple of decades. So I would rather take charge.
Sebastian, is it then your contention that invading Iraq made Al-Qaeda weaker? How did it do that?
It isn’t a matter of ‘right’ it is a matter of necessity. It wasn’t a matter of necessity until the cultural problems in the Middle East spilled over into the streets of New York City.
This argument sounds convincing until you realize that the source of these problems which spilled over into our streets was nowhere near Baghadad. It’s convenient to regionalize the problem so as to include Iraq, but not one of the hijackers was from Iraq.
If their problems spilling onto our streets justified actions, the actions should be much more directly targeted. That way innocent Iraqi women and children don’t have to be blown to bits to help us correct the problem.
Seriously…the logic here is that one day, years from now, those responsible will be stopped because we put into motion this incredibly messy action killing untold thousands of innocents along the way.
I understand the “better them than us” mentality when “them” equals those responsible, but not when it equals people who had absolutely nothing at all to do with the conflict on either end. Virtually none of the now dead Iraqis were ever going to threaten us.
We didn’t kill them because it was us vs. them. We killed them because economically, we can’t kill those more directly responsible without harming ourselves in the process…it’s a freakin’ proxy war with nothing but delusional hopes that it will have any effect at all on the real problem, the real culprits, the real enemy.
Thousands of innocents. Thousands!
Jes asks “Oh really? Under what circumstances are you envisaging not invading Iraq leading to the deaths of over a hundred thousand Americans? (Or rather, proportional to the population as a whole, over 3.3M Americans?)”
Let’s negotiate a number first, it might impact the answer. So, proportional first. Given most of the terrorists murdering is in the high population areas, closest to the cameras, that would proportionately correspond to our biggest cities in mostly blue states. If you could convince me that by not invading Iraq, only NYC and LA would suffer, I might be pursuaded to capitulate some of my arguement.
Blogbuds: If you could convince me that by not invading Iraq, only NYC and LA would suffer, I might be pursuaded to capitulate some of my arguement.
Now you’re just being snarky for the sake of it: sorry, I decline the bait. 😉
Re Abu Ghraib:
Its propaganda value in the Middle East isn’t nearly as high (or rather low) because of the prevalance of torture throughout the region.
Um. Are you under the impression that most people in the Middle East are particularly happy with their governments? That’s the only way I can see this statement making sense.
Jes,
“Why do you think that invading Iraq had any connection with protecting the US from al-Qaeda?”
One thing that we can all agree on is that Hussien wanted WMD.
All the post-War reports support this. I don’t think anyone reasonable on either side of the issue debates this fact.
We can all agree that Hussein actively worked to decieve the U.N. inspectors.
We can all agree that Hussein was willing to use WMD.
We can all agree that there was a history between Iraq and AQ. We can argue the depth of that relationship, we can argue the significance of that relationship, but we can’t argue that was not some contact. It was believed by many of the top leaders in the Clinton administratin that Iraq and AQ had some kind of relationship with the factory in Sudan that Clinton had destroyed.
We can all agree that AQ is in hot pursuit of WMD.
Based on history and character, I chose not to give the benefit of doubt to Hussein or AQ.
You seem to do that… that’s were we differ.
Edward: I only included the bit about al Qaeda because, having reread the resolution in response to this post, I knew that that harboring terrorists who threaten the US was one of the things they alleged in it.
Blogbudsman: I am seriously skeptical of the claim that had we not invaded Iraq, they would have given anything to al Qaeda, or to any other terrorist organization. Saddam was not working with them, and had in general no interest in tying himself to uncontrollable third parties. It’s the flip side of the fact that he was a brutal tyrant who oppressed his own people: it was all about him controlling things.
Sebastian et al: What level of certainty do you have to have about the claim that taking some step would decrease the likelihood of some future problem before you get to invade another country and get thousands of civilians killed? And did you have that level of certainty about Iraq? I see no evidence — none at all — that we have made ourselves even a little safer by invading Iraq; if anything, I think we’ve put ourselves at much greater risk.
And on the side topic of democratizing Iran: one of the very few silver linings I saw to the Iranian revolution was that Iran would come to see the value of democracy on its own, rather than rejecting it as ours. (Sort of like when I discovered that working hard in school was not just what my parents forever told me I should do, but actually a good idea.) We have set that back years, if not decades.
I think CB’s post has the shrillness of desperation. He is using the same ploy that is the mainstay of Rush and Fox: when stuck with defending the indefensible, don’t defend. Attack.. Attack on a minor point or irrelevance and focus the debate elsewhere.
It doesn’t matter what porportion of the salespitch was about WMD’s. The point is we got into the war based on a salespitch, not a clearly and honestly expressed policy. George Bush and his crew have never once gone before the American people to outline openly the Neocon domino theory or to present the theory for examination. We got in under false pretenses.
Now that the salespitch is in tatters we are finally discussing the actual policy behind the war. Not that the Bush ad. is engaged in the discussion. We are. Bush is up in his bubble, his “no bad news zone”, above any discussion.
On this thread the defense of the war is either “we did it because we could” or “we did it because would would have to do it sooner or later” which means we did it because we wanted to. Sebastian wrote that we had to attack Iraq, Syria, or Iran(he doesn’t say why) and that Iraq “made sense” partly because Saddam was in his opinion making propaganda points about America backing down too easly.
I’ve suspected all along that once you scrape off all the crap one of the real reasons for the invasion was simply to kick the shit out of someone in order to make up for 911 and we picked Iraq because they were disarmed and presumably couldn’t fight back. In other words we attacked Iraq not because they were a threat but because they weren’t; they were supposed to be easy. Americans love a winner and hate a loser. For a week the Iraq war made lots of people feel like winners. Remember all the flags? Remember how excited people were? Yeah for our team!
Well sheer jingoism is a big part of the support for the war and I’m glad Sebastion finally brought it into the debate.
But the bottom line far as I’m concerned is that all of us need to keep pressuring the Bush Ad to bring their real agenda to the public for open debate. Now that the salespitch is in the trashcan let’s talk about the neocon ideas. Let’s talk about them so that the people most concerned-our soldiers and their people- will know what the killing is really about.
Saddam was a special case (at least in my mind) because he had ties with many terrorist organizations, has had serious WMD aims in the past, has fooled the inspectors before (1990 nuclear program), has shown a willingness to use banned weapons (against his own people and against Iran), had openly declared himself an enemy of the United States, had tried to assasinate an ex-President, was linked to the orignal WTC bombing, and had a ten year history of blatantly interfering with inspectors, including a four period of not allowing them to work at all, and was one of the prime symbols of the glass jaw myth which has been extremely popular in the Middle East because of Carter’s debacle with the hostages, Reagan’s retreat from Lebanon, Bush I’s failure to get rid of Saddam, and Clinton’s debacles in Somalia combined with his ‘throw some missiles from a distance’ response to the embassy bombings. There are probably other factors that I can’t remember at the moment, but those would be plenty for me. (Oh, how about one of his officials seeking uranium in Niger. [anti-troll measure, SEEKING NOT OBTAINING] Why was he doing that?)
And yes, before someone mentions it, I would advocate invading North Korea if I could figure out a way to do it with getting Seoul leveled.
“And on the side topic of democratizing Iran: one of the very few silver linings I saw to the Iranian revolution was that Iran would come to see the value of democracy on its own, rather than rejecting it as ours. (Sort of like when I discovered that working hard in school was not just what my parents forever told me I should do, but actually a good idea.) We have set that back years, if not decades.”
I think you are misreading the Iranian issue. Iran was not going to democratize peacefully because the mullahs are still willing to use all of their force against the population (as opposed to say Gorbachev’s unwillingness).
Smlook: One thing that we can all agree on is that Hussien wanted WMD.
And one thing we can all agree on (now) is that he did not have WMD: nor had he any means of producing WMD. Therefore, what he wanted was irrelevant. (I want to stand on the surface of the Moon. But I have no chance of actually doing this.)
We can all agree that Hussein actively worked to decieve the U.N. inspectors.
Can we? At what point are you claiming this for? Given that Hussein said all along that he had no WMD, and that he had no WMD, how is this “actively working to deceive”?
We can all agree that there was a history between Iraq and AQ.
We can all agree that this is pure fantasy. In areas of Iraq controlled by Saddam Hussein, there was less Al-Qaeda activity than there was in virtually any other country in the Middle East. If you’re looking for a country with a proven connection with Al-Qaeda, you’re looking at Saudi Arabia, not Iraq. There is literally no reliable evidence, nor ever was, that there was any connection at all between Hussein and bin Laden, or between Hussein and al-Qaeda.
We can all agree that AQ is in hot pursuit of WMD.
It’s possible. I don’t know enough about al-Qaeda’s plans. I will note, however, that the two major attacks by al-Qaeda in the past three years, both massively lethal, neither of them involved WMD. Which is unsurprising, when you think of biological agents or chemical agents: when they have actually been used in terrorist attacks, they have proven surprising ineffective.
Based on history and character, I chose not to give the benefit of doubt to Hussein or AQ.
But you’re quite prepared, apparently, to give the benefit of the doubt to the other Middle Eastern countries with far stronger links to Al-Qaeda, and equal ability to access WMD. Why is that? If the extremely uncertain links between Hussein and al-Qaeda are enough to justify invading Iraq, why do you feel Iraq had to be invaded first, when so many other countries had far stronger and more certain links with al-Qaeda?
“if I could figure out a way to do it with getting Seoul leveled.”
Well, gee, Sebastian, that’s not so hard …
Sebastian: I had special ‘snark’ tags around my comment, but they vanished.
I thought this was about “advise and consent” but I wasn’t surprised at Biden’s condescending lecture to Rice at the end of the hearing: “For God’s sake, don’t listen to (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld. He doesn’t know what in the hell he’s talking about on this.”
The naked bitterness of a party in the minority for the forseeable future, there for all to see.
Sebastian: because he had ties with many terrorist organizations
Or so it’s been claimed. As far as has been proven, though, his only direct links with terrorist organizations have been with Palestinian organizations – post facto payments to the families of suicide bombers. Since Palestinian suicide bombers do not target Americans, and since Palestinian terrorist organizations present no threat to the US, the worst you can argue is that Saddam Hussein’s payments may have encouraged more Palestinians to volunteer for suicide bombing. Hard to see how that justifies a US invasion of Iraq.
has had serious WMD aims in the past
Having “had serious WMD aims in the past” does not justify invasion in the present. No more than the mass murders of 1988 justified an invasion in 2003.
has fooled the inspectors before (1990 nuclear program),
Say rather has unsuccessfully attempted to fool inspectors in the past, right?
has shown a willingness to use banned weapons (against his own people and against Iran),
With the open encouragement of the US at the time, please note.
had openly declared himself an enemy of the United States,
Though not while the US was encouraging him to use banned weapons against Iran, and looking the other way while he used them against his own people…
had tried to assasinate an ex-President
In 1973, the US assassinated an elected President of a sovereign nation. Does this justify, in your view, an attack by Chile on the US, killing 3.3M Americans? If not, why not?
was linked to the orignal WTC bombing,
…which might have justified an attack in 1993, but can hardly be held to justify an attack in 2003.
and had a ten year history of blatantly interfering with inspectors
of unsuccessfully attempting to interfere with inspectors. As we know, he didn’t have WMD. He didn’t have the ability or resources to develop WMD. The inspectors succeeded.
“Sebastian: I had special ‘snark’ tags around my comment, but they vanished.”
I would have taken it as such anyway. 🙂 I like a good snark.
It’s a good thing that the posters here weren’t Yankee’s. The Civil War would have never been fought.
I guess it’s obvious how the North really screwed up the situation in the South because they didn’t let the South decide come to it on their own. If they had former slaves and their families might not have had to experience almost 90 years of Jim Crow laws.
Hindsight is always 20/20
“if I could figure out a way to do it with getting Seoul leveled.”
Particularly unfortunate typo, or Freudian slip?
You decide.
Bush specifically argued against an imminent threat standard in his State of the Union Address when he said that we can’t wait until the threat become ‘imminent’ because we don’t get as much warning as we would need to counter it.
And Brutus is an honorable man.
we pretty clearly divide into the Rumsfeld camp — go massive; sweep up Iraq in order to finish the work left undone from GWI — and the old school Powell camp — don’t invade Iraq without a plan for installing a new govt.
Congrats to the Rumsfeldians on your political victory. As we move into the second term of GWB, us Powellites ask two favors.
1. please learn the lesson that winning peace is harder than winning wars. If Iran poses such a grave threat that it cannot be left alone, have a plan for the formation of a new govt BEFORE launching a new war.
2. please find a way to engage the Iraqi Sunnis before civil war becomes inevitable. The election is likely to produce a govt that is overweighted to Shia and Kurds. Down that road lies a constitution unacceptable to the Sunnis and, thereafter, civil war.
Francis
For another perspective on the admission that there were no WMD’s check out this website: http://abutamam.blogspot.com. Scroll down to the jan. 15 entry.
I am prone to typos, but I don’t see it.
I am prone to typos, but I don’t see it.
WITH Seoul leveled?
The sane faction assumed you meant to say “without getting Seoul leveled.” Perhaps we were mistaken.
The sane faction assumed you meant to say “without getting Seoul leveled.” Perhaps we were mistaken.
Sebastian: that was the point of my snark…
LOL. A perfect example of knowing so well what it is supposed to say, that you can’t see what it actually says. Bad brain!
The part where the administration gets a free pass for saying things that aren’t true because they were mistaken.
An incumbent war president in a strong economy getting just 286 electoral votes doesn’t sound like a free pass to me. Bush risked his presidency by removing Saddam and he came uncomfortably close to being a one-termer.
No, of course not, because Barney the dog is grossly unqualified for the position of Secretary of State. So is Condoleezza Rice.
If Rice were unqualified, she wouldn’t have made it through the committee 16-2. Although I hate doing hypotheticals, I’ll go out on a limb and say the Barney vote would be 0-18 against.
Whose mistaken references, Charles? Who made the mistake?
Ari Fleisher, one time, when he said Iraq posed an imminent threat, and I believe he said it not long after Baghdad fell. It was a mistaken reference because it was contrary to the established administration position. There may have been one other incident but my memory’s fading on it.
Really, what do you envision Boxer’s thought process to be here?
I don’t envision Boxer’s thought process, and I’m not convinced that Boxer envisions her thought process either. She made specific statements, without explanation or clarification, so they should be judged on their face.
You managed to prove that George W. Bush and the rest of the administration did not give Iraq’s WMD as a primary reason why the US should invade?
No, the links showed that the rationale for removing Saddam was not “WMD, period”. The one link showed 22 other reasons.
Your problem with Senator Boxer is that her performance in the Senate was too impressive for your liking, and she was more accurate that you like to think.
Today’s Karnak Award for mindreading by liberals to you, Jes. Boxer marginalized herself, but she can do that because her seat is safe for the next five-plus years. As for the imminent threat canard, the administration was clear that a reason for removing Saddam was so that his regime would not become an imminent threat. As it turned out, the threat of Saddam was significantly less than advertised, revealing serious intelligence failures. When you have a dictator who cannot be trusted, whom David Kay said was not cooperating and not complying with Res 1441, and when you have a CIA director who said it was a “slam dunk” that Saddam had WMDs, the choice was made.
Today’s Karnak Award for mindreading by liberals to you, Jes.
You mean there’s a separate one for conservatives? What’s it called?
Hilzoy, I think I know what you’re saying about Saddaam and al Qaeda. He would not readily give up any control over his own position to ‘partner’ with another terrorist group. Especially if it could keep him under the radar for future sanctions. (We’re presuming here, no war, sanctions over, inspectors out, oil-for-food Security Counsel members in the bank.) I read once after Desert Storm that the Bedouins respected the ‘survivor’ of a conflict, even if he wasn’t the all out victor. Saddaam would have maintained his dictatorship card; the sons would still be shooting people for sideward glances and their regime could patiently continue their quest to re-engage in the WMD market. I don’t think he would have felt the need to sign on with Osama for any quid pro quo deal. But there are all sorts of ways to aid and abet a cause. Saddaam was already dabbling in some. Saddaam had to believe he was home free, a short few years from emerging clean from Desert Storm, a few more poker hands away from competing again for regional dominance. That’s why he wouldn’t admit to having no WMD, that’s why he couldn’t show any weakness or signs of defeat. Bedouins don’t do that. What we did needed to be done.
Is there any contemporary evidence that this was your position prior to the actual invasion? Posts at some other blog? Letters to the editor in your local paper?
Most of it was at Tacitus, but his pre-Scoop posts can’t be accessed at present. You’ll have to take my word for it. Or not.
Is there any current evidence that Iraq was not in point of fact complying with binding UNSC resolutions?
David Kay, in press interviews and in front of Congress, was pretty clear in stating that Saddam was violating Res 1441.
Do you sincerely believe that an almost-identical War Powers Act authorization (lacking only the WMD language and proposed in the absence of a constant stream of “smoking mushroom cloud” rhetoric issuing forth from the bully pulpit) would have passed?
Probably not, but we’ll never know how this hypothetical would have played out.
Jes,
The Lancet study is seriously flawed and unreliable. Even a liberal like Fred Kaplan couldn’t stomach it.
BD, there have been several threads about the Lancet study on philosophy/econometrics (whatever the hell that is)/science blogs, and as far as I can tell the methodology used is sound. See the archives of Crooked Timber for a good discussion, or Tim Lambert if you prefer.
We wouldn’t need to infer civilian casualty counts, or parse statistical analyses about them, if the US or Allawi’s government was keeping track of them. Instead, we have a standing policy of not counting civilian casualties.
Why is that?
If Rice were unqualified, she wouldn’t have made it through the committee 16-2.
That’s charmingly naive of you, BD.
There’s a huge, gray, hairy beast with a long trunk and tusks sitting in my living room right now…
Wait a second, bub, I never said I had an elephant in my living room!
CaseyL, can you provide a cite establishing that the US has “a standing policy of not counting civilian casualties”?
there have been several threads about the Lancet study on philosophy/econometrics (whatever the hell that is)/science blogs, and as far as I can tell the methodology used is sound.
Sorry, but I don’t accept as sound a study with a 95% confidenced interval that 8,000 to 194,000 civilians were killed, or that one-third of the 300,000 in Fallujah were killed in 14 months. Crooked Timber tried valiantly, but there’s no defending a study like this. From now on, I’ll just state that the Lancet study showed 194,000 civilians outside Fallujah were killed, since their confidence levels for 194,000 and 98,000 are the same.
You mean there’s a separate one for conservatives? What’s it called?
When there’s enough evidence of conservatives doing Vulcan mind melds and whatnot, an award will be created. However, this appears to be mostly a liberal trait, where many try to criticize intentions rather than what was actually said and done.
That’s charmingly naive of you, BD.
If the Democratic Senators didn’t think Rice was qualified but voted yea anyway, they would be violating their constitutional duty of advise and consent. You may think it naive, but I would hope that the Democratic Senators are taking their role a little more seriously than you might surmise.
BD: “since their confidence levels for 194,000 and 98,000 are the same.”
This is wrong. The probability that the actual level of deaths is between 8,000 and 194,000 is 95%. But this doesn’t mean that the probability of its being at any two points between these numbers is the same. 98,000 is much more likely than 194,000.
Now offering the text of the resolution is one way to interpret “what we voted on” in this context, but another way to interpret it is the evidence that convinced the Senate to approve the resolution.
Again, Boxer’s own words, Edward:
I don’t understand why you’re excusing this underperforming US Senator.
Also note that, depending on the method, one can arrive at probability distributions that are asymmetric and have multiple maxima.
Too bad you weren’t around for the Crooked Timber debate, CB – perhaps you could put up a blog challenge on the subject a la von and invite Lambert and the Timberites to participate.
When I took biostat I never imagined I’d be putting it to this sort of use 😉
Also note that, depending on the method, one can arrive at probability distributions that are asymmetric and have multiple maxima.
As I and another commenter remarked to Slarti during one of the original discussions of the Lancet study, that’s probably not the case: by the Central Limit Theorem, the distribution of the estimator will be approximately normal (hence symmetric and unimodal).
Charles:
I don’t understand why you’re excusing this underperforming US Senator.
Frankly, the more pertinent question is why you are excusing the underperforming NSA and soon to be Secretary of State — her misconduct (including the nonsense in her testimony) vastly outweighs any rhetorical excess by Boxer.
Instead, we have this phony post about the degree WMD-hype was the rrationale for the war, and meaningless quibling over Boxer’s hyperbole in referring to it as the sole reason for the war. It was clearly the most important issue by far.
The greater sin here is Rice’s obfuscation of the truth rather than Boxer’s exaggerated rhetoric.
Bird Dog: The Lancet study is seriously flawed and unreliable.
I have seen nothing from the scientific community to say so. Have you? (I have, of course, seen a good many political diatribes objecting to the results – but that’s politics, not science.)
A parting shot for anybody that comes back this way. I read
Iowa Hawk via Instapundit and it struck a nerve:“We may be doing the Lord’s work here, gentlemen, but the local tribes do not always look kindly on it,” he warned. “Last month one of our tenured friars merely told his students that Bush was the anti-Christ, and he was viciously attacked by counterarguments. He was so traumatized he had to report the student to the disciplinary committee.”
Compare and contrast Boxer’s approach with that of someone with rather less experience.
I’m thinking this is a guy who’s a serious contender for the White House. Dunno when he’s going to do it, but he’s willing to walk the righteous path instead of going for the soundbite. He’s smart, he’s done his homework, and he treats others with respect. This is a class act, L&G.
This is a class act
Totally agree…hopefully he’ll influence behavior on both sides of the aisle.
I’d have to see him in action a bit more, Edward, but based on what I’ve seen so far, he’d have my vote.
“As I and another commenter remarked to Slarti during one of the original discussions of the Lancet study, that’s probably not the case: by the Central Limit Theorem, the distribution of the estimator will be approximately normal (hence symmetric and unimodal).”
Wasn’t referring to the Lancet study per se, just the idea that generally speaking an estimator has to be as you describe. Anyway when we do maximum likelihood analyses in physics it’s considered natural to get funky distributions.
From the Belgravia link:
“his background of privilege is in sharp contrast to Condi’s.”
This seems hackish to me.
Sorry, I missed this. I think one of two things must be true: either I’m not understanding you, or you’ve somehow acquired a misunderstanding of what the Central Limit Theorem is all about. I’m leaning toward the former, so perhaps some clarification of why you think it applies in this way might be in order.
I think one of two things must be true: either I’m not understanding you, or you’ve somehow acquired a misunderstanding of what the Central Limit Theorem is all about.
Here’s the standard formulation: CLT at Mathworld. In short: if X_1, …, are a sequence of independent random statistics on a fixed set of variables, where X_i have arbitrary distributions, then the estimator Y = (1/n) (X_1 + … + X_n) is approximately normally distributed. In this case, I’m assuming [though I haven’t checked the details] that the Lancet study is fundamentally using some kind of “average estimator” to gauge the level of casualties, which means that the end result — the confidence interval which sparked this whole conversation — would end up being the result of a symmetric unimodal distribution.
Part of the confusion was that I was being a little sloppy in my invocation of CLT: to meaningfully apply, you have to posit that the statistics are independent. [See, e.g., the note about the “fuzzy CLT” at the bottom of the Mathworld page.] You could obviously have systemic biases that skew your distributions one way or the other but that’s OK as long as they’re uncorrelated (it’ll throw the individual distributions out of whack but the distribution of the estimator would still qualitatively be the same); the way CLT would fail to hold is if the errors start to correlate, thus destroying the independence of the statistics.
[There’s another problem with capped distributions, i.e. distributions where the variable cannot attain values above or below a certain margin, if your means are “too close” to the edges, but I don’t really know much about that. I don’t think it applies here, though.]
All that, however, is from a pure mathematician’s perspective. If there are problems that arise out there in the real world (urgh!) that render CLT inapplicable, I’m all ears.
I wasn’t asking for an explanation of what CLT is, Anarch, I’m asking why you think CLT says anything one way or another about the case we’re discussing.
Consider the word variate, for instance, and tell me to what degree the sampling of the variate and the variate itself are interchangeable. Then we can talk about N, and after that, linear independence.
CLT is a handy tool indeed. It’s just one that needs to be used properly. I’m not saying it’s inapplicable; just asking you why you think it’s useful.