Well, winter came early for poor ole Joey from the CT. Better pundits than I have already blogged his political death from both the left and the right, so let this instead be a commemorative open thread for the good Senator. Stop by, offer a consoling thought, and, well, move on. ‘Cause he’s totally, like, last year.
Or, keep on fighting over Dean: below, in inviso-text, I attempt to respond to Katherine ’s and Oberon’s comments regarding my post last night on the good doctor. (By the way, this pretty much sums up what I’m feeling right now.)
von
First off, apologies for being away. You’ll find that happens with me a fair bit: you score a hit, I disappear. (It’s the work, I swear!) And apologies to Moe Lane for steppin’ on his posts: I was stuck in a warehouse all day, man, an’ I jus’ gotta blog!
Katherine: “I do think Hussein was contain-able, you deal with your most pressing threats first, and he was far, far, far from being that. You’ve noticed the lack of biological and chemical weapons, I’m sure.”
Yes, I noticed the lack of WMD, and the reasonableness of many people who opposed the war (my wife included). But here’s the problem: prior to the war, the only reasonable position, based on available evidence, was that Saddam had WMDs coming out of his wazoo. Dean acts like the failure to find WMDs means he’s got the shining. He don’t — it was just dumb luck. His snidery on this subject thus smells of arrogance, not brilliance. And his failure to have played the odds on WMD smacks of tomfoolery, not wisdom.
Oberon: “[Dean’s] view (and the view of millions of other people) was reasonable. One way to deal with Saddam’s potential WMD threat was aggressive inspections backed up by military force. It’s seems pretty obvious to me that it was possible to contain Iraq while we focused on Al-Qaeda.
Yes, let’s get Al-Qaeda first: I certainly wasn’t convinced that (WMD or no) Saddam was the “first evil.”* So I was willing to wait on Iraq — maybe a year, maybe two, until the rest of the world came around. But I never doubted that Iraq shouldn’t be on the list. Sanctions were unsustainable. Saddam was a menace. Iraq was too large, and too rich with oil, to contain indefinitely. And we couldn’t maintain our deterrent in Saudi Arabia much longer. Saddam had to go.
Moreover, as Richard Aubrey noted, no reasonable alternative was available. The panacea of certain anti-war types — “aggressive inspections” — coulda been easily worked by Saddam with the same means he worked the UN: do just enough to peal away a vote or two. Indeed, because the UN would ultimately be responsible for enforcing the aggres-o-specs, he could have worked aggressive sanctions while he worked the UN.
No: The only solution was for the U.S. to be the unilateralist bully. (Well, actually, if Bush were cleverer, he would’ve let eloquent Blair be the bully. He’d have cast himself in the Eastwood role: reluctant hero.)
By the way, it’s not clear that Oberon or Katherine necessarily disagrees with the above analys(es). Both, after all, are merely saying “wait just a moment there, young fella” on Iraq. They ain’t saying “stop.”
But, see, there’s there rub: when does the pregnant moment end?
Katherine: “Dean’s seven point plan was released in April shortly after the statue fell. It’s not surprising that it’s changed. It would be a little surprising if it hadn’t.”
Dean’s seven-point plan hasn’t changed, however: it’s still on the website and remains official Dean policy. Yet Dean repeatedly ignores its implications (no matter what Dean says, for instance, the boys and girls shouldn’t come home soon) to score cheap political points. Intellectual consistency on the central foreign policy issue of the season isn’t too much to ask, folks.
“[Dean’s] being optimistic about the possibility of support from other countries, but that’s true of almost every Democratic candidate and I don’t know why everyone is so sure they’d fail. They should be forced to answer the question ‘if we don’t get international support, then what?’; so far it’s barely been asked.”
I agree. Let’s start with the Democrat in the front row, yes?
*Buffy reference, So that Harley doesn’t wholly give up on me.
Hey, you’re not stepping on the posts or anything, man. Don’t sweat it.
As for Dean and the nomination, well, I agree that he’s got a lock on the nomination. Everybody agrees, it seems, that he’s got a lock on the nomination. The entire thing seems by now to have a ring of inevitability to it. Yup. Dean’s going to be the nominee.
(pause)
So why are my eyes narrowing when I reread that last paragraph?
So why are my eyes narrowing when I reread that last paragraph?
You mean this one?
“I agree. Let’s start with the Democrat in the front row, yes?”
I think it’s ’cause the VRWC Deathbeast smells blood — and for good reason . . . .
“You mean this one?”
No, although that’s a good second option. I was actually talking about my certainty that Dean is going to be the nominee. It’s very odd: I know that it’s going to happen, and yet something in my head is trying to get my attention on the matter…
But it’s probably nothing.
Of course it’s not inevitable. The press is overreacting; then they’ll overreact in the other direction in one to three weeks. And so it goes.
Did anyone see the debate tonight, by the way? I saw an excellent answer by Clark on Iraq–I didn’t entirely agree with it but it was very good. Dean had just said something that pissed off Kucinich and Sharpton, which I took to be a good sign, but I don’t actually know what he said.
and I do disagree with the above analysis, but am too tired. Tomorrow.
Great, now I’m yawning.
Y’all certainly know how to spice up a comments thread.
I’m still a little stunned by Wes Clark’s assertion that war should only be used after all other alternatives have been exhausted.
But although I agree with von’s statement that WMDs was a valid reason for war, I don’t think it’s the only reason. Here’s a few:
1) GWI was never really over, and Saddam repeatedly violated the cease-fire agreement.
2) After GWI, Saddam cleverly asked for some succession that, when granted, were used to suppress various uprisings. Rather brutally, I think.
3) Saddam’s been attempting to further destabilize the situation in Israel by funding families of suicide bombers.
4) Saddam also refused to produce or traceably destroy his known resources with which he could develop chem/bio weapons as he agreed.
5) Saddam put out hits on various information leakers, as well as former President GHWB. You don’t attempt to assassinate current or former Presidents and just get away scot-free.
That’s all I could think of right now, but I haven’t had my coffee yet.
1) GWI was never really over, and Saddam repeatedly violated the cease-fire agreement.
And the US (and the UK) had created illegal “no-fly zones” in Iraq.
2) After GWI, Saddam cleverly asked for some succession that, when granted, were used to suppress various uprisings. Rather brutally, I think.
Succession? I’m not quite clear what you mean by “succession”, but yes, having encouraged the Shi’ite uprisings, there is some evidence that the US then indirectly assisted Saddam to quell them on the grounds that it was better to have Saddam Hussein in control than have a free independent Islamic state.
3) Saddam’s been attempting to further destabilize the situation in Israel by funding families of suicide bombers.
And the US has been attempting to further destablize the situation in Israel/the Occupied Territories by encouraging Ariel Sharon in his murderously brutal actions against the Palestinians. Sorry, this item is not grounds for war against Iraq: certainly not by the US, which has also taken sides in the Israel/Palestine conflict.
4) Saddam also refused to produce or traceably destroy his known resources with which he could develop chem/bio weapons as he agreed.
And as no one has yet been able to prove that these resources still existed, this is again not grounds for war. Scott Ritter, who has the best track record yet of being right about the situation in Iraq, pointed out that proportionally, the amount of “missing materiel” that had not been traced could easily be down to clerical error.
5) Saddam put out hits on various information leakers, as well as former President GHWB. You don’t attempt to assassinate current or former Presidents and just get away scot-free.
Well, the US appears to expect to be able to do it: why not Iraq? Seriously: the US has no moral high ground to stand on in this matter, certainly not since the day B-52 bombers took out a restaurant on the grounds that Saddam Hussein might be there. At that point strict equity says that if Iraq took out a restaurant in Washington DC on the grounds that George W. Bush might be there, the US has no cause for complaint. (Major cause for complaint in that it would be an atrocity and a war crime – but if it’s an atrocity when Iraq does it to the US, it’s equally an atrocity when the US does it to Iraq.)
The US attack on Iraq was illegal – there’s no possible room for error.
The Bush&Co half-assed unplanned attack was wrong both in that it was illegal and that it was stupid. Offending your allies on the eve of a war that will require real international investment to succeed is just plain stupid. Yet Bush & Co went ahead and did it anyway.
Taking out Saddam Hussein on moral grounds? Most of the current administration have not a leg to stand on if they claim they did so: none of them objected in the least part to Saddam Hussein back when he was “our guy” in the Middle East, not when he was filling the mass graves and using WMD. None of them object now to supporting military dictators and torturers, providing these scum support the US.
Let’s be clear: PNAC wanted to invade Iraq for what they believed to be the US national interest. That’s the truth, and that’s honestly all the truth: no morality involved, no worries about the law.
That being so, it only makes them all the more stupid, to have planned it so badly that in forcing through the invasion they lost valuable allies, and to have planned on the basis of cherry-picked information – listening only to Iraq defectors who were telling them what they wanted to hear, refusing to listen to people who had experience on the ground but were saying waht they didn’t want to hear.
von, let me just deal with one thing that seems to especially bother you:
“Dean acts like the failure to find WMDs means he’s got the shining. He don’t — it was just dumb luck. His snidery on this subject thus smells of arrogance, not brilliance. And his failure to have played the odds on WMD smacks of tomfoolery, not wisdom.”
It’s true that if we’d found WMD, Dean would not be where he is and might well be out of the race. Then again, if Saddam had WMD, he very well might have used them against our soldiers or against Israel or passed them to terrorists to use against us (a lot of experts thought he’d give chem and bio weapons to terrorists if and only if we invaded. I don’t think Dean gambled on Saddam telling the truth; I think he thought possession of the same biological and chemical weapons he’d had all along was a lousy reason for a unilateral invasion, and would make us less safe. And if Saddam had had WMD, the war might now be unpopular for an entirely different set of reasons.
Also, I thought Saddam and bio and chem weapons before the war too. But I knew they were deliberately exaggerating and misleading people about the nuclear threat, and that made be think they might be exaggerating the extent of the biological and chemical threat too. And I thought that if we were going to go to war to pre-empt this grave threat of Saddam’s WMD, we had better make damn sure he had them beforehand or it was essentially war because we say so. We were in the situation of a prosecutor who knows a guy is guilty but we don’t have the evidence to convict him yet (obligatory disclaimer: only as far as WMD, obviously their are any number of things you could convict Saddam of.) Some of us thought at the time: you wait for the real evidence that closes the case, you don’t exaggerate and mislead the jury about what you’ve found. Well, we didn’t, and now our credibility is shot.
I’m projecting my thoughts onto Dean somewhat here, but nothing I’ve said is at all inconsistent with what he’s said.
P.S. What’s the thread title from?
P.S. What’s the thread title from?
It’s the penultimate paragaph of an unpublished novel by an unknown person.
(Snuffy’s Diner once existed, BTW — in Watch Hill, Rhode Island.)
I’ll have to wait until evening to meet you on the merits.
I didn’t bother to read past this:
But here’s the problem: prior to the war, the only reasonable position, based on available evidence, was that Saddam had WMDs coming out of his wazoo.
Crap.
Crap
Well sure he had that coming out of his wazoo as well, but…
Well, “crap” may be a bit undiplomatic, but there are certainly reasonable people who didn’t think Saddam had “WMDs coming out of his wazoo”. I thought he might have a small amount stashed somewhere, but I thought it highly unlikely that he had anything in quantity — and it was obvious to a lot of people that there was a lot of rhetorical gamesmanship and plain old BSing being offered in place of evidence for the existence of such wazoo-mounted weaponry.
Hans Blix, for instance, was such a reasonable person — so of course he had to be vilified as either incompetent or dishonest in order for the war to go ahead. Which might have something to do with why much of Europe was so out of joint over the whole thing.
Well, “crap” may be a bit undiplomatic, but there are certainly reasonable people who didn’t think Saddam had “WMDs coming out of his wazoo”. I thought he might have a small amount stashed somewhere, but I thought it highly unlikely that he had anything in quantity
Based on what? The French? They said Saddam = WMD out of Wazoo. The British? Same. The Italians? Same. The Saudis? Same. The UN? Same. The U.S.? Yeah, same and then some.*
Frankly, friend, if a statement of fact is enough to keep you from reading further, switch your major from from “sensible degree” to English.**
von
*I agree that the Bush administration emphasized certain aspects of it.
**I was briefly an English major, so I get to (briefly) say that.
Jes and Katherine, sorry, I’m too busy at present to respond to your sensible points. Perhaps later, when I’m done with the paying work. (Or, perhaps, just sweet sweet sleep.)
Oh, and I’m very pleased to agree with Slartibartfast. Had to happen at some point, I guess.
Frankly, friend, if a statement of fact is enough to keep you from reading further, switch your major from from “sensible degree” to English.
You’re complaining to the wrong person. I was the one who stopped reading at your “statement of fact”.
I knew at the time that the WMD claims were bogus, as did anyone who was paying attention. It was apparent from any number of sources. Time has shown that we were right. You were wrong. Get over it. Move on. Etc.
You’re right, JoJo. Zrblm, I’m sorry that I lumped you in with a viewpoint ya didn’t espouse. Blame it on the mind-numbing work . . .
So, JoJo, you think the correct answer, pre-war, was that the “WMD claims were bogus”? Based on what? A hunch?
So, JoJo, you think the correct answer, pre-war, was that the “WMD claims were bogus”? Based on what? A hunch?
Blix. Niger forgeries. Powell misrepresentations. You thought the WMD claims were valid? Based on what?
More importantly, who was right?
I don’t want to go back and forth endlessly here, but I think you’re conflating various governments and agencies saying that well, some WMD have not been accounted for, with the administration’s incredible exaggerations, extrapolations, and flat-out horsepuckey[*] served up to get people onside. I suppose it depends what you consider to count as “WMD up the wazoo”, of course. But I don’t see why the fact that you believed that the weapons were there, means that all reasonable people, being attentive to the available information, had to draw the same conclusion. Threat assessments are almost always exaggerated to some degree, and there was political advantage to the Clinton administration in pumping up the Iraq thread, too.
[*] No, perhaps they didn’t “lie” all that often, in that most statements had lawyerly[**] little escape hatches in them. But there were clearly a lot of deliberately misleading statements being made.
[**] Er, no offence.
“Frankly, friend, if a statement of fact is enough to keep you from reading further, switch your major from from ‘sensible degree’ to English.”
von, that is weak. Almost as weak as “the only reasonable position, based on available evidence, was that Saddam had WMDs coming out of his wazoo.”
You know that’s a statement of opinion. In fact I’m sure you know that it was reasonable before the war to hold the opinion that, based on the available evidence (and who was presenting it), Saddam might or might not have WMDs. That was my opinion. I know many smart people who were of the opinion that Saddam probably had few or none. I don’t think you were dumb for thinking otherwise, but you’re doing something like that.
I don’t think you were dumb for thinking otherwise.
I do.
Jo Jo, it’s a mixed-up muddled-up world, and one ought to distinguish between dumb on the one hand and naive, misinformed, momentarily confused, ideologically blinkered, tricked, deceived, and smart-but-plain-wrong on the other. This provides an example of something dumb.
I don’t think you were dumb for thinking otherwise.
I do.
First warning, Jojo: you are in violation of the Posting Rules. Please see rilkefan’s 1:06 AM entry on this thread for an example of how to seriously disagree with someone without stooping to personal insult.
And, no, you do not get to argue this.
I await von’s response. Your warning really worries me. What will I do if I can’t reply on the (stupidly named) Obsidian Wings. My life will be empty.
Alas, deliberate attempts to provoke a banning will only succeed with the use of gross profanity and/or hate speech, and I believe that either is a violation of most email servers’ TOS. As to what you will do without this site, well, you do voluntarily post here, so one does wonder.
I dodged the bullet? Good deal. So, Von, how did you get so deluded about WMD? Not saying you were DUMB or anything.
Now, was that so hard? 🙂
Real easy. That worked for you? Super.
[*] No, perhaps they didn’t “lie” all that often, in that most statements had lawyerly[**] little escape hatches in them. But there were clearly a lot of deliberately misleading statements being made.
That’s a fair point. I am not taking the position that the U.S. or British governments did not exaggerate certain aspects of the WMD threat to suit their purposes. It appears that they may have.
I suspect that most of your comments, Rikefan, JoJo, and Zrblm, are gut reactions to my WMDs out the wazoo formulation. I suspect you think that I’m trying to defend certain apparent excesses by the Bush administration in intelligence matters. I’m not. What I am stating, however, is that it’s unreasonable to have had the view, pre-war, that Saddam lacked significant, deliverable WMD capability.*
This isn’t based on the Nigerian nuclear forgeries, or questionable claims regarding Saddam’s ability to launch an attack in forty-five minutes. Rather, it’s based on the acknowledged facts** that Saddam had thousands of pounds of poison gas that were not accounted for pre-war, and that Saddam would not provide verification that such stocks had been destroyed. Indeed, it now appears that Saddam intentionally misrepresented his WMD capability pre-war, and chose to forego billions of dollars in aid and sanction-relief, rather than give up the pretense that Iraq had WMDs.
These unaccounted-for WMDs undoubtedly once existed. Saddam refused to verify they no longer existed. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, reasonable minds had to assume still existed. I.e, reasonable minds had to assume that WMDs coming out of Saddam’s wazoo.
BTW (and apologies for this), I won’t be able to respond further until much, much later (perhaps not until tomorrow). So unleash your slings and arrows with that knowledge.
von
*Rilkefan, I certainly agree that reasonable minds could have differing opinions regarding the condition of Saddam’s WMDs, or whether they posed the necessary imminent threat to the US. I don’t think reasonable minds, however, could hold the opinion that Saddam did not have the once-known-to-exists-and-now-unaccounted-for WMDs.
**Agreed to by every nation and person who had access to the relevant intelligence, including France, Blix, the UN, etc.
Real easy. That worked for you? Super.
Works for me too, JoJo. (Though your original formulation is not necessarily incorrect . . . . ) 🙂
Sorry, Jes and Katherine: I meant to respond to your comments as well, but I’m now out of time. My best. (And, BTW, Jes, I’m not gonna refight the “war was legal/illegal” battle with you. My answer is the question of the war’s strict legality under international law is open to debate, but that the US had a reasonable basis for acting as it did.)
Oh, damn. Forgot I had posted all that.
Ok, Jesurgislac:
1) And the US (and the UK) had created illegal “no-fly zones” in Iraq.
I think the legality of the no-fly zones is still much debated, and if the result of that debate was a clear victory for one side or the other, we wouldn’t be having this little chat. Here’s some interesting reading on the topic. I think the author is leaning toward dubious legality (although not outright illegal) but more toward questionable utility.
Probably it would have been shorter to note that your response in no way refuted my point, but that would have been far less fun.
2) Should have read concessions, not succession. Hey, I said it was pre-coffee. To clarify, the Iraqis requested that they be allowed to fly helicopters in their own airspace as part of the cease-fire, and Schwartzkopf okayed it. This decision was to have had grave consequences for the Kurds and Shiites.
3) Anyone who characterizes Israeli actions against Palestinians as “murderously brutal” without more severe criticism for Palestinian targeting of Israeli civilians (even children, in some instances) and without framing Israeli actions outside of context of what they’re in response to is not going to agree with anything I have to say on the subject.
4) Scott Ritter, who has the best track record yet of being right about the situation in Iraq, pointed out that proportionally, the amount of “missing materiel” that had not been traced could easily be down to clerical error.
Riiight. Of course, such clerical error would be completely acceptable if, say, we were inventorying weapons-grade materials at one of our national labs? No. The onus was on Iraq to either come up with all the items on the list or destroy them in a documented fashion. Certainly, they could have said something to the effect that, hey, we can’t find this and this and this. But they never did. As far as I can tell, they never came forth with anything at all that we didn’t find for ourselves. You need to watch the PBS series on Hussein. We’ve got pictures of some things that they never delivered.
Your response to item 5) just shows how far you’re willing to bend over backward to accommodate totalitarian regimes. If you don’t see any moral difference between Hussein and Bush, I can’t have this conversation with you.
The US attack on Iraq was illegal – there’s no possible room for error.
Sometimes you just crack me up. Look: you can’t have it both ways. If the UN Charter applies, then we were authorized under Resolution 678 to use force against Iraq. OTOH if it doesn’t, we were perfectly legal in our decision to go it alone.
The Bush&Co half-assed unplanned attack…
Sorry, lost interest at this point. Yes, it was so half-assed and so unplanned that it was arguably the least bloody military victory in history. And with that, I’m done with you.
Yes, it was so half-assed and so unplanned that it was arguably the least bloody military victory in history.
Kosovo?
I said arguably. I guess to get more specific I’d have to scale it to the size of the invasion force, or to the population of the invaded area, or something like that. Which I’m far too lazy to do. If you like, I’ll retract and amend by saying it was remarkably swift and bloodless.
Oh, arguably. Arguable away.
The Soviet take-over of parts of Eastern Europe might be another example. There might be foreign-sponsored coups that would morally pass muster. I don’t know how bloody the Nazi take-over of France etc was – not that I know how bloody Gulf II was.
“I don’t think reasonable minds, however, could hold the opinion that Saddam did not have the once-known-to-exists-and-now-unaccounted-for WMDs.”
von, you’re retrenching without admitting it. I spent about a month arguing with engineering physicists, guys with a great deal more knowledge about maintaining complex mechanical systems than you do unless you’re a genius, and perhaps more experience in totalitarian countries and a more present awareness of the effects of the sanctions.
I couldn’t come up with any good reason for Saddam to have maintained his WMDs except to use on us or his people when we invaded, to which the counterargument was, why not just bluff given the inspections? They thought that it was, well, dumb to think Iraq had built or was near building an a-bomb; that it was unlikely he had weaponized bio-stuff (though admittedly that’s not our field – the salmonella researcher I talked to was skeptical); that he might or might not have some very-short-range chemical weapons at least as dangerous to his troops as anyone else. The best argument for significant WMDs (I’m talking outside the Timothy McVeigh range) was the fact that Bush would need to find them to justify the war in the coming election and thus might be acting on the basis of classified info. We decided we weren’t politically astute enough to judge this, though.
Note that we weren’t smart enough to speculate about Saddam having used more CW against Iran than he had admitted, though on the other hand we (or at least I) thought the the US had kept an eye on this, having helped Iraq use them.
Fwiw, my colleagues were surprised to find Saddam had exactly zilch, figuring some of the stuff had probably been misplaced over the years, that there would be a defunct missile or two lying around which would get trumpeted as a casus belli. Being of a skeptical frame of mind, I wasn’t much surprised. They also thought that if they were wrong about the WMDs, invading would be especially dumb. Perhaps reasonable people can disagree about this last point – it seems pretty obvious to me though.
Fwiw, my colleagues were surprised to find Saddam had exactly zilch
…so far. I wouldn’t advise anyone to be too gleeful in declaring themselves “right” just yet on the WMD issue.
I wouldn’t advise anyone to be too gleeful in declaring themselves “right” just yet on the WMD issue.
So how long would you suggest we wait?
For the moment, it looks like you were “wrong” – and from what I’ve read, that’s what captured Iraqis in a position to know (and incentives to point to WMDs) are saying. After we’ve finished spending $1 billion looking, will you be satisfied?
Ok, so the past is the past – can we consider the bigger picture?
I guess $1 billion isn’t that much, actually, but let’s not be penny wise, pound foolish.
So how long would you suggest we wait?
Gosh I don’t know JoJo, are you ready to declare that Saddam Hussein never existed? How ’bout Osama Bed Linen? B.D. Cooper?
can we consider the bigger picture?
Hmmm. If I were “wrong” why on earth would the linked letter to Dr. Rice have any consequence? If there were no WMD why does it matter if Iraqi WMD specialists escaped or sit idle? Seems like a bit of paradox don’t you think? Sort of like saying the architects of El Dorado or Atlantis might get snatched up by Bechtel if we don’t hurry.
are you ready to declare that Saddam Hussein never existed?
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid,. Posting rules be damned.
So how long should we wail?
Posting rules be damned
Not to mention correct formatting.
Just to close the italics
Didn’t work for me either
There. Fixed one problem, at least.
Macallan, you’re being disingenuous, right? You know that Iraqi weapons scientists could be a danger to us if they were in a country with plenty of resources, good reasons to build WMDs, and lots of smart scientists and engineers – that isn’t suffering from sactions or enough inspections and that benefits from not being ruled by a whackjob tyrant? Like, say, Iran? Or would you rather they just disseminate their knowledge on the web? My lord, even if I thought the Iraqi scientists were uniformly a bunch of losers, I’d snap them up so that the administration doesn’t look totally stupid, incompetent, and inconsistent for letting them go and showing their degree of competency one way or the other.
How long should we wait?
How long should we wait?
Just wondering.
How long should we wait?
JoJo buddy, why the private e-mails? Why not post your brilliance for all to see here?
Macallan, you’re being disingenuous, right?
Disingenuous? No, just pointing out the inconsistency. I mean if the WMD didn’t exist, why would we care about the people who *didn’t* build them?
Macallan, please read my post. And could you and Jo Jo drop the “nyahh nyahh” joust?
I’m tired of waiting. I want WMD NOW! GIMME! NOW! Where are they? GIMME NOW. NOW DAMMIT!
Wimps. Jerks. Idiots. Fools. You aint got no WMD. Go home.
How to disagree within posting rules part II–and this is actually true: Macallan, you’re a smart guy. The “how do we know that Saddam existed?” analogy is a dumb, dumb argument. I think deep down you already know that, so I won’t bother addressing it.
JoJo, while the posting rules don’t cover private emails and I don’t know their content–if you’re using them to do what you can’t do on the board, I strongly disapprove. And I’m the one who agrees with you substantively and who half-wanted to allow cursing. So if that’s what you’re doing, please cut it out.
Robin Cook, as far as I can tell, came closer than any other politician to getting the WMD threat right before the war:
“Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term – namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target.
It probably still has biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions, but it has had them since the 1980s when US companies sold Saddam anthrax agents and the then British Government approved chemical and munitions factories.”
link ‘ere:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2859431.stm
if you’re using them to do what you can’t do on the board, I strongly disapprove
I called him a jerk. I’ll do so publicly. Macallan, you’re a jerk. All better? (Don’t know why he want that to be widely known.)
Italics again. Sorry.
“The ‘how do we know that Saddam existed?’ analogy is a dumb, dumb argument.”
Thank goodness I never made that argument. Whew. Jo Jo did. He can’t have it both ways. Either failure to find a sought after commodity in Iraq is evidence that it didn’t ever exist or isn’t. I agree it’s a dumb argument to make.
Or this
Actually, Jo Jo, he no doubt enjoys that – it undercuts your argument, which he is unable to refute. You’re being trolled – it’s what you’re doing too.
Has he made any argument beyond “crap”?
Thank goodness I never made that argument. Whew. Jo Jo did.
I never made any argument beyond “crap”, as Macallan pointed out. Didn’t think more was required.
At the risk of repeating myself:
How long should we wait?
How long should we wait?
Just wondering.
How long should we wait?
I’m tired of waiting. I want WMD NOW! GIMME! NOW! Where are they? GIMME NOW. NOW DAMMIT!
Wimps. Jerks. Idiots. Fools. You aint got no WMD. Go home.
“Wimps. Jerks. Idiots. Fools. You aint got no WMD. Go home.”
And so JoJo is banned. Not a unilateral decision, in case anyone’s interested.
Moe, it’s not like I’ll miss him, esp. since he wasn’t adding any substance (well, perhaps a sliver more than Macallan), but I find this lame.
On the other hand, I predict there will be a rising tide of such annoyances as time goes by – perhaps there’s some wisdom in building a dike here.
“Moe, it’s not like I’ll miss him, esp. since he wasn’t adding any substance (well, perhaps a sliver more than Macallan), but I find this lame.”
(holding up hands) I gave JoJo a clear idea of the line, told him what was and what was not acceptable and waited until I got the go-ahead sign from one of my cobloggers before banning him. Hey, I don’t want to ban anybody, but I also want to keep things reasonably calm around here.
Moe
Much wisdom. Use of “crap” as a rebuttal was the ticket to the ashcan for this thread. Between that and the juvenile behavior that followed, I have to say that though I’ve been a dedicated Dem voter as long as I could vote and never missed an election, if this sort of nonsense takes over the party, I stay home in November.
Yeah, the JoJo thing came over to my little corner of the blogosphere and spewed a little too. I haven’t bothered banning it, yet. Maybe a clue will form.
Hey, Moe, this isn’t sparring, you can put your hands down. Plus see the second half of my post.
It was calm here – it was getting a bit juvenile, perhaps, but that wasn’t just him. (Thank god I held back my “I poop on both your houses” witticism.) I bet he would have left (or shaped up when ignored.
Perhaps your policy could be that some incivility in the context of content is allowed.
Matt, how you can get from the idiocy of one poster (though I sure thought the argument in question deserved being called hooey) to giving up your right or rather duty to vote is beyond me. I can point you to oceans of Republican idiocy if you need your resolve stiffened.
rilkefan–for the record, I was the other one to give the ok. Which is a bit contrary to my instincts, as is the posting rule about not cursing. I know you’re not demanding an explanation, but I thought I’d give one anyway:
I’ve seen too many online discussions get ruined by a few idiots. In contrast, the site we lifted these rules from, Tacitus, has stayed quite decent–even though I find the views of at least 1/2 of the posters there to be so far from my own that we’re well past the point of “reasonable people can disagree”.
But I don’t want to have to listen to people call me pro-fascist, or accuse me of wanting soldiers to die, or what have you. So there have to be some guidelines. And given that, I want it to be on grounds that are stated ahead of time, and as content and ideology-neutral as possible.
And MattK, you had darned well better vote.
Rilkefan,
I can point you to oceans of Republican idiocy if you need your resolve stiffened.
Yup. That’s why I don’t vote Republican.
the idiocy of one poster
True, if it was just one poster. But Kos, as a much bigger example, has gone downhill since just early in the year. I’m not saying that the party has lost the ability to engage in civil discourse. I’m saying if it does, and yes, I honestly believe that is a possibility, a concurrence on goals will not make me amenable to sharing a ride with people whose view of how matters should be discussed consists of verbal bomb-throwing. It’s not an isolated incident, and I don’t care that Republicans do it, too.
Yes, it is a duty to vote, but every duty allows for conscientious objection. Everyone’s vote has a price, and the aforementioned is mine.
Katherine, I for one appreciate the intelligence you bring to the conversation. You three have got a good thing going here. I also appreciate your restraint in the face of provocation. Sometimes we get a little emotional about our views. Still, we can bring passion to the conversation without being idiots about it. I hope.
Matt, Kos seems mostly ok to me – I seldom read the comments, since life is short, but when I do they seem for the most part acceptable, given that it’s all one side. Ditto Atrios – the comments are a cheering section. Go read Calpundit or Brad DeLong or Matthew Yglesias or one of the other lefty blogs with thoughtful comments if you need reassuring you’re not in with a bunch of ravers.
And I respect your opinion about voting, but I’d cast my ballot for Clark or Dean if the left was a bunch of hyenas. It’s about what our representatives will do in office, not us.
Katherine, it’s your site, and I thank you for providing the forum, and I’m glad I don’t have to enfore rules, because it’s hard. I think there’s often too much testosterone or something over at Tacitus, which the occasional dust-up might alleviate, I don’t know – sociology is difficult, that’s why I’m a physicist.
Maybe someone could restart this thread from where it disintegrated.
Sorry, back to the thread:
von, you’re retrenching without admitting it. I spent about a month arguing with engineering physicists, guys with a great deal more knowledge about maintaining complex mechanical systems than you do unless you’re a genius, and perhaps more experience in totalitarian countries and a more present awareness of the effects of the sanctions.
Nope, Rilkefan. I’ve been very consistent in this position on the Tacitus comment boards. Macallan can confirm. The best evidence, pre-war, was that Saddam had WMDs coming out his wazoo. I don’t think, at base, anyone disputes this. (Save maybe for JoJo.)
Now, there’s no question that Dean’s hand has been strengthened because it looks like, contrary to pre-war evidence, WMDs do not exist. But do we ascribe this strengthening of hand to luck, or to Dean’s judgment? You know my answer.
Thus, my reaction to Dean’s attacks on persons with foreign policy experience (e.g., Kerry, Clark, Bush, Lieberman) for getting the WMD question wrong. These attacks make Dean look worse than the attacked — for they reveal that Dean has confused luck with judgment.
von
(Oh, and I concur with Moe’s and Katherine’s judgment regarding JoJo.)
Katherine, I for one appreciate the intelligence you bring to the conversation.
And I for one appreciate the intelligence brought the conversation by Slartibartfast, Macallan, Rilkefan, and MattK/D1* — as well as the esteemed Katherine and Moe Lane. And, for those lurkers out there who vehemently disagree with me or any of the foregoing, please jump in. We want a vibrant and diverse comment board.
von
*Apologies if I missed someone.
Hey, von, I’m someone, and can point you to a variety of other someones – check out the archives on Kevin Drum’s board for example. You’re citing the “best” evidence prewar as if that wasn’t a relative term. By this standard the best evidence shows that Bert&Ernie are a gay couple aimed by Sesame Street at converting straight kids. By this standard people holding your simplistic position and criticizing those who were right are unable to admit they were wrong and to reevaluate their reasoning – they sure seem to be ignoring the nuanced arguments against them (see above).
Anyway, I’m still (with Jo Jo) waiting for Macallan to explain when he’d accept there were essentially zilch WMDs in Iraq – when the $1 billion search is over, when there’s a pro-US liberal democracy in Iraq, when there’s ditto in Syria?
You’re citing the “best” evidence prewar as if that wasn’t a relative term.
Well, give me evidence that contradicts the above, i.e., pre-war evidence that Saddam destroyed his WMD stores. And, remember, Saddam was foregoing billions of dollars to maintain the pretense that he had WMDs pre-war.
von, it’s a long thread, but see above. If I wasn’t clear then I won’t be now, and anyway it doesn’t seem as if you understood my last post. You can check out this faq or this one if you prefer.
von, it’s a long thread, but see above. If I wasn’t clear then I won’t be now, and anyway it doesn’t seem as if you understood my last post.
I don’t understand this post either, Rilkefan. I’m not arguing that I wasn’t wrong about Iraq having WMDs. Clearly, I was. I’m suggesting, though, that in intelligence matters one plays the odds. And the odds here decidedly favored Saddam having WMDs, and quite a few of them, pre-war. That certain people bet against those odds doesn’t disprove the odds — indeed, Las Vegas is built on people betting against the odds.
It’s foolish, however, for me to win at slots and think that I did it because I had some unusual forsight that the next pull would yield cherry-cherry-cherry.
The best evidence, pre-war, was that Saddam had WMDs coming out his wazoo.
Well, I continue to dispute that. The best evidence, pre-war, was that there were unanswered questions regarding unaccounted-for portions of his pre-GW I stocks, and therefore that he could possibly have hidden something away. But, there wasn’t much of any evidence that he’d succeeded in manufacturing anything since the end of GW I — and since these things degrade, and require a substantial effort in storage and upkeep, anything usable leftover would be a fraction of a fraction. “Weapons up the wazoo[*]” connotes, to me, a large amount of weaponry in immediately-usable condition — and since I never really saw any direct evidence of that, and extrapolations from GW I and 1998-era knowledge (with allowances for shelf life, and stuff destroyed by the 1998 bombing) could just as easily be taken to mean he had nothing as he had something, I don’t think your statement is well-supported. Though I suspect we’re going to disagree on this. And then, when you throw in the fact that Blix found exactly jack squat, and that the US was unwilling to supply him with their supposedly conclusive evidence, by the time the war actually started I was pretty sure he didn’t have much, if anything.
So why did everyone think he had weapons? I don’t think they really did think that — they thought it was possible he did, and such statements made it easier to justify the policies then in place. The danger is in overestimating a threat to the point that your countermeasures create worse risks, which is exactly what I think Bush and his administration did — so classify me firmly in the anti this war now category. I don’t think that Dean was right about the weapons (and, to my mind, the war as a whole) because he had some special knowledge, but rather because he recognized early on that the dishonest presentation of the evidence by the Administration was effectively an admission that the real evidence they had was pretty weak.
[*] Unless what you really mean is that Hussein retained a very small quantity of weapons, and kept them concealed, er, about his person. Which is a highly amusing mental image.
The best evidence, pre-war, was that there were unanswered questions regarding unaccounted-for portions of his pre-GW I stocks, and therefore that he could possibly have hidden something away.
If I grant you that, then the rest of your argument follows. But that’s not the whole picture.
Saddam was foregoing billions in oil money by not verifying that Iraq was WMD-free, suggesting he had something to hide. Iraq’s borders were porous (particularly on the Syrian side, a fellow Ba’athist state). There was evidence that the sanctions were affecting the Iraqi people, but there was also evidence that Saddam was redirecting available funds to items that were important to him (“palace” building, for example, actually accelerated). Iraq had had a robust WMD program, and its principles were still in-country. Iraq is a large, closed country, and there was poor humanint on the regime (satellites and electronics can only tell so much). Chemical and biological weapons can be manufactured and maintained with minimal equipment — mustard gas, for example, requires only household chemicals. Moreover, much of the equipment used for WMD research is dual-use, making it easier to import (and avoid the effect of the sanctions). (There’s more, of course.)
Add this to the analysis, and I think the picture changes.
So glad I said you’re “retrenching” above, von – now you’re arguing we had to go to war over WWI tech (mustard gas).
I don’t think you’ve addressed the “why not just bluff” argument, or the sanctions regime, or the bombing regime, or the Scott Ritter margin-of-systematic-measurement-error argument, or the “the guys pushing this had obvious partisan reasons to do so and couldn’t keep their story straight anyway and refused to allow skeptics fair access to the data” argument. There’s more, of course.
Note that as I read your position, you not only have to prove it was obvious Saddam had WMDs, you have to prove that the Anti-this-war-now position was wrong on the merits.
So glad I said you’re “retrenching” above, von – now you’re arguing we had to go to war over WWI tech (mustard gas).
Rilkefan, this is getting tiresome. Re-read my original statement: “But here’s the problem: prior to the war, the only reasonable position, based on available evidence, was that Saddam had WMDs coming out of his wazoo.”
I have not retrenched at all. I have pointed out that (1) Saddam absolutely had large stocks of WMDs prior to GWI; (2) there was no record of their destruction (to the contrary, there were discoveries of additional, previously-unknown WMD programs after GWI); (3) Saddam acted in a manner that suggested he continued to have WMDs; and (4) WMDs are preposterously easy to build and/or maintain for a country as large and (relatively) powerful* as Iraq.
I most recently pointed out all the other, undisputed facts that also support my statement that (here it is again): “[P]rior to the war, the only reasonable position, based on available evidence, was that Saddam had WMDs coming out of his wazoo.”
You’ve not contravened a single of my statements. You have pointed out, however, that you and your friends were convinced that Saddam was WMD-free pre-war. Kudos for you for being right, but you were lucky, not wise.
Again, the merits of going to war are open to debate. As I pointed out, you can believe that Saddam had WMDs but they were degraded to the extent he posed no threat to the US while sanctions contninued. However, you cannot reasonably debate that the best pre-war answer, based on available evidence, was that Saddam had WMDs — coming out of his very wazoo.
I’m through here. Take the last word.
von
*Even with sanctions. See, e.g., second largest oil reserves in the world, porous borders.
von, I feel rather dumb taking “the last word”, especially since it seems to me that you didn’t have time to carefully read the thread in the first place, but Dare to Be Stupid.
Just to review, my position was that we hadn’t seen sufficient evidence to conclude that Saddam had numerous, working, deliverable WMDs. When you wrote that there were doubts about the “working” part I thought you were retrenching. I also held that if there were such WMDs, an invasion could lead to a bloodbath. Note that this argument was originally about Dean, and the “if, then” part of the reasoning is also important. Anyway, Zrblm said all this more eloquently above.
Re “wazoo”, you say Saddam had large stocks at some point – this doesn’t prove he did in ’03, and anyway you ignore the Ritter margin-of-error counterpoint raised repeatedly above. You say there’s no proof he destroyed his stocks – this isn’t evidence that he didn’t. You say he acted like he had WMDs – and I’ve argued he had good reason to bluff. You assert that it was easy for Iraq to build WMDs but ignore the sanctions and inspections regimes and the entire question of whether it made strategic sense post Gulf-I to have such weapons. You ignore the questions about the quality of the WMDs and the doubts about the delivery system. You ignore the counterevidence from my previous post and better posts by others upthread. You don’t justify why your reasoning came to the wrong conclusion (pace Macallan, waiting like Argos by the doorpost) – remember, you’re arguing it was unreasonable to have held that it wasn’t clear Saddam had WMDs.
In fact, in my view your best evidence that it wasn’t reasonable to be skeptical before the war is seen in the conclusion to your remarks on Zrblm’s excellent last post: “Add this to the analysis, and I think the picture changes.” But “I’m smart and I think you’re wrong” isn’t a convincing argument.
Thanks, Rilkefan.