First a little piece on Iran (http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/791)...

No matter how many mass graves our troops unearth, or torture chambers they shut down, or terrorist training camps they discover, the libs around here are still going to say Saddam Hussein is a better man than George W. Bush.

That is not the question. The question is whether Bush lied to the world, the UN, and the American people when he claimed that there were - or that he had good reason to suspect that there were - WMD in Iraq. He did lie. To the world. To the UNSC. To you. The is a liar, a traitor, an incompetent, and a war criminal.

Second, Skin, I'll concede the mobile WMD lab point to you, because I hadn't heard that they had announced that they'd discovered a different use for them. However, that has little bearing on justifications for the war, because as anyone here should know, all hindsight is 20/20.

First of all, nobody 'discovered' a different use for them. That they had wholly legitimate reasons to be around was evident from the beginning. Secondly, anything found after the invasion would be moot. There was no evidence before the invasion, and that makes the invasion patently illegal and the people responsible - Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld - personally responsible. Personally. Responsible.

If Saddam was so innocent on the WMD front, why'd he mess with the inspections and perpetuate the illusion that he had WMD?

Irrelevant. There was no evidence that he had WMD when Bush went to war.

If he had WMD and we just haven't yet found where he hid them (or the remnants of them),

Those being two entirely different things.

then he's guilty as charged, and got what he deserved.

Irrelevant. The guilt or innocence means nothing if it cannot be established before the judgement is ruled. If you murder your brother and cover up the evidence well enough to fool the judge and jury, you walk. No matter how much the police suspects you. No matter that you are guilty as sin. You walk, because the police didn't do its job properly. And if the police decide to beat you up after the trial, then they are at fault. No matter that you're guilty as sin. That's what civilisation means, after all.

If he bluffed and had no WMD, then we've called his bluff,

And in doing so, you have turned the United States into a rouge state.

- and the people of Iraq are better off for it, because they now have the freedom to choose their own government.

The inanity of that comment is utterly breathtaking. Quality of life has deteriorated sharply. Electricity, water, and gas is scarcer than ever. Average health has deteriorated. The country is on the brink of a civil war. To claim that the people of Iraq are better off now than before the war shows a degree of seperation from reality that's unusual even for a Fux viewer.

Furthermore, to claim that the successful elections are the result of American activities in the region is ludicrous and pathetic. That the elections were successful despite the criminal American mishandling of the post-invasion situation and the complete lack of contingency planning is a goddamn miracle that says far more about the tenacity and patriotism of the Iraqi people than anything else.

Either way, Saddam is guilty as sin for crimes against humanity, and no one here can deny it...

You're just a lying troll busy building strawmen to conceal the fact that I called you on your bluff. Nobody is denying that Hussein belongs in Hague (right alongside Bush, Cheney, and Milosevic). But that is, was, and will remain irrelevant.

There was no evidence of WMD. There was no UN mandate. There wasn't even a majority of the UNSC in favor. By every standard of international law and common decency, Bush should be in a prison in Hague for his crimes against humanity.

As for the arguments about links to terrorism, I again point you to the book Disinformation by Richard Minter.

And I once again ask for credible sources, that I know full well that neither you nor any other neo-con troll will ever provide.

ShadowTemplar, you said I won't cite my sources because I never did in the first place...talk to Skin about that. I may disagree with him (passionately, at times) on darn near everything, but if there's one thing I appreciate him for, it's that he did teach me to always cite my arguments - the guy's relentless on things like that.

Funny that. I didn't find you citing a single source on weapons that wasn't propaganda, obvious fabrication, refuted in short order, or any combination of the above.

And he was there through those past threads, so if I was just throwing things around haphazardly without citing any of it, he'd know...

Yeah, I remember. He called you on your lies then as well.

Oh, and a little something (http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1020-11.htm) for those who still believe that the Republican Noise Machine provides anything remotely reliable in the way of information.

The inanity of that comment is utterly breathtaking. Quality of life has deteriorated sharply. Electricity, water, and gas is scarcer than ever. Average health has deteriorated. The country is on the brink of a civil war. To claim that the people of Iraq are better off now than before the war shows a degree of seperation from reality that's unusual even for a Fux viewer.

Not to mention that now there's those pesky guys running around with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades shooting up police stations, blowing up mosques, launching mortars into neighborhoods, and detonating car-bombs on city streets. Considering that Iraqis are too terrified to leave their homes, provided that they even have a home that wasn't reduced to "collateral damage," I wouldn't say that the quality of life has improved at all for them. :/

Ok, i skipped a lot of that because these posts are just getting insanely long, but here are a few random uninformed points anyway:

dictators
As laudable as the goal of removing dictators and evil regimes is, there is a reason that international law and the UN isn't that keen on unilateral invasions of other countries. It would lead to anarchy, and it also depends a lot on your viewpoint which leaders need to be removed. Even with a guy as nasty as saddam, look at all the arguments it has generated. I suspect you could find a large proportion of the globe that would vote to have GW, or the kuwaiti royal family, or israel, etc.. removed from power. See the problem?
By bypassing the UN (whatever the arguments about it's effectiveness) the US has sent out a message that it is above the law and will use its might to remove anyone it doesn't agree with. That's not a great message to send out to some countries.

weapons in iraq
Its pretty clear there WERE no functioning WMDs in iraq, or they would have been either used, or turned over by all the scientists we have interrogated, and who have been falling over themselves to give us information.
The questions therfore become:
(a) Why were WE so sure that they were there?
(b) Why did saddam act as if they were there?
The answer to (a) seems to be that (1) our intelligence agencies were complete idiots, and based 99% of their conclusions on biased reports from a few people with a vested anti-saddam interest. (2) Everyone knew saddam was a nasty guy, so everyone assumed he MUST have WMDs... even though no one ever found any evidence (3) When intelligence reports went through politicians "possibilities" became "probabilities" and "probabilities" became "certainties".
The answer to (b) seems to be that saddam was playing a game of brinksmanship with the US/UN. He knew that they hadn't invaded before and was bluffing in order to make himself more important than he really was and to get better deals on sanctions. (without the threat of WMDs saddam was basically another tin-pot dictator to be ignored).
He seems to have badly misjudged the fact that post 9/11 things had changed, and the tricks he used to get himself noticed before might be more risky than before.

not using them if he has them
No one yet seems to have come up with a remotely plausible explanation why a guy like saddam, backed into a corner, knowing he was being invaded and likely to be captured/killed wouldn't have used any WMDs he might have had.
The only argument i can see that might hold any water is that it seems likely that his staff were lying to him because they wouldn;t want to admit to him that the war was going badly. (Remember the information minister?). That and the fact that the CIA had bribed a lot of high ranking army officers to all go home. But surely even saddam can't have been so totally insane that he wouldn;t have known he was losing... and surely ONE of those underlings who lied, was bribed, deserted or whatever instead of launching his WMD would have come forward by now?

terrorism
Its been said over and over again, but there is still no evidence, and no compelling evidence was even presented at the time, that saddam had any links with any terrorists other than the tenuous link of providing money to families of already dead suicde bombers in israel. That is hardly a clear and present danger to the threat of the US, or the world. All PRE-WAR al-quaida activity was in areas outside saddam's control. Its only since he was removed from power that they have extended their reach into the rest of iraq.

and so on..
Good things may eventually come out of this for the iraqi people. However that shouldn't take away from the fact that that ISN'T the reason we went in. And in the process we spread instability and terrorism, killed a hell of a lot of people, undermined the only global organisation we have that might stop wars and set a precedent of unilateral strikes against people we don't like. All to remove a tin-pot dictator who's hold on power was slipping anyway, and who probably would have fallen around now anyway.

My theory:

Saddam had WMD... once. However; after the end of the first Gulf War, all the sanctions, and being dogged by weapons inspectors continually started, then his bio- and chem-weapons programs started to fail. They became unsustainable under those conditions.

Yet they were still an effective enough threat to enemies both internal (Kurds, Shiites) and external (Iran) that he still wanted the entire world to think he had them. So he played games with the UN inspectors... to fool everyone into thinking he still had them somewhere... and to play to the Arab street, where he could be seen as the defiant ruler standing up to the west.

Once Bush and Co. decided to go into Iraq (sometime in the mid-afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001) he had to then try to prove a negative: "Show us proof you don't have something." An impossible thing to do, especially when those opposing you have already decided you are guilty, lying, and are going to great lengths to hide the things you say you don't have. That's why at the end he offered unlimited access to inspections, as well as stacks of paperwork... but it wasn't enough, apparently. Too little, too late.
He was like the boy who cried "Wolf!" (albeit somewhat in reverse: "There is no wolf!.. Uh, all that growling and howling you hear is nothing. Please ignore it. No, you cannot see what is behind that door." *Wink, wink*) too many times, and it came back to bite him in the ass.

However, if he did still have WMD up to the time of invasion, it seems out of character (at least the character portrait painted by the administration of a total madman looking to collect the most evil weapons on the planet and who had no qualms about using them in the past, to use at the first opportunity against Americans) to me that he wouldn't choose to use them.

Then there is the problem of disposing the thousands of tons of weapons we were all told he had during the build-up to our invasion. At that point we have to believe that the entire country was being observed 24/7 by spy satellites, recon flyovers, and covert-ops on the ground. Iraq was probably mapped down to the anthill, and high-value targets, such as the WMD facilities that we were all shown in Powell's presentation to the UN, must have been observed continually.

The idea that Iraq could get all the truckloads of canisters and equipment out of those places and into the desert to bury them without ever being seen by us; then manage to silence everyone ever involved with the creation, storage, concealment, transport, and final disposal of all this stuff (as well as their families, and maybe even their friends) from coming forward to the American troops once Saddam was out of power... Well, it all just seems like a bit of a stretch of the imagination to me.

Perhaps not totally impossible... just highly improbable. The simpler explanation: That he didn't have them but wanted to use the threat of them to hold his position of power; that just seems far more logical to me.

First a little piece on Iran...

Liberal propaganda. It looks as if either you wrote it or hired an HTML expert to do it for you, considering it nearly matches your writing style and attitude. If not, then God/Evo made two of them!


That is not the question. The question is whether Bush lied to the world, the UN, and the American people when he claimed that there were - or that he had good reason to suspect that there were - WMD in Iraq.

I know toms wrote about this later, but he sure as hell acted like he had them. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, is the color of a duck... It was certainly reason to suspect that Sadaam had them. The fact that we can't find them after the war is irrelevant. That was our reason for going in. We stick to that story. (Except for Bush, of course. I knew he didn't have the guts to stand up for his position.)

First of all, nobody 'discovered' a different use for them. That they had wholly legitimate reasons to be around was evident from the beginning.

Then why wasn't that brought up at the UN? Why didn't Sadaam explain away what they were for to the world? Then we wouldn't be in Iraq in the first place.

There was no evidence before the invasion, and that makes the invasion patently illegal and the people responsible - Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld - personally responsible. Personally. Responsible.

No need to repeat your bias; I heard it properly the first time. And the second. Now, if there was no such evidence, why wasn't Colin Powell blasted before the UN, and verbally anal-raped for his "BS"? He presented it to them, and most of them were either stunned by the report or outraged that Powell had the cajones to explain what all these WMDs can do. I WATCHED IT. In a sense, I was there, seeing the horrified expressions on the faces of the UN reps. So any attempt to say that I'm wrong in this regard will be discounted as BS.

The story is, they believed Iraq had WMDs but didn't want to risk their skins in Iraq for the most part. We (As in the US, UK, Australia, and everyone else we allied with) voulenteered to take the risk.

Those being two entirely different things.

In what way?

Irrelevant. The guilt or innocence means nothing if it cannot be established before the judgement is ruled. If you murder your brother and cover up the evidence well enough to fool the judge and jury, you walk. No matter how much the police suspects you. No matter that you are guilty as sin. You walk, because the police didn't do its job properly. And if the police decide to beat you up after the trial, then they are at fault. No matter that you're guilty as sin. That's what civilisation means, after all.

You seem quite anxious to defend Sadaam. If he is guilty of possessing WMDs, and can fool the jury, then he'll walk. NO MATTER HOW GUILTY HE IS. I'm using your analogy only.

And in doing so, you have turned the United States into a rouge state.

Again, mindless propaganda without proof.

The inanity of that comment is utterly breathtaking. Quality of life has deteriorated sharply. Electricity, water, and gas is scarcer than ever. Average health has deteriorated. The country is on the brink of a civil war. To claim that the people of Iraq are better off now than before the war shows a degree of seperation from reality that's unusual even for a [Fox] viewer.

Services are scarce, to be sure. That may be corrected in time, but you are right: Services, even basic ones, are scarce. But that doesn't have anything to do with the government, does it? The government cannot do anything until it has established power. That it cannot do, so long as the nation is on the brink of civil war. It will be a terrible thing if civil war does break out, to be sure. But realistically, that has been the pattern for almost every single decapitated empire in history. Remember lessons of what happened after Alexander the Great died? Three generals went into a bloody civil war that brought about the nation's decline. It is part of human nature to quarrel over who shall take power. It will be bloody, but inevitable.

Furthermore, to claim that the successful elections are the result of American activities in the region is ludicrous and pathetic. That the elections were successful despite the criminal American mishandling of the post-invasion situation and the complete lack of contingency planning is a goddamn miracle that says far more about the tenacity and patriotism of the Iraqi people than anything else.

Would you rather have Sadaam in power, then?

You're just a lying troll busy building strawmen to conceal the fact that I called you on your bluff. Nobody is denying that Hussein belongs in Hague (right alongside Bush, Cheney, and Milosevic). But that is, was, and will remain irrelevant.

YOU are just a ling troll busy knocking down everybody's strawmen so you can conceal the fact that he is right. Saying he is wrong would deny the thousands that lie dead in Iraq because they were brutally tortured and thrown into plastic shredders or whatever those machines are. Is it why we went into Iraq? No. But it became relevant to the Iraq war after Sadaam was removed. As long as we were there... why not set up a democracy, or at least a republic? The people needed a leader, and if we didn't help, a civil war was assured.

There was no evidence of WMD. There was no UN mandate. There wasn't even a majority of the UNSC in favor. By every standard of international law and common decency, Bush should be in a prison in Hague for his crimes against humanity.

Yet more propaganda. You will never find credible proof to back up your lies.

And I once again ask for credible sources, that I know full well that neither you nor any other neo-con troll will ever provide.

I could and do say the same about you. For every time I called your bluff in this post, find at least two credible sources, and show them. I promise I'll be fair and balanced when I look over the sources to see if there's any BS in the story.

Yeah, I remember. He called you on your lies then as well.

Oh, and a little something for those who still believe that the Republican Noise Machine provides anything remotely reliable in the way of information.

I said I'll be fair, and I will. Lemme look this over... Jesus Christ, you expect me to believe a word of this? From the word GO it's a propaganda article.

To be precise, researchers from the Program on International Policy at the University of Maryland found that those who relied on Fox for their news were more likely than those who relied on any other news source to have what the study called "significant misperceptions" about the war in Iraq.

Oh yeah? What's "significant misperceptions"? Disagreement with the "scientists" doing the study?

Overall, a scary 60 percent believed at least one of these fallacies. Eight percent believed all three.

Bull. I see no sources. I happen to believe none of these. And I am a "typical" Fox viewer. The ignorant who just watch O'Reilly with awe are of no concern. NOWHERE does it say that they tested based on the Fox reports only. NOWHERE does it say they didn't test people who only watch the opinion shows, and NOWHERE are the sources cited. Simply incredible, in the lowest possible terms.

The most commonly held was -- unsurprisingly -- the Iraq/al-Qaida link. Fully 48 percent of respondents believed this. The totals for the other two were in the 20 percent to 25 percent range.

Do I believe Iraq had a link to Al-Queda? Yes! But that wasn't the question. The question was whether there was evidence.

Fox News Senior Vice President John Moody retorted that the study only asked people about "their impressions, not what they knew to be true."

I'm not sure what point he thought he was making, but it was lost on me.

Frankly, me too. But when did he say that? Where?

I could go on through the entire article. For all we know, there was no study, and people are making this up as they go along. No sources anywhere. I suppose we're supposed to take their word for it, huh? That may have worked in the Mideval Age, but not in the 21st century. Anyone with half a brain could see that.

toms, I deeply regret skipping over you, you are the only liberal here who actually says what they believe instead of just flaming people who disagree with them, it seems. But time is pressing at the moment, and I must leave. Farewell; I'll be back to answer you.

EDIT: Dammit, my keyboard doesn't want me to type "u" today! uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu. There, That should fix it.

(a) Why were WE so sure that they were there?

[...]

The answer to (a) seems to be that (1) our intelligence agencies were complete idiots, and based 99% of their conclusions on biased reports from a few people with a vested anti-saddam interest. (2) Everyone knew saddam was a nasty guy, so everyone assumed he MUST have WMDs... even though no one ever found any evidence (3) When intelligence reports went through politicians "possibilities" became "probabilities" and "probabilities" became "certainties".

You forgot the most important one: Bush and Blair et al lied in their teeth and invented a crisis out of whole cloth.

Liberal propaganda.

How is it propaganda? Oh, the wording is strident, but which of the facts can you dispute?

It looks as if either you wrote it or hired an HTML expert to do it for you, considering it nearly matches your writing style and attitude. If not, then God/Evo made two of them!

The reason that I'm not the only one who holds those sentiments is that anyone who uses remotely reliable newsies for information knows these facts already those of us who have more than two brain cells to rub together know what we would be thinking if we were sitting in Tehran.

I know toms wrote about this later, but he sure as hell acted like he had them. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, is the color of a duck... It was certainly reason to suspect that Sadaam had them.

That's called probable cause, and in every civilised country you walk if the best the prosecution can do is probable cause.

The fact that we can't find them after the war is irrelevant.

Indeed. And it would have been equally irrelevant if you had found them.

That was our reason for going in.

Uh... Nope. That was the reason the rubes were told.

Then why wasn't that brought up at the UN? Why didn't Sadaam explain away what they were for to the world?

Uh? Those alleged labs were found after the invasion...

Then we wouldn't be in Iraq in the first place.

Bull.

No need to repeat your bias; I heard it properly the first time. And the second.

Ah, but if the Noise Machine has taught the world anything at all it is that inane repetition works. Unfortunately.

Now, if there was no such evidence, why wasn't Colin Powell blasted before the UN, and verbally anal-raped for his "BS"?

Uh, he was.

He presented it to them, and most of them were either stunned by the report or outraged that Powell had the cajones to explain what all these WMDs can do.

That's certainly one - uh - interpretation. In fact the shock and outrage was over the fact that Powell - a fundamentally decent and honest man - would prostitute himself professionally for his political overlords and lie in his teeth to the Assembly.

I WATCHED IT. In a sense, I was there, seeing the horrified expressions on the faces of the UN reps.

Primary sources, bitte.

The story is, they believed Iraq had WMDs but didn't want to risk their skins in Iraq for the most part.

Not the case with Germany. Their constitution explicitly bars them from waging illegal wars. Not the case with France - their spooks knew that the so-called 'evidence' presented was BS.

As for the rest, I couldn't say for certain, but certainly when both Germany and France thinks the war is unjustified and patently illegal, prudence suggests that you don't go hareing off in support of a rouge superpower's imperialist campaign?

We (As in the US, UK, Australia, and everyone else we allied with) voulenteered to take the risk.

No. You took it upon yourself to commit international vigilantй in clear defiance of solemn international treaties.

Those being two entirely different things.
In what way?

'Remains' of weapons means that the weapons are no longer there. 'Weapons' means that the weapons are still there.

You seem quite anxious to defend Sadaam.

No, I'm anxious to defend the rule of law and due process. If that means that a criminal walks or that a tin-pot dictator remains in power, then so be it. The alternative is unpalatable.

If he is guilty of possessing WMDs, and can fool the jury, then he'll walk. NO MATTER HOW GUILTY HE IS.

Yes. That's the point of the principle innocent until proven guilty. As you might recall, that quaint little principle was once upon a time a central guideline in what we used to call due process. Oh, he might get nailed for something else - like the human rights abuses - but WMD was what the US tried him on, and there wasn't enough evidence to lift the burden of proof.

I'm using your analogy only.

Yes, and you've understood it completely.

And in doing so, you have turned the United States into a rouge state.Again, mindless propaganda without proof.

What is your definition of 'rouge state,' then?

Services are scarce, to be sure. That may be corrected in time, but you are right: Services, even basic ones, are scarce. But that doesn't have anything to do with the government, does it?

The comment I responded to was: "The Iraqi people are better off because they have a say in their own government." I did no question whether they have more say over their government than under Hussein. I questioned whether that necessarily means that they are better off.

It will be a terrible thing if civil war does break out, to be sure. But realistically, that has been the pattern for almost every single decapitated empire in history.

Post-Franco Spain. Post-Pinochet Chile. Post-communist Russia. Post-monarchy Scandinavia. Post-colonial US.

Would you rather have Sadaam in power, then?

That depends on which question you are asking. The conduct of the war was criminally incompetent. The planning of the war was criminally incompetent. The war was patently illegal. The post-war contingency planning was utterly disastrous.

That there is no civil war in Iraq is pure luck - it certainly has nothing at all to do with American competence. You lucked out. So far. If you keep being ludicrously lucky, the situation will probably, eventually, get better than under Hussein. But I don't like to base foreign policy on 'assuming our luck holds'...

So, if you ask me whether I would go to war with no more information than we had before the war, I would have preferred Hussein.
If you ask me whether I would prefer Hussein to the mess we have now, I'm undecided.

On the one hand the security situation is going to hell, people are less safe than under Hussein, public health is deteriorating, and the infrastructure is even worse than under the dictatorship. And there's the distinct possiblity that it'll get worse. On the other hand, there is also the possibility for improvement. On balance, I don't really know which I'd prefer. All I can say is that we've been incredibly lucky so far. More lucky than anything I'd ever rely on being in my foreign policy.

YOU are just a l[y]ing troll busy knocking down everybody's strawmen so you can conceal the fact that he is right.

I'm not trying to conceal anything. He's perfectly right as far as the human rights violations go. And it's also perfectly irrelevant.

Is it why we went into Iraq? No. But it became relevant to the Iraq war after Sadaam was removed.

Nothing can change the legality of a war after it is started.

As long as we were there... why not set up a democracy, or at least a republic?

You go right ahead and try. If the Iraqi people succeed, I'll be impressed. I won't be convinced that the war was reasonable or justified - but I'll be impressed with the tenacity and patriotism of the Iraqi people. If you fail - well, that won't come as any big surprise...

There was no evidence of WMD. There was no UN mandate. There wasn't even a majority of the UNSC in favor. By every standard of international law and common decency, Bush should be in a prison in Hague for his crimes against humanity.
Yet more propaganda. You will never find credible proof to back up your lies.

Was there a UN mandate? Was there a majority of the UNSC in favor? Where was the evidence of WMD? By which standard should Bush not be in Hague? The burden of proof is squarely on you here.

I could and do say the same about you. For every time I called your bluff in this post, find at least two credible sources, and show them.

@ Iran: Do you doubt that the article I linked to represents facts correctly? Do you doubt the Iranian regime knows these facts? Do you doubt that they would draw the same conclusions?

I don't see any other occasions of your questioning my facts. Please outline your questions, and I'll find sources. Some of them may be in Danish, though, because most of the news I get happen to be in Danish. And our newsies rarely cite primary sources.

Oh, and a little something for those who still believe that the Republican Noise Machine provides anything remotely reliable in the way of information.
I said I'll be fair, and I will. Lemme look this over... Jesus Christ, you expect me to believe a word of this? From the word GO it's a propaganda article.

OK, fair's fair. I didn't cite my primary (http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Iraq/IraqMedia_Oct03/IraqMedia_Oct03_rpt.pdf) and secondary (http://docbug.com/blog/archives/000047.html) sources originally. Bad me.

You forgot the most important one: Bush and Blair et al lied in their teeth and invented a crisis out of whole cloth.

That's basically a summary of what toms said. The real difference is he sounds a lot more fair in his judgement. I believe he is incorrect in his assumptions, but at least he sounds like he gave it thought. You sound a bit more like a tape recorder, since I've heard that several times from you, in slightly different wording.

Anyways, summaries are never good in debates IMO because they don't explain your thinking and make you sound like you just thought it off the top of your head. OTOH, I do have enough optimism to trust you did put thought into what you said. Please don't prove me wrong on that account.

How is it propaganda? Oh, the wording is strident, but which of the facts can you dispute?

The Logic-o-gram does not really prove anything except that someone is pretty good with Photoshop. It bases it's "facts" on no sources, and is quite unsupported.

OTOH, there is no dispute that we have bases surrounding Iran. Which ought to scare Iran into not enriching uranium, but for some odd reason, it doesn't. It makes no sense to me. And I doubt it's for power.

The reason that I'm not the only one who holds those sentiments is that anyone who uses remotely reliable newsies for information knows these facts already those of us who have more than two brain cells to rub together know what we would be thinking if we were sitting in Tehran.

Oh, I have no doubt it would be the same as Iraq. I know it wouldn't be pretty. So, what if it did finally come to war, and instead of an all-out invasion we acted with lightning-strikes on nuclear facilities, hmm? I'm not saying bomb it; that'd be a disaster. I'm saying drop marines near the facilities, take them over, shut down and disable them, and get out. Then, if Iran retaliates, we'd have full justification before the UN to continue. And when I say come to war, I mean there are no other feasable options. By the time that comes around, there will be a new president in office, to be sure. Hopefully one that isn't afraid to act if need be. Again, emphasis on need.

That's called probable cause, and in every civili[z]ed country you walk if the best the prosecution can do is probable cause.

Which enabled a search warrant. And guess what the UN found. (http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/new/documents/quarterly_reports/s-2004-435.pdf)

Indeed. And it would have been equally irrelevant if you had found them.

And according to the UN, we didn't have to look. (Reference to above answer)

Ah, but if the Noise Machine has taught the world anything at all it is that inane repetition works. Unfortunately.

Quiet facts trump loud lies. But it doesn't matter here, this is an irrelevant agrument i'd like to drop. No need to debate repetition. :)

That's certainly one - uh - interpretation. In fact the shock and outrage was over the fact that Powell - a fundamentally decent and honest man - would prostitute himself professionally for his political overlords and lie in his teeth to the Assembly.

As you said, that is one, uh... interperatation.

As for the rest, I couldn't say for certain, but certainly when both Germany and France thinks the war is unjustified and patently illegal, prudence suggests that you don't go hareing off in support of a rouge superpower's imperialist campaign?

The crux of the problem with your argument is thus: FOA, just because two general opinions say something doesn't make it right. By your argument, W's election was right because the general opinion said so. (Enough to win the Electoral, anyhow) Before you tell me how close it was, well, I was told by a very wise person:

"Almost only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes"

A victory is a victory, a loss is a loss. W won the election. So don't play that card, it'll earn you too many Hearts, and you have no way of shooting the moon.

So, my point is that the popular opinion isn't always the correct one. Second of all, the UN knew about the WMDs. So, the evidence provided reason to allow an attempt to get Saddam to disarm them. He blatantly refused, leading to the war we are in now.

No. You took it upon yourself to commit international vigilantй in clear defiance of solemn international treaties.

First of all, may I request that you provide the treaties that we broke? Second, we went in there to ensure Saddam disarmed his WMDs. Now that there is no chance this will happen again, the troops are withdrawing. The war is ending. This discussion is becoming more and more pointless.

No, I'm anxious to defend the rule of law and due process. If that means that a criminal walks or that a tin-pot dictator remains in power, then so be it. The alternative is unpalatable.

The alternative to a mass-murderer walking is unpalatable? That lowers your credibility im my eyes. You would release someone who killed hundreds of thousands of his people? You leave a very bad taste in my mouth, ShadowTemplar.

Yes. That's the point of the principle innocent until proven guilty. As you might recall, that quaint little principle was once upon a time a central guideline in what we used to call due process. Oh, he might get nailed for something else - like the human rights abuses - but WMD was what the US tried him on, and there wasn't enough evidence to lift the burden of proof.

Well, if he walks for WMDs, which I don't think he will, but fries in an electric chair for human rights abuse, then basically the same punishment is delivered, is it not? In such a case, he may as well have been found guilty for possesing WMDs.

Yes, and you've understood it completely.

See, not all Fox viewers are unintelligent.

What is your definition of 'rouge state,' then?

I don't doubt the definition of "rogue state". I believe it is incorrectly applied. That is the "mindless propaganda"

The comment I responded to was: "The Iraqi people are better off because they have a say in their own government." I did no question whether they have more say over their government than under Hussein. I questioned whether that necessarily means that they are better off.

Very well.

Post-Franco Spain. Post-Pinochet Chile. Post-communist Russia. Post-monarchy Scandinavia. Post-colonial US.

You've proven my point quite eloquently. EXCEPT that the US Civil War was not caused by seperation from the colonies. It was 15 presidents later that the Civil war began, not over who was to lead, but over the clash between state's rights and federal rights. Slavery was also quite in play during the war. It had nothing to do with the original colonies.

That depends on which question you are asking. The conduct of the war was criminally incompetent. The planning of the war was criminally incompetent. The war was patently illegal. The post-war contingency planning was utterly disastrous.

That there is no civil war in Iraq is pure luck - it certainly has nothing at all to do with American competence. You lucked out. So far. If you keep being ludicrously lucky, the situation will probably, eventually, get better than under Hussein. But I don't like to base foreign policy on 'assuming our luck holds'...

So, if you ask me whether I would go to war with no more information than we had before the war, I would have preferred Hussein.
If you ask me whether I would prefer Hussein to the mess we have now, I'm undecided.

On the one hand the security situation is going to hell, people are less safe than under Hussein, public health is deteriorating, and the infrastructure is even worse than under the dictatorship. And there's the distinct possiblity that it'll get worse. On the other hand, there is also the possibility for improvement. On balance, I don't really know which I'd prefer. All I can say is that we've been incredibly lucky so far. More lucky than anything I'd ever rely on being in my foreign policy.

That is sad. Quite sad. Even if there were no WMDs in Saddam's possesion, he still did kill many of his people. And no nation can so quickly recover from a war. It takes time. The main efforts of the nation are cleaning up the damage of the war, so services are being neglected. When all fighting finally ends, then the nation can turn towards repairing the damage done in the war. But, right now most non-security issues are on hold so efforts can be spent preventing a terrible civil war.

I'm not trying to conceal anything. He's perfectly right as far as the human rights violations go. And it's also perfectly irrelevant.

He's also right that Saddam had WMDs. I linked to the UN report. You can read it.

You go right ahead and try. If the Iraqi people succeed, I'll be impressed. I won't be convinced that the war was reasonable or justified - but I'll be impressed with the tenacity and patriotism of the Iraqi people. If you fail - well, that won't come as any big surprise...

Of course. The US takes the blame for a failure, and the US is ignored in the face of a victory. That's quite logical.

By which standard should Bush not be in Hague?

The standard that what he did has ended a dictatorship. The standard that we have halted WMD production in that portion of the Mid-East. The standard that not all war is deserving of death for the person waging it. If the US hadn't gone to war not-so-long ago, you'd be speaking German while hailing Hitler II.

@ Iran: Do you doubt that the article I linked to represents facts correctly? Do you doubt the Iranian regime knows these facts? Do you doubt that they would draw the same conclusions?

I have no doubts about that. I am saying thte opinions you draw are ill-founded.

I don't see any other occasions of your questioning my facts. Please outline your questions, and I'll find sources. Some of them may be in Danish, though, because most of the news I get happen to be in Danish. And our newsies rarely cite primary sources.

Actually, that was taken care of, all my questions have been answered, at least enough to continue the debate here. But what you wrote struck me as odd. You don't trust the Fox network. You do trust networks that don't cite sources (Fox doesn't either, so that makes it quite even). You don't even consider what US and UK reps have to say about the war. You did trust that Saddam didn't have WMDs as he was barring UN inspectors. You do trust that Iran isn't building nuclear weapons, even though he has offered nothing more than his word - that is, unless certain "deals" are made (i.e. extortion).

You do have an odd set of trusts there. Unless you factor in the obvious bias. Then it all makes sense.

OK, fair's fair. I didn't cite my primary and secondary sources originally. Bad me.

Heh. Thanks. I'll look these over. I'll get back to you, it'll take time to read.

Now, to answer toms:

dictators
As laudable as the goal of removing dictators and evil regimes is, there is a reason that international law and the UN isn't that keen on unilateral invasions of other countries. It would lead to anarchy, and it also depends a lot on your viewpoint which leaders need to be removed. Even with a guy as nasty as saddam, look at all the arguments it has generated. I suspect you could find a large proportion of the globe that would vote to have GW, or the kuwaiti royal family, or israel, etc.. removed from power. See the problem?
By bypassing the UN (whatever the arguments about it's effectiveness) the US has sent out a message that it is above the law and will use its might to remove anyone it doesn't agree with. That's not a great message to send out to some countries.

Point taken, and well-made. That isn't a good message. But we aren't just invading wantonly. There has to be a reason for going into nations like this. We had reasons for going into Afghanistan. We had them for going into Iraq. We aren't at the moment planning to invade anybody else. Iran, perhaps. IF it proves to be an actual threat. But after Iraq, I doubt the people of the US will allow another war, unless there is a serious threat.

weapons in iraq
Its pretty clear there WERE no functioning WMDs in iraq, or they would have been either used, or turned over by all the scientists we have interrogated, and who have been falling over themselves to give us information.

I've already proven there were WMDs in Iraq. I don't know the why as to why he's not using them. I don't claim to know. I just know what I find and read.

Which enabled a search warrant. And guess what the UN found.I read through that, and I didn't see anything that proved they had WMDs at the time Iraq was invaded..?

The suspicious activities seemed to consist of Iraqi SAM engines (and high quality steel) being found in european scrapyards, inconsistencies with the reports filed to the UN on imported dual use technologies (for weapon and peacetime purposes), SAM engine imports during 1999-2003, and capability for biowar if turned to that purpose.

According to that report, the only thing that was clearly proscribed was the SAM engines; the other technologies did not have any evidence that shows they were used in a prohibited manner. It does not say they had WMDs when we attacked; the results were inconclusive.

Some quotes from it:

In his testimony, the head of the Iraq Survey Group noted that the Group
continued to look for weapons of mass destruction. He also said he did not believe
that the Survey Group had sufficient information and insight at that time to make
final judgements with confidence as to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction
programmes and to determine the truth of their existence. He said that more work
had to be done to gather critical information about the regime, its intentions and its
capabilities. He also pointed to a number of practical difficulties facing his team,
including security, delays in translating documentation and the continued reluctance
of Iraqi personnel to speak freely.Mr. Duelfer’s publicly released testimony mentions, as an example of
uncertain Iraqi intent, that the Tuwaitha Agricultural and Biological Research Centre
had equipment suitable for the production of biological agents and that research
work there on the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis would be important to a
biological weapon programme.The Commission’s experts are conducting an investigation in parallel with the
IAEA Iraq Nuclear Verification Office regarding the discovery of items from Iraq
that are relevant to the mandates of UNMOVIC and IAEA at a scrapyard in the
Netherlands. In particular, following a visit of IAEA to a scrapyard in Rotterdam to
investigate increased radiation readings, it was discovered, through photographs
taken at the time, that engines of SA-2 surface-to-air missiles were among the scrap
(see figure below). They are the type of engines used in the Al Samoud 2 proscribed
missile programme. In addition, a number of items and equipment that may also be
relevant to the UNMOVIC mandate were seen among the scrap. The existence of
missile engines originating in Iraq among scrap in Europe may affect the accounting
of proscribed engines known to have been in Iraq’s possession in March 2003. Both
IAEA and UNMOVIC have kept the Security Council informed of this matter.In general, from 1999 to 2002 Iraq procured a variety of dual-use biological
and chemical items and materials, including chemicals, equipment and spare parts.
To date, UNMOVIC has found no evidence that these were used for proscribed
chemical or biological weapon purposes. Although some of the goods may have
been acquired by Iraq outside the framework of mechanisms established under
Security Council resolutions, most of them were later declared by Iraq to
UNMOVIC in its semi-annual monitoring declarations.However, in several instances Iraq provided misleading declarations regarding
the suppliers and sources of the items and materials as well as procurement
channels, claiming that they had been purchased on the local market. It appeared
that they had been procured outside Iraq through private trading companies
operating both in and outside of the country. There is much evidence that from 1999
to 2002 Iraq procured materials, equipment and components for use in its missile
programmes. In several instances, the items procured were used by Iraq for
programmes, such as the production of Al Samoud 2 missiles, that were determined
by UNMOVIC in February 2003 to be proscribed.The same Iraqi governmental trading company was involved, through a
contract with two foreign private companies, in procuring components and
equipment for the manufacture and testing of missile guidance and control systems,
including inertial navigation systems with fibre-optic and laser ring gyroscopes and
Global Positioning System equipment, accelerometers, ancillary items and a variety
of production and testing equipment. The list of items sought includes several that
were not declared or shown to UNMOVIC during the course of its inspections.

In that case, I misread the article. Which leaves me no better or worse than when I started, thank goodness. :D

In that case, I misread the article. Which leaves me no better or worse than when I started, thank goodness. :D

I think its pretty safe to say they haven't found any WMDs... because you can be pretty sure that if they DID find any WMDs then Bush and Blair and Fox would be shouting it from the rooftops! I'm pretty sure we would all know about it if it happened!

As it is almost impossible for anyone to prove that there conclusively is an absence of something, it will remain unproved forever... unless they actually do find something. But until they do I think its more logical to believe that they arent there than that they are.

I think edlib explained it better than i did. Saddam had to imply he still had weapons to maintain his power in the region, but also had to imply he didn't have weapons to the UN to stop getting ivaded. He was basically playing a very dangerous game of tightrope walking trying to imply two differnet things to two different groups. Unfortunately 9/11 and the subsequent political shifts int he US changed the game took his ground out from under him.

That said.. WMDs may have been the offical reason for going to war, but they were never the real reason. Its pretty clear that the US wanted to go in (for whatever reason) and would have used any reason it could find to justify it. Tony Blair obviously wanted to support Bush, but knew that he couldn't do so in the face of the UN, so he convinced the US to use the UN and the WMD argument as a justification. Then when the 2nd resolution failed they decided to go for it anyway, and Blair was forced to tag along or look stupid.

I said at the time that I thougt the WMD argument was superficial, and that I'd have a lot more sympathy with the Human Rights argument. Though either way I'd have prefered them to stick to the law and get the UN to approve it.

I guess a good analogy would be those arnie/punisher-style action movies where the bad guys get off on some sort of technicality, and then the "rogue cop" hero (usually arnie) goes off on his own and blows them all to hell. And we all applaud because he did what the law failed to do!

But we all know that while that is great in a movie, if that sort of thing happened in real life - and everyone went out looking for justice on their own - it would lead to anarchy. In real life we know that even if the law is slow, and inneficient, and gets things wrong occasionally, its better than the alternatives. In real life if someone went out to get revenge or justice "outside the system" we'd actually want the system to hold them to account.

The UN is a bit like the justice system, or the US government. It may not work that great all the time, but no-one can come up with a better alternative.

I think that if the US leaves it at iraq, and doesn't go it alone on iran or any other countries for a while then the UN may regain its authority. The danger was that the US would keep on it's post-9/11 invasion spree. Luckily that doesn't seem to have happened, and I doubt even Fox can influence the US public into supporting a war on iran at the moment.

That said.. WMDs may have been the offical reason for going to war, but they were never the real reason. Its pretty clear that the US wanted to go in (for whatever reason) and would have used any reason it could find to justify it.
The real reasons for invading Iraq were outlined over a decade ago by Wolfowitz, Pearle, Cheney, (and several others in conservative think-tanks) who advocated moving into Iraq, establishing an American-approved democratic government there, and then watching the rest of the middle-east follow suit in a carbon-copy of the Vietnam-era "Domino-Effect" that we worked so very hard to stop when it was the Commies doing it.
They wanted to make the middle-east safe for American interests (mostly corporate interests, such as oil production,) to insure that America remains the only true superpower left in the world, and to stabilize the region to take pressure off of Israel.

A brief synopsis and timeline can be found here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/cron.html)

Which seems to me to be the main reason why the intelligence community suddenly lost all common-sense. Instead of the intelligence reports being the basis of the political decisions : the political decisions were the basis of the intelligence reports. With intelligence being blatantly massaged to support the policies and decisions that were already in motion.

If anything the UK intelligence agencies were even more guilty in that respect than the US ones.

The real reasons for invading Iraq were outlined over a decade ago by Wolfowitz, Pearle, Cheney, (and several others in conservative think-tanks) who advocated moving into Iraq, establishing an American-approved democratic government there, and then watching the rest of the middle-east follow suit in a carbon-copy of the Vietnam-era "Domino-Effect" that we worked so very hard to stop when it was the Commies doing it.

Thease people live in a fantasy world.

That's basically a summary of what toms said. The real difference is he sounds a lot more fair in his judgement. I believe he is incorrect in his assumptions, but at least he sounds like he gave it thought.

What's unfair about calling a demonstrated liar a - well - liar?

You sound a bit more like a tape recorder, since I've heard that several times from you, in slightly different wording.

Well, it has been some time since I've seen anything new from your side of the fence as well.

OTOH, I do have enough optimism to trust you did put thought into what you said. Please don't prove me wrong on that account.

I did indeed put rather a lot of thought into my comment. I arrived at my conclusion months ago, however, and I've seen nothing remotely persuasive from your side of the fence since. Since I've repeatedly made my reasoning clear eslewhere in this thread, I'm reluctant to retype it all. Again.

The Logic-o-gram does not really prove anything except that someone is pretty good with Photoshop. It bases it's "facts" on no sources, and is quite unsupported.

Let's see... We have seven assertions: 1) That North Korea has nuclear weapons. Do you dispute that? 2) That the North Korean leader is still in power. Do you dispute that? 3) That Hussein had no nuclear weapons. Do you dispute that? 4) That Hussein is no longer in power. I do hope that you don't dispute that. 5) That the Ayatollahs may or may not be developing nuclear weapons. That's indisputable (A OR NOT-A). 6) That the Ayatollahs want to stay in power. Do you dispute that? 7) That there are US bases all around Iran. I see that you don't dispute that.

Please explain which assertion you doubt, and I'll gladly find you credible sources.

OTOH, there is no dispute that we have bases surrounding Iran. Which ought to scare Iran into not enriching uranium, but for some odd reason, it doesn't.

Nope, it should encourage them to enrich uranium, since the war in Iraq proved conclusively that not having WMD won't protect you from invasion. And the way the West tiptoes around North Korea proves rather conclusively that having sufficiently nasty WMD will protect you from outright invasion.

So, what if it did finally come to war, and instead of an all-out invasion we acted with lightning-strikes on nuclear facilities, hmm? I'm not saying bomb it; that'd be a disaster. I'm saying drop marines near the facilities, take them over, shut down and disable them, and get out.

Because that worked so well the last time, didn't it?

Then, if Iran retaliates, we'd have full justification before the UN to continue.

Depends on how they retaliate. If they simply gun down your choppers on their way out, they'd be well within their rights under the UN charter (assuming of course that the original strike was an illegal unilateral move on the US' part).

And when I say come to war, I mean there are no other feasable options. By the time that comes around, there will be a new president in office, to be sure. Hopefully one that isn't afraid to act if need be. Again, emphasis on need.

Hopefully there will be a president in office who won't act before there is need.

Quiet facts trump loud lies.

Not in US presidential elections...

The crux of the problem with your argument is thus: FOA, just because two general opinions say something doesn't make it right.

I wasn't talking about popular opinion. If I had been, I'd have included Britain, Denmark, and Spain. I'm talking about governments. I'm talking about intelligence agencies. You know, those people in the BND and the DGSE - and probably Verfassungsshьtz as well. The people who kept tap on the commies for you, remember?

By your argument, W's election was right because the general opinion said so. (Enough to win the Electoral, anyhow) Before you tell me how close it was,

I'm not going to argue the 2000 election fraud in this thread - but if I did, closeness was definitely a point I wouldn't bring up. Ballot stuffing, arbitrary disenfrancisement, sabotage of polling stations, scarcity of polling stations in certain districts - now, those things I would bring up - but certainly not closeness.

"Almost only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes"

And - appearently - artillery strikes...

First of all, may I request that you provide the treaties that we broke?

Ch. VI, Art. 33 & 37 (http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/)

Oh, and take a look at Ch. IV, Art. 19 too while you're there.

Second, we went in there to ensure Saddam disarmed his WMDs.

Which he didn't have.

Now that there is no chance this will happen again,

"Now that [T]here is no a distinct chance this will happen again should the current American regime not be removed from power.

the troops are withdrawing.

Yes.

The war is ending.

Nope. In all probability, it's only just starting.

This discussion is becoming more and more pointless.

Not at all. There's no statute of limitation on war crimes and crimes against humanity... I for one am waiting for the International Warcrime Tribunal...

The alternative to a mass-murderer walking is unpalatable?

If the alternative is that someone is convicted without sufficient evidence? Yes, that alternative is less palatable than having a mass-murderer walk.

That lowers your credibility im my eyes. You would release someone who killed hundreds of thousands of his people? You leave a very bad taste in my mouth, ShadowTemplar.

If there is no evidence, he walks. No matter how many he killed. And yes, that principle is more important to me than any single man or any single crime, no matter how horrible.

Well, if he walks for WMDs, which I don't think he will, but fries in an electric chair for human rights abuse, then basically the same punishment is delivered, is it not? In such a case, he may as well have been found guilty for possesing WMDs.

From his perspective, yes. From the perspective of whether the war was legal or not, no.

See, not all Fox viewers are unintelligent.

Nope, you're just poorly informed :p

I don't doubt the definition of "rogue state". I believe it is incorrectly applied.

My definition of 'rouge state' is 'state that threatens or attacks other sovereign countries unprovoked, is led by unstable and/or despotic leaders, and/or commits major violations of international law.' Two out of three isn't bad... And I suppose you could argue the 2nd one as well...


It will be a terrible thing if civil war does break out, to be sure. But realistically, that has been the pattern for almost every single decapitated empire in history.
Post-Franco Spain. Post-Pinochet Chile. Post-communist Russia. Post-monarchy Scandinavia. Post-colonial US.
You've proven my point quite eloquently.

I am not sure we are quite on the same page here... I frankly don't see how my response proved anything remotely like your assertion, but perhaps you'd enlighten me? I do seem to remember someone saying something about posting only Executive Summaries being a Bad Idea...


The main efforts of the nation are cleaning up the damage of the war, so services are being neglected. When all fighting finally ends, then the nation can turn towards repairing the damage done in the war. But, right now most non-security issues are on hold so efforts can be spent preventing a terrible civil war.

That's a bass ackwards way of doing things. First point on the agenda should be rebuilding - the rebuilding will require protection in many areas and on many projects, but without rebuilding, there will be no end of the fighting.

You go right ahead and try. If the Iraqi people succeed, I'll be impressed. I won't be convinced that the war was reasonable or justified - but I'll be impressed with the tenacity and patriotism of the Iraqi people. If you fail - well, that won't come as any big surprise...
Of course. The US takes the blame for a failure, and the US is ignored in the face of a victory. That's quite logical.

No, the US takes the blame for its culpably incompetent planning, for its overconfident strategic overreach, for the patently illegal conduct of its bogus war on terror, and for its repeated and serious human rights violations. The Iraqi people take the credit for perservering despite the crapfest the US has landed them in.

By which standard should Bush not be in Hague?
The standard that what he did has ended a dictatorship. The standard that we have halted WMD production in that portion of the Mid-East.

I asked for a standard. You provided facts (the latter of which, BTW, is a non sequitour, since the UN had already accomplished that). Are you suggesting that toppling a single dictator renders you immunity from charges of war crimes? By that standard Ayatollah Khomeni wasn't a war criminal either...

The standard that not all war is deserving of death for the person waging it.

See, unlike you neobarbs on the other side of the Pond, the Hague doesn't have capital punishment. We don't do things that way on this side of the street.

If the US hadn't gone to war not-so-long ago, you'd be speaking German while hailing Hitler II.

Not at all. I suppose you could be forgiven for not being as familiar with the ebbs and flows of the War as most Europeans, but in fact by the time the US intervened on our behalf, the Germans were effectively broken and routed.

Had the US not intervened, the Cold War would likely have looked rather different, and Europe would hardly be as affluent as it is today, but there is no reason to believe that we wouldn't be free by now - or at worst in 5-10 years. The Sovjet system was too fundamentally flawed for any other outcome.

@ Iran: Do you doubt that the article I linked to represents facts correctly? Do you doubt the Iranian regime knows these facts? Do you doubt that they would draw the same conclusions?
I have no doubts about that. I am saying thte opinions you draw are ill-founded.

Which of them? You just said that we are in agreement when it comes to the basic facts. So which of my conclusions do you disagree with? Why?

But what you wrote struck me as odd. You don't trust the Fox network. You do trust networks that don't cite sources (Fox doesn't either, so that makes it quite even).

This actually deserves a response more than most of what we get here in the 'Chambers. You basically ask me why I trust the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, but distrust Fux News, despite the fact that the DR rarely cites primary sources.

Well, firstly, there's an important difference between 'rarely' and 'almost never'. Secondly, there's degrees of crappyness. Danish newsies are far from impressive. But Fux News' newsies are even less so.

Secondly, in the instances where I know something about the subject firsthand or from other sources, I usually find that the DR got it right, or at least almost right. Fux news is so far off the mark so often that you'll actually be better informed if you don't watch it.

Thirdly, I have never caught the DR in outright lies. And the few times where they have been caught, they have publicly apologised, prominently displayed the correction, and taken steps to prevent repetition. Fux has been repeatedly caught creating stories out of whole cloth, and I know of not one single instance where they have admitted doing so - despite overwhelming evidence.

Finally, the DR is government-funded. That means that it walks a tightrope, because inevitably it's going to piss some politicians off. And inevitably they are going to be in a position where they can actually cut it off at the knees.

The only thing that prevents them from doing that is the fact that without cast-iron proof that the DR has delivered bogus - or at least substantially sub-standard - reports, it'd be political suicide to take action against the DR.

So in a sense that isn't true for any commercial station or newspaper, the DR's very survival as an institution is contingent upon their being both honest and top-of-the-line. (Which unfortunately says some very omnious things about the position of the line...)

You don't even consider what US and UK reps have to say about the war.

I did consider it. It was bogus. The BND said it was bogus. The DGSE said it was bogus. The MI6 said it was bogus. The CIA said it was bogus. And watching the way our own PM became all mealy-mouthed when the talk turned to evidence didn't do wonders for my confidence in their credibility.

You did trust that Saddam didn't have WMDs as he was barring UN inspectors.

I did trust that Hans Blix knew what he was talking about. I did trust that the BND knew what it was talking about. I did trust that the CIA knew what it was talking about.

You do trust that Iran isn't building nuclear weapons,

Let me make one thing crystal - one might even say painfully - clear: I do think that Iran is making nuclear weapons. And I do believe that I said so before.

I think [Ahmadinejad is] basically saying 'yes we're developing nuclear weapons and you'll rue the day you crossed us'.

while no-one with two eyes, two ears, and more processing power than a rock argues that Iran isn't trying to get nuclear weapons.

So that should hopefully put that mistake to rest. The controversy isn't over whether they are making them, the controversy is over what to do about it. And I say that we let it take care of itself. Iranian nuclear weapons aren't a problem.

So that should hopefully put that mistake to rest. The controversy isn't over whether they are making them, the controversy is over what to do about it. And I say that we let it take care of itself. Iranian nuclear weapons aren't a problem.
How are Iranian nuclear weapons not a problem? Are you insane? Ahmadinejad has stated publicly that one of his goals is to "wipe Israel off the map." If Iran launches nukes at Israel, don't be surprised when the entire Middle East goes up in flames. People in the US complain about how politics here is getting more and more divided to the extremes of American liberalism & conservatism, but at least our politicians aren't out there questioning the truth of the Holocaust and threatening other nations with nuclear oblivion.

And don't think that Israel hasn't taken heed of Ahmadinejad's extremism - Israel's government said, I believe just last week, that they would not allow Iran to gain nuclear capability (and the IAEA's latest report says that it has evidence (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/01/international/middleeast/31cndiran.html?_r=2&hp&ex=1138770000&en=aaaa849fe089404b&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin) that Iran's "peaceful" nuclear program has military ties extremely suggestive of a nuclear weapons program). Basically, Israel said that they would strike Iran to take out their nukes in order to keep from being turned into a gigantic mushroom cloud.
(note: above NYT link requires their annoying online subscription thing)

Also, in our oil-based economy, "let it take care of itself" is definitely not an option. You think gas prices are high now? I've heard estimates that oil will go up over $100 a barrel if Iran stops exporting their oil, which means that they could essentially cripple the economies of nations across the globe. I know I couldn't afford gas anymore if oil went up to those kinds of prices, and neither could a lot of other people around the world.

How are Iranian nuclear weapons not a problem? Are you insane?

I second the motion. :rolleye1: