October 11, 2003

REUTERS STICKS TO SCRIPT

Why does Reuters bother writing junk like this?

The Bush administration, which has yet to find evidence to back its charge that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction ...

I mean, guys, David Kay’s report is online. We can read it. So can Charles Krauthammer:

The question of whether [Saddam] was still in the WMD business is no longer open. "We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities," Kay testified, "and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002" -- concealed, that is, from the hapless Hans Blix.

Kay's list is chilling. It includes a secret network of labs and safe houses within the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi foreign intelligence service; bioorganisms kept in scientists' homes, including a vial of live botulinum toxin; and my favorite, "new research on BW [biological weapons]-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin" -- all "not declared to the U.N."

I have been to medical school, and I have never heard of Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever. I don't know one doctor in 100 who has. It is a rare disease, and you can be sure that Hussein was not seeking a cure.

Andrew Bolt has more on the strange unanimity exhibited by the media in covering Kay’s report.

(Via contributor Zsa Zsa, freshly returned from the Congo.)

Posted by Tim Blair at October 11, 2003 03:55 AM
Comments

And lets not forget the sites suspected of conducting human experiments.

This is what, 5% of the declared sites?

Posted by: Monkeyboy at October 11, 2003 at 04:53 AM

I am reminded of Sergeant Schultz from Hogan's Heroes except the line appears to be:

"They found NOTHINK! They saw NOTHINK!" etc...

Posted by: Patrick Chester at October 11, 2003 at 05:43 AM

I have started telling people that the news in the US is censored. So far, nothing has proven me wrong. We all need to up the level of protest...this is not bias, it's censorship. People need to know that the 6 o'clock news is a lie.

Posted by: Xiaoding at October 11, 2003 at 07:31 AM

"Why does Reuters bother writing junk like this?"

Because they are fighting on the OTHER SIDE.

Ya ya blah blah freedom of press blah blah.

Look, if a group of people wanted the US to fail,
one of the only ways to go about it is to spread
disinformation, encourage internal divisions in the US, make the US people believe that liberation
is a failure, etc.

Or we could elect Teddy Kennedy President, with
an honorary post as an expert in underwater rescue
work, but I digress.

No one can beat the US in combat, if the military
are properly commanded. The only way to beat the US (and Israel) is to make the citizens give up
hope of victory, roll over, and play dead.

So look at every "news" post and ask yourself:

Whom does this story benefit?

Posted by: Mary Jo at October 11, 2003 at 07:43 AM

Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) is a tick-borne virus with only a 30% mortality rate. Odd.

Posted by: Theodopoulos Pherecydes at October 11, 2003 at 09:04 AM

At least now we know why Bush called Saddam a "ticking bomb".

Posted by: Theodopoulos Pherecydes at October 11, 2003 at 09:12 AM

"Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) is a tick-borne virus with only a 30% mortality rate. Odd."

Also note the tip-top public health systems which won a 30% mortality rate: Kosovo, Albania, Iran, Pakistan, and South Africa.

Remember the lawyer's code: when you've got facts, pound the facts; when you've got the law, pound the law; and when you've got ignorance, pound their ignorance.

Posted by: rooser04 at October 11, 2003 at 09:23 AM

Theodopoulos and rooser04: There's nothing odd about it. First, just because a disease is mainly transmitted to humans by ticks when it occurs in nature doesn't mean that it can't be delivered some other way. For CCHF, evidence suggests that it could be delivered via aerosol. See here. Second, consider that the mortality rate of smallpox in unvaccinated individuals in 35%. Third, the 30% mortality rate is that of the wild-type strain. One of the objectives of Saddam's "research" could well have been how to make it more virulent. That's typically how things go when designing biowarfare weapons: first you find an agent that is adequately infectious and easy to deliver, then you tweak it to make it more virulent.


You can go back to pounding ignorance now.

Posted by: Tim H at October 11, 2003 at 10:29 AM

"Only" a thirty percent mortality rate?Translate that to the population of London or New York,in more crowded cities like Tokyo or Calcutta the death rate would be even higher.Does anyone want a criminal psychopath like Saddam Hussein in possession of such abominable stuff?

Posted by: Peter at October 11, 2003 at 10:46 AM

The problem here is not that Saddam had an ongoing weapons programme. It's that the media has successfully transmuted the argument made for the war (before the war) in the mind of the leftist public into one of "Saddam has Weapons" and the lack of shells containing weaponised anthrax/botulism/etc is why the left don't think it was justified.

I had exactly this argument at work the other day with people who sincerely believe that the reason the US went to war was because Saddam had weapons (not programmes) and because bush wanted the oil. They also believe it was an illegal invasion not supported by UN resolutions and they have no idea about france and russias complicity in preventing the UN from taking action.

They also dispute the argument that the war in 1991 never technically ended (and that this was a legal continuation of that war) because the US stopped attacking.

Until someone can effectively explain thes complicated facts to the public in a way that doesn't bore them silly (because frankly they don't care beyond the 30 second soundbite that get at the start of the state TV broadcast) then they will never understand. I mean, I had someone seriously say that CNN was 'sponsored by george bush' and was so pro american as to be horribly biased. This impression wasn't formed by reading CNN, it was just made from comments in our local media and the slanted reporting we get here (NZ).

The media has done a great job of making america look like the bad guy and a crap job of reporting on and explaining the issues.

Posted by: Grant at October 11, 2003 at 12:25 PM

Most (not all) of our media didn't 'approve' of the war in Iraq. Since we didn't listen, they tried to frighten us with dire predictions like Baghdad being another Stalingrad, thousand of caualties, etc.. OK, that didn't work and was so false it was laughable.

Now, it's the 'Lies & Failed Campaign' themes. The themes now are our leaders LIED to us, plus we've failed in Iraq.

There were no WMDs. Our leaders KNEW it and used the threat of WMDs to invade and grab oil.

We've failed to conjure up an Iraqi Paradise in the time alloted by our media. Time's Up, we have failed!!

The media reporting this garbage can't let facts get in the way. If they were to honestly report the facts, it would torpedo their agenda(s).

Not all media outlets or all reporters are 'fact-impaired'. The article mentioned here is an example of that.

Posted by: Chris Josephson at October 11, 2003 at 02:27 PM

STOP TIM BEFORE HE SPINS AGAIN

I have the greatest respect for TB's ability to seek, spot and bag Leftist nonsense. Which is why it pains me to see him falling into the same partisan habits of the people that he goes after.
Steve Sailer sees the pro-war Right, now in power, having a tendency to mimic the Left's partisan attitude to truth:

The Foucault-ification of Republican ideologues continues apace. In French postmodern thought, there's no such thing as "truth," just power. Increasingly, that way of thinking is popular among the more frenzied defenders of the Iraq Attaq. Thus, the WSJ is outraged that the Niger Yellowcake hoax wasn't "investigated" by a gung ho Republican fanatic who would have reported back exactly what the WSJ wanted to hear. Look, guys, the President has already admitted that Wilson was telling the truth -- we got pranked by forged It's time to pull yourselves out of your deconstructionist death spiral

Bush has already conceded that the "Hussein buying yellowcake" story was bogus:
Flesicher admitted it at the time:
The president's statement in the State of the Union was incorrect because it was based on forged documents from the African nation of Niger, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Monday.

The invasion of Iraq had zilch to do with WMDs or stopping Hussein from invading anyone. Iraq did not have any effective WMDs, nor was it harbouring terrorist threats to the West. Hussein may or may not have had plans to make WMDs in the future, just as I may or may not have plans to bonk Kylie Minogue. Either way there is not much chance of me getting past her minders. Similarly there was not much chance of SH getting WMDs past UN inspectors or the USAF war planes.
Period.
Pro-war people in general, and right wingers in particular, need to wake up to this fact.
As Pr Quiggin says,
anyone who continues to think that illegal weapons in working order are going to be discovered is revealing more about their own psychology than about the real world.

Even this, formerly pro-war, blogger was a wake-up to the fact that Iraq had no WMDs. Over a year ago, I predicted that no WMDs would be found after the invasion.
I believe that the US's stated justification...is false. SH does not have any:
substantial or effective caches of WMDs...[or] significant links to fundamentalist terrorists.

Confirmed predictions = scientific truth. The games up. Elvis has left the building. That's all folks!
As Steve Sailer says, partisan defence of the Iraq Attaq is causing the pro-war Right to lose, not only their intellectual grip on reality, but more importantly, their moral anchorage in civility:
being more fanatical...than Bush... is morally corrupting [to] Republicans.

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 11, 2003 at 04:00 PM

I'm pretty sure that I read almost everything Bush said the the 18 month Rush To War (or was it 12 years?), and I seem to have missed the part where he said the only reason was because Saddam had WMD. Perhaps Mr. Strocchi can point me to the statement?

I agree 100%! Bring back Saddam! Also, send all those who are unhappy with Gulf War II to Iraq so they can use their expertise to help Saddam with the reconstruction of the Baathist paradise.

Posted by: JorgXMcKie at October 11, 2003 at 04:43 PM

I missed the part where Bush said the war was because Saddam tried to buy yellowcake from Niger. Please point me to any speech he made where he said that.

Meanwhile, I can point you to a speech where he said Saddam was trying to buy nuclear material for an African nation, and that he based that statement on British intelligence, and there's never been any credible evidence offered to contradict the validity of that statement. Including from our own CIA.

Posted by: Howard Owens at October 11, 2003 at 04:54 PM

Actually Mr. Strocchit has it half right. The administration did say that the Niger findings were based on false information. But that's not the whole story. The Bush administration continues to this day to back the British assertion that Saddam Hussein had, now one more time for the functionally stupid, "attempted" to acquire nuclear material in "Africa", and that was what the sixteen words in the SOTU address were about. It had nothing whatsoever to do with Niger and had absolutely nothing about Saddam buying nuclear material, but that he had "attempted" to do so. And not in Niger, but in "Africa". Sheesh. This is what happens when people get in to the practice of repeating lies enough times to make them true.

I don't give a flying hell why that Saddam Hussein is gone. Good riddance. You have to wonder why people on the left feel such a warm nostalgic feeling for mass murderers like Saddam Hussein, Castro, and even Joe Stalin. It's downright creepy. And they do it all in the name of civility and for the legitimacy of murderous thugs to govern nations and peoples.

So I guess I'll speak for everyone on the right who supported ousting Saddam Hussein "for whatever reason or combination of reasons" and say that we are truly sorry for treating that mass-murdering bastard Saddam Hussein uncivilly.

Posted by: Harry at October 11, 2003 at 05:37 PM

Jorge and Harry,

Someone picks holes in a bogus rationale for war and you then imply that they are supporters of Saddam Hussein. Who is practising Stalinist ideological thinking now?
This proves my point that partisanship is destroying the pro-war side's credibility.

I am just joyful that a dictator has been given the boot, hopeful that Iraq can be reformed into a civil state and grateful that the US seems to be serious about nation building.
But that does not make the WMD scare true.
Truth is truth, independent of whatever the plots the Office of Special Plans wanted hatched.
Or is that unpleasant truth going to vanish down a memory hole?

PS Do you think that someone other than Bush who was given a US $300 billion budget (estimated cost of the war through FY 2006) and told to disarm an actual militarist rogue state, reduce the total number of practising fundamentalist terrorists and keep America's alliances in good shape would have more to show for it?

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 11, 2003 at 06:42 PM

jack, repeat after me. i am an idiot. i am an idiot.

Posted by: roscoe p coltrane at October 11, 2003 at 07:11 PM

the next person that says the word "foucault-ification" gets a kick in the NUTSACK!

Posted by: roscoe p coltrane at October 11, 2003 at 08:33 PM

I was not a 100% supporter of going into Iraq. Reason was I thought US troops would be spread too thin.

However, I do not recall any nation that has a dependable intel. service questioning the existence of WMDs. The UN conflict wasn't about if Saddam did or didn't have WMDs. Hillary Clinton has stated that the existence of WMDs was never in doubt.

What happened to the WMDs? Who knows. There was enough time for completed WMDs to be removed from Iraq. We don't have the complete, unfettered run of the country just yet. There are still plenty of places to be searched.

The fact that the means to produce WMDs has been found leads me to believe that Saddam did have them. Also, finding all that chem. equipment to be used by the Iraqi soldiers, plus experiments reported by prisoners, tells me something *was* there shortly before the war.

It would not bother me, in the slightest, if we never found any completed WMDs in Iraq. The fact that Saddam's regime is ended, and one more country that could aid the Islamonazis has been eliminated, is good enough for me. Although, I worry about which country may have them.

It's wrong for the media to state that the coalition knew there were none and lied as a pretext to invade Iraq. The coalition leaders were convinced about the WMDs. Whatever is being said now is hogwash. Pres. Bush, PMs. Blair and Howard would not have put their political careers on the line about something they knew was a lie.

I am not concentrating on WMDs due to making these a need to invade Iraq. I am concentrating on how the media is trying to get us to think about them. The media want us to believe there were no WMDs and our leaders knew that. This is a lie that must be countered.

Posted by: Chris Josephson at October 11, 2003 at 08:42 PM

Chris Josephson has a stab at a rational defence of the war but makes a lame defence of WMD issue:

I do not recall any nation that has a dependable intel. service questioning the existence of WMDs.

How about Hans Blix? He had access to some pretty good, current time, on the ground, intelligence on Iraqi weapons stocks, or lack thereof.
His report tabled in Feb 2003, indicated that he had not found any WMDs in Iraq.
Blix now thinks that Iraq's WMDs were destroyed ten years ago.

I'm certainly more and more to the conclusion that Iraq has, as they maintained, destroyed all, almost, of what they had in the summer of 1991

Hussein just pretended to have some in order to scare off attempts at regime change. One can say that this was not a smart move.
Still, it means that, according to the international expert, Iraq was in compliance with the WMD-ridding conditions stipulated in the cease fire agreement and Res 687.
Case closed.
Of course, now real rogue states, like N Korea and Iran, are busy accelerating their WMD programs to...prevent them being subjected to regime change.
They got the US signal alright.

Regarding the best means of fighting "islamonazi" fundamentalism, correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Hussein kill about one million jihadist Iranian Shiites in the 80s? That sounds like pretty good anti-Islamacist cred to me.
Of course, now that he is gone, lots of jihadists are flocking to Iraq (jihad central) and lots more are being created as we speak.

So lets evaluate the scorecard for Iraq Attack:
- curbing rogue state WMD proliferation: Minus
- ending fundamentalist terrorism: Minus
TOTAL COST: $300 billion over three years +

Hmmm...does not sound like a very good security investment does it now? (he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm) I think that it is time for the grown-ups (Pappy Bush I & Powell I) to take back the state from Jnr.

WMDs in Iraq seem to play the same role in modern day right wing demonology as witches in Salem did for 17 th century Puritans.
Things are bad, we have plagues/terrorism etc
- so there must be solution, burn the witches/regime change the WMD stockers!


Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 11, 2003 at 09:48 PM

> Hussein just pretended to have some in order to scare off attempts at regime change. One can say that this was not a smart move.

...

>Of course, now real rogue states, like N Korea and Iran, are busy accelerating their WMD programs to...prevent them being subjected to regime change.

No contradiction there, no siree...

Also please note that he implies Iraq was not a rogue state.

Posted by: John Nowak at October 11, 2003 at 10:08 PM

Good g-d

Hans (ignorance is) Blix, has changed his take on the WMD several times from: Iraq probably has WMD's,Iraq probably does'nt have WMD's to: The WMD's might have been destroyed a couple of years ago, come on, the guy was only looking out for his job, just as certain country's in that completely inept entity the U.N. were looking out for their national interest in voting against the war in Iraq.

What the selfdescribed left is doing now, and i am refering to the niger-story and the WMD argument, is take something that the U.S. government never stated and giving it the "Jenin" treatment (Remember Yenin, A.K.A. The massacre that never was) I.E. by shouting out about these "falsehoods" (As the P.A. and the Arab press did about Yenin) they get a lot of people, to lazy to form their own opinion to parrot their position. Its a tactic that the "Left" is well versed in and they are getting irritated that it does'nt seem to be working this time, so we must be doing something right.

Posted by: chinditz at October 12, 2003 at 12:32 AM

Jack

Did you read David Kay's report? That report detailed our reasons for going to war.

SH had a sophisticated program for developing WMD's as Kay's report makes clear. No, barrels of WMD's weren't found, but a Just-In-Time production system was in place for when the sanctions were lifted.

Saddam believed it was a matter of time before the sanctions were lifted and he was waiting for that day as Kay's report also makes clear.

Andrew Bolt in the Herald Sun easily refutes everything you have said.

Posted by: Sean Roper at October 12, 2003 at 01:15 AM

John Nowak thinks he has spotted a contradiction between Blix's statement that Hussein, wrong-headedly, may have pretended to have hidden WMDs, to avoid getting regime changed and N Korea's blatant program to get actual WMDs, in order to escape that fate.
There is a contradiction, but only if John Nowak thinks there is no difference between imaginary and actual weapons.
If that is the case, he probably better board that UFO that he fancies hovering outside his home.

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 12, 2003 at 01:43 AM

The WMD-true believers just keep on getting more risible.
chinditz believes that Hussein's WMD program managers were new-found devotees of Japanese management systems, just waiting to leap into arms proliferating action, the moment that the Pentagon turned it's back:

barrels of WMD's weren't found, but a Just-In-Time production system was in place for when the sanctions were lifted.

Sorry chinny, since UNSCOM left, applying Edward Demming's TQM to WMD programs was the last thing on Saddy's militarist mind. He was focused on survival, which meant getting rid of all WMDs.
I am surprised that he managed to be so thorough in getting rid of them all with no oversights, given that Iraq appears to be a chaotic nation.
Tribute to the honesty and professionalism of the US Army and Intelligence Forces, which evidently would not have a bar of any Rovian plans to plant WMDs (nothing would be beyond that guy).
So is the "Hussein-had-no-WMDs-but-harboured-impure-thoughts-and-sketches-of-them" the best you can do? You guys must think the general public are complete fools who came down in the last rain shower.
Oh wait, maybe that is what you think.

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 12, 2003 at 01:59 AM

>John Nowak thinks he has spotted a contradiction between Blix's statement that Hussein, wrong-headedly, may have pretended to have hidden WMDs, to avoid getting regime changed and N Korea's blatant program to get actual WMDs, in order to escape that fate.

Jack's meltdown begins.

Okay, you're proving yourself fairly hard-of-thinking so let's try this again:

If Iraq's threat of WMDs failed to prevent a US attack -- and, in fact, was a factor in provoking it, why would a threat with real WMDs prevent a US attack?

Alternately, what policy would you suggest to discourage hostile governments from building WMDs? regime change, or send them fuel oil if they promise to stop development?

Oh, wait -- I forgot; you don't have any suggestions. You're just whining from the sidelines.

Posted by: John Nowak at October 12, 2003 at 02:25 AM

(Correction: chiditz should read Sean Roper.)
The WMD debate has gone way past surreal, not even Spike Milligan could have dreamt this up.
I did not read the whole Kay report, the bits extracted by Andrew Sullivan were enough to convince me that my initial no-WMD hunch was right.
And yes I did read Andrew Bolt.
More embarassment for the true-believers, although Mark Steyn is worse.
Did you read the Guardian story about the test tube that had been lying in some scientist's fridge for about a decade?
Whoa, Weapons of Mass Refrigeration.
Does that story remind you of something? Maybe the countless false alarms about WMDs that have been occurring since Day 1 of the invasion.
Yes, I know, WMDs may be found in hidden in the large number of unsearched arms dumps, or secret plans for them may emerge from inside some hollowed-out volcanoe (cue sinister Dr Evil-style laughter). But I would put my money on flying pigs before that.
You guys just don't get it, do you?
The better part of the (non-Republican party apparatchik) military-political establishment of the Western world is splitting it's sides with laughter at the spin put out to justify the exposed WMD-hoax. That is, when they are not rolling their eyes heavenward at the folly of this experiment.
Why the hell else are four star generals lining up to either run as anti-war Presidents, or to can the Republican foreign policy, for friggin crissake?
Are they part of Saddam Hussein's secret cheer-squad, aiding and abetting the revival of his devious plot to take over the Middle East?
These are deadly serious military officers with no political axes to grind, whose professional jusdgement has been thouroughly vindicated.
The neo-con arm-chair warriors are looking pretty dumb by comparison.
Please understand, I am not doing this for cheap laughs, although I do muster the odd black chuckle at the silly things being said in this thread. I am trying to knock some sense into you now, to spare you future embarassment. Although why I bother is puzzling, given the thanks I get.

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 12, 2003 at 02:30 AM

John Nowak thinks that I am "proving [my]self fairly hard-of-thinking" so he tries to rehash his little sally into a devastating rebuttal:

If Iraq's threat of WMDs failed to prevent a US attack -- and, in fact, was a factor in provoking it, why would a threat with real WMDs prevent a US attack?

Don't get cute with me, Johhny Boy, I am doing the patronising around here.
Because, Jack said, melting-down slowly, there was no "intelligence failure" over WMDs. By 2002, the neo-cons were well and truly aware that SH's nineties pretences about his WMDs were just as bogus as their naughties scare-campaign about them. Read all about it in Seymour Hersh's analysis of the Office of Special Plans, set up especially to spread disinformation about WMDs.
The neo-cons knew that there were no WMDs all along. They suckered the public.
This was a mutual con game, but both sides knew the score well before the guns started firing.
I guessed this early on, but it took me a while to figure out the US admins true strategic political motivation. I finally tumbled to it last year, when I, correctly, predicted that the Republicans wanted to invade and make over Iraq in order to "ditch the Saudis/hitch the Iraqis". The US admin wanted to swap Arabia for Iraq as the US's main Gulf oil client state, and hoped that a "cakewalk" of a war would get them the post-911 patriotic vote in the 2004 elections.
They, like SH, may have also made a fateful domestic miscalculation, if things get worse in Iraq, & the economy, Bush may be a one-termer like his old man.
That is why it was no surprise to me when Wolfowitz let the cat come screaming out of the bag when he admitted that the WMD-scare was a pretext for the war.
For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in Vanity Fair magazine's July issue...Wolfowitz said another reason for the invasion had been "almost unnoticed but huge" - namely that the ousting of Saddam would allow the United States to remove its troops from Saudi Arabia, where their presence had long been a major al-Qaeda grievance

As James Carville would say, "It's the Saudi's, stupid!"

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 12, 2003 at 02:56 AM

>I am doing the patronising around here.

Believe me, we noticed. How's your party doing in the elections?

Posted by: John Nowak at October 12, 2003 at 03:08 AM

Dear John,

Unlike you, I have no partisan afiliations. I have transcended ideology and live on a plane of existence sometimes referred to as "the Real World".
My only desire is to make people happy

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 12, 2003 at 03:10 AM

>Unlike you, I have no partisan afiliations.

We all believe you, too.

Posted by: John Nowak at October 12, 2003 at 03:12 AM

So John, I take it that your faith in the existence of Iraq's WMDs remains entirely unshaken?
Do you also believe in other invisible entities, spirits, fairies, sky-gods that sort of thing?

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 12, 2003 at 03:21 AM

No, Jack. I believe there's substantial evidence that Hussein had a WMD program set to ramp up.

Now piss yourself giggling about "Just in Time" factories.

Posted by: John Nowak at October 12, 2003 at 03:47 AM

Does Jack stand up for every word that proceedeth out of themouth of intelligent, but unfortunately radically unbalanced Steve Sailer when the latter is selling his version of modern day eugenics?

"Thus, the WSJ is outraged that the Niger Yellowcake hoax wasn't "investigated" by a gung ho Republican fanatic who would have reported back exactly what the WSJ wanted to hear. Look, guys, the President has already admitted that Wilson was telling the truth -- we got pranked by forged It's time to pull yourselves out of your deconstructionist death spiral"

Uh, no, I don't think that the Wilson mission shouldhave been conducted by a 'gung-ho Republican fanatic'; I do think it should have been handled by an experienced investigator with real detective skills, who had no axe to grind, who was not a 'gung ho Democratic anti-war fanatic', who would have taken a little time to review more of Africa than asking a couple of government types if they had sold yellowcake to Saddam. The allegation was not who sold what, it was that Saddam had SOUGHT to buy yellowcake from Africa. One datapoint involved Niger. But such black markets are not exsclusive to Niger, nor are they to sitting governments.

The Wilson mission, from its casual and mis-fit commissioning of a striped-pants anti-war activist for a short time, to its apparent objective, that is, to reinforce one faction of the CIA against the NSC, Cheney, and British Intel, was a stupd and, ultimately disloyal exercise. It is evident that it was not serious from the beginning, on to its permitting Wilson to run open-loop with the storywhen he returned. Please tell me of another CIA data-gathering mission here the lead individual is free to write op-eds and appear all over TV sceaming everything about what he did, why, for whom he did it, and what the US policy should now be asa result.

And these imbeciles are outraged over the dumb leaks that embellished the stories told by the verbally diarrheic Wilson about his semi-retired third wife?

Posted by: Duane at October 12, 2003 at 03:59 AM

Jack;
Do you not realize that your crowing about "no MD" means you not only that you can't support invasion, You have no argument to support sanctions! That means not only is Saddam left in power but he is free to import weapons. Objectively pro-Saddam? Think about it.

Posted by: Monkeyboy at October 12, 2003 at 04:55 AM

Duane thinks that I am foolish to rely on the

radically unbalanced Steve Sailer

Steve S. has a better record of prediction on the issue of Hussein's WMD-stocking, terrorist-harbouring and Iraq's nation-building potential than any of the war-boosters.
I know that if I stacked up Steve S's analyses on the Gulf securityissues against, say Paul Wolfowitz's, I know which I would be betting on.
Remember the "40,000 troops-cake walk" line?
But my favourite war commentor is War Nerd.
His bloodthirsty articles could kick the gung-ho asses of all the chicken-hawking pussies hanging off this thread.
WN asks: why is the Iraq adventure turning pear-shaped?
Because we invaded them: Duh!
Anyway, who died and made Duane National Security Guru?
(And what is so great about our genetic endowment that it can't be improved on?
Evolution develops by errors, we could try to better than that)


Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 12, 2003 at 05:04 AM

Monkeyboy thinks that lifting sanctions would be "objectively pro-Hussein" because it

means not only is Saddam left in power but he is free to import weapons.
Yes and No.
Yes, economic sanctions should be lifted if Hussein in fact had no WMDs.
Since his behaviour has become less, not more, aggressive/represssive/proliferative since GW I hostilities died down, there is no reason to change policy against his regime or punish Iraq any more.
No, that does not necessarily open the way for him to resume arms-buildups.
Continual sanctions on WMD-related technology should apply. And a condition on allowing normal unsanctioned trade would be regular, unscheduled UN inspections.
So Hussein is left in power. Tough luck for liberal Iraqis, but life is like that.
If one wants to promote freedom, prosperity and pro-US sentiment in the world, I can think of more efficient ways to do it than spending $300 billion on pissing off the Middle East with a gratuitous and fraudulent US military intervention.
Why not invade the Saudis, or Pakis?
They at least deserve it, they sponsor terrorism and proliferate WMD militarism.
Or why not simply buy Palestine off Israel and give it back to the Palestinians?
The Arabs would be delirious with joy.
PS And what's with the objectively pro-Hussein jibe?
I am getting tired of that Stalinist agit-prop mode.
I am objectively pro-truth, and pro-happiness, not objectively pro-or anti- any faction, party or regime.
Got that?

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 12, 2003 at 05:23 AM

I see that Mr. Strocchi has taken double his dosage of EgoEnhance(r) today.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at October 12, 2003 at 08:11 AM

Jack I'll leave off on your comment about liberal Iraqis, except to say that if my kids are trapped in a burning building I hope someone besides you is nearby.

I am however flummoxed by your idea for peace freedom and prosperity in the middle east. Buy off the Jews?
Even if the Israelis would sell their homeland for cash, making the middle east Judenfrei wouldn't exactly solve the basic problems of whabbaism.

Posted by: Monkeyboy at October 12, 2003 at 12:26 PM

monkeyboy has comprehension difficulties.

I am however flummoxed by your idea for peace freedom and prosperity in the middle east. Buy off the Jews?

When I said, "buy Palestine off Israel and give it back to the Palestinians", I meant that the US should finance the purchase of the the areas largely populated by Palestine (ie WB & Gaza) that are currently illegally settled by judaic fundamentalists (and hence under IDF occupation). This is the situation that Oslo was meant to remedy, remember "Land for Peace"? The same "Money for Peace deal was stiched together when Carter got Begin to hand back the Sinai to Sadat.
This would make (Oslo-defined) Palestine available for a Palestinian state, which is more or less the aim of the (Jewish-run) Peace Now.

monkeyboy then tries to sit in judgement of me and winds up with egg dripping all over his face:

if my kids are trapped in a burning building I hope someone besides you is nearby...making the middle east Judenfrei wouldn't exactly solve the basic problems of whabbaism

When a war is justified, I am for it. I joined the Army to go to GW I and volunteered for Timor. What did monkeyboy do during the last war?
And I did not appreciate that crack about juden frei, I was glad to be taught by, live with and am commanded by Jews at school, home and the Army.

monkeyboy better know his facts, or have a cast-iron jaw, before he steps into the ring with me

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 12, 2003 at 01:26 PM

Jack's an interesting case study -- he apparently believes thos i-rackis just aren't smart enough to set up factories in anticipation of production; that the joooos want money so much they can be bought out of Palestine; and that he, personally, is an Enlightened Being of Great Wisdom.

I've never seen quite so much racism and self-worship in one nasty little package before.

Posted by: John Nowak at October 12, 2003 at 05:42 PM

Jack,

The excerpt that follows is by Brendan O'Neill. You might want to read the whole thing.

After 12 years of interrogating Iraq, calling in the bombing squads, allowing their intelligence to be used by US military forces, raising suspicion after suspicion, and earlier this year 'strengthening the American and British case for war', one thing is clear - there is no principled clash between peace-loving weapons inspectors and warmongering Bush and Blair. For all the anti-war lobby's posthumous respect for David Kelly (left-wing writer John Pilger described him as 'heroic'), Kelly himself said that he supported 'regime change' in Iraq. None of the other inspectors are anti-war, either.


Rather, the inspectors' sudden turnaround - from being 'deeply suspicious' about Iraq to claiming that Iraq is not a threat after all - is driven by a far more squalid clash with the US and UK governments. In criticising Bush and Blair, the inspectors are merely attempting to defend their own position rather than actually challenging America and Britain's actions in Iraq. The inspectors thrived on a climate of suspicion about Iraq, on the notion that Saddam might potentially be a threat and must constantly be kept in check just in case. The inspectors are irritated by Bush and Blair's war because it knocked them off their perch, undermining their authority and purpose on the world stage.


Those who oppose Western intervention in Iraq and elsewhere should have no truck with the inspectors' current claims. Say no to war - and no to weapons inspections.


Now what say we discuss who shot Kennedy?

Posted by: S Whiplash at October 12, 2003 at 05:48 PM

John Nowak thinks that I am racist because I apparently believe:

thos i-rackis just aren't smart enough to set up factories in anticipation of production; that the joooos want money so much they can be bought out of Palestine

UNfortunately for jonnhny boy, the internet has this clever attribute whereby all people can verify what disputants have said in a debate.
Regading my allegedly racist anti-arabic statements, what I actually said was that Hussein most likely did not prefer to keep WMD programs under some kind of hidden rapid manafacturing system because he wanted to stay alive more than stock weapons:
applying Edward Demming's [just-in-time TQM to WMD programs was the last thing on Saddy's militarist mind. He was focused on survival, which meant getting rid of all WMDs.

A prefence is a moral attitude, not an intellectual aptitude. It does not reflect on Hussein's, still less Arabs, ability to do Just in Time WMD manafacturing, always assuming that one should take this preoposterous idea seriously.
Regarding my alleged anti-semitic views, I suggested that "money for peace" might work better than "land for peace", since money up front for the Jews is more certain than vague promises of better behaviour from the Palestinians:
the US should finance the purchase of the the areas largely populated by Palestine (ie WB & Gaza) that are currently illegally settled by judaic fundamentalists

Steve Sailer outlines that rational and semitic-friendly process:
Consider the mechanics of one of the most successful of peace treaties, the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. One stumbling block to redrawing the borders was the 7,000 Jewish settlers in the Sinai, which was to be handed over to the Egyptians. They would not live under Egyptian rule, nor would they abandon their homes. So, they were bought out. Instead of destabilizing the peace process, the settlers left quietly. The Sinai compensation was generous -- about one million of today's Canadian dollars per family of four.

If I am a racist anti-semite then so is Menachim Begin, who signed the compensation deal for Jews resettled from Sinai to Israel.And were the Nobel committee being racist for giving Jimmy Carter the Nobel Peace prize for this deal?
In fact I was taught, loved, and live with semites. It is for that reason that I am serious about peace, rather than settling scores with ideological juveniles, Left or Right.
Actually I am a realist, not a racist, but that is a philosophy that Johhny boy and Monkey boy et al appear to have left far behind in their semi-coherent ravings.


Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 12, 2003 at 09:19 PM

Jack can be annoying at times but you guys are f**king sheep. Out goes the 'objectively pro-Saddam' at every opportunity.

Posted by: Jason Soon at October 12, 2003 at 11:54 PM

Jack and Jason,

Jeez, things must be really slow at your site: in fact they are, I checked the comments you guys are drawing. No wonder you come here and try to stir up trouble (and perhaps a bit of interest in your site).

Posted by: S Whiplash at October 13, 2003 at 12:06 AM

Hmm... yes... you guys do have your own website, don't you? Why don't you take this little ego-party of yours to your own web home? (Yes, my patience ended with the "you people are fucking sheep" comment. Jason, you've done the equivalent of having one to many and becoming the loud, obnoxious drunk at the party when everyone else is still in a state of mild inebriation. Congratulations on being the first!)

Posted by: Andrea Harris at October 13, 2003 at 01:15 AM

It's good to see the basic level of insanity on this site hasn't diminished.

Jack thats a good idea about buying off the settlers. They should take the money and run, after all they have no right to be there in the first place.

Posted by: craig at October 13, 2003 at 02:30 AM

Ok andrea, good call.
I herewith end my contribution to this debate, which was only 130% related to personal ego-gratification. I shall go over to Catallaxy Files and attempt to drum up some business.
Jason, come home now! It's time for din-dins.
(PS Andrea: Are you some kind of unpaid web-mistress cum dominatrix? I kind of enjoy being chastised by you.)

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 13, 2003 at 02:53 AM

[cracks whip] What do you mean? I just like fine leather.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at October 13, 2003 at 03:41 AM

Jack

I respected and understood your change of opinion but do you realize that you are now using the same arguments that you would have challenged just a few months ago. And the "chicken hawk" was a low blow.

Posted by: Gary at October 13, 2003 at 12:18 PM

Jack, I was in harness for the last Gulf war, and still am. I never made it over but was sent to Somalia and Haiti, does that count?

You never made it clear you only meant the Jews living in the disputed territories. Even so tthat still does not invalidate my point. Removing the Jews does not remove the problems in arab government. They are just an excuse, and if removed, you still have the idea that palestine is "from the river to the sea" and has Jeruselem as its capitol. Remove all the Jews in the middle east and the Whahabbis will point to some guy in Brooklyn that is opressing them. They hate freedom and equality wherever it is, whether its Haifa, Bali or Manhattan.

Posted by: Monnkeyboy at October 13, 2003 at 12:50 PM

Jack said;
"Unlike you, I have no partisan afiliations. I have transcended ideology and live on a plane of existence sometimes referred to as "the Real World".
My only desire is to make people happy"

Did you ever do anything with your life or have you just spent it pontificating from the 'mount'? Quite a few of us have been in the "Real World" and there are a LOT of very nasty pieces of work out there. Your buddy Saddam was one of them, and he not only had WMDs, he used them. He was going to use them again and he wanted them very badly. As this was only ONE of the many reasons given by the Coalition (which by the way included more European nations than the "non" side) for engaging in the recent hostilities in Iraq, I thought you might get off your enlightened ass and actually examine the public record.

Do you really want to make people happy, or are just in for the self-gratification that seems to attaend all liberal socialists?

Posted by: Arn at October 13, 2003 at 01:52 PM

Jack said;
"Unlike you, I have no partisan afiliations. I have transcended ideology and live on a plane of existence sometimes referred to as "the Real World".
My only desire is to make people happy"

Did you ever do anything with your life or have you just spent it pontificating from the 'mount'? Quite a few of us have been in the "Real World" and there are a LOT of very nasty pieces of work out there. Your buddy Saddam was one of them, and he not only had WMDs, he used them. He was going to use them again and he wanted them very badly. As this was only ONE of the many reasons given by the Coalition (which by the way included more European nations than the "non" side) for engaging in the recent hostilities in Iraq, I thought you might get off your enlightened ass and actually examine the public record.

Do you really want to make people happy, or are just in for the self-gratification that seems to be a characteristic of all liberal socialists?

Posted by: Arn at October 13, 2003 at 01:52 PM

is strocchi some kind of pasta? or is that gnocchi?

Posted by: roscoe p coltrane at October 13, 2003 at 03:29 PM

Gary,

Obviously I am using the same arguments today that I rejected yesterday. That's why I said "I was wrong".
My support for the war was always always more hopeful than rational. I was basicly bothered by Left wingers who used various (good and bad) arguments against the war to mount partisan campaigns against the domestic programs conservative politicians.
But it may also be the case that some conservative politicians will use the war to advance domestic campaigns.
I apologise and withdraw the "chicken hawk" slur.
It is an ugly remark, it was unworthy of the high-standards of civility set by my genteel disputants.
I am an excitable boy, they all say.

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 13, 2003 at 09:30 PM

Arn crawls out of the woodwork to complain about the alleged kid-glove treatment that I am handing out to "my buddy Saddam" and seeks to know my true motivation:

Do you really want to make people happy, or are just in for the self-gratification that seems to attaend all liberal socialists?

Both.

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 13, 2003 at 09:34 PM

Roscoe is confused about the difference between my surname and a well-liked Italian food dish:

is strocchi some kind of pasta? or is that gnocchi?

gnocchi is an entree.
Strocchi is the main course.

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 13, 2003 at 09:40 PM

Monkeyboy points with justifiable pride to his own service record and stacks that up against my own modest efforts:

I was in harness for the last Gulf war, and still am. I never made it over but was sent to Somalia and Haiti, does that count?

Well buddy, whydidnchasayso earlier? We could have saved ourselves all these harsh words!
Monkeyboy goes on to drive home the point that the Middle East problem does not begin and end with the situation of Jews and Arabs on the West bank of the Jordan River.
Removing the Jews does not remove the problems in arab government. They are just an excuse...They hate freedom and equality wherever it is, whether its Haifa, Bali or Manhattan.

Tell me about it.
The Romans, Ottomans and Brits all came to grief dealing with Middle Eastern political culture, all wound up quitting in disgust. America is now trying to teach them the virtues of Jeffersonian democracy at the point of a gun.
Good luck.
When a Middle Eastern polity, whether Arabic or Judaic, gets its feathers ruffled, it can can turn nasty very soon. It may be that the best solution is to just leave them all alone. We may wind up having to build a wall between the West and the Middle East, with room enough for oil to flow out one way, and electronic appliances to move in the other way.
The Romans, Russians and now Israelis built walls to maintain political stability in their own jurisdictions. It's not a pretty option, but it works. After all, the residents of that area are more concerned with paying homage to God rather than Ceasar. They aren't going to be very grateful to the US when it leaves:
REG: They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers, and from our fathers' fathers.
LORETTA: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.
REG: Yeah.
LORETTA: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.
REG: Yeah. All right, Stan. Don't labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?!
XERXES: The aqueduct?
REG: What?
XERXES: The aqueduct.
REG: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true. Yeah.
COMMANDO #3: And the sanitation.
LORETTA: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like?
REG: Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.
MATTHIAS: And the roads.
REG: Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads--
COMMANDO: Irrigation.
XERXES: Medicine.
COMMANDOS: Huh? Heh? Huh...
COMMANDO #2: Education.
COMMANDOS: Ohh...
REG: Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.
COMMANDO #1: And the wine.
COMMANDOS: Oh, yes. Yeah...
FRANCIS: Yeah. Yeah, that's something we'd really miss, Reg, if the Romans left. Huh.
COMMANDO: Public baths.
LORETTA: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.
FRANCIS: Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it. They're the only ones who could in a place like this.
COMMANDOS: Hehh, heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.
REG: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health,
what have the Romans ever done for us?
XERXES: Brought peace.
REG: Oh. Peace? Shut up!

Regarding the issue of the "Jewish Question", I am buggered if I know what to do about that one. It seems to have been dragging on for quite a while now, hasn't it. What, around two millenia? I suggest that the US offer to ship all the Jews off Israel, and dump them in Long Island. They can form a Puerto-Rico style dependency there. They might not want to do that though, as it would mean giving up their nukes and leaving their Holy Places for certain Islamic hot-heads to trash.
I regret not being a perfect model of clarity over every world-historical point that I make in the bloody hand-to-hand combat that goes by the name of debate on a Tim Blair Iraq thread. Sometimes it feels like human wave attacks in here, I barely have time to reload my browser before another assault on my perimeter begins.
WILLARD "What are you shooting at soldier ?"
SOLDIER "Go*ks. What the fuck you think I'm shooting at...I'm sorry, sir... There are go*ks by the wire. But I think I killed them all."
SOLDIER "You ain't shot shit, man. Listen !"

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at October 13, 2003 at 10:32 PM

Jack, anyone who quotes Life of Brian can't be all bad. The middle east is a hard nut, and I honestly don't think its going to get better until Islam has its own version of the reformation, which should be in about 300 years.

Posted by: Monkeyboy at October 13, 2003 at 10:49 PM

Jack -

Sorry I am late to this thread and this probably won't get read. I think you are dead wrong on WMD, but thankfully this is an academic exercise now. But more to the larger point about the middle east. You are not incorrect to point to all the history of trying to tame the middle east. The problem now is that they are coming for us instead of just fighting us over there. We have no choice but to deal with it. Saddam was just one cog - and an easy way to deal with it since we already were overflying half the country. Iraq did have ties to terrorist groups and probably was more involved with logistics on 9/11 than we will ever know - the Czechs are still insisting Atta met Iraqi security operatives pre 9/11.

We cannot wait - the religion of peace is wanting to continue the war that began with its founding - through the crusades,through Spain, up to almost Vienna I think it was, through the Israeli-Arab wars. Through the bombing in Lebanon, the incident in Somalia, through the bombing of the Cole, the towers and the pentagon. We are in a fight whether we want it our not. If moderate elements of the religion of peace are to emerge, they will need help - otherwise we are all in danger.

Posted by: JEM at October 14, 2003 at 02:09 AM