Originally Posted By Mr X Hans Blix...GREAT name. Gotta love TeamAmerica where Kim Jong Il kept calling him "Hans BRICKS".
Originally Posted By ecdc >>How can one have "evidence" of something NOT existing? Its non-appearance? So, the fact that there have been no shootings in your neighborhood in the last week proves no one in your neighborhood has a gun?<< Worst. Analogy. Ever. So now it's the Left's fault that there were no WMDs? Seriously? How about Hans Blix? You can in fact have plenty of evidence that something doesn't exist (unless you're a big fan of Santa Claus and unicorns). >>People keep saying the Bush administration's sole justification for war was WMD. Baloney. Much more than I heard about WMD, I heard about Saddam's repeated violations of U.N. resolutions ... resolutions that were designed to verify compliance, prove he wasn't a threat, and thereby avoid further conflict. Saddam did not cooperate. Without his cooperation, there was no way to know anything. And, without complete certainty from inspections, we had only his track record on WMD to go on ... which is about the same as Mike Tyson's record of domestic violence.<< The only "baloney" here is the constantly morphing reasons for going to war. Yes, desperate to get everyone on board for buying that Saddam was suddenly the new bin Laden and America's boogey man, they brought up all the mass murder, the violated U.N. resolutions, etc. But there was no way they were going to convince most people to go to war on that. There's plenty of bad guys out there, and Saddam was no more of a "threat" (read: not one) under Bill Clinton. As I've said before, the Right made him the flavor of the day and so to convince everyone that it had to be done right now, right this very minute, the primary reason, as 2oony noted, was WMDs. No amount of snowballing by the right will ever change that. >>Clearly, many of you would have made a different call, and that's fine. But you weren't in his seat, with his heavy burden of responsibility for protecting Americans against any threat.<< Oh puh-leeze. Poor Georgie and his "burden of responsibility." You mean the responsibility he completely and totally screwed up? (As an aside, one can picture the right with their torches and pitchforks had it been Bill Clinton that screwed up this bad. They impeached him for being embarrassed and lying over an affair; Rush and Co. would personally be building the Clinton Gallow's on the White House lawn had this been him.) In the real world, a soldier was killed in Iraq just hours before his son was born in the states. Yup, poor, poor misunderstood George W. Bush, the coward who refused to serve himself. But Kerry threw away his medals - he's the real monster! (Such is the bizarro world logic of Bush supporters.) >>Just because he doesn't adopt YOUR position doesn't mean he hasn't considered it. He's absolutely respectful of other views in the face of vicious and personal criticism.<< Absolute nonsense. Even his supporters acknowledged that part of Bush's problem during the first debate with Kerry was his image of someone frustrated because people just wouldn't go along with him; he stuttered and stammered about how it's hard work, completely stunned that people just didn't GET IT! It was a most telling moment. >>No threat against the U.S. ??? Ha. Whatever.<< You can "ha" all you want, but you nor anyone else has provided a single scrap of evidence that he was a threat. I can see the right needing to convince themselves, because dear God, how could you possibly sleep at night knowing how many young kids have died for nothing? But that's the sad, tragic reality.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <So now it's the Left's fault that there were no WMDs?> He never said that. <How about Hans Blix?> How about him? It's not like he was running around before we invaded saying Saddam didn't have WMD's. <The only "baloney" here is the constantly morphing reasons for going to war.> I've shown many times there was no "morphing". All the reasons were given from the beginning. <As I've said before, the Right made him the flavor of the day and so to convince everyone that it had to be done right now, right this very minute, the primary reason, as 2oony noted, was WMDs.> Nonsense. Prominent democrats were saying we needed to do something about him as well. Democrat Senators wrote a letter to the President saying that, and voted in favor of taking action against him. Everyone thought he was a threat.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>I've shown many times there was no "morphing". All the reasons were given from the beginning.<< And you've been shown that, far and away, WMDs were the reason used most often to press for war. When they didn't turn up, the talking points shifted to other items on the list of reasons. Deny the 'morphing' all you like, but it isn't nonsense. One need only look at the ridiculous "it's never been a stay the course strategy' spin of a couple of months ago to see that it is done by this administration all the time. All the time. Fewer and fewer Americans are buying it, it errodes the administration's credibility, but they keep trying it anyway.
Originally Posted By gadzuux >> It's not like he was running around before we invaded saying Saddam didn't have WMD's. << No, he was saying that he wasn't finding any evidence of WMDs. Why do you suppose that is? >> Prominent democrats were saying we needed to do something about him as well. << So the buck doesn't stop in the oval office anymore? This misbegotten war wasn't started by bush? Whatever happened to the GOP watchword of responsibility? Really - just because bush got a few lackeys on his coattails with iraq does not absolve him from being the 'father' of the iraq war. He knows this, why don't you?
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <And you've been shown that, far and away, WMDs were the reason used most often to press for war.> And I'm not sure why that is, since I've never denied that they were. <Fewer and fewer Americans are buying it, it errodes the administration's credibility, but they keep trying it anyway.> They keep telling what they think is the truth.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <And you've been shown that, far and away, WMDs were the reason used most often to press for war.> And I'm not sure why that is, since I've never denied that they were. <Fewer and fewer Americans are buying it, it errodes the administration's credibility, but they keep trying it anyway.> They keep telling what they think is the truth.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <And you've been shown that, far and away, WMDs were the reason used most often to press for war.> And I'm not sure why that is, since I've never denied that they were. <Fewer and fewer Americans are buying it, it errodes the administration's credibility, but they keep trying it anyway.> They keep telling what they think is the truth.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh Sorry for the multiple posts. <No, he was saying that he wasn't finding any evidence of WMDs.> Please provide a quote of this. I recall Hans Blix saying a lot of things, all of which contained so many qualifiers that it was impossible to have confidence either way. <So the buck doesn't stop in the oval office anymore? This misbegotten war wasn't started by bush? Whatever happened to the GOP watchword of responsibility?> The person who bears the most responsibility for our invasion of Iraq was Saddam Hussein, but yes, President Bush and many on the right clearly supported our action. That does not mean, however, that the left didn't support it as well. They did, unlike what was implied in the post I responded to.
Originally Posted By gadzuux >> I think it's clear that in March, when the invasion took place, the evidence that had been brought forward was rapidly falling apart, ... Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.†<< >> The commission has not at any time during the inspections in Iraq found evidence of the continuation or resumption of programs of weapons of mass destruction ... whether from pre-1991 or later.†<< >> “The [Niger memo] document had been sitting with the CIA and their U.K. counterparts for a long while, and they had not discovered it, ... And I think it took the IAEA a day to discover that it was a forgery.†<< >> “This does not necessarily mean that such items could not exist. They might. There remain a long list of items unaccounted for, ... But it is not justified to jump to the conclusion that something exists just because it was unaccounted for.†<< Along with about seven more pages of them at ... <a href="http://thinkexist.com/quotes/hans_blix/2.html" target="_blank">http://thinkexist.com/quotes/h ans_blix/2.html</a> And bush didn't "support" our action, he created it - he gave birth to it. Let's not backpedal on this one.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Along with about seven more pages of them at ...> And all of them either said after the fact or as inconclusive as I said they were. <And bush didn't "support" our action, he created it - he gave birth to it.> Hardly. Saddam Hussein created it, by refusing to comply with the UN resolutions.
Originally Posted By gadzuux My Statement: >> [Blix] had been at the task for years and were saying all along that they weren't finding any evidence. << Your response: >> >> It's not like he was running around before we invaded saying Saddam didn't have WMD's. << My response: >> No, he was saying that he wasn't finding any evidence of WMDs. << Your request: >> Please provide a quote of this. << My reply: >> The commission has not at any time during the inspections in Iraq found evidence of the continuation or resumption of programs of weapons of mass destruction ... whether from pre-1991 or later.†<< And that's not sufficient for you? And you can try to distance bush from the iraq war all you like, but it's never going to work. Who do you think you're kidding?
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <And that's not sufficient for you?> No. That quotation was from a report he made after we invaded. <And you can try to distance bush from the iraq war all you like, but it's never going to work. Who do you think you're kidding?> I'm not "distancing" anyone from the Iraq War. I'm preventing you from revising history.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "I'm preventing you from revising history." It's this kind of absolutism that's very off-putting. At its core, you have a difference of opinion. However, since you want to keep maintaining all the facts aren't in yet as it relates to the cost, not all the facts are in yet as how this entire mess started. Your problem is that the more facts becoem known, the more it appears this Administration wanted war, everything else be damned.
Originally Posted By Mr X Doug hasn't been backing things up lately, just throwing out simple contradictions to any and all comments. This behaviour is new. One can only assume this is because his position has become undefensible. Cool.
