Freethought & Rationalism Archive

leonarde · 04-30-2003, 08:36 PM

Partial post by Vorkosigan:

Quote:

Leonarde, there is no evidence of an Iraq-Al Qaeda link. Just a request for an envoy.

Don't you get it??? An envoy is a link: the US envoy to China in the early 1970s (G H W Bush) WAS the US's direct link to the Chinese government. "Evoy''s just a fancy French word for
"person sent". And sent for what??? To convey certain information. In this case from Iraqi intelligence to al Qaeda. HOW any native English-speaking person can claim that this isn't a "link" is beyond me!!!

Cheers!

Farren · 04-30-2003, 08:58 PM

I think Vorkosigan is using the word link to mean "collaboration", as is clearly indicated by his reference to US-Mujahadeen talks.

leonarde · 04-30-2003, 09:14 PM

Quote:

I think Vorkosigan is using the word link to mean "collaboration", as is clearly indicated by his reference to US-Mujahadeen talks.

But determining "collaboration" means knowing the CONTENTS of the conversation(s) between the interlocutors involved. If those contents were committed to paper, they would be in a SUBSEQUENT document. So the criticism of this document which I STILL consider proof of a "link" (and a "direct link", by my lights, is one that doesn't go through a third party, so this qualifies) is:
what it DOESN'T tell us. But what I think is important is what it DOES tell us: al Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence were communicating about SOMETHING of interest to both organizations. It probably wasn't about the weather.....

Cheers!

leonarde · 04-30-2003, 09:21 PM

Posted by theyeti:

Quote:

While Iraq may have had some WMD, there is little chance at this point that what they had was any kind of serious threat. Some mustard gas and stuff like that [...]

Yeah, "stuff like that". I rest my case: Iraq has(now had) chemical weapons and still theyeti doesn't care about it. Fine. But SOME people are interested. Like the tens of thousands of Kurds who fled their homes in the north of Iraq at the outset of the war because on one day several years ago about 5000 were mortally injured by "some mustard gas and stuff like that". About 2000 more people than were killed on Sept 11th 2001.

But of course the Kurds don't much follow US elections so their actions in abandoning their cities were totally pragmatic.

Cheers!

The SwampThing · 04-30-2003, 09:32 PM

Leonarde,
using your logic, does it mean the US was INFACT responsible for the "coup d�etat" in Venezuela? It is reported that an american coronel, whose name i remember not, had visited the oposition in Venezuela, just before Chavez was toppled!
Using your logic, this means the US is directlly responsible for it, altough they keep denying it...

Anyway, it was the Bush Administration who first moved the "goalposts", from WMDs to regime change, and then to Al-Qaeda links, and finally to "liberation" of Iraq!
Whenever one got too hard to justify, they would go on to the next.
And all these weeks after, we still haven�t seen anything that even resembles a justification for this war.
We still haven�t seen any WMDS;
We haven�t seen how Iraq posed a threat to the world;
We still haven�t seen any proven Al-Qaeda links;
We still haven�t seen a truelly free Iraq, just the opposite infact!
So, where will the goalpost move to, now?
More important, will it ever stop moving?

Just like the accusation made that Iraq was harboring terrorrists, i ask you this:
To the same extent, wasn�t the US guilty of harboring terrorrists aswell, the ones who perpetrated 9/11? Or even Britain?
We cannot accuse an entire nation, just because some malicious men happen to be living there. Just as we cannot accuse them for serving as a meeting point.
Even if this document proved to be authentic, wich i doubt, we still have no real solid evidence of colaboration between Saddam and Osama. Meetings are meaningless.

As for the "most experienced liars", i don�t doubt for a second that Saddam is/was a huge liar. However, small details like Watergate, Iran-contras, and the Bay of Pigs, along with hundreds of others, make me believe the gran-prize of liars goes to the White House!
And when we have two major bullshitters who lie thru their teeths arguing over who is being more honest, i tend to believe neither of them. And you should do the same.
It�s hard enough to pick thru all that bullshit to try to find some truth, without being sucked in!
If one says "it�s black!", and the other says "it�s white!", the answer can be usually found in the grey area!

The only universal truth amidst all this, is that we are all being played for fools.From both sides!!

:boohoo: :banghead: :boohoo: :banghead:

Pomp · 04-30-2003, 10:08 PM

leonarde,

Yeah, "stuff like that". I rest my case: Iraq has(now had) chemical weapons and still theyeti doesn't care about it.

I think you're missing the point, or else deliberately building a strawman. Very few people have ever maintained, as you appear to be mistakenly claiming, that Saddam had not one one single solitary ouce of anything that might be considered a Weapon of Mass Destruction. The questions posed by (the more rational) war skeptics all along have been:

a) Do we have any credible evidence that he has any such weapons?

b) If so, does he have enough to pose a credible threat to world peace and stability?

Without the first, any war to disarm the Iraqi government would be unjustified, in my eyes. Accusations without evidence do not justification provide. Without the second, a war to disarm the Iraqi government would be (speaking strictly to the WMD issue) cost-ineffective, in the sense that it's senseless to spend lives and resources to remove an insignificant threat.

You might want to go dig up the "Does Iraq have WMD?" poll thread from early March of late February, btw, in which I stated essentially the same thing, lest you think I'm moving goalposts. My criteria for approving of this war are the same as they always have been: the US administration must first present compelling evidence that Saddam was in violation of the UN resolutions compelling him to disarm and then prove that his failure to comply posed a credible threat to the world. They did neither so, as far as I'm concerned, this war was completely unjustified. For the record, my opinion would not change if US inspectors were to find a dozen nuclear tipped ICBM's aimed at Washington tomorrow...the justification has to come before the act, not discovered in the aftermath.

leonarde · 04-30-2003, 10:14 PM

Quote:

Leonarde,
using your logic, does it mean the US was INFACT responsible for the "coup d�etat" in Venezuela? It is reported that an american coronel, whose name i remember not, had visited the oposition in Venezuela, just before Chavez was toppled!
Using your logic, this means the US is directlly responsible for it, altough they keep denying it...

Speaking of "logic" I'm totally unable to follow yours here: NOWHERE in this thread did I say that Iraq was "responsible"
for Qaeda's activities (ergo your analogy is down the tubes). ONE of the subcontroversies for months on the pol. forum and elsewhere was whether there were links between Iraq and organizations which were in the terror business (including but not limited to al Qaeda ) (and whether Iraq was harboring terrorists). In recent weeks we have had Abu Nidal (as in the head of the Abu Nidal terrorist organization) captured.......in Iraq. Now a document is found in the ruins of Iraqi intelligence HQ telling about efforts 5 years ago to get together with al Qaeda.
Links. Links. Links. What one MAKES of those links is another question. One I really haven't addressed here.

Cheers!

leonarde · 04-30-2003, 10:17 PM

Partial post:

Quote:

I think you're missing the point, or else deliberately building a strawman. Very few people have ever maintained, as you appear to be mistakenly claiming, that Saddam had not one one single solitary ouce of anything that might be considered a Weapon of Mass Destruction.

Speaking of strawmen: it isn't a matter of "one single solitary ounce" but the thousands of liters of VX and other toxic substances that Iraq declared years ago and then failed to account for (to Hans Blix or anyone else). These substances don't just "poof" away. And given that the economic sanctions would be removed most readily by accounting for them the failure here is telling.

Cheers!

Nataraja · 05-01-2003, 08:21 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by leonarde
slept2long: I have lived in the US of A for over 45 years (and served in the military for a bit) but have never seen an AMERICAN "weapon of mass destruction" to my knowledge. That HARDLY means they ain't there (and OUR ICBMs are HUGE!!!). We had them by the thousands. And still have quite a few.

But I'll make a prediction or two:

1) when chemical toxic agents are found, the response here will be: 'but it wasn't on a warhead!'

2) when biological agents(anthrax) is found, the response here
will be 'but it's not in a readily available form and there were only a few tons of it!'

3) when nuclear bomb/warhead blueprints are found, the response here will be 'but it's only on the drawing board!'

In other words the goalposts will be moved again (as on the Proof of Iraqi-al Qaida link? thread: gosh! only one measly Iraqi intelligence document from 5 years ago showing direct links!)

Cheers!

Leonarde, how dare you lecture us on moving goal posts? It literally makes me noxious knowing that such hypocrisy is capable of existing. You war supporters keep showing yourselves to have very poor character. In every discussion, your motive always comes down to defending Bush. It's like you can't let it go. When 2000 innocent people are reported dead, you call it collateral damage. "COLLATERAL DAMAGE"?? I think that 2000 dead people falls neatly under the category of "bad things" in any situation, as does the US government testing its own terrible weapons on its own people. A crime against innocents is always exactly that. I'm sure that if Timothy McVeigh were around now, he would be laughing...very, very hard. With the US occupation forces being less than gentle with the Iraqi people, you are losing the moral high ground. Don't you dare switch sides; that would be the ultimate hypocrisy.

Optional · 05-01-2003, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by leonarde
Links. Links. Links. What one MAKES of those links is another question. One I really haven't addressed here.

I see what you're trying to say (finally). In one sense, I agree, you're right, technically links HAVE been found.

HOWEVER!! Most here, including me, are VERY sensitive to the kind of political spinning that the bush administration is so very good at.

It all comes down to the vagueries of human language, and the cold calculating misuse of those vagueries.

Iraq had links to the al Qa'eda! While technically a true statement, any reasonable person hearing this is going to assume that Iraq was supporting or collaberating with them, and that saddam had some measure of responsibility for 9/11, thus in some way justifying the war.

That ain't the case. All it means is exactly what is said, Iraq had links.

Whether or not Iraq had links in that sense is wholly uninteresting and irrelevant.

When people here say that this meeting five years ago does NOT prove Iraq has links, what they actually MEAN is that it does NOT prove Iraq was in any way cooperating with, collaberating with, or supporting al Qa'eda, it does NOT prove saddam had ANY measure of responsibility for 9/11, and it most specifically does NOT provide ANY justification for the war.

-me

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04-30-2003, 08:58 PM	#22
Farren Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: South Africa Posts: 2,194	I think Vorkosigan is using the word link to mean "collaboration", as is clearly indicated by his reference to US-Mujahadeen talks.

04-30-2003, 09:32 PM	#25
The SwampThing Banned Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Portugal Posts: 249	Leonarde, using your logic, does it mean the US was INFACT responsible for the "coup d�etat" in Venezuela? It is reported that an american coronel, whose name i remember not, had visited the oposition in Venezuela, just before Chavez was toppled! Using your logic, this means the US is directlly responsible for it, altough they keep denying it... Anyway, it was the Bush Administration who first moved the "goalposts", from WMDs to regime change, and then to Al-Qaeda links, and finally to "liberation" of Iraq! Whenever one got too hard to justify, they would go on to the next. And all these weeks after, we still haven�t seen anything that even resembles a justification for this war. We still haven�t seen any WMDS; We haven�t seen how Iraq posed a threat to the world; We still haven�t seen any proven Al-Qaeda links; We still haven�t seen a truelly free Iraq, just the opposite infact! So, where will the goalpost move to, now? More important, will it ever stop moving? Just like the accusation made that Iraq was harboring terrorrists, i ask you this: To the same extent, wasn�t the US guilty of harboring terrorrists aswell, the ones who perpetrated 9/11? Or even Britain? We cannot accuse an entire nation, just because some malicious men happen to be living there. Just as we cannot accuse them for serving as a meeting point. Even if this document proved to be authentic, wich i doubt, we still have no real solid evidence of colaboration between Saddam and Osama. Meetings are meaningless. As for the "most experienced liars", i don�t doubt for a second that Saddam is/was a huge liar. However, small details like Watergate, Iran-contras, and the Bay of Pigs, along with hundreds of others, make me believe the gran-prize of liars goes to the White House! And when we have two major bullshitters who lie thru their teeths arguing over who is being more honest, i tend to believe neither of them. And you should do the same. It�s hard enough to pick thru all that bullshit to try to find some truth, without being sucked in! If one says "it�s black!", and the other says "it�s white!", the answer can be usually found in the grey area! The only universal truth amidst all this, is that we are all being played for fools.From both sides!! :boohoo: :banghead: :boohoo: :banghead:

04-30-2003, 10:08 PM	#26
Pomp Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Indianapolis area Posts: 3,468	leonarde, Yeah, "stuff like that". I rest my case: Iraq has(now had) chemical weapons and still theyeti doesn't care about it. I think you're missing the point, or else deliberately building a strawman. Very few people have ever maintained, as you appear to be mistakenly claiming, that Saddam had not one one single solitary ouce of anything that might be considered a Weapon of Mass Destruction. The questions posed by (the more rational) war skeptics all along have been: a) Do we have any credible evidence that he has any such weapons? b) If so, does he have enough to pose a credible threat to world peace and stability? Without the first, any war to disarm the Iraqi government would be unjustified, in my eyes. Accusations without evidence do not justification provide. Without the second, a war to disarm the Iraqi government would be (speaking strictly to the WMD issue) cost-ineffective, in the sense that it's senseless to spend lives and resources to remove an insignificant threat. You might want to go dig up the "Does Iraq have WMD?" poll thread from early March of late February, btw, in which I stated essentially the same thing, lest you think I'm moving goalposts. My criteria for approving of this war are the same as they always have been: the US administration must first present compelling evidence that Saddam was in violation of the UN resolutions compelling him to disarm and then prove that his failure to comply posed a credible threat to the world. They did neither so, as far as I'm concerned, this war was completely unjustified. For the record, my opinion would not change if US inspectors were to find a dozen nuclear tipped ICBM's aimed at Washington tomorrow...the justification has to come before the act, not discovered in the aftermath.

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