While some point to a one-month drop in casualties as the definitive smell of victory, others, perhaps a little more inform, would like to vote with their feet, but them thar feet are shackled. And we ain't talk’n about some dang foreigners being held against thar will, we're a-talkin U.S. State Department employees -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...101626_pf.html

Envoys Resist Forced Iraq Duty
Top State Dept. Officials Face Angry Questions

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 1, 2007; A01

Uneasy U.S. diplomats yesterday challenged senior State Department officials in unusually blunt terms over a decision to order some of them to serve at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad or risk losing their jobs.

At a town hall meeting in the department's main auditorium attended by hundreds of Foreign Service officers, some of them criticized fundamental aspects of State's personnel policies in Iraq. They took issue with the size of the embassy -- the biggest in U.S. history -- and the inadequate training they received before being sent to serve in a war zone. One woman said she returned from a tour in Basra with post-traumatic stress disorder only to find that the State Department would not authorize medical treatment.

Yesterday's internal dissension came amid rising public doubts about diplomatic progress in Iraq and congressional inquiries into the department's spending on the embassy and its management of private security contractors. Some participants asked how diplomacy could be practiced when the embassy itself, inside the fortified Green Zone, is under frequent fire and officials can travel outside only under heavy guard.

Service in Iraq is "a potential death sentence," said one man who identified himself as a 46-year Foreign Service veteran. "Any other embassy in the world would be closed by now," he said to sustained applause.

Harry K. Thomas Jr., the director general of the Foreign Service, who called the meeting, responded curtly. "Okay, thanks for your comment," he said, declaring the town hall meeting over.

In notices e-mailed to Foreign Service officers around the world late Friday night, Thomas wrote that State had decided to begin "directed assignments" to fill an anticipated shortfall of 48 diplomats in Iraq next summer. Separate e-mail letters were sent to about 250 officers selected as qualified for the posts. If enough of them did not volunteer, the letters said, some would be ordered to serve there.

Foreign Service officers swear an oath to serve wherever the secretary of state sends them, but no directed assignments have been ordered since the late 1960s, during the Vietnam War. More than 1,200 of 11,500 eligible State Department personnel have already served in Iraq, but the growth of the embassy has led to an ever-increasing demand.

The notices, which most diplomats first learned about from the news media as the e-mails sat in their office computers over the weekend, appeared to have catalyzed unease that has been swirling through the Foreign Service over issues that include Iraq, underfunding and inadequate recruitment, perceived disrespect from the U.S. military and the job performance of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

A poll conducted this month by the American Foreign Service Association found that only 12 percent of officers "believe that . . . Rice is fighting for them," union president John K. Naland said at yesterday's meeting, which was first reported by the Associated Press.

"That's their right. But they're wrong," said Thomas, who appeared to grow increasingly agitated as the questioning became more pointed.

"Sometimes, if it's 88 to 12, maybe the 88 percent are correct," Naland said.

"Eighty-eight percent of the country believed in slavery at one time. Was that correct?" Thomas responded, saying he was "insulted." Rice is fighting hard for them, he said. Amid scattered boos from the audience, Thomas added: "Let no one be a hypocrite. I really resent people telling me that I do not care about other Foreign Service officers."

The session began sedately. "We are the Foreign Service and the Civil Service of the United States of America," Thomas told them. "I am very proud of you. There is none better."

But he got quickly to the point. "We have 250 jobs to fill in the summer of '08 in Iraq," he said. "We have filled a little over 200."

Thomas reminded them, according to an audiotape of the session, that "every member of the Foreign Service, there can be no doubt, has agreed to worldwide availability. Every member . . . has taken an oath to the flag and the country." If volunteers come forward for the unfilled posts, he said, "we will cease this operation. But if not, we will continue. . . . If we have to, we will redirect assignments."

Some may have already decided that they "can no longer live up to their worldwide availability obligation," he said. "We will respect that. I will not criticize anyone. I will not slander anyone. . . . But we're going to move on with this."

Thomas told the diplomats that in the future, "everyone in the Foreign Service is going to have to do one out of three tours in a hardship post." Those who have not served in hardship assignments in the past will not be punished, but they all have to realize that there are "different conditions" now than in the past, he said. New training programs for those serving in hardship and dangerous posts are being developed, he said.

Many in the audience appeared initially reluctant to ask questions, according to several who attended. "I assure you you're not going to be punished or placed on a list," Thomas invited.

Naland rose first to note that there were "only about 30 spaces left" on a memorial plaque in the building commemorating those who had died on duty. His members told him that "some of our people [in Iraq] can't really do their jobs because of the security situation," he said, asking, "How certain are you and the secretary . . . that every one of those posts must be filled, that they require unarmed, undertrained Foreign Service and Civil Service [employees] to go there?"

At least three department employees have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Naland said in an interview that some diplomats sent to Vietnam received four to six months of training. Many of those who have gone to Iraq received only two weeks of training, he said.

Thomas said he had traveled to Baghdad and gone over the staffing list with U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. Crocker sent a brusque cable to Rice in March saying that he needed more and better-qualified people if the U.S. diplomatic mission in Iraq was to succeed. Thomas said he was "not going to dispute that some people may disagree on the numbers." But, he said, "we have to go with the ambassador."

The number of diplomatic positions in Iraq has increased every year since the embassy was opened in 2004. The expansion of provincial reconstruction teams -- made up of diplomats who work with local communities outside Baghdad -- from 10 to 25 last summer as part of President Bush's new strategy, added 30 Foreign Service personnel and many more outside contractors.

Amid the anger expressed, the woman who was stationed in Basra said she had "absolutely no regrets" about serving in Iraq. "I wanted to go to a place where I knew it was important for my country to be," she said, "even though I had a lot of questions about the origins of the war to begin with."

But citing her own medical situation and sounding near tears, she said: "The more who serve in war zones, the more that will come back with these sorts of war wounds. . . . Now that you are looking at compulsory service in war zones . . . we have a moral imperative as an agency to take care of our people."

Come on Zilch, Sean90, HC, KIA, etc., etc.! That's 50 ”non-combat” jobs unfilled. You got the attitude, but do you got the balls?

And with apologies to Country Joe -

Come on all you big strong men
Chickenhawks need your help again
Bush got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Iraqi land
So put down your keyboards and pick up a gun
We're all gonna have a whole lotta fun

Chorus:
And it's one, two, three, what are we figthing for
Don't ask Bush, he just lie anyway, next stop it is Iraq
And it's five, six, seven bodies you can calculate
Ain't no time to wonder why, whoopee we're all gonna die

Come on Dubya let's move fast
Your big chance has come at last
Now you couldn't find WMD's
And you just plain failed with your bad diplomacy
And you know that peace can only be won
When we've blown 'em all to kingdom come

Come on wall street don't be slow
For oil this war is a real big go-go
There's plenty of money to be made by
Supplying the army with the tools of the trade
Let's hope stock soars for old Halliburton
Though our soldiers are a hurtin'

Come on mothers don't be in shock
Pack your boys and girls off to ol' Iraq
Come on fathers don't hesitate
Send your sons and daughters off, make Dubya great
And you can be the first ones on your block
To have your boy or girl come home in a box

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

No, it's same set of lies that the anti-American movement has been peddling for years. Even when they get some of their facts right, it's in the service of a larger lie. They treat Joe Wilson as being credible, which in itself discredits their claims.

It's too late to try and argue that the so-called 'peace movement' or the Democrats are credible on this issue, it's intellectually dishonest.

When Joe Wilson was revealed as a liar, their entire tissue of falsehoods came apart. The Democrats knew Wilson was lying, Fitzgerald knew Wilson was lying, at least some of the big name reporters knew he was lying. And his lies formed the basis of the whole 'Bush lied' propaganda scam.

Bush was telling the truth, as far as it was known at the time, about the WMDs and the nature of the threat. The people claiming otherwise are now known with certainty to be lying.

That must be some mightly fine dope you're smoking, there.

Anyone who thinks that the anti-war movement is dominated by people that hate America, that Joe Wilson is a liar Bush is telling the truth has his head up his a** (or maybe Little Green Footballs).

Originally Posted by playwrite

While some point to a one-month drop in casualties as the definitive smell of victory, others, perhaps a little more inform, would like to vote with their feet, but them thar feet are shackled. And we ain't talk’n about some dang foreigners being held against thar will, we're a-talkin U.S. State Department employees -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...101626_pf.html



Come on Zilch, Sean90, HC, KIA, etc., etc.! That's 50 ”non-combat” jobs unfilled. You got the attitude, but do you got the balls?

And with apologies to Country Joe -

Do you never get tired of being played for a sucker?

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Do you never get tired of being played for a sucker?

Care to explain? That is, if you're not too busy packing your bags for the Emerald City.

(This should be highly entertaining )

Originally Posted by Odin

That must be some mightly fine dope you're smoking, there.

Anyone who thinks that the anti-war movement is dominated by people that hate America, that Joe Wilson is a liar Bush is telling the truth has his head up his a** (or maybe Little Green Footballs).

Joe Wilson was and is a self-promoting liar and con man, as is his wife, that's a fact that was settled beyond dispute well over a year ago. Even the WaPo finally acknowledged that the man was a fraud, though by the time they did everybody but the moonbats already knew it. Valerie Plame was never covered by the legal protections of covert operatives, that was a lie. She and Wilson claimed she had nothing to do with his being sent to 'investigate' the Niger claims, that too was lie, the Senate found the memo in which she recommended him (despite his total lack of qualifications).

He claimed Cheney sent him, that was a lie. He claimed he told the CIA there was nothing to the claims of uranium seeking, the CIA eventually revealed that this was not what he actually said to them. He claimed to have no political agenda at the same time he was working for the Kerry campaign.

He claimed to have 'investigated' the claims of Hussein seeking uranium, then later admitted he never even left the hotel.

In short, the man is a fraud, as had become painfully obvious long before Fitzmas.

Hussein sent his chief operator for matters nuclear to Niger, and he was seeking uranium. The excuses that have been put up to account for that visit are jokes, they don't even make sense on their own terms. (Time Magazine wrote a story about the visit which somehow, some way, overlooked that the man Hussein sent was his nuclear minister. )]

Note that the British intelligence services never withdrew their claims, and Joe Wilson's 'debunking' is irrelevant since he was lying.

So the question is not whether Hussein was seeking uranium, the question is what he wanted it for.

As for his false claims about being 'punished' for his lies, the 'leaker', contrary to the nonsense spewed by the Democratic media, was Richard Armitage, as has been confirmed by Novak. Both Novak and Armitage have also confirmed that Fitzgerald knew that Armitage was the leaker at the very start of his entire bogus investigation.

Every single claim that was made based on Wilson's lies is thus discredited.

As for the so-called 'peace movement', (calling it the 'peace movement' is classic Orwellian language, it is and always was an anti-American movement) is dominated by an organization called ANSWER, which stands for Act N to Stop War and End Racism.

ANSWER

ANSWER itself was organized on September 14, 2001, specifically to provide a new focus for the anti-American movement and try to prevent action of any sort after 911. They opposed both Iraq and Afghanistan, and in fact ANSWER was organized initially in opposition to the idea of military action in Afghanistan.

But ANSWER is just the latest face of the Workers World Party and the IAC, Ramsey Clark's outfit. The organized 'peace movement' originated as a front for Communists, but they outlived their origins. Along with them was a potpouri of Leftist kooks, they admit to the following members of their steering committee:

Steering Committee:
IFCO/Pastors for Peace
Free Palestine Alliance - U.S.
Haiti Support Network
Partnership for Civil Justice - LDEF
Nicaragua Network
Alliance for Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines
Korea Truth Commission
Muslim Student Association - National
Kensington Welfare Rights Union
Mexico Solidarity Network
Party for Socialism and Liberation

This is the outfit that organized the 'anti-war' protests that gathered all the old 60s retreads, and most of the propaganda that's been circulated by the various nutroots blogs and some elected Democrats who should (and do) know better ultimately originates here.

Not that the GOP is entirely better, because ANSWER is also the organizing force behind those huge pro-illegals protests from last year, with their Mexican flags and demands for amnesty. Whenever there's an organized activity against America's interests, you tend to find this bunch in the middle of it.

They're anti-Western, anti-Israeli, and anti-American, and they are the center of the so-called 'peace movement'.

Now, naturally the vast majority of the people who support the peace movement don't share their actual agenda, and mostly don't even realize who they are, any more than the protesters in the Vietnam years understood who was pulling the strings back then. But the rank and file protesters have nothing to do with the actual agendas, either.

There's lots of coverage about ANSWER's role in the modern incarnation of the 'peace movement', but it's mostly from right-wing sources and so I suspect you'd question its validity. For the most part the Democratic media and lefty voices have been loudly silent on the connection.

But some lefties have been troubled by it enough to comment, including, to my personal amazement, David Corn(!): Behind the Placards, ANSWER and the Workers World Party

As Corn asks:

The WWP does have the shock troops and talent needed to construct a quasi mass demonstration. But the bodies have to come from elsewhere. So WWPers create fronts and trim their message, and anti-war Americans, who presumably don’t share WWP sentiments, have an opportunity to assemble and register their stand against the war. At the same time, WWP activists, hiding their true colors, gain a forum where thousands of people listen to their exhortations. Is this a good deal — or a dangerous one? Who’s using whom?

The answer, we now know, is that ANSWER was doing the using, and the Democratic leadership looked the other way and joined in their campaign of falsehoods because it was useful at the time.

Incidentally, this is why the claim that the USA would have stayed united if only Afghanistan had been invaded is a lie. ANSWER was against both operations, and they've lied through their teeth (via their proxy organizations) for years about Iraq, so we have to assume that they'd have happily done the same about an 'Afghanistan-only' approach to the WOT. In fact, we don't have to speculate, they had already started in on their effort to undermine the Afghanistan effort when Iraq soaked up their attention.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Care to explain? That is, if you're not too busy packing your bags for the Emerald City.

(This should be highly entertaining )

THe media are seeking out whatever story they can to put a negative 'spin' on anything happening in Iraq, this is just the latest example of an ongoing effort. They've run out (at least for now) of pictures of burning cars and they don't have a current body count to lovingly dwell on, so they seek out whatever they can and 'spin' it to suit their narrative. You fell for it.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Are there any seasonal candidates out there? I'm afraid Obama is turning out to be preseasonal. I was interested in him for awhile but now I think he's better suited for a 1T.

There is one seasonal but only potential candidate: Al Gore. I don't see him charging into the fray, but he could be drafted. He will run if asked.

Other than Gore, I don't see much. The fact that Obama is preseasonal is actually good news, since he needs a little more Senate time before he runs, anyway. That still leaves the Dems with leftovers and the GOP with worse.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

THe media are seeking out whatever story they can to put a negative 'spin' on... You fell for it.

Fell fot it? Zip, zero nadda, these liberals are not duped at all. It is their very nature to lie and to lie often. Intentional obfuscation is paving their path to the halls of power.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

There is one seasonal but only potential candidate: Al Gore. I don't see him charging into the fray, but he could be drafted. He will run if asked.

Other than Gore, I don't see much. The fact that Obama is preseasonal is actually good news, since he needs a little more Senate time before he runs, anyway. That still leaves the Dems with leftovers and the GOP with worse.

Gore is most definitely seasonal. I will continue to hold out hope. In the meantime, if things stay as they are, I'll give my vote to Dodd in the February 19 primary, if only for his stand on telecom immunity.

After that, all bets are off.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Nowhere near as entertaining as watching people who've never been to the Green Zone call it the Emerald City for insider cred.

I thought it was an Oz reference.

Either way, it is funny.

Mr HC:

It would be helpful if you could please define what you mean by "anti-american"

Originally Posted by The Rani

Maybe it's only funny to people who have never been there?

Oh, it's much funnier to watch your reactions than it is to read HC's lame insults.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Always glad to amuse.

Also glad to know that you can finally appreciate me being humorous on this forum. Usually it pisses you off.

I'm pissed off at someone else today (nobody here).

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

As for the so-called 'peace movement', (calling it the 'peace movement' is classic Orwellian language, it is and always was an anti-American movement) is dominated by an organization called ANSWER, which stands for Act N to Stop War and End Racism.

What a load of BS, and ignorant BS to boot. I and plenty of other fellow anti-war people that despise ANSWER because they keep hijacking the demonstrations and making the rest of us look bad. They are a bunch of Maoist morons as far as I'm concerned.

Originally Posted by 13rian

Mr HC:

It would be helpful if you could please define what you mean by "anti-american"

He thinks the anti-war movement is a bunch of Communists and their naive Liberal/Progressive patsies. When it comes to politics it is hopeless to argue with him, he's a right-wing "true believer." that treats the Platonic "noble lies" of the Neo-Cons as gospel.

HC, the moderator of www.royaltymonarchy.com, whose forums I am a member of, is an opponent of the Iraq War, and wants U. S. troops gone very quickly. Do you consider him a communist sympathizer?

Originally Posted by Odin

He thinks the anti-war movement is a bunch of Communists and their naive Liberal/Progressive patsies.

That is a precisely accurate description of the organized 'anti-war' movement. That's just exactly what it is and how it has worked for the last several years.

When it comes to politics it is hopeless to argue with him, he's a right-wing "true believer." that treats the Platonic "noble lies" of the Neo-Cons as gospel.

You've accused Bush and the neocons of lying. I assume you have evidence to back that up? Or are you ceding the debate?

Originally Posted by Semo '75

ANSWER represents a disciplined cadre of experienced protestors who have been organizing and providing a lot of bodies at protests for a long time. The group's strength is in its DIY technical know how -- its members know how to secure permits, they have lawyers who are retained for the purpose of securing permits when local ordinances or authorities stand in the way, they know how to rig scaffolding, set up PA systems, they're willing to offer training to protestors, deal with a lot of the logistical concerns, and a bunch of other things besides.

In other words, ANSWER isn't "hijacking" anything. ANSWER sets up the stages, so it also gets the right to determine who's at center stage. ANSWER sets up the PA systems, so it gets to determine who holds the microphones. And so on. While I don't agree with ANSWER, it takes gall to claim that its members are stealing your protests when they're the one doing all of the work.

Please note that while I'm not siding with ANSWER, I'm not agreeing with HC here -- I appreciate the fact that people disagree with me on the subject of the war in Iraq and that most of them aren't "anti-American".

Certainly. But I didn't say that all opposition to the Iraq War was anti-American, I said that organized political entity that goes by the Orwellian name of 'the peace movement' is run by ANSWER and their ilk, which is a fact.
As you noted, they created it, they do the work, they run it at day's end.

The rest of the opposition to the Iraq War is inchoate, they have relatively little voice even though their total numbers are greater than that of ANSWER's minions. For whatever reasons, many of those who oppose the war effort on serious grounds ended up throwing what weight they had behind ANSWER's efforts, and thus ended up serving their purposes.

The Democrats reached out to ANSWER and Co., not the rational Left, when they embarked on their current course back in the spring of 2005. That's part of why, instead of saying that they thought Bush was not handling the War on Terror well, and the Democrats could do better, the Democrats instead for years went into a spiel of pretending that 'Bush lied' and that the threat didn't even exist.

ANSWER is small in total numbers of people, (their 'mass protests' have been pathetic, for ex), but very, very slick at PR and media manipulation, something that was also true of the pro-Soviet movement out of which they were born. Even calling themselves the 'peace movement' is psychological, it hides their actual agenda and lets their followers indulge in a spurious moral superiority that has no basis but tickles the ego.

I'm only pointing out the facts here 'cause the non-anti-American types have had over four years to organize your own protests, yet ANSWER's still the driving force. Not for nothin', but that strikes me as pretty weird.

I've wondered myself why that is. I have some wild guesses, but no confidence in any of them.

Originally Posted by Odin

What a load of BS, and ignorant BS to boot. I and plenty of other fellow anti-war people that despise ANSWER because they keep hijacking the demonstrations and making the rest of us look bad. They are a bunch of Maoist morons as far as I'm concerned.

Then you have a big problem, because without them there are no demonstrations. It's their megaphone and their podium, they call the shots in the demonstrations. You are along for the ride with them.

And yes, they and their kook-fringe allies have become, to a considerable degree, the public face of the anti-Iraq feeling in the USA. As I said, if you despise them as Maoists (and I have no reason to doubt you) you and yours would do well to start thinking about how to get out of their shadow.

Originally Posted by 13rian

Mr HC:

It would be helpful if you could please define what you mean by "anti-american"

To a first approximation, it's people who would rather America lost than won any given war she finds herself in, people who reflexiively side with the opponent in any dispute between America and another state. It's that faction (mostly but not entirely on the Left) who thinks that America is the primary problem in the world, that our enemies are morally in the right and that American 'imperialism' is the key evil that has to be defeated. They tend to throw the words 'imperialism' and 'colonialism' around a lot when describing America. 'Racist' is another favorite.

They have a tendency to want to see international organizations supervise American policy, and to see 'containing' America as a key moral and political goal. They dislike border control because they want the specifically American national identity blurred, and because they don't think the United States has the moral right to tell people they can't enter. (ANSWER is very, very big in the amnesty movement).

Ramsey Clark is their poster boy, the harder-core ones tend to admire Fidel Castro as a 'man of the people' and think the Cold War was a big misunderstanding caused by America. They have a tendency to credulously swallow anything America's enemies claim whole, or at least to pretend to do so.

Jean Kirkpatrick called them the 'blame America first crowd'.

For an example of their thinking, we can look to ANSWER's own propaganda on their own website:

ANSWER

For example, here is their agenda for their 'big' protest that was supposed to go down on September 24th:

SEPTEMBER 24, 2005
MASS MARCH IN WASHINGTON DC

Thousands will march on Saturday, September 24 in Washington DC. The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition urges the antiwar movement to come together for a united demonstration to say

Stop the War in Iraq
End Colonial Occupation from Iraq to Palestine to Haiti
Support the Palestinian People’s Right of Return
Stop the Threats Against Venezuela, Cuba, Iran & North Korea
U.S. Out of the Philippines
U.S. Out of Puerto Rico
Bring all the troops home now
Stop the Racist, anti-Immigrant and anti-Labor Offensive at Home, Defend Civil Rights
Military Recruiters Out of Our Schools and Communities

This is the stuff they admit to and boast about.

They call for a 'right of return' for the Palestinians. This is a 'nice-soundning' way of phrasing a call for the total destruction of Israel, since the 'right of return' is incompatible with the survival of Israel. For whatever reason, the same people who loathe the USA tend also to hate Israel.

'U.S. out of Puerto Rico'. Enough said.

'Military recruiters out of our schools and communities'. Self-explanatory, and highly revealing.

'Stop the threats against Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea'. Note that here they cast America as the aggressor against all three states, even though the opposite is true. In ANSWER's world Saddam Hussein was an innocent victim of American aggression, too. So were the Taliban.

Here is ANSWER on amnesty:

http://www.pephost.org/site/News2?pa...s_iv_ctrl=2662

Note that they cast Bush as anti-immigrant! This is a measure both of just how alienated from their own country the hard left is, and also of how insanely self-destructive the GOP's flirtation with Comprehensive Amnesty was.

Since they are passionately anti-American, they tend to see any enforcement of our law as illegitimate too. The police are thugs of a police state in ANSWER's view. They were big on the 'free Mumia' business too. These are people who think Che Guevara is a hero and Ronald Reagan was a war criminal.

They are also the heart and soul of the organized opposition to the War on Terror, and for whatever reason the rest of the American Left seems to have been trapped into orbit around them.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

I'm only pointing out the facts here 'cause the non-anti-American types have had over four years to organize your own protests, yet ANSWER's still the driving force. Not for nothin', but that strikes me as pretty weird.

It struck me as strange, too. For as long as it took me to realize that people -- not just me as an oddity, but people in general -- who actually do care about something will exert effort on its behalf more or less proportionally. Once I internalized that, it became clear where my confusion was coming from.

I was assuming that when people said they were opposed to the war, they meant on a level correspondent to the sheer evil of being responsible for the massacre of innocents (please, take as little offense as possible, Chris; it's clear we are of different minds here). In fact, their level of opposition was somewhere between the 'Coke-versus-Pepsi' and 'Family Guy; like/dislike' issues in terms of importance.
The lack of action becomes a lot less inexplicable when you accept that the vast bulk talk, but do not actually care.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

To a first approximation, it's people who would rather America lost than won any given war she finds herself in, people who reflexiively side with the opponent in any dispute between America and another state.

thanks for clarifying. for a moment back there i thought you were insinuating that anyone who wanted to change existing laws or policy was "anti-american" which struct me as ridiculously nationalistic.

i agree with you about people who would "rather America lose any given war", but...do you think that attitude is so widespread? I may not rub elbows with protesters, but that sounds like a stereotype to me, "bad apples" as it were?

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

You've accused Bush and the neocons of lying. I assume you have evidence to back that up? Or are you ceding the debate?

Cheney said the insurgents were in their last throes 2.5 years ago. At the time his statement appeared incorrect, as there was no publicly-available information that showed that defeat of the insurgency was at hand. There were only two possibilities: (1) the view obtained from considering the public information was correct, the insurgency would not decline in the coming months and years, and so Cheney was lying (2) the view obtained from public information was incorrect, the insurgency would collapse in the coming months and years, and Cheney was telling the truth. Time would tell which was correct.

As the future unfolded the insurgency did not collapse, Cheney had lied.

The president claimed that Iraq had sought to obtain large quantities of uranium in Africa. After the invasion it became immediately clear that the Iraqis had no development programs that would require large quantities of uranium. The administration retracted this statement officially, acknowledging error.

Secretary Powell showed aluminum mortar rocket tubes and claimed that they were evidence of nuclear enrichment activities. After the invasion it was clear he was wrong.

In both these cases, the administration implicitly lied about the due diligence behind the statements. When a President makes a official statement of fact, as he did, it is presumed that this statement has been vetted. It wasn't. This claim was based on documents that were obvious forgeries. The signatories did not occupy the posts claimed for them at the time the document claimed they were signed. All that is needed to see this is a detailed knowledge of who was in what post in Niger at various times and personal contacts with the supposed players. Making this determination can be done from a hotel room.

In the case of the aluminum tubes, they were of the wrong size for use in centrifuges, but the right size for rocket tubes, (which was what the Iraqis said they were for). There was no reason to believe that these tubes were evidence for a nuclear program. The appropriate due diligence would have (and did) reveal this fact. Powell claimed otherwise. He was either lying himself or was repeating lies told to him.

Powell also claimed the Iraqi had developed "mobile biowarfare labs" in truck trailers that allowed them to develop WMDs without detection by UN inspectors. Once again there was no evidence for this claim. The trailers described were claimed by the Iraqis to be for generating hydrogen in the field in to to fill balloons.

The idea that a biological laboratory/production facility could fit into a truck trailers sounded pretty far fetched to me (I am a chemical and biological process scientist at Pfizer's Kalamazoo production facility). Did Powell have any evidence that such an exotic animal existed? After the invasion one of these trailers were found, and announced as proof of the truth of the biowarfare lab claim. A photo and diagram was shown in the article and it was immediately apparent to me that this facility could not possibly be used for any sort of bioprocessing. It had too few tanks and none of the necessary ancilliary equipment (1) no centrifuge, (2) no spray dryer (3) no culture prep facility (4) no sterilization facility. (Trying to imagine jamming all this stuff into a single trailer was what made me dubious about the claim originally).

In fact it had just the equipment required for field generation of hydrogen gas for balloons. That is, it was obviously consistent with what the Iraqis said it was and not all all with what the military was proclaiming it was. I never saw any mention of the trailers again, I assume nobody is still claiming they are evidence of a secret Baathist biowarfare program.

Here too, Powell either lied or was lied to when he said that the nonsense he was peddling at the UN was based on hard facts and solid analysis.

Also the president and his spokesmen lied about the progress of the war and their confidence in Donald Rumsfeld right up to the 2006 election. Immediately after the Republican loss in that election, Rumsfeld was out and the administration now acknowledged problems with the war.

Plenty of administration lies. If Bush wasn't perceived as having lied about the war, then he would be a lot more popular and the GOP presidential candidates wouldn't be running from him.

So now the default assumption about any administration claim made about the war that supports their contentions is a lie. The burden of showing otherwise falls on you, the faithful 30%. That's how it goes in politics.

You can (and do) claim otherwise, which is why 30% will remain a ceiling for this administration's popularity

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

Dubya may have said "clear and gathering" that time, but he and many top folks in his administration said more than that, many times. Like here, and here, and here, and here and elsewhere.

So, again, and again, and again, and again, whether it be Bush, or Cheney, or Rummie, or Scotty, or Bartlett, or whomever, the threat from Hussein's regime is described as "immediate", "mortal", "terrible", "unique", or extraordinarily dire in some fashion. And on at least two occasions White House officials (Fleisher and Bartlett) agreed with the "imminent" assessment about Iraq specifically and never retracted those statements and the White House never distanced itself from the statements.

But one of my favorites is this little piece from Scott McClellan:



This gets to the crux of the matter. Several nations have nuclear weapons, and many more have biochemical capabilities. What the Bush Administration was saying was Iraq was extra special because Hussein was going to give WMD to Al Qaeda.

Thus, we have the trumped up Iraq - Al Qaeda connection, which report after report has shown was "discovered" via cherry-picking the data. Were there points of data that could be used to demonstrate such a connection? Sure. But the same could be said for the existence of the Loch Ness Monster and for little green men from the gamma quadrant giving grandma the ol' anal probe. However, the totality of the data makes accepting such conclusions highly suspect.

So yes Mr. Lamb, it is the truth that the Bush administration said that the threat posed by Iraq was "imminent" and "immediate" and "mortal", in addition to "grave" and "growing". This is not just the "4T truth", but the factual truth. And as I said before, as long as they are sticking to such terminology that are lying because they knew it was not the case. Sure, a strong case could be made that they thought WMD would actually be there. I am not faulting them on that, though that turned out wrong too. But, as the British ascertained, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy".

I could, at a LONG stretch, believe that the adminstration did not know what it was doing and that it just got caught up in a whirlwind of paranoia and belligerence. Even then, the fact remains that the White House has not disavowed it's "findings". Therefore, they are still lying.

Marc, this was a direct response to a direct request from you. Are you going to answer or not?

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Nowhere near as entertaining as watching people who've never been to the Green Zone call it the Emerald City for insider cred.

Oh for Christ's sake. It is common knowledge among people who read about events in Iraq that the Green Zone is informally known as the "Emerald City". Are only people who have experience with combat in Iraq allowed to call it that?

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Originally Posted by The Rani
Maybe it's only funny to people who have never been there?

That's what it looks like to me.

So which is it? It is "entertaining" for you to watch us little pukes refer to it as that, or is it "only funny" to us little pukes? If I were to wager a guess, I'd say you are only interested in demonstrating your inherent superiority. But what do I know? I'm just a "spectacular douche" who according your omniscience "never stood up for anything".