Harold Pinter acknowledgement speech

[Fragbait]

Hi,

Bush saying "Saddam has WMD" to me is not equivalent to Clinton saying "I did not have sex with that woman"

Nor is it to me. The consequence/relevance of Clinton's statement was that he commited perjury, and therefore had to resign (the action itself was not politically serious, if you ask me). The consequence/relevance of Bush's statement (or better: of the lobby behind it) was the beginning of the war against and invasion of Iraq. Now, thousands killed in action later, the U.S.' grasp (define it as sphere of influence) is much stronger on these key regions of the 21st century. (to elaborate: optimists say oil will run short in 150 years, pessimists say in 45 years, so chances are that we will see a major shortage this century). Maybe the war wasn't fought for oil, but it helped some aims of the U.S. (Please see the letter by Donald Rumsfeld [and others] I quoted here).

there was a qualified "based on the information we have gathered and our analysis of the intelligence"

Sorry, but that is for them to know and for us to speculate. To state this is easy, to prove it - not. And they haven't produced enough convincing evidence that this step was actually justifiable, yet. So far, that you call this 'qualified' makes me laugh bitterly.

nations like N. Korea, Syria, Iran, and other nations supporting WMD proliferation and terrorists

In how far that holds true, I don't know. I lack the knowledge. And you? Or are you telling me the wisdoms from the regulars' table that you know to be true, and that surely don't have their origin in the (dis-)information campaign of the bush (to be fair, that's not a feature of the Bush government exclusively. But since that's what we're talking about...) administration, right?

what happened in this election, then you would know that it was conducted fairly [...] The votes in Florida were counted, then recounted, and according to the counts and the election laws of Florida, Bush won

I think we here in Europe had a fairly good chance to judge the legitimacy of this election, based on huge media coverage due to its importance. True, we may not have seen everything, but neither did the U.S. citizens. I don't really want to elaborate on this, just let me drop a few goodies for you:
- The insufficiently comprehensible ballots
- The exertion of influence on certain groups (liberal blacks, for example)
- The discrepancies in the counting of the votes, that lead to a re-counting in the first place
- The re-recounting, which was controversially truncated by the jurisdiction
Now, do you really think it's mere coincidence that the U.N. sent election observers the next time the election took place (2004)? Similarly to a third-world-nation after a coup d'état, really.

You presented a few good points and showed some understanding for my point of view, too. I hope that now you can see why some Europeans think that the puppet masters behind Bush and he himself are crooks. You might even clear some things up for me, thank you.

Greetings, Fragbait