Harold Pinter acknowledgement speech

[Guest]

Sort of.

Based on the facts a plausible case can be made supporting either of our positions. But neither case is definitive.
So if we are going to make an educated guess it makes sense to go with the strong historical trend.

People always suspect vast complex hidden plans working against them(or against the greater good) and in actuality its almost always an assortment of short term selfish or fear driven plans that are barely hidden, causing the trouble.

[Jester]

People always suspect vast complex hidden plans working against them(or against the greater good) and in actuality its almost always an assortment of short term selfish or fear driven plans that are barely hidden, causing the trouble.
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Yes, indeed. This is both selfish and barely hidden. In fact, it's not hidden. It's on PNAC's website, and has been since the early nineties.

If we're going to go with the historical trend, then I'd suggest reviewing the US' history of starting wars-for-gain with falsified justifications. There are a heck of a lot of them. Latin America would be a good place to start.

-Jester

[eppie]

You paint a calculated picture than reasonable people DONT believe.

I also suspect G.W. fet his was taking care of a mess his daddy left.
Im not defending the White House at all here. From a strategic sense the war appears to have been a big mistake. But you guys are giving an inaccurate portayal.
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No I fully agree with Jester here.

I think there were some good reasons to invade Iraq, and after that for the same reasons a few other countries could be liberated form their dictator.
Bush and the neo-cons, did not chose this easy way to jusytify a war. Instead they used other ways which can at this moment for sure only be interpreted as lies. You cannot tell me that those 200 ivy-league educated government officials and CIA people "misinterpreted" things.

Of course there rises the question why did Bush chose this very difficult way of lying when he also could use a legit reason?. Afraid that he could not get the supoort of other countries? I don't think so, mot countries did not support him now, and after the lies came out, more damage is done. Is it the fact that if Bush used the legit reason (getting rid of a vicious dictator to liberate the people) he also had to continue and attacking a a few dozen of other countries? (most of which did not give possibilities of financial gain).


To me (still) (and this can of course not be easily proven) the pressure of companies that now get all the rebuilding contracts (paid for by the tax from american citizens) is the only reason I can think of. ( a part from the oil business of course, but this is not a secret, and most western countries have dubious policies when oil is at stake)

[wakim]

In 1958 I wrote the following: 'There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.'

I believe that these assertions still make sense...

- Harold Pinter

I'm not sure why so many folks here have a problem with Pinder's assertions about 'truth'.
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Evidently then it belongs to the philosopher, i.e. to him who is studying the nature of all substance, to inquire also into the principles of syllogism. But he who knows best about each genus must be able to state the most certain principles of his subject, so that he whose subject is existing things qua existing must be able to state the most certain principles of all things. This is the philosopher, and the most certain principle of all is that regarding which it is impossible to be mistaken; for such a principle must be both the best known (for all men may be mistaken about things which they do not know), and non-hypothetical. For a principle which every one must have who understands anything that is, is not a hypothesis; and that which every one must know who knows anything, he must already have when he comes to a special study. Evidently then such a principle is the most certain of all; which principle this is, let us proceed to say. It is, that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect; we must presuppose, to guard against dialectical objections, any further qualifications which might be added. This, then, is the most certain of all principles, since it answers to the definition given above. For it is impossible for any one to believe the same thing to be and not to be, as some think Heraclitus says. For what a man says, he does not necessarily believe; and if it is impossible that contrary attributes should belong at the same time to the same subject (the usual qualifications must be presupposed in this premiss too), and if an opinion which contradicts another is contrary to it, obviously it is impossible for the same man at the same time to believe the same thing to be and not to be; for if a man were mistaken on this point he would have contrary opinions at the same time. It is for this reason that all who are carrying out a demonstration reduce it to this as an ultimate belief; for this is naturally the starting-point even for all the other axioms.

- Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book IV, Chapter 3 (1005b8 ff).

[Occhidiangela]

Occhi,

You seem to be missing what it is we find so appalling about this whole affair.

This could have been a mistake. It wasn't. It was a scenario contrived to scare and delude the people of your nation (and the rest of the world, albeit unsuccessfully) to support a war for geopolitical gain.
-Jester
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I am aware of PNAC's agenda, and I understand what you find appalling, based on the after the fact evidence of "what bombs?" (Did you ever see the film Wrong is Right? Sean Connery? Rent it, if you haven't, it's a spooky prophecy on celluloid, written about 1983.) I seem to recall what you and other critics believed before the war, and I know what I believed. Neither of us knew, we had to believe conflicting reports and after filtering through them, come up with a position to take. My biggest surprise after Mr Kay's report was the Secretary Powell had briefed the UN with such a thin set of slides.

Since we are on the PNAC topic now, do you take the position that PNAC set up the 9-11 event deliberately in order to enable a war to be made in the Middle East? If you are going to rest your argument on PNAC's dream sheet, how about we look at all the bugs under that rock?

Is it your position that Zionists have infiltrated the White House, invited in by the Boys From PNAC, and have steered the US to a policy of "Israel's security at all costs?" Is that your belief?


I cannot concur with your limited scope explanation. I am not sure how much was self delusion and how much was "it's close enough to truth for me to act on, I can't afford to wait until we can only react."

The 9-11 event provided a window of opportunity to garner public support to end the uncertainty, to end the failed policy and political liability that were the UN Sanctions on Saddam. Were you around for the constant whinging in the press that the sanctions were starving the people of Iraq? Vintage "America is the Evil of the World" even when operationg under UNSC umbrella.

I am tired of the "Cry Wolf" crap, and have been since the Cold War. The whingers are never happy, its just a matter of what they want to whine about today. Pinter is squarely in the whinger's club, I've checked out some of his previous work. I was not joking when I referred to his favorite song.

With a failed policy, what do you do? Sanctions/inspections for 12 years, or the 10 before the 9-11, had the problem of

Too much bad or non existent information
No closure on the sanctions Failures of both Clinton and Bush to close that deal by leading the UN to action in the mid 1990's. (Need not have been war)
Lack of will among all Security Council members to see through what they signed up for in 1991 when the original Sanctions were crafted.

My theory remains that the administration believed that the 2004 election would be lost, and appeasement would return as the policy. Appeasement gives time to your enemy.

The real problem was no one seemed to want to try to work with Saddam. That is as true of Clinton, who Saddam had comtempt for, and of Bush. Reagan showed Saddam could be worked with somewhat, vis a vis Iran, so where was the lateral thinking and hard working statecraft to find that third way?

No where.

Back to the intel versus decision:

Forecast to the decision maker: Saddam under an appeasement policy will be able to, and will, slowly but surely reconstruct some Nuke or Chem programs over the period 2004-2012, or 2004-2008.

This puts Saddam's threat in the mid term, a completely different perspective than immediate threat. (The fact that he was a massive obstacle to the Mid East Roadmap to Peace tends to support your assertion that the PNAC script was the only one available to play from in Cabinet meetings.)

When one comes to most people and politicians with a mid term threat, they typically pass the problem on to the next guy, and put off any action and screw about in committee.

I still am upset with the lack of leadership and statecraft used in 2002/2003 and how much Iran was virtually ignored as the long term threat, not to mention the problem of the "no nation building policy" being one of Bush's openers on taking office and the glib assumptions of a short war. It was a big risk.

Assuming that "it was now or never" a case for war was made to solve a near term political, and mid term security, problem. When people rejected the idea, and both Anthony Zinni and James Webb rejected it as idiotic (I have a lot of respect for Webb and Zinni's opinions) as not in the national interest, too many critics focused on "not an immediate threat." No one had enough information to make that determination either, that was the problem. The true state of play was unknown, in Saddam's Iraq. You and I know what we know AFTER THE FACT about the condition of his programs.

It was the wrong reason to object in any case.

As to the "immediate threat" problem, it was assumed his WMD programs were still being worked on. After 12 years of shell games, Saddam himself played into that belief. I believed, thanks to his policies and past record as an opportunist.

It was a surprise to me that once the egg was broken open, the few scientists who could be found to talk exposed a dysfunctional program. If you want to talk about an all sources intelligence failure . . . Where was that information before 2003?

The intelligence services of how many nations were unable to confirm or deny?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absense.

Now, was war the only way to deal with Saddam?

Absolutely not.

As Zinni pointed out, Saddam was not the only arsehole in the gulf to deal with. Not enough alternatives were tried, or maybe, not enough were deemed to be of any use.

If you want to blame PNAC's influence on policy making for a certain tunnel vision, I will agree with you completely. The lack of patience to build better support and add more pressure was, IMO, tied directly to a belief that 2004 was a lost presidential election.

Occhi

[Guest]

Your evidence has nothing to do with you position.

Your position could or could not be correct(its the same as Jesters essentially.)

Yout "evidense" is correct, but it doesnt suport one side of the other at all(Im reffereing to your tak on legit and false justifications.)

[Chaerophon]

From the previous sentence...

The correspondent truth of the situation, the reality of the situation, is obscured by the self-righteous moral 'truth' that is sold to the people as complacency-inducing war-bait.

Note: truth vs. 'truth'.

A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.

This does not need to be taken as a 'hard' metaphysical/epistemological claim.

Let's not forget that he is a poet. His speech is very much concerned with the nature of context-dependent moral 'truth'. Contextual assertions of moral 'truth' may not pass the test of correspondence - knowledge of 'the good' may not be discernible 'as a matter of fact' - and yet such constructions do undoubtedly exist, and they do undoubtedly have real meaning for their adherents. If you object to the use of the word 'truth' to describe them, I suppose that I sympathize... I've taken enough courses with 'anal'ytic epistemology prof's to know that the use of 'truth' in such a way can get people's hackles up.

I take him to be talking about context-dependent moral 'truths' with this statement. Note that he discusses the interplay of these with 'reality' on a number of occasions.

[Jester]

Bah.

I tried writing a long post. It is now dead, and will stay dead.

I don't care for the ad-hominems. I'm not wearing a tinfoil hat. If "you're a whiner, therefore you're wrong" is your logic, I'm not interested.

Basically, it all boils down to this.

Before the war, we knew that, no matter how hard we looked, we couldn't find any solid evidence of WMD whatsoever. None. They were the only possibility of Saddam being a credible threat. Unless Saddam was a threat, there was no reason to go to war.

That was clear to me before the war. It is much more clear now.

-Jester

[eppie]

Yout "evidense" is correct, but it doesnt suport one side of the other at all(Im reffereing to your tak on legit and false justifications.)
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Oo damn... this was supposed to be anti-Bush. :D

[Occhidiangela]

Before the war, we knew that, no matter how hard we looked, we couldn't find any solid evidence of WMD whatsoever. None. They were the only possibility of Saddam being a credible threat. Unless Saddam was a threat, there was no reason to go to war.

That was clear to me before the war. It is much more clear now.
-Jester
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1. You seem to presume to a prescience based on assumption and a belief, not on facts and evidence. It is indeed much clearer now that what was thought to be true for about 6 years was not true. Hindsight is 20-20. If you want to proclaim victory in the "my hunch is ____" you win. :D Your hunch on WMD was better than mine. *imagines a WoW screen with Jester doing a Tauren victory dance* :whistling:

As with an egg: once in, never an egg again. The Humpty Dumpty soundbytes regarding Iraq are true, and as you and I discussed in some accord a few years back, were pretty easy to predict based on what Iraq was, or is, in terms of a nation state.

2. Was or wasn't a threat . . . it seems you confine your perspective to what is in front of your face, the near term. As to the mid and long term, you have the luxury as an observer to not concern yourself on the mid and long term threats.

A pacifist tends to be spring loaded to react "anything but war." That is as limited an approach as "a hammer for every nail, even the carraige bolts!" Which set of blinders one wears is a matter of choice.

I contend that the most likely outcomes, the establishment of yet another Islamic Republic in the Mid East, and a partition of Iraq, are the most likely mid term results of American armed intervention in Iraq. This segues into . . .

Is it any surprise that a hard liner was recently elected to lead the Iranian government? I imagine the "threat" briefed to the people of Iran had little to do with the threat of "a virus of democracy" breaking out in the Middle East and everything to do with "the Great Satan is coming to dominate you at the hands of their Imperialist Corporate and Zionist masters!"

Too bad I don't read Farsi, I'd like to have seen the sloganeering that went on in Iran during the last election cycle.

Not being a pacifist, I have had to deal with mid and long term threats in a modest sense, one theater of operations. To be blunt about it, it is bloody hard to get it even close to right.

The "war on terror" could have been prosecuted without invading Iraq. Had that option been chosen, the whingers would still be whinging about America taking action on that score.

Or do you forget the shrill anti war, "no blood for oil" protests in the US, and elsewhere, in the fall of 2001? Granted, the protests against the Iraq war dwarfed the objection to the Afghanistan operation, but the themes and core message was the same.

All that differed was scale. A load of crying "wolf."

Look again at my comment about crying wolf, by Pinter, Chomske and their ilk: bright men with an agenda, and a poorly veiled hatred for a sovereign America.

The problem with crying "wolf" so often, and so carelessly, is that the one time the cry of wolf might have been warranted, the wolf whinging had already been revealed as little more than attention whoring, not rhetoric of any use to policy.

Oh, and since you win the hunch match, I owe you yet another Guinness. Maybe I ought to take out a loan. :whistling:

Occhi

[eppie]

Oh, and since you win the hunch match, I owe you yet another Guinness.  Maybe I ought to take out a loan.  :whistling:

Occhi
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The question is not about who was right or wrong then. Even when Jester (and me) did not have clear evidence (before the war) that Iraq did not have anything to do with WMDs, Al Qaeda etc., there for sure was no clear evidence that Iraq had anything to do with that.

So if you want, we here at the lounge gambled and we won and you lost.

But the people in charge, they knew exactly what was going on. They did not have to base their opinion on biased media reports, they had real intelligence. In other words unlike you, they were sure there was no evidence for WMDs. So that means they took a gamble to go to war. The main question is now, why did they do that, what was their goal.

So maybe that is a nice starting point for a discussion now. Which is extra interesting because we know we cannot believe any media source. This is gonnan be great. Let's see how pays the beers in the 2009 Lurkerlounge reunion party. :D

[Occhidiangela]

But the people in charge, they knew exactly what was going on.

They did not have to base their opinion on biased media reports, they had real intelligence. In other words unlike you, they were sure there was no evidence for WMDs.

So that means they took a gamble to go to war. The main question is now, why did they do that, what was their goal.

So maybe that is a nice starting point for a discussion now. Which is extra interesting because we know we cannot believe any media source. This is gonnan be great. Let's see how pays the beers in the 2009 Lurkerlounge reunion party. :D
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I don't think they knew, I think they believed and therefore chose to believe those bits of evidence that confirmed a preconceived notion.

Yes, it was a huge risk.

It doesn't help that Feith, Wolfowitz, Perle, Kristol, Rumsfeld and Cheney tried to browbeat General Franks into using just over two brigades to fight the whole war, or that the diligent staff effort by the Army on troop levels was over ruled as "we may not be military experts, but we know that can't be right."

Why they did it? Isn't that the question? You saw my theory: they believed the 2004 election would be lost. Had Ohio been won by the Democrats, we'd be discussing President Kerry today, which would probably provide a lot of sport. :whistling: The leadership decided that the time to act was now, and take a massive risk. I may or may not be right.

I have seen a lot of other theories that I won't waste your time with here.

As to the 2009 reunioin, how about we do it in Malaga, Spain? It's a lovely place. Lovely people. Good food. Good wine. And there are enough British expats around to ensure a plentiful supply of Guinness. :D

Occhi

[eppie]

As to the 2009 reunioin, how about we do it in Malaga, Spain?  It's a lovely place.  Lovely people.  Good food.  Good wine.  And there are enough British expats around to ensure a plentiful supply of Guinness.  :D

Occhi
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Great idea. Although I don't want to be in an Irish pub with you at the moment you mention "Guinness" and "british" in one sentence again. :D

[kandrathe]

...they had real intelligence. In other words unlike you, they were sure there was no evidence for WMDs. ...  [right][snapback]97501[/snapback][/right]

My recollection was that the intelligence they had was wrong, and the corroboration of the source evidence was poor. Iraq had WMD programs and used WMD in the past. They had a number of ex-Iraqi scientists who were indicating vast weapons programs were in place. And, there was also the lack of evidence of destruction, or existence of the known imported precursor chemicals and reagents. And, finally, the refusal by Saddam to allow the UN inspectors to interview known scientists or people involved with the programs or the destruction.

I kind of relate it to a person who has been known to be involved in constructing a Meth lab, the police come in and find all the evidence of such (1991 GW), and then to avoid prison time agreed to cooperate and reveal all evidence relating to their Meth lab activities. Then, after awhile, they decide not to cooperate and the police suspect the person is again rebuilding his Meth lab.

There was such a dearth of on the ground intelligence and so much at risk, that the US was desperate enough to infiltrate UNSCOM with spies. Saddam was very effective in playing cat and mouse, and keeping the West and the UN guessing about what he was or was not doing. A dangerous game of Bahgdad roulette which, along with UNSC weakness, 9/11 fervor, and motivated PNAC hawks resulted in GWII.

[Occhidiangela]

Great idea. Although I don't want to be in an Irish pub with you at the moment you mention "Guinness" and "british" in one sentence again. :D
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Guinness may be Irish, but a great number of the Brits that I know are very fond of it. :D

Jester:

From a recent column by Robert Novak. Consider the source, he's not quite objective, in my opinion. I'd call him a court reporter, along the lines of Sam Donaldson in the Reagan days. He's also still playing coy with who told him Ms. Palme was a CIA operative. The article excerpted from is the 19 December Washington Post, "Obsessed w ith Bush' 16 Words" editorial.

I get the feeling that Mr Pinter, Mr Chomske, and perhaps you, are similarly "obsessed."

Per Mr Novak:

The president’s trouble began with this statement: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”  To investigate this, the CIA dispatched former ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger.  When I quoted administration sources as saying Wilson’s CIA employee wife suggested this mission, an investigation by a special prosecutor was launched and Democrats alleged that there was a plot to hide the truth about going to war.

The latest form of their effort was a “privileged” resolution introduced by Rep. Maurice Hinchey of New York calling on the president to give the House “all documents in his possession” relating to the 2003 State of the Union and an Oct. 7, 2002, speech delivered in Cincinnati.  The reason for requesting material from the earlier speech was to show that in Cincinnati the president did not mention yellowcake uranium (used to produce nuclear weapons) because the CIA allegedly had told him there was no truth to the claim.  The implication is that Bush brought up the uranium-hunt story four months later to build support for war.

If that can be shown true, I'd predict an impeachment would succeed, if the audit trail to blatant falsehood can be shown. Funny old thing, politicians spin and lie all the time. Leaders aren't supposed to. :shuriken: That's the difference between a leader, and a politician.

Here is the problem: going down the rat hole of intelligence, of good intelligence and bad, of good assessment and bad, you run into the problem of the meteorologist and the economist. Errors there can also ruin lives, or cost lives.

Like an intel guy, the weatherman he takes some data and forecasts, but the weatherman doesn't have to make a decision. The economist embarks on a similar process, but he need not decide either.

The man who wants to go fishing does, and he relies on the weatherman's forecast
The man investing in a stock does, as does a company's board, or a Minister of the Treasury, based on the economists forecast.

The both then make risk based decisions.

Even meteorologists disagree on what the meaning and value of some of their data is, data unclouded by the human element, by intention. Economists have a harder time, due to their problem of dealing with the human element of economic models, and the odd variations of actual activity versus what the CONFLICTING MODELS show will happen, based on samples of data.

So with intelligence. The analysts disagree. The decision maker is led to wonder "what is true, and how true is it?" If the assessment was "this is bogus, this is false" one wonders how it survived to even get briefed at the NSC level.

Add this mindset: What piece of intel do I discard, only to have the World Trade Center blow up? The 9-11 report is full of 'this intelligence failure led to X , Y, or Z." What actionable intelligence was NOT acted on.

Is that all a smoke screen too, Jester? Is that all a lie? Is the systemic failure of interagency intelligence coordination a load of crap too?

If the system is imperfect, what do you then do when you feel the need to make a decision? The cherry picking of facts on which to base a decision that has long term impact is not that uncommon, look at economic policy for an example, or the decision to bomb Serbia.

The sense of urgency was provided by the forecast that 2004 was a loss, with a follow on bad/worst case forecast of what that does for Gulf stability. That's my theory, and I am sticking to it, considering PNAC influence and all. A more sanguine forecast of the 2004 election would have removed the sense of urgency.

Of course, if you PNAC is behind 9-11 and used it to garner emotional support for a war in the Middle East, then the whole lying for the sake of pursuing Imperial conquest in the Mid East takes on a whole different, and far more sinister, flavor.

Is that your position? Jester? Hello, are you still there?

This takes us to the mind set of "We must do something now." Jimmy Carter made that decision regarding Desert One, and had one more CH-53 not broken down, his very risky operation might have succeeded.

Did he really have to undertake a bold and daring military raid into Iran? Or was he too driven by political urgency to take a big risk? (Yes, the scales differ.) Had that raid not been aborted, and a gunbattle undertaken in Teheran during a hostage extraction, what then the prospects for peace or war in The Gulf?

Back to forecasting more current Mid East stability. The mid to long term contingency was dark. If you object to the selling of the threat as short term, that's a valid critique, if the Cabinet and teh NSC were aware of how uncertain their intelligence was.

Other members of UN Security Council did not feel the urgency, or like China took the position "sucks to be you, tough crap, deal with it." (Not an unrealistic position for them to take. )

Why not look at the reliability of intelligence assessments American policy has relied on since WW II, and map out the gaffes. Same time period as Pinter's. Look at the mistakes made on assessing Ho Chi Minh.

All the discussion on intelligence, its worth and failures, on intelligence's truth or falsity, gets back to the human intelligence, and intentions, as I mentioned earlier. You are left reaching into the dark future without certainty. When you are the leader, you must make a decision, that is what leaders are charged with doing. Did a decision have to be made now? I asked then, and I ask now, "Why now" and all I can come up with is the 2004 election cycle as the goad, as the primal cause for urgency.

Was it misguided? For my money, yes, since Iran wins no matter what happens, if the US goes in a breaks Iraq to try to fix it. (Whoa, there's a Viet Nam soundbyte revisited!)

Was it all nothing more than a lie, and only a lie, to justify a war that someone wanted, and had wanted, all along? I find that conclusion is to be shallow, but in defense of PNAC's detractors, I find the assertion that one can implement democracy at the point of a bayonet to be unrealistic as well. You can implement change by force, reform can only come from within.

I'll stand by my theory, thanks which includes a dark prospect in the mid and long term, and toss in an adage to boot:

"Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity."

Occhi

[jahcs]

My recollection was that the intelligence they had was wrong, and the corroboration of the source evidence was poor.  Iraq had WMD programs and used WMD in the past.  They had a number of ex-Iraqi scientists who were indicating vast weapons programs were in place.  And, there was also the lack of evidence of destruction, or existence of the known imported precursor chemicals and reagents.  And, finally, the refusal by Saddam to allow the UN inspectors to interview known scientists or people involved with the programs or the destruction. 

I kind of relate it to a person who has been known to be involved in constructing a Meth lab, the police come in and find all the evidence of such (1991 GW), and then to avoid prison time agreed to cooperate and reveal all evidence relating to their Meth lab activities.  Then, after awhile, they decide not to cooperate and the police suspect the person is again rebuilding his Meth lab.

There was such a dearth of on the ground intelligence and so much at risk, that the US was desperate enough to infiltrate UNSCOM with spies.  Saddam was very effective in playing cat and mouse, and keeping the West and the UN guessing about what he was or was not doing.  A dangerous game of Bahgdad roulette which, along with UNSC weakness, 9/11 fervor,  and motivated PNAC hawks resulted in GWII.
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That pretty much sums it up IMO, kandrathe. Sadam was so good at not cooperating that the rest of the world "just knew" he had to be up to something.

Perhaps he was playing cat and mouse to avoid investigation into the oil for food situation, maybe that's why certain international officials and governments were so keen on letting sleeping dogs lie? For all you conspiracy theorists, why don't you try that one on for size?




Also, as stupid as Bush's opponents believe and expect him to be I find it laughable that they expect him NOT to be duped by the same intelligence that duped everyone else. The fact that his administration took that evidence and ran with it goes right back into the tunnel vision Occhi keeps reffering too (IMO he's right.).

[Jester]

Oh, and since you win the hunch match, I owe you yet another Guinness.  Maybe I ought to take out a loan.  :whistling:
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Call it a hunch if you like. I called it at the time a *complete lack of evidence for the contrary position*. I still do.

In the long term, we're all dead. In the mid term, there are about a hundred thousand different ways of threats emerging. Saddam was actually quite far down the list. Shall we blow up every potential threat, solve every "mid term" security problem? Good luck.

But, clearly, there isn't gonna be no consensus on this one.

Bottoms up,

-Jester

[Jester]

My recollection was that the intelligence they had was wrong, and the corroboration of the source evidence was poor.  Iraq had WMD programs and used WMD in the past.  They had a number of ex-Iraqi scientists who were indicating vast weapons programs were in place.  And, there was also the lack of evidence of destruction, or existence of the known imported precursor chemicals and reagents.  And, finally, the refusal by Saddam to allow the UN inspectors to interview known scientists or people involved with the programs or the destruction.
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But yet, every time Dr. Blix followed up on any tip they got, even from US intelligence, they found nothing. Not even the tiny traces that would indicate concealment. Nothing.

When Powell went to the UN, what did he have? Rumour, insinuation, tautology and some sattelite photos that showed, beyond a doubt, that Iraq has both buildings and trucks. That was even after he threw out a huge chunk of it for being "bull#$%&".

And yet the US would not wait. Powell's mission was not about fact, but about convincing people to join up, since the war was going to happen anyway. Why was that? Why were they so bloody itchy to invade? Couldn't they have just waited until something turned up? If the Bush administration was right, they wouldn't have had long to wait. But no, no waiting. Invasion.

A bunch of Iraqi exiles, well known for making up stuff out of whole cloth, spun a thousand tales to get what they wanted: Saddam ousted. Now they're "Heroes in error," and the US picks up the tab. If "Curveball" is anyone's idea of a reliable source, I'd like to sell the oil rights for the Moon to them. The US knew he was unreliable. The CIA was skeptical. German intelligence thought he was a sack of crap. And he was the man telling us about mobile biological labs.

It was junk then, it's junk now.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

... it goes right back into the tunnel vision Occhi keeps reffering too (IMO he's right.).
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I agree with you and him. The agenda was set by PNAC well before the 1998 memo to then President Clinton, urging stronger action against Iraq. It was just after the passions of 9/11 that they had the opportunity to set the play in motion. Bringing Congress, the UN, and the American people along was an after thought, as I recall, that took an additional number of months of arguments (and ultimatly bypassing in the case of the UN) to set in motion.

[wakim]

... Contextual assertions of moral 'truth' may not pass the test of correspondence - knowledge of 'the good' may not be discernible 'as a matter of fact' - and yet such constructions do undoubtedly exist, and they do undoubtedly have real meaning for their adherents. 

I take [Pinter] to be talking about context-dependent moral 'truths' with this statement.  Note that he discusses the interplay of these with 'reality' on a number of occasions.
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If one may leave Pinter, whose literary style has been memorably described as “a pause followed by a non-sequitur”, and his non-sense behind (and is it accident that a man who was ostensibly given an award for literature has here engendered little or no discussion of literature? Judging from posts here, and the content of Pinter's speech, couldn't one easily beg forgiveness for the mistaken surmise that Pinter's Nobel prize was awarded in the category of anti-Americanism?), allow me to express my confusion at your use of inverted commas. If I am correct that inverted commas are here used to indicate that a word is not meant to mean what it means (inverted commas indicating intended irony), then how should one be expected to construe the phrase “truth vs. ‘truth’”? Is this construction rightly intended to mean truth vs. not-truth? The understanding of a word sandwiched between inverted commas as not meaning what it means confronts one who would know what a thing is, and not merely one element in the list of what a thing is not, with obvious dilemma in immediate application: What then is moral ‘truth’? Does this perhaps mean moral not-truth? But if truth, unlike, for example, some given distance, is a thing that admits of being only either itself or its contrary, wouldn't “not-truth” be better described as “un-truth”, or simpler yet “untruth” – thus corresponding to the understanding that what isn’t true, what is untrue, is false? Again, and ultimately, what meaning has “‘reality’” when it too is only ironical? I question here based upon the presumption that in general dispelling, not creating ambiguity is a (if not the) fundamental intention animating discourse, and that in your post specifically you have intended more than the statement of such tautological sentences whose meanings are What someone believes to be moral he believes to be moral, What someone thinks to be true he thinks to be true, and What someone considers to be real he considers to be real.