I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
A point of order:
Did Blair declare them WMD before or after Bush did? Who's following who here?
Good point edub; I remember Bush referring to them in at least one speech. But I don't know who came first.
Does it matter? Blair is answerable to Parliament. Bush to Congress (I guess). Both to the press. Bush doesn't ask Blair for permission what to say, that's for sure.
I hope someone remembers to tell David "where's Waldo" Kay about this.
Bush was in Poland when he asserted quite boldly (and audaciously) that these two trucks were, indeed, the very weapons of mass destruction that we were looking for.
The problem with these people is that they seem to be unable to attach any qualifiers to things they say.
If the argument had been built on "we think" or "we believe" or "our intelligence indicates" then we wouldn't be able to call them liars, just deceivers.
How fortunate for us that they insist on making every statement as if it were the gospel straight from heaven.
Want to take a bet on how the Sunday talk shows will play this. I bet that Russert, Will, Broder, Whore Steffy, and the other smarmy Washington concensus cockroacks will totaly discount this story. They Will again give another free pass to Condi, Powel, Wollfi and the PNAC crew. Where will be our fearfull Democratic leaders: silent, mute and nutered.
By the by, here's a link to WaPo coverage of Bush's Poland embarassment:
President Bush, citing two trailers that U.S. intelligence agencies have said were probably used as mobile biological weapons labs, said U.S. forces in Iraq have "found the weapons of mass destruction" that were the United States' primary justification for going to war.
In remarks to Polish television at a time of mounting criticism at home and abroad that the more than two-month-old weapons hunt is turning up nothing, Bush said that claims of failure were "wrong." The remarks were released today.
"You remember when [Secretary of State] Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons," Bush said in an interview before leaving today on a seven-day trip to Europe and the Middle East. "They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two.
Slightly off topic, but do you folks out there know what the Pentagon is calling the military sweeps currently taking place in Iraq? It's called ( I kid you not)"Operation Spartan Scorpion". Who the fuck comes up with these retarded names?? (My guess is Rumsfeld) Does anybody know what the hell "Spartan Scorpion" is supposed to mean?? I guess such things don't have to make sense, just impress the hell out of moron-Americans in TV land.
gene, those kinds of names would get you kicked out of the "Xena--Warrior Princess" fan club. With dishonor.
Later,
``The problem with these people is that they seem to be unable to attach any qualifiers to things they say.''
Great point, Seraphiel. Absolute believers can be absolutely wrong and when you mix that with the sort of colossal arrogance of this administration and its utter incapacity for admitting having done anything wrong ever, you get a political target.
It'd be nice if the impeachment proceedings could begin in time for the 30th anniversary of the other right-wing liar's resignation. Call me sentimental...
Spartan Scorpion? someone must be watching too many Chuck Norris commando movies.
a
someone must be watching too many Chuck Norris commando movies.
Where else would Rummy and his cohorts have gotten their military expertise?
Certainly not on a battlefield.
Nobody is addressing the REAL question here - artillery balloons threaten our vital national interests - and this President failed to act on it! Instead, he covers it up with the lame ass story about WMD. When will America wake up?
Did I mention how upset I am about all of the moths gathering near my porch light when I come home at night these days? Well I sure AM!
Slightly off topic, but do you folks out there know what the Pentagon is calling the military sweeps currently taking place in Iraq? It's called ( I kid you not)"Operation Spartan Scorpion". Who the fuck comes up with these retarded names?? (My guess is Rumsfeld) Does anybody know what the hell "Spartan Scorpion" is supposed to mean?? I guess such things don't have to make sense, just impress the hell out of moron-Americans in TV land.
An article providing truly insightful commentary on this matter:
The Art of Naming Operations
GREGORY C. SIEMINSKI
From Parameters (US Army War College Quarterly), Autumn 1995, pp. 81-98.
Super link, Felix. Thanks.
From Felix's link:
To avoid these failings, start by identifying unique attributes of the operation. Try to capture those characteristics in specific terms with a metaphor or with words that evoke an image. Try to keep each word to two syllables or less. Sea Angel, the name that replaced Productive Effort, has all the traits of a memorable name: it is unique and specific; it evokes a clear image in more than one culture; and it has only three syllables.
Operation Shameless Weasel
That's the best one I can come up with at this hour of the morning.
As I've posted on other sites when it's a matter of "He says the trailers are laboratories and She says they are not", I say the solution is to have Pentagon-CIA officials invite the press with cameras to watch them brew up a batch of germs or chemicals using the trailers.
This should resolve the issue.
Yeah, I remember back in the old days when those dummies gave them stupid three-syllable names, like Operation Overlord.
Just a quick comment upon the naming of military actions; whilst everything in the link above is valid, you also have to remember that they are also deliberately obscure; Operation Overlord for instance... well, obviously it's going to be big. But I defy anyone before the event to predict, upon hearing that the attack is code-named Overlord, anything more than that. You certainly won't get any inkling of where and in what way it's going to appear from such a name... And that of course is vitally important to the other side.
However, advertising "Operation USA! USA! We're gonna grab your lands and resources for our own ends, Iraq" for years before the event finally kicks off isn't a problem if you know damn well the enemy can't put up a fight against you whenever you do decide to act...
One explanation that no one has so far explored: Iraq mobile microbrews. Why have a kegger when you can have the whole barrel? The Trailers of Mass Inebriation.
I'm going with the hydrogen theory, myself. Bush was objectively a liar in Poland (and in Qatar, later in the week) according to the CIA. The trailers were, at best, only part of a larger bioweapons factory, of which the other (and it would be trailer-sized) part was found.
Trailers of Mass Inebriation!?
I'm there, buh-ddy!
Jimmy Breslin Weighs In
The first time I've seen someone really connect the administration's lying to Americans dying, it's about time.
'
Today, the two dead Marines are the symbol for everybody who died in a war that was started because of a series of coordinated lies in Washington that said that Iraq had nuclear bombs. "Weapons of Mass Destruction." The Bush administration used the term so much that it turned into initials, WMD.'
Let's compromise on the evil Winnebagos. The first explanation by a former U.N. weapons inspector was that they represented a clear attempt to circumvent the sanction against liquid fuel for that weapon of missed destruction, the terrible Scud.
This is as clear a case of the analysis being tailored to justify the war. Remember the report that was cited as proof that the trailors were probably chem-weap labs? The wording was something like "the only conceivable use for the trailors is for the production of chemical weapons." But the underreported portion of the report stated that other uses were possible. Now it comes out that the trailers were some kind of big, inefficient, hydrogen generators, thus debunking the cooked intelligence.
This is just more of the same crap that was used to justify the war. A group of investigators was tasked with the purpose of finding a way to make the trailors look like "weapons of mass destruction" instead of charged with a mission to objectively determine what they are and what they were used for.
If the Observer story about the alleged WMD trailers is picked up by major media outlets in the US, it will give new impetus to the narrative not only about how the Administration misled the American people and the world before the war, but about how it shamelessly continues to try to mislead them.
The media finally seems to be picking up on the Niger uranium story and this new revelation should stoke the fires for at least two or three weeks more (hopefully, a lot longer).
If the story is correct and British intelligence has indeed confirmed that these trailers were not intended for WMD production, it is difficult to see how the US media won't pick-up this story in the relatively near future.
An aside:
I did not realize until recently that Lambert Strether is also the protagonist of Henry James' novel, The Ambassadors.
There is a reference to James' Strether in Reading Lolita in Tehran, and the author analogizes the principled, creative and talented scholars who lost their jobs and opportunities to contribute purposefully to society after the Iranian Revolution to Strether's self description of himself as "a perfectly equipped failure."
Maria Gostrey responds to Strether by saying: "Thank goodness you're a failure--it's why I so distinguish you! Anything else today is too hideous. Look about you--look at the successes. Would you be one on your honor."
mzybe aWol can find some Mini Coopers of mass destruction.
yikes, i gotta get spell check.
Are you people kidding!? These trailers made hydrogen! Hello? Hindenburg? The Iraqis wanted to build big, slow moving explosive balloons to fly over the Atlantic (flown with their advanced "long-range" drone technology) to attack our democratic shores! How are we to defend ourselves against that without preemtive action? Oh the humanity!
Kid Charlemagne - omygod! Windbags of Mass Destruction. The horror, the horror!
If we're looking for names with 3 syllables that are understood in other cultures, why not call it "Operation Great Satan"?
Operation "Spartan Scorpion"...well the Scorpion fits the desert setting. As for the Spartans, look around for someone at the top that went to Michigan State? *shrugs shoulders*
We've already got Windbags of Mass Destruction. They're led by the "Dean".
Operation It's Our Oil
Five syllable version: Operation Now It Is, Asshole
Balloons of Mass Destruction?
Besides humor, Trailers of Mass Destruction has links to WMD stories going back several months, including the photos of the actual trailers, the CIA pre-war and post-trailer reports, etc., etc.
Breslin's article is rather brutal, and he gets it almost perfect. Spread it around.
I guess this falls under lies, lies, lies. The right is putting out a story that only 33 items were stolen from the Baghdad musuem. They don't mention the national library or archaeological sites. Natural History magazine has a story this month by David Keys who writes, "The losses remain devastating, but they fall far short of complete ruination. What is more, in response to appeals by Muslim religious leaders, some of the stolen objects are gradually being returned." Where did the right get the number 33?
I guess this falls under lies, lies, lies. The right is putting out a story that only 33 items were stolen from the Baghdad musuem. They don't mention the national library or archaeological sites. Natural History magazine has a story this month by David Keys who writes, "The losses remain devastating, but they fall far short of complete ruination. What is more, in response to appeals by Muslim religious leaders, some of the stolen objects are gradually being returned." Where did the right get the number 33?
Patrick: there was an explanation somewhere recently (maybe Slate or Salon?) that explained the 33 items. It was something like they classified the lost items as 33 priceless pieces and something like 30,000 other pieces. The neoCons conveniently forget the 3,000 minor pieces. As the writer of the article I read pointed out, imagine what people would say if 33 priceless items from the Smithsonian had been lost (or the National Archives)?
In fact, in some ways, we don't even have anythig in our country like what they had in Iraq. Their shit goes back to the dawn of fucking civilization. Ours goes back maybe 300 or 400 years.
That's 3,000, not 30,000.
"Kid Charlemagne - omygod! Windbags of Mass Destruction. The horror, the horror!"
Tena
-Look out! Here comes the Rumsfeld!
"Kid Charlemagne - omygod! Windbags of Mass Destruction. The horror, the horror!"
Tena
-Look out! Here comes the Rumsfeld!
"Kid Charlemagne - omygod! Windbags of Mass Destruction. The horror, the horror!"
Tena
-Look out! Here comes the Rumsfeld!
"Kid Charlemagne - omygod! Windbags of Mass Destruction. The horror, the horror!"
Tena
-Look out! Here comes the Rumsfeld!
I followed the link to Jimmy Breslin's article that libertas mentions above. From there, I found Charles Spinney's Defense and the National Interest.
This is some seriously good stuff.
Kid Charlemagne?
"Clean this mess up or we'll all end up in jail/the test tubes and the scale/just get in all out of here!"
Great tag.
I got one question for you joe:
Is there gas in the car?
(Or to stay on topic, is there gas in the trailer?)
yes there's gas in the trailer
Characters Remaining:
Commenting by HaloScan
