One does not "make a plausible case that Caesar was not lying butwas playing connect the dots and (so far) has lost the game," at least not to your satisfaction.

By this time, one feels that it is rather pointless to try.

One thinks that nothing short of those "bushels full of WMD's" you say they said we were sure to find will convince you.

Fair enough. Until such time however, one feels one is wasting one's cyber breath.
Tom Connelly | 07.30.03 - 10:39 pm | #

Well, that was certainly a helpful response to the link. Thanks.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 07.30.03 - 10:42 pm | #

I'm not sure how it was helpful, but you're welcome.
Tom Connelly | 07.30.03 - 10:48 pm | #

Well, it's impossible to prove that somebody's not lying, especially to somebody that interprets differences of opinion between the UN/Hans Blix and the US coalition as "lies". And it's hard to even make a "plausible case" at this time of night!

But, it's rather obvious that the fact that we haven't found WMDs is embarrassing, and that we'll need to find them or find out what happened to them to finalize the case. So, yes, the only ultimately plausible, and ultimately satisfying, case for Saddam's level of threat will be the physical evidence of it. And we'll just have to keep waiting for that.

Does that help at all?
Joe Marier | 07.30.03 - 11:51 pm | #

This argument is getting silly. The fourteen governments on the security council who signed the September 2002 U.N. resolution denouncing the Hussein gov't in Iraq unanimously stated that Iraq had WMDs. That includes France, Russia and every other ankle-biting member of the revisionist coaltion. The dots were connected long before before President Bush's State of the Union Address.

A lot of people, including some of those who post on this blog, are going to have egg on their faces before this is through.
Rich Leonardi | Homepage | 07.31.03 - 12:01 am | #

I don't think any dots need to be connected. The WMD's were a pretext, not the main reason for the war. The US assumed they wre there without developing any hard intelligence and expected to find them (that was the gamble) or, if they weren't found, the victory would be so overwhelming that people asking such niggling questions would have their patriotism questioned.

The real reason was regime change. The vast majority of the American public is not interested in the Catholic Church teachings on war, and will accept an ex post facto change of official reason (if we won the war relatively quickly) because Saddam really was a bad guy and "deserved killing." Many Catholics agree with this.

The WMD issue will be important only to Catholics interested in application of the just war criteria. Nobody else cares. From Bush's perspective it's a non-issue--nobody else will care whether he "lied" or "made a mistake." neither one will be deemd a "material breach" of Presidential ethics.

Assuming for a moment that there is uncontroverted evidence that Bush lied, who should good Catholiccs vote for next election; Geroge "I lied" Bush or any candidate from the Abortion party?

I think the answer is pretty clear: Bush is gambling not about WMD's but that a successful outcome of the war *regardless of the stated reasons for fighting* will get him re-elected. I think he'll win that gamble.
Joe McFaul | 07.31.03 - 12:30 am | #

As Rich pointed out, intelligence agencies across the spectrum believed he had WMD. Including those from countries whose elites, in any case, hate us or oppose us. Meanwhile, Saddam had plenty of opportunties to document his destruction of the WMD stockpiles that even the UN acknowledged he had at one time. In so doing, he could have ended the partition of his country into no-fly zones and the crippling economic sanctions. But he didn't.

So we are asked to believe that for some bizarre reason, Saddam wanted us to believe that he had WMD, even though he didn't. Fine.
Given Saddam's track record and the lessons of 9/11, that's an engraved invitation for invasion. Glad to oblige.

It's just silly to talk about "lies" in this context, so I won't go down that road again.
Christopher Rake | Homepage | 07.31.03 - 8:20 am | #

Joe is right, and everyone who posts on this blog saying things like "well do you want him back" and "what would you have done" and "I guess you hate Iraqi children" and "Your a UN loving, Clinton kissing commie" demonstrates that point all the more. Every time a stock subterfuge or distraction is trotted out in response to a real objection, it just underscores the lack of justification on the original "standard" the US set for meeting JWD--its just too bad there were Catholics who had a hand in putting that one over on the guillible public, and scolded the Vatican on its "pacificism" and "usurpation of the public authority." Its too bad, because they diminished the power of the Vatican's witness in a time when that can scarcely be afforded.
al | 07.31.03 - 9:44 am | #

Al:

You misunderstand me. I wasn't saying the war was unjustified, I'm just saying that we'll need to wait for more physical evidence or testimony to make that call. I still think that the war was just, but I'm not going to argue the case until we have something substantive to argue about. In other words, I have my opinion, but I'm withholding judgement.
Joe Marier | 07.31.03 - 10:03 am | #

Sorry Joe, I meant Joe McFaul
al | 07.31.03 - 10:20 am | #

Also, the whole deal with the WMD's was verification.

We knew (the UN has an extensive list) he had stockpiles of anthrax and other WMDs when inspections ended in 1998. People had SEEN them. Where did they disappear to? Saddam denied he had them anymore, but also "declined" to show us how or where he'd disposed of them.

Since he wouldn't verify their destruction, and thwarted all peaceful means for the world to verify their destruction, little remained but to go in and see for ourselves. Of course, this is just one reason among many for going to war against Iraq.

Even if he had destroyed them prior to their arrival, the fact that HE WOULDN'T VERIFY THIS FOR US IS THE ISSUE.

Why wouldn't he? After all, the WMD's were one of the main sticking points that kept sanctions on Iraq. Sanctions Saddam wanted lifted. Makes you wonder.

I personally believe most of this stuff has been scattered to the four winds. Of course, it's also not hard to bury stuff, and in a country that's a big desert wasteland, it's harder to find. Try searching California for three months to find a specific briefcase. Or ten specific 500 gallon tanks of liquid.

Oh, and in the meantime, try not to get shot, try to protect civilians, restore the power, water, etc., create a government, protect the museum, shuttle reporters around, create a judicial system, repair oil facilities, deal with unruly neighbors like Iran and Syria, hunt for the missing Dictator and dictatorlets, etc.

I'm just saying, we wanted to give the Inspections months, if not years to work. Why'd Bush get just 90 days?
Paul Rankin | 07.31.03 - 12:43 pm | #

Number 23 seems pretty damn goofy, too:
"The UN inspectors found no trace at all of Saddam's offensive biological weapons programme – which he claimed didn't exist – until his lies were revealed by his son-in-law."
Tony Blair, interview in the Independent on Sunday, 2 March 2003

This is pure fabrication, used to make the claim that weapons inspectors are ineffective. The UN had already determined that Iraq had had a biological weapons programme months before Hussein Kamel, Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, defected. In the face of the evidence that the UN put to them, the Iraqi regime admitted that they had an offensive biological weapons programme on 1 July 1995. Saddam Hussein's son-in-law defected on 7 August 1995.,
.
The whole gist of this list is that we should have trusted SH when he said he had nothing more deadly than spitwads, and that we should distrust just about everything said by Bush & Blair.
.
All despite the fact that is has been demonstrated beyond any doubt that in the near past (1980 and forward) SH had been persuing a nuclear weapons programme, had produced and fired-in-anger chemical weapons, and had an offensive bio-war programme.
.
I'm sorry. I don't trust Saddam Hussien. I will never trust Saddam Hussien. I trust Bush & Blair, and I will continue to trust Bush and Blair until one of them confesses to deliberately lieing on the subject.
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Francois | 07.31.03 - 12:46 pm | #

Mark, I can't read your mind. But I can see with my own eyes that you have made a preponderance of posts in the last few months that are critical of the war, and links to stories and commentaries that tend to cast the war effort in a negative light. And you have linked and posted much more to negative stories than you have to positive stories.

From that, I have to infer you do have an agenda, to wit: you want to demonstrate that the war was wrong and/or a big mistake.

I could be wrong. Tell me. Set me straight. But based on your posts in recent months, I don't think I have been unreasonable in making the inference that I have.
Larry | 07.31.03 - 1:23 pm | #

Larry:

I've told you at least a dozen times that I felt and feel very ambiguous about the war. I could always see good reasons for and against it. My reasons for it were primarily based on trust for Caesar's insistence that Saddam present a clear and present danger. Now that the lack of WMDs suggests that there was a bit of exaggeration going on, my ambiguity has only intensified.

It's only complicated if you want it to be.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 07.31.03 - 1:29 pm | #

Mark,

But if you were truly torn, wouldn't you at least occasionally cite or link to people who still think the war was a good idea? People like Tom Friedman, who has said that, for him, the discovery of the mass graves was enough to justify the war, even if no WMDs were never found.

Or the other day, when in the middle of an overall positive story in the Post about how the war was going, you seize on one paragraph, one anecdote, and make it into a major blog, thundering that a possible war crime had occurred, while ignoring the rest of the story?

There's an unresolved tension here. I have felt it for weeks. Your words seem to bely (sp?) your actions. You say you are stuggling, and I want to take you at your word, but it's hard, frankly. It's like when the major networks insist they are not biased but it's so palpable and so obvious that they are. It's not the positions they take, it's the insistence that they are not biased, that's so maddening. You find yourself less angry at a publication like "The Nation", or a radio network like Pacifica because they make no bones about the fact that they are partisans.

It's the same thing with you, Mark. You say you're torn, struggling, but here you've linked to something called the "Traprock Peace Center", which is clearly a left/liberal/antiwar site. I have less problem with Traprock, than I do with you, Mark, because Traprock makes no bones about their position. While you, making these links and posting these posts, keep telling us, "No, I'm struggling, I haven't made up my mind yet."

Mark, you are very close to losing me as a reader and a contributor. You probably don't give a darn, and I know I'm not indispensable by any means, but the level of my frustration has reached the point where I must have closure on this issue, or depart.
Larry | 07.31.03 - 1:50 pm | #

If I agreed with Tom Friedman, I would. But I don't. I can see only one justification for this war: national security. There are lots of little shitholes all over the world and even pro-war people are not saying that our mission should henceforth be to police them. The whole "Operation Iraqi Freedom" thing is an ex post facto justification for the war which has been more loudly trumpeted in the absence of WMDs by war advocates who seem to be unable to make their rationale for the war *stay put*. It's precisely what troubles me most: the shiftiness of *reasons* for the war.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 07.31.03 - 1:57 pm | #

So are you saying the war was wrong? Or at least unnecessary?

If so, fine, we'll have closure, and I'll shut my yap.
Larry | 07.31.03 - 2:02 pm | #

By the way, when have I even mention Pacifica (whatever that is) or the Nation?

The Traprock link was, as I said, sent me by a reader. Of *course* the site is anti-war. Duh. My question is, how do you deal with the points they made. Don't play the "He has been ritually defiled by contact with the Wrong People" game. I don't think Bush is lying. They do. Some of their arguments are stupid. Some appear to cast in the worst light things that I cast in the best light. Where I see the Administration playing connect that dots, they see lies. My question is, "How do I argue my case?" Your answer is "Don't speak to them. They're anti-war." Great. Thanks for the help.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 07.31.03 - 2:02 pm | #

Sigh. I'm saying I don't know. How many million more times do I have to say it?
Mark Shea | Homepage | 07.31.03 - 2:03 pm | #

Goodbye, Mark.
Larry | 07.31.03 - 2:07 pm | #

Now what have I said?
Mark Shea | Homepage | 07.31.03 - 2:09 pm | #

Hmmm. Personally, I'm not willing to concede we've "lost the game" of "connect the dots". Yet.
Marc Lewandowski | 07.31.03 - 9:11 pm | #

Nor I. But the score is not very favorable so far.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 07.31.03 - 10:53 pm | #

Mark: What "shiftiness"? Bush et al. never put a stake in the ground and coalesced around one reason for going to war. He claimed Hussein was a brutal, vicious tyrant who murdered his own people, attacked four of his neighbors, certainly had chemical weapons and sought nuclear weapons. Looked at through the prism of a post-Sept. 11 world, that made Saddam and his regime a threat.
Rich Leonardi | 08.01.03 - 12:22 pm | #

First Axiom of Military Intelligence: Always evalluate what your enemy CAN do, not what you think they will do.

Based on many factlets from before Fall 2002, Saddam COULD HAVE a WMD program. Heck, all he had to do was provide documentation that he never had them or he had destroyed them. Egg on the face of USA, probably no war. "Look Ma, I AM cooperating."

No that Uday and Odai (you know those I mean) have gone to the Big Pizza Oven In The Sky, the Huessin dynasty is no more. And so the timid - or at least some of them - will crawl out of discreet hiding. Or the hard core adherents will think of cutting a deal.

We well might then find ourselves with better leads and/or the Big Boy Hisself.

Stay tooned and keep your six-pack dry...
Good Ole Charlie | 08.02.03 - 8:58 am | #