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I figured it out five years ago (if not longer). One person I said we shouldn't listen to was Ahmed Chalabi. Too bad Dubya didn't.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 4:58 pm | #

Why are guys like Steyn treated like know-it-alls? The media is lazy, that is why. It has ceased being about information. The news is one big soap opera now. They need something to fill that soap opera. What would the media do with out any wars? I love John Lennon's music a lot, but "Imagine" looks awfully naive, especially today. If there wasn't a threat, someone would invent one.
Ghost of Tom Joad | 11.14.06 - 4:59 pm | #

But how in God's name is the Bush empire supposed to make any money if we're following reasonable foreign policy. Do you realize how difficult it is to make money off weapons and oil in times of peace and stability?
Jeff | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 4:59 pm | #

Why is that? Perhaps it's the essential difference between something resembling a meritocracy and what actually exists in America, a plutocracy.
spark | 11.14.06 - 5:10 pm | #

Glenn, the canonical answer you will receive from neocons in answer to the question, "why did we go in if there were no WMDs?" is that "there were many reasons to enter Iraq." This is, of course, BS, because the whole point of the exercise was to rid the world of a proximate threat to the United States. You won't get any traction arguing with Steyn or any of these other cuckoos by starting with the fact, obvious now as it was then, that there are no WMDs in Iraq; in fact, some of the neocons are still using the "they're in Syria" line. None of them seem capable of admitting that the strongest and only card in their hand was the WMD angle; once that was played, they had a hundred CYA smokescreens, none of them compelling.
Rob McMillin | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 5:11 pm | #

everything was progressing nicely

The blond-bimbo description of our wonderful progress is "swimmingly".

Speaking of which, where has that certain Vote-Felon-"Author"-Slanderer been since our Democratic rout?
Flamethrower | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 5:12 pm | #

You won't get any traction arguing with Steyn or any of these other cuckoos by starting with the fact, obvious now as it was then, that there are no WMDs in Iraq; in fact, some of the neocons are still using the "they're in Syria" line. None of them seem capable of admitting that the strongest and only card in their hand was the WMD angle; once that was played, they had a hundred CYA smokescreens, none of them compelling.

I'm aware of all that. They're immune to facts. They discard the ones that conflict with their desires and invent more pleasant ones in their place.

The point isn't to get "traction" arguing with them. It's to point out to others how false - demonstrably false - their statements have been and how wrong they have been about everything, so that people stop listening to them and recognize them for what they are.
Glenn Greenwald | 11.14.06 - 5:16 pm | #

Ah, yes, Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who was groomed by his neocon handlers to take over the reins of power once Saddam was toppled, and who provided bogus intel to the Pentagon (which Judith Miller gleefully forwarded in the NY Times).

The same Ahmed Chalabi who is now blaming the Bush administration for dropping the ball and letting the Iraqi insurgency get out of control. If only the Americans had taken him more seriously and let him take absolute charge from the very beginning, we'd all be up to our necks in candy and flowers from the grateful citizens of Iraq.

Isn't there still an outstanding warrant for his arrest in Jordan?

--Lou
Luis Bueno | 11.14.06 - 5:17 pm | #

"I don't just mean in the sense of that TV show they have over there, the one where they broadcast the interrogations of captured insurgents, which is the only reality TV show I enjoy watching."

Glenn, bear in mind the show Steyn is talking about features suspects with visible signs of physical torture being compelled to make confessions on air. This is Stalinist stuff.

There was a British Channel 4 News report a while back about an Iraqi human rights advocate who finally decided he had to leave the New Iraq when he saw this show.

Steyn is an authentic sadist.
Alex Higgins | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 5:20 pm | #

The same old ignoramuses (ignorami?)are trotted out time and again because they're known quantities...their faces and names are familiar to the program bookers, and all the journalists are chummy with one another, so laziness and intellectual corruption and ignorance collide in a charade of pretend journalism and uninformed "analysis."

That such vile hatemongers as Ann Coulter continue to be asked to guest on "news" programs is itself enough of a giveaway that there is no true journalistic purpose being served, but merely sensationalistic pandering...it's all show--as in "show business"--and few discussions of merit will be found in or on most mainstream media organs.
Robert1014 | 11.14.06 - 5:22 pm | #

Glenn,

There comes a point when the psychological cost of admitting you were wrong is just too great.

The magnitude of the disaster, here, is what's pushed pro-war conservatives into that corner. The cost in blood and wealth and everything else is so vast, so unfathomable, that it's literally easier to keep believing. (Bush himself is clearly at this point. If this was one of his businesses, he'd already have moved on ...and all that had been lost was a little money.)

I read somewhere that gang indoctrination involves murder because it ensures that the indoctrinated never waver in their fealty -- to do so is to admit having committed an unjustifiable and horrible crime. I really think the same dynamic is at play here.
Jordan Orlando | 11.14.06 - 5:24 pm | #

"...they kept insisting to Americans that things were going great and that everything would be fixed very soon. That, far more than the original decision to invade Iraq, is the real crime here."

Glenn,
Great post, as are so many of your essays. However, I disagree with your sentiments above in favor of those of Justice Jackson:

"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

Perhaps we can agree that the architects of the Iraq war need to be held accountable in the same manner as those of an earlier age. Otherwise, future miscreants will be undeterred from leading the nation to similar, or worse, disasters.
Besides, as I warned Total Dick Cheney from the gitgo, aggressive war is also a capital crime with no statute of limitations. Would he listen to me? Hell no! Now, if he wants, he can plead for life without parole. Good luck with that.
Pvt. Keepout | 11.14.06 - 5:27 pm | #

"Is it even possible to be more wrong than that?"

Actually, Steyn himself has been more wrong than that. He wrote a whole book worth of columns claiming that Osama bin Laden was dead until finally giving up and accepting that the evidence pointed the other way.

He also predicted that the insurgency would be defeated within six weeks about three years ago.

Somewhere inside his brain something must say, 'How funny, I keep being wildly wrong about major points of fact', before carrying on producing the same garbage and attacking the left for not seeing the world from his viewpoint, firmly up his backside.
Alex Higgins | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 5:28 pm | #

I'm intersted by Steyn's (and others') references to "the Iraqi Army."

Based on reports by Patrick Cockburn, and others who are actually in Iraq, there is no such thing as an "Iraqi Army," at least in the sense that we think of an "army."

Nor does Maliki's government have any effective command or control over what is loosely referred to as "the army."

From Michael Schwarz at TomDispatch:

"The "Iraqi Army" is a misnomer. The government's military consists of Iraqi units integrated into the U.S.-commanded occupation army. These units rely on the Americans for intelligence, logistics, and -- lacking almost all heavy weaponry themselves -- artillery, tanks, and any kind of airpower. (The Iraqi "Air Force" typically consists of fewer then 10 planes with no combat capability.) The government has no real control over either personnel or strategy."

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index...html? pid=114108
MD | 11.14.06 - 5:32 pm | #

Of course, there's the standard media question (made famous by Wolf Blitzer, I think), and directed to a known Democrat:

"And what do you think your party can do about the perception that Democrats are weak on national security?"
MD | 11.14.06 - 5:35 pm | #

The topic of whorish media habits of mind is particularly pertinent for me today. There was only one Greater New Orleans FM radio station with a really strong signal that I could rely on to play music rather than talk radio (or C&W) in the mid-morning when I happen to commute to work. WRNO had ceased to be innovative decades ago and has been in the Clear Channel stable for a few years now, but it still played a narrow, hackneyed selection of tunes that kept me awake on the road ~9:15 a.m. They just changed to a NEW!! format this week that features talk radio + FOX News in the mid-morning, and Sean Hannity from 2-5 p.m. every weekday. I'm sure they would argue that their aging white male rocker demographic wanted this, but I have my doubts. I can't be unique in wanting to listen to fairly undemanding pop music on the road. I'm probably only distinctive in my level of awareness of the way in which RW propaganda is being force fed to me.
Fortunately there are alternatives, but they have weaker signals and I have to switch between them about halfway thru the commute.

Corporate media programming decision makers don't seek real input from their audiences. I believe they prefer to do without it. Solid demographic data would give their advertizers a bargaining edge they don't want them to have, and would reveal these little programming chieftains for the second raters that they are.
Fluffy | 11.14.06 - 5:40 pm | #

Glenn:

Great post, as usual.

BUT, I must disagree with one point: invading Iraq without provocation -- a purely aggressive war -- is a much greater crime than any lies told after the fact to the American public.
no fortunate son | 11.14.06 - 5:49 pm | #

Heck, even Joseph Wilson was right about Iraq:

The Nation March 2003.

“The hawks compare this mission to[the democratization of] Japan and Germany after World War II. It could easily look like Lebanon, Somalia and Northern Ireland instead.”

That was Joe Wilson in "The Nation" in March of 2003.
Jeff R | 11.14.06 - 5:49 pm | #

"[W]hy are those who were so right and prescient and wise in their counsel treated as though they are lightweight, laughable morons who can't be "trusted with national security"?"

My personal opinion on why this is so is that a major characteristic of the fantasy-mongers and the news media who support them, is the facade of manly toughness and competency.

This just impresses the hell out of too many Americans.

Invading Iraq was doing something tough when angry people wanted somebody to do something tough.

It's the same mentality that won't ask for directions when lost. Taking time to deliberate is wussy. John Wayne says, "Like Hell I will!" and just effing punches the guy. A permanent and proud mindset of those who revere Dubbya and his Administration.

Better you and your whole family freeze to death than admit you don't know where the hell you are. (Nor tell your hubbie he's an idiot and take his keys.)

It's Macho American Fantasy Land.

Rove, et al, won the White House with this psychology and has kept the lies and delusion going to date. As you said, there are still people wandering around in the wilderness of self-delusion insisting their original destination is just around the next corner.

The Bushies may not be competent at much, but they do display that facade so much better than those who are.
Liz H | 11.14.06 - 5:53 pm | #

BUT, I must disagree with one point: invading Iraq without provocation -- a purely aggressive war -- is a much greater crime than any lies told after the fact to the American public.

How about for people who believed what their government told them - that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons, was developing nuclear weapons, and was working with Al Qaeda. You think that people who believed that and supported the war based on it are morally worse than people who continued to support (and lie about) the war even once they realized all those things weren't true?

I don't, because in that worldview, the war was not a "purely aggressive" war.

If you are standing on the sidewalk and an epileptic walks by and has a seizure, but to you it looks like he is swinging his arms very near your head in an aggressive way towards you, and you hit him, thinking (mistakenly) that you're doing it in self-defense, that is NOT the same act morally as just walking up to someone who is standing there minding their own business and punching them for no reason.

The latter act is much worse than the former, even though the victims in each case are equally innocent.
Glenn Greenwald | 11.14.06 - 5:54 pm | #

invading Iraq without provocation -- a purely aggressive war -- is a much greater crime than any lies told after the fact to the American public.

Except that being allowed to invade Iraq without provocation was allowed by the lies told to the American public BEFORE the fact.

The actors in question are the same people. And you have to admit that as a nation in January 2003, we were more than a touch off our meds.....

Remember the Dixie Chicks!!!!
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 5:55 pm | #

You may dispute Mark Steyn's opinions, but you can't deny that he is a fine writer and thinker. That's why he's so popular.
anonymoose | 11.14.06 - 6:01 pm | #

Ah, an endorsement by anonymoose can only mean the guy is a raving lunatic!
Anonymous | 11.14.06 - 6:02 pm | #

Glenn, the canonical answer you will receive from neocons in answer to the question, "why did we go in if there were no WMDs?" is that "there were many reasons to enter Iraq."

The actual answer to the question is that we entered Iraq to definitively find out whether WMD's were present.
Even Hans Blix said on the eve of invasion that Hussein wasn't fully forthcoming.

Anyone that thinks that's insufficient reason for invasion, is willing to trade the possibility of mass destruction, for the illusion of peace offered by an established mass murderer of his own people and those in other countries.

The reason national security advocates are respected is that they were willing to protect the country rather than risk mass destruction, unlike the hindsight heroes of today.

Interestingly, we have this headline from today....
"Al-Qaida plotting nuclear attack on UK, officials warn"

Do the objectors here think...
* the Brits should ignore the warning?
* make investigations more difficult to pursue?
* wait for a mushroom cloud to do anything?
* Accuse those issuing the warning of partisan politics?

This is the grand opportunity for recommendations BEFORE the fact, for a change. Heh.
shooter242 | 11.14.06 - 6:02 pm | #

Those amoral creatures who shrug off our illegal invasion of Iraq as, historically speaking, relatively bloodless, (and, therefore, of little concern, except to hysterical peace-niks and other such loonies), are of course speaking only of OUR losses; they ignore entirely the typhoon of violence we have let loose against those whom we supposedly are fighting to "liberate." There are the deaths of Iraqi citizens caused directly by our bullets and bombs, there are the deaths caused indirectly through our destruction of Iraq's infrastructure, and there are the deaths inflicted by Iraqi against Iraqi, a lawlessness made possible only by our having stormed in and having destroyed Iraq's agencies of law and order. That we may not have approved of the draconian nature of Hussein's government is of no importance in this regard...there was not, under Hussein's control, the rampant mass murder of Iraqis by Iraqis for which we have been the catalyst.

And, the deaths aside, there are thousands more grievously injured Americans and Iraqis alike, not to mention the innocently imprisoned Iraqis, and the tortured among those imprisoned.

The tsk-tsking and minimizing of such violence done through our actions is the collective voice of evil, issued oh-so-smoothly from the aperitif-sipping crowd inside the beltway.
Robert1014 | 11.14.06 - 6:08 pm | #

Speaking of national security frauds posing as experts, National Review's Rich Lowry has a surprisingly insightful refutation of the numerous myths taking root with regard to the midterm elections.

Ouch!

The whole thing smells like something the Mossad could have cooked up. They are that good. Possibly the best in the business. And no... I don't mean 9/11 and please don't give me the anti-semitic crap. From 7/2005:

It’s a well documented fact that much of the news reported in Israel’s Hebrew-language media never reaches the mainstream American press and that’s for the simple reason - items unfavorable to Israel generally are not translated.

As very few Israelis break or are willing to break this self-imposed
censorship, items from the Hebrew press that don’t reach mainstream media are at times much more newsworthy than their English translations indicate.

In Strategic Assessment, the quarterly bulletin issued by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a report, titled “The War in Iraq: An Intelligence Failure?” was written by Shlomo Brom, a brigadier general in the Israeli army reserves.

In his report, Brom articulates what many people believed but didn’t
actually say it.

The Israeli brigadier general told the truth about the American and British intelligence “sources” making the case for war.

According to Brom, the U.S. and UK sources were completely compromised by Israeli intelligence, which made the case for starting the war and kept it going as long as necessary. The retired general described Israel role as a “full partner” in U.S. and British intelligence failures that exaggerated Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs in the lead up to the U.S.-led invasion.

In his report, Brom wrote: Israeli intelligence sources and political
leaders provided “an exaggerated assessment of Iraqi capabilities,” raising “the possibility that the intelligence had been manipulated...”
LWM | 11.14.06 - 6:09 pm | #

Shooter242,

Given the information in your post I think it is incumbent upon England to immediately invade Jamaica and occupy it until further notice.

-GSD
GSD | 11.14.06 - 6:16 pm | #

You may dispute Mark Steyn's opinions, but you can't deny that he is a fine writer and thinker. That's why he's so popular.

Mark Steyn is a good writer and has a facility with words. He's also incredibly ignorant about virtually every topic he touches. And, as this post, several comments above, and many other posts I've written demonstrate, he is factually wrong (not in his opinions, but his factual assertions and predictions) at a rate so high that no rational person could take him seriously, let alone solemnly refer to him as a "thinker."

And he isn't "so popular." He's popular among a small crowd of extremists who, as this last election just demonstrates, themselves are not exactly popular.
Glenn Greenwald | 11.14.06 - 6:17 pm | #

Fluffy,
I think I get that same station you were talking about...should be interesting to hear Hannity on the days I can get out of here a little early, that's for sure.
LnGrrrR | 11.14.06 - 6:17 pm | #

If al-Jazeera is too difficult for some to stomach, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. cites Brom's 2003 report as something James Bamford "dug up" for his book Pretext for War.

The Making of a Mess
By Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The New York Review of Books
9/23/2004
LWM | 11.14.06 - 6:23 pm | #

"Even Hans Blix said on the eve of invasion that Hussein wasn't fully forthcoming."

No, Blix said that in late January of the inspectors' insertion into Iraq; the "eve of invasion" was in March. In February, Blix reported:

"The number of Iraqi minders during inspections had often reached a ratio as high as five per inspector. During the talks in January in Baghdad, the Iraqi side agreed to keep the ratio to about one to one. The situation has improved.

Since we arrived in Iraq, we have conducted more than 400 inspections covering more than 300 sites. All inspections were performed without notice, and access was almost always provided promptly. In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming."

Here's the full text of Blix's February remarks:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/ S...,895882,00.html

One does not invade a country--lacking UN Security Council approval, and with no concrete evidence of an imminent self-defense need--merely to "find out" whether that country might be a danger.

The whole purpose of sending in inspectors was to verify whether there was a credible threat posed by Iraq; the pro-war neo-cons assented to it only for purposes of show, and were impatient and chomping at the bit to attack. Given Hussein's willingness to cooperate with the inspectors, what compelling evidence did Li'l Butch and Big DICK have that the inspections should be ended preemptorily--uncompleted--merely in order to launch our attack?

Even absent all the other calamitous after-effects of our invasion, the invasion itself was a war-crime.
Robert1014 | 11.14.06 - 6:24 pm | #

I'd like to remind shooter that the stalemate over Iraq lasted over 10 years. The sudden urgency felt by the President was only a result of the political cover he had post 9-11.

The intelligence-twisting that was used to justify the war has been well documented and is quite clear to everyone except true-believers.

Your boat is sinking. I suggest you find alternate transportation.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 6:24 pm | #

…we need to figure out who we should be listening to and who we should be ignoring, and it really isn't that hard to figure out. At least it shouldn't be.

Only 8% of the public support sending more troops to Iraq yet, on MTP this week the only point of view presented was….. yup, you guessed it, McCain and Lieberman, the “more troop twins” who represent nobody but themselves and who are never, ever asked where these troops are going to come from and just how that would make a difference now that things have gone so wrong.

Remember, the people we should have listened to said that we would need 400,000 troops to stabilize the country; and now, when hundreds of people are being kidnapped in one day and we have a civil war, a dysfunctional corrupt Iraqi government not supported or trusted by the people, and Americans soldiers despised and feared by the majority of the populace who want us out – now, all of sudden, an additional 20,000 troops will solve all our problems.

Just what have these two been right about in regard to Iraq? Right, absolutely nothin’ – yet, we don’t ignore them, but these two clowns are our the most sought after by our corporate media, get more air time than anyone else, while anyone with even a remote grasp of the situation (reality) isn’t allowed anywhere near a “green room.”

Why? Because our corporate media does not believe that Americans can handle the truth about just how badly we’ve botched this, and admitting it would also be an indictment of our corporate media for what their role in this fiasco, and they don’t want that either.

So we pretend that somewhere there’s some “wise men” with the answer, and in the meantime we sit with our purple fingers up our nose waiting for a deus ex machina that just ain’t gonna happen, while everyday more Americans die because we won’t face a simple fact:

Iraq is lost. Bush lost it. Deal with it.
zack | 11.14.06 - 6:26 pm | #

Do the objectors here think...
* the Brits should ignore the warning?
* make investigations more difficult to pursue?
* wait for a mushroom cloud to do anything?
* Accuse those issuing the warning of partisan politics?

This is the grand opportunity for recommendations BEFORE the fact, for a change. Heh.
shooter242

Sharter,

Read the full text of Dame Eliza's speech. You will sound ever so slightly less like a total fuckwit.
LWM | 11.14.06 - 6:28 pm | #

And, of course, he added: "Yes, by historical standards the war in Iraq isn't terribly bloody, which does tend to get lost in the media coverage."

That is obscene. Sunday nite I watched CNN's "unsantitized" (their word) special, Combat Hospital.

To say it was sobering would be to understate. Not just the blood and gore of mangled American and Iraqi dead and injured, but the views and feelings of the military medical staff. At one point, they were treating a toddler whose parents had been shot and killed by Shia militia in front of her, and then they shot her. A three-year-old girl.

One of the American soldiers was deeply upset and had to leave for a cigarette break after she was stabilized; he was in absolute shock that some of the people he was there to liberate thought murdering little kids was the way to go. He could not grasp a culture like that. But obviously there were those who understood the tribal and sectarian nature of huge swathes of Iraq, and knew that it was not teeming with Thomas Jeffersons and Tom Paines.

One of the doctors ruefully told the camera that he feared the carnage he was trying to mend was caused by our presence.

They save 94% of the soldiers who make it to the combat hospitals, because the hospital units are state of the art. But the survival rate is hiding a reality of serious maiming and life-long disability in the tens of thousands. That is expensive on several levels.

Glenn Reynolds and those like him should be forced to live and sleep in the combat hospitals. Then let's see how glib they are.
Mona | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 6:30 pm | #

You may dispute Mark Steyn's opinions, but you can't deny that he is a fine writer and thinker. That's why he's so popular.

So was Himmler. And at least he was popular for awhile.
LWM | 11.14.06 - 6:32 pm | #

It's like watching a patient who has lost limbs and organs due to a surgeon's gross malpractice continue to return to that same surgeon for the next operation, while scoffing at the doctors who warned of the dangers.

Of course he scoffs; those cowardly doctors are afraid to cut. (Sounds ridiculous, but something like that really is how those "pundits" and "journalists" "think".)
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 6:33 pm | #

Why? Our men of action suffered the same delusional thinking that got Johnson and MacNamera mired in Viet Name -- that we could influence the thinking of our enemies with our application of force. In this respect, the terrorists were much more effective in influencing our thinking than we will ever be in influencing their thinking. So our men of action overreacted and got our asses mired in Iraq. It did not take a great amount of intelligence, but just native intuition, to realize that our use of overwhelming technological power would select for guerrilla warfare, increasing terrorism, and the acquisition of nuclear weaponry as a deterrence. Our men of action, blinded by their sense of power, were determined to discredit any view or viewer that threatened to interfere with their exercise of power. They would allow no preempting their war of preemption.
lou | 11.14.06 - 6:35 pm | #

I know it's kind of a rhetorical question, but it calls to mind a quote making the rounds to the effect of, "You can't make someone understand something if it's his job not to understand."

But I think what's really going on is not that the corporations controlling our media find it more profitable to delude us. It's something much more basic. The "news" (especially on TV) isn't *news* or *journalism* at all. It's *advertising*. And when it comes to advertising, their customers aren't the viewers at all - they're the *sponsors*. And the customers are the *product*.

And when you treat your viewers as product, why *should* you care about whether they're getting the truth or not? It would be absurd, in fact - your job is to make sure the sponsors are happy, not the product! And if you can get away with putting out two loudmouths who *appear* authoritative and knowledgeable, and the product keeps showing up on time, you don't have to spend the money looking for "experts" who actually know what they're talking about.

-L-
a1 | 11.14.06 - 6:36 pm | #

Who is taken seriously in such issues has nothing to do with the accuracy of their statements and predictions, but purely the extent to which they appeal to the illusion of American exceptionalism, the most pervasively and deeply held myth in our culture which crosses nearly all religious and political boundaries. To say there is a war we cannot win or don't have the right to wage is like going in front of an audience of young children and telling them there is no such thing as Santa or the tooth fairy and that they shouldn't eat candy because it is bad for them. It may be true, but that won't matter.
Dread Scot | 11.14.06 - 6:38 pm | #

Why? Because our corporate media does not believe that Americans can handle the truth about just how badly we’ve botched this, and admitting it would also be an indictment of our corporate media for what their role in this fiasco, and they don’t want that either.

zack | 11.14.06 - 6:26 pm |

It's not that they don't think we can't handle the truth. They don't respect us that much. They don't think we should know the truth. I doubt that they know it -- self-delusion is a powerful intoxicant.
jojo | 11.14.06 - 6:39 pm | #

How about for people who believed what their government told them - that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons, was developing nuclear weapons, and was working with Al Qaeda. You think that people who believed that and supported the war based on it are morally worse than people who continued to support (and lie about) the war even once they realized all those things weren't true?

That's a strawman, and you know it, Glenn. "The original decision to invade Iraq" was not made by people who supported the war, it was made by the people who lied to those supporters.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 6:43 pm | #

Mona,
He could not grasp a culture like that. But obviously there were those who understood the tribal and sectarian nature of huge swathes of Iraq, and knew that it was not teeming with Thomas Jeffersons and Tom Paines.

How can we even know if there are Tom Paines in Iraq? By now they've either been shot, or had their family raped and murdered in front of them, by groups that have been funded by probably all the thugs in the neighborhood: Syria, Iran, the Saudis and ourselves.

I wouldn't judge their culture on this debacle, any more than I judge Guatemala on their nightmare in the 80's. Blame the power brokers; if they can't fix it after everyone has left, then a more fair comparison is possible. Guatemala is much more reasonable after the Soviets fell; the Soviets couldn't send guns, and we lost interest in funding death squads.
jojo | 11.14.06 - 6:46 pm | #

From shooter242 at 6:02pm:

The reason national security advocates are respected is that they were willing to protect the country rather than risk mass destruction, unlike the hindsight heroes of today.

Fair enough. Now that we know there never were any WMDs in Iraq, why are we still there, letting our troops be killed and maimed, and creating a whole new mess of jihadists and radicals?

And those 'hindsight heroes' you denigrate were warning this would happen from the start.

Interestingly, we have this headline from today....
"Al-Qaida plotting nuclear attack on UK, officials warn"

Alarming, if there's any substance to it. Got anything besides this rather vague news article?

I thought not, but then you never did have anything.
yankeependragon | 11.14.06 - 6:54 pm | #

Speaking of Tom Paines and Tom Jeffersons. Sharter not only thinks Max Cleland was a drunken screw-up who deserved to have his limbs blown off, he also thinks Ben Franklin's thoughts and writings are laughable. In short, Franklin was just a lunatic crackpot.

What a proud American you are, Sharter!
LWM | 11.14.06 - 6:56 pm | #

That's a strawman, and you know it, Glenn. "The original decision to invade Iraq" was not made by people who supported the war, it was made by the people who lied to those supporters.

Those who made the original decision to invade Iraq knew that there were no WMDs there?
Glenn Greenwald | 11.14.06 - 6:56 pm | #

Alarming, if there's any substance to it. Got anything besides this rather vague news article?

I thought not, but then you never did have anything.
yankeependragon

YPD,

Read the speech from Dame Eliza, the DG of MI5.

http://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/Pag...ut/ Page568.html
LWM | 11.14.06 - 6:58 pm | #

Keep in mind that, after Colin Powell's show-and-tell at the U.N., "liberal" columnist Richard Cohen wrote The evidence he presented to the United Nations -- some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail -- had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise.

And the same view was echoed throughout the media. But any honest person who watched Powell's presentation recognizes that the belief that he had demonstrated that Iraq was an imminent threat was not based on evidence, to the contrary such a belief was an act of will in the face of evidence -- an act of will that conveniently coincided with American exceptionalism. When the basic operating assumption is that America is good and right and has the right to invade other countries if its interests are threatened, it takes very little "evidence" to justify such an act.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 6:58 pm | #

I would venture the reason these hacks keep getting invited back is because they are pro-war. NBC is owned by General Electric, a huge weapons manufacture. More war means more weapons sold, a boon to the bottomline. Even those networks not owned by weapons makers have pro-war guests because of advertising. They run ads for weapons makers, so anti-war views would turn away ad money. Our corporate controlled media is definetly part of the military-industrial complex. The media watchdog group FAIR did an analyse of guests on all major news show(both network and cable) prior to the Iraq invasion. Only 2% of guests were against the war, the rest were either neutral or pro-invasion. Wow that's really being fair and balanced. Is it any wonder that a majority of Americans initially supported invading Iraq. All we were fed was pro-war propaganda and the other side was effectively shut out of the debate.
I just wanted to add one thing that's kind of off topic. Anyone hear about Desert Crossing? If you don't know what that is, do a google news search for desert crossing. In 1999 the Clinton admin did war games on what would happen if we invaded Iraq. Their findings were with an invading force of 400,000 troops, the country would still slip into anarchy.
Conservative slayer | 11.14.06 - 7:01 pm | #

I strongly recommend that if you have the opportunity get the most recent--Nov/Dec issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. It has reports from Iraq from a host of journalists on the ground in Iraq and it as truly an insightful and depressing read . . .

One of the biggest myths they debunk is that the reason we are losing is that the media isn't reporting the "good news."

CJR is one of the best sources to learn about investigative reportage and stories that don't get full coverage.
m! | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 7:01 pm | #

Those who made the original decision to invade Iraq knew that there were no WMDs there?
Glenn Greenwald | 11.14.06 - 6:56 pm | #

Amazing how stupid you become when your American exceptionalism is challenged, Glenn. Those who made the decision pressured the intelligence agencies to provide them with supporting evidence, evidence that they knew was cooked. They knew who "curveball" was. They knew the arguments Scott Ritter had put forth. They knew that WMD's, whether they existed or not, was just a cover for the real reasons to invade. As Paul Wolfowitz said, they reached a decision that WMD's was the most effective justification to use.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 7:04 pm | #

TM,

That's not fair to Glenn. He thinks like a lawyer and that's good. He requires proof.

You and I can say that it wouldn't be the first time that a lie has launched a war, but the proof for that only came many years later.
LWM | 11.14.06 - 7:07 pm | #

I guess that Glenn Greenwald still thinks that Condi Rice believed she was speaking the truth when she said that Iraq's aluminum tubes were for use in nuclear reactors, that Cheney believed he was speaking the truth when he said we knew that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons, and the George Bush was speaking the truth when he said that we had "learned" that Iraq had tried to obtain yellowcake from Niger. There was nothing criminal in the pack of lies that were told by these folks as justification for this war, nosiree.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 7:10 pm | #

That's not fair to Glenn.

Yes, it certainly is fair, because it's true. And I've seen his American exceptionalism before, in discussions of international law, which he does not believe govern American actions.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 7:12 pm | #

Those who made the original decision to invade Iraq knew that there were no WMDs there?

I'd split that exactly down the middle. There was a significant fraction of people who made that decision who didn't give a rat's ass whether there were WMD's or not and many of those were in a better position then most to know the truth and willfully ignore it.

Surely we've all been here long enough to know better than to underestimate the power of willful ignorance!

eh...
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 7:16 pm | #

American exceptionalism

Proof please, asshole.
Nick | 11.14.06 - 7:16 pm | #

The reason we didn't is because the country was continuously lied to by the most morally depraved people one can fathom, who were so afraid of admitting error regarding the wisdom of the invasion that they kept insisting to Americans that things were going great and that everything would be fixed very soon. That, far more than the original decision to invade Iraq, is the real crime here.

Umm...I'm going to have to agree with Arthur Silber here.
Curtis Interruptus | 11.14.06 - 7:17 pm | #

Amazing how stupid you become when your American exceptionalism is challenged, Glenn.

What does "American exceptionalism" have to do with doubting your ability to know whether Bush officials actually knew (as opposed to suspected, doubted, thought, etc.) that there were no WMD's in Iraq. "American exceptionalism" is your cliche, the prism through which you see the world, so you attribute all disagreements to it.

What's the idea here - that because I believe in "American exceptionalism," I'm defending the administration from charges that it "lied" about WMDs - just like I devote my blog to defending the adminsistration from accusations made against it because such accusations threaten my belief in "American exceptionalism."

Those who made the decision pressured the intelligence agencies to provide them with supporting evidence, evidence that they knew was cooked.

The first part is true, the second part is your belief based on nothing. It is true that American intelligence has sometimes underestimated the weapons capabilities of other countries (Pakistan being the most notable, though not only, exception). Some people in the intelligence community insisted there were WMDs; otheres said there were none. How do you konw that the administration KNEW that the latter was correct and the former was incorrect?

You don't know. But I guess my refusal to pretend that you do know is just because my faith in American Exceptionalism is at risk.
Glenn Greenwald | 11.14.06 - 7:20 pm | #

Insightful post Glenn.

Your blog is required reading.

Thank you for exposing this creep.

I think he is just a niche carver constantly establishing his bona fides with the Fox crowd on the backs of decent folks, awating his big payoff.

Steyn is the Andrew Dice Clay of political discourse.
Echo | 11.14.06 - 7:20 pm | #

Well, TM... I think you are missing the point. It is very difficult for any of us to know exactly what is in the mind of another. If Glenn, or some other skilled litigator, could get Condi or Bush or Cheney, any of them, under oath and depose them, we might find out. But until then we don't know if they honestly believed the lies because they wanted to, deceived themselves, or intended to deceive everyone else.
LWM | 11.14.06 - 7:21 pm | #

Yes, Silber has it right. Since the end of WWII, the U.S. has bombed China, Korea, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, Congo, Peru, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, Libya, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Yugoslavia -- all with good reason, of course.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 7:22 pm | #

Well, TM... I think you are missing the point.

I get the point of your intellectual dishonesty -- or lawyering, if you prefer.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 7:24 pm | #

American exceptionalism itself is a fascinating topic. Insofar as our founding documents were unique in the world at the time they were formulated and represented a significant step forward for enlightenment values, then yes, American exceptionalism is an appropriate emotion. Insofar as it allows monstrous injustice to be committed in our names because we are somehow "better" than our victims then it is significant force for evil.

Somewhere in between is the realization that the American people's level of disgust with the status quo has resulted in a dramatic shift in our political thought, the repercussions of which are only slowly beginning to be realized.

Faith in our Republic is not misplaced. But it requires that moral people continue to insist that our government makes moral choices. And God knows that that is not easy, let alone automatic.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 7:27 pm | #

I get the point of your intellectual dishonesty -- or lawyering, if you prefer.
truth machine

I'm flattered to be insulted in such fine company! But I'm only a jailhouse lawyer... :-)
LWM | 11.14.06 - 7:28 pm | #

have to do with doubting your ability to know whether Bush officials actually knew (as opposed to suspected, doubted, thought, etc.) that there were no WMD's in Iraq.

This is a dishonest strawman, and you know it. The question was whether their going to war was criminal, not about the epistemology of exact knowledge. They didn't have to know that there were no WMD's in Iraq, they only had to know that they inflated and selected the evidence so as to make the argument regardless of whether it was actually true -- and the evidence for that is overwhelming.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 7:29 pm | #

The only poll which means anything,at this point if you are trying to determine the support for Bush's ME policy, is the number of people who volunteer for the Armed Forces.
It's not good.
Mooser | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 7:31 pm | #

Curtis:
Umm...I'm going to have to agree with Arthur Silber here.

Interesting look at our national myopia. It plays well with Glenn's link equating Philadelphia with Iraq. The interesting thing about that gatewaypundit post is that the "analysis" completely disregards Iraqi deaths, as if they didn't exist. Not the statistical 600,000, not even the obituary 50k. Nothing. As if they weren't even human beings; only our folks matter.

One thing is to say that, of course, our folks matter more to us than the Iraqis, that we have a natural loyalty and attachment to them, and we must consider them first. It's a monstrous other to imply, as gatewaypundit does as well as the national discourse, that Iraqi lives don't matter at all, that we needn't consider them at all. They literally don't count. Not 1 to 10, not even 1 to 100 in our calculations.
jojo | 11.14.06 - 7:31 pm | #

They may not have had the evidence of WMDs but the administration “believed” that there were WMD’s – it was faith-based foreign policy.

Last night Tyler Drumheller made this point on Hardball. He agreed with all of Truth Machine’s points about false and misleading evidence, but yet stated that they did, in fact, really believe that somewhere there were WMDs. They didn’t have the evidence, but they were sure they could find it. ..

In short, they didn’t “know” that there weren’t any WMDs, they believed that there were – so much so that that used bogus evidence to support their views.

DRUMHELLER: Well, I believe—and it’s not easy to say. But I believe there were—the administration had preconceptions built on things that they really and truly believed, that they had heard from immigrating reporting, that they had heard—that they had built up over the years. And a lot of people believed this about the weapons of mass destruction, but also about the need to deal with the strategic problem with Iraq.

But, in fact, the planning was already well underway, and this report, where it was easy to ignore the inspectors—they were saying the inspectors didn’t know what they were doing or they had no idea—this report was much more tangible, much harder to deal with.

Did they know there weren’t WMDs? No. Did they commit a crime going to war without knowing and lying about it. You bet.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12485465/
zack | 11.14.06 - 7:36 pm | #

-- and the evidence for that is overwhelming.
truth machine

I understand your anger. We are all angry. For all you know Glenn has a hunch he hasn't shared with folks here, gut getting upset with Glenn for not lighting your torch and handing you a pitchfork isn't going to help.
Anonymous | 11.14.06 - 7:36 pm | #

If it's any consolation to you, TM, my hunch is that they lied us into a war in Iraq, but that's just a hunch and we don't hang people on hunches. Oh, wait... we do now...
LWM | 11.14.06 - 7:26 pm | #

If you aren't familiar with the overwhelming evidence that they lied us into a war, then you haven't been paying much attention. That evidence is not that no WMD's were found; we could have found all sorts of WMD's in Iraq and that would have no bearing on the fact that they knowingly made numerous false representations. For instance, when Rice said that the tubes "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs", she either was lying or was making a statement for which she had no substantiation and had somehow magically avoided seeing any of the analysis from her own agency that said otherwise. That she was lying was not merely a "hunch". Iraq could have had nuclear programs up the kazoo and her statement would still be a lie.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 7:37 pm | #

I understand your anger. We are all angry. For all you know Glenn has a hunch he hasn't shared with folks here, gut getting upset with Glenn for not lighting your torch and handing you a pitchfork isn't going to help.
Anonymous | 11.14.06 - 7:36 pm | #

I deal in fact and evidence, and don't find your fact-free metaphors of interest.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 7:38 pm | #

In short, they didn’t “know” that there weren’t any WMDs, they believed that there were

See my reference to "willful ignorance" above. It is a disease of the human condition. And if you've ever dealt with anyone who is in denial, then you know just how aggravating it can be.

Does it make it bad?

That depends on the body-count.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 7:39 pm | #

That depends on the body-count.
And if its more than one, then it's already murder.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 7:41 pm | #

Last night Tyler Drumheller made this point on Hardball. He agreed with all of Truth Machine’s points about false and misleading evidence, but yet stated that they did, in fact, really believe that somewhere there were WMDs.

The point that some people seem unable to grasp is that a lie about one's justifications for a claim is still a lie even if the claim is true. If I believe your wife is cheating on you, and I tell you that I saw her with another man when I didn't, it's still a lie even if she really is cheating on you.

Did they commit a crime going to war without knowing and lying about it. You bet.

Indeed. But it isn't just that -- their belief that Iraq had WMD's, even if they had such a belief, isn't why they went to war -- they also lied about the justifications. As Paul Wolfowitz explicitly stated, WMD's was just the cover story, the one they thought would sell the best. That is criminal.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 7:45 pm | #

Paul Dirks,

There's a tricky bit about American Exceptionalism. One is valuing the expansion of freedom that our revolution promised. In that way, it's no different from the French, or the South Americans who have similar revolutionary mythologies. Another is the idea that our nation is somehow uniquely qualified to advance those freedoms. The first is a loyalty to a moral code, the other is a fantasy of national superiority inherent in us as a people, unattainable by others. That is inherently assymetrical, and can only be supported while we sport the military and economic power to assert ourselves imperially.

Chileans, for example, believe in their revolution against Spain, its republican and democratic promise, and that Chile embodies a hope for progress. In that way, they feel special. On the other hand, since Chile doesn't have an empire beyond its indigenous people, they don't believe that they are somehow exceptional in the sphere of foreign policy, that they have a moral right to project their vision of the revolution upon the rest of the world.

As long as we continue with this fantasy, we're a danger to the world, since this fantasy is essentially immoral. If morality is based upon the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, obviously exceptionalism is incompatible with universal morality. We don't believe that say the Swiss, with their long tradition of direct democracy, would be justified under any conditions to invade us in order to improve our democratic process; but we feel that we may invade or interfere with their internal functioning of practically any country in order to enlighten them. The list of nations is too long for a comment.

Inevitably, this sense of exceptionalism can be used by other nations to justify their own aggression. Who would like to see a rising China spread their vision of "Socialism with a Chinese face" at the end of a gun?
jojo | 11.14.06 - 7:45 pm | #

One thing is to say that, of course, our folks matter more to us than the Iraqis, that we have a natural loyalty and attachment to them

I don't find this "of course" at all. Do the people of your state matter more to you than other states? Your gender? Your height? Your weight? Your skin color? These loyalties are not "natural", they inculcated.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 7:52 pm | #

jojo:

Thank you for your insight. All I'm trying to do is navigate the maze between TM's "America is a force of evil", Glenn's "Let's give the Constitution and Democracy a chance" and Anonymoose's "Who cares, they're all terrorist scum anyway" attitudes.

I am crippled in my judgment by the fact that I take "All men are created equal" at face value and extrapolate my other political and/or religious judgements from that single powerful premise.

As such I've found myself being attacked from both sides, a situation I find quite refreshing.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 7:55 pm | #

truth machine:
The point that some people seem unable to grasp is that a lie about one's justifications for a claim is still a lie even if the claim is true. If I believe your wife is cheating on you, and I tell you that I saw her with another man when I didn't, it's still a lie even if she really is cheating on you.

I think the problem you're running into is psychological. Even those of who thought the initial invasion was illegal and immoral, hoped that a minimal shred of decency in our leadership would lead to decent results: the use of sufficient troops to pacify the country with minimal death, investment to rebuild the country and turn it into the industrial center of the ME, and a well orchestrated occupational government to allow the development of indigenous democracy.

Of course, we've had even the slightest hope of being led by competent imperialists dashed by their malignant greed and short-sightedness. And it'll take years for us to fully process what we've seen over the last five years. It's like Muslims who refuse to recognize the Osama is a Muslim -- they say he's not a "real" Muslim, rather than look at the disease that's eating them.
jojo | 11.14.06 - 7:57 pm | #

anonymoose | 11.14.06 - 6:01 pm | #

You may dispute Mark Steyn's opinions, but you can't deny that he is a fine writer and thinker. That's why he's so popular.

Since when did "popular" mean correct or quality? Porn is a $12 billion industry in the United States, demonstrating that it is VERY popular. It certainly isn't "brilliant art" or "great cinema photography" and I don't think "Republican Anal Orgy IV - The Pageinator Strikes" is equivalent to "Citizen Kane" because 100,000 frustrated Republicans are whacking off to it weekly.
Moses | 11.14.06 - 8:01 pm | #

For those who do not directly profit from the war, its failure is a success, because for them, what is needed is neither riches nor stability but a good, rousing fight. Successes will not make the US a war country, failires will.
Baldie McEagle | 11.14.06 - 8:02 pm | #

One thing is to say that, of course, our folks matter more to us than the Iraqis, that we have a natural loyalty and attachment to them

I don't find this "of course" at all. Do the people of your state matter more to you than other states? Your gender? Your height? Your weight? Your skin color? These loyalties are not "natural", they inculcated.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 7:52 pm | #

I wouldn't find it strange at all that people in Louisiana had more of an interest and empathy for the victims of Katrina than someone from Oregon. There is a social, political and cultural metric that separates me more from someone in Kazakhstan than someone from Atlanta. Just as I'd expect someone from Bavaria to care more about the folks in Munich than folks in Beijing. Even in terms of efficacy, I have more of an influence over another US citizen, in the abstract, than someone at the antipodes (or at least should).

But that's not to say that it should take the death of a million Africans to feel the empathy evoke by one missing one girl. Our lack of a reasonable sense of proportion deeply disturbs me.
jojo | 11.14.06 - 8:04 pm | #

TM: Those who made the decision pressured the intelligence agencies to provide them with supporting evidence, evidence that they knew was cooked.

GG:The first part is true, the second part is your belief based on nothing.

How do you know what my belief is based on, hypocrite? My belief is based on extensive reading and investigation of the subject. They knew the evidence was cooked because they ordered it to be cooked.

It is true that American intelligence has sometimes underestimated the weapons capabilities of other countries (Pakistan being the most notable, though not only, exception). Some people in the intelligence community insisted there were WMDs; otheres said there were none. How do you konw that the administration KNEW that the latter was correct and the former was incorrect?

That's not what I said. Are you really so dull-witted as to not be able to understand the difference between "he knew I didn't see his wife with another man" and "he knew his wife didn't cheat on him"? Somehow you only become this dense when in the throes of defending a ridiculous claim, like that going to war wasn't "the real crime here".

And "Some people in the intelligence community insisted there were WMDs; otheres said there were none" is a very shallow and uninformed characterization of how "the intelligence community" functions. It's job is not to "insist" anything, or to assert universal negatives like "there were none".
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 8:05 pm | #

Steyn makes porn of other peoples' misery. I'll never think of him again without his dick in his hand and his eyes glued to Iraqi TV.
Baldie McEagle | 11.14.06 - 8:06 pm | #

Jojo, the gist of your analysis has always seemed to me the proper understanding of what distinguishes patriotism from dangerous mischief; I believe many of the framers thought so as well. Certainly such nasty phenomena as Bolton's visceral hatred of the UN seem strangely disproportionate. I mean, for all its faults, it's hard to believe that anyone rational could imagine the UN to be the pure evil from the 10th dimension which for over forty years has been an unshakeable tenet of the right-wing catechism.

I do wonder how this all got started; it doesn't seem a simple case of my country right or wrong. Could it have been messianic Protestantism -- manifest destiny combined with building the New Jerusalem? Or is it just a variation on French, German or Chinese assumptions of cultural superiority, except with more and bigger guns? Maybe it's just an inversion of old-timey isolationism, e.g. we're too pure to get embroiled in Europe's dirty little wars, or dirty big ones either, but if we do, we'll set 'em straight in short order -- no two ways about that.

What's your take?
William Timberman | 11.14.06 - 8:10 pm | #

Empathy is a very malleable emotion. I can feel deep empathy for a dog that's been hit by a car on the side of the road while being totally oblivious to victims of genocide in Africa, if I'm not made aware of the problem.
Here's where the role of the Corporate or if you prefer "Mainstream" media comes to the fore. Most Americans get most of their knowlege from the world by what they see on television. Add to that the additional problem that if what they're seeing on television is too disturbing or depressing then they're going to change the channel.

In that context, its the storyline that shapes the policy.

If that isn't a tragedy, then I don't know what is.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 8:13 pm | #

Or is it just a variation on French, German or Chinese assumptions of cultural superiority, except with more and bigger guns?

Americans remain rather proud of their lack of cultural superiority. An attitude that's only reinforced by the more and bigger guns.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 8:17 pm | #

I wouldn't find it strange

I didn't say that nationalistic loyalties are "strange"; the strawmen fly thick around here. I said they aren't "natural", but rather inculcated. I know people here in Santa Barbara who went to volunteer in NOLA, and I know of some musicians from Georgia who came here to donate themselves to a benefit concert for the victims of the La Conchita landslide when they heard about it. Some people find that sort of thing "strange".

But that's not to say that it should take the death of a million Africans to feel the empathy evoke by one missing one girl. Our lack of a reasonable sense of proportion deeply disturbs me.

But this isn't limited to national or cultural loyalties. People generally find it easier to relate to a single girl fallen down a well than to tens of thousands of unindividualized traffic fatalities -- or even flood victims. This difference between the concrete and the abstract is, I think, natural.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 8:22 pm | #

Truth Machine's off-putting abrasiveness aside, I take his point: Li'l Butch and Big DICK, et al, probably did "believe" they would find some sort of WMD, however defined, in Iraq: old Sarin shells, old stores of bio-agents, possible physical remnants of nuclear weapons programs...perhaps even more. But they lied when they asserted as INDISPUTABLE the FACT of Hussein's having WMD, that they had NO DOUBT, that they KNEW where the WMD were. They never knew or had "bullet-proof" evidence, despite their claims...they had only their pre-existing beliefs, which were impervious to any confounding data.

More to the point, though, they had their own imperialist ambitions for invading Iraq, entirely divorced from whether Hussein did or did not have WMD; they merely foisted that off as the most compelling selling point, and one they thought could be supported after the invasion by pointing to whatever they might find...whether they found full-fledged weapons and programs, or mere remnants. It would be as if I had a personal beef with a neighbor, one who I knew had smoked pot in the past, so I called the cops on him, reporting that he had drugs in his possession. My motives for calling the cops would have nothing to do with assisting in the apprehension of a law-breaker, but entirely to do with my personal agenda; my assumptions about his character, combined with my knowledge that he had been a regular user of drugs in the past, would lead me to make an assumption that the cops would surely find something in the house on which they could hang a drug charge. But my testimony that I KNEW he had drugs in his possession--whether he turned out to have some or not--would be a lie.

All else aside, without UN Security Council approval, and without absolutely compelling evidence for a self-defense motive, our attack on and invasion of Iraq was a war-crime.
Robert1014 | 11.14.06 - 8:23 pm | #

why are those who were so right and prescient and wise in their counsel treated as though they are lightweight, laughable morons who can't be "trusted with national security"?

Surely those are rhetorical questions, Glenn! The reason is that power masquerades as reason. That's all. The war critics don't represent any established power center of money and influence, the pro-war hawks do. That one side was right and the other consistently wrong changes nothing. "Opionion" means "responsible opinion", which means the opinions of "people who count."

What the people want is beside the point. The people are to be managed by the wisdom of the leaders, not the other way round! Children should be seen and not heard! Thus it is possible to ignore that 60% of the people want the troops withdrawn from Iraq either immediately or in steps beginning in 2007 and continuing over the next year, and to present a "debate" on Meet the Press where Tim Russert agrees with guests Lieberman and McCain (who represent the "different" points of view despite their joint opinion that we can't leave Iraq.

Oh, and the election was not a referrendum on the Iraq war because the American people "understand" that we can't just leave because of the dire consequences that would ensue. No evidence is presented for this position, because evidence is irrelevant. That would mean applying objective standards on established wisdom, which is true, a priori.

Power is its own reason for being. Reason is to be exercised by the leaders and not by their critics, and morality is a propaganda weapon to be employed against our official enemies, but never a yard-stick to measure against ourselves.
Cugel | 11.14.06 - 8:26 pm | #

Paul, another variation on the isolationist inversion, I think, but a very good point nevertheless.

It also explains why our Presidents buy ranches just so they can be photographed cutting brush, and have their Vice Presidents talk about nattering nabobs of negativism and such.

Populist authenticity, in short, the boobocracy our bedraggled internal exiles have been warning us about since before The Education of Henry Adams was even a paragraph long.

I like Bob Dylan's formulation best. I've quoted in the UT threads before, but it bears repeating: I pity the poor immigrant, when his gladness comes to pass.
William Timberman | 11.14.06 - 8:26 pm | #

WT,

I think it comes from a deep dissonance between our ideals and our realities. In South America, for example, the revolutions in most of the countries led immediately to the end of slavery, and the frontier against the Indians was smaller and less significant in death toll; the Indian to some extent survived, or became mixed into the population. On the other hand, we kept slavery for several generations, and continued a war of extermination for domination of the continent against the natives for over a century.

How can we justify these atrocious crimes? Well, we're just so special, Manifest Destiny, blah blah blah. It was inevitable; it spread democracy from sea to shining sea.

For S. Americans, they can see themselves as both the invader and the native (except in Argentina). They don't need to justify slavery (except in Brazil, but they're not a revolutionary state). The conflict reduces to a class conflict rather than a global war. In some ways, we have the same problem that Soviets had: they had to believe they were advancing something so wonderful, that only they were capable of, in order to justify their atrocities.
jojo | 11.14.06 - 8:28 pm | #

Truth machine, you're in Santa Barbara? The Santa Barbara I lived in for roughly 35 years? Santa Barbara CA?

Will wonders never cease....
William Timberman | 11.14.06 - 8:29 pm | #

Moose said:

"You may dispute Mark Steyn's opinions, but you can't deny that he is a fine writer and thinker."

Yes I can. And, I do.
MD | 11.14.06 - 8:33 pm | #

truth machine,

Your strawman is a strawman. I didn't say that you said that nationalistic loyalty was strange. I used strange in the sense that it wouldn't surprise me, because of the metric. That's not something inculcated in some intentional sense. It naturally arises from our relationships. Probably most people in my state are only separated from me by three or four folks, and a large proportion by only two, while few Iraqis will be closer than five. Its just the structure of the network, and in that sense its "natural," as opposed to "inculcated."
jojo | 11.14.06 - 8:33 pm | #

Jojo, what you say seems necessary, but not sufficient. What exactly was the difference between Daniel Boone and Ralph Waldo Emerson -- apart from the obvious one -- that's the question, eh?
William Timberman | 11.14.06 - 8:34 pm | #

Glenn,

I have to disagree with you about Pre-war intel. Have you seen this Think Progress clip?

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06...6/wilkerson-vp/

This clip just has him placing the blame on Cheney but the entire clip of the Democratic Policy Hearing (which I can't find) shows how cheney created a government agency of his own (Iraq study Group) to go over Iraq intel and the report that they gave Wilkerson was ridiculed by the CIA. It was a deliberately gross diatortion of the intel. They KNEW it was overblown.
TruAmerican | 11.14.06 - 8:37 pm | #

I think what happened was that the Administration was just sure that Saddam had WMD, but they didn't have the evidence to prove it. IOW, they set out to frame a guilty man. In doing so, they proved why framing a guilty man is not morally acceptable.
Enlightened Layperson | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 8:27 pm |

Despite his style, I have to agree with TM. You're fooling yourself. They never cared whether Saddam had WMDs. They had insufficient evidence to believe so and plenty of evidence that he didn't. And in one of Woodward's books I believe, little George said that the war was due to people driving too many SUVs -- kind of gives the game away, don't you think?
jojo | 11.14.06 - 8:37 pm | #

Jojo, what you say seems necessary, but not sufficient. What exactly was the difference between Daniel Boone and Ralph Waldo Emerson -- apart from the obvious one -- that's the question, eh?
William Timberman | 11.14.06 - 8:34 pm |

Other than the hat, you mean? Boone lived on the frontier. He had to have that conflict between his treatment of his neighbors, Indian and Mexican, as opposed to Emerson who lived in old settled land, and could distance himself from how he got that land.

I've always found it interesting that many of our biggest Indian-killers also had the greatest personal sympathy for them. It had to be massively distressful to be killing the cousins of folks who where personal friends; I can only guess at the psychological effects something like that could have.

It's similar to the close relationship between slavemaster and slaves. Usually, they were basically brothers. I recall that Jefferson's wife was half-sister to his concubine, and that their mothers were once again half-sisters. Its got to take a lot of self-delusion to combine the Declaration of Independence with that, resulting in such famous oxymorons as his declaration that Louisiana would be an "Empire of Freedom."
jojo | 11.14.06 - 8:44 pm | #

How do we get out of Iraq in the most rational way possible?

How about >>>>>this

Pride goeth before destruction.
.
Eyes Wide Open | 11.14.06 - 8:45 pm | #

MD:

Of course, there's the standard media question (made famous by Wolf Blitzer, I think), and directed to a known Democrat:

"And what do you think your party can do about the perception that Democrats are weak on national security?"

Ooooohhhhh. Would have loved to be on the receiving end of that. I would have turned so fast that Blitzer would had jerked back with that wide-eyed shocked look of his, and I would have said, "What to you mean, what can we do? It's jerks like you that are in the business of building and propping up 'perceptions', or at least aiding and abetting such. Pull your nose out of the RNC keister, stop parroting their talking points (such as this 'Democrats are weak on nash'null securitah'), start reporting on what we actually are saying, and maybe the problem will resolve itself."

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 8:50 pm | #

WT,

I have a suspicion that it also ties into class. Most Americans during the nineteenth century were working class people, cowboys and prostitutes, with a mix of African and Indian, who somehow magically become White Middle Class folks in the twentieth century. I had a friend who was shocked to discover that his forebears in Texas at the end of the nineteenth century were a bit darker than he was comfortable with; I rode that for years.

So, there's also this element of amnesia and historical self-delusion, identifying with the aggressor rather than the victim. Among many Mexicans its different; some tell proudly how they're the descendants of Spaniards raping natives.

The question is, how do we get out of this mythological mess?
jojo | 11.14.06 - 8:51 pm | #

Some things we know:

The Bush administration wanted to take out Saddam Hussein long before 9/11.

After 9/11, the Bush administration settled on the threat of WMD's as the best way to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American people, according to Paul Wolfowitz.

The Bush administration portrayed Iraq as an imminent threat, using such images of mushroom clouds and drone planes that could reach us in 45 minutes, and saying such things as "The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency" (Bush) and "No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq" (Rumsfeld)

The Bush administration did not believe that Iraq was an imminent threat. We know this particularly because, after the war, it repeatedly denied ever saying that it was, only that it had been a "gathering threat" that needed to be confronted -- Bush's "preemptive war" policy. See http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/r...20040127- 6.html

Did they know that there were no WMD's in Iraq? That's irrelevant, and I never said they did. What I said was "The original decision to invade Iraq" was not made by people who supported the war, it was made by the people who lied to those supporters, and They knew that WMD's, whether they existed or not, was just a cover for the real reasons to invade.

Was the invasion of Iraq "the real crime here"? Absolutely.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 8:51 pm | #

All I have to do to put this back into perspective is to remember my own reactions at the time it was happening. The fact that we were being fed a line of bullshit by people who neither knew nor cared what the truth was was starkly obvious to me.

The fact that the first google search I performed on 9/12/01 was "anti-war" and the fact that I of course found antiwar.com as one of my first resources certainly colored my perception of subsequent events even if I do think that Justin Raimondo is a conspiracy theorist of the first order.

The fact remains that 80% of what they asserted during that time has become common knowlege since.

OK...maybe only 50% is common knowlege, the other 30% has yet to be acknowleged and the remaining 20% is just plain wrong.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 8:52 pm | #

"shooter242" said:

Hans Blix said on the eve of invasion that Hussein wasn't fully forthcoming.

He also said that co-operation had improved, that he hadn't found any WoMD, that the U.S. intelligence was "garbage, garbage, and more garbage" (actually, that was one of his staff), and that he needed some more time to prove beyond a doubt a negative (always a more difficult assignment), and pleaded to be given time to do that. The adults agreed with him. Dubya did not. Blix was not in favour of invasion.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 8:57 pm | #

Glenn's post:
...it is truly unfathomable that the people who are responsible for this disaster -- not just the ones who advocated it in the beginning, but much worse, the ones who continued to insist that things were going well and that everything was progressing nicely and that reports to the contrary should be dismissed and ignored -- continue to be accorded respect and treated as though they have great credibility. Why is that?

I apologize for the OT venting earlier, but when I re-read Glenn's post, it seems less OT than some of the rehashes above on "how we got here". At least in the South at present, the part of the media complex that presents policy to the "average guy" is controlled by virulent rightwing propagandists. The airwaves here are saturated with Hannitys, Boortzs and Limbaughs. Steyn, Instapundit, etc, -- these shills are the literate, middlebrow equivalents of the talk radio crowd. They make equally unsupported assertions, equally egregious ad hominem attacks within the pissant confines of electronic/print media.
How they get away with the same level of dishonesty in a more trackable medium -- one in which people can easily review your words -- that is harder to understand.
Still as long as posts like this one are read and spread, it can't be said they are completely getting away with it.
Fluffy | 11.14.06 - 9:02 pm | #

Jojo: The question is, how do we get out of this mythological mess?

That's kinda like Who will rid me of this turbulent priest, innit?

From where I sit, you can hear the thin, keening sound of knives being sharpened all over the planet. We won't have long to wait, I think.
William Timberman | 11.14.06 - 9:06 pm | #

"shooter242":

The reason national security advocates are respected is that they were willing to protect the country rather than risk mass destruction, ...

"shooter242" missed the election results. The "one percent solution" is looking to be the logical "garbage" it is. There's always costs and consequences to "security measures" (look at your airport lines, for instance), and even the American public -- not always known for their non-risk-averse behavioural tendencies or their rational cost-benefit analysis -- are beginning to figure this out. They're seeing the costs, and are also seeing the results, and they don't like the bill of good they are being sold. This despite the fact that the people who think their own safety might be at risk will tend to allow more extreme measures to avoid such potential risk that they'd allow others similarly situated.

... unlike the hindsight heroes of today.

Ummm, there's plenty of people that were right before the fact (I'm proud to count myself as a documented one), and Glenn pointed that out in his article, but "shooter242" is hard of reading.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 9:08 pm | #

Despite his style, I have to agree with TM.

I find the idea that agreement or disagreement with claims even might depend on style to be rather bizarre. Isn't that textbook ad hominem?

But ... what style is that, other than impatience with intellectual dishonesty and not worshipping sacred cows? There's a lot to admire Glenn for, but his claims (and this isn't the first time) that the invasion of Iraq was not "the real crime" and that we don't know that it was a dishonest enterprise, and his epistemological lawyering about whether we can know that they knew that there no WMD's in Iraq -- when I claimed neither -- are not among them.

All I have to do to put this back into perspective is to remember my own reactions at the time it was happening. The fact that we were being fed a line of bullshit by people who neither knew nor cared what the truth was was starkly obvious to me.

Yes, but people like Glenn are still in denial about it. And I don't think this is unrelated to his belief that the U.S. is not subject to international law. The notion that it's ok to invade other countries if we think they're a threat to us might be undermined by the recognition that there's a complete disconnect between whether our leaders portray other countries as a threat and whether they actually are. Iraq is hardly an isolated instance. How many remember Reagan warning us that the Nicaraguans could reach Texas by land in three days? He put up a map on TV, showing how Nicaragua was supplying arms to the rebels in El Salvador; only thing is, the map omitted our heavily armed ally, Honduras, smack in between the two. Can we know that the Reagan administration knew that Honduras exists? Gee golly, that's a tough one! If they did know, does that prove that Nicaragua wasn't supplying arms to El Salvadoran rebels? I'll have to check my logic 101 book ... it's somewhere here behind all these books on legal rhetoric ...
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 9:28 pm | #

Hannity on the radio, yesterday (from memory, not verbatim, but I think I remember the main points.)
HANNITY: The Democrats are so picky -- picky, picky, picky. I mean, the war in Iraq's not perfect, sure, I'd admit that, I mean what war is perfect? No war is perfect. Wouldn't you agree, Governor?
ROMNEY: You're a genius, Sean. And those Democrats have no plan for victory, no plan at all.
HANNITY: Of course they don't. They're disgusting. Now tell our listeners about your position, Governor.
ROMNEY: Well, Sean, I'm in favor of victory. Whatever's required for victory in Iraq, that's what I'm in favor of, whether it's keeping troop levels the same, or increasing the troop levels, or decreasing the troop levels.
HANNITY: So you'll do whatever it takes, you're saying.
ROMNEY: That's what I'm saying, Sean.
HANNITY: Governor Romney, I think you've got a good chance to be our next president. Folks, you heard it here first. This man here could go all the way in 2008.
sysprog | 11.14.06 - 9:30 pm | #

truth machine:

[anonymous]: I understand your anger. We are all angry. For all you know Glenn has a hunch he hasn't shared with folks here, gut getting upset with Glenn for not lighting your torch and handing you a pitchfork isn't going to help.

I deal in fact and evidence, and don't find your fact-free metaphors of interest.

I agree that the evidence -- taken as a whole -- does indeed lean towards the maladministration being guilty of fraud and subsequent crimes against humanity. There may be some that were sincere in their beliefs and just guilty just of criminally incompetent malfeasance. But whether that would be enough, to prove beyond a doubt in a curt of law, the guilt of said persons is something we won't know until we do it (remember OJ; sometimes the guilty walk free). But circumstantial evidence is sometimes quite enough to convict.

Why not give thanks that perhaps with a Democratic Congress, we stand a chance of some bettter investigation of the circumstances, and may find out a bit more abut the actions, motivations, and state of mind of the actors, and maybe get enough hard evidence to prove quite beyond doubt the criminal culpability of at least the worst of the actors?

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 9:33 pm | #

They KNEW it was overblown.

Or, as I said, "evidence that they knew was cooked". But somehow Glenn reads that as "They KNEW there were no WMD's". Weird, huh? Perhaps a trip to the dictionary might help:

cooked: Slang. To alter or falsify so as to make a more favorable impression

But perhaps it was just a coincidence that Cheney wanted the evidence cooked and that it was cooked; it's conceivable, not a logical impossibility, that Cheney didn't know that it was cooked.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 9:38 pm | #

I tend to agree with Truth Machine regarding the lies/claims/beliefs preceding the Iraq adventure, although I don't agree with his characterizations of Glenn.

I suppose the question is whether there is any relevant difference between: 1. a conscious lie, and 2. a belief, publicly expressed, not grounded on reasonable, credible evidence.

Another way of asking this question is at what point does an unsupported belief become immoral, particularly when that belief, if acted upon, shall result in the deaths of other human beings?

As Ilana Mercer noted at her blog, on the moral question:

“To say that Saddam may have had WMD is quite different from advocating war based on those assumptions. It’s one thing to assume in error; it’s quite another to launch a war in which thousands would die based on mere assumptions, however widely shared. It was not the anti-war-on-Iraq camp that intended to launch a war based on the sketchy information it had. The crucial difference between the Bush camp and its opponents lies in the actions the former took.”

http://blog.ilanamercer.com/?p=179

There's no question several members of the administration engaged in conscious, premeditated lying before the Iraq invasion. Salon has a page, entitled "Lie by Lie," detailing in chronological order all the specific lies, and the list is mind-boggling. Wolfowitz admitted as much when he said that, hey, we had a meeting and agreed that WMD's was the easiest sell (neocons have no shame, given that lies are considered both necessary and noble, sort of like falling on the sword for the team; they not only lie, they're damn proud of it).

Another problem, in defending the administration, is that the lies continued long after the invasion, and I suspect continue to this day. And, there is a pattern of lying extending over a wide swath of issues, not just Iraq.

It's difficult to conclude that the administration made good faith mistakes about WMD, or anything else, preceding the Iraq invasion.

And, even more damning to the "good faith" defense, is that not everyone made these "mistakes." See Mercer's article, "What WMD?", in which she recounts all the evidence, and the people and organizations who credited this evidence before the invasion, suggesting that Iraq had been effectively disarmed (and NIE's detailing this evidence). http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?
ARTICLE_ID=36851

When someone claims, "Before the invasion, everybody believed Saddam had WMD's," the claim is either ignorant of the true state of affairs or it's just BS.
MD | 11.14.06 - 9:41 pm | #

William Timberman:

That's kinda like Who will rid me of this turbulent priest, innit?

My recollection is that it was: "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" But perhaps history is not decisive on the exact wording; the outcome is in no doubt.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 9:43 pm | #

But whether that would be enough, to prove beyond a doubt in a curt of law, the guilt of said persons is something we won't know until we do it

But what we have here is Glenn asserting that the invasion of Iraq was not "the real crime".

Why not give thanks that perhaps with a Democratic Congress, we stand a chance of some bettter investigation of the circumstances, and may find out a bit more abut the actions, motivations, and state of mind of the actors, and maybe get enough hard evidence to prove quite beyond doubt the criminal culpability of at least the worst of the actors?

Well, that's a different topic altogether. Certainly I'm glad that there's a better chance of Congress doing its oversight job, but Congress is a political body, not a judicial body, and the history in this regard, as well as what I understand of the institution, is not a source of optimism. Remember Iran-Contra? Oliver North was found guilty -- of wrongly accepting a security fence. And that was overturned.

In any case, it is my contention that there is already overwhelming evidence, publicly available, that the invasion of Iraq was a criminal enterprise.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 9:46 pm | #

TM,
I find the idea that agreement or disagreement with claims even might depend on style to be rather bizarre. Isn't that textbook ad hominem?

For those of us who aren't automated proposition testing machines, rhetoric does matter when advancing a case. It doesn't change the truth proposition, but an abrasive style inevitably leads to a resistance to its acceptance, and even a willingness to listen at all; on the other hand, sometimes it shocks folks into awareness. And do you doubt that you've picked an abrasive manner to advance your case?

It's possible that this particular sacred cow, giving a benefit of the doubt to an administration that does not deserve it, requires an abrasive style; but it doesn't change the fact that it is abrasive.

And no, judging style is not ad hominem. It is not an attack on your person; you needn't take it as an attack at all on your argument, solely on the probability that folks will be willing to listen to it.
jojo | 11.14.06 - 9:48 pm | #

sysprog:

Thanks for the laugh:

After denouncing the Democrats for having no "plan":

HANNITY: ... Now tell our listeners about your position, Governor.
ROMNEY: Well, Sean, I'm in favor of victory. Whatever's required for victory in Iraq, that's what I'm in favor of, whether it's keeping troop levels the same, or increasing the troop levels, or decreasing the troop levels.
HANNITY: So you'll do whatever it takes, you're saying.
ROMNEY: That's what I'm saying, Sean.
HANNITY: Governor Romney, I think you've got a good chance to be our next president. Folks, you heard it here first. This man here could go all the way in 2008.

Well, he could be the Republican candidate. He's at least as craven, and prolly a bit stoopider, than the last Republican candidate.

What a "plan". That needs to be saved for campaign commercials, should the Republicans be dumb enough to offer up Romney in 2008.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 9:51 pm | #

I don't agree with his characterizations of Glenn.

I pointed out actual strawman arguments, misrepresentations of what I wrote. I also said that he does not believe that the U.S. is governed by international law -- we had a long argument about that issue in a long thread many months ago (or is it years now?). Where, precisely, did I err?

Read Robert1014's post above, which reiterates my points about the claims, knowledge, and motivations of the "deciders". Contrast it to Glenn's statements about what we "know" about them. Perhaps you can provide your own analysis of how his responses are or are not relevant, insightful, or intellectually honest.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 9:57 pm | #

And do you doubt that you've picked an abrasive manner to advance your case?

It depends on whose dick you've got stuffed up your butt. If I were writing about something Glenn Reynolds had written on his blog, I doubt that you would see it quite the same way.

And no, judging style is not ad hominem.

These strawmen are tiresome. What I referred to as ad hominem was "the idea that agreement or disagreement with claims even might depend on style", nothing about judging style per se.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 10:03 pm | #

MD:

Another problem, in defending the administration, is that the lies continued long after the invasion, and I suspect continue to this day. And, there is a pattern of lying extending over a wide swath of issues, not just Iraq.

Indeed. And this may be exculpatory. For instance, there's Dubya's repeated insistence after the invasion, totally contrary to absolutely indisputable fact, that "[Saddam] wouldn't let [the inspectors] in", and that's why we had to invade. Dubya, by my count, has repeated this canard twice since then. My conclusion is that it may be possible that Dubya is not criminally culpable, but is simply floridly psychotic (and thus not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect) and that we ought to explore 25th Amendment solutions instead.

Of course, the SCLM deserves to be locked up for criminal neglect for not publicising this pertinent fact.

Glenn should take note of this repeated statement as well in considering whether the Dubya maladministration is guilty of criminal behaviour or just poor judgement. I'd say it weighs in favour of TM's analysis.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 10:03 pm | #

Arne:

On getting the job done on Becket, I know of at least four variations on the phrase, but I always preferred turbulent to meddlesome because it makes the euphemism seem even more subtle. The earliest example of the art of plausible deniability that I'm aware of -- unless you count the serpent, that is.
William Timberman | 11.14.06 - 10:08 pm | #

Lowery:

Liberals cannot count on conservatives being associated with corruption, incompetence or an unpopular war forever.

To my mind hardline conservatives have been associated with each of these things for my entire life:

Nixon had his obvious problems in Viet Nam and Watergate.

Reagan had Iran/Contra, loads of corrupt cabinet members, and the most incompetent environmental policy in recent memory.

Bush I actually wasn't all that bad, but then he was hardly a hard-line conservative.

And now we have the ultimate disaster of Bush II.

Let's face it -- neocons hate government except to the extent they can suck the taxpayers dry and quench their lust for world domination and macho posturing. What a bunch of douche-nozzles.
robbo | 11.14.06 - 10:10 pm | #

So Arne,

If George is psychotic, and Cheney had his little "shoot a buddy in the face" incident, can we remove both simultaneously for mental health reasons? Shooting someone in the face in a controlled, fake hunt has to be a sign of some mental instability or tendency to fugue out.

This way even the conservatives have an out. It's not that they were wrong, it's that they can't recognize mental illness. Pelosi could then have her shot.
jojo | 11.14.06 - 10:11 pm | #

On abrasion:

I wrote: That's a strawman, and you know it, Glenn. "The original decision to invade Iraq" was not made by people who supported the war, it was made by the people who lied to those supporters.

And Glenn responded Those who made the original decision to invade Iraq knew that there were no WMDs there?

I find the dismissive lack of consideration in that response to be quite abrasive. I said that the deciders lied to the supporters; the only way to recast Glenn's projection as a lie they might have told is "We don't know that there no WMD's in Iraq", which of course is not something they ever said and certainly is not among the lies I was referring to.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 10:13 pm | #

robbo,

You do recall that Bush I was the hand behind Iran/Contra? After he and Reagan got over their little voodoo economics tiff, since Bush was much more of a statist, he was the guy handling Ollie and Company.
jojo | 11.14.06 - 10:13 pm | #

truth machine:

[Arne]: But whether that would be enough, to prove beyond a doubt in a curt of law, the guilt of said persons is something we won't know until we do it

But what we have here is Glenn asserting that the invasion of Iraq was not "the real crime".

Oh, I'm with you. I think that the lies were a crime (and I think they ought to be prosecuted and hopefuly convicted and punished), and I think the invasion per se was a crime as well, regardless of the perceived threat.

I'm not sure that Glenn thinks that a sufficient level of perceived threat is in fact a justification for war in the legal sense (but even here, we might agree to disagree). It may be that all he's saying is that the moral culpability (perhaps amounting to the equvalent of a reduction in charges from M2D to voluntary manslaughter or negligent homicide) for the invasion may be mitigated by any inaccurate but honestly held perceptions. Perhaps Glenn could clear that up.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 10:14 pm | #

this may be exculpatory

A murderer misstating or even misremembering which sins of the victim justified the murder is not usually considered to be exculpatory, or sufficient to establish insanity.

Of course, the SCLM deserves to be locked up for criminal neglect for not publicising this pertinent fact.

There's a long long story ... remember the Maine!
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 10:22 pm | #

So far this post has elicited 119 Comments. May I suggest that every single "commentator" also drop a line to the Spectator - or any publication that we can all agree upon (to paraphrase the odious Paul Wolfowitz's grisly little Vanity Fair confession) - saying, each in our own way, "you run another piece by that neocon dangleberry Mark Steyn and you can kiss my shekels goodbye - I'll never, ever buy another copy of your rag. And do my best to get my friends to Typhoid Mary it as well." I think the Speccie has about 30,000 readers. Editors can ignore three or four letters. Several hundred is another matter altogether. Dollars heading away from Steyn like so many geese cruising toward other climes...I guarantee you that'll concentrate his mind.
A. C. Hachem | 11.14.06 - 10:23 pm | #

WT & Arne,

1) The original would be old french, so "who will rid me of this priest" couldn't be in the original; only meddlesome or turbulent could.

2) Whose playing Henry II?
jojo | 11.14.06 - 10:24 pm | #

It may be that all he's saying is that the moral culpability (perhaps amounting to the equvalent of a reduction in charges from M2D to voluntary manslaughter or negligent homicide) for the invasion may be mitigated by any inaccurate but honestly held perceptions.

I would say that too, in general ... but it doesn't pertain in this case. An inaccurate but honestly held perception that Iraq had WMD's would not reduce the immensity of this crime, because a) they lied about the actual motivations behind the decision to go to war b) they lied about the imminence of the threat c) they lied about their certainty of their claims about WMD's d) they lied about the consensus of the intelligence agencies e) they intentionally distorted the intelligence findings to fit their agenda. The invasion was a dishonest and illegal enterprise from end to end, even if they can truthfully say "we were surprised that no WMD's were found".
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 10:33 pm | #

Arne, TM:

Doesn't it seem to you that paranoid Hobbesians might believe in their heart's desire even in the face of contrary evidence?

For myself, given their abject record of failures stretching back I don't know how far, I find it hard to believe that they're as coldly calculating as you make them out to be. I mean, doesn't a Machiavellian -- if not a Hobbesian -- have to be a competent manager in the realm of evil more or less by definition?

It could be that they're just better at lying than at planning, but if that's the case, what would be the point of keeping Rove around? Why not hire a George Marshall type instead? (Are there even any George Marshall types still around, I wonder? Maybe that's the problem.)
William Timberman | 11.14.06 - 10:37 pm | #

TM,

Your argument can be simplified. 1) It is a war crime to invade another country, except in defense against an imminent invasion. For this to be reasonable, there must exist evidence of the fact, which can be presented to the world community at least after the fact. 2) No such evidence has been forthcoming.

The rest strengthens the argument, but is unnecessary. Whether they lied (true), or simple were ignorant is irrelevant. Is it relevant whether German high command was taken in by sabotage operations to actually believe that Poland was on the verge of invading in '39, or is it sufficient that they should not have acted without concrete evidence before believing Nazi fairy tales?
jojo | 11.14.06 - 10:41 pm | #

And no, judging style is not ad hominem. It is not an attack on your person; you needn't take it as an attack at all on your argument, solely on the probability that folks will be willing to listen to it.

Perhaps, then, you should have written "Despite his style, I paid attention to TM's argument", rather than "Despite his style, I have to agree with TM". The latter casts my style as a possible reason to withhold agreement -- i.e., as an attack on the argument.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 10:42 pm | #

MD... I tend to agree with Truth Machine regarding the lies/claims/beliefs preceding the Iraq adventure, although I don't agree with his characterizations of Glenn.

I tend to respect the opinions of those people I respect, even if I disagree with them, more than the opinions of people I don't respect. They are still entitled to their opinions, but if the person is an idiot, like Mark Steyn, I won't give them the time of day. There are some things that Col. Pat Lang and I do not agree on, but I respect him and I feel I understand why he has the opinions he does. I would never be so rude to the Col., or Glenn, as TM is to Glenn. It is evidence of a total lack of respect and just counter-productive. If he wants to treat Mark Steyn that way, or Bart or Sharter, it isn't counter-productive in my view. It's appropriate and necessary. To badger Glenn in this fashion is just pointless, and rude.
LWM | 11.14.06 - 10:42 pm | #

Jojo:

Jiang Zemin? Tony Blair? (He's English, which might help sell a historical melodrama in the U.S. Plus, he has every reason to be pissed at us, or at least at GWB.)
William Timberman | 11.14.06 - 10:47 pm | #

Your argument can be simplified.

The argument you give is a different argument. And it happens to be one that Glenn doesn't accept, because he doesn't accept the force of international law, and in particular he doesn't accept that defense against imminent invasion is the only legal justification -- under U.S. law -- for attacking another country.

My argument is that Glenn's claims about what we do or don't know of motivation and intent of the "deciders" are false, and that his counterarguments are fallacious.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 10:49 pm | #

TM,

Touchy, touchy. But yes, that's what I meant.
jojo | 11.14.06 - 10:49 pm | #

WT,

Nah, Blair is the lackey. We go down, so does he -- he's still fighting absorption as a second class state in the EU. But Jiang Zemin has the right style -- China is in a tricky place for us, since they still need our capitalization. Maybe someone in the French/German alliance. Can't get their hands dirty, but ultimately we are their long term competitor for global management, and luxury goods (if we were smart enough to get our act together on the latter).
jojo | 11.14.06 - 10:54 pm | #

Touchy, touchy.

Why is attempting to be accurate, justifying my statements, and refuting yours, "touchy, touchy"? I stated that what you wrote was ad hominem; I wasn't referring to something you might have meant that was not reflected by your actual words.

I think it's best to stick with the actual denotational arguments people make, and not go off in irrelevant and ad hominem tangents about their style -- unless you think that world events hinge on how I express myself.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 10:55 pm | #

THE GERMAN CASE
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/ 0,,2237323,00.html

Human Rights | 14.11.2006
War Crimes Lawsuit Filed Against Rumsfeld in Germany
Things go from bad to worse for former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
An international grouping of lawyers have filed a lawsuit calling on German prosecutors to investigate outgoing US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for allegedly sanctioning torture.
The suit was filed to Germany's federal prosecutor Monika Harms at her offices in the western German city of Karlsruhe.
Former Abu Ghraib commander as [prosecution] witness
The groups have former US Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who commanded 17 US-run jails in Iraq including Abu Ghraib, as a witness on their behalf.
Rumsfeld cancels NATO visit, meeting with Jung
Rumsfeld has dropped from his schedule a meeting with German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung.
-- Deutsche Welle / AFP (kh)

SIX LAWYERS ACCUSED IN GERMANY OF WAR CRIMES
CCR's new case, filed today, asks the German federal prosecutor in Karlsruhe to investigate allegations against not only Rumsfeld, but also thirteen other people, a total of fourteen individuals.
ALLEGEDLY:
9. Colonel Marc Warren, Staff Judge Advocate, denied ICRC access to detainees.
10. Alberto R. Gonzales, former Chief White House Counsel, endorsed legal opinions ... which found obligations under international treaties to be non-binding.
11. William James Haynes, General Counsel of the DoD, advocated circumventing detainee treatment safeguards.
12. David S. Addington, former Chief Counsel to Vice President Cheney, blocked efforts to bring U.S. military policy into compliance with the Geneva Conventions.
13. John Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General gave legal cover to systematic torture.
14. Jay Bybee, former Assistant Attorney General, is the author of the “torture memo”.
sysprog | 11.14.06 - 10:55 pm | #

TM,

No, I was focusing directly on the question: which is the greater crime, the invasion or lies, and not on the follow-up counter-arguments. It is important that the criminality of the invasion itself be highlighted to the exclusion of the rest, in order to dispel the fantasy that we can go around re-ordering the world. That short of imminent invasion or genocide, war itself is a war crime.
jojo | 11.14.06 - 10:58 pm | #

The reveal of history so far in
place(start date of Iraq invasion
by American military forces,first
six months of what happened,next
six months etc. are now a matter of
historical record. Within same time
span several books specific to Iraq
have been published. Facts and truth
set in time. This is what happened.
No one or group can go back and for
want or desire change it. We do know
Bush2WH record is replete with lies,
subversion and high repeat cycles of
incompetence and cronyism. The now
near 3,000 dead Americans and a great
many more wounded,maimed and crippled
Americans the most direct form of
payment for Bush2WH decision to go
to war in Iraq. How many Iraqis now
dead? Some pretty terrible numbers
floating around regarding that these
days. We know the President Bush has
never held anyone accountable for how
Iraq shaped intel was put in place.
He has not displayed any inclination
to fulfill executive concepts of
accountability either for himself or
the group who pushed Iraq into play.
Imperial Germany at onset of what was
to be a repeat of Franco-Prussian War
success thought they would be in
Paris within six weeks back there in
1914. A version of slam dunk. By the
end of 1917 they knew they had made
a serious error. For all the young
Germans who died because of that
mistake or all the young British who
were thrown into the hellish and
not sane trench wars the outcome was
never justified. Iraq invasion was
and is a horrible,terrible mis-use of
American blood. It is doubtful that
G.W.Bush will ever come close to any
realization of how perverse his war
in Iraq was or is. No good can come
out of it. The NYTs on 11/14 ran a
series of photos at NYT.COM showing
a smiling Bush with a smiling Israeli
PM Olmert. On moral grounds these two
men are responsible for some serious
death dealing just during course of
2006. So what are they smiling about?
R.Ashen | 11.14.06 - 10:58 pm | #

When you have a president who didn't get the thousand-plus year-old schism between Sunnis and Shiites, one of the most, if not the most, fundamental keys to the problems we face today in Iraq, at least as late as two months before invading them, it is clear the Bush administration’s intelligence problem was not the CIA. And we’re expecting this child to decide who is or who isn’t an unlawful enemy combatant?

And when you have a Republican vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence (Terry Everett) and a Republican head of a House intelligence subcommittee charged with overseeing the C.I.A.’s performance in recruiting Islamic spies and analyzing information (Jo Ann Davis) who still don’t know the difference, it is, as Glenn so eloquently put it, “truly unfathomable” that they are accorded any respect or credibility whatsoever. (House intelligence subcommittees, for crissakes. And both of these morons were re-elected comfortably.) That they were and are willing to send our soldiers to their deaths, gut our military and plunder our economy when they could not be bothered to take time from their political fundraising to learn this most basic and key fact about the country they chose for this wonderful neo-con experiment in privatization is utterly despicable.

And Russ Feingold is right - we better watch our backs the next few weeks. Incompetence and treachery may combine to deal us a few more blows.
rollotomasi | 11.14.06 - 11:01 pm | #

I would never be so rude to the Col., or Glenn, as TM is to Glenn.

Rude? Isn't his strawman dismissal of my statement about the deciders lying to the supporters rude? I did not "pointlessly badger" Glenn, I pointed to errors in fact, errors in logic, and what I believe is an underlying worldview. Your ad hominem characterization is rude and pointless -- or rather, has no point other than the usual one of attempting to deflect arguments when lacking a valid rebuttal.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 11:05 pm | #

FWIW, I'm going to Philadelphia this week for a family wedding; I wouldn't go to Baghdad to receive a Nobel Prize.
Brian Boru | 11.14.06 - 11:05 pm | #

But, rollotomasi, according to Glenn it's the Mark Steyns of the world, rather than the Bush's, Cheney's, et. al., who are the "real" criminals. No doubt Steyn would have been the "real" criminal had he been in a position to launch the invasion, but he wasn't.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 11:09 pm | #

TM,

Obviously you can figure out that I meant the former: Perhaps, then, you should have written "Despite his style, I paid attention to TM's argument", rather than "Despite his style, I have to agree with TM". The latter casts my style as a possible reason to withhold agreement -- i.e., as an attack on the argument.. Instead you play this oversenstive schtick to this low relevance side comment.

I give a damn about whether your abrasive to Glenn Greenwald or Glenn Reynolds or whoever, but exchanges like:

Well, TM... I think you are missing the point. It is very difficult for any of us to know exactly what is in the mind of another. If Glenn, or some other skilled litigator, could get Condi or Bush or Cheney, any of them, under oath and depose them, we might find out. But until then we don't know if they honestly believed the lies because they wanted to, deceived themselves, or intended to deceive everyone else.
LWM | 11.14.06 - 7:21 pm | #

Well, TM... I think you are missing the point.

I get the point of your intellectual dishonesty -- or lawyering, if you prefer.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 7:24 pm | #

among others doesn't fit with that kind of oversensitivity; play tough or gentle, just pick a style.
jojo | 11.14.06 - 11:16 pm | #

No,

What part of your "simplified" argument isn't my argument don't you understand? I agree with your argument, and I've put it forth before, but it's not the argument I was making in this instance. I agree that "short of imminent invasion or genocide, war itself is a war crime", but Glenn and many others do not, and rather than debating what I consider a mistaken ethical stance, I pointed out that the "deciders" of the invasion lied, and when Glenn challenged that (with a dishonest strawman), I responded to that, because that's what was on the table.

Note that (see the White House press conference I linked above) the Bush administration denied that they had claimed that Iraq was an imminent threat; in his SOTU, Bush said we shouldn't wait until it became one. I took that as extremely significant, because it gave up the only justification under international law. But few Americans considered it significant. I think that was the occasion when I (and Arne and few others) had a long debate with Glenn about the import of international law, which he dismisses.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 11:22 pm | #

Obviously you can figure out that I meant the former

Only after you tried to justify your statement.

among others doesn't fit with that kind of oversensitivity; play tough or gentle, just pick a style.

I'm a complex, context-sensitive human being and demands like "just pick a style" are fucking stupid. Talk about pointless -- sheesh.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 11:26 pm | #

truth machine:

[Arne]: this may be exculpatory

A murderer misstating or even misremembering which sins of the victim justified the murder is not usually considered to be exculpatory, or sufficient to establish insanity.

Oh, lighten up, TM. If Dubya's indeed hallucinating floridly, and can't tell the difference between reality and complete fantasy, and if the United States can't figger that out and do what's necessary, then we're in a heap more trouble that legal technicalities.

I'm saying the guy's an undeniable lying sack'o'shite, and that there's no doubt in my mind that this is not a recent phenomenon (there's other evidence on this count as well).

Let's get the guy under oath, and let him hang himself ala Libby, or convict himself, as he chooses. Either way, he deserves to go to jail for a long, long time.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 11:26 pm | #

And "low relevance side comment" is pathetic hypocrisy. Everything you have had to say about my "style" is "low relevance" -- where "low" = "zero".
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 11:28 pm | #

Oh, lighten up, TM.

Such comments are not likely to get the result that they ask for on the surface. You made an argument in legal terms and I responded in kind; it looks like it's my contradicting you that offends you.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 11:33 pm | #

Is TM our old friend Liquified Viscera? He also reminds one of Paul Byron. Whatever. Welcome back, LV, if that is you.
LWM | 11.14.06 - 11:39 pm | #

Let's get the guy under oath, and let him hang himself ala Libby, or convict himself, as he chooses. Either way, he deserves to go to jail for a long, long time.

Didn't I already respond to this? Something about Ollie North? And Libby has only been indicted -- but not for war crimes or acts leading to war crimes. Hell, even Pinochet never went to jail (although there was a short spell of house arrest) ... and you think Bush will? Because of a congressional hearing? I don't think your expectations are realistic.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 11:39 pm | #

truth machine:

Why is attempting to be accurate, justifying my statements, and refuting yours, "touchy, touchy"? I stated that what you wrote was ad hominem; I wasn't referring to something you might have meant that was not reflected by your actual words.

While I respect your desire to be precise and accurate (and though you don't agree with some of Glenn's positions on issues, I think he shares such a desire), why bother picking nits and pissing people off? We're all coming at this from the same general direction, and trying to "correct" people rather than go for the common bones of understanding -- and clarifying (in hopefully somewhat non-confrontational tones) the gist of any differences -- wouldn't seem to be particularly productive unless you think you will prevail in your aims as the solitary and less-than-appreciated party of one. You might think about it ... but I'm not so hopeful, as this has all been pointed out to you before. But, go your own way, and do what you think you must do. Meanwhile, I guess we'll just struggle on under the harsh burden of our misconceptions and our compromises. So be it. That's all I'll say on this matter ... at least for a couple more months.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 11:41 pm | #

Is TM our old friend Liquified Viscera?

Funny, I wondered from a couple of your posts whether you were LV, but you're not that big a slimeball. You haven't been here long, or you would remember that LV and I are no buds. That you can imagine that I am LV doesn't say much for your judgment or perception.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 11:43 pm | #

why bother picking nits and pissing people off?

What bother mischaracterizing what I do and attacking me with all these ad hominems? I don't feel that I "pick nits", but I do piss people off -- people with fragile egos, it seems -- by countering their arguments and claims.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 11:45 pm | #

sysprog:

CCR's new case, filed today, asks the German federal prosecutor in Karlsruhe to investigate allegations against not only Rumsfeld, but also thirteen other people, a total of fourteen individuals.
ALLEGEDLY:
9. Colonel Marc Warren, Staff Judge Advocate, denied ICRC access to detainees.
10. Alberto R. Gonzales, former Chief White House Counsel, endorsed legal opinions ... which found obligations under international treaties to be non-binding.
11. William James Haynes, General Counsel of the DoD, advocated circumventing detainee treatment safeguards.
12. David S. Addington, former Chief Counsel to Vice President Cheney, blocked efforts to bring U.S. military policy into compliance with the Geneva Conventions.
13. John Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General gave legal cover to systematic torture.
14. Jay Bybee, former Assistant Attorney General, is the author of the “torture memo”.

I'd love to see these folks on the Interpol "most wanted" list.

I'm hoping that my SO doesn't ever have to deal with Rumsfeld ... I think I'd insist that she convey my sentiments to his face.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 11:49 pm | #

We're all coming at this from the same general direction, and trying to "correct" people rather than go for the common bones of understanding

That sounds like choir-preaching tribalism to me. And how can people ever reach understanding if their mistakes aren't corrected, or at least challenged? As for "the same general direction", the sorts of disagreements that I have with Glenn show that, in that respect, we aren't coming from the same direction. On a host of other issues, we are coming from the same direction and so of course I don't contradict him. But on the notion that the invasion of Iraq was not "the real crime", or that the U.S. is not governed by international law (didn't you argue against him on that one?), we are most certainly not coming from the same direction.
truth machine | 11.14.06 - 11:50 pm | #

Sorry, truth machine, didn't see in Glenn's post where he called Steyn a criminal. "Self-serving propagandist", "dishonest", "mindless" covers it nicely, in fact, too nicely. Last time I checked, stupidity or insincerity on the part of journalists is not a punishable offense. Only telling the truth a la NYT and FISA/NSA seems to get you into trouble under this administration.

That propagandists posing as journalists such as Steyn, Krauthammer, etc. who continue to enjoy credibility after being proven breathtakingly wrong time after time is every bit as dumbfounding as presidents and house committee heads knowing squat about the country they invaded. These media poseurs aren't looking for truth, they are only looking for hand granades to lob on behalf of their shallow ideologies and/or political benefactors.
rollotomasi | 11.14.06 - 11:57 pm | #

truth machine:

Such comments are not likely to get the result that they ask for on the surface. You made an argument in legal terms and I responded in kind; it looks like it's my contradicting you that offends you.

I'm suspecting you're a bit sarcasm-impaired. What makes you think that I was offering an "argument in legal terms" in suggesting that Dubya was floridly psychotic? Do you think that's indeed possible?!?!?

Once again, I think you need to "lighten up". 'Kay?

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 11:58 pm | #

and though you don't agree with some of Glenn's positions on issues, I think he shares such a desire

I think Glenn is skilled in being precise and accurate, and applies it against his opponents, but I don't think he has an overarching commitment to it, applying it as well to his own views. Certainly not when I say that the deciders lied to the supporters and he counters "Those who made the original decision to invade Iraq knew that there were no WMDs there?" when I hadn't said anything of the sort, and it's hard to even recast such a statement as a lie; you need a double negative like "We don't know that there are no WMD's in Iraq". The Bush administration of course never made such a bizarre statement and of course no one has ever accused them of doing so. So much for precision and accuracy.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 12:02 am | #

truth machine:

[Arne]: why bother picking nits and pissing people off?

What bother mischaracterizing what I do and attacking me with all these ad hominems?

Wasn't me. Just thought I'd point that out.

Commenting on your behavious and the seeming consequences thereof is hardly argumentum ad hominem. It's just an observation ... perhaps one you might note. I'm trying to be helpful here, TM, because I don't think we're far off on the substantive issues.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.15.06 - 12:03 am | #

Science finds the DNA for the conservative/Republican genotype
LWM | 11.15.06 - 12:04 am | #

Funny, I wondered from a couple of your posts whether you were LV, but you're not that big a slimeball. You haven't been here long, or you would remember that LV and I are no buds. That you can imagine that I am LV doesn't say much for your judgment or perception.
truth machine

It's just that you are both such awful slimeballs...
LWM | 11.15.06 - 12:05 am | #

truth machine:

But on the notion that the invasion of Iraq was not "the real crime", or that the U.S. is not governed by international law (didn't you argue against him on that one?), we are most certainly not coming from the same direction.

Fine. It's been said. And now for something completely different....

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.15.06 - 12:06 am | #

Once again, I think you need to "lighten up". 'Kay?

Isn't your whole reaction to my statement about "misremembering which sins of the victim justified the murder" rather heavy? And was the humor of the statement too subtle for you? best check your eye for beams.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 12:06 am | #

It's just that you are both such awful slimeballs...

LV is a proven serial liar; I am not.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 12:07 am | #

Fine. It's been said.

Why do you find it necessary to be so rude and abrasive? Just wondrin'.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 12:08 am | #

Wasn't me. Just thought I'd point that out.

What wasn't you? "why bother picking nits and pissing people off?" was you, and it was ad hominem, rude, abrasive ... Surely you and the others who find my "style" so worthy of commentary have more important topics to discuss.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 12:11 am | #

Doesn't it seem to you that paranoid Hobbesians might believe in their heart's desire even in the face of contrary evidence?

What you seem to miss (odd, because I've pointed it out numerous times, and have even been taken to task for that) is that I don't disagree that they believed that Iraq had WMD's. As to why that isn't relevant ... well, you would have to actually read those posts.

For myself, given their abject record of failures stretching back I don't know how far, I find it hard to believe that they're as coldly calculating as you make them out to be.

And how coldly calculating have I made them out to be? No more than what the evidence indicates -- they wanted to invade Iraq and they set out to create a case for doing so.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 12:19 am | #

"As a comparison, read these two analytically superb posts from Swopa, detailing why it has been clear not for months, but for years, that this sectarian war was not only inevitable but also that the U.S. had no power to stop it."

Indeed, long before Bush even became prez. in 2000 think tanks were warning that interventionist foreign policies were 'counter-productive'.
One example from 1998:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbrief.../fpb- 050es.html

But the most ironic warning against occupying Iraq of course came from none other than Bush 41!:

"Reasons Not to Invade Iraq,
by George Bush Sr.":
"Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome."
I believe that is the 'Mother of all - "I told you so"'s'.
http://www.thememoryhole.org/mil...bushsr- iraq.htm
Gust | 11.15.06 - 12:38 am | #

truth machine:

What wasn't you? "why bother picking nits and pissing people off?" was you, and it was ad hominem, rude, abrasive ...

I believe I covered that above. Please do read it again.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | 11.15.06 - 12:48 am | #

This is one debate I'd hoped to stay out of, but for what it's worth:

1) In my opinion, the invasion of Iraq was a far greater crime than the lies told afterward. The lies told beforehand -- and I believe there were many, both large and small -- were part of the crime itself.

2) I also believe that the architects of this crime, particularly Dick Cheney had -- at least to some degree -- genuinely mixed motives. The so-called 1% solution seems to me to be persuasive. It was probably paranoid projection at work, but I think that the Vice-President had more or less genuinely convinced himself that Saddam was a more formidable adversary than he appeared to be to everyone else. His pressures on the CIA via Rumsfeld probably reflected, at least to some degree, a real concern that the Agency was a lazy, bloated bureaucracy which was not actually up to an accurate threat assessment.

My evidence for this conclusion springs from the fact that Cheney had been a convinced cold warrior, and was on record as believing, like Rumsfeld, that only the US had the power, the discipline, and the military capability to face up to serious threats to the political and economic order which had been created by the West after WWII.

3) The violation of international law seems clear; there is no way that the invasion of Iraq can be justified, or called anything other than a crime against humanity, even if the lies we were told about our government's reasons for carrying out the invasion were in fact true.

4) If Glenn's point is as I believe it to be, that the culture of lies being cultivated by our media and portions of our foreign policy elites after the fact may ultimately lead to greater crimes than the invasion of Iraq, then I agree with him.

If we wind up accepting these disgusting fictions without serious question, and passing laws like the MCA to institutionalize them, a state of perpetual war is not unlikely, nor is a gradual erosion of our liberties and impoverishment of much of our population.
William Timberman | 11.15.06 - 12:48 am | #

I believe I covered that above. Please do read it again.

I read it fine the first time. As I said, your comments are ad hominem, whether you deny it or not. And the notion that you're here to "help" me is transparent malarkey. Certainly I'm not here to be helped by you. Nor am I or my "style" of any great importance in the scheme of things. I truly appreciate your comments on and analysis of substantive subjects, and look forward to more of those.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 1:00 am | #

LV is a proven serial liar; I am not.
Truth Machine™

Prove it.

The evidence is overwhelming!

Zzzzzzzzz.
LWM | 11.15.06 - 1:06 am | #

"I read it fine the first time. As I said, your comments are ad hominem, whether you deny it or not. And the notion that you're here to "help" me is transparent malarkey. Certainly I'm not here to be helped by you. Nor am I or my "style" of any great importance in the scheme of things. I truly appreciate your comments on and analysis of substantive subjects, and look forward to more of those."
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 1:00 am | #
This is either LV or a sophisticated concern troll, either way they are spending your discourse on "transparent malarkey."
After reading all these posts I'm covinced it is deranged enough to be LV. But judge for yourself.
brainfaht | 11.15.06 - 1:14 am | #

If Glenn's point is as I believe it to be, that the culture of lies being cultivated by our media and portions of our foreign policy elites after the fact may ultimately lead to greater crimes than the invasion of Iraq, then I agree with him.

Well, who wouldn't agree that certain things may come to pass? But I find it odd when people say that someone's point was such-and-such when it's not actually a point they made. What Glenn actually wrote was (emph. added):

The reason we didn't is because the country was continuously lied to by the most morally depraved people one can fathom, who were so afraid of admitting error regarding the wisdom of the invasion that they kept insisting to Americans that things were going great and that everything would be fixed very soon. That, far more than the original decision to invade Iraq, is the real crime here.

And

the people who are responsible for this disaster -- not just the ones who advocated it in the beginning, but much worse, the ones who continued to insist that things were going well and that everything was progressing nicely and that reports to the contrary should be dismissed and ignored

Now, perhaps "far more than" and "much worse" are hyperbole and Glenn doesn't actually mean it, but I think he does, because he doesn't accept that the U.S. is governed by international law -- so whether the invasion was a violation of it was moot. If Cheney was acting on an actual belief that Saddam was a threat, then it wasn't a "real crime". But aside from the issue of international law, and aside from Cheney's beliefs, the evidence of the threat was misrepresented, the imminence of the threat was misrepresented, the relationship to 9/11 was misrepresented, the planning for and analysis of the aftermath was misrepresented, and the motivations, as discussed in part in PNAC documents, were misrepresented.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 1:19 am | #

concern troll

A concern troll is someone like Bart who tells the left that they should move to the right to be more successful in elections. There's no basis for applying that label to me. (And it's barely worth mentioning how deeply ad hominem it is.)
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 1:22 am | #

This is either LV or a sophisticated concern troll, either way they are spending your discourse on "transparent malarkey."

This would be amusing if it weren't so sad. The "transparent malarkey" was Arne's claim that he was posting criticism of my style for my own good. It is hardly I who am spending other people's discourse on such irrelevant and off-topic subjects as my style or personal advice for me. I urge them not to waste their time on such frivolous pursuits.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 1:27 am | #

LV is a proven serial liar; I am not.
Truth Machine™

Prove it.

Prove that I'm not a proven serial liar? The prima facie absence of a proof is sufficient proof.

The evidence is overwhelming!

And yet you've offered none.

Zzzzzzzzz.

I'm not so sure you're not LV afterall.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 1:30 am | #

What's sad is you spending your time on egocentric pursuits. It ends now. Find another vehicle for your madness.
brainfaht | 11.15.06 - 1:30 am | #

If we wind up accepting these disgusting fictions without serious question, and passing laws like the MCA to institutionalize them, a state of perpetual war is not unlikely, nor is a gradual erosion of our liberties and impoverishment of much of our population.
William Timberman | 11.15.06 - 12:48 am | #

Just to clarify, William, I agree, and I agree that Glenn has made this point, and made it well -- perhaps better than anyone else. But this isn't what I have taken issue with. Rather, like a number of others who have posted here (notably Pvt. Keepout and no fortunate son), I find it disturbing that Glenn characterized the invasion of Iraq as a lesser crime, and perhaps not a "real crime" at all.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 1:37 am | #

What's sad is you spending your time on egocentric pursuits. It ends now. Find another vehicle for your madness.
brainfaht | 11.15.06 - 1:30 am | #

What egocentric pursuits? I'm trying to discuss important matters like the criminality of the invasion of Iraq and you keep injecting this personal crap. "It ends now" -- unless you are talking about your own pointless comments, that sounds megalomaniacal.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 1:39 am | #

49 posts in eight and a half hours, you won't convince me of your honesty truth machine.
your existence serves one purpose, and that's to discredit this blog.
I'm so sorry it won't work. The people who invest their energies in thoughtful discourse here spend too much time in due diligence.
You earn no respect demeaning the landlord. You have gained no reproach.
brainfaht | 11.15.06 - 1:55 am | #

I see you didn't pick your moniker by accident.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 1:59 am | #

you sure did.
brainfaht | 11.15.06 - 2:02 am | #

BTW, Mr. Faht, let me call your attention to

http://www.haloscan.com/comments...83182399573666/

TM is a good guy - he just has a very short fuse -- one of the shortest in human history - and will hurl angry vulgarities at the slightest provocation. Even tiny disagreements will prompt vicious attacks. He's done it to me multiple times. But once you get used to it, and realize that he's coming from a basically good place - he could easily be your most enthusiastic booster tomorrow if he agrees with what you're saying - it actually is entertaining, even when you're the target.
GLenn Greenwald | 08.17.06 - 2:16 pm | #
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 2:02 am | #

Oh, and that was in response to this comment from Liquid Viscera:

truth machine, your unfounded hatred and distortions of the truth are pretty sad.

So what can we conclude from that? Well, that brainfaht and LVM are fools, at the very least.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 2:05 am | #

Oops, sorry, LWM ... it's so close to LV, after all.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 2:07 am | #

Wow that's like George Bush getting an endorsement from his daddy.
It serves no purpose beyond August 17th. As far as I'm concerned, you used up any credibility after that point.
I respect much of what you said today, but point out to me the point where you became maudlin.
brainfaht | 11.15.06 - 2:09 am | #

TM: I find it disturbing that Glenn characterized the invasion of Iraq as a lesser crime...

Yes, that's clear. I actually agree with your case as you've stated it, and I find your arguments in defense of it persuasive.

Even so, I think Glenn may in the end be proven to have a point. To make a mistake, even when seduced into it by prejudices which you might have corrected, but didn't, is less a crime than knowingly accepting custody of a lie.

The underlying debate is a moral one, which is based upon giving the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt when, in Glenn's opinion, the evidence against them isn't conclusive.

I believe that Glenn is making the right moral choice, even though I myself think -- as you appear to do also -- that the evidence is quite sufficient to condemn them regardless of what they did or didn't believe. Good faith in that sense, especially when claimed on top of a heap of hundred of thousands of bodies simply can't be accepted as exculpatory if we're ever to have any justice worthy of the name.

But enough. Glenn is more than capable of defending himself, if indeed he needs a defense. I can only say what I believe, and hope for the best.
William Timberman | 11.15.06 - 2:09 am | #

I respect much of what you said today

So that's why you said that the only purpose of my existence is to discredit this blog? Fuck off and die, you stupid pathetic dickhead.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 2:14 am | #

To make a mistake, even when seduced into it by prejudices which you might have corrected, but didn't, is less a crime than knowingly accepting custody of a lie.

My problem with this is that the invasion of Iraq wasn't only a matter of making a mistake based on prejudices; they knowingly lied, repeatedly, about numerous matters. OTOH, one might argue that Steyn believes every word he says, regardless of how self-contradictory his statements are or how they go against demonstrated facts. To argue that Bush/Cheney's crime is a lesser one than Steyn's requires a significant amount of special pleading.

The underlying debate is a moral one, which is based upon giving the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt when, in Glenn's opinion, the evidence against them isn't conclusive.

I believe that Glenn's view is itself a result of being seduced by prejudices which he might correct -- I don't believe that it is based on intellectual honesty, and I believe that is clear when he conflates their lying to the American people, about numerous matters, in order to gain support for the war, with their lacking perfect knowledge about the state of Iraq's armaments.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 2:23 am | #

Well thank you truth machine, your candid response reveals much about your honest response to this blog.
Your justifications are not only self serving and morally repugnant, but are carefully elaborated.
WT had me convinced of your rectitude, but you had no problem disproving that well made point.
brainfaht | 11.15.06 - 2:31 am | #

Compare my responses to you, fartbrain, you pathetic little troll, with my responses to WT. You might try emulating him ... of course, first you would have to replace the methane in your head with something a bit more substantial.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 2:37 am | #

I want to go back to this comment in the original post,

"...why are those who were so right and prescient and wise in their counsel treated as though they are lightweight, laughable morons who can't be "trusted with national security"? Why is it that when one watches news programs, one still encounters all of those smug, all-knowing little sneers whenever there is a reference to Howard Dean or Nancy Pelosi and national security, whereas John McCain and Charles Krauthammer and Robert Kagan and Lawrence Kaplan -- Iraq War lovers all -- are addressed with whispered reverence as we wait for their wise and weighty pronouncements about What We Should Do Next?"

I don't watch these programs as I get more kick out of blog dialogue. However, I want to speculate and vent my prejudices.

I suspect the "war lovers" are taken to be more serious by the people in charge of these things because they advocate the serious, and likely more credible stategy of war, violence, and mayhem, and the expenditure of vast sums of money on war materials.

If the idea is to get things accomplished, then shooting someone or killing their children will surely be more successful than someone who wants to talk or negotiate.

I suspect the military has more credibility than the peace guys.

I also think this observation is a function of the fact that war mongers have been generally more influential during the Bush administration, and so they are catered to far more. If the Democrats actually have a plan and start getting it done, and that involves making the government obey the law, for instance, then I'd expect to see more of the peace and "obey the law" types.
steven andresen | Homepage | 11.15.06 - 2:39 am | #

TM: ...their lying to the American people, about numerous matters, in order to gain support for the war...

This comes under the heading of the difficulty of managing large systems, I think, and most reasonable people will cut leaders a little slack in this regard if things turn out well.

As I said here some months back, FDR's folksy yarn about lending your neighbor a garden hose would probably have gotten him hung if WWII had ended with the German Reich stretching from Land's End to Vladivostok, and the Japanese Imperial Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor.

As it turned out...well, we all know how it turned out, and even though historians have duly noted it, almost no one begrudges him that little fib now, do they?

We can't say the same, for Lyndon Johnson and the Tonkin Gulf, though, can we?
William Timberman | 11.15.06 - 2:42 am | #

truth machine:

As I said, your comments are ad hominem, whether you deny it or not.

Precision, my dear. I said they were not argumentum ad hominem. When I discuss your behaviour, it is necessarily about you, so I'm wondering why you'd begrudge me that level of ad hominem (which I acknowledge in that respect). I wasn't attacking the substance of your arguments (which I rather agree with), but rather your method of delivery. You may think that's not a worthwhile subject of discussion, but others are free to disagree. If you don't feel comfortable with that, there are recourses open to you, you know.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.15.06 - 2:44 am | #

TM,
Of course your principal argument is one of insult, which betrays your honesty.
So forgive the rest of us who see your arguments as a percieved threat to concoct global enemies.

Acting on your rhetoric would cause this nation to blunder into more mistakes than it has already made.
We need a positive vision that you are unable to provide so get past your derision, as a smart person you could certainly do more, but as an ego centric you certainly do much less.
Arrogance leads you to many errors.
brainfaht | 11.15.06 - 2:54 am | #

This comes under the heading of the difficulty of managing large systems, I think, and most reasonable people will cut leaders a little slack in this regard if things turn out well.

You and I seem to have different notions of what is reasonable. I do not think it reasonable to forgive leaders for making intentional misrepresentations for the purpose of gaining popular support. It's acceptable for leaders to go against the popular will, especially when that popular will is based on limited analysis and knowledge, but producing false belief is a different matter altogether. And it is almost always because the intentions of the leaders are contrary to the interests of the populace, and thus an informed populace would reject the leaders' plans. As for things turning out well ... if we allow leaders to mislead us about the necessity of an action, they'll mislead us about the consequences as well.

I don't know the details of the gap between FDR's analogy and the reality, but you wrote that "most informed listeners understood that he was being disingenuous at best" -- which is not analogous to the numerous misrepresentations of fact that the Bush administration committed.

We can't say the same, for Lyndon Johnson and the Tonkin Gulf, though, can we?

It's important to grasp that, as with Iraq, it wasn't just one lie about an non-existent attack, but the entire structure of motivation for the war was misrepresented to the American people.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 3:04 am | #

Arne: referring to my statements as picking nits and pissing people off (that was the context) is argumentum ad hominem -- it attacks my motivations rather than the substance of my comments.

fartbrain: Oh hell, too fucking stupid to waste a response on.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 3:09 am | #

If you don't feel comfortable with that, there are recourses open to you, you know.

It's not whether I'm comfortable with it. As I noted, it doesn't seem like a good use of your energy, nor a good use of this blog. It is you who have alternatives to your current course; compare WT's comments, and my responses.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 3:14 am | #

Accusations and not answers certainly pins a moniker on truth machine. Wear it proudly.
brainfaht | 11.15.06 - 3:36 am | #

truth machine:

It's not whether I'm comfortable with it. As I noted, it doesn't seem like a good use of your energy, nor a good use of this blog. It is you who have alternatives to your current course; compare WT's comments, and my responses.

You've generated more heat than light here. If you think that's a "good use of your energy" and a "good use of this blog" is up to you, but others may disagree. I'd note that anyne that truly wanted to discuss the substance and not the style might think about methods to encourage such, rather than engaging in the "short-fuse" behaviour you've shown, and alienating eve those that might otherwise be inclined to sign on to your substantive arguments.

While we agree on the specifics, I don't think it's quite so clear that Glenn thnks there was no crime in the prosecution of the war itself:

[you quoting Glenn]:

"The reason we didn't is because the country was continuously lied to by the most morally depraved people one can fathom, who were so afraid of admitting error regarding the wisdom of the invasion that they kept insisting to Americans that things were going great and that everything would be fixed very soon. That, far more than the original decision to invade Iraq, is the real crime here."

And

"the people who are responsible for this disaster -- not just the ones who advocated it in the beginning, but much worse, the ones who continued to insist that things were going well and that everything was progressing nicely and that reports to the contrary should be dismissed and ignored"

I think he leaves room for some culpability for the war itself (or advocating for it to begin with). It's a matter of emphasis.

You may be confusing "crime" in the legal sense with moral or intellectual "crimes" as well. Glenn is attacking the proponents and advocates for the war, those in the media and punditocracy. I'm not sure they can be charged with a legal crime for such advocacy, but they're certainly morally culpable.

Glenn may be of the opinion that the United States is not subject to international law, but my take on that is not that Glenn argued for such, but rather stated that such is at least reasonably accepted wisdom. And in a certain sense it is true: the United States is (certainly internally) only bound by its own laws, and external laws are only incorporated into that law through domestic acceptance, and are controlled internally by the procedures adopted internally for such. The United States is under no obligation to enter into any treaty against its will, and any such treaty entered in to (or at least the obligations of the U.S. under such) is constrained at the very least by the U.S. Constitution.

That the United States has entered into and ratified treaties against aggressive war is a quite arguable position. That the Iraq war contravenes such treaties is my position. The perimiters of who decides the limits of defensive war are quite unclear, however, as is the method of recourse when such limits are exceeded. I would think that the standard response would be for the U.N. to take collective action on approval of a majority of that organisation, but the U.S. veto on the SC makes that just a bit problematic (as do the potential forms of punishment). It may be best if the U.S. manages to find its own way to punish the principal miscreants, and I hope that will happen, but I'm not sanguine at he prospects for such (then again, many a dictator and thug have managed to escape punishment outside of loss of power).

What is your answer, TM? How should the United States respond to claims that it has violated international law? I'm all ears. One response might be to do what the U.S. Supreme Court itself did in Hamdan, and treat it as an issue of domestic law, part of which is the foreign treaties enacted and in force under the Cnstitution.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.15.06 - 3:44 am | #

You've generated more heat than light here.

That's rude, abrasive, self-serving, and plain stupid. It's particularly stupid as an introduction to a post that you actually want a response to. G'night.
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 3:49 am | #

truth machine:

Arne: referring to my statements as picking nits and pissing people off (that was the context) is argumentum ad hominem -- ...

I never refered to all your statements as "picking nits and pissing people off". In the instances where this was true, it was merely an observation. See below for more.

... it attacks my motivations rather than the substance of my comments.

Nonsense. I've said nothing about your motivations (I'm assuming, until I see any sign to suggest differently, that your motivations are above-board and earnest). I was addressing the results. If your motivation is indeed "pissing people off", congratulations. If not, "stay the course" may not be an option.

Perhaps you'd be kind enough to see that you don't misrepresent what I've said.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 11.15.06 - 3:52 am | #

I'll take you at your word Glenn, but I will reserve my opinion until more measured responses weigh this persons judgements with more fairness than I can find with my best chest thumping patriotism mind set.
I don't look for justification for my beliefs from the male Ann Coulter, so you'll excuse the pregnant pause in reasonable dialogue.
If I ever saw this person coming from a "good place" I might have paused and reflected on what was said, but I never saw it.
This is a freak show, and unless someone can show me that this is not a sophisticated concern troll, I will continue to believe it is so.

TM is a good guy - he just has a very short fuse -- one of the shortest in human history - and will hurl angry vulgarities at the slightest provocation. Even tiny disagreements will prompt vicious attacks. He's done it to me multiple times. But once you get used to it, and realize that he's coming from a basically good place - he could easily be your most enthusiastic booster tomorrow if he agrees with what you're saying - it actually is entertaining, even when you're the target.
GLenn Greenwald | 08.17.06 - 2:16 pm | #
truth machine | 11.15.06 - 2:02 am | #

TM creates more problems than he solves, his time here is wasted.
brainfaht | 11.15.06 - 4:19 am | #

In his update, Glenn linked to a Rich Lowry article which states:

But as liberal blogger Kevin Drum points out, most of the big “itches” came prior to the past 20 years when gerrymandering got more sophisticated. Reagan lost only five seats in his sixth year, and Clinton only five (although he had already suffered a wipeout in 1994).

Oddly, this same bit of misinformation is often reported. The fact is the Democratic Party gained five House seats in the midterm elections of Bill Clinton's second term.

(Given that both the Monica Lewinsky matter was a big issue during the '98 campaign season and that the sitting president's party gained seats that election cycle defying the post World War II history of "six year itch" elections; it was, therefore, all the more egregious that Clinton was impeached thereafter by that year's lame duck House.)
CMike | 11.15.06 - 4:56 am | #

That, far more than the original decision to invade Iraq, is the real crime here.

No, sorry, but Hitler's inability to crush the [insert country] resistance was not a greater crime than his invasion and occupation of said country.

You lose a lot of moral high ground by writing things like this.
Lupin | 11.15.06 - 5:34 am | #

PS: And your "epileptic" excuse is a lame and unworthy rationalization.

Stalin was a worse tyrant than Saddam and yet the invasion of the USSR by Hitler was entirely criminal.
Lupin | 11.15.06 - 5:38 am | #

The original topic of discussion today was "Why does the media still give so much time to people who were so wrong about Iraq and so little to people who were right?"

I am posting from the UK. Questions being asked by a lot of people in the UK right now are "Why did the UK Government and political elite blindly follow the USA into the invasion of Iraq? Is there something that obliges the UK to join in any war that the USA starts? Is the UK going to be obliged to join in any future adventure by the US, however misguided and illegal?" These questions are, however, avoided by political elite and the mainstream press. There has been a collective sigh of relief from the political elite in the last couple of weeks "Rumsfeld has gone, we can breathe again, he was very odd" but no attention to the question "Why did the UK go along with the Iraq misadventure if it involved Rumsfeld and it was always recognised that Rumsfeld had some cracy ideas?" These questions are avoided by the political elite and much of the press because they are just too uncomfortable and they risk opening up a whole area for which the political elite isn't psychologically prepared. These questions put in doubt their belief in a "special relationship" with the USA, a myth that allows the British elite to believe that the UK is still a world power, that "punches above its weight in world affairs". In the case of Tony Blair, it would puncture his belief that he can influence the US and use its military might as a force to change the world for the better.

My guess is that in the USA, many of the political and media elite are not psychologically prepared for the opening up of whole areas of questioning, which might result from admitting that Mark Steyn was wrong and Howard Dean was right. Too much political capital has been sunk in smearing Dean so it makes no sense to admit that he was right about anything. Furthermore it would mean opening up areas of debate like the US attitude to the UN and to international law, and the need to maintain military dominance. It would mean admitting that the USA's (and the West's) leverage in the Middle East is limited, which has implications for oil supplies and thus for the economy as a whole. It would, in short, involve questioning too many the assumptions (and myths). A whole ideological superstructure would have to change. For the time being it is easier for the politifcal and media elite to try to make the facts fit their ideological superstructure.
guano | 11.15.06 - 5:57 am | #

Ha ha. Thanks Glenn for referencing Right Wing News. I have been banned from there four times. Usually when I question their veracity on something.
druidbros | 11.15.06 - 5:58 am | #

guano | 11.15.06 - 5:57 am | #
... in the USA, many of the political and media elite are not psychologically prepared for the opening up of whole areas of questioning, which might result from admitting that Mark Steyn was wrong and Howard Dean was right [...] It would mean admitting that the USA's (and the West's) leverage in the Middle East is limited, which has implications for oil supplies and thus for the economy as a whole. It would, in short, involve questioning too many assumptions (and myths). A whole ideological superstructure would have to change.

A topical comments post! What a treat to read with my chicory coffee! Thanks, batshit. Beyond that you're right. The "unfathomable" intellectual cowardice of the U.S. punditocracy stems from their uneasy sense that reassessing any prevailing conventional wisdom on who "had it right" or "who matters" on international policy would initiate a status implosion in their subculture.
Fluffy | 11.15.06 - 6:21 am | #

TM, I have a question. Does 'American exceptionalism' mean the same as 'Manifest destiny'?

If not please define.
druidbros | 11.15.06 - 6:21 am | #

The fact is the Democratic Party gained five House seats in the midterm elections of Bill Clinton's second term.

That's one of those pesky little facts that has to be swept under the rug at all costs.

After all, Clinton was an Eeeeeevil Man who had the Wrong World View!!
Barton Keyes | 11.15.06 - 7:39 am | #

Well, this thread was turned into a wasteland by someone who paints with a mighty broad-brush and suffers from a thin skin.

Rule #17: If you have a thin-skin, be precise and narrow in your opinions to avoid drawing friendly fire.
Moses | 11.15.06 - 10:02 am | #

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