Top 40 Myths (or lies) about War and Terrorism

[Panag]

Originally posted by Barley
To some of you offering some of the more rediculous responses and making light of the subject (though admittedly its a farce)

Just Remeber.........

Approximately 10-20 allied soldiers are dying each week because of the reasons we went into Iraq (justified or not, my opinion is not).

I imagine they will stay there for years to come as the Americans are not going to hand over to the UN and for go their 'Liberation Divident - i.e. money from oil to pay for the operation which initially cast $100bil and is costing a further $bil a week).

Iraq is going to be the Northern Ireland of the 21st century, we will never unite the opposing sides and factions, whatever interim goverment / solution is found it will always leave a minority out in the cold who will take up arms to continue their struggle.

hi ,

thats 10 soldiers who fight for freedom and who die for liberty , ....

oh , btw , you cant compare south armagh with iraq for a cazillion reasons , .....

have a nice day

[Whaleboy]

Sava

[Spiffor]

At least, a few conservatives here had the balls to admit they were duped. I'm thinking especially about Lancer, who even opened a thread about it. BTST, Vel was a war enthusiast (though never a Bush enthusiast) and he doesn't seem pleased will all the lies as well.

What remains is the amount of balless conservatives who can't admit their champ isn't the superman they imagined. What remains is conservatives who can't take Bush for what he is: a politician who will lie and manipulate the opinion to have things his way.

But please continue to believe in SuperBush. This naiveté is refreshing

[Velociryx]

That pretty well sums up my position, Spiff....I was all for the war, WoMD or no, because all efforts HAD failed, in my opinion, and with the US footing the bill for his continued "containment" it was creating more problems in the region than it was solving.

So yes, I'm glad we went in and ended the regieme. With luck, we'll be able to pull out of Saudi soon, and diminish our presence in Iraq, which should (God/Allah willing) improve our standing at least a hair in the region and remove at least one reason for tensions (the bases in Saudi)

NONE of that, however, excuses the blatant, bumbling lies of the administration.

Even if you ignore all the half-truths and just focus on the really blatant lies, there's still scores of them.

Scores too many.

If we're going to do a thing, we need to be honest and forthright in our execution, no matter what it is.

-=Vel=-

[rev]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
If they found barrels of the stuff later tonight, would that substantively change your position one iota on the justification for war?

Sorry, but when it comes to actively searching suspected weapons sites, we've already given up. For a long time I thought we'd find *something* in Iraq, but so far ALL we've found are some schematics and a few parts that COULD be used to make nuclear weapons... schematics and parts that have been buried in a scientist's rose garden for the past twelve years.

Yes, Saddam had weapons at some point. Maybe he had them as recently as 1998. Or maybe (probably) he put everything on hold until the world wasn't watching, but we've always been watching.

Yes, Saddam was a very, very naughty man (as if "naughty" even BEGINS to cover it all). The war was justifiable on those grounds alone, but that's not why it was justified. That would be a war of choice, not the war of necessity Bush and Blair sold it as.

Much of the public (non-classified) evidence this war was sold on was bogus. We've known that from before the war started. We gave weapons inspectors our intelligence and they investigated it and called it "junk".

The unmanned aircraft Bush spoke of (and warned that they could be used to spread chemical or biological weapons in the United States) were actually aircraft made of balsa wood and duct tape that couldn't fly more than a dozen miles. They were called a "smoking gun" by a few hawks and the issue was used to attempt to discredit Hans Blix when he didn't mention them in one of his reports to the UN Security Council, as if they really were a threat.

Saddam Hussein may have tried to buy uranium from Niger. Who knows? The problem is that the documents we used early on to justify this claim turned out to be blantant fakes, including "child-like" signatures of President Mamaduo and signatures of a person who has not been foreign minister of Niger since before the first Gulf War.

The aluminum tubes Bush spoke of in his State of the Union Address? The International Atomic Energy Association had long-since refuted that point, saying they were not suitable for nuclear production, but were suitable for what the Iraqis said they were to be used for: artillery shells, which Iraq was allowed to produce. (This FOX News article, by the way, is incredibly damaging to the Bush/Blair case for invading Iraq, in my opinion.)

There were also strong insinuations that Iraq was involved in 9/11 (particularly, and curiously, from Mr. Wolfowitz). But, as the 9/11 report showed, there are no reasonable connections.

Now, some of the rhetoric points the war was sold on are valid, and I find fault with the leftists who, under any other President, would have supported such a venture. Democracy in Iraq is great and getting rid of an evil, murderous tyrant such as Saddam is an admirable cause to take up. (If that's the case, though, we've got a lot of work to do, starting with a significant portion of the The Coalition of the Willing).

I've also seen a lot of blame being placed on Clinton in recent weeks, as the months go by without any solid evidence that Iraq had the weapons we maintained they did. Yes, Clinton should have done a bit more about Saddam, but he had one arm tied behind his back with the entire impeachment process. Remember when we began "Operation Desert Fox" in '98? While it's timing was a bit questionable, Republicans pushing for impeachment cried "wag the dog" -- and **** Armey even suggested that it was grounds for yet ANOTHER impeachment charge. (Gen. Wesley Clark noted on Meet the Press on June 15: "First of all, all of us in the community who read intelligence believe that Saddam wanted these capabilities and he had some. We struck very hard in December of ’98, did everything we knew, all of his facilities. I think it was an effective set of strikes. Tony Zinni commanded that, called Operation Desert Fox, and I think that set them back a long ways.")

But, truth be told, this war was sold as a necessity to eliminate an immediate and direct threat to the lives, security, and freedom of Americans, British, and other people abroad. Nor were the post-war plans strategized or planned enough to justify a serious claim that it's about democracy and freedom for anyone but ourselves.

Politicians should be expected to lie, but when it comes to putting peoples' lives at risk or sacrificing lives, nothing but the truth should fall from their lips.

[rev]

Originally posted by Velociryx
I was all for the war, WoMD or no, because all efforts HAD failed, in my opinion, and with the US footing the bill for his continued "containment" it was creating more problems in the region than it was solving.

I disagree. While we WERE doing some footing of the bill for containment, it doesn't come anywhere NEAR the $1-billion-a-week cost of occupying Iraq, nor near the cost of American and British lives.

It appears in retrospect that Saddam Hussein was in a box. The UN policies and American- and British-enforcement of their own "no-fly zones" appeared to have at least been doing SOMETHING.

I do agree with more or less everything you said in that post, though.

[Spiffor]

Wow, impressive post rev. Very well documented. How much time did you need to write it ?

[rev]

Oh, about twenty minutes or so. I've been keeping a very close eye on a lot of blogs (from far-left liberal to pretty far-right conservative, though I prefer the more intellectual blogs, like Talking Points Memo). All this is stuff I've read before, so I just did some more research and tried to use a variety of sources (from the conservative-leaning Fox News and the outright-bordering-on-insane Washington Times, to the more liberal CNN and such.

'Cuz NOBODY believes you if you're posting things from uncredible lefty sites. I can barely even stomach most of that.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by rev
war was justifiable on those grounds alone

How so? I'd be most interested in hearing that explination.

[Ted Striker]

Any long lists that repeat the word "FACT" over and over again are almost universally worthless to read.

[Ted Striker]

Though they are good for scam marketing/infomercial type of ripoff websites.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Any long lists that repeat the word "FACT" over and over again are almost universally worthless to read.

That's why I haven't read it.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Any long lists that repeat the word "FACT" over and over again are almost universally worthless to read.

But they're so much better than the ones full of supposition and outright lies.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Odin
The righties are so full of BS they can't even admit they were duped. Good digging, Sava!

Fez in 3, 2, 1...

I knew you were the same person! A very well done DL nonetheless.

[Sikander]

I have supported the removal of Hussein's regime since he invaded Kuwait, for strategic (ie his control over approx. %40 of the world's proven oil reserves with the potential for more) as well as moral and legal reasons. I was one of the people who was disappointed that Bush 1 didn't go for the kill (of the regime rather than the man) in Gulf War 1, even if that meant a very much narrower coalition. Everyone knew even then that Saddam was going to remain a major PIA to the United States and its allies in the region and a major criminal to his own people. I knew that we would have a continual causus belli due to his refusal to live up to the armistace signed at the end of Gulf War 1, and so it was.

President Clinton went so far as to order military action against Hussein's regime for these reasons, and he was right to do so, even if like Bush 1 he didn't do enough IMO. WMD has always been a political rather than a strategic issue for the U.S. It was a means of generating an issue via the armistice that would give us carte blanche to do as we wished in Iraq, as we always assumed that Saddam was fixated upon having these weapons at whatever the cost. As late as the start of operations against the regime this year these assumptions remained in play, and were held by most of the states who opposed the war as well as all those who supported it, as well as the UNSC.

I was disappointed that the administration focused so intensely on WMD when making its case for war domestically. There was a good case for war without WMD, but in an apparant effort to not confuse the issue the administration chose to make the same argument domestically that it had to make to the UNSC, namely that Iraq was still flaunting the armistace and the SC resolutions pertaining to WMD. As things have turned out this oversight on the part of the administration has turned out to be rather more important than I or almost anyone else predicted, as precious little evidence regarding WMD has turned up since the country was overrun.

Did the administration "sex up" WMD claims in the lead up to the war? Apparantly so. Was the whole thing an excuse to remove a regime that was costing the U.S. a lot of energy and resources while remaining a palpable threat to the miniscule Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, and hence to the economy of the world? Of course. Was the whole thing a giant conspiracy to fabricate evidence and justify the invasion of an innocent country and remove a blameless regime. Not hardly. Two reasons stand above all others.

1) The U.S. and its supporters in this endeavor were not alone in believing or stating that Iraq had WMD in contravention of the armistace and SC resolutions. The vast majority of states that weighed in against the war also believed that Saddam had some WMD. The Iraqis themselves were the source of this information. Considerable quantities of chemical and biological agents still have never been accounted for. It makes perfect sense to assume that if they had destroyed those agents that they would announce that fact in order to get out from under the sanctions regime, and later to avoid the destruction of their regime. They didn't, and again it makes perfect sense to assume in that case that they retained these capabilities.

2) For those enamored of the big conspiracy theory, why would the Bush administration push for war on these grounds if they knew that within a few weeks they would be shown to be liars? Where's the percentage in that? They didn't need WMD to sell the war to the American people, there were enough other ways to do so legitimate and otherwise. I can see them "sexing up" their arguments, operating under the assumption that it would be forgotten once the huge caches of Iraqi weaponry were appearing in the nightly news, but to make this case in the face of evidence to the complete contrary makes less sense than Saddam destroying his stockpiles and not bothering to show anyone, especially the people who were about to kick his door in.

[Ted Striker]

Well said Sikander, couldn't have said it better.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Sikander
I knew you were the same person! A very well done DL nonetheless.

I'm no DL! I've been here since 2000.

[Spiffor]

Sikander:

I am not a 'conspiracy theorist', except if the thought that Bush lied to his population to manipulate it into supporting the war would qualify.

My scenario is that everybody believed there were still some chemical or biological weapons, at least those which weren't accounted for. These chemicals were only a danger to the Iraqi population because of Iraq's unability to launch them more than 180 km away.

The threat these chemicals posed were way blown out of proportion by the admin, in order to instill fear in the American population, as well as giving a good excuse to the UN. The supposed ties with Al Qaeda and the speculation that Al Qaeda terrorists would attack NY with these chems helped.
I distinctly remember PrinceBimz, for example, who explained us that waiting too long would result in NY being nuked. I distinctly remember many American posters thinking that pro-peace stance was appeasement, i.e caused by fear of the Iraqi threat.

I think the Bush admin intended to find these mostly harmless WMD after the invasion, and then explain to the world the apocalypse they could have brought. Again, they'd have blown the threat way out of proportion to show to the public how right they were, and that time was tight.

I'm not sure the chemical weapons aren't there. It is possible some reserves have been discovered but are being kept secret for them to be used at the right moment. I say these 'WMD' will be surprisingly revealed to the public during the presidential campaign, which will offer 3 advantages:

- GulfWar2 will have stopped being big news by then, and economic issues are likely to dictate the news. A big news item like this will bring focus on the 'successful' foreign policy.

- The democrats will stop saying Bush was a liar. Moreover, they'll be discriminated because they "didn't trust our troops". Many disgruntled Republicans will stop think "they have lied to me !"

- The Republicans will be able to flaunt the clairvoyance and wiseness of Bush, and will explain that Bush has avoided an even worse Sept. 11.

BTW, I don't think these chemicals will be directly planted by the US intelligence, because this would be a really major scandal if it was known. However, a few barrels of chemicals presented as the new apocalypse may do the trick.

[Velociryx]

Rev, I think it all comes down to priorities, tho.

True, we're spending more right now than we were keeping his butt contained, however, we were also damaging our reputation in the region with the whole Saudi base thing (which is a major bone of contention in the ME....leave the bases, we take away one of the bigger reasons for attacks against us.

Right now, we're blowing even that, however. For that dividend to pay off, we need a clear, rapid-reconstruction plan to rid Iraq of Saddam (done), get them back on a paying basis, make a deal for a base in Iraq (somewhere nice and low profile, so it don't raise any hackles like the bases in Saudi), and then back the hell away!

Nonetheless, the logic behind the move was sound. Spend more up front in the short term to end Saddam, fix the Saudi problem by doing so, and gain a dividend from it. The alternative would have been to "contain" the little monster for the rest of his natural life, and quite possibly for the life of whichever of his sons came after him. Not a billion a week, but in all, (especially factoring in the potential costs of additional attacks aimed at forcing us out of Saudi) probably a much more costly affair in total.

-=Vel=-

[Agathon]

Great, remove regimes you don't like...

...what a great way to screw up the international order.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Odin


I'm no DL! I've been here since 2000.

Maybe I'm the DL! AAiiiigh!!!!!

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Sikander:

I am not a 'conspiracy theorist', except if the thought that Bush lied to his population to manipulate it into supporting the war would qualify.

My scenario is that everybody believed there were still some chemical or biological weapons, at least those which weren't accounted for. These chemicals were only a danger to the Iraqi population because of Iraq's unability to launch them more than 180 km away.

The threat these chemicals posed were way blown out of proportion by the admin, in order to instill fear in the American population, as well as giving a good excuse to the UN. The supposed ties with Al Qaeda and the speculation that Al Qaeda terrorists would attack NY with these chems helped.
I distinctly remember PrinceBimz, for example, who explained us that waiting too long would result in NY being nuked. I distinctly remember many American posters thinking that pro-peace stance was appeasement, i.e caused by fear of the Iraqi threat.

I think the Bush admin intended to find these mostly harmless WMD after the invasion, and then explain to the world the apocalypse they could have brought. Again, they'd have blown the threat way out of proportion to show to the public how right they were, and that time was tight.

I'm not sure the chemical weapons aren't there. It is possible some reserves have been discovered but are being kept secret for them to be used at the right moment. I say these 'WMD' will be surprisingly revealed to the public during the presidential campaign, which will offer 3 advantages:

- GulfWar2 will have stopped being big news by then, and economic issues are likely to dictate the news. A big news item like this will bring focus on the 'successful' foreign policy.

- The democrats will stop saying Bush was a liar. Moreover, they'll be discriminated because they "didn't trust our troops". Many disgruntled Republicans will stop think "they have lied to me !"

- The Republicans will be able to flaunt the clairvoyance and wiseness of Bush, and will explain that Bush has avoided an even worse Sept. 11.

BTW, I don't think these chemicals will be directly planted by the US intelligence, because this would be a really major scandal if it was known. However, a few barrels of chemicals presented as the new apocalypse may do the trick.

I think this would be far too risky politically, though I have seen this idea floated publicly on political talk shows, so you are not alone in your idea. If they do pull something like this it could be the end of this administration. Their credibility is very poor as it is, but to manipulate this for the election and to take the chance that one of the fairly large number of people who would have to know about it might come forward... After seeing Saddam's performance my faith in people doing the logical thing has been lessened. Of course in Iraq Saddam's word was law. In America there are likely to be "idealists" who will only take loyalty to Bush so far.

Honestly, I think if they had WMD they wouldn't be taking the beating that they are right now. Nor would they sell Tony Blair down the river like they are. And if British Intelligence found out that they were holding back you can bet that it would come out at a bad time for Bush, and in the worst possible light.