KD on Pre-War Lies
or
You Can't Spell 'Podhoretz' Without 'Ho'
Drum's got good points.
I'd add that the Podhoretz piece is like a microcosm of the whole Gulf War Episode II marketing campaign itself: the facts are all carefully nipped and tucked to produce the illusion of proof.
It's pathetic. How have humans survived so long?
Anybody?
Anybody?
or
You Can't Spell 'Podhoretz' Without 'Ho'
Drum's got good points.
I'd add that the Podhoretz piece is like a microcosm of the whole Gulf War Episode II marketing campaign itself: the facts are all carefully nipped and tucked to produce the illusion of proof.
It's pathetic. How have humans survived so long?
Anybody?
Anybody?
posted by Winston Smith at
7:01 PM
11 Comments:
Oh, you know I loveya, WS, and hate arguing, especially with you.
But if the president's opponents lose "Bush lied," there isn't really much else left.
I'd seen the Podhoretz piece, and am not surprised Kevin Drum unloads on it. But he doesn't fisk it.
As a righty who has learned to read our MSM, I just look at the source material. Ignore the writer and read the quotes.
These two are representative, and there are more, but for Lordy sakes, everybody, read the Podhoretz piece itself and not just Drum's characterization of it.
Fisk the hell out of it, but don't hang it in absentia.
"The discovery of a number of 122-mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. . . . They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for."---Hans Blix
"I can’t tell you why the French, the Germans, the Brits, and us thought that most of the material, if not all of it, that we presented at the UN on 5 February 2003 was the truth. I can’t. I’ve wrestled with it. [But] when you see a satellite photograph of all the signs of the chemical-weapons ASP—Ammunition Supply Point—with chemical weapons, and you match all those signs with your matrix on what should show a chemical ASP, and they’re there, you have to conclude that it’s a chemical ASP, especially when you see the next satellite photograph which shows the UN inspectors wheeling in their white vehicles with black markings on them to that same ASP, and everything is changed, everything is clean. . . . But George [Tenet] was convinced, John McLaughlin [Tenet’s deputy] was convinced, that what we were presented [for Powell’s UN speech] was accurate."---Lawrence Wilkerson, Powell aide, and present administration critic
"How have humans survived so long?"
Lack of competition in our niche.
I dunno. What's it pay, and what are the hours?
Yo, Tom, I think we're talking past each other, bro. Lemme try again:
I thought, everybody thought, that Saddam had some chemical weapons. We know that Clinton destroyed most of 'em, but we never thought he got all of 'em.
Chemical weapons are no more deadly, pound-for-pound, than conventional (i.e. chemical) explosives. Hence (a) there was no reason to be especially worried about them and (b) the administration coined the term "Weapons of mass destruction" to lump together all NBC weapons, and to smoosh together the threat of nukes--which Saddam didn't have and wasn't going to get--with the (relatively inconsequential) threat of chemical weapons--which we thought he had.
I've not disputed that there was good reason to think that Saddam had chemical weapons.
My point is that the administration lied. They exaggerated the deadliness of chemical weapons, exaggerated the numbers of them, exaggerated the threat that he was going to get nukes, twisted related facts (e.g. about UAVs and "mobile weapons labs"), used evidence selectively, reported evidence known to be faulty (e.g. the famous "sixteen words") and just plain made shit up. This is all a matter of public record.
Saddam was bad. He had a very few chemical weapons. Intelligent and honest people thought he had more of 'em.
And none of that in any way affects the fact that the administration lied about it.
As KD points out, Podhoretz uses evidence in the same selective way, ignoring evidence that came in in the year before the invasion, etc.
We're being bullshitted, bro, by our very own democratically semi-elected government. I can't believe that this doesn't enrage you.
Winston,
Your previous comment includes the following empirical statement: "Chemical weapons are no more deadly, pound-for-pound, than conventioanl (i.e. chemical) explosives." Was the (i.e. chemical) a typographical error? Or are you distinguishing between (1) weapons such as white phosphorus, that the U.S. used in its attack on Falluja this spring and which may not be considered chemical weapons, and (2)weapons such as sarin or mustard gas, which are considered chemical weapons? If you haven't read recent accounts of the use of white phosphorus against insurgents in Falluja, please do. It may inspire a post.
Aren't regular old explosives (e.g. TNT, C-4) known as chemical (as opposed to nuclear) explosives? I may me messed up on this.
Winston,
I looked it up and you are using the term "chemical exposive" correctly. I hope my confusion was understandable, when the context of the discussion included a distinction between chemical weapons and conventional weapons. Where does white phosphorus fit? I don't believe it's a chemical explosive. But is it a chemical weapon or a conventional weapon? And does that distinction really matter in a discussion of the propriety, morality or legality of using that weapon in urban warfare?
DLev,
Yeah, I think 'chemical explosive' is a not-very-well-known term, so no biggie.
RE: white phosphorus: I dunno. I didn't even realize that its use was controversial until yesterday. I knew there used to be e.g. WP grenades, and I thought they were pretty brutal, but the new controversy is, well, new to me.
I hear you, WS. You see the WMD rhetoric as the defining (and only)issue. I do not, and have stated my reasons, which were found unconvincing by the denizens hereabouts. I'd have been surprised if they were.
I've yet to hear an affirmative argument about why Saddam would be still contained today, and I don't expect one. Even Gen. Zinni doesn't have one. I agree that Saddam was contained, but the conditions were collapsing---the sanctions, our troop presence in Saudi, etc.
And unlike Madeleine Albright, I did not find the starving of Iraqi children "worth it."
I gave it my best shot, WS. If anything new turns up, I'll insert my $o.o2, but anything more at this point would be redundant.
Well, I'm with you on the starving children point--I didn't, at the time of invasion, think that was worth it. Better to go in and set things straight than to let people starve under Saddam's hob-nail boots.
But--well, here I'm just repeating myself--I ultimatley came to think that the WMD case contained very significant lies, and that our first duty was to prevent an American president from manipulating America into a war--especially given that I didn't trust the president's motives and couldn't be sure that he was really going to do right by Iraq.
Anyway, I'm with you about the humanitarian case, though I disagree that it was a significant part of the administration's motive.
"I've yet to hear an affirmative argument about why Saddam would be still contained today, and I don't expect one."
Quite simply, sanctions, military quarantine and no-fly zones.
Yes, we had to keep our eye on Saddam, but at a few million a year, no US casualties, no additional Al Qaeda recruiting material or fertile training ground for it, and no bombs raining on Iraq and destroying its infrastructure, the situation was not ideal, but far better than it is now, and indeed far better than it was PREDICTED to be after invasion.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home