Saddam and al Qaeda: The Missing Link
Or: Here We Go Again
There is, as you know, a group of people who continue to hold out fervent hope that we will some day discover the missing link, evidence that Saddam as secretly involved in 9/11. Given that our best evidence before the invasion indicated no such link, the discovery of evidence of a Saddam-9/11 link at this point would, of course, not justify the invasion. It would, however, give those who have kept the Saddam-9/11 myth alive some new rhetorical ammunition with which to baffle the unwary, the ill-informed and the dim-witted.
As you probably know, the Bushosphere is abuzz (note: Powerline: not an actual news source) over this, which they trumpet as proof of a Saddam-al Qaeda link. I want to keep an open mind on this matter, but this is about the flimsiest evidence yet. The Iraqi intelligence service produced a document claiming that an unidentified (or semi-identified) Afghan informant told them that Afghani Consul Ahmed Dahastani claim in his presence that... Whew. About the only way to make the output of this little game of telephone less reliable would be to get Peggy Noonan in the loop somehow. Could be true, but no sane person would bet the farm...or his lunch money, for that matter...on it.
So, we've already got reason to doubt most of this, and we've got virtually conclusive evidence against some of it--as NTodd points out, one of the claims is "that the U.S. has proof the Iraqi government and 'bin Laden's group' agreed to cooperate to attack targets inside America." Now, we know that isn't true, since the administration has never said it, and they undoubtedly would have if they'd have had such "proof." Since they threw everything but the kitchen sink at us in an attempt to prove that invading Iraq was necessary, even making much of it up, they clearly would have told us this if they had actually known that Iraq was planning to attack us. Rice even at one point said that the administration had no additional evidence too secret to make public; they had, she said, given us everything they had. Not that there would be any reason to keep this evidence secret...
It's virtually futile to discuss this with the Bush dead-enders, though. It's becoming more and more like trying to discuss evolution with creationists--they don't care about the facts, nor about the weight of evidence, nor about intellectual honesty. They just care about assembling a case that provides a rhetorical smokescreen to "support" a belief that is dear to their heart, and which they have no intention of ever giving up, no matter what.
I suppose it's too obvious to note that the date of this document is 9/15/01 anyway. So even if one were so epistemically rash as to accept this stray document as evidence of an operational relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda, it could still not constitute the missing link, evidence of Iraqi involvement in 9/11.
Unless Saddam was, perhaps, developing a time machine along with that nuclear bomb of his...
Or: Here We Go Again
There is, as you know, a group of people who continue to hold out fervent hope that we will some day discover the missing link, evidence that Saddam as secretly involved in 9/11. Given that our best evidence before the invasion indicated no such link, the discovery of evidence of a Saddam-9/11 link at this point would, of course, not justify the invasion. It would, however, give those who have kept the Saddam-9/11 myth alive some new rhetorical ammunition with which to baffle the unwary, the ill-informed and the dim-witted.
As you probably know, the Bushosphere is abuzz (note: Powerline: not an actual news source) over this, which they trumpet as proof of a Saddam-al Qaeda link. I want to keep an open mind on this matter, but this is about the flimsiest evidence yet. The Iraqi intelligence service produced a document claiming that an unidentified (or semi-identified) Afghan informant told them that Afghani Consul Ahmed Dahastani claim in his presence that... Whew. About the only way to make the output of this little game of telephone less reliable would be to get Peggy Noonan in the loop somehow. Could be true, but no sane person would bet the farm...or his lunch money, for that matter...on it.
So, we've already got reason to doubt most of this, and we've got virtually conclusive evidence against some of it--as NTodd points out, one of the claims is "that the U.S. has proof the Iraqi government and 'bin Laden's group' agreed to cooperate to attack targets inside America." Now, we know that isn't true, since the administration has never said it, and they undoubtedly would have if they'd have had such "proof." Since they threw everything but the kitchen sink at us in an attempt to prove that invading Iraq was necessary, even making much of it up, they clearly would have told us this if they had actually known that Iraq was planning to attack us. Rice even at one point said that the administration had no additional evidence too secret to make public; they had, she said, given us everything they had. Not that there would be any reason to keep this evidence secret...
It's virtually futile to discuss this with the Bush dead-enders, though. It's becoming more and more like trying to discuss evolution with creationists--they don't care about the facts, nor about the weight of evidence, nor about intellectual honesty. They just care about assembling a case that provides a rhetorical smokescreen to "support" a belief that is dear to their heart, and which they have no intention of ever giving up, no matter what.
I suppose it's too obvious to note that the date of this document is 9/15/01 anyway. So even if one were so epistemically rash as to accept this stray document as evidence of an operational relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda, it could still not constitute the missing link, evidence of Iraqi involvement in 9/11.
Unless Saddam was, perhaps, developing a time machine along with that nuclear bomb of his...
posted by Winston Smith at
8:30 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home