“I can say with certainty that the Quds Force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided these sophisticated IEDs that have harmed our troops,” Bush said.
“I do not know whether or not the Quds Force was ordered from the top echelons of government,” he said.
In a follow up question, Bush was shown a picture of an orifice which, despite taking fifteen minutes to think about it, Bush was ultimately unable to identify as either his ass or a hole in the ground. He was later heard to request an aid bring him, “Two hands and a map.”
****
update: Michael Ledeen writing for The Corner:
[T]he president’s responseâ€â€no, I don’t know if the Qods Force leaders actually got orders from Ahmadi-Nezhad, I’m just trying to protect our guys in Iraqâ€â€should have been a lot better. He might have said, well, we arrested the operations chief of Qods in Irbil. He reports directly to Supreme Leader Khamenei. Would you just shrug your shoulders and say there’s no evidence of regime involvement? Would you think I was fulfilling my obligations if I shrugged my shoulders? Can we get real here gentlemen and gentle ladies?
The Iranian IED’s are shaping up to look like
our good ol’ WMD’s.
There is a lot of chatter from G men which, at best, is misinformation, at worst, more DISinformation.
But Bush continues his dumbed-down status “I don’t know nuthin’ about birthin’ no babies”.
This post is in draft mode because I want to allow the post below to generate discussion. I’ll bring it live later.
Whatever. The Quds Force could easily be acting without knowledge of higher-ups. It’s no different than when certain cliques in the CIA decide, contrary to the sentiment of top echelons of government, that the existence of certain classified programs should be divulged. In Iran, rogue elements are even more conceivable because it’s a more corrupt society, with high inflation and low per capita GDP.
Bush knows that if he wants to allege that Ahmedinijad is responsible, he needs to have proof of that allegation. Inasmuch as right now the policy to thwart Iranian influence on Iraq is based on interdiction, Bush’s stance supports that policy. If he signals that Ahmedinijad is responsible, then he is laying the foundation for an argument that we need to strike Iran proper, and that would be a very stupid thing to do while he is engaged in an domestic argument with respect to increasing troop levels in Iraq. It would be very unwise to further any notion that the extra troops may be intended for any purpose other than what has been stated.
Okay then. As I seem to have lost control of my site, it’s all yours, folks.
Have at it. I’m going to have a big plate of herring and some Talisker.
Surreal is quoting anything Michael “have some missiles, Ayatollah” Ledeen has to say about Iran and weapons.
Probably because your eyes are still closed.
alphie: do you care to dispute a single word said by Ledeen in that quote?
I imagine that it is in the interest of about 170 other countries for the US to be bogged in Iraq, because:
1. The longer we are in Iraq, the less likely we can extend the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption elsewhere,
2. the longer we are in Iraq, the less attractive the Bush Doctrine appears on its own merits,
3. the longer we are in Iraq, the weaker we look, which can only benefit certain other powers.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find Iranian, Syrian, Saudi, Pakistani, Russian, and Chinese fingerprints (to name six) all over the attacks on our troops.
Jeff, I do get the sense you like to eat and drink. Watch your weight.
Anyone else get the sense that the Bush Administration is outta gas? I get a real sense that they are coasting to 2008 and I never thought that would be the case with these guys, at least on foreign policy issues.
Not just proof but ironclad proof. Live video feeds on all the national networks type proof. Othwerwise it’s jusy gonna be a bunch of defeatocrats proclaiming that the warmongers are swiftboating poor old Ahmadinnerjacket.
Maybe the Quds force is run by the Iranian Ollie North? Will he sell us missles you think?
To me, the great merit in toppling Saddam was to station our forces in Iraq, and so have a base on Iran’s western flank.
For our “rogue forces” to perform great mindf*ck on the mullahs, of course. That we seem not to be doing this is my great disappointment in the Mission Accomplished.
Cordially…
Beck,
The money that Ledeen and his chums raised by selling Iran (and Hezbollah) our latest anti-tank missiles went to fund death squads who were trying to overthrow a democratically elected government.
Death squads, that, by the by, fled to L.A. when they were defeated and formed the gang known as MS-13, arguably America’s most violent gang.
Exactly how wrong does a right-wing pundit have to be before they are no longer considered credible?
That’s the main point here, isn’t it?
After Iraq, nobody takes the administration or the military seriously when they make intelligence claims.
There are no Colin Powells left to make the pitch.
Death squads, that, by the by, fled to L.A. when they were defeated and formed the gang known as MS-13, arguably America’s most violent gang.
What are you talking about here? The Nicaraguan Contras? The Sandinistas weren’t democratically elected, and the Contras (death squads…LOL!) weren’t defeated.
But they were generalled by G.G. Meade, so we know they won with no blood spilled.
Cordially…
As soon as I saw Ledeen’s name go up, I knew the attack on the messenger was coming.
There is no need, in this instance, to discuss “credibility.” The man makes an argument that stands apart from any question of his credibility. Either refute it or don’t.
The rest is rhetorical sleight of hand meant to pull us away from the point he was making.
Deal with that, please.
Does it, in the end, really matter to the port side whether or not there is evidence of the Quds gang being directed by Ahmadinejahd? Produce a video of MA personally chartering them and handing over the explosives to build the IEDs that are killing our troops will only send them to the already-prepared fall-back trench of, “But don’t you see that this is just a rational response by the elected leader of his nation to oppose the illegal and immoral chimperialism he sees on his western border.”
Sorry, but nothing is going to convince the Left, who get dewy in the shorts for any throat-slitting thug with a “Death to America” slogan on his lips.
Does anyone doubt that Bush is going into Iran? We picked apart every bogus argument he made for going into Iraq and it didn’t even slow him down. He won’t get as much support for it this time, because of the-boy-who-cried-wolf effect, but he isn’t running for reelection, his popularity is in the tank and he has nothing to lose.
Not everybody who opposes the Iraq war hates Bush.
His credibility goes up when he appears to be applying rational standards to the evidence.
If he can sell Congress that we need to fight Iran, he gets a green light.
And by “picked apart” you mean, of course, nearly unanimously supported, only to reverse course later on, for political purposes.
steve – are you alphie? A close relative?
Kyle,
While it’s true that our picking apart of the “proof” offered by the Bush Administration wasn’t shown on your television, it existed nonetheless, and might I add, we were correct.
No relation to alphie.
For Christ’s sake
How long do we hide our head in the sand? To shy away from any conviction by not disclosing facts is the perogative of the President. Unless you want to announce to the world all of our military intentions. And screw the fng left, when is it clear to strike? When Ahmedinijad is filmed personally delivering Iran made IEDs to the terrorists? Not to mention the Styer 50 cal sniper rifles with serial numbers found in Iraq either.
“We”? “WE”?
Who’s this “we”, stevo? The same “we” like Hillary!, Kerry, et al, who voted for the war? The same “we” like Bill Clinton and virtually every clown on his staff who were claiming Saddam was a threat and needed to be removed? How about the “we” in the UN who authorized the seventeenth resolution for him to disarm?
Gawd, it’s tiring to get all this tedious, tendentious ex post facto bullshit from sanctimonious twats like you.
Quit trying to rewrite history and, better yet, ordain the future. The left has been on the wrong side of history for two hundred years.
Well, gee whiz, if they just up’n decided to take an Iraq vacation on their own, what are ya gonna do?
On the other hand, if they’re in-country fomenting insurrection on their own hook, standing ‘em all up against a wall won’t be a problem for Iran, right?
Kelly,
I am not a Democrat. I am registered Green. I generally vote for the Democrat due to the Nader effect (although I wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton based on her war vote). There were, however, plenty of Democrats who voted against the war as I’m sure you know. From my end, I was protesting the Iraq War long before it began. I was handing out literature and giving away CD-Roms to anyone who would take them from talks refuting the WMD and other arguments for the war. Nobody wanted to hear what we had to say. That doesn’t mean we weren’t out there saying it.
A guess against all reasonable evidence is not indication of being “correct.” I can predict today it will snow in July, but should that unlikely event come to pass, I will not have been “correct” but lucky. Similarly, there was no reason to believe that Saddam had disarmed in the years after he had ejected the UNSCOM inspectors.
I can just hear the howls had Bush appeared on TV the evening of Sept. 4, 2001 to announce the arrest of 19 would-be hijackers who planned to murder thousands of Americans with planes in the near future and, because they were sent by Osama bin Laden, an attack was under way on Afghanistan. Christ, you wet sucks would have gone apeshit “showing” how all of this was just a Rove put up.
Jeffersonian,
Call it a guess if you like, but if someone says “which hand has the coin in it” and I say the right hand and it turns out it was the right hand, then I was correct. So for starters, we were correct. Now as to whether we were guessing. Was Bush guessing? Because he seemed so damn sure of himself one might have thought he was not guessing at all. But if you aren’t guessing, how can you be wrong?
I don’t think we were guessing. We were just looking at the actual evidence and weighing that evidence. Anyone who did so dispassionately would likely come to the same conclusion as us. The problem was that after 9/11 and with Bush beating the war drums, as well as implying that he had access to top secret information that we weren’t able to see, no one was looking at the evidence dispassionately.
Yeah. That’s why the anti-war nuts were screaming about all the dead GIs Saddam’s gas would cause.
You’re one of those who used to refer to Iraqis as “Saddam’s people”, right? You probably still say “Castro’s people” and “Chavez’s people”.
Slainte Maith!
(Huh…. Must be from that Scottish Highland hebrew tribe.)
Steve, are you aware of the “Iraq Liberation Act”? Which president signed it?
Which president repeatedly bombed Iraq before 9/11?
Were you out handing ANSWER pamphlets then? Or didn’t Clinton trip your fatherhood issues?
You keep mentioning this “evidence” you had, before the war’s beginning. What well-sourced, accurate and reliable evidence did you have, sxx, that wasn’t available anywhere in the western hemisphere?
Excluding as we must the UN, the Clinton administration, former Baathist party members who served under Saddam, the Israelis, the French, the British, the Russians….
Yeah, I just don’t understand how Bush chose to listen to those losers instead of you.
Steve,
You debunked nothing. Saddam was a threat to the US. We had been engaged with him militarily for ten years, and he disobeyed every single UNSC resolution condemning his actions.
He was funding, training, and protecting various Islamic terrorist groups in Iraq and throughout the world.
He was attempting to exterminate various ethnic groups in Iraq. He had violated every single human rights law available.
Your attempts to state that you “debunked” what Bush stated for our reason to go to war fall on deaf ears. That’s why the resolution to remove him was passed with a majority.
You are irrelevant politically and ignorant of the history of Saddam Hussein.
It should come as no surprise to you that no one either here on “on the streets where you handed our CD-Roms” will ever take you even remotely serious.
Really, I hung around with quite a few “anti-war nuts” and I don’t recall them saying that. In fact, most were saying that was comic book propaganda from the Bush Administration.
These sound like anti-war strawmen to me. None of us were saying anything positive about Saddam Hussein. I don’t call anyone Chavez’s or Castro’s people anymore than I call myself one of Bush’s people. Or Russians Putin’s people or Brits Blair’s people.
kyle asked steve-expat:
Actually, I think he meant repeated over and over until people got tired of refuting him.
It’s interesting how the “picked apart” claims fall apart when you do a little research. Fortunately, the repeat ad nauseum approach seems to have worked better.
Steve, unless you or your pals were in Iraq scouring the nation for WMD (and you weren’t, Saddam made sure of that), then your assertions about what was and wasn’t there was a complete guess and ran precisely contrary to the intelligence that not only our intel agencies, but those of every other nation who have such departments worthy of being called intel agencies, were saying at the time.
Was Bush guessing? Sure he was because, after all, Saddam wasn’t exactly throwing the doors of the thugdom open. But his guesses were taken from rational projections of what Saddam was known to have (via Iraqi declarations of same) and intel that projected what had been done since the UN’s inspectors were ejected in 1998.
The only reason we can say, in 2007, that Iraq is disarmed is that we invaded and confirmed that fact.
yes, it was quite fascinating how our attempts to debunk Bush fell on deaf ears. It was. in fact, surreal to stand around a large crowd of people, trying to make factual arguments as they screamed at you, calling you a traitor and to get the f**k out of the country, etc.
I’ll try again:
You keep mentioning this “evidence†you had, before the war’s beginning. What well-sourced, accurate and reliable evidence did you have, sxx, that wasn’t available anywhere in the western hemisphere?
steve ex-pat:
Actually, most of my research was done via the web. Odd how claims of what Bush and other members of his Administration said/did/claimed tended to fall apart once I found the original document, a transcript of an interview or testimony, etc.
Speaking of strawmen…
yes, it was quite fascinating how our attempts to debunk Bush fell on deaf ears. It was. in fact, surreal to stand around a large crowd of people, trying to make factual arguments as they screamed at you, calling you a traitor and to get the f**k out of the country, etc.
I think “facts” doesn’t mean what you think it means.
Perhaps you would care to share some of these illustrious “facts” with us so we can continue to make you look like a complete idiot? I for one, have yet to grow tired of watching the anti-war left wilt in the face of the evidence that continues to show that removing Saddam from power was the only responsible option in 2003.
Actually, it makes a lot of sense insofar as you and your pals were privy to no relevant data upon which to base these conclusions.
Tman:
Any out-of-context quote, carefully-lifted sentence from a document, carefully-worded headline, carefully-cropted image or video they can find, right?
Oh, and don’t post a link to the original sources so any folks who doesn’t believe your revealed Truth to Power will have to go in and dig it up to find out exactly how careful you were being.
Jeepers, haven’t I stirred things up? So that’s what happens when I write a (vaguely) serious blog post. Maybe I should try that out on a blog of my own or something.
Nah. It’d never work.
Wow,
No one wants to talk about the inevitability of Bush attacking Iran and you’re more interested in my evidence.
Weapons inspectors like Hans Blix and Scott Ritter, for starters. If any of you recall any of the bogus claims of Powell at the UN, like the “drones” that turned out to be hobby-shop balsa wood crap, the “Al-Qaeda poison camp” that was visited by journalists and had nothing (and was in the no-fly zone anyway). That was all debunked within about a week of his speech, but what did that matter? Some of what we discussed was not evidence but actually a lack of evidence presented by the other side. Such as Bush’s claims of some link between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The fake “Prague meeting” propaganda spewed out by CIA flak Woolsey on 9/12/01 and pushed by Cheney is one example. The Niger/Uranium claims. The lack of credibility of the Chalabi people.Believe me, we tried every approach and avenue, but the context of conversations with people would amount to:
Patriot: Mustard Gas
Me: No proof
Patriot: Traitor
Patriot: Mushroom Clouds
Me: No proof
Patriot: Traitor
Patriot: 9/11
Me: No link
Patriot: Traitor
Patrick,
Some of those strawmen were pretty darn big.
Fine. It’s your opinion that Bush will, inevitably, attack Iran. Thank you for your opinion. Why should anyone want to talk about your opinion?
Other than you, that is?
Well, the whole “Bush ST00P1D D00D” meme, among other things, is getting a bit old.
McGehee,
You disagree? That would be comforting.
A – Scott Ritter hadn’t been in Iraq as a weapons inspector since 1998 (or earlier). Citing an equally-clueless source does you no good, Steve, particularly when that source is also a recipient of Saddam’s cash.
B – Hans Blix also testified that he was barred, in violation of UNSCR 1441, from areas that UNMOVIC desired to inspect.
C – What links did Bush make between AQ and Saddam? (other than the obvious one that 9/11 was all about Saddam)
D – Joe Wilson’s own report to the CIA substantiates Iraq’s overtures to Niger to acquire uranium. Don’t you read Christopher Hitchens?
Pretty thin gruel, Steve. What do you think Saddam did with the WMD that he himself had declared to have, but which UNSCOM was unable to extract from him? Syria?
Jeebus…
Do I really feel up to tackling this crap? Anyone?
Here’s a link to something similar to what we had as a handout for people (that they wouldn’t take) after the Powell speech. That speech, as bogus as it was, really killed us.
http://www.traprockpeace.org/firstresponse.html
I do have to agree with Ledeen that Bush isn’t presenting the most convincing case, if the goal is to implicate the Iranian government itself. Then again, I have noticed that the Bushies are all over the board when discussing Iran. Rove needs to get busy herding the cats.
To be honest, I thought Bush did a crappy job of convincing in the lead-up to the Iraq war. I was convinced, not by a Bush admininstration flack, but by Ken Pollack, Bill Clinton’s top Iraq policy advisor.
Stevie, you mean this Scott Ritter?
From Sept 3, 1998:
And there was this a few months later:
No???
Oh, you mean after Saddam paid him $400,000, and he started hitting on little girls at Burger King.
Christ-on-a-cracker are you stupid.
Scott Ritter made the point that they had already destroyed their WMD’s years before 1998, Bush claimed that they were still hiding them and hadn’t destroyed them.
Can you name a specific site in Iraq that Saddam Hussein said was off limits for inspection. At one point he said that the U.S. could send in the CIA to inspect wherever they want. At what point do you stop allowing a country that is almost definitely going to attack you come in and inspect you?
Reread the Iraq resolution.
No, I don’t read Chritopher Hitchens. Joe Wilson’s report pointed out that the documents were forgeries and Bush knew that before his SOTU Address. (by the way, speaking of Michael Ledeen, there are rumors he had a hand in that).
See, you just need a better venue than stuffing pamphlets into strangers’ hands. Because in my circles, the debates went more along the lines of:
Patriot: Mustard Gas
Me: No proof
Patriot: Burden of proof on Saddam. Kicking out inspectors = hiding something.
Patriot: Mushroom Clouds
Me: No proof
Patriot: Don’t really want “proof” in my city. How ‘bout yours?
Patriot: 9/11
Me: No link
Patriot: Doesn’t matter. Dangerous, unstable regime may have been marginally acceptable on 9/10; new geopolitcal environment on 9/12.
Bear in mind that this is the Cliff’s Notes version. The actual conversations went well into the third or fourth pitcher, most nights. And somehow we managed not to treat each other like drooling morons or evil bloodthirsty killbots just because we disagreed on policy, which might explain why we’re all still on speaking terms, even after voting on opposite sides of the 2004 ballot.
You, son, are beyond worth reasoning with. Thus endeth my efforts…now. Fucking tool.
Squid,
You’re darn tootin’ we needed a better venue, but we didn’t have one. They certainly weren’t putting us on television. By your example above though, one could make the same argument for attacking just about any country, since to avoid attack, I have to prove a negative, which is virtually impossible.
A little speculation- if the US does take some form of military action against Iran down the road, it will make quick news that Iran/some IC analyst didn’t think the connection between Quds in Iraq and the Iranian leadership wasn’t 100% confirmed (because, really, unless you got a video of Ahmedinijad, drivers licence in hand, peeing on the leader of the Quds force, and his grandma is in the background, then you can’t be 100% sure), and Bush’s attempt to carefully word their connection will be promptly forgotten.
At this point President Bush might as well just become the character everyone seems to think he is. I’m sure he’d have more fun.
ps- let’s see how long for Stevexx to degenerate this thread into the “no discernable evidence of success” now14
Man, that statement looks doubly stupid given Ritter’s quotes directly above it…
And they complain about me not backing my arguments?
TomB,
It fascinates me that people confidently call me stupid, or Scott Ritter stupid or anyone else stupid that made the case that the “Weapons of Mass destruction” argument was bogus, when in fact, we actually have the answer to the question: There were no weapons of mass destruction. Even Bush admits it, now. I’ll give Scott Ritter far more credence than anyone in the Bush Administration, which isn’t saying much for either.
Cheer up, steve,
When a pro war person call you an idiot, it means you’ve won. They’re outta ammo.
Even if we can prove Iran is selling weapons to Iraqis, I guess the question is: So what?
The same people pushing for war with Iran are the ones who granted gun manufacturers immunity from lawsuits even when their weapons kill Americans.
What happened to Guns don’t kill people, people kill people?
And they complain about me not backing my arguments?
Steve – you haven’t, neither above, nor at any time during your tenure in the comments on this blog, actually made an argument.
Now assertions, you’ve seen to it that our cup runneth over in that regard….
Of course Stevemadinejad’s response to Powell’s speech was by a ‘Glen Rangwala’, another loopy America hating leftist with a Jew problem. From his Wiki bio:
Like Steve, he’s not a peacenik, he’s actively on the side of the terroists.
Steve obviously didn’t support the sanctions on Iraq, he obviously didn’t support defending Kuwait, he obviously didn’t support containing Saddam….
The only thing Stevemadinejad supports is Muslims killing Americans and especially Jews; to get back at his “Country Club Republican Dad”!
He doesn’t like this country because of a personal beef with his parents and he’s ‘OK’ with us dying.
How long are you going to give these guys a pass on this? They were salivating about invading Iraq for years. They used whatever excuse they could conjure up because they felt the ends justified the means. You are still defending their fake rationales after they have been proven false and often unfounded in the first place. And it should be quite clear that the ends didn’t even justify the means at this point.
Man, I was all excited to pimpslap another lefty buffoon about the facts behind the Iraqi war resolution, and you Steve gives me this?
Scott Ritter?
Joe Wilson?
Hans Brix?
You’re a joke Steve. Run along.
HELLO! The quotes I gave you from Ritter says exactly the opposite!
Which Scott Ritter?
‘Cuz Scott Ritter is a convicted pederast and Saddam had hidden video of him fucking little girls Saddam provided. Most of the inspection team was bought by the Ba’ath party.
Well, any country that supported terrorists, ignored ten years of UN resolutions, and repeatedly engaged in acts of war against the US, anyway.
‘Cuz they knew they couldn’t maintain the sanctions and the No-Fly-Zone forever because of anti-American fuckerheads like you
Steve, you’re on the side of the Mohammedan fanatics, killers and opportunists because of a personal problem.
Dear Gray,
I love my country club Republican dad. He is fine man, if not a little politically naive (Last time I talked to him I asked him if he had ever heard the term neocon and he had not). The only way I might be getting back at him is my refusal to play the game of golf, which I hate.
I also didn’t find your post about the man in question to be evidence of “Jew hating”. In any case, if I am to go by Jeff’s proclamation regarding Michael Ledeen on this post, isn’t his argument more important than what you think of him?
BTW, stevie, who are you referring to here?
Steve, baby – if you read the Ritter quote posted right above yours, you’d see that this line of argument is irrelevant.
Fact is, I don’t think anyone expected to find piles ready-to-mail WMD sitting in one of Saddam’s palaces (those would be the ‘off-limits’ sites you requested before, by the way) the problem was exactly as Ritter claimed in 1998: that any Iraqi WMD programs could be restarted as soon as the sanctions ceased.
I can’t believe I wasted time looking for proof. Bush is an alcoholic coke-head who is on film blowing Tony Blair while getting it from behind by Vladimir Putin. There’s a film of it. Really.
Okay,
I got nothing left.
Oh, sorry–I meant ‘Pro-Palestinian and anti-zionist’.
I’m not Jeff. I don’t play by those rules.
You previously used the term ‘unfortunately’ to describe being the son of “Country Club Republicans”, so don’t gimme that “I love my politically naive neo-con rethuglican parents.” nonsens!
Stevie, I stand in true awe at your ability to totally ignore Scott Ritter’s own words dangling over this thread like they don’t mean a thing.
It must be nice to go through life totally unburdened by reality… (not mine)
That’s OK, considering you started with nothing.
I absolutely disagree that it’s “inevitable.” Your certainty otherwise is what I find comforting.
The only thing the U.S.-led forces had to prove to invade Iraq was that Saddam Hussein’s repression had not ended.
Saddam’s fascist repression was a violation of U.N. Resolution 688, the first resolution Bush cited before the U.N. on Sept. 12, 2002, in making his case for action against Saddam.
Resolution 688 was part of the 1991 cease-fire agreements. Any violation was the equivalent of declaring the war was on again.
Saddam’s repression had not ended. So in effect, he invited us to remove him, and we obliged. Now it’s time to replace his totalitarian police state with democracy.
More Scott Ritter.
Remember everyone, stevie says we can believe him:
On PBS August 31, 1998
WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Iraq still has prescribed weapons capability. There needs to be a careful distinction here. Iraq today is challenging the special commission to come up with a weapon and say where is the weapon in Iraq, and yet part of their efforts to conceal their capabilities, I believe, have been to disassemble weapons into various components and to hide these components throughout Iraq.
Except that you made that shit up–and Ritter was a pederast, and Saddam had the goods on him.
How many times have I told you that you can’t make shit up?!
From CNN:
That’s the problem Steve, you had nothing to begin with.
Seriously, go check out Hussein And Terror. You might learn something.
Or ignore it, and continue to live in your fairy gum drop land where the REAL terrorists live in the white house and we should just leave the world alone and build a department of peace so that we can give up oil and run our cars on turkey guts and then get universal healthcare for everyone and outlaw church since that is where the REAL problem lies and then outlaw anyone talking bad about Muslims but not christians because we all know the Islam is a religion of peace and then we can have fashion shows for the new muslim burqqas so that people will become more ethnic and really what’s so bad about wearing a scarf anyways and then when we could dismantle the military because we are the REAL danger to the world and then our nukes and then bush becausebecausebecause CHIMPYMCHALIBURTONISSATANOBLOODFOROOIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gray, spending your time dissecting the opponent’s personal lives with bitter vitriol isn’t a particularly constructive means of showing them that their reasoning backed by cherrypicked, massaged facts and wishful thinking is not particularly valid.
Just sayin’…
And my pony.
I want my damn pony.
More from the inscrutable Scott Ritter:
From his letter of resignation, Aug 1998.
Showing them that their reasoning backed by cherrypicked, massaged facts and wishful thinking is not particularly valid isn’t particularly constructive if their position is based on personal problems and not ‘reasoning’ at all.
Bush Derangement Syndrome is caused by 1 of 3 things:
1) Daddy problems
2) Jesus problems
3) Problems with Jews.
Steve has the trifecta.
SteveX
the press didn’t run with the Greens view because they are perceived as nuts…. even Jon Stewart makes fun of them. The other day a guy on his show ran a quote by some german green party nutcase who was demanding that global warming criminals do more time than someone who sells six year olds to brothels.
Hard to take you all seriously with finely tuned folks like that running around.
That was a nice point by point refutation you ran. Greens are good at those. Here is another…
http://counterpunch.org/miller08072004.html
Oh wait, that is one where the conspiracy takes place not in Iraq… but in the Green Party national presidential nomination. My bad.
Seriously steveX… and I say that with a straight face… the Greens have so many deranged folks standing under their umbrella that taking them seriously is impossible.
You are from the Big Sur general area right? Look around… some of the folks can’t even wax a surfboard without wondering if they are wrecking the planet. They wonder if black sage that ignites in a lightning fire is actually gaia doing a cleansing….
In other words, there are nuts…. and then there are the green ones (those are not pistachios either)
Good luck ever being taken seriously by anyone other than your own.
Here’s a good one stevie:
Scott Ritter to the BBC, 1998
I beg to differ. I used to be a BDS leftard with the worst of them back in the day, and I had none of the above.
Granted, twas hard to be a leftist and not be anti-Israeli, but I was young enough to dodge that bullet.
That Bush and his administration were wrong, completely wrong, about Iraq is beyond dispute.
Whether they knew they were wrong or not before we went in is for historians to decide.
Tim Blair has been covering the insanity of the Greens in Oz, this is the latest:
Heh. He did what no one thought possible, aligned John Howard and Labour on the same side of an issue
Dear All,
Is there a point raised in this back-and-forth that would merit a full-length post, or am I better off getting some chow?
BRD
Go eat.
Heh.
Well, hell. Shut off the tubes everyone, looks like we’re done here!
Alphie: are you sure you’re not a parody?
The people who still think Saddam had WMD and ties to Al Qeada now belong to one of the select clubs like Loch Ness monster and UFO believers who live at the fringes of public discourse.
NTTAWWT, they’re always worth a look and a giggle.
I know stevie ran away (again), but this one is too good not to post.
This is from a FoxNews interview in 2002, after he, um,
:
It is not an insignificant point that people like the Greens were, prior to 9-11, pushing hard to end sanctions against Iraq.
Anybody remember that?
Anybody?
Stevie?
That little fact has been washed down the memory hole. All we hear now from the “war was a mistake” side is that we should have let “sanctions work”. But prior to the attacks, those sanctions were already beginning to crumble. And even the sainted William Scott Ritter, Jr. admits that Iraq could have had chemical weapons in 6 months after sanctions ended.
What say you, alfie?
Alphie,
Deroy Murdock and Stephen Hayes live at the fringes of public discourse?
What credentials do you possess that would lead me to believe that I should believe your word when it comes to others?
Yeah, like Gen. Georges Sada.
What the hell does he know? Ask the Greens in Berzerkley. They’ll lead you to the trooth.
How do you manage to ignore so much in a thread?
Do they make “fact filters” that clip over your monitor screen?