Wolfowitz has a big mouth

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
dont know if there is as deep a market for missiles as for oil. also Nkor has only 2 land borders - china and skor - neither as porous as Iraqs with Jordan, Syria, Turkey, and Iran.

Iraq managed to stay afloat, if not to rearm (conventionally at least) Nkor is on point of starvation now, even without sanctions.

There's two markets for missiles. One is to sell them to smugglers, one is to offer express delivery to Tokyo and Seoul if sanctions are put in place.

And if a bunch of North Korean peasants starve, they're that many less mouths to feed. Do you think Dear Leader Kim is really that concerned?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

The failure of sanctions against Iraq due to all that oil sure was evident by the way the Iraqis managed to rearm themselves so heavily during the period of sanctions.

And the interpretation being spun on this thread forgets that Iraq's oil exports were limited by the UN resolutions and presumably could have been limited further by subsequent resolutions - smuggling aside that is.

[Arrian]

I am highly amused by all the knee-jerk, automatic responses in this thread - on both sides.

All those who went "ah-hah, as I've known all along!" were pretty funny. 'Cause that just ain't what he said.

But Imran takes the cake. He defended this as if the Guardian's mischaracterization of this was correct, and fought the good fight, trying to downplay Wolfowitz's influence and whatnot.

This thread is great.

-Arrian

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Arrian
I am highly amused by all the knee-jerk, automatic responses in this thread - on both sides.

I'm highly amused by PW's incompetence. Not the sort of man that should be put in front of a microphone. It's a stock rule that one must be hyper careful about one's choice of words.

[Stefu]

I view this as a verbal equivalent of Wolfy unzipping, grabbing his dick and masturbating furiously.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Theres new evidence almost every day about the nature of the regime. Its a lot more newsworthy than the wolfie quote.

It's only newsworthy when we get to it being worse than we thought. The Iran-Iraq war casualties should be filtered out, because the Iranians were at fault, but even with that out, the estimates of people killed by the regime is somewhere between 600,000 and 1.2 million.

So a couple hundred doesn't impress me, sorry.

pre-war we were told that you cant go around attacking every murdering bastard. and how hypocritical we were cause of east timor, or gaza, or wherever you care to name. Therefore the EXTENT of the murderousness of this regime is relevant.

Told by gutless weenies. Personally, I don't have a problem with attacking every murdering bastard, so inventing a one-off excuse that we attacked this one because he killed 1,191,603 people (and had oil ), but we couldn't attack this other one because he only killed 1,091,603 people (and didn't have oil ) is IMO just transparent nonsense. What the US is aiming for is an excuse to invent a unique set of factors, for each regime so this invasion, and each subsequent invasion or refusal to act can be "justified" on a one-off basis. That way, you get to avoid having a consistent doctrine, without admitting the callously cynical truth that you act as you want when you perceive it to be in your interests, and don't act when you don't perceive it to be in your interests. That's the truth of it, but the US has some psychological need to paint itself as more noble than the rest of the world, so there's all this effort at self-justification (as long as it doesn't commit you to consistent behavior).

Not just killing. Mass killing. 200. Children. Not adults, children. And id bet money they werent killed while throwing stones.

Cry me a river. Neither manipulated famines and disasters, nor genocide, is anything new.

Arrian - really, so what if it's about oil? Oil runs the economies of the developed world, so really, what the big deal if it's about oil? To me the only funny thing is how much the right insists it's about anything other than oil, so Big Bad Wolfowitz even mentioning the Big O in relation to Iraq is funny, no matter what the context.

[Imran Siddiqui]

He defended this as if the Guardian's mischaracterization of this was correct, and fought the good fight, trying to downplay Wolfowitz's influence and whatnot.

But his influence in NOT that great. People on this thread thinks he runs the White House... he does nothing of the sort... not even close.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
the actual quote said "no economic options" The guardian quote said "no choice" From the Guardian quote one coud infer that we had no choice, cause we needed the oil, and iraq had it.

You could do that. Of course you could also infer something else.

Given that the W administration was determined to topple Saddam Hussein, with the economic options removed, what choice was left?

Originally posted by lord of the mark
So not only does the headline state as fact the most one of the most controversial assertions about the whole war, entirely unsupported by the actual quote, but they did get the quote wrong, in a way that obscures how unsupported their headline is.

Why? Wolfie did indeed say if Iraq didn't have oil, sanctions might have worked. So what's wrong with the headline?

Of course, sanctions have never worked, but I digress.

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


they published a pretty inflamatory headline, to not check on the original.

-But they obviously checked the original. The Guardian quote is an exact translation of the quote in German, and if you think about it, the oil is the reason that sanctions would not work as well (if that's what your claiming he said), which means oil was the reason for the war. I see nothing wrong with the headline. You will note that the word economically does not dissappear from the quote.

[Seeker]

"But Imran takes the cake. He defended this as if the Guardian's mischaracterization of this was correct, and fought the good fight, trying to downplay Wolfowitz's influence and whatnot. "

ya got that one Arrian...Imran will defend the Republican Party at all costs. What do you want to bet that if it had been Rumsfeld, or someone else, we'd be hearing how THAT person only has 'peripheral' influence?

[Ben Kenobi]

Oh well.

Guess that would be too much to ask:

A honest politician.

Did you believe it one second?

Didn't really matter. It's a tough call for the liberation of any country as a justification for war. There are a great deal of non-democratic nations in the world, do we invade them all?

Still, I'll hold them to their words. The US better fix up Iraq if they want any credibility. The clock ticks.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Didn't really matter. It's a tough call for the liberation of any country as a justification for war. There are a great deal of non-democratic nations in the world, do we invade them all?

In a semi-ideal world, yes.

In an ideal world, we wouldn't have any to invade.

In the world we're stuck in, sometimes (other people's)democracy is in our interests, sometimes it definitely isn't, although giving them the illusion of it might be.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

Told by gutless weenies. Personally, I don't have a problem with attacking every murdering bastard,

Are you sure that you don't mean any murdering bastard? It seems as though attacking every murdering bastard is beyond the capabilities of even the U.S., in effect a suicidal policy. Attacking every murdering bastard seems to only come up as a policy option only when there is a republican president, and the democrats suggest that it's either that or attack no one except the Nazis in WW2.

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
...so inventing a one-off excuse that we attacked this one because he killed 1,191,603 people (and had oil ), but we couldn't attack this other one because he only killed 1,091,603 people (and didn't have oil ) is IMO just transparent nonsense. What the US is aiming for is an excuse to invent a unique set of factors, for each regime so this invasion, and each subsequent invasion or refusal to act can be "justified" on a one-off basis. That way, you get to avoid having a consistent doctrine, without admitting the callously cynical truth that you act as you want when you perceive it to be in your interests, and don't act when you don't perceive it to be in your interests. That's the truth of it, but the US has some psychological need to paint itself as more noble than the rest of the world, so there's all this effort at self-justification (as long as it doesn't commit you to consistent behavior).

I don't have any problem whatsoever in having a foreign policy that is anchored to the idea of self-interest (preferably enlightened), and being honest about it. But look at the sh!tstorm a little lefty propoganda caused in this thread. Perhaps a majority of Americans desperately need to be able to pretend that we are doing God's work, but the look at the foreign response. They are even more adamant that we do nothing, ever. Of course it's hard to blame them, it isn't often that they get a chance to see just how full of sh!t their news sources are. BBC are little better, and god knows what goes on in all the non-English language rags.

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Arrian - really, so what if it's about oil? Oil runs the economies of the developed world, so really, what the big deal if it's about oil? To me the only funny thing is how much the right insists it's about anything other than oil, so Big Bad Wolfowitz even mentioning the Big O in relation to Iraq is funny, no matter what the context.

It's about not letting anyone grab control of the majority of the world's oil, aka The Carter Doctrine. Where I object to the characterization that "it's about oil" is the majority of the time that I hear that we are there to steal the oil or some other similar non-sense. It's a lot cheaper to buy it, and even if we were going to steal it there are cheaper countries to steal it from.

[Az]

Oh, come on, people, did you really believe he'd say something like this clearcut? It was clear that this was a "out of context" joke!

[HershOstropoler]

Sikander:

"They are even more adamant that we do nothing, ever."

That's not the problem. The problem is we don't trust your government's motives and abilities. And that view is confirmed on a regular basis.

"it isn't often that they get a chance to see just how full of sh!t their news sources are."

As I said, the guardian has been spinning this headline heavily. The average newspaper, not to mention TV news, is miles better than the US media.

"It's about not letting anyone grab control of the majority of the world's oil, aka The Carter Doctrine"

And whenever I said that, the righwing clowns were going apoplexic.