Wolfowitz has a big mouth

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


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

So it dont impress you. Fine. I'll post it anyway. Some folks need tangible, gut wrenching evidence, not just numbers.

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.

That the problem with rhetoric like "hes a murdering bastard" there are lots of murdering bastards. There are very few genocidal totalitarians. Can you name the ruler who is like Saddam, but only a tad less so? Other than Kim, of course.

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

Youve just seen it all havent, you. Youre one tough hombre. Too bad you werent around when my great grandfather was murdered outside his village in Poland. Yeah I KNOW genocide is nothing new. All the MORE reason to stay focused on it, if you ask me.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Oh well.

Guess that would be too much to ask:

A honest politician.



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.

Wolfie knows that better than anyone else in the admin - including apparently Rummy. Wolfie had damned well BETTER have influence, or we're in deep trouble.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger




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

wolfie was asked why iraq was different from Nkor. Cause Nkor is vulnerable to sanctions, cause it dont have oil - ergo Guardian "its all about oil"

suppose they had asked how iraq was different from Iran - and he had responded that Iran may change from within, since its not a totalitarian society like Iraq was - would the Guradian have headlined "its all about totalitarianism'????? And how could it be both "all about oil" and "all about totalitarianism"????

If you want to keep spinning for the Guardian, I'll be happy to keep spinning for Wolfie. I guarantee you I'll have the easier task.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler
Sikander:

"
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.

Well wrt to the UK, I see only 4 general broadsheet dailies. The Guardian, the Independent, the Daily Telegraph, and the Times. The Independent is as bad as the Guradian. If you mean to say that the Times and the Daily Telegraph are good papers I'd agree, but miles ahead of my fav, the Washington Post, no, definitely not.

[HershOstropoler]

The Telegraph is very mixed, incredibly crappy on anything that has to do with europe, in particular. Don't know the Times enough to judge.

The Washington Post is an outstander, still. Vs the Guardian... WP better on the facts, weak on criticism.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
wolfie was asked why iraq was different from Nkor. Cause Nkor is vulnerable to sanctions, cause it dont have oil - ergo Guardian "its all about oil"

Which part of it is an exaggeration? If Iraq didn't have oil, would the US have invaded?

Originally posted by lord of the mark
suppose they had asked how iraq was different from Iran - and he had responded that Iran may change from within, since its not a totalitarian society like Iraq was - would the Guradian have headlined "its all about totalitarianism'????? And how could it be both "all about oil" and "all about totalitarianism"????

Is that a Strawman that I am looking at?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Which part of it is an exaggeration? If Iraq didn't have oil, would the US have invaded?



Is that a Strawman that I am looking at?

its logic, dude.

[lord of the mark]

btw, has onayone noticed the article is no longer available on the Guardian website????

Evidently even they now realize that the headline makes no sense.

[lord of the mark]

andy sullivan puts in better than i do


"One reason I find some of the grand-standing over WMDs increasingly preposterous is that it comes from people who really want to avoid the obvious: more and more it's clear that the liberation of Iraq was a moral obligation under any circumstances. People say to this argument that if we depose one dictator for these kinds of abuses, where will we stop? But the truth is: very few dictators have resorted to imprisonment or mass killing of children. Saddam's evil was on a world-historical scale. Ending it was one of the most prgressive things the United States and Britain and their allies have ever done."

[HershOstropoler]

If it's an argument by numbers, get into Kongo and North Korea now.

I don't have a problem with the cop taking out one bad guy, even if 99 still run around. Better 99 than 100.

The problem I have is that I don't trust the cop when he's in bed with about 50 of them, lies that the beams are screaming, and will leave us with more problems than before.

[GePap]

And if liberation was the point of this war, why didn't the admin. make that its sole objective from day one. Why didn't the admin., make that it cause, sell it to the Congress that way, and go to the UN and instead of making a PP presentation on WMD's make one on Iraqi HR violations?

And if Liberation was the cause, why aren't we moving against other regimes as we speak? Or attempting to create a system in the world that would do so? Before the war there was only one person in Poly that i can remember that supported the war only for Humanitarian reaons, and that was Laz. A few gave two reasons, most backed it for WMD and terrorism reasons only.

: very few dictators have resorted to imprisonment or mass killing of children. Saddam's evil was on a world-historical scale.

Then "world-historical" scale is sadly common nowadays.

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
btw, has onayone noticed the article is no longer available on the Guardian website????

Evidently even they now realize that the headline makes no sense.

They do.

Correction
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paul Wolfowitz
A report which was posted on our website on June 4 under the heading "Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil" misconstrued remarks made by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, making it appear that he had said that oil was the main reason for going to war in Iraq. He did not say that. He said, "The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil." The sense was that the US had no economic options by means of which to achieve its objectives, not that the economic value of the oil motivated the war. The report appeared only on the website and has now been removed.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

and Guardian corrects itself

now this is nice that someone is ready to say that they were wrong, and that the report was misleading:

on their main page today:

CorrectionPaul Wolfowitz
A report which was posted on our website on June 4 under the heading "Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil" misconstrued remarks made by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, making it appear that he had said that oil was the main reason for going to war in Iraq. He did not say that. He said, according to the department of defence website, "The ... difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq." The sense was clearly that the US had no economic options by means of which to achieve its objectives, not that the economic value of the oil motivated the war. The report appeared only on the website and has now been removed.

-----

as for the hope about honest policians that was too optimistic ... ok at least the world is not going to end tomorrow

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
And if liberation was the point of this war, why didn't the admin. make that its sole objective from day one. Why didn't the admin., make that it cause, sell it to the Congress that way, and go to the UN and instead of making a PP presentation on WMD's make one on Iraqi HR violations?

And if Liberation was the cause, why aren't we moving against other regimes as we speak? Or attempting to create a system in the world that would do so? Before the war there was only one person in Poly that i can remember that supported the war only for Humanitarian reaons, and that was Laz. A few gave two reasons, most backed it for WMD and terrorism reasons only.

: very few dictators have resorted to imprisonment or mass killing of children. Saddam's evil was on a world-historical scale.

Then "world-historical" scale is sadly common nowadays.

there were several reasons to go to war, liberation was one.

I think the admin made a serious mistake in not emphasizing the liberation aspect more. I think there are many elements in the admin that are not comfortable with the neo-Wilsonian aspects of the Wolfie worldview, for a number of reasons. I never said this admin was perfect on foreign pol - it aint.

Why not go elsewhere - well for one with 120,000 troops in iraq, and 9,000 in afghan, and the need to keep a large number in the Pacific in case the Korean situation heats up, we're dangerously close to strategic overstretch.

Nkor is clearly the worst regime left in the world now. unfortunately taking it out would probably mean the destruction of Seoul, S.Korea.

We should push for democratization elsewhere - we are doing that haphazardly, partly due to real constraints, partly due to the ideological confusion of the current admin. We are now in bed with some unsavory central asian states we werent before 9/11. Until we've got things more under control in Afghan i think we're stuck. We have similar dilemmas wrt to Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi.

In any case if we're going to have credibility spreading demo further, we have to first show we can do the job in Iraq. and that job is not done, by any means.

[Arrian]

I'm amused. Since it turns out that Wolfowitz didn't actually say what some people thought he said, clearly he is lying. Obviously, it doesn't matter one bit what he says or doesn't say.

to the Guardian for the correction.

-Arrian