Clinton Back's Bush's War in Iraq

[lord of the mark]

heres Dan Darlings take on the NYT article. Via Winds of Change.

http://windsofchange.net/archives/005133.php#more

[Sava]

For the most part, Darlings is grasping at straws. His conclusion makes sense, but I didn't hear anyone claiming that Saddam and Osama would never consider anything together. That being said... they were ideological enemies. Which only strengthens the case that there wasn't much of anything going on. And if we're talking about material support for Al Qaeda; Pakistan, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia were far more threatening that Iraq was.

Either way, it certainly doesn't justify going to war (the expense in human lives and money). I'm glad Darlings admits that to some extent.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Sava
For the most part, Darlings is grasping at straws. His conclusion makes sense, but I didn't hear anyone claiming that Saddam and Osama would never consider anything together. That being said... they were ideological enemies. Which only strengthens the case that there wasn't much of anything going on. And if we're talking about material support for Al Qaeda; Pakistan, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia were far more threatening that Iraq was.

Either way, it certainly doesn't justify going to war (the expense in human lives and money). I'm glad Darlings admits that to some extent.

You mean his final paragraph - did you actually follow those links?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Sava
For the most part, Darlings is grasping at straws. His conclusion makes sense, but I didn't hear anyone claiming that Saddam and Osama would never consider anything together. That being said... they were ideological enemies.


LOTM, which, as has been said repeatedly, is A. Only half true B. Largely irrelevant.

Which only strengthens the case that there wasn't much of anything going on. And if we're talking about material support for Al Qaeda; Pakistan, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia were far more threatening that Iraq was.

LOTM - Did Syria have this kind of relationship to AQ? If it did, thats news to me - cites please. Pakistan - they turned on a dime on 9/11. Saudi and Iran - both rather complex cases. But as has been said elsewhere, going to war with either Saudi or Iran without changing regimes in Iraq first was out of the question strategically.


Either way, it certainly doesn't justify going to war (the expense in human lives and money). I'm glad Darlings admits that to some extent.

The main point is that we need to take some time to consider whats coming out of the iraqi intell archives. Its a massive amount of documents, and takes time to translate, authenticate, and sort through, much less to "connect the dots".

[GePap]

at Drake (for making another claim).

I do wonder if he read said piece- I would hope so, cause it shows the grand limits of the arguement he pushes.

What does the NYT says? That in the early 90's Iraq and bin Laden spoke-and you know what? WE ALREADY KNEW THAT. I whish people would try to have more than a 5 second memory in this debate. It would make it far more informed if people retained information. Guess that is too much to expect from poly thought.

What is new in that piece is that the point of the contact was to undermine the Saudis-which makes complete sense. What is lacking? proof of any coordination of strikes, of any Iraqi participation in planning any attacks, and especially any attacks aimed at anyone outside of KSA, and of the US. Which is exactly what the report by the commission, as the article points.

So why don't we return to the point that the amdin. claimed and has been challenged. The point the amdin. made was that Iraq was a THREAT to the U.S., a threat becuase it had an active WMD program and active connections with AQ. Does the fact that Saddam spoke to AQ in the early 90's to undermine the Saudis in any way show evidence for the administration contention? I don;t see how. It gives a point for people to contend that connections were not impossible- but if you are trying to make a case for war, shouldn't it be made of more that "could's", or at least, show something along with all the unsubstantiated assertions and allegations.

[Sava]

Originally posted by lord of the mark



The main point is that we need to take some time to consider whats coming out of the iraqi intell archives. Its a massive amount of documents, and takes time to translate, authenticate, and sort through, much less to "connect the dots".

That's something we should have done BEFORE we went to war.

[Spiffor]

Darlings article is interesting, except that he considers documents from the Daily Telegraph to be valid sources.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
The main point is that we need to take some time to consider whats coming out of the iraqi intell archives. Its a massive amount of documents, and takes time to translate, authenticate, and sort through, much less to "connect the dots".

This would be a more valid point if the admin. had not made so many cliams prior to the war about what we did know, PLUS the fact we have control over most of the people who might know.

So in the end, I have come to see this as a dodge with this issue much like it was with the WMD issue.

[Spiffor]

After thinking more about it, Darlings' article seems to often grasp at straws for his arguments indeed, and the more I read it, the more I think of this article as an articulate OT post, more than as a real piece of journalism.

First, it appears Darlings doesn't know what the media coverage of the Islamists in Saddam's Iraq looked like:

" At the meeting, Mr. bin Laden requested that sermons of an anti-Saudi cleric be rebroadcast in Iraq. That request, the document states, was approved by Baghdad."

I'm interested in learning who exactly this cleric is, though I suspect that it's likely bin Laden's spiritual advisor Safar al-Hawali or one of his minions. Any sermons that were rebroadcast inside Iraq would be Wahhabi in nature, I should add, which would also tend to drive a stake through the heart of the argument that Saddam Hussein would never encourage Islamism with his nation because he saw it as a threat to his regime.

What "drives a stake" in the argument is the conclusion Darlings draws from what he reads in the NYT. Not a documented fact.

Second, this behaviour of making assumptions out of the NYT article, and then drawing conclusions from these assumptions as if they were facts is quite common in the entire paper. "Those channels were likely none other than Hassan Turabi", "His "associates" also supervised the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the "Day of Terror" plot to bomb NYC landmarks in 1994" (Darlings doesn't know who the NYT refers to),

As for the link at the bottom of the page that concerns the other excuse for war, the wommdies, it mostly teaches us that Iraq has chem-weapon scientists, and that there are chemical shells of Gulf War 1 scattered here and there. Shocking.

---

In short, Darlings adopts the position that I expected the admin to adopt: find very tenuous things for which Iraq wasn't spotless, and try to believe those were threats.

[Spiffor]

Not that I consider Darlings stupid or anything. He would probably make a great OT poster. But I definitely don't consider his article as being a valid source for unbiased information and reflection: not even the "normal" bias that any journalist and human being has, because I treat his paper as a well-written political op-ed.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Sava
That's something we should have done BEFORE we went to war.

we didnt have the docs prewar.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
we didnt have the docs prewar.

Didn't you have damning evidence of Saddam-AQ ties, along with the damning evidence of WMDs?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


This would be a more valid point if the admin. had not made so many cliams prior to the war about what we did know, PLUS the fact we have control over most of the people who might know.

So in the end, I have come to see this as a dodge with this issue much like it was with the WMD issue.

there are two arguments - A. was the invasion justified objectively, given what weve learned. B. was it justified subjectively, given what the admin knew in Feb 2003.

Now to answer B, one must exclude what we've learned since - EITHER way.

This gets to argument A, which some of us are interested in, even if you are not.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Not that I consider Darlings stupid or anything. He would probably make a great OT poster. But I definitely don't consider his article as being a valid source for unbiased information and reflection: not even the "normal" bias that any journalist and human being has, because I treat his paper as a well-written political op-ed.

hes a bloggger and hes making a point. gave you this as an interesting op-ed. He does present info that you dont see elsewhere, and interesting analysis.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


there are two arguments - A. was the invasion justified objectively, given what weve learned. B. was it justified subjectively, given what the admin knew in Feb 2003.

Now to answer B, one must exclude what we've learned since - EITHER way.

This gets to argument A, which some of us are interested in, even if you are not.

Sorry, but you ignore several things in your assesment of "justification": the costs and consequences of the actions taken as they were taken

And you are abusing the notion of objecitve as well, and badly. What if we find that Saddam had a link to AQ? You know what, that is NOT AND OBJECTIVE JUSTIFICATION as you go back to the question of whether that alone was worht a war- a debate we had prior to the war.

NO, right now we are in NO WAY "getting to see if the war as 'objectively justifiable'". We are seeing how substantiated the arguements made by the prowar side for their justification of the war were. That is no way invalidates the anti-war arguements, some of which patently said who gives a **** about that, not worth the immense cost and likely issues that it will unleash.