Sarah Palin joins Fox News

[taks]

Kind of rich coming from you.

how so? i mean, coming from you, the guy that doesn't even read his own links...

 

taks

[bhlaab]

well based on the number of scandals she's been involved in, how she handled her governor job and her general appearance and rhetoric i'd say she's a bit stupid.

as reported by left wing news sources.

 

Yeah, all those left wing news sources that are owned by gigantic corporations.

[alanschu]

and i see no other reason for you to prefer to believe someone is lying other than the fact that you disagree with them ideologically.

 

It doesn't have to do with ideology at all, which is a bifurcation (or more clearly, a false dichotomy, as bifurcation has multiple definitions) on your own part. Believing that someone is lying doesn't have to do with ideology. In Rostere's case, it comes from his belief that Iraq didn't actually have weapons of mass destruction. This belief isn't really that far fetched, because unless I am mistaken, weapons of mass destruction were never found.

 

Now this doesn't mean that Rostere's perspective is necessarily the correct one, but based on what he knows of the entire scenario. He believes, presumably based on the lack of evidence of that weapons of mass destruction existed, that Iraq probably didn't have weapons of mass destruction. He's making a logical assumption here, but it has nothing to do with ideology. He is making the assumption that had weapons of mass destruction existed, they would have been found. Is this an unreasonable assumption given the numerous investigations for the weapons, as well as the occupation of Iraq by US Forces? I'm not very knowledgeable about weapons of mass destruction, nor do I remember (or really care) what types of weapons of mass destruction it was believed Iraq had. Therefore, I do not consider myself an authority on whether or not these weapons would have been able to have been moved/hidden/destroyed, especially if the CIA did have accurate intelligence of their existence.

 

With an assumption that, had the weapons existed, they would have been found, it's easy to deduce the following: The CIA/US's intelligence was incorrect, or the US was not being entirely honest about it for whatever reason. An option such as "they were moved" cannot exist, if the observer assumes that the weapons would have been found if they existed.

 

Is it possible for someone to come to this conclusion because it paints the United States in a negative light? Yes. Is it essential? Absolutely not. All you need is a reason to assume that, had the weapons existed, they would have been found. If the only reason you can think of why someone can come to that conclusion is because they are ideologically opposed to the United States, then you're using a false dichotomy yourself, likely induced by your own biases which makes assumptions that if someone doesn't support a move by a US Republican government, it is probably because they are not ideologically in tune with that government. Going further, this is probably accented because you support that government, and hence get defensive of it, because it prevents your own cognitive dissonance.

 

Ergo, based on Rostere's assumptions, he feels as though the weapons didn't exist based on the assumptions he has made based on what little he knows of the situation. Because of this assumption, he felt their were two conclusions, and would prefer that the government was being dishonest rather than incompetent and making bold moves based on poor intelligence.

 

 

For the record, I am not ideologically opposed to the United States, but tend to feel the same way with respect to the motivations behind the Iraq war. What little I know of weapons of mass destruction, I am skeptical that had they existed, they would have been successfully removed from their locations without a trace. I'm entirely open to the fact that I could be wrong. While the CIA has been incorrect about things in the past, given some other extenuating circumstances, I don't rule out the possibilities that the United States was looking for a Casus Belli to use as a reason to go to war either. Personally I don't care much for the matter because what's done is done, and I think with some luck some actual good might come out of it for that region.

 

 

But your original assertion that the only reason you can see that someone would prefer to believe another is lying is due to ideological differences is a false dichotomy. There's other reasons aside from ideological differences for preferring to believe that somebody is lying. Especially since Rostere says he prefers that because he is skeptical that the United States would invade and occupy another country in a preemptive attack based on the mythos surrounding the US intelligence capabilities (which are rather complimentary, rather than skeptical, IMO). By the same token, your interpretation of events, as well as the explanations you will make for the government, will be slanted with your own biases as well. What makes your explanation more valid than Rostere's?

 

 

/wall of text

Edited January 15, 2010 by alanschu

[Humodour]

well based on the number of scandals she's been involved in, how she handled her governor job and her general appearance and rhetoric i'd say she's a bit stupid.

as reported by left wing news sources.

 

Yeah, all those left wing news sources that are owned by gigantic corporations.

 

Whenever people like taks dismiss any news they don't like as coming from the something like the "left wing media" it's a strong sign that whatever they're arguing about is going to rest on very flimsy logic indeed.

[Zoraptor]

I'd prefer to have a finger cut off than a hand.

what a bad analogy. really, really bad. besides that, you completely missed the point.

No, it's simply a blunt analogy made in the hope it might succeed where any kind of nuance was failing as unlike alanschu I lacked the patience for a really detailed step by step breakdown.

 

not one of those is patently obvious as a lie, unless you already believe they were lying. sorry, but you saying so don't make it true.

Afraid not- they definitively did not know where the WMDs were, at the very least, even if taking the pedant's view towards proof of their existence. Had they actually known where the WMDs were it is absolutely incomprehensible that they would not have either bombed them or seized them at the start of the war. Then proving they exist is the almost trivial task of sending a few people out to take samples or showing the stuff you've captured. Their failure to do so is as close to proof absolute that they were lying- if only about that- as can ever be got.

[Wrath of Dagon]

They certainly did not know exactly where the WMD's were, certainly not to the point where they could bomb them. Bombing chemical weapons is not necessarily a good idea either. I do know that during the invasion US troops were constantly told to put their chemical gear on, they were always expecting a chemical attack which never came. Saddam wanted people to think he had WMD for his own political purposes, and when he denied it it was just like the boy who cried wolf.

[Gorgon]

I have been watching Fox News on a webstream for kicks while at work, and I have to say there is a whole lot of commentary going on even in the 'straigth news' sections, especially when the subject is Obama.

[Meshugger]

If Saddam stockpiled any of his biological weapons from the late 80's and early 90's they would've been rendered useless by now anyways. Being biological, they simply degrade to nothing.

[taks]

I have been watching Fox News on a webstream for kicks while at work, and I have to say there is a whole lot of commentary going on even in the 'straigth news' sections, especially when the subject is Obama.

of course there is. that doesn't make it "right wing" or any other wing unless you're trying to compare to something hard on the left (even centrists are "right" of "left").

 

^meshugger: anthrax spores live decades, if not centuries, according to wiki. the chemical stuff degrades, however, so any sarin gas won't be around after only a few months.

 

taks

[Calax]

I have been watching Fox News on a webstream for kicks while at work, and I have to say there is a whole lot of commentary going on even in the 'straigth news' sections, especially when the subject is Obama.

of course there is. that doesn't make it "right wing" or any other wing unless you're trying to compare to something hard on the left (even centrists are "right" of "left").

 

^meshugger: anthrax spores live decades, if not centuries, according to wiki. the chemical stuff degrades, however, so any sarin gas won't be around after only a few months.

 

taks

But when their commentators say something like "Obama took to long to come out and talk to the american people about the panty bomber" after he came out after three days, when they'd praised Bush when he came out after 6 days from the shoe bomber guy.

[Gorgon]

Some of it is the job, the president is supposed to be under scrutiny, but there is still a political slant there.

[taks]

But when their commentators say something like "Obama took to long to come out and talk to the american people about the panty bomber" after he came out after three days, when they'd praised Bush when he came out after 6 days from the shoe bomber guy.

uh, are you quoting the news reporters, or folks like bill o'reilly? either way, that still doesn't make them what everyone in here wants them to be.

 

i'd recommend you spend less time reading the huffington post, btw.

 

taks

[Hiro Protagonist]

oh, and for the record, if the last actual evidence we had was that WMDs were there, which was documented after the first gulf war, then in absence of clear indication of said WMDs' destruction, it is a logical thing to assume they still existed. in fact, it is the only reasonable assumption. epic logic fail, lare: argumentum ad ignorantium. particularly epic since you chose to snark about how bad the logic was. classic.

 

taks

 

What evidence was there, that there was WMDs after the first Gulf War?

[Walsingham]

oh, and for the record, if the last actual evidence we had was that WMDs were there, which was documented after the first gulf war, then in absence of clear indication of said WMDs' destruction, it is a logical thing to assume they still existed. in fact, it is the only reasonable assumption. epic logic fail, lare: argumentum ad ignorantium. particularly epic since you chose to snark about how bad the logic was. classic.

 

taks

 

What evidence was there, that there was WMDs after the first Gulf War?

 

Big fething heaps of them. Hundreds of tonnes of materiel. We're not talking the kind of things you leave accidentally in a taxi. I'd still like to know where the hell they went, even if it was just 'wrongly filed and disposed of as sewage'.

[Hiro Protagonist]

Big fething heaps of them. Hundreds of tonnes of materiel. We're not talking the kind of things you leave accidentally in a taxi. I'd still like to know where the hell they went, even if it was just 'wrongly filed and disposed of as sewage'.

 

I suppose the CIA said so, huh?

[Humodour]

oh, and for the record, if the last actual evidence we had was that WMDs were there, which was documented after the first gulf war, then in absence of clear indication of said WMDs' destruction, it is a logical thing to assume they still existed. in fact, it is the only reasonable assumption. epic logic fail, lare: argumentum ad ignorantium. particularly epic since you chose to snark about how bad the logic was. classic.

 

taks

 

What evidence was there, that there was WMDs after the first Gulf War?

 

Big fething heaps of them. Hundreds of tonnes of materiel. We're not talking the kind of things you leave accidentally in a taxi. I'd still like to know where the hell they went, even if it was just 'wrongly filed and disposed of as sewage'.

 

Si tu pisses partout t'es pas Chanel du tout.

[Gorgon]

Big fething heaps of them. Hundreds of tonnes of materiel. We're not talking the kind of things you leave accidentally in a taxi. I'd still like to know where the hell they went, even if it was just 'wrongly filed and disposed of as sewage'.

 

I suppose the CIA said so, huh?

They found loads of obsolete artillery shells with trace chemical and biological agents, probably leftovers from the Iran war, run down production facilities and equipment , nothing to suggest current production however, which is why they suggested/invented the idea of mobile facilities, none of which they found.

 

Did he have capacity, probably, or at least could reconstitute it reasonably fast.

Edited January 18, 2010 by Gorgon

[Calax]

But when their commentators say something like "Obama took to long to come out and talk to the american people about the panty bomber" after he came out after three days, when they'd praised Bush when he came out after 6 days from the shoe bomber guy.

uh, are you quoting the news reporters, or folks like bill o'reilly? either way, that still doesn't make them what everyone in here wants them to be.

 

i'd recommend you spend less time reading the huffington post, btw.

 

taks

Well it was most of the commentators which palin would be one of. Generally you loose the impartiality of things when you show that sort of hypocrisy.

 

Also:

 

[Hiro Protagonist]

They found loads of obsolete artillery shells with trace chemical and biological agents, probably leftovers from the Iran war, run down production facilities and equipment , nothing to suggest current production however, which is why they suggested/invented the idea of mobile facilities, none of which they found.

 

Did he have capacity, probably, or at least could reconstitute it reasonably fast.

 

I think that is the crux of it. They found obsolete shells but no current production after the first gulf war.

[RPGmasterBoo]

Saddam used up most of what he was given from the US in the Iran-Iraq war. The rest was probably destroyed prior to the US invasion. Regardless he never intended to use them against the US, and was personally at odds with the Al Kaida leadership and thus posed absolutely no threat to the United States. In fact he was as close to a potential ally as one could expect of a middle east leader regardless of the gulf war. His only occupation was staying in power, (in which the WMD would be a trump card, if there were any) not grand designs on the destruction of the US. He was also much more moderate than the religious fundamentalists that sprung up in the subsequent power vacuum.

 

There is no reasonable way to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq. And there is no connection whatsoever between September 11 and Iraq. Rather the only country that can be unquestionably linked to S11 is Saudi Arabia.

 

The US attacked and decimated a country to secure its natural strategic resource for their own gain. This is neither hidden nor difficult to see.

Edited January 18, 2010 by RPGmasterBoo

[Wrath of Dagon]

If Saddam was such a swell guy, we could've just bought the oil from him and be done with it. The oil embargo was necessary to contain him and prevent him from financing his WMD program. We certainly gained nothing monetarily, as we spent far more on the war than all of Iraq's income from oil for many years to come, and we still have to pay for any Iraqi oil we get, same as everyone else (we get almost all of our oil from the Americas btw). And the devastation was caused by the terrorists, not by us (and by Saddam himself before that).

[Gorgon]

WMD is a scareword that resonates well with the public if you are thinking about invading. Chemical and bilogical weapons are horrid, but they are not nukes, and nukes constitute the only credible threat Sadam could have posed to anyone, and those it would not have been difficult to keep him from obtaining with a credible threat.

 

This was done with the long term strategic aim in view, and because there was sufficient military adventurism to make it possible. The Irony here is that Iran is a much greater threat now than Sadam was at the time, but now that willingness to military engagement is long spent, and of course there is no pretext to invade Iran. If we are going to start invading every country actively seeking nukes the list is very long.

 

While some of these long term strategic goals may have made sense at the time the reason given to the public was the one they could sell best, hardly the most important one.

Edited January 19, 2010 by Gorgon

[RPGmasterBoo]

If Saddam was such a swell guy, we could've just bought the oil from him and be done with it. The oil embargo was necessary to contain him and prevent him from financing his WMD program. We certainly gained nothing monetarily, as we spent far more on the war than all of Iraq's income from oil for many years to come, and we still have to pay for any Iraqi oil we get, same as everyone else (we get almost all of our oil from the Americas btw). And the devastation was caused by the terrorists, not by us (and by Saddam himself before that).

 

The US has over a thousand nuclear warheads, and god knows how many other WMD, and no one is exactly complaining, let alone considering embargoes. Hypocrisy aside, its well known why various leaders want WMD's: its a guarantee that they wont be attacked by the US. Not to actually use them, because the moment you do - the other side gets the legitimacy to use them as well. How is it any worse for Saddam to have WMD's than the US? And secondly how was that a threat to the US? Its not like he had ICBM's.

 

You might have to pay for the oil, but the US corporations that have installed themselves there are having a field day (from oil to security). They hijacked the US military and state apparatus for their own purposes. For like the thousandth time.

 

The devastation was caused by the inability of the US to control the territory they conquered. By destroying Saddam they made a power vacuum in a highly volatile and divided state, and they were unable to fill it. Thus, as any fool could have forseen - all chaos ensued. Saddam, whatever else he was, was capable of holding the tensions and violence inherent to Iraq in check. Removing him was terminal to the Iraqi state.

It takes a lot of willpower not to see that, and blame it on something as ephemeral as terrorists.

[Walsingham]

*Screeching of mental brakes @ RPG master*

 

Firstly, yes, in my opinion there have been grave and even culpable errors in the approach taken on Iraq. I do not believe that the corporations you mention were the cause of the war, but I do believe they were the cause of the failure in post-war administration. They provoked a reckless faith in post-war reconstruction which they completely failed to deliver. That failure has fuelled unrest and in my opinion should result in criminal prosecutions.

 

However, I cannot at all agree with your assertion that he was of no threat to the United States. In pure old fashioned terms he was a huge stumbling block to any form of stability in the region. The stability of that region IS unequivocally a threat to world peace due to its effective monopoly of the balance of total oil reserves. Oil reserves which feed China, Japan, and the US and currently define the economic and foreign policy of Russia.

 

But the principle threat he posed was the same threat posed by all such regimes which are predicated upon the constant application of internal terror. That is the perpetration of those terrors, defined as crimes in our worldview, is a direct challenge to the principle of our democratic rights and freedoms. Or as JFK put it more poetically if men in Iraq are being oppressed then we are all being oppressed.

 

This last point no doubt strikes you as fanciful, but it is not mere rhetoric. The post Cold War laissez faire approach to dictators had been shown by 2003 to achieve nothing in reducing their power, and worse than that to encourage those dictators to test the bounds of their confinement. The central cause of the war in my analysis was that

 

- Alternatives to war had been tried and failed

- The results of war were perceived as directly introducing 25 million people to freedom, and sending a clear message to all other still oppressed

- The effort was militarily straightforward and unlikely to be costly to our forces

 

Leaving aside postwar casualties which have been caused mainly by terror attacks we clearly don't control, all the above are entirely true. The only caveat being that through our own internal divisions we have somehow contrived to send the opposite message to all other terror-states.

[Pidesco]

In pure old fashioned terms he was a huge stumbling block to any form of stability in the region.

 

 

Wait, what? Saddam wasn't a very nice guy, but it's not like he was a big source of instability in the region. If anything, he provided a balance of power between Iraq and Iran. Now, with him gone, the whole region will probably be soon at the mercy of Iran, who can actually become a real threat to the US, if it really wants to.

 

Oh, and people are wondering about where Saddam's WMD's were? I have no idea if he still had them or not by the time of the invasion, but if he did I'm sure he was itching to use them on rebellious Iraqis, assuming he hadn't already spent them. Which was, of course, why he got the WMD's in the first place.

 

Then again, though, I guess Saddam being toppled by the US military wasn't as bad as it might have been if he had just died by himself. An oil fueled power vacuum after his death could well have become a complete disaster. In any case, I'm just waiting for Greater Iran to happen.