Bloodless Coup

John Kerry's speech Monday:
"In fact, Iraq was a profound diversion from that [on terror] war, and the battle against our greatest enemy, the terrorists."

Meet the Press, Jan. 11, 2004
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3916793
"We are safer for the capture of a man who wanted to build weapons of mass destruction and who, actually, had them and used them at one point in time."

"...those who believe we are not safer with [Saddam Hussein's] capture don't have the judgement to be President--or the credibility to be elected President."

"He [Saddam Hussein] would have continued to terrorize the people, just in their minds, because of thirty years of terror in Iraq."

Kerry's speech Monday:
"Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: we have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."

Meet the Press, Jan. 11
"It wasn't just an invasion of Kuwait. He was heading for the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. And that would have had a profound effect on the security of the United States. This is a man who has used weapons of mass destruction, unlike other people on this Earth today, not only against other people but against his own people. This is a man who tried to assassinate a former president of the United States, a man who lobbed 36 missiles into Israel in order to destabilize the Middle East, a man who is so capable of miscalculation that he even brought this war on himself."

Does this sound consistent to ANYONE?

it sounds perfectly consistent to me, but then i've got a natural predilection for "nuance." (if what follows sounds familiar to armand, it's because he received a copy of a message i sent to eugene volokh on precisely this issue, when that usually rigorous reader committed precisely the same sloppy mistake you commit here, morris) --

what is so hard to fathom about a man who says, yeah, were better off without SH, but it was bad policy to pursue him at the particular time he did, when he didn't pose an imminent threat to the united states, and when to do so would detract from the far more important task of scrubbing afghanistan clean of terrorists and capturing or killing bin-Laden?

the example i used to volokh was this: suppose tomorrow morning bush decided to start a war on the korean peninsula. after the initial barrage levels seoul and kills tens of thousands of people on both sides, including thousands of united states troops, we manage to capture kim jong-il. would it be inconsistent for kerry to call that the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time while still saying, in no uncertain terms, that the world is a better place without dear leader? of course it wouldn't be. in poker, if i make a bad bet and draw a lucky card on the river, am i allowed at once to be happy for the result even as i chastise myself for playing poorly? better believe i am -- and i do.

and if you're trying to cling to kerry's use of the word "terror" to characterize saddam's treatment of his own people, i think it's self-evident that that usage and the usage of "terrorist" to denote the objects of our current war thereon have divergent referents. and i dare say that splitting lexical hairs like that would do a hell of a lot more damage to bush, who has gynecologists acting out their love for women, than kerry, who has the vocabulary of someone who graduated college, something i'd really like in a president . . . for a change.

oh, and while we're at it, what was bush saying about the war back in january before -- what? -- another 400 american soldiers died? something about staying the course? everything going according to plan? in this ever-changing world, can we -- please god -- have a president who's allowed to change his mind, refine his views, get his rhetoric out of something other than the NeoCon playbook conceived in some think tank long before 9/11?

an astute, and a propos, observation:

It's revealing -- and the Kerry campaign should make something of it -- that whenever Kerry attacks Bush's management of the war all the Bush team can do is attack the alleged contradictions in Kerry's position on the war. That may work politically. But it's awfully telling. They have, quite literally, no response on the merits.

Morris,

Please look at the quotes again. You are mis-reading them. As Joshua notes, saying that the invasion of Iraq was a diversion from the war on terror and saying that getting rid of Saddam was a good thing are not inconsistent. In other words, the war on terror was more important than getting Saddam, but Saddam was bad (just less so), and getting rid of him is a good thing. There is nothing inconsistent about that. You may not agree with the sentiment, but it is a logical statement.

"I think to not be successful now in this transition in Iraq would put in danger other governments in the region. It would put at risk the war on terror. It will send a signal to all in the world that the United States of America is neither capable nor willing to take the risks to live up to what we all know we have to post-September 11." --John Kerry, August 31 2003
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3080246/

Now, ever-condescending Baltar, you may need to help me on my logic here, but doesn't the syllogism constructed out of these premises lead to the conclusion:
Not to be successful now in this transition in Iraq would...put at risk the war on terror. So why is he going to leave in four years, if it would (in his words) put the terror war at risk? Why isn't he going to stay as long as it takes?

Joshua,
I understand your nuance, I just don't buy it when Kerry's said this about his willingness to start a war in Iraq back in 1997 (long before he claims Bush lied to him).

And clearly it is not just our best interests, it is in the best interests of the world to make it clear to Saddam Hussein that he's not going to get away with a breach of the '91 agreement that he's got to live up to, which is allowing inspections and dismantling his weapons and allowing us to know that he has dismantled his weapons. That's the price he pays for invading Kuwait and starting a war."

"Well, John, you're correct that this resolution is less than we would have liked," said Kerry. "I don't think anybody can deny that we would have liked it to have threatened force and we would have liked it to carry the term 'serious consequences will flow.'"
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37578

It's obvious to me he's only claiming he would have opposed the war because he it's a political opportunity, just like trashing veterans after Vietnam was for him. It's obvious he was ready to go to war (by his words, as much as we can trust them) long before he claims Cheney pressured the CIA.

In response to your next point, I think it's telling about the desperation of Kerry's supporters that they don't see someone changing sides whenever it favors his political aspirations (or what he believes would favor them, since Americans are not the dupes he believes them to be) as a poor manager. Consistent vision and leadership are essential for management, and it doesn't matter how well someone micromanages if their macromanagement goes in one direction one day and another the next, because nobody ever gets anywhere that way.

what kerry had to say about iraq in 1997 is hardly germane to whether the current war detracts from "the war on terror," which essentially did not exist then. as everyone on the right seems to enjoy saying (and in the policy context i'll concede the point), typically when advocating for some fundamentally unamerican proposition like dissent = treason, "the world changed on 9/11." of course, the world didn't really change on 9/11, we just got dragged kicking and screaming into one of the swamps we used to like to pretend didn't exist unless it served our interests to do so. even so, our national security priorities certainly changed that day. when accusing kerry of flip-flopping on iraq, it's always portrayed like kerry's saying 'bomb those a-rabs' when speaking to mid-western audiences and saying 'i love saddam,' to the anti-war elite. it's such a crock; it's not a straw man waiting to be knocked down, it's a pile of straw on the ground beneath acknowledgment (which is why the bushies like it so much, since they can't challenge anyone on substance or success).

anyway, if you want to believe bush is consistent and kerry a flip-flopper, be my guest, but in maintaining that position in defiance of fact and reason methinks you forfeit your ability to throw around the word "dupe."

Joshua,
Don't you get it? Kerry said we should use force even before there was a war on terror. Therefore, his constant diatribe that Bush misled America about WMDs is irrelevant because he supported going to war years before Bush could have possibly done that.

And if you believe that given the war on terror he would have made different choices about Iraq (despite Kerry's record that says differently that I've cited before), he says in this very speech that "...to not be successful now in this transition in Iraq...would put at risk the war on terror." Yet, he's going to pull out our troops within four years, whether or not we've been successful, therefore according to his own words putting at risk the war on terror.

Enlighten me, Joshua. Explain the nuance.

Morris,

1. I'm not condescending. I'm asking you to follow the logic of your original statements. Kerry said that Saddam is a bad man. Kerry said he should go. In his Monday speech, Kerry said that that the war on terror is more important than Iraq. He also on Monday stated that Iraq with Saddam was less of a threat to US interests in the region than the mess that is Iraq today. You may disagree with these statements (and we can argue about them), but they are not inconsistent. You can believe that Saddam should go, and you can believe that the war on terror is more important than getting rid of Saddam. These beliefs are not logically inconsistent. You said they were. I was trying to show you that you were wrong.

2. You have correctly interpreted the logic of the quote you use from Kerry (Aug 31, 2003). He is saying that if we fail to "transition" in Iraq, that puts in danger other governments in the region, and shows that American resolve is not strong, which makes fighting the war on terror harder. I don't know what me means by "transition" (you don't provide a cite to the statement), nor do I understand the phrase "puts in danger other governments in the region." Danger from what? Revolution? Al Qaeda? US invasion?

But that's not the point. The very important point is that Kerry never said he would leave in four years. From that same speech:

If the President would move in this direction … if he would bring in more help from other countries to provide resources and forces … train the Iraqis to provide their own security …develop a reconstruction plan that brings real benefits to the Iraqi people … and take the steps necessary to hold credible elections next year … we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring all our troops home within the next four years.

Very clearly, Kerry lays out the conditions that need to be fulfilled in order to "aim" to bring the troops home in four years. In other words, if we can turn the situation around and get some outside help, and really improve conditions in Iraq, we can begin to find an exit strategy and "aim" to have them home in four years. Not will have them home, "aim".

Moreover, Kerry is saying (though as best I can tell in the speech, he does not use these precise words) that we must stay in Iraq until the job is finished:

In Iraq, we have a mess on our hands. But we cannot throw up our hands. We cannot afford to see Iraq become a permanent source of terror that will endanger America’s security for years to come.

And:

The principles that should guide American policy in Iraq now and in the future are clear: We must make Iraq the world’s responsibility, because the world has a stake in the outcome and others should share the burden. We must effectively train Iraqis, because they should be responsible for their own security. We must move forward with reconstruction, because that’s essential to stop the spread of terror. And we must help Iraqis achieve a viable government, because it’s up to them to run their own country. That’s the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home.

Now, nowhere in the speech do I find any reference to withdrawal before we "get the job done." I find at least two specific references to the importance of "the job" (making Iraq stable). Where do you get the idea that Kerry is going to cut and run?

Morris, I forgot #3

3. In your fight with Joshua, you charaterize a quote by Kerry from 1997 as saying that he wanted to go to war with Iraq back then. That is not what the quote says: (from WorldNetDaily)

"Well, John, you're correct that this resolution is less than we would have liked," said Kerry. "I don't think anybody can deny that we would have liked it to have threatened force and we would have liked it to carry the term 'serious consequences will flow.' On the other hand, the coalition is together. I mean the fact is there is a unanimous statement by the Security Council and the United Nations that there has to be immediate, unrestricted, unconditional access to the sites. That's very strong language. And it also references the underlying resolution on which the use of force is based.

This, by the way, is very slippery reporting. What is the question that Kerry is answering? What were the previous, and subsequent, questions and answers? Context matters a great deal in determining any persons real meaning.

In any event, Kerry never says he supports war. He says he wished that a UN resolution to try to force Saddam to allow the inspectors back in again that passed in 1997 containted a reference to force or "serious consequence" (UN speak for force). The quote does not say that Kerry would have supported the use of force in those circumstances, just that he wished the UN would collectively threaten force against Saddam if he didn't do what they (the UN) wanted. That is not the same as saying Kerry wanted to use force.

Yes, Baltar, I wish this quote had context too. However, from what's there, I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion. If you're saying Kerry supported language threatening force in the UN resolution, but had no intention of acting on it when Saddam wasn't responsive, even if that's true I don't think it speaks well for Kerry. If all he intends to do as Prez is threaten force, I don't think that makes him a particularly good leader. The article also suggests Kerry advocated an independence from world opinion while Clinton was President for which he criticizes Bush.

"The administration is making it clear that they don't believe that they even need the U.N. Security Council to sign off on a material breach because the finding of material breach was made by Mr. (Richard) Butler. So furthermore, I think the United States has always reserved the right and will reserve the right to act in its best interests."

That is, it follows from this logic that if the United States didn't need the UN's permission to act in 1997, why did that suddenly change when he's running against someone who advocated the same position he had? How many times did Bush have to go back to the UN and get turned down (given Chirac's comments at the UN, we would still be in that process at this point) before we could act in what we believed were our best interests? What the latest intelligence report says is that Saddam wanted to acquire WMDs again, that he didn't only because he was being pinched by UN sanctions. But how long should the Iraqis suffer under the yolk they didn't earn, only carried because their leader is a monster? How much more hopeless would they have become? How much more would they detest the governments of the West and turn their anger into terrorism against us as the sanctions continued?

Yes, in the short run the Muslims are angrier at us. I think that if we'd moved our "occupying force" into Afghanistan to capture Bin Laden as Kerry suggests he'd have done, we'd be seeing equal violence against our forces there; even Kerry says our presence in Iraq is a magnet for terrorists, and he has yet to explain why that wouldn't have happened if we'd gone in Afghanistan instead. I think we'd be seeing equal anger against us in the Muslim world, the only difference being there would be one more harbor for those who devote their lives to killing American soldiers and civilians.

As far as Kerry withdrawing from Iraq in four years, this source I think you'll trust.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32898-2004Aug1.html

"John F. Kerry pledged Sunday he would substantially reduce U.S. troop strength in Iraq by the end of his first term in office but declined to offer any details of what he said is his plan to attract significantly more allied military and financial support there.
In interviews on television talk shows, the Democratic presidential nominee said that he saw no reason to send more troops to Iraq and that he would seek allied support to draw down U.S. forces there. 'I will have significant, enormous reduction in the level of troops,' he said on ABC's 'This Week.'"

Now, I realize it's my lack of intellect that keeps me from being unable to understand the genius nuance world in which enormous reduction in the level of troops means anything besides cutting and running. And I know what you're going to say, he's got a secret plan to bring in French and German troops regardless of France saying that'll never happen, and it's only my cynical nature that leads me to believe it won't be any more effective than Nixon's.

The cite your looking for is this one
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3080246/
about Kerry's remarks on the transition in Iraq.
It's about a third way down the page, Kerry begins that set of remarks with "You lead. You have to lead...."

I will grant you that Kerry's "plan" this week does seem markedly different from his remarks six weeks ago. And of course I'll take a free shot here about him needing more than a year of campaigning for the Presidency to come up with his "plan," so how can he criticize the President for going nine months without acting against Al Queda?

Morris,

There is a great deal of difference between the 1997 Kerry quote and what is happening today (and happened back in Winter 2002/Spring 2003). In 1997, according to the quote, Kerry supported language in a UN resolution that would have made Saddam's continued obstruction of UN inspectors something the UN would be authorized to use force to overcome. In other words, Kerry supported authorizing the UN to use force (a multilateral use of force, not unilateral). This, I think, is consistent with his positions today.

Moreover, no candidate (left or right) has ever argued that the UN or any foreign state has the right of veto over the use of force in protection of our national interests. Kerry clearly agrees with this (from the paragraph you cite).

That is, it follows from this logic that if the United States didn't need the UN's permission to act in 1997, why did that suddenly change when he's running against someone who advocated the same position he had? How many times did Bush have to go back to the UN and get turned down (given Chirac's comments at the UN, we would still be in that process at this point) before we could act in what we believed were our best interests? What the latest intelligence report says is that Saddam wanted to acquire WMDs again, that he didn't only because he was being pinched by UN sanctions. But how long should the Iraqis suffer under the yolk they didn't earn, only carried because their leader is a monster? How much more hopeless would they have become? How much more would they detest the governments of the West and turn their anger into terrorism against us as the sanctions continued?

Here is where you start to go wrong. I have never argued, nor has Kerry argued, that Bush needed further permission to invade Iraq. The argument is about whether the invasion and post-war reconstruction would have been more effective if we had waited to gain additional allies. No serious politician has ever said that anything constrains the US when our interests are threatened – the argument is over what is the best course of action to effectively remove the threat to our interests. Kerry is more likely to wait and compromise in order to gain a larger coalition, but that’s because he feels that a larger coalition will be more effective, not because he wants or even needs to give other states a veto over US actions. This is an argument about effectiveness, not permissions.

And I really think you need to get off this “How much more hopeless would they have become/Saddam is a monster” argument. That was never the primary, secondary or tertiary reason for invasion. Moreover, we have made friends with murderous dictators in the past (Pinochet (Chile), Duarte (El Salvador), Marcos (Phillipines)) and ignored much more serious human rights abuses (Rwanda (mid 1990s), Cambodia (mid 1970s), Sudan (right now)). If it is the US’s job to go around the world and prevent governments from killing their own citizens, we have done a pretty piss poor job.

You write:

Yes, in the short run the Muslims are angrier at us. I think that if we'd moved our "occupying force" into Afghanistan to capture Bin Laden as Kerry suggests he'd have done, we'd be seeing equal violence against our forces there; even Kerry says our presence in Iraq is a magnet for terrorists, and he has yet to explain why that wouldn't have happened if we'd gone in Afghanistan instead. I think we'd be seeing equal anger against us in the Muslim world, the only difference being there would be one more harbor for those who devote their lives to killing American soldiers and civilians.

No, the significant difference between Afghanistan and Iraq is that the world overwhelmingly saw our invasion of Afghanistan as legitimate (and even helped us). Hence, while a continuing US presence in Afghanistan would draw in Al Qaeda (though most of them would already be there), we would have additional foreign support to help fight them and rebuild the country, and the world would see our actions there as legitimate, meaning we could stay longer, fight harder and more effectively. And if we had stayed in Afghanistan, there would be only one “harbor” for terrorists, not the two today.

I’ll grant you that the Kerry quote from August 1st in the WaPo looks bad. It has none of the nuance of the recent speech (in which he said he would begin to withdraw only once certain conditions are met). But that’s only one speech, and he has clearly modified his position (in the right direction) subsequently.

But turn this around. When do we really get to withdraw? Seriously. What conditions must be met for the US to bring the troops home (and, given that we may need the troops in North Korea, Iran or (as you keep arguing) Sudan to prevent genocide)? It is a valid question (both the Washington Post and New York Times had articles raising the question in their Sunday newspapers). Bush has, so far, failed to articulate the conditions under which we can do this, beyond a very vague “until the job is done/mission accomplished” sort of language. I’m all for the President to be resolute, but resolute to what end?

Seriously, what are the minimum condition in Iraq such that the US can come home? Free and fair democracy? No insurgency? Secular regime? An Iraqi army that can fight without us? Being in Iraq means we do not have a military to respond to other problems in the world, so it is in our interest to get them out within a reasonable amount of time. It is also in our interests to see Iraq be stable and secure. It is possible that both goals cannot be met. Which one gives first?

This is what really makes me angry with actual, existing decisions made by the administration. Why do we even have an intelligence service? Even accepting interagency/intra-administration spats - which I am not inclined to do especially if they compromise national security - that led to discounting of State department estimations, these kinds of reports were being made everywhere. And the Bush administration just ignored them. What's the point? Why do we spend tax dollars on intelligence if it's just going to be ignored?

This is why I'm content to let you guys bicker over details about whether or not some thing Kerry said is truly representative of his position. Fine. But to have ignored all the warnings from around the intelligence, security and foreign policy experts the government employs to me is FAILURE. And when someone fails at his job he should be fired. Do I know Kerry is going to do better? No. Might he fail too? Yes. Would I want to "have a beer wth him"? I could care less. When you hire at a bank you don't keep from firing an embezzler because the next guy might be an embezzler too. Then why should we apply that logic to the presidency, which is arguably the most important job there is? The evidence that the Bush adminstration was warned about consequences, took us into Iraq with an overconfident strategy that did not prepare for those consequences, and is willing to spend billions of dollars and the lives and health of US soldiers for unobtained objectives (and hell, I'm not even going to hold the adminstration to one, you can pick: WMD? stable Iraq? access to oil? democracy in Iraq? we don't have them and it isn't looking like we're likely to get any of them any time soon) is enough for me. He should be FIRED.

Sorry. The link didn't work. Here.

Go Binky go!

I readily agree. Short of the Democrats nominating Lieberman or Gephardt (and I might have even voted for Gep, though I really didn't want it to come to that) I was always likely to back the Democrat in '04 b/c Bush is an INCOMPETENT FAILURE.

Baltar,
Nice use of the word "tertiary." I'm always tempted to say thirdendary. If you know of a good daily vocabulary calendar, let me know, I haven't seen one since Who's Harry Crumb?

You keep saying how Saddam was not the worst dictator in the world, as though that's a compelling argument to leave him in power, a strange way of extending the illogic people use to subvert their responsibility when they say: "Well, I'm not so bad, because Joe over there did something even worse." There is a fancy name for this, but it escapes me so you definitely get the points for vocabulary today. The fact that there are people worse than him is not a reason to leave him in power, it does not mean we would have done a good thing in letting him torture even just his own people. There is a lot of work done in psychology on moral development, and the final stage is universal, where people accept responsibility for all humanity. Let me know when you get here.

All that being said, this idea that Bush should have believed certain advisors from the State Department has some validity, except that when we liberated Kuwait with Desert Storm, we stumbled onto an Iraqi nuclear program advanced beyond our intelligence estimates, so maybe Bush was right to be skeptical of intelligence estimates. The Weekly Standard quotes the Washington Post from 1991.

Despite repeated warnings and Saddam's own public statements, Western experts consistently underestimated Iraq's scientific and technical capabilities. Inspection officials now believe Iraq was only 12 to 18 months from producing its first bomb, not five to 10 years as previously thought.
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/690vbgoe.asp
Of course, Kerry supported waiting then, too, believing time to be on his side. You argue on behalf of Kerry that it's not the war he's opposed to, only the way it's been managed, despite Kerry calling it "the wrong war." His primary criticism of Bush has been not listening to advisors that told Bush he needed more troops, yet more than a year ago and even now Kerry does not want to send more troops. Most recently, he actually suggested enormous reductions within four years, so it appears Kerry didn't believe this advisor any more than Bush did.

It's true that our nation has had a hobby of supporting the enemy of our enemy, even when both are monsters and threats to our nation. To continue this policy is not something that I support, but maybe there's a straw man here you're talking to.

You say that the world saw our liberation of Afghanistan as legitimate, and therefore they wouldn't be angry at us if we'd sent divisions of M-1 tanks up into the mountains to hunt UBL. But this is not the way the Muslims saw our liberation of Afghanistan, according to Al Jazeera and Al Aribiya. It's true, we would have less trouble with French and German terrorists, but there haven't been a hell of a lot of them attacking us lately.

So, you're saying Kerry had the wrong idea about the war August 1st, but he's right now, so we should...forget about what he said before, because he's got Carville and Begala putting words in his mouth now? He announced his candidacy more than a year before August 1st, and you're telling me he hadn't had time to think out what he'd do in Iraq? Yet you guys criticize Bush for not acting against Al Queda before 9/11?

You criticize Bush for not saying when he's going to withdraw, but you give Kerry a pass for setting a date, emboldening the terrorists, giving them hope, saying they only have to hold out four years?

I agree that with you that there are several goals for Iraq, and we may not be able to meet all of them as well and as soon as we'd hope. But this is the crux of the battle against radical islam and its hatred of the West. We're not now fighting a nation, but a cult of hatred.

Binky,
As the intelligence report you cite says, liberation of Iraq has led to a divided state. Instead of just about all Iraqis being against us, now there are some who are and some who aren't. I love the paragraph:
"One of the reports also warned of a possible insurgency against the new Iraqi government or American-led forces, saying that rogue elements from Saddam Hussein's government could work with existing terrorist groups or act independently to wage guerrilla warfare, the officials said."

I thought you guys were saying there was no terror network in place, so I'm confused about what your argument is here. And do you think this proves anything except that Bush war right? Of course, they're going to resist; as Kerry says Iraq is now a magnet for international terrorists, so our Marines can destroy them before they get to our shores. I don't buy this argument that just because this is difficult means we shouldn't fight these terrorists. 9/11 wasn't easy on this country either.

"The assessments also said a war would increase sympathy across the Islamic world for some terrorist objectives, at least in the short run, the officials said."
This is exactly what I've been saying, "in the short run," but, no, you won't listen to me. Fine, take the word of the New York Times over me, be that way. See if I care. Does anybody have a tissue?

Armand,
It doesn't really surprise me you're more against Bush than pro-Kerry. After all, your candidate, Howard Dean, was the one who first came up with the flip flopper argument, what with their gift to Kerry last Christmas.
http://www.gazetteonline.com/iowacaucus/news/news288.aspx

It's not just what "us guys" were saying, it's what the government itself was saying. If you think about it for a minute or two, it's easy to see that it's entirely possible that "existing terrorist groups" doesn't mean existing terrorist groups inside Iraq. In fact, the context of the statement you quote suggests that rogue elements would begin to work with existing groups after the US intervention, which by most reports is what has happened. You could clear up your confusion by reading a second time, and paying attention to the context, perhaps.

And sure, you have been saying that this is what will happen in the short run. I believe that too. I also tend to believe it will be the case in the long run as well. These two things (messed up short term/messed up long term)are not mutually exclusive.

p.s. to Morris: Had I known it was your birthday, I would have come up with something extra confrontational and pithy for your debating pleasure. Hope it is a happy one anyway! :)

first, i object to baltar's characerization: it's not a "fight" morris and i are having so much as a friendly disagreement, right morris?

anyway, re terrorist network, not for the first time, npr reported this morning that according to sources on the ground (as opposed to "forces" on pennsylvania avenue and in the pentagon, whose willingness to ignore expert advice is manifest by now), foreign terrorists in iraq number as few as 1,000. i'm pretty sure the story is here, but insofar as i don't have the ability to listen right now, i'm taking this on faith and might be wrong.

and when did we start talking about "liberating" afghanistan? unlike iraq, where there was an emerging need for a post hoc rationalization of a war on misbegotten premises (i.e., WMD's/"imminent" threat), we've never seriously had to justify our action against afghanistan, the necessity of which was clear to all of the world's major players within weeks of 9/11. afghanistan, as i've always understood it and heard it characterized, was just a good old fashioned war against enemies, any liberation of peoples merely incidental and ancillary.

which is good, because if liberation were really the goal, it's not at all clear that we've accomplished anything toward that goal, what with warlords controlling 80% of the country and the upcoming "elections" a total sham for the myriad reasons previously noted on this site.

Morris,

Since you ignore just about everything I say, this begins to get frustrating. You write:

You keep saying how Saddam was not the worst dictator in the world, as though that's a compelling argument to leave him in power, a strange way of extending the illogic people use to subvert their responsibility when they say: "Well, I'm not so bad, because Joe over there did something even worse." There is a fancy name for this, but it escapes me so you definitely get the points for vocabulary today. The fact that there are people worse than him is not a reason to leave him in power, it does not mean we would have done a good thing in letting him torture even just his own people. There is a lot of work done in psychology on moral development, and the final stage is universal, where people accept responsibility for all humanity. Let me know when you get here.

That is not what I have said. I’ll keep this simple: we (the US) argued that a valid reason for invading Iraq is that Saddam did awful things to his own people. However, we (the US) make friends with other dictators (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan), and fail to invade yet other dictators that do far worse things to their people (Syria, Cambodia, Rwanda, etc.), and so we look like idiots. Looking like an idiot hurts our credibility and general power in the world. This is bad.

The argument is about consistency, not about how bad Saddam was. Yes, he was bad. Yes, all other things equal, we want him out of power and not harming his people. But, it is much easier for the US to project power and get the world to do what we want when we act consistently (always doing what we say, following the same basic reactions to similar circumstances, etc.). Hence, when we announce to the world that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and then don’t find any, and then announce that Saddam had links to international terrorism, and then don’t prove any, we look bad. If we then announce (as we have done) that the real reason we invaded was to save the Iraqis from an awful dictator, the world collectively looks around at itself and wonders what we have been smoking. They can see (as I pointed out) that the US calls other dictators “close allies” and ignores worse abuses in other parts of the world. Bluntly, they don’t believe us when we say we did it to make the world a better place because we have no previous historical record of invasions to remove nasty dictators, and are not showing any signs (post-Iraq invasion) of gearing up to remove any other nasty dictators. Hence, we look inconsistent and this reduces our power.

Ok, fine, Kerry voted against the 1990 – 1991 Iraq war. Perhaps that was a mistake, we can argue that, if you want to. I don’t know his reasons, and they may have been valid.

However, you again misquote Kerry. He has said he has a goal of beginning to bring troops home by the summer of 2005, and significant reductions by 2008. As I have pointed out repeatedly, these are goals, not promises. In addition, nowhere has he said that he would not send more troops. He just plain hasn’t said that, and you are lying. You then write:

You say that the world saw our liberation of Afghanistan as legitimate, and therefore they wouldn't be angry at us if we'd sent divisions of M-1 tanks up into the mountains to hunt UBL. But this is not the way the Muslims saw our liberation of Afghanistan, according to Al Jazeera and Al Aribiya. It's true, we would have less trouble with French and German terrorists, but there haven't been a hell of a lot of them attacking us lately.

You are wrong again. If you look at public opinion surveys from the world, including Muslim countries, in the last months of 2001 and early 2002, we had lots and lots of support from around the world. The Muslims (some of them, at least) may not have liked our invasion of Afghanistan, but since it was a NATO operation (not strictly US), the Muslim world saw this as a multilateral force with a great deal of world opinion behind it (the UN authorized it). Hence, it was widely seen as legitimate, and years worth of reconstruction would have been as well. You don’t see any Muslim countries complaining about the US in Afghanistan even today. That’s legitimacy. You go on:

So, you're saying Kerry had the wrong idea about the war August 1st, but he's right now, so we should...forget about what he said before, because he's got Carville and Begala putting words in his mouth now? He announced his candidacy more than a year before August 1st, and you're telling me he hadn't had time to think out what he'd do in Iraq? Yet you guys criticize Bush for not acting against Al Queda before 9/11?

I’m saying you found a single quote of Kerry’s that he now disagrees with. He has modified his position in the right direction. What, you would prefer him to have the August position to the recent one? If you can show me that the August quote was his (repeated) position, and not a one-off, then you might be able to make a case. But hey, what about Bush? First he’s against the Dept. of Homeland Security, then for it. First he won’t testify to the 9/11 commission, then he will. His National security advisor won’t, then she will. He’s against an intelligence czar, then he’s for it. Oh, Iraq has nukes, oops, now it doesn’t. Oh, Iraq helped Al Qaeda; no, wait, there were only some meetings. If Kerry’s position change bothers you that much, how do you feel about Bush? (And I didn’t even touch his flip flops on domestic programs). Next up:

You criticize Bush for not saying when he's going to withdraw, but you give Kerry a pass for setting a date, emboldening the terrorists, giving them hope, saying they only have to hold out four years?

Once again, you ignore what I write. Kerry has never said he will withdraw the troops. You wishing he said that does not make it true. He said that he hopes to, if conditions allow it. And, yes, I criticize Bush. What is his plan? He keeps making a bunch of “stay the course” noise, but that’s not a plan. According to Bush when do we get to bring the troops home, so that we can use them to protect us from another threat (‘cause we don’t have any protection right now). This is a legitimate debate: the cost of keeping the troops in Iraq is that we cannot use them in Iran, North Korea, Sudan or anywhere else we might need them. It may embolden the insurgents to hear talk of withdrawal (do you have any evidence of this?), but it certainly emboldens Iran and North Korea to press forward at an accelerated pace to develop nuclear weapons when they know that we cannot use force against them. Whom should we “embolden”, the insurgents or a pair of states making nukes? What’s your answer? Finally:

I agree that with you that there are several goals for Iraq, and we may not be able to meet all of them as well and as soon as we'd hope. But this is the crux of the battle against radical islam and its hatred of the West. We're not now fighting a nation, but a cult of hatred.

Here is a novel thought for you. Really think about this. What if we are, in fact, not fighting radical Islam, but a bunch of Sunni Muslims (Baathists) who want to run their own country again? Sure, there is evidence of Al Qaeda operating in Iraq, but I saw one estimate that there are only 1,000 of them. That leaves many tens of thousands of people fighting us who really aren’t radical Islamists (they are closer to being secular), but instead are fighting what they see as a war of liberation: they don’t want to be governed by the Americans or the American sponsored government, or by the Shiites (who they have been systematically abusing for most of the last 30 years). Hence, they see their best option as armed revolt against (what they consider) an illegitimate government, and they are fighting to form their own government. If this were true, and there is a lot of evidence it is, then all the fighting we are doing is, in fact, not fighting against radical Islam at all. Wouldn’t that be a bummer.

Happy Birthday.

Binky,
Why is it so easy for you to believe the article when it says Bush dropped the ball, but when it talks about intelligence that supports the President's decision, you're skeptical? As I've cited before, a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report says the CIA made a reasonable assessment when it said that "that al-Qaida or associated operatives were present in Baghdad and in northeastern Iraq in an area under Kurdish control".
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/619ntbla.asp
But no, you won't believe that existing terror networks could be in Iraq, despite all the evidence (here's more)
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/696twoqc.asp
to the contrary.
Yes, it's true that Saddam's defense forces didn't work with Al Queda until after the invasion; Saddam's intelligence service is another story.

Okay, to...Joshua?
Yes, friendly disagreement, by all means...tally ho, old chap.
I'm sorry I can't get the NPR audio to work, but I'll respond to your suggestion. First, if there are as few as 1000 foreign fighters in Iraq now, it's probably because we've killed so many who've already attacked our forces. Second, 1000 is still quite a few; it only took nineteen to kill about 3000 of our people. And it's John Kerry who says Iraq is a magnet for foreign terrorists, so by all means caveat emptor as to whether it's true or not.

Even if you don't believe we've brought democracy to Afghanistan, I'm sure it's easy for you to see how much more influence we have there now, and how much easier it will be to go after enemies hiding there than it was back when Clinton had such information and didn't act on it.

Baltar,
Can we agree that sometimes it is in our national interest to act against a nation that supports abuses of human rights (presumably, this is Armand's position when talking about the Nick Kristoff column), sometimes it is in our interest to befriend the enemy of a more heinous enemy (even if they've committed human rights abuses), and sometimes it is in our best interest to act like the friend of a leader we despise because we don't have the available resources to do anything about it? When it comes to consistency, the key is neither to be so consistent that we can't adapt in order to survive, nor to adapt so much that we have no idea what we stand for, that we abandon our core values. Certainly I understand not all leaders of nations with whom we maintain a diplomatic relationship are worthy, virtuous. And you can make arguments of how we had a greater interest in attacking (or threatening but not attacking, as Kerry suggests) Iran or North Korea, but I don't think I'm going out on a limb in saying that even if a North Korea war didn't spark a resulting war with China, both Iran and North Korea had militaries far beyond Saddam's, and we would have probably lost a thousand lives not in the year+ after major combat was over, but at least that many during that very phase of the war.

I know Kerry says he would build an international coalition, but I think given the recent comments of France and Germany, that no matter who's president, they're going to sit out all conflicts until further notice. They're going to let us handle them, and not put their own troops in jeopardy.

I disagree with you, with have historically removed nasty dictators, in Japan and Germany. I agree that it looks bad that we haven't yet found WMD in Iraq after intelligence pointed to this, but I think we'd look worse if we had not acted on our intelligence that did, in fact, point to his.

You say:
"In addition, nowhere has he said that he would not send more troops. He just plain hasn’t said that, and you are lying."

In fact, he said it in August:

In interviews on television talk shows, the Democratic presidential nominee said that he saw no reason to send more troops to Iraq and that he would seek allied support to draw down U.S. forces there. "I will have significant, enormous reduction in the level of troops," he said on ABC's "This Week."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32898-2004Aug1.html

And he said it a year ago:

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe we should put more American troops in Iraq?
SEN. KERRY: No.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3080246/

You say Kerry bringing home troops in four years is just a goal, not a promise. That's a very nuanced way to put it, and given Kerry's record for consistency, I'd have to agree.

You suggest the Muslims weren't disagreeable with us because of our war in Afghanistan because of world opinion; I think they value world opinion almost as much as Bush does. With Iraq, they had reinforced the idea that Al Jazeera has been pushing, that we're making war on Muslims, and it would have been the same if we'd gone into Iran.

Now I'm getting frustrated having to repeat MYself. To change a position one time is to be adaptive, open minded; to do it over and over again as Kerry's done on Iraq is...what would you call it? Nuanced? I've got another word...what's eight letters and often found in a cow pasture? This is also from Tim Russert, from the interview last August cited above:

And Joe Biden, fellow Democratic senator, friend of yours, had this to say about your candidacy: “The guy I’m most inclined to support would be John Kerry. But John, I think, has to become, quite frankly, more decisive. ... I think John’s being sort of modulated by a lot of the ‘pros’ around him instead of just saying what he thinks.”

Even Joe Biden suggested that Kerry was being led around by his campaign managers. Now, after he gave the statement two months ago, he got Carville and Begalla to work for him, and suddenly he's got a new position on Iraq. Is it his position? Who knows. Even you have to admit this looks bad.

And Bush didn't take more than a year to think about Homeland Security before deciding to support it, to decide to testify before the 9/11 committee, to decide to have Dr. Rice testify, I don't think it was more than a couple months for any of those. Kerry had the same position on not sending more troops for more than a year, for many years (since 97, though that was, I admit, a change of his position from 91). If you want me to believe he voted against armor for troops as a protest, I believe it. Why has he suddenly changed his mind, again, now? Maybe he was giving the interview when he was tired, late at night, like when he gave the noontime 87 billion dollars remark?
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/700yvdar.asp
It looks bad.

I think the President gave the same answer on your North Korea argument last night that I'd given you a couple weeks ago. China has more influence in that area. I'm not sure I see the point of bringing troops home to threaten force against another nation, because given that Kerry's said we'd still be at the UN getting approval, nobody believes it's anything more than a threat.

The Saddam loyalist have been supporting the terrorists, read the cite I gave Binky above.

Also, to all interested in the Cheney-Haliburton argument, check out this:
http://factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=261

If it were one article, I might, but there is much more than one, and from a variety of sources and political view points. The stuff that is now coming out of investigative reporting is reinforcing that it wasn't that Bush "dropped the ball" - which while disappointing, would be understandable if it happened once, or even now and again - but that they deliberately manipulated the intelligence, and ignored strong counterbalancing information. The breadth of those facts, as well as the multiple and repetitive occurrences signals - to me - something more systematic than "dropping the ball."

I don't know how to put it more plainly than this: I believe that Iraq was not a major, imminent threat to the US, and we made a mistake in prioritizing it; I believe that the administration had to "cook the books" to convince the American people, the UN and Congress to accept that war. Do i think Saddam was horrible? Yes. Do I think that the situation in Iraq was a long-term security concern of the US? Of course, or we would not have been still futzing around with no-fly zones and the like. Do I htink that in his "evil" little heart, Saddam would have liked to do big nasty things? Sure. However, the desire and the capability are two entirely different things, and if our true goal was to stamp out Al Qaeda, there were other countries where we could have acted more effectively to address their activity. And no, I don't mean we should have invaded Saudi.

Binky,
Kerry and Edwards both supported the original war resolution, which authorized the President to use force when he felt it was necessary. If they believed Bush was going to keep going back to the UN again and again (because as I've stated here many times, France and Germany would still be opposing us, the cites are somewhere above), not only are they naive, it does make me wonder if they'll ever think force is necessary. They both voted against the 87 billion as a protest (they just happened to be running against Howard Dean at the time, losing to the anti-war candidate), despite having both said many times how great a threat Saddam is: I've cited Kerry from 97 to 04 on this, and here's Edwards...
"As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I firmly believe that the issue of Iraq is not about politics. It's about national security. We know that for at least 20 years, Saddam Hussein has obsessively sought weapons of mass destruction through every means available. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons today. He has used them in the past, and he is doing everything he can to build more. Each day he inches closer to his longtime goal of nuclear capability--a capability that could be less than a year away.
What's more, the terrorist threat against America is all too clear. Thousands of terrorist operatives around the world would pay anything to get their hands on Saddam's arsenal, and there is every possibility that he could turn his weapons over to these terrorists. No one can doubt that if the terrorists of September 11th had had weapons of mass destruction, they would have used them. On September 12, 2002, we can hardly ignore the terrorist threat, and the serious danger that Saddam would allow his arsenal to be used in aid of terror [emphasis added]."
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/720igwvw.asp
"'The time has come for decisive action,' he said, calling for the ouster of Saddam Hussein a month before Congress voted to authorize the war and before the CIA produced its October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq." Ibid

So even if the estimate was tained by Cheney's influence, Edwards supported the war even before then.

"Edwards today calls the war a diversion and adventure that has undermined U.S. efforts to get Osama bin Laden. Back then, he explicitly rejected such suggestions: 'I believe this is not an either-or choice. Our national security requires us to do both, and we can.' Edwards today calls the Iraq war 'needless.' Back then, he argued that 'the national security of our country requires action.'" Ibid

And while yesterday Holbrooke excused Kerry's failure to realize the aluminum tubes were not meant for a nuclear program, because he's not on the intelligence committee anymore (though given he missed 76% of the hearings
http://factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=241
it's not like he ever was), Edwards can't really use that excuse, can he? He had access to the same information, and he drew the same conclusion as the President, perhaps because of the certainty of the nonpartisan Tenet.

Well, does the fact that I voted for neither Kerry nor Edwards help you with my opinion about what you describe? I'm still more willing to roll the dice with them than to give my vote to an administration that is careless at best and mendacious at worst.

Off to class...ta ta!

Just to be clear, there's a paragraph between the first two of Edwards that I just cited, so really there should be an ellipse after the first one.

Binky,
I would say Kerry and Edwards, given their disingenuousness about their previous positions, are at best mendacious and...I don't want to think about at worst.

Yes, but, I still have hope that they will be able to assemble a better FP team and that public scrutiny of and outrage over the Bushies' terrible foreign policy will encourage more sunshine, whether Kerry/Edwards like it or not. I also think that mendacious yet skilled politicians with good policy are prefereable to mendacious etc with terrible policy. Not to mention that I am a civil libertarian, which puts me rather at odds with the Bush administration for other reasons (and again, while K/E are not the best at that, I'm not sure I want the libertarian whack jobs running our foreign policy, so I'll make do).

Binky, this really should go on the troops thread, but it's disappeared from my screen.
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041004-110742-6417r.htm
"President George Bush garnered nearly three-quarters of military votes in a newspaper survey, according to the Military Times newspapers.
Bush leads Democratic Sen. John Kerry 73 percent to 18 percent in the survey of 4,165 active-duty, National Guard and reserve subscribers to Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Corps Times and Air Force Times, which are owned by the Gannett Co....
Most respondents were older, higher in rank and more career-oriented than the military as a whole."
I guess the actual officers in the field disagree with you about Bush having a "terrible foreign policy."

Morris,

I seem to have appointed myself to be your fact-checker. The story you cite is only four paragraphs long. You quote the first two paragraphs. You leave out the third paragraph (though you do put the last sentence in):

Rather than a more random selection, the survey was answered by 4,000 military members who volunteered, which could skew the results. Junior enlisted members were underrepresented by the survey results. Most respondents were older, higher in rank and more career-oriented than the military as a whole.

This is complete garbage as a poll. Any statistician or polling firm will tell you that any form of a "volunteer" poll is useless for an accurate survey of the whatever population you are trying to find out about. This survey tells us nothing at all about the feelings of the military on either candidate.

Thanks for the info Morris. I'm still not sure that gives us a good idea about what's happening on the ground, but it cetainly is a perspective. I have statistical problems (see baltar's post) which I do with the anecdotal stuff I've been hearing. The anecdotal stuff is coming not from soldiers on the ground, but soldiers who have returned from being on the ground, and the split seems to be much more even, if not skewed for Kerry, than the one your survey shows. Again, not representative, but interesting.

Baltar,
This tells us about the military officers who felt strongly enough to respond to the military times survey. So, yes, we have to assume that this may not be statistically representative of illiterate, apathetic members of this military; I'll be the first to admit they're probably underrepresented and may actually support Kerry.

Oh god, I needed a laugh this morning. I'll be delighted to hear what my "illiterate, apathetic" enlisted acquaintances think about this.

Yeah, that's showing a positively Rove-ian level of respect for military service.

hey, it could be worse: they could be consciousless felons.

or conscienceless felons. ;)

so mortified -- that typo was unkahnshinibul.

Okay, fine, I value the opinions of those who support their candidate enough to vote more than those who don't; that's what democracy does.

If you find it inconsiderate that my comments are prejudicial against the disinterested and uninformed, what do think about a Kerry ad that preys on prejudices against race?

from http://spinsanity.com/
It goes on to state that "The Saudi Royal family gets special favors, while our gas prices skyrocket." The Kerry ad cites a Reuters report from September 29, 2004, but that release refers only to the rising price of oil, making no mention of any "favors." Nor does the Kerry fact mention of what those special favors might be. This is simply an inflammatory attack designed to influence voters by appealing to negative perceptions of the Saudis.

You're saying we SHOULDN'T have negative perceptions of the Saudi government?

This is racist, it's not limited to perceptions of the Saudi government, it's about there being many Saudi Arabians involved in 9/11 and suggesting (courtesy of Howard Dean and Michael Moore who say Bush let UBL conspirators get away despite this being refuted by MSNBC) that Bush is in league with terrorists. If you think this ad is being run because of high oil prices, you're being a little naive.

i love it when republicans, especially those whose candidates are handled by rove, get their back up when the democrats go negative. no, really, i do.

the only thing MSNBC refuted was that the bin-Ladens were allowed to fly out of this country before normal air traffic was restored. i'm not a big fan of michael moore, as i've already stated, but that he misspoke about the timing of the departure of those flights says little about the bush family's coziness with the saudi crown, a topic taken up at length by sources far more reliable than moore.

so tell me again why democrats are to blame for the fact that we're paying $2/gallon at the pump?

Negative? Racist is a lot worse than negative. All your more reliable source says is that Saudi diplomats have visited Bush at his ranch, just as Putin and Blair and many others have...where are the black helicopters, Mr. Conspiracy Man? The source you cite actually mentions a disagreement between them about Saddam, but if you suggest some sort of trilateral commission arrangement here, why aren't they supporting each other's efforts?

There are so many internal contradictions to your argument, the most blindingly apparent is that your candidate supports bilateral talks with Kim Jong-Il, had talked with the North Vietnamese while we were at war with them, yet you oppose Bush having discussions with the Saudis? So, it's important for us to talk to the French, the Germans, the North Koreans, and the North Vietnamese, but NOT the Saudis? Oh, I SO apologize for suggesting this is a racist tactic, you've proven me SO wrong.

MSNBC may not have refuted many of Moore's deceptions, but spinsanity did, and here's just the summary:
http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20040702.html
"Moore also uses the power of insinuation to play on the relationship between the Bush family and the Bin Ladens. The facts are thin, but that doesn't stop him from making ominous suggestions about the connections between the two."

talk about strawman, i've already distanced myself from moore's claims, about which i care about as much as i do about the pronouncements of such credible journalists and purveyors of truth and moral rectitude as rush limbaugh, howard stern, and dr. laura.

are you denying that the bush family has done millions, if not billions, of dollars of business with the saudi royals? are you denying that, in terms of propaganda, education, and day to day life, the saudis are doing anything more to rebut the arguments of the fundamentalism that lead directly to terrorist behavior than iraq ever did? are you denying, that at least prior to gulf war II, the saudis had infinitely more demonstrable connections to terrorism than iraq (infinite mathematically because iraw had nothing, as confirmed by every well-sourced report that has yet spoken on the subject), yet we call them allies?

answer the questions, for a change. and when you deny, if you dare, each of the above propositions, source something better than spinsanity. seriously, i don't think you can, but prove me wrong and i'll listen.

as for racism -- pot? hi, this is the kettle. you're black.

Joshua,
Don't be so intellectually lazy. If you'd bothered to go to the link I'd provided, you'd see this regarding Bush's so called millions of dollars in dealings with the Saudis:

After discussing the September 11 attacks, Moore presents clips from an interview between Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar and CNN's Larry King in which Bandar describes Osama Bin Laden as a "simple and very quiet guy." Moore then intones the following over video of Bush in a Florida classroom after being told of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center:
Hmm. A simple and quiet guy whose family who just happened to have a business relationship with the family of George W. Bush. Is that what he was thinking about? Because if the public knew this, it wouldn't look very good.
"Just happened" to have a business relationship? What does Moore mean? He doesn't say precisely, of course, but he draws a series of tenuous and often circumstantial links between Bin Laden family investments and Bush's actions as President.
For instance, Moore shows that the White House blacked out the name of another Texas Air National Guard pilot who was suspended along with Bush - James R. Bath - in service records released earlier this year. He suggests that the White House was not concerned about privacy and instead wanted to hide Bath's links to Bush:
Why didn't Bush want the press and the public to see Bath's name on his military records? Perhaps he was worried that the American people would find out that at one time James R. Bath was the Texas money manager for the Bin Ladens.
Moore notes that Bath was retained by Salem Bin Laden, and describes Bush's founding of the Arbusto oil company. James Moore, an author, appears next, saying in an interview that "there's no indication" Bush Sr. funded Arbusto and that the source of the firm's investments is unknown. Michael Moore then piles on the innuendo in his narration:
So where did George W. Bush get his money?... [archival clip of Bush saying "I'm George Bush"] One person who did invest in him was James R. Bath. Bush's good friend James Bath was hired by the Bin Laden family to manage its money in Texas and invest in businesses. And James Bath himself in turn invested in George W. Bush.
This phrasing suggests that Bath invested Bin Laden family money in Arbusto. But as Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball note in an online Newsweek column and Matt Labash points out in a Weekly Standard article on the film, Bath has stated this investment was his money, not the Bin Ladens'. Moore presents no evidence to the contrary.
The film also notes investments in United Defense, a military contractor, by the Carlyle Group, a firm that Bush and his father have been involved with which counts members of the Bin Laden family among its investors. He states:
September 11 guaranteed that United Defense was going to have a very good year. Just six weeks after 9/11, Carlyle filed to take United Defense public and in December, made a one-day profit of $237 million. But sadly, with so much attention focused on the Bin Laden family being important Carlyle investors, the Bin Ladens eventually had to withdraw.
Moore's phrasing suggests that the Bin Ladens profited from the post-Sept. 11 buildup with the United Defense IPO but were forced to withdraw after the stock sale. However, Labash notes that the Bin Ladens withdrew before the initial filing, not afterward, missing the big payday Moore insinuates that they received.
Finally, Moore drops a big number - $1.4 billion - claiming "That's how much the Saudi royals and their associates have given the Bush family, their friends and their related businesses in the past three decades," adding that "$1.4 billion doesn't just buy a lot of flights out of the country. It buys a lot of love." But Isikoff and Hosenball show that nearly 90% of that total comes from contracts awarded by the Saudi government to BDM, a defense contractor owned by Carlyle. But when the contracts were awarded and BDM received the Saudi funds, Bush Sr. had no official involvement with the firm, though he made one paid speech and took an overseas trip on its behalf. He didn't actually join Carlyle's Asian advisory board until after the firm had sold BDM. And though George W. Bush had previously served on the board of another Carlyle company, he left it before BDM received the first Saudi contract. As usual, the connections are loose and circumstantial at best.

If you want something better than spinsanity, here's the links to the Weekly Standard
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/278rxzvb.asp
and MSNBC citing a Newsweek article that are embedded in the spinsanity article you were too lazy to read.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5335853/site/newsweek/

I find it disturbing that someone supporting the party claiming to be sensitive to the interests of racial minorities wants to make a joke out of their racist advertisements...how enlightened of you.

I find it even more disturbing that you overlook your own candidate's receiving outright hundreds of thousands of dollars from supporters of removing sanctions against the Iranian goverment, yet you have the temerity to suggest Bush is somehow tainted because a company which paid his father less money to give a speech. That's like...the pot calling the kettle black.

"intellectually lazy?" maverick, your ego's writing checks your body can't cash.

i take it it's not laziness but righteous indignation that led you to ignore my request for major newspaper sourcing?

and it wasn't laziness but righteous indignation that led you to ignore the fact that i never claimed to be relying on michael moore, and indeed said i don't even like him or what he does for the left?

and of course, it wasn't laziness that led you to assume i didn't read something from an unreliable source about a topic in which i'd already expressed my disinterest (i.e., not the saud connections themselves, but moore's admittedly tendentious way of presenting same), when in fact all that really happened is that i don't agree, and don't feel the need to defend someone i've attacked like four times on this thread and elsewhere.

please let me clarify what warrants no clarification by now: to attribute to me any reliance on michael moore is akin to me ascribing to you reliance on the writings of pol pot (assuming there are any) -- i don't care about moore or what he says, and to the extent you care about having a dialog here, you can stop bringing him up now.

(don't get me wrong; i can see how moore-bashing would be fun, however. to that end, i'm sure there's some 19-year-old proto-leftie who will be happy to defend michael moore's merits with you ad nauseum (much like the youngest naderites and deaniacs); i'm just not him (or them).)

in the end, this all amounts to so much evasion with regard to what i have asked you.

NOW, here are sources of varying provenance, detail, and nature about:

* the bin-laden-saud connection

* favors for saudis in the aftermath of 9/11

* generally, a compendious discussion of bush/saud/bin laden ties in business, geopolitics, etc.

and other tid-bits:

item: "A joint congressional committee released an 850-page report concluding that the September 11 attacks could have been prevented; a 28-page section detailing the Saudi Arabian government's links to the terrorists was redacted." (And generally)

item: birthday parties and such (from one of your favroritest sources)

item: compendium of mainstream sources for all of the above, thanks to the pinkos over at pbs's frontline

finally (and only because you have insisted on staying with it), foreign contributions are no scarier to me than which gives them no more claim to massive domestic contributions from would-be government contractors. and odds are, on balance they pay no more taxes than an iranian national does.

so who's lazy? happy skimming, morris.

Speaking of writing checks your body can't cash...you fault me for not providing "major newspaper sourcing," and you don't provide a single major newspaper source for your own arguments.
Face!!!
LAZY...because you didn't bother to read the articles that disected this relationship and found nothing substantive; you read the title and assumed they were about Moore, but if you'd read on you'd see they refute this Bush/Bin Laden/Saudi connection.
LAZY...because you forgot that a few comments back you admitted "the only thing MSNBC refuted was that the bin-Ladens were allowed to fly out of this country before normal air traffic was restored," yet you cite in your last comment an article describing exactly this incident as a favor granted by Bush, forgetting you'd so recently admitted this is an empty argument. You were right to be for this before you were against it, or against this before you were for it if it makes more sense to you:

"It was Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism czar who was a holdover from the Clinton administration and who has since turned into a fierce Bush critic. Clarke has publicly testified that he gave the greenlight—conditioned on FBI clearance."
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5335853/site/newsweek/

I'm not going to bother citing any more re: the emptiness of the Bush/Saudi connection until you read what I've cited before.

Let it not be doubted that anyone who thinks domestic corruption is an equal threat to Iranian proliferation should vote for Kerry...of course, Kerry claims even he doesn't believe this.

Baltar,
I hope your paying attention. Under his heading, "compendium of mainstream sources for all of the above, thanks to the pinkos over at pbs's frontline," Joshua includes at least two cites of the Weekly Standard. Maybe, given his intellectual laziness, he didn't notice they were there.
So, Joshua, is the Weekly Standard a mainstream source or were you just being LAZY???

Morris,

I'm not arguing that the Weekly Standard is wrong 100% of the time (or that the NYT is right 100% of the time - see Jason Blair), just that biased sources need to be read more carefully and more skeptically. In the argument we're having about the Duelfer report, the NYT summary is more accurate than the Weekly Standard version. That doesn't make the Weekly Standard wrong all the time, just wrong here. I don't believe everything I read in the NYT or WaPo, but when other sources generally agree (along with the Economist, Atlantic Monthly, Newsweek, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, AP, etc.) I'm more likely to believe it. In this case, most major newspapers who wrote a summary of the Duelfer report saw it the way the NYT wrote it, not the Weekly Standard way. They were wrong here, simple as that.

Does that automatically make Joshua's links wrong as well? Don't know, I don't feel like reading the Weekly Standard stuff and evaluating it. It is certainly somewhat of a strike against it, as the Weekly Standard is not a credible source, but it may still be right (or partially right). In any event, Joshua can defend himself, I'm sure.

Baltar,
I hope Joshua does defend himself for I enjoy our debates even if they do get heated at times, I understand that he and I both take these issues very seriously and very personally. He and I often disagree, but I hope he keeps defending his views as strongly (though I hope, of course, he comes to support the President) as we all do.

I understand you're more likely to agree with those sources, but I see something deliberate in the willingness of the WaPo to run a story with certain elements supporting the President's position, then suddenly they disappear from the story as it appears on the web site after those elements are brought to the defense of the President and the indictment of the NYT. There's something deliberate about Dan Rather selectively including only information (including the forged document) that goes against the President, instead of bringing attention to the son and wife's competing opinions and allowing the viewers to make their own decisions. You may argue that the journalists should come to a conclusion based on the information they have available, and then repress information that leads to a competing conclusion not supported by a preponderence of the evidence, but is that objective journalism, or is it paternalism? I'll bring up the obvious point that when Bush focuses on the positive aspects of the war in Iraq, you argue that he's being deceptive for not including alternative opinions, competing evidence.

I think we can both agree that we prefer having multiple sources of info to confirm any story run in any newspaper, that's why I wouldn't have even trusted the Weekly Standard if elements of the WaPo story hadn't been confirmed by Google and another website that was arguing against the President.

I want to make the point that decisions on what material is fundamental to the edited version of any story are matters of interpretation, just as the summarizing of Duelfer's report is to begin with.

Does anybody know if G. Gordon Liddy has switched parties?
"Offices that house President Bush's re-election campaign in Spokane were broken into and vandalized last night, the latest in a string of crimes at Republican offices across the country...."
"In Bellevue last week , computers that stored the Republican get-out-the-vote database were stolen in a burglary at the Republican headquarters there . Bush campaign officials believe the break - ins are part of a broader attack on the president's re-election offices around the country, including a burglary in Canton, Ohio, last night, gun shots fired in West Virginia, Florida and Tennessee and union protestors storming offices in three Florida cities and Minneapolis."
What's certain in this topsy turvy world when Democrats are hatching secret plans and breaking into Republican headquarters?

Here's the cite for that last one:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002059735_webbushoffice11.html

the moore-ization of your argument remains central, in that you continue to set forth this syllogism:

1. if the bushes and sauds are friends, the bush's help the sauds out of the country improperly in the wake of 9/11.
2. contra moore's claim, the idea that the bush's helped the sauds out of the country improperly in the wake of 9/11 has been conclusively debunked (by, among others, clarke (the rhetorical bushicidal maniac) himself).
3. therefore, the bush's and the sauds aren't friends.

this is why i said stay away from moore if you want to convince me they're not friends perhaps to a degree detrimental to bush's objective assessment of this country's foreign policy interests. you have directed me to no source (mainstream or otherwise) that conclusively argues for the assertion that the house of saud is only as connected to the bush family as any foreign leaders would be in virtue of us being a massive, important, world power. you've done nothing to repudiate the baseline proposition that oil magnates of the bush order simply don't achieve that standing without initial connections to the house of saud, and that much evidence suggests a much deeper tie between the house of saud and bushes 41 and 43.

meanwhile, you come down on me for not listing mainstream sources and for noting the weekly standard (by association). you fail, of course, to note, a few crucial qualifications:

1. i started out my enumeration with these words: "here are sources of varying provenance, detail, and nature." what i most certainly didn't do, and by that language worked quite hard not to do, is say, "X is true," because i found a website somewhere that says it is.

2. the frontline citation i directed you to indeed does quite the weekly standard twice, but makes far more reference, in balance, to the new york times, the new yorker, and the economist. i trust the folks over at frontline to vet the weekly standard columns, and not include them if they don't survive scrutiny. as baltar notes above, that it's in the weekly standard doesn't make it invalid, only suspect. and things that show up only in the weekly standard are very suspect, if for no other reason than that their reporting resources are as feeble as the axe they have to grind is dull.

3. my general, "compendious discussion" citation to the center for cooperative research contains dozens of embedded citations to the following publications/sources (to go with those mainstream embedded references in the frontline piece): New Yorker, Miami Herald, PBS Frontline, Salon, Time, Houston Chronicle, San Diego Union-Tribune, Newsweek, Sunday Mercury, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Santa Fe New Mexican, Slate, CNN, Irish Times, Seattle Times, Fortune, Boston Herald, BBC, Guardian, Vanity Fair, London Times, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, New York Post, New York Observer, ABC News, Village Voice, Washington Post, Asia Times, UPI, AP, Baltimore Sun, FOX News, Washington Times, Arizona Daily Star, Tampa Tribune, Reuters, WorldNetDaily, New Republic, Le Figaro, Agence France-Presse, Financial Times, Boston Globe, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, National Review, Chicago Tribune, Now with Bill Moyers, Jane's Intelligence Review, Ha'aretz, CBS, and still others.

the funny thing is, even these many sources, in themselves, don't make me all that credulous, but they lead me to ask the question I have asked of you. neither you, nor the politicos you defend, have provided me with an ample answer; indeed, bush hasn't tried nearly so hard as you to disabuse the concerned of the notion that he's all kinds of cozy with the royal family responsible for a country full of terrorists that has a record of doing business with the bin-ladens and supplied more than three quarters of the 9/11 terrorists, as well as (quite possibly) a meaningful fraction of the foreign insurgents in iraq, and any number of people who, in the future, will eagerly sacrifice themselves to cause great harm to westerners.

finally, although with the above enumeration i think i've amply responded to your suggestion that my sources were as unreliable or biased as yours, i'll further note that i won't be held to a higher standard of proof than that to which you hold yourself. why should i respond with anything but cranks to refute the arguments you base solely on cranks? granted, this leads to a race to the bottom, a downward spiral involving the shedding of rigor and rhetorical integrity as we descend, but that's what you wingnuts (there, i said it) want, right? after all, the right cringes from the light; much better that the voters stay shackled in their cave, trying to make something out of the shadows dancing on the wall.

now if you'll excuse me, i'm going to adjourn in anticipation of your defense of sinclair's shameful pollution of the airwaves it controls only in virtue of the billion-dollar share of the broadcast spectrum it enjoys gratis at the expense of democrats, republicans, independents, communists, greens, naderites, martians, etc., alike.

Morris,

As for the anti-Bush theft/violence, it is clearly happening on both sides of the fence. See this Obsidian Wings thread. As Moe Lane notes, this seems unorganized (i.e., not a national conspiracy), but is worrying none the less.

If Liddy wants to switch, I say good riddance. I don't want him in my party.

as for the liddy thread, i'd much rather republicans trash a campaign office than engage in fraud aimed at denying democrats the right to vote (though, of course, neither is acceptable).

note also recent denial of service attacks on the votemaster who, ironically, has probably the most objective methodology, painstakingly refined and explained at every pass, for charting the current status of the electoral map (his commentary is left, but we're talking numbers here, and he privileges stated polls solely by currency, not on pollster bias or result) and, i suspect (though in this case i don't know), on the boycott sinclair broadcasting website, which for most of yesterday was inaccessible.

more on "America Votes!" (in fact, Sproul & Associates).

To intrude on the discussion over whether or not there is a friendship between the Bush family and the house of Saud, here's a story from the NYT this morning. Doesn't look like the friendship extends all that far. All the usual caveats about sampling etc. apply.

Seventeen months into a shadowy terror campaign that has killed more than 100 people, numerous Saudis express less anger at the insurgents than at the United States for its invasion of Iraq, the signal event that they say touched off the attacks inside the kingdom.

Binky, I'm not sure how you're construing my assertions, but I don't think the article says anything that conflicts with what I have said about the Saudi royals -- the House of Saud -- being documentably cozy with the Bushes, 41 in particular but 43 as well. I've never suggested the general populace of SA like us; I think quite the contrary is manifest in myriad ways.

The only a propos quote from a royal is not inconsistent with what I've been saying:

Prince Mubarak al-Shafi said, "This certain sect of people is unhappy about alien ideas, particularly about the democracy that the United States wants from nations all over the world, especially Saudi Arabia."

And then this, which simply confirms what we've all been saying: that the Iraq war has created a recruiting bonanza for fundamentalist Islamic terrorists.

"The war in Iraq was absolutely not justified," said Saad al-Qahtni, 34, a businessman.

That led to attacks here because the Saudi government "did not prevent America from invading Iraq without justification," said Fareed Saad al-Asmari, a banker.

Those were common refrains.

I read this to at least suggest (subject to the same caveats you noted) that the man on the street in SA has issues with his government for being too tolerant of our war in Iraq. And indeed, it seems to me, inexpert though I am, that the House of Saud is walking a tightrope with respect to preventing a full-blown insurrection while maintaining at least the semblance of amiable relations with us, throwing us the occasional bone, etc. It's a tightrope SA shares with Pakistan, and I can't help but fear what happens if the leadership in either of those countries falls and is replaced with fundamentalists. Sadly, this fate is made more rather than less probable by our conduct in the region, especially in Iraq, where our actions have precipitated terrorism and general unrest in both countries, and left both the Saudi royals and Musharraf on the horns of a potentially lethal dilemma.

Less relevantly, I love this coda to the article: 'Mr. Qahtni, the businessman, railed about "the alien influences" that he said he believed were damaging Saudi society. He was seated at a Starbucks, sipping a tall cappuccino.'

"Sipping a tall cappuccino..." I love it. To be honest, I wasn't construing your assertions, but thought a public opinion survey was probably slightly off topic of the elite level discussion you guys were having.