Hopefully, this lie will die
Joshua Foust on Mar 12 2008 at 3:40 am | Filed under: Around the Web
An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida terrorist network.
The study was sponsored by the Pentagon. Do you think Doug Feith allows for this in his new 900-page “it was everyone else’s fault” book? Of course not. But, as both Ackerman and Balloon Juice note, being horribly wrong about this kind of thing certainly didn’t prevent anyone from advancing their careers tremendously.
Nothing says “DC” quite like failing upwards.
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Somehow this doesn’t make me feel any less positive that taking out Saddam was a good thing.
Perhaps, with the salient point that everyone in the Middle East, save perhaps Israel, provided “some support” to other terrorist groups. In those terms, I don’t see how you can meaningfully distinguish between Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Egypt, or (hell) Pakistan. Yes he was a bad man. No one here is arguing otherwise. But was he bad enough, in 2002-2003, to warrant the invasion? I have my doubts about that.
Well, strategically speaking, it just wasn’t possible to tackle the Middle East without taking care of the wild card first. Since everyone thought Saddam had bio/chemo weapons capability, his reaction couldn’t be left to chance. But that’s just the strategy of taking him out. The follow-on strategy (or lack thereof) was what was really screwed up.
And as far as the “lie” being perpetrated, no one has been saying that Saddam and al Qaeda had operational ties. We do know that they were in contact with one another, and that some negotiations had taken place (to no avail). And it’s common knowledge that Saddam held a conference for international terrorists in Baghdad. Throw in the fact that some of those terrorist groups supported by Saddam likely had ties (perhaps only tangentially) to al Qaeda and leaving Saddam around seems like a bad gamble IMHO.
Actually, Doug Feith and his associates (which include Dick Cheney and others) have been adamant for years about operational ties between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. Until recently, National Review and the Weekly Standard routinely mentioned the ties between Saddam and AQ. And in 2002 Bush’s speeches were rife with talks of these same supposed operational ties. So calling it a lie isn’t too far fetched – there was no evidence to say so in the first place (the infamous “Prague meetins” was disproven almost as soon as it was broadcast), and now there is concrete evidence it just didn’t exist.
So calling it a lie really isn’t that big a stretch.
C’mon, Josh. You know each one of those charges is false. Do I really have to trot out the same old evidence? No one in the administration ever declared that there were operational ties between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein (and, no, one word answers to loaded questions from reporters does not count). The Prague-Atta thing has never been disproved (the cell phone thing? Car rentals? Really?), and in fact the Czechs still stand behind the claim, but even so the Administration backed off that “evidence” pretty early on. Furthermore, saying that there were no “operational ties” between the parties is not the same as saying there were no ties whatsoever. We KNOW there were ties. The fact that they never really amounted to anything is why they weren’t operational.
And the only reason there is concrete evidence…
What was unknown at the time was how extensive Saddam’s ties to terrorism (not just AQ) were. Also unknown was just what state his WMD programs and stockpile really were.
Saddam was maintaining a facade to stave off invasion by Iran, and not worrying about playing bluff with the world, and in particular the U.S. under President Bush was going to do to his life expectancy.
Operational ties?
I honestly don’t recall anyone claiming that Saddam was in bed with Bin Laden. I mean, seriously. Saddam and the 625,000 dead Iraqi children that the United States’ sanctions killed were, however, one of Bin Laden’s excuses for 9-11.
No one remembers those dead kids.
Probably because they weren’t real, but there you go.
In any case, there were a lot of reasons that Saddam was a serious problem as well as a number of reasons that it made sense to move the conflict out of Afghanistan as much as possible, though those are sort of cold reasons… unpleasant. And Saddam didn’t need to have operational ties to anyone in order to support them, to tolerate their presence, allow them space to train or to serve as a cause for those looking for excuses.
Guys, c’mon.
“Bush stands by al Qaeda, Saddam link”
There’s the story whereby Dick Cheney (with rumored help from Donald Rumsfeld) would systematically undercut the intelligence findings of the CIA which said there were no ties between Saddam and AQ, leak rumors of evidence pointing to a collaborative relationship to press outlets like the New York Times, then appear on the Sunday talk shows to discuss the leaked stories.
Then there are studies linking consumption of certain media sources, namely Fox News, to beliefs that Saddam had ties to Osama bin Laden.
Then there is Bush’s letter to Congress in which he states attacking Iraq is “consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.”
So please, do not insult my intelligence by claiming “no one” ever said there was a connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The President and Vice President were doing so for years. And it is a lie that should, at long last, die—for lack of any evidence.
Josh, believe whatever you want, but it’s indicative of the veracity of your claims that you can’t produce even one quote from the Bush administration that there were operational ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
Seriously. Do you believe those “studies”? And even if you do, you haven’t produced a single lie told by someone in the Administration.
And with respect to this:
You do realize that this is simply mirroring of the language laid out in the AUMF?
That’s how cases are made. One presents their evidence and claims that it meets the standard set out by the court or legislature. Every case, in every district, in every court. Why should it be any different here?
Michael, I’m perfectly aware of that—the letter stated as much. The point is that is draws a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, claiming the former was partially responsible for the latter. That would involve operational ties. Unless you’re claiming no one ever used the exact phrase “operational ties” (a claim that would take months of intensive research to determine, something I think neither of us is willing to do), then I don’t know how you’re distinguishing “operational” and “regular” ties.
As for my inability to produce one quote from the Bush administration… umm, follow that link (here it is again) to the Frontline episode which features reams of interviews with former Bush administration officials who actually say the very same thing (and discuss the extremely deceptive way these issues were discussed in the days leading up to our invasion—one of the primary reasons senior officials like Paul Pillar resigned in protest). It would have been extremely laborious to reproduce all of the quotes in which they discuss the manipulation of shaking intel of ties between the two to appear bullet proof. Or, to put it differently, I wasn’t insulting your intelligence by laying out a long trail of crumbs.
For the record, I think Kieth put his finger on a reasonable explanation for the uncertainty leading up to the war: Saddam was fronting one thing in public (the illusion of links to terrorism and the possession of WMD to warn off Iran) while the reality is different. We have intelligence agencies to cut through the bull and arrive at a reasonable idea of the reality under the rhetoric. Most of the intelligence we had about Iraq at the time, which was precious little, actually pointed to the lack of WMD and the lack of ties between Saddam and Osama bin Laden. The very few dissenting reports that suggested, without much evidence beyond scattered testimony of extracted HUMINT assets, such ties, were elevated as prime over the reams of contradictory evidence suggesting these assets were unreliable.
That is a deception. And, to contradict a point I think Kieth wanted to make, saying we can rest easy because the invasion showed Iraq to be a phantom threat isn’t very comforting.
“So please, do not insult my intelligence by claiming “no one” ever said there was a connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.”
You forgot to say “operational” connection.
For several years now the insistence of anti-war sorts to couch the whole issue as a whole bunch of completely discrete concerns, nothing having to do with anything else or related to anything else, has annoyed me to no end. People who should certainly know better insist that Iraq has nothing to do with anything other than Iraq… and I’m not saying this applies to you, Joshua, because I don’t know you well enough to say. Iraq is *connected* to everything in the world. Somehow. Our response and reaction to Bin Laden is connected to *everything*. Every relationship our country has. With everyone.
The question isn’t, “Is Saddam Hussein connected to Al Qaeda?” the question is “HOW is Saddam Hussein connected to Al Qaeda?”
If he was “operationally” connected to Al Qaeda is an interesting question, certainly. But trying to prove that *this* entirely discrete person/event is connected to *that* entirely discrete person/event, operationally or otherwise, is based entirely on the assumption that the events are discrete.
Synova, that’s a fair point to make (and touché). I think my body of writing would indicate I have larger strategic concerns, and while I think an over-focus on Iraq actually serves to hurt our overall interests, both within the Middle East and beyond it (strategic, personnel, and resource interests are all negatively impacted). And I’m certainly not advocating the consideration of conflict in isolation; if anything, I go to the opposite extreme, and place too much emphasis on interconnectedness.
That being said, I also have gone through a rather painful process over the past few years of realizing that nearly every reason I thought justified the war in Iraq has been shown to be false—weapons, capability, terrorism, international law, stability and grand strategy, and so on. With that in mind, especially seeing, despite Michelle Malkin’s angry disseminating, that the ties between Saddam and “al Qaeda affiliates” (a clever term that is a great reduction from the old claims of connection to al Qaeda proper) still didn’t reach the “operational” level (which I take to include direct, strategic interactions, direct funding of a sufficiently large amount beyond simple statements of intent, and so on), my heart sinks… as it feels like yet another way I was catastrophically wrong about the war.
I think you’re right in saying that we need to examine Iraq both inside and outside its own context. But it is by doing that—by comparing, say, the very real collaboration between elements within Pakistan and al Qaeda to what some claim passes for collaboration between Saddam and AQ Affiliates—that, again, I can’t help believing the “Saddam/al Qaeda” line was simply another falsehood.
Oh, I think the US is well enough justified in our actions. But that doesn’t mean that the situation demanded that response or that going to war in Iraq was the best option.
I tend to think it was at least a “better than some” option, though considering it’s not reversible I don’t know that that is relevant to anything much.
I just love how the intelligent conservative hardliners have a deep desire to play with words. It’s pretty simple. The Bush Administration on many occasions stated the same tired lines that there were 3 main reasons for going into Iraq: 1. WMD, 2. Imminent threat, 3. Ties/connection/(or any other synonym you would like to add) to Al-Qaeda. EVERYONE heard this! The idea of playing with words here is asinine. The repeated ‘ties to Al-Qaeda’ statements IMPLY ‘operational ties’ since the administration decided to invade Iraq. I love how hardliner conservatives now want to play with wording as if the Bush administration is known for its intelligent and accurate statements.
Next, we have the retort by conservative hardliners of how the ‘war’ is justified because we deposed Saddam. THINK about that for a minute! We deposed him and that was GREAT for the Iraqi people and the world…. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! WHY DIDN’T WE LEAVE THEN? Come on hardliners give me those excuses. We did NOT stay to establish democracy. We stayed there for potential MONETARY GAIN. I know you don’t want to hear it, but you’re going to…. OIL!!! HALIBURTON… WAKE UP FOOLS!!! Why are we not invading any other nations with despots like Sudan? As for any other nations with despots, they have nothing of monetary interest for us to waste our resources and time on. It’s because the Arabs have the oil supply wrapped up there so we don’t need to conquer it for them. You hardliners need to wake up and realize that we are playing too many ends against the middle in the middle east. I could go on and on with this, but I grow weary of regurgitating this argument with thick-headed fools.
(Now hardliners, feel free to pick apart my words so that you can somehow come back with an argument to distract from the overall. That’s all you seem to be good at. I have an idea…. Why not shun this administration and try to regain any image that you may have had. If you feel the need to keep on backing this FAILED administration, then you are not as intelligent as you think you are. LEARN from your mistakes and DON’T REPEAT THEM OUT OF PRIDE!)
Bush administration quotes linking Iraq and al-Qaeda
The Associated Press
Comments by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice alleging links between al-Qaeda and Iraq under Saddam Hussein:
2002
Rice, Sept. 25: “There clearly are contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented; there clearly is testimony that some of the contacts have been important contacts and that there’s a relationship here. … And there are some al-Qaeda personnel who found refuge in Baghdad.”
Bush, Oct. 7: “We know that Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy — the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al-Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade” and “we’ve learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.”
2003
Bush, State of the Union address, Jan. 28: “And this Congress and the American people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda.”
Bush, Feb. 6: “Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al-Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al-Qaeda” and “Iraq has also provided al-Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training.”
2004
Cheney, Jan. 21: “I continue to believe — I think there’s overwhelming evidence that there was a connection between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi government. I’m very confident that there was an established relationship there.”
NOT ONE PIECE of evidence was found….
By Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers Mon Mar 10, 7:08 PM ET
WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida terrorist network.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20080310/wl_mcclatchy/2875005
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YENbElb5-xY < Dick Cheney saying in 1994 that going into Iraq would be a quagmire.
“I did not give the order to overthrow the Iraqi government because it would have incurred incalculable human and political costs… We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq”.
George Herbert Walker Bush – 1991
I just love how liberals can’t read, nor seemingly comprehend the very words they write, much less those that they quote.
Keep living in your dream world there, SACT. I’m sure it’s very self-satisfying.
Yet you were provoked to respond MichaelW.
I guess you somehow don’t see the irony of your intimation of self-proclaimed intelligence in relation the OBVIOUS stupidity of this administration. As a conservative, do you think that George W. Bush can comprehend ANYTHING he says or does? The man is NOT plain spoken. He is an utter imbecile. Furthermore, if he supposedly surrounded himself with ’smart people’, then why has everything failed so miserably for them? Why do you still defend these fools? They are NOT common conservatives with any care or concern for anyone or any viable common issues.
You are one that likes to play with how precise wording is rather than the accuracy of the overall statements made. You are one to believe that this will discredit an argument totally. If only this administration used the same meticulous attention to the facts and the real world, we wouldn’t be in the quagmire we are in right now with the middle east.
Get over your pride man…. It kills your soul to realize that your divine hopefuls have failed and that Bill Clinton is somehow vindicated in that this administration did not live up to your hopes that it was going to be the end-all be-all of presidencies. You wage war with your own mind sir. If the world you are living in is reality, then I would rather stay in my dream world.
I have an idea for you…. Either go get a lobotomy or the next time Haley’s comet comes around, go get yourself some cheap tennis shoes, a jumpsuit, a purple cloth, and drink some poisoned Kool-aide so that you can leave with the aliens to ascend into Heaven.
Nice! How very tolerant of you to wish death and/or brain damage upon me. Your grasp of irony, reality and, of course, who I really am is truly astounding. Enlightening even! To think that I relied on silly things like “facts” and “evidence” to form my ill-conceived opinions. It is now clear to me, thanks to your persuasive argument, that I should have been blindly accepting the received wisdom handed from my betters all along. Just like you have. Oh pity me, kind sir, and the evil of my ways.
Game, set and match to you, sir.
“Facts” and “evidence”? HAHAHAHAHA …. funny how conservatives usually use those words yet never really provide proof unless it comes from FoxNews, the Republican party, or the Bush Administration. Anybody with any sense KNOWS that all three a easily subject to ridicule. I would go on to say that this should include the scattered Democrats… oh wait… that most likely just confused the hell out of you given that most conservatives HAVE to pin someone to one party or the other as if there are only two types of platforms and beliefs in life.
I actually like that you used a bit of sarcasm in your response. This tells me that you cannot be a staunch conservative unless you are one at a higher level than the majority of redneck religious zealots that the party majorly consists of. Try some sarcasm on one of the low-rent Repubs and watch them look at you like George Bush does when he’s trying to answer a simple question at a press conference. I would put a picture of what the face will look like, but I don’t think they allow html graphics here plus you KNOW that stupid look just like the rest of the WORLD!
Good day sir
Oh by the way… I could fabricate a quote by the Bush administration that says there were “operational ties” if you’d like. No, I will save fabrications for the Bush administration.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen someone lose an argument to a strawman, but I’ll be damned if Slap isn’t.
Well, I’ll crawl out and take a stab at some of this.
Slap,
First of all, the reason for the response you are getting starts with terms like hardline conservatives. Not many of those post here, in fact, I’ll say not a one of us is a hardline conservative, and most of us are not conservative at all.
Second, I love your evidence:
Rice, Sept. 25: “There clearly are contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented; there clearly is testimony that some of the contacts have been important contacts and that there’s a relationship here. … And there are some al-Qaeda personnel who found refuge in Baghdad.”
Uh, you do know that is all true? You can decide whether that fact fits your definition of operational or not, no need for word games eh? Still, if your argument is that those are claims that amount to operational ties, and the claims are true, then you do seem to be losing an argument with a straw man. Thanks for making the administrations case.
The same can be said of the rest of your evidence.
Let me help you out. Josh is saying that those truths do not amount to operational ties, and that thus the administration is lying. I don’t agree, but it at least is an argument that is coherent.
Josh,
I still think you ascribe mendacity to things which were in fact difficult to analyze prospectively. After the fact everyone acts as if the evidence is clear, across a number of domains, not just this particular case. The near unanimous nature of various nations beliefs that Saddam was in fact supporting terrorists and developing WMD says it wasn’t as clear as it seems now, and frankly probably still isn’t. I have seen this kind of thing to many times before. Just as it now seems clear to many he was not guilty of such things, I suspect that in the future it will seem rather smug to have been so dismissive. Anyone who lived through the proofs, and the various waxing and waning of their respectability, about the Soviet Union’s behavior in the seventies and eighties (as well as earlier) should recognize this as likely true.
As for the hammering of any nails in coffins on this story, you put an awful lot of faith in people who have been proven to be unreliable in the past. Intelligence agencies and analysts of all stripes have been, to put it kindly, erratic in their reliability. I say this with no disdain, I just mean to point out the very human limitations they face. Why this would be any different seems rather curious to me. In fact, why I should trust their judgment more than those you disdain is a good question. Can we see their past judgments? I suspect they have quite a few that would give us all giggles now that we “know” what the “truth” is. Most of us do, including you.
Just to throw a bit of a life-line to Josh, I think between the post and the comments Josh presents an arguable point that the Bush Administration should have known better than to present such a strong case for believing that al Qaeda and Saddam were even tangentially connected. Even as I personally find it difficult to buy the argument that Saddam was knowingly and unabashedly involved with every other terrorist group out there aside from al Qaeda, Josh is not wrong to raise doubts about the Administration’s evidence. Certainly there are copious amounts of counter-factual bits of evidence to rebut the Administration’s case.
That being said, SACT does not even begin to approach the argument presented by Josh, and should be separated as an anomaly. Josh may be wrong in my opinion, but SACT is just wrong in the facts alone.
BTW, I totally missed this:
“A bit of”? I think “your response was positively dripping with sarcasm” is a more accurate description.
The whole “Bush lied about Saddam being involved in 9/11″ meme didn’t even exist until a columnist for a British paper noticed that a down-list question from an American poll taken seven months after the war started had 70% of respondents answering positively that they believed Saddam was connected to the attacks. The inference was made that if 70% of Americans believed this then the President had to have lied to the country. Yet every Bush administration quote I’ve ever seen produced in support of this meme, including the ones above, takes the administration statements made out of context; they were all made in support of an argument that Saddam or his sons might collude with Al Queda in the future, as is stated in the AUMF. These statements had nothing to do with 9/11.
Funny thing is, to this day, even after all of the discussion that’s transpired since the meme started, and the fact that no one can actually point to lie that duped the American people into war, 50% of poll respondents routinely affirm the idea that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks. The only evidence from before the war started that would suggest such a thing—the reports from Czech authorities that “Hamburg student” Mohamed Atta visited a known Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague just before the attacks— has been unambiguously denied by Bush administration itself since the information was made public, based on that fact that Atta’s cell phone was used to make a call in FL the day Atta was supposed to have been in CZ.
So what’s up with these polls? I have no idea. Just like I have no idea if Uday and Qasay would have given Al Queda biological weapons at any point during the 30 years or so their rule of Iraq would have likely lasted. But I do know which reason, cited by the President, the Congress, and 80% of the American people, sent us to war.
yours/
peter.
Pete,
Exactly my feeling on this.
I think between the post and the comments Josh presents an arguable point that the Bush Administration should have known better than to present such a strong case for believing that al Qaeda and Saddam were even tangentially connected.
I think that is true, but goes to my point. Who here, or anywhere else, hasn’t made a strong case for something that retrospectively obviously wasn’t as strong a case as you made it to be. At the time we all believe it is a strong case, only afterward do we realize how much of the evidence was only convincing because we already believed it to be true. Thus both Clinton’s, Gore, and virtually the entire political class interpreted evidence in light of the assumption that he wanted such things. In fact, not an unreasonable assumption, if in the end misleading. Once you strip away such an assumption, then the evidence looks contradictory. Why is Iraq any different than any other decision made with imperfect information? It isn’t. To ascribe mendacity to something that is so common…no, the norm, in every context is wrong.
Remember, even that small minority who doubted he had WMD or was involved with financing terrorism broadly, had no better basis for their claim. In fact, I would say the evidence was decidedly against them. That the case was substantially weaker than was thought at the time doesn’t change that. Imperfect and contradictory information is the norm in such matters, judgments are therefore always incorrect to some extent or another. Once again, elite opinion around the world and across ideological lines was very wrong, so it is hard to suggest that any particular group was mendacious and the rest misguided, though the usual tactic is to deny that others felt similarly.
I mean, everybody knew the crash of 2000 was coming right? The housing crisis and the credit disaster we are going through now was obvious, right? I thought so, as you all know, long before hand. I don’t think those who felt differently were mendacious, just wrong. I promise you, by the end of this everybody will be talking as if it was obvious, and the visible people who argued otherwise will all be called charlatans and knaves. More to the point, as strongly as I warned about it, harped on it, it might have been different. My information was imperfect, if compelling. I worried that while the right move was to act as if it was going to happen, in a probabilistic world there was the chance that would turn out to be a mistake. Undoubtedly those of us who acted on the likelihood that this crisis was going to occur would have all kinds of evidence showing why we were wrong, and it should have been obvious that our concerns were overblown. “Housing is too small a part of the economy, subprime mortgages are a small part of that, etc.” If things had panned out differently no amount of reasonable points about how we skated by would change people’s mind about my foolishness since of course, everybody else was right!
Finally, about those intelligence reports that were so skeptical. BS. They were not. After the fact ass covering has every analyst who can possibly get away with it pointing to all the qualifications, ambiguities and other things they put in their reports and analysis. I have seen this time and again from analysts in the financial world. Once you know the outcome it is easy to take the same stuff and show how prescient you were, as the parts that argue that case now seem so much more salient. At the time, around the world, it seemed analysts had convinced their superiors of very different things. Now all the footsoldiers are busy saying “we told you so.”
BS, pure unadulterated horse hockey. Who hasn’t seen that kind of thing elsewhere? Meeting is held, analysts present a bevy of information, a judgment is made that ends up looking bad, afterward the bureaucratic ass armor is deployed as they point out all the stuff they said that undermined the judgment, and of course they were really skeptical themselves. Some even resign, or make public in the early stages as things go bad that they disagreed not only with the decision, but the underlying rationale. Maybe, but usually their disagreement was somewhat minor, or over what to do about it, only later they act as if they were staunch opponents who were railroaded against their strenuous objections that not only the policy was wrong, but the actual information was wholly and obviously wrong. More importantly, they believe that is how it happened. Self deception affects both sides in such matters. This is true in boardrooms, agencies and just about everywhere. I expect no more, it is what humans do, just don’t expect me to swallow something that is so typical, so utterly normal, as anything more than that.
If most of the people on this forum are not hardliner conservatives, then I sure am fooled. Either most of you are philosophy majors or some kind of strange William F. Buckley/liberal hybrids. MichaelW seems to be consumed with picking apart words other than taking in the overall points. My ex-girlfriend was a philosophy major and did this very thing. (Note: she is my EX-girlfriend.
). Yes, Michael… you missed the point again with my hint of sarcasm (’bit of sarcasm’) to your ‘dripping’ sarcasm. (This is where you say, “Touche” Michael) Oh GOD… now you have me doing it. I’m having flashbacks now of my ex-girlfriend now.
I will let you all go on like a dog chasing its tail. I actually ran into this site by doing a search for ‘Bush ties to Al Qaeda’. After reading some of MichaelW’s responses, I pegged him for a FoxNews follower by the way he focuses on words rather than the general point. We all KNOW that the Bush Administration is a corrupt group of self-serving capitalists and is made up of people who are not intellectuals. The only intelligence they had was Karl Rove and he is nothing more than a megalomaniac who gets off on manipulating the public’s perception(s) of reality.
Anyway, thank you all for unknowingly participating in my ongoing sociopsychological internet study. My book will be released in the near future. I will be sure to properly cite and credit you all.
“Does anybody remember laughter?”
We all KNOW that the Bush Administration is a corrupt group of self-serving capitalists and is made up of people who are not intellectuals.
Well you got us pegged. None of us is very impressed with arguments that start with certainty along those lines, especially since we can all have our disagreements with those in this administration, and from various viewpoints, the idea that they are all self serving capitalists is unadulterated crap. The same can be said about their lack of intellectual firepower. They have plenty, it is just often pointed in directions many disagree with. Take it from another direction, Robert Reich from the Clinton era was not an idiot, and he most certainly was an intellectual. He is also wrong on just about everything in his policy prescriptions. You may not agree with Paul Wolfowitz, or Elliot Abrams or many others, but they are intellectuals.
The real complaint with the Bush administration shouldn’t be that they lack intellectual firepower, but that their policies are dominated by intellectuals. Intellectuals have served us ill in administrations of both parties, as their grand theories of how the world work have been shown to be rather naive and simplistic. This is a recurring theme in our history, as the best and brightest have failed us over and over. The genius of the American system is we have limited the power of intellectuals over us, though that limit slips in power with each passing decade. I suggest you not celebrate them, or decry their absence, but give them as little power as possible so we can all get on with our lives without their meddlesome ways to perfect us and our society.
I do find your approach interesting. You complain of the lack of intellectualism, and simultaneously decry our intellectual pursuit of making important and fine distinctions, exploring ambiguities. Instead you urge a simple, one dimensional view of the world.
You are right, this might not be the site for you. We like intellectual curiosity, informed debate, making sure we are saying exactly what we mean, or should mean. The word “conjecture” in our title means we believe that all conclusions are in fact to some extent, a well informed, but still tentative conjecture, and rebel against pat answers and unthinking received wisdom. We like intellectuals, and intellectual debates, we just don’t think they should have the power of the state to enact their grand visions if they have any. On that I assure you, we are non partisan on the whole. Most of us don’t like McCain’s great man conservatism (and the neo-con intellectuals promulgating them) nor Obama and Clinton’s nannystate socialist instincts (and the intellectuals who wish to use such power to engineer our society more to their liking.)
You’re missing the point Lance. Do you think that most of America picks apart things in a logical and critical manner such as you are doing here? Better yet, can you show me where the administration has put as much thought into what it has done as you all are here? I can guarantee you that the answer to both of these is ‘No’.
Also, do you not pay attention to your own statements that are ambiguous.
“The same can be said about their lack of intellectual firepower. They have plenty, it is just often pointed in directions many disagree with.”
“The real complaint with the Bush administration shouldn’t be that they lack intellectual firepower, but that their policies are dominated by intellectuals. Intellectuals have served us ill in administrations of both parties, as their grand theories of how the world work have been shown to be rather naive and simplistic. This is a recurring theme in our history, as the best and brightest have failed us over and over. The genius of the American system is we have limited the power of intellectuals over us, though that limit slips in power with each passing decade. I suggest you not celebrate them, or decry their absence, but give them as little power as possible so we can all get on with our lives with their meddlesome ways to perfect us and our society.”
I would like for you to show me where this administration’s policies are dominated by intellectuals. As far as ‘grand theories of how the world works’, did you not see my evidence in an earlier post of how this administration has contradicted itself? Let me repost it for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YENbElb5-xY < Dick Cheney saying in 1994 that going into Iraq would be a quagmire.
“I did not give the order to overthrow the Iraqi government because it would have incurred incalculable human and political costs… We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq”.
George Herbert Walker Bush – 1991
Now, do you need the most recent quotes from either of these two, or the son of one, to prove that they either mindlessly contradicted their ‘grand theories’ because they do NOT know how the world works or that they WILLINGLY went against them because they don’t care and they had tunnel vision for what they selfishly wanted?
Where is your evidence of real ‘intellectual firepower’ with this administration? I could see it with Mr. Rove. Condaleeza Rice, and Colin Powell, but the rest seem to think that wealth equates to a high level of intelligence and proof that they can lead successfully. We can see that it’s not coming from George. I’ve noticed how most of you have dodged a response with regard to the guy who is actually at the top. This is what leads me to believe that you either are Republicans in disguise or that you just can’t accept that the position of the leader of the free world is really a dunce. I know that this has to bother you. It bothers me. I don’t hate the guy. He has proven himself to be a total dim bulb.
I will end this piece with my belief that it’s not that ‘intellectual firepower has served us ill’ as much as partisan pride has served us ill. Most of the voters in this country ultimately have two sides to choose from and each side plays upon people’s prejudices to get into office. After voters put officials into office, the lobbyists take over from there. These are the groups that control your supposed ‘intellectual firepower’.
In conclusion, the problem I see here is that you have only written your responses with a tad more complexity to somehow distract from your own ambiguity. You can play with vocabulary all day long, but at the end of the day it’s wasted if it has no productive outcome.
The foreign policy team was dominated by intellectuals, Wolfowitz, Abrams and on and on. You may not like the intellectuals, but they are, and prominent ones at that. Powell may be intelligent, but he was the least intellectual of the major figures on the Bush team. Maybe you don’t mean to use the word intellectual, but rather intelligent? If so, that may explain some of our talking past each other.
Contradictions? Has anybody here said they haven’t? For that matter, who hasn’t in our political class? Anyway, Cheney isn’t a neo-con, and that he disagreed with the neo-con intellectuals in the past is not exactly a new point. In fact, it has been made here before.
As for my own ambiguity, if I don’t claim certainty it is a rather odd complaint that I am denying ambiguity. In fact, I embrace it. Many things are quite ambiguous. In fact that was my point to Josh. You can call pointing out ambiguity and making distinctions wordplay if you wish, but I certainly think that it leads to more productive outcomes than blanket statements which are false, or misleading and unexamined. What the average American does neither makes it worthwhile nor less useful. That remark is wholly beside the point.
Finally, debating George Bush’s intelligence is of no interest to me, so go ahead and think whatever you want. I don’t know how to evaluate that, just whether I agree or disagree with what he says. Verbal acuity is a poor indicator of intelligence, and likewise whether they pursue policies I agree or disagree with. I disagree with many a brilliant person, and think they often pursue disastrous policies. I don’t think it requires tremendous intelligence to be wise, nor believe that intelligence or intellectualism gives one any better shot at being so either. It does however have a high correlation to hubris, and we have had enough of that from this administration, haven’t we?
I do like intellectuals and you are correct in that I meant to say ‘intelligent’ rather than ‘intellectual’. I like to listen to people who sound like intellectuals for certain things such as particular aberrations in science and nature.
I concede that I am usually a plain spoken individual. That being said, I will refer to your previous statement:
“Verbal acuity is a poor indicator of intelligence”
“I don’t think it requires tremendous intelligence to be wise…”
I have heard many a foolish person who has said that G.W. Bush is a ‘plain spoken’ individual and that he is ‘really a smart man’. These people are usually high school graduates with no higher level education…. you know, the ones who say things like, “I went to the school of hard knocks” as if that is going to buy them some credit in this day and age. I won’t waste my time or yours debating the ‘wisdom’ of G.W. Bush because there is a preponderance of evidence that shows he probably only has an amount to keep him from walking into a tree. Wait… I think he has done that. I can provide you with MANY quotes that show that he is either suffering from a deteriorating mind due to past alcohol and drug abuse or he has always been less than average on any scale of intelligence.
And yes Lance, we have enough hubris from this administration.