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In that case, may I humbly suggest that you put your chosen skill and profession to good use and sue the school district and alma mater that produced you...
If I may be so bold, I think you have an excellent case against them.
So I won't be labeled as one that didn't "extend the olive branch" here, I'll do the following: Next post I'll make sure I've got a summary tied to it, that discusses the topics in much the same was Fisher-Price attacks topics in their line of pop-up books.
Better?
JaTo
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I think JaTo has been the ideal representative for the pro-Bush camp. He is the very model of his kind: crude, impolite, belligerent, intellectually sloppy. It would have been a shame if the Bush supporters were represented by someone who wrote clear and logical posts and was considerate to other members. That would have misled us as to the true nature of Bush's supporters.
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Originally posted by Red1998SVT:
I think JaTo has been the ideal representative for the pro-Bush camp. He is the very model of his kind: crude, impolite, belligerent, intellectually sloppy. It would have been a shame if the Bush supporters were represented by someone who wrote clear and logical posts and was considerate to other members. That would have misled us as to the true nature of Bush's supporters.
No, he's just right, and he's smarter than you and me.
-J
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I spent an hour this morning trying to understand those three JaTo posts that Red1998SVT was referring to. For the most part, they are gibberish. They are so sloppily put together that they have almost no meaning. There are a few sentences that may not be completely murky, but even those are lacking in any support or context or explanation.
Sorry JVT and Davo, but JaTo let you down this time. If he were one of my students, I would have to give him a D.
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Originally posted by JaTo:
Unprecedented military success, but a massive intelligence failure.
You seem to be defining military success as the capture of Saddam, the killing of his sons, the incapacitation of the Iraqi army and the destruction of Iraqâ??s military/industrial complex.
The ability of the U.S. armed forces to achieve these things was for the most part a foregone conclusion. But these achievements should be considered nothing more than a means to the true end which should have been rendering Iraqâ??s WMD harmless â??? an objective not yet achieved, and therefore, to date, a military failure. An especially egregious failure, given the capabilities detailed above.
Originally posted by JaTo:
I won't call it endgame on WMD, as many European countries still stumble across sizeable caches of Zyklon-B and other munitions; all in areas that are MUCH more densely populated than Iraq and where a half-century of time has passed... ...though it would be foolish to insist upon readily-available and easily-deployed masses of WMD that Iraq had access to. This simply isn't reality and hasn't been since we first invaded in March of '03.
But the fact is that NO Iraqi WMD have been found at all; nor have they been accounted for. Thatâ??s entirely different, and much more dangerous, than suggesting that some remnants may yet be found years from now.
Originally posted by JaTo:
Again, an administration's decisions (more often than not) are only as good as the intelligence they have on hand. The quotes by the individuals HAVE to be taken in light of the time they were said. At that time and with what we knew, Iraq was the NEXT threat (after Afghanistan) that needed to be addressed.
Politically perhaps â??? talk is cheap. But militarily the only way to be assured of the removal of the threat of WMD was to have a very high degree of confidence about where they were. The â??letâ??s invade and hope we find the WMDâ? method you seem to be espousing, has already proven to be a failure; and IMO was an easily foreseeable one. Moreover, not only have they not been found or accounted for, we no longer know who now possesses them.
Originally posted by JaTo:
Originally posted by Mysti-ken:
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Because if the object of the invasion was in fact to render the Iraqi WMD harmless, the fact that to date none have been found and are now likely in someone else's possession, is the exact opposite of the desired outcome - and by definition the military exercise is a failure.
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True, but sample this: knowing ONLY what we knew up to February of '03, would the RESPONSIBLE position to take have been the one of doing nothing, given the rampant security concerns that we faced after 9/11?
While you agree that by definition the military exercise is a failure, you then go on to suggest than even so, to not invade would be tantamount to doing nothing. The corollary to invasion was not â??do nothing.â? The responsible position would have been to produce a military plan that leveraged the overwhelming force of the U.S. military into the successful elimination of the threat of WMD. I understand that all the elements were not in place at the time of the invasion (ie: location of WMD), but that does not excuse a decision to go forward with an invasion while lacking key information critical to the success of the mission.
Originally posted by JaTo:
If you accept that Iraq has been a military failure up to date (I dispute this to a degree, but for the sake of this particular point, I'll digress), then I would counter that you accept that UN weapons inspections were a failureâ?¦
Agreed, to that point they were. One would argue however that the cost of that failure was relatively paltry, because we are no further ahead despite the cost of thousands of lives and $ billions in the meantime. Whatâ??s more, there may yet be additional costs (human and other) created by the very same WMD that were ostensibly the target of the invasion, but are now in who-knows-whoâ??s hands as a direct result of the military action.
Originally posted by JaTo:
â?¦, in that to this day there exists no complete tally of WMD in Iraq in February of '03 (or even today) and that the concerns of US security after 9/11 resting in the hands of a UN Security Council vote that was rife with politics and financial concern was an option that any US President could not have made in good faith, and in having the best interests of the US at heart.
You enter into this equation â??politicsâ? and â??financial concernsâ? â??? which is the point I am making; and additionally â?¦
Originally posted by JaTo:
I would submit that you are grasping for straws here. While regime change was of interest and had been (from what I've read) for 3 administrations here in the US, the bulk of the concern with Iraq didn't necessarily lie in Hussein himself after 9/11; it was with the total blanks we still had on WMD volumes and that Iraq hadn't come anywhere NEAR clean (according to even the kindest of UN reports). Again, up until 9/11, actual regime change was the "pipe dream" of analysts (or the nightmare, depending on how one viewed it taking place; Qusay Hussein would have been much worse and only an assassin's barrage of bullets kept him away from succession). I think most Democrats and Republicans that pushed for closure on Iraq after 9/11 had MUCH more concern over what Iraq had in it's possession, than who was leading the country.
If you read the entire text of Bushâ??s address to the United Nations White House transcript it seems clear, especially in light of what has transpired since, that the cumulative references are in fact about â??regime change.â??
Originally posted by JaTo:
I would strongly suggest reading up much more completely on Iraq before making such unfounded accusations. Again, regime change was something that WAS wanted and by 2 previous administrations; in light of 9/11, how can you position that this was the bulk of the cause behind our invasion of Iraq?
On the one hand you assert that â??regime changeâ?? in Iraq was consistent with foreign policy under Bush sr and Clinton, but you also maintain that my asserting that it remains so under Bush jr. is â??unfounded.â? My reading on Iraq is incomplete to be sure, however, my understanding of U.S. foreign policy provides more than enough ammunition for my assertion to be thought reasonable, even by those who disagree with it.
Originally posted by JaTo:
Should I frame this method of thought as Mysti-Kens Razor?:
In light of intelligence failues, the least likely and most absurd scenario is the most relevant.
Mysti-kens razor is no different than Occamâ??s.
Far from being absurd, the premise that the military invasion of Iraq can be seen as a success only because the real objective was regime change and not rendering WMD harmless â??? is in fact the simplest explanation of the current state.
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Originally posted by Rex Barnes:
I spent an hour this morning trying to understand those three JaTo posts that Red1998SVT was referring to. For the most part, they are gibberish. They are so sloppily put together that they have almost no meaning. There are a few sentences that may not be completely murky, but even those are lacking in any support or context or explanation.
Sorry JVT and Davo, but JaTo let you down this time. If he were one of my students, I would have to give him a D.
LOL!
This coming from a history instructor who I've had to correct on points concering the CIA's involvement in Iraq, in addition to bringing to light precisely how many occupiers of Afghanistan have managed to control the drug trade there, not to mention a whole slew of other inconsistencies?
Sir, if this is the level of attention you give to what you teach, then I would be honored to FLUNK your course.
I tire of having to address and correct inconsistencies coupled with distortion combined with fallacy. You and Red both patently REFUSE to answer almost any pointed question I pose; the few times that you do, it's so full of tangents that I have to spend an inordinate amount of time coming back full-circle.
Conversely, I ask for those that take issue with my points to ASK questions; tough ones at that.
My "Fisher-Price" offer still stands; I'll be happy to put up a summary at the end of each post here on out.
If you have a question, then by all means sock it to me. Unlike some here, I don't make a habit of dodging them...
JaTo
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Originally posted by JaTo:
Please point this out, as I'm closing in on the end of the 9/11 commission book and have yet to run across much other than claiming that the Al-Qaeda link with Iraq was overstated, in addition to his active nuclear capability and development program.
Everything else to this day still has some serious question marks surrounding it.
i haven't read the book myself so i can't point you to the page, but you've already admitted to the evidence having "serious question marks surrounding it" and the truth has already been revealed that those tubes could not have been solely intended for nuclear use...or as the bush admin put it..."only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs."
Originally posted by JaTo:
They didn't. This still remains one of the main gripes of the 9/11 commission, in that there still exists periods of time and evidence that neither the CIA or the FBI has released, due to ongoing operations. Care to try that line of BS again and correct it?
smh & omg. they haven't release the "classified" info most likely because it doesn't strengthen their case! the fact is that with the little bit of information the 9/11 committe had it wasn't hard to tell that the cia and fbi was selective with the information they chose to release supporting the cause for war. if there was undisputable evidence to the contrary you know good and well that it would've been plastered all over the place.
Originally posted by BP:
or was it they just downplayed the "some believe that these tubes are probably intended for conventional weapons programs" part on purpose so it could be a slam dunk... 
Originally posted by JaTo:
Again, if, in 2001-2002, you would throw a decade of Iraq dodging UN inspectors, Hussein's history and US security concerns over tons of missing neurotoxins over a confused report on aluminum tubes and exaggurated Al-Qaeda links, you are certifiable.
The "slam dunk" was placed on information that had existed LONG before the aluminum tube caper...
 you lost me here. i'm talking about aluminum tubes and evidence to the contrary and you're talking about UN inspectors and neurotoxins. please stick to the point and stop muddying the waters.
Originally posted by JaTo:
I will FULLY agree that the Bush administration "screwed the pooch" when it came to logically and cohesively flushing out our concerns over Iraq and why we had them. The ill-founded tangents weren't needed, as the case against Iraq had been a decade in the making and it stood on it's own, in light of 9/11.
yet you defend their salacious use of refutable evidence to go to war?
Originally posted by JaTo:
It never would have happened. Iraq bought France off and secured a vote on the Security Council that for all intents and purposes would have NEVER allowed for invasion.
Let me repeat it again; no matter what the concern, France would have never allowed for a fully-supported UN measure against Iraq; at least not with the current government running things.
i don't agree with you. a UN solution authorizing actionable force could've come about even without support/backing from France IF the inspectors had been allowed to finish their job AND there was evidence showing iraq was the imminent threat bush said they were...
it all comes back to this point both of us have already made....if the case for pre-emptive strike against iraq was strong enough without all the puffery from the bush admin then why include all the erroneous/questionable filler? it doesn't make sense.
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Originally posted by Mysti-ken:
You seem to be defining military success as the capture of Saddam, the killing of his sons, the incapacitation of the Iraqi army and the destruction of Iraqâ??s military/industrial complex.
In so many words, yes.
Originally posted by Mysti-ken:
The ability of the U.S. armed forces to achieve these things was for the most part a foregone conclusion. But these achievements should be considered nothing more than a means to the true end which should have been rendering Iraqâ??s WMD harmless â??? an objective not yet achieved, and therefore, to date, a military failure. An especially egregious failure, given the capabilities detailed above.
If an objective is given to troops and they reach the site of the objective, only to find that objective missing and nowhere to be found, you insist on calling it a military failure instead of an intelligence failure?
This doesn't make sense. Finally, how can we render something harmless that we still can't find?
Originally posted by Mysti-ken:
But the fact is that NO Iraqi WMD have been found at all; nor have they been accounted for. Thatâ??s entirely different, and much more dangerous, than suggesting that some remnants may yet be found years from now.
My point is that the search (though definitely scaled back) still continues; holes in intelligence are still being worked on so we get the complete picture (or as complete of one we can get).
Most of the information we have in hand today points to the fact that just about everybody had Hussein's capabilities wrong.
Originally posted by Mysti-ken:
Politically perhaps â??? talk is cheap. But militarily the only way to be assured of the removal of the threat of WMD was to have a very high degree of confidence about where they were.
The scouring that occured after the invasion shows that the military had a methodical plan of searching existing and presumed WMD sites.
Originally posted by Mysti-ken:
The â??letâ??s invade and hope we find the WMDâ? method you seem to be espousing, has already proven to be a failure; and IMO was an easily foreseeable one.
Again, if we KNEW where Hussein kept things, invasion would not have been needed, would it? All we would have to do is point things out to UNSCOM (like we did in the past) and UN Weapons Inspectors would ply their trade.
Then again, weapons inspections turned out to be a compounded failure, as they never managed to give a full accounting, either...
Originally posted by Mysti-ken:
Moreover, not only have they not been found or accounted for, we no longer know who now possesses them.
True, though detective at one point or the other has to take place at the "scene of the crime".
Since weapons inspections existed for a decade and failed to secure a full accounting, what faith existed in that they would have magically turned up anything different anytime soon?
Are you suggesting that by not going into Iraq, our odds for discovering anything back then would have been greater, instead of less?
Originally posted by Mysti-ken:
While you agree that by definition the military exercise is a failure, you then go on to suggest than even so, to not invade would be tantamount to doing nothing. The corollary to invasion was not â??do nothing.â?
The military portion of Iraq hasn't been a failure. The intelligence portion has been.
Not invading was tantamount to doing what we had been for a decade and seeing NO definitive results on obtaining a complete tally.
Originally posted by Mysti-ken:
The responsible position would have been to produce a military plan that leveraged the overwhelming force of the U.S. military into the successful elimination of the threat of WMD. I understand that all the elements were not in place at the time of the invasion (ie: location of WMD), but that does not excuse a decision to go forward with an invasion while lacking key information critical to the success of the mission.
Again, if we had that key information, then wouldn't it have been more appropriate to go throught the UN?
Originally posted by Mysti-ken:
Agreed, to that point they were. One would argue however that the cost of that failure was relatively paltry, because we are no further ahead despite the cost of thousands of lives and $ billions in the meantime. Whatâ??s more, there may yet be additional costs (human and other) created by the very same WMD that were ostensibly the target of the invasion, but are now in who-knows-whoâ??s hands as a direct result of the military action.
Hindsight is 20/20; given the information we had at the time, the risk and cost of failure was FAR too high to pay and continue indefinitely. Again, the events of 9/11 profoundly changed the way that the US has to look at it's security.
Originally posted by Mysti-ken:
If you read the entire text of Bushâ??s address to the United Nations White House transcript it seems clear, especially in light of what has transpired since, that the cumulative references are in fact about â??regime change.â??
I've read this twice and I see more attention paid to the concerns that lead up to missing WMD, which seem to serve as the cornerstone of our argument against Iraq. There are ancillary issues (as there always have been), but I didn't see tons of attention paid to UN Human Rights monitoring in Iraq like I did UN Weapons Inspections (for obvious reasons).
Originally posted by Mysti-ken:
On the one hand you assert that â??regime changeâ?? in Iraq was consistent with foreign policy under Bush sr and Clinton, but you also maintain that my asserting that it remains so under Bush jr. is â??unfounded.â?
It was wanted, though not pursued. From what I've read, this was consistent with Bush, Jr., until 9/11. The events of that day spawned concerns about Iraq that had lain dormant and unaddressed across 3 administrations.
If we really wanted regime change, then why go through the UN continually for support on our efforts, until a select few backed out of UN 1441? I find it absurd that we would push for someone else taking the place of Hussein, while leaving the question of WMD totally unanswered and unaddressed.
Originally posted by Mysti-ken:
Mysti-kens razor is no different than Occamâ??s.
Far from being absurd, the premise that the military invasion of Iraq can be seen as a success only because the real objective was regime change and not rendering WMD harmless â??? is in fact the simplest explanation of the current state.
I'll refer you to Occam's razor, then. When regime change would in no way accomplish what we set out to do (address our concerns of WMD in Iraq), why would we send in the military to do such a thing and THAT alone?
JaTo
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Originally posted by JaTo:
I'll refer you to Occam's razor, then. When regime change would in no way accomplish what we set out to do (address our concerns of WMD in Iraq), why would we send in the military to do such a thing and THAT alone?
Indeed ... and IMO this is the crux of the matter. The answer is this:
Because there was indeed no definitive and sure way of successfully rendering harmless Iraq's WMD (as you have so eloquently pointed out) the only alternative was to in fact change the objective to one that could be achieved.
And although that particular objective was not nearly so palatable to the public or to the Security Council, it could however be wrapped up and associated with WMD for consumption purposes ... and that objective was a change in the Iraqi regime.
From the Bush perspective, the alternative was to do nothing (and more importantly be perceived as doing nothing by the American people) at a time when it became apparent that the apprehension of Bin Laden was in doubt.
A new rallying cry was needed, a new focus for the war on terror was needed, a new (achievable) objective was needed. "Disarming Saddam ..." was the obvious choice.
And BTW:
Originally posted by JaTo:
... you insist on calling it a military failure instead of an intelligence failure?
Why do you insist that "military" and "intelligence" do not belong together ... or do you not believe that the military has their own intelligence capability.
Debating whether a failure is "intelligence" or in the alternative "military" is splitting hairs. The are equally one and the same.
In any event, my reference to "failure" is with respect to the objective, which the military was not able to achieve, as opposed to your narrow definition of military success; a subtle, but very important distinction.
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Originally posted by BP:
i don't agree with you. a UN solution authorizing actionable force could've come about even without support/backing from France IF the inspectors had been allowed to finish their job AND there was evidence showing iraq was the imminent threat bush said they were...
I do not agree with you.
It is clear that the UN security counsel was compromised, at least 2 (France, Russia) and possibly 4 (Ukraine, Syria) members were paid off, with confirmation that France had fully sold its veto. That France told Powell one thing then the next day votes the other way is further evidence of this. Can we all just accept the fact that the UNSC was not on OUR side here..
I think it highly unlikely that UN inspectors would have put the issue of WMD to rest one way or another before invasion. 8 years of inspections left questions. We suspected France was telling Saddam where inspectors were heading in advance. Inspectors failed to find illegal Al Samood II missiles and French Mirage jets that were just as hard to bury in the sand as ANY WMD. Scientists and key officails were less accecessible and less likely to be forthcomming with Saddam in power.
More time for inspectors we now know would just be more time to hide,move to Syria, or whatever any WMD without any better intell as to their existance being made known. More time for inspectors ment more UN oil for food dollars pumped into Saddams coffers. More time that 4 aircraft carrier battle groups and 2 divisions would be tied up (their presence in the region was after all what got inspectors back in to Iraq). More French and soviet military hardware pumped into Iraq (we know it was being imported up to 3 weeks before invasion)....all just to be worse off that when we invaded.
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