...and no ties to al Quada....aren't you at least a little bit annoyed about the lies the Bushies told????

"aren't you at least a little bit annoyed about the lies the Bushies told????"

It's not the lies, LISAH, I think the Bushies believed their talking points, it's the incompetence.

"I think the Bushies believed their talking points"

you think the administration actually believed saddam was helping al-qaida? judging from the intelligence material they were getting, they would have to have been clinically psychotic in addition to incompetent. it's obvious that they had completely different justifications fot the war internally.

jerkaboy--make that clinically delusional, which they weren't.  Or rather Bush was, but not Cheney, who wanted oil, oil, and more oil.  

Look, if Peretz chooses to ignore what every other respectable news outlet has been saying for years, and has to use a mediocre newspaper to prove his point, then indulge him.  

agree, mollysimon -- but NY Sun is reallly a pretty good paper -- on political reporting, and has a wonderful arts section....

well, wikipedia is not that obscure of a source of information and it you take a look there, you will also find that Saddam was happy to deal with the CIA when that suited his purposed as well as the purposes of the US at the time.

the more important point to understand now is that the terrorist threat is created by American presence in the middle east. If you open your eyes you can see how it has escalated since the first gulf war when troops were left in Saudi Arabia. If McCain had half a brain, he would understand that the 100 year idea is exactly the type of thing that will assure no end to the terrorist incidents.

Or is that exactly what he wants?

Read this if you are interested in seeing the stupidity end

Leaderless Jihad by Marc Sageman

If you say it's so, LISAH, then I just might check it out.  

"...you think the administration actually believed saddam was helping al-qaida?"

They believed that Saddam had WMD's as did most foreign secret service agencies, as did the Clinton administration and even Saddam's own generals.

But Marty, dear friend, what does that have to do with 9/11?

Please read or watch Philip Shenon, author of "The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation".  I've posted elsewhere that the 9/11 Commission failed to report the findings of their own staff, that NSA files disclosed the nexus of the 9/11 terrorists to be NOT IRAQ BUT IRAN.  The NSA had the signals that Iran gave, at minimum, logistal support to the 9/11 terrorists.  They had nothing on Saddam.  And so, we went after Saddam.

Iraq was a monstrous non-sequitur to 9/11.  It was as if in response to Pearl Harbor we had invaded Spain.  Saddam had no more to do with 9/11 than Franco had to do with Pearl Harbor.  Regardless of the outcome, the invasion of Iraq was based on the most corrupt, most deceitful  process in American history.  Cheney, Rumsfeld and their claque are arch-criminals, and Bush is their arch-stooge.

We have not only fucked up, we have fucked up in the wrong country!

By the way, there would not have even been a 9/11 Commission were it not for the relentless jawboning of the White House by, yes, John McCain.

booktv.org/program.aspx

"They believed that Saddam had WMD's as did most foreign secret service agencies, as did the Clinton administration and even Saddam's own generals."

This oft repeated canard is a near-truth posing as dispositive evidence and justification for action, when in fact it is neither.

Certainly the US intelligence community believed that Iraq was trying to retain and hide the remnants of his WMD capability.  The rest of the worlds' intelligence agencies probably believed the same thing.  But none of them, the US agencies included, believed that:

1. This supposedly hidden capability constituted an operational capability that gave Saddam Hussein any significant ability to threaten his neighbors or the United States,

2. That this capability was anywhere close to including a nuclear capability (which is pretty damned important, because a small number of operational chemical warhead equipped missiles are orders of magnitude less dangerous to the world than the same number of operational nuclear warhead equipped missiles),

3. Iraq could make anything they did have operational, as long as intrusive inspections were maintained.

The phrase WMD, in and of itself, is a deliberate feint of language.  Nuclear weapons on IRBMs or ICBMs pose an existential threat to nations, and the whole international order; nuclear weapons in the hands of any nation in any believably deliverable form pose an existential threat to cities and whole economies; chemical weapons pose the threat of killing a few thousands of people -  if one can figure out how to deliver them effectively in substantial quantity.  Projecting a significant chemical threat via long range missiles is impossible, and projecting a serious chemical threat in the sense of WMDs via terrorist delivery mechanisms is also close to impossible.  Calling all these things WMD as if they were comparable allowed the Bush administration to take a policy solution that might well have been justified for an incipient operational nuclear capability, and apply it to a vaguely outlined chemical threat.

"They believed that Saddam had WMD's as did most foreign secret service agencies, as did the Clinton administration and even Saddam's own generals."

This oft repeated canard is a near-truth posing as dispositive evidence and justification for action, when in fact it is neither. sdemuth  

No one here said that Saddam’s possession of WMD’s was the only reason to topple his regime. In fact, there was no one reason. There were many reasons which in the aggregate made it desirable to get rid of his regime.

I could enumerate them but I suspect that you already know what they are and if you don’t than you have no business discussing this issue here.

Again the important issue for me wasn’t the justice of toppling Saddam’s Baathist regime, the important issue was the way we went about it, the inept way in which the project was carried out as well as the quixotic justification we used which I found to be completely untenable. Bringing democracy to any people much less the Iraqis is a fool’s errand.  Japan is only one country as far as I know where we managed to help establish democratic rule and the social history of the country, its cohesion, its level of achievement and education as well the society’s desire to westernize made that project possible.

None of these conditions are present either in Iraq or in any other Arab country with, perhaps, the exception of Egypt whose history and culture makes democratic rule even here a question mark.

Rather than maligning foreign intelligence services, it might be good to point out that the U.S.'s gold star source "Curveball" had been the topic of several communications to Washington by the Germans (who had initially handled him), saying that they were increasingly suspicious of his credentials and the reliability of his information.  These were ignored.

cute sidestepping, jacksondyer, but the issue was saddam's ties to al-qaida, and those were the lies that lisah quite clearly referred to.

"Rather than maligning foreign intelligence services, it might be good to point out that the U.S.'s gold star source "Curveball" had been the topic of several communications to Washington by the Germans (who had initially handled him), saying that they were increasingly suspicious of his credentials and the reliability of his information.  These were ignored."

What makes "Curveball" the "gold start source?"

One can always point to one or another source who got some aspect of intelligence right years later, but in the heat of conflict why should any government privilege one source over another. If the aggregate of intelligence agrees on an issue it makes sense not to ignore it.

Had there been a split in opinon among different intelligence services it would have been a different matter, but there was no such split.

jerkaboy said:  "cute sidestepping, jacksondyer, but the issue was saddam's ties to al-qaida, and those were the lies that lisah quite clearly referred to."

Nothing cute about what I said.

I wasn't addressing lisah's comments. Btw, Saddam's relation to al Kaida was not the reason why we went to war with Iraq. I agree that the administration shamefully used this urban legend to their advantage, but most people in the know, the congress people who voted to authorize force, understood that that was not the case or at least not a main factor.

We had been at war with Saddam since the early 90's and that war was left unresolved. Unfortunately it was left to the bungler Bush Jr. to finish the job.

"but most people in the know, the congress people who voted to authorize force, understood that that was not the case or at least not a main factor."

But it was all right that 75% of the people believed Saddam was connected to 9/11 thanks to the deceit of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al.  Without 9/11 there would have been no invasion of Iraq.  The 9/11 legend was crucial to these guys' case.  WMDs and tyranny were business as usual.

Yes, there were plenty of Democrats who bought into the scam, but many did not.  As Ted Kennedy quoted Omar Bradley, it was "the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy".

The war was in Afghanistan and with Iran.  Since the two are contiguous, it made strategic sense.  Since the intelligence supported the Iran nexus with the 9/11 terrorists it made moral sense.  Yet, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld peddled Iraq, for their own agendas.  These bastards not only were corrupt and incompetent in execution but corrupt and incompetent in conception.  I don't think they thought for a minute that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, yet they cyincally peddled the notion.  They really are making Americans die for a lie.

WMDs are not what it's about, nor is tyranny, nor is establishing democracy blah, blah, blah.  It was and still is about 9/11.  We destroyed a nation for less, from 1941-45.  Now, we're about to destroy our own because of the cost.  It's not that theirs was the greatest generation but that ours is so feckless and fey and so enervated and addled by the media, that even recognizing this doesn't make us stir from our torpor beyond indignant posts like this.

9/11 happened because the al Qaeda had taken our measure.  They and their franchise continue to take it.

"But it was all right that 75% of the people believed Saddam was connected to 9/11 thanks to the deceit of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al.  Without 9/11 there would have been no invasion of Iraq.  The 9/11 legend was crucial to these guys' case.  WMDs and tyranny were business as usual."

jm, it's not true that without 911 there would have been no war with Iraq. There many have been one or there may not, however, it is true that it would have been carried oout differently.

You assume that because Iran is an urgent problem that Saddam was not a problem that had to be dealt with.

Remember often countries face more than one dangerous enemy at the time. In the 1930's there was Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Both dangers had to be faced and were faced.

Alas,  we faced the dangers a bit too late in both cases.

"Had there been a split in opinon among different intelligence services it would have been a different matter, but there was no such split."

Huh!  JD, I just pointed out that there had been a split.  Namely, over how to value intel from Curveball, a source that proved to be increasingly eccentric and unreliable in his claims to have been a major player in Saddam's bioweapons program.  This increasing skepticism was communicated to the Agency by the Germans, but nevertheless failed to reach senior briefings, and information (which turned out to be nonsense) was quoted by Powell in his UNSC speech.

One could always throw in the fact, too, that it took the IAEA about one long afternoon to show that the Niger yellowcake documents were forgeries.  This determination also never made it back to the Oval Office.  I wonder why!  A cynical part of me thinks that maybe, just maybe, the Cheney-Rumsfeld coterie didn't want any wrinkles in the picture they were painting for the rest of us.

There is an interesting discussion on the Iraq war at the NY Times op ed page:

"Reflections on the Invasion of Iraq"

"To mark this week’s fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the Op-Ed page asked nine experts on military and foreign affairs to reflect on their attitudes in the spring of 2003 and to comment on the one aspect of the war that most surprised them or that they wished they had considered in the prewar debate."

www.nytimes.com/.../16intro.html

The real current problem is that we simply cannot afford the war in Iraq and save the US economy. It is clear that getting out will not be easy on a variety of levels.  But we have to stop our expensive foreign adventures, whether worthy or not, in order to restore a decent balance in the federal budget and in the balance of payments and strengthen the dollar.  Otherwise, we are drifting into becoming a banana republic, maybe the richest, but still lowering the US standard of living for most Americans and making a joke out of the US Constitution.  It is also clear that reducing or even eliminating the islamic threat requires a reduction in our physical presence in that area.  If the money spent on fighting terrorists were applied to eliminating our need to import middle east oil, we would be far safer, more prosperous, and lots happier.

jacksondyer: "Again the important issue for me wasn’t the justice of toppling Saddam’s Baathist regime, the important issue was the way we went about it, the inept way in which the project was carried out as well as the quixotic justification we used which I found to be completely untenable. Bringing democracy to any people much less the Iraqis is a fool’s errand."

We clearly agree on the "inept" and "quixotic" parts.  The problem is that these two as are inextricably linked to the decision to go to war, as they are to its prosecution.  Bush could not have made the case for war with Iraq convincing to the American public, or probably even Congress, had the administration been honest about the reasons to do so, or the likely long term cost of an invasion.

In other words, the lies and misdirections leading to outright screw-ups, are the primary characteristic of the decision to go to war, and the one to stay in Iraq with inadequate resources, because they were necessary conditions for starting the war.  From start to finish: WMD, al quaeda, bringing democracy to the middle east, short war that pays for itself, just a few dead-enders, .... everything about this war has been either outfight fabrication, or wishful misdirection.  You can't, except by lucky accident, build a successful policy on that much falsity.

So, yeah, I bristle a little when someone tries, as in your post, to shift from al quaeda to WMD, or as others do, from WMD to the project of democracy in the MidEast, or when I see any other shift in this morass of untruths.  It's all a shell game.

"So, yeah, I bristle a little when someone tries, as in your post, to shift from al quaeda to WMD, or as others do, from WMD to the project of democracy in the MidEast, or when I see any other shift in this morass of untruths.  It's all a shell game." sdemuth

I would put it differenlty but I I have no problem with your other comments.

As to the comments above, I said that there was no one reason why we should have toppled Saddam and I never said that either al Kaida, or WMD's were crucial reason for going to war. I also said on many occasions that I don't believe in democratization through warfare.

Go find another straw man to argue with, sdemuth.

Ezra Klein provides some perspective on the New York Times nine "experts":

-- Another accounting, however, will have to be done by the Times. Their look back section features Paul Bremer, Richard Pearle, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Kenneth Pollack, Richard Pletka, Nathaniel Fick, Paul Eaton, Richard Kagan, and Anthony Cordesman. In other words, a bunch of war advocates and a couple centrist analysts and commentators. Even with five years passed, there's not the humility to add on Juan Cole, or any of the other lonely voices who swam against the tide and tried to warn us away from the cliff.

www.prospect.org/.../ezraklein_archive

Can you really still be called an "expert" if you were profoundly wrong about the most significant foreign policy failure in the last sixty years?

With regard to the New York Times nine "experts," Matthew Yglesias blogs that after 9/11:

-- [t]he United States had a chance to implement a focused, disciplined effort to go after al-Qaeda and remove the threat but instead George W. Bush, aided and abetted by a wide swathe of elites, chose to go in for a broad-brush vision of a "war on terror" whose centerpiece would be the invasion and occupation of a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and no meaningful relationship with al-Qaeda. The costs of that decision have been enormous, not just in terms of the tragedy that's played out for American soldiers and Iraqis of all stripes, but in terms of the opportunity cost of totally reorienting America's foreign policy and defense priorities away from useful things and toward Iraq instead.

matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/.../a_failure_of_strategy.php

And among the opportunity costs is the significantly reduced ability of the US in particular and the West in general to indulge in "liberal intervention" in, for example, Sudan.  I suspect that the US could have done enormous good by spending in Africa even a fraction of the two trillion dollars the war in Iraq is predicted to cost could have done enormous good in Africa. The US could have worked towards peace and prosperity in that continent but the hawk finds no susenance in peace and prosperity.

Spencer Ackerman provides more context on the New York Times nine "experts":

-- Not part of the package are the people who got the war right and/or who have identified its basic flaws. No Carl Levin, no John Judis, no Matthew Yglesias, no Nir Rosen, no Pat Lang, no John Ikenberry, no Samantha Power, no Chris Hedges, no Juan Cole, no Peter Bergen, no Richard Clarke, no Rand Beers, no Michael Scheuer, no one affiliated with Iraq Veterans Against The War, not a single Iraqi.

toohotfortnr.blogspot.com/.../put-blood-on-me.html

The last four words were particulary telling - NOT A SINGLE IRAQI.

Here comes the worthless Neil Mackenzie trailing links. His usual fare of Yiglesias, Klein, and Ackerman the trio of self published pretentious assholes.  This is par for the course for a self declared “independent scholar.”

Neil can't think for himself and hence appeals to questionable authority to support his sententious offerings.  He throws at us the kitchen sink, though he probably thinks that these three bloggers represent some sort of "think tank."  They are actually a sink tank.

jacksondyer describes "Yglesias, Klein, and Ackerman [as] the trio of self published pretentious assholes."

Matthew Yglesias is an Associate Editor of The Atlantic Monthly. His first book, with the working title Heads in the Sand: Iraq and the Strange Death of Liberal Internationalism, scheduled to be published next spring by John Wiley and co., deals with the Democratic Party's struggle to find a post-9/11 foreign policy, focusing primarily on the rise and (hopefully) fall of the liberal hawk movement. www.amazon.com/.../ref=pd_bbs_sr_1

Ezra Klein is a staff writer at The American Prospect. His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Guardian, The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, Slate, and more. He's a frequent guest on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews.

Spencer Ackerman is reporter, covering national security and foreign policy for the Washington Independent. He is also a former star writer for a magazine named The New Republic.

jacksondyer, on the other hand, can do nothing better with his pathetic life than surf the bottom of Martin Peretz' Spine. He is the most sychophantic of Marty's butthole surfers - a group of which he is not the only member.

The loser Neil Mackenzie doesn't  know the difference between a genuine thinker and a bunch of self published charlatans.

To this asshole a "real thinker" is someone who is  "a frequent guest on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews."

What a joke, come on Neil you pile of bile do some thinking of your own. Let's read what you have thought up for yourself for once. And stop quoting David Duke. He's not a real thinker either.

An example of Ackerman's work:

"No American Muslim Terrorists? [A Reply to Spencer Ackerman]"

www.danielpipes.org/.../3196

Yes, it's the Daniel Pipes and at least he knows what he is talking about on this issue.

On Yiglesias' view of Obama and Wright:

This is priceless, what an intellect!

"The Jeremiah Wright Factor"

14 Mar 2008 03:24 pm

"I've been slow on the uptake with the Jeremiah Wright issue because I don't just have a quippy joke to make about this. I'm unsure, in general, of what the standards we're supposed to apply to the political views of politicians' favored clergy. I have no idea what the rabbis at Temple Rodef Shalom (where I've gone to synagogue the past few High Holy Days) or at The Village Temple (where I had my bar mitzvah) think about political issues, but I assume I don't agree with them about everything, and certainly it'd be odd to drag up old statements made by any of the relevant rabbis about this or that and then ask me to either endorse the statement or repudiate the entire congregation. "

Because Matthew doesn't know everything "his Rabbi" might say therefore Obama can't know everything Wright said. Then he changes the subject and attacks, yes you guessed it Hillary.

Come to think of it Peretz here has a lot in common with Yiglesias. It must be the Obama derangement factor except that in Yiglesias case it doesn't take much to get him unhinged. Marty will at some point see daylight on this issue, I doubt Matthew ever will.

matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/.../the_jeremiah_wright_factor.php

Read the whole article for yourselves.

No wonder these bloggy blokers and  jokers appeal to the hateful and shallow Neil Mackenzie.

I may be wrong in some basic way, but I can imagine the range of opinion represented by Yglesias and others as appealing to a reasonably wide range of people.  You know, human beings, intelligent fellow citizens of these United States, etc.  

And in the course of that notion, I get to wondering why this appeal might be a problem,  I'm bemused at the thought that the existence of respondents to that appeal might be a problem.  In fact, I wonder why the sheer existence of other people's opinions appears to spread such fear and despondency.

It is the case the some of us -- and we're more than a few idiosyncratic whiners -- have an idea of an American foreign policy that isn't incredibly and -- potentially -- fatally stupid.

I meant of course in the last para, "It is the case THAT some of us . . ."

Will TNR ever give this site some proper review tools and a reasonable font size. . . !!!!!

ironyroad said: “I may be wrong in some basic way, but I can imagine the range of opinion represented by Yglesias and others as appealing to a reasonably wide range of people.  You know, human beings, intelligent fellow citizens of these United States, etc.”

You seem confused, Irony. No one said that the opinions expressed by Yiglesias and other are not “worthwhile” as opinions. However, this isn’t what was being proposed upthread by the sour puss bigot Neil Mackenzie. He said that Yiglesias and co represented a more intelligent and more worthwhile set of ideas than anyone else’s.

Of course mackenzie is being two faced here since the only reason he loves the holy trinity of Yiglesias, Klein, and Ackerman is that he sees them as Jews who support his own antisemitic views on Israel. I am not sure they do but that is how he sees them.

And I won’t even mention the two tired punches he keeps throwing at me” accusing me of being Marty’s butt boy, and of posting the number of posts I composed here mostly in rebuttal to his foul mouthed and bigoted antisemitic comments.

“It is the case the some of us -- and we're more than a few idiosyncratic whiners -- have an idea of an American foreign policy that isn't incredibly and -- potentially -- fatally stupid.”

How about some specifics? What kind of foreign policy do you have in mind? Abandoning out commitments? Running away from conflict? Making deals with terrorist States like Iran?

Speak up, boy. We’d love to hear your wisdom on these issues.

Care to re-post that response minus the penultimate sentence?

No!

I have been called boy many times, so don't get on your high horse about it.

Don't be disingenuous, jd, it doesn't suit you.  It wasn't a friendly or joshing use of "boy."  In any case, it occurred to me that a level of minimal courtesy between posters is a reasonable idea.

Your reply is unconsciously funny, however, on the lines of "Hey, I didn't get to where I am today by standing up for my rights!"

jacksondyer woudn't get called "boy" quite so many times if he grew up and acted like an adult instead of a little brat.

Neil Mackenzie wouldn't be called an anitsemite so often if, well, if he wasn't an antisemite, the fool!

When jacksondyer uses the word "anti-semite" he is no more than a worthless brat crying out a name the meaning of which he does not and will never understand.

And when he uses the word so frivilously, so casually and with such contempt for the truth he smears shit on the memory of the many Jews throughout history who have suffered from genuine anti-semitism.

The piece of shit called Neil Mackenzie is again trying to hide the real hatred and contempt he has for organized Jewish life.

Any one who talks about "zionazis" compares Israel to Nazi Germany and believes that the Jews control the US is an antisemite.

His disgusting and dishonest protestations are as believable as a Nazi propaganda film.

When jacksondyer uses the word "anti-semite" he is no more than a worthless brat crying out a name the meaning of which he does not and will never understand.

And when he uses the word so frivilously, so casually and with such contempt for the truth he smears shit on the memory of the many Jews throughout history who have suffered from genuine anti-semitism.

What this crud of an antisemite is still here?

The asshole has been borrowing ideas from the self hating and fascistically minded friend of Hizbollah and other Islamo fascist organizations Norman Finkelstein.

Go join your Pal in Beirut asshole.