TakeYouToTasker Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 (edited) So, in other words: If you're driving your car in a zone where the speed limit is 50 MPH, and the speed limit then drops to 25 MPH, but there are no signs indicating that the speed limit changed, should you be held responsible for speeding if you get pulled over? Edited July 9, 2015 by TakeYouToTasker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deranged Rhino Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 If you're driving your car in a zone where the speed limit is 50 MPH, and the speed limit then drops to 25 MPH, but there are no signs indicating that the speed limit changed, should you be held responsible for speeding if you get pulled over? If in the process I killed 3,000+ American service men and women, over 150,000 civilians, and cost the town I was speeding through trillions of dollars in debt... then yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B-Man Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 If in the process I killed 3,000+ American service men and women, over 150,000 civilians, and cost the town I was speeding through trillions of dollars in debt... then yes. Where is the cutoff line to your blame ? What if you killed 1 serviceman, 1 civilian, and cost 1 dollar. Then your vote was okay ? . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magox Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 (edited) The case that you are making is that regardless of the information provided, if you happened to have gotten it wrong then you are fired for life specially considering the damage that this particular decision has and is continuing to cause. Fine, I can accept that reasoning, however I do believe that is a faulty way to view things. If you were to tell me that someone has a history of voting for interventionist forms of foreign policy and that this particular vote was just yet another confirmation of what you suspected of that candidate and you are ideologically a non interventionist, then in my view you'd have a valid rationale behind your decision. But that's not what is happening here. What's happening here is that this is a litmus test. Litmus tests in my view are for ideologues. I can't begin to describe my view on litmus tests, I find them to be completely nonsensical. Litmus tests eliminate reason and the ability to evolve on positions. Haven't we all got it wrong before? Haven't we changed our views on certain things after more light had been shed? I certainly have. Reddog brought up the point that there were other politicians who had voted against the authorization of war and inferred that since they were the ones who got it right that they must have viewed all the intel and came to a different conclusion than the ones who voted for the authorization of war based on the very same intel. Ok, let's go with that. However, when you look at the politicians who voted against the authorization of war, coincidentally the vast majority of them are politicians who are either non interventionists or quasi pacifists that live in states and districts that line up with their ideologies. I don't believe that they read the intel and came to a different conclusion than the other 75% that vote for the authorization of war. I don't believe that was a coincidence. That was purely ideologically and politically driven. In other words, not what Reddog was saying. Edited July 9, 2015 by Magox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deranged Rhino Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Where is the cutoff line to your blame ? What if you killed 1 serviceman, 1 civilian, and cost 1 dollar. Then your vote was okay ? . It depends entirely on the situation, and the outcome, I admit. That's the benefit of hindsight -- something the pols didn't have at the time. But that shouldn't excuse their role in what brought us to the longest running war in US history. The lead up to war in Iraq was fumbled in nearly every way by nearly every aspect of our government. From the elected officials, to intelligence agencies, to the corporate benefactors itching to get their hands on the goodies under the sand. Had the war gone off the way it was sold to the public: that there were WMDs found, that Saddam posed a direct threat to the US, and that the war would pay for itself with Iraqi oil -- then we wouldn't be having this discussion. But it didn't turn out that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef Jim Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Has there been any evidence that shows in hindsight that Saddam in fact did NOT have any WMD? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TakeYouToTasker Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 If in the process I killed 3,000+ American service men and women, over 150,000 civilians, and cost the town I was speeding through trillions of dollars in debt... then yes. What if those things were commonplace occurrences of engaging in driving? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3rdnlng Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 If WMD's were found in Iraq would you people who will not vote for Hillary or Joe have changed your mind? Also, would the same people vote for an inferior candidate versus a first class candidate based on their war vote? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reddogblitz Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 If WMD's were found in Iraq would you people who will not vote for Hillary or Joe have changed your mind? Also, would the same people vote for an inferior candidate versus a first class candidate based on their war vote? Except that didn't happen, so who cares? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TakeYouToTasker Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Except that didn't happen, so who cares? But it did, in fact, happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truth on hold Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Making a decision based on the best intelligence and information available at the time, which in hindsight, turned out to possibly be a poor decision, is not the same thing as doing the wrong thing, or making a poor moral judgment. There are millions of good reasons to not cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton. This is not one of them. There were plenty of credible sources saying there were no WMDs. Any fool could see it was a war of choice and bush & co and media elements were pushing for a justification. That you didn't see it makes you something even short of a fool. But we knew that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TakeYouToTasker Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 There were plenty of credible sources saying there were no WMDs. Any fool could see it was a war of choice and bush & co and media elements were pushing for a justification. That you didn't see it makes you something even short of a fool. But we knew that. Revisionist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef Jim Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 There were plenty of credible sources saying there were no WMDs. Any fool could see it was a war of choice and bush & co and media elements were pushing for a justification. That you didn't see it makes you something even short of a fool. But we knew that. Plenty? List them please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
....lybob Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 http://prospect.org/waldman/myth-faulty-intelligence Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truth on hold Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 (edited) "There were about 700 inspections, and in no case did we find weapons of mass destruction," said Hans Blix, the Swedish diplomat called out of retirement to serve as the United Nations' chief weapons inspector from 2000 to 2003; from 1981 to 1997 he headed the International Atomic Energy Agency. http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/03/18_blix.shtml Edited July 9, 2015 by JTSP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magox Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 I was just gonna say "American Prospect, Really?" But, I figured that would be a lazy response. So I read it. And what a waste of !@#$ing time, !@#$ you Lybob for making me read that garbage that some would call an article. Basically it was a piece completely based on opinion with two references to other articles that are related to the war. One didn't even have to do with "faulty intelligence" but more so the risks of the outcomes of the war and the other, which basically didn't take the administration's word as fact (which is responsible journalism) and began to question certain things that administration was saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef Jim Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 "There were about 700 inspections, and in no case did we find weapons of mass destruction," said Hans Blix, the Swedish diplomat called out of retirement to serve as the United Nations' chief weapons inspector from 2000 to 2003; from 1981 to 1997 he headed the International Atomic Energy Agency. http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/03/18_blix.shtml Still waiting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truth on hold Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 (edited) "What I Didn't Find in Africa" Joseph C. Wilson 4th United States Ambassador In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake a form of lightly processed ore by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office. It did not take long to conclude it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place. Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/what-i-didn-t-find-in-africa.html?pagewanted=1 Edited July 9, 2015 by JTSP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef Jim Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 "What I Didn't Find in Africa" Joseph C. Wilson 4th United States Ambassador In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake a form of lightly processed ore by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office. It did not take long to conclude it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place. Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/what-i-didn-t-find-in-africa.html?pagewanted=1 Nice story. Loved this part. The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand He also doesn't sound so sure that there in fact were no WMD's. But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor ''revisionist history,'' as Mr. Bush has suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3rdnlng Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 Except that didn't happen, so who cares? So, if tomorrow we find WMD in Iraq that were buried 15 years ago you will reconsider your position and possibly vote for Hillary? While i'm at it, if Hillary refused to vote for the war after she had seen credible evidence of WMD would you think her prudent or reckless? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts