Downing St.. Memo and Iraq

From:
Joe Sixpack (miltong2002)
Jun-13 10:50 pm
To:
hamblett1957 unread
(207 of 217)

3245.207 in reply to 3245.206
I actually do not believe that the facts were fit to the motive, although I do believe that both motive (independent of facts) and data supported a move - data being true or not. This is based on the general consensus (of intel agencies) at the time that there probably was something there and the post mortem investigations and even the Putin interview a year or year and a half later when he indicated that he thought WMD were there as well but disagreed with action.
All in all, I think WMDs were a part of the motivation, although not necessarily even the most importrant motive, although they were the easiest to point to. Probably few were as surprised as the admin not to find them.From:
chinshihtang
Jun-14 12:23 am
To:
Joe Sixpack (miltong2002)
(208 of 217)

3245.208 in reply to 3245.207
You know what? I don't care a bit what the Bushites' motivation may have been, or particularly what their intentions were. This has been an Administration whose major effects have all been unintended consequences. And as for motivations, they have amply proved that their philosophy has been that the ends justify the means. They deserve to be judged exclusively on what they have produced. If you think those results are all right, then by all means defend them. They do--by all means.
If you want my opinion of what actually happened, I think they looked at all kinds of potential military adventure scenarios with some kind of multivariate computerized models to evaluate the costs and benefits. Besides Iraq, they looked at Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and probably a few others. The electoral effect--ability to leverage elections through patriotic appeal, etc.--was highly weighted, so was control over oil production--the levels of production and where it would end up, and the degree to which the invasion would help drive the military reorganization they wanted to put through. They totally screwed up the predicted values of the number of US casualties (I'm sure it was a probability distribution, but they got the basic parameters of it all wrong), the time it would take to pacify the country, and a few other items (such as the importance of enlisting Turkish support, the impact on the military recruitment and reserve systems). They probably were pretty close on the political impact on neighboring countries, and on its weighting.
Bottom line, the model said this was the best country to invade, and that it was better to do it than not. The rest was just putting the decision in the proper frame, developing talking points, intimidating any opposition, directing the development of the war plan and signing off upon it.
Oh yes, and Iraqi civilian casualties got a weighting of zero in the model.


From:
extonpa1
Jun-14 2:00 am
To:
chinshihtang
(211 of 217)

3245.211 in reply to 3245.208
Oh yes, and Iraqi civilian casualties got a weighting of zero in the model.
That says it all!
Iraqis don't vote in US presidential elections.


From:
Joe Sixpack (miltong2002)
Jun-14 7:49 am
To:
chinshihtang
(213 of 217)

3245.213 in reply to 3245.208
Well, as you can see by your own words and mine as well: most people have already decided for themselves what happened. The emergence of slowly-leaked memos and other opinions is really not going to change this.

Thread 2:


From:
Lzrhk
Jun-10 6:53 am
To:
Lindsay Howerton (WPFORUMS)
(17 of 217)

3245.17 in reply to 3245.1
I think that Morley and the liberals are hacked because President Bush has freed more people from dictatorships than their boy Clinton ever dreamed of doing, and in doing so he has gotten rid of their hero Saddam, and ran their favorite "freedom fighters" the Taliban and Osama's boys out of Afghanistan. And sometimes it is pitiful (not really) to see them groveling around in the mud trying to find something that tells them that, having lost so profoundly in the last election and many more times since, they still have some worth left even if it is a "he said, she said" memo that will prove them right, a memo that anyone could have written up on the way to the airport or as is the favorite among lib losers today, written and conceived in the toilet where some of their better "ideas" are born, so to speak.
As to why the public has not been stirred up by the "memo that won't die" maybe it's because after all the harm the liberal press has done to our soldiers and to our war efforts in Iraq by their lying, the public just doesn't trust them anymore or even care what they have to say. It's that simple, chumps!For the culturally deprived, there is a fable called "The boy who cried wolf." You might want to check it out Morley and share it with the rest of the losers.


From:
chinshihtang
Jun-13 10:03 pm
To:
Lzrhk
(205 of 217)

3245.205 in reply to 3245.17
I know well the fable of "the boy who cried wolf": I brought it up in the last days of the 2004 campaign to point out the unintended irony of a campaign ad done by the Republicans with a bunch of wolves in them (implying that only the Republicans could protect us from the wolves out there in the rest of the world). OK, they won; I didn't. But Bush is still "the boy who cried wolf", particularly with regard to the Iraq war. There certainly won't be another occasion of the sort for us to believe or disbelieve him; there won't be any US forces available for another military adventure during the rest of his Administration. At least there is that consolation.
I was out of the USA in the months leading up to the invasion (actually, in the U.K.): it was clear in the news reporting, even what I could see from abroad, that the Bushites were looking for reasons to go in, and that the outcome was already settled as a matter of Administration policy.
What I didn't understand too well at the time, still don't, is what was the big hurry? Don't tell me it was the seasonal weather in Iraq: we still managed to catch the mother of all sandstorms in the middle of the invasion, and a couple of months to bring the Turks on board (with us going through eastern Turkey) would've made all the difference in the world in the post-invasion occupation--as we have learned to our sorrow.
Still, both questions are matters for the historians at this point, and the Downing Street Memo doesn't prove anything. It just shows what the perceptions at the time were, as noted by someone who was actually quite perceptive. I give Blair enough credit that I don't believe he was any more taken in by the evidence than the Bushites were. It was clear to any and all that Saddam was a caged beast, dangerous, homicidal, but under control from a strategic security standpoint. Blair simply decided that, on an issue of this magnitude, he had to be on the side of the US government.


From:
Lzrhk
Jun-14 12:40 am
To:
chinshihtang
(210 of 217)

3245.210 in reply to 3245.205
You find it consoling that Bush may not be able to engage in other "military adventures?" Like the ones that freed millions of people in Afghanistan and Iraq? Like the ones that deposed Saddam, the Taliban and al Queda from their dictatorial and murderous roles over millions? I bet you do find the prospects of other tyrants escaping justice consoling.


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chinshihtang@gmail.com
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Jun 14 (19 hours ago)
The following message was sent to you by CHINSHIHTANG while viewingyour Member Profile:They seemed to have closed that forum, I\'ll just reply to you directly.I supported both the involvement in Afghanistan and the way the Taliban was overthrown. There was a big difference; the US had a valid reason to attack (even to declare war, though they didn\'t gothat route). We also got lucky with our choice to handpick Hamid Karzai.I support the overthrow of dictators but generally reject the idea that we should do it forcibly, unilaterally, without adequate provocation. And we don\'t. I don\'t believe the whitewash about theIraq invasion being about democracy. What we\'ve achieved in Iraq, to date, is chaos for large parts of the country, and the creation of a pauper state in the Shiite South of the country. If that wasour goal, we could\'ve done that in \'91; wiser heads (like Colin Powell) prevented that then but couldn\'t prevent the Bushites (Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and of course Dumb Dubya) from doing it in '03.=============================================================