[extropy-chat] Who thinks the Bush admin lied over Iraq? Onwhatbasis?

[Brett Paatsch]

Robbie Lindauer wrote:

>>> The claim was that "we KNOW there are wmd's in Iraq" - this is what Mr. 
>>> Powell said to the UN and Bush said to the American Public.  He (powell) 
>>> is later quoted as having said in a briefing "I'm not reading this 
>>> bulshit".
>>
>> Can you personally provide evidence that Bush said that to the American
>> Public, evidence that would convince an impartial person?  I suspect that 
>> I could find that evidence but why should I try to if you won't get it 
>> for me?  What's your responsibility as a citizen in your political 
>> system? And if I won't make the effort and you won't make the effort what 
>> does that mean?
>
> Check:
>
> http://www.thetip.org/

I checked that there is a site there. I see that you own the domain name.

But where on the site is your evidence that Bush said we know there are
wmd's in Iraq.

The reason I ask again, is because that is what I wanted to know.  I don't
want to go fishing around on your site for what might be there to back up
your assertion or not.  The point is that you need to be able to back up
your assertion to be able to be persuasive.

> Don't forget to check with your local nameservice provider too.

I'm not sure what you mean. I checked that you, Robert Lindauer,
own the domain name THETIP.ORG.

>> Do you know *when* he said it, in what context, can you provide a link o 
>> a transcript or a mp3 file etc?
>
> As a matter of fact...

As a matter of fact what ?

>> What I am hoping you will see is that in a country of millions of 
>> opinions there are very few that are taking the trouble to put their
>> opinions together in such a way that they might really have a chance
>> to persuade impartial people willing to make up their minds on the facts.
>
> The notion "impartial people" is absurd, but, again, do try 
> http://www.thetip.org/

The notion "impartial people" is no more absurd than that you or I or
any person might hope to get a jury judge our guilt or innocence
impartially if you or I or any person is ever charged with a criminal
offence.

>> I think there is very likely to be good grounds for impeaching President 
>> George W Bush. But it is not going to happen even if there
>> are good grounds if those that would want it to happen do not get their
>> shit together enough to make a persuasive case when a persuasive case
>> is a case that would be able to convince an impartial but interested 
>> person.
>
> Actually, it takes a majority vote in the Senate to get it to happen so 
> it's absurd to even consider it given that the whole senate has sold its 
> soul to that devil.

I'm not granting that given. Your off topic.

> All us ordinary citizens can really do is complain loudly, I'm afraid, 
> given that I'm unwilling to shoot anyone over it or blow anything up 
> myself.  (Hippy parents, haven't decided whether it's a character flaw or 
> not.)

I am not a citizen of the United States.

Complaining loudly isn't bad. Complaining loudly and doing something
like having an internet site to communicate with already lifts you out
of the ranks of ordinary disinterested citizen. To have a web site with
political content make you an activist of sorts.

But then some nutters are probably activists too. I don't know whether
you are a nutter or not yet.

Sometimes people acting together can be more effective than if they act
alone. There can be synergies between skill sets. Sometimes though
they can be worse.

>>> The question is why, if he KNEW it was bullshit, did he go on reading 
>>> given that we obviously didn't know that there were weapons of the 
>>> relevant kind there (otherwise, they'd be there, right?)  Or did he have 
>>> further intelligence revealed to him.  If so, where is it?   I mean, if 
>>> we KNEW where there were, we'd have found them.
>>
>> That's not a question I am asking that's a diversion you are throwing up.
>
> No, it's a fact in evidence.

You don't say what "he" was reading or where he was reading it so the
first question that comes to my mind isn't the one you want to pose, the
first question that comes to my mind is what *are* you actually talking
about.

>> The question I am asking is: when to *your* knowledge did George W
>> Bush personally say to the American people that there *are* weapons
>> of mass destuction in Iraq, and can you prove it?
>
> Colin Powell said this to the UN, it's well documented.

I watched Colin Powell speak to the UN on television live. I don't doubt
that the full text and in all likelihood a video of the event is available
somewhere. If you can point to it and it bears out your point then you'd
have shown that your archive is useful.

>  George Bush said in his state of the Union address that Iraq had sought 
> Uranium in Niger quoting intelligence known by the British and Americans 
> to be false (again, see www.thetip.org, a nice complete record with 
> citations from the major news publications tracing back, oh, I dunno, just 
> to the right time....).

I don't want to read your whole scrapbook. I shouldn't have to.

Nor am I trying to make work for you or give you a hard time. Only
some facts are likely to be relevant to making a case for impeachment
and the vast majority of stuff offered by people who just hate Bush is
likely to be gratuitous counterproductive noise.

However those facts that are relevant need to be able to be presented
to people to see for themselves.

Its good to have a site that pools useful info, but its not enough if they
have to go searching through it and the site looks like an I-hate-Bush
site.

>> If you can then that would lead on to a second point:  What evidence is
>> there that that statement was known to be untrue by him when he said it.
>
> Both the CIA and British Intelligence from whom he would have to have 
> gotten the intelligence knew it to be false and have, again, said so 
> publicly.  For a nice record of the matter, please see www.thetip.org :)

Where specifically on the site?  I don't want to have to read the whole
thing.

>> Prove the second (probably on the balance of probabilities would be
>> enough) and you've grounds for impeachment.
>
> Well, you can't prove that he's a not a complete imbecile, but then the 
> point is either he knew or he should of known.  I'm sure you've heard the 
> statement before:
>
> "The Buck Stops Here"

Yes. Harry Truman.

> It's meant to mean somewhere in the white house.
>
>> Its already clear that George W Bush took a presdiential oath under
>> the US Constitution to uphold the constitution.
>
> He took one to show up for duty in the air national guard too, it's not 
> suprising that he can't keep this one either.

This isn't relevant to whether he lied over Iraq.

>>  Its already clear that
>> international law duly ratified by congress (which includes the UN
>> Charter) is also US law and that that US Supreme Court has
>> jurisidiction over US law.
>>
>> It is already clear that there is nothing within the UN Charter which
>> permits a pre-emptive war without a Security Council Resolution
>> and therefore also within US law. Its already clear that the Security
>> Council did not authorise the Invasion of Iraq. Even if they (the
>> Security Council) did it retrospectively that would not change that
>> it was illegal under US law at the time for the US President to
>> break the UN Charter which is part of US law and a part of the
>> hardwon birthright of all US citizens, not just the one that happens
>> to be President.
>>
>> Seems to me that all that remains to be proven is that George W
>> Bush was acting in active bad faith rather than mere run of the mill
>> incompetence for the clearest possible case for impeachment to
>> be made.
>>
>> If President George W Bush deliberately took the US to war on
>> a lie or a misrepresentation AND THAT CAN BE SHOWN then
>> you will have grounds for impeachment and as a US citizen you
>> should expect impeachment to happen.
>
> Um, except that the congress is controlled by republican drones and the 
> media is controlled by the likes of Rupert Murdoch?

I don't know you well enough for you to make stupid sounding
statements like that and for me to give you the benefit of any
doubt.

>>> Second, we KNOW that David Kelly was an active Iraq weapons
>>> inspector working for the UN and he said he KNEW they didn't have the 
>>> weapons of  the relevant kind, he "died mysteriously" for
>>> his say-so.  But we do know that he said so.
>>
>> "died mysteriously" is irrelevant.
>
> Not to anyone with a brain cell left you freekin' idiot.

1) You are not attributing the quote *to* anybody.

2) Even if he did die mysteriously it is irrelevant you are just raising
a red herring issue.

3) Calling me a freekin' idiot doesn't actually insult me, you don't
know me, it just makes me doubt you.  The first time I see a link
from you is to your own site and you call me a freekin idiot in the
same post.

>> If what Kelly says is relevant to what Bush believed then you have
>> to establish that connection with evidence.  The clearer, the more
>> concisely the case is put together then more likely it is to succeed,
>> the more likely it is to be persuasive.
>
> Please see "http://www.thetip.org" and of course the rather nice record of 
> the incident in the guardian, still available online.

Is that incident relevant to the question if whether Bush lied over Iraq?

>>> Third, we KNOW that the American CIA had briefed the president and had 
>>> said they'd found no such evidence.
>>
>> How do *you* know? If you know then you will be able to tell me when
>> they did it?
>
> Of course, please see http://www.thetip.org/.

No. Not I am not going to your bloody site again until you show me that
you can find stuff in it yourself.

> I didn't spend several years collecting these stories in one place for no 
> good reason :)

Why did you do it I wonder? So that if you meet someone who might
agree with you you could piss them off and try to insult them?

I'd have thought that you would have wanted to communicate. Get this.
I don't want to read every bit of trivia you thought might be relevent at
the time you collected it. Your collection is your collection. I am only
interested in it in so far as you vouch for its accuracy and relevance
in relation to specific questions.

If you establish some credibility and trust then that would be different
but you haven't. Not with me.

>>> Fourth, we know that in fact Iraq didn't attempt to acquire any nuclear 
>>> material in Niger, Bush blatantly lied to the public in the matter.
>>
>> Again, can you prove, to an impartial person, that Bush lied (not that he 
>> was
>> not just mistaken or deceived) on that matter using evidence?
>
> Sure, obviously you're not one, but in general any impartial person I 
> speak to is easily convinced of the matter.

Again with the insults. What do you think it gains you? All you are
doing is distracting me from the points you should be eager to make.

> Only the occasional imbecile or bloodthirsty codswallop can't manage to 
> see past their own bile.



>>> Both the British and Americans knew that the intelligence on the matter 
>>> was flatly false.
>>>
>>> Fifth we know that the the British understood Bush's war effort as a 
>>> trumped-up case from the Downing Street Memo and Downing Street Minutes 
>>> the sources of which are not in question.
>>
>> I reckon if I had a parrot he'd be able to say "Downing Street Memo" by
>> now. So what? What is it about the Downing Steet Memo that is important
>> in your view? What if anything do the Downing Street Minutes prove to am
>> impartial person?
>
> Well, if you'd read them, perhaps you'd find out.

I'm pretty sure I have already read them. The only reason I am not sure is 
that
nothing I read had the weight that the hype about them suggested. So perhaps
there is something, some memo I missed.

> Again, you can find them on www.thetip.org.  I just LOVE that site!

I can tell.  I don't share you enthusiasm for it.

>>> Sixth, we know that some of the President's and Vice President's very 
>>> close friends are mysteriously making quite a lot of money in this 
>>> effort, in particular Haliburton and Carlyle (through UDI) are doing 
>>> well..
>>
>> "mysteriously". Bollocks.
>
> Quite right.  No mystery.

I meant that it is bollocks to try and use irony when you are asked for
facts.

>>> In sum, you can INSIST that this all adds up to conspiracy-theory 
>>> bullshit because obviously anyone who opposed or opposes the 
>>> administration's position in the matter is a 
>>> nutso-commie-conspiracy-theorist OR you could say "well, there appears 
>>> to be a significant amount of evidence that Bush really wanted to go to 
>>> war and trumped up the reasons to do so."  But this wouldn't be a 
>>> critical attitude but more of a dumb-ass attitude.  If you like this, I 
>>> also sell land in southeast asia in my spare time.  It's normally valued 
>>> at $50,000 but I could get it for you for $30,000 cash.
>>
>> You miss the point. There is a perfectly good mechanism for impeaching
>> a President in the Constitution. *If* there is grounds for doing it.
>
> Not if the congress is controlled by the President's party along with the 
> Supreme Court, you idiot.
>
>> But a million flapping traps don't add up to a case. Some *one* or some
>> *ones* have to put the case together. Once the case is put together the
>> million flapping traps can help create the political will to make sure 
>> that it is
>> considered but it will not and should not succeed in impeaching a 
>> President
>> unless the case is made.
>
> Well, as I recall during the last Republican Impeachment Effort, no 
> evidence was required to start the proceeding at all, just the political 
> will.
>
>> If you think that there is no-one that will make up their minds on the 
>> facts
>> then you have already lost.
>
> Losing is sometimes winning.  Have faith my young apprentice.

I am not your apprentice.

>> Nothing is more likely to further empower a scoundrel President (and I
>> am not saying that Bush is a scoundrel President that would turn on the
>> facts) then a populace and an opposition that hasn't got a clue about
>> how to bring him to account.
>
> Agreed.  The only thing to do would be to start a grass-roots large-scale 
> impeachment effort and show the republicans and democrats alike that we're 
> absolutely sick of this administration and it's lies and then make sure 
> that they don't get elected and in order to do so we'll have to revamp the 
> way people get and accept news because the major news services in the 
> United States are uninterested in this story.  We'd have to make something 
> internetty actually work.  If it's impossible at least we can have said 
> we'd tried and we didn't blow anything up.
>
> Start here:
>
> http://www.thetip.org/impeach.php
>
> It's not much but you'd be suprised :)

I started with the bloody question I asked you.

>
> Robbie Lindauer
> www.thetip.org  (shameless plug #40, but he asked for it)

I asked you a specific question. Rather than answer it, you decided
to piss in my ear.  Ironically, you *may* have been able to answer it.
It would have saved us both a lot of time if you had just done so.

Brett Paatsch