Brian Williams is a Liar

[Hawk]

#2 is a technically defensible statement, but a stretch, and misleading in this context. As for a "dispute," there really isn't one on that score. Hundreds of thousands of documents analyzed by dozens of official sources support this conclusion.

The context, or at least the one I was operating from, was pure speculation as to whether or not Saddam might have eventually allied with Al-Qaeda supposing OIF never transpired. Who knows? If one thing is for certain, though, it's that the conditions would have been ripe for a union.

As for Saddam and 9/11, the entirety of that theory seems to focus on the mysterious 'Prague meeting' that is so clouded with misinformation that one would be remiss to treat the evidence (that has been cobbled together by the intelligence services from numerous governments [with clashing agendas]) without an intense degree of scrutiny.

 

[Hawk]

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
///////////////////
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-secretly-takes-yellowcake-from-iraq/

"The yellowcake issue also is one of the many troubling footnotes of the war for Washington.

A CIA officer, Valerie Plame, claimed her identity was leaked to journalists to retaliate against her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who wrote that he had found no evidence to support assertions that Iraq tried to buy additional yellowcake from Niger.

A federal investigation led to the conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.'

That was a good movie. Sean Penn plays embittered small men so well.

 

[Julio3000]

The context, or at least the one I was operating from, was pure speculation as to whether or not Saddam might have eventually allied with Al-Qaeda supposing OIF never transpired. Who knows? If one thing is for certain, though, it's that the conditions would have been ripe for a union.

As for Saddam and 9/11, the entirety of that theory seems to focus on the mysterious 'Prague meeting' that is so clouded with misinformation that one would be remiss to treat the evidence (that has been cobbled together by the intelligence services from numerous governments [with clashing agendas]) without an intense degree of scrutiny.

Could that have happened? Sure. All of the horsepower that's been devoted to analyzing it seems to think not.

As for Saddam and 9/11, the entirety of that theory seems to focus on the mysterious 'Prague meeting' that is so clouded with misinformation that one would be remiss to treat the evidence (that has been cobbled together by the intelligence services from numerous governments [with clashing agendas]) without an intense degree of scrutiny.

I don't think that's the case at all.

 

[Oklahomahawk]

Sean Penn plays embittered small men so well.

Type casting would be my guess. He must have something going for him though, you know he and Charlize Theron have hooked up.

 

[50PoundHead]

I think Williams has PTBS.

 

[Hawk]

Could that have happened? Sure. All of the horsepower that's been devoted to analyzing it seems to think not.

I realize that this doesnt speak directly to your comments, but a lot of that horsepower was employed in the years immediately following the invasion when the global political climate was fiercely anti-war and Iraq was in shambles. Now that a more sufficient time has elapsed, and political think-tanks and theorists can emanate their beliefs in a less actively hostile environment, there's a lot more support for the Bush Doctrine than ever before. Consider the Arab Spring, the life-line that al-Assad is strung out on, the relative feebleness of ISIL (if one can momentarily set aside the current media-fueled frenzy). In one way or the other, all roads lead to OIF and American military intervention in the Middle East. I won't pretend that this calculus doesn't seem to utterly cheapen the enormous population displacements and cultural regressions in various societies, loss of human life, and financial costs endured by the United States and millions in the Middle East -- but the geopolitical situation is far from bleak and is almost revolutionary in proportion.

 

[weso1]

Hey, did you guys see that story about Brian Williams being caught telling lies? Someone should make a thread about that.

 

[Hawk]

I don't think that's the case at all.

You are probably right, but FWIW, the 9/11 Commission was never able to conclusively prove otherwise, and there's still a curious Atta link to the Czech Republic.

 

[goldfly]

Hey, did you guys see that story about Brian Williams being caught telling lies? Someone should make a thread about that.

a thread finding out that people still think W and company didn't lie to take us to a war where a lot of people died and led Brian Williams to be able to lie is a better thread

 

[Metaphysicist]

and Bush never claimed that Hussein was actually in the process of making weapons, but rather, had the capability to do so. Which was true.

Again, you are being absurd. I am consistently amazed at how poorly conservatives seem to remember the details of the lead up to the Iraq War. In his speech declaring war, Bush explicitly said Iraq was "threaten[ing] the peace with weapons of mass murder" and that the purpose of the war was to keep Iraq from attacking our cities. You can skip to 2:55 for the money quote:

The war was very clearly framed as a pre-emptive strike against an imminent threat.

Every country has "the capability to make weapons." That doesn't mean anything.

Hussein was doing everything within his power, and against UN sanctions, to maintain power and regional strength.

(A) This was not the reason we went to war.

(B) So what? A dictator was trying to remain in power? Egads, what a novelty!

 

[Runnin]

... Bush explicitly said Iraq was "threaten[ing] the peace with weapons of mass murder" .

"Explicitly" doesn't accurately describe that vague phrase (what peace? threatening who?) nor anything Bush ever said, but they certainly implied rather emphatically and non-stop for months that Iraq and Hussein were eminent threats to America. It seems absurd that anyone could have believed Iraq capable of somehow morphing into a West-leaning democracy.

 

[50PoundHead]

"Explicitly" doesn't accurately describe that vague phrase (what peace? threatening who?) nor anything Bush ever said, but they certainly implied rather emphatically and non-stop for months that Iraq and Hussein were eminent threats to America. It seems absurd that anyone could have believed Iraq capable of somehow morphing into a West-leaning democracy.

It goes back even further to some extent. I can remember the first thought for a lot of folks when the Mura building went down was "Saddam Hussein." After the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein took on this almost superhuman nature in the eyes of American foreign policy wonks.

And before anyone blames me for being unbalanced, I can remember the left-wing nut on NPR who rushed to judgment and aggressively contended that the Boston Marathon bombing was committed by right-wing tax resisters.

Hawk, you seem to be going with the Krauthammer doctrine that in twenty years W will be vindicated and we all will look back and see how our intervention in the Mideast was a blessing to the world. I agree with the old Lenin saw that "you can't make an omelet if you don't break some eggs," but our efforts in that part of the world are basically Woodrow Wilson on steroids.

 

[Julio3000]

Krauthammer probably figures that he'll be dead in 20 years and won't have to be accountable.

So, the net result so far is that Saddam Hussein is gone, Iraq is more or less a failed state that, when functioning, is friendlier to Iran than to the US, and certainly no less dangerous than it was ante bellum. That's not even taking the IS into consideration. Sure, it's not a permanent state of affairs, but it doesn't look to change any time soon.

 

[Julio3000]

You are probably right, but FWIW, the 9/11 Commission was never able to conclusively prove otherwise, and there's still a curious Atta link to the Czech Republic.

True, and artfully stated. The 9/11 Commission was not able to prove conclusively that Atta did not go to Prague in April 2001. They state that the balance of evidence suggests that he didn't, but that it cannot be absolutely ruled out. They don't think he did. Neither does the Senate Intel Committee. And the FBI. And the CIA. And Czech intelligence. And the Iraqi official that he was supposed to have met with.

Atta link to the Czech Republic.

What link is that?

 

[yeezus]

Brian Williams was there.

 

[50PoundHead]

Brian Williams was there.

My guess is there is going to be some simply awesome photoshopping going on as it relates to this story.

 

[Hawk]

Atta link to the Czech Republic.

What link is that?

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2005/08/atta-a10.html

There have been repeated accounts, particularly in the German media, about Atta being under surveillance by the CIA while he was living in Hamburg, and about this surveillance continuing after he shifted his activities to the United States in the summer of 2000, apparently by the Israeli secret service Mossad (the CIA not being permitted to conduct its own surveillance operations on US soil).

Reports were carried by the television network ARD, the magazine Der Spiegel, and major daily newspapers like the Berliner Zeitung and Die Zeit. Their accounts have the CIA beginning surveillance of Atta in Hamburg in January 2000, following him during a trip to Frankfurt, where he purchased chemicals that could be used in making explosives, right up to the point where he visited the US embassy in Berlin, on May 18, 2000, and obtained a US entry visa. Atta flew to the United States from Prague, capital of the neighboring Czech Republic, on June 3, 2000.

http://www.radio.cz/en/section/curr...ious-czech-intelligence-muddied-the-911-probe

On May 31, 2000 a Pakistani businessman by the name of Mohammed Atta — whose first name is spelt with two 'm's — arrives in Prague via Frankfurt, Germany aboard a Lufthansa German Airlines flight from Saudi Arabia, home to 15 of the 19 hijackers. The Pakistani man, without a Czech visa is sent back to Frankfurt after spending six hours in the Prague international airport.

Two days later, on June 2, an Egyptian man named Mohamed Atta — who spells his first name with a single 'm'— arrives in Prague — by bus — from Cologne, Germany, with valid Czech and American visas in his passport.

Surveillance cameras at Prague's Florenc bus terminal show that this Atta, who would later pilot the first plane into the World Trade Center towers, spent some time playing the slot machines in a "herna" bar called the Happy Day Casino. What the Egyptian terrorist did over the 36 hours after leaving the casino is unclear. But on June 3, he flew non-stop from Prague to Newark, New Jersey with Czech Airlines and soon joined up with members of his terrorist cell.

---

It's nothing definitive, I've made no claim of that, but intriguing nevertheless.

 

[Hawk]

Hawk, you seem to be going with the Krauthammer doctrine that in twenty years W will be vindicated and we all will look back and see how our intervention in the Mideast was a blessing to the world. I agree with the old Lenin saw that "you can't make an omelet if you don't break some eggs," but our efforts in that part of the world are basically Woodrow Wilson on steroids.

Haha, well put, as always.

I'm not sure I would ever say that the wars were a 'blessing' -- but the political results (to date) are encouraging for those that are interested in extending American influence abroad.

 

[Hawk]

Again, you are being absurd. I am consistently amazed at how poorly conservatives seem to remember the details of the lead up to the Iraq War. In his speech declaring war, Bush explicitly said Iraq was "threaten[ing] the peace with weapons of mass murder" and that the purpose of the war was to keep Iraq from attacking our cities.

Technically, neither of those statements was false. It was war by fait accompli. I can accept the position that Iraq wasn't imminently prepared to launch a full-blown offensive against the United States, but painting the contentions by the administration as wholly disingenuous is farcical. Just because Saddam Hussein was, at that fleeting moment in time, a cash-strapped eunuch of a leader didn't preclude him from pursuing his megalomaniac ambitions.

I get that the' left' would have preferred to give it the old Chamberlain effort. And that's cool. But it didn't happen that way.

Every country has "the capability to make weapons." That doesn't mean anything.

Yeah, because 'every' country has hundreds of tons of uranium and a stockpile of chemical weapons just laying around with "Do Not Touch, Please!" caution tape wrapped around them. That had been used before to kill innocent people.

Or dual-use chemical facilities which just happened to be located in Fallujah.

So what? A dictator was trying to remain in power? Egads, what a novelty!

Just because deposing said dictator doesn't align with your philosophies doesn't mean the act is incomprehensibly wrong. In fact, doing so is kind of the American way.

 

[goldfly]

Yeah, because 'every' country has hundreds of tons of uranium and a stockpile of chemical weapons just laying around with "Do Not Touch, Please!" caution tape wrapped around them. Or dual-use chemical facilities which just happened to be located in Fallujah.

it makes it real easy to have them though when we gave them to you years ago