Hello There, Guest! (LoginRegister)

Post Reply 
Egypt- Causal Chain
Author Message
NIU007 Offline
Legend
*

Posts: 34,241
Joined: Sep 2004
Reputation: 315
I Root For: NIU, MAC
Location: Naperville, IL
Post: #21
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 03:03 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 02:37 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  I've never been content with the canned answer of faulty intel. Cheney didn't harass the CIA and Rummy's notes on 9-12 didn't try to link Saddam to 9-11 for ***** and giggles. I read where Saddam tried to create an oil bourse in Euro's. To me that's an area that may hold some weight. I don't know if we will ever get to the truth. There was a definite "itching" to get into Iraq. 9-11 made it possible. That administration was very comfortable invading if there was less than a 1% chance Saddam had WMD's. Hell they made it policy. The 1% doctrine.

No, it's not "faulty intel." It's a recognition of the inherent character of intel. All intel is "faulty" if you are expecting some sort of reasonable doubt standard. And in some cases, time forces you to act before you even reach a preponderance of evidence standard. The whole concept of what intel is and how it works has been grossly distorted by the arguments on this issue.

I've seen enough intel to know that a reasonable assessment was way higher than 1%. Just off what I know, and my clearance hasn't been active since Desert Storm, I'm pretty certain that it was somewhere in the range of 30% to 70%. The fact that there were dissenting opinions is normal. There were probably dissenting opinoions about the intel for every battle in history--for both the winning and losing sides.

It's not "faulty intel" like somebody screwed up. It's that there are just some things you can't know. You have to make the best guess you can. If pressure was put on people from the top to come up with an answer, that's obviously not ideal, but it's an area that can't be held to the same standard as you are trying to impute here.

It's not a criminal justice situation, where the DA is supposed to be absolutely certain before he acts. That's a real problem here, is that we are holding intel to a criminal justice standard, and you just can't do that. The DA has discovery tools that are not available in an intel context. S/he can get a search warrant; you can't get a search warrant for Iraq. S/he can question witnesses under penalty of perjury; you can't do that with Iraq. If we forced DA's to reach at least a probable cause standard before acting, without having those tools, it would be impossible to prosecute virtually anyone.

Did we know where the German tanks were going to be when we landed in Normandy? No, we hoped they'd be somewhere else, and we engaged in deception to cause them to be somewhere else, and to a great extent they were. Why? Becuase they didn't know where we were going to land. Intel is a guessing game, not a certainty game, and sometimes you guess wrong.

I have said before, I'm no apologist for what happened. I would not have invaded Iraq, at least not when Shrub did. I'd have made sure that we were finished in Afghanistan first. In fact, if we'd actually bothered to finish the job in Afghanistan, I'm guessing Saddam would have been more willing to give in to our demands. As it was, our failure to finish the job in Afghanistan created no fear in his mind that we would come in and take care of him.

I think they should have been more forthcoming about the true nature of intel. "We believe there's a 70% chance that Saddam has nuclear, biological, and/or chemical (NBC) weapons," is a lot more reasonable than, "Saddam has WMD." But it's not really a lie to say the latter, if by a lie you mean saying one thing when you know the truth lies elsewhere.

In some cases but not in this one.
02-15-2011 03:08 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
BlazerFan11 Offline
Hall of Famer
*

Posts: 12,228
Joined: Dec 2005
Reputation: 367
I Root For: UAB
Location:
Post: #22
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 03:05 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 02:59 PM)BlazerFan11 Wrote:  
(02-14-2011 02:09 PM)MonsterTigerBlue Wrote:  
(02-14-2011 01:53 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  
(02-14-2011 01:51 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  Hey Mach, what do you think the personal fortunes might be for guys like Chavez, Arafat (well, his family), Castro and other dictators? it's disgusting, isnt it. This article say Castro is doing quite well.

Being a dictator is good work if you can get it.

I think history would differ with your opinon , normaly they don't make
to a natural death.... but if thats your gig have at it...

Quality>quantity. I'd take 60 good years of living in exorbitant wealth and doing nothing, but seeing an untimely death, over 75 years of toiling on the government plantation anyday.

If you don't mind being completely ruthless, unscrupulous, and murderous.

There's no rule that says dictators have to be murderers.
02-15-2011 03:22 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Redwingtom Offline
Progressive filth
*

Posts: 51,524
Joined: Dec 2003
Reputation: 971
I Root For: B-G-S-U !!!!
Location: Soros' Basement
Post: #23
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 02:18 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(02-14-2011 04:04 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  And again, while I think we all agree that Saddam was bad and needed to go, the honesty, or lack thereof, that proceeded his removal will take a looooong time to forget.

I find this line of attack particularly troubling. It wasn't a lack of honesty, it was bad intelligence. There's a huge difference.

You can't be 100% certain when you act on intelligence. They're called intelligence ESTIMATES for a reason.

If you wait to get 100% certainty, you will ALWAYS be too late. At some point, you have to make the best guess you can. If you guess wrong, that's not a lie. If it turns out later that there were people who disagree with you, that doesn't mean you lied. There were probably plenty of people who disagreed with Joe Rochefort's assessment that the Japanese were about to attack Midway. But once three Japanese carriers were on the bottom of the Pacific, they probably weren't all that interested in speaking up.

If you were 100% certain that Saddam had nuclear, biological, and/or chemical (NBC, a term I find less misleading than WMD) weapons, would you favor invading? If yes, then at what percentage lower than that would you favor attacking? 70%? 30%? I'm guessing that for most people, the answer is somewhere between 30% and 70%. That means you take actioin when there's a fairly high possibility that you are wrong.

What was dishonest is that our leadership should have been upfront with what's going on. What would have been your reaction if they had said, "Our intelligence indicates a 70% probability that Saddam has NBC weapons, and a 30% chance that he will use them against Israel in the next 5 years. We believe a preemptive strike is necessary to cut off that possibility"? Could Shrub and the neocons have been more candid about what the intelligence actually represented? Absolutely. Does that make what they said rise to lie proportions? Absolutely not.

Where Shrub did lie is that he said on the campaign trail in 2000 that he was going to reduce the size of the federal government and get us out of the nation-building business. And no, before you ask, I am not willing to give him a free ride on those promises because of 9/11. I think we INCREASE, not decrease, the risk of future 9/11's or the like by keeping boots on the ground in the Middle East. But before we can completely disengage, we need to find a viable alternative to imported oil. That should be priority number one, and it isn't.

I'm no apologist for the Iraq war. I would not have gone into Iraq, at least not until the war in Afghanistan was done, and the only reason I'd go in then would have been to keep Israel from nuking Baghdad. And to clarify, by war in Afghanistan done, I mean complete and total victory--bin Laden dead, Mullah Omar dead, for starters, at a minimum--and that's way beyond where we are even today.

Today, I'd bring the troops home and tell the powers over there that it's really quite simple. We don't care who runs your country, it's none of our business, as long as you obseve some simple rules. If you're willing to deal with us peacefully, and respect our citizens' rights to life, liberty, and property, then we are more than willing to extend the same to you. If you violate those rules, or choose to harbor people who violate them, the we reserve the right to blow you to smithereens at the time and in the manor of our choosing. Of course, after 60 years of wimping out, we'd actually have to blow a couple of people to smithereens to convince anyone that we meant it. That's fine, once we did that a time or two, we'd not have to worry about it again.

Never fight a war you don't intend to win. For whatever reason, we're fighting two of them, and have been for nearly a decade.

In all honesty, we are not that far apart on this subject and your analysis of things is spot on.

I just have this feeling in my gut that Bush 43 was out to get Saddam from Day 1 to avenge the attempt by Saddam to assassinate Bush 41. And if you believe Paul O'Neill, this started a week after the inauguration.

“From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.

“From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” says Suskind. “Day one, these things were laid and sealed.”


Bush Sought Way to Invade Iraq

So if you believe this, you are inclined to believe that the intelligence may have been cherry-picked to suit that goal, as I am.
(This post was last modified: 02-15-2011 03:41 PM by Redwingtom.)
02-15-2011 03:40 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
NIU007 Offline
Legend
*

Posts: 34,241
Joined: Sep 2004
Reputation: 315
I Root For: NIU, MAC
Location: Naperville, IL
Post: #24
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 03:22 PM)BlazerFan11 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 03:05 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 02:59 PM)BlazerFan11 Wrote:  
(02-14-2011 02:09 PM)MonsterTigerBlue Wrote:  
(02-14-2011 01:53 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  Being a dictator is good work if you can get it.

I think history would differ with your opinon , normaly they don't make
to a natural death.... but if thats your gig have at it...

Quality>quantity. I'd take 60 good years of living in exorbitant wealth and doing nothing, but seeing an untimely death, over 75 years of toiling on the government plantation anyday.

If you don't mind being completely ruthless, unscrupulous, and murderous.

There's no rule that says dictators have to be murderers.

They don't have to do the murders themselves, they have others do it for them.
02-15-2011 03:50 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Owl 69/70/75 Offline
Just an old rugby coach
*

Posts: 80,655
Joined: Sep 2005
Reputation: 3192
I Root For: RiceBathChelsea
Location: Montgomery, TX

DonatorsNew Orleans Bowl
Post: #25
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 02:52 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  It was at least dishonest, which is pretty close to a outright lie, if it wasn't one. Cheney, et. al, liked to claim that "we know that [insert bogus intelligence estimate]" instead of saying "we think". It's a pretty biased, propaganda-like way to describe things. They also liked to use the idea of a mushroom cloud to make people think Iraq was a direct and imminent threat to the U.S. when they were not, which was intentionally deceptive. Really, I learned a lot about how propaganda is done through the whole thing. And the intelligence wasn't bad, it was cherry picked. Tiny little strands of evidence eventually dredged up after the CIA was continually prodded to find something, which turned out to not even be related, or right. It seemed apparent that the Bush administration was not going to accept that there wasn't a connection between Saddam and 9/11.
The media, I think, knew a war would be good for business, and did not question is as much as they should. You could tell how excited they were when they reported on it. And Congressmen just went with the flow in order to not appear unpatriotic.
And those same intelligence ESTIMATES were apparently good enough for many Repubs to blame Clinton for not taking out Bin Laden.

We'd ALL have been a lot better off if it had been clarified from the beginning that we were talking about ESTIMATES here. I think the reason to pretend otherwise, at least initially, was to try to get the UN more onboard, but that obviously failed.

I can't disagree that Cheney and the neo-cons were just itching to get to war in Iraq. But I also think people need to have a better understanding that intel doesn't work like the DA prosecuting a crime. Our intel people don't have things like subpoenas and search warrants at their disposal, and therefore it is unreasonable to hold them to the same standard of proof. We probably won several major battles in WWII (starting with Midway) on thinner intel than we had to support a decision to go into Iraq. But you just have to take what you can get and make the most of it.

I'm no fan of the Iraq war. I've made it clear that I wouldn't have gone in when, or in the manner, that we did. And I'd be out now. But that's not based on hyperbolic projections premised on faulty understanding of how intelligence works. It's based on what I believe to be our self-interest. And it's high time our conduct of foreign policy got back to putting our self-interest first.

So at the end of the day we pretty much get to the same place, it's just that I can't agree with some of the stops you make along the way. There are enough real problems to criticize here, without overblowing something that isn't.
(This post was last modified: 02-15-2011 03:59 PM by Owl 69/70/75.)
02-15-2011 03:55 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
BlazerFan11 Offline
Hall of Famer
*

Posts: 12,228
Joined: Dec 2005
Reputation: 367
I Root For: UAB
Location:
Post: #26
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 03:50 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 03:22 PM)BlazerFan11 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 03:05 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 02:59 PM)BlazerFan11 Wrote:  
(02-14-2011 02:09 PM)MonsterTigerBlue Wrote:  I think history would differ with your opinon , normaly they don't make
to a natural death.... but if thats your gig have at it...

Quality>quantity. I'd take 60 good years of living in exorbitant wealth and doing nothing, but seeing an untimely death, over 75 years of toiling on the government plantation anyday.

If you don't mind being completely ruthless, unscrupulous, and murderous.

There's no rule that says dictators have to be murderers.

They don't have to do the murders themselves, they have others do it for them.

...which would make them murderers.
02-15-2011 04:06 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
NIU007 Offline
Legend
*

Posts: 34,241
Joined: Sep 2004
Reputation: 315
I Root For: NIU, MAC
Location: Naperville, IL
Post: #27
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 03:55 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 02:52 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  It was at least dishonest, which is pretty close to a outright lie, if it wasn't one. Cheney, et. al, liked to claim that "we know that [insert bogus intelligence estimate]" instead of saying "we think". It's a pretty biased, propaganda-like way to describe things. They also liked to use the idea of a mushroom cloud to make people think Iraq was a direct and imminent threat to the U.S. when they were not, which was intentionally deceptive. Really, I learned a lot about how propaganda is done through the whole thing. And the intelligence wasn't bad, it was cherry picked. Tiny little strands of evidence eventually dredged up after the CIA was continually prodded to find something, which turned out to not even be related, or right. It seemed apparent that the Bush administration was not going to accept that there wasn't a connection between Saddam and 9/11.
The media, I think, knew a war would be good for business, and did not question is as much as they should. You could tell how excited they were when they reported on it. And Congressmen just went with the flow in order to not appear unpatriotic.
And those same intelligence ESTIMATES were apparently good enough for many Repubs to blame Clinton for not taking out Bin Laden.

We'd ALL have been a lot better off if it had been clarified from the beginning that we were talking about ESTIMATES here. I think the reason to pretend otherwise, at least initially, was to try to get the UN more onboard, but that obviously failed.

I can't disagree that Cheney and the neo-cons were just itching to get to war in Iraq. But I also think people need to have a better understanding that intel doesn't work like the DA prosecuting a crime. Our intel people don't have things like subpoenas and search warrants at their disposal, and therefore it is unreasonable to hold them to the same standard of proof. We probably won several major battles in WWII (starting with Midway) on thinner intel than we had to support a decision to go into Iraq. But you just have to take what you can get and make the most of it.

I'm no fan of the Iraq war. I've made it clear that I wouldn't have gone in when, or in the manner, that we did. And I'd be out now. But that's not based on hyperbolic projections premised on faulty understanding of how intelligence works. It's based on what I believe to be our self-interest. And it's high time our conduct of foreign policy got back to putting our self-interest first.

So at the end of the day we pretty much get to the same place, it's just that I can't agree with some of the stops you make along the way. There are enough real problems to criticize here, without overblowing something that isn't.

I think the reason for the exaggerations was to get the US public to go for it, moreso than the UN. At least, later on. There had to be a plausible reason other than that Saddam was a bad guy, and the weak evidence required exaggeration. And I think most of us on this board recognize that intel is usually sketchy. All the more reason to not take action on it in a situation where there is not a reason to take immediate action. This is not a hyperbolic projection nor faulty understanding of how intelligence works. It's an understanding that we not only did we not have much to go on, but we really had nothing that indicated that Saddam was an immediate threat to the US, which had been implied by the administration's statements. And the fact that the reasons for us to invade Iraq seemed to change as time went by.

Anyway, our intel on Japanese plans regarding Midway was MUCH better than the so-called evidence that purportedly tied Saddam to 9/11 or most of the other claims about him. We broke the Japanese codes, knew they had plans to attack, and confirmed that the location of attack was Midway, though IIRC we didn't know exactly when, or the exact forces that were going to be arrayed against Midway.
02-15-2011 04:18 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Owl 69/70/75 Offline
Just an old rugby coach
*

Posts: 80,655
Joined: Sep 2005
Reputation: 3192
I Root For: RiceBathChelsea
Location: Montgomery, TX

DonatorsNew Orleans Bowl
Post: #28
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 04:18 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  Anyway, our intel on Japanese plans regarding Midway was MUCH better than the so-called evidence that purportedly tied Saddam to 9/11 or most of the other claims about him. We broke the Japanese codes, knew they had plans to attack, and confirmed that the location of attack was Midway, though IIRC we didn't know exactly when, or the exact forces that were going to be arrayed against Midway.

No, because we didn't really KNOW those things. We had a guy named Joe Rochefort who bucked the establishment, worked his ass off (to the extent that he apparently didn't take enough time off to bathe for weeks), and made some pretty good deductions from pretty sketchy facts.

As for tying Saddam to 9/11, that's another area where you have to realize that you are dealing with intel not criminal justice. He could be tied very closely to 9/11 but the kind of paper trail we look for here in the west might still not exist. And even if it existed, you wouldn't be able to use things like subpoenas and search warrants to find it. I'm not saying he is or isn't. What I am saying is that the evidence found (or not found) to date is not conclusive. In a land where "my brother and I will fight my cousin, my cousin and I will fight the world," it just doesn't work that way.
02-15-2011 04:28 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Machiavelli Offline
Back to Reality. Oh there goes Gravity

Posts: 25,357
Joined: Apr 2006
I Root For: BGSU
Location:
Post: #29
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
How about planting stories with friendlies in a newspaper then citing those "plants" as authentication.
02-15-2011 04:35 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Owl 69/70/75 Offline
Just an old rugby coach
*

Posts: 80,655
Joined: Sep 2005
Reputation: 3192
I Root For: RiceBathChelsea
Location: Montgomery, TX

DonatorsNew Orleans Bowl
Post: #30
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 03:40 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  In all honesty, we are not that far apart on this subject and your analysis of things is spot on.

I just have this feeling in my gut that Bush 43 was out to get Saddam from Day 1 to avenge the attempt by Saddam to assassinate Bush 41. And if you believe Paul O'Neill, this started a week after the inauguration.

Our biggest disagreement there is that I think it was Cheney out to get Saddam instead of Shrub. And Cheney led Shrub around by the nose.

I still go back to the Texas Monthly article by Paul Burka that asked the question, "Who are you and what have you done with my governor?"

http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2004-02-01/feature

Paul is a Rice guy and an avowed left-winger who strongly supported Shrub against Gore, then became very disenchanted that what ended up in Washington was so different from who had governed Texas. I blame Cheney for that. When Shrub picked Cheney as his running mate, that was the end of any chance that I'd vote for him (no matter how much I detested Al Gore).
02-15-2011 04:36 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
smn1256 Offline
I miss Tripster
*

Posts: 28,878
Joined: Apr 2008
Reputation: 337
I Root For: Lower taxes
Location: North Mexico
Post: #31
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 03:22 PM)BlazerFan11 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 03:05 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 02:59 PM)BlazerFan11 Wrote:  
(02-14-2011 02:09 PM)MonsterTigerBlue Wrote:  
(02-14-2011 01:53 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  Being a dictator is good work if you can get it.

I think history would differ with your opinon , normaly they don't make
to a natural death.... but if thats your gig have at it...

Quality>quantity. I'd take 60 good years of living in exorbitant wealth and doing nothing, but seeing an untimely death, over 75 years of toiling on the government plantation anyday.

If you don't mind being completely ruthless, unscrupulous, and murderous.

There's no rule that says dictators have to be murderers.

Yes there is, it's on the first page of the application.
02-15-2011 04:36 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Machiavelli Offline
Back to Reality. Oh there goes Gravity

Posts: 25,357
Joined: Apr 2006
I Root For: BGSU
Location:
Post: #32
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
This seems like a time warp back to 2003. There was no connection between Al Quadea and Saddam Hussein. Niner and I would go back and forth on this.
02-15-2011 04:38 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Machiavelli Offline
Back to Reality. Oh there goes Gravity

Posts: 25,357
Joined: Apr 2006
I Root For: BGSU
Location:
Post: #33
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
Owl I think we've read the same books. From Beirut to Jurasalem?
02-15-2011 04:41 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
NIU007 Offline
Legend
*

Posts: 34,241
Joined: Sep 2004
Reputation: 315
I Root For: NIU, MAC
Location: Naperville, IL
Post: #34
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 04:28 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 04:18 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  Anyway, our intel on Japanese plans regarding Midway was MUCH better than the so-called evidence that purportedly tied Saddam to 9/11 or most of the other claims about him. We broke the Japanese codes, knew they had plans to attack, and confirmed that the location of attack was Midway, though IIRC we didn't know exactly when, or the exact forces that were going to be arrayed against Midway.

No, because we didn't really KNOW those things. We had a guy named Joe Rochefort who bucked the establishment, worked his ass off (to the extent that he apparently didn't take enough time off to bathe for weeks), and made some pretty good deductions from pretty sketchy facts.

As for tying Saddam to 9/11, that's another area where you have to realize that you are dealing with intel not criminal justice. He could be tied very closely to 9/11 but the kind of paper trail we look for here in the west might still not exist. And even if it existed, you wouldn't be able to use things like subpoenas and search warrants to find it. I'm not saying he is or isn't. What I am saying is that the evidence found (or not found) to date is not conclusive. In a land where "my brother and I will fight my cousin, my cousin and I will fight the world," it just doesn't work that way.

Rochefort was basically able to confirm that Midway was the target based on the broken portions of the code and the results from radio broadcasts from Midway. It was no open and shut case but it was enough to go on, and we couldn't let the carriers sit at Pearl Harbor anyway, waiting for another attack to finish the job. Also, we had a limited amount of time to take action. And it was enough to decide to turn the Yorktown around in 3 days and send it back out half-repaired.

You keep talking about intel like it's not understood. It is. And you can't invade every country that "might be tied to 9/11" just because you're unable to gather intel. If that was the case Saudi Arabia would have been the first target. You have to have something to go by and we didn't. One example of their idea of evidence was trailers. And what was in them? How could we find out? We couldn't. And lets say we even knew that he had chemical weapons. So what? He had them for years and we didn't care. Not a sufficient threat to the US, IMO. Yes, it would be a reason to go in but wouldn't by itself make it prudent to do so.
02-15-2011 04:47 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
NIU007 Offline
Legend
*

Posts: 34,241
Joined: Sep 2004
Reputation: 315
I Root For: NIU, MAC
Location: Naperville, IL
Post: #35
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 04:06 PM)BlazerFan11 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 03:50 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 03:22 PM)BlazerFan11 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 03:05 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 02:59 PM)BlazerFan11 Wrote:  Quality>quantity. I'd take 60 good years of living in exorbitant wealth and doing nothing, but seeing an untimely death, over 75 years of toiling on the government plantation anyday.

If you don't mind being completely ruthless, unscrupulous, and murderous.

There's no rule that says dictators have to be murderers.

They don't have to do the murders themselves, they have others do it for them.

...which would make them murderers.

And how many dictators that you know of that were not murdurers? I bet it's pretty tough to turn a state into a dictatorship and stay in power for any length of time without taking out a few people.
02-15-2011 05:00 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Owl 69/70/75 Offline
Just an old rugby coach
*

Posts: 80,655
Joined: Sep 2005
Reputation: 3192
I Root For: RiceBathChelsea
Location: Montgomery, TX

DonatorsNew Orleans Bowl
Post: #36
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 04:47 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  You keep talking about intel like it's not understood. It is. And you can't invade every country that "might be tied to 9/11" just because you're unable to gather intel. If that was the case Saudi Arabia would have been the first target. You have to have something to go by and we didn't. One example of their idea of evidence was trailers. And what was in them? How could we find out? We couldn't. And lets say we even knew that he had chemical weapons. So what? He had them for years and we didn't care. Not a sufficient threat to the US, IMO. Yes, it would be a reason to go in but wouldn't by itself make it prudent to do so.

I don't think that everyone misunderstands intelligence. But I think the "Bush lied" talk relies in large part on a gross misconception of how intel works.

The only way that I think it made any sense to invade Iraq when we did is if Israel was getting ready to nuke Baghdad. It's a close call then in my mind, but at least I can make a credible case. What I don't know is whether anything like that was the case. And if it was, we probably won't know in my lifetime or yours. There are some things about this that are consistent with that explanation, but it would be a reach to conclude that was the case from no more than we have to go on.

Without that, you NEVER go into Iraq until you finish the job in Afghanistan. For one thing, if you truly finish the job in Afghanistan (bin Laden dead, Mullah Omar dead), then you change the bidding dramatically for Saddam. Maybe he pulls a Qaddafi and decides to come clean on some stuff, who knows?

I've heard confirmed stories that we had Predator shots at both bin Laden and Mullah Omar in the early days, but those were nixed becuase of possible collateral damage. Just why in the hell were we there if we weren't willing to risk collateral damage to kill them? Why have all these people died since then?
02-15-2011 05:09 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
BlazerFan11 Offline
Hall of Famer
*

Posts: 12,228
Joined: Dec 2005
Reputation: 367
I Root For: UAB
Location:
Post: #37
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 04:36 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 03:22 PM)BlazerFan11 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 03:05 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 02:59 PM)BlazerFan11 Wrote:  
(02-14-2011 02:09 PM)MonsterTigerBlue Wrote:  I think history would differ with your opinon , normaly they don't make
to a natural death.... but if thats your gig have at it...

Quality>quantity. I'd take 60 good years of living in exorbitant wealth and doing nothing, but seeing an untimely death, over 75 years of toiling on the government plantation anyday.

If you don't mind being completely ruthless, unscrupulous, and murderous.

There's no rule that says dictators have to be murderers.

Yes there is, it's on the first page of the application.

Damn, I must have skipped that section. No wonder they never called me back.

(02-15-2011 05:00 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  And how many dictators that you know of that were not murdurers? I bet it's pretty tough to turn a state into a dictatorship and stay in power for any length of time without taking out a few people.

None personally. They won't accept my Facebook friend requests.
02-15-2011 05:34 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
NIU007 Offline
Legend
*

Posts: 34,241
Joined: Sep 2004
Reputation: 315
I Root For: NIU, MAC
Location: Naperville, IL
Post: #38
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 05:09 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 04:47 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  You keep talking about intel like it's not understood. It is. And you can't invade every country that "might be tied to 9/11" just because you're unable to gather intel. If that was the case Saudi Arabia would have been the first target. You have to have something to go by and we didn't. One example of their idea of evidence was trailers. And what was in them? How could we find out? We couldn't. And lets say we even knew that he had chemical weapons. So what? He had them for years and we didn't care. Not a sufficient threat to the US, IMO. Yes, it would be a reason to go in but wouldn't by itself make it prudent to do so.

I don't think that everyone misunderstands intelligence. But I think the "Bush lied" talk relies in large part on a gross misconception of how intel works.

The only way that I think it made any sense to invade Iraq when we did is if Israel was getting ready to nuke Baghdad. It's a close call then in my mind, but at least I can make a credible case. What I don't know is whether anything like that was the case. And if it was, we probably won't know in my lifetime or yours. There are some things about this that are consistent with that explanation, but it would be a reach to conclude that was the case from no more than we have to go on.

Without that, you NEVER go into Iraq until you finish the job in Afghanistan. For one thing, if you truly finish the job in Afghanistan (bin Laden dead, Mullah Omar dead), then you change the bidding dramatically for Saddam. Maybe he pulls a Qaddafi and decides to come clean on some stuff, who knows?

I've heard confirmed stories that we had Predator shots at both bin Laden and Mullah Omar in the early days, but those were nixed becuase of possible collateral damage. Just why in the hell were we there if we weren't willing to risk collateral damage to kill them? Why have all these people died since then?

Can't imagine Israel nuking Baghdad - their intelligence was probably better than ours. It would have been pretty rough for Israel if they did that. But like you said, who knows.

I agree with finishing the job in Afghanistan first. I know we had intel of bin Laden and Omar when we weren't in Afghanistan yet - we would have had to rely on intel which, as you've mentioned, may or may not be accurate, especially when it's from Afghan sources. Also, by the time a cruise missile got there, they could be long gone, as they moved a lot, resulting in collateral damage without much chance of getting them. If we had chances to take a shot with an actual Predator on the scene I don't know why we wouldn't have taken that chance.
02-15-2011 05:53 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
WoodlandsOwl Offline
Up in the Woods
*

Posts: 11,813
Joined: Jun 2005
Reputation: 115
I Root For: Rice Owls
Location:

New Orleans Bowl
Post: #39
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 05:09 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 04:47 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  You keep talking about intel like it's not understood. It is. And you can't invade every country that "might be tied to 9/11" just because you're unable to gather intel. If that was the case Saudi Arabia would have been the first target. You have to have something to go by and we didn't. One example of their idea of evidence was trailers. And what was in them? How could we find out? We couldn't. And lets say we even knew that he had chemical weapons. So what? He had them for years and we didn't care. Not a sufficient threat to the US, IMO. Yes, it would be a reason to go in but wouldn't by itself make it prudent to do so.

I think the "Bush lied" talk relies in large part on a gross misconception of how intel works.

The only way that I think it made any sense to invade Iraq when we did is if Israel was getting ready to nuke Baghdad. It's a close call then in my mind, but at least I can make a credible case. What I don't know is whether anything like that was the case. And if it was, we probably won't know in my lifetime or yours. There are some things about this that are consistent with that explanation, but it would be a reach to conclude that was the case from no more than we have to go on.

Without that, you NEVER go into Iraq until you finish the job in Afghanistan. For one thing, if you truly finish the job in Afghanistan (bin Laden dead, Mullah Omar dead), then you change the bidding dramatically for Saddam. Maybe he pulls a Qaddafi and decides to come clean on some stuff, who knows?

I've heard confirmed stories that we had Predator shots at both bin Laden and Mullah Omar in the early days, but those were nixed becuase of possible collateral damage. Just why in the hell were we there if we weren't willing to risk collateral damage to kill them? Why have all these people died since then?

I subscribe to the "Cheat Sheet Theory"... that "everyone" (NATO, UK, France, Germany, etc.) had the same basic incorrect intelligence, and the US, lacking anything that differed, accepted it based on 'lack of contradictory intelligence' ( in other words the US bought it 'hook line and sinker' )without independent verification.

So much for George Tenet and his "Slam Dunk"....05-mafia In other words, "everyone" repeated the same "wrong answer." Just like all the students that cheat off the same "cheat sheet" with the wrong answer, they get nailed.

Now the $64,000.00 question is "who is the source of the incorrect intell" that led to the invasion of Iraq in 2002... while Afghanistan was still active?"

The Mossad or the Iranians?
(This post was last modified: 02-15-2011 07:30 PM by WoodlandsOwl.)
02-15-2011 07:29 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Owl 69/70/75 Offline
Just an old rugby coach
*

Posts: 80,655
Joined: Sep 2005
Reputation: 3192
I Root For: RiceBathChelsea
Location: Montgomery, TX

DonatorsNew Orleans Bowl
Post: #40
RE: Egypt- Causal Chain
(02-15-2011 07:29 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 05:09 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(02-15-2011 04:47 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  You keep talking about intel like it's not understood. It is. And you can't invade every country that "might be tied to 9/11" just because you're unable to gather intel. If that was the case Saudi Arabia would have been the first target. You have to have something to go by and we didn't. One example of their idea of evidence was trailers. And what was in them? How could we find out? We couldn't. And lets say we even knew that he had chemical weapons. So what? He had them for years and we didn't care. Not a sufficient threat to the US, IMO. Yes, it would be a reason to go in but wouldn't by itself make it prudent to do so.

I think the "Bush lied" talk relies in large part on a gross misconception of how intel works.

The only way that I think it made any sense to invade Iraq when we did is if Israel was getting ready to nuke Baghdad. It's a close call then in my mind, but at least I can make a credible case. What I don't know is whether anything like that was the case. And if it was, we probably won't know in my lifetime or yours. There are some things about this that are consistent with that explanation, but it would be a reach to conclude that was the case from no more than we have to go on.

Without that, you NEVER go into Iraq until you finish the job in Afghanistan. For one thing, if you truly finish the job in Afghanistan (bin Laden dead, Mullah Omar dead), then you change the bidding dramatically for Saddam. Maybe he pulls a Qaddafi and decides to come clean on some stuff, who knows?

I've heard confirmed stories that we had Predator shots at both bin Laden and Mullah Omar in the early days, but those were nixed becuase of possible collateral damage. Just why in the hell were we there if we weren't willing to risk collateral damage to kill them? Why have all these people died since then?

I subscribe to the "Cheat Sheet Theory"... that "everyone" (NATO, UK, France, Germany, etc.) had the same basic incorrect intelligence, and the US, lacking anything that differed, accepted it based on 'lack of contradictory intelligence' ( in other words the US bought it 'hook line and sinker' )without independent verification.

So much for George Tenet and his "Slam Dunk"....05-mafia In other words, "everyone" repeated the same "wrong answer." Just like all the students that cheat off the same "cheat sheet" with the wrong answer, they get nailed.

Now the $64,000.00 question is "who is the source of the incorrect intell" that led to the invasion of Iraq in 2002... while Afghanistan was still active?"

The Mossad or the Iranians?

I tend to think maybe both.
02-15-2011 09:07 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Post Reply 




User(s) browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)


Copyright © 2002-2024 Collegiate Sports Nation Bulletin Board System (CSNbbs), All Rights Reserved.
CSNbbs is an independent fan site and is in no way affiliated to the NCAA or any of the schools and conferences it represents.
This site monetizes links. FTC Disclosure.
We allow third-party companies to serve ads and/or collect certain anonymous information when you visit our web site. These companies may use non-personally identifiable information (e.g., click stream information, browser type, time and date, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over) during your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. These companies typically use a cookie or third party web beacon to collect this information. To learn more about this behavioral advertising practice or to opt-out of this type of advertising, you can visit http://www.networkadvertising.org.
Powered By MyBB, © 2002-2024 MyBB Group.