It never surprised me that the DOD press release was vague about accuracy. Because it concluded with a reminder that leaking information could well be against the law, it would have been irresponsible in that same release to validate leaked information.
By the way, Steve, there are two valuable articles up at Slate.
Jack Shafer explores the reasons why the mainstream press hasn't given full blown coverage to the Hayes article; and while he poses a couple "shoe on the other foot" tests, he also notes that the press is usually slow to re-open issues that they see as being closed in the public's mind.
In an accompanying article, Edward Jay Epstein reviews his available information on an Atta visit to Czechoslovakia prior to 9/11: apparently urgently done to meet a timetable, and conducted in an area of the Prague airport where he could sit without having a visa, and carefully done out of the view of surveillance cameras.
As the elucidation by Hayes and the two pieces linked by Frank suggests, there is more to this story than the mainstream press seems willing to explore. If this reaction is simply a matter of disinterest and ennui, then so be it. But I see in this lack of interest by the wider news media an abrogation of a solemn responsibility to seek out and report the truth.
"I've been told off the record that some of this intelligence is very iffy. So let's discover which bits are iffier than others. Isn't that what the press is supposed to be about? On an issue that's obviously extremely important?"
That's kind of in line with what I said the other day about due diligence; it also pertains to your question, "what if only half of this is true?"
What I don't understand is how Sullivan would expect the press to do the verifying of what's true or not. The press is completely dependent upon the government; and the DOD reminded all that this affair might constitute an illegal leak. Who is going to help the press on this chore?
(Joshua Marshall thinks the memo was leaked for Feith's benefit, not ours:
"It is almost certain that the dossier --- or rather the memo summarizing it --- was leaked now because Feith and his ideological soul-mates at the Pentagon are profoundly on the defensive because of the WMD debacle and poor planning for post-war Iraq." (See here.)
Andrew Sullivan's observations:
"THE MEDIA SILENCE: Jack Shafer is no wing-nut. He doesn't have a big dog in this fight (maybe a feisty little Jack Russell terrier); so when he asks a simple question, it might have a little more clout than when voiced by a gung-ho war supporter like yours truly. He wants to know why the big media won't touch the Weekly Standard story on alleged Osama-Saddam connections:
Many a reporter has hitched a ride onto Page One with the leak of intelligence much rawer than the stuff in Feith's memo. You can bet the farm that if a mainstream publication had gotten the Feith memo first, it would have used it immediately—perhaps as a hook to re-examine the ongoing war between the Pentagon and CIA about how to interpret intelligence. Likewise, you'd be wise to bet your wife's farm that had a similar memo arguing no Saddam-Osama connection been leaked to the press, it would have generated 100 times the news interest as the Hayes story. I've been told off the record that some of this intelligence is very iffy. So let's discover which bits are iffier than others. Isn't that what the press is supposed to be about? On an issue that's obviously extremely important?"
If one of the intelligence reports is true, Saddam Hussein was connected to terrorism.
If you created a parralel universe where Saddam Hussein had no connections to terrorism, he would still have been in material breach for twelve years of a ceasefire agreement, he would still have violated a final opportunity for full and unconditional compliance, and both houses of Congress would still have authorized military action - military action that the authorization stated as being under UN sanction by citation of the UN Resolution's own referance.
Make the terrorism disappear and Saddam is still an overthrown despot as the result of a multilateral military action carried out with UN sanction.
Hopefully, a few other wanna-be thugs will take notice even if the moonbats and loons that are still screeching about "Bush lied" never do.
Case closed, door bolted, Sadddam overthrown.
Put up a flag, pour a drink and toast the troops.
Say a prayer for the poor bastards that had to die to get it done. Give a thought to their families and the families of all those still there.
If anything, calling this "Case Closed" is just marketing. And anyone who wants to see mainstream media coverage of this can see it in Newsweek:
With a few, inconclusive exceptions, the memo doesn?t actually contain much "new" intelligence at all. Instead, it mostly recycles shards of old, raw data that were first assembled last year by a tiny team of floating Pentagon analysts (led by a Pennsylvania State University professor and U.S. Navy analyst Christopher Carney) whom Feith asked to find evidence of an Iraqi-Al Qaeda "connection" in order to better justify a U.S. invasion.
(I figured out how Contrarian did that in the other thread -- it's the blockquote tag, if you're interested.)
The above means, of course, that in looking for the evidence, Feith and Carney were pursuing a specific premise, and were therefore biased in their information gathering (as was Rumsfeld on September 11, wanting to dig up everything on Iraq). Real investigators know this isn't how it's done: if you want to look for information on a specific issue, fine, but look for disconfirming information at the same time, and thoroughly test the quality of what you've got, weighing it from other angles and motivations.
Grumpy, your mention of Hussein's repeated violations matters, but not here on this thread, where we're looking specifically at Iraq-AlQaeda connections as laid out in the Feith memo. Can you keep on topic? That might lead to better resolution.
Bernard, as for context, I'm not sure what you mean, but you will remember that I mentioned that Shafer proposed a couple "shoe on the other foot" tests, which is only what Sullivan is elucidating here (and I thought you read the Shafer article, based on your comments.)
Newsweek's writers proceed to point out:
Within the U.S. intelligence establishment, the predominant view---then as now---is that the Feith-Carney case was murky at best. Culling through intelligence files, the Feith team indeed found multiple "reports" of alleged meetings between Iraqi officials and Al Qaeda operatives dating back to the early 1990s when Osama first set up shop in Sudan. But many of these reports were old, uncorroborated and came from sources of unknown if not dubious credibility, U.S. intelligence officials say.
(You would do well to read the entire article: many of us did our due diligence and read the entire Weekly Standard article, so now it's your turn.)
I think the government does need to respond, but I don't know if it should come from the congressional committees. How about George Tenet, since it's his bailiwick?
Tenet is probably in the best position to know what can/can't be divulged, and make a strong case for the need for appropriate secrecy... We still don't know who leaked the memo to the Weekly Standard, do we? Unlikely it was CIA, I think.
(Steve, didn't I show you how to embed a link into these comment sections? Look through your old emails...)
Frank, my reference to context had to do with your choosing one tiny portion of the Sullivan post to lead the reader away from the fact of Schafer's own consternation with the press. As Sullivan observes, "He [Schafer] wants to know why the big media won't touch the Weekly Standard story on alleged Osama-Saddam connections..." Steve was kind enough to supply a lengthier excerpt from the Sullivan post which, in turn, referenced and quoted from the Schafer piece, reinforcing the point.
That is what I meant by context--nothing more, nothing less.
And yes, I did read the Schafer article. It gives me hope fair-minded people on both sides of the political spectrum might yet prod the putatively "snooping, prying, nosy press" into taking this story seriously.
Frank, not only can I stay on topic -despite your best efforts to the "contrary", I can even place the topic of the intelligence briefings in context of the war itself. I can even place that in context of the over-arching topical intentions of this website: Fighting Folly, Ignorance, and Cant.
Your objection to Sullivan's "expectation"-- that the press verify what's true or not-- is rather suspect "topic-wise" when accompanied by your attempt to appeal to Marshall, who would claim it is "certain" that the memo was leaked because "Feith and his idological soul mates" are "profoundly on the defensive."
All your responses are suspect in the light of your inability to give a simple "yes or no" to Stephen's previous topical question--
What if, say, half of the intelligence data is correct? Would that change people's view of the justness of our invasion of Iraq?
All the more so when, truth be told, the rejection of all the data would still not remove the case for Saddam's connections to terrorism and would not even begin to remove the legitimacy or justification for military action established by the UN Security Council, approved by by both houses of Congress, and carried out by a multi-nationa; coalition of UN member States.
Bernard, I think I referred to that the part from the Shafer article which Sullivan quoted [the bulk of what Steve cut & pasted is actually from Shafer's article, which Sullivan quoted in a block. Sullivan's quotation of Shafer begins with the colon following "connections" -- the rest afterwards is all Shafer]. In my first comment in this thread, I said Shafer posed a couple "shoe on the other foot" tests. "How would the press have handled information of a different sort" is a shoe on the other foot test. I hope you don't think I was being disingenuous by not cutting and pasting more: I felt the reference, along with the link (in my first comment at the top), was sufficient. My language was not as colorful as Shafer's, I'll grant, but that's what the link is for.
Grumpy, I'm not sure what your issue is with me. I'm sure you're a fine young man, but really, in a thread devoted to the Feith memo, I'm not sure how you think you're making a persuasive appeal for the veracity of the memo by immediately leaping to a broader question of whether or not the invasion was justified on other grounds. So, cork your champagne: the case is far from closed. Newsweek has a very detailed discussion which I recommend in the interest of being fair and balanced.
Believe me, I know how you all must feel, after weather balloons and labs and missiles and all turn out to be far less than their immediate reports suggest — you all must be chomping at the bit at this point for some smoking gun which really will close the case — but this ain't it yet. You'd all do well to remember the deflation of the past evidence, and also remember the expressions of dissatisfaction which were being heard about the quality of informer info.
As to Steve's question about what if only half of it were true -- ? I don't know. If half of it were undeniably, indisputably true, I think we'd at least have had moral authority to do some bombing runs like Clinton did, followed up with a real live Adlai Stevenson moment in the UN (not like the one Colin Powell did, which was so questioned shortly after).
Perhaps it was the shakiness of evidence which led to French intransigence, and not mere obstinacy on their part.
Oh, Grumpy, you are all ashake with bad logic, you really should mind your caffeine consumption.
Did you REALLY type "All the more so when, truth be told, the rejection of all the data would still not remove the case for Saddam's connections to terrorism"?
Do you really mean to say that if there were no evidence that he were connected to terrorism, that we could go right ahead and accuse him of terrorism anyway?
Oh MY, Grumpy, I'm afraid all those nasty rumors about your past -- even with no evidence -- are about to come out and slap you right in the face. Don't tempt me, you savage!
Actually, Frank, I believe the original snippet you quoted (and upon which you based your criticism) was all Sullivan, the beginning of his commentary after quoting from the Schafer article. (Unfortunately, the block quote that Steve provided doesn't make this unmistakably clear.) Not to belabor the point, but perhaps to elaborate on it, I thought my comment about context was rather simple. Sullivan was prodding the press to do more with this leaked memo story, which was exactly what Schafer wanted, too. But you seem to be arguing the other way--that this call for further serious inquiry is nothing other than a somewhat pathetic attempt at vindication by those still "chomping at the bit" to find a "smoking gun". That is fine; I understand the criticism, though I completely reject it. But then, I think Jack Schafer would reject it as well.
Maybe it's a half full half empty thing. The part I pulled from Sullivan did say "So let's discover which bits are iffier than others." I interpreted that as a winnowing to the truthful bits, and pasted it with that intent.
Believe me, I know how you all must feel,...you all must be chomping at the bit at this point for some smoking gun which really will close the case.
No Frank, you don't have the faintest idea how we all must feel. There is no need for any "smoking gun" as regards terrorism to validate the Coalition actions in Iraq any more than there ever was any need for a "smoking gun" as regards WMD to validate them.
Without any valid understanding of the reasoning, authority , and justification for those actions--ie context, what follows is going to be folly, ignorance, and cant. In a word, horsefeathers.
You demonstrated this quite well here:.
If half of it were undeniably, indisputably true, I think we'd at least have had moral authority to do some bombing runs like Clinton did, followed up with a real live Adlai Stevenson moment in the UN (not like the one Colin Powell did, which was so questioned shortly after).
Even if you accept that there are over twenty five direct and insisputable connections between Saddam Hussein and terrorism you somehow leap to the completely nonsensical idea that this would only have served to "justify" some Clinton style "bombing runs" and some vague kind of "Adlai Stevensome" moment.
It's nonsense because you speak of "justifying" some sort of action in the UN at the same time that you demonstrate a complete failure to have any comprehension of the military actions that were taken in context of the actual reasoning, authority, and actions of the UN and the US administration and Congress.
Its nonsense precisely because you are operating in a context that is divorced from recognizing what the UN stated was required of Saddam Hussein.
You operate in a delusional context that refuses to recognize and address the reality of the demands made on Iraq by the UN Security Council, the authority for their findings of material breach, the resultant justification for the serious consequences they called for, the nature of the consequences they gave reference to in stating the ongoing authority of all extant resolutions, and the choice of the US and other member states to form a coalition to act on those decisions
In the case of the United States, the establishment of the context of material breach of the Security Council resolution, the restatement of the authority for military action as derived from the UN Resolutions, and the authority granted by both houses of Congress for the President to act are all absent and ignored in your "feeling" based and fallacious context.
It is nonsense because you are still operating under the fallacious presumption that verification of any of the fifty some activities reported on is in some way necessary to establish the validity of the coalitions response.
It is nonsense because you still can't separate out your "feelings" that the war was unilateral, unjustified, illegal, immoral, or any number of other feelings from the issue of establishing any valid context to address justification, legalities, and moralities in.
If you really think you can establish some claim that the actions taken really were illegal or unjustified you would need to begin somehere else.
Perhaps you don't accept the UN authority to broker a ceasefire agreement and set conditions of compliance for it. Perhaps you think they misled people or lied when they found Saddam's regime in material breach?
Perhaps you think they had no authority to decalre that all previous resolutions remained in effect?
Perhaps you would like to claim that the Congress had no authority to decide that they recognized the authority of the UN to act as it did, and to authorize the President to act in accord with and support of the UN Security Council?
Try to stick to the topic Frank.
Try to comprehend the folly of trying to establish a context out of ignorance and cant.
I'm impressed, Grumpy: you may not be able to read and process information, but you sure can type. Care to take another look at what this thread was? If you want to open up something else, fine, I'm sure you can get blogging software somewhere for free.
But as for your off-topic screed, MEGO. Sorry, that's just the way it is; I'm surprised you have the time to type all that, and surprised if you think anyone will read it. Maybe 3% of it has to do with the Weekly Standard article?
Grumpy has injected the most verbose, irrelevant explosion of pent-up frustration into this discussion which I have ever read. A simple, civil conversation about the 50 points in the appendix to Douglas Feith's memo. And Grumpy has to take it to whether or not the war was justified with or without the Feith memo.
What an absurd, small minded POS Grumpy must be, that he can't focus on an issue and has to bring in all sorts of side discussions that can never be resolved. All for some stupid wingnut, ditto head purpose of what? impressing everyone here that he holds good conservative values?
Arguing over the justification of the war is like debating the virgin birth. Utterly pointless.
Arguing about what to do with the Feith memo, and the leak which produced it, has merit.
"A simple, conversation about the 50 points in the appendix to Douglas Feith's memo."
I removed civil, in light of your most recent comments that evidence a desire to be contrary ro civility as well as anything related to context, reason, and evidence. Not surprisingly, Frank joins you on all counts, resulting in two more quick examples of how insistant and persistant you both remain in devotion to nothing beyond your own feelings.
And Grumpy has to take it to whether or not the war was justified with or without the Feith memo.
That part though, is an excellent summary of intention and direction.
Without that context being established, the rest, as you were both quick to demonstrate once more, consists of nothing but demonstrations of ignorance, folly, and cant.
Frank, you have another website, all your own, which last time I visited doesn't even allow any comments.
Meanwhile, I'll leave it to the webmaster to assess and make any determination whether or not my comments are suitable for the purposes he holds for his website.
Hired Contrarian offers a textbook example of projection--accusing those he disagrees with of the very behavior he exhibits in his latest post. His name calling would thus be most aptly applied to him--a "POS". I would invite him to take his ravings to a more receptive site--say MOVEON.ORG.
While Frank is technically correct that this thread is about the Feith memo, Grumpy's effort to establish a context seems perfectly appropriate. After all, there were many who argued in the late 1930's that we had no cause to war against Hitler; no proof that he'd done anything to harm us, etc. However the context was apparent to those like Roosevelt who took us to war, sometimes using duplicity to overcome public resistance. It's absurd to look at one element of the Iraq situation in isolation from Iraq's role in destabilizing the Middle East, conducting genocide, supporting terror by bankrolling suicide bombers and their families, and on and on.
Horsefeathers. Grumpy wants to expand the debate beyond the Weekly Standard article into the larger arena of whether or not war with Iraq was justified BEYOND the Feith memo, because he can't form a thought on the Feith memo (he is INCAPABLE, because he let his meds run out); but in his effort to use an illusionist's misdirection, Grumpy has failed miserably: he doesn't address similarly off-topic broader context issues such as the writings of Karl Barth, the continental divide, and sonata allegro form. Nor the plays of Tom Stoppard, for that matter, or the impact of the limerick on modern university students.
Really: you all are putzes for even entertaining Grumpy's mad ravings.
Grumpy, if you really want to debate, go post on Atrios' web log or something. Plenty of people will kick the daylights out of you there.
Sorry, Grumpy, not all web sites have comment sections. Not just mine, but whitehouse.gov, InstaPundit, Tom Tomorrow, Tapped — you're just going to have to get over that.
It never surprised me that the DOD press release was vague about accuracy. Because it concluded with a reminder that leaking information could well be against the law, it would have been irresponsible in that same release to validate leaked information.
By the way, Steve, there are two valuable articles up at Slate.
Jack Shafer explores the reasons why the mainstream press hasn't given full blown coverage to the Hayes article; and while he poses a couple "shoe on the other foot" tests, he also notes that the press is usually slow to re-open issues that they see as being closed in the public's mind.
In an accompanying article, Edward Jay Epstein reviews his available information on an Atta visit to Czechoslovakia prior to 9/11: apparently urgently done to meet a timetable, and conducted in an area of the Prague airport where he could sit without having a visa, and carefully done out of the view of surveillance cameras.
Case open.
Posted by: Frank on November 19, 2003 09:42 AMAs the elucidation by Hayes and the two pieces linked by Frank suggests, there is more to this story than the mainstream press seems willing to explore. If this reaction is simply a matter of disinterest and ennui, then so be it. But I see in this lack of interest by the wider news media an abrogation of a solemn responsibility to seek out and report the truth.
Posted by: Bernard on November 19, 2003 11:42 AMFrank,
Posted by: Stephen on November 19, 2003 03:35 PMFair enough.
Andrew Sullivan also just posted this:
"I've been told off the record that some of this intelligence is very iffy. So let's discover which bits are iffier than others. Isn't that what the press is supposed to be about? On an issue that's obviously extremely important?"
That's kind of in line with what I said the other day about due diligence; it also pertains to your question, "what if only half of this is true?"
What I don't understand is how Sullivan would expect the press to do the verifying of what's true or not. The press is completely dependent upon the government; and the DOD reminded all that this affair might constitute an illegal leak. Who is going to help the press on this chore?
(Joshua Marshall thinks the memo was leaked for Feith's benefit, not ours:
"It is almost certain that the dossier --- or rather the memo summarizing it --- was leaked now because Feith and his ideological soul-mates at the Pentagon are profoundly on the defensive because of the WMD debacle and poor planning for post-war Iraq." (See here.)
Posted by: Frank on November 19, 2003 04:18 PMAndrew Sullivan's observations:
Posted by: Stephen on November 19, 2003 08:58 PM"THE MEDIA SILENCE: Jack Shafer is no wing-nut. He doesn't have a big dog in this fight (maybe a feisty little Jack Russell terrier); so when he asks a simple question, it might have a little more clout than when voiced by a gung-ho war supporter like yours truly. He wants to know why the big media won't touch the Weekly Standard story on alleged Osama-Saddam connections:
Many a reporter has hitched a ride onto Page One with the leak of intelligence much rawer than the stuff in Feith's memo. You can bet the farm that if a mainstream publication had gotten the Feith memo first, it would have used it immediately—perhaps as a hook to re-examine the ongoing war between the Pentagon and CIA about how to interpret intelligence. Likewise, you'd be wise to bet your wife's farm that had a similar memo arguing no Saddam-Osama connection been leaked to the press, it would have generated 100 times the news interest as the Hayes story. I've been told off the record that some of this intelligence is very iffy. So let's discover which bits are iffier than others. Isn't that what the press is supposed to be about? On an issue that's obviously extremely important?"
Amazing, isn't it, what a little context will do?
Posted by: Bernard on November 20, 2003 01:27 AMSpeaking of context:
If one of the intelligence reports is true, Saddam Hussein was connected to terrorism.
If you created a parralel universe where Saddam Hussein had no connections to terrorism, he would still have been in material breach for twelve years of a ceasefire agreement, he would still have violated a final opportunity for full and unconditional compliance, and both houses of Congress would still have authorized military action - military action that the authorization stated as being under UN sanction by citation of the UN Resolution's own referance.
Make the terrorism disappear and Saddam is still an overthrown despot as the result of a multilateral military action carried out with UN sanction.
Hopefully, a few other wanna-be thugs will take notice even if the moonbats and loons that are still screeching about "Bush lied" never do.
Case closed, door bolted, Sadddam overthrown.
Put up a flag, pour a drink and toast the troops.
Say a prayer for the poor bastards that had to die to get it done. Give a thought to their families and the families of all those still there.
Posted by: Grumpy on November 20, 2003 05:16 AMIf anything, calling this "Case Closed" is just marketing. And anyone who wants to see mainstream media coverage of this can see it in Newsweek:
(I figured out how Contrarian did that in the other thread -- it's the blockquote tag, if you're interested.)
The above means, of course, that in looking for the evidence, Feith and Carney were pursuing a specific premise, and were therefore biased in their information gathering (as was Rumsfeld on September 11, wanting to dig up everything on Iraq). Real investigators know this isn't how it's done: if you want to look for information on a specific issue, fine, but look for disconfirming information at the same time, and thoroughly test the quality of what you've got, weighing it from other angles and motivations.
Grumpy, your mention of Hussein's repeated violations matters, but not here on this thread, where we're looking specifically at Iraq-AlQaeda connections as laid out in the Feith memo. Can you keep on topic? That might lead to better resolution.
Bernard, as for context, I'm not sure what you mean, but you will remember that I mentioned that Shafer proposed a couple "shoe on the other foot" tests, which is only what Sullivan is elucidating here (and I thought you read the Shafer article, based on your comments.)
Newsweek's writers proceed to point out:
(You would do well to read the entire article: many of us did our due diligence and read the entire Weekly Standard article, so now it's your turn.)
As I said before, Case Open.
Posted by: Frank on November 20, 2003 09:02 AMHere's an interesting idea:
Posted by: Stephen on November 20, 2003 11:07 AMhttp://techcentralstation.com/111903D.html
I think the government does need to respond, but I don't know if it should come from the congressional committees. How about George Tenet, since it's his bailiwick?
Tenet is probably in the best position to know what can/can't be divulged, and make a strong case for the need for appropriate secrecy... We still don't know who leaked the memo to the Weekly Standard, do we? Unlikely it was CIA, I think.
(Steve, didn't I show you how to embed a link into these comment sections? Look through your old emails...)
Posted by: Frank on November 20, 2003 11:39 AMFrank,
Sorry about that.
techcentral
Posted by: Stephen on November 20, 2003 12:19 PMVery cool!
Posted by: Frank on November 20, 2003 12:26 PMFrank, my reference to context had to do with your choosing one tiny portion of the Sullivan post to lead the reader away from the fact of Schafer's own consternation with the press. As Sullivan observes, "He [Schafer] wants to know why the big media won't touch the Weekly Standard story on alleged Osama-Saddam connections..." Steve was kind enough to supply a lengthier excerpt from the Sullivan post which, in turn, referenced and quoted from the Schafer piece, reinforcing the point.
That is what I meant by context--nothing more, nothing less.
And yes, I did read the Schafer article. It gives me hope fair-minded people on both sides of the political spectrum might yet prod the putatively "snooping, prying, nosy press" into taking this story seriously.
Posted by: Bernard on November 20, 2003 01:29 PMFrank, not only can I stay on topic -despite your best efforts to the "contrary", I can even place the topic of the intelligence briefings in context of the war itself. I can even place that in context of the over-arching topical intentions of this website: Fighting Folly, Ignorance, and Cant.
Your objection to Sullivan's "expectation"-- that the press verify what's true or not-- is rather suspect "topic-wise" when accompanied by your attempt to appeal to Marshall, who would claim it is "certain" that the memo was leaked because "Feith and his idological soul mates" are "profoundly on the defensive."
All your responses are suspect in the light of your inability to give a simple "yes or no" to Stephen's previous topical question--
What if, say, half of the intelligence data is correct? Would that change people's view of the justness of our invasion of Iraq?
All the more so when, truth be told, the rejection of all the data would still not remove the case for Saddam's connections to terrorism and would not even begin to remove the legitimacy or justification for military action established by the UN Security Council, approved by by both houses of Congress, and carried out by a multi-nationa; coalition of UN member States.
Posted by: Grumpy on November 20, 2003 03:19 PMBernard, I think I referred to that the part from the Shafer article which Sullivan quoted [the bulk of what Steve cut & pasted is actually from Shafer's article, which Sullivan quoted in a block. Sullivan's quotation of Shafer begins with the colon following "connections" -- the rest afterwards is all Shafer]. In my first comment in this thread, I said Shafer posed a couple "shoe on the other foot" tests. "How would the press have handled information of a different sort" is a shoe on the other foot test. I hope you don't think I was being disingenuous by not cutting and pasting more: I felt the reference, along with the link (in my first comment at the top), was sufficient. My language was not as colorful as Shafer's, I'll grant, but that's what the link is for.
Grumpy, I'm not sure what your issue is with me. I'm sure you're a fine young man, but really, in a thread devoted to the Feith memo, I'm not sure how you think you're making a persuasive appeal for the veracity of the memo by immediately leaping to a broader question of whether or not the invasion was justified on other grounds. So, cork your champagne: the case is far from closed. Newsweek has a very detailed discussion which I recommend in the interest of being fair and balanced.
Believe me, I know how you all must feel, after weather balloons and labs and missiles and all turn out to be far less than their immediate reports suggest — you all must be chomping at the bit at this point for some smoking gun which really will close the case — but this ain't it yet. You'd all do well to remember the deflation of the past evidence, and also remember the expressions of dissatisfaction which were being heard about the quality of informer info.
As to Steve's question about what if only half of it were true -- ? I don't know. If half of it were undeniably, indisputably true, I think we'd at least have had moral authority to do some bombing runs like Clinton did, followed up with a real live Adlai Stevenson moment in the UN (not like the one Colin Powell did, which was so questioned shortly after).
Perhaps it was the shakiness of evidence which led to French intransigence, and not mere obstinacy on their part.
Posted by: Frank on November 20, 2003 03:41 PMOh, Grumpy, you are all ashake with bad logic, you really should mind your caffeine consumption.
Did you REALLY type "All the more so when, truth be told, the rejection of all the data would still not remove the case for Saddam's connections to terrorism"?
Do you really mean to say that if there were no evidence that he were connected to terrorism, that we could go right ahead and accuse him of terrorism anyway?
Oh MY, Grumpy, I'm afraid all those nasty rumors about your past -- even with no evidence -- are about to come out and slap you right in the face. Don't tempt me, you savage!
Posted by: Campy on November 20, 2003 04:17 PMActually, Frank, I believe the original snippet you quoted (and upon which you based your criticism) was all Sullivan, the beginning of his commentary after quoting from the Schafer article. (Unfortunately, the block quote that Steve provided doesn't make this unmistakably clear.) Not to belabor the point, but perhaps to elaborate on it, I thought my comment about context was rather simple. Sullivan was prodding the press to do more with this leaked memo story, which was exactly what Schafer wanted, too. But you seem to be arguing the other way--that this call for further serious inquiry is nothing other than a somewhat pathetic attempt at vindication by those still "chomping at the bit" to find a "smoking gun". That is fine; I understand the criticism, though I completely reject it. But then, I think Jack Schafer would reject it as well.
Posted by: Bernard on November 20, 2003 05:01 PMMaybe it's a half full half empty thing. The part I pulled from Sullivan did say "So let's discover which bits are iffier than others." I interpreted that as a winnowing to the truthful bits, and pasted it with that intent.
Posted by: Frank on November 20, 2003 05:07 PMBelieve me, I know how you all must feel,...you all must be chomping at the bit at this point for some smoking gun which really will close the case.
No Frank, you don't have the faintest idea how we all must feel. There is no need for any "smoking gun" as regards terrorism to validate the Coalition actions in Iraq any more than there ever was any need for a "smoking gun" as regards WMD to validate them.
Without any valid understanding of the reasoning, authority , and justification for those actions--ie context, what follows is going to be folly, ignorance, and cant. In a word, horsefeathers.
You demonstrated this quite well here:.
If half of it were undeniably, indisputably true, I think we'd at least have had moral authority to do some bombing runs like Clinton did, followed up with a real live Adlai Stevenson moment in the UN (not like the one Colin Powell did, which was so questioned shortly after).
Even if you accept that there are over twenty five direct and insisputable connections between Saddam Hussein and terrorism you somehow leap to the completely nonsensical idea that this would only have served to "justify" some Clinton style "bombing runs" and some vague kind of "Adlai Stevensome" moment.
It's nonsense because you speak of "justifying" some sort of action in the UN at the same time that you demonstrate a complete failure to have any comprehension of the military actions that were taken in context of the actual reasoning, authority, and actions of the UN and the US administration and Congress.
Its nonsense precisely because you are operating in a context that is divorced from recognizing what the UN stated was required of Saddam Hussein.
You operate in a delusional context that refuses to recognize and address the reality of the demands made on Iraq by the UN Security Council, the authority for their findings of material breach, the resultant justification for the serious consequences they called for, the nature of the consequences they gave reference to in stating the ongoing authority of all extant resolutions, and the choice of the US and other member states to form a coalition to act on those decisions
In the case of the United States, the establishment of the context of material breach of the Security Council resolution, the restatement of the authority for military action as derived from the UN Resolutions, and the authority granted by both houses of Congress for the President to act are all absent and ignored in your "feeling" based and fallacious context.
It is nonsense because you are still operating under the fallacious presumption that verification of any of the fifty some activities reported on is in some way necessary to establish the validity of the coalitions response.
It is nonsense because you still can't separate out your "feelings" that the war was unilateral, unjustified, illegal, immoral, or any number of other feelings from the issue of establishing any valid context to address justification, legalities, and moralities in.
If you really think you can establish some claim that the actions taken really were illegal or unjustified you would need to begin somehere else.
Perhaps you don't accept the UN authority to broker a ceasefire agreement and set conditions of compliance for it. Perhaps you think they misled people or lied when they found Saddam's regime in material breach?
Perhaps you think they had no authority to decalre that all previous resolutions remained in effect?
Perhaps you would like to claim that the Congress had no authority to decide that they recognized the authority of the UN to act as it did, and to authorize the President to act in accord with and support of the UN Security Council?
Try to stick to the topic Frank.
Posted by: Grumpy on November 20, 2003 06:20 PMTry to comprehend the folly of trying to establish a context out of ignorance and cant.
I'm impressed, Grumpy: you may not be able to read and process information, but you sure can type. Care to take another look at what this thread was? If you want to open up something else, fine, I'm sure you can get blogging software somewhere for free.
But as for your off-topic screed, MEGO. Sorry, that's just the way it is; I'm surprised you have the time to type all that, and surprised if you think anyone will read it. Maybe 3% of it has to do with the Weekly Standard article?
Posted by: Frank on November 20, 2003 06:49 PMGrumpy has injected the most verbose, irrelevant explosion of pent-up frustration into this discussion which I have ever read. A simple, civil conversation about the 50 points in the appendix to Douglas Feith's memo. And Grumpy has to take it to whether or not the war was justified with or without the Feith memo.
What an absurd, small minded POS Grumpy must be, that he can't focus on an issue and has to bring in all sorts of side discussions that can never be resolved. All for some stupid wingnut, ditto head purpose of what? impressing everyone here that he holds good conservative values?
Arguing over the justification of the war is like debating the virgin birth. Utterly pointless.
Arguing about what to do with the Feith memo, and the leak which produced it, has merit.
Grumpy has no merit.
Posted by: Hired Contrarian on November 20, 2003 08:08 PM"A simple, conversation about the 50 points in the appendix to Douglas Feith's memo."
I removed civil, in light of your most recent comments that evidence a desire to be contrary ro civility as well as anything related to context, reason, and evidence. Not surprisingly, Frank joins you on all counts, resulting in two more quick examples of how insistant and persistant you both remain in devotion to nothing beyond your own feelings.
And Grumpy has to take it to whether or not the war was justified with or without the Feith memo.
That part though, is an excellent summary of intention and direction.
Without that context being established, the rest, as you were both quick to demonstrate once more, consists of nothing but demonstrations of ignorance, folly, and cant.
Frank, you have another website, all your own, which last time I visited doesn't even allow any comments.
Meanwhile, I'll leave it to the webmaster to assess and make any determination whether or not my comments are suitable for the purposes he holds for his website.
Posted by: Grumpy on November 20, 2003 09:04 PMHired Contrarian offers a textbook example of projection--accusing those he disagrees with of the very behavior he exhibits in his latest post. His name calling would thus be most aptly applied to him--a "POS". I would invite him to take his ravings to a more receptive site--say MOVEON.ORG.
Posted by: Stephen on November 20, 2003 10:23 PMWhile Frank is technically correct that this thread is about the Feith memo, Grumpy's effort to establish a context seems perfectly appropriate. After all, there were many who argued in the late 1930's that we had no cause to war against Hitler; no proof that he'd done anything to harm us, etc. However the context was apparent to those like Roosevelt who took us to war, sometimes using duplicity to overcome public resistance. It's absurd to look at one element of the Iraq situation in isolation from Iraq's role in destabilizing the Middle East, conducting genocide, supporting terror by bankrolling suicide bombers and their families, and on and on.
Horsefeathers. Grumpy wants to expand the debate beyond the Weekly Standard article into the larger arena of whether or not war with Iraq was justified BEYOND the Feith memo, because he can't form a thought on the Feith memo (he is INCAPABLE, because he let his meds run out); but in his effort to use an illusionist's misdirection, Grumpy has failed miserably: he doesn't address similarly off-topic broader context issues such as the writings of Karl Barth, the continental divide, and sonata allegro form. Nor the plays of Tom Stoppard, for that matter, or the impact of the limerick on modern university students.
Really: you all are putzes for even entertaining Grumpy's mad ravings.
Grumpy, if you really want to debate, go post on Atrios' web log or something. Plenty of people will kick the daylights out of you there.
Posted by: Hired Contrarian on November 20, 2003 11:19 PMSorry, Grumpy, not all web sites have comment sections. Not just mine, but whitehouse.gov, InstaPundit, Tom Tomorrow, Tapped — you're just going to have to get over that.
Posted by: Frank on November 21, 2003 09:32 AMIn his errors a man is true to type. Observe the errors and you will know the man.
Posted by: Shagan Jillian on December 10, 2003 08:20 AMIt is dangerous to confuse children with angels.
Posted by: Wearing Shannon on December 20, 2003 06:54 PM