Capital Offense
POSTED BY: AnthonyT
UPDATED: Sunday, November 16, 2025 04:49
VIEWED: 11738
PAGE 12 of 22
While many politicians may stretch the truth, that’s not really the problem here. Politicians went, by and large, with the content experts. It wasn’t politicians that came up with the idea that Saddam had WMDs, this was the widespread consensus of the intelligence community. Very little of the evidence to support WMDs in Iraq was ever very conclusive. People went with their best assessment of the Intel, but many people do exactly what you do. In the absence of conclusive evidence, they interject their ideology into the vacuum. Your hypothesis goes into the function, but never encounters data solid enough to confirm or deny it, so it emerges untouched. Instead of realizing that there is no way to test the hypothesis, it is viewed as confirmation. And so people begin to see their own point of view as indisputable doctrine, flawlessly validated over and over again. Much as you see your point of view as being as indisputable as the rising sun, when in fact it is completely untested. This is the problem - just in the other direction, not politicians.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:That is your considered, objective opinion I take it?
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
People went with their best assessment of the Intel
By the way, how'r those soap bubbles in your gray matter workin' out for ya, Finn?
isall
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Quote:It is.
Originally posted by chrisisall:Quote:That is your considered, objective opinion I take it?
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
People went with their best assessment of the Intel
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:Quote:It is.
Originally posted by chrisisall:Quote:That is your considered, objective opinion I take it?
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
People went with their best assessment of the Intel
Nothing is more unpredictable than ideological illogic, nothing more obscure than facts, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
isall
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"One doesn’t have to be an expert to cherry-pick two phrases and take them out of context either."
Not cherry picked - THOSE WERE THE CONCLUSIONS.
DUH ! 
One would have to be an idiot to not read the conclusions ... don't you agree ?
***************************************************************
Silence is consent.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
While many politicians may stretch the truth, that’s not really the problem here. Politicians went, by and large, with the content experts. It wasn’t politicians that came up with the idea that Saddam had WMDs, this was the widespread consensus of the intelligence community. Very little of the evidence to support WMDs in Iraq was ever very conclusive. People went with their best assessment of the Intel, but many people do exactly what you do. In the absence of conclusive evidence, they interject their ideology into the vacuum. Your hypothesis goes into the function, but never encounters data solid enough to confirm or deny it, so it emerges untouched. Instead of realizing that there is no way to test the hypothesis, it is viewed as confirmation. And so people begin to see their own point of view as indisputable doctrine, flawlessly validated over and over again. Much as you see your point of view as being as indisputable as the rising sun, when in fact it is completely untested. This is the problem - just in the other direction, not politicians.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"
FORSAKEN original
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Mahatma Gandhi
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Hello,
Some people believe that our president was misinformed by the intelligence community, and hence their error about things like WMD is understandable due to bad intel. This is possible...
However, in recent years, I have come to wonder about that. I think that sometimes powerful politicians, like a president and his support staff, request the intel they want. I don't mean intel like, "Find out if Saddam has WMD," but rather, "Send me everything you have that supports the case that Saddam has WMD, and keep the contrary evidence under wraps."
So that the Intelligence agency becomes a political tool, gathering all data, but feeding it selectively based on the request made by the Executive. Hence they become a lever for maneuvering the nation into whatever position the president and his people desire.
This conclusion of mine seems so apparent now that I've come to it, that I wonder why I didn't see it sooner. I assume other people have come to conclusions similar to my own.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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AnthonyT,
It is impossible for me to believe that the President of the United States (no matter how much of an idiot he actually is) is misinformed about anything. If he is then he should not have the job. "Plausible Deniability" is a crock of shit.
And yes AnthonyT, many of us are with you on that theory.
I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"
FORSAKEN original
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Mahatma Gandhi
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Quote:
And yes AnthonyT, many of us are with you on that theory.
Yup-yup.
Mike
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It's prettymuch always been that way with such type of agencies, Anthony.
Look at J. Edgar Hoovers administration of the FBI as a classic example.
Or this little tidbit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers
I note for the record it was Mike Gravel who swiftly acted to enter the entirety of the thing into Congressional Record to protect the folks who broke the story in the first place from excessive and unwarranted retaliation at the hands of Nixon and that bastard Kissinger.
This kinda stuff has been goin on for far longer than most people realize, and if you actually reserve some time, have a good sit down and read through the historical perspectives on this behavior that I've given, it paints a pretty clear picture that Shrub and the NeoCons are not just an isolated occurance, but simply the end result of previous administrations that did the exact same things, and only hid them better.
Those questions and wonderings, Anthony...
In the end, that's what rips the mask off these goons - they depend on certain assumptions that are so deeply held that most folk never even think to bother questioning them.
Like, for example, whether "The US Intelligence Community" has any credibility, or our best interests in mind.
Questions like that.
-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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