Capital Offense
POSTED BY: AnthonyT
UPDATED: Sunday, November 16, 2025 04:49
VIEWED: 11738
PAGE 17 of 22
Quote:Why that's inconthievable!!
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Some of my more devout friends don’t like my point of view about the inability to “know” unknowable things, anymore then others do.
Finn, we ALL have preconceived notions & personal ideologies- they colour all that we see & think.
I remember thinking Carter was evil, & when he got elected, I feared for this country, heh heh. Turns out he was an okay dude, his inexperience with the poitical machine notwithstanding.
I am prepared to be wrong about stuff. Gorram it, I WANT to be wrong about stuff sometimes!
(the above was a hint, nudge nudge, wink wink)
It'sokaytobewrongisall
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Quote:
Raid uses pyrethroids, which are only really toxic to Insects.
My bad, mighta been D-con, it was one of em though, but then again, that was back in the 80's so they mighta changed formulas too.
Pyrethoids are definately safer, especially with pets around.
Never DID get all them little german bastards, the fuckers were pissin me off so bad I started callin em the fourth reich - when I finally moved out of there, I left the furniture (it was just salvation army relics anyway) and torched everythin I wasn't wearing.
Evil little things, at least they're exempt from the geneva conventions, cause that's one case were use of a WMD is freakin warranted.
I HATE
Roaches.And crickets are worse, bigger, nastier roaches that MAKE NOISE, arrrgh.
SO glad to see the back of that place.
-F
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Quote:
People who blindly follow ideology tend to claim that know things they can’t possibly know.
Things like "Saddam has WMD!"
This world is a comedy for those who think, and a tragedy for those who feel.
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Quote:It’s not about being right or wrong. It’s about recognizing the limits of what you can and can’t know, especially for those things that you think are true. Being right or wrong is easy. I’m right or wrong many times a day. But sometimes formulating an opinion on something clouds your judgment, because you will always want to see that opinion as “right.” Just as you’ve learned to see the opinion that there were no WMDs in Iraq as “right,” when the reality is that we’ve simply not found as much as we believed were unaccounted for. That’s all. But by forcing the issue into simplistic terms of right or wrong, you’ve forced your mind to crystallize around a point of view that is not currently knowable. For that reason, you are actually afraid to even admit to yourself that Iraqi WMDs, that were understood to be unaccounted for by the US IC and the UN, may exist.
Originally posted by chrisisall:
I am prepared to be wrong about stuff. Gorram it, I WANT to be wrong about stuff sometimes!
(the above was a hint, nudge nudge, wink wink)
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:
But sometimes formulating an opinion on something clouds your judgment, because you will always want to see that opinion as “right.”
And has your opinion clouded your judgment because you thought that it was "right"?
This world is a comedy for those who think, and a tragedy for those who feel.
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Quote:As far as I’m concerned we have yet to know whether those WMDs exist or not. They might exist. They might not. It’s possible that Signym Clairvoyance is right and that Saddam destroy at least some of those WMDs – he obviously didn’t destroy all of them, since we’ve found stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq. It’s possible that more stockpiles of WMDs still exist in Iraq to total the unaccounted for amount. It’s possible that Hussein had large stockpiles of WMDs transported to Syria or Lebanon or another country. We don’t know – so there’s no way to say what is right or wrong. What we can say, for sure, is that Saddam Hussein doesn’t have any WMDs anymore.
Originally posted by Kwicko:
And has your opinion clouded your judgment because you thought that it was "right"?
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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"But sometimes formulating an opinion on something clouds your judgment, because you will always want to see that opinion as “right.”"
Maybe that's how you work. Other people think differently. It's possible to form an opinion (or hypothesis) and keep looking for data to test that opinion. Scientists do it all the time. Should the data indicate the opinion is faulty either in whole or in part, then it's time to revisit it. That's what I do.
I didn't think Iraq had WMD.
I came to that opinion though my own professional knowledge of CBW and the information publicly available at the time.
I came to that opinion partly by noting where experts disputed the administration's claims (eg, the Africa uranium, the aluminum tubes).
And I came to that opinion by watching the administration itself.
If they had such good evidence, they wouldn't have had to phony it up like they did for poor Colin Powell's presentation for UN. I believe I posted a lengthy dissection of that presentation, pointing out where they used old pre-war data as if it was current, where they used simulations, where they conflated hypothesis as fact, and so on. Fortunately the people at the UN were sharper than the average USer and were unconvinced.
The administration wouldn't have had to make claims which were known to be false at the time, for example the 'yellow cake' reference in the SOTU speech, or linking Iraq with 9/11.
Bush wouldn't have had to keep moving the goal posts as Iraq kept meeting the UN demands. Just before the US launched its unprovoked attack against Iraq, Bush announced that the only way Hussein could avoid war was to quit the country with his family and administration. Now that was just creating a pretext where none existed.
I watched the administration close the door on letting the UN finish their inspections and declaring Iraq to be WMD-free.
I watched as tens of thousands of soldiers were sent into battle without proper protective gear.
And I watched as US troops were not ordered to secure those WMD sites or even to look for them, until the US was goaded into it by world opinion.
All of that tells me Bush and his administration knew ahead of time there were not enough WMDs to be a threat, and they lied, and lied, and lied, and then lied some more to start an illegal war.
If the administration had treated Iraq like it really did have all those fearsome WMDs I would have entertained the possibility. But their actions before, during and after the war pretty much clinched it - they lied. That is what the data told me.
***************************************************************
Silence is consent.
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Quote:But WMDs were found in Iraq, so your initial assumption that there were no WMDs in Iraq was wrong – it clouded your judgment. Now you look for reasons to justify it – the way you think the Bush administration did this or did that suddenly becomes evidence to support that initial assumption. That’s not the way science should work. We shouldn’t attempt to draw conclusions from inconclusive evidence.
Originally posted by rue:
All of that tells me Bush and his administration knew ahead of time there were not enough WMDs to be a threat, and they lied, and lied, and lied, and then lied some more to start an illegal war.
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:I've heard no "facts" from YOU sufficient to support the administration's "imminent threat" claims.
I’m not often persuaded by ideology. I tend to look at the facts.
BTW- I knew that Saddam "had" WMD. The operative word is "had". I expected, in the rout of the first Gulf war, that some things would be left behind.
Quote:But you're claiming "stockpiles". By which you imply... meaningful amounts of imminently threatening WMD, not old leftovers scattered here and there?
we’ve found stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq.
Cites please!!!
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Any idea, no matter how much you may agree with it, can be radicalized and employed as an excuse for violence. There is no such thing as a righteous or untouchable philosophy, and when you start thinking that there is, you have become an extremist.- Finn Mac Cumhal
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Quote:I don’t remember administration stating that Iraq was an imminent threat.
Originally posted by SignyM:Quote:I've heard no "facts" from YOU sufficient to support the administration's "imminent threat" claims.
I’m not often persuaded by ideology. I tend to look at the facts.
Quote:By stockpiles of WMDs, I imply stored WMDs found in Iraq by coalition forces following the 2003 Iraqi war, which you are aware of but ignore.
Originally posted by SignyM:
BTW- I knew that Saddam "had" WMD. The operative word is "had". I expected, in the rout of the first Gulf war, that some things would be left behind.Quote:But you're claiming "stockpiles". By which you imply... meaningful amounts of imminently threatening WMD, not old leftovers scattered here and there?
we’ve found stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq.
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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