Re: The "Lie"

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On Thursday 17 July 2003 10:27, Neil Stevens wrote:
> Interesting, so in your view Secretary Rumsfeld is more trustworthy than
> Prime Minister Blair?  

i don't know if Rumsfeld is more trustworthy than Blair or not. i do know that 
what Rumsfeld said on that program showed that people in the US government 
knew the information was not true, or at best likely to be not true. i don't 
see why he'd lie about something so damning. on the other hand, i wouldn't be 
surprised that Rumsfeld wasn't telling the whole story and was simply playing 
damage control as best as he could. he was very careful in his wording and 
often declined to answer questions that involved the reputations and words of 
others (quite wisely).

> As an aside: I'd still like to read Rumsfeld's words myself in context,
> though.  During this whole public debate, senior US officials have been
> taken terribly out of context, even cut off mid-sentence as Ms. Dowd at
> the New York Times did to President Bush, and then had those quotes
> disseminated and used to make this case.

i didn't read this, i watched it. it was an interview done in a studio on a 
political show conducted by the host shown in its entirety. there was no 
"taking out of context" since the whole 10 or so minutes of the interview 
were shown, and the interviewer was very cordial, professional and friendly.

> > > Mr. Blair says that MI6 had evidence independent of the allged forgery
> > > supplied by the French.
> >
> > and this evidence is.... where? and it was ... how accurate?
>
> OK, the pattern fits.  Is Bush the liar here, or Blair, according to what
> you're saying here?  If Blair is the one lying and lying, isn't it
> possible that the White House was duped by Blair's claims of what the MI6
> had?

possible, yes. it's also equally possible that they were complicit. if the UK 
lied to the US knowingly, then there were schisms within the alliance; if the 
UK and US lied together, then they were trying to promote their political 
agenda by some not-so-ethical means. both scenarios are interesting; i also 
don't think they are equally likely.

> Bush may have been wrong that night (of course, the discrediting of one
> piece of evidence does not exhonerate Saddam Hussein, given that even the

of course it doesn't exonerate S. Heussein! this isn't about him! it's about 
the governments who waged the war against him and the generally morality and 
legality of methods used to achieve that end.

> French government was saying before the war that Iraq had pursued nuclear
> weapons),

well, we obviously don't need the French government to back that up. it's 
public knowledge that Iraq had a nuclear program in the 80s and very early 
90s. after the Gulf War, however, there is little to no evidence of an active 
nuclear weapons program. and they most certainly weren't trying to buy 
Uranium from Africa.

> but being wrong doesn't make him a liar. 

yes, as i said in my previous email: Bush and his staff were either 
incompetent or lieing. including such an important accusation in the SotU 
without having an expert examine the evidence for it would be incompetence; 
an expert seeing that evidence and not discerning it was a forgery would be 
incompetence; seeing the forgery, knowing it was a fake and using it anyways 
is dishonesty. someone messed up, and messed up bad. the questionare who, why 
and how.

> > no, but i can see what's happening and take a good guess at political
> > agendas. they got caught trying to stretch the truth by stating as fact
> > intelligence that was extremeley dubious to begin with (by the CIA's own
> > admission) and quickly turned out to be a forgery (something they don't
> > even deny at this point).
>
> THE CIA WASN'T THE SOURCE OF THE POINT IN THE SPEECH!!! 

no, but the CIA was consulted on the matter (at least according to Rumsfeld). 
perhaps the CIA laid their cards on the table straight (saying it was likely 
false) and the Whitehouse decided to run with it anyways. perhaps not. this 
is why an inquiry will be useful. 

either way, they chose Bush's words carefully, indeed. but i'm surprised that 
the US Government would present heresay as fact in the SotU address. 

> "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought
> significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
>
> Do you deny that the British government still believes that?

i don't know what they believe, only what they say they believe. seeing as the 
initial report was an obvious forgery, my faith in their assertions in the 
matter have been greatly weakened.

> Of course the White House, CIA, and other US agencies don't deny that the
> forgery is a forgery.  They didn't claim that they had the evidence.  I've
> still not seen you cite anyone who actually stated that the US had seen
> the evidence.

that is the biggest question, isn't it? again, a choice between incompetence 
and lieing.

> > so if someone lies consistently they must be telling the truth? pfft.
>
> You still haven't showed how both can be lying at once.  If Blair is a
> liar, then wasn't Bush a *victim* of the lie?

not if they were complicit in the lie.

> > fact, i repeat, FACT is that the evidence they trotted out was a
> > forgery. FACT is that it was easily spotted as such. i don't buy for a
> > single moment that the very competent-at-what-they-do people in the CIA
> > bungled that badly on this one given its high profile nature. nor do i
> > believe the White House to be so naive as to poo-poo warnings by the CIA
> > in an innocent mistake.
>
> Who in the CIA is making this claim?  Unnamed sources?  A Clinton
> appointee?

the last two sentences in that paragraph of mine were analysis of 
possibilities based on the first two sentences. the first two sentences are 
not being challenged by anyone. perhaps you mistook my analysis to be quotes 
from others; they weren't. they sprung forth from my own mind =)

> > but let's say that's what happened, however unlikely: then they'd only
> > be incomptent.
>
> Yes, and that's why Tenet is taking the blame.

taking blame for someone above you who is less easily rescued from the mess is 
a fairly common political practice. so i don't see Tenet's acceptance of 
blame as proof of anything yet. 

> Who in the CIA is contradicting his claim? 

i don't know of any, and one would hardly expect anyone to. he's the HEAD of 
the Agency, for godess' sake.

> Who in the CIA warned the
> President about the fake that the British were believing?  And who was
> warned?

i don't know; i'm hoping an inquiry will reveal such information to the USA 
public.

> Since when is plagiarism of the sort the *British* committed the same as
> inaccuracy?  They lifted stuff from a student paper.  Are you saying that
> student was wrong?

i'm saying they were wrong for picking up an outdated student paper and 
promoting it as new and relevant information.

> And once again, you're establishing a pattern here that should lead to the
> villification of Blair and the UK government, not Bush and the US
> government.

you're correct; and if the UK and US were not in cooperation then the US was 
merely the UK's dupe. i have no idea why the UK gov would push for the war in 
such an independant manner, however. it would've done so at the cost of 
potentially causing problems for them not only domestically (the war wasn't 
exactly popular in British political circles) but also with their largest 
ally who also happens to be the world's sole superpower. the only thing i can 
think of is that the UK was so perversly desirous to please the USA by aiding 
and abetting their political goals that the UK gov was willing to do 
absolutely anything to achieve that? still, sounds rather self contradictory 
(betraying an ally's trust to support the ally's interests) when it can all 
be explained by far simpler motives and methods.

- -- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE: The 'K' is for 'kick ass'
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