It’s a Pandagon twofer today!
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the very heart of the matter. There is no evidence that Saddam was involved in September 11th. There is, however, evidence of him being a bad guy. And so supporters of the Iraqi war are never going to honestly disavow the connection between the two separate events, because in the muddleheaded Noonan-view of the world, all events are connected in a sort of neoconservative karma. September 11th was bad, and Saddam was bad, therefore the former justifies dealing with the latter. It requires a level of abstraction that is in itself actually simpler than what Matthews is putting forward.
The case “rested on multiple pillars”…but WMD was the central pillar. Of the reasons cited, two come back to the WMD justification (the WMD problem becoming unmanageable, and the lack of trust for Hussein in the long run), and two come back to al-Qaeda ties that are also nonexistent. Truly masterful.
Does anybody remember when the Iraq/al-Qaeda ties were first being alleged by nuts such as Laurie Mylroie and relatively respectable folks like the President of the United States of America? Anyone remember how the almost uniform response from the doubters was that there was no real Iraq/al-Qaeda connection now, but the second you invade the country, there’s going to be a lot more collusion, if not outright recruitment?
The problem, at this point, isn’t that the document or sources don’t seem credible. It’s that we don’t seem credible. After being breathlessly told that we’ve found weapons, terrorist links and chemical munitions again and again, just to have them quickly drop off the news as they are proved to be other things (a comic book, a pigeon and a fruit roll-up, respectively), I have little initial trust in huge finds like this. The idea that a 17-page strategic document being sent to Al-Qaeda simply fell into our hands is a bit of a stretch, and given our past history with these sorts of finds, I just can’t muster up the necessary trust to wholeheartedly believe it.
And considering that most of the import of the Zarqawi memo was the realization that al-Qaeda might not even be involved in Iraq now, lending a whole new dynamic to the operation, I can understand why reporters might overlook the memo saying that America wouldn’t leave.
*** Last link removed- I errantly used an Ezra post, which, in all fairness, does not show an inconsistency when the previous posts were all from Jesse. Regardless, Jesse was and still is wrong that there were no ties. Period. ****
For extra fun, Jesse yesterday:
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission directly contradict each other in terms of their plain meaning. Cheney wants you to think that Iraq and al-Qaeda worked together. The Commission says they didn’t. Cheney is wrong, and the debate over the nature of his wrongness is nowhere near the level of disingenuousness and, yes, dishonesty inherent in the argument that nonproductive and noncollaborative Iraq/al-Qaeda contacts constitute a war-level reaction.
There’s no sensical way to say the debate over how someone’s being out of accord with reality is as much of a problem as the people being out of accord with reality themselves. The Commission says the contacts were there, but point out, factually, that they went no further. Cheney is using the exact same information to make the exact opposite (and dishonest) point. But, you see, the problem’s not there.
Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, 911 Commissioners:
THOMAS KEAN, 9/11 COMMISSION CHAIRMAN: Well, that’s what our staff has found. Now, it doesn’t mean there weren’t al Qaeda connections with Iraq over the years. They’re somewhat shadowy, but I think they were there. But with 9/11, no, our staff has found no evidence of that.
MATTHEWS: Mr. Hamilton, so many polls have been taken that shows the American people, almost three-quarters of the people, believe there was a connection. How do we rectify that? Is your commission going to clarify that to the extent that people won’t still be singing country music that says
Ezra
You have 5 posts from Jesse and the last one from me. We are, you know, different people with varying opinions on these issues. As for my own work, I put in “significant” because the goal posts get shifted so fast that an Al-Qaeda’s member’s nephew once drunkenly pissing into a Baath members yard is now considered a tie. You can take the statement “no significant ties” to mean that they had absolutely no ties worth talking about, none with a military or terrorist purpose in mind, and none that supported the President’s allusions of collusion nor justified incading Iraw because Al-Qaeda is bad. Were we invading based on ties, go to Syria or Saudi Arabia. As it is, we launched a war based on ideology and vendetta and disengenuous keyboard hawks like you attempt to justify it based on nothing at all. And now you’re comparing statements by two different people and crying inconsistency.
Jesus John, this is just pathetic. And that’s coming from someone who supported this war. At least I’m honest about my motivations and aware that they’ve been proved wrong. You? This is grasping at straws that barely exist.
John Cole
Ezra- I did not realize I had used all Jesse andand the last one was you.
Now, about this shit:
As it is, we launched a war based on ideology and vendetta and disengenuous keyboard hawks like you attempt to justify it based on nothing at all.
Ahh, the chickenhawk meme again.
A.) See that milbloggers link off to the left. I did my ten years.
B.) If the military needs an overweight comm teacher, tell em where they can find me. I would gladly drop everything and go again.
C.) I will chat with you in 2014, after you have completed your ten years of military service. That way you and I will both have the military experience necessary to debate issues.
kerryuberalles
BUSH DIRECTLY LINKS 9/11 AND SADDAM. SUCK ON IT, WINGNUTS!
Kimmitt
That wasn’t precisely civil, but the content is spot on.
Ezra
Actually, I was unclear. I don’t mean chickenhawk and keyboard hawk to be the same thing — I mean keyboard hawk to denote those who sit around, typing endless reworkings of the case for war to justify something we should have never done. People are dying in this war, right now, and you guys know we went there on a lie. The lack of honesty and the focus on meaningless semantic shit like you put forth in the post above is just sad and completely out of proportion to the actual carnage, cost and complexity of the war effort.
Ricky
Ahem, Kimmitt, I think the subsequent Tim Noah post was for you.
Ezra,
Some of us didn’t need ties or WMDs to support military action in ’03 any more than we did when we supported it in ’98 (when it was okay for a Democrat to support it….after all, a Democrat was the CIC). There’s not one iota of inconsistency in my stance. That cannot be said for many who are attempting to nuance themselves around their duplicity.
John Cole
We did not go there on a lie- we went there under the false beliefthat he had WMD. I know you recognize the difference.
Furthermore, I have been consistent from the beginning- my archives are off to the left, in that I thought there were NUMEROUS reasons for invading IRaq, with WMD as merely one of the reasons.
I have no problem admitting we were wrong about WMD, but in my mind that does not mean we were wrong about the war in general.
It has not been me trying to disingenuously spin this war- and that was the entire point of this post.
Terry
And, John, you still think some of this ilk, such as Jesse and Ezra (and Oliver), are good and honorable people??? We are talking of life and death issues here…today another innocent American beheaded in Saudia Arabia solely because he was an American…people such as noted above should be shunned…debate is fruitless and a total waste of time…save the discussion and debate for the voting American public…the latter have a demonstrated history of collective honor, integrity and common sense.
Harley
Wait, you need military experience to debate the issues? Ahh, not only pompous but bone stupid, and both at the same time! (Er, you might want to forward this standard to Bush, Cheney, et al.)
Oliver
I have no problem admitting we were wrong about WMD
Please tell the president, rush limbaugh, instapundit and the rest of the right.
Kimmitt
“today another innocent American beheaded in Saudia Arabia solely because he was an American”
This is the kind of thinking which frustrates me to no end — if we had actually concentrated on Al Qaeda and Wahabbism, instead of invading a country that had only peripheral ties to either of these, we might have prevented the deaths instead of using them as political props.
syn
Kimmitt
Do you really believe in the statement you just made?
I don’t.
Andrew J. Lazarus
You guys are looking at the wrong Slate column. Check out Fred Kaplan’s, much more nuanced and accurate than Noah’s.
Basically, he shows how Bush used juxtaposition (just as I mentioned) to create the ILLUSION he was suggestion real, operation ties between Saddam and AQ, while a careful parsing of the speech afterwards shows that isn’t quite the case. He calls it, fittingly, Clintonian.
He also chooses a different example from mine, an even better one, showing VP Cheney going one step beyond this.
I suggest my fellow libs to use Kaplan’s article, which is both less bombastic and more accurate.
As to all this jumping up and down about “contacts”, I remain bewildered. It’s common for even sworn enemies to have contacts (under flag of truce if need be)—did any agreement or conspiracy ever COME of these contacts? I don’t believe I have ever denied that Saddam had contact with Al Qaeda in the weak sense (as he did with our diplomatic service, FWIW). The 9/11 Commission, to summarize it, says there is no evidence of anything further than that.
syn
Kimmitt
I don’t believe your statemnt because Saddam financially support a multitude of terrorist organization. Saddam also allow for Ansar al Islam to train in his country. I keep hearing how Saddam was secular and did not care for radical Islam yet he never had a problem assisting radical Islam.
What is the difference between the group who just beheaded Paul Johnson and Ansar al Islam?
jesse
John, nothing I said is contradicted by anything that was true at the time, or that is true now. You’re grasping for straws where none exist, ignoring plain meanings of words in order to get at what you want (no surprise, since you already did that today), and, well, have pretty much cemented that you have no real credibility on matters of plain interpretation. Congrats, John, you’ve made it perfectly justified to ignore whatever you say, because you’re apparently incapable of reading English.
It’s not a problem, really – you just probably want to take care of that before it gets too serious, okay?
willyb
Hate to disillusion all of you folks, but the Congress of the United States opened the door for Bush to invade Iraq, and it had very little to do with WMD. You might want to read the Resolution, including the underlying causes/premises for the resulting resolution.
It was all about getting Saddam to comply with UN resolutions. The written premises, should control why the Congress did what they did. Do you see anywhere among the written premises the interpretations you are attributing to Bush? And if the Congress was operating on a set of different premises, why weren’t they included among the written premises?
John Cole
That response was a joke, right JEsse?
In January of this year, there was sufficient evidence ALL OVER the place that there were pre-war ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, I have you denying those ties 5 times here, and you state that I am ‘incapable of reading English.’
Andrew J. Lazarus
Ansar al-Islam trained in the Kurdish zone, ironically protected by the West. Saddam’s military wasn’t within miles of their training camp, and for all practical purposes it was outside Iraq. This is pretty well-known.
Saddam did cooperate with Hezbollah and Hamas. I don’t think that’s an issue. Hezbollah and Hamas are terrorist groups with objectives OUTSIDE Iraq (e.g., elimination of Israel). Osama is so fanatical, he wanted a caliphate state in all the Muslim world, which would leave no room for Saddam. I rather doubt Bush could have got his war on without bringing in Osama, though.
Ricky
Andrew,
So the idiot cowboy hatched a secret plan to fool the entire nation, and only the lefties figured it out, huh?
You’re gonna go with that one?
Whatever makes you sleep better.
Kimmitt
It’s easy to fool people who desperately want to be fooled.
Ezra
No John, we went there on a lie. Bush said Iraq was a threat toAmerica. As someone who supported the war and believed that Saddam had WMD’s, I could say then and I can say now that justification was absurd. If you wanted threats to us, either direct or indirect (via terrorists), North Korea and Al-Qaeda were both more menacing. The former was ignored and the latter given a breather.
You’re right, there were lots of good reasons to go to war. My mistake was believing that the Bush Administration had those in mind, rather than the deceptive spin they were feeding to the public. I was sadly incorrect.
Next up, as so often happens in our conversations, you’re switching your argument. While we were talking about your/our justifications/dismissals of the Iraq/Bin Laden connections, you’re now talking about any and all justifications for the Iraq War. As always, other arguments aren’t under examination here, the specific one you quoted from us is. In that, you’re simply off base and are wildly spinning contacts into connections and meetings into collaboration. You’re playing semantic games and, as you so aptly titled your piece, moving the goalposts. There were lots of reasons to invade Iraq, just as there are to take down Syria or North korea or China. The Al-Qaeda connections, however, are simple bunk dreamt up by cynical politicians to scare voters into support. And that should merit even your condemnations.
And Terry? I’m part of the voting American public. Yeah, be afraid.
Slartibartfast
“It’s easy to fool people who desperately want to be fooled.”
The voice of experience.
Ricky
Yeah, it always comes back to the people who need the government to provdid their every need & comfort being the smarter than us doofs who pay for their goodies.
Kimmitt
Actually, it comes down to people who grasp the concepts of “tragedy of the commons” and “externalities” being smarter than the selfish fools who insist that they, who have received the benefits of a well-run state for their entire lives, are solely responsible for their success.
willyb
Kimmitt,
Karl Marx couldn’t have said it better! A well-run state indeed. Do you honestly believe that drivel?
Ricky
Kimmitt,
So, I’m selfish if you don’t get my cash to pay for the stuff you can’t afford?
Noted.
Gee, I can’t understand why you guys can no longer win elections..
The word “ween” comes to mind.
willyb
“The Al-Qaeda connections, however, are simple bunk dreamt up by cynical politicians to scare voters into support. And that should merit even your condemnations.”
I agree with you Ezra. But the real question is which cynical politicians dreamt up this bunk. It appears to me that the Clinton Administration spread the lies about WMD. After 9/11, more Democrats spread lie after lie about the threat. This all culminated in the big lies told by Congress in the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq.
John Kerry signed on to the proposition that Iraq was “supporting and harboring terrorists,” and that members of Al Qaeda were known to be in Iraq. It seems clear that the Senator is on the record as identifying a “collaborative relationship”, which we now know did not exist.
I believe the Bush Administration should be outraged for the intentional lies and deceptions perpetrated upon them by John Kerry and his fellows Congressmen. And they should express their condemnations for these terrible misdeeds.
Kimmitt
Kerry and the other Senators acted based on information provided to them by the Bush Administration.