Comments Posted By Drongo
Displaying 101 To 110 Of 246 Comments
"When the NIE suits your purposes, it’s credible. But when it doesn’t well then it’s full of lies."
Huh? No, I don't think that it is credible ever again after it was shown how easily it was twisted and politicised.
"Do you honestly think that 16 agencies came to these conclusions, post-Iraq, because they wanted to see another war in the ME?"
Given the history, who knows how these conclusions were gathered. Certainly damn convinient for the powerful factions who are pushing for an idealogically driven war in the ME, don't you think.
"Saddam was peaceful (and secular!) so no problem. Same with Ahmadinejad, I suppose."
Do you? I certainly don't. I am not at all suspicious of claims that Iran is arming Shiite militias in Iraq, or that it has put a lot of operatives into the country in one way or another. I am more suspicious of claims that they are actively attacking US forces, more suspicious of the idea that they are arming the enemies of their Iranian friendly government in the Green Zone and find the idea tht they are backing a bunch of Salafi Jihadists who think of them as the worst kind of apostates as absurd.
Same for Saddam. Claims that he was rearming seemed likely, that he was holding old stocks of WMD likely, Was building new stocks less likely but still very plausible, was cooperating with Salafi Jihadists who wanted him dead very unlikely, was planning an attack on the US downright absurd.
I don't assume that anyone in politics is completely white hat, but I do make the basc assumption that they act in what they perceive as their best interests.
But none of this matters. The new NIE is out, it sets up the case for war with Iran, and along with the recent vote in the Senate accusing Iran of killing US troops, I imagine that we will only read about the ways in which this war was faked up in the slew of books released a couple of years after the attack.
Just like last time.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 18.07.2007 @ 01:32
"The NIE (just out today!) says that Iran is supporting AQ"
Now, where have we seen a faked up "gotcha" NIE report just before an unwise and misguided military action with inevitably disaterous consequences...
No, I just can't quite seem to place it...
"But I’m quite certain that if AQ went to Ahmadinejad and laid out a workable plan for detonating a nuke in Manhattan, he’d be willing to entertain the plan as long as Iran maintained deniability."
That's a giggle for a start. It should be obvious to anyone that if a nuke goes off in NY, a nuke goes off in Tehran before anyone's even started putting out the fires. Deniability will be a hypothetical issue. It is inconceivable that it would happen any other way.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 17.07.2007 @ 17:59
"And the Iranians may not give nukes to terrorists for a multitude of reasons but it won’t be because the terrorists in question happen to be Sunni Muslims rather than Shiite Persians. Don’t ask the head of the House Intelligence Committee to flesh out these nuances but those of us who have followed this stuff know otherwise."
But the leader of Al-Q in Iraq announced not a week ago that Iranians had two months to stop their support for the illegitimate government in Iraq or else Al-Q would unleash their carefully prepared terror campaign against Iran.
I assume that you think that this is a bluff...
If you believe that Iran and Al-Q are ever going to be allies you are badly uninformed. If you think that the Iranians, after all their work to allegedly procure nuclear weapons are going to hand it over to people who consider them to be the worst kind of apostates and who will inevitably bring back untold harm to Iran, then, well...
I just can't think of a useful term to describe this sort of thinking which would be within the bounds of polite doscourse.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 17.07.2007 @ 05:07
You'd probably think of me as a lefty, but I wouldn't trust the Guardian as far as I could throw it, particularly on secret sources in the US administration.
That having been said, I'd say that there are clearly two camps in the US admin and that these camps keep contradicting each other. The only reason why you'd have conflicting camps is because they have different policy agendas, and with regard to Iran, there are really only two positions. "We should attack Iran before they get near to Nukes" and "We shouldn't attack Iran unless it becomes absolutely, irrevocably necessary."
That's the only explaination for the constant rounds of "Iran is killing US troops, here's the sketchy evidence" and "Actually, there's thousands of tons of arms flooding into the country and only a some of it is coming from Iran" point-counterpoint from different Washington and Military sources.
If I had to guess, I'd say that Cheyney and co are all up for a bit of bomb,bomb,bomb,bomb,bombing Iran, and lots of military and Pentagon types are terrified that they are under the control of idiots who are going to get a lot of people killed for no good reason if they get their way. That's the thing with military types. You can ignore reality as a politician for as long as the polls hold out, but if you ignore reality in action you tend to end up shot.
"Defeating Iran’s insanity should come from within Iran."
If Iraq has shown us anything it has to be this. And the insanity might be replaced with more insanity. God knows, the French Revolution didn't exactly usher in an era of peace and tranquility and the Russian one started badly and just got worse and worse for years. But eventually, you have to hope that something stable will come to pass, and once it does everyone gets too excited about their fancy new car, or the fact that the shops seem so much fuller, and they just don't get the passion up for any more revolutioning.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 16.07.2007 @ 18:48
"The number of things war critics were wrong about are absolutely astronomical. I refuse to grant critics anything – people who said we’d lose 10,000 men in the fight for Baghdad and the like or people who had been saying for 4 years that there was a civil war when each and every time they made that statement, they were wrong or people who said the elections wouldn’t come off or that they couldn’t write a Constitution. It goes on and on and on and on."
If you look at individual detailed predictions, I agree that many people were wrong about many things. The only thing that I was concerned about was whether Saddam might have had some WMDs and would use them in inventive ways resulting in mass casualties. Of course that was before we found out how thin the evidence was that he did.
But looking at specific predictions is always troubling because the more detailed the prediciton the more chance that it would be incorrect. What is more instructive is to look at the broad picture predicted by different people. In this, the picture painted by those who were in favour of the war was that the Iraqi people would embrace freedom and democracy, US troops would be scaled right back to 30,000 months after the invasion and that reconstruction of the country would be well on its way by now with Iraq as an example to the region. The anti-war prediction was that, as an ethnic state, democracy would produce ethnic divisions and the security situation would result in an eternal occupation which would, in the way of things, get more and more violent as the years passed, resulting in the fabled "Quagmire" while doing little or nothing to counter the terrorist Islamist threat to the West.
The reason why many people remind others of this is mainly because they are concerned that the people from the former camp are still making all the decisions regarding Iraq, whereas the latter group are generally ignored until reality screams so loudly that it cannot be ignored.
Still, not much of it matters in any case. This course was set in place long ago and we just get to watch it play out.
For those who believe that the alternative grouping of Shiite Secularists, Sunni Tribes and other small parties are going to form a cohesive government as an alternative to the Kurds, SIIC and Dawa, please could you explain the numbers on this? As far as I can tell they don't have a hope in hell of getting it together and, even if they do, it is hard to imagine a grouping less able to hold together and actually govern Iraq. Say what you like about the current government but it is, at least, relatively unified. Useless, corrupt, incapable of action and largely holidaying in Jordan, but at least they're not shooting at each other (most of the time).
Comment Posted By Drongo On 16.07.2007 @ 04:12
It never rains but it pours...
Rep. Bob Allen arrested on sex charge
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-bk-boballen071107,0,4502405.story
I mean honestly. You go to high class hookers, you get busted for your phone records, you go for a little cottaging, you offer your favours to a policeman.
Oh well, you've got to laugh.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 12.07.2007 @ 19:14
While I appreciate the reason for more liberal bashing posts recently, I do note that there is one thing that a lot of people are deeply concerned about with regard to the continuing Bush presidency, and that is what actions they will take before 2009.
The primary concern would be that they will attaempt to 'double down' on the Middle East and go for the long awaited airstrikes on Iran. There is some reason to be concerned about such an attack. Cheyney would pretty obviously like it, and Bush might be persuaded that it would be the crowning achievement that ensured that history's reading of him in 100 years would be favourable.
Of course, there is no guarantee that the Dems wouldn't do the same thing, but there is a palpable feeling that if it isn't done in the next couple of years, it will not be done at all, and that a nuclear Iran is inevitable.
Much of the impeachment drive comes from this sort of strategic or moral thinking, trying to prevent complete disaster while there is time.
I don't comment on whether it is right or wrong, but it is certainly a large part of the desire to get rid of B&C before 2009.
"Liberals remind me of Jack Nicholson’s comment on women: “Take a man, and remove reason and accountability.†"
And I just have to note that quoting a character who was created to showcase ignorant boorishness and pathological disregard for the concerns of others in an approving manner is, well, just funny.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 9.07.2007 @ 05:47
"If you had written this exact article six months ago, or a year ago, you would have been castigated by your RW colleagues as a traitor, and an appeaser, and been tarred and feathered."
That's ridiculous. Mr Moran has been saying a variation on this theme for well over six months, probably well over a year.
As for the "I spotted it before you did" nonsense, I put it down to little more than degrees of cynicism and pessimism. I tended to think that the big flaw with any Iraqi advanture was going to be what happened afterwards, strongly suspecting an impossible political situation, others hoped that it would work out differently and that people would come together and build something better than what was before because.
It is a crying shame that the pessimists were right, but I think that in some ways the optimists have the better deal in terms of their goodwill towards humanity.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 6.07.2007 @ 17:04
"a) How to keep the Democrats and media from crowing that they achieved victory over Bush, et. al. I am absoolutely certain that Iraq would be a peaceful democracy iff the Iraqi polititians would do their part;"
Firstly, you'll have to live with it.
Secondly, the Iraqi politicians are doing their part as much as the US ones. What more do you expect?
"b) How do you keep the disaster that would happen to Iraq from spreading to the neighboring countries?"
Honestly, no idea. I doubt that you can do much except support the surrounding countries in whatever way they ask.
"c) How long must we wait to pick up the broken pieces of Iraq and begin helping them rebuild their country after the inevitable chaos of the US military leaving?"
Don't help them. When they get back on an even keel they are quite caoable of putting their country back together again.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 6.07.2007 @ 13:49
NEW JIHADI VIDEO GIVES HEART TO TERRORISTS
"It is a complex mixture of religious and political gamesmanship which some think they can control, and for all our sakes, somebody better hope they can or it could end up really not pretty at all."
Amen.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 5.07.2007 @ 16:44
