Coyote Blog

Much as I dislike Gore, watching a blatantly manipulated election and ending up with Dubya running wild for 8 years kinda takes the humor out of the last sentence.

> Since we know from Gore that heavy snow, no snow, heavy rain, and no rain are all caused by global warming, his 2000 electoral defeat was obviously caused by manmade CO2.

Clearly, t'was all a plot by Bush cronies in the oil & coal industry to get him elected.

> there is little indication that Gore would have done better. Just take a look at Obama.

Not at all, there is EVERY indication that Gore would have done better, in the fact that Saddam would still be in power, armed with nuclear weapons, and one or more nukes or bioweapons would have already been used on US Soil by terrorists.

Gore would have dithered and whimpered "whatever shall we dooooooo?!?!?!"ed his way into position as the Worst PotUS since Jimmy Carter. Then Obama would have had no shot at that title, since, after all, we'd be in the middle of another 12-yr conservative PotUS cycle just like the one that followed old James Earl...

"Every generation, the tree of liberty must be replenished with the experience of what postmodern liberal Democrats are all about..."
- IGotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society -

@IgotBupkis

Err, ok. I kind of like you, but you are aware that there never were any nuclear or biological weapons or weapons programs in Iraq during the second gulf war (Bush himself is on record stating so; Bush senior did the job of disarming Iraq thoroughly in the first Gulf war), that the Bush jr. administration fabricated plenty of fake evidence to make the case for war and that if we hadn't barged in there or at least had the smarts to pull out once we got rid of Saddam instead of killing more civilians than during the war in the occupation phase we'd have spend a few trillion less of taxpayer money, would be exactly as safe and probably would have had a peaceful revolution by now like we've had in Tunesia and Egypt at absolutely no cost to the American taxpayer?

Me: One point of order: "... peaceful revolution by now like we’ve had in Tunesia and Egypt at absolutely no cost to the American taxpayer?"

We've invested 100's of Billions on Egypt to keep the dictator in power. If the country falls apart and turns into another Lebanon, that's for almost nought.

I don't think I'd call losing an "investment" of 100's Billions "no cost". There might be something salvageable there, but I sincerely doubt that the present Administration is capable of an actual salvage operation.

> but you are aware that there never were any nuclear or biological weapons or weapons programs in Iraq during the second gulf war (Bush himself is on record stating so; Bush senior did the job of disarming Iraq thoroughly in the first Gulf war), that the Bush jr. administration fabricated plenty of fake evidence to make the case for war and that if we hadn’t barged in there or at least had the smarts to pull out once we got rid of Saddam instead of killing more civilians than during the war in the occupation phase we’d have spend a few trillion less of taxpayer money, would be exactly as safe and probably would have had a peaceful revolution by now like we’ve had in Tunesia and Egypt at absolutely no cost to the American taxpayer?

OK, let's fisk this:

> but you are aware that there never were any nuclear or biological weapons or weapons programs in Iraq during the second gulf war (Bush himself is on record stating so; Bush senior did the job of disarming Iraq thoroughly in the first Gulf war),

1) Hans Blix -- hardly a Bush shill, and someone intimately familiar with EXACTLY what Saddam was able to accomplish before and after the war -- is ON RECORD as acknowledging that Saddam was within 90 days of being able to produce Anthrax in industrial quantities, 180 days of producing Botulin in industrial quantities, once sanctions were lifted (I may have those products reverse on the timeline). I believe this is carefully buried in his UN testimony and final report on WMDs in Iraq, and thoroughly ignored by the media.

2) Saddam's misuse of the "Oil for Food" monies clearly had him on track to get said sanctions lifted in fairly short order (probably not more than a year, certainly less than two) -- basically by bribing UN officials in a manner that makes Enron look like total and absolute cheapskate pikers.

Ergo, Saddam would have had ABC's within not more than 3 years from the onset of the war had the war not intervened. Call it before the end of 2006.

> that the Bush jr. administration fabricated plenty of fake evidence to make the case for war

Oh, REALLY? Your basis for this absurd claim? Code Pink? Your leftist next-door neighbor in Berkley?

> and that if we hadn’t barged in there

> or at least had the smarts to pull out once we got rid of Saddam
... which would have led to a total internal collapse of the social infrastructure, the probable death of millions (as opposed to the 200k to 300k as has been reported by some rather lefty organizations), and the almost certain conditions such as those in Darfur, with a plethora of military strongmen vying for power in a totally failed nation.

Yeah, that's the lefty idea of "smart", I grant: "F*** 'em all. I got mine."

> instead of killing more civilians than during the war in the occupation phase
Right. As above, we wouldn't be getting blamed for those millions of death since we weren't there to stabilize things after the government collapsed...
Oh, wait, it's a great bet that we would, that the media would be screaming about it still (because it would still be on-going, just as Darfur has been for a decade now -- only much more visibly)... and it would all be George Bush's fault (and they'd almost have a point in THIS hypothetical case).

> we’d have spent a few trillion less of taxpayer money,
Granted. Well, actually, no.
Obama would have just spent it all anyway.
But sorta, yeah.

> would be exactly as safe

Yes, because Saddam would not be giving ABC's to terrorists. He didn't like terrorists, which is why he didn't have three of the world's six known terrorist training camps as of 2002 operating inside Iraqi borders. That's why he didn't give hundreds of thousands of dollars to the families of the 911 hijackers. He HATED terrorists.

No, wait. Uh... never mind.

Or (alternate scenario):

Iraq collapsed, grinding poverty and death everywhere, with the media all blaming it on the USA's "irresponsible pull-out" after removing Saddam.

THAT sure as hell wouldn't be generating a few hundred thousand terrorists and a few million sympathizers across the entire middle east.
NAWwwwww.

> and probably would have had a peaceful revolution by now like we’ve had in Tunesia and Egypt at absolutely no cost to the American taxpayer?

Ah, yeah, just like the one that deposed Ahminajad in 2009... Right?

Because we ALL know that Saddam learned his lesson after gassing 300,000 Kurds, and would NEVER, EVER use ABCs on protesters as ruthlessly as needed to stay in power -- we also KNOW that, like Egypt's military, the Fedayeen would NEVER EVER have fired on the protesters. Nawwwww...

What the hey -- Let's utterly ignore the notion that it has been, in fact, the opportunities for democracy and franchise that IRAQ ITSELF has shown the Islamic peoples it is capable of which has led to loud clamoring for it in Lebanon (failed so far), Palestine (effectively failed so far), Saudi Arabia (some reforms) and, most particularly -- EGYPT.

No, the exact same events would have occurred without the Iraqis standing there on broadcast television and YouTube videos with their purple-stained fingers held proudly high in the air. That had no effect at all. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. And PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN, DAMMIT!!!

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Regarding your link to the rather openly leftist Guardian (and yes, pretty much everyone -- including The Guardian, acks this):

"The biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq," Bush told ABC television in an interview scheduled for broadcast last night. "I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess."

The Guardian's imbecilic interpretation:
last night admitted that the decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein on the basis of flawed intelligence was the biggest regret of his presidency.

WHAT? Those two aren't even CLOSE to the same statements. NOT EVEN THE SAME BALLPARK.

Bush is expressing regrets that the intel turned out to be WRONG, not the actions that resulted from it.

This flaw was used, rather endlessly, as a tub-thumping mechanism for sub-literate geniuses (i.e., those who can't read a simple declarative statement like he made and re-organize it with any competence) -- like yourself -- to criticize and find problems with not just the war, but with just about every aspect of it, good or bad, which followed. The claim being made by sub-literate geniuses (again, that would include YOU) that the war was illegitimate as a result of that inaccurate intel (despite a large number of alternative reasons -- 10 alternative reasons, IIRC, stated in his SOTU address -- for going to war).

In other words -- Bush himself delineated 11 different reasons for going to war in Iraq. ONE of them has turned out to be incorrect. Does the media ack the existence of the other 10, even to the point of attempting to tear them apart, too? F*** no! They just IGNORE those. They've found their whipping boy, ignore all those others!!

And this, also from The Guardian:
> But he followed that moment of candour with an attempt to try to deflect charges that the White House misled Congress and the public to build a case for war, arguing that there had been widespread belief that Saddam had a nuclear arsenal.

Yes, there aren't a RAFT of statements from members of the Clinton Admin, as well as Dems in Congress -- many dating from BEFORE Bush was even elected -- in which those same people claimed Saddam had weapons. No, it's "All George's Fault!"

"Bush lied", idiots cried!

> He was not asked about allegations that political pressure was brought to bear on the CIA and other intelligence agencies in the run-up to the war.

He was not asked about someone claiming Hillary had a lesbian relationship while First Lady, nor about Gore's large and varied collection of women's underwear. He also was not asked about allegations that Bill Clinton has AIDS he got from gay sex in a SF bathhouse.

He wasn't asked about ANY of these things.

Just sayin'...

@Don - btw, thank you for that argument, spot on.

My meta-take on this one is that I'd prefer for us not to invest billions into dictatorships due to their unstable nature.

Timely news: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/02/source-of-the-iraqi-wmd-claims-comes-clean/