Why did we go into Iraq?
 

I posted this on another forum, but since you folks are generally smarter than they are, or at least more vocal about your opinions, I thought I'd give you a chance to respond:
I read this post by Digby and it got me thinking:
The leaders of our government lied to us. As a result, our soldiers are in a foreign country dying and not getting anything real accomplished except pissing away shit tons of money and thoroughly irritating off a bunch of people who have shown a willingness to bring the noise back to US soil and US civilians.
So, why isn't anyone beyond 'crazy liberals' standing up and saying, "What the fuck happened here?"

"For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary."

That's from this precious Downing St memo: the Brits, even the skeptical author of the memo, believe that Saddam has WMD and is willing to use them proactively against innocent bystanders.

The memo does not say what you think it does, especially in light of the timetable of 2002-2003. The word "fixed" does not mean what you think it does and the whole thing is the opinion of one person.

Your Digby says "It's true that there have been many hints --- the biggest of which is that, uh, there weren't any fucking WMD --- but this is clear proof that they lied prior to that." Why does he fail to acknowledge the WMD reference in the Downing St memo? Because he can't see it - it's invisible to him, because to acknowledge it would weaken his point of view.

Don't listen to people like that.

Your red quote says that Rumsfeld told them Saddam had WMDs, and the Brits asked questions using that premise.

"fixed" in this case means cherry picked and massaged.

It is not an opinion memo, it is the minutes of a meeting.

The memo does not suggest any such thing. The quote is speculation by Brit military.

It does not. The paragraph tells us that they wanted to use military force and now sought intelligence to justify that approach.

That's a subtle difference, but it's important.

If the US administration wanted to cherry-pick and massage the intelligence, this would not be the subject of a British government meeting with memos.

If any of the Brits in this meeting felt the Americans were lying, chrry-picking or massaging, the meeting would be quite different.

And that section of the memo is the minutes reporting the opinion of one person.

Nice try HM, but your own bias is showing in your interpretation.

Sorry. I indeed read it wrong there.

What is the difference? Making a decision and then asking for intelligence to justify it is the very definition of cherry picking and massaging.
Well, I guess you can always dismiss any report as the opinion of the author. But that was "C's" report on his meeting.

None of which answers my question.
There are serious consequences for what the United States government, as a whole (including the Democrats that voted for war) has done. We have, literally, done exactly what al-Qaeda has told the Islamic world do. That is, invade a sovereign Middle Eastern nation under a pretext (and the Downing Street Memo is just more of a growing body of circumstantial evidence that the reasons given for invading Iraq were all bullshit) to secure a supply of oil.
Long story, short: we blew it. Badly. Yet we still persist in maintaining the illusion, at least at home, that things are going well. They are not. Sure most of the country isn't against us like in Vietnam. But most of the country isn't happy with the way we're acting while we're there.
So, why is no one calling foul on the way the war was originally justified? Or, for a lesser standard: someone give me one reason that the Administration still uses today that it started with in 2002: WMD's? Not a snowball's chance in Iraq. Free Iraq? Not one of the originals, sorry. Links to terrorists: sorry, not true and never was (pre-war). Topple Saddam because he's a bad guy: *ahem* BS.

could you please go back in American history and pick which wars we entered for solely the justifications given to the american public. while you're at it, try to match up the justification that was commonly used at the end of the war with the ones circulated before the war.

i am not saying that you shouldn't be indignant, but it is important to remember that the government has to sell any action it wants to take to the public. quite often the real motives won't excite the masses into support for the plan, so more palatable arguments are used. something about the lowest common denominator.

welcome to gov't by the people, for the people... don't it just suck?

There is a certain segment of the population who believes that anything that happens in the middle east is an oil-grab. We would have gotten much more oil (since there would've been less sabotage) at a much lower price by making nice with Saddam.

It's not about WMD anymore, obviously. It is about liberating a country from an oppressive regime, but with a payoff for the West. By having a secular, democratic buffer smack in the middle of the region (a great strategic location for military as well), we actually fix lots of potential problems. If Syria decides to use the Palestine/Israel conflict to make a major move against the filthy Zionists, we can kick them in the butt and simultaneously block aid from Iran. For that matter, we've thrown a big monkey wrench in the Shiite plan to utterly consume the middle east. Saddam was too secular for them as it was....now that Satan himself has taken up residence, they're worse off than ever. Damn, what if this democracy thing catches on? Lots of white-bearded religious leaders are going to lose alot of political clout.

No, it's not about WMDs. We get it. Bush perpetuated bad info. But it's not as much about oil as it is about a bunch of forward-looking geopolitical maneuvering. I think.

Maybe you weren't aware that the original foreign policy of regime change, by use of military force if necessary, was initiated by President Clinton.

Perhaps you didn't know that it was Clinton's CIA head who called the WMD a "slam dunk" before the Downing Street memo.

Perhaps you didn't concern yourself, pre-war, with the fact that sanctions were a failure as a policy and that the UN became more interested in preserving the status quo than in solving the problems involved, possibly due to corruption.

Maybe you weren't paying attention when the Saudis changed their own stripes to actively pursue al Qaeda.

Maybe you didn't care that a lot of the anti-war rationales worldwide were due to oil contracts given to the various Hussein supporters.

Could it be the administration's non-WMD rationales were very much a part of the stated pre-war justification and that all those rationales are forgotten or ignored by your sources?

Did you not pay attention to Saddam's support for other terrorists or the link to the 1993 WTC bombing, or are those thing not really relevant to you?

Sorry for the stupid attitude I take here, I can't help myself, I would not be an asshole in real life.

to be fair, that is what the UN is meant to do. after all the lofty talk and BS is over, the UN exists to keep borders from changing and bullets from flying. over the years that has come to mean anything is acceptable as long as there isn't a war.

Actually, instead of "secular, democratic buffer", I'd substitute "huge US military base". If it got too democratic, they might vote us out.
Who's worse off? A US presence in the Middle East is exactly what the terrorist leaders need to ramp up recruiting, and military action isn't effective against terrorism.This is exactly what the Project for the New American Century was advocating. Take out Iraq, and build up a military presence in the heart of the Middle East. At the time, connections drawn between the PNAC and its members in the administration were considered to be nutty conspiracy theories. Now the PNAC line is being used as justification after the fact... Weird.

And yet, he didn't invade.

At the time, he was Bush's CIA head. He was wrong, and was given a medal.

The US kicked out the inspectors, who were in the country, inspecting, before the invasion. The sanctions were indeed poorly implemented, and Bush was successful in getting inspections restarted. Unfortunately, that was just for looks, and the new round of inspections wasn't allowed to continue.

I'll bet they did. Wasn't Al Qaeda's central purpose to overthrow the Saudi monarchy?

A lot of the pro-war rationales were from suspect sources as well.

Maybe. Which ones? They played with quite a few before settling on WMD.

Is that from the woman who also thinks 9-11 and Oklahoma City were also planned from Iraq? Or was there some other connection ,too?

Likewise, I'm sure.

The shah and his cronies are. Our presence does make for juicier propogandizing and recruitment tactics, no question. But for the larger goal of establishing one big Islamic superpower with the head in Tehran, it's a backbreaker. Now, instead of using terrorism in conjunction with backroom deal-making to achieve their goals, the Shiites will have to distance themselves from the terror cells they created to get any policymaking to go their way.

And while military action can't answer every terrorist act tete-a-tete, it is effective. Once the tanks come in, it's a war of attrition -- regardless of what kind of war the terrorists would like to wage, we can kill them faster than they can kill us, and eventually they won't have the numbers to be effective. That's not counting the effect that running water, electricity, new schools, hospitals and women voting have on the message of the terrorists.

Every day the NY Times/al Jazeera runs an article talking about the US' failure in Iraq. Every day the death toll rises as more employment lines are bombed by terrorists. Yet every day, the lines fill up again, with more and more Iraqis banding together to take control of their country's future. If one is killed, two more dry their tears and come to stand in his/her place. As more Americans see what's actually occurring in country (thanks to the blogosphere and other non-big-media sources), fewer of them give credence to the obvious political partisanship of the "traditional" media.

All of this can be filed away under "Good Thing".

Why? They've always been "wink wink nudge nudge" distanced from the terror cells officially. Why wouldn't they continue this arrangement now that the cells are getting an influx of new recruits?

And looking at the recruitment numbers, I don't think we're the ones who benefit in a war of attrition. Israel certainly hasn't, despite their military advantage.

There has always been an "everyone does it" mentality in the middle east in regards to terrorism, and it's a shaky foundation. If even ONE country takes an official (and unofficial) stand against terrorism as a matter of policy, the rest have to follow suit. Why? For the same reason that the school bully loses his playground mojo after one person stands up to him.
Israel hasn't gotten serious yet. They came close when they barricaded Arafat in his compound, but they just couldn't pull the trigger on it. May God have mercy on whoever twists Israel's tail hard enough to make it really bite. People seem to see the US as Israel's attack dog, but it's the US that has kept Israel from reducing the whole middle east to a slagheap. At least that's the impression I have.

I'm not sure where you get that, but even granting that, it is based on the assumption that the one country is perceived to be doing it on its own. Which is certainly not the case in Iraq.

It's only based on that perception if you're a coddled introspective Westerner like we are. Someone who has been oppressed for a long time who suddenly has access to basic freedoms and rights isn't going to split hairs over who thought of the idea. Their leadership might, and armchair diplomats might, but not the recipient. Of course, there's a big exception to that rule -- the segment of the population that believes the anti-US propaganda machine. But they think we're there to cook and eat their babies anyway, so no amount of 'splainin is going to convince them -- just results.

As far as the bully metaphor goes, I can't think of an example where that model doesn't work. Is anyone in Europe really concerned about the Nazis gaining a serious foothold again? Once they saw Hitler crushed, they realized they didn't have to put up with his ilk again, and...well, they don't put up with his ilk any more.

Isn't that who you expect to take a stand against terrorism as a matter of policy now that Iraq has fallen? You switched from the leaders of Middle Eastern countries other than Iraq to Iraqi citizens there. The citizens of other countries won't view whatever Iraq's got as freedom as long as the US is calling all the shots. And the US will continue calling all the shots as long as there's a major US military presence in Iraq, which I expect to be for all intents and purposes permanent at this rate.

None of the leaders of any of the middle eastern countries will take a cohesive stand against terrorism until they see that it's not going to fly anymore. Iraq is supposedly going to be the model for the new way of doing things in that region. Other countries' leaders are going to view the new government as a US-controlled puppet (a notion fueled by American and European media -- thanks guys) rather than a healthy change. However, the citizens of those countries (and the citizens of Iraq) are more concerned with their day to day lives. It is those people who will be convinced first, and the change will have to work its way up to the leadership. They have these things called free elections now.

why are we so fucking worried about what a bunch of despots and dictators think? The issue at hand is the Iraqi people, and they are enjoying freedom that they've never had thanks to US intervention. Everyone in the region who sees it is eventually going to want a taste for themselves, thus putting political pressure on their respective goverments. The theory in itself is simple. The execution of it isn't simple at all.

I'm determined to wear you down on this point: A Free Iraq Is A Good Thing, Even If The Hated USA Does The Freeing.

Help me out here, I'm trying to think of a specific "shot they called" since the determination of the final go-ahead date of the election.

It's not the who. It's the how. It's the ends not justifying the means. And the ends aren't even there (yet, hopefully). The lack of Saddam doesn't make them free. Ballots without candidates listed doesn't make a free election. An occupying force dead set against international standards of prisoner treatment doesn't make a free society. Contractors with legal immunity guarantees don't make for a secure environment. If Iraq turns out hunky dory in the end, I'll be glad, but it won't excuse the way it was done.

Please. That election was for a constitutional convention, not a government. There isn't a shot the US hasn't called. We'll see what happens when the actual Iraqi government forms.

So it's a US judge presiding over the Saddam trials then? Please, give me an example.

The ends certainly do justify the means in this case. The lack of Saddam does free them to find another leader. The last batch of ballots might not resemble ours, but they're a big step forward -- these people weren't worried about their pet political figure being beaten, they were worried about making it home from the polling places with all their limbs (made possible by our presence, I don't need to add). Our occupying force is THE standard as far as standards of POW treatment is concerned, which is why we've stooped to "journalism" like that displayed in the Newsweek farce. Gitmo is Club Med compared to the jails those thugs are used to. They are able to raise such a huge ruckus over supposed mistreatment of the Koran while we gloss over the weekly beheading video and moan "look what you've driven the noble Arab to, GW Bush."

Abu Ghraib would be a Motel 6. But even so, being shown nekkid ladies and posed in offensive ways is juuuuuuuust a tad less jarring to the old psyche than, say, having your head sawn off with a dull knife. Priorities, people.

Contractors with legal immunity guarantees? What's so threatening about that? They sleep in a barracks inside a cordoned-off military area (the ones that are smart -- some have tried for private housing, but they often end up shot or beheaded because they took their hostile environment too lightly. Perhaps a little protection for the good guys isn't really such a BAD thing.

The template for the left's argument is the old Vietnam-era notion that: 1. ALL military action is evil (particularly if the US is involved), 2. ALL conservative presidents must be thwarted at any cost, and 3. the media must be unified in making sure the country believes 1 and 2, with no regard to fact.

It's boring, frankly.

Yeah, remember the "Axis of Evil" speech, Iraq, Iran and North Korea, right? Pick one from that list that doesn't have a functioning nuclear program? No, no, don't tell me. Let us all guess. So the model *I* see is get your nuclear sh*t together and you will gain sufficient respect from the US that they'll (we'll) send in the diplomats before we send in the Marines. You're seeing this unfold right now in both N Korea and in Iran. Nice stabilizing precedent Mr President.

With. Good. Reason. I will concede, no, celebrate the fact that Saddam's reign was as awful, heinous and inhuman as can be imagined and that *ANY* change is a move up, maybe many moves up. That in no way diminishes the truth of the statement that the Iraqi people and indeed most people in the Middle East will "view the new government as a US-controlled puppet". 'Cause it is.

How?? We're in an impossible position! We get full credit (extra credit) for all the bad stuff that happens, and, if we're smart give all the credit for anything good that happens to the Iraqis.

Let me tell you something. Democracy, however fine or faulty a system of government it may be, can not be imposed from the outside. It is the flowering of an internal drive. "I command you to be democratic!" is absurd. If obeyed, what does that make us? What does it make the people of Iraq?

Listen closely and I'll tell you. Here's a hint: look at the next quote box, your own words.

What is it that these people are supposed to want? Our conquering might? Cause that's what's making the headlines, top of the pops, number one with a bullet, and likely to stay there for the foreseeable future. Are they supposed to want our, what, our culture, or our system of government? Like they haven't seen that on display now for, hmm, 200 plus years and they're all of a sudden gonna have the atomic munchies for the "American Way"?

We're supposed to worry about what a bunch of despots and dictators think because our actions are seen by the people of those countries and by the bad leaders. How can we be aloof and aggressive to only the leaders and not to the people? Do we want to have the reputation for just being a "government toppler"? "Looky repressed citizens of ______! We'll save you from your government so you can be like us." Which is to say, what? An aggressive pre-emptive war making superpower? Bah.

Under-fucking-statement of the century. And made immeasuably more difficult and unlikely by the actions of this administration. They "say" they're bringing democracy to Iraq (well, they say a lot of shit, don't they?), but what they *do* is different. And when I meet a man that says one thing and does a different thing, what am I to believe? His actions or his words? What do you do, mrnoodle? How do you resolve that cognitive dissonance? Which stake do you uproot and move toward the other? Do you move your memory of the words toward the actions? Or do you edit your understanding of the facts and disregard the data that mismatches the transcripts? Better question--what do you do when this happens a second time, or many times? When do you decide to disregard the words and rely on the actions?

Those are some pretty big concepts--too big for my small smooth brain. Would you help me with some definitions, please? Like what is "Free" and what do you mean by "Iraq"? Here's where I have a problem--how is it a Free Iraq if we're there against the wishes of so many? Who's "free" now? Where's the autonomy, the sovreignity? There's precious little of it in Iraq.

It is in some ways easier to say that Iraq, as a nation, was freer, possesed of more autonomy under Sadaam than it is today. Is "freedom" the same as anarchy? Would you support that? I don't think so. I don't support it. What make a government legitimate and effective and enduring is the consent of the governed. That was conspicuously absent during Saddam's time, although it was effective and enduring from all accounts. That consent is likewise absent in Iraq today. Being wrestled to the mat and made to cry uncle because your boot is on my neck is NOT an expression of my consent.

There will be disagreements in every population, but the oil on those troubled civil waters is a common belief in the rule of law. Law that applies roughly equally to the governors as well as to the governed. This too is absent in Iraq today, just as it was under Saddam.

The most tragic casualty of this misbegotten adventure is our loss of any pretense to the moral high ground. There is MUCH hypocrisy in the difference between what we say is right and what we do. That is sad, and it has reached unprecedented levels of shamefullness.

I hold MY government to a higher standard. Harder, hell yes. But if we're so superior that we're entitled to haze Iraq into our fraternity of democracy, then such standards should apply.

I wish I could bank on that. :(

You have gotten far closer to the truth than some of your replies. They need step back and see the big picture. Point one is a group called Muslim Brotherhood whose existence dates back to the 1400s. Their enemies are secular Arabic governments. They victims include Sadat of Egypt. They tried to take out Hussein of Jordan and nearly took out Assad of Syria. One of their great enemies was Saddam of Iraq.

One branch of the Muslim Brotherhood is Al Qaeda. But to confuse the issues, many (including some here) have even denied the existence of the Muslim Brotherhood - so as to put a single face to the enemy. That propaganda enemy is called Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda did this and that and ... wait? Who attacked the WTC in 1993? Another branch of ... the Muslim Brotherhood. Not Al Qaeda. Why did we suddenly become the enemy of so many branches in the Muslim Brotherhood?

Now we introduce another concept. What is the purpose of war? To return a conflict to the negotiation table. The most stupendous military victory can be lost if the political side does not plan for the peace. It is why war is fought with a strategic objective. It is why plans for the 'peace' settlement are made often before the first major battles are even fought. Informed political leaders are taught the lessons of history - including the most simple of facts from Sze Tsu's 500 BC book "Art of War". An informed neocon administration would have clearly understood that the police and army are never disbanded. But that is the difference between those who learn from history verses extremists who want to fix history with a political agenda.

When FDR and Churchill planned WWII, they established up front the strategic objective: unconditional surrender. If you don't appreciate why that simple phrase was so divisive to what the world would become, then you have not yet learned from history. Many meetings even at the highest levels were conducted to plan for the peace including Yalta, Tehran, etc. Therefore WWII was a victory because political types prepared for and executed an unconditional surrender.

How to not fight a war - no strategic objective - was Vietnam. The war was created on lies - no smoking gun. It had no strategic objective. It had no objectives from which political types could plan for the peace. Same is true in Somalia.

[To be continued in a next post]

Yeah, that left wing media conspiracy... reconcile these results.

BBC News Headline:

That means "no", right?

Here's another gem:

Iran was meddling in Iraqi politics. You say that like it's a bad thing. What do you call what the US has done and is doing? Do you see the value of the higher standard I appealed for earlier? How can I consider seriously Mr Rumsfeld's complaint that another country (Iran) is "meddling" in Iraqi politics? This utterly transparent double standard completely cuts the legs out from your argument that they want what we have. Anybody ever tell you do what I say not what I do? Without some other leverage over you, what credibility does such a command have? Zero. Perhaps slightly greater than zero if it is a negative example you would want to avoid. But that is not the kind of example we're trying to demonstrate, is it?

Back to the media conspiracy. The same day, FOXNews had this Rumsfeld story.

Spoiler Alert: Here is my favorite line in the article:
Emphasis mine. Yeah, "clarity". Hehehehehe.
This is closest to the question asked by the BBC interviewer about the relative safety of the people of Iraq. It really isn't the same question at all and this gives Mr Rumsfeld the wiggle room to say basically the opposite, that "our good actions have had these positive effects" (I paraphrase).

But the same Google news search turned up 87 hits on this item, and FOXNews was the only one that was different. Maybe this is an indictment of Google's news search-bot. But I think it's more likely the editing for clarity that represents difference of content.

[continued from the previous one post]

Now that we have introduced concepts that history students should well understand, we go to the Kuwait rescue war. The strategic objective was so painfully obvious that only a fool would call for a move onto Baghdad. The liberation of Kuwait was a phenomenal military victory rarely ever seen in history. And then when Schwarzkopf asked the political types for the terms of Iraqi surrender, well, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc were all back in Washington drinking champagne. They never bothered to plan for the peace.

Politicians literally threw away one of the world's most amazing military victories. Saddam moved on to massacre thousands - as even the US Army sat five miles away watching. Saddam then attempted to restart his weapons of mass destruction programs knowing full well his borders contained enemies who would hang him if he did not - especially Iran.

Back up a bit. What did we promise the Arab world after the Kuwait rescue? We promised to leave. We did not. The no fly zone and fully staffed US military bases dotted Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf countries, etc. We even located one full naval fleet headquarters right in Arab countries. And so in 1991, Muslim Brotherhood saw a new threat to the Arab world and Islam. Previously, Americans were not targets. They most definitely were now. We lied. US did not leave the holiest of Islamic countries.

The first attack was in 1993 on WTC 1. Technically, the 1st Tower should have collapsed upon the second tower. Due to construction superior to what was on paper, WTC 1 did not collapse. That faction of the Muslim Brotherhood disintegrated as this nation's #1 anti-terrorist investigator broke open the entire network - that faction of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Another faction was attempting to liberate Yemen from communists when they too saw the American's lie. Bin Laden was nothing more than a support operative who promoted himself as a great leader. His successes were mostly fictional. Only a few followed him until America lied about leaving. Suddenly bin Laden had credibility when he focuses on that American lie. And so an obscure radical faction, eventually forced to flee first to Sudan and later to Afghanistan, somehow managed to coordinate two simultaneous attacks on US embassies.

The US knew something was coming. The US just assumed it was coming elsewhere and made preparations elsewhere. As devastating as those attacks were, it harmed few Americans but harmed many native Kenyans and Tanzanians. The blow was that bin Laden, up to this point nothing more than a suspected money man, could be patient enough and sophisticated enough to get low intelligence extremists to be so destructive. Suddenly bin Laden was a new Muslim Brotherhood threat - and was doing something new - targetting America.

There were other Muslim Brotherhood groups. The attack on Kobe Towers. The massive Millennium New Years Day attacks that Clinton stopped by properly warning government officials AND empowered government anti-terrorists to stop those attacks. Clinton took the threat very seriously and promoted Richard Clark's anti-terrorist group to senior White House levels. We found the bomb intended for LAX in WA because the fat, black Custom officer was told to watch for suspicious activity (Clinton would read his PDBs). She called for backup and chased down a suspect who, in turn lead to suspected bombings in Montreal, Times Square New Years Eve, the Radisson Hotel in Amman Jordan, and others. The only attack not discovered (by empowered little government employees permitted to do their job) was the attack on the destroyer USS The Sullivans. That attack failed because terrorists put too much explosives in the boat; the boat sank.

Notice how terrorism fails when a president reads his PDBs and understands them.

Well now we get a president who does not read his memos AND ignored warnings that became known as 11 September. At least five separate FBI teams were on the trail of the 11 September plot. All were forced by senior officials to stop their investigations for various reasons. This administration had other political agendas. Two agents in Chicago who discovered the money trail were literally yelled at, "You will not open a criminal investigation." But the neocons had mistakes in history to fix. Even Richard Clark's anti-terrorist group was demoted from senior level where the bureacracy would first negotiate their recommendations.

Meanwhile, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfovich and other neocons who drank champaign instead of planning for Saddam's surrender realized how they would go down into history. They returned to office still viewing the world in terms of cold war adversaries. The anti-terrorist committee group was even removed from the White House since terrrorism was not part of that agenda. The nation's #1 anti-terrorist investigator (who broke the 1993 WTC attack and identified the USS Coles attackers) was driven from government service. First agenda was to fix the Saddam problem they had created. The terrorism that the mistake made was not considered strategically important. Even the 11 September Commission report makes it obvious.

When bin Laden created 11 September, these White House neocons needed a way to put their Iraq invasion plans back on track. As the UK memo points out, the US intended to attack Iraq long before - which is why neocons were looking for anything to blame Saddam for 11 September. The found gullible Americans who would even belive lies and myths about WMDs - and still today spin some details to prove they were right.

As a result of neocon political agenda, the US military never made a serious attempt to get bin Laden. Furthermore, any attempt was half baked - ill planned afterthoughts - that in Tora Bora literally violated military principles for such combat. Many good soldiers died there due to no long term planning at the highest levels.

The president's Jan 2002 State of the Union Address was rigged so that we would assume Saddam and bin Laden was a same enemy. Something like 70% of Americans intially fell for that lie. Bin Laden is still free because we never sent even one division to get him. The agenda was Saddam - to fix mistakes that neocons created in 1990. Even the UK memo noted that agenda. The attack on Saddam was a done deal long before we were moving troops. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfovich, etc had to fix their reputations - their 1990 mistake. Previously the US was not regarded as an enemy. The neocons mistake even turned Muslim Brotherhood attention against the US.

Now this is long. It cannot be put in to a sound byte. Therefore many readers have long since given up - looking for simpler reasons. There is no simpler answer. The Iraq invasion was planned and intended by the same neocons who also intend to fix the world - part of their larger plan that even includes complete mistrust of the Russians and Chinese (remember the shooting war we almost started with China over a silly spy plane? Thank Colin Powell for finally stifling the American neocons who were openly advocating war with China).

The other two neocon invasion targets are Iran and North Korea. (Why was Syria not put on the list? Syria was a secret ally of the US providing substanical intelligence information about Saddam et al - until we lied about and attacked Sadam.) Only incompetent leaders in both countries would not be building nuclear weapons. America, a country that now condones torture, also intends to unilaterally attack both nations. We said so in the strategic objective defined in January 2002 - the axis of evil. Many did not really believe the US would abandon a well proven doctrine of containment to do what Tojo and Hitler did - unprovoked and unjustified war on another sovereign nation without either a declaration of war or the approval of the UN.

Now that we unilaterally attacked a sovereign nation (Pearl Harbor style), you can damn well bet Iran and N Korea are building numerous defensive WMDs as any responsible nation would do.

There is no mystery to all this - unless you have a political agenda. Extremists will nit pick these lessons of history to no end. Some are still trying to justify their support of a lie about WMDs. But as evidence continues to come forth - from aluminum tubes that were never appropriate for WMD production, to the various factions of Muslim Brotherhood, and latest is a memo written for Tony Blair - this administration intends to fix the world pre-emptively. This administration has decided to force democracy on other nations as part of a larger plan. And yes, even the Caspian Sea Oil pipeline was strategically located based upon a geo-political plan that has been making Russia's Putin very nervous. Don't fool yourself. This administration has a game plan that included fixing their mistakes, getting more oil (instead of innovating), making allies only for our strategic interests, and masking it all with some nonsense about righteousness, Christian values, and democracy.

We know where they intend to go. Troop movements and military base construction has long been in progress for a future Iran invasion. Why do we have so many bases in all those Kha-stan nations in Central Asia? Under George Jr, we intend to fix the world as if it were a white man's burden - and so that we can get more oil - a strategically necessary entity for a country that advocates more consumption, fixing the world by force, less scientific innovation, and more active military-geo-political solutions (pre-emption) in direct opposition to the well proven strategy of containment (prevention).

Believe me. This is the very abridged version.

Learn from the songs of history. It never made sense to me back then. But as I listened all day and night to the BBC's One Day in Iraq, then I began to appreciate what Janis Joplin sang:
How appropriate for a Mission Accomplished war. We couldn't force democracy on Haiti or upon Somolia. Democracy is only starting to grow in Balkan regions that finally separate from Serbia - and with over a decade of military occupation of people who really want democracy. Somehow we will force democracy upon Iraq - who never asked for democracy - when our leaders have so little intelligence as to even disband the army and police.

If democracy is such a good solution, then why can't we even force down the throats of Haitians - who don't even suffer under daily violence and insurgency.

I hope you don't really believe that, and are just using a metaphor for how Fox News operates as a whole. "Edited for clarity" is an official copyediting phrase when writing transcripts. It means they took out all the "uh, er, soo--I mean, see..." crap that normal people say. If you've ever read a real unedited transcript, they can be pretty hard to understand.

If you're just being facetious about how Fox News chooses what they say as compared to other news stations, fine. But don't imply that they're literally changing the words coming out of their own spokespersons in their transcripts, that doesn't even make sense.

It's not a left-wing media conspiracy, it never has been. It is simply the natural, unavoidable bias of reporters doing what they believe is right--it is a statistical fact that a large majority of journalists vote democratic, just like it is a statistical fact that security in Iraq has not improved. Nobody at BBC thinks to themselves, "Oooh, yes, today we're gonna really ream that Cheney guy!" and nobody at Fox News says, "Yes, we all know this war was a complete mistake, but let's release a few stories pretending we believe otherwise."

We're dealing with what these journalists truly believe to be right in their hearts, and it is impossible for that bias not to come out one way or another. That's why we have multiple news sources.

BigV, you seem to have not been watching the news when a greater percentage of Iraqis turned out at the polls than normally do in the US despite the threat of violence.

The notion that some people don't "want" their government to operate with the consent of the governed is abhorrent to me, and often racist. The consent of the governed is the centerpiece of representative government and is the only legitimate source of sovereignty. The source of Saddam's sovereignty was tyranny -- he had the biggest guns and the greatest will to use them. I don't believe that anyone who does that has the right to claim sovereignty. No that doesn't mean we can just walk in and use our bigger guns to flip them -- but to deeply respect that version of sovereignty just means that more tyrannies will arise.

In a way, this argument is as pointless as one about religion, because our most basic views about what our country is and what it represents are on opposite poles. One side thinks that America stands for everything that's right about the world -- freedom to say what you want, believe what you want, try for whatever goal you set for yourself. The other side believes any action by America is inherently wrong. That's before any real facts come out -- at the outset of any world event, half of our population already believes we're the bad guys. You're not going to ever convince those people of anything. Their model of responsible, fair, just government is the United Nations.

And I'm not disputing that democracy has to come from within a country. I do dispute that a democratic movement with America as its wingman is a bad thing. In our own revolution, we had a "coalition of the bribed" helping us as well. And doing it for internally selfish reasons. But we're free today nonetheless. In fact, that's an interesting point -- if all those big bad European meanies with their organized armies could come into a second-world country and back our sorry militias with their big guns, why can't we do the same in Iraq? I can hear the leftists in France in 1780 -- "we're only there for the timber and potash! We just want to establish our own frontier outposts to trade furs and get rich while our children staaaaarve!"

mrnoodle, your comment about political views being on opposite poles reminds me that you haven't taken the Political Compass self test. I would be really curious to know where you stand. I encourage you to take it and post the results in that thread.

Good grief. Now you're just being stupid.

No, I'm being realistic. There are kneejerks on both sides, but there is a sizeable portion of the population that immediately views ANY foreign policy stance taken by the US as some kind of power/oil/money grab that treads on the little guy while lining the coffers of the privileged. The only exception to this in the last 30 years is Bill Clinton, and he was so ineffectual from a foreign policy standpoint as to have never held the office. He showed up for photo ops and otherwise stayed firmly on the fence whenever possible (if Kofi gets jailed, his position is ready-made for Bill). I'm at work, don't make me go looking for the scores of thousands of newspaper/magazine articles that support my claim.

I'll take the test, but I'm already leery of the weighting of it....
I can already see where this is going. If someone in a corporation profits, then humanity suffers? If humanity is served, it can never be through the model of capitalism (which involves so many of those big mean corporations)?

Sigh. I'll bite. I'll edit and put my results in this post.

edit -- economic left/right = .63
social libertarian/authoritarian = .56

Dot's in the first square to the NE of the axes.


But really, some of those questions. :eyebrow:

That score is not what I was expecting. According to this test, you and lookout123 are the centrists of this forum. I guess it's all about perspective. From where I stand, you seem ultra-conservative and authoritarian. Maybe that says more about me than about you.

make sure you post your results in the political compass thread. we tend to revisit that from time to time.

And me makes three. Somebody has to be considered a radical moderate.

just curious Glatt - where didyou expect me to land? i've been getting curious about how other cellarites view my personal political/social leanings.

Can you criticize your government? Is it allowed during war? If you question, are you a wacko?
Is questioning of authority a bad thing?
I thought it was a pretty patriotic endeavor. And historically, it has been prudent.

As a moderate, liberal, and yet patriotic individual, here is some of what I think I understand:

Iraq posed a complex threat to us and the world. Iraq offered strategic political and economic options. Saddam threatened to kill Bush, Sr.

Iraq was not directly or even closely linked, however, to bin Laden and 9/11.
The operations in Afghanistan suffered from the diversion of Iraq. The taliban are still active, its still volitile, and bin Laden is hanging out elsewhere, recruiting. Now there is an al queda link to Iraq.

The political time was right to readdress Iraq.
Iraq might have had weapons. We didnt believe that the inspectors were right. The intelligence we had was not correct. Some expert opinions were not heard. The Downing St memo proves nothing, but adds to a larger image of sausage making.

The Whitehouse did not make a strong case for war, they made strange claims and played fear. Blair did a better job. I need clearer justification to not be alarmed by this stance that will spend US lives.

The administration did not have a smart enough strategy, has tried to adjust, but blew some great opportunities. It did not comprehend the complexities and did not listen to military advice that warned of exactly the many problems that occured- too few to secure peace, lack of training, equiptment, insurgency.

Corporate money has been made. The Government is in debt.
We have not been attacked since, but we are no safer.

Yup yup, we wind up with a similar narrative.

It was fundamentally a justifiable idea, maybe even a good idea, if not absolutely necessary, and may still wind up working out, and I prefer to be optimistic about it;

However, it was TERRIBLE idea if done POORLY... and the fact that we're so far out already and still wondering what the true outcome will be just doesn't speak well to it all.

Add onto that the administration's basic inability to communicate. It goes beyond the comic take on W's speechifying. My own pet theory is that Bush's previous speechwriter Karen Hughes was the only one who could truly finagle W's inarticulation into a true positive. They don't communicate well and they rarely get their own point across with the media. They treat the media as the enemy. So eventually the common point of view is that there's some sort of fix, because the administration gets all defensive, doesn't get it's message across, and seems to only care enough to make sure 51% of the public agrees.

It seems to be, for the last 4 years, as the Texans say, It has "done been done poorly". This has zapped my natural inclinations towards optimism here.

We differ in that I think the unilateral invasion, the poorly presented and informed and manned shock and awe, was a bad idea from the get go. Its continued from there.

Again, GW's articulation aside, the Bush Admininstration's secretiveness, isolation, and blatant media manipulation (buys, photo ops, diversions, staged events), communicates mostly that they have a lot to hide.

Jeez...I leave the thread for 24 hours and there are more posts than I can reasonably respond to. So, I'm going to try and respond cogently to as much as I can (okay, to what I want to).
My first problem is the way that the war was justified, is prosecuted and continues coveys the message to the world is the ends justify the means. That is not an acceptable foreign policy. It is ultimately self-destructive. The United States is supposed to be the 'shining beacon on the hill.' Instead, we're the searchlight at the gulag. Terrific.
More specifically, the justifications for the war were twisted, folded, mutilated, and spindled to fit ideological goals. Yes, there were non-WMD reasonings for invading Iraq. But frankly, none of them mattered. None of them gave the US any legal basis for the invasion of a sovereign nation.
Further, the prosecution of the war was completely deluded. Rumsfeld overrode his generalss recommendations for overwhelming numbers. There weren't enough 'civil' soldiers (folks who could speak the native languages, MP's/police, Corp of Engineers, etc). The State Department's post-action planning was completely ignored. For example, no military units occupied or even protected hospitals, power stations or sub-stations, or other vital, civilian locations (like the museums). Why not? If you, as an invader and aren't planning on rebuilding the country from the ground up, those are critical sectors of administration that were left to be looted and rendered useless.
Ultimately, all of this points out something fundamental: tremendous political ability (i.e., they're great at spin) but horrible management.
So, back to my original question. Why is no one in the mainstream pointing this out?

some truth to this, but more accurately he caved to the generals in some regards (tactics) but still tried to keep his own view in place (strategy). the two were working from completely different starting points, so in the end you get FUBAR.

Rumsfeld and some of the senior military leadership belong to the school of thought that Col. John Boyd (USAF ret) spent his life developing, preaching, teaching, and cramming down everyone's throats. (ever hear of the OODA loop?) Boyd was the man behind the strategy for Gulf War I.

the basic idea is that you don't need overwhelming numbers to defeat an enemy, rather approach the enemy as water running down a hill. give most of the control to the people at the lowest level to do what needs to be done, sweep through an area, destroy any resistance, and move on to the next - QUICKLY. pockets of strong resistance should not hold up the momentum of the main force. surround them, cut them off with a smaller amount of assets, crush them into rubble if necessary, but move on quickly. only combat troops enter the fray - REMFs and soft personnel need not apply.

in this way, a small number of combatants can defeat much larger enemy forces.

things that weren't addressed: 1) to this day, only the marines have decided that everyone in their uniform must learn this and live this. a majority of the army and air force senior leadership cringe at the mention of Boyd. 2) this strategy requires a willingness to destroy the enemy, not just disarm and discourage them. 3) this strategy only deals with the battle plan, occupation of a nation requires more police, civil engineers, etc.

rumsfeld attempted to prosecute this war using Boyd's method without broadbased support from senior army leadership (who also effed it up in Gulf War I). this is something even Tommy Franks bitched about at the time - the Jt Chiefs were trying to get involved and scratch out their own territories. if everyone is not on the same page, you got no chance.

going back over this, it is extremely obvious that Boyd can't be summarized in a post. I recommend a biography that was released a couple of years ago simply titled, BOYD.

here is an article by one of his acolytes immediately following the war.

This has plenty of info and good links to keep you busy for days, possibly weeks.

Fair enough. But it still equals shite management if you can't even get the people whose job it is to kill your enemies to agree.

ever been in the military?

Boyd worked in the pentagon throughout the 70's and 80's. the F-15 and
F-16 were his creations, although he hated the piles of shit that were produced after the brass and bureaucracy got their hands on them. he was at the center of a movement to shake things up, this went through congress before being killed off. (cheney first made a national name for himself as part of that group). Boyd spent his entire life trying to get some very simple points across. he was a pariah in the air force, persona non grata in the army, the antichrist for the navy. the only ones who accepted and believed in this Air Force colonel were the US Marines. they all teach his principles in basic officer courses now. of course the only ones who acknowledge his name are the US Marines.

all that to say this - the top echelon of military commanders exist for one purpose alone - to protect and preserve their little empires. a change in the core responsibilities of a specific branch will be met with extreme opposition. that is why it takes several generations to get changes pushed through.

So you agree that Rumsfeld is a bad leader?

Headsplice, you mention the protection of cultural sites: I know a bit about one.
I met a woman that served as the army's cultural liason officer to the Iraq National Museum. She was there within months of the invasion working with the small staff and had the support of soldiers, MPs and even Italian curators! (but frustratingly, no conservators) Stuff was done. The order was not to fire on these sites unless fired upon from them, and that seems to have been followed, back then. The looting of objects was way overblown by the press, by the time looters got there, it was mostly huge artworks and office equipment. Lots of tiny cylinder seals are still missing.
She had some great stories that I cant do justice. She returned to the states and retired from the army reserves. Looting does occur at archeological sites but is impossible to inforce when so much else takes precident.

The Iraqi museum staff did a good, and rather heroic job of hiding stuff- the press didnt note that the empty glass cases in their photos were not broken. There is a recognition that the custody of historical property poses the next most important economic asset, beyond oil. The museum now has a team of Iraqi guards, some new fortification. They get some care packages of supplies from other countries, but are on their own. Hearing her, I got how much the perception and reality of safety in Bagdad has changed. She was there before it got really deadly. You can forget how much the climate has changed.

This now retired officer, who lost people close to her and worries about those still serving, made one political comment, "We should never have gone into this without the plan and the troops to do it right."

All (the principles of Boyd, the decisions of Rumsfeld, etc) is totally irrelevant to your original question. The discussion has now bogged down on tactical objective; not about the question which is one of strategic objectives. In many ways, this discussion has also bogged down into the irrelevant. Demonstrates why America invaded Iraq that was a diminishing threat. Clearly there were no facts that Saddam had WMDs. Our own spies (ie Syria, et al) said such weapons probably did not exist; were fictions created by Saddam so that his enemies would not attack. The UN inspectors could not find WMDs. Indeed, when past inspectors admitted same publicly, then people such as UT would accuse them of being child molesters. How does child molestation related to strategic concepts. It does not. It was provided because so many Americans could not compartmentalize - keep things in perspective - separate the irrelevant from analysis of America's strategic objectives.

The concept is demonstrated by fractals. Take a satellite picture of England. Measure England's perimeter. Now get closer - airplane perspective. The coastline perimeter increases? Why? Perspective changes. Now walk England's beaches. That coastline becomes even longer. Now measure the coastline using microscopes. Again the perimeter is even longer. Perspective changes the overall conclusion. Furthermore England from a microscopic viewpoint looks nothing like England from the satellite. Welcome to fractals - and the concept of perspective.

Propaganda is to confuse an issue using tools such as lying by telling half truths and by changing perspective. That England coastline from a satellite looks nothing like the same coast using a microscope. So propaganda argues from a microscopic viewpoint. How can the same thing appear so different using two different perspectives? All this nonsense about Rumsfeld's tactical objectives is totally irrelevant to the question. Topics about Rumsfeld and Boyd demonstrate how to confuse an issue - Rush Limbaugh style.

Fundamental to the issue is why we so screwed up during the liberation of Kuwait - ending the war too early for political purposes AND not making any plans for the peace. Those same neocons so needed an excuse to change history - to correct the mistake they made by not doing their job; by not first learning a basic concept - the purpose of war. Logic says those neocons in 1990 failed to perform their job - creating 10+ years of military involvement (ie no-fly zones patrols, trade embargos) and leaving Saddam fully empowered in Iraq. The same logic also says those same neocons did not plan for the peace in 2002. One would have expected them to have learned from their first mistake. They made the exact same mistake again - having not learned basic strategic concepts from both history and their own previous mistake.

Your question can only be answered from a strategic perspective. How Rumsfeld planned for war is only to confuse the issue and to avoid the 'perspective' of the original question. However those answers demonstrate why do many let a lying president unilaterally 'Pearl Harbor' another sovereign nation - and the people did not complain. Your answers demonstrate why so many Americans think emotionally rather than first demand facts. Many conveniently let the propaganda micromanage facts into discussions of irrelevant details.

The strategic objective: those neocons screwed up the political settlement in 1991 AND they did the same mistake in 2002 resulting in widespread looting. Did the looting exist? Obviously. So again, they deflected any accusation of incompetence. They denied the looting existed so that no one would ask, "Why they again had no plan for the peace." - a violation even of principles defined in 500 BC.

It’s called propaganda. Confuse the issue with irrelevant nonsense about how Rumsfeld planned for the war - so we don't ask why Rumsfeld, et al never bothered to plan for the peace.

MWUHAHAHAHA. yes tw. that was my plan. confuse the issue to hide the truth - because lord knows, that no cellar thread ever shifts focus but for the evil machinations of a conservative.

FWIW i brought up Boyd and the like because of this statement -uh, hyeah! i don't believe he deliberately orchestrating the destruction of mankind. i do believe that he is too arrogant and shortsighted to take stock of his own abilities and shortfalls. without that knowledge he has been unable to build a support team to compliment his strengths.

What is relevant? I'm not saying that reviewing the original case, looking for factual truth with the help of history isnt worthy, but...
We're way into Iraq. What is our current mission statement, today? How do strategically succeed, now? What would success look like? What kind of Iraq is acceptable? How do we get there? You cannot kill them all. You might think you can, but there are always more. How do you best manage terror at home and around the world?

Oppurtunities to avoid the original question - to diffuse the issue into things totally irrelevant. The question is "Why did we go into Iraq?" More specifically, the question is Why is bandwidth wasted on what Boyd tried to accomplish or what Rumsfeld did with troop numbers. Demonstrated again by lookout123 is why reasons for a screwed up "Mission Accomplished" war are not being discussed.

The discussion spins into one about troop numbers rather than into the strategic objective of that military action. Looking at the "Mission Accomplished" war microscopically rather than in its proper (and flawed) objectives therefore avoids an embarrassing answer. Most specifically, "planning for the peace" is intentionally ignored here AND was intentionally ignored back in 2002. 'Strategic objective' (lack of one) is the answer.

To measure Rumsfeld's competence: why did he subvert any planning for the peace? There was planning for the peace. The people who were doing that planning were simply transferred - then dismissed. Logic just like in Vietnam: if we blow things up, then we will win. Tactical objectives are sufficient to win a war. The means justifies the ends (along with 'light at the end of the tunnel'). Reasoning that caused a stunning US defeat in Vietnam. Appreciate the concepts of tactical and strategic. The US military won virtually every battle - militarily. But was soundly defeated - strategically.

There was no planning for the peace in 1991 AND in 2002 by the same neocons. They even stifled such plans. Demonstrated are political types that wasted such good military work. A warning even within a recently leaked UK memo. George Jr administration had no plans for the peace because the strategic objective was flawed. He did not even have a 'smoking gun' to justify the unilateral invasion. So he lied.

Lookout123 again avoids the purpose of a "Mission Accomplished" war - headsplice's original question. Lookout123 posts repeatedly ignoring the primary (and embarrassing) topic - the strategic objective. Even Rumsfeld’s competence should have been answered by discussing Rumsfeld’s 'planning for the peace' – the strategic objective. Instead it was answered with nonsense about size of a military force and Boyd’s accomplishments. How to avoid answering the damning question: the strategic objective - planning for peace. Discuss troop numbers so this question (and Rumsfeld's competence) need not be answered:

One need only go back to history to answer your question. Currently the same answer is found in Nigeria, Congo, and Haiti. There is no solution until the people there want a solution. Brent Scowcroft (who so often reflects the viewpoint of George Sr) basically stated what may be necessary - civil war. One very possible solution is total withdrawl. Either they will suddenly find no enemy (Americans), or the resulting civil war (just like in Lebanon) is necessary for the people to want peace. Also, as in Lebanon, the neighboring powers successfully brought about the desired end of violence. An Iraqi solution is better found in Arab states - and not in American occupation that even requires Green zones.

The current American attitude of military might solving political problems is historically wrong. They must 'want' a solution. We cannot impose it. Currently America is trying to impose a solution on Iraq. It will not happen as demonstrated by how Iraq is slowly falling into the same pattern of Vietnam.

Warch - your question was the exact same question we asked in Vietnam. What was the answer? Admit defeat? The American strategic objective in Vietnam was flawed - could not work. If you think the status quo is Iraq is solving the problem, well then explain why safe cities such as Mosul and Kirkuk are even failing into violence - just like in Vietnam.

First ask - what really is our strategic objective? To impose a government, or to setup a puppet government? Again, civil war may be necessary so that Iraqis can agree they want a common government. One cannot honestly anwer when one blindly believes America has provided freedom. Listen to Iraqis. They did not like Saddam. But most Iraqis had more freedoms back then. They had freedom of movement. They had electricity and water. Outside of rebel areas, Iraqis were not dying so routinely. All part of a country that cannot even agree yet on what it wants. Even the Kurds were doing business with Saddam back then. It was not as bad as poltical extremists in America would have us believe - just like in the days of Vietnam.

I don't find the 'politically incorrect' solution of total withdrawl that wrong. Others who Iraqis trust may then be so shocked as to move in - to provide a real solution as Syria did in Lebanon. At some point, Americans must admit the status quo is not making things better. And just like in Vietnam, the American public perception was otherwise.

Are you ready for 20 years in Iraq? If denying reality as Nixon did in Vietnam, then expect Americans to be dying in Iraq for decades - followed by a country not that friendly to Americans.

A realistic strategic objective would also make an exit strategy obvious. Where is the exit strategy? None existed because there was no strategic thinking by poltical extremists. None currently exists. There comes a time (even in business), that a threshold is defined. Sometimes the only solution is bankruptcy. Funny thing about bankruptcy. It suddenly creates solutions (ie Chrysler, NY City, Ford, etc) where others did not have the balls to face facts. We should have a timetable that says, "after this point we leave no matter what". But that would require a president with balls; not one with political agendas. Notice how brutal and realistic my thinking is - because it has contempt for both left and right wing rhetoric. If you want a solution, your thinking better be that ruthless. Most of us are not ready to be so realistic. We even deny those lessons of history; never even bothered to read the Pentagon Papers.

I do understand that.

Partly facetious. Because in this case, this post, it's about two different interviews, and even I can't fairly compare them in the way I have. So, half credit for effort at humor. But the NON-facetious half is ominous.

I was implying that, for the unflattering humorous effect, but I'll leave the attempts at humor aside and plainly affirm your statement. I do believe that FOXNews can, has, and does say what they want, when they want, how they want. And to let the different interpretations of many of the words we (FOX and you and I) all use lie unexamined, to OUR disadvantage.

I mean words that you and I almost certainly share a common definition for, like, "transcript" and "report" and "news" and "fair" and "journalism". To me, and to you, I'm certain, these are pretty concrete terms, objective. Probably "fair" is the most subjective term in the list. But take "report" for example. To me that means what I read in the dictionary: to say what happened. I'm sure you and I agree on this point. I contend that FOX does not, not in a strict, consistent way.

The common term for this is "spin" and it's present in everything FOX touches. The most prominent example, to me, is their title: FOXNews, implying, well, "news". There is enough of what reasonable people would agree on qualifies as "news" to give that appearance at first glance. But paying closer attention clearly reveals a substantial difference. They call themselves a news program, but they are an entertainment program. Their function is to get you stay tuned through the commercials. Whatever it takes to get that to happen is what they'll do, and if that means calling it news, so be it.

When I go fishing, I call that little worm a "meal". It could probably stand up in court, too. But I am certain the fish would have a considerably different opinion, even if, no, especially if he actually ate the worm.

FOXNews is to news as Jay Leno's monologue is to news. They're both topical (there's the "news" ingredient), but Leno plays it for laughs and FOX plays it for spin favorable to it's corporate sponors and self-interests.

It's not just words like news, report, fair, transcript, but everything that comes from their corporate mouth. Don't believe me? Check this out. This is the story of FOX going to court, and winning, to protect their right to LIE. (How could I make this shit up?!) An excerpt:
They call it news, I call bullshit.

http://www2.eou.edu/socprob/lecture/sp03/bias2.htm

This is a good opening analysis of the starting point you make.

Indvidual bias, a person's point of view that they bring is acceptable, it has to be since it's unavoidable. An individual's biases can be observered and be compensated for, to the extent that you know that person. But this can be difficult if the listener is anticipating for one set of biases and a different set of biases are at work. But you make an important and in this case dangerous mistake in your argument above. By starting with the individual's biases, and filtering accordingly, you can miss the biases of the organization that produces and delivers the content.

You and I see and hear the reporters and interview subjects and think about the biases at work in these people. The biases of the news organization are easily overlooked. This can lead to the mistake described. By attributing the individual's biases to the story and compensating accordingly, you miss the company line. And in every case from independent producers to GalacticMedia, it is the company's biases that trump the individual's (reporter's) biases. Every. Time.

It is possible for the distance from the reporter to the CEO to be quite small, even zero for bloggers, for example. And it is also possible for the company's biases to be neutral or neutral leaning. This can let more of the reporter's biases shine through. But it's the company that has the final say. And to fail to recognize that can lead to some pretty serious disconnects.

Clodfobble, your optimism gladdens my heart. I am not being sarcastic, I wish to pay you a thankful compliment. I see this remark as hopeful, bordering on naive. Your other posts don't reveal a naive streak that I can detect, so hopeful it is.

So why did we go into Iraq? Clearly Saddam was conspiring with Al Qaeda. Apparently top anti-terrorist officials who get promoted don't know the difference between Al Qaeda (which is blamed for everything excepting ending the world) and other entities. No wonder the administration would put out repeated Orange Alerts for threats that did not exist. No wonder this nation's top anti-terrorist investigator was all but driven out of the FBI by the George Jr administration. When propaganda demands blaming everything on Al Qaeda, then no wonder the George Jr administration never mentions Muslim Brotherhood. Apparently they even don't trust FBI agents that speak fluent Arabic. Apparently they don't yet know what the Muslim Brotherhood is. Or maybe its just too convenient to pretend Muslim Brotherhood does not exist.

Now, TW, if you'd been keeping up with your conspiracy theories you'd know that Bin Laden suddenly having access to lots of money coincided with the UN relaxing the Oil for Food restrictions on Iraq in 1996.

I here he has also taken on a new alias: Farmer Laden. Even sounds plausible.

From my rep last week:

...see, its not just me...I'm not flip flopping...I am a conservative and a christian....I just....I just.....want to be reelected.