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  • From: Jim Allman <jim AT ibang.com>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] Re: U-O, O-O [ASIDE]
  • Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 14:40:55 -0400

On Jul 30, 2004, at 2:13 PM, Tony Spencer wrote:
I only ask you guys to think about what you are saying. You accuse Bush of
lying as well as being capable of convincing quite a few Democrat
congressmen that his lies are true. If that were the case, it doesn't say
much about the intelligence of the leaders of the Democrat party.

"Intelligence" is the key word here. All the people we're talking about are dependent on the findings and analyses of the intelligence community. If their analysis is wrong, all the policy-makers are working from a bad map.

As I understand it, our intelligence services (and those of several other nations) chased a collective phantom here, and the few dissenting analysts were effectively filtered out of the final reports. It's happened before--for instance, the imaginary "Soviet missile gap" of the 1960's--and it'll probably happen again.

To paraphrase Reagan, "Distrust, but verify." Verification means boots and eyes on the ground, and it was Bush that pulled the plug on an active UN inspection regime in Iraq. (It was, after all, a slam-dunk.)

Warlike rhetoric is easy (see the many quotes in Tony's message), and the speaker can always point to conventional wisdom. But actual pre-emptive war is a whole new thang, and it ought to require certainty. A lot of Americans (myself included) gave Bush the benefit of the doubt there, thinking "Surely they know something we don't", and that was a big mistake.

=jimA=

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jim Allman
Interrobang Digital Media
http://www.ibang.com/
(919) 649-5760





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