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[Jim Allman <jim AT ibang.com>]

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=

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