Friday, January 13, 2006

I Almost Spoke Too Soon

My computer had mucho problemo the other day and I was afraid that I had spoken too soon about it's recovery. It seems to have allowed itself to be repaired today, however. I certainly hope it stays okay this time.

I just wanted to post this link. I am actually amazed that anyone besides the Weekly Standard said anything about this bit of news, but here it is. I do like the Wall Street Journal's Op Ed section.

4 comments:

Steven said...

I was surprised as well at the lack of coverage of it. Alito took up a good chunk of news though.

Andy said...

I still believe that al Qaeda itself would not work with Hussein, because I am quite confident that bin Laden blamed Hussein directly for the permanent American military presence in Saudi Arabia following Gulf War I. I do not find it improbable at all that Saddam was training terrorists from around the Islamic world for his own purposes; we know he paid the families of suicide bombers in Israel. And though he is not a devout Muslim, I'm sure he knows how to pander to religious extremists just like American politicians do.

This still does not tie Iraq to 9/11; this still does not provide a valid reason for abandoning the worthy project in Afghanistan for a poorly organized experiment in Iraq. And the fact that evidence to support earlier administration assertions has turned up does not negate the fact that the White House stated as fact what they did not in fact know for certain to be true.

Esther said...

Thanks for the comments. I am going to suspend judgement on whether or not Al Qaeda was connected with Hussein until the Bush administration released those papers. I see no reason for them not to let the general public know what's going on here. To tell you the truth I am rather miffed at Bush (again) for his administration's inability to say anything constructive and make their own case look good.

I have never thought that 9/11 was tied to Iraq, so I'm with you there. I do not put it past Hussein to have ties with Al Qaeda however, and I still do not think that Bin Laden would refuse the help of an ally due only to his philosophical and religious views.

Furthermore, the administration had been told by the CIA that the facts they were stating were true. It really looks more like a case of miscommunication to me. After all, Tenet was supposed to have read and approved Bush's speeches before Bush gave the speeches.

No, we should not abandon Afganistan. I am disappointed on that front as well.

I'm also tired of stupid scandals, everything can be made into a scandal these days. It's like how movies all suddenly had to be epics after The Lord of the Rings came out and we ended up with crap like "Troy" and "King Arthur." We're ending up with crappy scandals that don't mean anything and it just makes me want to stop caring. Perhaps I should save this rant for a real post though. I'm not going off on you about it, I'm just talking.

Andy said...

the administration had been told by the CIA that the facts they were stating were true

Ehh...I think it's more likely that the cabal led by Cheney & Rumsfeld et al pressured the CIA into selectively presenting the evidence both to Congress and to Bush, so while it can truthfully be said that the intelligence that was presented was presumed to be accurate, we now know that there was much internal dissent within the CIA and that Tenet's infamous comment about the "slam dunk" was an egregious overstatement, as the reports that were provided to the President had been cleared of numerous caveats and qualifications. Furthermore, all of the statements Cheney and Rice made about Iraq's nuclear capabilities were completely made up. And I don't care if it turns out that Saddam Hussein had biologically regenerated Adolf Hitler and Attila the Hun and was planning to poison the world's oceans with Splenda, nothing should distract our attention that the story is no longer just the false evidence, but rather that this entire endeavor was badly planned, if it was planned at all.