| Do you believe that bush has lied to the people during his presidency on one or more issues to the public | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 12:23 am Post subject: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Don,
I will. Of course, I'd be interested in seeing you attempt to dispute them.
That's nice. Wholly irrelevant, but nice.
Once again, I don't see you disputing any allegedly "untrue claims". All I see is you repeating the same tired, irrelevant tripe over and over again.
You know, simply stating that things are "untrue" doesn't prove them so, no matter how many times you repeat it.
Not particularly. The "blue dress" has absolutely nothing to do with GwB and his administrations dishonesty. CCCs,
Exactly. It's "yes" or "no". And all evidence points to "yes".
Hardly. Please demonstrate how using direct quotes, spoken by the administration, is assumptive and/or presumptive. It's all there in black and white. No assumptions necessary.
Now this is an assumption! An awful big one at that. I invite you to show what "most major countries" believed and then explain how a belief is suitable grounds for an invasion.
I don't recall anyone in the administration stating "we believe that Iraq has WmD's". It was all "we know for a fact", remember? So, yes. It does constitutes a lie; deception designed to drum up support for an invasion.
WmD's, and the "imminent threat", was the foundation of the campaign the administration used to garner support for an invasion.
Not necessarily. Every country has the right to develop the means to defend itself, including the US. Don,
:roll:
"Documented fact" heh? Perhaps you'd like to explain how white house spokespeople are not speaking on behalf of the president? BG,
"Secret intelligence" is irrelevant. We have what they said was there and we have what they found. Nothing more is needed to demonstrate deception.
As above, please demonstrate that white house "spokespeople" are not speaking on behalf of the president.
I'm not sure I understand your point here. Could you clarify?
No "belief" necessary. It's all there in black and white. "We know for a fact"... "we haven't found anything". To my knowledge, not a single one of the intelligence agencies, specifically the CIA, claimed that "we know for a fact that Iraq has WmD's". In fact, I'm inclined to believe George Tenet when he says:
link So, we have intelligence agencies not saying that Iraq is an imminent threat, and we have the administration saying that Iraq is an imminent threat. How is that not deception? |
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Joined: 17 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 1:32 am Post subject: | |||
[quote="selK"]Don,
I will. Of course, I'd be interested in seeing you attempt to dispute them. Dearest selK, Don't have to..........you've done that yourself with your rambling repeatiton looking for credibility that doesn't exist. I stand by my beliefs, you clearly stand by yours and no facts will ever convince you. What you don't understand is, that it is not required that you change, only that others see what you think. The truth is out there. sorry.......you lose. And in the words of Forrest Gump....."that's all I've got to say about that." |
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 2:27 am Post subject: | |||||
Thank-you for demonstrating your inability to dispute anything Don.
No. I understand that quite well. But, apparently unbeknownst to you, the street goes both ways. Thanks for playing! 
yay! |
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 3:40 am Post subject: | |
| I really think I am done with this.....We just dont have any common ground to work with. You will not even consider the fact that the US just may have done the right things based on the information we had at the time. I think your opinion of the US precludes you from any other assumtions. I am willing to consider that the intelligence was wrong, but I do not believe that Bush lied. W could and would have made the case for taking out Saddam for other reasons. He used the WMDs because he believed in what he was told about the WMDs. That is the biggest difference between you and I. I trust and believe in my President. You appear not to like or trust the US or its leaders. That is of course your right. I dont like or trust America bashers, (honest debate about policies is fine but many just use lies and hate to further a political agenda including many American democrats) and that is my right. Since I dont know you personally I am unsure of your complete feelings on the US and its people. I can only assume you dont agree with many of the policys of the US and its current President. If you would care to share more of your feelings that would be welcome but that is up to you and I will not "bash" you for not saying anything more. | |
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 5:45 am Post subject: | |||||||||
Ooohhh why be humble when you can just run away...
The "right things" have nothing to do with this topic. Trying to justify the deception based upon the outcome doesn't address the question either. The question remains:
In support of my position that Bush has indeed lied during his term in office I've offered a number of topical pieces of evidence that demonstrate deception:
Let's have a look at them, drastically simplified, one-by-one:
No one's asking you to believe anything. You're simply being asked to acknowledge the facts and the facts demonstrate that all is not on the up-and-up in the whitehouse. Especially in regard to the invasion of Iraq. As usual, you're free to ignore them but do understand that simply disregarding them doesn't diminish their validity nor dispute them.
This quote alone sorta blows the "accuracy of the intelligence" argument out of the water as the CIA's position appears to be in line with the results of the search (and, oddly enough  , the polar opposite of the administrations original stance).
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Joined: 07 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 6:21 am Post subject: | |||||
Making the Case for Action in Iraq Definition of a lie from the Webster's dictionary with key terms highlighted: \Lie\ (l[imac]), n. [AS. lyge; akin to D. leugen, OHG. lugi, G. l["u]ge, lug, Icel. lygi, Dan. & Sw. l["o]gn, Goth. liugn. See {Lie} to utter a falsehood.] 1. A falsehood uttered or acted for the purpose of deception; an intentional violation of truth; an untruth spoken with the intention to deceive. The proper notion of a lie is an endeavoring to deceive another by signifying that to him as true, which we ourselves think not to be so. -S. Clarke. Slek, Show me some proof that the administration acted with the intention to decieve. The administration, members of the opposite party, unbiased observers and the U.N. all agreed that Iraq was in violation of numerous U.N. Security council resolutions and had weapons of mass destruction (which were used in the past) and was pursuing more weapons including Nuclear weapons. Iraq claimed to have destroyed many of the WMD, but was unwilling to show proof of this to U.N. weapons inspectors, as they had agreed to do numerous times. You refused to recognize that in 1998, during the Clinton era, the Iraq Liberation Act was passed making regime change in Iraq the official policy of the U.S. government. After 9-11, official U.S. foreign policy became one of preemption. Charles Krauthammer outlined this policy during a speech in February
Krauthammer Speech The administration was just following through on it's stated foreign policy...which was an extension of foreign policy created during the Clinton administration. |
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 7:36 am Post subject: | |||||||||||
Watch the ad homs...implying that I am a coward is an insult.
Yes they did.
Some evidence of programs but little of actual evidence.
Do you assume to know the [/i]secret facts of the CIA and the rest of the government? Unless you have some secret source to prove that you know that GWB lied your assertations are invalid.
One cannot say what are the facts without the intellegence that was provided.....you keep saying that the facts you have from the media PROVE your case....I assert that you cannot PROVE your facts because you do not KNOW the facts that were presented to the President. Your point that we have not found WMDs proves that W lied is not supportable by your own logic. ( one cannot prove a negative) |
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 1:26 pm Post subject: | |
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BG and CCCs,
Still waving that blue dress in his face, huh? I support your positions and admire your patience. |
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Joined: 17 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 11:41 pm Post subject: | |
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I would also like to commend everyone on their opinions and posts as well. My main goal is to let people from both sides of the coin speak so the people who are on the fence (in the middle you could say) will hear a fair voice from each of the sides and make their own opinions on the matter.
Ahriman |
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 6:46 am Post subject: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
If I have some plutonium in my hand, and I offer it to you - "Here, have some uranium", and you accept, you have been deceived. I have told a lie; despite my (possibly) honest intentions to give you uranium you now have a handful of plutonium. It could very well be an honest mistake, however, that does not exonerate me from the responsibility for not providing that which was intended or expected. From the article (good article BTW, heavy on the spin, but good nonetheless):
Unfortunately for the author of this article, that statement is hardly a myth. A number of US officials stated very clearly that Iraq, and Iraqs WmD's, posed an "imminent" threat. Point 1: This "imminent" threat was utilized as the foundation of the campaign for generating public support for the invasion. Yes or no? The answer is clearly "yes". And, as the results of the search and reports from the CIA have shown, the threat wasn't so "imminent" after all. So, we have intelligence agencies stating "not an imminent threat" and an administration stating "imminent threat". One of the two is lying. Unfortunately for the administration, the results of the search, so far, appears congruent with the CIA's position. Which, of course, is several degrees off of the administrations position. This, by no means, suggests that the US had no other reasons to invade. But it does suggest that the information used in the campaign for generating public support was clearly exaggerated.
Sure (partly).
Sure.
Did I? When? Not that is has anything to do with GwB's lies but...
Uh huh? And?
None of this addresses the honesty of the administration. All you're doing is trying to justify the deception and that is not what this topic is about. We're here trying to determine if there was deception. If you must know, I think that the US had a number of reasons to go into Iraq. I find it sad, however, that the administration chose deception as the means to garner support. BG,
Imply? I seem to recall you claiming  to make an exit after I made a relevant point.
Oddly enough the same point you refused to address above. Fortunately, I've re-iterated it once more it for you below. Please do skate around it again.
Good.
Now we're cookin' with gas!
:roll: Not a very clever way to avoid answering the question BG. Regardless, didn't I already address the "secret intelligence" crap you're desperately clinging to? The CIA made no secret of it. Here it is, in black and white:
So, we have intelligence agencies not saying that Iraq is an imminent threat, and we have the administration saying that Iraq is an imminent threat. How is that not deception?
My argument is not concerned with the facts as presented to the President. My argument rests solely upon the facts as presented to the public and their apparent incongruence with facts resulting from the search and statements by the CIA. DonQuixote, Feel free to pick up your Pom-Poms and go cheer-lead someplace else. If you have nothing meaningful to contribute to the discussion it'd be wise to stay out of it. ahriman01, It's customary for topic starters to start the discussion by offering their own thoughts on the issue. Please do so in the future. |
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Joined: 07 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 8:09 am Post subject: | |||
Slek said:
The scenario you have described above is not a lie...as both parties believe that uranium was involved in the transaction. Responsibilty is an entirely different matter. If you did not know that you had given me plutonium, you are still responsible for that action...but clearly you have not lied to me. Thus, you can not make the case that the adminisration lied about the weapons of mass destruction...they believed that the weapons were there...and the threat to use them or create more was continuing. Does this relieve them of the responsibility for their actions...of course not? But does this constitue a lie? No. |
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 8:36 am Post subject: | |||||||||
That is complete bullshit. To imply that I am afraid of you and your arguments is utter and complete bullshit. I have stood toe to toe with you for a long time now. You have violated your own rules again and wont admitt it. The above was an ad-hom. I consider it an insult so dont try and say it was not. edit: it was also a troll.....an obvious attempt to provoke a reaction from me. edit 2: No trolling. Posts with the sole purpose of "stirring things up" will be locked and/or deleted. You keep trying to say that a lie was proven by your standards. Why do you get to set the standard? Myself and CCCs have shown your logic to be shakey at best and still you claim unreasonably that because we have not found WMDs that the threat was a lie. Maybye we should define imminent.
Crap to you....FACTS to the rest of us. How can you possibly cling to your point of view when you (nor me) know all of the facts?
Imminent is the word maybye we should work with here... It is known that weapons programs and research was going on....but have not yet found the products of such programs. Nuclear WMDS take a long time to produce, no doubt about that. BUT bio-chemical weapons take only a matter of weeks to make. VP Chaney made that point today in an interview with Brit Hume. If a country could produce bio chem weapons in just a few weeks AND had the missles to deliver such products (rockets with longer range than were allowed by treaty were found in the first weeks of the war)
Easy...it is called a dis-agreement. You are telling me the threat was not there.....are you decieving me? Are you lying to me about the threat? Intelligence is always open to interpertation.....so your argument that one branch of government did not come to the same conclusion as another is evidence of a lie is not logical. You have not proven a thing. The only thing you have proven is that there were parts of the government that dis agreed about the evidence presented them.[/b] Last edited by Bodyguard on Wed Mar 03, 2004 8:50 am; edited 3 times in total |
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 8:42 am Post subject: | |||
I dont recall either sleK or myself asking or needing permission to discuss this subject. How is your so called "goal" related to what we are argueing about? |
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 9:14 am Post subject: | |||
CCCs,
As you stated earlier, that depends upon my intentions. (and I concede that intent is required to lie, however, I'll argue that intent is not required to deceive). But, let's take the example a bit further: Let's say that the person who gave me the plutonium told me that it was, in fact, plutonium and not uranium. Does my offering of uranium to you then constitute a lie? Obviously the answer is "yes". So we now have three players and some "intelligence" in our analogy:
The equivalents in my argument that GwB's administration has lied are, respectively, thus:
To rewrite the analogy (in as nonsensical as way as humanly possible ):
Let's say that the CIA gave GwB "not an imminent threat" and told GwB that it was, in fact, "not an imminent threat" and not "an imminent threat". If GwB has some "not an imminent threat" in his hand, and offers it to the public - "Here, have some 'imminent threat'", and the public accepts, the public has been deceived. GwB has told a lie; despite his (possibly) honest intentions to give the public "imminent threat", the public now has a handful of "not an imminent threat". |
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 9:15 am Post subject: | |||
That was hardly the reason I wanted to stop discussing this subject. Like I am afraid of you! I was trying to make the point that since we have no common frame of reference that continuing the topic was a waste of energy. I feel that myself and CCCs have made our point quite well. Why did you feel the need to use a personal attack? I have been very carefull to avoid such attacks since you warned me. I feel that I deserve the same courtesy....unless you are paying me back in some way. I also deserve an apology for the attack. I tried to dis-engage in polite manor and you replied with insults. I really hope you dont try and tell me that what you said was not insulting......that would indeed insult my intellgence. |
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 9:20 am Post subject: | |||
By your logic then W did not lie. The topic of this thread was not "did president bush try to decieve us" You are changing the subject. |
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 9:37 am Post subject: | |||||
You keep accusing me of not responding to your points. Why dont you respond to some of mine?
Not concerned with the facts? How do you know what facts were used to interpret or evaluate the report the W was given? The CIA was only ONE of the agencies both foreign and domestic used to decern the threat from Iraq. So drawing such conclusions from the evidence at hand is just not logical. It may conform to your opinion of GWB.....but your perception of him does not prove you are correct. You have taken the limited facts and decided he was guilty. Putting away your feelings about GWB do you think your arguements would really convince any objective person that Bush delberatly lied? You have tried to change the subject by saying now that he deceived us all. GWB may have been incorrect about WMDs but he did not lie. Obviously there was some disagreement in the Admin about the intelligence. But implying that such disagreements somehow become lies is rediculass. |
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 5:35 pm Post subject: | |||
Slek wrote:
The CIA in the report you mentioned did not claim that there was no threat in Iraq...the report just did not use the term "immenent". The administration gets their intelligence from a number of differenct sources, so they have more information than the CIA about the threat posed in Iraq and are more qualified to describe the situation. Here is another analogy: You give me a ball...and tell me you are giving me a ball. All you know is that you have given me a ball. Now, I have learned through other sources how to describe that ball, so I now think I have a red ball. When I give that red ball to a third party, I tell them I am giving them a red ball. Now if the facts are clarified later and it is determined the ball is actually blue, does that mean that I lied? No, I only described the ball based on the information I had at hand. Again, this does not clear me of the responsibility for what I have said...but I would argue it is neither deception nor a LIE. |
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Joined: 17 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 5:54 pm Post subject: | |
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Ohhh ! Color graphics !
Maybe that'll get through to 'em. I doubt it. The walls are too thick. |
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| Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 8:45 am Post subject: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
BG,
Read my post again. You'll see that my position hasn't changed. I simply conceded a tangential argument to CCCs.
Interesting twist. Selective reading? Perhaps your monitor is only big enough to display the left half of the page? Big fan of the left, are you?  ;)
What I said was...
... and it's odd that you missed that; considering that you quoted the whole damn thing.
Huh? Facts to interpret facts? The reports are the facts. On the other hand, GwB needing an interpreter for "facts" comes as no great surprise... :D
Your statement assumes that the "threat" was legitimate. As such, I can only agree to the CIA being one of many agencies involved.
Uhh... it's just as logical as your conclusion (moreso IMO). Unless, of course, you have access to some of that "secret intelligence" that you're always on about.
Yeah. Much like you've taken them and decided he was not. What does this have to do with anything?
And thus we reach the core of BG's confusion: Your suggestion that I have some pre-conception of GwB that colors my feelings for him is wholly inaccurate. My feelings for GwB and the current administration are based soley upon his campaign to gain office, their actions in office, the consequent state of the nation and the world since this administration took office, and the implicit future of the nation and the world should this administration remain in office. I would hope that your feelings about GwB aren't based upon anything less. Perhaps if you lost this pre-conception of me we may be better able to discuss issues that matter to us both. To answer your question: Yes. Although a great many do not require convincing.
Addressed above.
If any of your arguments are true (as you've only demonstrated that GwB may not be responsible for any lie, not that any lie is impossible given the circumstances) then that remains to be seen. I wholly disagree however. CCCs,
Agreed.
Nor, to my knowledge, did it imply a threat that could be legitimately regarded as synonymic to "imminent".
Agreed again. However, if the current results of the search for WmD's is any indicator (and you'd be hard pressed to discount it [as a major factor in this debate]), any intelligence they had access to, that said anything even remotely related to "imminent" would be demonstrably inaccurate. Regarding your analogy: That's called a mistake. Are you suggesting that GwB made a mistake in the foretelling of an imminent threat from Iraq? |
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Joined: 07 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 3:55 pm Post subject: | |||
Slek said:
No, the conclusion I am drawing is that GWB did not lie...which is the theme of this thread. |
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| Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 5:26 am Post subject: | |||||||||||
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On the other hand, GwB needing an interpreter for "facts" comes as no great surprise...
[/quote] Ad hom?
I has everything to do with it! You are claiming from limited sources that Bush lied. I argue that you cannot know the truth because you dont have enough info. Since this arguement is pointless given our different views of the US and GWB that is the reason I was inclined to stop posting...BUT your shitty little remark that I was a coward really made me want to stay in the fight.
I will state plainly that I in no way believe the above statement.
The above proves my point...you do have a pre-concieved notion of GWBs motives.
Where?
You disagree because your pre-concieved notions of the US and GWB make it impossible for you to even give him the benifit of the doubt. |
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| Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 5:35 am Post subject: | |||||
There are a couple of points you have not answered....shall I list them?
And on a more personal note.....
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| Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 5:43 am Post subject: | |||||
Oh and here are some more
How is that not deception? Easy...it is called a dis-agreement. You are telling me the threat was not there.....are you decieving me? Are you lying to me about the threat? Intelligence is always open to interpertation.....so your argument that one branch of government did not come to the same conclusion as another is evidence of a lie is not logical. You have not proven a thing. The only thing you have proven is that there were parts of the government that dis agreed about the evidence presented them.[/
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| Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 7:21 am Post subject: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CCCs,
Clever. :)
BG,
Hardly. However, once again, you've glossed over the point in favour of specious accusations. No surprise.
Really? You seem quite quick to discount the possibility.
No. It only proves that you haven't the faintest clue what a preconception is. I urge you to look it up then explain to me how observation of GwB's campaign, actions, and the consequences of those actions, falls under the definition. Good luck.
Read it again. Pay attention this time. You'll find your answer in my very first rebuff.
:roll: Then tell us, oh wise one, if not their history, their action, and their implicit future, what should I be basing my feelings about GwB's administration on? His hairstyle? Perhaps his drug use as an adolescent? :roll:
You don't wanna play this game BG. But if you insist, I'll go first.
You disagree. That's nice. Perhaps you'd like to explain how the only way to avoid detection is by burying yourself in a hole in the ground? I see you've also conveniently ignored the equipment and facilities required to produce WmD's. Serving as further detriment to your poorly thought-out argument is the fact, as you state it, that "a footlocker sized box" doesn't move. Nor can it think. Nor can it seek additional cover, change its appearance, cross borders, mingle with the locals, or assume identities. Even further, perhaps you'd care to explain how a "box buried in the desert" gets there? Does digging a hole not leave evidence "to a humans nature"? :roll:
That's nice. I never called you a coward, but I'll stand by what I did say. It's not pertinent to the topic however, so take it to email or PM.
There's nothing here to respond to. Unless of course you wanted to show that the range of these rockets was long enough to reach US soil.
Note that I had to ask you twice to address this and it also happens to be the last point made before your so-called "exit" from the discussion. Coincidence? I think not. Regardless, calling it a "disagreement" is folly. As is your "interpretation" charge. Agencies like the CIA don't gather information then simply pass it off to the administration. They also act as advisories; the interpretation happens via the same agencies. As evidence, I offer a small section of Kays report:
In this example we have the information collected:
And a summary:
Doesn't leave much room for "interpretation" now does it? Nor does it leave much for two parties to disagree over. Your turn! :)
and another...
and yet another...
There... all done. So we're tied at three? What a perfectly pointless exercise! On the plus side, I think I've just constructed the longest post ever. Yay for me!
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