Step away from all of the politics for a moment...Follow

Am I the only person on this forum who knows how to properly use those words in a sentence?

I think you're trying to deflect the issue at hand by this ridiculous semantics argument rather than defend or concede your original statements.

Also I'm feeling left out since you haven't responded to my previous post.

UM. No. If it's a mistake, it's a mistake. If it's misleading, that implies intent.

See, that's why there are different words to denote them.

I can quote definitions too!

Smash. Since you don't actually say what about Iraq is a "direct threat to the US", but you are responding to my post about WMD, why on earth would I assume that's what you were talking about?


You're pulling a quote where I don't even MENTION Bush and somehow applying that to this longstanding argument about the State of the Union Adress.

Christ, that's fuc[/b]king pathetic, even for you.


[b]
Ok. What exactly are you saying he lied about? You're now going to narrow the list down to like one or two things?


Yellow cake uranium from Niger.

I made it clear in the last post, but ignoring it is better for you as you can't make a sailent argument around facts.



That just reinforces my point. If WMD as a general concept was not the only reason we went to war with Iraq, then certainly one specific instance of intelligence about WMD in Iraq is no where close to the whole reason.


What the fuc[/b]k are you talking about? Really, I'm not seeing it.

*I* *ME* Thought there WOULD be WMD in Iraq.

However, I and everyone else who was even vaguely educated on the subject (this doesn't include you by the way) knew there was no nuclear threat. At all.


[b]
We didn't go to war because of one report of Iraq maybe buying Uranium from Nigeria, or Aluminum nuclear tubes. You're focusing on a couple specific points that were largely discounted *long before* Congress (and Kerry!) voted to go to war with Iraq.


I'm not focusing on them, I pointing out where the President lied about them.

You're broadening the issue to imply that I'm saying anything about WMD was a lie.

Which, frankly, makes you a liar.



You can't say that those were the reasons we went to war. That's amazingly flawed logic even for you.


When the fuc[b][/b]k did I?

You can't arbitrarily make up arguments of mine. I realize that's all you can do without looking like a complete *** and occasionally, some of the slower posters might buy it, but haven't you figured out by know that people are wising up to it?

It's time for some new material, buddy.

Yeah, I dislike arguing semantics but with some people there's no choice.


Like when it's the only possible argument they can make because they're burried with facts otherwise?

Sort of like that?

I will go on the record again stating that Gbaji is clinically insane and should just be agreed with until the medicine kicks in.

It's useless....he'll bend over backwards, tread over his own logic, make blanket statements, and finally argue semantics rather than concede a point.

A swift GFY is so much more humane.

Ok. Since you asked...



If it's obvious, why not include your idea in the post? That would give me something to actually respond to. If you haven't figured it out yet, I get really annoyed when Smash plays "hide the argument" with me by responding with something deliberately vauge "Bush lied about Iraq", and then as I go through and argue against one "lie" and another, he keeps going: "But I'm not talking about that lie. I'm.. .Um... talking about the other one! yeah. Just keep guessing..."


Whatever. I'm not going to guess your reason then. You can present it if you want. I'll give you my reason though.


Intelligence is never 100%. It's about guesses based on a number of factors. We can get physical intelligence by looking (either in person, or more often via satellite and air surveilance). We can get intelligence by asking people (dubious quality, but you can assign probabilities to accuracy). We can get intelligence by making assessements based on past actions (essentially profiling).

It's not like Iraq allowed people to walk in and look. In fact, that was the problem. For 11 years, they'd been giving UN weapons inspectors the run around. Several factors are at play.

If you are hiding something, it usually means there's something of value to hide. Why give inspectors the runaround if the wouldn't have found anything anyway? Point 1 for thinking there are WMD in country.

We had *several* people defect who all said that Saddam had a working WMD program going. These were not random people. One was a member of Saddam's family, and another was a scientist who worked on WMD in Iraq at one point. Pretty solid. Point 2 for WMD in country.

It is absolutely known that Iraq did design, build, and use WMD in the past (bio and chem weapons). We have Red Cross reports of the aftermath of their use on Iranians in the 80s, and Kurdish villages right up to the first gulf war. The established habit of building and using them gives us a good indication that he'll do it again if he can. Point 3 for WMD in country, or at least the intent to do so if possible.

During the UN weapons inspections phase (91 to 2002), on several occasions, we had either ground intelligence photos and/or air/sat photos that showed us likely sites that could be weapons facilities. In every case, there would be delays getting the inspectors there from the Iraqi's, and we could literally watch as each day, every thing in the photos that looked like a weapons factory was removed and replaced with a hospital. By the time the UN inspectors would show up, there'd be nothing there for them to find. Suspicous? You bet. Point 4 for there being WMD in country.


That's what we had in a condensed form. Each of those four points represents a number of incidents of similar intelligence. It was literally a mountain of evidence.

Um. But it's still just evidence. The people we talked to could have been lying, or could have simply been misinformed. The sites we saw could have been facilities that the Iraqi's didn't want anyone to see, but were not WMD production plants as we suspected. The Iraqi's could have chosen to change their past methods and abandon building WMD. It's all possible, but the evidence was pretty strong that they did have WMD, and would build more if sanctions were lifted.

If this were a legal case, there was plenty of evidence for a warrant. You can argue whether that justifies a war or not, but the evidence was still there.


Um. And since I suspect what you're going to say next. This was not just US intelligence. We were getting the similar information from Brittish intelligence, and Russian intelligence. It's not like Bush fudged their intel...

Samira. You are using *one* definition of mislead. Like I said. It *can* mean that. But it does not have to. That's why I conceeded the point to Smash. Since it's possible to mislead without lying, then it can be correct to say that Bush mislead us. But conceeding that does not mean that Bush lied. I'm saying that "if smash is using a definition of mislead that does not require intent to decive, then I'll grant that Bush did mislead us".

Get it? You're arguing the wrong side of the logic. If there is one definition for mislead that does not require intent, then Smash can technically say that Bush mislead us, and I conceed the point. Lying requires intent to decieve. Misleading does not. Think about what I'm saying and you'll understand.

Look folks. I'm not the people picking apart semantics. Smash said that Bush lied. I'm saying he didn't. A ton of people are trying to twist my acceptance that Bush "misled" us into meaning he lied as well.

If you think that misled always means "lie", then feel free to interpret my statements to mean: "bush did not mislead us".

Sheesh.

Look folks. I'm not the people picking apart semantics. Smash said that Bush lied. I'm saying he didn't. A ton of people are trying to twist my acceptance that Bush "misled" us into meaning he lied as well.

If you think that misled always means "lie", then feel free to interpret my statements to mean: "bush did not mislead us".


Hahahaha.

Folks.

Discussion over, Gbaji looses by default.

You're not picking apart semantics.

Hahahaha.

Sorry, that's really funny. I need to email this thread to my frind from Brown who has a theory that you don't actually beleive any of this and it's just an excersize in frustrating people who use logic.

He'll get a kick out of it.

Huh? Are you that unable to follow an argument?

You said Bush "lied and misled"

I said that he didn't lie, since he didn't intend to decieve anyone, but that depending on which definition of "mislead" you used, you could say he misled us.


You (and others) proceeded to insist that mislead meant the same thing as lie, so therefore I was saying that Bush lied (despite *explicitly* explaining how I was using the words differently in my first post on that issue).

All I'm saying is that if you are using mislead to mean "lie", then your use of the word does not match the definition I was allowing for.

Which means that your statement that Bush "lied and misled" us is not just half wrong but 100% wrong.

Whatever Smash. Congratulations. You've just removed all wiggle room I was trying to give you in your argument. I was going to conceed a use of the word mislead that would allow your statement to be half right. I was trying to be nice. But apparently, you can't figure out a gifthorse when it's handed to you and are too dumb to realize when I'm conceeding a point to you.


What's funny is that I did that specifically because I didn't want to argue over the definition of mislead. I was just going to give that one to you. But apparently, I totally underestimated the ability of some people on this forum to twist any wording and logic around completely.


Sigh.

Bah, I have to go to the gym now. Later maybe, if I'm bored.

Um. Whatever Smash. Funny. You say that, but the context of every statement by you is about Bush saying X in a speach. I didn't quote either, I paraphrased.


Isn't it funny how when you are losing an argument, you start picking apart little semantics?


Let me simplify it for you again:


"Did Bush know that there were no WMD in Iraq when he said that there were?"


It's a really simple question Smash. Why do you keep avoiding answering it?

Edited, Tue Aug 3 17:57:02 2004 by gbaji