I don't hate Dave Patraeus..Follow

"It depends on what the meaning of the words 'is' is."
–Bill Clinton

Say what you will about W, slick Willy did it better.

OMG SEMANTICS!!!!!!

Then why does the anti-war argument almost always use the phrase "imminent threat".

They don't.

Christ, you make it so easy, it's just boring at this point.

WHY ARE YOU SO HUNG UP ON SEMANTICS????

Sorry, Gbaji. Given your constant crying about people getting hung up on words, I can't take you seriously enough to even want to get into it with you.

"Seriously enough..."

*cough*




The irony here is amazing...

Sorry. Am I missing something here?

In my statement above I said that you (thats you gbaji), believe that it was the liberal media that perpetuated the suspicion that Iraq had WMD's (chemical weapons and nukes and death-rays), and that, by implication, that you(gbaji) believed that GW and Co. had no role in promoting those suspicions.

I was simply pointing out that your belief that it was the 'anti-war-liberal- controlled media' who were responsible for driving the US to an illegal war in Iraq in order to somehow make the Democratic party more powerful, was delusional paranoia of the first order.



You are the one getting all knotted up about the word 'imminent'. not me, or anyone else.


If the President of the USA and his administration, is unable to make themselves understood (except it seems to you) against the tide of anti US propaganda being spewed forth from 'a partisan liberal media', then they are obviously pretty ineffective as politicians.

They had plenty of oppportunities to 'put the record staright' as they saw it. But they didn't, they continued to talk about 'mushroom clouds' and make statements such as



Not, you note, 'iraq is going to be a threat soon'.


Your recent change of attitude about Iraq, ie. from 'its going great!', to, 'it would be going better if the Democrats/liberal media stopped sabotaging it at every opportunity', is pretty typical of the war supporters views.

And i might say, entirely predictable, because why would anyone want to admit that they were to blame for such a monumental @#%^-up?

In the rest of the enlightened world its called 'living in denial', and its not good for your long term health.



Edited, Apr 10th 2008 9:56pm by paulsol

Er? That's not close to what I believe. I believe that the "anti-war-liberal media" were responsible for convincing the public that the only reason we were going to war in Iraq was because "GWB claimed that Iraq's WMDS were an imminent threat!", specifically so that they could debunk this later as a means to attack the decision to go to war.


I thought I was pretty clear about this. So yeah.


Go google "imminent threat Iraq WMD" and see how many hits you get. Then start reading how many are anti-war sites talking about how Bush lied by calling Iraq's WMDs an imminent threat. How do you think that happened? Masses of people don't just spontaneously all falsely believe that the same exact phrase was used. Someone has to tell them this. Some well paid organization spent millions of dollars essentially advertising this to the public so that they'd connect the phrase "imminent threat" to Iraq's WMDs (and to GWB's case for war).


How else do you explain the massive use of this phrase. A phrase that was never once used by the Bush administration to describe Iraq or Iraq's WMDs. Not once. How do you suppose it came to be such a commonly used phrase by those opposed to the war? Are you really this naive?

No. He didn't. Not once.


Look. Find me a single quote from President Bush where he uses the phrase "imminent threat" to describe Iraq's WMDs. Just one. If he did it "repeatedly", you should have no problem finding just one quote.


You can't do it, can you? Maybe you should change your argument?...

gbaji.

Are you really trying to argue that 'real threat', 'immediate threat' and urgent threat don't mean the same thing when used in the English language, as 'imminent threat?

'Cos if you are, you are a fool.

Yes. Because, those are different words. Get it? They don't mean "the same thing" when used in the English language. Each of them has different connotations.


I'll ask the same question again: If those words all mean the same exact thing, then why is the phrase always "imminent threat" when used to accuse Bush of lying about the threat of Iraq (the word he *didn't* ever use). If they all mean the same thing, why not pick one that he at least used once or twice...?


They obviously do *not* mean the exact same thing, otherwise there would be no reason for the anti-war argument to change the word used to "imminent".

No. I'm saying that this particular argument is not valid. That's it. Unfortunately, it seems like this particular argument is by far the most often used, which is why I keep having to debunk it over and over and over and over....


Now the day that someone argues against the war in Iraq without falling back on Bush lying about Iraq's WMDs, I'll happily debate the merits of the decision to go to war on those more reasonable grounds. That's pretty darn rare though.

Let's review, though, since we're here.

Iraq was couched as a threat over 200 times by the administration before the war.

Let's examine how.

"The most dangerous threat of our time." Scott McClellan

"Is Iraq and imminent threat to the United States?" - Reporter "Absolutely" - Ari Fliecher.

"The threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be removed." Rumsfeld.

"The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder." Bush

"The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations." Bush

"This is about imminent threat." McClellan

"Iraq is a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies." Cheney

"Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country." Rumsfeld.

"is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?" -Reporter "Of course he is" - Dan Bartlet

"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. ... Iraq is a threat, a real threat." Bush

"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency." Bush

"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is." Bush

"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq." Bush



So we can agree that Iraq was painted as a serious, immediate, threat, can we not?

Game over.



Edited, Apr 11th 2008 10:58pm by Smasharoo