We live and learn

Although many of my anti-war, anti-Bush postings are phrased in strong language, I always try to be fair and respect the facts as far as I know them. Thus I conceded that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator (which everyone knows, including the US when they were supporting him) and went along with the line that he used chemical weapons against his own citizens. Then I happened on this article from the New York Times by Stephen Pelletiere, a fromer CIA political analyst:

“[A]ll we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only distortion in the Halabja story. … This much about the gassing at Halabja we undoubtedly know: it came about in the course of a battle between Iraqis and Iranians. Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border. The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. But they were not Iraq's main target. And the story gets murkier: immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas. The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja. The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent — that is, a cyanide-based gas — which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.”

Source: www.cooperativeresearch.org/wotiraq/saddamisevil.htm

Rumsfeld gets philosophical

Another gem from the Center for Cooperative Research:

Donald Rumsfeld said at one point– “The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.”

If one of my students wrote that, they'd get an "F" for plagiarism, not to mention misusing philosophical arguments.

Human, all too human

A writer for The Texas Mercury, Bob Weir has the quaintly named column "Weir Only Human". In it he writes:

"How do you fight an enemy that is willing to die in order to kill you? You kill them first. Saddam is endeavoring to obtain nuclear weapons and the ability to launch them against us. Those who say he wouldn’t do so because he knows we’d wipe him out are perhaps forgetting that he might not give a rat’s patootie about dying if he could go down in Islamic history as the man who crippled the “infidels” of Western Civilization. In the final analysis, the very idea that there’s a question of whether he would or he wouldn’t should be enough to motivate us to replace him. We simply can’t afford to hang our hat on the razor-thin margin between Saddam’s fear of reprisal and his maniacal quest for immortality."

I am once again appalled by the ignorance of American media pundits. Of course, Saddam is a nasty dictator. He is also a secular, nationalist dictator, who probably doesn't believe in the herafter, and only turned against the USA because after giving him implicit permission to invade Kuwait, they bombed the hell out of him. When the hand that feeds you suddenly slaps you, why not bite it?

One more post, then I'm going to bed

"Another Republican senator, Fred Thompson of Tennessee, said all states that harbor terrorists must be dealt with, not just Iraq."

So now we have a definite case for bombing America.

Oh sweet Jesus!

OK, I know a said only one more post, but this really made my stomach churn (again thanks to the Center for Cooperative Research):

[Democratic Senator Zell Miller] advocated that the U.S. ‘bomb the hell out of” Iraq. After receiving criticisms for the comment he defended his remarks saying, “So far 12,000 tons -- 24 million pounds -- of bombs have been dropped on our enemies. If that's not bombing the hell out of them, I don't know what is. I received some criticism [for the remark, but] the criticism did not come from any who, as I just a few days after the attacks, had stood on Ground Zero amid that smoldering pile of rubble that had become the graveyard for thousands of innocent Americans.” He then reiterated his position saying, “And as far as I'm concerned, it means at some time -- maybe not next, but some time -- going after Saddam Hussein. We don't have to prove he was involved with Sept. 11 or with Al Qaeda. We know he hates the United States.” He also recommended reinstating the draft. [Atlanta Business Chronicle 1/14/02]