NP: Iraq

[David Morris]

--- cfalbert <calbert at hslboxmaster.com> wrote:
> 
> If this "balance sheet" thing has any merit it should follow some kind of
intelligble principle............do you want  to take a stab at it?

I'm sorry, but I'm not trying to formulate a foreign policy doctrine.  If
someone decries the "untold thousands of dead," one should also consider good
results.  Sadaam's ouster is one of those good results, IMHO.

> "Untold thousands" had died and were dying at the hands of Sadaam before we
ever went to war.  The war stopped that.
> 
> uh...........not exactly.........to the best of my knowledge "mass killings"
in Iraq pretty much ended in 1994, though "targetted assassinations" and random
persecution continued.....but this doesn't make Iraq much different from its
neighbours....

OK, most of the murders occurred a while ago, but at least the murderous regime
is gone.  Is that worth nothing?  At least the people now aren't afraid to
protest the forces ruling over them.

> it is becoming increasingly celar that the WoMD issue was largely fabricated
to provide a rationale for invasion....Even Wolfowitz, the prime mover behind
this policy, no longer denies this......

This is not entirely true from what I've read today.  Take a look at this
Talking Points Memo:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/

(June 1st, 2003 -- 2:08 PM EDT // link)

In any case, the latest brouhaha is over Sam Tanenhaus's upcoming article in
Vanity Fair, Paul Wolfowitz's statement about WMD contained therein, and now
whether Wolfowitz actually said what Tanenhaus claims he said. Over the weekend
Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol wrote a short piece in the Standard
purporting to show that Tanenhaus had in fact distorted Wolfowitz's words,
taken them out of their proper context or simply twisted their meaning. 

Now, the problem with verbal interviews is that, unlike the case in written
English, people tend to speak in fragments and not always in a purely linear
fashion. And that often makes quotations ambiguous and open to different
interpretations. 

Having said all that, I think that Kristol's review of Tanenhaus' material is
at least not the final word. 





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