Max.... I have to confess that, after a period where i had come to view you as among the more open-minded posters in here, I have been a little dismayed with a pattern I have seen. This was becoming evident to me before rimmy failry accurately if glibbly summed it up... There were many things posted which were incredibly persuasive re: the administrations's pre-war position on telling us the truth vs. selling the war, and to your credit you tended to, while obviously showing something of a natural pro-war reluctance to ackowledge the impact of same, an unusual willingness to, when it came down to it, admit the obvious interpretation of the facts. You were never among those who merely pretended it didn't happen, sloughed off facts with " Wait and see." responses which don't address the impact of what we already know, or quote obsucre counter testimonies form the Czechs or somewhere that have already gone the way fo the dinosaur as a means of avoiding uncomfortable truths. This is all to your credit. But more and more what you would so is respond something like : " Wow. That is very frightening, If true this really does reveal that Bush et al were more interested in acquiring intel which supported their war position than in getting us the truth." This is, on the face of it,a very rational and reasonable response, and you made several like it, about several different revalations. At the time I was very impressed, and said as much to you often...but what began to become apparent was that, other then when addressing the actual facts at hand, these actions as an accumulation seemed to have little or no effect on your overall position. Your response to the next fact would again be initial skepticism followed eventually by a " Wow. That is frightening. If true...." etc. Now in the meanwhile few if any of these allegations were disproven by the pro-war side...in fact most seemed to prove more and more true as time went on. There has been no rebuttle of the NIE report, or the impact of what it means that our administration KNEW that Iraq was no kind of threat to us. There has been no rebuttle of the SOTUS, other than laywerese that I know you don't fall for...there has been no rebuttle of the tubes, the 9-11 connections, or any of the countless other revelations which make it pretty clear that the White House was intent not on waging a just war backed by a democratic populace supporting it's ideals, but was intent on this war now, and did whatever they had to to accomplish this. But despite this mountain of counterfactual statements, I have been dissapointed to see you still, when another comes up, initially assume that it must have just been a mistake. You are a lawyer, MM: In a trial, how many mistakes, whose effect on a jury is exactly what the misspeaker desires, and none of which are ever repealed without first having been caught by others, would you be willing to chalk up to innocent errors? How many mistakes have been made by Bush et al which had the opposite effect, ie how many times have they mistakenly said something which countered the position for war? If they had, would they ever have let it lay? Yet you continue to, after each event has passed, return to the assumption that the WH is operating on the up and up. In this regard you remind me of Scully from the X-Files who, despute having been abducted and impregnated by aliens, seen hosts of ghosts, spirits, mutants and whatnot still, upon first seeing something which might or might not be supernatural, automatically responds with " Well, there has to be a scientific explanation." It began to drive me crazy, and was among the reasons I stopped watching the show years back, and it has begun to grate on me with you as well. This is not a shot at you as a person: I have the greatest respect for you, I think you are among the class acts in here...but this tendancy to seemingly avoid the obvious implications of the whole thing while simultaneously reacting with righteous indignation as each individual event occurs has baffled me. Perhaps you stay true to the WH out of a desire to effect a greater good: your position on abortion. You know that I share that position, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how the one ( abortion) supercedes the other ( Iraq, etc.) when the latter also evidences misleading the populace, a substantial and frightening shift in foreign relations and our attitude about our role in the world, etc. If it came down to supporting a war I didn't agree with or supporting abortion, just as issues, I'd have a hard time choosing. But when the war requires so much governmental duplicity, if supporting the war rubber stamps that kid of action for the future, if continuing to have Bush in office is a mandate for more of these kinds of actions as he has already hinted at with Syria and Iran...To me it's momentous. I honestly believe that what Bush is doing is possibly the most harmfull and frightening series of actions we have ever engaged in. Maybe that's our difference: our view on the significance of Bush's actions. You know I initially supported him, so my present view is entirely based on his actions to date. But even if it's just a disagreement on the overalll impact vs. abortion, I still don't get thr Scully routine. IMO you are far too intelligent to maintain that posture in the face of the complied information. I apologize if this seems like an attack, it isn't meant to be. It is actually a reflection of my respect for you: were you among the pwo-war yay-sayers I wouldn't have bothered. There have even been times when it seemed that you and I were pretty much n sync about this...but then, come the next thread, I would find that you had retreated to a cautious Bush apologist position, or at least a cautious Bush action apologist position. I hope that by addressing you directly I might at least get a sense of where you actually stand. I might be dissapointed with the answer, but at least i will cease to be frustrated every time I encounter " There has to be a scientific explanation for this." PEACE
<b>RM95 and Batman</b>: Here is what timing wrote. I think it is obviously dismissive: "C'mon giddy, US military buddy to buddy to buddy is hardly objective or anything more than rumor and as we've seen by treeman's post here he really doesn't know anything that hasn't been widely reported already." Soldiers are a disciplined, dutiful group of men and women not rumor-mongerers as timing would characterize them. His flippancy about their reliability is insulting.
Among the many, many absolutist claims from treeman, the only one that has been correct is that we would win the war against Iraq. And that's the one that virtually no one disputed. On everything else he's been dead wrong. Everything Timing said in that quote is true. You shouldn't be insulted by it and neither should the military.
Batman -- thanks...I appreciate that. MacBeth -- Honestly, I haven't followed the story much since. I suppose if there was further inquiry and a move to hold the president accountable for lies, then i'd learn more about it...but honestly, my life is too busy to police the administration right now. that might sound like a cop out...but it is what it is. as for the abortion thing...i don't equate killing babies with lying about weapons. i just don't. i can find good things about the war in iraq, even if they're circumstantial byproducts...like the removal of a tyrant...but i can't find that in abortion.
And you call me melodramatic? treeman-- "the absolutist." treeman is "dead wrong on everything else." "Everything timing said in that quote is true." If I said, "Wesley Clark is an animal!" that would be "true" but would it be really accurate? I'm not looking at the semantics; I'm looking at the message. His tone is disrespectful and I don' t think his characterization is remotely accurate.
POINT - giddyup POINT - giddyup POINT - giddyup Final Score: giddyup 3, Batman Jones 0 Thanks for playing, rookie
Someone is obssessed with Batman Jones. What Batman said about treeman is not melodramatic. It may be wrong, uninformed, etc., but it's not melodramatic. Bringing up the deaths of 282 soldiers in a near complete non-sequitor serving only to rile up emotions is.
No, it's not. treeman, himself, and the men and women he talks with have made a life choice which puts them in a situation where they may be put in a situation where they might have to make that ultimate sacrifice as well. Dismissing their "intellligence" about what is going on in Iraq as no better than rumor is ridiculous.
If I asked you if Wesley Clark was a plant or an animal, you'd be right to say he was an animal. You'd be absolutely, indisputably right. Timing was responding to the ludicrous proposition that treeman was the best BBS source for info on the Iraq war. That proposition is not just wrong, it's hilarious. Yes, he has been wrong on virtually every single thing he's predicted based on his vaunted inside info. And yes, he has been bombastic in his absolutist assertions. And yes again, to repeat, because you seem to have a problem listening sometimes, he has been repeatedly wrong -- no matter how you look at it. Meanwhile, MacBeth, myself and many others have repeatedly questioned his assertions and been proven right to do so. The only argument we've gotten for our rightness and treeman's wrongness amounts to "Nuh unh! treeman's in the military! He knows way more! You think you're so smart!" I don't think I'm so smart and I don't think treeman's so dumb. I just think he's been dead dead wrong, over and over again. In the face of that, I'll leave it to the rest of you to decide the relative smartness or dumbness in anointing him the best source for info on the war. Sometimes I think some of you guys would have actually let Bush take your SATs for you.
Scanning his original post (and I don't recall any other post in this thread by treeman), I see no mention of him talking to troops in the field. I'm not saying he's not, but he's forming these opinions from his perspective. Your post was simply to make Timing look bad by making it appear that he didn't care about the deaths of 282 soldiers. That's melodramatic, among other things.
That was not at all the purpose of my post. I said nothing of the sort. I was only characterizing the people I saw him as dismissing as being nothing more than rumor-mongerers. I was pointing out that the people he accuses of "rumoring" have a huge stake in what goes on there. Furthermore, the have an insider's access plus specialized training, discipline and understanding that most of us cannot imagine. Any of those people could be the 283rd casualty so they are not just rumor-mongering and I would give a weightiness to their persepective that is not reserved for you, me, or timing.. and just about anyone else here.
Who made the proposition that treeman was the best source for info about the war? I only defended his being dismissed. I don't really fault somebody for not being able to accurately (time and place) to characterize the outcome of a war. There are too many unpredictable factors. Maybe he's a little gung-ho in the heat of the battle. I don't know. I do know that he knows stuff that you couldn't imagine-- as dependent on the press as you (and I) are for anything and everything we know about this war. treeman does have other sources. You have correct insight at times. MacBeth does as well. treeman likewise. I might too.
Well, this sure is entertaining. Just to clear a few things up: - Macbeth (and No Worries), you keep claiming that I've said all of these things that have turned out to be wrong, but I'm reading what I supposedly said and have not actually said most of it. When did I say that this wasn't a guerilla war? Never. In fact I almost immediately (after the conventional war ended) stated that it was a guerilla war. You are attributing to me something that you heard someone else say. Example 2 - I stated before the war that I did not believe that chemical weapons would be used. I had an entire thread on the subject. Again, another case of you wanting me to have said something that I did not in fact say... Example 3 - I did not say that WMD would be found immediately, only that it was a matter of time. Do I need to explain the difference between these statements to you? On that, the truth is that Kay and the others have found mountains of evidence, which they are planning on releasing later this year when they're finished poring through it all... But in short: Get your "he said, she said" sh*t straight. - Of course my analisys is my opinion on what I think is going to happen. It is based upon what I know of similar past situations and this situation in particular, nothing else. It is not set in stone, and I may be wrong. But despite of Macbeth's "treeman is always wrong" assertions, I have been right more often than not the past couple of years. Personally, though, I really don't care how much stock you put into my analysis. If you want to believe Macbeth's analyses, then go ahead, more power to you. Just don't be surprised when you're surprised... - My opinions and analysis are not more important than anyone else's. I do not necessarily have any special inside knowledge of this subject, just a different perspective and differing information than most here. Someone said they'd defer to Macbeth on historical issues, and I would agree with that. But on current issues... But for someone who is supposed to be a military historian, Macbeth displays a startling lack of understanding of how military operations (and their accompanying political issues)actually work, and almost no understanding of what is actually taking place in this situation. I have intimate knowledge of how these things actually work, if nothing else, because I A) have been trained to do them and know how they work, and B) have talked to people who actually are doing them. - Much of my perspective has been formed by talking to people who have just gotten back from Iraq. I put far more trust in these first-hand accounts than any media report, hence my disdain for the media in this situation. I know that they are misrepresenting the situation there, and it sickens me. I can barely even read a NYT headliner any more, they are just oozing with hatred for American and Iraqi success... But if Macbeth wants to think of hearing first hand accounts by soldiers who've been there dun that as schoolyard rumor-mongering, well, then to each his own, and I'll let you form your own opinions about that and who the jackass really is. OK now, continue with your petty arguments...
... that would be <b>timing</b> not <b>MacBeth</b>. And you do have knowledge that we don't. I doubt any of us is talking with recently returned soldiers as you are.
But why should I be trusting treeman's secondhand account any more than I should trust the Associated Press? CNN? Washington Post? Chicago Tribune? L.A. Times, NY Times? New Republic? Time? Newsweek? They provide direct quotes from soldiers in the field. Does treeman? Why should I not believe them and believe treeman?
