"You just want me to accept that statement at face value without any evidence?"
Please tell me you're kidding. In addition to known complicity with plenty of terrorist groups in Afghanistan ("it was for the greater good of bringing down the USSR") including Osama bin Laden and his nascent Al Quaeda group, there are dozens of instances of known guerilla and terrorist groups recieving support and funding from the CIA in Latin America. The cold war was almost entirely fought through such proxy actors, and most of them were not the most pleasant individuals.
"Iraq passed that point with me when they tried to assassinate Bush Sr."
[edit: grumble grumble stupid link... I don't know why it's not working, but a small blurb about it is available at democrats.com. Google it, it's around somewhere.)
Apparently that case was not quite all it seemed to be. Conspiracy nuts whining about who killed whom? To be ignored. The FBI investigator complaining about his results being deliberately distorted, a claim backed up by the inspector general's report? That's something else altogether. Has this story ever been satisfactorily resolved? It's hard to find stuff on it these days, since a google just brings up a million and one links to stuff about Dubya planning to assassinate Saddam.
"All I can say is that I see a viper, and you see a bunny."
I can only quote myself: "...he was a pragmatic, ruthless, *secular* dictator." (Now, I suppose Monty Python proposed a ruthless bunny, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a dictator.) What I object to is not the notion that Saddam is evil, but that, having been found evil, he must obviously be connected to all other forms of evil (pedophilia, drugs, terrorism, Hitler, bad hairdos, Communism, you name it, it's all one big fuzzy cloud of evil). "Evil" is not a grand alliance of everything opposed to the US, nor is it a sufficient reason to invade a nation.
"...you've gone from "a complete lack of evidence", to "Is there anything more solid than the Ansar al-Islam connection?", to finally seeing some rumors, dubious confessions, one little damning CDRom."
[Double edit] Which is the same as going from saying that there is no evidence Saddam has ever supported Islamist terrorism to saying that your evidence does not satisfactorily support your claim, to saying that even if it is all assumed to be true, it still proves a different claim than the one that was made, and isn't strong enough to hold water in any case. That all sounds like the same point to me. If you think it's progress, feel free to keep providing links, but unless I find something actually new in them, I'm unlikely to change my mind.
"I'm just a guy with a browser -- think what a real investigator might be able to put together for you."
I don't really have to think about it. I pretty much already know: Some unsubstantiated rumours, some confessions under duress (or by collaborators), and one document, from after the fall of Saddam's regime. How do I know this? Because if there was anything else, the administration would be holding it up for everyone to see as if they just won "Most Improved Player" in little league. Why haven't they? Because there's no case, and even they're not daft enough to try passing off what terribly little they have under public scrutiny.
Jester
Please tell me you're kidding. In addition to known complicity with plenty of terrorist groups in Afghanistan ("it was for the greater good of bringing down the USSR") including Osama bin Laden and his nascent Al Quaeda group, there are dozens of instances of known guerilla and terrorist groups recieving support and funding from the CIA in Latin America. The cold war was almost entirely fought through such proxy actors, and most of them were not the most pleasant individuals.
"Iraq passed that point with me when they tried to assassinate Bush Sr."
[edit: grumble grumble stupid link... I don't know why it's not working, but a small blurb about it is available at democrats.com. Google it, it's around somewhere.)
Apparently that case was not quite all it seemed to be. Conspiracy nuts whining about who killed whom? To be ignored. The FBI investigator complaining about his results being deliberately distorted, a claim backed up by the inspector general's report? That's something else altogether. Has this story ever been satisfactorily resolved? It's hard to find stuff on it these days, since a google just brings up a million and one links to stuff about Dubya planning to assassinate Saddam.
"All I can say is that I see a viper, and you see a bunny."
I can only quote myself: "...he was a pragmatic, ruthless, *secular* dictator." (Now, I suppose Monty Python proposed a ruthless bunny, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a dictator.) What I object to is not the notion that Saddam is evil, but that, having been found evil, he must obviously be connected to all other forms of evil (pedophilia, drugs, terrorism, Hitler, bad hairdos, Communism, you name it, it's all one big fuzzy cloud of evil). "Evil" is not a grand alliance of everything opposed to the US, nor is it a sufficient reason to invade a nation.
"...you've gone from "a complete lack of evidence", to "Is there anything more solid than the Ansar al-Islam connection?", to finally seeing some rumors, dubious confessions, one little damning CDRom."
[Double edit] Which is the same as going from saying that there is no evidence Saddam has ever supported Islamist terrorism to saying that your evidence does not satisfactorily support your claim, to saying that even if it is all assumed to be true, it still proves a different claim than the one that was made, and isn't strong enough to hold water in any case. That all sounds like the same point to me. If you think it's progress, feel free to keep providing links, but unless I find something actually new in them, I'm unlikely to change my mind.
"I'm just a guy with a browser -- think what a real investigator might be able to put together for you."
I don't really have to think about it. I pretty much already know: Some unsubstantiated rumours, some confessions under duress (or by collaborators), and one document, from after the fall of Saddam's regime. How do I know this? Because if there was anything else, the administration would be holding it up for everyone to see as if they just won "Most Improved Player" in little league. Why haven't they? Because there's no case, and even they're not daft enough to try passing off what terribly little they have under public scrutiny.
Jester