[lbo-talk] Re: Bush's Poll Number Go Up

Curtiss Leung curtiss_leung at ibi.com
Tue Mar 30 14:17:41 PST 2004



> Seems like he agreed with a lot of their policies to begin with:
>
> "The United States reserves for itself the right of self-defense, and
> if that means our taking the first step, we will do so," he said. "We
> will not tolerate terrorist organizations acquiring or maintaining
> stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction."
> http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/98100801.htm

So? There's several orders of magnitude of difference between a something like Desert Fox and a war that topples a gov't and ruins the infrastructure of a nation.


>> Also, when would these revelations have _really_ mattered?
>
> "Why didn't the twit make a fuss, say, before we starting blowing up
> things in Iraq?"

Yes, but you also said that was when it "_really_ mattered." Why would it have really mattered then? Because it would have shown his heart was in the right place?


>> In the run up to the war, before the WMD claim was completely
>> discredited and while the al Qaeda-Saddam link had currency?
> probably shouldn't bring up WMD avec moi :),

Why? I figured those claims were horseshit. Lots of people did. Powell's presentation to the UN was a farce. But that and a Metrocard would have gotten you on the subway back then.


> People were severely opposed to this war in the fall/winter of
> 2002. The public support for his revelations would have been
> tremendous back then.

Oh come on. Remember Scott Ritter? Here was the big UNSCOM investigator saying Saddam had no WMD. He was ridiculed and smeared.


> Clarke is a skilled infowarrior. He has demonstrated a few times that
he
> not only knows how to say "Don't fuck with me fellas. This ain't my
first
> time at the rodeo," he could probably do it in Braille, Swedish Chef,
and
> Aramaic while dressed in JOan Crawford drag.

No doubt. But as a skilled infowarrior, bucks plain and simple don't make sense as a goal. Power or access to power would.

I'm not trying to say Clarke is a good guy, or that we should <heart /> the bastard or <yada yada yada />. Just that simple greed doesn't seem like a sufficient reason to keep his trap shut before the run-up to war--there are more malevolent ones.

Curtiss



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