Why does the Right post facts and the Left post innuendo and fallacies

[SheetWise]

CBS. Others below.

[Cyrus]

Thank you, SheetWise, for providing exactly the kind of "proof" and "links" from the pro-war American Right that I was trying to describe to warlockjd. This is what I call excellent service. Three stars.

Now, let's dissect your specimens :

Background. This is a Christopher Hitchens article. We are supposed to ignore Chris until he gets at least a bottle in him, at which point he becomes somewhat funny and we can pay him some mind. Fair enough?

(Very briefly, Hitchens relates the story of a factory which produced material that "could be used in manufacturing nuclear weapons". It's a disgusting piece of self-assuring slop : One needs only to know that quite a lot of material, e.g. conventional explosives, can "used in manufacturing nuclear weapons".)

National Review : Issues and Arguments.
This is a National Review article. (Notice a pattern? What the pro-war Right calls "proof" are editorials written by pro-War Rightwingers. Nice!)

The article is written by two lawyers who have served in the Reagan and Bush Sr Justice Departments. This "work" of theirs will take you back to the days of the Cold War to show you that Krutchev was as duplicitous as Saddam and thank God for the overflying U-2!.. You get the idea.

But even the duo of pro-war hacks cannot avoid the truth. Here, in their own words, from the link:

[ QUOTE ]
By the end of the 1990s, it appears that the immediate value of WMDs, from Saddam's perspective, was not necessarily in their potential use on the battlefield. Rather, it was in the status such weapons gave him in the Arab world, and in the potential deterrence value they produced vis-à-vis the United States and Israel. As a result, he was able to adopt a middle course — evidently destroying much of his stockpile (thus avoiding inconvenient discoveries by U.N. inspection teams), while maintaining the capacity to recreate chemical and biological weapons on a "just in time" basis, and pursuing additional research and development efforts on nuclear weapons.

[/ QUOTE ]

See? According to the authors, Saddam did destroy "much" (how "much"? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]) of his WMDs but (crystal ball gazing) he maintained the ability to recreate it! Wow. Did you get that?? This is called admitting-a-fact-and-then-refuting-it-by-reading-the-mind-of-the-other-guy! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

And here's a Saddam Hussein trick right out of the Soviet Dirty Tricks Handbook - look:

[ QUOTE ]
Saddam's strategic gamble is not entirely unprecedented, and closely resembles Nikita Khrushchev's exploitation of what came to be known as the "missile gap."

[/ QUOTE ](Jeez. Those bufoons must think we still believe there was a missile gap between USSR and the US...)

BBC Link.
Whoa, the BBC! The heavy artillery! What can the Beeb be saying? Let's see -- Ah it's the 2003 story about the looting of an ex-uranium enriching factory:

[ QUOTE ]
Tuwaitha was heavily looted for a period during the war, and there has been particular concern about barrels which once stored low-enriched uranium, known as "yellow cake". The barrels were emptied and sold to local people for $2 each by looters. Many used the barrels to hold drinking water or food, or to wash clothes.
<font color="white"> . </font>
The United Nations nuclear watchdog has accounted for most of the uranium feared stolen from Iraq's largest nuclear site, Tuwaitha, reports say. The prestigious US-based journal Science said inspectors had found virtually all the missing material.
<font color="white"> . </font>
About 1.8 metric tons of "yellow cake" and 500 tons of unrefined uranium went missing as the Iraqis left Tuwaitha unattended during the war.
<font color="white"> . </font>
Although an estimated 20% of the containers which stored the uranium were taken from the site, it appeared that looters had dumped the uranium before taking the barrels.


[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. The stuff that nightmares are made of... [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Oh and Sheetwise provided a 4th link, in another post:
CBS a.k.a. the Dan Rather liberal pinko channel.

And what does CBS say? That the United States practically stole the low-enriched uranium that IAEA was examining and took it from Iraq "to an undisclosed location".

[ QUOTE ]
Paul Longsworth, deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation in the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, said Wednesday the United States didn't need IAEA approval for the transfer.
<font color="white"> . </font>
"We believe we have the legal authority to do it," he said. "We are in custody of the material only, and we have the permission of the Iraqi government to take this out of the country."

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah! Screw you Elbaradei and screw you IAEA! We will write our own report -- and then send it to SheetWise for circulation. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Here is the conclusion of the article -- and remember, folks: IT WAS PROVIDED BY A PRO-WAR RIGHT-WINGER IN SUPPORT OF THE POSITION THAT SADDAM HAD WMDs. Here's how right-wingers prove stuff:

[ QUOTE ]
September 26, 2005 : IAEA inspectors left Iraq just before last year's U.S.-led war. After it ended, Washington barred U.N. weapons inspectors from returning, deploying U.S. teams instead in a search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.<font color="blue"> That search has been unsuccessful so far. </font>

[/ QUOTE ]

[sam h]

Your article does not support your claims whatsoever.

"In 1992, after the first Gulf War, all highly enriched uranium — which could be used to make nuclear weapons — was shipped from Iraq to Russia, the IAEA's Zlauvinen said.

After 1992, roughly 2 tons of natural uranium, or yellow cake, some low enriched uranium and some depleted uranium was left at Tuwaitha under IAEA seal and control, he said.

So were radioactive items used for medical, agricultural and industrial purposes, which Iraq was allowed to keep under a 1991 U.N. Security Council resolution, Zlauvinen said.

IAEA inspectors left Iraq just before last year's U.S.-led war. After it ended, Washington barred U.N. weapons inspectors from returning, deploying U.S. teams instead in a search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. That search has been unsuccessful so far."


The question has never been whether there was yellow-cake under IAEA control in Iraq, but whether Saddam was making or holding other WMD. This is why the article straight-forwardly stays that search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction has been unsuccessful.

[jaxmike]

[ QUOTE ]
(Notice a pattern? What the pro-war Right calls "proof" are editorials written by pro-War Rightwingers. Nice!)

[/ QUOTE ]

Hypocrite.

Don't EVER link ANYTHING that comes from any newspaper, ANY of the networks, well, just about ANYTHING in the media then.

Thus, you cannot even consider the NYT, WP, NBC, CBS, ABC, BBC, NPR, Reuters, AP, etc. to be a legitimate news source because they are NO more accurate and NO less biased than National Review.

[SheetWise]

Well Cyrus, as you've posted on other forums -- I couldn't include everything. Of course much of the information I provided could support your beliefs -- it just depends on whether you're selectively reading. I found the NR article most informative in looking at the issue from a strategic perspective. I believe I labeled the links correctly.

The United Nations has a policy for disarmament agreements. Link. These policies have a long history, but were best defined by the START treaties between the US/USSR during Reagan. One of the requirements for disarmament is verification. Apparently, as the NR article interprets as a strategic decision, Saddam chose to dispose of weapons without allowing verification. This gave him the advantage of being innocent while still being feared. Even if this is/was true, it is not an option under UN policy.

Apparently you believe that what was found is inconsistent with what was feared -- put aside that what was feared was echoed by both parties under three administrations.

There were 17 resolutions for a reason -- Saddam was not cooperating with the terms of the cease-fire and disarmament. As an analogy, I'll offer you a police officer who has asked a suspect 17 times to drop his weapon -- and then shoots. If the WMD issue in the Iraq war makes Bush guilty, then the officer would also be guilty -- upon learning that the suspects weapon wasn't loaded.

[Autocratic]

The issue wasn't whether or not Bush is guilty, it's whether or not there were WMD.

[sam h]

[ QUOTE ]
There were 17 resolutions for a reason -- Saddam was not cooperating with the terms of the cease-fire and disarmament. As an analogy, I'll offer you a police officer who has asked a suspect 17 times to drop his weapon -- and then shoots. If the WMD issue in the Iraq war makes Bush guilty, then the officer would also be guilty -- upon learning that the suspects weapon wasn't loaded.

[/ QUOTE ]

So now you're saying that there were no WMD?

[SheetWise]

[ QUOTE ]
So now you're saying that there were no WMD?

[/ QUOTE ]
I believe there were and are.

What I'm saying is that even if you believe those who conclude he unilaterally disposed of them, what's your point?

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
Even if you believe ... [Saddam Hussein] unilaterally disposed of them, what's your point?

[/ QUOTE ]The point is that the United States conducted a war on a false premise -- hence the inane, after-the-fact attempts to rationalise the idiocy by "justifications" such as liberation from tyranny, etc.

By the way, what does "unilaterally" have to do with anything? You are putting the word there in order to show that the idea of not having WMDs is preposterous! Nice trick but it won't work: There was never any discussion of both the U.S. and Iraq getting rid of WMDs, last time I checked! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
I believe there were [WMDs] and are.

[/ QUOTE ] Whoa, and I mean --whoa. What are you saying? Are you posting from the anti-war rally, man? Don't you be talking like that about the U.S Army now, y'hear? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

There are STILL Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq?? And the American side cannot find them? And the parties that were looking for them, men, women and dogs, have been officiallly disbanded even though the work is not done?

[ptmusic]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
(Notice a pattern? What the pro-war Right calls "proof" are editorials written by pro-War Rightwingers. Nice!)

[/ QUOTE ]

Hypocrite.

Don't EVER link ANYTHING that comes from any newspaper, ANY of the networks, well, just about ANYTHING in the media then.

Thus, you cannot even consider the NYT, WP, NBC, CBS, ABC, BBC, NPR, Reuters, AP, etc. to be a legitimate news source because they are NO more accurate and NO less biased than National Review.

[/ QUOTE ]

By "etc." I'm sure you mean talk radio, Murdoch newspapers, and, um, what am I missing.....

-ptmusic