Fahrenheit 9/11: through the roof

[Artemis]

I saw it today in Santa Monica, California. I chose an 11:15am showing and it was still near sold out, with a nice diverse crowd of pensioners, workers and a couple of homos sitting next to me.

I'll be upfront from the start, I like Moore and I was already anti-Bush. As a fully fledged liberal who keeps as up to date as he can on his leftie-news, not much in this film was new to me. Many of the facts have been written at length about, not least in Moore's own work. In this sense, he was preaching to the converted. However, the comprehensive and chronological articulation of the various ways the self-serving Bush administration has been steadily fucking the American people harder and deeper in the rhetorical ass still packs a punch.

F-9/11 starts by looking at the ways in which the Bush team stole the election victory from the person who got the most votes, and moves into the title sequence, a fairly amusing collection of clips of the major political players getting ready for interviews, off air. Dubya looks gormless and smirks like a little kid; Wolfowitz wets his comb by sticking it in his gob to lube it up before slicking back his hair with it ... just setting the picture, you know?

The screen fades to black and we're treated to an audio only of when the planes hit the WTC .... and so it begins. There's not much of Moore in this movie at all, which actually helps. There is little doubt after watching this that Moore started with honest enquiry fuelled by bitterness after the election 2000 coup, then when presented with a string of fairly unflattering pieces of information regarding the Bush administration, formed his opinion and edited the footage in such a way as to make that opinion as persuading as possible. In that sense, it is a form of porpoganda, as many have described.

However, facts are facts and there are certain things that exist independantly of whether they fit in with Moore's views or not; things that are on public record; phonemena like the business partnerships and discussion between Taliban leaders and Texan oil giants while Bush was the governor there; the Bush and Saudi Royal connection, etc. - if you don't know of all these extraordinary happenings I won't spoil the surprises for you here. As for any book/movie/person that makes seemingly outrageous claims, the authenticity is found in examining the sources. Moore could have flashed these up or at least provided a web address where they can be found, but he chooses not to and the film lacks an element of credibility for it.

That said, I loved the film. It contains some uncomfortable footage; a beheading, a dead child, many injuries sustained through war and some heart-breaking footage of a mother who lost her son who was serving in the forces when he was killed in Iraq. That, if nothing else is something we should all view - certainly in America is counters the rose-tinted patriotic war presented in the media, which are nationalistic at the expense of criticial analysis of the need and execution (sorry) of this sorry battle.

Ultimately it will get people talking, though probably only the people who would have been talking anyway - if not about this then something else. I admire Moore for being passionoate about the injusticies of his country's government and his determination to use his platform to let people know. Will it make a difference? I think so. I hope so.

[Peking O]

MM's preying on liberal guilt to sell this movie and make himself a few $$$'s.

Ah, the 'he's in it for the money' argument.  I've been picking through the carnage on the IMDB board, and this one tends to be pulled by people who have talked themselves into a corner.  Those who invoke it are, without exception, right-leaning supporters of capitalism, which is why bleating about the fact that Moore will make money from the film makes no sense whatsoever.

Your argument is weakened somewhat by the fact that I haven't been backed into a corner, and I'm not a right-leaning supporter of capitalism.

[MojoJojo]

MM's preying on liberal guilt to sell this movie and make himself a few $$$'s.

Ah, the 'he's in it for the money' argument.  I've been picking through the carnage on the IMDB board, and this one tends to be pulled by people who have talked themselves into a corner.  Those who invoke it are, without exception, right-leaning supporters of capitalism, which is why bleating about the fact that Moore will make money from the film makes no sense whatsoever.

Your argument is weakened somewhat by the fact that I haven't been backed into a corner, and I'm not a right-leaning supporter of capitalism.

But it's still a somewhat redundant point in terms of what the film actually says. If he's in it to purely make money (which considering he encourages people to download it, doesn't seem too likely), that doesn't mean that anything he says isn't true. What is more damaging is the fact that he admits it is biased, and doesn't provide his sources.

I'm not sure what you mean by "liberal guilt".

Right, going to make an effort to watch this tonight.

[Peking O]

I'm not sure what you mean by "liberal guilt".

I'm talking more about the ad campaign - "You HAVE to see this movie" written large on posters, encouraging kids to sneak in underage, etc. Is he encouraging people to download it? Where does he say this?

[El Unicornio, mang]

He wants kids to see it to get his message out. Someone posted a link here a while back with a clip of him saying that he didn't mind people downloading his work as long as they don't make a profit from it.
I really don't think he's motivated by money at  all, I mean he's hardly the most flamboyant person in the world is he? He looks like he's been wearing the same clothes since his "TV Nation" days. Plus, there was a section on his site (don't know if it's still there) where he said he wanted people to help him use the money he got from Bush's millionaire tax cuts for a good cause. And in his film The Big One he offers up $10,000 of his own money for charity if the billionaire head of Nike will match him.

[Mr Custard]

Erm ... so you're saying that all theories revolving around some kind of conspiracy are lies and nothing but?  That no conspiracy theory can ever be based on truth?  Surely a theory has to have some basis in truth otherwise it's a fantasy, and not a theory.  Besides, the Bush administration's explanation for 9/11 is a conspiracy theory as they have, so far, not conclusively proved Bin Laden's involvement.  There are still persistent reports that he was on a dialysis machine at the time and barely capable of pissing unassisted, let alone planning a terrorist act of that magnitude.

The large piles of evidence that have been gathered, combined with Bin Laden's own admission of guilt and the small matter of all the people being involved in the attacks being members of his terrorist network certainly seems to sugest he was behind it. Not that it's incredbly relevant anyway. Bin Laden is only a symptom of the problem, and Al Queda is not the only source of Islamist terror.

A country can be in no greater danger than when its government, or its leader, lies to the people - and there is absolutely no doubt that Bush is a consumate pathological liar.

You'd think that if there was no doubt then the people who have been wailing about Bush being a liar for the last couple of years would have been able to provide an example without having to make things up and take quotes completely out of context to do it.

You cannot compare the so-called war on terror to the advance of the Third Reich, they're two completely different things. For a start, Hitler posed a very real threat. The terrorists that are supposedly lurking on every corner waiting to kill us all in our sleep, on the other hand, do not. We've been at greater threat in this country from the IRA over the last 40 years than we ever will be from Al Quadea. Besides, you have to ask yourself what creates a terrorist; a film that criticises Bush, or a president who goes around making enemies everywhere he goes by invading and looting whichever countries he feels entitled to relieve of its resources.

Indeed. I see absolutely nothing threatening about people flying planes into buildings, attacking battleships and blowing up embassies, nightclubs, buses and anything else they can find, all while repeatedly pointing out that they intend to destroy us.

Incidentally, the answer to your question is neither. Put in very simple terms the main cause of Islamist terrorism is the abject failure of the majority of their home nations combined with their desire to see their own wacky brand if Islam spread throughout the world. The reason they see America as their main enemy is that despite being infidels, the US is the most powerful nation in the world, and therefore the one that makes their own failures all the more apparent. That and the fact that if they can somehow take the US out of the equation all the other western nations will soon follow.

I've got some important news for you ... there is no war on terror. It's all bullshit.

Possibly in the imaginary world of love and happiness thet you appear to inhabit, but here in the real world, we have the small problem of a large group of terrorists who are engaged in war against us. Fortunately in recent years a sizable number of people have realised that sticking our heads in the sand won't make them go away and that it might be a good idea to fight back.

I'd say that Moore most certainly IS trying to make America a better place by alerting the sleeping masses to what really is going on in their country.

I suspect that the reason that the 'sleeping masses' are unaware of a lot of what Moore says is because it's completely made up, or not especially relevant. But thank god we have Moore and the other liberal elites pointing out that anyone who dares disagree with what they say is a brainwashed moron. And a brainwashed moron who doesn't pay any attention to CNN, the New York Times, Reuters or any of the other numerous anti-war news organisations at that.

Or best of all, that he took the unconditional support, love, goodwill, and compassion that the rest of the world gave after September 11th, and turned it into distrust, fear, and outright hatred of the USA?

It wasn't unconditional. It had the single condition that America realise what an evil bully it had become and bow down to Europes obvious superiority. Fortunately Bush realised that this would be a stupid thing to do and decided to try and prevent such an attack happening again. Bush's course of action didn't suddenly turn these countries from friends who loved America into countries that disliked it. It simply revealed that the only reason they would pretend to be friends is if they saw something in it for themselves.

Is a war worth fighting when so many have died for so little? The answer is, rather obviously, no ...

Well we should all be thankful that the war on terror has so far had significant results with relatively few casualties then. In fact, if we take into account the number of Iraqis that Saddam would have had killed had he stayed in a position to do it then we seem to be running at a net gain in lives.

[Artemis]

I saw him address this point recently on an American show... possibly the Daily show or Letterman. Anyway, to paraphrase, he said he was aware of the irony of making mooney for, and with, people who are primarily against his own ideals (in terms of who owns corporations who own the corporations that help him) but it's a win-win situation as far as he's concerned. The big companies see him simply as a commodity which makes them money, and he sees them simply as a tool he can use to get his message spread as far as possible. Although the two are working from different agendas, they can still work together to achieve their individual goals. Moore doesn't feel his views are invalidated or that there's an ethical issue to this, and I have to agree with him. Literally. He makes me.

[MojoJojo]

Incidentally, the answer to your question is neither. Put in very simple terms the main cause of Islamist terrorism is the abject failure of the majority of their home nations combined with their desire to see their own wacky brand if Islam spread throughout the world. The reason they see America as their main enemy is that despite being infidels, the US is the most powerful nation in the world, and therefore the one that makes their own failures all the more apparent. That and the fact that if they can somehow take the US out of the equation all the other western nations will soon follow.

Ahhh, the Cheerleader the argument: "They hate my because they're jealous of how wonderful I am"

I hate to point this out, but America has acted like a complete bitch to most of the world:
Here is what the CIA has done
Saddam Hussein was sponsored by America to invade Iran.
Osama Bin Laden was CIA trained.
Saudi Arabia's unpopular, depotic rulers are kept in power mainly due to American interest in maintaing the oil supply.

Now, America is obviously the figurehead target for anti-western feeling, and obviously Islamic extremism has more cause than American violence; but America has done nothing to make the World like them. All America's foreign policy seems to be based around the idea of replacing anyone who doesn't agree with them violently.

Well we should all be thankful that the war on terror has so far had significant results with relatively few casualties then. In fact, if we take into account the number of Iraqis that Saddam would have had killed had he stayed in a position to do it then we seem to be running at a net gain in lives.

Oh I see, it's the Iraqi's lives we care about now. How many deaths from terrorist actions due you think have been prevented by invading Iraq? And do you think invading an Arab country was the best way of making friends with the Arab world?[/url]

[Artemis]

You'd think that if there was no doubt then the people who have been wailing about Bush being a liar for the last couple of years would have been able to provide an example without having to make things up and take quotes completely out of context to do it.

Go here for a nice little run down on some of his major ones (ten among many, mind) and please do get back to us all on which bits were made up and which bits were taken out of context - I'd be fascinated to read your response. Bush is a deceitful president, in charge of a deceitful administration more concerned with putting money in the pockets of the people who bought them their jobs then the interests of the people they represent. Don't make the mistake of discounting established fact because you don't like conspiracists.

Indeed. I see absolutely nothing threatening about people flying planes into buildings, attacking battleships and blowing up embassies, nightclubs, buses and anything else they can find, all while repeatedly pointing out that they intend to destroy us.

You conveniently evade the point, here. Terrorism is obviously a threat in some small sense, however your chances of being affected by a terrorist incident is so low, there are many more things you should be far more concerned about as a threat to your health and well-being, but I'm betting you're disproportionately more in a flap over something that will never happen to you in all probability, unless you make regular trips to the Middle East and spend a lot of time hanging around foreign embassies. As for the rhetoric regards destruction, well, it goes both ways, doesn't it? Here's a question for two points... who said the following? ""Such an enemy cannot be deterred, cannot be contained, cannot be appeased, or negotiated with. It can only be destroyed. And that is the business at hand." If you answered Saddam Husein, slap your own wrist. If you answered Bin Laden, chew your own face. This came out of the mouth of Vice President Dick (never was there a more appropriate name) Cheney. Hardly fills you with confidence for the future, does it?

The reason they see America as their main enemy is that despite being infidels, the US is the most powerful nation in the world, and therefore the one that makes their own failures all the more apparent. That and the fact that if they can somehow take the US out of the equation all the other western nations will soon follow.

Do you think this is static? Do you think the US do anything to maybe provoke the situation at all? It may be a factor that the success of more developed nations fuels a jealousy and bitterness that is a part of why the religious nuts and general psychos want to harm us, but don't be so naive as to put America in such a good light. Perhaps part of the terrorists beef is that they feel betrayed by the people who armed and funded them when we wanted to use them for our own ends, then turned around and invaded their own countries when it suited us. That would be a bigger problem for me if I was them. Besides which, you neglect to address the fact that people like the Taliban and other religiously extreme nations, don't want to be like America. They don't desire the 'freedoms' that America has, they just want to be left alone to commit human rights violations. It may have escaped your attention but they don't actually like America very much and the last thing they'd do if they had half a chance is emulate it. I suspect strongly that America's quest for global dominance and interferance in any nation that gets in it's way (especially if it's sitting on a nice bit of oil) is enough to topple the already unbalanced over the edge.

here in the real world, we have the small problem of a large group of terrorists who are engaged in war against us. Fortunately in recent years a sizable number of people have realised that sticking our heads in the sand won't make them go away and that it might be a good idea to fight back.

The group of terrorists is not large and the threat is minimal, though growing by means of the 'coalitions' response. It may be a good idea to fight back, but isn't that a last resort? Could you explain how sending in a team of weapons inspectors with the backing of the United Nations whose job it was to check on the weapons status, capability and development of Iraq and who were doing well and making progress, how that was 'sticking our heads in the sand'? You talk as if anything other then using violence and killing is a waste of time. Don't you feel a bit uncomfortable with this approach?

I suspect that the reason that the 'sleeping masses' are unaware of a lot of what Moore says is because it's completely made up, or not especially relevant. But thank god we have Moore and the other liberal elites pointing out that anyone who dares disagree with what they say is a brainwashed moron. And a brainwashed moron who doesn't pay any attention to CNN, the New York Times, Reuters or any of the other numerous anti-war news organisations at that.

Well first of all suspicion isn't good enough. Moore has enough work in the public domain for you to do your homework and check up on what he 'makes up' to see if your (or his) opinion is valid or not. If you don't care to do this then you're not entitlted to your assertions. True, many supporters of Moore and others of his ilk are agressive and overly dismissive of people of opposing views, but with just cause. The left have been taking it for many years; they've become this pathetic weak voice that have allowed the corporate criminals to marginalise them as conspiritorial and discount them as 'nutcases'. This is simply not fair - if those on the right and those right leaning media institutions cared to address the arguments and points made by those of us on the left, we'd be slightly less narked. But they don't - instead they ignore, deny and dismiss while continuing their crooked 'leadership', as if proving that an allegation is untrue would somehow 'bring them down to their level'. The way that news works, at least in America, is that you have a couple of stations (one inparticular) which are quite blatantly republican-supporting. They create fictional news stories which are later discounted but not before other networks start reporting on the 'story that is being reported'. Before you know it, this evolves into a 'legitimate' piece of news, and anyone that dare challenge it before the original source of the fiction admits it's bullshit, is categorized as 'anti-war' or 'liberal'. It's a joke. And not a funny one at that.

It simply revealed that the only reason they would pretend to be friends is if they saw something in it for themselves.

Shock!! Really though, I credit the French, German and Russian leaders with a little more then that. They knew that it was ethically problematic to invade another country without provocation when the international community was already addressing the problem. They suspected that the reasons for war were dubious and they were ultimately correct.

Well we should all be thankful that the war on terror has so far had significant results with relatively few casualties then. In fact, if we take into account the number of Iraqis that Saddam would have had killed had he stayed in a position to do it then we seem to be running at a net gain in lives.

It's quite repugnant how glib you can be talking about 'net gain' of lives. I for one am certainly not thankful that there were any 'casualities' regardless of how few there were, and they certainly were not few, especially if you count the growing number of American soldiers and hostages being captured on practically a daily basis. How few casualities makes a war justifiable? How many before we should stop being 'thankful'? There is an embedded jump in logic in your argument which is incorrect. Saddam was a bad man; nearly everyone agrees on that - pro or anti war. His removal from power would in principle make the world a better place; again, little disagreement there. However, it simply does not work to argue that because he would continue to be bad, we were justified in doing what we have done. You need to expand your arguement to explain how the choice of war is favourable over other options, particularly the one we already had in place which was working. And you need to argue this on it's own merits, not resort to comparisons about how our system is so much better then theirs or possible reasons why they may hate us - these things are not the issue.

As someone who is obviously in support of the choices Bush and his little gang of disciples have made, the burden of argument is on you. It is inherant in your reply that you feel that because the 'elected' (!) leaders make decisions, we should all fall into line with them unless anyone can succesfully argue otherwise. I'm afraid this is not the case, particularly when it comes to war, when it comes to those leaders risking the lives of others. It is then they who are responsible for putting a strong enough case to justify their actions and persuade us that it was the right and absolutely necessary thing to do. They, and you, are woefully far from doing this and that is why most of the world, including the populations of the very people on our side, are overwhelmingly in agreement with the people we are invading and whose countries we are destroying: it is not needed and there is no good cause for doing it.

I await your reply with interest.

[weekender]

Well, yeah, but isn't VM a cunt?

[Mr Custard]

I hate to point this out, but America has acted like a complete bitch to most of the world:

I've never claimed that America has had a perfect foreign policy or that they have not acted in their own self interest, however that list and the general criticisms about it often suffer from ignoring the context behind the actions that were taken. You  examples are perfect cases in point (well, apart from the CIA training Bin Laden which is completely made up). America gave intelligence support to Saddam during the Iran/Iraq war for the simple reason that he was the lesser of two evils, and while Saudi Arabia's government is bad at the moment, it would almost certainly be replaced with a worse one if it were ever to fall.

All of this doesn't change the fact that American foreign policy is a far smaller influence on Islamic terrorists than internal problems within the Middle East. After all, if they were doing it entirely due to meddling then the US would be a long way down the list of potential targets. It's also worth bearing in mind that their intentions for the area are not exaclty pleasant. Where out aims are opposed to theirs it doesn't just mean that we should give up on them. One of the main reasons given for the Bali bombings was Australia's key role in liberating East Timor. Would you suggest that they should have left the people there to be slaughtered just so that some nutcases don't get upset?

As for America not doing anything to make other countries like them, it's complete bollocks. They have done a huge amount to help other countries with aid, military assistance, not to mention the small matter of them paying to rebuild Europe and Japan after World War 2.

And do you think invading an Arab country was the best way of making friends with the Arab world?

Whether they want to be friends with us is irrelevant. The aim is simply to prevent them from trying to kill us.

Go here for a nice little run down on some of his major ones (ten among many, mind) and please do get back to us all on which bits were made up and which bits were taken out of context - I'd be fascinated to read your response. Bush is a deceitful president, in charge of a deceitful administration more concerned with putting money in the pockets of the people who bought them their jobs then the interests of the people they represent. Don't make the mistake of discounting established fact because you don't like conspiracists.

By and large Corn's claims are very good examples, although he also seems to have added making political policies that he disagrees with yet another definition of lying. For instance he claims that Bush was lying about the tax cuts benefiting millions of Americans based entirely on the bizzarre notion that they didn't apply to people who didn't pay the tax in the first place. This doesn't change the fact that millions of people did benefit. And as the cuts were designed to boost the economy, even those who didn't directly benefit would still be in a better position. He goes on to list the numerous debunked claims such as Bush going AWOL from the military before eventually getting to the biggest and most popular claim amongst the left - that Bush lied about the WMD situation in Iraq. The only problems with this being that it ignores the obvious distinction between lying about something and being mistaken and it also assumes that in order to make his lie Bush not only managed to pursuade America's intelligence agencvies to back him up, but also those of countries such as Britain, Russia, France and Israel along with the UN, all of whom believed that Iraq had the weapons. He presumably also persuaded Saddam to do everything in his power to look as guilty as possible.

You conveniently evade the point, here. Terrorism is obviously a threat in some small sense, however your chances of being affected by a terrorist incident is so low, there are many more things you should be far more concerned about as a threat to your health and well-being, but I'm betting you're disproportionately more in a flap over something that will never happen to you in all probability, unless you make regular trips to the Middle East and spend a lot of time hanging around foreign embassies.

There are numerous things I am more concerned about than being killed by a terrorist attack, however that deosn't mean the threat should be ignored. We are dealing with people who have no desire for negotiation or compromise; they want us dead, and they are willing to do anything in their power to acheive that goal. If they are allowed to continue then they will gain more power and become more of a threat. When would you suggest we start worrying? When they launch a chemical attack in a small town in Cornwall? When they detonate a nuclear bomb in the middle of London? Or should we leave it until our only option to avoid defeat is to turn a large portion of the middle east to rubble? Despite some lefties claims to the contrary, we are at war and it's generally considered to be a bad tactic to just sit there and let your enemy get on with it.

Here's a question for two points... who said the following? ""Such an enemy cannot be deterred, cannot be contained, cannot be appeased, or negotiated with. It can only be destroyed. And that is the business at hand." If you answered Saddam Husein, slap your own wrist. If you answered Bin Laden, chew your own face. This came out of the mouth of Vice President Dick (never was there a more appropriate name) Cheney. Hardly fills you with confidence for the future, does it?

His comment is 100% true, and yes it fill me with confidence to see that some people in power actually understand what we are dealing with.

Besides which, you neglect to address the fact that people like the Taliban and other religiously extreme nations, don't want to be like America

Er, I never said they did want to be like America. I said they want to destroy it. A subtle difference.

The group of terrorists is not large and the threat is minimal, though growing by means of the 'coalitions' response. It may be a good idea to fight back, but isn't that a last resort? Could you explain how sending in a team of weapons inspectors with the backing of the United Nations whose job it was to check on the weapons status, capability and development of Iraq and who were doing well and making progress, how that was 'sticking our heads in the sand'? You talk as if anything other then using violence and killing is a waste of time. Don't you feel a bit uncomfortable with this approach?

The weapons inspectors were doing so well that they left due to a lack of co-operation and were only allowed back in after a large proportion of the US army popped up on their border. How exactly was this successful? The fact that they were pottering around for the best part of a decade while the UN completely failed to live up to any of it's threats is just further evidence that the old way of doing things wasn't working.

Well first of all suspicion isn't good enough. Moore has enough work in the public domain for you to do your homework and check up on what he 'makes up' to see if your (or his) opinion is valid or not. If you don't care to do this then you're not entitlted to your assertions

What makes you think I haven't?

The way that news works, at least in America, is that you have a couple of stations (one inparticular) which are quite blatantly republican-supporting. They create fictional news stories which are later discounted but not before other networks start reporting on the 'story that is being reported'. Before you know it, this evolves into a 'legitimate' piece of news, and anyone that dare challenge it before the original source of the fiction admits it's bullshit, is categorized as 'anti-war' or 'liberal'. It's a joke. And not a funny one at that.

Sounds very much like the way that the anti-war press made their arguments to me. For example there was the recent claim that Iraq was descending into a quagmire as supporters of Al Sadr launched an uprising against the imperialistic invaders. The only problem being that he only had the support of a tiny number of men, and the majority of Iraqis were very unhappy with what he was doing. He's been pretty much defeated now, but you would have a hard time working that out from the mainstream press. Just last week there was the claim made by such organisations as CNN, the New York Times and the BBC that the 9/11 Commission's interim report contradicted the US government's claims about ties between Iraq and  al-Qaeda. The only problem being that it didn't - in fact it confirmed what they were saying, but by concentrating on one sentence that said there was no evidence that Saddam had collaberated on the 9/11 attacks (something that no-one is disputing) and then subtly changed the meaning. They were a lot less keen to report the fact that several members of the commision had pointed out their claims were complete rubbish, and have now almost completely lost interest. There are many more examples.

It's quite repugnant how glib you can be talking about 'net gain' of lives.......

Sorry, i was under the imression that the logic was fairly easy to follow. Less people dying is a good thing. The war lead to this happening and for this alone it was a good thing. And bearing in mind that the current situation was blatently not working, as evident in the growing power of the terrorists and Saddam's undeminished ability to murder large numbers of his people, and that every other option had been tried or was completely insane, i would have thought the onus for finding another way to solve the problem would lie entirely with those who opposed the eventual solution. I notice that while the anti-war corwd are good at criticising everything that happens, they seem to be a lot less impressive when it comes to explaining exactly how they would  sort out the problem. And then they wonder why no one pays them any attention.

[Evil Knevil]

Closer to the topic.... I've just seen it and....

it lacks bite. Yes, GWB is protrayed as an idiot, but the critique of the war is not thoroughm nor does it land many body blows to Bush.

[wheatgod]

The only problems with this being that it ignores the obvious distinction between lying about something and being mistaken

leaders should not make such "mistakes", these "mistakes" were far from insignificant, and should cost the man his job

Saddam... look as guilty as possible.

that was the job of the news networks

Despite some lefties claims to the contrary, we are at war and it's generally considered to be a bad tactic to just sit there and let your enemy get on with it.

i dont think spitting in the metaphorical face of the enemy is the greatest strategy either... perhaps look to remove the terrorists' motives??

"Such an enemy cannot be deterred, cannot be contained, cannot be appeased, or negotiated with. It can only be destroyed. And that is the business at hand."

how about arrest suspected terrorists and give them a fair trial? they are still human, believe it or not

[MojoJojo]

I hate to point this out, but America has acted like a complete bitch to most of the world:

I've never claimed that America has had a perfect foreign policy or that they have not acted in their own self interest, however that list and the general criticisms about it often suffer from ignoring the context behind the actions that were taken. You  examples are perfect cases in point (well, apart from the CIA training Bin Laden which is completely made up). America gave intelligence support to Saddam during the Iran/Iraq war for the simple reason that he was the lesser of two evils, and while Saudi Arabia's government is bad at the moment, it would almost certainly be replaced with a worse one if it were ever to fall.

From the BBC[/bbc]

He received security training from the CIA itself, according to Middle Eastern analyst Hazhir Teimourian.

No solid evidence then, I admit, but more than is needed for WMD, I would say.
What is clear though, is that Osama was first took up arms in the Afghan war against the Russians, and was sponsored by the CIA. The Americn objective at the time was summed up as "Let's give the Russains their Vietnam" - and the Americans attempted this objective by calling upon, training and funding, the extreme islamics to fight against the heathen Russians. In fact, they tried to start a worldwide Jehad against the Russians. And it was this movement that became the Al Quada and other Islamic extremist groups today.

Yet America has little influence on Islamic terrorists.

That Saddam Hussein was supported because he was the lesser of two evil has several glaring mistakes. The first is mine; America probably backed Iraq and encouraged it to attack, but I have no good sources for this at the moment and I want to go to sleep. However, America supplied arms to Iran, while claiming neutrality. It was encouraging its allies to boycott arms to Iran at the same time. The reason? To drag out the war and make Iran dependant on American arms, securing the oil. The resulting war resulted in over a million dead, and the money spent (and mostly went into Western pockets) was more than the entire Third World spent on health care in a decade.

Yet America has litle influence on the Arab world.

I won't go into the Saudi Arabia situation at the moment, it's late.

And do you think invading an Arab country was the best way of making friends with the Arab world?

Whether they want to be friends with us is irrelevant. The aim is simply to prevent them from trying to kill us.

If they want to be friends is extremely relevant; if they wanted to be friends they wouldn't want to kill us. The suggestion that invasion is the only way to stop this terrorism is repugnant; do you want to know how many innocents were killed in the invasion of Iraq? A damn sight more than have died to terrorism in America in the last 50 years, that is how many.

On practical terms, it isn't a good move either. The number of terrorists killed is probably less than the new members recruited; all those people who have lost their wives and children to American bombs, they are not going to forgive easily. The Iraq war has caused another 50 years of Arab hatred towards the US.

It's late, and I should already be asleep, so I'll finish with a question. What was the pupose of invading Iraq? Was it to protect the American people from terrorist attacks? That's a bit hard to argue, since there is no evidence that Iraq has been behind any successful terrorist attacks as far as I know, and no links with Al Queda or other Extremist groups has been found (Osama Bin Laden hated Saddam Hussein).

Or was it to free the Iraqi people, a purely altruistic action to save human lives? But then, why was Iraq chosen, and not some other, far worse regime (and there are plenty). Or why invade anywhere at all, when, say, enforcing Cease Fires would save more lives directly at far less cost of money and lives, both innocents and American military personnel. Hell, why not just put all the money into feeding Africa - there was probably more than enough  money.[/i]

[Artemis]

the general criticisms about it often suffer from ignoring the context behind the actions that were taken.

Context means little when the actions are ongoing. America didn't just wake up one morning, support Saddam and the Taliban, go to bed and never think of them again until they attacked. Their support was consistent over a lengthy stretch and right up until September 10th, the Bush administration was courting known allies with terrorists to explore what money they can make out of each other.

Would you suggest that they should have left the people there to be slaughtered just so that some nutcases don't get upset?

Sorry, how does this support your argument regards Iraq? The international community was already focused and dealing with the situation. You make a good point, but not in this argument.

Whether they want to be friends with us is irrelevant. The aim is simply to prevent them from trying to kill us.

Yes, but what of the means? The aim is something you will find little quarrel with.

[/quote]

By and large Corn's claims are very good examples, although he also seems to have added making political policies that he disagrees with yet another definition of lying. For instance he claims that Bush was lying about the tax cuts benefiting millions of Americans based entirely on the bizzarre notion that they didn't apply to people who didn't pay the tax in the first place. This doesn't change the fact that millions of people did benefit. And as the cuts were designed to boost the economy, even those who didn't directly benefit would still be in a better position.

No, Bush lied because he said the tax cuts were fair, They are not fair, because they actually increase the poverty gap. The rich get a much larger slice of the pie then the people who really need it at the bottom, because Bush is not taxing proportionately in accordance with people's needs. Bush claims to want a fair and equal society, and then rewards the rich with more money. The same is true of the abolition of the 'death tax' - again, benefiting the rich and increasing the gap between them and those not well off. Besides which, how is someone who is forced to pay sales tax not a taxpayer? You mean they pay no 'income tax' but Bush said that all people who pay taxes will get tax relief ... It's tax relief for everybody who pays taxes.. Which was a lie.

Bush lied about the WMD situation in Iraq. The only problems with this being that it ignores the obvious distinction between lying about something and being mistaken and it also assumes that in order to make his lie Bush not only managed to pursuade America's intelligence agencvies to back him up, but also those of countries such as Britain, Russia, France and Israel along with the UN, all of whom believed that Iraq had the weapons.

I'm sorry, this is just nonsense. Bush asserted that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He knew that, he said. Now last time I checked in on my epistemology handbook, you could only know something if it was true. If you couldn't be sure it was true, you didn't know it and if it wasn't true, you definately didn't know it. It wasn't true. Bush didn't know but Bush said he knew, and that's why he lied. There's no argument on this one. Bush may have been simply 'mistaken' but if it was possible that Bush could have been mistaken, especially when using it as a reason to sacrifice many lives, he at least should have said he may be mistaken, or that he just 'believed' or that the 'evidence seems to indicate' - Bush chose none of these phrases, he was adamant. And he was wrong. The other countries you mentioned were less guilty because they weren't promoting war as an answer to something they weren't quite sure about. Bush's approach is at best unethical and at worst something far more sinister. Also, the evidence that Bush "must have gotten himself backed up by" is hotly disputed in terms of accuracy and credibility, so he didn't do a good job there, did he? If Bush was mistaken, the mistake came at too high a cost and the man should go, with his tail between his legs looking very ashamed.

There are numerous things I am more concerned about than being killed by a terrorist attack, however that deosn't mean the threat should be ignored.

I agree with you, but it does mean it should be dealt with in a way that is proportionately appropriate to it's likelihood. The American administration know that a population gripped by fear is a population easier to manipulate and deprive of civil rights. Do you really think that the threat is receiving the proportionately appropriate amount of airtime and column inches in the world's press? In America's press, if you have access to that? No.

We are dealing with people who have no desire for negotiation or compromise;

Funny, when they were invited to Texas to discuss how to make their image seem better they were quite the neogtiable type. What could have changed I wonder? The fact that America used Afghanistan as a scapegoat to 'attack' instead of dealing with Saudi Arabia where nearly all the hijackers came from? That America invoked 9/11 as just cause to decimate Iraq though "no credible evidence" was found by the 9/11 commission and none has been forthcoming from the administration to validate their stubborn refusal to yield in that area?

When would you suggest we start worrying?

A fair question to ask. I guess when the rights of a human being to live the life he chooses so long as no harm is being done to others, there is a situation worth being concerned about. You are right, we are now at war, though not with a noun, this ridiculous abstract concept called terror, but with real people; extremists who act irrationally and hijack religions to do it, not to mention aeroplanes. We are at war with no nation, no area of the world; we are at war with people who use just grievences with America to commit their inexusable violence. This war has been much aggrevated by America's agressive response - not just to the countries they 'liberated' but to the rest of the international community who did not support them, and to the people of their own country who were manipulated into supporting a war by a government who hijacked 9/11 to justify it. Yes there is a threat and yes it does need dealing with. It may well be the case that the only response now is to fight fire with fire, or get burnt ... but did it always have to be that way? The answer lies in the history of the last twenty years, not just the last three, but I submit that America's mixed messages and u-turns in middle eastern countries along with it's bulldozer like attitude when it wants its own way has not helped.

His comment is 100% true, and yes it fill me with confidence to see that some people in power actually understand what we are dealing with.

Do you feel as confident when he starts talking about 'evil' and invokes God and morality? Don't forget that Cheney's idea of debate is to tell members of congress to "go fuck themselves" when questioned about his dubious conflict of interests. Not a man who inspires much confidence in me. Any person who talks in such black and white terms and invokes religion and God to be on his side is a man who is either stupid or is talking in such definative terms to try and deceive.

The weapons inspectors were doing so well that they left due to a lack of co-operation and were only allowed back in after a large proportion of the US army popped up on their border. How exactly was this successful? The fact that they were pottering around for the best part of a decade while the UN completely failed to live up to any of it's threats is just further evidence that the old way of doing things wasn't working.

Well Hans Blixx's take on the situation was that the US undermined rather then supported him. The weapons inspectors left Iraq because they were ordered to do so, and not by Iraq. They were busy doing their job under intense international pressure and the spotlight of the media, chomping at the bit for them to fail and war to be announced. Blixx is a man who'd know more then you or I and has been quite vocal in his dissaproval of the war and the way it was made to look like we had no other choice but to bomb a country to freedom. Bush and the administration went to great lengths to try and sabotage Blixx's job and that of his teams, and why? For the same reason that Bush himself commanded the counter-terorism unit to find a link between Iraq and 9/11 just the day after it happened.... because taking control of Iraq and it's natural resources was an agenda the Bush administration had long before any of this started.

What makes you think I haven't?

Your argument.

Less people dying is a good thing. The war lead to this happening and for this alone it was a good thing.

You are in no position to know such a thing. This is speculation at best and when it comes to commiting the lives of the poor soldiers that perished in vein, speculation is nowhere near good enough. Ultimately, the agression and violence that this war has provoked will probably kill more people then Sadamm would have gotten away with. The world is a more violent, unstable place now, that's for sure. The point is that there were arguments made by administrations in favour of the war that have since been debunked and ergo so has the justification. Please don't insult us all by resorting to this last-ditch effort to paint an uncessary war in a good light.

that every other option had been tried or was completely insane, i would have thought the onus for finding another way to solve the problem would lie entirely with those who opposed the eventual solution.

You cannot be serious. "We're going to war and the only way you can stop us is by giving us a good reason not to"? Is that your argument? Those in favour of war are responsible for giving good reason to do it. There is simply no other sensible way of looking at it. Would you care to go through 'every other option' and explain when it was used and why it didn't work or what was insane about it? While you're at it, you could explain exactly what has been 'solved'? Life there is hell. Blair said it himself, so it must be true! It is likely that as soon as this new 'government of the Iraqi people' are seen to bend at the knee to the American administration who put them there in the first place, the country will descend into civil war, and where will the US be? Recovering from the jetlag of their flight back to safety.

I notice that while the anti-war corwd are good at criticising everything that happens, they seem to be a lot less impressive when it comes to explaining exactly how they would  sort out the problem. And then they wonder why no one pays them any attention.

They don't wonder, they know and that's why they're so upset. They don't get paid attention because to give them attention is to take on their arguments and an administration so deep in error as Bush's would not survive the inevitable calls for impeachment. The anti-war crowd is not required to come up with a solution, though there are arguments out there that hold weight. If they were the pro-solution crowd, then maybe, but they are not. They are the anti-war crowd and that is perfectly acceptable; it is not up to them to find the solution, but it is up to them to ask an administration so hell-bent on violence for their reasons and then demonstrate against the decision when those reasons are inadequate.

[alan strang]

You may find this interesting. It's a five-minute clip of Frank Zappa on Nicky Campbell's Radio 1 show in 1991 talking about the first Gulf War. You'll need Flash installed to hear it.

CAMPBELL
We have the impression, over here from watching the news and so forth that there was a lot of popular support for the Gulf War in America...

ZAPPA
Well, you would have that impression simply because the news was managed. There were many many anti-war demonstrations in the United States and there was a standing rule on network television that they were not to be covered.

CAMPBELL
Seriously?

ZAPPA
Yes.

CAMPBELL
Who imposed that rule?

ZAPPA
Who do you think? Somebody from the Whitehouse! There was a governmental agency that was set up by Ronald Reagan called The Department Of Domestic Diplomacy. And, uh, the goal of this organisation is to manage the news.

CAMPBELL
That's like some... George Orwell. That's 1984!

ZAPPA
Well...

CAMPBELL
This is the gr... this is... the Greatest Democracy In The World? The USA?

ZAPPA
Says who?

CAMPBELL
The Land Of The Brave? The Free?

ZAPPA
Yeah, well... yeah... the Land Of The People Who Need To Feel Good About Themselves Because They Blew Up A Bunch Of Iraqis. I think that it's... it's shameful.

[WoShade]

Nice link, alan strang.

<Spoilers>

I've watched the vcd effort and have a few jumbled thoughts about the film. Firstly, I have always had a literally dim view of camera rips. This one is especially awful, with wonky orientation and as far as I can ascertain the omission of an important chunk that deals with the Patriot Act and Moore's depiction of pre-war Iraq (the latter upsets Christopher Hitchens a great deal, so would seem to have merit for that reason alone). What I have seen I regard as an extremely powerful film. Film is Moore's metier, as anyone who has struggled through one of his books will attest, and the Palme D'Or and the Oscar are well deserved. Moore returns to the culture of fear and exploited underclass themes he addressed in Bowling For Columbine, and this is effective. A third of the US troops in Iraq are reservists, typically from the poorer strata of society attracted by the education funding, and the interviews with the soldiers in theatre are telling. Having seen the Fox News broadcast of the initial assault on Baghdad (set to music!) that reported the 50 surgical strikes aimed at 'decapitating the regime' ie whacking Saddam, the footage of tank crews explaining that they preferred to neutralise their targets to the refrain of metal bands offering such lyrics as "Let the motherfuckers burn" was shocking. GIs were shown mocking a shrouded prisoner with a hardon. But of the Iraq sequence, the footage of the civilians is the most powerful. One woman in particular, before a backdrop of her ruined house, rages tearfully at the Americans and her own God. I wonder how many Americans have seen stuff like this, or the screaming wounded, dead or strung up US servicemen.

The footage of the grieving mother, and the grieving 9/11 widow, is powerful. I can't comment further on this right now.

The first half is well assembled. One can't deny Moore's ability to make a case with a sequence of talking heads, stock footage and cheap animation, all underwoven with his sly voiceover. The incredible bulk has the least screen time of any of his films that I've seen, and this helps his cause. The Bush admin players are condemned more by their own words and actions than any commentary by Moore or others. Of course, these actions are essentially irrefutable. It's all a question of spin. Enemies of Moore face the problem of denying Colin Powell's and Condi Rice's assertions that Saddam has a deadly arsenal, or choosing to deny their pre 9/11 assertions that Saddam was no threat. There are many shots of GHWB and GWB chummying up with Saudis. I don't know how widespread the knowledge that Saudis including bin Ladens were given extraordinary treatment, or that the Bush family have enjoyed over $1bn of Saudi largesse, but in my view, the more the merrier.

Many will attempt to nullify Moore's take on the whole affair. They face an uphill task. The 7 minutes of Bush, wide-eyed and impotent, immediately after the second tower was hit is damning. The rest is factually well supported. Criticism that Moore over-estimates Saudi investment in America at 7% is rickety, as the film clearly states the actual dollar figure and then states 'in terms of the Wall St stock market, that's 7%'. The best the 'wacko attackos' have against this is the charge of characterisation. Speaking as someone who has watched with exasperation as national media concerns such as Fox News invent news such as WMD findings, justify their term 'homicide bomber' (sounds better than suicide bomber, no?) by inventing a death when a suicide bomber failed to kill anyone else, and heard Rush Limbaugh casually tell his millions of listeners that Hilary Clinton is a murderer and John Kerry, if elected, is a marked man, I welcome this factually sound polemic.

</Spoilers>

[WoShade]

PS

I liked the armoured superloo.

"I hear you, Osama. Neither you nor your evil acolytes will prevent me from passing my righteous, Christian stool."

[MojoJojo]

Bah, I tried to watch this yesterday, but discovered that it was 5 minutes of a film starting with a woman peeling an onion. I should of realised because my housemate downloaded it before the premiere.
Stupid Suprnova.

[WoShade]

I dl/ed that effort as a 'Cannes Screener' from eMule a month ago. Why do people do that? Thank goodness it's in the theatres in a matter of days.

[Pinball]

I'm currently d/l the "Cannes screener" from Soulseek. Bugger.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Yeah, there's a load of differently titled ones on suprnova right now, but they're all the same wonky camera filming a vcd, just in different format. Not only is it wonky, and missing a good portion of the picture, there's also scenes and little bits of audio not on it. I'm assuming that version was unfinished. I'd recommend waiting.

[MojoJojo]

Yeah, I decided to go see it at the cinema.
I mean, the money grabbing studio's deserve my money.

[Purple Tentacle]

Michael Moore in Empire stated that he DIDN'T want people to watch it at home.... he said that he wanted to see people actrively leaving their homes to watch the movie so it could be more like a protest.


I would type out the exact quote but I can't sit typing out of a big movie magazine at work, maybe I'll do it later.



I'm not necessarily supporting his egomania, however, just saying like.

[Peking O]

Yeah. I'm still waiting for some actual evidence to back up all the claims earlier in this thread about Moore encouraging people to download it. A google search hasn't turned up anything...

[El Unicornio, mang]

Yeah. I'm still waiting for some actual evidence to back up all the claims earlier in this thread about Moore encouraging people to download it. A google search hasn't turned up anything...

You're not looking hard enough:

http://www.stargeek.com/item/56854.html

[Pseudopath]

Yeah. I'm still waiting for some actual evidence to back up all the claims earlier in this thread about Moore encouraging people to download it. A google search hasn't turned up anything...

The following link is a clip from a press conference in which Michael Moore states:

"I don't agree with the copyright laws and I don't have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people.  As long as they're not doing it to make a profit, you know, as long as they're not trying to make a profit off my labor.  I would oppose that."

Code Select Expand

http://trackerwww.prq.to/download.php/3219853/Michael%20Moore%20About%20Filesharing.avi.torrent

[Peking O]

You're not looking hard enough:

http://www.stargeek.com/item/56854.html

Thanks for that :-)

[Mr Custard]

No solid evidence then, I admit, but more than is needed for WMD, I would say.
What is clear though, is that Osama was first took up arms in the Afghan war against the Russians, and was sponsored by the CIA.

Not only is there no solid evidence; there is no evidence at all. Not only that but both the CIA and Bin Laden both flatly deny that America provided him with money. There were two seperate groups fighting the Russians in Afghanistan. One consisted of people who lived there, which is the one that received American support, and one was a group of Arabs, one of whom was Bin Laden.

It's late, and I should already be asleep, so I'll finish with a question. What was the pupose of invading Iraq?

There were a number of reasons for the invasion, including that it would remove from power a man who supported terrorist organisations and was a threat both to his own people and the rest of the world. What is more important is that it would allow Iraq to develop into a successful democracy which would have a significant impact on the power of the terrorist organisations and the countries that support them.

Context means little when the actions are ongoing. America didn't just wake up one morning, support Saddam and the Taliban, go to bed and never think of them again until they attacked. Their support was consistent over a lengthy stretch and right up until September 10th, the Bush administration was courting known allies with terrorists to explore what money they can make out of each other.

Context reveals the world to be a consideraly less simplistic place than you claim, and shows that America was often forced to chose the lesser of two evils. This may well have lead to mistakes, and they were nopt always in the best interests of the people involved, but it still shows that America is not the bastion of all evil that many think it is.

Sorry, how does this support your argument regards Iraq? The international community was already focused and dealing with the situation. You make a good point, but not in this argument.

It had nothing to do with my argument about Iraq. I was pointing out that just because terrorists don't want us to do it, doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, or that we are in the wrong. It would be nice to think that I wouldn't have to do so, but there are many so desperate to put America and the rest of the western world in a bad light that they are willing to blame anyone for the terrorists' actions, as long as it is not the obvious choice of the terrorists themselves.

No, Bush lied because he said the tax cuts were fair, They are not fair, because they actually increase the poverty gap. The rich get a much larger slice of the pie then the people who really need it at the bottom, because Bush is not taxing proportionately in accordance with people's needs. Bush claims to want a fair and equal society, and then rewards the rich with more money. The same is true of the abolition of the 'death tax' - again, benefiting the rich and increasing the gap between them and those not well off. Besides which, how is someone who is forced to pay sales tax not a taxpayer? You mean they pay no 'income tax' but Bush said that all people who pay taxes will get tax relief ... It's tax relief for everybody who pays taxes.. Which was a lie.

If you paid a lot of tax you received a lot back, if you paid less you got less, and if you paid none you got none of it back. I can't imagine anything that would be fairer. I suppose Bush could have first taxed people in low incomes first, before then giving some of it back or something. However, that the people who didn't get given any of the money for nothing may not have directly gained doesn't mean they were any worse off. Contrary to popular leftist belief, the rich getting richer (or in this case the rich having less of their own money taken off them) doesn't lead to the poor getting poorer. In many case it actually leads to the poor getting richer too. If people have more disposable income, they buy more goods, which leads to more and better paid jobs. Which was of course, the plan.

I'm sorry, this is just nonsense. Bush asserted that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He knew that, he said.

The Bush administration made it clear on numerous occasions that their claims about that intelligence suggested that the weapons exist. His claim that the trucks found were mobile weapons labs was also based upon the current intelligence, that some people later cast doubt on the initial claims doesn't make him a liar. And despite what many in the media want you to believe, the intelligence only overestimated the levels that Saddam's weapons programmes had reached. We now know for a fact that they were there, just not as advance as was initially thought.

I agree with you, but it does mean it should be dealt with in a way that is proportionately appropriate to it's likelihood. The American administration know that a population gripped by fear is a population easier to manipulate and deprive of civil rights. Do you really think that the threat is receiving the proportionately appropriate amount of airtime and column inches in the world's press? In America's press, if you have access to that? No.

There were plenty of people who said the same thing about Germany in the 30s. This time we have the opportunity to end this war long before it escalates into a conflict that would result in vastly higher casualties.

Funny, when they were invited to Texas to discuss how to make their image seem better they were quite the neogtiable type.

That would be the Taliban your thinking of. And he was obviously talking about terrorist's insistance on attempting to destroy as much of the western world as possible, not their lap dog's attmepts to build a pipeline (with the permission of a completely different American goverment incidentally).

What could have changed I wonder?

Someone flew some planes into the World Trade Center. I'm suprise you missed it, it got a fair bit of news coverage.

Do you feel as confident when he starts talking about 'evil' and invokes God and morality? Don't forget that Cheney's idea of debate is to tell members of congress to "go fuck themselves" when questioned about his dubious conflict of interests. Not a man who inspires much confidence in me. Any person who talks in such black and white terms and invokes religion and God to be on his side is a man who is either stupid or is talking in such definative terms to try and deceive.

I couldn't give a fuck why he believes it. The fact he does is good enough for me. The terrorists are evil despite many people's efforts to make them look like people with genuine grievences.

Well Hans Blixx's take on the situation was that the US undermined rather then supported him.

The second time the inspectors left it was because their job was done. They were not there to enlessly search for weapons, they were there to determine whether Saddam was going to co-operate with the terms of resolution 1441. He didn't even make a pretence of doing so.

Your argument.

My research into Moore gave me the conclusion that the majority of his work was full of lies and distortion. It's therefore not really that suprising that my argument is different to his.

You are in no position to know such a thing. This is speculation at best and when it comes to commiting the lives of the poor soldiers that perished in vein, speculation is nowhere near good enough.

Conservative estimates suggest Saddam is responsible for the murder of 300,000 Iraqis. It is possible that the number is well over a million adn this does not include the wars he started. There is no reason to believe he was suddenly going to change. It is therefore a near certainty that more people would have died if he had remained in power.

You cannot be serious. "We're going to war and the only way you can stop us is by giving us a good reason not to"? Is that your argument? Those in favour of war are responsible for giving good reason to do it. There is simply no other sensible way of looking at it. Would you care to go through 'every other option' and explain when it was used and why it didn't work or what was insane about it? While you're at it, you could explain exactly what has been 'solved'?

Where that argument falls down is that choosing to stay on the same path is in itself a choice, and is open to equal demands for justification. The only difference is that we know the old way was a failure. I'm not asking for alternatives because I'm trying to hide them, I'm asking for them for the simple reason that I am not aware of any, a trait that I would appeat to share with the American government. In the case of Saddam we tried a decade of negotiations and threats but he completely ignored them and continued to support terrorists. Even when the American army was sat right on his doorstep he continued to lie and trick his way out of doing what he was told. As for the terrorists, 9/11 was conclusive proof that if we rely entirely on intelligence and police work then it is only a matter of time before they launch a successful attack. Their aims are diametrically opposed to our own, so there is no room for negotiation, and appeasement only encourages further attacks. If the anti-war crowd have some amazing new way of defeating terrorism then I'd love to hear it, but so far all I've seen are calls to return to the old, failed ways. If we sit on the defensive indefintely then it only gives them an indefinite period of time to find a way through our defences. The only way to stop them is to destroy thrm.

Life there is hell. Blair said it himself, so it must be true! It is likely that as soon as this new 'government of the Iraqi people' are seen to bend at the knee to the American administration who put them there in the first place, the country will descend into civil war, and where will the US be? Recovering from the jetlag of their flight back to safety.

You seem to be falling back on the old anti-war tactic of setting your own impossible objectives for the war and then complaining when they are not met. Rebiulding Iraq was never going to be a shot job. It will be years before it can even hope to reach the levels or security and wealth that most western nations currently enjoy, but even after this short period of time the lives of the majority of Iraqis are already far better than those they endured under Saddam.into feeding Africa - there was probably more than enough  money.

[Artemis]

Not only is there no solid evidence; there is no evidence at all. Not only that but both the CIA and Bin Laden both flatly deny that America provided him with money.

A little history lesson... The CIA did not directly fund bin Laden or his group, they instead used Pakistan's 'inter-services intelligence' as a go between, and through them trained the Mujahadeen. The CIA piled massive amounts of "military aid" into the ISI and kept hush hush about their ultimate objective (destroying the Soviets). It is for that reason that bin Laden was correct in stating he didn't see any of the American support - it's because it wasn't given to him, it was given to the organisation that trained his fighters. The US continued to use the ISI in Pakistan to covertly fund both sides in the Afghan civil war following the departure of the Soviets, because the reigieme was serving the geopolitical interests of the United States. That's why it doesn't make sense that Iraq was detsoryed because it had a 'bad man' in charge but the Taliban were allowed to control Afghanistan through terror for so many years without the US batting an eyelid. Among those who received training were the volunteers recruited and directly supported by bin Laden.

There were a number of reasons for the invasion, including that it would remove from power a man who supported terrorist organisations and was a threat both to his own people and the rest of the world. What is more important is that it would allow Iraq to develop into a successful democracy which would have a significant impact on the power of the terrorist organisations and the countries that support them.

If I may, I think the question more related to the preference of an invasion as opposed to more peaceful, less destructive means. All of those reasons are admirable (though the 'threat' is now established as somewhat overstated) and I'm sure we both hope Iraq succeeds on it's own terms and in it's own control (something we have yet to see). I'm not sure what an impact this will have on terrorist organisations. They weren't based in Iraq, were they? The US's violent stampede into Iraq; the 'control by force and destroy anyone who gets in our way' has probably just strengthened their resolve and demonstrated that their enemy, when it comes to methods of solving problems, is little better then they are.

America was often forced to chose the lesser of two evils.

How was it forced? Germany, France and Russia (among others) didn't think it was forced. The UN didn't think it was forced. The weapons inspector teams didn't think it was forced. The majority of the population of the countries in the coalition (if polls be believed) didn't think it was forced. America had a number of options available to them, not 'two'.

If you paid a lot of tax you received a lot back, if you paid less you got less, and if you paid none you got none of it back. I can't imagine anything that would be fairer.

The tax cuts Bush has put in place cuts marginal income tax rates by approximately the same number of % points at both the top and bottom of the income scale. This does nothing to contribute towards reducing the poverty gap between Americans that he claimed to care so deeply about. It also makes it less likely that these differences will be solved any time in the near future, since he's now taxing at a defecit, depriving the state of the resources it needs to reduce inequality. Not only that but the gap is increased under Bush's tax policies. The tax cuts will see a greater percentage rise in after-tax income for those earning considerably more, which is not an "even-handed reduction of the tax burden for all tax payers".

the rich getting richer (or in this case the rich having less of their own money taken off them) doesn't lead to the poor getting poorer. In many case it actually leads to the poor getting richer too.

Your reasons for this don't work. The poorer don't suddenly have a surplus of money because they got a tax return. The reason they are poor is because they can't afford to get by. The minimal amount they get back will likely get swallowed up immediately to pay for the problems that are caused by administrations giving money to the rich at the expense of the poor in the first place. Meanwhile, the money the rich will get will be able to buy them that swanky new handbag at that expensive boutique. There is a fundamental inconsistency between Bush's call for equal opportunity and his subsequent tax policy.

The Bush administration made it clear on numerous occasions that their claims about that intelligence suggested that the weapons exist.

It depends what you read or watch. Bush talked at length about "truth", "revealing the truth" and point black asserted that Iraq had WMDs on many occasions without even mentioning the evidence that justifies such a claim let alone explain his reasons for trusting it.

that some people later cast doubt on the initial claims doesn't make him a liar. And despite what many in the media want you to believe, the intelligence only overestimated the levels that Saddam's weapons programmes had reached. We now know for a fact that they were there, just not as advance as was initially thought.

It does make him a liar because his claim was not conditional on the evidence he's received, it was paraded as a factual statement. At the risk of repeating myself, Bush knew that the evidence was not conclusive but intentionally chose to represent it as such. For your second point, we do not know for a fact they were there. We do know that Iraq was unable to account for weapons it claimed to have destroyed, but the US pulled the weapons teams out before they were able to clear that up, and there is no justifiable logic that connects "we can't account for them" to "they must exist" - not to justify a war, on any count. The teams also found no evidence that Iraq had was continuing or had resumed chemical, biological or nuclear weapons developments.

What could have changed I wonder?

Someone flew some planes into the World Trade Center. I'm suprise you missed it, it got a fair bit of news coverage.

Do you really think that's as far back as this goes?

I couldn't give a fuck why he believes it. The fact he does is good enough for me.

That's a mind-bogglingly frightening position to take. You bloody well should consider why somebody believes what they say, especially if they're in a position of power, and moreover if they are talking about destroying other people! Are you content that why ever he believed it, he happened to get it right so that's ok?

The terrorists are evil despite many people's efforts to make them look like people with genuine grievences.

I don't think any reasonable person would excuse the terrorist's ideals or their actions to attempt and achieve them. 'Evil' is a word banded around by the Bush administration that is reflective of his (their?) own religious belief and is in turn an appeal to the large Christian segment of the American population who believe in such a concept. I personally see it as an easy get-out-of-jail-free word that can be used convincingly at the expense of sound reason and argument. Anyone chosing to debate what evil means and who can legitimately claim the other side is therefore in that category is simply referred to 9/11 and shouted down as being unpatriotic and a "friend of the terrorists". We probably shouldn't get into a discussion about 'evil' here but that's my basic point.

The second time the inspectors left it was because their job was done.

Yet in March 2003, just days before they were forced to evacuate, the weapons inspectors submitted a report that indicated Iraq was reacting positively to inspections. They also said they needed more time to continue the process. You may remember this - it was around the same time that the US went to the UN Security Council to try and get a mandate form them, signalling that only one option was acceptable - the one they wanted. Bush flat out rejected their call for more time and launched a war regardless. There job wasn't "done" in the sense that it was completed - if Bush had not been so hasty to leap to war at the expense of international debate and opinion, the inspectors would have remained and built on what was, by their own admission, going well.

Conservative estimates suggest Saddam is responsible for the murder of 300,000 Iraqis. It is possible that the number is well over a million adn this does not include the wars he started. There is no reason to believe he was suddenly going to change. It is therefore a near certainty that more people would have died if he had remained in power.

Absolutely. A near certainty. Now, who proposed that as a principle argument for war at the time war was being promoted as 'the only option'? No-one I remember. This is the argument the right-wing fall back on when their 'threat' argument has been exposed. As wonderfully moral as it sounds, 'liberating the Iraqi people' is not justification for the attack on Iraq. International law recognises the sovereignty of nations independant of how their governments are constituted and almost independantly of the crimes they commit against their own people. Saddam's regime was much more brutal in the past then it was at the time Bush invaded Iraq. If liberating the people was such a moral justice, why was it not done years previous when, using that logic, the violations commited would have demanded an immediate response? Using the 'liberation' argument is also inconsistent with Bush's arguments in which he invokes morality and justice as reason for saving lives at the cost of others. How is this consistent with his policies, for example, on effectively banning stem cell research? Surely the cost of a few embryos is worth the sacrifice of finding cures for some of the most dangerous and common diseases. If liberation was now the chief reason for going to war, it was certainly unconstitutional; the US congress did not back any war on the basis of liberating an opponent's people without being attacked. Finally, America did not stop in their rush for violence to consider what a precedent they were setting in their actions.

The only difference is that we know the old way was a failure. I'm not asking for alternatives because I'm trying to hide them, I'm asking for them for the simple reason that I am not aware of any, a trait that I would appeat to share with the American government.

Bush claimed the war was a last resort then chose it over other options he had not seriously considered. There was an alleged offer to hold elections in Iraq, relayed by a Labanese-American businessman to Richard Pearl. While the offer was improbable, it was dismissed out of hand; rejected without serious scrutiny. After all, if people like Pinochet have allowed free elections under pressure, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that Saddam may have yielded on this one, under even greater pressure. Regardless, the apparent relative success of the inspection teams of that time warranted the space and time that Hans Blixx asked for. Not only that but with the 'threat' being as minimal as we know it to be now, and as they knew it to be at the time, the US could have waited on the UN security council to debate and weigh up the pros and cons before leaping into action. Why many people were upset at the war was because it was so transparent that it was simply something that Bush wanted to do and he was going to do it with or without just cause.

As for the terrorists, 9/11 was conclusive proof that if we rely entirely on intelligence and police work then it is only a matter of time before they launch a successful attack.

Have you read the staff statements and interim reports produced by the 9/11 commission? If the CIA and FBI had been doing their job with adequate support from the highest levels of the Pentagon, many things may well have been spotted that would have caused 9/11 to at worst have been delayed. "They might attack us" fails to provide justification for invading other countries.

The only way to stop them is to destroy them.

The only way to stop them is to stop them. Destruction may or may not be necessary. Ending another's life requires more persuasion then an appeal to the religious nuts in our own country and moral-ish sounding cliches, regardless of their ideals. They want dominance and control. How is that diametrically opposed to the aims of George W. Bush? They will kill innocent life to do it. Again, something they share in common with the Commander-in-Chief. Look - bottom line is nobody wants terror but as long as there is conflict of interest it is a sad inevitability. I'm reluctant to call it human nature but I do think we just haven't evolved past this stage yet as a species. It's really quite amazing how the right-leaning folks take the "please tell me how this war was justified" and turn it into "tell me how it's justified to want terror to end" or something similar. This argument is all about using an unprovoked war to achieve a goal, without any support from the international structure of law. We all want the terrorists to stop.

It will be years before it can even hope to reach the levels or security and wealth that most western nations currently enjoy, but even after this short period of time the lives of the majority of Iraqis are already far better than those they endured under Saddam

Whether or not the lives of Iraqis will be better off then they would have been had the war not happened will depend on the nature of the future government and such a judgement call is premature at this stage. What we do know is that Iraqis now live in a time of confusion, lack of order, fear and insecurity. They risk violence at the hands of American soldiers, their own citizens and terrorists who could see them as traitors. If a stable democracy comes out of all this and prospers, it may be fair to say that the cost of the lives lost in the war was outweighed by the greater good to Iraqis as a whole, but this still would not ethically justify the war. There are still big questions to consider, most notably that international law does not recognise one country's desire for regime change as grounds for going to war, and also the issue of international law constraints as a whole being weakened by the actions of America and it's allies.

Kofi Annan in September 1999 at the United Nations General Assembly, asked those who think that states or groups of states are justified in acting outside of established mechanisms for enforcing international law whether or not there was a danger of such 'interventions' setting dangerous precedents for future interventions without a clear working idea of who might invoke these precedents and in what circumstances. Bush's actions ha made this question more pertinent then ever.