Kerry tonight was horrible

[Prospero]

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Was there evidence of WMD's? Yep, according to Bush and Kerry.  Where they right?  No, and I would have been wrong right along with them.

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Before the war took place there were people who didn't believe that Iraq had WMD.  They were out these, but like the proverbial Cassandra, nobody wanted to hear them.  People like Jude Wanniski, Scott Ritter, Gordon Prather, mostly elements on the right, including much of the foreign press, which is conveniently organized over at antiwar.com.  But nobody wanted to listen to them because war fever had hit - and that is the fault of also of the Democrats.  People said we were idiots.  Turns out the idiots were right.  Maybe you ought to start reading those sites, so that you can begin to be correct and informed.

[Prospero]

Out of the three people you mentioned, only Ritter was actually an inspector.  Kay, also an inspector thought they were there, and the UN said, accurately, that Iraq was playing "cheat and retreat."

LOL.  Wanniski wasn't just making stuff up, he was talking to people who he knows and trusts to be aware of what's going on.  He is first a journalist, the former head of the editorial department at the Wall Street Journal, and now he runs an investment firm in New Jersey, so he can't affort to be wrong, as his clients would lose money if he was.  But believe what you want.  I'm sure you can come up with all sorts of ways to convince yourself that you weren't lied to.  Twenty years from now, when things sort themselves out and people aren't emotionally invested in partisan current events, you'll be agreeing with me.

[Prospero]

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I didn't suggest Wanniski "lied," only that he wasn't credible enough to know about weapons in Iraq.  Ritter is the only person there with first hand information and with expertize in the field.  Now, I take the first hand information as the best.

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Yeah, you would think that your statement would be accurate, that a political economist who is also an investment broker can on his own be more informed than the entire intelligence community.  What an incredible development!  But events have proven him correct.  Scott Ritter is one of the people he did cite.  But Wanniski wasn't alone, as practically the entire antiwar Right wing was saying it.  Now, I for one don't believe the intelligence community was wrong, as elements of it disagreed with the neocon assertions.  I believe the administration lied.

[Prospero]

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Both Edwards and Kerry thought there were WMD's there.  Our intelligence did, as did the UK's.  Now was there a massive failure, yes.  A lie, no.

Look at WW II.  Everybody thought the Nazi's were close to an A-bomb.   Einsteinwarned FDR about it.  Somebody considered assassinating Hiesenburg.  The Nazi's were not close.  Did  Einstein lie?  No, but he wasn't right either.

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Kerry & Edwards both claimed that there were WMD there.  What they really believed, who knows?  Neither is a paragon of honesty.  But at least Kerry would be starting from a blank slate and that alone is a net gain.

I don't see what WW2 has to do with anything today.  We didn't go to war with Germany to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.  Furthermore, back in that period the government had better excuses for being wrong, as there was no mass communication and the media wasn't as good as it is today.  I doubt private citizens like me are really more informed than the government.  Therefore, I can only conclude Bush lied. 

I don't understand why people have such a hard time believing Bush and his people lied.  Politicians have always lied.  They lie about domestic policy, they lie about foreign policy.  And they're not about having people die for their causes.  People are always upset with politicians because they lie... but when it comes to a war, their minds atrophy and they believe the politicians.  They are afraid of expressing skepticism and of being accused of being unpatriotic while everyone is rallying around the flag. 

They go with the flow.  And when people go with the flow, whether its the big time tyrants like Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin, to the religious demagogues that populate the Muslim world, to the well meaning lightweights like GW Bush, bad things tend to happen.  Then 30 years later, people wonder how people could have once been so dumb.  Yet they make the same mistakes themselves, not even realizing it.

As time moves forward and as this election fades, people, especially the duped Republicans, will be able to accept the reality of what happened.  You don't see very many Nixon supporters in the Republican Party today do you?  Well, the Republican faithful back then had a hard time accepting the truth.  But they eventually did and got over it.  Do you really think Bush will be immune from such analysis and historical reflection?  What people think now will not be what they think in the future.  I'm amazed that the truth has come out so soon and that the nation is so split.  I thought it would take another decade or so.  Just wait until Bush is out of office, whenever that is, and for the historians to really sink their teeth into him.

[Prospero]

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Did Einstein lie?  No.  How about FDR?  No.  You can be honest and still be wrong.  Bush, Kerry, Cheney and Edwards were honest, and they were wrong.  It happens.

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I see.  So people should just accept it because things like this just happen?  Things like this do not just "happen".  This isn't something that is common.  That argument sounds an awful lot like the Democrats defending Clinton for Lewinsky.  What innocent times those were!

This isn't just a little mistake.  We are dealing with a foreign policy catastrophe of unprecedented proportions, in one of the most strategically important places of the world.  The immediate and short term consequences are bad enough, let alone the long term ones.

You seem pretty accomodating towards this mistake.  Such mistakes cannot be tolerated, and no politician deserves a second chance after making one like this.  Only in politics are incompetent people rewarded for the disasters they create.  What would happen to a doctor if he made a comparable mistake in his field?  You wouldn't accept it.  So why are you accepting it in a profession that affects the entire world and future?