Speaker Review: Scott Ritter
This evening, I went to see former UN Weapons Inspector, Scott Ritter speak at the local college. Before the event, I had joked that unless they were working late at the bomb test site, I wasn't expecting the earth to shake and for the most part; I'd have to say that Mr Ritter lived up to my expectations. My main purpose for going was to support interesting speakers, but just as he didn't say a lot that I didn't already know, I quickly learned that he was scheduled because he was already in town for firefighter training.
He was an adequate speaker and has had a lot of practice. He had obvious goals, themes and objectives and he stuck to them fairly well, plus he had canned things to say to some of the more adversarial responses, or to the usual questions which could be expected. It was obvious that he wasn't really familiar with the school, it's place in homeland security, the oil industry or weapons research, but because he didn't dive into anything too deeply until pressed by the Q&A, it wasn't really a big problem.
During the actual speech, I couldn't help but think that he was spouting simplistic answers to complex questions and about halfway through the talk, the image of a mule wearing blinders popped into my head.
Mr Ritter is obviously knowledgeable about the things he's seen and the situations to which he's been privy, but this is also his fifth book and one could tell from his words that the majority of his rehearsed speech is based on research and has been tailored for his normal audience. As I like to say in some of my more homespun moments; He knows which side of his toast is buttered.
During the formal speech, he repeated a couple of times that we invaded Iraq for domestic political reasons and while I'll accept this as an overarching theme, his insistence that he could draw a line from a long forgotten utterance by George Bush Sr comparing Saddam to Hitler (1 & 2) to the 2003 military action gave me pause. Primarily, I was bothered because he didn't spell this out and to be honest, it didn't make a lot of sense. It wasn't until the interactive segment and in response to a question about President Clinton that he may have explained it up until his leaving government service in 1998. At no point did he make the jump from the late nineties to the current situation and though I don't doubt the history he knows; I disagree about the concrete reasons, we are there.
Among the myriad of factors that I could cite, one small and tiny part would be for the oil. When asked about this particular, easy to grasp motivation, he said that he disagreed with the premise. Mostly he spoke about the fact that capturing the oil wouldn't be quick, fields would have to be identified, money would need to be spent on infrastructure and exploration. He appeared to completely ignore that Iraq was one of the founding members of OPEC, American companies had a presence there until the first Gulf War and that Saddam Hussein had an active oil program. It wasn't like we'd be going in there blind, not only do the oil companies have studies and written reports on the subject, as Riverbend recently documented, we could've just looked for the existing facilities.
All in all, I'd say it was interesting to hear his perspective without interruption. I did sometimes miss the interjections from Charlie Rose because a lot of it could've used some clarification. I also have to admit that I learned something, but it came in response to that same question about President Clinton and was part of Mr Ritter's partial timeline; Prior to tonight, I was not aware that the alleged plot to kill former President Bush was most likely a fabrication by Kuwaiti intelligence, designed to prompt missile strikes and that the findings were primarily supported by confessions gained from torture and through misreported data.
Mr Ritter clearly speaks most often in front of peace groups. He has some rote responses and a lot of what he says during the formal session isn't fully developed, so it comes across as being simplistic. His big focus or theme by this point in his career is that we should question our government and debate among ourselves. He also advocated voting against every Congressional incumbent who supported the war and if I lived near Albany, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had asked for my vote.
And finally, he announced that his next book will be about the upcoming invasion of Iran and though, I don't doubt the few things he said in the least; I also believe that he's once again been severely limited by his point of view and field of vision.
He was an adequate speaker and has had a lot of practice. He had obvious goals, themes and objectives and he stuck to them fairly well, plus he had canned things to say to some of the more adversarial responses, or to the usual questions which could be expected. It was obvious that he wasn't really familiar with the school, it's place in homeland security, the oil industry or weapons research, but because he didn't dive into anything too deeply until pressed by the Q&A, it wasn't really a big problem.
During the actual speech, I couldn't help but think that he was spouting simplistic answers to complex questions and about halfway through the talk, the image of a mule wearing blinders popped into my head.
Mr Ritter is obviously knowledgeable about the things he's seen and the situations to which he's been privy, but this is also his fifth book and one could tell from his words that the majority of his rehearsed speech is based on research and has been tailored for his normal audience. As I like to say in some of my more homespun moments; He knows which side of his toast is buttered.
During the formal speech, he repeated a couple of times that we invaded Iraq for domestic political reasons and while I'll accept this as an overarching theme, his insistence that he could draw a line from a long forgotten utterance by George Bush Sr comparing Saddam to Hitler (1 & 2) to the 2003 military action gave me pause. Primarily, I was bothered because he didn't spell this out and to be honest, it didn't make a lot of sense. It wasn't until the interactive segment and in response to a question about President Clinton that he may have explained it up until his leaving government service in 1998. At no point did he make the jump from the late nineties to the current situation and though I don't doubt the history he knows; I disagree about the concrete reasons, we are there.
Among the myriad of factors that I could cite, one small and tiny part would be for the oil. When asked about this particular, easy to grasp motivation, he said that he disagreed with the premise. Mostly he spoke about the fact that capturing the oil wouldn't be quick, fields would have to be identified, money would need to be spent on infrastructure and exploration. He appeared to completely ignore that Iraq was one of the founding members of OPEC, American companies had a presence there until the first Gulf War and that Saddam Hussein had an active oil program. It wasn't like we'd be going in there blind, not only do the oil companies have studies and written reports on the subject, as Riverbend recently documented, we could've just looked for the existing facilities.
All in all, I'd say it was interesting to hear his perspective without interruption. I did sometimes miss the interjections from Charlie Rose because a lot of it could've used some clarification. I also have to admit that I learned something, but it came in response to that same question about President Clinton and was part of Mr Ritter's partial timeline; Prior to tonight, I was not aware that the alleged plot to kill former President Bush was most likely a fabrication by Kuwaiti intelligence, designed to prompt missile strikes and that the findings were primarily supported by confessions gained from torture and through misreported data.
Mr Ritter clearly speaks most often in front of peace groups. He has some rote responses and a lot of what he says during the formal session isn't fully developed, so it comes across as being simplistic. His big focus or theme by this point in his career is that we should question our government and debate among ourselves. He also advocated voting against every Congressional incumbent who supported the war and if I lived near Albany, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had asked for my vote.
And finally, he announced that his next book will be about the upcoming invasion of Iran and though, I don't doubt the few things he said in the least; I also believe that he's once again been severely limited by his point of view and field of vision.