"Yeah, well, he was thinking about it!"
Set the Wayback Machine to 20 years ago. Littlelaughingimp is eight years old, and his brother, Littletragic7of9, is four.
We were fighting. We sure did a lot of that back then. And like every other time this happens, Mom would get in the middle and get to the bottom of the issue. Littletragic7of9 and I would accuse each other of all manner of atrocity.
Sometimes, I would...bend the truth a little. (Hell, back then, I didn't just bend it, I damn near broke it right off. It took me a long time to figure out that this tactic rarely worked.)
Let's say, for illustration purposes, that I accused Littletragic7of9 of something that proved to be completely untrue, so untrue that I couldn't plausibly claim to have been mistaken. If, after Mom figured out that my accusation was completely untrue, I said, "Well, he was thinking about it," do you know what my mother would have done? She would've rattled my ass, that's what.
Having said all that, allow me to direct your attention to Charles Duelfer, the CIA-appointed WMD-hunter in Iraq:
"Ultimately what we want is a comprehensive picture, not just simply answering questions -- were there weapons, were there not weapons?" Charles Duelfer told reporters after briefing the Senate Armed Services Committee behind closed doors.
"The hunt will go on until we're able to draw a firm and confident picture of what the programs were and where the regime was headed with respect to them. But we're looking at it from soup to nuts -- from the weapons end to the planning end and to the intentions end," he said.
The new direction of trying to determine whether the former Iraqi president was actively pursuing the development of banned arms reflects the Bush administration's evolving public rationale for the war on Iraq.
From Reuters. (Emphasis mine.)
Forget trying to find them, because we won't. But if we can convince enough people that he wanted to, that's good enough, right?
Again, my belief is that Saddam did indeed have chemical weapons at one point. He received them from the United States (from Bush Sr., or from his buddies in the CIA) for use against Iran. Maybe the WMD-hunters didn't look under every rock in Iraq, or maybe Saddam used them all up. Regardless, for a number of reasons (Iran and Iraq aren't actively trying to kill each other, Iraq is up to its armpits in American inspectors and military personnel), it would be a really dumb idea for Iraq to fire up a chemical weapons program. Like, super dumb. Like the vulture in that one cartoon dumb. Like being on Fark with the DUMBASS tag dumb.
And, sure enough, American inspectors couldn't find anything. So, even though the accusation of "You're hiding a weapons stockpile somewhere in your country" is awfully hard to disprove, it looks like it has indeed been disproven. So let's accuse him of something that's even harder to disprove: "You were planning to hide a weapons stockpile somewhere in your country."
The annoying part is, as childish and transparent as this ploy seems to me, it will be GOSPEL TRUTH to plenty of media figures out there (and therefore gospel truth to plenty of Fox News zombies, too). Of course, as per the norm, pointing at the Bushies and saying, "You are all full of shit," will be admitting your secret terrorist leanings.
Unbelievable.
Oh, and Cuba is secretly hiding its WMD program, too. You knew it was coming.
We were fighting. We sure did a lot of that back then. And like every other time this happens, Mom would get in the middle and get to the bottom of the issue. Littletragic7of9 and I would accuse each other of all manner of atrocity.
Sometimes, I would...bend the truth a little. (Hell, back then, I didn't just bend it, I damn near broke it right off. It took me a long time to figure out that this tactic rarely worked.)
Let's say, for illustration purposes, that I accused Littletragic7of9 of something that proved to be completely untrue, so untrue that I couldn't plausibly claim to have been mistaken. If, after Mom figured out that my accusation was completely untrue, I said, "Well, he was thinking about it," do you know what my mother would have done? She would've rattled my ass, that's what.
Having said all that, allow me to direct your attention to Charles Duelfer, the CIA-appointed WMD-hunter in Iraq:
"Ultimately what we want is a comprehensive picture, not just simply answering questions -- were there weapons, were there not weapons?" Charles Duelfer told reporters after briefing the Senate Armed Services Committee behind closed doors.
"The hunt will go on until we're able to draw a firm and confident picture of what the programs were and where the regime was headed with respect to them. But we're looking at it from soup to nuts -- from the weapons end to the planning end and to the intentions end," he said.
The new direction of trying to determine whether the former Iraqi president was actively pursuing the development of banned arms reflects the Bush administration's evolving public rationale for the war on Iraq.
From Reuters. (Emphasis mine.)
Forget trying to find them, because we won't. But if we can convince enough people that he wanted to, that's good enough, right?
Again, my belief is that Saddam did indeed have chemical weapons at one point. He received them from the United States (from Bush Sr., or from his buddies in the CIA) for use against Iran. Maybe the WMD-hunters didn't look under every rock in Iraq, or maybe Saddam used them all up. Regardless, for a number of reasons (Iran and Iraq aren't actively trying to kill each other, Iraq is up to its armpits in American inspectors and military personnel), it would be a really dumb idea for Iraq to fire up a chemical weapons program. Like, super dumb. Like the vulture in that one cartoon dumb. Like being on Fark with the DUMBASS tag dumb.
And, sure enough, American inspectors couldn't find anything. So, even though the accusation of "You're hiding a weapons stockpile somewhere in your country" is awfully hard to disprove, it looks like it has indeed been disproven. So let's accuse him of something that's even harder to disprove: "You were planning to hide a weapons stockpile somewhere in your country."
The annoying part is, as childish and transparent as this ploy seems to me, it will be GOSPEL TRUTH to plenty of media figures out there (and therefore gospel truth to plenty of Fox News zombies, too). Of course, as per the norm, pointing at the Bushies and saying, "You are all full of shit," will be admitting your secret terrorist leanings.
Unbelievable.
Oh, and Cuba is secretly hiding its WMD program, too. You knew it was coming.