Ubique Patriam Reminisci

6/12/2004

So, What Did The U.N. Know?

Filed under: — chadster @ 11:18 am

First, World Tribune:

The United Nations has determined that Saddam Hussein shipped weapons of mass destruction components as well as medium-range ballistic missiles before, during and after the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003.

The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission briefed the Security Council on new findings that could help trace the whereabouts of Saddam’s missile and WMD program.

The briefing contained satellite photographs that demonstrated the speed with which Saddam dismantled his missile and WMD sites before and during the war. Council members were shown photographs of a ballistic missile site outside Baghdad in May 2003, and then saw a satellite image of the same location in February 2004, in which facilities had disappeared.

(More, much more, at link.)

Well, there you have it. While Mr. Blix has been grinning his fat face off displaying his “I told you so” attitude over the lack of weapons, while the loonies have convinced the mainstream liberals that such weapons never existed, the People’s Bureaucratic Empire of the U.N. has had to begrudgingly admit that such weapons existed, and were being shipped out while they were responsible for finding them! Heaven knows that we gave Saddam enough time while Blix’s Buddies were playing detective. And a good decade to come up with the plan.

Now, you may be asking, “Why haven’t the troops done anything about this? They were being shipped out during the war and beyond!” My answer: How can they? They’re trying to keep people from killing, and keep from being killed. They’re trying to rebuild a country. By all accounts, they were a bit understaffed in the WMD search area.

But what’s up with the inspectors, who had just one job? They had one focus. Why couldn’t they find the weapons?

I think this goes beyond simple ignorance. Get this other story, which I posted on Friends of Saddam:

During his years at the United Nations, monitoring sanctions imposed on Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf war, critics called Michael Soussan a baby killer. One said the oil-for-food programme administered by the UN amounted to “overseeing genocide".

To Mr Soussan’s dismay, the most vocal critics worked alongside him at the UN. The genocide charge was levelled by an assistant secretary general in charge of humanitarian work in Iraq.

His colleagues blamed the Security Council - especially the United States and Britain - for the suffering of Iraqis, ignoring evidence that Saddam was stealing food from his own people’s mouths.

UN staff did not speak out when Saddam refused to buy high protein foods recommended by UN experts, or spent oil-for-food millions on sports stadiums, or broadcasting equipment for his propaganda machine.

The UN turned a blind eye to signs that Saddam was bribing cronies at home and abroad with black market oil vouchers, and was skimming billions from funds meant for food and medicine, demanding secret, 10 per cent “kickbacks” on humanitarian contracts.

The UN recently claimed it “learned of the 10 per cent kickback scheme only after the end of major combat operations” in 2003.

A lie, said Mr Soussan, recalling the hapless Swedish company that called in 2000, seeking UN help after being asked to pay kickbacks. The Swedes’ plea was quickly lost in red tape and inter-office turf wars. After a “Kafka-esque” flurry of internal memos, the Swedes were told to complain to their own government.

I think it’s not so much incompetence, ignorance, or other such extenuating circumstances that are to blame for these oversights. Rather, it is the malicious, willful, and ultimately fatal denial that the United Nations can do anything wrong by their own leaders. Every time the U.N. makes a mistake, or oversight, someone else takes the fall.

Case in point? When it became apparent in 2002 that the Dutch government and the United Nations were responsible for the infamous Srebrenica massacre, guess which body took repentant action? (Hint: It wasn’t the Kofi Kids.)

Now, the U.N. is going to have to answer for its own incompetence, and what they knew, without the luxury of a fall guy. I have a gut feeling that they’ll somehow get out of this one, either by cashing in on the press’s reluctance to report anything harmful about them, or give another token gesture of promoting peace by condemning Israel for something inane.

However, to the people who did not support the war in Iraq because they believe that civilians were targeted and killed by the U.S., think about this. Which is worse? A brief one-year campaign in which civilians are killed out of tragedies of war, moving toward an independant free government? (For, indeed, having worked with the military for the past 6 years, I can honestly say that it is the sign of a deluded moron to assume that the U.S. military routinely practices the targeting of civilians without reason.) Or a never-ending cycle perpetuated by the so-called “Peacekeepers” of the world allowing for the slow, torturous starvation of a whole populace in exchange for PR brownie points and ill-gotten gains?

Supporting the status quo means supporting the status quo. To not have gone in would have meant more of the same from the United Nations, making Saddam stronger while killing many civilians in his wake. And that’s not even considering the proven WMDs, which is a point that many anti-war pundits are silent about, lately.

To all the dKoses, DenizenGTs, Pieter Friedriches, and other folk who were quick to make a premature judgement on our intentions in Iraq by focusing on the exceptions, and not the rules:

How does it feel, having supported the deliberate deaths of millions by the willful actions of the U.N.? Do you sleep well at night? Do those civilians’ deaths concern you as much when deliberately accommodated by the United Nations as they do by accident through the fog of war by the Coalition?

And now that we also know that the U.N.’s oversight and predjudiced inspectors allowed WMDs to slip out of Iraq behind their backs, they may be responsible for the deaths of countless more innocents.

Who are your murderers, now? Because it seems to me that the U.N. has more sinister selfish notions than the Coalition.

What, indeed, did the U.N. know?

Everything.

What did they do about it?

Nothing.

The result?

“Evil triumphs when good men do nothing” Edmund Burke 1729-1797

Indeed.

So, next time, let’s not complain when a few good men do something.

Or you might as well be an accessory to evil.

EDIT: Welcome, Watcher’s Council and readers. Be sure to check out the other stuff on this humble blog, and if you like what you see, fire off a link. I’m poor. ;)

17 Comments »

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  1. “How does it feel, having supported the deliberate deaths of millions by the willful actions of the U.N.? Do you sleep well at night?”

    Which millions are you talking about? If you mean Iraqis then you should be made aware that liberal counts place Saddam’s body count at 450,000…not millions. So, in what way have I supported the deliberate deaths of millions?

    And yes, I sleep quite well at night.

    “Do those civilians’ deaths concern you as much when deliberately accommodated by the United Nations as they do by accident through the fog of war by the Coalition?”

    You miss the fact that there’s a difference between accommodation and inaction. The UN should be commended for not acting (and the US condemned for acting to enforce globalist UN resolutions) since it has no authority *to* act. Complaining that the UN didn’t do anything about Saddam is like complaining that I don’t do anything about abortion doctors. The UN had the ability to take out Saddam just as I have the ability to take out abortion doctors. What we both lack is the jurisdiction.

    By all appearances, many of the deaths of innocents brought about as a result of Coalition actions were intentional, not accidental. Anyways, what does this have to do with me remembering dead *American* soldiers?

    Comment by Pieter Friedrich — 6/13/2004 @ 2:58 am

  2. Which millions are you talking about? If you mean Iraqis then you should be made aware that liberal counts place Saddam’s body count at 450,000…not millions. So, in what way have I supported the deliberate deaths of millions?

    I’m including the millions more who starved or otherwise died due to the Socialist government of Saddam controlling the aid that was rightfully theirs. But even if that doesn’t qualify, I’d say a few hundred thousand is bad enough to be concerned about.

    And yes, I sleep quite well at night.

    I wouldn’t. During my research, I went back over some past DE posts yesterday and saw in one instance where you called Klaus a “fool” for some of the assumptions he made, which, now that it appears that a good bit of your arguments were mere conspiracy theories, you’ve never taken back. I had no idea that had gone on at the time, and I deeply regret having not said anything, now. Calling someone a “fool” is a very serious charge, and one that Jesus Himself warned against.

    You miss the fact that there’s a difference between accommodation and inaction. The UN should be commended for not acting (and the US condemned for acting to enforce globalist UN resolutions) since it has no authority *to* act.

    The U.N. is guilty of *both*. It accommodated a rogue dictator for a good decade, while ignoring every single rule that they had laid down for his accommodation. Read the articles again. The U.N. knew everything that was going on, and they made no move to stop it all. They did too little, and too much at the same time. They did too much in setting the rules in the first place. They did too little in enforcing the rules they’d made. Consequently, many people died, Saddam restarted his weapons program (which I notice you never addressed), and that makes the U.N. responsible. I hope this info leads to their undoing. I really do. But to accept the status quo is to accept that a bunch of international thugs raping a country is morally superior than a threatened sovereign nation taking out a hostile dictator, and then trying to build the country back up. In the liberals cases, I blame a warped sense of priorities. In your case, I blame stubborn arrogance.

    Complaining that the UN didn’t do anything about Saddam is like complaining that I don’t do anything about abortion doctors. The UN had the ability to take out Saddam just as I have the ability to take out abortion doctors. What we both lack is the jurisdiction.

    Did I say that the U.N. should have taken out Saddam? No. They shouldn’t have been so combative when we wanted to take him out, though. Whether you agree with it or not, the FACT is that the U.N. was in charge. Facts > Ideology. (Which is why I’m not a Libertarian.) They’d placed themselves in that position, and they had the responsibility to make sure that they did things right. But they didn’t. They, as a governing entity, worked for personal gain at the expense of others. Blood for oil. (Go to the Friends of Saddam site for more info on that.) That’s the mark of an imperialist tyranny, a label which has been irresponsibly applied to the U.S. by people who have never even seen an imperialist tyranny in action.

    Basically, the U.N. put themselves in a position of authority, and then failed to enforce that authority, choosing personal gain and graft over their moral responsibility. I agree that they shouldn’t have been in charge, but they made themselves so. And wishing they weren’t won’t make that go away.

    Besides, in addition to the “globalist” resolutions that we were trying to enforce (in your view), we had a credible threat from Iraq in that we now know for a fact that they had WMDs, and were a direct threat to the region, as well as the U.S. (See also Abu Zarqawi). You can kick and scream all you want, but the fact is, you were wrong. There was a threat, and we dealt with it. My beef was going through the U.N. in the first place, which gave Iraq enough time to put this plan into action. But, hindsight is 20/20. Only radicals like me thought that the U.N. was full of moneygrubbing scumbags. Now the mainstream knows. (If anything, Iraq has proven that. And that’s worth fighting for, alone, IMHO.)

    By all appearances, many of the deaths of innocents brought about as a result of Coalition actions were intentional, not accidental.

    Yeah, and by all accounts, Elvis runs a truck stop in Bugtussle, Alabama, JFK was killed by the Roswell alien experiments, and Andy Kaufman is on a nationwide tour of Wal-Marts and Starbucks.

    Conspiracy theories are reassuring. They give the impression someone actually knows what is going on. - Flea.

    Anyways, what does this have to do with me remembering dead *American* soldiers?

    I don’t know. I didn’t say that, Mugsy, you did. ;)

    (But I love my momma!)

    Anyway, the thing is, you were wrong. With the evidence we now have, you were wrong. The U.N. was wrong. The peaceniks were wrong. Two of those groups will never admit it. I hope that you would have the moral aptitude to admit it, especially after you have personally attacked a good friend and close colleague of mine. Otherwise, I would tend to have a little less respect for your opinion. I know I did yesterday. It was rather discouraging to see that I was wrong about your position on Iraq being based on an intellectually honest belief and not just blind rhetoric, but ah well. We’re all human, and I don’t expect any more from anyone. I would hope, though, that all this having been pointed out would at least make you reconsider your stance.

    Comment by Chadster — 6/13/2004 @ 6:45 am

  3. BTW, I figured it out. By “remembering dead soldiers” you were referring to the linked article. I was referring to the comments thereunder, which, quite frankly, I found repulsive and a bit uncalled for. Sorry. I should really stop typing long responses before breakfast.

    In addition, I think I should point out that I believe you are right on many issues, and I still respect you for many of them. But I think that you’re decidedly wrong on this one, given all of the latest evidence that has come out. I think you made a moral judgement which, at the time, was reasonable, but given what we now know, is inaccurate. We all get things wrong. We all make premature judgements. But the mark of real maturity and intellectual honesty, is knowing when to admit you’re wrong. And the fact is, you were definately wrong about there being no link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, and you were definately wrong about the nonexistance of WMDs. And you were utterly wrong when you accused the military of deliberate targeting of civilians, and defamed the character of a good friend of mine, which I would apologize for if I were in the your shoes.

    But that’s up to you to decide. I hope you make the right decision.

    Comment by Chadster — 6/13/2004 @ 11:39 am

  4. Submitted for Your Approval
    First off…&nbsp any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here.&nbsp Die spambots, die!&nbsp And now…&nbsp here are all the links submitted by members of the Watcher’s Council for this week’s vote. Council links:A Tale…

    Trackback by Watcher of Weasels — 6/16/2004 @ 5:46 am

  5. […] ;A Tale of Two Letters, and to Ubique Patriam Reminisci for the winning non-Council entry, “So, What Did the U.N. Know?”

    Com […]

    Pingback by damnum absque injuria » Watcher’s Council — 6/18/2004 @ 3:12 am

  6. The Council Has Spoken!
    First off…  any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here.  Die spambots, die!  And now…  the winning entries in the Watcher’s Council vote for this week are A Tale of Two LEtters by Patterico’s Po…

    Trackback by Watcher of Weasels — 6/18/2004 @ 4:20 am

  7. Watcher’s Council
    The results are in. Congratulations to Patterico for the winning Council entry, “A Tale of Two Letters, and to Ubique Patriam Reminisci for the winning non-Council entry, “So, What Did the U.N. Know?”

    Trackback by damnum absque injuria — 6/18/2004 @ 5:13 am

  8. THE COUNCIL HAS SPOKEN.
    Congratulations to this week’s Watchers’ Council winners: Council - Patterico’s Pontifications, with A Tale of Two Letters… Non-Council - Ubique Patriam Reminisci, with So, What Did the UN Know? Great job, guys… a bunch of well-written entries, …

    Trackback by The SmarterCop — 6/18/2004 @ 3:19 pm

  9. Council Winners
    The winners of the weekly contest of the Watcher’s Council were announced here. I won the council vote with A Tale of Two Letters – regarding those oh-so-non-partisan diplomats’ anti-Bush letter. I will have more to say about that letter…

    Trackback by Patterico\’s Pontifications — 6/18/2004 @ 3:55 pm

  10. The Council Has Spoken ! ! !
    This week’s winners are: A Tale of Two Letters by Patterico’s Pontifications, and So, What Did the U.N. Know? by Ubique Patriam Reminisci I must give special mention to Mudville Gazette’s post Run With Me – a delightful “ahhh” of a…

    Trackback by e-Claire — 6/18/2004 @ 7:42 pm

  11. The Coalition of the Willing
    As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what we consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around…  though I don’t actually vote unless there happens…

    Trackback by Watcher of Weasels — 6/19/2004 @ 5:35 am

  12. The Council Has Spoken!
    The results from this week’s Watcher’s Council are in, and the winners are … Non-Council Link: So, What Did the U.N. Know?, by Ubique Patriam Reminisci Council Link: A Tale of Two Letters, by Patterico’s Pontifications Congrats to the winners!…

    Trackback by INDC Journal — 6/19/2004 @ 6:32 pm

  13. “I’m including the millions more who starved or otherwise died due to the Socialist government of Saddam controlling the aid that was rightfully theirs. But even if that doesn’t qualify, I’d say a few hundred thousand is bad enough to be concerned about.”

    Wait. I’m still confused. Now you’re talking about the millions who died because of US backed UN embargoes?

    “I wouldn’t. During my research, I went back over some past DE posts yesterday and saw in one instance where you called Klaus a ‘fool’ for some of the assumptions he made, which, now that it appears that a good bit of your arguments were mere conspiracy theories, you’ve never taken back.”

    Have you given any though to having your eyes checked, Chad? 1) What arguments of mine (at all, but especially the ones I used against Klaus) were conspiracy theories? That’s right. Not a one. You just like the term. 2) What does this current discussion have to do with Klaus? That’s right. Not a thing. Why? Because we’re discussing this World Tribune article and Klaus was babbling about bombing innocent Iraqis. 3) I called Klaus a fool for a couple reasons. First, he came along and said: “It would not be hard to wipe out a few [Iraqi] cities. In fact, I am unsure that we shouldn’t do exactly that.” Those are the words of a fool. He also suggested we abandon compassionate Christianity for shows of power because the former didn’t work and the latter did. Those are the words of a fool. I called Klaus a fool because he is one. Believing it’s wrong to deliberately mass-murder innocents in the name of “freeing” an occupied people and believing it’s wrong to forsake Christian actions simply because they don’t work are not conspiracy theories - it’s simple morality (something Klaus obviously doesn’t have a grasp on).

    “…and one that Jesus Himself warned against.”

    Jesus warned against making the charge if it was unwarranted. Considering the frequent use of the term in Proverbs, however, I believe it is completely appropriate if used when called for. Joseph Farah, as writing in this article which Klaus was apparently echoing, is a fool. So also is Klaus.

    If Klaus retracts his opinion I will say he is no longer a fool. I will not apologize for calling foolishness foolishness, however.

    “The U.N. is guilty of *both*. It accommodated a rogue dictator for a good decade, while ignoring every single rule that they had laid down for his accommodation.”

    So we should hold the decade-old actions you say the UN is guilty of against that organization yet we should forget that the US armed the very dictator you rant against, or that the US supported that dictator (even, some say, giving him the green-light for invading Kuwait), up until a decade ago?

    “The U.N. knew everything that was going on, and they made no move to stop it all.”

    Really? I suppose when Scott Ritter said the following he was showing how much the UN knew about “everything that was going on": “As of December 1998 we had accounted for 90 to 95 percent of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capability - ‘we’ being the weapons inspectors. We destroyed all the factories, all of the means of production and we couldn’t account for some of the weaponry, but chemical weapons have a shelf-life of five years. Biological weapons have a shelf-life of three years. To have weapons today, they would have had to rebuild the factories and start the process of producing these weapons since December 1998.”

    What was going on again? Look at the World Tribune article again. All it does is repeat the GOP mantra of the past year that Saddam *must* have sent his WMD to Syria because the only other option was that he didn’t have them and we *know* he had them. There’s no proof offered for the theory. There are no satellite photos offered to prove the claims of the article. And there’s the insane suggestion that Saddam moved his WMD while the Second Gulf War was *occurring*. Right. Saddam managed to transfer thousands of tons of WMD across the border while a full-scale invasion of his country was going on and while his country was under the most intense observation it will probably ever be.

    “They did too little, and too much at the same time. They did too much in setting the rules in the first place. They did too little in enforcing the rules they’d made.”

    You just can’t be pleased, can you? Did you forget the rules they set in place were set in place at the request of the US? I’m afraid you can’t blame the UN for setting them in place.

    “Saddam restarted his weapons program (which I notice you never addressed)…”

    Err…Chad? Show me some place that proves that Saddam *did* restart his weapons program and maybe I’ll address it. The reason I’ve not addressed it is because I’ve never seen any proof of it. The only “proof” offered was the relatively unbacked claims of the Bush Administration…the same Administration that has *repeatedly* been found to be operating with false intelligence information. A top news story just today, in fact, shows the Bush Administration cited a faulty report in order to back-up claims it is winning the “war on terror.”

    “But to accept the status quo is to accept that a bunch of international thugs raping a country is morally superior than a threatened sovereign nation taking out a hostile dictator, and then trying to build the country back up.”

    Threatened? Our nation was threatened now? How the HELL was our nation threatened? Our nation was threatened because Iraq had a handful of SCUD missiles with a 300-km range? Last I checked, the US is a lot more than 300-km from Iraq. Our nation was threatened because Saddam was *rumored* to have WMD that time has proven he didn’t have the capability of delivering anywhere of import? Our nation was threatened because Bush said: “The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda [is] because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.” Well, yeah, that really convinces me we were threatened…nevermind that the 9/11 Commission reported there was NOT any “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and al Quaeda. (Of course, we must believe Bush because he’s a Republican.)

    Beyond that, what moral high ground does the US stand on in invading Iraq? The US is the nation which has legally permitted the murders of 45 million innocents (a permit which Bush deigned to continue to allow simply because the nation “isn’t ready” to stop). The US is the nation which is coming perilously close to allowing faggot “marriage.” The US is the nation that fights its wars with women soldiers. The US is the nation that in several states permits assisted suicide. The US is the nation which, for months, covers up the sexual and mental abuse of its POWs. The US is the nation which has decided to “give” the President the “authority” to order physical and psychological torture of POWs. Etc, etc, etc. And all Saddam did was kill a few hundred thousand people like every other dictator, living and dead, has. The US has *no* moral high ground. Ever hear about removing the log from your own eye before you bother with the speck in your neighbor’s eye?

    “In the liberals cases, I blame a warped sense of priorities. In your case, I blame stubborn arrogance.”

    And in your case I blame idolization of the Republican Party and idiot ignorance of even the most basic world history.

    “Did I say that the U.N. should have taken out Saddam? No. They shouldn’t have been so combative when we wanted to take him out, though.”

    Ah, right. Well, to revise my analogy, then, what you’re saying is that it’s ok for my friend Bubba to take out abortion doctors and I shouldn’t stand in his way when he tries. Are abortion doctors deserving of death? You bet. Do Bubba or I have the authority to take out abortion doctors? No. Does Saddam deserve death? Yes. Did the US have the authority to take Saddam out? Hell, no. The US has authority over situations INSIDE the US. Saddam had authority over situations in *Iraq*. There is no cross-over authority.

    “Whether you agree with it or not, the FACT is that the U.N. was in charge. Facts > Ideology.”

    Ok. Right on. *grin* I’m sure you would have been a hell of a pleasant little brat to have around during the War For Independence. “Well, you know, you Sons of Liberty, the fact is that King George is in charge. Whether you like it or not, he’s got the power to tax us. So we should just put up with it because, after all, facts trump ideology.”

    To hell with what *should* be…we’ll just go along with what is.

    “They’d placed themselves in that position…”

    Exactly. Yet *another* reason they have no legitimate authority. They *placed* themselves in that position and they were not voted into that position.

    “They, as a governing entity, worked for personal gain at the expense of others.”

    And I’ve denied this where? I agree with the John Birchers - the UN is full of money-grubbing, corrupt fat-cats.

    “That’s the mark of an imperialist tyranny, a label which has been irresponsibly applied to the U.S. by people who have never even seen an imperialist tyranny in action.”

    You don’t read much, do you, my friend? The definition of “imperialist” is quite simple, and it’s not what you think. It is as follows: “The policy of extending a nation’s authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations.”

    The US is in authority over Iraq and will be for years to come (the June 30th “hand-over” of power will be symbolic and will still leave the US in authority over that nation…or so says the Bush Administration). How did the US come to be in authority over Iraq? Through military force (also known as territorial acquisition). How is the US remaining in authority over Iraq? Through military force and political and economic hegemony.

    “Basically, the U.N. put themselves in a position of authority, and then failed to enforce that authority, choosing personal gain and graft over their moral responsibility. I agree that they shouldn’t have been in charge, but they made themselves so.”

    So what you’re saying is “the UN put itself in a position of authority, which it had no right to do, and once in that position of authority they made rules they shouldn’t have made and which they didn’t enforce. Now that the UN has neglected to enforce the rules it shouldn’t have made in the first place it’s the responsibility of the US to go enforce those rules.” The notion that since the rules shouldn’t have been made in the first place maybe they shouldn’t be enforced, simple as it is, fails to cross your mind.

    “We had a credible threat from Iraq in that we now know for a fact that they had WMDs, and were a direct threat to the region, as well as the U.S.”

    1) The Kuwait/Saudi Arabia/Iran/Syria/Israel region is NOT the same as the US region. They’re entirely different places. Therefore, a threat to one region is not a threat to the other region. Complicated stuff, I know.

    2) We know for a fact they had WMD? (WMDs, by the way, is redundant…it’s like saying “weapons of mass destructions.") We know this because of a *single* article from an online news source? We know this because of unbacked claims in that article that are nothing more than rehashed Bush Administration *theories*? Chad, if the claims in this article were as proven as you mistakenly deem them to be then the same headline would have been splashed across EVERY newspaper in the country for weeks. It’s exactly because these claims are nothing but theories that they are to be found only in this one online article.

    “You can kick and scream all you want, but the fact is, you were wrong.”

    I’m disproven by a single unbacked online article. Right. *continues to kick and scream*

    “(If anything, Iraq has proven that. And that’s worth fighting for, alone, IMHO.)”

    Wait. So we’d invade Iraq because to enforce UN resolutions because the UN is full of money-grubbing scumbags? That’s great logic, Chad. Why not refuse to enforce *UN* resolutions because the UN is full of money-grubbing scumbags? Why not withdraw from the UN because the UN is full of money-grubbing scumbags?

    “Yeah, and by all accounts, Elvis runs a truck stop in Bugtussle, Alabama, JFK was killed by the Roswell alien experiments, and Andy Kaufman is on a nationwide tour of Wal-Marts and Starbucks.”

    Don’t be an ass. Here’s one story - “I Killed Civilians in Iraq.” Of course, we’ll have to assume this Marine is lying because he isn’t agreeing with Bush and Co.

    “Anyway, the thing is, you were wrong. With the evidence we now have, you were wrong.”

    If there had been evidence in that single article then I might grant it more credence. But there was no evidence, as I’ve said multiple times throughout this comment.

    Additionally, my case against the war on Iraq has *never* been based solely on a belief that there were no WMD. So, although there continue to be no WMD, if there were my case against the war would still stand.

    “I hope that you would have the moral aptitude to admit it, especially after you have personally attacked a good friend and close colleague of mine.”

    You ought to reconsider your friends.

    Anyways, my “attack” on your friend had nothing to do with whether there were or were not WMD.

    “I know I did yesterday. It was rather discouraging to see that I was wrong about your position on Iraq being based on an intellectually honest belief and not just blind rhetoric, but ah well.”

    *shrug* I suppose I should thank you for granting me more credence than I’ve ever granted you. Cause I’ve thought from the very beginning that your position on Iraq was (and is) based on nothing but blind rhetoric and partisan idiocy.

    I am at something of a loss, though. What have I written in the past couple weeks to confirm that my position is based on “blind rhetoric"?

    “I would hope, though, that all this having been pointed out would at least make you reconsider your stance.”

    And here I always thought I was the one with the moral high ground because I was the one who thought Christianity should actually influence one’s actions in war and because I thought the burden of proof should be on the accuser and because I thought it was insane for

    Comment by Pieter Friedrich — 6/22/2004 @ 7:42 pm

  14. Scratch that last paragraph. I neglected to complete it before I posted my comment, and I had intended to delete most of it, anyways, since I say what I was going to say in it earlier in the comment.

    Comment by Pieter Friedrich — 6/22/2004 @ 8:59 pm

  15. […] something terrible. (Emphasis on “terrible) He’s taken it all the way to the Watcher’s Council-winning post of last week. So, time to address his uberlong dissention p […]

    Pingback by Ubique Patriam Reminisci » Pieter’s Berzerkergang — 6/22/2004 @ 9:22 pm

  16. Council Catchup
    While on vacation, I missed a few council votes so here is a recap: June 10 Results: Winning Council Entry: INDC Journal Interviews Michael Berg INDC Journal Winning Non-Council Entry: Rant Tonecluster Honorable Mention: Reagan - The Genius and Wisdom…

    Trackback by King of Fools — 6/23/2004 @ 4:01 pm

  17. Making it Up to the Watcher
    If you have a blog and wish to participate in the weekly Watcher’s Council contest, read this. It’s a great way to get some exposure.I was derelict in my duties as member of the Watcher’s Council and the Watcher demands atonement. To that end I here…

    Trackback by AlphaPatriot — 7/8/2004 @ 10:33 pm

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