Powell actually SAID they expected Iraq to prove a negative!

[Brotherjohn]

Anyone else catch this? From the Sunday story "Powell: Iraq may not have WMDs" (http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Jan/01252004/nation_w/132352.asp).

Powel said:
"What we demanded of Iraq was that they account for all of this and they prove the negative of our hypothesis."

Weren't we saying all along that they're expecting Iraq to prove a negative, and that proving a negative is impossible?

They truly expected Iraq to have detailed, complete records of every illegal weapon they destroyed during and after Gulf War I. They've even gone on record saying that it's simply not believable that they would have destroyed them and not said so. I remember Rice and I think Powell and Cheney saying this.

Are these people attached to reality at all? Do they have any critical thinking capacity at all? When someone in the possession of illegal drugs hears the cops banging on his door, does he make records of all the cocaine he's destroying as he flushes it down the toilet? (all they have to do is ask their boss for the answer to that one) Besides which, even if records were kept of any weapons destroyed, the fact that there are no records of destruction of certain alleged stockpiles does not mean that those stockpiles existed or, if they did, that they were not destroyed.

Didn't these people take Logic 101 in college?

[pnziii]

1. The whole thing is a farce

I can't believe people bought the claim by our Government that Iraq hasn't accounted for all the weapons.
The US Military can't account for all it's weapons. The GAO has done audits and the military can't account for tanks, airplanes etc.
Why do people think that a third world dictator ruled country has a better accounting system than the US.

[Brotherjohn]

3. Besides which, they expect Iraq to prove it destroyed WMDs...

... that they're only hypothesizing it had based on capability and other intel.

Besides which, many of the figures they cite as what Iraq had and should account for are taken directly from the testimony of Hussein Kamel (Saddam's son-in-law) after defecting, before he returned to Iraq and was killed. In this very same testimony, he states that ALL of these stockpiles were destroyed! You can't selectively believe part of the testimony (and use it as some of your best "evidence"), but ignore the rest when it directly counters the case you're making.

I really don't think these people are THAT lacking in critical thinking capacity (well, probably W is). But they obviously think WE are. If W gets re-elected, then they were right.

Wonder why they constantly try to sabotage the public school system?

[Iverson]

2. Logic doesn't matter to them.

Logic is for wishy-washy liberals and hippies. The far right respects power and power alone. Rules are for everyone to the left of Bob Dole.

This, too, takes some of the shine off of bipartisanship.

[treepig]

4. well, you that since the war was pre-planned

it's not like they wanted to take a chance on setting conditions that were achievable.

also, i think they just like rubbing our noses in it - "see, we can (literally) get away with murder, and anything else we please - ha!"

[GumboYaYa]

5. It's realy a question of shifting the burden of proof.

In logic there is no rule that you can not prove a negative; every negative can be asserted as a positive. For example, Iraq does not have WMDs can be asserted as there are no WMDs in Iraq. The latter can certainly be proven if one has complete access to Iraq.

By asserting things in a negative, you effectively shift the burden of proof to the other party. It's a classic trick of atheists. They say there is no God, now prove that there is one. That's the same thing Bush was doing in Iraq.

Bush had to rush to war because Iraq was about to prove they had no WMDs by giving the inspectors complete access. That is why we could not wait the thirty days the rest of the world requested before we invaded.

[kcwayne]

9. But its like playing womp the weasel.

even if we scoured all of Iraq, the Republicans will say they moved them. Now they say they are in Syria. So we invade Syria, and don't find them there and they will say they dispersed them to Al Queda.

Its not a logic exercise, its politics.

[GumboYaYa]

10. It's a logistical problem, but when you assert the preemptive right

to invade another country you should bear the logical and logistical burden of proving that the invasion is valid. Bush (with unwitting help from the UN) effectively shifted the burden to Iraq to prove the US did not have the preemptive right to invade Iraq. That is just plain wrong.

When you assert the BUsh Doctrine of Preemption the burden of prove should be on the person invading, not the person being invaded. That the US asserted otherwise is a striking example of our arrogance in world affairs.

[zbdent]

6. Bush can't even prove where he was when he first got the news

three different stories, including the one where he was watching the first plane hit the first tower, on a LIVE feed AS IT HAPPENED.

Don't forget the RWnuts who were saying "You liberals! How do you destroy something you claim you never had!" - Especially tricky when you are told to destroy all your "WMDs" or we'll attack you, and if you show any evidence of the destruction (from at least 10 years back), you are bombed because "THERE'S THE EVIDENCE! HE HAD WMDS!"

[Fridays Child]

7. Kay: It's the Iraqi scientists' fault. Powell: It's Saddam's fault.

Cheney: The WMDs are in the trailers.
Rice: That information nevermade it to our circles.
Bush: What's the difference?

And there's not yet a groundswell movement to seek criminal charges against this entire administration?

Why?

[RUexperienced]

8. That is exactly what the UN Resolution demanded of Iraq

The resolution stated that it was the responsibility of Iraq to prove they had dismantled their WMD programs.

[Brotherjohn]

13. And that is exactly what they were in the process of doing.

Yes, it may have taken pressure from the U.S. (and if it had stopped there, i would have said "Kudos!" to the Bush administration).

Yes, everything was not yet accounted for.

But what that "everything" amounted to was largely conjecture. Both before the 1998 departure and after the 2002 return of U.N. Inspectors, every time Iraq presented evidence of WMD destruction to the U.N., it checked out (with records and forensic evidence at the destruction sites).

The fact that every (hypothetical) ounce had not yet been accounted for was not a cause for war. It was a cause for the inspections to continue. As all on site investigations by the U.N. pre-war, and by the U.S. and U.K. miltary post-war, have shown, Iraq DID NOT hold any detectable stocks of WMDs in any way, shape or form. Besides which, even as that becomes more and more unquestionable, Bush and Co. will simply continue to pass the buck (it was the CIA's fault, Saddam's men lied to him, they passed them to Syria...).

For all practical purposes, Iraq WAS in compliance. Save me technicalities such as a missile may have gone a few miles over the limit (depending on who you listen to). You do not initiate unprecedented, pre-emptive warfare over a technicality. Iraq was NO THREAT. Bush took us into an unneccessary war. It was a horrible miscalculation that has costs hunderds of American lives, thousands of Iraqi lives, untold losses in U.S. credibility, and (at least) thousands of dollars out or YOU and your taxpaying descendents' pockets.

[RUexperienced]

14. Iraq was not in compliance

The UN passed 14 resolutions condemning Iraq's lack of compliance. Many of these were when Bill CLinton was in the White House and the Democrats on Capital Hill were calling for military action against Hussein.

[Edge]

11. Who cares whether or not they had WMDs?

The world is better off without Saddam Hussein. :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes:

[HootieMcBoob]

12. It seems to me that ...

a good bit of the wmd that may have been there was probably destroyed during Cinton's bombing of Iraq. Remember how the GOP reacted to that? They went ballistic. How dare the President be concerned with national security when we're in the middle of impeaching his penis! And this after the original inspection team estimated that they had allready accounted for and destroyed over 90% of everything that was there. Hypocritical scumbags.

[ElementaryPenguin]

15. Genuine historians are NEVER going to fucking believe this whole charade!!

ASININE!!! What a bunch of greedy, ruthless, blood-thirsty nincompoops!!

:puke:
:argh:

[RapidCreek]

16. Ok let's take Powell at his word....give him the benefit of the doubt

and accept that a negative can be proved. In fact let's congratulate him on going where no man has gone before in the persuit of logic.

Now let's apply this newly minted yet clearly astute logical principle to his boss...George W. Bush. It has been asserted that George at best went AWOL and at worst deserted his National Guard Duty's. George has denied this is or was the case. It stands to reason then, using Powells newly minted and admittedly brilliant theory of logic, that George should be able to prove he did not go AWOL or Desert.

RC