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Comment by JackFr | Hacker News Reader

Consider that when acting under uncertainty, intelligent, informed people of good will can examine the same set of facts and reach different conclusions.

It has become an article of faith that the Bush administration acted in bad faith about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, while all that really has ever been shown is that they were tragically, woefully and extraordinarily wrong.

How intelligent, well educated people be so wrong, unless they were secretly evil? Groupthink for one, and in particular a failure to consider alternatives because of assumption of bad faith on the part of those who disagree with them.

I really don't care one way or another whether Condi is on the board of Dropbox or not, and I applaud you for refusing to do business with a company you believe is immoral. But I would be surprised (pleasantly) if this was a standard you were applying consistently, thoughtfully and evenly.

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One thing I can't stand is about our hyper-partisan culture is that attacking someone from one side is seen as 100% political and there are posts like these that are trying to be "even" when, in fact, it's you yourself that is being partisan here.

>It has become an article of faith that the Bush administration acted in bad faith about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, while all that really has ever been shown is that they were tragically, woefully and extraordinarily wrong.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/23/bush.iraq/index.html?...

It has been shown, conclusively, that they lied, that they lied knowingly, and that they lied a lot. Don't white wash history in an attempt to be "even" or see "both sides". There is objective truth here.

So, no chance they were simply wrong? Making a false statement doesn't necessarily mean lying.

I seem to recall that at the time EVERYBODY was making the same mistake or, in your words, lying about it.

> I seem to recall that at the time EVERYBODY was making the same mistake

Your recollection is wrong.

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2002/roll455.xml

You're right, I didn't recall the totals.

I'll revise my statement to be that most everyone in a leadership position was making the same mistake.

The article you point to, to be clear, relies on reports from two non-profit (not not non-partisan) journalism watchdogs. And what they come up with is 'false statements'. They won't go so far as to call them lies, because to be a lie the statement has to be believed to be false by the speaker.

You seem to reach the conclusion that it is inconceivable that the Bush Administration believed their own arguments. I not only find conceivable, I think its probably likely. Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence. There's certainly room for moral revulsion for the Bush Administration -- negligently acting to cause destruction and loss of life at such a scale makes one culpable nonetheless.

I am not interested in arguing the WMD in Iraq debate. I ask you to please assume good faith on the part of your ideological opponents. Try to understand their arguments on their terms, and see where you differ fundamentally.

>I am not interested in arguing the WMD in Iraq debate. I ask you to please assume good faith on the part of your ideological opponents. Try to understand their arguments on their terms, and see where you differ fundamentally.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Why do you assume they are my ideological opponents? Are you assuming I'm a liberal in this case? This is the hyper-partisan culture I'm talking about. I do assume good faith from people who disagree with me, there comes a point when an intelligent person must look at the evidence provided and adapt their view. People hide behind the "both sides" argument in an attempt to be wise and fair, when in reality that can be the most partisan of all point of views. People are wrong sometimes. People lie sometimes. Not acknowledging this is not wise. Some arguments don't have "both sides", some have one side, some have two sides, some have fifty sides. Remember that.

This is what bothers me about modern American politics. Both sides are too quick to demonize the other side, and to disallow the possibility that people on the other side are acting in good faith.

>> It has been shown, conclusively, that they lied, that they lied knowingly, and that they lied a lot.

Clinton lied? Who would have thought it possible.

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcript...

I read the article you're linking to, and I don't see any allegations that the 900+ false statements were known to be false by the administration at the time[1]. This particular article certainly doesn't meet my standard for "[showing conclusively] that they lied, that they lied knowingly, and that that they lied a lot". Perhaps that evidence exists in another form, but I think you strengthen the GPs argument by presenting this as definitive evidence when it's not.

Addendum: The money quote from the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism run study is this: "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003". The use of the word erroneous here is problematic. It doesn't imply intention. If they had used a word that implied intention, then they would essentially be saying that the administration intentionally propagandized with information that they knew to be false toward the goal of leading the US into war with Iraq. But they don't go that far. They use the word erroneous. IF the administration was unaware of the eroneousness of the information, then there's no reason that "methodically propagating" it is immoral, I mean, this is called "consciousness raising" in other contexts. Perhaps the authors are just being cagey so as not to paint themselves into a corner, but this is not a clear statement that the administration lied.

[1] Perhaps my reading skills aren't up to par, and I missed it. If so, let me know.

[edit 11:06 CDT to add addendum]

Downing street memos, Rumsfeld memos, the Project for a New American Century Report, Hans Blix assertions that there were no WMDs, historical acts of aggression in other countries, subsequent acts of aggression in other countries, and post-hoc assertions that WMDs were not the main reason for invasion, among other evidence all show that the invasion of Iraq was geo-strategic and not primarily based on disarming Iraq of WMDs, though some senior officials were led to believe that.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/secret-memo-by-donald-rumsfeld-...

Eh, there's no way that Rumsfeld memo is "How to start a war". Note that the first reason depends on Saddam attacking the Kurds - not very actionable for the US!

> Eh, there's no way that Rumsfeld memo is "How to start a war

It literally says "How start" meaning "how [to] start [Iraq war]".

> Note that the first reason depends on Saddam attacking the Kurds - not very actionable for the US!

Sure it is. Arming and supporting the Kurds to conduct instigating attacks or incursions is just one way.

It literally says "How start", but does not literally say "how to start". "How start" could also be "How [would it] start". Don't let MSNBC do your thinking for you!

>Arming and supporting the Kurds to conduct instigating attacks or incursions is just one way.

Then it would have said something like: "Kurds provoke", not "Saddam attacks". In any event, we wouldn't have stepped in just based on a Kurd attack. The response would still be dependent upon Saddam.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Globalresearch.ca

Biases matter. My first impression reading your link was that this is a crazed rant, not a rational, methodical weighing of the available evidence. These sort of organizations exist to continually whip up a froth of partisan furor, and so are always suspect. This is not a good source if your goal is to do anything other than preach to your own choir. This is the type of "proof" that keeps ideological opponents talking past each other.

Honestly, I lean liberal, but I make a concerted effort not to get frothed up by liberal media. I think that on balance those sources cause more harm than good. And really, life just doesn't fit into nice little outrage inducing narratives, but you would never know it if you only consumed these sort of news sources.

[edit 3:27 CDT to add the commentary, i.e. everything other than the link]

I just took one of the first links, you can find the memo in many places, including Wikipedia.

You responded to a criticism of source usage with a much, much worse source. You also rattled off a bunch of assertions as if they were unquestionably true without providing citation. Whatever your intention, you didn't really address my criticism in a constructive way that was likely to bring anyone to your way of thinking that wasn't already there.

[Edited for clarity]

The Rumsfeld memo was reported by MSNBC but after review, prompted by your criticism, I am not satisfied with the credibility of the document.

The Downing Street Memo was widely reported in major newspapers and contained among other things the passage "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Blix: http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/18/opinion/iraq-war-hans-blix/

This is a nice summary of regime change http://publicintellectualsproject.mcmaster.ca/democracy/real...

It becomes difficult to draw that line when you're talking about hundreds of thousands of human lives.

When you're talking about preemptively invading an entire country then it is your moral imperative to do everything possible to 1) ensure your justification is correct and 2) ensure you carry out the decision in the best way possible.

For whatever reason, this did not happen. Decisions were rushed, conclusions were reached with insufficient evidence, alternative possibilities were not considered, dissenting voices were not listened to, etc.

Perhaps they still had good will throughout all of this. But does it even matter? The outcome was terrible and that is directly because they failed to do better when they most certainly could have.

You're also ignoring the other points made by the article. Are you going to make the same excuse about her approval of torture?

"informed people of good will can examine the same set of facts and reach different conclusions."

Except they weren't talking about available facts to be examined, and their conclusions. What they were doing was presenting a falsehood as a new fact. Without any evidence.

It's one thing to say "because of x,yz, we think they have WMDs".

What they did was: "THEY HAVE WMDs!!!" (evidence to be examined will be provided soon, promise)

>> What they were doing was presenting a falsehood as a new fact. Without any evidence.

Clinton stated they had WMD's long before Bush. There are mass grave sites in Iraq which proves they had them. The truth the anti-Bush people need to face is ... where are those weapons today?

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcript...

> There are mass grave sites in Iraq which proves they had them.

Yes, Saddam used chemical weapons in the 1980s. But Rice argued that if Iraq wasn't invaded, Saddam might use nukes.

The question was not so much "do they have WMDs?" as the answer was clearly yes, they had chemical weapons we gave them. The question was, do they have any substantial quantities, do they have the ability to make more, and most importantly, do they have the ability to use them to attack us?

The answer to that last question was always clearly "no". Having a nuke does you no good if you can't get it to your target.

It's pretty firmly established that Bush lied and had been gunning for Iraq long before WMD became his casus belli and you have a wonderful resource called the world wide web if you have any interest at all in confirming that.

Then why did the Bush administration go out of its way to destroy Valerie Plame's career at the CIA? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_affair

People at the CIA were telling the administration that they had it wrong. They just didn't want to hear it since it didn't fit with their narrative, and didn't align with their goal of war. The truth was irrelevant at that point.

It seems to me you're agreeing with me.

I'm going to feel really bad if I've been wrong about this, but I thought Bush admitted in his autobiography that WMD's were a made-up reason to invade Iraq. He thought he had the moral high ground in invading to depose Saddam Hussein, but his advisors convinced him that no one would support that reason for invasion.

If you're "going to feel really bad" if you're wrong, why don't you go look it up and make sure before commenting?

That would take a long time :) But seriously, I thought it would be helpful to note a widely-held belief, and I was wondering if someone could post evidence (either way) more quickly than I could.

So were they uninformed about torture and widespread spying on general population, too?

The problem we have with our society today is that we gravitate towards absolute positions on every contentious issue. When you are absolutely certain about something it is a small leap to then believe that those who disagree are doing so maliciously.

To fix this we have to find a way to reward tempered opinions. The absolutism in our society is becoming stronger over time and it's further dividing us.

If the action is destructive, and the person hasn't regretted it, does it become acceptable just because s/he has done it with the best of intentions?

On the contrary: "those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience". If anything, it's even more dangerous to trust in someone who believed and continues to believe in what they were doing, than in someone who did it maliciously but has since truly regretted it.

But regret is incompatible with our society's love affair with absolute certainty. One cannot simply admit that they were wrong (even to themselves) because we so value perfect intuition.

> while all that really has ever been shown is that they were tragically, woefully and extraordinarily wrong.

I find it very odd that, despite the fact they had access to allegedly better intel than everybody else, they were the only ones who were that substantially and, adding to the oddity, conveniently wrong.

What he said

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