----- Original Message ----- From: "Gautam Mukunda" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, February 16, 2004 11:51 AM Subject: Re: Politics and Motivations
> --- Doug Pensinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I respect your opinion, and understand that this is > > the way you understand > > the situation. I hope that you can read the > > following and try to > > understand the reasons I disagree with you and > > perhaps try to convince me > > that I'm wrong in a manner commensurate with your > > intelligence (for which > > I have the utmost respect.) Please consider that > > the opinions below are > > not just my own; tens of millions of Americans are > > asking similar > > questions and coming to similar conclusions. So no > > matter how much you > > dislike me, these are questions that can not be > > avoided by supporters of > > the Bush administration. > > I don't dislike you at all Doug. But I have become > increasingly uncomfortable discussing politics on this > list, because it seems to me that there are a fair > number of people who really, really hate the > President. Not disagree with the President, _hate_ > the President. Although I don't believe you were thinking of me when you wrote this, let me interject that I really don't have any personal ill will towards GWB. Where I differ with him, I consider him sincerely wrong. In other words, I think he is, generally, doing what he thinks is best for the US, if not what I think is best for the US. I voted in '98 and '00 to keep him the governor of Texas. :-) > But, more than that, the case that the Administration > made was indistinguishable or _more conservative_ from > the beliefs of other governments. I can't see this. As the case built, the caveats were dropped. Words like "we know" or "the British know" were used. IMHO, the word know should be used only if one is so certain that one is willing to lose a great deal of credibility if wrong. I was convinced that we knew exactly where WMD were, and that we would find initial evidence within weeks. We obviously didn't. We had strong indications; the evidence pointed in that direction, but we didn't know. Now, the credibility of the US government is lowered. Its not just liberals, even Bill O'Reilly has stated his trust of the Bush adminstration has been compromised. Other governments agreed that there were indications that Hussein had WMD, but we didn't know that he did. As it turns out, they were right, and our government told a falsehood. I'm not calling it a lie, because I think Bush and Blair honestly believed his own statements. But, they did make false statements. If they had included the caveats, then the statements would have been true. It is very possible that one can do a Clinton like dance to argue that Bush technically made true statements, but I know I was fooled by him...even though I thought he overstated the evidence. My understanding from Powell's UN presentation was that we were tracing chemical weapons as they were moved around. I also felt that we knew a lot more than we said. As it turns out, we knew less. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
