Conspiracy Theories

[OlderThanDirt]

cyprushil wrote:

"Women, Snakes with tits the lot of them"

Well, in all fairness, both women and men can be snakes. But, I can understand your Belgian friend's sentiments.

Weird ... but, after I'd been divorced for a year, I started a relationship with a woman in another city. We'd known of each other for years and had seen each other platonically ... but found we had a lot in common. And, we each visited each other as often as possible. Two Thanksgivings ago, she called up to tell me she was flying out to celebrate Thanksgiving with me. I was hoping she would. While I'd met her adult kids and she'd met my kid, they'd never met each other. And, since one of her kids worked in my city, I suggested I'd take everyone out for a big dinner at a local restaurant. Click.

At first, I didn't think much of her hanging up on me. She has fibromyalgia ... and when she has one of her "episodes," she has to get quickly to a quiet/dark room to chill out. Imagine having a migraine headache over your entire body. Anyhoo, I sent her email to ask how she was doing. She replied like gangbusters with both shotgun barrels blazing, calling me "insensitive." I asked what I'd done and she said, "You should have known I wanted this trip for us alone."

Well, when a woman drops the "You should have known..." guilt trip on a guy, red flags should go up immediately (as they did in my case). Anytime they connect "sensitivity" with "clairvoyance," you can bet you're in for a lifetime of guilt trips if you marry such a woman. And, since mind-reading was never one of my strong suits, I ended the relationship with my reply to her -- "Children pout, adults communicate."

In any case, over the last two years, I've actually come to "like" the single lifestyle. Not that I'm hanging out in bars (I don't drink) or living a playboy's lifestyle (which was never my lifestyle). But, it's nice to plan things independently -- without feeling the need to put them to a vote or run them past a committee. And, I'm not so certain I'd want to give that up again. Not that I'd never get married again. But, I think the likelihood of marriage for me is of a very low order.

[clocker]

Originally posted by WeeMouse@30 May 2003 - 09:28


i guess there's just no trust in the world, and that's why we are reluctant to beleive much...

No shit, Sherlock.

Witness the furious backpedalling the US is currently doing re: the existence of WMD.
The truly infuriating thing about this is that apparently our own government thinks we are as stupid and gullible as the rest of the world does.
Judging from polls they're both right!

*sigh*

[clocker]

I'd love to keep posting in your shiny new thread WeeMouse, but frankly, the machinations of my government of late are too inept to rise to the level of "conspiracy".
WMD- not really important and anyhow we may find them later...but possibly not.
Hostage rescue - er, ah... next question.
Christ! Third graders can spin tales that will hold up to more intense scrutiny. And at least have the decency to fess up when really pressed. I have no hope of any 'clean breasts' being bared here. Bush is already campaigning for his reelection- based on his stunningly successful term so far. I cringe to wonder which glaringly boneheaded faux pas will come crashing at our feet next.

sigh,sigh

[OlderThanDirt]

clocker wrote:

Witness the furious backpedalling the US is currently doing re: the existence of WMD.

Yup. From the beginning, I was (1) glad we went in, but (2) sad we went in for THAT reason. The WMD resolution was certainly not my bone of contention with Iraq. It was the 2nd resolution imposed on Iraq following the Gulf War ... the one mandating Iraq to cease the persecution of its own people. The USA should have gone to the UN and demand they enforce it. Already, 1,000,000 Iraqis had either died at the hands of Saddam Hussein or were considered "missing." Giving weapons inspectors a "little more time" would do nothing to stop the body count. To HELL with the weapon count.

Remember the Monty Python movie, "Life Of Brian." There's one scene in that film that mirrors UN resolve in the face of monsters like Saddam Hussein. In the scene, a woman named Judith rushes into a meeting of the People's Front of Judea (PFJ), headed by John Cleese. Judith tells the attendees that Brian is being crucified ... that now is not the time for speeches ... that something has to be DONE. To which John Cleese in his PFJ leadership position replies, "Right, this calls for an immediate discussion."

If we'd have taken this approach ... and if the UN continued their foot-dragging ... we could have gone into Iraq with our heads held high as "liberators." And, if the French didn't like us going in alone, we wouldn't have to drag out our own statistics (which might be seen as the statistics of a warmonger). We could've shoved statistics from the peaceloving French right back in their faces to justify our actions. CASE IN POINT

[clocker]

Exactly.

Why must we go out of our way to appear doltish?

Given the plentitude of legitimate reasons he might have used to justify his decision, why Bush chose the one least likely to be proven is a mystery.
And now, given all the legitimate benefits that we may have delivered upon the Iraqi people, any brownie points we may have accrued will be overshadowed by the appearance of arrogant deception.

As I've said before, it's not the fact that they lied, it's that they did it so badly.

[OlderThanDirt]

Just a brief P.S. to clocker and anyone else. While it was a rotten reason for us to enter Iraq, I don't think for a second that Iraq has no WMD. Imagine you've lost your keys somewhere in your house and go looking for them. Now imagine looking for them while you're being shot at. Now imagine your house is the size of California ... consisting mainly of desert land. One of my favorite quotes comes from the movie, "Casino." At the very beginning of the film, someone says, "There's an awful lot of bodies buried in this desert." The big problem now is (1) finding the people who know where the bodies are buried, and (2) convincing them to talk.

[OlderThanDirt]

clocker wrote:

Given the plentitude of legitimate reasons he might have used to justify his decision, why Bush chose the one least likely to be proven is a mystery.

Well, I wouldn't say "least likely to be proven." I'd say "least likely to be proven easily." There is talk about sending WMD inspectors back to Iraq. Only this time, they won't have Baathist stooges leading them around by the nose. And this time, after Hans Blix's retirement, we might see more motivated leadership in the inspection department. Then again (grin), maybe we won't.

[clocker]

Ahem.

Massive stockpiles of chemical/biological materiel and the facilities to process them are slightly larger than a set of keys.
So are nuclear facilities.
Even under fire I could find Three Mile Island.
What of our vaunted intelligence? Our ultra sophisticated spy satellite network? Do you doubt that for months prior to the invasion that every weapon in our high tech arsenal was brought to bear on every square inch of that country? I can buy, over the internet, satellite pictures of such high resolution that I can recognize my house. Um, doesn't the military have even better capabilities?
If they exist I find it difficult to believe that in the few short weeks before his deposition, SH could erase ALL traces of what we were told was a world threatening arsenal. In that limited span of time I couldn't get my garage spotless.

I am dubious.

[OlderThanDirt]

clocker wrote:

What of our vaunted intelligence?

You've hit the nail on its pointy little head. Our intelligence on the ground was both recent and terrible. We put too much reliance on high-tech spy-in-the-sky gadgetry in a country filled with "bunkers." We even admitted that British ground-based intelligence was better (but not much better).

I am dubious.

I'm not. Rather than what we didn't see (WMD), concentrate on what we DID see ... from Iraq's own news agency records of recent meetings between Saddam Hussein and his inner circle. If, as Saddam said, WMD no longer existed in Iraq, why was "Dr. Germ" present at all those meetings? She'd have been purged a long time ago. Her presence there had to be more than that of an observer.

[clocker]

She could have been there to add a feminine perspective?