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SKOOLS AR 4 LOOZERZ

JEB_Stuart wrote:CNN is arguably not a moderate network. They have consistently demonstrated a slant to the left. They are called the Clinton News Network for a reason...

I can't post the left-wing nicknames the network had during the Bush administration; especially the first term.

I think its one of those things that people generally feel is biased away from their chosen side of the political spectrum; especially when the other side is in power. Honestly, I think the notion of a leftward slant is built almost entirely on the last few years of the Bush Administration. At which point the President was under fire from everyone but Fox, and his approval ratings were so low that even basic fact was often taken as an indictment; particularly with respect to Iraq.

I think that the media is allowed to be biased, even when I disagree with it, because it can have a moral imperative. To compare this to yellow journalism is incredibly baffling. I haven't even seen anything even coming close to approaching that level.

The run up to the war in Iraq didn't smack of yellow journalism to you? parroting the party line? Doing little investigative journalism, little exploratory journalism, and in general very little of their actual job. It was like the spanish American war all over again. Not as bad, but still pretty awful.

REMEMBER THE MAINE AND TO HELL WITH SPAIN!

Orkeosaurus wrote:REMEMBER THE MAINE AND TO HELL WITH SPAIN!

REMEMBER 9/11 And TO HELL WITH SADAAM.

ShumaGorath wrote:

I think that the media is allowed to be biased, even when I disagree with it, because it can have a moral imperative. To compare this to yellow journalism is incredibly baffling. I haven't even seen anything even coming close to approaching that level.

The run up to the war in Iraq didn't smack of yellow journalism to you? parroting the party line? Doing little investigative journalism, little exploratory journalism, and in general very little of their actual job. It was like the spanish American war all over again. Not as bad, but still pretty awful.

While I am not a big fan of the Iraq War, I don't think that it was even close to yellow journalism. The focus was mostly on WMDs, which everyone, including the Clinton Administration and the UN thought Iraq had. And in all actuality they did have WMDs, just not on the scale that we thought. It was a total intelligence SNAFU, which should have and could have been avoided. The only reason I would claim that Iraq had WMDs was because we sold them those weapons in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s and because my uncle told me about several thousand tons of chemical weapons they found while he was stationed in Fallujah. Nasty things too, like mustard gas, chlorine gas, and even some nerve gas. But no, not on the scale we thought there was. Its pretty hard to do research on a country and its situation when it is controlled very tightly.

It's not true that everyone including the UN thought Saddam had WMDs.

Dr Hans Blix, head of the UN WMD inestigation commission, didn't think they had them. Various weapons experts said the weapons they had in the 80s would have decayed through lack of maintenance.

The pro-WMD evidence was very weak. Much of it had been fabricated.

All the post-war inspections never turned up a single active, useable WMD. It would have been shouted to the heavens in order to retroactively justify the invasion.

It was indeed a total intellgence SNAFU. The manner in which things played out convinced huge numbers of people that the whole affair had been got up by Bush and Blair to try to scare and railroad the US and UK into war. Which worked to some extent.

BURN THEM!!!!!!!!! BURN THEM OUT COMPLETELY BEFORE IT SPREADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously, this is slippery slope/Domino theory territory if I ever heard of it.

warpcrafter wrote:BURN THEM!!!!!!!!! BURN THEM OUT COMPLETELY BEFORE IT SPREADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously, this is slippery slope/Domino theory territory if I ever heard of it.

You need to quote what you're referencing, because I have no idea.

Kilkrazy wrote:It's not true that everyone including the UN thought Saddam had WMDs.

The UN initially believed that Iraq had in fact maintained some WMDs and that it was developing more. If they didn't they wouldn't have ordered an investigation by weapons inspectors.

Kilkrazy wrote:Hans Blix, head of the UN WMD inestigation commission, didn't think they had them. Various weapons experts said the weapons they had in the 80s would have decayed through lack of maintenance.

Hans Brix, oh no!

On a serious note though, Mr. Blix did say he didn't think they had them, but he also said it would take many more months to find out for sure, and that the Iraqis weren't being exactly cooperative when it came to inspections.

Kilkrazy wrote:The pro-WMD evidence was very weak. Much of it had been fabricated.

It was deteriorating near the beginning of the war, but fabrication? That is just a bit outlandish. It was based on inferior and outdated intelligence, but to call it an outright lie would be a bit extreme. Don't forget, military force was authorized by the UN Security Council under Res. 678, and it was ultimately allowed by the permanent members of the Security Council.

Kilkrazy wrote:All the post-war inspections never turned up a single active, useable WMD. It would have been shouted to the heavens in order to retroactively justify the invasion.

Except for the various chemical weapons that Coalition soldiers, like my uncle found. I hate the idea of war just as much as the next person, but he did find them. And the ISG, a post-invasion investigation, stated that while it did not believe that Iraq had WMDs it did have the capability to restart WMD programs and Biological Warfare programs after the lifting of international sanctions, which it was actively lobbying to do. Again, I do not like the Iraq war, I am just trying to have a balanced view of what happened.

Kilkrazy wrote:It was indeed a total intellgence SNAFU. The manner in which things played out convinced huge numbers of people that the whole affair had been got up by Bush and Blair to try to scare and railroad the US and UK into war. Which worked to some extent.

Can't say it enough, total SNAFU. It was a big result of a weak CIA, especially in human intelligence programs, an overly zealous administration, and a frightened public.

Now that we are totally OT in the OT, back the the OP.




I was wrong after all, go figure... DAMMIT!!!

This story is very strange, but it still sounds like the school did not really do anything wrong. Information on the song was handed out before the kids even learned the words. Could this be a case of... well a case of angry Reps jumping on a story like dogs... LIKE DOGS!!! Rawr... /

The 'dodgy dossier' was plagiarised off the internet from a student project.

The Nigerian Yellowcake story was basically fabricated.

The 45 minutes claim was bull gak, straight lies.

The surviving gas shells found in Iraq months after the invasion were deteriorated and ineffective.

Any developed country in the world has the capability to start WMD programmes. That wasn't the basis of the war, or we would be in North Korea right now. They really do have WMDs.