🔥 Cheney is ace, shot his friend in the face



  • The Swifties are out and they're better than ever
    (Random selection of good blog posts.)

    Mister Tristan
    "Liars"
    Gary, a relative of Mister Tristan: "Liars' pants should actually burst into flames. Brian Williams paid a price for lying about Iraq; Dick Cheney, not so much."


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    Dick Cheney, not so much

    Dick Cheney didn't lie about Iraq, unless you use @blakeyrat's made-up bullshit definition of lying.



  • @FrostCat said:

    Dick Cheney didn't lie about Iraq, unless you use @blakeyrat's made-up bullshit definition of lying.

    You mean the definition that says something about making statements that are not truthful?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    @FrostCat said:
    Dick Cheney didn't lie about Iraq, unless you use @blakeyrat's made-up bullshit definition of lying.

    You mean the definition that says something about making statements that are not truthful?

    Yes, that is Blakey's made-up bullshit definition. A lie requires you to know you are making an untrue statement, and, yet again, everyone in the world thought Iraq had WMDs at the time the US invaded. That specifically includes all the European intelligence agencies, and, of course, Dick Cheney.



  • @FrostCat said:

    Yes, that is Blakey's made-up bullshit definition. A lie requires you to know you are making an untrue statement, and, yet again, everyone in the world thought Iraq had WMDs at the time the US invaded. That specifically includes all the European intelligence agencies, and, of course, Dick Cheney.

    Well, of course your statement proves Cheney told the truth. :rolleyes:


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    Well, of course your statement proves Cheney told the truth.

    If you want to claim he lied, the burden is actually on you, given everything that was known at the time. Again, essentially everyone thought Saddam had WMD. Even Saddam. Oh, and enough items were found after the invasion to prove that he actually did have them, even if we now know he didn't have significant quantities of them.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    @FrostCat said:
    Yes, that is Blakey's made-up bullshit definition. A lie requires you to know you are making an untrue statement, and, yet again, everyone in the world thought Iraq had WMDs at the time the US invaded. That specifically includes all the European intelligence agencies, and, of course, Dick Cheney.

    Well, of course your statement proves Cheney told the truth. :rolleyes:

    Good to see that we're all on the same page now!



  • @FrostCat said:

    If you want to claim he lied, the burden is actually on you, given everything that was known at the time. Again, essentially everyone thought Saddam had WMD. Even Saddam. Oh, and enough items were found after the invasion to prove that he actually did have them, even if we now know he didn't have significant quantities of them.

    Whoosh! Your statement was (quote):

    ... everyone in the world thought Iraq had WMDs at the time the US invaded.

    Everyone knows all politicians are corrupt. Everyone knows all police officers are good and brave and true. Statements such as that are called sweeping generalizations; and, of course, everyone knows that sweeping generalizations are certainly absolutely positively unequivocally always false (and everyone would be wrong).

    So let me clarify that I was being sarcastic when I said, "Well, of course your statement proves Cheney told the truth."



  • @FrostCat said:

    WMD

    Has the actual meaning of this ever been defined? It seems that either it's a category including airplanes or it's a meaningless label that is used only to scare people.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    So let me clarify that I was being sarcastic when I said, "Well, of course your statement proves Cheney told the truth."

    Here's where I roll my eyes at your pendantry.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @ben_lubar said:

    Has the actual meaning of this ever been defined?

    I don't know. You may feel free to consult a dictionary, however.



  • @ben_lubar said:

    Has the actual meaning of this ever been defined?

    Nucular missles?



  • Why are we so worried about Iraq having them if the USA has hundreds?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @ben_lubar said:

    Why are we so worried about Iraq having them if the USA has hundreds?

    Because the USA isn't in control of the ones Iraq has/had?



  • We're also not in control of the ones Russia has. Why is this a problem?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    *shrug*


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @tar said:

    Nucular missles?

    Unless that's a joke on the mispronunciation, chemical weapons and big bombs probably count too.

    To be serious for a second I doubt the precise boundaries have been defined.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @ben_lubar said:

    We're also not in control of the ones Russia has. Why is this a problem?

    Surely a person as focused on attention to detail as yourself could figure this out with some detective work.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @ben_lubar said:

    Has the actual meaning [of WMD] of this ever been defined?

    Yes.

    @ben_lubar said:

    It seems that either it's a category including airplanes or it's a meaningless label that is used only to scare people.

    I won't deny your experience, but I've never experienced that.

    Back in the day, WMD was basically NBC. But it has evolved to CBRNE. I'll grant you that with the Explosives, WMD had gotten a lot more expansive. But it's certainly not meaningless.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @ben_lubar said:

    Why are we so worried about Iraq having them if the USA has hundreds?

    Why shouldn't we be?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @ben_lubar said:

    We're also not in control of the ones Russia has. Why is this a problem?

    Why do you think it isn't?



  • Dick Chaney did nothing wrong



  • @CoyneTheDup said:

    Well, of course your statement proves Cheney told the truth

    Not necessarily. He could simply be wrong. Being wrong isn't being a liar unless you know your statement is wrong at the time you make it.

    Whether or not Cheney specifically was wrong (or knew he was wrong at the time) is a completely different argument, which I'm not going to get involved in....


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Dick Cheney faked the moonlanding as an apprentice, so of course he'd fake Iraq in order to invade Afghanistan.



  • @David_C said:

    ...which I'm not going to get involved in....

    :rofl: This is the funniest way to not get involved I've seen in quite a while. :rofl:



  • @David_C said:

    Not necessarily. He could simply be wrong. Being wrong isn't being a liar unless you know your statement is wrong at the time you make it.

    Whether or not Cheney specifically was wrong (or knew he was wrong at the time) is a completely different argument,

    Q: How can you tell if a politician is lying?
    A: Their lips are moving.

    I really don't understand all the defensiveness. I haven't actually accused Dick Cheney of lying (even though my personal opinion is that he probably did). I did pick on someone's sweeping generalization, but that's an argument about arguments, not about Dick Cheney.

    Why is it so essential that Dick Cheney not have lied?

    Is he, like, some hero of all you Republicans, such that he must be as pristine as the Mt. Rushmore heads?

    He certainly had a goal that would have been supported by lying, as evidenced by this note in his own hand:

    "Hit SH [Saddam Hussein] @ same time as / not only UBL [Usama Bin Laden]"

    He was a politician with an axe to grind. That doesn't prove he lied, I admit, but it sure was motive.

    But I just don't understand the response, like, "He's my hero and my hero would never lie!"


    But actually, I do understand it, despite what I say...and it is nothing but pure partisan politics. Compare the general Republican attitude that, "Hillary Clinton is a crook and always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, lies. Bengazi, froth! Emails, fume!"

    This in spite of no proof that she lied; in fact, no more evidence she lied than that Cheney lied.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    Why is it so essential that Dick Cheney not have lied?

    Why is it so essential that Dick Cheney lied?



  • @boomzilla said:

    Why is it so essential that Dick Cheney lied?

    I never said it was; go back and read my messages again.

    And while I'm thinking about it:
    Why is it so essential that Hillary Clinton lied?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    I never said it was; go back and read my messages again.

    Your continued posting and original choice of things to quote contradicts this statement. But you didn't even seem to have read what @David_C wrote, so maybe you really are just trolling.

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    Why is it so essential that Hillary Clinton lied?

    It's the only way she knows to relate to the world around her. Might as well ask why swimming in water is so essential to a fish.



  • @FrostCat said:

    everyone in the world thought Iraq had WMDs at the time the US invaded.

    Bullshit. Everybody who was actually paying attention to what the weapons inspectors actually in Iraq at the time were saying knew no such thing.

    It was patently clear, after the Republican spin machine started putting about the lie that Hans Blix's team had been "kicked out of Iraq", that the US Administration simply wanted people to believe that Iraq had WMDs in order to paper over their transparently aggressive invasion plans with something that might have looked legitimate if you kept all the lights dimmed and squinted.



  • @boomzilla said:

    It's the only way she knows to relate to the world around her. Might as well ask why swimming in water is so essential to a fish

    It's the only way Dick Cheney knows to relate to the world around him. Might as well ask why swimming in water is so essential to a fish

    Isn't that slick how that works?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    Isn't that slick how that works?

    Yes, you are a master of verbal jujitsu.

    @flabdablet said:

    Bullshit. Everybody who was actually paying attention to what the weapons inspectors actually in Iraq at the time were saying knew no such thing.

    :rolleyes: Only if you define that group by excluding every intelligence agency in the world.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @flabdablet said:

    Everybody who was actually paying attention to what the weapons inspectors actually in Iraq at the time were saying knew no such thing.

    That's why all the government intelligence agencies said he had WMDs and supported, to various extents, the invasion, right? Have you checked your water supply for lead?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @boomzilla said:

    Only if you define that group by excluding every intelligence agency in the world.

    I bet he thinks fire can't melt steel, too.



  • @FrostCat said:

    That's why all the government intelligence agencies said he had WMDs and supported, to various extents, the invasion, right?

    At the time, your intelligence agencies were partisan as all fuck, so stacked with Bush cronies that they didn't know their arses from their elbows unless such knowledge was politically convenient.

    Ours and everybody else's, not so much.

    We followed you to war in Iraq mostly on the basis of the personal friendship between our conservative Prime Minister and your radical neocon President.



  • @boomzilla said:

    Only if you define that group by excluding every intelligence agency in the world.

    Even allowing for the customary US definition of "world" as "everything between the West Coast and the East Coast", that's a stretch.

    Bush didn't listen to what his own agencies were telling him before the 9/11 attacks, and afterward he made sure to stack their senior positions with people who could be relied on to tell him only what they knew he already wanted to hear.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    Uh huh.



  • I understand and accept that all this stuff is going to look completely different to the one-eyed Republican fanboi brigade.



  • @FrostCat said:

    Oh, and enough items were found after the invasion to prove that he actually did have them, even if we now know he didn't have significant quantities of them.

    Oh, they explain that away by saying we knew about those chemical warheads, but it was MORE chemical warheads that we wanted to find.

    When 10 years prior they had complained that there were no chemical warheads.

    Of course, if you internet search, all you'll find is them repeating that this is what they always thought. The internet doesn't keep a good history. However, I remember clearly.

    @ben_lubar said:

    Why are we so worried about Iraq having them if the USA has hundreds?

    @ben_lubar said:

    We're also not in control of the ones Russia has


    For all the bitching about Iraq, Obama seems to get nothing but praise when he (1) has less reason to be in Syria and (2) exercised unilateral foreign policy control via non-existent presidential powers to be there.



  • @flabdablet said:

    Bush didn't listen to what his own agencies were telling him before the 9/11 attacks

    Neither did Clinton.

    In fact, we could have stopped 9/11 a decade earlier, but, you know, the Clintons have a habit of letting terrorists kill Americans, and giving them the weapons to do it with.

    Then, to add insult to injury, they turn around and say we can't have guns.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    The real mistake was overplaying the concerns about WMD and downplaying the other reasons for going to war. Of course, most people think the WMD angle was the entire reason. They've forgotten that we were already in a low intensity shooting war with Iraq before 9/11.

    Plus the sanctions, etc. We know there was at least some WMD there. I guess I understand and accept how one could imagine that he really wasn't interested in getting rid of sanctions and getting down to business even more, especially when one is so concerned about the one-eyed Republican fanboi brigade.



  • You don't even have to get in a debate with them over this.

    Just point to the current map of American military presence in Iraq.

    You don't think we're flying drones into Syria from the east coast?!

    Literally all Obama did was "say" he pulled out... It's hardly different now than from when Bush was in charge. The only difference is what the media is reporting on.

    If that doesn't show the media bias, I'm not sure what will.

    The reality is that Fox News is the same media, just there to fill in the demand for conservatives to watch talking heads. They talk about all the same topics, on opposite sides of some "aisle" and both manage to ignore the reality that would show the whole party systems divergence on foreign policy to be a scam.

    All the while Obama literally broke foreign policy law three times.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @xaade said:

    You don't even have to get in a debate with them over this.

    Just point to the current map of American military presence in Iraq.

    Wat?



  • “This is part of a larger operation," he said. "We've had U.S. forces there for some time, at the secretary's approval. So my understanding is this is not something unique that required the secretary's additional approval to carry out.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/world/middleeast/iraq-isis-us-military-bases-martin-e-dempsey.html?_r=0


  • ♿ (Parody)

    I just don't understand what that has to do with what I was talking about.



  • The reality is that it's still business as usual, it's just the media chooses to criticize conservatives for doing the same things as the liberals.

    There was no "real mistake". It wouldn't matter what the list of reasons were for going into Iraq. The media would hype up criticism of us being there (still on a power trip from altering perception of the Vietnam war), and they praise Obama for fighting ISIS in Syria (a sudden shift from their usual anti-war rhetoric.... I wonder why?)

    We took out Saddam, we withdrew once the need for heavy military presence was over, and we took out Osama. Which President oversaw the result of those three goals was irrelevant.

    The problem is that we continue to misunderstand the dynamics of Muslim culture in the Middle East, but this perception that liberals are against and conservatives for military presence in the Middle East is just media hype.

    Obama oversaw the military that created a situation that allowed ISIS to flourish.

    There were multiple reports that the moderates were begging us to intervene in the hostile takeover of the rebellion by extremists, and we did nothing. The drone-only strategy is a fail, and has produced more collateral damage than having troops on the ground.

    Now, it's looking like Putin is going to come out "looking right" on this one.

    I think, about the only thing learned here, is that if the military wants a war offensive, they should wait until a liberal is in charge. They get less flack from liberals and conservatives still support it anyway.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @boomzilla said:

    I just don't understand what that has to do with what I was talking about.

    I hope you're not thinking that xaade does?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @xaade said:

    The reality is that it's still business as usual, it's just the media chooses to criticize conservatives for doing the same things as the liberals.

    I was talking about, like, what the Administration said.



  • @boomzilla said:

    I was talking about, like, what the Administration said.

    And my point is that it's irrelevant.

    If you look at the actions of both Presidents. There's no reason to believe that they are so different in their strategy. The only difference is in whether the media approves, and whether the liberal voters are in a hissy fit.

    And both of those are only based on a (D) or (R) label. Not the speeches, not the rhetoric, not any excuses.

    When (R) are in power, people complain about business, and war.

    When (D) are in power, people complain about domestic issues and civil rights.

    But the resulting government is bizarrely similar.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @xaade said:

    And my point is that it's irrelevant.

    Your point is wrong.


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