I’m a Haverhill Emerson. Ralph Waldo was an Ipswich Emerson. The two families were related at the brother or cousin level. My first American Emerson ancestor, Michael, was a sketchy character two of whose daughters became more famous than he ever was (though his abusive treatment probably helped make them the killers they became).

But it’s to him that I owe my elite status.

I don’t think you may be interested in continuing this thread. Nor am I that hurt. It just is that I am not too much of an academic to couch perceptions in non-committal language.

So here goes nothing.

The U. S. of A. and by extension the U. K. has over the past decade and a half or more crapped all over the world with nothing but hatred, fear and failure. Be it economic, political, social or cultural. No amount of “[it] would be safer if they got these assumptions out in the open and thought them through.” is going to help those two societies, nor the rest of the world who have invested heavily in them over the past 100 years or more.

The U. S. of A. and its ilk are a bad debt. Write them off. Fall. Die. Collapse. Fade away. Whatever be the academic term to convey that sentiment. That’s my take. That is the “right thing” I am referring to. That was the reason for that fractal image. The U. S. of A. is rotten to the core.

We the people of the whole wide world who kept sending our first born male child into that altar of capitalism for a century, have learnt our lesson. Sacrifices are a waste. You get nothing. You lose. So long and thanks for all the fish.

As someone who has lived in countries at war, and worked in refugee camps, and seen the damage that conflict does to civil institutions, I cannot accept that starting a war is “the right thing to do” unless the rationale is very clear and the risks adequately weighed up. The constantly-changing justifications for invading Iraq do not convince me. I suspect that the hidden assumptions are a belief in the USA that it is safer if it attacks other countries first, and a belief in the UK that it is safer to unquestioningly follow the USA. I think that these countries would be safer if they got these assumptions out in the open and thought them through.

My take on all this is; die. Just get the fuck out of the global system. A picture may help you understand why I feel it is hopeless to “correct from within.”

http://bp1.blogger.com/_DZH2cmCoois/R9qICozPCII/AAAAAAAAE2E/KM2hSTdkm6A/s1600-h/tmp.jpg

The assertion by the UK government that the invasion of Iraq was legal depended on the opinion of the Attorney General that it would be legal if the UK Government could say that it knew for certain that Iraq had WMD. So Tony Blair said that he knew for certain that Iraq had WMD. Tony Blair was unable to provide any evidence for the certain knowledge; he simply asserted that WMD would be found.

The UK Government said, before the invasion, that Iraq was not cooperating with the weapons’ inspectors. When asked for evidence of non-cooperation, the UK Government said that Iraq wasn’t cooperating because it wasn’t handing over the WMD that the UK Government knew were in Iraq.

It would therefore seem to me that the non-discovery of WMD is highly significant. Tony Blair’s answer to every objection was “WMD will be found”. All the arguments for going to war despite failing to get the backing of the UN hinged on the certainty that WMD existed. If the non-discovery of WMD in Iraq was insignificant, I wonder why I have a cupboard full of letters from politicians, from the period 2002-3, avoiding my original questions but telling me about the certainty that Iraq has WMD!

Andi anyone can explain to me the meaning of comment 30 I will try to answer it.

CATFIGHT!

If you honestly think that, then you haven’t been paying attention. And if you’re not even going to do me the courtesy of actually reading the comments to which you’re supposedly responding, then why should I bother trying to explain?

First, the situation in 2002 might have been different than the situation in 1998. Second, despite no longer being an inspector, Ritter may have received new information between 1998 and 2002. Either way, he could have changed his mind.

You seem to think I have a problem grasping that Ritter changed his mind. I do not. I’ll lay aside suspicions that he’s simply a media whore who spotted a gap in the market and decided to plug it and, again for sake of argument, accept he was/is sincere. So what? If he cannot rationally, logically and coherently explain how he got from weapons inspector resigning in protest at the UN’s unwillingness to disarm an Iraq that he described as “not nearly disarmed”, to media pundit/author who, after 4 years in the intelligence wilderness now concludes that Iraq is just about disarmed, then this is a serious problem for his credibility. Saying things like “circumstances change” and “he changed his mind” don’t cut it as a convincing reconciliation of two self-contradicting opinions held by the same person about the same issue.

Brownie is frantically looking up in the dictionary to find out what a ‘grade a nimrod’ is (Martin 45). He know’s it bad – he just wants to check it’s not something, you know, icky and sexual.

You need to work on your insults, brother.

Are you suggesting he knew something as a civilian in 2002 that he didn’t as an inspector in 1998?

Yes! I think that you’ve figured it out!

First, the situation in 2002 might have been different than the situation in 1998. Second, despite no longer being an inspector, Ritter may have received new information between 1998 and 2002. Either way, he could have changed his mind.

That’s why we don’t think that the fact that he had different opinions on the two different dates is ironclad proof that he was wrong and worthless, especially because in 2002 he was right. (We do not rule out the possibility that he had been wrong in 1998.)

And remember, we were originally talking about a number of prestigious people who were completely wrong, in contrast to Ritter. You might call these people the “topic” of the thread. And seemingly, you are one of them.

Incidentally, have you ever changed your mind about anything? Do you regard that as a sign of weakness? Because you think the same way you did in 2002, when everyone else has taken changed circumstances into account, and you seem to think that Ritter discredited himself forever by changing his mind once.

I think the mother ship just left.

But you see, one of the things Ritter had said before was that the old inspections had been fronting for CIA spying, and that much of the “obstruction” was because of this. When you take that into account, Saddam Hussein’s actions were not nearly so unreasonable.

Leaving aside the fact that, whatever the differences of opinion about the validity of war, there was no-one in the UN who thought Saddam’s actions anything other than “unreasonable” (which is why 1441, giving Saddam a “final opportunity to comply”, was passed unanimously), the question that begs itself is why Ritter thought the wholesale infiltration of UNSCOM by the CIA wasn’t worthy of a mention in 1998? Are you suggesting he knew something as a civilian in 2002 that he didn’t as an inspector in 1998? Fanciful.

Again, you’re confusing what is and isn’t important as regards Ritter’s credibility. Let’s for sake of argument agree that everything Ritter was saying about inspections in 2002/3 was 100% accurate. The fact remains that when he was the man on the ground 4 years earlier, he was singing an entirely different tune. This is what compromises him and why many anti-war types didn’t and still won’t touch him with a ten foot barge pole.