Journal pudge's Journal: CNN's Barbara Starr: Iran's Judith Miller! 28
So Atrios and ThinkProgress and others are up in arms because CNN is reporting that there is intelligence tying weapons used against U.S. troops to Iran's supreme leader.
The critics say, correctly, that the White House clearly states that there's no actual proof that he was involved. Then they complain that these two statements, the ones by CNN and the ones by the White House, are contradictory. They say "the White House explicitly denies it." But, they are entirely wrong on that point.
"Intelligence tying" does not mean "proof." It just means there's specific evidence linking the weapons to the Ayatollah. And in fact, there is such evidence. But it is not proof.
I understand the concern of these antiwar web sites. They want to avoid what happened with the intelligence failures four years ago. I share their concern (and I didn't accept as a matter of fact that Hussein had WMD in the first place anyway). However, CNN said nothing incorrect or inconsistent.
Perhaps CNN should have been more clear, and stated explicitly that there is no proof of a relationship, merely some (apparently) solid evidence of a possible link. But not being explicit is not the same as being wrong.
This misunderstanding of the difference between "evidence" and "proof" is part of how we got into the mess of Iraq WMD four years ago. People saw evidence -- some of it very interesting, but none of it closely resembling proof -- and took it to mean, well, of course Iraq has WMD. But the case was highly circumstantial.
Now, this case is quite a bit different. First of all, if the evidence is accurately interpreted, it is much stronger than any of the evidence of Iraqi WMD four years ago. However, on the other hand, four years ago, we were told Iraq attacking U.S. troops (which had gone on for years) was not enough to justify war, so why would Iran attacking U.S. troops be sufficient? On the other hand, Iraq had not killed any U.S. troops with their attacks, while Iran's apparent involvement has resulted in many U.S. troop deaths.
I am not in favor of war with Iran. I may favor certain covert acts to disable their nuclear program, if warranted (and how could I know whether it is warranted?). But I dislike the idea of war in general, and while I believed (and still believe) the invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do (but not because of WMD, but because of the significant general threat posed by Hussein's regime [which is a topic that's been done to death, and I won't revisit]), I do not see the same problems or the same solution as existing in the situation next door. I still see Iran as being a threat better dealt with through diplomatic means, and waiting out the internal revolutionary forces.
The bottom line is that I believed Iraq was an existing, persistent, and pervasive force for holding back progress in the region, which posed a direct and long-term threat to the United States, through the perpetuation of social, political, and economic forces in the region that promoted terrorism.
In Iran, I see little of that. They do not threaten their neighbors (Israel excluded), nor contribute as significantly to the social or economic forces that promote terrorism. They do promote terrorism, but not in such a way that significantly keeps the region from progress, as Iraq did. And they are unlike Afghanistan, where the terrorists were, for years, directly attacking the U.S. I think Iran is less of a threat now, and less of long-term threat, one we can probably afford to wait out.
Of course, all that's excluding the possibility of an actual nuclear weapon, which is an entirely different kind of threat.
Iran's future (Score:2)
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So what? China's gonna own all of us some day. Iran is doing what China is doing, biding their time, getting stronger. Ease up a little and make the U.S. complacent. Then work on your plans. Whether it's terorrists or communists, it seems like pretty much anyone in the world can play us like a fiddle.
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Just like we need more energy independence, so do we need more production independence. We don't need to have everything in our lives made in China, to save us a few cents today.
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There's no comparison at all. China's a huge nation with an endless supply of cheap labor. A multitude that they can keep that way. They can control their economy, and unfortunately, buy holding so much of our national debt, they have our economic balls in their hands and can control ours as well.
Um, 15 years ago, many people said Japan would control our economy, through an endless supply of cheap labor, through holding our debt, and so on. Yes, China is better poised to actually do it, but that doesn't mean they will.
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Do you carry car and homeowner insurance?
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Well, that's wonderful for you. From my perspective, that's like saying let's go walk in front of that mountain lion over there that's licking his chops like he's planning to attack, as you simply think he won't.
This makes no sense at all to me. First, your analogy is false on its face: nowhere did I say we should "go walk in front of that mountain lion." Even taking your analogy at face value, my advice would be to say the mountain lion probably won't eat you, but there's no sense in walking in front of him anyway.
However, backing up a step, your analogy is a great example of the question-begging fallacy, where you assume your argument is true, when it is the point of contention in the first place. I do not be
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What I am getting at is that if there is a specific goal, we should tailor our efforts toward that effort. I agree we should stop them from getting the bomb, but I explicitly distinguished that as a separate issue, being a separate sort of threat, from what is being discussed right now in regard to terrorism in Iraq.
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Evidence (Score:2)
"Intelligence tying" does not mean "proof." It just means there's specific evidence linking the weapons [used against U.S. troops] to the Ayatollah. And in fact, there is such evidence.
What is that evidence?
I haven't been following this issue closely, I've really just browsed. But it was my impression that, as the Washington Post [washingtonpost.com] wrote, the day after the briefing:
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"Intelligence tying" does not mean "proof." It just means there's specific evidence linking the weapons [used against U.S. troops] to the Ayatollah. And in fact, there is such evidence.
What is that evidence?
Simply, that there is evidence the explosives were brought in by a military unit that (allegedly?) reports directly to the Ayatollah (which is mentioned in the article you linked to).
The [anonymous U.S. military] officials offered no evidence to substantiate allegations that the "highest levels" of the Iranian government had sanctioned support for attacks against U.S. troops.
That is true, but that is not inconsistent with the fact that there is evidence linking the weapons to the Ayatollah.
The point is that this is merely a matter of semantics. In common use, "linking" does not mean there's hard proof, just evidence of a possible connection. As I mentioned, CNN's Starr should have been more cle
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Do I understand correctly that you're saying there's "evidence" for a "possible connection," but a connection that falls short of "sanction[ing] support for attacks against U.S. troops"? Do you mean something like evidence suggesting that al-Quds was bringing in weapons to Shi'ite forces for use in the civil war generally, but no evidence showing any intention that they be used against American forces?
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Do you mean, what was on the PowerPoint presentation, that shows these weapons came from the Quds Force? Beats me. Why?
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Read the article you linked to, it's all there.
Well, this is pre-coffee, but in that article I see:
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Are you saying "[anonymous] U.S. officials said X" is evidence of X?
No. I am saying they are referring to the evidence.
Oh, are you saying that you believe "there is evidence that the explosives in question came from a group that allegedly reports directly to the Ayatollah" in the PowerPoint presentation that we're not allowed to see? Why would you think that?
Because it's what's been widely reported by many journalists who were there. I guess you really are living under a rock. :-) Here's a more descriptive story [latimes.com], with pictures of some of the actual evidence.
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Which picture or pictures do you think are evidence that the explosives used against U.S. troops were brought in by a military group that (allegedly) reports directly to the Ayatollah?
And could you please explain why?
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Which picture or pictures do you think are evidence that the explosives used against U.S. troops were brought in by a military group that (allegedly) reports directly to the Ayatollah?
And could you please explain why?
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are you saying that you believe "there is evidence that the explosives in question came from a group that allegedly reports directly to the Ayatollah" in the PowerPoint presentation that we're not allowed to see?
Because it's what's been widely reported by many journalists who were there.
Could you quote some journalists saying that there is evidence that the explosives in question came from a group that allegedly reports directly to the Ayatollah, and describing something about what that evidence is?
So far I've only seen journalists who report what the officials claimed:
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You referred to the residue on the hands, so I assumed you knew of this. You may not th
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I had known of this, sure. But when I asked yesterday:
are you saying explosives residue on someone's hands in Iraq means they have necessarily handled explosives used to kill U.S. forces?
you didn't answer. So I assumed this wasn't especially important to you.
Are you aware of some kind of supporting evidence that shows the explosive residue proves they were handling explosives used to kill U.S. forces?