FIELD EXPERIENCE. What’s so special about hands-on experience?  It’s simply not gained without many years working in the field or in laboratories, well beyond graduate-level academic and specialized training in occupations.  Those who attain hands-on field experience — usually under distracting and sometimes dangerous conditions — find out that good data collection, patience, luck, calculated risk, indulgence, leadership, subservience, practical skills, inadvertent radiation exposures, bruises, disappointment, details, experiment design, equipment, science fundamentals, analytic skills, jury-rigging, self-effacement, open-mindedness, tolerance, technical publication, and knowledge reinforcement are some aspects of direct participation not found much in books or in the classroom for either teacher or student.

Academic institutions do a great job giving researchers a good start; just look at the graduate degrees and prominent educational institutions (United States, Great Britain, etc.) where the Iraqi nuclear-weapon developers acquired their basic scientific and technological knowledge.  The remaining requisite experience is gained in the field the hard way.  (It should be noted, however, that even after two decades of effort, Saddam Hussein — lavishing authority and money — failed to have even a single functional nuclear weapon produced.)

Once in a while it does become necessary to challenge the credentials and experience of those who take outspoken positions on topics they seem to misunderstand or misrepresent, often because of they lack meaningful field experience, as Scott Ritter has noted.  If a more insightful author-evaluation process were routinely available, policymakers would have less cover for the type of premature or egregious data selection experienced particularly with regard to events in the Mid-East.

CREDENTIALS AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST. In general, one inherent qualification of the academic community is comparatively less conflict of financial and institutional interest.  Even so, more weight to meaningful qualifications and explicit disclaimers should be required of academics when they address issues without having the type of field experience that Scott Ridder and David Kay have had.  I find that to be particularly the case when it comes a technical understanding of nuclear reactors and the risks of radiation and proliferation.  Academic or NGO papers having essentially no professional foundation are a disservice to our common interest in an improved energy economy that would be accompanied by reducing risk and chronic hazard.

This isn’t meant to imply that questions they raise shouldn’t be answered — just that those who answer should have an applicable track record.

In any event, a good disassociated test of validity is to examine technical statements and papers for rigorous recognition, analysis, and presentation of potential systematic errors in measurements; it is the keystone to credibility.  Too many consequential predictions have been made on the basis of selected or functionally dependent data.  Those who don’t recognize the limitations of their estimates do not warrant much credibility.

In short, academic/NGO papers and presentations should start out with a disclaimer if not based on actual laboratory or field experience, and if the authors cannot or do not fathom or report systematic measurement errors.  Why don’t they just admit, “I’ve really had no field experience on this topic, and I don’t know how to characterize the validity of my results, but caveat emptor, here they are!”

Academic and NGO communities should police their own qualifications for speaking out on critical issues so that experienced professionals, such as Scott Ridder and myself, don’t have to come forward with the risk of appearing to respond with ad-hominem attacks.

—A. DeVolpi, retired physicist

CRITIQUING NUCLEAR EXPERTS AND NUCLEAR EXPERTISE (PART 2 OF 3)
THE PROFESSORS. For progress in non-proliferation, we need be saved from the assumed or accorded authoritarianism of well-intentioned professors, especially from the East Coast, who have titles mistaken as credentials.  Frank von Hippel of Princeton comes to mind.  Notwithstanding good intentions, pleasant personality, teaching experience, and published papers — these do not constitute hands-on field or laboratory experience.  Nor does time spent in Washington corridors, offices, conference rooms count.

I hold Frank partially responsible for the decade-long hiatus in reaching agreement with Korea on nuclear demilitarization, for decades of lack of progress in conversion of the Siberian plutonium reactors, for stalling growth of nuclear power in the United States, for misrepresenting the weaponizability of reactor-grade plutonium, and for sustaining radiophobia.

On the latter point, over two decades after the Chernobyl accident, Frank is yet to acknowledge in print that he was utterly wrong in projecting or implying a huge number of fatalities due to the accident.  He and others cling to unvalidated beliefs regarding the effects of low levels of radiation.  That particular professional impropriety about predicting Chernobyl radiation effects was written in collaboration with Tom Cochran.  Frank’s other nuclear-policy distortions often came with like-minded, but equally unrepentant collaborators.

Another fundamental lapse, more common in academic circles compared to those who have gained field experience, is insufficient awareness of systematic error in data and computed results.  Much of the debacle regarding unfounded projections of excess cancers (for adults and juveniles) from the Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island accidents would have averted if proper scientific methodology were applied to the estimates.

Were it not for the prevalence of contemporary East-Coast academics, U.S. oil- and coal-burning electrical power stations might long have been on the wane, along with the carbon-dioxide and chronic pollution they emit.  Certainly shortages and prices of oil would not have reached their present levels had more nuclear-power stations been built as a carbon-disengaged source of baseload electricity.

Steve Fetter, now at University of Maryland, is another bright fellow with Harvard physics graduate degrees, but has weighed in on topics with which he evinces little or no practical field experience.  I know about these people because I once had to bring them up to speed on fundamentals regarding practical nuclear and instrument technology.

Include Tom Cochran in the good-hearted, under-experienced list.  Academic qualifications aside, professorships or PhDs do not necessarily correspond to the experiential foundations of a John Pike or Steve Aftergood.  Hal Feiverson of Princeton, though, is an example of a professor who has exhibited a learning process well beyond the university norm.

Moreover, were it not for the professors of the ̓30s and ̓40s who gained hands-on laboratory and field experience, we would not have succeeded in the timely development of nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors.  With the demise of Hans Bethe and Pief Panofsky, a good example remaining is Dick Garwin (aside from some uncharacteristic overreaching he has done with regard to Chernobyl cancer projections).

Finally, there is the matter of “political” scientists, such as Graham Allison of Harvard, who have leaned over from the political to the technical side to address issues regarding “nuclear terrorism,” and others who have presented overhyped views about “dirty bombs.” The political scientists do better when they have sound technical advice or stick to their field.

—A. DeVolpi, retired physicist

CRITIQUING NUCLEAR EXPERTS AND NUCLEAR EXPERTISE (PART 1 OF 3)
Scott Ritter’s challenge regarding the credentials of some outspoken “nuclear experts” is worthy of further comment, both in terms of the specific individuals and in terms of others who need to be “outed.” Too often proponents or critics with impressive resumes, especially from academia, gloss over their lack of fundamental training and experience in the fields of technical discussion.  Although relevant credentials and biases are very pertinent, it is extremely difficult to challenge credentials after formal publication or media publicity.

ALBRIGHT. Having been acquainted with David Albright since the early 1980s on the Washington NGO scene, I regrettably must second Scott Ritter’s outing of Dave’s overworked credentials.

My official role at Argonne National Laboratory in arms-control and verification technology led me to relevant contracts with the Defense Nuclear Agency well before the beginning of formalized on-site inspection, including OSIA, as well as interactions with all the DOE weapons labs, with DOD, and at overseas laboratories.  My volunteer activities allowed contribution of technical expertise to various NGO groups with which I collaborated, such as the FAS, NRDC, ACA, CDI, and others.  My professional activities at Argonne (and other laboratories) involved nearly 40 years of lab, field, and analytical activities in instrumentation, nuclear physics, nuclear engineering, reactor safety, radioisotopes, experiments, verification technology, and arms control.  I have technical papers, review articles, and patents to back this up.

Besides being a technical consultant to the joint FAS/NRDC (Federation of American Scientists/Natural Resources Defense Council) verification project, I worked with European arms-control projects involving Soviet and Eastern European counterparts before the Cold War came to an end (http://www.NuclearShadowboxing.Info).  Despite a half-century close involvement, I don’t recall Dave’s (or anyone else’s) position as a “Senior Staff Scientist” for the FAS (although they could use some professional help nowadays on nuclear issues).

Aside from Albright’s book compilation on fissile materials, there are some other useful contributions he has made to arms control and non-proliferation, such as his interpretation of country-specific proliferation activities.  Dave’s a friendly guy, but I always found him shallow on experience, and — now realizing that he was once on the research staff of Princeton University’s Center for Energy and Environmental Studies — I have a better understanding of his predisposition and educational preparation.  With no substantive foundation he has expressed himself as philosophically opposed to nuclear power.  This is not uncommon, particularly with academics associated with Princeton who evince no hands-on or other practical field experience regarding nuclear-weapons, nuclear-reactor technology, or verification methodology.

KHIDIR HAMZA. In connection with the “hands-on” criterion, I confess reluctance to accept some of the negative assessments about Dr. Khidir Hamza.  He has evidenced both academic and insider experience that really cannot be challenged in terms of insufficient qualifications.  As far has the technical content of his book, I find it quite plausible.  Regarding his derring-do exploits and memoirs, they make a good read.  I notice that David Kay, a highly qualified IAEA inspector that I was once acquainted with, praised the book.  I sense considerable self-effacing dissonance among Iraqi defectors regarding Hamza and each other.

—A. DeVolpi, retired physicist

As usual, the content of my posts escapes Rus’s tiny little mind.  The question is not simply the accuracy of the number you place as to how may Iraqi children died but the little matter of who is responsible for those deaths.  How many of those children were killed by bombs dropped on Iraq from Gulf War I?  How many died because UN sanctions imposed throughout that decade prevented Iraq from acquiring basic medicines, etc.?

To blame Saddam for those deaths would be like blaming Winston Churchill for the number of British citizens who lost their lives when the Nazis attacked that country from the air.

But, like a conditioned Pavlov dog, you only know to blame the objectified “enemy” for all that goes wrong; to never look to what your heroes in the WH have done.  You are the essence of a true believer--impervious to any evidence that reflects the duplicity of those whom you follow and admire.

And, of course, DFC, you leave out Rus’s lack of verification that Saddam was personally responsible for “any” of the horrendous but unsubstantiated statistics that he cites.  I am not certain where the one million Iraqi children figure comes from but I do know that per UN statistics, over 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five died as a result of the 13 year UN sanctions regime.  When pressed, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said, “it was worth it.”

Rus’s hero, George W. Bush, is responsible for the deaths of more than one million Iraqis, the displacement of 4 million Iraqis, half that number in exile, 4,200 American soldiers and counting, tens of thousands of our own soldiers who have returned maimed, disfigured and emotionally scarred for life, but, hey, we got to see those gruesome photos of Saddam’s lynching, so I suppose Rus can say, “it was worth it.”

Rus, the typical Orwellian, is blind to a mountain of evidence that exposes the criminal cabal operating inside the White House, but is prepared to condemn the objectified “enemy” on no evidence at all.  The point was exemplified by Bugliosi, who in “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder” notes that where it was claimed Saddam was responsible 300,000 Iraqis, he was prosecuted for “no crime at all.” Instead, he was prosecuted for signing an order permitting the prosecution of 148 men for alleged complicity in a plot to assassinate him, an order he signed on the recommendations of his legal advisers and a 361-page dossier of evidence compiled against them.

Scott Ritter writes three pages in order to denounce a collegue for being called “a former U.N weapons inspector” although his role was more marginal than that of Scott Ritter.

My respect for David Albright stems from the quality of his work. I have met many “inspectors”, “officials”, “professors”, and “weapon physicists”, as well as “students”, “commentators”, or “colleagues” and many more. In the many years of my work I have learned at least one thing, and that is: Look at the quality, seriousness, usefulness, and honesty of one’s work and derive the respect from this. Don’t look at titles or press attention.

In this sense, the results that David Albright, often together with colleagues, has given to the international nonproliferation community rank among the highest. Just some examples:

The book “Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996”, co-authored by Albright, Berkhout, and Walker, together with updates on the ISIS Web site, is up to today THE basis for a large range of follow-up work: examples are topics like a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, safeguards, future nuclear material control regimes, assessment of proliferation dangers etc. What makes the book valuable are not only the figures, but also the honest and transparent description of the methods how these figures have been gained, to which extent they may be trusted, which error margins must be assumed and why. Not only non-governmental experts work with them but also generations of diplomats and governments of non-nuclear weapon states. Definitely, it would be desirable if governments and their “officials” would publish more precise figures. This is just the case the book makes.

Another example are the timely comments by ISIS on topics of North Korea, Iran, Iraq and other proliferation cases. It is always clear what is INFORMATION and what is an offer of interpretation of this information. Colleages like myself are most thankful for this service.

On his three pages, Scott Ritter repeats again and again how important his own experience as an inspector is. Unfortunately, he forgets to explain his criteria for the use of the term “dilettante”. Instead he even fortifies this term by adding “in every sense”. Being himself a historian, how can he have the qualification to decide about the physics skills of a physicist? How can he know how well another physicist understands topics like energy and fuel consumption of a nuclear reactor etc? A little more modesty would have been more convincing, this way I feel reminded of an aggrieved child who complaints that although his singing sounded so much better, the other child got so much more applause.

A dilettante in diplomacy might be an excellent expert in nuclear weapon physics, or the other way round, an expert in psychology of deceiving inspectors might be a dilettant in designing an implosion design etc. That’s why you always need interdisciplinary teams with eagerness to respect and learn from each other.

Finally, being a physicist myself who “never worked as a nuclear physicist on any program dedicated to the design and/or manufacture of nuclear weapons.” (in our country you won’t find a single one), I nevertheless feel and - I believe - am regarded qualified to comment on nonproliferation, proliferation risks of various nuclear technologies, nuclear safeguards, nuclear disarmament etc. Ritter’s superficial comment to disqualify a respespectable expert although not being himself a “nuclear weapon physicist”, is an insult not only to Albright but also to all his colleagues world wide.

Annette Schaper, http://hsfk.de/index.php?id=10&no_cache=0&deta il=111&cHash=f46523b506&L=1

Yes Rus, on this we actually agree. No parent should EVER outlive their children. Sadly, it happens. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, even though I have few.

I wouldn’t even wish it on JBlack. (although it’s difficult to believe he would even have any kids, or didn’t kill them himself if he did).

At any rate, it is not important whether you believe me or not. I have no reason to lie about that or anything else.

Hopefully, this is not a pain that you will ever have to suffer, but we know there are at least a million others who have suffered the same heartache as a result of the US actions in Iraq. Lots of them and US, burying our children.

Meantime, Cyrena is beyond all harm now.

DFC--The core problem with the JBlack/rus argument is that they accept at face value the claims made by Bush/Cheney that they “believed” Saddam possessed WMD, had links to WMD and 9/11 when there is compelling evidence that demostrates clearly that they knew no of these claims were true, yet ordered the invasion anyway.

A classic construct of the CIA, to which both George Bushes have a long standing connection, is “plausible denial.” In his book by that title, Mark Lane, commenting upon the Iran/Contra hearings, observed that George H. W. “Bush routinely keeps a diary of plausible deniability, with the same skill employed by a crooked accountant who maintains two sets of corporate books, one of them cooked.”

DFC,

There was never any doubt for me or I’m sure anyone else posting regularly on this thread, that the post was your own. As an academic, I can spot plagiarism and similar writing styles quite well. I suspect that anybody does best at what they do most often. At least that is normally the case.

You’ve by now been introduced to Rus7355’s clone...JBlack. Both are psychotic, and may in fact be one in the same person. I hadn’t considered that until they accused me of it. (at least one of those identities have). That’s always a give-away with these types. They accuse others of their own behavior, failing to realize the clues that it provides to whom they are. In short, it says far more about THEM then it does about whomever they happen to be directing the accusations.

For the record, I post under one name, and one name only...both here and on the limited number of other blogs where I occasionally post. The one name that I use is not my own given name, simply because of the hassles and harassment that have resulted in the past, from people like JRusBlack, whom I’m sure have posted under other identities here as well. So I use instead my daughter’s given name, (given to her by me of course) since she passed away many years ago, and so is beyond whatever threats they pose. Their obsession with attacking me personally, (though it is not limited to me, since we now have them on cann4ing’s case as well) is a testament to why I use her name and not my own.

That said, I realize it provides only limited protection, and only from those who are not so smart. The more technically savvy (and psychotic) can in fact take it farther, and that’s simply a risk that we all take in utilizing the technology. That is the paradox of the Internet. It brings both the good/informative knowledge to our fingertips, and at the same time brings the dangerous and the dysfunctional to the just below the surface as well.

Even that though, provides some usefulness. I’ve frequently used some of these pathological posts for material in some of my courses, so that students can come to recognize these signs of the pathology that exists within the society.

Meantime, thanks again for your contributions. They are very helpful and much appreciated.

Enter JBlack, the high Party member, reformulating Rus’s amateurish effort at Newspeak.

DFC,

Thank you so much for this post #167226. I’ve saved it, just because I find it very helpful in explaining this phenomena to others who want to learn. You sum it up very well…

• “…If “It’s not a lie if you believe it. It’s not a lie to dismiss contrary information to your own beliefs,” and the point of arguing is to discover truth, then you are yourself just a lie…”

That’s what it boils down to. Rus7355 is a lie himself. We could entertain WHY that is, and cann4ing has. (we’ve been plagued with this from Rus for several months now).

Cann4ing suggests this:

• “What amazes me most about Rus’s thinking is that it answers some definitions of clinical impairment and even insanity, and he asserts it quite proudly.”

And it’s true. Rus does appear to be quite proud of it, which confirms another point by cann4ing..

• “If a cop stopped him on the road and Rus insisted that four fingers was five, the cop would have to conclude that he was drunk or high, and arrest him rather than let him drive…If he kept insising that four was five, he’d be kept for observation for his own safety. …If he insisted to a judge that four was five, he’d be hospitalized.”
So, Rus should have been hospitalized long ago, and for all we know…maybe he is. Maybe his keepers think that allowing him to post on the internet is ‘therapy’ or something, except of course all it amounts to is him terrorizing the on-line public with BS propaganda.

That means that he probably is NOT hospitalized, and that’s the tragedy of the times. Too many of these people go ‘undetected’ and some of them even manage to make oodles of money spreading this stuff. Cann4ing made that point not long ago. Witness Bill O’Reiley and Rush Limbaugh. Oh hell…witness George Bush.

Yes, this is the tragedy of the era. People who should be either hospitalized or incarcerated are running the county. (into the ground I might add, though that seems to be a mote point at this stage.)

Anyway, thanks again for the comments in this as well as #167204. That one hits the head on a current academic topic for me.

• “…Rus’s worldview is nothing but latent fascism. It assumes that facts and beliefs are the same. Facts may be ugly and disagreeable, but they are the same for everyone. If reality becomes a matter of personal perception, as Rus says it is--“’So if I believe that four is five, it’s five’. That is correct."--then whomever takes charge can assert a new one, and given sufficient consensus, they can dictate any reality they choose, and punish any dissenters they wish. Holding the idea of factuality in mind would itself become a crime, even if you agreed with the consensus, because it presumes some higher reality than the one in charge and permits the thought that the consensus is beholden to anything except itself…”

This is not an easy thing to understand about the properties of Fascism, (at least for me) if only because it is based on the irrational. How does rationality attempt to explain irrationality?  It’s not easy, but I’ve finally come to understand how it works. This has been the base worldview of all Fascists and the creators of Totalitarian regimes.

Thanks again.

Actually, DFC, when I read your post, I thought of the movie version of “1984” when O’Brien was torturing Winston Smith inside the “Ministry of Love” and convinced him that reality was whatever the Party says it is.

Utter rubbish!

Excellent point, DFC.  There is an Orwellian quality to our Rus’s inability to apply basic logic, a point he underscored with his latest post, which, rather than addressing the massive evidence surrounding events in 2002/2003 that Bush lied about a supposed Iraqi threat, about WMD & supposed links between Iraq and al Qaeda/9/11, Rus has busied himself digging up old quotes from Clinton & Sandy Berger where they expressed the belief that Iraq was a threat.  Since they said they believed it, and Bush said he believed it in 2002/2003, then Iraq must have been a threat.  Oceania is a war with Eurasia.  Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.  He also quotes two Democratic Senators who in 2002 expressed the belief that Iraq had WMD & was reconstituting its nuclear program.

Of course, there are several points that our little Orwellian choses to ignore.  1)Clinton did not order U.S. troops to invade and occupy Iraq.  2) Much of the belief expressed by U.S. Senators arose from the deliberately deceptive information that was spoon fed to Congress by the Bush regime, including an unclassified summary of the 10/1/02 classified NIE which became known as the “White Paper"--a propaganda piece in which all dissents and qualifications from the classified NIE had been deleted by the Bushies, including language which expressly stated that Saddam was not likely to try to use WMD against the US unless he feared a U.S. assault on Iraq was imminent; (3) the fact that this or that Senator, irrespective of party affiliation, expressed the belief that Iraq possessed WMD does not establish that the Bushies possessed the honest belief that Iraq possessed WMD, and, in fact, as Vince Bugliosi amply demonstrates, the evidence compels the conclusion that the Bushies knew full well that Iraq (a) did not possess WMD; (b) was not trying to reconstitute its nuclear program, (c) had no connection to al Qaeda or 9/11, and (d) ordered the invasion anyway.

But then neither facts nor logic are likely to pierce the dense disinformation bubble surrounding Rus’s little mind, so I suspect that his latest mumblings will not be his last.

Ernest,

Good point about the comparison there with Marshall, who probably IS a disinfo agent.

Rus is just crazy.

Well, Cyrena, I was with you until the “paid for disinformation agent.” I could certainly see them hiring someone like Marshall, who, though a die hard neocon, is actually quite erudite.  But this guy doesn’t know how to get from point A to point B.  Why would anyone hire him?  Oops, maybe they did.  After all Billo and Rush Limbaugh get paid millions to espouse illogical drivel over the airways, so why not hire the very confused Rus?

By cann4ing, July 3 at 7:04 am #

Cyrena, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is a waste of time to attempt an honest intellectual exchange with our Rus, who either lacks the capacity of reason or is disingenuous.

#############

Ernest,

I figured this out a while back. And, I suspect that it is both. He lacks the capacity for reason, or is disingenuous.

I’m more inclined to simply call him a troll or disinformation agent, devoted to distracting conversation from the real issues at hand. It’s either that, or he’s insane, in the worst sorts of denial and delusion, like any other insane person.

I mean, we’ve had the clues all along, but when he recently blamed Saddam Hussein for affecting global weather patterns for a year, I knew he was on a different universe than the rest of us.

He’s like niloroth. Remember him? (he’s back by the way). So...same perfidy there. He could even be a reincarnation of Chalmers. (that was one suspicion of mine a while back).

WHATEVER the case...he’s a waste, and the times are too urgent to bother with even acknowledging anything he put out there.

There are times when even freedom of speech should have it’s limits. I can’t think of a better example than rus7355.

The worst part of it is that our tax dollars are probably paying for this BS that we get from him. I’m
equally convinced that he’s probably a paid disinfo and propaganda agent.

Rus, It is truly sad that you lack the capacity to understand that my refusal to be drawn into a discussion on irrelevancies reflects not intellectual dishonesty but instead simply a desire to avoid pointlessly conversing with a Mad Hatter.

You remind me, Rus, of the kid you gets caught cheating on a test and says, “but other people did it!” Clinton did not order our troops to invade Iraq.  Madeleine Albright did not order our troops to invade Iraq.  Whatever was or was not contained in a 1997 NIE has absolutely no relevance to Bush’s March 19, 2003 order that the U.S. armed forces invade the then sovereign nation of Iraq.

What does have a direct bearing is the testimony presented to the UN less than two weeks prior to the invasion by Hans Blix, the chief inspector.  Blix testified that, by that “juncture we are able to perform professional, no-notice inspections all over Iraq and to increase aerial surveillance.” The Iraqis, said Blix, had “accelerated” their efforts to resolve the disarmament issue; that “no evidence of proscribed activities have been found...no underground facilities for chemical or biological production or storage were found so far,” and that he anticipated that verification that Iraq had no WMD “will not take years, nor weeks, but months;” that even after “verified disarmament” per UN Resolutions, “a sustained inspection and monitoring system is to remain in place.”

What is also relevant is that Mohamed ElBaradei testified “we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq.”

What is also relevant is that Bush, knowing well that his WMD excuse was crumbling before him, moved the goal posts, telling the nation on March 17, 2003 that the only way to avoid war was regime change.  “Saddam...and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours.  Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict.”

On 2/24/04 the “People’s Daily” quoted Blix:  “The Americans and British ‘created’ facts where there were no facts at all.”

Rus, as I said to Cyrena, you either lack the intellectual capacity to separate the wheat from the chaff or you are utterly dishonest.  I have no intention of interacting further with someone who is either incapable of discerning what is or is not relevant to the question at hand or who continuously seeks to interject irrelevant materials as part of a dishonest effort to evade the truth.

Rus, whatever the assessments were or were not in 1998 has no relevance to a decision made in 2003, so I will not get into answering your silly questions.  As to the distortions of the Nov. 2002 NIE, Vince Bugliosi devotes an entire chapter of “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder” to it.  If you are interested in the truth, go buy the book.

The evidence that the Bush regime lied is far too lengthy to be contained in a single TD post.  If you are interested in truth, and I seriously doubt that you are Rus, pick up a copy of “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder” by Vincent Bugliosi, which compiles that evidence in book form with detailed references to original sources.

Cyrena, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is a waste of time to attempt an honest intellectual exchange with our Rus, who either lacks the capacity of reason or is disingenuous.  So Iraq lost 85% of its wetlands.  Horrible, but what does that have to do with the subject at hand--whether Bush intentionally deceived Congress and the American people in order to take this nation to war?  Or is Rus suggesting that the loss of wetlands justified the invasion?  The U.S. itself has experienced a significant loss of wetlands.  Bush regime policies have produced ecological disasters such as the one we saw in Katrina.  Does that mean Mexico has a right to invade us?

Of course, during the period Rus mentioned, 1975-2000, Iraq was engaged in two major wars.  In the first, the U.S. furnished weapons and intelligence to Saddam to fight Iran.  In the second, Iraq’s entire infrastructure was devastated by a massive aerial assault--and during the 13 years between Gulf War I and George Bush’s war, US/UK planes repeatedly struck.  Perhaps, just perhaps, some, if not most, of Iraq’s loss of wetlands is the result of war?  Ya’ think?

Rus, your heroes in the Bush regime did not merely “dismiss” contrary information “because they didn’t believe it.” They willfully deleted that information from the NIE--concealing from Congress and the American people information which was vital for “their” independent assessment as to whether what Bush was saying about Iraq had any validity whatsoever.

Your attempt to cling to the “belief” that the Bush people did not willfully deceive Congress and the American people as part of their drive to take this nation to war is irrational, as is your suggestion that an earlier remark made by Senator Kennedy that he “believed” Iraq was a threat translates into Iraq was, in fact, a threat.

Whatever doubts you may have had as to the validity of the “claim” that Iraq was a threat should have been thoroughly dispelled when the US/UK forces rolled over the Iraqi army almost as quickly as Hitler’s armies rolled through the Netherlands at the outset of WW II.

Finally, in trying to excuse the willful perfidy of neoconservatives like Richard Perle by pointing to the Clinton administration remarks, you ignore one very important detail.  Clinton did not order the invasion of Iraq, even though the neocons sent him a letter urging that he do so.  While many of the same neocons held powerful positions inside the administration of George H. W. Bush, the first President Bush rejected their advice and stopped short of a full scale invasion of Iraq.  At that time, the real conservatives within the Bush I administration referred to the neocons as “the crazies.”

With the election of George W. Bush, the neocons ascended to full power.  Bush/Cheney did not develop the desire to invade Iraq after 9/11.  That was their goal the moment they took office.

Okee dokee. Rus is even further off the deep end than I realized, and I can only think that at this point, engaging with him at all puts the rest of us in very close proximity to the rabbit hole as well.

I just noticed this, from one of the most bizarre posts to come from him yet.

“.. Not only that but the majority of these thousands of people spoke of Hussein in terms of being a threat to whole world—The man did effect weather patterns on the entire globe for over a year...”

Now he’s got Saddam effecting global weather patterns. Now I specifically remember about 30 years ago, the characters on the soap opera, “General Hospital” thought they could control the weather as well. That’s when I knew something had gone seriously awry with the American mentality...at least for those who actually believed the stuff. I mean come on...are they trying to put Lewis Carroll to shame?

But Rus says it’s all true, just because he believes it, even when all of those policy papers that the gang has written over the decades are all false, (according to Rus) as posted. Nobody wrote any of those papers, and nobody ever said any of that stuff. Nope. Don’t believe any of it, because Rus can prove it wrong, just like I’m sure he has proof that Saddam effected global weather patterns for over a year. (what time period was that anyway rus, and what made him decide to stop changing those global weather patterns?)

Never mind. It’s not important.

In fact, we have some very serious fires in my area, and they’ve caused a great deal of damage. We’ve been without power for several hours now, as the fires grow larger, (and closer to my own area).

We’re just finding out that these fires were apparently intentionally started. Did you do this thing Rus? They started right about the time you claimed to be ‘traveling’. So now I believe that it must have been you who started them.

And, as long as I believe it, it isn’t a lie.

t’s not a lie if you believe it. It’s not a lie to dismiss contrary information. We all do it every day of our lives. You may say I am wrong. But I assure you I believe it. Will any of you here be lying if you dismiss my context?

I know, Cyrena, I’m stupid and should go away.

---------

Maybe you aren’t stupid at all rus. Maybe it’s something else entirely. Maybe it’s actually YOU who are ‘evil’. I don’t know.

I do know that you’re intentionally baiting not only me, but others here as well, by claiming the very complex and long organized operation of the PNAC to be ‘my’ *evil neo-con theory* even though I’ve corrected you a few dozen times, and even though you know that anything I’ve advanced here has been common knowledge for years and years, and has been put forth by dozens of posters on this site.

Despite all of that, you intentionally continue to refer to this as ‘my theory’. So, you know what that is Rus? It’s harassment. It’s also prohibited by law. And, you’ve finally crossed the line. So, when circumstances permit, we’ll fix this so that you don’t have to concern yourself with anybody thinking that you’re stupid, and the rest of us won’t have to worry about your harassment.

In short, you’ve asserted yourself as no less a ‘threat’ than Saddam Hussein.

And the more you write, the deeper you dig yourself in.

So, it’s not going to be a lie when I file some action against your ass, because I believe that you’re harassing me. In fact, I am CONVINCED that you are a threat to others, and should be committed, and to a facility of some sort before you can cause bodily harm to me or others.

Since I believe this, it must be true. We’ll get started with the paperwork tomorrow.

• “I quite honestly believe Cyrena’s evil “Neo-Con” theory to be an impossible claim to hold.”

Rus7355,

I’m going to say this again, and I guess I’ll just have to keep saying it until it is as clear to you as it is to everyone else.

THE ‘EVIL’ NEO-CON THEORY IS NOT ‘MY’ THEORY’

That is something that YOU have come up with, because you ‘reacted’ very extremely to my use of the term in relation to the entire regime that ‘came to power’ in the Coup of 2000. I have never used the term ‘evil’ in relation to them, because it’s a stupid subjective term. Yes, they are ‘evil’ if we wanted to simply discuss BS without substance. But I have not reli