Asymmetrical Information

I was amused at first by M*A*S*H since I was a Korean war infantryman, but it soon grew stale. It depicted combat leader officers as kill-crazy idiots whose only joy was getting their troops slaughtered. Captured enemy soldiers were uniformly wise and understanding, and no American soldier had the slightest idea what we were fighting for.
Farrell and his buddy Alda got rich portraying real heros as monsters. Look at the life in North Korea today and tell me my time was wasted.

Nifty! With Mindles on board, we get to have national-level political topics again. (throws a bit thumbs-up)

What amazed me about some of those artists is that they held commissions in the United States armed forces! Very impressive double careers.

Now what do you expect from the Hollywood Intelligencia?

The phrase 'Useful Idiots' springs to mind. The aforesaid Media Stars may or may not be useful, but they sure are idiots.

I wonder who said that. Was it that short, bald, and bearded actor? He once had a gig in Petersburg...in a train station, no less.

Did I miss something?
Aren't all these guys screen actors?
Where are the stage actors?
Does the mental capacity necessary to memorize an entire script all at once mean a higher order of intelligence?

I read the last link (The article connecting Saddam to terror) and had one thought:

If these links are verifiably true, why doesn't the US Government make them officially part of the case for war?

The government's few attempts to show Iraqi links to al-Qaeda strike me as half-hearted and tentative, which makes sense if there is a dearth of evidence.

The way I see it, the easiest way to get the whole country, if not most of the world, on-board with an invasion of Iraq is to demonstrate links to al-Qaeda. If these links can be shown to exist, they are the *strongest* argument for war.

It's easier to justify retaliation than pre-emption. Why rely on tenuous theories about what Hussein *may* do in the future if we can point to what he *has* done to *us* in the past?

So the question is, if the allegations of an Iraqi tie to al-Qaeda are true, and if those ties are strong enough to justify war, then why isn't the U.S. Government making these accusations the core of its argument for war? (Instead of a sideline for leaks and newspaper articles)

I suspect it is because either:
(a) The allegations are too hard to verify
(b) The government will indeed pull out this argument, with evidence to support it, at a later date shortly before they intend to actually invade in force.

I personally think that (a) is more likely than (c), but that's becuase most of what is mentioned in the article as evidence is "he said"-type allegations, and there are numerous other articles that counter most of them.

How are peons like us supposed to sort the wheat from the chaff? It's hard, and the presumption of innocence would probably win in the end. So most arguments are about a future threat, not about current or past links to al-Qaeda.

'The way I see it, the easiest way to get the whole country, if not most of the world, on-board with an invasion of Iraq is to demonstrate links to al-Qaeda.'

The problem is that there's not much evidence, and what does exist is unhelpful at best. For example, the Al-Queda operatives in northern iraq: northern iraq is under control of the Kurds, not Saddam.

I'm all for booting the fucker out (thanks to Pollack's book), but playing up non-existant terrorists connections is just an example of how badly the administration has fumbled the case for this war. Pre-emption, made-up terrorism, useless "axis of evil distinctions": these people are supposed to be professionals?

Hello, hammer on Iraq with bomb = new Great Depression + barbaric human rights record. No need to invent new theories on warfare or make shit up.

Perhaps Pollack can replace Cheney?

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