Read back through the previous 10 or so posts this thread. They dealt with the issue of pre-war intelligence. The troll question was raised by shooter and it merited a response. An explanation of what is considered a troll is not an attack on a poster — it is an explanation of what constitutes troll-like behavior. And why we on the left consider it a waste of time to engage trolls.

And read through some of the threads on other lefty sites. We are quick to dismiss people who want to discuss things with us as trolls –just because we already know that the talking points that they have learned about on their right-wing sites have already been debunked.

Unless we explain what we mean by troll-like behavior and what kinds of arguments actually constitute legitimate contributions to a debate, we are just calling people names.

A troll is someone who sticks to their talking points or continues to reiterate the same information after that information or those points have been factually discredited.

A troll simply ignores or avoids discussing points on which the facts are against them.

A troll generally cites journals of opinion or rightwing websites (if he or she bothers to provide sources at all) rather than news sources that can be fact-checked.

A troll is someone who turns his arguments onto the person they are debating rather than on the points being made.

It is troll-like of you to admit that my account of what happened to Wilson is “fair” and yet to continue to blame him rather than the administration. It is ideological rather than logical. Which is the very definition of troll.

It is troll-like of you to avoid responding to the next part of my response to you, which dealt with what you said was a “historical and comprehensive” case for war.

It is troll-like of you to use your perceptions of my emotional response to you as a basis for avoiding the debate entirely.

You may not be a troll. You are certainly less obviously a troll than many I’ve encountered. But it is certainly not clear yet that you are not a troll.

Another post like that last one you put up and there won’t be any doubt however. And I don’t waste time on trolls. Ask Bart.

Women are not as fragile as you seem to think we are.

What I am averse to is wasting my time.

You cannot have it both ways — either Wilson mischaracterized his trip — or his critics in the administration did. I demonstrated to you, using sources, that it was the latter and you conceded that my account of events was “fair”.

You cannot then go on to blame Wilson for being “caught in subsequent mischaracterizations” when those mischaracterizations were not of his making. When in fact they were quite deliberate attempts on the part of administration officials to destroy his credibility and reputation. And then those mischaracterizations were picked up and repeated unquestioningly and ad nauseam by pundits on the right.

It was a smear campaign and, for a while — i.e., the duration of the 2004 political campaign just as Rove wanted — it worked. Wilson became a liability to the Kerry campaign — but not through any fault of his own. Again, he was not the one who mischaracterized his trip, his findings, or his motives.

You also indicated that the Kerry campaign jettisoned him. What do you mean by this?

The Federal Prison system should set up a Web-Cam in the yard so the taxpayers can watch the administration at play in the Yard at the Big House. I guess it’s ok with me if they use Guantanamo for these guys, you know, for security reasons. Wouldn’t want anyone shooting them or stabbing them with a shiv and taking them out of their misery.

If you are wondering exactly what identifies a person as a troll, it is precisely the kind of response you gave above — I explained exactly what had happened re: Wilson and provided sources. You agreed that my account was “fair†and yet persisted in mischaracterizing Wilson as “discreditedâ€.

Hmmmm. We seem to have differing opinions on Wilson and trolldom simultaneously. The Niger affair is pretty much as you described, yet Wilson has gone on to be caught in subsequent “mischaracterizations” to the point where even the Kerry campaign jettisoned him. Now you may disagree with my opinion, but that doesn’t make me a troll. To my mind that would be someone that berates another for having an opinion at all with abusive language.
Expressing sympathy for Plame seems an unlikely “smear” as well. The simple fact that she has remained publicaly aloof from the fray makes her that most noble character in the entire episode. Both sides included.

If you are the same shooter who posts at the WP messages boards, I’ll be happy to continue this debate with you there, unless and until you begin routinely engaging in troll-like practices such as those I’ve mentioned above. I won’t lose my temper … but I also won’t waste my time if you start with that crap.

I am one and the same, but as I said earlier, I’m trying to broaden my horizons. Considering that comments I consider fairly benign are so upsetting to you, I think I’ll pass on your most generous offer.

If you are wondering exactly what identifies a person as a troll, it is precisely the kind of response you gave above — I explained exactly what had happened re: Wilson and provided sources. You agreed that my account was “fair” and yet persisted in mischaracterizing Wilson as “discredited”.

And then you tried to smear him as a husband, which was just bizarre and inflammatory. And something that used to be said quite often by the talking heads over at Fox News.

You also claimed that the administration’s case for war was both historical and comprehensive without explaining what you meant by either.

If you are the same shooter who posts at the WP messages boards, I’ll be happy to continue this debate with you there, unless and until you begin routinely engaging in troll-like practices such as those I’ve mentioned above. I won’t lose my temper … but I also won’t waste my time if you start with that crap.

“I’d consider that a fair representation of the situation regarding Wilson, but not of the SOTU address. Bush quoted the Brits not Wilson, and as I understand it, the Brits maintain the validity of their information to this day.”

Tony Blair maintains that, but the British commission investigating their pre-war intelligence disagreed. The Brits had nothing but the 1999 attempt. And no evidence of success. Check the Guardian or the Independent for the details on the commission.

You said:

“More importantly, people seem to forget that there were considerably more than 16 words in the SOTU address. The case for war was historical and comprehensive.

How historical? What do you mean by that? If by historical you are referring to the case made by the neocons, I would refer you to Francis Fukuyama’s recent post-mortem on that little excursion into dreamland.

How comprehensive — practically speaking, the case made to the American people had three parts:

1) “the mushroom cloud” which rested on the yellowcake claims (discredited before the war as my post has shown) and the aluminum tubes, which both INR and DOE asserted, before the war, were most likely used for conventional not nuclear weapons. And let’s remember that, in terms of expertise in assessing the potential uses of those tubes, DOE had the most expertise and their judgement should have been given primacy.

2) chemical and biological weapons (based on the claims of an Iraqi defector to Germany) — his evidence was also discredited before the war and the Germans made it clear that they found it incredible that the US thought his claims were credible enough to use to make a case for war. Type Curveball into the Los Angeles Times search engine and see the sterling work done on this subject by their reporters.

3) the “connection to 9/11″ — based on a rumored meeting in April 2001 in Prague between Mohammed Atta and an agent of Iraqi intelligence. It was primarily based on a report by a single Czech informant. Except that the FBI was already tracking Atta by that time and they reported and believe (to this day) that Atta never left the country at the time was supposed to be in Prague. The best evidence shows that he was in Virginia Beach … and there are no records (hotel bills, no passport or ticketing records, nothing).

You said:

“Wilson is but a minor and now discredited figure in history.”

You said that I gave a fair representation of the situation regarding Wilson and yet persist in referring to him as discredited. You can’t have it both ways. My post showed exactly the opposite…the administration was unable to discredit Wilson because the facts (and the other sources of intelligence on the yellowcake issue) showed that Wilson was correct. When they couldn’t discredit him on the facts, they tried to use his wife’s position to paint his trip as a boondoogle … with disastrous political fall-out for themselves. It was their own stupidity that turned Wilson from a minor footnote to a central player.

You said:

“The person I think most deserving of sympathy here is Plame. Not because of Libby, but because her husband used her for his own ends.”

This is just illogical and offensive. I was going to add that it is also paternalistic crap but I am trying to be nice.

One — you have not said how Wilson “used” her. It was the administration who brought her up in their effort to discredit Wilson. It makes no sense for Plame — or you — to blame Wilson for that.

Two — why would you feel sorry for a adult woman who is fully capable of looking at her situation and determining exactly who is responsible for what happened. She’s not stupid or blinded by love or emotion … and she’s not asking for your “sympathy” about her “user” husband — she knows exactly who to be legitimately angry with and it is not her husband.

Human Rights Watch says it believes U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld could be criminally liable for the torture of a detainee at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002 and 2003.

The universally respected international organization was commenting on an Army Inspector General’s report which contains a sworn statement by Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt that implicates Secretary Rumsfeld.

The report, obtained by Salon.com, was based on an investigation that was carried out in early 2005, and included two interviews with Rumsfeld. In the report Gen. Schmidt describes the defense secretary as being “personally involved” in the interrogation of detainee Mohammad al-Qahtani.

Human Rights Watch has urged the U.S. to name a special prosecutor to investigate the culpability of Rumsfeld and others in the al-Qahtani case.

“The question at this point is not whether Secretary Rumsfeld should resign, it’s whether he should be indicted,” said Joanne Mariner, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program director at Human Rights Watch. “General Schmidt’s sworn statement suggests that Rumsfeld may have been perfectly aware of the abuses inflicted on al-Qahtani.”
more…

Professor Rice committed a fatal TACTICAL error when she insulted the military by shooting off her academic mouth again. Businessman Rummy will probably be the first to pay the price for the clearly STRATEGIC blunders made by BUSHCO. He won’t be the only one.

Wonder how long five-deferment, quail-in-a-cage, eagle-eye and spandex-wearing, National-Guard-poser, leak-man, liar can hang on even with lap-dog media propaganda bullshit set to full spin cycle. Respect is everything in the military.

The cost of getting it back hurts way more than those candy asses wll ever be able to bear.

The long-term goal of Rumsfeld/Cheney, et al, is to destroy the military as a public institution and replace it with a privatized military, which we will pay for with our tax dollars, but which will be not be answerable to us.

Firms like Blackwater are already expanding to take the place of the military personnel that Rumsfeld has been paring away. The advantage is obvious: these firms pay 3 to 4 times what the military does, so can attract skilled employees, and taxpayers don’t care because they don’t understand that they are making up the difference.

Nobody will cry crocodile tears over the death and dismemberment of private contract soldiers. Anyone who quits and blows the whistle on a private contractor will be dismissed out of hand as a “disgruntled former employee”.

Well-compensated mercenary soldiers can be counted upon to enforce martial law when it is declared, because their loyalties lie with their company, not with their country.

Rumsfeld is not going anywhere — he has been completely successful so far in carrying out the goals of the Bush administration