Careful, now. The Eds is notoriously prickly when commoners dare to talk back to him. Especially dirty Chomsky-sympathizers.

Johnathan,

You are ridiculously over polite, however other than that, your response to the editors was excellent.

The Editors need an editor.

He seems to think it important that Saddam didn't let the inspectors back in after 1998. Well, after being bombed this is understandable. Anyway, they were allowed back in (under great pressure, of course) and didn't find anything and it didn't matter, because the US was going to invade anyway.
You might want to make the Editors happy by saying this (assuming it's true--I'm not a great expert here) and then go back and continue to make him unhappy by using the word "storyline" several more times, because it's important. The American public was led into Iraq on the basis of a false storyline, one which centrist Democrats continue to repeat.

Allowed back in in 2002, I meant, not in 1998.

He seems to think it important that Saddam didn't let the inspectors back in after 1998...You might want to make the Editors happy by saying this

That's what confuses me here. I did say that, in the original:

It was only after Desert Fox—which was undertaken with no UN authorization, and harshly criticized by France, Russia and China—that Iraq announced that it would not permit inspectors to return.

that's hot

I liked ThePoorman's response. And I liked Jonathan's response to ThePoorman's response. That sounded like a real debate; and that's what Michael Cohen should've done, this is how he should've started that debate he wanted.

Oh, in that case I'm not sure what his problem is.

seriously, ZZZ.

you totally wanged cohen in the blog version of the ding-dong with your initial de-lie-izing his superficial post. isn't that what blogging is all about?

who gets wanged first loses!

It doesn't sound like a real debate anymore, now that The Editors is digging in his heels on a false-equivalence, "pox on both your houses" stance wrt Jon's and Cohen's posts.

Impressive politesse from Jon in the face of that.

What was the position of The Editors back in 2003? Was The Editors a Kenneth Pollack enthusiast? -- I don't remember. Anyway, found the response surprising ... it took me a few paragraphs to realize that The Editors was being serious.

My reaction: Jonathan wins on points.

The decision was an easy one; any "rebuttal" that begins by saying that there's no difference between the inspectors were "kicked out" and they "were not allowed back in" is in trouble. Whether you're talking "storyline" or "history," there is a difference: One is historically accurate; the other is a storyline created to serve a political purpose.

The Editors also were not helped by an own goal: acknowledging that UNSCOM was infiltrated by US (and Israeli) spies "since day 1" (which meant, by the by, Saddam was telling the truth about that and the US was lying) but shortly after asserting the spies were there because "they can’t get cooperation from Saddam," something which could not have happened before "day 1." Only one of those statements can be correct and internal contradiction in an argument is not beneficial to the arguer.

Oh yeah, LarryE? That's just your storyline, bub.

To me, the main story is this: combination of sanctions, inspections, demands to disarm with the policy of 'regime change' started by Bush1 and continued (with a small pause) thru the Clinton years produced quite a rational pattern of behavior on the part of the Iraqi government between 1991 and 2003. Rational and very predictable.

You can't blame an individual or a government for their rational reaction to your own actions. Either admit that everything goes on according to your plan, or, if you want a different reaction, change your own behavior.

I can't find the quote, but someone in comments
noted that aside from the British government
(against the wishes of their citizens), nowhere
else in the world was this considered a
"defensible war".

It's interesting that people getting their
news from sources other than the U.S. corporate
owned MSM (that is people outside of the U.S.
or Americans getting their news from the
Alternative Press) were against the war.
While here in the U.S. the MSM was banging
the drums of war so loudly, that even someone
like Michael Cohen who was skeptical of the
war felt that there were defensible arguments
in support of the Iraq invasion.

I can't find the quote, but someone in comments
noted that aside from the British government
(against the wishes of their citizens), nowhere
else in the world was this considered a
"defensible war".

It's interesting that people getting their
news from sources other than the U.S. corporate
owned MSM (that is people outside of the U.S.
or Americans getting their news from the
Alternative Press) were against the war.
While here in the U.S. the MSM was banging
the drums of war so loudly, that even someone
like Michael Cohen who was skeptical of the
war felt that there were defensible arguments
in support of the Iraq invasion.

I can't find the quote, but someone in comments
noted that aside from the British government
(against the wishes of their citizens), nowhere
else in the world was this considered a
"defensible war".

It's interesting that people getting their
news from sources other than the U.S. corporate
owned MSM (that is people outside of the U.S.
or Americans getting their news from the
Alternative Press) were against the war.
While here in the U.S. the MSM was banging
the drums of war so loudly, that even someone
like Michael Cohen who was skeptical of the
war felt that there were defensible arguments
in support of the Iraq invasion.