Guy steps forward, says he was the driver, says it was just some TVs they were smuggling since they saw an opportunity to make a buck while Saddam was distracted with that whole war thing, and takes a Nightline reporter to the warehouse where the TVs now are. Or whatever. Depending on how reliable you think the testimony of that Guy is, you could end up considering the claim falsified. It's conceivable.
Another way is, Suppose this Ex-CENTCOM No.2 (lemme just call him EC#2) later fills in details of his story (maybe this is in his book?) and reveals that the shipments he's talking about, according to him, occured on such and such date. Then sat. photos are examined and for that entire date no convoys are visible for the entire 24 hours, it's a barren, unused road with no or just scattered traffic (small cars). Would be a pretty good way to falsify what he's saying (at the very least he's got the date wrong).
There are other conceivable scenarios but I don't wanna waste any more time thinking them up for you.
[supermarket example] A failure to falsify your story would not prove it,
And notice I have never said that EC#2's story is "proved", just that the most reasonable thing at this point is to provisionally accept it until it is *disproved* in some way. Which is has not been.
Anyway, the point of my supermarket example was not that it's literally impossible for you to falsify it, just that it's impossible for you to falsify it based on any information to which you can plausibly gain access. You simply don't have enough info about me or my claim, and will never get it, in order to do the leg-work of tracking down counterevidence.
The same is true of EC#2's story. We have his testimony and we can choose to ignore it, provisionally accept it, or disbelieve it. You've chosen the latter, for no good reason that you can explain.
Can you show us _one_ way to falsify the "WMDs were shipped to Syria et al" hypothesis?
Asked, and answered.
And I reiterate my point that "falsifiability" as such is not the gold standard that you think it is on this matter. We are trying to decide what to believe, as laypeople examining faraway news events about strangers. Not what scientific theory to publish or whether to convict someone. The standard you seem to implicitly abide by is inappropriate in this context.
Sure somebody could give an interview and say "I loaded those trucks and they were full of chickens." but that won't go very far to impugn the exCENTCOM #2, will it?
Depends on how much you trust that guy! If he could back the story up, seemed trustworthy, no ulterior motives, it sure could! Also perhaps you would trust that guy more than I would, or vice versa... we would all have to make up our mind. Who knows? You and I could wind up with different conclusions about which testimony is more reliable.
We've already seen an example of this, you have decided that EC#2 is lying while I have not. There's nothing unusual here.
If you cannot imagine something that COULD impugn his story it is, as a practical matter, unfalsifiable, is it not?
Again, I can imagine something that could impugn the story, so it is falsifiable. And again, I wouldn't even care if you could demonstrate that it's "not falsifiable".
it being possible that General DeLong simply has a weak standard for what it means to know something for a fact.
Ok then so let's stipulate here that EC#2 has a weak standard for knowing something for a fact. Let's say that "I know for a fact" was his shorthand for "I know with at least 85% certainty".
That would still be an interesting thing to learn, that intelligence exists leading to 85% certainty that WMDs were shipped. I'd still be interested to hear it, and I'd probably be inclined to accept "WMDs were shipped" as a provisional truth about what happened unless/until shown some actual reason to disbelieve it.
You, I suppose, are standing there and saying "well if he's only 85% certain then I *disbelieve* it!" Which is, frankly, bizarre.
[....yadda...] First of all, I think you are referring to one (1) binary sarin shell and one (1) mustard shell used in an IED and abandoned on a medium strip this Spring, respectively. If I am mistaken, I welcome more information to clarify the matter.
My recollection is that we've found some dozen+ CW/BW (probably mostly/all CW) shells. I am too lazy to dig up said articles. If you wish to believe that the number of things found is only one(1)+one(1) = 2 that's no skin of my nose. Two objects fitting the definition of "WMD", 12 such objects, a zillion such objects... in any event as long as this number is greater than one, it follows that "There were no WMD in Iraq" is a FALSE statement and "There were WMD in Iraq" is a TRUE statement.
You might complain that that's a boneheaded standard then. Well I agree. That's why what I'm saying to you is, considering "whether there were WMD?" to be a binary either/or question is asinine, the real question is *how much* and *what kind*, which we still don't know.
But since you brought it up, we *do* know - for a fact - that There Were WMD In Iraq, so you cannot say that There Were Not, I will not let you get away with that.
[history Iraq-Iran war etc. deleted]
Nevertheless. None of that stuff matters to the particular claim "Iraq had no WMD" which is FALSE.
I agree that whether or nor there were WMDs shipped out of Iraq is a separate issue from whether or not they were anything to worry about.
Good this moots much of what you spent time typing.
However, the story itself, while true, would be a lot less important as a national security issue, no?
Who's discussing whether it's "important as a national security issue"? Your position here is that it's NOT TRUE. If you want to slyly shift to "well if it IS true it's N.I.A.A.N.S.I." then be my guest but I'm going to have to insist that you actually perform the "Conceding that it could be true" step. You have not.
I would like to learn more about that Iraqi anthrax. Can you provide a reference with sufficient specificity that folks can locate it?
I'm not sure exactly what you're asking me, try this looks official:
Anthrax - Iraq declared producing nearly 8,500 liters but denied its ability to produce dry agent. UN inspectors believe Iraq may have produced 26,000 liters and can produce dry agent.
In particular Iraq declared some amount of anthrax, but never gave it or demonstrated its destruction. And UN inspectors (who we all now believe were more right than wrong correct?) think the capability was much more.
According to everything I've read, Iraq along with the US, USSR and perhaps a couple others was one of the only nations known to have had an advanced weaponized anthrax program. We do not know what they did with the results but we have no reason to think that either it somehow went poof or that Saddam said "hey this'll be fun: let's destroy it but not tell anyone". It would be insane to proceed upon either assumption in fact. Maybe this will help you understand where I'm coming from here.
Regarding the US anthrax attacks, the particular strain used was identified (by the US Government) as originating at Ft Dietrich, MD.
The anthrax sent to Daschle's office for example was different. It was "aerosolized" (or something). I am not an expert on these matters and please understand that I am not here saying to you "I definitely believe that this anthrax was from Iraq." I was trying to place it in context of why one might be interested in that anthrax.
You seem to rely heavily on the argument that Gen DeLong should be believed unless there is hard evidence to refute him.
Not "believed", just "not disbelieved". You are actively disbelieving him. I am, as I have said all along (you didn't notice), taking the position that it's reasonable to provisionally accept his claim. There is literally no reason on the table to think the claim untrue or implausible, and it's bizarre that things have got to the point where some people seem to think "the Iraq regime had nasty stuff and moved it on war's eve" is somehow like claiming to have seen Martians.
Back in 1973 I implicitly trusted Richard Nixon to be honest and ethical on all issues of importance. I try not to repeat that mistake.
Not sure what one thing has to do with the other. AFAIK the guy we're talking about is not even a politician. What agenda do you think he could have here? You've made many assumptions, up to and including that he supports President Bush politically. You don't know that.
Press releases and press conferences come to mind.
I see. So the argument is, this claim is doubtworthy because if it were true then the Bush administration would center a press conference around it.
Um, I don't know that and neither do you. We are not in Bush's inner circle and do not know what political calculations they make or what motivates them. Holding a press conference specifically to highlight this general's claim may be the furthest thing from their desires.
-maybe they just don't want to open that can of worms? (a "we found WMD" press release generates a media frenzy trying to prove "no they didn't" for the next week - who needs it?)
-maybe they want to keep what they think/know about Syria on the down-low?
I don't presume to know the motives and calculations of these faraway politicians as much as you do. Everyone seems to assume that George Bush must necessarily be sort of desperate to grasp onto any story bolstering "we found WMD". Maybe he's blase about it? Maybe he's pretty secure he's gonna get re-elected and doesn't think he needs to extend himself on these things? Who knows?
This is not at all a reason to consider EC#2's claim debunked.
I have provided several reasons to doubt the story,
Ok my mistake I suppose. Perhaps you have provided several reasons but no good ones. If I did not always include the word "good" or equivalent, I apologize for the omission.
yet be unable or prohibited from telling us how he knows.
You know neither that he's "unable" or "prohibited". He could be perfectly able, but just didn't wanna. Or did, in the book. Or did, but it didn't make the interview. You don't know.
Your rebuttal primarily relies on speculation for which YOU have no evidence either
Agreed. I have no evidence other than this man's testimony (and some ragged memories of "convoy" news stories in early '03). What we are discussing stands, or falls, on how trustworthy one finds this man's testimony. You think he's lying, I don't make this assumption. That's about where we stand, yes.
Now I will reiterate and clarify that I do not 'know for a fact' that Gen DeLong lied
Hmm well good. So then what's your point here? We've got testimony from a guy, take it or leave it, I guess you're saying you doubt it, which is your right, although you don't seem to have any good reasons for doing so. I find it interesting, I see no reason to doubt it, it sounds plausible and consistent with other things we have heard, and so I will provisionally accept "WMDs were shipped" as a likely truth but certainly keep an eye on the story.
Got a problem w/any of that?
BTW, your use of italics looks cool. How do you do italics when you post?
Surround any text with < i > on the left side (i.e. at the beginning) and then < / i > on the right side (at the end). (Remove the spaces when you do this; I had to space those symbols so you could see them.)
AFAICT the last time you replied to me was only a couple of days ago.
You're probably right. It's just that depending on one's FR-posting frequency (I'd been posting a lot lately), a couple days' gap in a conversation can seem like an eternity. This is totally my problem, I was just trying to explain :-)
best,