Time pulled a Bush Sr. the essay off the web

[Hex_0x]

The essay "Why We Didn't Remove Saddam" which appeared on 2 March 1998 was removed from the website. None of the other articles from the issue were removed. It was even deleted from the table of contents. This site link has the article as well as a scan of the original article.

Excerpt:

While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome.

Hex

[Minstrel Boy]

1. Thank God for The Memory Hole

It's gotten so I can't tell Eurasia from East Asia anymore.

[GCP]

13. How true. Orwell must be laughing his ass off

He was so on the money.

[Hex_0x]

2. It is spooky...

how accurately poppy predicted the shit-storm that would occur if we took out Saddam...

Hex

[joeunderdog]

12. Pop had more foresight than I thought.

Too bad Jr. never grew up and refused to listen to Dad on this one.

[Zero Gravitas]

16. Herbert Walker was a Responsible President

not a very good one and his main constituency was still the rich and large corporations, but he still realised he was President of all the people of the United States. Don't get me wrong he was not a good POTUS and I disagreed with most/all of his policies, but I'll give credit where credit is due. It just shows how dangerous * and his cronies are when Herbert Walker looks good in comparison.

[Ernesto]

18. Yes Poppy was a screaming liberal

compared to St. Ronnie. His son should have been aborted, however.

[9215]

23. Uh,

:puke:


Bush orchestrated the Iraq War by giving Saddamn Hussein the greenlight to attack Kuwait. He got what he wanted (50% of Rumailiah) but there was much skepticism about that war as the House Banking and Finance Committee probed into the BNL scandal and Poppy even voiced concerned about his possible impeachment.

What he needed was public support and if he had been elected in 92', the first WTC attack could have used like Dubya's 9/11--a Pearl Harbor like attack.

Now why do I suspect Poppy was behind the first WTC attack?

[TennesseeWalker]

3. Did TIME say WHY they removed the article? (n/t)

[Hex_0x]

4. Not sure if anyone called them on it yet.

n/t

[RedEarth]

8. Revising history????

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they got pressure from the bush admin.

[RC]

5. It my understanding that this article

is so popular that they moved it to the paid section.
So it is still out there.

[TennesseeWalker]

6. I don't know how to feel about that.

I'm glad it's popular, but I wish everyone would have an opportunity to read it. Maybe we should start printing it out and start stapling it to telephone poles all over the country...whooops..we'd violate sign ordinances, wouldn't we? ...blah...

[Ernesto]

19. Think that's funny?

I regularly post things like last week's Newsweek cover (Bush's $87billion mess) on community bullitin boards. I had to resort to spray glue though.... makes it harder for Repugs to cancel my free speech! Bet it really pisses the cruel hearted bastards off. HA!

[Hex_0x]

7. No, it is simply gone

If you look at the index it is no longer listed, you can pay to see it cause it is not there. All the other articles have the first paragraph with a link to pay for the rest, this artical has been deleted.

Hex

[Brotherjohn]

10. Looking at the page, I think ALL articles from that issue are in the paid

... section. Yet they are also all listed in the Table of Contents, except for the Bush/Scowcroft essay.

[Hex_0x]

11. Correct.

I don't care that they charge money to maintain an archive of old editions. However if they selectively archive material based on political motivations... Someone has to call them on this.

Hex

[cosmicaug]

17. Possibly the opposite is the case

It my understanding that this article is so popular that they moved it to the paid section.
So it is still out there.

If you look at the URL's from the other articles in that issue (which are in the pay section because they're more than two years old) and the URL of that article, they look different. Perhaps that article was separated from the rest to be freed from the expiration of free access that comes along with most of Time's articles? Indeed, looking at The Wayback Machine one can see that other URLs of the same issue turn up the 'Premium Article' message while http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1998/dom/980302/special_report.clintons_29.html">the Bush Scowcroft letter leads one right to the article.

This still does not explain why the Bush Scowcroft letter dissapeared or why I can't find a trace of it on their site with their search facilities. Perhaps, however, there might be an innocent explanation that has something to do with how it was originally separated from the other articles in their web site structure.

[htuttle]

9. "The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. "

He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed-if all records told the same tale-then the lie passed into history and became truth. "Who controls the past,"' ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. "Reality control," they called it; in Newspeak, "doublethink."

-- Orwell, 1984

[Patriot_Spear]

14. Your quote leaves me cold...

mainly because it so clearly relevant.

[htuttle]

15. I have so many web pages, so many PDF documents, futilely saved to my disk

I wonder, for what purpose? For my own benefit? To somehow 'prove' someday that my memory is correct? To who?

I'm brought back to the first entry Winston made in his illegal diary:

"April the 4th, 1984. To the past, or to the future. To an age when thought is free. From the Age of Big Brother, from the Age of the Thought Police, from a dead man... greetings."

[9215]

24. Excellent

Hopefully the internet will prevent the destruction of historical conciousness. That is a chilling quote.

[Timefortruth]

20. Time will not respond if asked.

The article never exsisted, so why respond?

[htuttle]

22. ARrrgghhhh!

"THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS! FOUR!"

[JackSwift]

21. Well, I think he was wrong

that was the right time to refuse to make a truce and topple him.