Context. We are talking about "us americans" here. And the "JFK Coverup" is a load of bullshit along with all the conspiracy theories saying NASA faked the moon landings, that AIDS is caused by the drugs that are meant to treat it, and the case for WMD stockpiling in Iraq.MrPing1000 said:
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Election is over; hunt for WMD ends
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MrPing1000
Member
Hitokage said:
I'm not into conspiracies, usa went to the moon, theres no such thing as ghosts. I just think the Kennedy thing is a bit iffy, of course I can't say either way. If Bush did or didn't know that Iraq didn't have wmd's ie he was misinformed it doesn't exempt the fact that he basically lied. Over here in the Uk it ain't much better tbh Blair thought he was going to lose his job over Iraq he survived but the whole "40minutes" thing got him into a hole. Anyway this is far too serious for me, time to play some games.
mrmyth said:
Denial of what? I'm neither anti/pro war. I'm just stating the facts. Sadaam killed people with mustard gas. It's not like the government is innocent in it, because US companies SENT him chemical weapons which he then used on the Kurds, March of '88.
I hate stupid liberal/conservative battles, when you have to take one side completely over the other.
1) Sadaam has chemical weapons, he even used them.
2) How do we know where he got him from? We were one of the damn suppliers.
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/time.html
Read that article. Some insight on the fact that Sadaam has chemical weapons, and we were one of the suppliers. It's not like we didn't supply the Taliban with RPG's and other stuff during the Afgahnistan/Russian war. Hell, Bin Laden himself was supposedly a hero in that war, so we were probably directly giving him weapons.
Read that article. Some insight on the fact that Sadaam has chemical weapons, and we were one of the suppliers. It's not like we didn't supply the Taliban with RPG's and other stuff during the Afgahnistan/Russian war. Hell, Bin Laden himself was supposedly a hero in that war, so we were probably directly giving him weapons.
Templar Wizard
Member
nevermind Blix and his rollover friends. there was only one man to listen to about iraqs WMD's and that was Scott Ritter.
nice smear campaign on Ritters name over the past few months...
nice smear campaign on Ritters name over the past few months...
bob_arctor
Tough_Smooth
MetatronM said:
Check this out. Makes it not so unbelievable at all.
Guileless
Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
MIMIC said:
From the LA Times:
Blix conceded that his own gut feeling at the time, based on Hussein's past intentions and capabilities, was that Iraq did have unconventional weapons. "I thought that there were weapons of mass destruction like everyone else."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-blix17mar17,1,6939055.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
Hitokage said:
I'm saying if we were supplying him with shit, he had them. They just don't go up and disappear. Obviously he probably sold whatever he had to a neighborhood country, or maybe worse. I mean the Taliban was bringing out shit we gave them back in the Afgahni/Russian war. Polland tried to use horse calvalry to fight German machine guns in WWII (yeah thats really bad). So it's not at all uncommon for old ass weaponry to be sitting around, still operational, for a rainy day. All I'm saying is he had them at some point, because he used them and we were even supplying shit to him. They aren't there now, so they are probably in the hands of someone else.
UltimateMarioMan
Member
Bush never lied to anyone about WMD's. Hes the President its not his job to go through thousands of pages of documents and satelight pictures. The people under him are the ones who either lied or screwed up.
UltimateMarioMan said:
Please stop with the outlandish rationalizations because if this were the case Bush would have made a public show of firing somebody for this... hasn't happened. So you think the president didn't look at any satellite photos himself? Not even any of the ones that Powell used to present his case to the UN?
Riiiiiight.
UltimateMarioMan
Member
I never said he was a smart man.
Guileless
Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
xsarien said:
If you'll read the linked article xsarien, you will see that the "time" referred to in the portion I quoted was just before the war began, after the inspections.
The article opens with this lead:
Former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said Tuesday that until the final days before the war, he and U.S. officials and perhaps even Saddam Hussein believed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction
bob_arctor
Tough_Smooth
UltimateMarioMan said:
Key words being "people under him". You see, you can't have it both ways. You can't be "Commander In Chief" and then shrug your shoulders and say "Well, it wasn't my job to verify these documents/intelligence". Seriously, I'd like to know what boss at what company isn't ultimately held responsible for the performance of his employees.
When Dubya proudly announced "Mission Over", was he just parroting some underlings faulty logic? Or was he just lying? Or telling us what we wanted to hear? Or are they the same thing?
Maybe the WMD claim is just what we wanted to hear, what we always want to hear--you know, the big, scary villain, this horrible, horrible "evil doer" tinkering in his lab along with his faceless minions in hopes of wiping us off the face of the earth. I mean, surely, we have to invade any country housing such a madman? Sounds plausible enough. They=bad. We=good.
Guileless said:
Somehow, I'm not surprised you're picking and choosing the facts:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4122113/
Blix was hedging his bets, because he simply wasn't being given the necessary time to come to any substantial conclusion either way. But as it turns out, he didn't need to.
bob_arctor
Tough_Smooth
SickBoy said:
Is that fucking unreal that he would screw that up? In front of kids no less. :lol
BTW, I don't think there's anything wrong with people that believed the hype. Hell, I wasn't convinced there were no WMDs, but the thing I didn't understand at the time (and find even less justifiable in hindisight) is why so many people agreed with Bush's urgency to ignore or disregard the inspections process that was underway.
I've said it before, but there was a lot of negotiation in the international community to try to reach a compromise, which would establish a firm deadline for inspection compliance (some with a deadline of less than a month)
Of course, the worst kept secret in the world was that Bush was ready to attack... about half a dozen people in our office had a little no-money wager on when the attack would happen. I guessed it to the day (in January of that year)... but I was hoping in the lead-up to the event that I was wrong and that maybe calmer heads would prevail
I've said it before, but there was a lot of negotiation in the international community to try to reach a compromise, which would establish a firm deadline for inspection compliance (some with a deadline of less than a month)
Of course, the worst kept secret in the world was that Bush was ready to attack... about half a dozen people in our office had a little no-money wager on when the attack would happen. I guessed it to the day (in January of that year)... but I was hoping in the lead-up to the event that I was wrong and that maybe calmer heads would prevail
Guileless
Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
At the time, it was reasonable to believe that Iraq had WMD. This idea was not "bullshit" or only held by the "gullible and uninformed." In addition to Blix, most of the world's intelligence agencies also reached this conclusion.
As a cautious bureacrat, Blix did not come to any definite conclusions and said all along he wanted more time and more cooperation from Iraq. But at the time the war started, he came to a reasonable conclusion about the existence of WMD based on prior Iraqi actions and their stubborn noncompliance until forced to by the credible threat of imminent invasion. He directly stated that he shared President Bush's assumption, even after the inspections. How then is it bullshit and for the uninformed?
It could be argued that--at the time--it would be unreasonable to suggest that a proven user of WMD, which refused to show its compliance in destroying the weapons despite crippling sanctions as a consequence, had in fact completely divested itself of the weapons.
As a cautious bureacrat, Blix did not come to any definite conclusions and said all along he wanted more time and more cooperation from Iraq. But at the time the war started, he came to a reasonable conclusion about the existence of WMD based on prior Iraqi actions and their stubborn noncompliance until forced to by the credible threat of imminent invasion. He directly stated that he shared President Bush's assumption, even after the inspections. How then is it bullshit and for the uninformed?
It could be argued that--at the time--it would be unreasonable to suggest that a proven user of WMD, which refused to show its compliance in destroying the weapons despite crippling sanctions as a consequence, had in fact completely divested itself of the weapons.
On another forum, after I made thread regarding that (complete with video), I had two dipshits trying to convince me that he was "kidding", because the question was "stupid". Plus, apparently the audience wasn't laughing AT him, they were laughing WITH him. I'm not so sure that they honestly believed what they were saying, but I could tell they desperately wanted to.bob_arctor said:
At any rate, I found both a transcript and some testimony from someone there. That shut them up.
IIRC, the USA actually declared at one point during the 90s that they had practically immunized Iraq.Hitokage said:
I hope that this can eventually be discussed publically (ie, in the media). Or at least as often as it deserves to be.brooklyngooner said:
bob_arctor
Tough_Smooth
Socreges said:
Even if it was discussed, it would not matter. No action/repurcussions would ever occur, no trickle down, just half-hearted discussion. No more, no less. Shit, it'd probably be some small side bar in your local paper (we're talking rags like the NY Post etc) next to the article of the huge pimple on Lindsay Lohan's ass keeping her from doing nude scenes. Think about how there's been some dicsussion here and there about how the administration lied about the WMD's. Did it matter? Anyone take them to task for it? Nah, because that's old news, jack. Now we're all about bringing that democracy! All the cool kids are doin' it!
I agree with what you're saying, but I still think it does matter in terms of having Americans simply aware that shit like this has happened. That administrations in the past (including the recently and frequently heralded Reagan) weren't as virtuous as they're led to believe. I think there's some value in that. Maybe people would be more critical/skeptical of government and oppose actions such as pre-emptive war.bob_arctor said:
Of course, I get the impression that people are often too proud to listen to the realities of their country.
bob_arctor
Tough_Smooth
Socreges said:
Yeah, I totally agree with you. That's why I linked to that Noam Chomsky book, The Culture Of Terrorism, since it brings up almost everything we discuss regarding the current administration yet the book was written as a critique of the Iran/Contra scandal in the 80's. There are many commonalities and it's pretty unnerving to say the least.
brooklyngooner
Member
Socreges said:
As do I. With the Freedom of Information Act, it is more possible now than before.
I often think about this in terms of September 11 -- terrible as it was, there was far worse September 11 in 1973, the day that US-backed soldiers of Pinochet overthrew the democratically-elected Allende and installed one of the most vile, evil despots the world has ever seen. And we had our hands all over it, but it's not something people here necessarily know nor care about but the kind of thing that makes the rest of the world spit at the mention of our government.
So the idea of our government fighting this war to "install democracy" strikes me as ignorant -- we simply don't have a modern history of doing so.
Guileless said:
No, no, we only prop up the good dictators ... y'know, the ones opposed to Communism.
On a sidenote, you are committing the logical fallacy of oversimplifying the argument. I could very easily state that I don't support the US policy of propping up dictators, but I also don't support removing them violently through force of arms. There are many other ways to remove a dictator from power (or at least erode the power that he holds). See: Pre-Gulf War II American policy in Iraq (limited military, weapons inspections, economic penalties).
Guileless
Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
"Imperialism and hegemony explain nothing about recent American intervention abroad not when dictators such as Noriega, Milosevic, and the Taliban were taken out by the U.S. military. There are no shahs and Your Excellencies in their places, but rather consensual governments whose only sin was that they came on the heels of American arms rather than U.N. collective snoozing."
So says Victor Hanson. If you are truly an ardent opponent of brutal dictators, then you have to accept that their removal almost always requires force. Men like the above simply do not respond to anything else. Pacifism, while admirable in the abstract, is simply not practical for those truly committed to the end of terrible governments.
So says Victor Hanson. If you are truly an ardent opponent of brutal dictators, then you have to accept that their removal almost always requires force. Men like the above simply do not respond to anything else. Pacifism, while admirable in the abstract, is simply not practical for those truly committed to the end of terrible governments.
And unlike Saddam, he hasn't used them yet. Does Kim's mere possession of weapons make him worse than Saddam, who used the weapons to gas a village of people? How so? And do you know the definition of the word "arguable"?xsarien said:
Fresh Prince
Banned
When are people going to say sorry to the French ;_;
Drinky Crow
Banned
WELL Y'KNOW DUH HYUCK YEAH BUSH LIED YEAH HE'S EVIL BUT DAMMIT I WUDDN'T GONNA VOTE KERRY AND LET THEM DAMN LIBRULS BE RIGHT, YA GOTTA TAKE A STAND AGAINST COMMON SENSE CUZ OUR BOYS DYIN IN IRAQ'S A LOT LESS PAINFUL THAN A SMIRKING PANTYWAIST LIBRUL NOW WHERE'D AH PARK MUH RV
Iraq Explained: http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html
bob_arctor said:
That's exactly what I've been saying this entire time, but nobody ever wants to discuss it and its hardly ever brought up in the news media. I almost thought I was the only one who noticed the sudden shift in purpose for being in Iraq. We were there to protect ourselves (or reap profits from oil or whatever you want to believe), then all of a sudden, we're there to help the Iraqi people and liberate them from a cruel regime. Sure, it might've happened anyway in the course of us reaching our goals (finding WMDs or something), but it was never cited as a major reason to go into Iraq in the first place. Most people are so retarded that they didn't even notice this.
Guileless said:
So tell me this: If Saddam gassing all of those people in the late 80s was so reprehensible, why didn't Bush Sr. interrupt his golf game and do something about it?
I'll tell you why, because we were on friendly terms with Iraq then, and offing a bunch of people with chemical weapons we sold them didn't really phase our "moral" leaders. Get it through your head: Nobody in politics cares about human rights. If we did, China wouldn't be making our sneakers and little plastic toys; if we did, North Korea would be much higher on our list of priorities than Saddam, who was a threat to - MAYBE - Israel, certainly not the entire world.
The facts of the matter are that Saddam did not have the weapons when we said he did. We were calling him a threat based on weapons he had, and what he did in the past, but was completely incapable of doing in the present. Meanwhile, Kim Jong's waving his missiles around, doing tests right under Japan's nose, and is fully capable of striking the United States.
But I guess toppling the Iraqi government was more important than that.
Drinky Crow
Banned
Sera: He's making an innuendo. "you like bush." He's calling you a lesbi-whatsit.
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