Think Tank Report: Iraq WMD Not Imminent Threat

Remove all ads!

I do not think you understand the word "can". Just a smart-ass quip, for the most part.

 

Laches,
there's no point in shooting the messenger if you don't like what he sais. I state facts, and I make arguments, most of the people here do. I don't see you even trying.

 

It may be a language thing. You've completely missed the point. It was a joke. You said what certain nations 'can't' do. 'Can' relates to possibility.

You said so and so 'can't' start a war as it is counter to law. I jokingly noted that as this has been done, recently according to your post, clearly it 'can' be done. It is possible. It just happened - at least according to some.

It is also a take off from the movie "The Princess Bride". The guy keeps yelling, "Inconceivable" (or impossible or something like that). And someone else says, "I do not think he understands the meaning of that word" (or something like that).

It was all very funny and clever. (there is self-effacing sarcasm here that isn't nearly as funny since I'm explaining it).

So, all that is to say, 'relax it is a joke.'

I said for the "most" part initially because while I was joking there is a certain unpleasant truth lurking regarding whether law is really law if it is not applied, unenforceable, etc. These are more fundamental questions than I think this thread is dealing with.

I'll shut up and be completely serious from now on : ) Not everything is a personal insult though.

 

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

--Inigo Montoya

Legal arguments aside, the fact that there are no WMD and no Al-Qaeda link (and clearly the administration knew that there weren't) misdirected valuable American military assets and resources that should have been spent fighting the war on terror.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan, bin Laden (remember him?) is still on the loose, the farmers are boasting a bumper crop of opium (banned under the Taliban), coalition troops are still dying, and the only secure area in the country is a ten foot perimeter around Karzai's presidential compound. The rest of the country is back under the control of various warlords, Talib or otherwise.

The search for weapons of mass destruction is itself a weapon of mass distraction, distraction from the miscreants who orchestrated September 11th in the first place. Perhaps those of us who protested the war on Irak aren't peacenik Saddam cheerleaders, but rather concerned American citizens who want to be protected from the kinds of people who are capable of that kind of operation. Innocent lives are not worth the cost of realizing the wet dreams of a small clique of warmongering neocon fantasists whose best interests are served by an America in a perpetual state of war. (Orwell's 1984 comes to mind.)

Admit it: We've been had.

 

@Keldor

As far as the legality of the war is concerned, professors of law support the following:

The following is one category of the charges , which members of the nazi party and german military faced during Nuremberg trials. Show me just one of them that Bush and Blair cannot be found guilty of.

 

I’m bowing out of this party now my work is done. All I wanted to do was point out that I’m amazed so many people have been fooled by the tabloid media into swallowing the whole fictitious notion that the ‘war’ was unjustified. The tabloid press is interested in selling papers not *necessarily* in telling the truth. Thus, they go where the sensationalism is. They print cover pictures of the homeless, the dispossessed, the dead etc. because this gives the ‘human touch’. They don’t care a whit for justification. The broadcast news is easily led down the same route for similar reasons; everything you see on television is there to make money, not to entertain or educate. Even news programmes have to sell advertising space and it is these spaces that television is all about – selling to advertisers. Only (as far as I know) the BBC is free to give unbiased, factual news – but even the BBC is run by human beings, as susceptible to bias and emotion when covering emotive subjects (such as war) as anyone. I am currently in complaint with the BBC myself and it is also currently under scrutiny from Lord Hutton in the Hutton Inquiry – which I would bet my last pound will castigate the BBC for *creating* the ‘dodgy dossier’ story (said to show that the government had ‘sexed up’ the facts about Saddam Hussein’s weapons capability).

You misinterpreted my comments about the death camps. I was attempting to point out that *had* those death camps been the only wrong that ‘Germany’ was committing, the current international community would have taken action? Thus, my point was that such a thing would today start a war, no matter what ‘international law’ states. As has been pointed out to you by another, you can wave your rules and shout while the bombs are falling but it won’t do any good.

Yes, 1441 meant that the decision to *take some action* was supposed to be the job of the UN Security Council, but this is another point of mine which you have misinterpreted. Bush, wanting to show support for his beleaguered and bewildered nation, sent out aircraft carriers et al. to the middle east in a misguided but understandable act of anger. Osama Bin Laden is ‘thereabouts’ but keeping his head down. Saddam Hussein is from that ‘same region’ and he has had his head *up* for years and years. He has been stirring trouble and playing brinkmanship with the UN nations since the last time he invaded a sovereign state. Thus, he becomes an obvious easy target. Tony Blair tries desperately to rein Bush in and get the UN nations to decide to act properly because *clearly* something had to be done. The UN dithered and failed. It showed, as it had done for 12 years, that when it came to something more than speaking strong words and imposing sanctions, it would do nothing. France brought the UN Security Council to its knees by halting all diplomatic processes *before they could start* by saying it would veto *anything* the US or the UK tabled! No other nations took part! Thus, the UN and your ‘international laws’ proved useless and some nations weren’t willing any longer to let nations like Iraq do what it was doing, and threaten worse. The Iraq sanctions were only hurting normal Iraqis, not Saddam Hussein in his palaces! It was time to act. I think, and so do others, including *lawyers*, that the action taken was justified. There are lawyers who I’ve heard give their views, whose words I too could post (if I knew where they were) who have argued that the action wasn’t illegal. Furthermore, I repeat, there was no *war*. International law on when it is legal to wage war is irrelevant concerning matters that aren’t war. When in a war did a side give aid to the opposition? The US has given over 100 billion dollars of aid to Iraq since the action! Does that sound like a war? Come on, be honest!

No link to Al Qaeda, no imminent threat and no WMD? 1) Saddam Hussein’s known links with *other* terrorists implies sympathy with Al Qaeda regardless of specific links.
2) We *know* that Saddam Hussein has a reason to hate the West because the West foiled his occupation of Kuwait.
3) When an intelligence source suggests Saddam Hussein may be within 6 months of making a nuclear weapon, something has to be done *at once* irrespective of this intelligence being later found to be inaccurate – unfortunate but not Bush or Blair’s fault; they have nations of millions of people to look out for.
4) Saddam Hussein did have WMD! You have repeatedly stated the opposite to this, and repeatedly ignored the 10,000 Iraqi Kurds he exterminated with chemical weapons! If he did it once, he can do it again! FACT, FACT, irrefutable FACT!

Imminent threat has to be *guessed at* - no one can see into the future! Based on previous record of *actual* behaviour (not mere xenophobic speculation) - invasion of free countries, use of WMD, known efforts to buy weapons of all types, known financial aid to terrorists, known financial clout of *billions* of dollars – the conclusion that a threat is imminent is automatic.

On administrators’ comments and no WMD yet found.
1) Administrators are figureheads who are hounded for statements by the minute by the press. They cannot be expected to know all the latest facts, or the latest stance on an issue. Tens if not hundreds of ‘thinkers’ advise the president; these people need time to think. They then need to collate their conclusions and strategies and then get this information to, for example, Colin Powel, who delivers sound bites to the journalists. You must try to understand the complexity involved. You cannot take Colin Powell’s as the final word on the subject.
2) New information that Saddam Hussein’s WMD are hidden in Syria has come to light. How would anyone searching in Iraq, find these weapons? You are all too impatient. Saying ‘nearly one year on’ is using rhetoric to make it sound like more time has passed than has. The ‘war’ began in late march? How long did it last? How long did the Iraqis have to remove all documentary evidence of WMD before their palaces were captured? Rhetoric and speculation abound in these continual moans. I noticed that someone said ‘no *significant* WMD have been found.’ A little backtracking now? Several chemical warheads *have* been found, including at least one live warhead.
Furthermore, to suggest the 'war' is over now is simplistic. It is hardly over to the suicide bombers and the families of those who they kill daily. The point being, that searching for WMD isn't as easy as many people seem to think. How comfortable would *you* be if you were a soldier being asked to go into a bunker somewhere and make a search? Merely walking down a street is dangerous to these men. Their uniform is a big 'kill me' sign to some Iraqis.

On Saddam Hussein’s cooperation with Hans Blix: too little too late; when playing brinkmanship, as Saddam Hussein has been doing, as I say, for years, there comes a time when games will end. Poke a tiger with a stick and before long you will be attacked. Once Bush had mobilised his troops there was no way he was going to withdraw them – the cost of getting them out to the gulf was already so great that Saddam Hussein would have gained a real moral victory if he had had to withdraw. Such is war-gaming; sad but true. Neither Bush nor Blair started the game.

 

With that sentence you have just right looked at Rupert Murdoch's soul. It also works the other way, some media were very strongly pro-war ... if you drew your info from there ... well, Don Qixote, try this: We report, you get it wrong!

According to the Dubya's national security advisor Condi they are not there. You'll likely say it's just another tabloid, but as a matter of fact, they just quote what Condi said. Minor point.

When your sources conflict with that, check their background - maybe they are run by some pro-war lobbyist, maybe with a desire to go to war with Syria. Rupert Murdoch or Conrad Black's Hollinger come to mind.

After I showed you mine, show me yours: The New information that has emerged.

[ January 22, 2004, 10:34: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

True, true...and if most Americans believe that there is an Al Qaeda-Saddam link (since disavowed by the administration), it's largely due to that propaganda mouthpiece otherwise known as Fox News.

The number of nations for which this is true (Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Afghanistan (still true!), Pakistan, Indonesia, etc.) is staggering. If we're going to invade all of them, we're going to be busy.

This was in 1988. And we knew he had them...all we had to do was check our sales slips.

Indeed, how would we be able to tell the difference between hidden Iraqi weapons and those chemical weapons that we already know Syria possesses? Yes, Syria has chemical weapons, and are allowed to since they've signed no treaty saying they can't. Why do they have them? Because they're technically still at war. If I were Syria, I too would want a deterrent to Israel's nuclear weapons.

 

EX-Arms Hunter Says Iraq Had No Banned Stockpiles

I'm waiting to see what the admin will do to discredit him and make this story go away, in say, about two days.

 

And another one, from The Independent

That dear keldor could be the reason why the Iraqi WMD can't be found in Iraq, and why they are ... necessarily so ... not in Syria. When they never existed, when we believe Mr. Kay, there was nothing to hide in Syria.
Oh, allow me pre-empt your argument keldor: "Dr. Kay is just a disgruntled (because he failed to find them) ex-employee taking his petty revenge!" ... of course!

And that sheds light on the most likely reason why Dr. Kay eventually resigned: To escape a pointless and frustrating job as the Bush administration's moral loincloth. "We can't tell as long as the search, led by our expert Mr. Kay, is still underway. It's not the time to make premature conclusions."
That really may have been an outright scary vision for Mr. Kay - to spend the rest of his days in Iraq, chasing a mirage he had already found out to be nothing but that: a mirage, only to keep up and alive Bush's myth of the imminent threat. Bush in 2008: "Sorry, but as the search is still underway we can't tell ya anything about Saddam's nook-yalur weapons as long as Mr. Kay is still searching ..."

So the Bush administration has been caught redhanded to exaggerate at least - even more after Kay suggested that Bush seemingly had been reiterating pre-Gulf War I numbers (that is: also pre-inspection and pre-disarmament).
Therefor the recent state of the union - very much unlike the last - very vague on facts, most likely as a result of Rice relentless watching to avoid the debacle of the last.

And that's likely why the last person accusing Syria has been Senator Pat Roberts, not an administration member, so Bush comes out clean. No, it didn't come from the whitehouse, just from a high ranking GOP party member ... ... the propaganda campaign against Syria on the other hand is far from over.
Facts and evidence are secondary. It is absolutely sufficient that the people keep the association "Syria" + "Iraqi WMD" = "helping Saddam" = "EVIL" in mind.

So keldor, understand the accusations to Syria as what they are: Additional excuses from people searching for a reason to attack and regime-change them anyway (that is to say: they'd like to crush Syria with or without iraqi WMD; names spontaneously coming to my mind are Wurmser, Perle and Bolton and perhaps Cheney ...)

EDIT: three more links on that ...

• CIA sees little point in WMD search and will for the future focus on verifying the destruction.
• Powell now also faces the possibility that Iraq had no WMD. Which is quite a thing, wasn't it him who made this ridiculous show at the UN security council trying to persude the world on the contrary?
• In the meanwhile Cheney relentlessly believes in Iraq's WMD - delusional or does he have a program? Who knows ...

[ January 25, 2004, 10:47: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Yup, Syria is the next target. And what will the apologists say then?

 

Syria's support for Hizbollah ... you know, they kill Israelis when provoked (surprise, surprise) - and the US should just standby and do nothing? Well, their fault you might think.

Well, Richard Perle and David Wurmser, Cheney's new Middle East Advisor, clearly think "WE HAVE TO ACT!" ... A read on the 1996 writ "A clean break - strategy for securing the realm" by Wurmser (the realm being Israel; besides, also signed by OSPs notorious stovepiper Douglas Feith) should give you a clue what that is about. The Neocons evidently think that they only have to conquer Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to secure Israel, the reliable democracy in the Middle East.
The idea for that has been around for quite a while, and after 911 the war on terror gave the unique opportunity to equalise all terrorists. Not that Bin Laden had anything to do with Israels troubles.

More abstract they think about a "Siegfrieden" for "Lebensraum" for Israel - by denying the Palestinian terrorists (first of all a state) every sanctuary and support from friendly arab regimes (Syria and Lebanon and to a degree: Saudi-Arabia) they want to insulate them - and insulated the weaker enemy inevitably will be crushed by the stronger in a war of attrition - and considering Israels huge defense budged and the US support the ballance of power is clearly in favour for Israel.
That means for them: As Saudi Arabia and Syria finance terror (what they admittedly do to a degree) they have to go (read: be regime-changed ... aka "resistance is futile, surrender and prepare to be assimilated!") to allow Israel (or the US) to destroy terrorists to win the peace. No compromise, diktat at the barrel of a gun instead, or as Übermoron Michael Ledeen dubbed it about a week after 911 "Creative Destruction".

Point is: That would probably necessiate to kill maybe some more 100.000 (a rough, wildly guessed estimate) people, not to mention the corresponding chaos and destruction - not that any of that would concern Perle or Frum. They would in reply stress that the absolute evil of the terrorists justifies that. The inconvenient fact that the US can't provide the troops for their dreams is cavalierly dismissed, how else, with a demand for an even further increased defense spending and a larger army. It's all about hard times demanding harsh measures; about a bold vision and glory; ends justifying the means and all the glorious good that will come out in the end - a Middle East dominoed to democracy. That is actually a quite optimistic vision.
They will not understand accusations that they are deluded megalomaniac armchair strategists full of contempt for human life and might call you an emotionalist whiny liberal Saddam hugger in bed with terrorists. Yuck.

The stage is prepared for the fall of Syria and Lebanon - With the conquest of Iraq and the newly added US bases there Syria is geographically isolated - now all his neighbours except it's little client Lebanon are strongly pro-US and in case of an attack of any of Syrias enemies, be it the US or Israel, even more if both attack, it would fall inevitable.
Israels recently embolded agressiveness underlines that Israel not only understands but intends to take advantage from that situation asap. And don't count on Sharon hesitating. When he invaded Lebanon in 1982 he tried just that - a rolback of Lebanon AND Syria, but he failed. He might try to even the score. With the recent encouragement from Washington he might think it's the right time and a unique opportunity and act alone, without the US even.

Perle's and Frum's book "An end to Evil" also stresses the need for more wars, with Syria + Lebanon their first candidates. However, the atm strong "realist" influence in Washington, namely due to the abysmal failure named Iraq and thanks to Baker and Condi's new assistant their position is weakened, and Rove has permitted more wars for 2004 ... *Sniff*
But who knows, after a re-election they could be in full swing again, who knows? Well, I don't but I fear it.

[ January 25, 2004, 00:27: Message edited by: Ragusa ]