Will you go on record on the following: 1) There were never WMD in Iraq 2) No WMD have been smuggled out of the country 3) Saddam accounted for all the WMD that were previously accounted for by the inspectors? 4) We had every reason to believe Saddam in early 2003? I eagerly await your answers.
Politicans, in general, shy away from making absolute statemtns unless they are 100% sure. Unlike Bush, Cheney etc. prior to the war, Kerry won't make an absolute statement without verifiable certainty. To use them in a campaign can blow up in your face. To use them to sell a war should, by rights, have a much greater result. Besides, the point is already moot. WHat we said was there was not. If there is anything at all there, it did not constitute a threat to us. The administration themselves have moved on from nukes to stockpiles of hundreds of thousand of tons of chems, to facilities used for making WMDs to WMD programs to evidence of WMD programs to evidence of the intent to develop WMD programs. And every step along the way, the hard line war supporters bought into it. Those who opposed it increasingly felt dismay and justification for their opposition, and those who supported the war out of the Bush engender fear increasingly felt betrayed. 1) Did we say they had hundreds of thousands of tons of chmical weapons? Yes. 2) Are those easier to hide than a man? No. 3) Is it remotely reasonable to assume that they're still out there? No. And, I answered because I could see you're trying to debate on substance here. Please refrain from calling me a liberal, which is not particularly accurate.
MacBeth, you accuse Bush of erroneously using certainty in his description of Iraq, and now you, with far far less information at your fingertips than Bush ever had, are using certainty in declaring that Iraq wasn't a threat, WMD are easy to find, and there are no WMD. Don't you find this hypocritical? I do. The bottom line is that you simply have no ground to stand on when you make such definitive conclusions. We still don't know what Saddam had, and our lack of finding anything to date is inconclusive. Period.
1) We know there were because we A) helped supply him, and B) supported him and had observers there when he used them. But that was over a decade ago. 2) Impossible to disprove. You want to hang your hat on that? Besides, there are several logical problems with it: A) We said we knew where they were. It would be assumed that, as they were reason enough towarrant a war, they would be reason enough to warrant satellite and operative observation. How do you smuggle undreds of thousands of tons of chmeical weapons out of a country, under observation, without being seen? B) If we were correct that he was seen as a threat to his beighbours, how would he accomplish this? You can't smuggle hundreds of thousands of tons of WMDs with a few terrorists, and how could they continue to be hidden without anyone's knowledge? C) If we were correct that the WMD's were an issue because they constituted a threat, why would he 1) Never use them against us, 2) When attacked by us, rather than use them against us, instead hide them or smuggle them out of the country? Saving them for....us...his heirs to use from a desert bunker against more Kurds!?!?!? D) Why contruct elaborate, highly unlikely scenarios, unsupported by any evidence, when a simpler explanation is at hand, corroborated by several heaps of evidence? 3) YES HE DID...except those he said degraded or were destroyed with inproper records, and which would no longer be servicable anyway. We dismissed this because we assumed they were there, but overlooked the fact that EVERY YEAR the US loses more WMDs to both degradation and clerical errors than Saddam was said to missing in total. We didn;t believe him, but that didn't make him false. 4) Every reason? Partly dealt with in 3, but furthermore, there are leaps and bounds, vast oceans of options between implicitly believing Saddam Hussein and invading Iraq. For example, there was what the UN and rest of the planet, none of whom particularly trust or love Saddam Hussein wanted to do; give the inspections more time. We callled it ineffective, in the face of what the wordl was saying. We were wrong. There's a conequence when you combine arrogance and error.
1) The information Bush had at his fingertips, Chalabi aside, was summarized quite well in the NIE report. You know, the one which said Iraq was no threat. And they even thought that when they thought he had WMD.s Now that we know that, if there were any WMDs, they were insignificant, yeah, I's pretty confident in saying they were no threat to us. Among other reasons...they had never, ever attacked us. Even when we attacked them. 2) Yes, he ( and his administration) used certainty when ther was none. The examples are endless...hundreds of thousands of tons, we know where they are, intel is saying they're a threat to us, reconstituted nuclear weapons, etc. Do you really need Woofer or rim or somebody to list them all again? 3) So until they WMD's are completely disproven, a practical impossibility, like proving there are no such thing as leperchauns, you remain behind this? And I'm exhibiting bias here? We've spent 2 years looking and found zilch. We've had all the key Weapons inspectors, including those who were formerly gung ho about them, say they aren't there and likely never were. We have said we aren't really even looking anymore. But until someone proves a negative, you think it's an open question!?!? Come on, seriously?
This really represents pre-911 thinking. After all, had Mohammed Atta ever attacked us before? You simply can't use this argument. At least we can both agree that there is not conclusive proof that Saddam did not have WMD. Thank you.
I would be more than happy to answer your questions. I will answer all of them, but let's go in the order that questions were asked. Will go on the record stating that you believe There are Iraqi WMD's in Iraq now? THat question was asked prior to yours. I eagerly await your answer. Then we can discuss your 4 questions at leisure.
MacBeth, why do you continue engaging tj at all. when he's not directly insulting you, he responds with idiotic statements like this. You Can't Prove A Negative! There can be no conclusive proof of nonexistence.
Don't know if this answers the question or not. http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm/include/detail/storyid/670120.html
Al Qaeda had attacked us before and was well on record that they wanted to attack us again. That's what the freakin PDB on August 2, 2001 said. Mohammed Atta is just a soldier, Al Qaeda is the organization. Under your logic Al Qaeda and the Taliban had the right to undertake 9/11 since there were American soldiers who were going to hit Afghanistan in the future and they had the right to kill potential US soldiers.
No, like the attack in Iraq, Jordan, Thailand, etc. in the past couple of days... Yeah, it's a real yuck.
Mohammed Atta is not a soldier! He is a terrorist. There is a difference. Soldiers fight with honor, duty and integrity. Terrorists are know nothing of that. Even the hated Third Reich had soldiers.
Do you mean spray painting them? Tha's vandalism and destruction of property that isn't terrorism. That isn't intentionally killing un-armed innocent civilians. Those are two different thing. The OK city bombing was terrorism though
Overlooking the facts again. I am not talking about spray painting. I am talking about them firebombing those SUVs and Hummers.
Rumsfeld was on the Today show this morning saying there is no terrorist connection between Afghanastan and Iraq. This means that 9/11 has nothing to do w/ the invasion of Iraq...so says the administration. But they sure carefully architected every word to give that impression.
Crikey! I'm not placing any moral judgement on Mohammed Atta just pointing out that he is only part of a larger organization acting on orders. I mean do you complain to the FBI when they call John Gotti a "soldier" or "captain" in the Gambino Mob Family or when LAPD refers to gangbangers on the street as "foot soldiers"?
No, I just feel it is an insult to true soldiers to have the likes of Mohammed Atta called a soldier. Captain is used loosely in terms of command and those peon gang bangers being called "soldiers" is a joke to me. Mohammed Atta is a real threat to all Americans, including the Gambino family, and should be called what he truely is.
