Where did the WMD go?

[rrpjr]

Originally posted by stuartj
Gack. You mean you have evidence of Saddam's links to Al Qaeda? Lets hear it man, quick!

"even without recent proof of WMD"? To what proof do you refer?

As for the rest;
1. None of this was cited as a justifcation for war with Iraq.
2. Are we massing armies on the borders of Burma, NKorea oh, and err, China?

There you go. http://slate.msn.com/id/2097901/

Read about one of the erstwhile true believers in the Iraq/al Qaida connection, Richard Clarke (yes, the very same, that fleeting, self-inflating hero of the Left).

Excerpt: "As Richard Clarke told the Sept. 11 commission last week: "The Iraqi government didn't cooperate in turning (Abdul Rahman Yasin, one of the makers of the bomb that exploded at the World Trade Center) over and gave him sanctuary, as it did give sanctuary to other terrorists." That's putting it mildly, when you recall that Abu Nidal's organization was a wing of the Baath Party, and that the late Abu Abbas of Klinghoffer fame was traveling on an Iraqi diplomatic passport. But, hold on a moment—doesn't every smart person know that there's no connection between Saddam Hussein and the world of terror?"

Hussein's depredations were indeed cited in the war resolution. But I'm more interested in what was just than what was used as a justification. And invasion was just. Bush played the cards he had, and he was justified in playing them.

As for massing other armies on borders, obviously we're not. I'm not clear why is this boogeyman is raised again and again. Do you wish that we were? Do you believe we're hypocritical for not? Every challenge requires its own strategy. Iraq had been warned for 11 years to conform to international law. But we are now deferring to multi-lateralism with Iran, yielding to the Europeans (which the Left has been yammering for us to do). Those talks will fail. Iran will not be persuaded to stop. Then we will face another choice: allow them to become a nuclearized Islamicist state, or do something about it. Any recommendations?

[350HP930]

Hey, if you dig hard enough you can even find some wackos claiming that saddam was behind the OKC bombing too.

Then again if we want to play the several degree game we could also claim that Kevin Bacon and Al Qaeda are connected.

[stuartj]

Originally posted by rrpjr
There you go. http://slate.msn.com/id/2097901/

Read about one of the erstwhile true believers in the Iraq/al Qaida connection, Richard Clarke (yes, the very same, that fleeting, self-inflating hero of the Left).

Excerpt: "As Richard Clarke told the Sept. 11 commission last week: "The Iraqi government didn't cooperate in turning (Abdul Rahman Yasin, one of the makers of the bomb that exploded at the World Trade Center) over and gave him sanctuary, as it did give sanctuary to other terrorists." That's putting it mildly, when you recall that Abu Nidal's organization was a wing of the Baath Party, and that the late Abu Abbas of Klinghoffer fame was traveling on an Iraqi diplomatic passport. But, hold on a moment—doesn't every smart person know that there's no connection between Saddam Hussein and the world of terror?"

Hussein's depredations were indeed cited in the war resolution. But I'm more interested in what was just than what was used as a justification. And invasion was just. Bush played the cards he had, and he was justified in playing them.

As for massing other armies on borders, obviously we're not. I'm not clear why is this boogeyman is raised again and again. Do you wish that we were? Do you believe we're hypocritical for not? Every challenge requires its own strategy. Iraq had been warned for 11 years to conform to international law. But we are now deferring to multi-lateralism with Iran, yielding to the Europeans (which the Left has been yammering for us to do). Those talks will fail. Iran will not be persuaded to stop. Then we will face another choice: allow them to become a nuclearized Islamicist state, or do something about it. Any recommendations?

Saddam was a secular dictator. He may have sociopathic, he may have been pyscopathic, but he was a secular dictator. He had little in common with the religous nuts running America or those in AlQ. Control freak dictators do not hand over power to religous nutbag terrorists.

This is it, the proof?: "The Iraqi government didn't cooperate in turning (Abdul Rahman Yasin, one of the makers of the bomb that exploded at the World Trade Center) over and gave him sanctuary, as it did give sanctuary to other terrorists." - then the British shouldve bombed the bejesus out of Boston for its support of the IRA.

[stuartj]

Originally posted by rrpjr
There you go. http://slate.msn.com/id/2097901/

And invasion was just. Bush played the cards he had, and he was justified in playing them.

Iraq had been warned for 11 years to conform to international law. But we are now deferring to multi-lateralism with Iran, yielding to the Europeans (which the Left has been yammering for us to do). Those talks will fail. Iran will not be persuaded to stop. Then we will face another choice: allow them to become a nuclearized Islamicist state, or do something about it. Any recommendations?

By some estimates 100,000 Iraqis are dead. No one is really counting. The place is farked. Certainly, 1400 Americans are dead. And America's name is MUD, thanks to GWB and his neoCon boom boys.

Any recommendations? Well there is only nuclear capable terrorist state in the middle east. A state whose operatives routinely assinate its enemies within its own territories and abroad, a state which uses aggressive military capabilities against civilians, a state whose govt routinely conducts human rights abuses, a state who locks up its own dissidents, one that has broken more UN resoultions than old Saddam ever dreamed about. I suggest you start with Israel.

[stevepaa]

skipdub
"why did Bush go to war"
several possibilities
1) save face for his Dad who was told he couldn't go farther. I personally supported George Sr. and thought we should have finshed the job then, but we were not prepared to do that.
2) 9-11 gave a reason to go into preemptive attack mode, demeaning the high moral ground we have all grown up with, i.e. the guy in the white hat never shoots first.
3) Afghanistan doesn't have the infrastructure to make a democracy, but Iraq did. It was a target of opportunity.
4) if you think God's gift to the world is freedom and democracy, who can argue with you
5) if you are successful, you believe it will be of great benefit to the region
6) if we establish US bases in Iraq, we can exert our will fairly well
7) there's oil in them thar hills

I think the answer is a summation of all of this. But basically because he is the leader of the free world and who's really going to stop him.

[stevepaa]

rrpjr
here is one summation of just war
A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified.
* A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate.
* A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause (although the justice of the cause is not sufficient--see point #4). Further, a just war can only be fought with "right" intentions: the only permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury.
* A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable.
* The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought.
* The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered.
* The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.

By this, this war is not just

[CamB]

I agree - I think Bush (and advisors) thought it was "right".

And I think they were ill-advised, and I'm not alone thinking this.

[rrpjr]

I was trembling with suspense in your run-up to the indictment of Israel. Always telling how the attack on Israel finds its way into the debate. It is the same old dirty rag from the liberal, and I daresay anti-semitic, attic -- the addled moral equivalence between Israel and terrorists. Putting the offensiveness of this equation aside for the moment (with some difficulty), what is your point -- that because Israel, as the most reviled and threatened nation-state in the world, has shown such nuclear discipline, we should give Iran the same chance? No, I don't see a point, just an attack.

Secularism as an argument against terrorist collusion strikes me as equally addled, and frighteningly naive. It presupposes that terrorists are truly religious in the first place. They are always, above all things, opportunists. It presumes, trusts, that somehow Hussein, being secular, would blanch at the prospect of dealing with terrorists, who were known to be in his nation in numbers and whom he'd also given sanctuary. It also misapprehends the danger from social and civil disintegration following Hussein or Hussein's sons. What would that power vacuum look like? Care to imagine a nexus of Iran, Iraq and Syria?

Anyway, this debate has probably gone as far is it can, at least for me. I leave you to your belief in the mudness of our nation's name, the badness of our president, the wrongness of my case, and the awfulness of the Israelis. Cheers.

[fintstone]

Pretty funny! Yep, the Iraqis were just careless with their records...sorta like with their "oil for food" rceords...LOL...The fact is, Saddam is known for his fantical record keeping. LOL

Noone disagrees that Saddam had WMD prior to the Gulf War. He and his armies were thoroughly defeated and humilitaed. He prepared for death...and was given a last minute reprieve from US forces by UN politics. The then UN inventoried his WMD and told Saddam that he must destroy them and and provide very specific proof or else his country will be invaded and he will most likely be killed. So...you would have us believe that he then destroyed them and did not bother to keep records....or that somehow he preferred to pretend he had them up untill the day he was ousted from power to somehow scare his weaker neighbors....LOL

[stevepaa]

fintstone
Nothing any one shows you will dissuade you. The evidence gathered clearly shows he had nothing from 1991 on. And all the puported evidence of recent WMD has been shown to be at best misrepresentations. If you choose to ignore what our own government has acknowleged, that's fine, but your LOL comments do not discredit the facts

rrpjr
You want to establish your own definition of just, but that dog won't hunt.

[stuartj]

Originally posted by rrpjr
I was trembling with suspense in your run-up to the indictment of Israel...

Thank you.

You appear to be good for all sorts of hoary old gems yourself, including that any critism of Israel amounts to anti-Semetism (and btw, if you doubt Israel's terrorist pedigree, please google "King David Hotel 1948, and start from there. Pardon my addled moral equivalence, I will c&p a list of Israel's known terrost acts form te 40's-50's at the bottom of this post) -and that any critism of the neo-Con cabal makes one a "liberal". This is a consistant tactic- disregard the message and attack the messenger.

I'm inclined to agree with you re the pre supposition that terrosists are religous, but its worked pretty well for GWB so far and Wolfowitz so far. But that said, SH, ruthless dictator, had an ideological disconnect. These nutbags were his enemy, or at best uncomfortable bedmates. Terrorists were known to be in his country in numbers with sanctuary? The only evidence of this was in one cormer of the country in a region he did not control, bordering Iran.

The burden of proof lies with you my friend, so put up or shut up.

Where are the WMDs?
Where are the links to Al Qaeda?
Does anything achieved to date warrant this misguided imperial adventure?

regards, and thankyou for an intelligent discourse.

Stuart

1. King David Hotel, July 22, 1946.
2. Sharafat, Feb. 7, 1951.
3. Deir Yassin, April 10, 1948.
4. Falameh, April 2, 1951.
5. Naseruddine, April 14, 1948.
6. Quibya, Oct. 14, 1953.
7. Carmel, April 20, 1948.
8. Nahalin, March, 28, 1954.
9. Al-Qabu, May 1, 1948.
10. Gaza, Feb. 28, 1955.
11. Beit Kiras, May 3, 1948.
12. Khan Yunis, May 31, 1955.
13. Beitkhoury, May 5, 1948.
14. Khan Yunis Again, Aug. 31, 1955
15. Az-Zaytoun, May 6, 1948.
16. Tiberia, Dec. 11, 1955.
17. Wadi Araba, May 13, 1950.
18. As-Sabha, Nov. 2, 1955.
19. Gaza Again, April 5, 1956.
20. Houssan, Sept. 25, 1956.
21. Rafa, Aug. 16, 1956.
22. Qalqilyah, Oct. 10, 1956.
23. Ar-Rahwa, Sept. 12, 1956.
24. Kahr Kassem, Oct. 29, 1956.
25. Gharandal, Sept. 13, 1956.
26. Gaza Strip, Nov. 1956.
26. Gaza Strip, Nov. 1956.

[fintstone]

You have not shown a thing that would make any reasonable person change their mind. If there was one bit of proof that he didn't have them...someone would have posted it long ago. Although we did not find very many during the war, the fact that we can not find them is certainly not very good evidence that he did not have them. There have been many reports like this one...that they were moved just before and throughout hostilities. What evidence is there to indicate otherwise? The fact that they are not there supports the conclusion that they were moved just as much as your suggestion that they were destroyed.

[stevepaa]

You need to stop listening to those talk radio guys who say the WMD all got moved to Bakaa valley or got buried somewhere. Our government has acknowleged there were no WMD. Why do you try to keep this lie alive?

[fintstone]

I don't listen to any talk radio. I work all day. It is in our country's political best interest to play down the WMD now...and they are.

[JSDSKI]

Originally posted by fintstone
He prepared for death...and was given a last minute reprieve from US forces by UN politics.

UN had nothing to do with the decision to stop Gulf War before they got to Baghdad and take down Saddam. Bush I's foriegn policy/intelligence team (J. Baker, C. Powell, R.Gates, L. Eagleburger, Woolsey) made that call. They were specifically concerned that Iraq would splinter into the three basic tribal territory's (Baghdad/Sunni, Basra/Shia, and Mosul/Kurd) that existed before Britain created Iraq just after WWI. Bush I staff were convinced there would be a civil war like in Lebanon.

Instead, they opted for the stability of an authoritarian regime and sanctions. According to most reports - Kay, specifically, Bush I sanction plans worked. Which is why we didn't find any WMD.

You can have multiple reasons to invade Iraq and sort them in any order you like: WMD at number 1 or 24. Nation building at 1 or 12. Oil is 7 or 3. It doesn't matter now - it only matters to history. Bush II used whatever reasons or justifications he could find or market to implement the strategy of creating democracy and dismantling terrorist resources in various ME countries.

[stuartj]

Originally posted by fintstone
You have not shown a thing that would make any reasonable person change their mind. If there was one bit of proof that he didn't have them...someone would have posted it long ago. Although we did not find very many during the war, the fact that we can not find them is certainly not very good evidence that he did not have them. There have been many reports like this one...that they were moved just before and throughout hostilities. What evidence is there to indicate otherwise? The fact that they are not there supports the conclusion that they were moved just as much as your suggestion that they were destroyed.

I trust I am not the only here who thinks that is a very fine piece of comedy writing. Bravo.

[jyl]

When one says "the fact that they are not there supports the conclusion that they were moved", I wonder what evidence would ever "prove" to everone's satisfaction that Saddam lacked a WMD arsenal when we invaded.

I mean, if the Iraqis produced records, that just means they were forged. If the Iraqis produce the guys who destroyed them, that just means they are lying. If we've turned the whole country inside out during almost two years of occupation and can't find the WMD arsenal, then that just means they were smuggled out of the country. If the US government has admitted there wasn't a WMD arsenal, the President has stopped making that claim, and Director Goss has been busily purging the CIA for incompetence, that just means . . . I dunno, just another left-wing conspiracy I guess.

[CamB]

Originally posted by fintstone
I don't listen to any talk radio. I work all day. It is in our country's political best interest to play down the WMD now...and they are.

Uh-huh. The same "best interests" as having a long and painful inquiry as to why they weren't there?

The Deuffler report basically states everything in your previous comment, except the "LOL". The newsflash here is that Saddam was apparently not very stable and not subject to normal (or even staunch Republican or Democrat) thought patterns.

(edit) oh yeah, and from your post about "reports like this one". You need to read it again - it mentions no WMD being moved... just (predominantly) dual-use equipment.

[fintstone]

Clearly our UN parnership in the Gulf War had everything to do with our stopping short. The same folks attempted to keep us from going back to finish the job.

Clearly WMD were in Iraq and they have never been accounted for....whether by choice or sheer incompetence. In either case, couple that with Saddam's history of using WMD and his willingness to shoot at our aircraft and attack our allies...there was plenty of justification to go back to Iraq. Freeing the Iraqis was just a positive byproduct. Of course the great success our military has had in Iraq has led to (at least temporary) peace/elections in Palestine, Saudi, and most likely Syria leaving Lebanon. As always, the Conservatives were right about the big issues and the do-nonothing liberals whine about insignificant details.

[fintstone]

Originally posted by CamB
.....
(edit) oh yeah, and from your post about "reports like this one". You need to read it again - it mentions no WMD being moved... just (predominantly) dual-use equipment.

Much of the "dual-use" equipment was restricted from movement just as the actual WMD. There is not much difference between your neighbor having the equipment, materials and intent to make WMD or possessing WMD. It only means that it would require a slight bit more time and effort to kill you, but he gets better shelf-life on his components.