Iraq.... What do you think?Follow

Lol. Yes, Totem, you shall be my King. And we shall have many children, ones that are witty, and also like fart jokes.

Skeet

Or I can keep goading you into posting responses and learn how to be the mostest inteligentiest person through osmosis.

Good that very would be.

Hey! Working already it is! Much you thank very! Forget generosity never I will your.

Skeet




Last

I'm not ignoring it, just that until some more information comes out I'm not real impressed by it.

They're a dozen and a half shells presumably from a war two decades ago. Well before any sanctions existed. They look to have been buried at least ten years. The slips them inside of the sactions era, but if they're 15+ years buried then they're back outside again. They're leaky, obviously not in great shape and look to have been abandoned. This does not make me tremble at Iraq's mighty WMD programs prior to the war.

Really, right now it seems just as plausible that they got stuck in the ground during the war and forgotten about as opposed to being some hidden WMD weapons cache. I'd guess there's some decrepit American landmines in Vietnam buried somewhere -- doesn't mean we have an active program of landmining Vietnam.

Mind you though, I lack all the information and haven't seen much more than what was in the linked new stories. So I refrain from saying "Hahahaha! Stupid Bush!" but at the same time, I'm hardly ready to say "Gasp! Proof that Iraq was a threat to the free world with its powerful weapons!"

By "the war", I mean the Iraq-Iran war not the recent invasion

Edited, Mon Jan 12 14:29:00 2004 by Jophiel

sorry got waylaid was kinda enjoying myself too

Ok back to the original reason i flamed Skeet

IF you read my original post ANY human being would have found it obvious that i was talking about sept 11th as it was the only date that i refered to in the post. My point was that you didn't read the post for the content you just looked for mistakes in my Grammer/Spelling or whatever and instead of posting a responce like Murth, you sought to ridicule in an effort to make yourself sound clever.

Murth dude i respect your loyalty, patriotism and zeal but honestly if you think an attitude like that will stop people raining bombs like that on your head you are very much mistaken. I would hate to see america bombed again just because it refused to look beyond it own pride and see what the root cause of the issue was. and your right America is great i agree so don't take this as an Anti America post because it's not.

I also agree with Totem that it will never happen because money talks and thats both sides Arabs and US. palastine will not except Israel for the same reason that Murth will never except that America is wrong to start a war on a country because of a group <That are Anti Saddam by the way> that happen to share the same ancestors bombed 1 building <and i don't mean to trivialise it at all it was and still is one of the most horrific act since WW2.>

Hmmm. Freudian Slip?

Ok, if you need it, I'll give it to you.



Ditto. Tag, you're it.

Skeet





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And they will find a way to respond. Seriously, Murth, you really cannot believe that bombing the "****" out of other nations is a viable solution, can you?

Think, McFly, think!

well yes i was being a little exagerative in my way of dealing with the issue.

but seriously im tired of a good chunk of our national budget going to helping the isreali's and dealing with the "your better then us, so your evil and must die" mentality of the Middle East.

honestly i dont care anymore get over it.

our money could do much better things then dealing with these damn idiots
like curing cancer
or curing (sort of) albinism (so i can drive damn it ! )

Sheesh! Skeeter. Tarv. Lighten up you two!

When I read Tarv's post, it was pretty clear in context that 11/7 was at typo and that he meant to type 11/9. Since he said he was European, it was obvious (to me anyway) that he was writing in day/month style. From there it's kinda easy to figure out what he meant.

However, Skeeter is right that it would have been much easier to simply say: "Oops. I typoed and wrote 11/7 instead of 11/9". The issue would have been resolved at that point...


As to the relevance of finding the mortars? Questionable. Logically, it should prevent some of the criticism of Bush's pre-war statements. Unfortunately, most folks don't use logic when arguing a stance like that so it's probably not going to matter anyway.

The UN resolutions were very clear. Iraq was to dismantle its current bio/chem weapons under UN inspection. It was also to cease any further development of such weapons. The stated intent of the resolutions was to prevent Iraq from using such weapons either on its own citizens or on their neighbors. It was pretty obvious from Iraq's actions that they didn't intend to stop building and using such weapons, and hoped that if they dragged inspections on long enough, the UN would get tired of looking and go away. There's ample evidence of ongoing research into new bio/chem and nuclear weapons even after the resolutions were passed. What Bush was most criticised about wasn't the painstaking buildup of evidence of Iraq's lack of compliance with the resolutions, and the obvious reasons for that lack of compliance. The big criticism was that Bush said: "We know they have WMD" (WMD in that context being bio/chem weapons), yet we've yet to find a single bio/chem warhead.

Note that the interpretation is specifically literal in the critic's eye. Having all the evidence of ongoing research and development of WMD is irrelevant (and has in numerous arguments even on this board). All that matters is whether there are any physical weapons in Iraq. Now that we've found some, that line of attack should dissapate somewhat.

Of course, the hardline critics will then make the argument that the weapons found certainly weren't in condition to be used and didn't constitute a threat to the US or anyone else (cept maybe someone digging in the wrong part of the desert I suppose). But people like that simply wont be satisfied until someone actually attacks them personally on their own front lawn, with the aformentioned weapons. And even then, they'll attempt to rationalize it by blaming some sort of oppression that makes the attackers not responsible for their own actions...


The point is that these weapons indicate the intent of the Saddam regime. The whole reason the resolutions were passed was due to a percieved willingness to use bio/chem weapons on folks with little or no care given to anyone's wellbeing except those in control in Iraq. They're damned either way in this case. If the weapons were buried prior to the resolutions and had been forgotten, then they respresent a complete disregard for anyone's safty (and indicate a system of hiding weapons with little or no records of their locations). If they buried it after/during the resolutions, then it shows a desire to keep their weapons, even old crappy ones, rather then give them up as required by the UN.

More the latter then the former, but yes ( hehe ). Why the hell is "Private Abdullah" in charge of handing expensive chemical warheads? Especially to the point of being the sole person in charge of deciding where they are stored, with no records involved and no accounting of the weapons. Those are the sorts of weapons that most countries keep very carefully locked up, and if for some reason were to need/want to use them, would have serious controls on their use.

That's one of the reasons why the UN resolutions were passed. If we are to believe the "Private Abdullah" scenario, then that's probably the best argument for how those weapons could easily end up in terrorist hands that I've yet heard. I'm sure Private Abdullah knows he can sell those weapons for big cash on the black market. If the regime has no controls for tracking their chem/bio weapons, then how the hell are we to expec that they *aren't* going to end up in some random persons hands. Clearly, if they can be buried in the sand and "lost" for 15-20 years, they can also be buried in the sand, and dug up a few months later when a sale is made. I don't think it's hard to draw a nice dotted line here...


If the "Private Abdullah" schenario is not what's going on, then what is? Was this their method of storage and disposal of these weapons and materials? Yet more violations. Yet more reasons for concern. And it begs the next question: If these weren't "lost", then what were they? And why weren't they recorded and tallied as the UN required? Where are the "real" records then?

That's the whole point here. They are either keeping good track of their stuff, or they aren't. If they are, then they very clearly deliberately lied and falsified records in order to keep their weapons hidden from the UN inspectors. If they didn't, then the exact conditions that the US (and other nations) are concerned about in terms of the likelyhood of these weapons falling into terrorist hands are substantiated. Either way, this find goes a long way towards justifying the actions taken in Iraq.






There's a huge difference between ordinance "lost" in a battle area, and ordinance buried a hundred miles away from where the combat was happening. There's also an issue of what country the weapons were found in. The same regime has been in control of Iraq (and the area where the weapons were found) for the entire time period in question. This isn't a case of one military leaving unexploded stuff around when they were forced out of an area. This stuff wasn't "lost" on accident. It was "lost" on purpose. The only question is "why?". And even then, as I detailed above, it doesn't really matter.



It says that they had a weapons program (which we knew). It also says that they either kept horrible records of the wherabouts of said weapons, or they deliberately concealed/destroyed such records in violation of the UN resolutions. Either one justifies the action taken in Iraq. More importantly, it justifies them for the exact reasons given. Either scenario leads us to either Iraq desiring to hide their weapons from the UN, or a likelyhood of such weapons falling into random (terrorist) hands, or both. While this isn't a huge smoking gun, it's more then we've found to date.

[i]Ditto. Tag, you're it. [i]

Skeet





And you call me an idiot!!!

Replace "Private" with something else if you wish. Seriously, someone has to carry them around. Someone has to put them somewhere. I'm guessing said someone didn't walk around with a radio saying "Ok.. now I'm walking by the big rock. Ok, I'm at the big rock. Now I'm walking to the sand dune..." These weren't "warheads", they were mortar shells. Small, portable weapons made to be carried into battle by foot soldiers and fired from a portable launcher. Christ, you act like we found a thermonuclear warhead off an ICBM or something.

You know this how? That's right.. you're guessing. Honestly, there's currently no evidence one way or the other. The very simple fact is that right now no one knows the exact history of the cache and until someone can prove its history one way or the other, it means very little. Unless you have concrete evidence of anything else, you're just making stuff up.

It's kind of ironic how you could condemn a government for not keeping perfect track of all its munitions during a war. I mean, this is America where we misplace hard drives with nuclear secrets and lose anthrax and ebola samples even during peacetime.

Actually, IIRC, I don't call you an idiot.

***** *****?

Yes.

Moron?

Yes.

Inbred?

Yep.

But I have yet to call you an idiot.

Though 99% of the forum does.

Idiot.

Make that 100% of the forum.

Skeet

If you have a dictionary open, you could at least have spelled myriad, orgy and stupefy correctly.

Now it's time for a crash course in basic english.



Presumably you're saying that he's only proving the point. However, whatever you are trying to say is lost due to the fact that your sentence structure is the envy of three-year olds everywhere. Your sentence is the equivilent of "I is smarter than."



In other words, the "I'm a dumbass but these people think you are one too! So there!"



Wow, a thimble? That's small! Sadly, however, you failed to follow through, as you should have done. An example pertaining to you;

"Maybe if you stopped fu[b][/b]cking your cousin's half-inch long wang and cleaned the *** out of your face long enough to read you'd understand what I was saying."

See? It's so simple!



In other words, the "I'm still a dumbass, she's a dumbass, but you're even MORER of a dumbass!" argument.



We cower in fear of the culmination of you're stunningly witty and effective assault upon the very bastions of our existence.



So sayeth the poster who's been acknowledged as more dangerous to a suicidal person than a razor blade, a glass full of Drano and a loaded pistol combined.



As mentioned above, it's spelled stupefy.