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Originally Posted by Ustwo
[SNIP PERSONAL ATTACK ON TECOYAH]
Also while I’ve done long threads in the past where I site sources, look at page after page of information, and waste a lot of Googles bandwidth I am not going to do that here. I’ve done it enough and quite frankly I don’t have a lot of time for it. I will give you the information I have garnered over the last couple of years in everything from articles to interviews but if you ask me for a source I won’t have it. My brain doesn’t work that way, to me only the information is important, and from personal experience as a scientist, if you find someone who likes to quote sources while he talks about a subject, odds are he doesn’t know anything of his own on said subject. If I were doing my thesis again fine, but not for TFP. Also when I do such threads the subject tends to die and no one responds for some reason.  |
You've just contradicted yourself.
Doing research, googling, quoting references... but then you say that doing so means the researcher can't think for themselves.
Also, as you are not a weapons expert, chemist, military analyst, intelligence agent, economist, political advisor/confidant of the President... or any of the many people and sources we use everyday to learn about the world and this subject in particular, by
definition you have to rely upon said sources. To state that basing one's opinions on what they learn from others is unreliable is nonesense. It's like saying "I don't believe the moon exists, as I have never been there."
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The justification for said war was Saddams refusal to comply with the UN resolution, 1441 or whatever it was.
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Yes, to an extent. But the US President, Secretary Colin Powell and Blair also used the hype and threat of masses of WMD's as arguments to convince their respective people. It turns out the intelligence was flawed and, more importantly,
never questioned.
The issue here is not that Bush/Blair specifically
lied to their people, but that they brought their countries to war based upon hearsay and didn't even have the prudent professionalism to analyse their intelligence, question their sources and investigate conflicting reports. That's simply not acceptable when you are a leader of the most powerful nation on Earth and one of its allies.
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What happened to he WMD’s? That’s the real question and perhaps the scary one.
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Well, I agree that has not been resolved satisfactorily. But the consensus seems to be that they were indeed destroyed as the Iraqis claimed. If not, why has not one piece of evidence been unearthed to counter that claim?
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One theory advanced by David Kay (or whoever the weapons inspector was)
that they were probably shipped to Syria prior to the war. Yes we had intel of trucks passing over the boarder, Syria had/has a WMD program, Syria also had an illegal oil pipeline from Iraq, and Syria has a Baathist government like Iraq. Syria is also where most of those lovely foreign terrorists came over the border from to infiltrate Iraq.
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And another theory is that they were destroyed and/or Iraq never had as much as the Western intelligence communities believed.
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I find this very plausible as the amount of anthrax missing would fit into one large truck (they don’t call them WMD’s because they are big) and Saddam had YEARS to prepare.
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And you know this because you saw them?! No, you know this because you base your knowledge on what you read and believe. Exactly the same position for which you criticise Techoya for.
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Now one thing that is apparent is that there was no full fledged WMD program going in Iraq at the time of the War.
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Agreed. But then the President changed from spouting repeated justifications for war on "Weapons of Mass Destruction" to "Weapons of Mass Destruction Related Programs". Quite a difference. I'll leave it up to the American people and families to decide if that was worth 1,000 dead US soldiers and countless dead Iraqi civilians.
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That is there were no secret factories making new ones. What is also apparent is that they were waiting for the sanctions to be lifted to begin again.
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Aha... So the war was justified on destorying non-existant programs or, more accurately, to prevent the Iraqis from doing something you think they
might have done?
I have no love for the Iraqi regime, but your argument is beginning to get tenous.
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They had the lab equipment, the personnel waiting for the green light.
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I believe the much touted "mobile chemical warfare labs" were proven to be no such thing. I'm not sure about other labs. You can make Anthrax in a high school chemistry lab. Should they all be destroyed? Mustard gas can be made in a pharmacy. Should they all be destroyed. Technicians? How about we lock up all Iraqi chemistry students too? [rhetorical questions]
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I will also refrain from stating why invading Iraq was a good idea beyond WMD’s or the fact that 50 million people are free from truly tyrannical governments under GWB.
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If that's justification enough, when does the invasion of North Korea begin? Then China? Then the numerous other tyrannical governments that the US supports?
Don't use the argument, or even refer to it, as it is so rank with hypocracy as to be worthless.
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So I have to ask you, a few questions on your logic meter.
1. Did Bill Clinton also lie about Iraq having WMD’s?
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No, I don't think he did. But he didn't blindly rely upon the war-mongering hawks in his government either. And he didn't let a personal familial grudge cloud his judgement.
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2. If Bush lied about the WMD’s and knew it to be false, why didn’t he (being obviously evil) have some planted? It would not have been that hard. ONE soldier/agent could have planted enough Anthrax to do it. Hell they could have used the same strain as was found in the DC mail and really set it up.
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Meaningless question, as he didn't lie.
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According to the left GWB is both a bumbling fool, and at the same time capable of massive deception and intricate conspiracies that would make Machiavelli blush.
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You know, you're absolutely right. And "the left' who portray Bush as a mass deceiver and conspiracist are wrong. They
are right about his being a bumbling fool though. One who puts profit over people and lets shadowy powers and SIGs influence his policies. To be honest, I think Bush is just a generally good meaning, but rather unintelligent man who is being played like a puppet by those "behind the throne". That's my opinion.
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You are going to have to trust your own judgment.
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As are you. But if you only believe what you see with your own eyes, then you are doomed to life of short-sightedness and tunnel vision.
Mr Mephisto