Danish troops find illegal mortar rounds in Iraq
 

WMD's may eventually turn up if it is this easy to hide weapons for long periods of time:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...q_chemicals_dc

Very interesting indeed. I would like to see the spin that gets put on this.

Yeah they were buried for more the 10 years, they are leaking and they are unusable, these are not viable weapons, they were 'destroyed' by being buried (much less expensive then actual destroying) I don’t think this is a smoking gun, but I do think bush and his cronies will say that they were buried to be dug up later. (which is bull, they are not protected from the elements and did degrade to the point that they are unusable.

Please.

"Some" were leaking and you have no basis right now to say they were unusable, and less to say they were "destroyed".

They obviously weren't forgotten by the Iraqis because the locals knew they were there.

Whether or not this is a smoking gun remains to be seen.

and dilbert starts the spinning......



here let me do it for you guys:

This is all the USes fault
This is all Bushes fault

Burying isn't Destroying.

Then again, 36 120mm mortar rounds buried 10 years ago aren't exactly 5,000 litres of concentrated anthrax, either.

...and as far as I know chemical/biological agents used in weapons have 'shelf-life' 10 years or less unless stored in specialized environment. Meaning a vast controlled storage site. You just don't put anthrax in a bottle and put it in a desk drawer and expect it to stay vibrant.

Also, before the war started I read from somewhere that Iraq never had such equipment (one thing you never sold to them :)) and never aquired any.

Yup, that's the imidiate threat there alright.

Occasionally mustard gas shells are dug up in France from WW1. They are still lethal.

Honestly, if we went to war over MORTAR rounds, that's pretty messed up. I mean , what are they gunna do, create a mortar with a 10,000 foot barrel, and launch them over the ocean at us? This is pathetic. Not a smoking gun, and not a weapon of "mass destruction" they probably would have exploded in the launching barrel, killing the crew, and not the intended target. If you say this justifies the war...then...well, i'm at a loss for words.

The point is Saddam was in violation of his own signed agreements and UN resolutions. He had violated them many times and was continuing to do so (missles with to much range & now these mortars). The US had every legal right to go in based on the signed agreements from Desert Storm.

If you think a few MORTAR shells are worth going to war over, try telling that to the families of all the GI's that have died, and that will die, and to all the innocents that were killed in this pointless war. And if they had been buried for 10 years, that means he hadn't been violating anything since 1993! I mean come on, this is a trivial find, and everyone knows it. Don't act as if we found 10 nukes w/ ICBM's, pointed at every major city in the US.

They are 10 year old buried mortars that couldn't work if anyone wanted to launch them.

I think you miss the point.

The point is that Saddam said there that all the chemical weapons were destroyed.

We now have solid evidence that at least some where specifically wrapped and buried, possibly for latter retrieval.

The question know becomes, is this an isolated case?

Consider that it took us this long to find these things in a country the size of California.

That's a lot of desert to search.

Incorrect.

Buried (wrapped in plastic, mind you, not just buried to rust) is not destroyed. Saddam clearly violated all the UN resolutions as well as the cease fire from the first Gulf War.

I don't see anyone on this board doing that.

But you shouldn't be a Saddam appologist either and say that this is "trivial".

Let me ask, just how many shells must there be for it to not be "trivial"? 99? 100? 499? 500?

Do you know that for sure or are you just guessing because it is too hard to admit to yourself that you may be wrong and that Saddam maybe, just maybe, lied?

Saddam probably did lie yes. However, not as badly as bush did. They are now saying that these shells are from the Iraq-Iran war, which ended in 1988. I may be wrong, but didnt we help fund that war?

And when someone finds working weapons of MASS destruction, and not mortars, i will start considering it significant instead of trivial.

How do you know for sure Lebell that it was blister gas in those shells ?

Your opinion is based on the same diluted piece of information as anybody else's, and could be flawed as easily as anybody else's.

I am not offering an opinion.

I am offering an analysis of the facts as opposed to opinions being presented as facts.

Current information indicates mustard gas.

We also know the shells were wrapped in plastic and at least some were leaking.

We do not know if the shells can be fired or not.

Nor do we yet know if this was an isolated cache, or part of a systematic deception.


If you want my opinion, I vote for systematic deception, but even then, I have the weight of Saddam's history with the UN inspection teams to give credance.

Time will tell if my opinion is right or not, but the rest is simply data which may or may not be updated with new data.

Lets see was Saddam allowed to have these weapons after he signed aforementioned peace accords in 1991? Oh yeah thats right, no he wasn't. Does this put him in direct violation of 1441 and other UN resolutions, oh yeah it does.

What spin do you anti-bush/anti-American liberals want to put on this now?

I don't care if it was in violation of 1441, the possesion of a couple of 15 year old mortars does NOT justify all these GI's dying, he over 100 BILLION dollars, and all of this stuff that we as a country have to go through.

Seriously, other countries violate accords and treaties set out from before, but we can't go invading the entire world now can we?

Remember that at the big-person table we don't use ad homs...

I'm waiting for more accurate testing before I weight in on this one but if it is mustard gas and saddam had a REALLY big cannon (which could reach the US) then the war is slightly more justified.

What exactly *would* justify it to you then? A couple of new mortar shells? A couple of canisters of VX nerve gas? An active ICBM?

IF (big if) these mortar shells contain mustard gas, that is a direct violation of the relevant UN resolutions. Iraq wasn't allowed to have them, and they did (/would have). It really doesn't matter how they were stored - they were illegal, period.

Seriously, first anti-war people claim that the war is illegal because there were no WMDs to be found. Now we might have found them, and they're suddenly not bad enough? It's just never good enough, is it?

And finally: seriously, not everyone that murders someone is caught and punished, so that must obviously mean that murderers that do get caught should be set free too.

10 year old weapons... big deal.

If people want to find illegal weapons why dont they just read the American press reports where the US army admits to using cluster bombs?

Ok, here's a thought, if it was mustard gas, in firing condition, and everyone knew where it was, why didn't the Iraqis use it to defend its country? We all heard on CNN about how Saddam gave the order to use chemical weapons should the foreign invaders cross a mythical red line. I mean a sneak chemical attack on a large number of US troops would have stalled them for a while (not to mention the psychological effects). Instead they chose to hide and take a humiliating defeat.

Also both tear gas and mustard gas contain a Chorine group, and could theoretically give a false positive.

Staw men aren't allowed either :D

<b>strange famous</b>: it is not illegal for the US to use cluster bombs against military targets.

<b>Spartak</b>: you make it sound as if the Iraqis had a choice in the war - they didn't *choose* to hide, they were *forced* to hide and run.

Also, it is not unrealistic to assume they simply didn't have the time, nor the will, in the case of the common soldier, to use chemical weapons, knowing full well that the US forces were prepared to deal with such attacks, and might return the favour.

Where does it say each individual death has to be justified? I never got this. People die in training accidents when equipment fails. The equipment can't tell the difference between a training evolution and an operational one. Now some of the same equipment kills a bunch of soldiers, and it's not "justified"?

:hmm:

Training accidents are tragic, but they do happen. But you seem to be comparing training accidents to training accidents. This isn't training that is killing these soldiers and Marines, it's mortars and bombs and snipers.

And he isn't trying to justify each individual death, but the totality of deaths, which is perfectly reasonable, and should be justified.

I belief those deaths are justified by the results: the removal of a dictator, his arrest and future trial, and the resulting brighter future for Iraq.

Hell, 500 deaths is nothing compared to them olden days of WW1/WW2. In fact, 500 deaths in a campaign to conquer/liberate a country the size of Iraq is negligable. It's one of the cleanest wars ever. (yeah, I know, try telling that to the families.)

just because it is legal does not mean it is moral cluster bombs that the US has dropprd are still killing people everywhere in the world.

so now the whole war was about catching sassam and not finding WMD. I think it is too soon to say Iraq's future is "bright".


As for 36 mortar shells not exactly a smoking gun and the way Bush played WMD as the main selling point for this war if this is all they find he better start back tracking and say catching saddam was the main focus.

Stare at the sun.

Excellent posting there buddy.

I am sure that these are the weapons of mass destruction that Bush was talking about when he said that Iraq had the capability to launch weapons of mass destruction on the continental US in 45 minutes.

I guess he meant, it would have taken the Iraqis 45 minutes to dig them up.

i wouldn't be surprised after all he did go to war without any proof

Here's a link to a tech sheet on Sarin gas (something the US did NOT provide; most likely provided by Germany, France, or Russia):

http://www.dupont.com/safety/downloa...DataSheets.PDF

Look under "incompatibilities" and you will see that sarin can be stored indefinitely in 1020 steels, and in Iconel and K-monel(nickel alloys).

These metals are commonly used in commercial chemical applications, and hardly require US assistance to synthesize.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

As for anthrax, this report shows that Apartheid South Afrika freeze-dried it for storage. Freeze-drying allows for indefinite storage, not a measlely 10 years:

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/researchpub/p...ocs/CBW119.htm

Strange famous claimed they were illegal. I said they're not illegal. Nowhere did I say they were moral, nor was that even mentioned.

Would that qualify as a straw man?

Again, I didn't say the whole war was about catching Saddam. I merely pointed out that, in my opinion (!), his capture is a good justification for the deaths of only (yes, ONLY) 500 US soldiers. Do try to read my posts before you reply, please.


Also, I'd like to point out that these mortar shells were probably not hidden by the Iraqis, merely forgotten. Now, if that's the case, how much more difficult will it be to find WMDs that *were* deliberately hidden?

Suppose Saddam moved most of his WMDs to Syria, as some people claim. The US and UN weapon inspectors can dig up all of Iraq and still wouldn't find them! And to some people this would then be "proof" that the weapons were never there in the first place, even though they'd be stored safely across the border...

It's part of a larger tapestry. Hussein was a dangerous leader because of his propensity to secret WMD programs, willingness to deal with terrorists, and hatred for the US. My biggest fear of Hussein was that he would provide either bin Laden or Hamas with WMD's. THAT is how he was a threat to the US. If you deny that this was a legitimate possibility, then I can see why you might disagree. In my opinion, however, he had to be taken out. And, to the benefit of the world at large, it was accomplished.

Now, the anti-war crowd has been handed a legitimate beef in that the Bushies hung the justification on huge stockpiles of WMD's rather than simply making the case that Hussein was a dangerous and destabilizing threat. That was Bush's biggest mistake imho.

However, this discovery suggests that it is much easier to hide weapons than once believed. There's no telling what might come out of that desert in the next 5-10 years.

On CP24 this morning i saw a trailer stating that Paul O'Neil, the former US treasurer under George W Bush has stated that the Rupublicans started planning to take out Saddam just days after being elected. Well before 911.

911 just gave bush the excuse he needed i guess.

War contingencies are constantly being planned. The invasions of N.Korea, Iran, Syria, and Taiwan have already been scripted <i> in case they become a necessity.</i> This by no means suggests that the military actions are imminent.

In any case, O'Neil was fired for incompetence and is now a malcontent trying to sell a book and get rich.

Nonetheless, his comments only support the idea that Hussein was viewed as a threat by many important people in the US government for some time.

sorry about that

This is very long and complicated, so if you want to see the rest of the information, go to the link. I'm just showing what I think is important to the point that I am making.

http://traprockpeace.org/iraqweaponsc.html

Iraq has admitted that 550 mustard filled artillery shells were missing in the UNSCOM destruction. (and we only just found 36) That means they were missing. So that does not put them at odds with the resolution.

Plus, we have plenty of "initial tests" prove to be false. But it is unlikely that it's the case this time.

Regardless, this is not the smoking gun. Especially since this has been admitted to be missing.

Its no big secret Wolfowitz has been pushing for it for years. He tried getting Clinton to do the same thing back in 1998 when weapons were found.

Madp, America wants to invade Taiwan???

That would cause WWIII!

America has vowed to defend Taiwan from being taken by force by China. Considering the proximity of the two, I am making the assumption that this "defense" would have to include an invasion/liberation force.

Invasion and liberation are two different things

China is a nuclear power, I dont think America will attack them just to defend Taiwan.

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com.../mdf443251.jpg

Pictures are always good rather than rely on rhetoric about them being viable.

Are these capable of mass destruction?

madp.
That's an interesting article. If it's true in all it's particulars, it certainly takes a small amount of the force out of some of the arguments about whether the Bush administration what dishonest or incompetent in handling intelligence data. That sounds a lot harsher than I mean it. Let's rephrase it as: whether the Bush administration deceived or was decieved. In any case, a couple, or even a couple hundred aging mortar rounds, while putting Iraq in violation of 1441, probably doesn't constitute <i>causus belli</i>.

That said, if, after this article has been kicking around a while, and spun and counterspun and analyzed to death, if it stays credible, it will be harder to argue that there were no WMDs in Iraq (to speak of).

Tophat665. my last post on page 1 shows weapons matching these description were declared as being lost and as such do not violate resolution 1441.

Superbelt:

In fairness, you have shown a photograph of a degraded artillery shell. The journalists on the scene reported that only "some" of the shells were leaking, so we can assume that the photo you have posted is not representative of the entire cache.

Having said that, "misplacing" or "losing" munitions (as you are suggesting may have happened to these, within the allowances of UN resolutions) means they're stacked in the back of a military warehouse somewhere and forgotten. . .not stored out in the desert hidden ten feet underground in shrinkwrap.

However, I agree that it is a valid point to question what the circumstances of this find are, and what it truly means in the big scheme of things.

Imho, the significance of this event has yet to be determined.

The picture on the left is most of the entire catch. We only found a total of 36.

But we should wait for them to be analyzed. I don't want to take the word of a journalist on the condition of munitions. They can't tell in a cursory inspection if the weapons are leaking or rusted beyond the ability to fire.

I think, regardless of the condition of these weapons, this is not justification for invasion. And we have up to this point not found any real evidence to do so, at least on the viable weapons/weapons programs front. And that is the reason we invaded.

Well, it's a pretty well-know, and frequently and explicitly stated position in spite of years of "strategic ambiguity."

http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/...ush.taiwan.03/

As far as the nuclear threat is concerned:
China's missles <i>might</i> be accurate as far as the US west coast. However, the heartland and east coast are far out of China's range. On the other hand, the US has the resources to drop a nuke on every Chinese city and military installation within 2 hours.

Also, take into account that the US ABM missles have been successful in knocking out ICM's in over 2/3's of the tests conducted so far, and the success of this program is growing with each test.

Finally, the 7th Fleet and others have camped out at the Taiwan Straight since the end of the Korean War.

The US will not allow Taiwan to fall by force.

Just disputing our abm abilities:

2/3rds in tests where we know exactly when and where the missiles are going to be at each precise moment in time and have days to do all the necessary mathematics to help the missiles hit.

In real life where we don't know any of the vital info of chinas missiles... We drop down to 0/3 success rate.

Well, I don't have the expertise to confirm or deny what you're saying, but I would be very surprised if we didn't know what kinds of missles China has and where the nukes are deployed.
However, you are probably correct that the success rate would be less in a real battlefield scenario.

"Vital info" meaning the velocity, angle and exact location for every moment of its flight. And having that vital info days ahead of time.

We hardly ever hit them when we know all this, we have never, and almost all of our scientific institutions agree that we will never, be able to hit a hostile ICBM out of the air.

Again, I don't have the background or sources to dispute what you're saying superbelt. . .may I ask what you're sources are?

For example: THIS Letter.

I think when this many Nobel Luareates tell us this, that it will not work and instead will place the United States in a more dangerous situation with hostile ICBM's waiting in "launch-on-warning" mode, we should listen to them.

I tell you what how about we drain the chemical out of them and then throw the chemical around your house next christmas while your family is there. Then you can tell me if they still pose a danger. These could have easily been sold on the black market to anyone. Someone could have released the gas in a crowded subway station (Japan comes to mind) or at the superbowl.

Ooh I'm sure it's still nominally dangerous. though no longer useful in any military capacity. But it was known to have existed, Saddam admitted to it, so any discovery of it is not against UN resolutions and is not a justification for invasion.

I just read over the list of signatories again. It's just mindblowing the amount of brainpower that backs this letter. Mindpower that our nations leaders have no intentions of listening to.

Sad.

This really has always been the crux of the issue for me so far as Hussein is concerned.

Excellent point, Rekna.

Their argument, as I understand it, is that deployment of the anti-missile systems would touch off an ICBM arms race that would produce technology that the defensive system would be incapable of keeping up with. . . NOT that the system is currently incapable of taking ICBM's in play right now.

I understand and appreciate their argument. . . but there's another side to the coin. But I digress. . . the feasibility and advisability of ABM systems are fodder for another thread, perhaps.

Brainpower with an agenda, perhaps?

I'm not saying that they are right or wrong. . . just that geniuses play politics too.

You're spinning the issue, Superbelt.

The fact is, we DON'T KNOW if these shells were part of those catelogued by the UN.

The fact is, they were hidden out in the desert, buried to prevent detection by satellite surveillance (i.e., the US), and they contained chemical agents.

Could these have commanded a high price from virtually any and every terrorist group in the world? Obviously. In the hands of a terrorist, could they have been used to kill and/or maim hundreds or thousands of people? Obviously.

Do these alone justify an invasion? No, but they don't exist in a vacuum. They exist in a larger context which to me makes a strong case for the threat Hussein posed.

This find is one more piece of the puzzle, and it begs the question of what else might be found in the weeks, months, and years to come.

I stand corrected, but the point I was making reamins, if (and I don't grant this yet) this story holds up, the argument that there are no WMDs in Iraq will be less effective. That there will be no WMDs in Iraq to speak of will still be true; That there are no reliably effective WMDs in Iraq will be true; qualified arguments like that carry less weight than a flat denial, at least as far as the electorate goes.

See, when we find any amount of WMDs at all, useful or not, declared or not, the Administration can very easily make the argument that some part of the intelligence they used was a misappraisal of those WMDs. It puts the blame squarely on the intelligence service and deflects blame away from the Administration unless it is skillfully counterspun.

But I do apologize for missing your earlier post. I was juggling a half dozen things at the time I was reading this.

If y'all want to talk about ABM systems, sounds to me like a good time to start another thread ;)

As to this thread, I'll also take a wait and see.

Clearly Saddam violated the letter of the UN resolution.

As to if it was intentional or are there other surprises waiting to be dug up, we'll see.

Superbelt, a serious question: if Bush has said we were taking out Saddam because he was a mass murderer, would this have been sufficient justification, in your opinion?

Honestly, yes.

I've said it here before that what we have done is noble. But the way we wen't about doing it was not.

Bush sold this war to us and Congress on the fear that we could be attacked by Saddam within 45 minutes.

If he had just ratcheted up his argument based on Saddam being a mass murderer and torturer of his own people who will leave that legacy for the Iraqi people long after he is gone, through his children, then yeah I could support it.

It would also have helped us build an actual broad coalition of international support as making the case for invasion based on that actually has a provable base. And a prescedent.

If we had achieved a real international coalition this wouldn't have been an american invasion, which would have severely limited the ongoing guerilla attacks against american troops we are seing now, and the cost to the United States would have been minimalized.

The war wasn't sold solely on the threat of wmds.

The only way to have built a "coalition" like the one you argue for is to pay of Germany, France, Russia, and every other member of the security council because as soon as they heard about the deals their cohorts were getting the hands would have been out. You then probably would have been arguing that we "bought" their support. The simple fact is that Hussein did a very good job of driving a wedge between the countries who he did business with and the US. Should we have done a better job in preventing that wedge? Absolutely, but that is far from just a failure on the Bush Admins part. These relationships have been building since the UN imposed sanctions.

Back on the topic at hand, the shells. Certainly not a smoking gun. As others have pointed out, preliminary tests have been less than perfect. As far as whether these were from among the shells that were "lost", unless you can show me serial numbers for those lost and these that were found and they match up, that argument is worthless. Them being buried, likely for retrieval at another date, certainly raises suspicion.

In the end, what does this really tell us? Well, it tells us that Saddam more than likely lied about his weapons stockpiles. Not exactly earth shattering news here. No matter who you believe--those who think he had wmds or those who think he didn't--he certainly did all he could to hide the fact that he didn't have any if he didn't and he certainly hid the fact that he did if he did.

As to why the wmds that they allegedly had weren't used by the Iraqis during the invasion there are several very plausible reasons for it:

The first is that most of the soldiers weren't very loyal to Saddam and they may not have been willing to suffer the onslaught of munitions that would have followed their launching of a chemical/biologic attack. Those who were loyal were supposedly reduced to hit and run attacks because Saddam's sons had ordered them to change positions and they got caught way out of position.

The second is that the lines of communication and infrastructure were pretty well destroyed during the invasion making it difficult for such an attack to be authorized or to be followed.

The third is that Saddam may have decided to avoid using these weapons to hopefully influence world opinion and create doubt around Bush's wmd story.

There are plenty of reasons to think they had wmds and quite a few reasons to think they didn't. In the end, it doesn't matter. Hussein gambled by feigning to have them or by not offering up sufficient evidence of their destruction. That gamble failed.

I remember the posting I was doing on other boards in the months leading up to the Iraq war. I remember the only thing anyone was talking about was WMD, WMD and Iraq's capacity to kill americans with it. Specifically with drone aircraft fitted with nuclear weapons. I spent many long hours trying to disprove to anyone that Iraq was bereft of any wmd.
Then magically the debate turned to humanitarian just days before the invasion. I think, and this imo, that Bush&co realized their argument was built on quicksand.

I remember day in and day out being bombarded with the horrors of wmd and what Saddam was going to do to us with them.
I don't remember seeing pictures of kurdish and iranian bodies.

I also recall congressmen who have since said that the only reason they voted to give Bush the authority to attack was information he gave them on Iraq's capability to attack us within 45 minutes.

back to the topic: I can't show you serial numbers. But if these weapons get into the proper inspectors hands, hopefully they will be able to verify if these are the same weapons or not. I just offered an explanation of why they were there, and in the condition they were in. The circumstantial evidence certainly points in that direction at this time. It's a much better argument than they were lying in wait, with the militarys knowledge of their existence.

Disarmament (through either presenting the weapons themselves or supplying evidence of the destruction) of both conventional weapons and chemical/biologic weapons banned under the agreement that ended the first gulf war, compliance with UN resolutions, firing on our troops in the no-fly zone, using the helicopters we allowed them to use for necessary transportation to kill/intimidate Hussein opposition, supporting terrorist activity by paying money to suicide bombers. These are just some of the reasons given long before the intelligence of possible attempts to acquire wmds in Africa.

Just because all you remember (or that you focused more on that one) is the wmd argument or that the boards you frequented latched onto that aspect doesn't mean that was the only reason. Can I ask how you "know" Iraq is bereft of wmds? Seems you took on an impossible task by trying to prove the case. Certainly you could make a reasonable case that they don't have much ability to use them or that they're unlikely to have any after the efforts that were made to destroy them or the technology they have available and/or the viability of certain weapon types, but there's no way you could prove they don't/didn't have them.

Anyway...

Circumstantial evidence points to these being among the "lost" weapons? Not even close, there's no direct link between this cache and the "lost" weapons. Just because there are some unaccounted for it does not mean that these were not buried to be retrieved later. Further, there are far better ways to destroy dangerous weapons than to simply dig a hole and stick them in. Unless this "destruction" was meant to take a couple of decades through degradation, it's ridiculous.

WMD wasn't the only reason given, but it was given so much more strongly and so much more frequently that the admin purposefully made it their reason to the nation and congress to go to war and made everything else seem almost irrelevant.

I'm not arguing they were buried to be destroyed. They were buried to be picked up again later, but were long since forgotten about.

Time will tell if these are mustard filled artillery shells of the same type. Lets just wait and see.
And as Tophat said, it may prove moot as the details of their existence will be forgotten to provide cover for the Presidents war.

I'm still betting that the preliminary tests were wrong and that they aren't blister agent shells at all. I'm not sure that they were just forgotten about by the government but more likely that a situation requiring their use probably didn't materialize.

At this point I think the whole wmd debate is moot since there's no evidence that Bush purposefully lied about the intelligence and, in the end, we are there. The lead up to it doesn't change what's going on now and what needs to be done for the future of Iraq and the US.

In the final analysis, you are probably right, but by Rumsfeld's own logic, a lack of proof that the Bush administration lied about intelligence is, itself, indicative that they did.

haha...

Ahh yes,

http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/falsean.php

Does anyone else wonder if there would have been any support at all if Bush had tried to go in under the pretences of humanitarian releif? The world doesn't exactly have a good track record in helping people for humanitarian reasons. It is easy to say that Bush should have went in under humanitarian reasons but I can't help but wonder if he would have gotten a lot less support if he had. It is sad really and unfortuantly probably true.

He would have gotten ZERO support if it were about humanitarian reasons. Just look at the Sudan, 2+ million people dead plus the worlds most active slave trade perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists and not one thing has been done.

Kindof sad isn't it?

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
- attributed to Edmund Burke

If humanitarian relief was our goal, which it isn't, our first stops should be Rwanda and Congo, not Iraq. I'm all for humanitarian relief but it sets a BAD prescident unless we want to invade an 1/8 of the world.

I completely agree with you on how lame the "justification" for the war appears, and I wish Bush had been brutally honest about all the reasons. However, because I believed that getting rid of Hussein was such a good idea, maybe I'm not as angry as I should be about the innuendo the administration used in lobbying for the war.

But I can't help it; I'm so damn glad that Hussein is gone, and that Syria, Iran, Libya, and N Korea saw that the US has the resolve to deal with rogue nations, that I just can't get too upset that the WMD's haven't played out the way our intelligence thought it would.

As for the last part, I really don't think anyone beside the countries with us right now would have signed up for this effort unless they were forced to through a completely undeniable moral imperative.

That's such a good quote, if only because by twisting the views of good and evil it can be used to justify anything.

Sorry. . .we got a little carried away!

Your right, how conservative bible bumping of me to think that 2+ million deaths by a sadistic maniacal sosciopath is evil.

Please calm down both of you and stay on topic.

Thanks.

You know the US is easily defined as a rogue nation. Huge stockpiles of conventional and WMD, record of using WMD, attacking sovereign nations without provacation, record of and continuning espionage in every country in the world, leaving the Kyoto protocal, not signing the Landmine ban, ect.

If you want to play the name game and call other countries rogue you need to look at the US' track record.

Thats cute, lets just pick this apart piece by piece.

Quote:

Huge stockpiles of conventional and WMD

Where does it say anywhere that it is illegal for us to have said weapons? And as far as I know we haven't signed any treaty, we have no resolutions banning them from us, where is the problem?[/QUote]

Quote:

record of using WMD

Hiroshima and Nagasaki 59 years ago? Get serious.

Quote:

attacking sovereign nations without provacation

Oh you mean countries that don't abide by resolutions and laws that they signed, oh ok. As far as I know it was only called "un-provoked" by the losing team as well.

Quote:

record of and continuning espionage in every country in the world

Whats wrong with this? Keeping a leg up in the intelligence game, yeah that's really detrimental to the safety of the United States. With you saying it like that, you'd think we were the only ones...

Quote:

If you want to play the name game and call other countries rogue you need to look at the US' track record.

Yes shame on us, the evil war mongering United States.

Such a pretty strawman, you just had to hack it down after construction, eh ?

I was pointing out that if humanitarian aid was the purpose of invading Iraq then we have set down a long path towards the goal of world policeman.

You used Sudan as an example of humanitarian aid not working as an excuse for a war on false pretenses in Iraq (false analogy is the best way I can think of describing that). What sudan and Iraq have to do with one another I will never know.

Perhaps the two million people killed were evil and a good leader was just taking a stand against them. Actually, that does sound rather biblical, a smaller number of people slaughtering a large number of "evil" people.

PS. its bible "thumping" not bumping...

I used an example of how the world, more importantly, the UN sits with a thumb up its ass while people are needless and knowingly suffering.

And no the 2 million people who've been killed were done so because they were Christian, the same reason they are taken as slaves.

quote:
Originally posted by nanofever
You know the US is easily defined as a rogue nation.



Thats cute, lets just pick this apart piece by piece.
quote:

Huge stockpiles of conventional and WMD


Where does it say anywhere that it is illegal for us to have said weapons? And as far as I know we haven't signed any treaty, we have no resolutions banning them from us, where is the problem?[/QUote]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story...494257,00.html

1974, nixon signed a ban on chem weapons...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0311-05.htm

the us vowed never to make the "mistake" again and refuses to sign the CTBT or a bio. weapon equalivant

quote:

record of using WMD

Hiroshima and Nagasaki 59 years ago? Get serious.

I'm quite serious, we are the only country to ever use atomic weapons. Ad homs are not arguments at the big-person table...

quote:

attacking sovereign nations without provacation


Oh you mean countries that don't abide by resolutions and laws that they signed, oh ok. As far as I know it was only called "un-provoked" by the losing team as well.

I recall they signed the resolution with a gun to their head and then were invaded anyway with out proof that they violated the resolution.

quote:

record of and continuning espionage in every country in the world


Whats wrong with this? Keeping a leg up in the intelligence game, yeah that's really detrimental to the safety of the United States. With you saying it like that, you'd think we were the only ones...

I'll let you have this one, it doesn't make us any more rogue than anyone else

quote:

If you want to play the name game and call other countries rogue you need to look at the US' track record.


Yes shame on us, the evil war mongering United States.

Again, big-person table.

Also, since you decided to go line-by-line on my post and you left off the Kyoto protocol and Landmines, I'm going to say "silence is compliance" and assume those were conceded points.

Are you SERIOUS??!!

:crazy: :hmm: :crazy:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/232803.stm

I don't quite think that Christians are being killed without cause since Sudan is in a civil war that goes both directions. However, this argument is silly on this topic but if you want to make a new one for it that is cool.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/232803.stm

Rather then starting a new thread, I'll close with this. Why do you think they are at civil war? Because the Christians refuse to accept the repressive Sh'aaria law of the north.

The christians are rebels against the islamic government, sure I'll concede that is the cause.

*done* with this subtopic R.I.P

and that is why religion and government should be seperate and theocracies are bound to be represive and ultimatly fail.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,108390,00.html

Fiqures.

Dang, I wish they would stop that...

Well, in "their" defence... the US gov did say that it was probably nothing.

Just wondering, though: what liquid would have been in those shells then? Water (rain) mixed with the explosives, perhaps?

Phospherous or a liquid propellant can give false positives. The field tests are designed to be "safer" for those in the field by favoring a positive reading. Better to handle these things in the safest way in case it turns out to be true.

I might be wrong but wouldn't phospherous in a morter be somewhat equlivant to napalm, with the burning and sticking and what not.

It's used as a tracer so you can see the shot's path. I'm sure it would dirty the wound a bit if it were a bullet, but if you get hit by a mortar you got bigger problems than it burning or sticking.

White phos is also used as an incendiary since it burns upon contact with air.

Actually WP is used most often as a smoke round. The burning of the agent is very rapid and creates a dense, white smoke. Altough it has a potent explosive effect, that is not the primary purpose.

Wow thank you for the article. It's something at least.