Guess what, we had good reason to believe Iraq had WOMD

[Cyrene]

No, we wouldn’t, because we are fundamentally at odds with all sorts of muslim beliefs, unless these countries slowly drag themselves out of the type of theocracy they are in. When two belief systems so fundamentally contradict themselves, and when most suicide bombers are muslims/so many muslims support violence in the name of islam (50% of first world muslims) just simply honesting talking to them won’t help.

You are underestimating how many muslims support violence in the name of islam. I don’t know how.

I’m not saying i think manipultion/lies to the public are good, but if you’re seriously suggesting workign with these people, you understimate how religiously motivated they are.

We shouldn’t ‘work’ with the type of people that bomb civilian trains. We shouldn’t ‘work’ with people that show that they can internationally rally together/riot over free speech.

Should we have calmly discussed the issue with muslim cartoons with them? No, we should have told them to go fuck themselves, yet every american/canadian news paper bent over to appease them/limit our free-speech. We see international riots/embassy burnings over a CARTOON. dozens of which show up mocking other religions DAILY in news papers. Think about that, just let it settle in.

Are muslim nations ever going to just accept that we have the right to critisize their nonsensical beliefs as we see fit? No, and if they could, they’d kill us for it. (A huge portion of them, not all of them, theres probably ‘cultural secular muslims’ people moderate and etc. but its a small percent of them)

[southcrossland]

@Cyrene

50% of americans believe in fundamentally crazy, things, when 50% of british muslims support violence in the name of islam, its v ery very likely that considerably more of them do so in their own nations.

And just like we wouldn’t rationalize the entire US being accountable for the crazy thoughts of those 50% of americans, you can’t justify taking actions against entire muslim populations. Otherwise, crazy horrible things like 9/11 become equally justified. The rational response is to make sure that its understood that it is violence and rights violations that should be taken issue with, not religions or cultures in themselves.

@Cyrene

I also have a problem with muslims not producing any real noteworthy scientific advancements in the last seven hundred years, when theres a billion of them and some nations pretty wealthy.

I have no idea what this has to do with anything. I’m a big fan of science, but I can’t expect cultures and nations to advance it on my request. I can only ask that a nation not bring harm to their people or neighbors. It seems like you are trying to place personal values on the worth of different nations to justify certain actions. I would hope that is not the case.

[Cyrene]

And just like we wouldn’t rationalize the entire US being accountable for the crazy thoughts of those 50% of americans

I’m not blaming all of muslims, considerably less americans are fundamental compared to muslims, even comparing the two doesn’t make any coherent rational sense. That being said, theres plenty of stuff we can blame on the fundamental population of the United States of America, not least of which is policy decisions concerning radically important medical research, repression of science and so forth.

you can’t justify taking actions against entire muslim populations.

and i’m not, but when the issue comes that most muslims in these countries are fundamental, I will blame them for the shit that comes out of fundamentalism. Since so many of them are fundamental, and since the moderates do nothing to stop or influence their own countries, yeah, we might as well talk about them like they don’t exist, for all practical purposes they don’t influence shit.

The rational response is to make sure that its understood that it is violence and rights violations that should be taken issue with, not religions or cultures in themselves.

When all the muslim cultures in the world haven’t produced noteworthy scien tific achievement in the last 700 years we can judge the culture, when muslim countries consistantly embrace insane value systems we can judge the cultures, when the ‘moderates’ do nothing to stop massive slaughters, repression and etc why keep bringing them up like they matter?

I never once said that all muslims were scum, I never once said we should systematically violate the rights of all muslims, I simply feel comfortable talking about whatever issue I want and using the word “Muslim” to refer to how most muslim nations/people are, fundamental. Its not fair to say that all bears are dangerous, however in everyday conversation I have no problem saying “bears are dangerous” and niether should anyone else.

MOST MUSLIMS ARE FANATIC, MOST MUSLIM SOCIETIES ARE FANATIC, the moderates are a small portion that do almost next to nothing to change their societies. (WE MAY SEE A CHANGE IN THIS AS THE YOUTH GAIN POWER, but since fundamentalism comes in older age, we probably won’t)

@Cyrene

It seems like you are trying to place personal values on the worth of different nations to justify certain actions. I would hope that is not the case.

If dozens of muslim nations don’t produce any science, when they have the manpower/money, in 700 years, because of religious reasons, we can make cultural judgements about muslim societiy, we can make those judgements based on their contin ous rejection of equal rights, brutality against women’s rights, attempted stomping of free-speech.

“its not fair to talk about all muslims like that”

Yeah when most muslims are like that and most muslim nations, I don’t need to make the distinction that there are good muslims/not all muslims are like that, I never said I claimed all muslims were like that, only that i’m justified in not making this huge distinction over the matter, because they’;re a super small percent of people (even most muslims in first world are fundamental, supporting sharia law, violence, and they make up huge amounts of prison populations in europe).

So yeah…

To say again, when I say ‘muslims this or muslims that’ i am not talking abouy every single muslim every born, just most of them and most of their societies and what they STATISTICALLY SUPPORT/DO.

Where are the moderates when women are beaten to death/muslims are calling for the death of people nonsensically? These muslims basically don’t exist, not even in the first world significantly enough to matter. WE have plenty of muslims that claim islam is a religion of peace, not so many willing to condemn the actions of muslim nations/muslims.

Not anywhere near the statistical amount of them for me constantly point out that not all muslims are fundamental, especially when I never made the claim anyway.

[Cyrene]

That being said a policy decision(s) should be made on wht most of the population supports/does. Not based on this super quiet, super meek, group of islamics that don’t do much to stop the horrors around them.

Its inherent to the religion, as we’ve seen time and time and time again. Most muslim nation’s don’t support the mindless brutality on some kind of secular moral code that their parents taught them.

[Wobbly]

Not only did we have good reason to believe it, it was also true.

Well, that’s about the dumbest thing I have ever heard. I’ll be back to show how the first part of the sentence is the second dumbest thing.

lib.umich.edu/govdocs/duelfer.html

[Cyrene]

I was talking about weapon labs, not specifically capable weapons.

[Wobbly]

From the Repot

ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW
program or was conducting BW-specifi c work for military purposes. Indeed, from the mid-1990s, despite
evidence of continuing interest in nuclear and chemical weapons, there appears to be a complete absence of
discussion or even interest in BW at the Presidential level.

and

Depending on its scale, Iraq could have re-established an elementary BW program within a few weeks to a
few months of a decision to do so, but ISG discovered no indications that the Regime was pursuing such a
course.

and

Iraq Survey Group (ISG) discovered further evidence of the maturity and signifi cance of the pre-1991
Iraqi Nuclear Program but found that Iraq’s ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively
decayed after that date.

relatedly

Saddam Husayn ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest
concerted efforts to restart the program. Although Saddam clearly assigned a high value to the nuclear progress and talent that had been developed up
to the 1991 war, the program ended and the intellectual capital decayed in the succeeding years.

and finally Chemical weapons, the most sticky of the three

While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq
unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications
that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad’s desire
to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.

But the Laboratories! Tantamount to saying that he had the ability to produce chemical or biological weapons if he wished to. Yes, Saddam, and every United States research university and just about every country in the world. Oh yeah, and any innovative young youth with access to the internet and a few specific chemicals. Yes yes, going to war over who has what knowledge.

[stephenstillwell]

@Cyrene

@Christopher Hitchens

… Dr. Sami al-Araji, the deputy minister of industry, says that after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, "looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein’s most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms."

Since Orange County Choppers went all Hollywood and put in high tech NC machines you could say the same about them.

The overall pattern of the plundered sites was summarized thus, by reporters James Glanz and William J. Broad:
The kinds of machinery at the various sites included equipment that could be used to make missile parts, chemical weapons or centrifuges essential for enriching uranium for atom bombs.

Just like O.C.C.

My first question is this: How can it be that, on every page of every other edition for months now, the New York Times has been stating categorically that Iraq harbored no weapons of mass destruction?

Maybe because that’s the case.

My second question is: What’s all this about “looting”? The word is used throughout the long report, but here’s what it’s used to describe. "In four weeks from mid-April to mid-May of 2003 … teams with flatbed trucks and other heavy equipment moved systematically from site to site. … ‘The first wave came for the machines,’ Dr Araji said. ‘The second wave, cables and cranes.’ " Perhaps hedging the bet, the Times authors at this point refer to “organized looting.”

But obviously, what we are reading about is a carefully planned military operation. The participants were not panicked or greedy civilians helping themselves—which is the customary definition of a “looter,” especially in wartime. They were mechanized and mobile and under orders, and acting in a concerted fashion. Thus, if the story is factually correct—which we have no reason at all to doubt—then Saddam’s Iraq was a fairly highly-evolved WMD state, with a contingency plan for further concealment and distribution of the weaponry in case of attack or discovery.

Organized looters use organized methods. For an anti-conspiracy theorist you can accept some far fetched stuff if you want to. Sadam is hiding in a hole in the ground, but his people can just go get whatever they want from known bases, without detection or challenge.

The U.N. inspectors, who are solemnly quoted by Glanz and Broad as having “monitored” the alarming developments at Al Hatteen and elsewhere, don’t come out looking too professional, either. If by scanning satellite pictures now they can tell us that potentially thermonuclear stuff is on the loose, how come they couldn’t come up with this important data when they were supposedly “on the ground”?

Because any decent machine shop can produce ‘‘potentially thermonuclear stuff’’, and the question that ‘‘they couldn’t come up with this important data …’’ is begged, because they obviously did know that these facilities existed and likely had inventories of their contents, or we wouldn’t know what was missing.

But anyway, this only returns us to the main point: If Saddam’s people could have made such a transfer after his fall, then they could have made it much more easily during his reign.

Any proof that this was done by ‘‘Saddam’s people’’?

(We know, for example, that the Baathists were discussing the acquisition of long-range missiles from North Korea as late as March 2003, and at that time, the nuclear Wal-Mart of the A.Q. Khan network was still in business. Iraq would have had plenty to trade in this WMD underworld.)

This brings up the reasonable question: Why risk an attack by building facilities when you can just buy the stuff? It isn’t like anybody expects to have a nuclear conflict that allows you to continue production/replacement of nuclear arms, except maybe somebody in the U.S.

Supporters of the overdue disarmament and liberation of Iraq, all the same, can’t be complacent about this story. It seems flabbergasting that any of these sites were unsecured after the occupation, let alone for so long. Did the CIA yet again lack “human intelligence” as well as every other kind? The Bush administration staked the reputation of the United States on the matter. It won’t do to say that “mistakes were made.”

Yeah, flabbergasting. In the ‘‘fog of war’’ ‘‘mistakes were made’’. I don’t think it matters if this guy or anybody else thinks it will do, I bet that’s all there will be said.

Nothing this guy had to say proves shit. If anyboby could just go in and take this stuff, ANYBODY could have just gone in and taken this stuff. The most likely reality is some good deals got made on used machine tools. That and the copper from removing large cabling @ $3 a pound would be real tempting to anyone with access to trucks and unemployed workers.

The media frenzy to find WMD was pretty annoying up front, so why do you think they would suppress this sort of information? You got a conspiracy theory? You think that liberal-assed Rupert Murdoch hushed the whole thing up?

[southcrossland]

Sorry, I was away. I agree with Nihilistic and Stephenstillwell completely. They filled in the specific details of everything I mentioned before. But in response to where we left off last concerning muslim nations in general…

@Cyrene

That being said a policy decision(s) should be made on wht most of the population supports/does. Not based on this super quiet, super meek, group of islamics that don’t do much to stop the horrors around them.

Its inherent to the religion, as we’ve seen time and time and time again. Most muslim nation’s don’t support the mindless brutality on some kind of secular moral code that their parents taught them.

Policy decisions should be made based on actual actions not general beliefs. I’ve already said that I have no problem taking military action against those who commit extreme human rights violations. But you started arguing based on the muslim culture having different values concerning science and religion.

@Cyrene

I also have a problem with muslims not producing any real noteworthy scientific advancements in the last seven hundred years, when theres a billion of them and some nations pretty wealthy.

and

@Cyrene

No, i’d say that by large, many muslims won’t accept our values and won’t lay down theirs. Unless this changes real soon, I support many actions that a ‘secular’ super-power may take to ensure that it gains influence in the area, or once more then that, ensures for itself somthing which can make it say, cut off ‘needed’ ties right now.

As well you mentioned controlling Iraqi oil reserves as if it was a reason to go in, and as if it was a right we inherently possess to control another countries resources

@Cyrene

If America secured those oil reserves, we might be able to say goodbye to bullshit saudai arabai friendship.

You sound less like an objective person forced to respond to agregious actions and more like a person who dislikes a culture enough in itself to go to war, takes no caution with innocent casualties, and looks forward to the spoils of war.