More "no WMD" news

Leslie said:
4. Short man/small dick syndrome.
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Most likely the case except for one bit of information that's hard for the 'Western' mind to comprehend...The Middle East is based on the illusion of power. It doesn't matter if you've got power, or not...only if you can make the other person believe you've got that power. In the West, we call that 'bluffing', and we tend to call those bluffs. That's something that the Middle Eastern mind finds difficult to understand. Take Israel, for instance. Do they have nuclear weapons? Most people think they do, so, whether they have them or not, they're safe from attack...at least until somebody else in the region happens to develope those weapons...

BTW...read this, also. It adds a bit to the shit-storm going on...
 
BeardofPants said:
4. To keep Iran off his back. Yes... yes... paranoid. The mark of an insane dictator.
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Even paranoids have real enemies, BoP. ;)

However...he used that 'illusion' for more than just Iran. He had a vested interest in making his own population believe it as well as the rest of the world. What he didn't count on was anybody 'calling his bluff'.
 
Propose, and bluff on, a sky-based laser system. That alone is effective enough, regardless of whether you're lying through your teeth or not.
 
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." - Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998
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Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.

Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.

Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there is one big difference: He has used them. Not once, but repeatedly. Unleashing chemical weapons against Iranian troops during a decade-long war. Not only against soldiers, but against civilians, firing Scud missiles at the citizens of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran. And not only against a foreign enemy, but even against his own people, gassing Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq.

The international community had little doubt then, and I have no doubt today, that left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again.

And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them. -- Slick Willie December 17,1998
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"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002
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"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real ..." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003
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Posting facts will not dissuade the ignorant, for the ignorant don't look for facts. They rely on emotions.
 
BeardofPants said:
4. To keep Iran off his back. Yes... yes... paranoid. The mark of an insane dictator.
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The only reason I gave a hard time buying this (and it is perfectly reasonable in a mad dictator sort of way) is that we were trying to disarm him & the entire region knows that we would have been obligated to protect him.
 
Gonz said:
The only reason I gave a hard time buying this (and it is perfectly reasonable in a mad dictator sort of way) is that we were trying to disarm him & the entire region knows that we would have been obligated to protect him.
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Which makes him seem weak and ineffectual, thus the blustering. Remember, Gonz...illusion is key.
 
Gato_Solo said:
Questions...


1. How many WMD's did Iraq have during the first Gulf war?
2. How many weapons were accounted for during the interim between the first gulf war and current events?
3. If there are some weapons unaccounted for, where are they?
4. If Saddam didn't have them, then why did he act as though he did?
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1. Total=? not sure. I know he used Scuds though. I am not sure whether they count or not though. I think he had more than just scuds though
2. I think it was pretty high. again not sure.
3. Maybe the unaccounted were sent to other countries. Or he did not have them abd it was an overestimation.
4. Maybe to scare other countries
 
freako104 said:
1. Total=? not sure. I know he used Scuds though. I am not sure whether they count or not though. I think he had more than just scuds though
2. I think it was pretty high. again not sure.
3. Maybe the unaccounted were sent to other countries. Or he did not have them abd it was an overestimation.
4. Maybe to scare other countries
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I'll explain it this way...

You have a violent neighbor upon whom frequent visits from the police are neccesary. You hear that neighbor talking quite loudly about his gun collection. You even see him going into local gun shops. You have not, to date, see him actually holding a gun in his hand. Question...do you believe he's armed? Remember, you've never actually seen him with a gun, but he has talked of his collection, and has been seen in gun shops.
 
in all honesty: I would be suspicous of said neighbour yes. I would not say he is armed per se, but I think it would be reasonable he has guns
 
freako104 said:
in all honesty: I would be suspicous of said neighbour yes. I would not say he is armed per se, but I think it would be reasonable he has guns
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But you've never seen him with a gun. ;)
 
while this is true I do feel that he may have them. Hence I said I would not claim he had them I would be suspicious of the idea.
 
freako104 said:
while this is true I do feel that he may have them. Hence I said I would not claim he had them I would be suspicious of the idea.
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Now that we've established that the neighbor may not actually have a gun, he sees you and tells you that, if he sees you in his 'space' again, he's going to shoot you. Now what do you think?
 
More suspicious and I would back down. But once again I am not 100% sure if he does or not. I am not sure if this is an idel threat or if he has the capability to shoot
 
freako104 said:
More suspicious and I would back down. But once again I am not 100% sure if he does or not. I am not sure if this is an idel threat or if he has the capability to shoot
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Since you've done the wise thing, and avoided the confrontation, your neighbor decides to tell everybody he sees that you are a coward (wait...it get's better), and invites his friends to come over and take a dump on your lawn...
 
freako104 said:
well then he is trespassing no? If I had a gun I would shoot at him. If not call the cops on him
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It’s true that Washington failed to convince Paris and Moscow to vote for a final Security Council resolution that explicitly endorsed the use of force if Iraq’s dictatorship continued to renege on its legal commitments to disarm. But the Security Council unanimously passed resolution 1441 in November 2002, which threatened “serious consequences” if Iraq failed to do so. And Iraq already had defied 16 other Security Council resolutions on disarmament, human rights abuses and support for terrorism.

Moreover, Iraq technically put itself into a state of war with the United States by violating the cease-fire that ended the 1991 Gulf War. Long before the 2003 war, Iraqi forces were shooting daily at American and British warplanes assigned to enforce the U.N.-imposed “no-fly zones” over Iraq.
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Fox news editorial

Perhaps you are beginning to understand. Under the previous administration, we did a lot of squawking, but little else. During this administration, we went to war. Remember...we never saw his WMD's, just had our suspicions. We were, however, under constant threat just trying to enforce what the UN sanctioned. :shrug: No win situation, or fear of failure by the UN?
 
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