Iraq and Afghanistan .

[mike47]

London ( A F P ) :
Tony Blair's admission that Britain would have back the Iraq war even if he knew it did not have weapons of mass destruction sparked outrage Sunday and calls for his prosecution for war crimes .
Blair told the BBC he would " still have thought it right to remove " Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein of the threat he posed to the region " .
Lawyers representing the deposed Iraqi leadership said they would seek to prosecute Tony Blair following his remarks .
Dr Hans Blix the former UN weapons inspector added : " The war was sold on the WMD and now you feel or hear that it was only a question of deployment of arguments .".

I think that Tony Blair, G.W. Bush and the rest of the tyrants should be prosecuted for war crimes and atrocities against humanity .

 

[StrawDog]

So Booth didn't shoot Lincoln? Facts don't exist? You can define everything, per your political biases? Stalin would have loved you ...

You are cute. :m:

What's documented is that the Taliban refused to hand him over to the US, as ALL of your links show. They said they would hand him over to a Third party. And it's worth wondering ...

Which third party?

Under what terms?

And then, how would the Taliban get bin Laden to leave for trial?

Would they seperate him from his army? Kill the Muslims defending him?

It`s called negotiation. It was not diligently pursued. Clearly indicating an agenda.

Seriously, use your brain.

And this is helpful how? :m:

The Taliban are fighting the US because they want the control of the country back and because the US is there. Just as they are fighting Pakistan because they want control of that country and the Pakistanis are there.

They have a point eh? Kind of like its their country? Furthermore the loosely applied nom de guerre, "Taliban", today would include any anti US group.

So you agree, in part, with Osama? Good company people like you keep, isn't it?

Cheap tricks are unhelpful in discussion.

Again, you state errors. There was no large scale invasion of Aghanistan in the wake of 9/11. There were small CIA teams and Special Forces soldiers helicoptered in to assist the Muj. Seriously, read a fucking book. A real book. Shut your internet down, quit reading anti-American, Leftist bilge online and do some real learning. Until then, you're a complete waste of time.

The unfathomable irony of the American intellect at play. :m:

 

[StrawDog]

how bad would it be if Iraq and Afghanistan turned out to be productive countries and beneficial to the citizenry? why are people fighting this?

Enforcing good citizenry via invasion and mass slaughter is the road to progress? :m:

 

[StrawDog]

Afghanistan has not been a sovereign country for more than two decades.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand. Or you are advocating carte blanche invasions of any non "sovereign" nations? (oh, wait a minute what is Palestine?)

Bullshit.
Afghanistan was home to the people who killed more than 3,000 Americans. Iraq attempted to kill a US president and constantly fired on US warplanes for more than 10 years. You may view these threats as acceptable and not worthy of retaliation, but they are threats, and as such, they should be acknowledged.

Iraq was certainly no threat to the US, and neither was Afghanistan under the Taliban. A criminal action by an extreme group using the US as the base of operations does not equate to Afghanistan being a legitimate threat to a superpower.

 

[fellowtraveler]

I do not know how to troll . I am trying to start some debate on the new development in both Iraq and Afghanistan . Anyone can throw his or her hat in the ring.

REPLY: You seem to leave out some important facts. These muslim terrorists have been attacking US and other Nation`s citizens for many decades now. They insist on attacking us and we damn well better hunt the bastards down where ever they are and kill them.
The world made the mistake of trying to make peace with the Nazis and we can look back into history and see what that led to. These people are determined to kill us where ever they can. We owe it to ourselves to hunt them down and kill every one of them and quit screwing around about it. No more safe haven in Pakistan. Obama understands this. ...fellowtraveler

 

[mike47]

Huh....!.
Vehicle accidents kill more victims than any terrorism attacks .
Is there a war on vehicle fatalities ?.
Two sovereign countries were invaded and occupied under false pretexts and you tell us all this crap here !!!.

 

[iceaura]

Afghanistan was home to the people who killed more than 3,000 Americans.

They were Saudis, mostly, and like other Saudis they came from Saudi Arabia. None of them had spent much time in Afghanistan, IIRC. It isn't where they learned to fly jumbo jets in skilled, high speed maneuvers; it isn't where they learned how to deal with US airport schedules, procedures, passengers, and security. It isn't even where they got the money from, to pull that thing off.

Iraq attempted to kill a US president

There is no evidence that ever happened.

and constantly fired on US warplanes for more than 10 years.

They were firing at US warplanes overflying their country, spying out their defenses and bombing targets of opportunity, enforcing a set of sanctions that were killing Iraqi children by the thousands.

The world made the mistake of trying to make peace with the Nazis and we can look back into history and see what that led to.

"The world" subjected Germany to onerous and oppressive sanctions, and when "the world" saw what was happening in consequence they bought some time with negotiations.

And what are you trying to claim here - that one should never negotiate with bad people? That somehow Iraq or Afghanistan stack up with Nazi Germany as threats to civilization?

Granted firing at warplanes is a hostile act. But flying warplanes over foreign countries is itself a tad hostile, eh?

 

[countezero]

They were Saudis, mostly, and like other Saudis they came from Saudi Arabia. None of them had spent much time in Afghanistan, IIRC. It isn't where they learned to fly jumbo jets in skilled, high speed maneuvers; it isn't where they learned how to deal with US airport schedules, procedures, passengers, and security. It isn't even where they got the money from, to pull that thing off.

Yes, but Afghanistan is where their organization was located and without a base, the attack probably never would have come off.

There is no evidence that ever happened.

The FBI disagrees with you:
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/oig/fbilab1/05bush2.htm

They were firing at US warplanes overflying their country, spying out their defenses and bombing targets of opportunity, enforcing a set of sanctions that were killing Iraqi children by the thousands.

They were other planes from other nations flying those sorties. There was never any bombing targets of opportunity. They were only strikes that responded to provocations (like the assisantion attempt). The sorties were also to ensure the Kurdish people were left alone and not masaquered (a goal you should support). The sanctions were imposed by the United Nations and supported by its membership. So what are you trying to prove? That's okay to sign a treaty and violate that treaty by firing at the planes you agreed to allow to fly over your territory?

 

[iceaura]

There is no evidence that ever happened.
”
The FBI disagrees with you:
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/oi...b1/05bush2.htm

The FBI report there is about some people and stuff supplied by the Kuwaiti government, in an attempt to lean on the Clinton administration and provoke violence against Iraq.

There is no particular reason to believe any of it, or take any of it seriously. It's right in there with the stories of Iraqi soldiers throwing babies out of hospital incubators, and similar stuff from that same source in Kuwaiti intelligence.

They were other planes from other nations flying those sorties. There was never any bombing targets of opportunity. They were only strikes that responded to provocations (like the assisantion attempt).

The ostensible "response" to the alleged assassination attempt was by cruise missiles - a couple of dozen of them.

As far as the continuing air war over Iraq, one other nation was involved in a fair number of sorties sorties - Great Britain. There was no real pretense of the operations being other than a US responsibility, though.

As far as all these hundreds of air strikes being a response to "provocations", the pattern of provocations is not known to have matched the pattern of strikes - for instance, Saddam was not known to have been unusually provoking in 2002, when the strike intensity increased in apparent preparation for the the invasion of 2003.

 

[spidergoat]

Huh....!.
Vehicle accidents kill more victims than any terrorism attacks .
Is there a war on vehicle fatalities ?.
Two sovereign countries were invaded and occupied under false pretexts and you tell us all this crap here !!!.

Yes, there is a war on vehicle fatalities.

 

[superstring01]

There is no particular reason to believe any of it, or take any of it seriously.

Based on what? Sure, you're entitled to believe what you want, but if you're going to claim that a government report was falsified (by hundreds, if not thousands, of people involved), you're going to have to prove it.

~String

 

[iceaura]

Based on what? Sure, you're entitled to believe what you want, but if you're going to claim that a government report was falsified (by hundreds, if not thousands, of people involved), you're going to have to prove it.

The total number of people actually involved in the content of that report was no more than a handful.

I merely point out that there is no reason to take it seriously, or give the slightest credence to any of the "evidence" it presents. As a verification of the diligence of the standard, long-recognized Kuwaiti disinformation suppliers, the US "investigation" has some merit. As an indication of anything Saddam did, little or none.

Even back in '93 Seymour Hersh and a few others were pointing out that it didn't add up. It has continued to not add up ever since (noted in March of 2008 by the Pentagon report, the failure of the quite detailed and complete Iraqi Intelligence records to make any mention of it at all, even a passing reference, was just the latest in a long sequence of gaps where there should have been verification), leaving us with some oddly timed and not quite matched up "evidence" whose sole source and guarantee of probity was a Kuwaiti intelligence outfit famous for telling sensational whoppers about Iraq.

It's one thing to play the diplomatic game, and take an opportunity to lob a few cruise missiles at this week's targets. It's quite another to actually believe that kind of stuff.

 

[countezero]

The FBI report there is about some people and stuff supplied by the Kuwaiti government, in an attempt to lean on the Clinton administration and provoke violence against Iraq.

It actually addresses earlier concerns that other information was misleading. It concludes that information was not misleading.

As far as the continuing air war over Iraq, one other nation was involved in a fair number of sorties sorties - Great Britain. There was no real pretense of the operations being other than a US responsibility, though.

The US and Britain flew the missions, but they were UN-mandated, which was my point. I'm not sure you have one.

Your earlier claim was: "They were firing at US warplanes overflying their country, spying out their defenses and bombing targets of opportunity, enforcing a set of sanctions that were killing Iraqi children by the thousands."

I responded with: "The sorties were also to ensure the Kurdish people were left alone and not masaquered (a goal you should support). The sanctions were imposed by the United Nations and supported by its membership."

I ask you again: So what are you trying to prove? That's okay to sign a treaty and violate that treaty by firing at the planes you agreed to allow to fly over your territory?

If you don't answer, I will know you're just wasting everyone's time again with your usual nonsense.

As far as all these hundreds of air strikes being a response to "provocations", the pattern of provocations is not known to have matched the pattern of strikes

Do you have anything that remotely backs that up?

The total number of people actually involved in the content of that report was no more than a handful.

How do you know how many people were involved in generating a FBI report? I'm willing to bet, based on my personal knowledge of the Bureau, that dozens of people were involved, at various levels. But I don't have to prove that. You have to prove you only a handful were involved and that those handful somehow screwed it up. I'd love to see you try...

I merely point out that there is no reason to take it seriously, or give the slightest credence to any of the "evidence" it presents.

Actually, there is. It's a FBI report based on the work of a FBI scientific lab (oh so notorious for fuckups) and numerous intelligence agencies, both foreign and domestic. What do we have here in this thread to counter that? Your word? You're a chump on the internet, and I've lost count of how many times you've been WRONG about things or totally misread them.

Even back in '93 Seymour Hersh and a few others were pointing out that it didn't add up. It has continued to not add up ever since (noted in March of 2008 by the Pentagon report, the failure of the quite detailed and complete Iraqi Intelligence records to make any mention of it at all, even a passing reference, was just the latest in a long sequence of gaps where there should have been verification), leaving us with some oddly timed and not quite matched up "evidence" whose sole source and guarantee of probity was a Kuwaiti intelligence outfit famous for telling sensational whoppers about Iraq.

Post the Pentagon report then. It might buy you some much-needed credibility.

 

[iceaura]

It actually addresses earlier concerns that other information was misleading. It concludes that information was not misleading.

It concludes no such thing. It investigates stuff provided, and verifies that it is indeed that stuff - with a few discrepancies held to be of no importance given the ostensible origin of the stuff.

The origin of that stuff is the source of the doubts, and that is not dealt with in the FBI reports.

The US and Britain flew the missions, but they were UN-mandated, which was my point.

That was not your point, and it isn't true. The UN mandate was a general one involving only, originally, the protection of the Kurds and some Shia from air assault by Saddam - the enforcement of "no fly" zones. The UN mandated no specific sorties. Very few of the sorties actually flown had anything to do with that mandate, as even brief perusal of target lists shows - electrical power generators and substations, for example, were hit regularly.

How do you know how many people were involved in generating a FBI report?

The content was an investigation of some stuff, and a couple of interrogations. Only a small number of people were involved in deciding that. The number of people it took to investigate the stuff, run the tests, translate, type up the interrogation results, etc, is irrelevant.

I merely point out that there is no reason to take it seriously, or give the slightest credence to any of the "evidence" it presents.
”
Actually, there is. It's a FBI report based on the work of a FBI scientific lab (oh so notorious for fuckups) and numerous intelligence agencies, both foreign and domestic.

FBI labs are in fact known for fucking up, especially in politically "sensitive" cases, as has been in the news lately. And vague waving of hands at the work of "numerous foreign intelligence agencies" doesn't inform. But that's not my point. My point is that the whole thing - the entire ball of wax - rests on the unverified and apparently uninvestigated origin of some stuff provided by a Kuwaiti intelligence service of known, established, verified dishonesty and ulterior motive. There is no reason to take that seriously without at least some corroboration from some other source - instead of corroboration, we get contradiction, from every independent source, ever since.

Post the Pentagon report then. It might buy you some much-needed credibility.

If you honestly don't know about the Pentagon report referenced, I don't think I need to worry too much about your opinion of my "credibility" in this matter. Run your own errands.

 

[countezero]

When you post something that remotely backs any of your claims up, let me know. Meanwhile, you are required to run YOUR errands -- not mine -- by the new guidelines put forward by the Mods. Here's the link in case you forgot:

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=95476


That is you are supposed to provide evidence and back your claims up with material. You seem incapable of doing that, and accordingly, your last few posts in this thread should be completely deleted.

 

[iceaura]

When you post something that remotely backs any of your claims up, let me know

So far, you have posted nothing that backs up your claim that there exists evidence of a Saddam assassination attempt against Bush pere.

The FBI report you linked, for example, does not even address the key issue of credibility of origin of the "evidence" they analyze. It simply documents the basis of the initial reports, since thrown into doubt by reasonable questioning and a total absence of expected corroboration.

So perhaps I can introduce your failure to find any evidence as evidence of my initial claim - that there is none. You did try hard, we can assume?

 

[countezero]

So far, you have posted nothing that backs up your claim that there exists evidence of a Saddam assassination attempt against Bush pere.

I posted a link to an official report of the US government.

So perhaps I can introduce your failure to find any evidence as evidence of my initial claim - that there is none. You did try hard, we can assume?

Ice, the first lines of the report are as follows:

In April 1993, former President George Bush visited Kuwait to commemorate the victory over Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. During Bush's visit, Kuwaiti authorities arrested 17 people allegedly involved in a plot to kill Bush using a car bomb.

The United States sent various personnel to Kuwait to investigate the alleged assassination attempt. Based on interviews of the alleged coconspirators, forensic examinations of the explosive devices, and intelligence reports, the United States Government concluded that Iraq was behind the attempted car bombing.

Your initial claim was that there is "no evidence" such a plot ever happened. I take the above statement as a pretty fucking definitive example of "some" evidence. "Some" evidence is all I need to torpedo your dumb claim of "no" evidence. Maybe your problem is that you can't fucking read? I don't know, don't care. The US did an investigation, it interviewed people, examined evidence and collected intelligence. So far, we've got nothing from you that leads me to believe you know more than they do.

As to the rest, I reiterate. When you post something in this thread that remotely backs any of your claims up, let me know. You are required by the new guidelines put forward by the Mods to give us more than your extremely intellectual opinions. Here's the link about what I am talking about, just in case you forgot, snookums:

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=95476


Your posts in this thread should be completely deleted.

 

[kmguru]

Watch Richard Holbrooke on CharlieRose show (12/21/09). Illuminating....

 

[iceaura]

I posted a link to an official report of the US government.

The report was irrelevant to my objections.

Ice, the first lines of the report are as follows:

In April 1993, former President George Bush visited Kuwait to commemorate the victory over Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. During Bush's visit, Kuwaiti authorities arrested 17 people allegedly involved in a plot to kill Bush using a car bomb.

The United States sent various personnel to Kuwait to investigate the alleged assassination attempt. Based on interviews of the alleged coconspirators, forensic examinations of the explosive devices, and intelligence reports, the United States Government concluded that Iraq was behind the attempted car bombing.

Your initial claim was that there is "no evidence" such a plot ever happened.

And you supplied a US government analysis of second hand "evidence" whose origin and provenance were never established, in that report or anywhere else.

There has never been any evidence found ( nothing, for example, in that report linked) supporting the Kuwaiti's story of where they came by that stuff, or who those people were that they arrested and "interrogated" prior to informing the US. Instead, obvious gaps and inconsistencies have been turning up that lend credence to other stories and more likely accounts.

You regard unverified assertion and sensational allegation by Kuwaiti intelligence as "evidence". I don't.

Kuwaiti intelligence - including the specific people involved in producing the "evidence" and asserting its origin - have a consistent and well-established reputation of lying about exactly such matters, and have in the past produced disinformation about the nefarious doings of Saddam and the Iraqi government of the time. Any allegations about Saddam and Iraq from Kuwaiti intelligence sources needs at least some independent backing. None has been discovered, for this stuff. Gaps exist where it should have been found - such as in the Iraqi files captured by US forces.

 

[countezero]

The report was irrelevant to my objections.

Bullshit.

And you supplied a US government analysis of second hand "evidence" whose origin and provenance were never established, in that report or anywhere else.

There has never been any evidence found ( nothing, for example, in that report linked) supporting the Kuwaiti's story of where they came by that stuff, or who those people were that they arrested and "interrogated" prior to informing the US. Instead, obvious gaps and inconsistencies have been turning up that lend credence to other stories and more likely accounts.

You regard unverified assertion and sensational allegation by Kuwaiti intelligence as "evidence". I don't.

Kuwaiti intelligence - including the specific people involved in producing the "evidence" and asserting its origin - have a consistent and well-established reputation of lying about exactly such matters, and have in the past produced disinformation about the nefarious doings of Saddam and the Iraqi government of the time. Any allegations about Saddam and Iraq from Kuwaiti intelligence sources needs at least some independent backing. None has been discovered, for this stuff. Gaps exist where it should have been found - such as in the Iraqi files captured by US forces.

Maybe you missed this part?

The United States sent various personnel to Kuwait to investigate the alleged assassination attempt. Based on interviews of the alleged coconspirators, forensic examinations of the explosive devices, and intelligence reports, the United States Government concluded that Iraq was behind the attempted car bombing.

Now, either you can't read, or you're just being fucking obtuse.

Your link, by the way, is a fucking joke. Though it does offering telling insight into how you build your bullshit. Remote-controlled CIA planes? Really, Ice, is this what you spend your time reading?

You claimed there was "no" evidence of a plot. I've shown there was at least "some" evidence of a plot that was obtained by the FBI and other US officials. It's over. You lost. Move on...