Questions for Liberals on this board.

How physically big are weapons of mass destruction?

Would you consider one barrel full of Anthrax a WMD?

And if yes, seeing as the US Army discovered a complete Mig-29 burried in the sand in the end of November don't you think it is likely that they are still there?

Is the FACT that Saddam Hussein had a program for WMD ANY factor in your thought processes?

 

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How big are WMDs?
Well, which kind? Nuclear? Biological? Chemical?

In all three cases, though, the weapons in their deliverable form are the smallest part of the system. The problem is that they have to be stored. And storing chemical, biological or nuclear material so it remains usable as a weapon is difficult and dangerous and requires a lot of equipment.

Besides which, the quantities quoted by Bush in the State of the Union speech are so large in and of themselves that you would need large tanks to store them all, and the kind of support infrastructure needed would be impossible to hide. These aren't bullets we're talking about, with a shelf life of decades with no facilities needed. These are complex agents with a very limited shelf life demanding exacting conditions and a lot of associated plumbing and containment facilities, all of which were destroyed in the first gulf invasion in '91. And the lifespan of the agents means that had they existed (which we know they did as the US supplied them), they would have become unviable around '97 or so - and that's only the ones that they managed to secrete from the UN inspectors and protect from US bombing raids.

(And for the record - Saddam had no development plan for WMDs - he had a program to use them. Not development, which is a different kettle of fish. Besides, why would he bother developing what the US had already given him freely? )

 

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Iraq is a greater threat to Americans now and in the future, than it was at any time before the invasion. The Bush administration took off running foreign policy like they were writing a Tom Clancy novel. Now they can't finish the story because reality is intruding, and there will be hell to pay.

 

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A b52 loaded and ready to carpet bomb and nice little area into oblivion would be a WMD, since it is a weapon which causes mass destruction.

 

Questions for Liberals on this board.

btw , what has your question to do with political orientation

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gregoftheweb perhaps you can answer this, why can some nation have WMD's and futher develop there WMD's (all kinds, also those claimed as for defence¿) while other many not?

 

A lot of questions.

With regards to what kinds, it doesn't really matter, but I would probably list biological first although he was in pursuit of nuclear capabilities including purchasing long range missiles from North Korea up until the coalition's invasion scuttled said plans. North Korea in fact has some of Iraq's down payment money for the missiles (should they reimburse the new government)?

To say Iraq is a greater threat now is so far from the truth I wonder where you are getting your information, oh yeah the media. Well their agenda is to paint the whole thing as a failure so that is what they are trying to do as hard as they can. As one example among many; were you aware that a demonstration happened on Dec. 10th in Baghdad opposing terrorism and supporting (in large measure) the coalitions efforts to bring peace to Iraq? There were approximately 10,000 people there? Did you see ANY coverage? Of course not, but a group of 200 or so fanatics marching against the Infidels (americans) gets front page coverage. Nice balance.

A B52 doesn't get sold to Al Quieda members to go into the heart of YOUR home town and detonate a bomb that could kill THOUSANDS of Americans. Sheesh.

Regarding Political orientation, sorry about the slight to clear thinking liberals out there, but it tends to be the thinking process of liberals that 1) It's the USA's fault that we are under attack from terrorists and 2) If we were just nicer, like France, all the bad things in the world would just go away. That does not work, that's what led up to the 911 tragedy, the reverse of that is what has PREVENTED another attack on US soil since then.

And we can and do have WMD's because we aren't a country led by a Sociopath that did kill hundred's of thousands of his own people. Many with those same agents we don't want him to have.

(BTW if you try and bring up Hiroshima and Nagasaki I'll laugh, you can't paint that in the same light at all. It was a different time and on a objective balance sheet definitely saved many thousands of American lives and likely also led to less Japanese deaths as well.)

 

Saddam, being a secular leader was a major target of Al-Qaeda. The only way that Al-Qaeda would get weapons from Iraq would be if, for example, the regime was destryoed and there was mass looting.

 

We, and other countries, have been proven to be trusted with these weapons. We've never really even used them (Except WWII when they were first came around).

Plus we don't hide ours, and we're all about arms reduction. We even let other nations know how many we have, where they're at, and what their yield power is. Internal organizations regulate our arms and keep track of them.

 

Yes it does. You might be able to hide small amounts of deliverable biological or chemical agents, assuming they were new, but you could not hide radiological agents because they're so easily detectable remotely.
Further, the kind of agent determines the kind of storage/support/delivery infrastructure required - and if you don't know what you're looking for, how do you find it?

Actually it's not. You killed 10,000 innocent civilians during the invasion. Do you think their families will have any sympathy for US forces? Do you not think that you've given them a motive to see harm come to US forces and citizens?

Yes, it received widespread coverage here on both mainstream news and Sky news (the european version of Fox).

Sorry, I don't buy that. I saw the video footage and if there were a thousand people, I'd be surprised. I'm afraid this was another statue-toppling piece of news (i.e. a small crowd photographed to appear to be a very large crowd.)

No, it gets used to bomb Iraqi towns and kill thousands of Iraqis, thus giving the survivors a motive to cause harm to any US target they have the ability to reach.

Your fault? Well, I hate to tell you, but it is. Certainly the majority of these people aren't rational - but they do have genuine motivation based on US foreign policy.

That's not the idea. The idea is that if you behave ethically to begin with, you don't cause more terrorists to join the cause. Fighting terrorism by killing innocent civilians (and that is what you have done, regardless of what intentions you may have had - there are 13,500 dead innocent civilians acknowleged between Iraq and Afghanistan) does not work - it promotes terrorism instead. That is the point that liberal thinking is trying to get you to understand. Existing terrorism isn't stopped by "playing nice" when you're dealing with suicide bombers - but on the other hand, it's the one and only method that's been proven to work to end long-term terrorism as seen in Palestine or Northern Ireland.

I wouldn't go around saying that. Bush's total isn't in the hundreds of thousands yet, but he's personally ordered the deaths of over a hundred individuals, and collectively he's responsible for the deaths of 13500 innocent civilians. So he's not up there with Hussein - yet.

Bullshit. You might be able to argue that for Hiroshima - but Nagasaki was simply a test for a second type of bomb, and a display to the Russians that they'd better toe whatever line the US dictated. The cold war, let's not forget, started long before the 1950s.

 

So random nuclear testing far too close to civilian areas, including on the then-inhabited Bikini atolls, wasn't "really" using them?

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That's sarcasm over Bush's recent announcement of the restarting of the tactical nuclear weapons research program, right?

Okay, that's just bullshit. You might say how many you have - but so did Saddam. Without independent verification, those numbers are as accurate as a Tom Clancy novel, and worth about as much.
When random inspections with no interference is permitted for UN weapons inspectors, I'll believe it.

 

Do you think American families have sympathy for anyone in the Middle East? Especially the ones victimized by Sept. 11? Or the soldiers that get shot dead even after combat operations have ended?

Bull crap, Sparks. You don't know that for sure.

Air operations have ended.

Agreed. Except the "our fault" part.

You don't know that for sure either, Sparks. Has this war made more terrorists? I could say no as easily as you say yes. So really neither of us know the long term outcome.

Yeah, he's only up there with any other world leader/past president thats been in power and has gone to war.

Note: There are a few things that I did not comment on, like the cold war and the bombing of Japanese cities.

 

So you totally discount Wahabi'ism?

It's disregard for the value of human life? It's wish to return to a dream time of Muslim perfection? It's blatant luddite stance?

The long range goal of the invasion of Iraq is now to create a democratic society that will be an example for the rest of the region how GOOD a liberal democratic society can be. This will undermine the islamic fundamentalists and allow the entire region to move out of its political rut.

Do you doubt that intention?

Do you doubt the Bush administrations will?

What are you going to say in a year when things are looking very good over there? I believe they will be, I believe it is INEVITABLE.

America has done it before. It will do it this time as well.

And regarding the Nagasaki bomb, you believe whatever leftist agenda you want to. The fact remains that Japan only surrendered AFTER the bomb on Nagasaki. You can try and twist history to suit your wishes but your way is not the way it happened.

I guess you could say the cold war started either with Winston Churchill's famous "Iron Curtain" speech or with the USSR detonating its own Nuclear bomb. But to imply it started with the second atom bomb is ludicrous.

 

It's not about sympathy you fool. It's about ethical behavioural ideals and pragmatic survival in a world where 19 men with boxcutters can kill 2700 people and traumatise a nation into giving up their hard-earned civil rights.
The simple fact is that in this world, one man can do so much damage that the best defence is not to screw him over in the first place.

I saw the footage. The crowd wasn't dense enough to have that many people in it. And yes, I've been in protests with that many people in it, from 100,000 people to 3,000 people. So I know what they look like from the ground - and this was not a protest of 10,000 people.

No they haven't. And it wouldn't matter if they had - the fact is B52s were used and civilian targets were bombed, so the damage is already done.

And how do you decide that it's not your fault when the government you elected carried out the actions that motivate them?

Wrong. I've grown up with terrorism - I'm Irish. The "troubles" in Northern Ireland have grown beyond the initial civil rights problems there - they now are sustained on the basis that "your dad killed my dad". (And the basis that the biggest gang sells the most drugs - idealists these ain't). And most of the time, the people they're talking about were shot by the RUC or SAS. And other unethical practises like internment without trial, Guantanamo-bay style, led to the motivation of these terrorists. And that's a direct quote from the leader of the Sinn Fein / IRA group himself.

Yup. Ever wonder what it takes to order a war on false pretences?

 

Did we drop them directly on the island? Yes and no, the islands of the Bikini Atoll were used primarily as recreation and instrumentation sites during those experiments. A few were bombed but they were evacuated to other islands within the Atoll. Now about that no, some targets were actually 90 ships, if I recall some of them were captured German ships, and most of them old American war ships. As I recall those same ships were so lightly sprayed with radilogical material, that they were actually manned and driven back to Pearl Harbor.

Bingo was his name-o
.

That was my point.

Are you talking about Iraq or America? What about the EPA?

 

In comparison to the effect of killing a child's parents for no reason, or a person's family? Yes. Without hesitation. To do otherwise would be to blame a stomach upset for a person's death instead of the heart attack they were having.

I wouldn't say that after yesterday's Kitty Hawk speech pal. Not when you have three man-rated Saturn V boosters sitting in front of NASA buildings as fucking lawn ornaments, with the dies, tools, jigs and blueprints and notes on their construction destroyed by government order.

How you can say that when the PNAC's plan for "A new american century" is available on the web is beyond me...

<cross-checks the list of companies earning billions through the war in Iraq with the list of companies that were major donators to the Bush administration's campaign or who acutally pay salaries to Bush administration officals>
Yes, I most certainly do - and you're an idiot if you don't.

What will? What difficult task have they faced up to so far? Toppling a 3rd world nation that's been torn apart by war with Russia and then civil war for over 30 years? Toppling a 3rd world nation whose military was destroyed ten years ago and which was prevented from rearming while their arsenal was systematically destroyed by the UN? Destroying your civil rights?

I've yet to see them address a real problem in a constructive manner. And frankly, I've seen no evidence of any will whatsoever from them, except in pursuing illegal ends for monetary gain.

See, I remember the promises made when Afghanistan was invaded. It's now two years on and it's in worse shape than ever. So I don't think it's going to get better in Iraq, for at least five to ten years.

When, exactly?

Actually, history records that the Japanese ambassador to Moscow presented a request for a conditional surrender before hiroshima. The condition was that the emperor was to be left in position. The deal was nixed, an unconditional surrender demanded after nagasaki, and the emperor left in place anyway. That's recorded history. And yes, the peace deal was known about by Truman - it's noted in his personal diaries from that time.

It certainly is - it began before Hiroshima, let alone Nagasaki. Patton is famous for having pointed out in Berlin that he ought to keep marching east because he'd have to fight the Russians soon anyway and he might as well get it over with. The cold war was well underway at that point..

 

This liberal thinks a dictator should have no weapons. They should be defenseless to minimize loss of life during their capture.

 

Size doesn't matter.

How does useless Mig-29=WMD? As I recall the aircraft was damaged beyond repair.

Facts certainly are relative these days aren't they? Have you got a source? I don't know why he'd want to have a program of his own, I mean, I think we gave him enough to tie him over for at least a little while.

In any case, doesthis picture mean anything to you?

Why wasn't any of this mentioned in Bush's speeches? They could have replaced the lies about the uranium from Africa with some actual truth! That is, if it is actually truth. Got a source?

The media only follows the money. The media could have kept the war from happening at all if it had really wanted to, if they had an hour of Chomsky on CNN or something.

We funded Saddam. We funded bin Laden. I'd say we had a hand in the terrorism, yeah.

Call me crazy, but killing everyone doesn't seem to be working too well either. And of course it's the French at fault for practically everything:bugeye:

Source

Somehow people seem to convienently forget the deaths of over two hundred thousand people. Not to mention that the Japanese had been for months attempting to negotiate a conditional surrender, on the one term that the Japanese Emperor maintain a ceremonial position in the government. Plus, Saddam killed his own people with our bullets, with French, British, and Russian bullets. We gave a knife to a crazy man.

Bullshit. Prove it, asshole. The Japanese were ready to surrender long before Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Source

Source

Source

Ultimate Source--Plenty of links to examine

Enjoy.

 

I consider myself a liberal...

Could be as small as a tiny vial 1 inch long.

Yes.

What's a Mig-29? An Airplane?... and yes, I think WMD's are still buried in Iraq.

Sure. The problem many liberals make is that because Bush is a moron, they think that any decision he makes must therefore be wrong. My objection isn't that he was wrong about WMD's, but that Bush has not adequately predicted what will happen AFTER the invasion, his misjudgement of the Iraqi people who don't share our idealistic love of freedom. We would say, give me liberty, or give me death. The Iraqis would say, give me liberty, as long as I don't lose my job, and the gas station is full, and the power works, and daily life isn't interrupted too much....

 

You can’t know what the Iraqis feel about freedom. They haven’t been polled yet. I don’t expect Bush to predict so well. I fault Bush and the military in general for killing people for low-value opportunities, like the 2 neighborhoods destroyed on the off-chance Saddam hadn’t yet got off the elevator in his bunker. And for attacking for pretense and theft rather than for the grander purpose of helping the oppressed.