![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyburg
Yeah, I'm that mad too, Al.
Note: Tennessee men get a bad rap for being "wussy" - they are, by some standards. Very nice, very polite fellas. Sweet to their mammas and all that.
Until you piss them off.
And then all of a sudden, you wonder where all the wolverines came from.
*
I'm that mad too, Al. Me too.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-05-27 10:59 am (UTC)However, who would disagree with either statement, knowing what was known at the time either was said?
and
Liar, liar, liar.
If the decision made in the first case is what anyone would have done knowing what was known at the time, that makes a person mistaken, not a liar.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-27 11:41 am (UTC)In my honest opinion, if we'd allowed the UN inspections to come to completion, the reason for war (WMDs) would have poofed.
Fat chance. Bush kicked out the inspectors and let fly.
The first statement was correct, based on the CW at the time - which has been proven false - and the second statement is as accurrate, knowing what we know now.
Bush & cronies were counting on #1 never coming to light, and can't back away from #2 fast enough.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-27 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-27 05:49 pm (UTC)Saddam's weapon of choice was VX, much more effective, much nastier. And we haven't found one hint of it on the ground.
Also, it was one cannister. I don't see that as an 'imminent threat' to our country.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-27 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-29 09:37 am (UTC)A
Date: 2004-05-29 11:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-01 06:25 am (UTC)You might want to compare that to what you can find nearly anywhere on a Hawaiian beach these days. (The whole website is here - http://malu-aina.org/)
Okay, two shells. (And I believe the Hawaiians on this one - growing up near March AFB, we were also taught to watch out for unexploded munitions as children - not fireworks. Blasting caps, mortar shells, the works. Yup.)
no subject
Date: 2004-06-01 07:03 am (UTC)They recently uncovered an enormous supply of munitions buried underneath a German airfield that was left over from WWII. That dwarfs any individual shells in Hawaii.
What's your point?
You wanted evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq. Here are chemical weapons in Iraq. Further A) Saddam only declared protype binary shells during the manditory disarmament, whereas this was a fully functional working shell (albiet detonated by someone who didn't know what they were doing) B) Sarin gas from other countries doesn't require the binary shell configuration because other countries have the capacity to make Sarin without the contaminating hydrogen flouride impurities that speed degredation C) Even in the binary form, sarin degrades to uselessness within a few years, unlike mustard gas, which is relatively long-lived.
Thus chemical weapons research and creation proceeded apace in Iraq after Saddam "disarmed".
The difference between this unexploded armament and one you might find of an unexploded artillery round in Hawaii is that a nutcase wanting to do maximum damage with such a piece of equipment could kill a couple dozen, or maybe a hundred people with a well-planted artillery round. Proper implementation of this sarin round could kill tens of thousands.
Point - but
Date: 2004-06-01 12:00 pm (UTC)This discovery is a little late in the game to assume these were there at the beginning of hostilities, and as badly deployed as they were, I'm not certain this is proof of anything other than these weapons are bought and sold all over the world and are far more easily obtained than any mundane would like to think.
Some would say everything was shipped out; I would question whether this stuff was shipped in - either by a sympathetic terrorist organization, or (and here I stop. Too ugly to consider).
Not proof of any Saddamage. Sorry. And at this juncture, proof is like determing the "real" killer of JFK. Is there enough evidence to question the Warren Commission? Yeah. Is there enough evidence to determine the truth? No.
...and the beat goes on. Your mileage may vary.
Re: Point - but
Date: 2004-06-03 06:51 am (UTC)Hokay. Starting at the top.
Either Hawaii, the "most heavily militarized group of islands in the world" does not have a stockpile of munitions which the unexploded ordinance are a signature of, or the shells in Iraq are a signature of a stockpile somewhere, or you've chosen a really terriffically bad example.
An independant terrorist organization would not fill an artillery shell with sarin if they intended to use it in a roadside bomb. Chemical weapon artillery rounds are designed to be fired over enemy positions and detonate a hundred feet up for maximum dispersion. Detonation on the ground is minimally effective at best, and the use of a binary shell is just idiotic, since the components are combined either during flight or shortly before. Setting the shell off on the ground without allowing time for the mixing is just phenominally dumb, and fortunately largely ineffective.
A terrorist who didn't make their own but got it or stole it from another government would A) not be buying artillery shells, since they don't have an artillery and B) would not be buying binary shells, because everyone else can make sarin without the heavy contaminants that make for such a crappy shelf life. All the evidence points to someone getting a hold of a chemical artillery round and either not knowing how to properly treat it, or not knowing it was chemical.
And finally, your "ugly consideration" (state what you mean, mean what you state) is just absurd. If the US was going to plant chemical weapons A) they would have done it long before now, in the months and months and months of clamor and false alarms, when such a conspiracy would have been more easily accomplished in the chaos of initial arrivals and setup....when people would have been more satisfied that it wasn't "a little late in the game" B) they would have done it in larger quantities than two shells and C) they wouldn't have done it with a binary shell, because US intelligence didn't think Iraq had that technology. Just a non-functioning prototype design, not a fully-functioning manufacture.
Hell, why'd they need the shell at all? Why don't we just conclude that the entire event is entirely fabricated? Would only require a dozen or so more people involved in a great sprawling conspiracy.
You say its not enough conclusive evidence? Fine. That's debatable. But trying to justify completely ignoring what evidence there is, is just wishful thinking.
(BTW....."mundanes"? Your "fandom" is showing.)
Re: Point - but
Date: 2004-06-03 12:02 pm (UTC)Where was the weapon to fire them?
And I believe the chatter was that Iraq was as well-armed and militarized - even more so - than any place in that region. Frankly, armed and motivated and so on. The point I was making was that if you were looking for evidence that there had been anything there, you'd have found this long before now - because even when you're supposed to remove everything, Hawaii is a good example that it rarely if ever happens.
Terrorists, fortunately for us, are stupid. I kept going "why not?" at each paragraph (which you took great care to outline and I acknowledge that). One of the most lasting pieces of information I got, immediately post-9/11 was that a lot of the suicide bombers in Israel got their explosive materiel from scavenging American landmines in Afghanistan. They'll use whatever they get their hands on - and no, I don't think the most desperate are ordering a damn thing. This isn't an evil empire - at the bottom are a buncha guys with rocks who don't even know each other.
Ignore, no. But it's poor evidence and nobody should put more feet into the proof than it will bear. I think someone either go hold of or found something and tried to make something nastier out of it. It's an indication that the area didn't hold much - or anything - but it's surrounded by places that do.
Why not.
Why not.
Why not.
Question everything. There's too much at stake. And the last place I'd accept an answer from is one that sells soap. Remember, nobody's allowed so much as a digital camera over there anymore.
Re: Point - but
Date: 2004-06-22 07:12 pm (UTC)You want an answer to all this, or you want to let it lie?