It's time for Rumsfeld to go

It is not fiction. I am using Hitler's name as an example to say that a very evil dictator who likes to annex his neighbors, cannot be permitted to own WMD.

Who is in a position? Anyone who possessed WMD would be in such a position, because he would only have to smuggle one WMD into a country to kill an immense number of people. If this person or people set off several WMD at different sites within the country simultaneously, the damage would be proportionately greater.

So you are asserting that it would be difficult for someone to bring a bioweapon into the US? This is because we have such total control of our ports and borders? And, yes, a suitcase might be used. Or maybe the components would be hidden inside a couple of cigarette machines. Maybe a suicide bomber of sorts would be injected with a plague a moment before flying to the US on a commercial airliner. Or maybe the weapons or their components might be hidden in any of thousands of different ways.

GW Bush
"I have consistently made it clear that I am saying that someone in the nature of a modern day Hitler cannot have them, not that no one can, although world disarmament would be desirable."

GW Bsuh cannot have them. Oooops, he has more of them than any other dolt on the planet.

Brandon,

I'm saying that the UN was inspecting Iraq for WMD. That's what I'm saying.

Yes they'd been searching for 10 years but we hadn't been attacked during the time they were searching either.

I don't think that there was an immediate threat when the US decided to preemtively attack Iraq. I didn't think so at the time either.



My earlier comment (pizza/oven) was referring to your comments that are posted above.

I think you tend to imagine everything in the "worst-case scenario" and that's just not the way the world works.

Everything you've described about terror here:



is entirely possible. But there is no way to stop every possible avenue of terror attack...the better way would be not to provoke them in the first place.

I'm saying let's inspect potential terrorists. Let's go after people when all diplomacy has been exhausted and there is a real threat. Let's be smart about it. Let's not fly off the handle and kill a bunch of people when there isn't an immediate threat.

That's all I'm saying.

Brandon, Do you know how many containers arrive at our shores that do not get any inspection for WMDs? They eventually criss-cross our country by the thousands daily. If anybody wanted to use WMDs against us, it's quite easy to do. By your logic, we should stop all commercial transactions, because they could contain WMDs that could potentially kill thousands and turn us into a third world country (your statement). We don't know who will make the attempt on American lives (be it the unibomber, the Boston Stranlger, or Tim McVeigh. Being fearful of something, and acting on it is quite another. Where do you start? Where's the next Hitler? When fear overtakes common sense, I fear what our government has done and is willing to do to fight (the fear of) terrorism; they are taking away our constitutional rights of privacy, and the bill of rights to seek happiness. Be careful what you wish for; this admnistration is ready to take away more of our rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Brandon, I agree with all those above.

In any case, Saddam had been contained. David Kay said when he testified that the inspections were working to keep him from making and new WMD and stockpiling them. All that was left was just remains from previous WMD and programs from previous WMD.

And they did have reason to doubt that Saddam Hussien had stockpiles of WMD or new WMD from their intelligence gathering. I am going to search out that hearing where some intelligence people said where doubts were being raised by some intelligence officers and where some officers said that they were pressured to tell Cheney what he wanted to hear.

However I am tired of beating the same dead horse. The war was unjustified period. Just a few days ago I was of the opinion that since we broke it we have to stay and fix it. I am now firmly of the belief that all we can do is make matters worse no matter who is in office. Saddam Hussien and most of his leaders is in captivity so he can't be committing mass murder against those he has kept under his thumb all these years to keep control of his country. Which has been the only good thing to come out of all this. The rest should be up to all the Iraqi people to figure out on their own with just help in the form money from the international community. I imagine that it will be hard and bloody between all the ones fighting for control. But if we remember in the beginning of our country we had the same problems. They should be able work out all their problems themselves so that it is indeed their country and not a territory of the neocons in America.

To all the mis-informed:

1. Iraq never denied having WMD's, it was after all sold to him by the US and the UK. 95% of what was given to him was accounteed for and destroyed by the UN inspections until 1996, the rest it is asumed he used in his war with iran and in the north. What is in question is whether he has produced any on his own since when he sent the UN inspectors away in 1996. That remains to be proven..

2. Weapons of Mass Destruction=? Some argue that cluster bombs should be classified as such. If we take the conventional approach and call chemical, biological and nuclear (NBC) weapons WMD then we have an awkward situation in our hands. Israel, Pakistan, India are confirmed nuke states. S. Africa and N. Korea (not sure on SA) are assumed to own nukes. As far as chems and bio weapons they are a difficult topic. Any decent university with a decent chemistry and biology departments can develop and manufacture them. They can be mass produced by any pharmacutical or chemical plant (i.e. drug and pesticide factories) delivery systems can range from canisters to advanced ballistic missles. You can't prevent terrorists from using chemical or biological agents by declaring war on nation states. Most of the ingredients for a chem weapon can be purchased from merck.

The point I want to itterate is that chemical weapons and to some degree bio weapons can be mass produced in a relatively short amount of time by any organization or state who desires to do so. Therefore prevention of the threat of chemical or bio attack is not by going out and declaring countries. What the US must do is a) address the real issues underlying the problem of gloabal terrorism, try to understand why rather intelligent people (most terrorists happen to be highly educated people) would become terrorists and b) try and go after the infrastructure of terror, the means by which terrorists finance their operations and acquire weapons, just one example is the fact that it is much easier today to acquire high tech weaponry in the black market, why?

Oh no, it wasn't. (Is that denial, or are you really not paying attention?)

There is a page on the White House's website -- right now, at this moment -- entitled 'Disarm Saddam Hussein.' The information on that page correlates exactly with the information disgorged by George W. Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address. To wit:



This page also states quite clearly that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger for use in a nuclear weapons program.

The vast quantities of anthrax, botulinum toxin, sarin, mustard gas and VX, along with the munitions to deliver them, as well as any connections between Iraq and al Qaeda terrorism, have completely failed to show up in the 16 months since they were first described in tones of fearful doom to the American people. The 'mobile weapons labs' -- termed "Winnebagoes of Death" by Colin Powell -- have been shown to be weather balloon launching platforms sold to Iraq by the British in the 1980s.

The claims about Iraq seeking uranium from Niger have been exposed as lies so deep and profound that America stands humiliated before the world. Those lies have also led to a federal investigation into this White House for treason: because Joseph Wilson -- who investigated and discounted the uranium claims in the first place -- dared reveal these lies to the public, his wife, Valerie Plame, was exposed as a CIA operative in an act of revenge perpetrated by officials within the Bush administration and their lackeys in the media.

Rumsfeld should be fired, not allowed to resign.

Bush will be fired in six months, but Rumsfeld must go now.

"1. Iraq never denied having WMD's, it was after all sold to him by the US and the UK. 95% of what was given to him was accounteed for and destroyed by the UN inspections until 1996, the rest it is asumed he used in his war with iran and in the north. What is in question is whether he has produced any on his own since when he sent the UN inspectors away in 1996." yilmaz

You got it my friend.

In fact, the deal was brokered by none other than Donald Rumsfeld.

yilmaz101
yilmaz101, what a breath of fresh air you are. An intelligent, well-informed vision of what should be done to reduce the threat of terrorism. What a unique idea: go after the root cause of terrorism instead of the symptoms and, since they are stateless, eliminate their financial infrastructure.

Sadly, this concept was beyond the thinking of the Bush administration.

BBB

yilmaz has stated the obvious, but only people with intelligence will see it. The others want to preemptively kill people, then ask the question later - did they have WMDs? As yilmaz has stated, any university with a chemistry/physics department can build WMDs. Some people are unable to separate "threat" from "fear" and lose sight of how best to reduce terrorism on this planet. We don't reduce terrorism by killing innocent people as we have in Iraq.

Both Brandon and P Diddie are wrong about the state of preparation of WMD's in Iraq.
The best president of the Twentieth Century who was very well informed about foreign relations knew about Saddam and his weapons. President Bill Clinton told us all in a speech on December 16, 1998 that quote:

"If Saddam can cripple the weapons inspection system and get away with it, he would conclude that the international community, led by the United States, has simply lost its will. He will surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction, and someday--make no mistake--he will use it again as in the past."

President Clinton knew what he was talking about.

Which is why it was good that the inspections were resuming at the time of the war. Notice that he said, "rebuild."

Impeach Rumsfeld
Policy

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5840-2004May5.html


The point is that most people think these abuses are the result of just a few bad apples, or maybe a bad CO or two. They absolve Rummy and hence Bush because they see no policy connection between the BushCo and the torture and murders.

But this editorial spells those connections out precisely. At the outset of combat two years ago, Rumsfeld announced:

1. that detainees in Afghanistan "do not have any rights" under the Geneva Conventions, which are "outdated",

2. that there will be no formal hearings to determine whether detainees are prisoners of war or unlawful combatants (as GCs require),

3. that Army regulations on the interrogation of prisoners no longer apply,

4. that detainees may be held incommunicado,

5. that detainees may be deprived of legal representation, even if they are US citizens,

6. that--even after all of the previous standards of conduct had been waived no new procedures were put in place to ensure against violations of conduct.

GW Bush is equally,if not more responsible, since Rumsfeld is his man. But the point is there is a direct connection between the policies of this misadministration and the Terrorism that occurred. That point needs to be made clear to the American people.

So Clinton who is not to believed for anything is suddenly reliable on this topic? Let's get real -- there's no implication there that invading the country was the answer. We'll know in due time if the adventure in Iraq was the answer.

Clinton was good at foreign affairs, make no mistakes about it, he was liked and respected by many people outside the US. You can't judge the man by the looseness of his zipper, we see what a dolt with a tight zipper is like, he has to invade countries to vent frustrations, whereas all clinton had to do was go see an aide.....

Seriously though here is an exercise for the mathematically inclined. If you bomb a village and kill someone in that village, terrorist or not, and he has five relatives who now hate you, and if you multiply it by the scale of destruction caused in this war on terror how many people do you have that hate america?

Avenging or even preepting is not a viable solution. In avenging you gain nothing. In preemption you gain temporary safety while at the same time increasing the likely sources of threat. More you preempt more threat sources you create, it comes to a point where you are no longer able to preempt all threats and the number of threats out there is much more than it was when you start the cycle.

The real solution to terror is not military, it is economic and it is social. Most terrorists feed on two issues, repressive regimes in their home countries and economic imbalance between the haves of the world and the havenots. It is a very academic issue, which unfortunately even the academicians have ignored.

yilmaz101
yilmaz101, you are so wise and so right.

BBB

Is anyone here going to rule out that Bush (or for that matter Cheney and Rumsfeld) didn't have revenge on his mind? Or that many Americans didn't have revenge on their minds? That most Americans don't believe that Christianity is superior over any other religion? We're a Christian army occupying a Muslim country and a country already in religious turmoil. Now add the announcement today that there are more violations of the Geneva Convention and not just the fifty or so that were first implicated. Rumsfeld is ineffective and should resign.

to borrow a thought from Orwell, all men are created equal but some are more equal than others.

Dys
Dys, of course that would not include women in most Moslem countries.

BBB