farmerman wrote:Im sitting here with a cold beverage and some UTZ potato chips.waiting to hear how Occams Razor provides us with a comfortable fact filled answer to your proposition .
Certain we were, that the chemical agent Sarin was in the hands of Hussein I certainly would have mobilized the Alabama National Guard to Invade Iraq, had this Sarin shell been known to exist 15 months ago. Why this shell could, alone have been the one that rolled off the truck that was escaping to Syria containing the rest of the Sarin filled shells that now , alas are in the hands of others because we invaded Iraq because we were sure they had Sarin filled shells.
Does that reasoning somehow sound a bit circular? Our administration feels not.
This sounds like a cruel parallel to the story behind the old Arlo Guthrie song,"Alices Restaurant" ,wherein ,ARlo, our hero,felt that a big single pile of trash in a known spot was much preferred to a series of smaller piles laying about who knows where.
Imagine a dozen such shells. Not very many, right?
Each shell contains 3-4 liters of chemicals that when combined create sarin. That's between 36-48 liters of sarin.
Sarin is a colorless and odorless gas and is lethal in doses as small as .5 milligrams. Experts say sarin is more than 500 times as toxic as cyanide. It's current use is predominantly as a military chemical nerve agent. Sarin emits very toxic fumes of fluoride and phosphorus oxides when heated to decomposition or reacted with steam. At room temperature, sarin takes a liquid form, but it evaporates quickly into a gas. Sarin acts and dissipates more quickly than other nerve agents.
As you can see, 12 little shells can have quite a deadly effect if they fell into the wrong hands.
Quote:Why, in the hearts and minds of every freedom loving person on God's Green Earth.
That got a burst of laughter out of me.
You've written another very bright and humorous post. In return, I shall in the future try my darnedest to translate between Canadian and American, typing everything while humming that enticing melody from the Disney series on Mink Fink and Daniel Boone.
ps
Yeah, even I want smack my avatar, likely more than does anyone else.
McG, my inquiry had nothing to do with thhe toxicity of GB (sarin). We have tens of thousands of rounds of sarin in binary shells in the Edgewood arsenal near Baltimore, Im aware that its some bad stuff.
My only inquiry was , how does occams razor pertain?
Im sure what the poster was saying was that "if theres one theres more" . I suppose I could agree but . We KNEW IN 1989 THAT HUSSEIN USED GB AND MUSTARD AGENT AND VX AGAINST THE KURDS IN 1988. Was this shell part of a new stash, or a remnant of the old one?
Where are the plants to formulate the binary compounds. Lets say that Iraq bought the diflouro-methylphosphonate from Russia and then the shell casing from someone else. The reaction agent (isopropyl alcohol) should be easily acquired by standard formulation using oil field gas. If it were "home grown" thhen no evidence of the phosphonating plant was found. Every time they came across a chem rack the experts were quick to state that it was an "ag chemical" plant. This is a simple process because once the manufacturing processes are identified, its easy to see whether the plant is used for war or agriculture. The sarin or VX have no components that are used for ag, like 1080 .
I was reading Blix boys reports and the devil was in the details. It became obvious early that , if GB/VX were used, it was probably sucontracted in off shore toll plants that Saddam was paying.
So, IMHO , we bombed the wrong country
Thats where I was seeing if the conversational path would lead. Neva mind.Its unimportant to this thread. I dont agree with the Canadian PM, how many sarin plants has he seen?
See, a "WMD" program, should have a source of supply and a manufacturing site in order to be a real honest-to-god program. Thats what weve all failed to find. In the US, we proudly label our VX and GB that we store by the hundreds of thousands of tons in Dugway, Edgewood, Ft Detrich or Gainesville. We label them with the manufacturers names and code numbers
Here, Weve found a single sorry ass shell, I want to see a phosphonation plant with methylation and flouridation racks , then an isopropyl alcohol line at oil refineries where they produce an pack isopropanol into 4" diameter PVC casings with plunger ends like on a Parker pen cartridge .
If this were the Nazis, why wed have tons of carefully kept records of the feedstock, plant efficiency, daily production, productdistribution, and shell packaging for use.
Maybe the Iraqis hid all the bookkeeping also. We havent found product or evidence of a "Program". Remember how GW changed his tune from WMDs to "WMD related activity programs" , Well, IMO he was even bullshitting us on that part
In a comment about Occams Razor , HL Mencken once said. "For every problem there is an answer that is simple, unadorned , to-the-point, and usually flat wrong.
Science has never been able to understand our need to kill each other, only intensify our methods. Any explanation to the populace of the Western powers about why they're youth are dying daily across the world is met with rapt attention, of course, so the particulars eventually are distilled into nothing. If indivuduals decide they are fit to judge whether this war was justified or not, they are only voting for themselves in a beauty contest.
Im sorry solon, your point is...
I was unclear, excuse me; the individual details in the hunt for WMD have been lost on a public who no longer seem to have an interest in the cause of the war, but the ending of it. For better or worse, I count myself among them.
Mr. Farmerman:
The principle of Occam's razor or, as some write it, Ockham's razor is not difficult to understand.
William of Ockham( after whom the principle is named believed that an explanation should be in as simple terms as possible, or, to put it another way, we should not posit a plurality without necessity.
A shell containing a highly dangerous(see McGentrix above) substance is found. Saddam Hussein indicated that he had no WMD's. It is obvious that Saddam Hussein lied.
An explanation in as simple terms as possible.
Of course, some on the left would like to make the explanation convoluted. McGentrix has, I believe, made a vital point. Not many of these shells loaded with sarin would be needed to destroy an entire army. We are not talking about huge ICBM's. We are talking about chemical warfare.
mporter wrote:As I said, BoWoGo, you may be correct, however, you cannot deny, that by the mere fact of his status, a statement by the PM must affect the thinking of many Canadian citizens who have insufficient information concerning WMD's.
You may be surprised to find, mporter, that we Canadians are a lot more informed than many, many, many Americans. There's been a lot to talk about since before this war began...we've watched it unfold too...perhaps with more information, background and insight than you get south of the border. Fortunately for us there has been and continues be a wealth of programming including discussion panels, call-in shows, documentaries...and the list goes on and on. Most of us know exactly that Dubya's claims have been a load of horse...s...it and nothing Martin says will convince us otherwise. I suggest you try and get access to CBC Newsworld International (apparently available on satellite tv in the US). I tune it to our CBC National news on the internet when I'm in the US after I've watched American news.
At any rate, I do believe that if Paul Martin had been PM when this fiasco started that we'd be in Iraq now too, although he now claims that Chretien took the right decision. Didn't like Chretien much and it was time for him to retire, but he did do one thing for which I'll always remember him....three guesses and the first two don't count.
Dear Northern Neighbour:
I am very sorry but I remain unconvinced people who live in Canada can truly understand the political philosophy of the United States, the voting habits of its citizens and the nuances that enter into the choices that its voters make.
You may not be aware that a famous ex-leader of the House, one "Tip O'Neill" said:
"all politics is local"
Since I am certain that you do not have the requisite knowledge, as a Canadian, of either the nuances or the local issues in American politics, I am very much afraid that your commentary is rather lame.
I suggest that your so called "information, background and insight" are therefore useless since they are not informed by the essential elements which must be reviewed by anyone who wishes to look into the motives of the voter in the USA.
I am reminded of a quip made by the famous George Bernard Shaw. After the end of one of his plays, Mr. Shaw appeared on the stage for a curtain call. One of the audience booed loudly just as the applause died down and said:
"Your play was a disaster" and "You are a charlatan"
Shaw replied:
"I hasten to assure you, sir, that, as you have observed, the rest of this audience does not agree with your opinion about my play and, as for your comment that I am a charlatan, I am amused that you know so much about a subject with which I am intimately acquainted- myself"
Therefore, sir, I would suggest that you take more time to repair your failing monetary system before you make comments about the political makeup of a country you cannot know very much about not being a citizen of that country.
The ignorance that evidently lies behind your borders was aptly unfolded as one of your compatriots insisted that evidence that I brought forward from a Time Magazine article did not exist.
It did.
If this is an example of the thinking that goes on in Canada, there is no doubt that it is short sighted and egregriously mistaken.
mporter, whats so difficult to understand. I find the average Canadian much more informed about our system of manufactured and spun news than we are of theirs. Besides, this is an international forum, stop being such a hall monitor, you may learn something
Your use of occams razor and Mcgs support of your post had , in its approach, left me with many smiles. Ive asked you how occams razor pertains and I get
1 a download discussion of the toxicity of sarin and
2 a definition of occams razor
You guys. I asked you what time it is and you tell me how to build a clock.
Occams razor sez nothing valid because a similar , simply derived explanation is that this sarin shell represents a left over shell from the 80s, when we all agree, Saddam, had gassed his own citizens with an assortment of toxic gases. Of course we neither attacked him then (reasons?) and , whhen we had some international support to get him in 1991, we stopped. (reasons?)
I certainly wouldnt have launched a world class invasion of a country based upon all the WMD **** weve found to date. Simply stated, were scrambling around trying to justify , AT THE BACK END OF A WAR, that the reason we went there unprovoked, was entirelyjustified and is supported by our well crafted pre-war information.
Now doesnt this seem a teeny bit disingenuous? Dont you feel scammed? are you so much of a party faithful that you have no critical mind of your own?
pity
As for Mr Martin, hes certainly allowed to present an opinion on anything he wishes, correct or not. Like you, he feels that WMDs are there. The fact that the vast majority of people are yelling "lets find these WMDs if they exist at all" and, that of course, leads to the conclusion of"who are you guys trying to fool with all this bogus "intelligence"?"
We now count the US Secretary of State who, by questioning his own adopted administration, is trying to recapture some of his lost credibility.
.Finding a sarin filled shell has ,like the 5 loaves and 7 fishes, become 12 shells by McG, and now you are implying that this represents a big CHECKMARK in the "found WMD" column. We havent found any infrastructure that accounts for a PROGRAM of WMDs THAT REPRESENTED AN IMMINENT THREAT. Do you not agree?
We havent found a nuclear enrichment plant
We havent found uranium processing facilities to make hex, a step that preceeds enrichment
We havent found chem racks capable of producing poison gases
We have found one shell and a bunch of old Al Sammoud missiles from 1991
We have found plans for weapons , processing, and essentially a "wish list" of WMDs. "He lusted in his mind for WMDs"
Could it be that Hussein didnt represent a WMD threat so our invasion was based on partly manufactured information?
Didn't someone say earlier that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"?
Tarantulas produced an interesting article about finding a weapons cache being buried. You should read it and realize that we may yet find the WMD's that are there.
McGentrix wrote:Didn't someone say earlier that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"?
Yes, Rumsfeld said that. But it is effectively meaningless in this context. One can't proof a negative ("prove to me their are no elephants whose nostrils are green on the inside") but so what? There's a point where continued insistence that 'we still don't know' becomes not just disingenuous, but more properly seen as a falsehood.
have you ever seen an elephant with green nostrils? Were they in a circus? were all those elephants killed to keep them from breeding more elephants with green nostrils? Is there proper evidence that those elephants were killed? Can you prove that they are not just hiding those elephants?
Your hyperbole just doesn't work in this instance.
Saddam had WMD's. Saddam used WMD's. Saddam lied about WMD's.
Based on that, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I doubt David Copperfield made them just disappear.
McG
I was pointing to the silly meaninglessness of Rumsfeld's line, which becomes even moreso as time goes on.
But I'm not going to debate with you about the matter of WOMD in Iraq. The UN weapons inspectors, and even the survey team under Kay, handpicked as being more favorable to the US administration's views, conclude rather differently than do you. I'll count them more credible than yourself.
They also concluded that at no time did they have full access to all inspection sites nor did they have full cooperation from Iraqi scientists or leaders.
Text of Kay's subsequent statemtent...paraphrased from memory...
We haven't found any WMD, and we're unlikely to ever find any WMD of significance because it appears that Iraq destroyed its pre-1991 stocks years ago and hadn't produced any WMD since 1991.