Some Common, Bad Arguments for the Recent U.S. Policy Towar

McGentrix wrote:

DrewDad wrote:
McGentrix wrote:
If all the WMD's cannot be accounted for, they must, therefore, still exist.

I haven't seen a dinosaur lately, but I can't prove that one still isn't around somewhere.

Dinosaurs must still exist! (And post on A2K....)

You should step away from the keyboard before you hurt yourself.

Could you be any more predictable? Your banter really, really, REALLY needs some work.

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woiyo wrote:

Roxxxanne wrote:
Quote:
Escalating cost of military in the area patrolling no fly zones.

I would be rolling on the floor laughing my ass off if it were not for the fact that the situation is so tragic.

Bush lied and thousands have died. Bush pulled the inspectors out before their job was finished contrary to the Bush sheeples' delusions.

The reason you laugh is your [sic] too ignorant to understand.

BTW...Great Avatar

Too funny, he falsely claims I am ignorant. (I am politically astute to a fault) then he displays his appaling ignorance by grammatical error and ignorance as to what my avatar represents.

BTW I am not here to prove how smart I am (the mine is bigger than yours syndrome is a male thang) or "win debates." After 10 years of interchange with right-wing internet morons, I concluded long ago that it is a huge waste of time. I say what I think and move on.

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woiyo wrote:

I would say since 1776. That was when we became a soverign nation and we decide our foreign policy especially when our security is at risk.

Then you'd agree that the UN sanctions were irrelevant to the US decision to go to war, correct?

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joefromchicago wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
I am not saying that he didn't destroy them. I am saying that we simply didn't know whether he had or not, since he had not adhered to his promise to verifiably do so, and had on many occasions refused inspectors access to sites they wished to visit. Hence, there was some significant probability that an evil madman was still in possession of and perfecting WMD, and a moderate chance of an unimaginably bad consequence is serious.

What "unimaginably bad consequences" are you talking about? Even if we agree that there was not a complete match between WMDs that Saddam had and WMDs that Saddam destroyed, so what? The only WMDs that Saddam was known to have had were chemical agents. Those had proven to be rather deadly with regard to his own people, but in order for Saddam to have visited those "unimaginably bad consequences" on the US, he would have needed a missile delivery system that could have reached our shores. So even if he had been sitting on a mountain of mustard gas, where was the danger to the US?

I agree that there is only so much he could have done with chemical agents. I was referring to his programs to develop nukes and bioweapons. Presumably, if these programs were continuing, and only better hidden, then at some point in time he would have succeeded. He most certainly would not have needed a delivery system. He could have smuggled the weapons into the target country in pieces, then reassembled them there. What delivery system did the person who mailed anthrax around the country have? And, no, I do not think that was Hussein or Iraq.

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Yes, or he could have developed an army of giant robots able to destroy entire cities with their laser beam eyes. Both were equally possible and equally specious.

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snood wrote:

Unless of course all that talk about "danger to our nation" was ginned-up propaganda to sell a war Bush had already decided to fight. But we'd need a Downing Street Memo or something concrete to indicate that was the case. Ah, well...

I'll make this simple: WMD are very dangerous, and we were in a state of uncertainty as to whether Iraq had or had not destroyed those weapons and development programs. That's the danger. See?

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Brandon9000 wrote:

I agree that there is only so much he could have done with chemical agents. I was referring to his programs to develop nukes and bioweapons.

But there was no mismatch between what bioweapons or nukes that Saddam had and what ones were destroyed, since Saddam never had any bioweapons or nukes to begin with.

The maddening thing about these apologists for the Iraq invasion is that they continually play a rhetorical game of hide-the-pea. The typical conversation goes something like this:

"Why was it necessary to invade Iraq?"
"Because we couldn't guarantee that all of Saddam's WMDs had been accounted for and destroyed."
"Why is that important?"
"Because those WMDs posed a threat to the US."
"But if he had any WMDs, they were chemical weapons. What threat could those have posed to the US?"
"It's not the chemical weapons. It was Saddam's plans to get nuclear and biological weapons."
"But that's something entirely different. If anything, those plans only posed a long-range danger to the US. So why was there a rush to invade?"
"Because Iraq had defied UN sanctions for too long."
"But the UN is the only one that can enforce UN sanctions. The US asked for UN approval but never got it."
"The US is able to defend its own security interests without UN approval."
"What security interests?"
"The US had to defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq's WMDs."
"What WMDs?"
"The ones that weren't accounted for."

And so on and so on.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

snood wrote:
Unless of course all that talk about "danger to our nation" was ginned-up propaganda to sell a war Bush had already decided to fight. But we'd need a Downing Street Memo or something concrete to indicate that was the case. Ah, well...

I'll make this simple: WMD are very dangerous, and we were in a state of uncertainty as to whether Iraq had or had not destroyed those weapons and development programs. That's the danger. See?

I'll make this simple - Bush had decided to go to war before he even tried to make the case to get anyone's approval, so all his blather about "last resort" was a lie - get it?

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VIDEO - Hardball Rips Bush, Blair & Cheney Over Pre-Iraq Memo

Prompted by a new report in The New York Times, MSNBC's Hardball takes a fresh look at a history of the Iraq war through the lens of a January 31, 2003 memo detailing a White House meeting between Bush and Blair.

This video begins with a report by David Shuster that weighs possible repercussions of the DSM against the increasing violence in Iraq and President Bush's low standing in the polls.

Chris Matthews interviews writer Phillippe Sands whose recent book, "Lawless World", exposes more pre-war lies. According to The Times, Mr. Sands "is a professor of international law at University College of London and the founding member of the Matrix law office in London, where the prime minister's wife, Cherie Blair, is a partner."

Matthews and Sands take the opportunity to pile on The President. Even Matthews' questions to Sands appear to be clear indictments of The Presidents actions:

MATTHEWSWhat struck me in the memorandum again today was that the President George W. Bush had decided to go to war with Iraq before completing the inspections. Had decided to do so before sending Secretary of State--and a skeptic, I must say--Colin Powell to the United Nations.

What is the significance of that? That he made the decision--as recorded by David Manning who was working for the Prime Minister at the time--before either of those events occurred . The U.N. presentation which was apparently to sell Europe of the fact that there were weapons of mass destruction and the completion of the weapons inspections themselves. Both were not waited for. The President decided before then. So did Tony Blair apparently.

The January 31, 2003 memo is consistent with the July 2002 "Downing Street" Memos where British officials expressed concern that Bush had already decided to go to invade Iraq and that "intelligence was being fixed around the policy" to meet that goal.

Phillippe Sands describes yet another memo that recorded a meeting between Colin Powell and his British counterpart Jack Straw. In this memo, Colin Powell explains that, in his view, "if there wasn't enough evidence for a second [U.N.] Security Council resolution then there wasn't enough evidence to justify the U.S. going it alone."

In an attempt to find the earliest hints of a desire among the Bush team to attack Iraq, Matthews references a new book, "Cobra II", by Bernard Trainer:

Matthews: [Bernard Trainer] describes a phone call from then Vice President elect Dick Cheney to then Defense Secretary William Cohen regarding Iraq. This came, this phone call, right after [or] soon after the debate by the Supreme Court when they gave the election to President Bush after the Florida dispute.

Ok, here's what Cohen received: a call from the Vice President [elect], Cheney. Here's what he said: He said that [Cheney] wanted to see one thing. He did not want to see a tour of the world and all of the potential threats to our country. He wanted to get a briefing for the new President, his partner George W. Bush, on one topic. Iraq. That's all he wanted.

And I talked to Bill Cohen a number of times on this and he said that it was breathtaking. All the Vice President wanted to know about -- he didn't care about the world; all around the globe -- the only thing he cared about was Iraq. He was already honing in on that decision in December of 2000. What does that tell you? http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002612.htm

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joefromchicago wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
I agree that there is only so much he could have done with chemical agents. I was referring to his programs to develop nukes and bioweapons.

But there was no mismatch between what bioweapons or nukes that Saddam had and what ones were destroyed, since Saddam never had any bioweapons or nukes to begin with.

The maddening thing about these apologists for the Iraq invasion is that they continually play a rhetorical game of hide-the-pea. The typical conversation goes something like this:

"Why was it necessary to invade Iraq?"
"Because we couldn't guarantee that all of Saddam's WMDs had been accounted for and destroyed."
"Why is that important?"
"Because those WMDs posed a threat to the US."
"But if he had any WMDs, they were chemical weapons. What threat could those have posed to the US?"
"It's not the chemical weapons. It was Saddam's plans to get nuclear and biological weapons."
"But that's something entirely different. If anything, those plans only posed a long-range danger to the US. So why was there a rush to invade?"
"Because Iraq had defied UN sanctions for too long."
"But the UN is the only one that can enforce UN sanctions. The US asked for UN approval but never got it."
"The US is able to defend its own security interests without UN approval."
"What security interests?"
"The US had to defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq's WMDs."
"What WMDs?"
"The ones that weren't accounted for."

And so on and so on.

Your logic is incorrect, and here is exactly why. At some point in time, Iraq had active programs to develop nukes and bioweapons. Then 12 years passed. Either Hussein had destroyed them, or he had them well hidden - we didn't know which. If these development programs were continuing, then he probably would have eventually succeeded. It would be very difficult to predict how quickly he might have developed a nuke or bioweapon, but a lot of time had passed since the end of Gulf War 1, and even if he was within 2 or 3 years of success, it was strongly in our interest to go in and put a stop to it, especially since such time to completion estimates are notoriously bad, especially when the information about the programs is sketchy.

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snood wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
snood wrote:
Unless of course all that talk about "danger to our nation" was ginned-up propaganda to sell a war Bush had already decided to fight. But we'd need a Downing Street Memo or something concrete to indicate that was the case. Ah, well...

I'll make this simple: WMD are very dangerous, and we were in a state of uncertainty as to whether Iraq had or had not destroyed those weapons and development programs. That's the danger. See?

I'll make this simple - Bush had decided to go to war before he even tried to make the case to get anyone's approval, so all his blather about "last resort" was a lie - get it?

Even if what you say were true, it would at most mean that Bush did the right thing for the wrong reason or in the wrong way. It was still the right thing, because it was necessary to stop a real danger, based on the reason I give in my post to you above, which you apparently decline to address.

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blacksmithn wrote:

Yes, or he could have developed an army of giant robots able to destroy entire cities with their laser beam eyes. Both were equally possible and equally specious.

This is bad logic. Hussein had actually had some WMD, and programs to develop more, and it was an issue of verifying his dismantling of them. It was not simply a theoretical possibility that someone might decide to do something someday.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

snood wrote:
Brandon9000 wrote:
snood wrote:
Unless of course all that talk about "danger to our nation" was ginned-up propaganda to sell a war Bush had already decided to fight. But we'd need a Downing Street Memo or something concrete to indicate that was the case. Ah, well...

I'll make this simple: WMD are very dangerous, and we were in a state of uncertainty as to whether Iraq had or had not destroyed those weapons and development programs. That's the danger. See?

I'll make this simple - Bush had decided to go to war before he even tried to make the case to get anyone's approval, so all his blather about "last resort" was a lie - get it?

Even if what you say were true, it would at most mean that Bush did the right thing for the wrong reason or in the wrong way. It was still the right thing, because it was necessary to stop a real danger, based on the reason I give in my post to you above, which you apparently decline to address.

Have I missed the ceremony? Did anyone perform last rites on your objectivity? I want to attend - I had such high hopes... Sad

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Brandon9000 wrote:

Even if what you say were true, it would at most mean that Bush did the right thing for the wrong reason or in the wrong way. It was still the right thing, because it was necessary to stop a real danger, based on the reason I give in my post to you above, which you apparently decline to address.

So Bush invaded Iraq with the best of intentions? The road to hell just got some new pavement!

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Brandon, your logic has a short circuit. You just won't admit it.

Was there or was there not a credible, immediate threat to the US from Iraq in 2003? If so, what was it? Please be specific. (As in, chemical agents, nuclear weapons, etc. Don't just fall back on "WMD" which covers several classes of weapons.)

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Your reasoning is again specious. It was EXACTLY "a theoretical possibility that someone might do something someday," and ONLY that. The nuclear bogeyman was trotted out on a number of occasions, as I recall. Specifically, some nonsense about waiting until the smoking gun was a mushroom cloud.

Saddam, as we know, never possessed any nukes and was years away from even developing the capability of developing the infrastructure to make them.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

Your logic is incorrect, and here is exactly why. At some point in time, Iraq had active programs to develop nukes and bioweapons. Then 12 years passed. Either Hussein had destroyed them, or he had them well hidden - we didn't know which.

He destroyed the programs? How exactly does one destroy programs? Once again, you're conflating actual weapons with potential weapons, but they're not the same things. Potential weapons pose, at most, a potential threat, not an actual threat. The need for immediate action is much less pressing when one is dealing with potential weapons.

Brandon9000 wrote:

If these development programs were continuing, then he probably would have eventually succeeded. It would be very difficult to predict how quickly he might have developed a nuke or bioweapon, but a lot of time had passed since the end of Gulf War 1, and even if he was within 2 or 3 years of success, it was strongly in our interest to go in and put a stop to it, especially since such time to completion estimates are notoriously bad, especially when the information about the programs is sketchy.

The information wasn't sketchy at all. The UN weapons inspectors had collected pretty reliable information; they concluded that there was no nuclear weapons program, and they were right.

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But what of all the chemical and biological weapons?

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McGentrix wrote:

But what of all the chemical and biological weapons?

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joefromchicago wrote:

McGentrix wrote:
But what of all the chemical and biological weapons?

Why the eye roll Joe? He had a pretty nice collection... It included, at least, up to 360 tonnes of bulk chemical weapons agent, 1.5 tonnes of VX nerve agent; up to 3,000 tonnes of precursor chemicals; growth media for biological agent production; 30,000 special munitions; 550 shells filled with mustard gas, 500 R-400 aerial bombs possibly filled with chemical or biological weapons, 15 biological weapons warheads, and 50 Al-Hussein warheads.

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Some Common, Bad Arguments for the Recent U.S. Policy Towar

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