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

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.)

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.

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.

This is the same Iraq whose army melted away in about 25 seconds, right?

McGentrix wrote:

Iraq starts a war with a neighbor country turning the oil market on it's head badly damaging the US economy.

Was there any evidence that Iraq was planning on doing this in March 2003?

McGentrix wrote:

Saddam sells WMD's to terrorist organization to raise much needed funds to remain in power, those terrorists use WMD's against America to further their islamo-facist war.

Was there any evidence that Iraq was planning on doing this in March 2003?

McGentrix wrote:

Iraq starts a war with Israel which immediately draws American defense.

Was there any evidence that Iraq was planning on doing this in March 2003?

Remember, Bush told the American people in March 2003 that we had to invade now, and it wasn't because Iraq might invade a neighboring country or attack Israel at some hypothetical point in the future. Certainly we can both imagine increasingly fantastic scenarios which could justify an invasion, but we didn't invade because of any of the "what if" scenarios that you set out. Your grounds for invasion, then, are just so many unconvincing post hoc rationalizations.

Quote: How, then would you assess Saddam Hussein's personality and goals?

He played a dangerous game and lost. That doesn't give the US any right to preemptively attack his country without 100 percent evidence he was a threat to America or Americans.

Now that Bush went into Iraq to "shock and awe" the Irqqis, we are now after three years suffering the consequeces of a misguided war.

Brandon wrote:
"...even a moderate probability of an unimaginably awful outcome is very serious..."

What he still doesn't get is there was nothing close of anything "unimaginably awful outcome" to have happened.....

I wonder what else people with imagination think about besides imaginary WMDs and programs that nobody found.

The personality of Saddam doesn't justify the US to go in preemptively and attack a country that posed no threat or ability to attack America or Americans.

Some around the world think Bush is the worst terrorist in the world today.

No coin toss needed when there is no evidence that he had WMDs.

Do a coin toss to see if Croatia has WMDs, and let us know whether we should go in and kill some innocent Croatians because your coin toss says so.

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.

McG, If you have better information than Colin Powell about Iraq's WMDs, please provide "your" evidence.


Powell casts doubt on Iraq WMDs

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has conceded that Iraq may not have possessed any stocks of weapons of mass destruction before the war last year.

His comments came after the former head of the US weapons inspection team, David Kay, said he did not believe there were any weapons stockpiles.

Mr Powell was speaking on his way to the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

Less than a year ago, Mr Powell warned the United Nations Security Council about the danger from Iraq's weapons.

McGentrix wrote:

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.

Where , oh where did they go?

cicerone imposter wrote:

McG, If you have better information than Colin Powell about Iraq's WMDs, please provide "your" evidence.


Powell casts doubt on Iraq WMDs

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has conceded that Iraq may not have possessed any stocks of weapons of mass destruction before the war last year.

His comments came after the former head of the US weapons inspection team, David Kay, said he did not believe there were any weapons stockpiles.

Mr Powell was speaking on his way to the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

Less than a year ago, Mr Powell warned the United Nations Security Council about the danger from Iraq's weapons.

Snood, are you going to ask Cice for his source? Or, do your liberal buddies get free passes?

McGentrix wrote:

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.

Where , oh where did they go?

cicerone imposter wrote:

I wonder what else people with imagination think about besides imaginary WMDs and programs that nobody found.

The fact that nobody found them is irrelevant. If you toss a coin and it comes up heads, it does not mean that there wasn't a real probability of tails before the toss. The fact that no weapons were found doesn't mean that before the invasion there was an insignificant chance that they were there. You are using the result of the coin toss to incorrectly make a judgement about the probabilities before the toss.