What bothers me about the Dems right now....

A Lone Voice wrote:

You make my case for those who, when they cannot forward a comprehensible argument, go on the attack. Check out YOUR first post.

My first post was a satire of your screed.

www.dictionary.com will give the definition.

You made an outlandish post about the position of others. I made an outlandish post about the position of others in order to highlight how outlandish your position was. Maybe you can get one of your "buddys" to explain it to you.

I'm talking about the dems who beat the war drums as loud as the neocons. The ones who you refer to as repub lights?

With that said, I truly believe these some politicians are now using the failure of the US in Iraq just as they were earlier beating the war drums. There is nothing honorable in their actions.

At this point, they have invested themselves deeply into the US losing, and pulling out of Iraq. If this latest surge is successful, what do you think their reaction is going to be?

Is it wrong of me to question their motives? I would think the sincere anti-war folk would be questioning them, too.

None of the 3 lead to invasion being "necessary". Invasion was a choice but it was hardly "necessary."

1. Ambiguous evidence doesn't lead to one choice. It leads to many choices. The primary choice would be to find better information.

2. Saddam's long pattern of hiding evidence and obstructing inspectors doesn't lead to one choice. Again it leads to many. "Trust but verify" comes to mind. (Your arguments from 1997 were not current with the circumstances in 2003. One could as easily list Bush's drinking and driving charges from the 60's as evidence he still does it but it doesn't make it true. )

3. Saddam having nukes is not an argument. It is a scare tactic. Anyone having nukes could lead to wrong consequences.

That doesn't lead to the necessary choice of imprisoning anyone and everyone that even mentions nukes.

The lack of evidence of nukes does not lead to an invasion as the only necessary solution. In the 12 years since Saddam was ordered to destroy his WMD he had not annexed or threatened anyone. It appears that the current containment was working. Again, you use out of date facts to try to support your "necessary" invasion.

Your case of events leading to invasion being "necessary" is logically faulty. In reality what the Bush administration did was take the LACK of evidence and used it to build its case. There was no hard evidence that supported Saddam having any chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. There wasn't even much in the way of circumstantial evidence. There was no evidence that Saddam had plans to use these non existent weapons. There was no evidence that Saddam had plans to threaten or annex any neighboring countries. There was no evidence he had plans to vaporize cities. There was no hard evidence he had WMD. There was only a lack of confirmation that all his precursors, and possible delivery systems had been destroyed.

Again, we had been trying for over a decade, and had he been continuing his former development programs in hiding, we might have had a finite time window of opportunity. Even a moderate probability of a monumental disaster must be considered to be very serious.

It does, however indicate that he had at one time, and possibly still had, an explicit intention of developing WMD secretly while deceiving inspectors, which made him someone who ought not to be trusted. An evil dictator having WMD is a bit more serious than an individual with a drinking problem. They do not pose comparable levels of risk.

No one has asserted the necessity of imprisoning anyone and everyone who even mentions nukes. Some of us have asserted the necessity of resolving the issue of a terribly evil ruler striving to achieve WMD and lying about it.

When there is a reasonable chance that someone like Saddam Hussein is continuing past efforts to create nukes and artificial plagues, it's a very drastic situation. The idea that someone with these weapons can be contained is the real idea that's out of date. How can you contain weapons that can be disassembled, smuggled into a target country, and detonated from within? I would just love to hear an answer to that.

There is rarely evidence of plans, but this individual had tried to annex neighbors more than once, and was clearly a terribly, terribly evil man. There was indeed evidence that in the past he had had programs to develop these weapons, and had hid these programs and lied about them. Were someone like him to attain a group of these weapons and the means to make more, all of these things would be extremely realistic possibilities. Vaporizing cities is what nukes do, remember? His possible delivery systems had most certainly not been destroyed, since nuclear or biological weapons could be delivered in a suitcase or a mailed crate.

parados wrote:

2. Saddam's long pattern of hiding evidence and obstructing inspectors doesn't lead to one choice. Again it leads to many. "Trust but verify" comes to mind. (Your arguments from 1997 were not current with the circumstances in 2003. One could as easily list Bush's drinking and driving charges from the 60's as evidence he still does it but it doesn't make it true. )

It does, however indicate that he had at one time, and possibly still had, an explicit intention of developing WMD secretly while deceiving inspectors, which made him someone who ought not to be trusted. An evil dictator having WMD is a bit more serious than an individual with a drinking problem. They do not pose comparable levels of risk.

Nice try.

I throw out a few hundred words, and you come back with the typical loser attack. One sentence, full of venom and hate.

Now you claim it was only satire?

You think it was outlandish. Others agreed with it, didn't they?

I think I've recognized the type of A2K troll you seem to be. A quick post here and there, belittling others and never really bringing up any original thoughts of your own. Quick to jump on the bandwagon of those who think like you, and quick to attack those you disagree with.

That's why people like you, if you ever came into power, scare the hell out of me. Hence, my comment about people like you putting people like me into a camp.

You would have made a great Nazi Party member.

But hey, I'm glad you finally found a dictionary. You might try using it yourself so you don't sound so illiterate...

Quote:

Again, we had been trying for over a decade, and had he been continuing his former development programs in hiding, we might have had a finite time window of opportunity. Even a moderate probability of a monumental disaster must be considered to be very serious.

Which programs were continuing in 2003 when we invaded? There were none that I am aware of.

Quote:

It does, however indicate that he had at one time, and possibly still had, an explicit intention of developing WMD secretly while deceiving inspectors, which made him someone who ought not to be trusted. An evil dictator having WMD is a bit more serious than an individual with a drinking problem. They do not pose comparable levels of risk.

Both however show the same faulty logic.

Quote:

No one has asserted the necessity of imprisoning anyone and everyone who even mentions nukes. Some of us have asserted the necessity of resolving the issue of a terribly evil ruler striving to achieve WMD and lying about it.

A necessity that didn't require an invasion as evidenced by the present negotiation with North Korea.

Quote:

When there is a reasonable chance that someone like Saddam Hussein is continuing past efforts to create nukes and artificial plagues, it's a very drastic situation. The idea that someone with these weapons can be contained is the real idea that's out of date. How can you contain weapons that can be disassembled, smuggled into a target country, and detonated from within? I would just love to hear an answer to that.

That would be as opposed to the CERTAINTY that North Korea has nukes? The "out of date" idea is the new one being implemented in North Korea. It seems some now think it will work. Do you agree with dealing with North Korea or should we invade? (You can insert your relative standard at this point.)

Quote:

There is rarely evidence of plans, but this individual had tried to annex neighbors more than once, and was clearly a terribly, terribly evil man. There was indeed evidence that in the past he had had programs to develop these weapons, and had hid these programs and lied about them. Were someone like him to attain a group of these weapons and the means to make more, all of these things would be extremely realistic possibilities. Vaporizing cities is what nukes do, remember? His possible delivery systems had most certainly not been destroyed, since nuclear or biological weapons could be delivered in a suitcase or a mailed crate.

The scare tactic without any evidence again I see.

2. Saddam's long pattern of hiding evidence and obstructing inspectors doesn't lead to one choice. Again it leads to many. "Trust but verify" comes to mind. (Your arguments from 1997 were not current with the circumstances in 2003. One could as easily list Bush's drinking and driving charges from the 60's as evidence he still does it but it doesn't make it true. )

There were inspections that were working at the time of the invasion, they could have been allowed to continue. Instead they had to leave so Bush could invade and now we have this horrible mess which could have been avoided. End of story.

The inspections had been going on for a dozen years without producing verifiable or convincing proof, and still weren't producing verifiable or convincing proof, something Iraq could easily have supplied.

If Hans Blix was right, then Saddam would have had no reason to keep thwarting the UN Inspectors. He would have invited them in and opened everything up and ended it right then. Why didn't he? Hmmm?

According to the Times story, Saddam Hussein wanted the world to believe he possessed WMD in order to create fear and thwart any war plans by the US. The revelation that Saddam's generals believed they would use WMD against American, British and other invading forces explains why the US military found protective gear had been issued to Iraqi soldiers. The top commanders wanted their troops protected from the WMD they intended to use.

"The Iraqi dictator was so secretive and kept information so compartmentalized that his top military leaders were stunned when he told them three months before the war that he had no weapons of mass destruction, and they were demoralized because they had counted on hidden stocks of poison gas or germ weapons for the nation's defense, " stated the New York Times on March 12.

parados wrote:

2. Saddam's long pattern of hiding evidence and obstructing inspectors doesn't lead to one choice. Again it leads to many. "Trust but verify" comes to mind. (Your arguments from 1997 were not current with the circumstances in 2003. One could as easily list Bush's drinking and driving charges from the 60's as evidence he still does it but it doesn't make it true. )

I don't want to do Iraq in the 237th thread myself, but this is among the dumbest arguments I've seen to date. Not only were arguments from 1997 valid in 2003, the long suspension in verification made it utterly impossible for us to know much of anything... and yes, a decade in defiance of what, 17 straight resolutions most certainly constitute probable cause. If a parolee disappears for a few years, contrary to his conditions of parole, after 17 parole violations; one would be foolish to assume he was walking the straight and narrow or take his word for anything. Not quite the same thing as 4 decade old dui.

several of these quotes were offered in the course of statements that clearly indicated the speaker was decidedly against unilateral military intervention in Iraq by the U.S. Moreover, several of the quotes offered antedate the four nights of airstrikes unleashed against Iraq by U.S. and British forces during Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, after which Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and Gen. Henry H. Shelton (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) announced the action had been successful in "degrad[ing] Saddam Hussein's ability to deliver chemical, biological and nuclear weapons."

parados wrote:

A necessity that didn't require an invasion as evidenced by the present negotiation with North Korea.

Yes, North Korea is a representative test case. Just because we may, perhaps, finally have succeeded in buying them off in this particular case, doesn't mean that allowing awful dictators to have doomsday weapons couldn't realistically result in terrible, lethal consequences.

I don't mean to be mean, but this question reveals your lack of comprehension of the issue. Once North Korea announced actual possession of nukes, we had no further option to invade. Should we invade a nuclear power, they have the option of using the weapons. It was precisely to prevent Saddam Hussein from achieving this near invulnerability that we invaded Iraq.

All of you that are saying that there were no WMD in Iraq,let me ask something.

We know now that there were no WMD,but given Saddam's history of using WMD in the past,and given his defiance of 14 previous resolutions,what would have happened had you been wrong?

Did you really want to take that chance?