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They don’t exist! There is some interesting new information about the 155mm Sarin shell on Blaster’s Blog:
Iraq never declared any binary 155mm artillery shells. In fact, they never claimed any filled with sarin at all in the UNSCOM Final report (Find on “Munitions declared by Iraq as remaining”). Not declared as existing at the end of the Gulf War, not having been destroyed in the Gulf War, not having been destroyed unilaterally. The only binary munitions claimed by the Iraqis were aerial bombs and missile warheads. Not in an artillery shell.
I was just thinking about this as I returned from breakfast. One of our commentariat pointed out the missing shells were of a smaller size and were of a type with a fairly short shelf life. Suddenly this single shell becomes even more troubling.
This is a very different story now. Is there a whole class of large binary munitions no one was even aware of?
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A. If these shells existed in significant quantity, why are we seeing the first one used over a year after the invasion, and used incorrectly?
B. The war wasn’t sold to us by Saddam having WMD (Britan and France have them, too), but by fearmongering WMD falling into the hands of terrorists. Evidently, the terrorists have any WMD Iraq had, and we don’t. They found them, your govt didn’t.
Your war failed either way.
A few rusty old shells left over from the Iran-Iraq war that even the terrorists didn’t know had Sarin in them… if you can spin that into weapons of mass destruction then there’s no point in rational debate.
H. wrote:
‘A few (assumption) rusty(assumption) old(assumption) shells left over from the Iran-Iraq war (assumption) that even the terrorists didn’t know had Sarin in them(assumption)… if you can spin that into weapons of mass destruction then there’s no point in rational debate.’
The word ‘assume’ is sometimes described as what happens when you try and make an ass of you and me. In this case, just you.
Try this one on for size:
Saddam Hussein lied to UNSCOM about what weapons he had and when.
That, at least has some track record – after all, from Hans Blix to David Kay and everyone in between, the one thing everyone agrees upon is that Hussein lied to everybody, all the time, about what weapons he did and didn’t have.
Why not go with the explanation that has the greatest likelihood of being true – based on past experience?
Oh, wait – doesn’t fit your agenda, does it? Never mind. carry on.
llater,
llamas
llamas, aren’t you just assuming that one shell means a significant supply available?
A. If these shells existed in significant quantity, why are we seeing the first one used over a year after the invasion, and used incorrectly?
Perhaps Saddam knew better than to use WMD against the Americans, knowing that (a) it would be ineffective (b) it would provoke a massive retaliation and most importantly (c) it would eliminate the Euro/UN support that he was counting on to save his ass.
As for why it took a year, and why it was used wrong, I have no idea. Maybe the terrorists didn’t know what it was, or if they did, didn’t know how to use it.
Your war failed either way.
Too early to say. We weren’t nearly as concerned about this stuff being used in the Middle East as we were with it being used in the US. So far that hasn’t happened. Where it went, we don’t really know, but to the extent that the Iraqi facilities for manufacturing, using, and dispensing it are shut down, and they are, I would say we have made progress.
Why would we be so concerned about Saddam using it here in the US (your second paragraph) when he was evidently open to being deterred when his life was pretty much literally at stake (your first paragraph)? Haven’t you just shot yourself in the foot here?
”…aren’t you just assuming that one shell means a significant supply available?”
Isn’t that more likely than there being only one in existence. anywhere.
And that they just happened to stumble across it.
You know, as you do.
Actually there was another one about 2 weeks ago but that probably a bit inconvienent for you right now.
Scott wrote:
‘llamas, aren’t you just assuming that one shell means a significant supply available?”
Not at all. An artillery shell, like any munition, is a thing that is, by its nature, made in quantities. It’s an expendable item. Unless it’s a nearly-unique and overpowering weapon – like a nuke – having just one or two of a weapon is like having none at all – sometimes worse than having none.
I don’t say there’s a significant supply available – that would be an assumption. But, given the vast supplies of munitions which Hussein had (see UNSCOM and ISG reports for a better idea of the unimaginable volumes of war materiel he had amassed) I think that the probability that this shell is the One and Only example of its type, the Golden Shell, is much lower than the probability that this shell is one of a significant quantity produced, the others being – who knows where? You don’t sit down to make One Artillery Shell – that would be sheer folly. You sit down to make Artillery Shells.
Incidentally – how much Sarin constitutes a weapon of mass destruction? Apparently, the amount contained in a 155mm shell designed for dispersal counts as ‘not enough’. But does not the very presence of Sarin, in any amount, constitute proof of the existence of some WMD and WMD programs? Or are we to believe that this one shell is the sole example of its species, and the Sarin within it the sole example ever made or held in Iraq?
Pretty big assumption, isn’t it?
llater,
llamas
yoy, your doubts that there is only one in existence isn’t evidence there are significant quantities available. What if there were, for the sake of argument, 100 of them lost and unaccounted for? That wouldn’t make 100 available now, that could mean that one could pop up every year for the next century.
Its a pretty big assumption that this one shell means Saddam had enough sarin weapons available to him to justify the WMD claims made to sell your war.
Scott asks:
“Why would we be so concerned about Saddam using it here in the US (your second paragraph) when he was evidently open to being deterred when his life was pretty much literally at stake (your first paragraph)? Haven’t you just shot yourself in the foot here?”
Scott:
The deterrence referred to using WMD in Iraq as part of a uniformed military defence against a US military invasion. That is, using WMD in open warfare, which Saddam was willing to do against Iran before Iran had nuclear weapons.
The fear of WMD used in the US is totally different. That fear is based on terrorism, where nobody is entirely sure who is perpetrating the attack because the perpetrators do not wear uniforms and do not announce themselves in advance nor take credit after the fact.
Hence, Saddam is likely to have wanted to use WMD against the US in a way that would avoid revealing that he was the one behind their use. That rules out use of WMD against the invading US military, but not their use by terrorists in the US.
There is evidence that Saddam aided terrorists in both the 1993 WTC bombing and in 9/11, by creating forged Kuwaiti passports for terrorists when Iraq occupied Kuwait. But this is hard to prove. It is hard to prove because Saddam intended it to be hard to prove.
Where to start?
First of all the fact is that another exploded 2 weeks ago.Not quite a pattern I admit but still, it increases the known available wmd by 100%.
2nd, there shouldn’t be any WMD available or otherwise in Iraq. That’s what the UN Resolutions were for and Blix said there weren’t any and he would know.
3rd, The chances of them being able to ‘pop’ up again in years to come will hopefully be severely diminished by replacing a murderous scum bag with the semblance of a democractic govt.
So you see my war was a success!
Hurrah!
Saddam would have been betting his life on somebody else’s ability to not get caught and rat him out to save their own hides. Did Saddam strike you as the trusting type?
And the occupation and prison abuses seem to be doing a lovely job of giving others the incentive to dig them up to use against us, and being over there gives them an opportunity to use them against us.
Your war is a failure, and if you think anything even resembling a pro-western democracy will come out of this, you’re dreaming.
What Rick said.
I’ve heard of flogging a dead horse, but flogging a dud shell?
Don’t tell anyone, but there’s another country in the ME which has quite a lot of new WMDs: more than 200 nuclear warheads, built with knowhow stolen from the USA. Its scientists spent years trying to develop a genetic bomb that would single out its enemies. This country occupies other folks’ land, flouts UN resolutions and breaks the Geneva Conventions over and over again. Its interrogators passed their expertise on to the guys in charge at Abu Ghraib. Its transport minister recently advocated ethnically cleansing one-fifth of its citizens and was neither fired nor rebuked. Oh, I almost forgot: it’s a shining citadel of western liberal democratic values as well.
Saddam would have been betting his life on somebody else’s ability to not get caught and rat him out to save their own hides. Did Saddam strike you as the trusting type?
You assume that whoever was on the ground in the US to get caught would know they came from Saddam. Naw, the only testimony we would get from them is “Achmed sent it to me.” Terrorists are as capable as the next criminal of hiding their tracks when they want to.
Or perhaps you know where the anthrax came from that was used right after 9/11? No? Then I would say that, based on current experience, a terrorist has a 100% chance of using WMD in the US and getting away with. Never mind the sponsor, hidden behind layers of cutouts.
Regarding Saddam aiding terrorism, Scott replied:
“Saddam would have been betting his life on somebody else’s ability to not get caught and rat him out to save their own hides. Did Saddam strike you as the trusting type?”
First of all, Scott, Saddam would be a lot smarter to trust a terrorist to hide his complicity than to openly use WMD against the US in Iraq.
Secondly, why would you assume that the terrorists using false Kuwaiti passports provided by Saddam even knew that Saddam provided those passports? And in the unlikely event that a terrorist survived a suicide attack and then confessed all (“to save his own hide” as you ironically put it), Saddam could still deny any connection to the terrorist. People like you would probably believe him, as you have in the past.
The point is simple. Saddam is safer providing covert WMD aid to terrorists than by overtly using WMD in a uniformed military action within Iraq.
The fact that they can doesn’t prove the likes of Saddam would trust them to. And why would Saddam have used a WMD in Manhattan? Even evil people have reasons for their actions. Before you assert he was so insane that you get to skip this, keep in mind you’ve already admitted he was sane enough to be deterred from using WMD during our invasion, when we were trying very hard to kill him.
Its been proven that one result of RCD’s war is that someone in Iraq doesn’t seem to mind using WMD against Americans, and RCD can’t prove his claim that Iraq would have used WMD against us otherwise.
Let’s see, govt incompetence (not finding out who sent the anthrax) is used to justify govt action (RCD’s war). Cute. You assume there was some organization behind the anthrax, and not just a nutjob or two. You also assert that one person getting away w/ it means a 100% chance of anyone getting away with it. Do you believe no murderer or bank robber ever gets caught because one of them got away w/ his crime?
WJPhillips
That pesky Israel (see I saw through your clever code)
It just keeps picking fights with its loving neighbours
when all they want to do is live in peace with its Jewish neighbour and recognise Israel as a legitimate state,sanctioned by the UN. They most definitely don’t want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
1948, 67 and 73 were just mis-understandings.
They show this brotherly love through sending innocent people into Israel who then, inexplicably, blow up on buses and pizza parlors.
Was that another bomb the Israelis were working on? -(it might need some fine tuning)
But what this has to do with the thread is anyone’s guess
Oops, I put this on the wrong thread earlier:
RCD, doesn’t the tracking the 9/11 attacks (i.e. the terrorist activity w/ enough planning and preparation to have actually done significant damage) back to Afghanistan show the risks to a state sponsor of terrorism, even if we did wind up shortchanging that war for your totally optional war in Iraq?
Saddam would likely not have used chemical munitions against the US military for all the reasons already discussed, plus the most important one – they wouldn’t work. The US forces have perhaps the best and most comprehensive set of countermeasures against chemical weapons, and would just keep coming. Ugly, yes, but still coming. His forces, however, lacking any meaningful countermeasures, would be denied access to areas of operation – the excat areas of operation where the US forces were. Doesn’t make sense. You don’t deny your forces access to an area where the enemy is, and doubly-so when the enemy is not denied access.
Saddam’s chemical weapons were designed and intended for use in the excatly the way he did use them, in the past – against unprotected civilians (the Kurds) or unprotected armies (the Iranians).
It’s certainly not beyond the realm of belief that he would have made such weapons available to plausibly-deniable terrorist groups for use against civilians in the US or elsewhere. He gets kudos among the death-cultists, and maybe such an attack would divert attention from his misdeeds and/or destroy the will to resist him. It would be a no-lose proposition for him.
So, now all of the ‘I-tld-you-so’s’ have died down, facts notwithstanding –
What should the US do in Iraq? Not ‘what should they have done?’ because what’s done is done and can’t be undone. What should they do now?
Your answer will demonstrate whether you actually give a toss about peace and stability in the region – which benefits everyone – or whether the most important thing in your life is that ‘America failed!’ – in which case, there’s a lively thread going on lower down the page where you’ll feel right at home.
Same goes for the characterizations of Israel, many of which are broadly true and which I do not disagree with, necessarily. What should be done – now? Not what should have been done, but what should be done, now? Preference will be given to suggestions which do not involve the slaughter and/or displacement of any more civilians.
Awfully quiet round here, don’t it?
llater,
llamas
Using them would have done more damage (or at least cost the invaders more time and effort) than not using them.
“Not beyond the realm of belief” isn’t good enough to justify your war, and the kudos among the death-cultists also means we’d know he was responsible. If he kept it secret, then no kudos.
Leave, then hold everyone here who pushed for this damn stupid war accountable for their actions.
I hold everyone (George HW Bush, Clinton, Scott Ritter, Hans Blix, the bribed Old Europeans, etc., etc.) who did not push for this brilliant and well-executed war much earlier responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and, oh, yes, three thousand totally innocent Americans.
To expand on my previous comment, the War Party should be held accountable for the deaths, prison abuses, and for this:
Hostilities force Bush into deep hole
Strategy pushing US into ‘abyss’
…But across town in Congress even those instinctively sympathetic to the US military cause in Iraq were warning that America was facing a strategic disaster.
“I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss,” General Joseph Hoar, a former commander in chief of US central command, told the Senate foreign relations committee.
The apocalyptic language is becoming increasingly common here among normally moderate and cautious politicians and observers.
Larry Diamond, an analyst at the conservative Hoover Institution, said: “I think it’s clear that the United States now faces a perilous situation in Iraq.
“We have failed to come anywhere near meeting the post-war expectations of Iraqis for security and post-war reconstruction.
“There is only one word for a situation in which you cannot win and you cannot withdraw – quagmire.”
The growing fear is that the US will able neither to defeat the insurgents in Iraq nor to find an honourable means of withdrawal, while every week there will be an haemorrhaging of US credibility in the Arab world and far beyond. …
“Not beyond the realm of belief” isn’t good enough to justify your war
What would have been good enough Scott?
Obviously violating a dozen or so UN resolutions isn’t good enough for you.
Stopping the slaughter of Iraqi’s by Hussein also doesn’t cut it.
So what then?
Another invasion of Kuwait?
Another war with Iran destabilising the region with a million casualties?
A nuked Israel?
A nuked Manhatten?
Scott, I need to know
Remember ‘Pre-emption is better than cure’
A provable, direct threat instead of masterbatory neocon fantasies and idiotvangelical end-of-days delusions.
‘A provable, direct threat…
In triplicate and Fedexed to Bush and Blair I hope.
Suggested wording?
‘I the undersigned threaten you (henceforth referred to to as ‘Great Satan)’ with lots of bad stuff unless you give me 1 million dollars mwaarhaha’
How long would the threat have before expiration and could it be negotiated for longer?
Any get out clauses?
For crissakes
yoy, you want to justify govt action on the “I came up w/ a worst case scenario so bad you can’t take the risk that I’m wrong” grounds govt uses for everything, from the ‘threat’ of Iraq to the ‘threat’ that global warming will cause everyone living within 50 miles of a coastline to drown.
Scott:
I heard Larry Diamond speak (in person) 8 days ago. He acknowledged that he had opposed going to war in Iraq in the first place. But now that we are there, he believes quite strongly that we must stick it out and win. And he believes that we can do so.
I think the difference between Larry Diamond and Scott is that Mr. Diamond is not thinking strictly in terms of a personal aversion toward W.
Scott,
No I don’t.
The guy had form, he had to be taken out.
Hopefully this will make the other nutters in the region think twice, calm down and let us live the way we choose to.
If not they know what’s coming.
This is not the same as pressure groups forcing their agenda on govt as in Global warming etc
This is about pressure groups being able to continue to do so.
I believe Scott’s last little orgasm of ad hominem has told us all we need to know. Time for the grownups to talk…
I was originally glad W won because I was sick of Clinton administration lies. The war turned me against W, not the other way around. Try again.
You honestly think a result of your war will be to calm people in the region down!?!?!
Scott
The govt’s, dear boy, the govt’s will calm down
and so I fear should you.
Isn’t it nearly time to put on the special jacket?
Bruce, I was talking to someone who considered Saddam attacking us to be “certainly not beyond the realm of belief”, and he merely hopes the invasion will deter others. Forgive my low opinion of that as a standard for beating prisoners to death.
There does seem to be a possibility that Iraq’s chemicals have been showing up in the hands of terrorists in neighboring countries. What should we make of the attempted chemical attack recently in Jordan? According to the Jordanian officials, the Al Queda affiliated group had 20 tons of over 70 different poison gasses-Sarin VX, etc. They had planned to create a poison gas cloud 1 mile wide and kill tens of thousands of Jordanians. The terrorists claimed that they got the WMD from Syria, but according to intelligence sources Syria does not have the infrastructure to manufacture poison gasses in that massive quantity. 20 tons seems like a lot to me.If not Syria, then who?(Link)
It could be Iraq, or come to think of it, it could be Iran. To me, this is infinitely more important that an old artillary shell. It appears as if, the war may have dispersed Saddam’s WMD throughout the region-exactly the outcome the war was supposed to prevent.
There does seem to be a possibility that Iraq’s chemicals have been showing up in the hands of terrorists in neighboring countries. What should we make of the attempted chemical attack recently in Jordan? According to the Jordanian officials, the Al Queda affiliated group had 20 tons of over 70 different poison gasses-Sarin VX, etc. They had planned to create a poison gas cloud 1 mile wide and kill tens of thousands of Jordanians. The terrorists claimed that they got the WMD from Syria, but according to intelligence sources Syria does not have the infrastructure to manufacture poison gasses in that massive quantity. 20 tons seems like a lot to me.If not Syria, then who?(Link)
It could be Iraq, or come to think of it, it could be Iran. To me, this is infinitely more important that an old artillary shell. It appears as if, the war may have dispersed Saddam’s WMD throughout the region-exactly the outcome the war was supposed to prevent.
Karen, why do you hate America so much? 🙂
Karen,
Where are we going with this?
Iraq has now got WMD? (you know the ones the lefties say he hasn’t got) but they’ve been smuggled across the border just as Bush feared would happen?
Iranians – part of the axis of evil- are manufacturing WMD? I’m shocked yes shocked at such a notion.
And they could be used against ‘ooo’s of people
Bush didn’t lie?
But we should have just left well alone and let Hussein keep his WMD?
until he was ready to use them perhaps?
oops
yoy yoy: So you don’t dispute any of my facts? Good! If the kippah fits…
http://www.jewsnotzionists.org
llamas: If the US government really thought Saddam could have fired off a barrage of WMDs, would it have assembled up to 150,000 troops near his frontiers some time before the invasion, given its alarm about the political consequences back home of incurring more than a handful of casualties?
Scott says:
“A provable, direct threat instead of masterbatory neocon fantasies and idiotvangelical end-of-days delusions.”
Ever here of UN Resolution 1441 and its antecedents? Wipe the spittle off and dedicate yourself to finding a clue.
Scott, you’re being gaslighted.
Leaving Scott aside (sigh), all one can say about this story is that it just strengthens my belief that Saddam and his cohorts failed to live up the standards of disclosure required by the UN, and as such, give further proof that Resolution 1441 was broken. Sooner or later, that resolution had to be enforced, or else we might as well shut the UN down. (Funnily enough, I think Scott would probably agree with me on that one).
Scott wrote:
‘Bruce, I was talking to someone who considered Saddam attacking us to be “certainly not beyond the realm of belief”, and he merely hopes the invasion will deter others. Forgive my low opinion of that as a standard for beating prisoners to death.’
A complete lie. Can’t you read?
My comment about ‘certainly not beyond the realm of belief’ referred to one hypothetical scenario – the possibility that WMDs (like the Sarin shells already discovered in Iraq) might have been made available to terrorists for use against US civilan targets. It was a subsidiary point to the question of whether weapons like this would have been used against an invading US military.
To take that one statement, and reposition it in the way that you did, is a lie, pure and simple. You just lost.
llater,
llamas
“failed to live up the standards of disclosure required by the UN”
“… Israel as a legitimate state,sanctioned by the UN. …”
Hey guys,
I’m struck by the love and respect that one and all show toward that august organization, the UN.
What about the “standards of disclosure” in the case of the oil-for-food corruption scandal ?
What about the UN snactioned genocide by it’s human rights commitee chairman Sudan ?
Saddam was a hoodlum, no matter what the UN says or doesn’t say.
Those who have no delusions about the utterly corrupt nature of the UN should stop using the name “UN’ except in pejorative contexts.
llamas, your claims have been ‘maybe’ and ‘possibly’, and that isn’t good enough.
Please excuse the long post but I feel strongly about Scott’s constant repetitive attacks on anyone who voices the slightest support for or positive news about the defeat of Saddam Hussien.
Scott is both an idiot of truly epic proportions and an ignorant bigot.
On the subject of his idiocy:
By any reasonable measure the Baathist regime in Iraq had to go. In less than 10 years Iraq launched three wars of agression against neighbouring countries. First against Iran, then against Kuwait, and during that against Israel when it fired scud missiles at Israel in an attempt to turn the whole Middle East into an apocalyptic war.
Iraq of course lost all of these wars and at the end had to sign up to a ceasefire agreement. So what did Saddam do? Learn his lesson and give up? No. He violated every single item of the cease-fire agreement repeateadly. He fired at coaltion aircraft patrolling no-fly zones. He attempted the assasination of an American President. He gave financial and other forms of aid to aid to terrorists, terrorists who murdered hundreds of Israeli men, women and children. He gave aid to terrorists who launched the first attack against the World Trade Center. He twice gave large financial donations to a representative of Al-Qaeda.
He pursued an active WMD program. That he was less than succcessful than we thought is neither here nor there. The undeniable fact remains that he was trying. Why try unless he intended to use such weapons? And lets not forget how foul this regime was. Saddams thugs thought nothing of torturing children. and that was not the worst of their crimes.
Yet according to Scott NONE of this justified war against Saddam’s regime.
That is a position of such total moronic stupidity that I wonder about Scott’s mental health.
Scott of course trots out the “all or nothing argument” that says unlless we take out every tyrant on earth RIGHT NOW then we have no right to take out one. The logical fallacy of that argument is so obvious that any normally intelligent human could see it. I happen to be one of those people who think we SHOULD take out as many of the worlds tyrants as we can. Any human being who believes in freedom for all should never be satisfied with leaving other people slavery and under the boot of dictatorships. The fight for freedom is a global struggle. We ARE responsible for what happens to other humans. Refusing to do nothing is an action in itself. Standing by when others are suffering is not libertarian, it is simply cowardice. Libertarianism should never mean “freedom for me but to hell with everyone else” or it is not freedom at all. But we can only do what our resources allow for. America and Britain alone do not have the military power to deal with every tyrant on earth. But does that mean then that we should not take out ANY tyrant at all? Does that mean we should stand by and do nothing when we can deal to one? Any person who thinks so does not know the first thing about basic morality.
As to Scotts claim that the war has been a failure, Saddam Hussien has been removed form power. Bush and the Administration clearly said that the goal was regime change. That was totally and utterly successful. Saddam Hussien will never again rule Iraq or threaten Iraq’s neighbours. For Scott to say that it has been a failure is a sick slur on the men and women who lost their lives removing him from power and an outright lie.
On the subject of his bigotry:
Twice now I have observed this mental dwarf use the term “idiotvangelical”.
Evangelical Christianaty is a very diverse movement. It has members that cover the whole range of political opinion from left to right. There were many Evangelicals opposed to the war. There were also many in favour, but for a number of different reasons. I used to be an Ecangelical, for many years in fact, and I have an insiders view of what Evangelicals believe.
Contrary to popular myth only a minority, a large minority certainly but still not the majority, of evangelicals sign up the Darbyite end times theology that expects an apocalyptic war in the Middle East. Large numbers of Evangelicals do support Israel and many consider themselves Christian Zionists but they do so for different theological and moral reasons, not always because of end times theology.
And despite what Scott thinks, Bush is not an evangelical. Scott dredged up a Weekly Standard article to try and prove that he was but the article is simply wrong. I know because I know what Evangelicals believe and Bush is about as far from being one as you can get and still be an American Protestant. Bush’s faith is closer to the middle of the road AA recovery theology, a bit of faith mixed with a bit of self help. No Evangelical would visit a Mosque as Bush has done. Can anyone imagine Pat Robertson visiting a mosque and saying that Islam was a religion of peace?
In fact there is only one Evangelical in the Bush admin at the top level and that is John Ashcroft, who is not responsible for foriegn policy. Rumsfeld is not. Rice is a moderate Presbytarian. Wolfowitz is Jewish. Powell is certainly not an Evangelical.
So why use the term? Well Scott does not have an intelligent argument to make, so he resorts to this kind of liberal-leftist bigotry to smear Bush and the Administration. Its a lie designed to appeal to peoples knee jerk prejudice. That he has to resort to this tactic is yet more evidence that his arguments in favor of leaving Saddam in power are shallow and idiotic.
Personally Iv’e had enough if him. He’s an arrogant child who screams at everyone else to take responsiblity for their support of the war but refuses to take any at all for his own support for Saddam. Moral hypocrisy is not pretty in the best of circumstances. In the service of keeping a warmongering terrorist supporting tyrant in power it is downright ugly.
Nope. What I said was that if you leave some tyrants, but don’t consider yourself personally responsible for anyone those tyrants kill, then you cannot claim I’d be responsible for someone Saddam may have killed.
If he gets replaced by chaos, or another tyrant, then who cares? If all we do is change the name of the tyrant in charge of Iraq from Saddam to Ralph or Steve, then the war fails to do what the war party promised. If the backlash from your war creates more danger to us than Saddam did, then your war failed. If an Iraqi civil war kills more Iraqis than Saddam would have, then your war failed.
Ashcroft is Pentecostal. Maybe you’re confusing evangelical with fundamentalist. Why do so many evangelicals consider Shrub one of their own if he isn’t, or do you think the bulk of American evangelicals aren’t really evangelical?
If I said no idiotvangelical would visit a mosque or would say anything good about Islam, you’d call me a bigot. What does that claim say about you?
Shawn, was your war supposed to stop this sort of thing?
Brutal interrogation in Iraq
Five detainees’ deaths probed
Pentagon records provide the clearest view yet of the U.S. tactics used at Anu Ghraib and elsewhere to coax secrets from Iraqis.
Brutal interrogation techniques by U.S. military personnel are being investigated in connection with the deaths of at least five Iraqi prisoners in war-zone detention camps, Pentagon documents obtained by The Denver Post show. …
…No criminal punishments have been announced in the interrogation deaths, even though three deaths occurred last year.
Have you seen this, Shawn?
Videos Amplify Picture of Violence
Editor’s Note: Images in this video may be disturbing because of their violent or graphic nature.
The edited video excerpt is from a collection of short digital video files obtained by The Washington Post. The videos appear to show U.S. soldiers abusing detainees last fall in Abu Ghraib prison.
In this video, soldiers are shown apparently attempting to arrange a human pyramid with naked Iraqi prisoners — a scene similar to those also shown in previously obtained photographs. …
Beyond all the legal and moral niceties vis-à-vis the war and its justification, I take a purely pragmatic view. The only question I’m interested in is whether the war has contributed to the stability of the region or increased the chaos. That’s the question from which all others flow – whether about U.S. and western security, terrorism, human rights or whatever. I’d love to be proven wrong, but for the moment I’m convinced that the war was a naive response to a complicated problem and that in the short, medium and long term it has had an enormously detrimental effect on the region. The coalition won the war superbly, but has now definitively lost the battle for hearts and minds. The majority of the Iraqi population is hostile to the occupation, a significant minority is willing to take up arms against it. And that makes the U.S. presence a part of the problem and not the solution. You cannot impose freedom on a hostile population.
Shawn? Hello…..
One incident. Forty dead. Two stories. What really happened?
A tiny bundle of blankets is unwrapped; inside is the body of a baby, its limbs smeared with dried blood. Then the mourners peel back the blanket further to reveal a second dead baby.
Another blanket is opened; inside are the bodies of a mother and child. The child, six or seven years old, is lying against his or her mother, as if seeking comfort. But the child has no head.
These are the images that American forces in Iraq had no answer to yesterday. They come from video footage of the burials of 41 men, women and children. The Iraqis say they died when American planes launched air strikes on a wedding party near the Syrian border on Wednesday….
thanks Scott! that is a revelation to me! i had no idea that innocent people sometimes get killed in wars! i always thought wars were, you know, fun and stuff. i am just going to stop supporting any war for any reason in future and just adopt the fetal position if anyone threatens me.
One or two chem artillery shells were really a threat to you?
Scott,
I think in this thread you are the proverbial Iraqi prisoner getting the proverbial living bejesus kicked out of him by some very sadistic guards.Proverbially.
It is you sir who should adopt the foetal position.
WJPhillips
Facts schmacts
One man’s facts are another’s ravings of an unhinged bigot. Arguably
One thing is a fact.
Israel could, overnight, solve the whole Arab/Israel issue.
However if ever an Arab nation gets a functioning nuclear capability then it WILL be solved overnight.
They will probably solve the irritant of Western civilisation while they’re at it.
Scott,
The point of the allied war was regime change. Saddam Hussein has been removed, and he will be replaced by a functioning government. That is a success.
That innocent people get killed in wars is hardly news. Welcome to the real world.
That soldiers sometimes behave in bad ways is also hardly news.
So what?
ANY action taken, including inaction, results in death and suffering. Thats called reality.
Had your path been taken little children would still be being raped and tortured in Saddams kiddie prisons. Thats the result of your chosen action. That you are comfortable with that speaks volumes. And dont crap on that you are not responsible for that. By choosing to oppose the war you have made yourself responsible for the results of your decision. Unlike you, I am prepared to take responsibility for my choices.
Scott, here is a point worth considering when mentioning the horrible facts of this war — such things can happen in wars even fought in strict self defence, of the sort even the most hardline libertarian would support. I presume you are not a pacifist. If so, then any response to an attack will lead, unless one is very lucky, to the deaths of innocent bystanders. Only utopians would demur.