Huh...check it out...

Still No WMD\'s.

Ok, Ok, Don't have to rub it in.

Alot of stuff gets posted to this board that turns out to be false. It's not that rare of occurance.

christ... someone needs to just plant some... seriously.

just to stop the US from looking like such assholes

I do hope they find some in all honesty. Maybe then we wouldn't look that bad.

(And yes, I know the usual response - why should we care what other people think)

i don't care what others think... just so long as they don't think they need to blow up another 3k people

What is your point exactly?

The WMD issue is loaded with hypocrisy. All those against attacking Iraq wanted to give the UN more time. Some even threw around the figure of another year or so. All the while the UN was passing resolution after useless resolution ..... don't you think Saddam had plenty of time to remove them from Iraq?

We will eventuall find them, but they were probably out of Iraq before the first American tank crossed the Kuwait border.

To all those geniuses critical of the war on Iraq... how do you propose we handle North Korea? They are openly bragging they re-processed their fuel rods and will be making nuclear weapons immediately. That's mean months. Not years.

FYI since you're new... please keep it to one topic. In other words, this belonged in the thread my Madman.

Also, since both democrats and republicans believed they have WMD, what does this mean?

What are you saying here, that we go into North Korea too? I don't think China would stand idly by and let that happen. Face it, if they (N. Korea) what to make nuclear weapons, there's not much we can do about it. The best we can do against that government is keep the country isolated, and let it wither on the vine.

No. I'm not saying that at all. I agree that China would not be happy. The last thing they want is US troops near their border. They also never want a reunified Korea with the government in the south victorious. That would also bring US influence to their border.

I figured the people that have all the ideas about Iraq had some about No. Korea. Letting them wither on the vine is probably not much of an option. I'm sure Japan doesn't think so.

BTW, I like this article:
Iraq Weapons Searcher Indicates Longtime U.N. Violations

Doesn't matter, they don't have oil. Nothing will happen unless Halliburton , Bechtel and Cheney will profit from it.

I swear some of you guys must be either truly idiots or the most thick headed people to ever walk the planet.

Cynical Cynical people. We all agree they had them. We all agree they did not account for all of them. (I am talking Dems and Republicans, ALL OF US). So why arent the libs more nervous about the question of where they are? If they are not in Iraq, and we all believe they were at one time, then do you not care about the question of "Where are They?"

Are you so intent on wanting this administration to look bad that you would rather the weapons be in the hands of some unknown Person/government/terrorist organization? If we couldnt find them in Iraq then they are still out there, unnaccounted for, somewhere else. It is inviting attack.
I know the majority of liberals here would rather us be attacked first and then we would negotiate some kind of response. Our being attacked first would be the only way we would know what happened to the WMD's. Why are libs so willing to play with all of our lives like this? I seriously do not understand the logic.

You can't have peace love and understanding (Western Ideals by the way) with people who commit suicide as a matter of course. We saw it in WW2, we see it here. Part of Western style warfare is the zeal to stay alive. We threaten the enemy with death and that scares them, and they want to stay alive.
These terrorist people are willing to die as part of thier battle plan. As a means to an end. Not as the end itself. You cannot fight an enemy like that with conventional means. There is no "Republic of Terrorista" massing troops/planes/tanks/and ships at our border. They will stay hidden until the bomb goes off. (I mean any bomb, car bomb/shoe bomb/dirty bomb/Nuclear bomb). And when you see the fire, its already too late. How else can you fight them? Negotiating doesnt work. It never has. How can you negotiate that you wont kill someone if they are perfectly willing to do it on thier own?

Pardon the bad analogy, but these people are termites. They will eat your home from the inside out, and by the time you realize it, it may be too late. So call the exterminator and stop the problem before it gets too far.

Sorry for the rant.

Present company excluded, right? :rolleyes:

North Korea would be no picnic. Especially with all you liberals yelling about innocent civillians being killed. You cannot fight and wage a politically correct war.

First the Haliburton argument liberals are so fond of floating is a fallacious one. They listen to that robot Gephardt to much. Cheney has no ties with Haliburton anymore, and hasn't for a number of years. Furthermore, Haliburton already had the contract before the war ever started. The have had military support contracts since before Bush was in office. This argument that the war was started to benefit them is about the stupidest one out there. They have the experience from the last war, they were already under government contract. Unfortunately the army has bowed to the bullshit political preasure and has put the contracts up for bid anyway.

North Korea just wants to try to blackmail us again. That is their interest in developing nukes. It gives them something to hold over us. Kim Jong Il, is not a complete nutbag. He isn't going to use them any time soon. He knows if he did he and his people would cease to exist. I also think China's interests are more with us than NK. The free trade they are now enjoying is much more important to them than preserving the government in Pyongyang.

Seriously, as much as I would hate to see Bush be right, we HAVE to find weapons. We look SO BAD to the rest of the world right now, and it's no wonder the Muslims hate us. We're the new invaders.

I think Bush made a tactical mistake in saying they had WMD's. What he should have done is said "This is a bad man, and he needs to go, for the better of the world." And then simply waited until the UN was behind him. Instead he did a rush job, claimed something he didn't have the info for, and now we're a bottom rung country with the rest of the world...

Here's to hoping we find them!

Define " deferred compensation " He continues to receive nearly a million dollars a year, not to mention stock! Where have you been?

Actually, he does. He has a $150,000 salary that is being deferred. But that doesn't have anything to do with the current situation.

I agree, but I have to ask, since you love direct questions. 1)do you believe that Iraq ever had WMD's? And if so, 2)do you believe that Iraq destroyed them all, even the ones unaccounted for? If yes on 2, fine. But if no on 2, dont you believe we HAVE to find them for the welfare of the world? Europe doesnt care because they know most likely these weapons will be used on Israel or the US homeland. I could care less how we look to the rest of the world because they are not the ones in the crosshairs. I care about these weapons being in the hands of some unknown group. Now if you dont believe this to be the case, fine, we are at an impasse.

Yes, I do believe that Iraq had WMD's. I mean, there's no question about that, Saddam used them on the Kurds in the 80's. Besides that, we GAVE him the technology to do it when Iraq was fighting Iran.

However, I DON'T believe that he had them after the Gulf War when the UN went in and commanded him to destroy them. I believe he did, and then wouldn't let inspectors in anymore, because, quite honestly, he had already destroyed them. Why continue the inspections if there aren't anymore weapons? (I'm not saying I believe this, I'm saying it's probably what Saddam was thinking.)

What I do believe he had in mind was to keep the scientists around, and when the pressure was off, he'd start making them again. Problem was, the pressure never left him, so he couldn't restock his supplies.

I, unlike you, DO care how we look to the rest of the world. Because the worse we look, the more Bin Ladens rise up in the Middle East. And by toppling Saddam, we've ruined the balance of power in the middle east, so now we have to occupy Iraq to bring order. And since occupation is the FIRST thing to set off the Muslims, you KNOW there's five or six Bin Ladens being created in Iraq right now.

It is wonderful that Saddam is out of power, but we have to turn the power over to the Iraqi people and get out as soon as possible. The longer we are there, the more the Muslims will hate us.

You are wrong again. He sold all his stock in 2000, or do you forget how the libs tried to toast him for that one? Deffered compensation is not going to get any higher because the company is doing better. Duh! Here is an article describing the truth about why he sold his stock to begin with.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn...8¬Found=true

I did glance at the article you posted. I laughed out loud when I saw it was filed under the ominous Military Industrial Complex section of the site.

We did not give him any chemical weapons. Several countries around the world sold him precursor dual use chemicals. That is just another propaganda lie.

Part of the cease fire agreement was that he had to declare what he had and proove that he distroyed them all. He gave us a list, and never provided proof that he got rid of them. He agreed to do this and never did it. That was legal reason enough for us to remove him.

All he had to do was proove that he destroyed them, and the sanctions would have been lifted. He chose to be ambiguous about it, because he thought no one would attack him if they thought he had the weapons. He was obviously wrong on that one.

Having an evil dictator be 'the balance of power' is not my idea of a good thing. This argument that we are creating terror is just dumb. The terrorists already exist. They are flooding into Iraq right now. We are hunting them down and killing them. They know if they lose their days of fooling their people are over.

There has to be something to turn the power over to first. You are arguing the French perspective here. It is ridiculous to assume we can just pull out and everything will work out. The Iraqis have said that they need time to get their government in order. Our new resolution leaves the timetable to the Iraqis themselves. I think that is the fairest thing that could be done, considering it is their country.

But we gave him the samples used to generate Bio-weapons, that we later used as a reason to invade the country:
The Associated Press Story.
An Evil Dictator is bad, but Anarchy breeds terrorism.

Just like so many people who used to give Bush a 90% approval rating and now give him a 51%, many arabs that were on the fence about becomming terrorists against the US are passing over. I'm sure they hated Saddam; but now they don't even have Saddam to hate, they can focus on the US. And against an Army as powerful as ours they know that conventional warefare won't work. The only way they can make an impact is through terrorism.

If you think invading an Arab country isn't goign to cause turmoil amoung Arabs you're blind to what happens in the world outside the US. Arabs like the civilization they started, they got rid of tribes when the Islam religion was founded and decided to stick together as a Religion. That Arab unity still lives on today, that's why invading Iraq is producing terrorists in other countries.

We will eventually find weapons of mass destruction...as we clean up the mess after one of the islamic crazies uses one of them in an American city.(it's bound to happen, Wil's friend Osama has set the benchmark) The technology to build such weapons isn't rocket science. Containing them is. These countries shuffle this stuff around because they know we will spend more time on bi-partisan bickering about it, than trying to secure intel to let us know where or who may have it.

As I've said before, and I'll say it again (and it doesn't have jack squat to do with what side of the political fence your on) If you think that these HOSTILE nations such as Iran, Saudi-Disarraybia, Syria..aren't clammering to try to get these weapons in their arsenals you need to change the bong water.

I wonder what the left side would do if the unthinkable would happen. Do you think they would hunker down and start funneling $$$ over there to buy their friendship??? Or perhaps say that everything in the Mid-East is the fault of the Americans and we deserve what we got coming to us? Or that everything is a vast right-wing conspiracy to dominate the world and get all the oil?

Regardless of your political convictions, extremist groups have one thing in mind. Destroy anything and everyone who isn't muslim. Destroy everything that isn't chaotic and resembles somekind of order. Kill the Jews. Kill the Americans. Destroy democracy. Destroy, Destroy, Destroy! They have taken the Quran and turned it into a hellish battlecry to justify sending young people into crowded areas and kill as many people as they can. They tell them that they will be rewarded with an eternity of sex with virgins, and their families will be rewarded with money. These people have driven themselves insane with hatered.

Mark my words. That day is coming sooner than we think.

I'm not sure of the Jew-count here on XOC, but for the Goyem who don't know, today, the 5th is the Holiest of days for Judaism and Israel, Yom Kippur. The latest attacks have occurred in between the two greatest holidays in Judaism and are pushing the act of retaliation on behalf of Israel to the edge. Aquamanders post about the end being near is sadly true and horribly real.
G-d bless our troops and have mercy on our souls.

Not trying to be apocalyptic, just realistic. I see lots of people here who are critical of our actions around the globe. And I defend their right to make their opinions known. I have no problem with that.

I think that claiming that Iraq or any of those countries absolutely has no WMD or plans to obtain them is ridiculous.

I remember reading a story somewhere, that Iran had actually bought 2 Russian Kilo-class submarines. This is the stuff that should worry the fredom loving people of the world.

Very interesting discussion. I unfortunately, only because it seems so bleak, agree with much that Aquamander has to say. I am, every time I hear of ANOTHER suicide bombing in Israel, or another atrocity committed by so-called Islamic leaders on their own people, horrified by so much that clearly symbolizes a religion that, on one hand speaks of it's love of peace and goodwill, yet on the other hand offers such a fertile garden for hatred and intolerance.

Women are treated as secondary citizens....personal freedoms are virtually non-existent.....and control over the constituents and followers is oftentimes so brutal and totaliterian that any deviation from accepted practices can result in unbelievable punishment.

I do think that Islamic practice is one that does have a basis in good, and that most practitioners of the religion are good. But increasingly, leaders of Islamic based governement are successfully building a a framework of hatred against anything that counters their manipulative beliefs, derived from devining varied messages from the Koran.

I do see, unfortunately, a continued polarization between traditional Western philosophy and the Islamic world. A polarization that will result in many more untold deaths and destruction. And yes, I do believe that many more terrorist attacks will happen here, as they have continued to happen in other parts of the world. The Islamic extremists responsible for such behavior will take tremendous joy in watching you bleed, hearing your children scream and watching your homes burn. Do not fool yourselfs.

My question is when do we as a society, on the verge of such a very dangerous point in our existence, start to take these threats seriously, and act in whatever means necessary to defend ourselves and our children?

Hopefully soon enough that there is still something to protect.

When there's half a million dead Americans amidst a city of burning rubble...Thanks guys. At least I don't sound like a complete raving lunatic.