This interesting tidbit from CNN:
**I guess Blix’s crack team must have somehow missed this.
No, the vials of white powder story probably won’t hold up. There was a similar one a few days ago, and it turned out that the vials were for testing for the presence of chemical weapons.
It’s pretty silly anyway. What’s a soldier supposed to do with a vial full of poison? Walk up to the enemy and say “Sniff this?”
Even if we do find some, there’s always gonna be somebody who is always unsure of it…<rolleyes>
From MSNBC:
**
Since I’m dubious about the claimed ease of using such things as weapons of mass destruction, I’ve argued all along that our foreign policy should focus our power and influence on limiting the one proven weapon of mass destruction - nukes. I’m not keen on Saddam having bio/chem weapons. (I’ve assumed all along that he has bio/chem weapons; after all, we’ve got the receipts. He might’ve gotten rid of them since, but it’s not the way to bet.) But does his possession of same justify an invasion of a sovereign nation? Whether it does or not, we’ve certainly lowered the bar for other nations that want to invade a neighbor.
That would be a different story. But even the Bushies haven’t claimed in quite some time that we’re going to find a viable nuclear-weapons program over there.
Maybe we’ve raised the bar by punishing Saddam who invaded both Kuwait and Iran. Don’t you think the next aggressive dictator will think twice before invading its neighbor?
Thank God MSNBC.com is on the scene for the forensic analysis. Maybe they can get the guys from CSI Miami to check out some of the other sites.
It’s hard to imagine the results of the WMD search won’t be equivocal. Some facility or chemical precursor or remnant of old weapons stock or “banned” missile that could have been adapted for X, or materials that should have been destroyed back in 19xx, will turn up (I don’t think the U.S. would plant it). The Iraqis will say it was an oversight, others will think the Iraqis/SH were in fact engaging in sullen foot dragging and withholding full compliance with a “requirement” that they felt violated their sovereignty, and compliance with which they never agreed to, except under the undue duress of the last Gulf War defeat, and the hawks will say this proves there was noncompliance all along.
If something is indeed discovered stashed away – let’s even assume an extensive and functional and deliverable arsenal of deadly WMD – but was not used by SH during the course of a full-scale invasion for regime change, the question is whether this poses a problem for the hawks. I think it might if people seriously analyzed the rationale that brought the war about, which was heavy on “(a) WMD exist in Iraq and (b) they are an imminent threat to the U.S. because SH is a madman who may soon use them on us such that other containment options short of war are inadequate.” I doubt most Americans would think going to war and evicting a sovereign government solely on the basis of even a clear procedural violation of a UN mandate was a foregone conclusion, the way they would if they thought that weapons not only existed but were aimed at the U.S. Heck, a lot of Americans don’t think much of the UN or other international bodies “legislating” to begin with, and routinely ignore any pronouncement such bodies may make attempting to impose limits on U.S. policy.
So if SH has WMD but doesn’t use them when the Americans are 10 miles from downtown Baghdad, in the course of demolishing his regime and going after his life, this sort of detracts from the idea that he would have somehow been motivated to deliver (or capable of doing so) a WMD strike on Manhattan or Pittsburgh or whatever anytime soon, absent the war. (This isn’t to say that such weapons, if they do exist, won’t be deployed in coming days – which in addition to the horrible consequences on the poor kids facing such an attack, would doubtless lead to grotesque posturing by both sides; the hawks would be appalled yet you wonder if they wouldn’t have a bit of secret vindication/satisfaction; the doves would shout that none of this would ever have happened if the regime hadn’t been pushed to the brink. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to this).
As a practical matter, though, I think the ambiguity that will likely result when something suspicious (or downright incrimnating) is found somewhere will allow each side to continue arguing their points (“We found them just in the nick of time before he launched them on Wichita!” vs. “They’ve been sitting there for ten years, including during this invasion, and would have sat there ten more.”).
Umm… is this a joke? Did I not say in my post TO THROW IN A RIGHT-WING FAVOURITE… … you didn’t get the fact that I was pointing out that ring-wing folk apologize for their dictators, too? Read that again.
RIGHT-WING FAVOURITE
Catch it that time?
Christ, Mandlestam. I don’t think my posts are that confusing, and nobody else seems to misunderstand them this badly, but this must be the fourth time you’ve replied to one of mine and come out with an impression of it that sounds as if either I was writing in Sanskrit or you accidentally posted a reply to a different thread. I thought it was pretty clear I was asserting that Pinochet has his apologists on the right side, not the left.
No, you won’t get any campus lefties praising Pinochet. But you DO get lots of Young Conservatives praising Pinochet. Old ones, too. Milton Friedman has famously supported Pinochet, and has gone to far as to lament the notion of political freedom interfering with economic freedom (the nerve of those Chileans, huh?) Or, in another case, there was a thread on the SDMB just last week talking about how Ronald Reagan, while not precisely SUPPORTING apartheid, certainly seemed to be a big fan of its government - one of the most hideous, evil, criminal states of recent memory. South Africa had many conservative supporters at least at the lower levels of apologism.
The capacity for people to forgive dictators who support their political ends is breathtaking. Of course, there’s varying levels of apologism:
- Ignoring Their Misdeeds And Just Complaining About Opposing Dictators
- Saying “Well, He’s Worse Than The Alternative”
- Saying It’s All the USA/Communists’/Muslims/Israel’s Fault, As The Case May Be
- Minimizing Their Sins
- Cheering Them On
Then no offense, but I don’t believe you know what you’re talking about. Castro has many ARDENT supporters in the U.S. and, indeed, here in Canada. Around the world, actually - he’s a very popular leader. Unless you live in Miami, I can’t imagine how you wouldn’t notice this. The man is loved by millions. Log onto Michael Moore’s message board, post a thread called “Fidel Castro is a great leader,” and watch how many messages of support you get. He has MILLIONS of apologists. All dictators do. Are they on the extreme ends of the political spectrum? Of course they are; your average leftist/rightist isn’t that extreme. But the super-partisans are around:
http://www.geocities.com/mecha_csuf/fidelcastro.html
And Saddam Hussein will have his fans in time, and if you don’t believe me, let’s bet money on it. Among the colossal screwups of diplomacy the Bush administration is committing, setting Hussein up to be a hero of anti-Americanism will be one of the more irritating in years to come.
How so? Lenin was a murderous dictator. So is Hussein. Are they different? Certainly… VERY different. But they do bear one key similarity, which was the point of comparison.
At first I thought this was witty.
Then I wondered why you didn’t put a :rolleyes: .
Then it struck me that you are making a valid, yet frightening, point.
I can imagine Bush nodding as his crack team told him about how the Iraqis will throw garlands of flowers onto the tanks of the US freedom fighters.
And how the US electorate will think how this war is about Osama Bin Laden (sort of).
I thought we’d already ‘punished’ Saddam for invading Kuwait by, first, bombing the living tar out of his country, then kicking his sorry ass out of Kuwait and destroying much of his army.
As for Iran, it’s not only a little late for punishing him for that (how far back are we going to go?), but it’s also kinda stupid, because weren’t we on his side in that one? Maybe when we’re done punishing him, we should have someone else punish us.
[MP&HG]
A spanking! A spanking!
[/MP&HG]
Pardon me for interrupting this thread to dispel a hijack.
First, regarding the “white powder”, which was found south of Baghdad in Latifiya:
And then to further confuse the issue, the reference to ricin and botulinum traces were found at the Ansar al-Islam site in northern Iraq, in the Kurdish controlled portion of Iraq, and doesn’t represent a connection to Saddam Hussein.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled debate…
RickJay, okay so basically what you’re saying is this:
-
Your reference to Pinochet, which purported to offer proof for the assertion that “campus leftists” will one day admire Saddam Hussein, was nothing but a non-sequitur, completley irrelevant to campus leftists since the reference had nothing to do them.
-
You have no proof that any campus leftist is a “big fan” of Fidel Castro (unless perhaps you assume that the Michael Moore website is frequented by academics).
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You know absolutely nothing about Lenin, except perhaps what you’ve read on websites not much better than the kind you profess to disdain. I infer the latter, because if you did know anything about Lenin, you’d know that reducing him to a “murderous dictator” in order to compare him Saddam Hussein is either proof of ignorance, or of willful stupidity. (I lean towards the former in your case on the basis of having thought better of you in the past.)
In other words, Rick, don’t take on an entire class of people–many of whom are a hell of a lot better educated than you are–and attribute loony beliefs to them. It makes you look churlish and, quite frankly, dumb.
Yes, on campuses one finds one’s share of nutters, but these are no more likely to be leftists than not. No, I do not agree with all “campus leftists,” as we are not a monolithic group espousing a monolithic creed. But I do know enough about the category to know that your allegations are baseless. That is, I doubt very much you will find any significant number of “campus leftists” professing their admiration for Saddam, either now in the future.
As other posters have remarked, the US supported Saddam fighting Iran. In fact a chap called Rumsfeld sold him the chemical weapons he used on the Iranians. So that’s all right by you, is it?
And your ‘principle’ didn’t stop Bush invading Iraq, did it? 
And how would you apply the effects of your incredible scheme for world peace to the Middle East?
You’re way beyond the SDMB’s rules with respect to what belongs in this forum, and way off-topic, so my response has to go in the Pit.
I don’t believe this is true. Got a cite?
Seem irrelevant to the question at hand, doesn’t it?
Do you include Bush as an “aggressive dictator invading his neighbor”?
Bringing peace to the Middle East a tough challenge.
Oooh, oooh! Pick me, pick me!
I wouldn’t expect the discovery of chemical, biological or radiological weapons to sway the entrenched positions of certain war opponents here, for all the reasons that have been listed.
However, it will certainly make France, Germany and Russia’s leaders look stupid. Because among the things they asserted prior to the war was that the U.N. weapons inspections were working, and the number of inspectors only needed to be increased.
As Saddam Hussein has denied he has any chemical, biological or radiological weapons, if any are discovered, he will have been proven to have been thwarting U.N. weapons inspectors. It will be proof that the inspection program was ineffective.
“Going through the U.N.” and “using diplomacy” (which has essentially become Bush- and war-opponent doublespeak for “the U.S. capitulating to the French, German and Russian position”) will have been proven to have been folly. The position we were supposed to capitulate to was that inspections were working, and that inspectors and inspections alone would bring about Iraq’s compliance with U.N. Security Council Resolutions 678, 687 and 1441, if they were only done a little differently.
Cite
Discovery of any chemical, biological and radiological weapons will expose that for the rubbish that it is/was.
Also the French, Germans and Russians maintain Bush and Blair had no justification for this war. Bush and Blair maintained the war was necessary because A) evidence exists that Iraq has continued to build and possess WMD, and B) Iraq did not adequately answer vital questions about its unaccounted for WMD.
No matter how some who dislike Bush may want to slice it, the discovery of any chemical, biological or radiological weapons in Iraq will prove the U.S. and U.K.'s concerns were well-justified.
Some I suspect will immediately reach for this quibble, "all along we said Bush and Blair didn’t have conclusive evidence of WMD, that justified going to war. (In fact, IIRC, a war opponent has already used that one in this thread.)
Somehow trying to deflect the focus off the fact that it was fear that Saddam had WMD that motivated the war, and he did indeed have WMD.
Looney tunes? You bet. Watch it happen, nonetheless.
Someone should tell UNICEF and Tony Blair to stop spreading urban legends.
Whether or not you blame the deaths from the sanctions entirely on Saddam, entirely on the U.S., or on both of them is of course a matter of debate (I favor the third option, myself), but the large numbers of dead Iraqi children as a direct result of the sanctions is well-documented fact, not urban myth.
P.S. To whoever back there threw out the “why aren’t we treating North Korea the same way?” and the “why weren’t we concerned about Iraq’s WMD 10 years ago?” straw men:
how many times does the same thing have to be slapped upside your heads, until you get it?
Regarding the North Korea strawman -
Diplomacy hasn’t even come close to being exhausted when it comes to North Korea. In the case of Iraq, it quite clearly has. No matter where you may stand on the Iraq war, I can’t imagine your argument would be that if we just make this concession, or this sanction against, or these negotiating sessions, Saddam Hussein will then comply with 678, 687 and 1441.
How many Security Council resolutions are there about North Korea’s WMD and required disarmament? How many are there about Iraq?
Rest assured, if or when diplomatic avenues are exhausted with Kim Jong-Il, the U.S. will take military action rather than have a kook with nuclear ballistic missles in Southeast Asia, pointed at the U.S. among others. That’s if China, Japan or South Korea doesn’t beat us to it.
Regarding the “why weren’t we concerned about Iraq before?” strawman -
Sept. 11, 2001, demonstrably changed U.S. policy on potential large-scale threats, whether Iraq was directly involved in that attack or not. Anyone who doesn’t “get that” yet is doing so purposefully.
Cite from two months after 9/11
Cite providing evidence that those in the Bush administration who supported ousting Saddam were largely ignored until after 9/11
(A long but interesting read.)
Uh…no offense** Milossarian**, but are you me?
If you are or if you ain’t , I think you are very smart.