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| quote: | Originally posted by Fir3start3r
Let's not kid outselves, as stated in my previous post, the U.S. are not alone in this arguement.
And we're forgetting our time line.
The mass graves are those of his own people only days after the Iran-Iraq war.
War is one thing; commiting genocide on your own people is totally different. |
That doesn't help our position very much when we did, in fact, effectively looked the other way when he gassed his own people, all because we wanted business with the little tyrant.
If more murder was done after the Iran-Iraq war, so be it - I fail to see any relevance of any timeline of when genocide was killed, whether it be when they were taken off our terrorist list all throughout the 80's (through Republican presidents, mind you), or when they were put back onto the terrorist list in the early 90's. The act of genocide is inexcusable no matter when it occurred. If we were to unseat him as a result of accumulation of this mass murder, fine – I have no problem with that cause. But we also cannot dismiss our inadvertent part of his genocidal actions.
However, his genocidal actions were not sold to Congress, press, or the public as a means to invade, and you or any other conservative cannot historically revise what sold us to going to war.
| quote: | | No I'm not say one is better than the other, but in war, there are rules of conduct. (at least, there is supposed to be). |
Like no torture? Does that count? If so, why are we about to hire the man as new Attorney General who authorized and advocated such actions?
| quote: | While WMDs were the main point, they weren't the only point.
It was the one most accepted however, and apparently the only point Leftists seem to grasp. |
Bullshit. It was THE main point SOLD to Congress, the Press, and the public, period. There’s no way in hell this president would have been able to sell the neocon war in Iraq without a threat to the U.S. and you know it. Personally I would have liked to hear his humanitarian argument a great deal more, but this reason coupled with compliance of UN resolutions and geopolitical motives of spreading democracy was a distant, distant, distant third, fourth, and fifth compared to the threat Saddam supposedly posed to us by WMD and distorting the truth of involvement with Al Qaeda and 9/11 (see: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/rele...20030319-1.html). Please try not to wipe away history for us – I remember quite distinctly what was sold to us as THE reason for going to war. Most analysts, even conservative ones agree that our invasion would not have occurred had there not been some sort of immediate threat and tie-in to the current terrorist policy.
| quote: | The man repeatedly violated 16 UN Security Council resolutions.
How many times does one have to ask before steps are taken? If Saddam HAD followed the steps? Highly unlikely, but it was obvious that the benefit of the (world's) doubt was given and Saddam hung himself with it. |
Do you realize how many other countries around the world, including our allies, violate UN resolutions? This reason alone was, on the grand scheme of things, insignificant and a backburner issue compared to the supposed “threat” he gave us.
| quote: | While it is true that the WMDs were not found, it is also true that WMDs existed.
Did they just disappear? More likely they went over the border before they were found... |
Did you read the Duelfer report very well? How about any other intelligence reports on the matter? There’s no evidence of this occurring whatsoever. It’s highly likely that the biological and chemical weapons were considered useless through time, rather than supposedly going over the borders. Here’s a little claim/fact sheet of Powell’s assertions to the UN prior to invasion:
http://www.sierrafoot.org/soapbox/B...raq_powell.html
Specifically referencing the chemical and biological weaponry, this Administration’s evidence was taken out of bits and pieces of intelligence reports. The full context of those reports (the “fact” part of that website pertaining to chem./biol. WMD unaccounted for stockpiles) were taken primarily from 2 sources: Rummy’s Defense Dept. in the run-up to the war:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/pentago...aq_weapons.html
And Hussein Kamel, Saddam’s brother-in-law who defected from Iraq and later went back only to be assassinated. The interview that occurred with Kamel gave some juicy tidbits that Bush and the neocons twisted to fit their agenda, while leaving out some important tidbits in the process, such as:
| quote: | In the transcript of the interview, Kamel states categorically:
"I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed"
(p. 13).
Kamel specifically discussed the significance of anthrax, which he portrayed as the "main focus" of the biological programme (pp.7-8). Smidovich asked Kamel: "were weapons and agents destroyed?"
Kamel replied: "nothing remained".
He confirmed that destruction took place "after visits of inspection teams. You have important role in Iraq with this. You should not underestimate yourself. You are very effective in Iraq." (p.7)
Kamel added: "I made the decision to disclose everything so that Iraq could return to normal." (p.8)
Furthermore, Kamel describes the elimination of prohibited missiles: "not a single missile left but they had blueprints and molds for production. All missiles were destroyed." (p.8)
On VX, Kamel claimed: "they put it in bombs during last days of the Iran-Iraq war. They were not used and the programme was terminated." (p.12).
Ekeus asked Kamel: "did you restart VX production after the Iran-Iraq war?"
Kamel replied: "we changed the factory into pesticide production. Part of the establishment started to produce medicine [...] We gave insturctions [sic] not to produce chemical weapons." (p.13).
Despite the significance of these claims, it was not known that Kamel made this assertion until February 2003. Kamel's claim was first carried on 24 February 2003 by Newsweek, who reported that Kamel told U.N. inspectors that Iraq had destroyed its entire stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and banned missiles, as Iraq claims (Newsweek, 3/3/03). Newsweek reported that the weapons were destroyed secretly, in order to hide their existence from inspectors, in the hopes of someday resuming production after inspections had finished. The CIA and MI6 were told the same story, Newsweek reported.
However, these facts were "hushed up by the U.N. inspectors" in order to "bluff Saddam into disclosing still more", according to Newsweek.
http://middleeastreference.org.uk/kamel.html |
Let’s keep in mind that the statements made by this Administration such as 4 tons of VX nerve gas being unaccounted for describe weaponry that was made prior to ’91. They left out this part of the interview from which they based their material on. After ’91 it was more or less a question up in the air on their WMD proliferation and stockpiling, which of course after-the-fact details by Duelfer, the Senate Intelligence Report, and the Kay report explain their lack of ability to start up the programs (though admittedly Saddam was wanting to potentially start them back up). This is likely the reason why we have statements from Administration members like these prior to the push for war:
| quote: | Powell: “And even though they may be pursuing weapons of mass destruction of all kinds, it is not clear how successful they have been. So to some extent, I think we ought to declare this a success. We have kept him contained, kept him in his box.” 2/23/01
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/931.htm
Powell later said the next day in Cairo: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." |
And there’s also the distinct possibility of bookkeeping errors in the unaccountability. From the AP Press:
http://www.notinourname.net/war/wmd...rors-6sep03.htm
And then, of course, we have that darn liberal media, the NYTimes investigative reporter Judith Miller citing Ahmed Chalabi as a source for Saddam’s supposed nuclear capability. I need not state the bullshit liar and opportunist Chalabi turned out to be, unless you haven’t been following the news much on him.
So IOW, our intelligence was questionable at best on Saddam’s stockpiles, but this was simply not the picture given to Congress, the Press, or the public now, was it?
| quote: | You're completely missing the point...months ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, someone tell me how time has any relavance to the mass graves arguement?
If I go kill someone and no one finds out until I'm 90, then new evidence comes up and I'm convicted, guess what? I'm going to jail... |
Exactly. So tell me, why didn’t we immediately cut ties with Saddam at that point of him gassing the Kurds in the 80’s, immediately put his ass back on the list of terrorist nations where it belongs, and ceased from playing both sides of the fence?
| quote: | How was Saddam breaking a resolution with inspectors on the ground?
How about kicking them out and not letting them back in? I'd say if he had nothing to hide, why kick out U.N. inspectors unless he did have something to hide or move stuff before evidence was found. |
Well we don’t have to resort to hindsight on this one – he kicked UN inspectors out because he caught us in the act of inserting CIA spies in with the inspectors. He busted us, and we were actually in violation of the inspection agreement by conducting espionage under the cover of UN weapons inspections:
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/200...28_Big_Lie1.HTM
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/j.../iraq-j07.shtml
And we left on our own accord, Saddam didn’t kick us out at all. He merely caught us in the act of violating the UN agreement on inspections. Revisionist history strikes again.
Keep in mind that in no way am I excusing Saddam’s actions altogether, but this point consistently seems to be overlooked by the warmongers.
Added in edit: Wait - are you talking about just prior to our invasion? Please cite your source with specific reference to the fact that Saddam kicked out UN inspectors prior to our invasion. From all intelligence and factual accounts, the Coalition kicked them out ourselves so we could start our bombing campaign.
| quote: | | We all know he had them, there tons to evidence to support that thanks to Trancer-X's posts (thanks buddy) |
We also know that there was plenty of evidence that was filtered out that clearly showed our evidence for his WMD arsenal and capability was shaky at best. What do you make of that?
| quote: | | There's this great misconception after Saddam buying all these chemicals weapons during the Iran-Iraq war that they simply "disappeared". Where did they go? Did we really expect this former tyrant to destroy his WMD on his own just because he was asked to? Riiiiight... |
According to Senate and Duelfer intelligence reports, yes he did, in fact, destroy much of his weaponry. I’ve covered the part about missing stockpiles earlier.
| quote: | | Not with his record and everyone knew it, heck he was even willing to starve millions of his own people! |
Quite true. So why didn’t we press for humanitarian purposes as the primary reason then?
| quote: | I'm willing to bet that the U.S. was counting on the fact that Saddam thought no one had the guts (especially the toothless U.N.) to come and get him.
Hell I'm surprised someone finally did, but after 9-11, things changed a lot and endless debating becames rather exhausted. |
How did things change after 9/11? How did our post-p/11 policy of pursuing Al Qaeda terrorists have anything to do with dictator regimes such as Iraq that didn’t have any known “corroborative relationship” with Al Qaeda or 9/11? If this was the case, why are we still doing terrific business with other known homicidal dictators around the globe? Why haven’t we attacked other countries and allies known to harbor Al Qaeda terrorists? Why the double standard?
___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...
Last edited by MisterOpus1 on Jan-24-2005 at 18:37
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