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WMDs? (pg. 2)
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| ogvh5150 |
Too many people hope they can find WMD's even if its a few vials of sarin, soman and vx.
A little too late for those that believe we are there for a reason.
"...The German government reportedly 'actively encouraged' weapons co-operation and assistance was allegedly given to Iraq in developing poison gas used against Kurds..."
And:
"..The Security Council agreed to US requests to censor 8000 pages -- including sections naming western businesses which aided Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme."
Sunday Herald - 23 February 2003, Revealed: 17 British firms armed Saddam with his weapons, Investigation: By Neil Mackay Home Affairs Editor
Mr. Boortz is not making an accurate statement by leaving out the two other agents in those vials. Soman and VX.
"..Sarin originally was developed in 1938 in Germany as a pesticide."
CDC: Facts about Sarin
"..Soman was originally developed as an insecticide in Germany in 1944."
CDC: Facts about Soman
"..VX was originally developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1950s."
CDC: Facts about Vx
There is no FRAGILE warning on the vials. If these are what they claim they are why not label them as such. Just more nonsense to scare people again. Might as well bring back Osama and have him say that he's going to attack a Starbucks or something. |
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| Izzy |
regardless of the sarin, those are some cool pictures.
The one where the troops are providing medical assistance to the shot iraqi paints a completely different picture than those that some of the board members are trying to imply |
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Now I know nobody forgot that the rationale for the invasion were the massive stockpiles of chemical weapons in addition to the facilities that were constantly pumping out new stockpiles, not to mention the that they were ready to fire in 45 minutes, but let us presume for an instant that this briefcase is indeed sarin gas and therefore lo and behold we found the wmds we were looking for all along ... mission accomplished. Let’s take a step back and use some common sense to rationally look at a cost benefit analysis of the situation:
Cost
$200 billion (Going by CBO estimates of what the war will cost)
1,197 American lives
Benefit
A suitcase of Sarin Gas
Assurances that no new weapons program will be developed in Iraq
I only included benefits pertaining to WMD since every other justification was after the fact, and was not used as a primary justification for invasion prior to the actual invasion. Now as for the cost, I’ll ignore the cost of lives since one cannot so easily assign a value to such a thing, so I’ll only use the actual $ costs. Since $200 billion is a meaningless number to this new breed of spend and spend conservatives in the Bush administration, let’s look at it in a different way that might possibly put things in perspective …
If we look at social welfare expenditures in a year, the total amount spent is approximately $1,505 billion. However, that figure is all social welfare expenditure. If we subtract social insurance (which is not exactly an entitlement since you pay premiums out of every paycheck) and education (since that’s not entirely what we would traditionally consider as an entitlement), the total spending on entitlements such as welfare, hospital medical care, Medicaid, food programs, etc., comes to $434 billion. That figure is actually inflated by several other factors that aren’t necessarily “entitlements” such as medical research, however, let’s stick with that figure. Therefore doing the simple math, the Iraq war is equivalent to a 54% increase in entitlement programs. Can you imagine some democrat trying to pass that in congress? A 54% increase, all for an unlikely suitcase of “sarin” and assurances that Iraq won’t develop WMDs when, coincidentally, it wasn’t making much progress in doing just that under the status quo pre-invasion.
My social welfare expenditure data comes from here by the way:
http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/stat...upplement/2000/ |
Protecting your children's future....priceless.
Thanks for providing me with that special Mastercard moment, Occrider. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
Protecting your children's future....priceless.
Thanks for providing me with that special Mastercard moment, Occrider. |
Huh? Invading Iraq has made us safer? Protecting them from what exactly? There's a blank check for poorly perceived threats? Ok ... I'm game. I'll use similar poor reasoning ... A major source for crime is poverty. So let's "protect" our children's future from crime by eliminating poverty. Massive entitlement and redistribution of wealth programs. Because protecting our children's future from crime or anything is priceless. Regardless of the abysmal rate of return on our investment. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Huh? Invading Iraq has made us safer? Protecting them from what exactly? There's a blank check for poorly perceived threats? Ok ... I'm game. I'll use similar poor reasoning ... A major source for crime is poverty. So let's "protect" our children's future from crime by eliminating poverty. Massive entitlement and redistribution of wealth programs. Because protecting our children's future from crime or anything is priceless. Regardless of the abysmal rate of return on our investment. |
well, if showing the world that Islamic Facism is stupid...then yeah. it is priceless. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
well, if showing the world that Islamic Facism is stupid...then yeah. it is priceless. |
Well I'm glad we got such a bargain on what should be common sense :conf:. Do you think we'll get a discount on debunking Christianity? Perhaps only 800 American lives and a couple billion more? |
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| Yoepus |
| The conclusion that onec an draw from the photo that this Sarin is evidence of massive WMD is as equivalent as saying that massive amounts of WMD were stolen by insurgents at the ammo dumps prior to the fall of Baghdad. Its only evidence for those who want to believe. |
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| Yoepus |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Well I'm glad we got such a bargain on what should be common sense :conf:. Do you think we'll get a discount on debunking Christianity? Perhaps only 800 American lives and a couple billion more? |
In all seriousness this is a bargin.
Last couple times the USA tried to save the world from self-delusional political facists (cold war, ww2) it ended up costing trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives.
Yea, 1000 and a couple hundred billion is worth the war on terror, but the real price will be much higher. Freedom isn't free. Respect the sacrafises of those who are willing to pay the toll.:mad:
If terror wins, the world loses. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Well I'm glad we got such a bargain on what should be common sense |
common sense? tell that to 1,000,000 Islamic extremist...oh wait! we are!
| quote: | | Do you think we'll get a discount on debunking Christianity? Perhaps only 800 American lives and a couple billion more? |
i know your not stupid enough believe that parallel. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yoepus
The conclusion that onec an draw from the photo that this Sarin is evidence of massive WMD is as equivalent as saying that massive amounts of WMD were stolen by insurgents at the ammo dumps prior to the fall of Baghdad. Its only evidence for those who want to believe. |
Huh? Except the supporting facts don't support the conclusion. For example, we have proof that the explosives stolen by militants were present at ammo dumps prior to invasion. We have proof that those weapons were present immediately after invasion. We then know that massive looting of those dumps took place after the invasion. Then we subsequentely know that the explosives in question disappeared after this looting. You're trying to equivalate that with the claim that these supposed photos of "sarin" gas are proof of Iraqi WMD stockpiles of chemical weapons? Particularly since scientific tests have established that it was not a weaponized chemical weapons but merely part of a Soviet testing kit?
| quote: |
In the course of locating seven weapons caches in a single block around a mosque in northeast Fallujah, an Iraqi platoon Wednesday found a suitcase full of vials labeled "Sarin," a deadly nerve agent.
While further analysis determined that the find was probably part of a Soviet test kit with samples, its discovery in a room with mortar shells appeared to indicate an intent to weaponize the material.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1112/p01s02-woiq.html
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| quote: |
In all seriousness this is a bargin.
Last couple times the USA tried to save the world from self-delusional political facists (cold war, ww2) it ended up costing trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives.
Yea, 1000 and a couple hundred billion is worth the war on terror, but the real price will be much higher. Freedom isn't free. Respect the sacrafises of those who are willing to pay the toll. If terror wins, the world loses.
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Comparisons of the war in Iraq to the cold war and ww2 are as retarded as analogies of the bush administration to nazism and 1984. In other words, they have very little in common other than propoganist pipe dreams of associating present day events with symbolic, epic struggles. Why don't you elaborate on exactly how the US is "saving the world" by invading Iraq, meanwhile demonstrating how NOT invading Iraq would thus doom the world from "salvation".
And please don't use buzzwords such as "freedom" or simpleminded cliches if you're directing arguments to me. I'm a skeptic, rational, realpolitik, realist. I thought you were as such as well. It really detracts from your argument when you start bellieving in your own bs.
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common sense? tell that to 1,000,000 Islamic extremist...oh wait! we are!
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Yes and we really are educating them in that lesson of common sense!!! And it's SOOOO woth it to educate them about their own stupidity when it accomplishes nothing and when we can instead be spending that money on ourselves!!!!
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i know your not stupid enough believe that parallel.
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The parallel was stupid because the item it was parelleling was a bastion of idiocy in and of itself. |
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| smokeape |
I see what Dick Cheney has been saying for the past two years.
:toothless
[[[smoke]]] |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Yes and we really are educating them in that lesson of common sense!!! And it's SOOOO woth it to educate them about their own stupidity when it accomplishes nothing and when we can instead be spending that money on ourselves!!!! |
recent estimates on the total economic losses due to September 11, 2001 attacks are close to $1 trillion. could you imagine the numbers, lives and otherwise, if the stupid people utilixed the 20 tons of mustard gas found in Lybia?
i'm not saying that the economic losses would be greater than or even equal, but as far as devastation, what price could be paid for something like that? none really. to me, it's not about the money.
do you think it's about money? or just more money? |
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