[joemama]

I love how Bush supporters dodge issues and offer scapegoats as arguments. UnderToad pointed to an article in which the Telegraph - which is the UK version of FOXNews - found references to Osama Bin Laden and a possible intetion to meet with OBL. What Toad does not point out was that - in 1998 - OBL was not guilty of any crimes against the U.S. or the west. Later in 1998, Washington blamed OBL for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa.

"The documents do not make clear whether the hoped-for meeting between Iraqi officials and bin Laden took place."

So a meeting - which may or may not have taken place - in 1998, before OBL was accused of attacking any U.S. interests - is proof that OBL and Iraq are in bed together.

Remember, it was just a few years ago that the United States counted Osama Bin Laden as an ally. Things change, and associations deteriorate. I would have to see some proof that Iraq was a little more involved with OBL than a document that talks about a meeting that occurred before we had a beef with OBL for me to truly buy the idea that Iraq was in collusion on 9-11 or other events.

I'd wait a month or two before locking in so tightly on this "we'll find nothing" attitude.

Weren't we supposed to know where they were? We said we did. We said we had credible intelligence about what and where Iraq had these weapons. But now, after we have complete control of the country, we can find nothing? If Iraq had WMDs, why didn't they use them when we invaded?

His ability to hand off WOMDs, many of which are very difficult to track, to terrorists *was* the reason.

What has changed? Now, you have thousands of Iraqi scientists, technicians, and weapons experts that are willing to sell their services to anyone with cash. We have created a stong undertow of anti-Americanism within the Muslim community. We have villified some of the allies that we need to fight a war against terrorism. We still have an unsecure border and spotty port inspections. More than any of that, we have not found any proof that Iraq even had the weapons we KNOW they have.

What was to stop Iraq from giving anything they had to terrorists before the attack? What can we do now it that was the case?

Has this war made us any safer?!

Enough to effectively shut down the post office and the Senate for a couple of weeks

You know about the Federation of American Scientists report that the Anthrax sent to Tom Daschle's office was the same type, concentration, strain, and purity of American weapons grade Anthrax, right? The New York Times said the same thing.

was that we would see these weapons/materials imported for use against us

Biological weapons can be manufactured in your garage, and a smart terrorist would simply bring the seed spores to America - then rely on the open American markets to buy the inubators, centrifuges, and filtration systems to make massive quantities on the substance.

None of this requires a foreign nation's support. How did attacking Iraq make this any less of a threat?

What were the true chances of being shot by malvo? Much less than being capped by the natives, but people stopped spending. It made a big difference, terror WOMDs would be exponentially worse

Why aren't we attacking the media then? The media love to grab a scary story - like ANthrax or the D.C. sniper, or the Duct tape - and make it into a public frenzy of hysteria and nonsense. Chemical and Bio weapons are not really weapons of mass destruction, but the corporate media - serving as the government's bullypulpit - whipped America up into a frenzy of fear - that does stifle the economy, but it also makes waging war incredibly easy. It keeps people from questioning authority, and it allows the people in power to paint anyone that disagrees with them as antiAmerican traitors.

As it stands, we will have another terrorist attack against America. This is simply becasue we have not addressed the underlying issues that motivate regular people with strong religious views - to pilot planes into buildings. We still have troops stationed all over the middle east. We still support Israel, regardless of what they do to the Palestinians, we now have invaded Afghanistan - and left it to fall apart, we also have invaded Iraq - which may also be falling apart. We've killed thousands of people - many more than the people that died in 9-11 - to avenge 9-11 ( which was really just revenge for previous insults and attacks ) , and we have not found OBL or Saddam Hussein.

The terrorists on 9-11 did not need WMDs. They did just fine with unconventional methods of destruction. I doubt that we will be able to stop a similarly motivated group of people that want to destroy us more - now that we have ripped through Iraq and Afghanistan.

how could we detect and intercept vials of chem or bio weapons

You can't. That is the point. It does not take a national effort to create biological weapons or biotoxins. It takes 100 bucks worth of lab equipment and a modicum of intellect.

All we can do is try to catch the guys we can find, and press them to give us information. Then we need to actually come up with a valid and equitable deal for the Palestinians, we need to remove the sanctions on Iraq, and we need to remove our military bases from all over the freakin world. If we could also avoid bombing civilians, bombing aspirin factories, leeching the Iraqi oil, villifying allies, and rejoin the world community, I think this would also go a long way toward removing these zealots motivations for hating us.

They don;t hate us because of freedom, Britney Spears, or liberty. They hate us because we have supported brutal dictators, unfair policies, genocide, and ethnic cleansing in the middle east. They hate us because we selectively ignore U.N. resolutions against Israel, while we enforce U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

Whether the true possibility of al-qeada getting Saddam's WOMDs is high or low, that's why *I* supported this massive, expensive military action.

The problem is, this war will not help limit the development or proliferation of WMDs. If anything, it will cause nations to accelerate their nuclear programs, and it will give terrorists a new recruiting tool for the terrorist attacks in the future.

The opinions of the poorly infomed FAUX News viewers do not convince me that this war was a good idea. Personally I have a different reason for this war.

I think that the PNAC people were itching to gain acces to Iraq for strategic reasons. They also wanted to showcase the AMerican military systems - to boost sales of technology to other nations and to scare any challengers. I think that some of the peopl ein the administration did not like that Iraq changed its curency for oil deals to the Euro from the dollar. I think that OPEC was going to also change their currency of trade to the Euro - which would encourage a mass international exodus to the Euro and deeply devalue the dollar - with dire economic impact.

I do not think that the suffering people in Iraq were of any concern. There is suffering all over the world - why should we be concerned with Iraq's suffering? I also found it Ironic that the people that were advocating this war were the people that were trading with Iraq after he gassed the Iranians and the Kurds - which does not exactly lend a great deal of credibility to their intentions.

Undertoad thinks that the activities of the French negate any of concerns about the lies in this run up to war. Well, if the French intelligence knew as much about Iraq's WMD program as the U.S. did, and they knew that Iraq did not have a WMD program, why wouldn't they try to maintain diplomatic relations and communication with Iraq? How could France have helped Iraq prepare for war? It was strikingly obvious to anyone with half a brain that the U.S. was going to attack before the summer. It was obvious to everyone that Iraq was going to be attacked.

Iraq was under constant surveillance, and inspectors were on the ground - If Iraq was hiding WMDs, they were doing it without the help of the French - What kind of help could they have given anyway?!?!

You think that France was the only nation to suppress dissent?!?! Ever hear of the Dixie Chicks?


I don't know. Every few days, we say we found some WMD material. The day after, in small print, the story is retracted as the later tests confirmed nothing.

If Iraq had no WMDs, I do not think the French were wrong to maintain diplomatic relations with Iraq.

But none of this matters. The French were only asking for more time. They never said they would not support an attack - they just wanted the inspections to be allowed to search Iraq. They also did not want an automatic trigger for war. God forbid, they were trying to make sure there was a valid reason to attack before the bullets started flying - damn traitors.

Did they have ulterios motives? Yes. I don't think there is an international action - including our own - that does not have various ulterior motives. Does that mean they were wrong to disagree with the U.S. and deserve to be punished? No. Not any more than anyone else who disagrees with us.