I don't believe that Hussein had weapons prior to the beginning of the resolutions with him. Given how easy it is to make biological and chemical weapons, I'd think it would be easier to destroy them in front of inspectors and just rebuild the bloody things, than it would be to go through all that he went through. Unless you just think he's a stubborn ass who doesn't give a shit that he just got overthrown.
So, yes, I agree with your $100 analogy, but it only holds water if I have $100 in the first place. Which I do, if you want to put a little wager on this. I'll give your team 18 months to find them, at which time you gotta pony up.
So, yes, I agree with your $100 analogy, but it only holds water if I have $100 in the first place. Which I do, if you want to put a little wager on this. I'll give your team 18 months to find them, at which time you gotta pony up.
xpanda - I'm sorry but I am not as smart as the Libs on this board. I don't know more than the President. How do I know for a fact that there are WMD? How do you know there aren't? Nobody does! OK, let's bet $100 that we will never see. Besides whatever evidence comes out will not be good enough, it doesn't matter what it is. The problem Libs have is not with the war it's not with the economy, it's with President Bush. Evidentally President Bush had sufficient evidence to take Saddam out. Whether it's a Democrat or a Republican in office you will never hear me say that I have more info than the President. That's just flat out foolish.
KMAN
KMAN
So is it that you believe that a President would not lie or exaggerate a claim in order to further an agenda that he knows could not be sold to the public, or is that you believe that a Republican President would not lie or exaggerate a claim to this end?
Honestly, from reading what you write, I worry that you are far too blindly led around by the nuts as long as your leader is a Republican. The argument that 'the prez had sufficient evidence' is crap. If he did, he would have had UN backing, which he did not. I argue that there is little reason for the US to hide irrefutable evidence from the UN, especially if there exists a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam, as this thread is attempting to insinuate.
With an election coming up, you'd have to be out of your mind to think that Bush would still be hoarding any evidence which would unquestionably support his decision to invade Iraq. Stop being so bloody blind. You were lied to, are still being lied to, and will continue to be lied to as long as there exists people like yourself willing to believe this crap. I applaud your 'fight to the end' support of the man you must've voted for, but your arguments make you sound like a tenth grader who thinks there's still a Santa Claus.
Honestly, from reading what you write, I worry that you are far too blindly led around by the nuts as long as your leader is a Republican. The argument that 'the prez had sufficient evidence' is crap. If he did, he would have had UN backing, which he did not. I argue that there is little reason for the US to hide irrefutable evidence from the UN, especially if there exists a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam, as this thread is attempting to insinuate.
With an election coming up, you'd have to be out of your mind to think that Bush would still be hoarding any evidence which would unquestionably support his decision to invade Iraq. Stop being so bloody blind. You were lied to, are still being lied to, and will continue to be lied to as long as there exists people like yourself willing to believe this crap. I applaud your 'fight to the end' support of the man you must've voted for, but your arguments make you sound like a tenth grader who thinks there's still a Santa Claus.
xpanda - I'm not sure why I am arguing with someone who doesn't live in the US but ONCE AGAIN, let me state.....
Whether it's a Democrat or a Republican in office you will never hear me say that I have more info than the President. That's just flat out foolish.
I just don't understand how we have so many brilliant people wasting time on these message boards when they could be out doing the President's job 100 times better.
Talk about underachievers......
KMAN
Whether it's a Democrat or a Republican in office you will never hear me say that I have more info than the President. That's just flat out foolish.
I just don't understand how we have so many brilliant people wasting time on these message boards when they could be out doing the President's job 100 times better.
Talk about underachievers......
KMAN
You're right -- Bush's decision to write a document which allows the US the right to invade any country which has both the means to create WMD (any high school lab can do that) and the intent (perfectly arbitrary and in the eye of the beholder) and then follow it up by invading a country he knows to be defenseless should in no way alarm a foreigner. What right do I as a non-American, have to pass judgment or make comments about world peace and the threats to it?? Such moral judgments are, by your admission, reserved for those south of the border ... the rest of the world should go **** itself, then?
You'll note that I do not toss in my opinion on things like the US economy and that kind of thing, because, frankly, it's none of my business and doesn't affect me that strongly. However, matters of foreign policy that threaten peace and stability in the world are damn skippy my business and I will continue to report my opinion on them. George Bush is a war*****r, and, if he keeps this up, will go down in history as such.
You'll note that I do not toss in my opinion on things like the US economy and that kind of thing, because, frankly, it's none of my business and doesn't affect me that strongly. However, matters of foreign policy that threaten peace and stability in the world are damn skippy my business and I will continue to report my opinion on them. George Bush is a war*****r, and, if he keeps this up, will go down in history as such.
KMAN, who said they "had more info" than the President? Having info doesn't automatically translate into making the best decisions. Besides, Dubya doesn't bother with the info stuff, he leaves that up to Cheney. Dubya doesn't like to be bothered with what's really going on, of course that's why he brags that he doesn't read newspapers. Not that everything in the paper is worth what it's written on, but somehow I think the Prez oughtta pick it up every now and then to keep in touch with the world he pretends to lead.
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by xpanda:
However, matters of foreign policy that threaten peace and stability in the world are damn skippy my business and I will continue to report my opinion on them. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
If that's true then keep riding the American coattails of American power. "We maintain the stability of international commerce, the freedom of the seas, the flow of oil, regional balances of power (in the Pacific Rim, South Asia, the Middle East), and ultimately, we provide protection against potentially rising hostile superpowers.
"The Europeans (and the rest of the world) sit and pout. What else can they do?....We will let them hold our coats, but not tie our hands." Charles Krauthammer
Xpanda, you use far too many hypotheticals, "if"s and "I think"s to fill in the gaps when your lack of complete information leads to a roadblock in your theories. The problem with your theories is that they are based on the assumption that you know all there is to know on a subject. I think you're drawing many conclusions based on painfully incomplete or misleading information. But you sure do have a right to have those opinions and post them here on this forum.
However, matters of foreign policy that threaten peace and stability in the world are damn skippy my business and I will continue to report my opinion on them. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
If that's true then keep riding the American coattails of American power. "We maintain the stability of international commerce, the freedom of the seas, the flow of oil, regional balances of power (in the Pacific Rim, South Asia, the Middle East), and ultimately, we provide protection against potentially rising hostile superpowers.
"The Europeans (and the rest of the world) sit and pout. What else can they do?....We will let them hold our coats, but not tie our hands." Charles Krauthammer
Xpanda, you use far too many hypotheticals, "if"s and "I think"s to fill in the gaps when your lack of complete information leads to a roadblock in your theories. The problem with your theories is that they are based on the assumption that you know all there is to know on a subject. I think you're drawing many conclusions based on painfully incomplete or misleading information. But you sure do have a right to have those opinions and post them here on this forum.
American: very good observation. I do, indeed, rather intentionally, use many 'ifs' and 'I thinks' in my arguments, because frankly, the entire issue is based on hypotheticals and painfully incomplete information. The difference between my stance and yours, however, is that I would never support a war based on ifs and maybes.
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by xpanda:
The difference between my stance and yours, however, is that I would never support a war based on ifs and maybes.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
The difficult decision to go to war was made by very intelligent people who have WAY more information than us, we who are on the outside, and they obviously had enough information to act on. I doubt they were going on "ifs" or "maybes".
Your sophomoric style of debating probably worked well for you on the high school debate team, but you're presenting arguements without strong foundations.
The difference between my stance and yours, however, is that I would never support a war based on ifs and maybes.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
The difficult decision to go to war was made by very intelligent people who have WAY more information than us, we who are on the outside, and they obviously had enough information to act on. I doubt they were going on "ifs" or "maybes".
Your sophomoric style of debating probably worked well for you on the high school debate team, but you're presenting arguements without strong foundations.
Let's see:
No evidence of WMD.
No ties to Al Qaeda.
And we went to war.
Body bag count: 500 plus, thousands more wounded.
$180 billion cost to US taxpayer and growing.
Kinda like sentencing a guy to death after finding out he was innocent and saying, "Man we were just doing the best with the evidence we had". And then to find out that evidence was fabricated by the government.
As we used to say in the Marine Corps,
"Good initiative, piss poor judgement".
No evidence of WMD.
No ties to Al Qaeda.
And we went to war.
Body bag count: 500 plus, thousands more wounded.
$180 billion cost to US taxpayer and growing.
Kinda like sentencing a guy to death after finding out he was innocent and saying, "Man we were just doing the best with the evidence we had". And then to find out that evidence was fabricated by the government.
As we used to say in the Marine Corps,
"Good initiative, piss poor judgement".
News flash for those who think that the invasion of iraq was justified on the grounds of human rights: not even bleeding-heart poster child Human Rights Watch agrees with that asinine theory.
Phaedrus
Phaedrus
As 'sophomoric' as my debating style may be, American, my opinions on the war in Iraq have been philosophical and ethical in nature, and now proven to be on very strong foundations, as shown here.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
Another website. It says they haven't found WMD and is filled with opposing liberal quotes. Just because they haven't found a smoking gun doesn't mean they didn't have a program in place to develop them or acquire them. I guess they didn't have any chemical weapons either, right?
Keep moaning about our attacking poor, innocent Saddam and his henchmen. What else can you do about it?
Keep moaning about our attacking poor, innocent Saddam and his henchmen. What else can you do about it?
The other fact remains, that to engage in war, democratic nations have historically required there to be either: a. an actual and ongoing attack on your own soil or the soil of your allies or, b. an imminent threat of attack whereby inaction (almost) guarantees an actual attack. Even if WMDs had been found, neither condition existed. There mere possession of weapons is not sufficient cause to presume the effect of attack (if it were, every nation would be attacking each other as we speak.) The fact that no weapons have been found, and are now admittedly not going to be found, makes the case for war not only weaker (not stronger as this thread stated) but makes this war unbelievably immoral.
If this current circumstance continues unchecked, the world is allowing a very dangerous precedent to be set among democratic nations. At the very least, Bush needs to recant, hastily, much of what he has claimed to be true, rather than increase his defensive stance on the issue. Of course, doing so would cost him an election, but failure to do so will be much more costly in the long run.
If this current circumstance continues unchecked, the world is allowing a very dangerous precedent to be set among democratic nations. At the very least, Bush needs to recant, hastily, much of what he has claimed to be true, rather than increase his defensive stance on the issue. Of course, doing so would cost him an election, but failure to do so will be much more costly in the long run.
