Arty, wrote, "We were lied to about WMD."
Me: Then I'm sure you're including Bill Clinton and John Kerry among the liars. Both are on record stating they believe Saddam had those weapons up until we toppled the regime. Every intel organization in the world thought, and still thinks he has those weapons. Again, look at what happened in Jordan a few weeks back.
You: "The problem for us is that N Korea has nukes. We should be worried about them. So what does RUmmy do? He wants to move our soldiers away from a real threat, Korea, to Iraq."
Me: Uhh, I don't suppose you've quite figured out that our having troops near N. Korea makes NO difference when it comes to Kim Jung Il's nukes. It wouldn't matter if we had a million men, or a troop of boy scouts - if Kim wants to fire those nukes at Hawaii or Seattle, he can fire them.
You: "Everyone knows that Iraq had chemical weapons at one time. When Saddam used them against the Kurds after we kicked his but 10 years ago, we didn't do anything about it. The current question is whether he was a real threat to us - an immediate threat - with nukes. He obviously was not, or he would have tried to use chemical weapons on our soldiers."
Me: That's not true in the least. Adolf Hitler had chemical weapons capability but never employed it, even when he had ample opportunity to do so. You seem to forget that Saddam was a "player". He's been successfully playing world public for two decades and he was smart enough to know that if he used chemical weapons that that could backfire enormously against him. Plus, let's not forget one simple fact - Saddam was nuts, Saddam is nuts. Only a fool tries to second guess a nutcase.
(And I agree that we betrayed the Kurds by not stomping Saddam's head into the sand when he was gassing them. I remember when it was happening and I still do not forgive the US, and yes, the entire world, for standing by and letting it happen.)
Also, it is a hugely flawed assumption to think that the only threat any nation poses is with nuclear weapons. Again, do some research, do a simple search for "chemical Jordan Al Qaeda" and you will see that those Al Qaeda thugs had enough chemical weapons to kill 80,000 people, and if those same weapons went off in a densely packed city like New York City, the death toll could have been many times that.
You: "According to Colin Powell, chemical weapons are no big deal. We have antidotes for Sarin. I would be more worried about nukes - and Condi Rice, the ex pres. of Shell Oil, suggested that we should be worried about a mushroom cloud appearing in the middle east. This was a lie, among many others."
Me: Antidotes for Sarin? You mean like, say, a hundred thousand doses delivered to the precise location they need to be - in time to do any good?
You need to be worried about nukes. Theres a couple dozen former Soviet tac nukes that have come up missing. But you also better be worried about chemical or biological agents.
You are like the person who moves into a dangerous neighborhood against the warnings of your friends, and then wrongly concludes that because you haven't been mugged or killed yet that your friends were lying.
What troubles me about guys like you, Arty is that you would much rather fall back on knee-jerk ad hominem partisan responses and accuse the other political party of lying, rather than taking the time to look at any evidence that would prove or disprove your viewpoint.
You guys like to say "Bush lied", yet for some reason you are conspicously silent when Bill Clinton or John Kerry said the same thing before it was politically expedient to say otherwise. What surprises me is that Bill Clinton is standing firm in his statements that he believed, and still believes that Saddam had and probably still has WMD's.
You: "I am more worried about our soldiers getting shot or bombed, than the use of chemical weapons. Nukes are a realistic threat, but our force is not directed toward the problem. Our soldiers have been taking hits from bombs for many months in Iraq. The chemical weapons that went off today exploded when an attempt was made to diffuse the bomb."
Me: You may be more worried about troops getting shot or bombed, but I think it is short-sighted to assume that any other threats are not extant. I too worry about our troops getting shot or bombed, but I have always been concerned about the threat of WMD's. Bad guys do not willingly give up their weapons. The evidence that Saddam had, and Iraq still has, chemical weapons is overwhelming. We had just better hope like heck that most of that stuff is still buried in a bunker somewhere and that we'll find it before someone else does, instead of making its way into Syria like a bunch of it already has.
You: "I do not know how we should handle the problems in Iraq, but I do know that we should be really worried about a nutcase in Korea with nukes."
Me: Actually, Arty, we are handling the nutcase with the nukes. Please recall, what happened shortly after Saddam Hussein was dragged from that hole in the ground:
1. Libya immediately renounced its WMD programs and requested UN inspectors to check for complience.
2. Iran admitted to having a WMD program and requested UN insprectors.
3. North Korea's Kim suddenly stopped talking crap, and then requested UN inspectors to oversee their nuclear programs.
Do you see the pattern here? This is no coincidence that three totalitarian regimes, all of whom were pursuing WMD programs all of a sudden have a "Come to Jesus" experience within a week of US troops hauling that tinpot dictator out of a hole that he was hiding in, because America went after him because of his possessing, or at least making the world think he possessed, WMD's.
George W. Bush has sent a very loud message, and that message is, if we even THINK you have WMD's and you are an enemy of the United States, you are hereby on notice that we will dismantle you if we have to.
And by God, they received that message very loud and clear.
So, go ahead and say Bush lied, but please at least have the family jewels to also say in the same sentence, "So did Clinton, so did Kerry, so did McCain, so did Chiraque, and so did the presidents and prime ministers of Spain, Germany, Poland, Finland, Britain, Australia, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Ukraine, Italy, Portugal, AND Egypt, AND Saudi Arabia AND Syria (of all people), AND Kuwait, and another fifty nations I can name.
Thanks.
Don
