BREAKING NEWS: nerve gas found in road side bomb in Iraq

[orrery]

Originally posted by CharlesBHoff
The United State havenot make than case for acting in self-defences at all. Being anti-zionist doesnot make you than bad person and isnot than vaid reason for self-defence at all. He commitee no terrorist act against Israel or allow terrorist to use Iraq as than base of operateion at all.

I agree that holding religious beliefs that put you at odds with Zionism does not make you a bad person. However, Saddam did publicly state his support for terrorist actions against Israel, PLUS, PLUS, he constantly repeated in his propaganda that the US *was* Israel!!! The Law of Equivacation states that when he states his approval of terrorist activity against Israel, he is stating them by his rules, not ours, his approval of terrorist actions against the U.S. (think about how Iraqi children being raised to admire this men are being indoctrinated to believe Kill Israel = Good & US = Israel therefore Kill US = Good. TOTALLY FORBIDDEN in the terms of his surrender and the conditions for a cease-fire after his invasion of Kuwait, which I have posted. Plus, he praised 9.11 terrorists after UNSC Resolution 1368, even while arguing his adherence to Resolution 687 where he is legally obligated to denounce sed acts! He did allow Iraq to be a safe haven for many terrorists in violation of the surrender conditions for his imperialist oil grab in Kuwait. Also, he did provide incentives for terrorist activities by awarding families of those who committed homicidal suicide bomb operations inside Israel. So, for the reasons just stated, I have to deny you the undeterred use of your argument. (I hope that we can still be friends)

We annoy other nations around the world by passing than supid law saying that we will put on trial in america any person who harm than america oversea. Are we saying that other nation are incapity of enforement of laws in they territy under they control. Let say than french man rape than america female that french cannot
put that man on trial under they own law or it than america man rape than french woman in French that the French have no right to put that man on trial for his action under they own laws.

I understand if English is not your first language, so we are going to have difficulty communicating at times. If you go overseas and are harmed, I promise you that the United States will work to its fullest to assist you through one of our Embassies and through the Treaties that we have signed with those other nations. Definitely, if an American woman is raped by a French man, the U.S. should full participate with France its total commitment to prosecute that rapist to the full extent of the law.

Charles, I believe that despite your class, race, or religion, the U.S. can be your best friend. Given our Constitution and the trials and sufferings that this nations has had to go through, equal rights for all, I see no reason why you would want to deny yourself that type of a friend. If you can give Hussein the benefit of any doubt, then surely you can afford the same for Dr. Bush, who's only failing (if you can call it that, but I won't) was being unable to bring himself to trust Saddam.

[Agathon]

Bio and chemical weapons are well within their budget

The reason that STATES spend more money on nukes is that, as terrible as they are, they are more "acceptable" for use than the other two alternatives

This is the most insane thing I've heard anyone say in a while. Nukes are worse than the other two by a large magnitude, they are more destructive and pollute more for a start. That's why more money goes on them. If bioweapons and chemical weapons were so great, more would be spent on them. Saddam himself spent far more trying to acquire nuclear weapons.

I don't by this "acceptability" bull****. None of them are acceptable to any decent human being.

If industrialized countries can contain SARS effectively (an illness for which there is no vaccine) then smallpox is not going to be a problem.

And as I said, there is no evidence that terrorists could deliver chemical weapons in amounts big enough to kill lots of people. It's far more efficient to blow up a fertiliser truck in front of a building or crash a plane into a tower.

And no one has asked why terrorists would take the risks of obtaining chemical weapons from Iraq when they could easily make them themselves.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap


1. 100% the the prelimenary tests done that "found chemical weapons" were found negative at the end. Until all the tests are done, this is as believable

2. IF that is Sarin, that is no proof that is came from past Iraqi stocks as opposed to being newly created, or from stocks elsewhere. If we remember, it was sarin that the Japanese terror group was able to make on their own.

Forensics will be able to tell, it's not like these were mass produced and distributed by the Soviet Union. If it was made in Iraq it will be obvious.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap
Hey, my low expectations of this event are confirmed.

Bunch of insurgents find an old shell and decide to rigg it as a roadside bomb- turns out to be a Iran-Iraq war era chemical shell...

The contention made by the amdin. is that Iraq had active WMD programs (including a nuclear weapons program and biological weapons) beyond perhaps not having fully accounted for the stocks of chemical weapons they had prior to Gulf war 1, which everyone knew they had, given they had used them. So this shell only serve to prove the Iraqis had shoddy oversight of their chemical munitions. It does nothing with regards to the more important claims.

Yea, thank god that surveillance tape of you raping a girl showed up, as it makes it highly unlikely that you could have committed a murder simultaneously.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by joncha
* grabs popcorn

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap


1. A Ceasefire was reached-it was signed.

2. The US signed the UN Charter and according to the consitution the US must follow the rules set by the treaties it signs. The US has signed over authorities to the UN-the US is bound by law to follow the mandates of the UNSC (of course, since we have a veto, this is no problem for the US). The very consitution you say you follow and defend and whatever proves your point wrong.

The constitution trumps treaties, treaties trump laws. He got you there.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Agathon
If someone infected themselves with smallpox, the response would be a mass campaign of vaccination. At present, the vaccine kills about 1 in X hundred thousand of people who get it, and is viewed as an unacceptable risk.

There is no reason to think that Saddam has the smallpox virus anyway. It's been eradicated in the wild for years. And we all know how dangerous anthrax is. What? Four or five deaths? Hardly panic material.

It's all smoke and mirrors. Nukes are the only real WMDs. That's why the vast majority of expenditure goes towards them and not chemical or bioweapons.

All this terror over chemical and bioweapons has more to do with movies than the facts.

The Soviets developed some really effective weaponization techniques for biological weapons. They are very effective when spread in aerosol form, as they are so light that they can spread over a huge area. The illness won't strike immediately either, which means that a lot of secondary infections (people to people) can be created before anyone knows they've been infected.

[orrery]

This seems like a really cool forum, and I just wanted to say I hope you guys don't mind if I stick around. I've been play Civ ever since the original and if anyone ever wants to get a Civ III PTW game going just let me know and we'll try to work something out.

Sikander, I don't know that the treaties trump laws being that they are laws. But the Constitution trumps treaties and the Constitution spells out the powers of the President, the Congress, etc to enforce the law. Nothing in any treaty can ever trump that.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sikander


Yea, thank god that surveillance tape of you raping a girl showed up, as it makes it highly unlikely that you could have committed a murder simultaneously.

It's nice how you totally ignore reality- I appreciate having a groupie though.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sikander


The constitution trumps treaties, treaties trump laws. He got you there.

There is nothing in the Constitution that "trumps" anything here.

The president has to defend the country, yes, BUT following the laws of the country-he does not have carte blanche. And as you said, treaties trump domestic laws- hence our comitments to the UN Charter trump laws passed by Congress that would be contradictory.

If there had been an imminent threat, sure, and the president could use article 51. maybe you guys missed it, but there was NO imminent threat.

[GePap]

Originally posted by orrery


I simply can't grasp the logic of your argument.
You state in one sentence that the US and Iraq established CONDITIONS of a cease-fire, and then state that the establishment of conditions is in itself a cease-fire? This does not compute. It is my understanding that Conditions have to be 'met' before there can be a cease-fire and that appears to be what your New York Times article is saying as well.

The president declared a cease-fire, and the generals representing the two sides signed a cease-fire.

Then it becomes an issue of formalizing the peace, and when it came up, a month later, to the UN security council, it placed a large number of conditions to make the cease-fire permanent and turn into a true peace.

For you to say there was no cease-fire then is completely incorrect-you keep quoting the president (current), well, he has never claimed there is no cease fire, but that Iraq broke the conditions OF the cease-fire. That assumes there being one, as sort of backed by the simple fact that 99.9% of the time from March 1991 to March 2003 there was no fighting going on: unless you fail to classify that as a ceasation of the firing going on....

[Dinner]

Nerve agent sucks.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Sikander
The Soviets developed some really effective weaponization techniques for biological weapons. They are very effective when spread in aerosol form, as they are so light that they can spread over a huge area. The illness won't strike immediately either, which means that a lot of secondary infections (people to people) can be created before anyone knows they've been infected.

Source?

Also, anthrax can't be transmitted from person to person.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
By your definition, there is no such thing as a weapon. Or rather, there isn't untill someone tries to kill someone - at which point a weapon is created.

Uh, yep, exactly.

A sledgehammer isn't a weapon unless it's being used to hurt someone. Otherwise, it's just a tool.

This artillery shell, had it been left in the stockpile, would not be weapon. Nuclear missles are not weapons. Guns aren't either.

Except that they are created with the intent to be used to inflect harm.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by MrFun
If they did not intend to kill, it was callous disregard nevertheless -- I doubt it was the case that they never knew that toxic chemicals can harm people.

I haven't disputed that, and I don't care as far as this debate goes. I'm just attacking the ridiculous assertion that it is WMD.