Names: Unknown. One of 5,000 dead. Dead because of Saddam Hussein's attack on his own people using chemical weapons in Halabja on March 16 & 17, 1988.
WoMD ... so where are they?
by Simon 865 Replies latest social current
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siegswife
I believe that sometimes it takes a collective to band together and yell at a powerful individual, saying "hey, you piece of shit, quit raping your mother!!".
That may be true six, but many of us think that we should be more worried about the b*st*rd that's raping our own mother at home, while we're away.
Expatbrit, Surely you aren't advocating the idea that a free market economy left unchecked is good for people? I wonder why most unions support the left rather than the right if the right is so freakin' righteous.
You do realize that if left unchecked, tptb would reduce us to a situation were we're not much better off than slaves, don't you? Why do you think that the working people saw the need for unions to begin with?
I realize that capitalism (sp?) and fascism go hand in hand, but I'll be damned if I ever let myself get to the point that my parents and grandparents got to...which allowed the abundance of corporate corruption to reach the point that it has...and feel somehow that I have to take whatever BS they try to cram down my throat (and on my back). Why do you think that even the American icon Barbie is now made in China? Because the fascists aren't making enough moola off the backs of Americans. Chinese help is cheaper.
Are you independently wealthy expatbrit?
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SixofNine
Seigs, please read with a heart of understanding, or else don't f*** with my f***ing analogies.
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siegswife
What is it that I don't understand?
I admit I haven't read this whole thread, but I was under the impression that you are in agreement with those who think that it's anti American to think that Shrub and his cronies are full of sh*t.
It's a damn shame that the republicans dogged Clinton (who I never liked) for the full 8 years that he was in office, only to bust him for lying about a bj, but they don't think that Shrub should be investigated for initiating an illegal war. Can you say BRAINWASHED. I knew you could.
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Abaddon
xenaw:
IF (and that's a big if ) the WOMD being there was an out and out lie that George W. Bush knew was a lie- THEY WOULD HAVE FOUND WOMD ALREADY !!!
Self-interest here would equal whatever is in the best interest of George W. Bush, right? He's running for re-election !!! So IF it were a lie- it would be in his best interest to cover up that lie, thus doing whatever it took, including planting WOMD in that country to be found !!
If it was a lie- it would have been covered up already.
This theory only works if you assume they could plant WoMD with 100% cast iron secrecy. Maybe they are too afraid having the whistle blown to try and plant them?
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Cassiline
wrong thread wrong link, was going to post about Korea oops
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teejay
It's a damn shame that the republicans dogged Clinton (who I never liked) for the full 8 years that he was in office, only to bust him for lying about a bj, but they don't think that Shrub should be investigated for initiating an illegal war. -- siegswife
Cost of Whitewater investigation: 6 years; $80 million
Findings: President Clinton lied about his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky
CBS News reported late on Thursday that United States President George W Bush knew evidence that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger was faulty, yet made the claim anyway in his state-of-the-union address in January. CBS News reported that before the speech was delivered portions dealing with Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were checked by the Central Intelligence Agency for accuracy.CIA officials warned members of the president's national security council staff the intelligence was not good enough to present to the public.
* http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1386249,00.html
Summary of Iraq War Cost Estimates:
- Initial deployment of troops: $9 billion to $13 billion
- Conducting the war: $6 billion to $9 billion per month
- Returning forces to US: $5 billion to $7 billion
- Temporary occupation of Iraq: $1 billion to $4 billion per month
* http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aairaqwarcost.htm
Cost of Iraq Invasion: $35 billion (so far) with a projected total expense in excess of $100 billion to the U.S. taxpayer. Findings: No provable links to al Quaida, bin Laden; no WoMD
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expatbrit
Seigswife:
Expatbrit, Surely you aren't advocating the idea that a free market economy left unchecked is good for people? I wonder why most unions support the left rather than the right if the right is so freakin' righteous.
As per my previous posts, there needs to be a minimum of checks and balances to prevent us all from killing each other. The free-market contains a number of its own checks and balances, but some government is still necessary, unfortunately. In the past, government wasn't up to the job, therefore unions served a semi-useful purpose. However, unions by their nature work against the free market and free trade and toward protectionism. Thus, when unions are given any more than the minimum amount of power, the economy suffers. I lived through the 1970's in the UK, which was the last time left-wing politics and union power nearly destroyed utterly the British economy and brought the country to its knees. I don't want to live through that again. It doesn't take too much research to find out that unfettered union power leads to cronyism, inefficiency, protectionism and artificially high prices, all of which will eventually destroy the economy. Unions are much like parasites. And they support the left because it reflects their Socialist outlook and because that's the way they get power to force it on everyone else.
You do realize that if left unchecked, tptb would reduce us to a situation were we're not much better off than slaves, don't you? Why do you think that the working people saw the need for unions to begin with?
That's funny, because it's the countries that have embraced the free market that are the countries whose inhabitants enjoy the highest standard of living, the best health care and the longest life expectancy. It's the countries whose closed political systems prevent the market operating freely whose inhabitants are in slavery to poverty and disease and to the governments who cling to power without allowing free elections (democracy btw is the exercise of the free market in politics).
While unions may have had a use in the nineteenth century, that does not mean they have a use now, or will always have a use in the Western world. Society advances. Unions are no longer necessary to prevent exploitation because the workforce is now largely educated and mobile enough to provide its own check. If an employer utilises unpleasant practices or pays too low, the employees find other companies to work for. The bad company is left with a transitory workforce and no quality employees, and suffers decline accordingly. Alternatively, employees who demand too much of their company in terms of pay and benefits will find that the company also suffers because it must increase prices to cover those demands, allowing competitors to undercut. This is good for consumers as it prevents overinflation of prices. The free market thus determines the true value of goods, services, and employees. While there are always some exceptions, the progress of Western material benefits over the past 50 years has shown the value of the free market.
I realize that capitalism (sp?) and fascism go hand in hand
LOLOL! Another one of those statements that make me spit coffee! Come on! Even a cursory glance at twentieth century history shows that capitalism and fascism are like oil and water! Look at Eastern versus Western Europe. Which are the countries that prospered?: the democratic ones. Which are the countries that sank into a mire of poverty, instability and pollution?: the fascist and Socialist ones that disallowed free elections. It is capitalism and democracy that go hand in hand. The twentieth century will go down in history as the great failure of the Socialist experiment
Why do you think that even the American icon Barbie is now made in China? Because the fascists aren't making enough moola off the backs of Americans. Chinese help is cheaper.
That's right! Why should consumers have to pay artificially inflated prices for a Barbie, just to keep wages up to an artificially high level? Why should company owners (that's the shareholders) have their earnings artificially limited and reduced? Why should society as a whole have to suffer just to benefit a few hundred factory workers? Why should union employees be able to make "moola" of the back of consumers, when those products can be made more cheaply elsewhere?
Are you independently wealthy expatbrit?
LOL again! You'd love to cast me as an exploiting fat cat wouldn't you. Exploiting the masses an' all that. Well I can assure you that I am most definitely not independently wealthy. Both my wife and I work damn hard. We have a mortgage to pay and all the lovely bills that you could wish for. But, I also work in accounting, and have some basic knowledge of economics, and know that it is the free market that has resulted in the incredible advances in prosperity over the past century.
Tell you what, I really recommend this study from The Economist on Democracy and Capitalism: here's a link to the first article in the study: http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=1857590
And here's a quote to finish, from the very first issue of that magazine, in 1843:
And we hope to see the day when it will be as difficult to understand how an act of parliament could have been made to restrict the food and employment of the people, as it is now to conceive how the mild, inoffensive spirit of Christianity could ever have been converted into the plea of persecution and martyrdom, or how poor old wrinkled women, with a little eccentricity, were burned by our forefathers for witchcraft.
One day, that will be reality. In the meantime, as the free-market and globalisation progress, so will our prosperity.
Expatbrit
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searchfothetruth
So Donald Rumsfeld says that the US had NO new evidence of WMD before the war, just the existing evidence seen through the prism of the events of 9/11.
But thats not what they told us before the war, is it?
Rumsfeld brushes aside WMD fears By Steve Schifferes
BBC News Online, Washington
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has admitted that the US had no fresh intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before going to war. Mr Rumsfeld said that attacks on US troops were limitedIt was increased worries about terrorism, not new evidence of Iraqi preparations, that was the key reason for going to war, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. We acted because we saw the evidence in a dramatic new light - through the prism of our experience on 9/11," he said.
Mr Rumsfeld said that WMD would eventually be found in Iraq.
He said that the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001 "changed our appreciation of our vulnerability - and the risks the US faces from terrorist states and terrorist networks armed with powerful weapons".
One Republican Senator, James Inhofe, argued that the whole controversy over WMDs was a "diversionary tactic by the media".
Tough questions
Mr Rumsfeld stated off in an ebullient mood as he appeared before the committee along with General Tommy Franks, who has just stood down as commander of US forces in Iraq.
Republicans and Democrats alike were eager to praise General Franks for his quick and decisive victory in war, and for his new style of warfare.
But the defence secretary soon faced tough questioning on the current situation in Iraq - and the justification for war.
Mr Rumsfeld attempted to downplay the significance of Tuesday's admission by the White House that allegations that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from the African state of Niger were based on forged documents.
He told the committee that "the fact that the facts change from time to time with respect to specifics does not surprise me or shock me at all; it is all to be expected. It is part of the intelligence world we live in."
Experts upset
Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that he was "shocked" by Mr Rumsfeld's comments, and that public statements by senior Bush administration figures had repeatedly claimed that there was new, fresh evidence for WMD programmes in Iraq.
He added that the failure to find any weapons was proof that the much-criticised UN inspections process had been more effective than previously believed. Bush made the uranium claim in his State of the Union address And former key intelligence official in the State Department, Greg Thielmann, said that the Iraqi intelligence estimates "had been misrepresented on the part of the administration", with both "misleading summaries" and "inaccurate formulations" clouding the accuracy of key public statements.
Mr Thielmann, who stood down as military affairs director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research in October, noted that his boss, Colin Powell, had not repeated the claims made by President Bush about Iraq's nuclear programme in his testimony to the UN.
He said that his agency had rejected such evidence as not well-founded.
He had been "surprised and then appalled" when he heard the nuclear claims had been made by Mr Bush in the State of the Union speech. Soldiers are yet to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq Mr Thielmann also said that there was little evidence linking al-Qaeda and Iraq.
Bringing the boys home
Many senators had more local concerns. They wanted to know when the American troops would be coming home, and why Iraqis were still shooting at them.
General Franks admitted that the US would have to maintain its current force levels, of around 145,000 soldiers, in Iraq "for the foreseeable future."
Mr Rumsfeld said that the US was hoping that forces from other nations, including Britain and Poland, would replace some US divisions in the future, with up to 30,000 coalition forces in place by the autumn.
He seemed unable to answer a question by Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who voted against the war, as to how much the occupation of Iraq would cost.
Mr Rumsfeld's staff later said that current US operations in Iraq cost $4bn per month, or nearly $50bn per year, while Afghanistan costs nearly $1bn per month.
Republican Senator John McCain urged the Bush administration to "give the American people a concrete plan" on the costs and duration of the US occupation in Iraq "even if this is a pessimistic scenario".
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plmkrzy
Well hell, all I can say is Barbie was originally a whore from France. But we made her famous.
Mr Rumsfeld said that attacks on US troops were limited
Bush made the uranium claim in his State of the Union address 
Soldiers are yet to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq