Selling woodworking tools on ebay - any pointers...

In article <[email protected]>, Andy
Dingley <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hey, we
> _sold_ the damn things to them

That's a false meme. Do you have reliable documentation to back it up?

On Fri, 04 Jun 2004 17:14:09 GMT, Mark <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>
>Dave Hinz wrote:
>> On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 17:42:08 GMT, Mark <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>
>>>I don't consider death as destruction. I see it as murder.
>>
>>
>> Word games? Next are we going to argue about what the definition of the
>> word "is" is?
>
>
>
>Clinton still has a burr under your saddle.
>
Clinton , Bush, Gore, yada yada yada.

It doesn't matter, because in Nov 95% of American voters are going to vote for a
President who's has jerked off in a coffin and had a human femur up his ass.

Only in America.....

Todd Fatheree writes:

>Trust me...this election won't
>be decided based on the state of the economy. You'd better just stick with
>"Bush lied about Iraq", because you're not going to have anything else come
>November.

But that will be enough.

Charlie Self
"The test and the use of man's education is that he finds pleasure in the
exercise of his mind." Jacques Barzun

On Thu, 3 Jun 2004 08:48:40 -0700, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]>
wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>,
>[email protected] says...
>> In terms of "Untidy armies losing chemical weapons by accident" the
>> score for the US Army is still considerably higher than the Iraqis.
>> Since 1998, more chemical weapons have been uncovered in the back
>> garden of the Korean Ambassador's residence in Washington than have
>> been found in Iraq. More VX has been spilled over Johnson Atoll by
>> carelessness than has shown up around Tikrit or Baghdad.
>>
>Thanks, Andy. Saved me a response. But you won't change
>anybodys mind either, mores the pity.


I'm sure you don't appreciate the irony in the above remark. You seem to
keep chanting the mantra that the WMD's were the sole reason for attacking
Iraq. Failure to abide by 17 resolutions over 10 years, continued
beligerence in threatening to unleash weapons that he apparently did not
yet have, unearthing the mass graves of well over 100,000 of his own
citizens, support for terrorists (Abu Nidal *was* killed in Baghdad (or
committed suicide by shooting himself multiple times)) all serve as
justification. Was our intelligence faulty? Yes. But the other irony here
is that Bush is being accused of being a liar and manipulating the country
in pre-empting a threat. Was Saddam a threat? There is sufficient
evidence and testimony from former Hussein associates that even if an
active WMD program was not present in the country when we attacked, Hussein
had every intention of restarting those programs once the sanctions were
lifted. So, in the case of Iraq, Bush was manipulative in pursuing
pre-emption, yet the same people making this accusation are the same people
accusing the administration of failing to act and pre-empt 9/11. So what
if the intelligence had been correct? Would you have rather had the
administration take a tentative approach and been proven wrong?

[email protected] (Doug Miller) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

> You keep asking "where are those Iraqi WMDs?" Obviously one, at least, has
> been located. Does it not occur to you to wonder (a) where it was being
> stored, and (b) how many more are there where that one came from?

In terms of "Untidy armies losing chemical weapons by accident" the
score for the US Army is still considerably higher than the Iraqis.
Since 1998, more chemical weapons have been uncovered in the back
garden of the Korean Ambassador's residence in Washington than have
been found in Iraq. More VX has been spilled over Johnson Atoll by
carelessness than has shown up around Tikrit or Baghdad.

No one ever claimed that Iraq never had assorted nasties (Hey, we
_sold_ the damn things to them). The real question is simply "Was the
post-'91 UN inspection period effective at removing them", and the
answer to that increasingly seems to be positive.

It's obviously unrealistic to wave a magic wand and have all their
previous traces vanish. Finding the dregs (for that's all we're
talking about) of an old and abandoned campaign and claiming that it
represents _continuing_ involvement is blatantly letting a political
agenda bend the facts.

Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> On 3 Jun 2004 03:37:39 -0700, Andy Dingley <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Finding the dregs (for that's all we're
> > talking about) of an old and abandoned campaign and claiming that it
> > represents _continuing_ involvement is blatantly letting a political
> > agenda bend the facts.
>
> The "dregs" in that sarin shell could kill 1000-2000 people.

An entirely false argument. We're discussing intent here, not risk.

Any number of _old_ shells would still fail to worry me at a political
level (obviously they're a hazard for those dealing with them). A
small indication of an _ongoing_ program is much more serious, even if
it hadn't yet achieved much.

If I go within walking distance of my own house, I can excavate more
evidence of abandoned chemical weapons than have so far been found in
Iraq. And I don't even live in New Jersey, or Hanford, or Nancekuke.

Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> On 3 Jun 2004 03:37:39 -0700, Andy Dingley <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Finding the dregs (for that's all we're
> > talking about) of an old and abandoned campaign and claiming that it
> > represents _continuing_ involvement is blatantly letting a political
> > agenda bend the facts.
>
> The "dregs" in that sarin shell could kill 1000-2000 people.

An entirely false argument. We're discussing intent here, not risk.

Any number of _old_ shells would still fail to worry me at a political
level (obviously they're a hazard for those dealing with them). A
small indication of an _ongoing_ program is much more serious, even if
it hadn't yet achieved much.

If I go within walking distance of my own house, I can excavate more
evidence of abandoned chemical weapons than have so far been found in
Iraq. And I don't even live in New Jersey, or Hanford, or Nancekuke.

"Larry Blanchard" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] says...
> > Where is that "Where are those weapons of mass destruction?" tag line?
> >
> > I guess Sarin and Mustard gas don't count?
> > "The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter
> > artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," Brig.
> > Gen. Mark Kimmitt (search), the chief military spokesman in Iraq, told
> > reporters in Baghdad. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised
> > explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy." (Fox
> > News - May 17, 2004)
> >
> Did you miss the announcement, by OUR military, that it was an
> unlabelled leftover from the '91 war or before, and that the
> insurgents who tied it into their bomb probably didn't even know
> what it was?
>
> Or did faux Fox even mention that part of the story?
>
> --
> Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?

I haven't seen it. Can you post a citation? But so what if it was? The
total number Iraq was supposed to have was zero. The real question is, are
there any more? I don't know, and I sure as hell know you don't know.
Personally, I find it hard to believe that we found the only Sarin-filled
shell in a country larger than California. Earlier in this thread, I posted
a list of quotes from a list of Democrats publicly stating that Iraq had
WMDs. If Iraq didn't possess them prior to our recent military action, the
intelligence community didn't know it. My belief is that we had incomplete
data that suggested Iraq did possess WMDs and a long history of
intransigence on the part of Saddam with him not allowing inspections, then
allowing them but holding inspectors up at the front gate while moving the
stuff out the back, then kicking inspectors out, etc. Unfortunately, Saddam
had given us every reason in the face of incomplete data to assume the
worst. So, forced to assume the worst, we went to the UN. Even with Saddam
thumbing his nose after UN resolution after resolution, the UN didn't see
fit to enforce its own resolutions. We're beginning to get an understanding
of why that was with the corruption in the oil for food program starting to
come out.

todd

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> Where is that "Where are those weapons of mass destruction?" tag line?
>
> I guess Sarin and Mustard gas don't count?
> "The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter
> artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," Brig.
> Gen. Mark Kimmitt (search), the chief military spokesman in Iraq, told
> reporters in Baghdad. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised
> explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy." (Fox
> News - May 17, 2004)
>
Did you miss the announcement, by OUR military, that it was an
unlabelled leftover from the '91 war or before, and that the
insurgents who tied it into their bomb probably didn't even know
what it was?

Or did faux Fox even mention that part of the story?

--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?

On 3 Jun 2004 03:37:39 -0700, Andy Dingley <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> It's obviously unrealistic to wave a magic wand and have all their
> previous traces vanish. Finding the dregs (for that's all we're
> talking about) of an old and abandoned campaign and claiming that it
> represents _continuing_ involvement is blatantly letting a political
> agenda bend the facts.

The "dregs" in that sarin shell could kill 1000-2000 people. The lethal dose
is 1.7mg, and it was a 3 or 4 liter shell. How many lethal doses are
enough to be considered a weapon of mass destruction? If you don't consider
1000 or 2000 dead to be "mass destruction", what number is your
thresshold for this?

How many more shells that they have that they don't have do they have?

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> In terms of "Untidy armies losing chemical weapons by accident" the
> score for the US Army is still considerably higher than the Iraqis.
> Since 1998, more chemical weapons have been uncovered in the back
> garden of the Korean Ambassador's residence in Washington than have
> been found in Iraq. More VX has been spilled over Johnson Atoll by
> carelessness than has shown up around Tikrit or Baghdad.
>
Thanks, Andy. Saved me a response. But you won't change
anybodys mind either, mores the pity.

--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?

On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 17:42:08 GMT, Mark <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> Dave Hinz wrote:
>
>> The "dregs" in that sarin shell could kill 1000-2000 people. The lethal dose
>> is 1.7mg, and it was a 3 or 4 liter shell. How many lethal doses are
>> enough to be considered a weapon of mass destruction? If you don't consider
>> 1000 or 2000 dead to be "mass destruction", what number is your
>> thresshold for this?

(yes, I wrote mg when I should have written ml. My bad.)

> I don't consider death as destruction. I see it as murder.

Word games? Next are we going to argue about what the definition of the
word "is" is?

> WMD means anything and nothing, Are you going to consider a 767 as a WMD? You
> should as it killed more than your 2000.

My 2000?

> About your shell,

My shell?

> I bet that shell has more fingernail gouges than can be
> counted from your type of person

My type of person? What, the kind that believed S.H. when he said he had 'em,
and who is now shown to have been telling the truth?

> holding onto it for dear life in your
> justification for the 'war' and unjustified occupation of another country.

I'm not justifying anything, I'm pointing out the fact that a shell that has
enough toxins to kill 1000 or more people is plenty enough of a W of MD
(or MM if you prefer) to fit any reasonable definition.

> The shell is too little too late.

Or, maybe it's just the beginning. 3 by the way, the other 2 had mustard
gas in them. Which he also wasn't supposed to have.

> And your figures are off, 1 to 1.7 GRAMS skin, that's roughly 1.5cc (1.09 sg @
> 25C). You could kill your 2 to 4000 people, IF you had them strip so the dose
> could make 100% contact.

Let's talk about inhalation then, shall we?

> This reminds me of the Cosby comment in that the Radical Right will grab hold of
> anything they can present out of context in order to support their claims.

Before the shell was found, "your people" were whining that none were found.
Now that this one, and the two mustard shells have been found, your people
are dismissing them. The inescapable conclusion is that there is nothing
which could convince you to deviate from your chosen mindset.

> One frigging shell. ONE. ONE shell justifies everything that's happened and
> that's going to happen.

How many lethal doses is enough to convince you?

> I can say one thing for that ONE shell: At least it is real, unlike the excuses
> used to justify the Iraq War.

>> How many more shells that they have that they don't have do they have?
>
> A stash of 100 or so would do it for me.

So, at a conservative estimate of 1000 doses per shell, you won't consider
it WMD until there's enough to kill 100,000 people?

> I'm going to need more than something that could have fallen from a transport.

Oh, I'm sure there's a _perfectly_ innocent reason why a shell that's not
supposed to be there at all, just happened to fall off a truck and bury
itself where our troops would be. Probably happens all the time, ya know?
Woopsie, we lost _the one shell_ that we have with the nasties in it.
Yeah, that sounds pretty plausible. Sheesh.

In article <[email protected]>, DaveMay2004@duck-
creek.net says...
> Before the shell was found, "your people" were whining that none were found.
> Now that this one, and the two mustard shells have been found, your people
> are dismissing them. The inescapable conclusion is that there is nothing
> which could convince you to deviate from your chosen mindset.
>
No, I claimed we never found the "massive stockpiles" we said
Iraq had. When both Bush and Powell have admitted they were
wrong on this, don't you think you're beating a dead horse?

--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?

On Thu, 3 Jun 2004 16:48:32 -0700, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, DaveMay2004@duck-
> creek.net says...
>> Before the shell was found, "your people" were whining that none were found.
>> Now that this one, and the two mustard shells have been found, your people
>> are dismissing them. The inescapable conclusion is that there is nothing
>> which could convince you to deviate from your chosen mindset.
>>
> No, I claimed we never found the "massive stockpiles" we said
> Iraq had.

So, it's OK for you to generalize and say "my people" while putting
words in my mouth for me, but when I use your tactic you balk. Interesting.

> When both Bush and Powell have admitted they were
> wrong on this, don't you think you're beating a dead horse?

What part of "haven't found all of it yet" are you not understanding?

How many lethal doses is enough, Larry?

On 4 Jun 2004 03:33:14 -0700, Andy Dingley <[email protected]> wrote:
> Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
>>
>> The "dregs" in that sarin shell could kill 1000-2000 people.
>
> An entirely false argument. We're discussing intent here, not risk.

I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent reason to have something that
could kill 1000 or 2000 people. I'm also sure that, should that
shell have been used as designed, those who died would have been
pleased to know with their last thought that it wasn't intended and
that their deaths were OK because it's just a risk.

> Any number of _old_ shells would still fail to worry me at a political
> level (obviously they're a hazard for those dealing with them). A
> small indication of an _ongoing_ program is much more serious, even if
> it hadn't yet achieved much.

OK, so there can be as many old ones as we find and it's OK, but if we
find, say, mobile labs buried in a desert for making more WMD, then
that's a problem? Or, are _those_ OK because there aren't any WMD
in them, just the equipment made for making them, right?

Oh wait, that's not an _ongoing_ program, that's a mothballed piece
of equipment to _continue_ an inactive program, so it's OK then, is
that it?

> If I go within walking distance of my own house, I can excavate more
> evidence of abandoned chemical weapons than have so far been found in
> Iraq. And I don't even live in New Jersey, or Hanford, or Nancekuke.

How is that relevant to the situation in Iraq? Are you claiming that
this statement (which I have a hard time believing, by the way) is
typical, or are you saying you live in an abandoned chem weapons
facility, or what's your point?

On Fri, 04 Jun 2004 17:14:09 GMT, Mark <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> Dave Hinz wrote:
>> On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 17:42:08 GMT, Mark <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>I don't consider death as destruction. I see it as murder.
>>
>> Word games? Next are we going to argue about what the definition of the
>> word "is" is?
>
> Clinton still has a burr under your saddle.

The tactic looks familiar, so I was pointing that out.

> No, it's not a word game. If there is a word game being played it's by people
> using the term WMD to describe weapons that don't destroy.

Definitions are what they are. If the common usage of "WMD" isn't to
your liking, well, you can change it or adapt, your choice.

>>>About your shell,
>>
>> My shell?
>
> Well, yes. You seem to have fallen in love with it, it and two others being the
> soul justification for the illegal and unjustified invasion of a sovereign nation.

Your memory is _very_ selective, apparently. UN Resolutions, need I quote
them? Even your boy Kerry said S.H. needed to be stopped, want dates and
quotes?

>> Let's talk about inhalation then, shall we?
>
> Sure. > > Go ahead.

Yay.

> One of the fallacies to your approach is 100% effectiveness. That is every
> microgram is going to find a target. That's like saying that every round
> discharged in Iraq found an Iraqi, so I guess we have 1,000,000 +++ dead Iraqis. Eh?

Do you know what "LD50" means? It's "Lethal dose for 50% of the people
exposed to substance in (whichever) manner". That means half.

>> So, at a conservative estimate of 1000 doses per shell, you won't consider
>> it WMD until there's enough to kill 100,000 people?
>
> That's about right.

You said earlier that they're not destruction, they're murder. Now it's
destructive enough to be destruction again? You're inconsistant.

> Let's say I'm a Cop and storm trooper your house with a warrant for a meth lab
> but after untold hours all I find is a musty old pot seed.

Unlikely to happen on at least two counts, but do go on and on.

> I guess I'd be justified.

Because MJ is now meth? When did that happen?

> Let's say I find your quarter bag stash .... now I'm really justified.

Because a bigger bag of pot is a meth lab? Your analogy is flawed.

> So take your one shell, put it on it's pedestal, hang the placard of
> justification on it.
> Hell, you may even thank God for it in your prayers.

Lots of assumptions going on on your side of the screen.

> Truth is, it isn't shit.

I'm sure the tens of thousands of dead Kurds are comforted by that.

On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 00:27:13 -0700, Fly-by-Night CC <[email protected]> wrote:

> Slight correction... They *believe/d* he had them. And, they likely
> believed it to the point of stating it as fact - though it doesn't so
> much appear as fact today.

What part of "best available information" aren't you getting?

> The questions to ask are: why did was the intelligence apparently so
> incorrect (so far, anyway); and, who was supplying the insider info to
> the intelligence sources and for what purpose?

So, we gave him time to hide his stuff and we haven't found it yet,
so we're wrong that he had it? Can you at least consider the possibility
that over the last decade, he's hidden it better than we've been able to
look for it? Hell, Jordan (wups, I mean Iraq) is a very big country...

In article <[email protected]>, DaveMay2004@duck-
creek.net says...
> So, we gave him time to hide his stuff and we haven't found it yet,
> so we're wrong that he had it? Can you at least consider the possibility
> that over the last decade, he's hidden it better than we've been able to
> look for it? Hell, Jordan (wups, I mean Iraq) is a very big country...
>
>
So Powell, Tenet, and even Bush are now lying when they say that
they were mistaken?

--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?

On Sat, 5 Jun 2004 08:55:18 -0700, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, DaveMay2004@duck-
> creek.net says...
>> So, we gave him time to hide his stuff and we haven't found it yet,
>> so we're wrong that he had it? Can you at least consider the possibility
>> that over the last decade, he's hidden it better than we've been able to
>> look for it? Hell, Jordan (wups, I mean Iraq) is a very big country...

> So Powell, Tenet, and even Bush are now lying when they say that
> they were mistaken?

Cite, please.

On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 12:12:38 -0700, Fly-by-Night CC <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> What part of "best available information" aren't you getting?
>
> "Best available" looks in hindsight to be just about the most inaccurate
> and misleading information ever.

In your opinion. I suppose you thought the memo which said "Bin ladin
doesn't like us" was specific enough to allow 9/11 to be prevented
too, I bet.

>>
>> > The questions to ask are: why did was the intelligence apparently so
>> > incorrect (so far, anyway); and, who was supplying the insider info to
>> > the intelligence sources and for what purpose?
>>
>> So, we gave him time to hide his stuff and we haven't found it yet,
>> so we're wrong that he had it? Can you at least consider the possibility
>> that over the last decade, he's hidden it better than we've been able to
>> look for it? Hell, Jordan (wups, I mean Iraq) is a very big country...
>
> You're assuming that Saddam *knew* he had them - not just believed he
> had them. Consider the possibilty that all the major players were misled.

If he said he had 'em, and believed he had 'em, and he had 'em,
how is this confusing.

> *If* the WMDs are out there, I certainly hope we find them before
> someone else does.

We already have found some of them, but you seem to be ignoring those.
If they're not there, then where did he put them?

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> "Larry Blanchard" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > So Powell, Tenet, and even Bush are now lying when they say that
> > they were mistaken?
>
> Where did any of these guys say that they now believe Iraq did not possess
> WMDs?
>
Well, I'm not going to spend a lot of time looking for stuff
that's been on the news for all to see, but here's a quick
reference to Powell. He's probably got more crrdibility left
than most of the administration.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/05/iraq/main598147.shtml

--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?

On Sat, 5 Jun 2004 19:03:20 -0700, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] says...
>>
>> Where did any of these guys say that they now believe Iraq did not possess
>> WMDs?
>>
> Well, I'm not going to spend a lot of time looking for stuff
> that's been on the news for all to see, but here's a quick
> reference to Powell.

Quite the backpedal there, Larry.

In article <[email protected]>, DaveMay2004@duck-
creek.net says...
> On Sat, 5 Jun 2004 19:03:20 -0700, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> > In article <[email protected]>,
> > [email protected] says...
> >>
> >> Where did any of these guys say that they now believe Iraq did not possess
> >> WMDs?
> >>
> > Well, I'm not going to spend a lot of time looking for stuff
> > that's been on the news for all to see, but here's a quick
> > reference to Powell.
>
> Quite the backpedal there, Larry.
>
And you ignored the Powell article :-). If you're too lazy to
do a Google on "Bush bad intelligence" and the like, why should
I do your work for you?

--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?

On Sun, 6 Jun 2004 08:45:16 -0700, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, DaveMay2004@duck-
> creek.net says...
>>
>> Quite the backpedal there, Larry.
>>
> And you ignored the Powell article :-). If you're too lazy to
> do a Google on "Bush bad intelligence" and the like, why should
> I do your work for you?

Because you're the one asserting that the three of them said they were
wrong and it's been "all over the news". I havn't seen it anywhere,
let alone "all over the news" so I'm asking you to explain your statement.

On Sun, 06 Jun 2004 22:43:46 -0700, Fly-by-Night CC <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> > *If* the WMDs are out there, I certainly hope we find them before
>> > someone else does.
>>
>> We already have found some of them, but you seem to be ignoring those.
>> If they're not there, then where did he put them?
>
> So let's go back to early '03 when the Admin was building its case for
> invading Iraq.

Change of subject noted.

> If one of these people had said, "It'll take 15 months,
> 810 US military lives, thousands (10s of thousands?) of Iraqi lives and
> over $100 billion but we're certain we'll find at least 3 WMDs." Would
> you have been supportive? How many months, years, lives, dollars are you
> willing to expend looking for things that might not have been there 15
> months ago let alone today?

You seem to be unable to understand that the most likely reason that we're
not finding all of the WMDs is that he was given way too much time to
hide them and/or move them out of country.

> Let's suppose Hussein *did* have stockpiles in January '03 but they were
> subsequently spirited away to other countries after Saddam's government
> and military fell. Is the USA and the world more or less safe than when
> Hussein controlled them?

I guess that depends on who has them. Thought you said there weren't any.

> BTW, did you hear about the US government freeing and returning a
> terrorist to his home country of Syria? #27 on the wanted list was freed
> because the govt doesn't want to reveal any security methods or secrets
> that may be aired during a trial.

Gee, almost like they know certain things that they're not willing to tell
the world. You know, protecting one's sources, not divulging that we are
able to gather certain types of intelligence, that sort of thing? I know
it's complicated but it may be that they know more about it than you do.

> I guess #28's feeling pretty releaved
> about now. Think this'll be the last the world hears of #27?

And of course, you'll be up there waving your "I told you so" flag when it
does, because you'll never know (or acknowledge) the reasons that the US
didn't want to show all of it's cards to get a small fish.

So, are you going to keep moving the subject around whenever I point out
fatal flaws in your argument? I'm just asking so I can keep score.

On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 17:40:51 -0700, Fly-by-Night CC <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Change of subject noted.
>
> Not so much a change of subject; rather an attempt at a different tack
> since you don't seem able to see my point of view. (I believe I do see
> yours however - the 3 "WMDs" found are justification enough to have
> spent and sacrificed to date.)

See, you keep trying to make my point for me, and you're still not
qualified to do so. Based on all available information, it is justified.
Hell, it was justified just because he didn't comply with each of the
UN resolutions, which were conditions of the _cease fire_ of Gulf War the
First.

>> You seem to be unable to understand that the most likely reason that we're
>> not finding all of the WMDs is that he was given way too much time to
>> hide them and/or move them out of country.
>
> You, likewise, seem to be having a difficult time answering my questions:
>
> * Is everything spent and lives lost to date justified by the 3 wmds
> found so far?

Could they have killed more people had they not been found?

> * You obviously believe there are more, how much longer would you
> propose spending money and losing lives looking for things which may or
> may not be there?

Personally, I'm all for a "OK, look. SH was out of hand, we removed him.
If your next head honcho gets too big for is britches, we'll remove him
too if he starts making hostile noises to us and claiming he has all of
the WMDs that SH hid. Behave, or we'll be back. Maybe next time we won't
rebuild all of your infrastructure for you while you shoot at us."


> *If Saddam shipped them to his neighbors or sympathizers, why didn't US
> Intelligence *know* that prior to '03?

Neither of us knows the internals of the intelligence organizations.
It's not all James Bond, though.

>> > Let's suppose Hussein *did* have stockpiles in January '03 but they were
>> > subsequently spirited away to other countries after Saddam's government
>> > and military fell. Is the USA and the world more or less safe than when
>> > Hussein controlled them?
>>
>> I guess that depends on who has them. Thought you said there weren't any.
>
> Reading comprehension 101: "suppose." And which country/entity do you
> believe would want to be on the receiving end of Saddam's illegal
> weapons that wouldn't be a greater threat to the US than Saddam himself?
> Remember we had him contained, with no effective military might.

Odd that even your boy Flipper (wups, I mean Kerry) said he needed to
be stopped, if he was so constrained.

> *If*
> they existed in the last few years or so, I'd much rather that he had
> them than to have them spread out around the region and world under the
> control of much less centralized and monitor-able entities. It appears
> to me the US has no idea how long ago they existed, where they might be
> or who might have control of them - certainly doesn't inspire confidence.

I'm sure he knows exactly where they went, as do his friends. Somehow
this is our fault?

>> > BTW, did you hear about the US government freeing and returning a
>> > terrorist to his home country of Syria? #27 on the wanted list was freed
>> > because the govt doesn't want to reveal any security methods or secrets
>> > that may be aired during a trial.
>>
>> Gee, almost like they know certain things that they're not willing to tell
>> the world. You know, protecting one's sources, not divulging that we are
>> able to gather certain types of intelligence, that sort of thing? I know
>> it's complicated but it may be that they know more about it than you do.
>
> So what's with the rhetoric about bringing terrorists to justice? It's
> an exercise in Catch-22.

Maybe we know what we know about him because of a covert source we're
not willing to lose? I don't know, and you don't either.

>> And of course, you'll be up there waving your "I told you so" flag when it
>> does, because you'll never know (or acknowledge) the reasons that the US
>> didn't want to show all of it's cards to get a small fish.
>
> Are you saying that when #27 does commit a terrorist act you'll be
> waving your "I supported the Administration in releasing this guy back
> to the world" flag? (My response will be similar to today - "What in the
> world were these people thinking?")

People who know more about the situation than either of us weighed the
relative risks of advertizing how we know what he did, or in letting
him go. Would you rather we, oh, I don't know, keep him as an enemy
combatant without any representation or charges?

>> So, are you going to keep moving the subject around whenever I point out
>> fatal flaws in your argument? I'm just asking so I can keep score.
>
> I'll do my best to keep my rebuttals plain and simple for you - in that
> light, you don't need to feel obligated in responding to any of the
> above. I'd appreciate replies to the following:
> * Please tell me how you *know* that Saddam had wmds.

1. We sold them to him.
2. He said he had them.
3. Clinton, Bush, and Kerry said he had them.
4. We're now finding them.

> * Please tell me how long ago that you *know* Saddam had them under his
> control.

Know? Why don't you ask Kerry, he "knew" also.

> * Please tell me how long you *know* it will take to find what is to be
> found and the quantities.

Red herring, and you show the weakness of your point of view by resorting
to a tactic such as this.

On Tue, 08 Jun 2004 00:10:15 -0700, Fly-by-Night CC <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Red herring, and you show the weakness of your point of view by resorting
>> to a tactic such as this.
>
> I apologize - I was attempting to drive my point but resorted to poor
> methods. We're not going to see eye-to-eye on this.

Noted and appreciated.

> I don't trust the
> current administration to make decisions that will help ensure long term
> peace for the country or the world; you do.

Yes.

> I feel the country was fed a
> load of falsehoods and misinformation; you feel it was truthful and
> actionable.

Ah, but you seem to think it was W doing the misleading, rather than being
misled along with the rest of the world. _if_, as you postulate, there
are no more WMDs, which I doubt. Personally, I think he just had a
lot of time to hide 'em and has done so.

> Such differing views on the same issue makes life
> interesting. Take care and if the purported wmd's are out there I
> certainly hope we find them as well as bring individuals intent on
> harming world peace to justice with as little bloodshed and alienation
> of the world's people as possible.

I contend that you will continue to fail to acknowledge them once more
of them are found. Hopefully the next troublemaker in that hotspot will
be as noisy about things as SH was, so we know when to drop the hammer
on him.

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
says...
> I contend that you will continue to fail to acknowledge them once more
> of them are found. Hopefully the next troublemaker in that hotspot will
> be as noisy about things as SH was, so we know when to drop the hammer
> on him.
>
I can't speak for others, but if we ever find those "massive
stockpiles" we claimed he had, I'll post a "mea culpa" in every
newsgroup that's seen my sig line.

How long do we have to not find those stockpiles before you do
the same?

On another subject entirely (but still off topic), I see the
Mexican trucks are on the verge of getting driving rights on US
highways, courtesy of NAFTA. Sure glad I live up near Canada
(although I do have a few nasty comments about Canadian cattle
trucks).

--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?

On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 09:07:47 -0700, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
> says...
>> I contend that you will continue to fail to acknowledge them once more
>> of them are found. Hopefully the next troublemaker in that hotspot will
>> be as noisy about things as SH was, so we know when to drop the hammer
>> on him.
>>
> I can't speak for others, but if we ever find those "massive
> stockpiles" we claimed he had, I'll post a "mea culpa" in every
> newsgroup that's seen my sig line.

One is enough to be a WMD, given the number of people it's
designed to kill.

> How long do we have to not find those stockpiles before you do
> the same?

I'll happily say right now we've only found 2 or 3 9/11's worth of
WMDs today; no hesitancy at all.

> On another subject entirely (but still off topic), I see the
> Mexican trucks are on the verge of getting driving rights on US
> highways, courtesy of NAFTA. Sure glad I live up near Canada
> (although I do have a few nasty comments about Canadian cattle
> trucks).

Do they have to pass the same safety checks as here? If not, why not?

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
says...
> On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 09:07:47 -0700, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> > In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
> > says...
>
> > On another subject entirely (but still off topic), I see the
> > Mexican trucks are on the verge of getting driving rights on US
> > highways, courtesy of NAFTA. Sure glad I live up near Canada
> > (although I do have a few nasty comments about Canadian cattle
> > trucks).
>
> Do they have to pass the same safety checks as here? If not, why not?
>
There was quite a bit about this in the press a few years back
and, IIRC, the answer was no - that's what the problem was. As
well as the minimal or nonexistent training required to drive a
Mexican big rig. If truck and driver standards were the same, I
don't think the access would have been delayed for four years.
But if someone knows different, let me know. I am working from
memory.

While it doesn't apply to the Mexicans, the problem with the
Canadians is that they all come down our street to miss the
Washington weigh stations. Besides the traffic, noise, and
smell, our street isn't designed for the (over)weight and is
deteriorating.

But after the mad cow, they've been restricted so things have
been peaceful - I dread the day the restrictions are lifted.

BTW, the locals won't do anything about the problem for two
reasons. The street east of us used to be the one they used and
they had to rebuild a bridge. They put weight restrictions on
that street to protect the new bridge.

The next street west of us leads past a big new shopping center
and they don't want to restrict our street because they don't
want the trucks on that street. So we're the stuckees.

--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?

Where is that "Where are those weapons of mass destruction?" tag line?

I guess Sarin and Mustard gas don't count?
"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter
artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," Brig.
Gen. Mark Kimmitt (search), the chief military spokesman in Iraq, told
reporters in Baghdad. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised
explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy." (Fox
News - May 17, 2004)

Don't count on the "lie about Iraq" being enough. First it was the
economy, that the lib's conveniently forgot began tanking on Clinton's
watch - then it was 'where are those weapons of mass destruction'.

Bush-Cheney - 2004!!!!!



[email protected] (Charlie Self) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Todd Fatheree writes:
>
> >Trust me...this election won't
> >be decided based on the state of the economy. You'd better just stick with
> >"Bush lied about Iraq", because you're not going to have anything else come
> >November.
>
> But that will be enough.
>
> Charlie Self
> "The test and the use of man's education is that he finds pleasure in the
> exercise of his mind." Jacques Barzun

On Wed, 2 Jun 2004 14:36:20 -0700, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]>
wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>,
>[email protected] says...
>> Where is that "Where are those weapons of mass destruction?" tag line?
>>
>> I guess Sarin and Mustard gas don't count?
>> "The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter
>> artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," Brig.
>> Gen. Mark Kimmitt (search), the chief military spokesman in Iraq, told
>> reporters in Baghdad. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised
>> explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy." (Fox
>> News - May 17, 2004)
>>
>Did you miss the announcement, by OUR military, that it was an
>unlabelled leftover from the '91 war or before, and that the
>insurgents who tied it into their bomb probably didn't even know
>what it was?

Unlabelled leftover that was *not* supposed to be in existance. The
question of the day was not that insurgents didn't know what they had, but
the question that *anybody* could have found a shell (actually to date 3
shells) that didn't exist. Remember, Saddam didn't have have *any* more
WMD's (zero, zip, zilch, nada). The insurgents weren't in power before the
conflict, Saddam was. So either Saddam and his troops were incredibly
careless, or somebody better start worrying where the rest of those
"unlabeled, forgotten" shells are before the insurgents do figure out what
they have and really start hurting people.

>
>Or did faux Fox even mention that part of the story?

At least they mentioned the fact that the sarin gas shell was found. CNN
didn't find it newsworthy enough to mention for several days after it was
found.

On Tue, 08 Jun 2004 02:03:28 +0000, Dave Hinz wrote:


>>> > BTW, did you hear about the US government freeing and returning a
>>> > terrorist to his home country of Syria? #27 on the wanted list was
>>> > freed because the govt doesn't want to reveal any security methods or
>>> > secrets that may be aired during a trial.
>>>
>>> Gee, almost like they know certain things that they're not willing to
>>> tell the world. You know, protecting one's sources, not divulging that
>>> we are able to gather certain types of intelligence, that sort of
>>> thing? I know it's complicated but it may be that they know more about
>>> it than you do.
>>
>> So what's with the rhetoric about bringing terrorists to justice? It's
>> an exercise in Catch-22.
>
> Maybe we know what we know about him because of a covert source we're not
> willing to lose? I don't know, and you don't either.

One *good* thing about letting this guy loose - there's no bag limit on
him in the wild.

-Doug

--
"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always
depend on the support of Paul." - George Bernard Shaw

On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 23:45:08 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller) wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
>>Did you miss the announcement, by OUR military, that it was an
>>unlabelled leftover from the '91 war or before, and that the
>>insurgents who tied it into their bomb probably didn't even know
>>what it was?
>
>Interesting as they may be, those points are utterly irrelevant. The stuff was
>not supposed to have been there at all. And yet it was.
>
>You keep asking "where are those Iraqi WMDs?" Obviously one, at least, has
>been located. Does it not occur to you to wonder (a) where it was being
>stored, and (b) how many more are there where that one came from?


Of course not, because that would require changing the entire premise of
his opposition to the current administration's actions in Iraq.

"Larry Blanchard" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>, DaveMay2004@duck-
> creek.net says...
> > So, we gave him time to hide his stuff and we haven't found it yet,
> > so we're wrong that he had it? Can you at least consider the
possibility
> > that over the last decade, he's hidden it better than we've been able to
> > look for it? Hell, Jordan (wups, I mean Iraq) is a very big country...
> >
> >
> So Powell, Tenet, and even Bush are now lying when they say that
> they were mistaken?

Where did any of these guys say that they now believe Iraq did not possess
WMDs?

todd

"Todd Fatheree" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
...
> Dave, you and I both know that at this point, we could find a whole
> warehouse full of Sarin, anthrax, plague, and mustard gas and it wouldn't
> matter to the left. They have so much invested in there being no WMDs, that
> they can't afford to acknowledge anything. If they did, Kerry might as well
> shut down his campaign.

Well, I don't know if I classify as being on the "left" or not (I'm
somewhere between Jesse Helms and Paul Wellstone, so maybe I'm
center).

However, it seems to me that actual facts and findings of actual WMDs
would be of great difference to the majority of the people. The
people and Congress have given the President a great deal of latitude
and trust that he had privy to information that the rest of us did
not. Now it appears to be inescapable that the information he had was
erroneous or exaggerated.

Now, even the best leaders will make mistakes. Its how they deal with
their mistakes that matters. Sometimes when the existing approach is
failing, the best thing to do is to admit that a new approach is
needed. The reality is that the American people have now been
committed to Iraq, and that much depends on success in establishing a
stable and peaceful Iraq. So the question is whether the voting
public thinks that our current policies will succeed in this regard
... and whether our current leaders have the intelligence to
adequately assess the situation, or the flexibility to admit their
mistakes and change their policies.

"Todd Fatheree" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Just one correction. Congress had access to the same information that the
> President had.

No, this isn't true. The NSA, NSC, CIA briefs etc are all classified
for national security purposes, and only portions of them are released
to Congress in certain committees such as the House and Senate Armed
Services Committees and Select Intelligence Committees. It is true
that Congress did have access to some of the information that the
administration had, but certainly not all. Many in Congress and in
the general public took the President at his word (understandably)
when he said that the threat was imminent. For example:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html

> The difference between then and now is that it is
> politically expedient to pretend that they were totally dependent upon what
> the President told them.

I think this is a little exaggerated. I don't think anyone has
claimed that they were totally dependent on what the President told
them. But I think that many of us (reasonably) deferred to the
President when he claimed that he had ironclad intelligence of a
compelling threat. I agree that the Democrats were very weak on the
Iraq matter, largely for political reasons. Congress basically
relinquished its obligation to declare war, because it was too weak to
take a stand that may prove false. Plenty of blame to go around, but
when you are the President the Buck Stops with you.

> It's possible that the President relied too
> heavily on Tenet's statement that WMDs in Iraq was a "slam dunk". Frankly,
> I don't know what happened to the WMDs.

It wasn't just Tenet. The way it appears to me, the White House team
(Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Tenet) had the notion that Saddam was
an immediate threat, and they chose only those parts of the
intelligence that supported that position. They took questionable
characters like Chalabi into their confidence. And when people urged
caution (Powell, O'Neill, Clarke, Blix, El-Baradi) they were
overridden. Understandably, the Administration did not want to miss a
threat in the wake of 9/11 ... however, a leading quality of a
President is to be able to distinguish credibility among various
inputs.

> It's not even debateable that
> Saddam had them. The only question is, where are they now?

It's true that he had them in 1994 (UNSCOM scrapped a huge pile of
them then), but it's not at all clear that he had them anytime after
1996. All of the other claims of compelling evidence (aluminum tubes,
yellow cake, drones, mobile labs, etc etc) are all pretty much
discredited now. I don't think any knowledgeable sources claim any
recent evidence.

> Keep in mind
> that this whole mess could have been avoided in Saddam had just complied
> fully with the Security Council resolutions and allowed unfettered
> inspections.

At the end, the UN inspectors were going into anywhere (palaces
included) with 10 minutes notice. But at the end there was basically
nothing he could have done that would have been satisfactory.
Wouldn't you agree that we were pretty much decided that we were going
to invade, regardless of what Saddam or our allies in NATO or the UN
said?

> By not doing so, he left us to make the only conclusion
> possible, which is that he had them and was protecting them. The sum total
> of all of our recent experience with Saddam was that he was a liar and a
> manipulator.

Nobody (and I mean nobody) liked Saddam, but I think you are grasping
at straws to justify what we did. Saddam was contained, he had no
WMDs, and our statements to the contrary were all wrong. Now we need
to evaluate whether our current policies there are working in
rebuilding and democratizing the country. Part of the mark of good
leadership is to use judicious judgement in evaluating a situation and
in exhibiting flexibility when the plan goes awry.

> So, when we go analyzing intelligence data that can never be
> fully complete (this isn't like flying over Cuba and snapping pictures of
> missle launchers), intelligence that on its face might fall in a gray area
> ends up being judged as evidence of WMDs.

I'm a scientist. I know that the hallmarks of a large WMD program are
in fact readily visible from the air and with modern satellites. When
you look at the size of our own plutonium enrichment facilities, the
size of our own chemical plants, and the size of our own
pharmaceutical plants this becomes clear. It's just credulous to
assume that these things can be done from the back of a tractor
trailer.

> For the people who believe Bush
> made all of this up, I'd like to know the motivation. Wait, I know...it's
> so Haliburton can get $700 million in Iraq contracts. Look, I don't think
> even Bill Clinton would sacrafice 700+ soldiers and hundreds of billions of
> dollars just to get some political advantage, and that's saying a lot.

Wow. I don't think so. I think Bush was genuinely and understandably
spooked by 9/11, and he was determined to make sure that it did not
repeat. I think he could not easily track down Al Qaeda, so he turned
to what he thought was an immediate, identifiable, and addressable
threat. I think he intentionally exaggerated the evidence, thinking
that this was the only way to enlist the support of the public. With
honorable motivation and for our own good, but misled nonetheless.

If he had been right, he would be a hero now. The problem is that he
was wrong. His assessment of the immediacy of the threat was wrong,
and his assessment of the ease of democratizing Iraq was likewise
wrong. I think his judgement was incredibly poor. Someday I will
probably vote Republican again (I used to), but this year I will
likely not vote for someone who has demonstrated poor judgement and
failed policy.

> No,
> wait...I know...we went there because of oil. Well, no shit! Do you think
> we'd give the middle east a second look if we didn't get a large percentage
> of our oil from there? Frankly, it would suit me fine if we all had
> alternative-fuel cars so we could cut off the middle east. Then they could
> go back to having wars with each other instead of with us.

All right! Agreed! Energy independence is a good investment for the
US in the long run.

In article <[email protected]>, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
>Did you miss the announcement, by OUR military, that it was an
>unlabelled leftover from the '91 war or before, and that the
>insurgents who tied it into their bomb probably didn't even know
>what it was?

Interesting as they may be, those points are utterly irrelevant. The stuff was
not supposed to have been there at all. And yet it was.

You keep asking "where are those Iraqi WMDs?" Obviously one, at least, has
been located. Does it not occur to you to wonder (a) where it was being
stored, and (b) how many more are there where that one came from?

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

For a copy of my TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter,
send email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.

Dave Hinz wrote:
> On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 17:42:08 GMT, Mark <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>
>>I don't consider death as destruction. I see it as murder.
>
>
> Word games? Next are we going to argue about what the definition of the
> word "is" is?



Clinton still has a burr under your saddle.

No, it's not a word game. If there is a word game being played it's by people
using the term WMD to describe weapons that don't destroy.





>>About your shell,
>
>
> My shell?
>


Well, yes. You seem to have fallen in love with it, it and two others being the
soul justification for the illegal and unjustified invasion of a sovereign nation.


>>And your figures are off, 1 to 1.7 GRAMS skin, that's roughly 1.5cc (1.09 sg @
>>25C). You could kill your 2 to 4000 people, IF you had them strip so the dose
>>could make 100% contact.
>
>
> Let's talk about inhalation then, shall we?


Sure.

Go ahead.

One of the fallacies to your approach is 100% effectiveness. That is every
microgram is going to find a target. That's like saying that every round
discharged in Iraq found an Iraqi, so I guess we have 1,000,000 +++ dead Iraqis. Eh?


>
>>>How many more shells that they have that they don't have do they have?
>>
>> A stash of 100 or so would do it for me.
>
>
> So, at a conservative estimate of 1000 doses per shell, you won't consider
> it WMD until there's enough to kill 100,000 people?
>



That's about right.


Let's say I'm a Cop and storm trooper your house with a warrant for a meth lab
but after untold hours all I find is a musty old pot seed. I guess I'd be justified.

Let's say I find your quarter bag stash .... now I'm really justified.


So take your one shell, put it on it's pedestal, hang the placard of
justification on it.

Hell, you may even thank God for it in your prayers.


Truth is, it isn't shit.


--

Mark

N.E. Ohio

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice
there is.

Never argue with a fool, a bystander can't tell you apart. (S. Clemens, A.K.A.
Mark Twain)

When in doubt hit the throttle. It may not help but it sure ends the suspense.
(Gaz, r.moto)

Todd Fatheree wrote:


>
> Dave, you and I both know that at this point, we could find a whole
> warehouse full of Sarin, anthrax, plague, and mustard gas and it wouldn't
> matter to the left.



I guess that's a fair statement, foolish as it may be.

The Right has been following transparent and well known lies for a couple years
now and they aren't any closer to accepting the truth.







--

Mark

N.E. Ohio

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice
there is.

Never argue with a fool, a bystander can't tell you apart. (S. Clemens, A.K.A.
Mark Twain)

When in doubt hit the throttle. It may not help but it sure ends the suspense.
(Gaz, r.moto)

"Charlie Self" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Todd Fatheree writes:
>
> >Trust me...this election won't
> >be decided based on the state of the economy. You'd better just stick
with
> >"Bush lied about Iraq", because you're not going to have anything else
come
> >November.
>
> But that will be enough.
>
> Charlie Self
> "The test and the use of man's education is that he finds pleasure in the
> exercise of his mind." Jacques Barzun

We'll see. For any Bush "lie", I can find 5 Democrats that have said the
same thing. I think the election may turn on what kind of place Iraq is
come November. I'm sure the insurgents will do their best to keep it
destabilized. For us and for the Iraqis, I hope the transfer goes as
smoothly as possible and the new government functions as well as can be
expected. God bless anyone who took a position in the government, because
they might as well have painted a bullseye on themselves. I just hope that
Al Queda doesn't get the idea that the American people are as weak-spined as
the Spaniards.

todd

In article <[email protected]>, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:

>No, I claimed we never found the "massive stockpiles" we said
>Iraq had.

Assumes facts not in evidence. All you, or anyone, can say with certainty at
this point is that we haven't found them _yet_.

We haven't found Osama bin Laden yet either. Does that mean he doesn't exist?

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter
by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.

Dave Hinz wrote:

> On 3 Jun 2004 03:37:39 -0700, Andy Dingley <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>It's obviously unrealistic to wave a magic wand and have all their
>>previous traces vanish. Finding the dregs (for that's all we're
>>talking about) of an old and abandoned campaign and claiming that it
>>represents _continuing_ involvement is blatantly letting a political
>>agenda bend the facts.


Agreed.


> The "dregs" in that sarin shell could kill 1000-2000 people. The lethal dose
> is 1.7mg, and it was a 3 or 4 liter shell. How many lethal doses are
> enough to be considered a weapon of mass destruction? If you don't consider
> 1000 or 2000 dead to be "mass destruction", what number is your
> thresshold for this?



I don't consider death as destruction. I see it as murder.

WMD means anything and nothing, Are you going to consider a 767 as a WMD? You
should as it killed more than your 2000.


About your shell, I bet that shell has more fingernail gouges than can be
counted from your type of person holding onto it for dear life in your
justification for the 'war' and unjustified occupation of another country.

The shell is too little too late.


And your figures are off, 1 to 1.7 GRAMS skin, that's roughly 1.5cc (1.09 sg @
25C). You could kill your 2 to 4000 people, IF you had them strip so the dose
could make 100% contact.


This reminds me of the Cosby comment in that the Radical Right will grab hold of
anything they can present out of context in order to support their claims.

One frigging shell. ONE. ONE shell justifies everything that's happened and
that's going to happen.

I can say one thing for that ONE shell: At least it is real, unlike the excuses
used to justify the Iraq War.



>
> How many more shells that they have that they don't have do they have?
>



A stash of 100 or so would do it for me.

I'm going to need more than something that could have fallen from a transport.





--
--

Mark

N.E. Ohio

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice
there is.

Never argue with a fool, a bystander can't tell you apart. (S. Clemens, A.K.A.
Mark Twain)

When in doubt hit the throttle. It may not help but it sure ends the suspense.
(Gaz, r.moto)

"Andy Dingley" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Fri, 4 Jun 2004 07:48:43 -0500, "Todd Fatheree"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >Dave, you and I both know that at this point, we could find a whole
> >warehouse full of Sarin, anthrax, plague, and mustard gas
>
> But you _haven't_, that's rather the point.

Right now, it's a moot point. It wouldn't matter how much was found. Three
shells found - those were just sloppy bookkeeping. Ten shells? Probably
came from somewhere else. A hundred? Those must have been planted by the
CIA or Haliburton. I tell you what...you tell me where the WMDs are right
now. *Everybody* (Clinton administration, Bush administration, Hans Blix,
UN, David Kay, US Congressmen on both sides of the aisle) knows he had them.
The whole reason we went down this path is that Saddam didn't want to allow
weapons *inspectors* (not weapon *finders*) complete access and couldn't
provide proof that they had been destroyed. So, where are they now? Hell,
I hope everybody was wrong and Saddam never had anything. It sure beats the
alternative that they're just someplace else.

todd

"Dave Hinz" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> OK, so there can be as many old ones as we find and it's OK, but if we
> find, say, mobile labs buried in a desert for making more WMD, then
> that's a problem? Or, are _those_ OK because there aren't any WMD
> in them, just the equipment made for making them, right?

Dave, you and I both know that at this point, we could find a whole
warehouse full of Sarin, anthrax, plague, and mustard gas and it wouldn't
matter to the left. They have so much invested in there being no WMDs, that
they can't afford to acknowledge anything. If they did, Kerry might as well
shut down his campaign.

todd

On Fri, 4 Jun 2004 07:48:43 -0500, "Todd Fatheree"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Dave, you and I both know that at this point, we could find a whole
>warehouse full of Sarin, anthrax, plague, and mustard gas

But you _haven't_, that's rather the point.

where are those weapons of mass destruction...?

one improperly loaded shell of sarin gas vs how many dead and wounded...?

i see your point...


john

"tillius" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Where is that "Where are those weapons of mass destruction?" tag line?
>
> I guess Sarin and Mustard gas don't count?
> "The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter
> artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," Brig.
> Gen. Mark Kimmitt (search), the chief military spokesman in Iraq, told
> reporters in Baghdad. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised
> explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy." (Fox
> News - May 17, 2004)
>
> Don't count on the "lie about Iraq" being enough. First it was the
> economy, that the lib's conveniently forgot began tanking on Clinton's
> watch - then it was 'where are those weapons of mass destruction'.
>

In article <[email protected]>,
Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:

> What part of "best available information" aren't you getting?

"Best available" looks in hindsight to be just about the most inaccurate
and misleading information ever.
>
> > The questions to ask are: why did was the intelligence apparently so
> > incorrect (so far, anyway); and, who was supplying the insider info to
> > the intelligence sources and for what purpose?
>
> So, we gave him time to hide his stuff and we haven't found it yet,
> so we're wrong that he had it? Can you at least consider the possibility
> that over the last decade, he's hidden it better than we've been able to
> look for it? Hell, Jordan (wups, I mean Iraq) is a very big country...

You're assuming that Saddam *knew* he had them - not just believed he
had them. Consider the possibilty that all the major players were misled.

*If* the WMDs are out there, I certainly hope we find them before
someone else does.

--
Owen Lowe and his Fly-by-Night Copper Company
Offering a shim for the Porter-Cable 557 type 2 fence design.
<http://www.flybynightcoppercompany.com>
<http://www.easystreet.com/~onlnlowe/index.html>

In article <[email protected]>,
Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:

> > *If* the WMDs are out there, I certainly hope we find them before
> > someone else does.
>
> We already have found some of them, but you seem to be ignoring those.
> If they're not there, then where did he put them?

So let's go back to early '03 when the Admin was building its case for
invading Iraq. If one of these people had said, "It'll take 15 months,
810 US military lives, thousands (10s of thousands?) of Iraqi lives and
over $100 billion but we're certain we'll find at least 3 WMDs." Would
you have been supportive? How many months, years, lives, dollars are you
willing to expend looking for things that might not have been there 15
months ago let alone today?

Let's suppose Hussein *did* have stockpiles in January '03 but they were
subsequently spirited away to other countries after Saddam's government
and military fell. Is the USA and the world more or less safe than when
Hussein controlled them?

BTW, did you hear about the US government freeing and returning a
terrorist to his home country of Syria? #27 on the wanted list was freed
because the govt doesn't want to reveal any security methods or secrets
that may be aired during a trial. I guess #28's feeling pretty releaved
about now. Think this'll be the last the world hears of #27?

--
Owen Lowe and his Fly-by-Night Copper Company
Offering a shim for the Porter-Cable 557 type 2 fence design.
<http://www.flybynightcoppercompany.com>
<http://www.easystreet.com/~onlnlowe/index.html>

In article <[email protected]>,
Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:

> Red herring, and you show the weakness of your point of view by resorting
> to a tactic such as this.

I apologize - I was attempting to drive my point but resorted to poor
methods. We're not going to see eye-to-eye on this. I don't trust the
current administration to make decisions that will help ensure long term
peace for the country or the world; you do. I feel the country was fed a
load of falsehoods and misinformation; you feel it was truthful and
actionable. Such differing views on the same issue makes life
interesting. Take care and if the purported wmd's are out there I
certainly hope we find them as well as bring individuals intent on
harming world peace to justice with as little bloodshed and alienation
of the world's people as possible.

--
Owen Lowe and his Fly-by-Night Copper Company
Offering a shim for the Porter-Cable 557 type 2 fence design.
<http://www.flybynightcoppercompany.com>
<http://www.easystreet.com/~onlnlowe/index.html>

In article <[email protected]>,
Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote:

> >> > *If* the WMDs are out there, I certainly hope we find them before
> >> > someone else does.
> >>
> >> We already have found some of them, but you seem to be ignoring those.
> >> If they're not there, then where did he put them?
> >
> > So let's go back to early '03 when the Admin was building its case for
> > invading Iraq.
>
> Change of subject noted.

Not so much a change of subject; rather an attempt at a different tack
since you don't seem able to see my point of view. (I believe I do see
yours however - the 3 "WMDs" found are justification enough to have
spent and sacrificed to date.)

> > If one of these people had said, "It'll take 15 months,
> > 810 US military lives, thousands (10s of thousands?) of Iraqi lives and
> > over $100 billion but we're certain we'll find at least 3 WMDs." Would
> > you have been supportive? How many months, years, lives, dollars are you
> > willing to expend looking for things that might not have been there 15
> > months ago let alone today?
>
> You seem to be unable to understand that the most likely reason that we're
> not finding all of the WMDs is that he was given way too much time to
> hide them and/or move them out of country.

You, likewise, seem to be having a difficult time answering my questions:

* Is everything spent and lives lost to date justified by the 3 wmds
found so far?
* You obviously believe there are more, how much longer would you
propose spending money and losing lives looking for things which may or
may not be there?
*If Saddam shipped them to his neighbors or sympathizers, why didn't US
Intelligence *know* that prior to '03?

> > Let's suppose Hussein *did* have stockpiles in January '03 but they were
> > subsequently spirited away to other countries after Saddam's government
> > and military fell. Is the USA and the world more or less safe than when
> > Hussein controlled them?
>
> I guess that depends on who has them. Thought you said there weren't any.

Reading comprehension 101: "suppose." And which country/entity do you
believe would want to be on the receiving end of Saddam's illegal
weapons that wouldn't be a greater threat to the US than Saddam himself?
Remember we had him contained, with no effective military might. *If*
they existed in the last few years or so, I'd much rather that he had
them than to have them spread out around the region and world under the
control of much less centralized and monitor-able entities. It appears
to me the US has no idea how long ago they existed, where they might be
or who might have control of them - certainly doesn't inspire confidence.

> > BTW, did you hear about the US government freeing and returning a
> > terrorist to his home country of Syria? #27 on the wanted list was freed
> > because the govt doesn't want to reveal any security methods or secrets
> > that may be aired during a trial.
>
> Gee, almost like they know certain things that they're not willing to tell
> the world. You know, protecting one's sources, not divulging that we are
> able to gather certain types of intelligence, that sort of thing? I know
> it's complicated but it may be that they know more about it than you do.

So what's with the rhetoric about bringing terrorists to justice? It's
an exercise in Catch-22.

> > I guess #28's feeling pretty releaved
> > about now. Think this'll be the last the world hears of #27?
>
> And of course, you'll be up there waving your "I told you so" flag when it
> does, because you'll never know (or acknowledge) the reasons that the US
> didn't want to show all of it's cards to get a small fish.

Are you saying that when #27 does commit a terrorist act you'll be
waving your "I supported the Administration in releasing this guy back
to the world" flag? (My response will be similar to today - "What in the
world were these people thinking?")

> So, are you going to keep moving the subject around whenever I point out
> fatal flaws in your argument? I'm just asking so I can keep score.

I'll do my best to keep my rebuttals plain and simple for you - in that
light, you don't need to feel obligated in responding to any of the
above. I'd appreciate replies to the following:
* Please tell me how you *know* that Saddam had wmds.
* Please tell me how long ago that you *know* Saddam had them under his
control.
* Please tell me how long you *know* it will take to find what is to be
found and the quantities.

--
Owen Lowe and his Fly-by-Night Copper Company
Offering a shim for the Porter-Cable 557 type 2 fence design.
<http://www.flybynightcoppercompany.com>
<http://www.easystreet.com/~onlnlowe/index.html>

In article <[email protected]>,
"Todd Fatheree" <[email protected]> wrote:

> *Everybody* (Clinton administration, Bush administration, Hans Blix,
> UN, David Kay, US Congressmen on both sides of the aisle) knows he had them.

Slight correction... They *believe/d* he had them. And, they likely
believed it to the point of stating it as fact - though it doesn't so
much appear as fact today.

The questions to ask are: why did was the intelligence apparently so
incorrect (so far, anyway); and, who was supplying the insider info to
the intelligence sources and for what purpose?

--
Owen Lowe and his Fly-by-Night Copper Company
Offering a shim for the Porter-Cable 557 type 2 fence design.
<http://www.flybynightcoppercompany.com>
<http://www.easystreet.com/~onlnlowe/index.html>

"Nate Perkins" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "Todd Fatheree" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> ...
> > Dave, you and I both know that at this point, we could find a whole
> > warehouse full of Sarin, anthrax, plague, and mustard gas and it
wouldn't
> > matter to the left. They have so much invested in there being no WMDs,
that
> > they can't afford to acknowledge anything. If they did, Kerry might as
well
> > shut down his campaign.
>
> Well, I don't know if I classify as being on the "left" or not (I'm
> somewhere between Jesse Helms and Paul Wellstone, so maybe I'm
> center).
>
> However, it seems to me that actual facts and findings of actual WMDs
> would be of great difference to the majority of the people. The
> people and Congress have given the President a great deal of latitude
> and trust that he had privy to information that the rest of us did
> not. Now it appears to be inescapable that the information he had was
> erroneous or exaggerated.

Just one correction. Congress had access to the same information that the
President had. The difference between then and now is that it is
politically expedient to pretend that they were totally dependent upon what
the President told them. It's possible that the President relied too
heavily on Tenet's statement that WMDs in Iraq was a "slam dunk". Frankly,
I don't know what happened to the WMDs. It's not even debateable that
Saddam had them. The only question is, where are they now? Keep in mind
that this whole mess could have been avoided in Saddam had just complied
fully with the Security Council resolutions and allowed unfettered
inspections. By not doing so, he left us to make the only conclusion
possible, which is that he had them and was protecting them. The sum total
of all of our recent experience with Saddam was that he was a liar and a
manipulator. So, when we go analyzing intelligence data that can never be
fully complete (this isn't like flying over Cuba and snapping pictures of
missle launchers), intelligence that on its face might fall in a gray area
ends up being judged as evidence of WMDs. For the people who believe Bush
made all of this up, I'd like to know the motivation. Wait, I know...it's
so Haliburton can get $700 million in Iraq contracts. Look, I don't think
even Bill Clinton would sacrafice 700+ soldiers and hundreds of billions of
dollars just to get some political advantage, and that's saying a lot. No,
wait...I know...we went there because of oil. Well, no shit! Do you think
we'd give the middle east a second look if we didn't get a large percentage
of our oil from there? Frankly, it would suit me fine if we all had
alternative-fuel cars so we could cut off the middle east. Then they could
go back to having wars with each other instead of with us.

todd