Do you think they will admit they were wrong?

[Neil D]

So here my point is well made. We have had bevin, bravus, jeanine and neil all post reasons why they shouldn't admit they were wrong about Saddam lying. Fact is, no matter how one wants to play with semantics, over 500 weapons were found that were banned. These are weapons that Saddam claimed he had destroyed - not lost track of. Saddam lied.

Ok, Saddam lied about the gas bombs. But these are not WMDs.

They don't kill on the same level as Nuclear and Biological weapons. They[WMDs} kill, enmass, citys, counties...not city blocks. And truth be told, we had muster gass, and used it in WWI. It was never labled as a WMD. It was labled as dangerous, but not on the same level as Nukes and biological were.

NPR did a montague where they did sound bits over 6 months prior to the US invading Iraq. Rice, Chaney, and Bush, all said the same thing..."We know where these WMD are. They have WMDs." And the case was made for biological weapons, with research and manufactoring MOVEABLE labs....

Only when the troops went in...they found NONE of that stuff.

Now, Shane, on a comparative scale,[while I am not degrating the destructive effects of gas bombs] muster gas bombs just don't have the punch/destructive power of nukes and biologicals. And with gas, you can always get away, or run away out of the drift. Nukes can't be outrun, and thier lingering destruction lasts decades....Biologicals are passed from mostly from contact, and these have no antidote/antibiotic to counter the disease....

I am sorry Shane, but you continually attempt to make a mountian out of a mole hill....literally...

[bevin]

The nice thing about Shane's desparate attempt to make a WMD mountain out of 500 mislaid aging shells, is it proves there is no real mountain.

If there was a real mountain the Bush administration would have built a highway right up to it with big bill-boards. Instead even the Bush administration doesn't claim these mislaid shells meet the WMD hype

But Shane does

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

My point is being made over and over and over again. The liberals are just as unwilling to admit when they are wrong as conservatives are. Seems like the title of this thread really is the pot calling the kettle black.

The Pentagon only reluctantly admitted they found these 500+ weapons when pressed because these were not the WMDs that they believed Saddam had. It would have been foolish for the Bush Administration to trumpet these when they in fact believed Saddam had resumed his WMD program and had stockpiles of WMDs which had been made post Gulf War 1.

The term WMD certainly does mean different things to different people. Now Democrats and Republicans alike made reference to Saddam using WMDs on his own people and on the Iranians. Yes? We all agree? The weapons Saddam used on the Kurds and the Iranians were referred to as WMDs. Guess what? Yes, it is true. The 500+ weapons that were found were the same type used on the Kurds and Iranians. However that is all just academic. As the adage says, a rose by any other name is still a rose. The weapons that were found were banned and Saddam claimed to have destroyed (not misplaced them).

So before liberals ask if conservatives are willing to admit when they are wrong they ought to be prepared to admit when they are wrong first. Please note that this moderate had no issue admitting he was wrong.

[bevin]

Shane, if I dropped a billion matchboxes on the Superbowl and then ignited a pint of gasoline with a match, would that make a box of matches a WMD?

500 decaying mislaid artillery shells are not a WMD stockpile

/Bevin

[Bravus]

*My* point was that the term 'WMD' is completely useless, because it can be defined in any way that suits the argument. I am 100% willing to acknowledge that Saddam had those shells, but not that they 'count' as WMD. So this is a poor example to use in making the case that 'liberals won't admit that they are wrong' because (a) it's not a point of fact (as a CIA memo is a point of fact) and ( I for one, as a liberal, never claimed that Saddam had no poison gas munitions, so can't now recant from that position.

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

if I dropped a billion matchboxes on the Superbowl and then ignited a pint of gasoline with a match,

If you had invaded a neighboring country and after being run out of it, signed a cease-fire agreement which forbid you from having matches, than you would be in violation of that agreement and subject to hostilities resuming.

[bevin]

ie: no, it does not make them WMD, so you are changing the subject

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

The weapons that both Democrats and Republicans called WMDs - the ones Saddam used on the Kurds and the Iranians and were to be destroyed as a condition of the ceasefire agreement - are the ones we are talking about.

My point here is abundantly clear: liberals will not admit when they are wrong any quicker than conservatives. Pot meet kettle. Kettle, pot.

[Bravus]

Um, no, liberals will not admit they are wrong when they are not in fact wrong. Find an issue of fact on which I have been wrong and I will admit it in a flash.

[Dr. Shane]

Bravus, try not to take this thread personally. I understand that you personally did not claim Saddam had no chemical weapons. My point is that liberals in the US Congress did refer to Saddam using WMDs on his own people and Iran. Now before the invasion these liberals in Congress considered those weapons to be WMDs. I understand the point being made that their impact would be limited - but so would the impact of a tactical nuclear bomb. I am not trying to argue that those weapons are or are not WMDs - that is not the point. The point is the prior to the invasion liberals like Hilary Clinton and John Kerry considered this small impact chemical arms to be WMDs and now they want say they were not.

My point has been regardless if they are WMDS or not, they are proof that Saddam was in violation of the cease-fore agreement. Although Saddam shooting down planes in the no-fly zone was also a clear violation.

[bevin]

Yes, Saddam had failed to locate and destroy 500 mislaid aging and decaying artillery shells. However the liberals did not consider such a small quantity of such items to be "WMD". You are reaching at rotten straws. Comparing these shells to a tactical nuke is also reaching at a rotten straw. Nor is their presence proof that Saddam was violating the cease-fire agreement.

The no-fly zones were NOT IN THE CEASE-FIRE AGREEMENT! Shooting at USA planes that were themselves violating the sovereignty of Iraq can hardly be claimed to be a "clear violation".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fly_zone

Quote:

In 1992, The United Kingdom and the United States intervened in Kurdish-Iraqi dispute in northern Iraq by establishing a no-fly zone in which Iraqi aircraft were prevented from flying. The intent of the no-fly zone was to prevent possible bombing and chemical attacks against the Kurdish people by the Iraqi regime. The legality of this operation is a subject of debate. Proponents claim that the no-fly zone was implicitly authorized by United Nations Security Council Resolution 688. Critics point out that Resolution 688 does not actually authorize or mention such an operation.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Anyone that believes Saddam misplaced or lost track of 500 chemical weapons, which could be used against him, is simply believing a tale they want to believe. Military inventories of such weapons are kept very strict. Such weapons could get lost or stolen during a civil conflict such as when a country's military leaders overthrow the civilian government. The 500+ weapons we found could have been stolen or lost during the US-led invasion but it is unlikely that they were misplaced before that.

As Bravus has stated, WMD can be defined in a number of ways. Under some definitions, the same rationale the would say artillery shells and scud missiles loaded with chemical weapons are not WMDs would also disqualify tactical nuclear weapons from being WMDs.

We know that Saddam still had banned weapons from pre-1991. We also know that he was not forthcoming with the weapons inspectors. We also know that he was bribing UN Security Council members to get sanctions lifted. We know that he still had the capacity to produce chemical weapons. We also know that he had plans to resume his WMD programs once the sanctions were lifted. Even Joe Biden maintains that if we had not done something, Saddam would have found a way to purchase a nuclear weapon.

I maintain the invasion was justified and liberals will never admit that. However I concede the war has gone terribly and the Bush Administrations handling of the war abroad and public relations at home has been disastrous.

[bevin]

Ok, so you concede that shooting at US aircraft violating Iraqi sovereign airspace was not a clear violation of the ceasefire.

We have had access to the records of the Saddam's Iraqi administration for years now. We have not found any documentation supporting your claim that they were deliberately keeping these 500 aging and decaying chemical artillery shells, or any other WMD, despite having extremely diligently searched through these records trying to back up the fraudulent claims of the Bush administration that "we know where the WMD area".

You are also correct - the war as gone terribly bad - and this is exactly what Bush was told would happen before it even started.

Now - what is the Bush administration going to do about it?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070604/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AvfXCt38FyRfHYoJyqv76ZBvaA8F

"BAGHDAD - U.S.-led forces have control of fewer than one-third of Baghdad's neighborhoods despite thousands of extra troops nearly four months into a security crackdown"

/Bevin

[there buster]

Question: how long did it take before the last US troops left Germany and Japan after establishing democracy in those countries?

How many years?

[bevin]

Last time I checked, Germany was somewhat democratic from about 1848 - slightly before the American troops arrived in 1918

You can read a lot about it here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Revolution

Japan started during the Taishō period during the 1920s,

and it had its post-war elections in 1946, less than a year after the arrival of American troops.

You can read about that here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_democracy

Do so before you accuse me of not understanding the fits and starts by which a country becomes democratic

So, the answer to your question is,

(a) American troops still have not left either country, and

( those countries were democratic about 50 years for Germany, and 28 years for Japan before the arrival of American troops.

/Bevin

[bevin]

ie: America did not establish a democracy in either country

[there buster]

It's very illuminating that you regard Hitler's Germany and Tojo's Japan as democratic.

[bevin]

Learn to read. The cites I provided showed a democratically elected government. Neither I nor they claimed that Hitler's Germany or Tojo's Japan were fully fledged democracies.

In both countries war-lords had made power-grabs - much more pronounced than the one GWB is making in the USA today - and those power grabs became complete in the hands of leaders who took their countries into ill-considered wars.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

you concede that shooting at US aircraft violating Iraqi sovereign airspace was not a clear violation of the ceasefire.

Regardless if it was part of the ceasefire or not, I have no problem with the US enforcing UN resolutions. When an unmanned US plane was shot down in the fly zone while performing its UN sanctioned duty, I do consider that an act of war against the US. The plane was not armed and was on a peace-keeping mission. There was no reason for an act of aggression on the part of Saddam.

I do have a problem with the veto power of the permanent members of the Security Council. No nation should have veto powers. The veto power really means that any nation that has them can do anything it wants and if the UN wants to do anything about it, they can just veto it. I think the veto power was a very short-sighted idea when the UN was started.

Quote:

We have had access to the records of the Saddam's Iraqi administration for years now.

That is correct, Much of it has not been declassified so we have no idea what it says. We do however know that Saddam was bribing Security Council members to get sanctions lifted so he could resume his WMD programs.

My point is well made that liberals are just as unwilling to admit when they are wrong as conservatives are.

[bevin]

Quote:

When an unmanned US plane was shot down in the fly zone while performing its UN sanctioned duty, I do consider that an act of war against the US.

Can you show it was performing a UN sanctioned duty?

One of the biggest problems with the USA's use of the UN is that we interpret and stretch (well beyond breaking point) UN resolutions to justify doing what we want to do anyway - except when those resolutions are against things we want, or for things we don't want, then we ignore them.

/Bevin

[Woody]

Many times acts of war are just ignored.

During Clinton's watch .... we bombed China. But that was over looked by the Chinese.

During Carter's watch .... the Iranians invaded American territory. Did the world cry out and support us? NO!!!

[Dr. Shane]

“The No-Fly Zone War”

The "No-Fly Zone War" pitted the air and naval forces of the United States and the United Kingdom (also referred to as "Great Britain"), against the air defenses of Iraq. This conflict proved to be largely ignored by the media and the public in both the U.S. and in the U.K., though it impacted the military and the citizens of Iraq on an almost weekly basis, especially since the intense "Desert Fox" bombing campaign of 1998. The roots of this conflict are quite simple to trace: the inconclusive and vague cease-fire agreement ending the Gulf War of 1990-1991. This agreement called on the Iraqi government to allow United Nations weapons inspectors to search for prohibited weapons in Iraq, and, perhaps more importantly, allowed the Coalition Allies (originally the U.S., the U.K. and France), to enforce what came to be called "No-Fly Zones" over northern and southern Iraq. The original intent of these zones was to protect the rebellious Iraqi minorities (Kurds and Shiite Muslims) in northern and southern Iraq, respectively. The Coalition was permitted to fly warplanes over these zones to prevent Saddam Hussein's government from using military aircraft to attack these minorities. As time progressed though, the No-Fly Zones became a means for the Allies to force Iraq to comply with UN and Coalition demands, often related to the status of the weapons inspectors. As tensions mounted after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the possibility of a major escalation between Iraq and the U.S. increased dramatically, and the violence in the No-Fly Zone increased in preparation for the beginning of the Third Persian Gulf War: "Operation Iraqi Freedom", which began on March 19, 2003. In historical terms, the No-Fly Zone War is considered to have ended on March 19, 2003, when "Operation Iraqi Freedom" began and this conflict segued into the larger war. All three of the U.S.-led Coalition wars with Iraq (the 1990-1991 Gulf War, the 1991-2003 No-Fly Zone War, and the 2003 Gulf War 2) can really be seen as one long, extended conflict, but for classification purposes, are seen as separate conflicts.

[Woody]

Quote:

All three of the U.S.-led Coalition wars with Iraq (the 1990-1991 Gulf War, the 1991-2003 No-Fly Zone War, and the 2003 Gulf War 2) can really be seen as one long, extended conflict, but for classification purposes, are seen as separate conflicts.

Thanks Shane. I've been preaching this for years but no one has wanted to believe me. The terms of the cease fire for the Gulf War were broken and so the "cease fire" ended. It was not a new war but a continuation of ONE war.

Therefore GWB did NOT start the war as the Democrats want to paint it.

[there buster]

Quote:

Learn to read.

Bad manners are no substitute for logic.

Your posts contradict themselves, aside from being inaccurate. Your cites indicate that democracy had been attempted previously, but nonetheless, it was no longer functioning well before WWII. According to your logic, then, no one could ever "establish" democracy in Russia after 70 years of Communist dictatorship, simply because the Kerensky government existed for a few months in 1917.

In any event, it was not the Weimar Republic, but Hitler's Germany who declared war on the US, and it was Togo's Japan--not the shogunate or the Meiji restoration-- where, according to you "war-lords" had "made power grabs," in other words, where democracy ceased to function, and effectively ceased to exist.

And calling Adolf Hitler a "war-lord" is transparently false. He had engaged in no military adventures previous to his assuming power in 1933--unless by your interesting logic, being a corporal in WWI made him a "war-lord." It makes as much sense as calling 1941 Germany a democracy.

As I recall, Sadaam Hussein held an election not long before his ultimate demise. Perhaps you think Iraq under Hussein was a democracy?

[bevin]

I knew you were going to argue along this path, which is why I wrote

Quote:

Do so before you accuse me of not understanding the fits and starts by which a country becomes democratic

Japan and Germany had decades, not "a few months in 1917", of functioning elections. The elections in 1933 that Hitler used to grab power were the 9th German federal election of the Weimar Republic. Japan had ongoing elections starting in the late 1800's.

The democracy was indeed suppressed under the Nazi's, and in Japan starting not long after the 1st World War the elected government had gradually had its power stripped.

However the nett effect of this was that the populace of both Germany and Japan had a tradition of elected governments, were disenchanted with military rule, wanted elected governments, and were not significantly divided along major religious nor cultural lines.

The American's did not establish democracy in either country.

Quote:

And calling Adolf Hitler a "war-lord" is transparently false. He had engaged in no military adventures previous to his assuming power in 1933--unless by your interesting logic, being a corporal in WWI made him a "war-lord."

You are right. Hitler became a dictator, not a warlord.

/Bevin