would you be willing, if possible, to volunteer to fight in iraq?.
are you encouraging your children or grandchildren to volunteer and fight?.
please list your names below.
six-
do you think ad hominem attacks somehow enhance your argument? ive noticed you have quite a propensity for attacking
hint: it doesnt make you look better or elevate you in any way. if you cant treat people with common courtesy and respect while discussing politics, maybe you should think about avoiding political topics.?.....of course, i havent read the majority of your posts outside of the political threads, so maybe youre just naturally quick to insult.
aa
would you be willing, if possible, to volunteer to fight in iraq?.
are you encouraging your children or grandchildren to volunteer and fight?.
please list your names below.
simon-
from my post:
ive proven you wrong on specific points, such as "we supplied the gas" for example, and youve always tucked tail and ran whenever faced with solid evidence against your claims.
thank you for once again proving my point.
aa
would you be willing, if possible, to volunteer to fight in iraq?.
are you encouraging your children or grandchildren to volunteer and fight?.
please list your names below.
simon-
Oh, I see you are back again ...
you know ive been around...youve been on the same threads as i have all year long, and youve received my messages, even though you ignored them. the little "they all ran away in shame" picture you painted doesnt apply to me, in fact ive admitted where i was wrong on the issues....something you are not big enough to do. nice try though. i certainly dont participate in all the political threads, as the vast majority of them are simple reincarnations of the same arguments, and they never seem to go anywhere productive.
Sorry, but when I've made my point I see little reason to keep having to repeat it just because some die-hard republican zealot refuses to accept the facts.
first off, thats not what im talking about, not in the least. ive proven you wrong on specific points, such as "we supplied the gas" for example, and youve always tucked tail and ran whenever faced with solid evidence against your claims. if you want other examples, id be happy to dig and find some links.
secondly, i find it funny that you generalize me as a "diehard republican zealot" simply because of my stance on the war (sounds like something trauma hound would say). isnt this the type of generalization and labeling that youve asked us all to refrain from? (i have noticed you breaking some of your own rules and guidelines lately though, so maybe youve recently taken a "do as i say, not as i do" tact.) i certainly lean to the right, but there are many issues on which i disagree completely with the republican stance, if youd like to discuss them, id be happy to. i dont blindly follow any party line, and i think its strange that there are so many that do. take care,
aa
would you be willing, if possible, to volunteer to fight in iraq?.
are you encouraging your children or grandchildren to volunteer and fight?.
please list your names below.
simon-
I too disagree with this. One thing that has happened is that some of those who very vocally (and often aggressively) backed the war to an extreme extent have buggered off because they ended up very exposed...........They claimed so many things and now the easiest thing to do is to whimper about "America bashing" and try and pretend that they left for different reasons than they really did.
coming from someone who routinely and conveniently vanishes when specifically proven wrong on an issue, i find this quote absolutely hilarious. thanks for the chuckle.
aa
last night president bush had a news conference and was asked by several reporters if he thought he should appologise for the 9-11 attacks.. i wonder how fdr would have responded to such a question about pearl harbor?.
how about chruchhill?
can you imagine his response if asked to appologise for hitler bombing london?
realist-
first off let me say that i posted a reply to you in our other thread, but it somehow vanished. ive asked simon twice to let me know if or why it was removed (it certainly didnt break any guidelines), but he refuses to take 30 seconds to acknowlege my queries with a reply.....so, i just let it die. we can continue that one if youd like, but im not sure we were going anywhere but circles regardless.
300.000 is a pure speculation without any foundation. again how many dead people were actually found!
if only it took a day or two to unearth 300,000 bodies in 200+ gravesites. of course they havent all been found yet, and yes it is speculation based on information gathered from iraqis.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3253783.stm
so, u.s. officials reported there could be as many as 260 grave sites, according to the information the iraqis have provided. lets say you think that number is completely fabricated, and way overboard......lets cut it in half. so, 130 grave sites..... 300,000 / 130 = 2300 (approx) bodies per grave site. considering there were 15,000 bodies in the one double grave site alone, i dont think 2300 sounds far fetched in the least. and if indeed there are 200+ graves, that brings the number down to around 1500, most likely much lower than the actual number of bodies in each grave. ive seen estimates of over a million iraqis missing during saddams regime....but maybe they all came over to miami on rafts and tires.
personally, im wondering why you are even arguing against these numbers.? if 1,000,000 bodies were unearthed in iraq this year, would it make any difference to your side of the saddam debates whatsoever? i highly doubt it would, but maybe im wrong. if the actual numbers are pointless to you in the long run, its pretty unproductive to pick them apart just for the sake of arguing, isnt it?
aa
hello dubla, .
i really don't intend to get into a personal quarrel about this issue but what stunned me was your statement about my knowledge on the iraq issue.
are you sure your knowledge exceeds mine?
| realist- | |
no, how could he possibly? hans blix came into the picture long after these things happened.so, simply because he didnt take over those particular duties until 2000 means hes not qualified enough to double check translation errors? a man who from 1963 to 1976, was head of department at the ministry for foreign affairs and served as legal adviser on international law......who In 1976, became under-secretary of state at the ministry for foreign affairs, in charge of international development cooperation, and was appointed minister for foreign affairs in 1978.......who served as director general of the international atomic energy agency from 1981 to 1997? and youre going to claim that he was possibly just ignorant on the number of weapons that were destroyed in '92? come on, you can do better than that. what is the other possibility? that hussein risked his life for useless WMDs? is that more likely?well, as you know, i do believe saddam is insane, so anything is possible.....but whats more likely, imo, is that at some point in time between '95 and now, he still did have them, and had plans for many more. what he did with them is anyones guess.....if he could bury an entire airforce, im sure he could find a place in the ground for some chemical stockpiles....more likely than your "lost in translation" theory, imo, but again, who knows at this point. | |
gtg for today....will check back though..........
aa
hello dubla, .
i really don't intend to get into a personal quarrel about this issue but what stunned me was your statement about my knowledge on the iraq issue.
are you sure your knowledge exceeds mine?
hey aztec....good to see you too....ive only been in and out lately, busy with other things, but i still come back and throw my two cents in once in awhile (or maybe i should say my one cent, the bad penny).
aa
hello dubla, .
i really don't intend to get into a personal quarrel about this issue but what stunned me was your statement about my knowledge on the iraq issue.
are you sure your knowledge exceeds mine?
Realist-
so why did hussein not document these weapons? perhaps US teams destroyed them in 1992? perhaps the iraqis did not accurately write down the produced amounts and destroyed amounts (quite possible in an arabic country). in any case i find it quite easy to believe that the US set hussein up.
the two suppositions you make are weak, at best. if the u.s. teams destroyed them or if the iraqis didnt accurately provide the amounts, dont you think the chief weapons inspector, hans blix, wouldve had the insight to discover such obvious mistakes? who had a better handle on the weapons declarations than him? blix is the one who made it clear there were unaccounted stockpiles, and blix is the one who implied that accounting for them wouldve been and shouldve been an extremely easy task.
i call something like that a lie.
i was merely pointing out that in the link you provided, the issue was cleary labeled an intelligence failure......you can call it whatever you want to, thats your prerogative.
aa
hello dubla, .
i really don't intend to get into a personal quarrel about this issue but what stunned me was your statement about my knowledge on the iraq issue.
are you sure your knowledge exceeds mine?
Realist-
just a side note regarding all weapons being destroyed prior to 1995.
52. In the period from August to October 1997, UNSCOM supervised the destruction of 325 pieces of newly identified production equipment, 125 pieces of analytical instruments and 275 tons of precursor chemicals.
http://www.iraqwatch.org/un/UNSCOM/1051/sres97-774.htm
technically these fall under production, not acutal weapons, so i suppose thats what the article is going on?
aa
hello dubla, .
i really don't intend to get into a personal quarrel about this issue but what stunned me was your statement about my knowledge on the iraq issue.
are you sure your knowledge exceeds mine?
Realist-
when i say that iraq had no wmds that could have been declared i am in the company with at least several UN weapon inspectors who admit now that there were most likely NO wmds left after 1994-1995. for reference look for instance at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-03-02-un-wmd_x.htm
maybe you missed part of what i said, and you are definitely backtracking now. lets back up a bit. here was your comment to me:
he could not prove that the WMDs were distroyed because the accused weapons simply never existed.
in response, i said the following:
i have to correct you on one point....the accused wmds did in fact exist...the numbers that were used were the actual numbers admitted to by saddam, as i showed you in previous threads. if you wouldve said that "in your opinion" the accused weapons were destroyed during bombings in the first gulf war, then you wouldve had at least a valid stance, but saying they never existed just shows your lack of knowledge on the subject.
read that statement, then re-read your quote at the top of this post.....ive put in bold/italics the points that connect in the three quotes, and show your backtracking. again, stating they never existed is just laughable....stating they were destroyed in the mid 90s is at least possible, so im glad you switched to that stance.
are you sure your knowledge exceeds mine? i reviewed the WMD thread and after all it seems your assessment of the situation was far more erroneous than mine.
ive already admitted as much.....maybe you missed these statements by me:
and i am more skeptical now than i was then, about the justification that was used to go in (i just havent had the opportunity to express it publically...if youd like to discuss it in a thread, id be happy to)
its pretty obvious to me that saddam wasnt the immediate threat he was made out to be.....he was a threat nonetheless, and im glad hes gone, as are the iraqis.
aside from what pleasuredome might imply, im not above admitting i was wrong on an issue. i felt very strongly that saddam still possesed wmds that were ready to deploy, and so far it appears that he didnt.....as i said many times before, my personal stance was never based on any intelligence reports (uranium, etc.), but only on simple logic (that being, they were there at one point, and saddam refused to show they were destroyed, an extremely easy task according to hans blix). obviously, saddam defied simple logic and insisted on keeping unnecessary sanctions on his country, if in fact the weapons were long since destroyed.
the uranium lie which you had difficlties to admit in the WMD thread as well as other halftruth and lies is mentioned in here.
i just reviewed the "uranium" discussion in that thread, and couldn't find one instance in which i claimed the report was factual. i never had any difficulties admitting anything about it....why are you trying to paint a false picture regarding an old thread? the only thing that was in question is whether or not the uranium report came from powell (or that it was forged by the cia).......big difference. just a side point.....you call the uranium a "lie", and in the link you provided, blix calls it an intelligence failure......that sort of manipulation of the facts is going on a lot lately. either way, it was a false report, and i never tried to argue anything to the contrary, despite your attempt to make it look as if i did.
also isn't it amazing how quickly gadhafi is turned from a monster into a reliable member of the "civilized" world?
hes no less of a monster in my mind, and i stick by my statement that the decisive actions in iraq (not to mention afghanistan) sped up the process.
aa
