They already had anthrax, check the CDC report. It is throughout the middle east. Pure cultures are the same as white lab rats. They allow legitimate research to take place where impurities would make the research nearly worthless.
The article you mention has nothing to do with how "we used to like Saddam Hussein". It has to do with one specific church in Detroit that established a relationship with Saddam. This once again is how you take an article or a report and twist it to serve your purposes.
I wasnt trying to twist anything, just pointing out the fact that Saddam made visits to the united states and was welcomed as a good person. Also, you say we didnt provide saddam with any sort of WMD's, well we may not have gave them the weapons already assembled but we did provide them with the necessary parts to do so themselves. We also helped with intelligence during the iran-iraq war to insure iraq's victory for the reasons in my above post including oil supplies in kuwait, saudi arabia and attempting to keep iran from upsetting the region with its radical religion throughout the middle east and from destroying israel. It was very important to the US to make sure iraq won the war at any cost.
its kinda like this. "officially" the US opposes using biological warfare but if it benifits our interests (oil, for example) then we pretend to oppose it but secretly help in any way we can. The same thing goes for israel, a country which has violated more UN resolutions than any country in the world but we allow anything they want because they are an ally and help keep radical arab countries in check with its huge military might(supplied by america) and its nuclear arsenal. Saddam thought he was getting the same treatment. He was wrong, and then we accuse him of having weapons that we gave him. Of coarse he gassed the kurds they were giving support to iran. quote: "During the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988, which Saddam Hussein launched against his neighbor, the Kurds sought Iranian support for their insurgency. The Baath regime, threatened, responded by destroying Kurdish villages in strategic zones, resorting to ethnic cleansing.
These brutal conventional measures failed to achieve their objective, and for that reason the Baath regime initiated its chemical warfare on the Kurds in 1988. The operation was headed up by Saddam's cousin, Ali Hasan al-Majid, the Secretary-General of the Northern Bureau of the Ba'th Organization. For this reason, Iraqis call him "Chemical Ali." source:http://hnn.us/articles/1242.html
again i repeat the reason nothing was done to saddam for these attacks against the kurds is because they were supporting iran and america needed iran to loose. So we allowed it, period.
-------------------- "Gentleman, you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over." Herbert Hoover 1930
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You want to show me proof that what you are saying is in the reports, post the sentences where is says what you are claiming. Leave out the rest, bring it into focus so to speak. It isn't there. You have to infer that it is there and that, is word games.
Kuwait was not a breakaway state of Iraq, unless you want to go deep into history when Iraq was Babylon and ruled the entire region. By that logic, Hussein had ever right to go to war with anyone he pleases, they were all "breakaway provinces".
As an entity, Kuwait has existed since 1756 as an independant shiekdom under nominal Ottoman control. In 1899 Kuwait became a protectorate of Great Britain and obtained formal independance in 1914. Formal borders were drawn between Iraq and Kuwait in 1923, Iraq made its first claim on Kuwait in 1960 and drops this claim in 1963.
Iraq remained part of the Ottoman Empire until the break up of that empire at the end of WWI adn did not have full independance until 1932. So in reality, I guess that Iraq is a breakaway province of Turkey.
This is what I have a hard time with. You are fully willing to believe the statements from a dictator such as Hussein, Kuwait is a breakaway republic, Kuwait is drilling into Iraq oil supplies, yet read so much that isn't there into anything involving our own Presidents.
I didn't miss that part of the article, dual use items are NOT weapons. They can be used to make weapons, they can also be used to make the primary item they are intended for which are NOT weapons.
Turbokid,
Read the article again. Hussein never visited the United States. He donated money to a church in Detroit, a denomination of which Hussein donated money to all around the world. The members of this church later traveled to Iraq and presented him with the key to the city. This also was shortly after he became president, not recently and he was not welcomed as a good person by the United States people or government, just a small group from a local Detroit church.
I'm not going to contest that we gave Hussein many of the ingredients to make WMD's. We did not give them to him with the express purpose of creating WMD's. This is something you assume yet there is nothing which lends any substantial proof of that in anything posted thusfar. Flour is an ingredient for how many different final products? Fertilizer is an ingredient for how many different products? If an item is not on a prohibited trading list, it is not a "threat" by itself and is internationally recognized as a tradable commodity. Nothing on any of these lists was prohibited.
You can infer that the US "secretly wants to promote biological warfare" but you have no proof of that. It is you that is creating things out of nothing and ignoring the truth.
I'm not sure what it is you want, you don't seem to want the United States to interfere with Iraq when they take over Kuwait, but want them to interfere when they gas the Kurds. The United States doesnt' interfere with other nations unless they pose a threat to either us or our allies. There are genocides going on all over the globe that we do nothing about. We are not the world police.
The United States doesn't want ANYONE messing with biological weapons. I can see this from public records. I can also use common sense. Biologicals are a threat to us, much more so than in the Middle East. We have very highly concentrated populations, we have regions where the conditions required for successfull biological attack can easily be met. We have very vulnerable food supplies nationwide and some areas such as NY City have vulnerable water supplies which come from only a few sources. So what point would be served in encouraging anyone to develop biologicals which could come back at a later date to affect us?
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Yes we all know what the topic is, we all know that the topic is bogus because the views of a few soldiers don't represent the majority and it has moved on through a natural progression of the discussion.
You want to re-address how a few disgruntled soldiers don't represent all of them?
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President George W. Bush's job approval rating has fallen to a new low of 39% in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Wednesday.
Bush's approval rating dipped in the poll below a mid-September ranking of 40%. The survey also found only 28% of respondents believed the country was headed in the right direction, NBC reported.
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Topic: Soldiers in Iraq Call for War's End, Impeachment
Try again.
Oh and by the way, Bush's numbers at their lowest of 39% are still higher than the lowest poll numbers of the previous 4 Presidents. He doesn't have much further to go to get to Clinton's who I believe were 37% but he has a long way to go to Jimmy Carters 28%.
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He's trying to change the subject, 4Art......means either that he has lost the train of thought again or he recognises he's unable to support his position and wants to change the subject, hoping you won't notice. I think they learn that tactic in night classes taught by the Party under the direction of some of Delay's group.
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Last time I checked solders were polled differently than the population at large.
Cliton has nothing to do with this. His poll numbers however show that Bush's poll numbers are not that dramatic or different than previous Presidents.
bdgee,
I'm sure people notice who is in the habit of changing the subject and being unable to support my position. that would be a post similar to tihs one:
"He's trying to change the subject, 4Art......means either that he has lost the train of thought again or he recognises he's unable to support his position and wants to change the subject, hoping you won't notice. I think they learn that tactic in night classes taught by the Party under the direction of some of Delay's group."
Just to set the record straight, the topic is:
Soldiers in Iraq Call for War's End, Impeachment
I've already shown in earlier posts that this is representative of a few or for 4Art's benefit, a minority of soldiers.
Since then, neither you or 4Art have done anything to counter that other than......changing the subject.
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You've done no such thing! You've merely stated your opinion, (as usual), with no facts to back it up.
quote:Originally posted by Aragorn243: I've already shown in earlier posts that this is representative of a few or for 4Art's benefit, a minority of soldiers.
You have posted an opinion piece by one soldier and used it to be representative of all soldiers.
I pointed out that it is easy of find disgruntled soldiers, a fact not opinion, and get statements such as this from the individual in question.
Your response was you could get hundreds of quotes, also a fact but still not representative of the majority.
I replied that 5% of 200,000 troops is 10,000 so it would be easy to get 10,000 quotes but that still is not representative of the remaining 190,000.
It was at this point, rather than showing how this statement was wrong that you went into a religious attack, thus changing the subject.
Since the majority of soldiers are not demanding an impeachment, since they are performing thier jobs and since the vast majority of them are coming home with good feelings about their missions and that troops who served in Iraq are re-enlisting in higher proportions than troops that have not served there, that is enough factual evidence to discredit this one soldier's opinion.
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So you are saying that you did not intend for this thread to be representative of all soldiers?
If not, I apologize.
So you accept that is just one man's view and that there may be others that support it but that they are not representative of all soldiers?
I can show one very important statistic, George W. Bush won re-election.
Here is an article publishes by one of the "propaganda mills" (Army Times)
October 11, 2004
Who you chose for president and why
By Gordon Trowbridge Times staff writer
President Bush retains overwhelming support among the military’s professional core despite a troubled mission in Iraq and an opponent who is a decorated combat veteran, a Military Times survey of more than 4,000 readers indicates. Bush leads Democratic Sen. John Kerry 73 percent to 18 percent in the voluntary survey of 4,165 active-duty, National Guard and reserve subscribers to Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Corps Times and Air Force Times.
Though the results of the Military Times 2004 Election Survey are not representative of the opinions of the military as a whole, they are a disappointment to Democrats who hoped Kerry’s record and doubts about Bush would give their candidate an opening in a traditionally Republican group with tremendous symbolic value in a closely contested election. Click here to view result graphics, complete active duty results or complete Guard and reserve results.
“For a long time, Kerry thought he had a chance to win the mantle and beat Bush on the issue of who could be the better commander in chief,” said Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University who has written extensively on civil-military relations and the political opinions of those in uniform.
Feaver said journalists and political analysts focus heavily on the opinions of military members because of a situation the nation hasn’t faced in more than 30 years: a heated presidential race amid a difficult and controversial war.
While the survey found some readers with doubts about Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq, there was remarkable consistency in their views of the two candidates.
Officers and enlisted troops, active-duty members and reservists, those who have served in combat zones and those who haven’t, all supported Bush by large margins. And the survey hints that Kerry’s emphasis of his decorated service in Vietnam may have done more harm than good with those in uniform.
‘From the heart’
“It’s about honesty and integrity,” said Marine Sgt. Jason Jester, who was interviewed separately from the survey.
Jester, a recruiter from Winston-Salem, N.C., voted for Bush in 2000 and plans to do so again.
“He might not always make the right decisions, but I think the decisions he makes come from the heart.”
To conduct the survey, Military Times e-mailed more than 31,000 subscribers Sept. 15. They were invited to access an Internet site seeking their opinions on the presidential race and related issues. From Sept. 21 to 28, and before the first presidential debate on Sept. 30, a total of 2,754 active-duty and 1,411 reserve and Guard members took part.
The nature of the survey led experts to caution against reading the results as representative of the military as a whole.
Unlike most public opinion polls, the Military Times survey did not randomly select those to question. Instead, subscribers with e-mail addresses on file were sent an invitation. That means there is no statistical margin of error for the survey — so it’s impossible to calculate how accurately the results reflect the views of Military Times readers.
The surveyed group is older, higher in rank and more career-oriented than the military as a whole. Junior enlisted troops in particular are underrepresented in the group that responded.
But as a snapshot of the careerist core of the armed services, the survey holds little good news for Kerry, revealing a group with strong Republican leanings that the Democratic challenger has not shaken. Among the findings:
• Echoing previous Military Times polls and other research, the survey found a group with a close affinity for the Republican Party. About 60 percent of those surveyed identified themselves as Republicans, while 13 percent consider themselves Democrats and 20 percent independents. Among the general population, pollsters usually find voters evenly divided among Republicans, Democrats and independents.
• Just more than two-thirds said they voted for Bush in his 2000 victory, compared to 14 percent who voted for Al Gore. A large majority, 87 percent, said they voted in 2000.
• Though a solid majority said they attach some importance to the military backgrounds of the candidates, when asked specific questions about Bush’s Air National Guard service and Kerry’s Navy service in Vietnam, most said those records would have little impact on their vote.
• Still, among those with an opinion, Kerry’s military biography — a centerpiece of his campaign — may hurt with military voters as much as it helps. More than one in five respondents said his Vietnam service made them less likely to vote for him. Two-thirds said Kerry’s anti-war activities when he returned from Vietnam made them less likely to vote for him.
A much smaller group said Bush’s controversial service in the Texas Air National Guard made a difference. Among those who said his Guard service mattered, most said it would make them less likely to vote for the president.
• The results are not all good news for the president. Bush the candidate won significantly higher marks than Bush the commander in chief: Nearly one-quarter of those surveyed said they did not approve of the president’s handling of Iraq.
That’s a much lower rate than in the U.S. population, but it represents a striking willingness to question a commander in chief’s decisions. About 15 percent of those responding said they had no opinion or declined to reveal their opinion — results that experts such as Feaver said hint at a group privately questioning Iraq policy but unwilling to publicly express those doubts, even anonymously.
• About two-thirds of those surveyed listed Iraq as among the most important issues they will consider in casting their vote. Almost the same number said they consider the character of the candidates important, while just over half said they consider the condition of the economy important.
The Vietnam question
At the start of the campaign, a wide range of political analysts speculated that for the first time in decades, the Democratic candidate could have significant appeal for military voters.
Kerry brought a record of decorated combat service in Vietnam. Military and veterans groups have been harshly critical of several Bush administration policies on pay and benefits. And from the start of Bush’s term, senior military officials have chafed at the policies and attitudes of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The war in Iraq added to those questions. Political analysts increasingly wondered whether the mounting casualty toll, Democratic criticism of Bush’s policies, independent analysts’ pessimism about the war and public questioning of strategy by military and intelligence officials would drain Bush’s support among military members.
Kerry stepped up his criticism in recent weeks, painting the Bush administration as having rushed into a war without sufficient planning for its aftermath. But Feaver said Kerry has so far failed to capitalize on those doubts.
“An unfortunate side effect for Kerry of his new message on Iraq is that it reinforces his image as a flip-flopping commander in chief, which matters most to soldiers in wartime,” Feaver said.
And while much of the media coverage of the race has focused on the candidates’ Vietnam-era actions, Feaver said it’s the current war that’s foremost in the minds of those in uniform.
“I don’t think they’re questioning the patriotism of Kerry’s critique, and I don’t think they’re worried about its impact on the Iraqi enemies,” he said. “Where they’re worried is the impact on the American public, whether it will undermine public confidence in the war.”
In individual interviews, troops such as Marine Lance Cpl. Jesse Bragdon said they have no illusions about what it will take to achieve Bush’s goals of a free and democratic Iraq.
“With the way the operations are going, I think they are needed. It may take 10 or 20 years to sort it out,” said Bragdon, a 21-year-old rifleman, who was running errands with several friends in downtown Oceanside, Calif., a few miles from Camp Pendleton’s main gate.
“I’m all for change, but I don’t think it’s the right time for change now,” said Army Spc. John Bass, 26, serving with 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division in Iraq.
“I want to keep Bush in there because I want him to finish what he has started.”
Others see it differently.
“I think I might be leaning toward Kerry,” said Spc. Robert Anderson, 24, of the 145th Combat Support Company, an Army Reserve unit from St. Louis attached to the 1st Cavalry Division in Iraq. “Maybe Kerry has got something new to bring to the table.”
“[Bush] might be the commander in chief, but I don’t agree with everything he’s done,” said Marine Pvt. Elizabeth Boran, 18, an avionics technician from Tampa, Fla., planning to vote in her first presidential election this fall.
The ‘civil-military problem’
While results of the Military Times survey may not be representative of the military as a whole, Feaver and other experts on civil-military relations question the wisdom of trying to seek survey data across the military, saying the attention likely to be drawn by the results could lead the general public to view the military as a partisan institution and poison the relationship between those in uniform and a potential Kerry administration.
“It underscores the civil-military problem of partisanship in wartime,” Feaver said.
Paul Rieckhoff, an Army veteran of Iraq who formed a nonpartisan group hoping to focus attention on the troops fighting that conflict, said the results could lead Americans to view the military as a monolithic Republican group.
“To assume they’re voting as a bloc is not giving them enough credit,” said Rieckhoff, whose group, Operation Truth, has been critical of several Bush administration policies.
“The Democratic Party has assumed [military members] will vote Republican and given up on them,” he said. “But both parties need to work for the military vote, and military personnel need to make both parties work for their vote.”
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United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Netherlands, Iceland, Italy, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Philippines, Afganistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Marshall Island, Micronesia, Solomon Islands, Mongolia, Paulau, Tonga, El Salvador, Colombia, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Australia, Kuwait, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Angola, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Albania, Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Croatia, Sovenia, and the Ukraine.
These are all nations that were part of the Coalition of the Willing which was larger than the first coalition against Iraq in 1990. The only major nation outside the Arab nations that contributed significant troops to Desert Storm that is missing from this list is France, and France has a bit of a problem with something called the weapons for food program.
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posted
I don't expect 95% of those nations to have an effect on whether we win or lose, yet they are all governments which supported the United States in its effort to remove Hussein.
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I'm not going to contest that we gave Hussein many of the ingredients to make WMD's. We did not give them to him with the express purpose of creating WMD's. This is something you assume yet there is nothing which lends any substantial proof of that in anything posted thusfar. Flour is an ingredient for how many different final products? Fertilizer is an ingredient for how many different products? If an item is not on a prohibited trading list, it is not a "threat" by itself and is internationally recognized as a tradable commodity. Nothing on any of these lists was prohibited.
You can infer that the US "secretly wants to promote biological warfare" but you have no proof of that. It is you that is creating things out of nothing and ignoring the truth.
So let me get this straight. the US shipped chemical and biological agents, anthrax, west nile fever virus, blistering agents, etc. to a country during a time of war as "dual use items" hoping they would use the anthrax virus to do "research" and perhaps make vaccines? Lets not forget how bad the US needed iraq to win this little war. To me it sounds about as logical as selling adolf hitler bomber jets and enriched uranium because the "dual use" of planes is passenger transport and enriched uranium can be used as an energy source.
This makes about as much sense as a pee wee herman body building video.
Of coarse the US isnt going to say "here iraq, heres some anthrax please go ahead and spray this on a major iranian city." But they will leave themselves and out and say "hey we just gave iraq anthrax to do reasearch and development, how were we to know they would use it on the iranians they were currently at war with, whom we really want to lose this war."
Lastly, a baseball bat is a "dual use item" but who would you be more willing to give one to, a MLB allstar or a guy who just found somebody in bed with his wife?
-------------------- "Gentleman, you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over." Herbert Hoover 1930
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I'm not going to contest that we gave Hussein many of the ingredients to make WMD's. We did not give them to him with the express purpose of creating WMD's. This is something you assume yet there is nothing which lends any substantial proof of that in anything posted thusfar. Flour is an ingredient for how many different final products? Fertilizer is an ingredient for how many different products? If an item is not on a prohibited trading list, it is not a "threat" by itself and is internationally recognized as a tradable commodity. Nothing on any of these lists was prohibited.
You can infer that the US "secretly wants to promote biological warfare" but you have no proof of that. It is you that is creating things out of nothing and ignoring the truth.
So let me get this straight. the US shipped chemical and biological agents, anthrax, west nile fever virus, blistering agents, etc. to a country during a time of war as "dual use items" hoping they would use the anthrax virus to do "research" and perhaps make vaccines? Lets not forget how bad the US needed iraq to win this little war. To me it sounds about as logical as selling adolf hitler bomber jets and enriched uranium because the "dual use" of planes is passenger transport and enriched uranium can be used as an energy source.
This makes about as much sense as a pee wee herman body building video.
Of coarse the US isnt going to say "here iraq, heres some anthrax please go ahead and spray this on a major iranian city." But they will leave themselves and out and say "hey we just gave iraq anthrax to do reasearch and development, how were we to know they would use it on the iranians they were currently at war with, whom we really want to lose this war."
Lastly, a baseball bat is a "dual use item" but who would you be more willing to give one to, a MLB allstar or a guy who just found somebody in bed with his wife?
-------------------- "Gentleman, you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over." Herbert Hoover 1930
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The United States did not send chemical and biological "agents". We sent dual use chemicals and bioligical samples for testing purposes.
It does make sense. We were not at war with Iraq and were trying to re-establish trade and diplomatic relations with them. These "trades" of chemicals for many uses and biological samples for medicinal research are common.
Every indication I ever read on the Iran/Iraq war and the position of the US was one of neutrality. We wanted neither side to win. These two nations provided a balance against each other. Had one fallen to the other, the victor would have had an open hand to conquer the rest of the Middle East.
You said:
"Of coarse the US isnt going to say "here iraq, heres some anthrax please go ahead and spray this on a major iranian city."
This indicates that you seem to believe that we sent quantities in sufficient amounts to be weapons. I have yet to see any indication this was the case.
We did not provide them with anything that could have been used directly as a weapon as you indicate.
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Sure, he was re-selected, but did he actually get the most votes?
