Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

fox news or not, these results are right on to what i find in talking to people, understand the issues, in REALITY (not contrived made up saddam is a terrorist al queda trainer fantasy land) and you would not in any logical sense have ever supported the "War" in Iraq.

FACT, no terrorism link, never, ever, despite extreme efforts to find and even contrive some.

FACT, no weapons found, none, nada, zippo, zilch. again despite extreme efforts to find them and even more contrived efforts. (and clearly we were told the threat was "nucular" before the invasion, biological and chemical would not constiture an imminent threat EVEN IF FOUND, for that matter even if nuclear were found they would not justify the way in which this campaign was carried out)

and i dont know how many times i have said this but even at the risk of extreme reiteration i say it again, it has NOTHING to do with whether or not saddam is a bad guy. it has to do with the TRUTH. there was no IMMINENT threat.

it also at this point has NOTHING to do with whether or not any weapons are found, IRRELEVANT. there still was clearly NOT ANY PROOF BEFORE ThE INVASION. the end does not justify the means and so on. if he has/had weapons then clearly there were better ways to deal with this, ala the inspections that were taking place prior to the invasion.

and as the republicans now backpedal like hell its important to note that the american people were not told that saddam was pursuing WMD and that MAYBE he had them or he had programs to make programs to maybe have them, nope (as the prez now quotes the "study" by his group in iraq and states "they had intention, and i quote"). evidence of trying to have a program is not what we were told, we were told he absolutely unequivocably had them, and that we knew he had them and that we knew WHERe he had them. hmmmm?

we were even told that we knew and COULD NOT TELL ANYBODY ELSE FOR SECURITY REASONS> that is we were told that we knew where they were but we could not tell the un!?! WTF!

i find it priceless that now the US is saying "ummm like we need more time to look and stuff, its a big country and all". yeah, i guess so, wasnt that EXACTLY what the un was saying before the us spurned the un and went in alone, again because of the extreme imminent threat. the un wanted ONE MONTH MORE, now the us team has been there for 4 and wants 6 more (along with millions more tax payer dollars).

add to that that now the US is ASKING THE UN FOR HELP? WTF?!? the us plays ignorant arrogant jackass to the world and decides to attack iraq clearly AGAINST the wishes of the UN and the rest of the world (well sans the "coalition" of 4-5 countries that "support" the US based on foreign aid and other blackmail bullshit) and in the middle of a time when un weapons inspectors were in iraq and getting the best cooperation ever and then when the us finds out it wasnt really prepared to handle this "nation building" crap, uh thats harder than like dropping bombs and stuff", we then look BACK to the un for help? no **** this was gonna be one expenive cluster that needs the support of the international community, why do you think people were saying all that BEFORE THE INVASION!!!!

man just when you thought things could not get dumber and or more arrogant here in the states, we take it up a notch.

in other news bush, ashcroft, rice, rumsfeld and wolfoqitz all arrived at the white house today in the same little tiny car!

Dude, seriously, every single point you bring up reads like a Dick Cheney transcript on Meet the Press. He never says Saddam was responsible for Sept 11, but he leads you there with a chain.

After hearing about 5000 gallon stores of VX and 15,000 gallons of mustard gas in may, a report that says "some scientists had their old notebooks in their house" and "we have evidence that Saddam was planning to one day start up a new program that could give him weapons in the future" sounds like crap. I read the Kay report, and there is still nothing there that says we found proof of an actual post 1991 effort to actually produce anything. Rather its a bunch of carefully worded examples of things that sound suspicious.

"Clear Violations" isnt necessarily the only point -- and not clear cut in all instances -- However, absolutly nothing found indicates Iraq posed a clean and present imminent threat to anyone.

How can I write it off? Easy, the administration has been ignorant or deceptive in every story they have told. Saddam backs Al-Qaeda, Saddam was buying uranium, Saddam was buying high-grade cetrifuge parts, Saddam has chemical weapons labs in trucks, "We know where the weapons are (Cheney-May)", "We have found the weapons (W-July)". The whole thing still stinks to high hell.

Show me lab equipment with traces of botulonin, VX or antrax on it. How me even trace levels of weapons-grade enriched uranium on the floor. Better yet, show me the WAREHOUSES full of crap (thousands of warhead, hundreds of missiles, tens of thousands of gallons of materiel) that the administration claimed was there.

yeah i have read it also and i just dont understand how people can interpret something so differently.

NOTHING IN THE REPORT SAYS THEY HAVE WMD! NOTHING. Its a laundry list of "this guy did this stuff and thats pretty suspicious, it COULD be related to WMD, AHA!!!".

Again man, we were told he had them, and we knew where they were, and we were definitely led to beleive through implication that "them" meant NUCLEAR weapons. then on top of that we were told it was an imminent threat to us. all of that is BULLSHIT. Its not just wrong, its flat out BULLSHIT.

I am struggling to understand how there can still be so much division and liberal media crap going on about this issue. I don't know of [b]anyone[/b] before the war that didn't think that Saddam, if left to his own devices, wouldn't build WMD's. That was never argued. What was argued was the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the UN weapons inspectors, the UN's inablity to stop Saddam, the lack of resolve etc. Now the report comes back that, yes Saddam while not having a WMD arsenal definitely had intentions of one and was just waiting for the day. We all knew that!! The American public was told weapons were sitting there ready to be used, possibly against us, and we needed to get over there right away cuz the rest of the world are pansies and don't have the balls to confront him. We were given false (at the worst) and misleading (at best) information to support that. Generated a huge anti-French movement because they wouldn't go along and tried to stand up to us. So now that it turns out the WMD's were not there, the UN inspectors were doing at least a decent job. We are begging the rest of the world to help, but are unwilling to hand over any authority. (I can understand debate over that by the way) But how can we still be arguing the basic points? Do people really think the majority of the world supported this? Really? Do people really think Saddam posed a significant enough threat to us to spend billions (perhaps trillions by the time it's all said and done) to overthrow him? Do people really think we have found WMD? Really? I can't understand it. I mean let's debate about support, and UN involvement, and if we are more or less safe because of this action - but how can we still be arguing these basic points?

amen shmooze.

i dont get it either.

these are exactly the points people were making BEFORE THE INVASION, HELLO!!!

also as I argued before the invasion, there are going to be very long term if not permanent casualties of our policies, not just casualties of lives and dollars.

what i mean is long term substantial damage to foreign relations and to basic trust of the states. we blew up a lot more than just the desert by acting in such an arrogant and in my view completely irresponsible manner (and while that view may not be prevalent in the states, it is the world over and in terms of foreign relations thats what matters, you may not like it, but when you have to work together you have to show RESPECT for others, not disrespect and arrogance).

if ever there should be a time where a strike first, er "pre-emptive" strike IS JUSTIFIED we will now be in a MUCH WEAKER position to validate that. in simple terms aint nobody gonna believe or trust the word of the states on anything anymore.

thanks W.