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Hey Jorvik, that is true in one instance, unfortunately for you, it appears as though Sarin and possibly Lewisite, which is a Blister Agent like Mustard, has apparently been found along with 20 missiles.

That too might be a false or otherwise incorrect report although that is coming from NPR which is really more in line with your way of thinking than mine.

Check this out though, even if we find hundreds of tons of this and thousands of gallons of that, you'll come back and say, "Well, the U.S. has those types of weapons, so why shouldn't Saddam have them?"

You're transparent.

But hey, have a nice day!

Here ya go. We saved her. So far...

I don't ask my neighbor if it is "OK" that I defend myself, you wouldn't either.

But we tried and we tried to push for UN support. Why? Why bother? It took lots of work, lots of money, lots of phone calls by Bush and Cheney when they could have been working on the domestic issues that have already been mentioned in this thread. If we didn't need them why work so hard?

Because this isn't exactly like fighting back during a surpise mugging in the middle of the night. We have altered the face of "peacekeeping". We didn't wait for an aggressive act. We didn't wait for an invasion or an attack. Pre-emptive striking is a new way of doing business for the global community. If anyone besides us had done it -- how would it look? At this point, based on what we just did, South Korea should invade North Korea and take out their nuclear program. If they do that what recourse does the USA have? They are only following our precedent.

It is the precedent that is most troubling. If we are, as one would hope, pre-emptively invading Iraq for all the right reasons how will we be able to measure the reasoning when other countries do what we have done? Who will decide? The UN? Nope - we've already proved that it is best done without the UN if one feels it must be done. Following the same logic Turkey should invade Iran. Or should all the other countries do nothing and let the US determine which regime stays and which regime goes?

Dana

Because this isn't exactly like fighting back during a surpise mugging in the middle of the night.

On Sept 12, 2001, we declared war on the "Axis of Evil" Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.

What are doing now is indeed fighting back after a surprise attack. We let our guard down, turned our backs to the threat, and Al Qeda responded as they did.

Saddam and his crew are cut from the same cloth and represent the same type of threat, but if they had their way, on a much larger scale.

Every nation has the right to defend their citizens as they see fit as we are doing now. (And let's not forget the other nations we are defending without their permission.. they are most welcome to our services as we have provided to them for the last 50 years..and longer..if you want to count the Great War).

If Turkey feels threatened enough to invade Iran, I say, let them have at it. I'm sure we would support them, regardless of their lack of support for us.

But we tried and we tried to push for UN support. Why? Why bother?

Good question. The US doesn't ask that assemblage of irrelevancy who we should engage in trade with, who we should supply foreign aid to, and nor should we have to ask them their permission to defend ourselves.

Dana,

I understand what you are saying and I agree with some of it in a way. The reason we went to the United Nations was because we were trying to do what everyone thinks is the right thing to do, what is "expected" of us to do before we use power.

You are right, it was a waste of money and a terrible mistake.

We should not have to ask permission to defend ourselves. If any country can demonstrate that someone else is a threat, I don't think they should have to "beg" in order to defend themselves.

North Korea is very interesting and you are looking at what might be the Genesis of a Nuclear Arms Race in that part of the world. I don't see Japan sitting back with N. Korea hurling missiles over Japan in tests with N. Korea having the capability of attacking them with a nuclear weapon.

I don't know if Japan has them or not, but I am sure they are considering it at this point.

So, do we kill off the treaties we have with South Korea and Japan and let China deal with N. Korea? Ten years ago, China might have liked to have had N. Korea armed in such a manner, now that they are turning economically to capitalism while retaining the remnants of failed communism, they might not. What if China takes care of N. Korea in a most efficient and covert manner? What if we tossed more aid to China to do so?

Some say we will be fighting China in ten years or so, I don't know. I do know this, N. Korea is a rogue state and I don't think it would be productive for S. Korea to invade N. Korea because that would cause an exchange from North to South with one of those weapons...if I had to guess.

N. Korea is alot like Iraq. The people starve and the dirty bastard that runs the place keeps buying war materials instead of feeding the people and giving them medicine, etc. N. Korea cannot be allowed to use Nuclear Blackmail/Extortion in order to get more aid packages or anything else because once you go down that road...let's just say that it is a dangerous road to go down as well.

If N. Korea does not stop the attempts at the aforementioned Nuclear Extortion, I would say that S. Korea or even China would be 100% justified not in an outright invasion of N. Korea, but of developing hardcore Intelligence as to what all the capabilities N. Korea has currently and then developing the Intelligence to strike them in a covert manner or an overt manner if it is surgical.

Technically, still an "invasion" but not in the sense that we have invaded Iraq, etc.

Dana, we're in the game regardless if we like it or not and sometimes the ball is going to fall in our court. I don't think we can sit back and say Isolationism is "bad" and on the other hand say that we can't get involved in the treachery of other Nations like N. Korea. You cannot have it both ways, we are either going to pull out of that area of the world and let it fall to whomever develops the nastiest devices and uses them to run the area or we are going to play in various ways in that area.

Personally? I would not mind cutting the aid to China and everyone else over there and pulling our troops out of their and letting all of the people over there fight it out among themselves and if they want to make each other glow, so be it, but if our West Coast starts to glow, then the world would change for them as they know it.

That is the reality, I wish it were different, but the truth is...this.

Right now we are dealing with terrorism and N. Korea is playing a very dangerous game at the moment. They are a communist nation and it is a brutal communist dictatorship at that, it cares not about its own people. But if they continue down this path they are going to paint a bull's-eye on themselves when they cross over to being outright terrorists. For example, if they were to sell Al-Quaeda or some other radical faction a nuclear device and it was detonated on our soil, I would be for lighting them up.

Difficult times, difficult questions, answers and the solutions are murky.

Panther
I was not patronising Dana, and I am sure that she realised that ...................I'll make my point more clearly. There does seem to be an attempt to justify things that cannot be justified, or to take the Iraqi war to a super simplistic state, make it appear like a John Wayne film. Were Big John is always the goody.....
In this case ( as in all cases of power politics) America acted solely out of selfish reasons. There is no benefit intended to the Iraqis from this, America will get the oil...Saddam has been in power for 30 years, 20 of those years he was treated as a friend, and he acted just as despicably then, as he does now....he has never been a nice man. He was useful then but he isn't now, and you want his oil.....or if you don't, give it to a none American company, show the world that it was a truly unselfish act.
What I do find totally pathetic is this need for constant reasurrance, that America is helping folks ( as in foreign aid) or that America is getting rid of tyrants and despots because America is full of nice folks who hate that sort of thing. That is just not the case, so don't expect praise from the rest of the world for every self centered act of war, or attrition

Dana, we're in the game regardless if we like it or not and sometimes the ball is going to fall in our court.

Absolutely. The question in my mind is how do we play the game? Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different outcomes. Using Might to Make Right will result in repeating a history of Might Making Right. Am I suggesting being a pacifist? No. I'm suggesting that there is no difference in the approach we're taking now vs the approach we took when we set up this puppet government to begin with. Kill/overthrow (directly or indirectly) the people in power through the use of Might and put in place the people we think will do Right.

It backfired before and it will backfire again. Because it is insanity to do the same thing over and over and over again and expect a different outcome. What has changed? This time we're setting up a democracy! That will make it all OK - Democracy is the salve for all wounds. Only as long as we subsidize it through generous aid packages, military protection, etc. Japan and Germany are held up as Shining examples of what happens when we go in and insert democratic principles on a country. Yeah - but we also DISARMED both those countries. Something you've said lead to the downfall of a couple of african nations.

By the people and for the people worked when the PEOPLE rose up to fight for their freedoms. In fact, there have been several nations to transition rather peacefully from a monarchy to a democracy or a representative type government (forgive me - I use democracy to mean democratic republic all the time).

Please explain to my why this time is different. Why it won't create another generation of Bin Ladins waiting to amass a wealth of oil and then use it to get revenge.

Questions have been asked and thoughts given on both sides. There appears to be some legitimate points both ways.

Perhaps now is a time to look at the questions posed by the other side and try to give reasonable articulable answers... (Just a thought/suggestion)

Oh... and it is MNSHO that rhetorical questions in return won't help convince the opposite side. This is a pretty good debate/discussion at this point and keeping that in mind (again, IMNSHO) making points that are clear and concise will do the most for furthering each side's position/points.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... hawks_dc_3

So, in my continued over-reading of the mainstream media - I can see that the plan for action on Iran and Syria has been and will soon be in place.

If we continue to the thought that the UN is outmoded in it's current existence and unable to adapt and be involved in the current world peacekeeping needs then I would like to know if there's thoughts on creating a new World of Nations organization or should we all just keep to ourselves -- building a "coalition of the willing" for each new endeavor?

jorvik wrote:
In this case ( as in all cases of power politics) America acted solely out of selfish reasons. There is no benefit intended to the Iraqis from this, America will get the oil...

YES! I get cheaper gasoline! You have figured us out! By God!

Honestly, I would address the rest of it, but it appears as though you have went off the deep end, with the tens of thousands of cheering Iraqis on the news and all.

But here, here is another report where all of the facts are not in yet. Unlike chemicals and biological materials, this is more telling.

Weapons-Grade Plutonium Possibly Found at Iraqi Nuke Complex

Thursday, April 10, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. Marines may have found weapons-grade plutonium in a massive underground facility discovered beneath Iraq's Al Tuwaitha nuclear complex, an embedded reporter told Fox News Thursday.

Coalition forces are investigating a stash of radioactive material found at the site south of Baghdad, the reporter, Carl Prine of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, told Fox News.

The material was discovered at the complex, which is operated by the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission and is located south of Baghdad's suburbs.

While officials aren't prepared to call the discovery a "smoking gun," two preliminary tests conducted on the material have indicated that it may be weapons-grade plutonium.

The discovery of the underground labyrinth of labs and warehouses was unexpected, Fox News has confirmed, and forces in the area are testing a variety of things to best determine the significance of the find.

So far, Marine nuclear and intelligence experts have found 14 buildings that have high levels of radiation, Prine reported Thursday.

His report noted that some of the tests have found nuclear residue too deadly for human contact.

The Marine radiation detectors go "off the charts" a few hundred meters outside the nuclear compound, where locals say "missile water" is stored in enormous caverns, reported Prine, who is embedded with the U.S. 1st Marine Division.

"It's amazing," Chief Warrant Officer Darrin Flick, the battalion's nuclear, biological and chemical warfare specialist told the newspaper. "I went to the off-site storage buildings, and the rad detector went off the charts. Then I opened the steel door, and there were all these drums, many, many drums, of highly radioactive material."

This underground discovery could still test to be perfectly legitimate and offer no proof of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. The CIA encouraged international inspectors in the fall of 2002 to probe Al Tuwaitha for weapons of mass destruction, and the inspectors came away empty-handed.

"They went through that site multiple times, but did they go underground? I never heard anything about that," physicist David Albright, a former IAEA Action Team inspector in Iraq from 1992 to 1997, told the Tribune-Review.

"The Marines should be particularly careful because of those high readings," he told the paper. "Three hours at levels like that and people begin to vomit. That leads me to wonder, if the readings are accurate, whether radioactive material was deliberately left there to expose people to dangerous levels.

"You couldn't do scientific work in levels like that. You would die."

Capt. John Seegar, a combat engineer commander from Houston, is currently running the operation in Al Tuwaitha. "I've never seen anything like it, ever," he told the Tribune-Review. "How did the world miss all of this? Why couldn't they see what was happening here?"

I don't expect you to "accept" this as it is from Fox News and not Al-Jazeera. But take it for what it is worth.

The United States won't wait for a mushroom cloud, a Bio or Chem attack, if it does happen, it won't be for lack of trying to stop it and if you don't like it, that's just too damned bad. I don't feel like watching my family croak out because a few liberals are having a hissyfit over a tyrant getting his ass kicked.

With Iraqis dancing in the streets, you still don't get it, you're still in denial, you're still pro-torturing - Communist tyrant.

Let's not start counting our chickens just quite yet....

Experts say US 'discovery' of nuclear materials in Iraq was breach of UN-monitored site

By William J. Kole, Associated Press, 04/10/03

VIENNA, Austria -- American troops who suggested they uncovered evidence of an active nuclear weapons program in Iraq unwittingly may have stumbled across known stocks of low-grade uranium, officials said Thursday. They said the U.S. troops may have broken U.N. seals meant to keep control of the radioactive material.

Leaders of a U.S. Marine Corps combat engineering unit claimed earlier this week to have found an underground network of laboratories, warehouses and bombproof offices beneath the closely monitored Tuwaitha nuclear research center just south of Baghdad.

The Marines said they discovered 14 buildings at the site which emitted unusually high levels of radiation, and that a search of one building revealed "many, many drums" containing highly radioactive material. If documented, such a discovery could bolster Bush administration claims that Saddam Hussein was trying to develop nuclear weaponry.

Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, said officials there have not heard anything through military channels about a Marine inspection at Tuwaitha.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which has inspected the Tuwaitha nuclear complex at least two dozen times and maintains a thick dossier on the site, had no immediate comment.

But an expert familiar with U.N. nuclear inspections told The Associated Press that it was implausible to believe that U.S. forces had uncovered anything new at the site. Instead, the official said, the Marines apparently broke U.N. seals designed to ensure the materials aren't diverted for weapons use -- or end up in the wrong hands.

This is only a portion of the article. You can find the whole article here.

Gene

Gene,

No one is counting any chickens, Buddy. I think everyone wants to be safe, you know what I mean? We don't want another 9-11-01...even though you and I don't agree on just about anything, I'm sure we can agree on that much.

The UN Inspections stopped near the end of the last Administration and were then started again. Given the UN's track record on effectiveness in every endeavor in that country, I don't have a lot of faith in them.

But in some ways Gene, the point is moot. You can take Semtex and place that under a bunch of absolute waste, radioactive material that is basically good for nothing anymore...and end up with a radiological weapon.

I mention this because of all of the prior intelligence on bin Laden obtaining medical types of wastes that are radioactive, etc.

One barrel of that crap...a couple cup fulls of that waste, and your country could change forever. Just a thought. This thing is not good in any way, we're getting rid of one brutal SOB and the people of Iraq are hopefully going to have a much better life when this is all over. But we are involved in a very dangerous game. I would not say that anything is what it appears to be on first reports. But understand that the effects of a radiological weapon would be much the same as a chemical weapon in this country, used on a small scale by terrorists. You cannot "gas" people here as easily as there because the aircraft is generally not available and they don't have artillery batteries to saturate an area so those types of weapons would be used in a manner like that Japanese Cult did a few years back in a subway. A chemical weapon here would be more of a mass panic sort of thing, it could kill quite a few people but not in the thousands - I think and hope.

Radiological would have every bit the same effect and only has to be in a lead container, small amounts could do alot.