Breaking: Mass Shooting at Ft. Hood

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Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
33,382
7,445
136
Your definition doesn't work very well. Governments can also engage in acts of terrorism. Also, all violence perpetrated by political entities like governments and many groups is ideological in one sense or another.

You think terrorism is simply something you don't like?

No, governments engage in wars. There is a public entity to hold accountable for its actions there.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
136
You think terrorism is simply something you don't like?

No, governments engage in wars. There is a public entity to hold accountable for its actions there.

No, in fact I specifically said it was NOT simply something someone doesn't like.

So when a government secretly gives an agent a bomb to blow up an orphanage, that's war, but if the guy did it himself that's terrorism? Why is public accountability the defining aspect of terrorism? I've never heard any definition that comes close to that.
 

TheSkinsFan

Golden Member
May 15, 2009
1,141
0
0
No, in fact I specifically said it was NOT simply something someone doesn't like.

So when a government secretly gives an agent a bomb to blow up an orphanage, that's war, but if the guy did it himself that's terrorism? Why is public accountability the defining aspect of terrorism? I've never heard any definition that comes close to that.
Are you in any way shape or form claiming that the U.S. has provided "agents" with bombs to blow up orphanages? If not, then proceed with your blather.

If so, then you're fuckin twisted beyond reason.
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
126
I'm glad to see you included the abortion killers, and the Tim McVeighs of the world. I think a lot of posters ignore them and don't consider them terrorists.

So you can kill non-combatants, as long as you don't try to induce terror?

Would our bombing of people using the UAV's count? There are plenty of times where we have found a "person of interest", and blew them (and anyone around them) up. Is that OK? We have killed plenty of innocent women and children ourselves.

From a local point of view, they would argue that randomly dropping bombs on people is terrorism since so many innocent people are dying.

No, targeting non-combatants is never okay. It can be hard to demonstrate, though, war being a very imprecise thing, and non-combatants will always be killed even with the best of intentions. (Hell, if not for one lucky Scud missile strike we would have killed more of our own coalition's forces in '91 than did the enemy, and one can't get any farther from the enemy than one's own troops!) Generally speaking if a legitimate target is surrounding himself with innocents then it sucks to be them, but terrorists (and guerrillas) know Western nations will catch hell internally and internationally if we kill too many civilians, but Western nations know these people will simply always keep some civilians around for protection if we give them carte blanche.

Thus it becomes a matter of how much we want a given target versus how many people he can keep around him; we might accept killing three or four wives or concubines to get a high level leader, but we couldn't hit him in the middle of a crowded market. That's why Iraq, Syria, Iran etc. build command bunkers beside or even underneath schools, mosques, priceless ruins, and civilian bunkers; at best they nullify air power they can't hope to counter otherwise, and at worst they get some effective propaganda. And it's not like they give a damn if a few dozen women and children are killed.

Incidentally this is one of the few areas where Israel has an advantage over other Western nations; if you know you're going to be condemned for striking at all, it gets easier to justify to oneself killing bystanders. If a particular terrorist leader always travels with three children and you know you're going to catch holy hell for killing them all, it's easy to take the shot in the market figuring hey, it can't get any worse than it's going to be anyway. Which is very bad, because it puts Israel in the position of judging the propriety of an act by the negative consequences rather the rightness or wrongness of it. But that's a function of all war, it's just heightened when one side has more conventional power and the other side uses human shields.

I would imagine that anyone on the receiving end of our bombardment would consider it to be terrorism. If your house or shelter or school or hospital is struck by a thousand pound warhead or bomb, you don't know that its rat-brain schizzed or the pilot made an honest error. You might not even know your country had a valid military target within the blast radius. Even if you did know - even if Saddam's troops had herded you into a thin civilian shelter built on top of a hardened military C3 shelter - you might not care. It's easy to think that NO military target justifies killing and maiming dozens of civilians, especially if you and your loved ones are among them. The proof would be if an impartial and disinterested bystander (if such a thing can exist) would consider the act a legitimate act of war or an act of terrorism, to the extent these things can be defined. I should add though that the US military never drops bombs randomly; we always try to strike a valid target. But even if 100% of our bombs and missiles struck their targets dead on, civilians will still get killed.

You know, I thought about the abortion murderers before adding them. Is the murderer killing because of his rage at one particular person, or is he killing to induce terror? It's always a judgment call since we can never absolutely know someone's mind (though it gets easier with people like Hasan that leave such a rich chain of evidence.) But in the end I think the purpose is always to terrorize those who work in, or patronize, clinics that do abortions. Or at least that's a significant part of it, seems to me.

Eskimospy, the difference is in uniform. Uniformed and declared combatants can legitimately go after soldiers when they are unarmed; the fifth column cannot. And a combatant caught in the enemy's uniform is considered a spy and can legally be shot - though probably not in this case since Hasan actually was entitled to wear the uniform.
 
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fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
136
Are you in any way shape or form claiming that the U.S. has provided "agents" with bombs to blow up orphanages? If not, then proceed with your blather.

If so, then you're fuckin twisted beyond reason.

How on earth could you possibly come to the conclusion that I was accusing the United States of blowing up orphanages? I'm serious, it's incomprehensible.

We were talking about hypothetical situations as they pertain to the definition of terrorism. The question was why he would assert that such a bombing done by an individual would be terrorism, but not so when done by a government.
 

StageLeft

No Lifer
Sep 29, 2000
70,150
5
0
I have not read this thread but people's black and white definitions of terrorism become far less so when presented with hypothetical but valid arguments.

In any case, what karma that he is now paralyzed perhaps irrevocably. Dare I say it's a silver lining if he is not put to death and ends up in a wheel chair to live out his days in despair, perhaps as a warning to others who would try the same. It's not often these people don't kill themselves in the process. And there is no glory in being stuck in a wheel chair on suicide watch until nobody cares any longer if you commit it so finally you do and not death by cop but death by pills or whatever else you do in your lonely cell.
 

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
26,907
173
106
Hey eski,

I gotta question.

You know anything of this talk about his business cards having "SoA" on it.

I've heard it claimed SoA means "Soldier of Allah".

Is there some other explanation, such as a common military acronym this really stands for?

If SoA isn't some common/standard military acronym, how could he get it on his business cards. Wouldn't the military issue his biz cards? If so, would they really allow him to put whatever he wanted on them?

This ain't making much sense to me ATM.

Fern
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
126
How on earth could you possibly come to the conclusion that I was accusing the United States of blowing up orphanages? I'm serious, it's incomprehensible.

SNIP

Have you seen our test scores? Those orphans were making us look bad!
 

alchemize

Lifer
Mar 24, 2000
11,489
0
0
Hey eski,

I gotta question.

You know anything of this talk about his business cards having "SoA" on it.

I've heard it claimed SoA means "Soldier of Allah".

Is there some other explanation, such as a common military acronym this really stands for?

If SoA isn't some common/standard military acronym, how could he get it on his business cards. Wouldn't the military issue his biz cards? If so, would they really allow him to put whatever he wanted on them?

This ain't making much sense to me ATM.

Fern

I read he got the "biz cards" on the internet, from Vistaprint.

Tonight, ABC News is reporting that Hasan proclaimed himself a "soldier of Allah" on private business cards he bought over the Internet and kept in a box at his apartment. The cards do not mention that Hasan is an Army psychiatrist.

The green and white cards, the colors of Islam, had his name with the title "Behavior Heatlh [sic] Mental Health and Life Skills" along with "SoA (SWT)."
SWT likely stands for Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, or "Glory to God" in Arabic, according to terrorism investigators.
6_27_111209_hasancard.jpg
 
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spidey07

No Lifer
Aug 4, 2000
65,469
5
76
Hey eski,

I gotta question.

You know anything of this talk about his business cards having "SoA" on it.

I've heard it claimed SoA means "Soldier of Allah".

Is there some other explanation, such as a common military acronym this really stands for?

If SoA isn't some common/standard military acronym, how could he get it on his business cards. Wouldn't the military issue his biz cards? If so, would they really allow him to put whatever he wanted on them?

This ain't making much sense to me ATM.

Fern

It's intelligence/counter terrorism people that say that's what it stands for along with the other acronym. I'm inclined to believe their expertise. One could say he was a "card carrying jihadist".
 

Red Dawn

Elite Member
Jun 4, 2001
57,530
3
0
It's intelligence/counter terrorism people that say that's what it stands for along with the other acronym. I'm inclined to believe their expertise. One could say he was a "card carrying jihadist".

Sons of Anarchy, he's a fan of the show.
 

GarfieldtheCat

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2005
3,708
1
0
You think terrorism is simply something you don't like?

No, governments engage in wars. There is a public entity to hold accountable for its actions there.

Governments can and do engage in terrorism. Many countries support groups which commit terrorist acts. Even the US does that. The US supports several anti-Iranian groups which have assassinated Iranian officials. You really saying thats OK?

So what does that make us? We condemn Iran for supporting Hezbollah, but yet we give money to groups that murder Iranian officials in their own country. How do you defend that?

And as to accountability, I don't think so. We got lied to on Iraq (where are those WMD's that Bush said we knew where they were?) I haven't seen any consequences, other then a lot of people getting rich.
 

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
26,907
173
106
RE: My business card questions - Thanks guys, that makes more sense.

Fern
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
126
Governments can and do engage in terrorism. Many countries support groups which commit terrorist acts. Even the US does that. The US supports several anti-Iranian groups which have assassinated Iranian officials. You really saying thats OK?

So what does that make us? We condemn Iran for supporting Hezbollah, but yet we give money to groups that murder Iranian officials in their own country. How do you defend that?

And as to accountability, I don't think so. We got lied to on Iraq (where are those WMD's that Bush said we knew where they were?) I haven't seen any consequences, other then a lot of people getting rich.

Actually we found every WMD we KNEW Iraq had (those he had been caught with and admitted) except the anthrax (which might not have even been weaponized just because it was sent to the University of Baghdad, supposedly at the time it was sent a quite respectable university. Think Lebanon before Hizballah and Syria took it over.) What we didn't find were the additional WMDs we THOUGHT Iraq had made since '91. He probably never had them, although a lot of stuff got buried in the desert (including uranium-enriching centrifuges and Mig jet fighters) and a lot got carried to Syria before we resumed hostilities.

Most of our information came from dissidents, who wanted to go back home without being fed into an industrial plastic shredder. Obviously it was to their advantage to make Hussein (the evil socialist dictator, not the ever-so-nice president who merely wants to take the wealth and distribute it more evenly for the good of us all) look as dangerous as possible. Hussein knew we were watching him with satellites and spy planes, so there's an excellent chance he was simply messing with us, moving empty trucks (or trucks carrying loot) out the back of the suspect plants as the UN inspectors entered the front. Before 9/11 his suspected stockpiles of WMDs were a deterrent to us invading as well as to homegrown dissident groups rebelling - everyone remembers the Kurdish villages gassed - so making us THINK he had lots of WMDs was to his advantage without the risk of actually being caught as he was with his actual stockpile.

After 9/11 those suspected WMDs turned into a hell of a liability. Here was a dangerous, unstable, brutal dictator with weapons of mass destruction, who had actually used them multiple times, who hated us, who supported terrorists (but only a few at a time, lest they try to overthrow him - no love there, just a shared hate. And he had repeatedly violated the terms of the ceasefire agreement which gave any coalition nation the right to resume hostilities. (And he tried to kill my daddy! - GWB) But Hussein couldn't very well prove he didn't have them - can't prove a negative. And he couldn't produce evidence that he had destroyed them without losing the WMDs he did have. So he was screwed. After 9/11 pretty much everybody was on board to resume the war with Iraq, even the New York Times (we're losing we're losing we're losing - hey, we won!) And those politicians who weren't on board were either far leftists in secure districts, a marginal number at the time, or else learned to keep their mouths shut lest war fervor ruin their own careers.

So yeah, several of Bush's many points turned out to be invalid. Hussein didn't trust al Qaeda enough to really work with them, just to whip some cash on them when they killed some Jews or Americans, or fund some weapons or a big mission. Whether or not Iraq was worth the battle depends on how well it does in the coming years, but both the USA and Hussein himself overstated the very marginal threat he posed to us. (Remember though that Bush had several more goals than just fear of attack with WMDs. I'm not a fan of the man, but he is a believer in democracy.)
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
136
Hey eski,

I gotta question.

You know anything of this talk about his business cards having "SoA" on it.

I've heard it claimed SoA means "Soldier of Allah".

Is there some other explanation, such as a common military acronym this really stands for?

If SoA isn't some common/standard military acronym, how could he get it on his business cards. Wouldn't the military issue his biz cards? If so, would they really allow him to put whatever he wanted on them?

This ain't making much sense to me ATM.

Fern

I don't really know. I'm not aware of SOA as any military acronym, but it might help to actually see the business card. The army has a whole lot of different acronyms that I wouldn't know though.

I've never worked anywhere or been of high enough rank to have merited my own fancy business cards so I'm not really sure what goes into that either. If it's anything like my other experience however there is probably a standard military template for business cards and he could put whatever he wanted on it so far as it passed a cursory review by a clerk. (You probably couldn't get a business card that said Major Asshole or something, but I could totally see sticking "SoA" at the end of your title without anyone noticing.)

EDIT: It would have really helped if I read the rest of the thread.
 

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
26,907
173
106
-snip-
(You probably couldn't get a business card that said Major Asshole or something, but I could totally see sticking "SoA" at the end of your title without anyone noticing.)

LOL

(Though I bet some deserve that title, and are likely called it when not around.)

Fern
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
20,984
3
0
Maybe the other thing to note is the fact that Hasan is now been formally charged with 13 deaths, but we can maybe make it fourteen because we a re dealing with an unborn fetus that undeniably lost any chance of life due to the direct actions of Hasan.

But as we struggle to make sense of the senseless, a fools game by its very definition, we all need to caution ourselves about connecting too many dots that will in future predict nothing else but a sad and sorry event that already happened.
 

GarfieldtheCat

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2005
3,708
1
0
Actually we found every WMD we KNEW Iraq had (those he had been caught with and admitted) except the anthrax (which might not have even been weaponized just because it was sent to the University of Baghdad, supposedly at the time it was sent a quite respectable university. Think Lebanon before Hizballah and Syria took it over.) What we didn't find were the additional WMDs we THOUGHT Iraq had made since '91. He probably never had them, although a lot of stuff got buried in the desert (including uranium-enriching centrifuges and Mig jet fighters) and a lot got carried to Syria before we resumed hostilities.

If he already admitted to them, we could not have "found" them. We knew he *had* a WMD program, which the UN was monitoring to prevent it from starting it up again. But it wasn't re-started when we invaded. And the UN monitors were right.

But that didn't stop Bush/Cheney/Rummy from stating over and over again about WMD, about big nuclear mushroom clouds, and other bullshit they *made up*. There was no evidence that Saddam had WMD. None. I don't doubt for a minute that he would have liked to restart his program, but he couldn't. So again, we were 100% lied to. They used the fear of AQ getting those WMD to invade a country for it's oil. (or to show his dad, either way)

And Saddam and AQ didn't do anything together either. Saddam was agnostic at best, certainly no religious player. So yet again, another *big* lie from Bush about AQ in Iraq. AQ in Iraq only happened after we invaded them, and a local "branch" of AQ sprouted up.

I don't know about you, but killing 3000+ American soldiers and 100,000+ innocent Iraqi civilians because there was a clear and planned plan of deception from our President seems like it would be a big deal. So where is the accountability?

Most of our information came from dissidents, who wanted to go back home without being fed into an industrial plastic shredder. Obviously it was to their advantage to make Hussein (the evil socialist dictator, not the ever-so-nice president who merely wants to take the wealth and distribute it more evenly for the good of us all) look as dangerous as possible. Hussein knew we were watching him with satellites and spy planes, so there's an excellent chance he was simply messing with us, moving empty trucks (or trucks carrying loot) out the back of the suspect plants as the UN inspectors entered the front. Before 9/11 his suspected stockpiles of WMDs were a deterrent to us invading as well as to homegrown dissident groups rebelling - everyone remembers the Kurdish villages gassed - so making us THINK he had lots of WMDs was to his advantage without the risk of actually being caught as he was with his actual stockpile.

Actually, most of the "evidence" and other intel was from a drunk ex-pat Iraqi who got loads of money from the CIA, and told them what they wanted to hear. They didn't check it, and even after the Germans said they didn't trust him, Bush didn't care, since he heard what he wanted. We actually was getting intel from a senior Saddam adviser ( I believe he was on whatever the name of his ruling council was called) that gave the CIA evidence that there were no WMD, but it was ignored, since Bush already had decided long ago to invade. So where is the accountability for that? You trust a drunk ex-pat living in Germany over a real live council member? GG Bush again.

After 9/11 those suspected WMDs turned into a hell of a liability. Here was a dangerous, unstable, brutal dictator with weapons of mass destruction, who had actually used them multiple times, who hated us, who supported terrorists (but only a few at a time, lest they try to overthrow him - no love there, just a shared hate. And he had repeatedly violated the terms of the ceasefire agreement which gave any coalition nation the right to resume hostilities. (And he tried to kill my daddy! - GWB) But Hussein couldn't very well prove he didn't have them - can't prove a negative. And he couldn't produce evidence that he had destroyed them without losing the WMDs he did have. So he was screwed. After 9/11 pretty much everybody was on board to resume the war with Iraq, even the New York Times (we're losing we're losing we're losing - hey, we won!) And those politicians who weren't on board were either far leftists in secure districts, a marginal number at the time, or else learned to keep their mouths shut lest war fervor ruin their own careers.

In other words, we needed to beat up someone else to feel good about ourselves after getting a black eye from AQ.

So yeah, several of Bush's many points turned out to be invalid. Hussein didn't trust al Qaeda enough to really work with them, just to whip some cash on them when they killed some Jews or Americans, or fund some weapons or a big mission. Whether or not Iraq was worth the battle depends on how well it does in the coming years, but both the USA and Hussein himself overstated the very marginal threat he posed to us. (Remember though that Bush had several more goals than just fear of attack with WMDs. I'm not a fan of the man, but he is a believer in democracy.)

So where is the accountability? Our ex-president basically invaded a sovereign nation for no real reason, and because of that 100,000+ Iraqis are now dead. Not to mention all our military lives lost. What do we say to all of them?
 

Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
33,382
7,445
136
(2) the term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents;

Well that's an interesting legal term. So with Islam involved is it terrorism, would or he have been required to actually discuss it with another member of the group?
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
126
If he already admitted to them, we could not have "found" them. We knew he *had* a WMD program, which the UN was monitoring to prevent it from starting it up again. But it wasn't re-started when we invaded. And the UN monitors were right.

But that didn't stop Bush/Cheney/Rummy from stating over and over again about WMD, about big nuclear mushroom clouds, and other bullshit they *made up*. There was no evidence that Saddam had WMD. None. I don't doubt for a minute that he would have liked to restart his program, but he couldn't. So again, we were 100% lied to. They used the fear of AQ getting those WMD to invade a country for it's oil. (or to show his dad, either way)

And Saddam and AQ didn't do anything together either. Saddam was agnostic at best, certainly no religious player. So yet again, another *big* lie from Bush about AQ in Iraq. AQ in Iraq only happened after we invaded them, and a local "branch" of AQ sprouted up.

I don't know about you, but killing 3000+ American soldiers and 100,000+ innocent Iraqi civilians because there was a clear and planned plan of deception from our President seems like it would be a big deal. So where is the accountability?



Actually, most of the "evidence" and other intel was from a drunk ex-pat Iraqi who got loads of money from the CIA, and told them what they wanted to hear. They didn't check it, and even after the Germans said they didn't trust him, Bush didn't care, since he heard what he wanted. We actually was getting intel from a senior Saddam adviser ( I believe he was on whatever the name of his ruling council was called) that gave the CIA evidence that there were no WMD, but it was ignored, since Bush already had decided long ago to invade. So where is the accountability for that? You trust a drunk ex-pat living in Germany over a real live council member? GG Bush again.



In other words, we needed to beat up someone else to feel good about ourselves after getting a black eye from AQ.



So where is the accountability? Our ex-president basically invaded a sovereign nation for no real reason, and because of that 100,000+ Iraqis are now dead. Not to mention all our military lives lost. What do we say to all of them?

Thou spouteth ignorance and bullshit. He admitted he had WMDs - he could hardly have denied that, having used them multiple times - but claimed he had destroyed them. Destruction of WMDs does not make them disappear, there are always residuals left over, and Hussein refused to show the inspectors where they were supposedly destroyed because he knew he could not produce those residuals. Since he admitted having them and we found them, only a complete idiot would ever say there was no evidence that he ever had them. Perhaps someone can explain that to you.

There were literally hundreds of pieces of intelligence about Iraq's WMDs, not one drunken ex-pat in Germany. Hundreds of ex-patriot Iraqis alone have been interviewed, not to mention satellite and surveillance plane film of trucks leaving the back of facilities as the UN inspectors are held up in the front. Since we didn't find the NEW WMDs we thought we had, I'm willing to say we probably screwed up interpreting the intelligence, but it certainly wasn't made up or from a single source.

As far as Hussein's contacts with al Qaeda before the war, they were limited. The CIA learned that Ayman al-Zawahiri had received $300,000 from Hussein, having met with the Iraqi dictator in '92 and '98. At the time of our invasion Abu Musab Zarqawi was being treated in Iraq for injuries sustained while fighting us in Afghanistan. Both are long-time al Qaeda leaders. I'm sure Hussein's contacts were limited to his own interests - he professed to be a devout Muslim but in fact was in fact not noticeably religious, he simply used it as a propaganda tool to get his people behind him. And he knew that if al Qaeda could gain enough strength in Iraq, they would happily try to overthrow him as well. Many Iraqi defectors have said the Salman Pak camp was used to train foreign terrorists to hijack planes, though they might well have been lying for their own purposes.

As far as the invasion, we held the right to resume hostilities at any time after the first attack on our aircraft. The '91 war never ended; it was under a cease fire. Our invasion was a continuation of the '91 war and accomplished the very thing for which Democrats have continuously bashed Bush the Elder for not doing - it removed Hussein.
 

GarfieldtheCat

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2005
3,708
1
0
Thou spouteth ignorance and bullshit. He admitted he had WMDs - he could hardly have denied that, having used them multiple times - but claimed he had destroyed them. Destruction of WMDs does not make them disappear, there are always residuals left over, and Hussein refused to show the inspectors where they were supposedly destroyed because he knew he could not produce those residuals. Since he admitted having them and we found them, only a complete idiot would ever say there was no evidence that he ever had them. Perhaps someone can explain that to you.

Wow, who is spouting bullshit now? He used to (as in past tense) have WMD, and had (past tense) used them. He then destroyed them. So when he invaded, he *had* (present tense) nothing. Plenty of people said this, but they were ignored. I'm sorry if you don't like the facts, but that the truth. OF course, Rummy and Bush said they *knew* where the WMD were. So again, they lied. They didn't find any, and there weren't any. Truth hurts. They didn't say "think", they said they knew. They lied.

How you can say since he *had* them (past tense) and yet we "find" them, is beyond me. We didn't find anything. Nothing. He had destroyed his weapons, just like he said.

EDIT: 30sec on google found this article:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-wmd-threat-in-official-us-report-552427.html

It basically says everything I said: No WMD, Relying on drunk expats while ignoring real intel, etc.

As far as Hussein's contacts with al Qaeda before the war, they were limited. The CIA learned that Ayman al-Zawahiri had received $300,000 from Hussein, having met with the Iraqi dictator in '92 and '98. At the time of our invasion Abu Musab Zarqawi was being treated in Iraq for injuries sustained while fighting us in Afghanistan. Both are long-time al Qaeda leaders. I'm sure Hussein's contacts were limited to his own interests - he professed to be a devout Muslim but in fact was in fact not noticeably religious, he simply used it as a propaganda tool to get his people behind him. And he knew that if al Qaeda could gain enough strength in Iraq, they would happily try to overthrow him as well. Many Iraqi defectors have said the Salman Pak camp was used to train foreign terrorists to hijack planes, though they might well have been lying for their own purposes.

So again, we were lied to. Saddam didn't work with AQ. Thanks for agreeing with my point. So we were lied to about WMD and AQ. Two intentional lies from our President.

So again, 100,000+ innocent iraqi civilians dead, and 3000+ Americans. Where is the accountability. I bet if you had a bunch of your family killed, you would care, but since they are only muslims, it doesn't matter, right?
 
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werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
126
Wow, who is spouting bullshit now? He used to (as in past tense) have WMD, and had (past tense) used them. He then destroyed them. So when he invaded, he *had* (present tense) nothing. Plenty of people said this, but they were ignored. I'm sorry if you don't like the facts, but that the truth. OF course, Rummy and Bush said they *knew* where the WMD were. So again, they lied. They didn't find any, and there weren't any. Truth hurts. They didn't say "think", they said they knew. They lied.

How you can say since he *had* them (past tense) and yet we "find" them, is beyond me. We didn't find anything. Nothing. He had destroyed his weapons, just like he said.

EDIT: 30sec on google found this article:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-wmd-threat-in-official-us-report-552427.html

It basically says everything I said: No WMD, Relying on drunk expats while ignoring real intel, etc.



So again, we were lied to. Saddam didn't work with AQ. Thanks for agreeing with my point. So we were lied to about WMD and AQ. Two intentional lies from our President.

So again, 100,000+ innocent iraqi civilians dead, and 3000+ Americans. Where is the accountability. I bet if you had a bunch of your family killed, you would care, but since they are only muslims, it doesn't matter, right?

Man, even for a liberal you are dense. We know Hussein worked with al Qaeda, we just don't know to what extent. Two senior al Qaeda leaders met with Hussein that we know of; one went there for medical treatment. We don't know how extensive those contacts were, or to what extent Hussein aided them, but we do know there was a relationship. Remember, a lie is an intentional falsehood, not merely being wrong. You may think you know what Bush was thinking and what he knew, but not all idiots are savants.

As to the first point, try to extend your brain to more than a thirty second Google search. Here's some links:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=15918
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120137,00.html
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/l...ort/isg-final-report_vol3_cw_key-findings.htm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25546334/

Again, we found the WMDs that we KNEW he had - that he DID NOT destroy. Over five hundred separate WMDs - from assembled artillery shells and bombs to containers of binary agents - were found. I for one was quite amused watching the news coverage, as the reporter would invariably and solemnly intone that "this discovery (of WMDs) does not mean Iraq has WMDs." These were made pre-'91 and were not used by army troops, perhaps because the cases were corroded (making them hazardous to fire as they might rupture when fired) and perhaps because they were hidden from the army as well. Two WMDs (sarin gas shells) were actually used in terrorist attacks against coalition troops, luckily without any knowledge of how to deploy them. Not having the howitzers to fire them the terrorists tried to use explosives to spread them, largely destroying and totally dissipating the gas. (I'm sure you were rooting for them though.) He also had over 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium, the kind Iran is enriching today.

We DID NOT find the WMDs we THOUGHT he had, those manufactured after 1991. We did find the reconstituted chemical and biological facilities we had observed; we did not find evidence he had manufactured WMDs in the reconstituted facilities. Consensus among intelligence agencies is that Hussein was waiting until sanctions had been lifted to resume production, for use once again against his neighbors and internal dissidents.

Please try to wrap your tiny Bush-hating mind around what I am saying. Perhaps the person who dresses you and puts on your helmet when you go outside would be kind enough to explain it to you.