NationStates Jolt Archive


What if we're wrong about being wrong?

Insane Troll
27-07-2004, 07:14
With all this new evidence coming out about intelligence failures and there not being any WMDs in Iraq, what happens if WMDs are found?
Doomduckistan
27-07-2004, 07:17
With all this new evidence coming out about intelligence failures and there not being any WMDs in Iraq, what happens if WMDs are found?

Conservatives breakdance in new york. While Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Rielly, and Savage mock liberals across the airwaves, Bush's cabinet breaths a sigh of relief- WMDs had turned up even when the cabinet knew full well there were none! Son of a gun we're lucky!

Liberals curse and claim it was planted. Moore makes a film about it.

Bush is re-elected, definately. This would be mundo publicity.
Hakartopia
27-07-2004, 07:18
I'd say "Well, that took you bloody well long enough!"
Cold Hard Bitch
27-07-2004, 07:19
With all this new evidence coming out about intelligence failures and there not being any WMDs in Iraq, what happens if WMDs are found?


The Liberal media sweeps it under the rug and Liberal worldwide deny anything was found, all the time Fox News is the only network telling the truth about it and gets branded liars for doing it.
Insane Troll
27-07-2004, 07:20
The Liberal media sweeps it under the rug and Liberal worldwide deny anything was found, all the time Fox News is the only network telling the truth about it and gets branded liars for doing it.

I think something as massive as that would be very hard to sweep under the rug.

It would be reported by the "liberal" media.
Ernst_Rohm
27-07-2004, 07:31
wmd is a load of scrap!

any college chemist could whip up a batch of mustard gas and virtually any nation on earth can create nerve gas if they really want it. chemical weapons are so simple to make using them a cause for war is just assine. mix ammonia and bleach, you produce chlorine gas, the easist of all chemical weapons, used to kill and maim many a soldier in ww1.

bioweapons are an unknown quality, never really used effectively in modern combat.

nukes are nukes,extremely hard to build, expensive and enormously powerful.


combining these three different types of weapons under one term just confuses the issue and blurs the real threats in the world. probably some inane un pencil pusher invented the term and the bush administration adopted it for their propaganda offensive against iraq.
Raem
27-07-2004, 07:46
Weapons of Mass Destruction is a perfectly legitimate name for NBC weapons. Let's break it down.

Weapon - Yes, they're used to kill people. This makes them weapons.
Mass destruction- a single weapon (however they're packaged, missile or artillery shell, bomb or etc) is capable of killing a great many people at once.

How does the ease or difficulty of their production change that?
Arammanar
27-07-2004, 07:46
New reports indicate that Iraq did try to buy uranium from Africa, so it's entirely likely that WMD's will one day turn up.
Raem
27-07-2004, 07:52
I personally don't think we'll ever find anything. If he had them, Saddam had plenty of time to get rid of them. We may one day find paper trails, but I doubt we'll ever locate the weapons themselves.
Ernst_Rohm
27-07-2004, 08:10
Weapons of Mass Destruction is a perfectly legitimate name for NBC weapons. Let's break it down.

Weapon - Yes, they're used to kill people. This makes them weapons.
Mass destruction- a single weapon (however they're packaged, missile or artillery shell, bomb or etc) is capable of killing a great many people at once.

How does the ease or difficulty of their production change that?


its completely arbitrary a chemical artillary shell is no more deadly than a cluster bomb, a poorly weaponized bioweapon may be less effective than a high exposive shell of the same type.

an aerial bombardment with incendiaries can be far more deadly than a chemical attack.

ultimately any military is that nations weapon of mass destruction, but some weapon systems within that military are far more effective than others. nukes very effective. conventional arms quite effective, chemical weapons somewhat effective under certain circumstances, bioweapons, unknown but probably of limited effectiveness even in first rate militaries, and ineffective in less modern armies. how do you call three of those weapons of mass destruction accept to confuse the issue.

a militia armed with machetes can be a weapon of mass destruction when unleashed against a civilian population and more effective and cheaper than a sarin gass attack.
Ernst_Rohm
27-07-2004, 08:11
New reports indicate that Iraq did try to buy uranium from Africa, so it's entirely likely that WMD's will one day turn up.
what the brit whitewash of tony blair ha, even the american gung ho congress doesn't believe that crap
Raem
27-07-2004, 08:42
its completely arbitrary a chemical artillary shell is no more deadly than a cluster bomb, a poorly weaponized bioweapon may be less effective than a high exposive shell of the same type.

an aerial bombardment with incendiaries can be far more deadly than a chemical attack.

ultimately any military is that nations weapon of mass destruction, but some weapon systems within that military are far more effective than others. nukes very effective. conventional arms quite effective, chemical weapons somewhat effective under certain circumstances, bioweapons, unknown but probably of limited effectiveness even in first rate militaries, and ineffective in less modern armies. how do you call three of those weapons of mass destruction accept to confuse the issue.

a militia armed with machetes can be a weapon of mass destruction when unleashed against a civilian population and more effective and cheaper than a sarin gass attack.

You don't seem to grasp the concept. An army of machete wielding militia isn't a weapon. Firebombing is *conventional* warfare, and again, it's not *a* *weapon*. What makes NBC weapons to dangerous is that will a little planning, a single weapon can kill thousands or millions of people. ONE WEAPON. Not a plane full of bombs, or a horde of people. A single device.
Arammanar
27-07-2004, 08:43
what the brit whitewash of tony blair ha, even the american gung ho congress doesn't believe that crap
Actually every intelligence agency that has any evidence supports it, except the CIA.
Ernst_Rohm
27-07-2004, 08:51
Actually every intelligence agency that has any evidence supports it, except the CIA.


i heard the isrealis were pretty dubious about it as well, but i have no documentation so maybe i'm wrong.
Arammanar
27-07-2004, 08:52
i heard the isrealis were pretty dubious about it as well, but i have no documentation so maybe i'm wrong.
It's all over the conservative media. Although the Niger evidence presented was wrong, Saddam was still trying to obtain uranium.
BackwoodsSquatches
27-07-2004, 08:53
The Liberal media sweeps it under the rug and Liberal worldwide deny anything was found, all the time Fox News is the only network telling the truth about it and gets branded liars for doing it.



BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!


Thats so funny...you cant possibly have meant that!!

Whoo....that was priceless.
Ernst_Rohm
27-07-2004, 08:53
You don't seem to grasp the concept. An army of machete wielding militia isn't a weapon. Firebombing is *conventional* warfare, and again, it's not *a* *weapon*. What makes NBC weapons to dangerous is that will a little planning, a single weapon can kill thousands or millions of people. ONE WEAPON. Not a plane full of bombs, or a horde of people. A single device.


but that really only applies to nuclear weapons, chemical and bio weapons would be lucky to kill 100 with a single device
Arammanar
27-07-2004, 08:54
but that really only applies to nuclear weapons, chemical and bio weapons would be lucky to kill 100 with a single device
I think the makers of cyclosarin would beg to differ...
Ernst_Rohm
27-07-2004, 08:58
I think the makers of cyclosarin would beg to differ...
well sure and the makers of ensite(sp?) the pill for natural male enhancement imply that it'll make you hoohaa bigger, but that doesn't make it true.
Arammanar
27-07-2004, 09:00
well sure and the makers of ensite(sp?) the pill for natural male enhancement imply that it'll make you hoohaa bigger, but that doesn't make it true.
So you'd submit that cyclosarin deployed to a densely populated area would kill less than 100 people?
Ernst_Rohm
27-07-2004, 09:05
So you'd submit that deployed to a densely populated area would kill less than 100 people?

okay i admit it, i don't know how many people one device deploying cyclosarin in a densely populated area would kill, certainly not millions, but possibly thousands... i guess... maybe... if they were lucky... and the wind was... hell i really don't know.
Dalekia
27-07-2004, 09:08
Finding anything now would of course be more evidence on what a bastard Saddam was (if anyone needs more proof). Finding WMD now would still not change the fact that the governments DID distort the truth in claiming that there are plenty of WMD's lying around in Iraq and that Saddam was pushing them to Al-Qaeda in such quantities that they couldn't accept them all. It's a bit like calling the office and lying that you are sick so you can watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer on your new DVD-player and then really getting sick.

I don't buy the argument that Saddam had time to get rid of all the WMD's. Why would he have? He couldn't have been counting on winning the war. At least they would have been handed out to whatnot Republican Guards or some other elite units when the invasion began, which means they would have been found.
Smeagol-Gollum
27-07-2004, 09:13
Given the history of the Saddam regime, does anyone seriously belive that if he possessed any WMDs, he would have used them to defend his regime from the first day of the invasion?
If the war was really about WMDs, why has the discussion re North Korea (who most assuredly do have WMDs) suddenly gone all quiet?
And, of course, the nation with the most number of WMDs, a history of using them, and a "pre-emptive strike" policy is of course.......well, you can guess, no?
But, of course, they must be the "good" WMDs, not the "evil" ones.
Buggard
27-07-2004, 09:35
Finding WMD now would still not change the fact that the governments DID distort the truth in claiming that there are plenty of WMD's lying around in Iraq

They did? I thought they claimed there used to be WMD in Iraq (true) and that Saddam had never documented where they went (true) and that was reason enough to believe the weapons might still exist.


and that Saddam was pushing them to Al-Qaeda in such quantities that they couldn't accept them all.

I know that's untrue. They claimed there had been contact between Al Qaida and Saddam (true), but they never claimed any cooperation between Al Qaida and Saddam. They also said there was a risk of Saddam selling to terrorists (we know Saddam supported terrorists in palestina), and it's still unknown what happened to the WMD we knew at one time existed.



I don't buy the argument that Saddam had time to get rid of all the WMD's.

We knew they existed, where are they?


He couldn't have been counting on winning the war.

He counted on the war never starting.
Buggard
27-07-2004, 09:58
The problem with NBC (or WMD's) is not primary their massive destructive power. What conecptually binds them togehter is more their inheritet uncontrollable nature. Set of a successive NBC attack, and it's difficult to control who you affect. A changing wind may cause the chemical agents ment for a bunch of enemy soldiers to instead hit a bunch of civilians in a nearby town. A soldier infected with a biological attack may transfer the disease to alot of civilians. And nuclear waste may also blow all over the place, and it can cause problems for civiliations in a location for decades or more.

Now, I'm sure there are a lot of exceptions. Probably uncontrollable conventional weapns (cluster bombs?) or more controllable WMD weapons (small tactical nuclear weapons ment for taking out undergroung missile launching sites or biological/chemical agents storage facilities without any gas escaping), but that doesn't change the concept.

Also a successfull attack with chemical or biological agents on a city may be devastating and cause mass destruction (death).
Carlemnaria
27-07-2004, 10:26
if anyone finds wmd's in iraq they will say made in usa on them somewhere.

the only high powered weapon systems iraq ever possessed,
with the sole exception of the not very accurate not very
long range scud launch and delivery system, were made in
and supplied by the dear old u.s. of a. by way of a rather
odball department of agriculture grant engineered by a
certain donald rumsfield!

=^^=
.../\...
Smeagol-Gollum
27-07-2004, 10:46
if anyone finds wmd's in iraq they will say made in usa on them somewhere.

the only high powered weapon systems iraq ever possessed,
with the sole exception of the not very accurate not very
long range scud launch and delivery system, were made in
and supplied by the dear old u.s. of a. by way of a rather
odball department of agriculture grant engineered by a
certain donald rumsfield!

=^^=
.../\...

Hmm, if the USA has WMDs doesn't that mean that somebody should invade them to enforce regime change?
Texastambul
27-07-2004, 11:04
Pakistan started up nuclear programs in North Korea, Iran and Libya. I'm sure you could find nuclear weapons all over the Central Asia. Does it really matter if we think Saddam might have mustard-gas when we know that all of his neighbors have H-Bombs?

Our Capital building and Corporate News Stations have been attacked with anthrax twice and a ton of it was found in a Texas storage unit. Is it practical to think we can stop some dictator half the world away from producing mustard-gas when we can't stop the domestic production of Sarin-gas?

So, what if Saddam had WMD(s) all along - it really doesn't threaten us that much when you put it in perspective.