Quote:
Originally posted by Navy Chief
Think about searching the entire states of Nevada and Arizona looking for these things that someone is trying to hide.
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I know, I know...at one point I said the exact same thing.
But most experts agree that little of his bio/chemical weapons would be of much use today, they don't have much of a shelf life.
Don't you find it odd that the UN inspectors found nothing, David Kay with complete and unfettered access for over a year have found nothing, and the new guy who took his place has found nothing of any substance.
Wouldn't you think they could find 1 person out of 20 Million who would stand up to take the reward and tell us where something is?
Don't you think even if it had been moved that we would find some evidence that something had once been there?
So far Zero, Nada, Zilch, Squat.
Read the bi-partisan report on Iraq's WMD. Our only real evidence that Iraq had WMD was that he had them in 1990. The rest was mostly assumption and unverified stories.
It was extremely weak.
I would have personally supported a US led coalition to remove Saddam for UN violations alone, but that's not what was sold. It was the threat that Saddam could deploy WMD in 45 min that drove our timetable. It was the threat of a mushroom cloud in the hands of al Qaida that drove our timetable.
These threats were proven to be absurd distortions not supported by intel or facts.
The World was completely behind us in Afghanistan because we had a clear mandate, so don't say the UN is useless. It's the only Global authority capable of granting legitimacy to such actions, it's our own creation, and it's all we have. For the US to strike pre-emptively against the wishes of the World is always an option, but is the most serious of options. Bush provided no evidence to justify ditching the World and going in with just the UK.
Subverting the UN process to invade when Bush wanted to has done incredible damage to our International credibility and has given our enemies a window of opportunity to exploit which is wide open. In removing Saddam without the World at our side we have given Bin Laden exactly what he asked for.
This is the beef Independents like myself have with Bush over Iraq. It's not that we're pussys or don't see threats, but if you have to fool people to get your way, perhaps something isn't right. The decision to remove Saddam was made long before 9/11, I don't want a President that uses war as a means to an agenda. This is extremely transparent and extremely dangerous.
If our plan is to transform the Middle East by bombing them into Democracy against their wishes, we're making a huge mistake. The notion that they'll be better off for it sound a lot like the master whipping the slave in Roots. Your name is Toby! it's not gonna work and is only going to cause more terror at home if we intend to have an open society and respect the constitution.
-spence