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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (132857)	5/13/2004 4:27:24 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Perhaps you also didn't notice, but David Kay ascertained that the Iraqis were working on increasing the range of their ballistic missiles. Um. Want to refresh my memory on that one? As near as I can recall, scuds were found in about the same quantity as WMDs, post-war. There was the al-Samoud issue, where allegedly some ancient Soviet SAM had been reengineered into a surface-to-surface missile with a range marginally in excess of the allowable 150km, but if you want to make a "homeland security" threat out of that one, well, W may have a job for you. Anyway, Saddam had caved on that one before the war, so it's pretty hard to make a casus belli out of it.

To: Neocon who wrote (132857)	5/13/2004 4:29:52 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Perhaps you also didn't notice, but David Kay ascertained that the Iraqis were working on increasing the range of their ballistic missiles. True, they would not yet have reached the United States, unless we presumed they were on a naval platform, but they would have reached American troops in Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and perhaps parts of NATO......... Perhaps YOU aren't aware of this but I once lived next to a nasty kid that was quite capable of chucking a rock at me. True it would have been a long toss, unless he climbed over the fence, but he was getting stronger as he got older and those rocks could have reached me, and if they'd hit me in the eye I could have been hurt..... That kid worried me until I thought about it and realized that the kid had no reason to toss rocks at me. He was smart enough to know that if he did that life would be very unpleasant for him and he was smart enough to know there was nothing in it for him. Once I got over my paranoia, I felt ok with that. The kid eventually grew up and now he does my lawn. I don't want him marrying my daughter but at least he's not buried out in my back yard or stinking up the place. But maybe I should have just killed him. What do you think? What's an acceptable level of risk? Is it self defense if we can say he "might now or might in the future" threaten us? Never mind, I'll ask you when you get over being so scared about 9/11.

To: Neocon who wrote (132857)	10/7/2004 5:47:49 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Neocon, sometimes it's good to look back and learn so we don't make the same mistakes over and over. In view of the "final" reports on the danger that Saddam posed to the U.S. and the intelligence assements addressing his lack of connection to 9/11, I wonder how you feel about your earlier post that: "Perhaps you didn't notice, we were attacked in New York and Washington a couple of years ago. Perhaps you also didn't notice, but David Kay ascertained that the Iraqis were working on increasing the range of their ballistic missiles. True, they would not yet have reached the United States, unless we presumed they were on a naval platform, but they would have reached American troops in Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and perhaps parts of NATO......... I like my earlier post to Cobalt Blue. I think it's a lot more perceptive. I.e.: To: CobaltBlue who wrote (130223) 4/28/2004 2:13:14 AM From: cnyndwllr Read Replies (2) of 147336 Let me suggest another "what's hard to believe;" it's hard to believe that Iraq had ANY stockpiles of wmds. I get tired of the Bush people saying how they could hide them in a cellar, a cave, a turkey farm, etc. Of course they could, but Kay's statements were very clear and he obviously wasn't basing them on the premise that he'd painstakingly searched the entire Iraqi Nation. The thing the "we're not sure" crowd doesn't seem to see, or doesn't want to see, is that while the wmds might be easy to hide, the PEOPLE that were in positions to create them, store them and hide them are in public view. They've been "interrogated," their stories have been compared, their paperwork has been examined and they've clearly been offered huge rewards for information that this Administration could use to justify the war and assure its reelection. The result; nada, nothing, zip. They've all told the same story; no wmds stockpiles, big or little. That dog just won't hunt and the U.S. government has known that for a long time. It's time to stop accepting simplistic excuses like "it's easy to hide wmds." Either that or it's time to admit that some of us don't like to think for ourselves.