[Red Rider]

Big Ben - your rationalizing, not being rational. I'll never understand people like you. The facts were there. The Kurdish dead don't lie. If it wasn't good enough for you, nothing would be short of more American dead - and then I doubt you'd have the resolve, but that is speculation on my part.

You keep missing my point about internment, yet making it for me. Yes, the interned committed little or no treason, as too the Jewish dead fought back no longer. I'm not advocating that action, I'm stating the fact. Given your grasp of such a simple concept is beyond my repeated attempts to instill it in you, I'm done. Believe CNN and the BBC, disbelieve those like myself that have been in the belly of the beast. I fought long enough for you to have the right to believe whatever you want, but I cannot help but lament the conclusions you have freely drawn. God help us all.

The saddest part of all this is every one of my buddies still in the fight has told me that the Iraqi people and the US government are achieving our goals there. Not one of my brothers-in-arms has turned down a chance to go back. Yet more and more of the American people are ready to abandon a fight they aren't even in while we are winning, giving strength to the enemy, disheartening our troops, and trying to lose this fight for petty political reasons. I'm a 70% disabled vet, facing more surgery as soon as tomorrow afternoon, otherwise I'd still be on the hunt.

So my time is gone, but as this past weekend showed me when I visited with many of our warriors, we still have plenty of good men and women willing to put it on the line for what is right. So earn your yen and drink your sake. I take comfort that President Bush and our servicemembers still recognize the truth in Edmund Burke's (January 12, 1729 – July 9, 1797) words: "All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" - and they will fight on. Good men, and women, will continue to do something.

[Big Ben]

Red Rider,

I'm not rationalizing, just stating facts. You're trying to redefine basic terms, confusing decades-old information with recent facts, and boldly asserting things as if that made them true.

I got your point about internment, since it's pretty much self evident: If you lock people up, they can't commit crimes. If that's all you mean by "effective", then you're right. Locking up every biker in the US would be an "effective" way to shut down biker meth gangs. It would also be wrong, inefficient, and stupid to do so. WWII internment was the same.

Can I just ask what "The Kurdish dead don't lie" is supposed to mean? I honestly don't see what you're getting at there. No one is denying Kurds were slaughtered.

Even though we clearly disagree politically, I sincerely appreciate the sacrifices of people like you who serve, and I hope your surgery goes well.

[Red Rider]

Five thousand Kurds were gassed by Saddam in Halapja.......mustard gas. A WMD.

Thanking us for our service when you don't honor our deeds is beyond lame. It is insane. Are your thanking me for my "misguided" efforts? Why? It makes no sense - you see no threat yet you thank us for facing it? More madness....... It would be like me thanking Bin Laden because he's trying to "save" me if I'd just surrender and just convert.

You seem to think this war is about politics. Sad. Ignorant. Dangerous. It is about a people that want to destroy us "infidels" and our way of life, about providing more people with a taste of freedom and too it is about us confronting Evil rather than appeasing it. Yeah, one party has now made it about politics because they lost the power they had and are now selling their souls to get it back. A shameful, evil deal. Join them if you will - it's your soul.

[Big Ben]

You'll notice that I already mentioned the Kurds having been gassed, so why bing it up again as if it proves something? That was more than a decade ago. Before the no-fly zones. Long, long before the current war. And, here's the big point, there is no evidence that Saddam still had those weapons when we invaded, and we would have found it if it existed. You're grasping at straws here.

You seem pretty quick to jump to conclusions about what I believe. Did I say anything about not honoring the deeds of those who serve? No, I said the opposite, and it's dishonest and rude of you to suggest otherwise.

I'm thanking you for being willing to put your life on the line for our nation. If politicians use that for misguided purposes, that doesn't take away from the nobility of that sacrifice.

You're right about one thing, though. One party has made this war about politics: the one that controls the White House.

[Red Rider]

You are hopeless. Saying I am grasping at straws as you fill your arguments with them is ridiculous. And saying I am grasping at straws does not mean I am, its just another insubstantial attack tactic.

You dismiss my arguments because they don't meet your belief system. Despite Saddam's history of acquiring and using WMD; despite the proof of the dead; despite the public evidence; despite the 8 years of Clinton saying the same thing (because my teams were on it then, too); despite Saddam's troops shooting at the US military (me included) for 12 straight years after '91; despite the unoppossed presence of organized terrorism in Iraq before 9/11; despite Saddam's non-compliance with a dozen UN resolutions; despite his funding ($25K per) of Palestinian bombers; despite the proof that he bought off the French and Russian govt's to keep them from siding with us - despite it all, it's the same crap: Bush's fault. MI-6 is wrong; DIA is wrong; NSA is wrong; CIA is wrong - because Saddam told you so. Insane.

Your probably of the same mindset that thinks Bush was a draft dodging coward. He was an F-105 pilot. Have any idea what the training mortality rate for single engine fighters is? Nevermind, reality is beyond the new Democrats. I know, I used to be one until Mogadishu. And now they want to cut & run again. Cowards.

[Big Ben]

Once again, you're jumping to all sorts of conclusions about what you assume I believe (yeah, we naive liberals all thought Saddam was honest ), and bringing up all sorts of irrelevant information because I've shown you were factually wrong on your main assertion. (What the hell does Bush's NG record have to do with anything?) You won't stay on the topic because you know you've got nothing.

Like I said before, everyone who was paying any attention at all knows that Saddam had chemical weapons in the 1980s--that's never been in dispute. The question is whether Saddam still had WMD in the run-up to the current war. You don't invade someone for weapons he used to have. All the evidence that has been discovered so far says he didn't. (It's impossible to prove a negative, and they may eventually find evidence, but it's unlikely considering how long they've been looking for it.)

Yeah, Clinton believed Saddam had WMD, Gore believed Saddam had WMD, most of us believed it--until team after team of inspectors was sent in and reported nothing to be found. Rush Limbaugh and his dishonest ilk went on and on about how once we went in, we'd find WMD all over the place, and those liberals would have to admit they were wrong. But you know, we went in, and years later we still haven't found anything. And Rush still isn't man enough to admit he was wrong.

I dismiss your arguments not because they don't fit my belief system, but because they don't fit the facts. If there is even a single piece of evidence that Saddam had WMD in the lead-up to the current war, feel free to mention it. Somehow I think if it existed, the Bush administration would have mentioned it by now.

[Red Rider]

You're lost. The inspectors didn't say that Saddam didn't have WMD, they said they couldn't tell because of the lack of cooperation and obvious obfuscation. And you still keep falling back into that BS that this war is only about WMDs.

No one is so blind as he who will not see.

[Big Ben]

I have the facts on my side, so I'm lost, huh?

I never said the war was only about WMDs (Stop making baseless assumptions--things are not true just because you want them to be.) I just said we haven't found any evidence of them, and the facts back me up. You don't have any evidence to refute this, so you resort to pompous insults like "lost", "sad", "ignorant, "blind", "hopeless", "insane". Classic pounding on the table.

I'm not so blindly partisan that I have to demonize the other side to make my points. Facts and logic are enough for me. I suggest to you that if you think half of your fellow Americans are ignorant, blind, and insane, you might want to do some rethinking.

[GreyBear]

[quote=Red Rider]
Thanking us for our service when you don't honor our deeds is beyond lame. It is insane. Are your thanking me for my "misguided" efforts? Why? It makes no sense - you see no threat yet you thank us for facing it? More madness....... It would be like me thanking Bin Laden because he's trying to "save" me if I'd just surrender and just convert.



Strange way of thinking to me. As if honoring the sacrifices a person makes is dependant on totally agreeing with them on every issue. And that just isn't reality. I am thankful for the service a lot of people perform. Our men and women in the armed forces, law enforcement, the medical professions....but I don't agree with everything they do or all thier policies. But individual soldiers and cops don't make policies do they? They swear an oath and then do thier duty, as defined by those in command. And sometimes history lets us look back and say the policy they were enforcing was right on...and sometimes it wasn't.
Growing up, in the South in the 50's we lived in a peaceful, safe place. Much of that was due to the cops that did thier service. And I appreciate what they did. But these same cops also enforced a policy known as segregation. And that policy was wrong. But enforcing it was thier job, so they did it.
Having respect for those that put thier butts on the line is what real folks do. Agreeing or disagreeing over the policy decisions of those in power is what makes this a free country.


As to the WMD issue: two things come to mind. 1) I must assume that Saddam and his crew were as least as smart as the average crack dealer. And if you let a crack dealer have 2 months advance notice of when he was getting raided you wouldn't find any crack either. If all the WMD had little beeper/ trackers on them, I wonder how many would be beeping their ***es off in Syrai now. 2) If there was nothing to be found and the government knew this when they went in it seems they would have pulled the WMD equivilent of making sure they had a throwdown. If the whole deal had been set up .....WMDs would have been found with a journalist for CNN in tow.

Are we "winning" the war in Iraq? Good question. But the real question should be is the war in Iraq doing anything to curb terrorist activity against the US, and if so how? And is it the most expedient and efficent way to do so? Both in terms of human life and money. Sure we shut down some training camps. Big deal. That is an inconvienance for those training tangos to be sure but hardly debilitating. You don't stop terrorists by making them move. You do so by deanimating the threat.

Red Rider, I wish you well with your surgery.

Ride Free........

[GreyBear]

Just a passing thought on the latest airport security measures....Since it was supposedly a liquid that, when mixed with another liquid would have serious effects...how come they were just tossing all the things you could no longer have together in a garbage can? Were the liquids dangerous at high altitude but ok in a crowded airport on the ground?



Ride Free......

[chucktx]

Originally Posted by GreyBear

Just a passing thought on the latest airport security measures....Since it was supposedly a liquid that, when mixed with another liquid would have serious effects...how come they were just tossing all the things you could no longer have together in a garbage can? Were the liquids dangerous at high altitude but ok in a crowded airport on the ground?



Ride Free......

HMMMMMMMMMM i had the same thought...........also showed folks opening the bottles and dumping them.........sounds like a "mix" to me.......
chuck

[CD]

Originally Posted by Big Ben

I have the facts on my side, so I'm lost, huh?

BB, you are so bloody naive sometimes. How do you KNOW what the actual facts are? Dan Rather ring a bell? Are you telling someone that has been on the ground there that was in the CN / CT (you do know what that means right?) that they are lying? Don't know WTF they are saying? What qualifies you to pass such judgement?

I never said the war was only about WMDs (Stop making baseless assumptions--things are not true just because you want them to be.) I just said we haven't found any evidence of them, and the facts back me up. You don't have any evidence to refute this, so you resort to pompous insults like "lost", "sad", "ignorant, "blind", "hopeless", "insane". Classic pounding on the table.

Pompous insults? Like "You can't be serious. WMD was defined from the beginning as chem, bio and nuclear weapons. Treaties dealing with the issue almost always use phrasing like "Weapons of Mass Destruction (i.e. nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons)." Bush himself defined it that way in speeches. It's defined that way in most dictionaries. Everyone knew Saddam had Scuds, but ballistic missiles are only considered WMD when combined with one of those technologies. I can't believe you don't know this."

RR never said that a ballistic missile itself was the WMD it is the capability to carry NBC or HE that is the issue.

WMD has never had a specific definition. While discussing scenarios, responses, etc, we never used WMD as a term in reference to capabilities. We always used conventional or NBC to describe threats. This has been refined since I retired.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_of_mass_destruction#Historic_use_of_the_te rm_WMD

Read the current definitions and I think you might be a little more enlightened.

If you think that the MOAB is not a WMD, you have never watched what a fuel / air bomb can do.

I'm not so blindly partisan that I have to demonize the other side to make my points. Facts and logic are enough for me. I suggest to you that if you think half of your fellow Americans are ignorant, blind, and insane, you might want to do some rethinking.

Ignorant, blind or insane? No, not at all, just merely lead down the primrose path of the liberal media. No different than Vietnam really. I'll lay odds that you are one of those that believe the Tet offensive was a glorious VC victory when it was a near total defeat.

Unless you have put some ground time in the middle east I would not ever expect you to even come close to understanding the cultural clashes. We are not dealing with logical, rational people. We are dealing with religious zealots that still think they are fighting the crusades. Even if Saddam had no NBC capability to produce or store NBC, he needed to go, plain and simple. I will assume that you fully realize that Bush was by no means the first President that told the citizenry what they needed to hear in order to go to war.

[CD]

Originally Posted by GreyBear

Just a passing thought on the latest airport security measures....Since it was supposedly a liquid that, when mixed with another liquid would have serious effects...how come they were just tossing all the things you could no longer have together in a garbage can? Were the liquids dangerous at high altitude but ok in a crowded airport on the ground?



Ride Free......

From what I gathered it is a combinaion of liquids / gels etc that were carried in separate containers and combined onboard.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../uchemical.xml

[GreyBear]

Originally Posted by CD

From what I gathered it is a combinaion of liquids / gels etc that were carried in separate containers and combined onboard.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../uchemical.xml

That was the point seems sort of risky to be pouring them all in a trash can. Seems they would have had the bomb disposal units with some sort of containment facilities...to collect them . And perhaps identify who was tossing what...

[hotroadking]

Just curious, what exactly consitutes a WMD, what is the level of deaths that it must cause to be considered Mass.

I mean we know its a Weapon
And we know it' causes Destruction

So all we need to know is the Mass Levels

Is it 2, 20, 200, 2000, 20000, 200000, 2000000?

[CD]

I Googled this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons..._the_te rm_WMD

It has a lot of information regarding the usage and history.

[Big Ben]

CD, Maybe you can classify that as pompous(it looks to me like I'm just stating facts, but tone is in the eye of the beholder), but it just isn't an insult. I never insulted Red Rider, never called him ignorant or insane or evil or sad, just showed him where he was wrong. And you'll see that the Wikipedia article you linked backs me up that NBC is the most common definition for WMD, and the one relevant to this debate.

RR never said that a ballistic missile itself was the WMD it is the capability to carry NBC or HE that is the issue.

This is Red Rider's list of the "WMDs" we found:
Not counting the ones that were relocated, we've publicly recovered over 90 ballistic missles, 500 G-5 arty chem/bio capable warhead shells, a working BioWar lab(that Saddam had no access to).
And of course none of those qualify. I've asked him several times if he's got anything else, and all I've got in reply is condescension.

Look, I would have preferred that Bush had been more specific in his accusations before the war and not tried to spin it using vaguer terms like WMD. The stuff that scared the American people enough to approve the war was the nuke stuff--can't let the smoking bomb be a mushroom cloud, yellowcake in niger, aluminum tubes--but he left himself weasel room since there was a good chance he still had the gas stuff he used against Iran and the Kurds.

Let's not get into another tedious debate about whether WMD was the only reason for the war. I know it wasn't. But it was the main justification the Bush administration used, and it has turned out so far to be baseless. If you think Saddam needed to be taken out for other reasons, I probably agree with you on most of those points, but that doesn't make the claim that Saddam had WMD true.

You call me naive for relying on the public record. What else am I supposed to rely on? Red Rider didn't claim to any personal knowledge of WMD in Iraq either, he also just stated things on the public record (things that happened to be irrelevant.) I also have a really hard time believing that if US intelligence had information about Saddam's WMD, they wouldn't have released it by now. If you have some information I don't have, I'm always willing to learn. But it seems a little strange to call me naive for trusting the public record over the word of some guy on the Internet who was demostrably wrong about other things.

I'll lay odds that you are one of those that believe the Tet offensive was a glorious VC victory when it was a near total defeat.

And you'd lose. I wasn't born yet when it happened, but I learned in my liberal high school from my liberal history teacher using liberal textbooks that Tet was a major military loss for the North Vietnamese, while serving as a propaganda victory. I don't think anyone who pays attention to history at all doesn't know that.

[Killer-B]

That was the point seems sort of risky to be pouring them all in a trash can.

Yep, after considering the big mixing bowls, (trash cans). I’m rather surprised we haven’t blown some of our own folks up yet…

What, if anything, are they thinking.

[bikerjim1]

That's the problem, they're not! IF there were combustible chemicals being dumped in those trash cans, and they happened to ignite, there'd be a WHOLE lot more killed on the ground in the terminals than in the air.

[CD]

I didn't see footage of anyone actually pouring them out. Did I miss it?