WMD Mega-Thread

[Destructo6]

What about when the UN wants unfettered access to US National Parks, or your guns?

Until a National Park invades a neighboring country and gets a UN-brokered cease fire after being expelled from the ill-gotten gains, that rhetorical statement isn't applicable in the least.

 

[jmbg29]

President Bush himself has cited Iraq's "gassing its own people," specifically at Halabja, as a reason to topple Saddam Hussein.

Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border.

The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.

Please point out the distortion between what the author cites President Bush as having said, and what the author stipulates as having happened.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Destructo6]

Perhaps the strongest argument left for taking us to war quickly is that Saddam Hussein has committed human rights atrocities against his people.

Wrong. The strongest argument is that Iraq was in violation of the cease fire agreement of 1991.

it may be more important that Iraq has the most extensive river system in the Middle East.

No secret there. Afterall, the Shatt al Arab waterway was the point of contention in the Iran-Iraq war.

 

[Jim March]

I know what happened.

Taco Bell had just opened a franchise, and they weren't used to those bean burritos .

 

[Khornet]

Granted that we can't know

...practically anything about what really went on--including whether the pro-Bush or anti-Bush sides are lying--

I've gotta ask:

Mr Pelletier, if you knew this in 1991...HOW COME YOU'RE ONLY SPEAKING UP NOW?? That's wierd. And if this has been in the public domain forever, and the Guardian didn't pick it up, and Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, Dennis Kucinich et al didn't shout it from the rooftops, why is that?

Seems we're getting a lot of people suddenly speaking up who knew all along that Bush was lying. What were they waiting for?

It all has a strong piscatorial bouquet to me.

 

[Khornet]

DaveB,

STOP!!!
DON'T EAT THAT!!!
Haven't you heard of West Nile Virus?

Anyway, hats off to you. You did the manly thing.

(even if you did sneak in another rant)

 

[DaveB]

Well, Khornet, I thought I was wrong once...


but I found out later that I was mistaken.


db

 

[SkunkApe]

Jmbg29,

What the author is syaing here is this:

1) A battle took place in Halabja between the Iraqis and the Iranians.

2) Kurdish people were killed by gas.

3) The Iraqis didn't have the kind of gas that was used. The Iranians did.

4) The Iranians probably gassed the Kurds, not the Iraqis.

5) Even if it was the Iraqis, the Iranians were the intended target, the Kurds were just collateral damage.

At least, thats the way I read it.

No real need to read it though. Its easier just to dismiss it as leftist lies.

Only Democrats lie.

 

[Sergeant Bob]

Khornet

Mr Pelletier, if you knew this in 1991...HOW COME YOU'RE ONLY SPEAKING UP NOW?? That's wierd. And if this has been in the public domain forever, and the Guardian didn't pick it up, and Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, Dennis Kucinich et al didn't shout it from the rooftops, why is that?

Follow the money to.......Amazon.com
Customers who bought titles by Stephen Pelletiere also bought titles by these authors:

Gore Vidal
Noam Chomsky
Greg Palast
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
William Rivers Pitt

 

[DonQatU]

Skunkape, I may have a bit more information than you do about this incident.

It was the Iraqis who hit the people at Halabja.

Don

 

[SkunkApe]

DonQatU,

Intentionally? Or were they targeting the Iranians? If not, why did they gas Kurdish civilians?

 

[Jim March]

OK, I'll be serious now.

The Kurds were gassed for three reasons:

1) Baath party policy calls for a near-constant state of war to "build the national character". No, I'm not kidding. There's been detailed citations posted here on THR, search legal/political for "Baath Party ideology".

2) The Kurds are a separate ethnic group who inhabit parts of Iraq, Iran and Turkey. They were screwed out of a homeland by the Brits, and have been grumpy ever since. They want to rebuild "Kurdistan" out of pieces of all three, and those three states are hence less than amused. Turkey has done all sorts of horrific things to the Kurds, but in Iraq it's worse because a lot of oil is under the Iraqi chunk of "Kurdistan". (Surprisingly, Iran has probably treated their Kurds the best of the three.)

3) Because the Kurds have more loyalty to each other than their respective "nations", they do a lot of cross-border smuggling. Especially of guns - Iranian policy was to keep the Iranian Kurds well supplied with bangthings knowing they'd share with their buddies across the border in Iraq and keep Saddam permanently annoyed.

Once you know all this, finding a motive for Saddam to gas Iraqi Kurds is easy. There IS no motive for Iran to do it, especially not Iraqi Kurds.

 

[David Park]

I always thought the reason for bringing up Halabja was not to prove that the Iraqi regime was evil (there's plenty of evidence of that), but to prove that Iraq had chemical weapons. This article admits that Iraq had chemical weapons, but that they might not have used those weapons to gas the Kurds in Halabja, or at least they didn't do it intentionally. Either way, Iraq definitely had chemical weapons.

 

[SkunkApe]

I don't think anyone (not even me) denies that Iraq had chemical weapons in 1988.

The question is whether or not he had them (thus constituting an "imminent threat") in 2003.

 

[David Park]

The Guardian's retraction, posted today:

A report which was posted on our website on June 4 under the heading "Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil" misconstrued remarks made by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, making it appear that he had said that oil was the main reason for going to war in Iraq. He did not say that. He said, according to the Department of Defence website, "The ... difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq." The sense was clearly that the US had no economic options by means of which to achieve its objectives, not that the economic value of the oil motivated the war. The report appeared only on the website and has now been removed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/corrections/story/0,3604,971436,00.html

 

[Sir Galahad]

Who cares?!? A dictator is gone (probably playing Crisco-Twister with Osama and Quadaffi in Libya). What else need be said? He cannot ACQUIRE NBC weapons as he was fervently trying to do. Pre-emption. A stitch in time saves nine million lives.

 

[jmbg29]

No real need to read it though. Its easier just to dismiss it as leftist lies.

No. What I am saying is that there is a need to read it.

The author quotes President Bush as saying that

The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured.

Then he says

The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja. The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent -- that is, a cyanide-based gas -- which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.

I got the following information from a U.K. website specifically because I know how much you trust them over your fellow Americans. To wit:

Mustard gas has always been seen as a particularly nasty poison, resulting in a painful and often slow death, and, ironically, whilst it causes cancer, it has also been used to help cure it. It was in 1919, not long after the first usage of mustard gas, that it was noted that victims had a low blood cell count, because the mustard gas attacked white blood cells, and bone marrow aplasia (breakdown).

You can find the website here: http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/mustard/mustard.htm

5) Even if it was the Iraqis, the Iranians were the intended target, the Kurds were just collateral damage. At least, thats the way I read it.

That doesn't surprise me. Perhaps before you venture further in your quest to tilt at windmills, you might try to learn about WMDs and why they are noted as such. Perhaps if you had the slightest inkling about how they work, what effects they have, etc. you wouldn't ask questions like

Intentionally? Or were they targeting the Iranians?

Maybe learn a little about the very looooonnnggg history of the Kurds and their neighbors, and you won't have to ask

If not, why did they gas Kurdish civilians?

Not knowing anything about these subjects isn't a crime, but it does tend make the accusations that you post the immediate object of gales of laughter. Then again, I always have use for a good laugh.

Only Democrats lie.

Not true really. It's just that they generally aren't any good at it. Lying effectively requires wit and cunning. Something (thank God) that most simple minded leftists lack.

 

[SkunkApe]

jmbg29,

Although I appreciate your response, I was refering my questions to DonQatU, who implied that he had first-hand knowledge of the gas attacks in question.

I have plenty of access to news accounts and history books, thank you.

SkunkApe

 

[SkunkApe]

By the way, are you say that if the U.S. attacks Iraqi troops and civilians die, thats unavoidable collateral damage; but if the Iraqis attack Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians die, thats an atrocity?

You're still dead, but since we didn't really mean to kill YOU, that doesn't count. We're Americans. We're always right. At least as long as there's a Republican in the White House, anyway. Now if it was that Clinton fellar, now thats another matter.

 

[Thumper]

I have plenty of access to news accounts and history books, thank you.

Though he and I frequently disagree, I can assure you that DonQatu recieved his information from a more reliable source than history books and news accounts.

Haven't we had this discussion before, Skunk?

The Kurds were gassed because they were a thorn in Saddam's side. Some could argue that, compared to some of Hussein's other "thorns," they got off easily.

When your efforts to malign the U.S. stray to becoming a Hussein apologist, you render your arguments irrelevant to knowledgeable people.

You'd better stick with the "No blood for oil" crowd.

 

[rrader]

SkunkApe wrote:

By the way, are you say that if the U.S. attacks Iraqi troops and civilians die, thats unavoidable collateral damage; but if the Iraqis attack Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians die, thats an atrocity?

You're still dead, but since we didn't really mean to kill YOU, that doesn't count. We're Americans. We're always right. At least as long as there's a Republican in the White House, anyway. Now if it was that Clinton fellar, now thats another matter.[Unquote]

You need to take a step back and re-evaluate your post. You are drawing an equivalence between US-caused civilian deaths, deaths resulting from a war not of our choosing and which US Military personnel take pains to aviod, with the deliberate targeting of civilians by an Iraqi dictatorship with a long history of such brutality.

There is no equivalence in either numbers or motive.

As an example, note that 3000 Americans lost their lives on 9/11 partly because the US Military was not willing to risk large numbers of civilian deaths in a strike on a Sudanese hospital where Bin Laden was known to be receiving kidney treatments several years before the acts of islam-inspired genocide on 9/11.

 

[DonQatU]

Skunkape, the Kurds were taking advantage of the conditions created by the Iran/Iraq war to start their own rebellion. Saddam couldn't tolerate this and hit them back hard with chemicals. Ruthless? Sure was! But, there was very little protest from the US at the time.

So it's very hypocritical of the neo-con warhawks to keep bringing up the old "Saddam used WMDs on his own people and the Iranians" mantra. We knew about it at the time and did nothing!

In fact, we assisted him in doing so during the Iran/Iraq war. We provided the Iraqis with intelligence and targeting information so they could more effectively employ their chemical/nerve agents against the Iranians!

Keep in mind, Iran was the "bogeyman" and Saddam was our "friend" back then (even though Saddam was employing "WMDs" on the Iranians and Kurds at the time).

Don

 

[jmbg29]

I have plenty of access to news accounts and history books, thank you.

Then you might want to consider using them.

It may help you avoid non sequiturs like this

By the way, are you say that if the U.S. attacks Iraqi troops and civilians die, thats unavoidable collateral damage; but if the Iraqis attack Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians die, thats an atrocity?

 

[DonQatU]

When your efforts to malign the U.S. stray to becoming a Hussein apologist, you render your arguments irrelevant to knowledgeable people.

Thumper, I'll let Skunkape speak for himself, but I don't think he was being a "Hussein apologist".

Many are questioning our motives for attacking and occupying Iraq. That doesn't make them "Hussein apologists".

If you've been watching the news lately, the "WMD" threat from Iraq was HIGHLY "exagerated" (read....a big lie).

Don

 

[SIGarmed]

Well, I'll have to take some of these posts around here with a serious grain of salt. Is this THL or the democratic underground?