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Rep Murtha and Iraq
- Thread starter K80Geoff
- Start date
So much for my Monte (big scowl) :barf:
The point is that we have disrupted a crucial balance in the middle east. In eliminating what was a minor irritant in Saddam we have opened the door to a much more formidable adversary. We cannot repeat CANNOT leave it like this.
To paraphrase Colin Powell, we broke it so we bought it.
The point is that we have disrupted a crucial balance in the middle east. In eliminating what was a minor irritant in Saddam we have opened the door to a much more formidable adversary. We cannot repeat CANNOT leave it like this.
To paraphrase Colin Powell, we broke it so we bought it.
Eghad,
Keep in mind that the middle east only supplies about 16% of our oil imports. We don't have to change the foundation of our entire economy to eliminate our dependence on middle east oil. We just have to tweak the system. Of course, big oil might have some words about that....
Keep in mind that the middle east only supplies about 16% of our oil imports. We don't have to change the foundation of our entire economy to eliminate our dependence on middle east oil. We just have to tweak the system. Of course, big oil might have some words about that....
We can dramatically reduce our oil and natural gas consumption through nuclear power, enough to stop ME oil imports, and then some. The French get around 85% of their electric from nuclear, which lets them play political power games since they're more energy independent.How do you power trucks, airplanes, automobiles with nuclear reactors?
It's also worth remembering that the ME needs to sell us oil, more than we need to buy it. The entire islamic arab world produces not one exportable manufactured good, no significant agricultural exports, nor any other mineral resource in any abundance. If they didn't sell us oil, they'd all be in Bangladesh-level poverty.
You can use energy from a nuclear reactor to heat underground oil shale deposits in Colorado to the necessary 700+ degrees, and to power the subsurface refrigiration surrounding your drilling site, in order to pump the resulting light sweet crude oil to the surface - there's an estimated 2 trillion barrels of oil in such deposits, enough to supply the entire US at current consumption level for a hundred years.
That's one way to power automobiles and airplanes using nuclear power.
That's one way to power automobiles and airplanes using nuclear power.
Gary Conner
New member
If Bush lied..
If Bush lied about the WMD issue, how did Saddam manage to gas the three thousand Kurds? If we went to war just to steal the oil, why have we not taken it yet? After all, we are paying about two bucks a gallon. If we stole it, shouldn't the law of supply and demand kick in at some point?
Additionally, if Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Bill Clinton, Chuck Schumer, etc. all truly believed Bush lied about the WMD's as they now claim, why did each and every one of them make the exact same claims?
Further, if they truly believed he lied, and we went into Iraq for the wrong reasons as they claim, why haven't those leaders (and noted pinnacles of truth) called for re-instating Saddam as President of Iraq? After all, he is still alive. Wouldn't that be the "honest" thing to do?
If Bush lied about the WMD issue, how did Saddam manage to gas the three thousand Kurds? If we went to war just to steal the oil, why have we not taken it yet? After all, we are paying about two bucks a gallon. If we stole it, shouldn't the law of supply and demand kick in at some point?
Additionally, if Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Bill Clinton, Chuck Schumer, etc. all truly believed Bush lied about the WMD's as they now claim, why did each and every one of them make the exact same claims?
Further, if they truly believed he lied, and we went into Iraq for the wrong reasons as they claim, why haven't those leaders (and noted pinnacles of truth) called for re-instating Saddam as President of Iraq? After all, he is still alive. Wouldn't that be the "honest" thing to do?
gary: saddam got his chemical weapons from us. We have not taken the oil yet because it would look bad. we will wait until the new government is in more control(if it happens) and then they will give us cheap oil, in exchange for us keeping the gov. alive, because belive you me, the only thing keeping them alive now is us.
for that ill quote you as you stated earlier.
we need refineries which we dont have.shouldn't the law of supply and demand kick in at some point?
they had bad intelligence. has this not been gone over?Additionally, if Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Bill Clinton, Chuck Schumer, etc. all truly believed Bush lied about the WMD's as they now claim, why did each and every one of them make the exact same claims?
Further, if they truly believed he lied, and we went into Iraq for the wrong reasons as they claim, why haven't those leaders (and noted pinnacles of truth) called for re-instating Saddam as President of Iraq? After all, he is still alive. Wouldn't that be the "honest" thing to do?
for that ill quote you as you stated earlier.
how did Saddam manage to gas the three thousand Kurds?
Gary Conner
New member
gary: saddam got his chemical weapons from us.
But if he got them from us, how did he not have them?
Heck, even the U.N. kept saying he had them for 12 solid months before went in.
I guess I just don't understand complicated issues.
But if he got them from us, how did he not have them?
Heck, even the U.N. kept saying he had them for 12 solid months before went in.
I guess I just don't understand complicated issues.
gary: I honestly dont know all I have are opinions.
our intelligence agencies cant seem to be getting this stuff right, I dont know how I ever will.
I dont know but that was back in 89? when he used them. long time ago.
plenty of time to either move them, sell them, destroy them, eat them, whatever.
our intelligence agencies cant seem to be getting this stuff right, I dont know how I ever will.
But if he got them from us, how did he not have them?
I dont know but that was back in 89? when he used them. long time ago.
plenty of time to either move them, sell them, destroy them, eat them, whatever.
noone - if Saddam got his chemical weapons from the US, then why is Frans van Anraat, a Dutchman, facing charges of genocide in connection with his supplying chemical weapons to Saddam?
And what about the Russian and French equipment used on Russian-built planes to deploy chemical weapons? Why was Iraq using chemical rounds in FROG-7 missiles, 122 mm rockets, 152 mm artillery and the M-1937 82 mm mortars, all of Russian design?
But even granting that the US did supply Iraq with such weaponry and supplies in its efforts against our mortal enemy at the time, Iran (who sacked the US embassy and held Americans hostage for 444 days), wasn't it even more morally incumbent upon us to strip those weapons from a former ally once his genocidal designs became clear?
And what about the Russian and French equipment used on Russian-built planes to deploy chemical weapons? Why was Iraq using chemical rounds in FROG-7 missiles, 122 mm rockets, 152 mm artillery and the M-1937 82 mm mortars, all of Russian design?
But even granting that the US did supply Iraq with such weaponry and supplies in its efforts against our mortal enemy at the time, Iran (who sacked the US embassy and held Americans hostage for 444 days), wasn't it even more morally incumbent upon us to strip those weapons from a former ally once his genocidal designs became clear?
Western support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war has clearly been established. It is no secret that the Soviet Union, West Germany, France, many western companies, and Britain provided military support and even components of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction program. The role the United States played in the war against Iran however, although minor in comparison, is not as well known.
After the revolution, with the Ayatollahs in power and levels of enmity between Iran and the U.S. running high, early on during the Iran-Iraq war, realpolitikers in Washington came to the conclusion that Saddam was the lesser of the two evils, and hence efforts to support Iraq became the order of the day, both during the long war with Iran and afterward. This led to what later became known as the Iraq-gate scandals.
Much of what Iraq received from the West, however, were not arms per se, but so-called dual-use technology— mainframe computers, armored ambulances, helicopters, chemicals, and the like, with potential civilian uses as well as military applications. It is now known that a vast network of companies, based in the U.S. and elsewhere, fed Iraq's warring capabilities right up until August 1990, when Saddam invaded Kuwait [6].
link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_iraq_war#U.S.-Iraqi_arms_transfers_in_the_war
You don't have to dig deep to find that from 1982 to 1990 the United States supplied Iraq with not only conventional arms and cash but also chemical and biological materials, including the precursors for anthrax and botulism. It's another example of nations playing with fire when they form dangerous alliances.
In 1980, Iran and Iraq launched a horrendous eight-year war that would kill at least 1 million people. With the Ayatollah Khomeini controlling Iran, the U.S. feared a radical Islamic takeover of the region, so it began cozying up to Saddam -- you know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
With Iran holding the upper hand in 1982, the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the State Department's list of terrorist nations over congressional objections. A year later, the Reagan administration issued National Security Decision Directive 114, which stated that the United States would do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent the fall of Iraq.
Then, just before Christmas 1983, Reagan sent Donald Rumsfeld -- yes, the current secretary of defense -- to Baghdad to discuss resuming official diplomatic relations with Saddam, relations that had been severed during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
On March 24, 1984, Rumsfeld was back in Baghdad -- the same day United Press International reported that Iraqi soldiers had used mustard gas laced with a nerve agent on Iranian forces. That didn't seem to matter. Even though the State Department recognized on March 5, 1984, that "Iraq has used lethal chemical weapons" in violation of the Geneva accords, full diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Iraq were restored in November.
link:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/042303E.shtml
After Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad in 1983, U.S.
intelligence began supplying the Iraqi dictator with
satellite photos showing Iranian deployments. Official
documents suggest that America may also have secretly
arranged for tanks and other military hardware to be shipped
to Iraq in a swap deal--American tanks to Egypt, Egyptian
tanks to Iraq. Over the protest of some Pentagon skeptics,
the Reagan administration began allowing the Iraqis to buy a
wide variety of "dual use" equipment and materials from
American suppliers. According to confidential Commerce
Department export-control documents obtained by NEWSWEEK, the
shopping list included a computerized database for Saddam's
Interior Ministry (presumably to help keep track of political
opponents); helicopters to transport Iraqi officials;
television cameras for "video surveillance applications";
chemical-analysis equipment for the Iraq Atomic Energy
Commission (IAEC), and, most unsettling, numerous shipments
of "bacteria/fungi/protozoa" to the IAEC. According to
former officials, the bacterial cultures could be used to
make biological weapons, including anthrax. The State
Department also approved the shipment of 1.5 million atropine
injectors, for use against the effects of chemical weapons,
but the Pentagon blocked the sale. The helicopters, some
American officials later surmised, were used to spray poison
gas on the Kurds.
link
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_cr/s092002.html
this link has a timeline, but is probably a really biased source.
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/arming_iraq.php
the above links show that we knew he was psychopath from the very begining.
edit: in the above posts I only put some parts that caught my eye. You have to read all of it in context to get the whole feel for it.
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/arming_iraq.php
wasn't it even more morally incumbent upon us to strip those weapons from a former ally once his genocidal designs became clear?
the above links show that we knew he was psychopath from the very begining.
edit: in the above posts I only put some parts that caught my eye. You have to read all of it in context to get the whole feel for it.
+1Mid term politics as usual
This is 5% about Iraq and the troops and 95% about the two political parties trying to score points against each other.
DonR101395
New member
Eghad wrote:
"The USMC has recalled 18,000 Interceptor Vests in additon to the 5000 that are under investigation already. This was in the Marine Corps Times. Seems that some were tested and they failed. When the original records were pulled they had failed some tests but were shipped anyway."
The vests were pulled at the manufacturer's request. They met the DOD standard for the contract, but did not meet the company standards.
edited
Murtha needs to retire and bask in his past instead of making a fool of himself in the present.