(Gloves Coming Off)
Strangely enough, the tons of sarin and cyclosarin sitting all over Iraq still have not been found, yet it is anti-interventionists getting raked over the coals over one old, non-working sarin grenade. Did I expect to find some chemical weapons before the war started? Yes, there were chemical weapons present when I participated in the first Gulf War. The question was never would the weapons be found, but in what amount and condition. We found one fucking grenade. How many Americans have perished or been wounded in search of that solitary grenade? Weren’t we promised tons of fresh chemical weapons were to be found – pointed directly at little Buffy and Claire as they played in their backyards in Suburbs, USA?
Its interesting that you pro-war folks don’t talk about the sick troops from the Khamisiyah incident during the first Gulf War, yet you gibber mindlessly on about the pursuit of one grenade that has cost thousands of lives. Perhaps ya’ll should research that issue. You can then show some “Support for the Troops” by asking why Bush I, Clinton and Bush II and Cheney in his prior role as Secretary of Defense willfully ignored the growing problem of sick veterans from this incident until the roar was too loud to continue to disregard.
Why do these pro-war chickenhawks scream about “Support for the Troops” while ignoring the thousands of sick vets from Gulf War I?
Because their real “Support for the Troops” amounts to jackshit – and it always has. They care only about politics and suppressing free speech by trying to label standard First Amendment dissent as traitorous while attempting to shield their boy in Washington from any criticism.
The don’t-criticize-or-I’ll-call-you-a-traitor crowd – who are never anywhere to be found when sick veterans need their “Support” – disgust me to no end.
Iraq never declared this category of WMD. This single shell invalidates the entire UN inspection program, which was based on total declaration, followed by accouting of total destruction.
Our men had to forgo easy victories on the Highway of Death, in exchange Iraq must also comply with the cease fire.
5/19/2004 10:07:00 AM
I think the point James is making Rip is that this is NOT a WMD by any stretch of the imagination.
Richard
5/22/2004 5:02:00 AM
A gallon of Sarin mix isn’t a WMD?!
Please calculate the lethality of this device, properly used, and compare it to the Aum devices deployed in Tokyo.
5/23/2004 4:49:00 AM
Ripper-
AFAIK we still don’t have complete confirmation that the material was in fact sarin. Also, the body count from the Japanese attacks was relatively low – you would need vast amounts to inflict significant casualties. And those vast amounts have not materialized, nor is it likely they will.
5/24/2004 3:27:00 AM
” you would need vast amounts to inflict significant casualties.”,
No!, this is you mistake, the whole point of WMD is that small amount can inflict disproportionate casualties. Show me your cacluations for the Tokyo attack, with a gallon of Sarin, properly dispersed.
As for doubt, we know Saddam had much more than a gallon of Sarin, we still wonder what he did with the rest.
5/25/2004 10:15:00 AM
We wonder what he did with the rest? This is no good is it?
Question Ripper – where is it? – no speculation about hiding because I remember all of those phoney photographs Colin Powell showed the world.
That turned out to be completely untrue.
I think you know as well as I do that your position is pretty desperate.
Richard
5/26/2004 7:05:00 AM
The Iraqis always said that they couldn’t find the leftover chemical weapons after Gulf War 1. There was a small portion of their stocks, like 5%, that they couldn’t account for. They said it was blown up by the USA, or misplaced.
One sad result of the aftermath of the war was that Saddam Hussein, of all people, turned out to be more truthful than the USA.
I asked both of you Richard and Paul to provide calculations of the lethality of this gallon of Sarin mix. If you bothered to comply and contemplate the massive destruction this single device could enable someone to wreak on your country you wouldn’t be so argumenative.
I suspect you may be innumerate, if so approach the problem visually. Tonight, download the films of Kurdish dead, then try to understand each of the children was killed by a very tiny drop of Sarin.
Do not speak again until your heart and mind have grown to understand the horror you minimize.
And never again tell anyone “There was a small portion of their stocks, like 5%”, five percent of Hell is not a small portion.
5/26/2004 9:37:00 AM
According to Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez, this particular find is not what the U.S. was looking for when they invaded Iraq. In other words, this 1980s era shell is not evidence of the “weapons of mass destruction” the chickenhawks are sqwaking about. Even the Bush Administration has stayed away from such a declaration. Only the chickenhawks and “kill all the Arabs” crew is triumphant over these two leftover shells.
Back to the drawing board for the pro-war crowd:
http://www.wokr13.tv/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=83E2BD4A-5F1C-4E84-9166-4E3A8E847643
Semper Fi
5/26/2004 11:21:00
Ripper,
you are cheapening the argument with your bogus claims of mathematical superiority.
Each Kurdish child was killed by a single drop of Sarin, eh?
Here’s a clue, sport: it was MUCH more than a drop per child, because the damn drops were encased in artillery shells, not generally known for their precise delivery methods.
Now why would that be?
Could it be that dispensing ONE SINGLE DROP per victim is completely, utterly unrealistic?
Could it be that in fact you need to lob many shells containing the stuff in order to successfully inflict casualties on a large number of people, as happened with the Kurds?
The ONLY way your mathematical argument would be even REMOTELY valid is if a goddamn EYEDROPPER was your “properly used” method of delivery. These Kurdish casualties of which you speak were indeed the results of MANY such bombs that were lobbed at them.
If a bomb containing this “lethal gallon” with which you are so obsessed goes off, it will kill the people in the immediate and neighboring areas — each leftover drop is not going to go rampaging around the country until it has a confirmed kill.
The Tokyo attack of 3/20/95 had 11 fatalities (http://www.sma.org/smj/97june3.htm). According to your logic only 11 drops were used overall. And many people who WERE exposed to it survived, so bollocks to the equation of 1 drop = 1 life.
In summary, your hopelessly optimized scenario of all the drops in a gallon each killing one person is so ludicrous it really doesn’t deserve any more consideration.
Hell, I feel stupid even for pointing this out to you.
5/27/2004 1:35:00 AM
sorry about the double post.
5/27/2004 1:39:00 AM
Crap, AOL’s REALLY acting up on me. Sorry, James.
5/27/2004 1:43:00 AM
Paul, each child may have be exposed to much more, but the first drop or sobbing breath killed them.
James, the chickehawk argument is evil and unamerican. Please retract it now, or get the hell out of this country. I belevive loyal Marines aretrained to have more respect for the Constitution.
5/27/2004 10:59:00 AM
Ripper, I’ll retract the chickenhawk argument when the pro-war crowds ends the “traitor”, “Saddam sympathizer” and other such talk. Further, demanding that other people die for your unncessary interventionist war is about as unAmerican as it gets. Further, as far the Constitution goes, nowhere in that document does it grant government the right to prolong wars between two other nations (like we did with Iran and Iraq), provide material, financial and intelligence assistance to dictators (like the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush Administrations did with Saddam from his days as a CIA trainee in 1958 to 1990 when he stopped being our boy by seizing oilfields in Kuwait – after first asking for permission to do so and being told we didn’t concern ourselves with his beef with Kuwait).
Further, wasn’t it John Quincy Adams who counselled against going abroad in search of monsters to destroy? Our decades of collusion and assistance of a brutal dictator like Saddam was not a specific right granted by the Constitution. Further, it violates the very spirit of the drafters of that great document. Don’t throw that in my face if you’re going to use it as doormat to justify interventionist wars that contradict the views of the men who shed their own blood to bring that document into being.
You get the Hell out. I’m not going anywhere.
5/27/2004 11:22:00
Ripper:
I’m not betraying anyone. It is you, the chickhenhawk coward who has betrayed those men and women dying in the desert at your demand.
You are a shameful, scared little man who thinks that flailing about on the internet is some new form of bravery. Until you put some action behind your bravado you are a certified coward who believes that others should die for what you want, while you play about on the internet.
You deserve pity more than contempt. Meanwhile, men and women are dying for you while you sit with thumbs up your ass projecting your inner demons on the rest of us.
5/28/2004 1:20:00
Your front, playing a creature to stupid to know America is not Sparta, and too evil to desire it should not be Sparta, convinces me.
5/28/2004 3:43:00 AM
“Ripper, I’ll retract the chickenhawk argument when the pro-war crowds ends the “traitor”, “Saddam sympathizer” and other such talk.”
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Just because your losing the traitor argument, you’ll prove it right by using the chickenhawk attack on the Constitution?
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“Further, demanding that other people die for your unncessary interventionist war is about as unAmerican as it gets. Further, as far the Constitution goes, nowhere in that document does it grant government the right to prolong wars between two other nations ”
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Read the thing, it don’t see any retrictions on the type of wars. We prolonged the war between Germany and England, do you object on phony procedural grounds?
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“You get the Hell out. I’m not going anywhere.”
You’ve already left, in our entire history no loyal American has ever used the chickenhawk argument. We’ll know from now on that you are an unrepentant and evil comrade of Oppenheimer, Rosenberg, Hiss and Jennings.
5/28/2004 8:13:00 AM
I’ve lost no traitor argument to anyone. And nothing in the Constitution says I can’t call a chickenhawk on his demand that other people’s children die in interventionist wars while the individual screaming “War, War, War” continues to sit on his own ass.
And now you – who demands that other Americans die in unnecessary wars of intervention are telling me that I’m not a loyal American? Try again coward. If this war is so necessary for the protection of this country why are you debating me instead of shipping off to basic training to ensure the safety of this country? Your unwillingness to take arms to defend your view on this war exposes you for the coward that you are.
5/28/2004 9:12:00
Ripper,
there needs to be a way to distinguish a person with the courage to fight a war in which he believes vs. a person who doesn’t. “Chickenhawk,” like it or not, fits the bill nicely for the latter. Let that person’s conscience determine whether it is a slur or not.
I realize the military isn’t for everyone, but fortunately there exists a golden opportunity for the pro-war patriots (like you?) to REALLY show their support for the war effort by dropping what they’re doing now and offering whatever skills they have and apply them over there. The best part is, it would only require some simple training courses, nothing arduous like boot camp or anything like that.
Here are some places I would suggest these brave souls contact:
http://www.blackwatersecurity.com/
http://www.mpri.com/site/subchannels/job_listings.cfm
http://www.custerbattles.com/careers/index.html
I bet these companies would be a perfect match for a fellah with vim & vigor such as yourself. Keep us posted.
5/28/2004 11:36:00 AM
Paul, you inhuman bastard, I notice you haven’t watched the Kudish WMD films yet, because you hate children who aren’t from terrorist clans like yours.
We don’t need to have a word like chickenhawk because loyal Americans don’t seek to divide the coutry in time of war. The word is only used by commies and terrorists, like you, trying to butress you lies about the WMD’s you friends are preparing to use against us. Watch your back, your buddies are sloppy and often kill guilty bystanders, like yourself, in addition to Americans.
And James, I just hope you are betraying your side secretly as we speak, a twisted soul can make an excellent double agent, all the while looking to the world like a simple minded monster.
5/28/2004 12:14:00 PM