I hate being right

Now that all of this Iraq crap is shaking out, I can't help but notice that all of our conservative Bush-supporters seem to be very, very quiet.Winston, Red Vento, Gene?

Schraf - you don't hate being right nearly as much as those folks hate you being right....

LOL!I guess so.They shouldn't hate me, though. I'm just the messenger.[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 07-15-2003]

I visit several message boards and they are all the same - not a single comment about what's been happening from the war supporters.Of course I am not keeping quiet.

Okay, I'll be the token Bush supporter! But I'll do it in my own way.I don't understand all the shock and upset about the evidence for WMD. Of course there wasn't any evidence. Had there actually been persuasive evidence of WMD then the US would have confidentially shared the evidence with France and Germany, and they would have joined the coalition. Since France and Germany did not join us, there must have been no convincing evidence of WMD, and we've known this since before the war began.There are two things about the WMD that I *do* find surprising. The first is that we not only haven't found any recent evidence of WMD, we can't even seem to find any old evidence. This seems very strange, since we absolutely know Saddam used to have them since he used chemical weapons against the Iranians and the Kurds. Where are the old factories, storage depots, training facilities, etc? Could they really have been eradicated so thoroughly? If so, maybe we should hire Saddam (I hear he's still alive) to do toxic waste cleanup here in the states, because he's apparently *really* good at it.The second thing I find strange is that many Iraqi units were found well equipped with gas masks, chemical suits and chemical antidote. Why would they burden their units with all this equipment if not for protection from their own chemical weapons? It doesn't make sense.So my view is that we had insufficient evidence of WMD when we went to war, and therefore the war was wrong (and we're going to pay for it with the "peace"), but that they nonetheless exist out there somewhere.--Percy

And just in case anybody's still keeping score...

Percipient writes:

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The second thing I find strange is that many Iraqi units were found well equipped with gas masks, chemical suits and chemical antidote. Why would they burden their units with all this equipment if not for protection from their own chemical weapons? It doesn't make sense.

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Um, you're ignoring the obvious:They were worried about us using them on them.Yeah, our government talks a good talk about not having chemical weapons, but why on earth would anybody believe us?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

In principle I agree that the US government has hardly been a model of trustworthiness ...but if you are in Europe and see some of the governments here in action...they are hardly in much of a position to criticise the honesty (or intelligence) of anybody either....it is like the entire G7 group plus Russia agreed to a competition to see who could produce the crappiest government in the shortest amount of time...Germany is certainly a frontrunner ....it will probably end up in an 8 way tie.

Mammuthus,Britain would get runners up prize (if not an outright win) for "most unnecessary tiers of beaurocracy".Mark

Sorry mark..I would have to bet on Germany for beaurocracy...I think they invented it...they certainly mastered inefficiency...but as an American living here..I can criticise both my government and theirs and get away with it

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I don't understand all the shock and upset about the evidence for WMD. Of course there wasn't any evidence. Had there actually been persuasive evidence of WMD then the US would have confidentially shared the evidence with France and Germany, and they would have joined the coalition. Since France and Germany did not join us, there must have been no convincing evidence of WMD, and we've known this since before the war began.

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The war was ostensibly fought over the issue of WMD (remember Hans Blix?) - many observers imagined this was just a pretense at the time and so it has proved. The shock for me is the openness and the lack of shame by which the Governments seem to be saying "we deceived you". Whether the end justified the means is another matter entirely, but if any self respecting democratic Government fabricated the truth about say, the economy, heads would surely have rolled. And now, I hear, they'll be mortgaging Iraqi oil to pay for the war - are we still supposed to believe this wasn't about oil?

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There are two things about the WMD that I *do* find surprising. The first is that we not only haven't found any recent evidence of WMD, we can't even seem to find any old evidence. This seems very strange, since we absolutely know Saddam used to have them since he used chemical weapons against the Iranians and the Kurds. Where are the old factories, storage depots, training facilities, etc? Could they really have been eradicated so thoroughly? If so, maybe we should hire Saddam (I hear he's still alive) to do toxic waste cleanup here in the states, because he's apparently *really* good at it.

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I guess finding any WMD in Iraq is a poisoned chalice. If we don't find any then we would have gone to war under false pretences. If we do find WMD, it of course means that the US / UK imposed sanctions, acknowledged to have been responsible for the deaths of in excess of 500,000 Iraqi children, were for nothing.Sobering thought.PE

So, given the Iraq experience, what credibility is there for the concerns about North Korea and Iran which are gradually being ramped up?

Mammuthus responds to me:

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In principle I agree that the US government has hardly been a model of trustworthiness ...but if you are in Europe and see some of the governments here in action...they are hardly in much of a position to criticise the honesty (or intelligence) of anybody either.

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I don't recall mentioning anybody in Europe.The question was why the Iraqi soldiers had chemical suits and countermeasures for chemical weapons. The presumption was that the Iraqis were preparing for blowback from Iraqi use of chemical weapons.My response was that there is another possibility: The Iraqis were preparing for chemical weapon attack from the United States. Given the history of duplicity from the United States, there is a not insignificant number of people outside the US who is certain that the US does have chemical and biological weapons.And what better way to use them than against a country whom you claim is illegally making them? We can simply claim that they were fired by the Iraqis and they got caught in their own weapons. And if there were an investigation, it would be carried out by the heathen Westerners, headed by the US, and they'd just cover it up and agree with what the US told them to say.And given what we have just found out about our government's use of false information as justification for going to war and invading another country, who can blame them for thinking just that?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

The Iraq military may have had the legitimate fear that the US would use chemical weapons. Its not like they don’t have suspicions of the US. Irrational as it might seem to us.We have the same story with government deception in Australia. The Howard government is getting quite good at it. its overtime for a new government here.But at least I don’t live in Indonesia. I dot know if it made the news in your part of the world, but the Indonesians just let a bunch of terrorists implicated in the Bali bombing escape. Apparently all the officials involved just took bribes and opened the prison doors!!!! Talk about corruption. That has to take the cake.It ‘s all very distressing. I was totally against the war on Iraq. I just don’t think the human toll sheet will balance out better with war. If the reason was regime change, all I can say is half the countries in the world need that, not the least of which is Australia. But in all seriousness look at the daily atrocities perpetrated in Indonesia. The US won’t have a bar of engaging Indonesia. Even after the slaughter of Timor. They stood on the fence. To give you an idea of how evil the military is up there, during the rebuild of east Temor wood was bought from a timber company, a company owned by the Indonesian military. This company logged the timber illegally from west Papua. It just bizarre, the perpetrators on the profit sheet again. For some time the Indonesians have been transporting pigs into the highlands of west Papua. An innocent critic might assume that they are merely buying up land of local chiefs at suitable prices. Australian scientists wonder why all the pigs carry Japanese encephalitis, among other Flavivirus. AhhI have had my rant

yeah, both your governments suck