Saddam was the head of a very rough country, and had to deal with many
factions, many of which, no doubt, did not support his regime, so, in
order to maintain power over Iraq, Saddam and, his follower, had to use
force as opposed to benevolent love of the Iraqi people, to maintain
power. As Niccolo Machiavelli noted, the best way to rule a country is
through the love and adoration of the people toward the ruler. When the
people stopping loving the ruler, then the country must be ruled by
fear. Maintaining power over a country, because the people fear you, is
not as good as deriving power because the people love you, but it is
almost as good.
If Saddam was judged competent enough to defend his life in a court of
law, against allegations of crimes against humanity, then certainly he
was sane enough not to commit suicide by attacking the most powerful
military ever assemble. Think about it.
Regards,
LelandJ
Hal Kaplan wrote:
Brutal dictator? It would seem so.
Sane and rational? If you think killing people who you do not like is
sane, then there are a lot of people in the USA who pled "not guilty by
reason of insanity" that need to be dealt with.
Leland, you have been breathing too many diesel fumes. Next time, wait
20 minutes after you shut off the engine of your car before you attempt
to make love to it. OK?
HALinNY
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Leland Jackson
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 11:08
To: ProFox Email List
Subject: Re: [OT] Report: Hundreds of WMD found in Iraq
Even if Saddam had the biggest Nuke ever made, without any way to
deliver the payload, he really was not a clear and present danger
threating an imminent attack against the US? Saddam was a toothless
tiger. The US had nothing to fear from Saddam. Even if Saddam had
attack the US with WMD, it would mean all out war, and total destruction
of his country and people, and he was assured of that. Why would Saddam
commit suicide? Saddam was a brutal dictator, but he was also a sane
and rational man.
Regards,
LelandJ
Bob Calco wrote:
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Iraq_WMD_Declassified.pdf
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html
- - -
Asked why the Bush administration, if it had known about the
information since April or earlier, didn't advertise it, Hoekstra
conjectured that the president has been forward-looking and
concentrating on the development of a secure government in Iraq.
Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior
Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were
not in useable conditions.
"This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the
official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and
the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which
this country went to war."
The official said the findings did raise questions about the years of
weapons inspections that had not resulted in locating the fairly
sizeable stash of chemical weapons. And he noted that it may say
something about Hussein's intent and desire. The report does suggest
that some of the weapons were likely put on the black market and may
have been used outside Iraq.
He also said that the Defense Department statement shortly after the
March 2003 invasion saying that "we had all known weapons facilities
secured," has proven itself to be untrue.
"It turned out the whole country was an ammo dump," he said, adding
that on more than one occasion, a conventional weapons site has been
uncovered and chemical weapons have been discovered mixed within them.
- - -
So much for "no WMDs found". While I agree these are small potatoes
compared to what we believed we'd find, it's quite possible we haven't
found everything, and it's possible what we thought he had was hidden
somewhere else. And even these "small potatoes" can kill.
But in any case, for those who are interested here is a factul
reference in the declassified summary one can point to in order to
refute the "no WMDs found" argument. You cannot say "no WMDs were
found" all you can say is "only about 500 chemical WMD munitions were
found so far." If these had been found right away, when every stray
fart was screened for WMD content in the initial post-invasion search,
then our political dialog would be very different right now... But they
were found well after the official news cycle, as evidenced by how
little play this got in the media yesterday.
I also don't think it's reasonable to say they were "secure" before the
invasion but the invasion made them "insecure". They were dispersed to
god-only-knows-where so that the inspections would never find them,
either, which raises the question in my mind if Hussein even knew where
all of them were. As Leland might say, "plausible deniability".
And I definitely don't think it's fair to say "Bush lied" -- clearly he
believed there was significant stockpiles there and on that basis made
a good part of his decision (Geore Tenet's "slam dunk"), which is one
reason why he's not trumpeting this. The idea that this was all
fabrication of some pinheads at PNAC also doesn't float because, for
one thing, these WMDs are real, and the suspicions about Iraq's
capabilities and potential collaboration with Al Qaeda have been around
for years and were equally pumped by Democrats and Republicans in their
turn. I will gladly pull out the quotes again, not to mention the 1998
ABC News story centered around the 1998 indictment of Bin Laden that
alleges that very connection, all over again. It's funny how they sunk
down the memory whole when it was politically convenient.
Talk about an inconvenient truth...
- Bob
[excessive quoting removed by server]
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