Misunderstood

September 6, 2007 By CJ
Posted in Life in the Military, Military News

There’s a lot of talk about pulling out of Iraq from both sides of the aisle (one side moreso than the other). And let’s face it, the American people are growing tired of the war as well. I believe that is because of one of three reasons: they have no personal stake in success/failure (or FEEL they don’t); the media spends a lot of their time covering the negative aspects of our efforts; and our politicians are undercutting us as much as possible.

The fact is that a complete story isn’t being told. All the negativity coming from within our own country is fueling the insurgency. They have constantly pointed to the “American attitude” in their propaganda as a cause celebre. They are using the same tactics used during Vietnam.

Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones is to testify before Congress today about his recent assessment of the Iraqi Security Forces. According to The Associated Press, he will say that Iraq’s security forces would be unable to take control of their country in the next 18 months. This is likely going to result in even more calls for the US to pull out prematurely. Never in history has a date been set for withdrawal by the enemy. You can’t go into a war and reconstruction with a specific timeline. There’s always a goal, but never a line drawn in the sand.

The fact is that, love it or hate it, we went into Iraq and destroyed the government. That is the goal of war – to force the capitulation of the other side. Saddam refused to capitulate and we were forced to completely decimate his military (what was left that didn’t run away). By law, it is our responsibility to rebuild that structure for the Iraqi people. In fact, it is our moral obligation! We cannot leave even one day sooner than the Iraqi people are ready for us to leave. Otherwise, we risk a repeat of Vietnam where the Communists swept into the south and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese because of our early departure (granted it was about 15 years long). Only this will be worse because it will probably be done by insurgents who have no care for human life. The other void will be filled by Islamic states like Iran, Syrian and probably Saudi Arabia to some degree.

That doesn’t mean that we have to stay there for eternity. But, we can’t create an artificial deadline either. The choice for the Iraqi people is clear and our options should be simple: get your stuff together NOW so we can go home in a reasonable time OR Iraq becomes the 51st US state and WE govern the country and WE collect the oil revenues. Neither of these options are very realistic, of course, because there are so many people invested in our failure – namely Iran. They are working feverishly to ensure that any progress we make in Iraq is quickly disrupted. We are not losing because American troops cannot maintain peace and security. We are losing because Iranian troops are ensuring a perpetual level of chaos and fear. We are being embarrassed by a pissant country.

True success on the Iraqi battlefield starts here at home. The first thing we need to do is openly and boisterously support our troops and their mission. It’s too late to pretend it didn’t happen. This isn’t a bumper sticker war where we can “Support Our Troops – Bring Them Home Now”. The solution is much more complicated than that. As we reduce troop levels under the current threat more Americans will be needlessly slaughtered because the support structure won’t be there.

Next, we as a country need to send a message to the insurgents and terrorists that “we will not falter, we will not fail” instead of already declaring defeat. This needs to be led by our politicians and supported by the voters. I’ve never met anyone who truly LOVES war. As Soldiers, we hate war because we’re the ones dying for it. But, peace comes at a cost. There will always be a Cain in this world that wants to kill Abel. Violence is a part of human nature and if we just back off and hope nothing will happen to us if we sit on our hands and throw down our arms, we’re naive. During WWII, my great-grandparents didn’t want to send their son to war – they were against his enlistment. But they recognized that it had to be done and went to work to support the war effort while it was there. My grandfather spoke often before his death about how he hated this war, but he never once did anything to hurt the effort or those fighting it.

It’s okay to be unsupportive of this war. I think the anti-war crowd would be better served if they adopted the chant “War Sucks, But Don’t Piss Us Off”. I have been to many anti-war rallies and I have NEVER, EVER seen a booth that collected letters of support for the troops deployed. I’ve never seen money collected for care packages. I have seen all sorts of vendors selling all kinds of “Bush Lied, Americans Died” crap. They’re all about capitalism when it comes to protesting. They love to claim their support of our troops. Those claims are never backed up by hard evidence.

On the other hand, when I’ve been to pro-troop events, 95% of the time there at least one booth to link people up with programs that support the troops through letters, care packages, taking care of their families left behind, you name it. It’s no wonder which of these groups the majority of troops end up attaching themselves to.

Okay, that was a long rant. Hopefully I didn’t confuse anyone.

26 Comments »

September 6th, 2007 at 12:26 pm

Very well said CJ!

Tracy

September 6th, 2007 at 3:06 pm

Well said CJ!

DougS

September 6th, 2007 at 3:59 pm

If you really want to understand why most Americans want to pull out, ask yourself the fundamental question you’ve left out – WHY are we fighting there?

It’s an easy question to answer for most of our wars – in the Revolutionary War, for our independence; the Civil War, to keep the country together; in WW2, war was declared on us; the Korean and Gulf Wars, to protect an ally against invasion; Afghanistan, from which an attack on us was launched with the complicity of the Taliban. Some wars were less clear-cut, but always followed a real or imaginary provocation – the takeover of the Spanish colonies after the explosion of the Maine, and the invasion of Grenada after a violent Marxist revolution in our own hemisphere.

But in this case – alone in our history – we undertook a war deliberately, without provocation, over many months, sold by “compelling evidence” that turned out to be a forged letter and a drunk, half-sane Iraqi scientist. If this President had truly wanted to avoid war, he would have stood down after the weapons inspectors found nothing over months of searching. But it wasn’t about banned weapons, was it? Then what WAS it about? If there were no weapons, what was the rush?

And so we plod on, for longer than WW2 and no end in sight, in a demolished country that had no means to harm us in the first place. Maybe this will help you understand why most of us are sick of it.

Terri

September 6th, 2007 at 4:22 pm

You know Doug it’s obvious that you’ve not spoken to Troops who have been in Iraq and SEEN the WMD themselves with their own eyes (like CJ I might add). Perhaps instead of listening to the half-baked stories in the media, you’d serve yourself well to talk to those who’ve “been there.”

Very well said as usual CJ. Thanks and I agree totally!

September 6th, 2007 at 4:45 pm

A-ha. CJ, you’ve seen this WMD with your own eyes? Terri, you’ve talked to the people who discovered? Why haven’t you told the President? Why, way back in October 2004, he said “Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there”. I want to congratulate you on finding that which Charles Duelfer, the CIA’s top weapons inspector, and the entire US Army couldn’t come up with. Hurry, there’s a Presidency to save!

bryan

September 6th, 2007 at 5:53 pm

Doug,
You’re a duche bag.
Our Men and Women are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan everyday, for a cause that they believe in. To help those people win their freedom, something you seem to take for granted. If we pull out now then all those Men and Women would have died for nothing, then the people of Iraq and Afghanistan will be slaughtered. That is why we fight! You know I used to think like you Doug, but then I grew up. There might have been WMD’s there might not have been, one thing is for sure we are there now and we need to finish our job. These people need our help sure there are a few who don’t want us there, but the numbers out weigh the few, and your negitvity just gives fuel for those cowards who like to strap bombs to themselves and set IED’s along roadsides. I bet you long for the Clinton days where we just stood by and acted like nothing was wrong, that the United States had no eneimes. Wake up man this is the 21st century. I know this is a free country and everyone has the right to voice their opinion, but I have to disagree with you, see I am an US citizen and I have that right, thats what the people of Iraq and afghanistan want too, and we’re there to help them achive that goal. Just like we did in World Wars 1 and 2 Korea Vietnam and Desert Storm, we did the samething we liberated people and thats what we’re doing now. So go take a history class then come back and post when you have a better idea of what your talking about.

Donna

September 6th, 2007 at 6:54 pm

Thanks CJ for your post. They are always informative. We do need to finish the job in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Taliban are raising their ugly heads again it seems. We cannot leave these people to the mercies of Al-Quaeda and Iran etc. etc.

Miriam

September 6th, 2007 at 10:06 pm

To say we entered Iraq without provocation is also incorrect. Saddam had been shooting at us for quite some time. We may never know the extent he was involved in the Oklahoma City bombing. Whether or not he had anything to do with the Twin Towers is immaterial. Iraq was a haven for terrorists long before the Iraq war, as is Iran.

But in the end, as CJ noted, why we are there is now also immaterial. Saddam is now long gone, hanged for crimes against innocent human beings. The Iraqies are trying to rebuild their lives and country, if Iran would let them. And yet, there are selfish people here in the US tht want Iraq to be rebuilt perhaps even less than the Iranians do. They are just looking for money and political power no matter what it costs other innocent human beings. President Bush has many short comings, but his support for our troops isn’t one of them.

September 7th, 2007 at 5:52 am

“WHY are we fighting there?” Doug, it saddens me that you don’t know the answer to this. We’re fighting there because Iran, the terrorists, and leftovers of Saddam’s regime just won’t give up and help us rebuild their country. We’re fighting because the Islamic hardliners realize that true freedom means that the Iraqi people will realize that there is more to life than having every minute of it dictated by a radical religion or leader. We’re fighting because freedom comes at a cost and usually that cost is human life of those willing to lay it down in defense of the defenseless.

“But it wasn’t about banned weapons, was it?” Yes it was. Were we right? Not as right as we thought, but we also weren’t completely wrong. We’ve found over 500 WMD in Iraq. The mainstream media didn’t like that revelation and either chose to ignore it outright or dismissed it. And I already know what you’re going to say: “but those were old.” Doesn’t matter. We didn’t set a standard for the TYPE of WMD we were looking for. The fact is that Saddam said they were gone and they weren’t. He violated the peace settlement. The munitions found contain sarin and mustard gases. Mustard gas is a blister agent that burns every inch of skin in which it comes in contact. Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee, “These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes … they do constitute weapons of mass destruction.” I personally located five of these weapons as well as chemical factories during my time in Iraq. I even interrogated a senior chemical weapons officer. So, to answer your question: yes, I did see WMD with my own eyes.

We had every right to attack Iraq even without the WMD argument, valid or not. Saddam had attacked our aircraft patrolling the UN mandated “no-fly zone”. That is an act of war. Saddam tried to assassinate a sitting president, President George W. Bush (41). That is an act of war. Just because we didn’t find his smoking gun on the WMD argument doesn’t mean they don’t exist. You talk about how the CIA has made public announcements that the WMD were never found. I challenge you to read the book, “Sabotage: America’s Enemies Within the CIA” for clues as to why this may be. Bob Woodward, a well-known critic of Bush and author of “State of Denial” even admitted, “Iraqis were caught actively destroying materials and specific items that could have been related to WMD.”

You said, “If this President had truly wanted to avoid war, he would have stood down after the weapons inspectors found nothing over months of searching.” Please tell me you’re older than 15. It is well known that the inspectors didn’t find anything because Saddam hampered their inspections at every turn. In 1998, the UN weapons inspectors left Iraq after the chief inspector, Richard Butler, reported “Baghdad is not fully cooperating” with them. Then, FOUR YEARS LATER, Iraq decides it’s ready to let them back in. Daniel Schorr on NPR commented, “If he has secret weapons, he’s had four years since he kicked out the inspectors to hide all of them.”

Saddam hid a fleet of MiG fighter jets in the desert of Iraq. The only way we found them is through tips from locals. We didn’t believe them at first, but after the third report we checked it out. They were hiding just a few miles from a major base and we didn’t know it. If Saddam is able to hide fighter planes, it’s not a great leap of faith to think he’s got weapons hidden somewhere as well. He only had four years to either hide them or smuggle them out of the country, most likely to Syria. Why wasn’t this widely reported? Because it was extremely damaging to the media’s case against the war.

Even the links to AQ are proven. Saddam supported a terrorist organization called Ansar al Sunna. Ansar al Sunna was a terrorist organization that operated in the northern Kurdish zone. They regularly attacked the Kurds, kidnapped them, and tortured them. They trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and AQ trained in AS camps in northern Iraq. Saddam funded these camps along with his sons. By funding AS, Saddam was funding AQ by virtue of their mutually exclusive relationship. Again, some basic personal study of the subject would educate anyone WILLING to know the truth instead of readily vegging out to whatever the television tells us. None of what I’m telling you is classified.

People are sick of it because their perception is that we are losing. That is the point of this entire post. We are led to believe one thing while the truth is much different. Is it really that hard to support our troops over there?

yankeemom

September 7th, 2007 at 6:10 am

Great post, CJ! It’s just despicable that our media is not reporting the whole story of this war. And I say that with conviction as I have talked to many boots on the ground and read more than what our Not Fair and
Balanced media chooses to report. I talk to so many people who have no clue about what’s been going on In Iraq and Afghanistan. They look at me so skeptically when I tick off events and situations I know of through my research or conversations I’ve had with soldiers back from the sandbox. It’s so sad that so many people in this country do not know all that our troops are doing and have done or what the enemy has done and is doing. What’s even worse than the media’s agenda is our politicians’ using our troops to score political points, gain seats and keep their power, endangering more and more of our soldiers lives, not to mention the Iraqis and Afghanistanis.

September 7th, 2007 at 2:54 pm

“Doug, You’re a duche bag.”

Yes. Yes I am. I cannot retort your brilliant argument. I spell it “douche”, though.

But as for the rest for you….

CJ, every WMD found in Iraq was a leftover from before 1991, as reported by the Iraq Survey Group’s final report (the ones responsible for the WMD search) – “A total of 53 munitions have been recovered, all of which appear to have been part of pre-1991 Gulf war stocks.” These weapons should have been destroyed, but were overlooked due to “poor Iraqi inventory accounting” and because “when weapons were forward-deployed in anticipation of a conflict, the CW weapons often became mixed in with the regular munitions, and were never accounted for again.” Source: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/isg-final-report_vol3_cw-anx-f.htm. Also, as you should know, chemical weapons degrade over time and lose toxicity. The case for war was that Saddam was CONTINUING to produce these weapons.

I can’t prove that there aren’t huge caches of secretly produces weapons somewhere, but after our capture of all the paperwork, personnel, and officials producing no evidence of recent production, stashing, or smuggling, I’m starting to wonder if anything would make you think, yeah, there probably were no weapons there. Probably not. You’ll still believe it 20 years from now.

As for the terrorist organization in northern Iraq, you leave out the fact that the northern no-fly zone, i.e. the Kurdish area, was not under Saddam’s control.

So we’re fighting for the Iraqi people? Then you should read the poll released yesterday by the University of Maryland. 70% of Iraqis favor setting a timeline for the withdrawal of US forces, half within 6 months. But 76% think we won’t leave if asked, and intend to stay permanently. Which might explain why almost half (47%) support attacks on US troops. Source: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/165.php?nid=&id=&pnt=165&lb=brme

Finally, I’m amazed you give the media so much power to decide this war. The Administration has had complete control of this war, yet has screwed it up as much as anything can be screwed. They haven’t managed to win or even make effective progress in 4 1/2 years! Why do you trust these people to “win”?

September 7th, 2007 at 4:54 pm

You are dead wrong. Just because the Kurd’s controlled the north, doesn’t mean Saddam didn’t have an influence. He couldn’t go in there but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t send his money, which he did. Additionally, he gave refuge to Zarqawi, a known Al Qaeda terrorist, before we even went in. We all know what became of that guy. He killed MANY civilians and US Soldiers. This is not just Americans saying so. AQ leaders themselves have confirmed the connections, namely Abu Zubaydah (a top AQ operative) and Dr. Muhammad al-Masari (operated the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights, a Saudi oppositionist group and al Qaeda front).

You completely ignore the fact that Saddam was to destroy ALL – not some, not most, not the newest, not the oldest – ALL WMD. He did not. We found them, degraded or not. Just because it is degraded does not make it safe. Would you be willing to be exposed to these “degraded” weapons? I think not. Because they’re lethal, just not as concentrated. To not understand that is to not understand the nature of chemical and biological weapons.

Don’t throw polls at me. I can throw polls back. Those things are all dependent on how the questions are worded and who is asked. They are meaningless because they don’t reflect the EXPERIENCE myself and others have had on the ground. We’re widely loved in Iraq, both in private and public. I was personally invited almost daily to have lunch or dinner in the homes of Iraqis – and I was stationed in Fallujah!! My friends have the same experiences.

Finally, Doug, you are exactly what I was talking about in this post. Even when presented with evidence, you choose to poopoo it. You won’t believe what is right in front of you because it doesn’t conform to your “we’ve lost” mentality. I trust these people to win because we’re capable and because we have to. You can quote all the statistics you want about how people hate us. Go ahead, you’re playing right into enemy hands. How about looking for, and quoting, some positive statistics. Be an optimist not a pessimist.

Doughelo

September 7th, 2007 at 10:43 pm

I try to be a realist, actually. And I know the difference between evidence and anecdotes. Your personal experience is the latter. I’m sure it’s true, but it’s an isolated datum. You haven’t given any sources or numerical data, which is indicative of evidence. When you have a nationwide poll showing that the majority of Iraqis (not just Kurds) love us and want us to stay, that’d be a start.

As for the WMD, there is a difference between deliberately hiding something and losing track of it. Like those 5 nukes we accidentally flew across the US last week.

September 8th, 2007 at 6:35 am

Doug,

You continue to prove my point. Even when presented with LINKS to proof of WMDs you dismiss it (as I predicted). When provided with evidence, you dismiss it as anecdotes. Again, you’re a pessimist who can’t help but want this country to look bad. It’s no secret that there are polls out there stating that Iraqis want us out of there. It’s also no secret that these polls are limited in scope because pollsters don’t want to travel outside their circle of comfort.

SealPatriot

September 9th, 2007 at 12:30 am

Doug maybe this will help. This came from a Major in the Army. It is the whole statement that he left at the blog I write at.

Well… I leave for a few days and Sharon is just as useful and idiot as always.
The quote was that we did not find WMDs in the quantities we expected to find them. The intel was wrong in the fact that the WMDs were not where the UN inspectors had last seen and cataloged them. They are GONE. NOT destroyed: GONE as in missing. As large convoys were seen leaving Iraq prior to the invasion, you get one guess as to where thy are. 20 tons of VX and Sarin showed up on the Jordan/Sryian border when AQ tried to ship them into Amman for an attack there. The terrorists caught even admitted that these weapons came from Iraq and the aborted attacked was sanctioned by Zarqawi.
BTW, it was 2 attacks with Sarin shells against US troops. Neither caused fatalities, but troops were made ill by the attack. In addition, we still have the chlorine gas attacks by AQ on Iraqi citizens this year. I do not agree with Bush on not standing up to the left about WMDs. The list of what we are finding grows as months go on. Maybe there are too many fingerprints on them (i.e. Russian and French) for the diplomats. Maybe the UN’s culpability is too great. Maybe it was something to do with protecting politicians who helped pardon Mark Rich. I do not know.
I have have already provided the links to the BBC stories on the Jordan attacks and the former Ukrain spy chief’s assessment on what we did find in Iraq (which was given several months of warnings before the invasion).
Here is a partial list (all of this is open source and declassified). If these are not a “threat”, I would be happy to contact the man who inventoried them and have you taken to the site they are stored at. You should ask your congresspeople, who have seen the classified ISG Report from 2003, why they keep stating we found no WMDs?
Nuclear:
-1.95 tons of enriched (weapons grade) uranium
-1000 non-medical radioactive sources (cesium and other isotopes)
-16 drums of yellowcake from the Al-Qaim extraction plant
-An undesclosed rail gun system used to test nuclear detonations. Iraq developed this in secret in 1999. The gun was built at Al-Tahadi. It, along with 500 tons of natural uranium was found south of Baghdad in 2003.
Biological Agents.
-Live C. botulinum Okra B (makes batulinum toxin: 1 gram kills 10,000) found hiden in Iraqi Bilogical Weapon’s Scientist’s home.
-Discovered continued, out-lawed and concealed, research on Brucella, Congo Crimean Hemorragic Fever (CCHF), ricin, and aflatoxin. None of this was declared to the UN even after 12 YEARS of sanctions.
-Ricin discovered in Sargat, Iraq along with hidden sacks of castor beans (labled as “fertilizer”) in al-Aziziyah.
-Human testing facilities (prisons) for BW agents.
-Mobile labs for BW agents buried in the desert. 11 found in Karbala.
-Mulitple small fixed BW sites/labs which the UN never knew about.
Chemical
-Multiple attacks against US troops using Mustard and Sarin gas filled shells
-Multiple attacks by terrorists against Iraqi civilians using chlorine gas
-Cyanide labs found in “Safe Houses” in fallujah
-5,000 Lbs of Cyanide found in Taji (total cyanide as of 2004 was 2,370 Kg or 2.4 million leathal doses)
-Various hidden Chemical Weapons Labs

This may also help to why the president has decided not to say there were WMD’s in Iraq. This is from American Thinker. This is from Isrealis intel to Mr. Bush.

Early Reports

Seven months after the war began, an extensive report was published presenting a wealth of information on Iraqi WMD and containing 76 open source citations. It described how and what was hidden and how much of it was moved to Syria and Lebanon. It is ‘a must read’. The following paragraph is excerpted from that report.

“Now, it would be common to ask for the reason the Bush Administration has not revealed that WMDs are in Syria and/or Lebanon. According to Israeli intelligence sources, it is likely because exposure of that would lead to a domino effect where evidence would leak out that Iraq’s programs had roles played by Egypt, Syria, Libya and Saudi Arabia. [plus the French, Germans and Russians] Such leaks will enflame the region and especially Iraq, and make things much harder, resulting in a more bloody and costly war and diminishing likelihood that other countries would send forces in.[71] Additionally, people would be skeptic, saying it was a lie so that the war-mongering neo-cons were trying to justify a new conquest. The other side would put enormous pressure to bring the war to Syria-a war we are not yet ready to fight.”

If you want to see the whole thing, go ahead. Here is the URL.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/dont_be_so_sure_there_were_no.html

What the Duelfer Report found is irrelevant to what the U.S. went to war against Saddam for. The reason we went into Iraq was to topple his government and WMD is one incentive among 27 other incentives that we had to do such an act. Besides, according to Collin Powell’s statement to the U.N. before the start of OIF, the WMD’s that we were expecting to find was pre-1991 stuff. Which happened to be the same WMD that Clinton was after in Desert Fox. Apparently the intel that Congress gave to the White House after the NIE was conducted was predominately based on the same intel Clinton was provided before Desert Fox. Apparently the Congress supported this war for all the opposite reasons they state. They said we went in for WMD after the president said we found none(they changed their stance given the circumstances). When they really wanted to see if Hussein had them. They said so before the war and said it would be the right thing to do to remove Hussein even if we hadn’t found any WMD, which with the concrete evidence I had just provided proves contrary to their and your statements. Besides, of the stuff Major Chris G. had provided, only the Sarin was from before 1995 and the rest were in fact after. That is what the Duelfer report stated, it is also what the Kay interim reports had stated. Plus the IAEA, U.N., Russia, British intel, French intel, FBI, CIA, NIC, Rep Pete Hoekstra, DNI Tenet, CIA Deputy Cheif, NSA, Navy Intel, Prague Police, North African Nations who have witnesses that Hussein wanted some Uranium Ore, Army Intel, and Washington Post who had recently stated an Air Force Major and his special ops found a VX Nerve gas lab that was fully operational until 2005 and had made the VX canisters as recently as 2001. One canister was strapped to a VBIED. Quiet surprisingly(to you maybe if you drink that much kool-aid), your statements bare as much evidence as an airbrushed photo of the lochness monster. Nothing personal though, best regards to you and yours.

September 9th, 2007 at 12:49 am

“The Administration has had complete control of this war, yet has screwed it up as much as anything can be screwed”

Wow, you blame Bush for what’s going on? The American people don’t since they have a higher opinion of BUsh compared to Congress. I guess the American people are smarter than you, eh? They must have read article one section eight of the constitution which is proof the Congress has complete control of the military commanders(power to put them in and raise or lower there rank too), boots on the ground, funding, battle plans, and ROE’s. I am guessing your from the side of the Minora with less brighter candles. For a fact, the executive branch has no complete control over anything military unless it involves a decision that requires moments notice reactions, such as an attack on U.S. soil. Iraq’s not one of those since we had a 14 month discussion on the topic before the invasion actually took place. I also hope you aren’t gong to blame Bush for the fact that a few americans believed Hussein had something to do with 9-11-01. Afterall, Rice, Bush, and Powell were stating that Hussein’s Ba’athists did have ties to Al Qeada and harbored them(he did, eg. Zarqawi), but didn’t colaborate with them on the 9-11-01 attacks because of religious differences, they said this 6 months before the vote for the Joint Authorization Resolution for Military action against the Ba’ath government. However, they were right with ties betweem AQ operatives in Jordan, Syria, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia with Ba’ath elitists. Al Qeada was used by Ba’athists to attack Shia to prevent them from revolting. AQ also attacked Kurds to prevent them from escaping and revealing more Saddam secrets. The AQ operatives in Anbar were trying to use the VX to launch an attack in Amman, Jordan. AQ also tried to poison british military food supply with Ricin made by zarqawi and his AQ operatives who brought the materials to make the substance into Iraq after he had been injured fighting as an AQ operative in Afghanistan. Ansar al sunna a group of gangs from egypt who black market weapons to Hamas and AQ were trained in Salman Pak in 1994, 95, and 96 long after international sanctions against such were instilled upon the Ba’ath government. Sorry, but you can’t blame Bush on the Iraq Al Qeada thing either. Just read this and be open minded. Thanks for your time.

September 9th, 2007 at 10:21 am

Oh Doug, one more thing. The Mustard gas would not be included with the Sarin to be counted as denegraded substances(despite being from the same time period of Ba’ath history. Since it was mixed with chlorine gas(like mixing bleach and ammonia, just as potent) and then it was fitted for the rifle grenades of an underbarrel grenade launcher. These ideas of Hussein and the Ba’athists weren’t old, it was in fact one of their most recent attempts at acquiring a clandestine weapons program that was comprised of an unconventional payload.

September 9th, 2007 at 10:26 am

this is one of m earlier statements.

-Al Qeada was used by Ba’athists to attack Shia to prevent them from revolting. AQ also attacked Kurds to prevent them from escaping and revealing more Saddam secrets.

In case you hadn’t known, but Hussein used AQ to attack his own people throughout the late nineties and start of the new millenium. This act was called democide or using violence to kill large numbers of people so that way they don’t rebel against you. Terror or warfare were Hussein’s top two favorite. He also used members of Hamas, PLF, Fedayeen, Mubarak, Mujahideen, and Ansar Al Islam to help him keep his own people at bay.

September 10th, 2007 at 1:13 pm

CJ – Your “500 WMDs” link led to an Error 404 page, so I don’t know what that was, and I addressed the MiGs in the desert link. As for the enthusiastic SealPatriot, much of what he listed, such as the enriched uranium, had long ago been cataloged and tagged by the UN inspectors. Many of the other items were dual use. Some of it sounds nonsensical, like the buried BW labs. Since the embarrassing weather balloon trailer discovery, the US has never claimed discovery of any such labs (that was one of the Curveball claims). Can SealPatriot explain why the administration would keep these amazing discoveries secret, when it would transform their credibility on the war? Of course, he supplies no sources for these claims.

I realize I’m talking to true believers here, but I wonder at your selective suppression of contrary evidence, not of some crank postings on blogs but official reports from the highest levels of government, that have repeatedly stated no active WMD programs, no recently produced WMD, and no large scale concealment of WMD were found. This is the official statement of the US government (who would have every interest in finding the opposite) and the consensus of the inspectors, but it seems that can be easily dismissed by those incapable of changing their minds.

As for the fabled AQ connection, let’s ignore the Sept 11 commission (with access to all the classified data):

As reported by the Washington Post, June 17, 2004:
The Sept. 11 commission reported yesterday that it has found no “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and al Qaeda, challenging one of the Bush administration’s main justifications for the war in Iraq.

But the report of the commission’s staff, based on its access to all relevant classified information, said that there had been contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda but no cooperation. In yesterday’s hearing of the panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, a senior FBI official and a senior CIA analyst concurred with the finding.

The staff report said that bin Laden “explored possible cooperation with Iraq” while in Sudan through 1996, but that “Iraq apparently never responded” to a bin Laden request for help in 1994. The commission cited reports of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda after bin Laden went to Afghanistan in 1996, adding, “but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.”

September 10th, 2007 at 4:41 pm

Doug, here ya go:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html

Must have copied and pasted the wrong link.

September 11th, 2007 at 10:52 am

Thank you for the link. I do note a little further down in the article:

Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable condition.

“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.”

So even the administration points out that the weapons were degraded and unusable, and do not furnish a reason for going to war.

sealpatriot

September 11th, 2007 at 4:09 pm

“The Sept. 11 commission reported yesterday that it has found no “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and al Qaeda, challenging one of the Bush administration’s main justifications for the war in Iraq.”

-Actually, just letting you know that even though I still stand by last posts, the main justification for war with Hussein’s government involving AQ operatives was about how there we’re AQ operatives in Iraq and that they were being harbored there and as my posts prove they were there and they did work with Ba’ath party members(ie the aiding of Ba’ath members’ efforts to sustain an uprising against Hussein’s government). Not because we believed they helped AQ launch attacks on the U.S. and their allies as you assume. In fact the administration is the first one to trash and challenge the assertion that Hussein may have aided AQ in 9-11-01. Condi Rice came out in 4 months before the NIE and the vote for the Joint Authorization Resolution for military action against Hussein’s government were being conducted to say specifically they stand by the Congress for including the fact that Hussein harbored foreign terrorists in his country in the JAR, but didn’t support the claim that Hussein aided AQ in preparation for 9-11-01. As for the degraded Sarin, it can still kill people en masse. Plus the country supported Powell when he came out to the U.N. stating that the WMD he would expect we’d find in Iraq would be Sarin canisters that were degraded. Upon saying that they were still deadly and need to be removed militarily, most people agreed and supported him on it, and he was treated well for saying that by people here in this country. I would also like to stress that just by proving only one of the substances that the Army Major as degraded doesn’t bolster your stance much even with the ISG and 9-11 commission saying statements that may support your claims. After all, it may mean nothing if the quotes and samples from their reports you leave on your posts don’t reflect the majority of your facts. I wonder if you read any of the links I had provided you? Did you read Rachel Nuewirth’s story?

September 11th, 2007 at 4:22 pm

-”Can SealPatriot explain why the administration would keep these amazing discoveries secret, when it would transform their credibility on the war? Of course, he supplies no sources for these claims.”

Actually, I did leave a quote as to why the administration would leave these discoveries out. You should read my first post, or at least get the attention span to read my entire post. I even provided you a link. Maybe that will help. It looks as though you only read the list I had provided in that post. In fact I had pointed out that the Sarin was in fact degraded so you don’t need to tell me. I also wrote my own assessment on the sources I had provided but I guess you don’t care enough to make a respectful responce as I had done. I read everything you had wrote and carefully responded to them. Though I guess you were too enthusiastic to trash my post and make it seem as though I was being random or just putting things on the internet for the same cause as you are which is to satisfy my political hungers, right? That would be a good question to ask, but I hope you don’t take it as somebody putting words down your throat. If you do, just letting you know it wasn’t intended for that.

September 12th, 2007 at 3:27 pm

-Doug S.
Also, the list of fissile material that I had posted was from an Army Major and I did say that prior to the list along with where I had found it which is the blog that I write and moderate on. So, did you read the source I had provided you? I would also question the credability of you world opinion poll due to the fact that 89 percent of the enemies we had captured in the GWOT were in fact possible due to the aid and friendship we receive from the indigenous personnel of the countries we operate in. The largest province in Iraq known as Anbar province sent a letter to Bush saying they pledge more community support to aid in catching Al Qeada and that they dedicate all the terrorists they fight to the 9-11 victims. Also, there is also a poll from the Los Angeles Times that states that support in the Middle East and North Africa is at an all time low, and that it took the average annual recruiting numbers of 47 countries to mount up what these types of organizations would recruit from one country prior to the 9-11-01 attacks. Al Qeada also had an all time low right after
9-11-01, today it is at 1/20th of that according to the military academy’s Center For Combating Terrorism. It is also funny how many people continue to claim that Baghdad has gotten worst throughout the yeas after the fall of Hussein’s Socialist(Nazi?) Regime when a chart at Index Mundi that recorded the CIA’s fact book’s annual Iraqi death rates show that there was a decline in the Death rates each and every single year since th start of OIF. Also, Omar from Iraq the model rebuttled the false claims of this cockamamie source called the Lancet;Medical Journal in which he stated that many of the families who told the Lancet they lost a loved one after the fall of Hussein where in fact families of some Insurgent cells, and that the kids of theirs the claimed died didn’t die because they didn’t have the death certificate to prove it. In fact the Iraqi Health Ministry conducted their own study in which they did have death certificates of families who lost loved ones and they came out with the numbers of 18.5 thousand to 22.8 thousand have died post Hussein and at the most 4.3 thousand of them were civillian Iraqis. This as opposed to the Lancet which said betweeen 8 thousand Iraqis to 622,000 Iraqis had died(this is a useless statistic versus the collective and accurate Iraq Health Ministry statistic). The findings of Iraq’s Health Ministry’s was very precise and accurate due to the fact that the range of numbers in the statistic were radically close as oppose to the Lancet’s broad and probably loaded statistic. The Iraq health Ministry findings are also corelated to the CIA’s world factbook Iraqi death rates which state that 5 for every one thousand people die annually in Iraq versus the recorded 10 for every one thousand Iraqis that died annually under Hussein’s regime. In fact, for every 5 people that died, only one would be recorded so the death rate prior to Iraq’s liberation should be 50 for every one thousand people annually. Plus, I would like to point out the U.N. Human Security Report which states that the only countries with increased violence and conflict are Burma and India. All countries are experiencing 40 percent of the conflict they experienced in the last decade, which means they are down 60 percent. Plus, the violence in Iraq is nothing new to the world and isn’t caused by Coalition troops’ presence as you say. People all across the world have crime syndicates, insurgent groups, gangs, criminals, and terror cells plotting organized violence to reak havoc in society. For a fact, the violence in Iraq is not only nothing new to humanity(plus historically low in numbers of dead) as a whole in every country, it is also not a nation wide issue. The violence in Iraq is concentrated in the the NorthWestern tip of the Sunni Triangle in which the violence is spread from West to East in Anbar, Danukhbar Al Sunna, and Diyala Provinces west of the Euphrates river in the Euphrates valley. This is where the North West Sunni, North East Kurdish, and Southern Shia border each other and this is where the fighting occurs most of the time because part of the problem in Iraq(I am sure you have no clue of this) is a millenium old iconoclasm(sectarian war, look it up) where these differing perspectives cause political dissent, high crime, and sometimes organized social violence despite having their ancestors share the waterways and trade routes for hundreds of years Before Common Era(or before christ, your choice if you want to be more secular) and the birth of Islam. However, very few muslims adopt or support this type of hatred in the same way they oppose terror, and insurgency against anybody west, east, south or north. Most Muslim in this hemisphere despite people supporting such violent mob-like acts, marry of different religion, sect, or nationality including sharing business, public utilities(schools primarily), and market areas(yes recreational included). Which is why they oppose blowing up anything. Iraqis rebuilt their cities after the massive decline HUssein sent them on with our help. They had worked hard for it. The insurgents are destroying these things the Iraqis have built and Iraq doesn’t like it. Also, to the contrary of your statement that comes from poll you presented, Iraqis don’t want our troops dying in their streets. They feel the insurgents who killed coalition troops are mobsters and murdering thugs who deserve to be kicked out of the country. They also feel sorry for American military families who have had loved ones die in our service. In fact, as reported in MNF-Iraq.mil’s website, the family of a dead Marine who jumped on a grenade saving dozens of people and his unit was welcomed into Anbar province and were told that their son was a martyr in the real sense of the term as oppose to the bastardized form that AQ and Zawahiri with his chrony Bin Laden have adopted. Quiet to the contrary, Iraq is the country that our troops are stationed in with the most voluntary aid to actively pursue terror cells, rogue soldiers, gangs, and insurgent coups. Like I had said more than 80 percent of the enemies we had captured in the Mid East and North Africa have been so with the aid of the locals. It is also proven with the Mid East’s desire to speak english even though broken at times, desire to because they like Americans(remember “Bush Good” with a thumbs up). In fact, the minority of muslims support international crime and terror organizations especially with ones that originate using the Muslim doctrine to justify their actions because it burns cultural bridges to establish peace that muslims want to cross with Isrealis and Americans alike. In fact, of all the cities you can call the most dangerous in the world, none of them are muslim cities or in muslim nations. This is supported by the fact that their societies don’t need it. The kids(or future of Iraq as I should say it) care more so about taking care of their parents when they get old, the kids also care more about getting an education, and carrying the responsibilities their parents undertook in their villages, or tribes in some cases. This has been the way for hundreds of years in the Bedhouin society plus the fact that they are taught to refrain from violence religiously. In which they of all societies in the world are least permissive of conflict. These are concrete facts, the position you have taken is no different from American ignorance that accompanies human stupidity in general. Saying that most people in the Mid East support attacks on America through polls, politics, or by what you see going on when you turn the news on would be not too far off different from the typical prejudice directed at particular cultures that the U.S.’s citizens subscribe to on a daily basis like; all mexicans cut grass, all blacks are in gangs, whites are predominately racist, and Asians are nerdy. Stupid? Indeed, the undertaking of the false notion that Muslims predominately support violence against other cultures is the most stupid of all. To that, I must respectfully lay down my defensive, for you and I will have to agree to disagree. Best regards.

Mike

September 14th, 2007 at 7:13 am

Seal,

I only got about 4 or 5 lines into your last post before I went crossed-eyed!