"Let's say a few years ago you got busted for illegal posession of a handgun. It was proven you had the gun, you were found guilty and placed on probation. If you were found to have a gun again, you would have to face the consequences. So being a good citizen, you get rid of all your guns and choose to behave. Then one day you get pulled over for going 90 in a 65 on the Mass pike. The cop sees your record and you start acting nervous. He asks you if you have a gun in the car. You say no. He asks if he can search the car. You say no. Why would you say no? If you don't have a gun, let him see for himself. You can prove you don't have a gun and the cop will be satisfied. By telling him he can't look in your car, that he should just take your word for it, only gives the cop probable cause."
Interesting analogy. But it raises some questions.
1. Who's the cop? Seriously. The UN? IIRC, most of the real advocates of this war barely even recognize the UN. The advocates of this war thought the UN wasn't doing enough, remember?
2. What's the "pulled over for doing 90" analogous to? Please don't say 9/11.
3. Why would you say no? Because you have no guns and the officer does not have the right to search your car based on your record. And Saddam didn't categorically say no. Searches were allowed. Months and months of them. Was it a case of Saddam "getting nervous" or Saddam losing his patience because the world community (at the urging of the US) insisted that yes, there are guns in your car. There are WMDs hidden in underground bunkers. At the very least there are abandoned trailers that might have been used to create WMDs. Or maybe they were just part of the research process. Or maybe the cousin of the owner of the trailer knew a guy who once went to a conference where they talked about WMDs for a couple of minutes.
4. In the USA, there are these things called probable cause and due process. If a Mass. trooper searched a car without consent when the owner insisted he had nothing and did not allow the search, and then found nothing? At least an inquiry, possibly the loss of a badge for some period of time. Apparently MidEasterners aren't allowed the same benefit by the international community.
Saddam had 'em. Both Clintons said so.
Need you to cite that one. I can't recall Billy ever saying that Saddam was in possession of WMDs during the Bush administration. And I don't give a rats butt what Hillary says until she says "I've decided not to run for election of anything ever again".
Kerry said so. Biden said so.
Cite it. They may not have disagreed with the faulty intelligence they were presented, but I don't think either one of them were ever on record saying something similar to "I have seen with my own eyes irrefutable proof that Saddam has WMDs".
British and Russian intelligence said so.
I assume you're referring to the many-times-over discredited Niger yellowcake story.
Christ, even Fat Boy Kennedy said so.
ehhhh.....you're reaching again.
Saddam used them on the Iranians in the 80's and he used them on the Kurds in the 90's. Fact.
So what? We used the bomb on the Japanese in 1945. Yet we're still allowed to have them. And weapons that are worse by orders of magnitude. Don't get me wrong, I think that all WMDs are bad things, I just think it's very hypocritical to say that it's ok for one country to have them but another country not to.
This whole "pre-emptive strike" will get played out in court some day.
Judge: Did you shoot your neighbor?
Defendant: Yes sir, I did. I planned it out, discovered his weaknesses, and took him down.
Judge: What gives you the right to do so?
Defendant: Well sir, he owned an unregistered gun, and he might have used it on me some day. I'm sure of it.
Just because we can't find them does not mean he didn't have them.
If you went looking through your neighbor's house for the holiday fruitcake that he threw out 5 years ago and couldn't find it, would you still think it's there?
And just because he said he didn't have them doesn't mean shit to me. All he had to do was say he'd destroyed them and then allow his buddies from the UN to come in and verify that fact.
His buddies? Since when did Saddam ever cozy up to the UN?
But nooooooooooooooo. He wouldn't let the police search the car.
Again, he allowed searches. Limited, yes, but they were allowed.
And he paid for this arrogance with his miserable life.
Can't argue with you there. We've all seen the video of him swinging. The world at large is better off without him. I wouldn't want anyone to think that I'm defending Saddam, his family, or his policies, because he was one despicable SOB, albeit one that posed only the remotest of threats to the US.
But--Iraq is FUBAR for the next 20 years, at least, because of the way the Bush administration mishandled this invasion and occupation. What should have been a surgical strike to get Saddam became "Shock and Awe", because a surgical strike just doesn't quite stir the patriotism that blowing the shit out of a bunch of civilians does. And a sugical strike costs a lot less and doesn't win Halliburton a no-bid contract that they wind up defaulting on parts of. And GWB couldn't land a plane on the USS Lincoln and stand in front of "Mission Accomplished". And the Patriot Act may have been harder to push through. And the US populace in general would not have lived a couple of years in utter fear. Yellow Alerts, Orange Alerts, plastic sheeting and duct tape, don't take your toothpaste in your carry-on bags, send your shoes through the xray scanner, etc. etc. etc.
And now, all these freedoms which cause the US to be hated so much? Well they're just spiraling right down the toilet, aren't they? But yet we're still hated. And we're still there. And we'll still be there until the Iraqi's send us home.
Up next: Iran
