How do you fight the lies? still claiming iraq had WMDs

[ejpoeta]

Here is a facebook conversation:

Kevin O'Neill Remember Cindy Sheehan, the Mom of a Marine killed in battle? She bravely became the face and voice of the anti-war movement. She was arrested outside the White House recently, but now gets NO media attention.
Troop levels have doubled in Afghanistan. Last month was the deadliest month ever. 8 have been killed this wee...k. Now Cindy wonders what I'm wondering.... then there was a link

Eileen Ostrander
why worry about the wars when you don't have anyone there. if there were a draft you can bet there would be rioting in the streets by now. my niece's husband is in afghanistan right now having only gotten a glimpse of his baby girl. guess he was lucky he could be there for her birth even. while we spend half an hour on bristol and levi's engagement, what does afghanistan and iraq get? these soldiers are risking their lives and in constant threat of injury and death and we can't even give them more than five minutes on the tv. sick.

Now keep in mind that my post had more to do with the lack of media coverage of the wars and the casualties. my mention of a draft had to do with people's concern of what was going on and the coverage of it.

David Czajkowski
a war for heroin is not really cool, but hey, i guess we need our heroin.

Don Congdon
Eileen the key words here are "If there were a draft".This Cindy's son joined up knowing the job and his duty simply said. NO ONE joins the military thinking they wont be in a battle of some kind. I feel for her but her political rantings are a waste of time and space. I have several family members that joined and serverd in Iraq, joined knowing ... See Morethey are fighting for our freedoms and rights and then there are folks like this Cindy that carry on taking all the nobility of what her son did and why he did it away. War is a nessesary evil in our word as sick as that makes me feel to say that its true. It truely isnt alot different then standing up to a bully in school aside for the death part. the idea is the same. I am sorry she lost her boy but enough of all this anti war crap, he knew what he was in for and chose that as his path in life he wasnt forced to do anything

See, they CHOSE to be in the military so it makes it ok. so cindy sheehan should just shut up, i guess.

Kevin W Eggert
Well said Don.

Amy Iven Wilson
We shouldn't even be arguing over our presence in Afghanistan. As far as Iraq- there WERE wapons of mass destruction and their names were Saddam, Uday and Quay Hussein. And they were coming after us as soon as they were finished practicing on their own people.

this shit just pisses me off. this person seems to think there WERE wmd and while there were biological agents they used on their own people in the 80s, weren't we friends with them then? didn't seem to be any problem at that time when you see all those pictures of don rumsfeld shaking hussein's hand!!

Don Congdon
Don Congdon
Thanx KWE enough is enough already, hope she realizes her son was killed so she has the right to post this nonsence but i somehow dont think she has thought of that. We must remember all the pirating internet posts and videos that were put out there when this war started. the Iragy Govt. tried preventing anything from leaking out of the country in ... See Morethe begining and that was all the info and sources we had when the bombs flew. Not all Gov't would allow a person like her and so many others to post all that crap and many wouldnt have just locked her up. She needs to be thankful for her rights even in jail

so we needed to invade iraq because they didn't let their people use the internet? are we going to invade china now?

Nicholas Mendola
I loved reading this, but as someone who's been on the Moveon side for a long, long time, I can tell you that moderates and democrats have NOT changed sides because of Petraeus. And I just went to the MoveOn site for the first time since maybe 2007... they have REALLY streamlined things. Missing a lot of stuff.

Eileen Ostrander
The Iraq war was a war of choice. Afghanistan was necessary but what
was and is the goal. I don't think the current goal is clear. We
cannot afford to continue this is nuts. And I believe my original comment had to do with media lack of coverage and the disconnect.
Those there may have voluntarily joined the military but they are
being used and thrown away. They are not bei

Eileen Ostrander
There were no weapons. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. It was a LIE

btw... i am eileen in this exchange. I shouldn't let this stuff get to me, but wtf!! i mean, is there nothing wrong with the idea that the media spends a half an hour discussing bristol and levi's engagement or mel gibson's rants? yet what coverage is there of the wars? the toll on our soldiers? the fact that the soldiers get screwed if they get hurt over there. I just am so tired of the misinformation and that idiots still think that iraq was a threat to us. i mean wtf! ok, rant over. i guess, for now. this is why i can;t watch a lot of stuff anymore. just replying to a post sends my blood pressure off.

[Travis Coates]

1. The U.S. is positive Saddam had WMDs

because wesold them to him.

[WinkyDink]

2. He used them on the Kurds, with which we were complicit by oversight. And that handshake with Rummy

And perhaps in the justified war against Kuwait, which was stealing Iraqi oil.

But no WMD's when Bushco claimed so.

[Travis Coates]

4. I was just pointing out the irony

Similar to my giving you 10 dollars and calling you a thief for taking it. We gave Saddam those chemical weapons knowing full well he'd use them on Iran then called him a threat to world peace for having them.

[NNN0LHI]

7. Oversight? The US was actively supplying the targeting intelligence for the gas

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/08/31/the_true_iraq_appeasers/

The true Iraq appeasers

By Peter W. Galbraith | August 31, 2006

IN HIS MOST recent justification of his Pentagon stewardship, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reached back to the 1930s, comparing the Bush administration's critics to those who, like US Ambassador to Britain Joseph P. Kennedy, favored appeasing Adolf Hitler. Rumsfeld avoided a more recent comparison: the appeasement of Saddam Hussein by the Reagan and first Bush administrations. The reasons for selectivity are obvious, since so many of Hussein's appeasers in the 1980s were principals in the 2003 Iraq war, including Rumsfeld.

In 1983, President Reagan initiated a strategic opening to Iraq, then in the third year of a war of attrition with neighboring Iran. Although Iraq had started the war with a blitzkrieg attack in 1980, the tide had turned by 1982 in favor of much larger Iran, and the Reagan administration was afraid Iraq might actually lose. Reagan chose Rumsfeld as his emissary to Hussein, whom he visited in December 1983 and March 1984. Inconveniently, Iraq had begun to use chemical weapons against Iran in November 1983, the first sustained use of poison gas since a 1925 treaty banning that.

Rumsfeld never mentioned this blatant violation of international law to Hussein, instead focusing on shared hostility toward Iran and an oil pipeline through Jordan. Rumsfeld apparently did mention it to Tariq Aziz, Iraq's foreign minister, but by not raising the issue with the paramount leader he signaled that good relations were more important to the United States than the use of poison gas.

This message was reinforced by US conduct after the Rumsfeld missions. The Reagan administration offered Hussein financial credits that eventually made Iraq the third-largest recipient of US assistance. It normalized diplomatic relations and, most significantly, began providing Iraq with battlefield intelligence. Iraq used this information to target Iranian troops with chemical weapons. And when Iraq turned its chemical weapons on the Kurds in 1988, killing 5,000 in the town of Halabja, the Reagan administration sought to obscure responsibility by falsely suggesting Iran was also responsible.

[Jim__]

3. The corporate media tells us what they want us to hear.

If they don't want us to hear news about Iraq and Afghanistan, they fill the airwaves with Bristol & whoever and an awful lot of people will get caught up in this gossipy bullshit.

But, as to the WMD claim, I understand it differently than you do: As far as Iraq- there WERE wapons of mass destruction and their names were Saddam, Uday and Quay Hussein. And they were coming after us as soon as they were finished practicing on their own people.


This seems to be equivocation on his part. We didn't find any actual WMD, so we just claim Saddam was a WMD. You'll never change that person's mind. when he finds out he's wrong, he just changes the meaning of his original claim.

[JoePhilly]

5. Here's how to deal with the WMD lie ....

1) Saddam did at one time have an active WMD program. We know that because (a) we sold him the weapons, and (b) at the end of the first gulf war, we locked up all those WMDS. That's the key point, they were locked up at the end of gulf war #1.

2) During the 2nd gulf war, we did find WMDs. We found them EXACTLY where they had been locked up after gulf war #1. None of those were involved in an active program, most had degraded past any realistic use.

3) Some will argue that other WMDs were moved by Saddam, to Syria, right before we invaded. They have no evidence for this, but that never bothers them. If you encounter that particular lie, point out that if TRUE, that fact would make the Iraq war an even bigger failure. The Iraq war was framed as necessary to go get the WMDs .... if those WMDs escaped to Syria, then the war was a total failure ... those weapons are now LOOSE and we would have no idea where they are. At this point a persistent right wing hack will still claim they did go to Syria ... which fails since clearly, if the Bush administration thought that, they would have simply invaded Syria for the exact same reason they invaded Iraq ... to get the WMDs ... that did not happen ... so clearly no one in the Bush administration believed it.

[ejpoeta]

6. thank you. it's so frustrating because facts seem to not matter.

they had WMDs... no matter what any one says or what proof exists to the contrary.

[Travis Coates]

8. Not entirely true

(b) at the end of the first gulf war, we locked up all those WMDS. That's the key point, they were locked up at the end of gulf war #1.

Saddam had and used NBC weapons against the Kurds after Desert Storm.

That said, I doubt he had any left by the time we rolled back into Baghdad

[JoePhilly]

10. I think you are incorrect ...

Saddam gassed the Kurds in March of 1988, which was before Gulf War #1, not after.

Gulf War #1 begins with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. And the US responds militarily starting in Jan 1991. The war ends at the end of Feb 1991.

The lock-up of remaining WMDs begins then.

In 2003, the UN inspectors find no credible evidence of new WMDs. They request 4 additional months to complete their inspections. Bush orders them to leave, and then invades.

[Travis Coates]

11. I'll look into it

I thought Saddam use NBC weapons in the war W/ Iran in the 80's but I seem to remember a Kurdish uprising after Desert Storm which was put down brutally by Saddam W/ Chemical weapons.

I seem to remmeber they rose up because George the First implied that we would support them and then left them hanging.

[JoePhilly]

13. I suppose its possible ,,,

But if so, I have not seen that ...

I do seem to recall that after Gulf War #1, there were "no fly zones" created and unfortunately, Saddam could do whatever he wanted within those, and so he murdered members of groups who he believed helped the US, or supported his overthrow.

I recall stories of US troops stationed in nearby areas being angry that they could not step in and stop this from happening. But I don't recall any reports of WMDs being used in those killings.

[Greyhound]

9. More proof that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. n/t

:kick: & R

[EstimatedProphet]

12. Call them stupid, laugh in their face, and defriend them

Repeat as necessary.