Spring RTS Engine

[Krogoth86] wrote:

SwiftSpear wrote:Atrocity validates extermination. That's why 9/11 allows the Americans the right to remove most of the governments in the middle east.

Well it might give you the right to take action in some way but the question is to what extent you are allowed to do something and if there is a reason for an action at all. While it's even highly questionable for Afghanistan, it's pretty obvious that the war with Iraq was - well let's call it "random". Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 (in fact Al Kaida was one of Saddam's archfiends) and there also were no WMDs...

I also think that "Atrocity validates extermination." is a quite stupid attitude - especially not if you do your payback a thousand times more worse than what was done to you...

SwiftSpear wrote: Sleksa was arguing that because the Chechens committed a handful of terroristic atrocities you can strick from the record all the Chechens killed. I made a strawman out of that argument to show parrallels to the US, since he's clearly not stricking all the fatalities bush is vaugly sort of responsible for.

My initial point was that bush doesn't have political opponents and hostile media assassinated.

He made a strawman out of that argument to say that bush is just as bad because of the war he's responsible for.

SwiftSpear wrote:I don't think making the wrong call on going to war is remotely or slightly ethically comparable to having your opposition murdered in cold blood on your own national territory.

Teutooni wrote:

SwiftSpear wrote:I don't think making the wrong call on going to war is remotely or slightly ethically comparable to having your opposition murdered in cold blood on your own national territory.

I totally agree. Murdering a few opposers on your own turf, while extremely atrocious at best, is nothing compared to starting a goddamn war - murdering opposers and innocents by the thousands in another sovereign contry.

I am half joking, ofc.

BigSteve wrote:Sooo, when are we gonna see the US take out Zimbabwe? Mugabe is almost as bad as Sadam, then maybe Iran, oh then North Korea, and ummm what about China? theyre leik really mean to Tibet...

BigSteve wrote:Sooo, when are we gonna see the US take out Zimbabwe? Mugabe is almost as bad as Sadam, then maybe Iran, oh then North Korea, and ummm what about China? theyre leik really mean to Tibet...
Well, China are hard as F*** and the others dont have any oil.

Dont get me wrong I was glad to see saddam get Pwned, it just grinds my gears when people come on here and make out that bush smacked him down purely because he was a bad lad.

And cmon, imagine if Russia started putting up "missile defence" networks in territories around the US, Im sure George would start threatening to kick people in the balls too.
They dont need this network. atall. Its just gonna cause massive beef with the ruskies. And I dont want that... haven't you guys seen Fedor emelianenko? you wanna mess with that maigne?!

Gota wrote:Im all for WW3,at least i wont have to study for another 3 years just to work in some shitty cubicle.

Gota wrote:Im all for WW3,at least i wont have to study for another 3 years just to work in some shitty cubicle.

BigSteve wrote:Sooo, when are we gonna see the US take out Zimbabwe? Mugabe is almost as bad as Sadam, then maybe Iran, oh then North Korea, and ummm what about China? theyre leik really mean to Tibet...
Well, China are hard as F*** and the others dont have any oil.

Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq

WASHINGTON ├óÔé¼ÔÇØ The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers said Wednesday.

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

...

"This says weapons have been discovered, more weapons exist and they state that Iraq was not a WMD-free zone, that there are continuing threats from the materials that are or may still be in Iraq," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

The weapons are thought to be manufactured before 1991 so they would not be proof of an ongoing WMD program in the 1990s. But they do show that Saddam Hussein was lying when he said all weapons had been destroyed, and it shows that years of on-again, off-again weapons inspections did not uncover these munitions.

The Iraq War - A Summary

***

There were essentially five main reasons for the United States to use military force in Iraq:

1. to rid a sworn enemy of his WMD programs

2. to respond to the Iraqi dictator's funding and harboring of terrorists

3. to enforce the terms of a cease fire and 14 years of related UN resolutions

4. to prevent further human suffering and exhume the mass graves

5. to promote freedom and democracy in the Middle East

Taken together, these reasons more than justify the U.S.-led military action to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Below is information that pertains to the first two reasons.

Iraqi WMDs

Highlights: thus far we have found

1. chemical and biological weapon systems plans and equipment

2. reference strains of biological weapons agents

3. new research on brucella and congo-crimean hemorrhagic fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin

4. a biological weapons lab

5. prohibited long-range missiles suitable for delivering WMDs

6. documents showing Saddam tried to obtain long-range ballistic missiles from North Korea

7. 10 or 12 sarin and mustard gas shells have been found in various locations in Iraq

8. gas centrifuge elements for enriching uranium, parts of a nuclear weapons program, buried in the back yard of Mahdi Obeidi, a nuclear scientist. Obeidi also gave up nuclear development documents and said there were other pieces of the puzzle hidden elsewhere.

9. a barrel of enriched uranium found near Mosul

10. Iraq was 3 years from a building a nuclear weapon, according to top nuclear scientists quoted by CNN

11. French, British and American intelligence that an Iraqi delegation approached Niger to purchase uranium. That contact was verified by former ambassador Joe Wilson, whose criticism of the administration is contradicted by the 9/11 commission report.

12. an Iraqi artillery shell filled with sarin gas, a drop of which will kill you

13. in October 2003, Kuwaiti security forces intercepted Iraqis attempting to smuggle $60 million worth of chemical weapons and biological warheads to an unnamed European country

14. on January 16, 2003, UN weapons inspectors discovered 11 rocket warheads designed to deliver chemical weapons in a bunker 75 miles south of Baghdad.

15. Chief Weapons Inspector David Kay reported "dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002," including vials of live botulinum bacteria that were found hidden at the home of an Iraqi scientist. Botulinum is the single most poisonous substance known to mankind.

16. Kay's final report reveals Iraq's attempt to "revive its efforts to develop nuclear weapons in 2000 and 2001," and that "Baghdad was actively working to produce a biological weapon using the poison ricin."

17. Kay successor Charles Duelfer reported on March 30, 2004: "Iraq did have facilities suitable for the production of biological and chemical agents needed for weapons. It had plans to improve and expand and even build new facilities." Iraq was also working up to March 2003 to construct new facilities for the large-scale production of dual-use chemicals.

18. "the CIA has found 41 different material breaches where Saddam did have a weapons of mass destruction program" - former Justice Dept prosecutor John Loftus

19. "we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD" - David Kay, who also told the Associated Press that satellites showed "a lot of traffic" from Iraq to Syria

20. a Syrian journalist who defected to Paris in January has named three sites in Syria where Iraqi WMDs are buried, based on contacts of his in Syrian Intelligence. Israeli intelligence has confirmed his account

21. An Iraqi scientist told American weapons experts that Iraq had secretly sent unconventional weapons and technology to Syria just before the war, according to the New York Times

22. Jordan recently seized 20 tons of chemicals trucked in by confessed al Qaeda members who brought the stuff in from Syria. The chemicals included VX, Sarin and 70 others

23. Following reports that Syria was secretly transporting WMD material to Sudan, Sudanese President Omar Bashir responded, ordering that Syria remove its Scud C and Scud D medium-range ballistic missiles as well as components for chemical weapons stored in warehouses in Khartoum. A U.S. official confirmed the Syrian missile shipments to Sudan but said the U.S. intelligence community has not determined that WMD systems were included

Terrorist ties

Highlights of ties to Al Qaida and terrorist activities known thus far:

1. papers found in Iraqi intelligence headquarters documented the beginnings of Saddam's relationship with al-Qaida. Iraq offered to pay all travel and hotel expenses for a top aide to Osama bin Laden visited Iraq in 1998, bearing a message from bin Laden. The aide stayed in Iraq for a week, after which Iraq intelligence officers sent a message back to bin Laden concerning "the future of our relationship."

2. According to Czech intelligence, 9/11 suspect Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence agents in Prague

3. In his address to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell named Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi's presence in Iraq as evidence of a "sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network." Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war began and is currently leading the terrorists efforts against coalition forces there.

4. in December 2003, US forces operating in the Sunni Triangle discovered an Iraqi weapons cache accompanied by Al Qaida literature and videotapes, according to CNN

5. in January 2004, a senior Al Qaida operative Hassan Ghul was captured, as was Husam al Yemeni, who is also a terrorist with ties to Al Qaida

6. Abu Nidal was a known terrorist who was harbored by Saddam Hussein and was responsible for the deaths of several American citizens. Iraq's coalition government claims it has uncovered documentary proof that Mohammed Atta was trained by Nidal in Baghdad, in the summer of 2001.

7. The Defense Department has a memo detailing over 50 contacts between senior officials in Iraq and Osama bin Laden's followers going back to the 1980s

8. There are U.S. satellite photos confirming the existence of a Boeing 707 fuselage in Salam Pak, Iraq, that was used as a hijacking classroom.

9. In February 2004, U.S. troops arrested seven militants believed linked to Al Qaeda in the Iraqi city of Baqouba.

10. Ramzi Yousef, an Iraqi, was the architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He arrived in America on an Iraqi passport.

11. Abu Abbas, a known terrorist involved in a hijacking that resulted in the murder of an American, was found in Baghdad on April 14, 2003.

12. September 11 hijackers Nawaz al-Hamzi and Khalid al-Midhar met Iraqi VIP airport greeter Ahmad Hikmat Shakir in Malaysia, on January 5, 2000, where he is said to have escorted them to a 9/11 planning summit with other al Qaida members.

13. Khala Khadar al-Salahat was a top deputy to Abu Nidal and also a resident of Baghdad before he surrendered to US Marines in April 2003.

14. Iraqi diplomat Hisham al Hussein was in contact with leaders of Abu Sayyaf, a terrorist group allied with Al Qaida and responsible for the deaths of at least three US citizens, including U.S. soldier Mark Wayne Jackson.

15. Uday Hussein's newspaper, Babylon Daily, published a "List of honor" that included the following passage: "Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, intelligence officer responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group at the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan." That document was discovered by Carter-appointed US federal appeals judge Gilbert S. Merritt.

16. Iraqi ambassador Farouk Hijazi admitted to meeting with senior al Qaeda leaders at Saddam's behest in 1994.

17. An Iraqi intelligence memo dated February 19, 1998, said the agency would pay "all the travel and hotel expenses inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden, the Saudi opposition leader, about the future of our relationship with him, and to achieve a direct meeting with him."

18. U.S. District Court judge Harold Baer found Iraq partially responsible for the 9/11 attacks, a ruling that was upheld by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals last October

Iraq War Summary, Part II
Five reasons why military action was justified:

1. to rid a sworn enemy of his WMD programs

2. to respond to the Iraqi dictator's funding and harboring of terrorists

3. to enforce the terms of a cease fire and 14 years of related UN resolutions

4. to prevent further human suffering and exhume the mass graves

5. to promote freedom and democracy in the Middle East

But did President Bush ever offer these five reasons, in the same place and at the same time before the war, or did the Administration's justification for war change again and again after they found our WMD intelligence was flawed, as critics charge?

President Bush's biggest speech on Iraq was given to the United Nations on Sept 12, 2002. Below are excerpts from that speech, and as you can see, they each fit into the categories listed above. In this speech, George W. Bush offers each one of these factors as reasons for military action in Iraq.

I'll let him explain, in his own words: "In one place -- in one regime -- we find all these dangers, in their most lethal and aggressive forms, exactly the kind of aggressive threat the United Nations was born to confront."

1. "the Iraqi regime agreed to destroy and stop developing all weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, and to prove to the world it has done so by complying with rigorous inspections. Iraq has broken every aspect of this fundamental pledge."

2. "Our greatest fear is that terrorists will find a shortcut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies to kill on a massive scale... If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all support for terrorism and act to suppress it, as all states are required to do by U.N. Security Council resolutions."

3. "To suspend hostilities, to spare himself, Iraq's dictator accepted a series of commitments. The terms were clear, to him and to all. And he agreed to prove he is complying with every one of those obligations. He has proven instead only his contempt for the United Nations, and for all his pledges. By breaking every pledge -- by his deceptions, and by his cruelties -- Saddam Hussein has made the case against himself."

4. "Last year, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights found that Iraq continues to commit extremely grave violations of human rights, and that the regime's repression is all pervasive. Tens of thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and torture by beating and burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation, and rape. Wives are tortured in front of their husbands, children in the presence of their parents -- and all of these horrors concealed from the world by the apparatus of a totalitarian state."

5. "In the Middle East, there can be no peace for either side without freedom for both sides... Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest, and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder. The United States supports political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq."