"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"NOYB" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"NOYB" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"NOYB" wrote in message
k.net...

"thunder" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 08 Jun 2005 15:21:15 +0000, NOYB wrote:


First reform: admit that there may have been something to the US
claims
that weapons and weapons equipment had been moved before the war.

Uh, the UN report says nothing about equipment being moved *before*
the
war. The report is concerned with known dual use equipment that
the UN
was actively monitoring until the war. Much of that equipment has
now
gone missing while under nominal US control.

It's interesting you are willing to miss- characterize the report
from
the evil UN, but completely ignore the US' own Iraq Survey Group's
main
findings. Iraq did not possess chemical or biological weapons, and
only
had aspirations of nuclear weapons. It further states, quite
clearly,
that there is no evidence that WMD was moved to Syria.

Saying "we found no evidence" is a lot different from "there were no
weapons moved". Duelfer emphatically clarified this point when he
issued his assessment.

The report *did* mention that the transfer may have taken place, but
that the ISG could not confirm nor absolutely deny that it ever took
place.



So, based on this, you're comfortable assuming that the transfer DID
take place? What does that accomplish? Answer carefully. This is a
trap.

It allows the Russians to hide their involvement in helping Saddam
build post-embargo WMD's.




So now it's my turn to ask you a question:
How does this help Syria?

(Hint: Putin just made a trip to Israel. What issue did the Israelis
want to discuss?)


Even more interesting: How does it help Russia?

If the Russians were wangling to maintain access to oil, they were
certainly doing it the old way, which works just fine - play one party
against the other by giving arms to whoever is most useful. Hey....we do
that sometimes, too. Works great, usually. This leads to an important
question: Since this sort of power brokering often results in no
violence, but lots of fear and respect, why do you suppose your
president chose a way which accomplished the exact opposite?

Because we couldn't afford to let this one play out. Imagine what would
have happened to oil prices (and our economy) if we let al Qaeda oust us
from Saudi Arabia, and overthrow the House of Saud. Meanwhiel Saddam
continued to sell oil to Russia, China, Syria, etc. and re-arm himself in
violation of the embargo.

Our economy would have gone to ****, our military weakened, China,
Russia, Syria, and Iraq's military strengthened, and Iran would have
obtained nukes with no US presence on either border.

Interesting fantasy, but Iraq was in no way connected with our ability to
come to the aid of Saudi Arabia if the AQ scenario played out as you say.
Matter of fact, it can be easily demonstrated that in our current
situation, we are less able to defend Saudi oil.

Look at a map, Doug. There is no better geographically strategic location
in the Middle East than Iraq for stomping out terrorism and protecting the
region's oil supply. We now have Iran and Syria sweating bullets...and it
gives us the flexibility to remove our troops from Saudi Arabia to help
quell their extremist uprising.

It has put tremendous pressure on neighboring countries to clean up their
acts, lest we do it for them.