When the communist and socialist parties leave the Democrat party, there will be more than three (counting the Libertarian party).  So arty what your really saying is when the US becomes Canada, all will be right in the world...

For Iraq, most people say that we fought the war for oil.  Then what's this:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1948787,00.html?cnn=yes

I was surprised to find that article or see that article in times.

As for the WMD, there are certain things that government and military organization would rather keep quiet.  Just because the media sprouts off that we didn't find anything over there doesn't necessarily mean that we didn't. 

In the 1990s, Russian genetic scientists were able to altered the immunological properties of anthrax, making existing vaccines and detection methods ineffective against this new genetically engineered type.

Saddam had connection with Russia, remember Russia was totally against Saddam being toppled.  Where do you think Saddam obtained information on how to build that nuclear plant back in the 80s?

Saddam also was very involved in the genetic engineering and the science of biological weapons.  There are certain things that governments and military would rather keep quiet to keep the masses from freaking out.

One more thing, the strain of influenza virus that caused the 1918 global epidemic was a particularly aggressive type. It showed a high capacity to cause severe disease and a propensity to kill fit young adults rather than the elderly. The mortality rate among the infected was over 2.5%, as compared to less than 0.1% in other influenza epidemics (Taubenberger et al. 1997). This high mortality rate, especially amongst the younger, lowered the average life expectancy in the USA by almost 10 years (Tumpey et al. 2002).

Most countries have access to this strain of flu (Iraq being one of them).  It is possible to genetically alter this strain in such a way to make it more aggressive and have a higher mortality rate as well as to ensure that it will affect young adults.

Well, actually in the case of Afghanistan a large portion of the U.S military deployments are located near the proposed route for the mother-of-all-pipelines that's going to theoretically carry natural gas from the caspian area and bypass Russia entirely. If you look at your history, the Clinton and even Bush 2 administrations courted the Taliban frequently to try and secure the rights and safety guarantees to build this pipeline. During this time the Taliban were running around carrying out summary executions and implementing sharia law that makes Saudi look like a paradise in comparison, their brutal and oppressive practices were well known but so long as the negotiations were on no one cared (similar to how everyone knew Saddam was gassing the Kurds but he was A-OK so long as he was fighting Iran)

When the Taliban made it clear that the deal was never going to happen, suddenly the buddy-buddy relationship ended and shortly thereafter came 9/11 and the subsequent invasion.

Now don't over-simplify this by thinking that it's another "oil-grab" argument. It isn't. Building this pipeline and transporting the energy resources through it has just as much to do  with the geo-political strategy of denying an adversary a winning hand.

Right now, Russia is one of the primary providers of natural gas to much of Europe. It is for this reason, coupled with the fact that Russia is a nuclear power, that Europe isn't going to fuck with them, end of story. Since Europe won't fuck with Russia, not only is the U.S extremely limited in what it can do, it's also a sure bet that if they were to take any unilateral action against Russia they could lose their European bases in Germany and Italy, similar in concept to when Turkey denied use of their country to U.S forces as a jumping off point to invade Iraq in GW2.

So anywho, with this pipeline built you've just provided a significant alternative to the Russian spigot, removing one potential dependency that would otherwise force European countries to sit on the sidelines. The second point, that Russia is a nuclear power, was supposed to be nullified by the missile shield that was being placed in Eastern Europe. I mean seriously, to state that interceptors in Poland were there to defend against Iranian missiles is beyond absurd. Once these two measures were in place, the U.S would have a much freer hand in what it could do to influence events in the region, and could seriously hamper Russia's economy, due to the massive revenues they generate from shipping natural gas from the Caspian through their own pipelines.

But, don't listen to me. I'm a no-nothing idiot. Go read about it here, and if you don't like what you read here go do your own research on it.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2001/hydrocarbons.htm

Oh, and by the way. You know the current president of Afghanistan, that fellow who just got "re-elected" despite the admission of massive voting fraud? He used to be a consultant for UNOCAL, the company formed to build the pipeline. 

Not at all my good fellow! I think you're drastically over-simplifying politics with the above statement. Who's to say that your nation should only have one major conservative party, one major liberal party, and everything else has to be flavours in between (one socialist party, one libertarian party, etc)

Why shouldn't some folks form a conservative party that's -actually- conservative...as I believe Dr. Guy has suggested... to take on the Republicans? What would be so horrible about having three left-leaning parties and three right-leaning parties all running at the same time? You might even get a true conservative party that's not beholden to the military-industrial complex like Eisenhower warned the nation about when he was leaving office. You might actually get the beginning stages of national discussion on topics like healthcare, environment, energy policy, education and so forth. Right now, every topic that I see seems to be boiling down to the party line, which is ludicrous and kills constructive dialogue.

For every topic out there, exists the official party stance on that subject. It's the world according to the democrats or the republicans, period end of sentence....and like I've been stating, this world vision between the two parties really isn't terribly different, other than the window dressing to give the appearance of difference.

For example, NAFTA is one of the most damaging bills to ever come into North America. And it was pushed through by both a Republican (Bush 1) and Democratic (Clinton) administration working towards the same goal. If either party really gave two rips about your nation, they would have killed it. Of course, we passed it here in Canada too, with a similar background of a conservative leader starting it and a liberal leader finalizing it.

While I'm mad as hell that it's still around and that my country is part of it, at least we have other parties that have a role in the national dialogue who are against it. Meanwhile, the official party line from both Dems and Repubs is that it's part of free trade which is inherently good, period end of sentence. Nevermind the millions of skilled laborers who lost their livelihoods and had to take up far less income generating service jobs like janitors, gas station attendants and wal-mart greeters.

Oh, you mean the one that runs through  Kazakhstan that just opened LINK or here.

[quote]But, don't listen to me. I'm a no-nothing idiot. Go read about it here, and if you don't like what you read here go do your own research on it.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2001/hydrocarbons.htm[/quote]

Don't be so hard on yourself, you're not a no-nothing. Just maybe guilty of not looking at the date of the links you provide. Thanks for the (old) history lesson though. Current links are provided above for you. Sorry you had to write so much about nothing (relevant anyway).

It was sarcasm. I should have put up something to spell it out. The fact is there are many political parties in the US, Green, Reform, Nazi, etc. liberal and conservative. They just don't resonate with the people. You can't just create a party and expect it to be a success.

Arty and I disagree on this (NAFTA).  I am all in favor of it, even with Mexico, and think that extending it to the rest of Central America (Mexico kind of straddles north and central) is a good idea.  For 2 reasons mainly.  Tarrifs have been shown to do more harm than good (and very little good at that). 

And 2, as The Peoples noted, Mexico is not exactly a hot bed of 1st world luxury.  But we need to work with them (more so than perhaps any other nation on earth) to get them closer to us economically.  And we will not do that by holding them down (without NAFTA).  Yes, their trucks are a nightmare, the corruption is on par with Chicago, and their laws are almost 3rd world.  But most of that stems from the lack of a strong middle class.  But we have to work with them to bring them up, and NAFTA was a good first step.

We should not be "giving" them a bunch of money.  But paying them for goods and services?  How else to nurture a middle class.  We need a strong and friendly nation on our southern border as much as we need one on our northern border.  It is going to take time and a lot more cooperation (note again that I am not saying MONEY) to get them there, but if we can, then we not only get a lot of answers to our national security, we also alleviate other problems - like the Illegal immigration.

We need CAFTA and more work on NAFTA.  We dont need protectionist that scream "I have mine, so now government has to make sure I keep it". 

Actually you repeat yourself.

My favorite one is how Bush was the biggest moron and/or idiot to become President yet somehow he was the smartest one to fool the whole world into going to war. I'm not sure how someone can be that stupid and smart at the same time.

Yes, that's about it.

The fact is that all western secret services believed in those WMDs, not just the CIA. If anything, the stupid Bush fell for it, just like Arty did. (Maybe Arty lied to us about the WMDs? He claimed he "believed" the story but that Bush "lied" about it. If Bush's belief in the story makes him a liar, why is Arty not a liar too?)

I wrote about the issue here: https://forums.joeuser.com/359722

I quoted an article:

Saddam Hussein believed Iran was a significant threat to Iraq and left open the possibility that he had weapons of mass destruction rather than appear vulnerable, according to declassified FBI documents on interrogations of the former Iraqi leader.

"Hussein believed that Iraq could not appear weak to its enemies, especially Iran," FBI special agent George Piro wrote on notes of a conversation with Saddam in June 2004 about weapons of mass destruction.

Apparently Saddam's lie became Bush's lie when Bush believed it.

And then Bush's "lie" didn't become Arty's lie when Arty believed it.

No. "Crazy uncle" is a name for Ron Paul.

Arty, In 2008 I have personally been a few miles from the place where Al-Qaeda were stationed in Iraq before 2003. I have PERSONALLY heard stories, from locals, about the battle between the Peshmerga (with American support) and the Al-Qaeda terrorists in 2003.

So PLEASE, for the sake of my sanity, PLEASE stop telling me that there was no Al-Qaeda connection.

And I don't doubt that the CIA routinely rejected evidence against their conclusion, just as you routinely dismiss and ignore evidence that shows that your conclusions are wrong.

The difference is that the CIA also had strong reasons to believe in their theory, while your theory that there was no Al-Qaeda connection is simply based on your opinion that there was no Al-Qaeda connection.

The fact is that Saddam allowed Al-Qaeda to be based in Iraq and didn't act against them. How do you think Al-Qaeda got supplies in Iraq? From Iran? (It's possible but unlikely.) From Syria? (The base was at the far side of Iraq, at the Iranian border.)

Yes, because such info contradicted what everybody (thought they) knew about Iraq.

There are always people who doubt established facts. Sometimes they are right. More often they are stupid loonies.

I am sure the CIA routinely reject eyewitness reports of alien abductions in their quest to find foreign spies in the US. That doesn't mean that they lie to us when they claim that there are spies on US territory.

And again you are ignoring all the other reasons given for the invasion.

But even ignoring those, and even assuming that the "dumbest president ever" (according to top Google hits anyway) managed to "lie" about something everybody else believed was true (making him the only person who was not deceived), even then Iraq was certainly a threat.

Any government that supports terrorists is a threat to the US. The fact that YOU simply don't acknowledge that Saddam Hussein had ties to terrorists (despite the fact that everybody in the Middle-East knows this since he proudly advertised the fact), doesn't mean that Saddam and his connections were not a threat.

But if you want to insist that your case against the invasion are your ignorance of Saddam's ties to terrorists, your ignorance of the many reasons given outside the WMD issue, and your refusal to believe that "the dumbest president ever" could have possibly fallen for the same faulty intelligence as everybody else, then I cannot help you.

I can only tell you so often what I know and what I saw with my own eyes. But at the very least you could learn that telling me that things I have seen with my own eyes don't exist is a ridiculous way to win an argument.

(Heck, a few years ago I already gave you a link to an article with pictures by someone who was at the very place where Al-Qaeda were based in Iraq. If I had had more time when I was in the neighbourhood I would have seen the very place too.)

Leauki, I'm actually not disputing that AQ were in Iraq prior to the invasion. But if their presence is justification for invasion then we should have invaded Pakistan, Yemen, Sudan, and a whole host of other countries. Allow me to explain:

What was the size of AQ in Iraq prior to the invasion, and where were they located? Did they have camps of thousands of fighters being supplied and armed by the Iraqi government? Were they located in the middle of major cities?

No, they weren't. They were located largely on the periphery of the country in areas that most Iraqi forces didn't go, had no official connection with the Iraqi government or Saddam, and in comparison to most of their other sites in other countries they were running a relatively small time operation that was bourne more out of opportunity than anything else.

What was the opportunity? Various operations carried out by the U.S and Allies to keep the Iraqi army off the backs of the Kurds to the north. In fact, the success of these campaigns was one of the main reasons that folks like wolfowitz, feith and rumsfeld believed overwhelmingly that Iraq as a whole could be dealt with the same way (only a small commitment of men and material needed)

Operations provide comfort 1 and 2, operation northern watch and operation desert strike succeeded perfectly in creating a relative safe haven in which the Kurds could operate without having to worry daily about the republican guard crashing down their doors. While from time to time Iraqi forces did come north and intervene, by the mid to late 90's these operations created an environment wherein the Iraqi army was largely absent. From time to time they would launch incursions to the north but always of limited scope and duration. This created a relative power vacuum, in which a group like AQ could indeed set up a little safe-house.

What -isn't- in dispute are the numbers. Prior to the invasion the size and scope of AQ in Iraq was extremely limited- they did not have a national presence, and there's no evidence that there was any corroboration or cooperation between AQ and Saddam's government.

After the invasion, however AQ in Iraq exploded, establishing a presence in virtually every major city.

And where would your gas pipeline through Afghanistan run in order to be delivered to the US and Europe? Afghanistan is bordered by 5 nations, none of which have a care to particular care to support the US or Europe's natural gas needs. Your the ignorant one from the sound of your comment. We don't need the various "stan's" gas or oil, we only need them to be able to sell it without the single route through Russia (where they make money and can turn it off in a whim). Oil and Gas revenues keep these countries stable, AND THAT IS IN THE INTEREST OF THE US. I know it's hard for your strategically stunted brain to comprehend, you've been force fed the notion that the US needs every last drop of oil on the planet, when that is far from the reality of it. Your deep seated disdain for projected US military power is blinding you. The Chinese oil pipeline (and gas in the future if they so choose) is a good enough alternate to keep these cash flowing into these countries and provide stability. If the US was planning a pipeline at one time, its purpose was surely to funnel money to these countries as natural gas is plentiful and much easier to get else where.

The last thing the US needs is more expensive natural gas when we get it so much cheaper from Canada and Mexico LINK  let alone from an expensive 2000 mile pipeline in central Asia. Oil is another thing entirely as the price justifies the cost of a pipeline.

The US production of natural gas out paces the consumption of the resource. So why do we by it? Who the hell knows, but looking at the list of countries we buy it from, I'd say it is to stimulate their economies, for the same reason we produce steel and still buy abroad.

As my license plate once read; "Don't blame me; I voted for Mc Govern." In the primaries I voted for Hillary. Still, did it ever occur to you that Obama is a hell of a lot better than GeoW?

As would I have done if I had been a Democrat and US citizen.

In what respect?