I think, in the context of what you're saying, 'affect' is the more appropriate word.

(edit - spelling error. :) )

You may be right but I was thinking differently. "The particular way in which something affects or influences something else: the effect of morine on the body." There's no doubt we will affect them at this point. However the way we effect them is critical. There was never any question we had making war down pat. Now comes the hard part.

French helped Iraq to stifle dissent

FRANCE colluded with the Iraqi secret service to undermine a Paris conference held by the prominent human rights group Indict, according to documents found in the foreign ministry in Baghdad.

ruh-roh!

Aluminum tubes back again (headed for NK this time):

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...ws/5725153.htm

BERLIN -The manager of a German company has been charged with trying to ship to China components that could have been used to help make nuclear weapons, prosecutors said Saturday.

The man, who wasn't identified, is accused of violating German export laws by failing to secure authorization for the shipment, said Eckard Maak, a spokesman for prosecutors in the southwestern city of Stuttgart.

He declined to elaborate or to comment on a report in the newsmagazine Der Spiegel that German authorities suspect the shipment - officially addressed to China's Shenyang Aircraft Corp. - was in fact destined for North Korea, currently under intense scrutiny over its nuclear program.

I have some Aluminum tubing in the back. Should I expect a visit from Hans (and the Marines)?

Don't worry honey. They won't even make it up the street ...

Just make sure you borrow the chipper/shredder, and let the fellah with the hogfarm know we'll be bringing up a couple contractor bags full of slop.

I love how Bush supporters dodge issues and offer scapegoats as arguments. UnderToad pointed to an article in which the Telegraph - which is the UK version of FOXNews - found references to Osama Bin Laden and a possible intetion to meet with OBL. What Toad does not point out was that - in 1998 - OBL was not guilty of any crimes against the U.S. or the west. Later in 1998, Washington blamed OBL for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa.

"The documents do not make clear whether the hoped-for meeting between Iraqi officials and bin Laden took place."

So a meeting - which may or may not have taken place - in 1998, before OBL was accused of attacking any U.S. interests - is proof that OBL and Iraq are in bed together.

Remember, it was just a few years ago that the United States counted Osama Bin Laden as an ally. Things change, and associations deteriorate. I would have to see some proof that Iraq was a little more involved with OBL than a document that talks about a meeting that occurred before we had a beef with OBL for me to truly buy the idea that Iraq was in collusion on 9-11 or other events.

Weren't we supposed to know where they were? We said we did. We said we had credible intelligence about what and where Iraq had these weapons. But now, after we have complete control of the country, we can find nothing? If Iraq had WMDs, why didn't they use them when we invaded?

What has changed? Now, you have thousands of Iraqi scientists, technicians, and weapons experts that are willing to sell their services to anyone with cash. We have created a stong undertow of anti-Americanism within the Muslim community. We have villified some of the allies that we need to fight a war against terrorism. We still have an unsecure border and spotty port inspections. More than any of that, we have not found any proof that Iraq even had the weapons we KNOW they have.

What was to stop Iraq from giving anything they had to terrorists before the attack? What can we do now it that was the case?

Has this war made us any safer?!

You know about the Federation of American Scientists report that the Anthrax sent to Tom Daschle's office was the same type, concentration, strain, and purity of American weapons grade Anthrax, right? The New York Times said the same thing.

Biological weapons can be manufactured in your garage, and a smart terrorist would simply bring the seed spores to America - then rely on the open American markets to buy the inubators, centrifuges, and filtration systems to make massive quantities on the substance.

None of this requires a foreign nation's support. How did attacking Iraq make this any less of a threat?

Why aren't we attacking the media then? The media love to grab a scary story - like ANthrax or the D.C. sniper, or the Duct tape - and make it into a public frenzy of hysteria and nonsense. Chemical and Bio weapons are not really weapons of mass destruction, but the corporate media - serving as the government's bullypulpit - whipped America up into a frenzy of fear - that does stifle the economy, but it also makes waging war incredibly easy. It keeps people from questioning authority, and it allows the people in power to paint anyone that disagrees with them as antiAmerican traitors.

As it stands, we will have another terrorist attack against America. This is simply becasue we have not addressed the underlying issues that motivate regular people with strong religious views - to pilot planes into buildings. We still have troops stationed all over the middle east. We still support Israel, regardless of what they do to the Palestinians, we now have invaded Afghanistan - and left it to fall apart, we also have invaded Iraq - which may also be falling apart. We've killed thousands of people - many more than the people that died in 9-11 - to avenge 9-11 ( which was really just revenge for previous insults and attacks ) , and we have not found OBL or Saddam Hussein.

The terrorists on 9-11 did not need WMDs. They did just fine with unconventional methods of destruction. I doubt that we will be able to stop a similarly motivated group of people that want to destroy us more - now that we have ripped through Iraq and Afghanistan.

You can't. That is the point. It does not take a national effort to create biological weapons or biotoxins. It takes 100 bucks worth of lab equipment and a modicum of intellect.

All we can do is try to catch the guys we can find, and press them to give us information. Then we need to actually come up with a valid and equitable deal for the Palestinians, we need to remove the sanctions on Iraq, and we need to remove our military bases from all over the freakin world. If we could also avoid bombing civilians, bombing aspirin factories, leeching the Iraqi oil, villifying allies, and rejoin the world community, I think this would also go a long way toward removing these zealots motivations for hating us.

They don;t hate us because of freedom, Britney Spears, or liberty. They hate us because we have supported brutal dictators, unfair policies, genocide, and ethnic cleansing in the middle east. They hate us because we selectively ignore U.N. resolutions against Israel, while we enforce U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

The problem is, this war will not help limit the development or proliferation of WMDs. If anything, it will cause nations to accelerate their nuclear programs, and it will give terrorists a new recruiting tool for the terrorist attacks in the future.

The opinions of the poorly infomed FAUX News viewers do not convince me that this war was a good idea. Personally I have a different reason for this war.

I think that the PNAC people were itching to gain acces to Iraq for strategic reasons. They also wanted to showcase the AMerican military systems - to boost sales of technology to other nations and to scare any challengers. I think that some of the peopl ein the administration did not like that Iraq changed its curency for oil deals to the Euro from the dollar. I think that OPEC was going to also change their currency of trade to the Euro - which would encourage a mass international exodus to the Euro and deeply devalue the dollar - with dire economic impact.

I do not think that the suffering people in Iraq were of any concern. There is suffering all over the world - why should we be concerned with Iraq's suffering? I also found it Ironic that the people that were advocating this war were the people that were trading with Iraq after he gassed the Iranians and the Kurds - which does not exactly lend a great deal of credibility to their intentions.

Undertoad thinks that the activities of the French negate any of concerns about the lies in this run up to war. Well, if the French intelligence knew as much about Iraq's WMD program as the U.S. did, and they knew that Iraq did not have a WMD program, why wouldn't they try to maintain diplomatic relations and communication with Iraq? How could France have helped Iraq prepare for war? It was strikingly obvious to anyone with half a brain that the U.S. was going to attack before the summer. It was obvious to everyone that Iraq was going to be attacked.

Iraq was under constant surveillance, and inspectors were on the ground - If Iraq was hiding WMDs, they were doing it without the help of the French - What kind of help could they have given anyway?!?!

You think that France was the only nation to suppress dissent?!?! Ever hear of the Dixie Chicks?


I don't know. Every few days, we say we found some WMD material. The day after, in small print, the story is retracted as the later tests confirmed nothing.

If Iraq had no WMDs, I do not think the French were wrong to maintain diplomatic relations with Iraq.

But none of this matters. The French were only asking for more time. They never said they would not support an attack - they just wanted the inspections to be allowed to search Iraq. They also did not want an automatic trigger for war. God forbid, they were trying to make sure there was a valid reason to attack before the bullets started flying - damn traitors.

Did they have ulterios motives? Yes. I don't think there is an international action - including our own - that does not have various ulterior motives. Does that mean they were wrong to disagree with the U.S. and deserve to be punished? No. Not any more than anyone else who disagrees with us.

Oh yes, the inspections. They just need more time, right?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...27/MN99456.DTL

The SF Chronicle sends a reporter to sift through papers in Baghdad. Although the Iraqi spy agency location he goes to has been bombed, and subsequently looted of anything valuable, he can still open up a red notebook and find notes from last September from Iraqi officials, explaining how to beat the upcoming inspections and how scientists should behave during interviews.

The first item in the note is listed as "the entry of inspection teams" -- an apparent reference to the anticipated visits of U.N. weapons inspectors, which were later authorized under U.N. Resolution 1441. The inspectors' mission was to ascertain whether Iraq still possessed chemical, biological or nuclear arms.

Among subsequent annotations are: "evacuating the new equipment," "the files to be moved with the index," "erasing everything related to the information" and "the records (space) evacuating in the house along with inventory."

These notations, often written in incomplete sentences, are not entirely clear, but they suggest that important records and equipment were to be removed from one or more private homes, and placed elsewhere -- possibly in other private homes.

Now keep in mind there are trailer loads of these kinds of documents, and you can bet the reporters are not at the really good locations.

On OBL: the OBL connection was considered impossible by the anti-war folks only about a month ago. They're religiously incompatible, we heard. Now we find out OBL's invited to the palaces, and you want to play this information down. Riiiight.

1998, if you recall, was when OBL suddenly focused attacks on the US, hitting the USS Cole and, in all probability, starting planning for 2001. It was the year when the Taliban went completely pro-OBL. Coincidence?

One of the early findings in Iraq was a airplane fuselage mockup - a training ground for hijackers. Coincidence?

A month from now we'll know a lot more. If you don't want to heed my adivce that's fine, but I will make it my personal goal to make sure that you look like an idiot, at the possible expense of the patience of our readership.

Lastly, I am not a Bush supporter. I watch about 4 hours of Fox news per week, amongst the roughly 30 hours of news I watch per week.

30 hours a week my ass...more like 90. :)

The article you posted has cast a lot of doubt in my mind about Iraq. Before the war, I though Iraq certainly had WMDs. Part of my objection to the war was that Iraq would chem/bio weapons against our troops, and that large numbers of civilians would be killed by this. As the war went on, and we sacked Baghdad, I could not believe that Iraq would not have used their only ace in the hole. As the entire country fell, and our inspections teams went in - unemcumbered - I started to think that - maybe Kamal Hussein was right, maybe they did destroy their WMD program.

Now, I still have a hard time believing that a military would not use it's ace in the hole - especially when the end was obviously nigh. The iraqi papers don't really say anything conclusive, but they are contributing to the mounting doubt that I have about whether or not Iraq possessed WMDs.

As the article states, "Many other questions remain. For example, the notes do not prove:"

• Whether any documents related to weapons of mass destruction were found as a result of the Mukhabarat's orders or were moved to agents' homes.
• Whether other Iraqi government agencies were undertaking similar discussions and planning relating to the U.N. weapons inspectors.
• Whether other Iraqi government agencies were undertaking similar discussions and planning relating to the U.N. weapons inspectors.
• Whether the Iraqi government possessed any weapons of mass destruction or might merely have been concerned about other embarrassing documents that could cause problems.

I would like to know, one way or another, but I think that this is going to be an issue that will never be resolved.

I still feel that this war will cause more problems in the long run than it solved in the short - term.

People thought that OBL would not want to work with Saddam Hussein because Saddam Hussein was a secular infidel that suppressed the Shias and the Kurds while he lived in the lap of luxury. According to the document you cited, Iraq was courting Bin Laden, not the other way around.

People thought that Saddam Hussein would not give WMDs to terrorists like OBL - because of the possibility that the terrorists might turn them against Saddam.

Yes, but he was vocally calling for a jihad against America since shortly after the first Gulf War.

The Taliban were never anti-OBL. The Taliban were not in Iraq, either. Much of the Taliban was made up of ex-mujahadeen and people that fought with OBL. It is not surprising that they would support him.

I don't think it is a coincidence. I think Iraq was training troops and Fedeyeen in unconventional tactics. I would not be surprised if those tactics include terrorism or counterterrorism. The terrorists that hijacked the planes on 9-11 trained in America - at flight schools here. Does that mean that we support terrorism?

I am not naive. I think Saddam did support terrorists. But I also think that fighting terrorism by invading countries is like removing cancer with a baseball bat. If we don;t look at the cause's these people have for hating us, we will never be able to destroy all the places where terrorists can train, and all the people willing to kill us.

Good to see I have a new enemy. :).

I apologize for calling you a Bush supporter. I cannot stomach Faux News - and I definitely could not stomach 4 hours of it. But if you are only getting your news from the cable networks, keep in mind that they are only presenting about 50% of the picture. There are a lot of other things that are happening that never get covered by the corporate media.

Here is what British Intelligence says about the links between OBL and Saddam Hussein.

I only watched a smidge of news last week, mostly MSNBC. But I make it a point to watch some Fox News each week. Even though it's laughable at times, it's important to me to get another side of the media machine.

Actually, I feel so relaxed now that I've been out of the media loop for over a week. I should do that more often...I find that half the stuff in the news is just crap anyway.

My post from 20 days ago where I point out that WMD use was only one of a number of things that was expected but didn't happen.

I have never voted for a Bush for any office, but I might in 2004. I'm very uncommitted. Time will tell.

Sometimes, I find that it's easier to convince someone of your points if you're as succinct as possible. The reason for this is that the more someone has to read, the more they have to remember. And eventually they just stop trying to remember everything you said because it's too much.

Just a tip. :)