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The World's Most Dangerous Password
NonNullSet writes "Minutemen ICBMs were deployed in the early 1960s, and grew to over 1000 in number. They were allegedly protected from a "rogue launch" by an approach known as PAL (Permissive Action Link). The PAL required that the correct 8-digit launch code be entered by the missiliers before the missile would establish ignition. What if all the PAL codes had been set to '00000000,' and 'everyone' in the Strategic Air Command knew it? That is unbelievably what happened, as described in this article from the Center for Defense Information. Not exactly a great example for getting people to choose difficult passwords!"
damn it, clicked submit by mistake.. ignore that comment... completely.
Saddam honestly thought he had those weapons. His own people were lying to him about what they were doing. The facts are that they didn't have any active programs, but they did have plenty of precursor programs. In fact, all the Republican Guard officers assumed that the other units had the chemical weapons. So, it wasn't just made up by Bush. The Iraqis thought they had them too.
There is solid evidence of links to Al Qaeda, but just because you don't believe it doesn't make them not real. I assume that you know about them but relegate them to the "low level" contacts, not policy makers.
You are right that it isn't our job to police the world. However, I have found that saying is often invoked by people who don't want to do something, say for instance, the Republicans when talking about the Balkins. Now it is the Democrats over Iraq. Most of them are just fine being the policemen over things they care about.
Most people are so one-sided on this that it isn't even funny. The fact is that Bush didn't lie. He was mistaken, as was everyone else (though most forget that rather conveniently now). Being mistaken and lying are two entirely different things, but Bush-haters can't (or more realistically - won't) tell the difference.
Frankly, I wasn't happy with the decision to go to war with Iraq, but once it started that became irrelevant. I believe we have to see the effort to rebuild the country through. We simply cannot afford to fail for either us or the Iraqis. Fortunately, I think both major parties in the US understand that even if they aren't totally sure how to finish.
Well? Are you in Halliburton's marketing department, or do you just believe only everything you watch on FoxNews? Change the channel - it might be a good start at imagining how badly the war is going.
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make install -not war
Amputations are hell, but they can have positive outcomes in the long run. But you don't amputate when you have the flu.
Plenty of people warned before the invasion that the war wasn't being planned well enough to succeed. And now the chorus is chiming in. The thousands of wounded and killed Americans is bad enough. But it's obvious that Iraq is in a state like Cuba, where the American liberation was coopted by native opposition leaders, and the country turned into an enemy of the US.
As for the Clinton embargoes, they achieved the goal that Bush used to con us into this war: disarming Hussein. If national security somehow required we actually replace him with someone friendly to us, we could have achieved success by backing an in-country coalition of Kurds, Shia and Sunnis, letting them take the risks and reap the rewards. The absence of such a coalition correlates exactly with the absence of a governing consensus, regardless of the regime change method. Instead we backed Chalabi, who's still steering us along the Castro course. But of course the destruction/reconstruction of Iraq serves the purpose of filling the Halliburton (Cheney) banks, and distracting from the actual war against Al Qaeda, which is going approximately as badly as Iraq.
If we had pursued an actual foreign policy in the region, we could have built allies, including new states. Instead, we're breeding enemies, alienating our existing allies, and squandering our soldiers' lives, the Treasury, and the American reputation for lawfulness and peacemaking.
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make install -not war
I'll repeat: you are crazy to think the war in Iraq is going well. The only people who agree with you are people with vested corporate interests, in the government, media and military, and those they've duped. If you're buying their propaganda without watching TV, I suppose you're creative in your self deception. If you're insulted by my assessment of you, in face of the terrible state of the war of which you approve, well I guess we're just going to have disagree about your values.
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make install -not war
"If Saddam Hussein didn't have WMDs, all he had to do was cooperate with the inspecters, verify he didn't have them, and there would have been no war. He'd still be alive,"
That's American stupidity at its best. Let's twist the facts, ignore the obvious and yell it so loud that there will be enough idiots to believe it without checking.
Saddam cooperated, the inspectors were pulled out one week prior to the attacks and Saddam is still alive. Would you mind explaining your "argument" on basis of these facts?