Some were pretty sure he didn't. Others were pretty sure he did. The point is that the U.N. resolutions required him to dismantle any and all existing programs, and let U.N. inspectors verify that to the outside world's satisfaction, or face "serious consequences" (understood by everyone to be diplo-speak for war). No one claims he ever even came close to doing this.
Actually the inspectors thought his weapons programs were essencially dismantled. The admnistrations did not allow the inspectors few more weeks to verify this.
Saddam was not an immediate threat to anyone, except his own people.
I understand there is some contention about this, though Joe Wilson certainly would not be my choice of credible spokesman.
Joe Wilson was the US ambassador to Iraq for a number of years, he met and talked with Saddam. There are other diplomats that share his opinions.
Saddam was a power hungry Stalinist style dictator. He wasn't interested in sharing any serious power with terrorists.
Your main theory here -- that religious terrorists never would have collaborated with the relatively secular Saddam -- is completely contradicted by the facts.
It's just an observation. You are probably correct that Saddam supported Palestinians agains Israel. But that did not make him a threat to the US.
Even our "alies" in Saudi Arabia support the Palestinians.
A cynical comment on your point (b) would be that the Shites and the Sunnis in Iraq are now united agaist a common enemy.:(
Regarding (c) the connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq are tenuous at best. I have the 9/11 Commission report on my computer, but I haven't read through it yet.
My main belief is that, although Saddam was not a boy scout, he was a toothless paper tiger, and there was no need for the US to attack his country.
You know, this kind of discussion should be continued over a beer. You don't live in New York, do you?
Again, sure. But we're talking about the situation *before* the U.S. invaded. We only know about the nuclear situation in hindsight, and here's the kicker: WE WOULDN'T KNOW THAT NOW IF WE HADN'T INVADED TO BEGIN WITH.
Re: nuclear arms. I think we were pretty sure that Saddam did not have any nuclear capability before the invasion. There were many people (UN inspectors, middle eastern diplomats, and even CIA people) who thought so too. If you watch the movie "Uncovered" you can hear them (BTW, "Uncovered" is a PBS style documentary - I think you owe it to yourself to see it - it's $10 bucks on Amazon).
1. The U.S. wasn't afraid of an Iraqi attack on the U.S. mainland. What we were afraid of was that he would provide terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. He was also an aggressive and destabilizing force in an area the U.S. considers vital to its interests
This is not how the administration presented the case to the people. I can show you videos of Bush, Cheney and Ms. Rice talking about taking action before "the smoking gun is a mushroom cloud".
As noted above, for example, he disastrously misjudged the Americans. The Iran/Iraq War and the invasion of Kuwait were also colossal and irrational blunders.
Actually, when meeting with the US ambassadors prior to invasion of Kuwait, Saddam was not given a clear signal that US would react to the invasion as it did (see interview with Joe Wilson in "Uncovered").
In any case, even if (!!!) Saddam had several nuclear weapons. Why would he give the strongest card to Islamic terrorists?
He had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Saddam's secular regime was hated by the radical Islamic terrorists as much as they hated the US. Given a strong enough weapon Al Qaida would kill Saddam too.
Which WMD are we talking about? Nuclear warheads? Chemical artilery shells? Vials of antrax?
3. THE BURDEN OF PROOF WAS NOT ON THE U.S. -- OR ANYONE ELSE -- TO PROVE SADDAM HAD WMDs. THE BURDEN OF PROOF WAS ON *SADDAM* TO ACCOUNT FOR THE WEAPONS HE HIMSELF PREVIOUSLY ADMITTED HE HAD.
There are other possible explanations. Like that Iraq had bad accounting methods.
Maybe they didn't want account, because they didn't know themselves.
Maybe Saddam upped the estimates to appear tougher.
In any case you are correct that Iraq was probably in violation of a UN resolutions, but under the pressure from the U.S. they re-addmitted the inspectors. And it is certainly clear by now that Iraq had no nuclear capabilities.
But rather than argue about accouting methods, answer me this question: Why would Saddam want to attack the U.S.? What possible advantage would that give him?
Saddam was a nasty dictator, but he is not stupid. He was heading a secular regime in the middle of Islamic fundamentalists who hated him.
If you haven't played Doom 3, play it, it's a great game and the engine is stellar.
I could live without Doome 3:).
Or how about movies?
Movies can make a lot of money from being shown in theatres. I'm willing to pay for the experience. Matrix looks a lot better on big screen. But I like low budget movies too...
So if you want a sponsorship system, that's fine, but that's real different than all IP being free. It just means it's paid for beforehand.
Right. You get paid to do some work. No royalties.
I have nothing against a monetary compensation for IP creators. However, it's up to the creators to figure out how to sell their stuff.
Just because you worked hard, does not make you eligible for pay.
The biggest problem would be for things like drug research. While I'll be the first to say our current drug system is broken and the companies are WAAAAY too greedy, that does not mean they should recieve no compensation for their work. It often costs tens of millions of dollars (sometimes hundreds) to develop a new drug. This is not the sort of thing that will happen as a hobby.
Actually a lot drug research is funded by the goverment. Or rather by you and me, the tax payers. Many of the drug companies spend more on marketing than on research (there was a bunch of articles on this in Salon.com - check them out).
In general, people can be sponsored to create works. There was no copyright in time of Mozart or Bach, yet music was created.
Actions such as this, and the rantings of
sites such as moveon.org just reinforce the idea
that the Democratic party is infested with crazies.
But what about "Swift Boaters against Kerry"? What about Limbaugh? O'Reilly? Democrats need some "crazies" to balance the screaming from the other side.
You can't always play nice. If someone accuses you of being a godless, child molesting communist, you should probably reply. Ignoring them does not seem to work - at least in politics.
OK. So Iraq had some missles that could fly maybe 161 km. All the missile programs mentioned were terminated in late 80s or never actually started.
The evidence for chemical weapons:
In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Telegraph published on January 25, 2004, Dr. David Kay, the former head of the Iraq Survey Group, said there was evidence that unspecified materials had been moved to Syria shortly before the start of the war to overthrow Saddam. "We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons," he said. "But 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 programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved."
The evidence for nuclear weapons:
In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Telegraph published on January 25, 2004, Dr. David Kay, the former head of the Iraq Survey Group, said there was evidence that unspecified materials had been moved to Syria shortly before the start of the war to overthrow Saddam. "We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons," he said. "But 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 programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved."
Yes, it's the same exact quote. Basically "they moved something, but we don't know what or how much".
Then we had some artists renditions of "mobile chemical/biological labs". According to inspectors who were in Iraq (see the movie "Uncovered") Iraq had no facilities to make biological or chemical weapons. Furthermore chemical and bio agents in weaponized form have limited shelf life (sarin gas about 3 months).
Clearly "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", but if you going to invade a country and start killing people, we should have little more to go on.
You yourself are an idiot, but there's an underlying truth to what you're saying. The more grotesque, destructive and hate-filled RNC protests turn out to be, the more votes that get swung to Bush. We'll see how it plays out.
Why? What is the logic here?
That creating intellectual property takes work, and time. If I am creating digital music I am putting my time and effort in to that, rather than other things. Thus if I wish to do it all the time, I must recieve compensation for it since I have physical needs.
There are many things that people like to do that cannot provide enough income to live on (eg. writing poetry, playing jazz, studying mating habbits of snails). It's up to you to figure out how to make money from a particular endeavour.
Your time and effort by itself is not worth anything....
- How do we know that the person who bought the ticket is the person who boarded the airplane? Without an ID check, it would be possible for person A to buy the ticket and person B to board the airplane. A simple ID check prevents this.
And why would we want to prevent this? If I buy a non-refundable ticket and I am unable to fly that particular time, I can't sell the ticket because of the ID check.
So, the airline gets my money and an empty seat, and I get nothing.
The article says the case would be illuminated by R, G and B colored lights, so it could be any color of the spectrum. Very cool! Prior art? Not quite so sure.
Isn't a color CRT a prior art thing? It has RGB illumation devices and a illuminating surface and can be controlled by sofware..
Wasn't it the beta ruling that included language about not preventing technology that could be used for illegal purposes if there were clear legal purposes it could be used for? That the mere ability for something to be used illegally is not reason enough to ban it or prevent its manufacture, sale, and use?
Here is a nice use for P2P networks. Distribute public documents and videos of Congressional hearings. P2P allows anyone to start distributing, without big servers and pipelines:
It was really easy to start an automobile-making company about a century or so ago, too. Today, it's almost impossible. Yet no one's going about screaming for the breakup of Ford, GM, or Toyota.
Maybe we should. That would be one way to get rid of gas guzzling SUVs, and replace them with efficient, less-poluting, safer, hybrids.
See this book on translucent databases. The data in such database is useless to all, except those who actually own the data. So, in this case, the stolen data would not be useful to anyone.
People claim bad music is the reason for increased piracy, which doesn't make sense. Why are people pirating music they don't like?
You got this backwards. The RIAA claims that they are loosing sales because of piracy. People (i.e. us) say, that we don't buy music because it's crap.
Nobody is pirating crappy music. You can predict how popular a song will be by seeing how many hits you get on P2P networks. If there are few copies available, chances are the song is not going anywhere.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, I'd love to see Alaska! ...richie
Actually the inspectors thought his weapons programs were essencially dismantled. The admnistrations did not allow the inspectors few more weeks to verify this.
Saddam was not an immediate threat to anyone, except his own people.
I understand there is some contention about this, though Joe Wilson certainly would not be my choice of credible spokesman.
Joe Wilson was the US ambassador to Iraq for a number of years, he met and talked with Saddam. There are other diplomats that share his opinions.
Saddam was a power hungry Stalinist style dictator. He wasn't interested in sharing any serious power with terrorists.
Your main theory here -- that religious terrorists never would have collaborated with the relatively secular Saddam -- is completely contradicted by the facts.
It's just an observation. You are probably correct that Saddam supported Palestinians agains Israel. But that did not make him a threat to the US.
Even our "alies" in Saudi Arabia support the Palestinians.
A cynical comment on your point (b) would be that the Shites and the Sunnis in Iraq are now united agaist a common enemy. :(
Regarding (c) the connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq are tenuous at best. I have the 9/11 Commission report on my computer, but I haven't read through it yet.
My main belief is that, although Saddam was not a boy scout, he was a toothless paper tiger, and there was no need for the US to attack his country.
You know, this kind of discussion should be continued over a beer. You don't live in New York, do you?
Re: nuclear arms. I think we were pretty sure that Saddam did not have any nuclear capability before the invasion. There were many people (UN inspectors, middle eastern diplomats, and even CIA people) who thought so too. If you watch the movie "Uncovered" you can hear them (BTW, "Uncovered" is a PBS style documentary - I think you owe it to yourself to see it - it's $10 bucks on Amazon).
1. The U.S. wasn't afraid of an Iraqi attack on the U.S. mainland. What we were afraid of was that he would provide terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. He was also an aggressive and destabilizing force in an area the U.S. considers vital to its interests
This is not how the administration presented the case to the people. I can show you videos of Bush, Cheney and Ms. Rice talking about taking action before "the smoking gun is a mushroom cloud".
As noted above, for example, he disastrously misjudged the Americans. The Iran/Iraq War and the invasion of Kuwait were also colossal and irrational blunders.
Actually, when meeting with the US ambassadors prior to invasion of Kuwait, Saddam was not given a clear signal that US would react to the invasion as it did (see interview with Joe Wilson in "Uncovered").
In any case, even if (!!!) Saddam had several nuclear weapons. Why would he give the strongest card to Islamic terrorists?
He had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Saddam's secular regime was hated by the radical Islamic terrorists as much as they hated the US. Given a strong enough weapon Al Qaida would kill Saddam too.
Which WMD are we talking about? Nuclear warheads? Chemical artilery shells? Vials of antrax?
3. THE BURDEN OF PROOF WAS NOT ON THE U.S. -- OR ANYONE ELSE -- TO PROVE SADDAM HAD WMDs. THE BURDEN OF PROOF WAS ON *SADDAM* TO ACCOUNT FOR THE WEAPONS HE HIMSELF PREVIOUSLY ADMITTED HE HAD.
There are other possible explanations. Like that Iraq had bad accounting methods.
Maybe they didn't want account, because they didn't know themselves.
Maybe Saddam upped the estimates to appear tougher.
In any case you are correct that Iraq was probably in violation of a UN resolutions, but under the pressure from the U.S. they re-addmitted the inspectors. And it is certainly clear by now that Iraq had no nuclear capabilities.
But rather than argue about accouting methods, answer me this question: Why would Saddam want to attack the U.S.? What possible advantage would that give him?
Saddam was a nasty dictator, but he is not stupid. He was heading a secular regime in the middle of Islamic fundamentalists who hated him.
What's the logic?
I could live without Doome 3 :).
Or how about movies?
Movies can make a lot of money from being shown in theatres. I'm willing to pay for the experience. Matrix looks a lot better on big screen. But I like low budget movies too...
So if you want a sponsorship system, that's fine, but that's real different than all IP being free. It just means it's paid for beforehand.
Right. You get paid to do some work. No royalties.
I have nothing against a monetary compensation for IP creators. However, it's up to the creators to figure out how to sell their stuff.
Just because you worked hard, does not make you eligible for pay.
Actually a lot drug research is funded by the goverment. Or rather by you and me, the tax payers. Many of the drug companies spend more on marketing than on research (there was a bunch of articles on this in Salon.com - check them out).
In general, people can be sponsored to create works. There was no copyright in time of Mozart or Bach, yet music was created.
But what about "Swift Boaters against Kerry"? What about Limbaugh? O'Reilly? Democrats need some "crazies" to balance the screaming from the other side.
You can't always play nice. If someone accuses you of being a godless, child molesting communist, you should probably reply. Ignoring them does not seem to work - at least in politics.
The evidence for chemical weapons:
The evidence for nuclear weapons:
Yes, it's the same exact quote. Basically "they moved something, but we don't know what or how much".
Then we had some artists renditions of "mobile chemical/biological labs". According to inspectors who were in Iraq (see the movie "Uncovered") Iraq had no facilities to make biological or chemical weapons. Furthermore chemical and bio agents in weaponized form have limited shelf life (sarin gas about 3 months).
Clearly "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", but if you going to invade a country and start killing people, we should have little more to go on.
Can you define WMD in this context?
There are many things that people like to do that cannot provide enough income to live on (eg. writing poetry, playing jazz, studying mating habbits of snails). It's up to you to figure out how to make money from a particular endeavour.
Your time and effort by itself is not worth anything....
Bruce Scheneier calls this "Security Theatre".
And why would we want to prevent this? If I buy a non-refundable ticket and I am unable to fly that particular time, I can't sell the ticket because of the ID check.
So, the airline gets my money and an empty seat, and I get nothing.
Isn't a color CRT a prior art thing? It has RGB illumation devices and a illuminating surface and can be controlled by sofware..
Here is a nice use for P2P networks. Distribute public documents and videos of Congressional hearings. P2P allows anyone to start distributing, without big servers and pipelines:
P2P Congress
C2C - Citizen to Citizen.
$ ls -lt
WTF?
Maybe we should. That would be one way to get rid of gas guzzling SUVs, and replace them with efficient, less-poluting, safer, hybrids.
Go see "F 9/11". Most of the senators did not read the PATRIOT Act.
It's bit more clever than that. Read the book.
The main idea is that only you will be able to open up all your data, and anyone else who sees it (even an insider) will find it useless.
Didn't you read about the rulling in UK which makes PS2 modchips illegal?
You got this backwards. The RIAA claims that they are loosing sales because of piracy. People (i.e. us) say, that we don't buy music because it's crap.
Nobody is pirating crappy music. You can predict how popular a song will be by seeing how many hits you get on P2P networks. If there are few copies available, chances are the song is not going anywhere.