Major General Smedley Butler never was Commandant of the Marine Corps. He was a very brave man, a great battlefield leader, and an exceptional Marine. Out of uniform he was a political crank that associated with communist affiliated labor unions and organizations, and worked to prevent US participation in World War 2.
I would be inclined to follow him anywhere on a battlefield, but nowhere near a voting booth.
Sanders... i wouldn't have thought electable, but given the turd-salad the Republicans are fielding... might very well be in this particular race against the right opposition.
The Republicans have a number of governors that have won state wide elections and actually successfully governed. They have a number of Senators, the same as 'ol Bernie whom you approve of. The problem isn't with the candidates that the Republicans collectively field, a "turd-salad" as you describe it. The problem is with your tastes, and judgement.
Presidents can be a problem, a huge one. Frankly I think it is almost unbelievable that you think the problem has never been with the president. Don't you think there is at least the potential for trouble coming from direction or execution of foreign policy, defense policy, domestic policy, fiscal policy and budgets, law enforcement priorities, civil rights, environmental policy, space policy, and on, and on, and on? Those are significantly influenced or controlled by the president. Obama's administration has been a mess, a Sanders administration would be worse, and another Clinton administration would come into office already corrupt and vindictive, and go on from there.
The system is working as designed now. They are military prisoners being held in a military facility. If necessary they can face military justice which is best suited for dealing with them and the nature of their offenses, if any. Putting them in the civilian criminal justice system that isn't designed to deal with military matters and battlefield actions is a bad idea. You don't know what you are talking about.
OK, so maybe the charges really are for rape-rape, but still — the woman has CIA ties! I’ve read that on at least a dozen blogs! Keith Olbermann tweeted it and everything! That’s got to be coming from a highly credible source, right?
Actually, as far as I can tell, the only source for that claim is an August Counterpunch article by Assange fanboys (seriously, they recast him as Neo of “The Matrix”) Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett. Here’s the most damning evidence Shamir and Bennett have compiled against Assange’s accuser:
1) She’s published “anti-Castro diatribes” in a Swedish-language publication that, according to an Oslo professor, Michael Seltzer (who?), is “connected with Union Liberal Cubana led by Carlos Alberto Montaner,” who reportedly has CIA ties. Let me repeat that: She has been published in a journal that is connected with a group that is led by a guy with CIA ties. Says this one guy.
2) “In Cuba she interacted with the feminist anti-Castro group Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White). This group receives US government funds and the convicted anti-communist terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is a friend and supporter.” That link goes to an English translation of a Spanish article noting that at a march last spring, Posada “wander[ed] unleashed and un-vaccinated along Calle Ocho in Miami, marching alongside” — wait for it — “Gloria Estefan in support of the so-called Ladies in White.” Apparently, it’s “an established fact” that Posada and the Ladies also share a shady benefactor, which means he should clearly be called a “friend” of the organization, and this is totally relevant to the rape charges against Julian Assange, because the accuser once interacted with them in some manner.
Are you kidding me? That’s what we’re basing the “CIA ties” meme on? An article that reads like a screenplay treatment by a college freshman who’s terrified of women? Actual quote: “[T]he Matrix plays dirty and lets loose a sex bomb upon our intrepid Neo. When you can’t contest the message, you smear the messenger. Sweden is tailor-made for sending a young man into a honey trap.”
Traumatized victim of sexual assault goes to police while still in denial and worried about her health (naturally). As she is speaking to the police about her health concern they realize that under the law a sexual assault has taken place and start an investigation. Assange's friends, allies, and advocates have been spinning ever since.
But yes, if you read the original police documents, the purpose of going to the police was to force an STD test.
Traumatized people don't always think right.
That the US was involved I rather doubt
In absence of evidence that is a good thing.
as any borderline chargeable offense will automatically be pushed by the police and prosecution whether the supposed victim wants it or not
See my first comment.
it's quite enough that an activist prosecutor like Marianne Ny smells some publicity and the opportunity to 'send a message' to start that chain of events and completely screw up the victims life far beyond the original issue.
Interesting rhetoric, but I don't recall hearing that it was the prosecutor that "screwed up" anyone's life. I would think Assange might have played a roll in that.
Hopefully Ny's utter incompetence in this has put a permanent black mark on her career.
That is probably what happened to the first prosecutor.
Your post is a bunch of baloney. Assange's extradition went to the Supreme Court in the UK and the allegations against him were judged to include rape. Assange was wanted on an international arrest warrant because Sweden filed for it. Assange went to the embassy to escape arrest, deportation, and judgment. Please substantiate the involvement of US authorities regarding "STD testing." Your bullshit detector is miscalibrated.
I seem to recall from some Slashdot doc or post that raw IP addresses aren't logged, but only MD5 representations of them. It might be interesting to put either that hash, or some salted one, into the header of a post, especially for ACs. It seems clear that some ACs are conducting "conversations" with themselves. Throwing a little light on that might be good for Slashdot.
There seem to be a number of people that operate like this in fact and just intention. I hope you find some way to make useful reforms. I could probably find plenty of examples.
Nope, that won't be it. The UK still has to agree to extradition as well as Sweden agreeing to extradition if the US were to try to extradite from Sweden. It makes no sense, the UK has to agree in both cases. And remember that the US has no warrant for Assange, so how could they ask to have him extradited? The only thing that makes sense if the US wanted to extradite Assange would be for the US to ask to extradite Assange from the UK directly. That way it doesn't have to get Sweden to agree also. But the US has not done that. The death penalty could be taken off the table by the prosecutor if need be, but there are no charges known to be filed, there is no warrant, and the US hasn't tried to extradite him after years. This is nonsense from advocates for Assange to excuse his flight from justice for the allegations of sexual assault.
Make story submissions anonymous to anyone voting on them except editors. Ideally you would also prevent anyone visiting the firehose from visiting the home page of individual users for several hours (maybe six) to see if a particular person submitted a story. The summary and links contain all the key information needed to make a reasonable judgement as to the suitability and quality of the submission. Showing the user that submitted the story just leaves it open to abusive voting. I'm reasonably certain that a number of my stories have been voted down over time simply because I'm the one that submitted them. Submitting the same story anonymously resulted them not being voted down or it took much longer for it to occur. There is an example today. I submitted three stories. The John Cleese story was done anonymously and and went into the home page despite touching the topic of SJW which many people oppose as a topic. It was highly commented on. I also submitted a story on Hillary Clinton's email anonymously and it seems to have gotten a few votes and hung around for quite a long time. I submitted a story about Canada stopping cooperation with the NSA three times. Twice it was with my user account, and it was quickly voted down, the third I did it anonymously and it lasted much longer although it seems to have eventually been voted down. This is additionally interesting since many people on Slashdot rejoice in any sort of pullback, failure, or limitations on or by the intelligence agencies. If the voting were fair and even handed I would expect it to at least linger, or maybe be selected. However at the same time that story was being quickly voted down, a story on a Barbie doll animated movie lingered in the queue. If it is still considered important to have some contextual information about the author you could use color codes for different levels: first time/new submitter, under 10, experienced submitter.
You might think about splitting up the submission queue or voting in some fashion to make manipulating story votes tougher. From time to time I've seen stories quickly down voted (even when all were submitted anonymously IIRC) when the story might be considered to reflect poorly in some fashion on a country. One story was regarding cybercrime and Brazil. This happened at least two, maybe three times. My assumption is that it was some sort of coordinated down vote by citizens of or advocates for those countries, or maybe even criminal hackers with puppet accounts. The story itself as as good or better than a fair number that get into the home page. I think I've also seem something similar for Russia. There are many different ways this might be done.
There are no doubt many pluses and minuses to having anonymous coward posts. I think some of the less agreeable aspects of them could be mitigated by the following: Require the first 5-10 posts to a new story be made by someone logged in, with their username, and with at least positive to good karma, or maybe higher. That should help reduce the incentive and ability to engage in "first post" nonsense, as well as the initial blocks of posts being trolls of various sorts. It could also establish a better foundation for other comments.
Some people are proposing removing various posts altogether, such as the "GNA" toll posts. Another possibility might be to subject them to ROT-13, or collapse them so that you have to click a button to reveal it. Trolls want to be seen and offend. Removing their power to do so helps remove their incentive to post. (Pure ROT-13 might not be the best since I have little doubt a creative troll will simply include the ROT-13 version with the original.)
The typical handling of stories is posted on front page today, gone tomorrow. People tend to jump in immediately to make initial posts without really reading the story so many of the comments are uninformed, irrelevant, or pointless. There are tw
The real place "controversy" needs to be addressed is the stories. No amount of comment moderation will suffice to deal with the squabbles created by mdsolar's anti-nook crap, global warming click bait and gamer gate grievance mongering, among many other sad themes that have damaged Slashdot. That stuff needs to stop so the malcontents that live for it go away and let the place heal.
And no, just turning over story selection to the (existing) crowd will not work. They'll squander their employers time indulging their favorite cause and keep feeding in the same click bait. What is needed is a few people with good judgement and some patience to allow time for recovery.
Disagreements, squabbling, quibbling, and flame wars have been around far longer than the internet. Even then you have:
vi vs emacs PC vs Mac Sys V vs BSD Linux vs BSD GPL vs BSD . . .
The influence of story selection is limited. People can discuss even divisive topics civilly if they care to. They can also be abusive in language and moderation.
Training. procedures, enforcement mechanisms, and accountability help.
You mean fugitive, not "fugitive," Assange jumped bail in the UK and is now a fugitive from both British justice and Swedish justice. Assange is wanted on a EU arrest warrant. Under the Swedish justice system changes come later in the process just like they do in various other continental justice systems. If there was a problem with the process it would have been discovered in the trips up to both the UK Supreme Court and the Swedish Supreme Court. Please explain why you think and what evidence there is for the US pressuring anyone to get Assange to Sweden, and why? If the US wanted him they could have asked for him and avoided getting extradition permission from two countries instead of one. Assange is wanted in Sweden to answer for allegations of rape, it is that simple.
There is no US warrant for Assange. If the US wanted him they could have simply asked the UK which has an extradition treaty with the US. Instead people construct these Rube Goldberg schemes which require not one country to agree to extradition, but two! The fantasy idea that the US is going to extradite Assange from Sweden requires both Sweden to agree and the UK (due to EU treaty). The people claiming the US is going to extradite Assange from Sweden can't really explain why the UK won't agree to direct extradition but will to indirect extradition through Sweden.
...and even has a separate and distinct legal system.
Not merely distinct but one with some admirable features. I've always thought that its choice of three verdicts was both interesting and has a certain wisdom to it. Of course that system is under pressure.
Since robots could make a large dent in unskilled farm labor opportunity I wonder if this will be allowed outside Japan? I would think that there would be pushback from labor. There is already looming issues from robot driven trucks, and automation in fast food. Both of those trends will displace workers in growing number in the coming years. The demands for $15/hour wages from fast food workers is creating growing incentives to replace workers with automation.
Computers already execute most Wall Street trades.
Computer programs write a growing percentage of wills and other legal documents.
With computers having mastered winning chess, and now Go, when will large scale use of programs writing programs begin?
If a robot that can do plumbing is invented what will be left for people to do?
As the line goes, the West already had proof of those older weapons because they'd kept the receipts.
It's a dishonest line, Iraq manufactured the chemical agents it used by itself, although it did partner with Egypt earlier to develop the capability.
They were not evidence of any renewed domestic weapons program, as claimed by the Neocons.
Iraq was not allowed to have any WMD and long range missiles. He still had WMD and was developing long range missiles, and clearly wanted to resume production of WMDs as soon as possible (minus the inspection and sanctions regimes which he was buying his way out of).
You omitted biological weapons, and there were biological weapons located and removed from Iraq during the Coalition forces presence.
Post invasion Saddam was found to have a number of unfilled warheads for missiles, secretly dumped VX nerve gas in the desert, and from pre-invasion inspections it was believed that he had unaccounted for biological agents suitable for weapons.
One of the casus belli was Saddams continuing development of banned weapons such as long range missiles.
Saddam had chemical WMDs, biological warfare bombs, and was preserving documents and know-how for the nuclear program. What he didn't have was current manufacturing (to the best of my knowledge), but his regime clearly wanted to reestablish production when it became possible.
Many of the WMDs found would certainly be suitable for terrorist attacks. You may recall that Saddams support of terrorism was another charge made against him.
Slashdot Mirror
Major General Smedley Butler never was Commandant of the Marine Corps. He was a very brave man, a great battlefield leader, and an exceptional Marine. Out of uniform he was a political crank that associated with communist affiliated labor unions and organizations, and worked to prevent US participation in World War 2.
I would be inclined to follow him anywhere on a battlefield, but nowhere near a voting booth.
Actually it is legal, it just isn't liked by some people. Mainly they tend to be confused.
No charges needed. They can be held now as PoWs indefinitely. That is one of the hazards of engaging in warfare instead of illegally trading DVDs.
You don't like that? Then call another Geneva Convention.
Sanders... i wouldn't have thought electable, but given the turd-salad the Republicans are fielding... might very well be in this particular race against the right opposition.
The Republicans have a number of governors that have won state wide elections and actually successfully governed. They have a number of Senators, the same as 'ol Bernie whom you approve of. The problem isn't with the candidates that the Republicans collectively field, a "turd-salad" as you describe it. The problem is with your tastes, and judgement.
Presidents can be a problem, a huge one. Frankly I think it is almost unbelievable that you think the problem has never been with the president. Don't you think there is at least the potential for trouble coming from direction or execution of foreign policy, defense policy, domestic policy, fiscal policy and budgets, law enforcement priorities, civil rights, environmental policy, space policy, and on, and on, and on? Those are significantly influenced or controlled by the president. Obama's administration has been a mess, a Sanders administration would be worse, and another Clinton administration would come into office already corrupt and vindictive, and go on from there.
The system is working as designed now. They are military prisoners being held in a military facility. If necessary they can face military justice which is best suited for dealing with them and the nature of their offenses, if any. Putting them in the civilian criminal justice system that isn't designed to deal with military matters and battlefield actions is a bad idea. You don't know what you are talking about.
Well then, "thank goodness" you're here to help set the record straight. How could progress occur without folk like you?
The rush to smear Assange’s rape accuser
OK, so maybe the charges really are for rape-rape, but still — the woman has CIA ties! I’ve read that on at least a dozen blogs! Keith Olbermann tweeted it and everything! That’s got to be coming from a highly credible source, right?
Actually, as far as I can tell, the only source for that claim is an August Counterpunch article by Assange fanboys (seriously, they recast him as Neo of “The Matrix”) Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett. Here’s the most damning evidence Shamir and Bennett have compiled against Assange’s accuser:
1) She’s published “anti-Castro diatribes” in a Swedish-language publication that, according to an Oslo professor, Michael Seltzer (who?), is “connected with Union Liberal Cubana led by Carlos Alberto Montaner,” who reportedly has CIA ties. Let me repeat that: She has been published in a journal that is connected with a group that is led by a guy with CIA ties. Says this one guy.
2) “In Cuba she interacted with the feminist anti-Castro group Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White). This group receives US government funds and the convicted anti-communist terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is a friend and supporter.” That link goes to an English translation of a Spanish article noting that at a march last spring, Posada “wander[ed] unleashed and un-vaccinated along Calle Ocho in Miami, marching alongside” — wait for it — “Gloria Estefan in support of the so-called Ladies in White.” Apparently, it’s “an established fact” that Posada and the Ladies also share a shady benefactor, which means he should clearly be called a “friend” of the organization, and this is totally relevant to the rape charges against Julian Assange, because the accuser once interacted with them in some manner.
Are you kidding me? That’s what we’re basing the “CIA ties” meme on? An article that reads like a screenplay treatment by a college freshman who’s terrified of women? Actual quote: “[T]he Matrix plays dirty and lets loose a sex bomb upon our intrepid Neo. When you can’t contest the message, you smear the messenger. Sweden is tailor-made for sending a young man into a honey trap.”
. . . the same "cool" new "boyfriend" that shortly thereafter fled the country and abandoned her? (As if he was ever going to stay around . . .)
Got it? I'll bet you do.
Let's rewrite that with reality in mind:
Traumatized victim of sexual assault goes to police while still in denial and worried about her health (naturally). As she is speaking to the police about her health concern they realize that under the law a sexual assault has taken place and start an investigation. Assange's friends, allies, and advocates have been spinning ever since.
There's a reason why Sweden has one of the highest rape rates in the world and it's not because there are that many actual rapes going on.
The Swedes will be glad to hear that. Of course you realize there are different views about that.
But it is somewhat amusing to watch the racists and the feminists fight over it,...
I suppose it would be a shame for nobody to get a benefit from the situation.
But it is somewhat amusing to watch the racists and the feminists fight over it,
If it turns out the "racists" are correct in some fashion, does that make them "racists"?
But yes, if you read the original police documents, the purpose of going to the police was to force an STD test.
Traumatized people don't always think right.
That the US was involved I rather doubt
In absence of evidence that is a good thing.
as any borderline chargeable offense will automatically be pushed by the police and prosecution whether the supposed victim wants it or not
See my first comment.
it's quite enough that an activist prosecutor like Marianne Ny smells some publicity and the opportunity to 'send a message' to start that chain of events and completely screw up the victims life far beyond the original issue.
Interesting rhetoric, but I don't recall hearing that it was the prosecutor that "screwed up" anyone's life. I would think Assange might have played a roll in that.
Hopefully Ny's utter incompetence in this has put a permanent black mark on her career.
That is probably what happened to the first prosecutor.
Your post is a bunch of baloney. Assange's extradition went to the Supreme Court in the UK and the allegations against him were judged to include rape. Assange was wanted on an international arrest warrant because Sweden filed for it. Assange went to the embassy to escape arrest, deportation, and judgment. Please substantiate the involvement of US authorities regarding "STD testing." Your bullshit detector is miscalibrated.
I seem to recall from some Slashdot doc or post that raw IP addresses aren't logged, but only MD5 representations of them. It might be interesting to put either that hash, or some salted one, into the header of a post, especially for ACs. It seems clear that some ACs are conducting "conversations" with themselves. Throwing a little light on that might be good for Slashdot.
There seem to be a number of people that operate like this in fact and just intention. I hope you find some way to make useful reforms. I could probably find plenty of examples.
Nope, that won't be it. The UK still has to agree to extradition as well as Sweden agreeing to extradition if the US were to try to extradite from Sweden. It makes no sense, the UK has to agree in both cases. And remember that the US has no warrant for Assange, so how could they ask to have him extradited? The only thing that makes sense if the US wanted to extradite Assange would be for the US to ask to extradite Assange from the UK directly. That way it doesn't have to get Sweden to agree also. But the US has not done that. The death penalty could be taken off the table by the prosecutor if need be, but there are no charges known to be filed, there is no warrant, and the US hasn't tried to extradite him after years. This is nonsense from advocates for Assange to excuse his flight from justice for the allegations of sexual assault.
Make story submissions anonymous to anyone voting on them except editors. Ideally you would also prevent anyone visiting the firehose from visiting the home page of individual users for several hours (maybe six) to see if a particular person submitted a story. The summary and links contain all the key information needed to make a reasonable judgement as to the suitability and quality of the submission. Showing the user that submitted the story just leaves it open to abusive voting. I'm reasonably certain that a number of my stories have been voted down over time simply because I'm the one that submitted them. Submitting the same story anonymously resulted them not being voted down or it took much longer for it to occur. There is an example today. I submitted three stories. The John Cleese story was done anonymously and and went into the home page despite touching the topic of SJW which many people oppose as a topic. It was highly commented on. I also submitted a story on Hillary Clinton's email anonymously and it seems to have gotten a few votes and hung around for quite a long time. I submitted a story about Canada stopping cooperation with the NSA three times. Twice it was with my user account, and it was quickly voted down, the third I did it anonymously and it lasted much longer although it seems to have eventually been voted down. This is additionally interesting since many people on Slashdot rejoice in any sort of pullback, failure, or limitations on or by the intelligence agencies. If the voting were fair and even handed I would expect it to at least linger, or maybe be selected. However at the same time that story was being quickly voted down, a story on a Barbie doll animated movie lingered in the queue. If it is still considered important to have some contextual information about the author you could use color codes for different levels: first time/new submitter, under 10, experienced submitter.
You might think about splitting up the submission queue or voting in some fashion to make manipulating story votes tougher. From time to time I've seen stories quickly down voted (even when all were submitted anonymously IIRC) when the story might be considered to reflect poorly in some fashion on a country. One story was regarding cybercrime and Brazil. This happened at least two, maybe three times. My assumption is that it was some sort of coordinated down vote by citizens of or advocates for those countries, or maybe even criminal hackers with puppet accounts. The story itself as as good or better than a fair number that get into the home page. I think I've also seem something similar for Russia. There are many different ways this might be done.
There are no doubt many pluses and minuses to having anonymous coward posts. I think some of the less agreeable aspects of them could be mitigated by the following: Require the first 5-10 posts to a new story be made by someone logged in, with their username, and with at least positive to good karma, or maybe higher. That should help reduce the incentive and ability to engage in "first post" nonsense, as well as the initial blocks of posts being trolls of various sorts. It could also establish a better foundation for other comments.
Some people are proposing removing various posts altogether, such as the "GNA" toll posts. Another possibility might be to subject them to ROT-13, or collapse them so that you have to click a button to reveal it. Trolls want to be seen and offend. Removing their power to do so helps remove their incentive to post. (Pure ROT-13 might not be the best since I have little doubt a creative troll will simply include the ROT-13 version with the original.)
The typical handling of stories is posted on front page today, gone tomorrow. People tend to jump in immediately to make initial posts without really reading the story so many of the comments are uninformed, irrelevant, or pointless. There are tw
The real place "controversy" needs to be addressed is the stories. No amount of comment moderation will suffice to deal with the squabbles created by mdsolar's anti-nook crap, global warming click bait and gamer gate grievance mongering, among many other sad themes that have damaged Slashdot. That stuff needs to stop so the malcontents that live for it go away and let the place heal.
And no, just turning over story selection to the (existing) crowd will not work. They'll squander their employers time indulging their favorite cause and keep feeding in the same click bait. What is needed is a few people with good judgement and some patience to allow time for recovery.
Disagreements, squabbling, quibbling, and flame wars have been around far longer than the internet. Even then you have:
vi vs emacs
PC vs Mac
Sys V vs BSD
Linux vs BSD
GPL vs BSD
. . .
The influence of story selection is limited. People can discuss even divisive topics civilly if they care to. They can also be abusive in language and moderation.
Training. procedures, enforcement mechanisms, and accountability help.
Add a disagree mod.
I disagree. (You see what I did there.)
If you disagree, respond and explain why.
Unfortunately there are more than a few people here that don't have an argument, let alone a good one, but they do have mod points.
I've endured a lot of mod bombings over the years.
You mean fugitive, not "fugitive," Assange jumped bail in the UK and is now a fugitive from both British justice and Swedish justice. Assange is wanted on a EU arrest warrant. Under the Swedish justice system changes come later in the process just like they do in various other continental justice systems. If there was a problem with the process it would have been discovered in the trips up to both the UK Supreme Court and the Swedish Supreme Court. Please explain why you think and what evidence there is for the US pressuring anyone to get Assange to Sweden, and why? If the US wanted him they could have asked for him and avoided getting extradition permission from two countries instead of one. Assange is wanted in Sweden to answer for allegations of rape, it is that simple.
Release "all information" to the public? What about war plans, nuclear launch codes, the names of police informants, and encryption keys?
There is no US warrant for Assange. If the US wanted him they could have simply asked the UK which has an extradition treaty with the US. Instead people construct these Rube Goldberg schemes which require not one country to agree to extradition, but two! The fantasy idea that the US is going to extradite Assange from Sweden requires both Sweden to agree and the UK (due to EU treaty). The people claiming the US is going to extradite Assange from Sweden can't really explain why the UK won't agree to direct extradition but will to indirect extradition through Sweden.
...and even has a separate and distinct legal system.
Not merely distinct but one with some admirable features. I've always thought that its choice of three verdicts was both interesting and has a certain wisdom to it. Of course that system is under pressure.
"... this verdict is sometimes jokingly referred to as "not guilty and don't do it again"."
That's very nice, but the topic boils down to chemical & biological weapons found in Iraq. A barrel bomb doesn't qualify.
Since robots could make a large dent in unskilled farm labor opportunity I wonder if this will be allowed outside Japan? I would think that there would be pushback from labor. There is already looming issues from robot driven trucks, and automation in fast food. Both of those trends will displace workers in growing number in the coming years. The demands for $15/hour wages from fast food workers is creating growing incentives to replace workers with automation.
Computers already execute most Wall Street trades.
Computer programs write a growing percentage of wills and other legal documents.
With computers having mastered winning chess, and now Go, when will large scale use of programs writing programs begin?
If a robot that can do plumbing is invented what will be left for people to do?
. . . filled in chemical agent production lines built in Iraq . . .
The West didn't sell Saddam chemical agents, Iraq manufactured them by itself.
Remarkable.
It was also reportedly embarrassing for the US government that had found chemical weapons – but not of the kind that they had claimed existed.
They found existing Iraqi chemical weapons. That's good enough.
As the line goes, the West already had proof of those older weapons because they'd kept the receipts.
It's a dishonest line, Iraq manufactured the chemical agents it used by itself, although it did partner with Egypt earlier to develop the capability.
They were not evidence of any renewed domestic weapons program, as claimed by the Neocons.
Iraq was not allowed to have any WMD and long range missiles. He still had WMD and was developing long range missiles, and clearly wanted to resume production of WMDs as soon as possible (minus the inspection and sanctions regimes which he was buying his way out of).
You omitted biological weapons, and there were biological weapons located and removed from Iraq during the Coalition forces presence.
Post invasion Saddam was found to have a number of unfilled warheads for missiles, secretly dumped VX nerve gas in the desert, and from pre-invasion inspections it was believed that he had unaccounted for biological agents suitable for weapons.
One of the casus belli was Saddams continuing development of banned weapons such as long range missiles.
Saddam had chemical WMDs, biological warfare bombs, and was preserving documents and know-how for the nuclear program. What he didn't have was current manufacturing (to the best of my knowledge), but his regime clearly wanted to reestablish production when it became possible.
Many of the WMDs found would certainly be suitable for terrorist attacks. You may recall that Saddams support of terrorism was another charge made against him.