I agree. I don't consider piracy to be the downfall of civilization or anything, and I certainly can't claim that I've never pirated anything, but it really annoys me when people try to claim that it's not wrong. People make up these claims to justify their own actions when they should really just admit that what they are doing is wrong.
Of course, most of these kids are in college or high school and have never produced anything of their own that could be copyrighted and sold. I write software, and although I release much of it open source anyway, it would really upset me if it were not my choice to do so.
It is true that some types of musicians can make money off of performances. But, that only applies to music, and only some types of music. Think about some forms of electronica, where the entire piece is actually played by a computer, and all the musician does is sequence it. It still takes a lot of talent to write such music, but who the hell is going to pay to go watch a guy press the "play" button on his computer?
And, of course, there are other forms of copyright. Can I go watch a performance of the newest video game? No! Can I watch a performance of a movie? Well, yes, but if there were no copyright, theaters would not have to pay to put those movies on the screen, and so the artists would not get paid. Of course, there's always old fasion theater, but we all know not many people are interested in that anymore.
Anyway, it's clear that music is not primarily a performance art. It was at one time, but it is not anymore. I have never gone to a major band concert, and I never intend to, because I have no interest in watching people play the music. I just like the music itself. Apparently I'm different from you there, but I do believe a lot of people are like me.
The simple fact of the matter is that if someone does something from which you could benefit, they have every right to ask that you compensate them for it. If they hadn't done whatever they did, you certainly wouldn't benefit from it then, so why should you be entitled to take it for free?
Really, I feel silly arguing this, because the point is so fundamentally obvious. How anyone could make the kinds of arguments I'm seeing here on Slashdot, and actually believe them, is beyond me.
Why on Earth do you think you have the inherent right to use stuff I spent time and money producing without paying me for it? If I weren't here, you wouldn't have it, so why shouldn't I get something in return?
I would LOVE to spend my life sitting on my ass producing open source software for free. Really, I would. I did it all through college, and I still do it whenever I can. However, in this world, people need MONEY to live. Sadly, this means I need a day job to "subsidize" my coding efforts. With 40 hours a week devoted to that, I hardly have any time at all to work on the open source software that I love to write. I could be producing so much more software, and so much better software, if only I could get paid for it.
The same is true of musicians. Sure, they can do it in their spare time while working other jobs to pay the rent, but the stuff they produce won't be nearly as good, and their won't be much of it.
Frankly, I think anyone who makes an argument like yours is incredibly naive. Hopefully when you get out of college you'll learn how the real world works.
Really, people, step back and look at what we're talking about here. Who cares if it is technically legal? Clearly it is a loophole if it is legal, and that hole will quickly be closed by lawmakers.
The other point is, why would you want to do this? Does no one here understand the basic concepts of economics? If people don't pay for music, there won't be any music -- or, at least, there will be very little. It costs money to produce. The artists need to eat. Sure the RIAA is evil, but two wrongs don't make a right. How could anyone seriously consider a plan like this without realizing that it is wrong?
Why do you people believe that you are entitled to free (or absurdly cheap) music? If you're unhappy with the RIAA, don't buy their music, but don't steal it either. You have no right to use something that someone else spent time and money to produce if you are not willing to use it under their terms.
LinuxFund gave a grant to BitTorrent, which is certainly not Linux-only. As a matter of fact, I believe the first browser that BitTorrent supported was IE... but don't quote me on that.
Oh, and, regarding diplomacy: Yes, Bush did screw that up, and I am not happy about that. If he hadn't been constantly telling the UN that they didn't matter, maybe they would have been more willing to support us.
Heh... the thing about the military is, if you tell them you want them to be ready in mid-March, they'll be ready in mid-March, but they will no longer be ready after mid-March. They can't just sit and be "ready" for months. The date we went in (I think it was March 17) was planned quite far in advance. It wasn't obvious (din't want to tip off Saddam), but if you go back and look at the reports, you can see a bunch of indicators pointing at about that day. So, basically, if we didn't go in right then, it would have been a huge waste of money.
I do think that Bush screwed that up, big time. He should have set the date much later. Apparently he thought he'd be able to get the UN's backing by that time. Woops.
See... that's a rational reason to be against the war.:) (Unlike the wacky things Population has been screaming about.)
Yeah, it's rather shady. I don't like Bush, and I don't pretend to know his real intensions. I guess I'm satisfied that the war has achieved a good result -- or, at least, it looks like it will turn out well. I guess I believe that the reasons aren't important if the actions turn out good... but I can see how someone would not think that way.
Also, if the intent is really to push democracy into the middle east, I think that's probably a good goal. But, of course, if anyone had suggested that that was the goal, the general public and the international community would think the idea was preposterous. How is it our right to go around forcing democracy on other countries, right? Well, "forcing countries to accept democracy", to me, is about at bad as "forcing countries to accept free cash"... that is, it would be silly to think of it as in any way hurting the country in question. But, it still sounds bad, somehow. So, Bush and company have to come up with other "excuses".
Of course, the US has a rather spotty record as far as overthrowing other governments. Like in Guatamala, where some decades ago we replaced their brand new democracy with a cruel dictatorship because the democracy wasn't playing nice with our corporations. That was no good. And, so, it is natural to be suspicious of anything we do that could turn out like that. But, at least so far, it looks like we aren't going to do anything like that in Iraq, especially with the whole world watching. So, I remain cautiously optimistic.
How DO you come up with these so blatantly irrational arguments? Think. Put the weapon in a truck. Drive the truck around. All the spy sattelite can see is a TRUCK. Trucks are used all the time! There is then no reason to be suspicious of a god damned truck. In Cuba there were huge missiles sitting on LAUNCH PADS, where it was blatantly obvious what they were for.
You know, there are so many rational reasons to be against the war. I can't believe you have to resort to these retarded arguments that make only the slightist bit of sense.
Crap, you're right. I misread you. I didn't see the "in the war" part.
As for the rest of this, forget it. You obviously care about this much more than I do, and I have a life to get back to. Debating was fun for awhile, but I'm getting bored.
Well, sure, we had plenty of spy sattelite photos of facilities that were supposedly Iraqi weapons factories, but the photos only show that the building is there. No, you can't see what exactly it is that is being loaded into that truck, or taken off that barge. Also, Saddam was intentially trying to hide these things. It's not hard to hide from a spy sattelite, as long as you know what you're doing. Bury those barrels a few at a time, and how are they supposed to know what you're up to? Or, hell, bury them under a building, so that you don't even have to do it outside. It's really not that hard.
Even if you think it's ultimately worth it, you have to admit that there's a certain level of FUD being deployed.
Yes, you're right. (BTW, thanks for not being an ass like most of the people who disagree with me.) It's questionable. There probably will never be proof one way or the other. Still, I do believe it turned out well, and it does baffle me to some extent that so many people would protest any sort of war on a dictator the likes of Saddam. I assert that Saddam was, in fact, quite a diplomatic genius, manipulating international opinion in his favor -- cooperating just enough to keep people on his side, while still continuing his agenda. Tricking the international community into thinking they were supporting the "Iraqi people" when they were mainly supporting him. Might have made some unwise statements, but no one really noticed. If you really read up on the things he did to his people it's hard to see that war as having been a bad thing... at least, in my opinion.
I do think that the WMD thing was an excuse -- designed to make it easy for the public to understand. The average American doesn't have the attention span to hear all the real reasons why Saddam needed to be removed. And, the average American probably doesn't care unless he or she feels threatened. Americans were mostly against entering WW2 until the Japanese attacked... Germany's actions, while terrible, were simply not of any concern to them. Funny how Germany ended up being the US's main enemy as soon as they got into the war.
*sigh* Must you people always distort reality so? OK, this arguing thing was fun, but I'm getting a little tired of it now, so how about you go and read a couple articles on the sorts of things Saddam and his sons did to the Iraqi people instead. There's one about when the Iraqi soccer team lost a "friendly" match with Jordan, and Uday tied the players up by their legs, dragged them across the pavement in order to rip the skin off their backs, and then shoved them into vats of raw sewage in order to get their wounds infected. Or, wait... maybe the soccer game was where he just shot the lead player dead as soon as he saw him, and the sewage thing was for some other event... it's hard to keep track of them all. Of course, he learned it all from his father!
Really, why anyone could still be against this war, after seeing the Iraqi people celebrating when we arrived, is beyond me.
I suppose I should get back to coding now. Yay OpenGL!
There's no evidence that they got rid of them (even when they were asked to produce such evidence), lots of evidence that they were hiding something, and proof that they were, in fact, working on a nuclear program, although they had it on hold until the whole inspections thing blew over. No proof that they had WMD's now, sure, but you certainly can't say that there's "no evidence".
In fact, it is. You can bury the weapons 50ft. underground in the middle of the desert, but the guy with the mustache probably wants things like food and air.
#1. UN inspectors could not find any evidence of WMD's.
No shit. Why would anyone expect them to? Saddam was making his best effort to hide them, and he had complete control over everyone and everything in the country. Why did Iraqi scientists insist on having a government rep present during interviews with weapon inspectors? Oh, wait, some of them were willing to forgo that... provided that they could TAPE RECORD the interview instead. What possible reason is there for such things if not because Saddam wanted to make sure they didn't tell on him? The guy who turned over the nuke parts feared for his life and the lives of his entire family -- even though Saddam has been removed! He and his family had to leave the country. If there are no WMD's, then why would all these things happen?
Bottom line is: Weapons inspectors aren't going to be able to do jack shit in a country where the government is against them.
#2. Saddam did not use any WMD's in the war.
Yes he did. On the Kurds. And on the Shiites. It is quite well documented that he had WMD's in the past. The question was only whether or not he still had them. As he provided no evidence as to having destroyed them, why should we have believed he did?
#3. US troops did not find any evidence of WMD's after the war.
Well, there were those nuke parts. True, it wasn't a working nuclear bomb, so it's not really a WMD, but it shows Saddam intended to build them.
Anyway, my whole point is that you shouldn't expect them to be so easy to find. It's a big country, so our only hope is for the people who know to come forward, but apparently these people are all still living in fear of their lives and their families' lives.
The fact that we haven't found them yet means nothing.
#4. All evidence provided by intelligence agencies about attempts to acquire the materials has been shown to be false.
ONE report turned out to be false. Iraq was not seeking uranium in Africa. That was ONE line in the state of the union. What about all the other things? There's still lots of evidence that Iraq had WMD's. Sounds like you have a religious belief that they DON'T exist that no amount of factual evidence will disprove.
And, honestly, I'd expect even an anti-war type to be able to see where the parent's post was silly. He honestly suggested that the UN weapons inspectors, working in a country controlled by someone who was against them, could do a better job than the US military, working in a country which they control. Not only that, but he acted like this was an obvious thing to think.
Heh... You're one of those types who assumes that anyone who disagrees with you must be stupid, aren't you? No, in fact, I do actually think about my opinions.
Saddam knew that if we attacked, he'd be toast. He is (was?), in fact, quite intelligent. He also knew that if the weapons inspectors found anything, he'd be toast. His game was completely based on swaying international opinion enough to prevent the US from attacking. That means he had to hide the weapons from the inspectors. Again, there was no reason to have them ready to defend himself since we would easily have taken the country either way. So, why would he prepare them? As long as there was a chance that we wouldn't attack, hiding them as well as possible was his best bet. And, once he found out that we were going to attack, he didn't have enough time to do anything about it. (Do YOU know how long it takes to prepare those weapons? Me neither. But I'd guess it's not an overnight thing.)
You really think that protesting the war was supporting the Iraqi people? Most Iraqi refugees were HUGE supporters of the war, and most Iraqis seem to be quite happy that it happened. The new Iraqi governing council (made up of Iraqis, NOT Americans, and NOT controlled by Americans) just declared April 9th (the date of Saddam's downfall) a national holidy, and I'm sure you saw the people dancing in the streets when it happened. Everyone who said they were protesting the war in support of these people clearly had not the slightest clue of what the Iraqi people really wanted. And, yes, I know you didn't intend to support Saddam, but Saddam's whole goal at the time was to get people worldwide to protest the war. Therefore, anyone who protested the war was, at least indirectly, supporting Saddam's agenda.
And, since we're getting into personal attacks...
You're one of those "never fight for anything" types, aren't you?
You probably think that we should have stayed out of World War 2 and just let Hitler be. I mean, who cares if he was exterminating Jews by the millions? He wasn't killing us, so why should we care, right? There were quite a few people who shared that opinion at the time.
To you, it is better to have another 2 million Iraqi civilians be tortured and murdered by Saddam, and most of the rest suffer under tyrrany for the rest of their lives, than let a few thousand be killed by a US invasion to free them.
Now, if you want to say that Bush only did this for oil, I'm not going to debate that. I really don't know. I certainly don't like Bush (didn't vote for him!). But, in the process of achieving whatever the goal was, the US did a great thing for the Iraqi people... in my humble opinion.
There's lots of possible reasons for that. After our initial strike, the Iraqi's had a "leadership vacuum" for awhile at the start of the war -- perhaps they were too messed up to prep the WMD's, and by the time they got their act together their ability to use them had already been destroyed. Or, perhaps Saddam realized that he was screwed either way, but that if he used WMD's he'd only make us look better. Saddam was quite good with the politics, obviously -- somehow he managed to get millions of peace lovers around the world supporting him, even while he butchered his own people. Still, I think the former case is more likely. It actually wouldn't surprise me if the weapons were very far away from being "mobilized", seeing as how he had to hide them from the weapons inspectors.
Oh, and about finding weapons: who does a better and more indepedent job? Trained inspectors who know what to look for where suspected sites are protected from looters or soldiers who have been told to find stuff and fail to protect sites from looters then blame looters for not being able to find anything?
There's so many things wrong with this question that I don't even know where to start.
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I agree. I don't consider piracy to be the downfall of civilization or anything, and I certainly can't claim that I've never pirated anything, but it really annoys me when people try to claim that it's not wrong. People make up these claims to justify their own actions when they should really just admit that what they are doing is wrong.
Of course, most of these kids are in college or high school and have never produced anything of their own that could be copyrighted and sold. I write software, and although I release much of it open source anyway, it would really upset me if it were not my choice to do so.
Wrong.
It is true that some types of musicians can make money off of performances. But, that only applies to music, and only some types of music. Think about some forms of electronica, where the entire piece is actually played by a computer, and all the musician does is sequence it. It still takes a lot of talent to write such music, but who the hell is going to pay to go watch a guy press the "play" button on his computer?
And, of course, there are other forms of copyright. Can I go watch a performance of the newest video game? No! Can I watch a performance of a movie? Well, yes, but if there were no copyright, theaters would not have to pay to put those movies on the screen, and so the artists would not get paid. Of course, there's always old fasion theater, but we all know not many people are interested in that anymore.
Anyway, it's clear that music is not primarily a performance art. It was at one time, but it is not anymore. I have never gone to a major band concert, and I never intend to, because I have no interest in watching people play the music. I just like the music itself. Apparently I'm different from you there, but I do believe a lot of people are like me.
The simple fact of the matter is that if someone does something from which you could benefit, they have every right to ask that you compensate them for it. If they hadn't done whatever they did, you certainly wouldn't benefit from it then, so why should you be entitled to take it for free?
Really, I feel silly arguing this, because the point is so fundamentally obvious. How anyone could make the kinds of arguments I'm seeing here on Slashdot, and actually believe them, is beyond me.
AAAA RAGRGRA.GIURSOADI DP.ACSRY D
You people frustrate me so much.
Why on Earth do you think you have the inherent right to use stuff I spent time and money producing without paying me for it? If I weren't here, you wouldn't have it, so why shouldn't I get something in return?
I would LOVE to spend my life sitting on my ass producing open source software for free. Really, I would. I did it all through college, and I still do it whenever I can. However, in this world, people need MONEY to live. Sadly, this means I need a day job to "subsidize" my coding efforts. With 40 hours a week devoted to that, I hardly have any time at all to work on the open source software that I love to write. I could be producing so much more software, and so much better software, if only I could get paid for it.
The same is true of musicians. Sure, they can do it in their spare time while working other jobs to pay the rent, but the stuff they produce won't be nearly as good, and their won't be much of it.
Frankly, I think anyone who makes an argument like yours is incredibly naive. Hopefully when you get out of college you'll learn how the real world works.
Really, people, step back and look at what we're talking about here. Who cares if it is technically legal? Clearly it is a loophole if it is legal, and that hole will quickly be closed by lawmakers.
The other point is, why would you want to do this? Does no one here understand the basic concepts of economics? If people don't pay for music, there won't be any music -- or, at least, there will be very little. It costs money to produce. The artists need to eat. Sure the RIAA is evil, but two wrongs don't make a right. How could anyone seriously consider a plan like this without realizing that it is wrong?
Why do you people believe that you are entitled to free (or absurdly cheap) music? If you're unhappy with the RIAA, don't buy their music, but don't steal it either. You have no right to use something that someone else spent time and money to produce if you are not willing to use it under their terms.
LinuxFund gave a grant to BitTorrent, which is certainly not Linux-only. As a matter of fact, I believe the first browser that BitTorrent supported was IE... but don't quote me on that.
Errm... http://www.linuxfund.org/.
Oh, and, regarding diplomacy: Yes, Bush did screw that up, and I am not happy about that. If he hadn't been constantly telling the UN that they didn't matter, maybe they would have been more willing to support us.
Heh... the thing about the military is, if you tell them you want them to be ready in mid-March, they'll be ready in mid-March, but they will no longer be ready after mid-March. They can't just sit and be "ready" for months. The date we went in (I think it was March 17) was planned quite far in advance. It wasn't obvious (din't want to tip off Saddam), but if you go back and look at the reports, you can see a bunch of indicators pointing at about that day. So, basically, if we didn't go in right then, it would have been a huge waste of money.
I do think that Bush screwed that up, big time. He should have set the date much later. Apparently he thought he'd be able to get the UN's backing by that time. Woops.
See... that's a rational reason to be against the war. :) (Unlike the wacky things Population has been screaming about.)
Yeah, it's rather shady. I don't like Bush, and I don't pretend to know his real intensions. I guess I'm satisfied that the war has achieved a good result -- or, at least, it looks like it will turn out well. I guess I believe that the reasons aren't important if the actions turn out good... but I can see how someone would not think that way.
Also, if the intent is really to push democracy into the middle east, I think that's probably a good goal. But, of course, if anyone had suggested that that was the goal, the general public and the international community would think the idea was preposterous. How is it our right to go around forcing democracy on other countries, right? Well, "forcing countries to accept democracy", to me, is about at bad as "forcing countries to accept free cash"... that is, it would be silly to think of it as in any way hurting the country in question. But, it still sounds bad, somehow. So, Bush and company have to come up with other "excuses".
Of course, the US has a rather spotty record as far as overthrowing other governments. Like in Guatamala, where some decades ago we replaced their brand new democracy with a cruel dictatorship because the democracy wasn't playing nice with our corporations. That was no good. And, so, it is natural to be suspicious of anything we do that could turn out like that. But, at least so far, it looks like we aren't going to do anything like that in Iraq, especially with the whole world watching. So, I remain cautiously optimistic.
How DO you come up with these so blatantly irrational arguments? Think. Put the weapon in a truck. Drive the truck around. All the spy sattelite can see is a TRUCK. Trucks are used all the time! There is then no reason to be suspicious of a god damned truck. In Cuba there were huge missiles sitting on LAUNCH PADS, where it was blatantly obvious what they were for.
You know, there are so many rational reasons to be against the war. I can't believe you have to resort to these retarded arguments that make only the slightist bit of sense.
Well what the hell else was he supposed to do?
Crap, you're right. I misread you. I didn't see the "in the war" part.
As for the rest of this, forget it. You obviously care about this much more than I do, and I have a life to get back to. Debating was fun for awhile, but I'm getting bored.
Well, sure, we had plenty of spy sattelite photos of facilities that were supposedly Iraqi weapons factories, but the photos only show that the building is there. No, you can't see what exactly it is that is being loaded into that truck, or taken off that barge. Also, Saddam was intentially trying to hide these things. It's not hard to hide from a spy sattelite, as long as you know what you're doing. Bury those barrels a few at a time, and how are they supposed to know what you're up to? Or, hell, bury them under a building, so that you don't even have to do it outside. It's really not that hard.
Even if you think it's ultimately worth it, you have to admit that there's a certain level of FUD being deployed.
Yes, you're right. (BTW, thanks for not being an ass like most of the people who disagree with me.) It's questionable. There probably will never be proof one way or the other. Still, I do believe it turned out well, and it does baffle me to some extent that so many people would protest any sort of war on a dictator the likes of Saddam. I assert that Saddam was, in fact, quite a diplomatic genius, manipulating international opinion in his favor -- cooperating just enough to keep people on his side, while still continuing his agenda. Tricking the international community into thinking they were supporting the "Iraqi people" when they were mainly supporting him. Might have made some unwise statements, but no one really noticed. If you really read up on the things he did to his people it's hard to see that war as having been a bad thing... at least, in my opinion.
I do think that the WMD thing was an excuse -- designed to make it easy for the public to understand. The average American doesn't have the attention span to hear all the real reasons why Saddam needed to be removed. And, the average American probably doesn't care unless he or she feels threatened. Americans were mostly against entering WW2 until the Japanese attacked... Germany's actions, while terrible, were simply not of any concern to them. Funny how Germany ended up being the US's main enemy as soon as they got into the war.
Politics. Bleh.
Make it look like you're doing road work. Duh.
*sigh* Must you people always distort reality so? OK, this arguing thing was fun, but I'm getting a little tired of it now, so how about you go and read a couple articles on the sorts of things Saddam and his sons did to the Iraqi people instead. There's one about when the Iraqi soccer team lost a "friendly" match with Jordan, and Uday tied the players up by their legs, dragged them across the pavement in order to rip the skin off their backs, and then shoved them into vats of raw sewage in order to get their wounds infected. Or, wait... maybe the soccer game was where he just shot the lead player dead as soon as he saw him, and the sewage thing was for some other event... it's hard to keep track of them all. Of course, he learned it all from his father!
Really, why anyone could still be against this war, after seeing the Iraqi people celebrating when we arrived, is beyond me.
I suppose I should get back to coding now. Yay OpenGL!
There's no evidence that they got rid of them (even when they were asked to produce such evidence), lots of evidence that they were hiding something, and proof that they were, in fact, working on a nuclear program, although they had it on hold until the whole inspections thing blew over. No proof that they had WMD's now, sure, but you certainly can't say that there's "no evidence".
In fact, it is. You can bury the weapons 50ft. underground in the middle of the desert, but the guy with the mustache probably wants things like food and air.
No. The fact that we have not found WMD's does not prove that they do not exist. Where did you study basic reading comprehension skills?
I didn't say anything about that initial strike, did I?
#1. UN inspectors could not find any evidence of WMD's.
No shit. Why would anyone expect them to? Saddam was making his best effort to hide them, and he had complete control over everyone and everything in the country. Why did Iraqi scientists insist on having a government rep present during interviews with weapon inspectors? Oh, wait, some of them were willing to forgo that... provided that they could TAPE RECORD the interview instead. What possible reason is there for such things if not because Saddam wanted to make sure they didn't tell on him? The guy who turned over the nuke parts feared for his life and the lives of his entire family -- even though Saddam has been removed! He and his family had to leave the country. If there are no WMD's, then why would all these things happen?
Bottom line is: Weapons inspectors aren't going to be able to do jack shit in a country where the government is against them.
#2. Saddam did not use any WMD's in the war.
Yes he did. On the Kurds. And on the Shiites. It is quite well documented that he had WMD's in the past. The question was only whether or not he still had them. As he provided no evidence as to having destroyed them, why should we have believed he did?
#3. US troops did not find any evidence of WMD's after the war.
Well, there were those nuke parts. True, it wasn't a working nuclear bomb, so it's not really a WMD, but it shows Saddam intended to build them.
Anyway, my whole point is that you shouldn't expect them to be so easy to find. It's a big country, so our only hope is for the people who know to come forward, but apparently these people are all still living in fear of their lives and their families' lives.
The fact that we haven't found them yet means nothing.
#4. All evidence provided by intelligence agencies about attempts to acquire the materials has been shown to be false.
ONE report turned out to be false. Iraq was not seeking uranium in Africa. That was ONE line in the state of the union. What about all the other things? There's still lots of evidence that Iraq had WMD's. Sounds like you have a religious belief that they DON'T exist that no amount of factual evidence will disprove.
And, honestly, I'd expect even an anti-war type to be able to see where the parent's post was silly. He honestly suggested that the UN weapons inspectors, working in a country controlled by someone who was against them, could do a better job than the US military, working in a country which they control. Not only that, but he acted like this was an obvious thing to think.
Heh... You're one of those types who assumes that anyone who disagrees with you must be stupid, aren't you? No, in fact, I do actually think about my opinions.
Saddam knew that if we attacked, he'd be toast. He is (was?), in fact, quite intelligent. He also knew that if the weapons inspectors found anything, he'd be toast. His game was completely based on swaying international opinion enough to prevent the US from attacking. That means he had to hide the weapons from the inspectors. Again, there was no reason to have them ready to defend himself since we would easily have taken the country either way. So, why would he prepare them? As long as there was a chance that we wouldn't attack, hiding them as well as possible was his best bet. And, once he found out that we were going to attack, he didn't have enough time to do anything about it. (Do YOU know how long it takes to prepare those weapons? Me neither. But I'd guess it's not an overnight thing.)
You really think that protesting the war was supporting the Iraqi people? Most Iraqi refugees were HUGE supporters of the war, and most Iraqis seem to be quite happy that it happened. The new Iraqi governing council (made up of Iraqis, NOT Americans, and NOT controlled by Americans) just declared April 9th (the date of Saddam's downfall) a national holidy, and I'm sure you saw the people dancing in the streets when it happened. Everyone who said they were protesting the war in support of these people clearly had not the slightest clue of what the Iraqi people really wanted. And, yes, I know you didn't intend to support Saddam, but Saddam's whole goal at the time was to get people worldwide to protest the war. Therefore, anyone who protested the war was, at least indirectly, supporting Saddam's agenda.
And, since we're getting into personal attacks...
You're one of those "never fight for anything" types, aren't you?
You probably think that we should have stayed out of World War 2 and just let Hitler be. I mean, who cares if he was exterminating Jews by the millions? He wasn't killing us, so why should we care, right? There were quite a few people who shared that opinion at the time.
To you, it is better to have another 2 million Iraqi civilians be tortured and murdered by Saddam, and most of the rest suffer under tyrrany for the rest of their lives, than let a few thousand be killed by a US invasion to free them.
Now, if you want to say that Bush only did this for oil, I'm not going to debate that. I really don't know. I certainly don't like Bush (didn't vote for him!). But, in the process of achieving whatever the goal was, the US did a great thing for the Iraqi people... in my humble opinion.
There's lots of possible reasons for that. After our initial strike, the Iraqi's had a "leadership vacuum" for awhile at the start of the war -- perhaps they were too messed up to prep the WMD's, and by the time they got their act together their ability to use them had already been destroyed. Or, perhaps Saddam realized that he was screwed either way, but that if he used WMD's he'd only make us look better. Saddam was quite good with the politics, obviously -- somehow he managed to get millions of peace lovers around the world supporting him, even while he butchered his own people. Still, I think the former case is more likely. It actually wouldn't surprise me if the weapons were very far away from being "mobilized", seeing as how he had to hide them from the weapons inspectors.
Oh, and about finding weapons: who does a better and more indepedent job? Trained inspectors who know what to look for where suspected sites are protected from looters or soldiers who have been told to find stuff and fail to protect sites from looters then blame looters for not being able to find anything?
There's so many things wrong with this question that I don't even know where to start.