BREAKING NEWS: WMD's Launched In Middle East On Same Day's Unveiling of George W. Bush's Presidential Library!!! (elect, work)

[Metro Matt]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/w...hagel/2112377/

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The United States now believes the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against its people, according to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and a White House letter to Congress.

The White House informed Congress about the chemical weapons use in letters to Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz., on Thursday. These announcements are the first U.S. indication of confidence in claims of Syria's chemical weapons use.

[tablemtn]

Do you have a degree in Chemistry

I have enough of a background to know that you can't just keep dimethylamine-derived agents like Tabun (which Syria was known to manufacture) around indefinitely. That stuff degrades. It loses potency. Heat degrades it over time, which is certainly a factor in Syria.

More importantly, there is no such useful category as "WMD," because it combines too many disparate things together. It'd be like creating a new category "NLCBP" meaning nuclear, laser canon, and black powder. That way if you find someone with black powder, you could imply that he might have had nuclear and laser weapons, too. You can see how absurd that terminology would be.

[Spaten_Drinker]

Originally Posted by tablemtn

Chemical weapons degrade rather quickly. Decade-old shells with chemical agents inside of them would be close to useless in many if not most cases.

But again, nobody cares about chemical weapons; that's World War I technology.

Tell that to the congressmen who have been getting ricin laced letters.

[Metro Matt]

Originally Posted by tablemtn

I have enough of a background to know that you can't just keep dimethylamine-derived agents like Tabun (which Syria was known to manufacture) around indefinitely. That stuff degrades. It loses potency. Heat degrades it over time, which is certainly a factor in Syria.

More importantly, there is no such useful category as "WMD," because it combines too many disparate things together. It'd be like creating a new category "NLCBP" meaning nuclear, laser canon, and black powder. That way if you find someone with black powder, you could imply that he might have had nuclear and laser weapons, too. You can see how absurd that terminology would be.

Syria isn't in the dark ages, they have climate control like we do.

In fact, both Mitsubishi & LG have factories there after a quick online search revealed.

Guess they're not just putting your household A/C unit together over there like good little Muslims eh?

[tablemtn]

Tell that to the congressmen who have been getting ricin laced letters.

If you lobbed a chemical gas shell into the Congress, that would also be a problem, but what does that have to do with intervening in Iraq or Syria?

[Dale Cooper]

Originally Posted by legalsea

Do you have any proof that Iraq's 'stash' was given to Syria?

I would have thought perhaps Iran, since they have aligned themselves closely with Syria.

Notwithstanding the fact that the WMD story has absolutely nothing to do with the Library, trucks hauling the stash from Iraq to Syria were filmed and all who were aware saw for themselves.

[Metro Matt]

Originally Posted by Dale Cooper

Notwithstanding the fact that the WMD story has absolutely nothing to do with the Library, trucks hauling the stash from Iraq to Syria were filmed and all who were aware saw for themselves.

Its just extremely weird the Whitehouse released this information on the unveiling day of the Bush Library.

Obama has now confirmed what Bush knew all along & that is the Middle East had & has chemical weapons at its disposal.

Those UN inspectors weren't allowed into Iraq for months. There was ample time to stash them in the next logical country/s over, Syria & quite possibly Iran.

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

Bush was right, ya'll Lefties were wrong.

Bush was wrong.

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

Iraq's stash got hidden in Syria.

That wouldn't be possible.

Originally Posted by tablemtn

Syria has produced and stored its own chemical weapons since at least the 1970's. They were used in Hama in 1982, among other incidents.

I seriously doubt Syria produced its own weapons. Like Iraq, Syria purchased chemical weapons from France.

Originally Posted by tablemtn

Besides, no one cared about chemical weapons. You can't create much of a "mushroom cloud" with chemical weaponry, and mushroom clouds were one of the key images used to "sell" the Iraq war.

But, of course! It was designed to get that knee-jerk reaction preying on people's ignorance.

Originally Posted by tablemtn

Chemical weapons degrade rather quickly. Decade-old shells with chemical agents inside of them would be close to useless in many if not most cases.

But again, nobody cares about chemical weapons; that's World War I technology.

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

Do you have a degree in Chemistry or Bio Engineering?

Those degrees are useless, but that's probably because you don't understand the meaning of 'organic'0.

A degree in organic chemistry would be valuable, but even that isn't necessary.

While Kennedy was screaming, "I'm a big jam doughnut" in West Berlin, what do you think the US Army was doing?

The US Army was secretly deploying chemical weapons to storage facilities near a German town called Clausen (near the French border). By the mid-1970s, those weapons were useless, because the nerve agent had degraded/decomposed.

So, the weapons sat there for 15 more years being useless and posing a threat to everyone nearby, because the US couldn't tell the Germans that the US violated several treaties and Germany's sovereignty by secretly storing nerve-agent weapons in Germany....without Germany's knowledge or consent.

The Euro-Missile thing would have been "great moments in bad timing" so the US waited until the INF Treaty and REFOREUR and The Wall coming down to tell the Germans.

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

The United States now believes

the first U.S. indication of confidence in claims

Those are the most important parts of the article...which you over-looked.

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

"The decision to make this conclusion....

What conclusion?

Oh, yeah, this conclusion....."believes"....which is not the same thing as "knowing."

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

....believes....very likely......

Weasel Words.

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

..."would be"

Note the use of the Passive and the lack of "Action Words."

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

...likely chemical weapon use....

Tremendous uncertainty there.

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

The official referred to bad intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that led to the U.S. invasion of that country. In that case, the intelligence proved wrong.

Very bad intelligence, that was intentionally skewed by mid-level managers in an attempt to mislead Bush and the American people.

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

Hagel repeated Thursday that any use of chemical weapons by Assad's forces "violates every convention of warfare," since they represent "uncontrollable, deadly weapons."

Torture violates jus cogens, peremptory norms, Customary Law, and numerous treaties, not to mention the US Constitution, but that never stopped the US.

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

"Shrunken pupils, foaming at the mouth and other signs indicate, in our view, that lethal chemical weapons were used," he said.

That is not sufficient.

They'll have to do better than that. If chemical munitions were used, then bring me the bodies.

Originally Posted by Spaten_Drinker

Tell that to the congressmen who have been getting ricin laced letters.

Ricin is a protein, and although proteins are organic chemicals, they're not the same as chemical weapons.

How many congressidiots lick the letters they get?

Do you lick every letter you get?

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

Those UN inspectors weren't allowed into Iraq for months. There was ample time to stash them in the next logical country/s over, Syria & quite possibly Iran.

Uh, Shi'a Iran hated Sunni Saddam and wouldn't lift a finger to help him. The Syrians wouldn't help Saddam either.

Right? I mean Saddam's sons and other family members had to sneak into Syria.

After you finish reviewing that, go check out the satellite capabilities, plus the capabilities of AWACs and Hawkeyes, as well as J-STARS and then take a guess what the USAF eaves-dropping/ELINT Intercept/Communications facilities in Turkey were doing.

Tactically....

Mircea

[DoD Guy]

Originally Posted by DivineComedy

No. Gods do not exist.
Much like WMD in Iraq.

Tell us what else you didn't see in Iraq.

[SourD]

I like how people are saying Bush was wrong but don't have a single answer as to what those convoys of trucks flowing into Syria from Iraq were doing.