White Phosphorus

[El Loto]

Can we trust them? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4440664.stm)
First WMD now White Phosphorus.

[Smith Comma John]

u.s. troops also use depleted uranium as ammo. its really nasty stuff. i think the cancer rate in iraq is at 70 percent because of the radiation it leaves behind. we are using more wmds than saddam.

[Smith Comma John]

Originally posted by El Loto
Can we trust them? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4440664.stm)
First WMD now White Phosphorus.

i like your avatar. :)

[El Loto]

Originally posted by flutter
u.s. troops also use depleted uranium as ammo. its really nasty stuff. i think the cancer rate in iraq is at 70 percent because of the radiation it leaves behind. we are using more wmds than saddam.

Did he even have WMD?

P.S The book is better than the film.

[ramblingrose]

It's so depressing. Can nobody stop the US doing whatever the hell it likes?





PPS Agreed, but a very good effort with the film.

[El Loto]

Originally posted by ramblingrose
PPS Agreed, but a very good effort with the film.

The film is truly brilliant, it is my favourite, but the book is simply amzing.

[ramblingrose]

Please start a thread, then I can go on and on about them both.

[El Loto]

Originally posted by ramblingrose
Please start a thread, then I can go on and on about them both.

Literature board. Go wild.

[revgoozen]

Originally posted by ramblingrose
It's so depressing. Can nobody stop the US doing whatever the hell it likes?



the chinese are well on thier way. unfortunately, their alternative plan for global domination would probably reveal true horror, as opposed to the americanized watered down version. hollywood always gets it wrong.

[El Loto]

Have you heard about the UN internet summit. The US are going to control the internet or something.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4441544.stm

[ramblingrose]

I'm going to form my own breakaway republic. I've got a friend who can fly a plane so I'm sure he'll be able to branch out into rockets. Who wants to come and live in the Eagle Nebula and not have an army?

[revgoozen]

Originally posted by El Loto
Have you heard about the UN internet summit. The US are going to control the internet or something.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4441544.stm

we already control the internet. the rest of the world wants us to share, and we do not feel any rational obligation comply, after all we did invent the internet.

[El Loto]

Originally posted by revgoozen
we already control the internet. the rest of the world wants us to share, and we do not feel any rational obligation comply, after all we did invent the internet.

Do you think, like in Doctor Who, anyone would ever try to own the internet?

[ramblingrose]

I'd try if I thought I stood any chance of success.

[Smith Comma John]

Originally posted by El Loto
Did he even have WMD?

yes, he used chemical weapons on the kurds and some other of his citizens before the first gulf war. w/o a doubt though, he hasn't had any weapons of those sort in years.

[Six Ways]

Originally posted by ramblingrose
Who wants to come and live in the Eagle Nebula and not have an army?

Well that's stupid, the Eagles'll get you.

[Herr Lipp]

Originally posted by flutter
u.s. troops also use depleted uranium as ammo. its really nasty stuff. i think the cancer rate in iraq is at 70 percent because of the radiation it leaves behind. we are using more wmds than saddam.

bullshit. where's your evidence you fucking hippy bullshitter? :lol: dont you think even if it were true it would take mroe than 2 years for the cell mutation to become cancer in this so called 70% of the populus? you nobhead.

If all you hippies wanna do something about Iraq, go and fucking join teh Iraqi army or police force and get it fucking sorted. Then we can get out of that shithole country, with cupfulls of oil.

[Barbarian Love Elephant]

cup lord at least aim high,i'd be going for princess bodies slathered in oil and every pore

[Herr Lipp]

Iraq used to be under British Rule. True story (they ran us out though - I say ran out it took us years to fully withdraw). And Basra has long been our base out there, it wasn't that America got Baghdad and we got teh other slim pickings :D.

[revgoozen]

Originally posted by flutter
w/o a doubt though, he hasn't had any weapons of those sort in years.

okay, i'll bite on this... look i'm as much against the war in iraq as the next guy, but there is no way you can say that beyond any doubt that saddamm did not have any wmd's "in years". everyone thought he had them, democrats, republicans, the un, the french, etc, etc, etc... he probably did have a least some stock piles, and they probably would have been found had we (the US) conducted ourselves in a more diplomatic way. those weapons are long gone now though - we won't find them until they are being used against us.

[Six Ways]

My two cents/yen/[insert smallest denomination of Iraqi currency]:

I'm unconvinced either way with whether Saddam had WMDs or not. I think it was possible that he hid them well, or equally so that he got rid of them somehow as soon as talk started to bubble up about WMDs. However, I think it's equally possible that he didn't have any for a little while before. But I am fairly sure that he has had WMDs more often than not, and certainly had not been without for a long time.

I also think Saddam had to be taken out. I'm not sure the war was the right way to do it though, and it's a royal cock-up from beginning to end, politically, militarily and ethically.

However I ALSO think that the whole thing should have been a non-issue in the first place, cos the US shouldn't have fucking put him in charge in the first place! There are countless examples of the fine US tradition of sticking their noses in for mainly their own gain. I'm not convinced however that this was about oil, but if it was I would not be in the slightest surprised. America's foreign policy seems to usually be 'Right, we want that from there, so we'll give guns to this side and hope they win and everything pans out nicely.'.

This is both ethically disgusting and massively, massively retarded. I would equate it to throwing cake mixture in a tin, dropping it a stick of TNT and hoping against hope that a cake will indeed come out. If America hadn't got involved in the first place, none of this would matter.

Again though, I do think something needed to be done about Iraq. But only if you go in saying explicitly that what you are doing is for the good of the people of the country. Which of course was not done, and the US tried to put that spin on it later with the introduction of democracy etc, which, although it probably was part of the original plan, was, I am fairly sure, mainly done to keep up appearances.

As for unconventional weapon use:
Fras, I'm kinda with you there, I cannot believe a figure like 70%. Not that quickly, and not without it being a hugely well known statistic. However, depleted uranium is ethically disgusting, especially since it hardly needs to be used. It's an extravagance that can be circumnavigated with a little bit more planning, training and perhaps a weapon better than the god-awful M16A2.
White Phosphorus is almost as bad...there are definite military uses for it, but that cannot justify the kind of weapon it is. It's unpredictable, horrifically damaging and, as far as I'm concerned, a chemical weapon.

Ummmm....sorry if you fell asleep or anything during that. I guess it was a bit more than 2 cents.

[ramblingrose]

I think the Iraqi currency is dinar, it was in the pub quiz once so I asked the newsagent.

I should also have said that I thought your post was very interesting, I particularly liked your cake analogy (?spelling?urgh)

[Smith Comma John]

Originally posted by Walter Sopchak
bullshit. where's your evidence you fucking hippy bullshitter? :lol: dont you think even if it were true it would take mroe than 2 years for the cell mutation to become cancer in this so called 70% of the populus? you nobhead.

If all you hippies wanna do something about Iraq, go and fucking join teh Iraqi army or police force and get it fucking sorted. Then we can get out of that shithole country, with cupfulls of oil.


read these and weep shithead. people like you should be castrated before you have the chance to reproduce.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml
http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2005/11/08/4206.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/362484.stm

p.s. i'm not against the army or unpatriotic or a hippie or any other false accusations you can come up with. i'm for social justice, and when i last checked, wmds are unjustified.

[Smith Comma John]

oh, and on the 70% stat, i was wrong.
70% of infants born in iraq since the first gulf war have had birth defects of some sort.
so i was basically right.

[ramblingrose]

I don't know a lot about teragenic effects and birth defects but I can't help thinking about the Serveso chemical disaster and how much damage that did, even though only a relatively small area was affected.

[ramblingrose]

Originally posted by Six Ways
Well that's stupid, the Eagles'll get you.

No, they're made of hydrogen or something.

[Six Ways]

Originally posted by flutter
oh, and on the 70% stat, i was wrong.
70% of infants born in iraq since the first gulf war have had birth defects of some sort.
so i was basically right.

Umm....no. You're interpreting the stats incorrectly. For one thing, it doesn't say 'in Iraq'. It's also very important to note that it was in a study of soldiers, and it doesn't even say from which side.

This is VERY different from 70% of all babies in Iraq!! For one thing, soldiers are far, far more likely to have been affected by DU than civilians, since they are either shooting the things or having them shot at them! I'm not saying DU isn't dangerous, it definitely is, but you're twisting the figures here. These figures alone do not say that DU is having a catastrophic effect on Iraq as a whole.

Additionally, it says 'in some studies UP TO 67%' meaning that this is not the average value to be extrapolated across the rest of the soldier population.

Again, I DO agree that DU is a nightmare, but claiming a 70% cancer rate in Iraq due to it is frankly ludicrous, unfounded and basically untrue.

[Six Ways]

Actually, I did just find that in fact it says explicitly in the BBC report that it was US soldiers, NOT babies born in Iraq at all.

[Smith Comma John]

i guess i didn't read my sources too carefully, but this better expresses the point i'm trying to make: Terrible as these results were, the last six years have witnessed a further rise in the number of children under 15 falling ill with cancer in Iraq. The rate has now reached 22.4 per 100,000—more than five times the 1990 rate of 3.98 per 100,000. (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/may2005/iraq-m10_prn.shtml)

[revgoozen]

Originally posted by flutter
i guess i didn't read my sources too carefully, but this better expresses the point i'm trying to make: Terrible as these results were, the last six years have witnessed a further rise in the number of children under 15 falling ill with cancer in Iraq. The rate has now reached 22.4 per 100,000—more than five times the 1990 rate of 3.98 per 100,000. (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/may2005/iraq-m10_prn.shtml)

that's not very reliable source material, imo... this was not written from the perspective of "lets tell the world about the health related issues of iraqi's and gulf war vets", this was more along the lines of "lets use the plight of the gulf war vets and iraqis to prove our point about du". the artical mentions several studies, but only provides source material for one. it asserts that a medical crisis is being directly blamed on DU, but it does not say by who. it gives statistics but fails to list the source of those statistics. that isn't responsible journalism.

by the way, fuck DU. we should not be using it.

[Smith Comma John]

at least we all agree that using du is bad.

and responsible journalism is somewhat of a myth anyway.

[negatifzeo]

Originally posted by revgoozen
okay, i'll bite on this... look i'm as much against the war in iraq as the next guy, but there is no way you can say that beyond any doubt that saddamm did not have any wmd's "in years". everyone thought he had them, democrats, republicans, the un, the french, etc, etc, etc... he probably did have a least some stock piles, and they probably would have been found had we (the US) conducted ourselves in a more diplomatic way. those weapons are long gone now though - we won't find them until they are being used against us.

I disagree. WMD's were never the reason for the war. The reason for the war was "regime change". I remember them saying this first, and then when that excuse didn't fly the WMD thing came about. But when then they didn't want to let the inspector finish doing his job. Get real. The real reason for the war will never be told to the public, but I think it has to do with oil, and it has to do with the muslim religion. I think that islam is viewed as the source of terrorism. (Not that I neccessarily disagree) Anyways, the republicans voted for this because they're all hawks and love war. The democrats voted for it because they go whichever way the wind blows and didn't want to appear "soft". It's hilarity!

[negatifzeo]

Originally posted by El Loto
Can we trust them? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4440664.stm)
First WMD now White Phosphorus.

The United States officially has no "moral authority". We continue to do only what is in our best interest. We are the world's only superpower, and we are acting like it. I'm disappointed too. It'd be nice to think that humanity has advanced more than this, but it hasn't.

[revgoozen]

Originally posted by negatifzeo
I disagree. WMD's were never the reason for the war. The reason for the war was "regime change".

this does not effect whether iraq did or did not have wmd's.

Originally posted by negatifzeo

But when then they didn't want to let the inspector finish doing his job. i know! that was really fucked up wasn't it?


Originally posted by negatifzeo
The real reason for the war will never be told to the public, but I think it has to do with oil, and it has to do with the muslim religion. maybe, you and i won't ever really know. if people had voted responsibly, this whole ordeal might have been avoided. as for whether regime change was needed in iraq, i don't think i'm qualified to say really. i certainly don't like the idea of killing 30k iraqis in order to "free" them. i really, really don't like the idea of us soldiers dying for something people don't really have a very good understanding of.

Originally posted by negatifzeo
The democrats voted for it because they go whichever way the wind blows and didn't want to appear "soft". It's hilarity!

that's crazy talk.

[Static Split Screen]

This thread makes me sad.

[homer j. simpson]

Originally posted by negatifzeo
I think that islam is viewed as the source of terrorism. (Not that I neccessarily disagree)

yeah, fuck you too.