h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Here Trunt:

"Intelligence suggested SH had been offered one tonne of weapons grade plutonium: a global "hot potato" demanding immediate action."

Nog.
How come you get more than 20 words? Are you a member of some sort of hootoo elite or what? Not egalitarian is it. You know how emotional I get about inequities..stop provoking me please..I'm on pre-mod already. So what if Tango is 16. Emoyionally I'm 13.

/73s

Loopy:

each of Noggin's answers is less than 20 words. I'll put your new one in too. Of course, wasn't the intelligence you mention proven to be in error?

Trunt
It was a hypothetical rhetorical answer. The point is that we will not know the truth until the UK records are released. Perhaps 50 years ahead in the future. I believe the situation is not so simple as the newspapers would have us believe.

In fact I think some of the facts will be so bizarre as to be incredible.

Sorry, Loopy. I did apologise for being too long winded, but it got included anyway.

I don't *think" I'm part of any hootoo elite, even if there is one. Certainly nobody's mentioned it to me.

Noggin

Well Nog...I get a bit sensitive about being..well..proletarian.

Whatever.

trunt, my answers are:
1. we can't find bin Laden
2. oil
3. one-upping Dad
4. religion
5. keeping our promise to the Kurds
6. making the Saudis happy

And that's exactly 20 words.

Mind you bearing in mind dureing the last conflict didn't Uk export giant gun barrel, and other sensitive materials ,with that in mind maybe US ,UK had sold of some of there obsalete WOMD ,or heard the russians had sold them ,just the SH sold them on before we got there.

ltp, that is perhaps the most frightening scenario...don't let Shrub get wind of that one! He'd be bouncing all over: "well, last week they were in Syria, so we invaded to find them, but we think they might have sold them to Uzbekistan, so we're going there next."

Oh, lord.

I see that ES is doing his best Justin the Preacher impression and refusing to answer my questions.

Trunt, my friend in the frozen east (of here anyway...). I can only think of a few:

1) War is traditionally the best way to obfuscate what is really going on.

2) What is really going on is economic. Up, down, left, right, rich, poor, but economic.

3) It was the Republican M/I complex's turn.

4) Hey, look! I'm the Prez! Now what? No, really!

I'll get to some of these new answers in a bit. Computer difficulties. Will be sorted soon. (oh, no. That sounds like Oetzi.)

George W. Bush SAID he wanted to invade Iraq because:

1)They had WMD, or were close to having WMD, or were capable of producing WMD or were thinking about pursuing the means to become capable of someday possibly producing WMD, maybe. Tony Blair to the UK to war on this basis as well, claiming the Iraqis could launch chemical and biological weapons on 45 minutes notice.
RESULTS: Just as the UN inspectors said before the war "There is nothing there" Only days ago, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted it was an 'open question' whether Iraqi really had any WMD.
Assistant Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz admitted during the war that the search for WMD was a minor issue. The U.S. has abandoned its search.

2)He wanted to free the poor benighted Iraqis from the iron grip of a monster who was 'just as bad as Hitler'
RESULTS: Mission accomplished,at least until such time as the people of Iraq vote in a fundementalist Shiite govt that makes Sharia law the law of the land, like U.S. allies Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Pakistan.

3)He wanted to change the regime to one more friendly to the interests of the United States.
RESULTS: Mission accomplished, as long as the occupation lasts or the U.S. manages to install some kind of unelected govt it can rely on to do as it is told and give all oil contracts to U.S. rather than French and Russian companies. Otherwise see results #2

4) He wanted to take revenge against Iraq for not being involved with 9/11 and not being closely connected with Osama Bin Laden, for having almost no recent link to terrorism and for not being a fundementalist
religious dictatorship (see #2)
RESULT - New generation of Iraqis with major personal grudge against the U.S. are now being bred.



In invading iraq George W. Bush REALLY wanted to:
1)Get "the man who tried to kill my daddy"
2)Provide an object lesson to any other nation that challenged the will of the United States
3)turf out Saddam and intall a puppet government friendly to Haliburton, Bechtel and other U.S. corporations
4)Expand the turf of American Empire
5)Suck up to his pals at the Center for a New American Century

More than twenty words, but I'll see what I can do.

"ES you failed to reply to my earlier post 4140 so here it is again for you:-

"It's an absolute fact that there is no good reason for the invasion of Iraq."

ES can I infer from this state ment the following:-

a) As it is an "Absolute" fact your are in fact omniscient and cannot be wrong about this?
b) Iraq would in your opinion be better off under Saddam and the Ba'athists?"


Hello Ferrettbadger.

a) The "absolute fact" I cited relates to there being no good reason for the invasion of Iraq. I stand by this. Can you think of one? Can Bush or Blair or Powell think of one? They've tried, to no avail. Every pretext they've submitted has been shown to be based on lies and misconceptions. The invasion was illegal and unjustified.

Remember the WMDs? They've never been found. It's unlikely that they ever will be found. However to justify the invasion irrefutable proof of WMDs should have been available at the time the invasion was launched, it wasn't and nothing will ever change that.

Remember the links to terrorism and alQaeda? All found to be lies, based on faulty intelligence. Doesn't stop your average dumb American continuing to believe it, though. Osama binLaden and Saddam Hussein have blurred into the same person in the eyes of many Americans - a sort of all purpose generic villain. If you think I'm being unrealistic, remember that a significant number of Americans said they believed that Iraqis were responsible for 9/11. One of the greatest friends of evil is the apathy and stupidity of the public.

Remember the imminent threat to the west that Iraq supposedly posed? Without WMDs - how?

Remember the liberation of Iraq and the removal of the regime?

Firstly that's an illegal and immoral concept. For one country to invade another to take out a government it doesn't like, is nothing more than an act of terrorism.
Secondly there are plenty of other despots in the world, why choose Iraq? Israel undoubtedly has WMDs, is ruled by a war criminal and is in breach of more than sixty UNSC resolutions.

Thirdly the people of Iraq are far from liberated or any better off. Which brings us to:

b) I have never said that "Iraq would be better off under Saddam and the Ba'athists?" Dave obvious is the only one here who directly lies about the things people say, don't tell me you've caught that particular disease. However there remains very great doubt about whether the people of Iraq are any better off now than under Saddam. Iraq is in a state of lawless chaos, with people like SargentFlipper (who has the mind of a child and delights in blowing people away) subjugating the population at the point of a gun. They've simply swapped a ruthless dictator for a malevolent occupying foreign power.

As if that wasn't bad enough, there's the uncertainty about what will follow. The Americans went into this without even the slightest idea of what would replace Saddam. There's no guarantee that it won't be something much worse. There are indications that it may be.

Chalabi's a crook.

Who is that person please?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2953109.stm

Well, that'd be a problem for him, wouldn't it? Not easy being a diplomat of any stripe when you have a jail sentence hanging over your head should you return to a neighboring country.

Saturday Night Live was funny for about two seconds tonight, when the news talked about the Halliburton and Nextel executives who apparently were winning the war for us...throwing themselves on grenades, etc. Now there's something I'd like to see...Kenneth Lay in Iraq. Not as the chair of Enron, but as a grunt.

Nah Red, us grunts wouldn't want any softee exec types running around with us.

To all. Well, I have tried and I am now bored. Too many circles too many rants from sad pathetic New Zelanders who want to blame the US on their lack of being able to find a girlfriend. There is zero, productive conversation and I will leave you to run your sad little circles.

Of course ES will be counting this as a "win" but whatever, I guess I never could come up with cute pictures and little words that he would understand. Stay and be your scared little self ES, you are pathetic.

For those of you with a brain and a bit of common sense no matter what side of the issue you are on, good luck to you it was good debating for a while before the children moved in.

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Always sad when a researcher decides to leave a thread. I liked Flip.