Victimhood
 

I don't know how to respond to this. You are saying black is white. Is there anyone else on this board that thinks there is no "correlative relation" between being Arab and blowing up airplanes?

Iraq's WMD were destroyed in 1998.
 

this makes my head hurt. what does it mean? I know that the Clinton administration was comfortable with the thought that Sadaam had chemical weapons, or that Osama was blowing up our boats and embassies, but that doesn't mean no one else cared.

Iraq's WMD were destroyed in 1998.
 

(1) Bitch, please. Clinton is the one who destroyed the WMD programs.

(2) Chemical weapons have nothing to do with Osama bin Laden blowing shit up.

(2a) That's why no one cares about them.

(2b) Unlike nuclear or biological weapons.

(3) I didn't say no one "cared." Present tense. A lot of Kurds used to care. Donald Rumsfeld didn't care. Only you apologists care now.

Iraq's WMD were destroyed in 1998.
 

but even you said, when we still thought sadaam had weapons, that he wasn't a threat- how come Clinton let Osama go free? I would have arranged a peace conference where JFK Jr. would fly OBL to it.

Iraq's WMD were destroyed in 1998.
 

Yes - he had exact knowledge of where all the chemicals were stored and got rid of them all by launching cruise missiles from hundreds miles away. He got rid of the chemicals just like he got rid of Osama and all the Al Queda infrastructure in Afghanistan.

That is such B.S. That is just giving way to much credence to airpower. Since that attack there are many liberals that claimed that those attacks achieved absolutely nothing. I am glad Clinton did them but to aver that they took out all of Saddam's WMDs is just blind partisan denial of what is possible. The only way to insure that we got all the WMDs was through a ground invasion.

And the claim that these cruise missles almost brought down the regime - please. During the Gulf War we bombed IIraq mercilessley and two major insurgencies were started and Saddam still held on. But a few cruise missles launched at the country almost brought him down. Yeah right.

And it didn't matter if Saddam was poor after 91. Its not like he cared about his people and he still had money. There was no reason to believe that he didn't start building them again.

Iraq's WMD were destroyed in 1998.
 

Wha?

He didn't. He tried to kill him, which is more than Bush tried at Tora Bora.

[ppnyc]Cuz that's how you roll.[/ppnyc]

Iraq's WMD were destroyed in 1998.
 

2. North Korea is poorer. But Spank, arguing logically with Ty is like explaining to PPNYC that maybe she isn't making sense.

Iraq's WMD were destroyed in 1998.
 

I said- Paraduxx 2001 then eased into the Grey Goose.

Iraq's WMD were destroyed in 1998.
 

(1) Please respond to the profiling post from this morning. That's more interesting.

(2) Ricks wrote a book about this shit, with military officers as his sources. If you think your deep experience with Republican fundraising leaves you better qualified to explain what was what, that qualifies you to make foreign policy in a Bush administration.

The Wet Dream Realized.
 

Woo hoo! We're done! Now, on to armoring Humvees.

Navy Times

• By the end of the year, the Navy will have a total of six warships capable of tracking and shooting down ballistic missiles.
  
  Three cruisers — Shiloh, Lake Erie and Port Royal — already have the capability to track ballistic missiles with upgraded Aegis radar. They also have the ability to hit a ballistic missile with an SM-3 missile, shot out of standard Navy vertical launch system tubes.
  
  ***
  
  The cruiser Lake Erie has been used in agreement with the Missile Defense Agency to test seaborne anti-ballistic missile systems.
  
  Eventually, the U.S. wants 18 cruisers and destroyers with the missile-defense capability.
  
  During a test June 22 off Hawaii, an SM-3 launched from the cruiser Shiloh hit a target warhead 100 miles above earth. That intercept was the seventh successful hit out of eight tries in ship-borne tests.

This is certainly good news if true, but first reaction is, "shit, really?" I thought that the actual logistics of an antiballistic missle shield were super-duper complicated or something, and we'd never actually hit one, and the Bush Administration tended to mumble and stutter anytime people brought that point up.

Wouldn't news like this have Rumsfeld and Cheney dancing in the streets, or at least on Hannity & Colmes?

Gattigap

The Wet Dream Realized.
 

See, e.g., http://mediamatters.org/items/200606260009 for a different assesment.

Victimhood
 

I am sorry - I forgot - since these procedures were implement how many planes have been hijacked in the U.S. since 9-11?

If no planes have been hijacked does that mean Al-Queda and all the fruit loops that are tryinng to help them, are just not trying.

Victimhood
 

Using that analysis, you would have concluded that our procedures were perfect as of September 10, 2001.

Iraq's WMD were destroyed in 1998.
 

Operation Just Checking.

Iraq's WMD were destroyed in 1998.
 

Yes and I have talked to military officers. Big deal. Ricks has an agenda. And he draws absurd conclusions, and anyone with an agenda can write a book and find "evidence" to back it up. His book, and his allegations, are a joke.

I find your post ironic, because just by reading left wing blogs, magazines and books you think you are an expert on domestic security, how the department of Homeland Security is run, and how we should screen for terrorists.

Victimhood
 

How hijackers have been foiled by these procedures? I believe that people would like to hijack U.S. airplanes, and that law enforcement is doing a good job stopping them, but I don't think these procedures have anything to do with it.

The Wet Dream Realized.
 

When we face a crisis with North Korea, and they start threatening to hit Los Angeles with a Nuclear Missile, you are going to want those cruisers right of the coast of San Pedro. In addition, at that particular moment in time you are going to wish they had spent more money on the research.

Lets just drop the system.....
 

Without these procedures, you don't think other would be hijackers would be walking on to more airplanes? Would you feel safe if the system were dismantled. I really doubt it.

Iraq's WMD were destroyed in 1998.
 

So did he. That's who his sources are, as you would discover if you read Hewitt's interview of him.

A Washington Post writer has an agenda, but a GOP fundraiser doesn't? OK, then.

Here's a hint: That's not irony. Look it up.

Please find me evidence that Iraq's WMD program survived after Operation Desert Fox. As you may have heard at one of your GOP functions, we invaded Iraq and discovered that there were no WMD. (For those of us in the reality-based community, it's not news anymore.) Although we didn't know it then -- a claim you incorrectly seem to think Ricks made -- we now know that Desert Fox was instrumental in ending those programs. This has been reported elsewhere -- it's not like Ricks is the first person to say it. But when I refer to it here, reality-challenged conservatives like you always ask for a cite. The next time it comes up, I can search the board instead of Googling.

Lets just drop the system.....
 

Did you recently suffer a head injury? I'm not opposed to airport security, but I think the current system is not useful and wastes people's time. I think we should copy the Israelis, as I've said more than once.

Note to Taxwonk
 

Isn't anyone going to back up Taxwonk's assertions?

BTW: An example of a non-correlative relationship between statistics is: Last year students’ scores on math tests in Minnesota increased. Last year there were more hurricanes in the Caribbean. The higher test scores are leading to more hurricanes or visa versa.

An A for effort.....
 

Clinton lobs some cruise missile at Afghanistan and Bush invades the country, but you think Clinton tried harder to get Osama? Yeah right.

It's just impossible. Why even try?
 

Did Patriot missile's take down Scuds during Guld War One, or was that all just a well planned hoax? If they did doesn't that show that upper atmoshphere missiles can be shot down, and if so, don't you think we can improve upon that technology?

An A for effort.....
 

Read a book. You might learn something.

Clinton tried harder to get OBL than you seem to think, and Bush didn't try hard enough at Tora Bora.

An A for effort.....
 

I read that. Spanky, you would like it.

It's just impossible. Why even try?
 

It's just impossible. Why even try?
 

Actually, I believe that was a hoax. I learned in The World Is Flat that there is a thing called Google. Check it out.

It's just impossible. Why even try?
 

1. True
2. True, but much, much harder if for no other reason than the difficulty of maintaining accuracy over the much greater distances iinvolved.
3. Of course the technology can be improved. I don't doubt that, with sufficient resources, a system can be developed to shoot down a single (maybe even a handful of) ballistic missles. Although it isn't your principle concern now, I do doubt the feasibility of the Reagan-era star wars program--i.e. a missile "shield" capable of shooting down hundreds or thousands of ballisitc missiles launched nearly simultaneously.

I only noted the article in relation to the question of why Rumsfeld and Cheney aren't making hay about it--suggesting that perhaps the results were not as overwhelming positive as "successful 7 out of 8" would imply.

An A for effort.....
 

Hell, you can borrow it from me if you want.

An A for effort.....
 

Didn't someone (Hank or Penske) already mention that you are always trying to get us to read tripe. And didn't your mom tell you you can't trust everything you read. Try to be a little more discerning about what allegations you accept as true and then you posts might be a little more intelligent.

Victimhood
 

Are you implying that there were just as many people trying to hijack our planes before September 11 as there are today? You don't think September 11 embolded would be terrorists around the world to get in the game?

An A for effort.....
 

That's a good tip. Thanks. Your little epistemological sidelines to the substantive conversations here never fail to offer useful advice.

It's just impossible. Why even try?
 

Even if the allegations in this statement are true, it even admits that the rate was low but there will still some success. And the patriot missiles were developed in the 1970s. Maybe you haven't noticed but technology has advanced a little bit in the last thirty years. You don't think we can now improve upon the patriot missile to make it more accurate?

It's just impossible. Why even try?
 

Why would the Israeli's lie about this? And after these failures why did they buy so many more patriots? And if Star Wars is such a lost cause, why are the Israelis so involved in its planning and implementation?

It's just impossible. Why even try?
 

I think we can. That doesn't mean I want to spend every last dime researching SDI. I thought you were a Fiscal Conservative. Don't you want to restrict expensive government programs that don't work?

It's just impossible. Why even try?
 

They bought Patriots from us with money we gave them, perhaps?

It's just impossible. Why even try?
 

Did you read it? An M.I.T. professor said: "The results of these studies are disturbing. They suggest that the Patriot's intercept rate during the Gulf War was very low. The evidence from these preliminary studies indicates that Patriot's intercept rate could be much lower than ten percent, possibly even zero."

Granted, other people disagreed with him. (Which is why I said it was unclear. Which it is.)

I should hope so. But if we make it work twice as well, and North Korea builds twice as many missiles, then what?

It's just impossible. Why even try?
 

I don't think the shield against the Soviet Union was ever realistic. Every time we improved our technology they would have found ways around it. But now we are competing with powers that are not our technological equals. Any missile they come up with will be rudimentary and not have MIRV capabilities. And that one technologically obsolete missile can do a lot of damage when an WMD is attached to it.

Right now we are very reluctant to get into a shooting match with North Korea because of all the artillary aimed at Seoul. The North Koreans know this and it seriously hampers our negotiating ability. Just think how much our negotiating ability will be compromised when they can hit San Francisco or LA (Hi Gattigap).

It's just impossible. Why even try?
 

North Korea isn't exactly the Soviet Union. When they've got more than one missile that can fly, let's discuss your concerns.

Victimhood
 

I thought they were all busy fighting us in Iraq. Isn't that the neo-con "flypaper" theory?

The fact that nearly 20 people tried to hijack planes on 9-11, and succeeded, suggests to me that terrorists were feeling bold enough. I don't know how many times people have tried since then -- actually tried. Do you?

Except for Reid of course.