f13.net

(My apologies if a thread about this already exists by the time I post this)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/11/iraq.main/index.html

"BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An al Qaeda-linked Web site posted video Tuesday of a man who identified himself as an American and then was beheaded.

His captors said the United States refused to exchange him for prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison.

In the video, a man identifies himself as Nicholas Berg, 26, of Pennsylvania and is shown sitting in an orange jumpsuit in front of five armed, hooded men.
...
The Web site also published the text of the statement attributed to al-Zarqawi.

In the statement, the captors refer to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. military personnel, saying the "picture of dishonor and the news of Satanic assault on the people of Islamic men and women" will not be tolerated."


I have to admit this makes me feel almost zero sympathy for the Iraqi prisoners in the infamous phtographs.  I'm still mixed over the issue, but shit like this helps push me over into the "fuck them" category.  Fuck the ignorant, ingrateful Iraqis in general, fuck the media that published them knowing it would put American hostages at grave risk (CNN held back similar reports about Saddam Huisein's Iraq just to keep their Iraq office open), and fuck the dumbass American(s) who took the pictures.

I'm all for justice, but shouldn't something like this have been handled quietly?  Just knowing that the media was sitting on the story would have made sure the military addressed the issue, and from my understanding they've been investigating it since January.

This doesn't make them (the abused Iraqi prisoners) less human.  You can't just say shennanigans on human rights because some people from the same country are wacko, violent assholes.

I linked to it a few hours ago in the Current Events Junkies (http://www.f13.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=480) thread, but it probably deserves its own thread. Sickening. Shit like this just makes me crazy. The irrational eye for an eye part of me wants to remove all US personnel from the region and turn the whole goddamned area into a sheet of molten glass.

This is obviously the reaction that those fucking animals want. I WOULD like to see less dicking around in Iraq and more attention paid to running every last person who ever read an Al Qaeda memo to ground and hanging them by their small intestines.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/cst-nws-abuse11.html



Do you hate all white people because of the acts of Timothy Mcveigh?

Well, remember that if this was the work of al-Qaeda or an affiliated group, it probably wasn't the work of Iraqis but foreign terrorists on Iraqi soil; al-Zarqawi for one isn't an Iraqi. Therefore, this doesn't make me any less sympathetic to the Iraqis who are tortured, only more committed to seeing al-Qaeda destroyed root and branch: that is, by killing their operatives whenever we come across them while placating Arabs who aren't explicitly anti-American. Of course, it would help if the current administration wasn't pursuing a course that does nothing to stamp out al-Qaeda, and is even likely to strengthen it.
 


Probably. To be perfectly honest, I'm uncertain how the media whirlwind actually began: did that whistleblower go to the media, after which a leak produced the infamous photographs, or was the leak what started it all? While Don't Put American Lives In Danger Through Your Coverage is hopefully a lesson that the media will now take to heart after their coverage led to the death of an individual, we still can't forget Don't Do Stupid, Evil Shit That Makes The World Hate Us as a lesson for the military and Don't Put American Lives On The Line Unnecessarily for the government. If either of the latter two had been followed, the first wouldn't have been an issue.

I'm not suggesting that the majority or even a large minority of military personnel engage in what could be termed Stupid, Evil Shit; I am suggesting that the administration sent Americans off to die in Iraq when it was absolutely unnecessary for them to do so. I know we're probably all desensitized to most violence that doesn't immediately affect us, but I always try to remind myself of this: hundreds and hundreds of Americans would still be alive today, perhaps hundreds and thousands more unmaimed, if our government didn't decide it wanted to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people and manufacture a war for esoteric policy reasons.  

I expect disagreement, but I would have negotiated for this guy's release. I don't think refusal to do so will halt kidnappings and killings in Iraq, and I know that the government will eventually start negotiating, as all prior administrations have eventually done when Americans were held hostage. Why let those initial individuals unfortunate enough to get caught in enemy hands end up dead just so that you can puff your chest out and say 'We will not negotiate with terrorists!' just like they do in the movies? That sounds cute on the evening news, but it doesn't make these people any less dead.

We need to disengage from Iraq as quickly as is feasible to leave the country in some sort of pro-Western orientation and get back to the task of hunting down the jihadists and other fanatics who are our real enemy.

Some interesting information (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=5110381) about the man who was beheaded.

He had originally intended to return home from Iraq on March 30th. He was arrested by Iraqi police at a checkpoint near Mosul on March 24th and held without being charged. On April 5th, his parents filed a lawsuit stating that he was being illegally detained by the US military in Iraq, and on the next day he was released. They last heard from him on April 9th when he telephoned to say he was looking for a safe way home. Yesterday, the State Department contacted his family to report that his body had been found near a highway overpass in Baghdad.

Don't report on bad shit the military is doing?  How's that again?

The red cross was reporting that events were occuring LAST YEAR.

The report writtin by the US General was done 3 MONTHS AGO.

The interagators are STILL working in the prison this minute.


Blaming the media does not cut it. If there was no public scandel nothing would have happened. A few sargents get dismissed from the army.

Anyways, the beheading would have occured no matter what, and it was done by the one terriost group IN iraq before the war started...the one group that BushCo KNEW about but didn't attack because that might slow down the genral Iraq invasion. Which incerdently, was in Kurdish controlled Iraq, and out of reach of Sadamm.

And as noted above, the only reason the poor guy was captured was because he ws stuck in a US controlled jail for a month with no charge!

And of course no one mentions the fact that these were Al Qieda (sp) alligned assholes and we all know that AQ and Iraqis dont get along and whatnot. Noooo there could be no connection between AQ and Iraq....Mmmmkay.

Welcome to "the enemy of my enemy is my friend bizarro world".  You might recognize it from the US's other visits.  Back when it was Afghanistan vs. the USSR and Iraq vs. Iran.

it astounds me that intelligent people would have an anti-Iraqi response to this.  So what, some extremist Iraqis (if they even are Iraqis) behaved like animals.  Big surprise.  Dont project the actions of a few onto a whole people.

Now if another country captured Americans and detained them without trial and then humiliated, raped and tortured them then I could see a rational response might be hatred towards people from that country.  Oh wait...

I have no problem with the media reporting on these things. When the media published stories that the army was investigating abuse allegations at Abu Gharib and elsewhere back in January, it didn't cause any perceptible stir at home or abroad. As much as the recent publication of those infamous photos are a black eye for the Bush administration, which can't help but make me happy, they also inflamed opinion at home and abroad in a way that reporting on the issue without them (i.e. as the media did in January) would not have, and thereby put American lives in danger. I find it extremely likely that if those images weren't on the front page of every paper throughout the world, this hostage might very well still be alive today. And I don't see why honest, factual reportage of the situation couldn't have been done without them.



There are likely al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda-aligned figures in Iraq now, yes. Even the Bush administration doesn't claim that al-Qaeda figures were receiving comfort or aid from Saddam Hussein's regime in pre-war Iraq, however. 'Saddam supports al-Qaeda' was one of the initial rationales put forth for the invasion of Iraq way back when, but it was quickly discarded due to lack of supporting evidence. Saddam had one credible link to terrorism during his years in power: he gave cash payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

discarded by people with a brain but it was still argued by Bush and others in the administration.  Pretty sure it was argued by Bush in his State of the Union address wasnt it?

Yeah I'll belive they werent there pre war when pigs fly. It just wasn't proven.  Kinda like the WMD thing any reasonable person with average Jr high math skills can take the numbers and figure out shit is missing but since we didnt find the stuff OMG he never had it. Sorry the ostrich approach dont work in todays world.
Note: Im not saying either of these were good reasons to go to war. As a matter of fact they are pretty stupid reasons especially when you give the ass 3 months to hide shit. Because Sadam was an asshole and we had yet to end hostilities other than a conditional ceasefire which he failed to meet the conditions of is.

Al Qaeda perceived Sadam to be an enemy, his was one of the few non islamic regimes in the area and they wanted to get rid of him.  Probably only the US and Israel were seen as a big enemies by Al Qaeda than Sadam's Iraq.

To Americans it seems to make sense that they would be allies, because to Americans they are all evil Arabs who hate the US so therefore they must be friends.

What is also distressing is the fact that the US armed forces themselves have been led to believe that they are avenging 9-11 in Iraq and some of those involved in torture have been quoted as saying they held their victims responsible for 9-11.

Iraq was under conditional cease fire. They didn't comply with the ceasefrie for 12 yrs. I'd say that was time enough.  Yeah I can see how they would feel it given that his support of terrorisim and all but I dont see why they were told it was for 9/11 unless they were told its time to clean up the terrorist and thier supporters, which they were, and made the connection that way.

Because the story would have read "US soldier says he has photos that prove prisoners are being abused but we won't show them to you."

The photos are the proof of the story, if the news didn't show them, the same people who are saying "The abuse wasn't that bad/They deserved it."  Would have immediately said "If you really have photos, why don't you show them?"

H1: Saddam has WMDs.
H0: Saddam doesn't have WMDs.

So, how significant is it that we have been running the country for a year and haven't found any yet?  What about after two, three or five years?

I suspect all the WMDs, if there were any, are in Syria by now.

The torture was bad. These guys weren't terrorists. They were soldiers for a foreign army at worst, people in the wrong place at the wrong time at best.

My main problem with this, other than the incident itself, is that I know our media will forget about this in a couple of days.  They will then refocus on important things like the Kobe Bryant rape case and demonstrating just how evil ALL of our troops are just because of a few twisted fucktards.

No, the prisoners didn't deserve it (except the ones that had blood on their hands, but that's another ballgame).  

My disgust with the Iraqi people is what I percieve, correctly or falsely, to be the Arabic culture.  Their silence over this issue is disgusting.  Where is the outrage?  The Iraqi people are not guilty of this crime -- they are guilty about not caring.  I want to be wrong. I want to be shown proof to the contrary.  But where is it?

This is the culture that murders their daughters because they were raped and needed to "save the family honor."  Sure, only whackos would behave that way, but their law allows them to do it.  At what point do people become responsible for what is socially permissable in their culture?  At what point can we admit to ourselves that we ARE better without feeling guilty about it?

Just after we stop sodomizing people with flashlights.

First of all, how exactly do we know how any Iraqis think about this murder? I haven't seen any commentary about the reaction of the Iraqi-on-the-street to it. (The Iraqi Governing Council has strongly condemned it as the 'brutal' act of 'psychopaths' who will be hunted down.) Second, in Iraq as in any other country in the world (including ours), there is no such thing as total consensus on a matter; saying 'Iraqis think this' or 'Iraqis think that' does nothing other than foster inaccurate stereotypes. Thirdly, why do you expect the Iraqis to care? A crime was committed against one non-Iraqi by a group likely composed of other non-Iraqis. The Iraqi people are required to have strong feelings about a single act of murder between foreigners that happens to take place within the borders of the country, while much of said country is still a warzone? If I were to draw any generalization at all, it would be that the Iraqis seem to be like every other nation in the world in that attacks on their countrymen outrage them, but attacks on others not so much.



This Nat Geo (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/02/0212_020212_honorkilling.html) gives a fairly gruesome account of honor killings in that Muslim (not Arab -- there being non-Muslim Arabs, of course) world. It also notes, however, that the number of women who die worldwide in honor killings each year pales in comparison to those who are killed in Hindu Indian culture by their husband's families because their dowry was considered too small. It also draws a comparison between the judicial treatment of honor killings and 'crimes of passion' in Latin America, which are also rarely prosecuted.

Also note that the article speculates that there are 'hundreds to thousands' of honor killings throughout the world each year in both Muslim and non-Muslim cultures. Unless only hundreds of rapes take place in the entire Muslim world, then obviously this isn't a cultural standard, but an aberration. There are millions of Muslims in the United States, after all, and the UN didn't include the United States among nations where honor killings have taken place--though a number of nations with minimal to nonexistent Muslim populations (such as Sweden and Brazil) were included.

I'm not a cultural relativist, and therefore consider honor killings as barbaric as any of the practices mentioned above; but these sorts of things happen in all cultures that place some value (usually honor, specifically family|tribal|clan honor) higher than human life. Western culture has progressed beyond that, but these very same scenes took place in Europe during the Middle Ages. Europe was a Christian land at the time, and the Christian faith didn't condone such killings--though the Mosaic law does--any more than does the Koran; but they nevertheless took place. Does that mean medieval European culture was worthless because barbaric acts were an accepted part of society?

My point is simply that we shouldn't condemn entire cultures because certain practices or certain individuals within them are objectionable. That allows us to draw a crude representation of that culture that allows us to think of them as Evil or the Enemy, and therefore not quite human. Jews throughout most of their history, Muslims and Hindus alike in modern India, Christians and Muslims in premodern Europe, the indigenous cultures of the Americas when the Europeans arrived, the Africans who were taken as slaves to the New World and any number of other unfortunates in world history: all were thought of as coming from cultures that were inferior, if indeed they were deemed to have any culture at all, and that fostered barbarities against them that were at least as great as any that they themselves had supposedly committed. (In regard to our own culture, witness seemingly serious calls in the wake of Fallujah and the Berg killing by Americans to destroy entire Iraqi cities, slaughter civilians en masse for the sake of vengeance, and so on. Of course, this is not representative of mainstream American opinion--I hope.)

We're to not condemn an entire culture over the actions of a few, and yet, we do that very thing to ourselves over the deeds of a couple dozen soldiers out of 200,000.  Your glib statement would have a point if we ignored what the American soldiers did, but it sounds surreal in the light of the reality of a massive investigation and cultural introspection.



That's a good start.  As far as not knowing what the Iraqi-on-the-street feels about it, it's something that frusterates me about our own media coverage.  I'm leaning towards the impression that the "Arab Street" are indifferent precisely from the lack of media coverage.  Since they like to be the protectors of tolerence, I would expect them to find everything possible to improve our the perception of the Iraqi people -- to be searching high and low for common Iraqi citizens to condemn it, even anonymously.  They really should have been doing that yesterday when shock and anger was at it's highest, but instead what two or three minutes of coverage they gave it was presented as another indication that we are "losing" in Iraq.  But better late then never, so I'll keep my eyes open.




There is usually a predominate attitude or viewpoint.  There are Americans that said whatever we are doing to those Iraqi prisoners, we should give them even more of it.  But that viewpoint doesn't correspond with the prevalent American attitude.

I expect the Iraqis to care because it was murder.  I don't expect them to be remotely affected by it -- just to be able to call it a murder would be civil.

In regards to honor killings, it is my belief that such leniency is an indication of cultural barbarism, and that a culture that tolerates such an abberation can not be regarded as anything better than barbaric.  That doesn't mean that every muslim that happens to live in that region of the world is a barbarian, it means that the culture they belong to is barbaric.  And yes, I cite that as an indication that our culture is more socially advanced than theirs, flashlights or not (in reference to another poster).

No, I was pointing out your blatant hypocrisy.  At one time you want to condemn the Arab culture based on the actions of 4 guys on a video by saying that "we ARE better", but in the same breath you want to conviently forget about the actions of a few of our soldiers.  You're being an immature hypocrit, wanting to condemn an entire culture because of the actions of a few all the while forgetting that our culture did nearly the exact same thing just weeks before.  Neither side is better than the other.

This almost has to be ripped from Rush Limbaugh, the logic so twisted, the reasoning so stunted, and the use of terms that quite simply do not apply. Because there is a discrepancy in the numbers, it does not automatically mean that there has to be WMD floating around somewhere. There is another explanation one that actually has evidence backing it. Iraqi scientists quite simply overstated Saddams WMD capacity. Turns out Saddam is not someone you give bad news to. As far as calling those who doubt the WMD claims ostriches with their heads in the sand, I find that hard to do when the weight of the evidence rests on their side.  No you would be a much better fit for the ostrich. As you refute all the evidence that is contrary to what you want to believe and cling desperately to the few shreds of facts that tend to support your belief while denying that those facts could mean something other than what you think.

One simple question Sarn. Just one. You ever been there? You ever seen what this shit does? I have . Trust me I will err on the side of saftey thank you. Rush has nothing to do with it. I rarely listen to him anywho. If I'm told he has x amount of stuff and he destroued 3/4s of it as far as I know he has 1/4 of it left and thats just not something I see as prudent to leave in the hands of an international asshole.

Well, if you follow that line of thought, why would you vote for Bush and everyone else who dodges being "there", and not Kerry, who DID?

Are you talking about banned WMDs?  That would mean you've seen either chemical, bacterial, or nuclear weapons in action.  Otherwise you're just talking about the banned conventional weapons, and while they'll ruin a lot of people's days, they're still killing on the retail, not wholesale level.

Sorry for the confusion. The guys over at morlocks know a bit about my background. I have attended the US Army NBC (Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological) School while I was in. It was my job to ensure my units NBC preparedness. Part of the school is to see what some of the agents used around the world can do.
Vx is a particularly nasty batch of goo that I wouldnt wish on Hitler much less anyone else Mustard Gas burns you without creating heat so you really dont know whats going on untill you have 2nd or 3rd drgree burns all over your body.
Ricin is some very nasty stuff made from dried plant husks and basicly causes you to convulse yourself to death.
Yes I have seen over 30 Bio/Chem Weapons used (in a controlled environment) and one cant really appreciate how totaly horrible these things are untill you have seen it. I could tell you about Vx melting your skin but untill you see a lab rat melting it really doesn't strike home.
I guess thats the main reason why when it comes to Chem/Bio weapons Im a tad over zealous about thier utter destruction. Given my choice Nuclear would be the prefered method of death in this situation.

As far as the WMD reasoning on going to war, was this really erroring on the side of safty?  Assuming that there are WMD. Was going from Saddam with WMD to ____ with WMD a good idea? At least with Saddam deterance ensured he did not use them directly against us.

Has anyone actually seen the video?  I know the website that originally had it up took it down, but I'm sure you can still find it on the file sharing services...

I can't decide if I want to see it.  I have no problem with those who choose to do so, and I think there is information to be gained by watching it.  But on the other hand, I don't have a strong desire to see such a brutal act, and I respect the family's wishes that I don't.  Not to mention the fact that watching it is exactly what the terrorists want people to do...

Bruce

It's a rough video, there's no doubt about it.  The actual video itself isn't as bad as it could have been due to horrendous pixelation (I guess using a proper codec isn't up their in your average jihadi's skillset), it's the audio that's a bitch.  Trust me, the sound that poor guy makes isn't something you'll forget anytime soon.

As far as them wanting us to see the video, well, they want their little snuff film to scare people, but I just don't see fear being the primary reaction coming out of most Americans.  These people are flat-out pussies.  They use civilians as shields and hide in mosques.  They're also pretty much incompetent as soldiers.  They can set up boobie traps really well and generally act like thugs, but as far as discipline and actually being able to move and shoot competently, they suck.

I personally hope a lot of people watch this movie.  It just moves us as a nation that much closer to the point where we collectively say, "enough is enough" and start to behave ruthlessly.  Islam is incapable of reform, and unfortunately we're approaching the stage where we'll have to excise this cancer from the global body.

One thing a hell of a lot of people don't seem to realize is that there's never been any doubt that Iraq did have chemical and bio weapons.  The question was whether or not they'd all been destroyed, and sorry, I still don't believe that for one goddamned second.

The weapons are out there.  Unlike Saddam, they don't have to move around from time to time and can just stay buried forever.  Eventually they'll be uncovered, but how long that'll take I have no idea.  I don't believe that the regime was in any big hurry to destroy their stockpiles, though.

That said, I thing WMD was probably our weakest argument for going to war.  Hell, we could have gone to war just on the numerous times the ceasefire was broken in the intervening 12 years.

There are around 1 billion muslims we'll have to make the Nazis look like inefficient bleeding heart pussies to pull that off Big Gulp. The only thing about the brutality in this war that makes it any different from any other war is the fact that there are more pictures of it in this one.

And we will.  Eventually one of these groups will set off one form of NBC weapon or another in an American city.  Dr. Khan's nuclear bonanza is pretty much proof of that.  How far along is Iran in it's weapons program?  It'll kill a shitload of people and at that point we will go nuclear.  We'll also round up every muslim we can get our hands on in this country, and what they'll go through will make what the Nissei went through in WWII look like a pleasant little interlude.

The only thing that'll stop this is if the Islamic world finally wakes up to the fact that these nutjobs are more dangerous to them than they'll ever be to us.  They can hurt us, but we can utterly destroy them.  I don't believe that the Islamic world really has it in them to reign in all of this hatred.  Either because of fear, or more often because they sympathize with these terrorists they want to turn a blind eye to the whole deal.

I firmly believe that a really nasty day of reckoning is coming up.  I'd love to be proven wrong, but overall I'm very pessimistic about it.

There are none. There was a cylcatron buried under a rose garden in 1991. That was IT. No chemicals. No biohazards. No nukes. NOTHING. The've had the scientists and generals in custody and under "interagation" (People call it torture, but because they count as "high value" targets, the rules don't count anymore) for over a YEAR NOW. You think if they'd found ANYTHING it would be shouted from the rooftops!

The man in CHARGE of FINDING them said they don't exist! Not even BUSH has said they exist anymore!

Appenrlty 1 in 4 americans belive in the fairy god mother of WMDs. Dosn't that scare some of you?

ANd for extra bonus points, the US isn't guarding the REAL nuclear powerplants IN iraq. SO if anyone DID want nukes, they could get them BECAUSE of the invasion.

We probably have that funny notion because Iraq did have gas and bio weapons.  They absolutely did, and that's never been in doubt.  Both Iran and the Kurds can testify to this.  The question is if they've been destroyed or not, and after how Iraq behaved over the past 12 years I doubt that they've all been destroyed.

I don't think we're going to uncover acres of material.  We'll eventually uncover some stuff, but not a whole lot of it.  The fact that you're willing to swallow the line that there never were any WMD when we know for a fact that Iraq did have those weapons speaks to your naivete, not mine.

Mmm.  He tried to make nukes, but Israel took out his ability to manufacture them before he had the chance to start cranking out weaps.  He did have chemicals, but chems have a limited shelf life.  There's no evidence of manufacture after the first gulf war, and by now they'd be very useful by now.  Biologicals are another matter; they can be fairly easily hide, and have near unlimited shelf lives.  Even if manufacture of them ceased, they could've been anywhere.  If they still exist, there is a fair chance we won't find them, due to their concealability.

Personally what scares me more is...

1) We know he HAD them, since he kept dropping them on people (most notably the iranians and kurds).

2) It's becoming clear he had got rid of them by last year.

3) If they had been destroyed in line with the post gulf war agreements it would have been unbelievably boneheaded not to account for them properly (not just on a 'wanting to avoid US' invasion level - but mostly on a 'not wanting some lunatic in his own army to squirrel them away and later use them on the iraqi government as part of a coup' level).

4) If they weren't destroyed and they aren't there now every other option is much fucking worse.

 I have lots of problems with the arguments you two (mostly BG) are making, but they all seem to boil down to the simple fact that I believe that we (that is the collective people of the world not just the coalition of the willing) were safer with Sadam in place.  Even if I concede that he had WMDs, and even if I were to concede that he was still producing them in whatever form, and if I were to further concede that he was stupid enough to use them, I still prefer to know where the crazy guy with his finger on the button lives. We could track him, we could spy on him, we could negotiate with him, but we can't do any of that now.

 You're so all fired sure that he had WMDs, well, they aren't there anymore. If they aren't there then someone we don't know has them. When Sadam was in power there were certainties we could count on, like range, it may be crass or uncaring but even if he went bat-fuck insane there was only so far he could reach.  We live in a world where a person can get from any point in the civilized world (no stupid comments please) via planes trains, and automobiles, to any other in less then 48 hours; it's been more than 48 hours since Sadam last had control over the WMDs so that means that 'someone we don't know' with the WMDs could be anywhere in the world. We can't track him. We can't spy on him. We would not negotiate with him even if we could.

I live in the suburbs I don't know my neighbors from Adam, and they don't know me.  The guy with the WMDs could live right next door to me or you or anyone else in the whole damn world. Shit, I could be the guy with the WMDs and you fuck heads wouldn't have a clue. But I'll tell you this if Sadam Hussein lived next door to me, I, and everyone else in the world, would fucking know.
Yea, Sadam Hussein might have been a deranged lunatic but he was stupid and sedentary.  The people who might have the weapons now are intelligent and motivated.

I know BG likes to think they are incompetent soldiers, but they probably seem less incompetent when they are slicing one of your family members' head off. Call them cowards, call them dishonorable, call them what ever the fuck you want to, it makes little difference.

When that becomes a soldier's job description, then I'll call them good soldiers.  For some reason I don't consider Mel the butcher down at the Piggly Wiggly a competent soldier either, even though I bet if push came to shove I bet he could cut off a head fairly well.  To call these primitives soldiers is to level a fairly nasty insult at actual soldiers.

As to us being safer with Saddam in power, in the short term, maybe.  However, our goal is to reshape the middle east, not to keep trying to promote stability.  Shit, it's been our relentless pursuit of "stability" that led directly to 9/11.  Iran takes hostages in '79?  We do nothing.  Hizbollah kills hundreds of marines in Beirut in '83?  We do nothing.  Every time we were hit we either treated it like a law enforcement matter or we ignored it for the sake of stability.  That led directly to Osama thinking we were nutless wonders.  And no, lobbing a couple of cruise missiles at 'em and calling it a day didn't dissuade them of that viewpoint.

Big Gulp, I think you're confusing soldiers with samurai. Personally, I think soldiers should go to whatever length is required to scare the fuck outta the people they are at war with. Beheading is pretty fucking good at doing this. They may not be civilized, they may use primitive methods, but all it boils down to is that they are fighting for something they believe in.

It seems that we're so worried about calling these people dogs and whatnot we forget that they are fighting for their lives rather than some absolution put forth by their ruler. We are fighting for something we may or may not believe in, but America is under no threat at the moment. Who do you think will be more fearsome in battle?

At this moment, because of the beheading, they are one up on us. We don't want our heads chopped off. The worst they have to fear at the moment is some humiliating photos and possibly some torture - the latter of which they probably have some experience with.



Koboshi, the whole your family argument is just a cheap, passè way of tugging on someone's emotions. Don't go that route.

Three points
1. I am a civilian.  I don't have a gun.  I don't have any training.  If they have the chance they will shoot me.  It doesn't matter if they are good at it or not.  That fills me with 'mortal dread'.
2. They don't fight fair? If we are in a fist fight and I throw dust in your eyes and run away, only to sneak up on you when you least suspect and kidney punch you, it's not a fair fight and yea if I did fight fair I might not stand a chance, but you're the one pissing blood. Do you understand this concept?
3. A good soldier is a fallacy.  Think about it the hijackers were really good soldiers if you go by body count, and yet they are the worst offenders. No man who is paid to kill is noble, and the one who is better at it is the worse for it.

I understand this concept far better than you do.  Is it fair that they take over civilian homes and use the occupants as meat shields?  Is it fair that we have flying robots that can launch Hellfire missiles?  I'm not arguing about what type of tactics are "fair".  I'm arguing that as soldiers, these guys are incompetent.  They have no real concept of command and control.  They aren't good at mobile tactics or at massed fire.  Butchering someone on video is not an act of soldiery, it's political theatre, and that's really the only type of war these people are capable of fighting.

Whether or not that type of political theatre is effective is entirely dependent on gutless pussies like you, unfortunately.


Try to stop being such a fairy, thanks.

Just a note Chem weapons have a better shelf life than you expect. 12 years or even 20 they will still be quite toxic.

Say, Comstar, feeling foolish now? (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20040517/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_sarin)

Because they found one artillery round that emitted enough sarin when it went off that two people required treatment for "minor exposure"?  My god, Saddam was probably on the verge of firing that round at Manhattan only minutes before the invasion, thank the lord he was stopped in time.

Iraq had a vast chemical weapons arsenal (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/program.htm).  UNSCOM destroyed 70 tons of sarin alone after the first Gulf War.  There are undoubtedly tiny scraps of it still floating around, like this one.  Which doesn't alter the fact that the "weapons of mass destruction" that were used to justify the invasion were fictional.

The only thing that made it do that small an amount of damage was due to the fact that whoever set it up probably didn't know it was a nerve agent weapon.  That wasn't really my point, though, I was trying to deflate Comstar's assertion that there weren't, and never have been WMD's in Iraq.  Where did this shell come from, the magical sarin fairy?

The fact that these weapons do exist should worry you guys.  Think about the amount of people injured and killed in the sarin attack by that Japanese cult.  And mind you, that attack was botched in it's execution, it could have been far worse had they deployed it properly.

Didnt you know BG that once any chemrounds are found the argument then shifts to it wasnt enough to hurt anyone. Its a TRAP !!!

You're attempting to manufacture a rather foolish straw man argument along the lines of "aha you liberals said he never had any chemical weapons well here's proof that he did which proves that Bush was right."

Once again, from the top: it is well documented that Iraq had large quantities of chemical/nerve weapons, along with plans to acquire other weapons of mass destruction, biological and nuclear.  Nobody denies this, and nobody denies that the Iraqi military used their chemical weapons, against Iran, and against Iraqi dissidents.  However the Bush administration claimed that Iraq was secretly rebuilding and enlarging its WMD stockpile, and this claim has pretty much been proven to be utter bullshit.  The fact that the current insurgents didn't even know themselves that the shell was a sarin gas shell, and that this is the only one so far found after a year of occupation, tends to support the conclusion that Bush's claims were bunk, rather than vindicating him.  Produce evidence that the shell was part of a larger stockpile, or that it was manufactured say within the past ten years, and then you might have something.

How in the hell is that a straw man?  When I see your official spokestroll Dennis Kucinich screaming, "WHERE ARE THE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!!!", and then we show you that even in a small amount that they are in fact present, you move the goal posts.

I know what your agenda is.  You don't give a rat's ass about Iraq or about American soldiers.  You people truly don't give a fuck.  You care about scoring points and attempting to prove that Bush=Hitler.  That's all you've ever cared about.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/17/iraq.main/index.html there is some of that Sarin that he wasn't supposed to have and supposedly there was a mustard gas shell a week or two ago.  So how much more of the 80 odd tons unaccounted for are going to show up?

Actually, I think most of us commie-loving-bed-wetting "liberals" just want Bush and the rest of his bat fuck insane cronies out of power and in charge of running some other oil company into the ground instead of our economy. I could give a shit less if he was Hitler, Ghandi or FDR. He could be any of those people and without the power of a government behind him, he's just a crazy fucker with an axe to grind like the rest of us.

Bush has not proven the case that Saddam's regime did in fact have chemical or biological or nuclear weapons or even the capabilities to produce said weapons at the time the US invaded. All evidence uncovered has pointed to "they haven't existed for close to 6-10 years now." In other words, he was wrong, the intelligence he used to make his case was wrong, and the people in charge of getting that intelligence and using it were either wrong or wrong-headed.

Neither of those options is a good thing when the people with those options is in charge of lots of bombs, soldiers and money.

Ok well tell me this. Would you have been happier IF:

Bush came out and said We have been at a defacto state of war with Iraq for 12 years due to a conditional cease fire. Iraq has not met the terms of the conditional cease fire so we are going on with the past administrations pollicy of regime change in Iraq. Sadam had approxamately 80  tons of Chemical  / Biological  weapons that have yet to be accounted for. In order to keep these unaccounted for weapons from one day falling into the wrong hands we feel its nessisary for us to act. While its not our desire to put US troops in harms way all other available means have been tried for the past 12 years so it is now up to us to act with or without international support.

Yes, actually I would have. Because at least that's much more honest than the "War Against Terror" bullshit line we've been fed since this shitstorm started. See, I appreciate at least some form of honesty from my politicians. Not that the Democrats, John Kerry, Ralph Nader or anyone else currently campaigning for the office will bring that honesty with them, mind you. I just prefer that once the politician has been shown to be a bald-faced fucking liar, he be shown the door.

I've have been even happier had there been a plan in place that clearly delineated who the fuck we'd be handing over power to.

But I'm not the normal American mouth-breather who can barely fit two coherent thoughts together between munching down Mickey D's and watching Friends. The fact that the administration chose to talk down to me has at the very least earned my lifelong ire.

Never would have happened. Preying on the fear of terrorism and WMDs was the key in garnering popular support. Without the threat of an attack at any moment, Americans (as a whole) wouldn't have been as eager to tell the vast majority of the international community to go fuck themselves and forge ahead with the 'coalition of the willing'. The argument would have been that we waited for 12 years- why not wait until we can build a real international coalition instead of rushing ahead? No point in alienating any more of the world than we have to (and this is the big point) IF THERE IS NO CREDIBLE THREAT. By painting Saddam as a terrorist-loving boogeyman with a pocket full of yellowcake and enriched uranium, he becomes much scarier to the Joe Sixpack.

See this is where we differ as the Sadam has WMD line from Bush made me think exactly what I typed. The reason I suppose is from the past experiences Ive had dealing with that particular area of the world and what we knew he had at the cease fire.
I can see how the average person may not get that from what was put out so yeah.
See tree hugging liberals and religious zealot conservatives comming together and discussing world issues and calling each other names and in the end actually understanding each others points. Aint this interweb thingy great.

I too must agree this would have made me a lot happier. With one proviso: That this argument was presented to the international community and approved. I believe that it would have been.
That's the main reason I like my 'what if', international support. When we went it alone we became vengeful, petty, and arrogant. When we did that we lost one of the best weapons we had, moral high ground. After 9/11 if we played our cards right we could have united the world in one common goal, the destruction of evil, and for one brief moment it looked like it might just happen. Thanks bush administration you really screwed the pooch with that one.

I don't see how any of this is the Bush Administration's fault.  We tried over and over again to get the UN to support us, and in WORDS, they did.  But their actions show the truth.  One bomb and they run like a girl who got a Black Cat tossed near her.
And you don't think that seventeen UN resolutions meant anything?  That at least one of those resolutions authorized force, if necessary?  That the deadlines came and went and the UN kept hemming-and-hawing because half of them lined their fucking pockets with money from Saddam himself that was supposed to go for FOOD to the starving Iraqi people, and they would rather let those people die than have their little conspiracy come to light?  That UN?  That's the same 'international community' you speak of, who, if they had sanctioned our actions, would have made everything hunky-dory?  
Sorry, but the fact that the UN did NOT openly support us lent more credibility to what we were doing in my mind, and the Bush Administration bent over backwards to get the UN on-board and still, in the end, they pussied out.  At least we had the courage to take the moral high-ground alone.

When I said the international community I meant the international community.  The community which spreads throughout the nations of the world.  After September 11th the people of the world were united, not in politics, or in fear, but in truth.  The undeniable truth that what happened on that day was an atrocity perpetrated not only on one building, or one city, or even one country, but upon all mankind.  Those are the members of the international community.

Wow- how many glasses of the Kool-aid DID you drink?

The moral high ground is still up for grabs, methinks.

I think it's way too soon to jump to conclusions about this. I think the comming weeks will be telling. If some insurgants have found a stockpile of chemical shells there will be more bombings. Or, it could have simply been a misplaced shell that got racked with all the conventonal shells and forgotten about.

Since the shell had exploded and only a small amount of sarin was relased.  I'd bet that the shell was from the Iran-Iraq war. And that the sarin was long past it's effective shelf-life. This might qualify as a chemical weapon but I doubt causing "minor nerve damage" can be construed  as a WMD unless the M actually means minute.

I love ya Aslan but stop with the willful ignorance. The Bush administration didn't bend over backwards. Bush can't even spell diplomacy let alone order it done. They went before the UN yes, because they wanted to be able to say "see we tried." But it was half-hearted and everybody with a brain knew it. They basically said "wanna help us? We don't really care if you do cause we'll do it anyway".

Yes, the UN is corrupt in alot of ways, but don't even say the Bush regime bent over backwards to get help. Bush has done more damage to our diplomatic ties around the world than anyone in my memory. He couldn't do more damage if he took a piss on the leader of foreign countries.

He's so goddamned sure of himself that he totally fucks us in the world community for years to come. After 9/11 we could have easily, easily gotten the world to support us in almost anything we wanted to do, but Bush brushed people off and pissed off the world faster than I've ever seen such a thing done. It makes me sick to think of the huge oppurtunity we had and Bush basically shit it all down the toilet. His father was able to rally nations around us to push Saddam back into Iraq a decade ago, Bush couldn't even rally them after we'd suffered a major attack.

Pathetic. I don't think history will treat this particular appointed president well.

"WMD" is a joke. Now Mustard Gas is a WMD. Next week it will be Windex. Or WMD "programs" as if that is the same thing.

There is a big big fucking difference between Sarin, Mustard Gas and a Nuke.
---

As far as Bush going to the UN and bending over backwards, it was a foregone conclusion we would be invading Iraq from the second the idea was first "floated" to the press. Going to the UN was just a formality. It was plain as day that we would somehow find some rationalization for entering Iraq, and that rationalization has changed many times since we started.

It's the same with tax cuts. First we need tax cuts because we have too much money and need to give it back, then we need those SAME tax cuts because we need to stimulate the economy...bottom line is we want tax cuts and we WILL justify them somehow.

That's how idealogues work. Come up with a course of action, then justify it. The pursuit of truth or knowledge never comes into play. We made up our minds to attack Iraq, and 9/11 was the excuse, which is quite sad. Iraq was never a threat to us, that's a fact.

Uhhh you have not one freakin clue what you are talking about do you? 3 ccs of mustard gas attomized can kill 3000 or so people. You may be focusing on the destruction part but ALL chem, bio and nuke weapons are WMD. Please study up on the stuff before you comment please. Any moron knows a nuke will do more damage but 3000 is a shit load of folks ya know.



And *GASP* it worked to do both... wow how did that happen?

Actually, the UN left Iraq because a lot more than 1 bomb were headed in thier direction.

PRE WAR.The UN was in Iraq, and searching. They found some misslies that had a longer range than allowed, and they were destroyed. Some shells under 10 years od bird droppings were found, and destoryed.

The UN weapon instpectors left the country because BushCo was about to invade. Misson...Accomplished.

Remember, Bush Sr. had help. The fact that in 1991, Saddam not only invaded a country he had no cassius belli to invade, he also was stupid enough to hold Americans hostage as "human shields." Fucking stupid. It was quite easy for Bush Sr. to rally support, as Americans were in danger, and Saddam had no justification for his actions.

Bush Jr. couldn't rally the international community because he couldn't prove that Saddam had any goddamn thing to do with an attack on our country. Afghanistan was easy, considering the sovereign government there WAS willfully and publicly harboring the attackers. Bush and Co. should never have tried to link Iraq to 9-11, because now and then, he just looked like he wanted to attack and would find any justification for it.

I hate the fact that Bush used a man I used to respect (Colin Powell) as his liar's mouthpiece to the UN. Powell specifically states that "we know they have WMD, we know where they are, and here are pictures of where they are." And yet, when we go there, the weapons were not there.

I only hope the American voting public will actually remember how much this administration has lied to us in November.

Do you think its conceivable that they like moved it in the 4 fucking months we dicked around sucking off the UN? I mean shit thats sound military planning tell the fuckers you are comming to kick them in the nuts.

I think Saddam realized that short of the Islamic world uniting to fight off the invasion, his best bet to hurt Bush and the U.S. was to make sure we didn't find any WMDs.

Using them or allowing them to be found would have simply proven Bush right.

Whether he actually had them or not, he was representing that he had them...or at the very least, leaving some ambiguity that he might have them. Why? Because he didn't want to appear weak to his own people, or Iraq's enemies.

Not to even mention the corrupt Oil for Food program, and the conflicts of interest associated with some of the nations that opposed our invasion.

Al Qaeda sucker punched us on 9-11, under the safe harbor of the Taliban in Afghanistan. So we smacked the piss out of the Taliban and told the world "Don't fuck with us". Saddam decided to thumb his nose at us at the wrong time, so we smacked him, and said "WE TOLD YOU NOT TO FUCK WITH US".

Shortly afterward, while they certainly had additional reasons for doing so (mainly economic), Libya exposes their stockpile of WMDs, volunteers them for destruction, and suggests that the entire world do the same. I think denying that the events in Afghanistan and Iraq were a factor in this decision is willful ignorance.

Whether Bush wins another term or not (which seems about 50/50 right now, IMO), I think he did the right thing under the circumstances, and I think his intentions were good. Some people disagree, which is why Kerry currently stands a 50/50 chance by running primarily on the "I'm not Bush" platform.

Of course, we can attribute some of the discontent with Bush to our economic troubles. He got 2/3rds of the economic triple whammy under his Administration, and inherited the 3rd from Clinton. How much stronger would his support be if not for the corporate accounting scandals, and the dot com implosion?

It'd be all well and good if the election were simply about foreign policy....but it's not. People are not strictly divided on Iraq or Afghanistan. There are several issues that have soured people on Bush...enough so that a Democratic candidate with any talent or reasonable alternative plan could step in and unseat him. Quite frankly, the jury is still out on Kerry on both counts, IMO.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

Sure. However, considering that the very people who would have been in charge of said destruction have come back and said, "We lied to Saddam, we haven't had that shit since 1991." Not to mention that no stockpiles of anything worth pissing and moaning about have been found in over a year.

I think it's a pretty reasonable statement to say that there just weren't any WMD's out there. The Bush Administration believed what it wanted to believe, even in the face of contradictory evidence. Saddam did indeed have us fooled.

Now, what does it say about our administration and intelligence apparatus that a 2-turd camel jockey with delusions of grandeur was able to hoodwink our leaders into an attack that has decimated our diplomatic efforts of the last 20 years?

So what you're saying is that Saddam was bluffing about not having WMDs, but didn't realize that he was inadvertently telling the truth, because he had been deceived by his own people?

Sounds like something out of a bad sitcom.



Bring the noise.
Cheers............

Lets see Sadams own folks say yeah we got em and he says yeah we got em in a round about way. More like come and invade and find out sill soon to be gassed westerners. Given that alone Id say it was prudent to make sure he didn't.
Lets not forget intel from our chums the Brittish that said yep hes got Nuke shit too. Now the Iraqi brownosers are saying well we told him we had them but didnt really. Sound to me like maybe someone should have told the truth. I dont see Bush as lying to us so much as opperating on faulty intellegence. I like to remember that the intellegence we had was shown to congress and they said yeah bitch slap him as well. So based on what data we had and like not acctually being there and in the absolute know on exactly what he had I'd say we made a prudent choice it just turned out that he was being lied to as well as we were.

So- he allowed the US to roll into Baghdad, topple him from power, kill both of his sons, and then went on the lam, only to be captured in ignominy and shame, hiding in his 'spiderhole'. Saddam went through all this and didn't use his WMDs, just to spite Bush? And this bugfuck crazy theory is more plausible than the theory that he didn't have any WMDs to begin with, and had A) been bluffing or B) been lied to by his advisors (or even a combination of the two)?

Wow.  What color is the sky in your world?

DV, you have the sequence just about right.

DD, Bush was operating on false intelligence, despite the fact that the CIA was telling him (or people underneath who Bush himself appointed such as Rumsfeld, Cheney) that the information was NOT CREDIBLE. Bush and his advisors willfully ignored the intelligence that did not fit their political aims. He also did not allow UN Weapons Inspectors to do their job properly. All of the inspectors were returning with information that there were no WMD, just a few missles with a longer range than they should have had.

And no matter what Bush would like to portray, NOTHING in what Saddam actually had or might have had was proof that Saddam was an IMINENT THREAT to the US or any of its neighbors. The whole reason most of the nation supported the war was the constant barrage by the Bush team saying Saddam was an iminent threat, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Well 2 things  To the first I say err on the side of caution when dealing with this shit so if Sadam himself thought he had the stuff I'd say that test is satisfied. on the second we had this discussion before and all of the quotes provided never show Bush saing he was an immenant threat. Rummy yeah and Powell yeah but Bush never did.  Symantecs I know but hey I gotta argue bout somethin :P

The jig was up the moment we invaded. He released all the prisoners in the country, and called upon other Islamic nations and groups to repel the US invasion. My thought is that he really expected this to unite the Muslim world against us in defense of Iraq.

If anything, he had to play the unfairly persecuted Muslim leader to invoke enough anger for other Muslims to come to his aid, right? Wouldn't have worked so hot if he turned right around and proved that the American case against him was just.

Yknow, not that it worked all that well anyway. No nation-states came to his aid....only terrorists and individuals who filtered in to take potshots at American soldiers.

But we're also talking about an arrogant egotistical dictator on the verge of being ousted from power...an expectation of rational thought is optimistic to say the least.

Bring the noise.
Cheers................

So we can either go with your bizarre delusional partisan theory that Saddam is hiding the weapons to get the last laugh that has absolutely no evidence to support it or we can go with the much more likely theory that there were no weapons which all evidence supports.  Now it's time for you to tell me I didn't pick your theory because I hate Bush.. go on, you have it in you..

Thre certainly used to be WMDs, after all, who sold them to Iraq?

(http://globalsecurity.com/weapons_of/rumsfeld_visited/rumsfeld_saddam.jpg)
There are known unknowns.

Righ care to back up that claim? Yes we provided weapons at some time but I doubt you can show me one iota of proof saying we sold chem/bio weapons to Iraq.

Just more partisanship, really. If it's defending your party, common sense and reasonable possibilities are considered.....if it's defending the other party, incontrovertible proof must be shown. Vice versa when it comes to accusations.

It's become fairly apparent that this is the pattern emerging in political discussions here.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

Ummm, who the fuck do you think provided all of Iraq's weapons in the first place? Yes, it was the good ole US of A.

Wrong answer Iraq was a Soviet client state much more than they were an American client state. Their military is equipped with almost exclusively Soviet and Chi-com gear. T-72's, T-69's, BMP's, BTR, AK-74's, Dragonov Sniper Rifles, RPG's, MIG fighters, SCUD Missiles, Silkworms, and the list goes on and on. The Iraqi military also fought using Soviet tactics. Also most of their chemical/Bio weapons were supplied by the Soviets. I remember reading a piece after GW1 from a Soviet scientist about the symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome being similar to some of the chemical weapons that the Soviet Union had developed.

Thank and You. Yes we backed his war with Iran but Most of thier technology is boneyard style russian equipment. Hell its russian almost exclusively. And one wonders why Russia was against us going in.

Click here.

This phrase stuck out at me from the weapons article:



As a serious question, how does an independent Scottish newspaper get it's hands on classified American defense documents? If that is really true, that fact scares the shit out of how open we are.

What Im wondering is why didnt he cite his exact sources of the information ie report numbers which btw they all have. If what he says is to be belived and is true over half of the exports listed have gone to universities and drug research companies under the auspices of antidotes.  Nice clue for you guys here... WE SENT THAT SHIT TO ANY  UNIVERSITY THAT WANTS TO MAKE ANTIDOTES. So does every other nation that has it. Thats how we get the flu vaccines before it hits here. It comes from Asia as the flue hits there first before the US. Thats how we keep fresh stocks of smallpox vaccine. You do realize smallpox is exctinct in the US excep in labs right.

The missle technology and nuclear /chem weapons plant drawings I'll have to see the actual report to belive before I acknowledge those were sent and not the product of someones either imagination or misreading.

This story can be found in over a hundred newspapers back in 2002, but the original files were exposed back in 1998. Sadly, you've just described your own rabid partisanship, not my reasoned and well documented discourse.

Enjoy:



http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/medsearch/FocusAreas/riegle_report/report/report_index.htm

http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/medsearch/FocusAreas/riegle_report/staff_report/staff_report_index.htm

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/globalissue/usforeignpolicy/iraq1980scontent.html

most or all the stuff that was sold was technically dual-use but doesnt take much of a brain to figure out what Sadam was going to use them for and there is no question Rumsfield and the US government knew, its just that he was a 'good guy' back then (ie US ally) so they didnt really care.

And see, one side attacks the other with what they consider to be sufficient proof, and the other dismisses it as being insufficient. See how that works?

It wasn't an indictment of anyone's position on the subject, merely pointing out that the discussion surrounding Bush and Kerry is going all of NO and WHERE. That's BOTH SIDES, including myself.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.................

Because crystal balls are like standard issue for high government employees and all.

That's funny, I don't recall ever mentioning Kerry, or indeed any alternatives to the fuckwits du jour. Should he become president, and follow the examples of those who have gone before him on both sides of the bi-partisan system, you can rest assured I'll be just as happy to point out his government's crimes.

Appenrtly they have arrested 2 people in relation to the kidnapping this thread was orignally about. 2 other's were released. From what I read in the FARK thread, these are the original kidnappers, or sold the guy off to the...allegeed murderers.

Interesting factoid: The informer who tipped the athorities off...was killed the next day.

WHAT a concidenink eh? I wounder if anyone filmed or took pics of that occuring.

Berg video faked? (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/5/15/22827/0477)

I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but I would be surprised if this had any basis in truth. Kind of interesting, however.

Tinfoil hat on standby.