Scott_Spears
Well-known member
Re: Nick Berg Beheading Video...
Tyler,
Thanks for finding the article, but as you point out newsmax is fairly right winged. Let me deconstruct the article a bit:
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" In early April, Jordanian authorities foiled an al-Qaida plot to kill 80,000 people in a chemical weapons attack in Amman.
According to one of the conspirators, whose confession was broadcast on Jordanian TV, al-Qaida WMD specialist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who reportedly was last seen in a chilling video beheading Nick Berg, trained and outfitted the WMD attackers in pre-war Iraq."
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How do they know al-Zarqawi trained attackers pre-war?
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"Like notorious terrorists Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas, Zarqawi enjoyed sanctuary in Baghdad, courtesy of Saddam.
Jordanian TV coverage of the Zarqawi plot included video footage of hundreds of gallon jugs containing chemical weapons that had been intercepted 75 miles from the Syriian border, where much of Saddam's pre-war WMD stockpile is believed to have been hidden."
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These chemical jugs were things like sulfuric acid which can be considered a weapon, but is not in the same classification as bio weapons or nukes. If you use this kind of thinking then just about any thing is a weapon. Household cleaners can be weapons. Again they use the word "believed" to be hidden. At this point, I don't trust anybody who says anything about WMDs. Show me pictures from a bunch of different souces. Colin Powel went before the U.N. with pictures of what he said was a WMD site which was totally discredited at a later date. The metal tubes that were supposedly for enriching uranium were discredited.
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"The Zarqawi revelation comes on the heels of the April 26 explosion at a suspected chemical weapons factory in Baghdad, just as a U.S. weapons team arrived to inspect its contents.
Disguised as a "perfume factory," the facility was booby-trapped, investigators believe, to destroy evidence of whatever was inside."
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If it's true, then great, but there's way too much conjecture going on here. We have forensic teams that can analysis bombs and tells the chemical signatures, so let's get a team of them to confirm or debunk this. If they find evidence of WMDs then we have a smoking gun, but I don't think people in the press shouldn't be, how can I say this...making **** up.
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"We won't be surprised if, in the coming weeks, more sarin-laden shells are uncovered in Iraq. But in the meantime, the media focus on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has obscured that fact that the WMD case against Saddam is already compelling and continues to grow."
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The case is not compelling. If it were why isn't Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfeweitz, Cheney and Powell out there screaming their heads off. Again, I watched Gen. Kimmet say that most likely the Iraqi didn't even know that shell had sarin in it. Rumsfeld at the Hertiage Foundation said we shouldn't jump to conclusions, so I don't think the so-called press should be trumpeting this as compelling case when the Bush administration isn't doing so.
Don't trust them. Don't trust anybody. I apprectiate that you went out and found this article, but you need to do more research. You know they're a conservative site, so take some time and look hard at what they say.
Scott
Tyler,
Thanks for finding the article, but as you point out newsmax is fairly right winged. Let me deconstruct the article a bit:
_______________________________________________
" In early April, Jordanian authorities foiled an al-Qaida plot to kill 80,000 people in a chemical weapons attack in Amman.
According to one of the conspirators, whose confession was broadcast on Jordanian TV, al-Qaida WMD specialist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who reportedly was last seen in a chilling video beheading Nick Berg, trained and outfitted the WMD attackers in pre-war Iraq."
__________________________________________________
How do they know al-Zarqawi trained attackers pre-war?
__________________________________________________
"Like notorious terrorists Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas, Zarqawi enjoyed sanctuary in Baghdad, courtesy of Saddam.
Jordanian TV coverage of the Zarqawi plot included video footage of hundreds of gallon jugs containing chemical weapons that had been intercepted 75 miles from the Syriian border, where much of Saddam's pre-war WMD stockpile is believed to have been hidden."
__________________________________________________
These chemical jugs were things like sulfuric acid which can be considered a weapon, but is not in the same classification as bio weapons or nukes. If you use this kind of thinking then just about any thing is a weapon. Household cleaners can be weapons. Again they use the word "believed" to be hidden. At this point, I don't trust anybody who says anything about WMDs. Show me pictures from a bunch of different souces. Colin Powel went before the U.N. with pictures of what he said was a WMD site which was totally discredited at a later date. The metal tubes that were supposedly for enriching uranium were discredited.
_______________________________________________
"The Zarqawi revelation comes on the heels of the April 26 explosion at a suspected chemical weapons factory in Baghdad, just as a U.S. weapons team arrived to inspect its contents.
Disguised as a "perfume factory," the facility was booby-trapped, investigators believe, to destroy evidence of whatever was inside."
___________________________________________________
If it's true, then great, but there's way too much conjecture going on here. We have forensic teams that can analysis bombs and tells the chemical signatures, so let's get a team of them to confirm or debunk this. If they find evidence of WMDs then we have a smoking gun, but I don't think people in the press shouldn't be, how can I say this...making **** up.
________________________________________________
"We won't be surprised if, in the coming weeks, more sarin-laden shells are uncovered in Iraq. But in the meantime, the media focus on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has obscured that fact that the WMD case against Saddam is already compelling and continues to grow."
___________________________________________________
The case is not compelling. If it were why isn't Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfeweitz, Cheney and Powell out there screaming their heads off. Again, I watched Gen. Kimmet say that most likely the Iraqi didn't even know that shell had sarin in it. Rumsfeld at the Hertiage Foundation said we shouldn't jump to conclusions, so I don't think the so-called press should be trumpeting this as compelling case when the Bush administration isn't doing so.
Don't trust them. Don't trust anybody. I apprectiate that you went out and found this article, but you need to do more research. You know they're a conservative site, so take some time and look hard at what they say.
Scott
