Re: Rectifier Tube Type Help now OT chitchat

In article <rk72f2p48gvq5ndgadb6124g93kjljbdfu@xxxxxxx>, flipper@xxxxxxxx
says...

On Sat, 26 Aug 2006 22:42:53 -0500, spiced-ham?No@xxxxxxx (Alphonso
M'buto Chaing) wrote:


"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in
England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after
all,
it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always
a
simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a
fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or
no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the
leaders.
That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being
attacked,
and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the
country
to danger. It works the same in any country."

Herman Goering, Nuremburg Jail, 1945.

A true student of human nature and realpolitik, Herman.

I am always amazed that some people can imagine a NAZI propagandist
extraordinaire from a fascist dictatorship with total control of all
information outlets, and who's trying to 'justify' and excuse his, and
his county's, atrocities, is somehow an 'expert' on 'truth' and the
operation of democracies and a free press.

I'm always amazed when people don't recognize how accurate Goering's
quote is,

The reason is because it's a lie and that things in a democracy don't
go 'your way' doesn't make it any less a lie.

especially in regards to Iraq.

I'll cover at least some of the points but, to give an overview,
you've mixed mischaracterizations with partial quotes taken out of
context to distort the meaning.

However, your entire premise and 'logic' (I use the term loosely) is
false and an attempt to 'reverse hack' reasons from the afore
mentioned distortions when all you have to do, if you actually gave a
whit why, is read the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United
States Armed Forces Against Iraq to see the reasons listed.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html

Reasons such as:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html
"Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer
to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously
indicated;..."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17707-2003Oct25?language=printer
"Although Hussein did not relinquish his nuclear ambitions or technical
records, investigators said, it is now clear he had no active program to build
a weapon, produce its key materials or obtain the technology he needed for
either.

Among the closely held internal judgments of the Iraq Survey Group, overseen
by David Kay as special representative of CIA Director George J. Tenet, are
that Iraq's nuclear weapons scientists did no significant arms-related work
after 1991, that facilities with suspicious new construction proved benign,
and that equipment of potential use to a nuclear program remained under seal
or in civilian industrial use.

Most notably, investigators have judged the aluminum tubes to be "innocuous,"
according to Australian Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Meekin, who commands the Joint
Captured Enemy Materiel Exploitation Center, the largest of a half-dozen units
that report to Kay. That finding is pivotal, because the Bush administration
built its case on the proposition that Iraq aimed to use those tubes as
centrifuge rotors to enrich uranium for the core of a nuclear warhead. "

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/08/iraq.debate/
"On NBC's "Meet the Press," Vice President *** Cheney accused Saddam of
moving aggressively to develop nuclear weapons over the past 14 months to add
to his stockpile of chemical and biological arms....The New York Times
reported Sunday that Iraq tried to buy thousands of high-strength aluminum
tubes. The tubes, Rice said, "are only really suited for nuclear weapons
programs, centrifuge programs."

Almost One Year Earlier, Energy Department Believed The Tubes Were Intended
For Rockets. According to officials at the CIA and senior administration
officials, experts at the Energy Department "believed the tubes were likely
intended for small artillery rockets." (New York Times, 10/2/04)

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/
The government has now been publicly acknowledged what was well known months
prior to the invasion of Iraq: that the tubes were not intended for use in a
nuclear program, but were intended for a conventional rocket program. The
CIA's Iraq Survey Group (ISG), for example, finally admitted in its final
report that "Iraqi interest in aluminum tubes appears to have come from
efforts to produce 81-mm rockets, rather than a nuclear end use."
*********************
Joint resolution:
"Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for
attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the
attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist
organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of
American citizens; "

Compare these two statements; the naive might believe Saddam was harboring al
Qaida. All al Qaida bases in Iraq were in the north, outside of Saddam's
control, in the "no-fly zone".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1517792,00.html

Investigations by the Senate's intelligence committee and by the September 11
commission of inquiry found no evidence of an operational alliance between
al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. There did seem to have been contacts in Sudan and
Afghanistan in the 1990s but they did not lead to a "collaborative
relationship", the commission found.

Joint resolution:
"Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted
to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which
finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31,
1998;"


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/evacuate_03-17-03.html
March 17, 2003, 1:16pm EST
U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL ORDERS INSPECTORS, STAFF TO LEAVE IRAQ

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan announced Monday that he had
ordered the withdrawal of all U.N. weapons inspectors and humanitarian staff
from Iraq as well as peacekeepers patrolling the border between Iraq and
Kuwait in a clear sign that a U.S.-led military intervention appears imminent.


Well, that's funny, the dates seem confused, 1998, 2003...Oh wait! the Joint
resolution neglects to mention that weapons inspectors returned to Iraq.

Iraq war wasn't justified, U.N. weapons experts say
Blix, ElBaradei: U.S. ignored evidence against WMDs
Monday, March 22, 2004 Posted: 1:34 AM EST (0634 GMT)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United Nations' top two weapons experts said Sunday
that the invasion of Iraq a year ago was not justified by the evidence in hand
at the time.

"I think it's clear that in March, when the invasion took place, the evidence
that had been brought forward was rapidly falling apart," Hans Blix, who
oversaw the agency's investigation into whether Iraq had chemical and
biological weapons, said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

Blix described the evidence Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the
U.N. Security Council in February 2003 as "shaky," and said he related his
opinion to U.S. officials, including national security adviser Condoleezza
Rice.

"I think they chose to ignore us," Blix said.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency,
spoke to CNN from IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria.

ElBaradei said he had been "pretty convinced" that Iraq had not resumed its
nuclear weapons program, which the IAEA dismantled in 1997.

Days before the fighting began, Vice President *** Cheney weighed in with an
opposing view.

"We believe [Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear
weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei, frankly, is wrong," Cheney said. "And I think
if you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency in
this kind of issue, especially where Iraq's concerned, they have consistently
underestimated or missed what Saddam Hussein was doing."

Now, more than a year later, ElBaradei said, "I haven't seen anything on the
ground at that time that supported Mr. Cheney's conclusion or statement, so --
and I thought to myself, well, history is going to be the judge."

No evidence of a nuclear weapons program has been found so far.

Blix, who recounts his search for weapons of mass destruction in his book
"Disarming Iraq," said the Bush administration tended "to say that anything
that was unaccounted for existed, whether it was sarin or mustard gas or
anthrax."

Blix specifically faulted Powell, who told the U.N. Security Council about
what he said was a site that held chemical weapons and decontamination trucks.

"Our inspectors had been there, and they had taken a lot of samples, and there
was no trace of any chemicals or biological things," Blix said. "And the
trucks that we had seen were water trucks."

The most spectacular intelligence failure concerned a report by ElBaradei, who
revealed that an alleged contract by Iraq with Niger to import uranium oxide
was a forgery, Blix said.

"The document had been sitting with the CIA and their U.K. counterparts for a
long while, and they had not discovered it," Blix said. "And I think it took
the IAEA a day to discover that it was a forgery."

Blix said that during a meeting before the war with the U.S. president, Bush
told him that "the U.S. genuinely wanted peace," and that "he was no wild,
gung-ho Texan, bent on dragging the U.S. into war."

Blix said Bush gave the inspectors support and information at first, but he
said the help didn't last long enough.

"I think they lost their patience much too early," Blix said.

"I can see that they wanted to have a picture that was either black or white,
and we presented a picture that had, you know, gray in it, as well," he said.

Iraq had been shown to have biological and chemical weapons before, "and there
was no record of either destruction or production; there was this nagging
question: Do they still have them?" ElBaradei said.

Blix said he had not been able to say definitively that Iraq had no such
weapons, but added that he felt history has shown he was not wrong.

"At least we didn't fall into the trap that the U.S. and the U.K. did in
asserting that they existed," he said.

ElBaradei faulted Iraq for "the opaque nature of that Saddam Hussein regime."

"We should not forget that," he said. "For a couple of months, their
cooperation was not by any way transparent, for whatever reason."

ElBaradei said he hoped the past year's events have taught world leaders a
valuable lesson.

"We learned from Iraq that an inspection takes time, that we should be
patient, that an inspection can, in fact, work."










BUSH: The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before
we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

QUESTION: What did Iraq have to do with it?

BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?

QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.

BUSH: Nothing. Except it?s part of - and nobody has suggested in this
administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a - Iraq
- the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully
materialize, Ken. Nobody?s ever suggested that the attacks of September
the 11th were ordered by Iraq.
*********************

All of which is true, Bush's lack of oratory skills notwithstanding.

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=544
47 percent believe that Saddam Hussein helped plan and support the
hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001 (up six percentage
points from November).

44 percent actually believe that several of the hijackers who attacked
the U.S. on September 11 were Iraqis (up significantly from 37% in
November).
36 percent believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the
U.S. invaded (down slightly from 38% in November).

***********************************
http://www.zogby.com/NEWS/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1075


Released: February 28, 2006
U.S. Troops in Iraq: 72% Say End War in 2006

Almost 90% think war is retaliation for Saddam?s role in 9/11, most
don?t blame Iraqi public for insurgent attacks
***********************************

Most Americans can't find Iraq on a globe, how did they get these ideas?

In what is probably one of the great ironies, mostly from so called
'critics' who falsely claimed, as part of their political attacks,
that the administration 'said' those things so they can then scream
"but it isn't true."
And you see similar strawmen in this thread. Like the argument 'Iraq
didn't have missiles able to reach the U.S.' NO ONE said they did,
except the political attack hacks, by reverse implication.

The 'critics' love to invent these things, like after a banner saying
"Mission Accomplished"... oh, oh. I've got it. Let's accuse him of
saying the war is over, and never mind it's a flat out lie.

And you've not provided a single quote to show the administration said
them either.

So you are saying that the false belief that Iraq was linked to 9/11, and was
a threat to the USA is due to Bush's critics, not Bush? That's laughable.


The one notable exception being operational WMD and it isn't
surprising that the public believed what every intelligence agency in
the world said was the case. France, Germany, and Russia all warned
the U.S. that Saddam had deployed chemical weapons and U.S. troops
didn't go into summer heat desert combat in full chemical regalia as a
fashion statement.

This is the "big lie". Say it often enough, and people will believe it.

http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iraq/usallieswmd.html
"Russia was not convinced by either the September 24, 2002 British dossier or
the October 4, 2002 CIA report. Lacking sufficient evidence, Russia dismissed
the claims as a part of a "propaganda furor." Specifically targeting the CIA
report, Putin said, "Fears are one thing, hard facts are another." He goes on
to say, "Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data that
supports the existence of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq and we have not received any such information from our partners yet.
This fact has also been supported by the information sent by the CIA to the US
Congress."

French intelligence services did not come up with the same alarming assessment
of Iraq and WMD as did the Britain and the United States. "According to secret
agents at the DGSE, Saddam's Iraq does not represent any kind of nuclear
threat at this time-It [the French assessment] contradicts the CIA's analysis"
French spies said that the Iraqi nuclear threat claimed by the United States
was a "phony threat."
-------------------------------------------
FRENCH-GERMAN-RUSSIAN MEMORANDUM ON CONTINUING INSPECTIONS IN IRAQ

FRANCE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

February 24, 2003

While suspicions remain, no evidence has been given that Iraq still possesses
weapons of mass destruction or capabilities in this field;



In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations
that Iraq was harboring Abu Musab Zarqawi, a "collaborator of Osama bin
Laden and his al Qaeda lieutenants," and he said Iraq's denials of ties
to al Qaeda "are simply not credible."

Again, all true. And it is not a claim of Iraq having 'ordered' 9-11.

In September, Cheney said Iraq had been "the geographic base of the
terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most
especially on 9/11."

Again true. The terrorists geographical base is the Middle East and
that's where Iraq is, damn near dead center.

So, we should have invaded Switzerland in 1941?
15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi Arabia. We would have been much more
justified in invading Saudi Arabia than invading Iraq. Much money for
terrorists come from S.A.






Not to mention it's a duplicate of the one below so I'll add more down
there showing how it's been hacked and misrepresented.

**********
Bush has tried

Notice the 'unbiased' characterization of "tried."

to portray the war in Iraq as the "central front" in the
war on terrorism that began with al Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks
on New York and Washington.

And what makes you think a CNN reporter's 'opinion' is worth anything?

Not to mention that comments AFTER the war hasn't got a blessed thing
to do with 'pre war' arguments, which is what you're supposedly
talking about.

President Bush links "end of major combat" in Iraq with September 11th
attacks.

That characterization is simply nonsense. He is not 'linking' "end of
major combat" with 9-11, it's merely the occasion of making the
speech.

In his speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, President Bush
stated "The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign
against terror...We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th
-- the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the
rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared
war on the United States. And war is what they got." [Remarks by the
President, 5/1/03]

Partial quotes hacked and taken out of context to misrepresent the
meaning.

The FIRST snippet leaves out the explanatory remarks where he
elaborates "We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of
terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will
gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the
regime is no more."

There is no claim of Iraq 'ordering' 9-11.

The second snippet, which is hacked onto the other one to falsely
suggest 'linkage', is the beginning of a new thought stream
summarizing the war on terror and policy. He begins with the 'reason'
for the war on terror (19 months prior to the speech is 9-11) and
follows with the policy.

Let's see it in context...

"In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been
focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offense. We have not
forgotten the victims of September the 11th -- the last phone calls,
the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those
attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the
United States. And war is what they got.

The war is in Iraq, which was not supporting the terrorists of 9/11.
Osama is still free, and al Qaida is still around, Afganistan is now a failed
state again, opium supply is way up, due to the withdrawal of most of the US
forces, now in Iraq.







Our war against terror is proceeding according to principles that I
have made clear to all: Any person involved in committing or planning
terrorist attacks against the American people becomes an enemy of this
country, and a target of American justice

Any person, organization, or government that supports, protects, or
harbors terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent, and
equally guilty of terrorist crimes.

Any outlaw regime that has ties to terrorist groups and seeks or
possesses weapons of mass destruction is a grave danger to the
civilized world -- and will be confronted.

And anyone in the world, including the Arab world, who works and
sacrifices for freedom has a loyal friend in the United States of
America."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030501-15.html

He lists THREE criteria for being 'confronted' as part of the war on
terror, not the ONE the hack job falsely suggests.

Not to mention that a speech commemorating the END of major combat
operations hasn't got a blessed thing to do with 'pre war' arguments,
which is what you're supposedly talking about.


Vice President Cheney states that the war in Iraq is a strike against the
terrorists who had America under assault on 9/11. On Meet the Press, Vice
President Cheney stated, "If we're successful in Iraq...we will have
struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the
geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for
many years, but most especially on 9/11." [NBC's Meet the Press, 9/14/03]

Same thing as already mentioned above and it's still true.

But this is not conflating 9/11 with Iraq? Come on, man, be real!
He's saying that terrorists were supported in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, and
Pakistan, and since Iraq is in the middle, that's our target? Absurd!




And again, conveniently, the explanatory parts are 'removed' to
misrepresent the meaning. He explains what the 'blow' is. Let's see
the whole thing.

"If we can stand up a good representative government in Iraq that
secures the region so that it never again becomes a threat to its
neighbors or to the United States, so it's not pursuing weapons of
mass destruction, so that it's not a safe haven for terrorists, now we
will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base -- if you
will, the geographic base -- of the terrorists who have had us under
assault now for many years but most especially on 9/11. They
understand what's at stake. That's one of the reasons they're putting
up as much of a struggle as they have is because they know if we
succeed here in Iraq that that's going to strike a major blow at their
capabilities."

----> Russert then says, "So the resistance in Iraq is coming from
those who are responsible for 9/11?" Vice President Cheney: "No. I was
careful not to say that."<-------

And he EXPLICITLY says NO, he's not saying "those who are responsible
for 9/11.," like the hack job is falsely suggesting.

Only because that is exactly the impression given by Cheney. If Iraq isn't
linked to 9/11, why does he mention it?



Not to mention that comments AFTER the war hasn't got a blessed thing
to do with 'pre war' arguments, which is what you're supposedly
talking about.

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld stated that going to war with Iraq costs "a
heck of a lot less" than the cost of 9-11. Rumsfeld stated that although
he could not estimate the cost of a war with Iraq, "It would cost a heck
of a lot less than 9-11 cost and 9-11 would cost a heck of a lot less
than a chemical or biological 9-11." [AP, 2/13/03]

While I can't put a dollar figure on it I'd say that is, in essence,
true, and especially when one realizes that 'dollars' are not the
entire measure of failing to deal with it.
-----

And if you really read those and think about it you'll be shocked to
discover it isn't the administration that's lied to you but the folks
who fed you that hacked up pile of misquotes.


Lies:
-------------
"I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq
had nuclear weapons."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at a hearing of the Senate's appropriations
subcommittee on defense, May 14, 2003

"We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
Vice President *** Cheney on NBC's Meet the Press, March 16, 2003
----------------
"No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were, where
they were stored," Rice told on NBC's "Meet the Press." --Sunday, June 8,
2003, AP

"Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary...told ABC's This Week that banned
weapons were not in areas controlled by allied forces. 'We know where they
are, they are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and
north of that,' he said." --Guardian, March 31, 2003
---------------------------
On Oct. 11, 2000, then-Texas Gov. Bush said: "I think what we need to do is
convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe
I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have kind of a
nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not." But yesterday White House
press secretary Ari Fleischer proved the critics wrong once again. "During the
campaign, the president did not express, as you put it, disdain for
nation-building," he said. So there you have it."
--------------------------------
"There was only one problem with President George W. Bush's claim Thursday
that the nation's top economists forecast substantial economic growth if
Congress passed the president's tax cut: The forecast with that conclusion
doesn't exist.Bush and White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer went out of
their way Thursday to cite a new survey by "Blue-Chip economists" that the
economy would grow 3.3 percent this year if the president's tax cut proposal
becomes law. That was news to the editor who assembles the economic forecast.
"I don't know what he was citing," said Randell E. Moore, editor of the
monthly Blue Chip Economic Forecast, a newsletter that surveys 53 of the
nation's top economists each month. "I was a little upset," said Moore, who
said he complained to the White House. 'It sounded like the Blue Chip Economic
Forecast had endorsed the president's plan. That's simply not the case.'"
----------------------------------
Blix again denied an allegation by Secretary of State Colin Powell that
inspectors knew of cases in which Iraq had moved banned items around before
inspectors arrived on the scene. "I am sure that Colin Powell speaks on the
basis of notes given to him, but this is not correct. Our inspectors have not
seen that the Iraqis were moving anything away from the sites that we are
visiting," he said. --Reuters.
-----------------------------------
In the fall of 1990, members of Congress and the American public were swayed
by the tearful testimony of a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only as Nayirah.

In the girl's testimony before a congressional caucus, well-documented in
MacArthur's book "Second Front" and elsewhere, she described how, as a
volunteer in a Kuwait maternity ward, she had seen Iraqi troops storm her
hospital, steal the incubators, and leave 312 babies "on the cold floor to
die."

Seven US Senators later referred to the story during debate; the motion for
war passed by just five votes. In the weeks after Nayirah spoke, President
Bush senior invoked the incident five times, saying that such "ghastly
atrocities" were like "Hitler revisited."

But just weeks before the US bombing campaign began in January, a few press
reports began to raise questions about the validity of the incubator tale.

Later, it was learned that Nayirah was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti
ambassador to Washington and had no connection to the Kuwait hospital.

She had been coached ? along with the handful of others who would
"corroborate" the story ? by senior executives of Hill and Knowlton in
Washington, the biggest global PR firm at the time, which had a contract worth
more than $10 million with the Kuwaitis to make the case for war.

"We didn't know it wasn't true at the time," Brent Scowcroft, Bush's national
security adviser, said of the incubator story in a 1995 interview with the
London-based Guardian newspaper. He acknowledged "it was useful in mobilizing
public opinion." --CSM, Sept. 6, 2002
-------------------------------------------
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to
produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.?

"U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein
had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable
of delivering chemical agents.?

We have also discovered through intelligence
that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that
could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas."

"Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at [past
nuclear] sites."Two months of inspections at these former Iraqi nuclear sites
found zero evidence of prohibited nuclear activities there.IAEA report to UN
Security Council ? 1/27/2003

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The documents implied were
known at the time by Bush to be forged and not credible.

But why go on. I'm boring myself.
Your homework assignment is to research the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the
sinking of the USS Maine. Then consider whether the facts aren't always what
they are claimed to be when the country instigates war.









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