Forgive me and my left-winged ignorance but as horrific as these videos are, I don't see the connection between them and WMD's. And informative post. Thank you.
Peace................

Helen, the connection is that the piles of dead children in the second video were killed by Saddam using WMD.

If after watching both videos, you can still say "So, where were the WMD's? Bush still lied and I support the troops!" then congratulations, you're a liberal. Now, let these nice men put you in the nice padded room, k?

Josh, I think it's the Clinton-era clothes pin on Helen's nose, what keeps her from smelling the gassed corpses, death pits, and all the other blood on Saddam's hands. Saddam was himself a WMD.

holy moly! this is crazy. its a good thing we took over their country then, isnt it? seeing as they didnt even know how to govern themselves...

Yes, he was awful - and neocons forwarded the ideas of liberal internationalism too while forwarding their own agenda. However...

We've got to make sure that our torture (yes, we torture) stays at an American standard. That means that even while we shock the shit out of terrorists who won't give us information (Jack Bauer-style, perhaps) we also have to keep an eye out for Due Process.

The violation of a foriegner's civil liberties on American soil is the first step to the violation of American civil liberties on American soil

So, Taylor, how many America lives are worth losing for the sake of not violating a terrorist's civil liberties?

How does any of this justify American torture? How does any of this justify the USA throwing away our morals and principals? Since he was 100% wrong it's ok for us to be 80% wrong?
And only a prejudiced thought process could lead to anyone connecting WMD to these videos.

The Blame America First bandwagon doth toot on, dothn't it. Ho hum.


Um, Warchild, if you want to pop that pacifier out of your mouth and list for us just how America regularly, systematically, and as a prisoner interrogation policy tortures (and check the semantics there very carefully), and just how we have tossed away our morals and principles, that will give us a basis for debate. Those are weighty concepts you're tossing around there, and we need to know what you mean, and just how your own thought processes are prejudiced.

Hello idiot Helen: Saddam used prisoners to "test" biological weapons. You know the ones, --the ones he didn't have? Yeah. The ones that Dr. Amash and Taha were working on? That they tortured a donkey with until it died? They love this kind of thing, apparently, all the rest of the torture techniques are brought to you by Stalin and Hitler, since Saddam was an admirer of both. He just thought Hitler didn't go far enough. And BTW, he used chemicals to kill kurds. Yeah. Those same WMD he didn't have? They killed over 35,000 of his own people.

Those WMD, BTW, were moved to the BEKAA Valley, according to some sources who say the Syrians were paid over $35 million to bury it in a giant trench there. I guess some sophisticated equipment has also placed it there, so where have you been the past few years...on a deserted island?

Excuse me, Van Helsing, I got a little bit excited when I saw the lefty say something about WMD when this is a post about what REAL torture is. I guess showing a picture of an Iraqi with a dog barking at him is much easier to stomach than Saddam's movies of Iraqis being fed to Doberman Pinchers for lunch. The end result, though, is making us look like the monsters when the monumental story is not being given any exposure. Thanks for posting this, VH.

Morals and principles are all well and good, but at the end of the day, human lives are more important. If waterboarding a terrorist, or even REALLY torturing a terrorist stops a Baslan from happening in America, it's worth it. The right of children not to be slaughtered trumps the right of liberals to feel self-righteous about protecting the civil liberties of terrorists.

This is sensible to anyone not living in the Bong Hit Kingdom of Magical Unicorns, where terrorists just need a hug.

No WMDs? Well what about the discovery, and by U.N. weapons inspectors no less, that WMD-making equipment has been removed from 109 sites across Iraq? Hmm? Pity these bozos were too busy swigging vodka to notice Saddam had all that stuff *prior* to the invasion.
Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4607629.stm

Also, and here's a question for the moonbats, do any of you seriously believe that we can't see your whining for what it really is? You people *hate* America, *hate* the West, and would never support any war that protected our interests. Period. Why can't you at least be honest about your motives, instead of hiding behind this junk about supposed U.S. tortures?

Well, here's my take on this -- Hussein not only had WMD, used WMD, but he also had the ingredients to rapidly escalate the production of WMD. What is so hard to understand about that?

I don't think that when we are discussing "torture," people have any credibility when they tout what happened at Abu Ghraib, or allegations of mishandling prisoners at GitMo with cutting off people's heads, arms, legs, hands, or genitals. The argument posed by moonbats is at best sophomorish and frankly, boring. If you people do not want to believe that Hussein was a thoroughly bad man, that's fine with me, but don't try to compare problems with US intelligence gathering or detainee handling with what Hussein perpetrated against his own people.

In reading some of these comments, it is apparent to me that too many of our fellow citizens have been raised in a pampered, protected cocoon and they have no idea about the real danger we face in a violent world. Lesson one is violence is resolved with greater violence. If you can't deal with that, I feel sorry for you. And by the way, the MEEK shall NOT inherit the earth.

As for Koran abuse, I wonder if any American GI's abused any copies of Mein Kampf during World War II. I wonder if any Nazis whined about it. I wonder if the media of the day would have been outraged.

Wow! Excellent post!

Wow, yet another comment/comparison of embarassing photographs to torture. If, warchild, as another comment suggested, you bother to analyze the semantics of "torture" you'll actually find that abu Ghraib and Gitmo barely approach "hazing" levels. How exactly are we throwing away our morals by treating detainees exactly as we've treated college freshmen for centuries?

Go pledge a fraternity, then get back to me about this so called "torture".

Quote: "As for Koran abuse, I wonder if any American GI's abused any copies of Mein Kampf during World War II. I wonder if any Nazis whined about it. I wonder if the media of the day would have been outraged."

The media of the 1940s did not care when thousands of Japanese were rounded up and put into detainment camps, or when blacks across the country were denied equal rights. Thank god we've come this far since them.

As for the Iraqi prison photos, of coursed they are not anywhere near the level of Saddam Hussein, but does that make it okay? The Geneva convention forbids the humiliation of prisoners. We cannot pick and choose what parts of the Geneva convention we wish to follow.

As silly as these prison scandals are, I think that we should really be thankful for them. I am glad that I live in a country so free that the biggest media story is when prisoners are hazed and embarassed, rather than tortured and executed. I thank God that in this country we can take it for granted that the government can never violate our civil rights, for any reason whatsoever. I thank God that we have a free media that DOES make a big deal about minor infractions such as hazings and such, so that it never gets to the point where the government can do whatever it wants, unchecked.

As easy as it is to say that we our system is perfect, in comparison to the regime of Saddam Hussein, we have to keep our eyes open to flaws on our own side. This is what keeps us from BECOMING like them. Sure the stuff on TV seems silly now, but if we dont put a stop to it NOW, how long before we start using psychological torture? How long before physical torture? Would we torture kids or just adults? Just men or women too? We really need to draw the line NOW.

BTW, just joined the army and will be heading for Iraq before too long. I didnt really agree with going into this, but now that we ARE there, I think that we owe it to them to stabalize the place and give to them what we can take for granted over here.