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Not Me 10-25-2004 10:43 PM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Gattigap
Hank, I'm glad that we managed to destroy lots of explosives. By the way, what kind of explosives did we destroy and/or keep? Apparently the stuff we found, then abandoned, and then "lost" were especally toxic stuff.
  • HOW MUCH BANG FOR THE BUCK? Most people have probably never heard of RDX, HMX, and PETN, the types of explosives that were looted from al Qaqaa. (Neither did I until I started researching this recently.) Depending on how you ask, these are either the most powerful or among the most powerful conventional explosives that exist. So how much boom do you get for 380 tons of the stuff? My friend and fellow blogger Phillip Carter, a former Army captain, e-mails with an attempt at a back-of-the-envelope calculation, using a "how many Oklahoma City bombings" metric. Here's the result:
    OK City = 5,000 pounds/2,300 kg of ammonium-nitrate and nitromethane.
    This mix has a TNT equivalent ranging from 3%-10%, i.e. the OK City bomb is the equivalent of 150 - 500 pounds of TNT.

    AQQ = 380 tons of RDX, HMX and PETN. RDX and PETN have a TNT equivalent value of 170%. Converted into TNT, the AQQ stockpile equals 646 tons or 1,292,000 pounds of explosives.

    Convert this back into my OK City metric, and this means that the lost material at AQQ equals betwen 2,584 - 8613 OK City-size bombs. That's one hell of a lot of material to be on the street -- enough to fuel a car-bomb and IED-based insurgency for years, if not decades.

    Chilling thought. Even if the order of magnitude is off by, say, two decimal places.
So you agree that SH had WMDs then.

Shape Shifter 10-25-2004 10:52 PM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Not Me
So you agree that SH had WMDs then.
Nice try (slave tried this one earlier saying that they should have been destroyed by the IAEA), but they are considered "dual use" explosives.

Hank Chinaski 10-25-2004 10:59 PM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Gattigap
Hank, I'm glad that we managed to destroy lots of explosives. By the way, what kind of explosives did we destroy and/or keep? Apparently the stuff we found, then abandoned, and then "lost" were especally toxic stuff.
  • HOW MUCH BANG FOR THE BUCK? Most people have probably never heard of RDX, HMX, and PETN, the types of explosives that were looted from al Qaqaa. (Neither did I until I started researching this recently.) Depending on how you ask, these are either the most powerful or among the most powerful conventional explosives that exist. So how much boom do you get for 380 tons of the stuff? My friend and fellow blogger Phillip Carter, a former Army captain, e-mails with an attempt at a back-of-the-envelope calculation, using a "how many Oklahoma City bombings" metric. Here's the result:
    OK City = 5,000 pounds/2,300 kg of ammonium-nitrate and nitromethane.
    This mix has a TNT equivalent ranging from 3%-10%, i.e. the OK City bomb is the equivalent of 150 - 500 pounds of TNT.

    AQQ = 380 tons of RDX, HMX and PETN. RDX and PETN have a TNT equivalent value of 170%. Converted into TNT, the AQQ stockpile equals 646 tons or 1,292,000 pounds of explosives.

    Convert this back into my OK City metric, and this means that the lost material at AQQ equals betwen 2,584 - 8613 OK City-size bombs. That's one hell of a lot of material to be on the street -- enough to fuel a car-bomb and IED-based insurgency for years, if not decades.

    Chilling thought. Even if the order of magnitude is off by, say, two decimal places.

TAPPED
Exactly, and it begs the question, how could the UN have left him with this? Dual use? that's a lot of oil pipeline projects. seems to me that you now have to agree it is a good thing we went in and starting destroying all this stuff, even if a few percentage points got stolen.

Replaced_Texan 10-25-2004 11:10 PM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Exactly, and it begs the question, how could the UN have left him with this?
Seems to me that the UN was told to get the hell out of there by an invading force that claimed to be better at finding weapons.

Quote:
Dual use? that's a lot of oil pipeline projects. seems to me that you now have to agree it is a good thing we went in and starting destroying all this stuff, even if a few percentage points got stolen.
And less than a percentage point of the planes that took off in 2001 crashed into buildings.

Not Me 10-25-2004 11:16 PM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Nice try (slave tried this one earlier saying that they should have been destroyed by the IAEA), but they are considered "dual use" explosives.
Yes, they are weapons good for blowing up people AND buildings. Lots of them. Causing mass destruction.

Hank Chinaski 10-26-2004 12:25 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Seems to me that the UN was told to get the hell out of there by an invading force that claimed to be better at finding weapons.
When you step up to get SS or Gattigap out of a no-win jam they're in it reminds me so much of the moviePumpkin.

Tyrone Slothrop 10-26-2004 01:17 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Ty quotes from the Nelson Report:
Thanks for covering for me, babe.

SlaveNoMore 10-26-2004 01:31 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Not Me
So you agree that SH had WMDs then.
Oddly enough, and as I said earlier, contrary to the bogus NYT claims, this material was already "missing" when the boots arrived on the ground:
  • Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News pretty much dismantled the New York Times attack on behalf of Kerry today.

    Quote:
    April 10, 2003, only three weeks into the war, NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al Qakaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing. The U.S. troops did find large stockpiles of more conventional weapons, but no HMX or RDX, so powerful less than a pound brought down Pan Am 103 in 1988, and can be used to trigger a nuclear weapon. In a letter this month, the Iraqi interim government told the International Atomic Energy Agency the high explosives were lost to theft and looting due to lack of security. Critics claim there were simply not enough U.S. troops to guard hundreds of weapons stockpiles, weapons now being used by insurgents and terrorists to wage a guerrilla war in Iraq.
    (NBC’s “Nightly News,” 10/25/04)

Tyrone Slothrop 10-26-2004 01:45 AM
Wronging the Right.
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Ty how close are Illinois and NY?
About 800 miles, off the top of my head. If not for Indiana, you could get from one to the other without passing through a state that's going to go for Bush.

Shape Shifter 10-26-2004 01:50 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Oddly enough, and as I said earlier, contrary to the bogus NYT claims, this material was already "missing" when the boots arrived on the ground:
  • Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News pretty much dismantled the New York Times attack on behalf of Kerry today.

    (NBC’s “Nightly News,” 10/25/04)
Condi says she only learned of it about a month ago. McClellan says the Pentagon only leaned of it 10 days ago. Pentagon spokesperson says the explosives were removed before our troops came around, which would mean the explosives would have been missing for quite a while. Sorry, but we get confused when you guys can't stay on message.

And speaking of message, why wasn't Rice, our National Fucking Security Advisor, aware of the disappearance of a very large amount of the very type of high explosives that AQ has attempted to use in this country previously? She's a fucking disgrace.

Not Me 10-26-2004 01:50 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Oddly enough, and as I said earlier, contrary to the bogus NYT claims, this material was already "missing" when the boots arrived on the ground:
Either it was gone before the troops got there (likely moved to syria) or it was there hidden and the troops couldn't find it.

Speaking of another arm chair general who gets my blood boiling, anyone see Laurence O'Donnell say that he doesn't care if the troops are demoralized by Kerrey's negativity about what they are doing in Iraq? Nice. While they are fighting for our safety, this idiot says this. The left hates the military.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1236462/posts

Not Me 10-26-2004 01:56 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Shape Shifter
She's a fucking disgrace.
If a Rep had said something like that about a black woman in the clinton administration, the Dems would be screaming racism.

Shape Shifter 10-26-2004 02:04 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Not Me
Either it was gone before the troops got there (likely moved to syria) or it was there hidden and the troops couldn't find it.

Speaking of another arm chair general who gets my blood boiling, anyone see Laurence O'Donnell say that he doesn't care if the troops are demoralized by Kerrey's negativity about what they are doing in Iraq? Nice. While they are fighting for our safety, this idiot says this. The left hates the military.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1236462/posts
The troops already know that the war was a mistake, silly. And the left doesn't hate the military enough to send them into a nation-building exercise with no well-defined goals or exit strategy. And it is well established that W cares more about his political career than the lives of the troops -- he threatened to veto money to fund the troops unless he got his tax cuts.

Tyrone Slothrop 10-26-2004 02:05 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Not Me
If a Rep had said something like that about a black woman in the clinton administration, the Dems would be screaming racism.
So are you screaming racism, or just finding an opportune moment to offer an unrelated whine about Democrats?

Shape Shifter 10-26-2004 02:05 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Not Me
If a Rep had said something like that about a black woman in the clinton administration, the Dems would be screaming racism.
You guys got so mad about the Mary Cheney thing. Is it okay to say that Condi is black (and a lesbian)?

Not Me 10-26-2004 02:09 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Shape Shifter
You guys got so mad about the Mary Cheney thing. Is it okay to say that Condi is black (and a lesbian)?
If you are a Dem, saying she is black is offensive. You have to say she is African American.

I would believe she were a lezzy if it weren't for her shoe fetish. That screams hetero woman. I think that the reason that Condi isn't married is because there is a paucity of educated and/or successful black men for her to choose from. Many educated and/or successful black men choose white women over black women. It is both sad and racist.

Not Me 10-26-2004 02:12 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
So are you screaming racism, or just finding an opportune moment to offer an unrelated whine about Democrats?
I am not screaming racism. I don't believe SS is a racist.

sgtclub 10-26-2004 02:27 AM
They Call Him Flipper
 
Courtesy of Kos, circa 2 months after 9/11

Quote:
I have no doubt, I've never had any doubt -- and I've said this publicly -- about our ability to be successful in Afghanistan. We are and we will be. The larger issue, John, is what happens afterwards. How do we now turn attention ultimately to Saddam Hussein? How do we deal with the larger Muslim world? What is our foreign policy going to be to drain the swamp of terrorism on a global basis? [Emphasis added]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2108682/

eta: Kos: "Wait--I thought shifting the focus to Saddam was a "diversion" and distraction from the fight against Al Qaeda! Not, apparently, when Kerry saw an opportunity to score political points by advocating it."

[It appears to me that Club is referring to Mickey Kaus of Slate here, not Kos of The Daily Kos. -- T.S.]

sgtclub 10-26-2004 02:32 AM
Shades of Al Gore
 
Quote:
I went to meet with the members of the Security Council in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all of them to find out how serious they were about really holding Saddam Hussein accountable.

All, some, a group meeting, private meetings - who knows? Integrity, integrity, integrity.

My question - does Kerry know he is lying, or is his memory really that bad? A quick reprise of his memory failures would surely include:

(1) the adventure in Cambodia which was "seared" into his memory;

(2) the fateful November 1971 Kansas City meeting at which the Vietnam Veterans Against the War talked about assasinating some Senators;

(3) his now-forgotten early opposition to Reagan's liberation of Grenada;

(4) his date of discharge from the military (OK, that was a short term memory failure - he told the Harvard Crimson in 1970 that he had been discharged, and stayed with that story until his records caught up with him).

Look, I would like to think I have had an interesting and varied life. But as full as it has been, I am sure that I would still find a heated discussion of the assassination of some US Senators to be quite memorable. I would probably remember when I left the service (I remember when I graduated from high school!). And I am sure that if people had been shooting at me on Christmas Eve while I was on a covert mission, I would not get confused about it.

On Grenada, Kerry might have forgotten that he hated everything Reagan did and the air he exhaled - from time to time lately, I have actually slipped and said something nice about Bill Clinton, so how can I judge another?

As to meeting with the Security Council, my guess is that Kerry goes to so many meetings, and these foreigners to whom he is constantly reaching out must all be shorter than he, and they're all speaking languages only Teresa understands... it probably becomes a blur.

But all that said, this one is absolutely inexplicable: "I was 30 yards away from Billy Buckner in that famous Shea Stadium game in '86."
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/

Shape Shifter 10-26-2004 02:49 AM
They Call Him Flipper
 
Quote:
Originally posted by sgtclub
Courtesy of Kos, circa 2 months after 9/11



http://slate.msn.com/id/2108682/

eta: Kos: "Wait--I thought shifting the focus to Saddam was a "diversion" and distraction from the fight against Al Qaeda! Not, apparently, when Kerry saw an opportunity to score political points by advocating it."
His opinion then was probably based on the slanted intelligence being foisted on him and an unsuspecting public by an administration that never met a forged document that it didn't like.

Not Me 10-26-2004 02:57 AM
They Call Him Flipper
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Shape Shifter
His opinion then was probably based on the slanted intelligence being foisted on him and an unsuspecting public by an administration that never met a forged document that it didn't like.
OK, for the next week, what say you that we just drop this pretense of civility and let all hell break loose? Then after the election and post-election lawsuits, we can return to civility? No?

SlaveNoMore 10-26-2004 03:25 AM
They Call Him Flipper
 
Quote:
Shape Shifter
His opinion then was probably based on the slanted intelligence being foisted on him
Would this be that intelligence? You know, the stuff foisted upon him in the 90's during those - count 'em - 8 years he spent on the Senate Intelligence Committee?

Hank Chinaski 10-26-2004 09:28 AM
Wronging the Right.
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
About 800 miles, off the top of my head. If not for Indiana, you could get from one to the other without passing through a state that's going to go for Bush.
So Ohio is not a "state" in the same sense that "United Kingdom, Poland, Australia, Japan etc." are not allies?

spookyfish 10-26-2004 09:30 AM
Wronging the Right.
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
So Ohio is not a "state" in the same sense that "United Kingdom, Poland, Australia, Japan etc." are not allies?
Thank you, Hank for coming to the defense of my home state. That said, I wouldn't say it's in the bag for W yet. It's going to be very, very close here.

andViolins 10-26-2004 09:55 AM
Wronging the Right.
 
Quote:
Originally posted by spookyfish
Thank you, Hank for coming to the defense of my home state. That said, I wouldn't say it's in the bag for W yet. It's going to be very, very close here.
Hey wait, can I hear that God-awful Bush/Saudi creepy radio commercial just ONE more time!!!!! Please?

aV

spookyfish 10-26-2004 09:59 AM
Wronging the Right.
 
Quote:
Originally posted by andViolins
Hey wait, can I hear that God-awful Bush/Saudi creepy radio commercial just ONE more time!!!!! Please?

aV
Ooh. I finally saw the "Wolves" commercial yesterday afternoon.

(It's going to be a long week. . . )

Replaced_Texan 10-26-2004 10:01 AM
Mosh
 
MTV, the network of draft paranoia, is a little nervous about Eminem's new video. I think it's safe to say that Mr. Mathers isn't voting for Bush.

I wonder how effective of a GOTV effort this will be. (spree: quicktime of Eminem's new video. No sex.)

sebastian_dangerfield 10-26-2004 10:34 AM
UNCOVERED
 
Quote:
Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Partisan bickering.
Before you vote, you really ought to check out a movie called Uncovered: The Truth About the War in Iraq. Its avaliable at Blockbuster.

I expected it to be some shrill Moore-esque hatchet job. Its not. Not by a long shot. Its a very dry, sober documentary which just lays out the facts about what the Admin said and what it knew leading up to the Iraq War. I disclose that it was funded by MoveOn, but again, its not overtly partisan. Most of the damning footage is from video of the Admin spokesmen.

Most damning of all is the piece where both Rice and Powell, in February 2001, state emphatically in a talk show that Iraq has been contained and that Hussein is NOT a threat.

Before you condemn it, watch it. I'd also recommend watching Fahrenhype 9/11, which does a solid job of debunking Moore's conspiracy theories.

Everyone really does need to see this flick. My jaw dropped during some segments. The "tale of the tape" on the Iraq War really is shocking.

bilmore 10-26-2004 10:52 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Sorry, but we get confused when you guys can't stay on message.
Nice spin. Your papers rush this into print before learning the truth - that, in fact, the material was gone when we arrived - your candidate and his buds trumpet it for a few days as Bush's failure - the national "neutral" networks work out like this:

**ABCNEWS Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 4 Times
**CBSNEWS Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 7 Times
**MSNBC Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 37 Times
**CNN Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 50 Times

and now, when it's all exposed as an attempted October Surprise lie, your line is, we're off message?

Wow.

bilmore 10-26-2004 10:54 AM
They Call Him Flipper
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Shape Shifter
His opinion then was probably based on the slanted intelligence being foisted on him and an unsuspecting public by an administration that never met a forged document that it didn't like.
He now says he never held this opinion.

Have you not figured out that this guy will say whatever he thinks the audience currently sitting at his feet want to hear?

bilmore 10-26-2004 10:55 AM
They Call Him Flipper
 
Quote:
Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Would this be that intelligence? You know, the stuff foisted upon him in the 90's during those - count 'em - 8 years he spent on the Senate Intelligence Committee?
This is not fair criticism. They only talked about this stuff at the meetings. How was he to have known about it?

Replaced_Texan 10-26-2004 11:02 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
Nice spin. Your papers rush this into print before learning the truth - that, in fact, the material was gone when we arrived - your candidate and his buds trumpet it for a few days as Bush's failure - the national "neutral" networks work out like this:

**ABCNEWS Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 4 Times
**CBSNEWS Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 7 Times
**MSNBC Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 37 Times
**CNN Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 50 Times

and now, when it's all exposed as an attempted October Surprise lie, your line is, we're off message?

Wow.
It's a good thing you don't have cable.

Secret_Agent_Man 10-26-2004 11:10 AM
Is this the October Surprise?
 
Quote:
Originally posted by sgtclub
Don't know, but I suspect it's the lies about meeting with members of the security council.
You know Club, I read the blog passage you posted on those "lies" by Kerry on his meetings in NYC with members of the Security Council, and the passage did not seem even internally consistent.

In other words, I read the revelation of the "truth" as being basically consistent with the supposed "lies" in the quotes from Kerry. It really seemed like someone straining with all their heart to manufacture a story when what Kerry said was basically true (i.e. he did go to NYC, he did meet with members of the Security Council, etc. prior to the vote on the Iraq resolutions.)

No serious person could consider that to be a "lie" -- much less think that it would or should hurt his campaign as an "October Surprise."

S_A_M

Not Bob 10-26-2004 11:10 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Not Me
So you agree that SH had WMDs then.
WMD is, as I understand it, a term of art. It doesn't include "a conventional explosive that can kill a lot of people." It means a nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon.*

Your rhetorical point is comparable to saying that someone acted in an improper way, therefore it was "malicious," and therefore the "malice" element of a cause of action was satisfied. (Actual quote from a judge in a case I had a long time ago on this very point: "I don't think that that word means what you think it means.")

*Things would be a lot clearer if they still used the NBC acronym, but I guess GE ("we bring good things to life") wasn't too happy about it.

Secret_Agent_Man 10-26-2004 11:17 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Not Me
If a Rep had said something like that about a black woman in the clinton administration, the Dems would be screaming racism.
Not so. I imagine there were some sharp comments from the GOP about Jocelyn Elders, for example, but I don't recall anyone saying that her resignation was compelled by racism.

S_A_M

P.S. As an outsider who is, like everyone here, largely ignorant of the real goings-on inside the White House, I'll say it does seem like Ms. Rice has been an ineffective manager and has been shunted aside by more forceful competing figures, to the detriment of our national security policy.

Secret_Agent_Man 10-26-2004 11:24 AM
They Call Him Flipper
 
Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
Have you not figured out that this guy will say whatever he thinks the audience currently sitting at his feet want to hear?
Worked for Clinton, and we had 8 reasonably good years. Just wish Kerry was as good at it as Clinton.

S_A_M

bilmore 10-26-2004 11:25 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
It's a good thing you don't have cable.
Oh oh.

New news since 8?

bilmore 10-26-2004 11:26 AM
They Call Him Flipper
 
Quote:
Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Worked for Clinton, and we had 8 reasonably good years. Just wish Kerry was as good at it as Clinton.
Not worth it. Look what the strain of it did to the poor guy's heart.

sebastian_dangerfield 10-26-2004 11:32 AM
They Call Him Flipper
 
Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
Have you not figured out that this guy will say whatever he thinks the audience currently sitting at his feet want to hear?
As opposed to Bush? I always love the criticism that Kerry panders. Of course he panders. They both pander. Thats the job definition.

Shape Shifter 10-26-2004 11:32 AM
to the anal....
 
Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
Nice spin. Your papers rush this into print before learning the truth - that, in fact, the material was gone when we arrived - your candidate and his buds trumpet it for a few days as Bush's failure - the national "neutral" networks work out like this:

**ABCNEWS Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 4 Times
**CBSNEWS Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 7 Times
**MSNBC Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 37 Times
**CNN Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 50 Times

and now, when it's all exposed as an attempted October Surprise lie, your line is, we're off message?

Wow.
I wonder how many times they ran admin lies that Iraq had WMDs?


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