2004/05/18

More from Mars Rover
I'm not sure what to make of this. They are now investigating another rock sample in search of clues to the time when Mars was wet. Boffin stuff, but interesting.

Aum Supreme Truth
During the early 1990s, the Aum Supreme Truth Sect was contacted by Iraqis to sell some Sarin gas. The Iraqis wanted to know it worked. So the sect let some off in a Tokyo subway station in Tsukiji (home of my old company, Dentsu). The result was the 1995 Sarin gas attack. Obviously it was a good sales ploy, as sarin has surfaced in Iraq. Was the buyer satisfied? We'll never know. For whatever it's worth, I have always had strong belief in the case of the Iraqis possessing what is known today as Weapons of Mass Destruction (like a 500lb bomb isn't).

They had mustard gas and used it against Iran in the 8 year war in the 1980s. Time magazine had published the corpses of the Iranians who died in the marshlands for heaven's sake, but we've all forgotten that. Collin Powell could have taken old issues of Time magazine into the UN and said, "Look, they used mustard gas! Ask the Iranians!" The sarin gas discovered only fills out another part of the puzzle. While I can't really say much about the motives or methods of the allied forces in Iraq (who can, after 'Sex-Torture-gate'?), I have always been convinced UNSCOM was foiled, and that the Iraqis had ample time to hide these things.

- Art Neuro
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6 comments:

DaoDDBall said...

I dislike the spin that has been imparted before I write this. I feel that this delivery is straight, but .. The discovery of WMD does not justify the position of the Coalition of the Willing. Rather, it refutes the opposition of Germany and France.

9:54 pm
Art Neuro said...

What spin? What ARE you talking about, Mr. Weasel? :)
I made a point of not saying anything about whether it was good or bad to be in Iraq. This blog really isn't the place for it. Did you actually check the links, Mr. Weasel? :)

The main point is the Iraqis incontrvertibly had the WMD, and we know they had WMD because we know the people that sold it or gave it to them. There's nothing more to it than that. Frankly, the intransigence of the French, Germans and Russians leading up to the war was pretty annoying to watch. Of the three, the German leadership had just won a popular vote on an anti-war platform, so it made sense even if one didn't agree with it. The French opposed it because they didn't want the world to find out sjut how much stuff they'd been selling the Iraqis over the years (what scum!). The Russians said no because well, they're still the Russkies and hate the Yanks getting the spotlight; which is a pretty crappy motivation over-all (Still a pack of commies!).

The position that the Iraqis *didn't* have WMD spits in the face of years of work by UNSCOM, Butler and company and should be laid to rest. It's not helping our understanding.

12:28 pm
Anonymous said...

Yep, we agree on the main points. My 'spin' reference wasn't directed at you, but at world media. The same that insist on calling President Bush by his middle initial, in the hopes of it being annoying (it is!). The same media that ask the question "Where are the WMD?" and make the suggestion that the Coalition of the Willing went to war for no other reason that oil, using the WMD as an excuse to kill non americans. You are surely aware that crap has been expressed by almost every media outlet in the world.

3:20 pm
Art Neuro said...

Yes Mr. Weasel, I am aware of the media presentation of the facts.
Specifically on the point of WMD, I think I've been pretty consistent in saying:
1) They had it and used it in the Iran-Iraq war of the 80s.
2) they had it and used it against the Kurds.
3) that they bought sarin tchnology from the Aum Supreme Truth Sect.
4) UNSCOM was initiated and activated to get rid of them after Gulf War I, but Saddam played coy so we couldn't confirm the status ACCORDING TO THE TERMS OF PEACE SIGNED IN 1991.
5) And so since 1998 when Saddam expelled UNSCOM, Iraq has been fair game. It's only because the Clintons didn't want a war that Saddam was left to whatever he wanted within Iraq; and that was not a good decision.
6) France and Germany are welchers because they agreed to the term ending Gulf War I; hung on with the UNSCOM process; then turned around and said no.
So I think I've kept a straighter line than the bloody media. In fact I wonder where their collective memory is when they start up with the war on terror and all that.

OTOH, it is my contention that linking trade/oil/war on terror to the Iraq campaign was a mistake by Bush, Blair, Howard and co.
The problem was Saddam not fulfilling his end of the trms of ceasefire at the end of Gulf War I, so absolutely deserved to get creamed for his 'non-fulfillment'.
Is this good? I don't know, I'm not a moralist.
Is this desirable or of utility? I don't know, I don't have enough information.
Is it looking good right now? Not right now, given the hits the Governing Council is taking, but again, I don't have all the facts.
No spin. Just straight lines.

6:12 pm
DaoDDBall said...

You might beleive that Bush, Blair and Howard made the running on oil, but you have nothing but the assertion of political opponents to sustain the arguement.

There was Oil for supplies, that the then UN mandated Iraq under Hussein used to pay for its military.

There was the Oil at all costs allegation made by Mandela and the Pope. The Pope's people have since admitted outrage at not subsequently getting the Pope a peace prize ("But he opposed the War!").

In fact, the Bush administration has said consistently that the world was going to have to pay for Iraq, with the price being undercut by the eventual reestablishment of oil. Russia and France and Syria are the ones hit hardest by the oil crisis .. they were getting it on the cheap from Hussein. One of the many reasons they supported Hussein. All those horrible allegations of US motive are no more than the shadow cast by the motives of the opponents of the US.

6:43 pm
Art Neuro said...

Again, I don't care about the oil.
I'm really not interested in that aspect of the argument for/against a war on Iraq.

WMD is something else. I think Saddam might have dismantled the WMD between 1998 and 2003. Alternatively he might have had them in 1991-1994, and used them up in quelling the Kurds and Shi'ites in those years.
hence he might have looked to getting Sarin from the Aum Supreme Truth Sect in 1995.
But this is purely my conjecture. I haven't seen anybody advance this line.

I always thought the intransigence of the French and Russians was pretty petty and disgusting. Germans, I could understand. The guy won an election syaing he was going to oppose it so he couldn't really turn around and support it. So misinformed, but what the hell.
The French and Russians though, were the Coalition of the Weaseling Out in my books.

11:13 am

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