Is trump about to lie us into another war like W did with his weapons of mass destruction claims?

Cassandra · Jun 21, 2025

bongsaway said:
Here's my evaluation, this is not our problem. If Iran gets a nuke, who do you think they will use it against first, America or Israel? Do you honestly believe if Iran were to get a nuke they would attack America? If Iran uses a nuke, the world will respond with overwhelming force, not necessarily a nuclear response.

My goodness. Why on earth would you say such a thing? The Iranian regime would like to have a nuclear weapon as a deterrent! They have endured an 8 year bloody conflict w Iraq backed by the U.S. and repeated assassinations by Israel, and years of economic sanctions. The looniest regime I can think of- N.Korea- has never used its nuclear weapon, nor the next most unstable- Pakistan. Iranians are not stupid or crazy. They seek such weapons to maintain the regime.

The Mullahs are broadly disliked within the country and it is quite likely that the regime would moderate, or fall , internally, given time.

Unfortunately, there is almost 0 chance of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon without a ground war including regime change.

humbolt · Jun 21, 2025

reinaert said:
You should check before you sprawl out a standard issue rightwing flub. Make sure your correspondent isn't someone who thought Biden had diminished capacity. For starters.

Someone who just whitewashed Netanyahu would be, one muses.

I don’t think he’s a psychopath. That’s not an endorsement, since you don’t seem to know the difference. It makes me wonder what else you don’t know. If you didn’t notice Biden’s mental deficiencies before he ran, you weren’t paying attention. It wasn’t a “stutter.” It was floating shorts in the circuitry.

H. E. Panqui · Jun 21, 2025

Apparently it's ok with many neocon retards that IZrael has some unknown/uninspected ?dozens/?hundreds of nukes for deterrence to protect around 10 million people.. whereas Iran can't have one to protect her 90 million?!?

Ime, only a twisted, stooooooooooopid, brain-laundered asshole could/would defend this hideous policy.. ugh.

CaughtInThe · Jun 21, 2025

reinaert · Jun 21, 2025

humbolt said:
I don’t think he’s a psychopath. That’s not an endorsement, since you don’t seem to know the difference. It makes me wonder what else you don’t know. If you didn’t notice Biden’s mental deficiencies before he ran, you weren’t paying attention. It wasn’t a “stutter.” It was floating shorts in the circuitry.

So, you read the part about making sure and whimbled on past it to natter on about Biden's acuity like a good little lockstepper?

Cool. Anyway, as to my assertion that Netayahu is a classic sociopath, there is the commentary from the Israeli Knesswt member.

humbolt · Jun 21, 2025

H. E. Panqui said:
^^^

Are you aware that your stinking Republicrat government has killed, facilitated in the killing of, etc., more people than any government in your lifetime, right?

I don’t know about that. I’ve been around for a long time. I remember Mao and the cultural revolution. Stalin was still alive. You’ll have to do better.

Craig234 · Jun 21, 2025

Cassandra said:
Are you aware that Khamenei is 86 years old, injured seriously in an assassination attempt in the 80's? He will not live long even if Israel refrains from assassinating him. Meanwhile, the current Iranian president is a moderate, but moderation in Iran is frequently undermined by the aggressive actions of the West. Can you blame the regime for distrusting proposed agreements with U.S. and Israel when they have been lured into a trap , not for the first time?

This is an old issue. Countries have people who want wars and people who want peace, and the more adversaries are seen as threats, the stronger the hawks who want war get. It's true in Iran, the US, and every country that isn't completely dictatorial.

Simon W. Moon · Jun 21, 2025

Jay59 said:
How so?
Document.

feel free to search DP for my posts from the 2000s

Not re-hashing it here.

Jay59 said:
Bush was right in that he believed Saddam had WMD.
That the weapons were gone does not invalidate the assessment.

The fact that there were no WMD stockpiles sorta does invalidate an assessment that there were stockpiles of WMD.

Jay59 · Jun 22, 2025

H. E. Panqui said:
Are you trying to tell me that the overwhelming majority of these miserable Republican shit puppet$ don't enable these crazed racist murderous Zionist IZraeli warmongers?!?!

I said I was not a Republican.

The rest is you.

H. E. Panqui said:
Sadly, as to foreign policy, monetary policy, the lack of government transparency, etc.. only a fool could quibble about any puny differences among these Republicrat shit puppet$.

There we will disagree.

There was a major difference between Obama's placating in 2015-16 and Trump's blunt candor in 2019-20

soap box said:
That's not true. Citation needed. Evidence of chemical weapons from the era of the Iran Iraq war were found. The WMD claimed by the intelligence community never materialized. So show us the citation of something you claim but never happened.

Chemical weapons are WMD.

So are biological weapons like anthrax. I have the inoculations to prove it.

Simon W. Moon said:
feel free to search DP for my posts from the 2000s Not re-hashing it here.

That's a concession.

Simon W. Moon said:
The fact that there were no WMD stockpiles sorta does invalidate an assessment that there were stockpiles of WMD.

That's the logical fallacy of a false equivalence.

None today does not imply none ever.

soap box · Jun 22, 2025

Jay59 said:
Chemical weapons are WMD.

So are biological weapons like anthrax. I have the inoculations to prove it.

I agree, but I can't find any report of chemical or biological weapons that were contemporary that match the claims made in order to justify the war. Do you have a source that would explain that?

Craig234 · Jun 22, 2025

Not about to, he did.

Craig234 · Jun 22, 2025

Simon W. Moon said:
The fact that there were no WMD stockpiles sorta does invalidate an assessment that there were stockpiles of WMD.

"WMD" is like a Jeopardy answer to the question, "What can be used to give as a justification for the war on Iraq, to hide the actual reasons, largely because the rogue state wanted it?"

joluoto · Jun 22, 2025

Jay59 said:
Bush admits that the decision was made on outdated information.

Is there a point you are trying to make?

The Bush administration chose to believe that grifter Ahmed Chalabi because they liked what he said, despite US intelligence agencies doubting any word that came out of his mouth. Chalabi really grifted the US into a war with Iraq.

Sweden · Jun 22, 2025

ClaraD said:
I believe that Bush was convinced by his advisers that there were WMD..Trump knows Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon

Trump and the rest of the civilised world knows that Iran is very close to having nuclear weapons. And having them in the hands o primitive totalitarian theocrats woul be a danger to us all.

H. E. Panqui · Jun 22, 2025

Ime, you'd have to be a brain-laundered, Republicrat-level maroon to not understand who the world champion terrorists are...

Global victims of US military aggression

US' military interventions globally range from direct military actions to covert operations to military support for client states. Lasting from days or weeks to over many years, these result in significant loss of life.

www.ibon.org

"The United States’ (US) extensive overseas military engagements since World War II have resulted in millions of deaths worldwide. Since 1945, the US has used its global network of bases and military agreements to invade or intervene in 96 countries. These operations started during the so-called Cold War, as the US sought to prevent communist expansion, and continue today under a self-declared War on Terror....

....The US’ hostile military actions abroad violate the United Nations (UN) Charter’s provisions on peaceful settlement of disputes and refraining from the use of armed force except in self-defense after an armed attack by another state. None of the countries the US has invaded or attacked previously initiated hostilities against it. The US acts without Security Council approval when it wants to and also systematically violates many other UN resolutions and international law.

The most severe of the US’ acts of aggression have resulted in some 13-23 million deaths in at least 28 nations. Direct US military actions in at least 16 countries have caused around 7-13 million deaths. US-supported or -instigated armed conflicts in 19 countries have led to some 6-10 million deaths. There are countries where the US has engaged both directly in combat and indirectly through active military support.

These figures still do not include casualties from all the governments the US has supported militarily in their domestic conflicts against supposed insurgents and other political opposition. Many tens of thousands more have been killed by client states with US support and using US-funded and -supplied war materiel, such as in the Philippines..."

Simon W. Moon · Jun 22, 2025

Jay59 said:
That's a concession.

If that's what you need to tell yourself . . .

Jay59 said:
That's the logical fallacy of a false equivalence.
None today does not imply none ever.

lol

You're playing games

You are the only one who is talking about anything but the time period during the lead up to the war.

You act like you think Hussein suddenly opened up a WMD incineration plant in February 2003 and ran it 24/7.

Or perhaps you think that Hussein's weapons in the early 1990s are what he war was all about.

Can't really tell.

Simon W. Moon · Jun 22, 2025

Jay59 said:
Chemical weapons are WMD.

fyi,

GWB's claim was not that there were some decades old munitions rotting in Iraq

Jay59 said:
So are biological weapons like anthrax. I have the inoculations to prove it.

fwiw,

anthrax is a disease not a WMD

You can use anthrax to make a WMD. But a pile of anthrax spores is not a WMD.

anthrax is indigenous to Africa, Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe

Simon W. Moon · Jun 22, 2025

Craig234 said:
"WMD" is like a Jeopardy answer to the question, "What can be used to give as a justification for the war on Iraq, to hide the actual reasons, largely because the rogue state wanted it?"

please excuse

soapbox

WMD were NOT the justification for invading Iraq

the threat of Iraq using WMD in a terrorist attack on the US was what was used to justify the invasion of Iraq

this required a counterfactual narrative that Hussein was undeterrable

/soapbox

Jagged · Jun 22, 2025

Jay59 said:
Do I need to elaborate why this says that Saddam did not have WMD at that time?

It's because he didn’t have what we invaded over. And Hussein didn't get rid of his own weapons, which would have been stupid when he was about to be invaded. The problem was blamed on poor intelligence. Both with us and England.

The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction

We conclude that the Intelligence Community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This was a major intelligence failure.

Jagged · Jun 22, 2025

Jay59 said:
Chemical weapons are WMD.

So are biological weapons like anthrax. I have the inoculations to prove it.

Of course they are, but they were decades old. The Bush administration tried making it appear like Hussein was building and stockpiling WMD and trying to build nuclear weapons. This is what we invaded over.

25,000 liters of anthrax
38,000 liters of botulinum toxin
500 tons of mustard, sarin and VX nerve gas.
30,000 missiles and short-range rockets
reconstituting its nuclear weapons program

Questerr · Jun 22, 2025

humbolt said:
Why would anyone be concerned about a psychotic theocracy bent on the destruction of civilization having or pursuing a nuclear weapon? I always use uranium enriched to 60% in my reactor, and let me tell ya, I always have hot water.

The idea that Iran’s leaders are “psychotic” or “bent on the destruction of civilization” has no basis in reality.

Simon W. Moon · Jun 22, 2025

Questerr said:
The idea that Iran’s leaders are “psychotic” or “bent on the destruction of civilization” has no basis in reality.

that's pro-war crazy-talk you're gainsaying there
: )

tbf, I am sure that Iranian politicians are every bit as awful as politicians tend to be

HOWEVER,

that's incredibly different than them being undeterrable psychos

Convincing everyone that the enemy is undeterrable is the essential step to convincing people that preventive wars are equivalent to pre-emptive attacks

LouC · Jun 22, 2025