Certainly, it was a huge mistake to leave it all unguarded. What I'm hinting at is not simply conventional explosives. I'm hinting at explosives and equipment that could be used to revive a nuclear arms program, or that could be transferred to terrorists for their own use.

 

You can buy it here, in the good 'ol US of A. You need to be licensed. Like it says in the article, this is the same materials we use for mining and building razing. It's guarded only in the sense you don't want Osama Q. terrorist walking into home depot and buying it. Saddam apparently got his in France (please, no jokes ).

Again, don't let someone tell you things. Just because you had a conversation with person A at location B doesn't mean anything. How do you know this is true? Ask the question to yourself and then find a way to answer it. This is critical thinking and it has become a lost practice.

Why does my direct experience with this technology mean nothing, because you saw George Tenet? What has that got to do with the price of rice in China? I'm not following...because you saw a man speak, and know several intelligence officers, you are now knowledgeable enough to make assumptions about what is physically possible and impossible?

You say impossible, only because you are ignorant, and then you try to fortify the ignorance with assertions made by unknown "intelligence" experts.

And hey WE SUPPORT TERRORISM!!! Wake up!!!! Read a book! We help terrorists and extremists, and then we go to war with said extremist. We support it!!! So thus, under your thinking, we align ourselves with terrorism! O' joy.

Sorry, I don't mean to direct hostility towards you, buy your argument is not strong.

 

I believe them because they teach courses on, you guessed it, intelligence and intelligence gathering capabilities. That was one of the strong points of the institution. So, your direct experience is either: experience of a sea change since 2003 in this field, or, it's not direct experience with intelligence gathering capability. What I have from you as a response is: "I know better because I directly experienced this." Well, I'd think the natural step when I pointed out that experts on intelligence gathering capability have said that it's not possible to scan an entire country for an item or person that you want to find, would be for you to point out your experience and how it differs. Perhaps you could explain your position with the NSA, CIA, or whatever it is that allows you to make these assertions. Judging by your location, I'm betting these assertions are coming from somewhere else...the infamous A.S.S., the most common agency source of information on internet forums.

Now, what on earth does "we support extremists!"!!!!" have to do at all with our discussion? Bringing up things that are completely irrelevant to the point at hand isn't just a sign of weakness...it's a sign that you need to reread your "rules of debate" or wherever it is you got those previous ideas about "burden of proof" and the "argument from complexity."

 

Bush claimed the world is safer. It happened under his watch. He is the commander in cheif of our miltary. If something goes wrong its his fault as our leader. What was that saying? "The ball stops here." Or something like that. So we miss taking out a player in causing over 700 terrorist attacks and now we mess up and leave a **** load of explosive for the taking. I don't expect Jr. to take responsiblites for his actions but for gods sake you should.

 

So when will you accept that there was none? When god comes down here and tells you Iraq had no real WMD? Come on when will you ever believe that there is none its been how long now? And Rumsfeld admiting something is not save face, they all hate to admit they were wrong. Jr. can't even think of a thing he has done wrong.

 

Bottom line here is that the U.S. military isn't capable of securing an entire country. Not with minimal assistance (please no don't forget Poland jokes). Bush needs to admit to himself that his eyes were bigger than his stomach. I have no idea how we are ever going to get out of this, but the fact that 380 tons of explosives dissapeared is even more evidence that things are only getting worse. He should have stuck things out in Afghanistan. He'd be much more likely to be re-elected with Osama in custody over Sadaam anyway. What the **** was he thinking?

 

http://www.drudgereport.com/nbcw.htm


haha, whoops. The explosives were already gone before American troops got there. To quote a republican strategist:

"Does this mean we should've invaded and liberated Iraq sooner?"

 

No, thats incorrect. Those explosive where secure and being overseen by the UN i believe. But then they got told to leave Iraq when we invaded hence open range because we didn't get there and secure them on time. So yes it is OUR failure that those are being used now against us. Since we knew where they where etc...

"U.N. weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished after the U.S. invasion last year."

 

All of my comments are in direct retort to you.
You said
So what I am saying is that, based on your thinking, that we also support terrorism everywhere because we sponsor terrorists. Pretty basic. I failed to direct quote, but I'm lazy Just trying to show you how silly this argument sounds. I didn't realise that it may be too complex without the quote.

They are not rules of debate, just common fallacies (as in fuzzy logic).

But let me comment on the idea of burden of proof. If I make a statement such as, there are WMD's, then the burden of proof is on me. I need to produce evidence that justifies this position. The claim that whatever has not yet been proved false must be true (or vice versa) is erronious. Since I made the initail claim (WMD) then I need to provide evidence. Is this not clear?

The initail argument we are discussing is the possibility of finding things buried in the sand, and the complexity of of doing a 'nation wide' search.

First, the technology exists. I suggest a google search of 'skin depth', 'wave propagation' and the like to help you determine that this it is indeed real. Acoustic waves travel easily through most materials. I do it all day long. Not the issue. The complexity of a nation wide search is the idea of intensity (power/area). this limits your abilites to penetrate to a certain extent, but given the time and manpower it is totally acceptable. Sea level? Are you saying that the water table of the country is too high? This technology is used under water to search for buried items (50 meters +, and yes, under sand and mud).

The intelligence argument regarding this issue in the past was that Saddam was moving the weapons, thus it was harder to sweep an area (items may be moved). Well, they shouldn't be moving anymore, should they?

Second, initailly Saddam was said to have 'stockpiles' of WMD's. After no stockpiles were found, intelligence used the idea of 'smart WMDS' (baby nukes) which are for the most part are damn hard to find. I won't make the claim that this can be done easily.

So I believe the next intelligence guess was that they are searching for small, dismantled items strewn across the land. If that's the case, doesn't sound like much of an operational weapons program to me.

Finding an underground bunker is not really a problem, but you must reduce you rastering area to increase your intensity. And in addition, I hate to call any of this 'intelligence' because it really dilutes the true meaning of the word.

Can you explain a bit more about the institution of which you speak? I'm curious as to it's purpose in our discussion.

If you or I were Saddam, of course we would want to rebuild our weapons program. The middle east is no playground. Our president impressed upon us an urgency because his intelligence (are these same intelligence people of which you speak?) told him that Saddam had (or tried really hard and could have) a nuclear program.

I think as a citizen, I expected us to go in there and find factories blazing and churning out Anthrax and the like. Didn't you? Every day the 'intelligence' officers tells them that the WMD's are getting smaller and harder to locate.
Sounds like good job security to me.

Maybe we need new 'intelligece' officers, ones that know how to implement technology, or that can identify threats such as Al Qaeda before they fly planes into buildings. You are not convincing me that your intelligence officers are intelligent.

Still waiting for proof......

edit is teh sp3ll1ng

 

First of all, on the argument about technology:

If you do this all day long, then you understand how impractical it is to apply the surveillance and detection technology that we do have to enormous areas of land. Submarines would no longer be used if we could scan thousand upon thousands of square miles in any thing resembling an efficient manner. If you know where to look in the sand, then yes, you can scan it. That's an entirely different manner from scanning an entire country.

Since you didn't mention the intelligence agency you work for or even the name of any of the technologies or programs used, I'm assuming your ignorance is due to assumption or misrepresentation of what you do in fact know. Excusable maybe, but no less obvious.

Now, whether or not the US supports terrorists is in fact an unrelated issue. The obvious implication of a war against another state is not that we don't support statehood (as the US is itself an independent state). Rather, it's that we don't support people whose interests consist in harming our own interests.

But as an interesting aside, why don't you list the terrorists that the United States supports, and then list your sources for that information. I'd also like to see a little breakdown of some of the significant terrorist acts that were supported directly by the United States. I suspect this information of yours is also from that special "Agency" I referred to in my last post.

Now, as for "burden of proof", there are no moderators out there in space to determine who has to prove what. Politicians, bush included, do not have to do anything except be politicians. If no one cares about WMD's in a year, there'll be no need to bother proving them. If someone unimportant cares, same story. Now, the significant issue here that the Bush administration falls back on is beyond a doubt: Saddam was anti-US, and, given the opportunity, would aid an attack on United States interests. If that's enough or not isn't up to "burdens" or "rules of debate". It's a political question that'll be answered by votes, not silly understandings of what is fair game in a debate.

The institution where I received one part of my education is Georgetown University. Lots of people go there from lots of places to learn about intelligence. That includes capabilities to a degree. Now, if you know of a sonar machine that can scan millions of square miles at a time in land area (not depth...depth is irrelevant if you have a limited search area, for the most part), please tell us all about it. You'll be the first to let the public know about this super sonar machine.

 

I must say the way you wrote if the 'institution' I was expecting something a bit more clandestine. I mistakenly assumed you were gov. or had military training, thus the 'intelligence' speak. This isn't an issue, it just appeared more mysterious that it was. I expected you to say NORAD or NPS or maybe even DLI. No bother.

Who I work for exactly is of no concern (private company, no 'agency' ), but I am a materials scientist working in the field of tomography and similar applications. I'm not really sure how the omission of my employment leads to my ignorance, but perhaps you meant something else? The most basic way to describe the technology has already been done in a previous post. If you do not want to believe that this is an effective way to gather information on sub-terranean items, thats up to you. You can only lead a horse to water.

You said you can't find a building in the sand, and I said yes you can. Furthermore my point is that the 'intelligence gatherers' appear to be moving the the goal post. First they can't find stockpiles, then they can't find dissasembled items...etc....

Nobody said anything about a 'super sonar machine', and your attempts at using a reductio ad absurdum aren't helping your point. I hope you didn't get your JD (judas doctoral) at Georgetown, because you seem to be lacking in this area. And yes, that is an ad hominem!

I shall begin working on a list for you of our gov's involvment with terrorism, and I will start a new post so others can and add to it. I'm actually suprised that you are unaware of this. I think I've answered most all of your questions on this topic, but if not, let me know.

Also, it seems you are implying that we shouldn't hold our politicians accountable. I hope this is not the case.

You may be misunderstanding the idea of burden of proof. It's not about rules of debate, I think you mentioned this, not I. I don't believe in rules, but I do not tolerate fallacious arguments used to prop up a bad idea. The burden of proof is placed on the individiual that makes the assertion. In this case, that would be Bush.

Bush didn't stand before congress and say 'If Saddam was enabled he would do this" he said that Saddam had resurrected his program and was making WMD's. Thousands of people have since lost their lives because of this false assertion. If you don't realise this to be true then your faith in Bush is blinding you.

 

Please quote me where I said it was not possible to find a building in the sand.


Since you won't do that (because no such thing is possible), I'll repeat what I said before: It is not possible to scan millions of square miles for hidden bunkers/storage units. Especially not if they're underground. This is why there remain ancient cities to be discovered, and why it's possible for people to hide from other people, even in wartime.

As for institutions, if I worked for one of these agencies I'd simply cite myself. Now, as a materials scientist, you no doubt realize that your technology won't allow you to scan, say, the entire state of california for bunkers under the ground. Will you agree to that?

Also, I missed your list of "terrorists" supported by the united states. Was it in there, and I just read past it?

Edited to add:

JD is Juris Doctor, not "judas" doctor. And, I'm missing also the part where we talked about law.

 

Yes, it is not possible to scan in entire large country in a matter of minutes, with a single pass. Does that make you happy? If that is your argument, great. This is not the way this technology is used. I never stated it was easy. I commented on the complexity several times, but that does not make this an impossible task.

The comment about the JD has nothing to do with law. I was describing the poor argument arrangment, which is somthing they would teach you about in a JD program. But thanks for googling for me sometimes I type too fast.

There are plenty of ways to implement the technology, so I will postpone my terrorist list to educate you on several ways of looking at things underground.

 

Alright, now that we've settled that...how much area can you scan at a time with this technology? And how much does the technology cost per hour of use? That will take us to the final step, which is: It's not possible to scan an entire country for hidden articles and expect to find them without already knowing where to look. Please note that you failed to quote me on underground searches because I never said searching underground was impossible. Looking underground is not the issue, and I've never made it the issue. Searching large areas is, so I'll wait for your explanation on the costs and potential for searching a country, say, the size of Iraq with scanning equipment, then sending men to investigate every single structure that the scans show.

As for JD, I didn't have to google, because I'm in a JD program right now. As such, I'd like to see where the "construction" of my argument was lacking. Maybe you could do a symbolic breakdown of it. That might be enlightening, especially for you.

As for the terrorist list, if it's central to the argument, what is the reason for postponing it? I'm betting here that the reason you're postponing it is that you can't find a good example. An obvious reason for this is that the US doesn't need to support terrorism; it can achieve its political goals by economic and regular military means. So, I'm waiting, but not hoping or expecting.

 

Basically there are a few catagories, but it is best to combine several for a clear understanding of what's underground.
Resistivity
electromagnet
ground penetrating radar
magnetic properties.

Below is a magnetic anamoly map of South Dakota, just because size of scope has become an issue. Not so hard to scan an entire state for large magnetic anomolies. Buildings and bunkers fall into this catagory. When you compare aerial photos of above ground items you can compare and get a relative idea of where anomolies are occuring below ground. Not so bad. Then you want to scan relative areas to get put things into a smaller scale.

My favorite choice in combination with this is ground penetrating radar. It is a noninvasive electromagnetic geophysical technique for subsurface exploration, characterization and monitoring. It is widely used in locating lost utilities, environmental site characterization and monitoring, agriculture, archaeological and forensic investigation (did I say archeological, oh yeah baby), unexploded ordnance and land mine detection (sure can, not a problem), groundwater, pavement and infrastructure characterization, mining, ice sounding, permafrost, void, cave and tunnel detection, sinkholes, subsidence, karst, and a host of other applications.

It may be deployed from the surface by hand or vehicle, in boreholes, between boreholes, from aircraft and from satellites. It has the highest resolution of any geophysical method for imaging the subsurface, with centimeter scale resolution sometimes possible (this depends on your wavelength and intensity).

If there is any of this that is not understood, let me know, I will explain further. Just because you and some other people don't believe it's true, doesn't make it so. Opinion means very little on this topic.

If your next question is "why haven't we found all the lost cities etc... etc.." it's becasue this takes time and money, not something that everyone has.

Your missunderstanding of complex technology does not negate my argument, and it doesn't support your own.

Maybe the government is telling you it can't be done because they don't want to incriminate their behavior. Imagine having to tell the world that you didn't find WMD's and that your intelligence was wrong. Oh wait, that did happen.