bombus

I stand corrected. It's a long time since school!

What politics were they then? Isn't destroying Al Qaeda in our best interests?

That would most likely have been office furniture, curtains, blinds and carpets (wood, plastic, rubber) burning after the fuel had ignited it all. A puddle of gasoline is different. Have you ever seen a flamethrower being used?

Yes, I would agree with that. The difference though is that those who believe in the conspiracies are often dubbed whackos (and many probably are of course!) but those who refute all such theories are thought of as being level headed. As a fortean I find both positions suspect! I think almost all the fuel would have been consumed on impact in a flash. Jet fuel is highly flammable.

Those that wish to believe the official truth of 911 will go to the most extraordinary lengths to defend their position, as it represents, at a deep psychological level, a defence of all they hold true. It is in effect a defence of their reality. This vid could be a fake of course!

ignore this

My original point was that Iraq and offered to withdraw completely before the US launched their attack. Not the point. The point is that the whole affair was designed to destroy Iraq's military and civilian infrastructure for other goals - not just to remove Iraq from Kuwait. No I'm not. See answer above. I didn't see any of the war as I was in the UK and just saw news on TV. There was plenty of misinformation going around. Why did you mention it then? What was the date of that encounter? If war was by then inevitable as the US had refused to allow the withdrawal of Iraqi troops then maybe Iraq thought it had no alternative. Again you show your complete ignorance. The Geneva Convention of 1949, common article 3 outlaws the killing of soldiers who "are out of combat." It was clearly a war crime. They were retreating,many in civilian vehicles, and put up no resistance. There is film of iraqi troops waving white flags but still being mown down by helicopter gunships. I would guess that if they same happened to US troops you'd be up in arms! Extract: More than 2,000 vehicles and tens of thousands of charred and dismembered bodies littered the sixty miles of highway. The clear rapid incineration of the human being [pictured above] suggests the use of napalm, phosphorus, or other incindiary bombs. These are anti-personnel weapons outlawed under the 1977 Geneva Protocols. This massive attack occurred after Saddam Hussein announced a complete troop withdrawl from Kuwait in compliance with UN Resolution 660. Such a massacre of withdrawing Iraqi soldiers violates the Geneva Convention of 1949, common article 3, which outlaws the killing of soldiers who "are out of combat." There are, in addition, strong indications that many of those killed were Palestinian and Kuwaiti civilians trying to escape the impending seige of Kuwait City and the return of Kuwaiti armed forces. No attempt was made by U.S. military command to distinguish between military personnel and civilians on the "highway of death." The whole intent of international law with regard to war is to prevent just this sort of indescriminate and excessive use of force. Some troops certainly were, and AFTER the US build up. Because the US refused to accept it. As per previous anwer No it does not! But this was not one of them. The US could have easily warned Iraq not to invade, as Iraq had been threatening to invade for months. The US chose to do the opposite and suggested that it would not intervene. The question is WHY, but it's not hard to answer. Some wars are necessary, but most are not! I am not deliberately mis-stating any facts. I am merely coming to a different opinion on the meaning of the information.

An associate professor (nor an assistant) is NOT a full Professor, as you pointed out. I have a life. Just borrow the book and you won't have to rely on my mis-statements of facts. Well, I am fine with that. I have seen the data. When you see the data you can decide for yourself. I am not going to spend half my life putting it up here on this forum though. That's what libraries are for:-)

You are easily amused Often a very good one I did start doing a critique of her review, but realised it would take too much of my precious time. Why don't you just borrow the book from a library and judge for yourself? You won't have to take my word for it then. I firmly believe he is on to something BIG.

How does one actually define how big an object is? If it is touching another object, does that object include the object it is touching? How does one define touching? I'm just interested...

anothers hope, anothers game anothers loss, anothers gain anothers lies, anothers truth anothers doubt, anothers proof anothers left, anothers right anothers peace, anothers fight anothers name, anothers aim anothers fall, anothers fame anothers pride, anothers shame anothers love, anothers pain anothers hope, anothers game anothers loss, anothers gain anothers lies, anothers truth anothers doubt, anothers proof anothers left, anothers right anothers peace, anothers fight marx had an idea from the confusion of his head then there were a thousand more waiting to be led the books are sold, the quotes are bought you learn them well and then you're caught anothers left, anothers right anothers peace, anothers fight Hitler had ideas from the confusion of his heart then there were a thousand more waiting to play their part the stage was set, the costumes worn and another empire of destruction born anothers name, anothers aim anothers fall, anothers fame Jung had an idea from the confusion of his dream then there were a thousand more waiting to be seen you're not yourself, the theory says but i can help, your complex pays anothers hope, anothers anothers loss, anothers gain Satre had an idea from the confusion of his brain then there were a thousand more indulging in his pain revelling in isolation and existential choice can you truly be alone when you use anothers voice? Anothers lies, anothers truth anothers doubt, anothers proof the idea born in someones mind is nurtured by a thousand blind anonymous beings, vacuous souls do you fear the confusion, your lack of control? you lift your arm to write a name so caught up in the identity game who do you see? who do you watch? who's your leader? which is your flock? who do you watch? who do you watch? who's your leader? which is your flock? Einstein had an idea from the confusion of his knowledge then there were a thousand more turning to advantage they realised that their god was dead so they reclaimed power through the bomb instead anothers code, anothers brain they'll shower us all in deadly rain Jesus had an idea from the confusion of his soul then there were a thousand more waiting to take control the guilt is sold, forgiveness bought the cross is there as your reward Anothers love, anothers pain anothers pride, anothers shame do you watch at a distance from the side you have chosen? whose answers serve you best? who'll save you from confusion? who will leave you an exit and a comfortable cover who will take you oh so near the edge, but never drop you over? who do you watch?

Yes, but only if you happen to agree that international law is valid, which some do not (including the USA:-)) Yes, and Russia stopped killing Germans - unlike the US vs the Iraqis. So we are told. Some troops probably did invade, but nowhere near the amount we were lead to believe. They were dug in mostly on the border in Iraq He did not at all intend to invade Saudi Arabia! He was willing to leave without a shot being fired, so why did we attack? Why did we kill retreating defeated troops? This against international law, which you think was valid enough to declare Kuwait an independent state, but not valid enough to stop surrendered soldiers being massacred. Please provide evidence of this. You have seen plenty to the contrary. I can, and do and just have. Re-read my other post!

Dumb to us maybe, but maybe he felt that that the British had no right in the first place to declare Kuwait as an independent state. Saddam Hussein was dumb in not seeing the trap, and under international law had no right to do what he did regardless of how fair he thought the situation was, but we know how random the policing of international law seems to be! This seems similar to Iraq's actions before the invasion - they didn't think it would actually lead to a war. Germany didn't offer to retreat once they'd invaded though. Also, some of the stuff I said I'd post up is below: On September 11, 1990, Bush also told a joint session of Congress that "following negotiations and promises by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein not to use force, a powerful army invaded its trusting and much weaker neighbor, Kuwait. Within three days, 120,000 troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then I decided to act to check that aggression." However, according to Jean Heller of the St. Petersburg Times (of Florida), the facts just weren't as Bush claimed. Satellite photographs taken by the Soviet Union on the precise day Bush addressed Congress failed to show any evidence of Iraqi troops in Kuwait or massing along the Kuwait-Saudi Arabian border. While the Pentagon was claiming as many as 250,000 Iraqi troops in Kuwait, it refused to provide evidence that would contradict the Soviet satellite photos. U.S. forces, encampments, aircraft, camouflaged equipment dumps, staging areas and tracks across the desert can easily be seen. But as Peter Zimmerman, formerly of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the Reagan Administration, and a former image specialist for the Defense Intelligence Agency, who analyzed the photographs for the St. Petersburg Times said: We didn't find anything of that sort [i.e. comparable to the U.S. buildup] anywhere in Kuwait. We don't see any tent cities, we don't see congregations of tanks, we can't see troop concentrations, and the main Kuwaiti air base appears deserted. It's five weeks after the invasion, and from what we can see, the Iraqi air force hasn't flown a single fighter to the most strategic air base in Kuwait. There is no infrastructure to support large numbers of people. They have to use toilets, or the functional equivalent. They have to have food.... But where is it? On September 18, 1991, only a week after the Soviet photos were taken, the Pentagon was telling the American public that Iraqi forces in Kuwait had grown to 360,000 men and 2,800 tanks. But the photos of Kuwait do not show any tank tracks in southern Kuwait. They clearly do show tracks left by vehicles which serviced a large oil field, but no tank tracks. Heller concludes that as of January 6, 1991, the Pentagon had not provided the press or Congress with any proof at all for an early buildup of Iraqi troops in southern Kuwait that would suggest an imminent invasion of Saudi Arabia. The usual Pentagon evidence was little more than "trust me." But photos from Soviet commercial satellites tell quite a convincing story. Photos taken on August 8, 1990, of southern Kuwait - six days after the initial invasion and right at the moment Bush was telling the world of an impending invasion of Saudi Arabia - show light sand drifts over patches of roads leading from Kuwait City to the Saudi border. The photos taken on September 11, 1990, show exactly the same sand drifts but now larger and deeper, suggesting that they had built up naturally without the disturbance of traffic for a month. Roads in northern Saudi Arabia during this same period, in contrast, show no sand drifts at all, having been swept clean by heavy traffic of supply convoys. The former DIA analyst puts it this way: "In many places the sand goes on for 30 meters and more." Zirnmerman's analysis is that "They [roads] could be passable by tank but not by personnel or supply vehicles. Yet there is no sign that tanks have used those roads. And there's no evidence of new roads being cut. By contrast, none of the roads in Saudi Arabia has any sand cover at all. They've all been swept clear."[6] It would have taken no more than a few thousand soldiers to hold Kuwait City, and that is all satellite evidence can support. The implication is obvious: Iraqi troops who were eventually deployed along the Kuwait-Saudi Arabian border were sent there as a response to U.S. build up and were not a provocation for Bush's military action. Moreover, the manner in which they were finally deployed was purely defensive - a sort of Maginot Line against the massive and offensive mobilization of U.S. and Coalition forces just over the border with Saudi Arabia.

Venus isn't close enough to the sun for it to greatly increase temperatures much above Earth. There's plenty of water on Venus in the form of steam. I think the increased pressure is due to te CO2 content of the atmoshpere.

I'll post up some stuff that questions your beliefs about what happened regarding Kuwait. I'm on a different PC at the moment so have not access to it. Much of what was supposed to have happened to Kuwait was probably propoganda. Question everything!

. I apologise for my flippant behaviour - too many beers! But, isn't this essentially the same as the double slit experiment which observation over time shows that electons/photons interact with 'non existent' interferring photons. I thought the problem occured when following individual electrons/photons one at a time and observing their progress continually throughout.

For somone so intelligent, you don't question much do you?

I am not going to define torture as its obvious and I don't wish to waste my time. Hardly! By definition you can't project HUMAN emotions on to animals. Thats no the same as saying animals have no emotions. What is your point? Rats have evolved to respond to significant stuff. They probably don't enjoy being injected but quickly learn that it's nothing to worry about. Humans, even those injected by force, would soon learn not to worry about it. Slaves learned stuff like this. It applies equally to humans. Evolution by natural selection takes many generations. Experiments by definition ae not natural selection and just SUGGEST what happens in 'nature'. Speak for yourself I do understand evolution by natural selection you know! What do you think emotions are? I am as sure as I can be. As sure as I am that physical reality exists. If I could be bothered I probably could. I am discussing that. I am maybe not as aspergic as you might be, so can infer wider meanings from words. Dogs ae capable of being 'happy' in a dog type way, which IMO isn't so far removed from human 'happiness' to be treated in a different way.

They are close enough, or can we torture dogs because they are actually little automotons and don't REALLY feel distressed when tortured as it's just an emotionless reaction. I think not. Maybe rats do get bored. Dogs do. Maybe it's not much of a big deal to them! It's over in a few seconds and hardly hurts. Most humans fear of injections is actually pretty irrational. Not at all. In the same way that evolution cannot be tested but can be inferred by our knowledge of geology, paleontology, genetics (essentially), physics, dendrology, maths etc... we can use our accumulated knowledge to make educated guesses. A I think you are probably 98.345798765% wrong about that:-) Well, as I said, the accumulated knowledge of our past years of human existence - particularly the last 400 years. As I said above, we can make intuative leaps based on sound science from related areas (like the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection) without actually being able to scientifically test that which we are considering. Emotional behaviours/responses evolved like this. The thing is, I am sure chimps are about as 'self aware' as, say, a 2 - 3 year old human child, and this could also be applied to other great apes. This can never really be proven. Although behavioural experiments have suggested this, we still have to rely on our 'common sense' which is based on our accumulated knowledge to interpret those experimental results. Dogs are probably less 'self aware' than great apes, but one can still tell when they are 'happy' or 'sad' or 'distressed' or 'scared'. These attributes are human descriptions, but I think it's reasonabe to assume that dogs have similar feelings going through them as us albeit less developed or 'fine tuned', but in the same ballpark. However, an earwig defending it's young would most probably IMO be acting at a totally different level of conciousness, more akin to robotic behaviour. Now just because we can't prove that animals have [lets call them] emotions doesn't mean that I should reject my 'common sense' and assume that a bear acts at a similar conscious level as an earthworm. Yes, we should be careful when applying human emotions to animals, but we shouldn't just be stupid about it either. Well, I agree with most of that but I think 'self awareness' is a gradient, not a threshold.

That's an opinion! In the Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913, the British concurred with the Ottoman Empire in defining Kuwait as an "autonomous caza" of the Ottoman Empire and that the Shaikhs of Kuwait were not independent leaders, but rather qaimmaqams (provincial sub-governors) of the Ottoman government. After World War I, the Ottoman Empire was financially crippled and the invading British forces invalidated the Anglo-Ottoman Convention, declaring Kuwait to be an "independent sheikhdom under British protectorate. Also in WW1 the germans never offered to retreat: That the Bush administration wanted the war is obvious by its steadfast refusal to enter into any genuine negotiations with Iraq that could have achieved a diplomatic solution. Iraq's August 12, 1990, negotiation proposal, which indicated that Iraq was willing to make significant concessions in return for a comprehensive discussion of other unresolved Middle East conflicts, was rejected out of hand by the Bush administration. So was another Iraqi offer made in December that was reported by Knut Royce in Newsday. President Bush avoided diplomacy and negotiations, even refusing to send Secretary of State Baker to meet Saddam Hussein before the January 15, 1991 deadline as he had promised on November 30, 1990. Bush also rejected Iraq's withdrawal offer of February 15, 1991, two days after U.S. planes incinerated hundreds of women and children sleeping in the al-Arneriyah bomb shelter. The Iraqis immediately agreed to the Soviet proposal of February 18, 1991 - that is four days before the so-called ground war was launched - which required Iraq to abide by all UN resolutions. The U.S. ground war against Iraqi positions resulted in the greatest number of casualties in the conflict. As many as 50,000 to 100,000 Iraqi soldiers may have died after the Iraqi government had fully capitulated to all U.S. and UN demands. It is thus obvious that the U.S. government did not fight the war to secure Iraq's eviction from Kuwait but rather proceeded with this unparalleled massacre for other foreign policy objectives. Copyright © 1992 by The Commission of Inquiry for the International War Crimes Tribunal

This is all based on rubbish. The observation occurs as soon as the results of the experiment are observed for the first time. You can't get away with it like this!

Yes, and other humans are very close to me genetically. Similarly, chimps are also pretty close, and so are baboons. Relative to worms, flies and bacteria, dogs and pigs are very very close too. I think in general terms its stupid NOT to see 'human' emotions in higher vertebrates. Much of science is based on hunches that are then proven. It's very hard to prove subjective issues scientifically so we use our common sense based on sound science to make judgements. Think of the way bears (for example) go mad in captivity and display repetitive behaviour. Are we going to say that becasue we can't prove in human terms that they are distressed they are fine? As alluded to above, judgement based on all our accumulated knowledge of the past 100,000 years or so can help us. One could choose to ignore it, but I think that would be foolish.

Venus is a better bet than Mars despite what has been said above. It still has a thick atmosphere and active plate tectonics - which are actually very important in maintaining life. The reason why it's so hot is due to a runaway greenhouse effect. If we could seed the atmosphere with photosynthesising bacteria/algae/whatever we could in time convert the CO2 into fixed carbon and molecular oxygen. The planet would cool and become good for sustaining life. Far better than the possibilities available on Mars.

Saddam hated Al Qaeda etc as much as us, because he was a believer in secular government. They hated him more than they hate us. He'd have NEVER let them in as they would have challenged his authority. He didn't really stop being our guy in 1991. In late July, 1990, as negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait stalled, Iraq massed troops on Kuwait’s borders and summoned American Ambassador April Glaspie for an unanticipated meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.According to the transcripts, Saddam outlined his grievances against Kuwait, while promising that he would not invade Kuwait before one more round of negotiations. In the version published by The New York Times on September 23, 1990, Glaspie expressed concern over the troop buildup, but went on to say: "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait. I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late ’60s. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via [Chadli] Klibi [then Arab League General Secretary] or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly." Some have interpreted these statements as diplomatic language signalling an American "green light" for the invasion. Although the State Department did not confirm (or deny) the authenticity of these transcripts, U.S. sources say that it had handled everything “by the book” (in accordance with the US’s official neutrality on the Iraq-Kuwait issue) and had not signaled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein any approval for defying the Arab League’s Jeddah crisis squad, which had conducted the negotiations. Many believe that Saddam’s expectations may have been influenced by a perception that the US was not interested in the issue, for which the Glaspie transcript is merely an example and that he may have felt so in part because of U.S. support for the reunification of Germany, another act that he considered to be nothing more than the nullification of an artificial, internal border. So, maybe he was tricked into invasion so that we had an excuse to impose sanctions and bomb Iraq for 10 years to allow a ground invasion to seize the oil! Damn conspiracy theories...

If we wanted to destroy Islamic extremists, and Al Qaeda, we should have given Saddam more support, not deposed him. He killed more Al Qaeda operatives, and Islamic extremists that anyone. He was our best defence against them! As they say, he was a bastard, but he was our bastard.