Terrorist gas attack.

'WMD' is an accromym for 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'.

Somebody is still making WMDs in or for Iraq terrrorists.

 

Someone exploded a chlorine tanker, no more of a WMD than the 9-11 airplanes were.

 

Huh? The airplanes on 9/11 did not cause mass destruction? That's a weird view.

 

So you're saying any country that make airplanes are making WMDs?

 

Naw, just saying that you have a weird view. However, I guess if I followed a politically correct view of WMD's I'd have to agree with you.

Personally, I never did get the definition. I think it's silly. It's like saying that the A-bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima were more deadly than the fire-bombings of Tokyo. Both were horrible. In WW1 the machine gun was a WMD--but who would call it one today? Silliness in my mind. A weapon is a weapon.

God bless.

 

What, that trucks and airplanes are not WMDs?

That's a technically correct, not politically correct. In fact, the airplanes of 9-11 didn't belong to the terrorists - they had box cutters. Box cutters are not WMDs by anyone's definiton.

Individually, they were, compared bomb to bomb.

In WWI, mustard gas was a WMD and still is today. Point is, airplanes and trucks are not usually weapons at all - and it isn't clear who the tankers belonged to, so to say that the terrorists were supplied with a WMD is incorrect.

 

Yep. I'm considered an expert in self defense by some. In my seminars and classes I teach that everything can be a weapon. This is a teaching of the Chinese martial arts--ever see what Jackie Chan uses for weapons in his movies? An airplane is a weapon if you force it to be flown into a building. In my mind it is then a so-called "WMD" if it causes mass destruction.

The whole WMD definition is a political construct, not a linguistic one. Not being a political animal, but being a linguist, I look at the definition as being ridiculous in real life, where common sense is actually used.

So what's wrong with this picture? In 1995 the AUM terrorists used sarin gas, labeled a WMD by the politicians, to kill just 12 people. (I was almost caught up in a second attack the next day, not commonly reported in the American media because no one was killed.) However, terrorists force airplanes to be flown into buildings and kill multitudes and cause massive destruction--but that is not called an attack by a WMD. (And it is patently obvious that they were in control of the airplanes themselves, since they trained to fly.)

 

Yeah, but this is the Politics Forum where common sense is not always welcome. I agree with you about its being a political construct, totally.

 

Chlorine gas, BTW, is absurdly easy to generate and store in compressed form. It isn't very effective at causing huge casualties, compared to more specific gases, but it still works.

 

Huh?? I wandered into the Politics Forum? I'm lost!!

 

Why is the trashing of two buildings considered mass destruction?

 

<quote of personal attack deleted - LE>

My skills and knowledge in self defense will not be needed in Heaven, obviously. They are needed down here, though. I don't know what you are imagining; some brawler, or violent person looking for a fight? I teach "threat avoidance," not searching for threats and picking fights.

"Blessed be the Lord my Strength, which teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight." (Ps. 144:1)

 

How many lives and skyscrapers and businesses lost would it take to convince you it was mass destruction?

 

Well, brother, you'll just have to make your next trip a long one! :thumbs:

Fortunately, we don't seem to have any Islamics in our town. Their camels don't seem to like the cold and snow.

 

Anything owned by anyone, including the United States, designed pr capable of killing many, is a Weapon of Mass Destruction.