[karajorma]

I think I'm going to have to make it a rule that if you argue someone is wrong and haven't bothered to check Wikipedia first you get a humiliating title / name change for a week.

For the general purposes of national defense,[27] the U.S. Code[28] defines a weapon of mass destruction as:

    any weapon or device that is intended, or has the capability, to cause death or serious bodily injury to a significant number of people through the release, dissemination, or impact of:
        toxic or poisonous chemicals or their precursors
        a disease organism
        radiation or radioactivity[29]

For the purposes of the prevention of weapons proliferation,[30] the U.S. Code defines weapons of mass destruction as "chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, and chemical, biological, and nuclear materials used in the manufacture of such weapons."[31]


Criminal (civilian)

For the purposes of US criminal law concerning terrorism,[32] weapons of mass destruction are defined as:

    any "destructive device" defined as any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas - bomb, grenade, rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces, missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce, mine, or device similar to any of the devices described in the preceding clauses[33]
    any weapon that is designed or intended to cause death or serious bodily injury through the release, dissemination, or impact of toxic or poisonous chemicals, or their precursors
    any weapon involving a biological agent, toxin, or vector
    any weapon that is designed to release radiation or radioactivity at a level dangerous to human life[34]

[Aardwolf]

What kind of stupid definition is that? I don't care if it's the official definition, it's stupid.



Not only is your definition obscure, unintuitive, and not true to the literal meaning of the words it combines; it's also less useful.

Which is more useful to know, for all purposes except "actually being the guy whose job it is to disarm the thing"?

1. The enemy has a weapon. It is capable of wiping out the entire population of a city.
2. The enemy has a weapon. It could be a nuke; it could be a vial full of anthrax; it could be a single artillery shell full of mustard gas.



I will continue to use "WMD" to mean what the vast majority of people think it means, which also happens to be intuitive, true to the literal meaning of the words it combines, and more useful.

But thank you for pointing out that some idiot has seen fit to formally redefine it in such a stupid way.



p.s. if you don't bother answering "which is more useful to know", i'm going to interpret that as a concession
p.p.s. someone please change the thread title; it's not "presidents", it's just Bush II; he wasn't conservative; and really it's just an "i told you so" over something that was never really in contention

[Lorric]

I was also surprised by what actually falls under WMD officially as compared to the way most people use the term and think of what the term actually means. My reaction was kind of WMDs are actually pretty weaksauce then... (comparatively speaking.)

But what really matters to this topic is not what defines a WMD, but what type of WMDs we thought they had or were working their way towards having to make us feel the need to go to war with them at all, and if they indeed had or were working towards those particular WMDs. The impression I got back then was the belief was he had or was working towards having WMDs which were a threat to us and that's why we went to war.

Check this out:

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Politics/documents/2002/09/24/dossier.pdf

You just need to search the word nuclear. It appears in that dossier 78 times. The concern was Saddam getting nuclear weapons and increasing the range of the missiles which could carry those nuclear weapons. And that is the definition of WMD that has spread to the people, and the definition of WMD we thought was the reason behind this war.

[karajorma]

Seriously Aardwolf? That's where you're going to draw your line in the sand?

There's the infinitely more sensible position of how the term may have been abused to make a weapon seem much more dangerous than it actually is to the common public but that's what you've decided to argue instead. 

[Aardwolf]

@karajorma:  I didn't say that's the definition of a WMD, just that it'd be more useful to know. Pick any scale you feel is suitably massive.

[karajorma]

Except that you are wrong.

Which is more useful to know, for all purposes except "actually being the guy whose job it is to disarm the thing"?

1. The enemy has a weapon. It is capable of wiping out the entire population of a city.
2. The enemy has a weapon. It could be a nuke; it could be a vial full of anthrax; it could be a single artillery shell full of mustard gas.

Given that all three weapons mentioned in 2 are illegal, 2 is a very useful definition. 1 is in fact rather useless. A dirty bomb for instance might not even kill anyone or at best cause a fairly low number of casualties but quite a few definitions of WMD include it. 

Basically, go read Wikipedia then come back once you've learned enough to make some useful comments.

[Scotty]

What kind of stupid definition is that? I don't care if it's the official definition, it's stupid.



Not only is your definition obscure, unintuitive, and not true to the literal meaning of the words it combines; it's also less useful.

Which is more useful to know, for all purposes except "actually being the guy whose job it is to disarm the thing"?

1. The enemy has a weapon. It is capable of wiping out the entire population of a city.
2. The enemy has a weapon. It could be a nuke; it could be a vial full of anthrax; it could be a single artillery shell full of mustard gas.



I will continue to use "WMD" to mean what the vast majority of people think it means, which also happens to be intuitive, true to the literal meaning of the words it combines, and more useful.

But thank you for pointing out that some idiot has seen fit to formally redefine it in such a stupid way.



p.s. if you don't bother answering "which is more useful to know", i'm going to interpret that as a concession
p.p.s. someone please change the thread title; it's not "presidents", it's just Bush II; he wasn't conservative; and really it's just an "i told you so" over something that was never really in contention

Just because you, a completely uninvolved lay-person, think that a definition is stupid and counter-intuitive is about as useful as you, a completely uninvolved lay-person, trying to tell a cellular biologist that it's stupid and counter-intuitive to say that heterotrophs predate autotrophs.  In both cases you're still unequivocally wrong, and everyone who actually knows what they're talking about will just roll their eyes and ignore you.

Chemical weapons of any stripe are still WMDs for the reasons that I've laid out.  We found a ****ton of chemical weapons in Iraq.  The dots really connect themselves after that.

[zookeeper]

What technically counts as a WMD seems like a very moot point, when the actual WMD pretext for the war was a lie regardless. The pretext was never about there being some decades-old barrels of stuff sitting around somewhere.

[karajorma]

Indeed. That much is true. Pretty much anyone with half a brain could have figured out that there was a chance at least some old WMDs were still lying around unused from the previous war. The claim made by the Bush administration was that Saddam was manufacturing new weapons. Which no has proved to this day.

[Aardwolf]

@Scotty: Fine, lets make up our own phrase to describe "a weapon which causes destruction on a massive scale". What should we call it?



@karajorma:

me: "which of these two pieces of intelligence would be more useful to have about an enemy?"
you: "the definition definitely isn't 'a whole city?' "
me: "not definition, pieces of intelligence!"
you: "definition 1 is useless"

Le sigh.

[Scotty]

That, or you could accept that you're just wrong and stop being so petulant about it.

[Flipside]

Well, as I understood it the concern wasn't so much the existence of the weapons, since we still had the receipt, as it were. The problem was the 45 minute deployment claim.

[Aardwolf]

That, or you could accept that you're just wrong and stop being so petulant about it.

If I tell someone "they found WMDs in Iraq", they'll ask what kind, I'll tell them "mustard gas", and they'll tell me to go **** myself.

No thanks, I'll stick with being "wrong".

[Scotty]

That, or you could accept that you're just wrong and stop being so petulant about it.

If I tell someone "they found WMDs in Iraq", they'll ask what kind, I'll tell them "mustard gas", and they'll tell me to go **** myself.

No thanks, I'll stick with being "wrong".

You should talk to someone who has a clue what the hell they're talking about.  If you're so deadset on being wrong because you're concerned about what other people think there's a little bit of a problem there.

[Phantom Hoover]

What technically counts as a WMD seems like a very moot point, when the actual WMD pretext for the war was a lie regardless. The pretext was never about there being some decades-old barrels of stuff sitting around somewhere.

I'd prefer if this kind of thing was discussed rather than Aardwolf's futile auto-strawmanning. This 'revelation' excuses nothing.

[Mars]

I don't really know what the dispute is. We went to war with Iraq, and the past tense reasons for doing so are outlined here (http://2001-2009.state.gov/documents/organization/24172.pdf)

"Defeated a regime that developed and used weapons of mass destruction, that harbored and supported terrorists, committed outrageous human rights abuses, and defied the just demands of the United Nations and the world. "

It turns out that every one of the components of those sentences are true. Iraq did have weapons that are classified as WMDs, Saddam did harbor and support terrorists, he definitely did commit human rights abuses, and he definitely wasn't a fan of the UN.

That doesn't mean that what the US government did was a Good Idea. It doesn't mean that they didn't use fear mongering and stretches of the truth to build support for an ill-advised war, and I believe (but am not entirely sure) they also used outright lies. This just isn't one of them.

I don't think anyone is really arguing anything other than that, but we seem to be stuck on the really fairly small point that this specific thing isn't a full-out lie. Or it would be a small point anyway if IS were not now in possession of chemical weapons.

[Aardwolf]

@Scotty: Where do you think the meaning of words comes from? Which way does it go, mutual understanding --> written definition, or written definition --> mutual understanding?

@Mars: Harbored and supported terrorists? Who, when, and how?

[karajorma]

Iraq did have weapons that are classified as WMDs

Did you not read the part about how the West actually gave him the shells he then filled?

[Scotty]

@Scotty: Where do you think the meaning of words comes from? Which way does it go, mutual understanding --> written definition, or written definition --> mutual understanding?

Just stop, Aardwolf.  I get that it's hard to admit that you were wrong, but for ****'s sake stop trying to be right about it.  Just because thousands of under-informed physics students think centrifugal force is an actual thing doesn't make it so.  Just because thousands of under-informed people think WMDs are related solely to their raw killing power doesn't make it so.

Stop.

[Lorric]

@Scotty: Where do you think the meaning of words comes from? Which way does it go, mutual understanding --> written definition, or written definition --> mutual understanding?

Just stop, Aardwolf.  I get that it's hard to admit that you were wrong, but for ****'s sake stop trying to be right about it.  Just because thousands of under-informed physics students think centrifugal force is an actual thing doesn't make it so.  Just because thousands of under-informed people think WMDs are related solely to their raw killing power doesn't make it so.

Stop.

You're missing the point. He's not disputing the "true" definition of WMD, he's saying that's not the one people are familiar with, and he's going to stick with the one people are familiar with. And criticising the true definition. The masses have been taught a different definition of what WMD means.

And on Centrifugal Force. I'm calling bull**** on that. I've seen the term used all over the place including extensively by NASA scientists on Astronaut training in a documentary.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GPM/news/gpm-spin.html
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/techtransfer/technology/MSC-22863-1-cent-adsorp-sys.html
http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/centrifugal-force.html

So are NASA talking bull****?