So is it your contention that Iraq was assembling these weapons and would have succeeded were it not for the brave foresight of George W. Bush?
I’m not being snarky; just asking…
Not so fast. “Crazy” in what way that is distinguishable from simple powerlust? “Belligerent” in what way that makes the potential for their use a real possibility?
It is all too easy to dismiss the thoughts of someone who annoys you as “crazy” so you don’t have to bother anymore with carrots and sticks, just go ahead and beat the crap out of them. That was very much part of the warlust we saw in 2003, even on this anti-ignorance board. Saddam wasn’t crazy; he wanted to keep in power and keep being a major figure the world was paying attention to, and everything he did makes sense in that framework. We were simply annoyed that he wasn’t knuckling under, not adequately realizing that he couldn’t . Kim and the people around him want to stay in power and be Big Time Players too, and everything they’ve done makes sense in that light. Neither was a threat to really attack anyone but their weak neighbors, because that would have ended their grip on power and their Big Time Player status.
But the person you’re asking is.
No. I previously “hijacked” this thread to talk about what would amount to actionable evidence worthy of invading another country.
I do contend that Iraq was deceiving and/or not complying with the UN resolution so that the UN could verify this (before we invaded in March). Non compliance with the UN resolution might have been worthy of a breach that leads to using force (that’s another question).
“We taught them a lesson in 1918, and they’ve hardly bothered us since then.”
-Tom Lehrer, “MLF Lullaby”
Sorry, couldn’t resist. As you were.
Err…Kim Jong Il is crazy by any definition of the word I can think of. Not just dislikable…crazy. Loony Toons.
He purportedly injects himself with the blood of virgins to stay young. He kidnapped a filmmaker and his wife to kickstart North Korea’s film industry (didn’t work). He had the school he went to as a kid blown up so they could not produce any rivals to his own children.
The list goes on.
As for belligerent sure Saddam was belligerent but not sure he made a regular habit (when not actually engaged in war with the US) to actively threaten the US and its allies with a nuclear strike and occasionally lobs missiles over Japan.
Different character altogether from Saddam.
There’s all kinds of crazy, and I wouldn’t necessarily call any of those things crazy anyway. To be more precise with the question: Is he “crazy” in such a way as to make him likely to actually attack anybody? Are the people around him all crazy enough to carry out such an order? Is there any event since, oh, the first Panmunjom meeting that makes you think that of either him or his father?
Talk is free. Is he an actual danger, or just a serious annoyance?
Saddam talked big-time too, and pulled stunts too. Not seeing the “altogether” part at all, or even much of the “different” part.
But he’s crazy, you say. Never know what he’s gonna do next. Got weapons, though. Better bomb the shit out of 'em before he uses 'em. That’s the kind of “reasoning” that got us into Iraq.
What is this evidence that existed prior to the invasion that proved the case false?
You say this evidence didn’t simply cast doubt upon, or brought into question, or dealt a blow to the case for war. You say this evidence proved the case for war was a lie, and I’d like to know what this rock-solid evidence was.
We established some rules. We did, that is to say, we, the Americans. We established the rule that aggressive war was a crime against humanity. We not only established the rule, we hanged some people for breaking the rule.
An aggressive war is a war that is not based upon self-defense. Self defense includes an imminent threat of attack. Had we discovered the Japanese aircraft carriers steaming towards an attack position, we could have attacked, under that proviso.
Them’s the rules. We broke the rules. Its not a question of rock-solid intelligence, we weren’t even close. There is no evidence whatsoever that Saddam intended to attack us, and that is what is required. Not a suggestion, not a guideline, required.
Compared to the crime of aggressive war, compared to the squandering of untold thousands of innocent lives, the petty parsing of a word like “liar” is like arguing whether or not to charge Jeffrey Dahmer with health code violations of improper food storage.
It was more the systematic debunking of every significant “finding” that made the case for war. The yellowcake bill of sale being a crude forgery was only the most dramatic incident. The trailers Powell made such a strong case for turning out to be hydrogen generators for balloons was another. The aluminum tubes that were going to be rocket casings turning out to be for petroleum processing equipment.
My recollection about the aluminum tubes was that they were alleged to be super-dooper high tech aluminum tubes only suitable for producing nukes. Of course, this was when the goalposts were set at “nuke”.
Oh, right. It was hard to keep all the bullshit straight.
Sam was our local “expert” on the Tubes of Mass Destruction, IIRC. Maybe he can explain.
Don’t forget the enriched uranium smuggling scare of September 2002:
Uranium Seized In Turkey - Made in Germany?
Some of our resident experts were “certain” that Saddam was gettin ready to nuke us all, and wouldn’t countenance any other interpretation of the facts on hand.
The real point is he counldn’t lie directly becasue that does open you up for war crimes charges.
So what you do instead is create the right atmosphere through the media - using a range of association and visual aids - and create the circs in which you are informed of WMD. You do that latter by having the CIA and others misinterpret information.
Asking if Bush lied is the wrong question.
Err…injecting yourself with the blood of virgins to extend your life is rational to you? Besides, these are just some of his crazy moments (how about trying to rid his population of short people…not midgets, just short?). There are plenty more. Anyone might be goofy once, when they are consistent about it then you worry.
Will he attack? Who knows? I think NK is more likely than most to go that route though. Unlike Saddam NK does have nukes. Not a guess, we have detected the tests. They also have a metric shitload of artillery pointed at South Korea. NK also seems to be a prime mover in proliferation selling missile and perhaps nuclear tech to Iran and Syria.
As mentioned above NK is definitely in the game of proliferation. One of the only things they really have to sell on the world market. I’d call that dangerous right there.
Add in missile tech sufficient to reach Japan with ease and working towards an ICBM capability (supposedly they could reach Hawaii now, west coast may be in range in the near future).
We got into Iraq because (presumably) Saddam was seeking nuclear weapons. Of the Axis of Evil turns out Saddam was the only one who wasn’t. Iran and NK are (NK now has them).
Further, Saddam did not have an ICBM program in the works. Nor did Saddam lob missiles over our allies as a “test”. Saddam also had weapon inspectors in his country as well as “no fly zones” patrolled by the US and so on.
I’d say the threat levels between NK and Iraq are wholly different. We chose to pick off the easy one who was actually no threat beyond occasional hot air.
“Not the product of reason” is different from “crazy”. There are a helluva lot of things *you *do that you couldn’t call “rational”, right? And, as I said, there’s all kinds of crazy. The kinds that make someone likely to attack and hurt you are the kinds to worry about. The kinds of *sanity *that make someone able to make a plausible strategy and then execute it are far worse.
The evidence of the decades is something to consider, isn’t it? There has never been an NK attack, even when the situation was far more favorable to its winning or at least survival.
All of that falls under Being Thought a Big Time Player better than Planning a Self-Destructive War, though.
Cover stories. The Halliburton and “Fuck Saddam, I’m taking him out” reasons have always seemed more likely to me to be the real reasons.
At the time, none of them were.
Didn’t need to. He just had to threaten the oil fields right next door.
Their capabilities are different. Threat assessment includes likelihoods as well as capabilities, though. And that’s even if you think NK has the ability to follow up its single fizzle test with something more sinister.
So what do you think would be NK’s strategic goal in actually launching a nuke attack, and on whom? Is there any, or is it just “Dude’s crazy, and everyone around him is too?”
Unless something’s changed in the last week or two, we still have no hard evidence that Iran is seeking to build atomic weapons.
Here, let me bold that, for future reference:
no hard evidence that Iran is seeking to build atomic weapons.
That would go better with a link.
Out of curiosity did we have hard evidence that North Korea, Pakistan, South Africa and India were seeking to build nuclear weapons? France? The USSR? China? Or did we all find out when they tested one?
How about Israel? Any hard evidence they have nukes?
That makes you feel better?
I am not sure what “hard” evidence anyone would expect. If (note “if”) Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons they are doing so clandestinely. I seriously doubt we’ll see them proudly advertising their shiny new centrifuges. Indeed from your article:
So, they clandestinely got a P1 centrifuge and clandestinely got blueprints for a P2 but hey…they aren’t doing anything untoward. They just wanted the P2 blueprints because they look really cool framed in the Ayatollah’s office. All the parts they clandestinely tried to get for the P2…nothing to see there. :rolleyes: