The US is Marshal Wyatt Earp.
Iraq is Ike Clanton.
Marshal Earp must disarm Ike Clanton before he starts causing trouble for the decent townfolk. (“Give up your guns, Ike, and you can go about your business.”)
(And I’m sure that’s almost exactly the way Bush sees things.)
To Latro: Respect. You arnt factually challenged at all. 
Keep it up.
Back to the origianl question: there are 2 answers:
It isnt ok for ANY country to have WOMD but since they do exist EVERY country is going to try and get them in order to discourage their enemies from trying to jump them.
Some countries are ruled by Robert Mugabe who I am absolutley convinced would nuke london if he could do it and thought he could get away with it.
Seriously tho I think that the issue (at least as the US, and prolly China, see it) is about making sure that only their allies have nukes or failing that to make sure that the only nukes that exist are in the hands of thos who are smart enough to realise that their most effective use is as a PR tool. You have to remember that everyone in the world believes that they are doing the right thing all the time. Thus it is natural (and selfish and stupid) to try ones damndest to makes sure that oneself and one’s allies are always ahead of the game.
cheers
And how reliable is this alliance over the long run? Will Pakistan be our ally in five years? 10? Dictatorships aren’t always stable, and whoever the next Pakistani head honcho is, he will have nukes, however we feel about it.
Oh, come on guys. This isn’t cowboys and indians, nor is it just about keeping these weapons to themselves.
The main reason why Saddam can’t be trusted with WMD is because he’s pretty much the only leader in the world who would seriously consider using them agressively.
Pakistan may be unstable, but it is a fairly well developed country with a large bureaucracy and leaders who are sane. They may threaten their neighbors and rattle their sabres once in a while, but no one seriously expects them to ever use their nuclear weapons in a first strike. And in fact, that judgement was pretty good - look how close India and Pakistan came to a major conflict this year, and yet the nukes stayed out of play.
Saddam is different. He has attacked his neighbors three times. He tried to kill Bush I. He shows all the signs of being insane, or at least despotically, agressively evil. He wants to re-align the middle east in a new caliphate with Baghdad at its center. He’s a megalomaniac.
That’s the standard: Are you a threat to peace-loving people? Are you aggressive towards your neighbors? Do you sponsor terrorism?
If Pakistan were destabilized and a fanatical regime took over, you can bet that they’d find themselves on the same list with Saddam. If North Korea does something blatantly aggressive, it’ll be there too. Same with any country. Iraq is already there.
You guys can rag on the U.S. all you want, but in the end, if it goes in and spills its own citizen’s blood to depose a threat to the world, the world will be a better place for you.
Let’s take some advice from Latro from the Netherlands. Wasn’t the Netherlands that country Hitler took about a month to beat. Yeah lets take advice on how to roll over.
Once saddam gets nukes, Kuiwait will be taken over. We wouldn’t want Isreal to get nuked by a scud now would we. And Iran oh we can’t stop him from nuking Iran he will just threaten to nuke Isreal with a scud. He has plenty of human sheilds and thats what will keep anybody from doing anything. It’s real easy to be a world conqueror with a few nukes, who will really want to stop you?
—The main reason why Saddam can’t be trusted with WMD is because he’s pretty much the only leader in the world who would seriously consider using them agressively.—
Do you mean as a first strike? If so, then perhaps (but it’s kind of hard to maintain that in the face of the current U.S. position that it is thinking of doing away with its own policy against using nukes as a first strike: I don’t know of any similar position in Saddam’s case, even as nutty as he is).
However, I seriously doubt it even in Saddam’s case. Whatever else he managed to destroy, it would still be suicide to oppose the U.S. in a nuclear arena. Israel and us would happily vaporize every citizen of Iraq if he ever nuked a base or target in the Middle East.
—You guys can rag on the U.S. all you want, but in the end, if it goes in and spills its own citizen’s blood to depose a threat to the world, the world will be a better place for you.—
That’s why I support intervention into Iraq. I just don’t like the false piety or moralizing.
Fine, I’ll parse it for you. I already said there was a “small kernel of truth.” Sometimes a nuanced postiton is lost on people. A simple primer:
“tested nuclear blasts on it’s (sic) own soldiers” — Wrong. Back in the late 40s or early 50s the Army blew up some nuclear devices and marched some soldiers in afterwards. If you had said “exposed to fallout” that would be true.
“injected pregnant women with radio-active (sic) material” — I went to your herbal healing link. I still don’t know what you are talking about.
“fed LSD to passers-by just to see what the effects would be.” Again, old news, and you still got the facts wrong. Do I need to point out what is wrong with this one? The CIA does something a few times, you overclaim it and blame it on the whole nation. Does “Top Secret” mean anything to you?
You should know, in attempting to smear a whole nation with your ‘factersions,’ that someone is going to come along and point out that you don’t quite know what you are talking about.
The invasion of Amsterdam is on June 6, 2004. Shhh. It’s a secret.
[sub]We need wooden shoes and hemp. NzerfleeeP! Wooden shoes and hemp…Wooden shoes and hemp…Wooden shoes and hemp. [/sub]
IIRC, the countries that have nuclear power now (US, Russia, China, Brittain, India, Pakistan, and a few others) developed it (or stole it) pretty much on their own. The whole idea of Non-Proliferation came about because it was decided that nuclear weapons were so horrible that they should not be exported.
That doesn’t mean countries can’t figure it out on their own.
Of course we care. Did you not pick up a magazine or watch the news when Pakistan and India were rattling their nuclear sabres?
How bout you read a newspaper.
2 wars with Iran
1 invasion of Kuwait
Political assassinations
Use of chemical weapons against his own people
Do you need more unquestionable evidence, Nevelle?
We are the U S freakin A!!!
Seriously. If that leader threatens our country, we have a right to protect ourselves. We also reserve the right to not trade or provide economic aid to leaders who are hostile to us.
IIRC, the countries that have nuclear power now (US, Russia, China, Brittain, India, Pakistan, and a few others) developed it (or stole it) pretty much on their own. The whole idea of Non-Proliferation came about because it was decided that nuclear weapons were so horrible that they should not be exported.
That doesn’t mean countries can’t figure it out on their own.
Of course we care. Did you not pick up a magazine or watch the news when Pakistan and India were rattling their nuclear sabres?
How bout you read a newspaper.
2 wars with Iran
1 invasion of Kuwait
Political assassinations
Use of chemical weapons against his own people
Do you need more unquestionable evidence, Nevelle?
We are the U S freakin A!!!
Seriously. If that leader threatens our country, we have a right to protect ourselves. We also reserve the right to not trade or provide economic aid to leaders who are hostile to us.
All right, I grant you that this frasing might lead someone to think that U.S. soldiers were actually blown up. I had those images in my head of the troops, in their shallow trenches, being hit by the shock-wave.
Exposing your troops to fallout is a perfectly ok thing to do, sorry my bad.
This is a page with numerous links to the subject.
Actually clicking one of those links might improve your understanding.
Oh, this one is a beauty!
Do I need to parse it for you?
“Again, old news” So you aknowledge the truth of it but because it happened in the fifties/sixties it has become too old to be valid?
Is that what you mean?
“The CIA does something a few times” ???
Latro:‘Yes, Your Honour, I murdered those people but I’d like to point out I only murdered a ‘few’ times.’
Judge:‘Indeed, that doesn’t constitute a crime. Now, if you did this on a regular basis then I would have to convict you. No a few times, that’s O.K., next case.’
" you overclaim it…"
I claimed someting, you admit it happened. In what way was it an overclaiming?
“and blame it on the ‘whole’ nation.”
+
“attempting to smear a whole nation”
I pointed out that your country has done some bad things too.
I am not saying Europe is better or anything, just hoping to undermine this irritating notion of a blameless USA, that has never done anything wrong to anyone.
Why am I sometimes afraid of the USA?
Need I say more?
[sub] There’s probably lots of (sic)'s in this one for you to play with Beagle, enjoy.[/sub]
Hehe, it was more like 5 days, actually. Take a map of Europe and look at the size of Holland compared to Germany, 5 days wasn’t even that bad. But we certainly did not just roll over, the Grebbenberg line held against superior forces (including the Leibstandarte) in both number and equipment. The German parachute arm was decimated and wouldn’t be up to strength again until the invasion of Crete.
How is the Netherlands’ opposition to the German military in World War II relevant to this discussion?
and**
Don’t see much of a threat to the USA so far… but that’s just me I guess…
Grim
Yes, thank you for taking too of my quotes, unrelated to each other, placing them out of context and drawing an incorrect conclussion.
There are two separate ideas there:
If any country threatens us, we have the moral authority to preemptively defend ourselves using military force. Pretty much any country does.
Sadam Husein has demonstrated aggressive tendencies towords his neighbors as well as a willingness to use biological and chemical weapons.
Whether or not Sadam is a threat to the US remains to be seen. I believe he definitely is a threat to the region. While I would prefer to see a policy of containment instead of all out war, I think we have an interest in making sure Sadam doesn’t try to invade his neighbors again. After all, what country is going to have to come to the rescue if he ends up overrunning the region? That’s right, the US.
I agree that, if it is felt that the destabilising effect of invading Iraq were less than the inevitable destabilising effect of Iraq on the region, then overthrow would be a good thing.
But that isn’t how it’s being presented to us, Joe Public. It’s being intimated that Iraq is a direct threat to the US, and to the West.
Perhaps a better distillation of this argument is to ask"Why Iraq?". The world is full of nasty, brutal dictators, who have done all sorts of evil things to their own people, and who have access to horrendous weapons that might or might not be used against the West. So why Iraq, and why Iraq now?
Beagle and msmith537 -
Give it up. These people are not using the same moral calculus as the rest of us; there is no common ground for discussion. The US is always going to be to blame, in the same way that Olentzero wound up making it the fault of the US that Saddam uses chemical weapons on his own people.
They will go on channeling Neville Chamberlain until it is too late to do anything. And then it will be the fault of the USA too.
Regards,
Shodan
Unfortunately, this cuts both ways, and it provides a strong justification for Iraq to use military force against the US, which in present circumstances is plainly a much bigger and more immediate threat to Iraq than Iraq is to the US.
msmith:
And whether the U.S.A. will be invaded by giant squids also ‘remains to be seen’. But at present, he’s got no means of attacking Slovakia, let alone the United States. Can we take this one off the table?
Sure he is, if we revert to our pre-August 1990 comfort level with Saddam. He knew we were in his corner in his war against Iran in the 1980s. He apparently thought he had the OK from us for his invasion of Kuwait in 1990. (Remember April Glaspie?) But since we established that ‘no-fly’ zone, northern Iraq has become an essentially autonomous Kurdish-governed area.
It’s hard to say, “this guy’s a major threat to the region” when (a) he’s not even willing to retake his own country due to us, and (b) his previous attacks on neighbors either had our approval, or he believed they did.
There’s no doubt that he’s a threat. But for the time being, he’s a contained threat. And given that we’ve got other fish to fry (al-Queda, the rebuilding of Afghanistan), I fail to understand why it’s imperative to remove Saddam now.
Yes, indeed, we do seem to be using different calculi then some of you.
Yours seem to come up with that the US is always right.
My God man, is it so difficult to fathom that even the US sometimes makes mistakes? That sometimes actions in the past have undesired effects in the present.
If you turn a blind eye to any past mistakes how are you going to keep yourself from running headlong into new ones?
Waving the American flag, shouting ‘EVIL, EVIL’ won’t make invading another country, without a proper mandate, morally right.
Get that mandate and we will all go in and ‘kick some SH ass’. Then if things go horribly wrong the blame won’t solely lie with the US.
Sam Stone wrote:
Like I said. He’s a threat to decent townfolk.
(See? The cowboy analogy does work!)
I don’t know if anyone happened to catch Bill Clinton on Letterman last night, but he had some interesting observations. He predicted that any war between the US and Iraq would be over in a couple of weeks.
BUT, he also expressed his concern that Saddam Hussein, in the midst of losing such a war, might do the very thing Americans fear the most: turn over weapons of mass destruction (chemical agents and biological weapons) to terrorists, in effect avenging himself by proxy.
Something to think about.