ANALYSIS: An Even-Handed Look at American, European Relations

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Seriously, he could not. It costs billions, requires thousand of employees, and the facilities are so huge that the satellite spies would have detected them years in advance.

Did you think before you posted that?

Billions, let's see.......OIL. The list of wealthiest people in the world has many Arabians whose wealth derived from oil.

Facilities? He can use oil money to build them. Iraq is a very versatile country with a diversified amount of resources.

Spy satellites are not omnipotence, they can be circumvented.

[Ned]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Incidently, oil from the ME is the oil that Europe, China, and Japan require to keep moving. Why should the American taxpayer continue to pay for the security of that resource with blood and dollars?

Someone's getting a free ride here, and it sure as hell is not the average American citizen.

You know, I have long questioned why we should continue to do the heavy lifting for Europe and Japan, especially when they reached economic parity with the US back in the 70s and 80s. This current tiff over Iraq is very reminscent of the Pershing missle crisis during the 80s. The massive anti-American and anti-Reagan demonstrations in Europe totally turned me off to support Europe even then. I was all for a pull-out and for severing our ties to Nato.

Still am, for that matter.

[ErikM]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Why is America's interferance in its 'sphere' (South America) worse than Soviet interferance in its 'sphere' (Eastern Europe)?

Are you trying to make a point that US foreign policy was not really any worse than the Soviet one? I'm inclined to agree with this sentiment, but it is hardly a compliment to the US policymakers

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Ned
Still am, for that matter.

Ditto. I'm not totally against shaping Europe to be the new Soviet Union and American opponent in a new Cold War.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Ned
I was all for a pull-out and for severing our ties to Nato.

Still am, for that matter.

May the force be with you!

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

No, but obviously YOU are! The US would let Pakistan get nukes because they are allied? Yes, because we've usually just given away nuclear secrets to all of our allies. I'm sure Iraq during the 80s would have loved to hear that, instead of secretly getting info.

Of course you gave nuclear secrets to allies. Don't you know about Israel and Britain? At worse, the US may have decided simply 'not to hinder' Pakistan and that would have been sufficient.

BTW, nuclear warheads are only part of the problem. You also need long-range ICBMs do deliver them, and, to my knowledge, only France, Britain, Russia, America and China have some.

And the US gave plenty of money to India as well. India played both sides... learn your history .

That's it. America used 'applied MAD' to keep peace in the region. That is a well known tactic in political science.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
Billions, let's see.......OIL. The list of wealthiest people in the world has many Arabians whose wealth derived from oil.

Let's see. Saddam was ruined, and never had the means to do it. The billions aren't the only thing: you need the smart people too.

BTW, didn't you know that Saddam began research on a nuclear program back in 1980? and that by 1990, even though he hadn't had any sanction put against him yet, he was not even close to get a nuclear warhead? That's a full 10 years, dude.

Facilities? He can use oil money to build them. Iraq is a very versatile country with a diversified amount of resources.

Starting in 1991, he couldn't anymore. In fact, he dropped the project.

Spy satellites are not omnipotence, they can be circumvented.

No they can't. You can't hide a facility employing thousands and scaling to kilometers to a spy satellite. If Saddam had been developing a nuclear weapon, America would have known it years in advance. Bush did lie; never could he have been so ridiculously mistaken.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by ErikM

Are you trying to make a point that US foreign policy was not really any worse than the Soviet one? I'm inclined to agree with this sentiment, but it is hardly a compliment to the US policymakers

Imran is less idiot than he seems. He has a very strange perception of reality, but his cognitive abilities are normal.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
BTW, didn't you know that Saddam began research on a nuclear program back in 1980? and that by 1990, even though he hadn't had any sanction put against him yet, he was not even close to get a nuclear warhead? That's a full 10 years, dude.

We should bomb people that get close to building a bomb according to you?

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
We should bomb people that get close to building a bomb according to you?

No. I just said that if Saddam really was having success with his research, the intelligence would have known it for real.

[DinoDoc]

Why do you think he had such limited sucess in his program?

/me wonders if fakeBoris will figure out what he's refering to

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Why do you think he had such limited sucess in his program?

* DinoDoc wonders if fakeBoris will figure out what he's refering to

I don't know how succesfull the program was in the 80s, but I guess he could eventually have developed a nuclear warhead, hadn't he had the stupidity of invading Koweit and/or Iran. What I know is that the Gulf War combined with the sanctions was probably the last nail in the coffin.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Ned
As to the French efforts prior to Gulf War I, IIRC, they did everything in their power to get Bush to stand down. Bush did not. But Saddam thought the French could broker a deal in the final hours and stayed in Kuwait.

The French caused the war.

Oh...my....God....

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Incidently, oil from the ME is the oil that Europe, China, and Japan require to keep moving. Why should the American taxpayer continue to pay for the security of that resource with blood and dollars?

Someone's getting a free ride here, and it sure as hell is not the average American citizen.

Again, way too narrow minded. The US needs a cheap, continuous supply of oil from the ME just as much as anyone else, and maybe even more. It's called a commodity market, and it means that it doesn't matter who physically ships oil to who, but rather what the prevailing global price is.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ned
After the Nov. Resolution authorizing force if Saddam did not pull out of Kuwait by Jan. 15, France did its best to negotiate a way out for Saddam.

And your point is? The Gulf War was specifically not to remove Saddam, it was to liberate Kuwait. France didn't want to actually topple Saddam's regime, but your statement that they wouldn't have liberated Kuwait is ludicrous.