What did Saddam do?

[GePap]

Yes, he tried to develop them himself, until the inspectors and the sanctions regime brought his nuclear program to a virtual end, leaving the US to argue about what Iraq might do with a bunch of aluminum pipes with the IAEA.

[notyoueither]

The point being that he wants them, he has considerable mineral wealth at his disposal with which to finance their aquisition, and he would be about the last person in the world who should ever have them.

[cia]

Easier to aquire nukes than build. Yes, you are limited but a few megatons go a long way. Plus the talent to build is easier to aquire than ever before. Plus, what makes you naive enough to figure the press knows more about military capability than the gov't?

[GePap]

Wanting and having the ability to have them are two immensely different things, and there are a few people I can think that should have them less.

cia: Megatons mean theormonuclear weapons. India does not have themonuclear weapons yet. They are a significant step up from just nukes for which you need ways of producing heavy hydrogen isotopes. If Iraq can't even refine uranium they sure as hell won't be making heavy hydrogen isotopes.

[cia]

GePap, buying or stealing or obtaining thru espoinage is far easier than you might think. Especially with the current geopolitical situation.

[GePap]

Stealing or buying nukes so easy? Then why oh why have Al Qaeda, Iran, or Iraq not gotten one?

So perhaps the chances of getting away with any schem eot buy or steal a nuke are 1 in 1,000,000 chances and not 1 in 100,000,000 chances. wow, we really are about to get it, no?

Boris, I personally was offered Russian military weaponry cargo shipped on demand to a port of my choice.

You expect such a claim to go unquestioned? In Poly? Prove this: what sort of equipment, into what port, for how much money?

[cia]

T-72 tanks in civilian cargo freighters with associated armaments (ammo) for only 1 million US apiece. Migs cost more and harder to get but stillpossible with month's notice.
LA is most common port. Russia currently has nukes unaccounted for. It's easy to bribe the starving. I'll try and find the news articles since those are believed

[cia]

BTW, I was also offered US equipment in the form of LAWs and TOWs for reasonable sums, as well as military grade explosive. Don't need this junk tho.

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by GePap
Yeah, we all know who much the us navy stopped some guy from ramming a truck full of explosives into a Marines barrack in 1983, or how the might of the IDF, with tanks in all towns of the West Bank have so effectively ended Palestinian terrorism....

As for your first comment..Kim II, funny..not. Actions should be based on cost-benefit annalysis, and I for one do not think the costs of action in this case will outweigth the cost..hence, an incorrect action.

Funny thing about that incident. I heard that the brass wanted to avoid civilian injuries or deaths in scuffles between protesters and guards, so they issued the gate sentries blanks instead of live ammo. When that truck came in, there was nothing the gate sentries could do to stop it, and it was able to gather speed in the open area between the gate and the barracks.

I doubt we issue blanks anymore.

[Zevico]

Just a quick annoying correction for one of the posters a few pages back
Uzbekistan has a maniacal dictator, granted. However, you're getting the country wrong on the egotistical maniacal dictator- I think that's Tajikistan. Tajikistan was not involved in the Afghanistan war; Uzbekistan was.

[cinch]

Uzbekistan has a maniacal dictator, granted. However, you're getting the country wrong on the egotistical maniacal dictator- I think that's Tajikistan. Tajikistan was not involved in the Afghanistan war; Uzbekistan was.

Are you sure you're not thinking of Turkmenbashi of Turkmenistan?

Niyazov is ca-razy!

http://www.turkmenbashi.org/

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?n...d=222076&rfi=6

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by notyoueither


Severe case of split hairs.

I say 'buy nukes'

You say he didn't... he tried to develop them himself.

Much has been added to the discourse.

He tried to develop them pre-1991, which is all we have any evidence for. So what? There were tons of countries trying to develop them then, and many more are now.

As for him being the last person you'd want to see with nukes, I'd disagree with that in a heartbeat. On the list far above him are Iran (which is very close), N. Korea (which has them and is run by a real insane person), and about a dozen other ME and African countries run by fanatics/dictators that shouldn't have them. I'd add Pakistan to the list as well, considering they've harbored more terrorists than Iraq ever did and his a hair's breadth from being a fundamentalist Islamic state.

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by GePap


Do you know any of their names? How can one HATE somoen they don't know? seems iffy to me.

You asked whether I hated the people who, in your words, were directly responsible for the slaughter of 1 million. Authorizing the killing of one million people, especially in the barbaric fashion that the Hutus did, is such a despicable crime that I am allowed to hate them without knowing their names.

[GePap]

MM:

Did the guards at the CIA statetion also have blanks when they were blown up a few days earlier, with 60 odd people dying? And wans't a French Barracks also attacked the day of the Barracks bombing? Did those guards have blanks?

The point being, tanks don't end terrorism. Israel has what, 20,000 troops in the West bank? Given comparative size and population, the Israeli occupation of that area is much tighter that what we plan for Iraq (if one assumes 100,000 men), and yet with all of that they can't stop suicide bombers 100%, and the Palestinian areas are not swimming with guns as Iraq is, nor are Iraq's borders as easy to seal as Palestinain borders (which the Israelis have yet to actually fully seal). Everyone is expecting all Iraqis to welcome us with open arms. But what do our boys do once people start trying to blow them up? They don't know the language, don't know the fissures, so every Iraqi will become suspect to them if any campaign such as that starts..and that will alienate soldiers form the population they control, and vice versa.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Laz:

Is it right to kill several thousand innocents in order to protect the human rights of millions?

I know that Saddam has committed genocide, as you have defined, but so have others. Is the United States willing to act in all cases?

I've come back to a few queries aimed at me in this thread- more than I can be bothered to answer individually, in fact. Still, here goes.

When you use the phrase "human rights" in the context of Iraq, you are not talking about the right to dye your pubes mauve and molest poultry in public. You are talking about the right not to have your home demolished, be driven away at gunpoint and quite probably gassed or shot simply because you come from a differing cultural background to the Ba'athist elite. That's the situation you are dealing with here- it's a very basic level of human security and dignity, not some effete level of libertarian perfection.

That's why the comments suggesting that toppling the Ba'athists (or at least reining them in) won't restore Truth, Justice, And The American Way, and that this negates the point of striking in the name of human rights, could only be made by someone dangerously pampered by their own levels of security

It's highly unlikely that a perfect and fragrant democracy will be achieved for a generation or two after any war, but as long as it stops the genocide I'd consider it a positive result.

So, yup. In the situation that obiwan suggests, I'd consider it worth it. I'm a pragmatist, not an idealogue.

Next stop- "There are other dictatorships that are worse".

What this translates as is "I have compiled my own personal league table of what I consider to be the worst regimes in the world. Any military action must take place only against the regime that tops my own personal league table, with the others following in descending order according to my own personal rating system. Therefore, as I consider Iraq to be the 5th most heinous regime in the world, military action against it would be unjustified and hypocritical."

Laughable, isn't it?

Here's a tip. Iraq doesn't top my list of "Nasty Nations" either. It comes third. I defy anyone taking a serious look at global human rights to suggest that Iraq comes outside of their top 10. By any standards it's foul.

However the fact that Iraq doesn't top my personal league system of "Bastard Blobs on the planet" doesn't mean I think we should leave it alone. **** that. Whatever the motives for this war are (and there are many) this is a 24-carat opportunity to nail one of the ****ers that has got away with killing people at industrial levels for decades while the global community just sat around scratching it's arse.

Throughout the last century or so, we haven't done enough to stop regimes like this one. We didn't stop the Belgians in the Congo, or the Turks in Armenia, or the Indonesians in East Timor and Irian Jaya, or the Hutus in Rwanda. We acted too late in the Balkans. Now it's heartening that we've tried the "nice route" of sanctions for 12 years in this case, but they aren't working and I challenge anyone to come up with a better approach.

Yes- it won't be pretty. Yes- innocent people who don't deserve to die, will die. Yes- we'll be stuck with a polical ****hole for at least a couple of generations.

But- just check out (via non-political organisations like Amnesty and HRWatch) the bodycounts attributable to the Ba'athists, and ask yourself if you can stomach letting that continue unabated.

I can't.