<< Use a terrorist group as a proxy, while condemning them and play-acting suitable indignation, and killing a bunch of 'terrorists' to prove how clean your own hands are. >>
It's one thing to sponsor a terrorist group as a proxy while providing financial support and small arms weapon fire. It's quite another story to suggest any government would risk severe retaliation as a consequence of providing WMDs to terrorist groups. Both Iraq and Iran have had ample opportunities to provide terrorist groups access to sophisticated weapons to harass Israel. And yet, neither country has opted to choose so and continue to provide only simple conventional means. Why, Nadine?
In the case of biologic weapons, there are very few countries in the world that has the technology and sophistication for its production and maintenance. Providing biologic weapons to terrorist groups would leave very few governments as the prime suspects. How many countries have access or are even capable of manufacturing the polio virus? Anthrax spores can be readily identified, categorized, and graded to suggest a possible origin of manufacture.
There are many good reasons why Saddam is a threat. Suggesting he is likely to pass WMDs to terrorist groups is one of the least likely possibilites, in my humble opinion, and serves more as propaganda and hype to rally the pro-invasion constituents.
<< If Israel were attacked in this way (G-d forfend) their impulse would be for retaliation, but they still could not afford to lose US support, and that would affect their decision. >>
Agreed. But by the same token, Israel is (and has always been) the wild card in this mixture. According to a 1998 public survey by the National Security and Public Opinion Project at JCSS, eighty six percent of Israelis support the use of nuclear weapons in response to a chemical or biological weapon attack. So where do you think the perception comes from that Israel is likely to employ nuclear weapons as a counterattack? It wouldn't be directly from the Israelis, would it? Public pressue to respond disproportionately would be tremendous on the Israeli government.
<< Remember the brass ring of the restored caliphate. Saddam longs to be proclaimed leader of the Arabs -- defying the US and attacking Israel are the roads to achieve it. >>
And it is precisely a policy of providing WMDs to terrorist groups which will foil his plans to be proclaimed the leader of the Arabs because a dead caliphate is a useless one to Saddam. And Saddam has shown no illusions about becoming a martyr. A policy of providing WMDs to terrorist groups will lead directly to either a regime change or the destruction of his regime via retaliatory strikes.
<< First, the Phalangists did it. >>
I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you, Nadine.
Yes, the Phalangists did commit the murders but it was Sharon and his structure of command which provided the opportunity for the Phalangists to procure these crimes. The Phalangists were given the tacit permission to enter the refugee camps. Phalangists killed in the cover of the night as Israelis flares deliberately lit the skies. Israeli troops prevented the refugees from fleeing away from the camps. There are even some reports of an Israeli presence in the camps during the massacre. To suggest Sharon is free of any guilt in this "incident" is to also suggest Arafat is clear of any conscience for many of the terrorist activities behind the Green Line.
<< Second, it was hundreds, not thousands. >>
Well, it depends on who is doing the counting and why? The Israelis will obviously minimize the fatalities while the Lebanese will try to exaggerate it. And since the US government has been protecting the Israelis from the Lebanon debacle, the truth is difficult to ascertain. But most independent observers believe the casualty was in the thousands.
<< Third, Sharon lost his job and was disgraced, a very predictable Israeli reaction, so you don't have to believe he's a nice guy to believe that he was caught by surprise by the Phalangist moves. >>
Sharon is no more a "man of peace" than Arafat is a "man of his words." And let's just leave it at that.
<< Fourth, Sharon's war record shows he can be ruthless against terrorists but is not bloody-minded in war; he let the Egyptian third army survive in 1973 when he might have destroyed it. >>
You have to take Sharon's actions in the context of the Yom Kippur War. I think it's fair to say that the Yom Kippur War revealed some of Israel's conventional weakness to the Arab world at that time. One of the major reasons the US supported Israel with heavy airlifts in the early phases of the war was the imminent fear that Israel would retaliate with a nuclear attack when it became clear Egypt had the upper hand. So the quick answer to your point is that Sharon did not destroy Egypt's third army because there was tremendous diplomatic pressure from the US to disengage on the fear that such an aggressive move would force both the Soviet Union (who were supplying the Egyptians) and the United States (who were supplying the Israelis) on step closer toward a nuclear confrontation. Sharon's act to spare the Egyptian third army was not one motivated by compassion or peace but a decision based upon necessity: the continual support of the US. |
