Hi Clark Hare; Re: "Self-evidently true that other countries don't find it so easy to just buy nukes. If it were that easy everyone would be armed."
(1) Nukes are expensive to keep around. Most countries aren't willing to pay for them.
(2) The powers that be have a fairly active anti proliferation system going on. This undoubtedly has the effect of suppressing trade in nuclear weapons. But if Saddam had nukes, I bet that the west would approve of Saudi Arabia having them as a counter weight.
My guess that the west would allow Saudi Arabia to possess nukes (or might move nukes to Saudi Arabia itself) is well supported by history. The US supplied assistance to both Iraq and Iran as it sought to balance them against each other. And the US certainly hasn't been hesitant to allow Saudi Arabia to buy huge amounts of very effective modern US technology. If the option truly were to allow Saddam to beat up on the Saudis and obtain an oil monopoly, then sure, the US would drop the non proliferation stance and allow Saudi Arabia to arm itself.
The history of Europe suggests that the US would also be (more than) willing to station nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia to help in their defense.
But this whole argument is based on an unrealistic assumption, that nuclear weapons are effective. The fact is that nuclear weapons, due to their diplomatic consequences, are useless weapons. Saddam couldn't use them to make Malta roll over, much less Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. Nukes are simply not a useful weapon for an aggressor. The whole history of the cold war is that nukes are defensive weapons possessed by states that want to protect their homelands from foreign military action, not weapons that allow anyone to invade and takeover anything.
Re: "Certainly Sadam, who has been trying to procure them for decades."
Saddam's desire for nuclear weapons, like that of Israel, India, Pakistan, the USSR, the USA, France, Britain and North Korea, is strictly as a defensive weapon.
Re: "So let me ask a question (an honest one) - why do you not want to get involved?"
Cause it's not my fight.
Re: "Would you get involved if you saw a known criminal purchasing a gun in your neighborhood?"
Yes, but (a) Iraq isn't in my neighborhood, (b) Iraq isn't a criminal, it's a country, (c) a nuke is not a gun.
Re: "In someone else's neighborhood?"
See (b) and (c) above.
The correct technique to reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons is to eliminate the need for them. Since nuclear bombs are defensive weapons (their use causes alliances to be formed against the user), the proper way to deal with them is by making sure that small countries do not fear being invaded. And of course in the unlikely event that someone actually uses nukes, we must change that regime (using conventional weapons only), with a broad coalition or alliance.
Our actions liberating Kuwait were in the direction of making small nations safer, and thereby were against nuclear proliferation. That is, even though Kuwait didn't have nuclear weapons, they were still able, through foreign assistance, to defeat a much larger neighbor.
When we went in to Afghanistan, on the other hand, our actions were to advance of nuclear proliferation. But since Afghanistan was unwilling to cease cross border terrorism against us our actions were correct. I only mention that that the war was in the direction of making nuclear proliferation more likely in order to illustrate the principle. If small nations do not fear attack from larger nations, then they won't feel the need to arm themselves with nuclear weapons (or chemical or biological weapons).
Your comments on "criminals" and "neighborhoods" suggest that I, like Jesus, should speak in parables (sacreligious LOL).
There is nothing wrong with citizens owning guns for their protection. If you want people to not own weapons, the correct way to do this is to immediately arrest criminals. Now nations, like citizens, do things that are wrong, and are punished, but in no case should the punishment be completely out of all relation to the crime. That is, we don't draw and quarter people because of traffic tickets. We also have rules against trying them for the same crime twice.
Change of topic.
According to Nadine Carroll (see #reply-18220482 ) the punishment given so far to Iraq amounts to $180 billion.
An interesting exercise is to compare this amount to the punishments extracted from 1st world nations when they've been taken to the wood shed. I've converted everything into ounces of gold, which are more or less (i.e. within a factor of 10 or so) constant in value:
Historical War Reparations, in oz of gold
War Ower Popn Amount Per capita
--------------- ------ ----- ------ ----------
Franco-Prussian France 36.9M 46.7M 1.27 oz
First World War Germany 60.0M 483.8M 8.06 oz
Gulf War Iraq 24.0M 556.4M 23.18 oz
While it is true that the world's economies grew between 1872, 1922 and 1991, and that the price of gold is well below where it would be if we were back on a gold standard, it's also true that France and Germany were highly advanced world powers in 1872 and 1922, respectively, while Iraq is a dirt poor unindustrialized 3rd world piece of shit country, and that the damage done to Kuwait was infinitesimal compared to the horrendous damage done in the First World War. Iraq is so dirt poor that people starve there as a result of sanctions, while neither France nor Germany suffered anywhere near to that degree.
So you tell me. Have the Iraqi people paid for Saddam's crime yet? Everyone in the Middle East has at least an intuitive understanding of the above numbers. Neither Germany nor France could have afforded the punishment meted out to Iraq, yet we feel that the country is not yet redeemed.
My reason for looking up these numbers is to try and give a bunch of people with very closed minds another way of thinking about Iraq.
-- Carl
P.S. Notes:
Franco-Prussian War
5 billion gold Francs
107Francs = 1 ounce
World War 1
$10 Billion
$20.67 = 1 ounce
Gulf War
$180 Billion
$323.5 = 1 ounce |
