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Politics : Foreign Policy Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (2495)	1/21/2003 1:06:08 PM
From: zonder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15987

whenever NATO or the United Nations requires heavy lifting, they beg the United States to intervene (for example, in Kosovo) Yes, that Kosovo was not a proud moment for UN, I guess. If I were any more paranoid than necessary for survival in today's world, I guess I would say "Europe wanted the ethnic cleansing to succeed so there would be no Muslim minority in their midst". As it is, I just chalk it up to their inertia. If one is referring to the use of nuclear weapons, is not a credible threat, unless he uses a nuke that can be tied to him Did you watch "Sum of All Fears"? After a nuclear attack, they can tell which nuclear plant the ingredients came from. What will our standing in the international community be if we nuke them? Not good at all. Personally, I believe the US will never nuke anybody ever again, but that's just me. and if one is referring to a massive conventional retaliation, well, it is very expensive to keep a lot of troops deployed for such a contingency, and takes a lot of time to get re- deploy after a stand down, which permits a lot of time to prepare to fight on his terms. What is "a lot of time"? A week? If Saddam does engage in nuclear hostilities, the countries that are playing hard to get right now will quickly develop round heels. Deployment in the region should not take more than the time it takes for the planes and the ships to arrive in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Turkey. since sanctions have not worked very well Really? All I see is that we have Bush's word that Saddam could be a threat one day, that he is making nuclear weapons as we speak. Remembering his lies about some atomic agency saying "Iraq will have nuclear capacity in six months" (they denied ever saying that), and the lie about the Iraqi official meeting Al-Qaeda man in some Eastern European city (later disproven), I am not sure how much I trust Bush in this respect. The man is clearly lying his lips off to find whatever excuse he can to invade Iraq. However, considering that whatever occurs will land in our lap anyway, it is reasonable that we should have a more than ordinary say in how to handle this Possibly. Then perhaps the US should propose an amendment of the UN charter accordingly. As it stands now, however, it looks like US is bullying other members of the UN. By the way, the US does have "more than ordinary" powers in the UN - ex: Security Council has five permanent members, one of whom is the US. This is the only body of the UN whose decisions are binding on all of the member states, and the US can block every decision single-handedly. I, of course, believe that the evidence is there, but has been subject to secrecy constraints, to protect assets and make sure that Saddam doesn't move things. I appreciate your trust to your government. Personally, I don't trust anyone with enough power over my head to start WWIII, with a past of known lies on the subject, AND a vested interest in the control of certain oil fields. Now, can you come up with any possible reason why the US would NOT share a BIT of the information it holds regarding the whereabouts of these elusive WMDs with the inspectors looking under every stone in Iraq as we speak? Like, not even a pointed finger, so Blix and his man can find the weapons and show the world they exist? Why make nukes if you are not interested in using them? Wanna ask that question to Israel? :) Seriously, there is only one country on this planet who has ever used nukes. However there are quite a lot of countries who possess them. So your question is not very meaningful, since there are so many countries who have made them but do not use them. No one has threatened Iraq, not even Israel, so long as Iraq keeps to itself. Dunno. If I were an Iraqi, I might have felt a bit threatened by all those bombings going on from US planes even years after the end of the Gulf War.