Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: chomolungma who wrote (67438)	1/28/2003 3:40:35 PM
From: BWAC	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Yes I can see the difference. One is being threatened by Pakistan, one is being threatened by Shrub and his war mongers. India and Pakistan seem to have found some common sense lately. Shrub and his war mongers seem to be losing sight of reality. They lost touch with common sense about 2 months ago.

To: chomolungma who wrote (67438)	1/28/2003 6:39:26 PM
From: Sam Citron	Respond to of 70976

"There's an awful lot of Al Qaeda sympathy within Pakistan's nuclear program," an intelligence official told me. One American nuclear nonproliferation expert said, "Right now, the most dangerous country in the world is Pakistan. If we're incinerated next week , it'll be because of H.E.U. [highly enriched uranium] that was given to Al Qaeda by Pakistan." Pakistan's relative poverty could pose additional risks. In early January, a Web-based Pakistani-exile newspaper opposed to the Musharraf government reported that, in the past 6 years, 9 nuclear scientists had emigrated from Pakistan--apparently in search of better pay--and could not be located. An American intelligence official I spoke with called Pakistan's behavior the "worst nightmare" of the international arms-control community: a Third World country becoming an instrument of proliferation...The transfer of enrichment technology by Pakistan is a direct outgrowth of the failure of the United States to deal with the Pakistani program when we could have done so. We've lost control." ... The Administration's fitful North Korea policy, with its mixture of anger and seeming complacency, is in many ways a consequence of its unrelenting focus on Iraq. Late last year, the White House released a national security strategy paper authorizing the military "to detect and destroy an adversary's WMD assets before these weapons are used." The document argued that the armed forces "must have the capability to defend against WMD-armed adversaries... because deterrance may not succeed." Logically, the new strategy should have applied first to North Korea, whose nuclear weapons program remains far more advanced than Iraq's. The Administration's goal, however, was to mobilize public opinion for an invasion of Iraq. One American intelligence official told me, "The Bush doctrine says MAD"---mutually assured destruction--"will not work for these rogue nations, and therefore we have to preempt if negotiations don't work. And the Bush people knew that the North Koreans had already reinvigorated their programs and were more dangerous than Iraq. But they didn't tell anyone. They have bankrupted their own policy--thus far--by not doing what their doctrine calls for. Iraq's military capacity has been vitiated by its defeat in the Gulf War and years of inspections, but North Korea is one of the most militarized nations in the world, with more than forty percent of its population under arms. Its artillery is especially fearsome: more than ten thousand guns, along with twenty five hundred rocket launchers capable of firing five hundred thousand shells an hour, are positioned within range of Seoul... excerpted from Annals of National Security: The Cold Test What the Administration Knew About Pakistan and the North Korean Nuclear Program by Seymour H. Hersh The New Yorker, January 27, 2003, p. 42 ff. [sorry, no web link that I am aware of]

To: chomolungma who wrote (67438)	1/29/2003 9:27:19 AM
From: zonder	Respond to of 70976

That's a fallacy of logic No it's not. He is not saying those two countries are identical. Either murder is a crime or it is not. If it is not a crime for one person, it cannot be held a crime for the other, either, notwithstanding their respective popularity. Similarly, if preemptive attacks are now acceptable, they are acceptable for all countries. You seem to be arguing that Iraq is a more grave danger than India and hence preemptive attack in this special case would be justified. However, (1) Iraq is by no means an imminent danger, only a prospective one. As such, it is impossible to justify an attack. Example: If a guy attacks you with a knife, or threatens to, you could knife him and get away wit it as "self defense". If he is just sitting there with a knife in his pocket, you can't very well just cut his throat because he MIGHT one day attack you. (2) You cannot possibly be the judge of just how great a threat India and Pakistan can be to each other in the future. If they feel there's a danger, it is no more immaterial than US concerns about Iraq's potential for future problems.