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

To: zonder who wrote (4411)	2/20/2003 6:32:58 AM
From: kumar	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 15987

FWIW, IMHO to move a discussion forward, one needs to consider the US position post 9/11. Whilst the Eur-Asian region has had many terrorist attacks, The US is relatively new to these things on its own soil. There is an understandable desire to hit back at those that caused it, those that support(ed) it, and those that are likely supporters of any terrorist actions (current or future) against US interests. May I suggest we not harp on the past ?

To: zonder who wrote (4411)	2/20/2003 9:04:25 AM
From: E. T.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15987

But, as you say, that was then and this is now, capiche. France continues to do business with a murderous despot, the U.S. no longer does so.

To: zonder who wrote (4411)	2/20/2003 1:17:02 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15987

Are you denying that the US officially supported Saddam with weapons ranging from conventional to biological, at about the same time as LB and now you are accusing France of selling nuclear technology to Iraq? Please read below: Yep.. .please show me where the US either sold, or provided Chemical/Biological weapons to Saddam... Weapons Zonder.. not medical samples INTENDED for the purpose of medical research and creating vaccines... The US has NEVER, that I've seen, intentionally sold weaponized biological or chemical materials. The responsibility for these materials being weaponized lies SQARELY with Saddam.. I mean.. if I sold you some Ammonium Nitrate (fertilizer), acetic anhydride, acetone, methenamine, nitric acid, paraformaldehyde, and sodium bicarbonate, Then I've just sold you all the ingredients necessary to make C-4 plastic explosives. Does that mean I've sold you RDX?? If I sell you a car and you pack it full of explosives and detonate it in a crowded marketplace, have I sold you a car bomb?? On the other hand, we see the South Africans sold them artillery systems, the French sold them aircraft.. The Soviets sold them all kinds of weapons (tanks, rifles, aircraft, artillery, missiles.. etc). THEY SOLD WEAPONS, AND WEAPONS MANUFACTURING EQUIPMENT TO SADDAM.. not just precursors.. They sold him a nuclear reactor that he had NO JUSTIFIABLE NEED for (and apparently some Uranium enriched to 93% (normal nuclear fuel is only 3-5% enriched).. That is effectively weapons grade uranium. And the French were MORE than eager to provide a reactor when the Russians rejected it.. In fact the French sold 2 reactors to Iraq, but the core of one was fractured by the Israelis during Operation Sphinx in Toulon.. The French repaired the other one and shipped it as the Osirak reactor, which was later bombed... antenna.nl According to "New Scientist", the fate of the 20 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from the test-reactors is unknown. Just over half the uranium is in the form of uranium metal, enriched to weapons grade (93%). The remainder is uranium oxide (enriched to 80%). On the possibility that a working reactor could have been bombed, David Fisher (formerly in charge of safe-guards at IAEA) said only, "It would be a very nasty cleanup". It may have been in the US interest to keep Saddam from losing (NOT WINNING), but we didn't sell them the weapons.. Why should we when the French, Soviets, and everyone else is more than willing to do so??? And we didn't sell them VX.. We sold them an antidote to VX, which they reverse engineered into a chemical weapon.. That's like selling you a vaccine and you using genetic manipulation to create the original virus it was designed to protect against.. But once again, Zonder.. 18 years ago is ANCIENT HISTORY, even from the perspective of criticizing France and Germany.. What we have to look at is the post-Desert Storm period and how the French and Germans have formed a very cozy commercial trading relationship with a brutal tyrant... And now they are manipulating the UNSC by preventing, or rendering ineffective, the enforcement of the UNSC resolutions.. The only nation TRULY enforcing them is the US (along with the UK), something we have been doing at US taxpayer expense for 12 years now.. We've been forking out the big bucks to protect the cozy French relationship with Saddam... And that's going to end... And it appears that France and Germany are pretty much writing them out of any significant post-Saddam investment opportunity with any new government.. Hawk