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Pastimes : The Boxing Ring Revived -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (4719)	2/21/2003 4:26:52 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 7720

If we don't agree on the risk, we'll never be about to relate on the analogy. True. And perhaps the reason we don't agree on the risk is that we both lack complete facts. I don't think we're really that far apart in basic principles, though certainly not identical. If I were persuaded that he really didn't represent any legitimate danger to us or our national interests, I would agree that we should just let him foul his own back yard and let the neighbors deal with him. But if indeed he is continuing to develop weapons of mass destruction which he intends to be used not only to further his personal meglomaniac (do you disagree with that?) ambitions but also to strike blows at the West and Western interests, then it behooves us to crush him while we can. I read about six months ago an article which moved my thinking. It was basically about the influence of the possession of nuclear weapons -- that they don't have to be used to be effective. For example, why are we treating North Korea so much differently than Iraq? Precisely because they already have nuclear weaponry. Why hasn't India acted against the rebels who are using Pakistani territory to raid India and inflict casualties on their population? Because Pakistan also has nuclear weapons. If they didn't, India would have insisted that Pakistan get rid of the rebels, and if they didn't, India would have gone in and done it themselves. They certainly have the power to. But they can't, because Pakistan has "the bomb." If Saddam had had the bomb in 1991, do you think we would have launched Desert Storm? Not a prayer. Kuwait would right now be a province of Iraq, there would be no no fly zones, and Iraq probably would have by now pushed into Saudia Arabia and with Iran would be controlling enough of the world's energy to dictate any terms he wanted to to the West. This scenario, if you really follow it out, is I think why Bush is so adamant to go in now. Because the day Saddam can say "okay, guys, I have four nuclear bombs and the missiles to hit Israel, Turkey, Saudia Arabia, and parts of Europe, and if you mess with me off they go" is the day we have lost any ability to stop him from whatever he wants to do in the region. Personally, as I've said before, I wish we just brought all our troops home and became a New Zealand or a Canada, not bothering anybody. But if we're going to try to be the protector of the unprotected in the world, dang it all, we have to do it right.