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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (123647)	1/24/2004 5:35:05 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Nadine, Saddam was a megalomaniac confrontational totalitarian. He would of course obstruct inspection and any other challenge to his power. Of course he would retain whatever BW WMD and other weapons if he could. As Mao said and King George II believes, power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Saddam agreed with that philosophy too. I don't. I'm inclined to the view that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Real power lies with We the Sheople and our cultural norms, formed by our families. When the mob moves, nothing stops it. Saddam wanted the biggest, most lethal weapons he could lay his hands on. Of course. Defiant rhetoric is a given for somebody like Saddam. He is still defiant. It's his personality. It's even his name. Or course he would cook up as much trouble as he could for opponents. Preferably their death if he could manage it. That's quite normal for megalomaniacs. The USA doesn't just bow down to UN edicts either, partly because the USA has a cynical veto. That's the nature of power and megalomania. It knows no bounds. It needs to be circumscribed in a similar way that the USA constitution puts bounds on the President, the Congress, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the States, the voters. Unbounded power is notoriously lethal to those on the receiving end, whether they be recalcitrant women in Taleban times, Communism's proletariat, Hitler's hierarchy's victims, Aztec priesthood's sacrifices. Saddam did not consider himself bridled, though he was pragmatic enough to keep a weather eye on potential problems "So tell me Glaspie, what do you think of me sorting out those Kuwaitis who are really just part of Iraq?" "Mr President, be our guest". Silly boy to fall for that one. Some would say that the USA cooks up trouble, even inventing fake stories as justification to start wars; Gulf of Tonkin, WMDs. The USA is quite provocative [Korean 747 trespassing on a spy trip into USSR - ooops, the USSR shot it down - the USA didn't try that trick again], flying down the edge of China, Zbigniew Brzezinski harassing Gorby by supporting Islamic Jihad in Afghanistan instead of helping him deal with the USSR and civilizing it and surrounding areas. Islamic Jihad came back to bite the USA in a big way. Around the world, more people are worried about the USA's megalomania than were worried about Saddam. Mqurice