They are different. One is limiting a despot's capability, and the other is occupying the country. If someone is breaking a resolution they agreed to, then it's ok to rectify that situation, especially when it's with targeted strikes. If someone is breaking a resolution, but it isn't a proven immediate threat, and one country that isn't even one of those at the most danger from the country wants to basically invade it unilaterally then they are very different principles. If a child has done something wrong, and is grounded would like inspectors and limited strikes. An all out invasion would be like child abuse. They are both punishment but the principle involved is different. It's why inspectors are needed, and if prevented from doing their job then an invasion would be needed. I'm against invasion no matter what. But I do believe the case has to be made, and it has to be done with the support of the UN the organization that's resolutions are being violated, IMO.
I'm not against enforcing the UN resolutions at all. If nukes are found they should be destroyed. I think that's the point of inspections in the first place. But destroying the nuke making capability doesn't automatically require a full scale invasion.
Leave my melodramatic Empire analogies aside (please), but mav3434's example really points to my absolute biggest worry: being consistent, and therefore fair, and therefore able to call ourselves a just, righteous nation. Once, Saddam was our buddy, and Rumsfield is photographed shaking hands with him, even though we know he's the devil. Iran tries to run him out of Baghdad because he was simply too dangerous and evil, but we literally bail Saddam out. Now Saddam is bad, and now we may have to go take him out unilaterally. The whole problem for me with the pre-emptive idea is it appears impossible to apply it in a just, uniform way. So fast-forward with Musharaf (sp). When is he going to be a bad guy? mav's right -- he's doing many of the same things Saddam is doing.
You are pretty funny with all of your "Frogs" comments. Oh, the dagger it sends to my heart (even though I live in France's past)! You know my father is a British historian (and anglophile...even though he is of Scottish blood) so you can imagine what our discussions are like! Neither of us really knows what the other is talking about, but we argue it all anyway. Anyway, you know France would not give Iraq nukes...sheesh. We also have helped Israel build up their weapons/nukes...are we going to give to Iraq? Also, who cares if they can get nuclear backpacks into cars - they can't drive accross the ocean to get us. Boats have to go through inspection, as well, so they can't put a car on a boat. Who cares if they drive to SA and nuke them? This is supposed to always be about us! Us, US, us, US...get it? I don't.
I will just point out that we tried to prevent Pakistan's proliferation, the Pressler Amendment I think. Where they had to prove they were not proliferating to get the mass amounts of aid, f-16s and stuff like that. Unfortunately, the PRC helped them out to use Pakistan as a counterbalance to India. And the equation is totally different NOW with Pakistan since they are a nuclear state. Iraq is not, but you can see how much more difficult the situation is to handle ONCE a state becomes a nuclear power. Then your option to invade is no longer an option.
Yeah well I don't want to tango with you about 'art,' so I have to take my shots when I can get them.
Uh, so is an invasion illegitimate or not. You are saying BOTH. And your distinction about 'targeted strikes' v 'invasion' makes NO SENSE, or rather I should say you have NO EXPLAINED what the difference in principle is. Please refrain from your MacBeth like child abuse/bob and his broomstick examples and stick to Iraq.
<blockquote>Originally posted by rimbaud How would terrorists get Iraqi-created nukes to the US? </blockquote>]That is totally irrelevant, and it also does not include other WMD in your question. I mean; damn!! we got hit by Anthrax (probably from inhouse, but still). That's like asking how are terrorist going to fly two planes into the WTC, or how is someone going to get Anthrax into the House/Senate offices. If terrorists get nukes...we failed. If they get high-grade anthrax...we failed The moment any of that happens...we failed on national security. I mean...this is not even an argument. That is FAILURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LMAO! Wait a minute. I've reread the thread, but maybe I missed something. I hope there's some other "bob" reference here, because I don't want to be associated with a broomstick. Yikes. My foreign policy has already been likened to inviting rump ranging today in this thread! And now its "bob and his broomstick." ... I should have pre-empted this.
You are right, it wasn't an argument. Hayes understood...it was a question of pragmatics that I wanted to talk about. I personally think terrosrists would prefer the chemical/biological route because it is easier in "pulling off" and harder in pinpointing, etc (and that is why I did not ask about them in my post)...but there are probably situations where they might prefer nukes, they just seem like more of a hassle. Hayes, Why do you pick on me and my French connection so much? You suck. Also, do you realize how appropriate it was for you to write 'art' instead of art? Very impressive.
Haha Bob. I'm just basically saying if its not them, its going to be us eventually. And I'd rather it not be us.
An invasion may legitimate. It depends on exhausting all the other options first. Bush went to the UN and demanded they take actions to get their resolutions enforced. Saddam made an offer which could do just that(Granted their should be extreme suspicion of any offer he makes.). Yet now it seems like he wants to waste his great speech and effort by going for invasion, before waiting for Saddam to mess up. If Saddam messes up, the precious invasion that so many people seem to covet would still happen only it would happen with far more support world wide. So yes I'm saying an invasion is bad, and yes an invasion is warranted. If it's done to enforce the UN resolutions with UN support after trying every single other action first, or if it happens in self-defense then it's OK. If it's unilaterally done, and has nothing to do with UN resolutions and there still is another way out, then it's not OK. I'm not against invasion no matter what. It just depends on the conditions. One is a reasonable reaction designed to enforce resolutions. The other is an attempt to take over a sovereign state.
touche. Is it just me or are people paying attention to something completely random? When you're cleaning the house, do you go straight for the silverware or for the big wins, i.e. the kitty poop, windows, vacuuming the floor, etc.? Sure Sadaam is crazy and all, but there are tons of people that are crazy in those countries. Do we get to kill them all? Hmmm... then again, if we do play the total ******* Roman empire thing, we could also take care of some of those other issues on the horizon, problems with population, etc. And the oil, WHOA. Good thing the republicans had already thought about all of the wins, b/c Sadaam is obviously not in our critical path.
Achebe, World population will definitely "attempt to alter the American way of life," so we could pre-emptively strike at the world population problem. An overpopulated world will bring untold biological and chemical threats to our soil, so I say let's get it done. Attack world population until it meets our guidelines.
Among the questions I've never heard a satisfactory answer for is this... IF we can justify invading Iraq on the grounds that we suspect ( or have 'knowledge' of that never sees the light of day ) that they mean to do us harm at some point in the future, especially contrary to world opion...well, what can't we justify? What invasion can we not declare is a pre-emptive action, trust us? Seriously, mock B-Bob all you want, but by abandoning one's own moral standards, whether it be for anger, vengeance, fear, or pursuit of power/wealth is exactly how 'evil' empires get started. From the British to the Romans, every imperial power in history has justified it's actions to it's people...The degree to which the people scrutinize those justifications, and hold their leadership accountable to their original standards, irrespective of anger, fear, etc. that is a measure of a people's adherance to the tennants of freedom.
no superpower has ever checked its aggression against the world as much as the US has over the course of the last 50 years or so. we're trying to defend ourselves...and the threats of WMD are real...we don't know exactly how close they've gotten to us before...but here's the thing...if this administration sits on its hands and does nothing...and if we are victim of a WMD strike...you and everyone else in this country (me, included) will never never never never never forgive this administration...never...so if blair releases information soon that says, "hey, guys....look...we have credible evidence of WMD and we know al qaeda is hanging out in baghdad" i would argue they would be derelict in their duties not to strike first.
Consistency in your foreign affairs paradigm and its application has far more value than just the appearance of justness. The whole point of elucidating your doctrine is so that other states can know how you will react to a certain situation and plan their behavior accordingly, and thus their behavior can be anticipated to some degree. Predictability is what makes for a safer world. For example, our biggest allies, Canada, Western Europe and Japan, all have a relatively predictable response in general to American actions. It applies to our non-allies too. Cuba, while a foreign policy problem to Miami expats, doesn't present a problem to the united States because they generally are pursuing a predictable course of action: They don't mess with us, we don't mess with them. There is about zero risk of the US going to war with Cuba in the immediate future, though relations between the two states are far from ideal, they are not immediately threatening. However, when you have an uneven paradigm that you apply to one state and not another (as in the Iraq-Pakistan example), then you undermine the entire rationale for even having such a policy. Other states will not know how to react. Should indonesia develop nuclear weapons because Pakistan has them? Or will they be treated like Iraq? Who knows. Instead of having a policy around which behavior will be planned, and thus predicted with at least a marginal degree of certainty, you may as well have none at all. The policy instead smacks of post hoc justification or straight up imperialism by the global hyperpower, especially to non-Americans. Is there a perfect geostrategic polcy? probably not, but coming up with one that may be invalid before it is even instituted seems like a waste of time IMO. Edit: I just made "senior member" with this post; I guess something positive came out of working on Friday night!
1) Your first point is completely untrue...The Romans went through several periods longer than 50 years without attacking anyone, and at other times actually voluntarily withdrew from regions entirely, due to overextension. Egypt, for all it's well over a thousand years as a world power, only really experienced a few periods of expansion, and was, for the most part, content within it's natural borders. China's history as a superpower tells the same story...hundreds of years of little or no intervention in external affairs on a military scale...And there are several others...Secondly, during the last 50 years (or so), the US has been involved in foreign wars in Korea, VietNam, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and now possibly Iraq, not to mention military strikes against Panama, Libya, Granada, Iraq, and others...and all this while being 'checked' by the greatest deterent to military agression ever known...This is self control? 2) But the 'sits on it's hands' thing still doesn't answer the question...IF we justify this by what we think they might do in the future, what can we not justify, at some point in the future? Do you really think that residents of empires/nations we have come to regard as expansionist/imperial/'evil' thought they were evil? Do you think people living in Germany in 1939 said.." Yeah, we have no reason to do the things we're doing...But let's do them anyways!"...or did they believe the lies/distortions their agrressive government told them? They were told that they were invading Czeckoslovakia to protect the German speaking residents of that nation who were being persecuted...they were told that they were occupying Austria because the people there wanted and needed the protection of a like speaking power...etc..and you know what? By and large these claims had some truth in them, but were blown up by the government of Germany to rationalize pursuing it's own interests...Rome constantly attacked out of fear that they would be attacked if they didn't act first...and they had a lot more cause than we do, considering that they were invaded several times, and had their city captured...and we still regard their 'pre-emptive self-defense' as nothing more than all out expansionism...Athens attacked several other cities to bring their version of Democracy to the inhabitants...whether those inhabitants wanted it or not...they were called tyrants..( cont. interpretation...)...Britain was protecting it's trade interests, whose trading posts being attacked , or allies being attacked was almost invariably the initiative for colonization...Spain was bringing the word of God...it goes on and on... The point is not to judge the rationales for these aggressive expansionist actions by today's standards, but by those of their time...and at the time the people bought the rationales...Does that excuse them, in the eyes of history? No...and some of those rationales are pretty damn close to what we are doing today to begin with... THink about it, not as an American for a second, but as a reader of history sometime in the future..." America invaded another country, against the desires of the rest of the world, because it claimed that this other country would use WMD against the US at some undefined point in the future., although when asked by world leaders to produce the evidence for such a supposition it remained quiet.....while simultaneously acknowledging it's intent to maintain it's military superiority over the rest of the world, as a first priority...." How will that read?
I hope you really don't think that Iraq is a religious freak nation. First check the head of the organization, then look at his minions. Which one is religious, and which one is secular? Religion (when used wrong) is a tool being used by the master mind to control the poor, weak and ignorant. Please don't fall into the trap of believing in Hollywood stereotypes; or Bush'es "Axis of evil" rant. We might as well just nuke the whole middle-east, just because we fear those "Islamic religous freaks. Saddam is the secular master mind. He's not religious. Also, the western-schooled "Islamic priests" have been seduced by power. It's a select few that corrupt the many.
