au1929 wrote:You seem to suggest that we only attack those nations that we suspect will develop WMD's before the do because we can win but to ignore those that already have them because they are too dangerous. In other words we should behave like a bully. As you may have seen bullies sometimes get their heads handed to them.
Actually, that makes me practical. What I am saying is that WMD are so very, very dangerous, and one single one can do so much damage (kill a million people in the worst case) that we simply cannot let Hitler-like figures have them. Imagine what WW2 would have been like if Hitler had had nuclear weapons. Now you may have misquoted me slightly in one respect. I did not intend to say that we should disarm dictators who we suspect will develop WMD, I am trying to say that we should disarm the very worst dictators if we suspect that they
are developing WMD, and we believe that peaceful means of persuasion have failed. Please do not misquote me on this.
Now about my statement that we should not forcibly disarm someone who already has nukes or weapons of comparible destructive power. To invade someone with nukes runs the risk of casualties in the millions, and that is simply not something that can practically be undertaken. That doesn't make me a bully, that makes me rational. I believe in forcibly disarming dictators who won't disarm any other way when it's possible and not when it's impossible.
au1929 wrote:...was the situation with Iraq and yet we invaded. Inspections were ongoing and no WMD's were uncovered. What was the justification for our unprovoked invasion?
In the opinion of many, Hussein was an inccorigible liar, who we had played cat and mouse with for a dozen years, and to continue to allow him to play this game might be giving him an opportunty to perfect and stockpile his weapons. There was no question that he had had WMD, used them, and lied about them. The only question was how recently. Given the overwhelming damage one WMD can do, the odds were just too great that he was continuing to deceive us to allow the game to continue. I don't know whether he had them immediately prior to our invasion or not, but I strongly suspect that if he could have been certified free of them, once the spotlight was off him, he would have started to build them again.
au1929 wrote:Who would you suggest is next? I think Iran fits that profile.
I suggest that if anyone who is apparrently evil on the level of a Hitler or Stalin is allowed to develop and stockpile WMD, the world will likely pay a terrible, terrible price down the road, with possible casualties on a level almost unparallelled in history perhaps literally unparallelled in history. I further suggest that the continuing advance of technology is bringing these weapons within the grasp of more and more people, and that this will occur more and more frequently in the future. Iraq was hardly some one of a kind incident - it was just the leading edge of the problem.
