the reincarnation of suzy wrote:Oh, I apologize if you took that as a personal attack. Maybe it was... Sorry.
Your thread is long and I had to go to work.
I can take you on point by point, but I'll bet somebody has already done so on previous threads anyway. Time and again. The points you make are not new to the forum and have been addressed before, no doubt. And I hate to repeat myself or anyone else. Sometimes I simply choose not to waste my time doing so. It's not like I'm going to change your mind.
However, I have a problem with your last point.
"Is believed not to have completed its development of nuclear weapons"
You think we should go to war with any nation that is trying to develop nuclear weapons? I mean, we have them. Why shouldn't other nations be allowed to protect themselves? I would prefer that they don't have them either, but really, who are we to say they can't? I think that it's attitudes like this that make other nations "hate" us. If we want to be top dog, we need to give better incentives than that! All that is, is an ultimatum. A threat.
I understand what you're saying about your job. Debating on these forums is not necessarily compatible with my job.
I agree that what I am saying is not new. Nor is most of what my opponents are saying new. But what I am saying seems to me to be the correct answer to what they are saying. If we are going to debate at all, then this is how it works.
To answer your question, no I do not think that we should go to war with any nation that is trying to develop nuclear weapons. I have
never, ever said such a thing. What I have
consistently said is that people on a level with Hitler and Stalin cannot be allowed to possess weapons so powerful that
one single use of one can kill tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people.
Here is why I included the criterion that a nation we invade should not yet possess nuclear weapons. Let's take North Korea as an example, and let's assume that North Korea is telling the truth when it claims to have nukes. If we invaded, they could kill a million people - either our soldiers, or the South Koreans - within the first hour or so of the war. Therefore, invasion is not a practical option. Since we foolishly allowed them to develop nuclear weapons, we now have no choice but to negotiate with them, no matter how unreasonable, bizarre, or inflexible their demands. It is too late to invade them.
