Cycloptichorn wrote:Quote:
If he didn't have both some WMD and research facililities to develop certain others, then why did he promise by treaty to destroy them? Hussein had much more than zero chance of striking America. All he would have needed to do was smuggle the weapons into the US in pieces and reassemble them here. One nuclear or bioweapon probably couldn't kill millions of people, but several could. We are not talking about some guy who might in theory have WMD of which there was no evidence. We are talking about Saddam Hussein, who had had WMD and research facilities to develop more, and had signed a treaty promising to destroy them. You don't invade the kingdom of an evil madman because he might simply in theory have doomsday weapons, but you ought to if he has had them and facilities to improve them, and has failed to adhere to a treaty to destroy them.
You are making a Black Swan argument. What evidence do you have that Saddam
didn't destroy his WMD?
I am not saying that he didn't destroy them. I am saying that we simply didn't know whether he had or not, since he had not adhered to his promise to verifiably do so, and had on many occasions refused inspectors access to sites they wished to visit. Hence, there was some significant probability that an evil madman was still in possession of and perfecting WMD, and a moderate chance of an unimaginably bad consequence is serious.
Cycloptichorn wrote:At the time of the invasion, you may recall that there were still UN inspectors looking for WMD in the country. They didn't find any. Why did we rush to invade again? Why didn't we wait for them to do a more thorough job?
We did - for 12 years - hardly a "rush" to action.
Cycloptichorn wrote:[
Quote:All he would have needed to do was smuggle the weapons into the US in pieces and reassemble them here.
Anyone, apparently, can do this at any time. Russia could have done this. Iran could do it. Al Qaeda could do it. Any of our enemies can do this. Does this mean we should attack everyone? Of course not. Lame....
The Soviet leaders, for all their flaws, were at least not madmen. They generally pursued a risk averse policy. Furthermore, we lacked the capacity to successfully invade the Soviet Union. I would indeed recommend that we deal very seriously with anyone of the level of active and unstable evil of Hussein, when that entity is developing WMD and negotiations have failed. Obviously, diplomacy is preferrable to war, where possible. But we cannot allow a scenario to develop in which someone like Saddam Hussein uses either the threat of or the actuality of WMD in a bid to expand his territory.
Cycloptichorn wrote:[...Bush made it abundantly clear that he was going to invade no matter what; for political reasons which had nothing to do with WMD, and the worst part is, you know it!
Cycloptichorn
Your attempt to guess the contents of other peoples' minds is invalid. You do not have the ability to do it.
That doesn't make any sense Cyc. Think about what you are saying... They existed and it can't be proven they were destroyed, yet that doesn't prove they still exist... Is that really what you mean to say?
