parados wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:parados wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:
I was ardently hoping for an invasion of Iraq years before it happened, simply because I was afraid that Saddam Hussein was secretly continuing development of WMD, and that if he did attain them, something terrible might happen. How is that immoral?
Brandon9000 wrote:
Those other countries are entirely different situations. I haven't called for the invasion of North Korea because they already have the bomb, and could use it if an invasion were tried. It's too late. That's the whole point, actually.
I'm not sure how North Korea was an entirely different situation before they tested their first nuke just last year. Are you saying you weren't hoping for an invasion of North Korea for YEARS before they tested their nuke? How was North Korea different from Iraq before they tested their device in October?
North Korea was different because I believed that they had abandoned their nuclear weapons development programs. Had I known that they were developing nukes in hiding while pretending to cooperate, I would have favored a period of further negotiation followed, if necessary by an invasion.
Oct 2002 North Korea reveals to US that they have a secret nuclear program
Nov 2002, US cuts off oil supplies to North Korea because of their hidden nuclear program.
Oct 2006, North Korea tests its nuke
Looks like YEARS to me Brandon. Four years isn't enough time to start thinking about invasion?
Oct 1998 Inspectors were in Iraq confirming no known ongoing programs.
Oct 2002 US is making noises about invading Iraq and passes the resolution allowing force
May 2003 US invades Iraq.
parados wrote:Hoping for an invasion of Iraq - Immoral? Hard to say. Consistent and based on well thought out principles? Not based on your answer it wasn't.
Brandon9000 wrote:You state this without any proof or clarification of how you reached your conclusion.
parados wrote:I reached it based on facts in existence. You claimed IF you had known North Korea was developing a nuke you would have supported an invasion after negotiation failed. Meanwhile in the case of Iraq, knowing wasn't even in the equation. You merely had to be afraid. Yet when it became common knowledge that North Korea had been cheating you let it go for years finally using the test 4 years later as your excuse for not supporting any invasion.
So..
Iraq - you only had to be afraid they were getting WMD to support an invastion.
North Korea - you required knowledge followed by negotiation before you would support an invasion
Iraq - 4 1/2 years without inspectors and few negotiations was more than long enough to support an invasion
North Korea - 4 years without inspectors and few negotiations was NOT long enough to support an invasion.
So Iraq - Merely SUSPECTING was enough to give you YEARS of supporting an invasion which means you had to support an invasion at least in 2001, 2 years after inspectors left.
But North Korea - Even after 4 years of KNOWING you still didn't support an invasion.
Or should we just realize you don't pay any attention to what is really going on and just make up your beliefs out of thin air?
My beliefs are perfectly self-consistent. If, as you say, there was a period during which NK was known to have violated their agreement, and had admitted that they were seeking nuclear weapons (or biological weapons), I was simply unaware of it. I have never claimed to be an authority on current events, only to have my own point of view. Iraq was bigger in the news. Had I been aware of this, I would have favored negotiations, followed by invasion had negotiations failed.
In the case of Iraq, Saddam Hussein had been known to have had active WMD programs, and to have lied about them and concealed them from inspectors. He had used chemical weapons, a lesser form of WMD, to destroy an entire town. He had attempted to annex a neighbor. He seemed to be a horribly evil person. It seemed to me to be perfectly plausible that he was still continuing his programs secretly, and that within an unknown, short period of time, he might announce that such programs had reached fruition. Since negotiations with Iraq had already gone on for a long time, invasion seemed prudent.
My beliefs and criteria for applying them are the same in both cases, although my level of awareness of what was in the news may have been unequal in the two cases. Your claim that I do not apply my beliefs equally to all countries is false. I may simply know more about certain of them then about others. We are not debating my knowledge of current events, only which philosophy is correct.
In these or any case, I believe that some of the worst and most dangerous dictatorships should be denied nuclear and biological weapons. In all cases, I believe that negotiations should be tried, but if they apear to be fruitless, invasion should be undertaken. And you may be absolutely sure that this scenario will present itself many times in the future, as very dangerous and apparently evil dictators seek superweapons. Iraq was just the tip of the iceberg.
