The War Against "Excessive Influence" Over Oil

[andyfox]

I know you didn't say it, but just for the record: I do not think oil is the entire equation, and I do not think that the WMD threat from Iraq is imaginary.

"the Iraq buildup was well under way when North Korea sprung this on the world--what is Bush to do, take all the forces we just sent to the Middle East and move them towards the Korean peninsula? One thing at a time."

I agree. What will the administation do if we begin a war in Iraq and N. Korea attacks S. Korea right at that time?

My hope is that all the bluster from the administration is intended to arouse the Iraqi military to threaten Saddam with a coup and to convince them to convince him to abdicate power and take up refuge in Libya or Mars. If this is the secret plan behind the war (so far) of words, and it succeeds, I'd be the first to congratulate the administration and Bush would be reelected (and should be) in a landslide.

[MMMMMM]

Yes, the reason for my first paragraph was because Chris Alger said it or at least implied it--I know you didn't say it.

North Korea might attack South Korea right after we attack Iraq, just as you describe. Quite a nasty scenario.

Arab leaders are currently, behind the scenes, trying to convince Saddam to step down and take the "exile" option. We'll just have to wait and see.

[IrishHand]

I guess we just look at the matter differently - I have a tough time differentiating between all nukes being shot at the US hitting and only a percentage of them in terms of value.

And didn't you say that North Korea was going to be making a nuke a month? I threw out the "4 nukes shot at us" to illustrate that the shield would need to take them all down to be effective. To me, it only makes sense that if a country has the ability to create ICBMs then they will send enough to ensure widespread destruction. Your response basically seems to indicate that so long as we only get one nuclear hit on a US city, we'd be able to recover. What about if N. Korea saved up for a year, then launched a dozen? What about when 3 hit? Or 4? Plus, keep in mind that if this takes place, we turn Korea into a nuclear wasteland - which I don't believe we do if there were a magical missile shield capable of taking down everything fired at us.

In the end, only time will tell. Both my position and yours is basically speculation at this point. We can't say for certain how much the missile shield will cost in the end, or how effective it will be. We also don't know how other countries will do developing nuclear weapons or the means to project them onto US soil. Guess we can revisit this one in 20 years or so. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Irish

[MMMMMM]

^

[nicky g]

"The despots Alger listed are not worse than Saddam--he is fully on a par with some, and worse than others. "

This is a very sterile argument to get into, but I still thought this was worth repeating: Suharto had approxiamately 2 million people killed, on the grounds that they were "leftists". I think if you are ranking despots, he probably beats Saddam.

[MMMMMM]

If that's taken as the only or primary measure of despotism, I won't disagree with you. However, sometimes conditions also influence how many are slaughtered. I suspect that Saddam is fully on a par with Stalin and Hitler as far as having the psychological and ideological predisposition to such things--but the conditions are somewhat different for him. Given different conditions, I don't much doubt that he would be fully as capable of butchery on a much larger scale.

[nicky g]

yeah, perhaps. i'd say though that we're ultimately defined by our actions and not by our intentions or potentials.

[MMMMMM]

Well...yes and no...I agree we're defined in large part by our actions, but is, for instance, a serial killer who "only" tortures and kills 15 any "better" than one who tortures and kills 30? Saddam's evil actions have been realized to a large extent (it's not like we're condemning him on his potential) and if his death count is less than it is for a few others it is probably just due to lack of opportunity. I doubt if Stalin was any more ruthless than Saddam; Stalin just had more opportunity to inflict widespread devastation--the external conditions were different.

[MMMMMM]

In other words if there was a different type of action, I would agree with you completely. But a mere difference in scale is probably attributable to a difference in external conditions or opportuntites. For instance, a career hitman (a murderer-for-hire) is a career hitman whether he kills 20 for profit or 40.

[IrishHand]

While Hussein's idol may be Stalin (don't know myself - never talked to the man), that doesn't mean he's even in the same league. Hitler and Stalin are in a class of their own. Hussein's not even close in scope or scale...