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  #21  
Old 02-08-2003, 06:40 PM
adios adios is offline
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Default Re: Help Me Please With Containment Concept

"No country in the world would permit spy planes to fly over it. It makes no diffference, as Iraq doesn't have the capability to prevent them from flying."

If the flight altitude is low enough they can be interfered with.

"Israel and Morroco have been in violation of many UN resolutions for far longer than Iraq."

Whatever (I could say a lot about the differences here but it's not necessary) but the question still stands which is what a lot of you all don't seem want to address. If Saddam is constantly violating the regulations and you let him get away with it aren't you letting him, Saddam, re-write the UN regulations?

"Resolutions incidentally that the US did not see fit to veto, and hence cannot blame the nature of the UN (eg non-democracies allowed to participate etc). Noone does anything about it, even though Morrocco for example could easily be forced to comply with resolutions on Western Sahara, for example. Not only are these not enforced but both coutnries are major beneficiaries of US aid and support."

All this shows is that the UN is a very weak organization and it's weakness continues to be demonstrated with the handling of the Iraq situation.


"The idea that the Bush administration, or any other recent US adminisration, have the slightest respect for UN resolutions, or indeed any international agreements, is laughable."

Apparently France, Germany, and Russia don't have the slightest respect.

"They're may be reasons for that, but either way, it's true. The war has nothing to do with enforcing UN resolutions, and when it starts the UN won't be involved, and the international community only in the most token of fashions."

I disagree totally. Without the events leading up to the Gulf War and the subsequent military encounters you don't have UN Resolutions and inspectors nor justification for a US military action. Now look I don't want to have a war but if the Bush administration is right then what other way is there to hold Saddam's feet to the fire? I suppose if the USA invades Iraq and topples the Iraq ruling regime then shows evidence of WMD a lot of you'll say that the USA is fabricating it.



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  #22  
Old 02-08-2003, 06:44 PM
adios adios is offline
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Default Re: Help Me Please With Containment Concept

Ok fair enough here is a link to the resolutions regarding Iraq. You be the judge as to how well he has complied:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/2246037.stm

Again the question is if you let Saddam comply with those resolutions and portions of resolutions that he wants to comply with and let him resist those that he does not want to comply with, isn't he, Saddam, renogotiating the terms of the agreement?

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  #23  
Old 02-08-2003, 06:57 PM
adios adios is offline
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Default Re: Help Me Please With Containment Concept

"I don't believe that many accept the notion that violating international law provides a prima facie case for war. With as much logic one could argue that if the police catch you speeding and you do it again, that their failure to firebomb your house allows you to "break the rules and follow the one [you] want to follow."

That's a ridiculous analogy not even close to the situation IMO.

"I think there's at least doubt. Over 500 UNSCOM site inspections, numerous defectors and continuous satellite photography have no revealed any proof that he has them, although Iraq hasn't "accounted" for the destruction of all of them, yet there's general agreement that nearly all of the CBW's he used to have have been destroyed."

Fair enough so your position is that the USA intelligence data is faulty? Perhaps the USA govt. is misinterpreting the data? Perhaps is lying to justify an invasion? Or something else? I'm not dismissing what you state out of hand but it certainly is different than what the Bush officials are saying.

"Yet you find no room for even doubt? Honestly, how much of this stems from the fact that our government keeps saying so in the news? "

Noticed I posed a question and I'm trying to be open minded about the possibility that they actually don't exist and the USA govt is just wrong. If govt is right, however, then he's hiding them, then they must be eliminated.
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  #24  
Old 02-08-2003, 07:00 PM
adios adios is offline
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Default Re: The looming war is not needed

To say that we must diplomatically engage every country identically is stupid.
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  #25  
Old 02-08-2003, 07:40 PM
MMMMMM MMMMMM is offline
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Default Re: The looming war is not needed

North Korea is a major source of proliferation, and within a year they may be able to produce over one nuclear bomb per week (if the reactivate their old heavy nuclear reactors--which it appears they are now doing).

The last I read, they had the capability to strike Japan and were working on developing ICBM's to reach us, but I'm not aware that they have this capability yet.

However there are two things Iraq can potentially do that North Korea can't:

1) provide highly advanced biological weapons/toxins to terrorists (and perhaps some delivery methods as well)

2) destroy or severely contaminate the region's oilfields, and by so doing create economic upheaval which will greatly and adversely affect the world economy, and the West's economy especially.
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  #26  
Old 02-08-2003, 07:48 PM
MMMMMM MMMMMM is offline
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Default Re: Help Me Please With Containment Concept

Which actually may be a good thing as the U.N. is largely a crock anyway.

This war is about preserving the security of the West--security from terrorist attack, security from threats from WMD, and security of the oilfields from threats of nuclear or biological blackmail.

It will also be nice to see another tyrannical regime deposed, but that's just my opinion.

By the way, in Afghanistan, girls are finally allowed to go to school now, although there are still some Islamist elements trying to stop it by threats of violence.
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  #27  
Old 02-08-2003, 07:59 PM
MMMMMM MMMMMM is offline
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Default Re: Help Me Please With Containment Concept

CA: "Iraq has no ability to attack anyone without suffering a devastating retalliation, so it is fully contained."

This is simply not true if Iraq can attack through surrogates--such as by supplying terrorists with biological WMD--or if Iraq itself can attack with biological WMD (perhaps through Iraqi agents overseas). As long as there is no evidence linking Iraq to the attacks, Iraq would not necessarily be subject to devastating retaliation.

As long as Saddam has WMD, he poses a serious threat which will only grow in time.
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  #28  
Old 02-08-2003, 08:18 PM
IrishHand IrishHand is offline
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Default Re: Help Me Please With Containment Concept

LMAO

As long as there is no evidence linking Iraq to the attacks, Iraq would not necessarily be subject to devastating retaliation.
There's no evidence linking Iraq to 9/11 and he's going to be "subject to devastating retaliation" regardless.

As long as Saddam has WMD, he poses a serious threat which will only grow in time.
A serious threat to whom? Last I checked, he's only been able to (a) temporarily occupy a small neighboring country with an insignificant military, and (b) kill large numbers of his countrymen.

I assume your hollow position is based on some assumption that he'll be aquiring all these weapons in order to sell them to terrorists that'll use them against the US. Apart from the fact that there's no evidence to suggest this (in fact, it suggests the opposite), how exactly does this benefit him? His goals, as best I can tell, are to (a) consolidate his power within his country (hence the internal killings) and if possible (b) expand his nation's power in the Middle East.

Try to be honest with yourself - if there was no oil in Iraq, we wouldn't care any more about Iraq's internal atrocities than we do anyone else's. Of course, if there was no oil in Iraq and the surrounding area (or alternatively, if we didn't feel the need to control as much of it as possible), we also wouldn't have a massive military presence there and the locals wouldn't despise us and they wouldn't feel inspired to blow up our things and the world might be a better place (although some Americans wouldn't be as rich as they are now which would suck for them but is a matter of indifference to me). An oversimplification, true, but valid nonetheless.

Irish
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  #29  
Old 02-08-2003, 08:48 PM
MMMMMM MMMMMM is offline
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Default Re: Help Me Please With Containment Concept

You can trust in Saddam if you want. Others know better.

If you think Saddam's WMD won't somehow eventually be used against us, or our allies, or our interests, then you are incredibly naive or have a crystal ball which somehow displays an unlikely future.

How much would you be willing to bet that Saddam won't eventually provide terrorists with WMD (if he hasn't already)? Would you be willing to stake the security of our nation on it? Saddam is funding the Palestinian homicide bomber industry right now, and he himself called for jihad against the USA and Israel.


This business about "controlling" oil is hogwash--what we are doing is trying to ensure that some LUNATIC can't destroy it all--as he tried before.

Iraq is a great staging area from which to hunt down more terrorists. I agree it has strategic significance. Maybe someday in the next year or two after Iraq and Iran are liberated, and North Korea's nukes are gone, we can commence a campaign to SWAT-team out Hizbollah (which has announced they will be commencing attacks against the USA), Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades, as we work to finish the job with al Qaeda.
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  #30  
Old 02-08-2003, 09:43 PM
Chris Alger Chris Alger is offline
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Default Re: Help Me Please With Containment Concept

"This is simply not true if Iraq can attack through surrogates--such as by supplying terrorists with biological WMD--or if Iraq itself can attack with biological WMD (perhaps through Iraqi agents overseas)."

Which, were Saddam so inclined, he could have done so anytime within the last 10 years or even after his overthrow. According to the Office of Technology Assessment, two men flying a conventional crop duster with 100 kilograms of anthrax over Washington, D.C. could inflict between 1 to 3 million casualties. So it involves (1) smuggling or mailing a 100 kg parcel the US; (2) smuggling two operatives, perhaps disguised as Mexican farmworkers; and (3) renting a crop duster. This is one of a hundred scenarios involving a few people and modest quantities of anthrax, sarin, VX or mustard gas. Overthrowing Saddam cannot reduce these threats by one whit, and might even increase their likelihood. Your heartlessly inhumane argument that we should willingly inflict tens of thousands of casualties in Iraq just to be "on the safe side" is no better than arguing that the US must immediately go to war with all of the 28 or so countries known to have WMD programs, or indeed to wage war on as many countries and people as we can afford to on the grounds that more dead people means fewer potential terrorists.

"As long as there is no evidence linking Iraq to the attacks, Iraq would not necessarily be subject to devastating retaliation."

Given that he's going to be subject already to a devastating retalliation even without attacking anyone this doesn't follow.

Your comment is interesting because it smacks of the paranoia lying behind much of the war rhetoric. We project onto Saddam our worst fears of a hyper-insane maniac who wants nothing more than to kill as many people as possible, without regard even to his own preservation, like that other Arab, Mohammed Atta. Nevermind the fact that everything in his history suggests the opposite, that he's obsessed with the preservation of power and his personal aggrandizement.

It also betrays a lot of fuzzy thinking. We now that Saddam has been an aggressor because of his actions against Iran, Kuwait and the Kurds. From this are are assuming a proclivity, heretofore unexercised, for him to randomly murder people with no prospect of personal or national gain. It doesn't follow.
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