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On 2002-12-11 14:56, Kills Commies wrote:
Tree: It is a logical conclusion I came to based on the assumption of readyness on the part of the affected country, comparing the estimated results of biological/chemical/nuclear weapons. The information is widely available on the web.
Let's assume that I'm a lazy schmuck, or a poor researcher. Or let's assume that the only sites I've found supporting this are joe.republican.killsaddam.com and the like. Would you mind posting a few
reliable sources for us, or at least citing them so's we can check for ourselves whether or not anyone of great credibility believes Israel and neighboring nations can effectivly defend themselves from a biological or chemical strike? I'd certainly appreciate the reaffirmation, and I'm sure no one else would object to it.
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Besides that, Chemical and biological weapons can, once again, be defended against. Vaccines, quartentines, the nature of said weapons, etc. Nuclear weapons cannot. This obviously makes them a fair deal worse than biological or chemical weapons.
So, with nukes, Saddam Hussien can say "I will turn a major city in Israel into an unihabitable glass bowl if you try to stop my invasion" should we allow him to gain nuclear capability. As of right now, he can merely say "I can infect a city with a deadly disease, thereby killing the population but allowing for the disease to be contained by quarentines or vaccines, and I will if you try to stop my expansion." Or, alternativly "I can kill the population of a city by flooding it with deadly gases that will disperse quickly and can be defended against with biocontamination suits for the entire populace and I will if you try to stop my expansion." I don't deny that nukes are the worst of the three weapons and the hardest to defend against the effects of; I would argue that Saddam still has a plenty big enough stick to wave if he were going to use WoMD as an umbrella to invade and expand under.
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Hussein needs to die.
I don't think the world would be the worst for it, but, like tychoseven, I do have to question whether the US has the right to relieve it of his burden...his point that there are a good many people who deserve to die that don't, and plenty who don't that do, is certainly a compelling argument about too hastily condemming a man to death, and then there's another issue I have to rasie: If part of our justification for invasion is that Saddam Hussien clearly deserves to die, aren't we sort of supporting the violent removal of political leaders whose doctrines and actions disagree with ours? Of course, his in particular disagree with ours because they are, as has been pointed out many times, despotical and supported by very few sane people outside of his own government, but it remains that that is the position being advocated.
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The USA might or might not be threatened by Hussein
This is
not an argument for invasion of a country. "They might be a threat to us" would be an unimaginable PR debacle. Remember those photos of guys clinging to the helicopter skids as we fled Vietnam? Or Watergate? Like those, only worse.
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The USA might be being hypocritical by attacking Iraq, because he might not present a threat and his huhman rights abuses are by no means unique
There's no "might" about it...it is a fairly hypocritical act (although there are certainly compelling arguments on the first page regarding how the US should protect its interests by invading this oil-rich human rights abuser while letting others go). I don't think, however, that that automatically disqualifies the possibility of invasion, it is merely an argument against it and a bit more support for the PR debacle argument.
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Hypocritical or no, its good that Hussein gets killed and a democracy (ala Japan after WWII) is installed.
Or another dictatorship? We put Marcos in the Philippines, Chun in South Korea, Somoza in Nicaragua, the Colonels in Greece...the list goes on and on. Suffice it to say, the US is hardly infallible when it comes installing or supporting democratic nations. For the "Saddam gets killed" part, see earlier in the post.
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Given all of this, the only real debate question is not wether we go to war, but if the US is being hypocritical in going to war. Hussein dead, no matter how hypocritical the reason, is a desireable thing.
Agreed?
To cystalize this post, no.
Edit: Had to fix the brackets on a quote command again.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Treespeaker on 2002-12-11 21:09 ]</font>