Barghest-
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First,I take great pride in my bad spelling and bad insults.
I take great pride in my unnecessarily grandiose writing, as well.
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Second,If the differences between two rogue states outweigh the comparisions don't bother using them.Also,yes it might be hard to find a successful rogue state with nukes but do you really want to give a rogue state a chance to become successful at it?
Well, we have to give everyone a chance in the long run. We can't be expected to crush every rogue state that happens to get in our way. That'll earn us a lot of enemies and cause us to lose a lot of friends.
If the rogue state demonstrates a clear and present danger, an immediate and absolute threat to us or our allies, it is in our right--no, our duty to do what we can to fix things.
If the state is an immediate danger to the region (or our allies), our role in the matter is arguable. In some ways, I am all for the spread of democracy and peacebuilding throughout the world. However, we need to consider our role as world police; a lot of people around the world still remember some of our failures to spread democracy in the Cold War.
But one thing is certain: Hussein is not an immediate threat to either us or his neighbors. I'll admit, he definitely has chemical and perhaps biological weapons, but the nukes are highly unlikely. I wouldn't be comfortable if Iraq were to get his hands on a nuke, but neither can anyone be certain that he'll get one. The possibility that Hussein could be a threat in the future is not a case for war.
War is one of the most ethically important decisions we can make, and it should be treated as such. There is plenty more for the UN to do to persuade or coerce Saddam, and at the absolute minimum, with all of the attention on him, he won't be able to get away with some of the atrocities he got away with before the Gulf War.
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Third,oil for food programs may hinder saddam but they really arn't going to really do anything.But there is no way a interdependence link is going to help topple saddam.First,it depends on who exactly he is selling the oil to.Second,he probably won't allow anything that threatens his power in anyway.
The oil for food program at least keep him from using oil revenues to purchase or develop armaments.
I think the worst case scenario is that Saddam will shut down production, or only sell oil to China or Russia. The latter is unlikely, because I'm somewhat sure that the oil for food program can control where the oil goes (at least I would be surprised if the US didn't amend the UN resolutions to get a share of things). The possibility that he could shut down his oil production is more real, as he has ordered it when the UN jerked him around on the extension of the oil for food program. No matter, though. The oil that he isn't giving us right now can't be considered a threat in the future.
Let alone that a future oil threat justification would be difficult to sell to the rest of the world, even to the people at home.
That doesn't mean that oil isn't an issue in the possible war, since we could easily set up such extraction facilities if we toppled the administration. Oil is more of a positive to going to war than a negative for not going to war.
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Fourth,Terrorist may still get their guns from somewhere but if one less place sells them then it's just a little bit harder to get them and that may make all the difference.
It could make a little difference, but not a lot. The more important weapons are the emotional weapons of the terrorists--their appeals to religion and to the general feeling that the US has less than honorable imperialistic aims. By destroying an arms dealer, we may knock off one unimportant source of the physical weapons, but we create more enemies.
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And let me get this straight.You are calling
me a commie?Maybe I just want the US to have a monopoly on Arms sells.
You show your true colors at last, Barghest, and they are various shades of red. Capitalism without competition? Bah! That's another term for 'command economy'. KC, do something before he uses his psychotropically induced commie mind powers and tries to convince me to rise up against the bourgeoisie and seize control of the factors of production.
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Fifth,How do you know that NK wouldn't resort to war if they had even a chance of survival?This nation is so secretive and paranoid there is really no telling what they might do.So you have to be prepared when you are dealing with somebody like this.
One should be prepared; this much is certain. Attacking first and making the desperation of the nation all the more certain is much worse.
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And yes no one is openly calling for war but neither are they happy about North korea being there.You wouldn't feel too secure with people like that only a short distance away.Finally that pro-american rally happened very recently.Mostly Korean war veterans who actually realize how much of our people died so wouldn't be starving in the streets!And I only put that in cause if you could put in unrelated facts I felt I could do the same.
Point taken, but that's an extremely marginal group.
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Now if you want to get back to discussing iraq fine.I was enjoying this debate as well.You can tell that from all the swearing and insults.
I suppose I assumed from the "meat grinder" comment that you felt otherwise.
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But you just don't know if saddam would use a WMD do you?He is just too dangerous to allow him to have a nuke.We just can't risk the lives on letting him have a nuke.
So we do what we can to stop him from getting the nuke without going to war. If he gets a nuke, it's certainly a bad thing. He'd be the only nuclear state other than Israel in the region. But the uncertainty of the distant future is no reason to go to war and put the near future in jeopardy.
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KC-
I wanted to reply to your rebuttals point by point, but I'm running out of time. I think I'll just say something rather general about the nuclear blackmail threat.
The scenario you proposed, though not pretty, are rather remote. They rely on (1) Hussein getting his hands on a nuke, and (2)then require slick diplomatic maneuvering on his part to turn a nuclear stalemate in his favor.
The former is almost impossible with the weapons inspections taking place; he might be able to hide things he's got, but he'll have a hell of a hard time making any progress while the rest of the world is paying attention to him.
The latter requirement for the scenario to take place is within the realm of possibility, but most nuclear diplomacy ends in a stalemate.
Beyond what would have to happen for the scenario to even occur, you have to consider that Hussein, too, will be aware of the risks of such an undertaking. You can't be sure that he would be so bold (or stupid) to do such a thing.
On the other hand, the results of a war can be predicted with more certainty. The backlash from radical groups against the new "Japan II" as you called it, as well as our forces elsewhere, is one such result that we can count on.