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On 2002-12-12 00:40, Kills Commies wrote:
Funny, but in the end stupid. I got my data from scientific resources, fuck you very much, but I fail to see a reason to have to go track down the various books/websites (which I do not have on hand) that you can find yourself. Perhaps after finals week, but not now.
Those what want to can beleive you...I'm just not convinced that we're getting a complete picture of the feasability of defending against biological or chemical strikes relative to nuclear ones (see below for expansion on this skepticism). Suppose I'll have to do a little research on my one. Assuming I can find time, of course...you're not the only one with finals, you know.
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Secondly- your own words seem depressingly idiotic. Killing tyrants isn't okay?! We have to have a REASON to kill tyrants now?
Um...yes. Yes, a reason to kill people is generally a good thing. And I know you go on to explain what our reason is in the next quote, so please don't jump on this as an example of me misinterpreting. Just pointing out that it is generally considered appropriate to provide a reason for killing someone before doing it. Or at the very least, shortly afterward.
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Hey, how about this one: they're tyrants! They pissed us off and have (as the French have said) ties to Al Quida. Under his rulership people are tortured and killed, and he destabalizes the entire region. Thats damn well good enough for me.
These make Saddam Hussien a terrible person, with a terrible government (well, except for the "pissed us off" bit...first off, not everyone in the US is all that pissed at him, and secondly, personal dislike is usually not considered justification for murder, at least not in the US). I
don't think they make him a good target for the US. Please, stop trying to convince me that Saddam Hussien deserves to die. I don't particularly disagree (although, tychoseven's point that no one should have make that judgment for another man is
still pretty much unanswered). What I'm not convinced of is the idea that the US needs to do the job, and do it now with a military invasion.
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Now, I already said- Hussein should be killed because of his human rights violations alone. You all agreed that killing him would be all good and such, but yet you say we shouldn't go to war...because tyrants are people too? I'm wondering here, aside from all other arguments, whats the possible reason why everyone should just jump in gleefulness at the thought of this guy biting it? What is the problem here?
If you'd read, the arguments against war can hardly be summarized as "tyrants are people too." Convince me that other countries latching on to a US invasion as justification for "preemptive" attacks of their own is unreasonable, or that the US can stand a PR debacle both in foriegn countries and in our own national media, and the case for war becomes
much stronger than what is is now ("The effects of an invasion don't matter, because he's a bad person").
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Flimsy reason (in your wrong opinion) or no, why is anyone complaining that this guy is going to die? I'm wondering here...because the Iraqi people are evil?
See above...I personally am not objecting to the idea of Saddam Hussien biting the big one, assisted or not. I am objecting the the US launching a military strike against Iraq. See above for why I am
still not convinced that we are the appropriate agent of action, nor that this is the proper time to invade.
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Maybe...I dunno...you think that some weird, hypothetical situation where some other country uses this as an excuse to attack another, is more important that freedom for the iraqi people and death for this ass?
1. Saddam using nukes as a shield for his evil expansion plans is about as likely as someone like China saying "Hey, the US just invaded a weaker nation on the grounds of preemptive striking...why don't we do the same?" Neither is right out, nor is it dead certian. I'd say both are more likely than not, but I'm a cynic. At any rate, I don't think you can say something like that is terribly hypothetical, at least no more so than other reasonable conjectures we're drawing here...I'll grant the likelyhood of your scenario; do me the courtesy of doing likewise when there is no evidence to the contrary.
2. Assuming the likelyhood of this, I would say that letting Saddam Hussien kill and opress his people all he likes is indeed prefferable to granting agressive nations the right to invade neighbors on the flimsiest of pretexts (or denying them said right after exercising it, and having to exercise constant military force in every dictatorial shit-hole in the world).
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So hold on, lets see here. On the one hand you feel that tyrants can't be taken out unless we have a reason ("he's a tyrant and he actively hate us and will jump at the chance to aid in hurting us" isn't a good enough reason any more.) On the other, you have a person who is up there with the worst human rights abusers on the planet, who made war on his neighbors, who hates the US, has ties to Al Quida, and is trying to develope nuclear weapons.
Going on to say that I'm quite convinced Saddam Hussien is a scumbag who deserves to die but that I don't think we need to be the ones doing it would be redundant at this point. All the arguments in this excerpt are adressed in other replies of mine.
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Lastly, the bio/chemcial weapon comment- biological and chemical weapons are both cases like this.
Biological weapons can be defended against. Vaccines, as I mentioned, are very effective against biological weapons (as most people in Israel will be lining up for vaccines pretty soon, I'd imagine.) We know the kinds of diseases he has a hold of- therefore it would be theoretically easy to defend against. Additionally, biological agents are never 100% fatal. Even in the crappiest conditions ever, the black death only wiped out 1/3rd of its victims, after all.
First, a quick close-up:
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...,I'd imagine
Please don't accuse me of coming up with weird, hypothetical situations and then suggest that the Israeli government is anywhere near capable of getting its citizens to line up for vaccines, much less get its hands on enough vaccine in the first place.
My other point...ah, the Black Death. You're right, that wasn't so bad. Just keep in mind that it's now acceptable losses for Saddam Hussien to wipe out "only 1/3" of a continent's population. If this is the kind of scale you're working on, it shouldn't matter whether or not he gets nukes...no way he could hide enough to do that before even the thickest UN inspector twigged. Of course, I personally have to say that I don't think the worst of all despots could wipe out that many people no matter how agressivly he expanded, so if pressuring him to use his weapons by invading will we should let him have his invasion, and give him our blessings with it.
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Chemical weapons are also not 100% lethal most of the time (remember the chemical attack in the japanese subway? not a lot of deaths, just lots of dehibilitations,) are hard to deliver (missiles are bad carriers for both bio and chemical agents, btw- the impact and explosion often ruin the load.
1. I guess crippling half the country isn't enough of a stick to wave at us, then. I'm still not convinced he doesn't have the threat nessecary to make his theoretical expansions already.
2. You earlier in this thread posted all manner of methods for delivering a nuclear warhead without using missiles, and against which there are no real defenses. Please cross-apply these to your argument that missiles won't effectivly deliver his biological or chemical weapons.
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Though the data is available in several books (I think) the only source I can cite with confidence right now on that is a history channel special on said weapons (bio/chemical weapons) and are dispersed fairly quickly and easily (thats basic chemistry, so yeah, I feel no need to cite.)
Quick dissapation is not going to save the people in the city he hits. Remember your evidence on the nukes earlier--there's tons of undetectable ways to deliver these weapons, and the city he hits would have no warning. Redundant though it is to say it, I
still don't see how, if he wants to expand under the threat of devastating strikes against his neighbors, he can't do it already.
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Nuclear weapons- have none of these problems. As well, gas masks can't defend against it so that they're effective battlefield weapons. Would YOU endorse an attack on a country knowing that at some point our forces may have a nuclear weapon leveled against them? Most people would not support essensially sending their soldiers to die in large numbers.
No...I don't support sending large numbers of troops against weapons they can't defend against. But, as you pointed out, we can't really defend against Saddam's methods of delivery. So I'd hold that sending troops now is still sending them against certain death (or, by your scenarios, certain death for 33% of them or, if Saddam uses those wimpy chemical weapons, only disfigurment and crippling).
To crystalize:
Yeah, Saddam Hussien deserves to die. But
1. Invasion puts the lives of our own troops and all the Israeli citizens he would theoretically hit with nukes at risk of biological and chemical stikes, which can be defended against with intense and expensive preperation and protection which we will not have the time to establish (you proved it, remember--he's got foolproof, detection-safe delivery methods for his nukes, so he should be able to send differnt warheads through this route as well), nor the Israelis the money or the internal stability to.
2. The media
will have a field day with the fact that the US is great at establishing dictatorships (see my earlier post for a bunch of great examples), but only removes them when it controls rich oil fields. You can argue that that doesn't matter, but other people will argue that it will, and I don't think we want to start a war that's going to encourage internal division and external criticism. We been done there before, and it
sucked.
3. I don't think it much of a leap of logic to say that other countries will launch "preemptive strikes" of their own to gain control of territories they desire. The US then has to allow it, or prevent them from doing it by threatening and invading until the cows come home. Is removing one of hundreds of abusive dictators really worth that?
4. The idea of invading to prevent Saddam Hussien from gaining nukes that would allow him to expand and threaten opposition with nukes (or nuking Israel) is kind of reliant on the assumption that he doesn't already have the capability to take out huge ammounts of people. And I just don't buy that yet. And apparently neither does the DoD, or they wouldn't have been shitting themselves sideways about a harmless little biological weapon like anthrax.
So, basically, stop trying to prove that Saddam Hussien deserves to die, and convince me that we should kill him and invade his country.