-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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The fact that the UK is endorsing and promoting the same behavio(u)r than the USA is, in fact, a provocation on itself. It's like crying 'we want WWIII NOW!!' to Saddam Hussein's face.
But I can't understand why they did such a move...
Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
Actually, my point is that the US's policy in THIS regard is neither new nor unique. Most civilized countries had a 'no first use' policy... but never a 'no second use' one. Our 'strategy' on this isn't any different from any other nuclear-armed country.
You think the USSR wouldn't have used their nukes on the Chinese 'human waves' if they'd been attacked, back when their relations were bad? (Yes, Sino-Soviet relations were bad, once upon a time. The Chinese wanted the land and resources of Siberia and Central Asia, and the Soviets coveted more ice-free ports on the Pacific. There were skirmishes, and the potential for hot war loomed quite close more than once.)
You think Russia or China wouldn't retaliate heavily if someone used a WMD (whether chemical, bio, or nuke) on one of their cities?)
We 'civilized' nations keep from blowing each other up, because we don't want to DIE in return.
But there are other kinds of folks out there, 'true believers' who don't care about death, whether they blow themselves up in a disco in Jerusalem, crash a plane into a high-rise in Manhattan, or are immolated by nuclear fire on the ground in Somewhereistan, as long as they can kill lots of the enemy. Most of them believe we don't have the 'nads to retaliate in kind even if they WERE to use a WMD. They're wrong, I think, but that will only matter afterwards.
quote:But I can't understand why they did such a move...
Possibly, they're accepting that Czech police report that put Iraqi intelligence officers together with an Al-Qaeda agent (Atta, in fact) back before 9-11.
quote:Other evidence comes from London, headquarters of the Iraqi National Congress. On November 2, the INC's leaders said that a 16-year veteran of Iraqi intelligence, recently escaped from an Iraqi prison, said that Iraq had controlled and funded al Qaeda since 1998
quote:On November 11, the London Observer reported that senior U.S. intelligence officials said the CIA had "credible information" that two other September 11 hijackers had met with known Iraqi intelligence agents.
quote:The level of evidence required for justified action in international war is not as high as that required for conviction in an American criminal court. The meetings between September 11 hijackers and Iraqi intelligence agents–especially the meetings Atta went to such trouble to travel to attend–are enough, given Saddam Hussein's well-established history of support for terrorism and efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. Some may object that the Czech Prime Minister reported that Atta and al-Ani were only conferring about an attack on Radio Free Europe, not September 11. But, leaving aside the question of whether he knows what the two men said, Radio Free Europe is an organization supported and sponsored by the U.S. government. An attack on Radio Free Europe headquarters would be as much an attack on the United States as Al Qaeda's attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
It's likely we've been 'playing down' Iraqi connections in order to help build the support for the Afghanistan missions, because letting it slip might have fractured the support for action by the Islamic countries.
[ March 21, 2002, 16:59: Message edited by: First of Two ]
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
So basically your argument for kicking someone is to point at another boy and say "He kicked him first"?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:So basically your argument for kicking someone is to point at another boy and say "He kicked him first"?
That's Rob's argument for everything. I wondered why he was so quiet in the Bush nuclear thread; it seems that, unable to find any credible defence for Der Schrub's latest idiocy, he was frantically searching for something, anything which would show that other people were less than perfect. As usual.
posted
I believe that part of the equation that is being left out in these discussions is the considered use of nuclear weapons agains non-nuclear countries.
I believe that the arsenal of democracy has enough and varied weapons to resond in kind to a biological or chemical attack from any nation.
The plans for potential use of nuclear weapons against a county like Syria is little but a saber rattling scare tactic used by Mr. Bush. A tactic that seems to be the limit of his foreign policy skills.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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Orion Syndicate
He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy!
Member # 25
posted
I think Geoff Hoon and the like would like to consider themselves able to destroy the world, but in reality they are wimps. The US would probably nuke an area, then Geoff Hoon and Reverend Blair would order the same area nuked again (with Washington's permission of course) then stroking their own ego's by claiming that they dealt a crippling blow in the war against terorism. A statue would then be erected on the site of the twin towers with Bush and Blair standing shoulder to shoulder, perhaps Blair will be on his knees, and both of them will sort of be pointing towards the future....
[ March 22, 2002, 08:47: Message edited by: Orion Syndicate ]
Registered: Mar 1999
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