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Subject: 
Re: What about the first?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Sat, 15 Feb 2003 23:36:08 GMT
Viewed: 
1228 times
  
It won't get to that point.
I remember Ronald Reagan making a speech about the Empire of Evil (then, the
USSR), which had WoMD and could try to launch them anytime, so he proposed
SDI. The thing is, the Soviet Union had *no intention* of starting a war:
even those hardliners at the Politburo *knew* that MAD was the best defense
for both sides of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War!

And that's exactly what will grant us security.

What if the holders of WoMD don't care if they get destroyed or have no
location to destroy?

Why let Iraq get them in the first place? I don't really want to find out what
they may or may not do with them.

Iraqis know they may have
WoMD, but they also realize they cannot use them without falling victims to
the same sort of armament.

India and Pakistan have been discovering just
that in the past 5 years, they both know they cannot start a nuclear war
because both can be destroyed - rending the A-bombs so hardly paid for
virtually useless as effective weapons.

In case conflict eventually occurs, I do understand what you mean with the
importance of reconstruction. A destroyed Iraq will fuel unrest in the
region, obviously. But the worst part is, how will the Provisional
Government both  secure control of internal affairs and resist foreign
influences? (ie, Iran, Turkey, Kurds) It's a very dangerous powderkeg that
is being created, and its chance of success is relatively low in the long run.
What if it does work? What will be the external repercussions? Won't Syria
feel threatened in turn? Or Iran? Both have been slowly (1) making
democratic reforms in the last years, is it worth to risk all that?


Pedro

(1) - and peacefully. All it took on both cases was for the "big boss" to
die, remarkably of natural causes. Their successors are a lot less commited
to politics than they are to economics... long live pragmatism! :-)


I heard on the local news radio today that there was protests in Philadelphia
were they had signs that said: "No war with Iraq, save the Iraqi children."
That just strikes me as an oxy-moron.

-Mike Petrucelli



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: What about the first?
 
(...) Neither worries me. If the first happens, it would take a lot more than a loony dictator to fire the missiles (and I have not yet heard of collective insanity in such a degree); The second is clearly not the case in Iraq, which is largely (...) (22 years ago, 16-Feb-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: What about the first?
 
(...) There was a considerable number of non-democracies in the LoN... in part, perhaps that may have helped to prevent any concerted action at the time. But then again, the LoN had no real power to sanction intervention, unlike the UN has nowadays. (...) (22 years ago, 15-Feb-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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