The prevailing westerly winds...

Post #48,297 by screamer 8/6/02 12:11:09 AM Reply	The prevailing westerly winds... and damn I'm proud of my double entendres (sic) sometimes. In all seriousness, if Saddam were to do something really stupid, like use nukes or chemical weapons on Israel... it would pose a huge risk to the entire region. Assume for one minute that he may have acquired some "weapons of mass destruction". (I realize that this is not a given). Do you believe that he would use them on a "western power" or on a neighbor? He has shown his willingness to kill his own people with chemical weapons, his willingness to destroy the environment by his scorched "oil well" policy in Kuwait and the Gulf... His general willingness to sacrifice his own military personnel in a suicide battle against a far superior military adversary. If Nietschze was a nutter, I'd say this guy might just qualify as well. I was referring to our pre-Gulf war relationship with this man when I said we "created" him. I may have been too broad in my statement and thank you for pointing this out to the other posters... We did "help create" this mess. And yes, probably for our oil greed and strategic location (want for military bases). Giving you all of those points, what do we do now? If we do not right this wrong, it will be tantamount to turning our backs to the Saudi's and Iranians and Jordanians and Kuwaiti's and Israelis. One more trait that I failed to mention above about Mr. Hussein, is his unwillingness to play by international law or treaty or UN or any recognized non-military authority... How do we negotiate with him? Seriously. Just a few thoughts, Screamer As soon as you're born they make you feel small By giving you no time instead of it all Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all J. Lennon - Working Class Hero
Post #48,315 by Ashton 8/6/02 4:51:31 AM Reply	Prevailing westerly winds... and their fallout patterns In all seriousness, if Saddam were to do something really stupid, like use nukes or chemical weapons on Israel... it would pose a huge risk to the entire region. Assume for one minute that he may have acquired some "weapons of mass destruction". Precisamente.. and no one No One! can more than guesstimate how to calculate the India/Pakistan, Iraq/???, Israel/almost anyone Not-Israel >> nuclear possibilities. Almost any trumped-up 'justification' can lead to [gawd.. remember the Domino Theory as justification for the rape of Vietnam - followed by the phony Tonkin Gulf 'Resolution'?] Unfortunately too - for those who indeed see the situation as not unlike Windoze Stability illustrated [One More Time] -- {{\\______/}} ___\\____/ ____\\__/ _____\\/____ ////////////// __ = a fly about to land one can justify the dissembling, the patently false semantic tricks du jour - just because the situation is so fragile! One major atrocity in Kashmir + a single nuke response - opens the Pandora's Box of 'spasm war'; that phrase from Hermann Kahn & Co, a group I know you are familiar with: weren't they the originators of the think tank label? (our first Nuke Wonks, diagramming the Unthinkable but Doable) That this combination should occur while the insouciant US non-voting electorate submits to a coup d'etat by a handicapped mediocrity: is both too cosmically humorous for words and / tragic. Especially since W's sights are set so low: his own and his pals' bizness success post-reign + various pater/son 'issues' no one can guess. Your closing note, One more trait that I failed to mention above about Mr. Hussein, is his unwillingness to play by international law or treaty or UN or any recognized non-military authority... How do we negotiate with him? Seriously. pretty well sums up (for me too) the greased cone balanced on its tip. Tough times to be raising kids, no? Ashton
Post #48,361 by screamer 8/6/02 10:37:50 AM Reply	Tough time for all... Yes, the raising kids aspect of this equation makes this "laughable situation" less humorous. The "pay me now or later" means my son's generation re: Iraqistan... The last major spasm in the 30's/40's led to a lot of knee jerk lines being drawn. Many complex geopolitical decisions were set up with a few strokes of mighty (shortsighted) pens. I remember ducking under my desk in bomb drills in grade school. I learned Russian and offered my service to "fight the evil communists". And now, that wonderful chapter of world history is (hopefully) closed and we are facing the "void" left by the collapse of the other superpower... Human beings continue to reproduce at unsustainable rates. Resources are still finite. More people have less... It is a formula for continued strife. Throw in the mythos and ethos factors and a few bi-products of the industrial revolution like the concept of "mass" destruction and weapons that can attain them. You've added two or three more stories atop the house of cards. I don't believe that Iraq will be the strong wind that brings it crashing down. As always, I could be wrong. Just a few thoughts, Screamer As soon as you're born they make you feel small By giving you no time instead of it all Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all J. Lennon - Working Class Hero
Post #48,464 by Ashton 8/6/02 6:43:58 PM Reply	No, not Iraq, Pakistan, India per se - it's about triggers. For your (well said) house of cards. It doesn't much matter Who makes the first egregiously provocative move; millions with a bad attitude and little personally to lose, await a chance to act out; tens of thousands with also a smidgen of 'tactical' training and materi\ufffdl -- are chomping / gnashing! at the bit, today. At the moment, lookin for people to string-up at Nuremburg II (perhaps held in a demolished building in Africa - the Northern areas being too radioactive or infested?) I'll prenominate The USSC-Five: whose desire for like-mindset successors to their Personal Causes: led them to betray their Own lifetime judicial principles about States' Rights and: Select the Village Idiot who is today capable of sneezing on the Twin Towers of Cards - all the while seeing these as merely - "a concrete bunker"... {sigh} Luck.. Ashton
Post #48,374 by Brandioch 8/6/02 11:24:22 AM Reply	How to negotiate? That's rather easy. We forge treaties with his neighbors. They let us put our military bases in their countries. If Saddam attacks anyone, it will be one of our allies. Then we attack him. Given that we're more than capable of destroying his army (as we have proven in the past), he won't attack. There, he is contained. Unless he attacks countries that didn't sign treaties with us. :) But that will provide easy "proof" of his "expansionistic" agenda which will allow us to invade him with the (verbal) support of our "allies". Not to mention that we'd get to replace the government of the nation he just took over with a pro-US government (since they didn't sign the treaties before he attacked, it can be assumed that they were anti-US). Of course, our BEST course of action would be to remove our dependance upon that region's oil so we wouldn't CARE who was in charge. But that's a different thread.

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