At 09:44 PM 3/31/2003 EST [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>But this is a false dichotomy - doing nothing or launching war. We _weren't_
>doing nothing. You can argue that the inspections were or were not working,
>but they were _something_. Were they enough? We'll never know now.
Au Contraire. Let's examine a brief history of diplomacy, sanctions, and
inspections against rogue states determined to acquire nuclear weapons:
1981 - Iraq comes very close to building a nuclear weapon before the
Israelis destory a reactor at Osirisk.
1991 - UN Weapons inspectors enter Iraq following the Gulf War and are
stunned to find that Iraq was, unbeknownst to them, two years away from
assembling a nuclear bomb. Consider for a moment, then, how close the
world came to diaster - and how history might be different if a
nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein waits until 1993 to invade Kuwait, and then
pushes on to take Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman.
2002 - Despite nearly a decade of being paid specifically not to develop
nuclear bombs, we learn that the DPRK nevertheless began an entirely secret
nuclear program without us knowing, and moreover, managed to assemble two
nuclear bombs from their original nuclear program right underneath our noses.
2003 - The IAEA, visiting Iran on a top from Iranian dissidents are stunned
to discover a, quote, "very sophisticated" nuclear plant in Iran that they
did not know about. Iran claims it is for civilian use, yet Iran has some
of the world;s largest oil and natural gas reserves, making nuclear power
particularly uneconomical for them,... unless they have other purposes.
Final Score:
Determined Rogue States - 5
Inspections, Sanctions, and Diplomacy - 0
>My feeling was, Saddam is a terrible person and almost certainly was trying
>to acquire weapons of mass destruction. He needed to be stopped and gotten
>rid of. But I was not convinced we needed to launch a war _now_.
I'm presuming that you agree that the resumption of inspections was only
made possible by the arrival of 250-300,000 Coalition Soldiers in the
region. As such, by not launching the war now, if you were George Bush,
would you be prepared to bear the following costs of waiting until
September to let a dictator whom we know with certainty will try and
succeed at hiding *something* from inspectors prove to France that he
really needs to go? These costs include:
-Leaving our troops in a viciously hot desert, where protection from
chemcial attacks would be difficult.
-Leaving our troops at fixed xamps in the desert where they will be
vulnerable to terrorist and other attacks
-Leaving 1 in every 1,000 Americans away from their families, loved ones,
and jobs for an extended period of time.
-Sub-par economic growth and rising unemployment due to economic
uncertainty surrounding the war
-The possibility that waiting will cause the American people to lose their
nerve for supporting the difficult task of disarming Saddam Hussein
-High oil prices also slowing economic growth and rising unemployment over
many months.
All put together, there really was no other option.
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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