From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu Dec 12 2002 - 11:25:24 MST
Avatar Polymorph wrote:
> ...
>
> The impending US-UK war with Iraq is not primarily due to oil,
> terrorism, biological or chemical weapons, human rights, dictatorship,
> punishment (for the invasion of Kuwait) or revenge (for Saddam
> Hussein's survival of the Gulf War) - however influential these
> factors have been from the sidelines.
>
> The Iraqi war is due to the non-Western nuclear arms race.
That's the best excuse I've seen yet. It may actually be the real one!
(Not that we'll ever know for certain.)
> ...The "Axis of Evil" was and is next in line. Iraq, Iran and North
> Korea have all attempted to construct atomic weapons. This process is
> a continuing one in Iran and North Korea, and has halted for the
> moment in Iraq.
Thanks for the quotes. I don't like them either, but that's mainly for
their internal politics. Our external politics are no better than
theirs. Still, even having one nation in the world with nuclear
capability is insanely dangerous. Having several ... if we live though
this time we've been quite lucky. (Another reason to hope the
singularity hurries.... perhaps. The new dangers may be no better than
the old ones.)
> The US has belatedly realized the danger of having allowed the Indian
> sub-continent to enter the atomic arms race which had stabilized in
> Western countries. Unlike South Africa, these countries will not
> voluntarily rescind their nuclear weapons acquisition programmes. The
> US has convinced the other Western nuclear powers that action is
> necessary.
This wasn't belated. We were against that all along. Except when it
looked like China was going to be a problem, and we couldn't afford to
divert attention away from Russia. But as long as we were balanced
against Russia, we didn't dare do much. (Good? Bad? Whatever. India
was seen as an ally against China. Pakistan saw India as a dangerous
neighbor. Etc.)
> The invasion of Iraq is a demonstration of will intended to intimidate
> Iran and North Korea. If it does not succeed in disturbing their
> acquisitions programme, it is highly likely that an aerial campaign
> will be fought against Iran and that China will be placed under
> enormous pressure to acquiesce to similar action in North Korea. They
> will be picked off one by one by the West.
Possibly. Or possibly North Korea might be pressured into placing
itself under Chinese control and supervision. (I don't think we'll
really be able to coerce China into anything it doesn't want, but I
doubt that they are all that happy with having a nuclear armed North
Korea next door.
> Many commentators would judge such a possibility to be ridiculous,
> given the risks involved. However, these risks are not military risks
> at the strategic level. It is likely that unmanned US fighter planes
> will be joining unmanned US surveillance planes in the skis above Iran
> and North Korea.
To me the risks seem immense. But they are immense whichever way we
turn. I wouldn't opt for a military approach, but our present
government... Read Freud on his experiences with cocain addiction.
> ...The September 11 attacks have demonstrated to America that a rogue
> State driven by ideology (Afghanistan) is capable of ruthless tactical
> attack despite the inevitability of retaliation. From a military
> perspective the US believes it must prevent
This is true whatever actually happened. Official history has been
created, and now we officially know what officially happened. But there
*may* have been good reasons. If you weren't a victim.
> State-level atomic attacks from occurring. Apart from invading
> Afghanistan (punishment for September 11) and developing
> anti-ballistic missile systems, this entails halting the non-Western
> nuclear arms race by force, following the "demonstration" of
> consequence about to play out in Iraq.
This is clearly something that needs to be prevented. And clearly our
government is only able to contemplate one general approach. It strikes
me as an extremely risky approach, but probably a lot better than doing
nothing. (I'd have preferred expanding NATO into a world power, and
allowing all countries to join, under strict conditions. That would
probably have created less opposition along the way. But this is
probably better than just hoping for the best.)
It's a pity that the United Nations structure didn't lead to a world
government, but with the security council having a veto, the general
assembly giving all nations equal weight, no income except voluntary
dues... there's no way that could be made to work.
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