Good one! Hey I've got one for ya. District attorney: Officer Dick, did you know victim Bob was a quadriplegic? Officer Dick: Yessir, I did. District attorney: Officer Dick can you tell the court why you shot and killed victim Bob? Officer Dick: Well, I instructed âBobâ to put his hands in the air, and the law clearly states that when my orders aren't followed...
Yup, I did. But it also spells out the irony of the situation quite nicely I think: One can not enrich uranium without going unnoticed. Therefore, let it be noticed, deal with the political fall-out, and simply put the rest somewhere else while the outraged become outraged and focus only on what they can see. The Soviets did it for decades. So the answer to the original question in this thread: The political fall-out from bombing a country is hard as hell to deal with as it is; imagine missing the target.
"Didn't Saddam send a 12 thousand page report to Bush and UN in December 2002 showing exactly that he had complied with destruction and no further development of WMD's? Didn't the previous weapons inspector Ritter confirm the same, didn't the new one Blixx confirm the same? and ultimately Bush's own assigned inspector came back empty handed? Didn't even Bush Rummy and Chenny finaly admit that Saddam didnot have any WMD's, ofc that was after we attacked them." Saddam managed to convince 1) the UN security council (who believed he had WMD's) 2) his OWN generals (as those recently released tape recording revealed) that he had WMD. we don't definitively know NOW that he did not have them when we chose to invade, but we know believe in hindsight that he probably did not. hindsight is easy. if you take the conclusions of duelfer, the 911 commission, and a brit report or two, it's pretty clear that there was ample reason to believe he had WMD prior to invasion also, your claim about SH showing he destroyed the WMD's is absurd. if you want a nation that clearly gave evidence of destruction of their WMD's/Program, just look at south africa. "The only fear Bush had was lifting UN sanctions and Saddam being able to sell oil from 1 mill barrels a day to 5-9 mill a day thus depressing oil prices, meaning no huge profits for oil companies, not to mention the obscene profits from the war machine." if you want to talk about oil, let's talk the UN. they are the one with the SH related oil scandal. not us "Thus, rush rush to war, link link Saddam to 9/11 etc.. we all have seen the machinations." Saddam was not linked to 9/11. he was linked to the war on terror. 9/11 was the incident that sparked the proactive bush doctrine (tm) ... that is not the same as "linking" him to 9/11 as for the other poster, with the silly quadraplegic analogy. SH status expost GWI is analogous to that of a parolee. diminished expectation of privacy and a DUTY to submit to police searches and be open and cooperative. a normal citizen has no such burden. SH, due to the ceasefire he signed had, what a lawyer would refer to as an "affirmative burden". iow, the burden was to provide proof to US of the destruction of his WMD's. the best evidence in hindsight is : whether or not (the bulk or entirety ) of his WMD's were destroyed, he did not provide clear evidence of same, and CONTINUALLY obstructed the inspection process. protest to the invasion prior to same, and i read numerous examples from the left AND the right rarely even considered that he did NOT have WMD's. the argument was NOT that he did not have WMD's. simply put, it appears he bluffed. he wanted to maintain the impression of power, and it is also clear, including evidence from tape recordings of HIS conversation (nixon redux) that he WANTED people, including his generals to THINK he had WMD's. That was the leverage/bargaining position he sought. he made the challenge. he lost the challenge. considering that all the biographies of SH that I am aware of make extensive note of SH's hero worship of Stalin, this is not surprising at all. partly an ego thing, frankly. it is also clear that he was attempting to acquire WMD's (again, this evidence is clear ON AUDIO TAPE), and that he gave facilitation and aid to terrorists, primarily monetarily. in retrospect, IF we knew then what we know NOW, we could have waited longer, and maybe even avoided invading at all. that's groovy. but it's irrelevant to the totalityof evidence gathered at the time of the invasion. the bush doctrine was clear, that given the burden of proof being ON saddam (not on the world), and given the proactive stance towards regimes such as SH's, invasion was warranted all groovy hindsight aside.
no it is the same situation. Bush said that he cant allow any rogue nation to aquire nuclear weopens. He went after iraq b/c they were with a couple of years of making a nuke. And they havent even gone into the uranium enrichment part. Iran already has. It was part of the Bush doctrine. Strike first before they can strike you. Whistler the part of declaration of war and Un stuff, that was stuff after Bush has decided he wanted to go to war. My question was Iran is way farther ahead in the nuclear arena then Iraq was, they already have enriched uranium. Bush was trying to prevent Iraq from even getting that close. So why hasnt bush gone after Iran and asked for Un permission and push for congressional authorization. It doesnt make sense. now he is telling the public he has to negotiate and go diplomatically. Iran has done everything iraq has done, threw out inspectors, stop negotiations, and etc. So why isnt Bush going Bang busters, and asking congress for a declaration of war?
mahram, Iran an Iraq are 2 different animals. That said, I do not rule out the possibility that Israel or the United States might end up bombing Iran's nuclear facilities. However, I do not think it is likely for the following reasons: 1) Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz where those huge tankers go thru and all they have to do is sink a tanker or two by firing a missile at them and with the supply disruption, oil will go to $100 easily!!! 2) Iran in the event of any attack can refuse to sell oil to the United States----that will also easily drive prices to $100 because the United States will have to get oil at any price somewhere else. So, I don't think it is likely. Not saying it is impossible because Israel or the United States holds the key to what happens at this point. If the Iranians did not have the oil weapon and control over the waterways where the oil tankers passes----they probably would have been bombed a long time ago!!!
There has been an embargo against any trade with Iran since the hostage crisis. Any Iranian oil that arrives on US shores is illegal. (This is not to say that I think that the embargo is actually being strictly enforced.) I believe the aim of all the sabre rattling and idle threats is to keep the price high; paybacks for all those political contributions and a reason for foreigners to hoard ever increasing quantities of the overissued US$.
Because Iran has powerful allies, and Iraq was isolated. Thatâs the only reason. Until we get the Chinese and the Russians on board, nothing is going to happen. We should work our policies to get off of Muslim oil and make sure our nuclear detection and delivery technologies remain unmatched, and start publicly blaming Iran for all Islamist aggression in the world, even if Iran had nothing to do with it. Tying any Islamic nation-state to global terrorism bypasses the terrorist advantage of waging war by proxy and cloak. But when the Iranians rattle their sabers, the price of oil goes up, and the Muslim world gets more $$$. This is worse than the Iranians having nuclear bombs, in my opinion.
The Bush Doctrine is not about attacking countries that harbor terrorists. It only says that we make no distinction between the terrorists and the nations that harbor them. This has nothing to do with preemptive military action against rogue states in order to prevent a larger conflict in the future. That is the same policy used to remove Miloshevec and a post Cold War policy Bush inherited.
To me this is like the understanding that there is no real separation between armies and the working, civilian populations that make them possible. In an ecological sense, terrorism makes perfect sense.
>>>There has been an embargo against any trade with Iran since the hostage crisis. Any Iranian oil that arrives on US shores is illegal. <<< What they have is a ban on US companies dealing with Iran which a whole lot different than having an embargo. We obviously, use Iran's oil. If not, oil would be north of $70 (it was $75 just last Friday). A lot of it driven by Americans gluttony for the black gold. As oil prices rises, Americans continue to drive those 8 cylinder trucks and large SUVs----that is where you should put the blame!!! The same people wasting millions of gallons of gas are the ones whining and crying over the high prices. Go figure. Not to worry. In about 10 years time, the Saudis and other middle eastern countries will have a lot of competition. The Athabasca Oil Sands in Canada is already being developed and they are able to refine the oil but, in quantities not enough to supply the world as of this time. Even China is jumping in. They bought a lease in the oil sands from the Canadians worth C$495 million. However, it was reported that the reserves they have in the oil sands is as large as Saudi Arabia's. I bought myself some Western Oil Sands stock. Other major parties are Chevron Texaco and Shell.