COMMENTS:
We have the right and the responsibility to keep hateful nations from having nukes
We are Imperial America, and we make the rules, or we beat you down.
We aren't going to start nuking other countries. Countries such as Iran might.
Stepped on it again. Hit the enter button before I completed my submission. Sorry, but you get the idea,
From a theoretical perspective, you'd be correct in stating that no country should have a sovereign right to dictate to any other country whether or not they can have nuclear weapons, (or other weapons of mass destruction.)
From a more practical standpoint, it is the avowed policy of this nation never to strike first with nuclear weapons. What motivates the U.S. to presume to dictate terms to countries such as Iran or North Korea is fear--fear that the nation in question will attack us or our allies directly, or sell nuclear weapons to people who are going to use them to attack the United States or other countries; and that fear is legitimate.
Our nuclear weapons program is secure and open to inspection. We are not going to sell nukes to rogue groups of people who are planning to use them. Yes, we've sold weaponry to other nations in the past, but we haven't sold weapons of mass destruction (to my knowledge).
A great many of Iraq's elusive WMDs (Ames anthrax for one) were made and supplied by the U.S. of A.
It's a glaring double standard.
Great ballot.
Pax Americana and the very evident ability to force those decisions.
However it didn't work so well in India, Pakistan, possibly North Korea, Russia, China, and Israel.
Although South Africa was persuaded to drop their nuclear program.
Its seems to me to be a case of, "do as I say and not as I do" Zig, hit the nail on the head with her comment.
I'm sure you're right, ZIG, but can you give me a source on that? Very disturbing. I alter my comment to say that we haven't sold nuclear weapons to other countries. Unless someone has more information than I do..?
The US also leads the world in conventional arms sales with approximately $9 trillion in production since the close of WWII. The US is also a leading supplier of nuclear raw materials to nations which have proven to be less than friendly.
Well, let's let these other countries get them, have the balance of power switch in their favor, and see how the world works. Is that how you want it?
It's a terrible situation, and no, it should never have happened. A large proportion of those U.S.made missiles and planes could be - or will be - used to attack American assets and military forces in the future.
What right? Worlds only superpower right maybe?
Hey, RightWing, we need to distinguish "right" from "power" here. The United States has the ability to enforce its will on just about every nation on the planet. My question does not dispute this.
Absent that "power," what moral or ethical right do we have to tell other sovereign nations what to do?
If there is an answer it is that every nation has the absolute power to defend itself against perceived threats from any other nation. The obvious problem with this is that the idea of "perceived threat" can be twisted and defined however a more powerful nation decides.
Curiously, our "perceived threat" in Iraq led us to attack them, and somehow, the countries with far more than just a perceived threat (i.e., North Korea, Iran, and others)are not attacked, except in the press. Is this a fair application of the aforementioned "perceived
threat" doctrine? Well, you see the problem.
My main curiousity is why these attacked nations, or ones who may be attacked in the future, aren't screaming about their rights under international and moral law.
It's a sticky wicket, indeed...
Zig: the anthrax we gave to saddam we were giving to everyone who requested it at the time. Anthrax was a major economic problem and we thought it would be nice to let other nations research it so they wouldn't starve and suffer so much. In retrospect it was a bad plan, we trusted other nations which will always screw us over. But the stuff we gave them wasn't weapons grade and could only be made weapons grade with a great deal of effort and money. So to sum up: the US made a bad decision, true. The US sold saddam biological weapons, false.
What gives the police the right to say what weapons we can have?
The US sold Saddam biological weapons: true. Soluble Weapons Grade: Also true, herzog. No getting away from the facts.
And it's still going on, herzog. Conventional and biological sales of weapons still make a sizeable and very viable profit. Is that wise in the long-term, do you think? Of COURSE it isn't.
Great comment, griffon. I agree.
No zig, the anthrax we gave saddam could not have been used as a weapon. It has to be refined until it is in spores small enough to be readily inhaled, not an easy thing to do. What we gave him wouldn't have been any more of a weapon than a batch of a cold virus.
"We are Imperial America, and we make the rules, or we beat you down."
You just keep saying that. When the world instantaneously declares an embargo against the US we'll see how imperial it is.
Nothing gives America that right. The only reason America is a superpower is because it has big powerful bombs that it uses to threaten other countries in order to get cheap labor, oil, and trade contracts.
I beg to differ, herzog. In May 1986 alone, 70 shipments of biological weapons - including weaponized botulinism and anthrax - were approved and shipped to Iraq from the United States.
Hey, we've go weopons of mass destruction, right?
|
