Nick</strong><hr></blockquote>That article is wrong about what I am saying and could still be seena as being correct in what he s saying. They are not the same things.
What needs to happen is that we need to create allignments more than we are doing . . . this doesn't mean placating twisted and corrupt countries.
also, it is, once again the wrong take on Reagan: it says he was responcible for the fall of Communism . . . yet clearly history has shown that by the time Gorby came to office, and because of him, it was cominng down fast . . . not Reagan and his acting show-boating.
[quote]When the secretary of state goes on five Sunday morning talk shows to deny that something is a crisis, it is a crisis. The administration has been playing down the gravity of North Korea's nuclear breakout, and for good reason. For now, there is little the administration can do. No point, therefore, in advertising our helplessness.
But there is no overestimating the seriousness of the problem. If we did not have so many of our military assets tied up in the Persian Gulf, we would today have carriers off the coast of Korea and be mobilizing reinforcements for our garrison there.
North Korea is about to go from a rogue state that may have one or two nuclear bombs hidden somewhere to one that is in the nuclear manufacturing business. And North Korea sells everything it gets its hands on.
This is serious stuff. And the clock is ticking...
What to do when your hand is so poor? Play the trump. We do have one, but we dare not speak its name: a nuclear Japan. Japan cannot long tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea. Having once lobbed a missile over Japan, North Korea could easily hit any city in Japan with a nuclear-tipped weapon. Japan does not want to live under that threat.
We should go to the Chinese and tell them plainly that if they do not join us in squeezing North Korea and thus stopping its march to go nuclear, we will endorse any Japanese attempt to create a nuclear deterrent of its own. Even better, we would sympathetically regard any request by Japan to acquire American nuclear missiles as an immediate and interim deterrent. If our nightmare is a nuclear North Korea, China's is a nuclear Japan. It's time to share the nightmares.<hr></blockquote>
<strong>That article is wrong about what I am saying and could still be seena as being correct in what he s saying. They are not the same things.
What needs to happen is that we need to create allignments more than we are doing . . . this doesn't mean placating twisted and corrupt countries.
also, it is, once again the wrong take on Reagan: it says he was responcible for the fall of Communism . . . yet clearly history has shown that by the time Gorby came to office, and because of him, it was cominng down fast . . . not Reagan and his acting show-boating.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Here's what I got from you for a conclusion.
We need to change our attitude, our visibility with regards to how we are being percieved be the rest of the world:
Here is what Sowell mentions..
[quote] Bill Gates' donations to the Third World have not made him a hero there or anywhere, nor have American worldwide contributions to others -- in both blood and treasure -- for more than half a century made us popular. Osama bin Laden's popularity is based on his attacks on America and American achievements, as an assertion of significance from people who would otherwise be painfully insignificant on the world stage.
Contrary to what has been said by others on the left, including Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, it is not what we have done wrong, either at home or abroad, that creates such anti-American hostility. It is what we have done right -- things that have made the United States pre-eminent among nations -- that have provoked resentments and bitterness among those who have fallen so humiliatingly short of producing anything comparable. <hr></blockquote>
As I mentioned earlier, no matter how long you are on top, others are going to be there questioning, waiting, hoping for the day you show some weakness.
Again if actions could buy popularity we would be the most popular nation on the planet. Instead as is human nature there are those who benefit and simultaniously carp and complain because they have no understanding of what it takes to be on top.
I know this is off-topic but you have teased me about, and thus you know I own an apartment building. When people ask how I bought it and how I found it, they always say they would have done the same thing.
I follow up with, well why don't you then. The one I bought was on the market for 10 months without a single offer before I purchased it.
Then I mention how I filled a dump truck with over 8 tons of garbage that I hauled off. I mention the additional money I had to pull out of my pocket to refurbish the apartments. I mention how I risked my own home by pulling out the equity to purchase it. How I had to deal with getting the wrong type of element that was living there and getting them to leave.
For some reason, knowing how many building there are out there, they still never do what I did.
Back on topic, it is sort of like that with the U.S. Everyone swears they would do what we do and on top of it, they would do even more.
Except they don't and won't and they look in their heart for a reason, they choose to resent us instead.
That's idiotic . . . its like making our country safer by manufacturing more and more guns. . .
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Speaking of idiotic, did you bother to even read the article? He's not advocating that Japan get nuclear weapons. He's simply showing what will happen if North Korea goes nuclear and why it's in China's interest for this not to happen.
Speaking of idiotic, did you bother to even read the article? He's not advocating that Japan get nuclear weapons. He's simply showing what will happen if North Korea goes nuclear and why it's in China's interest for this not to happen.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Didn't we sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?
<strong>We went into recession <a href="http://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html"; target="_blank">in March 2001</a>, and we're probably still in one (they don't say we're out of one until many months after it actually happens, so we'll just have to wait and see). Bush even said that the recession had started before he came to office, and <a href="http://slate.msn.com/id/2076134/"; target="_blank">there's been criticism of him for saying that</a>, because it didn't technically start until a few months after he was inaugurated.</strong><hr></blockquote>
We never had an recession (technically) according to the historic definition of two consecutive quarters of negativ growth. We did have big losses in stocks. I know the "official line" is that the "recession" began in March 2001. Technically though, that's not true. I do of course see your point. I hope you will see mine in that I believe the economy actually started tanking in March of 2000....not 2001. That's when the dot-com bubble started to deflate. We also had rising oil prices and interest rates. Bush is right about the economic slowdown. It started way before Election 2000.
On Reagan: Pfflam, you really don't know what you are talking about. The article references a meeting with Gorby in which the Soviet Union offered us nearly everything we wanted on arms control....and Reagan walked out. He walked out because the Soviets asked that we, in return, give up any hope of missle defense. Reagan explained to Gorby that this was unnacceptable. He explained that the US would never allow itself to be outspent and outmatched on defense. He explained that our economy could sustain much higher levels of military spending than theirs. Liberals like you characterize this as hawkishness and war-mongering. Reagan knew that he had negotiate from a position of strength. This is what the article is saying, in essence. This is what the liberal academic elite don't get.
jimmac: Do you mean to tell me you DON'T think Saddam is close to building nuclear weapon? Iraqi scientists who defected said that before the gulf war he was a little over a year away from a bomb. It has been four years without weapons inspectors....and you are telling me he ISN'T close to one? Now, do I KNOW he is close? No. The reasonable and logical conclusion is that he IS close. Do you honestly believe differently? This man cannot be allowed to build one. Period.
And finally on North Korea. The article spaceman posted makes a good point. Interesting that pfflam's only defense is to call it idiotic. Yet, he goes around accusing people of "knee-jerk" reactions. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
And finally on North Korea. The article spaceman posted makes a good point. Interesting that pfflam's only defense is to call it idiotic. Yet, he goes around accusing people of "knee-jerk" reactions. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>
Didn't we sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?
" jimmac: Do you mean to tell me you DON'T think Saddam is close to building nuclear weapon? Iraqi scientists who defected said that before the gulf war he was a little over a year away from a bomb. It has been four years without weapons inspectors....and you are telling me he ISN'T close to one? Now, do I KNOW he is close? No. The reasonable and logical conclusion is that he IS close. Do you honestly believe differently? This man cannot be allowed to build one. Period. "
I haven't seen any proof that they do yet. It's as simple as that. By the way the Gulf war was a long time ago now. According to that logic they would have had nukes a long time ago.
I think you?ve pretty much already answered your complaint. Also, I hope you?re not advocating for the French model of doing business. Cause only the French can be French. If we all followed suit in their foul and cowardly ways, then we all might as well start wearing them Hijabs and the like, cause there?d be nothing left to keep fighting for.
Look at who?s making these complaints re the US. You?ll find some very distinguishing features. But I know you are aware of these features already, and therefore I will not go into them. There?s a common agenda these people share. This agenda is propagated and subsidized by people who for strategic reasons America still officially designates as ?allies?, but do not be fooled by this temporary designation. (Though, I don?t think you are, and neither are most Americans). There?s a grand unholy alliance at work here. No doubt there will be some leftist attention seekers who will march along for the cause d?etre, but know where they received these whispers from; be aware who are the intellectual puppet masters guiding this grand conspiracy along. Don?t think that these people are only interested in sponsoring Mosques and Madrasas.
pfflam, maybe because of your French Catholic(?) background you share a certain subconscious affinity or even sympathy to these people, but I think you have sufficiently evolved intellectually to understand that their vision of the future is a black one indeed. You only need look at the sorry condition of the population where these servants of Satan still hold sway to understand what a malignancy their ideology represents.
Don?t be fooled by their siren call for equality and wealth distribution. For them it is only a self-serving and false vehicle to power and domination. It will serve to impoverish the people it claims to help, as history has shown time and again. The American model is the most equitable system yet devised for these principles to self-material, based on real merit, and not some false entitlement. And I wouldn?t worry too much about the decline of the American Empire. As long as you?re capable of attracting talent to produce products that people want to buy, you?ll always find a market for these products. Isn?t interesting that even Bin Laden was wearing a Timex watch.
This Mecca Cola thing is a masterpiece of hypocrisy. If you are against the way of living of USA and therefore the Occident you don't drink that kind of drink, weither it's name.
I think the creator of this new drink has find a good way of making busisness. But i call it bad busisness.
Concerning the TV series , i think that Immanuel Goldstein is right, the answer of this loss of market share is due to the competition. The market is becoming more balanced, and you cannot sell anymore dumb series just because they are made from US . However they are some few very good US series i like to see : my choice is made upon the qualitie, not where does it come from.
<strong>The problem is that the damage waas and is done through the subsidization NOT being clear before the loans were taken out then 'doing business with' became 'pleasing the master' . . . and, the problem is is that it has to do very much so with our perception abroad . . . namely that we would give loans with trickery amounting to share-cropper type neo-slavery as part of the bargain.
Bush had a good idea when he proposed cancelling debts . . . it would be unbelievably equitable . . . not just a gesture, but the right thing to do.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm just curious.. did any of these parties make a complaint to the WTO?
[quote] haven't seen any proof that they do yet. It's as simple as that. By the way the Gulf war was a long time ago now. According to that logic they would have had nukes a long time ago.
<hr></blockquote>
I'm not sure if you are just trying to be cute or actually serious. I am saying that without proof, we can assume Saddam has got to be very close. Your last point is sort of off-base. The Gulf War obviously disrupted his abilities....as the did the inspections. Any reasonable person would conclude that Saddam must be within 5 years (at the OUTSIDE) of developing a nuke. I would really like to know if anyone honestly disagrees with this.
EDIT: Really now....if you disagree just say so. But, I'll ask you to state some clear reasons as to why.
What are you yammering about? Lot of good that piece of paper is doing. Look how it's not stopping North Korea.
If Japan decides to get nukes, they won't need our help. Our signing of the NPT is irrelevant. Your question doesn't address anything.</strong><hr></blockquote>
My point is just that we can't help or encourage Japan to do that. It's a nice thought but would have to be a bluff.
North Korea? Because they signed the NPT we (the UN) are now empowered to act. Because they've signed agreements with us (the US) that they're now breaking we (the US) are now empowered to act. Were the US to break that treaty the US would be powerless against enforcing the treaty in the future.
My point is just that we can't help or encourage Japan to do that. It's a nice thought but would have to be a bluff.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
And I repeat: they wouldn't need our help. Japan isn't some technological backwater. So what if we were to try and discourage them? Their interests wouldn't be the same as ours. They are a sovereign nation and they would have an obvious and compelling reason to go nuclear. Who says it's a bluff?
[quote] North Korea? Because they signed the NPT we (the UN) are now empowered to act. Because they've signed agreements with us (the US) that they're now breaking we (the US) are now empowered to act. Were the US to break that treaty the US would be powerless against enforcing the treaty in the future. <hr></blockquote>
Now, what do you mean by "act" exactly? Look, the thing is going to defuse itself. That seems obvious, given the administration's stance on this. It may be that we cannot fight two conflicts at once despite Rumsfeld's assertion to the contrary. It might possibly be a delaying tactic until we are finished with Iraq. Who knows.
What is the viability of simply taking out the reactor with an airstrike? Does anyone know what their air defenses are like?
And I repeat: they wouldn't need our help. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Of course they would. We wouldn't have to give or help them design any technology, but they would need our blessings to avoid serious sanctions and what-not. If we gave them our blessings, then we'd be screwed.
Comments
[ 01-04-2003: Message edited by: BRussell ]</p>
<strong>You know I could reply to this, but Thomas Sowell is just so much better at this than I.
<a href="http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell1.asp"; target="_blank">The reasons for American resentment</a>
Nick</strong><hr></blockquote>That article is wrong about what I am saying and could still be seena as being correct in what he s saying. They are not the same things.
What needs to happen is that we need to create allignments more than we are doing . . . this doesn't mean placating twisted and corrupt countries.
also, it is, once again the wrong take on Reagan: it says he was responcible for the fall of Communism . . . yet clearly history has shown that by the time Gorby came to office, and because of him, it was cominng down fast . . . not Reagan and his acting show-boating.
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, January 3, 2003; Page A19
[quote]When the secretary of state goes on five Sunday morning talk shows to deny that something is a crisis, it is a crisis. The administration has been playing down the gravity of North Korea's nuclear breakout, and for good reason. For now, there is little the administration can do. No point, therefore, in advertising our helplessness.
But there is no overestimating the seriousness of the problem. If we did not have so many of our military assets tied up in the Persian Gulf, we would today have carriers off the coast of Korea and be mobilizing reinforcements for our garrison there.
North Korea is about to go from a rogue state that may have one or two nuclear bombs hidden somewhere to one that is in the nuclear manufacturing business. And North Korea sells everything it gets its hands on.
This is serious stuff. And the clock is ticking...
What to do when your hand is so poor? Play the trump. We do have one, but we dare not speak its name: a nuclear Japan. Japan cannot long tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea. Having once lobbed a missile over Japan, North Korea could easily hit any city in Japan with a nuclear-tipped weapon. Japan does not want to live under that threat.
We should go to the Chinese and tell them plainly that if they do not join us in squeezing North Korea and thus stopping its march to go nuclear, we will endorse any Japanese attempt to create a nuclear deterrent of its own. Even better, we would sympathetically regard any request by Japan to acquire American nuclear missiles as an immediate and interim deterrent. If our nightmare is a nuclear North Korea, China's is a nuclear Japan. It's time to share the nightmares.<hr></blockquote>
<strong><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3921-2003Jan2.html"; target="_blank">The Japan Card</a>
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, January 3, 2003; Page A19
</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's idiotic . . . its like making our country safer by manufacturing more and more guns. . .
Besides JAPAN doesn't want anything to do with nuclear weapons . . except for the ultra-right nationalists that lament the loss of WW2
<strong>That article is wrong about what I am saying and could still be seena as being correct in what he s saying. They are not the same things.
What needs to happen is that we need to create allignments more than we are doing . . . this doesn't mean placating twisted and corrupt countries.
also, it is, once again the wrong take on Reagan: it says he was responcible for the fall of Communism . . . yet clearly history has shown that by the time Gorby came to office, and because of him, it was cominng down fast . . . not Reagan and his acting show-boating.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Here's what I got from you for a conclusion.
We need to change our attitude, our visibility with regards to how we are being percieved be the rest of the world:
Here is what Sowell mentions..
[quote] Bill Gates' donations to the Third World have not made him a hero there or anywhere, nor have American worldwide contributions to others -- in both blood and treasure -- for more than half a century made us popular. Osama bin Laden's popularity is based on his attacks on America and American achievements, as an assertion of significance from people who would otherwise be painfully insignificant on the world stage.
Contrary to what has been said by others on the left, including Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, it is not what we have done wrong, either at home or abroad, that creates such anti-American hostility. It is what we have done right -- things that have made the United States pre-eminent among nations -- that have provoked resentments and bitterness among those who have fallen so humiliatingly short of producing anything comparable. <hr></blockquote>
As I mentioned earlier, no matter how long you are on top, others are going to be there questioning, waiting, hoping for the day you show some weakness.
Again if actions could buy popularity we would be the most popular nation on the planet. Instead as is human nature there are those who benefit and simultaniously carp and complain because they have no understanding of what it takes to be on top.
I know this is off-topic but you have teased me about, and thus you know I own an apartment building. When people ask how I bought it and how I found it, they always say they would have done the same thing.
I follow up with, well why don't you then. The one I bought was on the market for 10 months without a single offer before I purchased it.
Then I mention how I filled a dump truck with over 8 tons of garbage that I hauled off. I mention the additional money I had to pull out of my pocket to refurbish the apartments. I mention how I risked my own home by pulling out the equity to purchase it. How I had to deal with getting the wrong type of element that was living there and getting them to leave.
For some reason, knowing how many building there are out there, they still never do what I did.
Back on topic, it is sort of like that with the U.S. Everyone swears they would do what we do and on top of it, they would do even more.
Except they don't and won't and they look in their heart for a reason, they choose to resent us instead.
Nick
[ 01-04-2003: Message edited by: trumptman ]</p>
<strong>
That's idiotic . . . its like making our country safer by manufacturing more and more guns. . .
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Speaking of idiotic, did you bother to even read the article? He's not advocating that Japan get nuclear weapons. He's simply showing what will happen if North Korea goes nuclear and why it's in China's interest for this not to happen.
<strong>
Speaking of idiotic, did you bother to even read the article? He's not advocating that Japan get nuclear weapons. He's simply showing what will happen if North Korea goes nuclear and why it's in China's interest for this not to happen.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Didn't we sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?
<strong>We went into recession <a href="http://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html"; target="_blank">in March 2001</a>, and we're probably still in one (they don't say we're out of one until many months after it actually happens, so we'll just have to wait and see). Bush even said that the recession had started before he came to office, and <a href="http://slate.msn.com/id/2076134/"; target="_blank">there's been criticism of him for saying that</a>, because it didn't technically start until a few months after he was inaugurated.</strong><hr></blockquote>
We never had an recession (technically) according to the historic definition of two consecutive quarters of negativ growth. We did have big losses in stocks. I know the "official line" is that the "recession" began in March 2001. Technically though, that's not true. I do of course see your point. I hope you will see mine in that I believe the economy actually started tanking in March of 2000....not 2001. That's when the dot-com bubble started to deflate. We also had rising oil prices and interest rates. Bush is right about the economic slowdown. It started way before Election 2000.
On Reagan: Pfflam, you really don't know what you are talking about. The article references a meeting with Gorby in which the Soviet Union offered us nearly everything we wanted on arms control....and Reagan walked out. He walked out because the Soviets asked that we, in return, give up any hope of missle defense. Reagan explained to Gorby that this was unnacceptable. He explained that the US would never allow itself to be outspent and outmatched on defense. He explained that our economy could sustain much higher levels of military spending than theirs. Liberals like you characterize this as hawkishness and war-mongering. Reagan knew that he had negotiate from a position of strength. This is what the article is saying, in essence. This is what the liberal academic elite don't get.
jimmac: Do you mean to tell me you DON'T think Saddam is close to building nuclear weapon? Iraqi scientists who defected said that before the gulf war he was a little over a year away from a bomb. It has been four years without weapons inspectors....and you are telling me he ISN'T close to one? Now, do I KNOW he is close? No. The reasonable and logical conclusion is that he IS close. Do you honestly believe differently? This man cannot be allowed to build one. Period.
And finally on North Korea. The article spaceman posted makes a good point. Interesting that pfflam's only defense is to call it idiotic. Yet, he goes around accusing people of "knee-jerk" reactions. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
<strong>
And finally on North Korea. The article spaceman posted makes a good point. Interesting that pfflam's only defense is to call it idiotic. Yet, he goes around accusing people of "knee-jerk" reactions. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>
Didn't we sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?
<img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
" jimmac: Do you mean to tell me you DON'T think Saddam is close to building nuclear weapon? Iraqi scientists who defected said that before the gulf war he was a little over a year away from a bomb. It has been four years without weapons inspectors....and you are telling me he ISN'T close to one? Now, do I KNOW he is close? No. The reasonable and logical conclusion is that he IS close. Do you honestly believe differently? This man cannot be allowed to build one. Period. "
I haven't seen any proof that they do yet. It's as simple as that. By the way the Gulf war was a long time ago now. According to that logic they would have had nukes a long time ago.
<strong>
I think you?ve pretty much already answered your complaint. Also, I hope you?re not advocating for the French model of doing business. Cause only the French can be French. If we all followed suit in their foul and cowardly ways, then we all might as well start wearing them Hijabs and the like, cause there?d be nothing left to keep fighting for.
Look at who?s making these complaints re the US. You?ll find some very distinguishing features. But I know you are aware of these features already, and therefore I will not go into them. There?s a common agenda these people share. This agenda is propagated and subsidized by people who for strategic reasons America still officially designates as ?allies?, but do not be fooled by this temporary designation. (Though, I don?t think you are, and neither are most Americans). There?s a grand unholy alliance at work here. No doubt there will be some leftist attention seekers who will march along for the cause d?etre, but know where they received these whispers from; be aware who are the intellectual puppet masters guiding this grand conspiracy along. Don?t think that these people are only interested in sponsoring Mosques and Madrasas.
pfflam, maybe because of your French Catholic(?) background you share a certain subconscious affinity or even sympathy to these people, but I think you have sufficiently evolved intellectually to understand that their vision of the future is a black one indeed. You only need look at the sorry condition of the population where these servants of Satan still hold sway to understand what a malignancy their ideology represents.
Don?t be fooled by their siren call for equality and wealth distribution. For them it is only a self-serving and false vehicle to power and domination. It will serve to impoverish the people it claims to help, as history has shown time and again. The American model is the most equitable system yet devised for these principles to self-material, based on real merit, and not some false entitlement. And I wouldn?t worry too much about the decline of the American Empire. As long as you?re capable of attracting talent to produce products that people want to buy, you?ll always find a market for these products. Isn?t interesting that even Bin Laden was wearing a Timex watch.
[edit: Corrected for grammar and the like]
[ 01-02-2003: Message edited by: zMench ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
This post is agains the posting guidelines. I know you hate France and Frenchs but you can keep that for you.
<strong>
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/31/international/europe/31FRAN.html"; target="_blank">They Choke On Coke but Savor Mecca Cola (reg required)</a>
</strong><hr></blockquote>
This Mecca Cola thing is a masterpiece of hypocrisy. If you are against the way of living of USA and therefore the Occident you don't drink that kind of drink, weither it's name.
I think the creator of this new drink has find a good way of making busisness. But i call it bad busisness.
Concerning the TV series , i think that Immanuel Goldstein is right, the answer of this loss of market share is due to the competition. The market is becoming more balanced, and you cannot sell anymore dumb series just because they are made from US . However they are some few very good US series i like to see : my choice is made upon the qualitie, not where does it come from.
<strong>
This post is agains the posting guidelines. I know you hate France and Frenchs but you can keep that for you.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Tnx pDoc.
I've made an edit to the offensive language.. I'll also try to be more carefull in the future.. Old habits are hard to kill sometimes.
<strong>The problem is that the damage waas and is done through the subsidization NOT being clear before the loans were taken out then 'doing business with' became 'pleasing the master' . . . and, the problem is is that it has to do very much so with our perception abroad . . . namely that we would give loans with trickery amounting to share-cropper type neo-slavery as part of the bargain.
Bush had a good idea when he proposed cancelling debts . . . it would be unbelievably equitable . . . not just a gesture, but the right thing to do.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm just curious.. did any of these parties make a complaint to the WTO?
<hr></blockquote>
I'm not sure if you are just trying to be cute or actually serious. I am saying that without proof, we can assume Saddam has got to be very close. Your last point is sort of off-base. The Gulf War obviously disrupted his abilities....as the did the inspections. Any reasonable person would conclude that Saddam must be within 5 years (at the OUTSIDE) of developing a nuke. I would really like to know if anyone honestly disagrees with this.
EDIT: Really now....if you disagree just say so. But, I'll ask you to state some clear reasons as to why.
[ 01-04-2003: Message edited by: SDW2001 ]</p>
<strong>
Didn't we sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?
<img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>
What are you yammering about? Lot of good that piece of paper is doing. Look how it's not stopping North Korea.
If Japan decides to get nukes, they won't need our help. Our signing of the NPT is irrelevant. Your question doesn't address anything.
<strong>
What are you yammering about? Lot of good that piece of paper is doing. Look how it's not stopping North Korea.
If Japan decides to get nukes, they won't need our help. Our signing of the NPT is irrelevant. Your question doesn't address anything.</strong><hr></blockquote>
My point is just that we can't help or encourage Japan to do that. It's a nice thought but would have to be a bluff.
North Korea? Because they signed the NPT we (the UN) are now empowered to act. Because they've signed agreements with us (the US) that they're now breaking we (the US) are now empowered to act. Were the US to break that treaty the US would be powerless against enforcing the treaty in the future.
<strong>
My point is just that we can't help or encourage Japan to do that. It's a nice thought but would have to be a bluff.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
And I repeat: they wouldn't need our help. Japan isn't some technological backwater. So what if we were to try and discourage them? Their interests wouldn't be the same as ours. They are a sovereign nation and they would have an obvious and compelling reason to go nuclear. Who says it's a bluff?
Now, what do you mean by "act" exactly? Look, the thing is going to defuse itself. That seems obvious, given the administration's stance on this. It may be that we cannot fight two conflicts at once despite Rumsfeld's assertion to the contrary. It might possibly be a delaying tactic until we are finished with Iraq. Who knows.
What is the viability of simply taking out the reactor with an airstrike? Does anyone know what their air defenses are like?
<strong>
And I repeat: they wouldn't need our help. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Of course they would. We wouldn't have to give or help them design any technology, but they would need our blessings to avoid serious sanctions and what-not. If we gave them our blessings, then we'd be screwed.