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Nuclear safeguards
SDAI-Tech1 — (archived)

Well to be honest, a LOT of Americans need a red & yellow banner when it comes to justification of foreign policy in simple terms. How many folks subscribe to Foreign Policy Review?

Did we have the right to take over Iraq? Yes. They violated their Gulf War agreement, not only in letter but in spirit when they used helicopters to mow down the Shiite rebellion in 1991. Saddams hold on power was only sustained because Schwarzkopf permitted helicopter travel in Iraq.

They were producing WMD after that war and for all intents and purposes Saddam set up shop with corrupt folks in France & the UN to sustain him in power.

The elephant in the living room may appear troublesome, but it is contained and we know where it is. It's when that elephant is rampaging down the street, past the kids playground, or at the mall, or in downtown LA that the elephant poses a severe risk to Americans.

I know the bloodshed becomes tiresome. But that's the whole point for it isn't it? The insurgency kill folks left and right, not because its personal, because it's a casualty. Any casualty helps their cause. And the insurgency will not go away if the US withdrew most of its forces. They would just kill more Shiites in Mosques and car bombs would more freely explode.

It's not about driving the US out. That's just a fragment of the equation. It's about power. Some folks want to control the whole shebang. Saddam Hussein, as a personality type, is not that unusual down there. There are ten thousand would be Saddams, with the same penchant for violence, lacking any sense of the sanctity of life or anything else. And they want to use the oil fields as a WMD. Whoever does control Iraq, just like Saddam did, is in a position to invest in WMD, as Iran is doing now.

The cycle merely starts all over again in five years if we leave without establishing a system of checks and balances. And more lives would be lost.

Sure, we ARE nation-building. It's not pretty because the people who live there aren't pretty. But it will stabilize. It simply takes time. Time as in around a decade. As job opportunities arise outside of being a car bomb technician, folks with an eye towards their own gain will eventually rise above the riff-raff.

Age helps most folks. The youth causing trouble today will grow older and they

Here's another reason why we stay. Look at Iran and Israel on a map.

http://www.uark.edu/depts/globmark/middeastmap.jpg


If Iran lauches a missile with a nuke in 2 years at Israel our forces are in a perfect position to intercept. Radar sites, anti-missile launchers and the whole works. We are also in a position to respond immediately - a non-nuclear response.

Responding off the deck of a carrier or from a submarine is for the birds and would only provide an after-action response.

If Israel gets hit with a nuke or nukes, they will RESPOND with NUKES (plural). WWIII would begin in the Gulf as radiation spreads, millions die and chaos ensues. Even if Israel doesn't start it, it will finish it. "Rumor" has it that Israels "response" if nuked includes "special deliveries" to Riyadh, Damascus, Cairo, Tehran and, up until a few years ago, Baghdad no matter which nation nukes them.

Some folks have to make the decision: Are bloody displays and casualties that will number between a hundred and a thousand every year worth averting a Middle East nuclear scenario which will, when it arrives, kill millions?

Would you be willing to risk that many lives on the assumption that Iran will be perfectly sane when they have nuclear weapons?

If I had to make the decision, I'd choose holding the strategic ground and a greater peace - for as long as it can last, despite the almost daily blood spilling designed to get us out of the way.

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