The Role of Memory

Contributor: Waterloo

Date: 2003-02-24 01:51:22

You leave out quite a few important points, and are incorrect in others. You are oversimplifying the situation.

First of all, the US secretly developed WMD? I don't think that was a very well kept secret, seeing as they dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan. As for chemical and biological weapons, I have never heard of the US denying having them either. In fact, they made quite the idiotic habit of selling them to people like Saddam Hussein. And you're right, it's not just the defiance of a UN resolution that necessitates force, otherwise both the Israelis and Palestinians (among others) would be long gone. But none of the nations you mentioned are a threat to world security, Iraq is. None of the nations you mentioned have proven willing to use WMD, Iraq has. It is the type of resolutions that count; ones that deal with global security. Resolutions have varying degrees of importance and therefore varying degrees of enforcement.

Force should always be a last option. If a nation refuses to comply, but is of little threat to others outside their country, then there are better ways to deal with them, eg sanctions. It's a shame about the human rights violations, but if the US intervened in every country where this happens, then think of the consequences and protests. As for China spreading communism still, this sounds a bit like a revival of McCarthyism. Great. China is terrible on human rights, but not the worst, and they leave most other countries alone nowadays. They are making improvements.

As for the Saudis, you fail to distinguish between people and government. It wasn't the Saudi government that attacked the US, it was Saudi nationals. Surely you see the problem in fighting the Saudis because of this? At any rate, (to the oil theory fans) if the US was after oil, why not invade SA? They have more oil than Iraq and the US already has troops there.

And we shouldn't believe the US. We should believe what the UN says. The UN says SAddam isn't disarming, and that he isn't co-operating to an acceptible degree. Seems pretty obvious to me.

The bottom line is that no other "administration" in the world has so frequently and consistently defied the UN, while simultaneously posing a threat to world security as Saddam's. I do agree, however, that he should be brought before the UN, and that the UN should govern Iraq after the war. Contrary to some people's beliefs, the case of Afghanistan is a success, and a similar style of 'occupation' should be instituted.