Akrasia said:
Look at the records. America has been involved in on average one international conflict involving incursions into a foreign country each year for the last 100 years.
Germany started two big wars, America started lots of little ones, as well as some big ones. (Korea, Vietnam anybody?)
Tactical Nukes are the new 'mini nukes' that have been in public discussion since George took power. These are nuclear weapons that have a small payload and limited fallout and are far more likely to actually be used, which makes them far more dangerous than the current ICBMs (if only for the risk that using them may lead to an ICBM respnse) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3126141.stm
I know that EMPs can be created using nukes, but there are more efficient ways of creating them and directing them making them a much more useful military tool.
Anyway, you seem to be denying that there have been any weapons development projects ongoing in the United States which is obviously not true.
America's biological weapons program, even if it's "for defence" is still likely to result in severe devastation if the technology is released (remember those anthrax attacks a few years ago? the spores originated from U.S. labs)
You are blaming the US for starting Vietnam????? Get it straight, France was in Vietnam BEFORE the US. It was a French territory for crying out loud.
Korea was a UN action, not an American action.
I will agree with you on the dangers of the Tactical Nukes. However you seem to be pointing the finger at the Bush administration solely for their development. EMP weapons are actually fairly easy to make, you can make one in your basement.
As for America's biological weapons program, we are destroying the vast majority of that stockpile. The Weapons Insinerator in Tooele (pronouced too-illa) Utah for example, is faced with the task of the destruction of 13,616 tons of nearve and blister agent stockpiled at the Dugway Proving grounds, (one of the nations largest stockpiles.)
looks to me like you have a few things misinterpretted there. Yes, the United States has been involved in quite a number of conflicts in the past 100 years. But how many of those have been under the flag of the United Nations? or Nato? How many wars have been "started" by the United States itself?
America controls NATO and is the most prolific abuser of the veto system in The UN giving them effective control over that institution as well. Most of the attacks carried out by America were without any declaration of War (thus making them illegal under the geneva conventions and legally, terrorist acts)
America's involvment in the Vietnam War is far from simple, and whether or not they technically started it, their actions were hostile towards the vietnam people
By developing new WMDs like Tactical Nukes and EMP devices?
Once the technology exists, it is available for anybody to use. Developing new weapons does anything but make the world safer.
How can you expect other nations to stop their weapons programs when America continues to pursue theirs. (And don't tell me that america doesn't have chemical and biological research programs running secretly)
The only insurance against invasion for most of the world is the ability to fight back, and america has been the most beligerant nation over the last hundred years.
What do you mean by most beligerant over the last hundred years?
In WWI we were almost dragged in kicking and screaming. Yes, arms were being shipped with on civilian liners, but this was still the day when such vessels were warned to abandon ship when the enemy was going to sink them. Besides, we didn't win WWI, we turned the tide; Britain and France were in stalemate with the Germans.
In WWII we were sitting it out for the time being until Pearl Harbor. The Japanese attacked, we declared war, then the Germans declared war on us in aid of their Japanese allies. The Germans wanted to destroy us and the Japanese wanted every American out of the Pacific.
In the Korean War, the South asked us for aid in stopping the North and China from conquering them.
In Vietnam, we were practically tricked into it. Vietnam was a French colony state and they were the first westerners involved in the fighting. I don't remember if we part of a UN coalition or just helping them ourselves, but we got physically, idealogically, and emotionally trapped there.
The first Gulf War we were on a UN mission.
Haiti, we were there on a sanctioned peacekeeping mission.
America does not wage war for the fun of it. We are by inclination a mostly isolationist state. It's the rest of the world that keeps dragging us into their problems.
Yes, we've had proxy wars, but so did the Soviets. Yes, we've toppled governments for favorable trade and economic agreements. Show me ANY major or even middling nation that hasn't done these kind of acts for the entirety of history.
I apologize if I came off as rude here. This is just a point that I feel strongly about and I sometimes have difficulty injecting proper tact into compositions.
Akrasia said:
Not to mention the 'Depleted' Uranium weapons that have been mutilating babies and spreading cancer throughout the middle east, the balkans and Afghanistan
We make tank armor out of depleted uranium. The 'depleted' part of depleted uranium means that it is no longer radioactive. I don't think our tank crews would have any hair or teeth left if their armor still set off the geiger counter.
I like to see a sense of proportion in the terrorism threat and to quoute one of my prior posts
"Here are some annual death rate statistics for America.
435,000 - Tobacco
400,000 - Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity
85,000 - Alcohol
43,000 - Motor Vehicle Crashes"
The Hiroshima bomb killed a total of about 200,000 people, which makes poor diet and inactivity much more effective as a WMD.
911, terrible as it was, killed about 2,752 people.
The economic cost of 9/11 is difficult to measure, but it has cost New York City about $83 - $95 billion. That is only a fraction of the cost to the US, other losses include those that result from a loss on tourism income, air flights, the extra cost of defence and so on.
In numerical terms, the number of souls lost in 9/11 is about 0.6% of the number lost each year to smoking or 6.4% of the number lost through car accidents.
The cost of war clock in Times Square started counting at $134.5 billion and the cost is estimated to grow at $177 million per day.
It is not clear that Iraq did pose a threat to the US, nor is it clear if the war on Iraq has reduced or increased the risk of terrorism on the US. In comaprison, the attacks on the terrorist camps in Afganistan were effective, because there was a proven risk and the attacks have denied training facilities to terrorists.
As of June 2004, between 9,436 and 11,317 Iraqi civilians have been killed, and an estimated 40,000 have been injured.
Up to June 16th 2004, 952 coalition forces were killed in Iraq, including 836 US military.
Al Qaeda's membership has grown to 18,000 and more suicide deaths occured in 2003 than in any previous year in contemporary history.
As for the whole "What did we know" line of attack against the current action in Iraq. I will refer you to the recent book by Gen. Tommy Franks (most recent former commander of CENTCOM)
When speaking with King Abdullah of Jordan on p. 418 "General, from reliable intelligence sources, I believe the Iraqis are hiding chemical and biological weapons."
When speaking with President Mubarak of Egypt on p. 419 "We have spoken with Saddam Hussein. He is a madman. He has WMD-biologicals, actually-and he will use them on your troops."
Oh and for those who are interested.
Franks, Tommy GEN (Ret)
"American Soldier"
Regan Books, 2004.
Now if the leaders of TWO different Middle Eastern Countries felt the need to tell him that in January of 2003 then maybe we really did think he had WMD. And so did other countries.
Now I don't know about you, but I for one would argue that if a hostile nation who had a history of using WMD is out there, then we had better do EVERYTHING within our power to either remove the threat of WMD or remove the government that is a threat.
Akrasia said:
Not to mention the 'Depleted' Uranium weapons that have been mutilating babies and spreading cancer throughout the middle east, the balkans and Afghanistan
We make tank armor out of depleted uranium. The 'depleted' part of depleted uranium means that it is no longer radioactive. I don't think our tank crews would have any hair or teeth left if their armor still set off the geiger counter.
Not that simple. Depleted uranium is less radioactive but still emits some radiation. When the slugs strike their target they break up into smaller pieces, some of which enter the soil or water table.
Since I guess you aren't fully clear on DUM (Deleted Uranium Munitions) I'll give you a run down.
They aren't radioactive. (or at least they shouldn't be any more radioactive than a florecent light bulb)
However, depleted uranium is one heck of a heavy metal. And so (just like lead) if you absorb it in some fashion it can play a pretty heavy toll on your system.
And given the speed at which these things move they tend to give off 'powder' when they do break.
That said they are not going to be phased out anytime soon and so will be on battlefields for some time to come.
1. Clarification: The Chinese were neutral in the Korean War until US troops almost reached the Yalu River separating North Korea from China. While the US was not a belligerent nation in this conflict, your characterization of the war was historically inaccurate (the US did not enter the war to ward of N Korean and Chinese aggression).
2. We were not "practically tricked" into Vietnam. The conflict between France and the people of Indochina was resolved in 1954 with the Geneva Agreements on Vietnam. The US government chose to back Ngo Dinh Diem's refusal to conduct free elections by July 1956 and we then opposed the Geneva Agreements and refused to sign them. We knowingly and actively supported the French before 1953 (some say up to 80% of their costs), then backed Diem, and refused to honor the international agreement we had negotiated into existence. This hardly qualifies as being "practically tricked" into the conflict.
I agree that the US is not the most belligerent nation historically. Germany, in 12 years of Nazi rule, invaded Belgium, Czechoslovakia (Bohemia and Moravia), Denmark, Greece (to aid the Italian offensive), Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the USSR, and Yugoslavia. They also declared war on the US and provoked wars with France, Britain, and their allies. They made territorial demands on Lithuania and Czechoslovakia (the Sudetenland). That is a large amount of aggression in a 12-year span.
Still, I cannot agree that the US is primarily isolationist. Our military and covert operations into Latin America (and especially into the Carribean) and the Middle East discredit that argument. While we view ourselves as defensive unless our interests are threatened (whether this is true or not), that is not the same as being isolationist. Indeed, many of our covert operations were blatantly intrusive.
Gaiseric said:
Now if the leaders of TWO different Middle Eastern Countries felt the need to tell him that in January of 2003 then maybe we really did think he had WMD. And so did other countries.
There was also the IAEA, UNMOVIC, the US General Accounting Office, the US State Department and a host of weapons inspectors providing information that, taken as a whole, should have shown that Saddam had no WMD.
trebor said:
That 15 billion military budget in 1989 as compared to 1.4 billion recently is particularly interesting. The arguement was made by Cheney and others that if sanctions had been dropped, Iraq would have quickly rebuilt its weapons programs. Hussein was able to spend 15 billion a year on the military in 1989 largely due to the river of money which was coming into Iraq from Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. In the absence of this money, it is unlikely that Hussein would have been able to resume military spending at 1989 levels even if sanctions had been lifted.
I can't really agree with this. Oil is like crack: people will get it wherever it's available. If sanctions had been lifted the world would have been buying Iraqi oil like crazy, Saddam would have started rearming and we would have been back at square one.
To RedBstrd:
I stand corrected on the historical inaccuracies I set forth. I did not remark on the Latin American activities and nastiness America perpetrated except in one vague sentence. We did meddle a whole lot down south, mostly for economic reasons or to (at least in some circles), to combat communism.
Still, I welcome the correction. I will try to pay better attention to topics I comment on in the future.
We have had tactical nukes forever. Tactical nukes are nothing new, there have been programs building artillery shell nukes, and short range rocket nukes, or the davy crockett atomic bazooka. They've been around since the 50's.
Depleted uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium (which is found naturally in dirt everywhere), the only danger is the fact that it is a heavy metal, which is no different from lead projectiles. Wont be solved by getting rid of DU projectiles, will only make our armed forces less effective. DU rounds aren't used for that much anyway, only for their armor peircing abilities because they are more dense that almost any other material available. Not like we are shooting them around everywhere, they are much to expensive to do that. Worth noting is that the US military does use tungsten projectiles instead of lead (which is the real danger, simply because many many more lead rounds are used than DU) in anti-infantry roles. The problem is there is no material that can be substituted for DU in armor peircing ammunition, simply because DU is so dense. Any of the materials that are more dense are even more dangerous, so there isn't much that can be done about it.
legionnaire said:
We've never used a biological weapon.
Well, almost never. There is a fair amount of evidence that suggest that the the US military played around with biological agents during the Korean conflict. Specifically, the accusation is that the US was responsible for outbreaks of plague and cholera along the Yalu River.
starkmadd
Clearfield, UT
July 2004
AUG 31, 2004 01:58 PM