If you look at his "strategy" for starting the Iran / Iraq war, and invading Kuwait, you can easily come to the conclusion Saddam is a lunatic. He need not initially have suicidal tendencies to still be a nut with a nuke. Even a "primitive" nuclear device can ruin your whole day.
Bush Doctrine II: No terroristic nuts with nukes.
The likely risks are these:
1) Saddam gives the device to a terrorist cell to infiltrate into the U.S. and tries to cover his tracks.
2) Even more likely: Saddam uses the bomb for nuclear blackmail. He invades Kuwait and the Gulf States and then warns: "If you try stopping me, I'll obliterate Tel Aviv, Ankara, Rome, or even New York."
At that point, a U.S. President would have few options to consider, and none of them would be very attractive.
Hitler is not that mad, surely?
Sigh. No, it is not, you narrow-minded idiot.
This strain of anti-war argument is especially pathetic, because it betrays a huge lack of imagination on the part of the speaker. Evidently people like this author think that (a) the only violence Saddam can do or cause against us would come in the form of an Announced, Massive Attack In A War He Declares Against Us, and that therefore (b) if he doesn't do that, we're all safe. The rest of the argument is indeed quite simple: "He won't do that, because he's not suicidal."
There's one problem. That's not the only way Saddam and his WMDs can harm us. He can give them to other people to use. He can secretly spin off elements of his armed forces into quasi "independent" groups which nominally Have No Official Connection To Iraq Whatsoever. Then "they" can attack us.
In short, Saddam can attack us, kill some Americans, and simply not announce to the world that he's the one behind it. Indeed, that's what he's most likely to do (this follows immediately from the anti-war "Saddam's not suicidal" argument, in fact!), and in all probability it's what he's been doing.
But this possibility - apparently - leaves the anti-war folks dumbfounded. Why, all wars are overt, they apparently think. If Saddam attacks us surely he'd put his face on a big videoscreen and make a televised-phone call to the White House to explain that he's attacking us first. After all, that's how it works on TV and in the movies. That's how "Dr. Evil" does it in those Austin Powers movies!
Again, the only type of military violence the anti-war people seem to know about and comprehend is overt, declared military strikes. Funneling materiel to terrorist groups, secretly training and aiding them, distancing himself from these private armies so he can keep his hands clean - the anti-war folks simply can't grasp any of these possibilities.
The end result is that the anti-war zealots end up (ironically) telegraphing the following message to the Saddams of the world: "If you want to attack us or do harm to us, make sure that any violence is not performed by your official armed forces, but is done through middle men and private armies to which you can marginally plausibly claim you have no 'connection'. Because, if you do so, we won't fight back at all, we'll argue with anyone who supports fighting back, and we'll wink our eyes and pretend that we actually believe your hands are clean."
That's the result of this type of narrow thinking. The result is to encourage fighting via terrorists and suitcase nukes rather than overt missile strikes and invasion forces.
And then people whose heads are steeped in reality rather than utopia have to clean up the mess and deal with the terrorists which the anti-war people invite to our shores, all the while listening to a cacophony of whines from them.
Yes, truly ironic indeed.
In five pages or less, describe the fundamental nature of (a) warfare, (b) terrorism, and (c) state-sponsored terrorism. Apply your analysis to the current historical context. (20 points)
It's that Hussein would be in a position of mutually assured destruction with ourselves. That itself is the alarming prospect that calls for action.
It's nothing less than bizarre that the left recognizes exactly this danger but claims that it is a reason not to act. Whereas being under a constant threat from Sadaam of his nuking our homelands, or just our troops in the Middle East, seems to me like a dangerous thing, the left would have us believe that such a position is a description of our security.
We could argue about this, I guess, but I don't believe they even mean this. After all, these are the same critics, especially in Britain, who used to tell us that we ought to disarm unilaterally in the face of the Soviet Union. It was only our aggressive stance toward the Soviets that "caused" the poor, peace loving communists to arm themselves, you see. So their recent adoption of MAD-- and with Sadaam Hussein no less-- is just political opportunism and not a sincere belief.
For the rest of the non-lying, sane world, it's worth pointing out that MAD with Hussein puts us in a more dangerous position than in 1990. Recall that then Hussein threatened to control of most of the world's oil. Even if he didn't invade SA he would have always had the threat of doing so handy to cow the Saudis and control them. Notice that if Hussein had had a nuclear bomb he likely would have succeeded.
No, he likely wouldn't have nuked the homelands of Britain and the U.S. then. He would, however, have had a credible threat of nuking our troops during the Gulf War, a threat that likely would have kept us from liberating Kuwait. At the very least, I can't say with any confidence that we would have been likely to act.
Does anyone now think that surrendering to Hussein in the Gulf War would have been just fine? I know the psycho left thinks so, but it's worth pointing out that that is the claim they must make publicly if they're going to adopt this absurd view that MAD with Sadaam Hussein is a sensible policy position.
So, the connection to terrorism is hardly the only concern here. The concern is simply that Hussein's aggressive and determined government will be unstoppable in its Middle Eastern ambitions if Hussein gets a nuclear bomb.
Let's just protect ourselves and let these animals have at the rest of the world. I'm so go**amned sick and tired of this garbage, it makes me want to scream.
It'll take until there are burned or contorted-by-gas corpses laying around by the thousands will these MORONS be convinced. Fine.
I repeat for the hard of hearing: F**K 'em.
Tell me again about why it was our duty to go after Milosevic?
Why is it that libs never weigh the loss of life from military action against the benefits of the same? For years now the libs have been saying that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children have been dying due to sanctions. The liberation of Iraq will end those sanctions and give the Iraqis real hope of freedom and prosperity for the first time since independence. Since tens of thousands are supposedly dying each month a war of liberation would save Iraqi lives in both the short and long term.
Yes, he is that mad, and stop calling me "Shirley."
Now who was it that turned on the pumps and tried to make the Arabian gulf into a giant oil slick.
Who was it that blew up the oil wells in Kuwait in the hopes of creating the equivalent of nuclear winter?
...well, maybe a Losertarian could but you get my drift.