subexploring -> RE: Iraq had something to do with 9/11 (8/24/2006 9:28:21 PM)
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There are quite a lot of weapons that have killed thousands in different conflicts. Muskets, spears, the list goes on. No reputable intelligence service thought that Saddam had nukes or was anywhere vaguely close to them. True that Saddam let UNSCOM in again only when threatened with invasion, but if we had truly been interested in whether he had WMDs we could simply have let them do their work. They would not have found any. Indeed, it turns out that during the 90s the UN inspectors were correct in not finding any WMDs. Saddam did permit them effective inspections during the 90s. But he blustered and muddied up the issue probably to scare neighboring countries and potential rebels about his actual strength. He wanted Iran thinking he had as many weapons as possible. Of course, now that he is gone Iran's power in the area is significantly expanded, so you have people pushing the insanely stupid idea of confronting Iran militarily. That would be even worse than the Iraq invasion, which is already shaping up to be perhaps the worst decision in U.S. foreign policy history. The more fundamental error here is thinking that it is any of our business whether some country halfway around the world that is no threat to us has some type of weapon. If we continue to believe that it is our job to run the world, or even the Middle East, by force then it is going to be a very long century. We have neither the strength, the competence, the will, the resources, the knowledge, or the popularity to do so. We need to confine our military to killing people who have actually harmed us, once we do that we will be able to devote ourselves to our true national genius, which is invention and commerce. Unfortunately, thinking up pretexts to engage in silly wars all over the world is a major source of pleasure to Washington policy intellectuals who want to feel powerful, and it provides full employment for an American military that is several times larger than it needs to be to actually defend this country.
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