Your take on Nuclear weopons and the US

[WestSideLa X eR]

Whats your guy's take on the US and nuclear weopons?

Personally, the US seems very...arrogant.
The US has enough nukes to blow the world many times over, yet when the US gets hints that another nation is even researching something that could lead to nukes, they immediatly react.
What gives the US the right to keep nukes? Who appointed the US as the supreme ruler of peace in the world?

Some of you can argue that its dangerous for other nations to be building nukes. Lets take NOrth korea for example..

The US has hints/proof that N. Korea is building nukes.....
North Korea is then labeled as part of "the axis of evil"....
without even considering the fact that North korea will or will not attack....

Then you guys would say that North korea is bad, its building up its army while starving its citizens.
Then why, i wonder, isnt the US taking time to consider relief efforts or sending food and supplies?

Think about it from another nations point of view. How do you not know that the US wont use its nukes? Because its a
"good" country?


im in no way saying that everyone should be able to build nukes, etc.....just something to think about

[roughrider]

tops i think we need is 10. 10 nukes is a huge amount when considering the destructive power of them.

have any of you seen fog of war. its about robert macnamerra and vietnam. very interesting movie

[Petem0ss]

Originally posted by WestSideLa X eR
Then you guys would say that North korea is bad, its building up its army while starving its citizens.
Then why, i wonder, isnt the US taking time to consider relief efforts or sending food and supplies?


Ahh, my old neighbors - the North Koreans! I was stationed in South Korea in parts of 1988 & 1989, including 3 months at the DMZ. A summer of propaganda leaflets, mosquitos, trying to blast Guns & Roses loud enough to drown out the crappy North Korean marching music, firing weapons & burning s---. Good times, in a very unusual & twisted way :agree

The North Koreans are a paranoid bunch. Go ahead & blame it on Bush if you want, but where it really started was when we helped the South Koreans pistolwhip their asses from Pusan back up past the 38th parallel after they invaded the South 50 years ago.

Ever since then they've chosen to be isolationists, starving their people so they can improve their nukes. All because they fear an attack from imperialists like you & I. We're already tight with the profitable side of that peninsula & have been content to let them run the northern part into the ground with their "juche". They used to be able to lean on the Russians a little, but no more. The Chinese have distanced themselves from them as well.

So they're in bad shape, they know it, the whole world knows it...now the deal is - let us help with the disarmament of nukes & we'll (along with China, Japan, SoKo) trade the nukes for food & relief assistance. North Korea chooses to believe they're not safe from imperialists like you & I without their nukes...as a result, more & more North Koreans starve to death.

Lybia was in bad shape & ended up taking us up on a similar deal in the mid 1990s. If this was a poker game, the dealer's about to flip over the river card, and genius Kim Jong-Il is all-in on a pair of threes while we're holding a full house.

We're not the bad guys here or even the wierdos, never have been. We're offering to help reverse 50 years of bad management over there & they won't let us.

[roughrider]

thats foolhardy, who would ever attack us with nukes/that many nukes as to take out 6 or 7 of them. anyways lie like we always do. tell the world we have stockpiles then really only have a dozen

[nVlax]

ummm... it wouldnt be that hard to take out 10 nukes... its not like u have to use nukes to take out nukes, just wipe out the launching and storage facilities with smaller ordinance missiles.

the first gulf war, anyone?

[Thrillhouse]

We’ve already talked about this in another thread. North Korea is trying to blackmail us by building nuclear weapons and giving in would be an invitation to every country in the world to do the same thing. That being said, it cost a lot of money to build these weapons, why should we let a country spend their money on something they are going to threaten us with and then give them money and aid to feed their people?

That being said, if we let other countries develop nuclear weapons, we have to defend ourselves against them. Until our missile defense system is ready, the only way to do that is with more nuclear weapons. Open up a history book. Do you know why we signed a treaty with the Soviet Union agreeing not to build a missile defense? It was to protect the idea of “mutually assured destruction.” If we were to start a nuclear war with the USSR, neither side would win because both side had so much firepower.
If we let other countries develop weapons, we run the risk of another nuclear arms build-up. I’m sorry if preventing other countries from developing weapons to kill you seems arrogant, but it’s necessary to prevent another cold war.
Once we rid the rest of the world of nuclear weapons, we can start to get rid of ours.

[WestSideLa X eR]

that is EXACTLY what im saying

Sure, i agree with what the US is doing, its necessary for world peace.

But who appointed the US as world peace officer? So everyone else cant have nuclear weopons but the US can?

Why doesnt the US get rid of its nukes first and let say, britian or france do the peacekeeping?

So the US can have a missile system to be "safe" but other countries cant?

[Longest]

Originally posted by WestSideLa X eR
that is EXACTLY what im saying

Sure, i agree with what the US is doing, its necessary for world peace.

But who appointed the US as world peace officer? So everyone else cant have nuclear weopons but the US can?

Why doesnt the US get rid of its nukes first and let say, britian or france do the peacekeeping?

So the US can have a missile system to be "safe" but other countries cant?

You want to trust the fate of the world to France? NOW I'm scared...

Dan

[roughrider]

Originally posted by LaxMiddie32
The first thing anyone would do in a modern day war is cripple the enemys ability to counterattack, which in this case means taking out our nukes.

I just dont see the point in destroying the ones we already have. Why would you?

I could understand not wanting to destory the ones we have, but early in his presidency Bush proposed making more which i find ridiculous.

[WestSideLa X eR]

Originally posted by Longest
You want to trust the fate of the world to France? NOW I'm scared...

Dan

I was just using france as an example.

Sure, realistically, the US has to do this to keep world peace....

but im just saying, thiers another side to this.

Sure, without the US korea would be just one big communist penninsula.....but Its not like the south koreans are happy with the americans.

Take this for example. This happened a while ago, but

a a bunch of US soldiers where out one night and they ran over

2 korean students. Sure, that happens but all they got was an

APOLOGY. You cant put a price on life, but still, this is pitiful.

Oops, we ran over your kid but we're um...sorry.

Living in the US, i thought the US was cool and all, didnt agree

with the war in iraq and all, but I thought we where running

pretty smoothly. Go anywhere overseas and it can be a VERY different story

[Petem0ss]

Originally posted by WestSideLa X eR
Sure, without the US korea would be just one big communist penninsula.....but Its not like the south koreans are happy with the americans.

I've lived it as one of the +-35,000 American soldiers there. It's an uneasy existance, but a business relationship - the civilians & the GIs don't exactly love each other. But trust me on this one, it's going a lot better than you think it is. Read on.

Originally posted by WestSideLa X eR
Take this for example. This happened a while ago, but

a a bunch of US soldiers where out one night and they ran over

2 korean students. Sure, that happens but all they got was an

APOLOGY. You cant put a price on life, but still, this is pitiful.

Oops, we ran over your kid but we're um...sorry.

Living in the US, i thought the US was cool and all, didnt agree

with the war in iraq and all, but I thought we where running

pretty smoothly. Go anywhere overseas and it can be a VERY different story

When I was there, civilians were killed in training accidents, land & property were ruined over there, poor Korean families were whoring their daughters out to put the sons through college, there was no shortage of miserably homesick GIs and now it's unfortuante that a couple of Korean students were killed. Certainly not a utopian existance under any circumstances.

But in the aggregate, most South Koreans have benefited heavily from the US presence there over the last 50 years. Especially when you consider the alternative:

2 million starved...and counting (http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9808/19/nkorea.famine/)

"BEIJING (CNN) -- Two million North Koreans -- nearly 10 percent of the population -- may have died during three years of famine in North Korea, U.S. congressional aides said Wednesday.

Video footage brought back from the secretive communist country by a congressional staff delegation showed sickly, emaciated children, some with stick-thin bodies.

One young child, too weak to sit up, had to be propped up in the corner in an orphanage. Older children filmed during the delegation's week-long visit appeared severely stunted by malnutrition.

To survive the persisting food shortages, North Koreans are eating weeds, grasses and corn stalks that are mashed into powder and sometimes mixed with flour to make noodles or cakes."

A couple dead versus two million. Not convinced? How about this link, from a North Korean defector (http://www.nis.go.kr/eng/north/essay2.html)

"During the 40 days I was absent, every place in the North, including homes in my village, suffered as much as our household, if not more severely. Seeing the sad state of homes at my village, I thought: Is this world fit to live in?

A certain widow who lost her husband due to starvation lost her mind from hunger. During her derangement, she mistook her 3-year-old son for a dog and killed him for food. Five children about the same size at one household were caught ransacking the highly productive potato field belonging to a party executive, and one of them was executed at the site."

Here's another link of defector memoirs (http://www.nis.go.kr/eng/north/defector.html)

All of this is a direct result of their choice to amp up their nuclear program. And this is even after the US donation of $18.5 million of cash, food & medicine donated from 1995 to 1997. The job the US is doing in the Korean peninsula isn't perfect, but we're doing the right thing. Sorry, but there's just no defending the idea that the South Koreans are better off without us.

[Longest]

Originally posted by WestSideLa X eR
I was just using france as an example.

Sure, realistically, the US has to do this to keep world peace....

but im just saying, thiers another side to this.

Sure, without the US korea would be just one big communist penninsula.....but Its not like the south koreans are happy with the americans.

Take this for example. This happened a while ago, but

a a bunch of US soldiers where out one night and they ran over

2 korean students. Sure, that happens but all they got was an

APOLOGY. You cant put a price on life, but still, this is pitiful.

Oops, we ran over your kid but we're um...sorry.

Living in the US, i thought the US was cool and all, didnt agree

with the war in iraq and all, but I thought we where running

pretty smoothly. Go anywhere overseas and it can be a VERY different story

I'm not convinced why we as a country need to act in ways that make other countries not think badly about us. Countries interact much like people insofar as people should not act like themselves because of what others might say, so should this country not change how it acts. If you think we're bullying other countries, we have already parted ways because which country gets leaned on by the UN and others to go in and help? Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, etc. We were there. Others complained about it. Should we say "Well to hell with all their suffering" and come home? I think not. As such, I couldn't care less what other countries think as long as we are acting true to the principles this country stands for. Apparently the only real debate is what those principles are.

Dan

[liveforlax19]

what ticks me off is that people say bush lied about the WMDs just for a reason to go to war... and when the UN searched for them there wasnt any.... well jesus we only gave saddam like a year to hide them all

[WestSideLa X eR]

I'm not convinced why we as a country need to act in ways that make other countries not think badly about us. Countries interact much like people insofar as people should not act like themselves because of what others might say, so should this country not change how it acts. If you think we're bullying other countries, we have already parted ways because which country gets leaned on by the UN and others to go in and help? Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, etc. We were there. Others complained about it. Should we say "Well to hell with all their suffering" and come home? I think not. As such, I couldn't care less what other countries think as long as we are acting true to the principles this country stands for. Apparently the only real debate is what those principles are.

Dan
heres a dumb analogy

Ok, so lets say for example, your room was messy. I've never met you, but i just barge in and "clean" your room for you. Now obviously, thats a good thing. Your better off with your room clean. But you're also mad at me for barging in without EVEN ASKING, a complete stranger in your room trying to correct your mistakes.....who has the right to do that but.....yourself?

[Biffman49]

We found the "small banned weaponry" because we invaded the country. The UN didn't. They did their inspections and didn't find anything. The only thing that we found was the "small banned weaponry" and we only found it because we sent troops in. I wonder what percentage of countries in the world have "small banned weaponry". I bet it's a very large number and that even if the UN had found them, it wouldn't have proven that they had WMD's which would cause us to attack.

[Biffman49]

The "small banned weaponry" which we found was hidden. I am sure that it was not in an area labeled "Don't look here. You might find banned weapons." The point is that it would not have been that hard for Iraq to hide their "small banned weapons" from the UN Inspectors. Anybody who's ever hidden anything from anyone knows how easy it is.

[Longest]

heres a dumb analogy

Ok, so lets say for example, your room was messy. I've never met you, but i just barge in and "clean" your room for you. Now obviously, thats a good thing. Your better off with your room clean. But you're also mad at me for barging in without EVEN ASKING, a complete stranger in your room trying to correct your mistakes.....who has the right to do that but.....yourself?

You win the prize for worst analogy. You can't even really use this one b/c so much is left out of a foreign relations matter that you can't recreate in cleaning my room. Which I wouldn't really mind, when can you be here :-)

Dan

[Dan]

The stupid teddy bears formed an alliance that didn't work! (The TN-Teddy Nation!) And then the cranky plastic bird was mad that he was captured by the amazing green plastic soldiers! The bobble-heads formed an alliance with the lego men and attempted to screw over the green plastic soldiers, even though the bobble-heads are from the same corner of the room as the green plastic soldiers! The lego men kept on trying to kill the GPS's and the radio competed with the iPod (President Bush) for coolest in the room.

Now how's that for a terrible analogy?

[WestSideLa X eR]

lol, yes it was a bad analogy but i hope you got my drift

[Biffman49]

I think we may be arguing two different things here. I'm saying that the UN didn't find the weapons because they were hidden. However, the exact words you used yourself are "small banned weapons". I don't think that these "small banned weapons" were worth a whole war. The reason that we didn't find any WMD's is because Iraq only had "small banned weapons". I'm sure that if you were to do a complete, 100% weapons inventory on almost any country, you would find "small banned weapons". Heck, I bet even we have some lying around somewhere.

[LizardsLaxFan]

I think On Iraq we Fu**ed up but we still have to fix the nation. we should be alowed to do the things whencer whatever but mayb if bush had shown up for national guard duty he would have learned some stratgey and Iraq would be a better place. Bush fihts like an a**. we also only go after little offenders (Iraq) and allow big ones (N. Korea, China, etc.) to become more powerful.

[Longest]

There might have been a cogent thought here but it's lost amidst the horrid grammar and spelling. PLEASE proofread your posts, run spell checker, have your mom look at it, something.

If I read your point correctly, you think we should stay in Iraq but somehow Bush does not know war strategy b/c he didn't go to national guard duty? So you wrap up an allegation unrelated to the real issue then opine that his national guard duty would have been the end-all/be-all of solving the issue. Hussein gassed a million of his own people, he cares nothing for Americans, his attitude has rubbed off on his people, and you think he's a little offender? Interesting....

Dan

[TheKOB]

I think we may be arguing two different things here. I'm saying that the UN didn't find the weapons because they were hidden. However, the exact words you used yourself are "small banned weapons". I don't think that these "small banned weapons" were worth a whole war. The reason that we didn't find any WMD's is because Iraq only had "small banned weapons". I'm sure that if you were to do a complete, 100% weapons inventory on almost any country, you would find "small banned weapons". Heck, I bet even we have some lying around somewhere.

Define WMD's. We found the means to make them, and a nuclear weapon program underway.

Also, the CIA doesn't know everything. We didn't know exactly what they had...