"Nucular" Bush-O-Meter: 11 - FINAL

[Tub(a)]

Following that logic, since the United States has "nuclear and chemical weapons, and other "weapons of mass destruction", would you say that another nation attacking us was preventing WWIII?

[HpyGlmore2-05]

Absolutely not.  We are not a country ruled by 1 person, 1 sadistic a$%ole who kills his own people to test his weapons, and uses them as shields during war.  Iraq is a 3rd world country, trying to arm themselves to become a power.  

With an unstable leader, who could at anytime decide to kill millions and not blink about it, then the world can be a very dangerous place.  I dont want to live it that world, no one does.  He has nothing to lose by nuking the world.

To suggest that the United States has these weapons with the intent to harm millions, without provocation, is absurd.  

The world has nothing to fear from us, so no one considers attacking us.  Everyone has somthing to fear from Saddam.  If we can stop him before he starts, then why not.

Besides, another nation attacking us would only start WWIII.

[marty]

Drop the puck. ::nut::

[Mike Hedrick 01]

Referring to the beginning of this thread, whether you support the president or not, making fun of his speech mannerisms is not a very convincing way of getting your point across.  In fact, it makes you sound like you don't have much of anything intelligent to say.  Jon Stewart may be able to make it funny, but here it just appears as crass.   (By the way, even if you don't have an accent or pronunciation problems, I challenge anyone to give an hour-long speech and have "nuclear" just roll off the tongue.)

[Jim Hyla]

Hey, I hope that you really do believe that war does suck. You see it does. However that doesn't mean that it may not be necessary at times, but for sure war does suck.

[HpyGlmore2-05]

yes, war does suck, but for some circumstances, it is the only way.

[DeltaOne81]

So would someone mind telling me why it's a likely scenario for Iraq, but hasn't even been suggested for the equally uncooperative North Korea?

[French Rage]

Tyhach, shut up and go back to Indiana.

[bigred apple]

Because we 1) suspect that NK is already nuclear and 2) Seoul, the likely target of the nuclear attack (and the capital of an ally) doesn't want us to play rough with the North Koreans.

[Greg Berge]

The Onion had a great headline about all of this a while ago:

[q]US Pledges to Confer with Allies, then Do What it Was Going To[/q]

Whether or not Bush is an idiot is irrelevant.  For morality of policy: Nixon was smart but lost, Kennedy was dumb but won.  For effectiveness of policy: Carter was smart but lost, Reagan was dumb but won.  They'd rather be lucky than bright.

[DeltaOne81]

None of our allies... save maybe Britain (but not 75% of it's citizens) want us to go to war with Iraq either. I understand that Iraq is dangerous and must be dealt with, but pretty much part 1) of your answer boils down to "because we can." Iraq doesn't have enough weapons, so therefore we can, cause they're not as dangerous. That's a wonderful precident. Whenever America doesn't like someone, we get rid of them if we can. I have a real problem with America deciding that we're the world's moral judge... whenever we suspect that anyone isn't behaving (so long as they're not strong) we can invade a country and dismantle a govemment?

Sure if they're actively killing millions (Kosovo) or invading other countries (Gulf War), that's one thing, but 'being evil in the eyes of America' is not an international war crime.

I agree that Saddam is an evil man, I agree Iraq is dangerous... but I think there's a higher principle here. We can't just do whatever we want. Moral absolutes bother me. We don't like him, so he's gone. He doesn't like us. It's too bad. We can encourage an overthrow, we can encourage reforms, but we can't  just kick out whoever we feel like via military force. It's not responsible, it's not just.

[nyc94]

I think you are ignoring a few things.  The United Nations negotiated peace with Iraq required them to disarm and allow for inspections.  They haven't been living up to their end of it.  In many ways this is a continuation of the first Gulf War.  It isn't quite the same as just dropping in on Iraq because we don't like their leadership.

I also disagree that encouraging an overthrow is somehow morally superior to an invasion.  If you don't think we have the right to force a leadership change by one means you can't endorse it by another.  Meddling is Meddling.  Personally, I'm for either.  And negotiating with guys like Sadam gets you nowhere.  It didn't help the British with Hitler, it doesn't appear to have helped Clinton with North Korea.  While we were sitting around patting ourselves on the back for another crisis averted they went right back to bomb making.

[HpyGlmore2-05]

what happened to hockey?

[CowbellGuy]

Wait, you're actually saying it's ok for the leader of the free world to mispronounce a rather simple word, nuclear every time he says it in a State Of the Union Address?! With voters like you, it's no wonder he won the election (and probably will win again). God help us.

[jtwcornell91]

Didn't Carter also habitually mispronounce the word?

Anyway, you're forgetting that the five people whose votes got W into office all have law degrees.