 |
|  |
 |
|
Tripledoc
|
|
How is it possible to disprove one's guilt?
I think that is a fundamental issue. The fact is that it is the accuser who have to prove the guilt of the defendant.
And how do you define W(o)MD. One million AK 47: does that run in that category. They have killed quite a lot of people in Africa to my knowledge. In Rwanda they used manchetes and wind-up radios to instrument the killing of a conservative estimate of 500.000 people. Now, that is mass destruction.
The chemical weapons used by the Iraqi army during the Iran-Iraq war were against large contingents of socalled 'human-wave' assault groups. The way the Iranians would plan an attack against an Iraqi strongpoint would be to mass bundles of teenagers, which were tied together with ropes in groups of twenty - then they would hurdle over minefields. When they got close the Iraqi's would pour chemical short to medium range artillery fire upon them.
This is not how any modern army would conduct attacks. Thus even if the Iraqi army were left with a modicum of chemical warfare capability it would have been rendered obsolete by the advances in modern equipment, mobility and healthcare facilities.
As such, even though the Iraqi's had any significant chemical warfare capability it would not constitute enough of a threat to alter the balance of power in the middle east.
If anyone would like to correct me on the military technical issues please do so.
|
|
|  |
 |
|
Tripledoc
|
|
quote: Originally posted by Goingonit
... but Saddam Hussein is not necessarily a rational person - he may not think of his own or his national good before doing something. |
The Iraqi government was rational enough to call for aid from the West when its war against Iran was going badly - and the war-aim of the Iranian government was to topple the nationalist socialist ba'ath party of Iraq.
So if the Iraqi government was rational enough to save itself in using weapons of mass destruction - a difficult decision in my opinion - why would they be so irrational as to use W(o)MD against enemies with clearly superior capability.
Neither the Kurds nor the Iranians (well maybe not, I don't know) had W(o)md capability. Thus it was a risk worth taking.
So, what history has shown is that Iraq like America has used W(o)md against threats which did not have the means to respond in kind. We have not seen the Iraqi government use W(o)MD against nations which could respond in kind.
Thus by the logic of the United States and Britain nations would actually use W(o)MD against adversaries with capabilty to respond with similar measures. This can mean two things. Either the Iraqi givernemnt is bent on self-destruction - or the two aforementioned governments of the West are actually stuck with the belief that it is a feasible counter-strategy when their own nations come under threat that they would ensure the opponents partial destruction as well.
I think that we need to move beyond that kind of downbeat cold war thinking.
|
|
|  |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:25. Apolyton Time is 00:25. |
top of page
|
| archivepost |
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|