Posted on 09/07/2002 11:27:16 AM PDT by Clive
Show me the proof, says the Prime Minister. Before he will back any U.S. strike against Saddam Hussein, Jean Chrétien told reporters on Thursday, he wants solid evidence that the Iraqi dictator possesses weapons of mass destruction. Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham went even further. He said that Canada requires evidence not only that Iraq has nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, but that it plans to use them. Only then, apparently, will Canada consider supporting the Americans.
These sound like reasonable caveats. But they amount to impossible demands. There is no way to know for certain whether Mr. Hussein possesses such deadly weapons because he expelled United Nations inspectors four years ago and refuses to let them return. And there is no way to know for sure whether he would use those weapons because no one can see inside Mr. Hussein's head. All anyone can do is look at what he has done in the past and weigh the probabilities.
We know that Mr. Hussein has started two wars of aggression against his neighbours. The first, against Iran, cost something like a million lives. The second, against Kuwait, devastated that country and triggered the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
We know that he has used weapons of mass destruction in the past, attacking scores of Kurdish villages with mustard gas and nerve agents in the late 1980s. We know that he fired Scud missiles at Israeli civilians in 1991. We know that his country has been on the list of leading sponsors of terrorism for 20 years. We know that he spent as much as $10-billion (U.S.) on his nuclear-weapons program in the decade before the gulf war and was only months from getting the Bomb when he suffered his defeat in Kuwait.
He kept trying throughout the '90s, playing cat and mouse with the UN inspectors and putting his country through years of international sanctions. As for biological and chemical weapons, Iraq was believed to be hiding stores of anthrax, botulinum toxin and VX nerve gas when the inspectors were expelled. He may have more now.
Finally, we know that he nurses a bitter grudge against the U.S. and its gulf war allies. Mr. Hussein was humiliated during that war and tried to get revenge by ordering the assassination of George Bush Sr.
Enough reason to act? Not for Canada. Even while conceding that Mr. Hussein is a menace, Ottawa hesitates at backing any pre-emptive action against him until he actually acquires the world's deadliest weapons and prepares to use them.
As U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney said last month, this amounts to saying: "Yes, Saddam is as dangerous as we say he is. We just need to let him get stronger before we do anything about it."
Waiting until Mr. Hussein has nuclear weapons would be the worst kind of folly. A nuclear-armed dictator could do endless damage, not just to the United States but to his Middle Eastern neighbours. Nuclear, chemical or biological weapons would embolden him to embark on new aggressions, to say nothing of the risk of an attack against civilians in North America or Europe.
Do we know for sure that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction? No. Do we know for sure that he would use them? No again. All we know is that he is a ruthless dictator who has tried for years to acquire the word's deadliest weapons and has shown no hesitation in using them when he does. Definitive proof will come only when a mushroom cloud rises above Tel Aviv or Washington. Do we wait until then, Mr. Chrétien?
Of course, he wants to wait until then. He's a socialist loser who believes in appeasement.
Did he argue against fellow Commonwealth leader Robert Mugabe?
Of course not. Chrétien is a worthless hand-wringer.
Or maybe Ottawa. . . unless Canadians think that they are somehow exempt from the threat just beacuse they are Canadians.
(Oh, and by the way, haven't terrorists been caught trying to sneak in to the US FROM CANADA? In cars loaded with EXPLOSIVES?)
(Oh, and also by the way. . . I wonder how absolutely, 100% reliable the control mechanisms would be on the nuclear device that Saddam built and gave to the terrorists to smuggle in through Canada? The one that couldn't be absolutely, 100% proven to exist?)
(Oh, and by the way, if I were a terrorist hiding out in Ottawa, and I had the bomb, and the RCMP were knocking on my door, and I had the codes to set off the device, I wonder what I would do?)
Actually, I think the author has swerved into the truth here. Many of the liberals really don't give a rat's patootie about Israel, and would, in fact, be happy as clams if Israel gets nuked. That goes double for Washington.
The UN has allowed itself to become a laughingstock by NOT backing up their demands and I'm sick of the US paying 25% of the tab for what has become nothing more than an exclusive club for despots and diviates who hide behind immunity, gorge themselves on rich foods and high living.
The UN has become a joke, and our allies are almost as laughable.
BTW, that security council veto goes both ways, if they won't stand behind us, I seriously doubt that we will be willing to expend either blood nor treasure on any further UN flights of fantesy. Let them raise taxes in their own countries.
-PJ
Well...
It would be proof.
Wouldn't it?
canuck logic?
There was a poll reported yesterday to the effect that over 60% of Canadians feel that Canada is a high risk potential target, probably Toronto.
Brilliant! This is the most succinct and compelling argument for attacking Iraq I have read yet.
Such as -- to pick a name "completely at random" -- Pervez Musharraf?
Pakistan has the tested, ready-to-hurl nukes. Saudi Arabia has the bankroll for al-Qaida and has been using it. ... So we attack Iraq. Makes perfect sense!
Not.
Someone needs to pull out the Red-Blue map again. Their areas (metro cities) are the most densely populated and highest on any target list.
BTW, I think its time for Liberal Appeasers to be held accountable for their actions...if we lose a city b/c of their cowardice, we should at least be allowed to exterminate those who were enablers...actions do have consequences
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