[ba-unrev-talk] Connecting the Dots...
The *real* case has yet to be made in public, at
least in any totally convincingly fashion. It
suddenly occurs to me that I may be able to do so
here. (01)
Subject: Saddam Hussein (02)
Item: If he has used biological and chemical weapons
on the Kurds, why would he care if someone used
them on us? (It's hard to see why he would.) (03)
Item: Since he has given $5,000 to the families of
Palestinian suicide bombers, he obviously has no
ethical or moral objections to activities of that
kind. (04)
Item: The blockade and limits on oil sales have left
him impoverished, on a "tight budget". (05)
Item: Al Queda, though impaired, most likely still has
somewhere between hundreds of millions and billions
to spend. (06)
Item: Given that combination of circumstances, would
Hussein be reluctant to sell chemical or biological
weapons to Al Queda. (Why would he?) (07)
Item: If Al Queda had them, would they be reluctant to use
them? (Experience suggests the answer is "No".) (08)
If so, then what is the proper and/or viable U.S. response?
There are several possibilities: (09)
1) Maintain the status quo, and simply hope that it never
happens. Try to plug that sieve that is our open
borders (which we would ideally like to *leave* open,
and attempt to put a cordon around every possible target,
for an indefinite period of time. (010)
Feasibility: Unlikely. While it is relatively plausible
to contain a geo-political entity, it is virtually
impossible to contain an organization that is not
geographically-limited. (011)
2) Relax the economic sanctions, back away, and remove the
pressure to sell such weapons. (012)
Feasibility: Unlikely. Kuwait becomes an Iraqi province.
In all probability, the strategy of appeasement will work
no better than it did prior to WWII. (013)
3) Change the game.
Achieve regime change. (014)
Feasibility: Doable. Likely to stabilize the middle east. (015)
Honestly, I don't see a viable alternative. Perhaps
someone can point to a weakness in the argument, or
produce some seriously viable alternative. At the moment,
though, I'm not persuaded that there is any viable alternative. (016)