Quote:

Chant said:
I concede the point!

But you didn't really answer my question.

Did the U.S. really do the world a favour in using nuclear weapons, showing everyone what kind of power a nuke had?

I should, perhaps try to explain my earlier comments a little better.

I think no one should have Nuclear Weapons, or WMD in general. But of course there are nations which I most certainly wouldn't like to see having nukes!



Well geez, in an ideal world...


Of course.

But the problem is, if the U.S. disarms, the rest of the world will not. Without a deterrant, Russia might nuke us.
There is talk in the U.S. that Russia, despite being impoverished, is updating its nukes, and we again have to catch up, with a whole new class of specialized nukes.

The U.S. didn't do the world a favor in 1945.
The rest of the world wanted nukes, independent of what the U.S. did.
Tthe reality was that the Germans were working on a nuclear program, and already had V-2 missiles to carry them. As you're probably aware, most of the German scientists began working on the U.S. nuclear missile program after the war.

But my point is, within a few short years, Britain developed nukes, and France, and Russia (the last largely stolen from us), and China. And then out of the blue in the early 70's, India, Pakistan and Israel. Most of these nations are friendly with the U.S., and didn't pursue them in reaction to the U.S., they just wanted them.

It concerns me that the U.S. is seen as the cause of nukes !

It's often been argued in the U.S. that we might as well not have nukes, because we'd never use them.

At the peak of the cold war, both the U.S. and Russia had upwards of 30,000 reported missiles each. As I recall with the most recent reductions, it's supposed to be down around 1,000 on each side.
That's a considerable reduction.

~

Rob, I wish I could help you with the anti-Bush perspective of Bush's hidden motive for invasion.
We've all heard "blood for oil" and "war profiteering" and so forth. But as you say, none of those make sense.

Yeah, sure, we'll spend a trillion on an Iraq war, just so Bush and Cheney can make a few million in contract kickbacks from Halliburton. Makes sense.

And if it was "blood for oil" Iraq would have to give us every drop of oil for the next 30 years, and we might then break EVEN !
But whatever, we know it makes no sense, but let the Bush-bashers vent away and have their fun.

As for the real reasons, see Bush's 1/28/2003 speech, and his 3/17/2003 speech.

And maybe in 20 years, the Bush-bashers will finally accept that Bush's stated reasons are the reason we went. I actually think the prevailing reason is because (whether others choose to believe it or not) Bush and his administration want to plant seeds of democracy in the Middle East, because they truly believe that's in our long term interest, far more than any other economic/oil/financial considerations.

And the urgency for invasion in March 2003 was to complete the war while we had the level of resolve and support we did, before sanctions began to crumble, and some further question about WMD's caused a loss of political will, and then Iraq would win, the U. N. inspectors would be removed, the U.S. invasion somehow diplomatically diverted from occurring, and then Saddam would have the 5 or 7 years he'd need to have his WMD's and threaten his neighbors, the U.S., or both.

That's why, though a September 2003 invasion would have ostensibly made more sense, that I believe it occurred when it did.

Eliminate strife and opression in the Middle East, and then they won't want to kill us ! And Iraq's as good a place as any to start.

The U.S. brought democracy to Western Europe through Wilson's Fourteen point plan at the end of World War I.

We brought democracy to the empires of Germany and Japan at the end of World War II.

And hopefully, it can now be seeded in the region that has been neglected for decades, and most sorely needs it. It's a volatile world, and it needed to be done, regardless of what the naysayers will continue to nay-say. And Bush had the political will to get it done.