10 Years After

Launch the Polaris, the end doesn't scare us
or, a war with no end.

At one point in American Government, while speaking about "public interest", the instructor asked the class if the United States was threatened by Iraq. At first there was silence and then someone offered up that yes the US was threatened by Iraq because Iraq could raise the oil prices here. This student's answer brought forth a small chorus of people who agreed that Iraq was a threat. The Conservative student in the class at first seemed to disagree with these students. He stated that it wasn't believed that Iraq had a missile capable of delivering a nuclear payload from Iraq to the U.S. However, he then added that Iraq could bring it to the US via shipping cargo to one of our ports or enter it through the Canadian boarder. A student sitting next to me claimed that Saddam Hussein could sell the weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.

When the class was asked what the purpose of developing nuclear weapons was the original student to answer stated it was defensive. The instructor asked if Iraq poses more of a threat than Russia did during the cold war. The student next to me that had expressed a concern that Hussein would sell weapons stated that the Soviets were more stable.

This all strikes me as odd. I mean, if we fear Iraq because they could raise oil prices what about the other Opec countries? What about Russia currently? Not for threats of nuclear attack but for raising oild prices?

While there have been concerns reported in the media about Iraq giving their (as yet undeveloped) nuclear weapons to terrorists this seems highly odd. If the US is able to ascertain that Iraq is attempting to buy the equipment to build nuclear weapons wouldn't we also be able to determine they were trying to seel, or give away, such a weapon. Wouldn't a concern for the United State's ability to determine this, in itself, prevent Saddam Hussein from attempting to part with such weapons in the future for fear of it provoking an attack?

Also, why would he give away weapons he sought so long to build? Why didn't he just give the funds or resources to Afghanistan, for them to build the weapons, if he merely wanted to give nuclear weapons to Al Queda,? To say that Hussein is a criminal is well and god, but that doens't mean he would collude with other criminals does it? Just because a person is a bank robber doesn't mean that he merely doens't want banks to have money. No, of course not. He wants the money for himself.

I just throw my hands up in the air and seek out what Pat Buchanan has to say. Pat Buchanan? Why not, some of my views seem to be very similiar to his own about all this talk about weapons of mass desctruction.