There are three major differences between North Korea today and Iraq in 2003:
- North Korea has no oil.
- North Korea may actually have weapons of mass destruction.
- The US already has a military presence on the Korean peninsula, so it doesn't need the strategic location.
6 comments:
I agree with your distinctions. Here is a forth and a fifth:
4. The North Korean govt has not sponsored terrorism against a US ally, and is not geopolitically enmeshed with an ongoing, beorgeoning international movement to enchain free societies (islamo-KKKism).
5. The North Korean govt is not violating terms of a cease fire agreement that otherwise prevents a US invasion. (In fact, the Korean cease-fire occured as each side sought merely to hold what they had at the 38th parallel; one side did not possess a massive military advantage which it was poising for an unstoppable invasion. This contrasts with the 1991 Gulf War cease fire, which halted an impending, unstoppable US invasion of Iraq.)
The existance of oil in Iraq certainly provides importance that does not apply to other nations run by retarded brutes (Samolia, North Korea). But this importance doesn't neccessarily mean that a US invasion represents a resource grab. According to the economic theories held by the advocates of the US invasion of Iraq, the US economy gains more from a free, democratic Iraq with its oil fields owned by private Iraqi firms and its people consequently experiancing high and rising incomes and wealth than it does from an impoverished Iraq in which its oil gets drained by raiding US oil companies. The advocates of the US invasion also believe that anti-US terrorism ultimately derives from impoverished populations, who find it easier to adopt mideavil retarded religious practices and destroy US resources than to build a sensible, modern civilization.
Thus these "neo-cons" seek a prosperous Iraq, because this would result in Iraqis who can purchase US goods and services, and who themselves are too prosperous to promote and conduct international terror, while setting an example to other Arab peoples that they, too, can have prosperity and security via a modern society that participates in constructive international relations, rather than a retarded society that disrupts the progress of civilization.
"4. The North Korean govt has not sponsored terrorism against a US ally,"
Neither did Iraq. Retaliation for an Israeli missle strike doesn't count.
"and is not geopolitically enmeshed with an ongoing, beorgeoning international movement to enchain free societies (islamo-KKKism)."
You wouldn't include communism as such? I wouldn't either, but I'm surprised at you!
"5. The North Korean govt is not violating terms of a cease fire agreement that otherwise prevents a US invasion."
Neither did Iraq. No WMDs were found, remember. And the IAEA determined that Iraq did not violate UN security council resolutions. Fallacious arguments, Dr. Philpott.
The rest of your post is fallacious as well. Obviously neo-cons don't care about a prosperous Iraq. Otherwise, US bombings over the 12 years between the end of Gulf War I the invasion in 2003 wouldn't have continued. The Iraqi government itself was more prosperous and oil production was greater prior to the invasion. The Iraqi people are in a state of poverty because of the 12 years of bombing and because of the present occupation, not because of the former Iraqi regime's actions.
You're bullshitting.
Nadir: Iraq's cease-fire obligation permitted much more than merely not possessing WMDs; it had to certify an absence of WMDs via a specified protocol, a protocol that it never met. Scott Ritter and others may have concluded that no WMDs existed, but they could not and did not certify via the stipulations specified by the cease-fire agreement. Why did so many democrats and world leaders as-of 2000 loudly declare Hussien to have these weapons? Why did nobody (or nearly nobody) object to Bush's proposal by declaring that Hussein didn't even possess these weopons, and that the decade-long efforts to document this compliance via the stipulated certification process represented wasted effort?
That cease-fire agreement included other obligations as well, such as the oil-for-butter-but-not-for-cash program, which Hussein nakedly violated via massive UN curruption involving officials from several nations that opposed the US invasion. Furthermore, absence of WMDs as of the invasion date does not guarantee against such weapons existing between 911 and the invasion date, with the Husseinites secretly shipping them away to a neighborying Baathist dictatorship.
If you consider that Iraq was more prosperous before the cease-fire agreement (which included the much-violated boycott) as an argument against invasion, I suppose that you would have opposed FDR's invasion of Germany and Japan, and Lincoln's invasion of Georgia on similar grounds. The neocons primarily seek to have these various dictatorships refrain from facilitating (or outright funding, as Hussein did) attacks against the US or its allies (even Isreal), and secondarily seek prosperity and security for these nations, and not merely some bare-bones pre-1991 prosperity (hardly prosperity, but something less bad than 1995 or 2005, I grant you), but real prosperity, marked by millions of people purchasing TiVos, iPods, and non-bootlegged Holliwood films. You know, the sort of prosperity that a million or so Arabs obtain for themselves every year by immigrating to the US and similar nations.
Perhaps you can point us to a neocon document that advocates profits from poor people via the stealing of oil.
Opposition to the invasion of Iraq has nothing to do with Iraq's prosperity. The invasion of Iraq was in violation of international law, and was morally reprehensible.
The concept of pre-emptive war is illegal and immoral. Bush simply fears the military and political consequences of a pre-emptive attack on North Korea. It is the world's fault that it could not summon the political will to stop Bush's invasion, just as Chamberlin ignored the threat that Hitler posed, failing to stop his aggression. The world's failure to stop the government sanctioned Arab-led violence in Sudan is a similar disgrace.
Iraq was a defenseless nation, though not as defenseless as the people of Darfur. Saddam Hussein's tyrany made the Iraqi people less "defendable", and the governments of the world allowed Bush's Hitler-like aggression to prevail.
North Korea is a nation that isn't even trusted by its allies, but to place the situation in economic terms, the cost-benefit analysis of a pre-emptive strike against a loose cannon like Kim Jung-Il doesn't pan out. North Korea is a threat, but they have nothing to steal.
Occupation of that territory and nation-building - even if it is just reunification with the south - isn't worth the cost in lives and political capital. I would argue that the colonial exercise in Iraq isn't worth it either, but Paul, Slinger and Bush all disagree with me there.
Nadir: I disagree with just about every sentance you have written above. The detestable behaviors of the leaders of Samalia and North Korea have not -- in the judgement of the federal leaders we have elected -- contributed significantly to the anti-US terrorism exemplified by 911. Spending time, money, and lives to invade and resurrect democracies in those countries would have had little (in the case of Samalia) or no (in the case of NK) effect on the sources of the 911 terror strike. Many other factors favoring an Iraq invasion also are absent those two countries, including agreements signed by their leaders which they are voilating, and natural resource available to the people for their post-invasion rebuilding.
If you would read the neocon playbooks, instead of imagining what they think, you would learn that they percieve the most wealth and security coming to the US from these foriegn nations not as a consequence of "stealing" resources, but rather from a free and prosperous people. The pre-911 US foriegn policy much more resembled "stealing" as the resources of these nations got translated into cash only for members of dictatorships, where the wealth languished, unlike in the US where natural resources translate into wealth that benefits all, whether in the form of publically traded stocks, low interest rates, plentiful and inexpensive products, spin-off businesses, etc.
Paul: Since when did you start channelling Karl Rove?
Why must all US foreign policy now be dictated by 911? If you found out that the US government was complicit in the attacks of 911 would your views change?
Whether Cheney's live fly war games on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 provided a cover for a terrorist attack or not, you have been duped into believing that the world is different after 911 than it was before. It is only different because the US government and reactionary ideologues (such as yourself) have used 911 as a justification to wage endless war, to promote a totalitarian agenda and to raid the US, Afghan and Iraqi treasuries.
The terrorist attacks of 911 were horrible and brazen, but they were by no means as bad as the death toll of Afghan and Iraqi civilians who had nothing to do with those attacks.
Your neoconservative propaganda and double-speak do not hide the true motives of the Bush regime's pirates. Similarly their fear of North Korean and Chinese wrath isn't hidden by their reversal on the pre-emptive philosophy.
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