Njorl
The ABM treaty, like all treaties with the former Soviet Union required re-ratification upon the conversion of the USSR to Russia.
I was under the impression that the treaties transferred without re-ratification to the Russian government due to the fact that the Russian government was still the same body.
There are many provisions in the chem warfare convention that provide loopholes for the manufacture of chemicals with genuine dual use.
If a country creates, stockpiles, and uses these weapons because a loophole allows for it, does that make it okay?
On the contrary, following the testimony of Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, beneath false floors in labs thought to be rendered harmless after the initial Gulf War, inspections revealed at least two fully functional laboratories.
Can you give me evidence of this please? If so, I will certainly include it in my essay.
Agent Orange was used as a defoliant, not an antipersonnel weapon.
Because it destroyed the terrain instead of meat, does that make it any less a weapon? The Daisycutter bomb was designed to knock over trees and create helicopter landing fields; is it not a weapon?
The US use of nuclear weapons was before the terrible nature of those weapons was well understood, and before the philosophy of weapons like these could become mature. It was also almost 60 years ago.
The excuse "we didn't realize the full effects" does not cut it for me. As for time, well, what Iraq did along the border with Iran was a good 15 years ago. How many years back do we remember or forget these things? Just long enough for the USA to forget its actions, and for them to remember Iraq's? That would be awfully convenient.
You make a case that interference in Iraq is justified, then say the US is not the one to do it. In all the world, there is no other entity that can do it. The UN is certainly not capable of ever conducting any military operation. They could not protect the Muslims in Bosnia from a poorly trained militia drawn from less than the third of the population of a small country. Of all the nations that wage war, only the US has shown the morality to rebuild its past enemies after the conflict.
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6162319%255E25777,00.html
If the USA has dropped a MOAB on Basra, would that qualify as absolute proof of my assertion that the USA is not the one to do it? As per my wife-beating analogy?
And yes, the UN is capable of performing such actions. As we saw in East Timor.
You bring up the illegal testing of chemical and biological weapons done on US citizens (you left out the radiological testing). The perpetrators of these tests have been condemned, and the victims have been compensated, for what it's worth. There is no system for the redress of grievences against the government in Iraq.
Does that change the fact that the USA does such things?
You seemed to start your essay relying upon solid definitions, logic and facts. You then descend into namecalling and groundless supposition about American motives.
It was not intended to be name-calling, but analogy.
