Abortion and brainwaves: what neither side wants you to know

Story.

Fascinating stuff. I'm not necessarily agreeing with some or all of it, but interesting anyway.

Quietly, without fanfare, researchers have been learning about the gestational phases of human life, and the new information fits neither the standard pro-choice position nor the standard pro-life position. As far as science can tell, what happens early in the womb looks increasingly like cold-hearted chemistry, with the natural termination of potential life far more common than previously assumed. But science also shows that by the third trimester the fetus has become much more human than once thought--exhibiting, in particular, full brain activity.

A conversation with the other side

I've tried at every opportunity to engage a few people on the anti-war side, with perhaps the goal of at least better unhderstanding their position, and maybe even convincing a few onlookers. One of them in particular has reliably useful points of view, so here's the colloquy:

Mrs. Simon: Some people want to continue w/sanctions, yet these same people say they dont' want war because it will kill civilians. Sanctions have been killing thousands of civilians every year since they began. (Who do you think Saddam is going to let starve? Civilians or his military?)

Steve: This is true. Which is why many of us who oppose this war have also always opposed the sanctions.

Simon:Am I misinterpreting you here, in thinking that you are stating your opposition to sanctions; or am I correct in saying that you are opposed to both war AND sanctions?

If this interpretation is correct, and I don't mean this as a generic insult, I mean it as a very specific question: you've stated many times that you agree with those of us who are for the war, on the substantive points, viz., that Saddam Hussein is an appalling dictator who poses a clear and present danger to his own population, and who should not be in power. If you are opposed to sanctions (the diplomatic route), and you are also opposed to invasion (the military route), how DO you propose to realise our mutually preferred situation of an Iraq with no Saddam Hussein?

You keep skirting around answering this question, and I keep skirting around asking it directly, but I really want to know what your opinion is on it, definitively.

Steve: Innocent civilians. Who are killed by both war AND sanctions, at least as they've been done so far and will be done when the war starts. As for what to do, I dunno. I think the inspections are a good idea, and we should keep those going and perhaps step them up. And we should keep him contained, while finding a way to get food and medicine directly to civilians.

So in short, I don't have absolute, specific answers about what should be done about Saddam. Beyond that, I'm not really sure of the specifics of what needs to be done, and I don't feel that I need to be to oppose a war that I think is gonna be a disaster, and sanctions that already have been a disaster.

Simon: So you don't have an answer? To address the issue of weapons inspections. You must, surely, be aware that "weapons of mass destruction" is only a facade for the wider picture, which is Saddam Hussein's removal. The policy of containment has only "succeeded", if one's definition of "success" is that Saddam is still in power, but has yet to invade any other countries. He has only not done so because of the threat of American retaliation. If we're going to talk about inspections...Iraq is facing imminent invasion from the United States; the only reason he is playing along with weapons inspections is because our governments have (foolishly, in my opinion) tried to make this about weapons of mass destruction. Saddam knows that if they can play that game, he can play too: if he complies with the United Nations on the point which Bush/Blair are pushing, America cannot build a world consensus against his regime so easily. And yet, despite all of this pressure, from all sides, he continues to fail to disarm; he is making only marginal progress - something the UN itself conceeds.

But this is to be distracted from the substantive point:

This is not far removed from Winterspark's recent misadventure, where s/he attempted to belittle Vik, by implying a lack of historical understanding on Vik's part of the events of September 10th in Chile, and attempting to draw a misguided comparison to Iraq. In point of fact, when called, on it, Winterspark tried to bluster that it didn't matter that s/he didn't know much about history, even whilst trying to use history to underline her political viewpoint. To suggest, as you do here, that one doesn't need to know what should be done in order to oppose what is clearly the only other thing that can be done is as absurd as Winterspark trying to declare that one doesn't need to know something about history in order to cite it as precedent. If you want something achieved, if you are agreed that its execution is impreative, and if there is a solution on the table that is better than the existing situation, then surely it is incumbent upon you to propose an alternative, or else accept the existing proposal, in order to remove someone we are - supposedly - all agreed needs removing.

I think more questions need to be asked, requiring specific answers:

• Do you want Saddam Hussein in power?
• Do you recognise that sanctions have failed to remove him for a decade?
• Do you believe, sincerely, that diplomacy will be any more sucessful in removing him now than it has been in the previous decade?
• Do you believe that if a bad man does a good thing for the wrong reason, this in any way devalues the action?
• Do you recognise that the choice is between military action to remove Saddam Hussein, or Saddam Hussein remaining in power; and further, when faced with that choice, is Saddam Hussein remaining in power a price you are willing to pay for peace??

Grain: Iraq is a tricky subject because it has constantly been re-defined by the Bush family. First it was to liberate Kuwait and return them to the monarchy that has controlled the country since 1979 and allows only 10% of the population (Men) to participate in any election.Then it was to remove weapons of mass destruction; primarily the nuclear and biological weapons (non of which he used during the entire gulf war), then it was to liberate the Iraqi people from such a brutal regime.

So I'll bite on these questions.

1) Do you want Saddam Hussein in power? This isn't about allowing Saddam in power, there are countless dictators who abuse power, are we to remove them all? If I don't like how my neighbor treats their home, am I allowed to go in and take it over? You allow this to happen, you are writing a blank check for any nation to preemptively attack any other nation who might even be a remote threat.

2) Do you recognize that sanctions have failed to remove him for a decade? To go back to my first point, was the sanctions in place to remove Saddam, or stop weapon proliferation?

3) Do you believe, sincerely, that diplomacy will be any more successful in removing him now than it has been in the previous decade? Holding a gun to a persons head and saying "do this or else" is not diplomacy. Again are we removing Saddam or stopping weapon proliferation?

4) Do you believe that if a bad man does a good thing for the wrong reason, this in any way devalues the action? I don't understand the context of this question.

5) Do you recognize that the choice is between military action to remove Saddam Hussein, or Saddam Hussein remaining in power; and further, when faced with that choice, is Saddam Hussein remaining in power a price you are willing to pay for peace??
When you set a question like that any answer that doesn't fall in line with your ideology looks foolish. There are plenty of other choices, as many nations around the globe are willing to commit too. Why is it that most nations in close proximity of Iraq are not nearly as threatened as a nation over 8000 miles away? The US could do more by reducing their own stockpile of the 20,000 or so Nuclear weopons, allow countries the sovereignty to decide their own fate and stop giving multinationals free reign on the planet. We do some of these things, and it will offer far more security to the world, then the invasion of a small country.

Simon: Grain:
1. I disagree. We are deciding that regimes that consustantly abuse human rights and ignore the will of the international community will be removed. This obviously applies to regimes as far-flung as Zimbabwe, North Korea, China and Israel. However, each of these regimes are of differing characters, and there are unique situations surrounding each, and thus the methods we use to approach each one will differ. Thus it is that we economically engage with China, yet use force against Mugabe and Hussein.

2 & 3. I, as I suspect most Iraqi citizens, and most Iraqi exiles would agree, am concerned with removing Saddam. I'm not concerned how the Bush admininstration justify it to themselves and the Congress. If WMD are really such an issue, then by removing Saddam Hussein from power, we negate the WMD issue in either case.

4. I believe we should remove Saddam Hussein. To me, it makes no odds why George Bush wants to remove him. I honestly don't care if it's about oil, or settling a family score. I only care that he actually does it. I have a lot of issues with George Bush; and, truth be told, I tend to agree with Zodiak on far more points than I disagree with him on. George Bush would not be my first choice as American President. He is, though, the American President, and will be for the next six years or so, whetehr or not I like that reality. And whether or not I like George Bush, I do like that he will do the necessary in Iraq, even for the wrong reasons. My point here is that it doesn't matter.

5. There are no other choices, if the aim is to remove Saddam Hussein, and no other nation has proposed one.



Steve: I like Grain's answers, but I'm sorry - I won't be answering the specific questions. To me, dialogue and debate are not about giving people questionnaires that they are then "required" to fill out.

And besides, I already told you that I'm not exactly sure about what to do about Saddam. You find that unacceptable. That's fine, because I don't base my perspective on what you or anyone else find acceptable. But I'm being honest about how I feel here. I'm not sure what to do about Saddam, but I AM sure (at least as sure as I can be) that a war that by all indications is going to lead to a humanitarian disaster is NOT the answer. (Just as the sanctions that have already lead to a humanitarian disaster are not the answer.) As for what SHOULD be done, well, I'll lead that to greater minds than my own - minds that, I would hope, are more creative than to settle for another fucking war that kills a whole bunch of innocent people. (As the saying goes, war is a failure of the imagination.)

Simon: I'm not outraged that you have your own point of view, I just fail to understand how you can say that you're against Saddam, but that you're not willing to accept any solution, other than clicking our heels together three times and suddenly Iraq is a democratic state with Saddam as a faded memory. Not being willing to do what's necessary to achieve something is indistinguishable, in my view, from not wishing to achieve it. This is not an abstract political argument, it is a situation where inaction has cost lives, and will cost lives. Action will also cost lives, but in my view, not as many as failing to take action. If we remove Saddam Hussein, although innocents almost inevitably will get caught in the crossfire, those people stand good chance of dying anyway if we do nothing, and I would rather a few Iraqis died in the process of ensuring that many more are spared. It is the burden of command to weigh one life against many, and essentiual to do so less all lives be lost.

Steve: This is where we differ, for I see a very real potential for the cure being worse than the disease, and for ramifications spreading far beyond the borders of Iraq. I don't think we can afford to do things the old-fashioned way (where innocents are "inevitably" killed) anymore; it's a new world. A world that at this point is a very shaky house of cards, and I think the old-fashioned way of dealing with this kind of situation could start a chain of events that will bring that house down.

And of course, you realize that there are more choices besides "inaction" and Shock and Awe. Again, I'm sorry I can't be more specific about what those choices should be, but there are people out there who are supposed to be coming up with stuff like that, and they need to do their damned jobs. Again, war is a failure of the imagination.

Simon: As to other alternatives, there are none; Kamil Mahdi, who is probably the most eloquent voice in proposing alternatives that I have read thusfar, makes excellent, albeit simplistic, arguments. I say simplistic, because he seems to have overlooked the reality that Saddam's (extremely limited) co-operation on so peripheral an issue as inspecting his weapons programme has only come because suddenly at least two countries in the UN are - for the first time in a decade - presenting him an ultimatum: comply, or we WILL invade. I find the idea that he would accede to human rights monitors or UN-supervised elections highly dubious. Furthermore, even if Saddam were to grudingly consider that he can hang on for power for that litle bit longer, it is my opinion that continuing to let him do so is unacceptable. I do not believe Mahdi's optimism that Iraq could be transformed into a democracy under the UN's watchfull eye is at all justified; the UN has completely failed to be an effective force in world affairs for two decades; I see no reason to believe it will now change.

Mahdi does, however, make points that I wholly agree with. We should immediately end the failed and unjustifiable experiment of sanctions. I am in favour of war, but my principal concern at this time - and this may or may not be justified - is that while we hear much about the logistical preparations being made to put the materiel of war in place in Turkey and Kuwait, I have heard very little of the assets we should already be moving into the region (say, into regimes that might not allow troops, but might allow engineers and aid workers) to aid in the humanitarian efforts that I think we'll need to put into place almst immediately. Nor have I heard much about assets being put into place to start rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure. If these key factors have simply been overlooked by the press, then that is fine; if they have been overlooked by Whitehall, I would be concerned in the extreme at our inability to multitask. Our purpose here is not just the removal of Saddam Hussein; once that is done, we must rehabilitate Iraq's people and rebuild its infrastructure.

I further agree with him that the situation in Palestine MUST be addressed as part of the same process, and I was pleased to see Bush talking about precisely that in his recent speech, albeit only in the most belated terms. While the UN has failed in Iraq, it has been stymied over Israel by the United States' intransigence; it's preposterous "blank cheque" support for the Israeli government over the years, in face of enourmous suffering and injustice wrought on the Palestinian people. This is an environment in which extremists flourished, and if we are serious about countering terror, it is Palestine where the war will be won or lost. If the United States is party to the just resolution of the Palestine issue, anti-American feeling in the region will retreat measurably.

Huge anti-war demonstration in London

Today, upwards of a million Britons descended on London to protest the Blair government's apparent determination to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.

I was delighted to join upwards of 58 million of my fellow citizens in not marching through the streets of Britain's capital in support of the leaving in place of this murderous regime.

Fundamental differences between Saddam and Augusto

Two replies to a message board poster who compared the Hussein regime to General Pinochet's regime in Chile:

[A] war is not necessary to get rid of Saddam. If the U.S. were solely after him, the CIA would already have offed him as they did many other "undesirables" in the past, such as Salvador Allende in Chile, although I'm sure you have no clue what I'm talking about. Why don't you go and look him up, educate yourself?

Perhaps YOU should go and look up what happened in Chile, because your comparison here is either disingeuous or ill-informed, depending on just how little you actually know about the Chilean revolution and its background.

The CIA attempted - successfully - to inspire a coup in Chile, then funded the Counter-revolutionary government. It was able to do so easily, at least in part, because not only was the military fundamentally opposed to the government of the day, it was also under pressure from Chile's own Legsislature to remove a President, elected with no overall majority (36%), that the Parliament claimed - not entirely incorrectly - was in serious breach of the Constitution. To suggest that there is any parallel between the Chilean revolution and Iraq is mind-numbingly absurd. Pinochet would have siezed power with or without US sanction, and some left-wing / anarchist analyses of the Allende government's anti-revolutionary stance (q.v. http://anarchism.ws/places/chile/hi...ionist1973.html) go so far as to suggest that Allende himself would have imposed martial law to restrain the forces at the base of his own party that were increasingly out of his control.

A President that was elected CONSTITUIONALLY, with less than a majority of the popular vote is not elected DEMOCRATICALLY - and that's bad, isn't it? Isn't that exactly what so many Democrats have been saying for two years about Bush? That he's illegitimate? Dosn't Zodiak's signature urge the Armed Forces to rise up and overthrow their commander-in-chief, because there is no constitutional way to remove him? In Iraq, the armed forces are not loyal-unto-death to Hussein, but they most certainly are NOT about to rise up and overthrow him; the Iraqi army is not drawn from an Iraqi aristocracy, an aristocracy that is seeing forces that the goverment claims to represent but cannot restrain taking away their land, posessions and privelege; nor is the Iraqi parliament calling for Hussein to be impeached.

I take no issue with your suggestion that Special Forces could be used to get rid of Saddam. However, I take isue with two other things. Firstly, you cite an event that you clearly know very little about as your historical precedent, which directly undermines the credibility of your argument. Secondly, you miss the fundamental lesson of the US role in September 10th. If the United States only cared about oil and getting rid of Saddam, it probably WOULD use Special Forces to take out Saddam, then install a US-friendly, military-led Junta in Baghdad. It would be far less risky in terms of public opinion, far less costly in terms of the financial cost of invading Iraq, and far less likely to involve the deaths ofmany, many American military personnel. The left has consistantly failed to provide a valid alternative to military attack on Iraq; it settles with repetition of the "it'll cost Iraqi lives" credo, without realising that diplomatic solutions cost lives, and history tells us that covert operations involving the CIA have consequences that cost lives.

If you want to make a suggestion that there is a paralell between America and Chile vs. America and Iraq, it is that Nixon/Kissinger only cared about US interests, with scant thought to the fate of the thousands murdered under the subsequent Pinochet regime, while Bush/Powell substantively care about what happens to the Iraqi population.

Even if Pinochet would have taken over anyway--which people don't know for a fact, however likely it was--doesn't mean that the U.S. was justified in shoving Allende out of office.

You're right, I don't know as much as you do about history, but I really think that the U.S. has no business invading Iraq, North Korea, and all the other countries it has a problem with. For a nation that is supposedly the modern-day center of enlightenment, it seems beneath the U.S. and their leader to consider war immediately, as the first course of action. Don't go telling me that Bush hasn't had a belligerent attitude towards Iraq from the very beginning.

Firstly, Allende's downfall is about as much a theory as evolution or relativity is: it's a fact, bar the shouting. He was elected on the same basis as Tony Blair: someone who was very far to the right of the majority of his party, yet acceptably mainstream for the electorate. He was a compromise choice. By 1973, for the right he was a marxist pariah who was attacking their privilege and status, and for the left, he was regarded as being about as left-wing as Milton Friedman. His days were numbered, which is something every historian agrees with, albeit for different reasons.

And it's interesting to talk about different groups having different reaons, because the same applies to Iraq. You say that Bush has had a belligerent attitude towards Iraq since "the beginning", and that war is considered as their "first course of action". This can only be said honestly if we disregard twenty years of history and pretend that prior to September 11th galvanising Bush's more empire-building tendancies (he stated during the election and before 11/9/01 that he and the US were "not in the process of nation-building"), and giving credence to the Ken Adleman Tendancy in the Pentagon, nothing had ever happened in regard to Saddam or Iraq.

But this, of course, isn't true. During the 1980s, the United States armed Iraq*, and stood by silently while Saddam gassed his only people, gassed the Kurds, and fought a lengthy war with Iran**. Then the Gulf War happened, and US priorites had changed. The US government's quid pro quo relating to the Iran-Iraq war had disappeared, and suddenly, there was a threat that Saddam would control a larger slice of the world's oil, and would thus have more contrl over its price***. So we drove Saddam out of Kuwait, and started to push into southern Iraq.

And here we made the first blunder of the 1990s (followed a few months later when the Soviet Union collapsed, and we supported the full on "drive for capitalism" in the early 1990s) by STOPPING. In 1991, Saddam Hussein stood isolated in OPEC (he'd been at war with one member or another for almost a decade), isolated in the world (his only real supplier being the Soviet Union, which would vote itself out of existance within months of the Gulf War), isolated in his country (dissident groups within the populus at large and within the corridors of power being far more powerful than they are now, because with Saddam's focus on invading other countries and suppressing actual revolt, his attention to the details of what was happening within his own country waned, allowing a greater level of opposition - a trend that WE threw into reverse), and isolated in the Arab world (Bin Laden and co. regarded him then and regard him now as an infidel; but now he was spent a decade trying to identify with the muslim world, an extraordinarily shrewd move that he hadn't played at all before 1991). But we stopped, and we shouldn't have done.

But obviously, we had to keep him in check, and so "once more unto the breach" went the United Nations, with about as much effectiveness as the Light Brigade in the Crimea. We took the diplomatic route: imposing sanctions that bit into not Saddam, but the people of Iraq, and sent in weapons inspectors on open-ended contracts to ensure that the WMD program was shut down and stayed shut down. And all along, people like myself, Richard Perle, Ken Adleman, Donald Rumsfeld ALL warned "this is a bad idea; we should finish this now or it'll bite us in the ass". That is NOT to blame Bill Clinton in any way, because it's my opinion that Bill Clinton's chief problem as a President was an exces of idealism. Clinton believed that sanctions would work and that the Palestine issue would solve itslef through bilateral dialogue, because he believed the best in people. He was an idealist in that regard, and while I respect him for it, it was just plain wrong, as we now see with the continuing intifada between Palestine and Irael, and the build-up of power in Iraq.

And so, motivated (and allowed to be motivated) by September 11th, and flushed with the success of a largely bloodless removal of the Taliban (despite the complete failure of the original mission, viz. the capture or killing of Bin Laden), finally the world turned its attentions on Iraq. Here, I return to my point earlier about people agreeing on a common course of action, even if they don't have the same reasons. Tony Blair wants to attack Iraq chiefly because he is concerned about the prospects of rogue states like Libya and Iraq, with known links to terrorists, developing weapons of mass destruction that may be made available to terrorists****. I don't know why Bush is so keen - if it's oil, well, then it's oil (what's truly telling is that for al the talk of oil motivating the war, it's interesting that the countries who are most opposed to the war - France, Germany and Russia - all have large business and oil investments with Iraq). I, on the other hand, want Saddam removed for another reason. I think the man is an evil shit, who indulges in war at every chance he gets and who sits at the top of a regime that uses as its stock in trade, murder, mass-murder, fear, opression and control. Saddam Hussein is not Adolf Hitler, and although I may seem to be drawing comparisons when I talk about how it was right to declare war on Hitler in 1939 and that it is now to decalre war on Saddam, that would be incorrect. No, Hussein is Stalin: when his regime co-incided with our interests, we turned a blind eye to his abuses of his own population, then decried those same abuses when suddenly he no longer suited our needs. But I say this to you: the fact that we sat on our hands for years does not excuse us the responsibility to deal with Saddam now.

I appreciate that Steve et al would argue that they agree with me that Saddam is a nast piece of work, blah blah blah, but that why should innocent Iraqis die to get rid of him. I appreciate and understand that argument, but yesterday, millions of people all around the world did Saddam a huge favour. The left can argue that anti-war does not equate to pro-Saddam, but in fact, I'm afraid to say, it does. Sanctions have failed, and killed millions unto and of themselves, whilst still allowing Saddam to remain in power, killing thousands more. The ONLY way to liberate Iraq, and to remove Saddam Hussein, is the military option. To oppose that option is to oppose the removal of Saddam by the only means available. What I want more than anything is to never hear someone else say "I'm anti-war and anti-Saddam" and yet not present an alternative means by which he can be removed, because doing so contains such an intellectual conceit. If you want Saddam Husein out of power, you are for military action against him. If you want to prevent military action against Saddam Hussein, you are for him remaining in power.

You start your post by acknowleging that your grasp on history isn't great, as if this were somehow irrelevant to the situation or your argument. And therein lies your problem, because if you had a better grasp on history, then you might understand better why this war is absolutely imperative.

__________________
Notes:
*Of course, UK arms companies also armed Iraq, but the motivation of those companies was profit, and the government only intervened because of Thatcher's belief that the UK arms industry should be pre-eminent in the world, whereas the US government actively encouraged selling - and giving, even - weapons to Saddam Hussein, because at the time, post-revolution Iran was considered far more of a threat than Iraq.

**The above consideration is also pertinent to why the United States said not a word for the entire duration of the Iran-Iraq war because for as long as Iran and Iraq were busy fighting each other, neither were likely to become a threat to the United States militarily, and both were likely to want to export large amounts of oil, in order to pay for the continuing war.

***Or, if nothing else, the danger of OPEC and the Middle East itself becoming suddenly and dangerously unstable.

****North Korea is slightly different; North Korea has no links to terror groups, nor any religous zeal for supplying them. Furthermore, North Korea's WMD program is geared towards the strategic, not the tactical; whilst Iran might buy an ICBM, they're of no use to an organisation like Al Qaeda, which needs small, transportable man-carriable devices.

Legitimacy and the United Nations

Written in response to a chap on a message board I frequent, who urged UN sanctions against the United States:

Do you believe that it is still materially relevant to current world events which powers were on the winning side after the Second World War?

If the majority of the security council, elected by the General Assembly, back a further UN resolution authorising the use of force, but that resolution is then vetoed by a permanent member (and the point regarding the last world war is that the permanent members owe their status wholly to the fact that they were the victors of world war 2, and for no other merit), are the clearly expressed desires of the UN to fail? Do you recognise a difference between a second resolution being rejected by the Security Council, and a second resolution being rejected by one member of the security council, that member happening to have a veto over all other votes due to to a historical event that happened before many of the countries in the UN existed and before many of their leaders were even born?

To address the point that you have made, though, I find it highly spurious that you suggest that a paralel can be drawn between Nazi Germany and George Bush, yet not between Nazi Germany and Saddam Hussein. You are correct, of course, in saying that Bush and Hitler were both elected according to the constitutions of their respective countries, albeit in circumstances that might be considered rather dubious, while Saddam Hussein was of course never elected and has never faced any kind of electoral test. On the other hand, George Bush has gone on to win a second popular mandate last December, something that neither Hitler nor Saddam did. It's true that Bush and Saddam both have their family in powerful positions, but then, are you comparing Saddam to the Kennedy clan, who at one time held the Presidency, an Attorney General and a Senator? It's certainly also true to say that Bush has appointed his cronies, people who've never been elected, but that's been the US Constitution since day one: one can't be in the Legislature and the Executive.

Perhaps you're implying that like Hitler and Saddam, Bush has reduced the freedoms available to his people. But unlike citizens living under Saddam or Hitler, you will go to bed tonight safe in the knowledge that though you may criticise your leader - nay, bitterly detest him and all he stands for - you wil wake up tommorow. And you are very unlikely to be arrested or killed just because someone reported that you aren't 100% behind the great leader.

Of course, it's true that Bush attacked Afghanistan, but he did so in reaction to a percieved threat against the United States from forces headquartered in that country, while Hitler and Saddam invaded or attacked Czechoslovakia, Kuwait, Poland, Iran, France, Israel, the Low Countries, the Soviet Union....I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Furthermore, while Hitler gassed 8 million Jews, and Saddam has used Chemical and Biological weapons against both the Iranians and the Kurds, I'm not convinced that Bush has used weapons of mass destruction against his own population, unless one counts the paralysing nerve agent "television".

I really do wish that you'd refrain from making these spurious connections based on nothing other than your distaste for the Bush admininstration. There are so many more valid things to take the President to task on, and so many more intelligent ways of doing so than this sort of meaningless abuse.

In re "N. Korea warns US of pre-emptive action"

Story.

North Korea is a tough nut.

It has a military of about a million men, deployed in a defensive configuration. They have poured vast resources into transcending the Soviet millitary model they started with, hardening their command and control centres, and in creating an army that emphasises mobility and rapid reconfiguration. Also, and unlike Iraq, I believe we can expect discipline and regime-loyalty from these men.

But it has disadvantages. For all the hoo-ha about WMD, it's ballistic missiles are too short range to hit targets any further afield than South Korea - not even Japan. Any war P'Yon'Yang launched would be aimed at capturing the South in as intact a state as possible - there are thus no strategic targets within range, and one doesn't fire ballistic missiles at tactical targets (read: tanks, APC etc.). Its military is mostly composed of outdated Chinese- and home-grown variants on late-70s Soviet tanks. Its air strike capacity is zero, its air superiority capacity is zero. To win a war, one needs to control the skies, and North Korea simply cannot do that, outside of its home territory. Its ability to control the sea is marginal at best, when compared to Russian or US naval forces.

We would find it very hard to invade North Korea, but the would find it very tough to fight a war of agression into the South against US-Korean resistance. And the North knows this full well. They may be evil gits, but unlike Saddam, Kim Jong Il isn't insane; he knows the cost of fighting the United States will be his empire and his life. A war of agression against the United States can only ever have one outcome (note: Vietnam was a US incursion, not vice-versa), and it isn't a Korea united under P'Yon'Yang. P'Yon'Yang's strategy has been to exploit increasing distaste in the South for foreign military presence (ah, the joys of youth: ignorance of history, nay even reality), and the isolationist tendancies of the US. The North will never invade the South until it believes that it can do so WITHOUT that meaning war with the United States. THAT is P'Yon'Yang's strategy: to create a situation where the United States will not defend South Korea against a northern incursion. Everything else - nuclear brinkmanship included - is a symptom, not a cause, and should be treated as such.

Paging Michael Moore

As Michael Moore's film Bowling for Columbine points out:

• "1982: U.S. provides billions in aid to Saddam Hussein for weapons to kill Iranians"
• "1991 to present: U.S. planes bomb Iraq on a weekly basis" "U.N. estimates 500,000 Iraqi children die from bombing and sanctions."