Saturday, December 20, 2003
Libya and Iraq
TRIPOLI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Libya, a pariah state for decades, said on Friday it would abandon its weapons of mass destruction programs and allow unconditional inspections, drawing praise from Washington and London for its move toward rejoining the international community.
I suspect that our invasion of Iraq helped Colonel Quadaffi to make the right decision here. We showed the world that we're not afraid to take military action to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and this has encourages people like Quadaffi to end their weapons programs.
If you recall, after Reagan bombed Libya back in the mid 1980s, Quadaffi became a lot quieter, and we hardly ever heard about him since then.
I know that there are those that believe we have no right to preemptively attack nations like Iraq, but given the huge destructive power of nuclear weapons, it would be suicidal on our part not to take direct action to prevent their spread. Obviously, sanctions don't work against the likes of Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il.
Whether or not Iraq actually had any weapons programs is besides the point, because if he didn't, then Saddam clearly wanted the world to think he did.
Monday, December 15, 2003
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein was finally caught, which is not surprising because he doesn't have the organized worldwide guerilla network that Osama Bin Laden has access to. Osama can be hiding anywhere, but Saddam was pretty much limited to the area around Tikrit. What's suprising is that it took so long.
There are some people who dislike George Bush who used the inability to capture Saddam as some sort of suggestion that Bush's Iraq policy was a big failure. If the election were this week, there is no doubt this would be a big boost for W, but by the time November 2004 rolls around, I'm sure there will be a more immediate issue on people's minds and this will be forgotten.
