http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/dprk/index.html


http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/4208958.html

breakdown:

Popular Mechanics has an in-depth report (which is paraphrased from the globalsecurity one, which in turn I think is much more reliable) on North Korea's biological and chemical weapons stock, which has been developed in secret and has gone largely unnoticed amidst the country's nuke threat. From the article: 'North Korea's Chemical and Bioweapons (CBW) program appears to be modeled on that of the former Soviet Union, which covertly constructed a massive biological weapons infrastructure within the shell of a civilian research organization called Biopreparat. Inside Biopreparat, the Soviets developed deadly agents that included weaponized forms of anthrax and pneumonic plague. Intelligence reports from the United States and South Korea list anthrax, smallpox, pneumonic plague, cholera and botulism toxins as leading components of North Korea's bioweapons projects.'


"My hands were shaking after reading this letter," said Kofi Anan. "I mean, this is a REALLY harsh letter. I think North Korea will disarm by the end of the year. My only concern is that it is too strong. We only want North Korea to disarm. This letter might cause them to surrender their entire country to France. The letter is really that strongly worded. I'm shaking even now just thinking about it." -- Slashdot.com

Funny that this hasn't made the headlines of any larger medias... But what do you all think the US should do? They and South Korea are after all suffering the greatest threat - SK directly, and US if Kim Jong Il starts selling stuff to terrorists. Would it be ok to take concrete action with / without a UN mandate? Is it even possible that the UN will take concrete action? Too bad all the US guys are busy in Iraq... Nice strategic move, dubya

Any country with the ability to manufacture basic fertilizer can create potentially devastating biological and chemical weapons. It isn't anything new. If you honestly believe the U.S. does not have such capability, you are an idiot. At the very least, the U.S. has enough knowledge and more than enough forms of the basic diseases in order to develop an effective bioweapons program in a very short time, if we thought it was necessary. I'm sure we also have plenty of weaponized forms in storage ostensibly for research purposes as well. It is difficult to develop an effective vaccine without actually having the disease, no?

At our current level of technology, bioweapons are always going to be a threat. Most countries have the ability to make them with relative ease and we can't possibly develop and effectively stockpile vaccines/cures for every weaponized form of every fatal disease.

>> Any country with the ability to manufacture basic fertilizer can create potentially devastating biological and chemical weapons. It isn't anything new. If you honestly believe the U.S. does not have such capability, you are an idiot.

Umm, nobody said the US didn't. It's not even relevant. The real problem begins when NK starts selling biological or chemical agents (either directly or indirectly via pakistan) to people who plan to use them instead of just maintaining the terror balance.

The main reason that terrorists usually tend to stick to conventional weapons is that a low-tech basement-size facility isn't sufficient to produce agents for a real attack. So they want to buy, and NK needs cash.. Not a good combination.

>> At our current level of technology, bioweapons are always going to be a threat. Most countries have the ability to make them with relative ease and we can't possibly develop and effectively stockpile vaccines/cures for every weaponized form of every fatal disease.

Actually, I remember bush asking for $6B to do something along those lines... :p

Isn't the US the one with the notorious history of selling weapons and giving training to terrorist factions? Why should they be trusted to have the weapons any more than North Korea?

- Isn't the US the one with the notorious history of selling weapons and giving training to terrorist factions? Why should they be trusted to have the weapons any more than North Korea?

While the United States isn't perfect, and has put its nose in where it doesn't belong numerous times, as well as arming in various ways questionable allies, you simply can't make a statement like you just made and have any credibility. When it comes to responsibility, North Korea and the United States aren't in the same universe.

For more than half a century the United States has been far and away the most powerful nation on Earth. Our restraint has been greater than that of any nation of comparable power in the history of our planet. We have done greater good than any nation of comparable power in the history of our planet, often expecting nothing in return. I'm not looking at the United States with rose colored glasses, I know we're flawed, but we're as close to perfection as this world has ever seen in a dominant world power.

>We have done greater good than any
>nation of comparable power in the history of our planet, often
>expecting nothing in return. I'm not looking at the United
>States with rose colored glasses, I know we're flawed, but
>we're as close to perfection as this world has ever seen in a
>dominant world power.


Uuuuh... Thats way over the top I think.
Sorry but whats that "doing greater good while expecting nothing in return" you are talking about?

It's only slightly over the top. I could throw tons of examples at you, and you could counter them, because frankly, in politics and world events, almost everything can be cited and then countered. I'd throw out the Marshall plan, then you'd say how it was completely in the United States self-interest. I'd talk about how the US almost completely built or rebuilt the infrastructure of past or future enemies like Japan and Iran, you'd counter with 'Hey, but you're the ones who trampled on Japan' and then 'Yeah, but you set up the Shah and he was a butcher'. I suppose I'll stick with something more simple then... The good that the United States has done completely outweighs the bad, and we gave a lot more than we got, or expected to get.

If you think the US did more good then bad to Japan after testing the first two nukes on their citizens I am pretty much out of counter arguments.

It's not hard to make a case that relative to other realistic options in 1945, the use of an atomic weapon on Hiroshima cost the fewest lives (140,000, including future deaths attributible to radiation). For comparison, conquering Okinawa by conventional warfare cost upwards of 250,000 lives. Single days of firebombing during the war cost ~100,000 lives in Dresden (Germany) and Tokyo. Had Operations Coronet and Olympic (the Allied plan for invading Japan itself) gone forward, the casualty totals would have been in the seven digits. Pre-Hiroshima, the Japanese imperial command structure had shown no signs of cracking.

(Nagasaki is less defensible, IMHO, as a single demonstration already had the Japanese command structure in turmoil. At the very least, the military could have given Japan a little more time to surrender. Considerable evidence exists that the Japanese had no idea what caused the destruction of Hiroshima until the White House broadcast describing it, so this was certainly an unexpected turn of events.)

If you object to the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima, you should provide an alternative, relevant to 1945. It's flippant at best to just say "testing nukes on citizens" without context.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

That was very easily a huge mistake at the time.

It makes me wince to think of the ordinance they wasted on a relatively mundane target.

I can, however, understand why the atomic bomb was necessary. War wise.

Hell, more importantly it opened eyes and minds to real horror. Suddenly, the war we knew but years before as the vaguely 'honourable' exchange of lives for causes became the terror that had evolved in WW1 and WW2. That huge amounts of life were blinked out of existance.

I agree with you and am almost glad 'we' did it then.

We would be insane to make the same mistake twice.

Yhorian.

>It makes me wince to think of the ordinance they wasted on a
>relatively mundane target.

That sounds quite sick you know...

Dresden wasn't a particularly 'hot' place to bomb. Sure, it was enemy territory. It had factories. But they knew they were winning the war already and they still bombed it so damn hard that buildings melted. That's solid concrete and brick people.

That's what made me wince - it was like some kind of giant act of hatred. There's only so much bomb shelters can tolerate and a lot of people died not in the actual bombing but because it took so long to dig them out of the wreckage melted ontop. There were even POWs in those shelters. Dresden was an almost inconsiderate act of destruction that went down in history because they hit it as hard as they bloody well could. And it turned out that was really, really damn hard.

Yhorian.

nt

why should I be able to judge what would have been better...

I just know its stupid to run around saying that everything the US does is for the "greater good" and all atrocity's don't matter in the big picture.


>If you object to the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima,
>you should provide an alternative, relevant to 1945.
>It's flippant at best to just say
>"testing nukes on citizens" without context.

So you think that every weapon is ok as long as there is no other way of winning with less casualty's?

>So you think that every weapon is ok as long as there is no
>other way of winning with less casualty's?

Assuming the cost in human suffering for not fighting at all is also higher? Sure.

It's glib to say that violence doesn't solve problems, but sometimes it does. When the source of a problem is also violence, sometimes it's the best solution.

>Assuming the cost in human suffering for not fighting at all
>is also higher? Sure.

Only in that case I would agree yes.
But I would guess that in more then 90% of the conflicts a peaceful solution would have created less suffering.

Not for nothing, but it's not like we just snuck up on Japan one day and nuked two of their cities out of the blue. We had exhausted economic and political pressure options long before Pearl Harbor got us involved directly, and 3.5 years later it wasn't like Japan was ready to quit.

If you're going to vilify the United States government for making the Hiroshima decision, you should provide an alternative for it. Saying that a nonviolent solution would be preferred is obvious to everyone, as is the fact that it wasn't an available option.

The postwar occupation and reconstruction (1945-1952) of Japan was nonviolent, done at great economic cost to the United States, and ended with our complete and voluntary withdrawal, leaving the Japanese to govern themselves. It also worked-- Japan has since been a model of economic prowess and relative pacifism. If you look at how wars ended up until that point in history, that postwar is about as nice as an attacked power is going to be to its attacker.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>>>>So you think that every weapon is ok as long as there is no
>>>>other way of winning with less casualty's?

>>>Assuming the cost in human suffering for not
>>>fighting at all is also higher? Sure.

>>Only in that case I would agree yes. But I would
>>guess that in more then 90% of the conflicts a
>>peaceful solution would have created less suffering.

>Saying that a nonviolent solution would
>be preferred is obvious to everyone, as is the fact that it
>wasn't an available option.

Daevryn brought up the nonviolent solution...
You are mixing arguments up here I think.
So I will just ask again:
Do you think that every weapon is ok as long as there is no
other way of winning with less casualty's?

> If you look at how wars ended up until that point
>in history, that postwar is about as nice as an attacked power
>is going to be to its attacker.

How many Japanese civilians died due to US attacks and how many US civilians died due to attacks from Japan?

We can discuss for days but I will never accept glorification of such atrocity's.

Do you think that every weapon is ok as long as there is no
other way of winning with less casualty's?

I think in the situation in question, the first atomic weapon was the best choice. The rest of the question is a slippery slope question, and not relevant-- the answer would be "case by case".

How many Japanese civilians died due to US attacks and how many US civilians died due to attacks from Japan?

That's completely irrelevant, since Japan lacked the air and sea power to attack the U.S. mainland, and lost the ability to reach Hawaii right after Pearl Harbor. In every country they could reach, they inflicted massive civilian casualties. (They're responsible for upwards of 7,000,000 Chinese civilian casualties, and 4,000,000 civilian deaths during their occupation and forced labor programs within Indonesia.)

The Japanese lost an estimated 600,000 civilians during the war, almost all in the late push in Spring/Summer 1945, after repeated refusals to surrender. Again, the Allies exhausted other options, barring a conventional invasion, before the decision was made to use the atomic weapon.

How would you have ended the war, then? It's a fair question if you criticize the US for using atomic weapons there. What's the alternative? Everything I can think of would have cost a lot more lives.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>Again, the Allies exhausted
>other options, barring a conventional invasion, before the
>decision was made to use the atomic weapon.
>
>How would you have ended the war, then? It's a fair question
>if you criticize the US for using atomic weapons there.
>What's the alternative? Everything I can think of would have
>cost a lot more lives.

So, how many lives do you think a conventional invasion would have cost? An invasion without burning down major cities to "remove their fighting spirit" obviously, as this would have killed even more people of course.

How many civilians would die in such an invasion?

>How many civilians would die in such an invasion?

I think 'millions' is safe to say.

Consider every military action fought since among a civilian populace, e.g. Vietnam, and how often civilians get shot because occupying soldiers either can't tell the difference or can't be bothered to tell the difference (possibly at risk to their own lives) in enemy territory.

>
>>How many civilians would die in such an invasion?
>
>I think 'millions' is safe to say.

I think not, unless your troops would put up some kind of holocaust-like action.

From Wikipedia on Iraq war:

An independent method for estimating the number of Iraq dead is by using national surveys of mortality. A study in The Lancet estimates 654,965 Iraqi deaths (with a range of 392,979 to 942,636) from March 2003 to July 2006, using this methodology <18> <19>. That total number of deaths (civilian and non-civilian) includes all excess deaths due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poor healthcare, etc, and includes civilians, military deaths and insurgent deaths.

Wikipedia on Vietnam war casualties(the highest estimate on Vietnamese civilian casualties):

3. Edward Doyle, Samuel Lipsman, et al, Setting the Stage. Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1981.

U.S. - 57,605. South Vietnamese military - 220,357. Republic of Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand - not listed. DRV and NLF deaths - 444,000. Combined DRV and RVN civilian deaths -587,000.

Wikipedia on Holocaust(snippets from it's article):

The following estimates provide a range of the number of victims:

An estimated 5 to 6 million Jews,<11> including 3 million Polish Jews
1.8 – 1.9 million Christian Poles and other (non-Jewish) Poles (estimate includes civilians killed as a result of Nazi aggression and occupation but does not include the military casualties of Nazi aggression or the victims of the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland and of deportations to Central Asia and Siberia)<12>
200,000–800,000 Roma & Sinti (Gypsies)
200,000–300,000 people with disabilities
80,000–200,000 Freemasons<13>
100,000 communists
10,000–25,000 homosexual men
2,500–5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses<14>

The following groups of people were also killed by the Nazi regime, but there is little evidence that the Nazis planned to systematically target them for genocide as was the case for the groups above.

3.5–6 million other Slavic civilians
2.5–4 million Soviet POWs
1–1.5 million political dissidents
Additionally, the Ustaša regime, the Nazis' allies in Croatia, conducted its own campaign of mass extermination against the Serbs in the areas which it controlled, resulting in the deaths of 500,000–1.2 million Serbs.

In short, of these three, only holocaust managed to get it's casualty numbers to millions, as was your 'safe' estimate. Hundreds of thousands, quite possibly, but millions, unless your troops are like Nazis..

From above, my post:

For comparison, conquering Okinawa by conventional warfare cost upwards of 250,000 lives. ... Had Operations Coronet and Olympic (the Allied plan for invading Japan itself) gone forward, the casualty totals would have been in the seven digits.

The numbers for Japan were predicted (by the U.S. military) to be over a million by comparison to the results of smaller-scale conventional invasions of nearby islands. The casualties in Okinawa were primarily military on both sides-- no "scorched earth" policy was used.

Much, much more loss of life than the atomic weapon plan caused.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

But that includes the fire bombing of major cities. I don't disagree that this would have created much more casualty's.
Its also obvious that way more soldiers on both sides would have died in the invasion.
I think the amount of civilian casualties would have been lower though.

>Its also obvious that way more soldiers on both sides would
>have died in the invasion.
>I think the amount of civilian casualties would have been
>lower though.

If both countries have draft/conscription in place, such that there's little choice to become a soldier or not, does it really matter? Is the life of someone who did get drafted into mandatory military service seen to be of less value than the life of someone who got lucky and did not?

nt

Depending on when the Emperor of Japan (at the time, not a powerless figurehead, although they used their power rarely) and the Military leadership decided to surrender, I'd wager the civilian casualties would have been like nothing you could ever imagine. Once American troops set foot on the Japanese homeland with the war still raging, there essentially would not have been any civilians. Ever able bodied man, and likely woman, would have taken up arms against the invaders. It would have been wide scale slaughter on both sides, completely horrific.

Also consider what the average Japanese civilian or soldier knew of invasion. To them, it was routine to butcher, rape, and torture both civilian and military. Why? Because that is exactly what they did. Japan has much to admire about it, but it also was, and to an extent still is, an incredibly racist society, who believe that the lives of those not Japanese simply aren't worth as much. If you expect your enemy to treat you as you treat them, you're fighting with rocks if you have to to protect your country from the horror you would expect barbarian invaders such as the Americans to bring.

At this point in time, Japan hasn't been out of its medieval period for even 100 years.

It's nothing short of amazing how quickly they were able to modernize. It's, what, not even 40 years from the start of the Meiji Restoration to whipping down an established Western power (Russia) in a war?

But culture and mores don't really modernize quite as fast. Some things just take a couple generations to shake out. I mean, think about that for a minute -- during World War II you've still got Japanese alive who were alive during the isolationist and essentially medieval Tokugawa shogunate.

People who are a generation or two away from being an incredibly xenophobic society just aren't going to have the same sensible notions of surrender to a foreign power and what kind of battles they can and can't win as other people, including modern Japanese. This is the same culture and time that created kamikaze pilots -- a land war on Japanese soil at that time is going to be bloody as hell.

This is the same culture and time that created kamikaze pilots -- a land war on Japanese soil at that time is going to be bloody as hell.

Rumored to be nearly as dangerous as going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

as funny as their accent might be, these guys are armed to the teeth.

nt

Forgive me as I haven't read the entire thread, but I'd like to point out that there are many respected people (President Eisenhower, General MacArthur, others) that believe the bombings were militarily unnecessary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Militarily_unnecessary

You can read a lot of the debate at that wikipedia link. The heart of the argument is that the US knew that Japan was already defeated before dropping the bombs and that Japanese leadership was divided on surrender. Not to mention the Soviets were kicking their ass in Manchuria. Some assert that the US dropped the bombs more to scare the Soviets than to get the Japanese to surrender.

It's certainly possible that Japan would not have surrendered and bombing did save lives. However, I think it's a pretty good testament to the power of the military-industrial-congressional complex in the US that a pinko commie like myself hadn't even heard such criticism of the bombings until a month ago.

>Only in that case I would agree yes.
>But I would guess that in more then 90% of the conflicts a
>peaceful solution would have created less suffering.

That's possible. Even in those cases, does the problem-solver bear all of the blame for the suffering, or does the problem-causer bear the brunt of it?

I think you'd have to be crazy to say the bulk doesn't go to the original source of the problem, but I feel like you're taking that stance.

>That's possible. Even in those cases, does the problem-solver
>bear all of the blame for the suffering, or does the
>problem-causer bear the brunt of it?
>
>I think you'd have to be crazy to say the bulk doesn't go to
>the original source of the problem, but I feel like you're
>taking that stance.

So mostly the Japanese government was to blame for the 200000 casualties in that example?

Can they be blamed for invading China? Yes
Can they be blamed for attacking Pearl Harbor? Yes
Can they be blamed for Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Dont think so...

While they are obviously the aggressor the US is still responsible for their own actions.

>So mostly the Japanese government was to blame for the 200000
>casualties in that example?

Yes.

They don't get 100% of the blame, but they damn sure don't get 0% either. I'd say over half is fair.

I don't think the world is safer, but maybe just farmers.

You may disagree with me. But I don't think it's such a bad thing.
America has enough nukes to destroy the entire world twice over, no reason other shouldn't be allowed to do the same. We make it look so horrible and dangerous when someone else is a potential threat, and do our best to make sure they can't attack us or defend themselves from us if they so desired or needed to.

Once again, you may disagree with my opinion, but our country has pretty much bullied all the others around. Like I said, we have enough biological weapons and nukes to destroy any country we like, and we're trembling because they have a few of their own?

Like I said, we have enough biological weapons and nukes to destroy any country we like

The United States hasn't had a biological weapons program since Nixon's executive order in 1969. We're party to various treaties to that effect, notably the Geneva Protocol and the Biological Weapons Convention. (Most of the industrialized world is party to the latter, with the notable exceptions being Israel, the UAE, and Syria.)

Ditto for chemical agents and toxins, if you're curious.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I assumed things that may not have been true, I'm young, and lots of people do that.

Still, nuclear weapons is something we do have, too many in fact. Why are so worried about other people having them? Don't you feel that this seems a bit cowardly? I personally think the U.S goverment is trying to scare us enough to make us say it's okay to take that away from them.

The U.S. government isn't perfect, but I don't really see us using nuclear weapons again, based on the checks and balances (such as they are) in our government and the changes in our culture since Hiroshima.

I can't say I feel the same about the nutty government of North Korea.

Better that no one have them, sure. But if someone has to, it might as well be a country not likely to use them.

I'm too lazy to do any real research, or reinforce my claims. And I'm going to just get frustrated and quit playing CF and ruin things for myself.

I just think everyone should be allowed if we can.
And I like the fact that someone isn't taking #### from us. Because I don't honestly believe america is keeping us all from killing each other.

So you don't think its a bad thing that rogue militaristic states gain the capability to throw around that kind of destruction? We aren't talking about a democraticaly elected, human-rights friendly, STABLE country here. Besides their testing policies, no one is really bitching about France having "the bomb". Mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent for a regime like North Korea, or Iraq(past), or maybe even Iran(though I think it may be for these guys), like it was for the Soviet Union during the Cold War. If countries like North Korea get ahold of these kinds of weapons, they WILL use them. Barring some sort of apocolyptic event, I don't think the US will EVER actually use their nuclear arsenal. For ####s sake, the media loses their mind if one single regular bomb goes astray, can you imagine the fallout from actually launching a nuke at someone? I don't think even Bush has the balls to push that button. Also, the United States is currently developing a system to shoot ballistic missiles out of the sky, and its not just to protect us. The system will be employable nearly worlwide given the right circumstances. As for being bullies, well, in some ways I think we should be more bullish, some ways less, and in a few others I'll put it like this. You can only stand in your own yard, minding your own business while your neighbor throws rocks at you before you hop the white picket fence and kick his teeth in.

>As for being bullies, well, in some ways I
>think we should be more bullish, some ways less, and in a few
>others I'll put it like this. You can only stand in your own
>yard, minding your own business while your neighbor throws
>rocks at you before you hop the white picket fence and kick
>his teeth in.

A better analogy in my view would be:
Somebody has thrown a stone into one of your windows at night. You don't know who was it but your neighbor (with that threatening huge mustache) has a lot of stones in his garden and he is actually sitting there polishing fist sized stones at his garden table. There are a few rumors about that guy that you don't like so you now decide its time to help out the neighborhood. You jumping over the fence, hit that guy with your bat six or seven times ,set his house on fire and take his new lawnmower with you for good measure. He doesn't need one for his rock garden anyway...

Sorry but I think the last thing we need on this planet is someone who plays "world police", punishing whoever he seems fit. :(

Great analogy. As for world police, I agree, I don't think we SHOULD play it, but, we are, so I think we should be dressed in riot gear.

But don't you think that some of the problems with terrorism and the run of small dictators to get hold of "the bomb" could stem from that attitude?

Wouldn't a policy of de-escalation be the better bet?

-But don't you think that some of the problems with terrorism and the run of small dictators to get hold of "the bomb" could stem from that attitude?

Look at Moammar Gadhafi, he saw us go into Iraq and did a 180. Musharraf straightened up and became our ally after we invaded Afghanistan. Some will hold out to try and not look weak, most will back down to keep their power.

-Wouldn't a policy of de-escalation be the better bet?

The problem with de-escalation at this point, is, as soon as we de-descalate, the "terrorists" brag about their big victory, and they come after us even harder. What people need to realize, is that there is only one way out of this conflict. Break them before they break us. Until that gets into people's thick skulls though, we're gonna be in the same place we're in right now, forever. As long as people have the thought process of hey, if we just back off, they'll leave us alone, we're in trouble. They won't. They hate us, they hate everything we stand for. They do not understand a society that separates church and state. The "church" IS the state for them, and people like Bin Laden take advantage of that to consolidate power, he just chose the wrong target.

But the United States flipped a finger at the international justice courts, smirked when the security council asked them to sit out on a hearing about their illegal invasion and then used the 'veto threat technique' on anything they were allowed to sit on - making actions essentially useless.

When fined, the Bush administration refused to pay.

It should be noted that the British government has also broken international law with their invasion of Afghanistan which caused public outrage, the resignation of countless officials (including the governments advisory on international law) and had a knock-on of justifying to some extent the US' joint movement. Our government paid for it dearly by losing their majority in the House of Commons and have the media harrassing the PM for an early step down (which he conceded to do last year and we wait patiently for him to follow through).

We have world police. The US led a vigilante movement. I wish I could be prouder of my own government for not following like a pet dog.

Those that argue the UN doesn't have enough power - it has as much as we give it. People lose faith in it being able to do something and it will fail to do it. The more I partake in analysing and aiding its workings (support for crucial UN NGO's, UN youth assembly 2001-2002 - where I saw Kofi Anan himself :) - and helping train future Youth Assembly members) the more I see it is an idealists solution to an exceedingly conceited and delusional world.

End rant!

Yhorian.

nt

-But the United States flipped a finger at the international justice courts, smirked when the security council asked them to sit out on a hearing about their illegal invasion and then used the 'veto threat technique' on anything they were allowed to sit on - making actions essentially useless.

The reason its hard to take the UN seriously is because of what goes on inside of it. It's corrupt, really corrupt. It's anti-semitic. Quote off of Wikipedia: "The new UN Human Rights Council has to date condemned only one country, Israel." Come on. No Darfur, China, Cuba, any other number of countries? We definetly aren't the only one who uses that 'veto threat technique' China, Russia and France use it every other week. The Secratariat at one point had over two-hundred "diplomats" being paid by the KGB. Drug deals go down in the parking garage, because they have diplomatic immunity. If you want an eye-opening experience about the Secretariat, read "The U.N. Gang" by Pedro Sanchez. Did you know the UN once asked for 60million to redo the floors in the UN building? 60 MILIION dollars, for floors. The number one issue in the UN shortly after 9-11? The shape of Switzerland's flag. How are we supposed to take that seriously?

-When fined, the Bush administration refused to pay.

Not exactly sure what you're talking about, but if you are refering to our past dues owed, we said we would pay them, as soon as they cleaned up corruption....and then the oil-for-food scandal broke. The UN is a joke.

-It should be noted that the British government has also broken international law with their invasion of Afghanistan which caused public outrage, the resignation of countless officials (including the governments advisory on international law) and had a knock-on of justifying to some extent the US' joint movement. Our government paid for it dearly by losing their majority in the House of Commons and have the media harrassing the PM for an early step down (which he conceded to do last year and we wait patiently for him to follow through).

They did the right thing. Thanks for having our back.

-We have world police. The US led a vigilante movement. I wish I could be prouder of my own government for not following like a pet dog.

Our vigilante mission just happened to liberate one of the most oppressive societies in the modern world, if not THE most oppressive. Iraq is a whole other issue. Something our countries should have finished 15 years ago. The UN are the worst police ever. They sit on their fat asses eating donuts, yelling at the criminals for doing bad things. Then the criminals look up for a second and say hey, piss off asshole, then the UN says, oh, ok. Someone has to do something, someone has to have some credibility.

-Those that argue the UN doesn't have enough power - it has as much as we give it.

Not sure about the UK's numbers, but the US gives it 23% financially, even without paying our dues. Not to mention the military assistance they get.

-People lose faith in it being able to do something and it
will fail to do it. The more I partake in analysing and aiding its workings (support for crucial UN NGO's, UN youth assembly 2001-2002 - where I saw Kofi Anan himself :) - and helping train future Youth Assembly members) the more I see it is an idealists solution to an exceedingly conceited and delusional world.

While I think training young people to become good diplomats and useful members of the world society, having the UN teach them how to do it is like having a drug addict teach D.A.R.E.(anti-drug progam in the US taught in grade schools).

Maybe it would work more effectively if things were decided democratically in the UN with no veto rights to anyone?

As for the US offensive war in Iraq, it'll probably go on for a decade or so. You freed people from Saddam to now irradiated country that is in the middle of a civil war and the infrastructure is destroyed or badly damaged. I'm not entirely convinced that the Iraqi people are better off now. As for Afghanistan, I never liked it how the Taliban seized the power there by force.

>The reason its hard to take the UN seriously is because of
>what goes on inside of it. It's corrupt, really corrupt.
>It's anti-semitic. Quote off of Wikipedia: "The new UN Human
>Rights Council has to date condemned only one country,
>Israel."

So everything that is somehow in some degree against Israel is "anti-semitic"?


>Our vigilante mission just happened to liberate one of the
>most oppressive societies in the modern world, if not THE most
>oppressive. Iraq is a whole other issue. Something our
>countries should have finished 15 years ago.

How can you even belief that this is true? Most oppressive?
Have you ever considered whats going on in Africa with all these local Warlords?

Why do you think the US "liberated" Afghanistan and Iraq instead of helping out down in Africa?
Hint: Both countries have more in common then just the former funding through the US.

Like "The UN is corrupt!".

Branches of the UN have been abused, the same way branches of the American government have. You cannot then take the entire system and say 'It is corrupt.'

I can, however, look at the Somalian government for the past ten years and say 'Yeah, thats corrupt. Where it isn't, its entirely powerless.'

Others might not even dain to call that a government. The UN isn't a government. What it is, is a democratic cooperative. The US walks in, with all its power, issues the UN with powers it believes just in a democratic world then justifies not following them itself by saying 'But we donate so much!'. There is no democracy to that, its called a farce.

Who creates that farce? The US and the UK when they turn their backs on the power they use to oppress 'corrupt' countries. They do it for money and power, for their own benefit and at the expense of everyone else.

Example? Take Somalia again. The UN couldn't defend food convoys and the US said they'd come help by assassinating the warlords hijacking them. They sent a measley number of troops for the job, that failed in a spectacular (and tragic) way. They pulled out when they lost a number of lives.

Now, as soon as oil is in the equation, the US not only sends out a huge number of troops for a full scale occupation, but has the cheek to send more when it knows its failing. Their loses are far greater and the fact they think its worth those lives when it wasn't before gives you a good clue as to their motives.

The truth: That isn't charity. The only ones being charitable are the soldiers that are following orders and actually are in there fighting. I count their lives as they give them away and I wish I'd had a chance to teach them about politics. I wish I could have shown them the fight that goes on behind the scenes. How men and woman argue daily against a stubborn world and have no ideal examples to turn to. No examples that haven't thrown in their virtue for money and power.

There are definite, hard ways to change the world with less war - and they stop working when you pick up your gun for the wrong reasons.

Yhorian.

I'm uncomfortable commenting on this issue in general. There's things I know from reading the news and such, and then there's things I know because of work, and I'm not interested in figuring out if my brain is good at separating them. :)

There are some good publically available books on Biopreparat if you want to learn more. Ken Alibek's Biohazard is a little dated (1999) but tells a good history of the Soviet program he used to help run. Suffice to say that historical examples exist of people preparing large quantities of dangerous substances with reasonably modest technology investments, compared to what a nuclear program requires.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

nt

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=43&topic_id=2&mesg_id=18&page=2

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

This one's related to your profession, so I understand if you don't want to answer.

Do you think there is a large enough logistical hole in the US' security to use something like a nerve gas on a city/building? (I'm not sure of the quantities necessary for a 'serious threat' or for a chemical weapon to be termed a weapon of 'mass' destruction)

I've always been fascinated by the addition of biological weapons to the OPCW's scope over the past 30 years. How thinking has evolved from chemical weapon disasters in WW1 and WW2 to the current biological fears. Somewhere, I think many forget how easily such weapons backfire and why that was such an insentive for countries to agree not to use them. That brings me to my second question!

I wondered if you might know if (yes or no) there is currently a biological agent that can survive a blast from the oft theorised 'dirty bomb'. I quizzed a biology professor a while back and he had heard some of the good theories but admitted he didn't think it a good delivery system at all because of the fragile nature of viral/bacterial spores, especially less robust airborn ones.

That recent terror movie 'Right at your door' brought back those thoughts as I picked holes in its science. I wondered if it had become a serious contemplation or if people still saw it as quite unlikely but worth consideration.

Thanks!

Yhorian.

I definitely can't comment on what security is or isn't out there.

You're correct that biological weapons are somewhat difficult to deploy in a controlled, predictable manner. (That is likely a part of why they were relatively easy to get most nations to forsake.) Those drawbacks are less of a limitation to use in the hands of a terrorist who doesn't care who the weapon infects, or is merely interested in creating fear or chaos for political or ideological ends. (The U.S. has spent billions investigating and remediating the anthrax-contaminated letters sent in 2001. While they only killed a handful of people, it was front-page news for months, and spurred a good deal of policy change and concern.)

I wondered if you might know if (yes or no) there is currently a biological agent that can survive a blast from the oft theorised 'dirty bomb'. I quizzed a biology professor a while back and he had heard some of the good theories but admitted he didn't think it a good delivery system at all because of the fragile nature of viral/bacterial spores, especially less robust airborn ones.


(A 'dirty bomb' usually refers to an explosive device which scatters radiological material, not biologicals.)

The US, UK, and Russia (at least) demonstrated the ability to disperse biological agents via bombs/artillery decades ago. Bacterial spores aren't fragile in the least.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com