The Shrine

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>The defense system would work at shooting down ICBM's and such. This would help defend during a possible nuclear war. There are several major problems with it though:

1) The Russians have already rendered the one which is currently being worked on by nations obsolete. They have developed highly maneuverable ICBM's which can out-maneuver that system, they have also experimented wsith a dummy system which would launch thousands of dummies (I suppose these would be like balloons which inflate) to fool the defense system. Russia currently has the power to destroy just about anyone they want in the case of Nuclear war. The US has the same capabilities.

2) This is a far more serious problem. Certain nations such as China, Europe, India, Pakistan, and others, to combat such a defense system would simply build thousands more ICBM's, enough that if fired they would overwhelm any currently conceivable defense system. Russia and the US currently has thousands of ICBM's, so either one of them can do that now. The other nations I mentioned, China in particular, have ICBM's, but not a lot, they have them for the sole purpose of retaliation. The reason why this is a problem, is if you have thousands of ICBM's being destroyed, even though they won't be detonating, their radioactive material will still be extremely dangerous when it comees falling down. The major concern is that these defense systems will lead to a major increase in the amount of ICBM's present, similar to what happened during the cold war. This could have very catastrophic consequences.

The alternative would be to continue to work on treaties which would actually lower the nuclear capabilties of all nations in the world. Or to make Nuclear weapons Internationally illegal in a similar way that chemical and bio weapons are illegal.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>I can't fathom the reasons why nuclear weapons aren't already on the banned list. There is no point to them...at all.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>You're right. Most countries do ban them from their militaries, but countries like the US, France, Russia, and China still insist on having them.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Well for obvious reasons, if they're armed and we're not they can bomb us to hell without fear of retaliation. Duh.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It would save the world a lot of money, can you imagine if they took that money and put it into researching a cure for cancer? It's pathetic sometimes, the country which has made the most progress in that field is Cuba, a nation with a sanctioned economy which uses the state of Florida as their prison.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Okay, now apply the same logic to biological and chemical weapons.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>nukes trump both of those. You send a bio/chem missle, we send 5 nukes your way</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>...do you know what a nuclear bomb is? They're completely harmless as long as they're not detonated</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>you're asking countries that are at odds with one another to do an awful lot of trusting of each other. I wouldn't trust North Korea or China to adhere to those rules</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>I actually agree with Tess, nobody trusts one another for there ever to be total elimination or downsizing of nukes, even if such terms were agreed upon there would most likely be secret caches.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>I never personally understood the difference to be honest with you. Maybe it's a humanitarian thing, you can live through Chem and Bio weapons and suffer for a longer period, but the new atomic weapons = dead with 0% of survival? I dunno, I'm no missle expert.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Did it ever ocurr to you that maybe the main reason they have nuclear programs is because the world's only superpower does as well?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Effects from Nuclear fallout last generations, as has been seen in Japan. People even today who had absolutely nothing to do with the war are suffering.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Yeah, yeah I'm aware.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I would say current government of China is more trustworthy than the current US government. Speaking of China, I'm going on vacation to Beijing in about a month.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>That's because nukes are currently legal. "Atomic military buildup can be reversed......outlaw the bomb!" *enter drum solo*</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Anyways, I would say Nuclear war is a much larger threat to destroying the world then bio-chem weapons.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Then we invade North Korea or China, or at least start the embargo process. Why not apply the same rules to nuclear weapons that we do for chem/bio weapons?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>There's absolutely no way a country would ever get away with nuclear retaliation against bio/chem weapons.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>The problem isn't a lack of laws against NW proliferation/use; the problem is the lack of ability to ENFORCE those laws.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>A nation with nuclear capabilites fears that eliminating its stockpiles will effectively serve as an open invitation for another nuclear-armed nation to attack it. So even though nuclear arms are listed under the Genocide Convention as a legitimate threat to the future of mankind, the GC is incapable of going further than claiming NWs to be "generally unlawful", i.e. illegal in threat or use <I>except</I> under such circumstances that the fate of a nation rests on their use (in self-defense, in other words).

Things like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which put all non-nuclear nations under obligation <I>not</i> to develop NW programs are a step in the right direction, but the NPT can only go so far (it's not exactly being obeyed in many cases either). Until the nuclear-capable nations actually become <I>willing</i> to abandon their stockpiles there's nothing we can do. A law doesn't mean much if no one's willing to <I>comply</i> with it.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>The thing about bio/chem weapons is that they're not actually very effective. They create more psychological damage than casualties, really, so no one cared that much about dumping their stockpiles anyway. NWs, on the other hand, have immensely efficient destructive capacities.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Yeah, but there's nothing you can do about it. How are you gonna talk somebody out of relingishing such power?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>We were actually doing just fine until Bush came into office.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>are you expecting the world's only superpower to NOT possess the most destructive weapon in the world?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>we can't start pissing off other countries until we have the military backing to do so. Too committed in Iraq to start harrassing someone else</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>you just had to turn this into an anti-Bush thread, didn't you? What the hell did he do? The only country threatening with nukes is North Korea, and that woulda happened no matter who was in office</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Tahoma; text-align: left; '>I'm telling you, the far left scares me way more than the far right, so when i think to myself, "Maybe i'll vote Kerry." and then i see Sine, who will vote Kerry, open his mouth i no longer want to vote Kerry.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Sine is not representative of the left.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>The Bush administration has gone against long standing policy of nukes as defense; they've looked into "tactical nuclear weapons" for offensive purposes. They reneged on whichever treaty it was that prevented the missile defense system, which encourages an arms race.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>By definition, no. We emerged as the world power after WWII party because we were a nuclear power. However, the extent of our arsenal is ridiculous.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>MAD -- Mutual Assured Destruction. It got us through the Cold War, why fuck with it?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>they obviously had reasons for reneging on the MDS, just like we did for the Kyoto Protocol. And we're also spending a shitload of money on a new conventional bomb that's 3x the size of the MOAB, so it's not all about nukes, we're trying to steer away somewhat too</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I don't think you understood my post. The were breaking treaties to follow through with the missile defense system. They aren't as aggressive with it now because it doesn't fit within the new focus.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Because it's over?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>True, but that's what the UN is for. Maybe if we had a UN vote on Iraq, we wouldn't have that problem, either.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Because all it takes is one missile to ensure the destruction of the human race. Just because a timebomb without a visable timer didn't go off in 30 minutes doesn't mean it's not going to go off in an hour.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Besides, all I said was that Bush blew holes in our attempts at an international nuclear treaty when he came into office. Is that "scary" and "far left"? No, it's true. For Christ sake, trying to restart STAR WARS?!? What the fuck was Bush thinking?? I do seem to recall that our "moderate left" Democrats in Congress (and even some Republicans) had objections with Star Wars as well. (Even Congressmen in Reagan's era thought Star Wars was a nutball idea.)

The only reason why I didn't provide any prove of my argument was because I thought it was fairly obvious anyway (and I didn't have time at that moment). From <a href="http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Notes/2002 ... .htm">weak nuclear solutions</a> to <a href="http://observer.guardian.co.uk/internat ... ">building MORE nuclear weapons</a>, Bush policy on nuclear weapons is far from sane. We need to be DISARMING our nukes, not building MORE of them! Why are we harking so much on Iraq (not) possessing nukes, when we have ten thousand of them in our backyard?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, or ABM.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>we ARE the UN military!</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>This is despite the fact that <a href="http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20020906.html">84 countries (including the United States) signed it in 1999</a>. Don't blindly believe that "they obviously had their reasons" without actually checking up on it. "Their reasons" could have easily been to repay their debts to the oil companies for giving them assloads of campaign contributions.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>and everyone understands that, so no one launches. If that threat were removed, then we would have something to worry about</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>See, that's the problem with spending a 1/3rd of our budget on the military. The military should be split (somewhat) evenly with the rest of the UN countries.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Every one? Even a sane person could annihilate the entire human race. Ask your parents how scared they were when the Cuba Missile Crisis happened. Ask them if they thought that they were going to die the next day.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>And who is going to fire nukes at us?</div>