Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[Tim Lamb]

George:

It is good policy to not confront North Korea @ this time. Not only does it take the focus off of Iraq but both the Chinese and Russians have a strong interest to not have Japan become concerned with North Korea and thus they have an interest to oppose NK actions. China is playing for political leverage and unlike previous administration kotows it just doesn't make sense at this point. Let China or someone in that region step up.

Now in IRAQ is it oil or is it the threat of chemical & biological weapons falling into the wrong hands. If there was no oil Sadamn would not be a threat as he would not have the resources to pose one.

Korea is no stronger than IRAQ from a US point of view. It is logistically more difficult to confront.

Now oil is $35 bbl and we import 20M / day. Knock $20 off the price of oil and our trade deficit drops almost $150 billion. Of course oil is important but don't fall for the imperalism arguement. This would be a boon to our economy no doubt. The flip side is the oil producing countries (remember Russia debt defaults in 98) will be in trouble.

I think of Sadamn as a little bullie kid growing up. He pushes until someone stops him. Well the UN is not about to and our previous administration let him have a free hand.

The UN is proving worthless and its now playing out for the world to see. I don't mean because they don't support us but becasue they are being played by Sadamn. Remember it took 4 1/2 years for inspectors to uncover WMD last time and that was after the son in laws defected. The only reason they are appearing to start to comply now is due to US troop buildups

Right now there is a time window due to dessert summers which is starting to close.

There is no doubt of terrorism links with Palestines. As for osamma only time will tell.