Who's the greater threat, Saddam or Castro

In my mind Castro is the bigger threat. His location to the US is close enough for certain organizations to launch nuclear or biological attacks. We can't tell who's a refugee and who's a spy and we can't stop them all from coming here.

You think Cuba's harmless? You might be going off the impression left by the 1998 report on Cuba by the Defense Intelligence Agency's senior Cuba analyst, Ana Belen Montes, who said Cuba was not a threat. The one that Clinton surrounded his entire Cuba policy on. Well Ana Belen Montes was found to be a spy. Of Cuba. Sending sensitive secrets to Havana at the same time.

Now they've got biolgical weapons in range of many US cities and could be sharing them with other anti-US countries and orgainzations. Cuba's set up the bomb

WASHINGTON ? Cuba has developed a biological weapons program and may be sharing it with rogue nations, a State Department official said Monday.


Undersecretary of State John Bolton said that Cuba's exceptional and sophisticated biomedical industry, supported by the Soviet Union until 1990, has led the way for pharmaceuticals and vaccinations sold worldwide and may also be using the industry for other purposes.

"Analysts and Cuban defectors have long cast suspicion on the activities conducted in these biomedical facilities," Bolton, the United States' chief non-proliferation official, told audience members Monday at Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank.

Could the Anthrax have come from Cuba? Saddam may call for our deaths but Castro is the one who could pull it off (well he has the easiest access to bring in a WOMD). I'm not being alarmist here but we have to wonder as we keep a watchful eye on Iraq; should we be looking closer to home first?

 

Great thread, tenor. With all the people here who seem to think the US is evil incarnate for continuing to enforce sanctions against Cuba, I'm anxious to hear the responses.

AYBABTU?

 

I would say their both pretty big threats but Saddam moreso than Castro because Castro seems to be a fairly harmless dictator at the moment. Unlike Saddam, he doesn't have a history of invading his neighbors. Although he may be considered a threat to the US if he were to get a hold of biological weapons and weapons of mass destruction, this wouldn't make him anymore of a threat than Saddam. If you have the weapon, nowadays, it doesn't matter how far away from your target you are.

 

Yeah distance does makes a difference when your longest range weapon is a SCUD. Israel has to worry about the SCUD but not the US.

 

I would have to say Sadaam is the biggest threat although I wouldn't turn my back on Castro either. In terms of biological weapons, it wouldn't matter how close a person is. They can mail it in as the anthrax scare or set up a bomb. Both countries could do that. In terms of nuclear weapons I'd be a little more scared of Cuba because of their proximity to the US. But Sadaam has more support from the Arab countries. Castro and Cuba lost their big bad friend in 1991. Cuba doesn't have the international support that Iraq does. This is true unless there's something that I don't know about. But while we're talking about threats to the US why don't we also talk about North Korea. They have nuclear weapons and suposedly have the delivery systems that could reach all the way to Chicago. Don't know about you, but that really scares me.

 

Saddam.

I fail to see the US obsession with Castro. I mean, China has nuclear missiles pointed at the US, and the US is happy to do business with them. Cuba ignores the existence of a US military base on its soil (mostly because they couldn?t do anything about it even if they wanted to), and the US fears them.

I think that even if Castro had nukes, he would not fire them at the US. On the other hand, I think that Saddam would be more than happy to. Although, Saddam would make arrangements to leave the country he was launching the nukes from before he fired.

 

I don't think Castro really harbors any sort of extreme animosity towards the US (at present). Resentment, sure, but not the kind that would inspire him to risk getting his whole country toasted. And he knows that no one will come to his aid.

I don't think he really cares that much.

But Saddam is a mad dog.

 

Unlike Saddam, he doesn't have a history of invading his neighbors.

Kinda hard to do from an island nation. Isnt it? Especially so close to the US, with the US wanting to assure nations surrounding it were pro-American, though it didnt work out quite that way.

Castro is what 100? He is old, weak, broke, and has old person odor, he's not too much of a threat. For the US to have such great spies, I dont see why we dont have someone poison his cigars, when he dies we set up a puppet government, and all will be well.

Same with Iraq, currently we are hosting an Iraqi government in exile, led by an exiled pretender to the throne of Iraq. The government is set up and ready to rock, the only thing that threatens him is Kurdistan. The Kurds of north Iraq have enjoyed a decade of independence so to speak from Iraq, the US, and British have protected them since 1993, and when Saddam is defeated they wanted total independence, the Iraqi King wants them (and their oil) to remain loyal to Baghdad. Once Saddam is defeated will we see a civil war in Iraq?

 

Jedi_Xen-That will be pretty interesting to see what happens once Sadaam is no longer with us. Before he passes on, I think he'll have someone picked out to succeed him. It might be his son or someone in his current government. More than likely, it will be someone that has the support of the military. In all honesty though I don't think it'll be a huge power vaccuum with people jumping in and trying to claim power. I don't see a civil war either, but I could be wrong. Also, Sadaam is no spring chicken himself, but I do think Castro is considerably older.

 

Amidala-Leia: With the war the US and UK are planning against Iraq, they have someone in mind they will install as the leader of Iraq, Saddams government will have no say on who takes over, he will be dead and a puppet state will be installed.

The Kurdish question is an intersting one, especially if Syria and Iran are brought into the war. Kurds do deserve independence but to do this they might have to tick off Turkey who has lands that will be claimed by Kurdistan, and cause some problems. The US will most likely ignore the Kurds and set up a future Palestinian protests with terrorits bombings in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. But if they do give Kurds indpendence it could lead to a war with other Mid East nations. But it is something that will have to be solved soon.

 

If that is the case then I would say that a civil war is most definitely a possibility.

Whenever the US installs a puppet government it seems to turn around and bite us in the rear. The puppet leaders get what they need from the US and then they turn on us. I'm really not too big of a fan of it.

 

I would say that Saddam is a greater risk. Castro is a little less violent, and right now he poses no threat.

 

i got to agree with the Saddam boys in here..saddam has oil, and loads of it, and he sits right next to all the other big oil producers, all of whom are intensly vulnerable to his army/or terror weapons..so basically he has access to lots of money which enables him to build all sorts of troublesome weapons and such, or to finance extremists........whereas Castro has to rely on ideology, and has little if anything to share.....sure he is dangerous, but he is contained, he is economically weak, he has a large, rich exiled community who hates him, there is a US base on his soil, and he is range of the most powerful military in the world.....and if you were in his position, right next to such a Super Power who has had a 40 or so year long public vendetta with you, would'nt you try and build a WMD? i sure as hell would, even if the said superpower wasn't an aggressive authoritarian state like the USSR or China

 

I fail to see the US obsession with Castro.

We're still upset that at the height of the cold war, a bastion of Communism popped up on our doorstep and we were unable to kick them out of there.

Kinda hard to do from an island nation. Isnt it?

Exactly. Maybe we should just dig a really big trench around Saddamland--you know, Iraq. I can see that going down well with the media.

 

Chretien.

 

I say we nuke em both and be done with it.

Seriously though, I think Castro may be the silent planning type where he is waiting for the right moment to do something terrible. Saddam probably would be the terrorist i'd go after first if I had to choose between the two. I still don't understand why we didn't just get him back during Desert Storm.

 

I wouldn't have said that either of them have a chance off causing any trouble to America,but after how easy it was for BL to cause alot of death and destruction in New York,i have changed my mind.Every Nation has a chance of attacks against them.

However,i still carn't see them doing anything.They have seen what America and the rest of the EU have done to the Taliban and the rest of BL organisation in Afganistan,and they would get the same coming to them.I honestly think that i Saddam was going to do anything,he would have done it years ago,after the Gulf War.

As for Castro and Nukes,we all have nukes pointing at every Nation on the globe,so its not really a surprise to me to hear that he has done the same !!!

 

I personall don't think either of them are too big of a threat but Saddam is more so because he has a better army. Castro is very old and won't be around much longer.

 

I'm starting to lean more toward Yasser Arafat.

Just a few hours ago, there was an explosion at a night club in Israel, and it's looking like another suicide bomber attack. It hasn't been confirmed if it was a terrorist attack or not, but common sense tells me it was.

 

Although it has a very strong friendship with America,Israel is a totally different place.Arafat is no threat to America,the guy has been trying to get in the USA's good books for years,and doesn't have the cash or will to do any damage to America i would say !!!

 

The paranoia and stupidity of some people amazes me. (Slaps forehead)

 

I am much more scared of George.W.Bush then I am of either Castro or Sadam.

 

Hear! Hear! ZorbatheJedi.



And Bush is a greater threat than any of the others you may wish to name, he is on a warpath and his really won't stop until he is satisfied. Or until he goes the way of Lincoln or Kennedy.

 

Castro does have WOMD, and that's the point. Not to mention that terrorists can most easily sneak in from Cuba than any other nation. Plus since they don't adhear to any type of US mandate they would most happily ignore any reports of terrorists setting up shop on their island. A dog on a chain will bark alot and make alot of noise, but the true threat are the ones that doesn't make noise. It's always the quite ones you have to watch out for.

 

*blinks*

I really don't see how Castro is a threat. Cuba hasn't really been a threat since the Sixties. I'm not really following the reasoning here. Is it because Cuba is a Communist country in the Western Hemisphere? (*gasp*) What's wrong with that? It's not necessarily a very viable economic policy, but I'd still rather live in Cuba than in some of its neighboring countries -- and I would really rather live in Cuba than Iraq.

Cuba was a "threat" because it was being used to store missles by the Soviet Union -- which, incidently, no longer exists. Whereas Iraq has a hate-spewing dictator running around trying to assemble weapons for the past ten years. Gulf War, anyone? <sarcasm> Oh yeah. I really see how Cuba's the bigger threat. </sarcasm>

Anyway. Just my two cents.