We're Looking For the Newclear Wessels

Stardate 4157.9

US plans new tool to halt spread of weapons

Washington - The Bush administration is planning new measures that would target the U.S. assets of anyone conducting business with a handful of Iranian, North Korean and Syrian companies believed by Washington to be involved in weapons programs, administration officials said yesterday.

According to an internal government memo, it would provide a new tool in the efforts to stop trafficking in weapons of mass destruction "by authorizing the blocking or 'freezing' of assets of WMD proliferators and their supporters, and thereby prohibiting U.S. persons from engaging in transactions with them."

Now for me to see this as actually working out, the intelligence used would have to be spot on and useable in court. I mean, a lot of companies and private individuals would most likely take legal action in the event the US Admin did something like this. I don't like the idea of WMDs being built and sold now these companies and departments that are not on US soil are going to be "controlled" monetarily by the US... I see lots of problems.

They will freeze assets on US soil. Okay, fair enough. But why not simply open a bank account in Switzerland, or perhaps the Barbados? Aha! They have an answer to that though.

"If there is a bank in some European capital that is participating in working with one of the entities and that bank has some assets in the U.S., it is conceivable that some action could be taken to the bank's assets here," said one senior official with knowledge of the order's details. Russian and Chinese companies in particular, which do enormous business with Iran and North Korea, could be more affected than others by the new strategy, officials said.

Bush made the centerpiece of his national security strategy a promise to prevent what he called "the world's most destructive weapons" from getting into the hands of the worst U.S. foes. That resolve, and the strategy to achieve it, brought the president to war in Iraq against a source of weapons that were never found.

Since the US failure to produce any WMDs in Iraq, Bushco has had nothing but problems dealing with all of the "small fry" up and coming Nuke countries, like Iran and North Korea. Naturally, their credibility is very low, so gettign international support is quite difficult. Of course, the US' current policy towards the United Nations and their Weapons Inspectors (who incidentally were RIGHT) shows that they don't care what the rest of the world thinks...

So the question is... Will the intelligence they use to gather all of this information be accurate? Will they be willing to provide it when it counts? Or is this just another way they are extending their arm to control more of the world? After all, these are the saem folks that gave weapons to half of the countries in the world... and now, why should they be the only ones allowed to keep them?