Iranian Nukes

And if you fall for what the Bush Crime Family are peddling now on Iran, you're a complete idiot. I say that with all seriousness.

Can't you see that they are following the exact same script they used to frighten the US public into backing the invasion of Iraq? That turned out well now, didn't it? Seen any weapons of mass destruction yet? Any ties to the criminals who attacked the US on September 11? No, you haven't, and you never will, because all the rationales were totally bogus. Meanwhile the US has managed to slaughter over 100,000 Iraqis, and generated even more blindly furious people willing to commit acts of terror. This was predicted by the anti-war movement before the invasion, and it didn't require a degree in rocket science to reach this conclusion.

And let's look a little further. Besides the United States, which country in the Middle East has a massive nuclear arsenal? A massive chemical arsenal? And the means to deliver all of those nasty things? Oh, don't tell me you can't see the elephant in the living room. It's Israel. Which conveniently has never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, so is never subject to any inspection demands. Just as an aside, Israel's refusal to sign the non-proliferation treaty means that every penny of US aid to that colonial-settler state is ILLEGAL UNDER US LAW!!! Not that US law, let alone international law, has ever mattered much to any of the successive US administrations.

Iran is well within its rights to develop nuclear power plants, and the means to supply the necessary inputs. When the US takes the lead in destroying, rather than proliferating, nuclear and chemical weaponry, only then will it be in any moral or legal position to demand that others do the same. Meanwhile, by threatening to attack, the US is only strengthening the hand of the most reactionary political currents in Iran.

Given that the US and Britain overthrew the last functioning democratic regime in Iran, it's more than a little ironic to hear Bush and Blair bleating about the need to bring democracy to that nation. Without the coup in 1953, there would have been no torture state under the Shah; no Khomeni; no absurd reason for the US to arm and fund Saddam to attack Iran; and the whole planet would be in a lot better shape.

Those exiles you seen marching likely include the groups that the Bush administration still has on its list of "terrorists," who are merrily pumping out all sorts of bullshit "intelligence" that just so conviently meshes with the desires of the Bush
Gang to attack Iran. We just saw this with Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraq National Congress. How many times do you have to watch this charade before you figure out what's going on?

Bush and Blair are war criminals, plain and simple. There will be no possibility of peace until the US and British troops are out of Iraq. Any thought of further invasions is total, utter madness.

I think I'll stroll on over to the hifi section now...

Jim

The plain reality is that your views are based on a hunch rather than hard core fact. You are sitting in an American town and you have absolutely no knowledge at all of what is happening in Iran and what their future intentions are.

We reley on the intelligence services for that.

Also another point to remember is that President Bush's policies have been endorsed by the American people and his approach is considered to be basically in line and correct.

Iran needs "knocking into shape" and best to do it now whilst we can, rather than let it get out of control.

North Korea is also another case in point.

Regards

Mick

Tom

The war in Iraq was necessary and it was endorsed by the American people.

Blair will win the next election and that frankly negates your argument.

The present policies will continue.

Regards

Mick

quote:

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Originally posted by Tom Alves:
Anyway what about Israel, Pakistan, N Korea or India

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From the IRANIAN PRESS SERVICE, Dec 14, 2001

RAFSANJANI SAYS MUSLIMS SHOULD USE NUCLEAR WEAPON AGAINST ISRAEL

TEHRAN 14 Dec. (IPS) One of Iran's most influential ruling clerics called Friday on the Muslim states to use nuclear weapons against Israel, assuring them that while such an attack would annihilate Israel, it would cost them "damages only".

"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world", Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani told the crowd at the traditional Friday prayers in Tehran..."Jews shall expect to be once again scattered and wandering around the globe the day when this appendix is extracted from the region and the Muslim world", Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani warned, blaming on the United States and Britain the "creation of the fabricated entity" in the heart of Arab and Muslim world..."


Rafsanjani, sometimes described as a “moderate” among Iranian mullahs, also has described the establishment of Israel as the “worst event in history.”

Ayatollah Ali Khameni, head of Iran’s powerful religious council, has declared “that the cancerous tumor called Israel must be uprooted from the region.”

Steve, it's presumably no surprise to anybody that Iran uses anti-Israel propaganda and contains elements so hostile to Israel that they are prepared to talk about using nuclear weapons against it. It's not a basis on which to invade a country.

I'm astonished that anybody is falling for this nonsense. Everyone knows what the neo-cons are up to, you'd have to be unbelievably dense to let them get away with another invasion.

-- Ian

Tom

The only thing that counts is power and Blair and Bush have been given that power by the people.

End of discussion.

If you want to carry on protesting, be my guest, you won't acheive anything.

Regards

Mick

Mick:

I happen to be a member of "the reality-based community." In case you don't catch that joke, it's how a Bush aide recently disparaged those who weren't drinking the Kool-Aid.

Facts are stubborn things, and they exist whether or not a majority of the electorate recognizes them. 60-70% of Bush voters think that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which has been shown to be a falsehood. A majority of Bush supporters think that Saddam was involved in the attacks of 9/11. Another clear falsehood. It was abundantly clear through the course of the US election campaign that Bush supporters were not swayed by facts. That is very frightening, but true.

This election was also not a clear debate on the war. Kerry's position was incoherent. He made the crucial (wrong) choice to vote in favor of Bush's war resolution, and never took the opportunities provided over the course of the campaign to change his position. So we had the spectacle of the Democratic Party convention where the delegates were overwhelmingly opposed to the war, but Kerry campaigned in favor of sending more troops and "winning," whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. The Bush gang successfully painted Kerry as a waffler. I had co-workers (I work in a factory building warplanes, unfortunately) tell me that they thought Bush was "decisive." Yeah, well Hitler was decisive too. When you're driving off a cliff, "staying the course" is not a sign of intelligence.

Your comment about the "intelligence services" must have been meant as a joke. After the experience of the past two years you cannot believe that the bilge pumped out in Tony's famous "dossiers" or the preposterous shite spoken by Colin Powell at the UN reflected any serious "intelligence." Right now we're seeing a purge at the CIA as the Bush Gang tosses out all those who took their jobs seriously, ie passed along honest advice as opposed to bending and twisting things to fit the desires of Bush, Cheney, and Co. There was an "intelligence failure," alright, but not in the sense you think.

You sound like you were born a century too late. You might have relished the opportunity to personally go slaughter darker-skinned people elsewhere around the globe. Iraq, even under the very brutal Saddam Hussein, posed no threat to you or to me. Nor do the Iranians today. Oh, yeah: set the way back machine to the 1980's. There were MP's who protested Thatcher's support for Saddam Hussein. Tony Blair wasn't among them. Just like Rumsfeld, Cheney, Colin Powell, and many others in the Bush administration, he was complicit in arming and supporting Saddam during his most brutal period. Those who aided Saddam in real time have no standing to now point to his crimes as reason to invade Iraq - especially when Iraq posed no threat to any other country.

That Tony Blair will win the next election says nothing about the honesty of his politics. The Liberal Democrats aren't yet strong enough to throw him out. But the Labor Party are the new Tories now.

Has a child of yours come home in a body bag? How "necessary" would you think this criminal invasion to be if that were the case? And what of the Iraqi people? Bush and Blair have liberated 100,000 of them from life. In Vietnam the story was "we had to destroy the village in order to save it." I guess progress is now evident by our destroying entire cities instead.

Bush and Blair represent Lies and Death. That a majority of voters back them doesn't make them right. Lots of demagogues have garnered mass support, at least for a period of time.

Open your flippin' eyes, mate!

Jim

I repeat, Bush has had his policies endorsed in the last election and that is it for another 4 years.

You have lost before you even begin.

Regards

Mick

Tom

Just think before you write.

Hitler, Stalin and Saddam were dictators. They were not given power, they took it and kept it and "eliminated" anyone who stood in their way, usually with a bullet.

Blair and Bush have been democratically elected.

You have your chance to change things at the next election, so get off your ass, join some political party, knock on doors and get them voting for what you believe in.

If you continue to spend hours waffling here, you will achieve nothing.

The ball is in your court.

Regards

Mick.....off to do some shopping.

Allen

I am basically happy with the way things are going and am only defending the policies of democratically elected politicians.

I represent the great majority.

Tom represents the whinging, protesting bunch of failures who spend all their time complaining about Government policies and yet do nothing about it other than whinge.

How can you respect that lot.

Regards

Mick

quote:

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Originally posted by sideshowbob:
Steve, it's presumably no surprise to anybody that Iran uses anti-Israel propaganda and contains elements so hostile to Israel that they are prepared to talk about using nuclear weapons against it. It's not a basis on which to invade a country.

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Ian,

Iran has provided funding and weaponry to terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah, whose stated goals were also the annihilation of Israel.

Perhaps they would provide nuclear weapons to such groups, perhaps they wouldn't. Perhaps their 'nuke Israel' talk is just rhetoric, perhaps not. You say that this is not a basis on which to invade a country. If the stated aim was to destroy London rather than Israel, would you vote for the UK political party who had 'talk sternly to them' in its manifesto? Isn't 'talk sternly' the UN policy that did nothing to prevent one of the most horrific episodes in recent history in Rwanda and currently overseas the situation in Dafur/Sudan, where all reasonable estimates put the casualty levels an order of magnitude higher than the current tragic situation in Iraq.

I saw a video of an Iranian State stoning of men who had broken an Islamic law. It was one of the most shocking, repugnant and chilling films I have ever seen. Whatever the rights or wrongs of our government in their foreign policy, from Suez to the Falkland war to the invasion of Iraq, there is a fundamental difference in the actions of the Iranian government, which becomes horrifyingly clear to anyone who watched this video.

quote:

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Originally posted by Tom Alves:
Steve - if that your article is true then I agree, it's not that happy but Israel also has illegal WMD & Nucleur Capability which itholds against the wishes of the international community and which it refuses to give up.

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Tom,

What would you 'agree' with? I hadn't made any comment thus far in this thread, other than to highlight a news clip about an Iranian ex-pat protest and to quote some comments by Iranian officials.

I agree that Israel almost certainly has some sort of nuclear weapon capability, although this has never been admitted and no tests have been carried out. However, no threats have ever been made to annihilate any other country.

Perhaps, as you say, the solution is not to say "Blast the fuckers". However, in the event of even a relatively small nuclear bomb dropping on Israel, they would have no other cheek to turn.

quote:

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Originally posted by 7V:
You say that this is not a basis on which to invade a country. If the stated aim was to destroy London rather than Israel, would you vote for the UK political party who had 'talk sternly to them' in its manifesto?

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I don't vote on principle, but I'm not, in general, in favour of invading every country that has elements in government who have talked of destroying the West (including London, presumably), or even have funded terrorism, such as the many regimes who provided aid to the IRA in the 70s and 80s. Invading countries who sabre-rattle against you isn't a grown-up foreign policy. In fact, it's a suicidal foreign policy.

Iran is no more a threat to Israel now than it was 6 months ago, or 12 months ago, or 2 years ago.

-- Ian

7V:

Given the actions of Israel over the course its history - most especially since 1967 - the argument you make in favor of military action against Iran hold a hundred fold against Israel. Israel most definitely has nuclear weaponry, definitely has chemical weaponry, has one of the most potent air forces in the world - and has violated more UN Security Council resolutions than anyone.

An objective observer, perhaps an alien beamed in from Mars, would take a look around and quicky conclude that Israel, not Iraq nor Iran, poses more of a threat to peace. Israel is a highly militarized, colonial power. You point to brutalities committed in a video you've seen. What Israel does in the occupied territories on a daily basis doesn't bother you?

The current government in Iran isn't peaches adn cream. It's also hated by a large segment of the Iranian population. But the US isn't threatening Iran to bring "democracy" and "liberation" to the Iranian people. No more so than it is bringing it to Iraq. Just look at the places the US is setting up military bases. Do an overlay on the oil and gas reserves of the world. Notice any similarity?

And poor Mick: you're not a citizen, you're a subject. You think the liberties we possess, going all the way back to the Magna Charta, came from people who accepted that those in Power were always right and deserving? Sorry, buddy, they came from the actions of the whingers. I guess I'm not just a proud member of the reality-based community, but a whinger too. All I know is that millions of us helped bring a halt to the US invasion of Vietnam. We did it once, we can do it again.

Just on a musical note: go listen to John Fogerty's great new song "Deja Vu All Over Again." His Credence Clearwater Revival tunes were great favorites among the US soldiers in Vietnam, because they pointed out the hypocrisy of the rulers of the time. His new song is spot on the money again.

It's WAY too late over here in the upper left coast, where Bush was thoroughly trounced in the election. I'm going to sleep.

quote:

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Originally posted by sideshowbob:
... Invading countries who sabre-rattle against you isn't a grown-up foreign policy. In fact, it's a suicidal foreign policy.

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Of course. However, political leaders have to make a judgement on the individual circumstance of each threat.

quote:

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Iran is no more a threat to Israel now than it was 6 months ago, or 12 months ago, or 2 years ago.

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The development of a nuclear weapon capability with a delivery system is a finite process. As Iran has embarked upon that process, it is clearly 6 months, 12 months or 2 years closer to its conclusion. Of course it's more of a threat.

Steve M

quote:

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Originally posted by jimlevitt:
An objective observer, perhaps an alien beamed in from Mars, would take a look around and quicky conclude that Israel, not Iraq nor Iran, poses more of a threat to peace. Israel is a highly militarized, colonial power. You point to brutalities committed in a video you've seen. What Israel does in the occupied territories on a daily basis doesn't bother you?

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Jim,

Your Martian alien observers give you their 'quick conclusion'; it may surprise you to know that mine come to a totally different conclusion.

And yes, much of what I've seen of the actions of Israelis in the occupied territories bothers me greatly.

Steve M

quote:

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Originally posted by 7V:
The development of a nuclear weapon capability with a delivery system is a finite process. As Iran has embarked upon that process, it is clearly 6 months, 12 months or 2 years closer to its conclusion. Of course it's more of a threat.

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Nope, the fact of a country developing a nuclear weapons programme does not in itself indicate an increased threat, although it's obviously A Bad Thing, and something only a lunatic would rejoice in, regardless of which country is involved... ;-)

-- Ian

quote:

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Originally posted by AllenB:
It could be said that Israel has the best intelligence network in the world. They also have been known to act pre-emptively. Only the Americans have any handle on pulling back their reins. Except now we have Bush and cohorts ... Worried? I am!

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AllenB,

I don't believe that Israel will act against Iran. I think it's more likely that, once Europe have finished their ineffectual pussy-footing, the US will act.

However, in 1981 Israel did act pre-emptively to destroy Saddam Hussein's nuclear capability. Would you be less worried if they hadn't?

Steve M

1) I don't see how anyone can argue that Israel (or India, or Pakistan, or France, or the UK) can have nuclear weapons but Iran can't. Becuase "they" are evil and dangerous and "we" are not?

2) Anyone really serious about removing Iran's nuclear ambitions would pursue a policy of engagement and disarmament.

(N. Korea is different and more complex as it's basicalyl irrational. Iran probably just wants money and rather less of it than an invasion would cost).

3) If Israel took the South African route on nuclear disarmament it seems entirely feasible that this can be linked to non-proliferation in places like Iran who pose a threat to Israel.

4) If Israel didn't have nucleaur weapons it would be less likely to get involved in a nuclear exhcange.

Matthew

Mick,

Bush is endorsed by god. He needs no other.

Do you per chance read 'the sun'? The reason I ask is that your arguments rate with that of the average 'sun reader.'

See you on the front line!

Colin

So my arguments which support both of our government are on par with the Sun.

It is that sneering and pompous attitude by members of the Democrats who always claim to be more articulate and intelligent etc, that cost them the election.

With prats like you, people like me will always be on the winning side, so may I, on behalf of the great silent majority, thank you for helping to get Bush elected.

Regards

Mick

Tom

I usually agree and have sympathy with what you say but I can't let you get away with;

'Hitler was voted into power by a massive popular vote'

Last free elections in Germany Novermber 1932 - National Socialist Party 33.1% of the vote, down 2 million on the previous election. Hitler then came to power by devious back stage politicking and by the use of the Reichstag fire got rid of the communists, passed the Enabling Act which enabled him to do what he liked and the rest as they say is history.

Not tremendously material to the current argument but if we are going to quote historical 'facts' lets at least get them right.

Tom

If Bush scored 51% and Kerry got 49% then Bush had a 4% lead of the electorate who voted.

Whether you like it or not, Bush won fair and square and Blair will almost certainly win again.

The electorate have therefore consolidated their policies, so why do you continue to go on moaning.

Regards

Mick

quote:

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Originally posted by matthewr:
1) I don't see how anyone can argue that Israel (or India, or Pakistan, or France, or the UK) can have nuclear weapons but Iran can't. Becuase "they" are evil and dangerous and "we" are not?

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Yes, basically that is what I believe and I'm not ashamed to say so.

Anyone that pursues a policy that their's is the only true religion and that others must follow it or die, whether they are Islamic fundamentalists now or Christian fundamentalists during the Inquisition, are evil.

quote:

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2) Anyone really serious about removing Iran's nuclear ambitions would pursue a policy of engagement and disarmament.

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Because ...

quote:

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(N. Korea is different and more complex as it's basicalyl irrational. Iran probably just wants money and rather less of it than an invasion would cost).

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Do you have any evidence whatsoever that Iran wants money to suspend its development of nuclear weapons?

quote:

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3) If Israel took the South African route on nuclear disarmament it seems entirely feasible that this can be linked to non-proliferation in places like Iran who pose a threat to Israel.

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I seriously doubt whether the existence or otherwise of Israeli nukes makes any difference to Iran who have the stated aim of the destruction of the State of Israel. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

quote:

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4) If Israel didn't have nucleaur weapons it would be less likely to get involved in a nuclear exhcange.

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Matthew, in a quite remarkable post, this is the most remarkable point made. Please excuse me if I don't comment on it.

Steve M

Tom

OK thats fine.

I think that the problem with Mick's argument is it reduces to politics to the level of a sporting event. So accordingly his team 'wins'and therefore has the right to do what they like for the next 4/5 years and nobody should complain.

I think that what you are asking is what line would Mick have taken in Nazi Germany - 'what is happening here is outrageous and should be stopped' or 'well we all voted them in and they can do what they like, oh and by the way what happened to those nice people who used to live next door'

I recall an excellent TV programme of the 80's whose name escapes me whose premise was that a moderate labour government was voted into power then hi-jacked by the extreme left wing faction, who proceeded to tear up the manifesto, pull the UK out of NATO etc, etc. What would be Mick's atitude to that?

Tom

My arguments do not have any flaws in them, they are basically defending the policies being implemented by the elected govenments either side of the pond.

You are just doing a Laurie Saunders and arguing for the sake of it.

I could not give a tinkers cuss whether you approve or disapprove of what I think.

The main point is that you are the one doing the complaining about government policies and I am just lying back, seeing what I believe to be the right policy being carried out.

Your views, however, are dead. Your wishes are not going to happen, so give yourself a break and prune a few roses or whatever.

Regards

Mick