41–50 of 95 posts
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Well, Iran's leaders have stated that they wish to wipe Israel off the map. At least Israel has a legitimate reason to what they are doing and then some.
Israel did wipe another country off the map: Palestine. Yet we trust them with nukes, which they don't have at all .
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That's a rather strong statement. Some people would argue that Iran with weapons grade uranium could reasonably increase the chances that 50,000 Americans will die in the next 10 years by more than 1 in 10,000. That suggests the US could reasonably kill 5 Iranians to deal with the threat. However, Iran would respond to such action which suggests a more limited response such such as planting a virus is reasonable as l…
I think a nuclear armed Iran would greatly decrease the probability of Americans being killed by Iranians. The logic is simple: nukes bring a country into MAD (mutually assured destruction) mechanics. Most likely Iran would use Israel as a hostage since it would not have the ICBMs necessary to attack the US directly. It would be like North Korea and Japan, only "Japan" would be nuclear armed. I consider invasion of I…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, Iran's leaders have stated that they wish to wipe Israel off the map. At least Israel has a legitimate reason to what they are doing and then some.
No they haven't. That convenient mistranslation is widely reported because it suits the narrative of the major political powers [1]. They've essentially said the current political regime in Israel must / will disappear. However that sentiment is less useful if your aim is to portray the Iranian state as an aggressive, modern-day Nazi regime though. Anyway that aim (essentially portraying Iran as a country dedicated t…
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You don't like Israel, fine. To what in my post do you object? How do I act surprised? BTW, the _government_ of Israel has never been religiously driven, rather it has always been security conscious. The racism, nuclear deterrent, invasions, and assassinations are all a result of security policy (what do you call terrorism?). Condemning countries for espionage/spying (twice!) is kinda strange - all countries engage i…
Israel was founded by Lehi, Irgun, and Haganah. The evacuation plan which led to the population growth of Israel was invented by Irgun commander Ze'ev Jabotinsky. The sixth prime minister of Israel, Menachem Begin, was also a commander in Irgun. Irgun and Lehi led to Herut, which is now the modern controlling Likud party in Israel. Lehi also had Yitzhak Shamir who became prime minister in the 1980s. Lehi is famous fo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Israel was founded by Lehi, Irgun, and Haganah. The evacuation plan which led to the population growth of Israel was invented by Irgun commander Ze'ev Jabotinsky. The sixth prime minister of Israel, Menachem Begin, was also a commander in Irgun. Irgun and Lehi led to Herut, which is now the modern controlling Likud party in Israel. Lehi also had Yitzhak Shamir who became prime minister in the 1980s. Lehi is famous fo…
Funny that no one uses this logic to argue for wiping Ireland or South Africa "from the pages of history", isn't it?
SA split in two forming Namibia in 1990, the same year that the talks to end Apartheid started ... leading to the release of Mandela and the multi-racial 94 elections.
Sure, in California English, I'd be using different idioms for describing that transformation, but that is the whole point here ... sometimes idioms don't translate well and the nuanced connotative punch of a colloquialism can have different impacts in different areas. Some things just don't translate well; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you (although that one feels more like this: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/195/treehouse2.jpg/sr=1 ... who's to know?)
I would be in wide support for something similar to Israel, but instead of having say, a non-jewish prime minister, they take a Jewish State loyalty oath; an interesting opposite. Statehood ecumenism is seen as a radical idea in Israeli political discourse.
I'd just like them to be more inclusive and a bit less violent.
One has to question the reason why this information was leaked now. My guess is that Israel or the US wants Iran to be paranoid about a secret agent within their nuclear facilities and go hunting for a mole. Imagine if Israel planted evidence on a prominent Iranian physicist? Good luck proving your innocence. The whole Stuxnet story would make for a great spy novel, that's for sure.
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I think a nuclear armed Iran would greatly decrease the probability of Americans being killed by Iranians. The logic is simple: nukes bring a country into MAD (mutually assured destruction) mechanics. Most likely Iran would use Israel as a hostage since it would not have the ICBMs necessary to attack the US directly. It would be like North Korea and Japan, only "Japan" would be nuclear armed. I consider invasion of I…
>MAD should prevent this, like it does in North Korea I thought MAD only worked with rational players. Do we know the people who would hold the levers would be rational? We (the west) don't seem to have the same feedback network (i.e. spies) we could depend on as we did with the USSR. That and we had the "red phone" thing. Dunno if that was more gimmick than actual tool. >I don't buy neo-conservative... We don't know…
(I think nuclear weapons are probably the greatest ever contributory factor to world peace in absolute terms. I'm certain that the 20th century would have been far, far bloodier throughout its span had they not been invented.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a nuclear armed Iran would greatly decrease the probability of Americans being killed by Iranians. The logic is simple: nukes bring a country into MAD (mutually assured destruction) mechanics. Most likely Iran would use Israel as a hostage since it would not have the ICBMs necessary to attack the US directly. It would be like North Korea and Japan, only "Japan" would be nuclear armed. I consider invasion of I…
The (claimed) risk isn't that Iran would use nuclear weapons against the US in any official capacity. The risk is that Iran will simply leak nuclear weapons to a proxy terrorist organization (i.e. Hezbollah, Hamas, etc.) If you accept the US government's claims that Iran has used state sponsored terrorism as a political and social tool, then it follows that a nuclear armed Iran is a large risk to the United States.
I don't buy Iran arming terrorists with nukes either. Both the US and USSR have used state sponsored terrorism as political and social tools, but never armed them with nuclear weapons. Without extremely plausible deniability, the repercussions of MAD would reach through if such weapons were ever used.
I think Iran sees nuclear weapons as its ultimate defense against continuing belligerent and threatening rhetoric from the US. And from my perspective as a neutral observer, it's hard to disagree with them. I think it's inevitable that Iran will get nuclear weapons, and the sooner that reality is dealt with on a rational basis, the better. If anything, the US should be bargaining with Iran to get a quid pro quo in return for acceptance of nuclear armament.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't like Israel, fine. To what in my post do you object? How do I act surprised? BTW, the _government_ of Israel has never been religiously driven, rather it has always been security conscious. The racism, nuclear deterrent, invasions, and assassinations are all a result of security policy (what do you call terrorism?). Condemning countries for espionage/spying (twice!) is kinda strange - all countries engage i…
Israel was founded by Lehi, Irgun, and Haganah. The evacuation plan which led to the population growth of Israel was invented by Irgun commander Ze'ev Jabotinsky. The sixth prime minister of Israel, Menachem Begin, was also a commander in Irgun. Irgun and Lehi led to Herut, which is now the modern controlling Likud party in Israel. Lehi also had Yitzhak Shamir who became prime minister in the 1980s. Lehi is famous fo…
Saying that Israel engages in terrorism and is deeply rooted in terrorism based on actions of two small factions (Lehi was no more than a couple hundred people at its peak) from before the War of Independence which were then shut down by Ben Gurion and Haganah (e.g. the Altalena Affair) and were not allowed anywhere in government is... strange. American patriots in 1775 were also properly called terrorists by the British, but you don't claim that the USA is a terrorist organization deeply rooted in terrorism, do you? Anyway, the maximalists were not in government for the first thirty years and by then realities and their position changed a lot. The beliefs of Netanyahu are not the same beliefs as those of Jabotinsky, though they both support an independent Jewish State.
Your point is very difficult to take seriously because of all the hyperbole. If you support an unbroken Muslim land from Morocco to Indonesia, just say that, don't say "Israel is bad because they fought the British for independence". Who didn't fight the British for independence? Jeanne d'Arc did it! Why don't you rage on the British for all the suffering they caused in all corners of the world for centuries? All the people they killed?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a rather strong statement. Some people would argue that Iran with weapons grade uranium could reasonably increase the chances that 50,000 Americans will die in the next 10 years by more than 1 in 10,000. That suggests the US could reasonably kill 5 Iranians to deal with the threat. However, Iran would respond to such action which suggests a more limited response such such as planting a virus is reasonable as l…
I think a nuclear armed Iran would greatly decrease the probability of Americans being killed by Iranians. The logic is simple: nukes bring a country into MAD (mutually assured destruction) mechanics. Most likely Iran would use Israel as a hostage since it would not have the ICBMs necessary to attack the US directly. It would be like North Korea and Japan, only "Japan" would be nuclear armed. I consider invasion of I…
The Cold War was better than WWIII but it wasn't something to be cavalier about, over a hundred million people died due to the oppression in communist countries, and a far larger number of people's lives were irrevocably damaged by over a half century of tragedy. Even if a nuclear armed Iran likely won't end in a nuclear war that doesn't give license to simply pretend as though the prospect of a nuclear armed Iranian regime is anything other than a huge step backward for the world.
