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Iran Nuclear Deal Reached

nytimes.com

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Re: Iran Nuclear Deal Reached

#181

Post by thwest »

maratd wrote: post #113
user_0001 wrote: post #105

>(besides Israel, obviously) Out of interest, why obviously? The unfaltering support given to Israel seems strange (to most outside of the US who I have spoken to). Israel has it's religious fundamentalists (just like the rest of the region). Is militarily aggressive, disregards civilian life, commits war crimes, disregards international law and opinion (with impunity due to the US and their veto - and forcing other…

> The unfaltering support given to Israel seems strange There's nothing strange about it. Yes, it is militarily aggressive and has to be considering the neighborhood. The support given is purely selfish as Israel is the only nation in the region which mirrors the values the US wishes to promote in the region, provides military support when needed, and a plethora of other various benefits which none of the other playe…

> Yes, it is militarily aggressive and has to be considering the neighborhood.

Citation needed. If we grant Israel its claimed borders, it has only ever witnessed domestic terrorism, never territorial aggression from neighboring states.

Re: Iran Nuclear Deal Reached

#182

Post by [deleted] »

maratd wrote: post #113
user_0001 wrote: post #105

>(besides Israel, obviously) Out of interest, why obviously? The unfaltering support given to Israel seems strange (to most outside of the US who I have spoken to). Israel has it's religious fundamentalists (just like the rest of the region). Is militarily aggressive, disregards civilian life, commits war crimes, disregards international law and opinion (with impunity due to the US and their veto - and forcing other…

> The unfaltering support given to Israel seems strange There's nothing strange about it. Yes, it is militarily aggressive and has to be considering the neighborhood. The support given is purely selfish as Israel is the only nation in the region which mirrors the values the US wishes to promote in the region, provides military support when needed, and a plethora of other various benefits which none of the other playe…

[deleted]

Re: Iran Nuclear Deal Reached

#183

Post by [deleted] »

maratd wrote: post #113
user_0001 wrote: post #105

>(besides Israel, obviously) Out of interest, why obviously? The unfaltering support given to Israel seems strange (to most outside of the US who I have spoken to). Israel has it's religious fundamentalists (just like the rest of the region). Is militarily aggressive, disregards civilian life, commits war crimes, disregards international law and opinion (with impunity due to the US and their veto - and forcing other…

> The unfaltering support given to Israel seems strange There's nothing strange about it. Yes, it is militarily aggressive and has to be considering the neighborhood. The support given is purely selfish as Israel is the only nation in the region which mirrors the values the US wishes to promote in the region, provides military support when needed, and a plethora of other various benefits which none of the other playe…

[deleted]

Re: Iran Nuclear Deal Reached

#184

Post by angrybits »

awfullyjohn wrote: post #164
angrybits wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US is not good at wars. What? We can kick pretty much any country's ass six ways from Sunday. We admittedly have trouble with having the political fortitude to fully break our adversary's will to fight back, but I think that is a systemic issue with a faster flow of information (starting with Vietnam). It's not necessarily a US-specific problem, and it certainly doesn't mean the US is not "good at war". While w…

I'd read this as "The US is not good at cleaning up after wars" more than whether the US is good at "kicking ass"

It's the way things are. You have to subdue the opposing side completely, or the war never ends. Doing this means essentially beating them mercilessly until they have no choice to fully capitulate. It's not that we lack the capability, it's that soccer moms don't want to see that shit on CNN. War is an ugly business, and we seem to have lost our stomach for it. Time will tell if it is to our benefit or determent.

Re: Iran Nuclear Deal Reached

#185

Post by epc »

Tomte wrote: post #107
afiedler wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extremely likely to pass. Since this isn't technically a "treaty", Congress can only pass a bill to disapprove of it [1]. Obama can then veto the disapproval, and there are enough Democrats to override the veto. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/world/middleeast/congress-...

Does the president need approval by Congress for lifting the sanctions? I don't know the answer, but I suppose that might be an issue.

Congress must pass a bill to revoke the US sanctions, which is a separate act of legislation from assenting to this deal. There are several Executive Orders which Obama can revoke but the embargo proper is embedded in US legislation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._sanctions_against_Iran

Re: Iran Nuclear Deal Reached

#186

Post by selimthegrim »

angrybits wrote: post #126
threeseed wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of countries in the world that have questionable human rights records. Many of whom the "West" has quite strong relationships with e.g. China, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Russia. Putting a blindfold on and pretending you can just contain or ignore certain countries has failed as a strategy and will continue to fail. So unless you want to do something about Iran militarily (not feasible) then you are lookin…

> The US is not good at wars. What? We can kick pretty much any country's ass six ways from Sunday. We admittedly have trouble with having the political fortitude to fully break our adversary's will to fight back, but I think that is a systemic issue with a faster flow of information (starting with Vietnam). It's not necessarily a US-specific problem, and it certainly doesn't mean the US is not "good at war". While w…

Oh really, so those Iraqi franc-tireurs and IEDs were just simulations then then? Maybe Baudrillard is still alive....winning a war involves having an endgame in line with victory objectives, and the US can't rule over countries that don't have a coherent political structure in place to dicker over costs and benefits upon exit.

Re: Iran Nuclear Deal Reached

#187

Post by hodwik »

EliRivers wrote: post #168
hodwik wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Access most certainly matters, we wouldn't have made that mistake with Iraq had we had reliable access. If you recall, one of the "smoking guns" that the administration used to move into Iraq were intercepted phone conversations between Iraqi Republican Guard members. Those conversations mentioned "hiding" something before the inspectors got to a site. Since Iraq (like Iran) was allowed a few days before any visit, i…

Remember this graphic, much shown in the media? The bullshit made up nonsense about mobile WMD factories? Yes. I recall that the thinking was that there were entire convoys of these driving around in deserts somewhere. They had to exist, right, because that explains why we can't find the WMDs. The decision had been made. Access was irrelevant because the invasion was going to happen anyway. Any number of "smoking gun…

Just about everyone thought there were WMDs. The decision had been made, yes, but because we thought there were hidden caches and moving caches that the weapons inspectors were ill-equipped to find, and Saddam was comfortable with everyone (Iran especially) believing that.

(I mean, people are still digging up 1980s-era WMDs in Iraq. They're pretty easy to hide, they're not large. It wasn't an insane thing to believe.)

Saddam just made a bad bet when he thought we would go back to inspections the last time, he had played his little good guy/bad guy game too long.

And in the end, good riddance, we should have taken him out WMDs or not -- the problem wasn't an invasion in Iraq, but a poorly planned invasion in Iraq.

Re: Iran Nuclear Deal Reached

#188

Post by roymurdock »

selimthegrim wrote: post #154
roymurdock wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested to hear what the general young Iranian sentiment is towards the Iranian government, the US government, and the agreement. I worked in Afghanistan at a telecom provider last summer. A lot of my coworkers were young 20-somethings whose parents had fled Afghanistan when the Taliban came to power from 1996-2001. The majority of them had been raised in Iran; the minority, in Pakistan. The ones who had been…

What were the ones raised in Pakistan like (was there a contrast?)

The ones raised in Pakistan (in general) enjoyed going back more often to visit family/friends who were still in Pakistan and didn't have too much to say about the governance of the country.

Also, I definitely want to reiterate that both groups were happy to have been raised outside of Afghanistan because they probably would've been persecuted/killed under the Taliban as the majority of them belonged to an ethnic minority group, the Hazara. The Hazara have more Asian blood than the Pashtun (majority group, typically what you would think of as "Afghan") -- I recommend that you do a quick google image search, you might be surprised at what some Afghans look like. I think I worked with mostly Iran-raised Hazara because the wealthier families fled to Iran and the children received a better education there than those who went to Pakistan, allowing them to get a relatively good job at this telecom.

As the US/EU troops have closed down bases and have all but exited the country, many Hazara are looking to leave again due to the increasing prevalence of the Taliban.

Re: Iran Nuclear Deal Reached

#189

Post by selimthegrim »

roymurdock wrote: post #188
selimthegrim wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were the ones raised in Pakistan like (was there a contrast?)

The ones raised in Pakistan (in general) enjoyed going back more often to visit family/friends who were still in Pakistan and didn't have too much to say about the governance of the country. Also, I definitely want to reiterate that both groups were happy to have been raised outside of Afghanistan because they probably would've been persecuted/killed under the Taliban as the majority of them belonged to an ethnic min…

Hazara in Pakistan, esp in Balochistan do not have it very good these days - I wonder how closely they identify with that nationality.

Re: Iran Nuclear Deal Reached

#190

Post by meragrin »

Retric wrote: post #103
adventured wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you claim universal healthcare, with 12% [1] of the population not covered by any form of health insurance? The US system has very little in common with European style universal healthcare. To say nothing of the extreme cost most Americans still pay for their health insurance, or the bankruptcies that are still overwhelming in the system. Universal healthcare that bankrupts millions of people? That's an inher…

Universal! = free or total. If you test positive for AIDS you can after the fact buy health insurance long before you need significant medical care. That implies a defacto basic level of coverage for long term chronic conditions which is by far the largest issue. PS: As to the 11.9% figure, that does not include large numbers of people with significant access to health care that’s not based on insurance. EX: https://…

If universal is not total, then we've always had universal healthcare. Oh, and you might want to inform all dictionaries they have the incorrect definition of universal.

The legislation signed by Obama is not universal healthcare in any sense. Maybe universal health insurance, but certainly not healthcare. Insurance does not make healthcare affordable.

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