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"America is the source of terrorism" (pg. 5)
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| Blue Balls |
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
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Read this than tell me who really is at fault in the middle east.
(Source: www.foreignpolicy.com)
HERE IS THE ARTICLE
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Imagine that Israel never existed. Would the economic malaise and political repression that drive angry young men to become suicide bombers vanish? Would the Palestinians have an independent state? Would the United States, freed of its burdensome ally, suddenly find itself beloved throughout the Muslim world? Wishful thinking. Far from creating tensions, Israel actually contains more antagonisms than it causes.
Since World War II, no state has suffered so cruel a reversal of fortunes as Israel. Admired all the way into the 1970s as the state of “those plucky Jews” who survived against all odds and made democracy and the desert bloom in a climate hostile to both liberty and greenery, Israel has become the target of creeping delegitimization. The denigration comes in two guises. The first, the soft version, blames Israel first and most for whatever ails the Middle East, and for having corrupted U.S. foreign policy. It is the standard fare of editorials around the world, not to mention the sheer venom oozing from the pages of the Arab-Islamic press. The more recent hard version zeroes in on Israel’s very existence. According to this dispensation, it is Israel as such, and not its behavior, that lies at the root of troubles in the Middle East. Hence the “statocidal” conclusion that Israel’s birth, midwifed by both the United States and the Soviet Union in 1948, was a grievous mistake, grandiose and worthy as it may have been at the time.
The soft version is familiar enough. One motif is the “wagging the dog” theory. Thus, in the United States, the “Jewish lobby” and a cabal of neoconservatives have bamboozled the Bush administration into a mindless pro-Israel policy inimical to the national interest. This view attributes, as has happened so often in history, too much clout to the Jews. And behind this charge lurks a more general one—that it is somehow antidemocratic for subnational groups to throw themselves into the hurly-burly of politics when it comes to foreign policy. But let us count the ways in which subnational entities battle over the national interest: unions and corporations clamor for tariffs and tax loopholes; nongovernmental organizations agitate for humanitarian intervention; and Cuban Americans keep us from smoking cheroots from the Vuelta Abajo. In previous years, Poles militated in favor of Solidarity, African Americans against Apartheid South Africa, and Latvians against the Soviet Union. In other words, the democratic melee has never stopped at the water’s edge.
Another soft version is the “root-cause” theory in its many variations. Because the “obstinate” and “recalcitrant” Israelis are the main culprits, they must be punished and pushed back for the sake of peace. “Put pressure on Israel”; “cut economic and military aid”; “serve them notice that we will not condone their brutalities”—these have been the boilerplate homilies, indeed the obsessions, of the chattering classes and the foreign-office establishment for decades. Yet, as Sigmund Freud reminded us, obsessions tend to spread. And so there are ever more creative addenda to the well-wrought root-cause theory. Anatol Lieven of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argues that what is happening between Israelis and Palestinians is a “tremendous obstacle to democratization because it inflames all the worst, most regressive aspects of Arab nationalism and Arab culture.” In other words, the conflict drives the pathology, and not the other way around—which is like the streetfighter explaining to the police: “It all started when this guy hit back.”
The problem with this root-cause argument is threefold: It blurs, if not reverses, cause and effect. It ignores a myriad of conflicts unrelated to Israel. And it absolves the Arabs of culpability, shifting the blame to you know whom. If one believes former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, the Arab-Islamic quest for weapons of mass destruction, and by extension the war against Iraq, are also Made in Israel. “[A]s long as Israel has nuclear weapons,” Ritter opines, “it has chosen to take a path that is inherently confrontational.…Now the Arab countries, the Muslim world, is not about to sit back and let this happen, so they will seek their own deterrent. We saw this in Iraq, not only with a nuclear deterrent but also with a biological weapons deterrent…that the Iraqis were developing to offset the Israeli nuclear superiority.”
This theory would be engaging if it did not collide with some inconvenient facts. Iraqis didn’t use their weapons of mass destruction against the Israeli usurper but against fellow Muslims during the Iran-Iraq War, and against fellow Iraqis in the poison-gas attack against Kurds in Halabja in 1988—neither of whom were brandishing any nuclear weapons. As for the Iraqi nuclear program, we now have the “Duelfer Report,” based on the debriefing of Iraqi regime loyalists, which concluded: “Iran was the pre-eminent motivator of this policy. All senior-level Iraqi officials considered Iran to be Iraq’s principal enemy in the region. The wish to balance Israel and acquire status and influence in the Arab world were also considerations, but secondary.”
Now to the hard version. Ever so subtly, a more baleful tone slips into this narrative: Israel is not merely an unruly neighbor but an unwelcome intruder. Still timidly uttered outside the Arab world, this version’s proponents in the West bestride the stage as truth-sayers who dare to defy taboo. Thus, the British writer A.N. Wilson declares that he has reluctantly come to the conclusion that Israel, through its own actions, has proven it does not have the right to exist. And, following Sept. 11, 2001, Brazilian scholar Jose Arthur Giannotti said: “Let us agree that the history of the Middle East would be entirely different without the State of Israel, which opened a wound between Islam and the West. Can you get rid of Muslim terrorism without getting rid of this wound which is the source of the frustration of potential terrorists?”
The very idea of a Jewish state is an “anachronism,” argues Tony Judt, a professor and director of the Remarque Institute at New York University. It resembles a “late-nineteenth-century separatist project” that has “no place” in this wondrous new world moving toward the teleological perfection of multiethnic and multicultural togetherness bound together by international law. The time has come to “think the unthinkable,” hence, to ditch this Jewish state for a binational one, guaranteed, of course, by international force.
So let us assume that Israel is an anachronism and a historical mistake without which the Arab-Islamic world stretching from Algeria to Egypt, from Syria to Pakistan, would be a far happier place, above all because the original sin, the establishment of Israel, never would have been committed. Then let’s move from the past to the present, pretending that we could wave a mighty magic wand, and “poof,” Israel disappears from the map.
Civilization of Clashes
Let us start the what-if procession in 1948, when Israel was born in war. Would stillbirth have nipped the Palestinian problem in the bud? Not quite. Egypt, Transjordan (now Jordan), Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon marched on Haifa and Tel Aviv not to liberate Palestine, but to grab it. The invasion was a textbook competitive power play by neighboring states intent on acquiring territory for themselves. If they had been victorious, a Palestinian state would not have emerged, and there still would have been plenty of refugees. (Recall that half the population of Kuwait fled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s “liberation” of that country in 1990.) Indeed, assuming that Palestinian nationalism had awakened when it did in the late 1960s and 1970s, the Palestinians might now be dispatching suicide bombers to Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere.
Let us imagine Israel had disappeared in 1967, instead of occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which were held, respectively, by Jordan’s King Hussein and Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Would they have relinquished their possessions to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and thrown in Haifa and Tel Aviv for good measure? Not likely. The two potentates, enemies in all but name, were united only by their common hatred and fear of Arafat, the founder of Fatah (the Palestine National Liberation Movement) and rightly suspected of plotting against Arab regimes. In short, the “root cause” of Palestinian statelessness would have persisted, even in Israel’s absence.
Let us finally assume, through a thought experiment, that Israel goes “poof” today. How would this development affect the political pathologies of the Middle East? Only those who think the Palestinian issue is at the core of the Middle East conflict would lightly predict a happy career for this most dysfunctional region once Israel vanishes. For there is no such thing as “the” conflict. A quick count reveals five ways in which the region’s fortunes would remain stunted—or worse:
States vs. States: Israel’s elimination from the regional balance would hardly bolster intra-Arab amity. The retraction of the colonial powers, Britain and France, in the mid-20th century left behind a bunch of young Arab states seeking to redraw the map of the region. From the very beginning, Syria laid claim to Lebanon. In 1970, only the Israeli military deterred Damascus from invading Jordan under the pretext of supporting a Palestinian uprising. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Nasser’s Egypt proclaimed itself the avatar of pan-Arabism, intervening in Yemen during the 1960s. Nasser’s successor, President Anwar Sadat, was embroiled in on-and-off clashes with Libya throughout the late 1970s. Syria marched into Lebanon in 1976 and then effectively annexed the country 15 years later, and Iraq launched two wars against fellow Muslim states: Iran in 1980, Kuwait in 1990. The war against Iran was the longest conventional war of the 20th century. None of these conflicts is related to the Israeli-Palestinian one. Indeed, Israel’s disappearance would only liberate military assets for use in such internal rivalries.
Believers vs. Believers: Those who think that the Middle East conflict is a “Muslim-Jewish thing” had better take a closer look at the score card: 14 years of sectarian bloodshed in Lebanon; Saddam’s campaign of extinction against the Shia in the aftermath of the first Gulf War; Syria’s massacre of 20,000 people in the Muslim Brotherhood stronghold of Hama in 1982; and terrorist violence against Egyptian Christians in the 1990s. Add to this tally intraconfessional oppression, such as in Saudi Arabia, where the fundamentalist Wahhabi sect wields the truncheon of state power to inflict its dour lifestyle on the less devout.
Ideologies vs. Ideologies: Zionism is not the only “ism” in the region, which is rife with competing ideologies. Even though the Baathist parties in Syria and Iraq sprang from the same fascist European roots, both have vied for precedence in the Middle East. Nasser wielded pan-Arabism-cum-socialism against the Arab nation-state. And both Baathists and Nasserites have opposed the monarchies, such as in Jordan. Khomeinist Iran and Wahhabite Saudi Arabia remain mortal enemies. What is the connection to the Arab-Israeli conflict? Nil, with the exception of Hamas, a terror army of the faithful once supported by Israel as a rival to the Palestine Liberation Organization and now responsible for many suicide bombings in Israel. But will Hamas disband once Israel is gone? Hardly. Hamas has bigger ambitions than eliminating the “Zionist entity.” The organization seeks nothing less than a unified Arab state under a regime of God.
Reactionary Utopia vs. Modernity: A common enmity toward Israel is the only thing that prevents Arab modernizers and traditionalists from tearing their societies apart. Fundamentalists vie against secularists and reformist Muslims for the fusion of mosque and state under the green flag of the Prophet. And a barely concealed class struggle pits a minuscule bourgeoisie and millions of unemployed young men against the power structure, usually a form of statist cronyism that controls the means of production. Far from creating tensions, Israel actually contains the antagonisms in the world around it.
Regimes vs. Peoples: The existence of Israel cannot explain the breadth and depth of the Mukhabarat states (secret police states) throughout the Middle East. With the exceptions of Jordan, Morocco, and the Gulf sheikdoms, which gingerly practice an enlightened monarchism, all Arab countries (plus Iran and Pakistan) are but variations of despotism—from the dynastic dictatorship of Syria to the authoritarianism of Egypt. Intranational strife in Algeria has killed nearly 100,000, with no letup in sight. Saddam’s victims are said to number 300,000. After the Khomeinists took power in 1979, Iran was embroiled not only in the Iran-Iraq War but also in barely contained civil unrest into the 1980s. Pakistan is an explosion waiting to happen. Ruthless suppression is the price of stability in this region.
Again, it would take a florid imagination to surmise that factoring Israel out of the Middle East equation would produce liberal democracy in the region. It might be plausible to argue that the dialectic of enmity somehow favors dictatorship in “frontline states” such as Egypt and Syria—governments that invoke the proximity of the “Zionist threat” as a pretext to suppress dissent. But how then to explain the mayhem in faraway Algeria, the bizarre cult-of-personality regime in Libya, the pious kleptocracy of Saudi Arabia, the clerical despotism of Iran, or democracy’s enduring failure to take root in Pakistan? Did Israel somehow cause the various putsches that produced the republic of fear in Iraq? If Jordan, the state sharing the longest border with Israel, can experiment with constitutional monarchy, why not Syria?
It won’t do to lay the democracy and development deficits of the Arab world on the doorstep of the Jewish state. Israel is a pretext, not a cause, and therefore its dispatch will not heal the self-inflicted wounds of the Arab-Islamic world. Nor will the mild version of “statocide,” a binational state, do the trick—not in view of the “civilization of clashes” (to borrow a term from British historian Niall Ferguson) that is the hallmark of Arab political culture. The mortal struggle between Israelis and Palestinians would simply shift from the outside to the inside.
My Enemy, Myself
Can anybody proclaim in good conscience that these dysfunctionalities of the Arab world would vanish along with Israel? Two U.N. “Arab Human Development Reports,” written by Arab authors, say no. The calamities are homemade. Stagnation and hopelessness have three root causes. The first is lack of freedom. The United Nations cites the persistence of absolute autocracies, bogus elections, judiciaries beholden to executives, and constraints on civil society. Freedom of expression and association are also sharply limited. The second root cause is lack of knowledge: Sixty-five million adults are illiterate, and some 10 million children have no schooling at all. As such, the Arab world is dropping ever further behind in scientific research and the development of information technology. Third, female participation in political and economic life is the lowest in the world. Economic growth will continue to lag as long as the potential of half the population remains largely untapped.
Will all of this right itself when that Judeo-Western insult to Arab pride finally vanishes? Will the millions of unemployed and bored young men, cannon fodder for the terrorists, vanish as well—along with one-party rule, corruption, and closed economies? This notion makes sense only if one cherishes single-cause explanations or, worse, harbors a particular animus against the Jewish state and its refusal to behave like Sweden. (Come to think of it, Sweden would not be Sweden either if it lived in the Hobbesian world of the Middle East.)
Finally, the most popular what-if issue of them all: Would the Islamic world hate the United States less if Israel vanished? Like all what-if queries, this one, too, admits only suggestive evidence. To begin, the notion that 5 million Jews are solely responsible for the rage of 1 billion or so Muslims cannot carry the weight assigned to it. Second, Arab-Islamic hatreds of the United States preceded the conquest of the West Bank and Gaza. Recall the loathing left behind by the U.S.-managed coup that restored the shah’s rule in Tehran in 1953, or the U.S. intervention in Lebanon in 1958. As soon as Britain and France left the Middle East, the United States became the dominant power and the No. 1 target. Another bit of suggestive evidence is that the fiercest (unofficial) anti-Americanism emanates from Washington’s self-styled allies in the Arab Middle East, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Is this situation because of Israel—or because it is so convenient for these regimes to “busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels” (as Shakespeare’s Henry IV put it) to distract their populations from their dependence on the “Great Satan”?
Take the Cairo Declaration against “U.S. hegemony,” endorsed by 400 delegates from across the Middle East and the West in December 2002. The lengthy indictment mentions Palestine only peripherally. The central condemnation, uttered in profuse variation, targets the United States for monopolizing power “within the framework of capitalist globalization,” for reinstating “colonialism,” and for blocking the “emergence of forces that would shift the balance of power toward multi-polarity.” In short, Global America is responsible for all the afflictions of the Arab world, with Israel coming in a distant second.
This familiar tale has an ironic twist: One of the key signers is Nader Fergany, lead author of the 2002 U.N. Arab Human Development Report. So even those who confess to the internal failures of the Arab world end up blaming “the Other.” Given the enormity of the indictment, ditching Israel will not absolve the United States. Iran’s Khomeinists have it right, so to speak, when they denounce America as the “Great Satan” and Israel only as the “Little Satan,” a handmaiden of U.S. power. What really riles America-haters in the Middle East is Washington’s intrusion into their affairs, be it for reasons of oil, terrorism, or weapons of mass destruction. This fact is why Osama bin Laden, having attached himself to the Palestinian cause only as an afterthought, calls the Americans the new crusaders, and the Jews their imperialist stand-ins.
None of this is to argue in favor of Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, nor to excuse the cruel hardship it imposes on the Palestinians, which is pernicious, even for Israel’s own soul. But as this analysis suggests, the real source of Arab angst is the West as a palpable symbol of misery and an irresistible target of what noted Middle East scholar Fouad Ajami has called “Arab rage.” The puzzle is why so many Westerners, like those who signed the Cairo Declaration, believe otherwise.
Is this anti-Semitism, as so many Jews are quick to suspect? No, but denying Israel’s legitimacy bears an uncanny resemblance to some central features of this darkest of creeds. Accordingly, the Jews are omnipotent, ubiquitous, and thus responsible for the evils of the world. Today, Israel finds itself in an analogous position, either as handmaiden or manipulator of U.S. might. The soft version sighs: “If only Israel were more reasonable…” The semihard version demands that “the United States pull the rug out from under Israel” to impose the pliancy that comes from impotence. And the hard-hard version dreams about salvation springing from Israel’s disappearance.
Why, sure—if it weren’t for that old joke from Israel’s War of Independence: While the bullets were whistling overhead and the two Jews in their foxhole were running out of rounds, one griped, “If the Brits had to give us a country not their own, why couldn’t they have given us Switzerland?” Alas, Israel is just a strip of land in the world’s most noxious neighborhood, and the cleanup hasn’t even begun.
Josef Joffe is the publisher of Die Zeit, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, and distinguished fellow at the Institute for International Studies, both at Stanford University.
(Source: www.foreignpolicy.com)
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| Blue Balls |
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
Also have steped outside from your own town?
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Yes
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
and you think America is perfect?
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No
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
you call the middle easterns power hungry? are they trying to invade other countries? |
Yes
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
Do you think Bush is some god sent sait trying to save the world? |
No |
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| Blue Balls |
some facts about Iran:
Unemployment rate ...15 -20%
Inflation rate ..........16.4%
Literacy .................72.1% <----this is pretty good.
Population Below Poverty ......40 %
'Oh yea America is much tier than Iran :rolleyes:'
-Source CIA World Fact Book
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publication...ok/geos/ir.html |
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| hardcore trancer |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
bollocks. what are you saying? that iran should/should try to possess nuclear weapons to protect it from the americans??? that, in self defence the iranians could launch a missile, into one of a number of middle eastern nations,full of other muslim civilians?, |
and this is based on what source exactly?are you talking about Isreal? do you know how many times Isreal has threatned to attack Iran in the past?
Also why would Iran want to attack another muslim nation?
if you are worried about terrorism perhaps it is time to go after Saudi Arabia.oh but wait they are close to Bush's family so it is ok I guess:rolleyes:
| quote: | | they dont possess the capability to strike at washington, so they think, "hey! lets bomb baghdad!". |
Again you are assuming things without backing them up.
yes they'd attack Baghdad if the Americans attack them first,and why wouldnt they? after all it'd be war.
| quote: | | nations that arent built through liberal democracy should never have access to nuclear weapons |
and what is democracy and freedom exactly?they have diffrent meanings to different countries.what Bush thinks of demcoracy half of the world dont agree with him.
I agree that certain countries shouldnt have nukes,like Isreal for example but hey they are allies with the U.S. so noone cant say or do anything to them.
But at the current situation in the region is makes sense for a country like Iran to have nuclear weapons(eventhough there is no proof of that yet) since they are surrounded by U.S. troops and Bush calling the axis of evil and and threatening them all time for military strike.I think it is more for self defence and power rather then using it to attack other countries.
| quote: | | and as much as we all like to bag america out for whatever reason, you cannot possibly tell me that adding countries to the list of those with nuclear weapons is a good thing. whether it be more nukes on the "market" for whomever has the cash, or states using them against other states, the more people in the possession of nukes just ever increases the chances of even further proliferation. |
In that case every country should get rid of their nukes,why just Iran? what makes certain countries so special to have them?
To many people the U.S. is the biggest threat to the world peace and having someone like Bush in power and using military for solving problems is scary.I wouldnt be surprise if he does use nukes to achieve his goals.
| quote: | | we might not want america, of all states, to have the bomb. but they do. and its not going to go away while other states do as well. but increasing the number of countries with the bomb will never be an answer for anything |
I agree with you on this,but in this day and age were war is the answer to everything it makes it hard for some nations not wanting to have them. |
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| hardcore trancer |
| quote: | Originally posted by Blue Balls
some facts about Iran:
Unemployment rate ...15 -20%
Inflation rate ..........16.4%
Literacy .................72.1% <----this is pretty good.
Population Below Poverty ......40 %
'Oh yea America is much tier than Iran :rolleyes:'
-Source CIA World Fact Book
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publication...ok/geos/ir.html |
Those numbers maybe be right but you calling a coutry is just wrong dude. |
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| Michael19 |
| quote: | Originally posted by ::TranceVanDyk::
+1
last time i heard, saddam is the one who is responsible for more than a million deaths :rolleyes:
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When was saddam convicted of mass murder? |
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| Michael19 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
Common knowledge? Lucky for you opinions are like s. All you have done is to show how little you actually know about the U.S. Military. Sure, it's easy to sit back in your La-Z-Boy and criticize; but when push comes to shove I bet you'd lock youself in your bedroom, crying for your mommy before you'd ever put your life on the line for something as important as the very freedoms you're enjoying right now. It is dispicable that you sit back and throw insults at the very people who provide you the freedom to be an ignorant in the first place. |
oh for sake.
Why excactly has the n american army done lately to protect americas freedom?! Invading iraqi? they werent a ing threat to you in the first palce.
I hate these whole "dont knock people in the military cos there putting there life on the line for your freedom". Its a load of bollox. No one asked them too, they volunteered, mainly for money aswell, not to "protect there country" :rolleyes: |
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by Michael19
oh for sake.
No one asked them too, they volunteered, mainly for money aswell, not to "protect there country" :rolleyes: |
True, they did volunteer for it. Notice they don't shoot you for acting like a . |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by Michael19
oh for sake.
[QUOTE]Why excactly has the n american army done lately to protect americas freedom?! Invading iraqi? they werent a ing threat to you in the first palce. |
they protect the idea of freedom. not just here not just Iraq, Afghanistan and Europe or the DMZ, but everywhere. the entire last century is evident. whenever a soldier from any free society stands his post in any country not just his own, he gaurds an idea. an idea thats says this freedom is worth protecting at all costs, by deadly force if necessary.
everything else is human nature.
| quote: | | I hate these whole "dont knock people in the military cos there putting there life on the line for your freedom". Its a load of bollox. No one asked them too, they volunteered, mainly for money aswell, not to "protect there country" :rolleyes: |
that soldier understands that for whatever personal reasons he or she decided to become a soldier, is secondary to the mission asked of him. that in itself, is heroic. most handle it better than others.
everything else is human nature. |
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| _Ocean_Drive_ |
| quote: | Originally posted by Blue Balls
Iran is all ed up. Seriously. Its a in 3rd world country for s sake!! It can't even compare to the west.
The USA has the best goverment and economy compared to any in 3rd world country. Its not ideal but its better than that other . |
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Let's not forget the US turned a blind eye to Boston, N.Y etc fundraising for the IRA to come and blow up our population. |
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| Michael19 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
they protect the idea of freedom. not just here not just Iraq, Afghanistan and Europe or the DMZ, but everywhere. the entire last century is evident. whenever a soldier from any free society stands his post in any country not just his own, he gaurds an idea. an idea thats says this freedom is worth protecting at all costs, by deadly force if necessary.
everything else is human nature.
that soldier understands that for whatever personal reasons he or she decided to become a soldier, is secondary to the mission asked of him. that in itself, is heroic. most handle it better than others.
everything else is human nature. |
most of them dont do it to protect "freedom at all costs". They do its because its a job.
I just cant stand how people call someone unpatriotic(sp) when they critise the army, or there actions they are ordered to do. |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
hardcore trancer, your original comment i had issues with was
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
The problem here is that your country likes to label anyone that is against them terrorists.The fact is that Iran is surrounded by Americans at the moment and by having nukes it would give them some security and self defence. |
nukes are not a weapon of self defence. mutually assures destruction, maybe. and as iran do not possess the capabilities to launch their missiles at america, i fail to see how possessing nukes would "give them some security and self defence."
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
Also why would Iran want to attack another muslim nation? |
the only americans iran could hurt with their nukes would be those stationed in other neighbouring muslim nations, ergo my post.
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
and this is based on what source exactly?are you talking about Isreal? do you know how many times Isreal has threatned to attack Iran in the past? |
dont turn this into a anti israeli argument. i dont care about israel. i care about iran building nuclear weapons. yes, israel get quite angry with iran, and iran has said it wants to wipe israel off the map. another reason why the proliferation of weapons should not be allowed.
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
Again you are assuming things without backing them up.
yes they'd attack Baghdad if the Americans attack them first,and why wouldnt they? after all it'd be war. |
and
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
But at the current situation in the region is makes sense for a country like Iran to have nuclear weapons(eventhough there is no proof of that yet) since they are surrounded by U.S. troops and Bush calling the axis of evil and and threatening them all time for military strike.I think it is more for self defence and power rather then using it to attack other countries. |
i havent made assumptions; just deductions, based on your original comments. you say its good for iran to have nukes to protect it from the americans. now the iranians cant fire their nukes at america, ok? and the US could quite easily waltz into tehran and smash their military might. nukes (that cant reach the US) are not going to stop the US military machine. therefore i can only assume you must be talking about the US in the middle eastern region. does this mean you would support a nuclear attack, by iran, on hostile american forces in neighbouring countries? you must, otherwise your comments dont make any sense.
and i think thats disgraceful.
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
In that case every country should get rid of their nukes,why just Iran? what makes certain countries so special to have them?
To many people the U.S. is the biggest threat to the world peace and having someone like Bush in power and using military for solving problems is scary.I wouldnt be surprise if he does use nukes to achieve his goals. |
yes, every country should get rid of nukes. but right now the effort should be being put into preventing more and more countries from developing them. especially countries in charged environments, like the middle-east, and especially in nations that are beholden to an autocratic govt.
and i think perhaps you need to re-assess your cynicism if you really think the US would use nuclear weapons in its war on terrorism. sorry, just wouldnt happen. |
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