I'm already against the next war

[rushmc 18]

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Why, thank you - have a great evening.

You are welcome. I am happy to point out when you are in error

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

Which is most of the time

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[shropshire 0]

Ouch, I felt that little barb as I slept but it didn't cause me to miss any.

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"I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught."

- Churchill

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[rushmc 18]

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Ouch, I felt that little barb as I slept but it didn't cause me to miss any.

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I glad. It was not meant to make you sleep less

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"I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught."

- Churchill

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[jakee 1,257]

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Likewise, Reagan bravely defended our kidnapped medical students in Grenada.

If you think that is in any way comporable to the Falklands war it shows that you really don't have a clue what you're talking about.

A similar level of wrongness could be achieved by saying "Hey, remember when the US took a bunch of Iranians hostage at the embassy?"

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[nerdgirl 0]

Why is there is speculation/concern Iran may be “the next war”?

Because there is considerable building rhetoric in political circles regarding the case of Iran as an imminent threat.

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John Bolton, in an interview in today's NY Times magazine:

Q. “Lately members of the Bush administration have been making newly menacing-sounding comments about Iran. What do you think they’re planning?“

A. “I think diplomatic approaches are not going to stop Iran from continuing to perfect its nuclear-weapons programs. Our options are very limited and not all that attractive, one being regime change in Tehran, the other being the use of force.”

In an earlier interview, Bolton is reported as “confidently predicting that George W. Bush will launch a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities before leaving office.”

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AEI’s Reuel Marc Gerecht back in April 2006, “To Bomb, or Not to Bomb—That is the Iran Question”

“The opponents of military strikes against the mullahs' weapons facilities say there are no guarantees that we can permanently destroy their weapons production. This is true. We can't guarantee the results. But what we can do is demonstrate, to the mullahs and to others elsewhere, that even with these uncertainties, in a post-9/11 world the United States has red lines that will compel it to act. And one nonnegotiable red line is that we will not sit idly and watch a virulently anti-American terrorist-supporting rogue state obtain nukes. We will not be intimidated by threats of terrorism, oil-price spikes, or hostile world opinion. If the ruling clerical elite wants [sic] a head-on collision with a determined superpower, then that's their choice.

“No matter what happens, it is long overdue for the Bush administration to get serious about building clandestine mechanisms to support Iranians who want to change their regime. This will take time and be brutally difficult.”

“So we will all have to wait for President Bush to decide whether nuclear weapons in the hands of Khamenei, Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad, and the Revolutionary Guards Corps are something we can live with. Given the Islamic Republic's dark history, the burden of proof ought to be on those who favor accommodating a nuclear Iran. Those who are unwilling to accommodate it, however, need to be honest and admit that diplomacy and sanctions and covert operations probably won't succeed, and that we may have to fight a war—perhaps sooner rather than later—to stop such evil men from obtaining the worst weapons we know.” [emphasis nerdgirl]

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Another AEI scholar, with a long history of illustrious involvement from Iran-Contra to alleged yellow-cake uranium from Niger, a more recent Op-ed appeared in the Wall Street Journal “Victory Is Within Reach in Iraq” that made some cogent arguments w/r/t Den Petraeus’s efforts in Iraq but concludes with two paragraphs:

“They [Gen David Petraeus & Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno] know that Iran and Syria still have a free shot at us across long borders, and General Petraeus told Congress last month that it would not be possible to win in Iraq if our mission were restricted to that country.

“Not a day goes by without one of our commanders shouting to the four winds that the Iranians are operating all over Iraq and that virtually all the suicide terrorists are foreigners sent in from Syria. We have done great damage to their forces on the battlefield, but they can always escalate, and we still have no policy to direct against the terror masters in Damascus and Tehran. That problem is not going to be resolved by sound counterinsurgency strategy alone, no matter how brilliantly executed.”

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Joshua Muravchik’s Nov 2006 Op-Ed “Bomb Iran”

Nota bene: in all likelihood, the author did not choose the Op Ed's title.

“If Tehran establishes dominance in the region, then the battlefield might move to Southeast Asia or Africa or even parts of Europe, as the mullahs would try to extend their sway over other Muslim peoples. In the end, we would no doubt win, but how long this contest might last and what toll it might take are anyone's guess.

“The only way to forestall these frightening developments is by the use of force. [emphasis nerdgirl] Not by invading Iran as we did Iraq, but by an air campaign against Tehran's nuclear facilities. We have considerable information about these facilities; by some estimates they comprise about 1,500 targets. If we hit a large fraction of them in a bombing campaign that might last from a few days to a couple of weeks, we would inflict severe damage. This would not end Iran's weapons program, but it would certainly delay it.”

“Finally, wouldn't such a U.S. air attack on Iran inflame global anti-Americanism? Wouldn't Iran retaliate in Iraq or by terrorism? Yes, probably. That is the price we would pay. But the alternative is worse.”

“Ahmadinejad wants to be the new Lenin. Force is the only thing that can stop him.” [emphasis nerdgirl]

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From Fox News, “An Inside Look at the FNC Special Investigation, Iran: The Ticking Bomb”, by the author of The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis , published in January 2007

“The U.S. military has been emphatic that the deadliest attacks against U.S. troops come from Iran-made bombs used by Iran-backed militias.

“The stunning and detailed evidence presented in the program, reveals the depth of Iran's sponsorship of terrorism and chaos in Iraq. Using satellite images, I will walk you through the districts of Tehran containing manufacturing sites for sophisticated Explosively Formed Projectiles (EFPs), run by the elite units of Iran’s military.

“This special will expose the terrorist training centers in Iran where Iraqis are trained in guerilla warfare and explosives before they are sent back to target the coalition forces. It reveals details about the real agenda of the terror-sponsoring ayatollahs’ regime in Iraq and the escalating role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp in advancing this agenda. You will learn how Iran calls for the departure of the United States military so that Tehran can step in and fill the vacuum.”

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From the President’s 17 October 2007 press briefing.

THE PRESIDENT: “I think so long -- until they suspend and/or make it clear that they -- that their statements aren't real, yeah, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon. And I know it's in the world's interest to prevent them from doing so. I believe that the Iranian -- if Iran had a nuclear weapon, it would be a dangerous threat to world peace.

“But this -- we got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously. And we'll continue to work with all nations about the seriousness of this threat. Plus we'll continue working the financial measures that we're in the process of doing. In other words, I think -- the whole strategy is, is that at some point in time, leaders or responsible folks inside of Iran may get tired of isolation and say, this isn't worth it. And to me, it's worth the effort to keep the pressure on this government.”

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Iran – or any fundamentalist theocracy – as a nuclear weapons state scares me.

The question which I don’t yet have an answer to is does the rhetoric to push for a US military action in Iran scare me more? And as always, trying to be cognizant that truly binary options exist extraordinarily rarely; what are the other options? I don’t want either the thread-titled bumpsticker or above-mentioned pundits to limits discussions to ‘bomb’ or ‘don’t bomb’ options only.

Senator John McCain interviewed today on CNN’s “Late Edition” commented “We need to get the Europeans, who they seem to be interested in joining us in meaningful sanctions, whether it be diplomatic trade, economic and others, and put enormous pressures on Iran.” I would additionally assert that the Saudis, the Turks, and other Middle East states need to take a much more active role in the international community on Iran’s nuclear program.

Hopefully that’s not as “moronic” as those who objected to the cited bumpersticker; as has been noted, however, it doesn’t quite fit the pithy requirements.

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[Ripple 0]

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Yeah, right; typical Brit attitude: barge in somewhere uninvited, rape, pillage, fuck a few native goats, and then claim it all as historically your own. That's why we had to give you people a good ass-kicking.

Err, I don't think I was condoning the English past. Or, for that matter, was I asking for such a bitchy reply. But that kind of response is pretty much typical for an American it would seem.

Next Mood Swing: 6 minutes

[NCclimber 0]

Facetiousness is so under-appreciated.

[Ripple 0]

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Facetiousness is so under-appreciated.

Ha!

No, merely unexpected from an American.

Next Mood Swing: 6 minutes