12-15-2006, 06:54 AM | #121 |
Elf Lord
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I find it deeply disturbing that people can so readily shift the identity of the enemy. We are fighting Iran and Syria now? When did that get passed through Congress?
It is well past time to ditch these incompetents. |
12-15-2006, 12:35 PM | #122 | |||
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Considering all this, it is very, very reasonable to consider Iran to be a threat. As Syria also continues to fund terrorism, it is also very reasonable to consider them to be a threat. It is unreasonable, to put it mildly, to not view these nations as threats. Quote:
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12-15-2006, 01:23 PM | #123 |
Elf Lord
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I find that view of Iran simplistic in the extreme. No-one wants to see them get nukes, but if I were Iranian, I would have no problem justifying their pursuit, thanks in no small measure to our behaviour.
And now that the military option has been shown to be pie-in-the-sky (apart from bombing installations, which would probably happen anyway but is fraught with risk) we are now faced with diplomacy as the only route. Thanks to Bush's incompetence, all Iran's cards are trumps. So even if Iran is a major threat, we need people who are capable of dealing with them. |
12-15-2006, 02:07 PM | #124 | ||
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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12-17-2006, 08:47 AM | #125 | |
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12-17-2006, 09:39 AM | #126 | ||||
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The militia of SCIRI are the Badr Brigades, organised, trained and, up till the last few years, under the operational control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards- they fought alongside Iran against Iraq during the Iran-Iraq Wars. They are often derided even by other Shiites as "Persians" because of their Iranian accents; most of them were born and grew up in Iran. Their leader, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, is the main supporter of creating a Shiite federation in southern Iraq, which will be under the effective control of Iran. Name sound familiar? Hakim was just in Washington, where he was highly-praised by Bush for his “strong position against the murder of innocent life.” During the rule of former PM Jaafari, SCIRI ran the Interior Ministry under Bayan Jabar, and was widely criticised for turning it into Death-Squad Central It's been widely speculated that Bush is trying to engineer a deal where the United Uraqi Alliance is broken and Moqtada al-Sadr is pushed out in favour of an a SCIRI/Sunni Arab Party/Kurdish coalition. Quote:
Now, I don't particularly believe the President's public statements- his holding of the Holocaust deniers' conference reveals a truer expression of his character- but that's what he's been saying. Quote:
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12-17-2006, 09:51 AM | #127 | ||
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12-17-2006, 10:29 AM | #128 | |
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No kidding......They'll need to start the draft again....but to make it "fair"....imo.... only the healthy young bodies that voted for Bush should be called up, suited up, and introduced to their new home in the sand....
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Happy Atheist Go Democrats! Last edited by Lizra : 12-17-2006 at 10:32 AM. |
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12-17-2006, 03:00 PM | #129 | |
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What price is fair? I find it odd a true believer should couch a christian view in such singuarly - 'them / us' and indeed Commercial greed / profit & Loss terms - "price to pay" - As a christian you are happy to barter for life and death? ..for innocent souls? and at best, therefore make human judgement on those souls that are not innocent above and beyond the justice of heaven or God himself ???? THIS is the teaching of Jesus, my friend? ???????????? Without pointless quoting various flippets or bejebits from here or there, as anyone can ... perhaps you tell me what are the cornerstone beleifs for you personally, of being a Christian are? best, BB |
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12-17-2006, 03:44 PM | #130 | ||||||||
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...112801277.html You may argue that President Bush is wrong in trying to bring al-Hakim into their side, and perhaps he is wrong about al-Hakim. But al-Hakim is not the only group in Iraq that Iran funds. Iran's money goes to many militant groups and is focused toward the destruction of the Sunnis and the establishment of a government Iran favors and can, perhaps, control. Maybe casting some blame on the Bush Administration in this is justified, and maybe not. But either way, Iran is responsible for destabilizing Iraq and causing many deaths for the sake of its own political agenda. The Shi'ites are the majority in Iraq, and they will end up dominating in a democracy. Iran supports the Shi'ites and wants to woo them over to itself. Thus when we turn power over to Iraq, it will go over to Shi'ites, which will naturally also end up working along the same line as Iran's goals to some extent. So it's only natural that our efforts to be friendly to the Shi'ites will sometimes support the same groups that Iran is trying to woo and is supporting. There will naturally be some overlap. We are trying to get all these groups on board, and in a democracy, there will naturally be a power transfer to large Shi'ite groups in Iraq. That Iran wants to empower these groups also is only natural. The Administration and our leaders on the ground are the ones in the best position to say who they want to isolate and who they want to involve. They surely make some mistakes. But that does not change the fact that Iran is responsible for the deaths of many Sunnis in Iraq and for the deaths of some of our troops. They are an enemy that we are confronting there. Quote:
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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12-17-2006, 03:56 PM | #131 | |
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The Guardian does indeed have strong leanings, as you say, no two ways, Lief . But jounalistically, i would be very careful of painting it as a white-wash rag, or stymied cyclops. Hardly so. Absolutely, take a filter to it's tint ... but i would stop way far, both in terms of journalistic merit and integrity, of calling the Manchester Guardian ( a by-word for investigative and integral journalism) and now for many years THE Guardian, simply a one-sided myopia ... filter any media souce, of course, but in this case allow it some honest and integral journalistic credence. best, BB |
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12-17-2006, 04:24 PM | #132 | ||||
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Do you think that whenever any injustice is done any of us, we should accept it and allow God to take care of it without our doing anything? For instance, if I had two children and one stole the other's cookie, should I wait on God to bring his justice, or should I give the mistreated child back his cookie and tell his sibling not to do it again? I know, obviously, that a cookie theft issue is nowhere near the scale of life and death issues, but I'd appreciate hearing your answer anyway. This question is about the general principle of humans taking care of themselves and God taking care of people. Quote:
God is just and he does see that justice is done. Sometimes, he wants to bring justice through his followers. Sometimes death is just. So sometimes, when God wants to bring justice through his followers, that also means bringing death to others through his followers. God also gives people a large ability to manage their own affairs, because if he intervened all the time, people would not grow. But he has given people the principles by which to live and the means to gain knowledge about what is right (the Holy Spirit). I think that those are the basics of what I believe on this issue, as a Christian.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 12-17-2006 at 04:25 PM. |
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12-17-2006, 04:30 PM | #133 | |
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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12-18-2006, 02:51 PM | #134 |
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The bottom line is Ahmadinejad is on a general scale bad news. Hes an extremist who makes frightening statements and supports things that go counter to our benefit. And of course whats sad is that his election was probably a response to Bush’s re-election and policies since 2001. But we have to make do with what we have.
So… whats important to realize about Ahmadinejad is that he speaks frighteningly in public for a specific purpose (it makes him look tough and instills Iranian pride and shows the rest of the middle east that Iran is one of the dominant forces in the region). Does he really intend to “wipe Israel off the map”? Probably not. He knows it would be suicide to do so and mean severe hardship for Iran’s people. And it should be noted that in the most recent elections in Iran, the biggest reformist party said Ahmadinejad had suffered a "decisive defeat" due to his government's "authoritarian and inefficient methods." So even now the people of Iran aren’t too thrilled with how things are being run. Day to day life for your average Iranian isn’t great and Iranians blame Ahmadinejad and his band of extremists for that. So the worry that Iran is turning into some kind of Nazi Germany-like regime are silly. The only real threat is some rogue element getting a hold of Iranian nukes somehow because its very doubtful that Iran, even the extremists, would ever sell or provide nukes to terrorists directly so that they could target Israel. Let alone do it themselves.
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12-19-2006, 01:33 AM | #135 | |
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But these are radical Islamic extremists we're talking about. They have the same ideology as many of those they support, and their followers would be glad to lay down their lives for Allah. That means they may in fact use the nuclear weapons, and certainly their selling them to militant groups like Hezbollah is a major and worthwhile concern. We shouldn't be too sure of ourselves, about how they'd behave. They might be among those who are willing to give up their lives for their God. I suspect that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini, for one, would be. So we can't underestimate the threat a nuclear armed Iran would pose at all. They may indeed use them and they certainly might sell them. It depends just how fervent their leaders are in their beliefs. These people don't think the same way that we in the West do, or in the way the USSR did. That increases the peril that we might make false assumptions about how they'll behave.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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12-19-2006, 04:39 AM | #136 | |
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We've already proved (thanks, George) that the military option is profoundly impotent. Who was it who said "speak softly, but carry a big stick"? Roosevelt? Anyway, Bush has managed to get us into the position of speaking harshly and carrying a soggy twig. Idiocy. Throughout the 90s the Iranian regmine was softening and starting to open up more to the West. There was a small flowering of secular culture, particularly cinema, as Iranians enjoyed more freedom. Go and see "Taxi Driver" (not the one with Jodi Foster...) for an outstanding example of women leading from the front. As IR pointed out, by invading Iraq we helped push it back out to the extreme. These sorts of regimes can only last as long as the perceived threat against which they define themselves. It should be obvious to all but the most myopic that by waging war against them we only increase the number of people willing to blow themselves up. The Bush Administration is clearly incapable of taking any other approach. The Iraq Study Group looks set to have its recommendations ignored like everyone else who disagrees with them. In my view it is increasingly urgent that this lot are thrown out of office as being unfit for purpose. |
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12-19-2006, 05:37 AM | #137 |
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I agree with you that attacking them increases the number of people who share the extremist ideology. However, attacking them sometimes is the only option. I can't see any good options, as regards Iraq or Iran, or in many places at all where we are confronting Islamic extremism. In Iraq, if we pull out, we'd get a civil war and Iran dominating the oil wells. If we stay the course, though, we suffer and increase the number of our enemies. Either way, our enemies gain and we lose. So the question becomes "what is the best option of the bad options available?"
And with Iran, the same applies. They reject diplomatic offers and have stalled the West for years now on this issue. They meanwhile develop nuclear weapons, espouse an extremist ideology, fund extremist militant groups, threaten Israel with annihilation, and show themselves in every way to be a dangerous, hostile force in the region. If they continue to reject diplomacy, using our military may become the best option of a bunch of bad options. I think the situation thoroughly stinks as regards our position fighting Islamic extremism in general. There aren't any good answers, really. The best answers available seem to just minimize the damage. So those are the ones we have to take. Spending our time blaming the Administration for actions that they, Congress and the public all shared belief in isn't going to get us anywhere. Our time would be better spent pursuing the best options that remain.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
12-19-2006, 06:52 AM | #138 |
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Agreed mostly, though the key issue is whether attacking works (I would say it hasn't, and isn't, and has, in fact, weakened our position).
Given that the current Administration refuses to acknowledge the need for a different approach, I would say that renders them incompetent to deal with the reality we now face. Last edited by The Gaffer : 12-19-2006 at 06:53 AM. |
12-19-2006, 12:27 PM | #139 | ||
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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12-20-2006, 01:33 PM | #140 |
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I would just like to say that the News Conference this morning with the President brought out the more sincere talk that he needs to use more often.
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