It's just so easy, isn't it?

 

That's really the point: it's a lot easier for the leaders of these countries to blame their social problems on America rather than trying to solve them.

Thank's John.

 

Seem's i have a few posts to answer today. Not sure if i'm well enough to get them all done. Hope so.

 

Why so pessimistic? Do we have to goto War so quickly?

 

Pessimistic? Don't worry' date=' if i was just pessimistic, i wouldn't have made my original post.

 

Actually, I may agree with you more than you think, however, I responded because you seemed to oversimplify the situation IMO. I could say 'Love your enemies', etc. which sounds good, if you are bent on going to heaven, not if you are trying to survive in a hostile world. I think this is a bigger issue for the countries around Iran and that Russia and China would be better at working with them, but they are not ready for Prime Time just yet.

 

I agree entirely. Glad you said, "seemed to oversimplify", shows you think. In my daily life i'm quite pragmatic, and am by no means a saint.

 

When i was young, for reasons of nature and nurture, it was my belief that i should treat others as they would treat me. I was not a nice person to come across. As time went by i started to reap the rewards of my viewpoint, money, friends, and status. Boy was I right.

 

Well actually no. Eventually the other rewards of my philosophy started to pour in. Being aware of this i had to examine every aspect myself, and my relationships with other people. Something i still do. I had to sort out to what extent my woes were due to me and how much was due to the people i associated with those woes. As a result i changed my philosophy and attitude towards people. I can only say that as a survival strategy, it seem's to serve my own self-interest well.

 

I hope you see the pertinence of the above, to the topic.

 

Yes, Palestinians need to give up violence and get on with their lives.

 

Yes, Palestinians need to give up violence and get on with their lives.

 

They certainly do. That Hamas decided to cease fire, gave me some hope of progress. When Hamas won the Palestinian elections i was as surprised as anyone else. Of course it was denounced by Israel for obvious reasons. However, i did hope that they would recognise an opportunity to encourage their enemy towards dialogue rather than violence. Unfortunately, they think it better to try and get rid of Hamas by making life of ordinary Palestinians even more miserable than it is already. Maybe that will work, but it can hardly be expected to bring a peaceful solution any nearer. It is easy to understand the feelings that dictate the Israeli position, and i maintain they are entitled to respond that way if they want. However, i am disappointed because it will not resolve the situation. The people of Israel together with the Palestinian people will continue to live in fear of one another, and that inevitably leads to paranoia and more killing. I don't think that is what the average Israeli or Palestinian wants.

 

However my opinion of the involvement of other countries is different.

 

I hope this reply clarifies a few things as to my perspective.

The thing that I don't get about this position, which is very common, is that people who espouse it seem to miss the fact that they're performing exactly the very evil that they accuse others of performing.

 

I agree with your point, i see it all the time. All else i have to say on the matter was posted in my reply to John. Evil is a weasel word, only of subjective meaning, there is a thread on it somewhere in the forum.

 

By just blame everything on Americans, nobody else has to take any responsibility for their behavior. No matter how eggregious the sin, it MUST be the west's fault somehow. (Or more specifically, whenever possible, white male[/i'] Americans, because they're the worst of the lot, right?)

 

I presume that was a sardonic joke. :D You wanna try out being a white middle class Englishman for a while.

I learned everything I know about middle class Englishmen from watching Monty Python. That's an accurate portrayal, right? (grin)

 

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on much of your argument. But I do think we have some common ground:

 

1) The west/US is at least partly to blame for the current political situation in the Middle East and w/ Iran. (We might also agree that they are also responsible for their own behavior.)

 

2) War is not a desirable course of action.

 

Anyway I respect your opinion, and I hope you stick around -- I'm enjoying your posts, even when I disagree.

Hi Jim, sorry to take so long replying to your post.

I think you and a few others have worked out that i am trying to get people to think a little bit. My criticism in this forum is bound to be towards American Policy. I would be criticising the Iranians if i could access middle eastern web sites, but it seems that someone is preventing me.(and we moan about the Chinese:D :D )

 

I'm not sure if you believe Iran's statements that they have no intention to develop nuclear weapons. These statements to me have no weight.

 

I am wary of any statements made by any government. English politicians rarely lie but the language they use is clevererly crafted to not reveal what they really mean. I think the American indians call it' date=' talking with a forked tongue.

 

 

No one has made such a claim.

 

:D Linguistically no, but actions speak louder than words. For example, if you can abstract the situation regarding the settlers of old Palestine, and the way they have displaced the indigenous population. You may see a relationship to the acquisition of America by it's early settlers, and the way they treated and displaced the indigenous population. Even today you still have reservations. Gaza seems no better. There have been proposals that would have the Palestinians living in little land islands scattered throughout the region. What i am saying is that Americans are more likely to empathise with the settlers than the Arab the life of whom they have no experience.

 

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and all that followed had nothing to do with Palestinian/Israeli tensions.

 

I agree.

 

Iraq was (and Iran now is) trying to assert power over the region's oil resources.

 

That's understandable. So is America, and that's understandable.

 

Exactly. Iraq's invasion of the weaker Kuwait was bullying/extortion.

Certainly was. I fully supported the first Gulf War' date=' whatever the motivation of the politicians.

Democracies do sometimes defend allies and..

That's a fine thing say, but surely not in all circumstances. America and other countries often have good Allies, who oppress thier populations, or portions of them. People judge others by the company they keep.

 

America has in the past supported a number of pretty unpleasant characters in pursuit of it's self interest, with little consideration of the flesh and blood ordinary people that do the suffering. You wonder why people don't like American foreign policy?

..then insist on the enforcement of the resulting cease fire.

I agree in principle' date=' but with some scope for pragmitism. In the case of Iraq the cease fire was. It's public knowledge that the sanctions hurt/killed a lot of Iraqi people, whilst Sadam and others profited. Something could have been done about that, but wasn't in any real way.

 

The prevailing circumstances being the development by Iran of a peaceful nuclear program?

Yes. Off the top of my head...America, Russia, China, England, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea, South Africa and we are led to believe Israel, have developed Nuclear Weapons. Does it come as a suprise to you if Iranians or anybody else find the righteous rhetoric being used to whip us up ready for the action, HIPPOCRITIC.

Did i leave any country out.

How do you know that what the President is saying isn't exactly what he is being told by the intel community?

I don't communicate with your intelligence people these days, so i don't.

However

 

New Scientist 29 April page 10.. But both sides are guity of exaggeration and "vacuous political posturing, argues a report from the Center for Stategic and International Studies, a Washington DC think tank.

 

quoting IAEA officials,ISIS says although Iran may now have built 1345 centrifuges, more thn half of them are not engineered well enough to operate in cascades.

Iran does aim to install a lot more, 50,000. In the short term, a lot less.3,000

 

I've already posted that I think most of us in the public lack essential information to assess what the US ought to do. I hope the president gets good advice and takes it one step at a time.

So do i' date=' but i have even less confidence about your President's underlying motives than i have in Tony Blair. If 10 is high confidence, i rate Tony as zero.

 

Seem's a wise idea to know your enemy. You'll find a lot of useful stuff about Iran and it's people here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/country_profiles/790877.stm You can download radio interviews, and discussions. The BBC World Service is a great source of information.

 

There are a lot of good things i could say about America, but that wouldn't help you. Bye for now.

I learned everything I know about middle class Englishmen from watching Monty Python. That's an accurate portrayal, right?

A bit. My favourite program at the time.

:D A really good and pretty accurate insight as to how British government ministers work, is a TV comedy series called 'Yes Minister'.

 

Our Tony converted most of the working classes into to the middle classes in his first term. Why not all,.. Because then there would be no one to look down to. In fact our social security system is well suited to keep those at the bottom, down.

 

Look it this way, somebody has to be at the bottom of the pile.

If every body got a taste of how it feels the government would be pressured to do something about it.

Which they don't want to.

So it's better to keep the same people at the bottom all of the time. It also gives the workers somebody to look down to.

 

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on much of your argument. But I do think we have some common ground:

1) The west/US is at least partly to blame for the current political situation in the Middle East and w/ Iran. (We might also agree that they are also responsible for their own behavior.)

 

2) War is not a desirable course of action.

 

I agree:-)... Thank you for your other comments, i assure you i feel the same way.

I may not show it; but love you all, despite your flaws and despot leaders.

(from Apeofman the web-book:eek: )

Hi Jim' date=' sorry to take so long replying to your post.

I think you and a few others have worked out that i am trying to get people to think a little bit. My criticism in this forum is bound to be towards American Policy. I would be criticising the Iranians if i could access middle eastern web sites, but it seems that someone is preventing me.(and we moan about the Chinese:D :D )[/quote']

 

Hopefully, we all are causing each other to think more deeply. I too am focused on American policy but I think you also have to put policy in context. To expect perfection in the operation of the US government or military is to doom all policies to a sense of failure. There has never been a political or military operation that was handled perfectly.

 

Also, as I'll discuss at the end of this post, it distorts policy to view every problem as a matter of US policy.

 

 

Linguistically no, but actions speak louder than words. For example, if you can abstract the situation regarding the settlers of old Palestine, and the way they have displaced the indigenous population. You may see a relationship to the acquisition of America by it's early settlers, and the way they treated and displaced the indigenous population. Even today you still have reservations.

 

Your initial point was that “the Middle East and Persia are not America, and its inhabitants are not American Indians, ready to be confined to reservation camps.” In this post you seem to say that there is a relationship between America’s treatment of the native Americans and current foreign policy and you make the point that “even today you still have reservations.”

 

First, you completely misunderstand Americas current treatment of native Americans. I have native American ancestry and am fully integrated into American culture. If my great-great grandmother had not hidden from the Dawes commission census takers I would have a roll number as a Creek Indian. In college, I dearly wished that she had not hidden as there would have been quite a few benefits coming my way. More to the point, no native American is “even today” forced to live on a reservation. By treaty they have established legal rights and some degree of separateness which they value and exploit to a degree with Casinos and smoke shops.

 

With all sincere respect to you, it is not fair to equate current policy to the manner in which this continent was settled by Europeans. The simple truth is that in every instance where civilizations clashed war erupted. The winner was typically the culture with better technology, which was open to dissent and discussion in the conduct of the war and which carried germs cultivated from denser urban centers. There is nothing uniquely American about the Western dominance of the Americas.

 

Gaza seems no better. There have been proposals that would have the Palestinians living in little land islands scattered throughout the region. What i am saying is that Americans are more likely to empathise with the settlers than the Arab the life of whom they have no experience.

 

You really can't compare the Palestinian situation to American indian reservations?

 

That's understandable. So is America, and that's understandable.

 

Good! I go into a low boil when I hear someone say, "the war was about oil." Of course Saddam invaded Kuwait for oil and of course we came to Kuwait's defense for that reason. This isn't just about whether we have $3 or $5 gas. Economic power is military power and we must have access to strategic resources.

 

Certainly was. I fully supported the first Gulf War, whatever the motivation of the politicians.

 

I don't think the motivations were a mystery: Saddam invaded a strategically important US ally.

 

That's a fine thing say, but surely not in all circumstances. America and other countries often have good Allies, who oppress thier populations, or portions of them. People judge others by the company they keep.

 

No, I have many times said that the difference here was that this ally was strategically important. A president or prime minister doesn't have the luxury of ignoring the simple fact that we have a carbon based economy.

 

America has in the past supported a number of pretty unpleasant characters in pursuit of it's self interest, with little consideration of the flesh and blood ordinary people that do the suffering. You wonder why people don't like American foreign policy?

 

We take more heat because we are a superpower. Say what you will, but Bush is almost idealistic in his defense of democracy. It may have us wishing for the old days but I'm not so sure.

 

I agree in principle, but with some scope for pragmitism. In the case of Iraq the cease fire was. It's public knowledge that the sanctions hurt/killed a lot of Iraqi people, whilst Sadam and others profited. Something could have been done about that, but wasn't in any real way.

 

What is the practical problem? Our ally was attacked. We responded with a war you support. After having expended American blood and resources, instead of deposing Saddam, we agreed to a ceasefire with some critically important terms pertaining to WMDs.

 

Over a twelve year period we continued to insist on compliance in a very open and public manner. Even as we built up to enforce the terms, Saddam did not come clean. We then did what we said we were going to do.

 

On legal, moral and public policy grounds, this seems like the only course of action. If we are going to put American and British boots on the ground as we did in Gulf War I and then settle the conflict, we have to insist on compliance.

 

The resolution of President Bush and PM Blair in Iraq and Afghanistan has already caused Libya to derail a nuclear program which was more advanced than was once thought. Instead of being on the outside wondering if Saddam had WMDS or whether he would reconstitute that program, we have taken him out.

 

In the process, we gave an entire country an opportunity for liberty. We've led them to this water. Whether they drink is up to them. I simply do not see how foreign countries can condemn the US or Britain for removing Saddam. The only reasonable criticisms of this policy are from a US perspective, primarily that we showed again the limits of US power. That is my deepest concern about the endeavor.

 

Yes. Off the top of my head...America, Russia, China, England, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea, South Africa and we are led to believe Israel, have developed Nuclear Weapons. Does it come as a suprise to you if Iranians or anybody else find the righteous rhetoric being used to whip us up ready for the action, HIPPOCRITIC.

Did i leave any country out.

 

Israel has not to my knowledge threatened to wipe any country off the face of the planet. Israel acts forcibly to defend itself and the territory it rightly or wrongly has obtained but it does not use its religion to whip up jihad. It is the mixture of extremist religious rhetoric with the capability to destroy an entire western city that has many nervous.

 

I don't communicate with your intelligence people these days, so i don't.

However

 

You said that the US was hyping the Iranian risk. I doubt the New Scientist author is familiar with what the president knows.

 

New Scientist 29 April page 10.. But both sides are guity of exaggeration and "vacuous political posturing, argues a report from the Center for Stategic and International Studies, a Washington DC think tank.

 

quoting IAEA officials,ISIS says although Iran may now have built 1345 centrifuges, more thn half of them are not engineered well enough to operate in cascades.

Iran does aim to install a lot more, 50,000. In the short term, a lot less.3,000

 

This hardly inspires confidence. The plain fact is that we cannot be too sure. Libya's nuclear program was much more advanced than we had thought. Intel is giveth and it taketh away.

 

So do i, but i have even less confidence about your President's underlying motives than i have in Tony Blair. If 10 is high confidence, i rate Tony as zero.

 

What do you see as his motives?

 

Seem's a wise idea to know your enemy. You'll find a lot of useful stuff about Iran and it's people here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/country_profiles/790877.stm You can download radio interviews, and discussions. The BBC World Service is a great source of information.

 

I don't, yet, consider Iran my enemy. They just scare the hell out of me. I agree that it is a wise idea to know the world in which we are engaged and I appreciate your site. I would refer you to the writings of Bernard Lewis. You can see here where Prof. Lewis predicted in 1979 that "the shah's overthrow by Muslim clerics would lead not to social improvement and democracy but to theocracy, intolerance and clerically controlled mayhem." Here is the conclusion of a review in the NYTs by a Yale History professor of Lewis' book, "What Went Wrong?:"

 

At the end of the day, Lewis argues, the answer lies within the Muslim world itself. Either its societies, especially those in the Middle East, will continue in ''a downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, poverty and oppression,'' with all that implies for a horrible and troubled future; or ''they can abandon grievance and victimhood, settle their differences and join their talents, energies and resources in a common creative endeavor'' to the benefit of themselves and the rest of our planet. Perhaps the outside world can help a bit, though probably not much. ''For the time being, the choice is their own.'' With this final sentence, and all that precedes it, Lewis has done us all -- Muslim and non-Muslim alike -- a remarkable service.

This post isn't a reflection on Apeofman's posts -- I understand where he's coming from and respect his opinion on it, and he's already agreed with me that some extremists are hypocritical in their criticism. And I've made this point before, I just thought this example kinda underscores what I was saying earlier.

 

The comedy animated show South Park did a raucus send-up of the hypocrisy of Native American tribes owning gambling casinos earlier this season. The plot had the tribe deciding that it needed to have a much larger highway leading to their casino, so they bought up all the land in the town of South Park and kicked everyone out so they could tear it all down and build the highway. At that point the residents rose up and cried foul, blockading the bulldozers and so forth. You can kinda guess how the plot went from there (the funniest part being when the townspeople pooled their money and gambled it in the casino in order to reach the amount needed to buy back their land, WON it, and then decided to "let it ride"!). The role reversal was the main point of the plot, of course.

 

The point of all this nonsense being that politically-correct cliches, even when accurate, can be very misleading. Cliches are easy. Truth is harder. This is why I worry about people saying that we should NEVER even CONSIDER going to war with Iran. That kind of blanket absolutism can only accomplish one thing: War with Iran!

 

(I strongly identify with the "South Park Conservatives" movement, by the way. Don't agree with all their positions, but I think Matt Stone's (the co-creator of South Park) quote says it best: "I hate conservatives, but I REALLY f***ing hate liberals!")

Hi Jim,

Just a few lines about your post.

 

Your initial point was that “the Middle East and Persia are not America' date=' and its inhabitants are not American Indians, ready to be confined to reservation camps.” In this post you seem to say that there is a relationship between America’s treatment of the native Americans and current foreign policy and you make the point that “even today you still have reservations.”

[/quote']

 

Here an apology is in order. After re-reading my post afresh," Even today you still have reservations. Gaza seems no better." I can see that it is sloppy English and does not convey precisely what i had in mind when i wrote it. Also i think, that most English people (rather than Americans) would understand "seem's no better" as meaning "seem's the same or worse".

 

Perhaps it should have read..

"...the way they treated and displaced the indigenous population into reservations. Gaza seem's the same or worse. Even today you still have reservations. ( albeit no where near as bad as Gaza"..i'd rather like to edit the original if that's acceptable.

 

The relationship that i as a individual see, is an abstract similarity between the settling of America, and the settling of Israel. In both cases the indigenous populations were faced with settlers who saw the native wandering way of life as inferior/uncivilised and in the way. (at least that's the impression i get from earlier US film footage)

 

The settlers in both cases displaced the indigenous populations because they wanted the land, and had the power to do so. In both cases the indigenous populations fought back, but were defeated.(OK i know there are still Palestinians who don't realise that violence against civilians doesn't win you friends. The same can be said of Israel.).

 

Before i go on, i would like to point out that i have a lot of sympathy/empathy for both sides of the Israeli, Palestinian conflict. I am not in the business of criticising either party as regards what they do to each other...that's their mutual choice. That doesn't mean that i like it. I don't, and am often distressed by the psychopathic behaviour exhibited by both sides. I support the aspirations of both sides and hope/pray/wish they can one day realise and appreciate the others point of view, despite their very personal pains. I cannot support the aspirations of one side in preference to the other, that's a personal position. Any criticism i have of their policies, is strictly between that which drives me, and both of them.

First' date=' you completely misunderstand Americas current treatment of native Americans.

[/quote']

How do you draw that conclusion Jim:confused: I have said nothing about the current treatment of native Americans.

 

I have native American ancestry and am fully integrated into American culture. If my great-great grandmother had not hidden from the Dawes commission census takers I would have a roll number as a Creek Indian. In college' date=' I dearly wished that she had not hidden as there would have been quite a few benefits coming my way.

[/quote']

I understand and respect your wish to be what you are..An American. From what you have written before, i am sure you also respect your great-great grandmother's right to do what she did, in the response to what must have been a very distressing for her.

 

 

More to the point' date=' no native American is “even today” forced to live on a reservation. By treaty they have established legal rights and some degree of separateness which they value and exploit to a degree with Casinos and smoke shops.

[/quote']

I do not know enough about the live's of modern Indians, living on current reservations, to comment. (Do smoke shops have something to do with peace-pipes. )

 

With all sincere respect to you' date=' it is not fair to equate current policy to the manner in which this continent was settled by Europeans. The simple truth is that in every instance where civilizations clashed war erupted. The winner was typically the culture with better technology, which was open to dissent and discussion in the conduct of the war and which carried germs cultivated from denser urban centers. There is nothing uniquely American about the Western dominance of the Americas.

[/quote']

I agree with your simple truth. However, most modern British people in England tend to distance themselves's from the attitudes and actions of their fore-fathers.

 

I guess there are several contexts to which my abstraction could be viewed from. I hope all government's, consider a range of policies before making a decision as to which to follow. Ranging from the benign to the psychopathic, that's a practice that i see as sensible.

 

Over here, the more psychopathic ones get leaked to the public, if the government is showing serious signs of choosing such an option. You've recently had a leak about nuking Iran. Bush's body language when he denied the possibility, looked like some who had been caught out with his trousers down.:D I think our Tony's a more astute actor.

 

Quote:

Gaza seems no better. There have been proposals that would have the Palestinians living in little land islands scattered throughout the region. What i am saying is that Americans are more likely to empathise with the settlers than the Arab the life of whom they have no experience.

 

You really can't compare the Palestinian situation to American Indian reservations?

 

I can' date=' in the abstract context of similarities of motivation, method, and purpose. My point was one of empathy. If you don't see anything wrong with the early US herding of people into reservations, you are not likely to empathise with the Palestinians in Gaza or elsewhere, are you. You won't see/perceive/ any moral problem. Morality is subjective, not cast in stone.

 

I don't think the motivations were a mystery: Sadam invaded a strategically important US ally.

I think most British people supported it, because Iraq invaded someone else's country, and for once somebody was going to do something about it. The British government, on the other hand, probably committed troops because of our "special relationship with the US".

 

No' date=' I have many times said that the difference here was that this ally was strategically important.

[/quote']

Most British people supported the first Gulf War because we don't like people invading other peoples/folks countries, not because we have something to gain from it. The British Empire is history, and on the whole we prefer it that way.

 

A president or prime minister doesn't have the luxury of ignoring the simple fact that we have a carbon based economy.

True' date=' but many governments do not go to war, because of uncertainties about future supplies. I cite the recent cuts in the supply of natural gas from Russia. No killing before or after! How far will your government go. What gives the U.S. right to everything it want's without any regard for the people of other countries. Only the might of US military and economic power, no universal-moral-right at all.

 

We take more heat because we are a superpower. Say what you will, but Bush is almost idealistic in his defence of democracy. It may have us wishing for the old days but I'm not so sure.

Yes, you take more heat because US foreign policy often harms ordinary people with apparent indifference(collateral damage (whatever that means)). What goes round comes around.

 

What is the practical problem?.....Over a twelve year period we continued to insist on compliance in a very open and public manner. Even as we built up to enforce the terms' date=' Sadam did not come clean. We then did what we said we were going to do.

[/quote']

Yes indeed.

 

 

On legal' date=' moral and public policy grounds, this seems like the only course of action. If we are going to put American and British boots on the ground as we did in Gulf War I and then settle the conflict, we have to insist on compliance.

[/quote']

Yes indeed. However in the case of sanctions, it seem's to me that it was public knowledge that Sadam and those he did business with profited and the Iraqi people suffered. Some will say that was Sadam's fault, to me that's a typical "pass the bucket" excuse for doing nothing.

 

If a policy does not work, modify it so it does the job. If it can't be modified, abandon it and put something else in place. At least, that's the gist of my opinion on that particular matter.

 

The resolution of President Bush and PM Blair in Iraq and Afghanistan has already caused Libya to derail a nuclear program which was more advanced than was once thought.

Sorry Jim' date=' but this doesn't work for me at all. It has been quite obvious for some years that Libya was trying to rejoin the fold and put the past behind them. The timing was just a gift to Bush and Blair, nothing more.

 

Instead of being on the outside wondering if Sadam had WMDS or whether he would reconstitute that program, we have taken him out.

 

In the process, we gave an entire country an opportunity for liberty. We've led them to this water. Whether they drink is up to them. I simply do not see how foreign countries can condemn the US or Britain for removing Sadam. The only reasonable criticisms of this policy are from a US perspective, primarily that we showed again the limits of US power. That is my deepest concern about the endeavour.

Jim, about 70 percent of the people of this little island were against the Second Gulf War. Most of those people detested the man Sadam and his regime. The case put to us was, that Sadam had weapons of mass destruction. Tony and George's grunted incontrovertible proof and evidence. History has proven the judgement of those of us who believed the evidence amounted to nothing more than fanciful speculations, to have been accurate. Bush openly stated he wanted regime change, which was at least honest. Iraq as you are coming to understand, was held together by the clenched fist of Sadam. The forcible removal of that control was bound to lead to what is happening in Iraq today. America the strongest power on Earth, can't put humpty dumpty back together again. Most ordinary people over here had insight enough to know the likely outcome, in essence if not in detail.

If Tony and George were honest in their belief, i am forced to think that, the average English person is a lot wiser than Tony Blair or George Bush and their cohorts in matters of world affairs. :D :D

 

This hardly inspires confidence. The plain fact is that we cannot be too sure. Libya's nuclear program was much more advanced than we had thought. Intel is giveth and it taketh away.

Right. If Iran was really interested in nuking anybody' date=' it would be far easier to get a nuke, or material to make one, from else where, at a fraction of the cost it is going to pay for making it's own. Note, i said "far easier" not easy.

 

What do you see as his motives?

I can only guess. All ego stuff really. That the oil under the ground belongs to American oil-men, and that the Iranians stole it when they overthrew the Shah. Also in November 1979, a militant Islamic mob took over the US embassy in Tehran, the Iranian capital, and held 52 Americans hostage for the next 444 days. For England the 1980 siege of the Iranian Embassy in London. People remember, and some people are vengeful by nature.

 

..."the shah's overthrow by Muslim clerics would lead not to social improvement and democracy but to theocracy' date=' intolerance and clerically controlled mayhem."....

[/quote']

From what i've seen over the years i can agree on the "theocracy, intolerance and clerically controlled mayhem." bits.

 

I think the people will force reform of the system when they want to, as happens else where. Sanctions, or air strikes, may in my view unite them as 'Iranians' against the aggressor whom ever that might be.

 

Forceful interference by dictating foreigners, will in my view, turn them against our governments, if not our people's.

 

Phew! Me thinks, our replies are getting too long winded.

 

Bye for now Jim;)

Hi Jim,

 

Hi there. I"m going to try to narrow the debate back down. I had misunderstood the point you were making about American Indian reservations. I had thought you were making some argument applicable to the Middle East situation based on the fact that America still have Indian reservations. As I mentioned, this is a result of the historical dealings in America and no Indian I know would wish away the land they own as Indian nations. The current existence of Indian reservations in America really does have nothing to do with this debate.

 

In the same fashion, the unvarying way that more advanced cultures trashed less advanced cultures throughout history is irrelevant. THe question of the day is Iran.

 

Let me reemphasize the point made by Bernard Lewis in answering the question "what went wrong." Fundamentally, middle eastern problems are the fault of those who live in those countries. It is so tempting to blame everything on the United States but seems condescending to those who live in the countries with problems.

 

 

Over here, the more psychopathic ones get leaked to the public, if the government is showing serious signs of choosing such an option. You've recently had a leak about nuking Iran. Bush's body language when he denied the possibility, looked like some who had been caught out with his trousers down.:D I think our Tony's a more astute actor.

 

Oh, I hardly think so. I think that report had nothing more to do with the fact that there was a military plan and that there is no reason to take any option off the table as we try to encourage Iran to not invest so much of its political and economic capital in nuclearizing.

 

If you don't see anything wrong with the early US herding of people into reservations, you are not likely to empathise with the Palestinians in Gaza or elsewhere, are you. You won't see/perceive/ any moral problem. Morality is subjective, not cast in stone.

 

I never said I didn't empathize with my own ancestors. I think my grandmother's decision to refuse to let her family be counted by the US government was entirely rational. However, I don't see how US indian reservations have anything to do with the current discussion.

 

The brutal fact is that this world was not going to exist indefinitely controlled by a collection of hunter/gatherers. Those cultures were doomed and this fact has nothing to do with current issues.

 

True, but many governments do not go to war, because of uncertainties about future supplies. I cite the recent cuts in the supply of natural gas from Russia. No killing before or after! How far will your government go. What gives the U.S. right to everything it want's without any regard for the people of other countries. Only the might of US military and economic power, no universal-moral-right at all.

 

This is apples and oranges. Iraq put itself in a different category because it invaded a country and lost. When people ask why we didn't go against Iran or N. Korea, I just shake my head wondering if we really have such short term memories that we are incapable of remembering the history of the Iraq/US tensions over just the last 15 years.

 

Yes, you take more heat because US foreign policy often harms ordinary people with apparent indifference(collateral damage (whatever that means)). What goes round comes around.

 

What on earth are you talking about? The US did everything it could to limit collateral damage. YOu condemn economic incentives against Iraq. What options did this leave except for simply agreeing that Iraq did not have to honor its ceasefire commitments?

 

Sorry Jim, but this doesn't work for me at all. It has been quite obvious for some years that Libya was trying to rejoin the fold and put the past behind them. The timing was just a gift to Bush and Blair, nothing more.

 

Do you even allow for the possibility that Libya simply abandoning its WMD program has something to do with the US going to war, in part, over the WMD issue in Iraq? After all, it was in March of 2003, about the same time the war in Iraq began, that Libya approached the United States to voluntarily disclose that it had chemical, biological and an advanced nuclear program which had nuclear material and centrifuges. This was the first time Libya acknowledged the program and, as it turned out, Libya’s nuclear program was much further advanced that the United States intelligence had believed.

 

Jim, about 70 percent of the people of this little island were against the Second Gulf War. Most of those people detested the man Sadam and his regime. The case put to us was, that Sadam had weapons of mass destruction.

 

That was part of the case. It was also argued that Iraq had flouted 12 years of UN resolutions and all of this was against the backdrop of Saddam's irrational self destructive tendencies (e.g. invading Kuwait, attempting to assassinate Bush Sr., and refusing to come clean as he had agreed to do). Contemplate the irrationality of the attempt to assassinate Bush Sr. by Saddam in 1993. Did Saddam not consider what the US response would be had the attempt succeeded? How could have possibly determined that this action, particularly if successful, was in his self-interest? With this man at the helm, Iraq showed its instability and danger far more concretely - with actions, not just rhetoric - than has Iran.

 

My more basic point point is why the moral indignation about the war if you admit that we did the Iraqi's a favor? You speak of the collateral damage we have done and say "what goes around, comes around" when, bottom line, we destroyed a repressive regime and gave an entire people a chance at freedom. As I said, my question is whether it was wise to gamble US prestige on this particular war; however, I do not see a moral issue here given the good that was done, the constant drumbeat of negativity in the MSM notwithstanding.

 

Right. If Iran was really interested in nuking anybody, it would be far easier to get a nuke, or material to make one, from else where, at a fraction of the cost it is going to pay for making it's own. Note, i said "far easier" not easy.

 

I have no idea how easy it is to just buy or steal a nuke. One real worry is whether Iran has the ability right now to turn over a dirty bomb to terrorists.

 

I can only guess. All ego stuff really. That the oil under the ground belongs to American oil-men, and that the Iranians stole it when they overthrew the Shah. Also in November 1979, a militant Islamic mob took over the US embassy in Tehran, the Iranian capital, and held 52 Americans hostage for the next 444 days. For England the 1980 siege of the Iranian Embassy in London. People remember, and some people are vengeful by nature.

 

If you are going to impute bad motives to a US President and a British PM, shouldn't you have a plausible theory as to what they would have to gain? It seems completely irrational that these savvy politicians would manufacture WMD evidence. Far more likely, they were believing what they were told by the intel community. Further, we still do not know what happend to the WMDs Saddam once had and, in any event, if we had refused to control Saddam, there is no doubt he would have acquired WMDs at some point in the future.

 

Phew! Me thinks, our replies are getting too long winded.

 

Heh, agreed.

Hi Jim, this is about as short as i could manage.

I"m going to try to narrow the debate back down. I had misunderstood the point you were making about American Indian reservations.... It really does have nothing to do with this debate.

If our exchange of views demonstrates anything at all' date=' it is that the understanding of a few simple sentences of text, is influenced by point of view of the reader.(Note, i include myself as a reader of my own text)

 

THe question of the day is Iran.

Yes.

..."what went wrong." Fundamentally' date=' middle eastern problems are the fault of those who live in those

countries. It is so tempting to blame everything on the United States but seems

condescending to those who live in the countries with problems.

[/quote']

Jim, If the subject on your mind here is Iran, the impression i get, is that they want to sort their own problems out, without hinderance from evangelic outsiders. Particularity when they are waving sticks, and calling the code by which they live their lives as inferior.

 

Do this, do that, you must comply, or I will smack your.... Excuse me! The people of Iran have as much right to be treated with respect as the people of America. Yes, their president has vocalised his dis-respect for Israel, and America. What goes round comes around, and there is a lot of disrespect from all of the parties concerned the US, Iran, and others. One wrong does not justify another.

 

If there is to be peace and harmony, all sides have got to stop this very childish behaviour NOW!

 

Ape of Man say's,

Don't follow my way's for my sake, make a new path for your own sake. We all make mistakes, that's part of our lot, if you want a better future, stop knocking the other lot. Or there'll be a meeting in the parking lot.

Get wise, follow the simple law: Treat other people, as you would want to be treated. With fearless respect.

 

Oh' date=' I hardly think so.

[/quote']

What do you think George's body language was saying then? (maybe the TV shot we got was different from over there)

What on earth are you talking about? The US did everything it could to limit collateral

damage....

Jim' date=' i know that innocent people get killed in wars. That was one of the many reasons why i lobbied the Iraqi government and others prior the start of the invasion. Though i copied my work to the UK foreign office, i saw no point in lobbying the US or UK government's directly.

 

As soon as Sadam certifiably destroyed his Sud missiles, i believe he was down for the count, and the WMD question could have been resolved without too much violence, if any at all. There is always the option of not starting a war, when the other side is responding positively to the threat of war. Starting a war just to rub some guys face... is not a fine example of civilised behaviour.

Do you even allow for the possiblity that Libya simply abandoning its WMD program has

something to do with the US going to war, in part, over the WMD issue in Iraq?....

I certainly do Jim. What i object to, is the implication that Libya wasn't wanting to abandon it's WMD until then.

 

It is a fact that Libya had been making offers to give up it's nuclear program, over a period of four years prior to the Second Gulf War. The offers were for whatever reason not accepted. I suspect that if there had been no second Gulf War, Gaddafi would still be waiting for acceptance of his offers. The timing was thus dictated by the willingness of the US to accept one of Gaddafi's offers.

 

Gaddafi has, admitted his misdeeds and agreed compensation for the victims of Lockerbie and as far as i know others. That does not bring back the dead, or undo the past, or remove the pain that the living bereaved, have to endure.

 

In response to Libya's past actions, we put in place sanctions. Gaddafi has, admitted his misdeeds and agreed compensation for the victims of Lockerbie and as far as i know others. In my opinion those sanctions worked, whereas they don't seem to generally. I think the reason why is that Gaddafi's, despite his flaws, actually cares for his people, and has done everything he could to free them from the suffering, his actions has caused them.

 

I do not know the parental status of his daughter Hanna, she may have been adopted after she was killed during a US bombing in 1986. She is perhaps attack. However, i think her death was for him the final straw.

 

In 1986, Gaddafi's reportedly adopted daughter, Hanna, was killed in the 1986 USAF bombing raid. At a "concert for peace".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_al-Qaddafi

My more basic point point is why the moral indigantion about the war if you admit that we

did the Iraqi's a favor?...we destroyed a repressive regime and gave

an entire people a chance at freedom....

Jim' date=' i assure you that to date, i do not think we have done the Iraqi's a favour by carrying out Gulf War 2. In the longer term, there is always hope, and i do hope. :-) Currently outside of the green zone there is mayhem. I've just watched a documentary comparing what you see on your TV over there, with what we see here, and the uncut original. The US version was more sanitised than the UK's, which we were informed is more sanitised than just about anywhere else. The program could only be legally shown after 21:00, i.e when the kids are in bed. Since the war 36,000 Iraqi citizens killed, and rising. More UK personnel killed today, including our forces first female victim. People in the US have lost their kid's too. Life is too precious to be wasted.

 

You believe that Gulf War 2 was necessary, i do not. Our points of view are in this thread. I am happy to agree, to disagree with you on the need for the second invasion of (somebody else's country) Iraq i.e Gulf War 2.

 

From my point of view, there is more than one way to crack an egg. Doing so with military might, doesn't leave the egg in a palatable condition. I hope you are not in the egg business. As i said before,"...America the strongest power on Earth, can't put humpty dumpty back together again.":D

... One real worry is whether Iran has the ability right now to turn over a dirty bomb to terrorists.

I should think Iran has had that ability for years. More worrying, is not knowing whether any radioactive material from post war Iraq, is now in the hands of terrorist or not.

If you are going to impute bad motives to a US President and a British PM' date=' shouldn't you

have a plausible theory.... if we had refused to

control Sadam's, there is no doubt he would have acquired WMDs at some point in the future.

[/quote']

You asked,"What do you see as his motives?". I do not have the ability to read other peoples mind's so cannot provide hard evidence to support a theory. In my reply i said, i was guessing. I believe, that the, by no means full list, of suggested events that may, or may not have been, underlying "motives". As to, "he would have acquired WMDs at some point in the future." Maybe, maybe not. The amount of resources a country puts into weaponry is proportional to the level of paranoia it feels.":-)

 

What worries me is George and Tony's punish them before they do it philosophy. I am not a prophet, and neither are they. For what it worth, it is also an anti-Christian philosophy.

Heh' date=' agreed.

[/quote']

I've mainly limited myself here to some of the points you raised, in your post. Each position is valid in it's own way and i am happy to let others judge for themselves. I reckon you and i will have to agree to disagree. Right Jim:confused:

IAEA in probe of uranium found in Iran:

 

The preliminary finding of traces of material that could be used in nuclear weapons production will add to concerns that Iran is concealing the more dubious parts of its nuclear programme