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spot wrote:

Israel has a stockpile of 400 nuclear warheads, with delivery systems. No nation is going to push to a point where Israel recognises no way forward and unleashes its firepower on the way down.


There are very few people who know for a fact if Israel has or has not got nuclear devices and those that do know ain’t telling – and won’t.

spot wrote: Ahmadinejad said Israel should be "wiped off the map", if I remember the quotes in the newspapers. In what way is that a death threat? It involves the political dismantling of the State of Israel, the reversal of the United Nations Resolution that legitimized the creation of the "Zionist Entity", to use the propagandist description of the 1948 State. It's a country "wiped off the map", not a people "wiped off the face of the earth". If you choose not to distinguish a political from a genocidal threat then that's indiscriminate of you, or simply an expression of partisan bias.

On what basis do you put "should be destroyed" in quotation marks?


That paragraph is amazing in its – I’m not sure if it’s naivety, gullibility, irrationality, lack of reality, or something else that involves propaganda - but whatever it is it is rubbish.

Ahmadinejad meant exactly what he said.

It was a mark on the wall for those who he wants to impress, those whom he wants to encourage, and a statement of intent. It was, as was his ‘letter’ to Bush, a declaration of war.

It was also an act of genocide in itself as the Genocide Convention criminalizes not only the various acts of genocide, but also in Article 3 conspiracy to commit genocide and direct and public incitement to commit genocide.



To actually try to interpret ‘wiped off the map’ as meaning anything other than genocide requires a degree of prejudice or simply blinkered ignorance of the place, the people, and the facts that beggars belief.

Also, to raise this once again, a flawed, and I am now starting to suspect, a prejudiced maybe to the extent of being partisan, understanding and / or interpretation of what is involved and what is taking place.

golem wrote: Ahmadinejad meant exactly what he said.That, surely, was my point. We now have both my attempt at an analysis and your subjective opinion. Let people take them as they find them.

You have the unmitigated gall to accuse me of "prejudice maybe to the extent of being partisan"? I have no doubt whatever of the impression each of us leaves here. I can happily put up a paired paragraph arguing both for and against a point of view, and have done so on this site. Can you?

spot wrote: I doubt sometimes whether you read anyone's posts but your own. Round-in-a-circle time again. No foreign nation state, to the best of my knowledge, was responsible for 9/11.


You missed my point:

You stated that Israel's nuclear arsenal would prevent it from getting attacked.

I pointed out that America has an even greater arsenal, an yet we were attacked.

So your logic does not prove out. Apparently, madmen will attack a country whether it's got a nuclear arsenal or not.

The only question left to be decided is "Is Iran being run by madmen?";)

Jives wrote: You missed my point:

You stated that Israel's nuclear arsenal would prevent it from getting attacked.

I pointed out that America has an even greater arsenal, an yet we were attacked.As I have said far too repititiously, not by any foreign nation state, Jives. Just as I said of Israel that "No nation is going to push to a point where"... - do you not see the continual qualification of "nation" in all my posts? It's important. Why do you insist that we go round this tight little circle so many times?

Of course, if you feel that either Israel or the USA can be... what word fits your need? Dismantled? Destroyed? Stopped? Overrun? - by any non-state organization, then that changes matters. Personally, I don't see it as possible in either case. Do you?

spot wrote: If the Iranians ever get an overwhelming advantage throughout the world, an event which last occurred 2,800 years ago, I'd hope people were very pleased for them. Turn and turn about, after all. It's not even remotely possible, for all that.


I meant an overwhelming military advantage.

K.Snyder wrote: I meant an overwhelming military advantage.I rather thought you did, so I replied using exactly the same meaning. What made you think otherwise?

spot wrote: I rather thought you did, so I replied using exactly the same meaning. What made you think otherwise?


So you would be happy for Iran to have an overwhelming military advantage?

I just couldnt understand how someone would be happy for anyone, other than their country of preference, to have more of a military advantage.

golem wrote: [QUOTE=spot]Israel has a stockpile of 400 nuclear warheads, with delivery systems. No nation is going to push to a point where Israel recognises no way forward and unleashes its firepower on the way down.There are very few people who know for a fact if Israel has or has not got nuclear devices and those that do know ain’t telling – and won’t.[/QUOTE]And how very coy that stance has become over the past twenty years. How very relevant. As though telling or not telling has the slightest affect on reality any longer. That fig-leaf shrivelled to dust years ago.

Perhaps http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cpc-pubs/farr.htm is the best-informed document on the subject of the Israeli nuclear arsenal in the Internet at the moment. To quote its preamble, "The Counterproliferation Papers Series was established by the USAF Counterproliferation Center to provide information and analysis to U.S. national security policy-makers and USAF officers to assist them in countering the threat posed by adversaries equipped with weapons of mass destruction."

Do read it carefully when you have a spare twenty minutes, and decide what constitutes evidence.

K.Snyder wrote: So you would be happy for Iran to have an overwhelming military advantage?

I just couldnt understand how someone would be happy for anyone, other than their country of preference, to have more of a military advantage.I thought "Turn and turn about, after all. It's not even remotely possible, for all that" made it quite clear how nonsensical I considered the entire question.

spot wrote: I thought "Turn and turn about, after all. It's not even remotely possible, for all that" made it quite clear how nonsensical I considered the entire question.


And does this negate the fact that you said you would be happy for them?

I didnt ask if it were possible, I asked why you would be happy for them to have a military advantage.

K.Snyder wrote: And does this negate the fact that you said you would be happy for them?

I didnt ask if it were possible, I asked why you would be happy for them to have a military advantage.It might deter the war-profiteers of the White House from embarking on yet another round of high-tech massacre if it were possible for them - the Iranians - to have a military advantage, of course. Since you know there's no such possibility, and I know there's no such possibility, and everyone else here knows there's no such possibility, I'm not sure what point there is about speculating in that direction. Since it can't happen, the only suasion remaining is moral and economic rather than military.

spot wrote: It might deter the war-profiteers of the White House from embarking on yet another round of high-tech massacre if it were possible for them - the Iranians - to have a military advantage, of course. Since you know there's no such possibility, and I know there's no such possibility, and everyone else here knows there's no such possibility, I'm not sure what point there is about speculating in that direction. Since it can't happen, the only suasion remaining is moral and economic rather than military.That's a valid point. Works in China's case.

spot wrote:

Do read it carefully when you have a spare twenty minutes, and decide what constitutes evidence.


You really are fond of making assumptions!

golem wrote: You really are fond of making assumptions!I've placed the hyperlink into the record here, I don't need to say any more about it. Did you bother to have a quick look, out of interest? You seem to have spent all of two minutes in moving to this thread and clicking "Submit Reply".

spot wrote: I've placed the hyperlink into the record here, I don't need to say any more about it. Did you bother to have a quick look, out of interest? You seem to have spent all of two minutes in moving to this thread and clicking "Submit Reply".


LOL! :wah:

ANOTHER assmption!

This time that I had not seen the article, and a great many others beside, in the past.

golem wrote: ANOTHER assmption!Merely a question, and not an unreasonable one. You maintained "There are very few people who know for a fact if Israel has or has not got nuclear devices and those that do know ain’t telling – and won’t." and yet you knew of the Air War College paper already? What sort of fantasy land do you inhabit, mentally, to square that circle?

There may actually be readers of the thread who didn't look, I suppose. This is reasonably typical of the content of this US Government publication:

A technician from Dimona who lost his job, Vanunu secretly took photographs, immigrated to Australia and published some of his material in the London Sunday Times. He was subsequently kidnapped by Israeli agents, tried and imprisoned. His data shows a sophisticated nuclear program, over 200 bombs, with boosted devices, neutron bombs, F-16 deliverable warheads, and Jericho warheads.94 The boosted weapons shown in the Vanunu photographs show a sophistication that inferred the requirement for testing.95 He revealed for the first time the underground plutonium separation facility where Israel was producing 40 kilograms annually, several times more than previous estimates. Photographs showed sophisticated designs which scientific experts say enabled the Israelis to build bombs with as little as 4 kilograms of plutonium. These facts have increased the estimates of total Israeli nuclear stockpiles (see Appendix A).96 In the words of one American, “ can do anything we or the Soviets can do.”97 Vanunu not only made the technical details of the Israeli program and stockpile public but in his wake, Israeli began veiled official acknowledgement of the potent Israeli nuclear deterrent. They began bringing the bomb up the basement stairs if not out of the basement.

spot wrote: Merely a question, and not an unreasonable one. You maintained "There are very few people who know for a fact if Israel has or has not got nuclear devices and those that do know ain’t telling – and won’t." and yet you knew of the Air War College paper already? What sort of fantasy land do you inhabit, mentally, to square that circle?

There may actually be readers of the thread who didn't look, I suppose. This is reasonably typical of the content of this US Government publication:


Leaving aside the disclaimer at the start of the item that you quote from ---

Once again you assume that the information contained in that paper is 100% kosher.

Likewise how do you or for that matter anyone other than a few know that Vanunu was not a source of propaganda to support an illusion that Israel has atomic weapons? An Israeli agent acting as a form of agent provocateur happas?

After all, the very belief that a nation has such weapons is of great strategic value as was or may have been the case with Iraq, a thing that Saddam was, or may have been, capitalizing on in his dealings with those that he dealt with.

The bottom line is quite simply that there are very few people who do really know with certainty if Israel has atomics and as I wrote, those that do aren’t telling.

Spot, you are staggering in your gullibility and naivety not to mention lack of both understanding and knowledge of the REAL world and especially of the Middle East.

It is possible, in fact highly probable, with a probability as close to one as it gets, that Israel has nuclear weapons, but there is still no absolute certainty as Israel has never made a definitive statement. THAT is what must be constantly kept in mind.

golem wrote: Spot, you are staggering in your gullibility and naivety not to mention lack of both understanding and knowledge of the REAL world and especially of the Middle East.

It is possible, in fact highly probable, with a probability as close to one as it gets, that Israel has nuclear weapons, but there is still no absolute certainty as Israel has never made a definitive statement. THAT is what must be constantly kept in mind.Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. Of course the Israelis have a nuclear arsenal. Who needs mathematical certainty just to factor in the way the world is? The Israelis might insist, after hiding the fact as a state secret, that their lack of confirmation "must be constantly kept in mind" but that, after all, is their own agenda. It isn't binding on me at all. It might matter to the Israeli government for the purposes of diplomatic waltzing, it has no relevance to my interpretation of how things work.

The more you keep insisting I understand nothing - gullibility - naivety, the more reasonable I appear, has that not occured to you? I don't mind you making a fool of yourself. I think you could present yourself in a far better light if you just tried a bit. It makes life a lot easier here that you don't. Far Rider was always equally willing to wreck his own position on request. As modern parlance has it, "go figure".

spot wrote:

The more you keep insisting I understand nothing - gullibility - naivety, the more reasonable I appear, has that not occured to you? I don't mind you making a fool of yourself. I think you could present yourself in a far better light if you just tried a bit. It makes life a lot easier here that you don't. Far Rider was always equally willing to wreck his own position on request. As modern parlance has it, "go figure".


I really don’t give a hot damm if I present myself as meshuganah or a latter day Einstein! It’s an internet forum that’s all!

I’ve got nothing to prove, I’ve got no reputation that I feel it is essential to uphold, I don’t mind being wrong and admitting it when I am and I actually welcome taking on new ideas.

What I DO like to do is to try to be original, to bring something new to the party, to challenge accepted wisdom, to formulate new questions as that’s the hard part.

Finding the answers is simple compared to establishing what the questions should be.

Maybe that’s why you have such trouble with ‘terrorism’ and just why it is wrong that Iran should be let develop atomic weapons, you simply don’t have the ability to engage sufficiently in original though to decide on the questions to ask yourself in order to reach a sensible and sane conclusion and so form an equally sensible opinion.

golem wrote: What I DO like to do is to try to be original, to bring something new to the party, to challenge accepted wisdom, to formulate new questions as that’s the hard part.Bravo! That's the spirit. If I ever see it happen I'll be the first to congratulate you on your sucess.

You'll excuse me, I have a report to write and my daughter's arriving in three hours.

golem wrote: To actually try to interpret ‘wiped off the map’ as meaning anything other than genocide requires a degree of prejudice or simply blinkered ignorance of the place, the people, and the facts that beggars belief.Here we go, belief-beggar. I thought if we waited long enough we'd get a summary of academic opinion.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jon ... t_155.html

[...] the New York Times, which was one of the first papers to misquote Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, came out on Sunday with a defensive piece attempting to justify its reporter's original "wiped off the map" translation.

[...] Here is what the [BBC] spokesman told me about the "off the map" section: "The monitor has checked again. It's a difficult expression to translate. They're under time pressure to produce a translation quickly and they were searching for the right phrase. With more time to reflect they would say the translation should be "eliminated from the page of history".

[...] Starting with Juan Cole, and going via the New York Times' experts through MEMRI to the BBC's monitors, the consensus is that Ahmadinejad did not talk about any maps. He was, as I insisted in my original piece, offering a vague wish for the future.

A very last point. The fact that he compared his desired option - the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" - with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel. As a schoolboy opponent of the Shah in the 1970's he surely did not favour Iran's removal from the page of time. He just wanted the Shah out.

The same with regard to Israel. The Iranian president is undeniably an opponent of Zionism or, if you prefer the phrase, the Zionist regime. But so are substantial numbers of Israeli citizens, Jews as well as Arabs. The anti-Zionist and non-Zionist traditions in Israel are not insignificant. So we should not demonise Ahmadinejad on those grounds alone.

Apparently the fifteen year old that made this video has been receiving death threats from the nuttier of her countrymen. But I thought just as a reminder that warfare is not some video game with winners and losers.

http://peacetakescourage.cf.huffingtonp ... /wwjd.html

]

sixyearsleft wrote: Would You Back Military Action Against North Korea?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-p ... 098984.stm


Not unless they actually attacked someone. It's another regime that is going to end naturally. They can't sustain their economy for much longer without change.

I see one fundemental difference between America having nukes and extremists Muslims having them. You don't see Americans protesting in the streets wanting to kill all Muslims who happen not adhere to our religious or political beliefs. You do however see Muslims wanting to kill all the Infedels. Another question I have. At what point do we decide a certain ethnic group or nation cannot have a nuke?Do we allow the Cubans, Palistinians, Amercican Indians, Canadien Indians, How bout the Bloods or Crypts. I say we begin by not allowing groups who advertise their hate and wanton blood thirstiness toward all others who do not succumb to Islamic beliefs.

YZGI wrote: I see one fundemental difference between America having nukes and extremists Muslims having them. You don't see Americans protesting in the streets wanting to kill all Muslims who happen not adhere to our religious or political beliefs.


That's the point I've been trying to make too. iran has shown itself to be an irresponsible and violent country. if it was new Zealand that wanted the atomic bomb, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I guess it's the mix of violent politics and atomics that makes me nervous. Kind of like the North Koreans.

I say we begin by not allowing groups who advertise their hate and wanton blood thirstiness toward all others who do not succumb to Islamic beliefs.


Yeah...don't give a gun to a psychopath, even if he promises he's only going to shoot at bottles. ROFL!:D

Yeah, It's kind of like if you get into a fight with someone, You get them down they then tell you "If you let me up I will kill you." Should you then let that person up and possibly lose your life or do you beat them till you are assured of not being killed by them.

Jives wrote: That's the point I've been trying to make too. iran has shown itself to be an irresponsible and violent country. if it was new Zealand that wanted the atomic bomb, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I guess it's the mix of violent politics and atomics that makes me nervous. Kind of like the North Koreans.




Arn't they the ones who refused entry to an American Sub because it carried a reactor?

YZGI wrote: Yeah, It's kind of like if you get into a fight with someone, You get them down they then tell you "If you let me up I will kill you." Should you then let that person up and possibly lose your life or do you beat them till you are assured of not being killed by them.


If you're civilised, you don't get into a fight with them in the first place

Sometimes even civilized people must defend themselves or their family.

Another good analogy. If countries were people the U.S. would be the unsuspecting tourist, and Iran would be a mugger.

YZGI wrote: Sometimes even civilized people must defend themselves or their family.


I really liked the analogy given by ?Accountable? "You really dislike / distrust the ba$tard across the street and you know that he owns a bloody great gun. Do you get some mates together and break into his house to steal the gun from him?"

Invasion does not constitute defence. It is not civilised.

So you are saying that to be civilized there are no actions what so ever that would constitute invasion?

Bryn Mawr wrote: I really liked the analogy given by ?Accountable? "You really dislike / distrust the ba$tard across the street and you know that he owns a bloody great gun. Do you get some mates together and break into his house to steal the gun from him?"

Invasion does not constitute defence. It is not civilised.


OK...I'll go with you there. But lets take it a bit further. Let's say this guy across the street shot and killed his next door neighbors. (Iran / Iraq war.) and let's say he took the local ice cream vender hostage (Iran hostage crisis) and wouldn't let him go for two years. Then let's say that this guy with a big gun across the street came on the news and stated flatly that everyone on your side of the street should be "eliminated." (Iranian President's anti-Israel speech).

Would you still just sit in your house and hope that he doesn't really mean it. Hope that your house is not his next target?

YZGI wrote: So you are saying that to be civilized there are no actions what so ever that would constitute invasion?


I am saying that I cannot think of any situation that would constitute just cause for one country to invade another - especially when the invading country is the world's most powerful by several orders of magnitude.

Rowanda could have constituted just cause for a united police action but it's one of the very few.

Pinky wrote: I'd run across and snap his fingers off so he couldn't shoot. Then shove his gun somewhere unsavoury...but I wouldn't shoot him.


lol! Ok, Pinky... I agree! Let's snap of the Iranian president's fingers so that even if he gets a nuclear bomb, he won't be able to press the button to launch it! LOL!

Jives wrote: OK...I'll go with you there. But lets take it a bit further. Let's say this guy across the street shot and killed his next door neighbors. (Iran / Iraq war.) and let's say he took the local ice cream vender hostage (Iran hostage crisis) and wouldn't let him go for two years. Then let's say that this guy with a big gun across the street came on the news and stated flatly that everyone on your side of the street should be "eliminated." (Iranian President's anti-Israel speech).

Would you still just sit in your house and hope that he doesn't really mean it. Hope that your house is not his next target?


If you want to bring politics into it - firstly Iraq (the next door neighbour) invaded Iran (aided and abetted by yourself) who did not kill him but did defend himself.

Secondly, the hostage taking was a direct result of the CIA sponsored coup d'etat and the US support for the Shah.

Thirdly, how many times do we have to go over what was actually said? And one speach is not just cause - especially when there is not the means to carry out what you perceve to be a threat. There is (again) no clear and present danger!

In an united police action you will still have those who believe the action is unjust, not to mention unaffecting.

Welcome Yzgi. I assume that's pronounced just as it's spelled?



These are sovreign nations. They have not attacked us. Why are we so enthusiastic to support our own right to bear arms, our own right to defend ourselves, but want to limit other nations'?

Bryn Mawr wrote: I really liked the analogy given by ?Accountable? "You really dislike / distrust the ba$tard across the street and you know that he owns a bloody great gun. Do you get some mates together and break into his house to steal the gun from him?"



Invasion does not constitute defence. It is not civilised.Yup. That's whut I said, word for word......... sorta.

Jives wrote: Another good analogy. If countries were people the U.S. would be the unsuspecting tourist, and Iran would be a mugger.;)I don't know what you use to think with, Jives, but it can't involve your head. The US has surrounded Iran with US troops. There's no armed Iranian within five thousand miles of the US Homeland and never has been. Who's the mugger?