Slashdot Mirror

"The ban is on countries that are currently exporting terrorism."

So Saudi Arabia, where most of the 9/11 terrorists came from is no longer exporting terrorism?

http://www.washingtoninstitute...

Here's an article from a couple years ago, but over a decade after 9/11 recommending that Washington work with Saudi to (and i quote) "diminish support for terrorism". Al queda is viewed as favorable / somewhat favorable by as much as 20% of the population there.

The dumbest thing about it is that the EU cheered on Erdogan's attempt to curtail the power of the military because of 'freedom and democracy'.

http://www.washingtoninstitute...

On August 8, 2003, the seventh European Union (EU) reform package went into effect in Turkey, significantly curbing the role of the military in politics. This legislation, passed by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government on August 4, follows six previous packages adopted since February 2002. Collectively, these reform measures have vastly liberalized the country's political system, facilitating Kurdish broadcasting and education, abolishing the death penalty, and subjecting Turkish courts to the European Court of Human Rights. Turkey now has laws guaranteeing freedom of speech, and the military is no longer the kingmaker in Ankara. As a result, AKP -- a self-styled "conservative democratic" party with an identifiable "Islamist pedigree" -- anticipates that Turkey will pass muster when Brussels reviews its candidacy for EU membership in June 2004. Ankara hopes that the EU will establish an accession calendar, opening the way for Turkey's eventual entry into the union, perhaps within the next decade. These developments are crucial to Turkey's future. Which path will the country take now that the military is stripped of its role as a decision making body? Will the EU open its doors to Turkey?

Of course the EU turned down Turkey's membership.

Then the coup happened and the EU condemned it

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...

Erdogan used the excuse of the coup for a full on crackdown of critics of his regime, and even convinced EU countries to arrest EU citizens

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ger...

And then threatened to unleash a wave of refugees on the EU unless Turks get free movement

http://nationalpost.com/news/w...

And big pile of cash.

https://www.independent.co.uk/...

The basic problem is that the EU and the West push freedom and democracy and do things like push Turkey to curb the power of the military. But the government curbing the military in Turkey won't lead to a democratic government in charge because Turkey is fundamentally different from EU countries. Traditionally the main counter balance to Islamism has been the military having a coup every few years.

The EU have removed what was essentially an authoritarian check on the political aspirations of the Islamists and not replaced it with a more democratically correct one.

And of course the EU screwed Turkey - it forced a bunch of reforms on Turkey as part of the price of EU membership. Turkey made the reforms and then the EU welched on the membership. And Turkey knows the EU is dependent on it to stop another wave of refugees

Wanting to ban Muslims from entering the country simply on the basis of their religion is pretty awful.

Why is it awful? You may or may not agree, that it would help, but what is "awful" about it? It is not "simply" a religion — no other religion that I know of specifies a particular form of government as the only one acceptable. Most are mum on it, while Christianity explicitly leaves "Cæsar's to Cæsar". Donald Trump's page, to which you linked yourself, has links to results of a poll of Muslims already in the US showing, they would like to be governed by Sharia rather than the Constitution. Arguably, a President — who's solemn responsibility is upholding the document — would be derelict of his main duty, if he allowed even more people with such opinions to enter the country and become citizens. This is not much different than blocking Communists and Nazis from immigrating...

And before you say "First Amendment" — stop. Insults against Islam are already deadly dangerous — and even the "moderate" Muslims would like it to be illegal. When Iran called for murder of Salman Rushdee, Margaret Thatcher gave the man state's protection. Today we are more likely to see the victim blamed for his own "intolerance". For example, instead of the state's protection, the would-be Koran-burner was asked to pay for additional police presence out of his own pocket in order to exercise his First Amendment rights. Trump is more likely to reverse this unfortunate trend, and that is a good thing...

reject Islamism, but we should do it without blaming all Muslims

It is increasingly hard to make a distinction. But the ban Trump is proposing is not permanent — rather it is "until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on". That is, until reliable methods of separating "Islamists from Muslims" (your choice of terms, not mine) can be developed.

And, of course, there's his ridiculous wall idea

Why is it "ridiculous"? When Israel implemented their wall — which critics were calling ridiculous and evil too — the number of terrorism-related deaths inside Israel plummeted.

Seizing the remittances earned by people working here is very disagreeable to me; that's effectively a large tax on people who are, generally, low income.

As Trump points out, most of the remittances originate from illegal immigrants. Now, such illegality might not warrant death penalty or even incarceration, but any and all financial penalties are perfectly justified. What of the legal immigrants? Well, they too can easily avoid this "tax" you disapprove of by holding on to their monies — it will achieve Trump's goal anyway. Because the goal is not to rob these folks, but to compel Mexico to (help) pay for the wall construction.

His stance on NAFTA and free trade in general is not supported by most economists

Economics are a scandalously unscientific discipline. Frustrated Harry Truman once demanded to see a "one-handed economist" — so exasperated he became of the endless "one the one hand/on the other hand" coming from his economic advisers.

Now I am for free trade — not because it is effec

They are, by and large, joining al Qaeda-affiliated militant groups.

U.S. servicemen in WWII fought on the same side as the Soviets. Therefore, joining the U.S, Army is joining a Communist-affiliated militant group.

"Many news outlets and analysts frame all foreign fighters as terrorists or al Qaeda-aligned. The reality is more complex. As mentioned above, not all rebel forces in Syria are jihadist in orientation, nor are all the jihadist groups linked to al Qaeda. Furthermore, not everyone who has joined a jihadist group has been motivated by a fully formed jihadist worldview.... Based on the sheer scale of recruitment that is currently taking place, European security services are well advised to monitor the situation closely and adopt an intelligence-led, highly discriminate approach towards dealing with returning fighters." -- http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/european-foreign-fighters-in-syria [emphasis added]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Morsi

Morsi was a Member of Parliament in the People's Assembly of Egypt from 2000 to 2005, and a leading member in the Muslim Brotherhood. He became Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) when it was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. He stood as the FJP's candidate for the May–June 2012 presidential election.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/whos-who-in-the-muslim-brotherhood

Morsi was first recruited to the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States while studying for his PhD in engineering at the University of Southern California.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/07/20137314127329966.html

Morsi rose within the Brotherhood ranks, becoming a member of its powerful Guidance Bureau in 1995.

I can't find the source but I remember reading that Morsi is the 4th or 5th highest ranked brotherhood member. Yes he was the brotherhood's second choice for president, because he's not the highest ranking member. He has sworn oaths of fealty to the Egyptian brotherhood leader.

So everything you said was either a fabrication or a outright deception. Are you a propaganda agent or just an idiot?

Islamic democracy functions like this: One man, one vote . . . once.

Once they get in power, the first order of the day is to kill off any opposition. There is never a real election again.

While this is a simplification, Revolutionary Sudan by Burr and Collins tells what went down in Sudan when the Islamists took power there through a coup and Persopolis gives a ground-level view of Iran, while the Islamists in Turkey have allowed elections after jailing their political opposition and eliminating opposition media.

It's quite absurd for you to call Iran dangerous; they haven't been at war for years.

You're joking right?

Longstanding Support for Terrorism

U.S. officials describe the Iranian regime as the world's "central banker of terrorism." Indeed, Tehran has a nine-figure line item in its budget to support terrorism, sending hundreds of millions of dollars to various groups each year; the payments to Hizballah alone are as much as $200 million annually. According to Canadian intelligence, "[I]n February 1999, it was reported that Palestinian police discovered documents that attest to the transfer of $35 million to Hamas from the Iranian Intelligence Service (MOIS), money reportedly meant to finance terrorist activities against Israeli targets." Illustrating how such support is part of official government policy, from 2001 to 2006, Iran transferred $50 million to Hizballah fronts in Lebanon by sending funds from its central bank through Bank Saderat's London subsidiary.

Iranian support for terrorism goes well beyond the financial realm, however. Its well-known sponsorship of Palestinian terrorist organizations, for example, has included training and related contributions. Shortly after the second intifada erupted in September 2000, the regime assigned Mughniyeh himself to help Palestinian militant groups. According to a former Clinton administration official, "Mughniyeh got orders from Tehran to work with Hamas"; he was tasked with assisting PIJ as well.

Similarly, according to the U.S. government, Iran's al-Qods Force -- a wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) -- has a "long history" of providing all types of support to Hizballah, including training, guidance, and arms. In addition to running training camps in Lebanon, al-Qods has trained more than 3,000 Hizballah operatives at its own facilities in Iran. The unit also played an important role in rearming Hizballah following the summer 2006 war with Israel. According to the Treasury Department, al-Qods has provided a wide variety of weapons and financial support to the Taliban as well, in support of the group's anti-coalition activity in Afghanistan.

Iran also keeps threatening to cut off the world's oil supply by closing the Straight of Hormuz.

Of course they are concerned that the US may invade since Iran has wealth to extract and won't play along with the US, so they're developing nuclear weapons.

That's a laugh. The US gets the oil it needs from other countries while Japan, China, and other US allies and friends buy Iran's oil. That also doesn't take into account the large oil reserves that the US has that are undeveloped.

No, the Iranian's have a very different outlook.
Ahmadinejad: Destroy Israel, End Crisis
Iran's missiles are ‘ready to destroy Israel’

“If this [an Israeli attack] happens, which, of course, we do not foresee, its ultimate result would be to expedite the last breath of the Zionist regime,” Ahmad Vahidi, the Iranian Defence Minister, said on state television.

Iran says can cut energy to Europe, hit enemies

“Iran is standing on 50 percent of the world’s energy and should it so decide Europe will have to spend the winter in cold,” Hossein Salami, deputy commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, said in a meeting with war veterans and volunteers in Ker

As the smoke clears, it looks strongly like Rafsanjani teamed up with Western "Natl Endowment for Democracy" types to create this chaos by claiming a fraud, inciting a rebellion with the hopes of weakening his rival Khomenei.

1. No tangible evidence for fraud. and if your'e able to fake millions of votes, why overdo it and risk detection?

One could take the position that if you're going to throw an election, doing so in such a flagrant way would demonstrate your power. In other words, [if fraud occurred] they did it to send a message that they could do it and they had no fear of doing it.

2. Twitter provided the lion's share of the incendiary rumors to start the ball rolling, and the first many thousands of tweets apparantly came from just 1-3 anonymous english speakers (http://www.chartingstocks.net/2009/06/proof-israeli-effort-to-destabilize-iran-via-twitter)

That seems.. odd. Another news outlet disagrees with you.

3. the majority of Iranians DO NOT share Western values, it's just a fact.

Ah, well, if you had just stated this up front we could have concluded you're a loon more quickly.

umm.. all that should be taken care of. When clinton sent an onvoy to convince opec that they could manipulate the production of oil to raise the prices and thereby increasing the amount of money availible to pay back the debt the third world countries encounter.

The tird world debt is realy a conclusion made because forgiving it was a top conversation list at the time and the trip to riase oil prices seemed to ocme after congress lost anyt hope of passing somethign that would forgive third world debt that is directly related to the oil prices of the70's and 80's. there is also secret oil deals he made to control the prices and make himself look good or in control while president.

WE WERE ATTACKED ON 9/11.

"Thank you England and Poland and the other nations in our coalition. Together, we will root out and wipe out terrorism anywhere, anytime, in any country that threatens us."

This question will never make it to the President, but I'd like to know how he responds to the arguments against the Iraq invasion presented by Brent Scowcroft in 2002 (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.h tml?id=110002133)
Or George Bush Senior's statement in 1998 that invading Iraq would have "incalculable human and political costs" (http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/gulfwar.asp ) He also said "Whose life would be on my hands as the commander-in-chief because I, unilaterally, went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we're going to show our macho?" he asked. "We're going into Baghdad. We're going to be an occupying power -- America in an Arab land -- with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous. We don't gain the size of our victory by how many innocent kids running away -- even though they're bad guys -- that we can slaughter. ... We're American soldiers; we don't do business that way." (http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/03/a19990303bus h.htm)
Or Dick Cheney's assessment in 1991 (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubs/soref/che ney.htm)in which he said that "I think the proposition of going to Baghdad is fallacious," that invading would get the U.S. "bogged down in a quagmire," and that "Saddam Hussein's offensive military capability, his capacity to threaten his neighbors, has been virtually eliminated."
I want to know how the President (or anyone else, really) can reconcile the 2003 invasion of Iraq with these pronouncements. Obviously the situation has changed over the years, but it clearly has not changed enough to prevent the situation that Cheney described.

Which one of David Kay's reports? Kay's most recent report conceded that there were NO production plants manufacturing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Some work had been done in the lab on bacteria, but they had not been weaponised.

Kay's belief on Iraq trying to manufacture centrifuges to make enriched uranium is not supported by the IAEA or the American Department of Energy.

whether he actually had them or not, and that was never in dispute among any intel agency, even the french, russians, and germans, what we DO KNOW, is that he did have them, did use them, did have extensive programs,

All of which were destroyed by the UN after the first Gulf War. Even the supposed 10 000 litres of anthrax is nothing more than the maximum amount of liquid growth medium that could have been created from the missing stocks - all of which would have expired now.

The only thing that brought those inspections to an end was that the very same David Kay had allowed his inspection teams to become covers for British and American intelligence. The Iraqis objected to spies wondering around their country under UN cover (and can you name another country that refused to allow intrusive inspections? Here's a clue)

Kay's spent much of the last few years saying what a great idea it would be to attack Iraq (here and here and here and here and here and here) to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. So if they aren't found, it's David Kay who is going to look stupid. He's already had to do some serious back-pedalling on the nuclear programme, centrifuges, those trucks that were supposedly mobile labs

The BBC's 'Panorama' got some good quotes out of Kay. I recommend a read of the transcript.

But why blame David Kay, here is an assessment of Saddam Hussein's capabilities straight from the top:

'He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction, he is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.'
Colin Powell. (24th February 2001)

Best wishes,
Mike.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/henderson /henderson092302.htm

On September 8, the New York Times reported: "In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes which American officials believed were intended as components to enrich uranium..."

You oughta brush up on your googling skills.