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Iranian Heavy Water Nuke Plant Goes Online Today
avtchillsboro writes "According to an article in the NYT, an Iranian heavy water nuke plant goes online today. From the article: 'An Iranian plant that produces heavy water officially went into operation on Saturday, despite U.N. demands that Tehran stop the activity because it can be used to develop a nuclear bomb. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the plant, which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes. The announcement comes days before Thursday's U.N. deadline for Iran to stop uranium enrichment — which also can be used to create nuclear weapons — or face economic and political sanctions.'"
Cue obligatory 'Weapons of Mast Destruction' quote from Dubya because Nucular doesn't sound evil enough.
I feel it coming on - the sweet buzz of HYSTERIA!!! YEEHAAA!! I'm long oil! Watch oil prices rise with every US/Brit government denunciation!
The real problem is that Iran is not letting international inspectors see their installations. Remember what happened to Iraq in a similar case?
Future conversation:
UN: Stop enriching uranium or face political and economic consequences.
Iran: Do so and we will stop selling you oil. China will buy it if you don't. Continue your threats and we will use our position in OPEC against you.
UN: Uhhh....
Cleo says, "airstrike".
We shall liberate the people of Iran and give justice against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the people of Iran! Democracize the Earth Today!
Iran has money to burn, and UN sanctions don't seem to be particularly effective ways to convince to governments; it's the proletariat who suffer. In the meanwhile, Iran's government gets to play the "it's us against the (non-Muslim) world!" card again. Jihad, anyone?
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
If I don't meet you no more in this world, I'll meet you in the next one and don't be late.
They are an independent country, and as long a they dont go around violating basic human rights who do we, the 'free world' think we are telling them they cant do this?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
With Israel a known (suspected within 99.999%) holder of nukes, Iran sees themselves as the logical counterpoint. They do mean to make weapons, of this I have no doubt.
Peaceful purposes? The iranian prez has said Israel should be wiped off the map. He doesn't strike me as a man with peaceful intentions.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
they want nuclear power, and everyone goes apeshit?
One quote that might interest people from the interview is this:
Mohammad Saeidi is a practical man. Sidestepping the political, ideological and historical aspects of the nuclear dispute with the West, the vice-president of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation is focused on a set of problems that must be solved logically if the country and its people are to develop to their full potential. "The country's oil and gas reserves will last a maximum of another 25 or 30 years," he says. "Therefore we have to provide other resources."
If you are an American, please don't support your current administrations drive to cause yet another war by believing their propaganda about Iran. Really, you should trust your politicians as soon as they find the WMD that they told you existed in Iraq.
Please don't let Bush plunge the world into the Realm of $200 a barrel oil prices by attacking Iran.
I alway wondered if radioactive oil is as useable as the clean crude. I suppose we could always use it to lube the current nuke plants ;)
lick the cancle button (at least thats what our Chinese QA says)
Iranian Heavy Water Nuke Plant Goes Online Today.
How long before it feels the slashdot effect?
Iran will win this one becasue they have the oil, so easily it's not even worth having the contest.
The Iranians and Osama could both just crush Bush in any contest physical or mental, not that Bush could ever find either of them. Iran (any OPEC country) or China (who has all our money) can completely and totally destoy our economy at any time.
It's really quite depressing to be an American these days, and I can hear Hezbola (a branch of the Iranian government) laughing from here, which doesn't help.
I for one am staying away for Israel, becuase they are already nuked, they just don't know it yet.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
Naive of me, but did anyone RTFA? It says that Iran can now produce heavy water, not that they have a nuclear reactor. FFS, I thought the NYT had higher standards of journalistic integrity than to use a misleading headline.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
It is my understanding that Iran would like to build a uranium nuclear device. While these are impressive--and definitely make a big boom--they are not nearly as deadly or frightening as a plutonium nuclear device. The reason? Deliverability. While a plutonium nuclear explosive can be squeezed down to a pretty small size (to fit on the tip of a cruise missile, for example), a uranium device has to be pretty massive.
Essentially, while a plutonium device is a ball of plutonium surrounded by concentric spheres of perfectly timed explosives, a uranium device is the equivalent of a 5-inch diameter gun which fires a uranium slug at a uranium target. The advantage of a plutonium device is obvious: it's small. The disadvantage of a plutonium device is the fact that it's very, very difficult to get the timing right so that you don't incinerate the plutonium before it goes critical. Meanwhile, a uranium device is dirt-simple to develop once you have the material. However, these things are huge. So huge, in fact, that you need something the size of a B29 in order to deliver it. We're talking several tons here.
Incidentally, the US developed one of each during the Manhattan Project, culminating in the two dropped bombs: Little Boy and Fat Man (no prizes for guessing which is which). While the Plutonium devices needed to be tested to make sure it worked, the scientists didn't even bother to test a uranium explosive at full scale. They just dropped the sucker.
Basically, this boils down to a pretty simple reality: even if Iran develops a uranium device, they can't deliver it. They can't put it on a missile, and I think it's a 100% certainty that Israel (or anyone else, for that matter, though Israel is the most likely target) would shoot down anything the size of a B29 flying in from Iran. If I had to guess, I'd wager that's why the Bush administration doesn't seem terribly worried about Iran. North Korea is a different matter, but Iran just isn't as big of a threat as everyone seems to be making it out to be.
And as an aside, it's certainly tempting to say "well, they could just put it on a boat and hide it and float it to a port and explode it." However, there are a couple of problems. First of all, each nuclear device that Iran develops will be a sort of force-multiplier for its power in the region. So if it develops--say--three devices, that means that losing just one is going to be a dramatic blow to its power. If you say that there's a 50/50 chance that the device will actually make it to its target, there's just no way to rationalize that risk. Much better to use the threat as leverage. The Iranian leaders don't subscribe to Western modes of thought, but they're aren't utterly irrational.
LR
This guy is BEGGING you to slap sanctions on Iran-- other articles are quoting him saying things like "if other nations choose to retaliate, we are prepared to accept that to defend our rights" or something-- because he knows that the hardline government he runs will gain more public support if they can present America as putting Iran under hardship. This guy is trying as hard as he can to manufacture diplomatic conflict with the United States.
And Bush will be more than happy to provide conflict. And America will get more hard-line and paranoid, and the Iranian citizenry will get more hard-line and paranoid, and both Bush and Iran's crazy racist president will benefit. Meanwhile, oil prices in the U.S. will go up and the Iranians will suffer economically...
1. Diplomacy, so far has failed.
2. Air strikes, don't know where all the facilities are and many of those we do are located so far underground that conventional weapons are useless. Not only that but Iran would no doubt cut off oil supplies which would cause an oil crisis.
3. Military invasion, not enough troops because of our excursion into Iraq. The only possible alternative is a draft.
4. Leave it for the next administration to sort out, the most likely scenario.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
I welcome $200/barrel oil. That will completely eliminate any advantage that OPEC nations ruled by petty dictators have over world energy policy. IF that would spur other large economies into hastening their move into other more sustainable energy sources, $200 oil would do us all a great favor. Better to confront the problem now than later.
If the UN imposes sanctions, no one will use military force to stop Iran's program. No matter how useless the sanctions are. Because there will be useful idiots who want a "multilateral approach" - probably so we can have "peace in our time"....
The Iranian leadership is not crazy - homicidal, maybe. But not crazy.
This is not a nuclear power plant that's online (yet), but merely a facility that produces heavy water.
It's fun to get people worked up with such a headline (and almost all the AP wire sites did so), but on closer examination, it's hard to get too outraged at Iran for manufacturing something that you can buy on eBay.
Everything was just fine back when men revered sensible gods like Jupiter and Apollo.
Then everyone had to go and jump ship for that preposterous Jewish human sacrifice cult.
Now look what happened. You will have only yourselves to blame when your port cities are engulfed by mushroom clouds.
Look it up.
Deleted
What about the fact that nuclear power is cheaper and more sustainable than gas?
The problem in this case is that unlike a few years back with Iraq, the Iranians have this time created such a well-timed diversion (Lebanon)
Gee, that's interesting. I seem to remember ISRAEL invaded LEBANON, not the other way around.
It's possible-- hardly proven, but possible-- that Iran was in some way involved in the Hezbollah actions that spurred Israel into starting the brief Lebanon war. But TIMING? That was 100% Israel and Israel's choice alone. The thing Hezbollah did that made Israel finally lose it was just the latest tiny snipe in a series of back-and-forth kidnappings, rocket strikes etc that's been going on for years, decades even. There's no way you can say "Iran created a well-timed diversion" with Lebanon and still pretend to be living in reality.
But, of course, just like the Arab supporters of the Palestinians, the western supporters of Israel are never really living in reality anyway.
How about diversification of their energy sources; OR that they make more money from selling the oil overseas rather than consuming it themselves; OR that they're converting their economy from a resource-based one to a scientifically-based one. There're several obvious legitimate reasons for their nuclear ambitions if you just open your eyes.
Of course, bomb production is also a valid reason and Iran may be choosing this path for National Security. We saw how successful Iraq got without Nukes.
How about this "sanction":
"If you do not shut down all of your nuclear weapon facilities, and dismantle anything used to develop such weapons, we will do it for you."
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
I for, one, do NOT welcome our new-clear, Shi'ite Overlords. No matter how you pronounce "nuclear", or, for that matter, "Shi'ite".
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
If Iran sells the oil to *someone*, it makes no real difference who. It just means that whoever would have sold to China, would sell to whomever Iran is now not selling to. This extra constraint on the distribution network just adds a small price per barrel. That's just as empty a threat as the UN's.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
You can order deuterium from chemical supply companies.
http://unitednuclear.com/hw.htm
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
We could make their server go nuclear.
My naturally trusting personality leads me to the following theory:
The Iranians are indeed flying in the face of the UN by developing tech that could be used to develop nuclear weapons without letting the UN see it, just to piss 'em off.
However, they won't develop nuclear weapons, just so we'll all go "Oh. I suppose since they didn't develop nuclear weapons, we can trust them."
You see? We'll trust them! Then what? We'll have to invade!
Google: "All your data are belong to us."
For renewing my faith in humanity, one lucid mind at a time.
It is not difficult for the rest of the world to see the US Foreign Policy failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, etc. etc. I agree wholeheartedly that this is an Imperialist operation, funded and supported by Oil Cartels to further fleece the population. Has anyone here heard of Synarchist International? Prescott Bush's progeny are back at it, trading with the enemy. The truth is painfully apparent.
Bush lied, thousands died...impeachbush.org
if I claimed I was emperor just because some watery tart lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!
Slashdot moral equivalance is coming in 5, 4, 3, 2....
Well, we could dust off the MAD strategy; but maybe $100/bbl oil is a better outcome, frankly. It might certainly be good for me, since I now own property in the city, within walking distance of public transit. Sucks to be a suburbanite with $5/gal gas.
Actually, I rather like the $100/bbl outcome. Remember that line, "the cold war is over and the Japanese won?". How about, "the oil war is over, and those who bought property in the cities won".
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
They want to protect and spread their concept of right and wrong.. By force if needed. How is that different then what we are doing?
Dont get me wrong, i *dont* feel comforable with them having the bomb either. But what gives us the *right* to judge them when our track record isnt spotless either and a lot of this stuff is 'perception' of who is right and who is wrong anyway.. My god or yours.. who is following the 'correct' one?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I agree. Why should Americans listen to Bush, when Iran's own president's speeches are much more effective propaganda against Iran?
You don't use heavy water for power generation. You use uranium or plutonium. All nuclear power generation is fission. Uranium and Plutonium will fission. Heavy water will not fission. It will, however, fusion. There is no reactor that will fusion in a commercially viable way. There is ONLY ONE device that uses heavy water.... A hydrogen bomb.
this is clearly to meet energy needs, in particular the need unleash energy in israel on the megaton scale
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I have no trouble at all with that idea.
Assume peaceful intent and treat everyone else under that pretence, until shown otherwise, then obliterate them *completely* ( as a world effort, not just us doing the job ) to serve as an example of why you should behave in the world..
( yes we can debate what that 'proof' is, and if iran already has shown this, but im sure you get the point im making )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Well, except that the fuel to transport things like food will shoot up, so the cost of food will jump as well. As might the cost of electricity to run all that nice public transportation (I know that's mostly coal or other sources, but I'm sure it'll go up as well) Life in a city will probably be negatively affected even if you only have to walk to work...
Oh no, not again.
China and Russia cynical backing of Iran leaves the UN powerless to stop Iran. Indeed, I think the end is near for the UN security council as we've know it since the 50's. That Russia continues with nuclear projects in Iran, with Iran in flagrant violation of the NPT, is a disgrace. Unless the US and Europe fancy a terrorist nuke in one of their capitals or want to see Israel "wiped off the map", strategic bombing of all nuclear sites is a near certainty. The only question is when. The west will be reluctant to do the obvious because there will be a blockage of the straights of Hormuz by Iran. That will greatly disrupt the world economy. But you gotta do what you gotta do. Should have smacked these fools back in 1979.
an ill wind that blows no good
When a country in the middle east close to a lot of oil is thinking about makeing alternative energy, the US should maybe considering doing the same, instead of pushing DIRTY coal energy (what an idiocy) and driving 4liter engine trucks on completely flawless flat roads .....
....
...
./ crowd who I consider thinking people.
Oh well, and the us does not seem to be interested in Korea that much anymorem eventhough they are known to produce nuclear weapons and rockets
Sorry to say, but the US should not have the idea/power/facce of telling countries things like "you cannot have a nuclear plant" because we think you are all arab terrorists/and or financing terrorists and/or might be sometimes financing terrorists
They could suggest to the UN to tell a country not to make nukes (as in nuclear weapons) but still, on what ground? The US is a big nuke power, so it should not have the right to tell a country not to make the same weapons they are ?entitled? to produce on a God given bases. Because they are not Koreans, Russians, or they read a line in the other direction.
now tag me troll or flamebait, I am a very european and very white person who just cannot watch that injustice constantly without spitting out my thought, at least to the
cheers
ps: being as green and vegetarian and all as I can, I think Nuke power, when applied safely, could turn this rottening planet into a better place... definetely better than what we are doing now, burning oil and coal. And before you mention Chernobil, I was very close to taht when it happened, and we got a good dose of it,,,,,, that crap blew bacause it was carelessly maintained, in my country we have the same construction working for 20 years just fine up to today...
Or maybe they just want to generate electricity to power the homes and workplaces of their 70 million people?
Won't Iran still be able to build a bomb if international trade shuts down? I don't think sanctions solve anything except make the place a rogue nation in the eyes of the world. Once established its a rogue nation, then maybe some military action on their nuke sites won't be condemned by the world. This is just my take.
God spoke to me.
Did we slashdot them? That's probably not going to go over too well...
I even tried the country code for Iran, .ir, but still no go. Someone let me know when they're back online, OK?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Don't underestimate Israel's ability to do what they feel is neccessary to protect their hegmony in the region.
There. Fixed that for you.
This simplistic us versus them approach gets us nowhere - Iran does not rule Lebanon and Bin Laden does not rule Iran. Iranians don't even speak Arabic as their first language and really do not have much in common with Palestinians, they are not going to give Hezbolla the bomb, just as Israel didn't give a bomb to the Phalangists.
We should be more worried about Iran having a nuclear capability itself instead of James Bond fantasies of bombs ending up in the hands of supervillians. Thankfully uranium enrichment is a difficult and time consuming thing (despite what the nuclear power advocates say) so it may be a matter of a lot of time. We have a Cuba sitaution where Iranian leaders can sit back and blame many of their problems on the USA whether it is relevant or not and have public opinion on their side forever - the difference is they also blame Israel. Being a pariah state is a driving force for things like this weapons program and the worlds reaction to it is making things worse - we are not dealing with a resource poor North Korea here that has to buy goods from their neighbour at inflated prices - we are dealing with a resource rich country with a large population that hasn't even bothered to find where all it's oil is because they are getting enough. We are also dealing with a country with most of it's adult population in their 20's but reacting to events that only those over 50 took part in. We need to use more than just threats and sanctions to deal with this situation and the Iranians are probably more likel to listen to reason than we think. They know a lot about the USA - they even employ quite a few professional basketballers from the USA.
Gunboat diplomacy isn't working so we should just give up on it, not even the technological edge is as big as people think. Remember Iran even has classiifed US military equipment like the tank fire control systems given to Israel, sold from there to China, then resold to Iran (this really pissed off the pentagon - the enquiry was around 2000). The guys that get the big dollars to negotiate should do it - and restrictions on trade are counterproductive because the private sector can also negotiate (and the restrictions on everything to stop the weapons trade are restricting everything but the weapons trade).
Iran started its nuclear program back when the Shah was still a US puppet. Of course, I don't expect to hear anything about that from the Bushes, who put the Iran in "Iran/Contra".
It's always been a bad idea to proliferate nukes in the Mideast, a part of the world controlled by politicians defined more by death's rewards than life's opportunities. Reading more of the history of Iran's nukes helps explain why the French are so deeply involved, and how the roles of the US and Russia are so "complicated".
--
make install -not war
Doesn't it seem stupid to have only a handful of countries with nuclear weapons?
My solution would for the US to build one ICBM for each country in the UN. If you're in the UN, here's ONE nuke. You only get one.
* You want true equality around the world, there it is. Every country is now equal.
* You want to end wars, you've done it. No one can invade anyone else or risk getting nuked.
* Talk about one world government? Now it's really possible.
Give them all nukes.
And...
North Korea and Syria will develop nukes similarly for the same reason. South Korea and Japan won't sit around while North Korea has nukes and neither will Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, or Turkey do the same for Iran or Syrian nukes. In effect, if Iran gets nukes the entire NPT will fail. I'm sure our friend Hugo Chavez in Venezuela will be considering nukes as well. And even if he is not, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico will think that he is and work on their own programs (since the world didn't care about all of the Middle Eastern countries). And what about our great buddy Mugabe in Zimbabwe? He is so scared about losing power that he'd start a nuclear program. This would force South Africa to build a nuclear program (probably the only country in the south or central part of Africa that could actually afford one).
In effect nuclear war becomes much more likely because a lot more people have nukes and they have many different priorities. It only takes one nuke detonated in NYC to cause the US to go pscyhotic (and probably shoot 100 or more nukes in response).
It seems you're having problems understanding basic economics.
Yes, they do have a lot of petroleum available to them. And with oil at $70/barrel it's likely in their best financial interests to sell it at the moment, rather than consume it domestically.
Don't forget that any oil burned domestically could not be sold on the world market. The return on burning each barrel of oil domestically would have to be well over $70, just to cover the opportunity cost of not selling it. The return must also cover other costs, such as the cost of the power plant infrastructure, and healthcare costs due to pollution-related illness.
It's more than plausible that going with nuclear power for their domestic needs, and selling oil to foreign buyers, could offer the greatest return.
Which part of this item is "news for nerds"? It's news and an important event, but does it really belong here? Do they have the blueprints on the Internet or are they using Linux to run it? And category: Hardware? Is it like a new case mod or are they using heavy water to cool their Athlons?
Come on, I demand more nerd content!
Why aren't the racist apartheid zionists subjected to the same standard? When have they "opened up for inspection"? When did they sign the nuclear non proliferation treaty? How many generations can they get away with keeping people locked up into little bantustans with very little water, no way to work, and subject to daily attacks?
BTW, they just rocketed a few Reuters camerman and some civilians. Nothing special, they kill innocent people daily-and have a widespread and verifiable past track record of engaging in "false flag" operations, committing terrorist attacks and making it look like someone else did it. There have been many, here are two of them
remember the Liberty
remember 9-11 and the dancing "movers"
is that it provides a deterrent against any foreign powers because they could hold Tel Aviv hostage.
Of course it doesn't work that way. The political backlash that would occur from anyone using nuclear weapons in today's world would be sufficient to cause serious long-term problems for the one who initiates a nuclear confrontation.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
It's more than plausible that going with nuclear power for their domestic needs, and selling oil to foreign buyers, could offer the greatest return.
While you're right, it's possible that could be true, what makes me very suspicious of it, was that if they could make energy for their own consumption at a lower cost than they could sell their own oil on the world market for, why wouldn't the states they're selling oil to (the West), who already have nuclear programs, already be doing that? After all, when we burn oil in the U.S. to generate power, we also have to pay for its transportation cost halfway around the world.
It seems rather specious that they would sense for them to spend billions of dollars developing an alternateve source of energy, when one is so readily available -- so readily available, in fact, that most other countries forgo nuclear energy in favor of simply buying it.
But overall I think this is a silly argument to have; it's not Iran's domestic energy reserves that have really sparked so much international concern over their nuclear program, it's because of its government's attitude with regards to Israel, particularly in light of recent comments by their President. Were it not for their stated aim of destroying the Israelis, and their "peaceful nuclear research" looking so much like a bomb factory, I doubt anyone would really give a damn if that's where they decided to spend their money.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
We really really Really REALLY mean it this time. Pretty please stop.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
stay with their current US-supplied light-water reactors then?
Yes Iran wants a nuke as a way of offering deterrence against a situation like we see today with Iraq.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Now you know why I'm not President.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Well, except that the fuel to transport things like food will shoot up, so the cost of food will jump as well.
I don't know very much about economics, but it would be interesting to know what kind of impact the increase in transportation costs would have on the US economy and what effect this would have in the short and long-term.
Would more agricultural and textile goods need to be produced domestically in order to reduce transportation costs? I guess the argument could be made that this could increase jobs outside of the "Information Economy" which could help diversify the United States' economic base and maybe reduce the US trade deficit and reliance on foreign countries for goods.
Would this rise in the cost of oil help to drive innovations in alternative fuels and energy?
The old adage is that necessity drives innovation. And where there's necessity there's money to be made, which would be good for the US economy. I believe both of these statements to be true.
Increased oil prices are most likely not good for the short-term, but what about the long-term?
I can't see the irony: a country that refused to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and developed nuclear weapons on the sly (Israel) attacked a country that signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and has been materially in compliance (IAEA's words, not mine) with that treaty ever since (i.e. there is no actual evidence they intend to develop nuclear weapons, regardless of what FOX News says).
Seems like a pretty predictable outcome to me.
Frankly, if I was a country sitting on top of large oil (and HUGE natural gas) deposits, I'd work feverishly to reach a state where my local energy needs were met with non-fossil-fuel power. Why burn your own fossil fuels when you can sell them for obscene profits instead?
Of course, if there was a superpower in this hypothetical world that was going to be greatly disadvantaged after my wise use of my own resources (compared to them, that is), I'd probably also expect them to try to attack me before my nuclear power system came online and I became a real petropower. The problem with angering a superpower is that you need to have a nuclear arsenal to prevent them from attacking you (compare North Korea's success in this regard with Iraq's--the lesson is that if you have non-imaginary WMD's, you don't get attacked). But if I start building nukes, to prevent me from getting attacked, I get attacked before they can be built. So what do I do?
Before I started nuclear energy production, I'd send one of my agents (let's call him Chahmed Allabee) to the superpower to convince them to attack my neighbor and worst enemy, who is also oil-rich (and the superpower is pretty much looking for any excuse to attack them anyway). The superpower won't be able to resist a full-on permanent occupation (to secure all that oil, and therefore lessen the financial harm to them from my plan), and then...here's the best part: I wouldn't have to have nukes in order to defend myself against a superpower (or proxy) attack anymore. There'd be thousands of superpower troops so close I could hit them with a slingshot (or even a spent fuel rod if it came to that). And meanwhile, my agent is--I kid you not--part of the puppet government of that occupied neighbor country--a fact which I might maybe, just maybe, be able to use to prevent any oil from actually getting exported from that country for a decade or so (which in turn increases the value of my own resources).
And that, my friends, is what they call a checkmate. The only way it could be safe for the superpower to attack me would be if they withdrew from the country next door. I'd be willing to bet the nuclear obliteration of my own country that they'd never ever EVER do that--and I'd win.
Still think most people miss the point.
The middle east is a population bomb. All of the Muslim dominated countries are having huge families. The entire region, if you take out oil, produces less gdp than Sweeden. The result: angry people. And angry people are going to start wars. Its not going to matter if you vote for a pacifist candidate -- do they have a magic wand to stop the violence? Did not think so.
Its ironic too. During the cold war everyone is crying for disarmement. Now its a right to have nukes if your from the third world. Just have to call the B.S.
As far as Israel, I have to admit they look weak after the last Lebannon adventure. Then again, in an odd way, Israel is defined by the conflict. Its all a racket, if you have the conflict you get all the arms and status. No conflict means open borders and I don't see Israel divirsifying to 80% muslim.
This is BS. Isreal has working nukes with an accurate ability to deliver them. Iran is not interested in mutual self destruction. If Iran is indeed building nukes, it is in response to American agression in the region. The Bush adminstration has already threatened them and shown it is willing to invade a country for it's own purposes.
Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime. -Author Unknown
:)
/. so its going in as AC.
The paranoia on slashdot never ceases to amaze or entertain. This is what normal people must feel when they read tabloids.
The underlying issue for Iran, is probably non dependence on the western world for technology. The US is not freaked out that Iran might be aiming for a nuclear weapon, the US is annoyed because if Iran ever did decide to develop nuclear weapons, it would take months instead of years depending on how mature their technology is. That and this is the continuation of the administrations scare tactics/propaganda machine.
As for the issue with Iran and potentially losing its oil, the problem isn't just Iran's oil production. Look at a map of Iran if you ever have a moment to research the issue. Do you have any idea how many ships carrying oil from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia blah blah rest of the mid east, pass right under Iran? If Iran chose to choke the middle east's oil production they probably could with nothing but katuchyas (probably spelling it wrong).
Oh but wait, the US will freeze all Iran's money in the US on their own. Again for the wonderfully uninformed, google "US Iran funds frozen". Apparently the US has held approximately 17 billion(claimed) dollars back since 1979. What does this mean? Iran has no money the US can effectively touch because its all probably in Euros and between China and Russia who are as likely to impose sanctions on Iran as the US is to remove sanctions on Cuba.
There is a reason no country on the planet has used nuclear weapons in an actual conflict since the US in WW2. It also takes alot more than one or two nukes to destroy a country. Probably only a handful of nations on the planet have the capacity to wipe out entire nations, or in the case of the US, the whole planet over a few times heh. Ideological crap sounds good on CNN, the ultimate reality show, it keeps people glued to their sets waiting for the rapture lol, maybe they'll let you text in votes for 50 cents a message on which side you want to win
I could go on, but i'm getting bored. I saw two intelligent posts in this whole thread, and I can't be bothered to remember my password or account name to
Israel will take out their nuclear infrastructure, if it looks like they could even be close to producing weapons-capable fissile materials. Look what they did to Iraq's Osirak reactor. If they have to turn Iran into a bloody Trinitite car park to stop them aquiring weapons, they'll do it.
This is not morally equivalent.
Well, considering that our concept is that we want to spread freedom, and they want to spread strict Islamic law.
That means a lot of the rights that people have fought for during the last 200 years (in the US) would go straight down the tubes, not the mention what's going on in the country these days.
Gay rights? Not for them. They KILL people for being gay.
Women's rights? Nope.
One of the Islamic states actually passed a law that a woman that was raped could be PROSECUTED for it!
There's a HUGE difference about what countries in the West do, and what the Islamic states want to do.
The U.S. and Israel will not allow Iran to go nuclear, and they can prevent it without a single soldier having to be part of an invasion force. They can knock out Iran's air defense network in a matter of days if not hours, then roam freely through their skies dropping buster-bunkers on anything suspected of being a nuclear facility.
The U.S can park a few Seawolf submarines near Iran and rain cruise missiles on them for days without being detected. The only stage that is being set, is for the future ass-whipping the U.S. and Israel are about to give Iran. The sad thing is that clearly, Iran wants this, in order to bring other Arab nations into the fold of Western-Hating dictatorships. They believe that they can cut the flow of oil to the west with the cooperation of Hugo Chavez.
All that really needs to be done here, is for western nations to cut off head off the snake, so to speak; Just kill Iran's president, wipe out the Mullahs, and the 81% of Iranians held captive by that regime will form a true democracy.
You need some more energy research. They don't even yet have enough refineries to make all the gasoline they need, they *import it*. They are trying to get away from totally relying on mass exportation of about the only natural resource they have. And what they do export, they are trying to take considerable sums and rebuild their nation from a decade of war with the US backed iraq, recover from two decades of "royal" shah rule where cronies became millionairiies and millions of others starved, etc. And remember, our CIA assassinated their democratically elected leader, then helped that shah jerk get in. The dead guys crime? He wanted 20% of the oil revenues for his own nation. That's it, that's where this started, and the US and UK were THE BAD GUYS, they started it. Iran has EVERY right in ther world to feel antagonistic towards us.
Like most other large nations with oil, they have to think many years in the future, when that stuff runs out,. and it will. If they don't start switching now,while it is still affordable to do so, what will they do in 20 years, which isn't that long a time span all things considered? Start some project then? With what? Why are they supposed to wait?
Glass houses. The US and UK have a century plus trying to dictate reality in the middle east and it has finally backfired to the point that we have "problems". Well, DUH, I guess so! The US and UK have a long history of fucking with other nations for no apparent reason other than money and exploitation. UK and china-the opium wars, look it up who was the bad guy. UK fucking with India, look it up, who was the bad guy. US supporting tin pot dictators like Pinochet, and etc. We even supported saddam for years and years and years!
I say, much as it might hurt, people need to honestly review some history, then to cut them some slack, they have a long standing legitimate gripe. Anyone would react as they have, in fact, they have been restrained to the max in the face of decades of provocation.
That was back in 1981 dude, and less than a year prior to that Iran tried to disable Osirak as well, although with limited success. If Israel ever did anything directly to Iran, Iran would probably respond by bombing tel aviv. Which is why they have proxys that fight for them. It's amazing what you find on wikipedia.
So by that logic, I assume that you're ready to hand the land you're squatting on back over to to the Native Americans and catch the next plane back to Europe?
Well, we could dust off the MAD strategy;
Hint: MAD doesn't work when your opponent sees dying in a holy war as DESIRABLE.
Oh Shi'ite by Allah they sent us the bomb! All Your Base Is Bellong to use
Well, considering that our concept is that we want to spread freedom, and they want to spread strict Islamic law.
This is why we should not be trying to spread freedom in the middle east. If you let muslims vote, they will vote in a bunch of insane terrorists. The "palestinians" have done exactly that. The Iraqis have done that. The Iranians have done that. The closest thing to "free" an islamic country is going to get is with a dictator.
Under the Shah, women were treated decently, non-muslims were not being persecuted. The only people that were being persecuted were those trying to overthrow the Shah.
Instead of trying to get rid of Sadaam Hussein, we should have been SUPPORTING Sadaam Hussein. Look at the facts. Under him, Iraq was stable and there was more oil coming out of there than there is now. He gassed his own people? Well, boo-fucking-hoo. They were trying to overthrow him and they probably deserved what they got. He tried to assasinate Bush I? Who hasn't wanted to do that? (Note to the gov't official reading this: it is a JOKE!)
The fact is Sadaam Huessein is as good of a leader as you will EVER have in a muslim country.
We should not have invaded Iraq. We should have invaded Iran - and we should have done in 1980.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
"Once the US learns live with that, maybe the Iranians will get over their hatred of the US and it's involvement in their own country, and its continuing involvement in the countries that surround it."
Doubt it. Iran with a same minded leadership as now will view their success as the strengthening of a new world order alliance, and feel they have the backup to pursue stated goals re Israel, among other things on the agenda.
Another thing to consider is why the CIA gave designs for nuclear weapons to Iran that accelerated their program. Has the invasion of Iran been in the planning stages already before 9/11? How long has the US been implementing the Project for the New American Century's vision?
I only watched the intro for the first one because it's a long vid, but I did learn that the history of failed UN resolutions goes back much further than I was aware.
The Galloway video... Well, I don't agree with Mr. Galloway on much of anything, but he does make monkeys out of talking heads who try to act like they "know stuff" when they don't have that "stuff" scripted out for them to read. Whenever I watch an unscripted interview with him, I think of the old joke about a tragedy ocurring when the TV news anchors held a conference and took questions from the public -- someone in the audience asked them a math question and all their heads exploded. Unfortunately, in this case, the tragedy is that because the interviewer is just a talking head, Mr. Galloway is allowed to get away with painting Israeli as a big bully in the region, when one only has to look at a map to see how absurd that idea really is. Galloway never mentions that Israel has been constantly attacked from Lebanese territory, or that the "illegal prisoners" held by the Israelis are those brave freedom fighters who sneak into Israel and kill sleeping families (and not by mistake).
The Iranian Prime Minister doesn't believe that the holocaust took place, and that all the scholars who say it did occur are lying because they will be imprisoned if they say it didn't. I guess I'll have to tell my old engineering professor (now emeritus) that the Nazis didn't really put that tattoo on his arm, and that camp they called Auschwitz was really a vacation resort. If my professor's parents were alive, I'm sure they'd like to know this, too -- but the "activity director" at Auschwitz put them into the left line, and not the right. So yes, Ahmadinejad sounds crazy, and dangerous. I wonder if he knows how the modern name "Iran" came into use. I'll go further and say that a nuclear armed Iran is a bad idea.
Those 911 links are something. I'm really going to take the word of an archaeometrist over the architects and engineers at this site. If the World Trade Center towers were brought down by precisely placed demolition charges, do you think the placements were selected by an archaeometrist, or an architect? And who set them off... Elvis?
Good grief, man. If you hurry, you might still be able to catch the "mother ship" flying behind the Hale-Bopp comet.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
Really.
Would this rise in the cost of oil help to drive innovations in alternative fuels and energy?
Yes, I think it would. It takes a while to "tool up" to a different economy though. It's this short-term pain that keeps us from doing it. The OPEC nations realize this too. As a general rule, they don't want to see sustained high prices because they know that it will cause structural changes in consumer economies, and they know that once those changes are in place there won't be an immediate reversion. This has already happened to some extent in the US economy due to the first oil shock. Remember how cheap gas was in the 90s? On an inflation adjusted basis it might have even been less than pre-OPEC. That's because many US drivers switched from gas guzzlers to Japanese econo-boxes. The SUV eventually turned the tide on that; but heavy industry and power production facilities had diversified their energy inputs, and that hasn't changed. The $3/gal price we are seeing today is comparable to what happened during the first oil shock, but it's less likely to impact the economy as much as it did in the 70s because fixed power plants in heavy industry didn't get suckered back to oil. We have less of an industrial based economy anyway. As SUV sales decline, this will lock "structural conservation" into the transportation economy, at least for the life of the replacement vehicles that are now being purchased. Where I live, the power company is required to periodicly state where the energy comes from. Oil is only a small fraction of it. Coal and nuclear are #1 and #2 here. Anyway, I'm sort of mish-mashing the industrial and transportation effects here--it's really two separate economies.
Oil sustained at $100/bbl would have some interesting effects. Shale oil becomes economicly viable (but it's an environmental nightmare). Maybe long haul freight railroads will convert to electricity instead of diesel (how much would oil have to cost for that to happen?). People will be less inclined to choose overnight shipping just because they want it now when air frieght costs $100 vs. $30 for rail+truck (and the truck will be powered by natural gas, which we have more of).
Anyway, long story short, we don't really need their black gunk in the long run. The US created an autocentric lifestyle for itself; we can uncreate it too.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
and the Neocons?
There is perception and then there is reality. Few politicians are what they appear.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Except that Iran is not an Arab state. No more than is Indonesia. "Arab" simply describes people who speak Arabic. Muslim!=Arab. Oh, and the Arab states *certainly* don't consider Iranians their "brethren." Arabs and Persians hate each other!
And never forget that Israel already has enough nukes to incinerate practically every major Muslim city on this planet if Iran lobs one nuke at them. That's the most disturbing aspect of this whole conflict. All three sides (Muslims, Israelis, and Everyone Else) need to just fucking quit shooting/bombing each other and accept that they need to all sit down and accept that there exists a no-win situation for any one party, and they need to figure out how get along or the 'Everyone Else' party will soon get fed up enough to tell the other two what side their bread shall be buttered on from this point onwards, indefinitely.
Does having boh uranium and Plutonium make them more dangerous? (honest question not flambait). Or is it more along the lines of a reactor being able to make pluonium faster than the (what I have heard) is the slow process of Uranuim enrichment
I am not a nuclear physicist (Wikipedia is), but having both Uranium and Plutonium doesn't really make either more dangerous. Plutonium, however, is infinitely more dangerous than Uranium - it is much more easily fissible and a 10cm sphere of it approaches critical mass. It's not that having them "together" is a problem, it's that Plutonium is all that's bad about Uranium, squared.
DATABASE WOW WOW
The US Navy recently got rid of the last of their F-14's because they know that even the latest, most advanced versions of the F-14 are now about as tactically significant as an old Vietnam-era F-4 Phantom, and the only reason why they kept them around as long as they did is because (1) they are so fun to fly (2) that cheesy Tom Cruise movie, and (3) the immediately preceeding crop of Navy aviators demanded them. The F-14 is a heavy, underpowered, overweight has-been.
Even the Air Force's F-15C is in the same category now too.
>>The US doesn't talk directly with Iran. Or with Syria.
No shit. They refuse to recognize Israel and their main goal is to eliminate Israel and the Jews from the planet.
I'll give you a quick history lesson... before MySpace, YouTube and IM... there was a guy name Hitler who wanted the same things as your friends in Iran and Syria. And he almost succeeded.
Israel is in defiance of more UN resolutions than any other nation on this planet, and it is a well known fact that they have constructed more nuclear bombs than any other nation in their region (without getting any sort of ok from the UN for doing this of course).
Where is the call to go to war to disarm Israel?
Sam has one liberty, which he sacrifices for one security. Can you tell me what Sam has now?
Madman Armageddonjihad
Nothing lends a man more credibility to his arguments than a pithy mangling of another man's name.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
To my mind, the only possible outcome is for the US, and by extension, its allies, is to move toward acccepting the eventuality that Iran will in due time have nuclear weapons and nothing anyone says or does is going to change that.
But that is Soviet-era thinking. The difference is that the Soviets *wanted* to live. This newest batch are suicidal fanatics. They would blow up the entire world even if it means their own death. Thus, the old rules that kept things in check are dead and gone. They want 72 virgins, not stability.
Table-ized A.I.
Israel doesn't go rioting over Dutch cartoons, they're a rational state. Iran goes berserk over Salman Rushdie -- did Israel create him?
You can't go blaming everything on Israel everytime Iran goes ballistic, even though the Iranians try to drag Israel's name into everything.
Yes, Pakistan could be disarmed without addressing India's arsenal. India detonated its first nuclear bomb back in 1974, while Pakistan had diddlysquat -- since when does India being nuclear automatically equate to Pakistan being able to? Besides, what you really mean is that all of India would have to be wiped out before Pakistan abandons its nukes, since India has a huge numerical advantage over Pakistan in conventional forces -- over 1 billion people, remember? India is a responsible democracy, while Pakistan has nearly always been a military dictatorship.
They are an independent country, and as long a they dont go around violating basic human rights who do we, the 'free world' think we are telling them they cant do this?
Quite simply "we" are someone who can kick their f'ing asses to kingdom come, beyond belief. And that's all that really matters, as our patience is growing short.
Other posters have asked what right does the world have to prevent Iran (or any other nation with imperial ambitions and/or dangerous ideological imperatives) from building atomic bombs. That's your answer ... you can build them but God help you if we think you're crazy enough to use them.
The problem with MAD in the modern age vs. the Cold War is that in the Cold War both the US and the USSR assumed that each other would be responsible if a nuke went off in one of their major cities. In fact, the preferred delivery vehicle would've been visibly launched from the home country for no other purpose but nuclear death hours in advance.
Now days, nukes are everywhere, and there's no clearly defined us-vs.-them line. Furthermore, if and when a major US city is nuked, the delivery vehicle will be land or sea based instead of a ballistic missle, and it will be a shadowy terrorist organization that does it instead of a publicly visible military.
If Iran wants to nuke us, it will do so by proxy and leave the US unable politically to retaliate with an immediate strike because doing so raises the possibly of committing genocide in a potentially innocent country. That breaks down the entire Mexican standoff nature of MAD and could lead to a series of cascading attacks from allied countries and international condemnation by surviving 3rd parties.
Also, Ahmadinejad uses a lot apocalyptic rhetoric in speeches. The possibility that he's some sort of fanatic that wants to kick off armaggedon is raised constantly as a spectre by US pundits, and there's the possibility that there's some shade of truth to their rhetoric that worries me.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
"...and the plant was for peadeful purposes because in the end the Zionists and infidels were obliterated by the fire of God's weapon. Over here at the next exhibit you can see the brutal imperialism stricken on the Nations of Islam before we had the power of God's fires raining down from the heavens...", as the vieled guide took the tour to the exhibit showing [over the top] barbaric atrocities of the everyday life in 2020 East LA and New York City.
Kind of like an episode of Star Trek Voyager where the doctor eventually sorted out the issue on that Delta Quadrant planet, except there will be no one to sort it out here. We will fight amongst ourselves and then in one fell swoop we won't exist anymore. I for one do not want to wait. I do not want to take chances, I just want to see them stopped. The closer they get to the reality of a bomb the less I care how the solution is effected. I think the Isrealis bombing the Iraqi reactors in the 80's was effective. Why don't we just take them out form orbit? Oh yeah we spent more time fighting about why we would ever need to do it and no it doesn't matter.
We deserve it and maybe in 2000 years or so some flake of a country or political ambition organization can rebel or committ themselves to the conquering of their own dreams. Maybe they will loosely base it on the memory of us because the barbarian hordes we helped create eventually did us in too.
Just a thought. Figures the security code is "destroys".
deterrence works for, say, North Korea....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
"Iran is surrounded by nations with nuclear capabilities ... "
Huh? The only nuclear nation which borders Iran is Pakistan.
Because they don't have to worry about protestors stopping the construction of nuclear plants? Because we have a LOT of nuclear plants?
Unless the US with it's big mouth stops making Nukes (they are even going to replace their current weapons with new ones) IMHO everybody else also has the right to create nuclear weapons. This doesn't mean that I would like it (far from it, nukes should be banned from this planet), but fair is fair, what gives the US the right to have nukes over other countries? The UN should also demand from any country to stop making nukes, and the ones that have them should dispose of ALL nukes... So as long as the US is making nukes themselves they have no right to tell others to stop making them... Again, I'm say that NOBODY should have nukes...........
You're wrong about the designs. Any fissionable material can be used in the "gun" type of fission bomb, wherein two or more pieces of fissionable material are pushed together by an explosion. Hell, you can even do it by hand, as proven in some of the early accidents with nuclear materials. So fission bombs can be dirt simple. Fusion bombs OTOH are complex. See the Nuclear Weapon Archive for details (but remember: "Don't believe everything you read!").
Do you understand what Iran's military capabilities are?
If Israel attacked Iran, they would be hit back just as hard. It would be a bad time all round and both countries would be decimated.
Sorry, but you presume everyone's reasonable. That's already proven not to be the case.
Exactly! I've argued elsewhere that too many are using Soviet-era thinking. The Soviets didn't believe in being awarded 72 virgins for killing Amerikans at any cost.
The new generation would take the whole damned world down to get their way. They are suicidal fanatics.
Table-ized A.I.
IMHO everybody else also has the right to create nuclear weapons.
Hate to break it to you, hoss, but your dullwitted opinion ("humble" or otherwise) doesn't matter.
At all.
Sorry.
Or rather three different ways of looking at it:
One is the grandfather clause. Basically when the nuclear non-proliferation treaty was signed it allowed those nations who already had nukes to keep them. So the US can have them for the same reason as Russia, the UK, France, and so on. That would be the legalistic view.
Another would be because the US has a stable government with excellent protections against accidental launch, or deliberate launch by a rogue person. You can Google around for the details if you wish, but what it comes down to is that GWB can't just wake up one day and decide to nuke a country for the fun of it. He lacks the authority and the ability. The US also cares for the lives of its' citizens to a high degree, and has a stable government that doesn't get overthrown all the time. That's the somewhat moral view.
Finally, there's the simple matter that nobody can stop them. They've got the biggest military, and the amount of nukes they have is such that they can annihilate anyone they wish. There's no possibility of any sort of invasion or strike that could take out even a fraction of the US arsenal before they could retaliate. So there's simply nothing anyone can do about it. That's the practical view.
You can take it any way you like but it really isn't comparable to Iran getting nukes. The US is allowed, under internal law, to have it's nukes, they are not (despite some ranting on Slashdot) run by extremists that can launch them at any time, and there's just really nothing anyone can do to take them away. Iran isn't allowed to develop nukes, there is a concern that they would use them given that there are no controls in the country stopping their hard line government from doing so, and as it happens they can be stopped.
I'm not saying that they should be stopped, that's a different argument. However trying to say "The US has nukes so Iran getting them is the same thing," isn't the case, regardless of what level you choose to look at it on.
I'm glad I'm wrong. What a deep sigh of relief that Isreal, France, the U.K. and the United States have been using their spent reactor fuel for peacefull purposes only. I thought they had all been somewhat naughty. Here I was thinking blue helmeted U.N. inspectors with an open mandate wouldn't be warmly welcome at classified nuclear research sites in the U.S. red states.
p.s. Zero of the IAEA signatories allow unfettered access to their most sensitive sites. The IAEA's prime stated purpose is non-proliferation to those states NOT in the club. Therein somewhere lurks a mysterious problem which noone seems able to quite put their finger on.
"If you don't have eyes you shouldn't have wings" -- Carl Pilkington
That assumes that all countries are run by reasonable, rational, leaders that care at all about their people. That's just not true in some places. Some countries are run by thugs, essentially. They aren't interested in anything but their own power and don't acre at all for the lives of others. People like that are the kind that would use a nuclear weapon just to prove a point, just because they hate someone enough. Don't say people like that don't exist either, you can see it with criminals. Those that kill just because they hate someone else, with no regard or planning for not getting caught. Well if one of those people were to have nuclear weapons, the world is in a lot of trouble.
This also assumes that a nation is fair to it's people. Even supposing they wouldn't use the nukes aggressively, as a defensive weapon it gives them permission to do whatever they want in their country. The controller of the nukes controls the nation and do as they please. Nobody can object or do anything to stop it. Just look at the genocide that has happened in Africa, and tell me if those leaders would be the kind of people who should have nukes.
This kind of thing is a great example of the quote: "For every complex problem there is a solution that is clear, simple, and completely wrong."
A heavy water plant is not a nuclear reactor. Nothing in a heavy water plant is radioactive. Or, for most processes, even toxic. Here's a tutorial on heavy water plants. They're not very complicated or especially large. This is the easy step in the process.
The next step is a nuclear reactor fueled with natural uranium and moderated with heavy water, which can be used, with difficulty, to produce plutonium. This is the route Pakistan took. Here's Pakistan's heavy water plant and its companion nuclear reactor. Israel's Dimona reactor is also of this type. So this is the standard route to nuclear weapons for small countries. This step is much harder and riskier, but the technology is half a century old.
There are other approaches. The United States initially used water-cooled graphite-moderated reactors fueled with natural uranium for plutonium production, as did Russia. Britain used air-cooled graphite-moderated reactors. (Bad idea. The Windscale reactor had a fire in 1957, releasing a considerable amount of radioactive material.) Once both countries had uranium-enrichment capability, newer reactors mostly used low-grade enriched uranium. Both the US and the USSR got so good at plutonium production that both now have tons (literally) of the stuff in storage, in addition to the weapons using it. A nuclear weapon requires about 5Kg.
Defining peace Iran Style - Peace can be achieved by the destruction of Israel and "all" western ideology. There is only one god. And anyone who does not believe in Ala (and Mohammed as his Prophet) are evil. And it is probably Bush's fault the world is so messed up. I read about people trying to defend Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbulla simply because of their hatred of the current US president or their hatred for the US. Can't you people see it is simply pure hatred that is driving Iran and Syria to do what they are doing? It is not a Bush thing or a US thing. There is no negotiation there is no compromise Iran's plans have been laid out in front for everyone to see but some people do not see it or choose not to believe it. Seriously, did your mothers or fathers teach you that if you suck up to someone you get them to do what you want. Maybe we should send Bill Richardson with flowers and chocolates to talk to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ali Khamenei. Maybe Richard will say. Yup, they want to convert us or kill us. If the World (and including the UN) allows Iran to get their way get used to getting up for early morning prayers. Punishing your wife for displaying here skin and believe that Jesus is not the real messiah only Mohammed and Ala. I think we (the world) are dragging our feet because we do not know how to deal with this much evil and deception. And no leaders in the world have the gonads to take on this evil except Bush and Olmert. Yes Virginia, I do believe it is a Jihad. Remember 9/11 it was then officially declared. And some of you heard about it but didn't actually listen.
she's gotta wear shades...
When the country falls into chaos, politicians talk about 'patriotism'. Lao-Tzu
ASSERTION: If the Iranians build nuclear weapons, then the Iranians will use them without reservation.
If the above assertion is false, then the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) should proceed playing word games with the Iranians and allow them to continue using delaying tactics. Of course, the Iranian Muslims are offering false promises in order to buy the necessary time for building a nuclear bomb.
On the other hand, if the above assertion is true, then the Western nations (which includes Japan) must act immediately without waiting for the Chinese to manipulate the UNSC into playing more word games. One possibility is to arrange for unmarked German fighter-bombers to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities. This military action should be synchronized with the bombing of North-Korean nuclear facilities by unmarked Japanese fighter-bombers.
So, is the assertion true? The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the assertion is true.
How do people behave if they are genuinely committed to peace and economic development? Consider Vietnam. Washington dropped tons of agent orange on Vietnamese farmlands and forests. Today, thousands of Vietnamese are suffering and dying from this poisoning. Yet, the Vietnamese are not spending every waking moment in plotting how to kill Americans. The Vietnamese government spends most of its budget on economic development and is not attempting, in any way, to build a nuclear bomb.
Consider the Czech Republic. Czechoslovakia was under Russian/Soviet oppression for more than 40 years. Yet, today, the Czechs are not spending every waking moment in plotting how to kill Russians. The Czech government spends most of its budget on economic development and is not attempting, in any way, to build a nuclear bomb.
Now, look at Iran. The Iranians spend every waking moment in plotting how to kill Americans, Iraqis, and Israelis. The Iranians give millions of dollars to Hezbollah and other terrorist groups. The Iranians spend millions of dollars on building a nuclear bomb.
Is Iran committed to peace and economic development? You make the call.
An even better question is "What is the fastest way to de-capitate the Iranian government and Iranian society?"
"If you don't have eyes you shouldn't have wings" -- Carl Pilkington
Quote from -The Fifth Element-
...just a thought.
Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg: "Life, which you so nobly serve, comes from destruction, disorder and chaos."
As an aside, M.A.D. sounds to me like a flawed idea. Flawed in that, whoever starts it, may not give a rat's ass?
Why, if not because?
part of the problem is that Israel has never been *serious* about earning a sustainable peace. Sure after decades of war, there are now peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt and a sort of alliance with Turkey. However the fact remains that the large cause of the conflicts are almost always about nothing more than land and water.
Additionally you ahve to understand that while the vast majority of Israelis are reasonable folk and peaceloving, there are extremists (including terrorists) who feel that it is their sacred duty to create a greater Israel spanning from Sinai through Golan. These lands, in their view, must be conquered, depopulated, and resettled by Jews (a term not exactly equivalent to Israeli by modern demographic standards).
What Galloway fails to note is that Israel is an area, like Northern Ireland, where over six decades of conflict have created some really insane dynamics. Indeed I cannot think of a country whose political dynamics make less sense than modern Israel. After all, when a former Nazi sympathizer (who tried to build an alliance between a Zionist resistance group and the Nazis during WWII) can be serve a lengthy term as Foreign Minister and a short term as PM, the last place one would think this could happen would be Israel, and yet that it happened there in the 1980's with Shameer (Shameer's Nazi sympathies were well documented).
But the fact remains-- Israel is a military superpower in the region who is almost unquestioningly backed by the US, France, and other countries. Their alliance while it is their greatest strength is also their greatest weakness. For example, in the run-up to the Iraq war, Lebannon exacted some serious water rights concessions from Israel despite threats by Sharon to go to war.
Now, we are bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan. While we have many troops which are not committed to the field of battle, most of the active duty troops are committed in various strategic roles (such as South Korea) and are not readily available for redeployment. I do not think it is possible to invade Iran and win by any lasting measure. What was that B5 quote about the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots? At the same time there is the fear that if Iraq stabilizes, then the US might be free to attack Iran.
So what is Iran to do?
1) Destabilize Iraq-- keep us bogged down there.
2) Develop a deterrent nuclear capability capable of holding Israel hostage in the event of pending US military action.
3) Develop ties with terrorist organizations so that if balistic missiles fail to have deterrent capabilities, other deployment options exist.
Iran has seen deterrence work on the Korean penninsula. They know that their only way away to have power in the region is to threaten US allies with massive and illegal weapons.
Ahmedinejad is hardly mad any more than Bush is as dumb as he appears. He is playing a very sophisticated game and doing quite well, and politicians are never what they appear.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
hug the world with nuclear arms!!
Did they tell you in pubic school that WWII ended by negociation? Some of the evil retards in this world only stop their evil when they begin a dirt nap. It took 2 nukyaler bombs to convince the Japanese to back off. If you havent noticed these new throat slashers from the religion of peace have figured out that they get 72 little girls to rape when they send you and other infidels to Alah. We need to begin killing masses of them and their women and children in very horrible ways until they give up on our conversion to the throat slashing religion of peace. We need WWIII now! You can pray I am wrong but I am not.
Iran has been a totalitarian theocracy since 1979. What part of this is A Good Thing, exactly, and for whom? Also, totalitarian regimes have a track record of carrying out their stated goals if not interrupted, particularly the goals involving weapons and wars and genocides.
So? The Nazis "had to" overthrow the US-supported Weimar Republic to "get their country back". (Don't give me any Godwin crap, I know my history well enough to make valid analogies.) This, in itself, is far from an acceptable argument in favor of the current regime in Iran.
WTF? Either you've been smoking some potent stuff, or you're a deranged post-modernist. Here are some facts that don't depend on anyone's "view": On the morning of July 12, Hezbollah launched an unprovoked offensive against Israel, by crossing the internationally recognized border (along which Israel had realigned itself in 2000), killing three soldiers, capturing two others, and killing five more soldiers shortly afterwards. At the first hint of an Israeli military response, Hezbollah began firing rockets (mostly Iranian and Iran-supplied) directly at civilian cities throughout northern Israel. These rockets (3,970 of them before the ceasefire) killed 44 civilians and injured 2,000 others.
And Israel is a threat to Lebanon?
This next one cracks me up...
And if they don't get over it? Israel gets nuked. Bah, bloody Jews deserve it anyway, eh?
Appeasement won't work here unless your goal is, in fact, to get Israel nuked. I point to Hitler again; I'll let you figure out the analogy.
IMPEACH XENU
Does *ANYONE* really believe that sanctions (like limiting the visas for certain high-ranking officials and other meaningless inventions of the UN) will change anything at all? This won't be anywhere NEAR over until a city has been nuked. This is going to get ugly; the UN is powerless and corrupt.
Mark my words; there's a reason why N Korea and Iran are working on this at the same time. And don't think the only place the nuke will go off is NYC; Amsterdam, Vienna, Dortmund....almost any city is at risk. Just remember this comment. I've been right so many times before.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
on the other side you have a theocracy who glorifies honorable death, and has publicly stated it's will to distroy the other side.
Theres a big difference between having some kid strap on a suit bomb and having your culture and people completely eradicated. The theocrats in charge of Iran are no more theocratic than Stalin was a communist. Their trick lies in making people think they MIGHT be nutty enough to pull the trigger; thats what gets results. Just like the US and Soviet Union in the cold war.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
And I'm sure we helped Germany plenty before Hitler rose to power too. How can I put ths so even YOU can uderstand: crazy people with nuclear weapons is bad.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Most of your comments reflect the reason the Germans conquered your countries in a matter of days. Maybe, I should just quote the "misunderstood" Ahmadinejad.... "If you want to have good relations with the Iranian people in the future, you should acknowledge the right and the might of the Iranian people, and you should bow and surrender to the might of the Iranian people. If you do not accept this, the Iranian people will force you to bow and surrender." Maybe he is just still upset about the crusades or maybe you are all a bunch of appeasement pansies.
If the Emperor is a god, and he says fight to the death, every man woman and child,
and all the subjects take this to heart, enlisted in the military or not, where are the civilians?
And who cares about 100k civilians when the choice is
to kill 1 million of your soldiers killing 1 million of theirs (civilians included)?
Yep, we can rest easy - the UN will solve the problem. GWB can sit back and let the UN lead us to a more peaceful world.
We will see what happens - critics say the US shouldn't "go it alone". That the US should work with the world community to solve problems.
End result - we will see an Iranian made nuke explode in Israel, UK or USA someday.
if they did, they haven't had them for that long.
N. Korea's deterrence is the fact that they can launch an artillery barrage that could kill at least 100000 residents of Seoul. Nukes would also allow them to hold hostage a larger area.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Certainly not. It made no sense to leave America in the hands of a few brutal stone age hunter gatherers and deny the great political experiment that is the United States, and in which native Americans are full partners.
Similarly, Israel is a great experiment in democracy in the otherwise blighted middle east. It must necessarily displace people who are hostile to it. There are plenty of places for them to go.
an ill wind that blows no good
"Most of your comments reflect the reason the Germans conquered your countries in a matter of days."
You are obviously referring to the effect the terms of the versailles peace agreement had on the german people.
FRA: STFU GTFO
Hezbollah was using civilians as cover.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
Good ol' Hal Porter. You're a semantic webbist, not a economist. Don't venture out of your domain, chico.
Financially, they're better off selling their petrochemicals to nations like the United States and China, who are willing to pay (at this time) $70 for each barrel. They could use their oil domestically, of course, but then they're not maximizing their return. In economics, failing to maximize one's return shows that some resources are being wasted, and that's not a beneficial thing to do.
Iran knows better than to deal with the US. They've seen what happens to countries (Iraq, Lebanon) that aren't self-reliant. And again, it may be a matter of economics why they didn't subscribe to such a deal. Their return may be maximized if they perform the enrichment themselves. Anybody with even the smallest amount of financial or economic knowledge should be able to comprehend their stance.
Your blind arrogance is matched only by your profound ignorance of history.
Can I ask why other countries are allowed nukes? Other non-brown countries? Other non-brown countries with questionable military policies and a history of bloody warfare, particularly civilian atrocities?
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
If we had only gone to Iran vs the Iraq mud hole the wasted man power to the whole thing we could have the real evil the whole time Iran out of the way. What about Iran's total vision of evil, the hate, the oppression of 60 Plus % of the Iran's that don't want these nuts running the place. Where's the funds for Radio Free Iran to get the Iranians wanting to hear something free from the oppression of Iranian Nuthouse leaders.Massive amounts of money for the Iranian underground that really want them out.I get sick to my stomach when I see the Iran thugs talking their crap and hate on the cheap ass stages they setup with flowers and missiles, curtain rods and some Elmer's glue. Flowers and missiles what a bunch of oxymoron Thug Iranians. These are the ones that sent their 12 year old children to be blowup on the Iran border during the Iranian war.They have no religion except the religion to oppress their own fine countryman minds and their children's minds.Oppression of free thought is the biggest Iranian evil and they use it well like all dictators have used from the beginning of time.
To objectively evaluate the situation, we could sum of acts of aggression by Iran and the USA, from the present to 1776. The one with the most points should not have any nukes.
Please don't let Bush plunge the world into the Realm of $200 a barrel oil prices by attacking Iran.
Why not? Oil crises are good for you. The 1973 oil crise made us think about using oil more efficiently for the first time since WWII. Higher oil prices will make alternative fuels more viable. If it is a result of politics rather than that the oil wells really have dried up (as they surely will sooner or later) it means that we will still have oil for making funky plastics that are difficult to make from etanol.
And remember that this guy actually believes he is to here to prepare for the return of the Mahdi -- the islamic Messiah.
I'll gladly pay $200 a barrel to keep him from getting the bomb.
Iran is doing quite a good job of making themselves seem violent.
Stated without argument ofcourse. pwnd!
an ill wind that blows no good
Anyway, why are you still here? Isn't there an ethnic cleansing rally somewhere in Serbia you should be at right now?
Plagiarism sucks
I don't think so, and this is a very tasteless joke IMO.
Why would you say that? Just because I think that the article was inappropriate, biased, and totally brainwashing with the Bin Laden commercial on he right?
Because I think anyone has the right to open a nuclear powerplant (I am not talking about nukes), I do not think anyone should have flagged me anything wrong.
I am sorry, but I think many peolpe take all the crap granted what they hear on Fox news. I think maybe you should express what you think, instead of just throwing a one-liner, that many would take as a simple insult. If you think it is right to tell someone how to make energy in their own country, while not urging your own people to burn less harmfull stuff into the air totally carelessly, then say so. If you think it is not tasteless to put a terrorist's name with a half page ad, next to a news article talking abount someone opening a nuclear reactor, then say so.
"you are on the tsa list" hahaha very funny, maybe you should have been modded troll haven't you ?
I am just illustrating some aspects of the Israeli/Arab conflicts.
On the whole I think that it is important that Israel not only survive but also prosper, evolving through normal democratic processes into a state more inclusive of their Arab minorities. This is occurring (a few years ago for example, Druze were afforded all the same responsibilities in defending the nation that Jews have-- once the other Arab communities are included in this way... Well that is what I want to see).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The US chose to develop nuclear weapons, then accepted the risk of 50+ years of MAD. If the Iranians want to develop nuclear technology, even nuclear weapons, fine. Good luck, be careful not to have any accidents and further pollute our planet.
Just one thing though. If we have to accept them as a nuclear power, they have to accept our disapproval of their choice. Fair is fair. Why should they be allowed to make decisions in a consequence-free environment?
As for the US continuing to build nuclear weapons... What has been proposed is a replacement program. Not an increase in warhead count. The idea is to update the arsenel for increased reliability and safety. Kinda hard to argue against that. In a land where everyone is forced to wear seat belts and motorcycle helmets "for their own good" it's hard to argue against replacing 20 and 30 year old technology where nuclear weapons are concerned.
--- Just another Code-Monkey
Europe is littered with towns where there used to be a thriving Jewish population and today there is none.
And since they did not go to the US, the UK or France (the allied powers) I guess the most likely explanation is that they became thin air. And this is not me trying to be funny, just deadly serious.
Have you been to Warsaw? Paris? Rome?
Warsaw for example was leveled. All what you see today is reconstructed. All jews Killed or gone.
For goodness sakes, this is vastly documented. Why do we need to keep discussing this?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You grossly oversimplify; actually, the situation was a lot more complex than that. Saddam was selling oil way too cheap, in euros, to the French. So we didn't like him.
.... that is why we "didn't like him".
Right.... and the reason that Enron's executives are liable for repaying $183 million, and probably jail time, is that their stock "under-performed" the market.
Saddam used the wholly corrupt "Oil for Food" program to bribe all manner of foreign officials, buy influence in the Security Council, undermine UN sanctions, buy weapons, and fund terrorists, all the while skimming billions of dollars off the top. Even UN Secretary General Koffi Annan's son took bribes, and the Deputy Secretary General was eye deep as well. So, it was that, his refusal to fully and voluntarily comply with the weapons inspections, his record of genocide, aggression against pretty much every country around him, the abysmal human rights record, his military regularly fired on US aircraft (act of war), his support for international terrorists, well.... you get the picture,
Personally, I think you want to let President Saddam "I grind my opponents alive, and my sons are worse" Hussein off the hook a little too easily.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Well, instead of replacing them, just don't make new ones...
He did all the things you mentioned, but frankly the US didn't give a toss about that.
The problem was that the second largest oil field in the world would soon only be available in Euros. Which would mean that oil buyers wouldn't have to buy dollars to get the oil. Which reduces the demand for US dollars. So. supply and demand. demand for dollars decreases, the value decreases, the US dollar begins falling in value. The dollar is worth less the more of them you need to buy things, That's called inflation and guess what, devaluing dollars severely limits the US government's ability to print more of them with abandon, to pay their huge military, to pay huge subsidies to industry and farmers etc etc.
Guess what. Iran is planning to set up an oil exchange which would operate in Euros. I wonder who's going to be hit next.
Deleted
Umm.. did you ever think that COULD be done but countries like Iran won't follow this? How are you going to enforce that no one can have nukes? You would be right back in the same boat as we are right now, only YOU wouldn't have nukes to fire back when Iran sends their nukes to a town near you.
Chemical weapons were banned but Sadam used them in the 1980's against the people in his own country.
You forgot reimbursement for lands seized, which accounts for some 70-88% (estimation by the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property and the Jewish National Fund respectively) of Israel.[1]
Really though, between that the original UN Partition Plan, which was to give 55% of the land to 33% of the population (most of which had just arrived), and denying the subsequent appeal to the International Court of Justice, you've really got to feel there has been some gross misjustice done.[2]
Basically, we (speaking as one of European decent) intoned our Holocaust guilt by giving them someone else's land. Nice how that worked...
[1] Check out the 1950 Absentee Property Law for more details.
[2] Same for the 1947 UN Partition plan.
Stop burying your head in the sand. As it is now, the US is a major obstacle to any potential peace within the middleast. With nuclear weapons, the US could be the provocateur of the next World War.
If the American people are as moderate as you claim they are, then where are they? Why aren't they speaking out? Even assuming these moderates exist, don't they share responsibility (through their inaction) for the aggression of their government regardless? How are we supposed to simultaneously protect the interests of the region as a whole if we can't do anything that might coerce the American people (such as sanctions)? Furthermore, if you are right--the American people don't support their government--how does sitting back and letting the American government risk a nuclear conflict in any way serve the interest of the American people?
Practically, there is not much to be done about returning land. This shouldn't stop compensation for being made though.
We (I speak as a Canadian of European decent) and they (immigrants to Israel) have benefited from our position. For the most part, we have good comfortable lives. They (Native North Americans and Palestinians), on the other hand, have suffered in their position and are dealing with the resulting massive unemployment, poor living conditions, and so on.
Why then can we, in recognition that we have benefited at their expense, not help out. Would it really be too much to have something like a 1-2% sales tax for 100yr whose proceeds are directed to improving their plight. We could then meet with them and figure out what they need to help them help themselves (I suspect the most could be gained by education and hiring them to build up their own infrastructure).
How can you possibly know that?
What would you say if I told you that observers from the US military were present when those same chemical weapons were deployed?
That is your opinion. I wonder what the average Iraqi would say?
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Remember, that Iran is a signatory to the NNPT (nuclear non-proliferation treaty). Iran can choose to withdraw from the NNPT (by giving notice like North Korea), or they never had to sign it in the first place (like India, Pakistan and Israel). The purpose of the NNPT was so that signatory countries can avoid a multi-sided destabilizing nuclear arms race by being reasonably sure that it's neighbors and enemies aren't doing so. This would be your so-called leagalistic argument.
The US's argument (at least from the legalistic point of view) is that Iran signed the NPT and need to abide by it's provisions. Iran could of course withdraw from the treaty and the US couldn't have any arguments (legalistly anyhow), but I'm sure Iran has thought about it, but for some reason rejected this course of action. I'm guessing that it is probably because they don't want to become an international pharriah like North Korea, given that they have a booming economy and likely can become the dominate economic powerhouse in that region in the world.
It seems like the core of your argument is that Iran thinks that US isn't being honest so Iran is free to ignore US protestations of guilt. But why isn't the converse also true that the US thinks that Iran is not being honest so it is free to ingore Iranian protestations of innocence? The only thing that I can see in your argument is that the US is "bad" and has a history of being "bad", so it must be "bad" in this case too. I'm not so sure that Iran is in any position to call the kettle black...
I also don't understand your argument about "morality". If any thing, your quote "no rational government with any interest in preserving the independance of their country could possibly swallow the treatment" could equally be applied to Iran and Israel. I'm no defender of Israel, but they seem to have taken the brunt of "immorality" from other neighbor nations using your argument.
Perhaps some historical perspective, some of the middle east's issues can be traced to post-imperialistic european map-line-drawing (or more specifically Sykes-Picot and Anglo-Russian Entente). Perhaps you blame that on the US, but I think that most of the world is to blame for this phenomena, and the US being a one-time victim (but since recovered) of Dutch-French-English-Spanish map-line-drawing, can be blamed as the orginator of this problem (although the US isn't totally blameless on many of the map-lines that exist today, e.g, korea, taiwan, etc). This specific middle-east problem seems directly attributable to Russia, England and France circa WW-I. The US is only a recent player in this probably, although you seem to attribute all ills to the modern US involvment. I for one blame the Europeans in their post WW-I zeal to hang on to their fading imperialistic empires. This one has been festering on for a long, long time...
Sadly, so the conclusion (which seem to be indeed playing out today), is that neither the US or Iran really has anything to say to each other and the "war" is really just a war of public opinion (in this case, the public being the governments of the world). I don't see how it could be any other way, and some of the "public" sees the US as a bully, and some of the "public" sees Iran as a thug, but of course that is only an opinion (e.g., vi vs emac, c++ vs java). There's no winner in a war of words, and no convincing staunch zealots on either side. Basically either one side will just give up (e.g., the cold war or Libya) because the don't want to argue any more or they can't afford to argue any more, or it'll eventually come down to a real war. That is the way history has generally played out. Regardless of who is right and wrong, generally these things end up in a war and as you say usually in that case "might makes right"...
..but there are a few problems with your Iranian problem.
You are the only country to have used nukes. You are the country that supported and funded Osama, while his dirty work suited your purposes. You are the country that funded and supported Saddam while he suited your purposes, then killed over 100,000 innocent civilians to oust him from power, justifying the slaughter with obviously blatant lies. You are the ones preaching to the rest of the world about freedom, democracy and due process of law, when you have things like Guantanamo Bay camp and the death penalty, and you can't even hold verifiably free and open elections in your own country. You have a leadership which is in the top rank of science-ignoring religious fundamentalists on the planet. You ignore the UN when the resolutions are against you or Israel, but you're happy to use the UN when it suits you. Talking of Israel, they secretly develop nukes, are frequently over-agressive to their neighbours which puts your 'gas' prices up and detabilise a big part of the planet - but because they are white(ish) and speak English with American accents, you unquestioningly back them up (if there's a better explanation I'd love to hear it). You're the worst polluters on the planet, by a long stretch. You're the biggest debtors on the planet, despite being the so-called richest country. You spend more on the military than the rest of the world, when no-one is truly a threat to you, and your weapons kill innocents the world over every day. You wave the flag and declare 'war on terroism', and then do more to change your way of life because of the terrorists than anyone else - while at the same time twice the number of people killed on 9/11 die every day from easily-preventable causes.
On a different front, you are pushing on us the RIAA, MPAA, fast food, subsidised tobacco, your twisted patent, copyright and IP protection laws, DMCA, the most obnoxious tourists (I live in a big tourist city and Americans are consistently the most rude, inconsiderate and disrespectful). You ignore history in a bewilderingly inconsistent way - take those "cheese-eating surrender-monkeys" who helped you gain independance, for example.
Seriously, why should we (being the rest of the world) follow your example or listen to anything you have to say?
Parent post is blatant plagiarism. Scroll towards the bottom of this page for the original post, or if you're too lazy to actually RTF comments before moderating, just click here and check the timestamps.
Caution: May contain nuts.
"If you don't have eyes you shouldn't have wings" -- Carl Pilkington
Voicing certain views like this in public WILL get you consideration for the TSA's no fly list. Who do think is making the determinations these days? Have you observed the news recently? There are true neo-facist in real positions of power in the worlds one remaining superpower. Is that news to you? Is it news to you that you are not anonymously posting?
p.s. I didn't mod you troll. I didn't dissagree with you. I just would've kept those thoughts to myself until a free country exists again.
"If you don't have eyes you shouldn't have wings" -- Carl Pilkington
no insult taken then.
:> just bothered by it).
:) and meditate on that ...
I think you are a bit paranoid though. You can disagree with you country's fuel/energy politics, and you can criticise your politicians for pressuring an other country for opening an alternative energy source. Granted, if they make nukes, the UN should take action after considering the dangerousness of the nation in question, but the UN should do that, not any other country. Theoretically I do not agree with it, however I agree, that there are dangerous people out there, who should not have nukes. (IMO no one should at all, they should have been converted to fuel rods, or whatever peaceful purpose. But than again, that should involve the US, the French and every other nuclear power.).
Now on the article: strange that no one else criticised the association. That kind of association of the plant, its county, and a known terrorist, is not right, and if I was of/from the race/country in question, I would be offended (not the kind of offended and upset, that needs to be on a TSA list
How much nicer would that be to put a greenpeace article/ad agains nuke power, in case the news agency disagrees with the whole idea, a hybrid car, a BP commercial, a "support your coal mine friend senator" ad, save the penguins, or Michael More, or whatever else, but an ad, with Bin Laden. That clearly ment, that those guys are claiming to be making clean energy, but in reality, they are going to do something terrible, just as the guy on the right did.
But then again all that is just speculation in my head:) maybe the ad was invoked by a stupid PHP script, that associated the ad with the article based on keywords.
Hmm... well. I am going to bed
cheers
Ofcourse it can't be done if countries like the US keep theirs... the US thinks it is the boss of the world, but they aren't, they are almost the biggest threath to the world because of that thinking (at least a bush-government).. A nuke against a nuke war doesn't work (yeah, it works for the people in control, as they sit nicely in protective bunkers)....
Iran has, despite all the propaganda that has been emitted by the likes of Fox News and the US government, been a fairly reasonable power in the Middle East. They certainly were before their current president got elected, and I wonder if he didn't get elected because the Iranian people felt that the West were simply out to get them, no matter what. A lot of things in the world would much better if the US would put their ambitions on the backburner and instead start using the brains that my American friends keep assuring me you actually have.
So perhaps it would be better to let them have their nuclear facilities and try to open up the relations just a fraction. Not that I think there is much hope of that, seeing how the clowns in the White House keep roaring and posturing while on the other hand letting Israel get away with absolutely anything and everything.
"We (I speak as a Canadian of European decent) and they (immigrants to Israel) have benefited from our position. For the most part, we have good comfortable lives."
Agreed. It should be stated that that good life came as a result of hard work building that better life through developement, commerce, culture, learining etc. this good life didn't materilise out of thin air. not in canada, nor in israel. not in australia nor in the US.
"They (Native North Americans and Palestinians), on the other hand, have suffered in their position and are dealing with the resulting massive unemployment, poor living conditions, and so on."
agreed.
"Why then can we, in recognition that we have benefited at their expense, not help out. Would it really be too much to have something like a 1-2% sales tax for 100yr whose proceeds are directed to improving their plight. We could then meet with them and figure out what they need to help them help themselves (I suspect the most could be gained by education and hiring them to build up their own infrastructure)."
great idea. I think the implementation of this is extreemly hard (as has been prooved in the 90s peace process in israel) - but I agree that should be the prefered course of action.
Truth is this war in Iraq has cost the US almost a trillion dollars. Think about the kickass health care system ya'll would have if you invested alomst a trillian dollars into it. How man American's lives would have been saved if the money was better allocated back home, to health and education?
Considering the obscene amount of money that the federal, state and local governments as well as private and faith-based interests have poured in to health and education programs, we can make a good case proving that we can't solve America's problems by throwing money at them.
Invading and occupying Iraq (and arguably Afghanistan) was a simplistic and mis-guided solution to a complex problem. Pouring money down a frickin' bottomless hole is also simplistic and mis-guided as the issues of health and education in America are no less complicated. ...and just like those military solutions,
trying to buy our way out of every unfulfilled expectation always
seems to encourage bad habits and behavior.
Meaningful and lasting solutions involve the folks - who are powerful enough to make decisions that will get things going - actually and directly communicating with the folks who need help with problems which they cannot solve by themselves.
...and it doesn't always involve an exchange of money or bullets.
Simple, fast, and dirty fixes are easier to formulate, easier to implement and the bill can be passed along to future budgets. They play out better on commercial TV and tabloid print media where there isn't time nor space to go in to complex detail anyway.
...s'cuse me while I go microwave some lunch.
WHY DO YOU HATE FREEDOM??
In my math class they taught us that often when someone says something like ``you would have to be an idiot if you don't know this'' he probably can't defend what he's saying so he goes on the attack. I think this idea extends beyond just math.
So you're saying if the US was to send all its nukes into space never to be seen again there would be world peace?
Nope, but the world would be a lot safer because of that... But if the US disposes of their Nukes, then they can talk about other countries not allowed to create nukes.. until then they should just shut up..
"Little boy" was the gun method with U-235. Pu is not usable for this geometryn
"Trinity" and "Fat man" was the big bombs using symmetrical implosion with Pu-239. Both U-235 and Pu-239 is usable for this geometry. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_desig
Iran's path is certainly the one that can give them a nuclear weapon ASAP.
And BTW, Iran are obviously and clearly focussed on developing a nuclear bomb and multiple delivery methods. They are currently testing the pod and software for the delivery from their fighters.
As much as it scares me, If I were Iran, I would also develop nuclear capability ASAP after beeing listed on the axis ov evil, just to ensure my survival.
"Fix it"
Being cowards they hide among the civilian population. Since they get tacit support from them, the civilians are also guilty. I am very disappointed that Israel backed off.
Uh huh. Then you shouldn't be sorry for each Iraeli civilian who gets killed, because with their compulsory military service, each Israeli is a current solder, former soldier or future soldier involved in the occupation of Palistinian lands. Yes, Palistinian. If you want to talk anchient history, Jews aren't native to Israel anymore than WASPs are to the US.
In the end holy land belongs to whomever can hold it. Like Joshua and the Israelites gained the promised land, so do the Israelis keep it today. No one can forsee Israel (backed by the United States) being conquered by outside forces. Indeed, Israel has not likely reached its full extent. The Arab interlopers should be deported to Arab lands of their own.
an ill wind that blows no good