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Iran's Nuclear Ambitions
selven wrote in with something a bit offtopic for Slashdot, but I figured it's worth a discussion today. He writes "Following Iran's revelation regarding its secret nuclear enrichment plant, western leaders are banding together against it, saying that it violates Articles 2 and 3 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and suggesting serious sanctions against the country if it refuses to back down on its uranium enrichment program. Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only and that it's not fair for the US to be criticizing them in this way while having thousands of nuclear warheads."
All this anti-Iran propaganda seems to be coming out at the same time Iran is switching from Dollars to Euros for its oil transactions. Strangely enough, Iraq previously tried this too, just before the 2003 invasion.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea aren't party to the NNPT.
> Iran, on the other hand, has repeatedly declared it's desire for the total annihilation of the the nation of Israel (among others).
Well, no, actually. He did call for the regime to fall, a much different meaning. Did Iran threaten Israel with nuclear attack? No.
On the other hand, we had a U.S. presidential candidate singing "Let's Bomb Iran". Why the double standard?
> demonstrated intent to export insurrection with the stated goal of complete domination
Source? (other than Fox News, of course)
This isn't American propaganda. All this is saying is if Russia or China fires on us, we have enough nukes to fire back ensuring that both parties are wiped out. It is base purely on the nuclear arsenal and not military might per se. So chill the fuck out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction
Normally people tell me to get my facts straight :)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7866357.stm
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Of course it can.
Do you really think the bullshit in Iraq or Afghanistan is a full showing of force for the American military?
They're political occupations designed to stagnate and fail.
It won't be until the next real war, where American soil is under threat of attack or takeover, that the US military will unleash some of the new toys its been hiding.
Actually, high ranking UN officials were playing key roles in that "redistribution". Google it. Clinton goes for sanctions through the UN, and the UN guys help Saddam profit from the oil for food program in order to get kickbacks. Bottom line: don't ever trust bureaucracy to do the right thing, and the UN is the biggest bureaucracy on the planet.
11*43+456^2
In a nuclear war, America is the only state capable of defeating China or Russia.
Unless your mythical strategic defence shield is now working and the propaganda machine hasn't started working yet, this is false. In a nuclear war, America is not capable of defeating China or Russia, it is capable of ensuring that both sides lose. Putting China and Russia in the same category is a bit odd, as both France and the UK have more nuclear warheads than China but an order of magnitude fewer than Russia. Both have enough to destroy every major city in Russia or China, even accounting for some missiles being intercepted.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The Nazis did not try to destroy Israel, because Israel didn't exist until after the second world war. This fact rather indicates that at least one of the attempts to 'wipe them off the face of the planet' since biblical times worked...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
If you're an ally, we'd rather you didn't have them but there's not much we can do to stop you acquiring them (India, Pakistan).
What? Pakistan was an ally when it acquired nukes? You may not remember this, but the press was pushing the same stories when Pakistan was busy acquiring the bomb as they do now with Iran. There was massive international condemnation. The same voices were banging on about the "dangers of an Islamic nuke". There were the same stories about Dr. AQ Khan and an underground nuclear black market smuggling network putting the world at risk of nuclear war. The same stories about the dangers of terrorists acquiring those nuclear weapons and using them on Israel or other Western friendly countries. The same voices calling for preemptive military strikes to stop all this happening.
There's a PhD on a mailing list that I get, who spent most of his career in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. One day we got to talking about the Aswan dam (he was there when that project was initiated) and he said that it had nothing to do with Egypt needing the dam; in fact it was quite thoroughly pointed out to TPTB that halting the seasonal floods would RUIN Egypt's delta ecology and fishing/ag delta economy (which it has). But TPTB were determined to have it no matter what, because having a BIG DAM would show the world that Egypt was Just As Modern As Everyone Else. It was essentially a psychological need to keep up with the Joneses, even if it killed them.
I suspect a great deal of the middle-eastern/SW-Asia attitude about nukes is more of the same -- it's a cultural thing where you can't let the other guy show you up by owning something you don't, even if having it will ruin you.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Hebrew is like Arabic - they are roughly as close as German and Danish, or Provencal Occitan and Catalan.
Neither Arabic nor Hebrew possess written vowels beyond Alif, with places and stresses for these accomplished through an elaborate system of diacritical punctuation. This is more stressed in Arabic, where the replecation of the exact tonal and accent production is regarded as protecting Koranic recitation from "innovation".
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Bush: God Told Me to Invade Iraq (sourced from The Independent)
God told me to invade Iraq, Bush tells Palestinian ministers
George Bush: 'God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq'
And the US funds Israel which recently killed 1600 civilians using white phosphorus supplied by the US. This was also in violation of international treaties just like Iran's Nuclear ambitions. When Israel developed their nuclear weapons they violated the same treaty as Iran.
I am not saying I am happy with Iran having nukes, but I am also not happy with Israel having them. Especially when Israel are just as likely to use them. The problem for us is the that if Israel use them against their neighbours, then Russia will be unhappy and may just retaliate against us since we are supporting the country financially and militarily.
Lets not forget that both countries are built on religion and religion has caused too many wars already. Both countries also are moving away from democracy, Iran by rigging elections, and Israel by intimidating non-jewish citizens who try and vote. Both have an armed forces that is becoming more fanatical in the use of embedded religious teachers in with the troops. This is why we should have acted more strongly against Israel when they developed theirs, we set a precedent that we would ignore people breaching the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty if we like the country that was breaching it. This makes it much harder for countries breaching it now to take it seriously when they feel threatened by nuclear equipped neighbours.
We can try and enforce our will by military means alone, but this is a dangerous path since it results in us having to keep our armed forces in place all over the world to enforce our will against the will of the indigenous population. That is certainly not what the founding fathers of the US had in mind when they drew up the constitution.
I dont read
Are you one of these tossers who actually believes what's written in the bible ? There was NEVER a kingdom of Israel
I know you're being edgy and all, but there's a shitload of archeological evidence, as well as many external documents (Roman, Assyrian, etc.) for the existence of the Kingdom of Israel. Coins, ruins, ancient scrolls, what have you not.
It has nothing to do with the Bible. It's about not being an ignorant ass.
And as for being scared of them - let the arabs off the leash and then see how long they last. Just for fun, tell them if they use nukes the west will nuke them ! See how fucking tough they are then.
Which is exactly what happened in 1948. Not a lick of US aid. No nukes. 6 Arab armies. All beaten within less than a year by people with half-functioning Czech rifles.
The ONLY reason the israelis are still in one piece is because of the USA. They gave them nukes, they send them money
The nukes are French, the massive aid only started after 1973, and Egypt gets almost as much... why I do even bother? You obviously don't know what you're talking about.
Read a fucking book.
The irony.