For real...

Ok I have the urge to go way off topic now with a preach about democracy...
They invade Iraq, the invasion gone well and once they finished the invasion they say:"we won". But the thing is, most soldiers are dying now, after their so called 'victory'. And now they still ain't done in Iraq, and allready planning to attack other countries. How stupid can one be? What I also can see happening is when they do invade Iran, Iran attacks Israel, who might retaliate on the weaker countries, such as Palestina, so the whole region gets destabilized. That's not all though...
In a lot of western countries western people and arabic people live together, if that region goes into a big war, people (maybe even your neighbour if he is Arabic) will have their own opinions about it and tention will rise between etnicies(typo?) and a lot more terrorist attack will come due to the fact they despite the western people for supporting and fighting wars. Kinda like domino's, when one stone falls, he pushes the other stones, wich push others as well...

My apologies for the dogmatic western and Arabic people, but I didn't know how to explain it otherwise.

Peace

I hope for everyone's sake that report is as fake as the site it came from looks. The site appears to be purely a "Bush bashing" parade. I'm not saying it is fake, but the site looks like a place that thrives on sensationalism to make its point. Something on the lines of "Elvis lives and works at KFC!".

I'd be wary of the validity of the report because just the very idea of nuking Iran is insane. Now some will say Bush is insane, and given by some of his actions of late he could be well be bordering on insane. But just the same, he has many advisers and surely not ALL of them can be insane can they?

I think the moral of the story is:

"Don't believe everything you read on the internet."

I was and I still am against the war in Iraq and against this so called War Agains Terrorism. But if the United States attack Iran under the supervision of the UN (supervision should be read as .... at the UN decision... not like they did in Iraq: the world said no and Bush couldn't care less) I don't think it would be a problem. I don't have anything with muslims (i know quite a few personaly and they are great people ... still can't understand why they don't eat pig meat which is really great) but many of them have this blind faith in religion. Us, christians also had this blind faith in religion, but that part of the history was called Dark Ages and pretty much has ended. A nuclear bomb in the hands of a group of people that still have a 14 century perception over the world is a VERY BAD thing.
On the other hand if the USA go ahead and attack Iran without a UN resolution on this matter... nothing good can come out of it. In my opinion a lot of tension has grown into the world. This small wars, like the war in Iraq are just the small clouds of a storm. In my opinion we will have another world war this century. Yes... (as I said in another thread) history has a nasty habbit of repeating itself and men's stupidity also has a bad habbit of repeating itself (see chapter: americans electing Bush for the second time) . I'm not saying that the doomsday is near, only that all the tension in the world will be released some way or another. Violence, in my opinion, is written in the genetic fingerprint of menkind...

Iran will never finish that reactor. Israel will make a preemtive strike just like they did in 1983 with Iraq. A move that the world condemned Israel for, but realized six years later was really a good idea.

Actually my major was in Political Science with a speciality in Middle East Politics. What isn't being widely reported and ignored is the fair amount of sucess that NATO has had in Afganistan. Things are not perfect, but they are much improved and going as smoothly as one could hope. The remaining Taliban there will be a problem for years to come, but so were the "Werewolves" after WWII. The werewolves were former SS that continued fighting a limited "gureilla" war really until the Berlin Crisis. So long as the international community remains engaged there in Afghanistan there will be hope.

The first thing to realize about the Middle East is that United States just does not understand it and never really has understood the region. The first "contact" with the region started the Barbary Wars with the bombardment of Tripoli, etc. So just to say "Bush is an idiot" is really just ignorance of US history in the region. Now in more recent times there was the support of various regiemes during the Cold War. The problem with the Cold War was that the Third World Despots played both sides. Just look at Castro. Castro isn't a communist, he just said he was one after the US refused to support him to get weapons and aid from the USSR. He's just a dictator pure and simple. This went on for forty years.

Back to Iraq:

Why the US attacked Iraq was a vast combination of factors. Part of it was Bush II wanting to finish Bush I's war, oil, and test the new generation of military equipement and tactics. There is actually military theory that states you need to have a good war about once a decade to ensure the military having a core of experienced combat veterns. At any rate I digress.

However here was the basic idea on attack Iraq as I understand it:

The United States suddenly "woke-up" to the reality that militant Islam had spread further and posed more of a threat than they first had thought. The present Intel community believed that sucide bombers in shopping malls was the most likely threat. However, there was an FBI report in 1998 or 1999 (I can't remember which) that estimated that at least 1 major US city would be hit by a radiological device (ie Nuke bomb or dirty nuke) by 2010. The media and most people ignored the report. Well, we were struck, but by 767's turned into cruise missiles.

Realizing that the threat of Terrorism would, at best, take a generation or more to "change the hearts and minds" of that part of the world the question was what to do? The United States, and Europe as well, is going to be attacked again. Countries in the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, play to the spritiual leaders of the "Jihad" movement. Given the dependance on Oil there are no really "good" solutions, however can you sit back and try to play a defensive game? Having grown up around the intelligence community and Military industrial complex I can tell you that there probably are alot more attempted terrorist attacks that have been stopped and you never know about it. As one friend, and former FBI counter-terrorism agent, of mine said, "We save the world, and go home at the end of the day proud that [we john q. public] never know it". But the Security and Intel agencies are still fallible. Even if they stop 999 attacks the 1000th will get through. They can do a lot to stop attacks, but they can't bat 1.000.

So what options are left? Here are just a few to consider:

1) Announce to the World that if we are attacked with weapons of mass destruction, that our Thermonuclear counter attack will land on these country's: <<Insert list of countries that support terrorists>> front door first, we'll figure out who actually did it later? While there is some merit to openly stating the use of Nuclear Weapons worked for the Cold War I doubt it would work as well here. But then who do you go after? What if it was a stolen Russian nuke: do you nuke russia? Can you prove that it came from Iran or Syria or Iraq? However, during the first Gulf War, then Sectary of State James Bakker told the Iraqi representive: "If you use biological or chemical weapons on our troops, we have the means and the will to retaliate". Which is diplomatic speech for: "you use Bio-chem weapons we're going to nuke you"...without publically saying it. It was also established as part of the Clinton Doctrine that any attack with WMD on US soil could be met with our own nuclear response as we see fit....so....

2) Sign a new executive order allowing for the assassination and let the CIA operate in the shadow. The old montra of "Do what you have to do: we just don't want to read about it in the Times". Actually this was probably the best method. Just announce through private channels and give a speech that says: "We don't care who you are or where you are: if you mean to do us harm, we will find you and hunt you down". It has been an effective tactic in the past for Mossad. In 1985, when terrorists took over the Soviet embassy in Beirut, a Spetsnaz strike team infiltrated the embassy, abducted four of the terrorists and sent one of their decapitated heads in a bag to the terrorists' leader. My $.02 is that this is probably the best way to proactively deal with terrorists themselves through direct action, but still it does not address the problem of malcontent in the population of the middle east.

3) Invade a country that is known to have had, and cannot prove that it has not destroyed weapons of mass-destruction, one that is weak militarily and help set up a democracy. Support the people and hope they want to be free and work together so that in twenty years they can serve as a pillar of democracy in the middle east. Meanwhile, those holding to jihadist idealogy will most likely strike there because it is in reach. If terrorists want to attack M1 Tanks with AK-47's and die...let them. If the new government is sucessful, there is an alternate supply of oil allowing the US to apply pressure to other regiemes (ie Saudi Arbia) to clamp down on terrorist funding and to give their people more rights. Also, another neighboring country might undergo a new revolution and overthow their theocractic government (Iran).

Now I have always agreed with #3. That is not to say that things were well planned out. The US military took the idea of liberators and not occupiers almost modelling after France in WWII instead of Japan at the end of WWII. There is still huge cultural non-understandings there too. The United States just doesn't comprehend the concept of holding a grudge for a 1000 years.

Still, I will maintain that the attempt had to be made. As someone else said, this seems to be small wars that are brewing to one larger conflict in that region. Operation Iraq Freedom was an attempt to head it off at the pass and avoid a larger conflict.

Personally, how this all gets resolved without the use nuclear weapons is still beyond me.

Nuke attack ?just look what is happening in Iraq.. Our troops are seen as "Opressors" not people with families elsewhere in the world. I have no idea where and when it's gonna end .but I hope the end arrives as soon as possible, people should try to make the world a better place in their lives. Too often people forget the next generation when they make decisions.

This post has been edited by dylan2xs: Nov 27 2006, 03:13 PM

They're trying to obtain nuclear weapons, constantly threatening to whipe Israel off the map, and creating problems for the Iraqi people. Stay in school, genius.