Iran Intends to Nuke Israel

[Dr. Shane]

Bush: Iran Intends to Nuke Israel

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"I want to remind you that the current president of Iran has announced that the destruction of Israel is an important part of their agenda. And that's unacceptable. And the development of a nuclear weapon, it seems like to me, would make them a step closer to achieving that objective."

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[bevin]

It is widely believed that Israel has nuclear weapons, and nobody doubts that they are prepared to use them. DO you think that will make a difference.

Bush needs to understand a few basic facts.

1. The population of Iran is about 68M people - over 2x that of Iraq, and more than Britain.

2. Sanctions won't work unless we get China and Russia to support them - and they are not our traditional or current friends.

3. The USA is in no position to start telling other countries that they can't have nuclear weapons but we can. (1) We are the only country that has dropped a nuclear bomb on another's city. (2) We are the most aggressive country in using force to try to make other countries keep us wealthy.

4. Mutually assured destruction might be the only short term path to peace in this part of the world. Once each can destroy the other, suddenly you each have an incentive NOT to inflame the situation.

Unfortunately, Bush being a bear of very little brain, thinks he can control many things that he has no control over at all...

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

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The population of Iran is about 68M people - over 2x that of Iraq, and more than Britain.

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I think even Homer Simpson understands the obvious.

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Sanctions won't work unless we get China and Russia to support them

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That is also obvious.

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The USA is in no position to start telling other countries that they can't have nuclear weapons but we can.

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That is a real knee-slapper.

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Mutually assured destruction might be the only short term path to peace in this part of the world.

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I think most of the world wants to avoid that.

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Bush being a bear of very little brain

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And yet he managed to get the most powerful job in the world.

[Dr. Shane]

Iran issues stark warning on oil price

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As diplomats from the US, Europe, Russia, and China prepared to meet today in London to discuss referring Tehran to the UN security council

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Does anyone take the Security Council serious? I mean, what are they going to do? Pass a resolution or two or ten or twenty?

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Last week, Manouchehr Takin, of the Centre for Global Energy Studies, argued that crude prices could hit $100 a barrel if Iran stopped exporting. "Supply and demand are very tightly balanced," he said.

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[Neil D]

Ok, Shane, you got some 'plainin' to do....

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The USA is in no position to start telling other countries that they can't have nuclear weapons but we can.

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That is a real knee-slapper.

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Why is this such a 'knee-slapper'? Why are you ridiculing a valid point?

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Mutually assured destruction might be the only short term path to peace in this part of the world.

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I think most of the world wants to avoid that.

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What makes you think that Iran is attempting to avoid some general destruction? I suspect that with the rhetoric that is coming out from Iran, that they are much closer to a nuclear option than we are surmising...Since we have essentially left N.Korea alone without challenging it's nukes, Iran is embolden to do the same...before [or even AS]it has the nukes.

George's hands are tied, and we have to have the world's opinion on our side BEFORE we take it out. It is imperative, otherwise, when we do, the world will then unite against us.

[Ron Lambert]

I thought the comment that America should not "start" telling other nations they can't have the bomb and we can, to be a real knee slapper--because this is exactly what we have been doing for fifty years. It's great if we can make it stick, and so far, pretty much, we have (with a few exceptions, like Pakistan and India and China and North Korea.)

But let's make no mistake about it. Western Civilization is not going to let Islamic radicals get nuclear weapons, ever. Even if it means a-bombing Qom, Teheran, and every military base and research facility in Iran.

North Korea is living on borrowed time, too. If the nutcase who rules there cannot be removed soon, I expect we will see mushroom clouds over North Korea.

[bevin]

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Western Civilization is not going to let Islamic radicals get nuclear weapons, ever

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There is NO WAY that the West will be able to stop Pakistan and India from having nuclear weapons. They already have them.

There is NO WAY that the West will be able to stop the proliferation of WMD because

(a) The difficulty of producing them is plummeting

( The ability to produce them is skyrocketing

We can't just go around stone-aging every country that doesn't like us.

Instead we are going to depend on the good will of other countries to police their own citizens. Unfortunately the Bush Administration has squandered all the good will we ever had in many countries - and gained very little in ANY country.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

The United States used the atomic bomb against a madman that taught his people that he was a diety. He was willing to let the allied forces invade Japan and fight to the very end. If President Trueman would have decided to do a D-day type invasion instead of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan, more Japannese would have died and obviously more Americans. When Americans used the atomic bomb it saved lives and stopped a self-professed god whose agression had provoked other nations to defend themselves against him.

How can this possibly be compared to a fundamentalist, Islamic, theocratic regime that has a stated goal of wiping Isreal off the map?

The US was a democracy defending itself against a theocracy.

Iran is a theocracy threatening a democracy (Israel).

I see no valid comparison. I just see anti-Bush rhetoric. In the eyes of the anti-Bush folks, he can do nothing right. Partisanship should be put aside. India and Pakastan have not been threatening to wipe their neighbors off the map. North Korea is a concern because they will sell their nukes to terrorists. Iran will use their nukes to destroy Isreal. The US has only used atomic weapons in self-defense.

If nothing else, perhaps France, Great Brittian, Russia, India, Pakistan and China should make a treaty that states that should Iran or North Korea ever use a nuclear weapon, each of them will cordinate a nuclear response on the aggressive nation. Let them have their nukes and if they ever use them in aggression, make sure not a soul in their nation survives to tell about it. The only problem with that is... how do we keep them from selling nukes to terrorists?

[Neil D]

Wow!

The Empiror of Japan...a madman?! That's what you think? Wow!....

My understand is that the Japanese culture is totally foriegn than a American or Mexican culture and far more complex. It is the culture that makes the Emperior what he is. That is why he lived out his years and not tried as a war criminal, as Japan would have revolted as a whole if the Emperior had been deposed, even after the bombs had been dropped.

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I see no valid comparison. I just see anti-Bush rhetoric.

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Wow! It seems to me an extreme oversimplification....And the world is much more complex than that....

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In the eyes of the anti-Bush folks, he can do nothing right.

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Maybe because we value other things and he has made a mess of those very ideals and dragged the reputation of the US thru the mud. Can you say that we are truely safer in the world? MAYBE in the US, but a determined mind, that is questionable. Even the departments of homeland security are not working in a coordinated effort and cracks are appearing . A savy suicide bomber [which is a wonderment in itself] can even slip thru those departmental cracks. As for our US world travelers....they are NOT safer. If anything, they are MORE exposed. So, a cell can just kidnap a fellow American and off him/them with impunity. Those cells don't do it, as it does not have the impact that they would like.

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India and Pakastan have not been threatening to wipe their neighbors off the map.

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Me thinks that you misjudge thier amonosity toward each other....

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North Korea is a concern because they will sell their nukes to terrorists. Iran will use their nukes to destroy Isreal. The US has only used atomic weapons in self-defense.

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You are correct...it is a grave concern....

[Dr. Shane]

To me, a man that thinks he is a god and trys to take over half of the world is a madman regardless what his culture is. If that is oversimplification, I am guilty.

[Neil D]

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Shane said:

To me, a man that thinks he is a god and trys to take over half of the world is a madman regardless what his culture is. If that is oversimplification, I am guilty.

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Then by your estimentation, Cesear, Alexander, and a few others were all madmen.....

In my estimation, they were arogant, ambitious men...And some of them paid a dear price for thier ambitions...

[bevin]

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The United States used the atomic bomb against a madman that taught his people that he was a diety.

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To me, a man that thinks he is a god and trys to take over half of the world is a madman regardless what his culture is.

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Your knowlege of the history of Japan and the geo-politics behind WW-II in the Pacific is simply appalling. I strongly recommend you read some reputable historical books about this topic before you continue this line of discussion.

/Bevin

[bevin]

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India and Pakastan have not been threatening to wipe their neighbors off the map.

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As Neil implies, you are displaying your ignorance of this piece of geo-politics also.

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North Korea is a concern because they will sell their nukes to terrorists.

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What is in it for the NK leadership to do this? Why should the NK do something that would make their already precarious position so much worse? The NK leadership rightly fears attack by the most aggressive nation on the face of the earth - the USA. After all, some moron of a president labelled them part of an "Axis of Evil".

The best thing that could happen to the Korean peninsula is for the division to end. We should be looking for ways to assist that to happen - and it was happening before GWB botched the diplomacy.

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Iran will use their nukes to destroy Israel.

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Again, what is in it for them?

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The US has only used atomic weapons in self-defense.

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ROFLOL - what was the death toll in Tokyo from the fire-bombing? At the time we nuked Japan, Japan was not a plausible threat to the USA. We nuked Japan for two reasons

(1) To show that we could - to scare the Russians

(2) To give the Japan a reason for 'honorable' surrend rather than continuing their huge casualities

(3) To avoid our own huge casualities from invading the homeland

These were ok reasons - but they were NOT "self-defense"

If you want to claim the attack we were defending against was Pearl Harbor, then you are simply revealing your ignorance of the geo-politics of WW-II in the Pacific.

There were reasons the Japanese attacked Pearl Habor. And they were the same reasons that the USA has used to justify attacking other countries.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

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Then by your estimentation, Cesear, Alexander, and a few others were all madmen.....

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Indeed. I certainly wouldn't consider them among histoy's most mentally stable charachters.

[Dr. Shane]

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At the time we nuked Japan, Japan was not a plausible threat to the USA.

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History books disagree.

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These were ok reasons - but they were NOT "self-defense"

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Again, history books disagree.

[lazarus]

Most historians agree that the reason for Nagasaki and Heroshima was to bring Japan to the negotiating table. Japan was beaten but it would have take much months, perhaps longer, to capure all the islands and territories that Japan held.

It was to save the lives of the thousands of American soldiers who would have died.

I'd like to see the history books that satate that N & H were in self defence. I have never heard that argued before.

I think the difficulty with the Iran situation is that I believe that russia would like Iran to have nuke becasue it provide a tilting of the balance of power in their favour.

My gut reaction is that Iran is closer to having a bomb than it is generally believed. Thats why can afford to be so bellicose. I believe Israel is ready to act and will act as soon as the situation with Sharon is resolved.

They are not MAD, they are playing a dangerous game of propoganda and stalling for time. All they need to do is get 1 bomb and the political landscape changes.

[Ron Lambert]

Bevin, Pakistan and India are so preoccupied with each other that they pretty much neutralize their threat to others. They have had nuclear weapons for decades, and have not harmed anyone else or even each other with them (although they came close at times).

Shane, the supposedly divine emperor of Japan was not the instigator of Japanese Imperialism--it was the out-of-control generals. The A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki gave Emperor Hirohito the excuse he needed to rein in the generals, in order to save Japan from nuclear annihilation. After the war, the U.S. did not touch Hirohito.

[bevin]

I agree with Ron's basic analysis, although the origins of WW-II Pacific go deeper than that, into the attempts by the Great Britain and the USA to retain control over what Japan wanted to be a Japanese trading bloc - rather like the USA tried to retain control over Central and South America during the cold war.

It is interesting that the nukes really did stabilize

• USA v USSR
• India v Pakistan

Now the question is, will they stabilize Israel v Iran. In fact, they very well might. In case you did not know, Israel has basically three large power stations - one coal, one oil, one nuke.

Everybody assumes that Israel has nuke weapons, although they refuse to confirm or deny it.

And I am damn sure that they would use them rather than risk being overrun.

/Bevin

[Ron Lambert]

Israel is widely believed to have anywhere from 24 to 100 nuclear warheads. The CIA arranged for them to steal enough for 12 bombs off a U.S. ship that was left open for the taking in the Mediterranean. Even the movie The Sum of all Fears and the Tom Clancy novel it was loosely based on say so. Clancy is always careful about his facts. After the Israelis got the plutonium to get them started, they were able to make their own breeder reactor and start making more weapons grade plutonium.

[Dr. Shane]

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it was to save the lives of the thousands of American soldiers who would have died.

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If this is true, than it was self-defense. America was attacked by Japan and America did what it had to in order to minmise American casualties. That = self-defense.

Invading Japan would have been much more costly since the civlians would have fought off the invation too - unlike France. Thus many more Americans and civilians would have died than died during and after D-day.

[Dr. Shane]

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the supposedly divine emperor of Japan was not the instigator of Japanese Imperialism--it was the out-of-control generals.

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Now do you think things would have been different if the people had had a democratically elected government?

During and just after the war most believed that the emperor was the evil mastermind of it. It is true that the West has since accepted him as a powerless figurehead, however "many people in China, Taiwan, Korea and Southeast Asia see Hirohito as Asia's Hitler of World War II, and some feel he should have been tried for war crimes."

[Neil D]

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It is true that the West has since accepted him as a powerless figurehead, however "many people in China, Taiwan, Korea and Southeast Asia see Hirohito as Asia's Hitler of World War II, and some feel he should have been tried for war crimes."

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Yes, and because of his place in Japaneese society and because of how their people felt for thier emperior, it was felt that to execute him for war crimes would have made Japan unstable for decades. Thus, he was spared. But in doing so, the west stripped him of his govermental powers and made him into a figure head, much like the Britsh monarchy. Even that was a stretch for the Japaneese...back then...Now days, the emperior is not viewed that way.

[Dr. Shane]

I believe the queen of Great Brittan does have a veto power. So she is not completely without power.

[bevin]

You are wrong. Any attempt by the queen to interfere with government would be vigorously ignored. That is why the Brits tolerate having royalty at all.

/Bevin

[bevin]

http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/hirohito1.html

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[:"red"]There is no doubt that Hirohito the man wanted peace.[/] There is equally no doubt that this shy, reclusive family man, who could be goaded to act decisively only in extremis, lacked the courage to enforce his wishes. So Hirohito the Emperor went to war. Like his grandfather Meiji, he not only reviewed the parades but participated in the strategy sessions. Cautious as ever, he [:"red"]criticized Japan's decision to join the Axis powers[/] and commented tartly on the army's bogging down in China. [:"red"]He urged that talks with the United States continue in 1941, even after the U.S. embargo on oil and other raw materials made compromise difficult. He interrupted the conference that decided to wage war with the U.S. by reciting a poem that his grandfather Meiji had once written in similar circumstances: Though I consider the surrounding seas as my brothers Why is it that the waves should rise so high?[/]

Like his other oblique calls for restraint, this was politely ignored.

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Did you notice this phrase

"even after the U.S. embargo on oil and other raw materials made compromise difficult"

That should tell you that there was more going on than you acknowledge.

The article then goes on to discuss the controversy around not charging him with war crimes. The situation is very complex, not black-and-white.

/Bevin