War with Iran is it imminent

[Jose Jones]

Surely no matter how much you do not agree with your own countries foreign policy you would not want another government that views your own country as hostile to have nuclear weapons.

 

No-one wants Iran (or another government in a similar situation) to have nuclear weapons do they?

They just are commenting on the hypocrasy of our particular countries with a much greater history of fomenting war and large scale death telling someone else they can't have them. Particularly when those previous actions make up a major slice of why Iran would want nukes in the first place.

 

Paraphrasing what SD said earlier, it's a bad idea for everyone to have nuclear weapons, including Iran.

[Strontium]

But the question then would be why?

 

Would you prefer

 

1. a peaceful autocracy, which funds no terrorists, takes no part in legal or illegal wars and is run generally to benefit it's own citizens.

 

Or

 

2. a democratically elected government which lies to it's own people to justify wars which kill millions, wages secret terrorist campaigns against foreign governments and launches clandestine coups against democratically elected heads of state.

 

Surely you are able to judge the actions as well as the political infrastructure?

 

 

Of course, but I don't think hypothetical #1 exists anywhere in the world.

 

No question democracies do bad things sometimes, albeit usually to foreigners.

 

My interest is in seeing as many democracies as possible, because that is (a) more conducive to better human rights and (b) likely to aid us in achieving world peace: Democratic peace theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

A regime is undoubtedly strengthened when it acquires a nuclear weapon, therefore I do not wish to see a de facto theocratic dictatorship like Iran acquiring such technology.

[Beantown Red]

32 years of sanctions, I think that speaks to what threat an US invasion is to Iran and they wouldn't have to worry about an Israeli attack other than the nuclear program. The main external threat to them, Iraq, was taken care of by the great Satan and the other border countries pose no threat. Obviously the Western reaction to the Iranian nuclear program is hypocrisy but I live in the West not Iran. After the Pakistani's running around selling nuclear secrets to anybody willing to pay I don't think another Islamic country who relies on proxies like Pakistan is the most appropriate to become a nuclear state.

[Jose Jones]

Of course, but I don't think hypothetical #1 exists anywhere in the world.

 

No question democracies do bad things sometimes, albeit usually to foreigners.

 

My interest is in seeing as many democracies as possible, because that is (a) more conducive to better human rights and (b) likely to aid us in achieving world peace: Democratic peace theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

A regime is undoubtedly strengthened when it acquires a nuclear weapon, therefore I do not wish to see a de facto theocratic dictatorship like Iran acquiring such technology.

 

Well I would suggest supporting better actions by current democracies and holding them to high standards, might be a good way to encourage their spread to other countries.

 

Also seeing as human rights and world peace are your end goals, then criticizing democracies where they blatantly war monger, act un-democratically or take away the main human right of a lot of people might also be of interest.

 

What do you reckon?

[Jose Jones]

32 years of sanctions, I think that speaks to what threat an US invasion is to Iran and they wouldn't have to worry about an Israeli attack other than the nuclear program. The main external threat to them, Iraq, was taken care of by the great Satan and the other border countries pose no threat. Obviously the Western reaction to the Iranian nuclear program is hypocrisy but I live in the West not Iran. After the Pakistani's running around selling nuclear secrets to anybody willing to pay I don't think another Islamic country who relies on proxies like Pakistan is the most appropriate to become a nuclear state.

 

Well two of Iran's direct neighbours have been invaded by the US in the last 10 years. As you mention Saddam Hussein was taken out by the US, but for years he was funded and supported by the US to attack Iran.

 

I think you belittle the threat of invasion to the Iranian regime juuuuust a tiny bit there. And that's not without going into any of the glorious British and American history in Iran and Persia which led to the formation of the Islamic regime in the first place.

[Beantown Red]

If you really think America would invade Iran you need your head checked. Even dumbwit Dubwa understood this after the Iraq fiasco. The Iranian military is too large and the terrain in Iran does not allow for a large scale invasion.

[Jose Jones]

If you really think America would invade Iran you need your head checked. Even dumbwit Dubwa understood this after the Iraq fiasco. The Iranian military is too large and the terrain in Iran does not allow for a large scale invasion.

 

I don't really. But you can see why the Iranian regime wants a Nuke just to be on the safe side.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

I freely admit to being biased towards liberal democracies, which have legitimacy, and biased against theocratic dictatorships, which don't.

 

Your definition of liberal democracy must differ from mine somewhat. Your stunning lack of perspective really does you no good at all. You claim to be a man of fact and logic, but you're not. You're a man of bias and poorly thought out bias.

 

Go and argue with someone else, this is tiresome.

 

Ah, this ol' game again. You've been shown to be a hypocrite and a poor thinker, then all of a sudden it becomes tedious. How dreadfully predictable you are.

[Magic Sponge]

 

Your definition of liberal democracy must differ from mine somewhat. Your stunning lack of perspective really does you no good at all. You claim to be a man of fact and logic, but you're not. You're a man of bias and poorly thought out bias.

 

Ah, this ol' game again. You've been shown to be a hypocrite and a poor thinker, then all of a sudden it becomes tedious. How dreadfully predictable you are.

 

Oh the irony.

 

You boring cunt.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Oh the irony.

 

You boring cunt.

 

Another fine critique from the brilliant mind of Magic Sponge. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this subject. Both lines of it.

[Ginny]

Another fine critique from the brilliant mind of Magic Sponge. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this subject. Both lines of it.

 

Hang on a minute... do you think you're some sort of brilliant mind or something? But i hate to break it to you... you're blatantly not. You're arguing on a f******* forum for fucks sake.

 

Now go get your fuckin shinebox!

[VladimirIlyich]

I think its fair enough to criticise somebody who just insults others without offering an opinion,whether you think you have a brilliant mind or not.

 

In fairness to SD and even though most on here disagree with him, he is putting forward opinions and differing points of view that last a paragraph or two minimum.

 

Its quite interesting to take a step back and view peoples views without contributing but if you do decide to contribute then its quite useful to offer an opinion or two.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Hang on a minute... do you think you're some sort of brilliant mind or something?

 

No. Next?

 

I think its fair enough to criticise somebody who just insults others without offering an opinion,whether you think you have a brilliant mind or not.

 

In fairness to SD and even though most on here disagree with him, he is putting forward opinions and differing points of view that last a paragraph or two minimum.

 

Quite. Despite disagreeing with SD's skewed vision of politics, he always argues his point and gives an opinion. That commands infinitely more respect than somebody who repeatedly just insults people's opinions. It's all he ever does. It's all he can do.

 

If somebody is wrong, telling them why would is better. Just giving your own opinion would be a start. Calling somebody a cunt just makes you look like, well, a cunt. Not a very bright cunt, either.

[Magic Sponge]

I never called you just a cunt. I called you a boring cunt. Which is what you are and what your 10,000 plus post point you out as.

 

So you and your girlfriend might want to read properly next time.

 

I read these type threads and laugh most of the time. At you. Your trying too hard to be liked by respected posters such as Section and Monty but failing badly.

 

Like Ginny said, this is a f******l forum. You seem to think it's some form of the UN security council. Well it's not. So get your head out of your arse, Mr President.

[Strontium]

Your definition of liberal democracy must differ from mine somewhat. Your stunning lack of perspective really does you no good at all. You claim to be a man of fact and logic, but you're not. You're a man of bias and poorly thought out bias.

 

Ah, this ol' game again. You've been shown to be a hypocrite and a poor thinker, then all of a sudden it becomes tedious. How dreadfully predictable you are.

 

 

Please demonstrate where I've been hypocritical.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

I never called you just a cunt. I called you a boring cunt. Which is what you are and what your 10,000 plus post point you out as.

 

Nice one.

 

So you and your girlfriend might want to read properly next time.

 

My girlfriend? Nice one. You're bringing out the big guns on this one.

 

I read these type threads and laugh most of the time. At you. Your trying too hard to be liked by respected posters such as Section and Monty but failing badly.

 

After they declined my sleep-over invitation and stopped replying to my hourly PMs, I no longer care what they think. They're dead to me.

 

Like Ginny said, this is a f******l forum. You seem to think it's some form of the UN security council. Well it's not. So get your head out of your arse, Mr President.

 

Yeah, I'm taking it too seriously, you're right. I'm only one step away from starring out the word 'football' on the forum just in case I get negged.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Please demonstrate where I've been hypocritical.

 

What, ever? In this thread? In the last hour?

[toneloc]

What, ever? In this thread? In the last hour?

 

[Mr. Beast]

apart from the fact that a country researching the possibilities of nuclear weapons when their psychopathic neighbour has 400 nuclear weapons pointed at them is not really a reason to heigthen aggression...we've been here before:

 

An Iraq-WMD Replay on Iran? | Consortiumnews

 

An Iraq-WMD Replay on Iran?

November 8, 2011

 

The U.S. press corps and “independent” American weapons experts got almost everything wrong about Iraq’s purported WMD before the U.S. invasion in 2003. Now, much the same cast is returning to interpret dubious intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program, reports Robert Parry.

 

By Robert Parry

 

The American public is about to be inundated with another flood of “expert analysis” about a dangerous Middle Eastern country presumably hiding a secret nuclear weapons program that may require a military strike, although this time it is Iran, not Iraq.

 

In the near future, you will be seeing more satellite photos of non-descript buildings that experts will say are housing elements of a nuclear bomb factory. There will be more diagrams of supposed nuclear devices. Some of the same talking heads will reappear to interpret this new “evidence.”

 

You might even recognize some of those familiar faces from the more innocent days of 2002-2003 when they explained, with unnerving confidence, how Iraq’s Saddam Hussein surely had chemical and biological weapons and likely a nuclear weapons program, too.

 

For instance, back then, former United Nations weapons inspector David Albright was all over the news channels, reinforcing the alarmist claims about Iraq’s WMD that were coming from President George W. Bush and his neocon-dominated administration.

 

David Albright

 

Today, Albright’s Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) is issuing a flurry of alarmist reports about Iran’s nuclear bomb progress, often accompanied by the same kind of satellite photos and diagrams that helped persuade many Americans that Iraq must possess unconventional weapons that turned out to be fictitious.

 

For instance, in the run-up to war in Iraq, Albright co-authored a Sept. 10, 2002, article – entitled “Is the Activity at Al Qaim Related to Nuclear Efforts?” – which declared, “High-resolution commercial satellite imagery shows an apparently operational facility at the site of Iraq’s al Qaim phosphate plant and uranium extraction facility (Unit-340), located in northwest Iraq near the Syrian border. This site was where Iraq extracted uranium for its nuclear weapons program in the 1980s. …

 

“This image raises questions about whether Iraq has rebuilt a uranium extraction facility at the site, possibly even underground. … Unless inspectors go to the site and investigate all activities, the international community cannot exclude the possibility that Iraq is secretly producing a stockpile of uranium in violation of its commitments under Security Council resolutions. The uranium could be used in a clandestine nuclear weapons effort.”

 

Albright’s nuclear warning about Iraq coincided with the start of the Bush administration’s propaganda campaign to rally Congress and the American people to war with talk about “the smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

 

Though Albright eventually grew skeptical about the alleged resurrection of an Iraqi nuclear program, he remained a firm believer in the Bush administration’s claims about Iraq’s supposed chemical and biological weapons programs as justification for the March 2003 invasion.

 

Gullibility Exposed

 

In summer 2003, after the promised WMD caches proved non-existent, the journalism watchdog group FAIR published a study by Seth Ackerman looking at the American press corps’ gullibility and citing the role of weapons experts like Albright.

 

Entitlted “The Great WMD Hunt,” the article said, “In part, journalists absorbed their aura of certainty from a battery of ‘independent’ weapons experts who repeated the mantra of Iraq concealment over and over. Journalists used these experts as outside sources who could independently evaluate the administration’s claims. Yet often these ‘experts’ were simply repeating what they heard from U.S. officials, forming an endless loop of self-reinforcing scare mongering.

 

“Take the ubiquitous David Albright, a former U.N. inspector in Iraq. Over the years, Albright had been cited in hundreds of news articles and made scores of television appearances as an authority on Iraqi weapons. A sample prewar quote from Albright (CNN, 10/5/02): ‘In terms of the chemical and biological weapons, Iraq has those now. How many, how could they deliver them? I mean, these are the big questions.’”

 

FAIR added: “But when the postwar weapons hunt started turning up empty, Albright made a rather candid admission (L.A. Times, 4/20/03): “If there are no weapons of mass destruction, I’ll be mad as hell. I certainly accepted the administration claims on chemical and biological weapons. I figured they were telling the truth. If there is no [unconventional weapons program], I will feel taken, because they asserted these things with such assurance.’”

 

Albright’s official biography at ISIS, which he founded and still heads, also boasts about his media influence: “The media frequently cite Albright, and he has appeared often on television and radio. A National Journal profile in 2004 called him a ‘go-to guy for media people seeking independent analysis on Iraq’s WMD programs.’”

 

The list of media outlets that relied on Albright is indeed impressive, as the bio reports:

 

“The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Time, Washington Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, London Sunday Times, Guardian, Die Zeit, Ashi Shimbun, Der Spiegel, Stern, and Times of India and by Reuters, Associated Press, AFP and Bloomberg wire services. Albright has also appeared many times on CNN, FOX, MSNBC, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, 60 Minutes, Dateline, Nightline and multiple National Public Radio shows.”

 

Forgetting Iraq Fiasco

 

Yet, when the Washington Post cited Albright on Monday, as the key source of a front-page article about Iran’s supposed progress toward reaching “nuclear capability,” all the history of Albright’s role in the Iraq fiasco disappeared. The article by Joby Warrick stated:

 

“Beginning early in the last decade and apparently resuming — though at a more measured pace — after a pause in 2003, Iranian scientists worked concurrently across multiple disciplines to obtain key skills needed to make and test a nuclear weapon that could fit inside the country’s long-range missiles, said David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector who has reviewed the intelligence files.

 

“‘The program never really stopped,” said Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. The institute performs widely respected independent analyses of nuclear programs in countries around the world, often drawing from IAEA [international Atomic Energy Agency] data.

 

“‘After 2003, money [in Iran] was made available for research in areas that sure look like nuclear weapons work but were hidden within civilian institutions,’ Albright said.”

 

The Post reported that key elements of this foreboding analysis come from a soon-to-be-released IAEA report, but the Post relied on Albright for emphasis and interpretation. The article said:

 

“Some of the highlights were described in a presentation by Albright at a private conference of intelligence professionals last week. PowerPoint slides from the presentation were obtained by The Washington Post, and details of Albright’s summary were confirmed by two European diplomats privy to the IAEA’s internal reports. …

 

“Albright said IAEA officials, based on the totality of the evidence given to them, have concluded that Iran ‘has sufficient information to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device’ using highly enriched uranium as its fissile core. … ‘The [intelligence] points to a comprehensive project structure and hierarchy with clear responsibilities, timelines and deliverables,’ Albright said, according to the notes from the presentation.”

 

The Post cited Albright as describing a key breakthrough for Iran when it obtained the design for an R265 generator, “a hemispherical aluminum shell with an intricate array of high explosives that detonate with split-second precision. These charges compress a small sphere of enriched uranium or plutonium to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.”

 

The Post reported that the IAEA had received intelligence claiming that a former Soviet nuclear scientist, Vyacheslav Danilenko, explained to Iranian scientists how to develop and test an explosion needed to detonate a nuclear warhead. However, one source told the Post that Danilenko’s work was limited to civilian engineering projects.

 

The Post doesn’t spell out where the new IAEA intelligence originated, but the New York Times reported that “some of that information came from the United States, Israel and Europe.” Israeli leaders have been trying to rally public support for a bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear facilities, while Iran remains deeply unpopular with U.S. and European officials.

 

A Different IAEA

 

The IAEA also is not the same organization that bucked the Bush administration’s intelligence regarding Iraq’s supposed nuclear weapons program.

 

As former CIA analyst Ray McGovern wrote on Feb. 21, 2010, the new IAEA chief, Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano, had “huge shoes to fill when he took over from the widely respected Mohamed ElBaradei, [who] had the courage to call a spade a spade and, when necessary, a forgery a forgery — like the documents alleging that Iraq had sought yellowcake uranium in Niger.”

 

Citing the contrast between ElBaradei’s expertise and reputation and that of the less known Amano, McGovern added, “lacking gravitas, one bends more easily. It is a fair assumption that Amano will prove more malleable than his predecessor — and surely more naïve.”

 

Now, it appears that Amano’s IAEA has accepted intelligence information from Israel and other enemies of Iran in preparing a report that is sure to add fuel to the fire for a possible military confrontation with Iran. Republican presidential hopefuls are already lining up to beat the war drums and accuse President Barack Obama of softness on Iran.

 

CIA analysts are sure to come under new pressure to back away from an important National Intelligence Estimate from 2007 which concluded that the Iranians had halted work on a nuclear weapons program in 2003. President Bush said the NIE tied his hands when he was considering a military attack on Iran before he left office.

 

Official Washington’s animus toward Iran also continues to be reflected in the intense interest over Iran’s nuclear program, which Iranian officials insist is only for peaceful purposes, compared to the usual silence over Israel’s actual nuclear-weapons arsenal.

 

Not only do the Washington Post and New York Times routinely leave out the existence of the Israeli arsenal of possibly hundreds of atomic bombs when writing stories about Iran conceivably building its first, but experts like Albright also largely ignore the former while obsessing on the latter.

 

Albright’s ISIS has published 36 reports about Iran in the past 12 months alone, compared to only three items on Israel over the past decade, according to the ISIS Web site.

 

It is that sort of even-handedness that Americans can expect in the next days and weeks as the U.S. news media again consults with its favored “experts” as both groups reprise their pre-Iraq War role on WMD, this time on Iran.

[silverlining]

This is going well.

[Sugar Ape]

I like NV. I reckon he is by far the best poster on political matters.

 

So there.

[SCOUSE TAPAS]

Everything points to them going into Iran,but I cant see them doing it soon.Simply because he has said he is bringing the troops home,and 2012 is a election year.

 

I dont think it would go down to good in the states if he pulls them out from Afghanistan to only send them into Iran.

[silverlining]

I like NV. I reckon he is by far the best poster on political matters.

 

So there.

 

NEGGED

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

I like NV. I reckon he is by far the best poster on political matters.

 

So there.

 

But, to be fair to MS, you are also a boring cunt.

[Strontium]

What, ever? In this thread? In the last hour?

 

 

Let's just start with this thread, I wouldn't want to set you too wearisome a task.