NOW the war is unpopular? Well, its a little too late

[Smurf]

As it happens, I am almost certain that I would have supported the US if they had gone to war against Iran, rather than Iraq, since for years it has been known that the Iranian government has expended vast amounts of cash on terrorist groups.

Would you support the US going to war with Iran now?

 

[Lisa!]

As it happens, I am almost certain that I would have supported the US if they had gone to war against Iran, rather than Iraq, since for years it has been known that the Iranian government has expended vast amounts of cash on terrorist groups.

Terrorist groups like what? Al-Qaeda?
Anyway you're going to support another war! That's great since you live in Norway and you don't have to worry about anything. Nobody attacks your country nor your country attacks another country. I want to know what would you think if you had to join the army and participate a war. Sure enough your ideas were totally different. Well again I don't know what to say. I remmember when Us announced they were going to attack Iraq. I felt terrible. I even didn't like to listen to the news anymore. I was the kind of person who always was interested in politics and I always followed the latest news but after that I try to know about politics and war news as less as possible since I can not do anything and these terrible news just could ruin my day. To be perfectly honest there are some people in the world that I don't feel well about them like ****s,and
that's because of their stupid politicians. But anyway Iraqi people were human and they weren't guilty about what Saddam did.

This was NOT the case with the SECULAR regime of Saddam Hussein.

Of course, the worst terrorist supporters among the Islamic governments is that of US' ally, Saudi Arabia..

That's funny. I don't think there is any religious government in the world because it's impossible. Politicians needs to have their people's support and well they get this support by different tricks. And religious is one of these tricks!

 

[arildno]

Would you support the US going to war with Iran now?

I was speaking of how I felt then.
My almost certainness has warped into probably oppose it, by observation of what has developed by a catastrophic management of affairs from US' side.

 

[Smurf]

I was speaking of how I felt then.
My almost certainness has dwindled to probably oppose it, by observation of what has developed by a catastrophic management of affairs from US' side.

Yes, that's what I thought you would say. What, exactly, has changed that's made you decide no?

 

[The Smoking Man]

Good point!
It is European historians who classify WW2 as starting in 1939 rather than in 1941..

That may be because the war was already raging in Asia since the early 1930's and this agreement, http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/tri1.htm of 1936 basically meant that it was the Germans that joined Japan in waging war and not the other way around.

This was followed by http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/triparti.htm .

The USA joining years later was merely an after thought. After all, the fact that most of the nations in Africa south of the Sahara and all of South America NOT being involved even by the end of the war didn't change the fact that we still call it a 'World War'.

 

[Lisa!]

I think the War on Theocracy might have been a better idea than the war on terrorism. Only, then the US would have had to bomb Washington too !...

And then again, the War on Something is probably, by itself, a bad idea.

You're right! 2 wrongs don't make a right, do they?

 

[vanesch]

Would you support the US going to war with Iran now?

I would, just to have another great show on CNN It would be the end of the US military supremacy in the world if they had a second debacle in Iran. Now, I think George is stupid, but not THAT stupid (and I'm sure that within the US administration, there's some failure protection here, which will have George shot or something if ever he turns out to be that silly), so it simply won't happen, and the Iranians know that.
I think the biggest supporter of a US invasion in Iran in the middle east must be Ossama... if ever they do that, he must be laughing his beard off !

 

[Smurf]

That may be because the war was already raging in Asia since the early 1930's and this agreement, http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/tri1.htm of 1936 basically meant that it was the Germans that joined Japan in waging war and not the other way around.

Actually the Anti-Comintern pact was disregarded by the Japanese after Hitler signed the Nazi-Soviet non aggression pact. The Japanese saw that as a betrayal and were really pissed. Quite possibly the only reason Japan didn't join the war against the USSR. If they had, Germany may have won.

 

[Smurf]

I would, just to have another great show on CNN It would be the end of the US military supremacy in the world if they had a second debacle in Iran.

Well I wouldn't go that far. It's going to take a lot more than that to remove the US from superpower status.

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

Terrorist groups like what? Al-Qaeda?
Anyway you're going to support another war! That's great since you live in Norway and you don't have to worry about anything. Nobody attacks your country nor your country attacks another country. I want to know what would you think if you had to join the army and participate a war. Sure enough your ideas were totally different. Well again I don't know what to say. I remmember when Us announced they were going to attack Iraq. I felt terrible. I even didn't like to listen to the news anymore. I was the kind of person who always was interested in politics and I always followed the latest news but after that I try to know about politics and war news as less as possible since I can not do anything and these terrible news just could ruin my day. To be perfectly honest there are some people in the world that I don't feel well about them like ****s,and
that's because of their stupid politicians. But anyway Iraqi people were human and they weren't guilty about what Saddam did.

That's funny. I don't think there is any religious government in the world because it's impossible. Politicians needs to have their people's support and well they get this support by different tricks. And religious is one of these tricks!

May I ask, after your 'Norway have it easy' rant, where exactly you are from, Lisa!?

 

[vanesch]

Well I wouldn't go that far. It's going to take a lot more than that to remove the US from superpower status.

No, and the best proof is already that they've lost all reasonable possibilities to attack Iran. They still can, in principle, but in practice, they can't.
If the US wouldn't have done its thing in Iraq, and Bush would have been menacing with military power against Iran, the Mullah's would be p**ing in their pants, because it would be serious. Now they just laugh in George's face. But ok, the US still has some little bit of muscle left, but in order to preserve it, they can't use it anymore. If they use it, they loose it, and then they're completely done with. Economically they will be at the Chinese's mercy, military they will not be able to do anything significant in the 5-10 coming years, and they've lost a lot of friends... and then the Oil Peak will hit the west.

 

[The Smoking Man]

I don't know why you didn't mention about it at first, but thank you anyway. All right. Us had good excuses to start that war, but I don't know if they were the real reasons. It seems that everyone agree that Al-Qaeda was guilty about 9/11.

If support of Al Qieda is pre-requesite to attack then you are obliged to invade Saudi. Prince Bandar Bin Sultan stated on "NBC NEWS' MEET THE PRESS" that they supported Al-Qieda AND the Palestinian Martyrs until AFTER 9/11.

MR. RUSSERT: Prince, the former general consul to the Department of Treasury, David Aufhauser...

PRINCE BANDAR: Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: ...a professional, a lawyer, testifying under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Question: "With regard to the trail of money ... and whether it leads in some cases to Saudi Arabia?" Aufhauser: "In many cases it is the epicenter." Question: "And does that trail of money also show money going to al Qaeda?" Aufhauser: "Yes." "Is the money from Saudi Arabia a significant source of funding for terrorism generally?" Aufhauser: "Yes. Principally al Qaeda but many other recipients as well."

This was the scene in April 2002, when your king, a state-sponsored telethon--and look at these pictures--raised over $92 million and the money was "for Palestinian martyrs"...

PRINCE BANDAR: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: ...suicide bombers who blew up Israeli children, school buses, restaurants. Here's the Treasury Department of the United States saying that Saudi money is funding al-Qaeda. You're having telethons raising money for Palestine suicide bombers, and you sit here and say, "How could people say these terrible things about us?"

PRINCE BANDAR: Yes, I say that very easily because nothing stands still. If you are saying before 9/11 we didn't have our thing together, yes, but nor did you. Look what 9/11 is showing. However, since...

MR. RUSSERT: This was April of 2003.

PRINCE BANDAR: I understand. Since then, since 9/11, when after we recovered from the shock, we looked at all our procedures, and we have come through and we're proud of it.

So if you now take the support of a country as evidence they need to be invaded and have war waged against them ... When do you go into Saudi?

And if they find muclear weapons, it was a justifiable war, am I right? As I remmember Iraq let IAEA experts to go to Iraq and do their investigations, but US attacked Iraq anyway. I think if there would be a serious problem with nuclear weapons , it's about US because they have NUcks and US politicians are crazy enough to use them , so if any country start a war against US, it could be justifiable as well!

You seem to think that the Nuclear Proliferation Pact is manditory and violation of it is basis for invasion.

It isn't. The pact is voluntary and sanctions only may be imposed.

 

[Lisa!]

The US had no good reason to go to war in Afghanistan. Just on this one everyone just shrugged and didn't call the US on it because they were still sympathizing with them after 9/11.

I saw your first post before you edited it. eveyone was sympathizing with US and poor Bush needed a guilty for 9/11. After he attacked Afghanistan most of people forgot to think what the hell CIA was doing when 9/11 happened. Remmember about Bill Clinton? whenever he had some problem like the scandal of his affair with Levinsky ,he attacked Iraq or Sudan or Afghanistan. So I think US politicians should be really grateful because of the existence of AL-Qaeda! Who knows perhaps they...

 

[arildno]

Yes, that's what I thought you would say. What, exactly, has changed that's made you decide no?

If I should point to a single thing, it is the shock I've felt that the US government evidently doesn't understand the most elementary facts about the political systems in the Middle-East (as exposed in the Iraq invasion).

It is an elementary fact that clans have still extremely strong positions in middle Eastern societies, and that the central government of a Middle Eastern country has just about nothing to do with the centralistic governments of the West (including US).

That is, in for example Iraq (and Saudi-Arabia) it is (or was) recognized that the big men locally would essentially appoint most officials, and "interpret" central edicts and give them a local flavour.
The small men locally will first and foremost try to ally themselves with a big man, rather than involve themselves with the "government".
Now, Saddam Hussein certainly did his best to gain overall control in the Iraqi society, but that would often be by playing rivalling big men against each other, rather than sending his own trusted folk into a region he was less familiar with, or didn't matter too much.

The big men on their hand would be involved in endless power games where they alternated between trying to curry favour from a bigger man (the biggest being..S.H.) or try to keep some private space where they themselves were dominant.
That is, S.H.'s dictatorship was never a centralistic dictatorship as that in, say, DDR.


Now, the Americans ought to have known from day 1 that if they were to create a STABLE society afterwards, the most efficient way to do so would have been to curry favour among the segment of big men throughout the country (many of whom are neither Baathists or Muslim fanatics) and get a sufficient number of them as backers.
What did they do instead?
They set up a centralistic, Western type of government in Baghdad and assumed that the local chiefs and sheiks wouldn't be mortally insulted at being deprived their hereditary rights of local government!
That is, to most Iraqi, the centralistic puppet government is felt as something totally alien, they've been used to a life lived out mostly on the local level (with a vague fear of big Daddy S.H. sitting in Baghdad possibly watching them).

In effect, therefore, US showed that they really can't conceive of any other type of a society than a US with a bad president.
And for that reason alone, the US regime cannot be regarded as a competent player in international politics any longer.

 

[Smurf]

No, and the best proof is already that they've lost all reasonable possibilities to attack Iran. They still can, in principle, but in practice, they can't.
If the US wouldn't have done its thing in Iraq, and Bush would have been menacing with military power against Iran, the Mullah's would be p**ing in their pants, because it would be serious. Now they just laugh in George's face. But ok, the US still has some little bit of muscle left, but in order to preserve it, they can't use it anymore. If they use it, they loose it, and then they're completely done with. Economically they will be at the Chinese's mercy, military they will not be able to do anything significant in the 5-10 coming years, and they've lost a lot of friends... and then the Oil Peak will hit the west.

China's mercy?... Yeah, if only those terrorists hadn't sunk all those aircraft carriers.

 

[Smurf]

Arildno.

So you still believe the US has the right to invade Iran, but it is too incompetant for the task?

 

[arildno]

Arildno.

So you still believe the US has the right to invade Iran, but it is too incompetant for the task?

Frankly, I couldn't care less about the evil theocratic regime in Iran.

 

[Smurf]

You seem to think that the Nuclear Proliferation Pact is manditory and violation of it is basis for invasion.

It isn't. The pact is voluntary and sanctions only may be imposed.

A classic case of "They're not us, let's make them us"

 

[Smurf]

Frankly, I couldn't care less about the evil theocratic regime in Iran.

Do you believe it would have been morally acceptable for the US to invade the sovereign nation of Iran, if it was capable of performing a regime change in a competent manner?

 

[The Smoking Man]

Actually the Anti-Comintern pact was disregarded by the Japanese after Hitler signed the Nazi-Soviet non aggression pact. The Japanese saw that as a betrayal and were really pissed. Quite possibly the only reason Japan didn't join the war against the USSR. If they had, Germany may have won.

Ummm ... That would be why I gave you the second pact signed by Italy, Germany and Japan in 1940 describing 'the new order'.

 

[arildno]

Do you believe it would have been morally acceptable for the US to invade the sovereign nation of Iran, if it was capable of performing a regime change in a competent manner?

Depends on the causa belli used.
If they had been the consistent, blatant breaches of human rights issues in Iran, then, yes, I would have defended it. Human rights know no borders, and the upholding of them is more important than the sovereignty of states.
Somehow, however, I don't think US would use this as causa belli..

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

I don't really see what business the US has judging the approach to human rights in any country, since that invariably leads to them breaching their rights also. Guantanamo Bay? Abu Ghraib? Renditioning? Thank you, no.

 

[PerennialII]

The US had no good reason to go to war in Afghanistan. Just on this one everyone just shrugged and didn't call the US on it because they were still sympathizing with them after 9/11.

2nded ... the situation isn't actually that much different from Iraq.

 

[arildno]

I don't really see what business the US has judging the approach to human rights in any country, since that invariably leads to them breaching their rights also. Guantanamo Bay? Abu Ghraib? Renditioning? Thank you, no.

Everyone has the right to judge the quality of human rights in any country; but we don't need to regard as especially weighty opinions coming from known offenders.

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

Everyone has the right to judge the quality of human rights in any country; but we don't need to regard as especially weighty opinions coming from known offenders.

Too true, but that's no excuse for using two combining conjunctions to join the same two clauses. (Yes, my migraine has gone!)

 

[Lisa!]

Too true, but that's no excuse for using two combining conjunctions to join the same two clauses. (Yes, my migraine has gone!)

Good for you. I've got a terrible headache and my hand is so painful again because I've typed a lot with it. And my heart is broken because I'm almost disappointed by humans!

 

[Smurf]

Everyone has the right to judge the quality of human rights in any country; but we don't need to regard as especially weighty opinions coming from known offenders.

Anyone can judge, but no one has the right to change another sovereign nation's regime on the grounds that you don't approve of them.

 

[Lisa!]

Anyone can judge, but no one has the right to change another sovereign nation's regime on the grounds that you don't approve of them.

unless they think you'd better to die when yor government don't respct your rights as a human!

 

[arildno]

Anyone can judge, but no one has the right to change another sovereign nation's regime on the grounds that you don't approve of them.

That depends if you regard sovereignty of nations as a more fundamental law than the upholding of human rights.
While that is conventional to do, I don't agree with that.

 

[Lisa!]

That depends if you regard sovereignty of nations as a more fundamental law than the upholding of human rights.
While that is conventional to do, I don't agree with that.

What do you know about human's rights in Iran? could you please tell us about that?

 

[arildno]

What do you know about human's rights in Iran? could you please tell us about that?

Hmm..let's start:
1. systematic use of torture by the police
2. severe discrimination of Zoroastrians and the other few who don't designate themselves as Moslems
3. severe repression of women on many fronts

 

[Burnsys]

Hmm..let's start:
1. systematic use of torture by the police
2. severe discrimination of Zoroastrians and the other few who don't designate themselves as Moslems
3. severe repression of women on many fronts

Let me remember you that US also use torture on their enemies, They also discriminate black people (They even used them as slaves...)... Should we invade or nuke america? what do you say?

 

[Lisa!]

Hmm..let's start:
1. systematic use of torture by the police
2. severe discrimination of Zoroastrians and the other few who don't designate themselves as Moslems
3. severe repression of women on many fronts

How did you get that in formation?
and please explain more about the last one more?
By the way, what do you think of torturing prisoners in Abu Ghraib? I just saw a picture of a prisoner there, nothing was clear but I got upset for 1 hour!

 

[Smurf]

That depends if you regard sovereignty of nations as a more fundamental law than the upholding of human rights.
While that is conventional to do, I don't agree with that.

Nonsense. One doesn't have to regard sovereignty as superior to human rights to see the logic in this. Sovereignty is a tool for the purpose of human rights. This applies as much to Iran as it does to the 50 states.

If you don't respect sovereignty you're acting in an imperial, belligerant manner which eventually leads to human rights violations in it's self. Cite Iraq and Afghanistan as obvious examples.

 

[Archon]

Nonsense. One doesn't have to regard sovereignty as superior to human rights to see the logic in this. Sovereignty is a tool for the purpose of human rights. This applies as much to Iran as it does to the 50 states.

If you don't respect sovereignty you're acting in an imperial, belligerant manner which eventually leads to human rights violations in it's self. Cite Iraq and Afghanistan as obvious examples.

Answer me this: If, hypothetically, Hitler had contained his murder of Jews to Germany and had not invaded Poland or any other country, would you have defended German sovereignty? Don't you think there are situations in which invasion of a country which isn't being outwardly aggressive is justified?

Yes, sovereignty should be a tool used for the expansion of human rights. But in some cases, it is counterproductive human rights-wise to support the rights of sovereign nations not to be invaded. Think about this: in some cases, you're not supporting the soveriegnty of a nation so much as the sovereignty of a couple of people who happen to be brutally ruling the country in question, often without the consent of the people.

I don't actually support an invasion of Iran (though I may in the future, if it becomes "necessary"). I just think that it's foolish to say that upholding the sovereignty of a nation which is known to violate human rights is the universally best way to proceed. I agree with Arildno: human rights are more important than the rights of nations.