egafd.com

Aaaaw, Mart.

You need a spiritual MOT.

I can see your point, there are times when the forum leaves you no option but to declare yourself spiritually off-road. !wink!

It's not great. It's crap. More specifically, it's hysterical, irrational, and bizarre - the author appearing to be a committed and gullible subscriber to ?Conspiracy Theory News?. And by equating President Bush with Hitler he seems to inhabit a place somewhere beyond the bounds of reason and rationality. In fact, when someone comes out with a statement like that you know there is absolutely no point in engaging with them.

It?s a good article by Simon Jenkins ? measured and well thought out. One almost has sympathy with it. The only problem is the conclusion he reaches in the last paragraph ?

?Iran is the regional superstate. If ever there were a realpolitik demanding to be "hugged close" it is this one, however distasteful its leader and his centrifuges. If you cannot stop a man buying a gun, the next best bet is to make him your friend, not your enemy.?

- Simon Jenkins doesn?t seem to understand that however much you pucker up and ass kiss the irrational loon, it won?t make the slightest bit of difference. He is still just as liable to shoot you in the back and later cite the voices in his head (or in this case, the will of Allah) as justification enough.


Officer Dibble

"It's not great. It's crap. More specifically, it's hysterical, irrational, and bizarre"

The rhetoric is strong, but the basic points are there...

"America's the biggest danger of the 20th century" - not accurate for the whole century but from 1945 onward, there's little doubt of that.

"Opium and link to drugs price" - for those who follow the subject there's no doubt that the "war on drugs" is a massive money laundering operation and has nothing to do with tackling drugs. This campaign absorbs many billions of dollars, which are channeled into various underground operations. Check out the "war on drugs clock" to see the VAST amounts of US government money vanishing into this black hole:

"Blair puts us in danger" - few people doubt 7/7 was a result of our involvement in the Iraqi slaughter.

"Bush = Hitler" - unuseful rhetoric, I agree

"Iran with nukes less dangerous than America with nukes" - I'm inclined to agree. If Iran used one smalll nuke, it would get wiped off the planet. Who will Iran bomb? Israel, and wipe out millions of Palestinians? Many people think Bush's regime is planning to nuke Iran - this current stage is the build-up to justifying that action. Only one country has ever used a nuclear weapon.

Bottom line: this "Iran nuclear danger" story is the same as the "Iraq WMD danger" story: an excuse to bomb Iran, which Bush's people have been planning for years.

"Many people think Bush's regime is planning to nuke Iran - this current stage is the build-up to justifying that action."

Yes, but they are hysterical crack pots, driven mad by a festering, paranoid, irational, hatred of the US - which they acquired while attending some higher educational establishment. As far as I can see the only way that could happen (politically) is that it had, maybe, reached the eleventh hour in some mega regional crisis, Iran?s neighbours or southern Europe was being threatened in the most belligerent terms, and Iran was seen to be 'fuelling it's birds'.

I mean, are there any objective, respected, mainstream journalists or political analysts out there that expound this 'USA to nuke Iran? theory? I read the broadsheets, I?m a BBC and Channel Four news junkie and I have never come across anyone who has gone anywhere near there. The proposition seems totally bizarre.



Officer Dibble

If the proposition is bizarre, why does the US even bother with owning nukes? It's not bizarre to think they might use them, or they wouldn't have them. Antiwar.com, a collection of articles from across the political spectrum, has reported for some time that the US has nukes deployed in the gulf. Why?

We found out recently that America used chemical weapons to attack Falluja. Is it so bizarre that at least some people in Bush's regime might be pushing to play with their nukes as well?

"If the proposition is bizarre, why does the US even bother with owning nukes? It's not bizarre to think they might use them, or they wouldn't have them."

Nukes have been invented. They cannot now be uninvented. Other countries (including some unstable dictatorships or semi-democracies) and even autonomous groups (don't you think Al-Queda would just love one?) will acquire them. That means that if you are going to protect your political and strategic interests against all comers you must maintain the biggest and best nukes. It doesn?t mean you are going to use them; you simply need to have them to dissuade these types of regimes from (in the vernacular of the street) 'getting lairy'.

There are all sorts of other reasons why nukes must be maintained. What if we learned that the oft-mooted asteroid/earth collision was definitely on the cards in the next few months - possibly an extinction level event? It could happen any time (and one day it will). Who would we expect to save us all, who would the world look to - Yes, America, with it's rockets, nukes and scientists. Yes, we'd all be sat in front of the TV, biting our fingernails, praying for salvation and hanging onto George Dubya's every word. "Oh, please save us George, please save us, oh, pleeeease. We didn't mean all those silly, absurd, things we said before...you're our only hope. Oh, please say you can??


"Antiwar.com, a collection of articles from across the political spectrum, has reported for some time that the US has nukes deployed in the gulf. Why?"

Anti war dotcom is hardly an independent, disinterested, party and by its own admission it has ?an agenda?. We must be careful about reading too much into websites that simply pander to certain views and prejudices.

But anyhow, I'd be staggered if it turned out the US hadn't got nukes deployed all over the world in all sorts of strategic locations. The US will have nukes in the Gulf to protect its military, strategic and political interests. What if the Iran eleventh hour scenario, that I alluded to earlier, came to pass? They couldn't just nip back home for a few tasty bombs if their bluff was called, could they? Athens, Rome, Istanbul or Tel Aviv might be smouldering ruins by then. If a deterrent is to work it must be credible. Your opponents (even loony ones) should have no doubt that if push comes to shove you will comprehensively (more street vernacular here) 'twat them'. Even idiots tend to behave themselves in those instances.


"We found out recently that America used chemical weapons to attack Falluja"

I've already dealt with this further up the thread. Its just semantics. Some might say phosphor bombs are chemical weapons, some might say ?No, only nerve gasses and biological agents are chemical weapons?. Some might say, ?All high explosive weapons are chemical weapons? - since high explosives are made from, yep, chemicals. But it doesn?t matter whether phosphor bombs are chemical or not. The point is they're great for eliminating irrational, wild eyed, insurgents and loons who jump up and down in Middle Eastern streets firing their AK47's in the air as they chant 'Huba, huba, huba!'


?Is it so bizarre that at least some people in Bush's regime might be pushing to play with their nukes as well??

Frankly, yes. I feel that anyone who seriously suggested a preemptive release of nuclear weapons (except in the most grave of circumstances) would probably be relived of their command (or the civilian equivalent) and escorted from the premises.



Officer Dibble

"Nukes have been invented. They cannot now be uninvented. Other countries (including some unstable dictatorships or semi-democracies) and even autonomous groups (don't you think Al-Queda would just love one?) will acquire them. That means that if you are going to protect your political and strategic interests against all comers you must maintain the biggest and best nukes. It doesn?t mean you are going to use them; you simply need to have them to dissuade these types of regimes from (in the vernacular of the street) 'getting lairy'. "

Exactly how does the US dissuade any terrorist group from using a nuclear weapon. By threatening to nuke them? But where would they drop the bombs?

Mart

"Exactly how does the US dissuade any terrorist group from using a nuclear weapon."

Good point, mart. You can't dissuade them (terrorists are quite frequently irrational fanatics and zealots) you either have to capitulate to them or eliminate them.


"By threatening to nuke them? But where would they drop the bombs?"

Depends on the scenario. If the terrorists in question are concealing themselves within a community, then nuking them is not an option. But if, for instance, they holed themselves up in a remote mountain hideaway (like Torra Borra) with nothing for miles around except for the odd mountain goat, then tactical nukes might be an option. Depends on how badly you need to zap them.


Officer Dibble

"Exactly how does the US dissuade any terrorist group from using a nuclear weapon. By threatening to nuke them? But where would they drop the bombs?"

Especially seeing as "Al Qaida" (pick your own spelling) is largely a figment of American imagination. They can't even find enough "terrrrrsts" to kill or put on trial, let alone enough in one place to nuke.

"Especially seeing as "Al Qaida" (pick your own spelling) is largely a figment of American imagination."

Al Queda (how's that one for ya'?) a figment of the imagination? The relatives of the thousands killed in the combined Twin towers, Bali, Madrid, London and other attacks might beg to differ.

It's when someone makes such absurd and bizarre statement like this 'terrorist denial' that one is forced to question their grip on reality, their rationality, and ponder how they came to hold this warped view of the world around them. Did it begin at university, where they wanted to feel really cool, rebellious, and revolutionary? A romantic, Che Guevaran, intellectual adventure that allowed them to shake off the baggage of their cosy, cosseted, middleclass lives and strike out on their own like the independent, idealistic, young men that they were? Or did it begin before that? One can imagine the bright, impressionable, young mind in a middleclass community being vulnerable too much of the fashionable anti-Americanism prevalent in that environment over the last thirty years or so.

Or maybe it's strictly who is the visionary? Maybe only he and his clique of middleclass pals can see the truth? Maybe all the worlds? governments, media organisations, newspapers and journalists are part of some vast conspiracy to propagate the myth of Al Queda? A myth created in order o keep us ordinary suckers cow towing to our leaders, to keep us from questioning their platitudinous crap and to bolster the illusion of democracy, while ensuring we put our crosses in their boxes for fear of the unknown? Well, shit, stranger things happen at sea, I guess.


Officer Dibble