Iran vs. US/Israel?

[KingAl]

What really worries me:

Rouge nukes.

Hear hear. The existence of a red player or team should be banned in all Defcon games to stop the bastards getting any ideas.

In all seriousness, the depressing fact is that someone crazy eventually getting their hands on nukes is practically inevitable.

[Star*Dagger]

The us missed a huge chance after 9/11 when the whole world felt sorry for the us.

Instead of asking itself "How can we unite with the other nations of the world to increase understanding between the west and the middle-east?" Bush lead a Crusade, first in Afganistan (failed) and then in Iraq (miserable failure). Now the world sees the us as a warmongering nation in addition to its McConsciousness of consumption and rampant capitalism.

The fortunate thing, if anything, to come out of the nightmare of 8 years of a Rove (Bush) administration is that the inevitable process of the fall of the American Empire was greatly sped up.
The torch of Liberty, Justice and true Democracy passes (back?) to the European Union.

Yours in Prognosticating Plasma,
Star*Dagger!

[KingAl]

The torch of Liberty, Justice and true Democracy passes (back?) to the European Union.

I'm hardly pro-US, but your continual repetition of that sentiment is beginning to bug me - you sound like a mindless zealot.

[Ace Rimmer]

Instead of asking itself "How can we unite with the other nations of the world to increase understanding between the west and the middle-east?"

I highly doubt that there will ever be or could have ever been enough of an "increased understanding" between the west and middle east to make much of a difference.

[BrianBlessed]

I highly doubt that there will ever be or could have ever been enough of an "increased understanding" between the west and middle east to make much of a difference.

Unless we put our differences aside and unite against our common enemy. The Belgians!

[KingAl]

Of course, as we all know Belgians don't exist, but a minor detail like that has never held back the US before.

[BrianBlessed]

Don't easily believe such fallacy, Belgium can be proved using the principle of opposites and world balance. For every Luxembourg there is a Belgium!

Q.E.D.

[xander]

I'm hardly pro-US, but your continual repetition of that sentiment is beginning to bug me - you sound like a mindless zealot.

He is a mindless zealot. We established that ages ago.

xander

[Radiant Caligula]

What really worries me:

Rouge nukes.

Hear hear. The existence of a red player or team should be banned in all Defcon games to stop the bastards getting any ideas.

In all seriousness, the depressing fact is that someone crazy eventually getting their hands on nukes is practically inevitable.

fix'd


lol didnt see until now that the u landed on the wrong side. I agree nonetheless, NO RED TEAM! NO RED TEAM!

[niksonpsi]

Isreal having nukes (which scares me more than anything)

why does that scares you???

Iran (if they think twice) would surely not rain holocaust on any target in Israel knowing they most likely will kill heaps of their palestinian brothers in the process.

Iran doesn't care about its palestinian brothers. In fact, a few islamic countries support palestinians.

[Star*Dagger]

I highly doubt that there will ever be or could have ever been enough of an "increased understanding" between the west and middle east to make much of a difference.

Unless we put our differences aside and unite against our common enemy. The Belgians!

Actually... The bush administration put the Netherlands on notice, that if any of its military officers were brought before the Intl Criminal Court that the US would INVADE and get their criminals back.

Yours in Anti-Imperialist Plasma,
Star*Dagger

[Crusader Scott]

It depends on the nature of the Iranian response:

If they strike at US and Israeli interests via terrorism, well, that's not anything really new is it? Tehran is already doing its best to start a civil war in Iraq and has triggered a war between Lebanon and Israel just last year. So, if this is their plan, it really amounts to more of the same.

However, if they mean that they will fire SSMs at US and Israeli targets (as the article indicates), then that would probably be the last action Iran ever took. No nation, be it the US, Israel, Russia, or the rest of the Gulf, would be able to sit back as missiles rain down around the region (just use your DEFCON training to think about how destabilizing such a situation would be ). Such an act would force the West's hands to strike back at more that just nuclear sites. We would be forced to hit every conceivable missile launching platform imaginable. Iran would have steel raining from the skies on a regular basis.

That still wouldn't require a ground invasion, though. I only see a ground invasion if some of those missiles contained chemical weapons. That would kick things up a notch. In that case, it wouldn't take much to redeploy the 130,000 US troops in Iraq into a irresistible strike force headed towards Tehran (no doubt with Marines landing along the coast and airborne dropping to seize key political targets). In short, it would be over for Iran in such a situation.


I must say that I am somewhat taken aback by the defense of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that some have mounted here. Has everyone forgotten that

1) While speaking to students at a conference entitled “The World Without Zionism” on October 26, 2005, Ahmadinejad called Israel “a disgraceful blot” and quoted Ayatollah Khomeini, the former Supreme Leader of Iran, saying “As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map.”

2) That he said: "Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury...Any (Islamic leader) who recognizes the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world.”

3) On December 8, 2005, Ahmadinejad gave a speech at a summit for Muslim nations in Saudi Arabia that denied the Holocaust and suggested Israel should be moved to Europe. “Some European countries insist on saying that during World War II, Hitler burned millions of Jews and put them in concentration camps,” said Ahmadinejad. “Any historian, commentator or scientist who doubts that is taken to prison or gets condemned. Although we don’t accept this claim, if we suppose it is true, if the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe — like in Germany, Austria or other countries — to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe. You offer part of Europe and we will support it.”

4) Despite increased condemnation by the international community, including many Arab and Muslim nations, on December 14, 2005 Ahmadinejad again denied the Holocaust took place and called for Israel to be transferred out of the Middle East. During a live nationally televised speech on Iranian television, Ahmadinejad stated:

"They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets. The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets, (it) deals very severely with those who deny this myth but does not do anything to those who deny God, religion, and the prophet. If you have burned the Jews, why don’t you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel. Our question is, if you have committed this huge crime, why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime?"

5) That non-muslims living in Iran must now wear colored badges indicating their religious faith, a la Nazi Germany?


I realize that it is fashionable to be a Bush-hater these days, but don't let your political dislike for one leader force you to embrace a rabid anti-semite!

[KingAl]

Bigoted as he may be, he makes a valid point: The UN decide to create a nation of Jews in order to avoid the persecution so evident in the past. They then decide nostalgically to give them their traditional lands, entirely ignoring the fact that people already live there. This is enough to rouse anti-Jewish sentiment (I'd say anti-Semitism, but of course Arabs are also Semites). Denial of the reasons given for the move is a fairly understandable reaction against what would appear to be such 'favouritism'.
The fact is, Israelis have no more right to Israel than Palestinians - the displacement only justified if you take it as truth that the lands were given to them personally by God to be their lands, which is not the impartial stance that an international governing body should take: in subjects of global significance, separation of church and state is ever more important. Ultimately, if the UN considered the situation rationally they ought to have recognised the issue with their moves and the enmity that it would cause. Ahmadinejad's suggestion that those who originally suggested the creation of the state could have sacrificed their own land is quite rational, and I find your highlighting of that particular point quite odd.

To put it simply: Holocaust denial is simply a highly radical reaction to the highly irrational reasoning of the UN which largely led to many current problems in the Middle East.

[Star*Dagger]

I realize that it is fashionable to be a Bush-hater these days, but don't let your political dislike for one leader force you to embrace a rabid anti-semite!

This is a good point. Though it is clear that i find the Rove administration corrupt and not working for the intersts of its people, I find the iranian one in a similar situation.

Fundementalism: Christian, Jewish, Islamic or Capitialist is the Enemy, it seems that they all speak the same language of fear and hatred.

Yours in Liberated Plasma,
Star*Dagger

[xander]

They then decide nostalgically to give them their traditional lands...

It wasn't only nostalgia. Europe didn't want the Jews in Europe any more than the Arabs wanted the Jews in Israel. It just so happened that, at the time, Europe was powerful enough to force the Jews down the throats of the Arabs. Modern Israel is, honestly, one of the worst examples of modern European and American imperialism in the world.

xander

EDIT:

Fundementalism: Christian, Jewish, Islamic or Capitialist is the Enemy, it seems that they all speak the same language of fear and hatred.

You forgot your own brand of populist/socialist fundamentalism in that list.