in the real world we dont just drop nukes. we have to deal with insurgencies. and as iraq has demonstrated this isn't easy or fun. really stick to video games.
They could simply wipe out "those" countries off the map with a push of the button... This is why I wish every country in the world had nuclear weapons...nobody would use them.
Give me a huge break. Do you believe if everyone had a gun (including children) nobody would ever use one? You must be living on another planet where every government is rational. I want to move to your galaxy because the reality on Earth is too messy for me.
DaDa, I like you, but I strongly doubt you have any idea what "glavanizes" the British public. I will tell you one thing that did though: the Iraq war. How? Bomb Iran? I strongly doubt that will be the case. They could, however, hold a few Iranian nationals in Iraq hostage until the Iranians release their officers. I am not sure they would do it though. I had no idea that Iraqi territory was annexed to the British Empire. I must've missed it...
And the Greeks for the Persians...and the Iraqi insurgency...and Vietnam...and the Hezbollah for the Israelis.
Including children? Why are we talking about children? There is a difference between nuclear weapons and a silly gun. I don't think that less of the human race to think that nuclear weapons would ever be used…take away the fact that the U.S used it once, that was only because they knew nobody could retaliate with them. Why do you think North Korea was never touched, and never will be? The Iraq war happened because they first made sure that there were no WMD….did you hear the guy in charge of making sure of that, Mr. Blix? Nobody will be stupid enough to use nuclear weapons, cause the consequences will be too great...
I think it is reasonably well documented at this point that conflicts (manufactured or otherwise) with the west seem to galvanize the Iranian public into nationalistic support for a government that they might not particularly support otherwise. The War in Iraq was the greatest gift that we could give to the mullahs. If this is an orchestrated event, I would imagine they are doing it to build nationalistic 'us vs. them' sentiment inside the country after the new sanctions are adopted, in order to make the conflict over the nuclear program appear to be an issue of western aggression, not something fomented by the Iranians.
I lived and worked over there for more than 3 years, and I talked to my friends about the feeling over this before I posted. The people over there are tired of the Iraq war, but they are also tired of the people in the mosques in Britain pushing the crappy terrorist anti western agenda. Something like this tends to piss off the British, and they are the most stubborn and diligent people I know. The middle east particularly Iran, is a problem area for the whole world, and something will need to be done. I agree we have to get people to the political table, but everyone has a tipping point whereas life becomes less valuable to the general public, in other words the enemies life. That is where you have the Hiroshimas and Nagasakis of the world.....and I DON'T want that to happen, I prefer a peaceful process where everyone is at the table and has something to live for......... However, the Iranian government is bad, and not just kind of bad...REALLY bad for its own people....they bluster more than anyone on the planet...but I fear that one day their blustering will go to far....and war will break out. I guess I could look on the bright side and wish for a civil war in Iran where the good people could actually free themselves from the tyranny of the Mullahs. DD
If every nation had nuclear weapons that would actually guarantee their use by someone. Some governments out there have the maturity of children. What's your opinion on Mugabe of Zimbabwe? What about Sudan? I could mention many others, along with the fact the more prevalent nuclear weapons are, the more likely they find their way into non-governmental terrorists like Al-Qaida, the Tamil Tigers, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. I think you get the point. Your assumption that since everyone had them it would also make everyone responsible is a very bad assumption. There are many ethnic/regional/tribal conflicts in this world that don't involve the major countries and this is where I guarantee you nukes would be used first. Revenge is the only thing that drives some groups and it's a very powerful emotion. Consequences have no place in their thought process. Earth is really complicated and the fewer entities that have nukes the better. Ask every think tank, from right-wing to left-wing to the middle and they will agree on this one point. It's not even debatable. Giving criminals and kooks nukes won't stop them from being criminals and kooks.
Friday, Mar. 23, 2007 Why Iran Seized the British Marines By Howard Chua-Eoan/New York The most ominous detail about Iran's seizure of 15 British Royal Marines in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway on Friday morning is that the servicemen were reportedly taken into custody by the navy of the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC is a powerful, separate branch of the Iranian armed forces. Soaked with nationalist ideology, it has grown into a state within a state in Iran, with its own naval, air and ground forces, parallel to official government institutions. The IRGC is directly controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, the ultimate font of religious and political power in Iran. The IRGC also has its own intelligence arm and commands irregular forces such as the basij — a voluntary paramilitary group affiliated with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — and the Quds force, which has been accused by the U.S. of supplying material to Iraqi insurgents bent on killing American soldiers. The IRGC is also known for its clandestine activities including logistical support for militant organizations like Lebanon's Hizballah, which it helped to set up in the 1980s, and several Shi'a militia groups in Iraq. The IRGC's activities are often a thorn in the side of Iran's Foreign Ministry, which is forced to repair the ruptures in Tehran's diplomatic relations with countries the Guard has inflamed with its self-directed adventures. Nevertheless, it has been one of Iran's main instrument in projecting power and influence over the last few decades. Because the IRGC's actions are always interwoven with the religious-nationalist ideology of Iran's hardliners, extricating the British may be complicated. The Royal Marines, assigned to HMS Cornwall, had been on an anti-smuggling procedure sanctioned by the U.N. but were apparently taken into custody anyway by Iranian naval vessels in the Shatt-al-Arab, a 120-mile stretch of salt marsh disputed between Iraq and Iran. It is the second such incident. In June 2004, Iran took eight British marines and sailors from their patrol boats, keeping them for three days, saying they had breached the maritme border. While they were held, the servicemen were paraded around blindfolded and forced to apologize on Iranian TV, before being released. At that time, the Iranian presidency was held by Mohammad Khatami, considered a moderate more accommodating to the West. The current administration in Tehran is led by Ahmadinejad whose confrontational stance has been the bane of Washington. (In a recent speech, U.S. Treasury Secretary Stuart Levey charged that the Revolutionary Guard's "control and influence in the Iranian economy is growing exponentially under the regime of Ahmadinejad." He noted the Guard is taking over regular government functions such as management of the Tehran airport and building a new Tehran metro. The growing economic clout may be why IRGC's current commander in chief, Rahim Safavi, is considered a pragmatist in Tehran political circles. However, his public comments hardly reflect that political pragmatism. Britain has demanded the immediate release of its detained marines. For Iran's part, the country's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini called the incident an "illegal and interventionist" entry into Iranian territorial waters by British forces and a "suspicious move... contrary to international rules and regulations." State run television reported that the British charge d'affaires had been summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Friday, and "asked that this not happen again." There were also more belligerent commentary. According to the semi-official ISNA news agency, General Ali Reza Afshar, a veteran IRGC officer and the proaganda and cultural affairs chief of the Iranian armed forces, said the detained Britons had �confessed to illegal entry into Iran's waters." He said: "The arrest of the British forces illegally entering Iran's waters showed that our country's armed forces are at all times prepared for our defense... America and its allies know that if they make a mistake in attacking Islamic Iran, they will not be able to control the dimensions and timing of a war." As Iran increases the volume of its militancy, the rest of the nations on the gulf have grown more and more nervous. The public speculation about a potential war between the U.S. and Iran have added to that anxiety, as have incidents like the taking of the British marines and an earlier event in March when the Saudi Arabian navy engaged an Iranian submarine. No shots were fired but the Saudis found the sub near the Saudi city of Jubail, a coastal industrial center that is the site of major Saudi petrochemical and oil installations, as well as the location of the King Abdul Aziz naval base. The Saudis minimized the incident, accepting the Iranian explanatin that the sub's closeness to Jubail was a mistake. The Saudis also did not want to further stress relations between Riyadh and Tehran. But an Arab surce in the gulf believes that the incident may have been an Iranian political message to the U.S. and the world — a reminder that Iran has assets in the gulf to threaten American and its allies there. This week's Shatt al-Arab incident occurs amid a contretemps over Ahmadinejad's proposed trip to the U.N. Security Council to argue for his country's right to pursue the development of nuclear energy, a goal that has met with international opprobrium. According to CNN, the Iranian president has cancelled his weekend trip because Washington has not issued visas for the crew of his plane. (The U.S. State Department insists that all visa requests were honored.) At the same time, Tehran remains in the middle of a dispute with the United States over the detention in January of six of its officials in the Iraqi city of Erbil, taken from what Iran claims was its consulate there. U.S. military officials in Iraq insist it was not a consulate officially recognized by Iraq and that the six had illegal passports, did not have diplomatic credentials and that one had an official ID card from the Quds force, which is part of the IRGC. The U.S. says the six detainees are being investigated in regard to aiding Iraqi insurgents. Reported by Scott Macleod/Cairo, Jumana Farouky/London, Brian Bennett/Baghdad and Elaine Shannon/Washington http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1602389,00.html Iran ‘to try Britons for espionage’ "FIFTEEN British sailors and marines arrested by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards off the coast of Iraq may be charged with spying. A website run by associates of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, reported last night that the Britons would be put before a court and indicted. Referring to them as “insurgents”, the site concluded: “If it is proven that they deliberately entered Iranian territory, they will be charged with espionage. If that is proven, they can expect a very serious penalty since according to Iranian law, espionage is one of the most serious offences.” The warning followed claims by Iranian officials that the British navy personnel had been taken to Tehran, the capital, to explain their “aggressive action” in entering Iranian waters. British officials insist the servicemen were in Iraqi waters when they were held. The penalty for espionage in Iran is death. However, similar accusations of spying were made when eight British servicemen were detained in the same area in 2004. They were paraded blindfolded on television but did not appear in court and were freed after three nights in detention. Iranian student groups called yesterday for the 15 detainees to be held until US forces released five Revolutionary Guards captured in Iraq earlier this year. Al-Sharq al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned newspaper based in London, quoted an Iranian military source as saying that the aim was to trade the Royal Marines and sailors for these Guards. The claim was backed by other sources in Tehran. “As soon as the corps’s five members are released, the Britons can go home,” said one source close to the Guards. He said the tactic had been approved by Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, who warned last week that Tehran would take “illegal actions” if necessary to maintain its right to develop a nuclear programme. Iran denounced a tightening of sanctions which the United Nations security council was expected to agree last night in protest at Tehran’s insistence on enriching uranium that could be used for nuclear weapons. Lord Triesman, the Foreign Office minister, met the Iranian ambassador in London yesterday to demand that consular staff be allowed access to the Britons, one of whom is a woman. His intervention came as a senior Iranian general alleged that the Britons had confessed under interrogation to “aggression into Iran’s waters”. Intelligence sources said any advance order for the arrests was likely to have come from Major-General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards. Subhi Sadek, the Guards’ weekly newspaper, warned last weekend that the force had “the ability to capture a bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks”. Safavi is known to be furious about the recent defections to the West of three senior Guards officers, including a general, and the effect of UN sanctions on his own finances. A senior Iraqi officer appeared to back Tehran’s claim that the British had entered Iranian waters. “We were informed by Iraqi fishermen after they had returned from sea that there were British gunboats in an area that is out of Iraqi control,” said Brigadier-General Hakim Jassim, who is in charge of Iraq’s territorial waters. “We don’t know why they were there.” Admiral Sir Alan West, the former head of the Royal Navy, dismissed suggestions that the British boats might have been in Iranian waters. West, who was first sea lord when the previous arrests took place in June 2004, said satellite tracking systems had shown then that the Iranians were lying and the same was certain to be true now." http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1563877.ece Looks like the defecation is about to hit the ventilation
I think it is part of Iranian custom to bluster, they sure are good at it. Too bad the Marines did not unload on the Iranians when they were in Iraqi waters. DD
tiger, an attack on the Royal Navy by Iran, outside of Iranian territorial waters, is an act of war against Great Britain. Taking prisoners, possibly as hostages (I hope not), just compounds it. This is completely separate from the conflict in Iraq, (which accounts for their presence) being an act of aggression by Iran. It is no small matter at all. As for "galvanizing British public opinion?" I was in the Greek Islands during the invasion of the Falklands by the Argentine Junta. On Ios, in fact. There were many Britons on vacation there at the time, several that my wife and I had become acquainted with. Several of the young men said they were going to return home, because it looked like war. Two or three, being former military, said they thought they might be asked to return to active duty and figured they needed to pack up and return, which they did. I was very impressed. Now, of course one would hope nothing comes of this, and that the captives are returned quickly, but I would never assume that Britain wouldn't do something about this, should their return not occur, and they are paraded around for propaganda purposes. You never know. D&D. Falling Down.
It's true, someone needs to remove the Mullahs because Persians are so stupid, they'll never do it themselves. Hell, they haven't done it in the past, why would they start now? Oh and we definitely need some of those free tv stations that Dada is talking about. We need exactly the same kind of media coverage that the U.S. gets. No more of this state-controlled stuff. I mean, just because they are able to get their hands on Lost, Prison Break, Heores, Seinfeld, Friends, Entourage, every major sporting event and every world event illegally doesn't mean they're getting the OTHER stuff. They don't recieve anything but Iran 1, Iran 2 and Iran 3 over there. They're living like savages. How many people on the BBS have been to Iran for at least 3 days btw?
