link here


This is a major step is securing Iraq and the world. Hardly anyone has mentioned this. This ties into so many other items about the Iraq War yet it seems as this significant item did not happen.

This is great.

Mmm....cake.

Sarissa Candyangel

This sort of topic has always provoked a lot of thinking from me.

Sure, we (The United States) can argue that anything we do is ok because it was making the world safer/better/etc. But where do we draw the line between making the world safer and just plain declaring ourselves in charge of the world? We seem to forget that the nations that we bully/harass/invade/etc are soverign nations. Just like us. Yet we just act as though we are in charge of what they do.

What would we do if China said, "Stop doing X or we'll bomb you." Or if they really did bomb something of ours to stop something we were doing. We would absolutely *flip out*. Yet we think nothing of doing the same to other nations.

Sure, by most standards the nations that we harass/invade/bully are usually doing "bad things". But even if that's the case, do we really have the right to act as though we're in charge of them? Is it even good for us in the long run?

That's just always boggled me. The fact that American citizens tend to not really understand that other nations exist too. We're not the only independant, governed nation in the world.

And heck, for all the talk we do of relieving other nations of their military armaments, and how safe that makes everyone else....we're the ones with all the nukes and we're the ones invading or bullying other nations many times. I dunno. Just seems odd to me.

Fuck China.

It never gets old.

A bigger concern of mine is the US discussing placing Interceptor missiles within Czech borders. It's a de-stabilizing act, and I happen to feel the Russians are justified with our playing Globocop here. This is their precursor to a "Cuban missile crisis", except this time, we actually hinder return-strike, assured mutual destruction capability. That's even scarier, especially to the Russians.

This administration really has to go.

Saw this on Evil Avatar forums.

The main reason no one is talking about it apparently, is because the "yellowcake" is from pre-Gulf war days.



So not exactly a new development.

In that case, it's mystifying that it had not been removed at that time.

Sarissa Candyangel

It's a conspiracy by the evil liberal MSM. The war was justified! Hurray for George Bush!! Oh wait no it wasn't, it's just stuff left over from the 80's that the UN squirrled away.

The yellowcake reminds me of this:

It has not been "removed". It has been sold by the Irak goverment to a Canadian company with the US millitary acting as a middle man.

Love that Chapelle episode.

/nod, that's exactly why no one is talking about this.



Better safe than sorry I suppose to remove it, but then again Iraq had lost a good amount of infrastructure and general capacity after the first Iraq War along with the heaps of sanctions. How were they going to build nukes with or without the uranium? We've seen no evidence that they developed it any further than having uranium, and more than likely that was simply obtained as a political move rather than any real purpose to develop nukes.



I actually support this manuver at this point in time, even though I disagree with this administration on just about everything.

In all likelihood, this administration brought a lot of the tension between us and Iran on the U.S. They could get away with it with North Korea because they were economically very dependent and had to fold at some point. With Iran, quite a different story.

But regardless of who started the problems, Iran has shown very little restraint in either its rhetoric or its actions. Our purpose there is very clear - to protect our allies in the region. The Cuban Missle Crisis analogy is off IMO. The Iranians have no reason to start having schoolkids practice nuke drills solely from our putting those there. The average Iranian should be more frightened about their government provoking an attack in some form by attacking us or an ally first. I just don't buy any of this "We will attack Iran next" BS, not from this administration when they've already dug their legacy in a huge hole. I doubt McCain or Obama would, either, unless there was absolutely no alternative. We should not be the ones to start fights, but we should end them if they come to us. That is how it should be.

Putting interceptors in place is only a tit for tat, I don't see it as any more of an escalation than Iran has already brought forth by itself via test-firing those missles. And, in my opinion, it's also necessary to protect those countries(obvious case here being Israel).

MAD only works when two countries have reasonable leadership at the helm. A religious zealot who might just happen to embrace death while fighting for what he views as a noble cause, sacrificing himself for what he thinks is the greater good... that does not fit the same mold that we've come to term "MAD". If you believe that someone is that extreme(and I think Iran's current leadership is pretty close to that), the only option is to use any defenses at your disposal to protect against unprovoked attacks. By not building a capable defensive mechanism in that scenario, by using only MAD you have essentially doomed both countries to the same fate(or this case more like both Israel and Iran being wiped out).

The Russians haven't had anything to worry about with us since even before the Cold War was over. I'm sure we don't like the fact that democracy is highly destabilized(or even in tatters) in Russia, but there's really no open hostility.

The Russians have every right to worry. We are now an agressor nation, every country that doesn't want to debase itself at our feet is right and prudent to worry, especially one that historically has been an enemy.

What agressive action has Iran taken recently? Supporting rebels in Iraq? Why is it that their attempt to influence the direction their neighboring government heads in is worse than ours?

Russia has waaaaaay bigger problems than any concerns with us. It may be exploited for political reasons, but we're the least of their problems.

Which is why it might be a big chest thumping issue, to distract from other problems, such as their kleptocracy, regional terrorism, dire poverty, etc.

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Don't ignore history. Few things can unite and give purpose to a country like a common enemy.

Last time I looked, Syria, Iran, North Korea and others all share the same challenges as Russia, if not worse. Yet that hasn't kept them from playing a major role in international politics. Unfortunately, Russia has a much greater capacity for saber rattling than any of those other countries do.

That's why I said it might be used as a chest thumping issue in my post...that you quoted...

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I think a conflict with Iran under a McCain presidency is a valid concern.

Russia doesn't care about Iran.. well except maybe as an opportunity to test some weapons systems. They care about their nuclear deterrence. Now isn't the time to be needlessly taunting the Russian bear since we've got other things to worry about, and it's a bit high on all that oil money.