i love the middle east
 

While it may be just a LITTLE too idealistic, I'm 100% behind this:

Chamberlain came home with a signed piece of paper, too.

So did Stalin.

Learn from history. It's repeating itself.

Perhaps we should also learn something of Hiroshima and Nagasaki then.

Yes. It ended the war rather quickly. Since then, Japan, Germany and Italy have behaved themselves and are global contributors - not destroyers.

Or haven't you heard? :hmm:

:-?

I did say something along the lines of being too idealistic, didn't I?

I'm by no means advocating total disarmament in the face of what obviously is a big threat on the part of Iran to Israel. Yes, Israel should think of peace but prepare for war - but I don't think nuclear preparations should have any part of it. It's not called MAD for nothing - and in Israel's case, the D is more than a real danger. I really, really don't see Isreal's nukes as anything but a 'going out in a blaze' measure.

And yea, well, unlike Chamberlain... I'm not gonna get my hopes up here. I don't see Israel giving up its nukes any more than I see Iran stopping the development of theirs. That's stinkin' realism for you. I was hoping Israel might be a little bit less keen on weapons of mass murder than the less enlightened powers out there, but, tough luck.

What surprises me is that we still haven't seen any F-16s with blue stars over Iranian facilities. You'd think they'd be desperate by now - if anything, I sympathise with the fact that Israel is apparently being left out to dry on the Iran thing, to which noone wants to commit anything but big words, be it on disarmament or threat of force.

There's really much more to it than this.....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061212/...n_holocaust_dc

At some point you gotta see things for what they are.

That "conference" is all the more reason I was hoping Israel would be less keen on weapons of mass murder, having experienced some themselves.

I'm yet to be shown that, other than perhaps as bunker-busting bombs, nuclear weapons hold any military value in the strict sense (and we assume that the purpose of a military is to defeat enemy forces, not wipe out enemy and possibly other populations). And my assumption is that if you have a nuclear weapon and you have some very obvious enemies, you intend to threaten using it at some point. Which means by virtue of having nukes, Israel is holding millions of Arabs hostage to prevent Iran from holding Israeli population hostage. Does that even sound sane? Sure doesn't to me.

This is not WWII. This is MAD.

Why don't you focus that on Iran. Isreal has nuclear weapons, yet threatens nobody with them. Same with the USA. In fact, I believe we should have bombed the living daylights out of Iran already and have been done with it. When the time came, Ronald Reagan bombed Libya when they started this nonsense, and it ended their programs. Yes, bomb them. Regardless of what the "peace at any price" people think, war will not ever become obsolete. At least in our lifetimes. Hopefully someday in the future. But as long as Ahmadinijad's, and Li' Kim's of North Korea exist you can forget about it. It's too bad the "peace at any price" people have so evacuated American will in this day and age. It's going to turn around and bite us in the end. Fight em' now, or let them grow in capability and fight a more dangerous enemy later.

I don't think it's fair to say who threatens who, or at least that Israel's position with nukes is crystal-clear. Israel denies having nuclear weapons; Iran denies the intention to produce it. The USA has made repeated attempts to pass provisions to allow tactical use of nuclear weapons. Iran has made nasty allusions to wiping out Israel; Israel doesn't have to make any allusions to the fact that anyone who hurts Israel repays at least ten-fold. It doesn't have to make them because it does that on a daily basis anyway, just that we don't have it happening at a nuclear level.

This thread is not about Iran, that's why I'm not focusing on it. And you must be reading rather selectively not to notice my repeated statements that Iran is obviously a threat to Israel foremost. Sure, by all means, "fight 'em now". For Israel, it's the 11th hour on that. But "fight" and "nuke" are so incompatible it's beyond ridiculous.

I don't know. I may just find it disturbing the moral equivalency you assign to both Iran and Isreal. When was the last time you heard an Isreali PM say he wanted to wipe anybody off the map? Same with an American President?

No. It's much worse.

Ahmadinejad is not Kruschev. :nope:

Hey AL. These people aren't going to realize this until Iran has working nuclear weapons.

Illusions of peace and kumbaya are going to get people killed. Guaranteed.

I don't think I put them at an equivalent morally; and I certainly think Israel is a far safer bet than Iran. But when the gloves come off, I wouldn't put anything past Israel. If a nuke heads for Tel-Aviv, don't expect me to be applauding Tehran disappearing off the map. I know it won't happen in the reverse order.

Don't get me wrong; I'm certainly at a point where I would more or less favour a swift, forceful, conventional solution to the Iran issue. I have a very close cousin in Haifa, and a number of good classmates from Tehran. I want the whole thing to be as painless for both as possible.

Mark my words. When it comes down to it, it's going to be anything but painless. Wishing for things won't make it so. Evacuating America's/Isreal's will, won't make it better, but prolong the inevitable at a greater cost down the road.