What do you guys think about this whole invade Iran stuff that is coming up

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Flying over Iran is smart buisness. We have to watch our backs.  A suitcase nuke could find its way into bahgdad pretty damn easy, and that would put an end to the "new democracy" pretty quick.

Somehow, stomping around the globe, threatening unstable regimes, as Bush has done with both Iran and North Korea doesn't seem like a good idea to me then. It certainly hasn't stopped these loons from developing such weapons. In fact, it seems to be motivating them to produce them quicker.

Furthermore, his ingenious "with us or against us" foreign policy seems to be solidifying most everyone else against us.

"Dr.C"

[Crazy Cooter]

Would we saying it was "smart business" if Cuba started flying over the US?  Did we say it was smart business for Russia during the Cuban Missle Crisis?  We're the ones invading countries right now.  Can N. Korea fly over California and map out our defenses?  They feel threatened by us right now.  I think the world as a whole is getting fed up with our "do as we say, not as we do" mentality.

SeaMonkey, An atomic bomb is a nuke.  We used A-bombs (atomic) on Japan which are fission reactions.  The larger H-bombs (thermonuclear) are fusion based.  Both are nuclear reactions.  God help us all if we ever drop an H-bomb.  Anthrax/nerve gas are biological/chemical weapons.  You can search for "open air testing" to see what we've done with biological stuff and ask some rangers that were in Iraq the first time if we've used chemicals.  There were payouts made by the military if you signed certain documents... If you want to break it down specifically, we have weapons that we've never used.  If you want to talk genearally, we used everything we have and more than anyone else.  There are other historical examples too, Vietnam, WWII, etc.

[SeaMonkey]

No, "nuke" is slang for a hydrogen bomb on an ICBM.
A nuke uses an atom bomb as its primer.
Hydrogen bombs have never been deployed in a combat situation, either by us or others.

Neutron bombs have never been used by us...or anyone either, but we have been making them steadily since 1982.

Truth of the matter is, we can say, "well it isn't our business" and keep our noses out of the middle-east, but what you sow will bear fruit.
In fact, if you use gas, or plastic, you are contributing to the problem. There is no, "It doesn't concern me". And that goes double for the caucasians.

Let me put in the same way, but clearer.

Islamic Militants don't have a single weapon that they haven't used TODAY.  You let a group that will crash the plane THEY ARE IN, get nukes, and the world as you know it is over.

You think some jets falling from the sky hit our economy, wait until New York is gone.

Sleep well if you can, knowing how close they are to nukes.
Me, I hate to see the world go out like that.

Liberals will never live to see the day they can point to a flooded L.A. and say, "I told you it was getting warmer".  None of us will.

[fredster]

What should happen now?

(please, don't use the phrase "bush shoulda done this" or "that")

Lets talk about what we should do NOW.  We can't do anything about the past, but we can discuss what we should do in the future.

Should we invade? Should we use economic force? should we ...?

[shmokes]

Bush shoulda stayed out of Iraq.

[DrewKaree]

BUSH PROMISES TO BRING TROOPS HOME........THROUGH IRAN
Most Direct Route, President Says

Under pressure to detail an exit strategy for Iraq, President George W. Bush said at a White House briefing today that he would not designate an exact timetable for a withdrawal of U.S. troops but added,

[Crazy Cooter]

Here we go...
"Iran's intelligence chief on Wednesday accused the United States of flying spy drones over its nuclear sites and threatened to shoot down the unmanned surveillance crafts. "
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050216/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nuclear

[Dexter]

IRAN: 'MISSILE BLAST NEAR NUKE PLANT'

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1171222,00.html

Watch this space.....

[Crazy Cooter]

"Meantime, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Wednesday that Iran is six months away from having the knowledge to build a nuclear bomb.

[DrewKaree]

Armageddon.

I heard God on the radio the other day talking about it...but He's a humble guy....He even said He didn't do the  radio interview so He could be one of those "read My book" kinda guys who goes around doing those interviews.

If it weren't so friggen big, I'd post the interview here...mebbe I can link it somehow.

[Crazy Cooter]

Looks like Russia is stepping up to the plate... Standing behind Iran.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6992154/

"Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that he is convinced Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons and said he plans to visit Iran.

Putin, at a meeting with Iranian National Security Council chief Hasan Rohani, also said Russia would continue its nuclear cooperation with Iran. Moscow has helped Iran build a nuclear reactor, a project that has been heavily criticized by the United States which fears it could be used to help Tehran develop nuclear weapons."

The lines are being drawn in the sand...

[fredster]

Do you guys on the left believe all the propoganda presented to you?

If we didn't exist, do you think that Iran would do anything differently than they do now?

[Crazy Cooter]

I don't know what anyone right-left-up-down believes, but I believe the propaganda that has a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani at the Kremlin together and a statement saying they are continuing with the reactor build.  Russia is saying that they will monitor what is happening there.

[SeaMonkey]

Looks like Russia is stepping up to the plate... Standing behind Iran.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6992154/

"Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that he is convinced Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons and said he plans to visit Iran.

Putin, at a meeting with Iranian National Security Council chief Hasan Rohani, also said Russia would continue its nuclear cooperation with Iran. Moscow has helped Iran build a nuclear reactor, a project that has been heavily criticized by the United States which fears it could be used to help Tehran develop nuclear weapons."

The lines are being drawn in the sand...

Well yeah...those plants were all but built by Russia, because they want to buy the power.....and switch opec to a basketed currency system of the Yen Dollar and Euro.....
I think I have been saying that.

[DrewKaree]

Yeah, I see Russia offering assistance in putting those reactors up and wonder if they are billing for those services.  It sounds like they didn't...kind of like a "you can pay me back later" deal, which would explain Putin's stance pretty darn well.  Where this is going..well, SeaMonkey presents a decent scenario.

SeaMonkey, I'd like to offer a solution, if I may:

Send in the clowns.  Take off the safeties, ship the clowns over there and invade Iran with them.  I can already imagine the pictures from CNN....red noses and floppy shoes ALL OVER that place!  Better yet, we could send over a few Yugos....those seem to hold TONS of clowns!  The Iranians would never know what hit them!  12 Yugos dropped into the middle of Iran, and clown after clown starts pouring out....the place would "reek" like havoc!

[Dexter]

Yeah, I see Russia offering assistance in putting those reactors up and wonder if they are billing for those services.

[DrewKaree]

I was going to say we should adopt SeaMonkey's tactic of sending in the clowns, and do a pre-emtpive strike in Ireland, but I see they made it there, and the Irish turned them to their way of thinking already

I'd like to end this with:

#5 AND 5b

#7

#13

#3

and #1

(fredster, when are you coming out with that checklist?  I'm getting TIRED of having to open another tab for that list)

[Dexter]

I was going to say we should adopt SeaMonkey's tactic of sending in the clowns, and do a pre-emtpive strike in Ireland, but I see they made it there, and the Irish turned them to their way of thinking already

No oil in Ireland man, so your invasion won't be profitable enough to swing support. When america figures out how to make SUVs run on turf, I'll worry 

[fredster]

Maybe no oil, but there's all that Whiskey. Think about it for a minute, we could convert our Evil Conservative Corporations to run on it.

We could enslave Dexter in the Whiskey mines and laugh while we whip him and the rest of his clan into indentured servitude.

yes, ahh, yessssss

[SeaMonkey]

Hopefully, every country threatened by america (that hasn't been pulverised so far) under the 'axis of evil' banner will have a viable deterrent against invasion soon, and will be allowed to sort out their internal strifes the proper way, THEMSELVES.

I'm all for that.

Also I am for every country that is hungry to FEED THEMSELVES.
Every country that is invaded by Germany to FREE THEMSELVES.
Every country riddled with AIDS to stop **** ******* THEMSELVES.

Etc etc etc.

I guess if other people were able to act right, we wouldn't have to make them.

[fredster]

Dexter,

#8, #3

[Crazy Cooter]

I'm sure Russia has *something* in mind.  All countries do.  Nobody gets something for nothing.

[fredster]

Yeah. I don't think Putin has given up on Russian world domination. That's a huge country with capitalistic potential that could boggle the mind. If they every get thier feces consolidated, they can do a great deal of business.  They must be needing an infusion of oil or places to market more energy.

I haven't figured the angle out with Iran. I'm not familiar enough with the Russian connection to Persia. They wanted Afgahnistan and all those other "stans" for some time.

Putin hasn't lost his KGB roots.

[Dexter]

Maybe no oil, but there's all that Whiskey. Think about it for a minute, we could convert our Evil Conservative Corporations to run on it.

We could enslave Dexter in the Whiskey mines and laugh while we whip him and the rest of his clan into indentured servitude.

Hmm, well now that you're getting the genocide thing out of your systems, I suppose that long overdue RETURN to the slave trade is on the cards

[SeaMonkey]

Hmm, well now that you're getting the genocide thing out of your systems, I suppose that long overdue RETURN to the slave trade is on the cards

[Dexter]

No....the repercussions of that are still a drain on our economy.

I admire your honesty/tactlessness LOL!

[SeaMonkey]

My apologies if that came off as a racial joke.

It's true. Any time you have a slave caste, you are banking against your country's future, when the slave caste becomes absorbed into the general economy.

Now if the population of slave to freeman is small, say, one in every 100 freeman has a single slave servent, then the impact would be small but still considerable. Here, 1 in 3 people in the southern states was a slave owner, and the average slave owner owned multiple slaves.

Over and above the immediate economic impact of caste-conversion, in this case, there were social and racial barriers that would not be easily over-looked. This built an economic wall, over which wealth was not likely to pass freely.

The result was the same for blacks that it had been for jews in europe. Ghettos. (The jews were not slaves, but there were similar pressures that forced them to be closed off from the outside world. )

So now we have a huge gap between blacks and whites.
Whites have a 22% out of wedlock birth rate.
Blacks have a 66% our ot wedlock birth rate.

Single unwed mothers ARE a drain on the economy and social programs.

AIDS is the 3rd leading cause of death for black males in their 20's.

Race riots have burnt down more realestate than slaves ever built in the U.S.

So all things considered, it was a loss for the country...if we are just talking dollars.

The above are facts. Democrats and Repulicans don't dispute any of them. They just dispute WHY the above facts are true.

On the other side of the coin, we did get peanubutter out of the deal, so I would call it about even.

[jbox]

It's true. Any time you have a slave caste, you are banking against your country's future, when the slave caste becomes absorbed into the general economy.

In purely monetary terms you have also completely ignored the fact that economies based on slave labour may be initially profitable, but tend to lack the keen sense of innovation that accompanies people having to do their own laundry. Remember, war and laziness are the two main sources of technological progress.

The Roman Empire used slaves far too much as part of their economy. Despite the fact that a few of their bright sparks actually developed *working* steam technology, the barrier to entry in a multi-tiered society was so bad that nobody ever developed it. Just imagine the Roman Empire with steam ships and trains...

And because I can't let that other one slip by - the only way a single parent can possibly become a net drain on the economy is if their kids aren't given the chance to have a decent education and a real job. Trying to budget a country the same way a CEO budgets a company misses two very important differences. But I believe the debate over public education is already being covered...

[fredster]

the barrier to entry in a multi-tiered society was so bad that nobody ever developed it. Just imagine the Roman Empire with steam ships and trains...

Man, that's a Star Trek Episode. Kirk had to fight the leader of the "sun" worshipers on The empire network. The romans wanted the Enterprise.  There's some culture there. 

[Dartful Dodger]

No oil in Ireland man, so your invasion won't be profitable enough to swing support. When america figures out how to make SUVs run on turf, I'll worry

[DrewKaree]

We can all rest easy now...this just in:

February 28, 2005
IRAN SAYS IT SEEKS TO BUILD NUCLEAR-POWERED BIRDHOUSE

Defends Choice of Science Fair Project

One day after the signing of a controversial deal calling for Russia to deliver nuclear fuel to Iran, Iran's vice president said that it only sought the fuel because it plans to build the world's first nuclear-powered birdhouse.

At a press conference in Tehran today, Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh
showed reporters extensive plans for the birdhouse, which, if constructed, would be the first of its kind anywhere in the world.

Calling the state-of-the-art birdhouse a potential boon for Iranian tourism, Mr. Aghazadeh said, "We believe that people will come from far and wide to see this awesome birdhouse."

But shortly after Mr. Aghazadeh's press conference, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said that the plans for the birdhouse, while "impressive," were still cause for international concern.

"At this time we can see no rationale for building a birdhouse ringed with intermediate-range nuclear weapons," he said.

In response to Mr. ElBaradei's comments, Iran's vice president seemed to change his tune, saying that Iran was only planning to build the nuclear-powered birdhouse "for a science fair."

"For some time, Iran has been curious about what effect living in a nuclear-powered birdhouse would have on birds used to living in a normal birdhouse," he said.

In Washington, President Bush announced the U.S. would shortly announce a science fair project of its own, which would involve measuring the effect of Tomahawk cruise missiles on nuclear-powered birdhouses.

Elsewhere, actor Sean Penn explained his behavior on Oscar night, saying that he was preparing for his next film in which he plays "a pompous ass."