Enough farting around on Iran & Nukes
- Thread starter Goober
- Start date
Reports: Iran steps up crackdown on opposition.
TEHRAN, Iran – Opposition activists said Iranian security forces rounded up at least seven prominent activists on Monday, stepping up a crackdown on the country's pro-reform movement a day after eight people, including the nephew of the chief opposition leader, were killed in anti-government protests.
The bloodshed, some of the heaviest in months, drew an especially harsh condemnation from one opposition leader, who compared the government to the brutal regime that was ousted by the Islamic Revolution three decades ago.
Reports: Iran steps up crackdown on opposition - Yahoo! News
TEHRAN, Iran – Opposition activists said Iranian security forces rounded up at least seven prominent activists on Monday, stepping up a crackdown on the country's pro-reform movement a day after eight people, including the nephew of the chief opposition leader, were killed in anti-government protests.
The bloodshed, some of the heaviest in months, drew an especially harsh condemnation from one opposition leader, who compared the government to the brutal regime that was ousted by the Islamic Revolution three decades ago.
Reports: Iran steps up crackdown on opposition - Yahoo! News
With the US, Western Europe and Russia - possibly China - but they may not want to jeopardize their oil supplies - pretty well united in the fact that Iran is working steadily towards a nuclear weapon - what will happen -
Sanctions only work to a point - What can be done to avert War.
Iran is key to along with Syria for a permanent Mid east solution. - Suprisingly to many Hamas and Hezbollah - those that are closest to Israeli retaliation are leaning in that direction - Yet the Senior Leadership safely tucked away in Iran & Syria are not.
Proves the theory of the closer to the problem makes it more important to solve - and stay alive as well.
Israel will have to bite the bullet and dismantle many illegal settlements
Iran wants guaranteed security proposals from the US.
Yet the Theological Thugs rule by murder and torture and that will in itself make any negotiations possible or difficult.
The regime is corrupt from top to bottom - look at the business empire that has been created and who controls the 10's of billions of dollars.
If it is War you can guarantee that the US will want a coalition of NATO from Western Europe - Minimum. So can war be avertedIran has backed out of, lied it's way to this point.
So is War coming or not?
Sanctions only work to a point - What can be done to avert War.
Iran is key to along with Syria for a permanent Mid east solution. - Suprisingly to many Hamas and Hezbollah - those that are closest to Israeli retaliation are leaning in that direction - Yet the Senior Leadership safely tucked away in Iran & Syria are not.
Proves the theory of the closer to the problem makes it more important to solve - and stay alive as well.
Israel will have to bite the bullet and dismantle many illegal settlements
Iran wants guaranteed security proposals from the US.
Yet the Theological Thugs rule by murder and torture and that will in itself make any negotiations possible or difficult.
The regime is corrupt from top to bottom - look at the business empire that has been created and who controls the 10's of billions of dollars.
If it is War you can guarantee that the US will want a coalition of NATO from Western Europe - Minimum. So can war be avertedIran has backed out of, lied it's way to this point.
So is War coming or not?
It is pretty difficult to negotiate with someone you have isolated. Sanctions and the demonization of Iran and its leaders has to stop or war will be inevitable. Peace in the Middle East could have been possible decades ago but that is not good for business in the west. I blame the west entirely for the mess over there. If the US had not installed a despotic dictator, there would not have been the kind of backlash that installed their own brand of dictator. American interference made the rise of the iatolas inevitable. Time for the west to eat crow if there is ever to be peace, but don't count on it.
Have not seen lately troops, militia and US hardliners murdering people that are peacefully demonstrating - Have you - Religious fanatics are running Iran - or have you missed that Cliff
Oh, so no innocent civilians have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan? There were none killed in Vietnam or Cambodia or the Philippines? Most of the people running the US and the Pentagon claim to be Christian. Does that not make them religious fanatics too? It takes two to have a fight and the US has been itching for one since their pretty boy got the boot from Iran.
Cliffy
You know my opinion on Iraq War - Against - Afghanistan - For - 20- 30 years of nation building
Now Iran is run by those that you and I despise the fanatic - the religious fanatic and Iran is run by religious Thugs - do you disagree on that point? -
So make your point on Iran -
What is your opinion on Iran having nukes -
Do you think the West will tolerate it -
Will Iran with nukes cause a nuke arms race in the Mid East -
Is war coming or can it be averted.
Truly Goobs, I don't care. War is inevitable. Since Ronny Raygun was elected by the Moral Majority, the US has been looking for an excuse to start Armageddon. They figure that will force JC to return. Now, how nuts is that? I think that was in the back of their minds when they attacked Iraq. Didn't bring JC out of hiding so they are looking at Iran as a possible trigger. When it comes to fanatics, I think the iatolas and and the evangelists are on par. So, until the west is willing to give up their nukes, I say let the Iranians have nukes. At least it may be a fairer fight.
I think all the religious leaders are a bunch of loony bins. Peace can only be had through understanding, no locking horns.
''Yet the Theological Thugs rule by murder and torture and that will in itself make any negotiations possible or difficult. ''
Saudi Arabia? Syria? Algeria? Are you going to invade those countries for cracking down on dissent?? How about Uzbek? China??
Saudi Arabia? Syria? Algeria? Are you going to invade those countries for cracking down on dissent?? How about Uzbek? China??
Going to war where tens of thousands of innocents will die is no way to support dissent. Wouldn't work here, would it?!
In how many western countries, including Canada, have dissenters of the G8 and other globalization conferences have squelched dissent with police brutality? Should we drag out Kent State, the 68 Democratic Convention in Chicago? The Iranians are no worse than many other of our trading partners. So why is so much attention being paid to Iranian political brutality or the crazed fanatical religious leadership? Somebody is wearing blinders or someone is creating a smoke screen.
That is just soooo ludicrous.
Kent State is the worst you can come up with????? An absolute tragedy, I agree....but look at the pics and you will see the guardsmen's commanding officer trying to get the guys to stop shooting....hardly a state-sponsored execution of dissidents........and 40 years ago....in the USA.......
And how many died at the Chicago Convention, later found by an inquiry to be a "police riot".....once again the authorities were NOT acting as an arm of the state.........
And how many rock-throwing anarchist morons have spent so much as a week in jail after their rampages???? You really must be joking....when the worst abuse of protesters I can call to mind was at the APEC summit....and nobody died.....and it was on Chretien's watch.....
No, Iran is not any worse than say...China.....but that ain't saying much, because neither is anyone else.
The riots are today, that's why they are in the news.:roll:
2009: The year of living ****lessly
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, December 25, 2009; A25
On Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not just reject President Obama's latest ****less floating nuclear deadline. He spat on it, declaring that Iran "will continue resisting" until the United States has gotten rid of its 8,000 nuclear warheads.
So ends 2009, the year of "engagement," of the extended hand, of the gratuitous apology -- and of spinning centrifuges, two-stage rockets and a secret enrichment facility that brought Iran materially closer to becoming a nuclear power.
We lost a year. But it was not just any year. It was a year of spectacularly squandered opportunity. In Iran, it was a year of revolution, beginning with a contested election and culminating this week in huge demonstrations mourning the death of the dissident Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri -- and demanding no longer a recount of the stolen election but the overthrow of the clerical dictatorship.
Obama responded by distancing himself from this new birth of freedom. First, scandalous silence. Then, a few grudging words. Then relentless engagement with the murderous regime. With offer after offer, gesture after gesture -- to not Iran, but the "Islamic Republic of Iran," as Obama ever so respectfully called these clerical fascists -- the United States conferred legitimacy on a regime desperate to regain it.
Why is this so important? Because revolutions succeed at that singular moment, that imperceptible historical inflection, when the people, and particularly those in power, realize that the regime has lost the mandate of heaven. With this weakening dictatorship desperate for affirmation, why is the United States repeatedly offering just such affirmation?
Apart from ostracizing and delegitimizing these gangsters, we should be encouraging and reinforcing the demonstrators. This is no trivial matter. When pursued, beaten, arrested and imprisoned, dissidents can easily succumb to feelings of despair and isolation. Natan Sharansky testifies to the electric effect Ronald Reagan's Evil Empire speech had on lifting spirits in the gulag. The news was spread cell to cell in code tapped on the walls. They knew they weren't alone, that America was committed to their cause.
Yet so aloof has Obama been that on Hate America Day (Nov. 4, the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran), pro-American counter-demonstrators chanted, "Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them," i.e., their oppressors.
Such cool indifference is more than a betrayal of our values. It's a strategic blunder of the first order.
Forget about human rights. Assume you care only about the nuclear issue. How to defuse it? Negotiations are going nowhere, and whatever U.N. sanctions we might get will be weak, partial, grudging and late. The only real hope is regime change. The revered and widely supported Montazeri had actually issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons.
And even if a successor government were to act otherwise, the nuclear threat would be highly attenuated because it's not the weapon but the regime that creates the danger. (Think India or Britain, for example.) Any proliferation is troubling, but a nonaggressive pro-Western Tehran would completely change the strategic equation and make the threat minimal and manageable.
What should we do? Pressure from without -- cutting off gasoline supplies, for example -- to complement and reinforce pressure from within. The pressure should be aimed not at changing the current regime's nuclear policy -- that will never happen -- but at helping change the regime itself.
Give the kind of covert support to assist dissident communication and circumvent censorship that, for example, we gave Solidarity in Poland during the 1980s. (In those days that meant broadcasting equipment and copying machines.) But of equal importance is robust rhetorical and diplomatic support from the very highest level: full-throated denunciation of the regime's savagery and persecution. In detail -- highlighting cases, the way Western leaders adopted the causes of Sharansky and Andrei Sakharov during the rise of the dissident movement that helped bring down the Soviet empire.
Will this revolution succeed? The odds are long but the reward immense. Its ripple effects would extend from Afghanistan to Iraq (in both conflicts, Iran actively supports insurgents who have long been killing Americans and their allies) to Lebanon and Gaza where Iran's proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, are arming for war.
One way or the other, Iran will dominate 2010. Either there will be an Israeli attack or Iran will arrive at -- or cross -- the nuclear threshold. Unless revolution intervenes. Which is why to fail to do everything in our power to support this popular revolt is unforgivable.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, December 25, 2009; A25
On Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not just reject President Obama's latest ****less floating nuclear deadline. He spat on it, declaring that Iran "will continue resisting" until the United States has gotten rid of its 8,000 nuclear warheads.
So ends 2009, the year of "engagement," of the extended hand, of the gratuitous apology -- and of spinning centrifuges, two-stage rockets and a secret enrichment facility that brought Iran materially closer to becoming a nuclear power.
We lost a year. But it was not just any year. It was a year of spectacularly squandered opportunity. In Iran, it was a year of revolution, beginning with a contested election and culminating this week in huge demonstrations mourning the death of the dissident Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri -- and demanding no longer a recount of the stolen election but the overthrow of the clerical dictatorship.
Obama responded by distancing himself from this new birth of freedom. First, scandalous silence. Then, a few grudging words. Then relentless engagement with the murderous regime. With offer after offer, gesture after gesture -- to not Iran, but the "Islamic Republic of Iran," as Obama ever so respectfully called these clerical fascists -- the United States conferred legitimacy on a regime desperate to regain it.
Why is this so important? Because revolutions succeed at that singular moment, that imperceptible historical inflection, when the people, and particularly those in power, realize that the regime has lost the mandate of heaven. With this weakening dictatorship desperate for affirmation, why is the United States repeatedly offering just such affirmation?
Apart from ostracizing and delegitimizing these gangsters, we should be encouraging and reinforcing the demonstrators. This is no trivial matter. When pursued, beaten, arrested and imprisoned, dissidents can easily succumb to feelings of despair and isolation. Natan Sharansky testifies to the electric effect Ronald Reagan's Evil Empire speech had on lifting spirits in the gulag. The news was spread cell to cell in code tapped on the walls. They knew they weren't alone, that America was committed to their cause.
Yet so aloof has Obama been that on Hate America Day (Nov. 4, the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran), pro-American counter-demonstrators chanted, "Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them," i.e., their oppressors.
Such cool indifference is more than a betrayal of our values. It's a strategic blunder of the first order.
Forget about human rights. Assume you care only about the nuclear issue. How to defuse it? Negotiations are going nowhere, and whatever U.N. sanctions we might get will be weak, partial, grudging and late. The only real hope is regime change. The revered and widely supported Montazeri had actually issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons.
And even if a successor government were to act otherwise, the nuclear threat would be highly attenuated because it's not the weapon but the regime that creates the danger. (Think India or Britain, for example.) Any proliferation is troubling, but a nonaggressive pro-Western Tehran would completely change the strategic equation and make the threat minimal and manageable.
What should we do? Pressure from without -- cutting off gasoline supplies, for example -- to complement and reinforce pressure from within. The pressure should be aimed not at changing the current regime's nuclear policy -- that will never happen -- but at helping change the regime itself.
Give the kind of covert support to assist dissident communication and circumvent censorship that, for example, we gave Solidarity in Poland during the 1980s. (In those days that meant broadcasting equipment and copying machines.) But of equal importance is robust rhetorical and diplomatic support from the very highest level: full-throated denunciation of the regime's savagery and persecution. In detail -- highlighting cases, the way Western leaders adopted the causes of Sharansky and Andrei Sakharov during the rise of the dissident movement that helped bring down the Soviet empire.
Will this revolution succeed? The odds are long but the reward immense. Its ripple effects would extend from Afghanistan to Iraq (in both conflicts, Iran actively supports insurgents who have long been killing Americans and their allies) to Lebanon and Gaza where Iran's proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, are arming for war.
One way or the other, Iran will dominate 2010. Either there will be an Israeli attack or Iran will arrive at -- or cross -- the nuclear threshold. Unless revolution intervenes. Which is why to fail to do everything in our power to support this popular revolt is unforgivable.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
You have to get out more, if you think Iran is no different than our other trading partners. You want to drag out things like Kent State and compare it with what is happening in Iran. Kent State was a horrible tragedy, started by rock throwing students and a National Guard unit that never should have had live ammunition and was not trained to handle riots. If you noticed that situation never happened again. Iran on the other hand is sending out armed troops to end the protesting by what ever means it takes. Protesters at the G8, 68 Democratic Convention in Chicago and other globalization conferences acted like animals trying to break up the conferences before they knew what anyone was going to say. To quote you "Somebody is wearing blinders or someone is creating a smoke screen." It is not us.
"Unless revolution intervenes. Which is why to fail to do everything in our power to support this popular revolt is unforgivable."
That seems to be promoting political affairs intervention in a foreign Nation. Is that sort of conduct allowed in the United States, or in any country in the world? When the military is sent out they do not fire blanks. If Martial Law was declared in any part of Canada and looters and people out after curfew are said be shot on sight, a person should refrain from those activities. Saying you are 'special' can be put on your tombstone.
It was the police who were instigating aggression against the police in Quebec, that didn't come out the first day the incident hit the news.
Israel and the US already admit to supplying groups that are anti-gov. Blinders would have to be on to suggest that does not mean what is called an opposition party. Creating a violent gathering would be their whole purpose.
That seems to be promoting political affairs intervention in a foreign Nation. Is that sort of conduct allowed in the United States, or in any country in the world? When the military is sent out they do not fire blanks. If Martial Law was declared in any part of Canada and looters and people out after curfew are said be shot on sight, a person should refrain from those activities. Saying you are 'special' can be put on your tombstone.
It was the police who were instigating aggression against the police in Quebec, that didn't come out the first day the incident hit the news.
Israel and the US already admit to supplying groups that are anti-gov. Blinders would have to be on to suggest that does not mean what is called an opposition party. Creating a violent gathering would be their whole purpose.
MHZ
You are right out there - 3rd knucklehead from the dark side - The Religious Theocratic Thugs (and their defenders - yourself) are and have lost legitimacy to rule
The Thugs shed blood on the holiest days of the Shia Religion - Ashura -
That act will cause more bloodshed as the people will demonstrate again on the 40 Th day after the deaths as tradition dictates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Ashura
is on the 10th day of Muharram in the Islamic calendar and marks the climax of the Remembrance of Muharram.
It is commemorated by Shia Muslims as a day of mourning for the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad at the Battle of Karbala on 10 Muharram in the year 61 AH (October 10, 680 AD[1]). According
Many Iranians are know calling the High religious Thug Ali Khameni "Yazid" the despised Sunni Caliph who was responsible for the death of Husayn ibn Ali. A slur that is tremendously insulting to any Shia to be linked in any way the Yazid.
Hundreds of thousands protested the Govt - Blood was shed - Now are all these demonstrators CIA operatives - Really - What a stretch you make with these claims - Look back to the revolution of 79 - Led by the younger population who battled the Shah - It is occurring again -