War with Iran scheduled for 2005

[El Barto]

Iran is supplying arms (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1081748013042) to the anti-US forces in Iraq.

Iran behind the Shi'ite Uprising. (http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=2282)

The US sends a Warning to Iran. (http://www.payvand.com/news/04/apr/1073.html)

Do you think that GWB will let them get away with that?

Not a chance. A new war for 2005.

[MMMMMM]

Could be good; most of the Iranian people would dearly love to get rid of the mad mullahs (who execute dissidents almost daily). If we give the people a little help at the right moment the world may get to see a bright new Iran. The college students especially would love to get rid of the mullahs and have democracy, but the mullahs keep sending in the thug brigades to bash their heads in whenever they try to have a peaceful demonstration.

The mullahs really suck, too: they recently disqualified about a third of the candidates running for election because they didn't like their views. Some "democracy", lol--in Iran it's like having a clique determine who can run and who can't. The mullah's decisions are final. If you don't fit their mold you can't run for office. They also sentenced to death an Iranian citizen who made the monumental mistake of asking publicly why only the mullahs should be allowed to interpret the Q'uran.

Get rid of the old bastards ASAP and let the young progressive Iranian population bring Iran into the world as a vibrant and growing democracy. The ruling mullahs have also robbed the country blind and are by now all multimillionaires. If Iran could be freed, Iran's economic growth rate would impress everyone. The country has become quite Westernized in thinking except for the Old Guard and a small minority of supporters. Iran also has a much better chance at a stable and prosperous democracy than does Iraq (once the mullahs are removed from power, that is).

[andyfox]

"Get rid of the old bastards ASAP"

OK. In November.

/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[MMMMMM]

lol Andy...maybe you should offer humor lessons to Cyrus.. at a special 2+2 reduced rate...;-)

[SossMan]

I understand what you're saying about the Mullahs, MMMMMM. I'm just not sure that it's our job to go around getting rid of all the bad guys. Where does it stop??

[superleeds]

On a purely pratical note MMMMMM, the US hasn't got enough troops in Iraq, where are they gonna come from for an Iranian(sp) adventure. Another chance to test out Rummys new mordern army ideas perhaps, or maybe they would just cut and run from Iraq, after all they did it to Afganistan

[MMMMMM]

^

[MMMMMM]

^

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
War with Iran scheduled for 2005

[/ QUOTE ]


Nuke'em


Zeno - Friend of one and all.

[jokerswild]

1.Afghanistan 2. Iraq 3. Iran 4. China

[andyfox]

According to W, nowhere. We will seek out the evildoers wherever they may be.

[craig r]

"they recently disqualified about a third of the candidates running for election because they didn't like their views."

The U.S. did not disqualify somebody last time because they did not like thier views, that would have been too blatant. But, the U.S. would not let Nader (or buchanan for that matter) debate on national t.v. with Gore and Bush in 2000; even though both candidates were on the ballot. They also threw Nader out of the debate at UMASS (was not even debating, was just there). So, I understand there is a slight difference between completely disqualifying somebody and handicapping them, but if the U.S. is suppossed to be the most free country in the world why would the candidates (and the debate commission) do this in 2000?

[Ray Zee]

craig, because we are not. we keep a blind eye to the things at home that are wrong as long as they suit us. if it happens to someone else we want to stick our noses into their business then do the same thing in our country.

[MMMMMM]

Come on, that isn't even close to a parallel.

A fair parallel would be the White House looking over all elections arcoss the country, and then, pre-election, arbitrarily disqualifying about a third of all candidates for governorships and state legislatures and also any in the Democratic primaries for President of whom it didn't approve. In other words nobody could even run for office in the USA without The White House's prior blessing and approval. Actually not the White House, but a small committe would make the final decision on who could run for office, and who couldn't.

That's a helluva lot more than a "slight difference" compared to not allowing Nader to debate. Please try to evaluate and represent comparisons in a more realistic manner.

I do agree that our system is far from perfect and sometimes the small guys or small candidates don't get their best and fairest shots. They can get stepped on a bit at times. But that is light-years away from what recently went on in Iran with the arbitrary disqualification of a huge number of candidates by the mullahs, simply because the mullahs wield the ultimate legal authority in Iran.

[craig r]

It is just a different way of using power. To not let them debate is in a sense disqualifying them. They stand no chance without media exposure. Though, I do apologize for saying that it is a slight difference. At the same time, i don't think the attitude of complicity is correct either. To say one place is more free than another, does not make the former "free." At the same time, to say that we should go to war with a country for this reason is not justified either. It is not like it will be only mullahs killed. i am sure some of those students you discussed would be killed (throughout the 20th, and now the 21st, century more civilians have been killed in wars than "soldiers.").

[craig r]

ray,

i was asking a rhetorical question when i mentioned the u.s. being "free." and i would agree with you about turning a blind eye. i was going to mention that in response to your post below about good and evil (though i really don't know what "good" and "evil" mean). i think it is justification that gets us through every day. and helps us not see what is truly in front of us (personally and as a society). and i don't really think it is the big things that should be viewed as "good/evil," but maybe, the banality of "good/evil."; the everyday actions that we don't think about, and when we do, we seem to justify them.

[Cyrus]

. . . Amen, brother!

/images/graemlins/cool.gif

[Cyrus]

"The US hasn't got enough troops in Iraq, where are they gonna come from for an Iranian adventure?"

As the record shows, Rumsfeld and the whole DoD apparatus bungled royally on the Iraqi post-invasion planning : They ignored the JCoS, they ignored the diligently prepared proposals for a secure occupation (prepared by gung-ho military men & conservative think tanks, nonetheless), they ignored the recommendations of old conservative hawks offering their experience from the Reagan years, they ignored the advice of previous National Security tope people such as Brzezinsky and Kissinger. Talk about blind stupidity, this takes the cake.

It was a foregone conclusion for most of the people who knew better (and I'm talking about pro-war people!) that the U.S. would clean up in war and make a mess out of peace..

[nicky g]

A better parallel might be a partisan supreme court, filled with people appointed by the candidate's father and the president his father was vice-president to - deciding the outcome of a Presidential election in favour of the candidate who lost the popular vote and would have lost the electoral college vote but for its intervention and the machinations of a state government under the control of - guess who! - his brother! - who appointed an electoral supervisor that had previously been the OFFICIAL CHEIF CAMPAIGNER for his party in that state! What Islamic banana republic did that take place in now... /images/graemlins/blush.gif!

You are right that the Iranians would dearly love to get rid of the current leadership - that is, the Council of Guardians, which has a power of veto over the democratically elected government. Iran is one of the few Middle Eastern countries where the US is actually extremely popular amongst the ordinary people; mainly because it opposes rather than supports that particular autocracic government (hey! maybe no more for support for dictatorships would be a good way of generating good will! Oh well).

Nevertheless the idea that an invasion would be the best way to solve its problems is certifiably insane. Iran is making slow progress; it has taken a step back, but let's not forget it had not long previously taken two steps forward. Killing another few tens of thousands of local civilians in the name of toppling the mullahs faster then the Iranians can do for themselves, rather than quietly supporting them, would rank as the most stupid foreign policy decision the US would ever have made; and that's ahead of some pretty stiff competition. By the way the Iranians had a democracy; guess who got rid of it for the crime of nationalising oil revenues, replaced it with a brutal dictatorship, and paved the way for the mullahs' backlash? /images/graemlins/blush.gif

[GWB]

On the electoral issues of this thread:

[ QUOTE ]
a Presidential election in favour of the candidate who lost the popular vote and would have lost the electoral college vote

[/ QUOTE ]
Apparently you haven't heard that I did win the actual counted vote in Florida, and still would have if the recount had continued. It is refreshing to have a country that actually follows its election rules - this is a mark of true republican democracy.

[ QUOTE ]
The U.S. did not disqualify somebody last time because they did not like thier views, that would have been too blatant. But, the U.S. would not let Nader (or buchanan for that matter) debate on national t.v. with Gore and Bush in 2000; even though both candidates were on the ballot.


[/ QUOTE ]

There is a huge difference between disallowing candidates that have an excellent chance of winning the election (this is true manipulation), and restricting debates to candidates with a fair chance of actually winning (this is actually helpful to viewers trying to make a serious choice).
There will be dozens of names on the ballot this year - it would probably help me this year to have all of them in any debates. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[ QUOTE ]
...if the U.S. is suppossed to be the most free country in the world why would the candidates (and the debate commission) do this in 2000?

[/ QUOTE ]
Because they want the debates to be truly useful to voters, which is exactly what a truly "most free country in the world" would want to happen.

W

[nicky g]

You would have won only if the recount had carried on using the same criteria as the initial count - ie barring numerous votes clearly intended for Gore - which ignored the whole point of the recount. Noone disputes that of the votes determined to be acceptable, Bush won Florida by a couple of hundred votes. The point is that those criteria excluded many votes clearly intended for Gore, and there were legal efforts underway to ahve them included until the recount was stopped. Furthermore, and much more importantly, you (this is ridiculous /images/graemlins/tongue.gif) would have been comprehensively thrashed in Florida had Katherine Harris, to whom I refer in the previous post, and Jeb Bush not illegally blocked thousands of voters from voting for having committed felonies in other states, which does not take away one's right to vote under Florida law (these peopel still hadn;t been put back on the electoral roll time for the last mid-term elections). You would have also lost had machines been programmed to reject rather than eat (hence depriving those voters of their right to vote) faulty ballot papers in Democratic counties to the extent they were in wealthier Republican leaning districts. In short, you won Florida by brazen illegal vote-rigging.

[superleeds]

[ QUOTE ]
Apparently you haven't heard that I did win the actual counted vote in Florida, and still would have if the recount had continued. It is refreshing to have a country that actually follows its election rules - this is a mark of true republican democracy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Apparently you havn't heard about the 1,000's of voters who were banned from voting. They came from predominately poor counties of Florida. Ask Jeb.

[ QUOTE ]
There is a huge difference between disallowing candidates that have an excellent chance of winning the election (this is true manipulation), and restricting debates to candidates with a fair chance of actually winning (this is actually helpful to viewers trying to make a serious choice).
There will be dozens of names on the ballot this year - it would probably help me this year to have all of them in any debates.

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course it helps a two party system not to allow candidates who have some integrity rather than bulging pocketfuls of special interest checks.

[ QUOTE ]
Because they want the debates to be truly useful to voters, which is exactly what a truly "most free country in the world" would want to happen.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't want to upset the status quo by having any real debate about the state of the nation. Just keep feeding the same bullchit. At the end of Animal Farm the animals peek into the house and see the pigs all dressed up in their finary, standing on two legs and talking to the other human farm owners. As they look from pig to human and back again the picture becomes blurred until they can see no difference between human and pig. It may have been an analogy of communism but the free market knows a good story when it see one.

[nicky g]

The above post is not very clear adn nor was my memory of what I was referring to, so I have been reacquainting myself with the results of the recount by the the media consortium which is so often claimed as a vindication for Bush. This is what it looks like:

If the Supreme Court had let the limited recount go ahead, Bush would have won. But the Supreme Court itself said that the recount in question, limited to a few disputed counties (and specifically to undervotes, where a machine registered no votes, but ignoring overvotes, where a voter made more than one mark by for example both ticking a canndidate's box and circling his name - not voting for two candidates, which was how the issue was portrayed, but making the machine think they had) would have been unfair and that a statewide recount should be held instead. But it then decided that there was no time for that, and split on partisan lines, with Bush's daddy's chums declaring him the winner. But what the study by AP etc showed was that if that statewide hand recount, in which electoral officals said they would have accepted all votes that the machines rejected but that clearly showed intention to vote for a single candiate - ie both overvotes and undervotes - had have gone ahead, Gore would have one. So the SC effectively put Bush in office on the grounds that there wasn't enough time to do what they themselves said was the fairest course of action.

Overvotes were especially important because there were more than twice as many overvotes for Gore as for Bush. Why? Because Democrats are particularly stupid? One might like to think so, but in fact because the machines distributed in Democrat-leaning districts were disporportionately both in poorer condition and likelier to have been programmed to eat rather than return faulty ballots.

This and other data garnered by investigative reporters clearly shows two things: that on the narrow recount underway, Bush would have won (of course the SC couldn't possibly have known that), but also that there is no doubt that in terms of intended votes (of the thousands of votes that would have been ignored in any recount because no voter intention was discernible, again a hugely disproportionate number came from poorer, minority dominated and Democrat-leaining districts -and again we go back to the voting machines installed there) and under the recount which the SC said was the fairest course of action, Gore would have won.

All of which ignores the illegally barred minority voters.