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ORIGINAL: farglebargle

Banning them just makes the kids want them more. ( And pay more for them. )

Back in DECEMBER, the AP printed this: " Western music, films and clothing are widely available in Iran, and hip-hop can be hard on Tehran's streets, blaring from car speakers or from music shops. Bootleg videos and DVDs of films banned by the state are widely available in the black market."

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What kind of message does this send around the world?

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Obviously the USA is not interested in dismantling it's arsenal.

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The American People haven't had anyone in the White House representing (our) interests since Reagan.

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it is the height of absurdity IMHO, that the U.S. deigns itself as the authority on their usage when we have been the ones who actually dropped that bomb

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it was about the gross hypocrisy involved in demanding that other countries don't have them.

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Iran having nuclear weapons is no more scary than the USA or anyone else having them.

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The USA being the only country that has used nukes and then unnecessarily, it has some gall to accuse other countries of being dangerous.

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America's founding fathers did not want the US to be part of foreign treaties.

"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world, so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it."
-George Washington

Washington also said to stay clear of "entangling aliances." One of the first things Washington did when he took office in 1790, was dissolve the US alliance with France.

Thomas Jefferson also chimed in on this debate by saying the US should sign "few, if any, treaties."

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It is strange that Americans think it is normal for them to be armed to the teeth but somehow it is aggressive and placing the USA in danger when other countries arms themselves in fear of an aggressive USA.

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It's an educated guess, and given the evidence, more likely than not. Considering the professionalism of the attack, they were certainly not, as it's been put, "Sexually repressed teenagers with raging hormones who are taught that they will own 13,824 young female virgin slaves if they die while killing non-believers"

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When someone ATTACKS you or your family, then shoot him dead. I'm sure a Jury would return a Not Guilty verdict if a DA is even stupid enough to bring it to trial. THEN the Jury would buy you drinks the rest of the night to congratulate you for your fine shooting. The people on Flight 93 on 9/11 are, rightly, heroes.

A lot of fatheads run their mouth for no good reason. Do you dignify their rants by listening to them? Do you invade their homes and try to tell them what they can or can't do just because they're fatheads with big mouths? That would be silly, wouldn't it?

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It wasn't an act of religious fervor, as you think, but instead an act of politically based terrorism, plain and clear.

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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Obviously the USA is not interested in dismantling it's arsenal.

Good!

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slaveluci said:

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it is the height of absurdity IMHO, that the U.S. deigns itself as the authority on their usage when we have been the ones who actually dropped that bomb

Someday, perhaps, everybody in the world will pound all their swords into plowshares, then put on tie-dye t-shirts, gather in a large circle holding hands and sing "it’s a small world after allllllll." Until then it is not the least bit absurd to want to protect ourselves by keeping nukes out of the hands of religious fanatics who hate us.

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Iran having nuclear weapons is no more scary than the USA or anyone else having them.

You can’t be fucking serious! That’s like saying Nazi Germany having nukes would have been no more scary than anyone else having them.

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cyberdude611 said:

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America's founding fathers did not want the US to be part of foreign treaties.

"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world, so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it."
-George Washington

Washington also said to stay clear of "entangling aliances." One of the first things Washington did when he took office in 1790, was dissolve the US alliance with France.

Thomas Jefferson also chimed in on this debate by saying the US should sign "few, if any, treaties."

There is a difference between advocating not getting involved with treaties and breaking them. You’re not breaking the treaty if you don’t sign it in the first place.

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farglebargle said:

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When someone ATTACKS you or your family, then shoot him dead. I'm sure a Jury would return a Not Guilty verdict if a DA is even stupid enough to bring it to trial. THEN the Jury would buy you drinks the rest of the night to congratulate you for your fine shooting. The people on Flight 93 on 9/11 are, rightly, heroes.

A lot of fatheads run their mouth for no good reason. Do you dignify their rants by listening to them? Do you invade their homes and try to tell them what they can or can't do just because they're fatheads with big mouths? That would be silly, wouldn't it?

A guy moves into the house next to yours. He screams obscenities at you and your family, saying that you’re all a bunch of Godless sinners and that God hates you. He says that your daughters deserved to be raped and your sons deserve to have their heads bashed in. You and you wife should have your throats slit. God will approve of all this, indeed, God demands it from his faithful followers. You notice that he has started to stockpile weapons in his garage – knives, guns and now a few grenades. ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO WAIT UNTIL HE ACTUALLY PULLS A TRIGGER BEFORE YOU DO SOMETHING?

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It wasn't an act of religious fervor, as you think, but instead an act of politically based terrorism, plain and clear.

What difference does it make what their motivation is?

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You'd think so, but the US promised to make good faith efforts to disarm when they signed onto the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

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If you can figure out how to do that WHILE respecting the independent sovereignty of another nation, then good for you.

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You cannot honestly compare Iran to Nazi Germany.

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But the US *did* sign the NPT.

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No, I won't wait until he pulls a trigger. But you have to wait until there's a Clear and Present threat.

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Well, since the original poster was claiming they were uneducated fools, only motived by mindless religious fervor, their motivation is central to the discussion. If you had paid closer attention to the threads, perhaps that would have been evident.

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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You'd think so, but the US promised to make good faith efforts to disarm when they signed onto the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Fortunately there is some wiggle room in the phrase "good faith." Look, I just think it’s stupid to give up our nukes, especially while sworn enemies have them or are trying to get them.

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If you can figure out how to do that WHILE respecting the independent sovereignty of another nation, then good for you.

I’m all for respecting sovereignty – up to a certain point.

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I see the situation as analogous to personal self defense. I don’t attack people and in return I expect the same courtesy but if I’m attacked I’m going to fight back. It looks to me as if you don’t believe in ever throwing the first punch. That’s a moral stand I can respect (an indeed, try to follow myself) but only up to a certain point. If I learned anything in junior high school it was that sometimes, when the bully has cornered you, you’re not going to talk your way out of it, you’re not going to walk away without a fight. In such circumstances, you might as well get the first punch in.

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You cannot honestly compare Iran to Nazi Germany.

Sure you can. Strip away the surface details and what do you have?

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Keith Olbermann http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022707A.shtml

There is, obviously, no mistaking Saddam Hussein for a human being. But nor is there any mistaking him for Adolf Hitler.

Invoking the German dictator who subjugated Europe; who tried to exterminate the Jews; who sought to overtake the world is not just in the poorest of taste, but in its hyperbole, it insults not merely the victims of the Third Reich, but those in this country who fought it and defeated it.

Saddam Hussein was not Adolf Hitler. And George W. Bush is not Franklin D. Roosevelt - nor Dwight D. Eisenhower. He isn't even George H.W. Bush, who fought in that war.

However, even through the clouds of deliberately spread fear, and even under the weight of a thousand exaggerations of the five years past, one can just barely make out how a battle against international terrorism in 2007 could be compared - by some - to the Second World War.

The analogy is weak, and it instantly begs the question of why those of "The Greatest Generation" focused on Hitler and Hirohito, but our leaders seem to have ignored their vague parallels of today to instead concentrate on the Mussolinis of modern terrorism.

But in some, small, "You didn't fail, Junior, but you may need to go to summer school" kind of way, you can just make out that comparison.

But, Secretary Rice, overthrowing Saddam Hussein was akin to overthrowing Adolf Hitler? Are you kidding? Did you want to provoke the world's laughter?

And, please, Madame Secretary, if you are going to make that most implausible, subjective, dubious, ridiculous comparison; if you want to be as far off the mark about the Second World War as, say, the pathetic Holocaust-denier from Iran, Ahmadinejad - at least get the easily verifiable facts right: the facts whose home through history lies in your own department.

"The resolution that allowed the United States to" overthrow Hitler?

On the 11th of December, 1941, at 8 o'clock in the morning, two of Hitler's diplomats walked up to the State Department - your office, Secretary Rice - and 90 minutes later they were handing a declaration of war to the chief of the department's European Division. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor four days earlier, and the Germans simply piled on.

Your predecessors, Dr. Rice, didn't spend a year making up phony evidence and mistaking German balloon-inflating trucks for mobile germ warfare labs. They didn't pretend the world was ending because a tin-pot tyrant couldn't hand over the chemical weapons it turned out he'd destroyed a decade earlier. The Germans walked up to the front door of our State Department and said, "We're at war." It was in all the papers. And when that war ended, more than three horrible years later, our troops and the Russians were in Berlin. And we stayed, as an occupying force, well into the 1950s. As an occupying force, Madam Secretary!

If you want to compare what we did to Hitler and in Germany to what we did to Saddam and in Iraq, I'm afraid you're going to have to buy the whole analogy. We were an occupying force in Germany, Dr. Rice, and by your logic, we're now an occupying force in Iraq. And if that's the way you see it, you damn well better come out and tell the American people so. Save your breath telling it to the Iraqis - most of them already buy that part of the comparison.

"It would be like saying that after Adolf Hitler was overthrown, we needed to change then, the resolution that allowed the United States to do that, so that we could deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after he was overthrown."

We already have a subjectively false comparison between Hitler and Saddam. We already have a historically false comparison between Germany and Iraq. We already have blissful ignorance by our secretary of state about how this country got into the war against Hitler. But then there's this part about changing "the resolution" about Iraq; that it would be as ridiculous in the secretary's eyes as saying that after Hitler was defeated, we needed to go back to Congress to "deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after he was overthrown."

Oh, good grief, Secretary Rice, that's exactly what we did do! We went back to Congress to deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after Hitler was overthrown! It was called the Marshall Plan.

Marshall!

Gen. George Catlett Marshall!

Secretary of state!

The job you have now!

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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You cannot honestly compare Iran to Nazi Germany.

Sure you can. Strip away the surface details and what do you have? Oppressive regimes that routinely use torture and murder and want to expand their ideology through force. Iran may not have slaughtered as many people as Nazi Germany did (so far) but that only means that Iran isn’t as well organized.

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ORIGINAL: farglebargle
If you're exploiting "wiggle room" is it Good Faith at all? I don't believe it is.

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ORIGINAL: Sanity

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ORIGINAL: farglebargle
If you're exploiting "wiggle room" is it Good Faith at all? I don't believe it is.

It's a nonproliferation treaty, farglebargle. Nonproliferation means "Limit their spread". And yes we signed it - and that means we're supposed to

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Article I

Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; and not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices.

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Article II

Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek or receive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.

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Article III

1. Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes to accept safeguards, as set forth in an agreement to be negotiated and concluded with the International Atomic Energy Agency in accordance with the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Agency’s safeguards system, for the exclusive purpose of verification of the fulfilment of its obligations assumed under this Treaty with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. Procedures for the safeguards required by this Article shall be followed with respect to source or special fissionable material whether it is being produced, processed or used in any principal nuclear facility or is outside any such facility. The safeguards required by this Article shall be applied on all source or special fissionable material in all peaceful nuclear activities within the territory of such State, under its jurisdiction, or carried out under its control anywhere.

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Article X

1. Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other Parties to the Treaty and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events it regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests.

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ORIGINAL: farglebargle
Well, since the original poster was claiming they were uneducated fools, only motived by mindless religious fervor, their motivation is central to the discussion. If you had paid closer attention to the threads, perhaps that would have been evident.

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ORIGINAL: farglebargle
But perhaps, like many other issues confronting them, this is just too sophisticated a topic for the limited abilities of the Administration.

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ORIGINAL: farglebargle

"stone-aged mentalities."

So, what you're suggesting is that we got our ass kicked, and continue to get our ass kicked every day in Iraq by cavemen?

Well, after seeing that insurance commercial, you may be right.

But I consider "Stone Age Mentality" equalvalent to ignorance, and foolishness. YMMV.

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ORIGINAL: Sanity

So you think that suicide for Allah is enlightened, modern, sophisticated, and a winning strategy.

That doesn't say much for your mindset there, farglebargle, I'm sorry.

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ORIGINAL: farglebargle

Well, it's winning in Iraq. More than 100 dead yesterday. It scored on 9/11.

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Enlightened, No. Modern, No. Sophisticated? As sophisticated as the budget allows, certainly more sophisticated than the Bush Administration. Winning? Can't argue with their success. Took the power vacuum that Bremer created, and turned it right into a civil war, making the US look like idiots. That emboldened North Korea, who withdrew from the NPT, got Pakistans assistance, and started Iran down the same path.

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ORIGINAL: farglebargle

That's a four way civil war. Hmmm... REALLY profitable I expect for certain industries and investors.

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ORIGINAL: Gauge

Just in case anyone missed the headline: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070302/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/new_warheads

We don't want North Korea to have nukes and we are on the brink of expanding our war into Iran

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ORIGINAL: Jack45

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ORIGINAL: Gauge

Just in case anyone missed the headline: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070302/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/new_warheads

We don't want North Korea to have nukes and we are on the brink of expanding our war into Iran

Iran has never started a war. Israel has nuclear weapons, hundred of them and all sorts of WMD, just like the U.S. does, yet they don't want anybody else to have even nuclear power which is what Iran is working on so it can sell its oil not burn it up for domestic use.