A day to day acount of the whacky and wonderful world of Muggaz - i tend to be having too much fun these days, and often cannot remember moments due to debauchery - its time the internet repayed my loyalty by recording my antics.
based on ugly precedents set by their enemies.
Published on August 18, 2004 By Muggaz In International
The Olympics are supposed to be a time of reflection and enjoyment, with ideals of peace being put on the table by the worlds athletes, it would seem that Iran is out to ruin everyone’s party though

A few days ago, and Iranian athlete refused to compete with an Israeli athlete, which is fair enough, each to their own, we can move on from that, but now, the Iranian government is not ruling out pre-emptive strikes on US and Israeli forces in the Middle East should they feel their Nuclear reactor at Bushehr under threat.

Iranian Defence Minister – Ali Shamkhani has warned “We will not sit (With arms folded) to wait for what others will do to us. Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventative operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly” This was during an interview with Al-Jazeera TV when asked if Iran would respond to an attack on its nuclear facilities.

"America is not the only one present in the region. We are also present, from Khost to Kandahar in Afghanistan; we are present in the Gulf and we can be present in Iraq,"

The commander of the Elite revolutionary guards, General Muhammad Baqir Zolqadr has also warned - "If Israel fires one missile at Bushehr atomic power plant, it should permanently forget about Dimona nuclear centre, where it produces and keeps its nuclear weapons, and Israel would be responsible for the terrifying consequence of this move,"

They look like fighting words.

Should the Iranians make the first strike against Israeli or US forces, It will be safe to say we will have a genuine bloody conflict on our hands. We think Iraq and Afghanistan are human rights tragedies, we haven’t seen anything yet.

Iran would obviously be comfortable with making a pre-emptive strike, because they feel genuinely threatened. They maintain that their nuclear facilities are for energy production – That is for them to say, and us to believe.

The threat that Iran will attack opposing forces in the region is a very real one if they feel threatened. It’s a shame that the targets of Iran's hostilities set the unfortunate precedent that pre-emptive strikes are acceptable.

BAM!!!

Comments (Page 8)
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on Aug 22, 2004

I realize the conversation has taken other turns but I'd like Muggaz to address this comment about Kosovo:

I dont know very much at all about Grenada and Panama, but Kosovo was preemptive on the basis of a human rights tragedy of ridiculous proportions taking place...

Tell us of this human rights tragedy of ridiculous proportions.  If human rights tragedies are an excuse to topple governments, then Iraq should have been a no brainer. Milosivich was small potatoes compared to Saddam in terms of "ridiculous" proportions on human rights tragedies.

on Aug 22, 2004

You are calling my uninteligent. Fine. That is your opinion. You are calling me a liar. Fine that is also your opinion. But you will not call me a robot. I come up with my own ideas. Obviously you have not seen all of my posts. I am not liberal across the board. I am not picking up on lies and spreading them. I understand if you don't want to hear my ideas. I understand if you don't agree with my ideas. But don't tell me that I don't think for myself.

He's not calling you a liar. He thinks (And I think so too) that you're a dupe. You take propaganda as being the truth.  The warning light for me was when you wrote "Clinton didn't come to office planning to attack Iraq." (as if a. you know what bush and clinton thought they'd have to do and b. as if motive changes objective reality).

I feel much like Bakerstreet, I should jsut make a series of blogs called "Standard Propaganda refutations #X" where I just link to them so that people like you, fed the usual left wing claptrap can go and read up on the facts.  They may not change your OPINIONS but at least you'd be arguing based on facts and not just what you've been told.  Left wingers tend to be much more intellectually lazy when debating issues. I rarely see them actually research the issue but instead just look for left wing analysis that panders to their existing emotional position.

on Aug 22, 2004

.  Sandy, you said Busy lied and then 24 hours later you say you didn't say Bush lied and then when confronted you say "Well that was 25 posts ago".  So what? It was still only 24 hours ago.  Sheesh.

 

on Aug 22, 2004
Tell us of this human rights tragedy of ridiculous proportions. If human rights tragedies are an excuse to topple governments, then Iraq should have been a no brainer. Milosivich was small potatoes compared to Saddam in terms of "ridiculous" proportions on human rights tragedies.


I never said I agreed with the way Kosovo was handled by the United States and NATO - the premise that they went in for was Human rights though, it certainly wasn't national security that was being threatened - which was the basis of the attack for Iraq... that is a no brainer.

It was just very 'convenient' for the US governemt that Saddam was a crazy despot after the fact that he proved little or no threat to the security of the United States.

BAM!!!
on Aug 22, 2004
"Tell us of this human rights tragedy of ridiculous proportions. If human rights tragedies are an excuse to topple governments, then Iraq should have been a no brainer. Milosivich was small potatoes compared to Saddam in terms of "ridiculous" proportions on human rights tragedies."


Frankly, and I think this will be pretty insulting to some people here, but I think Kosovo and Sarajevo and the rest got more attention from liberals because they are white people. You differ no doubt, but frankly over and over and over I see bleeding hearts in the US congress stand up and rant over this or that issue, but when it is 100,000 Arabs or 1,000,000 Rwandans, we must first have to look at our interests in the situation.

Face it. Clinton stood behind a podium while hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were being murdered, protected by an UNARMED UN force, and said that the US would only intervene militarily when it is in our interests.

If Bush said that today I really believe the US citizens on JU and elsewhere would be screaming for his impeachment. I think had Clinton said that about white people, they would have done the same to Clinton.
on Aug 22, 2004
we must first have to look at our interests in the situation.


I beleive you are correct. The US had nothing to gain by helping a bunch of Africans, yet PR in Europe can always do with a little help... People who are naive enough to beleive the USA is interested in morals and human rights, well, they need a free lesson...

The USA will only help if it has something to gain - there was absolutely nothing to gain by sending troops to Rwanda.

BAM!!!
on Aug 22, 2004
" there was absolutely nothing to gain by sending troops to Rwanda."


Other than self respect and a couple hudred thousand lives that need not have been lost. There were many Americans of Rwandan origin that cared, and many others like me that did, too. Clinton later said that he probably should have done something and he believed that he could have saved about half the people who died, had he interevened. Nice thought, going to bed knowing you could have saved more than 400,000 lives but just decided not to because it wasn't in our interest...

Anyway, when we turn our backs on horrors like that and then try to make our actions in places like Afghanistan and Iraq appear to be humanitarian, it doesn't ring true. If we want people to believe we make war to establish peace, then we need to do it when it isn't necessarily in our interest.
on Aug 22, 2004
Anyway, when we turn our backs on horrors like that and then try to make our actions in places like Afghanistan and Iraq appear to be humanitarian, it doesn't ring true. If we want people to believe we make war to establish peace, then we need to do it when it isn't necessarily in our interest.


It all comes back to the other thread that was started as a result of this discussion... picking and choosing wars. It's like a basketball referee... whether the decisions are good or crap, no one cares, all we ask for as fans/citizens is a little bit of consistancy.

If Saddam was attacked as an issue of national security, the US had best high tail it and take out Iran and North Korea, if it were human rights - time to take on China... otherwise its just imperialist gratification.

BAM!!!

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