How stupid could they be?

Pre-emptive strikes.

Interesting to see another of Bush's doctrines being adopted by other nations.

Do you feel safer now than you did 3 years ago?

Didn't think so.

This is just a public acknowledgment of Iran's posture for the last 25 years. At least now it's out in the open and we are in their neighborhood for the picnic. So, yes, I for one feel safer.

Iran threatened Israel with preemptive nuclear strikes as soon as they gain the capability--

of course it must all be Bush's fault.

Because no nation ever attacked another preemptively until Bush came along. No nation ever dreamed of such a thing. Not the Soviet Union in Poland in 1940, not the Japanese in 1942.

And the fact that America had been fighting in Iraq from 1990 until 2003 has no bearing whatever on the issue, nor that Iraq had well over a year's warning on the consequences of failing to abide by Security Council resolutions.

Oh no. A preemptive Iranian strike, even if nuclear, against the US in Iraq or Israel, is totally the moral equivalent of the US invasion of Iraq.

Symptomless,

It isn't a question of how we feel -- it is a question of whether we actually are safer or not.

If my houe was burning down around me, and I was asleep, I might feel safe, without actually being safe.

If I woke up, and started crawling toward the exit, I wouldn't say "Gee, I wish I was still asleep -- I'd feel so much safer!" because to do so would be to indulge in wishful thinking. I'd keep crawling, and say "Gee, I'm glad I'm no asleep anymore, because if I were, I'd probably be dead!"

The objective reality is that there are people who wish us dead. The mullahs in Iran and Al Qaeda are among them. The difference between now and 2000 is that we are awake, and doing something about it.

When can we engage? The sooner the better...

The saber rattling of the fundamentalists is so pathetic. That entire culture is all about pulling your uncircumcised genitals out to see who "the man" is. I mean, is there any rationality to that kind of propaganda?

The Iranians will eventually pay for their seizure of the U.S. embassy. It may come 30 years later, but they will pay dearly. I say it's about time we start fomenting rebellion in their country.

And for you narrow-minded liberals: no, I don't feel any safer. 50% of the losers out there are planning on voting for that filthy, lying, blue-blood Jonh Kerry-Heinz. So, to answer your question, I'm nearly at the stage of trembling. Thank goodness for a Republican Congress, and for the now powerful Right.

I'm sure the American generals at CENTCOM are scared sh*tless by this threat and the president's response is no doubt, "Oh really?"

For eight brutal years the mighty army of Iran could do no better than hold Saddam's horde in a stalemate. The United States crushed the same Iraqi army in eight DAYS without the use of WMDs.

So if Iran wants to try its hand, bring it on. Of course they know that any use of chemical weapons against the Americans may result in cities like Qom ending up with a UN-sponsored fence around it with a sign on it that says, "Radiation Hazard - Do not enter for the next 100,000 years".

Based on the comments I have seen here, the risk of an unprovoked American (or Irsaeli) attack on Iranian nuclear facilities is a whole lot higher than the risk that Saddam would give al Queda WMD to attack America. So yeah, in that sense Iran has MORE of a right (capability is a different story) to engage in a preemptive war with us than we had to preeemptively attack Iraq.

rdelephant, your friends in Tehran aren't going to be pleased that you haven't made excuses for their threats of a preemptive nuclear attack on Israel yet.

They've been making these threats for some time...

The Iranians have threatened a preemtive convetional first strike against Israel's nuclear reactor, but I don't put much stock in those threats.

I do recall seeing some loose talk somewhere about how Iran would win a nuclear exchange because the Arab world can afford to take the brunt of Israel's arsenal (an estimated 200 weapons, again I think they are just talking brave) if it means the destruction of Israel. I don't recall if it was anyone official speaking, but even if so I recall nothing about a first strike. Its kind of premature to be theratening a first strike when you don't even have nuclear capability, don't you think ? Maybe you have a cite for one of these numerous threats you claim.

Hashemi-Rafsanjani, former President of the Islamic Republic ("no one official", huh, rdelephant?) stated on December 14, 2001, during Friday prayer sermon:

"The Jews [who immigrated to Israel] should expect a ‘reverse exodus', because one day, the tumor will be removed from the body of the Islamic World, and then millions of Jews who moved there will become homeless again . And when will that be? We shall have to discuss it another time”…

"If one day, a very important day, of course, the Islamic World will also be equipped with the weapons available to Israel now, the imperialist strategy will reach an impasse, because the employment of even one atomic bomb inside Israel will wipe it off the face of the earth, but [such a bomb] would only do damage to the Islamic World . It is not unreasonable to consider this possibility… the people who have no choice but to sacrifice themselves will not be intimidated by the [Israeli] violence. After all, they have nothing to lose. How can a man lose something when he believes that by blowing himself up, one moment he is in the material world and in another moment he is in a divine heaven, borne by the wings of God's angels . And when he comes there, he shall sit by the Prophet and God's offspring, in a welcoming ceremony honoring the Shahids."

Any number of comments about how Israel must necessarily be destroyed may be found here:

http://www.intelligence.org.il/eng/bu/iran/shihab_11_03.htm

ROFL.

That's not important, Gabe. Didn't you hear? Iran is sovereign, so we have no right to tell them what to do.

"Them", of course whould be leaders in Iran that speak for the Iranian people which represent the people that make up the Iranian "Republic"-----that is, no one.

That's alot of colorful language including some predictions of Israel's destruction, but I don't see a word threatening a nuclear first strike, which was your claim.

Mozart likes to argue that nations which are non-democratic are not sovereign. Pretty obviously wrong. I guess he is now claiming that the U.S. was somehow endowed with a God-given right to tell other nations what to do. An odd religious belief I guess.

Still beating this drum, are you, rdelephant? Still pining for your vision of dining with the despots at the UN?

Jackson Zed gave a very good assessment of this. I decided to borrow it:

The current rulers of Iran are simply not a real government. They are a group of thugs whose power is derived from the violent coercion they used to achieve a monopoly on violent force, their pretenses toward democracy notwithstanding.

As their authority does not flow from the consent of the governed, they are simply not a legitimate government in which any sovereignty or expectation of sovereignty can adhere, but merely a syndicate or junta currently in receivership of the nation of Iran.

Yes, rdelephant, for all of your misrepresentations of how I have repeatedly shredded your logic, your vision of sovereignty is clear: anyone with power enough to rule by force without the consent of the governed should be considered "sovereign." I reject that definition. I further reject the idea that those countries should be treated the same as representative governments in an international body, as that only lends legitimacy to the idea that the two are morally equivalent, which of course, in your mind, they are. Our Founders also rejected this idea. Which is why you seem unable to understand what is wrong with defending Dear Leader, Saddam Hussein's regime as "completely cooperative", and Iran as merely responding to aggression from the West, despite the fact that they have been linked to terrorism worldwide.

We have seen your vision of how the world should be, rdelephant. It has played out and is continuing to be played out on virtually every stage for the majority of the last century and this one. And the stack of bodies is so high you can't see the top of it. Deaths numbering in the hundreds of millions.

Yes, that is the end result of your view, rdelephant, of "sovereignty." All the people starving in North Korea while KJI sips cognac and watches Friday the 13th movies, all the people in Iran who are routinely beaten and imprisoned without cause, the hundreds of thousands in China denied freedom to worship as they please or vote; I'm sure they'll all be relieved to know that despite their suffering, their countries are sovereign. Good grief, don't you ever get tired of being wrong?

And this is why your party cannot be trusted with the foreign policy of this nation. So by all means, please continue to make entertaining ad hominem attacks instead of explaining why we should consider representative governments equal with dictatorships. The world is starting to slowly realize that in a global community dictators and small oligarchies which hold populations hostage can no longer be tolerated; not only for security reasons, but also for financial reasons. Even your beloved China. Sorry, rdelephant, your vision is dying.

It is kind of hard to have relations with nations without recognizing their sovereignty. When you travel to China for business or pleasure, you are essentially forced to recognize its sovereignty. When the U.S. seeks critical security cooperation from Pakistan, it is recognizing its sovereignty, (despite the fact that its government is not a democracy). When we seek to influence the government of North Korea to forego nuclear ambitions or seek to influence the North Korean's indirectly via China, we are recognizing both nation's sovereignty.

When we say we "recognize" a government, what we are recognizing is their sovereignty. Your novel solution of "unrecognizing" every non-democratic government is a recipe for disaster in many ways. You are the radical, sir.

Okay, rdelephant, you go right ahead and spin Hashemi-Rafsjani's call for nuclear shahiddom any way you want, or any way that pleases Tehran. I won't argue with you; you can dig your own hole without my help.

I am not spinning anything. You made a claim you could not back up. You are the one with the "hole."

LOL. How disappointing. Here I was expecting to be impressed, but instead I get what I've come to expect from you, rdelephant; personal attacks, misrepresentation, obfuscation, and of course, your favorite: repetition.

All answers are replies, rdelephant, but not all replies are answers. What is the American Bar Association teaching these days?

I have now asked you three times to defend why it is that despotic regimes et al should be considered to have the same kind of political rights as representative governments. And I get the same answer each time: "Ummmmm.....Just Because". That, or some kind of brainless accusation that I want to "unrecognize" governments, whatever that means. I don't want to "unrecognize" them, rdelephant, I want to recognize them; but for what they are, not for what I would like to pretend they are.

Debating with you, redelephant, I begin to understand how Galileo must have felt debating with the Catholic Church. Sorry, no matter how you look at it, no matter how many citations or international law opinions you produce written by people who think just like you, there is a mountain of evidence in my favor that suggests that the Sun, in fact, does not revolve around the Earth. There are mountains of evidence to suggest that your definition of "sovereignty", with the rights and privileges that come with that, when extended to despotic and non-representative regimes, has led to the suffering, ruin, and death of millions, which is distinctly not the case in most representative governments. Such thought, which I agree, is the current "standard" in internationalist circles, has allowed monsters like Josef Stalin and Saddam Hussein an inappropriate place in world affairs; has put murderers on the same level as decent men and women, and allowed places like Libya to be elected as chair of Human Rights Council at the UN. Such are the vagaries of these ideas if you take them to their logical conclusion. And as the bodies of millions throughout history attest, they have been.

What's funny, rdelephant, is that your thoughts on "sovereignty" actually explain your views (mostly--I'll get to that in a minute) on places like North Korea and Iraq. You've created a conundrum in which despotic nations deserve an equivalent place with democracies. But to logically justify that equivalence by defining it terms of "sovereignty", you then have to minimize the activities of monstrous murderers like Kim Jong Il or the mullahs. That's why, in your mind, a dictator with forced slave labor camps could not possibly be a mass murderer, and Islamic clerics who seized power through force of arms, kill and suppress freedom, and sponsor terrorism worldwide are only "responding to Western threats" in their pursuit of nuclear weapons.

And even those ideas of yours aren't internally consistent. You have gone on record here stating that an attack on an Iranian nuclear facility clearly trying to make nuclear weapons would be a violation of its "sovereignty", but you posted days earlier that you would support an offensive against North Korea based on its human rights violations alone. And while I agree with the latter in the context of the world body, not the United States alone; your logic makes that kind of offensive a violation of that country's "sovereignty." And not only that, even someone with rudimentary intelligence can see that while both are abhorrent, one is a threat to the United States, and one is not. Now, of course, you'll respond about international treaties, etc, you know, like the nuclear non-proliferation one both Iran and North Korea signed and violated, and I will answer that those kinds of treaties only work when the people signing them have a vested interest in the well-being of the people they represent. Those kinds of treaties rely on a vestige of trust that is necessarily absent when dealing with dictatorial rulers who rule through force of arms. All I am suggesting, all I have ever suggested, is a world acknowledgment of that fact. If you want to trust pirates, brigands, and thugs; fight another Cold War, that's your business, but don't presume to speak for anyone but yourself.

In addition, your accusations that I think we have a God-given right to tell other sovereign nations what to do doesn't even make sense. Because if Iran, for example, is being told what to do; by your own admission, they do not represent Iran and indeed, could not even get elected. We could not possibly then be telling all of Iran and its people what to do. We would have no idea what they might or might not want. You have logical inconsistency here. Yes, in the same breath you will tell me that it is Iran's dictatorial sovereign "right" to pursue nuclear weapons, in spite of the fact that the leaders choosing to do so in violation of an international treaty signed in good faith were not elected and have no input from the people they claim to represent; but that if they are stopped, then we are violating the rights, somehow, of the collective Iranian people. That is truly some hubris ya' got there, bub.

The world order as you define it has been an abject failure, rdelephant. The last hundred years, if nothing else, should exemplify this for you. I'm not saying that democracy is the answer to the world's problems. Look at the Weimar Republic. But neither should we try to pretend, as you seem to insist on doing, that we can continue to tolerate these assassins in our midst, and consider ourselves secure. You called me a radical. Perhaps I am. Perhaps we need more of those, instead of those people who think that Kim Jong Il isn't a mass murderer, that Saddam Hussein's regime was "completely cooperative", or that Iran is developing nuclear weapons so they can preemptively bring about Israel's utter destruction with.....I don't know....water balloons? Perhaps we need more radicals, instead of those like you who would defend the failed status quo. I take solace in the fact that I stand in good company.

So now you have changed the subject again, conceding this time (apparently) that we really do need to recognize the sovereignty of non-democratic nations. You now claim that the issue is whether "despotic regimes et al should be considered to have the same kind of political rights as representative governments." To answer you, I first don't really think it makes sense to talk about governments as having "political rights," equal or otherwise. I am really not clear on what you are advocating or talking about (and don't really think you know either).

I do think that international laws should apply to all sovereign nations equally, whether they be democratic or otherwise. But international law is not really the issue either. I am not saying that would we should not attack Iran because of international law (although respect for international law is a consideration). Rather, I oppose such an attack because I do not think such an attack satisfies the criteria of self-defense (or defense of others) that is necessary to morally justify a war in my mind. The fact that they are or are not a democracy really has nothing to do with that issue (the fact that they are "sovereign" only came up because you brought it up). I do think they have the same right to develop nuclear weapons as any other nation (what I actually said that set you off in the other thread). But like other nations, that right would be subject to our right to act in self-defense or defense of others. Again, democracy has nothing to do with it. I just don't think the Iranian situation meets that stringent defensive criteria for war.

This is also why I would conceivably (and consistently) support military action against North Korea, to save that regime's political prisoners, because of that "defense of others" criterion for action. I recognize Kim Jong Il is a brutal dicatator and a murderer, I just don't think he compares with Pol Pot, Stalin or Hitler, so as to justify the label "mass muderer." This too has nothing to do with the subject at hand (though you seem to bring up my belief in this regard in every other thread).

As for Iran, I didn't say they were only responding to Western threats in their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Not even close. Why you insist on misrepresenting my views is beyond me. What the Iranian people think about their leaders developing nuclear weapons is really not my concern. The fact that they might oppose their development is not grounds for invasion, no matter how you want to spin it.

And don't be so sure that the mullahs and/or Kim Jong Il could not get elected. The latter's brainwashing of his populace would alone probably carry him through a couple of elections. Democracy is great but it is not a panacea, as you recognize. I think you are using it as a fig leaf to justify discriminations you want to make for other reasons (even if you are not really sure what actions those discriminations would justify).

Oh BTW Mozart, sorry you won't be around anymore... you are a worthy opponent.

I don’t know whether the Americans feel safer now than 3 years ago. They (and the whole World) just aren’t safer, as a matter of fact. I would say that actually, the world is quite more dangerous today than 3 years ago. What is clear is that the Iran people don’t feel safe at all…

Sovereignty…is an empty word. You can admit the sovereignty of some country, and immediately afterwards attack it, destroy it and change the rulers for your own convenience.

Apart from this, you can not liberate a country killing 12.000 civilians. Well, obviously you CAN, lets say that you mustn’t. The Iran people don’t want to be liberated. As an overall truth, a preemptive attack is the most clear symptom of the FEAR illness in a virulent phase.

Nobody is going to launch a nuclear strike against Israel, because the western countries would erase the aggressor from the World map. Stop the paranoia. On the other hand, nobody is going to attack Iran because….because…oops. Humm…nobody is going to attack Iran?

The bottom line is this. If Iran proceeded with a 'firsty strike" either against israel or US troops, they would be history. In fact, I'll bet money on this being a desired action by US forces. It's all the excuse they need to make quick waste of Iran. Even if Iran nuked Israel, do you not think Israel would still be able to release all it's hell on Iran?

First strike isn't always the best position to be in, especially when you know that somewhere in the gulf there is a nuclear submarine with 24 nuclear missles, each with about 12-24 warheads. That is enough fire power to make Iran an extention of the Arabian sea.

Bring it on, Iran.

rdelephant,

I'm having trouble hearing you over all the people killed by your definition of "sovereignty" Can you speak up?

///So now you have changed the subject again, conceding this time (apparently) that we really do need to recognize the sovereignty of non-democratic nations.///

Sigh...no rdelephant, this is what I've been saying all along; you just chose to pretend otherwise. Here's a little reminder:

. I don’t want to “unrecognize” them, rdelephant, I want to recognize them; but for what they are, not for what I would like to pretend they are.

///I am really not clear on what you are advocating or talking about///

That much is evident, rdelephant.

///I oppose such an attack because I do not think such an attack satisfies the criteria of self-defense (or defense of others) that is necessary to morally justify a war in my mind///

Fine. At last. You're a smart guy, rdelephant, clearly well educated. I knew you would eventually say something rational. This is a perfectly legitimate reason to oppose a war. And it is this which should be being debated, not whether (and this isn't a shot at you) "Bush lied" etc, which I might add, has been roundly disproven. Unfortunately, the more important debate of what constitutes acting in self defense was lost. And for both of you: Bush's preemption policy is hardly new, while perhaps more awkwardly wielded in some respects. Clinton used it, Teddy Roosevelt, Jefferson marched the US Navy up the steps of Tripoli, FDR believed in it. President Jackson "preemptively" attacked Spanish Florida because they were involved in fomenting unrest in the surrounding areas. And the US isn't the only country that has engaged in this either. Remember France's little escapade into the Ivory Coast to do God knows what? See if you can find the latest issue of "Foreign Policy" online or at your library. It has an excellent article on this very subject. While we don't agree on this, or really anything at all, rdelephant, those at least are the issues that should be debated.

///And don’t be so sure that the mullahs and/or Kim Jong Il could not get elected.///

Not the point. These are your words, rdelephant, not mine. When I asked you whether or not they could be elected, you said "probably not". While I would say, "definitely not" in the case of Iran, having lived there, I was simply pointing out the inconsistency.

///Democracy is great but it is not a panacea, as you recognize.///

Of course not, Which is why I used the example of the Weimar Republic, but Vino below us gave a great example of what I'm saying.

///Sovereignty…is an empty word. You can admit the sovereignty of some country, and immediately afterwards attack it, destroy it and change the rulers for your own convenience.///

But by the same token, Vino and Rdelephant, you can also say you are "sovereign", seize power by force, oppress and murder your people, threaten your neighbors, pursue weapons programs you don't need when you have a history of state sponsored terrorism, violate every treaty you've ever signed and then hide behind your "sovereignty" when your neighbors begin to feel threatened and feel that to keep the global sphere stable, something needs to be done about you; and in addition, expect to receive the same rights and privileges in the world community as other countries that do not engage in these activities. The fact is that democracies are far less likely to have wars with democracies.

and for Vino:

///Nobody is going to launch a nuclear strike against Israel, because the western countries would erase the aggressor from the World map///

Unfortunately, Vino (and rd), this argument relies on the rationality of an Islamic fundamentalist. Are you so willing to concede that? This is indirectly what led us to 9/11. Change "launch a nuclear strike" and "Israel" to "fly a plane into the Pentagon" and "America" and insert any consequence you like and you'll see what I mean. 5 years ago, someone just like you, Vino, probably would have relied on fundamentalists rationality to justify why they never would fly a plane into a building or a civilian target. We can see where that has gotten us. Allowing Iran to become a nuclear power will get us much the same thing. No one wants a war with Iran, North Korea, etc. But if we make the mistake of continuing to believe that they can be dealt with rationally in all circumstances, we deny lessons we have been taught repeatedly throughout history.

I don't like to leave things unfinished, so I will finish this thread, but the Lacrimosa has been sung. :)

jm

There really is a consensus I think about this "self-defense, defense of others" criteria for war. Ninety per cent of the pitched battles which we have waged over these conflicts is disagreement about how aggressively to view those agreed upon principles.

I don't disagree that preemption has its place. I was just never sold on the recent Iraq war as meeting the criterion and I feel the same about Iran (though I have to admit that both have their temptations).

Democracy is, of course, to be encouraged, I just think that international law needs to be respected (even as to non-democracies), except in those rare cases where self-defense or defense of others justifies war.

You can have the last word. Happy trails, Johnny Mozart.

Johnnymozart,

Saddam, or Mohammad Jatami have nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden and his buddys. Ironically, talking about Saddam, he was brutal with the Islamic radical militants. You talk about threaten, and aggressions…Saddam, just invaded Kwait, and we all know the results. And apart from that, Iran attacked Iraq and Iraq attacked Iran (with USA and Europe selling weapons to both sides). The famous episode of the 5000 Kurdish killed by Saddam, has been demonstrated to be an accident. Saddam, launched a chemical attack against the Iran troops, but the wind blew in the wrong way this day. Of course, Saddam didn’t cry for the innocents killed, but it is what in the western jargon we call “collateral damages”. So Iran is dangerous for Iraq and Iraq was dangerous for Iran. Thus, the best solution in order to protect both countries is to destroy two both?

A government (it doesn’t matter if it is a dictatorship regime, a theocratic regime or a western democracy) never will launch a nuclear strike against another country, saving a desperate action of self defense, because it would be a suicide. Every government is a very complex structure. One person cannot decide whether a nuclear missile will be launched or not, and at the end, the cooperation of many different persons is necessary to carry on a massive attack.

A terrorist group, like AlQaeda, is formed by independent and autonomous cells, which can decide in a second what to do, without asking premise to anybody.
Of course Osama would launch the nuclear stuff if he had nuclear weapons. But he has not MDW because any government have given the weapons to Osama. And any government will do it. Of course, the western Intelligence Services must control this.
All we know that the preemptive attack which Iran is talking about, is pure rhetoric. Iran has not military power to launch a preemptive attack against USA. But they are terrified right now, because there is a real possibility of being invaded. The Iran sovereignty is going to be brutally violated.

“someone just like you, Vino, probably would have relied on fundamentalists rationality to justify why they never would fly a plane into a building or a civilian target” I remember perfectly the 9/11. I was lunching when suddenly the image in the TV informative went interrupted and I saw how a plane crashed against the WTC. My first thought was about an Islamic terrorist attack. Some time after, I saw the Pentagon burning and the towers collapsing down and the people jumping, and I wondered how was it possible. How USA had failed in such a way to protect the American citizens. But, being sincerer, for me the really strange thing was that it had not happened many years before. Because all this is a consequence of the American autism, Johnny. Look this funny history:

During the Arabic-Israeli summit in Madrid, October 1991, the Intelligence Services discovered an attempt to crash a commercial aircraft against the “Palacio de Oriente”, and to crash another one against the hotel in which the Israelis, and also the Arabic authorities was accommodated. President Bush (the father) and Mijail Gorbachov also was there. The vigilance was extreme, and immediately augmented. Fighter aircrafts patrolled Madrid and the Spanish airspace, and finally the terrorists didn’t acted. It is believed that the Spanish Intelligence Service received the information from the Sudan IS, ie, another “evil and terrorist” government.

http://www.aerovia.com/Noticias/noticia.asp?IdNoticia=810 (sorry, the link is in Spanish)

Why George Bush didn’t think in such a possibility? Why he ignored what was happened in Spain 10 years before? Why the Bush government was not able to save the life of this 3000 innocents?

All this things just happen in a third world countries, or in a second world, or in Europe with the Irish and Basques “separatists”. You live there, 10.000 miles away from everywhere, and we live in Spain, for instance, 10 miles away from Morocco. Every invasion, every brutal act will inevitably have consequences. Therefore, the violence must be restricted only to extreme cases. The invasion of Iran is NOT necessary. Iran is NOT dangerous for us, or at least, is not so dangerous. On the other hand, the invasion of Iran will put into the game 10000 more terrorists ready to kill us. It is pretty obvious, and I don’t know why many Americans are not able to understand such a simple concept.

It's like self-satire, or something.

Iran sends, funds, aids, and trains terrorists to kill people, including Americans, and has for nearly as long as I have been alive.

And VinoTinto says we shouldn't take the war to them, because that will make them ANGRY and want to kill us DEADER.

And then finishes with, "Americans are not able to understand this simple concept".

Why don't you listen to what they are telling you, VinoTinto? They don't want anything from you. They want you dead or Muslim. I don't know this through my telepathic powers. I know this because they shout it at me, and at you, day in and and day out, in Friday sermons, on web pages. Difference between you and me is, I have enough respect for them, as people with their own moral convictions and their own free will, just as I have, that when they say they want me dead I don't dismiss it as rhetoric or hyperbole and say "they must really want this other thing" but I accept it as a simple statement of their intentions; just as it is the truth when I say I don't want to be killed.

I don't know how many Spainiards Iran has killed. But Iran and its surrogates have killed Americans, no matter that we are 10,000 miles away.

And we will not tolerate it, nor will we feed Israel to them in the hopes that they will leave us alone. (See also Czechoslovakia and Neville Chamberlain.)

But, since Spain will take no part in any strike on Iran, Spain will be safe, will it not? After all, they are so reasonable and humane, the terrorists and their friends in Iran, they wouldn't kill anyone who didn't harm them, such as, to pick a people at random, Balinese Hindus.

As far as I know, the Saudis are the only ones who have killed Americans in USA (apart from a couple of yokels from Tunice and some other little countries). The Americans killed by Iran, if some American was actually killed by Iran, have been killed in Iran (0 miles away from Iran) or nowhere. I don’t know how many Iranians have killed USA, but Spain have not killed a single Iranian. And the Iranians have not killed Spaniards, so OF COURSE WE WILL TAKE NO PART IN A STRIKE AGAISNT IRAN.

Yes, not for Spain, but Iran is obviously a great danger for USA. It would be stupid to close the American eyes to the greatest menace since the Communism have collapsed down:

Iran
GDP: purchasing power parity - $477.8 billion
Military expenditures -$4.3 billion

USA
GDP: purchasing power parity - $10.98 trillion
Military expenditures $399 billion (almost 100 times more!! Wow)


“we shouldn’t take the war to them, because that will make them ANGRY and want to kill us DEADER” ---If somebody invaded my country with such a fool excuse, I will get a gun myself to kill invaders. The difference between you and me, is that I don’t like doing the people what I would not like the people doing to me. But for you the Iranians are different culture, you know, crazy and dark bastards, the children in the school, the farmer, the woman washing the clothes in the river, the taxi driver, the old man, ie, all this future “collateral damages” want to kill you right now.

“Spain will be safe, will it not?” --NOT ANYMORE while USA and its European buddies keep kicking third world countries like a crazy horse while the REAL terrorist are laughing out loud in Arabia Saudi.

So, go straight forward to waste Iran to avoid undesirable surprises. You have my blessing.

--The difference between you and me, is that I don’t like doing the people what I would not like the people doing to me.

An excerpt from an article in the Scotsman...

The outcrop, controlled by Spain since the 17th century, is a half mile wide and just a few hundred yards from the coast. It is three miles from Ceuta, one of two Spanish enclaves on Morocco’s northern coast.

Spain also controls three other rocky islands in the area. Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s deputy prime minister, said security had been stepped up at Spain’s possessions in the zone after Moroccan forces were seen near other islands.

In a note to the Moroccan Embassy in Madrid, Spain called for an end to the Perejil occupation and adherence to a 1991 friendship agreement.

"We have heard nothing back and the soldiers are still there," a foreign ministry spokesman told The Scotsman.

Mr Rajoy said the occupation was "a hostile act" and warned Morocco to take into account that it was the biggest recipient of Spanish foreign aid and a major trading partner.

Aren't those islands just off the coast of Morocco. What the heck is Spain doing there? Oh, a treaty was signed back after some war.

I remember SecS Powell whining about getting calls from the parties in question to "do something". Wonder what will happen when certain folks ask for the Alhambra back. Yes, I know, they won't be Persian.

--But for you the Iranians are different culture, you know, crazy and dark bastards, the children in the school, the farmer, the woman washing the clothes in the river, the taxi driver, the old man, ie, all this future “collateral damages” want to kill you right now.

That statement is just despicable.

Rkh, your post is not very clear to me…what do you mean?

Must Spain give its territory to Morocco?

Are you comparing the supposed American-European attack against Iran (20,000 miles away from USA) with Spain defending its territory (“a half mile wide and just a few hundred yards from the Morocco coast”, and 10 miles from Spanish coast) against Morocco invasions? Did I read correctly?

Are you trying to compare a future invasion which will take the life of dozen of thousand innocents, with the Spanish elite troops retaking Perejil Island without killing a single Morocco soldier?

Are you comparing Spain defending itself against a direct aggression, with USA and the European buddies invading and wasting a third world country 20.000 miles away?

I guess no.

“I remember SecS Powell whining about bla bla bla….” The only thing that Powell avoided was thousands of Morocco (a great ally of USA, since the Western Sahara coast has petrol) soldiers dying without remission in an absurd war, and we the Spaniards involved in an absurd war against Morocco, and having to pay the following invasion, because this Mohammad VI is a proud yokel who leads his people to a AGRESSION war that they can not win in any way. Thanks SecS Powell for avoiding Spain killing unfortunate bastards living under a dictatorship regime. But you Mr. Powell, should do something to avoid USA killing unfortunate bastards, who live under a dictatorial regime. Do the same thing for your country.


“That statement is just despicable” ---- more despicable is the ideology and the paranoia which made real this despicable statement.

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