Pre-Emptive First Strike Logic...

Byrnzie

EdsonNascimento wrote:

Actually quite the opposite. Yosi is pushing for peace, you are pushing for inevitable war. Think about it.

I'm sure George Orwell would understand you.

yosi

B, I'm suggesting that when it comes to the use of its nuclear arsenal, yes, Israel is a responsible country. As for who is doing the sabre rattling, I understand your perspective, but I also think that I've made my perspective perfectly clear. Given Iran's history of sponsoring terrorism targeting Israel and the anti-semitic and frankly (at least to an Israeli ear) genocidal rhetoric of its leaders, I understand why Israel feels that an Iranian nuclear weapon is an existential threat. All Iran has to do to stop the momentum towards an armed conflict (and who really knows if that is a certainty?) is to stop building nuclear weapons (to borrow a phrase from your playbook) in accord with the will of virtually the entire international community.

brandon10

yosi wrote:

Are you kidding me!!! I highlighted the relevant sections for you! Here, I'll post it again:

With Iranian guidance, the Lebanese Hizballah dramatically captured America's attention with devastating suicide attacks on the U.S. embassy in Beirut in April 1983, where 63 people died, including 17 Americans, and on the U.S. Marine Barracks in October 1983, where 241 U.S. Marines were killed (a simultaneous attack killed 58 French peacekeepers). These attacks, and the sense that the peacekeepers had little peace to keep, led President Reagan to withdraw U.S. troops in February 1984. Hizballah also took numerous Westerners hostage in the 1980s, executing several of them. Hizballah, often working through suborganizations with different names, took 17 Americans, 15 Frenchmen, 14 Britons, 7 Swiss, and 7 West Germans hostage, as well as 27 others hostage during the 1980s. 10 In March 1992, Hizballah and Iran worked together to bomb the Israeli embassy in Argentina, killing 29 and in July 1994 attacked the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, killing 86. Hizballah also aided other groups that shared its agenda. Iran also directed the attack on the U.S. military facility of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, killing 17 American troops. 11 In addition to its support for Hizballah, Iran has also supported a wide array of other groups that have attacked Israel. In each of these instances, Tehran was able to compensate for its military inferiority by relying on terrorism.
Terrorism also offered Iran some degree of deniability in this effort. By working through proxies, Iran was able to achieve its own interests against the United States, Israel, or states supporting Iraq without paying the consequences that more direct involvement might entail...Of the many terrorist groups that Iran has sponsored, none is more important to Tehran than the Lebanese Hizballah. 13 Their close relationship is perhaps the strongest and most effective relationship between a state sponsor and a terrorist group in history. Iran helped found, organize, and train Hizballah, eventually creating a strong and relatively independent terrorist group. In exchange, Hizballah has served Iran loyally, striking Iran's various foreign enemies, helping assassinate Iranian dissidents, and otherwise advancing the interests of the Islamic Republic.
Iran, as noted earlier, helped build the movement from the ground up and to this day plays a major role in sustaining it and its day-to-day operations. Iranian sponsorship of Hizballah is a major reason why Iran consistently tops the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Although exact figures are difficult to verify, Tehran provides perhaps $100 million per year to Hizballah—a figure that may have increased after the summer 2006 Israel–Hizballah war. In addition, Iranian forces train the movement and provide it with intelligence. Moreover, Hizballah operatives enjoy close ties to Iranian intelligence and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is linked directly to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Hizballah's senior terrorist, Imad Mugniyieh, reportedly enjoys Iranian citizenship and regularly travels there. Hizballah's leadership proclaims its loyalty to Khamenei, and he reportedly serves as an arbiter for group decisions. Iran is particularly influential with regard to Hizballah activities overseas.

1.Show me anything in this article that implicates the revolutionary guard. Nothing in this article does anything to back up your lies in this thread. You flat out said that the revolutionary guard was involved in terrorist bombings. I'm still yet to see anything from you to back that up. There is certainly nothing in this article.

2.Nothing in this article has anything to do with anything recent. Look at all the dates within the article, 1983, 1984, 1996, 2006. This thread is about pre-emptive strikes against Iran NOW. If you want me to take you seriously then you need to come up with something recent.

3. You haven't provided a source for the article. Was it written by an American, Israeli, or maybe a European? Not that I really care that much because the article fails to deal with anything current. I mean we all know that Iran has been giving money to Palestinian organizations for a long time. But only an Israeli or a right wing warhawk would try and stretch that into a reason for pre-emptive strikes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYBA9JD5oW4

Colin Powell has a lot more credibility than you and laid out much more evidence, albeit easy to be seen as manipulated. I didn't believe this speech that pushed for the invasion of Iraq. I turned out to be right. And you expect me to believe the crap you've been slinging in this thread?? :roll:


Now please, try and come up with something credible to back up your bullshit or just admit that you are regurgitating talking points from rightwing media with an agenda. If you bring up your stupid 5 year old article again I will just assume you are brain dead.

EdsonNascimento

Byrnzie wrote:

EdsonNascimento wrote:

Actually quite the opposite. Yosi is pushing for peace, you are pushing for inevitable war. Think about it.

I'm sure George Orwell would understand you.

True.

Clearly not a perfect solution. But, then again, I live in the real world. I guess here's how I would put my argument:

1) If the US and Israel laid down its arms, gave Palestine the land, and ceased having nuclear weapons (or the ability to re-build them EVER) and armies (or anything of the like) would you feel safer?

2) If Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq were forced to lay down their arms and ceased having nuclear weapons (or the ability to build them EVER) and armies (or anything of the like) would you feel safer?


Both are perfectly discrete questions. So, in the first, Iran, etc. would be able to do whatever it wanted. In the second, Israel and the US would be able to do whatever it wanted.

Drowned Out

brandon10 wrote:

3. You haven't provided a source for the article. Was it written by an American, Israeli, or maybe a European? Not that I really care that much because the article fails to deal with anything current. I mean we all know that Iran has been giving money to Palestinian organizations for a long time. But only an Israeli or a right wing warhawk would try and stretch that into a reason for pre-emptive strikes.

http://www.nti.org/media/pdfs/126_1.pdf?_=1318513643

NTI - Nuclear Threat Initiative
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Threat_Initiative
The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) serves as the Secretariat for the Nuclear Security Project, in cooperation with the Hoover Institution. Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and former Senator Sam Nunn have joined together to form the Nuclear Security Project—an effort to galvanize global action to reduce urgent nuclear dangers and build support for reducing reliance on nuclear weapons, ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.

Author:
Dr. Daniel Byman
Director, Center for Peace and Security Studies, Georgetown University
Senior Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution

Brookings Institution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookings_Institution
Funders:
At the end of 2004 the Brookings Institution had assets of $258 million and spent $39.7 million, while its budget has grown to more than $80 million in 2009.[55] Its largest contributors include the Ford Foundation, the Gates Foundation, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her husband Richard C. Blum, Bank of America, ExxonMobil, Pew Charitable Trusts, the MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation; and the governments of the United States, Japan, Qatar, Taipei, the District of Columbia, and the United Kingdom.

mikepegg44

bennett13 wrote:

Oh wow....really???
Iranian government officials have been saying for YEARS that Israel doesn't have a right to exist, should be wiped off the map, etc....even going so far as holocaust denial.
These are religious fanatics...they don't issue ultimatums...they just strike...and strike hard with the intention of killing as many people as possible. Wake up, dude!

Don't these things seem to contradict each other? what kind of ultimatums are you talking about? Saying a country should be wiped off the map (which isn't exactly true) seems like talking before an attack. So either they talk or they don't...am I misinterpreting?

There is plenty of logic in a pre-emptive strike...but making a logical argument doesn't give you immunity from being wrong.

I always find it somewhat saddening that as people argue the merits of israeli/iranian histories and conflicts...they lose the forest for the trees...This is like the chicken blaming the egg for its existence...you couldn't have one without the other...They both are guilty of many things...Claiming Israeli innocence or justifying their behavior in all cases, when they themselves have been involved in false flag operations against the US, is kind of silly.

Both sides have been, are now, and will be wrong about the other on most cases.
There is no Iranian innocence in everything that has happened...Israeli either.

It is like splitting up a pair of dopes that are fighting...and when asked why they are fighting they both give you the same reason..."he started it"

I say the US should pull back and let these two handle it themselves...Foreign and strategic alliances are can be dangerous to a nation's sovereignty...