with the incoming US/Iran war

[Ddavid]

Where should EU position itself, and do ?

Should it support on side, or not ? Should it stay neutral ? should it veto any UNSC resolution ?

[XShipRider]

Where should EU position itself, and do ?

Should it support on side, or not ? Should it stay neutral ? should it veto any UNSC resolution ?

I hope not. It might unite currently unfriendly or warring factions/sects
against us. Admittedly, I don't understand the Middle Eastern mentality
very well.

The enemy of my enemy comes to mind.

[Vorian]

Where should EU position itself, and do ?

Should it support on side, or not ? Should it stay neutral ? should it veto any UNSC resolution ?

The EU won't have a position since the new countries from the Eastern block and England support the Americans while the Germany-France alliance doesn't.

[hist2004]

Where should EU position itself, and do ?

Should it support on side, or not ? Should it stay neutral ? should it veto any UNSC resolution ?

Europe is in a different position than the United States because they have millions
of unassimilated Muslims that have migrated to their various countries. The UN
Security Council is the first way to go although Russia & China would likely veto
any sanctions. What would a Iranian dominated Middle East mean to Europe is really
the question. A nuclear armed and belligerent Iran (with Hezbollah and the Shiite in
Iraq) could cause European countries increased instability with their respective Muslim
immigrants. Diplomacy should be pushed for as long and as far as it can before any
“imminent action”.

Hist2004

[Ddavid]

The EU won't have a position since the new countries from the Eastern block and England support the Americans while the Germany-France alliance doesn't.

That's the reason why a debate is required before this war start, otherwise a split will happen just like before


Europe is in a different position than the United States because they have millions of unassimilated Muslims that have migrated to their various countries. The UN Security Council is the first way to go although Russia & China would likely veto any sanctions. What would a Iranian dominated Middle East mean to Europe is really the question. A nuclear armed and belligerent Iran (with Hezbollah and the Shiite in Iraq) could cause European countries increased instability with their respective Muslim immigrants. Diplomacy should be pushed for as long and as far as it can before any “imminent action”.

Hist2004

Most europeans muslims are not shiia but sunni, and an war on Iran is as likely to provoke instability among immigrants, today or in a possible future.
China & Russia didn't veto the last invasion, will they do it this time ?

Would a nuclear armed iran be more belligerant ? Martin van creveld would disagree with that.

[c62]

Where should EU position itself, and do ?

Should it support on side, or not ? Should it stay neutral ? should it veto any UNSC resolution ?
Europe(with a few exceptions) will most likely stay neutral, thus encourageing Iran's beligerant behaivor. It will then be protrayed as American "unilateralism", "cowboy diplomacy", or "another of George Bush's evil imperialistic wars". Either way, the US will be stuck doing the dirty work, and then get critized for it. As far as any vetoing, Russia and/or China will do that for the EU.

[Atlantic Friend]

Where should EU position itself, and do ?

The EU being an association of sovereign nations, I'm afraid the big question is what said sovereign nations will do. As for the EU, it will issue an official communique that will have next to no effect.

[Laworkerbee]

There will be no Iran\US war

simple

[annihilation]

There will be no war between the US and Iran. The US public has no will to fight Iran. The Administration has no credibility with the american public nor with the international community. As much as people say its not true, our troops are spread to thin to continue to control 2 countries and invade a thrid alone. Iran and their lucrative contracts have Russia and China in their pocket. By the time the UN acts with any actions, Iran will have their nukes.

I have to applaud the Iranians, well done. They are going to get the nukes and really their is no one that can or willing to do anything to stop them.

[PeterG]

There will be no war between the US and Iran. The US public has no will to fight Iran. The Administration has no credibility with the american public nor with the international community. As much as people say its not true, our troops are spread to thin to continue to control 2 countries and invade a thrid alone. Iran and their lucrative contracts have Russia and China in their pocket. By the time the UN acts with any actions, Iran will have their nukes.

I have to applaud the Iranians, well done. They are going to get the nukes and really their is no one that can or willing to do anything to stop them.

I think you are correct - unfortunately.. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I can't see how a war with Iran could end in anything but disaster. Militarily, politically, and economically. The superiority of the US military is not relevant. At some point, the iranians must to their relief have realized that the invasion of Iraq had cost the US so much politically, that they were now safe. The option of going to war with Iran is no longer possible. The same goes for North Korea.

[Laworkerbee]

I think you are correct - unfortunately.. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I can't see how a war with Iran could end in anything but disaster. Militarily, politically, and economically. The superiority of the US military is not relevant. At some point, the iranians must to their relief have realized that the invasion of Iraq had cost the US so much politically, that they were now safe. The option of going to war with Iran is no longer possible. The same goes for North Korea.

yep pretty much, however one must not rule out the US being forced to act. Iranian or North Korean aggression will in my opinion be countered regardless of the political price, the United States still has plenty of military power left to expend should the need arrise.

[ElHombre]

yep pretty much, however one must not rule out the US being forced to act. Iranian or North Korean aggression will in my opinion be countered regardless of the political price, the United States still has plenty of military power left to expend should the need arrise.

that's the key, though. iran and NK don't have to initiate any agressive moves. the US can attack iran only at the cost of a major uprising in iraq. the costs are not ones the US can afford to take and invading iraq is the reason for it. the question on everyone's mind is whether the cheney faction in the admin will persuade bush that Something Has To Be Done Now.

that's the scariest part of this whole thing: the fools who got us into this mess want us to go double or nothing.

[MEGR]

There's not going to be a war. Nobody has the balls to stand up to them. Currently, not the EU, Israel, US, nobody. Could we? I'm sure we can have a limited war with them, but that's it.

I'll gladly eat my words if the above turns out to be false.

[Ea$y-8]

I am not to sure as to who in EU will go but I can give a list of countries that without doubt will not:

1. France
2. Germany
3. Denmark
4. Netherlands
5. Beligum
6. Austria
7. Sweden

[pistol]

Pretty soon Iran will have nukes and the question will be moot..

[Ea$y-8]

Pretty soon Iran will have nukes and the question will be moot..

Then the question will be "why is all of Jerusalem up in flames?"

[annihilation]

Then the question will be "why is all of Jerusalem up in flames?"

Then the question will be is why does Iran glow in the dark?



Seriously the US couldn't push for a war even if Iran acting all threatening. They don't have the muster to do it (politically or militarily) without severally changing the rules of engagement.

[BritGrunt]

There will be no Iran\US war

simple Well that is reassuring:) Nobody told me there was going to be a Iran/US war, maybe wishful thinking?

[Laworkerbee]

Well that is reassuring:) Nobody told me there was going to be a Iran/US war, maybe wishful thinking?

Perhaps p-)

[Ddavid]

There will be no Iran\US war

simple

On a purely rational level, a war seems unlikely, but consider those recent events :

- Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives released a document suggesting Iran might produce a nuclear bomb sooner than expected (this to keep pressure on DIA and CIA)
- the most likely republican candidate to 2008 elections, John Murth, said a "here’s only one thing worse than military action and that’s a nuclear-armed Iran". Potus hinted than "all options were on table".
- US public is subjected to propaganda pushing for confrontation, a position reflected by half of MP.net.
- Iran publish multiple contradictories news on his nuclear program
- all sides are headed by hardliner unlikely to accept compromises

In other words, this conflict is unecessary, but unavoidable. Just like US/Iraq was.

[Laworkerbee]

but unavoidable. Just like US/Iraq was.

All in all good points but I dare to disagree and say that the Iraq war was problably one of the most avoidable wars of our time.

[Durandal]

Where should EU position itself, and do ?

Should it support on side, or not ? Should it stay neutral ? should it veto any UNSC resolution ?

What war? Last time I checked the U.S. was spread so thin that a stiff breeze would stress our budget.

[getl0st]

Strategically, the US is well positioned to have a go at Iran with troops already in Iraq and Afganistan and Iran in the middle.

But logistically, Afghanistan is land locked and trying to resupply troops in Iraq from with a hostile Iran north of the Persian Gulf could be quite challenging.

US troops could have some serious problems if Iran decided to attack US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and with the local populations of Iraq and Afghanistan already being some what hostile to the United States presence.

It's in Irans best interests to keep the whole region destabilized which is what they are doing quite successfully.

What is interesting is when the oil runs out or we develop some alternative energy sources the whole region will become irrelevant.

[Belrick]

The EU won't have a position since the new countries from the Eastern block and England support the Americans while the Germany-France alliance doesn't.

When Spain refused to help Germany in WW2 was it because they were anti-German bigots or was it because they were anti- the whole rape and pillage other countries on trumped up proganda bs sort of thing?

If you were more honest you would cast your mind beyond 2003, back to september 11 2001 and see how much support America actually had within France and Germany.

If you were to be totally honest you would ask yourself how much blame for the loss of support is actually the fault of the US and there Bush administration.

But that would be expecting too much wouldn't it?

[Ddavid]

It's in Irans best interests to keep the whole region destabilized which is what they are doing quite successfully.

?? destabilizing the whole region, Iran ??

[Devil68]

it's all about the dollars... sooner or later they will get their boomb..
Why not blast them first;)

[a_very_ex_STAB]

All in all good points but I dare to disagree and say that the Iraq war was problably one of the most avoidable wars of our time.

x2 totally avoidable, completely unnecessary, a pointless diversion from rebuilding post-Taliban Afghanistan.

[Durandal]

x2 totally avoidable, completely unnecessary, a pointless diversion from rebuilding post-Taliban Afghanistan.

All too true. Rebuilding Afghanistan was/is necessary and our moral responsibility.

I look back at everything and it simply amazes me, both in my support of the initial invasion and the way the government could have waited longer or simply not gone in at all and had a more stable region.

Maybe I had more faith in my government's ability to ask the smart questions about a task like this and do it right.

[Ea$y-8]

x2 totally avoidable, completely unnecessary, a pointless diversion from rebuilding post-Taliban Afghanistan.

And it is clearly working extermely well. You don't hear anymore news coming from A-stan expect the reports of KIA's. This is because almost all the news coming for A-stan is good news.

[Durandal]

And it is clearly working extermely well. You don't hear anymore news coming from A-stan expect the reports of KIA's. This is because almost all the news coming for A-stan is good news.

rofl rofl

Do a simple Google Search "Afghanistan" and check the news...

With that said...


Why it's not working in Afghanistan
By Ann Jones

Remember when peaceful, democratic, reconstructed Afghanistan was advertised as the exemplar for the extreme makeover of Iraq? In August 2002, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was already proclaiming the new Afghanistan "a breathtaking accomplishment" and "a successful model of what could happen to Iraq". As everybody now knows, the model isn't working in Iraq. So we shouldn't be surprised to learn that it's not working in Afghanistan either.

The story of success in Afghanistan was always more fairy tale




than fact - one scam used to sell another. Now, as the administration of US President George W Bush hands off "peacekeeping" to NATO forces, Afghanistan is the scene of the largest military operation in the history of that organization. Personal e-mail brings word from an American surgeon in Kabul that her emergency medical team can't handle half the wounded civilians brought in from embattled provinces to the south and east. American, British and Canadian troops find themselves at war with Taliban fighters - which is to say "Afghans" - while stunned North Atlantic Treaty Organization commanders, who hadn't bargained for significant combat, are already asking what went wrong.

The answer is a threefold failure: no peace, no democracy, and no reconstruction.

Doing things backward
Critics of US Afghan policy agree that the Bush administration, in its haste to take out Saddam Hussein's Iraq, did things backward. After bombing the Taliban into the boondocks in 2001, it set up a government without first making peace - a scenario later to be repeated in Iraq.

Instead of pressing for peace negotiations among rival Afghan parties, the victorious Americans handed power to Islamists and militia commanders who had served as America's stand-in soldiers in its Afghan proxy war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Then the Bush administration staged elections for these candidates and touted the result as democracy. It also confined an International Security Assistance Force, made up largely of European troops, to the capital, creating an island of safety for the government, while dispatching warlords of its choice to hunt for Osama bin Laden in the countryside.

In the east and south - that is, about half the country - the Taliban never stopped fighting. Now, augmented by imported al-Qaeda fighters ("Arab-Afghans") and new tactics learned from the insurgency in Iraq (roadside bombs, suicide bombing), Taliban forces are stronger than at any time since the United States "conquered" them in 2001. According to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, most Afghans have long favored a process of amnesty and reconciliation; and President Hamid Karzai recently called on the Bush administration to change course and stop killing Afghans. But US administration policy, recently reaffirmed in Kabul by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, calls for a fight to the last Talib.

Predictably, Afghan public opinion has been turning steadily against the largely powerless central government, guarded in the capital by foreign forces. The insecurity endured by most Afghans - the absence of peace - is enough to make them give up hope in President Karzai, often jeeringly referred to as the "mayor of Kabul" or "assistant to the American ambassador".

Historically Afghans have selected and followed strong leaders; they expect a leader to deliver security, jobs, special favors - something, anyway. The Karzai government, confined to a self-serving US agenda that is often at odds with Afghan interests, has delivered nothing at all to the average Afghan, still living in abysmal poverty. In 2004, Afghans dutifully voted for Karzai as the instrument of US promises. By 2005, when parliamentary elections were held, voters indicated that they were fed up with the same old candidates - all those militia commanders and Islamist extremists - and the same old hollow promises.

The sad part of the story is this. Despite the Bush administration's sham "peace" and fake "democracy", it might have made - might still make - a success of Afghanistan if only it delivered on that third big promise: to rebuild the bombed-out country. Most Afghans, after the dispersal of the Taliban, were full of hope and ready to work. The tangible benefits of reconstruction - jobs, housing, schools, health-care facilities - could have rallied them to support the government and turn that illusory "democracy" into something like the real thing. But reconstruction didn't happen. When NATO-led forces moved into the southern provinces this summer to keep the peace and continue "development", Lieutenant-General David Richards, British commander of the operation, seemed astonished to find that little or no development had so far taken place.

For that failure the US is to blame. Until this year, the US-led coalition assumed sole charge of "security" operations outside Kabul, but it never put enough troops on the ground to do the job. (Sound familiar?) As a result, aid workers (both international and Afghan) lost their lives, and non-governmental aid organizations (NGOs) withdrew to Kabul or, like Medecins Sans Frontieres, left the country altogether. Private contractors who remained in the field found themselves regularly diverting project funds to "security", so that, as in Iraq, aid money poured into operations that belonged in the military budget.

A recent audit by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) using "an accounting shell game" to hide mammoth cost overruns on projects - as high as 418% - resulting partly from such security problems. There's every reason to believe that an audit of Afghanistan reconstruction by many of the same firms under contract to USAID would reveal similar accounting practices used for the same reason. Without peace there can be no security, and without security no development.

The reconstruction shell game
But there's more to the story than that. To understand the failure - and fraud - of such reconstruction, you have to take a look at the peculiar system of US aid for international development. During the past five years, the US and many other donor nations pledged billions of dollars to Afghanistan, yet Afghans keep asking: "Where did the money go?" American taxpayers should be asking the same question. The official answer is that donor funds are lost to Afghan corruption. But shady Afghans, accustomed to two-bit bribes, are learning how big-bucks corruption really works from the masters of the world.

A fact-packed report issued in June 2005 by Action Aid, a widely respected NGO headquartered in Johannesburg, makes sense of the workings of that world. The report studied development aid given by all countries globally and discovered that only a small part of it - maybe 40% - is real. The rest is "phantom" aid; that is, the money never actually shows up in recipient countries at all.

Some of it doesn't even exist except as an accounting item, as when countries count debt relief or the construction costs for a fancy new embassy in the aid column. A lot of it never leaves home. Paychecks for American "experts" under contract to USAID, for example, go directly from the agency to their US banks without ever passing through the to-be-reconstructed country. Much aid money, the report concludes, is thrown away on "overpriced and ineffective technical assistance", such as those very hot-shot American experts. And a big chunk of it is carefully "tied" to the donor nation, which means that the recipient is obliged to use the donated money to buy products from the donor country, even when - especially when - the same goods are available cheaper at home.

The US easily outstrips other nations at most of these scams, making it second only to France as the world's biggest purveyor of phantom aid. Fully 47% of US development aid is lavished on overpriced technical assistance. By comparison, only 4% of Sweden's aid budget and only 2% of Luxembourg's and Ireland's goes to such assistance. As for tying aid to the purchase of donor-made products, Sweden and Norway don't do it all; neither do Ireland and the United Kingdom. But 70% of US aid is contingent upon the recipient spending it on American stuff, especially US-made armaments. Considering all these practices, Action Aid calculates that 86 cents of every dollar of US aid is phantom aid.

According to targets set years ago by the United Nations and agreed to by almost every country in the world, a rich country should give 0.7% of its national income in annual aid to poor ones. So far, only the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg (with real aid at 0.65% of national income) even come close. At the other end of the scale, the US spends a paltry 0.02% of national income on real aid, which works out to an annual contribution of US$8 from every citizen of "the wealthiest nation in the world". (By comparison, Swedes kick in $193 per person, Norwegians $304, and the citizens of Luxembourg $357.) President Bush boasts of sending billions in aid to Afghanistan, but in fact we could do better by passing a hat.

The Bush administration often deliberately misrepresents its aid program for domestic consumption. Last year, for example, when the president sent his wife to Kabul for a few hours of photo-ops, the New York Times reported that her mission was "to promise long-term commitment from the United States to education for women and children". Speaking in Kabul, Laura Bush pledged that the United States would give an additional $17.7 million to support education in Afghanistan. As it happened, that grant had previously been announced - and it was not for Afghan public education (or women and children) at all, but to establish a brand-new, private, for-profit American University of Afghanistan catering to the Afghan and international elite. (How a private university comes to be supported by public taxpayer dollars and the US Army Corps of Engineers is another peculiarity of Bush aid.)

Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister of Afghanistan and president of Kabul University, complained, "You cannot support private education and ignore public education." But typically, having set up a government in Afghanistan, the US stiffs it, preferring to channel aid money to private American contractors. Increasingly privatized, US aid becomes just one more mechanism for transferring taxpayer dollars to the coffers of select US companies and the pockets of the already rich.

In 2001, Andrew Natsios, then head of USAID, cited foreign aid as "a key foreign-policy instrument" designed to help other countries "become better markets for US exports". To guarantee that mission, the State Department recently took over the formerly semi-autonomous aid agency. And since the aim of American aid is to make the world safe for American business, USAID now cuts in business from the start. It sends out requests for proposals to a short list of the usual suspects and awards contracts to those bidders currently in favor. (Election-time kickbacks influence the list of favorites.)

Sometimes it invites only one contractor to apply, the same efficient procedure that made Halliburton so notorious and profitable in Iraq. In many fields it "pre-selects vendors" by accepting bids every five years or so on an IQC - that's an "Indefinite Quantities Contract". Contractors submit indefinite information about what they might be prepared to do in unspecified areas, should some more definite contract materialize; the winners become designated contractors who are invited to apply when the real thing comes along. USAID generates the real thing in the form of an RFP, a Request for Proposals, issued to the "pre-selected vendors" who then compete (or collaborate) to do - in yet another country - work dreamed up in Washington by theoreticians unencumbered by first-hand knowledge of the hapless "target".

The road to Taliban Land
The criteria by which contractors are selected have little or nothing to do with conditions in the recipient country, and they are not exactly what you would call transparent. Take the case of the Kabul-Kandahar Highway, featured on the USAID website as a proud accomplishment. In five years, it's also the only accomplishment in highway building - which makes it one better than the Bush administration record in building power stations, water systems, sewer systems or dams.

The highway was featured in the Kabul Weekly newspaper in March 2005 under the headline "Millions wasted on second-rate roads". Afghan journalist Mirwais Harooni reported that even though other international companies had been ready to rebuild the highway for $250,000 per kilometer, the US-based Louis Berger Group got the job at $700,000 per kilometer - of which there are 389. Why? The standard American answer is that Americans do better work - though not Berger, which at the time was already years behind on another $665 million contract to build Afghan schools. Berger subcontracted to Turkish and Indian companies to build the narrow, two-lane, shoulderless highway at a final cost of about $620,000 per kilometer; and anyone who travels it today can see that it is already falling apart.

Former Minister of Planning Ramazan Bashardost complained that when it came to building roads, the Taliban had done a better job; and he too asked, "Where did the money go?" Now, in a move certain to tank President Karzai's approval ratings and further endanger US and NATO troops in the area, the Bush administration has pressured his government to turn this "gift of the people of the United States" into a toll road, charging each driver $20 for a road-use permit valid for one month. In this way, according to American experts providing highly paid technical assistance, Afghanistan can collect $30 million annually from its impoverished citizens and thereby decrease the foreign-aid "burden" on the United States.

Is it any wonder that foreign aid seems to ordinary Afghans to be something only foreigners enjoy? At one end of the infamous highway, in Kabul, Afghans complain about the fancy restaurants where those experts, technicians and other foreigners gather, men and women together, to drink alcohol, carry on, and plunge half-naked into swimming pools. They object to the brothels - 80 of them by 2005 - that house women trafficked in to serve the "needs" of foreign men. They complain that half the capital city still lies in ruins, that many people still live in tents, that thousands can't find jobs, that children go hungry, that schools and hospitals are overcrowded, that women in tattered burqas still beg in the streets and turn to prostitution, that children are kidnapped and sold into slavery or murdered for their kidneys or eyes. They wonder where the promised aid money went and what the puppet government can possibly do to make things better.

At the other end of the highway, in Kandahar city - President Karzai's home town - and in the southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Uruzgan, Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah is reported to have more than 12,000 men under arms and squads of suicide bombers at the ready. They ambush newly arrived NATO troops. The embattled British commander, Lieutenant-General Richards, recently issued a warning: "We need to realize that we could actually fail here."

The US attacks the Taliban, as it did in 2001, with air power. (The Times of London reports that in May alone, US planes flew an "astonishing" 750 bombing raids.) Every day brings new reports of NATO and Taliban combat casualties, and of "suspected" Taliban as well as civilians killed, long-range, by US bombs.

In the meantime, the Taliban take control of villages; they murder teachers and blow up schools. US-led drug-eradication teams take control of villages and destroy the poppy crops of poor farmers. Caught as usual in the middle of warring factions, Afghans of the south and east long ago ceased to wonder where the money went. Instead they wonder who the government is. And what ever happened to "peace".

Journalist and photographer Ann Jones spent much of the past four years in Afghanistan working as a human-rights researcher and women's advocate with international humanitarian agencies and teaching English to Kabul high-school English teachers. Her new book is Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan (Metropolitan Books, 2006).

(Copyright 2006 Ann Jones.)

[c62]

All too true. Rebuilding Afghanistan was/is necessary and our moral responsibility.
I like how it's our "moral responsibility" to rebuild every third world nation that was taken over by a bunch of crack pots. I don't mind helping them, but it's not our responsibility.

[Shoplifter]

Then the question will be "why is all of Jerusalem up in flames?"


Tel Aviv I assume...

[a_very_ex_STAB]

And it is clearly working extermely well. You don't hear anymore news coming from A-stan expect the reports of KIA's. This is because almost all the news coming for A-stan is good news.

Hmmm
Yeah right. Try to watch less Fox News

[Ea$y-8]

Hmmm
Yeah right. Try to watch less Fox News


I don't, I watch CNN.

[Ea$y-8]

rofl rofl

Do a simple Google Search "Afghanistan" and check the news...



That is what I was talking about news isn't reported unless its bad.

[Turbo]

Then the question will be "why is all of Jerusalem up in flames?"


They would toast Tel aviv

[kraf001]

And it is clearly working extermely well. You don't hear anymore news coming from A-stan expect the reports of KIA's. This is because almost all the news coming for A-stan is good news.
this is a very Childish view of Afghanistan, Afghanistan that you know consist of a small city and lands around it governed by a puppet in shepherd outfit which has no power or control over anything...

rest of Afghanistan is still controlled by warlords and drug lords... they still make their money out of selling opium, they still treat women exact same way they treat they shoe laces, they still buy young boys and girls from poor families for their "pleasure" if you know what I mean... although Iran has helped 250 million over the past 5 years and is the leading country in business investment in Afghanistan we still haven't managed to make the country function to the point of return for Afghan refugees in Iran... just because something is not on the news it doesn't mean it is not happening vise versa just because something is on the news doesn't mean it is true..

[Herrmannek]

I hope USA will hold their horses, and limit it actions to bombing nuclear sites only... I want Iraq job finished first tehn we can go to Iran*...

*I also hope the situation will warm enough to most of the europe to support USA on the Iran...

[Durandal]

I like how it's our "moral responsibility" to rebuild every third world nation that was taken over by a bunch of crack pots. I don't mind helping them, but it's not our responsibility.

You know why its our moral responsibility?

Because we said we ƒucking would help them rebuild. This isn't Iraq where you have three massive population groups hell bent on destroying each other, its a nation that has been the whipping boy of the Brits, Soviets, and a bunch of loony religious types that make David Duke look like Peter Jennings.

We leave and all the BS that we went there to wreck comes back and all we have to show for it is National Geographic magazines showing kids who were playing baseball with cluster munitions.

Now, do we have a moral responsibility to keep our promises or is better to simply pull up stakes and say "well, it was fun, but you are ƒucked."

[Laworkerbee]

You know why its our moral responsibility?

Because we said we ƒucking would help them rebuild. This isn't Iraq where you have three massive population groups hell bent on destroying each other, its a nation that has been the whipping boy of the Brits, Soviets, and a bunch of loony religious types that make David Duke look like Peter Jennings.

We leave and all the BS that we went there to wreck comes back and all we have to show for it is National Geographic magazines showing kids who were playing baseball with cluster munitions.

Now, do we have a moral responsibility to keep our promises or is better to simply pull up stakes and say "well, it was fun, but you are ƒucked."

I agree but to be fair, Afghanistan has ethnic groups ( Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Pashtuns ) who do their fair amount of ethnic killings themselves.

[Durandal]

I agree but to be fair, Afghanistan has ethnic groups ( Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Pashtuns ) who do their fair amount of ethnic killings themselves.

Yeah, but nothing as bad as Iraq...

[Ddavid]

You know why its our moral responsibility?

Because we said we ƒucking would help them rebuild. This isn't Iraq where you have three massive population groups hell bent on destroying each other, its a nation that has been the whipping boy of the Brits, Soviets, and a bunch of loony religious types that make David Duke look like Peter Jennings.

We leave and all the BS that we went there to wreck comes back and all we have to show for it is National Geographic magazines showing kids who were playing baseball with cluster munitions.

Now, do we have a moral responsibility to keep our promises or is better to simply pull up stakes and say "well, it was fun, but you are ƒucked."

On the purely moral level, it was west duty to rebuilt Afghanisthan just when USSR left it, because Zbigniew Brzezinski stated than it "forced" intervention (true or false, this man was in NSC so he must know). Instead, Pakistan and jihadist fill the power vacum.
Of course, states are not moral creatures, but "coldest of all cold monsters". They stay now, because departure would create another base for Al Qaida.

The more things changes, the more they are the same :

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3c/Great_Game_cartoon_from_1878.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a8/Ir****SRBritain.jpg

But we derived from the topic

[annihilation]

On the purely moral level, it was west duty to rebuilt Afghanisthan just when USSR left it,

We have an obligation to rebuild nations? Isn't that what we are trying to do in Iraq, and look what it got us. A lesson in how not to democratize a nation..

[kraf001]

We have an obligation to rebuild nations? Isn't that what we are trying to do in Iraq, and look what it got us. A lesson in how not to democratize a nation..
I think you missed his point there... The fact is that for the purposes of resisting USSR, West gave power to the sects who turned Afghanistan to what it is now... if you actually research into it Afghanistan in early-mid 70s was an open society with an active intellectual population who fled after USSR made its presence... it was up to West to unite and arm the less-civilized Afghans, who lived mostly in desert and in small groups, to fight the soviets and when soviets left, using the power given to them by West these people created Taliban's Afghanistan and not giving it up so easy now!

[PersianPrince]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3c/Great_Game_cartoon_from_1878.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a8/Ir****SRBritain.jpg





http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y245/andishehtoe/PERSIANS.jpg
p-)

[PersianPrince]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3c/Great_Game_cartoon_from_1878.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a8/Ir****SRBritain.jpg



p-)

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y245/andishehtoe/PERSIANS.jpg

[TomEHs]

If iran gets nuclear weapons will saudi arabia try to get some to? its just a question.

[XShipRider]

If iran gets nuclear weapons will saudi arabia try to get some to? its just a question.

I don't think they need them as long as the US is willing to offer
protective services, if you will.

Diego Garcia, Guam, Britain are all within easy flying distance for B2s.
There's also sufficient US naval resources in the region to deter or
assist as necessary.

[Fargin]

War on Terror handed Iran nukes.

While we're losing a drug war in Afghanistan, being a participant in a civil-war in Iraq and spectating Lebanon, Iran gains day for day.

[XShipRider]

War on Terror handed Iran nukes.

While we're losing a drug war in Afghanistan, being a participant in a civil-war in Iraq and spectating Lebanon, Iran gains day for day.

Iran set out on the road to true independence when the Ayatollah
overthrew the Shah. They haven't looked back since. So, in my
opinion, they were handed the keys to the nuke shed way back
when. Meaning they set out on this course shortly after the
overthrow.

This nuke issue didn't suddenly popup out of nowhere. The Ayatollah
had to have been setting up reactor deals quite some time ago to
allow such a rapid advancement in technology in so short a timespan.
By the same token, widely dispersed underground facilities don't
appear overnight. There had to be years upon years of planning
and execution to make this happen.

We are now bearing the fruit of our intelligence failures from Carter,
Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush. But fault doesn't stop there. The
international community has to take some blame for not noticing
this long looming crisis. The reactors and all the peripheral equipment
necessary to upgrade atomic material to weapons grade wasn't
completely a domestic Iranian operation.

I hope we don't go to war with Iran over this program. They will
end up with nukes whether we do or not, it's just a matter of time.
How they handle them post initial implosion is the real worry.