Why is it so hard to believe that a threat from Iran exists when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly publicly stated he wants to destroy Israel and the United States?

I can point fingers at and disrespect left-wing media sources just as easily as left-wingers can point fingers at and disrespect right-wing media sources. There is at least some politically motived spin in all of them.

No. The source “accidentally” leaves out the fact that Pakistan is nuclear capable.

Pakistan was in South Asia, last time I looked. ;)

but regardless.. Pakistan is probably a lot more of a potential threat to Israel and the United States, one would think?

So there we have money coming from al-Qaida, destabilizing a very dangerous country.. while in the US , we have AIPAC lobbying for taking out Iran with both sides of government equally complicit in being bribed to take their eye off the ball...again .

There is a war still being fought in neighboring Afghanistan that needs some serious attention as well
You don't seem to hear much about in the US media.. the media here covers it but only because they are picking a few of us off over there. They look like they could be doing much better if they had a little extra air and ground support to push the Taliban back before the winter sets in, but no, all the efforts are concentrated in Iraq with the focus rapidy switching to Iran.

a very interesting cartoon from the late 1800's

No. Pakistan is considered a middle eastern (Asia) country. The southern line is drawn between Pakistan and India.

http://graphicmaps.com/webimage/countrys/me.htm

Lol, you can see why multi prefers copy and paste to his own knowledge and opinions.

the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: اسلامی جمہوریۂ پاکستان), is a republic in South Asia, marking the region where South Asia converges with Central Asia and the Middle East.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan

When you start hearing about Herat in the news: The shit is about to hit the fan.

I too have the mighty power of copy and paste.

From the link in my previous post:
If you look at the map I posted, you will see that all of Pakistan is north of the most southern area of Saudi Arabia. All of Pakistan is north of the Tropic of Cancer, which forms a good line for comparison.

I really don't think Afghanistan and Pakistan should be lumped in with The Philippines, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka.

NOT recommended: trying to convince everyone in Pakistan that they are a part of India, and convince everyone in India that they are a part of Pakistan.

As the article points out, Egypt is commonly held as part of the middle east even though it’s in the African continent (not western Asia). The point is that in common usage of today, Pakistan is considered a middle eastern country.

Besides, you have to be very careful when you draw east-west bearing lines to separate North from South. Look what happened with the Mason-Dixon line in the U.S.. It was expensive, to the tune of approximately 620,000 dead in the U.S. Civil War.

Good show, ol'chap :AP:
Opinions are like ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_the_Middle_East

Hmmm, why didn't multi just wiki "middle east"? Maybe he did and found it wasn't to his liking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_east

Map of the Middle East today

Musharraf imposes emergency rule
Police and troops have sealed off the city's political and judicial core
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has declared emergency rule and suspended the country's constitution.

Troops have been deployed inside state-run TV and radio stations, while independent channels have gone off air.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who condemned the moves, has been replaced and is being confined to the Supreme Court with 10 other judges.

It comes as the court was due to rule on the legality of Gen Musharraf's re-election victory in October.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7076670.stm



Iran is Bad, Pakistan is Good

• Pakistan has a military dictator who came to power in a coup, Iran has a democratically elected President.
  
• Pakistan has nuclear weapons, Iran may be acquiring the “knowledge” of nuclear, but according to El Baradei (UN’s nuclear inspector) there is no evidence of nuclear bombs.
  
• Pakistan supported the Taliban and currently harbors Bin Laden, Iran was openly hostile to the Taliban. America supports Pakistan and wants to bomb Iran “back to the stone age. WTF?
  
• The leader of Pakistan is the president and the leader of Iran is not.

...More

World Bank suspends payments for earthquake relief, sanitation and other projects
 

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 — The World Bank, newly caught up in the Bush administration’s campaign against Iran, has had to suspend payments for earthquake relief, sanitation and other projects there in response to new American sanctions on leading Iranian banks, World Bank officials say.

Only $5.4 million in payments has been suspended for four projects, involving earthquake relief, water and sanitation, environment management and urban housing, the officials said, and they do not expect the suspensions to be permanent.

But the bank has no plan to resume payments because it is having trouble finding banks in Iran to handle them now that the United States has barred dealing with four of Iran’s largest banks, accusing them of involvement in terrorism, or nuclear or missile programs.

“At this point, the World Bank is looking for alternate ways to support these projects,” said a bank official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It is unknown how difficult that might be. It is not that easy to find alternatives. We have no answer on how or when at this point.”

American officials said they hoped that the decision by the World Bank would increase pressure on Iran, not necessarily by stopping humanitarian projects but by dramatizing the country’s economic isolation in light of its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment and negotiate with the West over its nuclear program.

The World Bank step, while small, illustrates the extraordinary reach of American sanctions, even though they were imposed unilaterally after the United States was stymied in its recent efforts to get the United Nations Security Council to approve wider penalties.

The payments for the World Bank projects have all gone through Bank Melli, one of Iran’s largest banks, but Bank Melli was accused last month by the United States of being involved in nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Also listed were two other institutions, Bank Mellat and Bank Saderat. Bank Saderat had already been listed by United States as being involved in financing terrorism.

Some Congressional critics of the administration’s Iran policies have called on the United States to block World Bank aid programs for Iran altogether. The World Bank has nine active projects in Iran and, by last year, had financed 48 operations worth about $3.4 billion, according to the bank’s Web site.

The effect of the United States’ listing four major Iranian banks is that no American bank is allowed to facilitate any dollar-based transaction between them and any other bank in the world.

The Security Council has adopted two resolutions, one last year and another this year, calling on a freeze of assets in Iran deemed to be linked to its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The aim of the resolutions is to get Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, which Western experts say are part of a secret program to make a nuclear bomb.

Only one Iranian bank, Bank Sepah, has been identified by the Security Council as involved in nuclear and ballistic missile programs. According to information circulating among members of the Security Council, the bank has all but ceased to function.

Bank Saderat, Bank Melli and Bank Mellat have been listed only by the United States. But Western diplomats, citing official information circulating in Europe and the United States, say that most major banks in Europe have ceased working or are winding down their business with them.

In addition, the diplomats said the Dutch, French, Italian and German governments had begun reducing their state credits promoting trade with Iran. The Bush administration, however, is pressing them to do more.

Administration officials say they have pressed more than 40 banks worldwide to stop doing business with Iran, and most have taken at least some steps. But banks in the Persian Gulf, China and other parts of Asia have continued, and in some cases have filled the gap left by the absence of Western banks.

World Bank officials could not say whether the bank would turn to these institutions to help ease payments for the projects in Iran.

New York Times



Experts say there is no conclusive evidence that Iran is developing a nuclear-weapons program.

WASHINGTON --
Despite President Bush's claims that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons that could trigger ''World War III,'' experts in and out of government say there's no conclusive evidence that Tehran has a nuclear-weapons program.

Even his own administration appears divided about the immediacy of the threat.

While Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney speak of an Iranian weapons program as a fact, Bush's point man on Iran, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, has attempted to ratchet down the rhetoric.

''Iran is seeking a nuclear capability . . . that some people fear might lead to a nuclear-weapons capability,'' Burns said in an interview Oct. 25 on PBS.

''I don't think that anyone right today thinks they're working on a bomb,'' said another U.S. official, who requested anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

Outside experts say the operative words are ``right today.''

They say Iran may have been actively seeking to create a nuclear-weapons capacity in the past and still could break out of its current uranium-enrichment program and start a weapons program.

They, too, lack definitive proof, butcite a great deal of circumstantial evidence.

OVERSTATEMENTS?

Bush's rhetoric seems hyperbolic compared with the statements by his senior aides and outside experts.

''I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon,'' he said Oct. 17 at a news conference.

''Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions,'' Cheney warned on Oct 23. ``We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.''

Bush and Cheney's allegations are under close scrutiny because their similar allegations about an Iraqi nuclear program proved to be wrong.

Nevertheless, there are many reasons to be skeptical of Iran's claims that its nuclear program is intended exclusively for peaceful purposes, including its dealings with a Pakistani dealer in black-market nuclear technology and the fact that it concealed its uranium-enrichment program from a U.N. watchdog agency for 18 years.

''Many aspects of Iran's past nuclear program and behavior make more sense if this program was set up for military rather than civilian purposes,'' Pierre Goldschmidt, a former U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency deputy director general, said in a speech Oct. 30.

NO HARD EVIDENCE

If conclusive proof exists, however, Bush hasn't revealed it. Nor have four years of IAEA inspections.

''I have not received any information that there is a concrete active nuclear-weapons program going on right now,'' IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei asserted in an interview Oct. 31 with CNN.

''There is no smoking-gun proof of work on a nuclear weapon, but there is enough evidence that points in that direction,'' said Mark Fitzpatrick of the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation controls.

New light may be shed when the IAEA reports this month on whether Iran is fulfilling an August accord to answer all outstanding questions about the enrichment program it concealed from the U.N. watchdog agency.

Its report is expected to focus on Iran's work with devices that spin uranium hexafluoride gas to produce low-enriched uranium for power plants or highly enriched uranium for weapons.

Iran asserts that it's working only with the P1, an older centrifuge that it admitted buying in 1987 from an international black-market network headed by A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

But IAEA inspectors determined that Iran failed to reveal that it had obtained blueprints for the P2, a centrifuge twice as efficient as the P1, from the Khan network in 1995.

Iranian officials say they did nothing with the blueprints until 2002, when they were given to a private firm that produced and tested seven modified P2 parts, then abandoned the effort.

IAEA inspectors, however, discovered that Iran sought to buy thousands of specialized magnets for P2s from European suppliers, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last year that research on the centrifuges continued.

The IAEA has been stymied in trying to discover the project's scope, fueling suspicions that the Iranian military may be secretly running a P2 development program parallel to the civilian-run P1 program at Natanz.

NOTE: For several months, the Bush administration has been ratcheting up its rhetoric toward Iran, accusing its government of trying to develop a nuclear weapon.

The administration has imposed new economic sanctions on Iranian businesses and suggested that military action may be needed if the Iranians don't shut down their nuclear program. But global opinion differs on what threat -- if any -- Iran's nuclear program poses.

Over the next several weeks, McClatchy will examine key questions surrounding the Bush administration's confrontation with Iran.

Miami Herald

http://www.digg.com/world_news/Bahra...veloping_nukes

A worthy question remains unanswered:

ah, not sure... possibly The Israel lobby, Neo-Malthusians and The Jesus Landing Pad :D

Riiiiiiight.

He has also repeatedly said there is no plans for attacking Israel or the US but that doesn't amount to anything apparently.

anyway...
Ali Khamenei has much more power in Iran than the president and last I heard he told Ahmadinejad to 'stay out of all matters nuclear'

Interview with Khamenei :D

Personally I didn't find it a worthy question, but I'll "answer" it.

I'm not going to defend Ahmadinejad and he's definitely engaged in some saber rattling, but claiming he's "repeatedly stated he wants to destroy the United States" is inaccurate and, I suspect, simply designed to be inflammatory. Go ahead and dig up the handful of unrepeated quotes on which your conclusion is based (pertaining to the US) and I think you'll appear fairly hysterical.

You prove your point well enough though--it certainly must not be hard to believe Iran is a threat when you're willing to seize on a few oblique comments and posturing and ignore a lot of other facts. Of course we already know how "easy it is to believe" just about anything if you get the fear mongering really pumped; we all remember how it went with Iraq.

But I'll leave you to argue the really important questions, such as where Pakistan is.

From Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“There is no doubt that the new wave (of attacks) in Palestine will wipe off this stigma (Israel) from the face of the Islamic world, ... The World without Zionism. Anybody who recognises Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nations' fury [and] is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world.” (source)

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?...&id=2150862005

"Israel must be wiped off the map" (source)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...27/wiran27.xml

"America was free to sever its ties with Iran, but it remains Iran's decision to re-establish relations with America." (source)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF21Ak04.html

"Our enemies can deal a blow to us any time they wish. They do not wait for permission to do this. They do not deal a blow with prior notice. They did not take action because they can't." (source)

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article....ticle_id=16353

"The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world." (source)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9352275/from/RL.3/

“Iran is ready to transfer nuclear know-how to the Islamic countries due to their need.” (source)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9352275/from/RL.3/

Here is a quote from the Canadian Islamic Congress this week:

"The Canadian Islamic Congress is congratulating Iran on having produced low-level enriched nuclear fuel this week, calling the achievement "an important step forward" in improving the country's long term economic well-being." (CIC release)

http://www.canadianislamiccongress.c...que.php?id=753

August 28, 2007

"Zionists are people without any religion. They are lying about being Jewish because religion means brotherhood, friendship and respecting other divine religions…

They are an organized minority who have infiltrated the world. They are not even a 10,000-strong organization."

(At a news conference in Tehran)


August 18, 2007

"The Zionist regime is the flag bearer of violation and occupation and this regime is the flag of Satan. …It is not unlikely that this regime be on the path to dissolution and deterioration when the philosophy behind its creation and survival is invalid."

(Address to an international religious conference in Tehran)

June 3, 2007

"With God's help, the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed by the hands of the children of Lebanon and Palestine . . . By God's will, we will witness the destruction of this regime in the near future."

(Speech, as quoted by the Fars News Agency)

March 21, 2007

"It is quite clear that a bunch of Zionist racists are the problem the modern world is facing today. They have access to global power and media centers and seek to use this access to keep the world in a state of hardship, poverty and grudge and strengthen their rule. The great nation of Iran is opposed to this inhuman trend. Of course, the Iranian nation will stick to its rightful stance. The Zionists and their supporters do not know that they are using failed approaches to take on human values, human civilization, nations and the great nation of Iran. Admitting the right of the dear Iranian nation and submitting to justice and the rule of law are the best way to salvation and the best way out of the deadlocks they have created for themselves."

(from a recorded New Year's message aired on Iranian television)

February 28, 2007

"The Zionists are the true manifestation of Satan . . . Many Western governments that claim to be pioneers of democracy and standard bearers of human rights close their eyes over crimes committed by the Zionists and by remaining silent support the Zionists due to their hedonistic and materialistic tendencies."

(to a meeting of Sudanese Islamic scholars in Khartoum)

December 12, 2006

"Thanks to people's wishes and God's will the trend for the existence of the Zionist regime is downwards and this is what God has promised and what all nations want…Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out"

(Comments to Iran's Holocaust Conference)

November 29, 2006

"What have the Zionists done for the American people that the US administration considers itself obliged to blindly support these infamous aggressors? Is it not because they have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors?"
(Letter from Ahmadinejad "to the American people")

November 13, 2006

"Israel is destined for destruction and will soon disappear"
Israel is "a contradiction to nature, we foresee its rapid disappearance and destruction."

October 19, 2006

"The Zionist regime is counterfeit and illegitimate and cannot survive"
(as quoted by Iranian state television)

August 6, 2006

"They (Israel) kill women and children, young and old. And, behind closed doors, they make plans for the advancement of their evil goals."
(as quoted by Khorasan Provincial TV)

To find more go here;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/4616336.stm

For Fun...

Columbia Speech.

SPEAKER: IRANIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD [*]

AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful...

TRANSLATOR: The president is reciting verses from the holy Koran in Arabic.

AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Oh, God, hasten the arrival of Imam al-Mahdi and grant him good health and victory and make us his followers and those to attest to his rightfulness.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...092401042.html

UN Speech;

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

"From the beginning of time, humanity has longed for the day when justice, peace, equality and compassion envelop the world. All of us can contribute to the establishment of such a world. When that day comes, the ultimate promise of all Divine religions will be fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being who is heir to all prophets and pious men. He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace.

"O mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/li...918-irna02.htm

“Mahdi prayer mongering,” he snickered in his hidden message to America and likewise in his additional hardly noticed messages of intent, announced to the world, at the UN, saying, in the code of the “Shia Twelver Madhdi about the “Zulfiqar,” “The nuclear debate over Iran is now closed.'

Encompassing in both messages a traditional Islamic warning to an enemy, sent but wholly ignored in the ignorance of their true meanings, is this Shia Iranian Twelver movement of a divine calling, for the “victorious return of the Mahdi, and, from that, the coming of that Theocratic Caliph, the promised new world order that will cleansed the world of the “disobeyers” which will result in a United Islamic World Nation.

It is within both of his “warnings” that is the message, so unnoticed, but which is proclaimed as the self assumed destiny of these Iranian Theocratic prophets. A warning of an unwavering focus on the politico-religious dimensions of a Shi'as believe that Muhammad al-Mahdi will reappear, when the world has fallen into chaos and civil war among all the human race, so that then, the Madhdi and his legends of the faithful obeyors can cleanses the world of the non-obeying unbelievers. By thus, creating a United World Islamic Nation which is the destiny of the Shias Twelver Prophets.

At its core is the Iraq were we infidels now stand, from which Shia prophecy dictates, the black flags of Karbala must arise and march to Mecca. Then and only then, can Muhammad al-Mahdi , the guided one, come wielding God's Sword, the Blade of Evil's Bane, the Zulfiqar (Arabic: ذو الفقار, ðū l-fiqār), or the mythical Double-Bladed Sword of God.

Shi’as according to the Propehtics who now rule Iran must both control Iraq’s Karbala and have this mighty sword of Zulfigar, the bomb, in order to fulfill their self-assumed destiny as the current day leaders of this Twelver Shi'as movement.

A movement which assumes it is destine to cleanse the world of the unbelievers and bring all the world into the fold of a new Islamic Caliph (pronounced khaleef in Arabic) world order, in a united Global Islamic nation.

Of course we have this doomoracy of denial that does not grasp who will need to be cleansed, if at all. Thinking even if it true, only the ignorant and disobedient of their views and ideology of denial will be effected or there is nothing to fear, but Bush and well, really anyone else who disagrees with them.

Of course, they could be wrong and the cleansing mentioned as a needed act of prophecy, is, of course, us, them and the other nearly 4.7 billion non-Islamic believers in this world.

Okay, but no argument is necessary.

It's here:

Yeah, I figured someone would post all those quotes, and of course because I'm familiar with them myself I already knew that in not one of them is there a statement of "wanting to destroy the United States." So I still maintain that posting them in an attempt to spread that particular fear is hysterical.

By the way, "Israel must be wiped off the map" is in itself a slight mistranslation, though I suppose if you're a Zionist the actual meaning could be construed as more or less the same. And of course I guess some people think a threat against Israel is a threat against the United States.

Also, some people seem to think that anyone maintaining that they will defend themselves if attacked is an attack. lol

Interesting how your map has south-east Asia & northern Asia

regions of the world
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/default.stm
Pakistan has occasionally been considered as part of the Mid-East.. it has never been considered part of the Greater Middle -East but it is always considered as part of South Asia.

end of argument.

anyway...
 

What's with the 'WIN $100,000 HERE' sign on that map ?


besides that's not a map... this is a map :BL:

Putin: Russia May Strike Back If U.S. Attacks Iran
 

President Vladimir Putin of Russia has reportedly served notice that if the United States launches a military strike against Iran, Moscow will regard it as an attack on Russia itself, raising the specter of a revival of the Cold War between the two nuclear-armed giants.

Putin issued his warning during a closed-door, face-to-face meeting with Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, near the end of the Russian president's visit last month to Tehran -- the first by a Kremlin leader since World War II -- for a summit of the five Caspian Sea nations, according to the Internet news site Asia Times Online, citing high-level diplomatic sources.

He stopped short of saying explicitly what Russia would do if the U.S. struck Iran. But by stating that an attack on Iran would be tantamount to an attack on Russia itself, Putin strongly hinted of retalitory measures by Moscow.

Meanwhile, American officials were stunned by the unexpected appearance of a Chinese submarine which showed up undetected in the middle of recent U.S. Navy exercises in the Pacific -- leaving Washington wondering if, in the event of a U.S.-Russian confrontation over Iran, Beijing would also intervene on Tehran's side.

Putin, Khamenei Reportedly Agree on Plan to 'Nullify' U.S.

Putin and Khamenei agreed on a plan to "nullify" the Bush administration's increasingly bellicose rhetoric against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear development program, the sources said, amid growing concern that Washington is preparing to launch a pre-emptive military attack -- perhaps in the form of a tactical nuclear strike -- against Iran.

The Russian president told his Iranian host that "an American attack on Iran will be viewed by Moscow as an attack on Russia," Asia Times Online quoted its sources as saying.

At the Caspian Sea summit meeting, Putin publicly warned the U.S. not to use a former Soviet republic to stage an attack on Iran. He also said countries bordering the Caspian Sea must jointly back any oil pipeline projects in the region.

Putin said none of the five nations’ territory "should be used by any outside countries for use of military force against any nation in the region" -- a clear reference to long-standing rumors that the U.S. was planning to use the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan as a staging ground for any possible military action against Iran.

“We are saying that no Caspian nation should offer its territory to third powers for use of force or military aggression against any Caspian state,” Putin said.

The private Putin-Khamenei meeting following the summit was extraordinary in and of itself, for Iran's supreme leader rarely receives foreign dignitaries, even a head of state with the stature of Putin. The Russian president told the ayatollah that he may hold the "ultimate solution" regarding Iran's highly controversial nuclear program, the sources said.

For his part, Khamenei insisted that his country's nuclear program was strictly for civilian purposes and vowed that it would continue, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported. But he did tell Putin, "We will ponder your words and proposal."

..More

It says $100.00 there frybrain. Ever get the feeling you're not fully understanding what you see?


Lol at the hassokheads in your last pic. If they wanted nuclear power only they would allow the IAEA to monitor it and get rid of a lot of the sanctions hurting their country.


I suppose they don't know how they came to possess warhead blueprints but it seems a little suspicious to non-frybrains. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/worl...in&oref=slogin

Ah they changed the link.

ok I misinterpreted the comma, oops
that makes you oh so much smarter than me.. doesn't it twatface?

suck it up.. :f:

how about they have a few scientists over in other places on this planet apart from the US?

maybe if you looked past your precious little nose you could see some facts. These people had vastly richer scientific knowledge for centuries before certain principles were understood and taken up by the west ,they were making calculations when we couldn't even grasp the concept of 'zero' .If not for ideas that came from the east there would be a much different reality than what we have now.

That said... even though the ability to harness atomic power for bombs is a very serious issue for everyone on the planet
It seems it's all been allowed to happen this way.After the powers that be allowed India and Pakistan and especially Israel to start building nuclear arsenals ,it was never going to be long until other nations close by were going to follow suit. Thats the reality people with their heads up their arses like albed just can't seem to see.

Relax folks ...progress is being made
Progress

:beer:

dads army ?
:D

stats on the foreign fighters found in Iraq
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2215380,00.html

Oh, so you knew long ago that nuclear weapon proliferation would happen if it wasn't stopped. You're such a fucking genius.


And you added a zero along with 'misinterpreting the comma' and you didn't notice that either so that really just makes you dumber than me.

well thats just lame... obviously I had just glanced at it when pondering that question,even with all your trumped up wisdom you can't seem to answer because you didn't crop the pic... perhaps Drak did and could explain wtf the competition is about ,maybe where you can win $100.00 by hitting that area just below Yemen with a dart perhaps?

It was just a passing question not even really aimed at you, fucknuts... so if you don't know you may stfu or not it's your choice.

I doubt it really matters that much in the bigger scheme of things.Now back to the scrapbook...



Why the Iranians see themselves in a very different light

AP

IT IS not hard to find examples of the peculiar divergence between how the world looks from Tehran, Iran's capital, and how it looks in the West. Take the recent release of a long-awaited report on Iran's nuclear programme by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog. To Iran's state-controlled television, the report showed Iran's innocence and slapped its detractors in the face. In Washington, DC, the focus was on the report's doubts, which appeared to justify a push for further punitive sanctions.

But in many ways, the sparring capitals look more like mirror images than polar opposites. On different scales, both Iranians and Americans tend to take an imperial view. Both governments demonise the other. They use past resentments to reap political rewards by looking tough.
...More

This NIE was apparently finished a year ago, and its basic parameters were almost certainly common knowledge in the White House well before that. This means that all the leaks, all the World War III stuff, all the blustering about the IAEA — all of it was approved for public consumption after Cheney/Bush/Rice/etc. knew perfectly well it was mostly baseless.

Nothing smells better in the morning to the Neocons than war propaganda. That’s why Cheney tried to hold up the report from coming out.

A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran has been held up for more than a year in an effort to force the intelligence community to remove dissenting judgments on the Iranian nuclear programme, and thus make the document more supportive of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s militarily aggressive policy toward Iran, according to accounts of the process provided by participants to two former Central Intelligence Agency officers.

via Amanda: “As ThinkProgress has documented, the White House’s manipulation of the Iran NIE bore a striking resemblance to the controversies that played out over pre-war Iraq intelligence.” ...more

go figure. it's amazing anybody takes the Bush administration seriously about anything when they've been wrong about, well, pretty much everything.

and that's putting it diplomatically. deliberately deceptive is more like it.

- js.

from the Time blog, an apt quote:

:AP:

indeed !
(that first article in this thread is worth re-reading)

one interview I read with some ex-Bush admin insider was there will be no stopping an attack on Iran in April next year. ..


Our daily MSM news here is reporting Bush doesn't believe the latest intel on Iran.. and it is still a nuclear threat

what the fuck is this idiot talking to everyone like we are a bunch of kindergarten kids?

well sunday school kids but basically yes. since he's one himself perhaps he projects onto us.

- js.

you know the bit of some media conferce I am talking about?
he is talking really slowly like he is talking to people that don't understand english very well... bloody annoying :D

Contrary to what all you Bush haters think, this report doesn't say, nor does it use language that implies, that Bush is a liar. It simply explains that Iran's continuing nuclear research program lacks the intent to build a nuclear weapon. That's perfectly believable, given that Iran has almost no ability to refine its own oil and economic conditions have led them into the greatest energy crisis in their history. But the fact is that Iran is still pursuing the technological ability to build a nuclear weapon. They may claim, when they build their first nuke, that it was an accidental byproduct of their 'peaceful' nuclear program which it very well could be because the technology to build a nuclear power plant is pretty much the same as the technology to build a nuke. Despite what the media says about this report, and despite how Bush has responded in kind, Iran continues to refine uranium and it continues to prevent international inspectors from investigating their claims. This report should have come from the IAEA, instead it came from the National Intelligence Board because Iran prefers to keep its 'peaceful' nuclear program under wraps.

Now I'm not suggesting any action at this point, especially not an invasion of Iran, but you guys should probably read the report, read its careful vetting and cautionary language, before you assume that it's a vindication of your unquestioning hatred.

i question my extreme dislike of bush regularly and the facts vindicate it just as often. it's you bush lovers who clearly need the reality check.

- js.

I'm no Bush lover, Jack, except by comparison to you.

say what?
 

Accident?

I have always been under the impression the steps needed to create the components for a nuclear warhead are vastly more complex than those of nuclear power generation... I believe a lot of it is to do with the refinement process of the uranium ?

It's always going to be hard to decipher the truth amongst all the propaganda when it comes to facts on nuclear weapons, so the level of technology and science might not be as much as I would imagine ... but I sure I have heard repeatedly that it needs to be pretty high.

To make fissile material generate heat in a chain reaction is easy. Example: the first nuclear reactor was little more than a pile of uranium surrounded by a hand-stacked wall of graphite bricks. But making use of nuclear energy efficiently, safely, and controllably does take a high degree of sophistication. So I'm not saying that the bar for making nukes is low, I'm saying that Iran has set the bar high for themselves. It wouldn't be too far out of their way to build a nuke once they got a reactor online.

I see...
yes, it is easier than I thought

Is the difficult part is getting it all to fit in a bomb then?

hmm..

That would make sense, although hiding such activity would be easy since it only takes a few smart men in one room together to build a bomb.

The GOP's Iran option is off the table
 

Rudy Giuliani was counting on Iran as a weapon of mass distraction in the '08 race. But the flailing Republican right has just been disarmed.


Dec. 11, 2007 | The conclusions of the latest National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iran's lack of a nuclear weapons program will have a profound impact on the 2008 presidential campaign. The report may well prove a key element in throwing the election to the Democrats. Republicans have used the alleged nuclear threat posed by Iran to scare the American public and to turn attention away from Iraq, economic troubles and Republican scandals. But the NIE findings have pulled the rug out from under the Grand Old Party.

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani initially dismissed the NIE, but on Sunday he backtracked substantially on "Meet the Press." He said of Iran, "And of course we don't ... want to use the military option. It would be dangerous; it would be risky." He added that it would be even more dangerous if Iran did acquire nuclear weapons, but immediately put on a mien of sweet reason: "We should utilize sanctions. We should utilize as much pressure as we're capable of." Now he represented the military option as a tool of diplomacy.

This is, of course, the same Rudy Giuliani who while campaigning has all but pledged to bomb Iran if elected. It is a "promise" and not a "threat," he has said, that if Tehran appears close to getting a bomb, he will "set them back eight or 10 years." While Giuliani hasn't specified how he would do so, he likely means launching military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities such as the one at Natanz. That message has been accompanied by bluster from Giuliani worthy of a World Wrestling Federation ham in spandex: "We will not beg to negotiate with them. We're going to make them beg to negotiate with us." Such Hulk Hogan-style boasts may play to the Republican base, but Giuliani now seems more aware of the possibility that the war-weary public may not embrace his reckless bravado if he wins his party's nomination for the general election.
...More

So basically, multi, your article is saying that Giuliani's threats against Iran weren't a liability against his campaign until after this report came out? What a silly claim. The report changed nothing because before it came out no voter wanted war with Iran anyway.

I don't know about that. I know a few voters that would like to wipe the whole middle east off of the map.

September 11,9/11 ,911 ,11 of September and I could also mention 9-11.
over and over and over
are you hypnotized yet?
now that you are in my control you will vote for me, Me, ME!

That would be those Pea-brained Albedians and evangelical doom sayers who would be casting their votes in favor of a middle eastern apocalypse. Indeed this report is a slap in the face for all those faithful supporters of war overseas and those creeping internet shills and their megaphone software.

I think those people want to wipe the middle east off the map so we wouldn't have to make war there, vern.

No. I think these are the people that were raised on violence and whose first response to conflict will usually be violence. These are people who have never experienced war first hand and so the thought of war has no serious negative connotations or implications. It's just another way to deal with a problem.

Nope, those are just people who are familiar with the long, continuous history of particularly vicious violence firmly embedded in middle eastern culture and conclude that the world would be a better place if the whole region was exterminated.

then what?

you will never build another society there like the the US did with Japan after WW2.

No big nasty bombs dropped yet but the troops are returning home with radiation poisoning anyway?

so.... a good part of the M.E. gets wiped out by the US and Israel, then bloody what?

that will not get rid of all the radical Islamics in the world.

I would bet there would be just a few left in Pakistan and Southest Asia.. all probably very pissed off.



Ah... I love a good crusade !

I'm glad you know my friends better than I do, Albed. What would I do without you to show me how to be intolerant. :sarc:

You'd be stupid and tolerant.

christ your "civilised" christian west has butchered more people in the last 100 years than the muslims have in the last 1100. these followers of mohammad have a lot of catching up to do just to equal our barbarism. we've set a fine example. 8-|

- js.

Well you can just hop right on over there with your drinking habit and western music collection and start endorsing gay marriage and finally be free of the barbarous western culture with it's murderous oppression of nazi germany, facist japan and the like.


I'll buy your fucking ticket.

There was intent in suppressing the oppression of nazi germany & facist japan and it was not to end up becoming them ( or possibly something far worse)

What????
And leave you all alone in the world.
That's a tempting offer.
Will you buy one for me as well.
Want my Paypal link?
Or are you lying?
Your not a credible source,I don't belive anything you say.:B: :B: