Posted on 12/11/2005 7:26:53 AM PST by LSUfan
"You cannot use force to prevent a country from obtaining nuclear weapons. By bombing them half to death, you can only delay the plans," he was quoted as saying by the Oslo newspaper Aftenposten. "But they will come back, and they will demand revenge."
"Nobody could conceivably claim the same after WWII. And nobody has."
Beg to differ. There are a lot of Japanse who maintain that the Emperor merely called a temporary halt to hostilities so that Japan could recover for its next try.
One of those was former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who was said to be so tight with Ronaldus Magnus. He wore funeral garb every day for ten years after the war ended, and has never admitted that Japan was defeated. The problem, according to him, was that the people failed to support the Emperor with adequate fanaticism.
My post was referring specifically to Germany, not Japan.
However, I propose that even in Japan such claims have little credibility.
Anybody can claim anything. Such claims only become important on a society-wide scale when enough people believe and act on them.
This happened, with disastrous results, in Germany after WWI. It has not happened, in either Germany or Japan, since WWII. I contend this is precisely because those countries were so thoroughly defeated and destroyed.
Realistically, to eliminate the advancing nuclear threat, the ayatollahs are going to have to be taken down, and that will mean the application of force. Just how to do it is a practical and empirical question. But the fact we need to face is that there is at least one more serious military action looming ahead here, like it or not, ready or not.
So what now?? Do we sit on our thumbs and speculate if we are right or wrong until the big flash confirms our suspicion? I think there is already enough confirmation of the capabilitys to cause a considerable setback in their nuke program. They know if they can stall for just a few more months, the world will tremble when they successfully detonate their first nuke. At that point conventional means of controlling Iran have passed. The doomsday clock will be reset within a tick.
Oh yeah, don't forget N Korea sitting back watching to see how much they can get away with should Iran be successful in bluffing off an attack.
The UN inspectors already know where the means to manufacture nuke material are. The intelligence is fresh. In Iraq.....weapons inspectors had been kicked out for several years and the intelligence was not as fresh and included a large degree of speculation about a shell game.
Weapons and material were indeed found in Iraq, just not in the quantitys that had been anticipated. The stuff still exists...it has been hidden because they were given time to prepare. I stand behind any decision to hit Iran's nuke program, just as I stand behind hitting Iraq.
Sit on your thumbs all you want. Be prepared to stick them deeper when that flash occurs.
That's interesting. What's your source for that?
I say we bomb them into a parking lot, and take lots of photos to show any other idiot nations what the price of their ways will be.68 Million humans. Men, woman, children. Just to show something.
If, rather than confront them militarily, we simply took out the occasional strong leader who emerged, the would quickly degenerate into bands of warring tribes.
The best solution is to take out the rabble-rousers, and to subsidize those leaders who are accommodating to the West.
unbelievable. thanks for posting this.
The necessary consequence of man's right to life is his right to self-defense. In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. All the reasons which make the initiation of force an evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative. If some 'pacifist' society renounced the retaliatory use of force, it would be left helplessly at the mercy of the first thug who decided to be immoral. Such a society would achieve the opposite of its intention: instead of abolishing evil, it would encourage and reward it.
Ayn Rand
History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
Ronald Reagan
Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.
Ronald Reagan
I'm not proposing sitting around.
I'm pointing out that military force, to be effective, requires accurate knowledge of just where to apply that force. I am not at all confident that we have such knowledge.
Do you seriously believe that the mullahs learned nothing from the Israeli attack on Osirak (sp?), and that their entire program is sitting right out in the open where it can be easily destroyed?
It seems much more likely that most of their capability is dispersed and hidden from the UN inspectors and therefore probably from our intelligence agencies. Destroying the known portions of the program may not slow them down that much.
We have the capability, thru nukes, to destroy Iran as a society, and thus its ability to make WMDs. We also have the capability, thru a buildup of our forces, to eventually conquer and occupy Iran.
I do not believe we presently have the will as a country to do either of these things.
I am very skeptical of our ability to destroy the Iranian nuke program by conventional missile or bombing attacks. This is due to poor intel, not to the raw military capability. High explosives do no good if you don't apply them in the right place.
very successfully too!
Do we really want to insist that initiation of force against a nuclear-armed enemy in always evil?
Should Iran be allowed "one free American city" before we retaliate?
Fair warning was given in Fallujah before we hit. We are cetainly capable of letting folks not wishing to wage Jihad to get out before the bomb, and provide means for them to do so. (It ain't like we control the territories on either side of the country, oh wait it is)
As much as I would like them to "get on with it already" I imagine that before the powers that be can begin the much larger task of subduing Iran Iraq will have to become much more stabilized to free up the needed ground forces.Then I imagine a super-sized "desert storm" style operation with massive air power followed by the largest ground assault the world has ever seen.Of course we could do this much sooner if we could get a little help.
Exactly.
Which pawn does America feel is fit to sacrifice before advancing?
He's 100% right...if you leave out regime change a a critical piece of the strategy. Bombing Iran without following up by overthrowing the mullahs won't do us any good.
Glad to see the UN is finally getting it. ;)
In the cold war era nukes were only possed by nations smart enough not to iniate conflic with them, knowing the other had means to retaliate.
Iran is not one of those countries. They will nuke 'infidels' wherever they find them, and praise allah for being burned to a crip in retaliation.
You cannot wait for suicidals to strike you must defeat them before they have the means.
The Japanese were frightened to the core when they saw the results of the bomb. If the average Iranian was aware that possibility could be visited upon them on account of their zealot leaders, they'd revolt in an night.
"You cannot use force to prevent a country from obtaining nuclear weapons"
...he's kidding, right?!?! You can use force to prevent a country from doing anything, including developing nuclear weapons. Well, maybe the emasuclated Europeans can't do this, but we certainly can and will.
Agreed.
My argument is not whether to use force against the Iranians, it is about whether we have the intel we need to do so effectively.
What about convincing the average joe (average mohammad?) in Iran that if their leaders do not relent we will do to Iran what we did to Hiroshima, in an effort to convince them to revolt?
High gloss brochures and posters, tv broadcasts.
(My only thoughts is that they may not beleive it, they may figure it for hollywood effects)
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