Iran Catch-All | Protester Massacre? CBS reports 12,000+ killed

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superrific said:
The Middle East would be safer if Iran had a nuke. The reason it uses proxies is that it has no good way to defend itself against Israel, which has a nuke.

I know this sounds ridiculous at first, but remember: MAD has been one of the most effective anti-war policies in history. And that's why in the 1970s, the US and the Soviet Union entered a treaty restricting the use of anti-ballistic missiles.
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Israel is not Iran's only adversary in the region. A nuclear Iran would be a threat to Saudi Arabia,Jordan, Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait, and Egypt.Some of these are very wealthy nation states that would seek to arm themselves similarly assuming Iran obtained a nuclear weapon. MAD not withstanding - the world would be safer without a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

And even then - the greater threat is one of Iran's non-state actors obtaining some sort of nuclear weapon via Iran and using it against Israel or one of Iran's other enemies. It is just a destabilizing threat in general.
 
superrific said:
We quake in our boots because they cosplay armageddon
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This is true, and it's also true that Israeli hardliners milk that kind of rhetoric for all its worth.

I saw a Rick Steves talk once where he was talking about taking a taxi cab in Tehran, and they got stuck in traffic. The driver said "Death to traffic!" which basically translated to "Damn traffic!" And so at least sometimes when Iranians say "Death to America" they're not actually suggesting tactics.
 
BlooVooDoo said:
Why can’t they defend themselves with the money we’ve already given them? They’ve received multiples more money from the US than Ukraine has and they are fighting an enemy that has a small fraction of the capabilities of Russia.
I’d rather defend a democracy that didn’t start a conflict and doesn’t try to manipulate US policy for their own benefit and at the expense of the average American.
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If I remember correctly Israel is the most heavily-armed small nation-state on Earth, largely thanks to us. Pretty much their entire adult population has been given mandatory military training (including nearly all Israeli women, Gal Gadot of Wonder Woman fame served in the Israeli military) and the entire nation is largely an armed camp, and has been ever since it was founded, as they were surrounded by enemies. Jordan and Egypt are no longer enemies, but there are still plenty of countries in the Middle East that would be happy to see Israel gone.

Having said that, Israel is more than capable of defending itself (and dealing out far more punishment than they take, as we're seeing now with Iran) without the USA needing to intervene militarily. There's no need for America to be sending troops or other personnel to fight with Israel, beyond Israel desperately wanting the USA to get involved to give them cover for what they're doing.
 
superrific said:
Have you seen the Iranian clerics? These are not men eager to die. They are clinging to life as long as they can. Khameni is 86 years old. You don't get to be that age if you didn't care about dying.
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The only thing that may be more dangerous than young, male Islamic extremist is an old, male Islamic extremist, at the end of his life, with a nuke.
 
ZenMode said:
The only thing that may be more dangerous than young, male Islamic extremist is an old, male Islamic extremist, at the end of his life, with a nuke.
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No you are living proof that propaganda, sociopathy, and arrogance is more dangerous. I'm confident that there was a time in your life when you were not like this ZenMode persona.
 
OGtruthhurts said:
we are nothing but animals on a small pebble. animals kill other animals whether it be for food, territory, power, sex, idiotic religions, for sport or just because they can.

always have and always will.
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I believe most other animals coexist better than humans.
 
farce© said:
I'm not sure the bunnies in the park by my house would use the term "coexist" to describe their relationship with the coyote who frequents the park. IMG_3392.jpeg
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But they do, the wolf doesn't kill all of the deer, only enough to survive. Humans have examples of genocide over land... we fight over everything. 😁
 
p5mmr9 said:
Israel is not Iran's only adversary in the region. A nuclear Iran would be a threat to Saudi Arabia,Jordan, Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait, and Egypt.Some of these are very wealthy nation states that would seek to arm themselves similarly assuming Iran obtained a nuclear weapon. MAD not withstanding - the world would be safer without a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

And even then - the greater threat is one of Iran's non-state actors obtaining some sort of nuclear weapon via Iran and using it against Israel or one of Iran's other enemies. It is just a destabilizing threat in general.
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I know. But those countries are more rivals than enemies, at least as I understand it. I really don't have a problem with the US having a sort of global nuclear umbrella. Anyone who uses a nuke will be nuked by us.

I'm not sure that the non-state actors would be all that interested in using a nuclear weapon per se. They are more likely, in my view, to use a radiological weapon for a number of reasons. If Iran has a whole bunch of near-weapons grade plutonium just sitting around because their labs keep getting bombed, it strikes me that increases the chances of some of that hoard walking out the door.

I'm just thinking out loud. I don't necessarily fully believe any of this.
 
TarSpiel said:
IMO it is incredibly important to continue to draw hard distinctions between the Iranian government and the Iranian people.

The Iranian people should be our allies, and many of them want to be. They are *far* more aligned with the west in terms of culture and values than are Saudi Arabia or any of the Gulf states.
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This X1000
 
farce© said:
I'm not sure the bunnies in the park by my house would use the term "coexist" to describe their relationship with the coyote who frequents the park. IMG_3392.jpeg
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I wish my dog would do that to the Bunnies who eat all of my flowers. Alas, my dog is too old and slow.
 
superrific said:
No you are living proof that propaganda, sociopathy, and arrogance is more dangerous. I'm confident that there was a time in your life when you were not like this ZenMode persona.
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As I said earlier, many Democrats don't take Islamic extremism, and the associated beliefs, seriously. They are like evangelical Christians on steroids. They don't just believe their paradise afterlife is real, they KNOW it's real.


It's why, when asked about the Peshawar school attack, a Taliban supporter said:

“Human life only has value among you worldly materialist thinkers. For us, this human life is only a tiny meaningless fragment of our existence. Our real destination is the Hereafter. We don’t just believe it exists, we know it does. Death is not the end of life. It is the beginning of existence, in a world much more beautiful than this. As you know, the (Urdu) word for death is ‘intiqaal.’ It means ‘transfer,’ not 'end'.
 
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lawtig02 said:
I wish NOBODY had nuclear weapons. And I fear every day the fact that the nuclear key is in the hands of the worst human in American history. But just as I have hope that Iranians will eventually prevail over their despotic government, I hope we'll hold on for another 3.5 years until sanity resumes.
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The only solace I can offer on your "worst human in American History" thing is the person about whom you are talking is controlled, body, mind, and soul, by the only other power on Earth that has the sort of nuclear arsenal that could completely destroy the US in it entirety. China could inflect terrible damage on us. But Russia could make the Continential US unlivable.
 
ZenMode said:
As I said earlier, many Democrats don't take Islamic extremism, and the associated beliefs, seriously. They are like evangelical Christians on steroids. They don't just believe their paradise afterlife is real, they KNOW it's real.


It's why, when asked about the Peshawar school attack, a Taliban supporter said:

“Human life only has value among you worldly materialist thinkers. For us, this human life is only a tiny meaningless fragment of our existence. Our real destination is the Hereafter. We don’t just believe it exists, we know it does. Death is not the end of life. It is the beginning of existence, in a world much more beautiful than this. As you know, the (Urdu) word for death is ‘intiqaal.’ It means ‘transfer,’ not 'end'.
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I'm sure there are people who don't take Islamic extremism extremely, but why do you think Democrats or liberal voters fit into this category more than Indy or Repub/conservatives?
 
ZenMode said:
Our real destination is the Hereafter. We don’t just believe it exists, we know it does. Death is not the end of life. It is the beginning of existence, in a world much more beautiful than this.
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This is no different than what I hear at every Christian funeral I attend...
 
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