Iran, such kidders!

[bush_cheney2004]

....IMV, the US made a mistake in July 1990 when Bush Snr/US Ambassador in Baghdad did not accurately convey to Saddam the consequences of an invasion of Kuwait. Saddam Hussein is now dead, and so is Muammur Gaddafi.

They didn't have to...the consequences were obvious to all involved, including Saddam.

[August1991]

They didn't have to...the consequences were obvious to all involved, including Saddam.

No, the consequences were not obvious. And I fear that Obama will not make the consequences clear enough to the Iranian regime either.

In any case, the test will not occur this year. It will happen in a year or so - after the US presidential election - when the Iranians send a missile, test a bomb and then negotiate, for example, the status of a diplomat in Bucharest or Santiago.

And even then, it will not be too late. IMV, to use the phrase of Mao Tse-Tong or Chou En-lai, these radical Shi'ites in Persia are paper tigers. Or to use an American phrase, they'll fold like a cheap suit. Heck, even Mao and Chou folded.

Edited January 8, 2012 by August1991

[bush_cheney2004]

No, the consequences were not obvious. And I fear that Obama will not make the consequences clear enough to the Iranian regime either.

Surely you are not serious, starting with the UN Charter. Kuwait was/is a sovereign state. Using your logic, the US would have to warn Denmark not to invade Canada.

In any case, the test will not occur this year. It will happen in a year or so - after the US presidential election - when the Iranians send a missile, test a bomb and then negotiate, for example, the status of a diplomat in Bucharest or Santiago.

Doesn't really matter when it happens...the US has already had quite a decade in the region.

And even then, it will not be too late. IMV, to use the phrase of Mao Tse-Tong or Chou En-lai, these radical Shi'ites in Persia are paper tigers. Or to use an American phrase, they'll fold like a cheap suit. Heck, even Mao and Chou folded.

Too late for what? Iran is only a military threat...to itself!

Edited January 8, 2012 by bush_cheney2004

[August1991]

Surely you are not serious, starting with the UN Charter. Kuwait was/is a sovereign state. Using your logic, the US would have to warn Denmark not to invade Canada.

More or less. After all, the US pushed Iraq out of Kuwait.

But BC, let's be serious. Denmark is not about to invade a Canadian island off the shore of Greenland.

----

The issue here is whether a military attack on Iran will have repercussions. My opinion is that the Islamic regime in Iran is a paper tiger like the regimes of Iraq and Libya. But I would prefer a credible threat, and a peaceful fold like what happened in Egypt and Tunisia.

This is a work in progress. What's the American expression? The game is not over until the fat lady sings.

Edited January 8, 2012 by August1991

[bush_cheney2004]

More or less. After all, the US pushed Iraq out of Kuwait.

But BC, let's be serious. Denmark is not about to invade a Canadian island off the shore of Greenland.

----

My quip was not pointless....like Iraq and Kuwait's disputed border and slant drilling, the US has no concern about Denmark and Canada's dispute over a few scrawny islands in the middle of nowhere. That is a far cry from giving Denmark the "green light" to attack and invade all of Canada. See the difference?

The issue here is whether a military attack on Iran will have repercussions. My opinion is that the Islamic regime in Iran is a paper tiger like the regimes of Iraq and Libya. But I would prefer a credible threat, and a peaceful fold like what happened in Egypt and Tunisia.

Iran's ayatollah's have survived for many generations, proving to be quite pragmatic. The US already blew an airliner with passengers out of the sky in 1988.

This is a work in progress. What's the American expression? The game is not over until the fat lady sings.

Is singing allowed in Iran?

[WWWTT]

This is a work in progress. What's the American expression? The game is not over until the fat lady sings.

Couldn't agree more!

But in this case a different saying applies-The game isn't over until the 2012 US presidential election!

Please refer to the Iran-Contra affair.

Let me ask you something-What do you sincerely believe the US republicans care more about?

A)Getting elected into the white house,or

B)Iran having nuclear capabilities?

WWWTT

[GostHacked]

You do know that the 5th Fleet is a semi-permanent thing that has been 'in the waters' since 1995. Before that the area was the 7th Fleet's responsibility. Of course you do.

Yes I am aware of that. It just seems the way AW stated it made it look like the US carrier just was there for this rescue.

[sharkman]

Couldn't agree more!

But in this case a different saying applies-The game isn't over until the 2012 US presidential election!

Please refer to the Iran-Contra affair.

Let me ask you something-What do you sincerely believe the US republicans care more about?

A)Getting elected into the white house,or

B)Iran having nuclear capabilities?

WWWTT

I think they want to get into the white house so they can then do something about Iran having nuclear capabilities.

The problem is the last time a Dem was in the white house, he screwed up the North Korea threat so badly that they ended up being handed the cash to build the nuclear technology with(with a special nod to Jimmy Carter as well). By the time a republican takes over the white house in early 2013, Iran may have all she needs to produce nukes, and it will be too late.

Edited January 9, 2012 by sharkman

[Guest American Woman]

Yes I am aware of that. It just seems the way AW stated it made it look like the US carrier just was there for this rescue.

Ummmm. No. I didn't state it that way at all. Why would I have said "oh, the irony," quoting how Iran had been boasting about having driven it out of the Gulf, if I were saying it was just there for the rescue? I repeat, from my post: "....the rescue operation was carried out by a ship belonging to the very U.S. Navy aircraft carrier strike group that Iranian army officials had earlier boasted of evicting from Gulf waters." Thus the irony.

[bud]

Perhaps you should tell the NYTimes to stop spreading false informationtoo.

the 2005 article from NYT is wrong. here is the truth:

THE ACTUAL QUOTE:

So what did Ahmadinejad actually say? To quote his exact words in farsi:

"Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad."

That passage will mean nothing to most people, but one word might ring a bell: rezhim-e. It is the word "Regime", pronounced just like the English word with an extra "eh" sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the land mass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad does not even refer to Israel by name, he instead uses the specific phrase "rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods" (regime occupying Jerusalem).

So this raises the question.. what exactly did he want "wiped from the map"? The answer is: nothing. That's because the word "map" was never used. The Persian word for map, "nagsheh", is not contained anywhere in his original farsi quote, or, for that matter, anywhere in his entire speech. Nor was the western phrase "wipe out" ever said. Yet we are led to believe that Iran's President threatened to "wipe Israel off the map", despite never having uttered the words "map", "wipe out" or even "Israel".

THE PROOF:

The full quote translated directly to English:

"The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time".

Word by word translation:

Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from).

Here is the full transcript of the speech in farsi, archived on Ahmadinejad's web site

www.president.ir/farsi/ahmadinejad/speeches/1384/aban-84/840804sahyonizm.htm

link

[Guest Peeves]

the 2005 article from NYT is wrong. here is the truth:

THE ACTUAL QUOTE:

So what did Ahmadinejad actually say? To quote his exact words in farsi:

"Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad."

That passage will mean nothing to most people, but one word might ring a bell: rezhim-e. It is the word "Regime", pronounced just like the English word with an extra "eh" sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the land mass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad does not even refer to Israel by name, he instead uses the specific phrase "rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods" (regime occupying Jerusalem).

So this raises the question.. what exactly did he want "wiped from the map"? The answer is: nothing. That's because the word "map" was never used. The Persian word for map, "nagsheh", is not contained anywhere in his original farsi quote, or, for that matter, anywhere in his entire speech. Nor was the western phrase "wipe out" ever said. Yet we are led to believe that Iran's President threatened to "wipe Israel off the map", despite never having uttered the words "map", "wipe out" or even "Israel".

THE PROOF:

The full quote translated directly to English:

"The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time".

Word by word translation:

Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from).

Here is the full transcript of the speech in farsi, archived on Ahmadinejad's web site

www.president.ir/farsi/ahmadinejad/speeches/1384/aban-84/840804sahyonizm.htm

link

Nicely explained.Gee, how could anyone ever think he may have really meant wipe Israel off the map?

[sharkman]

That site you used for your source is Globalresearch.ca, and it sounds like some kind of left wing think tank. Its founder, Michel Chossudovsky, believes some pretty weird stuff, all found on wikipedia:

Chossudovsky claims that, from a military standpoint, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is an operational weapon of mass destruction which could potentionally be used against "rogue states", with the power to alter the weather, disrupt regional electrical power systems, and modify the Earth's magnetic field, as well as potentially trigger earthquakes and affect people's health

This is the stuff of late night radio whackjob theories, the kind that wear tin foil hats.

Chossudovsky believes that the financial meltdown of the world's market was caused by deliberate fraud of powerful institutions.

So some kind of global conspiracy is to blame, eh?

Chossudovsky has argued that reports released in the British press regarding the plans for mass morgues due to H1N1 were "totally fabricated" and that "the British government is deliberately misleading the British public", claiming that there were reports from Britian's Health Protection Agency that confirmed that the proposed vaccines would be more deadly than the disease.

Another vaccine conspiracy too. Gee, this guy sounds like he needs some valium in a hurry. So let me guess, Wikipedia is wrong, the cites they made are wrong, and the New York Times is wrong, but this guy somehow got the drop on a news organization that is world renowned, and has the true goods on Iran. Riiiiight.

I suggest you read more balanced sources.

[GostHacked]

sharkman. an aside about HAARP.

Haarp is a lot more than what the officials say. Even from what is stated about it from the US military (it is a US military installation) it is an ionosphere heater and transmitts frequencies in the ELF and ULF ranges. Much of this concept is based on Tesla's theories and patents by a Bernard Estlund.

http://mikephilbin.blogspot.com/2009/11/haarp-bernard-eastlund-patent-armynavy.html

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

Things to consider when looking at anything run by any military.

,testing/researching new communication technologies

,testing/researching new weapons technologies

,testing/researching ways to deny the emeny access to the battlefield.

Weather is also being used as a weapon now. And has been in the past. Weather modification was used in the Vietnam war.

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

Weather has been used as a force multiplyer. And will become part of the weapon arsenal in the near future.

[bud]

I suggest you read more balanced sources.

geez buddy. you're really reaching.

here are more sources:

Norouzi translated the original Persian to English, with the result, "the Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.

or

Juan Cole, a University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, agrees that Ahmadinejad's statement should be translated as, "the Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e eshghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).[12] According to Cole, "Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to 'wipe Israel off the map' because no such idiom exists in Persian." Instead, "he did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse."

or the extreme right wing, pro israeli MEMRI:

"'Imam [Khomeini] said: 'This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.' This sentence is very wise. The issue of Palestine is not an issue on which we can compromise.

or

Iranian government sources denied that Ahmadinejad issued any sort of threat. On 20 February 2006, Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference: "How is it possible to remove a country from the map? He is talking about the regime. We do not recognize legally this regime."

what about ahmadinejad himself?

At a news conference on January 14, 2006, Ahmadinejad stated his speech had been exaggerated and misinterpreted.[26] "There is no new policy, they created a lot of hue and cry over that. It is clear what we say: Let the Palestinians participate in free elections and they will say what they want." Speaking at a D-8 summit meeting in July 2008, he denied that his country would ever instigate military action. Instead he claimed that "the Zionist regime" in Israel would eventually collapse on its own.[27][28]

Asked if he objected to the government of Israel or Jewish people, he said that "creating an objection against the Zionists doesn't mean that there are objections against the Jewish". He added that Jews lived in Iran and were represented in the country's parliament.[27]

In a September 2008 interview Ahmadinejad was asked: "If the Palestinian leaders agree to a two-state solution, could Iran live with an Israeli state?" He replied:

If they [the Palestinians] want to keep the Zionists, they can stay ... Whatever the people decide, we will respect it. I mean, it's very much in correspondence with our proposal to allow Palestinian people to decide through free referendums.[29]

you have two choices here; continue to repeat a lie and misinformation or show that you are an honest person and admit that ahmadinejad said "wipe the regime off the map".

[DogOnPorch]

Everytime I read one of bud's posts I feel like I'm watching a Mel Brooks movie.

All Iran wants is a little piece.

[sharkman]

you have two choices here; continue to repeat a lie and misinformation or show that you are an honest person and admit that ahmadinejad said "wipe the regime off the map".

This is interesting. Tell me, how did the New York Times manage to get this wrong? I could trade links with you for the rest of the month on this, but I think I'd rather let you go about being misinformed. Go Iran!!

[sharkman]

Nicely explained.Gee, how could anyone ever think he may have really meant wipe Israel off the map?

Yeah, I don't know about you, but wiping a country off the map and regime change...

[bud]

This is interesting. Tell me, how did the New York Times manage to get this wrong? I could trade links with you for the rest of the month on this, but I think I'd rather let you go about being misinformed. Go Iran!!

you're weak and you are a liar.

oh look, from the new york times:

Our dear Imam said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement.

if you don't want to admit it, then so be it. the information is there for those who prefer the truth over lies.

[sharkman]

I'm weak and I'm a liar, thanks for clearing that up!

[dylan87]

Irans rhetoric in the last couple of weeks has been quite intersting.

Even for Iran, it has been pretty drastic. Of course it's all just words with no actual impact, but why now? Any internal struggle they need to abstract their own people from?

[Wild Bill]

Irans rhetoric in the last couple of weeks has been quite intersting.

Even for Iran, it has been pretty drastic. Of course it's all just words with no actual impact, but why now? Any internal struggle they need to abstract their own people from?

No kidding! The sanctions are beginning to hurt! These new ones have effectively stopped the Iranian economy dead in its tracks. The government there soon will not be able to pay its civil servants, let alone its military!

Iran seems to be "going for broke". They are racing to finish their nuclear bomb, hoping that it will mean the rest of the world will have to forgo their sanctions. Meanwhile, they have to worry that there may be internal dissension. Prices of food and fuel have apparently gone through the roof. When the average citizen starts to suffer he gets ideas about a change in the regime...

This of course is the whole purpose of the sanctions but the problem is, we are dealing with people who have been raising snakes under their hats! A number of them, sadly powerful ones, are really rather loopy! They may over-react and trigger a war between Iran and America.

For that matter, Obama may not have thought this all the way through. It's not clear if he has considered the possibility of an Iranian over-reaction.

Diplomats have been getting countries to promise to negotiate oil contracts with other nations when their contracts with Iran expire. This means that eventually, not only will Iran have no customers but even if the sanctions are lifted it could be months or years before those contracts expire with those other countries, before Iran can try to win them back.

So Iran could be hurt very deeply indeed! It could well trigger an internal revolution and there's no way those Ayatollahs want that to happen! So they might do almost any crazy thing, thinking it will keep their people's attention diverted.

These are very scary times, indeed!

[Guest Peeves]

No kidding! The sanctions are beginning to hurt! These new ones have effectively stopped the Iranian economy dead i......

So Iran could be hurt very deeply indeed! It could well trigger an internal revolution and there's no way those Ayatollahs want that to happen! So they might do almost any crazy thing, thinking it will keep their people's attention diverted.

These are very scary times, indeed!

We can hope for a Persian spring -internal revolution . It's there just below the surface and Iranians are not uneducated or ill informed. They will only take so much.

The West should be using (if they're not) covert activities and funding for a revolution from within.

[GostHacked]

We can hope for a Persian spring -internal revolution . It's there just below the surface and Iranians are not uneducated or ill informed. They will only take so much.

The West should be using (if they're not) covert activities and funding for a revolution from within.

What do you think the CIA operatives were doing in Iran when they were caught?

[Wild Bill]

What do you think the CIA operatives were doing in Iran when they were caught?

Well, we can't know they were CIA for sure, GH. Of course they could be, but people DO go back to visit relatives or for business reasons!

The biggest problem is we can't take Iran's word for who is a spy. They call anyone they feel like a spy! Especially right now, when they want things to throw back at the Americans as counter propaganda.

That's the difference between a civilized society and that of Iran. We would only prosecute someone as an Iranian spy if we had evidence and would then charge him and try to prove it in a court of law.

Iran would simply grab the first American they could find and stone him to death! Or lop off his head.

Of course, they would beat him first, in order to make him confess!

So again, we simply don't know for sure.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Wild Bill

[bud]

each star marks a u.s. military base, but just so we're all clear: iran is threatening u.s.; u.s. is not threatening them.

http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/381155_329902997025911_247545411928337_1479852_603782959_n.jpg

Edited January 10, 2012 by bud