Bibi won!

[Al B. Sure!]

Christ, I don't even know where to begin with this...

The man is an outright scumbag, so it stands to reason that Reg Collider loves the ground he walks on.

This thread is a microcosm of everything that is wrong in the world today: All of the US' and Israel's enemies have been manufactured by their own hand! Yes, let's actually make people hate us by treating them in the very manner that we're scared they'll treat us - offence is the best form of defence after all...!

Bibi got his way with Iraq and look what happened there.

Reg Collider should look at this before calling for even more US citizens to be put into harm's way: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/healing-soldiers/

True casualties of Afghanistan and Iraq: At least 230,000 (of which 6,845 killed) and counting!

And for what? Worse than nothing, because the US has destabilised an entire region and created newer, stronger, enemies: exhibit A - Russia.

Yay!

Something is wrong with that Marine in the first picture of the article. He is described as a corporal but he is wearing lance corporal rank and while I'm not the best with medals and ribbons, I don't see a combat action ribbon or a people heart. Granted, he could have had very traumatic experiences without having received those decorations but there have been service members who have been fraudalent about their experiences.

[regexcellent]

So, when is the next election in Gaza?

[onejayhawk]

You should immediately hide under your bed before those massed Iranian tank divisions come rolling over the Iowa plains.

Why would I do that? They support terrorism as a policy and genocide of Jews as an objective. They want weapons of mass destruction. That makes them both dangerous and a humanitarian nightmare.

J

[Al B. Sure!]

Are we all in agreement despite the political and media spin that a nuclear armed Iran would not nuke Israel just as nuclear deterrence has prevented war between cold war powers and India and Pakistan? Where a nuclear Iran would be an increased threat would be in their support for terrorism which might increase with an Iran more confident it will not be invaded as Iraq was by virtue of its nuclear weapons. Ironically belligerence to Iran is their greatest motivator to possess the bomb for defensive reasons or to look at it the other way, as insurance to give them more carte blanche to support terrorism. I do not know that hezbollah has targeted Americans much.

[DinoDoc]

Anyone know how big a story the US Admin entering the election was in Israel?

[C0ckney]

Are we all in agreement despite the political and media spin that a nuclear armed Iran would not nuke Israel just as nuclear deterrence has prevented war between cold war powers and India and Pakistan?

everyone knows this, but it is necessary for them to spin it that way because they feel that they can't say "iran is a threat to israel's and saudi arabia's regional interests, therefore america/the west must act!" directly.

[regexcellent]

Yes, Iran would probably not nuke Israel, but Israel is not the main reason Iran is a problem. Israel's really just a sideshow in middle east politics, especially right now. Nobody cares about Israel or the Palestinians when Syria has a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands, there's a new crazy ass Sunni extremist terrorist state sitting smack dab between Iraq and Syria, Yemen's government got toppled, Libya's still a train wreck, etc.

The reason Iran getting nuclear weapons is bad is because it would put Iran's horrible regime in a secure position domestically that we don't want it in, and internationally give it huge bargaining power and a massive advantage over neighboring countries that we would rather not see dragged into an arms race with each other. Iran getting nukes is not hunky dory.

And if there's one country that all the Arab states hate, it's Iran, not Israel. Israel's not only a convenient scapegoat, but actually has quite cordial relations with both Egypt and Jordan, and unofficially with Saudi Arabia as well.

The comparison to India and Pakistan is quite appropriate but not for the reasons you think it is. Pakistan is a state with so little control over its own territory that we casually invade its airspace and bomb its people and there isn't **** they can do about it. And it has nuclear weapons.

[Aeson]

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html

I think that there are some mistakes (especially about time ordering and right/left ordering), but in general it is very interesting.

I recommend it.

JM

It's good to know our instinctual biases so we can recognize them and then intellectually discount them before acting

(I haven't taken the tests, but I know I have strong instinctual biases against most minorities given my upbringing.)

[regexcellent]

My results for the science/arts male/female test were confounded by the fact that I associate philosophy with men and biology with women, so those two repeatedly tripped me up.

[kentonio]

Yes, Iran would probably not nuke Israel, but Israel is not the main reason Iran is a problem. Israel's really just a sideshow in middle east politics, especially right now. Nobody cares about Israel or the Palestinians when Syria has a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands, there's a new crazy ass Sunni extremist terrorist state sitting smack dab between Iraq and Syria, Yemen's government got toppled, Libya's still a train wreck, etc.

Completely untrue. Israel is still America's priority, as it always is.

The reason Iran getting nuclear weapons is bad is because it would put Iran's horrible regime in a secure position domestically that we don't want it in, and internationally give it huge bargaining power and a massive advantage over neighboring countries that we would rather not see dragged into an arms race with each other. Iran getting nukes is not hunky dory.

Perhaps if you stopped trying to interfere in other countries regimes, then they might actually become far less dangerous over time? In case it has slipped your attention, America propping up authoritarian dictatorships was the key trigger for what has led us to this point. Iran has a sizable number of progressives pushing for change, but their efforts are undermined every time the US threatens Iranian security.

And if there's one country that all the Arab states hate, it's Iran, not Israel. Israel's not only a convenient scapegoat, but actually has quite cordial relations with both Egypt and Jordan, and unofficially with Saudi Arabia as well.

The comparison to India and Pakistan is quite appropriate but not for the reasons you think it is. Pakistan is a state with so little control over its own territory that we casually invade its airspace and bomb its people and there isn't **** they can do about it. And it has nuclear weapons.

So what is your point exactly? We can't possibly let Iran ever get nuclear weapons because it would become untouchable, yet another muslim state with far more radical elements AND nuclear weapons is so weak that America can just walk all over it? Does that make any sense when you think about it?

I don't want Iran getting nukes, because we should be phasing the damn things out, not proliferating them, but the arguments for allowing a nuclear Israel and then denying nukes to its enemies is purely based on American and western interests, not on any kind of morally justifiable position. Iran started sponsoring terrorism because they were being treated like crap by the major powers and had no conventional ability to retaliate without risking destruction. They were pushed into a war with Iraq that cost them 200-600,000 lives, with their attacker receiving American help because it suited America having Iraq and Iran damaging each other. Think about that for a moment, you lost 3000 people on 9/11 and fundamentally changed your society and launched two wars over it. They lost hundreds of thousands of lives because of western gamesmanship, yet they're apparently the bad guys because they funded Hezbollah? Seriously?

Its so easy to look at the horrors that happen in the middle east and to buy into the whole 'they're just barbarians!' narrative, yet put events into context and we come out of it looking like the guilty parties. The whole 'we stand for freedom and democracy!' thing is all well and good, but in reality we stand for those things in our own countries, and we've always been more than happy to destroy any trace of them in other countries if it furthers our own interests.

[C0ckney]

well quite. another point is that a lot of iran's 'support for terrorism *gasp!*' is actually support for resistence movements against foreign invasions in neghbouring countries.

[I AM MOBIUS]

Hear hear, both previous posts!

It strikes me that for a long time now, the real villain of the peace is the US: constantly meddling in other people's affairs to the extent that they create sworn enemies out of people who could be allies.

Iran, the situation in Iraq, even ISIS, are in effect, creations of US foreign policy.

Why is Russia suddenly so belligerent? Maybe because the US never really stopped treating them as the enemy from since the Cold War.

Take this website: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-wor...ary-bases/5564

The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases

The Global Deployment of US Military Personnel

This important analysis and review of US military might by distinguished Canadian geographer Professor Jules Dufour and CRG Research Associate was first published by Global Research in 2007.

US military presence expanded around the World has expanded dramatically in the course of the last five years. This study is largely based on data for the period 2001-2005.

* *
The Worldwide control of humanity’s economic, social and political activities is under the helm of US corporate and military power. Underlying this process are various schemes of direct and indirect military intervention. These US sponsored strategies ultimately consist in a process of global subordination.

More than 1000 US Bases and/or Military Installations

The main sources of information on these military installations (e.g. C. Johnson, the NATO Watch Committee, the International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases) reveal that the US operates and/or controls between 700 and 800 military bases Worldwide.


In this regard, Hugh d’Andrade and Bob Wing’s 2002 Map 1 entitled “U.S. Military Troops and Bases around the World, The Cost of ‘Permanent War’”, confirms the presence of US military personnel in 156 countries.


The US Military has bases in 63 countries. Brand new military bases have been built since September 11, 2001 in seven countries.


In total, there are 255,065 US military personnel deployed Worldwide.


These facilities include a total of 845,441 different buildings and equipments. The underlying land surface is of the order of 30 million acres. According to Gelman, who examined 2005 official Pentagon data, the US is thought to own a total of 737 bases in foreign lands.

Adding to the bases inside U.S. territory, the total land area occupied by US military bases domestically within the US and internationally is of the order of 2,202,735 hectares, which makes the Pentagon one of the largest landowners worldwide (Gelman, J., 2007).

I mean, WTF?

Let's not kid ourselves that the US is doing this because it cares about the welfare of other countries...

[Jon Miller]

I don't want Iran getting nukes, because we should be phasing the damn things out, not proliferating them, but the arguments for allowing a nuclear Israel and then denying nukes to its enemies is purely based on American and western interests, not on any kind of morally justifiable position.

I am western, why shouldn't I have interests?

My problem is that I think to keep Iran from having nuclear weapons we have to go to war, and do I think it is in my interests to do that? No.

JM

[kentonio]

I am western, why shouldn't I have interests?

My problem is that I think to keep Iran from having nuclear weapons we have to go to war, and do I think it is in my interests to do that? No.

JM

I'm western too, and I'm a big fan of having a comfortable safe life, with cheap consumables. It just offends me that we have to bathe it all in a coating of propaganda that makes all the people we've made into our enemies be these 'others' that do barbaric things while we good western folk just want everyone to be free and democratic and happy. If we can accept the role we've played and still say 'yep, we're still winning' then that's one thing, but let's cast away the bull****, because our governments just use it to create a climate of fear where we end up going along with worse and worse actions.

[I AM MOBIUS]

Hence exactly why Netanyahu won.