Once a distant, mysterious land, the U.S. has become intensely embroiled in Middle Eastern politics. While simultaneously waging campaigns in both Afghanistan and Iraq, America has turned a wary eye to Iran and its alleged nuclear weapons. With the lives of potentially thousands of soldiers and citizens at stake in both countries, should the U.S. take direct military action against Iran?
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I'm curious what is meant by the phrase "create the conditions for Iranians to win their own future?" This sounds much like the Bush doctrine of trying to spread "democracy" throughout the world, for altruistic purposes, without the fundamental ideas necessary to guarantee individual rights. Democracy, without individual rights, is just majority rule at the expense of the individual.
What ideas would the US fight for while trying to create said conditions? What fundamental principles would we call on to battle the virulent totalitarian Islamist ideology? "Self-determined democracy" is not such a principle. All one has to do is look at the precarious situation in Turkey, where the Islamists are gaining ground, threatening to overthrow the secular state in a fully "democratic" manner. Is a violent Islamist regime OK because the people voted for it? Need I bring up how the Nazis came to power?
- C August
August 21, 2008 9:14AM
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The Iran Threat Should Be Taken Seriously
- From Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights
By Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights - Advancing Objectivism
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Why expand the hatred of the US?
>>Does that mean another quagmire like Iraq? No. The campaign in Iraq is a global-welfare mission--not a real war designed to advance our self-defense.
Exactly how do you avoid another quagmire like Iraq? (Sidepoint-wasn't "quagmire" a forbidden word by the warmongers previously?) The people of Iran will fight an invader with the same passion as those of Iraq. Your belief that a population won't fight an invader leads me to believe that you'd make the choice of not fighting were your country to be invaded. For most people, that thought never enters their head.
- Hey Its Todd August 14, 2008 11:19PM
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They already hate us
Have you read the arguments? Iraq is a quagmire because we weren't allowed to fight like we mean it and because Iran is the real enemy. They're behind a large part of the insurgency and I would be very surprised if they didn't have some political influence in the current Iraqi government as well. If we topple Iran decisively and allow (and even assist with) the opposition takeover, terrorists will lose a great deal of the logistical support they currently enjoy.
- Hank
August 15, 2008 7:15AM
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Two trillion wrongs don't make a right
So we should follow the lead of the same criminals who concocted the Iraq Invasion & Occupation direct another attack? The cliche that "insanity is the repetition of the same act with an expectation of different results". And as for not being allowed to "fight like we mean it", should we have more contractors not under any laws or guidelines? Fight in more population centers? Nuke the region? We already have decades if not centuries of hatred from the region's occupants; are we aiming to have the hatred last as long as the radiation poison from a nuclear attack?
>>They're behind a large part of the insurgency and I would be very surprised if they didn't have some political influence in the current Iraqi government as well.
A while back, Iraq was responsible for all things evil in the Middle East. Who will it be next week? As for aiding the defense of Iraq against a foreign invader, would we help Canada if a Muslim-led nation attacked them?
- Hey Its Todd August 15, 2008 9:15AM
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Who are you arguing with?
A while back, Iraq was responsible for all things evil in the Middle East.
I never said that, and I don't align myself with those who do. We should have attacked Iran to begin with. And we should help our ally Canada regardless of who attacks them. What do Muslims have to do with it?
Fight like we mean it:
"ordered not to bomb key targets, such as power plants, and to avoid firing into mosques (where insurgents hide) lest we offend Muslim sensibilities. Instead, we sent our troops to lift Iraq out of poverty, open new schools, fix up hospitals, feed the hungry, unclog sewers--a Peace Corps, not an army corps, mission." Is any of this not true? I'm open to argument on this subject, as the only information I have is purely rhetorical, and therefore somewhat untrustworthy. I accepted it as true because it wasn't refuted by an expert on the 'No' side.
- Hank
August 16, 2008 9:58AM
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Nonsense
>>And as for not being allowed to "fight like we mean it", should we have more contractors not under any laws or guidelines?
Why do you take "fight like we mean it" to mean the abolishment of all laws and guidelines and the use of mercenaries (i.e. contractors)? Why do you attribute a policy which you undoubtedly associate with Bush -- rightly or not is another question entirely -- to people who have supported no such thing? If you are going to oppose the writer at least focus on what he has said, not what Bush has said and done or what you think he has said and done.
>>Fight in more population centers?...Nuke the region?
Do you think Hezzbolah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, etc are going to stand out in the desert and wait to be annihilated by the 3rd ID? They are in the cities, so of course that is where we have to fight them. As for nuking the region, no one has supported that.
- Junius509
August 21, 2008 1:28PM
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Eliminate the threat or live peacefully
US soldiers should be in Iran as long as they pose a threat to myself,my family and the security of the free world. I think it's wrong that they feel we should die just because we believe as strongly in our God as they do in their Allah. I guess I have grown accustomed to the liberties the US has provided in the belief of freedom of religion.Were they to live on our soil they too would be given those liberties. We on their soil would not be so lucky.I'm not saying we should try to change their beliefs but nor do I think we should allow them to change ours!
- Mommyteacher
September 27, 2008 3:57PM
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