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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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OK, but ...
Moral Equivocation
How can you equate the Soviet Union with the United States? The Soviet Union was a slave state fighting to bring even more people under it's oppressive regime, it had no rights and no justification for even existing. Likewise Iran has no right to oppress its citizens and wage Jihad on its neighbors and the US. It has no right to exist let alone have nuclear weapons. The United States for all its faults still stands for individual rights and freedom, that's why people come here in droves, including Muslims who have more rights here than anywhere in the Middle East. Such countries are an objective threat and any free country has a right to do what ever necessary to neutralize that threat. I don't believe Iraq was such a threat, Iran most certainly is, they have slaughtered hundred if not thousands of Americans. What would they do with a nuke?
- Nigel
October 29, 2008 6:45PM
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Hypocrisy
"How can you equate the Soviet Union with the United States?"
I don't. I question the right of any nation to say that any other has no right to exist. The US is quick to say that Israel has a 'right' to exist.
Hypocrisy is the issue. The US says one thing and does another.
Can you give examples of Iran attacking the US ? There are several examples of the US attacking Iran.
You talk much of rights, by what 'right' does the US seek to impose it's model of democracy upon a nation, other than force of arms ?
The US is building an empire. It can impose it will either by using its military muscle, or by, effectively, blockading a country.
You have no right to impose your way on another, if you try they have the right to resist. Is that not how the US came to exist in the first place ?
- Andrew Holt
October 30, 2008 4:38AM
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Freedom and Slavery are Different
So the Soviet Union (or Iran, or Taliban Afghanistan, or Nazi Germany) and the US are morally equivalent, neither is better than the other? That's just nihilism.
America is not a democracy, it's a constitutional republic based on the inalienable individual rights to life, liberty and happiness. Iran is a theocratic dictatorship where citizens have no rights. The difference is between freedom and slavery, life and death, that's what gives us the right. America has every right to protect the right of its citizens from the threats of illegitimate, totalitarian states such as Iran. Iran enslaves and slaughters its own citizens, it recognizes no rights; how absurd it is to claim it has the right not to be interfered with. The only empire being built is the one the Jihadists are building, they're the ones imposing an ideology and way of life on everybody. In the US and the West in general you can be whatever religion you want to be, and do whatever you want if you respect the same rights of others. To grasp this obvious difference I suggest you try being a Christian, or a Jew, or a secularist, or a woman, or a homosexual, or anything other than a good Islamic fundamentalist, in Iran.
Iran has been attacking the US since the invasion of our embassy in 1979.
1979 - US Embassy invaded and hostages seized [students sanctioned by Khomeni]
1983 - U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Sixty-three people were killed, including 17 Americans [Hezbollah]
1983 - American embassy in Kuwait was bombed. 5 people were killed, and more than 80 others were injured. [Al Dawa]
1982-92 - assorted kidnappings in Lebanon, totally 30 Westerners from '82-92 [Hezbollah]
1984 - truck bomb exploded outside the U.S. Embassy annex killing 24 people, two of whom were U.S. military personnel. [Hezbollah]
1984 - Kuwait Airways Flight 221, the hijackers killed two American officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development. [Hezbollah]
1985 - TWA Flight 847 was hijacked, hostage Robert Dean Stethem, a U.S. Navy diver, was shot and his body dumped on the airport tarmac. U.S. [Hezbollah]
That's just 6 years and it just gets worse, do I have to go on? According to the FBI (reporting prior to 9/11), Iranian-backed Hezbollah was responsible for the slaughter of more Americans than any other group.
It's important to note that Iran's spreading of totalitarian Islam, and its involvement and success at sponsoring terrorism is what inspires and motivates Bin Laden and other terrorist organizations, and has made them think they can kidnap and murder Americans with impunity. If we had taken Iran at it's word and eliminated their terrorist state back in 1979 or even the early 1980s, in my opinion the resurgence of terrorism and 9/11 would never have happened. It's thanks to the non-military "solution" i.e. appeasement, that today terrorist groups operate all around the world (including a Hezbollah cell in my state in the US), raising funds and raising future "martyrs" who will probably make 9/11 look like child's play.
- Nigel
October 30, 2008 10:11AM
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more hypocrisy
OK How about:
Iraq:
1963: CIA organises coup that killed president, brings Ba'ath Party to power, and Saddam Hussein back from exile to be head of the secret service.
Iran:
1951 Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh was elected prime minister.
1953 President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorised Operation Ajax. The operation was successful, and Mossadegh was arrested on 19 August 1953, With American support, the Shah was able to rapidly modernise Iranian infrastructure, but he simultaneously crushed all forms of political opposition.
Lebanon
1958: In that intervention, 14,000 Americans were sent to Lebanon by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to quell the opposition to President Camille Chamoun.
1981, Israeli air craft bombed multi-story apartment buildings in Beirut
1982: Israeli siege of Beirut
1982 Invasion of Lebanon by Israel
Others:
Cuba 1961 Attempted invasion and regime change in Cuba.
1962-present ongoing trade restrictions
Laos 1962 Invasion of neutral country
Dominican Republic 1965-66 Marines land during election campaign.
Guatemala 1966-67 Green Berets intervene against rebels.
Cambodia: 1969-75 Up to 2 million killed in decade of bombing, starvation, and political chaos.
Oman: 1970 U.S. directs Iranian marine invasion.
Chile: 1973 CIA-backed coup ousts elected Marxist president.
... and so on ...
I have no sympathy with religion, Islam or otherwise. I have worked with the Saudi's, the government there is despicable.
My point is that you cannot credibly moralise about democracy whilst destabilising democratically elected, but unfriendly regimes. That's hypocrisy. You cannot claim to be a defender of a nations sovereignty (Kuwait) and then ignore it when it suits you (Syria, Pakistan)
As George Washington wrote "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. ..."
- Andrew Holt
October 30, 2008 12:20PM
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Elected Tyrants are
Huh? Many of those were justified retaliations or acts of self-defense, Arafat and the PLO should have been wiped out in the seige of Lebanon but the US intervened on behalf of the PLO! Talk about hypocritical and suicidal! But of course the US has been hypocritical (show me a nation that hasn't been), and there's plenty of genuine cases you've left off. I abhor such hypocrisy, it is unprincipled and it undermines US security. So the solution is to be principled and unyielding in identifying threats as threats and responding with overwhelming force to neutralize them.
Once again, the US is not a democracy (no Bush doesn't understand that), majority rule is immoral and leads not to freedom and justice but mob rule, exhibit A: Hamas. Being an elected terrorist makes you no less a murderer, and being an elected tyrant doesn't entitle you to silence, enslave, rob and murder, nor does it exempt you from retaliation from your victims and would-be victims, such as Israel or the US.
- Nigel
October 30, 2008 6:48PM
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OK, So Let's Have a Principled Defense of Security
Many of those were justified retaliations or acts of self-defense, Arafat and his thugs should have been wiped out in the siege of Lebanon but the US intervened on behalf of the PLO! Talk about hypocritical and suicidal! I abhor such hypocrisy. But why is hypocrisy wrong? Because it is unprincipled and causes the US to act counter to it's principles, against its own interest and security. So the solution is to be principled and unyielding in identifying threats as threats and responding with overwhelming force to neutralize them.
You still refuse to differentiate between nations based on respect for individuals and those that crush that freedom. Once again, the US is not a democracy (no Bush doesn't understand that), majority rule is immoral and leads not to freedom and justice but mob rule, exhibit A: Hamas. It's what they are that counts, not how they got there. Being an elected terrorist makes you no less a murderer, and being an elected tyrant doesn't entitle you to silence, enslave, rob and murder, nor does it exempt you from retaliation from your victims and would-be victims, such as Israel or the US. Morality is wholly on the side of free countries, slave and terrorist states are wholly illegitimate and and immoral, with no valid claims to sovereignty or self-determination, no matter how many ballots were cast in their establishment.
- Nigel
October 31, 2008 10:21AM
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How do you define justified ?
"Many of those were justified retaliations or acts of self-defence"
If your family had farmed in a place for generations, then some foreigner came and forced you to leave and gave your land to somebody else would you define a violent response as justified ?
That's exactly what started the Palestinian problem. When they returned they were evicted again & their houses dynamited, if they persisted they were killed.
How would you define a terrorist state ? one created by rebels or terrorists ? e.g. The USA, Israel, Vietnam, Cuba, India, South Africa ... in fact most states that were conquered by the West.
Or one that supports and funds terrorists, e.g. USA (Contra's, IRA, Mujahideen and so on), Israel (Christian militia in Lebanon)
"respect for individuals". I have been to the US many times. I have seen the homeless begging, and living on the streets, that's "respect" is it ?
"Being an elected terrorist makes you no less a murderer". So we should abandon the peace process in Northern Ireland, or refused to deal with Isreal because, at least for the first 40 years, they were former terrorists ? Unrealistic.
What I refuse to do is to insist that my morality overrides everybody else's. If the USA wants to show the superiority of its morals I suggest a better way is to live up to them.
- Andrew Holt
October 31, 2008 10:53AM
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I think it's clear enough
I completely disagree with you on the Palestinian question, Israel has always been the pro-freedom country amidst a sea of dictatorships. However, the issue here is not Israel, but the US vs Iran.
To end this futile discussion I'll just say that we'd like nothing better than to be left alone to live our lives according to our moral code; but unfortunately that would be short sighted and suicidal because a would-be nuclear Iran is chanting "Death to the Great Satan." But that's a fact beyond the grasp of politically-correct moral relativists.
- Nigel
October 31, 2008 5:33PM
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Reference
go look at
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
- Andrew Holt
October 30, 2008 12:25PM
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