News Speculation mounting of an attack on Iran

[AhmedEzz]

I respect your opinion yet I disagree with it because I think you have double standards. I think that the West looks at Israel as "peaceful" "sane" and "friendly" while unfortunately, the West looks at other ME countries as "war-mongering" "barbaric" and "inferior"...sad but most of it is true, atleast I think so.

So why the double-standard on Iran's nuclear intentions? The estimates in question are coming from the exact same (Western) intelligence sources. When they say Israel probably has nukes, it's apparently obviously fact, but when they make claims about Iran, it's mere propaganda?

ok, you got me there but that's a good thing, admitting being wrong, because then we might reach a compromise and correct our views. I hope you would do the same.

I have no recollection of such an agreement, nor any idea what the distinction between "enforcement" and "encouragement to comply" would be in the first place.

I started a thread on the "international law" and most of you agreed that its a rather a promising idea than a real law that all nations must abide with.

Should be obvious from the definition of rogue state.

My point is that I don't think Iran did any worse than Israel to be called a "rogue" state.

 

[vociferous]

Israel has the military power to squash all of its neighboring countries. Moreover, doesn't the fact that Israel has nuclear weapons threaten Iran's or any country in the region existence?

That is untrue. Israel's military is smaller than most of its Arab neighbors. The few times that the IDF has pushed into its neighboring countries is in response to direct provocation. Israel does not have the military power to invade and occupy a country like Syria or Iran, so claiming that "Israel has the military power to squash all of its neighboring countries" is simply untruthful.

You can count on one hand the number of States that have any real military power. Israel is not one of them.

Israel does have nuclear weapons, which were developed primarily as a last resort to protect Israel against its Arab neighbors (who have a history of launching unprovoked attacks on Israel).

There are probably two countries that could win a decisive military victory against Iran, Russia and the United States. Russia is their semi-ally and the United States would be completely outside the range of any Iranian attack, so there really is no external threat that justifies Iran violating the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.

 

[vociferous]

I respect your opinion yet I disagree with it because I think you have double standards. I think that the West looks at Israel as "peaceful" "sane" and "friendly" while unfortunately, the West looks at other ME countries as "war-mongering" "barbaric" and "inferior"...sad but most of it is true, atleast I think so.

I think if you look at the evidence objectively, you will see why. Israel is a secular democracy that provides for western-style civil and human rights guarantees for its citizens, similar to American and European nations.

With the exception of Turkey, the current Iraqi government, and perhaps Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, none of that can be said of the other Muslim states in the Middle East.

Iran, for instance, is a theocratic dictatorship with virtually no guarantees of civil rights for its citizens and an extremely poor human rights record. Iran is an Islamic state which treats non-Muslims as second class citizens. Iran's legal system is based upon Islamic law, and employs barbaric punishments such as stoning for "crimes" such as homosexuality and adultery. Women are treated as second class citizens and do not have equal rights.

Granted, there are many Iranians who want their country to become a Western Style democracy, but it should come as little surprise that most people who were raised in a western democracy find Iran's system of governance and jurisprudence offensive to their sensibilities.

 

[AhmedEzz]

Israel does have nuclear weapons, which were developed primarily as a last resort to protect Israel against its Arab neighbors (who have a history of launching unprovoked attacks on Israel).

you need to revise your history lessons...Israel as a state emerged on Arab lands, this of course meant that Arabs had to defend themselves, they went to several wars some lost some won and finally we offered peace last year but Israel declined. Unfair accusation.

. Israel does not have the military power to invade and occupy a country like Syria or Iran, so claiming that "Israel has the military power to squash all of its neighboring countries" is simply untruthful.

Oh but Israel can send all those countries to rubble with all kinds of missiles, air force, artillery, you name it...Israel doesn't need to "invade" a country to bring it to its knees.

There are probably two countries that could win a decisive military victory against Iran, Russia and the United States.

You are way over-estimating Iranian military.

there really is no external threat that justifies Iran violating the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.

I DONT support the Iranian nuclear programme but I'm saying if you will judge them then judge by the same standards...you judge by DOUBLE standards.

 

[mheslep]

I highly doubt it. If Israel had the ability to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities with a single air strike, they probably would have taken it already.

Who said single? I don't expect it would be that easy, and even if it was I expect Israel would have to wait until Iran is further down the road.

Iraq was using a breeder reactor to produce weapons grade plutonium. A single strike eliminated the reactor and the threat.

Iran is pursuing the path of refining weapons-grade Uranium. Their have huge nuclear facilities, decentralized and hardened against air strikes. Israel simply does not have the military power to destroy them.

Well there you are, that's my point. I don't know how hardended Iran's fuel-cycle has been made, and I doubt anyone posting here knows either, other than its fair to assume it would not be a soft target.

The US/NATO may be able to destroy most of Iran's nuclear facilities with aerial bombardment, but without sending in an invasion force to sweep the country and secure nuclear facilities, it would be uncertain exactly how big of a setback it would be.

Also, a massive air strike aimed against Iranian nuclear facilities would probably trigger an attempt by Iran to further destabilize Iraq, which is not in the best interests of the US or the EU.

Good reasons to avoid doing anything militarily, let's include another, the fact that innocent people will get hurt. The decision still should include weighing the consequences of doing nothing.

 

[mheslep]

Just for the record: Iraq had the 4th most powerful military in the world, and it tooks all of 100 hours to eliminate it.

Though I love the vote of confidence in our military, Iraq had the 4th largest military in the world in 1990, but in 2002, it was only a shadow of its former self.

This is a joke, right? Iraq never had the "4th most powerful military"...not in the last 4 centuries, at least!

Russ has it right - Iraq had the 4th largest military at the time of the 1st gulf war/ Kuwait invasion in commonly weighted terms of troops and material - powerful being something else entirely, as the outcome in 100 hrs showed.

 

[vociferous]

you need to revise your history lessons...Israel as a state emerged on Arab lands, this of course meant that Arabs had to defend themselves, they went to several wars some lost some won and finally we offered peace last year but Israel declined. Unfair accusation.

I am not certain where you get these fantastical ideas, but modern day Israel was created from British holdings, not "Arab lands". Of course, if you want to go back farther than that, you can go back two thousand years to the Roman invasion of Israel, which resulted in the Jewish diaspora. Other than perhaps the Chinese, I cannot think of a single nation or culture that has survived, basically intact for thousands upon thousands of years.

Oh but Israel can send all those countries to rubble with all kinds of missiles, air force, artillery, you name it...Israel doesn't need to "invade" a country to bring it to its knees.

Maybe you should examine recent history. The last major war between Israel and its Arab neighbors was in 1973, the Yom Kippur War. Israel pushed back an Arab attack, launched against them on one of Judaism's most Holy Days. The Israeli Army held the larger Arab invaders back, hardly bringing Egypt or Syria "to its knees". As I have said before, the Israeli military is smaller than most of its Arab neighbors. The Israeli military is designed for self defense, not a force like the United States, or even the UK, which can be used for enforcing its foreign policy goals.

You are way over-estimating Iranian military.

The fact is, the Iranian military may be primitive, but it is much larger than the Israeli military.

I DONT support the Iranian nuclear programme but I'm saying if you will judge them then judge by the same standards...you judge by DOUBLE standards.

Part of those standards depend on the nature of the state, and there is a huge difference between Israel, a small, secular democracy which meets western standards of human and civil rights and Iran, a large Islamic dictatorship with a poor history of human rights, civil rights, and stability.

The main issue is nonproliferation. Israel has had its nuclear weapons for a long time. If Iran is able to develop them, other nearby nations are going to start violating the nuclear nonproliferation treaty as well, and pretty soon everyone in the region will want its own nuclear program.

The fewer number of nations that have nuclear weapons, the better. The more nations that have them, the more likely they will be used.

 

[Gokul43201]

Russ has it right - Iraq had the 4th largest military at the time of the 1st gulf war/ Kuwait invasion in commonly weighted terms of troops and material - powerful being something else entirely, as the outcome in 100 hrs showed.

Exactly. Having the 4th largest army does not make you the 4th most powerful. With a nearly non-existent Navy and very limited Airforce, the Iraqi Armed Forces consisted essentially of a million sitting ducks.

 

[vociferous]

I am the one who does not get where you get those fantastical ideas from. Does the British occupation of the lands remove its entity?

Using that "logic", you can dispute "ownership" of the land going back thousands of years. The lands were once Roman, and before that, they were Jewish. I am simply pointing out that Israel was created from UK holdings, not from an Arab nation. It is absolutely pointless to engage in a discussion of who the lands "belonged" to before that, because it is entirely dependent on how far back in history you want to go and what you consider "rightful stewardship."

The lands were divided based upon the which groups controlled what territory. The area controlled by Jews was turned into Israel and the areas controlled by Arabs were given to Egypt and Jordan. Disputing who "rightfully" is supposed to control a specific area is an exercise in futility. The borders of Israel are not going to be significantly redrawn, nor are the borders of the West Bank, Gaza, Egypt, Syria, or Lebanon.

so since Iraq is occupied, its not an Arab's land anymore? its part of the US now?

The nation of Iraq was under control of coalition forces (not the US) but is currently no longer under coalition control, but rather under the stewardship of the sovereign democratic government of Iraq, but yes, essentially a country "belongs", for better or worse, to whomever exercises sovereignty over it, and to a lesser extent, to whomever the international community recognizes as exercising sovereignty over it.

...moreover, when parts of Europe were occupied by Germany, that means that those lands do not belong to the nationals anymore??>>

If you remember history, this was the case immediatly following the war. Western German and Berlin was under the control of the UK, US, and France for some time before it was ceded back to the German people and East Germany was under the control of the Soviets, and then later, a Soviet puppet government, so it really never belonged entirely to the German people until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reuniting of Germany back into a single, sovereign Teutonic state.

you make it sound as if we are attacking Israel, not as Israel occupied Sinai and we liberated it

Egyptian forces were the ones who crossed the cease-fire lines in the Sinai. Israel captured the Sinai after another unprovoked attempt to destroy it, so it is understandable that most of the world looks upon the incident as an unprovoked attack against Israel, essentially a continuation of the 1967 war.

now things grasped my attention. First, Israel is far far away from having any standards of human rights, let alone Western.

Really? According to Freedom House, an organization that rates such things on a scale, with a score of "one" being greatest, Israel scores a one in political rights and a two in civil liberties, similar to the United States and Europe. Your claim lacks a factual basis.

Second, the word "Islamic", may I ask you what does that have to do with anything? or did you just type it and didn't mean anything?

Meaning that the country is a type of theocracy, a religious state, where there is a mandate toward a single official government religion, as opposed to secular states, like the United States or Israel, which may be biased toward the majority religion, but where citizens of all religions enjoy equal rights and representation in government.

 

[Gokul43201]

Really? According to Freedom House, an organization that rates such things on a scale, with a score of "one" being greatest, Israel scores a one in political rights and a two in civil liberties, similar to the United States and Europe. Your claim lacks a factual basis.

You really need to include a link to the source for stuff like this.

Israel typically scores pretty high for human rights within Israel proper but does very badly (worse than Jordan or Lebanon, and comparable to Iran) for its abuses in Israeli occupied territories.

www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/pdf/Charts2006.pdf[/URL]

 

[quadraphonics]

I think that the West looks at Israel as "peaceful" "sane" and "friendly" while unfortunately, the West looks at other ME countries as "war-mongering" "barbaric" and "inferior"...sad but most of it is true, atleast I think so.

I don't think that such assigning such a reductive, prejudicial worldview to "The West" is a terribly sound foundation for analysis of this issue. That's not to deny that (all) people have biases about different cultures and nations, but the time for worrying about the root causes of a mistaken position are after you're shown what the mistakes are. To just tell people that they must be wrong because their culture is flawed does not get anyone anywhere, irony aside.

My point is that I don't think Iran did any worse than Israel to be called a "rogue" state.

Oh? How many terrorist organizations in Iran is Israel sponsoring to kill Iranian civilians indiscriminately? How many embassy staffers has Israel kidnapped and held hostage? Israel has plenty of real flaws that deserve criticism, but untrustworthiness with nuclear technology doesn't seem to be one of them.

 

[vociferous]

You really need to include a link to the source for stuff like this.

Israel typically scores pretty high for human rights within Israel proper but does very badly (worse than Jordan or Lebanon, and comparable to Iran) for its abuses in Israeli occupied territories.

www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/pdf/Charts2006.pdf[/URL][/QUOTE]

Actually, I do not think it has anything to do with abuses, as those would be considered as an issue with international law, not freedom. It has to do with the fact that, as occupied territories, they are simply not free to participate in the political process. Also, if you look at the Palestinian territories in the ranking, the scores appear to be based on the Palestinian Authority's corruption and abuse of power.

 

[quadraphonics]

Israel typically scores pretty high for human rights within Israel proper but does very badly (worse than Jordan or Lebanon, and comparable to Iran) for its abuses in Israeli occupied territories.

Of course, the reason Jordan and Lebanon score better is that they long since unapologetically employed indiscriminate violence to drive the militant factions of Palestinians back into the Israeli occupied territories. The picture in the 70's and 80's was not as flattering.

 

[AhmedEzz]

Why did you ignore my post? I think I provided the proof you were seeking...anyway this is way-off topic and I started a new thread and everyone is welcome and all views are.

As for the current topic, no I don't think Israel/US will attack Iran because simply both know what a great damage Iran can and will do if attacked. I think they both also know that Iran can't really develop any nuclear weapons in the near-future. Probably, Iran will be talked out of it by giving it a lot of privileges...maybe more, I don't know what they want.

 

[Cyrus]

Israel used cluster bombs to target heavily (civilian) populated area's and to this day refuses to inform the UN about the locations of the bombing leading to the death of more than 200(more) civilians since the end of the war, now why would you use cluster bombs in the first place, and then why would you refuse to even help in cutting down the civilian casualties after the conflict?

Another point is that out each one of Hezbollah's soldiers killed 18 Lebanese civilian where murdered as opposed to three IDF soldiers to each israeli citizen, so are you telling me that hezbollah had a better targeting mechanism for their missiles than Israels missile guidance systems.

And btw the only evidence that Israel didn't target citizens is taken from the words of the IDF generals, which is hardly a reputable source unless your willing to also take the words of Hasan Nasr-Allah as well.

P.S: Also a quick visit to the HRW website will prove the numbers I used.

Side note, your name is way cool to say: ABDUL-RAHHHH-MAN

 

[Abdelrahman]

Cluster bombs do not violate the Geneva or Hague protocols, nor does using them against military targets in civilian areas.

That wasn't the point I was trying to reach, The point was why would you use a bomb designed specifically to spread the destruction and take as many lives as possible in a civilian area, if they're clame is true that they where targeting hezbollah soldiers hiding in buildings why not use high precision bombs.

The second argument is Why not tell the UN where the bombing took place to prevent further civilian casualties?

The third argument to that sentence is that if we are going to abide by internationlal laws then Iran has a right to withdraw from the NPT and pursed nuclear weapons under Article X "jeopardizing of the supreme interests of its country".

As far as I have seen, Hezbollah was firing rockets at civilian areas, not military targets. Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, most of the IDF casualties were from fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon, not from rocket attacks. Also, your numbers do not add up. The UN estimates that 500 Hezbollah militants were killed (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...22/wmid122.xml ) as opposed to about twice that number of civilians, so that would be about 2:1, not 18:1.

I do not know how many IDF soldiers were killed by Hezbollah rockets, but if I remember the news correctly, most of the victims were Israeli civilians (including quite a few Israeli Arabs), which is in pretty stark contradiction to the numbers you posted, so I must insist that if you are going to make such a claim, you produce actual numbers of Israeli Forces killed by rockets.

The Israel numbers are the IDF declared numbers and the Hezbollah are the Iran/Hezbollah declared numbers.

Actually, it involves the simple logical principle of argumentum ad ignoratium. If you believe that Israel deliberately targeted civilians, you must prove it. Posting a link to an editorial column is not sufficient evidence.

That's where I'm confused. Where is the logic?
First: They bombed civilian areas.
Second: They bombed it using bombs designed exclusively to kill as many as possible in the drop-zone.
Third: They refuse to even give the bombing area to a neutral organization in order to spare more civilian casualties.
Forth: An IDF general goes out and says that there were Hezbollah soldiers in the area.
And you choose to believe number four.

 

[Abdelrahman]

Side note, your name is way cool to say: ABDUL-RAHHHH-MAN

ROFL
Thanks, I guess.

 

[vociferous]

That wasn't the point I was trying to reach, The point was why would you use a bomb designed specifically to spread the destruction and take as many lives as possible in a civilian area, if they're clame is true that they where targeting hezbollah soldiers hiding in buildings why not use high precision bombs.

To be honest, my military experience was limited to the Army. I was never in the Air Force, so I am really uncertain what the best munitions to use in a particular situation is. To the best of my knowledge, cluster bombs are generally used against troop formations, whereas standard gravity bombs would be used against enemy buildings.

The second argument is Why not tell the UN where the bombing took place to prevent further civilian casualties?

I do not know enough about the circumstances you are referring to, to comment.

The third argument to that sentence is that if we are going to abide by internationlal laws then Iran has a right to withdraw from the NPT and pursed nuclear weapons under Article X "jeopardizing of the supreme interests of its country".

True, but the UN, NATO, and other bodies have the right to sanction them, even to the point of a blockade or the use of military force if they do, just like North Korea.

The Israel numbers are the IDF declared numbers and the Hezbollah are the Iran/Hezbollah declared numbers.

That is disingenuous. As far as I can tell, the Hezbollah numbers are nowhere near estimates by reliable sources. If you look up the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_2006_Lebanon_War) the Hezbollah numbers are nowhere near any of the other estimates.

64 reported by Hezbollah,[8] ≤500 estimated by Lebanese officials,[9] ~500 estimated by United Nations[10] ~600 estimated by IDF,[11] 440 identified by Israel and up to 700 estimated by Amidror[12]More than 700 claimed by Lebanese sources [13]​

First: They bombed civilian areas.
Second: They bombed it using bombs designed exclusively to kill as many as possible in the drop-zone.
Third: They refuse to even give the bombing area to a neutral organization in order to spare more civilian casualties.
Forth: An IDF general goes out and says that there were Hezbollah soldiers in the area.
And you choose to believe number four.

Again, civilian areas are legitimate military targets if they are being occupied by an advesary. You should be putting at least as much blame on Hezbollah. If they were not hiding in civilian areas, then there would have been no legitimate reason to bomb those areas. Of course, given that Hezbollah could not win in a direct military confrontation with the IDF, and given their history of using terrorism (though admittedly, they have refrained from it lately), it is unsurprising to me that they would use civilians as shields. It is a double win, because it helps protect them and it looks bad for Israel.

Now, sometimes individuals and even government violate the laws of war. If you believe that Israel did so, then I am willing to consider it, but I need to see proof from a reliable source, the same standards as a court of law: innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I think the most questionable decision Israel made was bombing the power plant that released oil into the local waterways. This could be a violation of the Geneva convention's prohibition on attacking facilities containing dangerous forces, although it is unknown whether the Israelis were aware of the possible environmental damage.

 

[Art]

Side note, your name is way cool to say: ABDUL-RAHHHH-MAN

On the subject of names I note you have taken the name of Iran's (Persia's) most famous military leader Cyrus aka 'The shepherd King'. He was unusual for his day in that rather than slaughtering everyone he conquered he made allies of his vanquished enemies and in so doing created a huge empire.

Iran has a history and a civilisation going back millennia and so it is understandable that they see the right to pursue technologies as a matter of national pride.

They have offered all sorts of safeguards to oversee their enrichment program which would nullify any possibility of them producing weapon's grade uranium but it seems no matter what they do it will never be enough as basically the US just doesn't like them mainly because they overthrew the dictator the US appointed after the US and Britain had helped overthrow the democratically elected gov't of the time in retaliation for them nationalising the oil industry, (funny how it always comes back to oil )

To this end the US had sanctions in place long before the nuclear issue arose and no doubt will have them still in place long after the nuclear issue is solved.

It is portrayed in the west as if Iran were the only country in the world who desire to enrich their own nuclear fuel whereas in reality dozens already do including Japan and Germany which is rather ironic when past behaviour is now being cited as a criteria for determining who can and cannot develop nuclear technologies, although it does seem this criteria is applied exclusively to Iran.

 

[seycyrus]

Hey Vanesch, sorry about not responding yesterday.

Like GWB's words concerning Iraq ?

I think you just proved my point. GBWs words were VERY accurate as to his intent.

Come on. Iran's leaders are out to become a dominant regional power, and they will do and say anything which helps them - or which they think will help them in that respect.

It is the *do* part that worries me.

If I'm going to write that I'm going to blow up planet earth, then you're just listening to a lunatic talking. There is in that case absolutely no relationship between what I'm saying and what I could or would possibly do.

I believe a better example would be if you threatened to blow up a local school and began amassing massive amounts of fertilizer. All for gardening purposes of course.

The *tension* was of course genuine. However, we will never know what were the *real* intentions.

That was not the point I had brought up. I posited that the crisis had been averted because both sides treated the other side as if their announced intentions were real. Not because anyone acted like the other side was merely bluffing.

This is manifestly and utterly wrong. In fact, even at the end of WWII, the Soviets could *easily* have continued all the way to Spain. After the withdrawal of the bulk of American soldiers, the conventional force of the Western European countries was an order of magnitude below what the Soviets had ready on the other side of the iron curtain. They would have ran over Germany and France in a blink of an eye. It was the fear of a nuclear conflict which refrained them...

That same fear would not have been lessened if the soviets did not possesses nuclear weapons, it would have been increased by many orders of magnitude.

Perhaps my ambiguous use of the pronoun "it" is leading to confusion. I was referring to the fact that if the Soviets did not have a nuclear force and the west did, the soviets would have had to tread much more cautiously.

In the contact of this discussion, I am using it as an example of how the mere possession of a nuclear arsenal allows the possessor to become much more brazen.

I do not think that Iran become more brazen is a good thing.

I think they mean it to get nuclear weapons. I am sure they don't mean it to use them against Israel.

I am afraid of the other things that they will be able to do, simply because they have a nuclear arsenal.

The answer to that one is simple: "we are not responsible for all evil that happens throughout the world,...

And the answer to that is, just because you cannot stop al levil does not mean you should not try to stop the evil you can.

...
and after all, that wasn't such a bad thing, because now we got rid of Evil Iran too, which got blown up by Israelian bombs! Things calmed down a lot in the region since then."

This sounds like the sort of talk that gets attached to members of a certain political party.

 

[vociferous]

"The Lebanese civilian death toll is difficult to pinpoint as most published figures do not distinguish between civilians and Hezbollah combatants, including those released by the Lebanese government.[11] In addition, Hezbollah fighters can be difficult to identify as many do not wear military uniforms.[11] However, it has been widely reported that the majority of the Lebanese killed were civilians, and UNICEF estimated that 30% of those killed were children under the age of 13.[147]"

This is from wikipedia. 30% being children under 13 seams kind of inhumane to me.

Do you think it is inhumane for Hezbollah to operate in areas where children are present? When the US, or the British, or the Canadian army is operating in a war zone, they typically try to avoid, if at all possible, setting up bases and centers of operation in populated areas.

I would even speculate that it is quite possible that Hezbollah forces may have operated out of areas where they knew there would be a lot of civilians present in order to dissuade Israel from attacking them and to ensure that they would cause a lot of civilian casualties if and when they did, kind of like how Saddam set up anti-aircraft weapons on hospitals, mosques, and other protected targets.

 

[seycyrus]

Hey Vanesch, sorry about not responding yesterday.

Like GWB's words concerning Iraq ? Come on. Iran's leaders are out to become a dominant regional power, and they will do and say anything which helps them - or which they think will help them in that respect.

It is the *do* part that worries me.

If I'm going to write that I'm going to blow up planet earth, then you're just listening to a lunatic talking. There is in that case absolutely no relationship between what I'm saying and what I could or would possibly do.

I believe a better example would be if you threatened to blow up a local school and began amassing massive amounts of fertilizer. All for gardening purposes of course.

The *tension* was of course genuine. However, we will never know what were the *real* intentions.

That was not the point I had brought up. I posited that the crisis had been averted because both sides treated the other side as if their announced intentions were real. Not because anyone acted like the other side was merely bluffing.

This is manifestly and utterly wrong. In fact, even at the end of WWII, the Soviets could *easily* have continued all the way to Spain. After the withdrawal of the bulk of American soldiers, the conventional force of the Western European countries was an order of magnitude below what the Soviets had ready on the other side of the iron curtain. They would have ran over Germany and France in a blink of an eye. It was the fear of a nuclear conflict which refrained them...

That same fear would not have been lessened if the soviets did not possesses nuclear weapons, it would have been increased by many orders of magnitude.

Perhaps my ambiguous use of the pronoun "it" is leading to confusion. I was referring to the fact that if the Soviets did not have a nuclear force and the west did, the soviets would have had to tread much more cautiously.

In the contact of this discussion, I am using it as an example of how the mere possession of a nuclear arsenal allows the possessor to become much more brazen.

I do not think that Iran become more brazen is a good thing.

I think they mean it to get nuclear weapons. I am sure they don't mean it to use them against Israel.

I am afraid of the other things that they will be able to do, simply because they have a nuclear arsenal.

The answer to that one is simple: "we are not responsible for all evil that happens throughout the world,...

And the answer to that is, just because you cannot stop al levil does not mean you should not try to stop the evil you can.

...
and after all, that wasn't such a bad thing, because now we got rid of Evil Iran too, which got blown up by Israelian bombs! Things calmed down a lot in the region since then."

This sounds like the sort of talk that gets attached to members of a certain political party.

 

[quadraphonics]

I would even speculate that it is quite possible that Hezbollah forces may have operated out of areas where they knew there would be a lot of civilians present in order to dissuade Israel from attacking them and to ensure that they would cause a lot of civilian casualties if and when they did, kind of like how Saddam set up anti-aircraft weapons on hospitals, mosques, and other protected targets.

You can do more than speculate: you can be absolutely sure that that's exactly what Hezbollah did. Using civilian areas for cover is a standard asymmetrical warfare technique, one that has been used consistently by every armed group in Lebanon for decades. This is also standard operating procedure for Hamas and many other groups in the region, and the rest of the world. Really, the only armed groups that *don't* routinely use civilians as human shields are large national military forces that have signed treaties pledging not to do so. It's dubious that groups like Hezbollah even recognize any distinction between civlians and soldiers in the first place, other than when producing propaganda after the fact. If they did they'd probably wear uniforms and make at least token efforts to avoid targetting enemy civilians and separate their own operations from Lebanese civilians.

 

[AhmedEzz]

Yes, Hezbollah used civilians as shields but the civilians are innocent and didn't do anything to be killed. I condemn this tactic from Hezbollah's part. Just as I condemn this:

When the count of unexploded cluster bomblets passed 100,000, the United Nation's undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland, expressed his disbelief at the scale of the problem.

"What's shocking and, I would say to me, completely immoral," he said, "is that 90% of the cluster-bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution, when we really knew there would be an end of this."

http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=56096

I am not against Israel/Israelis but I'm against a lot of their actions. I believe there is equal blame on the two sides not just one side and I hope people don't think of me as simply anti-Israel because I'm not. Please consider my words and I will gladly reply to any questions. I gladly participate in these discussions because I think that this is the best to clear out misconceptions that we have about one another so I come here and talk broad-minded trying to tell and be told as well. I hope I did not give the wrong impression.

 

[Evo]

Any off topic posts will be deleted. Repeated violators will receive infractions. This thread is asking for opinions on Iran.

Closed pending moderation.