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Would you support the creation of a grand alliance of nations to force the US to give its WMD arsenal by any means possible?
As I said give me a way to disarm these countries without them deciding to fire them.
Once Iran gets nukes there little we can do about it, so we should deal with it before they got them.
(BTW the US may have more nukes, but the Russians have much more chemical weapons and is almost certainly the biggest stocker of WMDs and you may also want to compare Chechyna with the Iraq if you want to look at aggression)
I suspect there is nothing the man on the street hates more than hypocrisy. And our countries, our wonderful, peace and democracy loving (lol) Western governments, are the biggest hypocrites in the history of mankind. Can we really be surprised at 'would be martyrs' queuing up to join the jihad? We really must come across as hypocrite two faced scumbags to the rest of the world...
A pretty fatuous comment. The US is not comparable to Iran. The US may sometimes be governed by people that are in some respects unethical or immoral. But they are essentially reasonable, civilised and rational. Same goes for all the other nuclear powers, China, Russia, India etc. But Iran is governed by an irrational, hate-filled, religious zealot who holds irrational opinions about the Mahdi coming to end the world in a fiery storm. MAD loses some of its effectiveness in this case.
As for the argument that I think Kermit proposed that it is a religious despotism but it is a despotism first and foremost and as such they would not sacrifice the power they have by risking being nuked, I don't buy it. I think he is perfectly happy to sponsor suicide bombers so sacrificing 15 million Muslim Iranians to see the Israel wiped off the map is just the same principle on a larger and in the eyes of an Islamic fundamentalist, more worthy and rewarding scale. I even think he said something to that effect but I haven't looked for the citation.
Iran can't be allowed to have nuclear weapons, but thanks to the stupid decision to invade Iraq and crappy planning for post-war situation we've handed them the chance to develop them on a plate.
Western countries are more democratic, more peaceful and just as hypocritical as any other group of countries in the world. Apart from the fact that it seems like something clever to say, what reasons do you have for saying that the West is "two faced" and "hypocritical"?
I certainly didnt.
Countries attacked by Iran in the last 60 years= 0
Countries attacked by the US in the last 60 years = 21
WMDs used by Iran in its entire history= 0
WMDs used by the US in its entire history= 2 atomic bombs + hundreds of thousands of tons of chemical agents
I rest my case.
Oh, let me see...
- Claims that they are peaceful (have a look at what the US alone has been up to since the end of WWII
- Claims that they support democracy (have a look at how the US supported democracy in Latin America and elsewhere)
- Claims that they are against fascists, dictators and butchers (have a look at the long and distinguished number of brutal madmen the West have gone to bed with, and sometimes supported to the hilt and armed with weapons)
- Claims that they care about human rights and are against torture and abuses (from looking the other way while their chums from Uzbekistan to Israel tortured, raped and killed thousands to conducting torture and human right abuses themselves, they fare particularly nicely on this department
- Claims that they support international law and treaties (so long as they don't stand in the way, of course)
- Claims that they are only upholding international agreements when they criticise, impose sanctions or even attack other nations for ignoring non-proliferation treaties and amassing a secret arsenal of WMDs (Israel anyone?)
Is that enough?
some may say that the issue is religion but i think Iran is angry at the West among other things because of the West's foreign policies.
if Iran acquired nuclear materials, the West would lose a significatn amount of negotiating power against Iran and Iran's allies (because there would be a threat of nuclear terrorism).
the west in negotiations use threats such as trade sanctions.
i think the US and the West are afraid of Iran with a nuclear arsenal not simply because Iran or terrorists would use it, but because THE WEST DOES NOT WANT TO HAVE TO CHANGE ITS FOREIGN POLICY.
Also you make the odd and untruthful claim that the West "claims" to be peaceful, who is doing the claiming?
The West are supposedly morally inferior because they turn a blind eye to torture and moral wrongdoing around the world. Well isn't everyone else turning a blind eye too?
So your point is that the West isn't morally perfect. Somehow they are supposed to be hypocritical and deserve everything they get in terms of jihad and terrorism because they don't act completely correctly all the time.
A stupid argument for several reasons. Firstly the West is not a homogenous block and neither is any single country. Secondly no other group of countries is in anyway morally superior, in fact id suggest that a significant majority of them are in fact morally inferior in terms of their government's actions.
To prove that the West are more hypocritical or in any way morally inferior as a group of countries than others? No.
All governments are hypocritical.
well what does alladin have to say about this?
So the US is bad for doing these things but you don't wnat them to do anything about the repressive fascist human rights abusing iranian regime that has flouted international law?
It’s America’s fault of course. In Aladdin’s world America is to blame for pretty much everything. If you stay around a little longer you’ll soon notice how for Aladdin America really is the devil incarnate. I meanwhile prefer to take a more balanced view of America, our greatest ally.
:rolleyes:
As a matter of fact, I love Jews, there's one in my basement right now. He gets one meal a day and he's allowed 30 mins excerise in that day also.
I'd rather live here than any of them countries in the Middle East, though that doesn't mean I can't be critical of our actions and decisions, especially relating to foreign policy.
By their guilt, envy and hatred you shall know them, sowing their seeds of lies and mistrust in the minds of the impressionable.
Try to tell a Chilean woman who was tortured and raped by Pinochet's fascist death squads (whom the US helped to overthrow the democratic government of Chile) that it cares about "bringing democracy" to the people.
Try to tell a detention camp detainee that the it cares about human rights and is against torture and abuses.
Try to tell a Palestinian that it cares about oppression and it believes in fairness.
Etc etc ad infinitum.
That, my friend, is the dictionary defintiion of hypocrisy. And you know it.
Actually, no. Some governments don't do a great deal of wrongdoing. And others do, but at least they don't fucking lecture the world about one thing while doing exactly the opposite.
Again, that is the dictionary definition of hypocrisy.
For instance, it would have been right to intervene in Rwanda 11 years ago when more than 1m people were massacred in the space of two weeks in one of the worst atrocities in human history.
However it was wrong as fuck to go to war on Iraq- as time has proven extensively. And it would be equally wrong to start dropping bombs in yet another country simply because we don't like them to potentially acquire more powerful weapons for their military- which is precisely what we did ourselves in the first place.
Please- show us all.
But surely if the US did nothing then they would be open to the attack of tacitly supporting a repressive dictatorship, not caring about human rights etc that you constantly are having a go at them about........
Iran has flaunted the UN rulings concerning its nuclear programme, so in the eyes of international law something should be done and being a supporter of upholding international law you would agree with this?
Lets try to avoid the emotional nonsense characteristic of our resident extrmist ideologues and their rather disingenuous cheerleaders, shall we?
It is indeed a wonder to behold so many who present themselves as intelligent missing the point made earlier by aladdin (quite succinctly and accurately actually) in preference for inventive downplays of the comparative principle of blatant demonstratbale acts of repeated transnational aggression on our part in favour of imposed strawman arguments and excusatory drivel.
Such subconciously ingrained parroting of the "talking points" of empire pundits and their high priced PR spinmerchants only shows how incapable of balanced critical analysis so much of the general public ruly is. We kill and permanently disable millions in countless wars, actively subvert viable democratic processes to instill brutal dictators to serve our expansionistic corporate avarice, arm numerous murderous right wing guerilla groups (and protect partner nations, like Israel, who do so even more flagrantly) and it's excuse after excuse of self-delusioned moral and intellectual duplicity.
That is without even mentioning the actual disregard for international law and obligation to international conventions embodied in the Bush admin's renewed efforts in the area of low yieled nuclear arms.
However, let one man make some vehement remarks and the cry and hue of supposed impending armageddon is deafening.
A clearer demonstration of woefully inbalanced perspective and misdirected focus one couldn't expect to witness from the all too vociferous pack of flagwavers in this forum.
The US supports a Palestinian state. No country gives more aid to the Palestinians than the US. The Palestinians however are jeopardising the support the US has given to them by electing terrorists.
I do wonder, if the anti-American wankfest the left has been enjoying for the past couple of years would have happened if Clinton was still president and it was Clinton who went to war with Iraq..
Your criticism of the US for its foreign policy decades ago is unfair and irrelevant to a debate on the present foreign policy of the US. Bush isn’t the same person as Kissinger, Reagan or whoever – it’s not hypocritical for Bush to act contrary to his predecessors.
I can’t recall more specific instances of your unfair criticism of the US although it’s interesting that it's always Britain or the US you're criticising. What about France? French bombing of the Rainbow Warrior? French support for dozens of bloodthirsty African dictators? French nuclear testing in the Pacific? French colonialism today even? The French milk their remaining colonies...