Iran Isn't Threatening Us Or Israel With Nukes, Why Are We? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Political issues and parties in the USA and Canada.

Moderator: PoFo North America Mods

Forum rules: No one line posts please.
By cmikes
#13183657
We're simply taking Iran's leaders at their word that they wish to "wipe Israel off the map" and "anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury" is a direct threat to the United States as well as most of the rest of the world. Yeah, they could try to destroy Israel with conventional forces, but it would be much easier with nuclear weapons. I don't think, even with the President's cuts to the military coming down the pike, that Iran could ever destroy the US with conventional forces, so nukes are the only way to go for that.

Link

Link
By Wolfman
#13183667
As far as I'm aware the only 'cuts' in the militarys budget is actually just not increasing it as much as it normally increases. And the US has maintained a 3 tiered missile defense system for quite awhile. The odds of any missile getting through any level is suppossed to be about 1 in a 1000. Not to mention, you'd need about a dozen hydrogen missiles do completely destory the US Mainland. And enough of our conventional forces are around the planet (deployed or perminatly stationed) that you'd pretty have to nuke all of Japan, Afghanistan, Iraq, various other Middle Eastern countries, and a good chunk of Europe in order to complely destory the US.

That aside, this is basicly the same as any other postering bullshit.
By cmikes
#13183716
Oh, I agree with you, I don't think Iran could destroy the United States, I just think he's batshit insane enough to try. The more likely scenario, of course, is to give a nuke or two to a terrorist organization to try to smuggle into the States to at least try to give some plausible denialbility to attack.
By Wolfman
#13183718
the thing is, being exposed to the radiation from a nuke would kill you before you could set it off.
User avatar
By redcarpet
#13183732
they wish to "wipe Israel off the map"


Can you confirm that translation?
User avatar
By Nets
#13183752
The Guardian wrote:Iran yesterday defiantly showed off six of its new ballistic missiles daubed with anti-US and anti-Israel slogans in a move sure to reinforce international concern over the nature of its nuclear programme.

At the climax of a military parade marking the outbreak of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, the enormous Shehab-3 missiles were rolled out painted with the messages, "We will crush America under our feet' and "Israel must be wiped off the map."


Redcarpet, you can't tell me that the Guardian is Zionist propaganda.
User avatar
By redcarpet
#13183764
Redcarpet, you can't tell me that the Guardian is Zionist propaganda.


No evidence is provided. Get me a interpreter/teacher/professor in Farsi that endorses the translation.
User avatar
By War Angel
#13183804
Every time something doesn't sit right with you or if you just can't handle the argument (as is very often the case), you request 'proof'.

Nets just posted an article from a well-known, respected news-paper. Now, you want proof for the proof. How about, proof for the proof of the proof of the proof?

Do we even exist? :eek:
User avatar
By ThereBeDragons
#13183814
I read (somewhere, citation needed) that the phrase "off the face of the map" does not exist in Farsi, that the phrase which was used is literally translated "erased from the page of time," and that everybody and their dog translated it into English by translating the second idiom (does not exist in English) to the similar but different first idiom (does not exist in Farsi,) but which have different connotations (the Soviet Union was "erased from the page of time" but was not "wiped off the face of the earth.")
By cmikes
#13183819
Here's a link to the debate about the literal translation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's words regarding Israel. While you can split hairs over whether the phrase translates to "wipe off the face of the earth" or "complete annihilation", either way, the threat is pretty clear.

Slate.com
User avatar
By Citizen J
#13183866
Sun Tzu wrote:So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a thousand battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself

Apparently, people do not understand Persian psychology. Persians will often take a confrontation right up to the brink of violence before backing down. Some will even take it to the first blow before backing down. Iranians in particular are extremely nationalistic - much like their American counterparts. Ahmadinejad was speaking directly to his people. He was using rhetoric his people expected to hear. But that is all it was; rhetoric designed to whip up nationalism to his favor. Understand, Ahmadinejad is a moderate in Iran. Americans would do well to remember that when they criticize him. Criticize him to the point of political harm and you will probably find his predecessor far less to your liking.

Anti Jewish sentiment is a part of the Islamic religion. What do you expect from them? Expecting Mohammedans to be friends with Israel is like asking Jehovas Witnesses to worship alongside Lutherans - 'aint gonna happen. They will never forgive the Jews for the one who tried to poison their prophet.

Besides, if one listens to the rhetoric coming from America today, one sometimes hear us speak as bad or even worse about Iran.


Had he become president, would we become as much of a threat to world peace as Iran? Remember, we already have tens of thousands of nukes and we're the only country to have ever used them and we do seem to enjoy throwing our military weight around (world domination ala Dick Cheney and the PNAC gang anyone?).

Oxymoron wrote:A Nuclear armed Iran is a Geopolitical threat.
One can make an equally good case for US being a 'geopolitical threat' to the world. Should the world gang up and force us to disarm?
Last edited by Citizen J on 02 Oct 2009 03:46, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
By Oxymoron
#13183867
The world can try if it was united, which it isnt so.......
User avatar
By Nets
#13183930
ThereBeDragons, it is of interest that it was Iranian State News (the English version) that first translated it as "wiped off the face of the earth", not a western source.

Ethan Bronner, NYT wrote:But translators in Tehran who work for the president's office and the foreign ministry disagree with them. All official translations of Mr. Ahmadinejad's statement, including a description of it on his Web site (www.president.ir/eng/), refer to wiping Israel away. Sohrab Mahdavi, one of Iran's most prominent translators, and Siamak Namazi, managing director of a Tehran consulting firm, who is bilingual, both say "wipe off" or "wipe away" is more accurate than "vanish" because the Persian verb is active and transitive.


The article in general is pretty good.
By GandalfTheGrey
#13183975
Anti Jewish sentiment is a part of the Islamic religion. What do you expect from them? Expecting Mohammedans to be friends with Israel is like asking Jehovas Witnesses to worship alongside Lutherans - 'aint gonna happen. They will never forgive the Jews for the one who tried to poison their prophet.


What tripe. Absolute utter garbage. You show your true ignorance by calling muslims "Mohammedans" - there is no such thing
User avatar
By NoRapture
#13184010
We're simply taking Iran's leaders at their word that they wish to "wipe Israel off the map"...
But they don't dare take either us or Israel at our word. They've already witnessed the U.S. actually wipe over 300,000 innocent civilian Iraqi neighbors, mostly women, children, and elderly, off the map over a period of less than a year and a half during Shock and Awe. Why should they take us at our word that they won't be next? Is it wrong for a nation to take steps to protect itself? Would the US leave itself undefended while some army from another hemisphere wiped out Canada or Mexico? The vain blindness with which Americans and Israelis perceive themselves is fucking preposterous.
User avatar
By Demosthenes
#13184053
Iran isn't now, nor has it ever been any real threat. The ties to "terrorism" are tenuous, at best and a matter of definition, at worst. The real threat is exactly the reverse. The US and it's multinational oil companies and multinational whatever else desperately chomping at the Iranian rear end. There IS more to the West's (and specifically the US's) interests in Iran, but this is the biggest part of it.

There are only two real militaries that even come close to being a real threat to the US: Russia and China, and really even combined these two couldn't invade in the US and hold anything here realistically. (Despite what the new Red Dawn movie may lead you to believe)

This is about control of oil, and further attempts to reduce growing Iranian influence within OPEC. Continued dollar stablity, due to it's value being married to oil transactions, is another obvious factor.

If Iran can't reliably develop it's own nuclear energy resources it has to keep more of its oil for its own domestic uses. I'll note that as a condition of Iran willfully agreeing to VOLUNTARILY join the IAEA the west was supposed to help it design and build a few nuclear reactors.. To date NONE have been delivered, and these western violations of these agreements are NEVER mentioned when the media starts shitting bricks over one Iranian "threat" or another... :roll:

Instead of debating endlessly what Ahmadinejad meant by his speech, rather than taking it in some kind cultural context, we should be talking about why exactly Iran needs nuclear power. I mean, people here ALL THE TIME babble about turning the middle east into a parking lot, not just the hicks either, I'm talking educated people, and yet the IAEA is nowhere when it comes to our actual nuclear arsenal. Why? Because it's just people talking shit to make each feel better. Back patting and what not.
User avatar
By redcarpet
#13184092
Our dear Imam said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. Is it possible to create a new front in the heart of an old front. This would be a defeat and whoever accepts the legitimacy of this regime [Israel] has in fact, signed the defeat of the Islamic world. Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world. But we must be aware of tricks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/weekinreview/30iran.html?_r=1&ex=1146715200&en=d7aeab711a8d3ecf&ei=5070

Aha. So, while the "wiped off the map" phrase may be correct, it's still taken out of context! As you can see at the bottom he predicts Palestinians, by a new violent wave of resistance, will impose a one-nation solution.

That's not a threat of Iran to attack Israel.
User avatar
By RonPaulalways
#13184098
Demosthenes wrote:Iran isn't now, nor has it ever been any real threat. The ties to "terrorism" are tenuous, at best and a matter of definition, at worst. The real threat is exactly the reverse. The US and it's multinational oil companies and multinational whatever else desperately chomping at the Iranian rear end. There IS more to the West's (and specifically the US's) interests in Iran, but this is the biggest part of it.


It's not the multinational corporations, but the Israel lobby that is pushing for war.

Similarly, it was Jewish neoconservatives that were the main proponents of hostility towards Iraq:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShAr ... &listSrc=Y

In the course of the past year, a new belief has emerged in the town: the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another

The photo in the article showing tunnels supposed[…]

Warnings for civilians to evacuate, including drop[…]

What interests are those? He is an honorary US […]

The tail has been wagging the dog.. Israel is a[…]