Iran's Response -

[Xavier_Onassis]

I never said anything about A-bombing China, but now that you mention it, if Iran decides to BOMB the United States, or Israel then what would you say XO?   Would you support that? Talk about asking the "support the a bomb question".
====================================================
Iran does not have the power to bomb the US. They do not have misses, and they do not have the weapons to put in the missiles, nor do they have the teensiest motive, other than the fact that this unfortunate country is run by the grossest assholes in history. But only until January of 2008.

Israel needs to learn to fend for itself without the US. This is clearly an SEP -Someone Elses' Problem. I think after 50 years of blindly throwing money at Israel, we have done enough. The Jews can come over here and live in Miami Beach. I am sure they would like it better than there, surrounded with resentful Arabs.

For the first 30 years of my life, I was indocrtrinated with blatent CRAP about how the Soviets were going to nuke the US. I remember learning how to "duck and cover" under my desk in the third grade, so as to save myself thermonuclear radiation when the Russians bombed Kansas City.

[Cynthia]

"Iran does not have the power to bomb the US. They do not have misses, and they do not have the weapons to put in the missiles, nor do they have the teensiest motive, other than the fact that this unfortunate country is run by the grossest assholes in history. But only until January of 2008."

To which I say.....time will tell and the magic bullet of 01/08? What?

XO, January 2008 and beyond and the change in admin. does not a change in policy worldwide make!  I fear that we will be attacked after 08. What a difference in opinioin we have.

As for hiding under desks. I too had to duck and cover having grown up in the State where the Bomb was born. My brother lives in a home with a bomb shelter right in the middle of a middle class neighborhood. There are signs of the time all over the place.
Heaven forbid that we don't see the signs ever again because we fear standing up and holding strong agains those who want us dead!


These days the reality is duck and cover from admitting we want to live a life without fear of future terrorist attacks.   The "Hit and NOT run" tactic we are fighting in the mid east is the sign of our time and not a popular one, I admit.

We live in a world where individuals who consider terrorists "job hunters' and Americans who want to fight for freedom cowards. Crazy.
I really do believe that Bush wanted to secure a sense of democracy in Iraq. I know Iraqis who wanted that as well.

You want to know real assholes? Go live in the Iran right now, XO. See how quickly you'll cry for the right to bitch about Bush.

As for Israel and the Jewish people. See how far that part of the earth holds up without any democracy in the region. . . We must keep that aircraft carrier afloat, XO. We must help the nation of Israel. IF we don't there might not be a Miami. Peace has to be given a thousand tries before we bitch ourselves to death with negativity. Simple...but factual. We must fight for peace. We must.

The Iraqi war was wrong. I admit. I still say that Bush was wrong because he lacked intelligence in the matter and relied on the wrong boy scouts. But we aren't talking about Bush right now. We are talking about the world power issue and how some people really don't want American interests to find seed in the world at all! Clinton will be the new president. When she is...we'll just see how well things will go.

We'll just see.

[Stray Pooch]

. . . which would lead to a humiliation much bigger than Iraq, due to the size and terrain of the country, the size and battle experience of its armed forces, their weaponry and the attitude of the people.  . . .
Fuck with Iran and you are fucking with the buzz-saw. 

This is exactly the sort of over-analysis of military strength given to the Iraqi army (Third largest army in the world, battle-hardened troops, thousands of US casualties inevitable, oh the humanity) before Desert Storm. And remember how the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan by the terrain so we, too, would never be able to drive out the Taliban?  Please.  Ahm-a-nut-job's bluster is just as significant as Saddam's "Mother of all wars" boast.  That vaunted juggernaut turned out to be thousands of quivering conscripts who had to clean their underwear before they could use it to make white flags.  The Iraqis had just finished a major war with Iran a couple of years before the Storm.  The Iranians, by contrast, haven't seen real combat action since 1988.  That's about two decades.  In that time our troops have had two major wars and some UN target-making, er, I mean peacekeeping duties.  I think we can, um, match the vaunted Iranian military in experience, technology and training.  There is no serious military analyst in the world who believes that the US military can be defeated in battle against any other nation's military.  The Chinese are taking steps  to change that, and twenty years from now (or maybe less) that may no longer be true.  But Iran is not even a serious threat in an army-to-army stand off.  The unity of the Iranian nation is a complete myth, and the hardliners know it.  National pride may bring the Iranian people together temporarily in a wartime situation, but the toppling of the current regime would not break the hearts of a significant portion of the people there.  Keep in mind that the only reason the current hardliners are in power is because the theocracy overruled the popular reform candidates.   

As to third-party support, the Russians are no longer the Soviet Union despite Putin's fondest wishes.  The Chinese are far more likely to be a superpower in the near future than the Russians.  Putin at the least lacks the vision and power that the Chinese leadership is displaying.  OTOH Putin is ruthless and a pseudo-coup with the military backing Putin when his term expires is not at all out of the question. But I digress.  (Like THAT's unusual!)   Iran is not even able to count on the support of its Arab Muslim brethren since many of them do not trust the Iranian Revolutionary government and many simply don't like Persians.  I don't think there would even be the kind of lingering factional infighting we see in Iraq.  Of course, there is sure to be some degree of domestic terrorism, but Iran is not Iraq.  The internal dissent in Iran is not anywhere near as extreme as the mess that was created by the Ba'athist regime.  It may well be that the hardliners and the reformers take up arms, form militia and break into civil war, but I doubt it.  Iranians have a lot more to lose that Iraqis ever did.

The problem with an attack on Iran is not the military question.  The problem is strategic (in the non-military sense).  There are very good reasons (notably that internal opposition to hardliner rule and the attraction western-style values still hold for many Iranians) to leave Iran alone.  I think they could solve the problem themselves, given the chance.  The military question in Iran is a laugh.  But the pollitical situation is a different story.  There is certainly a possibility that breaking the regime in Iran could lead to a power vacuum that would open the door for terrorists.  But there is a greater possibility that trying to impose ANY government on the people of Iran would lead to a popular uprising against occupation that would actually  unite the people.  I think (and this is just a Pooch opinion - nothing to back it but hunch) that the people of Iran would largely choose protests and civil unrest to force the US out.  They are, as a population,  far more sophisticated, media-savvy and westernized than anyone in Iraq.  Of course, there would be armed resistance, but the US would be far more affected by the sight of a people using the time-honored traditions of free expression (or being suppressed in the attempt) to bring the US juggernaut to heel.  And I think it would hurt the US more in the long run than a military defeat would.  Already there is a large portion of the world who believes that our moral authority has been severely effaced at the least.  While we can at least blame the infighting factions in Iraq (and the previous terrorist regime) we could not do the same against a united Iranian populace.  If the Islamic world were ever to become truly united it would be over that spectacle, rather than over the toppling of an untrustworthy tyrant in Iraq or even the US backing of Israel.    Ultimately, the mess that might create could touch off that powderkeg in a way that would make WWII look like a border skirmish. 

OTOH, it is still true that a nuclear Iran is too dangerous to stand.  The only question then is whether we have the resolve to do what would be necessary to remedy that nightmare.  We could blunder into Armeggedon either way, and the longer the situation remains unresolved, the greater the chance that we will.

[Stray Pooch]

This is clearly an SEP -Someone Elses' Problem.

WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP - - - DOUG ADAMS ALERT - - - WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP!

[Cynthia]

"There is certainly a possibility that breaking the regime in Iran could lead to a power vacuum that would open the door for terrorists."


and the vac king, Hoover would not be happy!  Whoof!
Good post, Pooch. Nice to read ya again.

Cynthia

[Stray Pooch]

"and the vac king, Hoover would not be happy!  Whoof!

Ooh, that pun sucked :-D

Nice to see ya, Cynthia.

[Michael Tee]

<<This is exactly the sort of over-analysis of military strength given to the Iraqi army (Third largest army in the world, battle-hardened troops, thousands of US casualties inevitable, oh the humanity) before Desert Storm. >>

I remember that in Desert Storm, Bush Sr. was content to chase the Iraqi army out of Kuwait.  That's about as far as it went.  He didn't dare invade Iraq (with good reason as it turned out.)  The analysis of military strength given to the Iraqi army before Desert Storm was never tested in an invasion of the country.


<<And remember how the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan by the terrain so we, too, would never be able to drive out the Taliban?>>

And so in fact you HAVEN'T driven out the Taliban.  They are resurgent.  The majority of Afghans polled want the Afghan government to enter into talks with the Taliban.  They know, even if you don't, that the Taliban are there to stay.  They can't be driven out of Afghanistan because they ARE Afghanistan.

<<There is no serious military analyst in the world who believes that the US military can be defeated in battle against any other nation's military. >>

There are plenty of serious military analysts who believe that you will be driven out of Afghanistan and Iraq like the British before you.  Your currency is already under the pressure of a half-trillion dollars thrown down the drain in the worst investment your country ever made, with no end in sight.  There are sound military AND economic reasons why you will fail, but the biggest reason of all is in the lack of stomach that the American people have for this pointless, senseless slaughter.  One day, one year, some milestone casualty figure will be reached - - 5,000 American dead?  10,000? and still nothing to show for it but the empty promises of whatever lying bastards happen to own the White House at the time, the 135th "turning point" or the 2,389th "major al Qaeda leader" killed or captured, some point of no return coupled with the financial disaster that this crap is inevitably leading to, and finally somebody will come to his senses and the tents will be folded up and removed. 

<<The Chinese are taking steps  to change that, and twenty years from now (or maybe less) that may no longer be true. >>

Who are you kidding?  The Chinese whipped your ass in the Korean War when you had every possible technological advantage and next time you'll be sorry you even thought about fucking with them.

<<But Iran is not even a serious threat in an army-to-army stand off.  >>

For a nation of 300 million whose army can't even subdue 23 million Iraqis, that is some tough talking.  Your army and its performance are pathetic. 

<<The unity of the Iranian nation is a complete myth, and the hardliners know it.  National pride may bring the Iranian people together temporarily in a wartime situation, but the toppling of the current regime would not break the hearts of a significant portion of the people there.  Keep in mind that the only reason the current hardliners are in power is because the theocracy overruled the popular reform candidates.>>

I'm sure there are plenty of Iranians not happy with the theocracy.  Just as there were millions of Americans who weren't too crazy about FDR.  Pearl Harbor changed all that in a day.  I really would LOVE to see your theories put into practice.  One of us is right and  one of us is wrong, but if I'm right, I would get the see the biggest and best-deserved ass-kicking administered to the U.S. and its military since the last helicopter left the Embassy roof in Saigon.

<< Iran is not even able to count on the support of its Arab Muslim brethren since many of them do not trust the Iranian Revolutionary government and many simply don't like Persians.  >>

You don't get it, do you?  Iran is 73 million people.  That's more than THREE TIMES the size of Iraq and you can't even handle Iraq.  They don't need the support of their "Arab Muslim brethren."  The U.S. is in for the biggest military humiliation of its life if it attempts to attack Iran on the ground. 

<<I don't think there would even be the kind of lingering factional infighting we see in Iraq. >>

No, of course not.  Iran is much more homogeneous than Iraq.   Instead of faction fighting faction, they could all concentrate in a unified front against the invader.  This is not a good thing for the invader, but a bad thing, which you don't seem to realize.   

<<Of course, there is sure to be some degree of domestic terrorism, but Iran is not Iraq.  The internal dissent in Iran is not anywhere near as extreme as the mess that was created by the Ba'athist regime. >>

You're kidding, right?  The Ba'athist regime created the mess of domestic terrorism in Iraq?  The Ba'athists created Shi'ite Muslims?  I think you must be mistaken.  Under the Ba'athists, Iraq was a purely secular state and private religious-affiliated militias did not exist.  The mess that exists in Iraq today results from the U.S. "taking out" Saddam and failing to replace him with anyone capable of maintaining order.  The Ba'athist regime, contrary to your claim that it created a mess, was the one unifying force in the country.

<<But there is a greater possibility that trying to impose ANY government on the people of Iran would lead to a popular uprising against occupation that would actually  unite the people. >>

Sounds likely, but the U.S. would use a puppet government and puppet army to try crush it.  The war would go on forever.  It would be another Viet Nam.  And at the same time, Iranian army units would be conducting guerrilla warfare operations against the occupiers.  In the long run, the failure of the Sunni neighbours to help the Shi'ite victims of U.S. aggression would (hopefully) spark a pan-Arab Ba'athist revival by demonstrating the utter moral bankruptcy of Sunni religious and political leadership.

[Plane]

"...but the biggest reason of all is in the lack of stomach that the American people have for this..."

That is the single thing that gives them the hope to carry on against us. We need to keep this hope alive long enough to kill the Taliban and Al Queda off.


"There are plenty of serious military analysts who believe that you will be driven out of Afghanistan and Iraq like the British before you."


Hahaha "plenty"   Hehehe " serious"   ... Who could you mean?


"Who are you kidding?  The Chinese whipped your ass in the Korean War when you had every possible technological advantage and next time you'll be sorry you even thought about fucking with them."

One Million dead Chineese later they celebrated victory on the exact starting point of North Koreas agression. They are not sorry to loose a million? They should stop thinking of persons as disposable like that. Perhaps they have The latest generations of Chineese is mostly only children they may discover individualism pretty soon.

[Michael Tee]

<<One Million dead Chineese later they celebrated victory on the exact starting point of North Koreas agression. >>

That's your POV.  From their POV, they whipped your sorry asses from the Yalu River to the 38th Parallel.  The first time in history that the USMC was forced to retreat.

<<They are not sorry to loose a million? >>

Not one-tenth as sorry as you were to lose 57,000 in Viet Nam.  They can take losses like that, you can't take losses one-twentieth of that size.

<<They should stop thinking of persons as disposable like that. >>

They're not disposing of their soldiers as fast as you are disposing of your soldiers.  You've lost about 4,000 men in Iraq so far.  How many men have the PLA lost in that same time period?  Maybe your advice is directed to the wrong parties.

<<Perhaps they have The latest generations of Chineese is mostly only children they may discover individualism pretty soon.>>

They're supposed to be more into the collective.

[Stray Pooch]

I remember that in Desert Storm, Bush Sr. was content to chase the Iraqi army out of Kuwait.  That's about as far as it went.  He didn't dare invade Iraq (with good reason as it turned out.)  The analysis of military strength given to the Iraqi army before Desert Storm was never tested in an invasion of the country.

Oh, come on, Mike.  We chased the ones we didn't capture or outright kill out of Kuwait in a matter of days.  Then we broke their backs in the current war in about as much time.  The insurgency is the military problem in Iraq, the Iraqi military never was.  That's just a completely unrealistic analysis.   Bush stopped when we got them out of Kuwait because that was the stated objective of the war and the reason why the coalition was so united.  Entering Iraq had the strong potential of doing exactly what it has done - touching off sectarian infighting and creating a power vacuum that (at the time) we thought Iran would try to fill.  (That has happened to some extent, but Al Quaeda has been added to the mix.)

so in fact you HAVEN'T driven out the Taliban.  They are resurgent.  The majority of Afghans polled want the Afghan government to enter into talks with the Taliban.  They know, even if you don't, that the Taliban are there to stay.  They can't be driven out of Afghanistan because they ARE Afghanistan.

Rhetoric, not reality.  Of course there will always be factions that battle each other, and the Taliban will be one of many.  But we did drive them from power and largely out of the country.  You can't kill all of them any more than you can kill all of the cockroaches.  But you can control them.

There are sound military AND economic reasons why you will fail, but the biggest reason of all is in the lack of stomach that the American people have for this pointless, senseless slaughter.  One day, one year, some milestone casualty figure will be reached - - 5,000 American dead?  10,000? and still nothing to show for it but the empty promises of whatever lying bastards happen to own the White House at the time, the 135th "turning point" or the 2,389th "major al Qaeda leader" killed or captured, some point of no return coupled with the financial disaster that this crap is inevitably leading to, and finally somebody will come to his senses and the tents will be folded up and removed. 

There is some merit in that argument.  The biggest problems that we have as a superpower is the lack of resolve to REALLY prosecute a war - in the truest sense of that word.  If we were lead by the kind of person you on the left portray Bush as being we would have long ago nuked the Taliban/Al Quaeda strongholds in Pakistan, popped off Tehran and Qom and dared the Russians or Chinese to respond.  But that isn't going to hapopen because the people of the US would never (in this age) stand for that kind of mass slaughter.  That's a good thing, of course, because we OUGHT to have that mindset.  But you and Osama are quite correct in reading the lack of resolve on the part of the US people to wage cruel war over the long haul.  

Who are you kidding?  The Chinese whipped your ass in the Korean War when you had every possible technological advantage and next time you'll be sorry you even thought about fucking with them.

Yeah, the Chinese drove us right off the Korean peninsula.  Tell that to 2nd ID.  Your hyperbole is getting worse.  Must be getting late.

For a nation of 300 million whose army can't even subdue 23 million Iraqis, that is some tough talking.  Your army and its performance are pathetic.

The Iraqi army, OTOH, has acquitted itself admirably.   Why think of their great victory at . . . oh, wait.  There were none.   

I'm sure there are plenty of Iranians not happy with the theocracy.  Just as there were millions of Americans who weren't too crazy about FDR.  Pearl Harbor changed all that in a day.  I really would LOVE to see your theories put into practice.  One of us is right and  one of us is wrong, but if I'm right, I would get the see the biggest and best-deserved ass-kicking administered to the U.S. and its military since the last helicopter left the Embassy roof in Saigon.

Your Pearl Harbor point agrees with mine.  I am concerned that a US invasion of Iran could easily unite the people in a very PH type way.  

You don't get it, do you?  Iran is 73 million people.  That's more than THREE TIMES the size of Iraq and you can't even handle Iraq.  They don't need the support of their "Arab Muslim brethren."  The U.S. is in for the biggest military humiliation of its life if it attempts to attack Iran on the ground. 

I think you have a poor understanding of the situation in the middle east.  

No, of course not.  Iran is much more homogeneous than Iraq.   Instead of faction fighting faction, they could all concentrate in a unified front against the invader.  This is not a good thing for the invader, but a bad thing, which you don't seem to realize.

Considering that is exactly what I said I find it hard to understand why you don't think I reallize it.   

You're kidding, right?  The Ba'athist regime created the mess of domestic terrorism in Iraq?  The Ba'athists created Shi'ite Muslims?  I think you must be mistaken.  Under the Ba'athists, Iraq was a purely secular state and private religious-affiliated militias did not exist.  The mess that exists in Iraq today results from the U.S. "taking out" Saddam and failing to replace him with anyone capable of maintaining order.  The Ba'athist regime, contrary to your claim that it created a mess, was the one unifying force in the country.

The "mess" I refer to is the hatred of the Sunni minority by the Shi'ite majprity who were brutalized under the Ba'athist regime.  It is absolutely true that the Ba'athists kept order in Iraq.  It is also true that Hitler made the trains run on time and the slaves were perfectly orderly under the Confederacy.  If that kind of order is acceptable to you, you have bigger problems than anti-Americanism.

Sounds likely, but the U.S. would use a puppet government and puppet army to try crush it.  The war would go on forever.  It would be another Viet Nam.  And at the same time, Iranian army units would be conducting guerrilla warfare operations against the occupiers.  In the long run, the failure of the Sunni neighbours to help the Shi'ite victims of U.S. aggression would (hopefully) spark a pan-Arab Ba'athist revival by demonstrating the utter moral bankruptcy of Sunni religious and political leadership.

And when that failed Bush would fly another plane into a skyscraper.  The most charitable thing I can say is that your analysis is badly skewed.

[Plane]

Iranian army units would be conducting guerrilla warfare operations against the occupiers.


Why would there be occupiers?

[Michael Tee]

<<Oh, come on, Mike.  We chased the ones we didn't capture or outright kill out of Kuwait in a matter of days. >>

They beat an organized retreat is more like it.  Back to their homeland.  Which Bush Sr. never dared to attack.

<< Then we broke their backs in the current war in about as much time.  >>

Now it's YOUR turn to come off it, Pooch.  You didn't "break anyone's back" in "the current war."  "The current war" is still going on with the Iraqi Resistance resupplying itself from caches left all over the country by the Iraqi Army.

<<The insurgency is the military problem in Iraq, the Iraqi military never was.  >>

You're drawing meaningless and overly technical distinctions to cover up your abject failure.  Your objective was to conquer Iraq.  The country's first line of defence was the regular armed forces, and they have morphed into the Iraqi Resistance.  You STILL haven't achieved your objectives after four years of trying.  Don't you realize what a bunch of punks you really are?  You are the laughingstock of the world.  You think your pathetic excuses for failure (well we BEAT 'em and now we're fighting something entirely different) are going to paper over this collossal fuckup?  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

You lost the entire context of this thread, Pooch.  The context being, what your miserable failure in Iraq says about your ability to invade and conquer Iran.  Of course, if you are more interested in excuses than results, as seems to be the case, Iraq shows that you're never at a loss for excuses.  When you fuck up in Iran, you can always claim, "Well we really SMASHED their armed forces, but now, four years later, what we're really fighting is an insurgency."  Great.  That will explain everything.  But IMHO, excuses like that are exponentially lamer the second time around.

<<You can't kill all of them [Taliban] any more than you can kill all of the cockroaches.  But you can control them.>>

LMFAO.  Yeah, you're sure "controlling" them alright.  They strike, disperse, and come together to strike again.  Is that what Bush and Cheney are telling them to do?

<<Yeah, the Chinese drove us right off the Korean peninsula.  Tell that to 2nd ID.  Your hyperbole is getting worse.  Must be getting late.>>

Uh, in actual fact, I believe it was from the Yalu River to the 38th Parallel.  You can tell it to 2nd ID.  Better yet, you can tell it to the Marines.  First time in their history they ever retreated en masse.  Nothing wrong with my hyperbole, Pooch.  But the hour is clearly affecting your factual recall.

<<The Iraqi army, OTOH, has acquitted itself admirably.   Why think of their great victory at . . . oh, wait.  There were none. >>

That's the way it is in a People's War, Pooch.  No great victories.  Dienbienphu was an exception.  No great battles.  Just an endless succession of mosquito bites, a gradual accumulation of body bags, lie after lie and empty promise after empty promise until finally the American people get sick to their collective stomach of the criminal fascist enterprise and the last lie is told before the plug is pulled on the longest-running bad comedy in the American repertoire - - till the next one.

<<I think you have a poor understanding of the situation in the middle east.>>

It's not as good as Juan Cole's, obviously, but I happen to think it's pretty good.  I hope you are wrong, but of course I'm always willing to learn.  Please feel free to point out any mistakes you think I've made.  I'd regard it as a favour.

<<The "mess" I refer to is the hatred of the Sunni minority by the Shi'ite majprity who were brutalized under the Ba'athist regime.>>

Well it's absolutely ludicrous to claim that the religious enmity between Sunnis and Shi'ites was the fault of the Ba'athist regime.  It pre-dates the founding of the Iraqi nation by several centuries.  The Ba'athist campaign was not directed against all Shi'ites indiscriminately.  It targeted the religious elements of the Shi'a community who were trying to divide Iraqis along religious lines. 

<<  It is absolutely true that the Ba'athists kept order in Iraq.  It is also true that Hitler made the trains run on time and the slaves were perfectly orderly under the Confederacy.  If that kind of order is acceptable to you, you have bigger problems than anti-Americanism.>>

Nice smear attempt, but it won't wash.  I spent years in Amnesty International campaigning against Saddam and his Ba'athist regime trying to stop the torture and execution of Saddam's opponents, some of them Shi'ites.  I obviously DON'T "accept" that kind of order.  The fact is, you had accused the Ba'athists of dividing the country along religious lines, which as I pointed out, is ludicrous.  Moreover, the factionalism and religious infighting, which you also claim the Ba'ath was responsible for, was SUPPRESSED by the Ba'athists.  To point out that they are not responsible for what you have blamed them for is NOT to accept their conduct, it is just simple fairness.

[Stray Pooch]

They beat an organized retreat is more like it.  Back to their homeland.  Which Bush Sr. never dared to attack.

 

Yes, that road out of Kuwait was a beautiful example of an organized retreat.  So were the thousands of white-flagged waving surrendering conscripts. 

Now it's YOUR turn to come off it, Pooch.  You didn't "break anyone's back" in "the current war." 

No, since you claim that the insurgency is all just dispersed elements of the Iraqi army.  Of course, Canada has never actually defeated the Original Inhabitants since there are still Indian warriors fighting against Canadian incursions on their soil.  Thank goodness for that, 'cuz from everything I've seen the Indians appeared to have pretty much been whipped.

You are grasping at logical straws.  If you want to say that the US has not subdued the Iraqis sufficiently to guarantee security in that country, nobody with eyes is going to disagree with you.  If you want to suggest that the Iranian (or for that matter the Iraqi) military is a threat to defeat a US military force, you are simply stating a wish, not a fact.

You're drawing meaningless and overly technical distinctions to cover up your abject failure.  Your objective was to conquer Iraq.  The country's first line of defence was the regular armed forces, and they have morphed into the Iraqi Resistance.  You STILL haven't achieved your objectives after four years of trying.  Don't you realize what a bunch of punks you really are?  You are the laughingstock of the world.  You think your pathetic excuses for failure (well we BEAT 'em and now we're fighting something entirely different) are going to paper over this collossal fuckup?  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

This is an example of mature debate?  As it happens, I'm a soldier talking about military history and doctrine.  You are trying to support a position of bigotry and turning to middle school tactics to do so.  I suppose a rational analysis is overly technical when compared to BWAHAHAHAHA or name calling, but I'll take the chance.

You lost the entire context of this thread, Pooch.  The context being, what your miserable failure in Iraq says about your ability to invade and conquer Iran.  Of course, if you are more interested in excuses than results, as seems to be the case, Iraq shows that you're never at a loss for excuses.  When you fuck up in Iran, you can always claim, "Well we really SMASHED their armed forces, but now, four years later, what we're really fighting is an insurgency."  Great.  That will explain everything.  But IMHO, excuses like that are exponentially lamer the second time around.

I haven't lost anything.  My response to this thread was to give a REALISTIC assessment of the risks of a US invasion of Iran.  The Iranian military threat is minimal.  The political threat is real and far greater.  Your wild-eyed ranting about the US getting it's "ass kicked" and having the world "laugh at them" is just so much sibling rivalry.  We're used to it from you.  But it doesn't substitute for substantive debate.

LMFAO.  Yeah, you're sure "controlling" them alright.  They strike, disperse, and come together to strike again.  Is that what Bush and Cheney are telling them to do?

That's pretty much what roaches do.  You have to kill a lot of them and then they go crawl into holes.  After a while they start to show up again and you have to kill some more. 

Uh, in actual fact, I believe it was from the Yalu River to the 38th Parallel.  You can tell it to 2nd ID.  Better yet, you can tell it to the Marines.  First time in their history they ever retreated en masse.  Nothing wrong with my hyperbole, Pooch.  But the hour is clearly affecting your factual recall.

My factual recall is perfectly functional.  The Chinese whipped us so badly that we are still there half a century later.  The section of the peninsula we control is a functional, viable nation.  The section the Chinese control is a "workers paradise" of economic insignificance.   With more "ass-whippings" like that, we might just take over the world after all.

That's the way it is in a People's War, Pooch.  No great victories.  Dienbienphu was an exception.  No great battles.  Just an endless succession of mosquito bites, a gradual accumulation of body bags, lie after lie and empty promise after empty promise until finally the American people get sick to their collective stomach of the criminal fascist enterprise and the last lie is told before the plug is pulled on the longest-running bad comedy in the American repertoire - - till the next one.

People's war.  There ya go.   You have a world view that is interesting to watch. 

It's not as good as Juan Cole's, obviously, but I happen to think it's pretty good.  I hope you are wrong, but of course I'm always willing to learn.  Please feel free to point out any mistakes you think I've made.  I'd regard it as a favour.

I have been, but your mind is so closed to any opposite viewpoint that a lesson on middle eastern geopolitics is impossible. 

Well it's absolutely ludicrous to claim that the religious enmity between Sunnis and Shi'ites was the fault of the Ba'athist regime.  It pre-dates the founding of the Iraqi nation by several centuries.

The religious enmity between the Shi'ites in Iraq and the Sunni's in Iraq is different from the general interfactional rivalry.  The Ba'athists persecuted, indeed slaughtered the Shi'ites during their decades in power.  When the Ba'athists were toppled the Shi'ites wanted the Sunnis dead and the Sunnis wanted to retain their power over the Shi'ites.  Your deflection of that reality is very much like saying that racial strife existed long before the US was founded, so blacks and whites in America aren't concerned about slavery and Jim Crow at all.

The Ba'athist campaign was not directed against all Shi'ites indiscriminately.  It targeted the religious elements of the Shi'a community who were trying to divide Iraqis along religious lines. 

Yeah.  And the KKK only targetted the uppity niggers for trying to destroy the Natch'l Order o' things.  The darkies that knew their place was perfectly fine.

Nice smear attempt, but it won't wash.  I spent years in Amnesty International campaigning against Saddam and his Ba'athist regime trying to stop the torture and execution of Saddam's opponents, some of them Shi'ites.  I obviously DON'T "accept" that kind of order.  The fact is, you had accused the Ba'athists of dividing the country along religious lines, which as I pointed out, is ludicrous.

I did no such thing.  I said that the years of Ba'athist rule created a far deeper interfactional rivalry than would otherwise be the case and that it exploded when the Ba'athists were toppled.  Incidentally, you can add the Kurds to that mix as well, though they have been less of a problem.  Now to be fair, the entire colonial period that predated the artificial borders of the present had a lot to do with creating that situation in the first place.  But you try to minimalize the repression of the regime that you then claim you fought against with AI.  Further, you miss the point.  Whatever the cause, the Iraqi people are a far more divided group than the Iranians.  Oddly enough, we agree on that, b ut apparently the point is only properly made when you make it.

Moreover, the factionalism and religious infighting, which you also claim the Ba'ath was responsible for, was SUPPRESSED by the Ba'athists. 

Yeah, like Iran suppresses homosexuality.  Murdering people for trying to assert their freedoms is an effective method of suppression, but most people - given the choice - would rather live under a Bush wiretap than a Saddam noose.   Even if I were to accept (and I do not) the "pure" motives of the Ba'athists in quelling religious zealotry, the question is whether the Iraqi Shi'ites as a group did.  Obviously they did not.  The US invasion of Iraq did not create the intense animosity between the religious factions in Iraq.  The injustices of the Saddam regime did.

[Xavier_Onassis]

As for Israel and the Jewish people. See how far that part of the earth holds up without any democracy in the region. . . We must keep that aircraft carrier afloat, XO. We must help the nation of Israel. IF we don't there might not be a Miami. Peace has to be given a thousand tries before we bitch ourselves to death with negativity. Simple...but factual. We must fight for peace. We must.
==============================================================

Israel is hardly of any influence whatever in spreading or maintaining democracy in the Middle East. The example would be Turkey. Israel is not a democracy when it comes to the West Bank or Gaza. On the contrary, it has been a brutal oppressor, bulldozing houses and torturing Palestinians for 40 years.

Israel has not been beneficial to democracy in the USA, either: they bribe and lobby our elected representatives into approving and paying for everything they do.

There will always be Jews, there will not always be an Israel. Eventually they will be outnumbered, even in Israel, and unless they are extremely clever, the "democracy" which combines first class citizens (Jews) and second-class citizens (everyone else) will be a thing of the past. This is what Ahmedinejad says, only the US and Israell have mistranslated him

The idea of combining religion and government was invented in Egypt and is the singularly most poisonous idea mankind has ever thought up.

Peace is not the result of war and occupation. War rarely solves anything.

The threat posed by terrorism is far, far less than the exaggerated threat of the USSR.Each and every year, we lose more people to common traffic accidents than to terrorists. We have also lost more Americans to the exceedingly stupid Iraq War, and remember the casualty figure does not included the maimed and mentally damaged.

It is in the interests of the oligarchy that actually runs the US that the population cringe in perpetual fear: being scared makes Americans go out and buy stuff to feel secure. Costa Rica is a democracy. Finland is a democracy. What we have in the US is less like a democracy every day.

[Plane]

<<One Million dead Chineese later they celebrated victory on the exact starting point of North Koreas agression. >>

That's your POV.  From their POV, they whipped your sorry asses from the Yalu River to the 38th Parallel.  The first time in history that the USMC was forced to retreat.

<<They are not sorry to loose a million? >>

Not one-tenth as sorry as you were to lose 57,000 in Viet Nam.  They can take losses like that, you can't take losses one-twentieth of that size.

<<They should stop thinking of persons as disposable like that. >>

They're not disposing of their soldiers as fast as you are disposing of your soldiers.  You've lost about 4,000 men in Iraq so far.  How many men have the PLA lost in that same time period?  Maybe your advice is directed to the wrong parties.

<<Perhaps they have The latest generations of Chineese is mostly only children they may discover individualism pretty soon.>>

They're supposed to be more into the collective.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1675440,00.html

Or as they stop starveing and gain education , they become more like us.