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WoodySt
Trad climber
Riverside
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K. Fosberg,
My god, a sport climber. No wonder I have to explain this: Iran is governed by Fundamentalist Islamics that have stated their intention to wipe Israel off the map. Further, nukes would give them excessive influence over petroleum resources in the ME. And, due to their acquiring nukes, the other nations in the same region will also acquire nukes--proliferation. They are a serious threat to the region and to us vis a vis terrorism. Keep in mind that Iran has been behind attacks against us already.
Maybe you weren't around when we almost went to war to keep nukes out of Castro's hands, and for good reason.
Now, if you don't mind having nukes in the hands of seventh century religious fanatics, I'd like to hear your reasoning.
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BrentA
Gym climber
Roca Rojo
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and I'm a gym climber, just read the tag under my name.
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pc
climber
East of Seattle
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From the first link, "However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene, senior 'Israili' sources said."
I find that statement extremely distasteful. Note he didn't say, 'the UN', Isreal's been using the US to fight their battles for a couple decades now. Exactly what and how much are they paying us for this?
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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"... As if we could prevent this by means of war..."
...right--appeasement has a much better success rate in preventing war.
Curt
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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What, you guys never heard of Cyrus Nasseri/OOK?..maybe it's b/c it's HPS, not HAL. Stick yer head in that rabbit hole, it gooooooooooooes deep.
Foolish to think that we don't "do bizness"
http://money.cnn.com/2003/05/29/news/iran_sanctions/
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Dozens of U.S. corporations are conducting business in Iran, despite a 1980 trade sanction outlawing U.S. citizens and companies from doing business there.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Israel would never do this without US approval unless tensions were insanely high. The US would never approve it unless we were in a position to back them aren't. Things aren't that tense and we are not in a position to back them up.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/01/07/israel.iran.ap/index.html
Drawing up plans is way different than actually doing it. I'm sure we have plans in the filing cabinets to do all kinds of crap we never actually intend to do or the likelyhood of doing is absurdly remote.
If intentional, it is simply meant to put further pressure on Iran for the purposes of forcing them to negotiate and hopefully relent. The good thing about Bush's build up for the Iraq war was that Saddam definitely started to get more cooperative. Tragically Bush wasn't looking for cooperation.
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WoodySt
Trad climber
Riverside
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Yes, there is a double standard: if your government is infested with religious, midieval loons that threaten to wipe someone off the map, you can't have the toys that will enable you to do so.
I'll mention Cuba again. No way were we going to allow a communist dictator 90 miles off our coast to have nukes.
It may not bother some of you if Iran gets nukes, but it sure bothers many others in the region. Keep in mind that Iran has already exported terrorism. Do you want a terrorist state to have nukes also?
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Hootervillian
climber
the Hooterville World-Guardian
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Do you want a terrorist state to have nukes also?
guess it depends on who gets the contract...any thoughts on that signing statement to the india nuke bill?
it might be prudent to just lease Bikini Atoll to them crazy mullahs up front....
just a thought.
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Kevin, yes it is clearly a double standard, we get to have them because we've shown the world how responsible we are with them. smirk
Woody at least I agree with your description of the United States, in your first paragraph. smirk, smirk
Sport climber-smirk smirk smirk
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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triple standard...
Kosher haredi dress: Nix everything tight or red
Posters hung throughout Bnei Brak urge women to only buy loose-fitting clothes, avoid red colored garbs...
The notices were printed by the self proclaimed 'store monitoring committee', all in an effort to battle the 'promiscuity problem' apparently rampant throughout the city.
Women are requested to cooperate with the initiative (dreamt up by the men of the 'Guard of the House of Jacob')
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3347515,00.html
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Thanks, Dario. Interesting that this was on The Times' website (a reputable source), but that there isn't anything yet about it on The New York Times. Hopefully there'll be further news about it in the next day or two.
Remember Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli who worked in that country's nuclear weapons program. He provided information about it to the British press in 1986, and was then kidnapped by Israeli agents, and spent 18 years in prison, 11 of them in solitary. The Israelis are quite aggressive about protecting their military and nuclear secrets, and sometimes about stealing those of others, e.g. the U.S.A., their supposed ally.
If there's any truth to the information, then I strongly suspect it's a deliberate leak. Not from the very highest level, so that it's deniable, but from a high enough level to be credible. Assuming it's a deliberate leak, then it was likely with (deniable) U.S. knowledge. A leak to let the Iranians know that they're in the crosshairs, and to test the international waters. At a time when there are many other distractions - gruesomely executed tyrants, ongoing destabilization in Iraq, Somalia, etc. Mostly to the benefit, if not with the connivance, of Iran.
The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has badly destabilized that country and the middle east. The main beneficiary has been Iran, and perhaps China. Iran now has much greater influence in Iraq, and will essentially control central and southern Iraq once the U.S. leaves. (It'll also make life hell for the Kurds. Again.) Iran may or may not be about to create enough weapons grade uranium 235 to build a few weapons. It is unlikely that those weapons would be reliable, or that Iran has dependable delivery systems. There is no chance whatsoever that Iran would even try to use those weapons, or surreptitiously give them to others who might, e.g. Hezbollah, al Qaeda, as the response from Israel if not the U.S. would be overwhelming. Even a fanatic mullah knows that an attempt to say drop a nuclear bomb on Tel Aviv, or slip one to Osama (Osama who?), would lead to certain retaliation.
If Iran had 50 bombs and reliable delivery systems, it might be another matter.
The U.S. now knows that it cannot credibly threaten Iran in conventional military terms. It could destroy various Iranian facilities from the air, and so on. But the investment of goodwill, troops, and money to actually invade Iran simply isn't available. Mr. Bush and his ideologues wouldn't want to ask the European Union or the United Nations to help with a negotiated settlement, and in any case that doesn't fit within the neo-conservatives' acopalyptic weltanschauung. They'd rather fight than talk.
So Israel does the American's dirty work for them. A credible threat, to make Iran pay attention. If it doesn't lead to concrete results, they believably might carry through. Israel pays back a huge debt it owes to the U.S., and has little to lose in the middle east anyway. The U.S. takes some of the heat, even if its involvement is deniable, but less so. Most middle east rulers and governments would sleep better knowing that Iran had been curbed, given its current ascendancy. Even if by Israel, which they'll boo in public and cheer in private. Their real fear of Iraqi/Shi'a hegemony is almost as great as their supposed fear of Israel.
Israeli destruction of Iran's nuclear facilities also sends a message to other nuclear wannabes. Not one that could have been sent to North Korea - the response might have been millions dead in Seoul. But the Iranians have no easy way to retaliate.
As for the kidnapping of some U.S. diplomats in 1979-80, by some hot-headed kids? Get over it, eh? The U.S. opposes Iran because it is an effective regional power, with great resources, and plans to extend its sway. Over the region, and its oil. And some Iranian rulers are poisoned by religious rhetoric if not ideology, which seems as vicious as that promoted by U.S. neo-conservatives. Since 2002, the U.S. has largely played right into Iran's hands.
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WBraun
climber
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Fosburg labled a sport climber?
Woody? You obviously don't know Fosburg. I could write pages on how bad ass Fosburg is as an all round climber. Shipley and Fosburg still hold the only full ice ascent of the entire Sentinel Falls. A major hard Yosemite ice climb.
I once personally picked Kevin over others for a half dome rescue in which we had to speed climb multi pitches to the victim hauling long rescue ropes and gear.
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Mimi
climber
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Before immanti deleted the original thread, I wrote something along the lines of the war drums will continue to get louder due to Bush and Blair nearing the end of their terms and the fact that Iran is not backing down. There is no way either country or Israel is going to allow Iran with their current government to have the bomb. That includes other countries like Australia, Japan, etc. joining in. Once again, we have to hope for a coup by the young intellectuals to prevent this inevitablity. From the information coming out of Iran, I think this is possible the more the pressure builds.
One of AC's questions last night warrants more thought. Why doesn't Iran merely buy a nuke? That's a good question. Why do they feel so compelled to go through all this flak instead?
In principle, the NPT is a double standard with regard to Iran. India is not a state sponsor of terrorism and other nuke countries have not stated that they would share the technology with other Islamic countries like Iran has. And no other nuke country has continued to say how a neighbor should be wiped off the map. Hindu reprisals against Islamic attacks and Pakistan's rogue scientist are exceptions rather than the rule.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Mimi: There is a good article in the December 2006 issue of The Atlantic on the supposed ease of buying or stealing illicit weapon grade uranium, let alone actual weapons, and the very real difficulties of actually doing so. Essentially the article concludes that it might just be possible to do so, but would take a lot of resources, luck, and planning.
One problem with weapons is that they must be "renewed" every ten or fifteen years. The components deteriorate over time. Even if someone managed to steal a few during the break up of the Soviet Union, they're getting past their shelf life. Not something to take a chance on, perhaps, but not good.
It takes enormous economic and technological infrastructure to manufacture nuclear weapons, let alone the systems for delivering them. Which is why North Korea isn't so much of a threat - they'll never make very many. But Iran is - once they get it figured out, which may take five or ten or more years, then they can make lots.
The biggest real threat is probably Pakistan, in terms of proliferation and poor controls. Though they're regionally curbed by a reasonable stable and democratic country (India), unlike Iran.
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Mimi
climber
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Thanks for that info. Anders. It supports what I've come across regarding watchdogs. The shelf life issue is definitely a positive.
I thought Pakistan's nukes were dismantled and in different parts of the country and therefore, can't be launched quickly per some mandate by the West. Do you know if that's true? Sounds unlikely.
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immanti
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 7, 2007 - 02:39pm PT
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These are true gems.
"Further, nukes would give them excessive influence over petroleum resources in the ME. And, due to their acquiring nukes, the other nations in the same region will also acquire nukes--proliferation."
1. Excessive influence - According to who? How much is too much, who died and made who king to decide for the rest of the world how much influence each country can have on its region? Ridiculous. If this logic applied to other cases Russia might be justified in bombing the US to prevent it from having "excessive influence" on other countries around the world.
2. Proliferation - Isn't that exactly what happened as a result of the US first developing and using this technology? Isn't all proliferation a direct consequence of that? Even if you were right and this could cause further proliferation in the ME, what gives you or the US the right to think they can decide which countries are responsible enough to have them and which aren't?
And lastly, the piece-de-resistance:
"Yes, there is a double standard: if your government is infested with religious, midieval loons that threaten to wipe someone off the map, you can't have the toys that will enable you to do so."
Hello? The US government fits this definition to a T, so why is it ok for the US to have these weapons? Just because you agree with a particualar brand of fanatism doesn't make it any less fanatical. And before any of you jump up and say the US has never threatened to wipe someone off the map, how many times has the US threatened to bomb someone "back into the stone age"?
War will only make things worse for us. I am no fan of Iran and I despise theocracies (even in America), but the stench of hypocrisy is no more tolerable. Come out and say what you really think... might is right.
Hi Anders! Great post. I couldn't believe this when I came across it last night. I posted it for about 1 minute (as Mimi and I mentioned) and nuked it until I could confirm it, but that didn't take long.
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bachar
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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immanti
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 7, 2007 - 02:58pm PT
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Nice JB! Uncle Sam is looking crazier than ever isn't he.
We'll finish the Job! Not like the last couple of jobs, not like Somalia, Bin Laden, Afghanistan, Iraq... etc.
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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I dunno, Werner, when fossburg caught up with me near the top of Astroman, the first thing I thought was, "Wonder if that guy's a sport climber?"
-HaHa!
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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If anybody could do it, it's the Israelis. Whatever else you might think about them, they are very competent.
edit - Hey Kevin, hearing all that praise for your climbing from some of the heavyweights here makes me think - you ARE the guy I want to do some Black Canyon climbs with.
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