Protests in Iran

[Mumbles]

Oh and BTW, while we wring our hands over the senseless death of the King of Pop,
Congress is going to try and ram rod health care reform and climate change legislation down our throat with disastrous consequences to our economy. Hopefully these bills will be DOA....

 

[Brett327]

MJ posts

Let's stay on target, people.

Brett

 

[HercDriver]

While I do agree that my limb is very narrow, nothing you have said makes a difference. Nothing on this website makes a difference. I love the AIRWARRIOR experts who are neither JCS or CinC's and try to smother the less educated with fancy words backed up by rhetoric. NOTHING THE PRESIDENT SAYS WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Did you miss that part of my post? America needs to stay out of it until we are committed to ending it. Armchair quarterbacks are worthless. Save your arguments for shit you can actually change.

Everyone likes to discuss what is going on in the world/their country/their service/& at their squadron. Call it armchair quarterbacking, but many is the time I and some guys from my unit have solved all of my service's problems over coffee at breakfast, or on a 10 hour flight, or over a few beers. I even used a few fancy words (not backed up by rhetoric...they were the rhetoric) I got from the Enrich your Word Power™ section of Reader's Digest©.

You certainly aren't required to read any of this, BTW...heck, you could skip this thread and read one of the many others out there.

And if we only argued about stuff we could "actually change" all of our arguments would be about our underwear, the oil in our cars, and our attitudes...pretty dull, IMO.:icon_tong

 

[LazersGoPEWPEW]

While I do agree that my limb is very narrow, nothing you have said makes a difference. Nothing on this website makes a difference. I love the AIRWARRIOR experts who are neither JCS or CinC's and try to smother the less educated with fancy words backed up by rhetoric. NOTHING THE PRESIDENT SAYS WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Did you miss that part of my post? America needs to stay out of it until we are committed to ending it. Armchair quarterbacks are worthless. Save your arguments for shit you can actually change.

Why should anybody save their arguments? This type of debate helps to keep each other sharp. Sure we probably won't change anything here about the current situation. But when you have debates like these you develop your personal ability to debate with others.

What does that translate to?

Perhaps some young Ensign is sharpening their debate skills on this forum in threads like this one. Perhaps they go on to be a 500 pounder that has some decision making power. Then their time spent debating about what they can't directly control here was worth something.

Don't slam people for having an opinion and sharing it. This is America and it is the right of everyone to have the freedom to share their opinion even if it is stupid.

With that said I'd like to point out that the last part of your post seems to be a display of armchair QBing in my opinion.

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Personally I don't see what all the fuss about the Iranian election is.

Sure it was probably rigged. Why is it that so surprising to some people?

If the Iranian people want change they need to make it happen themselves. We already embroiled ourselves in what some viewed as a civil war in Iraq. I doubt that once people got over the shock of seeing a girl dead on the news they would continue to support efforts that would involve us in Iran.

Whatever happens happens.

 

[eddie]

Personally I don't see what all the fuss about the Iranian election is.

Sure it was probably rigged. Why is it that so surprising to some people?

Surprised here or over there?

 

[LazersGoPEWPEW]

Surprised here or over there?

Here. People in my daily life are shocked and think it's horrendous. Most of them think Ahmadinejad has some real power and even after bringing the reality that he does not they still get up in arms about it and think we need to be doing something.

These are the same people that don't think we should be in Iraq.

 

[eddie]

Here. People in my daily life are shocked and think it's horrendous. Most of them think Ahmadinejad has some real power and even after bringing the reality that he does not they still get up in arms about it and think we need to be doing something.

These are the same people that don't think we should be in Iraq.

Had a conversation once with a high school teacher where military action in general came up. She herself brought up the fact that there was a level of contradiction in her wanting us out of Iraq but IN Sudan.

Everyone feels that "something must be done!" I feel that not as many folks actually think about what kind of options exist (or don't).



EDIT / Thought: Maybe people here think that Iranians are so pre-disposed to hating us and therefore WOULD be voting that way in the first place therefore "reform movement" doesn't quite click right?

 

[wink]

NOTHING THE PRESIDENT SAYS WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

I am still fighting the presses over simplification of the complicated Jackson life and legacy to think about the Iranian debate at hand. But I do feel compelled to point out that if you believe that what the President of the United States says will make no difference in matters such as these, Iran, not Michael Jacksons death , then you have absolutely no knowledge of history and no appreciation of power of the President's bully pulpit. My worthy opponents in this on line debate realize the power of the President's words. That is why they prefer he tread more softly then I prefer. The President's administration knows the power of the President's official words. That is why they advised caution. If Flash, Herc, and a host of Obama advisor's did not believe the President's words would have an influence, then they would not object to any comment, let alone what I would advise. Please inform yourself of a little history on this matter.

 

[exhelodrvr]

It is pretty naive to think, after the past five years, that this Iranian government is going to be willing to negotiate away their nuclear weapons, or is going to be willing to negotiate away their support of terrorist organizations. So comments from the President are not going to "make the situation worse". And they would have provided encouragement to the dissidents - it's the Iranian government that would be pretending that the U.S. was interfering, and it would be clearly obvious that that was not the case. At this point, though, statements of support from the President look contrived rather than genuine, and probably won't make a difference anymore.

 

[SkywardET]

Apparently Iran will end up with civilian nuclear power and just enough weapons-grade fuel for research. So it has been said by Nostradamus of modern day, and so it has been viral videoed. The CIA has supposedly used some of his other predictions.

The situation in Iran is unfortunate, and it's okay to have hope for a better world, but the "reformists" vs. the supporters of Ahmedinijad is simply Alien vs. Predator. Whoever wins, we lose.

 

[exhelodrvr]

but the "reformists" vs. the supporters of Ahmedinijad is simply Alien vs. Predator. Whoever wins, we lose.

Not if the "reformists" are the first step.

I suspect that a new government would be much more likely to actually negotiate than the current government is. And if Iran gets nuclear weapons, expect more of the same from other nations in the area.

 

[exhelodrvr]

Non-military options available to the President:

http://www.slate.com/id/2221547/pagenum/all/#p2

 

[Brett327]

Non-military options available to the President:

http://www.slate.com/id/2221547/pagenum/all/#p2

I would conditionally be in favor of such things.

Brett

 

[wink]

Non-military options available to the President:

http://www.slate.com/id/2221547/pagenum/all/#p2

I wasn't familiar with all these options. It is good to know that the President's quiver is more full then I thought. This last paragraph makes one of the points I have been trying to make:

In other words, President Obama has enough latitude to modify Iran's behavior without resorting to military action. However, the Iranian nuclear clock is ticking, and a pressure-point sanctions strategy requires time. And time is President Obama's enemy.

Employing any one of the mentioned options tied to the Iranian government's unacceptable response to recent and on going protests would get the ball rolling sooner, then later, on sanctions that take time to work, and ties those sanctions not only to continued intransigence on Iranian negotiations, but human rights abuses of late.

I understand that Iran is not the Soviet Union, or Poland, or New Jersey. Iran is soo complicated. The Soviet Union was said to be, oh soo complicated in it's day. It even spawned a whole area of study in academia, Sovietology. So maybe both Iran and the Soviet Union were complicated, but in different ways. Many of the arguments made in the last week against more forceful support of the reformers was made during the Cold War. Many people did not want President Reagan speaking forcefully about Soviet human rights abuses or supporting refuseniks, often by name. The argument was that antagonizing the Soviets over human rights and Jewish immigration would piss them off and derail talks on nuclear arms reduction, other pending bilateral agreements, and hoped for reform from within. Reagan's critics were wrong. We won on all fronts. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

 

[exhelodrvr]

"In other words, President Obama has enough latitude to modify Iran's behavior without resorting to military action. However, the Iranian nuclear clock is ticking, and a pressure-point sanctions strategy requires time. And time is President Obama's enemy."

Unfortunately, I think he will end up doing nothing. Hope I'm wrong.