(no subject)

[violachic]

Dear Tony (and, of course, George),

Quit being such fucking hypocrites. You're starting to piss me off.


Sincerely,

violachic

Comments

[sabotabby]

Dear America and Britain,

You get rid of yours first.

Hugz,

Iran

[jack777.livejournal.com]

Amen!

[marieoroumania.livejournal.com]

Seriously!! Why are they concentrating on that anyway - North Korea and CHina are the potential threats, wouldn't you think? They are the superpowers aching to happen.

[febrile.livejournal.com]

Hate to disagree, but I'd personally feel an awful lot happier and safer if Iran wasn't futzing about with atoms. A theocracy run by a Supreme Leader and a President who has said he wants Israel wiped from the face of the earth isn't the kind of person I'd like to give access to the technology to do so. You'd think that, sitting on one of the largest reserves of oil in the world, they wouldn't fret so about electricity. Refineries are somehwat easier to build than reactors.

I supported WMD as a valid reason to go to war in Iraq. (I did not, however, support going to war until the inspectors were allowed the opportunity to do their jobs, which they never were.) Not because I feared that Saddam Hussein would actively use such technologies against Israel or the United States, but that he would sell them to those who would.

[violachic.livejournal.com]

I definitely see your point, but I guess I'm mostly fed up with the US playing policeman-thats-above-the-law. Iran may very well have some incredibly nasty weapons, as probably do North Korea and China, but I completely disagree with the US policies surrounding handling it. And, of course, if we insist on inspecting weapons in those places, we should be inspecting weapons everywhere, including Israel, as well as opening ourselves up to scrutiny.

Also, there is a hell of a lot of diplomatic work that could and should be done that isn't, in terms of simply lowering the possibility that said nations would actually use the aforementioned weapons. I certainly condemn the comments about Israel that came from the president of Iran, I want to make that clear. But I don't think that automatically nullifies the existing situation.

I also firmly believe that the US, Israel, and much of Europe need to learn that its not "OMG its the crazy guys in beards and turbans against the WORLD", which is certainly what a lot of media portrays.

There's certainly no innocent parties, but personal responsibility needs to be taken.


I wrote this in chunks. I hope it coheres.

[iniswitryn.livejournal.com]

Exactly!

Luv and Sloppy Kisses,

TheRestOfTheWorldToo.

[febrile.livejournal.com]

I don't want to keep Iran from having nuclear weapons because they're brown people with beards -- I want to keep them from nuclear weapons because they are a theocracy that has publicly expressed a desire for violence toward Jews and Westerners.

We know China has nukes. We known North Korea is trying, and we're trying to keep them from acquiring them, too.

The thing is, we have had nuclear weapons since 1945, and have used them in wartime exactly once. We have done a reasonable job of proving that, despite our many problems, we can be trusted to understand the horror that a nuclear strike would mean. Neither Kim Jong Il nor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have demonstrated such an understanding.

[kynn.livejournal.com]

We have done a reasonable job of proving that, despite our many problems, we can be trusted to understand the horror that a nuclear strike would mean.

I don't see that at all.

By the way, we used them twice.

[febrile.livejournal.com]

By the way, I graduated high school, too. We dropped two bombs, yes, but in a span of one week of one conflict. I suppose you can argue that a man with a machine gun shot at someone seventy-nine times if it makes you feel better.

[kynn.livejournal.com]

Well, if he shot someone forty eight times, and then a week later thirty one more times, I'd call it twice.

[febrile.livejournal.com]

If the semantic difference is so important to you, I will leave it by saying that I used the word "once" deliberately by way of saying that it was a three-day span of a war that had lasted from 1939-1945, it was as a part of one final theatre of a war that had been fought on several continents, and "it," in this case, refers to a military operation with one objective in a relatively small geographical arena.

My grandfather worked on the Manhattan project. I've stood in the Edo-Tokyo Museum in front of a... thing... a two cubic foot twisted chunk of wood, metal, stone, and porcelain that had all fused together from the heat of the bomb.

How many armed conflicts have we been in since 1945 wherein we have not utilized our thermonuclear capability? To get back to your original statement, I don't see that at all, what's your rationale? Do you believe that the world would be a better place by allowing Iran to develop a nuclear program? Do you really believe that the existence of our nuclear program caused more bloodshed than it forestalled?

[kynn.livejournal.com]

I don't believe that the U.S. has proven it could manage nuclear weapons well, if your example is the use of nukes twice against civilian populations.

How many armed conflicts have we been in since 1945 wherein we have not utilized our thermonuclear capability?

The consequences of MAD don't necessarily speak to a moral authority in abstaining from nuclear weapon use, but rather to simple survival. If the U.S. were the sole superpower, certainly the ethical equations would have changed.

Or do you likewise credit the Soviet Union with moral clarity and leadership in not using nukes, either?

Do you believe that the world would be a better place by allowing Iran to develop a nuclear program?

I think the world would be a better place if we got rid of the nukes. As long as the U.S., Israel, and other nations have nuclear weapons, other countries will have a reasonable demand for wanting them as well. Specifically, Israel's possession of nuclear weapons is a factor leading to greater proliferation, not decreased desire for nuclear weapons.

Do you really believe that the existence of our nuclear program caused more bloodshed than it forestalled?

I don't see the U.S.'s position as being morally superior in any way, and I don't like the idea that the rest of the world is supposed to live in fear of nuclear annihiliation from U.S. nukes and hope that we'll continue to be "good guys."

Especially since that "goodness" was forced by the Cold War standoff and not because the U.S. has, as a national policy, sworn against using nuclear weapons.

[febrile.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time, I sat on the sidelines of an argument about the moral implications of Hiroshima and Nagasaki between an American Army brat and a German philosopher, and I think it's disingenuous for either side to say the other doesn't have a point. Japan in 1945, however, isn't what we're discussing. I'd be happy to participate in a discussion on that point, but in this case I think it dilutes the Iranian question.

I absolutely credit the Soviet Union for not utilizing their nuclear weapons, actually. The Cold War aside, however, we have been in armed conflicts with nations who did not have nuclear capabilities, for which that example of MAD doesn't follow through.

I think this question of "moral authority" in one that it often angers me to hear. How do you believe that the United States compares to the dictators and warlords of Europe in the eleventh century? We have more military power than any nation state in history. While there are certainly moral errors (one of which we are mired today), I believe we, as a nation, are good people who generally do better than worse, both personally and as a matter of national policy. I despise the accusation heard so often these days that ours is a greedy, bigoted, powermad nation, simply because it flies in the face of the reality I see before me in the faces of the Americans I've known. To say that we are an immoral nation is puerile. To say that we have problems and to work to address those problems is heroic, and that is exactly what so many people I know do.

I'm not saying that we are always "the good guys." I am saying, however, that, especially as compared to Iran, we ain't bad.

I think the world would be a better place if we got rid of the nukes. Cats, once out of bags, are hard to get back into them. I would love it if we lived in a world of bunny rabbits and hot chocolate, but I have to wake up in the real one. Is complete global disarmament the ideal? I'm really not sure on that one, I cut both ways. But adherence to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is something that would certainly make me feel like I'm living in a safer world.