Comments Posted By Nikolay
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As I recall, the way Raegan brought down the Soviet Union was by supporting dissidents within those countries. From the pressure applied, this caused the Soviet Union and its satellites to collapse.Well, there were many factors that brought Soviet Union down, but I'm afraid the main one is the one that you can't use against Iran. Reagan engaged USSR in nuclear arms race which drained economy and forced party leaders to change direction. The only similar way to take down Iran would be to force Saudi Arabia to triple their oil output and to significantly lower prices. This would bring Iranian economy, which is already in very bad shape, to a halt.
The Islamic ability and willingness to build a world wide caliphate is no derangment. It is very real. It is not Muslims who are evil. The evil ones are those who use Islam as a basis for their goal of world domination.Well, this is not some PC stupidity about Islam being religion of peace I'm talking about. I agree that Ahmadinejad, if left to his own devices, could do something crazy like nuke the world out of existence. And this is the thing to be dealt with.
But there's just no way for him to "conquer the planet". You know, "Islamofascists" are frequently compared to Nazis. But there's a huge difference. Hitler, among other things, restored German economy that was in shatters after WWI. German fascism was a symbioses of politics with very effective corporate economics. Islamism is not an ideology that could conquer the world, because it's not fit to function in reality. It thrives on oil trade, drug trade etc., but in the "real word" it's dysfunctional. Regular people in Iran are fed up with Islamism, they don't have enough resolve to fight it, but they certainly won't have resolve to spread it across the world. Of course, there's a big number of psychotic "jihad warriors" in the world, but don't forget, all the Al-Qaeda is about 10.000 people max, same with Hezbollah. They can cause a lot of trouble, but they are zero compared to Nazi armies if you talk about regular combat that is required to "conquer the world". The apocalyptic trash about "world caliphate" is just that, trash. They could as well talk about meeting the aliens.
Another comparison. Could you imagine something like this happening to Hitler:Iranian students have disrupted a speech by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a prestigious Tehran university, setting fire to his picture and heckling him. [...]
"A small number of students shouted 'death to the dictator' and smashed cameras of state television[...]All the student resistance to fascism in Germany was, basically, limited to "White Rose", and they are now "saints" of Germany, with schools and streets named after them all over the country.
This is not say that Ahmadinejad is "soft". He's just as likely to murder dissent as Hitler was. But there's much more tension in the country now.Iran, Syria, and the Communist allies of Russia, China, and Venezuela. Our enemies are growing stronger literally by the week.
Well, you know, I live in Russia. I can honestly say, practically all the troubles that Russia causes have pragmatical grounds. It's good for us to have Middle East in a mess, since our economy is depended on oil exports. We sell hi-tech weapons to bad guys because bad guys pay money and because weapons is basically the only hi-tech exports we have. Our crazies in command like to do some minor Cold War replays just to repay for humiliation of the Cold War we lost. But the country as a whole is totally demoralized, there's no functioning army and nobody would care for a serious military conflict. Sure, we have nukes, but that's all we have.
Comment Posted By Nikolay On 11.12.2006 @ 11:36
Chavez is just a stupid nut who will eventually destroy his country's economy.
China is a different story -- I believe they expect the second Great Depression in your country that will officially make them the lone superpower of the world. This is probably inevitable, but it's a fair play. There are hard times ahead for US, but they won't have anything to do with "existential threat of Islamofascism", unless, of course, Ahmadinejad nukes the world to hell.
B.Poster:
There are really two dangers in regards to Iran. One is "axis of evil", "they are going to build world caliphate" derangement, other is making nice with the _bad_ side of Iran so that dissidents will feel desperate. Here's a quote from Israel's specialist on Iran about the first danger:
The Iranians in Iran want the same standard of living as Iranians have abroad. But in order to encourage them they have to receive more significant messages stating that it's worth their while to take to the streets. Instead, U.S. President George W. Bush placed the Iranians on the 'axis of evil' and the previous U.S. secretary of state, Colin Powell, said that the United States would not intervene in an internal conflict in Iran."So what is a student in Iran, who may want to demonstrate against the regime, supposed to understand from these words? That he has no backing in the West. What is needed is an international effort to bring down the regime. The same way the United States under the leadership of president Ronald Reagan brought about the downfall of the Soviet Union and the communist Iron Curtain in Europe."
Those crying against talks with Iran on the right side are, I'm afraid, mostly suffering from "Muslim evil" derangement syndrome. Instead of seeing situation in Iran as something to work with, they believe in country all filled with "evil Muslims", ready to overtake the world.
On the other hand, sending a message that you don't care about Iranian people as long as talking with tyrants can help you save your ass in Iraq is very, very wrong, and it would be bad if Democrats did something of this kind.
I’ve seen little evidence of parliment working hard to undermine Amadinejad. If so, that is encouraging. It means there may be someone high up in the Iranian government we can work with.Well, that could mean many things, not necessary good, but there's a lot of internal tension in Iran at the moment, read this article as example. There were also student demonstrations in Tehran recently.
Comment Posted By Nikolay On 10.12.2006 @ 10:07
If they abandoned the nuke program, they would get all sorts of goodies from the US and the West. This would be HUGE for their economy and the confrontational party could get all of the credit. But they don't need these goodies! They have enough of goodies for themselves, and the goodies you talk about -- economical progress, trade, general thawing etc. would be good for people but bad for those in power. Of course, the more Iranians have taste for freedom, the more they would want it.
When I think of leftist, I think of folks like Noam Chomsky, Ward Churchill, the people who blab about national secrets to the NY Times, the reporters who gleefully report them, Seymor Hersch, the editors of counterpuch.org, adn so forth. These “leftists†would be more likely to actually help the current Iranian government and actively oppose any Iranian disidents. I’m assuming by leftists you mean a leader who takes a more diplomatic approach and a less hawkish approach. You may be on to something there.
By "leftist" I actually mean "leftist" as in 1968 protests. Blind opposition to authority etc. I don't believe that Bush government could inspire Iranian students to take it to the streets as they did in 1999.
I had read about Iranian oppostion to the Taliban. I understand they did not really care for one another, however, from the best I can tell both the Taliban and the Iranian government like the US less than they like one another. In other words, they would gladly come together for the purpose pf opposing the US. If Itan were really doing all it could to help us take down the Taliban, they could have overthrwon that government for us and even bagged Osama for us.
Well, that's hypothetical. The fact remains, Iran was supporting Northern Alliance long before US did so. (And there are enough grounds to suspect that US was actually OK with Taliban before 9/11).
And this thing about "not liking US" -- of course, Iran doesn't like US messing in the region. Since Iraq was widely seen as "the first step to Iran", it was just a natural self-defense for them to make it is bad in Iraq as possible. This doesn't mean Iran would support someone as crazy as Osama. You know, there is rational antagonism and irrational hatred, these are different things.
Of course, there is not much rational about Ahmadinejad, but he is in fact a product not of "regime", but democracy. He was elected, and I suspect that his main platform was about economic populism, not insanity. He is about as popular as Bush in his country now, and parliament works hard to undermine his presidency (they already stole 1.5 years from him).For a coup to work in Iran, time grows short. The current Iranian regime will be acquiring nuclear weapons very soon.
Well, first thing, you remember Saddam behaving as if he had WMD when in fact he hadn't (unless you buy "they moved it to Syria" line). So, there's no proof that they are really trying to acquire nuclear weapons, maybe pretending is just a way for confrontational party inside Iran to stay in power. On the other hand, for Israel to act military doesn't mean throwing their own nuke at Iran. They had successfully stopped Iraq from getting the nuke in 1981, so you can expect them to do the same thing again, although one must agree that their current leadership is much weaker than that of 25 years ago.
Comment Posted By Nikolay On 9.12.2006 @ 08:10
If we are going to work to contain Iran or over throw its evil regime, it will be done with proxies. The only way the American military will particpate in an attack on Iran will be if Iran or its terrorist proxies attack the Aemrican home land or American interests outside of the Middle East.
The thing is, the real chances for Iran turning into a sane country are much bigger than for Iraq. The only opposition to Saddam was religious, while in Iran there is a large secular opposition (I mean, they pay lip-service to Islam, but they are in fact secular intelligentsia). It was students that were the force behind Islamic Revolution, and it's now students that are against mullahs. Given the demographic trends, they have real chances to succeed.
Comment Posted By Nikolay On 8.12.2006 @ 20:40
And it's not a "regime" there, but almost functional democracy. That slap on the face of Iran's reformists when they did all they could to help US defeat Taliban in Afghanistan and were labeled "axis of evil" in return was a mighty, but not deadly blow. It's a "leftist" psychology that success in Iran depends on, so if US gets a leader that Iran's dissidents can relate to, this will be really good for the prospects of that country.
HELP with the insurgents (that they are sending over to help I might add and think that they can be trusted.) This simply blows my mind—why would they think Iran or Syria could be trusted by looking at past history.
Did you read ISG? It says perfectly clear why Iran would want to engage in talks. If US pulls out of Iraq and it explodes, US doesn't risk anything besides losing its prestige and those fictional "terrorists that will follow us here". Iran, on the other hand, will risk its own destabilization. Iran hated Al-Qaeda enough to help USA with fighting Taliban (in fact, they sponsored Northern Alliance that fought Taliban for a long time before US started to care about Afghanistan).
Comment Posted By Nikolay On 8.12.2006 @ 19:52
And this outrageous "We don't negotiate with our enemies"! No, you do. You don't negotiate with your friends, unless you're crazy, but you do negotiate with your enemies.
The fact that Iraq will, sooner or later, fall under influence of Iran is unredeemable, it makes no secret of the fact that it cares for Iran more than for US even now. You just have to face the reality.
"reducing President Ahmadinejad’s term from 6 years to 5"
Comment Posted By Nikolay On 5.12.2006 @ 18:56
It's actually from 4 years to 2.5. He was elected in August 2005.
As somebody who is so sensative to being told “lies,†shouldn’t you be at least a little curious to know if the AP is publishing lies?
Well, if somebody proves this, I would say that they are wrong to do so. But a press-release from MOI confirming that it totally doesn't have a particular guy in police doesn't ring "they caught MSM enemy propaganda" bell for me, it rings "that's b/s" bell. I just don't believe that somebody could say such thing with absolute certainty in Baghdad. Unless they _made sure_ that he doesn't work there (or exists) anymore, of course.I think, it's really funny how blogosphere
goes into overdrive over any such event, with all the judgments passed before any facts are presented.And there's no way you can prove that misinformation presented by MSM (which Malkin &friends sees only as some vast conspiracy) could compare in scale with misinformation presented by the officials.
For me this just borders on demented, the way they are focused on supposed hidden terrorist agenda in anything liberal, while paying almost zero attention to the fact that, for example, Iraqi policy was, in effect, about turning a secular country into Islamist one, dividing Iraqis into Sunnis and Shias, putting terrorists into power and so on. That's way more important, isn't it?
Anyway, speaking about MSM, I prefer to read Iraqi blogs. They are usually several months ahead of MSM, which, even with the best intentions, tends to oversimplify matters.
Comment Posted By Nikolay On 30.11.2006 @ 23:11
"what are we to do to find out what is true and how might the MSM regain the trust it is squandering and a plea for someone to care."
Well, I guess the best thing is to listen to the President who says that everything is almost fabulous and that Al-Maliki is the right guy for Iraq, despite the fact that he was a terrorist on Iran's pay for some 20 years. You have also to listen to the opinion that you are on the verge of victory, that only the madman would believe that there could be a civil war in Iraq, that it would hardly take more than six weeks for all this thing to be over, that all the violence is caused by Al-Qaeda, that "we'll succeed unless we quit", that Iraq will be an ally in the war on terror despite the fact that its government consists of radical Islamists in love with Iran, that the speaker of Iraqi parliament blaming all the bad things in Iraq on Joooos and Zoinst pigs is just expressing his opinion, which a good sign of democracy, etc., etc. I won't go with WMD stuff. :)))Well, I believe, the guys who said all those things above won't ever loose your trust (and they are not, like, in charge of anything), so you can just read their press-releases and leave the MSM-propaganda to the stupid.
And when Centcom denounces AP's story based on the words of the guy that they, accidentally, have on their own list of unreliable sources, that leaves no doubt that AP is, indeed, a mouthpiece for terrorists.Sorry for the rant. :)
Comment Posted By Nikolay On 30.11.2006 @ 21:44
I don’t believe it is laziness or lack of passion, it’s bias, arrogance and group think.
Comment Posted By Nikolay On 30.11.2006 @ 18:49
Please forgive me if I'm annoying, but can't you guys please wake up!
Consider this quote from MOI's press conferences supposedly debunking AP story: On this note, I would like to thank some of the brothers in the media who are cautious and take the extra step to make sure the news he gets is correct or not, by contacting the ministry to verify any news through us that they hear or receive.
Al-Maliki just suggested that Al-Sadr's militias will be "included in the political process". Can't you see what all this means? There will be a massive genocide, and they will suppress and discredit all the reports, or, in other words, ask for the news to be verified with the perpetrators of this genocide.
>Look – I could care less about the MOI.
But MOI is _the only_ source that says that the story is a lie. And it also says that it will actively suppress any news that it doesn't confirm. And you're giving MOI all the benefit of a doubt, while giving AP none.Remember 150 Sunni academics kidnapped by people in MOI uniform? Remember how quick Al-Maliki was to declare that "this was not a terrorist act"?
And also consider these words of Bush about Maliki: "As opposed to saying, America, you go solve the problem, we have a Prime Minister who’s saying, stop holding me back, I want to solve the problem."
You know, it's not that paranoid to suspect that the situation is just this simple: the government, which is comprised of extremists with clear sectarian loyalties, wants to unleash a full-scale slaughter of Sunnis ("to solve the Sunni problem in Baghdad"), and doesn't want anything of this reported.
Don't you think that such a possibility is something much more important than AP-bashing? (which is so far about AP words vs. MOI words only; if somebody thinks that AP are notorious liars, it would be just liars vs. liars, since MOI is not known for the total honesty)
>if you’re brain is too shallow
Comment Posted By Nikolay On 30.11.2006 @ 18:28
Well, you guess if the personal insult comes from you, it's OK. :))
