The USA has declared war on Iran and Syria

I see both sides of this argument. I see Joe's point, that we should be spending more time and energy on information-gathering and attacking in more subtle, nuanced ways, but yet, like OCCOMBILL, I also think it's a hoot when my government goes over and kills a bunch of people indiscriminately in the name of [insert catchy heart-touching patriotic term here]. It gives me something to get drunk and cheer for when football season is over.

Oops, I accidentally wrote Republican Guard in place of Revolutionary Guard.

Kicky, you're insight is roughly as relevant and accurate as usual when you abandon sex threads for those with serious content.

OBill, I've always been of the opinion that kicky was insightful on the majority of topics discussed on a2k, and sort of laughed at his posts on sexual themes. We all have our faults, and kicky's is a minor one - as far as I'm concerned.

Kicky's got it right on Iraq, dude.

Then you agree that I think it's a hoot when my government kill indiscriminately? Thanks Edgar...
(Don't anybody be afraid to address the actual point.)

I'm not going to get into that nested quotes ad naseum crap here, O'Bill. You are the one peddling horseshit, attempting to equate Iran to Afghanistan subsequent to September 11th. I will add here that i am personally disgusted by people whose argument is so feeble that they have to dredge up that attack every time they get cornered with feeble rationales.

Iran supports Shi'ites in Iraq because Iraq has the largest population of Shi'ites of any country other than Iran. Iran helped to create Hezbollah because the largest single confessional group in the Lebanon were Shi'ties, but they had no militia, and no active support from any other source. The active players in 1982 were the Maronite Christian militias, supported by Israel, and the various Sunni militias supported by Syria under the umbrella of the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party. Shi'ites outnumber all other Muslims in the Lebanon, and are equal in size to all Christian sects combined. The Persians helped to create Hezbollah precisely because their confessional brothers in the Lebanon were unrepresented by a political and military organization in a nation which was rent by civil war with militias and competing political parties littering the landscape. The Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party was formed in the Lebanon before the Second World War. The Maronites had formed the Phalange in the same era. Even though the Shi'ites were the largest single confessional group in the Lebanon, they had no political party of their own, and had no militia in the midst of civil war. So the Persians stepped in after the Israeli invasion to rectify what they saw as an imbalance and an injustice. That we may not agree with that does not justify a claim that Iran sponsors Hezbollah because they wish to attack Americans.

No one knows to this day who was responsible for the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut (which was in 1983, not 1986, as i had earlier, and erroneously, written). Several Shi'ite groups claimed responsibility, and as the French had been attacked in their barracks at the same time, and responded by attacking Hezbollah/Revolutionary Guard positions in the Lebanon, many Americans have assumed that Hezbollah was responsible. Technically, Hezbollah did not even yet exist, although it would be naive to ignore that the Persians had begun to organize, arm and fund Lebanese Shi'ites as early as the 1982 Israeli invasion of the Lebanon. I am not going to get into in this thread the long history of grudge which the Persians have against the Israelis, because i suspect that you will be as willfully blind about the faults of the Israelis as you demonstrate yourself to be in lumping all Muslims together and thinking of them all as terrortists. As recently as 2001, Caspar Weinberger, who was Reagan's Secretary of Defense, has stated that we do not know who attacked the Marines in Beirut.

But even if one stipulates that it was Hezbollah, or any operatives of the Persians--you still have the problem of proximity. The Persians could not have attacked the French Paratroopers or the American Marines if they hadn't been in the Lebanon. You continually allege by inference, without providing a shred of evidence, that the Revolutionary Guard attacks Americans in Iraq. Even if one stipulates that this is the case, they would be unable to do so if we did not have troops in Iraq. The proximity argument stands.

But your references to September 11th are particularly disgusting because they don't stand up as corollaries with the situation in Iraq. The September 11th attacks were carried out by Wahabbi extremists, by members of al Qaeda, on orders from the organization headquarters in Afghatistan. The Taliban, which harbored bin Laden and al Qaeda, did not attack us, or suppport the attack on us, because we were proximate. We did not have troops in Iran, in Pakistan or in Uzbekistan, the nations which are proximate to Afghanistan. The members of al Qaeda attacked Americans on American soil for their own ideological reasons, and there is no corollary you can reasonably construct with the activities of the Persians.

The Persians were not complicit in the September 11th attacks. The Persians did not harbor terrorists who made elaborate plans to attack us on our own soil. Therefore, this:



Constitutes a false analogy. Many people in the Muslim world consider the government of the United States to be engaged in state-sponsored terrorism, and have long believed as much because of our support for Israel. The establishment of the Shah's brutal secret police, SAVAK, by Israeli Mossad operatives under the aegis of Central Intelligence is considered by the Persians to be state-sponsored terrorism, and explains the hatred of radical Persians for Israel and the United States. Nevertheless, we have no evidence that Iran is or has been complicit in attacks on the United States on our own soil. Your attempt to relate the Persians to the al Qaeda agents who perpetrated the September 11th attack is a false analogy, and yet another disgusting example of someone with conservative opinions attempting to wrap himself in the flag. It is, additionally another witless example of the failure to distinguish between Muslim sects, nations, and their motives. That is a failure which will keep us stumbling in this phony war on terror constantly, because we don't have real goals, we just have the horseshit which the administration peddles to whip up patriotic sentiment, and which you are apparently content to parrot.

By the way, O'Bill has been yammerin' on about the truth, and others here not wanting to face it. Here are some truths which he is either not facing, is unaware of, or denying.

The Persians hate us, and Israel, because of the overthrow of their democratically elected government in 1953, and the imposition of a brutal, repressive regime under the Shah. This took place because the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mosedegh, intended to dismiss the Shah, and to nationalize the petroleum industry in Iran. After the coup, which propped up the Shah's throne, the Israeli Mossad, with the approval and assistance of Central Intelligence, set up SAVAK (look it up), the brutal secret police of the Shah's regime. It was all about oil.

The invasion of Iraq was not about weapons of mass destruction, and it was not about a brutal dictator (see above)--in fact, we have no problem with brutal dictators, just as long as the brutal son-of-a-bitch is our son-of-a-bitch--as Saddam Hussein once was. That invasion was projected by neo-cons as early as 1998, and it was all laid out in PNAC's policy for setting up military bases in southwest Asia. It was all about oil.

Our current sabre-rattling about Iran has nothing to do with their support of Iraqi Shi'ites. They supported Iraqi Shi'ites before we invaded Iraq, and have done so ever since. However, Iran, which sells most of its petroleum to members of the European Union, wants to price its petroleum in euros, and not dollars. Recently, Iran has agitated to have all oil priced in euros, and not dollars. Recently, the United States has suddenly found Iran's activities unbearable. It's all about oil.

Thanks, Setanta. Always good to see someone restore a bit of equilibrium to a topic.

OBill: you misunderstand the relationship between the countries you've named and the organizations listed.

Al Queda exists independent of any nation. They aren't being harbored at present by anybody you'd care to name, are they? There is a long and complicated history amongst the Muslims of Afghanistan requiring any Muslim to aquiese to any request for housing from anyone asking. Read The Places in Between for some interesting views of life in the interior.

Hezzbollah indeed was founded with Iranian money and assistance, but if tomorrow they received not another rial it wouldn't matter to them. Units exist all over Europe and in several locations in Africa, they hold about twenty seats in the Lebanese government, they operate a television station, a number of social service organizations and hundreds of schools.
(They've apparently studied both Mao and the Mafia because Hizzbollah knows how to make all their locals in Western and Southern Lebanon happy. Happy people support movements.

Are they beholding to Iran? Sure. Are they a state-sponsored arm of Iran? Don't kid yourself.

Next week the Bush adminstration plans to present "evidence" that Iran is to blame for many attacks in Iraq. However, officials are likely to have a hard time convincing some. Turns out there's one or two folks out there hung up still on that old story about weapons of mass destruction.

Meantime, consider the state of stateless terrorism around the world. Who's immune? Hardly anyone. Spain, Germany, England, Turkey, Greece, Russia, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, Columbia on and on, all have active terror groups operating within their borders to say nothing of the entire continent of Africa. What governments are supporting all of them? Who should we bomb?

Would it be easier for the Bush White House to have a patsy to blame for it's failures (actually Rumsfeld's failures) in Iraq? Sure.
Look for the White House to keep drumming on the evil Iranian's influence. It's target-rich.

Joe(Meanwhile we should find and kill any terrorist cell leader, but that takes spooks and a lot of ground-pounding intelligence work.)Nation

Joe(has at least one fan)Nation's opinion about worldwide terrorist organizations is right on the target, but the Bush rhetoric continues to target countries that has little control on worldwide terrorists. The axis of evil countries have more internal problems than is commonly known outside their countries. Nay, most Americans are ignorant of what goes on in many parts of the world concerning tyrants and terrorist organizations. The war on terrorism is not based in Iraq as Bush would have us believe. The war on terrorism in not a unilateral issue; it belongs to the world community. Another war like Vietnam or Iraq will not win the war on terrorism. Most everybody around the world understands this except many Americans living in isolation.

Well, now the Iranians have really done it. They stepped into the most sensitive areas of American control in Iraq. What have they done?
They've announced they are opening a bank.

Joe(going to send reconstruction teams too.)Nation

I think it is getting more and more likely that Bush and McG will get their war!

This is a very good point, and one which many conservative ranters miss, because they always fail to make distinctions as between, groups, tribes, nations, etc. A good many well-informed observers at the time of last summer's Israeli-Hezbollah war pointed out that the likelihood was great that Hezbollah was acting on its own initiative, without the sanction of either Syria or Iran. (Syria has long been a reluctant sponsor of Hezbollah--while they are not thrilled to support a Shi'ite organization, they consider themselves more closely allied to any Muslim group than to the West, and of course, recognize any enemy of Israel as an ally.)

There are two main points upon which Hezbollah has consistently refused to dis-arm and honor the agreement in 2000 under which the Israelis withdrew from the Lebanon. That was to insist on the release of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli prisons, and the evacuation of the Shebaa Farms by Israel. The area in which the Shebaa Farms are located is actually a strip of land long disputed between Syria and the Lebanon, and Israel only became involved when they seized the Golan Heights in the 1967 war, including the strip known as the Shebaa Farms. Early in 2006 (and probably with sub-rosa preliminaries in 2005), Israel and Syria began to negotiate the return of the Golan Heights, or portions thereof, without reference to Hezbollah, but with an agreement that the Shebaa Farms area would be ceded to the Lebanon. Apparently, the Syrians were willing to bargain in good faith, and the surrender of their land claim there, with the concomitant Israeli withdrawl, was a means of demonstrating their good faith.

Hezbollah very shortly thereafter launched the raid in which the killed some members of the IDF and kidnapped two of them. Well-informed observers of the middle east situations claim that the reaction of Syria and Iran was consternation--that they were caught flat-footed, and that the evidence is that Hezbollah acted of its own initiative and without reference to Damascus or Teheran. If the Shebaa Farms were evactuated by Israel and ceded to the Lebanon, then a major prop for Hezbollah's refusal to disarm would have been knocked from under their political platform.

The failure to understand distinctions in the Muslim world, and the failure to understand, or at the least to recognize, nuance in the actions of all the players in the middle east is the source of the "bull in a china shop" behavior of this administration. The Loose Cannon Crew have also encouraged this fuzzy thinking in their followers--they want people to see all Muslims as "Islamo-fascists," and not to think or investigate deeply about what motivates any particular people or nation in the Muslim world.

Set, Good points made, but why is it that most of us are not privy to the same information you have? I try to read up on almost everything in the local media, but have never seen anything like your analysis presented.

Bush's plans becomes more clear as he escalates the war in Iraq; to start his war with Iran to get the support of the American People at a time when all else has failed.

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
57 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - Deeply distrustful of Iran, President Bush said Monday "we will respond firmly" if Tehran escalates its military actions in Iraq and threatens American forces or Iraqi citizens.


Bush's warning was the latest move in a bitter and more public standoff between the United States and Iran. The White House expressed skepticism about Iran's plans to greatly expand its economic and military ties with Iraq. The United States has accused Iran of supporting terrorism in Iraq and supplying weapons to kill American forces.

Do the words "Gulf of Tonkin" have any meaning in this converstion?

Bush: "War is a last resort."

You have to be a Middle East History and Culture (and I say this next word with only the highest standard of esteem for Setanta) NewsJunkie.

Few papers beyond the majors (NYT, WashPost, LATimes) contain indepth and ongoing looks into more than just the armed conflicts, what was called in the VietNam era, bang-bang. There is a whole world in the Middle East, the place on earth where whatever you believed to be true at breakfast can be completely reversed by four o'clock and sometimes before you get your morning coffee cup rinsed out.

I've been reading about the various countries and peoples of the area since my days in the USAF. (I joined thirty years ago this month. How in the hell did so much time go by?) and, I mean this, I know nothing.

I think a few things.

I think that the biggest error made in looking at the ME is trying to see each nation as monolithic, to say nothing about doing the same thing to the religions, which is worse. To say "The Jews" The Palestinians" "Hamas" "The Jordanians" or "The Kurds" or "The Sunnis" or "The Sufis" or "The Christian Phalanges" or Hizbollah as if those titles define a large group of people clearly is folly.

It's like saying "The Democrats."

The ME, I think more than any present place on earth, swirls with vendettas that are a thousand years old, vibrates with tribal-clan conflicts and alliances with a nice thick frosting of religious fervor over a variety of god-given truths, some mundane, some truly bizarre.

Africa comes in as a close and tragic second.

I'm sure that there are some smart people in the US State Department who understand this simple fact, they just haven't had any luck at getting anyone in a leadership position at the White House to listen.

Joe(What? "I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!"?*)Nation

*Actual quote from George W. Bush

Thank you Joe(seems to know more than most)Nation. I'm not a regular reader of the NYT or Washington Post, but do get a scattering of those reports from friends by email.

Your assessment on the so-called identified groups in the Middle East lets this administration's rhetoric off the hook too often with shoddy goals and successes.

I can understand the secretive nature of the Bush regime, and how they influence our media in this country, but it makes one wonder at what cost? It seems to me that the people in the know are sacrificing an awful lot to support the tyrant leadership we now have in the white house.

It seems the American People are learning much quicker than our politicians.

Just received from a friend in Australia.

Headline today:

US president George W Bush is warning Iran that America will "respond firmly" if the country increases what he calls its "interference" in Iraq.*

Pardon me? The US invades a country on the other side of the world for very dubious reasons. Then it warns the next door neighbour about "interfering".

Only an arrogant superpower would do this. Only an ignorant one would consider such a warning reasonable.

Sorry, America, but if ever there was an "evil empire", it is yours.