"Allah is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam"

[laughing dog]

You're forgetting that modern Iran started it's existence by basically declaring war on the US.

I'm not forgetting that. I'm calling it a lie. Iran did no such thing. But the USA has launched multiple attacks against Iran, over decades.

The aggressor has been the USA, over and over. For decades.
Tom

The embassy takeover could be considered an act of criminals. However, when they came to power and kept the hostages that's an act of war. Hostage-taking is state policy in Iran.

Overthrowing an elected government ( 1953_Iranian_coup_d'état) is an act of war. Propping up one's puppet is a continuation of that act of war. For some reason, you seem to think that the hostage crisis occurred in a vacuum.

 

[bilby]

That conjecture on your part appears to be purely a consequence of your personal opinion, unsupported by a shred of actual evidence.

It's one of those irregular verbs:

I read between the lines
You make unfounded assumptions
He is pulling that straight from his arse

No, it's just a lower price.


Could you please name those four places?

Asserting something like that, where the effort required to at least make it possible for others to test your claims would be zero, but not actually providing that information, is the hallmark of someone who is attempting to mislead.

You wouldn't want us to think you were making up nonsense in an attempt to mislead us into agreement with your unsupported claims, would you? So don't do that.

Naming just one place would be supportive of your argument. Claiming four, while naming none, just makes you look like Maxwell Smart.

"Iran is currently invading at least a dozen places!"

"I find that hard to believe."

"Would you believe four?"

I note you utterly didn't address what happened in Vietnam.

I notice that you found one minor aspect of your post that I didn't address, and then failed to address ANY of my rebuttal.



If it helps, I have no objection to what you said about Vietnam; Indeed, it's much the same point I am making - nuclear weapons are defensive weapons. They prevent powerful nations from riding roughshod over less powerful ones.

That's a good thing.

Now, do you want to address any of my points? At all? Or are you accepting that you are wrong?

But what you are missing is using them so they can engage in offensive actions without retaliation.

So you're saying that you can't name even one of the four places that you want to claim that Iran is currently invading or occupying?

I mean, it shouldn't be difficult, and certainly shouldn't require this level of diversionary tactics, if it were a truthful claim on your part.

You are behaving like someone who has been caught in a lie. You should stop doing that, if you don't want people to assume that you are lying in order to support your position. Particularly as lying in order to support your position would be a very strong hint that your whole position is untenable.

Obviously I can't tell you how to debate this (or any) topic; But it does seem reasonable to me to warn you of the damage you are doing to your case with your current approach.

Damage that you could very easily undo by simply specifying which four places Iran is currently invading or occupying...

 

[Swammerdami]

For decades there has been bloody conflict between Israel and Palestinians. This has impoverished the people of the West Bank and Gaza; according to the CIA that "country" is poorer than Sudan or East Timor. Some of that impoverishment is due to the annexation, against international law, of Palestinian territory. This annexation is not due to any Israeli military objective but because "God gave them that land" 3500 years ago.

In this conflict, Israel — which has nuclear weapons BTW — is provided with weapons and intelligence by the U.S.A. The Palestinians are supported by Iran. Much of "Iran's support for terrorism" is their assistance of these suffering victims of Israeli aggression. By symmetry is not the U.S. also "supporting terrorism" in that conflict?

There's plenty of blame to go around, but I wonder if American attitudes would be different were Israel a Muslim state, and the Palestinians mostly Christian.

On the matter of nuclear weapons, let us not forget that Iran promised to verifiably dismantle their weapons program in exchange for removal of sanctions; did so; and then were faced with U.S. reneging on the agreement.

Iran wants nuclear weapons for the same reason every other nation state does - they make invaders very reluctant to target your country. North Korea has clearly demonstrated that having nukes gets you a much more respectful diplomatic tone from the US than non-nuclear weapons states get.

Iran has far better reasons to want a nuclear deterrent than most.
Americans tend to have short attention spans, memories, and limited information. The fact is that we declared war on Iran, again, about 20 years ago. The war in the 80s, led by Bush, killed upwards of a million people. Then, in his first State of the Union address, Bush II singled out three countries to destroy. He named them "The Axis of Evil". They were Iraq, North Korea, and Iran.

You're forgetting that modern Iran started it's existence by basically declaring war on the US.

Has Mr. Pechtel responded to the following?

Overthrowing an elected government (1953_Iranian_coup_d'état) is an act of war.

That conjecture on your part appears to be purely a consequence of your personal opinion, unsupported by a shred of actual evidence.

It's one of those irregular verbs:

I read between the lines
You make unfounded assumptions
He is pulling that straight from his arse

No, it's just a lower price.

What evidence do you have that Iran has any desire to invade anyone?

It would be strange to say they have no desire to do something they are currently doing in at least 4 places.

Could you please name those four places?

I note you utterly didn't address what happened in Vietnam.

I was unaware of Iran's invasion of Vietnam. What are the other three places?

 

[TomC]

You're forgetting that modern Iran started it's existence by basically declaring war on the US.

I'm not forgetting that. I'm calling it a lie. Iran did no such thing. But the USA has launched multiple attacks against Iran, over decades.

The aggressor has been the USA, over and over. For decades.
Tom

The embassy takeover could be considered an act of criminals. However, when they came to power and kept the hostages that's an act of war. Hostage-taking is state policy in Iran.

I remember believing this myself. But I've since learned a lot more about what was going on in Iran in the 70s.

That wasn't really an embassy. It was headquarters of a hostile foreign power, with a history of using violence against the Iranian people. This might not have been known to western English speaking public. The USA was accustomed to lying about what they were up to in the middle east. But it was common knowledge amongst the people who lived in the region.

The CIA was the basic support of SAVVAK, the Shah's secret service. They'd been using disappearances, torture, assassination, etc. for years propping up their puppet tyranny, the Pahlavi regime. They pulled out all the stops as the Shah tottered on his throne.

That wasn't an embassy, it was a covert military operation.
Tom

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The embassy takeover could be considered an act of criminals. However, when they came to power and kept the hostages that's an act of war. Hostage-taking is state policy in Iran.

I remember believing this myself. But I've since learned a lot more about what was going on in Iran in the 70s.

That wasn't really an embassy. It was headquarters of a hostile foreign power, with a history of using violence against the Iranian people. This might not have been known to western English speaking public. The USA was accustomed to lying about what they were up to in the middle east. But it was common knowledge amongst the people who lived in the region.

The CIA was the basic support of SAVVAK, the Shah's secret service. They'd been using disappearances, torture, assassination, etc. for years propping up their puppet tyranny, the Pahlavi regime. They pulled out all the stops as the Shah tottered on his throne.

That wasn't an embassy, it was a covert military operation.
Tom

Iranian hostage-taking continues to this day and is not only directed at the US. It just takes the form of obviously-bogus espionage charges.

 

[TomC]

The embassy takeover could be considered an act of criminals. However, when they came to power and kept the hostages that's an act of war. Hostage-taking is state policy in Iran.

I remember believing this myself. But I've since learned a lot more about what was going on in Iran in the 70s.

That wasn't really an embassy. It was headquarters of a hostile foreign power, with a history of using violence against the Iranian people. This might not have been known to western English speaking public. The USA was accustomed to lying about what they were up to in the middle east. But it was common knowledge amongst the people who lived in the region.

The CIA was the basic support of SAVVAK, the Shah's secret service. They'd been using disappearances, torture, assassination, etc. for years propping up their puppet tyranny, the Pahlavi regime. They pulled out all the stops as the Shah tottered on his throne.

That wasn't an embassy, it was a covert military operation.
Tom

Iranian hostage-taking continues to this day and is not only directed at the US. It just takes the form of obviously-bogus espionage charges.

Before we go any further discussing your assertions, will you agree that the USA didn't have an embassy in Teheran in 1978? That the new government was dealing with a hostile, nuclear armed, foreign government and their headquarters in Teheran? That the USA has been launching attacks against the Iranian people for nearly 70 years, and the current issues are a direct result of those attacks?

Because if not we simply don't have enough common ground to carry on a discussion of the most recent history.

It's rather like insisting on discussing the Democrats poor treatment of Trump without being willing to recognize what happened in Washington DC since last November, including January 6. Sorry, I'm not bothering to discuss that out of context.
Tom

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Iranian hostage-taking continues to this day and is not only directed at the US. It just takes the form of obviously-bogus espionage charges.

Before we go any further discussing your assertions, will you agree that the USA didn't have an embassy in Teheran in 1978? That the new government was dealing with a hostile, nuclear armed, foreign government and their headquarters in Teheran? That the USA has been launching attacks against the Iranian people for nearly 70 years, and the current issues are a direct result of those attacks?

Because if not we simply don't have enough common ground to carry on a discussion of the most recent history.

It's rather like insisting on discussing the Democrats poor treatment of Trump without being willing to recognize what happened in Washington DC since last November, including January 6. Sorry, I'm not bothering to discuss that out of context.
Tom

Whataboutism at work because you don't want to address the truth.

 

[laughing dog]

Iranian hostage-taking continues to this day and is not only directed at the US. It just takes the form of obviously-bogus espionage charges.

Before we go any further discussing your assertions, will you agree that the USA didn't have an embassy in Teheran in 1978? That the new government was dealing with a hostile, nuclear armed, foreign government and their headquarters in Teheran? That the USA has been launching attacks against the Iranian people for nearly 70 years, and the current issues are a direct result of those attacks?

Because if not we simply don't have enough common ground to carry on a discussion of the most recent history.

It's rather like insisting on discussing the Democrats poor treatment of Trump without being willing to recognize what happened in Washington DC since last November, including January 6. Sorry, I'm not bothering to discuss that out of context.
Tom

Whataboutism at work because you don't want to address the truth.

First, you ignore his comment about the inaccuracies in your claim about Iran. He is right - you have completely ignored the US's history of "acts of war" against Iran prior to 1978. That context is important in any discussion about the events of 1978. Of course, it is pretty obvious why you choose to ignore them, because they show that your alleged "act of war" was a response in a "war", not the instigation as you seem to want to imply.

TomC's bringing up the Democratic treatment of Trump is an example of the importance of context and historical accuracy, not a "whataboutism".

 

[TomC]

Iranian hostage-taking continues to this day and is not only directed at the US. It just takes the form of obviously-bogus espionage charges.

Before we go any further discussing your assertions, will you agree that the USA didn't have an embassy in Teheran in 1978? That the new government was dealing with a hostile, nuclear armed, foreign government and their headquarters in Teheran? That the USA has been launching attacks against the Iranian people for nearly 70 years, and the current issues are a direct result of those attacks?

Because if not we simply don't have enough common ground to carry on a discussion of the most recent history.

It's rather like insisting on discussing the Democrats poor treatment of Trump without being willing to recognize what happened in Washington DC since last November, including January 6. Sorry, I'm not bothering to discuss that out of context.
Tom

Whataboutism at work because you don't want to address the truth.

The truth is that the USA has been driving Iranian policies for many decades. We are the aggressors, and have been for as long as matters.
We are why they need nuclear weapons.

Until you're willing to address the truth, we don't have much to discuss.

Tom

 

[TomC]

Whataboutism at work because you don't want to address the truth.

First, you ignore his comment about the inaccuracies in your claim about Iran. He is right - you have completely ignored the US's history of "acts of war" against Iran prior to 1978. That context is important in any discussion about the events of 1978. Of course, it is pretty obvious why you choose to ignore them, because they show that your alleged "act of war" was a response in a "war", not the instigation as you seem to want to imply.

TomC's bringing up the Democratic treatment of Trump is an example of the importance of context and historical accuracy, not a "whataboutism".

This is all true.
But @Loren Pechtel also wants to ignore the decades since the late 70s. This includes a war that killed about a million Iranians. A war that the USA made possible and could have prevented. We, the USA, deliberately killed over a million Iranians during the 80s.

But lots of Americans prefer not to include that in their "truth".
Tom

 

[Swammerdami]

Whataboutism at work because you don't want to address the truth.

In 1953 the Iranian people had an enlightened democratic government. The U.S.A. unilaterally overthrew that government plunging 18 million Iranians from a progressive country into service under the yoke of a dictator who tortured his citizens.

In the 1980's the U.S. armed Saddam Hussein and helped him wage war against Iran killing several Hundreds of Thousands of Iranian soldiers and civilians.

In 1979 Iran took 52 Americans hostage. IIUC none of them died. (Eight American soldiers died during a rescue attempt.) I don't need my calculator to confirm that several hundreds of thousands is larger than 8. And 18 million is a larger number than 52.

But you cannot acknowledge these facts; you can only whine about "Whataboutism." Mr. Pechtel, I am disappointed in you.

 

[Swammerdami]

In the 1980's the U.S. armed Saddam Hussein and helped him wage war against Iran killing several Hundreds of Thousands of Iranian soldiers and civilians.

One reason that Dick Cheney was confident that Weapons of Mass Destruction would be found in Iraq in 2002 is that years earlier, he and his buddies were well aware that Saddam was using mustard gas and sarin — WMDs — against Iranians and Kurds. The U.S. was supplying him with a precursor of mustard gas — illegal even in war — as well as satellite intelligence of where to deploy it for maximum kill.. AFAIK the U.S. hasn't been accused of supplying Saddam with sarin, but the U.S. did know in advance he intended to use sarin and, instead of seeking to prevent such an attack, they supplied him with info of where best to deploy this deadly gas to maximize kill.

If Iran is guilty of the excesses of its alleged Houthi ally in Yemen, then surely the U.S. is guilty of the nerve gas attacks by its ally, Saddam Hussein.

Or is this just more "Whataboutism"?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In the 1980's the U.S. armed Saddam Hussein and helped him wage war against Iran killing several Hundreds of Thousands of Iranian soldiers and civilians.

One reason that Dick Cheney was confident that Weapons of Mass Destruction would be found in Iraq in 2002 is that years earlier, he and his buddies were well aware that Saddam was using mustard gas and sarin — WMDs — against Iranians and Kurds. The U.S. was supplying him with a precursor of mustard gas — illegal even in war — as well as satellite intelligence of where to deploy it for maximum kill.. AFAIK the U.S. hasn't been accused of supplying Saddam with sarin, but the U.S. did know in advance he intended to use sarin and, instead of seeking to prevent such an attack, they supplied him with info of where best to deploy this deadly gas to maximize kill.

If Iran is guilty of the excesses of its alleged Houthi ally in Yemen, then surely the U.S. is guilty of the nerve gas attacks by its ally, Saddam Hussein.

Or is this just more "Whataboutism"?

Another factor: We thought Saddam had WMD because we were listening in on the reports he was getting--from his underlings successfully hiding WMD from the inspectors.

What we didn't realize is that those underlings were lying, most of the WMD had never existed in the first place and they feared reporting failure. We found the real stuff early on and then we were on a snipe hunt for the stuff they thought they had. Since it didn't really exist of course it kept slipping through our fingers.

 

[ZiprHead]

I don't know if Biden is right or not because quite frankly over half the journalism I read and see is complete bull shit anyway.

But I am pretty sure about this. Gas just went up .23/ gallon where I live. Not .02/gallon but .23/gallon. And where I live, most of us are still driving gas cars. Biden is going to make it very expensive for middle class people to get to and from their jobs in the very near future. He just got rid of the keystone pipeline and now this.

He is doing a hell of a good job of taking even more money away from middle class workers and he has only been in office a short time.

Expert: Gas prices rising due to higher demand, not who is president

Experts say a rise in prices is expected to continue as we approach the spring.

"It's not surprising that gasoline prices continue to follow oil prices higher, as the national average now stands at its highest level since January 2020 as Pay with GasBuddy data shows U.S. gasoline demand rose over two percent last week," said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy.

"The rise in gas prices continues to be driven by improving demand in the United States, and has nothing to do with who sits in the White House, but rather how many motorists are filing their tanks on a daily basis, and from that data, it's no guess, but prices will continue to trend higher. This situation will last as long as OPEC continues to restrain their oil production, creating the situation we're in where demand is recovering faster than demand. The situation won't get better, just wait until spring, it's likely the national average will rise another 10 to as much as 50 cents per gallon if oil production doesn't respond to the continued recovery in demand."

 

[marc]

In the 1980's the U.S. armed Saddam Hussein and helped him wage war against Iran killing several Hundreds of Thousands of Iranian soldiers and civilians.

One reason that Dick Cheney was confident that Weapons of Mass Destruction would be found in Iraq in 2002 is that years earlier, he and his buddies were well aware that Saddam was using mustard gas and sarin — WMDs — against Iranians and Kurds. The U.S. was supplying him with a precursor of mustard gas — illegal even in war — as well as satellite intelligence of where to deploy it for maximum kill.. AFAIK the U.S. hasn't been accused of supplying Saddam with sarin, but the U.S. did know in advance he intended to use sarin and, instead of seeking to prevent such an attack, they supplied him with info of where best to deploy this deadly gas to maximize kill.

If Iran is guilty of the excesses of its alleged Houthi ally in Yemen, then surely the U.S. is guilty of the nerve gas attacks by its ally, Saddam Hussein.

Or is this just more "Whataboutism"?

Another factor: We thought Saddam had WMD because we were listening in on the reports he was getting--from his underlings successfully hiding WMD from the inspectors.

What we didn't realize is that those underlings were lying, most of the WMD had never existed in the first place and they feared reporting failure. We found the real stuff early on and then we were on a snipe hunt for the stuff they thought they had. Since it didn't really exist of course it kept slipping through our fingers.

Can you post any links to these claimed messages from underlings? This is the first time I’ve heard this claim. I remember Bush’s people citing reports from ‘curveball’ who German intelligence said was a known drunken liar.

 

[Patooka]

Another factor: We thought Saddam had WMD because we were listening in on the reports he was getting--from his underlings successfully hiding WMD from the inspectors.

Who is this "we" you claim? It was pretty obvious since September 13th, 2001 that the Bush Administration would say anything to justify invading Iraq. They were flinging shit onto a wall and it was luck that the WMD turd stuck. It could have just as easily been Saddam caused 9/11 or Iraq is the new headquarters of AL Qaeda or Saddam is going to exploit America's distraction in Afghanistan to attack US allies in the region. Those were all arguments put forth by the Administration prior to 2003.

 

[Jarhyn]

Another factor: We thought Saddam had WMD because we were listening in on the reports he was getting--from his underlings successfully hiding WMD from the inspectors.

What we didn't realize is that those underlings were lying, most of the WMD had never existed in the first place and they feared reporting failure. We found the real stuff early on and then we were on a snipe hunt for the stuff they thought they had. Since it didn't really exist of course it kept slipping through our fingers.

Can you post any links to these claimed messages from underlings? This is the first time I’ve heard this claim. I remember Bush’s people citing reports from ‘curveball’ who German intelligence said was a known drunken liar.

So, the line of shit I was always fed, apparently from Iraqi government sources, but who the fuck knows (I certainly don't, it's second-hand from a soldier; 50-50 odds is generous):

They planned the letters and fake reports to scare Iran. They thought that if they thumbed their nose successfully at the US with this WMD shit, they could absolutely scare off Iran from another attack.

They thought they would get bombed and maybe some troops at some point, but nobody expected OIF.

 

[Swammerdami]

I certainly recall reading multiple(?) stories about officials charged with maintaining nerve gas production and even nuclear research, who were far too afraid of Saddam to confess their inadequacies. Among the many people duped by talk (mostly lies) that "Saddam has WMDs", one of the most duped was Saddam himself!

Anyway, the term "WMD" itself confused the issue. As pushed by the war-mongers, "WMD" meant nuclear weapons, which intelligence was certain Iraq did NOT have, though Cheney-Rove cheerfully lied about it. (Iraq was in a bordered box, and in the grasp of military pincers. Inspections were on-going; Was there any real chance that Scuds could be used to attack Israel with sarin? Best would have been to arrange Saddam's exile and install a less nasty Baathist dictator. The real problem was that Fratboy Dubya had turned the country over to Rove and Cheney. Fratboy knew Rove was evil; when did he figure out Cheney was evil as well?)

Among Bush's so-called evil-axis countries, Iraq was singled out (rather than Iran or North Korea) NOT because it was a threat but because it was NOT a threat!! It was all for a show by war mongers. Attacking North Korea or Iran — much more real as threats, especially since Iraq was already in a box — would have been hugely risky and bloody. For these evil war-mongers, Iraq was chosen as easiest and most fun to destroy.

:emoticon: But isn't this all off-topic? The discussion was whether it is Iran or the U.S. which is the larger promulgator of death in the Middle East. The U.S. appeared to be "winning" and Mr. Pechtel suddenly and adroitly shifts his interest to other matters!

And Mr. Pechtel please, and I mean this most sincerely, do NOT take this personally! I admire your posting. I apologize for not clicking the Rep/Like button as often as I should have.

I am always eager to read your posts, and usually agree with them -- which is why this subthread here startles me slightly.
Loren, you argue eloquently and intelligently. If you concede that the U.S.A., especially under assholes like Bush, Bush or Trump, is at least as major a contributant to Mideast violence as Iran, then we can move on.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BTW, is this the thread with the crocodile tears about a rise in the price of gasoline? (Twenty-three cents. Not Two cents, goddamm it but 23 cents. Perhaps that guy is also sarcastic, but subtler about it.)

Were Trump and Kushner still the Prez, Jared-Ivanka would have been credited with the price rise -- they induced Crown Prince of Saudi into stopping his "dumping", so that American frackers can compete! Trumpists^*' propagandists have it all win-win, since almost everything is all lies anyway.

^*In my lexicon, "conservative" is a neutral term; I write "right-winger" for its pejorative form. Right-wingers can be grouped into Tea-Partiers, Libertarians and Hyper-evangelicals depending on the details of their Dunning-Kruger disorder.

I read that 60% of self-identified Republicans prefer Trump to any other leader. I've decided to treat "Republican" and "Trumpist" as synonyms until one side of this strange coupling — the majority supports hate, lies, crimes and treason but a minority ... (doesn't?) — explicitly schisms.

 

[SimpleDon]

Iran is a powerful, rich country that is less evil than most of its neighbors. It is a real shame that the U.S. has not pursued rapprochement with this country: most Iranian people were eager to be friends with America. Obama moved strongly in the right direction, but then the Orange Dotard, allied with the Putin-Syria axis, did great damage. Kudos to Biden for helping the U.S. get back on track.

Totally this!

The USA has been attacking Iran pretty much ever since the Iranians took their country back. From proxy wars that killed about a million people to stealing their money to trade and tech sanctions...

During the Obama administration, the U.S. made some serious efforts to end the attacks. Hillary was Secretary of State, and Biden was VP. We finally had a chance to end the hostility. The TeaParty partisan obstructionist Republicans sabotaged that before it really happened, writing an open letter to the world making it known that the USA cannot be trusted for more than an election cycle. Trump followed through, proving that the USA cannot be trusted.
The Republicans demonstrated that world peace is no more than a political football to them.

Biden was nowhere near my ideal replacement for Trump. But this is one area where old-school fogies like Biden could shine. Obama picked him for VP for several reasons. One was Biden's foreign policy experience.
I hope and believe that President Biden can do better at bringing peace to the Middle East than his predecessors of the past 50 years.
Tom

I second this. I have many friends in Iran. I have helped them avoid economic boycotts by selling equipment in the middle of the Atlantic. I helped one by hiring his son to work for us, using one of our H1B1 visas. They are to a man confounded by the attitude of our government.

They suffer from the same problem we do, a largely uneducated or undereducated and non-critical thinking sector of the population believes misinformation being fed to them by political and religious opportunists.

 

[TomC]

They suffer from the same problem we do, a largely uneducated or undereducated and non-critical thinking sector of the population believes misinformation being fed to them by political and religious opportunists.

Here's something else Americans tend to overlook.
For most of the 80s, Iraq was prosecuting a horrible invasion of Iran. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians died as a direct result of the USA backed Iraqi assault. It included everything from American tanks to poison gas.
Hundreds of thousands more died as an indirect result, such as dying of a treatable disease because the local hospital had been destroyed.

This invasion started in the early 80s, and continued until around 1990. That means that modern Iranians in their 30s and 40s lived through the war and it's aftermath as impressionable young people. And they know quite well that it was an invasion by the USA, using Saddam Hussein as a proxy. An unprovoked attack that was devastating their world.

Americans in that age category will remember 9/11. How much upset and outrage there was. That was one day, a few buildings, and about 3000 deaths. Imagine growing up in a place where 9/11 happens everyday from the time you're 5 until you're 13. If you're American, how would you regard Al Queda if they'd pulled off a 9/11 every day for almost 10 years?

Well, that's the way Iranians view the USA. And they have very good reasons for viewing us that way.
Tom