What I understand, from a reading of history, is that governments often manufacture pretexts for war. George Bush did it with Iraq. Lyndon Johnson did it with Vietnam. Ronald Reagan did it with Grenada (Grenada????).

The fact is that Iran has never attacked anyone since the current regime has been in power. I'm not willing to start a war over what you think someone MIGHT do. Where does that end?

 

I'm not willing to go even that far. Not yet. And I don't care if it is President Obama saying it. I'm going to have to look at this one pretty close since its a "sting operation" to begin with and there sure seems to be some conflicting stories. The official one claiming this goes from a US citizen, to the Mexican Drug Cartels, and all the way to the highest levels of the Iranian government. And the other people who know the accused claiming he could not even match his own socks let alone carry off some international terrorist attack.

Also its kind of sketchy I think to be conducting predator drone attacks and screaming about acts of war. Its not the most solid foundation for condemnation I don't believe.

So I'll wait until I see some actual evidence.

 

Oh, that's easy...we're the U.S., and our motives are good, true and pure.

 

Ummm, no..... LBJ just picked up where Kennedy left off. Just like Obama has done with Bush's wars....

Vietnam was not the work of Lyndon B Johnson, it was John F Kennedy.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was a fervent believer in containing communism.

In 1961, Kennedy agreed that America should finance an increase in the size of the South Vietnamese Army from 150,000 to 170,000. He also agreed that an extra 1000 US military advisors should be sent to South Vietnam to help train the South Vietnamese Army. Both of these decisions were not made public as they broke the agreements made at the 1954 Geneva Agreement.

It was during Kennedy’s presidency that the ‘Strategic Hamlet’ programme was introduced. This failed badly and almost certainly drove a number of South Vietnamese peasants into supporting the North Vietnamese communists. This forcible moving of peasants into secure compounds was supported by Diem and did a great deal to further the opposition to him in the South. American television reporters relayed to the US public that ‘Strategic Hamlet’ destroyed decades, if not hundreds, of years of village life in the South and that the process might only take half-a-day. Here was a super-power effectively orchestrating the forced removal of peasants by the South Vietnamese Army who were not asked if they wanted to move. To those who knew about US involvement in Vietnam and were opposed to it, ‘Strategic Hamlet’ provided them with an excellent propaganda opportunity.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/kennedy_vietnam.htm

 

I 'm sure someone in the White House is photo-shopping some as we speak.

 

I'm with you. It also occurred to me that it was ironic that some people are up in arms about a failed plot to kill a foreign diplomat, when the CIA has a long history of black ops of this nature, often involving heads of state.

 

1,000 military advisers do not a war make. Johnson dramatically increased the U.S. military presence in Vietnam, using the fictitious Tonkin Gulf incident as his pretext.

http://www.americanwarlibrary.com/vietnam/vwatl.htm

 

Ouch!! OK I had that coming and will admit here and now that as effective and apparently easy as it is to "wag the dog" there is no logical basis to assume it stops when a new president is elected.

And I can't remember anyone particularly up in arms when Israel used faked passports from other countries in order to conduct the murder of a Hamas leader in a foreign country.

Also as someone else mentioned the US has been supporting opposition groups in Iran for decades now and as we've determined before one person's opposition group is another person's terrorist group.

But no I'm not willing to take the lives of millions of innocent Iranians because of some really dumb ones. Nor would I support Israel attacking Iran.

 

Yes, and three years after Bush left office we are still in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Thanks Obama.....

 

I don't support our military presence in either place. But most of your conservative friends do.

 

Maybe at one time, but I don't think they do anymore.

 

Agreed .......... Iran is and will continue to be a political hot potato (or as Dan Quayle said, potatoe) and the next administration , if it isn't still the status quo, will be looked at as weak if they don't continue along the lines that Obama is looking. When did diplomacy become a swear word ........ but how can you use diplomacy against a regime like that of Iran?

 

Oh yeah, I forgot...they're opposed to anything Obama does, even though they were for it before, and will be again if there's a Republican in the White House.

 

The same way we used diplomacy to avoid a military confrontation with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The Iranian government may be a little whacko, but they're not interested in being nuked to rubble.

 

And the last things you ever hear is that President Kennedy had already asked his Secretary of defense to prepare a report on all their options in Vietnam

 

That's not true. I didn't support the Iraq war while Bush was in office and neither did alot of other conservatives.

There was nothing in Iraq worth one American life. Iraq was G W Bush's personal war because GWB claimed Saddam Hussein tried to assassinate his father, Bush Senior.

Oh, and I have never read any comments from conservatives on this forum supporting the Iraq war....

 

So are you suggesting that an ultimatum is your idea of diplomacy?

Because I can't see Iran wanting to listen to anything that the US has to say, and will retort with idle threats of it's own as every other middle eastern nutjob has done for years thinking that they stand a snowballs chance in hell of taking on the US. but would rather go down fighting then to acquiesce to the US.

 

Sorry I think I had a malfunction on this one because what I tried to say was that JFK asked his secretary of defense Robert McNamara to lay out all their options in Vietnam including "how to get the hell out of there." And also said there was no legitimate need for a CIA during peace time. Then a few days later he boarded a plane to Dallas Texas.

 

This is getting funny......

LBJ started the Vietnam war.................

Iraq was a personal vendetta thing.............

The skeptics are sure the whole "kill a diplomat" thing is a conservative (liberal) conspiracy intended to ........... accomplish .......... something ........for someone...........somehow............

The cold war was settled with ultimatums and threats

The "kill a diplomat" thing can be compared to killing Obama ........ sorry.......Osama Bin Laden.

The Gulf of Tonkin doesn't exist

President Reagan sat on a grenade

Israel..........or Egypt..........or SOMEONE will smack Iran around for whatever it is they did, or didn't do, but were thinking of doing, maybe ........except that it could be drug cartels dressed up like.......... well, whoever it was that was supposed to have done something to a diplomat for some reason no one is quite sure about.


(WHEW) Shooter hopes he managed to amuse..........or offend......... everyone.in this thread.............except his friends .............assuming he actually has any.............and if not, well fuck em they can't take a joke.

 

Can't go that far with you, however. The idea that your average Iranian is that much different than your average American has already been pretty thoroughly debunked just like it was more than 50 years ago about the average Soviet citizen.

Iranians are right now captives of their own constitutional making but have not stopped struggling for more freedom and democracy and by the vast majority totally innocent of any aggression towards the US.