Friday, September 28, 2012

Iran & Isreal

Yesterday at the United Nations, Israel gave a nice little graphic about when they are going to bomb the shit out o f Iran, pull the United States into another Mid-west war and kill thousands of innocent people in attempt to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb - which 5 other countries in the region have.
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It was a simple moment with a red marker.
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But the world is more complex.
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Look at the map of Iran below, and you can see why they would want a nuclear weapon as a safeguard against attack.
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The blue circles are areas where the United States has active troops in the region.  Bright blue, more than 1,000 in a country, light blue - between 100 and 1,000 troops.  The arrows are where the US has full use of military bases.
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Now, you may rightly say "The USA isn't agressive, those troops and bases are for good."  And I would totally agree with you.  However, Iran might have a different view.  We lumped Iraq, North Korea and Iran into the Axis of Evil. North Korea got the bomb and is still around.  Iraq didn't get the bomb and we invaded them for no reason except for George W Bush to show the world he had big-ass conjones.
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The Red Boxes are nearby countries that currently have nuclear weapons.
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Iran has NO neighboring countries that are free of US Troops or access to military bases.  There are over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and 30,000 in Iraq.
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As for nuclear weapons, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, China and India all already have nuclear weapons.
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I am NOT saying Israel doesn't have a valid fear of Iran.  It has been made even more valid by the Israeli assassinations of Iranian scientists and the cyber war carried out.  Israel has been hugely busy building up the threat of Iran.  Iran has armed terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon to attack Israel.  It is NOT a good scene.  But is a full scale attack on harden sites in Iran the right answer?  AND is Israel's timeline believable?
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Israel's latest timeline for Iran's Bomb is March 2013 (link)
But Israel doesn't have a great track record on these projections....
- Previously we were told it would absolutely be by 1998 (said in 1993 - wikileaks cable March 2005)
- Then we were told it would absolutely be by 2009 (said in 2007 - wikileaks cable) - 2005/03/05TELAVIV1593.html
- In 2009 were told Iran would have ONE Nuclear Bomb by 2010, 6 by 2011 and be building 1 a week by 2012 (wikileaks cable 2009) - 2009/11/09TELAVIV2482.html
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Note: Wikileaks cables are available freely on the web - but are illegal for US Citizens to view so I have not provided links
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I think it is more than fair to question Israel's timeline on this.  Then there is the question of how many deaths do you accept to stop a potential nuclear Iran?  Iran learned from Iraq and Syria and have spread their facilities around the country, deep underground and hardened (which is why Israel needs us to attack because we are the only country with MASSIVE weapons that might take the sites out short of nuc'ing them).  And many are in populated areas.
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How many innocent thousands of people are you willing to kill on Bibi's word?