My current view on international politics is that the film industry controls all the major players. G. W. is getting money from every 2-bit action director and special effects studio out there for giving them backdrops for their spy thrillers, in addiiton he's getting kick backs from some of the horror film guys for keeping a realistic premise going for the post apocalypic stuff.
The sci-fi guys love him for the star wars defence system stuff and the docimentary makers practically love him, Michael Moore, Al Gore and Morgan Spurlock get great social backdrops for their films.
Meanwhile the brits are slowly fading out of the scene of international politics, it doesn't do for the auiences in Harry Potter to be pondering if the Brits really are all that backwards that they send kids of to schools in castles where hey havent discovered e-mail or sms when their scientists are making leaps and bounds in the fields of stem cell research.
Finally, the drama market love Saddam Husein, all that dignified outrage and he's just soooo watchble! Look out for a film based on his life inspired by the aard winning Downfall...
Swap the words 'east' for 'west' and 'Soviet' for 'Americans' and both statements are equally true.
The USSR used the rest of the 'eastern bloc' as a buffer zone against the 'west', and ruthlessly stamped out any attempted deviance from the policies they dictated. (e.g. Hungary, Czechoslovakia.) The USA did exactly the same thing within what they declared to be there own 'back yard' (e.g. Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, Granada, etc.) and also in Europe (e.g. Greece.)
The USSR wasn't threatening the 'west' any more than the 'west' was threatening them. It was a stand-off in Europe, and as you rightly say, proxy wars elsewhere.
As long as the USA was able to site nuclear weapons closer to the USSR than vice-versa, then the USSR was going to feel a lot more threatened than the USA was.
Thanks, I can do without the history lesson. You're completely missing the point: Regardless of what you think of US policy during the Cold War, the history of the time illustrates very well how the nuclear deterrent makes it infinitely harder to negotiate with any regime.
As such, a regime that is so opposed to almost every value we as westerners hold dear getting the bomb is unthinkable.
Plus, the fact that the US have used "the bomb" in the past, provides a pretty good argument for any country (with oil ) having such weapons.
Also, I dont really see Iran or any Middle Eastern country interfeering and pushing their political/national agenda in Europe or the US. The opposite of which has been going on for quite a while.
Who is the threat to global peace? Easy, just take a look at who has started wars in the last 50 years. As the saying goes "you reap what you sow".
Uh, so what? Your moral relativism goes so far that you can't even decide what you think is right or wrong now?
You want to live under Islamic law? With the leverage having the bomb would provide, the expansion of fundmentalist Islam's sphere of influence is inevitable. Talking like that's equivalent to the "expansion" of democracy supported by the West just makes me think that if you've ever lived anywhere truly undemocratic, it was on the side of those in charge.
You should probably watch the upcoming Dispatches documentary here
to see what's actual being preached as their campaign for an ideal society. Sure, freedom of speech protects their right to talk about throwing homosexuals off a mountain or a muslim dentist stabbing homosexual customers with an extra big needle, or beating women for not covering themselves, or paedophilia being ok because the Prophet did it...
Sure, only the west has had wars in the last 50 years. Or ever in fact. It's all whitey's fault.
Ok, if that's the line you're gonna take, I guess the Iranians are gonna reap what they sow too.
Was just pointing out the duality of the situation.
Live under Islamic Law.. hmmm probably not, I like my booze and bikinis too much.. I have lived in an undemocratic area, so to speak, I quite liked it too. You'd have to expirience it to undersatnd, but it aint around anymore.
Watched it, was on a few days ago I think. Just a bunch of extremists, I can find the same thing with most other religions. E.G. Have a read of the old testament, I’m sure you’ll find many interesting details on how to keep your slaves and how to execute them if they misbehave etc etc… strangely enough there are quite a few extremists that accept that every word in the old testament should be followed to the t.
I did not say that only the west had wars in the last 50 years, but the country which started the largest majority of them was the US.
Yes, we all reap what we sow, me and you included. Consequence is a biatch.
I’m not really defending anyone in this argument. In my opinion most governments and religions are run by a bunch of ignorant egomaniacs, so trying to find the right solution in a mess created by wrong people is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Not really. You accused someone of misrepresenting historical facts, and then proceeded to misrepresent some historical facts. So I explained this.
It's not a matter of what I think of US policy back then, it's just a bit sad to see someone as obviously intelligent as yourself coming out with this rather naive and fluffy 'goodies and baddies' view of history. Nothing is ever that straightforward.
Of course, your point about it being harder to negotiate with a regime that has nuclear weapons is valid... but isn't that just stating the obvious?
'Western values' have got nothing to do with it! (Even assuming that such a thing could actually be defined.) Nuclear proliferation is bad news for everyone, regardless.
You'll be telling us that having nuclear weapons is the new 'White Man's Burden' next!
Hard to say. It depends upon what the real power-brokers decide they want to do.
I'd guess that they'll allow Iran to flaunt the rules, if Iran will play ball in other areas, such as (a) Iraq, and (b) policy towards Israel. Of course, Iran may prefer to give way on the nuclear issue in return for concessions in other areas - but those may be concessions which no-one is prepared to give.
The problem with trying to predict what Iran may do is that their leader appears to me to be a bit of a loose cannon, which may be worse than being your more predictable type of 'evil dictator'. At least with the North Korean leader you can safely plan around the fact that he's barking mad.
LOL... yeah, but that’s before I was born and was in a different region from where I grew up, so it made no difference whatsoever.
An Important Mosque in the Islamic community... what does this imply ? But, as I said those were extremists that they filmed. Do you really think that the majority of Muslims feel the same way?
I would think so. But, considering the popularity of Islam in the news I doubt that we're gonna see any such investigations. Good and bad is inherent in all things, nations, religions, etc.
LOL.. yes, basically I really don’t care where the human race goes from here. As far as I am concerned we’re the stupidest animal on the planet, and I foresee plenty more stupidity to come.
Here is the “Dispatches” documentary in question for any one interested:
That's absolutely not what I was saying. You're projecting.
I was pointing out that the military threat from the USSR was not imaginary.
Go and re-read my post and tell me where I made any moral judgement about their policy - I was simply saying that A. They clearly were prepared to use force on other (previously democratic) countries to enact their policy and B. Soviet nuclear capability made it incredibly difficult to contemplate fighting them. Hence C. It's very risky to allow Iran to get the bomb too.
The threat from the Soviets existed regardless of US policy. Ask the Poles in 1939.
The fact that without US policy from 1941 onwards, we could all have grown up thinking that a non-democratic society was the norm is also beside the point - the point is that the threat that a hostile, undemocratic regime with nukes represents, is hardly a matter for debate... I'd have thought.
Obviously this is totally off topic... but I don't agree with that at all. Animals fight over food, territory... basically the same as humans do.
I'd say the most stupid human behaviour comes from that animal side of our physiology, not from the intellectual, analytical side that most animals don't seem to have.
The existence of the Old Testament doesn't prove that people take it seriously in the same way that extremist Muslims believe in the fundementals of the Koran.
What I mean is, we have plenty of evidence of Islamic extremists preaching in this country.
Do you have any evidence that the equivalent Christian extremists even exist here? Because you certainly seem to implying that the danger of one is the same as the danger from the other.
So what makes you personally believe that Christian extremists exist to the same level? Just the fact that they're both religions so everything about them must be equivalent? This just sounds like political correctness taken too far.
Well personally I would subscribe to the view that their position in Europe was always simply defensive. The 'west' had tried to destroy the USSR from the word go, and so they never trusted us an inch. (The fact that Stalin was totally paranoid probably didn't help.)
The presence of democracy never stopped any major power from imposing it's will on another country if it suited it to do so. Besides, the USSR liberated most of Europe from the Nazi's. Democracy was a bit of a distant memory by 1945.
Obviously.
The carve-up of Poland by Germany and the USSR was a pretty cynical business. But after we'd sold Czechoslovakia down the river, Stalin knew that we wouldn't lift a finger to stop Hitler, so he had to buy the USSR some time. He probably believed that our leaders wanted Germany to destroy the USSR, and with good reason.
Surely you mean Soviet policy from 1941 onwards? The tide turned against the Nazis at Stalingrad.
Sure, it was better to live on the western side of the Iron Curtain, but if it wasn't for the Red Army then most of Europe would be living in a world where democracy would be the least of our concerns. Democracy isn't the be-all and end-all anyway. Hitler was democratically elected.
Besides, there was plenty of coersion whenever elections in western Europe looked like producing a result which our leaders didn't like. Fortunately it only once went as far as democracy being removed, when the Greek military seized power in a CIA-backed coup - but it would be a very naive person who imagined that the same thing wouldn't have happened elsewhere if it was deemed necessary.
What I'm driving at, is that a lot of people seem to be making this out to be another American SNAFU, but in terms of stablizing the region in the long term, taking a hard line on Iranian nukes is the right thing to do.
Picture the best case scenario for Iraq in 5 or 10 years. A democratic, oil producing nation has the potential to become enormously prosperous over the next few decades. The implications for progress in the Middle East as a whole could be significant.
But that's just not gonna happen with a Nuclear equipped neighbour whose interest is in destabilizing any attempt at democratic progress at all.
How is anybody going to prevent the Iranians from rolling into Iraq when they have a permanent threat of nuclear annihilation to offer everybody?