France Alarmed at Obama's Iranian Capitulation

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
181

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
It doesn’t matter much if your superstition is based on religion, or anti-religion. People are capable of incredible evil.[/quote]

I agree wholeheartedly. Which is what I meant when I said that I considered Fundamentalist Islam and Fundamentalist Christianity about equivalent in their intrinsic dangerousness.

If one believes absurdity (whether or not the absurdity centers around God), then while it is not guaranteed that one will commit atrocity, it does make atrocity easier to justify.[/quote]

People always try to justify evil. Whether it’s using religion, or anti-religion. Just look at whats going on in China right now. Christians being persecuted, abused and hurt because they are being religious by those, and a government who is anti-religious.

184

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
I am talking about what Ahmadinejad personally believes, I am also talking about what the religious leaders of Iran believe. Are you saying the ex-president of Iran, a theocracy ruled by Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have different views on religion, Islam, and the Islamic Revolution? If so, please explain or link an article from which I can read about this. Show me an article about the Supreme Leader’s views on Islam and the world and how it differs from that of Ahmadinejad.
[/quote]

No. I am saying that if you plan on taking what the leaders of Iran believes and interpreting that as what the entirety of Iran believes, then you’ll have to stay logically consistent and say the same for the U.S.

[/quote]

But it’s largely irrelevant to the issue at hand. The Iranian coffeeshop owner won’t have his finger on the nuclear button.

By the same token, if US political leadership were constantly and bellicosely threatening to wipe, let’s say Oman, off the face of the earth the Omanis and their neighbors would be justified in their alarm and it would be irrelevant what the American coffeeshop owner thought about the whole deal.

So why dwell on it?
[/quote]

Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s infamous and oft cited 2005 declaration that the state of Israel “should be wiped off the map” is the result of mistranslation. Ahmadinejad quoted an old saying of Ayatollah Khomeini calling for “this occupation regime over Jerusalem” to “vanish from the page of time.” Calling for a regime to vanish is not the same as calling for people to be killed. Dissolution=/=destruction.

185

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Which is what I meant when I said that I considered Fundamentalist Islam and Fundamentalist Christianity about equivalent in their intrinsic dangerousness.

[/quote]

It’s still a patently absurd position. It can’t be supported by anything other than one’s wild imaginations, especially in today’s geopolitical climate. Fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam are polar extremes in every respect as they relate to current affairs. To compare them as equivalent is to shred one’s intellectual honesty.

You can’t keep beating this drum and make it sound any different.[/quote]

I’d also wager the establishment of a Christian theocracy would pervert the Christian religion in the same way it has perverted the Muslim religion, and would any religion.

It has happened before and could easily happen again.

188

[quote]pushharder wrote:
You anti-Christian zealots certainly are a relentless bunch, I’ll say that (again and again and again). Too bad Christianity has so grievously injured your souls.[/quote]

I’m not anti-christian by any means. I know and associate with several very dedicated Christian individuals who I really believe are better human beings than most. The use their Christian ideals as a moral guidestone in their own lives, and they rarely bring it up in regards to other people’s actions or decisions.

I know others, who claim to be Christian, but poorly exhibit Christian values in their own lives and use every opportunity to judge and demean others with respect to their faith. These are typically the ones that want a Holy war between the ‘good’ Christians and the ‘evil’ Muslims, and truly believe all Muslims need to be exterminated.

190

[quote]pushharder wrote:

But it’s largely irrelevant to the issue at hand. The Iranian coffeeshop owner won’t have his finger on the nuclear button.

By the same token, if US political leadership were constantly and bellicosely threatening to wipe, let’s say Oman, off the face of the earth the Omanis and their neighbors would be justified in their alarm and it would be irrelevant what the American coffeeshop owner thought about the whole deal.

So why dwell on it?
[/quote]

Well at least you stay consistent on the matter.

191

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

But it’s largely irrelevant to the issue at hand. The Iranian coffeeshop owner won’t have his finger on the nuclear button.

By the same token, if US political leadership were constantly and bellicosely threatening to wipe, let’s say Oman, off the face of the earth the Omanis and their neighbors would be justified in their alarm and it would be irrelevant what the American coffeeshop owner thought about the whole deal.

So why dwell on it?
[/quote]

Well at least you stay consistent on the matter.
[/quote]

I think Ralph Waldo Emerson had something to say about consistency.

192

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

But it’s largely irrelevant to the issue at hand. The Iranian coffeeshop owner won’t have his finger on the nuclear button.

By the same token, if US political leadership were constantly and bellicosely threatening to wipe, let’s say Oman, off the face of the earth the Omanis and their neighbors would be justified in their alarm and it would be irrelevant what the American coffeeshop owner thought about the whole deal.

So why dwell on it?
[/quote]

Well at least you stay consistent on the matter.
[/quote]

I think Ralph Waldo Emerson had something to say about consistency.[/quote]

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
-John Maynard Keynes

193

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

But it’s largely irrelevant to the issue at hand. The Iranian coffeeshop owner won’t have his finger on the nuclear button.

By the same token, if US political leadership were constantly and bellicosely threatening to wipe, let’s say Oman, off the face of the earth the Omanis and their neighbors would be justified in their alarm and it would be irrelevant what the American coffeeshop owner thought about the whole deal.

So why dwell on it?
[/quote]

Well at least you stay consistent on the matter.
[/quote]

I think Ralph Waldo Emerson had something to say about consistency.[/quote]

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
-John Maynard Keynes[/quote]

I change my money.

194

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

But it’s largely irrelevant to the issue at hand. The Iranian coffeeshop owner won’t have his finger on the nuclear button.

By the same token, if US political leadership were constantly and bellicosely threatening to wipe, let’s say Oman, off the face of the earth the Omanis and their neighbors would be justified in their alarm and it would be irrelevant what the American coffeeshop owner thought about the whole deal.

So why dwell on it?
[/quote]

Well at least you stay consistent on the matter.
[/quote]

I think Ralph Waldo Emerson had something to say about consistency.[/quote]

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
-John Maynard Keynes[/quote]

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
–William James

195

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
I am talking about what Ahmadinejad personally believes, I am also talking about what the religious leaders of Iran believe. Are you saying the ex-president of Iran, a theocracy ruled by Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have different views on religion, Islam, and the Islamic Revolution? If so, please explain or link an article from which I can read about this. Show me an article about the Supreme Leader’s views on Islam and the world and how it differs from that of Ahmadinejad.
[/quote]

No. I am saying that if you plan on taking what the leaders of Iran believes and interpreting that as what the entirety of Iran believes, then you’ll have to stay logically consistent and say the same for the U.S.

[/quote]

But it’s largely irrelevant to the issue at hand. The Iranian coffeeshop owner won’t have his finger on the nuclear button.

By the same token, if US political leadership were constantly and bellicosely threatening to wipe, let’s say Oman, off the face of the earth the Omanis and their neighbors would be justified in their alarm and it would be irrelevant what the American coffeeshop owner thought about the whole deal.

So why dwell on it?
[/quote]

Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s infamous and oft cited 2005 declaration that the state of Israel “should be wiped off the map” is the result of mistranslation. Ahmadinejad quoted an old saying of Ayatollah Khomeini calling for “this occupation regime over Jerusalem” to “vanish from the page of time.” Calling for a regime to vanish is not the same as calling for people to be killed. Dissolution=/=destruction. [/quote]

Yeah, uh, no amount of context is going to make that statement ok. It’s pretty clear what he meant; every word.

196

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]theuofh wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Which is what I meant when I said that I considered Fundamentalist Islam and Fundamentalist Christianity about equivalent in their intrinsic dangerousness.

[/quote]

It’s still a patently absurd position. It can’t be supported by anything other than one’s wild imaginations, especially in today’s geopolitical climate. Fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam are polar extremes in every respect as they relate to current affairs. To compare them as equivalent is to shred one’s intellectual honesty.

You can’t keep beating this drum and make it sound any different.[/quote]

I’d also wager the establishment of a Christian theocracy would pervert the Christian religion in the same way it has perverted the Muslim religion, and would any religion.

It has happened before and could easily happen again.
[/quote]

But the appropriate place to make that wager would be over yonder on the “What If” thread (wherever that is) and not here on a genuine “What Is” thread.

You anti-Christian zealots certainly are a relentless bunch, I’ll say that (again and again and again). Too bad Christianity has so grievously injured your souls.[/quote]

They always seem to gloss over the great atheist experiments of the 20th century, not to mention the ones going on today. Being pathologically anti-religious has a higher body count than any religion or theocracy in history before or since put together.

197

Are we will still attempting to cite something within Christianity that excuses the actions of muslims?

Wake me when someone puts up a video on liveleek decapitating someone while yelling “jesus is great” , other wise stfu because you sound like a fool comparing the 2.

198

[quote]Aggv wrote:
Are we will still attempting to cite something within Christianity that excuses the actions of muslims?

Wake me when someone puts up a video on liveleek decapitating someone while yelling “jesus is great” , other wise stfu because you sound like a fool comparing the 2. [/quote]

This whole Dawkian ideal that the world would be a better place without religion is just the same as saying that we’d all get along better if ‘everybody agreed with me’. Which is true, but it’s true for any ideal. If we were all radical muslims, we’d live in relative peace, if we were all Christians we’d live in peace, if we were all atheists we’d live in peace.

This whole notion that ‘all religion is bad’ is simply a genetic fallacy and false equivocation.

199

If the world was all muslim, we would still have to kill off either all the sunnis or all the Shiites for there to be peace. It just sucks that western civilization is caught in the cross fire of a muslim civil war.

200

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Yes. We’ll see.

The mullahs do harp on the anti-America rhetoric, which one would do if one were trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Something that our hawkish politicians and pundits in the United States never, ever do, of course.

And an aphorism about barking dogs comes to mind.

In the meantime, Iran, along with Jordan and Egypt, may be the only power in the region capable of controlling the spread of the Islamic State, which to my eyes appears to be the more noxious of adversaries.

We may at very least rest easy in the knowledge that if ISIS ever do acquire a nuclear weapon, it will not have come from Iran.

[/quote]

I don’t rest easy in that at all. Death to Israel can make strange bed fellows. In as much as they hate each other now in the whole sunni/ shiite thing, an opportunity arising may change enemy to adversary. If ISIS do get a nuclear weapon, Iran would still be high on my list of culprits. It wouldn’t take much to turn foe in to friend in order to achieve common terror goals. While they hate each other ideologically, they do have common goals. Rest easy, in other words, I will not. Having ISIS deliver a nuclear payload to Israel would be very beneficial to Iran. They would be able to achieve a long stated goal and have a scapegoat. Sure it’s hypothetical at this point, but stranger things have happened. I wouldn’t rule it out based on the current situation. [/quote]

Isn’t the US currently providing Iranian Militias airborne intelligence while they fight ISIS to regain (city name escapes me)?

So… If we are working with Iran, who wants to kill us, the Jews and ISIS, to kill ISIS, who wants to kill us, the Jews and anyone that isn’t one of them; why would Iran suddenly team up to kill the Jews, knowing we and the Jews would just fuck them both up?

I guess I’m saying that it makes no sense to sorta kill enemy #2 to turn around and use them to kill enemy #1, knowing full well they might have hard feelings for shooting them first.

But then again, FP isn’t even remotely my area of remotely close to bare bone knowledge and understanding. [/quote]

Yeah, that was kind of what I was thinking. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and even if he’s also the enemy of my friend, it does not necessarily follow that he will arm our mutual enemy to attack their mutual enemy, who is my friend.

Who says foreign policy is complicated? It’s just like high school.[/quote]

No. Not even if you went to a seriously bad ghetto high school. Foreign policy is like prison. The reason why is some of the people who we have to deal with as world leaders are the type of person you would encounter in prison.

For that reason a world leader needs to have a good understanding of the rules of prison social order, prison pecking order and gang life. If you act like a punk with people like they will run you like a bitch.

So the most important thing you have to do is be willing to do is fight for yourself and establish territory.