WWIII

**NNTB** · 10-29-2007, 10:06 PM

So... how far do you think we are away from it happening?

**Ikaika** · 10-30-2007, 12:10 AM

eleventy cubic pounds.

EliteBSU · 10-30-2007, 01:18 AM

Pick a fight with Iran, then we go to war against the muslim population, 1.2 billion strong.

i dunno, something i heard a while ago.

Biggie · 10-30-2007, 01:29 AM

the world ends 2012 so who cares OMG RUN!!!11!1!1

**Succio** · 10-30-2007, 01:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Biggie

the world ends 2012 so who cares OMG RUN!!!11!1!1

hahahha i saw that BS. i doubt it.

Planet Earth might not even be around for WWIII. NUCLEAR WARFARE

**Ikaika** · 10-30-2007, 01:47 AM

its spelled nucular, ldo.

**Succio** · 10-30-2007, 01:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ikaika

its spelled nucular, ldo.

ummm are you serious???

if not then :spit:

Drew1200 · 10-30-2007, 03:10 AM

WWIII is a long ways enough. What our administration is trying to do with Iran right now is utter BS, and the only people buying it are the US public. We're stretched too thin to invade Iran on our own, and theres no way we'll have support from the international community.

Fareed Zakaria is immensely versed on the politics of the Middle East:

Quote:

Stalin, Mao And … Ahmadinejad?
Conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers.
By Fareed Zakaria
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 1:57 PM ET Oct 20, 2007

At a meeting with reporters last week, President Bush said that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." These were not the barbs of some neoconservative crank or sidelined politician looking for publicity. This was the president of the United States, invoking the specter of World War III if Iran gained even the knowledge needed to make a nuclear weapon.

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

When the relatively moderate Mohammed Khatami was elected president in Iran, American conservatives pointed out that he was just a figurehead. Real power, they said (correctly), especially control of the military and police, was wielded by the unelected "Supreme Leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Now that Ahmadinejad is president, they claim his finger is on the button. (Oh wait, Iran doesn't have a nuclear button yet and won't for at least three to eight years, according to the CIA, by which point Ahmadinejad may not be president anymore. But these are just facts.)

In a speech last week, Rudy Giuliani said that while the Soviet Union and China could be deterred during the cold war, Iran can't be. The Soviet and Chinese regimes had a "residual rationality," he explained. Hmm. Stalin and Mao—who casually ordered the deaths of millions of their own people, fomented insurgencies and revolutions, and starved whole regions that opposed them—were rational folk. But not Ahmadinejad, who has done what that compares? One of the bizarre twists of the current Iran hysteria is that conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers.

If I had to choose whom to describe as a madman, North Korea's Kim Jong Il or Ahmadinejad, I do not think there is really any contest. A decade ago Kim Jong Il allowed a famine to kill 2 million of his own people, forcing the others to survive by eating grass, while he imported gallons of expensive French wine. He has sold nuclear technology to other rogue states and threatened his neighbors with test-firings of rockets and missiles. Yet the United States will be participating in international relief efforts to Pyongyang worth billions of dollars.

We're on a path to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost nothing about. The United States government has had no diplomats in Iran for almost 30 years. American officials have barely met with any senior Iranian politicians or officials. We have no contact with the country's vibrant civil society. Iran is a black hole to us—just as Iraq had become in 2003.

The one time we seriously negotiated with Tehran was in the closing days of the war in Afghanistan, in order to create a new political order in the country. Bush's representative to the Bonn conference, James Dobbins, says that "the Iranians were very professional, straightforward, reliable and helpful. They were also critical to our success. They persuaded the Northern Alliance to make the final concessions that we asked for." Dobbins says the Iranians made overtures to have better relations with the United States through him and others in 2001 and later, but got no reply. Even after the Axis of Evil speech, he recalls, they offered to cooperate in Afghanistan. Dobbins took the proposal to a principals meeting in Washington only to have it met with dead silence. The then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he says, "looked down and rustled his papers." No reply was ever sent back to the Iranians. Why bother? They're mad.

Last year, the Princeton scholar, Bernard Lewis, a close adviser to Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal predicting that on Aug. 22, 2006, President Ahmadinejad was going to end the world. The date, he explained, "is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the Prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to 'the farthest mosque,' usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back. This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world" (my emphasis). This would all be funny if it weren't so dangerous.

He makes a good point. Friends of mine that live overseas have similar opinions... and if you look at BBC.com or any of the other major non-US news websites you get the same thing. The real question is, how much of Bush's BS is the american public willing to buy into without question?

**NNTB** · 10-30-2007, 03:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drew1200

WWIII is a long ways enough. What our administration is trying to do with Iran right now is utter BS, and the only people buying it are the US public. We're stretched too thin to invade Iran on our own, and theres no way we'll have support from the international community.

Fareed Zakaria is immensely versed on the politics of the Middle East:

He makes a good point. Friends of mine that live overseas have similar opinions... and if you look at BBC.com or any of the other major non-US news websites you get the same thing. The real question is, how much of Bush's BS is the american public willing to buy into without question?

yup... but that didn't stop our great administration from throwing us into iraq

steelslinger512 · 10-30-2007, 03:48 AM

I'm going to ask Santa for a radiation suit for christmas.. the hell with an i-pod....

**NNTB** · 10-30-2007, 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by steelslinger512

I'm going to ask Santa for a radiation suit for christmas.. the hell with an i-pod....

sounds like a plan... i hear they can catch your pants on fire anyways...

http://www.ironmass.com/misc/12409-i...ants-fire.html

Drew1200 · 10-30-2007, 03:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NNTB

yup... but that didn't stop our great administration from throwing us into iraq

I think at this point though this administration has lost the political capital it would need to do something like that. if the american people are really dumb enough to let our president start another war for oil, after his proven track record of inventing evidence to support his case, cutting troops benefits while increasing their tour of duties, violate every human rights convention on the planet, mismanage a war at every possible turn, let corporate sponsors dictate public policy, etc etc. then I'm moving to another country. seriously.

on a side note, I hate people that blindly believe bush is right now matter what. got into a "discussion" with a guy at work about this today. how do you not question all the crap thats gone wrong since 2000??? even republicans have distanced themselves from bush...he EXPANDS government spending to astronomical levels, he EXPANDS government programs, these are things reagan republicans are against.... I mean to support the guy now, to just blindly believe what you're told and continue spouting crap about his "mandate" from the US people (after 2 stolen elections) is ridiculous. I'm all for democracy, but lets remember Hitler was elected in a democratic government too. democracy is only what the people make it into. I'm not comparing hitler to bush, but I do think it'll be interesting 50 years from now to see how much of a negative impact this guy was on the world, and on our country.

dammit now I'm all worked up.

**NNTB** · 10-30-2007, 03:58 AM

i feel your pain bro... sad thing is too many people are too blinded by the bullshit to see whats really going on

10-29-2007, 10:06 PM	#1
NNTB rEVOLutionary Join Date: May 2005 Location: FL Posts: 2,447 Recipes: 0 Rep Power: 163	WWIII So... how far do you think we are away from it happening? __________________ "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it." Abraham Lincoln

10-30-2007, 12:10 AM	#2
Ikaika resident degen Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: San Diego, CA Posts: 3,929 Recipes: 0 Rep Power: 222	Re: WWIII eleventy cubic pounds. __________________ No supplement can make up for the lack of a strong work ethic.

10-30-2007, 01:18 AM	#3
EliteBSU IMPC Contestant Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Northern Minnesota Posts: 465 Recipes: 0 Rep Power: 63	Re: WWIII Pick a fight with Iran, then we go to war against the muslim population, 1.2 billion strong. i dunno, something i heard a while ago.

10-30-2007, 01:29 AM	#4
Biggie Pro Stature Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 840 Recipes: 0 Rep Power: 130	Re: WWIII the world ends 2012 so who cares OMG RUN!!!11!1!1 __________________

10-30-2007, 01:47 AM	#6
Ikaika resident degen Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: San Diego, CA Posts: 3,929 Recipes: 0 Rep Power: 222	Re: WWIII its spelled nucular, ldo. __________________ No supplement can make up for the lack of a strong work ethic.

10-30-2007, 03:48 AM	#10
steelslinger512 New Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Selma, North Carolina Posts: 18 Recipes: 0 Rep Power: 0	Re: WWIII I'm going to ask Santa for a radiation suit for christmas.. the hell with an i-pod....

10-30-2007, 03:58 AM	#13
NNTB rEVOLutionary Join Date: May 2005 Location: FL Posts: 2,447 Recipes: 0 Rep Power: 163	Re: WWIII i feel your pain bro... sad thing is too many people are too blinded by the bullshit to see whats really going on __________________ "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it." Abraham Lincoln

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