Now that Ariel Sharon is no longer in power, do you think his replacement will be a staunch advocate of the peace process in the Middle East and why? or why not?

If you believe the news, Ariel was the only one that encouraged any type of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Besides GWB of course.

What say you?

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Actually, his acting deputy was pro American peace deal before Sharon. The real question is whether Likud with Netanyahu as their leader will win the election amongst all the threats coming out of Iran. As an ex-commando Captain, I'd say he is the best man for the job being that there are major refueling and rearming points in the North and South of Iraq freshly rebuilt. March is going to be real fun for the Iranian theocracy.

Why do I get the impression you want war? What the hell is wrong with you?

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It's a tough call. The Bulldozer was not a person to be trusted. He tried to look like he wanted peace, but let's face it, his history of murder as a General is on par with Hitler. The man was a total animal when you look at the historical facts. He even admitted to many of his crimes and used the cover of "war" to defend them.

Will the next person be better? I would like to hope. I'm one of the few that that really do think the Jews and the Pals. can live together -- once they realize they don't have a choice if they both want to live.

I am plagued by reality. Iran cannot be allowed to go nuclear. Iran will be disarmed. Period. Better an Israli supported operation then a U.S. solo op. BTW, we already have war. There will never be peace in the Middle East, so we might as well pick the winners of the ongoing violence.

"on par with Hitler?"
"total animal?"

Target Iran
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
January 9, 2006


If anyone has any doubt about the kind of nuclear work Iran has been doing for the past 18 years, it must be a case of naivete compounded by gullibility.
Nor should there be any uncertainty about what Iran's mullahocracy would do with a nuclear weapon. All of Iran's leaders since the Ayatollah Rohollah Khomeini replaced the shah in February 1979 have made it clear the objective is Israel's destruction.
In Iran's last presidential race, Western governments and media favored Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. He was a "known" quantity and a "moderate." Michael Rubin, editor of the Middle East Quarterly and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, burst that soap bubble.
Four years ago, when he took the podium at Tehran University to deliver the Friday sermon, Mr. Rafsanjani predicted the Islamic world one day would be equipped with nuclear weapons only Israel possesses in the Middle East. At that point, he explained, "the strategy of the imperialists will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything." And, added the "moderate" former president of Iran, "It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality."
Another prominent "moderate," courted by Europe's democracies, was former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami. "In the Koran," he declared in a homily Oct. 24, 2000, "God commanded to kill the wicked and those who do not see the rights of the oppressed."
The Bush administration argues a small minority of terrorists that have perverted the meaning of Islam has hijacked the religion. But didn't Ayatollah Khatami speak for Shi'ite Islam when he said, "If we abide by the Koran, all of us should mobilize to kill." This is not Osama bin Laden or sidekick Ayman al-Zawahiri or Abu Musab Zarqawi speaking for militant Islam, but a man, who when he invoked the Koran to kill infidels, was regarded in the West as the "moderate" president of Iran.
Having a nuclear weapon is fundamental to Islamist belief. No odes to world peace if they do this, or dirges to world catastrophe if they do that, will deflect the mullahs' core belief as dictated by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Fundamental to Israeli defense doctrine is that no weapon of mass destruction can be tolerated in any Middle Eastern arsenal. Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, the geopolitical sage of the Orient, said in a UPI interview three months before September 11, 2001, the biggest threat on horizon 2010 is "an Islamist bomb and mark my words, it will travel."
Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, now controlled by pro-Western President Pervez Musharraf, was developed by the same man who began assisting Iran's nuclear efforts 18 years ago. A.Q. Khan, also known as Dr. No for the nuclear black market he created to benefit U.S. enemies, began imparting his nuclear know-how to Iran in 1988. Israel believes if Iran resumes weapons-grade uranium enrichment, March 2006 becomes a critical month for acquisition of Iran's first nuclear weapon.
All is not well in Pakistan either. Radical clerics won a major victory against Mr. Musharraf by refusing to expel foreign students in madrassas, the Koranic schools where hatred of America and Israel is still taught.
Tehran started the new year by announcing it doesn't like a Russian compromise proposal and soon will resume nuclear fuel research. Iranian agents have also scoured Europe for missile parts, says a 55-page intelligence assessment dated July 1, 2005. Leaked to the Guardian in Britain, it draws upon material gathered by British, French, German and Belgian agencies.
Iran, says this report, has developed an extensive web of front companies, official bodies, academic institutes and middlemen dedicated to obtaining in Western Europe and former Soviet republics, the expertise, training and equipment for nuclear programs, missile development, and biological and chemical weapons arsenals.

Any evidence the Palestinians really want peace? How about the fact they have never changed their charter to remove "total destruction of Isreal" as being a goal....or actually doing something about the palestinian terrorists?

If they were serious about peace we would see actions from that side and as yet I have seen nothing.....all Palestinians do is take and kill....and its only Isreal who gives anything towards peace.


Isreal has the right to respond to terrorism given the fact the palestinians seem to have no interest in doing so.

Peace is possible but only if the Palestinians wake up and understand they have to do their part too.

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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Since the PLO's introduction in 1964 it primary goals are:
1- To Politically represent the Palestine people and
2- The total destruction of the state of Israel.

When the PlO along with Yasser Arafat were sent into exile and the massacre of the arab women and children was broadcasted around the world the Israelis made sure there would never be any peace.
They left nothing alive. They killed ever man women and child. They killed all livestock burned houses and villages to the ground.
That kind of thing is hard to forget even though the rest of the world may have.

Not to say the PLO were angels....far from it. They brutally rioted against the Jews fleeing persecution killing thousands.

So how do you find peace? The UN can't do it. The Palestines have rejected every UN resolution put forth to date.

It seems to me the Palestines want war as much as Bush wanted his. How else are they supposed to spend eternity in paradise with countless virgins?

Danny

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(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination

Many may think Iran will be like Iraq. Please remember that we have no strategic or logistical gains from occupying a country the size of Iran. In Desert Storm, Bush I bought us valuable time. It was squandered in the Clinton era via the Oil for Graft scandal, but we have to get back on track and move forward. It would be very simple to completely disarm Iran the way that Desert Storm disarmed Iraq. The logistical technology perfected since The Storm is generations beyond what our capabilities were. The battle designated MOS's staged in Kuwait and the forces already in Iraq would be free to capture any border crossers. This op will be nothing more than a huge surgical air campaign with a sprinkling of small SOG incursion teams to secure the 4,000 centurfuges in subteranean Iran. National Security should never be a partisan issue. Even the most frothing at the mouth liberal subconsciously knows a nuclear Iran under their current president means a matter of time before an American city fails to a smuggled low yeild nuclear device. Iran is as ripe for a post operation coup as it ever will be. Armchair protestors need to relax and let the professionals do what they are trained to do, IMHO.

Here's a link to some unclassified very general strategic varibles related to our sworn enemy in Iran; their theocracy.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ir.html

Hey, I'm confused, are these the same trained people that led us to victory in Vietnam and Korea and the "first" Iraq War?

Thought so.

Nope. They're mostly retired out of service. SOGs of the volunteer services are the best in the world given the proper combat support, rules of engagement, and political will.

The self medal appointing Vietnam Vet that you're thinking of made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency and is currently rubbing elbows with the other felons on the Democratic/minority side of the Senate Intel Committee secondary to the NSA leak to the N.Y. Times.

I know you are not referring to the POTUS since he did everything he could to NOT go to war.
Usually tripe from some wingnuts.

well we saw what 12 years if ignoring Saddam got the world.....which is hundreds of thousands murdered and wholesale bribery of France Germany and the UN....not to mention near total disregard for every term of the Cease fire agreement he signed.

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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

The Next Crisis: Iran
by J. R. Nyquist

Iran is determined to build nuclear weapons to threaten Israel. Last month Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that if Europe feels guilty about the Holocaust, they should give the “Zionists” some territory in Europe. Previously, in October, he said that Israel should be “wiped off the map.”

In February 2005 the Bush administration announced its intention to sell 500 bunker-busting bombs to Israel. It seems that the United States wanted Israel to solve the Iran problem. After all, Israel is a regional power with a reputation for swift and decisive action. The Muslims already hate Israel, so there isn’t much love to be lost. Let the Israelis do the deed and take the heat. Then America can manage the aftermath, and pacify angry Muslim nations by promising to push Israel, face first, into the peace table.

Undoubtedly tempted by Washington’s offer of 500 bombs, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon knows that Israel would be economically and diplomatically isolated following a preemptive strike on Iran. The negatives in this situation are unacceptable. So Israel hasn’t bombed Iran, and keeps to the prescribed peace process while the West attempts to “deal” with Iran diplomatically. Of course, diplomacy won’t work on crazy militants who think that Jews and Christians should be driven from the Middle East.

The Islamists in Iran know they are playing with fire. Fanatical but realistic, they’ve turned to Moscow for military-technical assistance. Russia has already agreed to sell powerful S-300 AMB/anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. The S-300 is effective against aircraft up to 90 miles away at an altitude as low as 10 meters. The S-300 can destroy ballistic missiles up to 25 miles away, provided their velocity does not exceed 6,000 miles per hour. It is a very impressive weapon, and Iran may be difficult to attack once it has been deployed and integrated into Iran’s air defense system.

And now, as the Iran crisis deepens, Israel’s prime minister has suffered a stroke. With a general election scheduled for March 28, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has formed a new political party by splitting his Likud Party and linking up with allies on the left to thwart a leadership challenge from those who see the Palestinian leadership as terrorists who cannot be trusted (i.e., Gen. Shaul Mofaz, who believes the Palestinian Authority is a terrorist front that deserves to be smashed, and Benjamin Netanyahu who has taken back the leadership of Likud). Absorbed in an internal power struggle with an ailing and weakened prime minister, Israel is unlikely to launch an air assault on Iran.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force may be preparing for an assault of its own. Targets are said to include a nuclear reactor, nuclear fuel and radioactive waste storage facilities in Iran. To thwart this possibility, Russian President Vladimir Putin, declaring himself a powerful friend of the Muslim world, has cultivated the friendship of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. (Of humble origins and pro-Islamic, Erdogan was previously convicted for “inciting religious hatred” after publicly reading an Islamic poem which said, “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers….”) By denying the U.S. access to NATO bases in Turkey, the Russian president seeks to disrupt an American preemptive strike on Iran. By strengthening Iran, Vladimir Putin seeks to disrupt the democratization of Iraq. Once Iran is a nuclear power, America’s attempt to stabilize the oil-rich region is bound to fail. American withdrawal from the Middle East would then be inevitable.

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"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
Marcus Aurelius

It's one thing for a small unit to secure an objective. It's quite another for that same team, no matter how good, how well-trained, how well equipped, to hold that objective when deep inside hostile territory (and deep many/most would be). Defending what they've secured, for long periods, against what would undoubedtly would be overwhelming numbers, is not their mission - that is typically left to large Army units that are more properly suited to such a mission. And getting those large units into a position where they can move-in quickly (a few hours) means a large-scale border crossing - you might wish to call it an invasion. It could be you're wondering why I don't seem to understand that the small incursion units could simply be extracted after they secure, then destroy their objectives. Unless you have different first-hand knowledge on this sort of mission than I do, trust me when I tell you that this is a much more difficult undertaking than most folks realize. Coordinating multiple (a multiple of many times in order to secure those of the 4000 sites that air-strikes can't get) insersions, while not commonplace, is certainly doable. Knowing the precise moment - and you must be precise - to remove these men is much more difficult, given the number of events that can alter the timeline of a mission. If you don't get them out as planned, you effectively desert them - which is tantamount to sacrificing them for the mission. Care to volunteer? The Marines (and our Force Recon units) are still looking for a few good men.

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