Why We Should Be Afraid of Iran

I am sick of people saying that Iran is not a threat and that the US should not be scared of them.  Look, Iran is a huge threat because….well.  hmm.

Let’s see they might be developing nukes or maybe they are just building a power plant.  Can’t really use that as a reason to be afraid of them as there are a number of countries around the globe trying to develop nukes.  Not to use of course, only to level the playing field.

Speaking of Nukes, why is Iran such a threat and Pakistan not?  Pakistan has nukes…we know this.   They have a dictator trying to hang onto control of the country (even though he doesn’t control large parts of it).  We know there are a lot of crazies that live there and terrorism not only lives there but does it out in the open.  Go visit Karachi.

Let’s go back to Iran.  Their military is…pretty weak.  They don’t have any nuclear subs that can carry nukes to the US and they don’t have any truly long range missles.  So how are they a threat to the US?  They can’t attack us directly and even if they developed a few nukes…using them would be suicide. 

And name the only country to ever…ever actually use nukes?

Iran is not run by a dictator, it’s run by a president (Ahmadinejad).  He doesn’t have supreme control in that country so even if they had nukes it’s not like one guy is pushing the button.  Iran is actually a pretty progressive country and filled with young Iranians trying to push western lifestyles on the establishment.  What do you think a war will do to those young Iranians?  Push them toward or away from us?

I’ve heard concerns about what Russia will do if Iran is attacked because they have many business deals with them, this is a valid concern.  But, have you thought about it this way:  Russia is making most of their money right now off the high price of oil…what happens if Iran is attacked…oil might double and russia would become one of the wealthiest countries on the planet.  So, how concerned are they?  Or do they just want to give the appearance that they are concerned?

I don’t think you can make a strong case for Iran being a threat to the US.  The US has to finish the other 2 wars we started…one way or the other.  And as Israel’s biggest supporter, we need to tell them that they will not attack Iran either.  Doing so will put hundreds of thousands of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in danger.  It will also sink the US economy and hurt all of Europe economically.  At some point, we will have to address the taboo topic of the nuclear arsenal that Israel possesses.  But you aren’t supposed to mention that.

I’ve never heard the answer to this but would you say to Iran if they want to develop nukes?  If they say we want nukes because India, Pakistan, and Israel all have them and to be on a level playing field we need that technology or we will always be treated as a child at the negotiating table.  Not sure I have an answer for that.

How much longer John McCain?

How are you going to back up the 100 year statement now:

The killings of three U.S. soldiers in separate attacks in Baghdad pushed the American death toll for April up to 47, making it the deadliest month since September, the military said Wednesday.

How much longer do we have to continue before someone is strong enough to say enough is enough? 

In all, at least 4,059 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

That doesn’t include the wounded, the seriously wounded, and the emotional impact on the soldiers and their families.  How many years do we continue down this path?  Please tell us again how the “surge” is working?  McCain basically said he judges success on the basis of how many of our soldiers are dying or getting hurt…well this has been the bloodiest month since September so doesn’t that mean the “surge” has failed? 

I don’t think Republicans are going to stick this war out with McCain.  They aren’t blind and they realize that it’s negative impacts far outweigh any positives.  The Democrats know this but are too weak to do anything about it.  Obama should seize on this but he’s too scared to do anything bold right now. 

Similar Posts:

1. Stop Bashing Patraeus
2. Is McCain Crazy?

Stop Bashing Patraeus – Here’s How to Get Out of Iraq

So we got to see the big Patraeus show this week.  We’ve got democrats all up in arms because he didn’t answer their questions how they wanted and we have republicans treating him like a god.  Look, it doesn’t matter what he says.  His job is to win the war and he’s not going to look at anything that falls outside of that goal.  It’s not his job.  He’s a General. 

Think of him like the head coach.  He wants every player he can get but it’s the general manager’s job to make sure the team makes money and plans for the future of the franchise.  If you want the US out of Iraq, then bash Bush and bash the congress for continuing to fund it and finally bash anyone who didn’t stand up against the war from the beginning (some of you will be bashing yourselves at that point).  But, I do offer the answer for getting out of Iraq. 

Are you ready?  Take a seat.  In fact, the answer starts at the UN.  Our president must stand in front of the UN general assembly and say the following:

1. How many of you care about the Iraqi People?
2. How many of you are worried about global terrorism?
3. The US will not sustain its current troop levels in Iraq, we have done our job and we will be leaving.  Now, we believe there will be widespread bloodshed in Iraq if we leave.  Many Iraqi’s will die and there is a good possibility that extremist will take power following a civil war.  Regardless of how you felt about the Iraq War in the beginning, I am now putting it on your shoulders to protect the Iraqi People.  The US is not mistake free and we take responsibility for our actions but after 5 years we cannot continue.  The blood will be on all of our hands, not just the US, if you choose not to act.
4. We need 150K troops and 12 Billion a month from the world to continue.  We will provide 30K troops and 2 billion a month in additional support.  That will bring the troop levels to 180K plus the approximately 100K security contractors and the Iraqi army and police.  This will be an 18 month commitment.  Iraqis will know that the entire world is supporting them and their quest towards a democratic country. 
5. You have 30 days to decide.  We will take money and troops from every country including Venezuela, China, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Russia and Cuba.   If the world cannot meet the 150K in troops or the 10 Billion in funding then the US will begin pulling out of Iraq immediately.  The effects on the world economy, oil, and terrorist levels will be felt by everyone in this room and we will all be held accountable.   When you see innocent people dying in Iraq, you will only have the mirror to look into for the blame. 

If the world doesn’t want to send troops or money then why should we continue?  Obviously, they don’t think it’s important enough to actively participate in stabilizing and protecting the Iraqi population.  No reason we should have to continue this on our own.  So we leave. 

Patraeus probably knows that continuing the Iraq War is not good for the future of the US, but he can’t say that…he’s there to win it.  The US has to put some pressure on the world by using public sentiment…it’s basic politics.  But, you have to go before the UN and admit your mistakes and be honest, then ask for help.  And at the same time be strong enough to say that if you don’t get it…then you’re gone.  Let’s be honest:

• we can’t continue these troop levels and rotations
• we can’t afford the costs and the costs to replace all of this equipment
• it’s not worth losing our troops over

The Very Rich are Hurting

The economy is tanking from the top down.  We may be headed to a “ZIRP” similar to what japan did, the stock market gains aren’t holding at all.  Google ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) for more info and the debate.  I think many average people haven’t really felt the effects of this downturn but you can bet that people at the top are getting nervous.  Here are a couple of stories and they all have one thing in common…the very rich are losing millions. 

• The Carlyle group created a hedge fund that is collapsing…now the Carlyle Group itself is not in trouble with the likes of Jim Baker, Bush SR. and a number of Saudi’s but at least one arm of this group is hurting. 
• A new football league was ready to begin up until a few weeks ago…until one of the guys bank rolling it lost millions.  Now, they are pulling the league this year.
• Joseph Lewis wants some of his money back that he lost with Bear Stearns collapse.  This huge company collapsed basically overnight. 
• More on Bear Stearns:  this is a personal story but a friend of mine actually bought 100K worth about 2 weeks ago…saw it’s worth drop to 80K.  At that time their CEO was on TV saying they were fine and had plenty of money…my friend decided to take the loss and sell immediately and 24 hours that same CEO was telling everyone they were bankrupt.  so instead of losing basically everything my friend salvaged the 80K.  What is interesting or scary is that everyone in his office was telling him not to sell. 
• This next one is pure speculation by me.  The Denver Broncos are making budget cuts and letting people go.  Now, the NFL itself is very popular and they have a salary cap so why would a team need to do this?  Could it possibly be because Pat Bowlen (Denver’s owner) has lost millions in investments over the past month? 

 Somewhat related…I ran across an article by Ron Paul back in 2006.  It’s pretty long and talks a lot about Gold..which many are turning to.  He has a lot of interesting points (rather you agree or not) but a few of them:

• the buying of gold is really a bet against the currency…not really an investment
• inflation hurts the poor and the only way to pay for many social programs is to print more money…leading to inflation
• there should have been a “war tax” to pay for Iraq…by doing this you really make it clear to the people that you have to actually pay for the war…instead they just printed more money so the emotion of a war tax is gone.  If we had been paying a war tax the last 5 years, I’m sure this thing would be over by now. 

Anyways, I think it’s interesting whether you agree or not.  It’s not often we see a congressman go into this much detail on the economy. 

Monday Reading – Get Your Head out of the Ground

1. What exactly did the Fed cuts accomplish?  I never thought I would see anything like this in my life,” said James Steele, an HSBC economist in New York.
2. City Budgets a mess.  Sales tax collections were down (7.5)% compared to January 2007, and were $(71.9) million short of the monthly forecast. This is the largest percentage year over year decrease since at least FY 1991.
3. What do you get for 736 Million?  Slavery apparently…The private construction company, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting, declined repeatedly to provide safety inspectors with reports on fire protection systems at the embassy, according to reports released by Waxman. First Kuwaiti, based in Kuwait, remains the target of a separate US criminal probe into allegations of labour trafficking.
4. Has the Iraq War affected the economy?  That’s not what the Republicans are saying.   The former World Bank vice-president yesterday said the war had, so far, cost the US something like $US3trillion ($3.3 trillion) compared with the $US50-$US60-billion predicted in 2003.
5. How many more people can we send to jail?  And we all know an environment filled with gangs, violence, drugs and raping is great for rehabilitation.  Can’t wait for them to move next to me.

McCain is in trouble

First, he all but admitted that he was basing his campaign on the Iraq War.  Any sane person knows that he’s in the minority there.  And it appears that he had a sane moment when he said it.

It doesn’t matter at this point if it’s really going well over there or not, the soldiers are tired of it and the American people are tired of it.  It’s hard to keep the momentum of a war when you are fighting people that never attacked you.  Good Luck winning with that John Boy.

And from the latest poll numbers….not looking good.  Down by 12% to Obama. 

Interesting comments by Obama though.  He spoke the truth but it’s a road few want to venture down. 

“Frankly some of the commentary that I’ve seen which suggests guilt by association or the notion that unless we are never ever going to ask any difficult questions about how we move peace forward or secure Israel that is non military or non belligerent or doesn’t talk about just crushing the opposition that that somehow is being soft or anti-Israel, I think we’re going to have problems moving forward,” he said.

Obama attacking the right in Israel…they aren’t going to like that one bit.  Anyone who has ever traveled to Israel knows that most of the people that live there (both Israelis and Palestinians) are moderates but rarely does mainstream America hear about this.  The less this position is talked about, the more drawn to extremism both sides are in an effort to be heard. 

And of course you have the Kosovo / Palestinian Argument which the Bush Administration quickly responded to.

The United States on Wednesday rejected comparisons between the Palestinian situation and Kosovo, after a senior Palestinian official called for a Kosovo-like declaration of independence.

Kosovo is a “unique” situation, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. “It is not a precedent for any other situation around the world.”

Uh, you think it’s because Kosovo benefits the US and the other doesn’t?  Yeah, screw precedents!  We like to just make things up as we go along.

The Iraqi Lie

I’m sure many of you have seen the headline “False Statements Preceded War” (although I couldn’t find it on CNN and I’m sure it is disappearing from the headlines) but how many of you have actually read what the The Center for Public Integrity wrote?

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration’s case for war.

It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose “Duelfer Report” established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq’s nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.

I encourage everyone to actually read the article instead of the “fluff” AP piece.  I believe that the media wants to ignore this story as much as possible because it makes them look at themselves and feel guilty.  They are also responsible in pushing this propoganda on the American People.  It would be interesting if someone did a similar study on the media during this time.  Why did they refuse to call Bush and his cronies on lies such as this:

In an interview with Polish television on May 29, 2003, President Bush stated: “We found the weapons of mass destruction.” Bush was referencing two trailers or “mobile labs” discovered in Iraq.

Just days earlier, the Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded that the trailers “could not be used as a transportable biological production system as the system is presently configured.” It was ultimately acknowledged that the trailers had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction and were probably used to manufacture hydrogen employed in weather balloons.

It would also be nice if someone did a similar study on what most Democrats were saying during this time.  Most of them turned their backs on the anti-Iraq war movement that was going on at the time.  I always thought it was interesting that even though millions of people across the globe refused to believe the propoganda…we still attacked Iraq and really without hesitation. 

I had been thinking about a blog entry on the impact the media has on the presidential elections and when I saw this story yesterday it just reminded me of the power they have.  Watch for a new blog post on how the media influences the elections…soon.

Is McCain Crazy?

The United States military could stay in Iraq for “maybe a hundred years” and that “would be fine with me,” John McCain told two hundred or so people at a town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire, on Thursday evening. Toward the end of this session, which was being held shortly before the Iowa caucuses were to start, McCain was confronted by Dave Tiffany, who calls himself a “full-time antiwar activist.” In a heated exchange, Tiffany told McCain that he had looked at McCain’s campaign website and had found no indication of how long McCain was willing to keep U.S. troops in Iraq. Arguing that George W. Bush’s escalation of troops has led to a decline in U.S. casualties, McCain noted that the United States still maintains troops in South Korea and Japan. He said he had no objection to U.S. soldiers staying in Iraq for decades, “as long as Americans are not being injured, harmed or killed.”

What?  How many places do you want to have troops in John?  Afghanistan?  Kuwait?  Pakistan?  I mean where do you draw the line or finally say “we can’t afford to do it financially.”  

I know he tried to compare it to Germany and Korea but those are completely different situations and started in completely different time periods.   They were put there for stability and to basically “block” the Russians from expanding their empire.  And lately, there has been more discussions of scaling down our troop levels in those places as it’s not economical anymore.  Iraq is not comparable to WWII…just a slight difference in scale.  And Korea?  You really think the South is afraid of the North?  You could buy the North’s soldiers with a piece of pizza as soon as they crossed the border.

Anyone ask the Iraqis how they feel abou this 100 year statement?  What if their government says “we would like you to leave”?  Anyone ask the other countries in the Middle East how they would feel about this?  Anyone ask the troops and their families?  They did their job, let them come home already.  Gee, John you think maybe you just gave extremists some new talking point as Ron Paul pointed out. 

And remember, McCain is the one who sang the little tune about bombing Iran to the Beach Boys song.  You have the democrats moving forward with Obama, a new candidate and a new attitude and the republicans are going backwards. 

Iowa Caucus Predictions

I’ll take a stab at it.  This is based mostly on gut.

Dems:

• Obama  37%
• Edwards 33%
• Hillary 27%

I’m giving Edwards a jump because of his statement on Iraq today…first Democrat front runner with the balls to set a date.  Hillary has no momentum and Obama seems to have a solid lead.

Repubs:

• Romney 27%
• Huck 22%
• Paul  18%
• McCain  17%
• Guilani  7%
• Thompson 7%

This one is a mess.  I’ve dropped Huck because of his stupid ad press conference and because he’s a scab (how can you cross a picket line the night before an election?).  I think Paul’s numbers go up since it seems like 99% of his people will actually show up to vote while other candidates are less likely to get that kind of turnout.  Plus, I saw him a lot on TV today so maybe the media doesn’t want to be caught looking foolish.  Thompson’s numbers are probably going to be lower because it looks like he doesn’t want to win.  Rudy doesn’t care and I think old people like McCain.

The two big issues this year are going to be the sinking economy (the lending and credit crunch is going to be brutal) and Iraq as both will continue to get worse and worse and more people will realize one has a direct affect on the other.  This should be an easy victory for the democrats but their failure in congress this past year will put voters off.

4.2 million in one day

I was just reading how Ron Paul raised 4.2 million in one day or maybe it was 2.4 million according to MSNBC which apparently doesn’t update their website very often.  And the MSM wonders why readers flock to other sources for news…update your website MSNBC.  And not to get too political, but I find it very odd that CNN doesn’t even carry this story on their homepage or their politics page.  Is there a bigger story from yesterday in Politics? 

I think this is a big story for all of business.  Howard Dean started this during the last election (unfortunately, he got on national television and said he would get rid of the big media monopolies…so they took him down) and it’s amazing that Ron Paul of all people is the only one that was able to take what Dean did and expand on it.  I don’t understand why this isn’t a bigger story, a candidate (fringe, long shot…whatever you want to call him) was able to raise 4.2 million dollars in 24 hours from about 37K different sources.  Amazing!  Leave the politics out of it and just think of it from a business sense.  This is really the power of the internet. 

Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said the effort began independently about two months ago at the hands of Paul’s backers. He said Paul picked up on the movement, mentioning in it speeches and interviews.

“It’s been kind of building up virally,” Benton said.

I think this also says something about how the little person can make a difference…this whole thing came about because Paul supporters organized and got the word out.  This wasn’t planned by his staff.  This model may start to be copied by other organizations…or rather it should.

Or maybe this has nothing to do with any of that and everything to do with this.