Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Bush makes veiled threats over Iran

Bernie Gunther said:
They're letting the IAEA inspectors in, and as we saw in the case of Iraq, nuclear inspectors tend to be very reliable (much more so than the Office of Special Plans say) in being able to tell if there are any weapons.

They were bamboozled in Libya.

Also, the Iranians aren't hiding anything. They basically removed the seals and told the rest of the world to go piss up a rope. You don't need inspectors if they're telling you themselves exactly what they're up to.
 
nino_savatte said:
So you would be in favour of an invasion, or a bombing of Iran - is this correct? On the basis of your fears, antipathies, you would actually be in favour of an escalation of tension in the region, together with the conseqeunces that arise from such action, is this correct?

Bad leap of logic there.
 
Why do I find it either amusing or depressing to see a board comprised of lots of gays, free thinkers, anarchists, etc, defending the development of nuclear capacity by a country that would likely just behead most U75 members at the drop of a hat?
 
Johnny Canuck2 said:
They were bamboozled in Libya.

Also, the Iranians aren't hiding anything. They basically removed the seals and told the rest of the world to go piss up a rope. You don't need inspectors if they're telling you themselves exactly what they're up to.
Dunno enough about Libya's programme to tell you if I think it's a comparable case.

Meanwhile, those were seals they'd agreed that the IAEA could put there themselves, not on the basis of any legal obligation, but by way of saying "look, we're not enriching anything until we've sorted this argument out"

Please understand me clearly here. I have grave reservations about anyone fucking around with nuclear fuels, although I'm not against it on religious grounds or anything. I don't see any reason to trust Iran *less* with them than I do the irresponsible clowns in the Whitehouse, Pakistan or Israel though.
 
Bernie Gunther said:
Please understand me clearly here. I have grave reservations about anyone fucking around with nuclear fuels, although I'm not against it on religious grounds or anything. I don't see any reason to trust Iran *less* with them than I do the irresponsible clowns in the Whitehouse, Pakistan or Israel though.

Well, the US, whom many here consider the greatest warmongering country the world has ever known, hasn't used the thing since Japan.

Also, the US, and at least Israel, are run by democratic govts that have built in checks and balances. They aren't amenable to control by one demagogue, like an ayatollah or something.

Pakistan: well, there you go. I think Pakistan falls closer to Iran in the spectrum, and that's why every time Pakistan and India ratchet up the tension a couple of notches, the whole world holds its breath, waiting for the nuclear exchange that is likely inevitable between them.
 
After all with Israel and the US in particular, there is nobody obvious with both the means and will to deter them from doing so, whereas any obvious use of nukes by Iran say, would be pretty sure to get them vapourised fast.
 
Bernie Gunther said:
After all with Israel and the US in particular, there is nobody obvious with both the means and will to deter them from doing so, whereas any obvious use of nukes by Iran say, would be pretty sure to get them vapourised fast.

Kind of makes you wonder why, if the US is so bent on world domination, that they haven't used nukes more often. Really: what's stopping them?
 
I think the question here is who do you trust with this incredibly fucking dangerous stuff.

I don't trust anyone with it, much. I'm also extremely dubious about the arguments that it's a useful power source when it's not being subsidised with lots of fossil energy by a country seeking the ability to make weapons in addition.

I don't seriously doubt that the Iranians have been trying to make nuclear weapons, because any regime within missile range of Israel, which has plenty of nukes, would certainly be thinking about how to get some of their own.

The point is to stop this proliferation, which I think means *everybody*

No special rules for the US and their friends in Israel.
 
Bernie Gunther said:
I think the question here is who do you trust with this incredibly fucking dangerous stuff.

I don't trust anyone with it, much. I'm also extremely dubious about the arguments that it's a useful power source when it's not being subsidised with lots of fossil energy by a country seeking the ability to make weapons in addition.

I don't seriously doubt that the Iranians have been trying to make nuclear weapons, because any regime within missile range of Israel, which has plenty of nukes, would certainly be thinking about how to get some of their own.

The point is to stop this proliferation, which I think means *everybody*

No special rules for the US and their friends in Israel.

I'm more trusting of a govt that has had the things for fifty years and used them once, right at the beginning. I'm less trusting of a govt. that kills people in compliance with religious dictates against certain morality infractions.
 
Johnny Canuck2 said:
Well, the US, whom many here consider the greatest warmongering country the world has ever known, hasn't used the thing since Japan.
That's still twice more than any other country in the world.
 
I think that stuff you're talking about is peripheral to the real issue JC.

For me the real issue is that nuclear weapons are an unacceptable danger to human beings in general. There is no excuse for continuing to maintain them.

Getting rid of them globally would be the right approach, and that starts with a treaty and with the US and Israel starting to take treaties and international laws seriously. That's a precondition for getting everybody else who is trying to get nukes on board, because almost all of them are trying to get nukes to deter the US and/or Israel from attacking them, conventionally or otherwise.
 
Johnny Canuck2 said:
Maybe I'm the only person disturbed by the thought of a country that's run by a fundamentalist theocracy, and that uses medieval methods to scource any sort of social deviation, in possession of nuclear weapons.
Yep, I'm worried about the Bush administration too, Johnny :(
 
Bernie Gunther said:
I think that stuff you're talking about is peripheral to the real issue JC.

For me the real issue is that nuclear weapons are an unacceptable danger to human beings in general. There is no excuse for continuing to maintain them.

Getting rid of them globally would be the right approach, and that starts with a treaty and with the US and Israel starting to take treaties and international laws seriously. That's a precondition for getting everybody else who is trying to get nukes on board, because almost all of them are trying to get nukes to deter the US and/or Israel from attacking them, conventionally or otherwise.


The problem is that the countries with them won't give them up easily. The existence of those weapons constitutes a source of instability in the world.

However, the fact that a certain level of instability exists, doesn't justify the increase of that instability, through allowing other countries to possess them.
 
Johnny Canuck2 said:
And so long ago, it's probably twice the lifespan of most posters.
Does nuclear warfare became "less wrong" with the passage of time? If so, would that mean that had the USSR nuked us in the 1970s, by the year 2020 it would somehow have become okay due to the length of time since the event?
 
Johnny Canuck2 said:
The problem is that the countries with them won't give them up easily. The existence of those weapons constitutes a source of instability in the world.

However, the fact that a certain level of instability exists, doesn't justify the increase of that instability, through allowing other countries to possess them.
It's a fundamental problem with the whole nuclear industry though. If you can make nuclear fuel, you're not very far away at all from making a simple gun-type bomb using highly enriched uranium.

The NPT allows for the manufacture of fuel, because otherwise the civilian nuclear power industry (who are generous and influential lobbyists in the US/UK and probably elsewhere too) couldn't exist either.
 
poster342002 said:
That's still twice more than any other country in the world.

Your maths is very bad. The US has used there nukes infinitivly more times than anyone/everyone else! two times nothing , still equals nothing. Do the SWP , get you to do, the estimates of how large demos are?

ps. Im glad Iran doesn't have nukes!
 
Bernie Gunther said:
It's a fundamental problem with the whole nuclear industry though. If you can make nuclear fuel, you're not very far away at all from making a simple gun-type bomb using highly enriched uranium.

The NPT allows for the manufacture of fuel, because otherwise the civilian nuclear power industry (who are generous and influential lobbyists in the US/UK and probably elsewhere too) couldn't exist either.


South Africa has offered to make the fuel for Iran, but Iran said no.
 
Johnny Canuck2 said:
South Africa has offered to make the fuel for Iran, but Iran said no.
Sure, but the way the treaty works is that peaceful use (ie making fuel) is legal. The whole reason this problem exists is that the original treaty had this built-in loophole, designed to keep the nuclear industry in business.

Get rid of that loophole, and start taking the disarmament and non-proliferation parts of the treaty seriously and we have the basis of a real solution.
 
james_walsh said:
Your maths is very bad. The US has used there nukes infinitivly more times than anyone/everyone else! two times nothing , still equals nothing. Do the SWP , get you to do, the estimates of how large demos are?

ps. Im glad Iran doesn't have nukes!
You know what I mean:

Number of times USA has used nukes: 2 (Hiroshima and Nagasaki)
Number of tiems any other nation has used nukes: 0

I don't want any country to have nukes.

I am not a memeber of the SWP.

:p
 
Given that the NPT permits fuel manufacture under the "peaceful use" provisions (and hence lets any country who is doing it get a long way towards being able to put together a bomb, even if it's only a big, heavy, clumsy, inefficient and dirty sort of bomb) the US are in effect demanding that Iran give up their treaty rights, give up the right to produce nuclear fuel.

If that becomes the "new world order" then it sets up a situation where Iran and any other country which wants to use nuclear power, has to pay lots of money, probably to some dodgy corporation, to get their nuclear fuel, even if it's made from their own local uranium. Nuclear enrichment and still more so reprocessing, is rather expensive to do, and I'm sure that the corporations doing it will be charging a pretty penny to cover their costs.

So there is an argument that this becomes a form of economic exploitation. Certainly any country who can make their own fuel is probably going to want to for purely economic reasons, even if they have no intention of making nukes.

With both peak oil and climate change to take into account, there are a lot of reasons why even an oil-producing country would want to stockpile nuclear fuels against the long-term prosperity of their country. There are strong arguments against using nuclear as a bridge fuel, but there are arguments for too and they could very reasonably cause many other countries, especially those with uranium ores of their own like Iran, to take that strategy. Denying them the right to manufacture fuels is denying their right to peaceful economic development etc.

To me, because I am very dubious about nuclear power anyway, this is an argument for getting rid of all nuclear fuel manufacture. Someone who accepts nuclear power though, has to find a way to deal with the problem of separating the peaceful and warlike uses for highly enriched nuclear fuels.
 
Politics is turning even more bizarre...

Peter McKay in the Mail said:
Maybe Iran needs WMD

PRESIDENT Bush warns Iran that if it persists in trying to develop nuclear weapions it faces the prospect of an attack by America.

It's certainly not desirable from the world's point of view that the Iranians get the nuclear bomb, but does Mr Bush have any moral authority left?

His friends the Pakistanis have the bomb and last week tested a cruise missile which could be used for a nuclear strike on its enemy, India.

Which, as it happens, has itself acquired - imported from the U.S. - Patriot missiles.

The Iranians know America wouldn't have invaded Iraq if Saddam had posessed waepons of mass destruction. Nor will they attack North Korea - another nation busy building nuclear bombs.

A nuclear Iran makes the world that bit more dangerous, but so does a U.S. presidencey shorn of all moral authority.

Typed in full because it's not online.

The piece itself fits the Eye description of McKay as "the world's worst columnist" - it's mostly the headline that's interesting...
 
Johnny Canuck2 said:
It's ok to be gay if you're in the west, but not if you have a turban?
What a bizarre justification for bombing Iran. I dislike Islam. But that is a very different thing from say no Muslim country should be allow nuclear generators.
 
pilchardman said:
What a bizarre justification for bombing Iran. I dislike Islam. But that is a very different thing from say no Muslim country should be allow nuclear generators.

Did I say 'bomb iran'?

And what's bizarre about considering it medieval to execute gays?
 
Back
Top Bottom