[Adak]

Originally Posted by tw

We don't expedite convicted prisoners to other countries without an extradition treaty. Why should Iran turn their enemies over to the US? Iran was being cooperative - listing some 200 Al Qaeda prisoners they had captured even with photocopies of their passports. Because Iran also hated and distrusted Al Qaeda.

Countries do a lot of things without a treaty between them stating it's OK to do it.

Sending us those prisoners, or at least allowing them to be interrogated/interviewed by our authorities, would go a long way toward cementing that common enemy status between Iran and the US.

Iran demonstrated repeatedly that both nations shared common enemies in the Middle East. But Iran had to deal with people who were wacko extremist. They could talk to Dobbins and Crocker. But biased extremists in the George Jr administration, driven by rhetoric, destroyed possible reconciliation. Names particularly responsible for this include Feith, Bolton, Rumsfeld, and Cheney. Extremists see in 'black and white' - not pragmatically.

Foolish is to call Hezbullah an evil entity. They are just another group in a world where no 'good and evil' exists. Religion is a major reason for many 'good and bad' suppositions. Conclusions based only is childish emotions; by ignoring facts. Reason for so much death and destruction is also why so many see the world in soundbytes or in biblical style parables. And not pragmatically.

I'm not in the "call good and or evil" business, but groups like Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda and Al-Shabab, are initiating a lot of violence. If violence was going to solve the problems of the Middle East, then the entire area would be a paradise by now, don't you think?

Really, we need to work out solutions to the problems, not shoot our neighbors, whether they be Muslim or Christian, or Jew, or whatever. If we keep poking out each others eyes, and pretty soon, we're nearly all blind.

Attempting to kill the other guy's people is done by everyone - including the US. Death to all in a world dominated by religion is only a game. As long as religion is major reason for decisions, then everyone in the world remains a target no different from people murdered in Grand Theft Auto. In VietNam or Mission Accomplished, American soldiers would kill many for no reason other than emotion. Need we repeatedly play Bradley Manning leaks demonstrating the attitude of so many Americans and the routine coverups by their commanders? What makes those soldiers any different from Nazi Gestapo?

Soldiers are typically young men who are overwhelmed by being thrust into a war, in a foreign land, far from home. You may think there's no difference between the US and Nazi's, but you weren't around when the Nazi's were here.

Trust me, there is a HUGE difference.

1) We aren't making the population our slaves, as the Nazi's did.
2) We aren't taking over the country. South Korea, Bosnia, Philippines, Japan, Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan, are all countries we have had extensive military fighting in.

None of them has been annexed into U.S. territory, have they?

3) In France, and in Poland, and in Russia, when the locals had resistance fighters attacking the Nazi's, the Nazi rule was that 500 locals would be killed for every German killed by the resistance.

In France, there is an entire town where the men were separated from the women and children. The men went outside, and the women and children were sent inside the church. Then the men were all machine gunned, so the women and children could hear it.

Then the church was set afire, and the doors locked. Anyone trying to escape was shot. Ashes were all that was left.

Then the entire town was burned down. Two of them are monuments today, (there was no one left to rebuild it, after the war).

While relatively rare in the Western Front, it was common in the Eastern Front. Babies being thrown up and caught on fixed bayonets was not just a nightmare scene from a novelist.

If you can't see any difference between the US and the Nazi armies, you really have a problem.

Attempts to assassinate the Saudi ambassador? Normal in a world (in a cold war) when the US already said it would Pearl Harbor Iran.

It's rough language, but any attack large enough to destroy the several parts of the Iran nuclear program, would have to be quite large. You have the uranium mines - at least two of those. Then there are several processing facilities, at discrete locations, then there are the facilities inside bunkers or mountains, that would require a huge effort to destroy, all by themselves.

Frankly, the attack would have to be hundreds of planes (maybe not the 400 used to attack Pearl Harbor though), but including the cruise missiles, etc., the explosives would need to be greater than was dropped on Pearl.

I don't see how that could happen without a large loss of life, do you? That's why we need to sit down and make these negotiations work out. Failure should not be an option!

Killing a diplomat from another country just makes it worse, not better. How can you sit down and negotiate with the people who just killed your countryman? Not easy to do.

I don't believe the problems in the Middle East relate directly to the problems with Gorbachev. He had a separate destiny.

Iran and the US share many common interests in the region. And many potential conflicts. Time has come to explore possibilities that change has created. They tried ten years ago when the US was lead by people incapable of thinking pragmatically like a moderate. They tried when the US government threatened to unilaterally attack three nations for no good reason.

What common interests we share with Iran will be over-ridden by the fear of Iran with nuclear weapons. The Iranians have screamed "Death to America", and "Death to Israel" about a thousand times too many, to believe they are now going to follow a peaceful path, because they have nuclear weapons.

You can't convince anyone of that. Either Iran's leaders will comply with full inspections, etc., and stop all work toward nuclear weapons, or there will be a large scale attack, and possibly war.

No one wants it, but no one will tolerate Iran with nuclear weapons. They have made themselves out to be war mongers (against America, against Israel), and they have succeeded, all too well.