It has been festering for months and now the GOP candidates with the prodding of John Bolton, the NeoCon think tank spokesperson, is urging that America bomb Iran. These crazies beat the same drum in 2001 and G.W. Bush convinced Congress through lies and deception to attack Iraq.
That mistake cost America almost 5,000 lives of our very best men and women in uniform . It also cost tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and carnage through murder.
After 10 years of Republican idiocy and a trillion dollars President Obama is getting America out of Iraq . Now, the same nitwit hawks are beating the drums of war and want America to commit another stupid act by attacking Iran. When will they ever learn?
Chuck Mehan
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I wanted to offer another view from Mr. Mehan's swipe at someone who views the world different than himself. He has to offer put-downs in order to make his point rather than just saying he is against another war and why. Not everyone is dumb just because they do not agree with him. The point about Iran is will we be forced to react after they attack or do we take the intelligence we have and make a decision. Do we just sit back and wait for them to get a nuclear bomb and then use it on Israel?
Mr. Mehan would seem to be of the type that we should just sit back and hope nothing happens to us or to Israel. I do not think the lives lost were wasted but that is an old argument. Iran is the issue today and we have a lot of experience and information to draw upon. We have a treaty with Israel and anyone who believes that an attack on them will not involve the whole world is just not paying attention. Israel will also use the bomb and they will use all their power because they believe all the statements that say Iran will destroy them. They do not think this just a lot of talk. This is life and death. We have Americans all over that part of world, including our soldiers. This is not a problem that can ignored with insults and names. We will be involved no matter what.
The problem is not Israel and their response. The problem is that no one has belief in the leadership of Obama and they have proven to Israel that they can not depend on Obama. I think he believes words can solve the problem and he will delay all he can before he has to act. This will cost us no matter what because the U.S. is not an honest partner or they are trying to equate everyone as an equal. Since Israel is by themselves, they can not be equal to all the other countries in that area.
So what do we do if we believe there will be an attack? Do we just sit back or do we act? This has nothing to do with Bush. Obama can not blame him for this problem. He must be the leader and I do not think this type of leadership is in him.
Bob McNaub
Rossville
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I agree with a good deal of the sentiment expressed in Mr. Mehan's submission, but like Mr. McNaub, I believe the method of delivery was unnecessarily insulting. I've been following the Iran situation closely for the past several months, and I too have concerns about going to war with Iran. One of the main issues I've seen is the lack of honest dialogue. I read the entire IAEA report that has been much ballyhooed by those calling for an attack on Iran. As I've seen a few media outlets point out, there isn't much new in the reports. Most of the hand wringing is still over documents found on a computer almost 10 years ago, which show that Iran did at one point carry out research into components of a nuclear weapon. There was really no new information, and certainly nothing like a smoking gun. It's not enough that our intelligence agencies don't believe that Iran is building a weapon, Iran is now being called upon to demonstrate that they have no intentions of building a weapon. To me, that seems like a subjective and difficult end to achieve. How does one satisfactorily demonstrate intentions? I've read some reports about Iran's enrichment program, which has been disingenuously been described as an indicator that they're building weapons. It's widely reported that Iran is enriching Uranium up to 20%, which is standard for medical purposes. Weapons grade Uranium usually consists of Uranium enriched to 85% or greater. Iran has repeatedly said they have hundreds of thousands of civilians that could greatly benefit from these treatments. They have also repeatedly said that their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. This makes me wonder why Rick Santorum made a statement last night during the debate to the effect of, "If a dictator tells me he's going to do something, I tend to believe it." If that's the case, I'm curious as to why he's in such a rush to get us involved in another war.
There is also dishonesty in the way that Iran is talked about in the media and by some politicians. Iran's President never said he wanted to, "Wipe Israel off the map." In fact, scholars will tell you no such saying exists in Farsi. Ahmadinejad said, "The regime occupying Israel must vanish from the page of time.". From what I understand, map isn't even a word in Farsi. He was misquoted and mistranslated, and the same misquote keeps being used again and again as propaganda. Should his statement raise concern? Yes. However, what he said was much less sinister than the misquote/mistranslation. The correct translation of his statement seems to refer to a specific party, probably political, rather than doing something like obtaining a nuke and literally trying to bomb Israel into oblivion. My point is, we need honest dialogue, not propaganda. I think it's irresponsible to lead people to believe that things are much worse and more dangerous than they are, simply for political gain (or hopefully not worse, like monetary contributions).
Though I usually try to steer clear of using labels because I find them divisive most of the time, Mr. Mehan is correct about neocon's pushing for war. Surprisingly, a lot of people don't know that neoconservatism was started by former liberals. That's really beside the point though. What's most troubling is that many of the thinkers in the neoconservative movement have discussed the countries that we have gone to war with, and are talking about going to war with, for the past 20 years. To hear them get on TV now and talk about what great threats these countries are, is frustrating. The culture in America seems to have changed. A large faction of our "leaders" are very willing to go to war, and have plans in place to do so. I believe if they personally had to go fight, or if their children did, they wouldn't do so carelessly. Even more disturbing is the trend of President's taking military action without a declaration of war. This is unconstitutional, and is dangerous ground. The entire notion of preemptive wars for the sake of peace or nation building, goes against our Constitution, and the wishes of our founding fathers. Logically it doesn't make much sense either. I think it's past time that we open up discussion on our foreign policy, and whether our policies have been fundamentally correct, or if they have been incorrect. War is not something to be taken lightly.
Lastly, does no one else see the parallels between the Iraq situation and the Iran situation? We are being told nearly the exact same things as we were in the lead up to the war with Iraq. WMD's, a crazy ruler, etc. That did not turn out well. As the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Let's use discretion. Iran does not pose a threat to us at this time. Going to war because there's merely a possibility that at some point in the future they could become a threat (very unlikely anyway) is an insane line of reasoning.
One final point I would like to make-
If you watch the presidential debates, you have seen all all of the candidates speaking in hyperbolic terms about Iran, except for Ron Paul. People say he's out of touch, or he's looney, or some other term intended to marginalize him. Please consider the fact that he's the only remaining candidate that served in the military. He gets more donations from active duty military members than all of the other candidates combined. To dismiss his positions on foreign policy without serious consideration is to dismiss the opinion of the troops. I urge people to quit paying lip service to supporting our troops. The man is a Vet and sometimes gets booed for suggesting we should reconsider our foreign policy. I think that the only candidate with military experience, and our current active duty military members may know more than Washington insiders. It makes no sense, and is disrespectful in my opinion, to not consider their position.
-Tyler Fordice