The New Great Game

Given Russia's moves on Georgia, it's time for the United States to rethink its policy toward Iran.

By Christopher Dickey | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Aug 21, 2008 | Updated: 1:11  p.m. ET Aug 21, 2008

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  • Posted By: Glenno @ 11/05/2008 7:39:11 PM

    Mr.Latvia, why does Lativa not give voting rights or citizenship to all people born in the country, no rights for ethnic Russians, of course America will support any anti-russian initiative.

    How about The American Empire give Texas back to the mexicans? Russians are so difficult, why wont they surrender to American power? America has finally surrounded them with US military bases, NATO expanded to their borders and now building missile shield at their borders. After America put in puppet regimes in Georgia and Ukraine, and funded the genocide in South Ossetia, Russia should have realised that they should bow to the American Empire. Now it seems that all of the middle east are offering Russia naval bases to Russia to deter American aggression and even Europe say that Georgia was the aggressive one. Why are all nations in the world so anti-american that they wont accept the american empire ruling over them?

  • Posted By: tfc7713@yahoo.com @ 09/11/2008 5:26:11 AM

    If Chinese can carve out Siberia as what MrLatvia termed, I cannot see why not? In history, Siberia belonged to a tribe of Chinese called Siber who was and now living in most part of Siberia now under the Russian governing. Taking present circumstances into consideration, Mr MrLatvia's saying was merely wishful day dream thinking as Chinese and Russian have signed treaty permanently settled the border.


  • Posted By: MrLatvia @ 09/05/2008 8:12:17 PM

    What everyone seems to forget is that Russia (whether it's called The Soviet Union, the USSR, Czarist Russia or the Gulag Republics of PooTinstan) IS and always has been a Terrorist Nation - in the 20th century it was the leading Terrorist State on the planet... remember?
    As I've said all along, Bush attacked the wrong area of the world with Weapons of Mass Destruction - duh - look who's sitting on a pile of them right next door to Europe. The 3 Stooges (Chairman Poo Tin, Dim Medvedev and a plaster-cast statue of Stalin) took on Georgia because it only has an army of 37,000 (compared to Russia's 1.1 million). Georgia is also a key in the Caucasus region - the roots of Europe... like the Chechens, the ancient Colchis & Iberian kingdoms influenced all the primary roots of European civilization. Anyway, Stalin's plan when he was a ???commissioner of the minorities??? way back in the 1920s was to eliminate ALL the tribes of Europe & replace them with Homo Sovieticus. Ya know what I mean? It's astounding that since the second Russian occupation of Chechnya (which Chairman Poo Tin ordered in 2000) the Russians still have been unable to eliminate (& conquer) those tough mountain peoples. Ingushetia (a captive nation inside Russia) has asked for help to "liberate" it from Russia - is that a hint to the EU or NATO? Or maybe Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania should become Nuclear Powers and ???liberate??? the oppressed minorities inside the federation? Did Russia open the doors (unknowingly?) to "liberating" its own captive nations by recognizing the so-called ???independence??? of Abhkazia & South Ossetia and creating "buffer zones" inside sovereign Georgia? Or is that a trap? No one has been allowed into the newly "independent" zones of occupation under complete Chairman Poo Tin control??? what is going on there? Are the army hordes being massed there for a total onslaught on Europe??? Paris??? Berlin??? Rome??? will the veterans of the Chechen genocide be allowed to rape, plunder & ravage the Continent? I mean, where else can they go? Iran? China? Let's see what kind of "buffer zones" the Chinese will carve out of Siberia... come on European Union or NATO even - get your act together and "liberate" Yakutia or Ingushetia or Chechnya or one of the other captive nations. Question the legitimacy of this rule by those 3 Stooges. Genocide is at your doorstep Europe - so what are ya gonna do about it?

  • Posted By: MrLatvia @ 09/05/2008 7:49:30 PM

    What everyone seems to forget is that Russia (whether it's called The Soviet Union, the USSR, Czarist Russia or the Gulag Republics of PooTinstan) IS and always has been a Terrorist Nation - in the 20th century it was the leading Terrorist State on the planet... remember?
    Personally I think the 3 Stooges (Chairman Poo Tin, Medvedev and a plaster-cast statue of Stalin) took on Georgia because it only has an army of 37,000 (compared to Russia's 1.1 million). Georgia is also a key in the Caucasus region - the roots of Europe... like the Chechens, the ancient Colchis & Iberian kingdoms influenced all the primary roots of European civilization. Anyway, Stalin's plan when he was a ???commissioner of the minorities??? way back in the 1920s was to eliminate all the tribes of Europe & replace them with Homo Sovieticus. Ya know what I mean? It's astounding that since the second Russian occupation of Chechnya (which Chairman Poo Tin ordered in 2000) the Russians still have been unable to eliminate (& conquer) those tough mountain peoples. Ingushetia (a captive nation inside Russia) has asked for help to "liberate" it from Russia - is that a hint to the EU or NATO? Or maybe Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania should become a Nuclear Powers and ???liberate??? the oppressed minorities inside GRP? Did Russia open the doors (unknowingly?) to "liberating" its own captive nations by recognizing the so-called ???independence??? of Abhkazia & South Ossetia and creating "buffer zones" inside sovereign Georgia? Or is that a trap? No one has been allowed into the newly "independent" zones of occupation under complete Chairman Poo Tin control??? what is going on there? Are the army hordes being massed there for a total onslaught on Europe??? Paris??? Berlin??? Rome??? will the veterans of the Chechen genocide be allowed to rape, plunder & pillage the Continent? I mean, where else can they go?
    Or is it all One Big Bluff??? nothing works & they???re just testing the West. The Test-the-West trick. The ole hammer-on-the-knee-reflex test??? remember that?

  • Posted By: H.nazar @ 09/03/2008 7:01:02 AM

    Iran has a nuclear program enriching uranium at 5% which the IAEA has verified. This is suitable for civilian use not military, some may argue that allowing the Iranians to enrich uranium would allow them to enrich to 95% at a later date. This is mere propaganda as the IAEA would be keeping a watch on the process. What really is stake here is the control of a nation. the US is accusing The Iranian government of being a undemocratic regime, BUT where was US democratic credentials when it was dealing with the Shah and his secret police, or the various other tinpot dictators. The issue is one of control, if youre not a lapdog then youre a Rogue regime.

    • Posted By: Braes @ 09/05/2008 2:41:07 PM

      I agree. Since the 1950's a peaceful atomic program for all nations was United States policy. The criminal Bush/Cheney regime have wanted Iran returned as a puppet since 2002.
      I wish you peace and prosperity.

  • Posted By: System7 @ 08/29/2008 1:23:57 AM

    Work with Iran but remember that Russia is not worse than Iran.

  • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/22/2008 5:05:59 PM

    To Braes: you have been on active duty and heard how others see us. Now I see a former active duty military person saying the same things about us. I can accept people from overseas seeing us that way. I have trouble dealing with someone who has sworn allegience to this country, and enjoyed the benefits of its freedoms, treating us the way you do. You complain about an incident that you should know is the kind of mistake that happens in the fog of war. Yo say nothing at all about AlQaida sending 4 teams of operatives to knowingly hijack 4 US aircraft, two to attack unaware civilian targets. For a military person you do seem to do a great deal of missing the target. Enough missing to lead me to believe that you are on the side of that target. I've known many US military personnel. None have overtly attacked the US to the extent that you do. Who's side are you really on?

    • Posted By: Braes @ 08/23/2008 7:26:52 PM

      Oh, and I am not concerned about what you accept. I also find you putting words in my mouth offensive, which makes me flame you. I am not pro terrorist. What I am telling you is that your Bushwhackers have not got Osama, and blew him off, we are still vulnerable, Hizbollah is far worse than Al Qaeda because Iran will give them nukes, and Qaeda can't get them. (Or with our border security, we'd have already bit one. while some TSA puke frisked a granny over a metal hip...)
      I am telling you, we aren't innocent, not always right, not always perfect, and have not since 9/11 sealed our borders from infiltration. That's not un-american to bring up, it's downright a duty.
      Holly, knowing how you view things, few GI's would bother to tell you all the stuff they had seen. You need to look for yourself. I really admire your patriotism.

      • Posted By: Between the lines truth @ 08/27/2008 11:17:19 AM

        Enter Your Comment if possible i would like to converse with you on these topics your comments are on the mark thanks

    • Posted By: Braes @ 08/24/2008 12:46:03 PM

      Holly, look up top at what the Brits say about us. Read the Canadian policy on returnees from the United States. Our allies are saying things far worse than I am, or our enemies, whom you do not understand, and claim some moral right to change through force.

      • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/25/2008 10:26:29 AM

        I read your reply above. The British, like the US, has a free press. What I read is what some in Britian think. I do not confuse what some people think with the policy of an entire nation, especially one with a free press. The Canadian return policy, whatever it is, is internal to Canada. I see no reason to believe that any return policy has a significant basis for evaluating Canada's feelings about any other country. Your pedigree statements primarily back up one thing others have noted. The best way to have success and power in life is to carefully choose your parents. As Paris Hilton is showing, that's not a guarantee, but it helps. The Skull and Crossbones Society is doing for business and politics what any US military officer is reqired to do for his unit. Officers are requried to train and encourage soldiers who are promising officer material, training your own replacement. The Skull and Crossbones Society consists of current business/political leaders bringing along future business/political leaders. The society is no secret to those who need to know about it. They seem to be so well known now that calling them a secret society is kind of an oxymoron.

    • Posted By: Braes @ 08/23/2008 7:02:27 PM

      Ours. Real patriots tell the truth. He was not the only one in Operation Praying Mantis. We delivered not only the precursors but actual stocks. VX, BZ, Mustard and assisted them in using it. You need to keep digging.
      If you ever intedend to make peace, you had better know what you are going to be facing across the table, and why they hate you.
      And Ma'am, not every GI had to do what some have to do, and not every GI gets to see everything they see. Nothing I am discussing is not available to open source collection. Not one secret here. I know better.
      No fog of war ma'am, ruthless deliberate plan to save Saddam. When he was our Saddam.
      Ma'am, I deplore the attacks of 9/11. What I am telling you is all of the GI like me we can buy and pay for is not going to secure us one iota, with our pourous borders, ports, etc.
      Now, if you expect a missile defense to stop a nuke, from Iran, you are crazy. They are going to drive it to where they want it in a truck, cargo container, ship, etc. They also aren't going to just hit Israel. You are playing with a people wedded to pre-history, who have had 55 years of reasons to hate you.
      The Russians we have been tangling with longer.
      Mr Dickey suggests talking. I agree.

  • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/22/2008 2:31:33 PM

    To Braes: you are doing what others have done, not put forward all relevant facts. You state the US killed Iranians in the Iraq war, but I have not seen any reports of US military activity in that war. What US military units did the US send to Iraq to participate in that war? You state we shot an airliner out of the sky, but neglect the whole truth that it was an error, the kind that happens in war zones. You did not mention that the US goes to great lengths to develop procedures and technology to miinimize that kind of war. We set up 4 superbases to assure security within Iraq. It is incidental that it is in the back yard of Iran. You trivialize the difference between making an inanimate bomb and conditioning a human being to kill him/herself and the difference between civilian and military personnel. Most of today's world does NOT trivialize those differences. You try to make irrelevant (death is death) the difference between a military person aiming at a military target and a deliberately deluded person blowing up dozens of civilians just trying to get food for the dinner table. I see no reasonwhy anyone shoud give what you say any credence.

    • Posted By: Between the lines truth @ 08/27/2008 11:08:43 AM

      where are the superbases that amer have thanks

    • Posted By: Braes @ 08/22/2008 2:47:23 PM

      Well my most interested soul, you quibble again. We shipped the Chemical and Biological stocks Saddam used in to war to him. An MSNBC military analyst was the intelligence officer who arranged all of this support. It is commonly known. You just don't know it. We don't report it weekly until you get it. Go look it up, my intellectually lazy apologist for crimes against humanity. We signed treaties outlawing the use of this stuff and then let it loose by proxy.
      You make a distinction between killing and killing, through means. What part of, "thou shalt not kill." did you miss on Sunday. We stuck a US warship in the Persian Gulf, and it shot a civilian airliner. It didn't shoot it off our coast. Persian is kinda them not us. What you call facts are a side of an argument. I have heard every bit of your drivel. I lived through this stuff. I was on active duty. I have had to live overseas for years and listen to how others see us. You are a typical ignorant American.
      Death is Death. You choose the path of waving the sword at the world, as a legitimate use of force. This is the sword cutting your free hand. You swing it too often, at too many, for many wrong reasons, often.
      Who says your adversaries have to make tanks? Who says your adversaries have to make stealth airplanes? We have open ports, crummy cargo and terminal security, pourous borders, and neighbors that hate us. (Canada has it's embassy staff ask all returnees from the United States screened for detention/torture... go look it up.)
      You are out of your league here lapel pin patriot.

      • Posted By: Between the lines truth @ 08/27/2008 10:53:55 AM

        what is the deal with canada and what they did thanks

    • Posted By: Braes @ 08/22/2008 2:58:23 PM

      Cut N Paste time here...
      In 1987, Lt Col Francona was assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency as the assistant Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East. During this assignment, he spent much of 1987 and 1988 at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, as a liaison officer to the Iraqi armed forces directorate of military intelligence. Lt Col Francona traveled extensively as an observer of Iraqi combat operations against Iranian forces, and flew sorties with the Iraqi air force.

      • Posted By: Braes @ 08/22/2008 3:26:19 PM

        The provision of chemical precursors from United States companies to Iraq was enabled by a Ronald Reagan administration policy that removed Iraq from the State Department's list State Sponsors of Terrorism. Leaked portions of Iraq's "Full, Final and Complete" disclosure of the sources for its weapons programs shows that thiodiglycol, a substance needed to manufacture mustard gas, was among the chemical precursors provided to Iraq from US companies such as Alcolac International and Phillips. Both companies have since undergone reorganization and Phillips, once a subsidiary of Phillips Petroleum and now part of ConocoPhillips, an American oil and energy company while Alcolac International has since dissolved and reformed as Alcolac Inc.[14]

        On March 12, 2008, the democratic government of Iraq announced plans to take legal action against the suppliers of chemicals used in the poison gas attack.[15]

        • Posted By: Braes @ 08/22/2008 3:37:03 PM

          You say: Most of today's world does NOT trivialize those differences. You try to make irrelevant (death is death) the difference between a military person aiming at a military target and a deliberately deluded person blowing up dozens of civilians just trying to get food for the dinner table.

          Ma'am, your govenrment, while you may have not yet ben alive, such as in 53 when we installed the Government in Iran that tortured it's people with the dreaded CIA run SAVAK, or later in the revolution against us in '79, etc. has done very horrible things in very horrible places with, by and for oil companies.
          God Bless your sweet little heart.

      • Posted By: Braes @ 08/22/2008 3:29:01 PM

        Operation Zafar 7 was an Iranian offensive in the northern front, although Iran won and crushed the Iraqi counterattack, they were not able to reach their objective in invading and capturing Sulaymaniyah.

        Halabja
        Main artickle is: Halabja poison gas attack

        The Iraqi counter attack was a disaster for Iraq. Saddam responded with a chemical gas attack on Halabja. The Halabja poison gas attack occurred in the period 15 March???19 March 1988 during the Iran-Iraq War when chemical weapons were used by the Iraqi government forces and a number of civilians in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja (population 80,000). This was separate from the al-Anfal Campaign but both were considered acts of genocide. Halabja which is located about 150 miles northeast of Baghdad and 8-10 miles from the Iranian border got completely destroyed and the casualties are estimated to be around 5,000.

    • Posted By: Braes @ 08/22/2008 3:06:42 PM

      Related U.S. operations


      Earnest Will - Prime Chance - Eager Glacier - Nimble Archer - Praying Mantis

  • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/23/2008 7:22:48 AM

    To arashasadi72: In the US you are free to say and feel the way you do. If you were a US citizen in Iran and said and felt the way you do only towards Iran what would happen to you? My Iranian friend felt toward Iran the way you feel about the US. He was sent to prison in Iran, travelled as a refugee through three other countries and is now a very happy, productive and peaceful US citizen. How many US citizens are emigrating to Iran as refugees? If some did, and weren't of Iranian descent originally how would Iran treat them? I could never go to Iran and be accepted as an Iranian. Anyone can come to the US and be accepted as an American. Muslim, Christian (Catholic and Protestant), Jew, Hindu, Masai, Karen, Vietnamese, Ukranian, Russian, Jamaican, Puerto Rican, Italian, Polish, German, French, British, and many other religious and ethnic groups work side by side in peace here in central New York. Is that kind society even possible in Iran? One of the lead scientists who created the CD technology is a Hindu, another long time engineer at the lab is Jewish and the patents for the CD are held by a Baptist. What has Iranian society added to the gobal society in recent times? How big is Iran's foreign aid budget? How much does Iran give to foreign countries that have their citizens actively protesting Iran? The US gives billions of US dollars a year to countries where there are citizens burning the US flag outside the US embassy. Would Iran ever think of doing that? Iraq attacked Iran for years. Iran was never able to eliminate the threat. The US came and removed from power Iran's biggest military threat. Did Iran say 'thank you' or even recognize that the US now has put a peaceful government in power? Iran has added great things to the world's civilizations in the past. That past is no longer, though. The world has to deal with Iran as it is today, not what it once was.

    Yoniari, you are absolutely right. No one should trust Iran with nuclear weapons. Iran has openly threatened to bomb Israel. Israel is not even a close neighbor and is no threat at all to Iran outside of self-preservation. At least India and Pakistan are significant threats to each other, and are not targeting anyone other than themselves.

    • Posted By: Braes @ 08/23/2008 7:07:40 PM

      You just go get them nukes, ma'am. You just go stop those bad Iranians. You go make the Principle Shia nation in the world bend to your will. Hey do you write for McCain?

      • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/25/2008 10:06:29 AM

        Nations that announce publicly that they fully intend to start a nuclear war, unprovoked, when they are barely starting a nuclear program, have to be stopped. Whatever basis they have for such unwarranted violence is irrelevant. The government of Iran will be removed from power ASAP, with all force necessary, as soon as a nuclear attack is attempted. I doubt that any major nation would object, and most would willingly and immediately supply all the military force necessary. If Iran attempts to detonate a nuclear weapon outside of Iran the world will make sure that Iran will cease to exist as a separate nation. If the Shiites wish to keep Iran as their principal nation then it is up to the Shiites to make sure Iran stops any nuclear weapons program.

  • Posted By: arashasadi72 @ 08/22/2008 11:54:03 PM

    Comment: As an iranian, i never trust west anymore. west is dead in my mind forever. becuase in past 30 years I was wittnessing what west did with iran, one of the greatest culure of all time. Please my fellow iraninans, never ever think of friendship and trust to west, becuase you can trust snake and rely on wind better than those bastards. NEW GAME IS OVER FOR US FOREVER.

    • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/25/2008 9:43:19 AM

      And how is this different from any other country??? Oh yes, one very minor detail. In the US you can say these things and the secret police will not take you away in the middle of the night. But don't let such trivia stop you.

  • Posted By: Braes @ 08/24/2008 8:44:47 AM

    You know Holly, Wal Mart was looking into moving into Russia, and still may. Will you work there, or leave to go stop the Russians/Iranians? Feel free to consult the company policy manual before replying. Someone in Bentonville will be watching you.

    • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/25/2008 9:31:58 AM

      Go Wal-Mart!!!! The cold war was over when McD's showed up in Moscow and Beijing. How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they get ther Big Macs? Wal;-Mart is already a huge hit in China. Some stores there make our SuperCenters look puny. How does Putin control his people once they get their Chinest toasters and Mr. Coffees for 10 rubles? Once the Russian people know what they are missing by Putin's policies Russian politics will never be the same.

    • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/25/2008 8:22:54 AM

      I spent 3 years at Wal-Mart working side by side with Russians, Iranians, Ukranians, and a variety of other ethnic groups. Many of those were in their country's military before coming to the US. If I worked for Wal-Mart in Russia what would be the difference? I have no trouble with people looking over my shoulder. Wal-Mart has very good security to keep losses down. Honest workers have no problem with that security. I worked in a cell phone call center where every word and keystroke could be recorded. I helped build terminals for the fast food industry. Some of those terminals went to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Beijing and Lebanon. My brother worked at the highest security levels this country has doing I have no idea what. It was high enough that I am sure my whole family has been watched for most of my life. A whole bunch of people from those countries you say hate the US seem to love the US enough to leave their families and everythign they own to move here. But you don't want to know that.

  • Posted By: nawawimohamad @ 08/24/2008 5:58:55 AM

    The US administration consists of a bunch of lunatics who always use the antagonistic approach when dealing with other nations. They are a bunch of cowards who will not think twice to send US soldiers abroad to die for their own self interests. They will also lie to the American people and create unfounded fears amongst the population to justify their stupid actions.

    If the Americans are really aware of the repercussions which will eventually lead to the downfall of the US as a major power then some serious efforts have to be done before it is too late. The way the administration is spending money on war and its pursuit to be the master of this world will inevitably results in the US begging from others. The US has already started "stealing" from others and printing money to survive.

    • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/25/2008 9:24:29 AM

      To nawawimohamad: You stated 'The US administration consists of a bunch of lunatics who always use the antagonistic approach when dealing with other nations. They are a bunch of cowards who will not think twice to send US soldiers abroad to die for their own self interests. They will also lie to the American people and create unfounded fears amongst the population to justify their stupid actions.'

      How is this different from any other country for the past few thousand years?

    • Posted By: Braes @ 08/24/2008 12:55:06 PM

      A wise thing I learned in war, is that there are really no secrets with your enemy, only with your society. Your enemy will never forget what you have done to them.

      • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/24/2008 2:01:52 PM

        As I have learned from living in a very peaceful city of 20% immigrants, working side by side with Iranian, Russian, Vietnamese, etc. etc. You enemy may not forget, but the worthwhile people in these countries will understand and accept. By the way, you clearly haven't noticed, but Germany, Japan and Italy are now our allies, and have been for decades. When Israel bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor, an attack that was planned to minimize any casualties (one civilian killed in a massive raid), there was public outcry form around the world. Privately, those same countries expressed a very large sigh of relief. Ron
        Reagan's first comment was 'boys will be boys'. The truth is so valuable in war that it must be protected by a circle of lies. (paraphrase of Winston Churchill). The WMD may have been a piece of fiction (from Iraqis) but no government outside of Saddam Hussein seemed to care. It was a legal excuse to invade Iraq, not the real reason. You need to learn from peace as well as war.

        • Posted By: Braes @ 08/24/2008 10:11:09 PM

          You don't get it.

          • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/25/2008 8:24:16 AM

            I get you just fine.

  • Posted By: Braes @ 08/23/2008 7:13:41 PM

    Holly, who told you that the United States is responsible to determine how people in the world act? Who told you it is legitimate to threaten other countries? Start wars of agression? Conquest?
    Who says Iran has to be multicultural?
    We did not conquer Saddam to help Iran, that's why they don't thank us! What peaceful government in Iraq? Things are a lot better but not at all rosy...
    I get it, this is a faith-based worldview. You are telling us what you believe.

    • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/25/2008 9:17:37 AM

      I am telling the world what I believe, just like you are doing. Anything wrong with that? What war is a NOT a war of agression? How do you have an non-agressive war? When has there been a time when some country A was not threatening country B? Are we not our brother's keeper? Things are not all rosy in Iraq, but they are a lot better, and improving. As President Bush said at the start, this will be a long, dirty war. We may not have eliminated Saddam to help Iran, but it is certainly a side effect, and one beneficial to Iran. What do you have against saying 'thank you' when someone receives a benefit, intended or not? I didn't say Iran had to be multicultural, I said that Iran's society is not one that attracts immigration. The level of immigration into the US, vs Iran, shows that your viewpoint of others hating us is not based in reality. What you see in US protests is the product of closed societies who feed controlled information to the protestors by people in power who will benefit if the US stays away. What I see in immigration is that given a chance, people will flock to the US, giving up family and posessions to get here. Walking around with signs, buring a US flag is easy. It takes no real commitment. The government that allows this will probably even be extra nice to the protestors, so they will see a real benefit. Leaving family, friends and home forever is a hard choice with total commitment. When people have to make tough choices the US wins, hands down.

  • Posted By: Braes @ 08/24/2008 12:44:08 PM

    Treason is the reason, some, have never trusted the Bush Crime Syndicate.
    Paleo-conservatives have always distrusted them. Fruit rarely falls far from the tree.

    In the BBC Radio Document program, The Whitehouse Coup, John Buchanan suggests President Roosevelt stopped the investigation for a political deal: "The investigations mysteriously turned to vapor when it comes time to call them to testify. FDR's main interest was getting the New Deal passed, and so he struck a deal in which it was agreed that the plotters would walk free if Wall Street would back off of their opposition to the New Deal and let FDR do what he wanted". [45]
    The 2007 BBC radio documentary The White House Coup said that Prescott Bush was connected with the plot.[45]
    On July 23, 2007, the BBC Radio 4 series Document reported on the alleged Business Plot and the archives from the McCormack-Dickstein Committee hearings. The program mentioned Bush's directorship of the Hamburg-America Line, a company that the committee investigated for Nazi propaganda activities, and the alleged 1933 attempt, supposedly led by Gerald MacGuire, to stage a military coup against President Franklin D. Roosevelt aimed at forcing Roosevelt to resign (or, failing that, to assassinate him) and at installing a fascist dictatorship in the United States. [5]
    Pedigree: Bush was born in Columbus, Ohio to Samuel Prescott Bush and Flora (Sheldon) Bush. Samuel Bush was a railroad executive, then a steel company president, and during World War I, also a federal government official in charge of coordination and assistance to major weapons contractors.
    Bush attended the Douglas School in Columbus and then St. George's School in Newport, Rhode Island from 1908 to 1913. In 1913, he enrolled at Yale University, continuing a family legacy as part of the skull and bones society; four subsequent generations of Bushes have been Yale alumni. Prescott Bush was admitted to the Zeta Psi fraternity while at Yale and Skull and Bones secret society.
    (This time, Republicans can expect to find a Democrat waiting in their intellectual back alleys, with a baseball bat, ready to play you on your own filthy turf, by your own rules. What did Bushtard say? Bring it on?)

    • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/24/2008 2:37:58 PM

      The US has over 300 million people. Some people will believe in ghosts, UFOs, the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, Santa Claus (I still do) and the Tooth Fairy. Some fruit seems to roll a long way from the tree. Bush is in power because he was elected president. He didn't take it at the point of a gun. Hanging chad never killed anyone, except Chad. You could take your comments on the current administration, fill in the comparable names in any other US administration, and find articles that are almost word-for-word identical. We manage to survive, though. People have been predicting the downfall of the US. People have been predicting doomsday. So far neither one has been right.

      The US, in case you haven't noticed, hasn't added a single square foot of land by force since we filled out the 48 states. Puerto Rico hasn't even become a state. That sure doesn't sound like an agressive, conquering, dominating country to me. At the end of WWII we rebuilt our enemies, then pretty much packed up and left. The only military bases left were for security, not any form of occupying force. Those enemies soon became allies. We did the same in other places, too. If Saddam Hussein were really aware of his repercussions would he have done what he did? You keep trying to set the US as somehow separate from the rest of the world. We are made up of the same people as everyone else.

      Iran may be a single culture society. My point is that is is so by force of government, and the consequences of dissent are high. It is the lack of basic freedoms, not the single culture, that I was pointing out. As I said, you do seem to miss the target a bit too often.

      You mentioned the 'thou shalt not kill', but neglected to mention that much of the rest of the Bible, Torah, (whatever Islam calls the same book), that the rest of the book involves a rather large amount of killing, even by heroes. I am sure Goliath would have been happy if David hadn't violated that Commandment. Soddom and Gomorrah would have been happy if God didn't break his own Commandment. As another part of the Bible says, 'there is a time for every purpose under Heaven... a time to kill..' Gen. Paul Tibbitts publicly stated he never once had any regrets. He knew the cost of not doing his duty. I guess that's why he's a Medal of Honor winner and a general and you are not.

      • Posted By: Braes @ 08/24/2008 10:12:25 PM

        So your conclusion to the Bush Crime Family is that I am undeserving of the Medal of Honor?
        Don't forget to vote in December.

        • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/25/2008 8:10:46 AM

          My conclusion is that Mr. Bush is our elected President and that you have no place in the US military. You have no respect for the authority that the voters gave to our President. You complain only about the US, ignoring any other country's problems. You would not get any military medal because you have so little respect for other peoples's lives that you would not stick your fanny out to save them.

  • Posted By: incompetent @ 08/25/2008 8:04:37 AM

    Tshinval is Osetian city, not Georgian. Author incopetent in subject.

  • Posted By: incompetent @ 08/25/2008 8:02:52 AM

    Tshinvali is Osetian city, not Georgian. Learn the subject, author!

  • Posted By: arashasadi72 @ 08/21/2008 10:59:08 PM

    As an iranian, i never trust west anymore. west is dead in my mind forever. becuase in past 30 years I was wittnessing what west did with iran, one of the greatest culure of all time. Please my fellow iraninans, never ever think of friendship and trust to west, becuase you can trust snake and rely on wind better than those bastards. NEW GAME IS OVER FOR US FOREVER.

    • Posted By: pbarosso @ 08/22/2008 4:22:07 AM

      oh no, you are so scarry! who gives a crap! game is over for US?!!LOL LOL. what game, who cares, you got nothing we need, you are just a desert nation. even the great persian empire fell to the west. the west, the same west that was the greeks. you are a better comedian than iranian patriot.

      • Posted By: arashasadi72 @ 08/22/2008 9:49:22 AM

        oh yeah, do you like it? It seems you piece of *** did not get what am I saying. He he he, You talk about history, You root just came back to 300 years ago that means you are just a rootless bastard. Do you want to know my respect to your country then take it, I piss to your american flag and your country foundation. See I am not wrong becuase all people can see you as what type of output your free society can produce. nothig more that a trash. by the way try first learn where is canada located then come and talk about history for iranians, we ruled the world for two thousand years and crushed rome and greek empires mutiple time but that is history. I am sorry to say but you people do have any dignity and deserve no repect so know you can get *** off from my post your mother sucker.

        • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/22/2008 10:39:43 AM

          To arasasadi72: you can come to America and p*&^ on the American flag. If you are arrested the US government will even supply you with a lawyer, at no charge, and you will almost certainly win. The keystone of our Constitution is the First Amendment which guarantees freedom of expression, including p*&^ing on our own flag. We don't like it, but we will accept it. Go to Washignton, p*&^ on the American flag, the go to Teheran and p*&^^ on the Iranian flag and you will see the difference. LIke I have said, once the whole truth comes out the US does not look at all like you people who thrive on hate would want you to believe. That is why you will never tell us the whole truth. You will look like a blundering idiot full of nothing but hate, death and destruction once the whole truth comes out.

          The ones who point out military force used by the US as justification for hating the US never tell what was happening prior to the US involvement nor tell what would happen if the US did NOT intervene. We used nuclear bombs against Japan. We killed about 200,000 people, mostly innocent civilians in the attacks. That is not in dispute. What the purveyors of sick hate do NOT say is that the ONLY other option to stop Japanese Imperial agression was an invasion of Japan. An invasion that would probably have cost 2-3 MILLION lives, many also innocent civilians. The regime of Saddam Hussein and its fall, judging by what we have found in Iraqi prisons, weapons caches, and actions of Iraqi forces after the fall, show that there would be far, far more damage done to Iraq by its own people if the US had stayed out of it. Saddam Hussein had a war with Iran, gassed civilian Kurds and invaded Kuwait without US intervention. He was working on building up power again after Gulf War 1. The purveyors of hate will NEVER tell you what would happen if we had not re-entered Iraq because then we would not look like the country that is an invader. Instead we would lool like the country we are, one who did what had to be done to keep the damage to Iraq and its people to a minimum. We are arranging to pull out of Iraq as the government shows that it will not destroy its own people or neighbors (including Iran) and will work in friendly cooperation with the rest of the world. We are already rebuilding the damage we have done in the process, along with the greater damage caused by the Iraqis themselves. But the purveyors of hate don't want you to know that.

          • Posted By: arashasadi72 @ 08/22/2008 11:51:01 PM

            You do not have any credit more just than a dirty worm , Look at who you people are a bunch of criminal and murders. smell like sh1t, look like sh1t, live like sh1t, think like ***, eat like sh1t and die like pile of sh1t that is we are thinking about you. get lost...

            • Posted By: Braes @ 08/24/2008 10:19:14 PM

              Now now, the poo poo is a bit much.
              I doubt Holly smells at all. Well, she probably smells good.
              Most Americans think like doo doo though. Most people everywhere think everyone everywhere else thinks like doo doo.

  • Posted By: TomMarAlem1987 @ 08/21/2008 3:22:01 PM

    AsSalamu Alaykum:
    Let me tell you the facts. This whole stupid thing of allying with Iran in order to control Russia, and allying with Russia to control Iran does nothing to help the people of the nations. It does marvels for you, but the peoples of those nations shall continue to suffer. When you sanction Iran and cut off business ties to them, the Government does not suffer. It is the people that are made to suffer, they are the ones that starve. They do not care about Democracy or Freedom, they will pander to you in order to get money to provide for the people they need to provide for. They want money, and you are starving the Iranians! You might be wanting for the Iranians to rise up out of hunger and overthrow the Government, if they do, they will have little money to work with and will turn to you, you then "own them." They are simple people who want money to survive and these stupid sanctions are starving them. Sanctions are a weapon, they starve the people!
    Allah guide us all to what is righteous. Ameen

    • Posted By: Braes @ 08/24/2008 11:53:40 AM

      I do not believe Sir, that we will be able for decades to undo the last 55 years. Personally, I would like to Apologize for some of our policies. I also miss the Pistachios. I miss the Architecture, the mountains.
      Now, the average American is no more cullpable for these indignities than a child is for the acts of a irresponsible adult. They have a child like faith in a good system, and God.
      I have never agreed with economic sanctions or warfare, as it increases suffering. It is unjust.
      Some day we must come again as brothers, all of us. We will not get there by amending our conduct just because of necessity.
      With respect and sadness.

  • Posted By: Lee Holmes @ 08/21/2008 3:35:29 PM

    Tough call. We should remember that Dickey is a Iranophile and works in tandem with interests that benefit this growing power in the Middle East. To him,the whole quality of his argument rests in Israel laying low and keeping quiet. But what if this is not the case? Dickey forgets that the missle arsenal Iran has now,may not be able to strike Warsaw,[yet] but can put it down on a dime in Tel Aviv. A fact that Jewish politicians are well aware of.
    Then too,befriending one bully to offset another[Think: FDR,Stalin against Hitler],can create immediate unintentional consequences. In pulling closer to Tehran,what of the other Sunni regional powers Dickey never mentions,and who are fearful of a strong Iran?[let alone Israel]. Dickey bases his hopeful theses upon outdated and ancient paradigms. Unsaid in his opinion,is the fact that Russia may move to co-opt Iranian relations and claim them for their own,setting up an axis in this region[it is long known that Iran has garnered much expertise in matters nuclear,ballistic,and weaponry from the then-Soviets and now-Russian Federation]. Indeed,I see quite soon,a formal diplomatic overture made by the new Soviets to Tehran,perhaps offering a ''shield''of their own.[in the form,Dickey,of,um,ICBMs]. Of course,this will bode ill no matter which party is in control in Washington,and no matter if we are in or out of Iraq. If Dickey wants us to cave and retreat to the western hemisphere and hang a ''Monroe Doctrine:Closed For International Business''sign on our eastern and western shores he should just come out and say so and spare us his buddy-buddy -pal schtick with patent rogues.This is the problem with ''realism''.It can lead to surreal results.

    • Posted By: C. MacLean @ 08/21/2008 3:37:18 PM

      If we are smart, this is the perfect time to lean on the Iranians to quit spouting off about driving the Israeli's into the sea. As much as Iran enjoys it's anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric, it has always been just that - rhetoric. Faced with the possibility of Russia as an enemy, Iran will choose the lesser of two evils and throw in with the US.

      And given the complexities of the situation, the announcements we really need to monitor from Obama and McCain is not who they want for VP - it's who they want for Secretary of State.

      • Posted By: Braes @ 08/24/2008 11:46:03 AM

        Tossing existential threats, like words to the wind, ego, hubris, greed...
        Water under, over, and around the bridge have washed it out. It is now a case of rebuilding, and if it isn't on a foundation of truth and reconciliation, won't hold any weight.
        I agree, with your assertion that the next Secretary of State is going to be exactly the most important appointment Mr. Obama can make. I owe you one. Most prescient.

    • Posted By: Braes @ 08/24/2008 8:13:04 AM

      I like Iranians too, I taught them in the 70's. I am afraid of their weapons program. If we would have started some kind of diplomacy for it's own sake, long ago, there would be a chance to shape events. I really think the Axis of Evil speech killed any chance for this and handed Iran to Russia completely.

    • Posted By: Lee Holmes @ 08/21/2008 7:11:49 PM

      And of course,it would be useful to point out that the ''Great Game''of the Russians was against the Turks. Not Iran. [as Alfred Lord Tennyson and Benjamin Disraeli could have quickly told you].

  • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 08/22/2008 8:27:41 AM

    To those wo speak 'as an Iranian': I have a friend who is an Iranian, a former Iranian soldier. He was sent to Iranian prison for drawing some unflattering, but honest, pictures of the life of an Iranian soldier. He went to Japan, Germany, the UK and now the US. Here he is a happy and talented graphic artist with a good life. He definitely disagrees with you, speaking as an Iranian. He changed his last name when he became a very happy US citizen. I was a Wal-Mart cashier with this Iranian friend on 9/11. About half or more of the cashiers that day were Eastern European immigrants, both Christian and Muslim. All were sad. Here in the Utica, NY area we have the biggest population of distressed immigrants in the US. We get whoever is currently being persecuted by their government. We live in peace and harmony here. The stresses between various societies overseas are all but non-existent once the people experience life with freedom. Speaking as an American I can say beyond any doubt that the societies outside the US who are agressive with each other do not fight once they are here in the US. That means the US is not the problem, but is the solution. And the governments of those societies do NOT want their people to know that.

    • Posted By: Braes @ 08/24/2008 8:46:39 AM

      There is no ethnic hostility in America? Wow.

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