Let's not bomb Iran and say we did.

I fear you.

I thought you meant that we could just wait till they wake up one morning and then just start yelling "we all bombed you - yeah - you're beaten na na"

That might save a lot of the unnecessary dieing.

Let's bomb Iran and say they did it.

(I mean, seriously, who wouldn't believe that they fucked up their nuclear bomb construction? Oops, supercriticality!

... *whistle* ...)

You see the trouble is now you've said it.

I remember, when I was a young civil service sysadmin, thinking allowed about putting porn on a boss's computer and then finding it in one of my regular sweeps. As soon as I said it I thought "damn. now I can't do it."

A valuable lesson.

So many of the best plans are like that.

Somebody put Morgan in charge of that! It sounds like just the job for him!

I do wish you'd come over. We could have a trip down the mile end road. I'm sure you'd enjoy it.

Well, I would.

You have no idea squire. No idea.

@Morgan, @Alistair:

Would you be so bold if we were to line them up for you and hand you a knife. You could say to each one of them, to their face "You're not worth living." followed by a quick slit to the throat or perhaps a sloppy jab to the stomach. Could you be so bold, down to every man, woman and child? It's easy to act like John Wayne. "Nuke the fuckers". Do you have the balls?

@meta

Sorry I left you out of this, but I feel quite accurate in my belief that you'd shit your pants at the sight of Alistair gutting his first Iranian, run home to mommy and vomit what was left of your bravado on to her clean kitchen floor.

I like meta's first comment. OMG. I *like* meta's first comment!!!

@Prunella, I'm trying to reconcile this claim with this claim. I know presumptions are dangerous, but that's all I have at the moment. I'm presuming the you've voted no on the referenced claim because you find looking at curse words offensive, yet you don't find killing Iranians offensive? Here's a bomb victim, will you (or anyone else) tell me how this makes you feel?

@Prunella, I just realized that meta's first comment was.

Let's not bomb Iran and not say we did.

and not

Or let's bomb Iran, and say we didn't.

Sorry about that. My last question still stands for the pro bombing crowd.

Why would we want to bomb Iran? Have they attacked us?

Don't you know? We have irrefutable proof that they are arming and training the insurgents in Iraq. Of course we must attack. It's a slam dunk.

You have completely lost me. The reason I agree with meta's first comment, "Let's not bomb Iran and not say we did", is that I do not feel we should bomb *any*one and that there is absolutely no shame in that—so what's the point of saying that we have? If anything I think it's a matter to be proud of.

Relative you the claim you referenced—I am not offended by almost any word. However, out of respect for people that are, and most of all respect for the people whom the word will offend I have no qualms with the use of euphemism to prevent that.

…and I see I was slow on the draw.

@Prunella, It must be contagious. Again I'm sorry for my misreading of your comment.

@Bruce Stockwell: If you've got some means of lining up everyone who thinks attacking us, supporting terrorism, preying on civilians, etc. is a good idea, I'll bring my own knife. The best place for our enemies is the grave; that doesn't trouble my conscience any.

Personally, I'd prefer not to kill anyone else, and if we're able to line people up and get them to hold still for the use of a weapon of discretion, that should certainly be possible.

Unfortunately, most of the time, all we have available are blunter instruments that lead to collateral damage, even when in an ideal world they wouldn't. Although, per my notion above, I'd stipulate that there are very few innocent people likely to be standing around the nuclear weapons plant.

Iraq was a surgical strike war. We even won that war Mission Accomplished. So let's do it again because it's been so good for everyone involved. Pakistan next?

Just for the record, the image I posted earlier does not look like collateral damage to me. He looks like a boy. A boy with his arms blown off and most of his body burned. Of course you're free to call him collateral damage, unavoidable, raghead or future terrorist. I'm just saying I prefer to see him as boy with a name that is unknown to me and a future that I do not envy.

He's a boy who came to my country for reconstructive surgery.

Actually, he's really cross about it and doesn't want to go back. UNgrateful imp, doesn't he know he's free now? And I bet he could get some interesting parts in movies if he would only WORK HARDER.

@Bruce Stockwell: Iraq II was anything but a surgical strike. Surgical strikes were used during it, but if the operation as a whole had been a surgical strike, we'd have gone in, done the job, and then been all done and out of there tout suite.

That we're still there buggering about with nation-building makes it, on the whole, pretty much the precise opposite of a surgical strike.

Also, on your latter comment, well, yes, he is.

But, you know, I don't think anyone on the "pro-war" side thinks that this is a good thing. Compared to any war in the past, today's are fought with a near-surgical delicacy to minimize this sort of thing happening at our hands, and if you look at the statistics, they're a lot better than they were back in the day of "Bomber" Harris.

Which is a good thing, since it's currently, and probably absolutely, impossible to fight a war without some collateral damage. The only way to avoid it is to not ever fight a war, with which the trouble is that there's a term for nations that never fight wars, which matches the one for people who refuse to ever fight. That term is "prey".

Do I want people like that boy to end up that way in an absolute sense? Of course not. Can I stand it happening in the cause of not having Manhattan turned into a glass mine by a bunch of frothing-at-the-brain fanatics? Well, yes, actually I can.

@Alistair, You make my point. We were not supposed to end up occupying Iraq/Afghanistan, but we did. So lets stretch our resource even thinner and try the same thing with Iran. The truth is that we are not capable of defending our own country right now because we are over exposed. We are essentially prey. I'm still for hunting down anyone who was connected with 9/11, USS Cole et al. I'm just sick and tired of nation building and our consistent stance of not respecting the soveriegnty of nations throughout the world. The more we engage in this current foreign policy the more frothing-at-the-brain fanatics we will encourage. Let our special forces continue to hunt those we feel responsible. Stop trying to push democracy on a people who neither wished for it nor asked for it. The middle east is a shit hole, we don't belong there. Seriously, we had plenty of chances to engage Iran with diplomacy over the last decade, there was internal support within Iran for this yet we stuck to our John Wayne guns and said "fuck you, we are still mad about the hostages and the Ayatollah." Now that opportunity is gone. I don't like Iran having nukes anymore than you do, but I'm not God. I don't get to call all the shots. Is there some sort of patent violation going on? Who says that you can't build a nuke? If anything, this should be an incentive to diplomacy vice aggressive action. If we bomb Iran, do you seriously think Pakistan or India will cease efforts to build the bomb? I think it would hasten their efforts. We are not the worlds police. We should defend our borders and those of our allies. When Iraq invaded Kuwait we should have leveled Iraq and left it to the tribes to fight over. I'm not a peace activist, but I'm not a war monger either. Enough is enough. Exit Iraq today with no strategy but that which provides safety to our troops. Leave Iran alone. If they attack us then we level the whole country. Let the world know that the United States of America is done policing and building nations. We intend to deal with domestic issues. If you so much as step on our toes we will crush you in the most hellish 100 hours war that you have ever seen. No warning no remorse. That UN building isn't really much use either, we could clear it out and makes some quick cash renting it out as office space. We have a constitution that enables us to govern ourselves. We have treaties and alliances that we should honor. There really is nothing else. Stop worrying about oil, if it gets that bad we'll have some decent motivation to find alternative methods of creating energy. This is and always will be about oil. Do you think that the oil companies would dry up and blow away if middle eastern oil stopped coming? Those corporations are energy companies. They will do what ever they have to in order to stay in business. What if we spent an amount equivalent to war dollars on energy research? It's time we woke up and realized that the we can take care of ourselves. We don't need the middle east. Let's bring our kids home.

Thanks for the fact check Morgan. Here's my point in a more digestible form.

If you're worried about nukes, revisit the star wars program. Just stop fucking with the rest of the world and they might just leave us alone. It's worth a try because it beats the hell out of trying to conquer the world. No one has ever done it!

Oh, here's some economics for you. People who have oil, want to sell it. The Putin issue was a localized event. You seriously think any oil producing country actually wants to starve out the USA and remove it from the oil consuming network. That would be like your cocaine dealer shooting you in the head. It doesn't make much economic sense.

@Morgan, I'm not the best person for displaying good grammar and cohesive sentence structure, but Morgan what the hell are you trying to say? I'm serious Morgan. You have lost me. If you trying to ask me if I'd like to read your blog article, then yes I would. As for the cocoa, my kids love it! It's coca leaves, my little crack-head! You should be ashamed!

It's a catch-22 Morgan. They say, there is no way they can stop the American empire attacking and organizing coups in their country without the threat of nukes to protect them. We say we have to attack them because they want to acquire nukes.

It's an information war. We can't discern who is telling the truth. So to me, the solution is not to side with the guy with the bigger guns, but to adhere to the policy of peace and rational self-defense.

Trust no country! Trust no government! Respect sovereignty!

Let Iran have a nuke!

I don't care! They are not the only one's who have one!

Our dependence on oil is manufactured, and I'm inclined to believe if we'd stop adhering to policies that essentially subsidize the oil industry, the price would naturally go up and alternative methods of energy production would come to the forefront.

Battery technology is getting better all the time and eventually full-electric cars will be more than viable. I've also read papers on the use of electric vehicles as the sink in a decentralized electric energy storage grid that would make running entire cities off renewable energy.

As Nader says, there are many things we can do that just sit on the shelf, because our policy and government give in to pressure to subsidize the oil industry. Well the "on the shelf" thing is his anyway.

"make running entire cities off renewable energy possible" should be

No. Morgan's not an appeaser and have they already have nukes he'd leave them well alone.

S'right. Because you were slow as a child and because it became awfully garbled by my adult dim-wittedness, I'll make my comment clearer.

Morgan is a bully and therefore will run away from anyone who is a real threat. Despite the fact that it is them who needs to be stood up to.

The British have no interests left in Asia. Not even Hong Kong, and you were all so keen that we divest ourselves of our empire... so you (I mean the US) should deal with it.

In a weird way I kind of equate rogue state's right to have WMD's with the whole "right to bear arms" in the US. I mean, the only reason they really want the weapons is to protect them from giant empires they have no hopes of winning against in a standard ground or air war.

Surely, having WMD's is a primary factor in whether or not we attack a so called 'enemy' or not.

Well first off we have to decide to deal with them diplomatically. We haven't done that.

Actually, brain-dulled fellow jyter, it was not I who said "let Iran have a nuke". I have never said that. I personally, if I were in a position of power within a national government, would try to stop Iran getting a nuclear weapon (or a nuclear power station for that matter).

Nic saying, "let Iran have a nuke," exposes him. It is valiant, uneducated, anti-American, Anti-British, and posing as a form of pacifistic intellect.

Iran is ruled by a bunch of radical Shite mullahs that gain and maintain their power be preaching death to Israel. Israel will NUKE Iran before they let Iran have a nuclear bomb. Period. We will not nuke Iran, we don't have to.

I never said it.

As for uneducated.. the situation in Iran is much more complex than you suggest or I suspect understand.

@Bruce Stockwell: I honestly admire your honesty. Clarity of mind is one of the values the mass media is getting rid of in the common people. FUD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear%2C_uncertainty_and_doubt) is something I can see as the new opium for the masses.

I don't complain about US people. *Some* of their historic values are something to admire. But the current US government is something to be really afraid of.

By the way: irony is an art. You can't practically practice it with just anyone. Am I right, fellows?

PS: forgive my poor English: it's not my mother tongue.