The new Libyan government is a bunch of savage barbarians who orchestrated a government sanctioned parade in honor of a POS murderer who anally raped a head of state POW with a knife before shooting him. But for whatever reason the imperialists are surprised when their ambassador gets killed.

I'm truly shocked! He was only defended by the best Libyan guards to ever defend an American ambassador in the most defensible compound in the city O_o.... Jk

BTW, everything I said about the Republican Party's record on the Uganda bill & bullying is 100% true. So if you want information about it, and aren't cowed by Invictus's little stunt here, I'll send it to you.

Here's something for starters.

http://www.salon.com/2011/05/11/uganda_republicans/

The Valley of Megiddo....

"The Shah was always doomed since he was too secular."

Invictus, you should talk to some real Iranians. Even the ones who fled after the Revolution don't have a whole lot of nice things to say about the Shah. Even the Grandson of the Shah's equivalent of the Chief Justice (who I met once) was in the streets of Tehran in 1979 throwing rocks at tanks. The complaints against the Shah wasn't that he was "too secular". The problem was that he was too corrupt and too autocratic. Iran's oil was being given away to western oil companies for a pittance and the Shah was throwing multi-million dollar parties while the vast majority of his subjects were living in poverty. The Iranian Revolution did not start out as a religious-based movement. In fact, at the beginning of the Revolution - before Khomeini (who many believe was being maintained in Paris in the '70s by the CIA as an 'ace in the hole', just as the Germans put Lenin on a train to Russia to monkey up the works there) took control, the Iranian revolutionary government was largely made up of UC Berkeley alumni. Iran is scoffed at by the conservative Gulf Sheikhdoms in large part because they are perceived as being too liberal, and your assertion that Iranian women are required to wear a face veil (lack of which *will* get you harassed by the religious police in the US-backed Kingdom of Sa'ud) is just plain ridiculous.

@ Invictus, please do use Onanism to make an insult / negative comment
Onanism is quite a natural habit
"Her Indoors" is a dab hand at the caper & I enjoy watching her at play & participating
when she asks me to "lend a hand"

To the main topic of this thread
It is my opinion that Iran is a Theocratic Totalitarian State, the test of a democracy is when power is transferred peacefully from one party of Government to another as the result of an election
Israel is probably the most democratic nation in that region, and is prepared to accept a "two nation state solution" with Palestine, unfortunately the Hamas leadership in Palestine will not countenance or discuss that concept, instead they promote violence & hatred, and condemn their own people to poverty, ignorance & violence as part of the means to fight for their political objectives & they demand an "all or nothing" result.

Pakistan & India have "nuclear weapons capabilities" and Pakistan is ruled by a
corrupt military dictatorship, so in some ways Pakistan is a greater potential threat
than Iran.

One of the problems with the policy of "No Nuclear technology for Iran" is that Iran
& it's supporters can point to several other Nations in it's region that have nuclear
technology.

One of the suggestions I have made before is that a policy of Iran having "nuclear technologies" that can only be used for "peaceful" purposes ( generating electrical power & medical use) to be an accepable

The specific example is allowing Iran to construct Nuclear fission reactors to generate electrical power that use enriched Thorium ( not enriched Uranium ) as a fuel.

Australia ( the nation of which I am a citizen ) is a major exporter of Uranium & we also have a fair chunk of the world's Thorium reserves.
Since we are a major supplier of Uranium we have a moral responsibility to actively participate in the global forums & agencies etc that supervise, are involved in "governance" & monitoring of the use of nuclear technologies.

So to use a cricketing analogy, rather than adopt the (simplistic & impractical )
"no nuclear technology for Iran" policy response,

why can't we "get on the front foot" ( when a batsman is on the defensive against a bowler he is usually "on the back foot' when playing his shots, stepping to the pitch of the ball and "going on the front foot" is the sign that a batsman is prepared to attack the bowling )

So if we changed our policy and said to Iran, we are prepared to discuss & countenance & accept Iran's right to use Nuclear Technologies provided Iran sticks to strictly "peacefull applications", adopts the use of enriched Thorium as a fuel for Nuclear Fission reactors & will not use enriched Uranuim as a fuel, agrees to and allows inspection of it's nuclear facilities by the International agencies responsible for this task etc --- then we ( the western nations ) have got off our defensive & negative position and onto a proactive and positive diplomatic position.

As long as we stick to a " you cannot have the toy" position
and Iran sticks to a " we will have the toy" position, there will never be an agreement

If we say " well that toy is too dangerous, but here is a similar toy with conditions of use
that meets all your stated desires, remember Iran has always maintained that it only seeks to develop nuclear technology for peaceful use, then Iran either has to start discussing that option or be ( further ) exposed as being dishonest about it's stated intentions for use.

Frankly, the emergent tecnology of using enriched Thorium as a fuel for nuclear fission should be getting a lot more R&D funding and political support.
We need to have it as a usable alternative to using enriched Uranium to offer to, for example, the Saudis, Egypt etc

In the same way that Crude Oil is a limited resource, so is Uranium and Thorium offers a much dafer alternative to Uranium as a fuel for Nuclear Fission.

Thw worlds people need to make "moral progress" to match our "technological progress".

I do NOT agree with a lot of the content of Putin's posts on this topic, but I recognise his right to express his own opinions, and at least his views when expressed, galvanise others into greater effort to express criticism and alternative views.

Very few of the "Middle East" nations are democracies where individuals have freedom of political or religious expression, with rule of Law and good governance,
and the resident populations suffer the most from that, witness the tragedy in Syria as the latest example.

Finally, I would repeat what I have said in other "Forum topics" --
The Murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the others with him was a criminal act that cannot be justified or excused. I would hope that Americans make sure that Christopher Steven's place in History is firmly recognised & recorded. I would hope that his Family are supported, that suitable monument(s) be erected. I would also hope that his choice to use Diplomacy, dialogue and discussion to resolve disputes not be forgotten, and that we continue to use the methods that he clearly believed in as our way of continuing the struggle rather than retreating to the use of force.

"It is my opinion that Iran is a Theocratic Totalitarian State, the test of a democracy is when power is transferred peacefully from one party of Government to another as the result of an election"

As Putin has pointed out, power has been transferred peacefully between parties in Iran for decades. Yes, the Iranian system isn't perfect, but whose is?

"Israel is probably the most democratic nation in that region"

Israel is about as democratic as South Africa was in 1980, or Mississippi was in 1950. Iran, on the other hand, guarantees Jews and Christians seats in the parliament even though their small numbers wouldn't support it in a "democratic" sense.

"and is prepared to accept a "two nation state solution" with Palestine"

Baloney. Israel has responded to every Palestinian concession of the last twenty years with more checkpoints and more Jewish-only colonies on Palestinian land. A two state solution has become impossible, as many Palestinians are now accepting - hence the increasing clamoring for a one-state solution.

"the Hamas leadership in Palestine will not countenance or discuss that concept, instead they promote violence & hatred"

More baloney. In 2008, for instance, Hamas publicly announced its willingness to negotiate a two-state solution with Israel. The Israeli response was "Cast Lead" - the assault on Gaza that killed thousands of people.

"i'm not putting myself in this conversation but i just want to say; i don't like santaclauswitz and almost alway disagree with what he says. i'm out. "

That just makes you an uneducated boer

"More baloney. In 2008, for instance, Hamas publicly announced its willingness to negotiate a two-state solution with Israel. The Israeli response was "Cast Lead" - the assault on Gaza that killed thousands of people. "

Horse shit.

I will not recant my opinion about Iran, & suggest that any person who engages in satarising Islamic extremists within Iran & it's government will not be allowed to express those opinions without being harrased and punished without fair legal trial / judicial process.
As to the "two parties" in Iran -- they are both the largely the same, with "approved by the State status", there is no tolerance of a political party that endorses abolishing Sharia law, & reform of the Iranian secret security organisations & supports secularism. Any difference is just "window dressing"

Israel's government is far from perfect, but if forced to choose, I would always choose to be a citizen of Israel before I would choose Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt & Libya, on the basis that I would be given greater rights to self expression, the electoral process is the least corrupt, and Rule of Law is more consistent and equally applied.

Anyone else is free to disagree

SC: "Horse shit."

No, it was the single bloodiest day in the Israel-Palestine conflict in 60 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War#Campaign

@MM, you are correct that thorium can't create bombs via enrichment. However, the major fissile component of thorium reactors is U233 which still can be separated out (and enriched) to be used in a bomb. It's a little trickier because its working with higher activity (more radioactive) materials but it is doable.

The largest problem with that suggestion though is that you need some sort of fissile material to start (and run efficiently) a thorium reactor. Proponents of thorium suggest that it is more proliferation resistant, however, I think the advantage is minimal if existst at all.

Rather, give them heavy water reactor technology that uses unenriched uranium. The spent fuel will produce relatively higher amounts of plutonium but spent fuel tracking has be easier than monitoring enrichment facilities.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-233#section_3

"No, it was the single bloodiest day in the Israel-Palestine conflict in 60 years."

Which did not come about because Hamas made some propaganda statement about a two state solution as Tolstoy claims

Hamas is a terrorist group. Despite the cute and cuddly persona Tolstoy likes to attribute to them, they purposefully sought to derail the peace process of the nineties with bus bombings aimed directly and specifically at civilians. Unfortunately any peace will have to go through them because they put a bullet in all their opposition in the West Bank.

These threads are bad for my health, I will retire from this one. Nothing like hating both sides of an argument. And with that I'll yield to floor to our merry band of libertarians who enjoy portraying Israelis as unthinking animals consumed by bloodlust, and Israel's A-Team, the squadron of conservatives whose base belief is that Arabs are barbarians that need to be controlled. No middle ground allowed.

well one observation I would make is that if life is so terrible in Israel and by comparison with Israel, wonderfully idyllic in the "Arab / Islamic" nations then why is it that there are thousands & thousands of citizens of the "Arab / Islamic" nations fleeing those countries & all seeking to emigrate to, or get political asylum in our "wicked" western nations ? ( and we get very few citizens fleeing Israel & seeking political asylum in the "wicked western nations" )

Putin, its only been 20 years since the fall of the Soviet Union, its still to early to really tell what the longterm effects are going to be. The events of the Cold War were so big they are going to be felt for at least the next 50 years, especially if Russia manages to rise to a position of relative power again.

The reason there hasn't been large scale security competition yet is because it hasn't been necessary, the cold war era allies of the U.S. can still depend on it for protection from threats, China would not risk a war with Japan so long as the US fleet stands behind them, Israel is clearly still getting support from the U.S. and Europe is essentially free from any military threat.

The only thing thats going to result in security competition in Europe is a resurgent Russia, and that could be very very quickly curtailed by Germany rearming. The united Germany is by far the sleeping Giant of this age.

The Chinese buildup and shifting alliances of southeast Asia is exactly the kind of security competition that was predicted and it is happening at a precipitous pace.

Sorry, the cynics can't claim their prediction came true because 25 years later China & some SE Asian countries have some minor disputes over uninhabited rocks. I'm not quarrelling about the reasons for the lack of security competition, I don't care what the reasons are for the purpose of this thread. Only pointing out that this doom & gloom pessimism is unfounded.

Your point about Germany and Russia is quite outdated. These days Germany is one of Russia's best friends in Europe. They and Italy (Russia's best best friend) were among the voices of reason during the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia in 2008. So this idea that a remilitarized Germany will occur if Russia becomes 'resurgent' would have happened already, or at least there'd be some hostility there.

Did you really just blame the Georgians for that war?

Does Germany even need to re arm ?
It is well protected by NATO & because it does not have to spend significant monies on a military & it has an efficient well run economy which means it is an "economic superpower" within Europe which gives it "Diplomatic power"
Germany has been the major funding source (along with France ) of all the "bail out money" for other European & Mediteranean nations

The world's oligarchs--the multi billionaires generally all own properties & businesses in several countries & like to send their offspring to the same elitist private schools
( eg Eton & Harrow ) and are neighbours in the same fancy locations ( eg Monaco, the Hampshires, London, Paris etc )
so they are not about to let a bunch of politicians threaten all of that property & wealth

Yes, I generally blame people who flatten towns and shoot peacekeepers for no reason for starting a war, yes. So did the EU by the way.

@tolstoy are you getting paid?
everytime there is a thread about midleeast tolstoy uses it to write his stupid unbased
lies about israel,without it having any conection or relevancy with the real intention of the thread.
it just seems to me,tolstoy gets paid for that,or he is just a racist and doesn't care if it's true or if it has something to do with the topic.