Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 08/30/06 4:37 pm:
DC

according to this Time Mag. story ,the Israelis turned down the offer to buy bunker busters .

They identify the refusal as hubris on Israel's part but I believe they would've joined the chorus of condemnation had Israel had and used them . Remember the reaction to the use of cluster bombs ?

Clarification/Follow-up by Dark_Crow on 08/30/06 5:25 pm:
Tomder

I read two separate news articles that said they had them, 5 to be exact. The cost was even spelled out.
In one of the articles there was a complaint, I believe Turkey or one of the Eastern Block countries they had passed through in route without the country being asked, and they were pissed. The bunker bomb explodes underground and unlike the cluster bomb causes little above damage. This of course is what we are now working on…a small nuclear "Bunker Buster" that will reach where the ones used in Iraq failed to reach.

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 08/30/06 6:56 pm:
Marysusan,

War is the only way to defeat terrorists.

They will only be stopped when they are dead. Arresting them doesn't stop them. Appeasing them doesn't stop them. Making agreements with them doesn't stop them. Ignoring them doesn't stop them. Intimidating them doesn't stop them. We have tried all those methods and they have proven to be utter failures.

-We ignored them in the 60s and 70s as they hijacked airplanes by the job lot. So they became bolder and more organized... eventually attacking the Munich Olympics, blowing up US Marine Barracks in Beirut, etc. Ignoring them clearly didn't work.

We arrested them throughout the 80s in the West Bank and Gaza. They just kidnapped civillians to force prisoner exchanges, and the same guys that were arrested went back out and continued their terrorism. So arresting them didn't work.

We appeased them with offers of land and aid, also in the West Bank and Gaza. They took what we offered but kept attacking anyway. Appeasement didn't work.

We made deals with them. Israel pulled out of Lebanon as agreed in 2000. It didn't stop Israel from being attacked by Hizbollah anyway. Deals didn't work.

We intimidated them with our superior firepower in the first Gulf War, and then with our bombs after the USS Cole was attacked. That didn't stop them from attacking us either. Intimidation didn't work.

However, when Israel assasinated the leaders of Hamas and the PLO, those terrorists were no longer able to go back and commit acts of terrorism again. Others did, but not the ones who were killed. And the more that died, the fewer the number of terrorist attacks that Israel suffered. So that seems to be the only effective way of stopping a terrorist from committing attrocities. The only time a terrorist stops trying to kill innocent civillians is when he is dead. Ergo, war is the only effective means of stopping them.

The logic is simple. Sad as it is, sometimes war is the only solution.

Elliot

Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 08/30/06 7:56 pm:
There are "one billion three of them"? Have you counted them all personally?

Who needs air power? We have the power in one submarine to annihilate Iran.

Steve

Clarification/Follow-up by MarySusan on 08/30/06 8:00 pm:
Annihilate Iran and make a lot of the oil in the Middle East radioactive?????


bwahaha haha hahahahaha

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 08/31/06 11:11 am:
MarySusan (Chou?),

What makes you think that using nukes on Iran would make the oil radioactive? Aside from the fact that today's American nukes are relatively clean with very short recovery times from radioactivity, the radiation would have to somehow penetrate miles of rock in order to contaminate the oil. Or else it would have to penetrate pipes made of LEAD and other metals to contaminate the oil.

Sorry, but the old science-fiction stories of a country being turned into a radioactive wasteland because of a few nukes are pure fiction. In reality, the areas would become habitable very quickly after a nuclear strike using modern nukes. And the oil would be usable quite quickly. So risks of losing the oil isn't really a reason not to nuke Iran. There might be other reasons not to, but oil considerations aren't among them.

Elliot

Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 08/31/06 1:30 pm:
Ex,

Re: agreeing and hating Bush, that's how it should be. Not that anyone should hate anyone else, but finding common ground and working together is still possible :)