Maybe if our President had a pair of stones, he would have taken a harsher line on Iran.

Are you suggesting we should allow Iran to turn Israel into an extension of the Mediterranean?

JB, as you probably know, the nations that have nuclear weapons so far...are the United States, Russian, Great Britain, China, India and Pakistan and these countries have the ICBMs required to deliver them. Israel, most likely, has nuclear weapons as well...probably not many but with nuclear weapons...well, we all know. So far, the only member of this nuclear elite to have deployed a weapon on a human population has been the United States. Since those two horrific mass destructions... the nuclear gang...has not engaged due to the inevitability of nearly immediate counter destruction. We have come close due to serious bungling, cultural myopia, and communication problems, but by and large, intelligent people have not chosen attacks that are suicidal.
I dont know what you know about Iranians. I would have known very little about them or their culture save what an incredibly bias media has portrayed them as.... but I was married to an Iranian national and my children are half Persian. If there is a fair generalization you can make about Iranians it is that they are by and large a highly educated people, are very intelligent and are not in the least "suicidal" in terms of the risks they are willing to run. They are not trying to rebuild a Persian Empire...not trying to expand their borders or their abilities to exploit other countries.
The big issue there is that they have a religious theocracy, and a anti-Semetic President prone to bluster and saber rattling.

Even if they had nuclear weapons including the ability to get them to Israel, to pre-emptively strike Israel is to call down Israeli retaliation (we may be much more confident that Israel has nukes than Iran), and to elicit immediate back up from the only Super Power on the planet...the US. Even their nutso President would not want his country to be incinerated by the combined forces of the United States and Israel. The Ayatollahs...ostensibly more intelligent than the President (however medieval their policies) want to die even less so. Their history is all about getting and holding power, within their country. So this idea JB that the Iranians are going to "wipe Israel of the face of the map," is simply ludicrous... The verbal images are easy to get excited about... and the political posturing and banter is inflammatory, provocative and reckless. But the idea that Iran would launch on Israel is nothing more than a subterfuge used by countries to legitimize policies that are self serving. To go by the news...its more likely that many in Israel wants to wipe Iran off the face of the map than vice versa.... they are gearing up for a pre-emptive strike...what we used to call an act of war.

The history of Western meddling and intervention in Iran from the day oil was discovered there and Britain started to drill, has been one of exploitation, strong arming, the direct overthrow of their democratically elected Prime Minister... in short, not "mistakes" but very calculated usurpation that no sovereign nation could or should be subjected to nor tolerate. These actions in our history can not be spun as the actions of a free and democratic country trying to spread liberty and justice to the world...but are egregious acts of empire building. We aren't aware of this as Americans to the same extent as we do not know our history.

Stop Iran from what? If we want to stop another single individual... like Saddam who we basically created, or Bin Laden, who we trained, who we funded, who's family was in close relationship with President Bush Sr., let's not call it "stopping Iran." Bombing that country is like bombing a prison camp. The Iranians have nothing to do with their President being in power, nor do they have the slightest control over him staying in power. So if we want to kill another President, maybe we should be honest or "have the stones," to say that. Personally I think assassinations or coups of leaders of foreign countries is generally a bad idea. I would say it was un-American if I didn't know our history. And they shouldn't require invasion, years of fighting, and decades of expensive occupation.

I agree with some of the points made by St. Swithin here... In effect, we already had a war with Iran...a proxy war...and guess who was doing our fighting? Saddam fricking Hussein! As far as WMD goes... ask the one million dead in that war between Iraq and Iran, how many of them died from mustard gas, the ingredients for which were purchased from the US!. Apparently we also exported 500 million dollars worth of "dual use" nuclear technology including advanced computers. In addition... The non-profit Type Culture Collection and CDC sold or sent them biological samples of anthrax, West Nile virus and botulism prior to 1989. Of course Iraq claimed they needed these chemical agents for medical research.

I would like to refer anyone interested in this issue to a blog I posted recently:
http://portwashington-wi.patch.com/blog_posts/why-we-shouldnt-bomb-iran

I think this is an incredibly serious issue for all people interested in avoiding trillion dollar wars waged on false rationale and trumped up reasoning.

You fail to mention the intense amount of anti semitism, extreme Jew hatred of Islamists in that region....that is driving this beat to war more than anything.

The enmity is ancient. The distrust is a Mariana trench in the psyche of each of these cultures. If one reads the history of the Crusades, even a gloss of that horrific and prolonged war, it's possible to imagine that it would require centuries to recover from the viciousness and bigotry on all sides. George Bushs use of the term when referring to our mission would have the resonance of someone calling for a Fourth Reich... Globally irresponsible... If nothing else, food for the terrorist madrases and pamphlets.

There are people on all sides, in all countries, who both see the futility of endless war and believe that fighting to avenge ancient crimes is madness. Everywhere on this planet, most people have similar goals. They want to fall in love, to start families, to have a home and tone able to take care of their children. They want peace and a chance to spend their years with those they love. I am convinced this is a huge and majority faction and that the ignorance that perpetuates anti-this and anti-that can be educated out as we simultaneously grasp the facts that blood is on everyone's hands, that war is not a solution, it is a massive failure of wisdom and communication and that, unless we want to spend the next millennia fighting over our own tombs, we had best learn how to make peace. What if we set aside one trillion dollars to study and to wage peace?

Okay now you are talking like a crazy person. Israel does not have hated for Muslims, its not in thier constitution like it is with Hamas. Moral equilvalency doesnt work when your neighbor wants you dead.

You are talking like someone who sees millions of people as a monolith. Detangle Arab sentiment from Hamas manifestos. Iran, as you hopefully know, is inhabited by Persians, not Arabs. Arabs have as broad of a range of views on the spectrum between war and peace as do "westerners." Hamas may hate Israelis....they do not speak for a majority of Muslims. many in the war rooms of Israel would like to strike a sovereign nation near them NOW. If I fired a missile let alone hundreds of them at my neighbor, I would call that a hateful act. I would call it barbarism. Asnis firing a rocket at an Israeli school bus and killing children. But one does not justify the other.

Brian, imagine for a moment that your neighbor hates you and your children. Hates you so much in fact they put it in writing in the form of a charter. Have you read the The Charter of Allah of Hamas? So your neighbor hates you Brian, puts these words in his charter/covenent "Surat Al-Imran (III), verses 109-111 Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors" and continues to fire rockets at you DAILY many times killing your children.

Now Brian, what would you do if you are Israel? Maybe you are a Jew hating Hamas apologist, I don't know. Maybe you are a panty waist pacifist who would sit by as his family was slaughtered, I don't know...or maybe you are a crazy liberal with no clue or history of the world.

Brian you do realize that Iran funds most Islamic terrorist activities such as Hamas, don't you?

The middle east has always been the stepping grounds for the next world war. What we seen in the arab spring is the new generation of people that want peace and prosperity. No one wants continued wars that come with oppression and famine. People want better for themselves and their children. If Isreal wants to start a war with Iran over potential nuclear weapons, let them do so without our involvement. I agree with Alfred that the continued rockets that are sent over the border would irritate me but maybe there is a way to take these samll minority groups out with drone attacks on leadership than a full outright war. We do not need anymore wars, what we need is peace. Our generation of kids know noting but war now. What about no longer giving financial aid to countries we can not land a helicoptor on. What about taking care of our own now. I don't care about Iran, Isreal, Pakistan, etc. Let them settle their own problems, the US does not have to police every country and impose our will on everyone. As idiotic as North Korea is, they have the determination to try something dumb. The one thing we learned about the middle east is the majority want peace now, the minority groups are losing footing now.

Alfred, I have suggested that respondents, if they are interested in serious conversation, refrain from character assassination. Speculation about whether I am "a Jew hating apologist, a panty waist pacifist, or a crazy liberal with no clue about history or the world," is like launching missiles at your neighbor symbolically. You are verbally squaring for a fight and the dynamic or trying to bait me into one is pointless.
Blood is on everyone's hands... no country or peoples or political system has an exclusive on using terror on enemies. You like history evidently. Have you read the history of our School of the Americas? Do you know how many assassinations or coups our country has conducted covertly? How many countries we have secretly shipped arms to or sent "military trainers to"...countries run by dictators we have supported? Alfred... history is available. Hamas is guilty, Israel is guilty, the US is guilty...Iran is guilty.... but the people in the countries mentioned do not deserve to die for the policies of their administrations... let alone for the goals of the corporations that make billions of dollars from these perpetual wars.

Israel is defending herself against a sea of Islamic hatred. To equate Israel and Hamas as morally equal is lazy thinking and ignores the facts of history. I see which side you favor, good day sir.

You seem not to be able to stay on subjec sir. Do you know what a dhimmi is? Have you heard of the practice of dhimmitude? If you have not, you are just another ignorant american and I toss you on the heap with the rest of the willfully ignorant.

St Swithin, yes , I am a proud veteran of Operation Desert Storm(90-91) having spent a fair amount of time in the gulf region. I have many friends from Iran, Turkey, Kuwait, Cyprus, Eqypt, Iraq who live here in the US. I have met many people who are dhimmi. I am sure that think your travels to cudahy and south milwaukee make you a world traveler.

Kindly blow it out of your oversized union rear end, you no talent ass clown.

If you were in Desert Storm you should know more than anyone, from personal experience, what a disaster that war was, how wrong the administration and military had it about the nature of the war they would be fighting, how I'll prepared they were for urban warfare with i e ds, consequently how unaquainted they were with the customs of the people, the language, etc... And what a rolling debacle it was. I have no doubt you, like other soldiers had the best intentions in joining.... And risked your lives for what you thought was an effort to stop a madman, free the kuwaitis, etc. We created that madman, gave him billions a few years earlier, had no love at all for the kuwaitis prior and the goal here was to change a regime that would no longer cooperate with our oil interests. That was it. You were screwed as were all the soldiers. Another Vietnam. You know what's off the coast of Vietnam right now as I type? U S oil derricks. For some reason we think we own what is under the ground of sovereign nations around the globe. In Chicago, this weekend, a number of your fellow soldiers whom received the medal of honor are meeting to turn their medals in to a group of generals, in protest of exactly what I have addressed. I will post a link if you are interested.

As to your Dhimmis, I am very much apprised on what non-Muslims may suffer in some specific countries, most notably Iran. I was married for over a decade to an Iranian Bahai.... A peaceful religion outlawed in Iran... Members of which religion, including close relatives of hers who were executed in public squares for not denying their faith in the Bahai religion. The Baha'is, despite being persecuted since the 1860s, do not take revenge on Muslims. Revenge is not a solution, it is a perpetuation.

Most countries including Israel don't openly threaten to wipe another nation off the face of the earth . Unfortunately, Iran has openly done so. So the reality of a Nuclear Iran is a real one. Israel will hit Iran with or with out us. If I was in their shoes that would be what I would want done. You need to get a clue on what foreign policy actually is .You apparently have a idea that putting your head in the sand is a successful policy. Unfortunately , the world is to complex than that . As the worlds strongest super power we try to keep the peace but DONT ignore the facts.

@Brian...to correct you, Desert Storm in 90-91 was a 1 month air war, followed by 72 hours of ground combat. The Iraqi's were ejected from Kuwait, at which point Pres George H W Bush ceased combat operations. Desert Storm was the example of how to conduct combat operations. It was a shame his son could not do the same a decade later.

Desert Storm took 6 months as I research it. If you call it "success" to fly 100,000 sorties and drop 88,500 tons of bombs on country, taking out huge amounts of military but also civilian infrastructure, not to mention civilians..... then I certainly disagree with you. Can you begin to imagine the complete terror on the ground during that period? Do you think of this as humane and just action? And please tell me Kevin, why were were funding this same man, Saddam Hussein, only years before? Why did we support him as he gassed the Kurds and Iranian civilians? Why did we allow our chemical companies to sell the chemicals of WMD to Saddam Hussein, which he then deployed? You are right, I used the term Desert Storm for the wrong part of the war. ... I meant the second installment...but the first is nothing to hold up as high virtue, as exemplary human behavior. Saddam killed a lot of people...very true. We helped him. When he no longer took orders from us...we decided to "change regimes." Unfortunately the people, people like you and I, die..when the bad guys are "taken out." You and I become collateral damage.

s dude, Iran, has not threatened to wipe Israel of the face of the map. The President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, has. He is a puppet dictator, run by the religious leaders who control that state. He blusters, he stomps...but he can do nothing by himself. You dont strike a country because it has nuclear capability...if in fact Iran does... (Iraq of course had NOTHING). You dont strike a population because a guy they have no control over has a big mouth. Iranian presidents arent the only ones given to swagger, militant talk, crazy propositions. General MacArthurs was pushing forward a plan in 1951 that included A-bombing 50 Chinese cities! 50 more Hiroshimas! MacArthur was immensely popular and had huge following and rallied great support...He was openly insubordinate to the Commander in Chief. Six years after the twin horror of the A-bombings a lot of people thought this would be the solution to growing Chinese power...the spread of communism. Who in hell do we think we are and why must democracy, if it is so OBVIOUSLY virtuous...self evident as the best form of government, be advanced on military conquest...we will kill you if you dont accept freedom? Its a crock my friend. It is not democracy we advance. It is empire and corporate domination.

If you want to write a letter announcing your hatred of of war because war is ugly, I get it. If you want to hate war because the country can't afford another conflict from both a financial point of view and the over extended military point of view, I get it. However, to turn this into an opportunity to apologize for past US foriegn policy, waste of blog space. No country has ever conducted perfect foriegn policy because it is impossible to negotiate the infinite variables associated with dealing with different cultures and hindsight will always reveal the correct solution.

Why does liberal thought have the baseline assumption that the US is evil? Why believe that the worlds problems stem from our greatness? It is this greatness that allows you to write this blog. It is the evil that has doled out trillions in foriegn aid.

Obama has never stood up to the government of Iran. He didn't offer support to the people involved in the democratic movement that happened a couple years ago within Iran. He hasn't shown any desire to defend Israel. I don't agree with everything Bush did (domestically and in foriegn policy); however, at least governments feared the US with a cowboy president. What fear are we going to produce within these dictatorships with our first gay president? We don't need a war, we just need someone to tell Iran that we will turn them into a sea of glass if they start a war or anything nuclear leaves its borders.

Evil is evil. It has no nationality, recognizes no borders. Evil is the word you chose. As far as foreign aid goes...we arent Santa Claus passing out money. The aid comes with subjection to our will, opening the doors to our military bases, allowing our corporations to take on massive projects that that "aid" money is dedicated to, buying the leadership, etc. The aid provides infrastructure that is built by KBRs, Bechtels, Halliburtons. How many high officials of the US, in any adminstration, either side, either came from these corporations or moved to them after "serving?"
Condi Rice, Dick Cheney, Caspar Weinberger, George Schultz, are a few names that come to mind.

Liberal thought is not monolithic. If you hear serious critique of the US...you call it liberal. Why is this so?

If you like cowboy presidents, if you think fear is the best method for running foreign policy, you should applaud Ahmadinejads cowboy antics.

Back to Iran...and your phrases...turn them into a sea of glass.. are disgusting JB...really beneath you.... the US GOT RId OF THEIR FIRST DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED PRIME MINISTER...MOSSADEGH. We installed the Shah...our puppet and a dictator to be sure because Mossadegh nationalized THEIR oil. The Shahs SAVAC goes into the annals of human depravity... We overthrew Latin American democratically elected presidents as well, when we didnt assassinate them. Is this evil? May I use your word? Dictators take over but if they allow our corporations to conduct business unregulated... ok. We even train their secret police, guys who end up running their death squads! Check out SOA history... Evil is Evil where ever it occurs. It is not a mistake. Its not a matter of not being perfect JB. These are carefully laid premeditated plans and organizational activities running with impunity for decades if not a century or more.

Brian may I suggest that you renounce your US citizenship and more to a more friendly less evil country? Research all of the countries in the world and move to the nicest, most humane one. And be happy and stop complaining and doing nothing.

11:33 am on Wednesday, May 16, 2012
So,there are three options to interaction with others: begging, bribery and force. Where did you get this selection from: Godfather 3? Alfred and skinny dude you seem to be of the mindset, "if you are not with us,you are against us." not very democratic of you IMO. Ship everyone off who disagrees with some of the countries policies eh? Or perhaps just those who are not afraid to speak up. That sounds like Iran to me... Or China.

"a number of your fellow soldiers whom received the medal of honor are meeting to turn their medals in to a group of generals, in protest of exactly what I have addressed."

Please do post that link because of those who have earned the Medal of Honor, only 81 are living at this time and only one of those has served in the War on Terror. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_living_Medal_of_Honor_recipients

Now I can imagine that some Commendation Medals and Bronze Stars, or the like, may be turned in during an event you describe, but an MOH is a far far different level of recognition. If I am wrong about MOH recipients, do please provide a link.

You have strong beliefs which is fine, but you made significant errors in your argument about confusing Desert Storm with the Iraq War and now the Medal of Honor. Such a level of misunderstanding, while it does not diminish the fervor of your argument and perhaps your general points, it does diminish your credibility in the fact that it shows that you are not as versed in things as you claim to be.

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/16/what_have_we_been_doing_decorated
The link did have a summary using the word medal of honor. Perhaps that was not correct...I am not up on how many medals of honor are handed out. They are returning their medals. Thank you for the correction if I was wrong.

JB I can name a number of dictators who used state terror to remain in control and who were put in power when US led coups overthrew the democratically elected leadership. The Shah of Iran was just one of them. Proud? Your word evil might apply to what went on in his Evin Prison. If we support evil.... Or let's say horrific examples of injustice, what are we?

Yes tell the Iraqis they were not carpet bombed. And you mourn what you see as the inability now to carpet bomb? That is disgusting. Read about the bombing of Dresden. Read about Haditha and Fallujah. How can anyone justify these acts on any grounds? Theybwere demonstrations of power and ruthlessness... Shows put on to terrorize.

This article provides more light on the medals: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/16/11730683-us-veterans-to-return-war-medals-in-protest

They are the Iraq Campaign Medal and Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. THe ICM is awarded to anyone who served in Iraq and the GWTSM is awarded to anyone in the military during the War on Terror, regardless of location serving. It would make sense to reject these medals if one wanted to make a political point about a particular war.

Neither of these medals are awarded specifically for bravery or exemplary service. Such medals include the Bronze Star or Silver Star. These are considered individual awards and one has to go above and beyond what is expected in order to earn them.

JB... I am not sure I have understand your first question relative to citizens keeping dictators in check. The Shah of Iran, Pinochet of Chile, leaders in Haiti, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Venezuela, El Salvador, Cuba, Panama, Ecuador... this is just in the last half century or so. As far as not being able to anticipate what they would do... these dictators remain in relationship with the US once in power, most notably with US corporations...and the US knows what is happening in these countries. School of the Americas graduates populate their heirarchies. Kissinger himself, told the representatives of the Argentine junta during their Dirty War campaign... that people here in the US didnt realize this was a civil war...and to step up their actions (the slaughter they were conducting on their own citizens) as a new Congress would be in soon that was more dovish and wouldnt accept these human rights issues. 30,000 were dissappeared there. Do you think the US is naive to what Latin American dictators "may" do or were doing or have done?

Why would isolationism be the only imaginable option to aggressive imperialistic expansion? What about cooperation for instance? Trade that is fair...not forced... not stacked. What about using some of these trillions of dollars to do really humane, wonderful things so that our influence is by positive example and attraction rather than under threat of violence, extorsion, economic threat, etc?

Again...you bring up evil... You give me a name for a guy waking up one morning, walking half a kilometer or whatever to the local village and blowing away thirteen people. I am not calling America evil...you wont find that in my blogs at all. I am talking about behavior...American, Iranian, Israeli, as I have said there is no exclusive here. There is evil behavior. Torture is evil. Democracies are as guilty of using torture and promoting it...teaching it...as any regimes in history. Does that make it acceptable or less wrong? Provocation is a good idea in foreign policy .... particularly in the Middle East? You either dont know or dont care about the ramifications for the planet if the Middle East blows up. We need wisdom deparately...not movie cowboys like Ahmadinejad and Bush...shooting their mouths off when there are millions in harms way.

Lyle... I get your point and I would add that if more American leaders knew the reality of war.... we would likely act in a more peaceful manner. A short list of hawkish old men who have been proactive on support for sending others to the battle field, while not having served themselves, or while having sought out deferments, is an illuminating list: Eliot Abrams, John Ashcroft, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, George Bush Jr., Dick Cheney (five deferments), Jeb Bush, Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott, Karl Rove, Paul Wolfowitz, Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh, Rick Santorum, Ted Nugent, Arnold Schwarzenegger (awol from Austrian Army), and even John Wayne. Don Rumsfeld...served as a flight instructor for the Navy for three years.

Robert MacNamara, Secretary of Defense under John Kennedy, was a statistical contol officer during WW2 working under General Curtis Lamay.

"He was a statistical control officer in the Army Air Forces during World War II, entering the service as a Captain and leaving as a Lieutenant Colonel. He worked beside General Curtis LeMay in planning almost a thousand pre-atomic firebombings of 67 Japanese cities, calculating in advance the number of Japanese civilians who would die. "In a single night," McNamara remembered, "we burned to death 100,000 civilians -- men, women, and children in Tokyo." He said that LeMay once told him, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." A bean counter of sorts. Quite an abstract thinker.

Alfred.... Thanks! Your are absolutely right! You did see I got Hillary on the list!