Still Hating America.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
you know, the rule is pretty simple: you do not lose by calling someone else Hitler, unless it is the person you are arguing with. Here Club was calling us Chamberlain. Iran is Hitler.

Fine. He loses for making a stupid, over-used, and inapt analogy then.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Adder
Fine. He loses for making a stupid, over-used, and inapt analogy then.

a lawyer posting on a lawyer chatting board should know the applicable rules. we should have some form of "poll test" before a sock is allowed a login.

Originally posted by ltl/fb
There just isn't much to discuss or argue about, because we all think (as far as I can tell) that Iran should release the British soldiers without further ado.

2. Send them home.

[SlaveNoMore]

Cletus Miller
What would the USA do if an Iranian (or Chinese or Russian) military vessel strayed into US territorial (or claimed) waters? Do you really think that the US would simply release them without performing due diligence on whether they were, in fact, spies?

The USA - well, at least the Blue states - would harp on for weeks and weeks of how these poor, misguided souls were being illegally detained and illegally tortured in some illegal prison by some illegal administration.

[SlaveNoMore]

Replaced_Texan
So you're saying Bush has to go? That works for me.

2

Rudy '08 could not be here soon enough.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
you know, the rule is pretty simple: you do not lose by calling someone else Hitler, unless it is the person you are arguing with. Here Club was calling us Chamberlain. Iran is Hitler.

Stupid analogy. Hitler knew the Holocaust happened.

[Cletus Miller]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
The USA - well, at least the Blue states - would harp on for weeks and weeks of how these poor, misguided souls were being illegally detained and illegally tortured in some illegal prison by some illegal administration.

So far, it's been five days for the Brits. I suspect it's a few more days before some asshat on DU or some other forum of ridiculousness asserts that the Brits were actually spy and thus should be summarily executed.

Notwithstanding the noxious Iranian regime, if uniformed, legimate, regular-duty military personel were detained in US waters (legal, in any instances I can imagine as possible), I hope that the military would properly detain them in a (legal) military stockade and not torture them.

Absent possession of WMDs or genuine, solid evidence of spying (e.g. a version of the NoKo sub scenarios in SoKo), I hope the military would not ship them off to Gitmo or Syria or wherever on the CIA's time-share of the Red Sox's jet, as that would be against the law and demonstrate very poor judgment.

As to the illegal administration, stop pointing to the fringes to make the left look ridiculous--who here buys into that shite, anyway? Remember, the fringe of the right asserted that 9/11 happened as a judgment of God against secular America, rather than because a bunch of fucking whackos bought into extreme non-sense. Should that get brought up ad nauseum here, too? I sure hope not.

[Cletus Miller]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Stupid analogy. Hitler knew the Holocaust happened.

No, no, no. Hitler was out of the loop on those discussions. It was all about Eichmann acting outside proper channels. Himmler still has Hitler's full support and will not be asked to resign.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Stupid analogy. Hitler knew the Holocaust happened.

maybe you can start quoting Hitler for your sig line.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Cletus Miller
What would the USA do if an Iranian (or Chinese or Russian) military vessel strayed into US territorial (or claimed) waters? Do you really think that the US would simply release them without performing due diligence on whether they were, in fact, spies?

So the Iranians are being more difficult than the US (or Britain) would (likely) be in a similar situation--that isn't a surprise to anyone. Iran wants to make a minor incident into a global issue--again, not surprising.

I think that Iran is holding them a bit longer hoping that we and/or Britain do something especially stupid which will garner Iran a little more support from China and Russia (and probably France, too). The most important thing is not doing something stupid--I wouldn't be surprised if there is an encounter b/t one of the 2 carrier battle groups in the Gulf and Iranian air or sea vessels before this is all over.

I am not viewing this as an isolated incident. I am viewing it as part of a pattern of aggressive behavior, which I think your post presupposes. See my prior post. This is a pattern of practice with them, which, I admit, is relatively harmless now, but will change on a dime the second they go nuclear. I hope we don't look back 20 years from now and say, all the warning signs were there, we were just to stupid or lazy to see them.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I'm totally appaulled by the atttitude on this board about this situation. Do you not see how serious of an act this is? A soveriegn nation taking hostages of another sovereign nation? These guys were, reportedly, in international waters and snatched by Iran, and now will be put on display for the war to see: http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/...257880,00.html

This is, yet, another act of agression by a seriously delusional state that is close to acquiring nuclear weapons. You guys are a fucking joke.

I'm appalled that you took almost 23 hours to respond after my post about this. Clearly you don't take this situation seriously.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I am not viewing this as an isolated incident. I am viewing it as part of a pattern of aggressive behavior, which I think your post presupposes. See my prior post. This is a pattern of practice with them, which, I admit, is relatively harmless now, but will change on a dime the second they go nuclear. I hope we don't look back 20 years from now and say, all the warning signs were there, we were just to stupid or lazy to see them.

Of course we will. And then we'll argue about whose fault it is.

[Cletus Miller]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I am not viewing this as an isolated incident. I am viewing it as part of a pattern of aggressive behavior, which I think your post presupposes. See my prior post. This is a pattern of practice with them, which, I admit, is relatively harmless now, but will change on a dime the second they go nuclear. I hope we don't look back 20 years from now and say, all the warning signs were there, we were just to stupid or lazy to see them.

I don't disagree, and certainly do see it as one more step in consistently provacative behavior. But what's the alternative? Are we supposed to threaten to go nuclear? Or just conventionally bomb any reasonably military target (many intertwined with civilians, just like Iraq)?

Anything we threaten MUST be something that we'd actually follow through on, or be (correctly, I think) perceived as too weak to actually act. There is no way to ramp up for a ground operation, so that's not really an option--and would be a whole lot worse than Iraq on a number of fronts.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Cletus Miller
I don't disagree, and certainly do see it as one more step in consistently provacative behavior. But what's the alternative? Are we supposed to threaten to go nuclear? Or just conventionally bomb any reasonably military target (many intertwined with civilians, just like Iraq)?

Anything we threaten MUST be something that we'd actually follow through on, or be (correctly, I think) perceived as too weak to actually act. There is no way to ramp up for a ground operation, so that's not really an option--and would be a whole lot worse than Iraq on a number of fronts.

We shouldn't do anything militarily, they aren't our troops. But we should be concerned about the situation and turning up the heat diplomatically and not letting them use this as a distraction from the sanctions being debated at the UN. We also should be supporting the Brits and actively having a forward looking strategy in the country to speed the revolt from within (much like we did in the USSR).

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
We shouldn't do anything militarily, they aren't our troops. But we should be concerned about the situation and turning up the heat diplomatically and not letting them use this as a distraction from the sanctions being debated at the UN. We also should be supporting the Brits and actively having a forward looking strategy in the country to speed the revolt from within (much like we did in the USSR).

Those ideas are somewhat contradictory. Turning up the heat is a bad way to speed a revolt from within. Which may be why someone in Iran had the notion to capture a bunch of British troops.