Petem95

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/4378948.stm

Unbelievable comments, what a tosser. Theyre developing nuclear weapons and want Israel "wiping off the map"

Should the rest of the world just leave them to it?..

Brendan Hughes

'Sfunny, I remember half of scoobynet last year saying Iraq should be wiped off the map.

khany

Pete the world has sat back and watch Israel occupy palestinian land for years...do you know how many Nukes Israel has got?

Lets not kid ourselves, given the chance lsrael would love to wipe IRAN off the face of the earth.

I too believe zionists should be wiped off the map.

Petem95

khany thats not a very constructive comment. Im assuming with those views you are muslim?

And surely if Israel would love to whip Iran off the map, why havent they already done so with their nukes?

Reality

Have you recently left school Brendan - since when was 99.9% = half

khany

Not constructive but is how i feel.

Got nothing against Jew's..... just Zionists that want create a greater Israel by occupying muslim land by murdering its people and making them live in refugee camps. You cant create your own country on someone elses land?????!

They haven't done it so far because the climate is not right at the moment, they need backing...but this will come eventually. The same way the US could have wiped out Saddam in Gulf War 1 but they didn't........why?

Brendan Hughes

jasey, I'm a lawyer, I don't do numbers. That's for accountants

Petem95

Wonder what odds I can get at the bookies on WW3 being Islamic countries vs. the West?

I can see what could happen here - Iran start getting cocky and making more threats - US/UK forced to act before they nuke Israel. As soon as Iran is attacked, Syria will jump in in support of Iran. Israel will take the opportunity to invade Palestine. All the terrorists living amongst us (and lets face it, theres a lot) will be up in arms, and terror attacks on home soil will become frequent. The whole situation really could get very nasty

DeltaBravo 9

who cares about israel ??

Apparition

The Israelis I guess.......
Yve

RedFive

Keep taking your Ritalin, it will help in the end.

Funny, and there was me thinking Sunni's and Shiites hated each other's guts

The Zohan

This is odd, this description of Zionists reminds me of someone and their political party’s ideas and implementation, who is it now......tip of my tongue....
....That’s it - Hitler and the *****!

I do not know much about Zionists other than a short documentary on ch4 some time back and the odd bit in the paper.

I do remember Simon Wiesenthal saying that we should learn from the mistakes of others and never commit them or allow them to be committed in our name again (that’s paraphrasing what he and many others also have said)

There are bitter (and in many cases justified) and extreme elements on both sides of this conflict and the atrocities are often committed in the name of religion or at least justified by some.

Iran’s prime minister has made this statement and a bit of chest thumping which I am sure has gone down well with his people.

However the consequences of this could be catastrophic for the region and the rest of the world.

Israel is not backward in seeing off any threats and if provoked will do what they want not the UN (waste of time and effort) or US want them to.

Easy for me to say however the best solution is often the simplest. Stop killing each other and sit down and sort out the issues and live in peace.


All imho

King RA

Perhaps we should fly a few thousand sorties of hercules loaded with marijuana seeds over the middle east and help them 'chill dude'.

Brendan Hughes

Don't think they're interested in that. Do you know where the world's opium production is?

King RA

hmmm, we just need to get them hooked so their smacked up the whole time now hehehe

Leslie

Bush senior decided against taking Saddam out Khany because he did not want the same problem on his plate that his son has now.

Les

Brendan Hughes

King RA - http://www.guardian.co.uk/internatio...601321,00.html

So UK – 60 million people, of whom about 250 000 addicted.
Iran – 70 million people, of whom 4 million addicted.

That's a pretty big problem...

harvey

iTrader: (48)

With hind sight I guess they realise what a blunder they made when Norman Scharwatzkoff? was told to stop the advance. A few more days and Sadam would have been overthrown and the political climate was much different then. It was a coalition supported strongly by many Muslim states at that time.

I listened to Bliar rattling his sabre yesterday over Iran. With the never ending Iraq debacle, an intelligent man would have learned something.

Holy Ghost

khany -

if you believe that zionists should be "wiped off the map," do you also believe that deathcult muslim fundamentalists should be also?

this so-called zionist conspiracy is underpinned by the support of the US (whose government, according to the conspiracy, is riven with jews, zionists and zionist sympathisers) - do you also believe that those who support or bankroll anti-muslim zionism should also be "wiped off the map"?

lastly, may i ask if you are one of these so-called "young, disenfranchised angry british muslims" we keep hearing about?

khany

Maybe I am

Maybe Ch4 might want to make a documentary about me

King RA

I had just read that in yesterdays Guardian.....pretty sad reading tbh.

AlfasudQV

I know that the production of Opium doubled in Afghanistan after the Americans removed the Taliban, so Afghanistan is a player when it comes to Opium.

Brendan Hughes

A player? That's like saying the Middle East is a player when it comes to oil production. It's the world leader. And the only reason it doubled in 2001 was for the one year before that the Taliban had used their inimitable enforcement methods to stop it; it was a one-year hole in 15 years of incredible production. Try page 9 of this:
http://www.unodc.org/pdf/report_2003...ve_summary.pdf

IIRC (don't have the docs to hand) Iran annually seizes more smuggled opium than the rest of the countries in the world COMBINED.

wez_sti

not really educated in these matters, but even i can see the Iran situation turning very nasty in the not too distant future. the government have alreay changed their 'force is not an option' to 'we cant rule it out'

dont understand these countries, it would make sense for countries like Iran to make as many wetsern friends as possible. after seeing whats happened to sadam i'd of thought they'd keep themselves to themselves!?!?

vindaloo

Assuming for a moment that Iran is a Muslim state and Iranians believe that it's the 'best' form of government for the region. What more reason would they need to tinker with the Shia situation 'next door'?

At the same time they're probably quite alarmed about the threat to their way of life. Western governments have 'lied' before and to their own people. Would YOU believe TB or GWB if they promised not to invade you?

J.

RedFive

One would assume Shia = Shia, but apparently Iraqi Shia aren't that close to Iranian Shia.

Of course, they are tinkering there, and the attacks against the British troops are surely influenced by Iran. But it's not like the Iraqi Shia needed to be convinced.

Personally, I think it's "the West" who has made sure the current lunatic is leading Iran, setting back the democratic process (and yes, there was one) back a few decades.

RedFive

Err... perhaps it's how they learned to shy from these nice Western leaders ? Saddam was a big friend of the US, the UK, and France once. Especially when he was fighting Iran. Why they turned against him, I bet even he doesn't know

JTaylor

Those figures are incredible. So when the "coalition" picked on Afghanistan to appease blood thirsty voters and removed the Taliban from power they effectively increased opium production. I've heard this alluded to on Question Time etc but never really explored it for myself.

"There is evidence to suggest that the effect of long-term demand reduction efforts can be catalyzed by rapid and shorter-term progress in the reduction of supply. Although stocks delayed and reduced the impact of the short-lived but considerable decline of opium production in Afghanistan in 2001, records
show that heroin purity levels in Europe declined that year and that the trend continued in the first two quarters of 2002.

One positive consequence was a decline in the number of drug related deaths in a number of West European countries. Similarly, there are indications that in the countries of Central Asia
the growth of abuse declined markedly in 2002 as a consequence of reduced supply. Australia provided another illustration. Following the dismantling of a number of trafficking groups supplying the Australian
market, the availability of heroin in that country dropped significantly in 2001. As a result, declines in the number of drug related crimes and drug related deaths, as well as increases in the number of heroin addicts seeking treatment, were recorded."


Now, I'm not for one backing the Taliban; nor I'm I backing the notion of regime change, but I'd be very interested to see the net cost to the world of the removal of the Taliban and the subsequent massive increase in the production of opium/heroin. I can't believe for one minute that the Americans were ignorant to this consequence when setting about regime change. The economic and human cost to the world of a massive increase in opium production versus the camparably small benefit of the removal of the Taliban, makes the decision to persue the latter mind boggling!

RedFive

The "as a result" is a step to far IMHO. Supply and demand would make sure other countries would fill in the gaps.

But it's a good example of how things have become global, rather than stopping at the cliffs of Dover.

Holy Ghost

**

"big friend" is as exaggeration. he was simply not an unpredictable religious fundamentalist like ayatollah khomeini. ergo, he - not khomeini - received assistance from the US, UK, France, E & W Germany and the USSR. to use the appropriate phrase - he was "a son of a bitch but our son of a bitch" - the mantra that drives a great deal of foreign policy decisions/alliances by a great deal of governments right around the world. he was also expert at playing both sides of the iron curtain off against each other to his own gain.

why we turned against him. in no particular order, from the late 80s onwards, you can choose from:

1) invading kuwait - even the syrians took umbrage and fought with us to kick him out
2) armed provocation and missile bombardment of israel
3) his self-declared desire to invade saudi
4) providing sanctuary to abu nidal
5) a nuclear ambition that showed signs of maturing to reality

plenty of reasons if you look ...