After reading that, I feel much more secure knowing that the Atlantic is there…..

No Guns Don’t Kill its the peson who is pulling the trigger that kills end of subject.

Oh, right. So going up to someone and saying “BANG” or, as it may be, blowing up a paper bag and popping it will do the job just as well, will it? :rolleyes:

I do not believe U.S.flight crew are allowed to carry wepons on flights nor are they avalible as standard cockpit equipment

Believe it, buddy.

They’re not standard issue, but US flight crew are permitted to carry guns. Whether they actually do or not is up to the individual.

And the Peacekeepers are being retired! Who needs to be up-to-date now?

Well, I’ll be! 😀

I still think chucking nukes at folk because they’ve got beards and show signs of wanting the same weapons that Israel already possesses is a bit extreme, though.

Are you saying the USA is equal to Nazi German,

I think you’ll find that he was referring to your eagerness to see people shot. Oh, and then given a trial as well.

You are not the USA. Or perhaps you disagree?

The USA has no workable military options against Iran.

Iran is a much larger and more populous country than Iraq.

The Iranian people may not be particularly fond of the Mullahs and their theocracry but they still remember the USA, rightly or wrongly, as the nation that propped up the excesses of the late and unlamented Shah. The USA would have to look long and hard to find much sympathy towards them from inside Iran.

Iran can close and mine the Straits of Hormuz, bringing the bulk of the world’s oil exports shuddering to a halt with drastic effects on the global economy.

One single Iranian missile aimed at Tel Aviv or Jerusalem could set the whole Middle East alight, especially if the warhead was filled with radioactive material.

Both of these measures could be taken at very short notice after a US attack, or even pre-emptively in advance of an attack.

The armed forces of the USA are becoming over-stretched as it is, and an entanglement in Iran may well be the signal for mischief in other trouble-spots around the world.

What better time, for example, for North Korea to lash out at her neighbours, or for China to make a grab for Taiwan, than while the USA (even temporarily) cannot bring to bear enough appropriate military might to stop them?

Even the current US Government is too clever to fall into the trap being laid out for it.

Isn’t it? :confused:

This is an interesting subject, and well worth airing in a thread of its own, IMHO.

One point that does occur to me is that old-style Liberalism allows people to make their own choices, both economic and lifestyle, and leaves them to get on with it so long as they do so within the law.

“Neo-cons” seem to believe they have a – literally – God-given right to set themselves up as the sole arbiters of right and wrong and to apply their ethical template indiscriminately to all and sundry, right down to the very last detail.

If the law doesn’t fit that template, then change the law – if a foreign regime doesn’t fit that template, then change the regime. God is on their side, so whatever they do must be right.

They are 1930s-style interventionist authoritarians, plain and simple, no matter how much they protest otherwise.

Just in case anyone thinks I’m indulging in a spot of gratutitous Yank-bashing, I regard our own Messrs Blair and Blunkett as “neo-cons”, too.

Joking apart, I agree with Colonial Bird.

It’s an invaluable source of economic, geographical and socio-political reference material.

No, Andy, I wasn’t particularly referring to you – you made your reasons very clear.

There is very little point in debating with those who so clearly do not understand what they are saying, PilotDKH.

Be thankful that you are young enough not to understand the sacrifice that those we remember on Remembrance Day made, and pray that you are never called upon to do the same. 😡