MM, i love you for that post!!!
Why do you think someone would hate you for this posting [headshake]
:hearts::gl:
Cheers
Liquid
P.S: a lot of Iranians i know hate actually "ach ma djing didad"...of course they are here in the states, if they wouldn't they would be dead by now(remember just a bit over a year ago?)
So Gerrit, you are basically saying a government what kills their own people in a heartbeat(n.korea, iran) is allowed to have nukes, heck if they don't care about their own people what do you think about them carrying about other countries?? [headshake again]
First of all, Ahmadinejad doesn't randomly kill his own people. Several people I know have been in Iran several times and said it's perfectly safe. Unless you decide to form political opposition, but the average citizen is clever enough not to do that. This by no means means I defend the nut who's in power, but to say he just randomly kills citizens is still exagerated.
To answer your question: I believe that countries where human right violations are common practice should be tried to force from the outside to change their ways, not by military interactions. You can hit a country and force them to change their ways (or at least try) by economical sanctions, embargo's, ... Everything's better than military action.
Because, and this is what I was saying: who is gonna determine when a country should be attacked? In my opinion, internal affairs remain internal affairs. I can dislike my neighbour's lifestyle and openly criticise him for it, but this gives me no permission to just invade his house and enforce what I believe is right on him. The USA, EU and in fact the entire rest of the world, have no business with internal (note "internal") ongoings in Iran. When countries think they can just invade another country that didn't provocate or threaten them first, then basically we create an international anarchy. Unless Iran first invades Israel (which they won't), Israel simply doesn't have the right to invade Iran. They can try to sanction them economically for their human right violations, but as long as Iranian laws don't have any effect on Israeli citizens, then it's not Israel's business what happens in Iran.
Same goes for North Korea. So far there is no proof that South Korea would be in extreme danger, so South Korea has no business with what is happening inside North Korea. If you however provocate based on assumptions (!) of what your "enemy" may do, then in fact you're the provocator and not that "enemy". In that case, the North Korean government has the duty to defend its citizens.
This isn't rocket science, nor do I approve of what happens in these countries. But a simple rule: if it's an internal affair, then other countries should not interfere. And if they do, they're actually the ones being aggressive, and the country being attacked (regardless of their human rights record, as that's a totally different issue) has the right to defend itself. This doesn't mean we should close our eyes on human right violations, but just opting for military interventions isn't the solution.
And last but not least, do I trust Iran or North Korea with nukes? NO.
Do I trust Israel or the USA with nukes? Again, NO.
I am against nukes, nobody should have them. Until the US dismantles its own arsenal of weapons first, they have no rights to tell another country they cannot have nukes. First clean before your own door, only then you can criticise others.
And let's be honest here (this is not intended as any disrespect to the American citizens, only to its leaders): the US' human rights record is quite bad as well. If it is, of all nations, the US who is attacking other countries on human rights issues, then this is a terrible case of the pot and the kettle. Abolish capital punishment first, close Guantanamo Bay, get all troops out of other countries, ... and then maybe we can talk. Until that point, the USA should worry about its own human rights record first before looking elsewhere.
Also, the whole western world are downward hypocrites when it comes to this. Iran and Iraq are the bad guys, but the human rights record of Saudi Arabia is much much worse. Nobody cares because the Saudi regime supplies the West with oil. So the West happily looks the other side, ignoring that the country has much worse human rights violations than the countries that have been invaded.
---------- Post added at 01:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:09 PM ----------
People can bitch and moan all they want. I didn't vote for Obama.
I saw Obama live during one of his speeches in Europe
Well, when he got elected I was very enthousiast. Especially since he kept some initial promises such as ordering the closing of Guantanamo, reversing the law forbidding stem cell research, healthcare accessible for all Americans, ...
By now, a 1.5 years after he started as president, my enthousiasm is gone but also not totally replaced by disappointment. I'd still vote Obama (or any Democrat) above a Republican per default. And Obama's a man of good intentions, he's proven that so often. Where I maybe was naive is to think he'd go against the will of the big multinationals who control the media and who fund election campaigns. I have the impression Obama really has the intention to make his promises become reality, but that often he finds himself tied and restricted in his movements.
Fact is Guantanamo Bay is not completely closed yet, the death penalty is still used, there are still troops in Afghanistan, there are threats of invading other countries (again without a proof of dangerous arsenals of weapons, ...) so right now I would classify the US also as a country not to be trusted with nukes. Coming to think about it, it's quite hard to say which country I'd trust with nukes, I'd rather have those weapons not existing at all. But for sure Israel and the States should not have them, just like North Korea and Iran shouldn't. The human rights records of these countries is worrying (except for Israel under the condition only that the occupied territories are a separate entity ; when calculating those in, the human rights record of Israel becomes less pleasant to read as well)
It's a pity that in the US the media has such an influence on elections, and meanwhile paying attention only on the Republican and Democrat candidates. While often third party candidates have a quite good agenda. The US elections are maybe not run but definitely heavily influenced by big corporations and media, which is worrying because this means those have a lot of political power even once a new president has taken office. Even the biggest pacifist can get elected and then forced to moderate his views when the companies who backed him during the campaign don't agree ...
