New Poll
According to the BBC World Service opinion poll on Iran’s nuclear intentions, international opinion has drawn some surprisingly clear conclusions.
Why does the media give the impression that there are a majority in USA that will support military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities ?
Never noticed it has. The, IMHO correct impression it gives me is that your leaders are hell bent on it and your tweedledee opposition, when it comes time to put up or shut up will ziplok their principles tight.
Perhaps they’re including a credulity factor in advance of the white house’s product rollout. Asimov would be proud.
They don’t.
Next question.
Apparently several million Americans believe they’ve been abducted by aliens.
‘Statistics show that 4 million Americans have been abducted…’
http://www.around.com/abduct.html
Perhaps we could ask the aliens to abduct Iran’s nuclear weapons…
Would you happen to have a citation showing “the media” giving the impression that a majority of U.S. citizens are eagerly anticipating a pre-emptive strike on Iranian facilities?
Or are you basing your claim on the storylines of 24?
Don’t trust polls much, but did find it interesting that Iraq scored highest with the percentage that would like to see Iran bombed.
Both yeas and no. Iraq is some sort of ally to Iran because axis of evil label, but they where at war with each other in the 1980’s
Perhaps we could describe them as bitter enemies in the same boat ?
Anyway, there where some sort of power of balance between the two countries back in the 1970’s, 80s and early 90’s, but that balance have now shifted strongly towards Iran. That could be a reason for the anwers too.
They just havne’t been properly propogandized yet.
Why do 79% of Americans hate America so much?
I don’t understand why even 21% would favor bombing Iran or even the 11% worldwide. I don’t believe that Bush is for bombing. You might say that he is promoting sanctions, but is still willing to try more talks. Only someone that doesn’t truly understand the situation would be in favor of bombing right now. I also think that a big percentage of those that answered the poll did not know enough facts to make an intelligent response. There undoubtedly were those that answered “yes” and thought they were saying it was O.K. to bomb in Iraq (just like some people think New Mexico is a country, not a state).
I haven’t gotten the impression from the media that a majority of our citizens are in favor of bombing. I doubt if a majority would be in favor of bombing in Iraq.
I read recently that Iran was trying to egg us on into attacking them, because those in power would be in danger of losing that power, if they didn’t have a war to unite their people behind them. The time frame was said to be less than a year without a war and they would be in trouble. Since the attackers would be either Israel or the U.S. not only would they unite their citizens, but turn the rest of the world against the U.S. I’m not necessarily saying this is true, but it sure makes me willing to consider holding off on anything else besides talks for several months to a year. No one thinks they will have a bomb in that time, so it doesn’t hurt to talk for now. And if that is the wrong thing to do, we can always blame the
:rolleyes: [sup]the French[/sup]
Just observing that the three main ethnic/religious groups in Iraq probably want to see Iran bombed to very different degrees. Perhaps three separate polls would enlighten us more.
They are buying the rhetoric for war again. They learn slowly. Saw a program today saying 1600 centrutuges must be set up in a cascading arrangement to purify to weapons grade. Iran has 160 . They are not even close nor has it been proven they are after a bomb. Their weapons of mass destruction mirror Iraqs.
Well, it looks like they’re between five and ten years away. But once they get there, and we’ll likely have little warning, what’re you going to do with a West-hating dictator with the bomb? The time to act, if we don’t like Iran with the bomb, is before and not after it gets it.
Rhetoric aside has anyone been able to say with a straight face that Iran is really persuing this course of action regarding nuclear fuel for civilian use only? I know that is what Iran says but c’mon…
Even if you really want to take a big bite of the gullible pie I think it is by far the safest and best course to assume that Iran is doing this to obtain a nuclear weapons manufacturing capability (whatever the timeline). The best response to that is of course open to debate.
Really wish we had Rods from God in orbit. Not that using them would be a good idea but the threat would be handy.
[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
Rhetoric aside has anyone been able to say with a straight face that Iran is really persuing this course of action regarding nuclear fuel for civilian use only? I know that is what Iran says but c’mon…
QUOTE]
This is one of those arguments thats based on ‘they couldnt possibly be telling the truth’ rather than direct evidence, which is how the Iraq WMD’s ended up being such a mess.
From what Ive read they do face problems in the future when the oil runs out - they have uranium reserves and energy independence is something every country would like.
I think it should be strongly considered that they might actually be being truthful about their primary goal being energy independence. Keeping that as a possibility carries less risks with it than rejecting it outright would.
Otara
Anyone know how many Americans favored the invasion of Iraq a year before we actually did so? (That would be March 2002.)
Not really. They wouldn’t penetrate a deep bunker, plus they’d miss. They can’t see anything through the effects of high velocity re-entry. A cute idea that doesn’t work.
Plus, if they did work they would have all sorts of nasty political and military ramifications; being able to strike hard with little warning would mean every other country would have to be ready to launch any weapons they have at us on a hair trigger; like the Cold War but worse. We’d also need to establish absolute command of space permanently, or someone would do something like what Arthur C Clarke ( IIRC ) suggested; send up bombs counter to the standard orbital direction of our satellites and explode them, filling near earth space with enough shrapnel to deny space to everyone.
I disagree strongly.
Iran is considered the “most active state sponsor of terrorism” ( cite ) in the world. Their President denied the Holocaust and called for Israel to move to Europe or Alaska ( cite ).
Certainly there is little love lost between the United States and Iran. Note I am not arguing here whether or not they have a legitimate axe to grind with the US but clearly they are overtly belligerent to the western world (and especially the United States).
In the past Iran promised “total transparency” over its nuclear program and Europe promised access to technologies to aid in their civilian nuclear program ( cite ).
Iran has also violated the NNPT to which it was a signatory.
So, they have not been denied a civilian nulear program and indeed were given aid to those ends as long as they maintained transparency in that effort.
What part of all of this makes you honestly think they are really on about nothing more than a peaceful nuclear program? Even if not “proven” I still think it is prudent for the western world to progress as if it was proven that Iran wants to build nuclear weapons given their current behavior. What response that should receive is of course debatable.
[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
What part of all of this makes you honestly think they are really on about nothing more than a peaceful nuclear program? /QUOTE]
The fact that very similar arguments were used with Iraq WMD’s and we were wrong.
By closing the null hypothesis off as a very real possibility, it meant we didnt even check it out, or use it as a check on any later conclusions that were drawn. It became a self fulfilling prophecy because any disconfirming data tended to get discarded and confirming data went relatively unexamined.
Discarding possibilities like Iran is mostly focussed on being energy independent and that this could be mostly about pride and the like just risks repeating that kind of error.
Otara
I think the analogy between WMDs/Iraq and Iran’s “possible” peaceful nuclear ambitions is weak.
Iran has a civilian nuclear program aided in large part by the west. In return for western civilian nuclear technology and aid Iran agreed to the NPT. How does energy independence require that IAEA inspectors leave their country?