And in real world news... Iran halts oil exports to France, Britain.

POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Monday, March 30, 2026 17:55
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"Someone who thinks this backwards is someone you'll trust with nukes,"

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Hello,

What difference does it make whether we trust Iran with nukes? I wouldn't trust Iran with my Hallmark Star Trek ornament collection. So what? All that matters is what we're willing to do about it.

And what we're not willing to do.

--Anthony


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"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Originally posted by pizmobeach:

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:

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Originally posted by Oonjerah:
"Trust": bad choice of word.
I should have said, "Is there any government in the Middle East that doesn't fear a nuclear Iran?"

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I don't think any of 'em really do, Oon. Really. I think they understand that Iran is doing all this nuclear posturing to stave off an attack from the U.S. A nuclear U.S. of A. will always be a much greater threat to the region than Iran. It's clear as freakin' day over there. And Saddam Hussein did exactly the same thing. Government statements in Arab/Persian cultures are kinda like the trash talking we see in professional wrestling. Talk about comments not intended as factual statements!

And they are so not going to bomb Isreal. Because they know perfectly well how defenseless they would be against the rest of the world that would come in and trash their country like Aerosmith at the Four Seasons.

A nuclear Iran means one thing to the Middle East: an Iran the U.S. can't simply step on and grind into the dust. And, of course, it would disincline Isreal from doing anything rash as well.

HKCavalier

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I can't believe how many Westerners think they know what Iran will do. Got to be wishful thinking, right? I get that impulse, I'd love to think we can work this out like adults, because if that doesn't happen too many innocent people die. To me it rings as just as stubborn headed as our military thinking Iraq/everyone needs US Style democracy. A non-nuke Iran is one Israel doesn't want to bomb - that's the scenario that keeps the most people out of the worst trouble.

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I share your concern. I also can't believe how many Westerners seem to think they know exactly how Iran will act. They seem so certain Iran will use a nuke the very second it acquires one, despite no factual basis for such beliefs.

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"There was no Holocaust and there are no Gays in Iran..." - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Someone who thinks this backwards is someone you'll trust with nukes, is someone who's behavior you think you can safely predict?

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Again, I hear ya. I've heard some crazy-ass shit from certain leaders and certain candidates running for positions of power. I heard one crazy idiot make the claim that "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." I've even heard some spectacularly revisionist (non)history from candidates here at home, some of whom want us to believe that the Civil War had nothing at all to do with slavery.

Clearly such lunatics should not only not be trusted, but should never, EVER be allowed anywhere near positions of power. I think everyone here will agree with that.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Quote Kwicko: "Again, I hear ya. I've heard some crazy-ass shit from certain leaders and certain candidates running for
positions of power. I heard one crazy idiot make the claim that "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein
recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." I've even heard some spectacularly revisionist (non)history
from candidates here at home, some of whom want us to believe that the Civil War had nothing at all to do with slavery.

"Clearly such lunatics should not only not be trusted, but should never, EVER be allowed anywhere near positions of power.
I think everyone here will agree with that."

Oonjerah: Ditto that!

But what should be and what IS ain't always that much the same.


"All I suggest is a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest" ~Paul Simon

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
And I find your thinking kinda authoritarian in its focus on the individual "leader." Individuals do not lead the modern nation state. That is a fiction. Decisions like nuking another country are never in the hands of one man. Yes, you may look at a chain of command and see so-and-so at the top and you can tell me that he has the key that will arm the warhead, bladdy-bladdy-blah, but still, in the nature of human beings, one guy is not responsible for the fate of millions. Ever. Not in reality.

And most of the time, "chain of command" is a fiction that keeps us from seeing the truth. Adolf Hitler didn't gas a single person by himself. Plenty of other folks were willing to do the heavy lifting there. The work of thousands goes into every nuclear warhead.

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That - right there, is what I mean to put a check against, if not an end to, via depriving the various jerks of the world the willing triggermen tyranny NEEDS in order to occur.
And I know just where to hit em, too.

This ain't really, and honestly never was, a matter of nation versus nation, so much as it is insanity versus humanity.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
First of all, Pizmo, he ain't the guy in charge. President in Iran is more like a Propaganda Minister. Some people in the West think they can predict what Iran will do because they've done their research, read a little history, know people on the ground over there, etc. You keep harping on this point that we should all be just as ignorant as you say we are. Why? What makes you the authority on how ignorant the rest of us are?

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I'm no authority on ignorance (heh), but I see people making statements that don't ring true to me, that are based on very questionable assumptions, and nothing you've written changes my mind on that. In fact, what you wrote only reinforces my position.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
And I find your thinking kinda authoritarian in its focus on the individual "leader." Individuals do not lead the modern nation state. That is a fiction. Decisions like nuking another country are never in the hands of one man. Yes, you may look at a chain of command and see so-and-so at the top and you can tell me that he has the key that will arm the warhead, bladdy-bladdy-blah, but still, in the nature of human beings, one guy is not responsible for the fate of millions. Ever. Not in reality.

And most of the time, "chain of command" is a fiction that keeps us from seeing the truth. Adolf Hitler didn't gas a single person by himself. Plenty of other folks were willing to do the heavy lifting there. The work of thousands goes into every nuclear warhead.

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This is suppose to comfort me? "Don't blame Hitler, it was him and his people…" Seriously, would Nazi Germany have happened without Hitler? The cult of personality counts for millions of willing laborers - starts with one guy.
And saying A. is just a propaganda minister, fine, but that leaves a Grand Ayatollah - looking back through history and seeing what people have destroyed in the name of religion or for a single person, is not a promising idea.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
The fate of millions depends at least on the actions of, what, tens of thousands? PARTICULARLY when people start acting irrationally. Irrationality isn't randomness, it's usually highly patterned and predictable if you know what to look for. Y'know, an alcoholic in your face may seem like a great chaos monster, but if you look at alcoholics as a group, alcoholism as a syndrome, their behavior becomes quite mechanistic.

Some extremely mentally disturbed individuals have had control of nukes for decades now and our country is the only one to have ever used one in earnest. That is a fact. Do you think that's just luck? Random chance? I don't. I think it means something profound about human psychology, about human nature. I think it means there are limits.

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I agree with you on this - I think there are images of the devastation in Japan/Hiroshima/ that so horrified the world and shamed us in particular, it made using the next nuke pretty unthinkable, certainly by us, by most :( of our presidents, "I'm not going to go down in history as the 2nd president to use nukes…" I think getting past that horror might take something like the fear of already being under assault & feeling like there's no recourse + attacking a nation's pride, and then mix in a bit of religious blind obedience and you have a lethal situation. Those things exist now, right? Is that as bad without nuke potential?
Wondering: Do you think sanctions are there just to punish? Like, we don't care if there's evidence of weaponizing being attempted, we just want to hurt Iran? I don't honestly know, maybe you have information on that. It doesn't make sense to me that we along with other nations only want to poke Iran with a stick and make things worse.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Why didn't our country bomb Mecca ten years ago? Plenty of folk in and out of our government wanted that so very badly. I remember one of my best friends in the world yelling at me on the

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