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Originally Posted by Adil Memon
According to NPT, the nuclear powers were supposed to dismantle their nuclear weapons. Did America dispose of its weapons? Did France do that? Did Israel do that?
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Do you know how many of our warheads we decommissioned? Do you know how many of former USSR's warheads we help decommission? Take a guess. The number is in the hundreds, if not thousands. We actually paid Russia and a few other former Soviet republics to deactivate their nukes.
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Originally Posted by Adil Memon
Firstly, I do not think that Iran is pursuing its nuclear programme for military purposes.
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You don't think. That doesn't make it true.
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Originally Posted by Adil Memon
The IAEA has already declared that Iran is atleast 3-5 years away from building nuclear bombs.
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So you admit the IAEA believes Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. Otherwise where did this time frame come from?
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Originally Posted by Adil Memon
US has enough time to monitor Iran's nuclear activity before it really builds up a full fledged bomb. But it seems determined to invade another foreign country.
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That's right. We are monitoring Iran's non-compliance and have determined an invasion is not off the table.
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Originally Posted by Adil Memon
That's an evil of Capitalism. When you build a lots of weapons from the excessive wealth that you create, you really need some place to expend them.
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Capitalism has nothing to do with creating weapons just to use them. Capitalism means things are worth however much people are willing to pay for them.
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Originally Posted by Adil Memon
Do people here know that the defence budget of US ($700 billion) is more than the GDP of 100 countries.
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That is incorrect. The defense budget for 2007 is less than $600 billion. You're off by almost 20%.
Federal Budget Spending and the National Debt
We have a $13 trillion economy. Our defense budget is only 4.5% of our GDP. Still high by Europe's standards, but not outrageously high. Our defense expenditure in WW2 exceeded 40% of our GDP. Our WW2 GDP exceeded half of the world's GDP.
We have global interest. We are the world police. We fight a bunch of little wars to prevent the big ones from happening. That costs money. Freedom isn't free.
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Originally Posted by Adil Memon
Even if Iran builds nuclear weapons, it has reasons. The threat to Iran from Isreal is real.
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Did the president, prime minister, or some other high ranking government official form Israel publicly state Iran should be wiped off the map? I some how missed that. Can you provide me with some evidence of this threat?
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Originally Posted by Adil Memon
People here might remember that only recently, perhaps in September, Israel air jets took off with extra fuel tanks (necessary for reaching Iran) for some unknown destination. The details of the activity are stil a mystery but there are reasons to believe that they were aimed at Iran.
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Not unknown. They bombed Syria. So far, Syria, US, and Israel won't disclose what was bombed. Everyone is guessing that was a nuclear facility, but no one wants to admit it. Syria doesn't want to admit it has such a facility. Israel doesn't want to admit it knows Syria has such a facility. And we don't want people to know that we know what's going on.
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Originally Posted by Adil Memon
Iran is a sovereign and proud nation.
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No one said Iran is not sovereign or proud.
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Originally Posted by Adil Memon
The issue is not too complex to resolve. It's just a clash of egos.
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No it's not. Tell Ahmedinajad to shut up about wiping Israel off the map.
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Originally Posted by Adil Memon
If the US comes to the table (without bringing its much touted 'all options are open' propaganda), Iran will talk.
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If Iran stops advocating genocide, we will talk.
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Originally Posted by Adil Memon
US has no right to tell sovereign leaders of other countries that they are 'mad' just because they do not TOE the US line.
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Ahmedinajad is not mad because he doesn't toe our line. He's mad because he openly talks about genocide and then questions attempted genocide of jews in the past.
Do you think Bush is mad if he says he wants to wipe Iran off the map? Do you think Bush is mad if he says god willing there will be a day without Iran or Persia in the world?