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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (59891)	4/18/2008 4:13:16 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542202

Krauthammer is indeed a depressing individual....his countenance and every word that comes out of this mouth is like pulling a black garbage bag over my head. But his premise is not at all depressing. I think Iran can be defanged. Not overnight, but eventually....probably by the end of one term of a new dem president. Krauthammer's concern is for Israel, not the US. We're too far away for Iranian missiles, Iran IF it really has nefarious intentions, is a threat to its neighbors not us. Apparently Krauthammer wants the US to build an expensive missile defense system in the ME. Amazing how Rs have such a total disregard for the health of the US Treasury?

To: Lane3 who wrote (59891)	4/18/2008 4:25:07 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542202

Yes, of course he's right. The age of freely available nuclear technology is at hand. That's why it's to odd to hear all the candidates talk about how they won't allow Iran to gain nuclear technology or to possess a nuclear weapon. One of the CIA guys put it best when he stated that the guys we need to worry about are the guys whose addresses we don't have. Those whose names, whereabouts and families are in our database are clearly aware of the awful consequences that will inevitably result from an attack. As you'll recall, some of us have been consistent in asserting that Iraq, Iran and N. Korea posed no substantial threat to America with their decades old technology. Their ability to do us harm is limited and even if they're as crazy as the hawks would have us believe, they're not crazy enough to think that pin pricking us would be worth the beheading they'd suffer in retaliation. Where Krauthammer's wrong, however, is in his assertion that some kind of missile defense is necessary as an added layer of deterrence. That expense is wasteful when you consider the cost benefit considerations especially in light of the opportunity costs. He also misses the mark with respect to regime change. His point that we need to establish regimes that aren't intent on deterring our actions or intimidating us with violence is accurate but our current enemy regimes are only one half of the problem. We're the other half and we need to find common ground with those regimes and that means articulating and following rules of international law that are fair and acceptable to a much larger group of nations. In other words, we must become better, less aggressive, less "me first and the hell with you," meddlesome neighbors. That doesn't mean that we become sheep but rather that we stop assuming the role of meat culling shepherds, only then will the neighborhood quiet down. Ed