Israel needs to do its own dirty work for a change and if it does, to accept the very real consequences.

When have we ever fought a war for Israel? Unlike invading Iraq for the Saudi's under Bush I, we have never fought a war on behalf of Israel.

Israel is only threatening to attack military facilities.
If Iran follows through on this threat, Israel would be justified in responding with the Samson option.
The world court has already ruled on this.
I hope you see where this is going.
You should rethink your position and stop cheering on this escalation towards war.

More of a clarification of fact. Fuck with us, suffer the consequences.

Billigerant language is to be expected from both sides. I just wish the USA would stay out of it all...but that is not going to happen. Some believe, and I include myself in that number, that Israel actually runs our foreign policy. After watching that disgraceful performance by the Republicans in the Congress as they fell all over themselves to support Israel first over the interests of their own country, I am more convinced than ever that they have given away our war making decisions to Israel.

like 9/11 occurred you'd be OK with that?

A state with every citizen under arms is a state that has no extras for frivolous aggression. Unlike us. Unlike China.

Is this this the night of the flaming idiocies?

Good to know you support bombing hospitals, maternity wards, schools, parks, etc.

I mean, according to you, all of those things are part of a military facility and thus fair game in a war. Right?

And Israel knows it. Why do you think they pay Jews to resettle there?

That may be one of the dumbest things I have ever seen on this website. I've alerted your post. Not sure if I want it to be deleted though just because of how insanely stupid that statement is.

Can't say I agree with Juror #4 since there are rules against posting "crazy talk" and "conspiracy theories". But all this means is more people will see how ridiculous that post was.

----------------------------
REASON FOR ALERT:

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate. (See <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=aboutus#communitystandards" target="_blank">Community Standards</a>.)

YOUR COMMENTS:

Crazy talk at the least - anti-Semitic at the worst. States that Israel pays Jews to come and settle in Israel so they can be human shields. A ridiculous conspiracy theory

JURY RESULTS

A randomly-selected Jury of DU members completed their review of this alert at Fri Mar 22, 2013, 12:21 PM, and voted 3-3 to LEAVE IT ALONE.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT and said: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT and said: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: there is no rule that people can't express views that this particular alerter finds ridiculous.
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to HIDE IT and said: The statement is tasteless and over the top...hiding it would be a great idea.

Thank you.

It's perfectly legal under international law to target industrial, economic, and infrastructural sites that provide material or economic support to an enemy nation during open warfare. You can even kill civilians without violating international law, so long as they are "collateral damage". It's only a crime against humanity if civilians are targeted deliberately and indiscriminately.

Targeting the Israeli stock exchange, killing all of the civilians inside and everyone within a block or two = perfectly legal.

Targeting residential high rises and neighborhoods that provide no military aid or benefit to Israel = war crime.

It's a bit of a moot point anyway, as Israel, the United States, and Iran have all rejected the Rome Statute. The ICC has no jurisdiction over any of the three nations, or over the crimes commited within them.

Sounds to me like indiscriminately targeting everything,
including residential high rises and neighborhoods.

Remember that huge military complex in Fallujah?

Iran threatened to retaliate over an actual threat from Israel.

In practice, Iran shouldn't bomb civilians after an unprovoked attack from Israel. It's immoral and bad policy.

Of course, anyone murdered by Israel in their threatened attack against Iran would be every bit as innocent and dead as any innocent civilian killed by Iran.

She reiterated the "nuclear umbrella" policy which the United States has had for many decades,
our nuclear arsenal will be used to deter nuclear attacks on any of our allies.

This has been a key part of our non-proliferation policies,
our allies don't need nukes because they're under our umbrella,
and so there's no point in our allies enemies acquiring nukes to threaten our allies.
See post #46 for why Iran wants nukes.

In a war all targets are acceptable. We destroyed Baghdad and then Iraq. Israelis killed civilians who armed w/ sticks and knives in international waters. Iran is responding to Israel in their own terms. Mess w/ them and you will pay. What is your beef, you think Iran will just roll over and play dead?

"In a war all targets are acceptable." - Wow. Just wow.

I could point out to you that deliberately targeting civilian populations is a war crime, that you're on a Democratic site, and that no branch of the Democratic party...or progressivism/liberalism in general...would ever advocate something like that, but I get a feeling that I'd be wasting my time.

In a war, Iran has every right to target civilian FACILITIES that are important to Israels economic and industrial capabilities, which allow the nation to function and make war. They can target infrastructure that allows the Israeli military move, and civilian businesses that provide materiel support to the Israeli military or government. There's a long, long list of "civilian" locations that can be LEGALLY bombed during open warfare. However, NO NATION has the right to EVER target and kill civilians simply for the sake of killing civilians. Nations have a legal and moral requirement to restrict their military actions to targets that actually empower the enemy to make war.

I'm no big fan of Israel, and they'd absolutely deserve any LEGITIMATE retribution dealt out by the Iranians if the Israelis bombed Iran, but NO NATION has the right to deliberately target civilian noncombatants. Even in open warfare. Deliberately bombing an apartment building is ALWAYS a war crime. Deliberately bombing a residential neighborhood is ALWAYS a war crime.

Direct retaliation against the Israeli military would put central Tel Aviv at risk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HaKirya

Historically and every other way.

Simplistic. Misleading. Something I expect from Michelle Bachmann or Lindsey Graham.

And your insistence on knee-jerk bobble-head agreement is revolting.

WW2 was obviously a much larger and heavier conflict than exists in the ME, but that would seem to be due to the scale and economic power of the participants. It is widely acknowledged that the allies incinerated Dresden out of a thirst for revenge which was understandable though at the same time horrific. The Muslims of the Middle East have been kicked around since fall of the Ottoman's and forced to do what we say at the point of a gun. The creation of Israel is but one example of this, though these days it would seem many Arabs consider it the biggest and most egregious. Many Americans would surely argue that decades of colonialism are not as bad as fire bombing London. This can be written off as rationalization. They generally pay little attention to the gritty details of how first Britain and France and then America came to have so much power in and draw so much profit from the ME. Instead they look for ways to paint Christians and Jews as heroes and Muslims as villains.

Iran destroying Tel Aviv out of revenge would be in keeping with how warfare has proceeded through history, including the allied bombing of Dresden. So, historically the analogy holds up.

might think of that insanity?

If one side attacks, it can't expect things to escalate exactly the way the attacker would prefer. That's the first rule of war.

So, no, it would not be within their rights to kill millions of Israeli civilians in response to a nuclear facility being targeted.

definition of "deliberately" is after our bastard, illegal invasion of their country is...

Who lives in Palestine?

Who works at the nuclear facilities that Israel has been threatening? Who would be murdered in an unprovoked attack against the nuclear facility?

Osama claims that it was Israel's targeting of Lebanese civilians in 1982 that gave him the idea to target the World Trade Center.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Osama_bin_Laden_video

"While I was looking at these destroyed towers in Lebanon, it sparked in my mind that the tyrant should be punished with the same and that we should destroy towers in America, so that it tastes what we taste and would be deterred from killing our children and women."

It's really a testament to something.

Fortunately there are a lot of sane people on this liberal website. It gives me hope for a better world.

Here's a serious question for you:

How many Palestinian civilians do you think have been killed by Israel?

Seeing how you claim that Israel has been targeting them intentionally since Israel's inception, I would imagine it would be at least several hundred thousand, right?

I didn't think you supported Israel going into Gaza and Lebanon on prior occasions.

Yet by your logic, they were certainly within their rights to retaliate and defend themselves since thousands of rockets were being launched into their territory from those locations.

What kind of threats will they make once they have nuclear weapons?

Don't forget - Iran was the first country to bomb a nuclear reactor: http://www.democraticunderground.com/11278756

It's rather hypocritical of them to object to having their enrichment facilities bombed.
The "peaceful" facilities located on military bases in underground bunkers.

same one that Iran just 'threaten' if that country attacked Iran first any questions look up Operation Opera

in September 1980.

Israel bombed the same Iraqui reactor with much more success June 1981.

Israel also bombed a Syrian presumed nuclear site in the 21st century.

from the wiki link your OP referenced as:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11278756

wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiraq#Iranian_attack

Operation Opera (Hebrew: אופרה? ,[1] also known as Operation Babylon,[2] was a surprise Israeli air strike carried out on 7 June 1981, that destroyed a nuclear reactor under construction 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq.[3][4][5] This operation was after Iran's Operation Scorch Sword that damaged this nuclear facility months before.

In 1976, Iraq purchased an "Osiris"-class nuclear reactor from France.[6][7] While Iraq and France maintained that the reactor, named Osirak by the French, was intended for peaceful scientific research,[8] the Israelis viewed the reactor with suspicion, and said that it was designed to make nuclear weapons.[3] On 7 June 1981, a flight of Israeli Air Force F-16A fighter aircraft, with an escort of F-15As, bombed and heavily damaged the Osirak reactor.[9] Israel claimed it acted in self-defense, and that the reactor had "less than a month to go" before "it might have become critical."[10] Ten Iraqi soldiers and one French civilian were killed.[11] The attack took place about three weeks before the elections for the Knesset.[12]

The attack was strongly criticized around the world and Israel was rebuked by the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly in two separate resolutions.[13][14] The destruction of Osirak has been cited as an example of a preventive strike in contemporary scholarship on international law.[15][16][


more at wiki

But the USA supported Iraq against Iran in the Iraq-Iran War except for the GOP oopsie of Iran-Contra.

As a result of international opposition to them developing nukes? Since when?

Killing civilians in retribution for an attack on military facilities is a War Crime, a Crime Against Humanity.

(I didn't cheer on Iran for anything, but I DO support their right to defend themselves against aggression, with force if necessary.)

If Israel were being invaded with tanks and planes by another country with a much larger military that was backed by a super power, there would be some comparison. But Iran has not done that.

Nor will they. They, first of all, not only lack the motivation but have neither the military capability nor the ability to withstand the political fallout of invading another country. The government is already in a precarious position as it is. Attacking Israel would cause mutiny and revolt.

But if Israel were to attack Iran first, that would just rally people behind the right wing fascists. That's why it is such a bad idea.

To his religious base, as he well knows, if it seemed that he was able to do this, he and all of the other fanatics over there would be on a express lane to Allah. I have no doubt, that if Israel was seriously threatened, they have the capability to take all necessary measures to not only protect their state but to annihilate any country that chooses that route.

Peace be with you

Al-Salam Alaikum

But what you fail to consider is that the Israeli noise is also bombast for the home audience.

Along with other Iranian cities. Israel has a lot of nuclear weapons, including thermonuclear weapons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel

Is that Tehran is probably the most liberal and progressive city in Iran. The conservative power of the Iranian government comes from the rural countryside, and not their larger cities. By nuking Tehran, the Israelis would simply be swinging Iran's internal power balance further right, in support of the extremists.

Iraq was the most secular state in the ME until we helped kick it into Shia orbit. We are only giving RW religious fundies more control in Iran by marginalizing the moderate population in that country.

and another ironic aspect of this is that the younger population in Iran, is among the LEAST religious in the Muslim world. People should remember that on the streets of Tehran they held vigils after 9/11.

Cooler heads must prevail. The world simply can't afford this shitstorm of a conflict.

This is from less than a year ago in tolerant liberal Iran:

Two Iranians have been sentenced to death for persistent consumption of alcohol under the country's Islamic Sharia law, which forbids the use, manufacturing and trading of all types of alcoholic drinks.

The two, who have not been named by the authorities, have each previously been lashed 160 times after twice being arrested for consuming alcohol. Being convicted for the third time makes them liable for the death penalty.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/25/iranian-pair-death-penalty-alcohol

That's not what I said and you know it.

Weekend hysteria on a Thursday? Not even soap opera boards do that.

President Obama didn't tell the Israeli's to fuck themselves. As if that were ever going to happen. Let them have their temper tantrum.

after all the butt kissing I heard earlier in Israel from our government.

I do not know how successfully, but they have a large army, an airforce, and largely intact air defenses. I do not know if they would get through Israeli defenses, but I would bet they would give it a try if attacked. I would also bet that they could do a fair amount of damage. I do doubt that they would win the day pretty strongly, but think they would put up a better fight than Saddam did. We had spent a decade blowing up Saddam's air defenses before our invasion. Iran has not been softened as a target in this way.

Of course they're going to rattle the saber right back. It's meaningless.

the religiously fantical meatheads who believe Israel has some weird right to pre-emptive right to strike out against Iran and anyone their right wing religiously fanatical government wants to.

No surprise there. These people execute men for being gay and stone to death women who are raped or commit adultery. And issue fatwas against people like Salman Rushdie.

We cannot allow these crazies to get nukes.

but regarding your last comment - to what extent will we go to stop them from getting nukes? That's the heart of the matter. Is it worth going to war over?

At times like this I am extremely grateful not to have simpleminded morons like W and bloodthirsty psychopaths like Cheney and Rumsfeld running the show.

Don't you think it would be more honest to mention that Iran's statement has operative words "if attacked"? What exactly do you expect them to do if Israel bombs the shit out of them? Roll over, close their eyes and think about Allah?

Also, why is it exactly Iran should not be allowed to develop nuclear technology for peaceful use?
Is it because it would greatly inconvenience Isreal, US and UK or is it because they are so scary and like totally suicidal to ever use it as to attack anyone first? BTW, when did they initiate a war last time? I am sure you'd know, granted how you make bold statements about Iran being so dangerous to everyone else.

PS. While I hate their bulshit crazy interpretation of Islam for the treatment of gays and women, I would NEVER, EVER advocate a forceful regime change by outside forces. Fat shitload of good it did in Afganistan, Iraq, and Lybia. If anything WE are responsible now for the additional hardship gays and women there experiencing because of our respective governments actions.

.... keep it's mouth shut? Just once? What is it about Peace that curls their toes?
As Rodney King said "Can't we all just get along?"

.... before we proved him wrong and in the process killed allot of innocent people. It's just an unneeded provocation. And Israel needs to lower it's bombast too. Guess the only reason Iran said it was because PO was in Israel. I don't have a timeline of when who said what. Did Iran say this before or after PO received the award and/or after he made the historic speech at the Israeli university? Of course every nation has a right to defend itself. Also, did Bibi say something pointed at Iran in a joint presser with PO before Iran mouthed off? It's a cold war they've got going over there and Israel is sitting on a ton of nukes. Everybody needs to STFU!

if attacked.

I seriously with Obama tells Israel they are on their own if they even think using military force.

My ideal solution to the problem: all military solution inclined hawks in both Iran and Israel government should be sent to uninhibited islan without any food or survival supplies. They will be provided with food and shelter only if they managed to cooperate, otherwise they are on their own. Definitely 24 hours TV coverage.

Wonder how long they will last before they manage to start properly talking to each other.
I bet though they will have at least one fist fight before they realise how stupid they behave.

...I say a plot of uninhabited tundra. No nukes allowed. Small arms or no arms at all. Just let them duke it out. And every time countries want to have a war, that's where they go. No more innocents killed. Only catch is, they have to reclaim the area (clean up the mess) after it's all over, so it will be nice and neat for the next folks who are itchin' for a fight. You and I are on the same page, idwiyo.

If the want to fight, they can either use their extremities or they can make the weapons themselves.

they're getting during President Obama's visit, they definitely did not get that. This is all chest beating both by the Israelis and the Iranians.

I'd prefer if both batshit crazy governments just shut the fuck up and pay attention to their respective internal affairs.

If Israel bombed Iran every time DU was shrieking it was about to happen, it would be a smoldering hole.

Seriously - some people here truly believe Israel is one slip of the finger away from launching a full scale nuclear war on Iran. It's beyond ridiculous.

just yet (even though they keep making threats in press about it) is because they are not stupid enough to do it without full back up from US. Thankfully Obama is not obliging them with such reassurance, and that is pissing off Bibi to no end. To the point that he tried to influence outcome of last presidential election.

Not my problem if you managed somehow to miss them all.
Try Google, it should provide you with more than enough links.

Also, why so much hostility?

My answer to this post is the same as the last one. After 10 years of "OMG, ISRAEL IS GOING TO BOMB IRAN" posts here, I'm simply tired of the bullshit. Don't like it? Tough.

Iran. Thankfully Obama is not obliging them with support they so desire.

Regardless, there is no point talking to someone who doesn't want to talk.

Have a nice day.

That's pretty rich on a thread started with Iranian threats. And no, if you're going to run around with your hair on fire shrieking about Israel bombing Iran we certainly do not have anything to talk about. Ciao.

Have a nice day, and you are welcome to have a last word. Just try not to misinterpret what I am actually saying the way you did twice already. It's unbecoming and makes everything one says suspect.

I posted to and try and convince yourself I'm misrepresenting it. Shamed by an anonymous poster? You must be kidding. And unbecoming? I'm hurt.

If Iran can't have nukes, which IMHO they are entitled to because well we have them, Russia has them, China has them, Israel has them, France has them, India has them, Pakistan has them and North Korea has them.

Who the f are we to tell others they cannot have something we have and threaten people with on a regular basis?

If anything we should have stopped Israel from obtaining them seeing that Israel's possession of them has destabilized the region and caused an arms build up.

Or would the radiation be too high?