Dick Cheney calls for air strike on Iran over captured drone

[RedZero]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/13/cheney-calls-for-air-strike-on-iran-over-captured-drone/

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Cheny calls for violent action against Arabs...somehow I am less than surprised.Though I wonder what would happen is such a situation happened? Would Iran attack a neighbor or would lots of aggressive rhetoric get spoken?

[IndependentCitizen]

I, Mr Ross calls for an airstrike on Dick Cheney.

[RedAnarchist]

Cheny calls for violent action against Arabs...somehow I am less than surprised.Though I wonder what would happen is such a situation happened? Would Iran attack a neighbor or would lots of aggressive rhetoric get spoken?

The Iranians aren't Arabs, they are mostly Persians, although there is a small Arab minority in western Iran.

As for this call of Cheney's, it is what to be expected from bloodthirsty warmongerers like him.

[~Spectre]

Title is misleading. He called for an airstrike on the downed drone, which of course is still crazy, though not unprecedented. Under the Bush administration, U.S. troops would frequently forget where the border was and chase people into Iran.

I doubt the Iranians would've responded, probably fearing that it was baiting them into giving the U.S. "justifications" to invade. The fact that the Obama administration didn't do this here though, suggests that they didn't want to risk Iran actually taking the bait.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

The Iranians aren't Arabs, they are mostly Persians, although there is a small Arab minority in western Iran..

Ah,my mistake than,I am not informed on race and cultural concepts such as these.Can someone explain to me the difference between Arabs and Persians? Are the terms used to describe different races or people living in geographic locations?

Sorry if my question rubbed any the wrong way,I am genuinely confused here.

[Psy]

Title is misleading. He called for an airstrike on the downed drone, which of course is still crazy, though not unprecedented. Under the Bush administration, U.S. troops would frequently forget where the border was and chase people into Iran.

I doubt the Iranians would've responded, probably fearing that it was baiting them into giving the U.S. "justifications" to invade. The fact that the Obama administration didn't do this here though, suggests that they didn't want to risk Iran actually taking the bait.
The problem is international law, under international law ownership falls to the salvager in this case Iran and international law no longer recognizes it as the property of the USA. Meaning Iran could take the US to international court to defend its legal title to the wreckage as the drone fell on Iranian property, they salvaged it and also shot it down so it also theirs under intentional laws regarding spoils of war.

Suggesting attacking them would be as illegal if the US launched a air strike against private salvager if the drone went down in international waters. Basically it would be in the eyes of international law attacking other capitalists going about their capitalist right to salvage property.

[MattShizzle]

Yeah, no surprise. The guy's an extremist when it comes to being reactionary and imperialistic.

[kevster03]

if you ignore him he might go away...

:laugh: i wish

[~Spectre]

The problem is international law, under international law ownership falls to the salvager in this case Iran and international law no longer recognizes it as the property of the USA. Meaning Iran could take the US to international court to defend its legal title to the wreckage as the drone fell on Iranian property, they salvaged it and also shot it down so it also theirs under intentional laws regarding spoils of war.

Suggesting attacking them would be as illegal if the US launched a air strike against private salvager if the drone went down in international waters. Basically it would be in the eyes of international law attacking other capitalists going about their capitalist right to salvage property.

The U.S. has been taken to international court before and it amounted to diddly squat.

Likewise, international law never recognized things like the no-fly zone imposed on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, but the U.S. still imposed it, and used shots fired at American Aircraft enforcing the no-fly zone as evidence of "Iraqi aggression."

International law is just a mechanism for stronger states to control weaker ones.

[Red Commissar]

Ah,my mistake than,I am not informed on race and cultural concepts such as these.Can someone explain to me the difference between Arabs and Persians? Are the terms used to describe different races or people living in geographic locations?

Sorry if my question rubbed any the wrong way,I am genuinely confused here.

Well, Arabs and Persians are two different ethnic groups. They have as many differences as you would expect between any other ethnic groups despite sharing the same 'general' geographic region (though geographically Iran occupies its own unique spot). Look at your different groups anywhere.

Language-wise, while both use Arab script by way of Islam's role in the region, belong to two different language branches. Arabic is a Semitic language while Farsi is an Indo-European one - though there are some Arabic influences in modern Farsi as a result of Islam. Same goes for some cultural influences.

Middle-East by ethnic groups has four major ones by size- Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and Kurdish. You have some smaller communities such as the various Christian ones (Copts, Assyrian, Armenian, Chaldean etc) or the Druze. Then of course those that are Jewish. There are many more of course. Within Iran itself you don't just have Persians, but Kurds, Azeri's, Lurs, Balochs, and Arabs.

Of course thanks to the media some people have the perception of the region as being filled with a cookie-cutter 'Arab' culture and a mostly desert landscape, with Israel thrown in somewhere. This is not the case of course. Even within Arab areas you can get some differences culturally from those in different regions- those from North Africa, Egypt, the Levant, Iraq, and the Peninsula tend to have their own ways of doing things and different 'origins'. We've seen this clear enough from within Iraq itself among the Shia and Sunni Arab groups.

But for the sake of the dire threat encouraged by the clash of civilizations mentality, this is often encouraged to make building support for these actions easier. Plus the usual ignorance, for what ever reason.

This is expected from Cheney though. Cheney has joined the chorus of war hawks saying that Obama isn't 'tough or aggressive against 'our enemies' and thus compromising national security. This deal over the drone is another example of that - those like Cheney probably don't agree that the US should have 'formally' requested the drone returned and should have acted more directly against Iran here.

[Comrade Samuel]

I'm by no means for American imperialism but I think we need to take Iran out before they get they're newclear weapons online and start world war 3, there will be no revolution without a world.

[~Spectre]

War is Peace

Please tell us more.

[Comrade Samuel]

Please tell us more.

Well I doubt there's a way to talk them out of it, no amount of sanctions will ever stop idiots like Ahmadinejad and the way I see it one group of imperialistic scum bags stopping a more violent, oppressive group of imperialistic scum bags is an alternative to letting them become a major threat.

[Psy]

The U.S. has been taken to international court before and it amounted to diddly squat.

Likewise, international law never recognized things like the no-fly zone imposed on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, but the U.S. still imposed it, and used shots fired at American Aircraft enforcing the no-fly zone as evidence of "Iraqi aggression."

International law is just a mechanism for stronger states to control weaker ones.
Yet the law is in the long term intrest of imperialism, I mean what would the US do if the UN said "okay, from now on any nation that shoots down property of a enemy nation has to give it back"?

I mean it says something when the US can't even defend imperialists right to spoils of war just because they want Iran to give them back their property that isn't really worth that much, I mean if Iran really wanted to they could just bribe the manufactures and get a brand new one like the USSR did during the Cold War when it wanted to reverse engineer US weapons.

[Ostrinski]

Well I doubt there's a way to talk them out of it, no amount of sanctions will ever stop idiots like Ahmadinejad and the way I see it one group of imperialistic scum bags stopping a more violent, oppressive group of imperialistic scum bags is an alternative to letting them become a major threat.huh

[~Spectre]

Well I doubt there's a way to talk them out of it, no amount of sanctions will ever stop idiots like Ahmadinejad and the way I see it one group of imperialistic scum bags stopping a more violent, oppressive group of imperialistic scum bags is an alternative to letting them become a major threat.

So several responses:
1. Ahmadinejad doesn't run Iranian foreign policy.
2. Iranian foreign policy is far from idiotic. It's quite coldly rational.
3. The U.S. is more violent and oppressive by several orders of magnitude. Not even close. This is to be expected because the U.S. have the greatest capacity to inflict violence ever seen on planet Earth.
4. Why would Iran become a major threat even if they acquire nukes (which there is no evidence that they will)? Does MAD only work on white dictators like Stalin?

[~Spectre]

Yet the law is in the long term intrest of imperialism, I mean what would the US do if the UN said "okay, from now on any nation that shoots down property of a enemy nation has to give it back"?


You don't understand. The point of international law isn't to set up universal standards. The U.S. and other strong states will still do whatever the hell they want to do, regardless of hypocrisy. It's not about "fair" standards meant to be followed by everyone.

The U.S. claims it has the right to send in drones to assassinate "enemies" in other states. See how far that precedent will get you if you try to do that to the United States.

[Psy]

You don't understand. The point of international law isn't to set up universal standards. The U.S. and other strong states will still do whatever the hell they want to do, regardless of hypocrisy. It's not about "fair" standards meant to be followed by everyone.

The U.S. claims it has the right to send in drones to assassinate "enemies" in other states. See how far that precedent will get you if you try to do that to the United States.
The point of such laws is to justify imperialism from a legal perspective so the imperialist power doesn't look like a big baby like the US does now expecting the competing powers to just yield to US imperialism without US imperialism giving them a reason to.

The US is showing the world that they are totally incompetent on PR side of imperialism, and can't create a casus belli against Iran that isn't totally laughable and make US ruling class look like a bunch of whiners.

I mean if the US goes to war over this how are they going to convince US troops it worth dying invading Iran just because they refuse to give up US property they could acquired through just bribing US weapon manufactures to export to them? How many US troops would go along with fighting yet another war just because the US state thinks Iran stole a unmanned drone?

[Ocean Seal]

I'm by no means for American imperialism but I think we need to take Iran out before they get they're newclear weapons online and start world war 3, there will be no revolution without a world.

I'm not for Islamic fundamentalism but I really think we need to take out America before they get nuclear weapons and start WWIII.

[Comrade Samuel]

Ok fine I concede it's a dumb position to defend and my comment was poorly though out.