Israel Buys 2 Nuclear-Capable Submarines

It's complete BS that some countries are "allowed" to have nuclear weapons and protect themselves and others are not. If the threat of using them is the deciding factor, then the US shouldn't be allowed to have them, being the only nation to have used them (and against civilians, no less).

Seriously! Its only a matter of time until one detonates, whether it is fired or accidental. Its absurd that they are even legal anywhere in the world. I hear the US is creating new nukes as well... I sure hope we dont have to face nuclear war. But i guess its not up to us, its up to the arrogant bastards with the missiles.

SIGH.

It's complete BS that some countries are "allowed" to have nuclear weapons and protect themselves and others are not.

It's more history and circumstance. In any case, Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Israel didn't. (Just for the record, it was France that helped and encouraged the Israeli program, and the US that insisted on Israel keeping it an open secret.)

Enigma - spot on. I support Iran's right to defend itself. And Jordon's, Egypt's, etc. etc. Someone holds a gun to my head, I'm getting a gun.

I don't think you guys understand.. some countries, like Israel, are allowed the weapons because they are trusted to only use them in self-defense - while other countries, like Iran, are not allowed nukes because they threaten to destroy countries they don't like and what better way to do that than with nukes. If these rogue nations don't have nukes and the victim of the threats do, then they are able to hide behind the nukes like a fence.

There is no country under more constant threat of destruction than Israel. So they gain support internationally in order to defend themselves.

Wow, you've turned the Iranian's into boogeymen. Are you racist?

Maybe Iran just doesn't have a democratically elected government that can be easily influence by the United States. That is why we don't trust them.

Race has nothing to do with it. Not to mention, Moshe Katsav, the President of Israel is Iranian.

Assman:

some countries, like Israel, are allowed the weapons because they are trusted to only use them in self-defense

I think this latest war in Lebanon shows just how much restraint Israel really has. Unless you're naive enough to call that a war of self-defense. Yeah, F-16s against hand-held rocket launchers -- the model of reasonable and responsible self-defense.

"Responsible" self defense? If they are under attack does it make sense to dumb down their excellent defense force in order to match Hezbollah's more erratic attacks? That doesn't make any sense. Of course they used disproportionate force - it's called beating the enemy at their game.

And did they use atomic weapons? No.

And did they use atomic weapons? No.

Well thank God we have such an exacting metric for the reasonable behavior of sovereign states. I can see President Bush addressing the nation now

"Well we were having problems, see, with the insurgo-facists in Baghdad so I asked Peter over here... wave Pete.... Pete is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs... so I asked Pete to just go ahead a carpet bomb Baghdad. Man you oughtta see it our pilots can barrel that thing in so low, oh it's a sight to see. You wouldn't expect it with a big ol' plane like a '52, but varrrooom! The jet exhaust... frying chickens in the barnyard!

Well the point is at least we didn't use nukes"

Compare the number of civilian deaths in Lebanon with those in any other current conflict, like Darfur, Chechnya, or Iraq.

Uh.... Darfur is a genocide. Do you really want to compare Lebanon to Darfur?

A lot of people have actually called the war in Lebanon an attempt at ethnic cleansing, so it might be useful to point out how stupid that idea is. Chechnya and Iraq are much closer examples. Go ahead and look up the death rates in each, then compare with Lebanon.

Face it killfile - they love you ;-)

It's OK with me, considering Websense WebNONsense blocks Killfile's column, but no other part of newsvine...

Huh? Websense blocks my column?

I'm afraid it does, at least for my school.

It is under "Message Boards and Clubs". The rest of Newsvine works fine. Heres a link to a picture of the page I get when I try to access it.

I wonder what you did...

Bad. What's the point of continuing this cycle of escalation and proliferation? All this is going to lead to is a big radioactive accident.

I think you need to ask Iran that question.

They are the ones threatening annihalation for Israel.

and even though people disagree, Israel does have the right to defend herself.

Of course Israel has the right to defend itself, as well as Iran and any other sovereign country. The US needs to it's best to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. At the same time, the US and the world powers need to proceed with nuclear disarmament as well.

Let's not engage in hypocrisy. If we don't want Iran to get nukes, we shouldn't be complicit with Israel (who hasn't joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) from obtaining them.

Of course Israel has the right to defend itself, as well as Iran and any other sovereign country.

you are putting Israel and Iran on the same level.
And NO WAY is Iran on the same level with Israel.
and you are saying that they are the same, they are just defending themselves.

Exactly who is Iran defending itself from?

I hope you don't say Israel, it wasn't Israel that said they want to wipe Iran off the map.

I see the future...
Iran, or Syria, or hezbol again, attacks Israel...and people here will be saying how evil Israel is for attacking first (these people will conveniently forget that it wasn't Israel that attacked first), Israel is the real terrorists, occupiers...blah, blah, blah...

you are putting Israel and Iran on the same level. And NO WAY is Iran on the same level with Israel.

True, Iran haven't been invading and occupying other countries for the past half decade.

true...iran was a country that was already there 60 years ago and had been for a very very long time, whereas 'israel' was created in 1948 by europeans.

i suppose that iran would prefer that the european colony in its region *not* be armed with nuclear weapons, but luckily they have no say in the matter, right?

True, Iran haven't been invading and occupying other countries for the past half decade.

Damn straight, you guys. Ethiopian and Chinese Jews, as well as those who have lived in the area that is now Israel for hundreds of years, are figments of my imagination, and Israel has never been actually attacked.

True, Iran haven't been invading and occupying other countries for the past half decade.

sorry, I meant half century :S

"however you look at it, i'd really prefer that the US opt out of all the shenanigans."

That's a fantastic idea! Lets build a big dark house where one room has a nice bit of sand and bury our heads in it until everything is all ice cream and teddy bears. You do realize that we are suppose to be running the government right? Not the government running us. But we keep doing things like looking the other way, paying more attention to the fact that Jessica Simpson said her ex had small equipment instead of asking what our officials are packing and doing behind our backs. And don't give me the tired excuse of what can I do? The answer is get out of the house. Isolation and xenophobia beliefs lead to nothing but totalitarianism.

thanks to angry dog 1941, I am able to present these facts!

US Foreign Aid in 2002 (per the March 24th, 2003 issue of Newsweek with "Why America Scares the World" on the cover):

Egypt: $2 Billion
Jordan: $227 million
Turkey: $3.3 Billion
Palestine: $387 million
Pakistan: $921 million
Indonesia: $125 million
Afghanistan: $297 million
Uzbekistan: $96 million

America is very generous to Muslim countries, America is not one-sided when it comes to foreign aid, and any demand to stop foreign aid to Israel while openly accepting our money from Muslim countries is total and complete hyprocrisy.

dj & jj, are you annoyed at the moslem countries that get American money as well???

And how much did the US give to Iran, Syria and the Lebanon in 2002?

I was just wondering. Doesn't the US have one of the cheapest gas prices in the world? Isn't it able to influence many nations to go it's way? I wonder why?

I don't know about one of the cheapest, as I think most oil producing countries have prices even lower than we do. Of the oil importing nations, our prices do tend to be lower due to lower taxes on petroleum.

thank you! :)

Well, some of us consider Israel as a terrorist State...

I thought that the Likud (sp?) party were also born of a terrorist organisation... Pretty certain of it in fact.

Also seem to recall reading about how Israel funded Hamas in order to destabilise the PLO's base. This second one could well be wrong, but I have heard it repeated often.

As it stands, Israel is actively terrorising one of it's neighbours populations... Not to mention killing them by the hundreds and displacing them by the tens of thousands. It'll take decades for Lebanon to rebuild after this.

Nuclear submarines are a way to prevent a nuclear attack. If you have a gun and I have a gun which ever one of us fires first lives. If we both have guns but we also both have friends with sniper rifles hidden away covering us, even the one that fires first is going to die. Thus, neither of us fires and we back down and go home.

It's deterrence.

Here's an idea, and maybe I'm completely wrong about this so correct me but how about we just give the world leaders a brain or penile transplant or a joint or a blowjob or whatever its going to take for them to realize that killing people isn't the answer to solve problems?

Its freaking crazy what we do to each other.