pauliddon blogg

stuff about things

Monday, July 6, 2009

if only the US and Iran could get on!

It's been 30 years since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ousted the Shah, it would be an understatement to say that Iran and the US didn't get on, since then the Islamic Republic of Iran has sponsored groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas and since the end of the Imposed War have been building long range ballistic missiles (Shahabs) and been trying to develop nuclear energy.

Now judging from Operation Opera in 1981 an operation in which the Israeli Air Force bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor they are neither

a.) worried that the Arabs are trying to build nuclear weapons or
b.) think its fair they're the only ones with nuclear weapons or
c.) don't want the Arabs to have nuclear energy to power the homes of millions of people!



I've written what I think of Iranian missile tests before, if they want to test missiles let them, who are we to judge!

The last eight years also saw Iran surrounded by potential enemies, even though for a brief moment they helped the US against the Taliban, the Iranian backed Northern Alliance allied with the USAF which bombed them a route to Kabul so they could seize the capital city, not long after that 250,000 American soldiers led the invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Husseins government, Iran became the sand in their underpants when they helped make mines for the Iraqi insurgency which could pierce through the armour of US Humvees on patrol.



The Iranian backed S'hia militia caused more coalition deaths in Iraq around the time of 2005 than any of the present Iraqi insurgents, to be honest with you I never saw a problem with this, I mean when the present regime rose to power in Iran the Americans and Europeans gave Saddam Hussein's Iraq weapons, chemical warfare shells which killed hundreds of Iranians instantly at a time, maybe this to them was pay back since the west wasn't talking to them.

And apart from that heavy sanctions from the United States and any Europeans found trading with Iran punished by America shows Iran is almost self sufficient in everything, but they have problems, such as keeping their passenger planes from falling out of the sky.

Apart from that if Iran and the west actually did get on we would have nearly twice as much oil to import as we do today from Saudi Arabia and Iraq, some 40% of the worlds reserves flows through the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian controlled waters and they have threatened to close that vital strait off if the US or Israel attack them, the world economy would be then crippled overnight!

And the sad truth is that Iran has the right to be this hostile towards the US especially considering the fact the revolution was because the CIA helped the Shah have dictatorial powers over the 70 million or so Iranian people for nearly 30 years!

For relations to normalize between Iran and the west they make these fair demands:



* That the United States accept the legitimacy of the 1979 revolution,

* Not interfere in Iran's internal affairs,

* Deal with the Iranian regime on the basis of "respect and equality."

* Lifting U.S. economic sanctions,

* End to U.S. military presence in the neighboring countries of Iraq and Afghanistan

* An end to one-sided support for Israel

and a fair reparation for damages caused to the Islamic Republic from:

* The US supplied chemical weapons responsible for the death of many of the 1,000,000 Iranians that died in the Iran Iraq War

* Damage caused from the anti Iran terror group the MKO.

* Release of frozen Iranian assets in the United States

* The shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by a US missile destroyer.

* US UAV overflights of Iranian air space

* An apology for the US backed 1953 coup.

* And reparation for the damage caused by US backed western economic sanctions.

The US demands border around the Iranians to stop trying to build WMD's, stop being a threat to its neighboring Arab countries (as if the US isn't a threat to world security and peace), to stop threatening to "wipe Israel off the map" (that lie is just getting old!) and to stop sponsoring terrorist organizations.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that one, I think they are referring to Hezbollah, the organization Iran set up in Lebanon in 1982 because Israel was invading their country, when people defend their country against aggressive foreign invaders the politically correct term is freedom fighters!

Obama's role in diplomacy isn't singing 'Bomb Iran' but rather talking without addressing any of the points Iran wants to and further wasting their time and slowing down any hope of good US Iranian relations.

Maybe a good role of diplomacy would be to, start talking about what they want!

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Friday, July 3, 2009

21 years on: Iran Air Flight 655



This day (July 3rd 2009) twenty one years ago the American missile destroyer the USS Vincennes fired a missile murdering all 290 passengers on the Airbus A300, the captain later testified stating he had thought it was an Iranian F-14A going in to attack him.

Unless the F-14 was going to perform a kamikaze reminiscent to the war in the Pacific against Japan there was no way it could have caused any harm to the Vincennes, the model of F-14's given to Iran (under the Shah) were the A models not capable of engaging ground targets, it wouldn't have been able to carry say an Exocet ship missile like the one fired from an Iraqi Dassault Mirage F-1 (Iraq at the time working with the United States) which crippled the USS Stark the year before.



So what is really was was a horrible act of terror, an act of piracy, as a flotilla of Iranian boats went into the Gulf in the following days to retrieve the bodies the crew of the Vincennes were given medals for extraordinary achievements!

George HW. Bush then Vice President said this and I quote:

"I'll never apologize for the United States of America. Ever, I don't care what the facts are."

We know you don't George:

And what compensation did the families of the victims who ended up in a watery grave in the Persian Gulf get, well $61.8 million nearly ten years after the actual event, and to this day 21 years later the US still hasn't taken responsibility nor apologized for the tragedy they caused.

I'm sure if President Obama's diplomacy approach to Iran was worth a damn he would at least apologize and admit that they were in the wrong!

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