A short recon of whatÂ’s out there that might draw your attention….

Specifically which terrorists were these found in the hands of? Iran is ideologically bound to Shi’a Islam, but al-Qaeda is entirely Sunni. There’s no way Iran would supply the terrorists who are trying to kill as many Iranian Shiites as possible.

And I don’t understand the “percentage disproves theft” argument.

First, let me apologize gaius, because after I posted on your other thread, I assumed I was too late to the party, and so asked again here. From what I can tell from your answer, you DO want to go to Iran, because they’re (in your opinion) supplying weapons to our enemies, and (in your words) Iran is already at war with us.

To answer your question, no I don’t think Iran killing Americans with no penalty is a good thing. So what? I don’t see how that question is relevant, for two reasons:

1. Because those conditions don’t, in my mind, exist yet. Rail on me all you want, but I seek more proof than anonymous government officials making assertions about the links between the weapons on the ground and the Iranian government. I want to see the direct evidence, I want to have many, many experts reviewing the evidence, and I want to have a grand and open discussion about how serious this evidence is. Call me crazy, but I would like a much freer and more open debate about war with Iran than we had about war with Iraq. It was a mistake to ignore/stifle/marginalize dissent and doubt prior to the Iraq War, and I think it would be a mistake to do it again in Iran.

2. Just because there is reason to go to war, does not necessarily mean we should go to war. If nations automatically attacked other nations that supplied weapons to their enemies, we would have been in several nuclear holocausts by now. The USSR supplied weapons to North VietNam, China supplied weapons (and troops!) in Korea, we supplied weapons to the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, but we didn’t immediately push the button and start more wars, did we? Perhaps you think it was a mistake not to start a “hot” war with the Soviet Union or China, or vice versa, but I don’t. Peace is, inherently, better than war, and sometimes peace comes at a price.

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More generally, this is one of the consequences of going to war and occupying a foreign country- other nations will indirectly supply the resistance. It happened in VietNam, Korea, Afghanistan, and it’s (probably) happening in Iraq. It’s just an inevitable price that we absorb when we occupy another country.

Other nations can and will do this because they know the occupying army cannot adequately respond, due to being tied down in the occupation. That’s reality, and that’s something we should have realized before we went in and invaded Iraq in the first place.

Having other nations supply our enemies is an inevitable cost of war and occupation, and what everyone must decide is, is this offense worth war? It wasn’t worth war in Korea- gaius, are you saying that General MacArthur was right, President Truman was wrong, and we should have opened a wider, bloodier war with China back in the ’50s?

Is it worth it to go to war with an even more formidable country, with a bigger military, population, land mass than Iraq, while we’re still trying to stabilize Iraq, all because of 100 sniper rifles and however many IEDs?

If the answer is yes, then the next question is, what are the objectives?

Austria freely admits selling the hardware, and freely admits to the number of weapons involved. You want copies of the PO? Bring it up with the EU; I’m certain they have it filed in triplicate.

These are facts, as are the serial numbers of the weapons in question, that no one on either side has yet to refute.

Put your “neocon” crap in your back pocket for a moment, and riddle me this: if your next-door neighbor was allowing folks to climb over your fence and ransack your house, would you “nuke” your neighbor?

Or would you shoot his dogs and say, “Master’s going down next if this crap don’t stop.”

Terrorists have been captured in Iraq using sniper rifles that were originally manufactured in Austria. That isn’t the juicy part. The juicy part is that the weapon was part of a larger shipment of sniper rifles sent to Iran in an official shipment t….

1) where does the number 800 rifles come from…state the source…was it the manufacturer.

2) If the manufacturer states the Iranian Givernment … show me the purchase order and shipping details.

3) Show me the serial numbers and match them to the captured rifles.

4) Show me the reports assigned to the captured rifles.

If we are going to commit to a war – whoch we cannot win by the way with nukes.. then we should have the full proof that the Iranian governement is suppling weapons and logistical support.

Why? You ask.

Well…Because we all have emotional responses to our troops being killed and on the other hand we have heard this stuff before. We should ask these questions and get the valid answers.

Also think about the logistics of fighting a war against a counrty on its territory from a war zone itself with a 10 to 1 disavantage. We cannot win even if nukes are used and then we would probably start WWIII. I just can’t wait for the rapture so all 144,000 (est.) of us can be saved… the rest be damned.

It’s basically insanity. We didn’t attack the USSR even when they were supplying North Vietnam and we didn’t start with China in Korea until they felt threatened by our advance to their border and jumped in. Should we have Nuked them like MacArthur wanted to….nuts. Somethings are just unattainable and the current neocons didn’t think things through. Unless…. just maybe they have a completely different agenda than what is good for us… mmmm.

Question for you: Do you think letting Iran kill Americans with no penalty is a good thing? Let’s get you on the record since you seem desperate to get me to commit to something.

That’s a yes or no answer, incidentally.

For the record, I don’t. I don’t believe we can afford to wage a third war, and this one with a much more powerful army, much larger civilian population, and much larger landmass than Iraq. We’re in enough trouble as it is.

Also, just because anonymous government officials kinda sorta hint that Iran is directly supplying Iraqi insurgents with weapons, doesn’t make it so. That’s how we ended up in Iraq with no WMDs. I seek more proof than what I see here. But before we debate that, we must all discuss whether we really want to go to war with Iran or not.

I know the nutroots and the liberals in Washington are loathe to contemplate it, but when you have reports like this coming out, it’s hard for any rational person to see any other way around milita…

……

Are you truly that damn dense? Or has the BDS so scrambled your marbles that you just automatically have to try to defend anyone who seems to stand up the the current President of the United States?

45 days after they arrived in Iran, one was used to kill an American soldier in Iraq. 100 or so more have turned up so far.

The weapons were specifically purchased by the Iranian government, supposedly for drug enforcement.

Couldn’t they have been resold? And they could’ve been stolen, smuggled, diverted, etal.

I hereby declare my own f’d-up NEUTRALITY by swearing never to buy another can/bottle of Red Bull Energy Drink. Furthermore, I will be informing all local merchants of the drink of its provenance and what that implies to the United States and allied troops. Moreover, a letter to the editor of the local newspaper is all but written.

LIST OF AUSTRIAN COMPANIES (RED BULL INCLUDED)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Austrian_companies

RED BULL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull

Right… because everyone knows you gotta take out Majid selling dope on the corner with high ordinance fired from at least one hundred yards out….

It’s the only way to be sure!