Anyone else think attacking Iran will start World War 3, & a dictatorship?

[converted_democrat]

China has much to lose if Iran is attacked.. I don't think China will just sat on the sidelines and twiddle their thumbs. I think they will view it as a direct attack on their economic well being, and retaliate. We will have WW3 on our hands in no time. Bush will then claim that since Roosevelt ran for a third term during WW2, he will do the same. We will then be sitting in a dictatorship, and war without end. (I think he will then keep the war going to maintain his power.) Just the way I see it going.. Anyone else care to share their view? I could be way off, and if I am tell me.. I don't want to be right about this.

[Trevelyan]

1. I hope you are wrong and that there are some sane people in Bilderberg

the ones who really run things. I read that they were opposed to the continuing of the Iraqi mess and an attack on Iran - the majority not the PNACers and the petitions you sign, the messageboard postings, emails and letters to Congress and the newspapers, I believe, influence the earthly powers that be including Bilderbergers, Congress, CIA, Joint Chiefs of Staff, media, etc.


Stop Alito petition:

http://www.savethecourt.org/site/c.mwK0JbNTJrF/b.1142525/k.3576/Stop_Alito/apps/ka/ct/contactcustom.asp?auid=1198339

[LSK]

2. see this Will Pitt article:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010906I.shtml#

[converted_democrat]

6. I'm going to go read it right now..n/t

[C_U_L8R]

3. 5 years ago...

I'd have said that's a looney idea.
But today.... it certainly seems possible...mayebe even likely.
It's the madness that "king" george has inflicted upon our once great nation.

[ComerPerro]

4. BushCo isn't certain of that, yet

otherwise, we would already have attacked Iran...

[European Socialist]

5. the end of the world as we know it--extremely foolish!!

[The Magistrate]

7. None Of That Will Happen, Ma'am

China has nothing in particular to lose of Iran is attacked. Such an action would wobble oil supplies world-wide, and impose higher prices all around, but that it all. Chinese economic action against he U.S. is quite possible whatever is done or not done in Iran, and would not be of the nature that could lead to war, particularly war against a nuclear-armed great power, as Cgina must today be ranked. When Presideent Roosevelt ran for a third,a nd a fourth term, there was no bar against it, save one of tradition: now there is a Constitutional limitation.

[converted_democrat]

12. Well, Bush&Co seem to embrace Martial Law, especially if we are

"attacked" again.. Wouldn't that suspend the Constitutional limitation?

[The Magistrate]

13. What Makes You Think That, Ma'am?

Martial law does not supercede the Constitution.

[converted_democrat]

19. Sorry, mixed up my terminology ... I meant Executive Order In Time Of

War.. (I'm new at this) If we do go after Iran wouldn't this most likely come into play? The President has the power to suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in a real or perceived emergency. Right?

[The Magistrate]

20. No, Ma'am, A President Does Not

And it is unlikely the armed forces, the police, or the courts would obey any such directive.

[converted_democrat]

So, what was it called when Lincoln did it? n/t

[converted_democrat]

25. My computer is acting up..n/t

[endarkenment]

26. Actually the Bush Regime

asserts that under the constitutions normal authority it has the right to do anything it wants. It seems to think it has discovered this vast loophole that allows the administration to act above and beyond both law and constitution by simply asserting that it does so to protect the nation. This theory does not require something as quaint as a declaration of martial law, or even a declaration of war, and is being used to assert the right to, for example, ignore both the 4th amendment and existing legislation while engaged in wholesale snooping on americans.

[The Magistrate]

31. It Is True They Have Asserted It, Sir

But they do not have it. As the old riddle runs: How many legs has a dog, if you call a tail a leg? Four: calling a tail a leg don't make it so."

[endarkenment]

32. Yes indeed.

But until their assertion is put to the test and fails, that is until one of the other institutions objects and that objection triumphs, the assertion of dictatorial powers by the administration is effective. What is amazing to me is that this has actually happened: the regime has in fact 'crossed the rubicon' and we are all sitting here carrying on as if it is just another normal day. I suppose the same was true back in Rome. Julius marches the 13th across the stream, and aside from a few hotheads griping in the forum, it was business as usual.

[The Magistrate]

34. The Difference, Sir

Is that Caeser was successful and, by the standards of his day and place, progressive....

[sabbat hunter]

38. under lincoln

he suspended the writ of habeus corpus. something that was found unconstitutional afterwards.

[converted_democrat]

24. Dupe..

[converted_democrat]

28. What was it called when these things happened?

President Abraham Lincoln suspended many fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He closed down newspapers opposed to his war-time policies and imprisoned what many historians now call political prisoners. He suspended the right of trial and the right to be confronted by accusers. Lincoln's justification for such drastic actions was the preservation of the Union above all things. After the war and Lincoln's death, Constitutional law was restored.

In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson could not persuade Congress to arm United States vessels plying hostile German waters before the United States entered World War One. When Congress balked, Wilson invoked the policy through a Presidential Executive Order.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 9066 in December 1941. His order forced 100,000 Japanese residents in the United States to be rounded up and placed in concentration camps. The property of the Japanese was confiscated. Both Lincoln's and Roosevelt's actions were taken during wartime, when the very life of the United States was threatened. Wilson's action was taken on the eve of the United States entering World War One. Whether history judges these actions as just, proper or legal, the decision must be left to time. The dire life struggle associated with these actions provided plausible argumentation favoring their implementation during a time when hysteria ruled an age.

http://www.sonic.net/sentinel/gvcon5.html

I'm really interested in this stuff, I just don't know much about it. If you could explain it to me like a 3 year old, I'd be really happy. What was it called when they took these actions, and why was it allowed to happen, if indeed the President can not suspend the Constitution, or if they were done by executive order? What was it called?

[endarkenment]

29. Lincoln was eventually slapped down by the courts

FDR and Wilson should have been.

Bush has, in the same tradition, asserted authority based on a misreading of the consitution. We will just have to see if the courts are up to the task of putting the executive back in its place.

Bush's actions are unusual in that 1) there has been no formal declaration of war; 2) Bush has made no formal proclamation declaring martial law.

Lincoln declared martial law throughout the rebellious states - however he extended his suspension of habeus corpus throughout the entire nation, which act was eventually declared unconstitutional. Wilson and FDR at least had an actual declaration of war, however in my opinion their actions were an abomination and unconstitutional.

[converted_democrat]

30. Thank you for your very thoughtful explanation.. I think I understand now.

Thank you.

[lectrobyte]

23. It's a worst case scenario.

> Martial law does not supercede the Constitution.

Yes, it do...

[Emit]

14. China has nothing to lose if Iran is attacked?

I respectfully disagree, after having read this article recently:

Beijing-Teheran-Moscow

At the end of 2004, Beijing signed a $70 billion energy agreement with Teheran, China’s largest OPEC energy deal to date. Sinopec agreed to buy 250 million tons of LNG over 30 years from Iran, as well as to develop the giant Yadavaran field. That agreement covered the comprehensive development by Chin’s state Sinopec of the giant Yadavaran gas field, construction of a related petrochemical and gas industry including pipelines. As part of the huge Iran-China economic cooperation agreement, China’s state-run military construction company, NORINCO, will expand the Teheran Metro underground.

A second phase in the Iran-China strategic energy cooperation will involve constructing a pipeline in Iran to take oil some 386 kilometers to the Caspian Sea, there to link up with the planned pipeline from China into Kazakhstan. On signing the deal, Iran’s Petroleum Minister announced that Teheran would like to see China replace Japan as Iran’s largest oil importer. As well, Iran has what are estimated to be the world’s second largest reserves of natural gas after Russia. Iran is a place of enormous strategic importance to China, to Japan, to Russia, to the European Union, and for all these reasons, to Washington as well.

Iran supplies about 14% of China’s oil. Along with Russia, China has been involved since the late 1990’s in supplying nuclear technology to Teheran. In 1997 Beijing, under Washington pressure, nominally agreed to stop nuclear-related shipments to Iran, but the flows are believed continuing as the Iran relation is strategic and critical to China energy security. China, a veto member of the UN Security Council has repeatedly called for the issue of Iranian nuclear development to be dealt with by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA’s chief, Nobel Peace Prize awardee, Mohamed ElBaradei, has earned the enmity of Washington war hawks for his open declarations of lack of evidence in both Iraq and now, of Iranian atomic bomb capability.

Given the nature of the Bush Administration’s rush to war in Iraq in 2003, where China had a major stake in oil development, and the subsequent US blocking of other Chinese attempts at securing energy independence including Unocal, it is not surprising that Beijing is taking extraordinary measures to secure its long-term oil and gas supply. Energy is the Achilles Heel of China’s economic growth. Beijing knows that only too well. So does Washington. A decision by Washington to take military action against Iran now would pull a far larger cast of actors into the fray than Iraq.

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/2006/0103c.html

[The Magistrate]

15. In The Oil Markets, Ma'am

Seventy billions is not a lot of money. The originating point of oil is not meaningful in the oil market: the stuff is swapped about endlessly, and is always available to concerns capable of paying for it. An attack on Iran would reduce overall supply, and drive up all proces, but would not greatly affect any particular consumer especially. China has, owing to its peculiar economic and political structure, courses available to it that would be more difficult for a pure market economy to take. Drive the price high enough, they will simply turn to cracking coal to oil, an old and established technology. China would certainly be displeased by an attack on Iran, and unhappy should the place become a U.S. dominion, but that is far short of war, and the latter outcome most improbable in any case.

[Emit]

27. It's hard to second-guess what China would do

Or, for that matter, what Russia and other European countries (Spain, Italy, etc.) that have oil contracts with Iran would do if Bush & Co. attacked Iran.

BTW, other reports I've read say that was a 25 year-$100 billion contract (which could ultimately increase to $200 billion), one of China's biggest overseas investments, which represents a pretty significant connection between the two.

I hope your calmly optimistic assessment is correct. Unfortunately, it does little to appease my concerns, however.

"How great powers behave is not predetermined." Zbigniew Brzezinski, "Clash of the Titans" on discussing China and US relations

With the maniac we have in the White House, and their overly aggressive foreign policy sorely lacking in diplomacy, I'm not placing any bets on what China et al would do if their geopolitical status is threatened by what they might view as a "rogue superpower."

[sabbat hunter]

8. only way that could happen

is if * suspends the constitution, since he is prohibited rom running for a 3rd term.

also china has a bit of a vested interest in the US as well with all those bonds that it owns.

additionally the beijing olympics are only 2 years off. they despritely want those to go off without any problems. a world war would stop that in a heart beat.

[shoelace414]

9. We wern't offically involved with WW2 when Rooselvelt was elected the 3rd

time

[endarkenment]

10. The Bush regime has already asserted dictatorial powers.

our local pravda keeps pretending this didn't happen, but it did, concurrent with the release of the news that they were monitoring all of our electronic communications, they let it be known that they were doing so under their interesting legal theory that they can do anything they want to do. That would be a dictatorship.

Ah but they are elected, so they are not a dictatorship, right? Well, that is a very good question, what is good about that question is however the first clause: 'but they are elected'. If some of us here are correct, 'they' are not elected, 'they' are holding office through fraud and manipulation of the election system. So they have asserted their authority to act above the law and they are making sure that while we continue to 'hold elections' the chance of regime change is acceptibly low.

[PDJane]

11. I hate being a minority........

But I'm going to say yes.

[demgurl]

16. China can topple us without rasing a gun.

Here is what I predict would happen. China has a lot of investments in the US. As a matter of fact, we would not be able to afford the illegal occupation of Iraq without such investments.

It has always been US policy not to sell off more than a certain percentage of investments in this country. The reason for this is that it is not wise to be indebted to another nation. They could own us,or even worse, bring us down.

If we threaten China in any way shape or form, all they have to do is call in all of their markers and that would be more than enough to topple our entire nation and bring all of the citizens down with it. There does not have to be one gun raised or one drop of blood shed in order to bring 'this great nation' down.

This is what happens when you think you are above everyone else and make up your own rules as you go along. There are reasons rules, laws and guidelines have been in place all these years. There are reasons to respect them.

[endarkenment]

21. That sword cuts both ways.

For the moment China can't wreck our economy without wrecking theirs as well. For the moment, calling in their markers would wreck the value of their capital reserves, which consist mostly of our T-bills. A collapse in US consumer purchase power would shut down their factories - putting them in a seriously bad situation.

China is however slowly moving toward a more balanced holding of Euros and Dollars, and that could make them less dependent on our idiotic spending spree.

[Deja Q]

17. An economy given to them by us. The US.

I doubt they would respond.

And if they did, what can you or I do about it.

Like I keep saying, enjoy life while ya can.

[rpgamerd00d]

18. If we attacked Iran, China would not oppose us, they'd "join" us

And take it over themselves.

I mean.... why not? Not like we could stop them if they did.

[robertpaulsen]

22. WW3, maybe. Dictatorship, we've already got.

Take a look around. This sure ain't democracy.

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Rex]

35. Yup

Some people don't realize that the BFEE really wants a larger regional war for profit scenario.

[jazzjunkysue]

36. I believe. They want war. Period.

[La_Fourmi_Rouge]

37. George the Lesser himself claims this is so!

China can accomplish its agenda on the downlow - using surrogates and influence. We Americans often (if not always) misunderestimate the other players at the table.

By claiming the divinely inspired and constitutionally mandated plenary power of the President as commander in Chief, the little punk has arrogated ALL the power to make and interpret law unto his own self, free to dismiss any and all hindrances by fiat.

Therefore, the answers to your questions are: No, and Yes. Emphatically!

[kestrel91316]

39. LOL, we already HAVE a defacto dictatorship. n/t