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Worst of the Worst -- The Axis of Evil

Which is the Worst of the Worst in the Axis of Evil?

  • Islamic Republic of Iran

    Votes: 8 17.8%
  • Republic of Iraq

    Votes: 27 60.0%
  • Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)

    Votes: 10 22.2%

  • Total voters
    45
Originally posted by IceBlaZe
But enough of criticsizing america.... I dont like it, I like USA and I owe it a lot,

Yes, you do, especially for not helping the Arabs after the Liberty incident. :p

I dont think that Iran should be in the list,

Why not? They openly support the Islamic Jihad/Hizbollah, are arming the opposition to the newly formed Afghan government, and have shipped god knows how many tons of weapons to the PA.
 
Critics question tough talk on Iran, North Korea

Barbara Slavin USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- In singling out North Korea, Iran and Iraq as an ''axis of evil,'' President Bush appears to be extending his war on terrorism to countries that are developing arms of mass destruction
Foreign policy analysts say none of those countries cited by Bush in his State of the Union address Tuesday night has been linked to recent terrorist attacks against the United States. But all three are believed to be seeking nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

Few experts disagree with Bush's description of Iraq's regime as ''evil,'' but some say he erred by lumping in North Korea and Iran.

''This could create a much more difficult situation with Iran and close out options opened by the Clinton administration with North Korea,'' says Tony Cordesman, an arms expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

''The president is edging close to a new doctrine of pre-emption'' of proliferation threats, adds Lee Feinstein, an arms control expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ''I agree you don't have to wait to be hit to take action. But these are three very different countries here.''

Bush said Iran, Iraq or North Korea might arm terrorists, attack U.S. allies or attempt to ''blackmail'' the United States. All three countries rejected those charges.

A State Department official said Wednesday that the administration is still seeking talks with North Korea and Iran. He said Bush's remarks were meant to increase pressure on them to abandon weapons programs and -- in North Korea's case -- permit full inspection of its nuclear facilities. But critics say Bush's tough rhetoric might rally Iranians against the United States and encourage North Korea to refuse to talk.

All three countries are on a State Department list of terrorist sponsors. But they also differ:

* Iraq. Eleven years after being driven from Kuwait, Iraq still has not complied with United Nations resolutions demanding that it disclose all its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles. No U.N. arms inspectors have been allowed in the country for three years, and there are concerns that the regime of Saddam Hussein is secretly developing nuclear weapons. In the 1980s, Saddam used chemical weapons against Iran and Iraqi Kurds.

* North Korea. The world's last Stalinist nation continues to arm itself even as 10% of its 22 million people may have died of starvation. Unlike Iraq or Iran, the regime signed an agreement with the United States in 1994 to abandon a nuclear weapons program, but some Bush administration officials are skeptical that it has kept its word. North Korea also agreed to suspend long-range missile tests, and it was negotiating an accord to halt missile exports as the Clinton administration ended.

Han Park, director of the Center for the Study of Global Issues at the University of Georgia, says Bush's remarks undercut South Korean President Kim Dae Jung's ''sunshine policy'' of engagement with the North before Bush visits Seoul.

* Iran. Some Iranian leaders and many ordinary citizens favor reopening ties broken two decades ago after Iran seized hostages at the U.S. Embassy. But the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, backs Palestinian and Lebanese groups that Bush also singled out as terrorists Tuesday.

Israel's seizure this month of a shipload of Iranian weapons bound for Palestinians set back chances for a U.S.-Iranian reconciliation based on a post-Sept. 11 alliance against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The administration also has been rankled by allegations that Iran allowed al-Qaeda terrorists to escape and is arming rivals of the interim Afghan government, which Washington supports.

''It's hard to understand how you can cooperate on Afghanistan and at the same time be so explosively involved in the question of the Palestinians and Israel,'' Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said Wednesday. ''You can't be occasionally a good citizen.''

Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser, said U.S. allies might reject Bush's expanded target list.

Bush didn't mention Libya, Sudan, Cuba or Syria -- the other countries on the U.S. list of terrorist sponsors. U.S. relations with the first two are improving, Cuba is not considered a threat, and some call Syria crucial for Middle East peace.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20020131/pl_usatoday/3816960




I think that what Bush is doing is terribly unintelligent, this are the kind of things that happen when you put Forrest Gump in the place of the most powerful man on earth.

Maybe iam ingenuous, but i think that at least with North Korea and Iran the USA will be able to achive more things through negotiations than weapons.

Why is cuba considered as a terroist sponsor country?
 
Originally posted by Kublai-Khan
Maybe iam ingenuous, but i think that at least ... and Iran the USA will be able to achive more things through negotiations than weapons.

Isn't it more than a little disingenuous (lieing) to claim the Forrest Gump damaged a relationship with a state that actually wants to improve its ties with us given the facts as they stand now?
 
Originally posted by Maj
Eeny meeny miney moe catch a tiger by the toe if he hollers let him go, eeny meeny miney moe ... my mother says to choose this one.

Iran

^- American foreign policy doctrine :)

Sounds like Maj has an inside source to the Bush Whitehouse. :D

I think, given the obvious momentum in Iran toward normalizing relations in the US, we would have to be fools to get involved. That was the point of my last post. Why screw that up if they're the most Pro-American populace in the region.

We should actually come out not anti-Iran, grouping them with the rest of the 'Axis'.....which is a joke of a term by the way....but with a positive attitude toward their efforts toward moderation.

Of course, the conservatives could win out there over the liberals, in which case they do belong with the rest. We just don't know yet. Let them sort it out, and we can react then.

BTW, don't you conservatives feel funny rooting for moderates? Doesn't it seem obvious that what's best for Iran, overall, is for the moderates to have the power there? Gee, maybe if moderates were in charge everywhere, we wouldn't have ANY of these probs now.

Seems a little...no a lot...very, very hypocritical to me.
 
BTW, don't you conservatives feel funny rooting for moderates? Doesn't it seem obvious that what's best for Iran, overall, is for the moderates to have the power there? Gee, maybe if moderates were in charge everywhere, we wouldn't have ANY of these probs now.

Seems a little...no a lot...very, very hypocritical to me.

Come on Voodoo, you know those terms are relative. One nation's conservative would be another nation's extremist revolutionary. It is unsound to make comparisons between different nation's conservatives, liberals, and moderates.
 
I wanted to vote in this poll, but there was no entry for "Republican Party".

Seriously though, and maybe a topic for another thread... how many people think that Ariel Sharon is a bigger threat to Mideast stability than Yasser Arafat?

Twenty years ago, Sharon was the Isaraeli defense minister who swore never, ever, ever to recognize Palestinean sovereignty, who would act insulted if anyone so much as suggested that Palestineans had a right to their own state, and who came very close to suggesting an "ethnic cleansing" to remove all of the Palestineans from Israel.

I remember thinking "This guy has got to be the biggest a**hole in the Middle East." And that was back in 1981.

Every time Israel had an election since then, I hoped that Sharon would retire, or choke on an orange, or have a revelation from God that would turn him into a decent human being. When he was elected Prime Minister, I knew that, one way or another, Israeli/Palestinean peace was doomed. And how right that has turned out to be.

I'm not defending Arafat or Palestinean terrorism, just suggesting that some of the blame for Mideast tensions belongs on another head.
 
Originally posted by DinoDoc


Isn't it more than a little disingenuous (lieing) to claim the Forrest Gump damaged a relationship with a state that actually wants to improve its ties with us given the facts as they stand now?

Oh excuse me,
i forgot that the facts as they stand now
justifies all the actions of the american government :rolleyes:
 
Originally posted by Jimcat
I wanted to vote in this poll, but there was no entry for "Republican Party".

Seriously though, and maybe a topic for another thread... how many people think that Ariel Sharon is a bigger threat to Mideast stability than Yasser Arafat?

Twenty years ago, Sharon was the Isaraeli defense minister who swore never, ever, ever to recognize Palestinean sovereignty, who would act insulted if anyone so much as suggested that Palestineans had a right to their own state, and who came very close to suggesting an "ethnic cleansing" to remove all of the Palestineans from Israel.

I remember thinking "This guy has got to be the biggest a**hole in the Middle East." And that was back in 1981.

Every time Israel had an election since then, I hoped that Sharon would retire, or choke on an orange, or have a revelation from God that would turn him into a decent human being. When he was elected Prime Minister, I knew that, one way or another, Israeli/Palestinean peace was doomed. And how right that has turned out to be.

I'm not defending Arafat or Palestinean terrorism, just suggesting that some of the blame for Mideast tensions belongs on another head.

Jimcat, you cant quote some opinions of our PM from 20 years ago and from that assume that he is incharge for the mess... give me examples of things sharon did wrong in the last year as a PM, dont give me fuzzy quotes of hmi from 1981...
All I know is that arafat is incharge for a terrorist organization that killed dozens of jews, all I know is that arafat wastes EU money on ships loaded with weapon for terrorism, all I know is that it is arafat who refused the peace offer Barak offered him 2-3 years ago. All I know is that it is arafat who declared the intifada, and it is arafat who doesnt try hard enough to stop arafat, it is arafat who carries speeches to his people saying that million shahids walk into jerusalem (Shahid - Suicider For Islam), all I know is that it is arafat who said he had 'No Clue' about the 'Karine A' ship full of weaponry, after hard evidence was already found with his relation to the ship. All I know it is arafats organization who carried the last 5 terror attacks on Israel (The tanzim, the militant arm of the PLO, the organization arafat is incharge of).
 
Originally posted by Kublai-Khan
i forgot that the facts as they stand now
justifies all the actions of the american government :rolleyes:

I forgot that we should pretend to be the best of friends with a country who is actively promoting terrorism in an important region. Silly me.
 
The most dangerous nation in the world is certainly the U.S.

Sums up my thoughts pretty niceley.

I forgot that we should pretend to be the best of friends with a country who is actively promoting terrorism in an important region. Silly me.

No personal offence but what is this deal with 'promoting' terrorism crap? If I looked in a dictonary I DOUBT the definition of terrorism would be: disliking America.

As for the poll I think you mean which is the worst country TOWARDS THE USA. They don't threaten me so why should I consider them dangerous, in fact they threaten a nation I have great distaste for! So I choose to abstein from voting.
 
Originally posted by ComradeDavo
No personal offence but what is this deal with 'promoting' terrorism crap? If I looked in a dictonary I DOUBT the definition of terrorism would be: disliking America.

I don't believe that I said that it was. Stop being purposefully obtuse.
 
Originally posted by IceBlaZe
The american democracy is very limited IMO. almost no governmental plurality, only democratic movement and republic movement.

Actually, I like this far more than the Israeli system of "one party for one person" (ok, it's an exageration, but Israel has a lot of parties). I think the two party arrangement is very stable, unlike in Israel where there seems to be a new election every eighteen months, and any PM's efforts are limited by the need to maintain the coalition in the Knesset.

Of course, it could be worse. It could be Italy. :)
 
Originally posted by Knowltok


Come on Voodoo, you know those terms are relative. One nation's conservative would be another nation's extremist revolutionary. It is unsound to make comparisons between different nation's conservatives, liberals, and moderates.

I think its very sound and makes sense. The fact that they are relative is my point. For one thing, all conservatives have things in common. Conservatives in the Arab world make the same arguments that conservatives in the US do. Generally speaking, of course, the fact is they are usually less tolerant and more nationalistic.

We can look at those on the other side and see that, in most of our opinions I'd think, that the moderates in Iran are right. The conservatives there would rather not give an inch, rather have religion be a larger factor in government and people's lives. The conservatives there hate our policies, ESPECIALLY our more conservative policies....right? And we dislike the arab world's conservative or nationalistic policies.....right? It just seems all so ridiculously obvious to me and its frustrating that others can't see it. Namely the conservatives here.....and there.

Of course its all relative. And I don't want to oversimplify things. I jsut feel that there are people that are predispositioned to having an open mind, and others that are not. Those that are not will fall into the conservative end of that relative spectrum...those that are fall into the more liberal end.
 
Originally posted by VoodooAce
Conservatives in the Arab world make the same arguments that conservatives in the US do.

Saddam Hussein and Mu'ammar Qaddafi were socialist leaders, actually...

But in the Arab world, there's no conservativism/liberalism -- just whether you'd rather side with the West, or the terrorists.
 
I voted for Iraq because theres no other option.Iran and NK currently are no threat to the US (although I don't think Iraq is either).

Iceblaze, I think you skipped over the very last line of Jimcat's post.

I'd agree on the liberal/conservative idea you put forward Voodoo.

From my uneducated position here in Europe it seems as if the US political system is set up so that no new parties may emerge (college electorals seats being decided by republican and democrats).

Rmsharpe see what ComradeDavo posted.

"If I looked in a dictionary I DOUBT the definition of terrorism would be: disliking AMerica"

When elections are held in the Middle East pro-US or anti-USA is not the single issue.Hussein and Qaddafi may have been socialist leaders but that is not the defining charachteristic of liberalism.Being liberal means being open to change.Hussein is not liberal.

(I'll figure out quoting one day)Moderator Action: See that little box on the far right, the red one that says quote?
Select the post whose passage you wish to quote, and click the quote box of that post, and it will appear in your reply box, and you can add your comments underneath it. ;)
AoA

Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889
 
VoodooAce seems to have the misguided view that all tyranny in the Middle East is on the part of a "conservative" group, or at least, that's how I interpreted his message.

I don't think of dictators as being either way -- it's just that in those kinds of nations, there's no such thing as real politics. You just pick a side, the side you think that will win, and do all you can to become the supreme leader.

Do you really think the Ayatollah Khomeini or would consider legislation about discounted medical treatment for senior citizens? Tony Blair would, even so would Jiang Zemin.

You just can't point out people in the world and say what their political ideologies are. Most of them, in reality, don't have any other than the fact that they want power, and will do anything in their own power to gain more.
 
Originally posted by PinkyGen


Actually, I like this far more than the Israeli system of "one party for one person" (ok, it's an exageration, but Israel has a lot of parties). I think the two party arrangement is very stable, unlike in Israel where there seems to be a new election every eighteen months, and any PM's efforts are limited by the need to maintain the coalition in the Knesset.

Of course, it could be worse. It could be Italy. :)

It is true that the american system is more stable, but that doesn't make it more democratic. one of the definitions of Democracy is Rule of the Majority but in the american election system it doesnt happen always (bush jr. did not have a majority among the american people).
I dont like the Israeli system much either but IMO it is far more democratic than the american system, the government here is the actual definition of plurality, each group, whatever their opinions are (unless they are offensive towards other groups or democracy itself) can set up a governmental party, and run for election. Every group gets the number of votes it should from the people. and we also have 2 main parties, the left and the right, but to construct a government either the left or the right must select other parties to be in their government for their government to be stable enough, and that sometimes causes unstability in the government.

Remember, I didnt say the american government is unstable, I only said its not as democratic as it could be. a dictatorship can also be very stable.
 
Originally posted by ComradeDavo


Sums up my thoughts pretty niceley.



No personal offence but what is this deal with 'promoting' terrorism crap? If I looked in a dictonary I DOUBT the definition of terrorism would be: disliking America.

As for the poll I think you mean which is the worst country TOWARDS THE USA. They don't threaten me so why should I consider them dangerous, in fact they threaten a nation I have great distaste for! So I choose to abstein from voting.

ComradeDavo, what makes the US so dangerous?
Do you think Iran is only dangerous towards the US? first of all, when you say dangerous towards the US its dangerous towards the western world. wether if you like it or not the entire economy depends on USA.
Also, 700 britons died in the WTC. remember that USA is a high populated country, and also very high touristicly, many people from many countries live/visit in USA. And I dont think iran or iraq are only dangerous towards USA. first of all, they are also dangerous towards israel, and if anything happens to israel because of them you can watch a mid-east war because this time israel will retaliate, not like in the gulf war. second of all, Iran is also dangerous towards the UK or any other western country (A: because they are western, B: because they are friends of USA, C: because Iran can supply weapons to terror organizations and they can strike anywhere for any reason).
 
All three are threats to stability.

Both Iran and Iraq are active supporters of terror, and N Korea is a repressive government determined to spread weapons of mass destruction to whomever they can.

All three are equally evil to me, and I have no use for any of them.
 
All of you have underestimated the North Korea's strenth ,they got about 1.5 million troops you know more than US 1.4 million troops.North Korea should be the most dangerous threat,by the way....

North Korea did not do anything to hurt its people or others.They have no intention to attack others by the way.South Korean describes the North Korean missiles as "Korean Missiles" because they believe the North Korean will not use it against their own people(South Korea).In any way,North Korea has their right to build Nukes or ICBM as long as they have no cruel intention like Iran or Iraq.So Bush is selfish,you have the right to build nuke but others cant?Kim Jung Il ,the communist part members and the soldiers have dream of united korea.Among the three North Korea seems to have the best atitude from meeting US secretary of state in 1999/2000 ,meeting Kim Dae Jung in 2000.They definitely trying their efforts to unite Korea.Bush is wrong to anger North Korea,North Korea is not Afghanistan,if US decided to invade it,they will risk a nuclear war and they will be probably had a lot of casualties(hundreds of thousands of lives).
I would have to say Clinton is much a better diplomat,eases tension between North Korea
 
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