Reason 1001 why its useless to negotiate with Iran

[general35]

when you are negotiating with a country that arrests its own members of government on charges of sorcery, you really are not going to be able to reason with them. This as an addition to a long list as to why dealing with these people is pointless. I'm not really sure what is going on in iran but there is a power struggle going on.

Close allies of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been accused of using supernatural powers to further his policies amid an increasingly bitter power struggle between him and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Several people said to be close to the president and his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have been arrested in recent days and charged with being "magicians" and invoking djinns (spirits).

Ayandeh, an Iranian news website, described one of the arrested men, Abbas Ghaffari, as "a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds".

The arrests come amid a growing rift between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei which has prompted several MPs to call for the president to be impeached.

The Link

 

[RomaVicta]

Non sequitur.

 

[Dionysus]

In reply to:

---

---

 

[general35]

How does this differ from GWB claiming that God chose him to be president, or any other example of the exercise of religion in the public sphere. Or do you just disagree with their version of hocus-pocus?
__________________________________________________

I would say there is a big difference between a personal note of believeing you are devinely inspired to do something and someone else claiming someone else is a socerer with magical powers and arresting them and doing terrible things to them. It would be like comparing the protestant preacher on the pulpit delivering a message vs. the salem witch trials. not quite the same thing.

 

[YoLaDu]

In reply to:

---

---

 

[Hpslugga]

In reply to:

---

---

 

[general35]

how is someone deciding whether or not to run for president "the State."

 

[Hpslugga]

Because such a person is seeking the highest office of said State. That's not a serious question.

 

[Bevo Incognito]

In reply to:

---

---

 

[Horn89]

In reply to:

---

---

 

[general35]

Because such a person is seeking the highest office of said State. That's not a serious question.
__________________________________________________

you said the State is invoking their God. A guy running for president is not the State, and, in the event he were to become president, the government is not acting on behalf of a religion, although countries in the middle east do.

 

[Hpslugga]

In reply to:

---

---

 

[general35]

Like holding them in a tiny cell for nearly a decade without charging them with a crime? Like flying them around the world to secret prisons and torturing them?

That would be barbaric and very un-American.
__________________________________________________

Let me know when Boehner locks up Harry Reid for opposing the budet cuts and charges him with sorcery and using his magical powers to convince others of his position.

 

[Horn89]

Obviously, general, I was responding to the part about "doing terrible things" to Iranians who are arrested.

You can ridicule Iran for arresting people for sorcery, but anyone who endorsed/endorses the policies of indefinite detainment and "enhanced interrogation techniques" doesn't have any moral high ground to complain about another country's human rights abuses.

If torture is wrong when Iran does it, then it's wrong when America does it.