Graham: We're Walking a Road to Armageddon

(CBS)  Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he definitively believes that Iran has the intention of building nuclear weapons, evident in their covert uranium enrichment facility announced Friday.

"Absolutely I believe they are," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday. "I believe the Holocaust existed. I've got one rule of thumb: If the president of a country denies the Holocaust, you should believe the worst, not the best, about what they're doing.

"They're hiding nuclear programs for a purpose. They're trying to develop a nuclear weapon," he told CBS News' Harry Smith.

"If they are successful, the Sunni-Arab states in a region will want a nuclear weapon. Israel becomes at risk. We're walking down the road to Armageddon. We have about 18 months using the international community to decisively act," he warned.

He argued that the international community can no longer offer "half-measures" to deal with rogue nations. China, he said, needs to join with Russia to enforce further sanctions against Iran.

Graham said he would consider military action as "the last resort when all meaningful sanctions fail."

He also pointed to U.S. and NATO activities in fighting Taliban militants as demonstrative.

"What we do in Afghanistan will affect the ability of Iran to get the message. This regime needs to be delivered a message that the international community is deadly serious about stopping their nuclear program.

"[T]he worst thing that could happen to this country in my view is for Iran to get a nuclear weapon because that changes everything in the Mideast for the worst," he explained.

Smith asked the senator whether President Obama should give General Stanley McChrystal the additional 40,000 troops he has asked for in Afghanistan.

"Yes," Graham replied. "I would give the general the resources he needs to regain lost momentum. ... You can't have a second shot at governance until you get the security situation right. This counterinsurgency strategy of General McChrystal's has been well thought out. I hope the president will give him the troops he says he needs."

After having made several trips to Afghanistan, the senator concluded that the situation there is deteriorating and that more combat power is needed "to take fight back to Taliban. Taliban have reemerged. Sixty-eight thousand troops can't turn Afghanistan around without some help. Hope they get help they need."

When asked to predict what would be the outcome if President Obama does not give Gen. McChrystal the 40,000 additional troops he requested, Graham said, "We're going to lose. We'll be driven out. The Taliban will come back stronger than they were before, [and] the moderates in Afghanistan will go back in hiding or get killed. NATO will be seen as a failure, and America will go it alone in the future.

"We can't let NATO fail in Afghanistan," he said. "This is NATO's fight, just not America's fight. The Taliban have come back for a reason. But the good news is that Afghan people don't want them back. With additional military power we can defeat them.

"We have to do what Secretary Clinton said [earlier on the program]: Push the Karzai government or the next government to do better. But until you get the military situation right, you'll never get better governance."

He also said failing in Afghanistan would bode ill for fighting militants in neighboring Pakistan.

[myst_man]

Says:
October 9th, 2009 at 9:43 am

Big Brother

The most common sense of Orwellian is that of the all-controlling ?Big Brother? state, used to negatively describe a situation in which a Big Brother authority figure ? in concert with ?thought police? ? constantly monitors the population to detect betrayal via ?improper? thoughts. Orwellian also describes oppressive political ideas and the use of euphemistic political language in public discourse to camouflage morally outrageous ideas and actions. In this latter sense, the term is often used as a means of attacking an opponent in political debate, by branding his or her policies as Orwellian. When used like this in political rhetoric if it is not sincere, it is interesting to note as it can be a case of a hypocritical Orwellian strategist denouncing Orwellian strategies.
Isent how our country acts we must change please or we are what it says above in every way. we must end this war and also the war on drugs it's costed us our freedom and angered The Son of god Allah deity The One true God

[MARYWILMA]

WE NEED TO GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE,, THOSE PEOPLE WERE BORN FIGHTING AND ARE PERFECTLY WILLING TO DIE FIGHTING.. I WAS IN PAKISTAN ALONG TIME AGO ON A MISSION TO GIVE THEM SOME OUTDATED CARGO PLANES.. EVEN THEN WE WERE TOLD
TO STAY AWAY FROM THE BORDER """THOSE PEOPLE WILL KILL YOU FOR YOUR BOOTS"""
WE JUST LOST 8 FINE AMERICAN TROOPS .. FOR WHAT ????? I WOULD NOT TRADE ONE ACRE OF THE USA FOR ALL OF THE MID EAST

[REMNANT0820]

One of the things you have to understand is that christian conservatives only back Israel because they think that the bible tells them too.
THEY WILL REALLY FALL APART IF war breaks out, because their theology is based on a false premise.
God created the Nation of Israel a long time ago and it will always survive ..
IT cannot be destroyed ..
WHY?
Simple ... JESUS became Corporate Israel when HE accepted what the Father ask HIM to do on earth. (Israel My First Born Son)
ISRAEL WILL LIVE FOREVER ...GOD doesn't depend on man to bring HIS plan into fruition. GOD-MAN will take care of it ..
BUT ====
The nation there now, has the right to exist just like we do ..we (america) took land from a people who lived here FIRST, but no one wants us to move and give it back ...All nations are occupiers so to speak, because all have conquered someone.

[Escapee1]

Israel, you are clear to launch full out air assault, I repeat, you are clear to launch full out air assault. Unleash the wrath of Hell on these idiots!

[noloyalisti]

Lindsay Graham, the right wing wacko is FOR Armageddon. Talk about bait and switch, the entire religious extremist Republican party, is all about End Times Prophecy. Why else would they have turned into Neo Cons and listen to the conservatives who run the government and the country.

[gregbirddizelec]

I long ago gave up on the hope humans would ever stop mass-murdering each other through their governments' armed forces. It is just impossible to successfully ban violence, either by nations or groups or individuals. It now seems impossible to ban even the one weapon that will probably cause the extinction of all humans, the atomic bomb.

But perhaps a second best option, along the lines of the thinking of the National Rifle Association, will help to lesson state authorized killings of the future. If every single nation on the planet has as many a-bombs as they can get or want, the chances of wars of aggression, to steal other nations' oil, for example, would be less likely. The US seemed to be less willing to attack North Korea, because it could have unleashed an atomic bomb response of some sort, and tacitly admitted it was acting to prevent Iraq from gaining a "smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud." Unless a nation is suicidal, it will be deterred from launching a military attack upon any other nation, because that nation will respond in kind.

The US support of dictatorships makes nuclear war more likely, since only one deranged man, like one given a "war powers act" capability, could bring about his own vision of "what God told me to do," starting ****-sapian's last great act of self-immolation.

[noloyalisti]

Man are we a primitive, warlike species. Maybe we should arm everyone including elementary school kids to keep everyone polite. In fact, teach personal deterrence and politeness starting in nursery school. We can also do the Republican dream of having everyone (but them) make a career in the military and have endless war like in Orwell's 1984.

[dragon8me]

Unfortunately, the geni's out of the bottle. Once scientist figured out how to make it, it was just a matter of time before others had them. No matter what, even if Isreal bombed them, it wouldn't change the fact that they have the technology. It might sound laim but the only to deal with it is to sit down and talk. If the nations of the world can't get rogue nations to work with them, theres not much anyone can do except start a war that will consume the whole world. No sane person wants that. But even a leader like North Korea's knows that if he uses his, it would be suicide. It's the religious freeks who think they will go to heaven if they kill themselves in the name of a god that are dangerous.
What the UN is doing to try and get rid of nuke is a noble thing but not realistic. Theres not easy answer. I do know I wouldn't want to be president today.

[freddyfrugag]

I am a leftist. I voted for Obama. I support him 100%.

I feel that Graham is one of the biggest idiot senators we have right now.

However, I completely agree with what he said in this article. I can't believe I'm saying it. He's absolutely right about Iran and Afghanistan. We must be quick and decisive, or we will regret it for decades.

[jjreding-2009]

sjc - since you brought up 'Atoms for Peace' were you aware that it was THE US that built the first nuke plants in both Pakistan and, yes, Iran?

And ag - um, it was people who wrote the Bible, not 'god'. And the people that wrote it stole much of their 'information' and many of their stories from a much older source. The Sumerians wrote a lot of what the Bible claims to be the 'word of god' thousands of years before the Bible was ever thought of. Go do some research and you'll see that the Creation story follows the legend of Gilgamesh almost to the letter, and it goes at least through the great flood.

[REMNANT0820]

But ' THE GOD' predates Gilgamesh !(which is a story about a flood)
Moses pre-dates THE story of Gilgamesh.
Moses wrote the first flood account ...included in THE FIRST 5 BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, which moses wrote.
Yes the sumerians wrote things down, but the earliest records were 'oral traditions' handed down by tribes. so if they were sinful men they worshippeed other gods ...instead of THE GOD!
SUMERIANS were decendents of either ADAM AND EVE AND SETH ...
OR CAIN (the banished one).
Mankind has always been trying to ursurp GOD and HIS PLAN ..
Wait until you see how it all unfolds ..YOU and other unbeleivers will be "shock and awed"!

[ag1999]

This is nothing new.... if any of you have read the bible. Its been predicted for years and it will happen. The question we have to ask ourselves is when..... God wrote this play a long time ago and we are just actors in the grand scheme of things. Iran will attack and we will head to Armageddon. We don't need to pray for our Country, we need to pray for ourselves and make sure we are right with God.