my thoughts on FET

I will admit, the flat Earth model is well thought out and works to explain a lot of phenomenon.  I often read new topics where points are raised, and I know and understand the inevitable counter points.  However, FET breaks down for me on 3 points.

1.  We've created a lot of accurate maps using RET.  We've created globes that accurately represent distances between two points.  With FET, I've seen two completely different world maps, that disagree on the placement and shape of Antarctica(and a few other things).  This might have flown in the 18th century, but it doesn't anymore.  We can't just make up the size and location of Antarctica.  People have been there and created accurate maps.  We've created accurate maps of other countries too that are horribly distorted by FET maps. 

2.  There really isn't any evidence to suggest a flat Earth.  We can sit around all day making up crazy theories about the nature of the world, but if they aren't supported by evidence, there's no reason to pursue them.   The experiments performed by Parallax in the 19th century that "prove" that the Earth is flat can be easily dismissed by light refraction caused by the heat.  When the same experiment are also used to say the Earth is concave, you need some new experiments. 

3.  But the main thing that breaks it down for me is the conspiracy.  The organization, cost, and security necessary to keep thousands of people and companies silent is staggering.  I've read the FAQ that explains the cost issue, but it doesn't address all of the companies that use satellites in their day to day operations that would have figured out something was up when they couldn't get their satellites into orbit.  But besides that, it requires too many enemy countries to work together.  We would have had to make a pact with Russia during the Cold War.  I just can't believe that that many people would be able to keep quiet about it.  It's completely unrealistic. 

I will admit, the flat Earth model is well thought out and works to explain a lot of phenomenon.  I often read new topics where points are raised, and I know and understand the inevitable counter points.  However, FET breaks down for me on 3 points.

1.  We've created a lot of accurate maps using RET.  We've created globes that accurately represent distances between two points.  With FET, I've seen two completely different world maps, that disagree on the placement and shape of Antarctica(and a few other things).  This might have flown in the 18th century, but it doesn't anymore.  We can't just make up the size and location of Antarctica.  People have been there and created accurate maps.  We've created accurate maps of other countries too that are horribly distorted by FET maps. 

2.  There really isn't any evidence to suggest a flat Earth.  We can sit around all day making up crazy theories about the nature of the world, but if they aren't supported by evidence, there's no reason to pursue them.   The experiments performed by Parallax in the 19th century that "prove" that the Earth is flat can be easily dismissed by light refraction caused by the heat.  When the same experiment are also used to say the Earth is concave, you need some new experiments. 

3.  But the main thing that breaks it down for me is the conspiracy.  The organization, cost, and security necessary to keep thousands of people and companies silent is staggering.  I've read the FAQ that explains the cost issue, but it doesn't address all of the companies that use satellites in their day to day operations that would have figured out something was up when they couldn't get their satellites into orbit.  But besides that, it requires too many enemy countries to work together.  We would have had to make a pact with Russia during the Cold War.  I just can't believe that that many people would be able to keep quiet about it.  It's completely unrealistic. 

You make some great points, but I question the underlying fundamentals of physics as well.  If you take into account radical ideas that light bends, and space time is not uniform, then you can come to any number of possibilities.
As far as the US making pacts with Russia during the cold war, what makes you think we didn't.  Both sides agreed not to use nuclear weapons against each other, and seemingly decided not to physically confront each other as this might lead to nuclear war.
If you take into account that the spoils of WW2 were basically divided by the 5 Permanent UN Security Council members, and the fact that Nuclear weapons may be completely fake, it stands to reason that the enemy is not really the enemy.
The key here is to question every single thing you've ever been taught about the politics of the world, and the science that supports those policies.

If we questioned every single thingb, we'd go mad.

Russia and America did not agree not to Nuc each other at all. Look at the Cuban Missile crisis - hardly the act of two nations working together is it? Or the involvement of the CIA in Russian backed civil wars, the arms trade and arms aid through the 70s and 80s by BOTH sides as a covert way of fighting each other. The arms race was about stalemate. America and Russia both worked on the principle of Mutually Assured Destruction but there was never any covert agreement of co-operation, not in any form. They went to war elsewhere.

I've read enough about relativity to know about how space and light bend, but I also know that those effects are negligible on earth( well, bending space causes gravity, but newtons equations are sufficient to describe gravity on earth)

and not to reiterate a point, but the guy above me is right.  The lack of nuking in the cold war was out of fear.  One can't nuke the other without the other launching nukes and destroying everything.  Dr.  Strangelove addresses this point

If we questioned every single thingb, we'd go mad.

Russia and America did not agree not to Nuc each other at all. Look at the Cuban Missile crisis - hardly the act of two nations working together is it? Or the involvement of the CIA in Russian backed civil wars, the arms trade and arms aid through the 70s and 80s by BOTH sides as a covert way of fighting each other. The arms race was about stalemate. America and Russia both worked on the principle of Mutually Assured Destruction but there was never any covert agreement of co-operation, not in any form. They went to war elsewhere.

I'm sure fear is why they came to the agreement, but there were agreements during the cold war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_%281962%E2%80%931979%29#Significant_documents

Putting missiles in Cuba?  Benefits both the US and USSR by means of scaring the entire world that nuclear war is imminent.
Song and dance, song and dance.

Quote from: EarthISroundISproven on March 31, 2010, 08:13:54 PM

If we questioned every single thingb, we'd go mad.

Russia and America did not agree not to Nuc each other at all. Look at the Cuban Missile crisis - hardly the act of two nations working together is it? Or the involvement of the CIA in Russian backed civil wars, the arms trade and arms aid through the 70s and 80s by BOTH sides as a covert way of fighting each other. The arms race was about stalemate. America and Russia both worked on the principle of Mutually Assured Destruction but there was never any covert agreement of co-operation, not in any form. They went to war elsewhere.

I'm sure fear is why they came to the agreement, but there were agreements during the cold war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_%281962%E2%80%931979%29#Significant_documents

Putting missiles in Cuba?  Benefits both the US and USSR by means of scaring the entire world that nuclear war is imminent.
Song and dance, song and dance.

Nah I don't buy it. Kennedy wasn't in any cahoots with the Russians over Cuba. They wanted neither Russia nor Castro there. In fact America was deeply paranoid about any Russian influence in both Latin America and parts of the middle east and then there was Afghanistan. They took measures to counter any attempts by Russia to gain any kind of meaningful influence in those regions and vice-versa, hence the term 'cold' war. It's just total nonsense the idea that Russia and America were working together during the Cold War to keep a Round Earth conspiracy going. I can give countless examples of political conflict to smash that myth, far outweighing any suggestion of co-operation. If nothing else we'd have to assume that every political historian, journalist, and spy are part of the conspiracy too. I must be part of it even because I keep bleating on about nautical miles but I ain't seen any cheque from NASA yet.

Putting missiles in Cuba?  Benefits both the US and USSR by means of scaring the entire world that nuclear war is imminent.
Song and dance, song and dance.

You are insulting the memory of so many people, its hard to keep count.

For starters, at least 5 million people died in the wars caused by the conflict of the USA against Russia and China. And that includes more than 100,000 US soldiers.

Are you going to start another denial movement, declaring that the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Soviet War in Afghanistan never happened or did not have any participation from Americans, Soviets and Chinese?

I do not know which songs and dances you know, but the rest of the world call them bloody war.

Exactly....even a suggestion that Vietnam was part of a 'cover up' is ludicrous. Did NASA meet with the Russia and say tell ya what...we'll send thousands of young men (barely out of boyhood) to run around the jungle so that your North Vietnamese pals can cut them down and send them back in boxes. And tell ya what, we'll send a small platoon to Mai Lai to go mad over four days and rape and massacre that village. That's should ensure everyone still believes the world is round so that we all get our space funding!

Not to mention that such a conpiracy would have resulted in amssive losses to those involed in it. But of course, understanding that requires basic intelligence which these FE-ers do not have? Did I sound disrespectful? I don't give a damn if I am disrespectful to idiots who don't respect the massive loss of lives because of the cold war and people who died duringh space missions.

A planet cannot be flat, it's called physics. Some may bob up here say, "Ooh! How do you know how all the physicts today ween't lying? Also is you can't validate something personally you can't refer to it." But these idiots have no problem in beliving that some other idiots like Parallax cannot be wrong or corrupt when Carl Sagan and Newton can be.

And for those who say that we can't use experiments and accepted theories just because we cannot validate them personally, they may as well stop using all technology from Light Bulbs to Computers that are made on the basis of those theories. 

Not to mention that such a conpiracy would have resulted in amssive losses to those involed in it. But of course, understanding that requires basic intelligence which these FE-ers do not have? Did I sound disrespectful? I don't give a damn if I am disrespectful to idiots who don't respect the massive loss of lives because of the cold war and people who died duringh space missions.

A planet cannot be flat, it's called physics. Some may bob up here say, "Ooh! How do you know how all the physicts today ween't lying? Also is you can't validate something personally you can't refer to it." But these idiots have no problem in beliving that some other idiots like Parallax cannot be wrong or corrupt when Carl Sagan and Newton can be.

And for those who say that we can't use experiments and accepted theories just because we cannot validate them personally, they may as well stop using all technology from Light Bulbs to Computers that are made on the basis of those theories.  

I agree and I particularly think of the challenger mission that exploded, which had civilians on board for the first time. Try telling the watching familes and their children that NASA is a conspiracy machine. It's an insult that defies common sense.

There is no harm in hypothesizing if an alternate model for the universe could exist and could work in terms of physics, maths, geology etc and I believe that's what many posters are doing when they muse on these forums - it's an exercise of imagination. However to confuse that with any kind of reality is, as you say, worrying.

Moved to Q&A.

Exactly....even a suggestion that Vietnam was part of a 'cover up' is ludicrous. Did NASA meet with the Russia and say tell ya what...we'll send thousands of young men (barely out of boyhood) to run around the jungle so that your North Vietnamese pals can cut them down and send them back in boxes. And tell ya what, we'll send a small platoon to Mai Lai to go mad over four days and rape and massacre that village. That's should ensure everyone still believes the world is round so that we all get our space funding!

No, I didn't assert that Russia and the US were cooperating to further the 'RE conspiracy' in these matters alone.
The fact that both sides had an 'enemy' that stood against everything each side stood for is enough to keep both sides in power.
Sure, maybe the Vietnam and Korean wars were to stop the spread of communism, maybe they weren't.  I don't know why we sent thousands of Americans overseas to die in jungles and forests.
Additionally, it's kind of like a double standard to interfere with matters in Russia's hemisphere, and not let them in ours.
The idea that Russia is our (America's) sworn mortal enemy, I believe, was fabricated by the west to keep our governments in power.
If there's no one to keep us protected from, then there's no justification for us tyraiding all over the world and inserting our influence.

There are many small governments in the world that don't have huge militaries and don't fear insurrection.  Without fear, there is no need for force.  This is why the tension between the US and the former USSR was obviously beneficial to both sides.

The idea that Russia is our (America's) sworn mortal enemy, I believe, was fabricated by the west to keep our governments in power.
If there's no one to keep us protected from, then there's no justification for us tyraiding all over the world and inserting our influence.

There's definite truth in this. This was a fundamental belief of neo-conservatism and there's lots of instances of fabricated evidence on both sides to con the people that there was a threat throughout the 70s and early 80s when there of course wasn't.

There are many small governments in the world that don't have huge militaries and don't fear insurrection.  Without fear, there is no need for force.  This is why the tension between the US and the former USSR was obviously beneficial to both sides.

It was and it wasn't. There was genuine fear on both sides of either side having any kind of political influence in their  'back yard'. That's what makes the cold war a complex thing. In reality there was no war post the early 70s (once both sides had so many nuclear weapons that any real kind of war became nonsensical). But tension did continue in other countries and there was almost a race to build strategic allies. But again the only real benefactor was the arms trade of both countries. But no part of it was about Space conspiracy co-operation. That's just silly.

The new fighting ground is the middle east. Both Russia and the US have problems with islamic fundamentalists but the threat from Al Quaeda is over inflated (to again keep us all afraid). And America can complain all it likes about Iran, as it did with Pakistan, over nuclear weapons. Pakistan was needed to avenge 9/11 (jets needed to cross Pakistan airspace to get to Afghanistan) so suddenly it's not a problem for Pakistan to have Nuclear weapons. Like Pakistan there's nothing the US can do to stop Iran (sanctions won't make any difference, Iran is very wealthy and self sufficient) becoming a nuclear power. We need to be very careful with what we are doing over there.

Quote from: EarthISroundISproven on April 01, 2010, 03:48:08 AM

Exactly....even a suggestion that Vietnam was part of a 'cover up' is ludicrous. Did NASA meet with the Russia and say tell ya what...we'll send thousands of young men (barely out of boyhood) to run around the jungle so that your North Vietnamese pals can cut them down and send them back in boxes. And tell ya what, we'll send a small platoon to Mai Lai to go mad over four days and rape and massacre that village. That's should ensure everyone still believes the world is round so that we all get our space funding!

No, I didn't assert that Russia and the US were cooperating to further the 'RE conspiracy' in these matters alone.
The fact that both sides had an 'enemy' that stood against everything each side stood for is enough to keep both sides in power.
Sure, maybe the Vietnam and Korean wars were to stop the spread of communism, maybe they weren't.  I don't know why we sent thousands of Americans overseas to die in jungles and forests.
Additionally, it's kind of like a double standard to interfere with matters in Russia's hemisphere, and not let them in ours.
The idea that Russia is our (America's) sworn mortal enemy, I believe, was fabricated by the west to keep our governments in power.
If there's no one to keep us protected from, then there's no justification for us tyraiding all over the world and inserting our influence.

There are many small governments in the world that don't have huge militaries and don't fear insurrection.  Without fear, there is no need for force.  This is why the tension between the US and the former USSR was obviously beneficial to both sides.

For the first point, EVERYONE KNOWS. Only YOU DON'T WANT to know, so that you can justify your inhumane, disrespectful and baseless revisions of history and of the obvious truth.

Yes, it was wrong, everybody knows that too, BUT all super-powers to do it. USA had to do it to prevent Russia from becoming capable of seconding USA. I am not American, and I don't support any of USA's far-realist foregin policies of the past or present. But their conflict with USSR was real, you just don't kill millions of people to prove the Earth's shape, maybe it makes sense to FE-ers, but it wouldn't to any sane and rational human being.

USSR WAS USA's sworn enemy, had Stalin had the capability he would have destroyed USA's economy and army to make USSR the sole super-power of the world. He would also destroy USA because Soviets hated USA. If you think the entire philosphy of Soviet Communism and thwe Bolshevik Revolution were part of a conspiracy to stage two super-power enemies to generate force tomake people think the Earth is round then you should get you brain checked, seriously.

Your part about small governments is right, but USA and USSR level super-powers don't need excuse to have an army, when you are at the top of the mountain and have no guard, there will always be entities that would want to take you down.

Sure, the Cold War atmosphere gave them a chace to become super-nuclear war freaks but that armament drive was reversed with the fall of USSR, if USA really wanted to keep all that, it would have done it without giving anyexplantion to the world

That's very true of every Russian leader prior to Yeltsin. Yeltsin was the end of any ambition to 'bury' (as Khruschev put it) the USA.

It was and it wasn't. There was genuine fear on both sides of either side having any kind of political influence in their  'back yard'. That's what makes the cold war a complex thing. In reality there was no war post the early 70s (once both sides had so many nuclear weapons that any real kind of war became nonsensical). But tension did continue in other countries and there was almost a race to build strategic allies. But again the only real benefactor was the arms trade of both countries. But no part of it was about Space conspiracy co-operation. That's just silly.

The new fighting ground is the middle east. Both Russia and the US have problems with islamic fundamentalists but the threat from Al Quaeda is over inflated (to again keep us all afraid). And America can complain all it likes about Iran, as it did with Pakistan, over nuclear weapons. Pakistan was needed to avenge 9/11 (jets needed to cross Pakistan airspace to get to Afghanistan) so suddenly it's not a problem for Pakistan to have Nuclear weapons. Like Pakistan there's nothing the US can do to stop Iran (sanctions won't make any difference, Iran is very wealthy and self sufficient) becoming a nuclear power. We need to be very careful with what we are doing over there.

I like how you correctly identify the neo-conservatism ideals.  This seems outrageous to many people, but I believe it's true.
I'm not saying the cold war was staged as part of some giant RE conspiracy, I'm saying that a conspiracy could be a secondary result of such a thing.  I believe there was tension to keep the powers in power.  Any conspiracy about nuclear weapons, the Earth being round when it really isn't, or any number of other possible conspiracies would be a result of the first object:  Complete power.  I don't think propagation of a conspiracy is the reason people stay in power, it's one of the methods they use to stay in power.

On the third paragraph:  The Russian and US governments have problems with Islamic fundamentalists.  Please don't confuse the evil governments with the people that are unfortunately subverted by them (not saying you did, just want you to keep it in mind).
Also, from what I understand, Iran isn't actually a wealthy country.  The limited wealth they do have is from petroleum.  They don't even have their own refineries and are dependent on foreign economies to get gasoline.  When you hear about sanctions, it's because they will starve the Iranian people into 'submission.'  Or at least that's the idea.  They have limitied infrastructure in every aspect.  They are mostly a third world nation.  The government absorbs most of their wealth for military purposes, however they are not the super military power the media makes them out to be.  If you look at their missile program, they have only recently tested missiles capable of reaching as far as Israel.  And there are a lot of claims that they don't even have this kind of long range capability.
Iran's military structure is also primarily defensive.  They don't have any real invasion capability like Iraq once did.  They just hate the US and Israel, and rightfully so.  We've been trying to overthrow them for years, via CIA operations. 
Iran wouldn't be our enemy if we didn't make them our enemy.
Iran hates Israel because of what they do to the Palestinians (sp?).  Israel is an abusive, militaristic government that is the real cause of instability of the Region.

At last...an intelligent response to a serious subject (but not intended as an insult to you Mizzle, just nice to see some proper educated debate on something and someone happy to engage with a knowledgable base.

Yes the neo-con role in the cold war is a real thing. I spent a good deal of time I'd rather spent elsewhere researching that for some paper or other. Rumsfeld is thought of as a Bush aide only. Truth is he was an intrinsic part of the neo-con influence on flawed intelligence throughout his entire personal career which spans a good two decades of the cold war..

I also think you are someone that likes to keep an open mind in pursuit of the imagination and absolutely nothing wrong with that. But I also can see that you are intelligent enough to see also that any mention of space race conspiracy is frivolous amongst the serious nature of other things we are discussing. I agree with you that it's possible within the nature of that 'climate' but we both know it's more than unlikely.

I agree with many of the points you make on Iran (and in fact it reminds me of the mistakes made over intelligence on Iraq) but...as a defensive force..Iran is better defended than any state that the US has pre-emptively striked before. You are quite right to mention refineries. The whole aim of the Iran /Iraq war was to ingite the shi-ite population of the south (Iran is mostly shi-ite) so that Iran could sieze the southern oil fields of Iraq and cut off it's supply access to the Persian Gulf sea (who says that only US conflicts are about oil ho hum). And I agree, the only enemy that Iran is concerned with is Isreal. So the USA are duty bound to support Isreal or are they? Hilary (and I do like her...she is smart) is having a hard time trying to get Isreal to toe the line so that any kind of palestinian negotiatin can begin...not helped of course but cross border mortars by Palestine. Part of me says 'these people want to kill each other - leave them to it.'

At last...an intelligent response to a serious subject (but not intended as an insult to you Mizzle, just nice to see some proper educated debate on something and someone happy to engage with a knowledgable base.

Yes the neo-con role in the cold war is a real thing. I spent a good deal of time I'd rather spent elsewhere researching that for some paper or other. Rumsfeld is thought of as a Bush aide only. Truth is he was an intrinsic part of the neo-con influence on flawed intelligence throughout his entire personal career which spans a good two decades of the cold war..

I also think you are someone that likes to keep an open mind in pursuit of the imagination and absolutely nothing wrong with that. But I also can see that you are intelligent enough to see also that any mention of space race conspiracy is frivolous amongst the serious nature of other things we are discussing. I agree with you that it's possible within the nature of that 'climate' but we both know it's more than unlikely.

I agree with many of the points you make on Iran (and in fact it reminds me of the mistakes made over intelligence on Iraq) but...as a defensive force..Iran is better defended than any state that the US has pre-emptively striked before. You are quite right to mention refineries. The whole aim of the Iran /Iraq war was to ingite the shi-ite population of the south (Iran is mostly shi-ite) so that Iran could sieze the southern oil fields of Iraq and cut off it's supply access to the Persian Gulf sea (who says that only US conflicts are about oil ho hum). And I agree, the only enemy that Iran is concerned with is Isreal. So the USA are duty bound to support Isreal or are they? Hilary (and I do like her...she is smart) is having a hard time trying to get Isreal to toe the line so that any kind of palestinian negotiatin can begin...not helped of course but cross border mortars by Palestine. Part of me says 'these people want to kill each other - leave them to it.'

I agree, the whole space conspiracy is a bit of a stretch, but I choose to leave it on the table due to the US's and Russia's less than amiable track-record.
Though I haven't researched Rumsfeld personally, I'm inclined to believe what you're saying.  It seems like it barely made news:  "Oh, our intelligence was completely wrong."  Americans are quick to forget the wrong our government does on a regular basis, because we believe, at the end of the day, we brought 'freedom' to a land that didn't have it.
Freedom in the form of suicide bombers, insurrection, and instability.
What kills me is that these major manipulations are so obvious that people look right past them like they're not real.
For all we know, Vietnam had a giant plutonium deposit and we were just trying to secrety extract it.  The fact of the matter is the governments of the world operate in total secrecy, and only tell us what they want us to know.

I also agree that Iran is better defended against US invasion than any other nation we have invaded in recent times.  However, if we do wage war against the Iranians, it won't be a convential war.  We will just bomb them into the dirt, and destroy their civilian infrastructure.  The Iranian people will never accept the US government, and I can only hope that any militarist action causes the whole region to turn it's back on us.  We can't fight everyone at once, and it's going to come back to haunt us one day.

I do believe however, that should solid evidence come about that all of our wars were on false pretenses, that the evil doers could step down, and the US could make a real apology for it's attrocities over the decades, and get real forgiveness.
I think if we were willing to drop our arms against the world, the rest of the world would respond in kind.
It just pains me to see innocent people on both sides of a war die as the chess pieces of the neo-con and pro-war leftists.

Yep I think you are right in all that you say. I think also it is very hard for all of us that have lived our lives in peacetime to know exactly what day to day living in a war zone is like. My grandparents who lived through the Blitz would have had some idea, but how can we ever see beyond the headlines and understand what roadside bombs and mines everywhere and insurgent snipers etc really means. That's why people, not just americans, but here too, can't grasp the choas that we've brought to Iraq. We are imposing our culture on a nation where a good portion of it's citizens don't want a western culture. It makes no sense to them. Yet if an Arabic nation were to impose it's culture on us we'd certainly have something to say about that.

Iran is an Islamic revolutionary state that will never do business with America. But Bin Laden wasn't interested in the US either really. His main issue was always with the Saudi Royal Family. He wanted to bring  'them' down. After all it was US arms and training that helped the Mujahideen to keep Russia out of Afghanisitan in the 70s/80s. All of these Islamic fundamentalists were originally aiming at turning all of former Arabia and Persia into fundamentalist Islamic states and they exploited the cold war to get guns from the US. They only suceeded in Iran. Egypt and Saudi Arabia were then seen as puppets to western capitalism. Egypt esp because she crushed the muslim brotherhood movement as soon as it gained any kind of popular support. It's only the jihadists failure to succeed in their own nations that turned them to outward acts of terrorism in Europe and then 9/11. In a sense our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq has given them exactly what they wanted....the reasoning to say that we are aggressors intent on destroying Islam in it's homeland, which of course is not true. We just want to stabilize the oil suppliers.

It's a pandora's box that's splitting wide open. I agree that the only way to deal with Iran will be intense air strikes but Pakistan would again need to give permission for jets to cross her airspace and something tells me that is something she won't do. At the same the US can not afford to upset Pakistan. I can only see diplomatic problems ahead.

And yes, there can be very good reasons for keeping some things out of the public domain. But if we are to be able to trust our governments to look after us then they need also to be beyond reproach. Your last sentence about chess pieces perfectly sums up how I feel about it all too.

Yep I think you are right in all that you say. I think also it is very hard for all of us that have lived our lives in peacetime to know exactly what day to day living in a war zone is like. My grandparents who lived through the Blitz would have had some idea, but how can we ever see beyond the headlines and understand what roadside bombs and mines everywhere and insurgent snipers etc really means. That's why people, not just americans, but here too, can't grasp the choas that we've brought to Iraq. We are imposing our culture on a nation where a good portion of it's citizens don't want a western culture. It makes no sense to them. Yet if an Arabic nation were to impose it's culture on us we'd certainly have something to say about that.

Iran is an Islamic revolutionary state that will never do business with America. But Bin Laden wasn't interested in the US either really. His main issue was always with the Saudi Royal Family. He wanted to bring  'them' down. After all it was US arms and training that helped the Mujahideen to keep Russia out of Afghanisitan in the 70s/80s. All of these Islamic fundamentalists were originally aiming at turning all of former Arabia and Persia into fundamentalist Islamic states and they exploited the cold war to get guns from the US. They only suceeded in Iran. Egypt and Saudi Arabia were then seen as puppets to western capitalism. Egypt esp because she crushed the muslim brotherhood movement as soon as it gained any kind of popular support. It's only the jihadists failure to succeed in their own nations that turned them to outward acts of terrorism in Europe and then 9/11. In a sense our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq has given them exactly what they wanted....the reasoning to say that we are aggressors intent on destroying Islam in it's homeland, which of course is not true. We just want to stabilize the oil suppliers.

It's a pandora's box that's splitting wide open. I agree that the only way to deal with Iran will be intense air strikes but Pakistan would again need to give permission for jets to cross her airspace and something tells me that is something she won't do. At the same the US can not afford to upset Pakistan. I can only see diplomatic problems ahead.

And yes, there can be very good reasons for keeping some things out of the public domain. But if we are to be able to trust our governments to look after us then they need also to be beyond reproach. Your last sentence about chess pieces perfectly sums up how I feel about it all too.

I agree, except that the only way to 'deal' with Iran, is to leave them the hell alone.  Like you've said, we've been over there meddling in the region's affairs for far too long.
What I meant about air strikes was that it's the only way we could defeat them, not deal with them ;-)