pleep: Honestly I fail to see the apocaliptic threat in attacking Iran. It would be a horribly unjust war, but i don't think it would be as bad as you are predicting.

It would be a financial and political disaster - the cost of funding that war would reverse all the gains made by the Obama administration in handling the U.S. recession and the military cost in human lives before real victory (successful occupation or complete surrender) could be attained would be enormous. And the U.S. would have a permanent enemy that could not be subdued, co-opted or bought off. Even after conquest, attempts to build up a nuclear arsenal might resume or a policy of permanent hostility to the U.S. and Israel and support for anti-U.S. and anti-Israel terrorism would probably be pursued by Iran.

First off, Irans military is good but the military gap between the U.S and the rest of the world is so big that it hardly makes a difference. The United states Abosolutly mowed down the Iraqi army in the Iraq war...the coalition was able to litterally bomb w/e target they wanted for days on end with no resistance.

Iran is a more technologically capable country than Iraq was when the U.S. invaded Iraq and it has much more foreign political and military support. What they have hidden up their sleeves to resist an attack by Israel and the U.S. is anyone's guess. I doubt they would allow information about the extent of their full arsenal to leak out given the degree of their government's (justified) paranoia about the U.S. and the West in general. Basically, I expect them to give off the impression to their enemies that invading and defeating them in war would be much easier than it actually would be. Not that I think that their military leaders have been reading Sun Tzu or anything, but I just think they're clever enough to realize that they stand a better chance of making an invasion too costly (in terms of human lives, time, money, etc.) to succeed in toppling the current regime there if they hide the full extent of their military capability before the fighting begins. When the fight becomes too difficult for the U.S. to continue and there is no end to hostilities in sight, it would just become Vietnam part 2, with the U.S. forces withdrawing.

With stealth bombers they can do the same to Iran...

Iran has a whole slew of anti-aircraft weapons though. But going back to what I said above about Iran probably hiding the full extent of its arsenal due to paranoia, consider the following information:

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=3307

(An article about how Israel possibly screwed over the republic of Georgia to get codes from Russia that would allow Israelis to hack into the anti aircraft defense systems that Russia sold to Iran.)

Iran focuses heavily on producing their own weapons and I suspect that they would have their own (non-Russian) defense systems in place by the time any real conflict ensues out of paranoia of infiltration or possible subversion (like the above), and they probably wouldn't let the full extent of their capabilities in this area leak out.

What the Israeli government wants to do is to weaken Iran to the point where they are no longer a threat. This can be done without ever putting boots on the ground.

Economic sanctions? Those can only do so much, and they won't necessarily stop Iran from obtaining or developing nuclear weapons.

Secondly, i see no reason why China would enter the war... they little vested interest seeing as their economy is so interwined with America's that war would probably damage them more than us.

China would only possibly sell them some weapons in secret, but I agree that China wouldn't enter the war directly.

Thirdly, i see no reason why Russia would join the war. People need to remember that the soviet union is gone, Russia is not such an important player on the world stage anymore, they are a paper tiger. The only thing that makes them relevant is their nukes and why would they use them over Iran?

Russia still has advanced weaponry other than nuclear weapons that they might still sell to Iran when things get critical even despite the UN resolutions against selling arms to Iran. Russia doesn't need to directly join the war by putting soldiers on the ground. They could also send in a few military advisers and military technology specialists to give the Iranians some extra help without putting any significant amount of Russian soldiers on the ground in Iran.

If Israel and the U.S decide to attack Iran, the only thing the brick nations be able to do is Veto it in the U.N. aka nothing

Given the unpopularity among the British people of the decision of Tony Blair's government to follow the U.S.'s lead in invading Iraq, it's extremely unlikely that the British will be a significant ally of the U.S. in any war on Iran. France is definitely ruled out because of the anti-American sentiment that is just naturally pervasive there. The same can probably be said for much (if not most) of Europe not being behind any war on Iran. The war would basically be Israel and the U.S. with no other major allies vs. Iran + Syria + Lebanon (possibly) + Russian arms shipments + Chinese arms shipments. Also, given how nationalistic they are, if the legitimate Iranian military forces are defeated, Iranian guerrilla fighters would probably hold out for as long as possible and create an insurgency there that would make the Iraqi insurgency look small and brief by comparison.

@ Pleep,

So I watched the first half of that video by Mr. Pike that you posted.

There seem to be some serious errors in the first 30 minutes of the video.

1. "Min" does not seem to refer to the early Christian Jews alone but to all those who are seen as heretics by Jews. Since Jews believed/believe that they have a covenant with God that is binding on them, and since Christianity is necessarily/inherently incompatible with Judaism, of course observant Jews or those at the vanguard of maintaining the integrity of their religion (like Rabbis) would have seen a Christian Jew as a heretic and devised ways to alienate, ostracize, and degrade that person along with other Jewish heretics. It's hard to see how that equates to some sort of grand plot in the Talmud to degrade all Christians.

2. The part about Khazars becoming the Ashkenazim is incorrect. This video is obviously old and dated so the makers of this video can't have known this at the time, but modern genetic studies seem to show (at least to experts on human genetics, which I certainly am not) that the Ashkenazim, like the Sephardim, have Middle Eastern ancestry and that the two groups (Sephardim and Ashkenazim) have shared genes and derive from a common ancestor. I'm pretty sure Ashkenaz refers to Germany, and that the Ashkenazim have some eastern, central, and northern European ancestry/genes in addition their Middle Eastern/Semitic ancestry rather than North African and Iberian/southern European ancestry like the Sephardim. This is what distinguishes the two groups genetically/ethnically.

3. The part about the conflict between Jews and European Christians seems misleading to me - in the absence of evidence that the "Babylonian inspired moral perversity of Pharisaic Judaism" was what caused conflict between Jews and European Christians, I'd be more wiling to go with the idea that their occupations in the European Middle Ages, their roles in tax collecting on behalf of sovereigns and in carrying out other activities for rulers and princes that were seen as unpopular by the Christian masses, their roles in money lending, their rejection of Jesus Christ, and their status as self-isolating and mysterious (and therefore, possibly untrustworthy) foreigners and non-assimilated outsiders who could also be seen in certain contexts as "parasites," and "opportunists" was the real reason for the hatred/conflict between European Jews and Christians in the European Middle Ages. I'm also not convinced that European Christians were more morally upright or less s3xually perverse than the Jews that immigrated to their lands. It's something that would require actual evidence to prove.

4. The parts about the view of Jesus Christ (as a false prophet) are understandable, and not really anything extremist to me, although I think the attack on his mother by that one Rabbi quoted in the Talmud is petty and low class and the idea from another writer in the Talmud about how Jesus was being tormented also seemed petty and disgusting. The parts about the value of a gentile vs. the value of a Jew as expressed in the Talmud and the Zohar, were not much different from what I expected and had already come across elsewhere. I mentioned earlier on the thread that there are real claims of Jewish superiority to non-Jews expressed in Jewish religious books, but what I'm not sure about is how many modern Jews other than the most hard core orthodox Jews and their Rabbis actually believe in and adhere to those centuries old passages today. If there were overwhelming proof that observant Jews mostly support those kinds of teachings, then that might be a problem as far as how I view them. But I haven't seen the evidence for that if such evidence actually exists.

5. The part about Amalek is wrong as well. Amalek does not seem to refer to all Gentiles but to the name (or at least the Jewish name) for one specific Middle Eastern ethnic group who attacked the Jews when the Jews were wandering around in the desert and were at their weakest. Later, the Jews took their revenge on the Amalekites and killed many of them, possibly wiping out most of them. When the feud with the Amalekites was still fresh on their minds or in their memories/traditions, Jewish scribes wrote some stuff claiming that God commands them to completely exterminate all the Amalekites and their remaining descendants wherever they might be found, and I think this is what the maker of that video is trying to use to mean something else about some much larger plot to exterminate all Gentiles.

6. What part of the Zohar or the Kabbalah in general says that the Jewish messiah is supposed to help the Jews rule over the world? I was under the impression that the Jewish messiah was just whoever would save the Jews (from something, although I don't know what exactly) and then bring about the "world to come" which in their religion is some sort of paradise on earth for all the righteous people on earth.

7. From the 23:00 minute mark onward it seems to blame Jews for the French revolution by alluding briefly to Adam Weishaupt's Illuminati, St. Germain (who they assume was a Jew, although his real origins are not known definitively by anyone), and the activities of the charlatan Joseph Balsamo in France. These kind of conspiracy theories about the secret role of some prominent Jews in the French revolution have been around for a while and still haven't gained any traction - probably because they don't have much going for them. I would be interested in seeing what actual supporting evidence there is for this claim/insinuation though.

Then it seems to move onto the idea of Jews being at the forefront of socialism and communism and states that Jewish communists in league with international German Jewish and American Jewish bankers conspired to overthrow Tsarist Russia and impose Bolshevism on the Russians as part of a larger agenda for world domination and the destruction of Western societies. I don't know much about Russian history, socialist history, communist history, Jewish bankers and financiers, etc. so I won't comment on that, but I'll admit that I do think it's likely that Jews were overrepresented in 19th and 20th century socialist and communist movements in Europe, just from some of what I've read about those movements.

8. I didn't watch past the 30 minute mark. What is the other half of the video about?

^ If you found this many problems with the first thirty minutes, i suggest you dont watch any further. Everything of value was already said. The vid goes into conspiracy theory socialist, communist, bla bla stuff, that i didn't really listen too and then finally shatters its credibility at the end

With a 700 club style church donation gimmik.

But despite the fact that you found so many flaws with the doc, there is some valid information there.

1. "Min" does not seem to refer to the early Christian Jews alone but to all those who are seen as heretics by Jews. Since Jews believed/believe that they have a covenant with God that is binding on them, and since Christianity is necessarily/inherently incompatible with Judaism, of course observant Jews or those at the vanguard of maintaining the integrity of their religion (like Rabbis) would have seen a Christian Jew as a heretic and devised ways to alienate, ostracize, and degrade that person along with other Jewish heretics. It's hard to see how that equates to some sort of grand plot in the Talmud to degrade all Christians.

It doesn't matter when or why it was written.. it is part of the Talmud. People don't read sacred texts through the lens of their original context. In a religious persons eyes it is speaking an eternal message that does not change or accomidate.

I know liberal Jews do not follow the Talmud word for word but if the murder of a specific group is sanctioned in your bible that makes a large degree of animositity inevitable. Keep in mind the Jews believe that this is their most sacred book... it supercedes the old testament.

This explains their inability and unwilling-ness to assimilate. You cannot find a better justification for racism, than your own bible. Even science will not create that kind of subconcious bias.

look at the way mainstream Christians view gays

As for the other aspect of your post, i cant really argue. You seem to be right

And if your sacred book explicitly says God is o.k with you raping a 2 year old baby, you will not feel bad about that crime... no matter what the law says.