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Four American Prisoners Released By Iran, State News Reporting

Moderate Right said:
I'm so glad that Kerry is so good at using diplomacy to get the release of our 10 sailors and so good at winning the release of the recent 4 for 7 exchange. He was also good at diplomacy in getting the deserter Bergdahl released for five Taliban at Guantanamo. What would we do without this great diplomacy?
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The unrealistic views of many conservatives who have completely thrown our realistic diplomacy is somewhat telling from your post... You expect ridiculous outcomes without taking into account the actual variables.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
The unrealistic views of many conservatives who have completely thrown our realistic diplomacy is somewhat telling from your post... You expect ridiculous outcomes without taking into account the actual variables.
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You're missing the point altogether. We shouldn't have had diplomacy at all. We should have let them keep Bergdahl. Our sailors should not have been taken hostage for 24 hours. The four imprisoned in Iran for YEARS on trumped up charges should never have been taken hostage either. Is this what our diplomacy has come to, letting someone take hostages and then we negotiate their release, usualy always giving more than what we are getting?
 
Moderate Right said:
You're missing the point altogether. We shouldn't have had diplomacy at all. We should have let them keep Bergdahl. Our sailors should not have been taken hostage for 24 hours. The four imprisoned in Iran for YEARS on trumped up charges should never have been taken hostage either. Is this what our diplomacy has come to, letting someone take hostages and then we negotiate their release, usualy always giving more than what we are getting?
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You can blame decades of horrible relations between our two countries for the current attitudes in the Iranian (and US) government.

The Ayatollah's time is running out, he won't live forever. And the Iranian people are not hardliners, they are moderate with many things in common with the US people. We should be encouraging a normalization of relations to take advantage of this once his time is up and leadership changes hands.
 
Moderate Right said:
You're missing the point altogether. We shouldn't have had diplomacy at all. We should have let them keep Bergdahl. Our sailors should not have been taken hostage for 24 hours. The four imprisoned in Iran for YEARS on trumped up charges should never have been taken hostage either. Is this what our diplomacy has come to, letting someone take hostages and then we negotiate their release, usualy always giving more than what we are getting?
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There ya go. The con ideal in a nutshell.
 
Moderate Right said:
You're missing the point altogether. We shouldn't have had diplomacy at all.
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What? Now this conservative view is no diplomacy?

Our sailors should not have been taken hostage for 24 hours.
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The thing is, THEY WERE TAKEN, but they were not taken hostage, because Iran did not demand really anything of the USA.

The four imprisoned in Iran for YEARS on trumped up charges should never have been taken hostage either.
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What should of been done then? Your demands are pretty ridiculous... A bunch of coulda shoulda wouldas?

Is this what our diplomacy has come to, letting someone take hostages and then we negotiate their release, usualy always giving more than what we are getting?
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Oh. My. God. Your whole point is a bunch of shoulda coulda wouldas.... Again, you expect ridiculous outcomes without taking into account the actual variables.
 
akrunner88 said:
You can blame decades of horrible relations between our two countries for the current attitudes in the Iranian (and US) government.

The Ayatollah's time is running out, he won't live forever. And the Iranian people are not hardliners, they are moderate with many things in common with the US people. We should be encouraging a normalization of relations to take advantage of this once his time is up and leadership changes hands.
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I actually totally agree with that. I'm very interested and hopefully optimistic about the Iranian elections coming up and the change in the Ayatollah.
 
Paperview said:
There ya go. The con ideal in a nutshell.
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I'm saying that they should have never been taken hostage in the first place, therefore, diplomacy would not have been necessary.
 
Moderate Right said:
I actually totally agree with that. I'm very interested and hopefully optimistic about the Iranian elections coming up and the change in the Ayatollah.
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One can look at how Iran treats their own Jews and other minority groups to see that they are not as radical as many in the world and especially the US make them out to be. I think we have much common ground to work with and think Obama's approach with diplomacy will benefit us in the end.

I have problems with their Revolutionary Guard and the hard liners in government, and their sponsorship of terrorism. I think these issues can be mitigated and worked with if countries like the US take a less hard line approach to Iran, as I see Iran wanting to play fair with the world in terms of economics. Their limitations economically come down to their sponsorship of terrorism and the average Iranian citizen is wanting to see this change.

I feel like both sides need to play their cards right and the direction I see us going in now I think is ultimately the right one. I used to take a very anti-Iranian position because I am what you could consider a "Zionist" and support Israel unconditionally. But I think normalization of relations between the US and Iran will help temper down relations between those two countries to a level that borders mutual dislike instead of outright mistrust and hostility.
 
Roadvirus said:
So you'd have no problem if they used it to finance terrorist attacks?
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Nothing I can do, its their money, they negotiated with 6 nations, and they have held up their end of the bargain, and they get their money back, per the agreement. That is how diplomacy works.
 
beefheart said:
Nothing I can do, its their money, they negotiated with 6 nations, and they have held up their end of the bargain, and they get their money back, per the agreement. That is how diplomacy works.
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Diplomacy will ultimately lead to goodwill which is the key we need to soften the stances that lead to the problems we see today. By snubbing our fingers at Iran and actively promoting policies that harm them economically, we'll continue to see business as usual for decades to come and will fail to take advantage of the large amount of the Iranian population that is interested in economic opportunity and reform.
 
Moderate Right said:
I actually totally agree with that. I'm very interested and hopefully optimistic about the Iranian elections coming up and the change in the Ayatollah.
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Iranian political candidates are approved by a group of religious faqihs (experts in Islamic law) called The Guardian Council. To qualify, you'd have to be at a certain level of Islamic Nutball to be allowed to run for a political office. They were behind the 2009 election that caused a major uprising (the one Obama refused to support).

In a nutshell, you can't be an Iranian politician without being gung-ho about Islam. So that makes Iranian elections a ****ing joke.
 
beefheart said:
Nothing I can do, its their money, they negotiated with 6 nations, and they have held up their end of the bargain, and they get their money back, per the agreement. That is how diplomacy works.
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So if an attack occurs, many die and Iran is behind it, your opinion would be "Oh well"?

Sad.
 
Roadvirus said:
So if an attack occurs, many die and Iran is behind it, your opinion would be "Oh well"?

Sad.
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Iran, like most other nations is primarily concerned with survival and I doubt they would be stupid enough to launch any sort of nuclear attack on any nation. Pundits would have you think otherwise but there is literally zero incentive for them to instigate an attack that would lead to retaliation from us or anyone else.
 
Moderate Right said:
I'm saying that they should have never been taken hostage in the first place, therefore, diplomacy would not have been necessary.
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How do you prevent that? Chain them to their chairs?
 
Roadvirus said:
So if an attack occurs, many die and Iran is behind it, your opinion would be "Oh well"?

Sad.
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So, if we didn't go the diplomatic route and get an agreement and an attack occurs, and many die and Iran is behind it, your opinion would be that you were right?


Ifs and buts, candy and nuts...
 
TheDemSocialist said:
How do you prevent that? Chain them to their chairs?
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I'm saying that we can't allow an atmosphere where we let people take hostages, have diplomacy with them, and then thank them for returning hostages they shouldn't have taken in the first place. By being weak all we do is encourage more hostage taking, more diplomacy, and make more bad deals where we give them back two criminals for every hostage that they take.
 
Moderate Right said:
I'm saying that we can't allow an atmosphere where we let people take hostages, have diplomacy with them, and then thank them for returning hostages they shouldn't have taken in the first place. By being weak all we do is encourage more hostage taking, more diplomacy, and make more bad deals where we give them back two criminals for every hostage that they take.
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And how do you do that? Please point to a good example....
 
TheDemSocialist said:
And how do you do that? Please point to a good example....
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I can't reason with someone who is blind and has no common sense. Obama has been a weak president on foreign policy. The world is crumbling around us because his policies make no sense. He draws a red line in Syria and then doesn't follow through with it. He flat out states that we won't let Iran get a nuclear weapon and then signs an agreement with them that, even if Iran follows it to the letter, allows them to get a nuclear bomb in 10 - 15 years. He releases five dangerous inmates from Guantamo Bay in exchange for one army deserter. He releases seven imprisoned Iranians here in the US for smuggling weapons to Iran to be used for their terrorist proxies in the Middle East and exchanges them for 4 people imprisoned in Iran on trumped up charges, with only three of them actually being released instead of 4. He opens his arms up to Putin and then Putin repays that "diplomacy" by invading Crimea and annexing it as part of Russia. Obama took us out of Iraq before it was stabilized and now ISIS has taken over part of the country. The other Iranian hostage crisis was under Carter's watch. Under Bill Clinton we had an opportunity to take out Osama Bin Laden and Clinton chose to fire warning shots at him instead, allowing him to go on and form Al-Qaeda, take over the entire country of Afghanistan, and kill over 3,000 people just in the Twin Towers attack alone. Just by being weak we encourage more stuff to happen. Would stuff happen under Republican presidents as well? Sure, and it has, but we won the cold war without a shot being fired by being strong instead of weak and overall strength will lead to a safer world with less "hostage" taking than by us being weak. That's common sense.
 
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Moderate Right said:
I can't reason with someone who is blind and has no common sense. Obama has been a weak president on foreign policy. The world is crumbling around us because his policies make no sense. He draws a red line in Syria and then doesn't follow through with it. He flat out states that we won't let Iran get a nuclear weapon and then signs an agreement with them that, even if Iran follows it to the letter, allows them to get a nuclear bomb in 10 - 15 years. He releases five dangerous inmates from Guantamo Bay in exchange for one army deserter. He releases seven imprisoned Iranians here in the US for smuggling weapons to Iran to be used for their terrorist proxies in the Middle East and exchanges them for 4 people imprisoned in Iran on trumped up charges, with only three of them actually being released instead of 4. He opens his arms up to Putin and then Putin repays that "diplomacy" by invading Crimea and annexing it as part of Russia. Obama took us out of Iraq before it was stabilized and now ISIS has taken over part of the country. The other Iranian hostage crisis was under Carter's watch. Under Bill Clinton we had an opportunity to take out Osama Bin Laden and Clinton chose to fire warning shots at him instead, allowing him to go on and form Al-Qaeda, take over the entire country of Afghanistan, and kill over 3,000 people just in the Twin Towers attack alone. Just by being weak we encourage more stuff to happen. Would stuff happen under Republican presidents as well? Sure, and it has, but we won the cold war without a shot being fired by being strong instead of weak and overall strength will lead to a safer world with less "hostage" taking than by us being weak. That's common sense.
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You have no idea whereof you speak. Bad history lessons have created a fantasy world unsupported by reality.
 
Moderate Right said:
I can't reason with someone who is blind and has no common sense. Obama has been a weak president on foreign policy. The world is crumbling around us because his policies make no sense. He draws a red line in Syria and then doesn't follow through with it. He flat out states that we won't let Iran get a nuclear weapon and then signs an agreement with them that, even if Iran follows it to the letter, allows them to get a nuclear bomb in 10 - 15 years. He releases five dangerous inmates from Guantamo Bay in exchange for one army deserter. He releases seven imprisoned Iranians here in the US for smuggling weapons to Iran to be used for their terrorist proxies in the Middle East and exchanges them for 4 people imprisoned in Iran on trumped up charges, with only three of them actually being released instead of 4. He opens his arms up to Putin and then Putin repays that "diplomacy" by invading Crimea and annexing it as part of Russia. Obama took us out of Iraq before it was stabilized and now ISIS has taken over part of the country. The other Iranian hostage crisis was under Carter's watch. Under Bill Clinton we had an opportunity to take out Osama Bin Laden and Clinton chose to fire warning shots at him instead, allowing him to go on and form Al-Qaeda, take over the entire country of Afghanistan, and kill over 3,000 people just in the Twin Towers attack alone. Just by being weak we encourage more stuff to happen. Would stuff happen under Republican presidents as well? Sure, and it has, but we won the cold war without a shot being fired by being strong instead of weak and overall strength will lead to a safer world with less "hostage" taking than by us being weak. That's common sense.
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What does this have to do with people getting taken "hostage"? How does this at all relate to Iran detaining Americans in their own country? Also you do realize that one of these detainees was not taken on "Obamas watch"? How does your little nonsensical rant answer to that?
 
I did not see if anyone posted the following story about the Iranians who were released as part of the deal.

Details of 7 Iranians Granted Clemency in Prisoner Swap

WASHINGTON — One was an aerospace expert convicted of helping Iran launch its first satellite into space. Another was a maritime engineer found guilty of providing navigation technology to the Iranians. And three men had ties to a company accused of illegally exporting millions of dollars in American technology with military applications to Iran.

They were among the seven Iranians accused or convicted of violating American trade sanctions against Iran and granted clemency by President Obama as part of a prisoner release between the two long-estranged nations.

More details about the seven men, six of whom are dual American-Iranian citizens, became known on Sunday, as the United States prepared to welcome several of its own citizens who had been detained in Iran.
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Other articles say that between 2 and 6 of the men plan to stay in the US following their release.
 
Matthew Trevithick is a good friend of my wifes, they both went to private school at NMH in Ma. Everyone is very relieved to see him come home.
 
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