Politics 'Ransom' paid to Iran?

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So assuming there's one universal thought in Iran...."if" is such a money statement

All that matters is who got the money and who released the hostages in exchange for the ransom.

"If" in that sentence means "since" or "because"
 
Hiliar found lesser reasons to go bomb Libya.

http://theweek.com/articles/532678/why-invading-north-korea-insane

Why invading North Korea would be insane
bombing anyone is a lesser reason, but you honestly compare Hillary Clinton with Kim Jong Un who declares war on the US every week. China has a million missles aimed at Taiwan 24/7....a bully that intimidates a true democracy...we don't even vote them into the UN since Carter.....freeing some hostages and giving Iran their money back pales in comparison to what goes ignored and has for a long time...I just don't see anyone upset about not taking on Russia, N. Korea or China for sabre rattling and bullying. Personally I don't want to bomb any countries when other assets can diffuse tensions.
 
bombing anyone is a lesser reason, but you honestly compare Hillary Clinton with Kim Jong Un who declares war on the US every week. China has a million missles aimed at Taiwan 24/7....a bully that intimidates a true democracy...we don't even vote them into the UN since Carter.....freeing some hostages and giving Iran their money back pales in comparison to what goes ignored and has for a long time...I just don't see anyone upset about not taking on Russia, N. Korea or China for sabre rattling and bullying. Personally I don't want to bomb any countries when other assets can diffuse tensions.

I didn't compare the two (Hiliar and Kim Jong Un). I compared the situation in Libya with the one in N. Korea. She urged the bombing of Libya and regime change there due to lesser crimes (compared to N. Korea's) against humanity. She didn't urge bombing of N. Korea or regime change there.

As for China... GHW Bush went to a Democratic congress and asked them to grant China Most Favored Nation status, but they were partisan and refused. Our entire trade deficit with the world was $80B at the time. Fast forward to the Clinton presidency. He went to the Democratic congress and asked them to grant China MFN status and they had no problem doing so. By the end of the Clinton presidency, our trade deficit was $400B and $80B to China alone. Today, the trade deficit with China is $365B, a record high.

FWIW, Bush was the first ambassador to China, appointed by Nixon when he normalized the relationship with the commies.

I'm quite sure the administration did not want to leave a legacy of Iran/hostages as Carter did. Therefore, they gave up way more than we should have just for the sake of a deal (a bad deal!) and they paid the ransom for the hostages.

"If Iran thinks it was ransom, then for practical purposes it was."
 
"If Iran thinks it was ransom, then for practical purposes it was."

Oh Damn! Another logic day. You do know this forum is much more comfortable if you reflect the preferred feeling? How can you be so out of step?
 
Oh Damn! Another logic day. You do know this forum is much more comfortable if you reflect the preferred feeling? How can you be so out of step?
I'm guessing that would be porn which is probably the preferred feeling and explains how few posters actually engage in OT political threads...
 
Whatever you wanna call it. Money swapped hands for hostages. And we just gave a terrorist funding country millions of dollars. Fuck that.

North Korea, and Iran can go fuck themselves. We should do no business with them aside from the ass kicking business.
 
Whatever you wanna call it. Money swapped hands for hostages. And we just gave a terrorist funding country millions of dollars. Fuck that.

North Korea, and Iran can go fuck themselves. We should do no business with them aside from the ass kicking business.
You really can't give money to anybody that's not your money to begin with...it's so damned simple. Ferdinand Marcos buried almost the entire Filipino treasury in US banks and lived in the states like a king in mansions and penthouses...we didn't give the Filipino people back their money if I remember correctly.
 
I'm quite sure there are 40+ year old debts, even debts going back centuries, that haven't been repaid. By nations, I mean. So THIS particular debt just happened to be a handy excuse for the administration to pay the ransom.

The problem is, few fall for it and only the hard core sycophants defend it.
 
Bribe, ransom, debt repayment? I don't really care. What I do care about is what is State actually trying to "buy" with this 400 million dollars? If it's just hostages then it just reinforces the idea that the United States is playing checkers while more sophisticated nations are playing chess, when it comes to international affairs.

That being said, Persia/Iran does have some legitimate grievances with the U.S. (All of that CIA-British Petroleum nonsense back in 1953 and then propping up the Shah over a democratically elected government and everything else that followed afterward as blowback -- the revolution, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, etc.). If this is part of a strategic shift away from Saudi Arabia then I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, because I'm not an intelligence analyst and privy to the behind-the-scenes stuff, but off-hand I can see good and bad reasons for trying to soften some of the ill-will between Iran and the U.S, particularly with the amount of instability in various Sunni regimes and the subsequent rise of Sunni ISIS/Al-queda terrorist networks around the world, the simple fact is that we're probably going to need a strong Shia regional power (and that ain't Iraq) as an ally to act as counterweight and a stabilizing force in the region.

Dangerous waters ahead.
 
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Bribe, ransom, debt repayment? I don't really care. What I do care about is what is State actually trying to "buy" with this 400 million dollars? If it's just hostages then it just reinforces the idea that the United States is playing checkers while more sophisticated nations are playing chess, when it comes to international affairs.

That being said, Persia/Iran does have some legitimate grievances with the U.S. (All of that CIA-British Petroleum nonsense back in 1953 and then propping up the Shah over a democratically elected government and everything else that followed afterward as blowback -- the revolution, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, etc.). If this is part of a strategic shift away from Saudi Arabia then I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, because I'm not an intelligence analyst and privy to the behind-the-scenes stuff, but off-hand I can see good and bad reasons for trying to soften some of the ill-will between Iran and the U.S, particularly with the amount of instability in various Sunni regimes and the subsequent rise of Sunni ISIS/Al-queda terrorist networks around the world, the simple fact is that we're probably going to need a strong Shia regional power (and that ain't Iraq) as an ally to act as counterweight and a stabilizing force in the region.

Dangerous waters ahead.

EXACTLY!

They're expanding their military, building up their missile programs, and funding terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
 
Whaddayouknow?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/19/w...h-payment-prisoners.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

U.S. Concedes $400 Million Payment to Iran Was Delayed as Prisoner ‘Leverage’

The State Department conceded for the first time on Thursday that it delayed making a $400 million payment to Iran for several hours in January “to retain maximum leverage” and ensure that three American prisoners were released the same day.

For months the Obama administration had maintained that the payment was part of a settlement over an old dispute and did not amount to a “ransom” for the release of the Americans. Instead, administration officials said, it was the first installment of the $1.7 billion that the United States intends to pay Iran to reimburse it for military equipment it bought before the Iranian revolution that the United States never delivered.

But at a briefing on Thursday, John Kirby, the State Department spokesman, said the United States “took advantage of the leverage” it felt it had that weekend in mid-January to obtain the release of the hostages and “to make sure they got out safely and efficiently.”

Republicans opposed to the nuclear deal President Obama reached with Iran have described the payment as ransom and a further sign of his administration’s feckless dealings with Tehran.

Administration officials have said that the two transactions were negotiated entirely separately over a period of years. That they came together on one weekend reflected a desire on the part of Secretary of State John Kerry and his counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, to set aside a series of disputes, complete the nuclear deal and try to remove irritants from the relationship between two longtime rivals.
 
I knew I was right. Leverage was the exact same word I used to describe it.

boo ya!
 
I agree with everyone here, we should have let Iran keep the prisoners.
We could have stolen their money and let them keep our citizens.....if we sold people for profit I guess....we stopped doing that after the Civil War
 
This is Denny's way of saying, I'm out of interns to argue the point and busy with barfo....get back to me in the morning and I'll reassign your debate partner

It's my way of saying "nobody argued that they believe Iran should have kept the hostages."
 
That's without asking any Iranians but I'm sure they were tired of feeding these guys.

We paid the ransom, they were freed.

We held out paying the ransom until they were released. The two were tied together, not separate deals as the president lied to us.
 
We paid the ransom, they were freed.

We held out paying the ransom until they were released. The two were tied together, not separate deals as the president lied to us.
I heard you say this the first 50 times...you know I disagree with the definition but hey.....it's your movie
 
Pretty fuckin stupid. Like it had to be now. Why give them any obligated $$$ The dumb shits use our money like a sailor on a whore HOUSE.th stupid weird person.jpg th stupid weird person.jpg
 

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yeah...it was their account for arms purchases in a Colorado bank that we froze under sanctions...We kept the weapons too...then there was the interest which the bank owed them
We could have used that cash for a good cause like lining the politicians pockets
 
yeah...it was their account for arms purchases in a Colorado bank that we froze under sanctions...We kept the weapons too...then there was the interest which the bank owed them

Wait a minute, taking interest is forbidden in the Holly Quran, those sinners.
 
I heard you say this the first 50 times...you know I disagree with the definition but hey.....it's your movie

The administration just admitted it.

The NY Times explained it.
 
The US was holding Iran's money for ransom. I wonder what we're gonna get for the other 1.3 billion we owe them.
 
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