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I personally hate for people to try and manipulate me and it has that written all over it. Every time they want to go to war too.

Stories get leaked, potential false flags get held up as evidence, news pumps the hell out of it day after day, they make up charts and beat the war-drums... Who stands to benefit from this war? The media? Yep, they get ratings.. The Corps that own the media? Yep, they make weapons and provide various military services. The politicians? Sure do.. They get to look tough for their demographics.

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle


If this trash is what is taught in military schools then I need to send someone a Thank You note for not sending me to one.

Deliberately exterminating every living thing in a village seems more like genocide or mass murder to me.

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I couldn't care less what justification (eg reprisal or terrorism) any one advances for such behaviour. It is murder plain and simple. Utterly indefensible. Contemptible. I find it deeply disturbing that any one would try to defend or justify such outlandish offensive barbarism in this day and age.

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However, I do like your reference to tribalism. That seems to be a key point of demarcation between the two broad arguments being presented here.

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Broadly speaking, one side - can we agree to call it the legalist case - is arguing for the same set of rules to apply to every country equally, to be enforced rigorously and without favours or exceptions. This view holds that the actions in Iran were terrorist and demands that the perpetrators are made accountable for their actions.

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The other argument - the tribal one - is trying to justify those actions on various spurious grounds, even resorting to contentious hypotheticals. Their arguments seem to boil down to 'might is right' and 'we're right and they're wrong' therefore it's OK for 'us' to do whatever we like but if 'they' do the same, they're terrorists. It seeks to excuse the perpetrators.

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It's a no-brainer to decide which is the preferable way of doing things, which is going to lead to a more peaceful, equitable and happier world and which view is a recipe for permanent violence confrontation and war.

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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY
From the reports, the scientist was working on a government project to build a nuclear weapon.  His driver was in support of him in that process.

Which makes them both legitimate targets, if you accept the process of sanctioned attacks against personnel who are working against your country, and who - if successful in their endeavors - could cause the deaths of millions.

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But ... again ... so what if a third bystander was killed?  You have already accepted the concept of "less than 100%" reliability, haven't you?

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That's what I mean by "a little bit pregnant".  You either have to not accept the entire basis of sanctioned killing, or accept that some non-guilty persons may also be killed.

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That said, we can assassinate, quietly, key assets to keep things from going against us.

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it does appear that he did express a wish to annihilate Israel as official translations of his speech and professional translators in Tehran attest http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/weekinreview/11bronner.html even if some subtleties of usage can be debated.

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ORIGINAL: Icarys

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it does appear that he did express a wish to annihilate Israel as official translations of his speech and professional translators in Tehran attest http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/weekinreview/11bronner.html even if some subtleties of usage can be debated.

You can't dismiss the subtleties. They are the details to the intent.

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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY

So... What is your definition of "terrorism", anyway?

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle


If this trash is what is taught in military schools then I need to send someone a Thank You note for not sending me to one.

Deliberately exterminating every living thing in a village seems more like genocide or mass murder to me.

It would not be genocide. Murder, yes. War is murder. What is the problem?

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I couldn't care less what justification (eg reprisal or terrorism) any one advances for such behaviour. It is murder plain and simple. Utterly indefensible. Contemptible. I find it deeply disturbing that any one would try to defend or justify such outlandish offensive barbarism in this day and age.

War pretty much turns the moral universe upside down. What man has done before, man can aspire to do again. 2012 CE or 2012 BCE makes no difference.

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but the strength of the points leads to the conclusion that his statement as reported in the media at the time was essentially correct.

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ORIGINAL: Epytropos

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ORIGINAL: Icarys

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If you don't want to be part of the war, don't be part of the war machine.

Iran moving to nuclear doesn't make them part of the war machine. US government has already admitted they don't have nukes.

We're making them out to be part of it like we usually do when we want to go to war. Everyone seems to think this crap with Iran is a new developing issue but they've laid out plans years ago to go into numerous countries way prior to even the Afghanistan involvement.

They are only making the case for this one at the moment.

No doubt the US is actively working to justify a war, but I don't think there's much question that Iran wants nukes. I'm sure just about everyone wants nukes. If you are working on that tech, you are part of the war machine, because you are building/developing weapons. Just because there's no war on at the time doesn't mean weapons development is an innocent industry.

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I agree completely as regards our need to not start wars, Iranian or otherwise. That said, we can assassinate, quietly, key assets to keep things from going against us. That's cheap, it offers plausible deniability, and it furthers our interests in the region.

So if somene does that to us might we not go to war with them?

At the end of the day, we cannot be 100% non-interventionist without putting ourselves at risk, and allowing people who hate us (perhaps quite reasonably and justifiably, but hate us nonetheless) to get nuclear weapons sounds like a giant risk to me.


[bPakistan,russia,china nd n.kora are not exactly our bff and they have nukes.

I wouldn't vote for a full-scale invasion of Iran to prevent their getting nuclear weapons; what I would vote for is manipulations and political killings of military assets and civilian leadership to keep things under control cheaply and discretely.

I would love to be able to support the RP "You leave them alone they leave us alone" strategy, but I'm just not sure it actually holds up.


Is that because it has been tried before?

Certainly what we're doing is about the worst possible solution, but that doesn't make the opposite the best possible solution.

Why?

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ORIGINAL: Awareness

  Who cares?  If the possibility of an Islamic nuke doesn't scare the fuck out of you, then you haven't been doing the math.

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ORIGINAL: Icarys

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but the strength of the points leads to the conclusion that his statement as reported in the media at the time was essentially correct.

That's debatable. I see no clear path one way or another and since I'm for the benefit of the doubt because they couldn't say for sure nor did they ask.

"The question is whether his intentions and capabilities would lead to a military attack, and whether therefore pre-emptive warfare is prescribed. I am saying no, and the boring philology is part of the reason for the no."

I am saying no also. He doesn't have the power to do anything in a real way, he's a low man on the totem pole concerning war.

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I'm not dismissing the subtleties. The article acknowledges them and gives an even handed account of both sides of the argument but the strength of the points leads to the conclusion that his statement as reported in the media at the time was essentially correct.

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It might interest you to discover that the source Anax relies upon for his claims about Ahedinnerjacket's alleged words is Ethan Bonner of the New York Times. There is reason to doubt Mr Bonner's objectivity in this matter.

Mr Bonner's son is (or was until quite recently) a serving member of the Israeli Defence Forces. Mr Bonner has a "financial/contractual relationship with an Israeli public relations firm, Lone Star Communications, which is believed to cater to the Israeli political right". (http://usfopo.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/another-day-another-nyt-ethan-bronner-scandal/)

For an in depth analysis of Bonner's delicate position, check out this piece by Max Blumenthal in the Columbia Journalism Review.

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ORIGINAL: thompsonx

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I'm not dismissing the subtleties. The article acknowledges them and gives an even handed account of both sides of the argument but the strength of the points leads to the conclusion that his statement as reported in the media at the time was essentially correct.

Your article concerning the translations is dated june of 2006. In august of 2006 on 60 minutes with mike wallace ahmadinejad explaned quite clearly what he said and what he meant.
Don't you think you might consider the primary source as the correct one since he is the one who said it?

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ORIGINAL: thompsonx

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I'm not dismissing the subtleties. The article acknowledges them and gives an even handed account of both sides of the argument but the strength of the points leads to the conclusion that his statement as reported in the media at the time was essentially correct.

Your article concerning the translations is dated june of 2006. In august of 2006 on 60 minutes with mike wallace ahmadinejad explaned quite clearly what he said and what he meant.
Don't you think you might consider the primary source as the correct one since he is the one who said it?