I don't think many people defend the government of Iran, they just don't want to start a war with them and feel that if there is something wrong with the Iranian government, then the Iranians should bloody well sort it out themselves.
Tool around Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and CiF and you'll run into plenty of people who go well beyond that into deflecting any criticism of Iran, denying that there is any possibility that Iran might be developing a nuclear weapon rather than being skeptical of American claims that it is building one, denying that Iran has any links to Hezbollah (which was founded as the Lebanese branch of the Iranian revolution), and so on. In most online forums outside the right wing, people promoting Iran as a liberal democracy seem to be more common than those recognizing that it is not one.
On the nuclear weapon front, at least, they have yet to do anything that falls outside the range of a civilian nuclear program, and the IAEA inspectors say there is absolutely no evidence of a weapons program. In fact, Iran had earlier agreed to halt their enrichment program and instead accept LEU for use in their reactors from other countries, but the US wouldn't take yes for an answer and now they're playing the silent game with eachother.
I'm not defending Iran, and I think it's high time for the whole bloody revolutionary government to be thrown out and replaced with a democracy. That said, I find the claims of the US and Israel to be somewhat suspect.
"In most online forums outside the right wing, people promoting Iran as a liberal democracy seem to be more common than those recognizing that it is not one."
I can't say this is what you've run into, but there have been rumors that nations are engaging in propaganda in online forums. Some people defending a nation may be paid to do so.
Should another country had invaded the US for the actions of your government? From invading other countries, to using blacks as slaves, to segregation, to developing and having the Bomb, to the practice of the death penalty?
Who told you you get to pick what government you like and what not, and act in another sovereign country? And who said the population of other countries want you to interfere with their affairs? You can find anti-government people in any country, including yours. Even anti-government groups and parties.
That doesn't mean the general public of said countries want someone to invade and take care of their government for them.
I don't know what you mean by "defending" exactly, but if you wonder why people are sceptic on US-Iran relations, you must go back before 1979 - when a good ol' US buddy named Reza Pahlavi was brutally murdering it's citizens and US was in full support of his ruling, yet since he's gone US is on a 3-decades rampage of sanctions disturbing Iran's ability to function economically on the international scene.
>why there are so many people that defend the government of Iran.
Because there is not so many people who defend the government of Iran, they just care about the hundred of thousands of innocent civilians, children and women included, who will end up dead as collateral damage if the US decide to "liberate" them.
I'm not sure I understand how it's a forgone conclusion that any military action on the part of the US or NATO in any capacity means death for hundreds of thousands of Iranian civilians.
By all accounts, an invasion of Iran would make Iraq look like a cake walk. Specifically, Iran has a more advanced military, as well as a more centralized force apparatus with hugely radicalized and patriotic forces.
Iraq was largely a cult of personality regime that kept its influence through clientelism and tribal rivalries, lacking in a central patriotic spirit. (That's why sectarian conflict outlasted nationalistic conflict by a factor of 10.)
Because the US doesn't do military action without death, without shooting, without explosions. I don't know any nation that does. "Military action" almost by definition, means there will be troops fighting or planes bombing (even if that means we're just supporting a force already fighting there). There is no military action we could take that would not result in Iran being torn to pieces, and when politicians talk about "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran", they mean just that.
The populace is very Western, and very much like America. They're advanced, liberal, and young, and being led by a government they can't relate to and can't get rid of. We could do sanctions (we are). We could do cyber warfare (we might be/probably are). What we can't do is military action without using the military (who use deadly weapons).
Any military action in Iran would be full-scale, classic-style war like America hasn't seen since WWII. If we started anything, Israel would join in, Great Britain may also, and Iran would strike back hard. They may even bring some allies. Even one soldier on the ground or one jet fighter in the air would leave invasion as the only remaining option.
> Because the US doesn't do military action without death, without shooting, without explosions. I don't know any nation that does.
Either this is a strawman or you should go back and trace the thread of argument again.
> What we can't do is military action without using the military (who use deadly weapons).
I don't know what this means.
> Any military action in Iran would be full-scale, classic-style war like America hasn't seen since WWII.
This sounds like wishful thinking and again, military action in any capacity (e.g. dropping bunker-busting bombs on their nuclear facilities) is not synonymous with 'full scale, classic-style war'.
>Either this is a strawman or you should go back and trace the thread of argument again.
What I understood was "we don't want civilian deaths". You said you didn't see how military action wouldn't result in civilian death. I made the argument that military action means shooting and explosions, which would almost certainly result in civilian deaths (because it always has).
>I don't know what this means.
You can't use the military without using the military. Using the military means death.
>dropping bunker-busting bombs on their nuclear facilities
Which of course, Iran would just sit by and accept and not fight back. If we attack Iran, they will attack back. I think you're missing the bigger picture. If we attack Iran (who has a strong, central army like us), we will enter into direct nation vs nation warfare (unlike any war the US has fought since WWII).
I can very easily imagine a US led action that destroyed Iran's naval and air forces in very short order, without a single boot on the ground, ever.
I don't know if I support such action, or if it would have the desired outcome, but I do know portraying the only options as "no military action" or "full scale armored ground invasion" is just not correct.
In order to have no repercussions from Iran, we'd have to know every detail of their armaments and organize to take them out roughly at the same time. If we fail, they hit back. Even if we succeed, that may garner sympathy from nations friendly to them, who may supply arms, that's really hard to forsee.
And even if we did that, how many civilians do they have working in or surrounding the facilities we'd need to target?
Iraq's army was a cakewalk. The fighting was over in hours, and it took less than 2 weeks to mop up the military and police forces in the country. Iran might be a little harder, but their military won't pose a serious challenge to US forces. The fact that they are centralized means it probably won't degenerate into the morass we're facing with Iraq.
The morass in Iraq may well have resulted in less trouble for the US itself than a concerted guerrilla resistance would have. All the sectarian violence, revenge killings, cleansing, etc were energy and resources expended that were not directed at US forces.
Further, a large quantity of resistance directed at the US was attributed to Iranian agents, weapons and training. I'd imagine that what they could muster in defense of their own nation would dwarf what they could export to a country they didn't particularly care for.
The point is not to make life better in Iran. The point is to remove the regime's nuclear capability. If the goal was to make life better in Iran there would be no economic sanctions.
This attitude is why "it's a forgone conclusion that any military action on the part of the US or NATO in any capacity means death for hundreds of thousands of Iranian civilians".
US soldiers will not give a damn about civilian lives if said civilians are ragheads like me, and will drop bombs on anything from sewage treatment plants to nuclear power stations, whatever accomplishes "the mission".
The ensuing radioactive fallout and disease will kill hundreds of thousands of innocents but they don't count, they are only people who look like me, not real humans.
The Iranian government have the option of retaliating
at the instant of the first explosion with a barrage of supersonic torpedos.
If said barrage is large enough it could overwhelm US defenses and take out the US fleet, the gulf state oil installations and pipelines, perhaps the Saudi oil reserve.
It's simply a fact that military action in Iran would not have the purpose of helping Iranian citizens. That is not logically equivalent to the statement that US/NATO would/should abandon regard for civilian life in pursuit of nuclear disarmament. Do you really want the US 'helping' anyone? Military intervention in Iran would not be an exercise in nation-building or 'liberation'.
The rest of your comment is some victim-complex hyperbolic fantasy. It's a course of events that should be considered but it is by no means whatsoever a certain consequent of military action.
Let me put aside your insulting me as a hyperbolic fantasist. Let me also put aside the Iranian government going on record to state that it WILL take out the oil and will close the Straits of Hormuz if attacked. Let's also disregard the warnings of CIA middle east ops people like
Philip Giraldi and Robert Baer (and I can quote others)
and the state of the oil futures market, and go with your idea that America can make an airstrike on Iran without causing all out war.
Because that's what you mean by "nuclear disarmament", isn't it? You mean "Dropping wide-radius bunker busting bombs on Iran's medical reactor in the middle of the city."
And these explosions will bombs, what "regard for civilian life" will their ensuing huge explosions in the middle of the city show? What "regard for civilian life" will the radiation leakage show?
Claiming that I have a "victim complex" is merely an ad-hominem that will not dispel the US military's long
record of treating civilians as expendable, precisely the "attitude" I was alluding to.
Here is example reportage on US drone strikes in Pakistan: They use the first strike to cause first responders to come to the scene, because some them will be Taliban. Now hit them with the second strike, with total disregard for all the non-Taliban rescuers (trying to help the civilians caught in the first blast) caught in the second blast.
Link:
If it comes down to: letting Iran threaten us and our allies with nukes, vs dropping some bombs on a city and killing a lot of people, everyone would pick dropping bombs on the city. We expect the Iranian people to realize this, and consider pre-emptively disarming themselves out of self-preservation.
Iran has NOT threatened any one with nukes, it does not even have a weapons program.
Iran only has an enrichment facility for medical isotopes and for its power station. This enrichment is under full IAEA monitoring. Iran even agreed to stop enriching and buy the fuel from abroad, but the US killed the deal.
That Iran is not making weapons has been confirmed by the US National Intelligence Estimate, by the Mossad to JCS chairman General Dempsey, and by National Intelligence Director Clapper to the Senate.
I'm not sure I understand how it's a forgone conclusion that any military action on the part of the US or NATO in any capacity means death for hundreds of thousands of Iranian civilians.
Maybe they know their history, and have seen what happened the other times the US/NATO took military action.
You mean how they supported some small groups (mostly of mercenaries posing as "rebels", used by western powers to mimic the actual popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunis), toppled the dictator, established a puppet interim government, and turned a stable for decades years country into an unstable civil war nightmare with more to come?
Given that the Arab League was asking for NATO help, this was a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' situation. Clearly one that gives you glee and plays into some nationalistic inferiority complex that you have with respect to American hegemony.
The point though was that the mission was accomplished with minimal civilian casualties (or as minimal as one could expect from an urban guerrilla war) and there were no combat troops on the ground.
What exactly is a "thing like this"? Let's take a hypothetical example of countries A and B.
An ex-marine of country A is caught and sentenced as a spy in country B.
Country A not only frequently makes open threats about invading country B, but has also invaded 2 more countries in the region in the last 10 years, one of those with a false pretext, and another to revenge the actions of a few men, not the actions of said country.
Country A, 60 years ago, had the democratic government of country B replaced with a dictator of their choosing.
Country A has imprisoned non-soldiers of other countries, taking them from their countries and keeping them in a remote prison in the tropics without even a trial. A lot of them where found totally unrelated to anything, i.e innocent, and released several years later without any compensation of course.
Soldiers of country A are known to torture, rape and beat prisoners from other countries, and even take pictures of said torture with their phones and laugh at it. Several widespread cases where made known.
Country A has weapons of mass destruction, and is the only country known to have used two of those in a war, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, just as the war was ending and the enemy was surrendering.
Country A has made medical experiments on people without their knowledge. In one case, they publicly said they are "sorry", 40 years after the fact.
Country A is known to have very good relations with dictators and despotic governments in many countries where it serves it's interests.
Everywhere country A invaded in the last 10 years, they brought mass instability, civil tension or war and chaos, in the name of "bringing democracy". Coincidentally it's mostly in strategic places with lots of natural resources.
As late as 40 years ago, country A still practiced segregation in many of its cities. They have also assassinated their two most prominent anti-segregation activists. Even today, despite having made progress on the matter, a hugely disproportionate percentage of the black population of country A is in prison.
Finally, country A practices the death penalty as much as country B, and has a lot of religious fanatics among its population, too, and certain places even prefer non-scientific evolution theories instead of the de-facto scientific theory on the matter for their schools. It's a known fact that an openly atheist would never, as it is, get elected to the top office in country A.
Can you guess country A and country B? Would you get mad at country B?
> Country A has weapons of mass destruction, and is
> the only country known to have used two of those in
> a war, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians,
> just as the war was ending and the enemy was
> surrendering.
Is there credible evidence that the US knew that the Japanese were on the verge of surrendering, but decided to drop the bombs anyways?
It was 1945, the Italians had surrendered, the Germans had surrendered, Japan had been under heavy under attack with conventional bombs (leaving tens of thousands dead and most of their cities destroyed). USSR was also there (had freed Manchuria). Besides the official US line, held for political reasons, most countries in the world believe this was the case, i.e. the US was just itching to test their new weapons in a war setting.
"In his 1965 study, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam (pp. 107, 108), historian Gar Alperovitz writes:
(...) In mid-April [1945] the [US] Joint Intelligence Committee reported that Japanese leaders were looking for a way to modify the surrender terms to end the war. The State Department was convinced the Emperor was actively seeking a way to stop the fighting."
I've read similar arguments and evidence in my language books, but here's some more from a quick search on the web (the source seems dubious in general, but the specific parts legit):
"Months before the end of the war, Japan's leaders recognized that defeat was inevitable. In April 1945 a new government headed by Kantaro Suzuki took office with the mission of ending the war. When Germany capitulated in early May, the Japanese understood that the British and Americans would now direct the full fury of their awesome military power exclusively against them."
and:
"It was only after the war that the American public learned about Japan's efforts to bring the conflict to an end. Chicago Tribune reporter Walter Trohan, for example, was obliged by wartime censorship to withhold for seven months one of the most important stories of the war.
In an article that finally appeared August 19, 1945, on the front pages of the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald, Trohan revealed that on January 20, 1945, two days prior to his departure for the Yalta meeting with Stalin and Churchill, President Roosevelt received a 40-page memorandum from General Douglas MacArthur outlining five separate surrender overtures from high-level Japanese officials. (The complete text of Trohan's article is in the Winter 1985-86 Journal, pp. 508-512.)
This memo showed that the Japanese were offering surrender terms virtually identical to the ones ultimately accepted by the Americans at the formal surrender ceremony on September 2 -- that is, complete surrender of everything but the person of the Emperor."
With all due respect, most of the arguments that you're proposing here are the result of historians rife with accusations of revisionist history - Alperovitz especially.
The Japanese did express a desire for peace before the bombs were dropped, yes, but a desire for peace is not nearly the same as an unconditional surrender. At this point, the context of this war should be noted - it occurred, in part, because of the manner in which World War I ended, an armistice (however imbalanced in its terms), which was certainly a factor in the outbreak of World War II. It's understandable that the United States wished to avoid a similar situation with Japan.
Is this justification for dropping two atomic bombs on a hostile nation? I don't know; I wasn't there and I definitely don't know all the details. However, it certainly isn't as one-sided as you present it.
What? The unbalanced armistice was a big cause of world war 2. If anything it serves as a lesson that accepting the conditional cessation of hostilities would be, in the long run, a decent exit option.
With all due respect, most of the arguments that you're proposing here are the result of historians rife with accusations of revisionist history - Alperovitz especially.
Sure, but you can find similar information in many historical works, and most of it refers to actual evidence and sources of the era (correspondence, intelligence reports, etc). It's also only natural to have someone saying something unfavorable for a country's foreign policy actions to be attacked, in academia and elsewhere. Chomsky also gets that a lot, but what he says reflects exactly what third party countries think of us actions.
The Japanese did express a desire for peace before the bombs were dropped, yes, but a desire for peace is not nearly the same as an unconditional surrender
And why would any nation should accept an "unconditional surrender"? A conditional surrender would do just fine, if your goal is to end the war. Especially, when the conditional parts were quite trivial (the emperor and such).
The "unconditional surrender" essentially meant the right to use Japan as an USA base for the next decades. It wasn't even about correcting the Japanese war atrocities, as Japanese were never made to apologize (and pay) for, say, their Manchurian massacres.
Plus, it was exactly the "imbalances" of the armistice that led to World War II. An unconditional surrender, as a even greater imbalance, would have made it even worse.
You start out with a fair critique of the US, but the later stretched points undermine your argument:
> Country A has weapons of mass destruction, and is the only country known to have used two of those in a war, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, just as the war was ending and the enemy was surrendering.
I was not aware that the mainstream view was that Japan was surrendering before the atomic bombings.
> Everywhere country A invaded in the last 10 years, they brought mass instability, civil tension or war and chaos, in the name of "bringing democracy". Coincidentally it's mostly in strategic places with lots of natural resources.
Easier said for Iraq than Afghanistan. It already had chaos, civil war, etc. at the onset of the invasion. Expected returns from mineral wealth hardly justify the cost.
> They have also assassinated their two most prominent anti-segregation activists
I'm guessing you mean King for one. Not sure who'd other would be? (Malcom X? He advocated racial seperation). Either way, it's a tall argument that the country (government?) assassinated them.
> Finally, country A practices the death penalty as much as country B,
Iran executes people at not only a far higher rate but even in absolute numbers. It also applies death penalty to a far wider range of crimes.
> and has a lot of religious fanatics among its population, too
Sure, but they aren't running the government
> It's a known fact that an openly atheist would never, as it is, get elected to the top office in country A.
As opposed to being charged with blasphemy in country B.
the later stretched points undermine your argument
A little maybe. But also consider that I wanted to show how people from other countries think of the situation too. I mean, people tend to think of country B in country's A terms and framing of the discussion, so I tried to do something like the opposite.
I was not aware that the mainstream view was that Japan was surrendering before the atomic bombings.
That view is widely held all around the world. Try to find some Europeans thinking the bombs were "needed". There is also evidence that us leaders knew about it, it was just a showcase, mainly to scare off USSR. Besides, it's of little consequence if Japan was surrendering or not: the war was going on with conventional weapons even in more dire times, including the Normandy invasion, so nothing called at that time to drop atomic bombs on civilians (if anything ever does). Especially considering that Japan was at the time under attack by conventional bombs, tons of them, that had burned most of its cities and killed hundreds of thousands.
Easier said for Iraq than Afghanistan. It already had chaos, civil war, etc. at the onset of the invasion. Expected returns from mineral wealth hardly justify the cost.
It had the Taliban rule, but not much civil war anymore. And certainly no mass chaos and deaths, like it does post invasion. And it's not just "mineral wealth", it's also setting foot in a strategic area.
I'm guessing you mean King for one. Not sure who'd other would be? (Malcom X? He advocated racial seperation).
Was thinking of X, yeah. Well, even if he advocated racial separation, just means he was killed just as a pro-black activist, instead of a anti-segregation activist. Both reasons seem bad to me.
Either way, it's a tall argument that the country (government?) assassinated them.
Who said the government? I said "the country". To show it in the same vain as people that blame other countries for things done not only by the government but also by local religious nuts, teams etc.
Iran executes people at not only a far higher rate but even in absolute numbers. It also applies death penalty to a far wider range of crimes.
Not much consolation. One's too many for my tastes. YMMV.
Sure, but they aren't running the government
No, they only run the previous government. And no one can talk openly against them, or they will lose office pronto.
As opposed to being charged with blasphemy in country B.
You mean like in the Salem trials? What, that was long ago?
Then tell me, why Country A, that stopped practicing slavery later than other countries, introduced women's voting later than other countries, stopped racial segregation later than other countries, has not yet stopped practicing the death penalty unlike other countries, etc etc, thinks other countries should all be on the same timeline as it does, as to what laws they have?
As opposed to being charged with blasphemy in country B.
You mean like in the Salem trials? What, that was long ago?
Europe was still trying people for heresy in the 17th century around the time of the witch trials. The inquisition was still very much alive throughout Europe (and enforcing the death penalty if needed). Galileo came very close to being a heretic.
"Country A has weapons of mass destruction, and is the only country known to have used two of those in a war, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, just as the war was ending and the enemy was surrendering."
Actually the statement that they were surrendering is erroneous. Peace overtures were being felt out before Hrioshima, with the last being the Potsdam Declaration. This was rejected by Prime Minister Suzuki with the following statement...
"The only thing to do is just kill it with silence. We will do nothing but press on to the bitter end to bring about a successful completion of the war."
Now consider the time that this is occurring. The armed forces of the Empire of Japan have, for four years (and for other nations like Britain, Holland, France and China, even sooner), showed that they will fight for every last scrap of land, and die trying. To be taken captive was a grave dishonour, while death in service to the Emporer, a shoulders highest achievement. Predictions for a conventional land invasion like Normandy were predicted to cost millions of allied troop lives, based on the experiences that they had witnessed first hand over the war.
Even when the first bomb was dropped, there was resistance to accept the terms provided, due to the belief that the United States could not have more then one atomic bomb. This was believed due to the difficulty of constructing one at the time from Japan's own research team. Even when Nagasaki was bombed, and the USSR invaded Manchuria days afterwards, there was resistance to accepting the Allies terms. 50% of the cabinet wanted the terms changed to allow Japan to disarm itself, and try it's own war criminals, and there to be no occupation of Japan. All of the cabinet demanded that the emperor's position not be touched. In fact, if the emperor's position of power could not been guaranteed, there was no opposition to continuing the war to the very end.
There's a lot of things that the United States, I mean Country A's, foreign policy can be lambasted for, especially as of late. But to revise history to fit a narrative is no better then those that gloss over the failings of the past when stating it was superior to today. To do so places your argument on a foundation of fine sand, ready to crumble the moment someone blows in facts that contradict your statements, like usaar has done in the statement below mine.
It gets worse. He held dual US-Iranian citizenships, so what he did was the textbook definition of treason, regardless of how you feel about Iran. If anything, this proves he is too stupid to have been very effective in his job as propagandist. I feel sorry for the guy and hope that someone intervenes on his behalf, but he is clearly an utter imbecile.
Working for the military of an enemy state to undermine the government and instigate rebellion. I'm not making a value judgement. All I'm saying is that when you take everything into account, the legal charge isn't crazy. The punishment is a different matter; Iran's legal system is obviously barbaric.
Yes, it is one of the only countries left in the Western world that still has capital punishment on the books. But death is not mandated as the minimum punishment: "Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."
As far as I know, his exact role at Kuma has not been publicly confirmed. But everything I've read indicates that he was hired for his military background and knowledge of Iran and Farsi to work on DoD-sponsored projects at Kuma Reality Games. That only make sense if it was for propaganda video games aimed at Iranians. Kuma previously made an episode of its Kuma/War first-person shooter based on a what-if scenario of the US invading Iran. All this does not in itself prove that he did anything treasonous, but it gives Iran good reason to believe that he did (and they no doubt have more information than we do), so in either case he's reckless for returning to Iran.
> "That only make sense if it was for propaganda video games aimed at Iranians."
Or if it was for propaganda video games aimed at Americans who want something a little more authentic in their cultural set dressing and battle chatter.
Or it was for training material for the DoD who wanted more-accurate cultural set dressing and battle chatter.
You know ... I gotta say ... Hikers coming into Iran the back way???
Ex-Military type who looks like a spy, sounds like a spy, and behaves like a spy, but somehow ... isn't a spy???
Look, Americans are probably well advised not to visit Iran right now. With the obvious exception of American black guys who play basketball REALLY well, you probably won't receive that great a welcome at present. You need to realize that if anything untoward were to happen to you there is little that we can do on your behalf.
I do think that the US Government should use its influence to protect its citizens but ... MAN... come on people ... please exercise a MODICUM of good judgement. Help them...Help you. That's not too much to ask.
Risking an entire team of special operatives, or spending a few hundred million in "bail", or going to war with Iran isn't much to ask?
I mean, I'm not saying necessarily leave the guy to rot, but we paid something like a million dollars a head for the hikers- and they weren't even employed by the DoD!
Just wanted to ask...are you saying we should do something for him...or that we should not?
Because I stand by my post, risking ANY of those things is, to my mind, too much to ask of the Government. Especially when individual Americans KNOW the risks of going to Iran.
OP was making the argument that the people willingly going into Iran in risky situations should understand the consequences of doing so. S/he did not seem to be advocating going in there to get them out.
68 comments
[ 1275 ms ] story [ 1536 ms ] threadI'm not defending Iran, and I think it's high time for the whole bloody revolutionary government to be thrown out and replaced with a democracy. That said, I find the claims of the US and Israel to be somewhat suspect.
This is patently false.
Much cleaner that way.
Who told you you get to pick what government you like and what not, and act in another sovereign country? And who said the population of other countries want you to interfere with their affairs? You can find anti-government people in any country, including yours. Even anti-government groups and parties.
That doesn't mean the general public of said countries want someone to invade and take care of their government for them.
Someone was bribed/paid to over-throw replace the Father with the son..
Because there is not so many people who defend the government of Iran, they just care about the hundred of thousands of innocent civilians, children and women included, who will end up dead as collateral damage if the US decide to "liberate" them.
Iraq was largely a cult of personality regime that kept its influence through clientelism and tribal rivalries, lacking in a central patriotic spirit. (That's why sectarian conflict outlasted nationalistic conflict by a factor of 10.)
The war in Iraq killed between 100k-150k civilians, according to most estimates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War
All this implies that an invasion and occupation of Iran would take a huge toll on civilians.
The populace is very Western, and very much like America. They're advanced, liberal, and young, and being led by a government they can't relate to and can't get rid of. We could do sanctions (we are). We could do cyber warfare (we might be/probably are). What we can't do is military action without using the military (who use deadly weapons).
Any military action in Iran would be full-scale, classic-style war like America hasn't seen since WWII. If we started anything, Israel would join in, Great Britain may also, and Iran would strike back hard. They may even bring some allies. Even one soldier on the ground or one jet fighter in the air would leave invasion as the only remaining option.
Either this is a strawman or you should go back and trace the thread of argument again.
> What we can't do is military action without using the military (who use deadly weapons).
I don't know what this means.
> Any military action in Iran would be full-scale, classic-style war like America hasn't seen since WWII.
This sounds like wishful thinking and again, military action in any capacity (e.g. dropping bunker-busting bombs on their nuclear facilities) is not synonymous with 'full scale, classic-style war'.
What I understood was "we don't want civilian deaths". You said you didn't see how military action wouldn't result in civilian death. I made the argument that military action means shooting and explosions, which would almost certainly result in civilian deaths (because it always has).
>I don't know what this means.
You can't use the military without using the military. Using the military means death.
>dropping bunker-busting bombs on their nuclear facilities
Which of course, Iran would just sit by and accept and not fight back. If we attack Iran, they will attack back. I think you're missing the bigger picture. If we attack Iran (who has a strong, central army like us), we will enter into direct nation vs nation warfare (unlike any war the US has fought since WWII).
I don't know if I support such action, or if it would have the desired outcome, but I do know portraying the only options as "no military action" or "full scale armored ground invasion" is just not correct.
And even if we did that, how many civilians do they have working in or surrounding the facilities we'd need to target?
You INVADE another sovereign country, even if only your planes, in order to "drop bombs on their weapon factories", as you suggest in a comment below.
How would you call a similar action of another country to your country's weapon facilities if not invasion?
Further, a large quantity of resistance directed at the US was attributed to Iranian agents, weapons and training. I'd imagine that what they could muster in defense of their own nation would dwarf what they could export to a country they didn't particularly care for.
US soldiers will not give a damn about civilian lives if said civilians are ragheads like me, and will drop bombs on anything from sewage treatment plants to nuclear power stations, whatever accomplishes "the mission".
The ensuing radioactive fallout and disease will kill hundreds of thousands of innocents but they don't count, they are only people who look like me, not real humans.
The Iranian government have the option of retaliating at the instant of the first explosion with a barrage of supersonic torpedos.
If said barrage is large enough it could overwhelm US defenses and take out the US fleet, the gulf state oil installations and pipelines, perhaps the Saudi oil reserve.
To see where this leads, google for "Philip Giraldi" and "World War 3". Here is a link: http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2012/01/11/what-war-with...
It's simply a fact that military action in Iran would not have the purpose of helping Iranian citizens. That is not logically equivalent to the statement that US/NATO would/should abandon regard for civilian life in pursuit of nuclear disarmament. Do you really want the US 'helping' anyone? Military intervention in Iran would not be an exercise in nation-building or 'liberation'.
The rest of your comment is some victim-complex hyperbolic fantasy. It's a course of events that should be considered but it is by no means whatsoever a certain consequent of military action.
Because that's what you mean by "nuclear disarmament", isn't it? You mean "Dropping wide-radius bunker busting bombs on Iran's medical reactor in the middle of the city."
And these explosions will bombs, what "regard for civilian life" will their ensuing huge explosions in the middle of the city show? What "regard for civilian life" will the radiation leakage show?
Claiming that I have a "victim complex" is merely an ad-hominem that will not dispel the US military's long record of treating civilians as expendable, precisely the "attitude" I was alluding to.
Here is example reportage on US drone strikes in Pakistan: They use the first strike to cause first responders to come to the scene, because some them will be Taliban. Now hit them with the second strike, with total disregard for all the non-Taliban rescuers (trying to help the civilians caught in the first blast) caught in the second blast. Link:
http://antiwar.com/radio/2012/02/07/chris-woods-2/
I can also give you examples from Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam going all the way back to World War 2.
Iran only has an enrichment facility for medical isotopes and for its power station. This enrichment is under full IAEA monitoring. Iran even agreed to stop enriching and buy the fuel from abroad, but the US killed the deal.
That Iran is not making weapons has been confirmed by the US National Intelligence Estimate, by the Mossad to JCS chairman General Dempsey, and by National Intelligence Director Clapper to the Senate.
link: http://antiwar.com/radio/2012/02/05/flynt-leverett-8/
How can you expect Iran to "disarm" itself when it does not have nukes in the first place? The same way Iraq was supposed to "disarm" in 2003?
The reason why iraq was a cakewalk was because the iraqi army was in shambles. At least 10-15 years too old.
Iran is a different matter
Maybe they know their history, and have seen what happened the other times the US/NATO took military action.
Yeah, what about the Libyan intervention?
The point though was that the mission was accomplished with minimal civilian casualties (or as minimal as one could expect from an urban guerrilla war) and there were no combat troops on the ground.
An ex-marine of country A is caught and sentenced as a spy in country B. Country A not only frequently makes open threats about invading country B, but has also invaded 2 more countries in the region in the last 10 years, one of those with a false pretext, and another to revenge the actions of a few men, not the actions of said country.
Country A, 60 years ago, had the democratic government of country B replaced with a dictator of their choosing.
Country A has imprisoned non-soldiers of other countries, taking them from their countries and keeping them in a remote prison in the tropics without even a trial. A lot of them where found totally unrelated to anything, i.e innocent, and released several years later without any compensation of course.
Soldiers of country A are known to torture, rape and beat prisoners from other countries, and even take pictures of said torture with their phones and laugh at it. Several widespread cases where made known.
Country A has weapons of mass destruction, and is the only country known to have used two of those in a war, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, just as the war was ending and the enemy was surrendering.
Country A has made medical experiments on people without their knowledge. In one case, they publicly said they are "sorry", 40 years after the fact.
Country A is known to have very good relations with dictators and despotic governments in many countries where it serves it's interests.
Everywhere country A invaded in the last 10 years, they brought mass instability, civil tension or war and chaos, in the name of "bringing democracy". Coincidentally it's mostly in strategic places with lots of natural resources.
As late as 40 years ago, country A still practiced segregation in many of its cities. They have also assassinated their two most prominent anti-segregation activists. Even today, despite having made progress on the matter, a hugely disproportionate percentage of the black population of country A is in prison.
Finally, country A practices the death penalty as much as country B, and has a lot of religious fanatics among its population, too, and certain places even prefer non-scientific evolution theories instead of the de-facto scientific theory on the matter for their schools. It's a known fact that an openly atheist would never, as it is, get elected to the top office in country A.
Can you guess country A and country B? Would you get mad at country B?
"In his 1965 study, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam (pp. 107, 108), historian Gar Alperovitz writes:
(...) In mid-April [1945] the [US] Joint Intelligence Committee reported that Japanese leaders were looking for a way to modify the surrender terms to end the war. The State Department was convinced the Emperor was actively seeking a way to stop the fighting."
I've read similar arguments and evidence in my language books, but here's some more from a quick search on the web (the source seems dubious in general, but the specific parts legit):
"Months before the end of the war, Japan's leaders recognized that defeat was inevitable. In April 1945 a new government headed by Kantaro Suzuki took office with the mission of ending the war. When Germany capitulated in early May, the Japanese understood that the British and Americans would now direct the full fury of their awesome military power exclusively against them."
and:
"It was only after the war that the American public learned about Japan's efforts to bring the conflict to an end. Chicago Tribune reporter Walter Trohan, for example, was obliged by wartime censorship to withhold for seven months one of the most important stories of the war.
In an article that finally appeared August 19, 1945, on the front pages of the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald, Trohan revealed that on January 20, 1945, two days prior to his departure for the Yalta meeting with Stalin and Churchill, President Roosevelt received a 40-page memorandum from General Douglas MacArthur outlining five separate surrender overtures from high-level Japanese officials. (The complete text of Trohan's article is in the Winter 1985-86 Journal, pp. 508-512.)
This memo showed that the Japanese were offering surrender terms virtually identical to the ones ultimately accepted by the Americans at the formal surrender ceremony on September 2 -- that is, complete surrender of everything but the person of the Emperor."
The Japanese did express a desire for peace before the bombs were dropped, yes, but a desire for peace is not nearly the same as an unconditional surrender. At this point, the context of this war should be noted - it occurred, in part, because of the manner in which World War I ended, an armistice (however imbalanced in its terms), which was certainly a factor in the outbreak of World War II. It's understandable that the United States wished to avoid a similar situation with Japan.
Is this justification for dropping two atomic bombs on a hostile nation? I don't know; I wasn't there and I definitely don't know all the details. However, it certainly isn't as one-sided as you present it.
Sure, but you can find similar information in many historical works, and most of it refers to actual evidence and sources of the era (correspondence, intelligence reports, etc). It's also only natural to have someone saying something unfavorable for a country's foreign policy actions to be attacked, in academia and elsewhere. Chomsky also gets that a lot, but what he says reflects exactly what third party countries think of us actions.
The Japanese did express a desire for peace before the bombs were dropped, yes, but a desire for peace is not nearly the same as an unconditional surrender
And why would any nation should accept an "unconditional surrender"? A conditional surrender would do just fine, if your goal is to end the war. Especially, when the conditional parts were quite trivial (the emperor and such).
The "unconditional surrender" essentially meant the right to use Japan as an USA base for the next decades. It wasn't even about correcting the Japanese war atrocities, as Japanese were never made to apologize (and pay) for, say, their Manchurian massacres.
Plus, it was exactly the "imbalances" of the armistice that led to World War II. An unconditional surrender, as a even greater imbalance, would have made it even worse.
> Country A has weapons of mass destruction, and is the only country known to have used two of those in a war, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, just as the war was ending and the enemy was surrendering.
I was not aware that the mainstream view was that Japan was surrendering before the atomic bombings.
> Everywhere country A invaded in the last 10 years, they brought mass instability, civil tension or war and chaos, in the name of "bringing democracy". Coincidentally it's mostly in strategic places with lots of natural resources.
Easier said for Iraq than Afghanistan. It already had chaos, civil war, etc. at the onset of the invasion. Expected returns from mineral wealth hardly justify the cost.
> They have also assassinated their two most prominent anti-segregation activists
I'm guessing you mean King for one. Not sure who'd other would be? (Malcom X? He advocated racial seperation). Either way, it's a tall argument that the country (government?) assassinated them.
> Finally, country A practices the death penalty as much as country B,
Iran executes people at not only a far higher rate but even in absolute numbers. It also applies death penalty to a far wider range of crimes.
> and has a lot of religious fanatics among its population, too
Sure, but they aren't running the government
> It's a known fact that an openly atheist would never, as it is, get elected to the top office in country A.
As opposed to being charged with blasphemy in country B.
A little maybe. But also consider that I wanted to show how people from other countries think of the situation too. I mean, people tend to think of country B in country's A terms and framing of the discussion, so I tried to do something like the opposite.
I was not aware that the mainstream view was that Japan was surrendering before the atomic bombings.
That view is widely held all around the world. Try to find some Europeans thinking the bombs were "needed". There is also evidence that us leaders knew about it, it was just a showcase, mainly to scare off USSR. Besides, it's of little consequence if Japan was surrendering or not: the war was going on with conventional weapons even in more dire times, including the Normandy invasion, so nothing called at that time to drop atomic bombs on civilians (if anything ever does). Especially considering that Japan was at the time under attack by conventional bombs, tons of them, that had burned most of its cities and killed hundreds of thousands.
Easier said for Iraq than Afghanistan. It already had chaos, civil war, etc. at the onset of the invasion. Expected returns from mineral wealth hardly justify the cost.
It had the Taliban rule, but not much civil war anymore. And certainly no mass chaos and deaths, like it does post invasion. And it's not just "mineral wealth", it's also setting foot in a strategic area.
I'm guessing you mean King for one. Not sure who'd other would be? (Malcom X? He advocated racial seperation).
Was thinking of X, yeah. Well, even if he advocated racial separation, just means he was killed just as a pro-black activist, instead of a anti-segregation activist. Both reasons seem bad to me.
Either way, it's a tall argument that the country (government?) assassinated them.
Who said the government? I said "the country". To show it in the same vain as people that blame other countries for things done not only by the government but also by local religious nuts, teams etc.
Iran executes people at not only a far higher rate but even in absolute numbers. It also applies death penalty to a far wider range of crimes.
Not much consolation. One's too many for my tastes. YMMV.
Sure, but they aren't running the government
No, they only run the previous government. And no one can talk openly against them, or they will lose office pronto.
As opposed to being charged with blasphemy in country B.
You mean like in the Salem trials? What, that was long ago?
Then tell me, why Country A, that stopped practicing slavery later than other countries, introduced women's voting later than other countries, stopped racial segregation later than other countries, has not yet stopped practicing the death penalty unlike other countries, etc etc, thinks other countries should all be on the same timeline as it does, as to what laws they have?
Europe was still trying people for heresy in the 17th century around the time of the witch trials. The inquisition was still very much alive throughout Europe (and enforcing the death penalty if needed). Galileo came very close to being a heretic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
Then tell me, why Country A...introduced women's voting later than other countries...
The US: 1920 --Women can vote (with many states doing so before then)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womens_suffrage_in_the_United_S...
The UK: 1928 – Women received the vote on equal terms as men (over the age of 21) as a result of the Representation of the People Act 1928.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womens_suffrage_in_the_United_K...
Germany:
In Germany, women's suffrage was granted in the new constitution of the Weimar republic in 1919.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womens_suffrage#Germany
France:
Suffrage was extended to women in France by the 21 April 1944 ordinance of the French provisional government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womens_suffrage#France
Not to mention how many countries had abolished slavery before the Civil War time.
Actually the statement that they were surrendering is erroneous. Peace overtures were being felt out before Hrioshima, with the last being the Potsdam Declaration. This was rejected by Prime Minister Suzuki with the following statement...
"The only thing to do is just kill it with silence. We will do nothing but press on to the bitter end to bring about a successful completion of the war."
Now consider the time that this is occurring. The armed forces of the Empire of Japan have, for four years (and for other nations like Britain, Holland, France and China, even sooner), showed that they will fight for every last scrap of land, and die trying. To be taken captive was a grave dishonour, while death in service to the Emporer, a shoulders highest achievement. Predictions for a conventional land invasion like Normandy were predicted to cost millions of allied troop lives, based on the experiences that they had witnessed first hand over the war.
Even when the first bomb was dropped, there was resistance to accept the terms provided, due to the belief that the United States could not have more then one atomic bomb. This was believed due to the difficulty of constructing one at the time from Japan's own research team. Even when Nagasaki was bombed, and the USSR invaded Manchuria days afterwards, there was resistance to accepting the Allies terms. 50% of the cabinet wanted the terms changed to allow Japan to disarm itself, and try it's own war criminals, and there to be no occupation of Japan. All of the cabinet demanded that the emperor's position not be touched. In fact, if the emperor's position of power could not been guaranteed, there was no opposition to continuing the war to the very end.
There's a lot of things that the United States, I mean Country A's, foreign policy can be lambasted for, especially as of late. But to revise history to fit a narrative is no better then those that gloss over the failings of the past when stating it was superior to today. To do so places your argument on a foundation of fine sand, ready to crumble the moment someone blows in facts that contradict your statements, like usaar has done in the statement below mine.
But what exactly did he do? The Washington Post story only says he was visiting his relatives, which doesn't sound treasonous on the face of it.
As far as I know, his exact role at Kuma has not been publicly confirmed. But everything I've read indicates that he was hired for his military background and knowledge of Iran and Farsi to work on DoD-sponsored projects at Kuma Reality Games. That only make sense if it was for propaganda video games aimed at Iranians. Kuma previously made an episode of its Kuma/War first-person shooter based on a what-if scenario of the US invading Iran. All this does not in itself prove that he did anything treasonous, but it gives Iran good reason to believe that he did (and they no doubt have more information than we do), so in either case he's reckless for returning to Iran.
Or if it was for propaganda video games aimed at Americans who want something a little more authentic in their cultural set dressing and battle chatter.
Or it was for training material for the DoD who wanted more-accurate cultural set dressing and battle chatter.
Ex-Military type who looks like a spy, sounds like a spy, and behaves like a spy, but somehow ... isn't a spy???
Look, Americans are probably well advised not to visit Iran right now. With the obvious exception of American black guys who play basketball REALLY well, you probably won't receive that great a welcome at present. You need to realize that if anything untoward were to happen to you there is little that we can do on your behalf.
I do think that the US Government should use its influence to protect its citizens but ... MAN... come on people ... please exercise a MODICUM of good judgement. Help them...Help you. That's not too much to ask.
I mean, I'm not saying necessarily leave the guy to rot, but we paid something like a million dollars a head for the hikers- and they weren't even employed by the DoD!
Because I stand by my post, risking ANY of those things is, to my mind, too much to ask of the Government. Especially when individual Americans KNOW the risks of going to Iran.