Pre-emptive War: e.g. Should we nuke Tehran?

[avocados]

click on D'Kian's signiture everybody!!

what good will that do??

[EC]

what good will that do??

A good laugh.

[D'kian]

click on D'Kian's signiture everybody!!

Thanks.

It's a link to an mp3 file of a song called "Bomb Iran" sung to the tune of the Beach Boys's "Barbara Anne."

[israel]

I only read the beginning couple of post and I was shocked.

There's only one reason not to bomb Tehran and it is the only reason necessary.

THE ELEVEN MILLION PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE!

Unless Tehran was a direct thread (as in primed nukes aimed at our country) I see absolutely no reason to destroy innocent lives.

I mean are you guys serious?

[BrassDragon]

Unless Tehran was a direct thread (as in primed nukes aimed at our country)...

Isn't any breach of justice a direct threat to rational men and women?

[israel]

Isn't any breach of justice a direct threat to rational men and women?

I think your taking that out of context. I were to demolish your house somehow, you wouldn't destroy my entire neighborhood would you?

I mean is there any justification to the possible loss of 11 million lives?

How is this rational?

You can't just kill people as an act of revenge...

[D'kian]

You can't just kill people as an act of revenge...

That was the West's nuclear doctrine for several decades. In the event of a Soviet first nuclear strike, the West (meaning Americ and Britain, and maybe France) would retaliate. Not exactly as revenge, but as deterrence. Essentially the position was "you kill us, we kill you," or as it was called Mutually Assured Destruction.

We can say that it worked because no nuclear war ever took place. But in order to indeed assure the toehr side's destruction, both sides needed a very large surplus of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. Otherwise either side could effectively disarm the other with a first strike, making retaliation impossible. Or both sides could keep nuclear ballistic missiles where the other side couldn't target them. For example deep under the ocean riding inside submarines. Both sides employed the two strategies.

The difference this time is that the Iranian mullahs are more irrational than the Soviets were, and more enamoured of death. I don't think they'd give their own lives, or even risk them (we don't see bin Laden, Arafat or Ahmadinejad strap explosives around their bodies, do we?) But they may be willing to see a lot of their country destroyed if 1) they wipe out Israel (which a small number of nukes could do) and 2) they keep a few extra warheads to discourage Syria or Turkey from taking over the remains of the Islamic Republic.

Of course the whole notion is insane. But then I believe the mullahs are insane.

[BrassDragon]

I think your taking that out of context.

I think not. The point I made is an abstract one, but here is how it is applied in this circumstance:

-If Iran gains nuclear weapons, it might use them to kill people; and it is in the process of gaining them.

-Iran continues to support Islamic terrorists who kill Americans

I were to demolish your house somehow, you wouldn't destroy my entire neighborhood would you?

If you were the dictator of your neighborhood and it attacked my house, I would destroy your neighborhood if that were the most expedient method of dealing with the threat.

That said, note that I haven't been advocating nuking Iran at this point; I think it would be most expedient to bomb their government and terrorist infrastructure to the stone age.

I mean is there any justification to the possible loss of 11 million lives? How is this rational?

The justification: So rational people can live safe and happy lives.

You can't just kill people as an act of revenge...

Well you can, but I wouldn't recommend killing evil people out of revenge; I would recommend killing them to make the world safer for rational people.

EDIT: fixed typo

Edited July 30, 2008 by BrassDragon

[israel]

See, your going in circles. Do you understand the value of a life?

The fact that someone in Tehran who's spent the past 15 years supporting their family just to see there kids go to college have their lives comepletly destroyed.

What about all the fucking children there for Christ's sake?

The only americans dying their are soildier fighting a fool's war for foolish causes.

Why dont you them in ways that dont lose lives, or at least not as many. Military outposts, nation treasure (maybe some... I dont know national park or something)

Nuke the outskirts of a town just to show them that you could.

[Tenzing_Shaw]

What about all the fucking children there for Christ's sake?

"Think of the children" is not a valid argument, and morality is not a question of body-counts. I think there are valid reasons for not using nuclear weapons against Iran yet, but your appeal to emotion is not one of them.

[KurtColville]

See, your going in circles. Do you understand the value of a life?

The fact that someone in Tehran who's spent the past 15 years supporting their family just to see there kids go to college have their lives comepletly destroyed.

What about all the fucking children there for Christ's sake?

The only americans dying their are soildier fighting a fool's war for foolish causes.

Why dont you them in ways that dont lose lives, or at least not as many. Military outposts, nation treasure (maybe some... I dont know national park or something)

Nuke the outskirts of a town just to show them that you could.

The death of innocents is not on the hands of a nation retaliating in self-defense, but on the aggressor that made the retaliation necessary. Too bad for the innocents. I don't regard the majority of Iranians as all that innocent when, through active support or indifference, they propped up their Islamic dictatorship that threatens the West with annihilation. Even the handful of innocent Iranians would be immoral to hold their lives as a claim against Americans defending themselves. We are morally right to wipe them out, and I would nuke them out of existence and then nuke the craters.

[DavidOdden]

THE ELEVEN MILLION PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE!

Isn't that counterbalanced by THE THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE WHO LIVE HERE! So that turns out not to be a reason.

[RationalBiker]

See, your going in circles. Do you understand the value of a life?

You say that as though all life has value to everyone else. There are plenty of people in this world whose lives have about zero value to me personally, particularly if their continued existence plays some part in the potential demise of my existence.

"Life" does not have some universal or intrinsic value, so if you want people to understand your question, you have going to have establish some argument that they should value Akeem the turban seller's life more than just positing that he worked for 15 years to raise a family. I've worked longer than that raising mine.

[TuringAI]

Really? So if we dropped a nuke on Tehran you think the UK, Australia and Japan would be threatened?

Eventually, yes. Knowing that the U.S. uses out-of-proportion methods to eliminate 'threats', even legitimate threats, starts us on a path of rejecting any notion of proportional response. Without proportional response, the number of persons who may legitimately feel threatened grows, and the likelihood of SOME nation attacking us in retaliation grows. More than that, if we use a nuclear bomb against inappropriate targets once we will undoubtedly use it again against even less appropriate targets. We would, in essence, start a world war, the ends of which are nuclear war and alienation of our former allies to such an extent that they'd be willing to wage war against us.

More importantly, using nuclear weapons in any instance other than a serious emergency and against a target occupying a specific location means demoting nuclear strikes from a super-weapon to a conventional weapon. We would end up having another cold war as nations, including us, try to find something even MORE destructive than a nuclear weapon to take its place.

Hopefully we would only use it as a means not to "weaken" our enemies but to destroy them, as we have done in the past. And by this definition the US is the defacto aggressor for ever and always no matter who threatens us.

I don't know, it has been a good long term solution as far as Japan is concerned.

We didn't destroy Japan with our nuclear weapons, we merely ended up weakening it. It DID end the war, but only because Japan itself along with anybody who lived in the areas bombed were guilty of aiding the war effort. Our war, however, is against a specific group of peoples along with those nations providing aid and sanction. The only people in Tehran aiding the Al-Qaeda are the politicians so far. Unless it can be argued that everyone in Tehran was somehow aiding the Al-Qaeda, which is our REAL enemy, nuking it only serves as a symbolic gesture and a way to eliminate specific enemies which could always be eliminated using some other means.

Now what we know about the enemy is crucial. In certain instances, such as the existence of faculties that were distinctly capable of creating nuclear weapons, not just nuclear energy, and/or underground camps that provide as a central hub, not just random collections of people training, I would support nuking Tehran. However we have yet to see that either of those things exist in Tehran.

[DavidOdden]

Knowing that the U.S. uses out-of-proportion methods to eliminate 'threats',

I agree. When Hussein invaded Kuwait, we should have totally flattened Baghdad and booted his ass out -- we under-sized our response. When the USS Cole was bombed, our response was massively under-valued. When North Korea exploded a test nuke in 2006, our complete non-response was utterly out of proportion to the magnitude of the threat. In fact, it seems to me that we have a consistent policy of under-evaluating threats. I don't think there was ever an incident where we over-reacted.

[TuringAI]

I agree with two out of your three examples. However...

When Hussein invaded Kuwait, we should have totally flattened Baghdad and booted his ass out -- we under-sized our response.

Since when was Kuwait an ally? What did Kuwait have anything to do with our national interests?

It seems that we only involve ourselves when there is NOT a threat, and not when there IS.

Edited July 30, 2008 by TuringAI

[Miles White]

I agree with two out of your three examples. However...

Since when was Kuwait an ally? What did Kuwait have anything to do with our national interests?

It seems that we only involve ourselves when there is NOT a threat, and not when there IS.

It's not about defending Kuwait so much as it is about destroying a potential enemy. If a rapid dog ate your neighbor alive and you watched the scenario go down, would you stand there and do nothing until the dog came charging toward you? Or would you grab a gun and try killing it regardless of wether it's a threat to you? If we're going to take defending natural rights seriously we must act to put an end to any potential threat as soon as possible regardless if it's our "business" to intervene or not.

Edited July 30, 2008 by Miles White

[israel]

The death of innocents is not on the hands of a nation retaliating in self-defense,

Thats not self defense, that is revenge.

Here is an idea.

Why not continue peace, talks.

If this doesn't work, afford compromises.

If nobody wants to compromise, threaten the use of a much less lethal force.

If this doesn't work than destroy the factories that produce threatening materials.

If this doesn't work than proceed to systematically assassinate important political leaders that are in favor of using force against us.

Then we can give initial power to a western-educated person of a majority (i.e. a Muslim, or an Iraqi or something)

Then allow them to slip into a political system of their own choice.

In fact, the greatest rational for people saying we need to stay in he middle east (aside from oil, but I'm talking about morally and ethically) is that lives will be lost, as American occupation is the only thing holding the area together.

I think we should completely pull out and allow them to fight amongst themselves. We can assassinate, bribe, or remove those that would keep us from purchasing oil (it most certainly wouldn't be beneath us) and assuming the soviet union doesn't rise from the dead, the revolution there would eventually lead to some sort of a representative democracy.

And even then, who cares about the political stability of the area. You cannot say we have any moral reasons for keeping the peace, it's all about the money. Chaos there makes for more expensive and hard to get oil, and thats the only reason we need to keep some stability in the area. Why not devote our powers and forces to assuring our ability to purchase oil at reasonable prices.

I don't approve of intentional destruction of innocent lives, but I could give a shit about Ahmad the Turban seller becoming collateral damage. If you live in an area as unstable as that, it's advisable to purchase firearms to protect yourself.

Revolution is the only form of violence (other than pride fighting and self defense) that I personally approve of.

[DavidOdden]

Since when was Kuwait an ally? What did Kuwait have anything to do with our national interests?

Your question is irrelevant: you claimed that the US uses out of proportion responses (actually implying, I would imaging, over-responses). I pointed out via specific examples that we have never over-responded. Our timid response was an under-response. Stay on topic, dude.

[TuringAI]

Your question is irrelevant: you claimed that the US uses out of proportion responses (actually implying, I would imaging, over-responses). I pointed out via specific examples that we have never over-responded. Our timid response was an under-response. Stay on topic, dude.

In this context it is relevant. It IS over-responding to do ANYTHING to a nation simply because it does some evil things. If our national security was involved, either because they made a direct threat or threatened one of our genuine allies, then it's not over responding.

Maybe we could have a separate thread for this if you think that the discussion of the Iraq war(s) would be too distracting.

Edited July 31, 2008 by TuringAI

[KevinDW78]

Thats not self defense, that is revenge.

Maybe if you would actually read Rand like everyone keeps telling you, you wouldn't draw stupid conclusions like this.

Here is an idea... afford compromises.

Maybe if you would actually read Rand like everyone keeps telling you, you wouldn't draw stupid conclusions like this.

[KurtColville]

In this context it is relevant. It IS over-responding to do ANYTHING to a nation simply because it does some evil things. If our national security was involved, either because they made a direct threat or threatened one of our genuine allies, then it's not over responding.

It is also proper for a free nation to conquer and annex a slave pen, like Cuba, if the free nation's aim is to extend the protection of its citizens rights to the new land. Everyone wins. The citizens of the free nation now have more land to exercise their rights on and the citizens of the slave pen are now free. The key principle is, the decision to conquer an authoritarian state that is not a direct threat to you rests on whether it is in the free nation's rational self-interest, which means an extension of every citizen's rights to the new land.

[KurtColville]

Thats not self defense, that is revenge.

If you really care to examine the ideas in Objectivism, I'll echo others and say read Ayn Rand. Given your comments, I'd say an excellent start would be "The Virtue of Selfishness" or go straight to "Atlas Shrugged". There you'll find all your objections answered, but more importantly, you'll find the right ideas presented. If you're just on here to be a contrarian, you'll find that the better minds will not deal with you.

[FeatherFall]

TuringAI,

Can you give an example where an excessive response by a nation to a legitimate threat resulted in danger to the nation?

[TuringAI]

TuringAI,

Can you give an example where an excessive response by a nation to a legitimate threat resulted in danger to the nation?

No, I can't, because Iraq wasn't a legitimate threat. Would it have been okay to attack Germany before WWI simply because it would eventually become Nazi Germany during WWII?

What about the fact of our involvement in WWI? Wouldn't Germany be the good guy in this war because, in essence, others attacked Germany first by denying it the right to promote imperialism while other countries were doing the same?

If imperialism is a right then Germany was the good guy in WWI. If imperialism isn't a right then America is the bad guy in the Iraq war. You can't have it both ways. You can't have your cake and eat it too.