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

[Jake_Ellison]

What are you doing espousing Objectivism with that kind of madness behind your "logic"?

Stop these personal attacks against people who've been members of this board for ages. You're a half troll who wondered in to scold us on some issue and you now set out to start fights with people who are doing their best to ignore you. Enough already.

When you people justify nuclear bombing Iran by citing the Barbary Wars, 9/11, and the Little Rock, AR shootings, I cannot think of a better term for such absurdity than package-dealing.

No one here justified nuking Iran using those events, in fact most of us don't even think Iran should be nuked. You're projecting the products of your imagination on a group of strangers, and talking to them. People who can't understand the difference between addressing an argument and addressing the generic "you people" are impossible to have a conversation with.

I wish you'd just continue this conversation in your head. Feel free to use me as one of the "you people" characters.

[FeatherFall]

Jake, if your intention was to tamp down the tone of this thread so the discussion can progress, you've failed. More than that, you seem to have done your best to contribute to a flame war. You're not mature enough to know when to call someone out for being a troll. If you think Andrew has violated the rules of the forum, I, for one, would rather you take it up with a moderator. D'Kian can fight his own battles.

[Phoroneus]

So was Jake wrong in the substance of his critiques? Andrew has gone to calling people mad for espousing Objectivism along with their stance against Iran, and projecting false arguments on people, yet Jake is who you single out?

[FeatherFall]

I haven't read all of Andrew's posts, but I don't think he's a troll. Therefore, yes, the other Jake was wrong in the substance of at least one of his "critiques". The post that contained said "critique" devoted more words to juvenile quips than to providing substance. He's got substance in previous posts, but this time he gave in to the desire to put in a good "burn" at the expense of advancing the thread. He does this often. I understand that people feel strongly about the issues discussed on this forum. There will be judgmental lapses from time to time (I recognize that I have lapses, too). This is why I didn't make a big deal of a statement of Andrew's that I thought was out of line; I have yet to see a history.

Positions on the existence of Jewish ethnic subdivisions or the danger of Iran are not espousals of Objectivism because they are not philosophical issues. Andrew brought up the word "mad" (which I thought was out of line) because of D'Kian's statements regarding the non-existence of Jewish ethnicities. I thought D'Kian's position was a little bizzare too. But, I was willing give an argument to the contrary a fair hearing. The subject actually deserves its own thread. It is difficult enough to track back what words like Sephardic and Ashkenazim have to do with this thread without sifting through a flame war.

Edit-Grammar, brevity

Edited June 18, 2009 by FeatherFall

[Jake_Ellison]

I haven't read all of Andrew's posts, but I don't think he's a troll.

Great, so based on absolutely nothing, he's OK in your book and I'm immature. Good one, thanks for your opinion.

Therefore, yes, the other Jake was wrong in the substance of at least one of his "critiques". The post that contained said "critique" devoted more words to juvenile quips than to providing substance.

You don't know me buddy. I'm neither "juvenile", nor immature. Knock it off.

[D'kian]

Andrew brought up the word "mad" (which I thought was out of line) because of D'Kian's statements regarding the non-existence of Jewish ethnicities. I thought D'Kian's position was a little bizzare too.

Again? I said Judaism is not an ethnicity. That means there's no such things as a Jewish race any more than there is a Christian race or a Muslim race or anything along such lines. Judaism is a religion, not something genetic you get from your parents.

[FeatherFall]

To begin with Judaism is not an ethnicity, it's a religion and a culture (and compared to other religions it's less bad than most). Jews come in a variery of "races."

Please clarify your position.

Here is what two online dictionaries have to say about the word 'ethnic':

Merriam-Webster :

2 a: of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background

Dictionary.com:

3.being a member of an ethnic group, esp. of a group that is a minority within a larger society: ethnic Chinese in San Francisco.

5.belonging to or deriving from the cultural, racial, religious, or linguistic traditions of a people or country: ethnic dances.

-all bold mine

[D'kian]

Please clarify your position.

Here is what two online dictionaries have to say about the word 'ethnic':

The common usage of the word ethnic and related terms refers to race, not religion or culture.

[FeatherFall]

Interesting. While I have heard it used that way, that's not generally how people I talk to use it. I'm still interested to hear you expound on your position, but it really is an issue for another thread.

[Sergio]

I have seen no logical case for initating the use of force against individuals. Whether it involves a hungry man stealing bread, or a president reducing an entire city to ashes, the action is wrong and warrrants some sort of punishment. Any man who decides that his life must be sustained by the initiation of force should be fully willing to accept punishment after the fact. So, if a hungry man steals bread to gain the benefit of being alive, at the cost of some minor compensation to his victims, he makes a cost-benefit analysis. The same goes for people who want to nuke innocent people: if you require mass murder in order to feel safe, then you should be willing to pay the penalty that all murderers would pay. You may live, at the cost of being in jail, or spending the rest of your life paying back the familes of the victims you have created. Any attempt to escape the punishments for initiating force is thoroughly immoral. Now, there are probably a great many people in Tehran whio are not innocent - but the fact that some are innocent would make nuking them very immoral.

If the world had bombed the cities of the Soviet Union in 1918, and innocent people like Ayn Rand had been killed, none of this discussion would be possible. Please, people - there are so many more creative and intelligent solutions to dealing with bad people than indiscriminate violence. If you are opposed to Iran's government, why not support simply arresting the people in charge of Iran? If every tyrant in the world ends up being arrested, and the only people who get hurt are those who try to defend tyrants, then there is no immorality in this approach.

Objectivists will remember that Rearden, Francisco and Dagny didn't ask for the government to solve their problems when John Galt was being tortured: they took matters into their own hands, even though it was 'illegal'. Well, if principled people advocate arresting the Iranian leaders, then one would expect these people to form an organisation, raise funds and send an expedition to complete the job, without hurting innocent people. This is a solution that everyone can get behind: only the bad people get hurt, tax payers don't get their money wasted, and any Iranian retaliation will be directed at the individuals who funded the expedition, rather than everyone else. Why do people support collective punishment when more conservative and moral courses of action are possible?

[themadkat]

Again? I said Judaism is not an ethnicity. That means there's no such things as a Jewish race any more than there is a Christian race or a Muslim race or anything along such lines. Judaism is a religion, not something genetic you get from your parents.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. I count my Jewishness as an ethnicity just as much as I do my Polishness or my Irishness, in fact it's the only way in which I am Jewish at all being that I am not religious. I did "get it" from my mother. My children will "get it" from me.

The whole idea of "ethnicity" in general is kind of nebulous. It's not quite race and it's not quite culture. It's something in-between, something having to do with group affiliation as far as I can see. Clearly even Jews do not agree on this issue. To make my point, in my mind Ayn Rand was Jewish because she was born Jewish, even though she was atheist. Similarly I am Jewish because I was born Jewish, even though I am an atheist and my mother, while spiritual, does not practice Judaism (or any Judeo-Christian tradition). She does that weird eastern mysticism stuff.

[Jake_Ellison]

Why do people support collective punishment when more conservative and moral courses of action are possible?

They don't. Arresting Iranian leaders is clearly not a option.

[Sergio]

They don't. Arresting Iranian leaders is clearly not a option.

Clearly? I thought it was an option, given what advanced military and intelligence capabilities can do. Think of all of the people the CIA have assassinated... to suggest that nuking is more rational than getting the specific person you are after is absurd.

Don't you think that people should be punished for 'accidentally killing' civillians in the course of a war? Or is the label of war some magical blanket that somehow makes it OK for individuals to initiate force?

And what is up with the rampant collectivism in some of the ideas posted here? Since when is there a right to 'collective self defence'? There is no logical basis for one collective retailiating against another collective, with no regard for the idnividuals within it. Individuals have rights, not groups or land masses or electorates.

I suspect that there is another motive for the appaling bloodlust that I have seen in this thread.

Edited June 19, 2009 by Sergio

[Jake_Ellison]

Clearly? I thought it was an option, given what advanced military and intelligence capabilities can do.

No, it's not. As evidenced by the fact that they have not been arrested. Believe it or not, we don't have magical intelligence capabilities. Clearly.

And what is up with the rampant collectivism in some of the ideas posted here? Since when is there a right to 'collective self defence'?

You don't know what Ayn Rand meant by collectivism. A military funded by voluntary contributions is no more collectivist than a corporation.

Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group—whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called “the common good.” (Peikoff) It does not mean people working together, voluntarily, for a common goal.

Edited June 19, 2009 by Jake_Ellison

[D'kian]

The whole idea of "ethnicity" in general is kind of nebulous. It's not quite race and it's not quite culture. It's something in-between, something having to do with group affiliation as far as I can see.

Yes, but most of the time I see it used it means something clsoer to race. Race itself is an ill-defined concept as well.

To make my point, in my mind Ayn Rand was Jewish because she was born Jewish, even though she was atheist. Similarly I am Jewish because I was born Jewish, even though I am an atheist and my mother, while spiritual, does not practice Judaism (or any Judeo-Christian tradition).

I think of myself as having Jewish origins because that's what my parents are. I recognize to the rest of the world this means I'm Jewish. Religion aside, I don't practice what might be termed "Jewish culture." Which is also a very nebulous term. American Jews differ a great deal from Mexican Jews. I know plenty of both to know this.

[D'kian]

Clearly? I thought it was an option, given what advanced military and intelligence capabilities can do.

How would you go about forcibly removing a head of state and a chief executive who are surrounded by enough protection to defeat an armed assault? Then you ahve to figure out how to extract the targets and the capture teams relatively unharmed. If you can accomplish all that, then another mullah and another thug are named Supreme Leader and President and go on with the business of making nukes and missiles.

Oh, not to mention that invading a country in order to arrest or assasinate someone is an act of war.

The way to defeat an enemy like Iran is by showing the leaders 8actual and potential) that you can make mincemeat out of them, in time, and that you can destroy their armies and all their works you choose to (like the nuclear instalations, oil wells, pipelines, etc). Or do you sugest WWII could ahve been ended anytime by sending an SAS team to kill Hitler?

Don't you think that people should be punished for 'accidentally killing' civillians in the course of a war?

If someone like Saddam or Hammas or Hizbullah put ciilians around military targets, they are responsible morally for their deaths.

And what is up with the rampant collectivism in some of the ideas posted here? Since when is there a right to 'collective self defence'? There is no logical basis for one collective retailiating against another collective, with no regard for the idnividuals within it. Individuals have rights, not groups or land masses or electorates.

Then in WWII Roosevelt shouldn't have gone to war against Japan. Instead he should have told the people of Pearl Harbor "Tough. You go after the Japanese if you want, but I'm not responsible for protecting your lives." Then he could go back to petting his unicorn under the rainbow.

[FeatherFall]

Sergio, you've got a lot to consider and reply to at once, so I'll try to be brief. The point I think most important is about innocents in war zones. There is a popular hypothetical that explains the proper way to treat innocents in war.

Imagine that you are walking down a street with a friend, and I am approaching you. When our paths meet, I suddenly grab your friend and aim a firearm at you with the intent to kill you. Are you justified in shooting through your friend to kill me? If you do so, who is responsible for your friend's death?

The answers are "yes" and "I am". You may want to save your friend by shooting around him. You don't know how accurate you can be, and a surer shot would be through his torso into mine. This would more quickly and certainly end the threat. But, whatever action you choose, you are not culpable. Do you disagree?

I haven't witnessed bloodlust on this thread. What I have witnessed are people who are morally certain that the responsibility for the death of innocents lies with the aggressor, and who also believe that US military lives are worth protecting. A great way to protect a soldier's life is to send something else to do the fighting. The best substitutes we have are bombs, the 'smartest' of which are bound to cause collateral damage. I'm not saying we shouldn't give consideration to innocents in war zones. Maybe someday we will be capable of killing our enemies with no risk of innocent deaths. That day is not today, and military leaders have a moral obligation to protect US soldiers and citizens first.

I'm sure this point has been made before on this very thread. A more thorough treatment of the question can be found by clicking here.

[themadkat]

I think of myself as having Jewish origins because that's what my parents are. I recognize to the rest of the world this means I'm Jewish. Religion aside, I don't practice what might be termed "Jewish culture." Which is also a very nebulous term. American Jews differ a great deal from Mexican Jews. I know plenty of both to know this.

That makes a good deal of sense. I participate in some aspects of Jewish culture, but they tend to be that which is pursued by the most secular Jews. I think I've been to one Bar Mitzvah in my life, for a family friend. Nor do I participate in a regional Jewish culture, like say the prolific NYC Jews. I think more than anything I look at myself as continuing in the intellectual traditions of great Jewish thinkers like Einstein. But even that doesn't go too far. It seems like a bit of a tribalist concept, I suppose.

[Sergio]

No, it's not. As evidenced by the fact that they have not been arrested. Believe it or not, we don't have magical intelligence capabilities. Clearly.

When properly motivated, the CIA have a proven track record in removing leaders (or assassinating them). I do not think that the US government will choose a conservative option when a new war could justify much larger expenditures. The Iran leaders have not been arrested/removed because the Iran issue has nothing to do with the publicly stated reasons. Recent wars are nothing but an excuse to transfer money from the treasury into the hands of looting military corporations, as well as expand the power of domestic government. The Mises institute has lots of information on the link between war, inflation, power grabs and looting.

Could this all be about propping up the US dollar? Ron Paul said that Iraq was talking about switching to selling their oil in Euros, that's why they were invaded, and that recently, Iran did the same, which then prompted this talk of war with Iran.

The only other reason for why the leaders are 'safe' is an idea called "Sovereign Immunity". Politicians like other people to fight wars on their behalf, so that the top of the political class are rarely threatened by eachother. There is a kind of "unspoken rule" in politics: normal people are expendable but politicians must be kept alive unless they have completely disgraced themselves. Think of all of the evil former dictators who lived out the rest of their lives in peace. Idi Amin, the cannibal, for example.

You don't know what Ayn Rand meant by collectivism. A military funded by voluntary contributions is no more collectivist than a corporation.

Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group—whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called “the common good.” (Peikoff) It does not mean people working together, voluntarily, for a common goal.

You may have misunderstood me - i did not reference Rand's definitions. I was referring to the idea of "collective punishment", where all members of a group are punished for the actions of a few. In this case, all people in Tehran would be punished just because a violent gang chose to base themselves in the general area. I would suspect that you hate collectivep unishment as much as i do. i didn't say that it would be easy to single out the bad guys from the good - but the difficulties of determining innocence and guilt are no excuse for colelctive punishment. Where's the justice system here? Imagine if police nuked any city with a high enough crime problem, under the guise of collective punishment! It seems like people have abandoned objective principles in favour of arbitrary rules for when this sort of thing is acceptable and when it isn't.

[Grames]

You may have misunderstood me - i did not reference Rand's definitions. I was referring to the idea of "collective punishment", where all members of a group are punished for the actions of a few. In this case, all people in Tehran would be punished just because a violent gang chose to base themselves in the general area. I would suspect that you hate collectivep unishment as much as i do. i didn't say that it would be easy to single out the bad guys from the good - but the difficulties of determining innocence and guilt are no excuse for colelctive punishment. Where's the justice system here? Imagine if police nuked any city with a high enough crime problem, under the guise of collective punishment! It seems like people have abandoned objective principles in favour of arbitrary rules for when this sort of thing is acceptable and when it isn't.

It only seems arbitrary to you because of your willful obtuseness in choosing your own definitions of words. The concept of justice is not limited to national borders but justice systems most certainly are. War has nothing to do with punishment.

[Sergio]

Sergio, you've got a lot to consider and reply to at once, so I'll try to be brief. The point I think most important is about innocents in war zones. There is a popular hypothetical that explains the proper way to treat innocents in war.

Imagine that you are walking down a street with a friend, and I am approaching you. When our paths meet, I suddenly grab your friend and aim a firearm at you with the intent to kill you. Are you justified in shooting through your friend to kill me? If you do so, who is responsible for your friend's death?

The answers are "yes" and "I am". You may want to save your friend by shooting around him. You don't know how accurate you can be, and a surer shot would be through his torso into mine. This would more quickly and certainly end the threat. But, whatever action you choose, you are not culpable. Do you disagree?

I appreciate where you are coming from, and i'd like to thank you for putting some real thought into this. I'd like to amend your analogy a bit to make it more relevant to Iran, hopefully you can see what I am getting at:

Imagine that you are a gang leader walking down a crowded street, and I am a rival gang leader sitting on a bench looking at you menacingly. I have my hand in my pocket, and I may or may not be hiding a gun. My gang members are standing around me, ready to protect me if someone attacks me at close range. You have a track record for wiping out gangs and seizing their territory. Are you justified in firing a machine gun through the crowd, causing substantial casualties, in order for a chance to kill me? If you do so, who is responsible for the deaths of the innocent people?

I would say, you are responsible because you didn't invest the time and resources needed to specifically take me out. You opted for the easy option of wuidespread destruction in the hopes of catchign me in the middle of it. If you had been put in the extra effort to eliminate me with surgical precision, then there would be no casualties. Well, there is a price to be paid for sloppiness and 'mistakes'. Otherwise, we could take this to logical absurdity: imagine if you dropped a nuke on every gang leader in the country, and then washed your hands of responsibility by saying "The gang leader surrounded himself with civillians, so it's his fault". It is very important to avoid arbitary rules when dealing with these sorts of matters.

I haven't witnessed bloodlust on this thread. What I have witnessed are people who are morally certain that the responsibility for the death of innocents lies with the aggressor, and who also believe that US military lives are worth protecting. A great way to protect a soldier's life is to send something else to do the fighting. The best substitutes we have are bombs, the 'smartest' of which are bound to cause collateral damage. I'm not saying we shouldn't give consideration to innocents in war zones. Maybe someday we will be capable of killing our enemies with no risk of innocent deaths. That day is not today, and military leaders have a moral obligation to protect US soldiers and citizens first.

I don't agree with you about the superior value of US soldiers, but that's not my main issue. The men pushing the buttons which cause innocent deaths should be given an incentive to minimize or eliminate 'collateral damage'. That incentive should be "moral and legal responsibility for the innocent people they kill". The US military would have to pay their soldiers a whole lot more to compensate for the risk of a victim's family filing lawsuits against them. This would also give the military an urgent financial incentive to develop technologies which maximize accuracy and minimize accidental deaths. Without these incentives, there will be a 'sloppiness' results in so many unnecessary deaths.

I'm sure this point has been made before on this very thread. A more thorough treatment of the question can be found by clicking here.

Oh my. That was a vicious, bloodthirsty article far worse than anything I expected to see... Do you agree with that article? It blends collectivist and individualist concepts in a way that justifies pure, genocidal evil. I do not say this lightly: no man who has empathy, who values human life, who has a healthy psychology, could truly agree with the content of that article. It treats some human life so cheaply, and elevates the importance of collective lables like 'nation' and 'government'... This is not the sort of thing that should be associated with rationality, objective morals and individualism.

Edited June 19, 2009 by Sergio

[Sergio]

It only seems arbitrary to you because of your willful obtuseness in choosing your own definitions of words. The concept of justice is not limited to national borders but justice systems most certainly are. War has nothing to do with punishment.

I apologize if i came across as too abbrasive earier. Now, I think it's always helpful to check with 'reality' when making assertions. For instance, you have called me 'willfully obtuse' (disingenuous?) and claimed that i am inventing definitions, even though i was accurate. I feel like you are trying to tell me to "shut up", but i may be wrong. Now, if you commented because you actually find the idea of collective punishment interesting, I invite you to check out the Wikipedia entries on Collective Punishment and Collective Responsibility.

The essence of collective punishment that I was trying to capture is:

"Collective punishment is the punishment of a group of people as a result of the behaviour of one or more other individuals or groups. The punished group may often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control over their actions. In times of war and armed conflict, collective punishment has resulted in atrocities, and is a violation of the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions..."

This Tehran nuking insanity relies on this nasty little idea of collective punishment. It is collective punishment to initiate force against a huge group of people purely because they are in the same general geographical area as some men you feel marginally threatened by.

Edited June 19, 2009 by Sergio

[Jake_Ellison]

When properly motivated, the CIA have a proven track record in removing leaders (or assassinating them).

Like who?

[Jake_Ellison]

You may have misunderstood me - i did not reference Rand's definitions. I was referring to the idea of "collective punishment", where all members of a group are punished for the actions of a few.

I understood you fine. You referenced collectivism, not collective punishment. Do I really need to quote your words back to you?

In this case, all people in Tehran would be punished just because a violent gang chose to base themselves in the general area.

I'm not advocating nuking Tehran as a form of justice(or at all, at the present time), I hope you're not operating under that false assumption. (in fact almost no one is-the guy who named the thread has 50 posts, and is missing in action)

But your description of the country of Iran is ridiculous. The Iranian government is a product of their society, not the product of a random choice by the mullahs. If the "violent gang" chose to base themselves some place else (like Manhattan), we would not have this problem, they would've been dead or in prison long ago. (unless of course the US was a Liberatarian style anarchy.)

[Sergio]

Like who?

Are you familiar with the CIA's history of installing new governments? Ironically, they were even involved with installing a new Iranian government in the past. Another example would be thre CIA's involvement in removing Salvador Allende's government in Chile, in order to install Pinochet.