But that assumes the people can freely choose their government, which is not the case in Iran. “causing major population damage” would just encourage the survivors to hate us even more. I think the only real choices are to take out the government and replace it with a better one, or to just kill every Muslim and/or Arab on the planet.
Is not the first sentence here exactly the excuse that is thrown around for doing nothing? I mean, really, you put one soldier in the desert, you’ve already made them want to kill you. Not even that, all you have to want to do is live on Earth and they want to kill you. Hell, not even that. They want to kill. There is only one way for a real life hater to act, and that is to kill; somehow, someway, in some respect, but to kill. The differences being only in their random psychological make-up, and the degree of their hatred.
If the survivors want to hate us even more, then they will die as well (unless they just want to sit over there and goad over it amongst themselves). One country, one time, and we would have to mean it.
Has anybody seen that scene in Tombstone where Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) takes down the renegade faro dealer unarmed by slapping his face? That is meaning it.
Thoyd, I don’t accept the idea that everyone in Iran hates us and wants to kill us. The younger generation is fairly pro-Western and has voted for moderate leaders when they have had a chance. The problems is the old mullahs.
Let the world know that if they kill one American, we destroy an entire city.
So by that reasoning if we kill one Iranian illegitimately (say a POW who is already harmless) it is OK for Iran to nuke New York?
Well, if one US soldier shoots a helpless Iranian POW, that’s an initiation of force isn’t it?
Also, I object to the use of “the Iranians” as if all Iranians had the same beliefs and desires. The enemy is not all Iranians in general, it is specifically the mullahs who run the regime and those who support them.
Well, if one US soldier shoots a helpless Iranian POW, that’s an initiation of force isn’t it?
No, that is retaliatory force against the initiators (Iranian government).
Also, I object to the use of “the Iranians” as if all Iranians had the same beliefs and desires. The enemy is not all Iranians in general, it is specifically the mullahs who run the regime and those who support them.
All Iranians do not have the same beliefs and desires. Still, it is not acceptable to sacrifice American soldiers or a quicker American victory to these people. The fault of their death is on their government–it represents them–and it attacked America.
See the discussion on Yaron Brook’s speech “The Morality of War” here. You just missed being able to listen to the lecture, which is now replaced with a new one.
“causing major population damage” would just encourage the survivors to hate us even more.
I might think this were a joke were it not so pathetic. This is not a god damned popularity contest. Who the hell cares if they hate us? All I care about is that they are not able to kill us. This is war, for christ sake, not a tear-jerker episode of Oprah Winfrey! Get real.
Thoyd, I don’t accept the idea that everyone in Iran hates us and wants to kill us. The younger generation is fairly pro-Western and has voted for moderate leaders when they have had a chance. The problems is the old mullahs.
So by that reasoning if we kill one Iranian illegitimately (say a POW who is already harmless) it is OK for Iran to nuke New York?
I don’t accept that idea either. It is actually a fact that there is a large number of Iranians against their own government. That says nothing to the point of our stance to the rest of the world. We are not here for them. Their people are not our concern: Guilty or Innocent. The overruling priority of the government is to protect its own citizens. Period.
If your country is held in a dictatorship, the blame goes to whomever sanctions it and runs it, but the consequences are shared by all. That is why we say “Iranians” or “Germans” or “Indians”. You are lumped in the catagory by your geographical location and nationality not your ideology. That is one of the dangers of government.
Thoyd, I don’t accept the idea that everyone in Iran hates us and wants to kill us. The younger generation is fairly pro-Western and has voted for moderate leaders when they have had a chance. The problems is the old mullahs.
The problem can’t be the old mullahs.Without foot-soldiers (ie, some of the young) and a widespread backing ideology (which they carry on), they would be old men babbling on a street corner-like they are in America.
Saying it is the mullahs is like saying that it was Hitler who caused Nazism, or that Hitler had the power over his people to make them do “crazy” things.
The enemy is not all Iranians in general, it is specifically the mullahs who run the regime and those who support them.
Be sure to let us know when you invent a mullah-seeking-missile. Until then the rest of us will consider nations who support, harbor, and export terrorism to be our lethal enemies. Any decent Iranian who understands what is at stake should welcome our bombs of destruction, just as Ayn Rand would have welcomed the destruction of Russia even if it caused her own death.
We execute dozens of people each year that have no means of defending themselves does that mean we initiated force against them?
non sequiter; we execute people as punishment for violating rights. The same can still be done to POWs if they are tried for war crimes, but once enemy soldiers surrender we should not just shoot them.
I might think this were a joke were it not so pathetic. This is not a god damned popularity contest. Who the hell cares if they hate us? All I care about is that they are not able to kill us. This is war, for christ sake, not a tear-jerker episode of Oprah Winfrey! Get real.
We should care because mass attacks on civilians are not an effective way to defeat a country. The firebombings of Japanese and German cities in WW2 showed that. They did not encourage the survivors to overthrow their governments and surrender; they merely hardened their resolve. Since the moral implications of slaughtering millions of men, women, and children do not trouble you, perhaps the practical problems will.
As for the “mullah-seeking missile,” we do essentially have that. We have the ability to specifically target certain individuals and institutions within Iran. In my view that is what we should do: target the centers of control and power within Iran and collapse the government.
On the wider point, I reject the idea of collective guilt implied in treating all Iranians as if they were a single entity. It is acceptable for innocent civilians to be killed accidentally as a result of our defending ourselves against the Iranian regime, but not to target civilians deliberately as if all Iranians were equally evil.
The problem can’t be the old mullahs.Without foot-soldiers (ie, some of the young) and a widespread backing ideology (which they carry on), they would be old men babbling on a street corner-like they are in America.
Saying it is the mullahs is like saying that it was Hitler who caused Nazism, or that Hitler had the power over his people to make them do “crazy” things.
Hitler had widespread popular support, at least initially.
Again, the Iranian people have elected more moderate leaders when they have had the chance. There have also been widespread protests against the mullahs. Yes, they have some support, but not a majority. The problem at the moment is that a serious rebellion would be suicidal. If we took out the government and military the people would do the rest.
I might think this were a joke were it not so pathetic. This is not a god damned popularity contest. Who the hell cares if they hate us? All I care about is that they are not able to kill us. This is war, for christ sake, not a tear-jerker episode of Oprah Winfrey! Get real.
We care if they hate us because we don’t want them to attack us. You ignored the rest of what I said:
“I think the only real choices are to take out the government and replace it with a better one, or to just kill every Muslim and/or Arab on the planet.”
The latter option is what following your preferred course of action would require. And of course it would not end there; we would also have to kill every Afghani, Pakistani, Chinese, North Korean … I’m sure there are more. It would probably amount to half the world’s population.
As for the idea that destroying one country would convince the others not to attack us, history does not seem to support that idea. We did massive damage to Germany and Japan in WW2, yet after the war the USSR and China did not hesitate to act against us in various ways. We destroyed the Taliban and Saddam regimes, yet Syria and Iran still oppose us. Israel has attacked terrorist groups ruthlessly, yet they still carry out attacks.
Well, if one US soldier shoots a helpless Iranian POW, that’s an initiation of force isn’t it?
No, that is retaliatory force against the initiators (Iranian government).
Just to be clear, are you claiming it is a morally correct use of retaliatory force to summarily execute POWs?
Agreed, but in my opinion only if they are killed accidentally as a side effect of our defending ourselves. I disagree that a dictatorship represents its country’s people; they did not feely choose it nor can they freely oppose it. Thus I do not believe that all the people in a dictatorship are legitimate military targets.
I have not heard it but excerpts were transcribed in several other threads.
As for the idea that destroying one country would convince the others not to attack us, history does not seem to support that idea. We did massive damage to Germany and Japan in WW2, yet after the war the USSR and China did not hesitate to act against us in various ways. We destroyed the Taliban and Saddam regimes, yet Syria and Iran still oppose us. Israel has attacked terrorist groups ruthlessly, yet they still carry out attacks.
But note two things about these examples. One, the USSR and China may have opposed us, but they did not attack us. Same with Syria and Iran. In fact no one has attacked us in America since 9/11.
Second, we have never fully used the overwhelming force presently at our disposal, nor made it clear that we will continue to do so in the future.
To the contrary, we have tried the approach of destroying the government and the military and letting the people do the rest. The lesson of Iraq is that such an approach will take years, cost thousands of American casualties and hundreds of billions in treasury.
I strongly approve of what we are doing versus the alternative of doing nothing or going to the UN. But it is not the best way. And in the case of Iran, which has three times the population and four times the area, the costs and casualties of such an approach will be staggering. Far better to bomb it into oblivion.
At the same time, we should do the same thing Kennedy did regarding Cuba and the Soviet Union. We should tell the rest of the Islamic world that it shall be the policy of the United States to regard any terrorist attack on our citizens anywhere in the world, to be an attack on the United States by Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc. Meaning, any terrorist attack invites retaliation against the entire Islamic world or any part thereof, at our sole discretion.
