Acts of terror, as revolting as they may be, supply us with a motive. Someone is angry about some foreign policy and takes out revenge on innocent civilians. Yet the timing of this horrible event is baffling. There is no current aggressive military action. The US have pulled out of Iraq, things are winding down in Afghanistan. Any enemy of the United States knows very well that any kind of terrorist attack on innocent civilians on American soil would outrage the world and result is a swift retaliation. Everyone knows that.
This “everyone” is a blethering fool. Nobody cares about what happens thousands of miles away. “The world” is in no way more outraged about what happens in the US than about what happens in New Zealand, Chile or Russia. The losers on Facebook who huff and puff in fake outrage that nobody in the US cares as much about an explosion in Syria as they do about the Boston bombing are as clueless as the author of the quoted post. It is normal to care about what is close and can affect you personally. It is also normal to feel a lot more indifferent to things that happen far away and have no impact on your own life.
I remember when I first came to Canada and was watching an investigative report on A&E, I heard the show host say that the whole world was eagerly awaiting the decision in OJ Simpson’s case. I laughed for 15 minutes at the stupidity of somebody who really believes that some stupid murder trial can be of interest to the entire world. Like the world doesn’t have its own trials, problems, issues, etc. in every single country.
Clarissa's Blog 
The U.S. brings “democracy” to Iraq and to this day, many people are still dying from suicide bombings and other acts violence after the country has left. Guess who created that problem? I have come to the conclusion that a commentator by the name of David Gendron was completely correct about what he said about the armed forces. There are so many reasons not to support an institution where there veterans tend to have not only high PTSD and suicide rates, but homeless rates too! For me, it is only evident that the majority of the wars that have been fought since 1945 as a result of the United States’s foreign policy have made the country worse off in some way.
http://www.dw.de/iraqs-election-campaigns-marked-by-attacks/a-16757361
“Campaigning for elections in Iraq can be life-threatening. Fourteen candidates running in provincial elections scheduled for Saturday (20.04.2013) have been killed. The number of bombings aimed at security personnel and civilians has risen dramatically of late, with 50 people killed on Monday alone. Al Qaeda supporters wanting to disrupt the elections are presumed to be responsible for the terrorist bombings. Police and soldiers have been permitted to vote one week in advance – to allow them to focus solely on security when the polls open.”
Some people are still idiotic enough to praise George W. Bush and the “War on Terror” and expect me to be all patriotic and engage in all this support the troops hubris.
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I admit that I was too harsh against you.
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I’m not a Paul Krugman fan, but I liked the term he used to describe all the spending that went into wars such as Iraq. It is called “military Keynesianism” and its obvious that much of that took place during much of the Bush administration and to a certain extent in the Obama administration, but I’m assuming that they were following some type of time table for both Iraq and Afghanistan. Global militarism and imperialism are two things I am highly against. Call me pacifist if you want.
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Just like the whole world is waiting for the outcome of the Oscar Pistorius trial. But O.J. Simpson played a sport that was little known outside North America, while Oscar Pistorius, as an Olympic athlete, was seen throughout the world.
And on the same day that 3 people were killed by bombs in Boston, over 50 were killede by bombs in Iraq. Though lots of people here in South Africa expressed sympathy for the Boston bomb victims, very few did for the Iraqi ones, yet Iraq is probably closer to us than Boston is.
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“Just like the whole world is waiting for the outcome of the Oscar Pistorius trial”
– I have no idea who he is. And I can guarantee you that the majority of the world population does not. I can ask my students on Tuesday but I’m already quite sure about the result.
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It will be interesting to hear what they say.
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Many place a heavy burden on themselves. In order to be properly pious, the sympathy they feel for those dead, injured or dying has to be exactly proportional to the numbers thereof in any particular place in the world simultaneously. If you get the balance slightly wrong and your sympathy is consequently a bit disproportionate, you are guilty of a severe moral misdeed. Somehow, somewhere, someone is taking note. Most likely it is a guy with a white beard and withering complexion. He sits on a cumulus cloud only just out of sight from human beings. He notes everything on a score board and if he sees that your sympathies are incorrectly spread, he pours down his scorn in the form of future punishments. He multiplies the number of people who have to die until our piety can rearrange reality again and stop the killing.
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They were talking about this issue on the television here last night. The participants talked about how coverage of the bombings was wall to wall in the US and very visible here while the ones in Iraq etc were barely mentioned.
The conclusion they came to was that terror attacks in the US are rare while for Iraq and countries where there is a lot of trouble people get sympathy fatigue. They get used to it and are less interested as a result. There is intense tv coverage in the US which is beamed throughout the world. News companies latch on to it as an event, send their resident journalists to the location to give them something to do, and make the most of this unusual real news.
Apparently France is next for an attack, so we’ve been told.
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I think it is important, so in case you haven’t seen yet:
While Israel was marking 65 years of independence on Tuesday, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to endorse Resolution 65, affirming that the U.S. will fully back Israel should it be drawn into a conflict with Iran.
Resolution 65 goes beyond affirming U.S. commitment to preventing a nuclear Iran to ensure it will ‘authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence.’
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/u-s-senate-committee-passes-resolution-to-back-israel-in-conflict-with-iran-1.515967
The pessimistic interpretation is that US washes its’ hands and leaves Israel to apply force (or not) alone. The optimistic one is that US uses the resolution to apply more pressure on Iran and prevent war. I am not eager to get Iranian missiles on my house, btw, and hope the war won’t happen.
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“The pessimistic interpretation is that US washes its’ hands and leaves Israel to apply force (or not) alone.”
Takes a special country to draw out a ‘pessimistic’ interpretation out of 100% unconditional support for whatever atrocities you want to commit.
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The Resolution says, “”If the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self defense against Iran’s nuclear weapons program. . .”
Now it will all be about interpreting “legitimate self-defense.”
I really really hope Israel’s government will remain under control, will avoid freaking out, and will contain the need to strengthen its tenuous national identity through bombing Iran. I have never believed less in what I’m writing than I do in this sentence.
I don’t even want to think about this possibility because if Israel delivers a strike to Iran that will be an unforgivable atrocity.
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\\ Takes a special country to draw out a ‘pessimistic’ interpretation
Unfortunately, I am not a country yet. Only a person.
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“Unfortunately, I am not a country yet.”
– Would you like to be? 🙂 🙂
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To clarify: the pessimistic interpretation meant US leaving Israel to deal with Iran alone, meaning: stopping US efforts at negotiations with Iran. Which could well lead to Israel attacking.
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I have a few special questions you haven’t referred to previously:
danmillerinpanama wrote in “China, Iran and North Korea — a radioactive stew” about:
North Korea’s threats as a nuclear power or — worse, in my view — as a nuclear supplier for other more dangerous rogue nations such as Iran and even for non-national terror groups.
I see what happens in Syria now, with Israel worrying about chemical weapons falling in hands of terrorists. What if Syria had nuclear weapons? What if Iran or other dictatorship starts to disintegrate, as a result of citizens themselves desiring democracy for example, and in a resulting chaos of civil war Bombs fall in terrorists’ hands? Why are you so sure it won’t happen? Just because it hasn’t before? Do you really think such a bomb in Al Qaeda hands is as dangerous as in US hands? At least, democratic countries are more internally stable than dictatorships and, in the long run, better able to protect their nuclear weapons.
2nd big problem:
I am also sure dictatorships are going to use *all* kinds of weapons against both internal and (created) external enemies, if their regime is in real danger. In Syria, Asad used chemical weapons against his own citizens and Israel was afraid he would start a war with Israel in the attempt to remain in power. So, if any dictatorship suffers from inner instability (f.e. their citizens want regime’s change), both its’ own citizens and other countries are in bigger danger, if the regime has nuclear bombs. Unlike in democracy, all that is needed in a dictatorship, is a few “evil” Hitler-like or Stalin-like or [many other people]-like individuals. Nobody even pretends to ask country’s millions of citizens what they want, the few people in the regime will do 100% what they find beneficial for them. Nobody guaranties they won’t be both evil and stupid. Of course, democracies aren’t ideal either, but I hope you do see a real difference between a democracy and a dictatorship. I am sure you wouldn’t want to live in the latter.
In short:
Why do you think standing aside while countries, like North Korea and Iran, become nuclear won’t be a worse repetition of :
“Appeasement was used by European democracies in the 1930s who wished to avoid war with the dictatorships of Germany and Italy, bearing in mind the horrors of World War I.”
And why do you think that “any military action against Iran will be a horrible mistake that might have tragic consequences for the entire planet”? May be, you have already written about it, but I haven’t found it yet. From what we are told, Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons to use yet.
danmillerinpanama has the opposite view, pointing at the dangers of standing aside here:
Would have been very interesting to read a post responding to his post and to my questions.
– el
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“What if Iran or other dictatorship starts to disintegrate, as a result of citizens themselves desiring democracy for example, and in a resulting chaos of civil war Bombs fall in terrorists’ hands? Why are you so sure it won’t happen? Just because it hasn’t before?”
– What if a crazed religious fanatic comes to power to the US and decides to speed up the long-awaited Apocalypse by throwing nuclear bombs around? Why are you so sure it won’t happen? Just because it has before? Do I need to remind once again that the ONLY country in the world that has dropped nuclear bombs on civilian populations was the US? Do I need to remind once again that even today the most progressive, Liberal people in the US do not condemn that act? So who should scare you more, a country that has already dropped nuclear weapons on others and keeps invading all over the place for really crazy reasons, or some imaginary scenario of Iranians fighting the ayatollahs for democracy?
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“Do you really think such a bomb in Al Qaeda hands is as dangerous as in US hands?”
– Not as dangerous. Less dangerous. For very obvious reasons.
” Of course, democracies aren’t ideal either, but I hope you do see a real difference between a democracy and a dictatorship. I am sure you wouldn’t want to live in the latter.”
– I do not believe in projecting my preferences on people I don’t know and never met and bombing them on the basis of that projection.
” So, if any dictatorship suffers from inner instability (f.e. their citizens want regime’s change), both its’ own citizens and other countries are in bigger danger, if the regime has nuclear bombs. Unlike in democracy, all that is needed in a dictatorship, is a few “evil” Hitler-like or Stalin-like or [many other people]-like individuals. Nobody even pretends to ask country’s millions of citizens what they want”
– My friend, this is all empty verbiage. How do you know that there is not a country right now that believes your way of life is horrible, atrocious and degrading and doesn’t want to improve your life by dropping bombs on you? There is no single objective measure of what constitutes happiness that would work for all human beings. You don’t want to live like people in Iran or North Korea and that’s fine, I don’t want it either. But don’t you realize that they feel exactly the same about your way of life? North Koreans consistently demonstrate on surveys that they are the happiest people of all in any country. We can laugh at their happiness because, according to our criteria, it is bizarre. But what gives you this incredible hubris to believe that your judgment is so superior to people from completely other cultures?
“Why do you think standing aside while countries, like North Korea and Iran, become nuclear won’t be a worse repetition of :“Appeasement was used by European democracies in the 1930s who wished to avoid war with the dictatorships of Germany and Italy, bearing in mind the horrors of World War I.””
– I don’t understand or believe in such forced and meaningless parallels. The world stood aside while the USSR acquired nuclear weapons and the USSR did not use them. The world stood aside while the US acquired nuclear weapons and the US did use them.
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I gave this example already, but I will give it again. Let’s say I have a neighbor who is a housewife. A miserable, empty shell of a human being who has no purpose in life than to serve the needs of her husband. Her life is spent between the microwave and the washing machine. She has no identity of her own, no profession, no money, no career, no interests. She is permanently depressed and gulps down pills by the bucketful. She lets her husband humiliate her and call her names. She votes for every Republican cause because that’s all she knows how to do.
I think this woman’s life is horrible and I would honestly rather die than live this way.
But do I think she should have a bomb dropped on her to make her live a better life? Do I want to send in the troops to bring her to reason? Do I want any violence done to her to stop such a horrible way of life?
Of course not.
I think her choices are completely horrible but they are hers to make. I despise such people as her but I don’t despise them enough to prevent them from making their stupid choices.
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// – What if a crazed religious fanatic comes to power to the US and decides to speed up the long-awaited Apocalypse by throwing nuclear bombs around?
Democracy has better protection (with checks and balances system) against it than dictatorship.
// Do I need to remind once again that the ONLY country in the world that has dropped nuclear bombs on civilian populations was the US?
Because the technology is so new. With the nuclear proliferation to all kinds of places, we may see another example in our lifetimes yet.
// – Not as dangerous. Less dangerous. For very obvious reasons.
Which obvious reasons?
If you were an Israeli citizen, would you still say this? Israel is under constant attack from different terrorist organizations, if one of them got the bomb, wouldn’t they use it? Why not?
// How do you know that there is not a country right now that believes your way of life is horrible, atrocious and degrading and doesn’t want to improve your life by dropping bombs on you?
We have a big miscommunication here: I am not trying to improve anybody’s life, except desire to preserve my own. US, not Israel, sees itself as bringing light and democracy to the nations nowadays. Israel wants to be left in peace, in one piece. 🙂
// But what gives you this incredible hubris to believe that your judgment is so superior to people from completely other cultures?
Arab spring? Attempts to create a green revolution in Iran, which US didn’t support? Seeing how dictatorships around us use/d Israel as The Enemy to stifle inner protests because of inner problems?
// – Because Iran is absolutely as entitled to have nuclear weapons as Israel, India, Pakistan, etc.
So “that will be an unforgivable atrocity” only because they are entitled to nuclear weapons to threaten me with? I could live with such an atrocity then.
If the attack would really prevent Iran from getting Bomb, it could be great for Israel’s security in the long run. However, when I read that any attack won’t stop Iran, the situation seems very different: why attack, if the Iranian bomb will anyway arrive? To get more missiles right now?
// The bill was going to require background checks for gun purchasers. The US, a country that demonstrated an extremely irresponsible and criminal use of nuclear weapons, couldn’t have possibly passed such a background check.
Not a country, but individual gun purchasers would pass or not.
// North Koreans consistently demonstrate on surveys that they are the happiest people of all in any country.
I am shocked you can believe it. Look at this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2269094/North-Korean-parents-eat-children-driven-mad-hunger-famine-hit-pariah-state.html
Interesting, what would happen afterwards to not fully happy North Korean person. People are afraid to say a word wrong, even if this survey is anonymous.
They are people too, not horrible creatures from another planet, like Americans believed of Communists to be, f.e. And people aren’t happy to die from hunger or eat their own children. Especially with Ukraine’s history of starvation, how can you buy all lies?
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“Democracy has better protection (with checks and balances system) against it than dictatorship.”
– Yet, for the sixth time, the US did drop the nuclear bomb on human beings when nobody else has.
“Because the technology is so new. With the nuclear proliferation to all kinds of places, we may see another example in our lifetimes yet.”
– I can only discuss what actually happened.
“// – Not as dangerous. Less dangerous. For very obvious reasons.
Which obvious reasons?”
– The US has an enormous arsenal of such weapons and a huge standing army. A single bomb in the hands of Al Qaeda cannot compete with all that. Look at what happened at the fertilizer plant. Tomorrow some bumble-headed loser will forget to comply with the security measures on a nuclear facility in the US and we will have another Chernobyl on our hands. Given that this scenario has actual precedent, it makes mores sense to worry about that a lot more than about the Al Qaeda nuclear strike scenario.
“If you were an Israeli citizen, would you still say this? Israel is under constant attack from different terrorist organizations, if one of them got the bomb, wouldn’t they use it? Why not?”
– If I were a citizen of Israel, I would move immediately. I’m not saying everybody else should move. I’m just saying what I would do. Other people should feel free to make different choices even if I find those choices to be completely incomprehensible.
“We have a big miscommunication here: I am not trying to improve anybody’s life, except desire to preserve my own. ”
– Then why do you keep discussing the horrible life of people in dictatorships? Do you seriously believe that North Koreans are interested in killing you?
“Israel wants to be left in peace, in one piece. ”
– And a way to be left in peace is to attack Iran??? This makes zero sense.
“/I could live with such an atrocity then.”
– Yes, I know and I find your readiness to tolerate atrocity to be absolutely tragic.
“If the attack would really prevent Iran from getting Bomb, it could be great for Israel’s security in the long run. However, when I read that any attack won’t stop Iran, the situation seems very different: why attack, if the Iranian bomb will anyway arrive? To get more missiles right now?”
– Halellujah! I knew the happy moment would come and you will see what I’m saying! If Israel attacks Iran that will do absolutely nothing for Israel’s security. Nothing. At. All. To the contrary, it will be a disaster and an enormous tragedy for people in the region. All people. Wars do not make anybody more secure. I thought the example of the US in the last decade has demonstrated this explicitly.
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“// North Koreans consistently demonstrate on surveys that they are the happiest people of all in any country.
I am shocked you can believe it. Look at this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2269094/North-Korean-parents-eat-children-driven-mad-hunger-famine-hit-pariah-state.html
Interesting, what would happen afterwards to not fully happy North Korean person. People are afraid to say a word wrong, even if this survey is anonymous.”
– Didn’t you just say you had no interest in improving anybody’s life? Remember that tomorrow the same need to judge might be applied to you. I wonder how you would like that.
“They are people too, not horrible creatures from another planet, like Americans believed of Communists to be, f.e. And people aren’t happy to die from hunger or eat their own children. Especially with Ukraine’s history of starvation, how can you buy all lies?”
– Precisely because I’m from the former USSR, I know that people in the country at the pinnacle of Stalinism were massively and extremely happy. And even though I don’t identify with the happiness of this kind, I don’t wish the US had invaded in 1937 and killed my very happy great-grandparents and grand-parents because of disapproving of the quality of their happiness and the reasons for it.
I have to say I’m really mystified at how this loop pf the discussion fits in with your statement “We have a big miscommunication here: I am not trying to improve anybody’s life, except desire to preserve my own. US, not Israel, sees itself as bringing light and democracy to the nations nowadays.” This sounds precisely like you are advocating an invasion of North Korea to improve the lives of North Koreans.
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“And why do you think that “any military action against Iran will be a horrible mistake that might have tragic consequences for the entire planet”?”
– Because Iran is absolutely as entitled to have nuclear weapons as Israel, India, Pakistan, etc. More entitled than the US because, for the 5th time, the US has actually used them to murder people. Did you hear about this gun control bill that tanked in the US Senate last week? The bill was going to require background checks for gun purchasers. The US, a country that demonstrated an extremely irresponsible and criminal use of nuclear weapons, couldn’t have possibly passed such a background check. The countries that never used such weapons to kill anybody would.
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I left comments on this post and also on weekly links one. Since I wasn’t on my computer, didn’t want another memory to remember my password. Could you release them, please?
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// Holodomor … Denying the existence of the famine was the Soviet state’s position, and reflected in both Soviet propaganda and the work of some Western journalists and intellectuals including Walter Duranty and Louis Fischer.
Ukraine was not free to immediately honour those who perished in the Holodomor, right? The citizens of North Korea aren’t free either to do much under the thumb of the regime that starves them. I am 100% sure that the moment NK isn’t a dictatorship any longer, the citizens will speak of the dead, starved by regime’s policies relatives. Now any individual NK, that is unhappy, is like the main hero in “1984”: afraid to say a word, to give a hint something is wrong.
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Have you read this book: http://royallib.ru/book/miri_bratev_strugatskih/trudno_bit_bogom.html ?
I highly recommend.
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// – If I were a citizen of Israel, I would move immediately.
I wanted to specify the condition of you being unable to move, but thought it was evident. OK, so with this condition now?
Btw, who would want to accept millions of Jews from Israel? Germany? 🙂
Moving is not a realistic solution to all Israeli Jews, this without mentioning, of course, the desire to have own country, like all peoples.
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“// – If I were a citizen of Israel, I would move immediately.
I wanted to specify the condition of you being unable to move, but thought it was evident. OK, so with this condition now?
Btw, who would want to accept millions of Jews from Israel? Germany?
Moving is not a realistic solution to all Israeli Jews, this without mentioning, of course, the desire to have own country, like all peoples.”
– It is very difficult to have a discussion when people don’t read what you say. I said, “If I were a citizen of Israel, I would move immediately. I’m not saying everybody else should move. I’m just saying what I would do.” How you managed to jump from that to “Millions of Jews from Israel”, let alone to Germany, is a mystery.
If I were forced to live in the kind of environment that exists in Israel today, I would have to go into what is known as “inner immigration.” I would avoid listening to any of these patriotic, anxiety-producing, paranoid discourses, I would ban all national media from my close vicinity, I would avoid all company of people who engage in nationalistic discourses, etc. It would be hard and painful but I would preserve my identity and would not allow it to be poisoned by patriotic, nationalistic propaganda. The people who did this in the USSR, were the only ones whose identities remained intact after it collapsed. All the rest went into the twilight state of the psyche that has still not entirely improved.
“the desire to have own country, like all peoples.””
– OK, here we go generalizing and extrapolating again. I don’t want “to have own country.” What am I, then, not a person?
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// OK, here we go generalizing and extrapolating again. I don’t want “to have own country.” What am I, then, not a person?
I talked not of individual people, but of peopleS. Humans nowadays tend to organize in nation states, and in every nation state – to bigger or smaller extent – you see the desire to preserve national character, ethnicity, worries about immigration, etc. Most people are like that too, of course, there are always exceptions.
// The people who did this in the USSR, were the only ones whose identities remained intact after it collapsed.
Do you think Israel will collapse like USSR? If not, this inner danger isn’t relevant, right? 🙂
// How you managed to jump from that to “Millions of Jews from Israel”, let alone to Germany, is a mystery.
I managed since I wanted to ask what Israel should do in your eyes for its’ security.
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“I talked not of individual people, but of peopleS. Humans nowadays tend to organize in nation states, and in every nation state – to bigger or smaller extent – you see the desire to preserve national character, ethnicity, worries about immigration, etc.”
– The desire to preserve the completely non-existent “national character” is a desire of brainwashed unintelligent people I pity deeply. On how the myth of national character was first created, I recommend the following seminal study:
This one is also outstanding: http://www.amazon.com/The-Invention-Tradition-Canto-Classics/dp/1107604672/ref=pd_sim_b_8
“I managed since I wanted to ask what Israel should do in your eyes for its’ security.”
– Stop generating mass hysteria and stop planning attacks on other countries.
“// The people who did this in the USSR, were the only ones whose identities remained intact after it collapsed.
Do you think Israel will collapse like USSR? If not, this inner danger isn’t relevant, right?”
– The need to preserve one’s psyche exists irrespective of what happens to any given country. Countries, like men, come and go. Our individual identities are all we have. 🙂 🙂
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// This sounds precisely like you are advocating an invasion of North Korea to improve the lives of North Koreans.
Trying to objectively describe reality and understand the world doesn’t equal advocating to do anything abroad. This equating is US kind of thinking.
// people in the country at the pinnacle of Stalinism were massively and extremely happy
Were people in Holodomor Ukraine massively happy too?
// – Halellujah! I knew the happy moment would come and you will see what I’m saying!
You were talking of Iran’s inherent right to have the bomb, if Israel has it. I couldn’t care less about this “right” to threaten my life and 2nd Holocaust to Jewish people. Obviously.
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“Trying to objectively describe reality and understand the world doesn’t equal advocating to do anything abroad.”
– You are trying to objectively describe reality in North Korea? Where you have never been and whose language you don’t speak? And whose culture you know nothing about, I assume? And you know so much about that reality because you read an article in a British tabloid?
“// people in the country at the pinnacle of Stalinism were massively and extremely happy
Were people in Holodomor Ukraine massively happy too?”
– They were the minority among the happy Soviet people.
“You were talking of Iran’s inherent right to have the bomb, if Israel has it. I couldn’t care less about this “right” to threaten my life and 2nd Holocaust to Jewish people. Obviously.”
– If you have the right to threaten the life of an Irani person of your age, why shouldn’t s/he have the same right? Do you believe you are somehow superior? Do you believe her or his life is worth less?
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By the way, Hitler used the atrocities of Stalinism to justify invading the USSR. He was quite sure that Ukrainians, at least, would side with him. The Soviet people showed to him just how much they wanted to be made happy by force at the hands of foreign invaders. The Ukrainians were among the greatest heroes of that war.
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“Yet, for the sixth time, the US did drop the nuclear bomb on human beings when nobody else has”
Would you like to enlighten us on times 3 through 6?
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You want me to find all of my discussions with el where I said this same thing 6 times in a row to no avail? I don’t think this can be done at this point.
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// – If you have the right to threaten the life of an Irani person of your age, why shouldn’t s/he have the same right? Do you believe you are somehow superior? Do you believe her or his life is worth less?
Israel said it won’t be the 1st to bring nuclear weapons to the Middle East, so I am not threatening like they do. Israel threatens Iranian nuclear program, while Iran first began to threaten Israel (“Zionists’ regime”) and its’ citizens in all kinds of ways.
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Do you think you can bomb a nuclear program without killing people in the process?
“Israel said it won’t be the 1st to bring nuclear weapons to the Middle East, so I am not threatening like they do. ”
– Doesn’t Israel have nuclear weapons already?
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“To bring nuclear weapons” means “to use n w”.
// Do you think you can bomb a nuclear program without killing people in the process?
Except some connected to the program people? It’s a huge difference from atom bombing a country, or “even” from supporting terrorist organizations to kill civilians, like Iran does.
// Countries, like men, come and go. Our individual identities are all we have.
If Israel “goes”, the vast majority of Jews in it “go” too.
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““To bring nuclear weapons” means “to use n w”.”
– Iran hasn’t used them.
“Except some connected to the program people? It’s a huge difference from atom bombing a country”
– Has Iran used nuclear weapons on another country? If not, then what is the point of these comments?
“or “even” from supporting terrorist organizations to kill civilians, like Iran does.”
– The US supported the Taliban for many years. Is that an excuse to bomb the US?
“If Israel “goes”, the vast majority of Jews in it “go” too.”
– From what I remember, Jews survived for 2,000 without any country. Not only did they survive, they flourished. Unlike the Romans whose empire seemed ultra-powerful 2,000 years ago.
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// – The US supported the Taliban for many years. Is that an excuse to bomb the US?
If any county currently armed Taliban with purpose to use it against Israel, Israel would have a full right to bomb it, imo. Yes.
// From what I remember, Jews survived for 2,000 without any country.
Pogroms all the way, Holocaust recently — those aren’t “small fish” to ignore, imo.
Most Israeli Jews wouldn’t survive, if Israel was destroyed. Together with half of Middle East, so I hope even extreme regimes understand it and won’t really throw any Bombs.
// – Has Iran used nuclear weapons on another country? If not, then what is the point of these comments?
The point: Iran is supporting killing Israeli civilians via numerous proxies (terrorist orgs), which Israel doesn’t do to Iran.
// If I were forced to live in the kind of environment that exists in Israel today …
I wondered whether you would still easily say:
> Iran is absolutely as entitled to have nuclear weapons as Israel
> Not as dangerous. Less dangerous. For very obvious reasons.
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“– The US supported the Taliban for many years. Is that an excuse to bomb the US?
If any county currently armed Taliban with purpose to use it against Israel, Israel would have a full right to bomb it, imo. Yes.”
– Can you please answer my question? This is simple courtesy. I answer all of your questions without modifying them to suit me better.
“// – Has Iran used nuclear weapons on another country? If not, then what is the point of these comments? The point: Iran is supporting killing Israeli civilians via numerous proxies (terrorist orgs), which Israel doesn’t do to Iran.”
– The discussion is losing all meaning if you insist on talking with yourself and not with me. What does any of this has to do with nuclear weapons?
“// If I were forced to live in the kind of environment that exists in Israel today …
I wondered whether you would still easily say:
> Iran is absolutely as entitled to have nuclear weapons as Israel
> Not as dangerous. Less dangerous. For very obvious reasons.”
– The second statement was made about the US and Al Qaeda. As for being forced to live in Israel against my will, I already outlined the course of actions I would undertake. As I already mentioned, I lived in the USSR and still remember very vividly how some people were drawn into mass hysteria with tales of the US that was about to attack the USSR with nuclear weapons. Some people, however, managed to preserve their judgment in the midst of this destructive propaganda. Buying or not into propaganda is a personal choice. Even when propaganda is very powerful and seductive.
I wonder, do you ever question anything your government tells you about these external threats? Here in the US we also keep hearing this narrative of being beleaguered victims of the “terrorists who envy our freedoms” and many people believe that stuff. But then many people don’t believe it and manage to protect their minds from the onslaught of propaganda.
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The Rest of America doesn’t shake in outrage for what occurred in West, Texas…
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Because in order to shake in outrage, they will have to analyze their own infantile decisions of sending their children to school next to the likes of a smelly, dangerous fertilizer factory!
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Exactly!
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