Terrorism hits Iran again

[Synobun]

There's absolutely no reason to think that they would do this. They are interested in staying in power, you know. Unless you know something most people don't, like actual information that the Iranian leadership is planning a large scale attack on Israel (not an invasion, presumably, since they're not neighbours).

No reason to think they would do this? I dunno, publicly calling for Israel's destruction and vowing to do it once they have the capability seems like a pretty big reason.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I dunno, publicly calling for Israel's destruction and vowing to do it once they have the capability seems like a pretty big reason

He didn't really call for Israel to be destroyed.

The phrase he then used as I read it is “The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] from the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).”

Ahmadinejad was not making a threat, he was quoting a saying of Khomeini and urging that pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope– that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the Shah’s government.

Whatever this quotation from a decades-old speech of Khomeini may have meant, Ahmadinejad did not say that “Israel must be wiped off the map” with the implication that phrase has of Nazi-style extermination of a people. He said that the occupation regime over Jerusalem must be erased from the page of time.

Ahmadinejad did sponsor a provocateur "conference on the historicity of the Holocaust", though.

Besides, like I've already noted, you should let Ahmadinejad build the bomb. If he doesn't use it to attack Israel, everything's fine, and if he does - you shall be vindicated on the Internet. Aelf and all other self-righteous leftists who insist on Iran's non-belligerence will be totally crushed and will be forced to admit that they were wrong. And an Internet vindication is priceless. Israel, or any other country is the world, is a small price to pay for it.

 

[Synobun]

He didn't really call for Israel to be destroyed.


Ahmadinejad did sponsor a provocateur "conference on the historicity of the Holocaust", though.

Besides, like I've already noted, you should let Ahmadinejad build the bomb. If he doesn't use it to attack Israel, everything's fine, and if he does - you shall be vindicated on the Internet. Aelf and all other self-righteous leftists who insist on Iran's non-belligerence will be totally crushed and will be forced to admit that they were wrong. And an Internet vindication is priceless. Israel, or any other country is the world, is a small price to pay for it.

So, he considers Israel's government an occupation, and states that it should be erased from the page of time... How is that different than wiping them off the map and replacing it with either an Iran or Palestine sticker?

If the government of Iran were more sane, I would not be opposed to them having a nuke, but it's almost a guarantee they will use it once they have it, and I would rather not see Jerusalem or another large Israeli city nuked before people acknowledge the threat of Iran having a nuke.

edit: Read that first bit of the article a little more. What I'm getting from this is that since it's not a direct Hitler-esque threat, therefore it is not a threat. Could someone explain this to me?

 

[Lone Wolf]

How is that different than wiping them off the map and replacing it with either an Iran or Palestine sticker?

That, however, is different from nuking Israel. In fact, the quote is even milder - it only considers Israeli's control of Jerusalem to be an "occupation".

And anyway, there're many groups who think that Israel in its current state is unjustifiable. People like Moche Machover are hardly advocates for a nuclear strike on Israel.

Ahmadinejad is obviously more nasty then people like Machover and is willing to cynically play on the anti-Semitic sentiments of Iranian and Arabic masses. Yet he never threatened Jewish people in Israel with a nuclear attack (which would also kill off a bunch of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, on behalf of whom he's supposedly concerned).

 

[berkut]

I think that that kind of intervention is way more acceptable then a war

 

[Hygro]

This wasn't terrorism. It was a justified attack against a legitimate target.

That would describe all acts of terrorism as according to those or the terrorists' side.

 

[Leoreth]

I think that that kind of intervention is way more acceptable then a war

Really? Targeting civilians is preferable to attacking military targets?

Seems Al-Qaeda just had bad PR consultants then.

 

[El_Machinae]

Yeah, I think I agree with people parsing this as 'assassination' instead of 'terrorism'. I mean, if the two terms DO mean different things, and they should, this is more on the 'assassination' side.

I'm prone to viewing it as terrorism, since (as I said) anti-academic terrorism is a real thing.

It would be vastly cheaper to woo Iranian scientists than to kill them.

 

[kochman]

So your view is "blowing people up is good if we are doing it"?

Would blowing up Hitler have been good or bad?
Stalin?
Mao?
Bin Laden?

 

[ParkCungHee]

Yeah, I think I agree with people parsing this as 'assassination' instead of 'terrorism'. I mean, if the two terms DO mean different things, and they should, this is more on the 'assassination' side.

It's a false dichotomy. Back in the golden age of head of state assassination, it was kind of the primary form of terrorism.

 

[aelf]

No reason to think they would do this? I dunno, publicly calling for Israel's destruction and vowing to do it once they have the capability seems like a pretty big reason.

Are you not familiar with this thing called propaganda?

 

[kochman]

Are you not familiar with this thing called propaganda?

Oh, I am! The Nazis used a lot of it as a precursor to their invasions of other countries!

 

[aelf]

Uh, how is that related?

 

[kochman]

I didn't think that was too difficult to figure out.

Here's the idea.

Propaganda isn't always empty words/saber rattling...
Sometimes it is to actually sway minds prior to invasion, during war, etc.

 

[Oruc]

Uh, how is that related?

Everything is nazi related even stray dogs

 

[aelf]

I didn't think that was too difficult to figure out.

Here's the idea.

Propaganda isn't always empty words/saber rattling...
Sometimes it is to actually sway minds prior to invasion, during war, etc.

It appears you're unfamiliar with how propaganda works. Tell me, how is Ahmadinejad's rhetoric supposed to "sway minds"?

Also, you seem to think that the Iranian leadership has calculated that the best way to maximise their chances of staying in power is to attack a regional power who is not even their neighbour and thereby embroil themselves, for reasons other than self-defense, in a war against Western powers that they can't win.

Okay. Is this the kind of 'intelligence' that led you to think that Iraq must have had WMDs that it was intending to use for some major attack? That was still understandable, though, and I doubt even Bush had low enough mental capacity to think this crazy bogeyman of an Iranian evil scheme up.

Everything is nazi related even stray dogs

Weak.

 

[Oruc]

Weak.

That's what I thought but you were the one to link the two, while saying Jews were on the same level as dogs

 

[aelf]

More like you completely missed the point for that one.

 

[classical_hero]

He didn't really call for Israel to be destroyed.


Ahmadinejad did sponsor a provocateur "conference on the historicity of the Holocaust", though.

Besides, like I've already noted, you should let Ahmadinejad build the bomb. If he doesn't use it to attack Israel, everything's fine, and if he does - you shall be vindicated on the Internet. Aelf and all other self-righteous leftists who insist on Iran's non-belligerence will be totally crushed and will be forced to admit that they were wrong. And an Internet vindication is priceless. Israel, or any other country is the world, is a small price to pay for it.

Jerusalem has been in the hands of the Jews longer than the Arabs have had it. Jerusalem is only important to Arabs/Muslims if they can deny Jews that city, otherwise it is a useless city to them.

 

[kochman]

It appears you're unfamiliar with how propaganda works. Tell me, how is Ahmadinejad's rhetoric supposed to "sway minds"?

Also, you seem to think that the Iranian leadership has calculated that the best way to maximise their chances of staying in power is to attack a regional power who is not even their neighbour and thereby embroil themselves, for reasons other than self-defense, in a war against Western powers that they can't win.

Okay. Is this the kind of 'intelligence' that led you to think that Iraq must have had WMDs that it was intending to use for some major attack? That was still understandable, though, and I doubt even Bush had low enough mental capacity to think this crazy bogeyman of an Iranian evil scheme up.

I didn't support the Iraq War.

You seem to think that Iranian leadership thinks in the same ways you do. I wish that were the case, because then they wouldn't even seek the nuke.
Are you familiar with Achy's particular religious views and how they play into his politics?

I hope that calmer heads prevail in Iran, I really do. It'll be disastrous if there is another war... but there is a faction that can create ever more disaster if given the chance, and it has real power in Iran to do so potentially.

Unfamiliar with propaganda? Ok, if you say so... jeez.