U.S. media takes the lead on propaganda campaign on Iran

[CaptainF]

Soooo......all those claims I'm hearing about the Iranian government stifling free speech, arresting and executing dissenters......having women stoned to death......are those just propaganda?

Yes or no?

If no, then bring on the sanctions. And if those don't work, bring on the M1A1 Abrams Liberation Machines.

Yes, whatever we can do to kill and harm the Iranian people and bankrupt our country.

 

[Antilogic]

The Onion article was parodying what the US media was doing back then, and what the US media doing now. Here the context:

Beat me to it. I couldn't believe someone would cite the Onion as a reference in a serious article. And in this case, they didn't.

I really don't think we need to waste more lives and money sacking Iran.

 

[BasketCase]

Under that logic we should really start hammering Saudi Arabia at some point.

That doesn't answer the question I asked. I was asking about Iran.

Whether we should be hammering on Saudi Arabia is another question entirely......which a number of CFC'ers have in fact answered with a "yes".

Yes, whatever we can do to kill and harm the Iranian people and bankrupt our country.

No. Just the Iranian government.

 

[kramerfan86]

That doesn't answer the question I asked. I was asking about Iran.

Whether we should be hammering on Saudi Arabia is another question entirely......which a number of CFC'ers have in fact answered with a "yes".

Do you have a magic gold factory? If you ask that exact question you can answer yes for half the countries on the planet most likely. Nation building is horribly expensive with very little opportunity to make back the cash. There is nothing exceptional about Iran's cruelty (in fact they are likely a fair bit better than many other countries) that makes it deserving of your question.

 

[BasketCase]

The Iranian government's cruelty doesn't have to be exceptional. The question has already been asked; it is still either true, or false. The claims by the U.S. about the Iranian government stifling free speech and arresting and executing dissidents: are they lies, or not?

Side issue: if it's morally right to beat the crap out of one oppressive dictatorship, that doesn't mean we're morally required to beat the crap out of all of them. The current government of Iran should be destroyed; so should the government of China, and the government of North Korea, and the government of Saudi Arabia, and several others I probably don't need to mention because I'm pretty sure you get the idea.

It's morally right to destroy all these dictatorships; it's simply not possible for the U.S. to do it because we don't have enough troops. Cue cheesy analogy: if it's morally right to donate free housing for homeless people, does that mean we shouldn't donate at all unless we can donate for all of them.....? I'm guessing your answer to that would be "no, we should donate as much as we can afford". And there you have it.

Other side issue: I never mentioned anything about nation-building. I'd be fine with bombing the current Iranian government out of existence and then just strolling home and watching a hockey game. Hell, nobody else helped the U.S. nation-build two centuries ago when we kicked the British back across the Atlantic. Eliminating oppressive regimes is still a vast improvement, nation-building or no.

 

[kramerfan86]

Yea Im sure people living an anarchy ridden places like Somalia agree nothing is better than a bad something for sure

 

[Leoreth]

Soooo......all those claims I'm hearing about the Iranian government stifling free speech, arresting and executing dissenters......having women stoned to death......are those just propaganda?

Yes or no?

If no, then bring on the sanctions. And if those don't work, bring on the M1A1 Abrams Liberation Machines.

You really want to wage war on Iran over how it treats its people? I thought you've learned that particular lesson in the last decade. And besides, that's not even what the current conflict is about.

 

[Bootstoots]

It's morally right to destroy all these dictatorships; it's simply not possible for the U.S. to do it because we don't have enough troops. Cue cheesy analogy: if it's morally right to donate free housing for homeless people, does that mean we shouldn't donate at all unless we can donate for all of them.....? I'm guessing your answer to that would be "no, we should donate as much as we can afford". And there you have it.

Other side issue: I never mentioned anything about nation-building. I'd be fine with bombing the current Iranian government out of existence and then just strolling home and watching a hockey game. Hell, nobody else helped the U.S. nation-build two centuries ago when we kicked the British back across the Atlantic. Eliminating oppressive regimes is still a vast improvement, nation-building or no.

On a level, I sort of agree with you. For instance, I was fine with using airstrikes to help overthrow Gaddafi - because a large homegrown rebel movement existed, it wasn't going to be seen by the people of Libya the way invading Iraq was by the Iraqis. The new government may or may not be better than the old one, but I think it's fine to help people roll the dice to try a new government, if the conditions are right for that.

Iran is an entirely different can of worms. It's true that their government is very oppressive - not really out of line with other Gulf states, but still an authoritarian Islamist regime. In my ideal world, it would be replaced with a democratic state, by whatever means necessary.

But there's every reason to think that a war against Iran would be similar to, but much worse than, the Iraq war. The Iranian government has done a very good job of running propaganda against the West, and some of it (especially about economic sanctions and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars) does have some level of truth to it. Keeping in mind that their current goverment came about because of popular opposition to the Western-backed Shah, it seems obvious that an attack on the current regime by the US/UK/Israel would only solidify popular opinion against us. I suspect it would unite even most dissidents with the Iranian government against us.

When that sort of thing happens, it's pretty much impossible for the West to win anything other than conventional military engagements. Any war with Iran, of course, would be anything but conventional, especially given their somewhat decent military and rugged terrain - which is at its most rugged around Tehran. Even though it would be great in theory to get rid of the Iranian regime, I don't see any way to do it by military force that wouldn't simply backfire horribly on us.

 

[CaptainF]

No. Just the Iranian government.

So, that's how it went in Iraq, right? No civilian casualties, no racking up of the debt! Everywhere we dropped bombs, flowers sprang in their place. It's also not like it resulted in a whole swarm of dead/wounded soldiers at home.

You are quite simply out of touch with reality on this issue, either that you didn't really pay much attention at all to the past 8 years. To pretend that engaging in war, any war, is a cake walk is to be disingenuous in the extreme.

Although I guess our economy sucks enough already...what's a few trillion more dollars?

 

[kramerfan86]

I agree with the thought the Iranian people likely wouldnt be with us, I think plenty of the dissidents would be on our side but that isnt a majority and even if it was all it takes is a sizeable minority to cause severe trouble. Only way the US will be able to overthrow the Iranian regime militarily is if a Libya style rebellion breaks out and there is an organized opposition to help.

 

[Takhisis]

Soooo......all those claims I'm hearing about the Iranian government stifling free speech, arresting and executing dissenters......having women stoned to death......are those just propaganda?

Yes or no?

If no, then bring on the sanctions. And if those don't work, bring on the M1A1 Abrams Liberation Machines.

Under that logic we should really start hammering Saudi Arabia at some point.

If we go for goernments stifling free speech and arresting and executing people who happen to disagree with the government I'd look closer to home…

Yes, whatever we can do to kill and harm the Iranian people and bankrupt our country.

Hell yeah! USA#1!

 

[aelf]

Whether we should be hammering on Saudi Arabia is another question entirely......which a number of CFC'ers have in fact answered with a "yes".

Funny how that translates in reality to "never".

 

[Gatsby]

Hell, nobody else helped the U.S. nation-build two centuries ago when we kicked the British back across the Atlantic.

The US did not kick the British back across the Atlantic by any stretch of the imagination. Heck, in the war of 1812 British (including Canadian, IIRC) imperial troops burned down the White House!

I would say that the French played a vital role in helping the US to "nation-build" itself in its early years.

Eliminating oppressive regimes is still a vast improvement, nation-building or no.

Particularly when a regime has the audacity to assert their country's sovereign control over their own oil reserves!

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Hell, nobody else helped the U.S. nation-build two centuries ago when we kicked the British back across the Atlantic.

Really? Nobody? Are you sure?

edit: x-post

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

This 1812 war must be the one and only time we Australians have not obediently come to their aid .

 

[asbestos]

If Iraq proved anything, it's that people prefer living under a home-grown dictatorship to a foreign-installed dictatorship.

 

[BasketCase]

You really want to wage war on Iran over how it treats its people?

No. I want to wage war against the Iranian GOVERNMENT. Yeah, maybe that's what you meant, but it's an important enough distinction that it's worth repeating.

I thought you've learned that particular lesson in the last decade.

I did. I've been watching the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq the way the guy with season tickets watches a hockey game (including the standing up and cheering whenever some Taliban dirtbag got shot in the face). I'm quite pleased with the results.

So, that's how it went in Iraq, right? No civilian casualties, no racking up of the debt!

Pretty much. Civilian casualties and racking up of the debt will be much lower in the long-term now that Saddam is gone. (Keep in mind the three hundred billion or so we were spending every year on enforcing "the sanctions", and the number of Iraqis who died as a result of those sanctions--the sanctions are now OVER AND DONE) Also keep in mind that Saddam started two unprovoked wars and was responsible for the largest oil spill in the entire planet's history.

Saddam and the Taliban needed very badly to be eliminated, and were totally worth the costs.

I would say that the French played a vital role in helping the US to "nation-build" itself in its early years.

And I wouldn't.

 

[innonimatu]

You really want to wage war on Iran over how it treats its people? I thought you've learned that particular lesson in the last decade. And besides, that's not even what the current conflict is about.

Oh, no. "Humanitarian bombing" is still all the rage. Remember Libya? And what is happening in Libya anyway?

 

[meromorph]

The current situation in Syria is yet another example showing that the U.S. only cares about "oppressive dictators" in countries with massive oil reserves. Over a year of violent protests, a dictator blasting his own cities with mortar rounds, but they don't have any oil so the most we've done is vote for the U.N. to give an official wag-of-the-finger.

 

[kramerfan86]

The current situation in Syria is yet another example showing that the U.S. only cares about "oppressive dictators" in countries with massive oil reserves. Over a year of violent protests, a dictator blasting his own cities with mortar rounds, but they don't have any oil so the most we've done is vote for the U.N. to give an official wag-of-the-finger.

You ignore the fact that Syria is friends with Russia and therefore we arent going to get UN approval to bomb like we did for Libya. We couldnt even get the wag of the finger to pass the security council but you act surprised a bombing hasnt happened?