"We are ready to attack Iran..."

mheslep

That's a dangerous situation if Iran believes the same thing.

russ_watters

Not sure - I thought it was all Bush, but even still I see no reason to believe that mid-level rhetoric will necessarily be part of such a progression.

russ_watters

Just for clarification, the scope of my remark was limited to the context of this thread. I don't mean to imply that if Iran mines the Gulf, for example, that we wouldn't attack its navy.

Bobbywhy

It’s no wonder that Israel’s leaders are threatening to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. It’s also no surprise Israel is clamoring for Western nations to attack or assist them with preemptive strikes against Iran.

Israel claims Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon and must be attacked because this is exactly in keeping with its policy called “Project Daniel”. Project Daniel is “a 2003 Israeli project, commissioned to assess the threat to the nation of Israel from other states in the Middle East, drawing particular attention to Iran, with Iran's nuclear program in mind.”

One of the recommendations of the project is “that Israel should do anything possible to prevent an anti-Israeli coalition from being formed, and from that coalition gaining control of WMDs. It suggested Israel should retain the option of carrying out preemptive strikes, describing them as 'anticipatory self-defense'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daniel

chiro

Those guys are absolutely nuts. This whole pre-emptive idea is completely based on potentiality and not actuality and when this becomes a precedent for war activities of any kind, then it is really really dangerous.

The reason ultimately it is dangerous is because potentiality is almost unlimited and there is no real justification for these kinds of circumstances because again it's completely 'pre-emptive'.

We don't just go out and arrest people because we 'think' they will murder someone tomorrow: we arrest people after they have done the crime. Could you imagine walking down the street and then be chucked into a van and thrown into jail all because someone else 'thought' or 'was convinced' that you were going to kill? Now think about this in conjunction with what a whole country would think if another country used that on them.

Using this whole potential thing should be a top concern for everyone, and everyone should speak out against it for the very reason that is an extremely dangerous precedent to set.

mheslep

Is a nuclear attack on a city in anyway the same thing as your arrest on the street scenario?

chiro

It is: in the nuclear attack scenario, the cop is Israel and the guy on the street are the people getting nuked and who are affected by this nuke.

Trying to control and pre-empt everything is absolutely ridiculous and it's an extremely dangerous precedent to set for the sole reason that human beings are in control.

If we had people that were sane, responsible, of high integrity, were not easy to fold over to any kind of extortion, bribery, and treated every situation the same way in this manner, then pre-emptive behaviour combined with other kinds of considerations would make sense.

But we don't. People are not like this: they look only after their self-interests and not that of the entire interests of entire groups. The self-interest might be only themselves, their corporations, their countries, their social group, and so on. This ultimately translates into things not working uniformly for all circumstances and it results in rules that otherwise may be good to be only followed 'when it suits'.

Like I said, the important thing about this is the precedent it sets. Precedent is extremely important because precedent sets the stage for not only future precedents, but also for new norms.

You may think that the cop arresting some guy and the nuclear attack are different simply by the scope, emotion, and nature of the two scenarios but the precedent for the cop scenario 'sets the scene' for larger things to happen including large enough things like 'a pre-emptive nuclear strike'. That's all it takes.

Again you seem to have a bigger emotional attachment to the idea of a nuclear holocaust to 'prevent other people from doing what we thought they were going to do' in comparison to some unknown guy that got thrown in jail because the cop or state tried to prevent the guy from 'doing something they thought the guy was going to do'.

This whole idea of 'sacrificing for the greater good' is propaganda. The greater good does not reflect everyone but rather a subset much, much more selective. The minute you decide that even one person is inferior and needs to go 'for the greater good', is the minute that you will have a situation where people rationalize nuclear strikes, stalinist and hitlerian dictatorships, and any kind of completely un-necessary authoritarian madness that will strip the rights of every human being away.

Is this what you really want?

Bobbywhy

Nuclear attack on a city??? What nuclear attack? There is no credible evidence that Iran even HAS a nuclear weapon development program, much less a deliverable weapon.

Threats against Israel have been against the Zionist regime, and not the Israeli country or its people. Amidinejad has clearly said: The Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore, doesn't mean all Russians are dead. And the hated Apartheid regime of South Africa doesn't exist anymore. Doesn't mean all South Africans are dead. The Iranian complaint is about the policies of the current regime in Israel towards the Palestinians.

It is Israel that has the nucear Weapons of Mass Destruction now, and has threatened any other nation in the Middle East against having even an enrichment process. Israel is insisting on being the only nuclear power in the region.

zoobyshoe

Here in the U.S. we do, though. I think the exact charge is "conspiracy to commit murder". This comes up when people are caught trying to hire someone to kill a spouse, etc.

Many years ago I lived in an apartment building downtown here, and one day two special agents of the FBI knocked on my door asking if I knew where a certain other tenant was at that moment. I said I hadn't seen him and asked what the problem might be. Surprisingly, they told me: he had sent a letter to the White House criticizing the President and had threatened to kill either the President or himself if the thing he was upset about wasn't corrected.

If anyone makes a statement (that can be construed as serious) to the effect they intend to kill anyone they are, in fact, hauled in by law enforcement.

mheslep

http://www.isisnucleariran.org/asset...bruary2012.pdf
Not proof, but that is certainly evidence.

SHISHKABOB

will I get banned for saying "godwin's law" in this forum? Oops too late.

Also, where did you get "pre-emptive nuclear strikes" from? I don't think anyone has suggested that insane idea. I don't understand what precedent you're talking about, either. Do you mean the precedent of one powerful country attacking other countries because it wants to? That's been a precedent for a very long time.

chiro

Have you been reading this thread? Have you read comments by posters above about Israel? You do know that Israel has hundreds of warheads don't you?

The whole point of the Iran controversy is that some governments think that Iran will build a nuclear weapon that will ultimately be used. If you are using a nuclear weapon in a pre-emptive attack then that's what it is.
[off topic crackpottery deleted]

Also just because it's been done in the past doesn't make it ok.

The difference now is that the weapons we have are orders of magnitude more advanced and dangerous and because of this fact alone, it is really vital that people realize that this is not just about some crazy idiots with swords and muskets charging at one another: this is the age of computer-guided bombs, chemical warfare and nuclear weapons.

You think that nuclear pre-emptive strikes are insane and I agree with you (kind of the point of my post), but the friggin world is insane!

If the world was sane, my worries would be calm but the world is not sane, it's completely nuts and this is why I worry because even in the technological wonder-age that we are in, people are just the same as they were in the empires of greece, byzantine, rome and egypt.

The difference now is that the rules are a little different, but the game and how it has and is being played hasn't changed enough.

Bobbywhy

Thank you for posting the information concerning Iran’s activity in February, 2010 “of producing UF6 enriched up to 20% U-235…” It may be interesting to note that Iran has continued this enrichment during the two years elapsed since then. From the same IAEA report dated 8 March 2012:

34. Uranium Conversion Facility: On 17 December 2011, Iran started converting UF6 enriched up to 20% U-235 into U3O8. As of 19 February 2012, the Agency had verified that 8 kg of uranium in the form of U3O8 had been produced and that 7.3 kg of uranium in the form of U3O8 had been subsequently transferred to FMP.

Furthermore, paragraph 50. makes it clear Iran continues to not cooperate:

50. While the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and LOFs declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement, as Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation, including by not implementing its Additional Protocol, the Agency is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.

And in Paragraph 51. :

51. The Agency continues to have serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme, as explained in GOV/2011/65. Iran did not provide access to Parchin, as requested by the Agency during its two recent visits to Tehran, and no agreement was reached with Iran on a structured approach to resolving all outstanding issues in connection with Iran’s nuclear programme.

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus..._reports.shtml

Enrichment is not proof of a military weapons program, nor is it evidence of one. 20% U-235 is used at the Fuel Manufacturing Plant (FMP) at Esfahan.

The IAEA itself says clearly it “continues to have serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme”. It would be beneficial to try to view this impasse from the Iranian viewpoint while considering their cultural attitudes, values, and beliefs. All the outside world has now are serious concerns, accusations, and suspicions. These are not equivalent to evidence or proof of a military weapons development program.

Hurkyl

This isn't an issue of potential or actual, this is an issue of stating the rules up front.

When the potential to do something is serious enough, we make the indicators of that potential illegal. Making threats, for example.

chiro

That's a nice utopian viewpoint, but not everyone follows 'rules' even the people that make them and sign them. Rules are nice, but only when everyone follows them uniformly without exception, and quite frankly I'm not holding my breath for this to change overnight.

Also there is a really fine line between what is 'potentially' a cause for concern vs something that is based on unfounded paranoia.

As posters like BobbyWhy have shown, there is not sufficient evidence to say that Iran is engaging in a military related program with their enrichment.

As you have pointed out, because of the dangers of nuclear power, the IAEA and other associated entities was formed to enforce some of the basic guidelines with regard to using nuclear energy and enrichment guidelines amongst other things. They've followed the guidelines and abided by the requests of inspectors.

Again because of the nature of what 'potential' is, people are going to define potential in the way that suits their purposes and this is why it can be a dangerous thing to use this kind of language.

zoobyshoe

The inspectors aren't able to determine that all their nuclear material is in peaceful activities. Why not?

zoobyshoe

You realize that Israel has already carried out a pre-emptive strike in the region, and it didn't cause WWIII, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Orchard