#157
edward said:
Bystander said:
From #62,
Quote:
Originally Posted by edward
The president of Iran does appear to be a bit crazy, at least to westerners. But that does not mean that he is crazy enough to bring about his own incineration.(snip)
and, from #3,
Quote:
Originally Posted by cyrusabdollahi
Iran has 53,000 suicide bombers on stand by.
and, from WHO, http://www.who.int/mental_health/pre.../en/index.html ,
suicide rates run 20-30 per hundred thousand for males 15-34 years of age.
Crazy enough? Arguably crazier than "the average bear."
So you are then saying that we should invade Iran because they have a high pecentage of crazy suicidal Isalmic people who are ruled by a maniac. These crazy suicidal people may at some point build some nukes and put them on missiles, and their maniac president may launch those missiles.(snip)
Mind-reading again? And, wrong again. Typing your conclusions from these points into my keyboard doesn't make them my conclusions.
This thread has proceeded as a series of sound bites with no syntheses of arguments, so, let's remedy that:
1) Cyrus says there's a "suicide corps;"
2) Edward asserts that A-jad isn't crazy enough to self-destruct;
3) WHO lists suicide rates;
4) HST's decision to use nuclear weapons in war was based in part on Imperial Japan's use of suicide tactics at Okinawa, the attendant "blue" casualty rate, known preparations for suicide tactics in defense of the Japanese home islands, and the projected "blue" and "red" casualty rates;
5) "suicide corps" are very rare items in military history (there are very risky MOSs, but practitioners generally have every intention of staying alive to enjoy their victory parades);
6) Hirohito did NOT want Japan destroyed;
7) people have referred in this thread to the "apocolyptic" end times of Islam (maybe correctly, maybe not);
8) altruistic suicides occur in unusual circumstances, Chernobyl, assorted survivals at sea, mom throws baby from burning building, kind of stuff;
9) don't wanta mess up the justification, but some people have got the idea by now that this is not a formal debate occurring in a vacuum with "discovery" rules, and that it is permissible to take advantage of common knowledge of history, current events, and other real world circumstances, making the number of points to consider in "resolving" the "A-jad question" far longer than "Israel, Bush, Xians, 'fair is fair'."
I listed points 1-3 as a question of the assertion that A-jad has both oars in the water, and whether the populace of Iran is going to exhibit normal human survival behavior or follow a buncha crazy, bearded old farts over a cliff --- add whatever experience with, and knowledge of abnormal human behavior you may have to those points and draw your own conclusions; for instance, Hitler expected (so the story goes) the people of Germany to die with him defending the Reich and survival behavior kicked in. Hirohito didn't want Japan destroyed, and though people probably (bad thing about history, you never
know) would have fought to the death, surrendered.
What's the situation in Iran? A-jad and the crazy old farts in bathrobes set up a suicide corps? Someone's nuts, them, the corps, or them and the corps. A-jad, crazy old farts, suicide corps, and nuclear weapons? Not a good situation.
Let nature take its course (UN, sanctions, the usual diplomatic nothing)? Nip it in the bud with surgical strikes? Full scale intervention? Doing nothing and finding out they
are nuts is the American way. Nipping it is more the Israeli inclination (Iraq), but the global perspective's changed. Full scale intervention isn't worth the effort --- plus, the internal climate isn't clear --- would they rather do without the crazy old farts, or are they just as crazy.
Looks like a trainwreck, so do we sit back and watch it happen, take steps to prevent it, knowing that those steps involve thousands of human deaths and
might not be necessary, or hope it ain't a trainwreck, knowing that is was preventable if it occurs, and that lower loss of life could have been realized by taking appropriate action? Classical ethics problem. Politicizing it doesn't help. Analysis may or may not establish whether it really is going to be a train wreck, but the human elements involved (western analysis of eastern culture, an apocolyptic religion, assorted animosities) argue against that. What's the "cost effective" action? No actuary tables on that, sorry --- we've got "horseshoe nail" history, and such projections from "turning points" are likely to be as accurate as any other prognostications --- do better tossing a coin.
Suicide corps, goosestepping parades, military exercises, weapon demonstrations? Someone's going to die. Probably not in the next couple years --- give the dems time to move in and really screw it up.
The end times thingy is made perfectly clear in the video in this link. It is a bit faaaar out there to the point that it is funny, at least to me.
