Olympic Games and Stuxnet - What do you think about the just published book "Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power" ?

I think it is a disgrace. But it is also nothing new.

Well, I expect some new stuff in the book. It’ll be available next week.

It is also interesting to see that my initial suspicion of the US as the culprit proved to be right on the mark.

@ragingloli I find nothing disgraceful about keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of a theocraticly-run state who has a stated mission of wiping various other nations off the map, brutally suppresses it’s own people, and is known to finance and support terrorist organizations.

If anything, this disgraceful computer virus probably staved off the inevitable military confrontation, and gave Iran more time to realize the consequences of it’s incredibly stupid actions.

And that’s all assuming that the author of the book, who has zero governmental ties, isn’t just filling a book full of sensationalized bullshit.. knowing full well suckers will believe it and buy the hell out of it.

It’s a bit premature to comment on this book being we haven’t read it yet. Sooner or later, the US is going to have to face the fact that we cannot afford to project power all over the golbe and shape every nation to suit our own interests. We’ve kept defense spending nearly as great or greater than all the other nations of Earth combined for several decades now. We can’t keep doing that because it’s forcing us to starve investment in our future. It’s not clear Obama has come to realize that. It is crystal clear that the GOP either doesn’t realize that the cost of projecting such power is unsustainable, or they do realize it but are so focused on who gets rich from the spending that they don’t care.

The books sounds interesting. Unfortunately, the author can’t name names, so there will be a huge question of whether what it reports actually happened or not. It could be part of a misinformation campaign. It’s like all spy stories—you have no idea what is real and what isn’t.

There seems to be some question about whether the US should be engaging in cyber attacks, and whether it makes a difference as to whether the attacks are virtual attacks or destroy physical property.

Personally, I don’t see any difference between cyberattacks and any other covert campaign. I seriously doubt if any other nation was waiting for the US to engage in it before they would. There is no “gentlemen’s” agreement. Whoever has an advantage had better use it or lose it. The US is the big bully on the block. Who knows how much longer that will last. And I’m sure we won’t expect any quarter if and when we become number two.

Will this result in treaties about cyber attacks? Probably. But I doubt if that will stop them.

I don’t know if Iran really wants nuclear weapons or not. What I am pretty sure of is that the Iranian leadership wants the US to remain an active enemy, because without us, they will not be able to maintain power.

I think the Israelis will do whatever they think is necessary to keep Iran down. That may include sucking the US into a war with Iran, if they see that as necessary. Mitt Romney is probably their best hope for getting the US into a war with Iran. So I don’t see the Israelis being a real reliable ally for Obama. I know I wouldn’t trust Israeli hawks further than I could trip them.

Cyberwarfare > targeted drone attacks > actual warfare.

I am more pissed off that the Israelis have repeatedly badgered us into belligerence towards Iran by threatening to attack them unilaterally.

Well, in this case wasn’t it

Cyberwarfare > targeted centrifuge destruction > nuclear bomb building prevention ?

We would be outraged if another country began a cyber attack on our military infrastructure, government and communications systems, or financial markets. Why should it be OK if we do it? I think we need international agreements on this before things get out of hand.

@flutherother They have been for years. So far, we’ve stayed mostly a step ahead.

If we’re a step ahead why not take the step towards peace and civilised behaviour?

I think the question of whether we should act aggressively towards Iran should be separated—at least to some extent—from the question of how we act aggressively towards Iran.

You may or may not agree that the US (and others) should take action over Iran’s nuclear program. I am personally on the fence, but I’d support international action.

Then the question becomes what that action is. There are several possible actions, including:

• Cyberwarfare. This is fine with me. It results in no deaths. Iran could then easily justify cyber-attacking the US or Israel in response. But that doesn’t seem to present much risk.

• Assassinating civilian nuclear scientists. Israel has apparently done this several times. I’m not okay with it. They’re civilians, not extra-state terrorists or even suspected terrorists. And once you start attacking civilians, Iran or its proxies can justify attacking civilians themselves. It makes the argument for terrorism.

• A full-scale military attack on the nuclear facilities, advocated by Israel and by many Republicans (and some Democrats) in the US. I think this would be a terrible thing to do unilaterally. At best, it would kill hundreds of people, and only delay the program for several years. At worst it could spark a regional war. The war might not last long, but hundreds of thousands of people could easily die.

There are probably other options too. We could send special forces in and take over the facilities. We could try to arrest Ayatollah Khomenei, or send a cruise missile into his office. We could send in ground troops and occupy the country like Iraq and Afghanistan.

I have to say, out of all the possible options I can think of, cyberwarfare is easily the most justified, and by far the least scary in terms of consequences.

@flutherother As Neville Chamberlain learned in trying to “take a step toward peace” with Adolph Hitler, there are people who just read that as a green light to grab whatever they want. It would appear that the Ayatollah Khomeini is such an adversary.

@ETpro, who has Ayatollah Khamenei has been in office since 1989. How many wars has he started since then?

they are mad at him because he is a muslim and because he toppled the repressive, pro american military dictatorship of Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavī installed by a british-american orchestrated coup

@Qingu How many of his own people has he suppressed and murdered, and how many terrorist organizations did he support?

Just because he’s smart enough to not start a conventional war he knows he would lose, doesn’t mean he’s not an evil murderer.

@ragingloli, that was the guy before this Ayatollah. Khomaini, not Khameini. Or however you slightly differentiate the spellings of their names in whatever moon language they speak over there.

@tedd, I don’t disagree with your overarching point here: Iran is a repressive theocracy that supports terrorism and thus probably should not be trusted with a nuclear weapon. But we can answer your questions quantitatively or at least try.

I am not sure what you mean by “suppressed and murdered” exactly—are you counting people killed under Iran’s Islamic law since 1989? It’s hundreds, but less than death penalty cases in China and the US, iirc. Or are you talking explicitly about political suppression regarding the Green Revolution? According to Wikipedia, only 3 people were known to be killed. And while I certainly supported the protestors over Ahmadinejad and Khameini, let’s not forget that the protestors were, in places, attacking the Iranian religious police forces and setting police stations on fire.

All in all, I see little difference in terms of the degree of Iran’s oppressive theocracy and that of Saudi Arabia, our ally. Of course SA isn’t developing a nuke, so maybe you would argue that their oppressive theocracy, too, should preclude them from having one. Which is fair, I guess. But my point is that Iran is not uniquely oppressive domestically. And Israel—which has illegal nukes—oppresses the hell out of its own population, keeping almost 4 million people under brutal military occupation. So this argument would apply to Israel too.

What about terrorism? Well they support Hezbollah and Hamas… so do a lot of countries in the region. They hate al-Qaeda as much as we do, though. And Iranians themselves are victims of a domestic (well Pakistan-based) terrorist group called Jundallah… who the Israelis apparently work with to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists. I mean lots of powerful countries, including ours and our allies, have supported various terrorist groups over the years to further our geopolitical goals. If you want to argue that supporting terrorists disqualifies you from developing nuclear weapons, fine, but that would also disqualify Israel and the US.

I don’t want to muddle in this more than I have to. I don’t think Iran should develop nuclear weapons. I don’t think it’s in their interests, and I don’t think it’s in the rest of the world’s interest to let them. So by all means, let’s hack the hell out of Iran. But let’s not assassinate their scientists or bomb them, because the case against their developing nukes really isn’t that strong when it comes down to it. If you don’t think Iran should have nukes, then by the same logic Israel shouldn’t have their illegal nukes either.

@Qingu I am willing to bet it’s far more than “hundreds” who have died at the hands of oppression during the Ayatollah’s rule.. But since you put the number out there I leave the burden of providing some sort of reference to you. I would also argue that comparing China’s also horrible human rights record to Iran is apples and oranges. For starters, at least in many (if not most) of the Chinese cases there was some kind of domestic crime committed by the perpetrator, rather than simply disagreeing politically with their government. That’s not to say political repression doesn’t happen in China, it definitely does… but if I’m not mistaken they’re more prone to forced labor camps and intimidation. But either way I dismiss the comparison outright, because comparing the evil atrocities of one regime to those of another for the purposes of saying the first one isn’t as bad as the second one… is a flawed argument to begin with.

And if you think only 3 people were killed by the Iranian government during the Green Revolution of 2009… you are an idiot. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but that’s about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. And are you really trying to throw in the possible actions of a few protesters acting violently towards authority… to bring down the entire group of protesters? That sounds like an awfully Republican strategy if you ask me.

I also dismiss attempts to compare Iran to Saudi Arabia and even Israel. Saudi Arabia has active opposition parties, and isn’t known for nearly the level of repression that Iran is. Not that I fully support them in any regard, but again it’s apples to oranges. And I outright reject the idea that the Israeli “occupation” of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is a “brutal military occupation” .... that is a gross overstatement.

The Ayatollah is one of the most brutal leaders on the planet today. That is simple fact.

The 3 figure surprised me too, but that’s what Wikipedia says.

Saudi Arabia is a monarchy, dude. What active opposition parties? At least Iran has a semblance of elections, pathetic as it is.

And the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is a brutal military occupation the likes of which does not remotely exist in Iran. There are not 4 million people living under Iranian military rule who are routinely embargoed and subjected to collective punishment. This isn’t to excuse remotely the behavior of the Palestinian terrorists, but Iran has terrorists too, as I’ve pointed out.

Seriously, what has Khameini done that you think is so brutal? You could argue he was brutal towards the Green Revolution (by the way, many of Mousavi’s supporters wanted Iran to develop nuclear weapons) ... but he wasn’t close to as bad as Qadaffi or Assad; Saudi Arabia sent in its special forces to quell the protest in Bahrain. The protestors were mostly peaceful, but some of them were violent, and if protestors in America started burning police stations I’m sure some of them would be beaten or possibly even killed too. I haven’t seen any evidence of Khameini gassing his own people like Saddam Hussein did. Or like many African dictators are fond of doing, and recent southeastern Asian leaders as well. Minority religious groups are oppressed via Islamic law, but again, you could say the same in any country with Islamic law.

And more importantly, what wars has he started? As a point of comparison, the United States’ recent leader started a war for no reason that resulted in the deaths of more than a hundred thousand people in neighboring Iraq.

As far as accusing me of “Republican strategy,” first of all, you’re the one throwing around the word “evil,” not me. And I’m not defending Khameini’s regime. I would never want to live in Iran. It’s a backwards theocracy. Fuck khameini. I hope he does get assassinated. But I’m not willing to pull the trigger. I’m certainly not willing to pull the trigger on bombs dropped on his countrymen. And I reject the idea that Iran is this great bogeyman of our times.

@Qingu And wikipedia has never been wrong. Give me 5 minutes while I edit it to say 7 trillion people died.

The Israeli occupation, terrible as it is, isn’t even remotely as brutal as living under Iranian rule. The Israeli’s don’t patrol the streets and beat men who have hair too long, or women who are showing too much skin. And the embargo’s against the Palestinians, while still sad, are extremely remote. Food, medical supplies, entertainment items…. all allowed through.

What has Khameini done… well here’s for starters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basij (he’s their boss and gives them orders). How about this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHhfaXJ0VD0….. I could do this for a while. And that’s just modern stuff, it’s not even getting into the suppression he imposed in the 80’s. The guy had his own brother beaten nearly to death for criticizing him in a sermon.

And here you are again trying to point out how not bad Iran is, by comparing it to something you deem to be more bad. By that logic I could say, hey the atrocities that happened in Iraq… they weren’t as bad as the holocaust, so I don’t see what you’re complaining about!... It’s flawed logic, often used by someone who is debating and knows they’re using flawed logic… hence Republican strategy.

And ok you’re not willing to pull the trigger…. The Olympic Games/Stuxnet virus’ staved off anyone having to pull the trigger. What do you think is going to happen if/when the Iranians get nuclear technology? Even if the US sits on it’s hands, do you think Israel is going to? This computer virus quite likely prevented an all out war in the middle east.. that would have likely killed thousands… assuming it didn’t turn into a major war.

My liberal friend, sometimes I feel you argue on the side of liberalism simply because you think it’s what you should argue for. Frankly I think it’s just as bad as the right-wing nut jobs who argue against everything Obama does.

Oh and Iran may not be the bogeyman of our times… But they’re sure trying pretty hard to get the job…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRjG36WGvWM

Look, I’m not disputing that Iran is an authoritarian theocracy. But so are a lot of places. For most of history, Europe was an authoritarian theocracy. America in the 1950’s had lots of elements of an authoritarian theocracy as well.

My point is, this cannot be your standard to unilaterally go to war with a country. And I cannot tell you how irritating it is to be called a Republican when you’re the one advocating a neocon pre-emptive strike here.

And I said I was okay with cyberwarfare. For largely the purely practical reasons you pointed out, as a matter of fact.

I would urge you to re-read my posts more carefully before you get yourself into such a huff.

@Qingu I will limit myself to answering the posts you make that are directed at me, as no one has the time to read the extensive library that would make up the entirety of your posts.

It’s just that I’m not even sure what we’re arguing about exactly. It seems like we agree on the substantive issue.