When Will Iran Be Attacked?

[doodle]

Most average Iranians are pissed....at least the one's that I speak to over here are. Their leadership is as frustrating to many of them as it is to us.

[BearBones]

If I was an average Iranian citizen I would be pissed.  I would want to know why my government was engaged in all of this foreign intrigue rather than trying to improve the quality of life in Iran for people like me.

Same for US or British citizens? My point was that we should look at ourselves in the mirror before calling someone else ugly.

[MediumTex]

If I was an average Iranian citizen I would be pissed.  I would want to know why my government was engaged in all of this foreign intrigue rather than trying to improve the quality of life in Iran for people like me.

Same for US or British citizens? My point was that we should look at ourselves in the mirror before calling someone else ugly.

Oh sure. 

And I wish that we would leave other countries alone and perhaps they would leave us alone as well.

Harry Browne asked rhetorically after 9/11 why the terrorists weren't targeting Switzerland.

[dualstow]

Iranians are profoundly unhappy with their government, and it's not just that they're potentially being put in harm's way from foreign nations. It's the staggering bureaucracy they have to deal with.

Harry Browne asked rhetorically after 9/11 why the terrorists weren't targeting Switzerland.

I do wonder, though: can every nation afford to behave like Switzerland? It just doesn't seem practical or possible to me. To put it another way, as long as there are places like, let's say North Korea, I don't know if neutral Switzerland could exist without some nations that are vastly different from Switzerland. Am I wrong?

[BearBones]

I do wonder, though: can every nation afford to behave like Switzerland? It just doesn't seem practical or possible to me. To put it another way, as long as there are places like, let's say North Korea, I don't know if neutral Switzerland could exist without some nations that are vastly different from Switzerland. Am I wrong?

Doesn't Switzerland have a military? Whether or not this is the case, couldn't a military be used for self defense rather than imposing an agenda on another country. Couldn't a country walk softly and still carry a big stick?

[Pointedstick]

I do wonder, though: can every nation afford to behave like Switzerland? It just doesn't seem practical or possible to me. To put it another way, as long as there are places like, let's say North Korea, I don't know if neutral Switzerland could exist without some nations that are vastly different from Switzerland. Am I wrong?

Doesn't Switzerland have a military? Whether or not this is the case, couldn't a military be used for self defense rather than imposing an agenda on another country. Couldn't a country walk softly and still carry a big stick?

In fact, isn't that all pretty similar to how South Korea behaves, even in the face of a neighboring insane 1984-esque communist dictatorship that wants to destroy them? They have a tremendous defensive military, but they don't use it for aggressive conquest. Seems to be working out okay for them.



http://theoatmeal.com/comics/north_south_korea

[dualstow]

I've heard from South Koreans who want to eventually reunite with the North, and those who want to shun them, but none who want to try and conquer the North. After all, they've got family up there. And Kim has nukes.

I love the Oatmeal cartoon. For those who haven't managed to avoid the ubiquitous gangnam style video:

http://funnyanimalpicturescat.com/pictu ... -Style.jpg

[dualstow]

I do wonder, though: can every nation afford to behave like Switzerland? It just doesn't seem practical or possible to me. To put it another way, as long as there are places like, let's say North Korea, I don't know if neutral Switzerland could exist without some nations that are vastly different from Switzerland. Am I wrong?

Doesn't Switzerland have a military? Whether or not this is the case, couldn't a military be used for self defense rather than imposing an agenda on another country. Couldn't a country walk softly and still carry a big stick?

In a perfect world, yes. But, what happens when a country outside Switzerland is invaded, and is unable to defend itself? Costa Rica, which lacks an army altogether. Poland, which was overrun pretty quickly by a superior military. Kuwait. I suppose Switzerland could keep saying "Not my problem" until the world consists of Switzerland and a really big nation we can call Not-Switzerland. I think there are times that third parties should intervene, even at the risk of bad blood down the road.
(In the case of Iran, it would be too late if they nuked another country, but I certainly don't think that's going to happen).

[BearBones]

In a perfect world, yes. But, what happens when a country outside Switzerland is invaded, and is unable to defend itself?... I think there are times that third parties should intervene, even at the risk of bad blood down the road.

Agree. Especially if intervening meets 2 criteria (not one, as we so often do):
1. Best interest of the population of that country
2. In our won national interest (in the long run, #1 usually is, as long as we we can succeed with resource expenditures commensurate with goal)

Agree?

[dualstow]

I agree, absolutely.

The Peloponnesian War (how the hell do you spell that?) seems to be a popular context for exploring this problem. I was reading through Donald Kagan's brilliant book on it a few years ago and the maze of choices gets worse than a router company's customer service phone tree. Should Athens attack? Should Athens hold back? Should they try a diplomatic solution? They tried their best, but somehow Greece is not on top today.  ;)

One of the most interesting things about that book was learning that the men who decided whether or not their nation-state should go to war often picked up a weapon and fought in the war. I'm thinking about our senators and smiling.

[MachineGhost]

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/north_south_korea

What injustice!  Why haven't the NeoCons pushed to invade North Korea?  Someone relieve me of the sheer hypocrisy.

[stone]

I do wonder, though: can every nation afford to behave like Switzerland? It just doesn't seem practical or possible to me. To put it another way, as long as there are places like, let's say North Korea, I don't know if neutral Switzerland could exist without some nations that are vastly different from Switzerland. Am I wrong?

Doesn't Switzerland have a military? Whether or not this is the case, couldn't a military be used for self defense rather than imposing an agenda on another country. Couldn't a country walk softly and still carry a big stick?

In a perfect world, yes. But, what happens when a country outside Switzerland is invaded, and is unable to defend itself? Costa Rica, which lacks an army altogether. Poland, which was overrun pretty quickly by a superior military. Kuwait. I suppose Switzerland could keep saying "Not my problem" until the world consists of Switzerland and a really big nation we can call Not-Switzerland. I think there are times that third parties should intervene, even at the risk of bad blood down the road.
(In the case of Iran, it would be too late if they nuked another country, but I certainly don't think that's going to happen).

Switzerland (and Singapore) have cutting edge DEFENSIVE military capability. I think people underestimate the ability of a small country to be unconquorable. Even though Afganistan is  one of the poorest countries on Earth it has repelled military conquest by the British Empire in the 1800s, the Soviet Union and now the USA.
Vietnam is another classic example of how defense can have the upper hand over attempted conquest by a much larger foe. When conquest does happen it seems to be because the government of the conquored country conceeds it. If the government of the "conquored" country just dissipates, the mechanisms of state of the "conquored" country don't hand over and a guerrilla resistance ensues, then conquest unravels.
I suppose the conquest of the Americas and Australia was different but that entailed millions of people emigrating over. I don't feel that the UK having a "blue water navy" is in order to protect me from a scenario such as faced the Australian Aborigines.

Like I said before, personally, I think a people determined to be unconquorable can be unconquorable simply by using Ghandi style non-violence but I realise that that is a more contentious idea.

[Pointedstick]

Like I said before, personally, I think a people determined to be unconquorable can be unconquorable simply by using Ghandi style non-violence but I realise that that is a more contentious idea.

Ahh, but non-violence is not a method to avoid being conquered. It is a method to free your people once you have already been conquered, hopefully by a democratic entity that responds to public pressure. Preventing conquest to begin with requires diplomacy and/or force of arms.

[dualstow]

@stone:

Since a popular topic on this forum is SHTF scenarios, I want to ask you if you think a non-violent response to an armed militia would be helpful. To me, the idea is so ridiculous that I'm afraid the question comes off as flippant, so I'll try to rephrase it:

Does non-violent resistance fail to work in the absence of some kind of international law? If the answer is yes, then what precisely is it that makes non-violent resistance work? What makes the aggressor give up?

[stone]

@stone:
Since a popular topic on this forum is SHTF scenarios, I want to ask you if you think a non-violent response to an armed militia would be helpful. To me, the idea is so ridiculous that I'm afraid the question comes off as flippant, so I'll try to rephrase it:
Does non-violent resistance fail to work in the absence of some kind of international law? If the answer is yes, then what precisely is it that makes non-violent resistance work? What makes the aggressor give up?

What makes the aggressor give up is making the aggressor personally aware of the aggressor's own humanity. I can imagine Reub and Coffee being pretty uninhibited with powerful weapons if faced with armed combatants who they connect to "Islamofascism". I can't imagine them keeping going for long if faced with something like the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharasana_Satyagraha

Not one of the marchers even raised an arm to fend off the blows. They went down like ten-pins. From where I stood I heard the sickening whacks of the clubs on unprotected skulls. The waiting crowd of watchers groaned and sucked in their breaths in sympathetic pain at every blow.
Those struck down fell sprawling, unconscious or writhing in pain with fractured skulls or broken shoulders. In two or three minutes the ground was quilted with bodies. Great patches of blood widened on their white clothes. The survivors without breaking ranks silently and doggedly marched on until struck down. When every one of the first column was knocked down stretcher bearers rushed up unmolested by the police and carried off the injured to a thatched hut which had been arranged as a temporary hospital.
There were not enough stretcher-bearers to carry off the wounded; I saw eighteen injured being carried off simultaneously, while forty-two still lay bleeding on the ground awaiting stretcher-bearers. The blankets used as stretchers were sodden with blood.
At times the spectacle of unresisting men being methodically bashed into a bloody pulp sickened me so much I had to turn away....I felt an indefinable sense of helpless rage and loathing, almost as much against the men who were submitting unresistingly to being beaten as against the police wielding the clubs...
Bodies toppled over in threes and fours, bleeding from great gashes on their scalps. Group after group walked forward, sat down, and submitted to being beaten into insensibility without raising an arm to fend off the blows. Finally the police became enraged by the non-resistance....They commenced savagely kicking the seated men in the abdomen and testicles. The injured men writhed and squealed in agony, which seemed to inflame the fury of the police....The police then began dragging the sitting men by the arms or feet, sometimes for a hundred yards, and throwing them into ditches.[7][8]

People are social animals. We react and act as circumstances dictate. If people are faced with calm, courage and peace then they join in. If they are faced by people acting like prey or like savages then human frailty leads them to be savage.

[stone]

Like I said before, personally, I think a people determined to be unconquorable can be unconquorable simply by using Ghandi style non-violence but I realise that that is a more contentious idea.

Ahh, but non-violence is not a method to avoid being conquered. It is a method to free your people once you have already been conquered, hopefully by a democratic entity that responds to public pressure. Preventing conquest to begin with requires diplomacy and/or force of arms.

What a nation of Ghandis would do is link arms and stand in front of the tanks as they rolled over the border. They wouldn't flinch as the tanks ran them over. The people driving the tanks are human. The tank drivers will want to be able to sleep at night for the rest of their lives. The idea of an entire army of ice blooded psychopaths is just nonsense IMO.

[Pointedstick]

Aha stone, so you acknowledge that nonviolence doesn't work in the face of ice-blooded psychopaths? I agree with you that the concept of an army entirely made up of psychopaths is a bit laughable, but certainly one could imagine a squad within it that are, or perhaps an armed militia that attracts or selects for only the most cold-blooded butchers People with humanity are one thing, but surely nonviolence in the face of those who have no human compassion will fail, right?

[stone]

Aha stone, you you acknowledge that nonviolence doesn't work in the face of ice-blooded psychopaths? I agree with you that the concept of an army entirely made up of psychopaths is a bit laughable, but certainly one could imagine a squad within it that are, or perhaps an armed militia that attracts or selects for only the most cold-blooded butchers People with humanity are one thing, but surely nonviolence in the face of those who have no human compassion will fail, right?

Totally true, so when the machines take over we may need to be violent towards them. Currently though we only face human aggressors (unless you count flu virus or whatever).
There are very very few proper ice blooded psychopaths out there to recruit from. They are also probably pretty much unmanagable to try and form an army unit from. Very near where I live we have had a bunch of such characters though ): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors_murders

[Reub]

That's a totally pie-in-the-sky position. What if those ruthless murderers were coming to kill your family and you could stop them with a weapon? Would you instead stand in front of their vehicle and try to reason with them?

[Pointedstick]

That's a totally pie-in-the-sky position. What if those ruthless murderers were coming to kill your family and you could stop them with a weapon? Would you instead stand in front of their vehicle and try to reason with them?

I'd give them a hot lead sandwich, personally. I think violent crime is a great example of something that must be violently resisted, because resisting nonviolently and getting killed incurs no benefits to society and puts your family at the mercy of the people who killed you. Not all violent crimes are committed by psychopathic butchers, but enough are that I shudder at the thought of those people even existing.

Just think about what was done to the poor women in the crime that eventually led to the Warren vs. D.C court case:

In the early morning hours of Sunday, March 16, 1975, Carolyn Warren and Joan Taliaferro who shared a room on the third floor of their rooming house at 1112 Lamont Street Northwest in the District of Columbia, and Miriam Douglas, who shared a room on the second floor with her four-year-old daughter, were asleep. The women were awakened by the sound of the back door being broken down by two men later identified as Marvin Kent and James Morse. The men entered Douglas' second floor room, where Kent forced Douglas to sodomize him and Morse raped her.

Warren and Taliaferro heard Douglas' screams from the floor below. Warren telephoned the police, told the officer on duty that the house was being burglarized, and requested immediate assistance. The department employee told her to remain quiet and assured her that police assistance would be dispatched promptly.

Warren's call was received at Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters at 0623 hours, and was recorded as a burglary-in-progress. At 0626, a call was dispatched to officers on the street as a "Code 2" assignment, although calls of a crime in progress should be given priority and designated as "Code 1." Four police cruisers responded to the broadcast; three to the Lamont Street address and one to another address to investigate a possible suspect. (This suggests that when they heard that there had been a burglary, the police must have felt that they had a promising lead on a culprit.)

Meanwhile, Warren and Taliaferro crawled from their window onto an adjoining roof and waited for the police to arrive. While there, they observed one policeman drive through the alley behind their house and proceed to the front of the residence without stopping, leaning out the window, or getting out of the car to check the back entrance of the house. A second officer apparently knocked on the door in front of the residence, but left when he received no answer. The three officers departed the scene at 0633, five minutes after they arrived.

Warren and Taliaferro crawled back inside their room. They again heard Douglas' continuing screams; again called the police; told the officer that the intruders had entered the home, and requested immediate assistance. Once again, a police officer assured them that help was on the way. This second call was received at 0642 and recorded merely as "investigate the trouble;" it was never dispatched to any police officers.

Believing the police might be in the house, Warren and Taliaferro called down to Douglas, thereby alerting Kent to their presence. At knife point, Kent and Morse then forced all three women to accompany them to Kent's apartment. For the next fourteen hours the captive women were raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon one another, and made to submit to the sexual demands of Kent and Morse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._ ... f_Columbia

I don't know about what others feel, but I think people like that are animals that need to be put down.

[Pointedstick]

Here's another one:

On April 22, 1974 Pierre, Andrews, Roberts and three other men drove to a Hi-Fi store on Washington Boulevard, Ogden, in two vans just before closing time. Three of the group then entered the shop brandishing handguns, while Roberts and another man remained with the vehicles. Two employees, Stanley Walker, age 20, and Michelle Ansley, age 18, were in the store at the time and taken hostage. Pierre and Andrews took the two into the store's basement and bound them. The gang then began robbing the store. Later, a 16-year-old boy named Cortney Naisbitt arrived to thank Walker for allowing him to park his car in the store's parking lot as he ran an errand next door. He was also taken hostage and tied up in the basement with Walker and Ansley. Later that evening, Orren Walker, Stanley's 43-year-old father, became worried that his son had not returned home. Cortney Naisbitt's mother Carol Naisbitt, also arrived at the shop looking for her son, who was late getting home. Both Orren Walker and Carol Naisbitt were taken to the basement and tied up.

With five people now in the basement, Pierre told Andrews to get something from out of their van. Andrews returned with a bottle in a brown paper bag, from which Pierre poured a cup of blue liquid. Pierre ordered Orren to administer the liquid to the other hostages, but he refused, and was bound, gagged and left face-down on the basement floor.

Pierre and Andrews then propped each of the victims into sitting positions and forced them to drink the liquid, telling them it was vodka laced with sleeping pills. Rather, it was liquid Drano. The moment it touched the hostages' lips, enormous blisters rose, and it began to burn their tongues and throats and peel away the flesh around their mouths. Ansley, still begging for her life, was forced to drink the drain cleaner too, although she was reported (by Orren Walker) to have coughed less than the other victims. Pierre and Andrews tried to duct-tape the hostages' mouths shut to hold quantities of drain cleaner in and to silence their screams, but pus oozing from the blisters prevented the adhesive from sticking. Orren Walker was the last to be given the drain cleaner, but seeing what was happening to the other hostages, he allowed it to pour out of his mouth and then faked the convulsions and screams of his son and fellow hostages.

Pierre became angry because the deaths were taking too long and were too loud and messy, so he shot both Carol and Cortney Naisbitt in the backs of their heads. Pierre then shot at Orren Walker but missed. He then fatally shot Stanley before again shooting at Orren, this time grazing the back of his head.

Pierre then took Ansley to the far corner of the basement, forced her at gunpoint to remove her clothes, then repeatedly and brutally raped her, after telling Andrews to clear out for 30 minutes. When he was done, he allowed her to use the bathroom while he watched, then dragged her, still naked, back to the other hostages, threw her on her face, and fatally shot her in the back of the head.

Andrews and Pierre noted that Orren was still alive, so Pierre mounted him, wrapped a wire around his throat, and tried to strangle him. When this failed, Pierre and Andrews inserted a ballpoint pen into Orren's ear, and Pierre stomped it until it punctured his eardrum, broke, and exited the side of his throat. Pierre and Andrews then went upstairs, finished loading equipment into their van, and departed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi-Fi_Murders

Can you imagine something like this happening to you or your family? It makes me shiver even to think about it. There are some people in this world who I believe have lost their humanity and are incapable of feeling pity or compassion. Against these people, nonviolence will simply get you victimized faster and worse.

[stone]

Reub and Pointed stick, I think it is a big mistake to conflate isolated criminals with an army. That said though, I have heard examples of people facing down violent criminals.


If an individual is faced by an individual criminal then the crime gets committed and that is the end of the matter.  If a "Ghandi nation" is faced with an attacking army then each attacking soldier will have to kill dignified, calm people who are facing him down time and time again.

I think the thing to remember is that in a war a lot of people get killed in the most horrible way. The suffering from non-violent confrontation needs to be seen against that alternative.

[dualstow]

Not all members of a seemingly ice-blooded army are ice-blooded psychopaths, but mob mentality can be a factor. On a small scale, we can look at young women being assaulted at, say, the annual Puerto Rican Day parade in NYC. (I am not making a commentary about Puerto Ricans. This is simply a well-known and chronic problem that can be googled). On a larger scale, if your fellow soldiers are driving the tanks or shooting people just standing there, you might be more likely to go through with the same. (And, I think we're supposed to avoid delving further into this topic, but isn't that what happened in WWII? Shooting non-resisting humans standing in front of pits?)

Another factor to consider: The British never meant to exterminate the Indians, but only to make them submit to their rule, right? That might be a necessary ingredient to Satragraha your would-be conqueror. Do you agree?

[stone]

Not all members of a seemingly ice-blooded army are ice-blooded psychopaths, but mob mentality can be a factor. On a small scale, we can look at young women being assaulted at, say, the annual Puerto Rican Day parade in NYC. (I am not making a commentary about Puerto Ricans. This is simply a well-known and chronic problem that can be googled). On a larger scale, if your fellow soldiers are driving the tanks or shooting people just standing there, you might be more likely to go through with the same. (And, I think we're supposed to avoid delving further into this topic, but isn't that what happened in WWII? Shooting non-resisting humans standing in front of pits?)
Another factor to consider: The British never meant to exterminate the Indians, but only to make them submit to their rule, right? That might be a necessary ingredient to Satragraha your would-be conqueror. Do you agree?

I agree that extermination is harder to resist than control. I do think it is important to remember though that Ghandi emphatically did not advocate acquiescence. The holocaust is something you (probably quite rightly) keep (obliquely) referring to. I hate facing it because saying anything seems disrespectful to the victims. I know they were good people and deserve all of our full respect. Since you force it, I guess I need to say that the Ghandi way was not to get onto cattle trucks going who knows where just because a government official orders you to do so. I guess the Ghandi way would have been to ensure that the Nazis were forced to do the killing of calm defiant people in front of their non-Jewish neighbors in the centre of Vienna or wherever. I really hope no-one takes offense at me saying that. IMO it is no different from people saying that the holocaust victims should all have had lots of guns and people have posted that on here.

[dualstow]

Makes sense. No offense taken. (I brought it up because you explicitly pointed out that Ghandi said it would have been a solution in WWII.) I will let it rest.

I do think about the distinction between submitting to conquerors and to slaughterers. I have always admired Native Americans for fighting virtually to the last man. At some point they knew they could not win, but at the same time, perhaps they chose not to stick around and lose by living under someone else's rules. My viewpoint could be criticized as romanticism, and one could say "Easier said than done." To me, it certainly seems easier than waiting to have my skull cracked and not flinching.

Don't get me wrong. I am very impressed by Gandhi and his ideas. But, man that takes a lot of faith.

This may sound cold, but I have to point out that India also had numbers on their side. Gandhi said you must be prepared to lose millions. I haven't looked up the population of Switzerland in various years, but...those aggressors had better come around quickly with the humanity if there are to be any Swiss left.