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A Question For Forum Members

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
I think your location, and lifestyle are accurately described as "far from harm". It's not at all equivalent to someone who lives in Israel or America. That is the point. It's relatively easy to be a pacifist when living in Norway was a hermit.
In other words, being a peaceful person living in a peaceful country is less dangerous than being a warmonger living in a militaristic country.

Ya know. Maybe the USA could learn something here.
Tom
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
War takes two parties. Do you think Iran will invade the US, or fly over and bomb us ? No.

Irans response will be puny compared to a real war. We can project whatever power we desire to Iran, they are very limited in projection of power.

If they kill one, and in response we kill 100, or 200 they will figure it out.

If this kind of response was employed 40 years ago, iran would now be a responsible nation.

Iran started out as a petulant bully. Instead of corrected the bully immediately, we ignored it and every bully act it committed. In a strange way, we brought irans attacks on ourselves because we didn't spank the bully.

The election motivates the democrats and their crazy nonsense.

I don't think it was a major consideration of Trumps in smoking this terrorist.
I notice you see this purely in terms of what Iran can do to attack the US homeland. Nobody would disagree that they cannot do much there. But this is not what people are worried about.

As for the idea that, by replying with disproportionate force to each attack, you will pacify them, this seems to display a certain ignorance of human nature. That does not pacify an attacked nation. On the contrary, it breeds an implacable hatred that unites the people against the common foe. The attitude of the Palestinians to Israel is a case in point.

On the other thread you were arguing that the regime could be toppled by dissident forces within Iran, if the sanctions regime is allowed to do its work. A series of military attacks on Iran would immediately align the dissidents behind the leadership. That is what happens in time of war.

So you have to choose: either destroy the regime with military force - and then get into the nation building the USA was so bad at in Iraq, to try to prevent its successor regime being even worse, or refrain from aggressive military action and let sanctions and diplomacy encourage the dissidents to create pressures to reform the regime from within.

If you jump from one to the other, as Trump is doing, the chances are you get nowhere - and burn up Saudi Arabia into the bargain.
 

BSM1

What? Me worry?
Ah OK so the post you said was BS was not in fact BS, then.


You really have no idea what I was talking about, and, frankly, it didn't concern any post except the previous one. Nothing to see here, move along.
 

dybmh

דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
In other words, being a peaceful person living in a peaceful country is less dangerous than being a warmonger living in a militaristic country.

Ya know. Maybe the USA could learn something here.
Tom
I agree. Seriously. It's a big complicated problem, but, I don't see pacifism as being the solution. Everyone would need to agree to be pacifists. When that happens I'm on board. Till then it's risk assessment, and mitigation of threats.
 

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
I agree. Seriously. It's a big complicated problem, but, I don't see pacifism as being the solution. Everyone would need to agree to be pacifists. When that happens I'm on board. Till then it's risk assessment, and mitigation of threats.

OK.
Instead of pacifism we try "Mind your own business".

The USA could do with a lot more of that. Then we wouldn't be in the Middle Eastern mess we have going on now.

But no, Trump's response is to escalate.
Again.
Tom
 

amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
Some good responses here, so have you budged at all in your view? Also, over all the time that these killings have taken place, do you think the region changed from its standard static of instability? If not, then stick around? Shall we send our troops to Antarctica to wait for a hot summer?
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
I agree. Seriously. It's a big complicated problem, but, I don't see pacifism as being the solution. Everyone would need to agree to be pacifists. When that happens I'm on board. Till then it's risk assessment, and mitigation of threats.
I agree. The USA is the only world power left with any interest in preserving the rule of law and democratic principles (even though Trump is doing his damnedest to undermine that noble heritage). So it inevitably falls to the USA to try to show enough world leadership to rein on the other contenders. And that inevitably has a military dimension.

But it should also mean exercising military power judiciously, so as to promote stability and lawful relations between nations, and not to generate failed states and chaos, as has happened in Iraq.
 

Father Heathen

Veteran Member
BS. Reference #21.

I wasn't familiar with that. If that is so then it should've been criticized and denounced as the death of any innocent person should be. Both sides of the political aisle tend to flip-flop or at least exaggerate/downplay such deeds based on who pulled the trigger. We should never see the death of innocent bystanders as "acceptable losses". We certainly wouldn't if it were any of our family or friends who died in such a way.
 

shmogie

Well-Known Member
I notice you see this purely in terms of what Iran can do to attack the US homeland. Nobody would disagree that they cannot do much there. But this is not what people are worried about.

As for the idea that, by replying with disproportionate force to each attack, you will pacify them, this seems to display a certain ignorance of human nature. That does not pacify an attacked nation. On the contrary, it breeds an implacable hatred that unites the people against the common foe. The attitude of the Palestinians to Israel is a case in point.

On the other thread you were arguing that the regime could be toppled by dissident forces within Iran, if the sanctions regime is allowed to do its work. A series of military attacks on Iran would immediately align the dissidents behind the leadership. That is what happens in time of war.

So you have to choose: either destroy the regime with military force - and then get into the nation building the USA was so bad at in Iraq, to try to prevent its successor regime being even worse, or refrain from aggressive military action and let sanctions and diplomacy encourage the dissidents to create pressures to reform the regime from within.

If you jump from one to the other, as Trump is doing, the chances are you get nowhere - and burn up Saudi Arabia into the bargain.
If a larger response to an attack is counterproductive, then one wonders why it has been employed throughout history.

In the short term, regime change is irrelevant. I don't care if the people there are upset, I don't care if thgey are united.

Your argument seems to be that if they attack you ignore them because they might attack you. That has been going on for 40 years, and they just keep on killing Americans.

They need to learn that their strategic and tactical efforts are non productive.

Reagan destroyed one third of their navy in response to an attack, they were quiet for a long time.

The formula is simple. Kill an American and lose a very high valued target in response. Allow your country to be destroyed piece by piece, then explain to your people why this keeps happening. Whacking this terrorist wasn;t just arbitrary, it was in response to killing three Americans and an attack on our embassy, a stunt that started this war with us 40 years ago.

Iran always has the choice of sitting down with us and negotiating the issues between us.

Under obama they captured a US naval vessel in international waters, and obama wanted to appease them so badly, the sailors did not fire in response to this, and there was no retaliation.

It is all up to iran, not us. They can't have it both ways.

Either they sit down like a civilized nation and talk, or they continue attacking us and suffer the justified losses.

Many years ago Peter Sellers did a great movie called "The mouse that roared". Iran has been roaring for a long time, now it's tail, ears, legs, and head will be cut off if it doesn't shut up. Irans choice

A great American naval commander, David Farragut, once said "damn the torpedo's full speed ahead".

I hope Trump continues on this course with iran. Ebough is enough
 

shmogie

Well-Known Member
Is there a term for those who can't pry their tongues from his boots and consider him infallible?
He isn't infallible, but neither is he wrong in every single decision.

Your kind view him as incapable of making a good decision.

He kills a terrorist who has murdered thousands, just like obama killed bin laden, and he is wrong, wrong wrong,

HE presides over a roaring economy that he helped create, and he is wrong,

Those with TDS are like zombies who can only say WRONG
 

dybmh

דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
OK.
Instead of pacifism we try "Mind your own business".

The USA could do with a lot more of that. Then we wouldn't be in the Middle Eastern mess we have going on now.

But no, Trump's response is to escalate.
Again.
Tom
Hey, I don't support this person in the white house... never have. And Hillary won the popular vote in 2016. So, yeah, I hear you. The American election system failed, and now the world has to pay for it. I can only do my part and vote. ( and maybe donate ).

But regarding "Mind your own business"... I feel like that same approach should be offered when it comes to critics of Israeli's governmental politics. I have my own personal feelings about what the Israeli government does, but I try to offset those feelings with a "Mind Your own business" attitude. And that's really why I objected to imposing someone else's pacifism on the entire region from afar.
 
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