It did make word temporarily safer from Iran nuclear bomb though. Of course, it is only temporary, but almost everything you do is.
As for the article, it claims that Stuxnet "opened the Pandora box", but it did nothing of the sort. Stuxnet by itself did not enable anything that wasn't possible before - it was possible for malicious actors to create attacks on US networked infrastructure, and it still is. Stuxnet changed nothing there. Criminals and security professionals know the possibilities for a long time. And are using them. Making it sound as if the evil US has again spoiled the paradise for everyone makes no sense, and the author, being the expert in the field, should have known better, but looks like his political views overcame his professional judgement here.
Does anyone series believe that Iran is a threat to the world. How about basing threat levels on previous actions? For example, who invades countries most often? Or who's military kills the most people? I've heard about WMD threats before - and who did the invading and killing in the end? That saga ended with almost everyone looking bad.
Define "threat to the world". Can Iran destroy the whole world? Fortunately, not. Can Iran destabilize, hurt and incite violence? Not only can, it is doing it right now.
>>> basing threat levels on previous actions?
That would be stupid because it means that only the second action can be countered. Given how first action can cause devastating consequences, limiting oneself to only reacting to a second one would be terminally stupid. American administration, for example, was justly criticized for sleeping through 9/11, and acting unprepared when it happened. Generals like to prepare for the past wars, it is much easier, but there's no reason to condone such behavior.
>>> who invades countries most often?
Invasions can differ. If Nazi Germany invaded Poland once, and Britain invaded Nazi Germany once, they are not equal.
>>> who's military kills the most people?
Again, depends on the people. If Al-Qaida kills 3000 Americans in 9/11, and then Americans kill 10000 Al-Qaida fighters after that, I'd say good job, they only should have done it earlier, so we would have 3000 less victims.
>>> That saga ended with almost everyone looking bad.
It looks bad to you because you take an impossible position that fighting evil should be done without hurting anyone. It would be nice if there was a nice, fluffy, unicorn-land evil that you could fight by issuing a strongly-worded declaration of condemnation and maybe refuse to send them a Christmas card next time. Unfortunately, real evil is much harder and messier to fight.
I like that you use the term evil. Its good versus evil right? Bush didn't get far with that terminology. I'm not alone in feeling that a period of non-interventionism from America might help. The interventions of late have been fumbled and clumsy when put in a positive light. Torture, killing and ugly unilateralism. Recent acts in the Middle East may have killed tens of thousands of militants, but does anyone think it has knocked back the numbers? The hundreds of thousands of innocent (and not-quite innocent) killed and wounded have family and friends. Those people are no longer friends of America. The question that never seems to be asked, is why did September 11 happen. Sure, American intelligence failed. But somewhere further back, diplomacy failed. It takes a pretty unhappy situation for people to arrange such an horrific act, why did they end up like that? And what can be done to prevent it happening again? Bombing and invading hasn't worked. What's plan B?
>>> I'm not alone in feeling that a period of non-interventionism from America might help.
I know. People that thought if USA sees no evil, hears no evil and refuses to speak about evil then all troubles would happen to somebody else existed since there was such thing as USA. They were wrong then and are still as wrong now.
>>> The question that never seems to be asked, is why did September 11 happen
You must be kidding me. One has to be unusually dense or unwilling to hear to ignore the deafening choir of non-interventionists and generic America-is-root-of-all-evil crowd blaming America for what happened at 9/11. Of course, it only tells us about them, not about why this heinous atrocity has really happened. The solution there is simple - these terrorists saw America as their enemy, and given the opportunity to deal a heavy blow to the enemy - opportunity enabled in some measure by complacency of the American administration, who for a long time thought terror is something that happens in bad places like Middle East but can't happen in America, despite many warnings to the contrary - given that opportunity, they struck their blow. One doesn't need any more complicated theory than that. As for why they chose America as their enemy - one doesn't need too much theory in that either, given that ideologists of Al-Qaeda explain it all by themselves. Their goals as religious fanatics dreaming of subjugating other people to their rule are incompatible with America's role as a world power strategically and with America's support of people unwilling to accept radical islamist rule tactically. Of course Al-Qaeda is the enemy of America - what else could they be, given that their premises are diametrically opposed to every premise this country is built on?
>>> Bombing and invading hasn't worked.
What you're calling "worked"? To make the strategy, you first have to define the goal. If the goal is "to ensure America is never the target of a terrorist attack", the solution is simple - America must cease to exist. If America exists, it can be target of a terrorist attack, and there's no known way to prevent it with 100% certainty. One, however, can make it harder to do, and for that there are many various plans, both good and bad.
> Define "threat to the world". Can Iran destroy the whole world? Fortunately, not. Can Iran destabilize, hurt and incite violence? Not only can, it is doing it right now.
So strictly speaking, the US is the bigger evil because it is doing all those things right now, and has the capability of destroying the world through nuclear holocaust.
> Again, depends on the people. If Al-Qaida kills 3000 Americans in 9/11, and then Americans kill 10000 Al-Qaida fighters after that, I'd say good job, they only should have done it earlier, so we would have 3000 less victims.
This line of reasoning. This here. That is evil.
"Depends on the people", oh my god.
By the way the US has already killed far more than 10,000 in response to the WTC attacks. And not just "fighters" either.
And if you still somehow can say this was warranted--I have no (nice) words if you do--ask yourself why they hijacked those planes in the first place. It wasn't because "mwuahaha let's do something evil against those unfaithful white men dogs" (the hijackers themselves maybe were told something like this, a variation on your "it depends on the people"), but the actual cause was the US' meddling in the Middle East in earlier decades (during the Gulf Wars and before) that ended up killing their guys. Which made them decide that a mission like this was a completely reasonable response. Someone might have even claimed something ridiculous like "we should have done a 9/11-type attack much earlier, and save all those victims" (which makes about as much sense as your claim that killing 10,000 AQ fighters sooner would somehow have prevented 9/11).
They have about as much claim of being the "good guys" as the US. Which is, none whatsoever.
>>> So strictly speaking, the US is the bigger evil because it is doing all those things right now
No, it is not.
>>> This line of reasoning. This here. That is evil.
But I if under "evil" you understand "defending yourself against attack" then I can understand why you call the US "evil". However, it is your private meaning of the world "evil", unknown to the rest of the world.
>>> "Depends on the people", oh my god.
Of course it does. One is justified to use violence in defense against attack. I'm surprised it needs to be explained.
>>> By the way the US has already killed far more than 10,000 in response to the WTC attacks.
The US killed people in war, it is true. That, unfortunately, the only way to fight wars. If you invent some way to win wars without killing anybody, be sure to tell, it would be most wonderful invention. Until you do that, that's the way we have. When attacked, there's only two ways to behave - submit to the attacker or fight back. I don't think submitting would be a good option.
>>> the actual cause was the US' meddling in the Middle East
Very funny word that "meddling". Like "I shot this guy because he was meddling with my robbery and was trying to stop me, so I'm completely in the right". Of course US is "meddling" - without that "meddling" real evil - you know, guys like Hitler, Hussein, Pol Pot, etc. - would feel much freer to perpetrate their evil deeds. "Meddling" is the only moral thing to do if you see people's rights violated and freedoms infringed.
>>> Which made them decide that a mission like this was a completely reasonable response.
The fact that it seemed reasonable to them means nothing. Everybody thinks their behavior is reasonable - murderers, robbers, rapists, thieves, serial killers - all of them think they're very reasonable people in unusual circumstances that make them do those things. There are very few people that say "I'm evil to do this, but I will still do it". Yet it is evil to do what they do, and your relativism and attempt to present it as if there's no right and wrong but only somebody's opinion can only lead to a moral bankruptcy.
>>>> So strictly speaking, the US is the bigger evil because it is doing all those things right now
> No, it is not.
??? Yes it is!
It's replaced countries leaders with ones more suitable to US interests. Thrown entire countries into a state of war. That's destabilizing.
I'm going to hope we can agree that throwing bombs on people is hurting them?
Finally, if providing terrorist organisations (AQ was an "ally" back then) with weaponry isn't "inciting violence", then I don't know what is. Also quite destabilizing to the region btw.
> Of course US is "meddling" - without that "meddling" real evil - you know, guys like Hitler, Hussein, Pol Pot, etc. - would feel much freer to perpetrate their evil deeds. "Meddling" is the only moral thing to do if you see people's rights violated and freedoms infringed.
I'm going to ask you to be a bit more skeptical than that. You do know that the US gov / military has routinely lied about their intents to the US people right? So you should at least give some consideration to the following:
Saving the poor people of the Middle East from those evil dictators was not the reason for getting involved at all.
Gaining political and military control over one of the largest deposits of fossil fuels, of course is.
Why do I believe this is the case? Because there's TONS of terrible evil being committed to poor people all over the world, many of these things would be quite the low hanging fruit to get involved with. But instead, the US picks this rich and relatively well-armed hornet's nest to get sucked in by. Oops.
Judging that in the category of "saving people from evil / having their rights violated and freedoms infringed", it's pretty much an abject failure. With those very same resources they could have saved so much more lives if they really cared for that, at the cost of so much less lives of American soldiers, if they even cared for THAT.
There are so many really real evil guys in the world, committing really really bad atrocities on the people they sit on top of, in countries you really never hear about because they're poor and far away and not really interesting (untrue, Tajikistan is super interesting).
Also it's super easy propaganda-wise to paint the cause for fighting in a far-away country as something heroic and moral, when it's really about oil, power and control. There's a few more motivating factors besides those, but none of them amount to "because we're the good guys".
Finally to address your point about relativism and moral bankruptcy. IF I could truly and honestly believe that the US primary goal in the Middle East is to save these people from evil dictators and provide them with freedom and human rights (c'mon! it can't even provide those to US citizens at home!), if I could believe that to be true, then I'd probably be mostly in agreement with you, really. Doing good is a good thing.
It's just that, from the outside, it seems pretty obvious that the US is not there with the intent to do good to the people, but to control the natural resources and sources of power.
Every time you seen people all "yay! the evil dictator is gone!" it turned out to be a photo-op, didn't you notice? Didn't you see the zoomed-out version of that well-directed scene where they toppled Saddam's statue? Tanks! Cameras! Action! Most non-actor people were instead wondering "when will the US stop occupying our country". The REAL celebrations you won't see, will happen when your soldiers finally leave (aka, never).
A war between Israel and Iran would be an epic disaster; too bad to even consider leaders of either country being that stupid. I think the arming of Israel with nuclear weapons is probably the biggest mistake the US has ever made... If Israel didn't have nuclear weapons there would be no way I'd consider Iran trying to get them (at almost any cost - we should have aiming for a nuclear free world), but with the situation as it is I wholly sympathise with their position.
Fortunately, leaders of Israel do not rely on your consideration when determining what is necessary to protect their country. It is very nice that you wouldn't consider Iran attacking Israel if Israel didn't have advanced weapons - but there's a little wrinkle in this otherwise perfect argument. Iran doesn't need your consideration to attack Israel - they are perfectly capable of doing so without it, and already doing it, albeit through proxies. If Israel did not possess advanced weaponry, they would do it directly - as was done many times before in history, and only the repeated failure taught those countries that direct attack does not work. Some of them learned the lesson and reluctantly accepted the existence of Israel, some just concluded they need a different, smarter tactics.
Oh maybe France sold them the material, but we all know America is consulted all the way on these things. If America had have said no it wouldn't have happened.
It's funny how oil was running out in the 70s and still running out 40 years later. I'd imagine it will be running out pretty much the same way in 40 years, and 40 years after that.
Or it won't, since technology will replace the need for it long before that. We don't use horses to drive our cars not because we've run out of horses.
Well, there's some unsubstantiated optimism if I've ever seen it. Let's hope you're right, but right now the physics and economics do not support your exuberance.
It is substantiated by centuries of human history. And by physics and economics too. Particularly, economics teaches us that when resource's price raises, attractiveness of substitutes and thus investment into improving these substitutes raise considerably. And physicists are working on solving problems that block our progress for finding alternatives right now (e.g. on increasing energy density for electrical storage, increasing energy efficiency of solar cells) - and there are some encouraging signs there too. E.g. this one: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...
may allow producing solar energy much cheaper than before.
As for the article, it claims that Stuxnet "opened the Pandora box", but it did nothing of the sort. Stuxnet by itself did not enable anything that wasn't possible before - it was possible for malicious actors to create attacks on US networked infrastructure, and it still is. Stuxnet changed nothing there. Criminals and security professionals know the possibilities for a long time. And are using them. Making it sound as if the evil US has again spoiled the paradise for everyone makes no sense, and the author, being the expert in the field, should have known better, but looks like his political views overcame his professional judgement here.