FBI stops Iran assasination attempt on Saudi Amb. to US

[Simon_Jester]

Why are the Troubles history when Iran-Contra isn't? How is there a discontinuity of government between the Suez War and modern Britain, when there isn't one between the Gulf of Tonkin and the modern US?

That said, I'm not really interested in the "tu quoque" aspect, either way. I think it's interesting if it illustrates tunnel vision, which is something we always need to fight even if we're on the right side, but it's a side issue. What's really at stake here is the question of where we draw the line between reasonable skepticism and paranoid conspiracy-mongering. There has to be a line; where is it?

[Samuel]

Why are the Troubles history when Iran-Contra isn't? How is there a discontinuity of government between the Suez War and modern Britain, when there isn't one between the Gulf of Tonkin and the modern US?

That said, I'm not really interested in the "tu quoque" aspect, either way. I think it's interesting if it illustrates tunnel vision, which is something we always need to fight even if we're on the right side, but it's a side issue. What's really at stake here is the question of where we draw the line between reasonable skepticism and paranoid conspiracy-mongering. There has to be a line; where is it?

If the government is willing to show its cards in public, they are probably telling the truth (or at least what they think is true- they are still fallible). When the government is not willing to show things to the public than the odds are higher that they are wrong or lying. It doesn't automatically mean they are lying, but I'm pretty sure using state secret as a cover for lying is as old as mud brick.

[MarshalPurnell]

They aren't better, dude, it's a matter of perception. Half the things you just listed don't exist anymore. so they aren't perceived as untrustworthy, they are perceived as history.

You said "for most of its history" and I would be very, very skeptical that the leading European powers of the 19th century were in any position whatsoever to judge the United States from a position of moral superiority. Much of what the United States gets criticized for doesn't exist anymore either, and Europe's behavior has only drastically improved since the 1990s- coincidentally with the evaporation of the USSR and any major security threat to their existence. And of course they can free ride off the global order imposed by the existence of American power, which secures European and Asian economies by, for example, keeping the straits of Hormuz open and oil flowing out. And then there's the tendency to cite particular prominent examples of American misbehavior without any serious knowledge of the complexities behind them, usually while ignoring the faults of an opposing side or while completely ignorant of rather similar behavior from less prominent countries.

[Simon_Jester]

I can work with that.

Though even when 'state secrets' show up, I like to do a gut check based on context and motives. If the government can present circumstantial evidence, if the alleged motives make sense and no one can produce a convincing counter-argument to refute them, then I'm more willing to believe an argument based on 'state secrets.' Or at least the factual truth of the argument.

For example, I don't actually dispute that Anwar al-Awlaki did in fact create propaganda for Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups, or that he was at least peripherally involved in some terrorist attacks or schemes to stage such attacks. I can believe that the government does have such evidence and didn't just pick al-Awlaki's name out of a phone book before deciding to kill him, especially since he's on public record as having done some of that stuff. What concerns me there is the legalities, not the idea that the government is actually falsifying things and doesn't know the things it claims t oknow.

Again, there's a difference between:
1) Criticizing the state for playing fast and loose with human rights and due process
2) Distrusting state announcements when the state has a motive to lie.
and
3) Condemning all state announcements, including ones where there is no specific reason other than "Country X lies" to assume that anything is wrong.

[Alkaloid]

The question asked was why the change in attitude between cold war era cock ups and current ones. That was my reasoning. The trustworthiness and honesty of other nations is irrelevant to that reasoning. I've told lies, but that doesn't mean my opinion of what someone is telling me based on my past experience with them is worthless to me. It just means I've told lies too.

[Shroom Man 777]

Unilaterally assassinating people now including US citizens and also those within blast radius via drone strikes and missiles, or just disappearing them to be indefinitely detained in blacksites to face torture, quietly in low-profile secret operations is not as bad as a war that turned out to be based on false pretenses, that ended up getting thousands of your own people killed in the line of duty and hundreds of thousands more of innocents in the affected region needlessly killed.

I just wish the US stopped doing this in other people's countries, and to these other countries' citizens.

I totally agree with this.

I just think all this weird conspiracy-theorism about how the US is inventing an elaborate fake assassination plot as part of a plan to declare war on Iran (which Obama has shown virtually no interest in doing these past three years) is, well, weird. I don't think there's anything particularly implausible about the idea that this assassination plot existed, basically as described. I also don't think the US should fight a war over it even if there was one, or that the US should be assassinating people itself, or anything else. I don't want to huff and puff and be a moron about this.

But it's weird watching people go to the "US LIES!" end of the spectrum so fast and so enthusiastically that they don't even stop to consider that Iranian intelligence organs actually could arrange a screwy plot through intermediaries, just as organizations like the CIA and KGB do and did all the time.

Or it could just be "the US IS FULL OF SHIT (again)" perhaps not in the deliberate falsification of evidence or conspiracying around, but in the disproportionate reaction to whatever evidence there is (of either some idiots in the Iranian intelligence community fucking up, or an entirely sinister plot straight from the Iranian Presidente's office itself).

It might not be "they're making stuff up", it could be "they're incompetent/misinterpreting stuff and seeing what they want to see" (as in 2003) or "they're overblowing it and making mountains out of molehills" or "oh great, now they're going to use this as pretext/justification to freedomize even more people".

Looking at the initial reactions of this thread, those from the rest of the world have good reason to be very cynical and apprehensive and wary of anything that can be used by the USA (and/or those in it) to make an even bigger ass of itself in the world stage (and possibly get even more people killed or harmed).

The Iranian assassination plot can be 100% real, or it could've been filmed on a soundstage on Mars. Elaborate conspiracies or incompetent assassins isn't what people are afraid of. America is what people are afraid of.

[Simon_Jester]

Or it could just be "the US IS FULL OF SHIT (again)" perhaps not in the deliberate falsification of evidence or conspiracying around, but in the disproportionate reaction to whatever evidence there is (of either some idiots in the Iranian intelligence community fucking up, or an entirely sinister plot straight from the Iranian Presidente's office itself).

This, there could be, but I have seen no evidence that the US government is actually doing this. Are they going "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran!," and plotting to, as you say, freedomize the Iranians? Or is that the province of contemptible Internet tough guys who wish they were big and scary enough to be jackbooted thugs, while the actual American Presidente and his cronies are shrugging their shoulders and going "that's how the game is played" and planning to mildly embarrass the Iranians with a trial, or perhaps inconvenience the Iranians by encouraging some of their neighbors to be less friendly, but otherwise let it slide?

I am not sure.

The Iranian assassination plot can be 100% real, or it could've been filmed on a soundstage on Mars. Elaborate conspiracies or incompetent assassins isn't what people are afraid of. America is what people are afraid of.

This, I understand. It is sensible, and Americans are afraid of America too sometimes.

But it does not make it so clear to me why we have people here going on about how the Americans are liars, as opposed to going on about how the Americans are trigger-happy.

[Thanas]

Thing is Simon, most Europeans feel the USA no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt. Obama was the final straw in that and the memories of Iraq are till too fresh.

Once a nation loses its credibility, it is very hard to regain. If said nation refuses to own up to its mistakes, it is even harder. When you got elected officials like the president still praising the "work" done in Iraq while extending dubious programs, it becomes close to impossible. When you got large segments of the populace (may even be a majority) cheering for such policies and demanding even more of the same, the USA might very well play a tape of President Nutcase Dictatorhad admitting everything and people would still doubt it.

Just to illustrate how far the US has sunk - when we were discussing the recent events at a gathering everybody went "oh boy, here we go again." There was not a single person in a gathering of academics who believed the US story at face value and many of those people lived or live in the USA.

The USA simply is no longer seen as a protector of the west or as a force for good. It is seen as a threat to peace and a nation of hawkish chickenheads.

[Shroom Man 777]

This, there could be, but I have seen no evidence that the US government is actually doing this. Are they going "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran!," and plotting to, as you say, freedomize the Iranians? Or is that the province of contemptible Internet tough guys who wish they were big and scary enough to be jackbooted thugs, while the actual American Presidente and his cronies are shrugging their shoulders and going "that's how the game is played" and planning to mildly embarrass the Iranians with a trial, or perhaps inconvenience the Iranians by encouraging some of their neighbors to be less friendly, but otherwise let it slide?

I am not sure.

I am sure they're not meaning to freedomize all of Iran. I meant small but frequent freedomizations rather than wholesale freedomization, as is the fashion nowadays.

This, I understand. It is sensible, and Americans are afraid of America too sometimes.

But it does not make it so clear to me why we have people here going on about how the Americans are liars, as opposed to going on about how the Americans are trigger-happy.

4000+ dead American soldiers since 2003, plus god knows how much more dead locals, and all the foreign and domestic consequences since then, is pretty clear.

Okay, so the Americans didn't actually lie about that too since they didn't actually know that what they were saying wasn't true, they just really believed it and interpreted shoddy evidence and Saddam being coy into meaning that it was true while telling the whole world it was true and shutting up any contradictors, and believed it to be true enough to commit lives and treasure to it, and afterwards discovered that it wasn't true anyway. Whoopsie.

So they should be going on about how the Americans are trigger-happy and incompetent instead. Okay.

[Simon_Jester]

Thing is Simon, most Europeans feel the USA no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt. Obama was the final straw in that and the memories of Iraq are till too fresh.

Once a nation loses its credibility, it is very hard to regain. If said nation refuses to own up to its mistakes, it is even harder. When you got elected officials like the president still praising the "work" done in Iraq while extending dubious programs, it becomes close to impossible. When you got large segments of the populace (may even be a majority) cheering for such policies and demanding even more of the same, the USA might very well play a tape of President Nutcase Dictatorhad admitting everything and people would still doubt it.

Just to illustrate how far the US has sunk - when we were discussing the recent events at a gathering everybody went "oh boy, here we go again." There was not a single person in a gathering of academics who believed the US story at face value and many of those people lived or live in the USA.

The USA simply is no longer seen as a protector of the west or as a force for good. It is seen as a threat to peace and a nation of hawkish chickenheads.

I'm not even saying the US should be seen as a protector of the west or a force for good. I honestly don't much care about that, I don't view the US as somehow sacred, and you should know this. I'm saying that it's intellectually unsound, this reflexive belief that whenever the US government says "someone else did a bad thing," it must be lying or about to be used as a pretext to commit a crime.

I chose the analogy to Heinlein's notion that Moscow must actually be much smaller than the Soviets said it was (and smaller than it really was) for a reason. It's not that the Soviets were particularly honest about their official information- they weren't. It's that instinctive distrust and refusal to believe even relatively minimal claims led him into error.

I think this is becoming a genuine problem, because it makes it very difficult to communicate across the barrier of distrust. The more consistently you criticize someone, the less likely they are to listen to you. The more consistently a group of like-minded enthusiasts criticizes someone, the less likely they are to react correctly when something involving that person happens outside the envelope of what their biases make them expect.

Many American conservatives have a strong sense of "us against the world." Making that perception that the rest of the world despises them uniformly whether they're in the right or in the wrong true isn't going to help defuse the problem they present for the US or for the world at large.

It does little good to condemn people when they're wrong if you also condemn them when they're not wrong.

I am sure they're not meaning to freedomize all of Iran. I meant small but frequent freedomizations rather than wholesale freedomization, as is the fashion nowadays.

The US will not use drones or other tools of frequent retail freedomization against Iran, because Iran is a strong state, relatively, and will not allow such things. If the US flies Predators into Iran, those Predators are likely to get shot down.

4000+ dead American soldiers since 2003, plus god knows how much more dead locals, and all the foreign and domestic consequences since then, is pretty clear.

Okay, so the Americans didn't actually lie about that too since they didn't actually know that what they were saying wasn't true, they just really believed it and interpreted shoddy evidence and Saddam being coy into meaning that it was true while telling the whole world it was true and shutting up any contradictors, and believed it to be true enough to commit lives and treasure to it, and afterwards discovered that it wasn't true anyway. Whoopsie.

So they should be going on about how the Americans are trigger-happy and incompetent instead. Okay.

Fine.

As I say to Thanas, condemning all Americans endlessly for everything America ever does or did, and condemning Americans both when they are wrong and when they are not wrong, and treating them as if they were wrong even when they are not wrong, are bad practices. These things weaken and dilute the power of your critical voice, and make the people you hope to reach (including those who are sympathetic to you, but dislike being badmouthed endlessly) less inclined to listen to you.

[MarshalPurnell]

Thing is Simon, most Europeans feel the USA no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt. Obama was the final straw in that and the memories of Iraq are till too fresh.

Once a nation loses its credibility, it is very hard to regain. If said nation refuses to own up to its mistakes, it is even harder. When you got elected officials like the president still praising the "work" done in Iraq while extending dubious programs, it becomes close to impossible. When you got large segments of the populace (may even be a majority) cheering for such policies and demanding even more of the same, the USA might very well play a tape of President Nutcase Dictatorhad admitting everything and people would still doubt it.

Just to illustrate how far the US has sunk - when we were discussing the recent events at a gathering everybody went "oh boy, here we go again." There was not a single person in a gathering of academics who believed the US story at face value and many of those people lived or live in the USA.

The USA simply is no longer seen as a protector of the west or as a force for good. It is seen as a threat to peace and a nation of hawkish chickenheads.

As if Europeans or academics were less critical of the United States in the 1990s. I remember the decade very well, and all the same criticisms tossed around about Iraq were tossed around every time the United States has intervened somewhere. You might as well say Vietnam destroyed American credibility as say Iraq did. Of course, one might as well say the Spanish-American War did, or the Mexican-American War. Iraq gave a pretext for people already inclined to be hypercritical and suspicious of everything the United States does and represents... to be hypercritical and suspicious of everything the United States does and represents.

As far as Iraq being unique, I beg to differ. The intervention in Kosovo was at least as misguided, had absolutely no international sanction outside the participants, and has turned into a farce that facilitated a much more complete ethnic cleansing. As for civilian deaths, how many were killed in Chechnya by Russian forces who deliberately adopted a strategy designed to cause collateral damage? Did Germany stop to even ask that before signing oil and gas deals with Vladimir Putin? Has Germany done a thing to hold Iran accountable for the murders that its own courts have accused it of abetting, even as you whine about the "extrajudicial murder" of al-Awlaki and Osama bin-Laden?

Fundamentally going into Iraq was a bad idea, but when even Shroom is willing to concede it was precisely that, bad policy caused by tunnel vision rather deliberate deceit, maybe you should reconsider your own personal narrative about it? Or would not being able to sagely nod when your fellow Teutonic professors go off on some rambling monologue that amounts to "Bush lied to steal oil and kill brown people and Americans are savages" hurt your social standing too much?

[Samuel]

As far as Iraq being unique, I beg to differ.

I'm pretty sure the US invasion of Panama beat Iraq in terms of everything but body count. It was condmened (75 to 20) as a blanket violation of international law by the UN. It was approved by 74% of Americans unlike the Iraq wars 40%. It also involved the media sidelining inconvient view points. Unlike the Iraq war people accused the US of staging the provacation and waging the war to boast domestic support.

[Thanas]

As if Europeans or academics were less critical of the United States in the 1990s. I remember the decade very well, and all the same criticisms tossed around about Iraq were tossed around every time the United States has intervened somewhere. You might as well say Vietnam destroyed American credibility as say Iraq did. Of course, one might as well say the Spanish-American War did, or the Mexican-American War. Iraq gave a pretext for people already inclined to be hypercritical and suspicious of everything the United States does and represents... to be hypercritical and suspicious of everything the United States does and represents.

Nice attempt at "oh golly go, it is just a few Europeans overreacting". Fact is, the USA claimed Saddam was virtually poised to attack with WMDs and that he was this huge threat. That is far beyond anything that was claimed in Panama etc.

The intervention in Kosovo was at least as misguided, had absolutely no international sanction outside the participants, and has turned into a farce that facilitated a much more complete ethnic cleansing.

How the heck is Kosovo comparable with what went down in Iraq?

As for civilian deaths, how many were killed in Chechnya by Russian forces who deliberately adopted a strategy designed to cause collateral damage? Did Germany stop to even ask that before signing oil and gas deals with Vladimir Putin?

I doubt you'll find many supporters of the war in Chechyna in Germany. In any case, tu quoque fallacy and last I checked signing gas deals was a whole other league than "bomb country, invade it, turn it over to murderous thugs".

Has Germany done a thing to hold Iran accountable for the murders that its own courts have accused it of abetting, even as you whine about the "extrajudicial murder" of al-Awlaki and Osama bin-Laden?

Last I checked Germany was pushing for sanctions. Even if Germany would all be going "lalalallalala", how is this anything other than a giant tu quoque?

Hey, maybe the mature thing would be to wait until the courts have dealt with this before claiming it was a grand Iranian attack?

Fundamentally going into Iraq was a bad idea, but when even Shroom is willing to concede it was precisely that, bad policy caused by tunnel vision rather deliberate deceit, maybe you should reconsider your own personal narrative about it?

Quite frankly, at this point I would prefer it if the USA was lying. At least that would instill a base level of confidence in them. Unless of course "oh god we are so stupid" is more preferable to you.

And neither does install any confidence in the US "evidence", especially not considering the many cases of US intelligence failing spectacularly. Like, say, when they picked a guy up, tortured him for months until they recognized they had picked him up because they misspelled his name. Whooops. Guess what, said guy has still not received an apology or any compensation for that, btw, but I guess you do not care about that either.

Or would not being able to sagely nod when your fellow Teutonic professors go off on some rambling monologue that amounts to "Bush lied to steal oil and kill brown people and Americans are savages" hurt your social standing too much?

Whoah man. Where did this massive strawman came from? Pulled it out of your behind, maybe that explains why you are so butthurt.

For the record: Nobody believed the US to be doing this just for the oil. They either believed that:
a) The USA are massive cowards and easily frightened into lashing out
b) The USA are having a severe problem with a cowboy mentality
c) The USA think they are stronger than they are and think they can get away with it
d) The USA have gone mad
e) The USA are incompetent
f) The USA are incompetent idealists
g) The USA want to settle the score and fulfill a petty revenge fantasy

or a variation/combination thereof.

These are the theories that were avanced so far. Oil factored only in as an afterword, kinda like "and they probably want to get control over the middle east".

[Vympel]

As predicted, it's the hands-in-ears defense. You ignore the evidence without addressing it. Since there is no interpretation of Arbabsiar's behavior that makes sense from a "lone wolf" terrorist perspective, much less being entrapped in a conspiracy actively created by the FBI, you just declare the whole thing ludicrous. In essence you are accusing the FBI of lying about the case and evidence, without having the slightest grounds to beyond that you do not want to believe it. How does that differ in the slightest from what you accuse the "right-wing reactionary hawks" from doing? How is your post any better reasoned than anything Chochula says?

Evidence-free assertions are not "evidence". What part about this very simple concept do you not understand?

A complete idiot who made contact with someone in the cartels (since, you know, informants are kind of worthless without some connection to actual criminal conspiracy), was verifiably working with at least one accomplice in Iran, provided a large down payment on a plot to murder a foreign ambassador... Where did he get his motive? Where did he get his pre-existing objective? Where did he get his resources?

But the plot is stupid, therefore it can't exist! Just like it would be really stupid to have a hired gunman burst into a restaurant and mow down a bunch of Kurdish activists right in the middle of goddamned Berlin... oh wait the Iranians have done that before too.

It must've been the Iranian government, because you cannot conceieve of any other explanation based on the assertions of the US government, which are of course, the only credible explanation!

We have Arbabsiar

No, you don't have shit. What part of this do you fail to understand?

Which is again, "the Americans are lying." This will come to trial and the FBI will be obliged to present their evidence linking Shakuri to the IRGC, assuming it's not as simple as Shakuri demonstrably acting in other capacities as a public member of the IRGC via Iranian media or something equally mundane. At the worst he may have lied to Arbabsiar about being a member, since Arbabsiar boasted of the connection to the informant and repeated it in his confession, and the link was again made in the recorded telephone call. Of course, who else in Iran would have access to hundreds of thousands of dollars and a desire to kill the Saudi Ambassador?

But waaah, the plot isn't real! It's all manufactured bullshit! Entrapment! Shakuri can't even be demonstrated to exist!

More inane stupidity:- its not just "the Americans are lying" (perfectly plausible for someone who doesn't have his hed firmly up the government's ass) its "Arababsiar is himself an obvious liar".

No, you're just a knee-jerk, reactionary hypocrite who refuses to engage or believe evidence

What evidence? The prosecutor's assertions? I'm a lawyer, fuckwit, unlike you I can tell the difference.

Because nations other than the US never do stupid stuff? Of course if they are willing to try once they are very likely to be willing to try again, and may get smarter or luckier. Perhaps if Arbabsiar had gotten in contact with a real cartel member his torso would have turned up in Tijuana six months later, but then again... maybe not. Maybe "Al Qaeda" would have gunned down the Saudi Ambassador next month.

For those who actually have any experience in this matter- or indeed have bothered to do any reading at all, "nations do stupid stuff sometimes" does not somehow make this asinine non-plot credible or a threat to be afraid of. If you had bothered to pick up a newspaper or run a google search you'd know the skepticism in relation to this plot is significant.

But yeah this is incoherent. You've spent all of your posts claiming the plot effectively doesn't exist, being manufactured by the FBI with no evidence of connections to Iran. Now you want to claim that even if it did, it doesn't matter. Because, of course, you will stubbornly resist implications you don't like regardless of circumstances or context.

Its called having two limbs of an argument. So even if I'm wrong, you're still a bed-wetting nincompoop. Get it?

Those "references to the actual facts of the case" would be where? Certainly not in your postings, where you just call the entire plot "ludicrous" and dismiss it outright. Certainly not in the overblown rhetoric of the editorials you posted, which just insist that Arbabsiar had to be stupid, that the plot was never in danger of killing anyone, and therefore was probably invented by the FBI with Arbabsiar entrapped within it to further a nefarious political agenda. There is nothing Greenwald, Cole, Raimundo, or you say that does not boil down to "the government has to be lying about the case;" and your "retort" is all that has been offered to further that claim.

Bullshit. Juan Cole points out how insane the plot is in its particulars and by reference to the character and nature of Arbabsiar- particulars you're not even read. For example, did you have any consideration to the fact the DOJ Complaint says that Arbabsiar asserted his cousin was a plain clothes Iranian general "who had been on CNN"? Which is a complete falsehood? Of course not - becuase you're an idiot who refuses to read what you do not want to believe.

No, you just refuse to *waaaaaaaaaaah*

Oh change the fucking record. You say nothign new here at all. You are a flaming dumbass who confuses assertions with evidence, what else is there to be say about your obvious ignorance?

Furthermore, its clear you think what the FBI says is the only thing to have consideration to - I bet you didn't even know the DOJ Complaint existed, did you?

As for more on the issues with this "plot", this link points out how this began as a 'kidnapping plot' and that its possible, given the convenient parts of conversations that weren't recorded, that the FBI narc involved in this plot fed the most spectacular details of the plot so that it became something which would be the subject of an international incident.

[Vympel]

So Vympel, ever going to provide evidence for your claim the rest of the world knows this is clearly fake?

If you can quote me saying that, I'd be very surprised, you dishonest strawman-erecting fucknut. I said it was being treated with disbelief (because its unbelievable) and derision (because its such a stupid plot) which it so richly deserves.

You seem to have a bad habit of ignoring inconvient questions as so far you have provided two blogs... both of which are Americans!

So when did you ask that inconvenient question, exactly? But in any event, what I said was somewhat inaccurate - plenty of American Iran experts find it not credible:-

New York Times

Link

Or, the position was repeatedly enunciated in the old thread

I'm not scrolling through an entire thread to find some kernel of non-wisdom from a complete idiot such as yourself. You're so dumb you can't even link to a particular post for me to read where you set out your position, eh?

Lets get real here - if you were smart enough to come up with a coherent response, you would have done so already, instead of wasting my time with "but its in this other thread!"

The reason I bring this up is you are the one going on about trust.

That's nothing but a distortion. The basis for skepticism of this plot is a lot more than simple trust.

Another way to look at it is false positives. If someone has a history of finding false positives, then they aren't very relaible are they?

You still haven't provided a reason why I should take him with any more salt than Fox.

Given you're such a moron that you find anything he says remotely controversial as opposed to statements of the blindingly obvious, your inability to comprehend the differnece is not surprising.

If anyone can explain what this is supposed to mean:-

This is him saying the two are the same. I can get more from the article if you want, but I figured the opening paragraph was the way to go.

So much for your failed attempt to take Greenwald out of context by not quoting the whole thing.

Vympel posts paragraph.
Sam reposts paragraph.

You nitwit, that's not Glenn Greenwald, thats the article he's quoting.

They're welcome to. It seems like so much gibberish to me- you seem to think that because I called you on taking Greenwald out of context - which you did, this is somehow incompatible with calling you an idiot for confusing Greenwald quoting an article with Greenwald's own comments.

No, that is the requirement for hypocricy.

LOL, excuse me? I wasn't aware hypocrisy was a legal concept!

If American actions are legal and Iranian actions are not, it is perfectly fine to be outraged by Iranian actions.

LOL. So again - who says American actions are legal, and on what basis? Let me guess ... America says what it does is legal. right?

On that basis, as Glenn Greenwald has pointed out, all Iran need to do is have some Iranian government flunky produce some ass-covering legal fiction about how state-sponsored assassination is legal, and then it'll be ok for them, too, right?

I'm not going to respond to the rest of your post. It isn't because it is a combination of lies and intentional distortions, but for a simpler reason- you don't seem to understand logic.

Run along, you cowardly nitwit. I'm sure that you ran away at precisely the time you were called upon to justify your ludicrous claims that America's state-sponsored assassinations are legal under "international law" is pure coincidence.

[Shroom Man 777]

The US will not use drones or other tools of frequent retail freedomization against Iran, because Iran is a strong state, relatively, and will not allow such things. If the US flies Predators into Iran, those Predators are likely to get shot down.

Oh, don't be such a spoilsport. The USA has plenty of other freedomization methods aside from drones, and there are plenty of people just waiting to be freedomized outside of Iran. Heck, even scientists inside Iran get freedomized all the time too! Don't sell your nation short, American ingenuity is a great thing and it's got a lot of good friends who can help it out. Friendship is freedom, after all.

Fine.

As I say to Thanas, condemning all Americans endlessly for everything America ever does or did, and condemning Americans both when they are wrong and when they are not wrong, and treating them as if they were wrong even when they are not wrong, are bad practices. These things weaken and dilute the power of your critical voice, and make the people you hope to reach (including those who are sympathetic to you, but dislike being badmouthed endlessly) less inclined to listen to you.

Your nation continues to perform illegal actions across the entire world. I don't think the condemnations should ever stop. Not for your country, or for anyone else's.

They don't need to listen to "us". Eventually, they'll just have to look around and they'll see. Or maybe they won't, and it'll continue on and on, as it does right now. Well, too bad.

[Block]

The US will not use drones or other tools of frequent retail freedomization against Iran, because Iran is a strong state, relatively, and will not allow such things. If the US flies Predators into Iran, those Predators are likely to get shot down.

Oh, don't be such a spoilsport. The USA has plenty of other freedomization methods aside from drones, and there are plenty of people just waiting to be freedomized outside of Iran. Heck, even scientists inside Iran get freedomized all the time too! Don't sell your nation short, American ingenuity is a great thing and it's got a lot of good friends who can help it out. Friendship is freedom, after all.

Oh please, it's more likely it's Russia or China doing that, they have no interest in seeing Iran have nuclear capability either, just selling them parts and stringing the process along.

[Simon_Jester]

The US will not use drones or other tools of frequent retail freedomization against Iran, because Iran is a strong state, relatively, and will not allow such things. If the US flies Predators into Iran, those Predators are likely to get shot down.

Oh, don't be such a spoilsport. The USA has plenty of other freedomization methods aside from drones, and there are plenty of people just waiting to be freedomized outside of Iran. Heck, even scientists inside Iran get freedomized all the time too! Don't sell your nation short, American ingenuity is a great thing and it's got a lot of good friends who can help it out. Friendship is freedom, after all.

I'm not arguing with you; I just have no idea what you're talking about with regards to Iran.

If the US responds to an attack on Iran by hurting completely different people, why does an Iranian plot matter? The government doesn't use Iranian plots to justify bombing in Yemen.

Your nation continues to perform illegal actions across the entire world. I don't think the condemnations should ever stop. Not for your country, or for anyone else's.
They don't need to listen to "us". Eventually, they'll just have to look around and they'll see. Or maybe they won't, and it'll continue on and on, as it does right now. Well, too bad.

I guess, if you say so... sigh.

Shroom, I never did look forward to the day when it would become impossible for me to interact with you without having to sit through the Litany of American Crimes again- and again, and again, until it becomes so galling that I'm honestly better off not bothering.

If that day has come because it's so vitally important that you go back over the litany at every opportunity, then... I'll miss the old you, mang.

[Shroom Man 777]

Oh please, it's more likely it's Russia or China doing that, they have no interest in seeing Iran have nuclear capability either, just selling them parts and stringing the process along.

Because offing the citizens of your client state is an awesome way of ensuring pleasant business relations and continuing sales?

I'm not arguing with you; I just have no idea what you're talking about with regards to Iran.

If the US responds to an attack on Iran by hurting completely different people, why does an Iranian plot matter? The government doesn't use Iranian plots to justify bombing in Yemen.

Use your imagination. The USA can hurt Iran (or Iranians) through methods other than drone strikes, and through activities that may or may not have to be in Iran proper.

And even without having anything to do with Iran, the US can use this event as justification to continue the current spate of assassinations, torture and so on as a defense against terrorism in general (doesn't have to be Iran specifically). Do you think this will a.) encourage or b.) discourage Obama and co. from continuing the Bush era policies in regards to the GWOT?

I guess, if you say so... sigh.

Shroom, I never did look forward to the day when it would become impossible for me to interact with you without having to sit through the Litany of American Crimes again- and again, and again, until it becomes so galling that I'm honestly better off not bothering.

If that day has come because it's so vitally important that you go back over the litany at every opportunity, then... I'll miss the old you, mang.

This thread is about Iran and the USA, and is related to the war on terror, and those topics are litanies of American crimes.

Your nation invaded another with BS reasons, got countless people killed including your own countrymen. Your rights are being curbed, your country is doing wanton assassinations all over the world, has a string of torture sites, etcetera. People over there have been ripped to pieces and mangled and shot and killed by the thousands.

I don't see why it's at all surprising that people around the world would be going on all the time about the bad things America does all the time. In fact, if it was my country, I'd fully expect them to do so and I'd relish in their doing so.

Hell, I'm jealous. I wish the crimes of my nation and it's government got even half, or even the quarter, of the international exposure and outrage and condemnation as yours does in order to shock or shake people awake and let them see just what the hell is wrong with everything around them. When incompetent Manila SWAT teams couldn't break and enter into a tourist bus for hours and got shitloads of Hong Kong tourists killed, live on CNN, I was glad that the entire world saw it took the time and effort to lambast my country for its incompetence - so they could see what my country and it's government is truly like. When people go "I'm ashamed to be a citizen of this country" because of that, I didn't mind it at all. Because they saw what happened, they came to knew what it was really like, and became outraged at the incompetence/injustice/obscenity of that. And to me, that's more important than people on the internet being doubleplus unnice.

Maybe I'm just too used to the Third World mentality and perspective towards one's own government/nation (how much more other people's government/nation) where the default assumption is cynicism, corruption, the occasional (or frequent) murder, and everyone being a bastard. It cultivates a thicker skin, and were we to change places, I wouldn't be galled at all by the litanies of shit heaped up by the rest of the world. I'd eagerly ask for more, please, and some extra servings for the rest of my nation.

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Oh please, it's more likely it's Russia or China doing that, they have no interest in seeing Iran have nuclear capability either, just selling them parts and stringing the process along.

Because offing the citizens of your client state is an awesome way of ensuring pleasant business relations and continuing sales?

Because offing scientists who understand what you're selling them means your client becomes more dependent on you to supply everything. As long as you don't get caught it's a great business plan.

[Shroom Man 777]

And when you get caught, it's a blockheaded business plan.

Unless there's an ancient Chinese secret to untraceable assassinations involving voodoo dolls and acupuncture needles or something.

[Block]

And when you get caught, it's a blockheaded business plan.

Unless there's an ancient Chinese secret to untraceable assassinations involving voodoo dolls and acupuncture needles or something.

Yeah, but they have yet to catch someone from the US, and they arrest our hikers just for being in the mountains on the borders, so unless Mike from AP is out there killing up a storm, who the hell knows who's behind it really.

[Spoonist]

Maybe I'm just too used to the Third World mentality and perspective towards one's own government/nation (how much more other people's government/nation) where the default assumption is cynicism, corruption, the occasional (or frequent) murder, and everyone being a bastard. It cultivates a thicker skin, and were we to change places, I wouldn't be galled at all by the litanies of shit heaped up by the rest of the world. I'd eagerly ask for more, please, and some extra servings for the rest of my nation.

Heck skip the murders and I'd write up on that and I live in one of the top 5 best countries to live in. We don't even compare in the corruption scale, but its still making us cynical vs our politicians etc.

Over here we love it when foreign media point out the mistakes of our gov, because that is what we do all the time ourselves. Which also includes our "own" party etc.

[Shroom Man 777]

There must be a fundamental differences in mindsets when you're a small nation that has to swallow what other (bigger) people give you, when you've done this for so long (centuries in the case of some) that your national sociocultural gag reflex has been atrophied by the unending abuse done to the esophagus of your nation's consciousness, and when you are a nation that has for the last century been used to nothing but doing the giving and making other nations swallow that bitter load. Now the spoon has finally come to their mouths, and it's time for them to say "aaah" and have a slice of humble pie.

[TheHammer]

The US will not use drones or other tools of frequent retail freedomization against Iran, because Iran is a strong state, relatively, and will not allow such things. If the US flies Predators into Iran, those Predators are likely to get shot down.

Oh, don't be such a spoilsport. The USA has plenty of other freedomization methods aside from drones, and there are plenty of people just waiting to be freedomized outside of Iran. Heck, even scientists inside Iran get freedomized all the time too! Don't sell your nation short, American ingenuity is a great thing and it's got a lot of good friends who can help it out. Friendship is freedom, after all.

Oh please, it's more likely it's Russia or China doing that, they have no interest in seeing Iran have nuclear capability either, just selling them parts and stringing the process along.

*COUGHMOSSADCOUGH*

I don't think China or Russia wants Iran to have nuclear weapons capability. But they like them to be a thorn in the side of U.S. interests and a counterweight to our "allied" nations in the region.

All that being said, Israel if anyone has the absolute most to lose out of a successful Iranian nuclear program.