FBI stops Iran assasination attempt on Saudi Amb. to US

[ChaserGrey]

Although I have often wondered, if other parts of the government are saner than Iran's president, why they continue to back his ability to speak for them. If they don't share his opinions in large part, why is he their spokesman?

There are two leading theories on that:

1) The function of the Iranian President is not to exercise power but to distract people from it, Hitchhiker's Guide style. As has been pointed out, the President actually has much less power than most people think, and often acts to rubberstamp and put a face on decisions made by high-ranking ayatollahs behind the scenes. The ayatollahs, of course, want to keep that fact out of the public mind as much as possible. The current Iranian President, with his tendency to make bizarre, bombastic statements that grab headlines in and out of Iran pretty much every time he opens his mouth, would be pretty much a perfect President under this theory.

2) Other parts of the Iranian government *aren't* saner, or at least not the ones who currently have the most influence.

Because he's elected and if they threw him out of office directly they would be facing a revolution? The nonviolent Green Revolution in Iran came about because of suspicions of election fraud- a downright abrogation of Iranian democracy, such as it is, would piss a lot of people off.

Except that in the Green Revolution the Iranian mullahs and government were the ones defending Ahmadinejad from people who wanted him out. That suggests that for whatever reason, they actively *want* him there and are not just unwilling to get rid of them. If they wanted him gone all they would have had to do is step back, let things take their course, and probably have picked up a lot of popular goodwill in the process.

You honestly think that Basij units deliberately hopscotched onto mines so that as many of them died as possible. You're a fucking ignoramus that, when confronted with the actual results of your beliefs, runs and hides from them.

And you are apparently an illiterate who, when confronted with subtleties you don't understand or don't wish to acknowledge, squeals about prejudice. The argument went as follows:

A. Iran having a nuclear bomb is not a threat, because they can be deterred via MAD. Iranians don't want to die, so they won't take actions that they know will result in death.
B. But Iranians under the current government *have* taken actions that they knew would result in death. In massive numbers.
A. OMG ORIENTALISM!!!!1!!!

Nobody, to my knowledge, said that Iranians were less than human until you brought it up as a strawman. They are simply pointing out that the range of human behavior is wider in the real world than it is inside your head. That sometimes, out in the real world, people *are* willing to accept death if they think it will get them what they want. And that the consequences of that, enacted with nuclear weapons, could result in millions of deaths.

That doesn't make them sub-human, or mean that we should kill them just in case. But it does mean we have to widen our concepts of what they're capable of.

Your response to all this seems to be that, well, that could never happen, because you say so. When confronted with examples of human behavior that contradict your thesis, your response is to wave your hands and shriek about prejudice. Sorry, but come back when you're willing to acknowledge real things that have happened in the real world, even if they're not possible in Bakustra-land.

[Bakustra]

It's Orientalist because it is being used to distinguish Iranians from Westerners. It's taking this, and saying, "well, we can't rely on the Iranian government to make rational decisions about the cost of initiating a nuclear war, because they were willing to use suicide charges to clear minefields, and Iranian people were willing to die for their country." You know who else used suicide units? The Soviet Union, with Shtrafbat units in WWII. You know who else has people willing to die for their country? Every fucking country in the world. But the Cold War didn't result in us all dying because the USSR launched nuclear weapons because they used suicide units, and the only country that used nuclear weapons did so when there was no risk of retaliation.

So you're still not proving, as Broomstick asserted, that there is something fundamentally different about Iranians that they are willing to die for their country, and that is why they cannot have the Bomb, because then those Sassanid bastards would have a very high chance of using it, because after all they are a bunch of fucking psychos. But we're on the verge of suggesting that Iran would "get what it wanted" if it started a nuclear war. Go ahead and say what you want to say. Go ahead and babble reactionary talking points about how Iran wants to kill all Jews and wants to destroy the USA. I know that's what you're thinking, because that's the only way your statement makes sense.

[SCRawl]

Hundreds of thousands of Americans volunteer to risk their lives for this country, without even the belief that they will be guaranteed passage into a paradisical afterlife for doing so. Thousands of people volunteer with the International Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and other medical relief organizations to risk their lives without even a means of self-defense. I think that you're relying on Orientalism here; pretending that willingness to martyr oneself for a higher ideal is fundamentally different when Muslims/Iranians do it.

People have done suicidal things (and volunteering for military service, where it is assumed that you may have to give your life for your country, is different in intensity, not in kind) for higher causes throughout history.

This is the line of reasoning that you can't really believe, I think. I just can't take the idea -- that military or humanitarian service and acting as a suicide bomber are just different settings on the same continuum -- at all seriously, and I hope that you don't either. Someone from the former category is knowingly putting their lives at increased risk for a cause that they believe in, to be sure. They may do so for many reasons, the vast majority of which have to do with bettering people's lives, often including their own; people usually join the military because they want a career, for example. Some of these -- such as the "Doctors Without Borders" types, for example -- really don't get anything out of it personally, as far as I can tell, so altruism (insofar as true altruism actually exists) is on the short list for motivation.

The suicide bomber is a special animal, and here's why. In addition to the "altruistic" motivation -- the bomber may believe that his people benefit from his actions, after all, even if he won't be around to enjoy those benefits himself -- there is that pesky motivation of the 72 virgins and rivers of wine waiting on the other side of this vale of tears (to mix my religious allusions). He actually believes that crap, and wants to die a martyr. That's the important half of the plan, and almost all of the motivation.

These two types of people are not just two blips on the same sliding scale.

[Bakustra]

We're not talking about suicide bombers, though. We are talking about Iranian military units that charged Iraqi positions unarmed. Broomstick used those as examples of why we can't let those god damn Persians get nuclear weapons, because they're just so different from Westerners.

[Samuel]

? The Soviet Union, with Shtrafbat units in WWII. You know who else has people willing to die for their country? Every fucking country in the world. But the Cold War didn't result in us all dying because the USSR launched nuclear weapons because they used suicide units, and the only country that used nuclear weapons did so when there was no risk of retaliation.

Maybe I don't understand Soviet history, but I'm almost positive assignment to penal battalions wasn't voluntary.

Although I have often wondered, if other parts of the government are saner than Iran's president, why they continue to back his ability to speak for them. If they don't share his opinions in large part, why is he their spokesman?

They couldn't agree on any other canidate and stuck with the incumbant? It is sort of funny looking at his parties wiki page- apparently they are classed as neo-conservatives

[Bakustra]

He was talking about the Iranian leadership being willing to use suicide units. Well, the USSR did so, and they didn't kill us all with nuclear weapons, since we're all still fucking here. So he's being disingenuous or else an idiot. And I don't always like to think of people as idiots.

[Formless]

Suicide bombers and other martyr types are pressured into service one at a time, in an environment where they are encouraged by the people and culture around them. To compare that to mass civilian casualties where everyone is at risk of dying at once, ending their cause with certainty here and now... Whisky Tango Foxtrot. Are you people even thinking before hitting the keyboards?

[SCRawl]

We're not talking about suicide bombers, though. We are talking about Iranian military units that charged Iraqi positions unarmed. Broomstick used those as examples of why we can't let those god damn Persians get nuclear weapons, because they're just so different from Westerners.

Looking over that exchange again, I can see why I made that mistake (and it was a mistake). Okay, carry on, nothing to see here...

[Bakustra]

No, it's fine, things are getting a little heated here after all.

[Broomstick]

You honestly think that Basij units deliberately hopscotched onto mines so that as many of them died as possible.

Nope, I don't think the object was to get as many Basiji to die as possible. However, the use of human beings in such operations as opposed to, say, mechanical means or driving animals over the minefields, as other peoples have done, really does show a different viewpoint on the value of human life and risking death. This is in no way unique to Iranians or Muslims or whatever other category you pull out of your ass. It is, however, a real cultural difference between the US and Iran in their current state. Recognizing that there are genuine differences does not make anyone inhuman or less than human. It's far more realistic than you assumption that Iranians and Americans are all exactly alike.

If you suggest that the Iranian people are fundamentally different from American people

Not fundamentally different, just culturally different

as you are doing when suggesting that a willingness to martyr oneself for a higher cause is uniquely Iranian (or possibly uniquely Islamic)

I never said it was uniquely anything. YOU can up with that in your fevered imagination.

....essentially exiling them from humanity because you suggest that this renders effective communication impossible because they are different on such a deep level.

Bullshit. Recognizing a genuine cultural difference does not bar communication. The WWII Japanese had a similar willingness to use suicide attacks and yet we managed to find a way to be allies after the war.

Meanwhile, we have the Ghetto Uprisings of WWII. Those were suicidal, to be blunt. None of them had any real hope of lasting long enough for the ghettos to be liberated.

I am sorry you are too stupid to understand the difference between suicide missions for people who are being systematically exterminated vs. volunteers who otherwise are not in imminent danger of death.

Does that mean that Polish Jews are as fundamentally different from Americans as you believe Iranians are?

Since I never said that there was a "fundamental" difference between Americans and Iranians your question is nonsensical.

Were all American soldiers who threw themselves on grenades secretly Iranian? People have done suicidal things (and volunteering for military service, where it is assumed that you may have to give your life for your country, is different in intensity, not in kind) for higher causes throughout history.

See above about nonsense statements and questions.

And yes, there IS a difference between volunteering for a suicide mission, such as the suicide bombers we've seen coming out of the Middle East where the agent knows absolutely he or she will die and someone throwing themselves on a grenade with the aim to save lives and not so much joy in seeking death.

And, once more - this is a cultural difference and nothing more. Nonetheless it's significant.

Indeed, according to Christian theology, Jesus Christ went willingly to die for his beliefs. Are all Christians as insane as you believe Iranians to be?

Again, another nonsensical question as I never accused the Iranians as a collective of being insane.

[Broomstick]

We're not talking about suicide bombers, though. We are talking about Iranian military units that charged Iraqi positions unarmed. Broomstick used those as examples of why we can't let those god damn Persians get nuclear weapons, because they're just so different from Westerners.

WTF did you think I said? Actually, we can't stop the Iranians from getting nuclear weapons because they've got uranium deposits in their own territory if I recall correctly and they're just as smart and clever as anyone else. But we don't have to encourage them either. We don't have to make it easy.

And yes, I do believe some people are more willing to use NBC weapons than others. As an example, Europe has refrained from using gas on the battlefield since 1925 when they decided to outlaw it, and haven't used it against anyone since the last of the Nazi death camps were shut down in 1945. On the other hand, the Iraqi government used it at least as recently as the 1980's. Those are facts. So, we could conclude that Iraq under Saddam was more likely to use chemical weapons than European powers and indeed we planned accordingly when attacking Iraq under both Presidents Bush. Recognizing that does not mean the Iraqis are somehow "fundamentally" different. Of course, we don't have to worry about Saddam any more, either.

I really don't understand how you make the leap from "they have a different culture" to accusing me of regarding them as some sort of alien species. That's just bizarre.

And every example you've give to prove that Westerners can kill themselves, too, just points out that the bar for "kill yourself" is set at a different point for Westerners.

But let's turn this around a bit - I think Christians who are willing to martyr themselves for a cause are also dangerous people. I'm not talking about altruistic self-sacrifice, I'm talking about Christians actively seeking out a glorious death in service of the cause as a primary objective. That is different than when death is a risk of an activity, even a high risk. Fortunately, that sort of Christian isn't terribly common these days. They haven't always been noticeable among the Muslims, either, it's a recent cultural shift. Because it is cultural it can shift away from that meme, too, and I'd like to see it happen.

See, a difference between Iran and the old USSR is that the old USSR was atheist. People might sacrifice themselves for the motherland or for the benefit of others, but they didn't do so thinking there was going to be a magical sky-pixie paradise awaiting them after they did so. The afterlife incentive didn't exist for them, for the most part, and an officially atheist government certainly couldn't hold it out as a reward. Present day Iran, however, can and does hold out an afterlife reward for the martyrs. Yes, that can make people more willing to put themselves at risk, and more willing to go on frank suicide missions.

[Lord of the Abyss]

No, I don't want to see anyone get killed. And guess what? Odds are the 75 million people in Iran don't want to die either.

Oh, really? Look up "basij" sometime. Tens of thousands of Iranian basiji marched across minefields to clear them, or into enemy fire, which chanting about how wonderful martyrdom was going to be.

Iranians have demonstrated a pretty strong willingness to die for the cause. The Basiji still exist, by the way, and are still very willing to die for the current regime.

Hmmm. I recall reading quite a few years ago that that was more them playing up to their reputation. That they picked the approaches where the Iraqis had the worst coverage with their guns, had people creep up in the dark and remove as many mines as possible, then charged "fanatically" into the sparse gunfire and mines terrifying the Iraqis. Which is also why they didn't just overrun everything; that all requires more time and preparation than just charging headlong. And it's why there were still so many alive after the war.

And at any rate, out of 75 million people tens of thousands isn't really that many. I'm sure you could find at least as many suicidal fanatics here in America or any other large country.

[Broomstick]

Yes, but when you're talking about something destructive on as massive a scale as even a small, low-tech nuke it doesn't take nearly as many fanatics to do really bad things as if you were using conventional warfare.

As an illustration - the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9-10, 1945 actually killed more people than either atomic bomb, and generated firestorms that destroyed as many buildings. But note that it took a time same that is expressed as two consecutive dates, not a precise time like "8:15 am" (the time the Hiroshima bomb was dropped). Atomic bombs are so much more efficient. Instead of taking hours and hours and dozens if not hundreds of aircraft dropping thousands of incendiaries you can send just one aircraft and one bomb and get similar results. Oh, and some radiation, too.

And while you can find suicidal fanatics anywhere, different cultures have a different willingness for that sort of attack. Towards the end of WWII the Germans were conducting suicide attacks, too, but they started those a lot later in the war than, say, the Japanese. There were instances of Soviet fighter pilots deliberately crashing their airplanes into other airplanes, which is pretty damn likely to kill you, but a few of them survived the experience as well which leads me to think the primary goal wasn't killing themselves, it was trying to kill the other guy and if they could survive they'd go for it. So yeah, Westerners will die for a cause, too, but more typically it's in more desperate situations, when their backs are really against the wall. The human wave tactics of the Iranians during the Iraq war resulted in a lot more dead Iranians than were strictly necessary to get the job done. The current Iranian government seems willing to see their own die to achieve political ends, even when alternatives might be available. I find that disturbing, don't you?

[Zaune]

Does it seem odd to anyone else that a professional unit like Quds Force would hire a 'disorganized', absent-minded, alcoholic, used-car-salesman to undertake the most dangerous operations they've ever had - what's more, without providing him with any specific instructions (ie. getting him to plan it himself)? Are these the same guys who supposedly outmaneuvered the Americans in Iraq?

Not really. The objective may not have been to kill the Saudi ambassador at all; I can think of a couple of much safer, more reliable and less traceable ways of doing that than blowing up a restaraunt. If their goal was merely to cause panic, discord and yet another stupidly expensive tranche of security theatre, they can safely trade competence for plausible deniability.

[Formless]

Is the elephant in the room just not pink enough for you to comment on, Broomstick, or was my post just not inflammatory enough for you?

[Broomstick]

You know, if you want a specific poster to respond it helps to say so explicitly.

No, suicide bombers don't have to recruited one by one, each one carefully cultivated. In the WWII the Japanese had more volunteers for suicide missions than they had missions to go on.

There's also a difference between a mission where one expects to die, but would nonetheless be happy to somehow survive, and suicide missions where the death of the agent is inextricably bound to success. Assassins sneaking into a country might be at high risk of capture and execution, but they'd be happy to evade that and go home. The 9/11 guys stepped onto those airplanes knowing full well they were going to die. The latter are less common than the former, but both exist.

As for the sudden mass death of civilians - in the past, governments have occasionally displayed an unsettling willingness to let civilians die. Usually in connection with famines. For example, during the Irish Potato Famine the UK could have provided more aid, but did not, which lead to many more people dying than might have otherwise, and certainly contributed to the exodus of Irish to other places. There were several famines in the USSR brought on by government policies that lead to the death of millions. The Chinese Great Leap Forward resulted in tens of millions of deaths as a result of government policies.

So, yes, apparently governments can and do sacrifice civilians in large numbers. It's within the range of plausible human behavior and no, it's not unique to either Iranians or Muslims as my examples show.

I'd like to think it unlikely that a government would willingly sacrifice a city or two of their own in atomic warfare in order to achieve a political or religious end, but as I see it, it's certainly a possibility.

[Aleria]

I personally think it would be great for America to go into another war.

Are you stupid or just hate the US?

The US isn't in the financial shape to fight another war.

Of course Shroom hates the US. His country (the Phillipenes (sp?) was/is brutally opressed by America. Considering the shit we did there mirrors Iraq, I can't blame him.

And how am I supposed to know he is from the Philippines when his location is 'Bleeding breasts and stabbing dicks since 2003'?

And honestly, if you can't even spell the name of a relatively well known country...I'm not sure why I should even take you seriously. Its not like it is Burundi ffs.

Your post could have been just 'Hey, Shroom lives in a country oppressed (btw that is how you spell oppressed.) by the US. So he has a legitimate reason to hate the US.'

Are you stupid or just hate the US?

The US isn't in the financial shape to fight another war.

Perhaps plunging yourself into another massive conflict would finally teach you guys something about foreign adventurism and invasionhappy policy that so many Americans gleefully endorsed. Just sayin'.

I'm sorry if my simple question confused you. I was trying to ascertain if Shroom hates the US, or is stupid. It appears to be the former with a reasonable justification.


(If the image doesn't show due to some stupid hotlinking thing, most people in the US think Iraq was a mistake...and have for the past 5 years)

1) It would seem Iraq taught the US that lesson, for anyone who is not a moron.
2) Anyone who thinks our foreign adventurism and invasionhappy policies is a 'good idea' is a moron (even before 9/11).


You seem to feel that the US needs to be 'taught a lesson' by a war that will cause death, both military and civilian. Are you really that much of a self-righteous piece of shit you can gleefully propose that?

Perhaps plunging yourself into another massive conflict would finally teach you guys something about foreign adventurism and invasionhappy policy that so many Americans gleefully endorsed. Just sayin'.

I think Iraq and Afghanistan have re-taught that lesson, at least for this generation. There's always going to be a residual layer of jingoists, but you don't hear political figures trying to score points with "bomb Iran."

I would certainly hope your people have learned something, since as you wrote, another massive conflict means more misery and death for the people who happen to live in the place America decides to bomb next.

I'm hoping that means the answer is 'No. I was simply being unclear.'

[Formless]

You focused on the wrong thing, Broomstick. Do I need to spell this out for you?

Martyrs don't have to be cultivated one by one, fine whatever. But they do have to be cultivated in some way or another. All your examples are examples of soldiers doing the dying, whether they are Japanese or Iranian. Soldiers by necessity are trained and indoctrinated to accept death as an occupational hazard, or even something to embrace if it glorifies their nation (as was the case in many historical countries, like Imperial Japan). This is true across the board. But that indoctrination-- or other method of cultivating willingness to die (culture, social pressure, belief reinforcement, etc.)-- has to be supported by something else in society. Its damn hard to overcome survival instincts, you know.

But where do you think this pressure/support comes from? A government can try and go against the pressure of its citizens, but not without creating lots of friction, internal conflict, or even get ousted. How do you propose these mechanisms are supposed to be scaled up to the level of a whole nation, Broomstick? A genie will just make it so? Serious question, though. In case you've forgot, the original point of contention was D13's proposition that even with (working) nukes, Iran (both its citizens and its government) would most likely see nuclear war as a pointlessly suicidal endeavor. And this isn't like the Great Leap Forward, where part of the society died. We're talking about goddamn nuclear annihilation! That's the scale of the issue.

Alternatively (and I think this is where Bakustra's ire comes from) you are proposing that Iran's populace (or Muslims in general) is somehow abnormally willing to die for a cause, even a losing one. Its not enough to demonstrate that Iranians are willing to die for a cause, or even that they have a different attitude or outlook on what that means because of their religion or whatever. You have to demonstrate the actual prevalence of people willing to die for their cause. Since you've used Kamikaze pilots as an example; Imperial Japan was crazy enough to think its civilians would pick up bamboo spears and defend the mainland islands, should it come to that. IIRC, at some of the islands the US stormed Japanese civilians did in fact fight and die. Yet, when faced with nuclear annihilation they still surrendered. You really think Iran would be any different? Please, by all means, demonstrate this. Please deal in facts, not speculation.

[MKSheppard]

This is the same government that actually set up a fountain that was full of red colored water and called it a fountain of blood in their attempts to glorify martyrdom in the Iran-Iraq War.

[Flagg]

This is the same government that actually set up a fountain that was full of red colored water and called it a fountain of blood in their attempts to glorify martyrdom in the Iran-Iraq War.

Wow, propaganda during wartime? I don't believe it. I mean it really proves your point.

[MKSheppard]

Wow, propaganda during wartime? I don't believe it. I mean it really proves your point.

Propaganda during wartime tends to glorify you know, killing the enemy, not death itself.

[Flagg]

Wow, propaganda during wartime? I don't believe it. I mean it really proves your point.

Propaganda during wartime tends to glorify you know, killing the enemy, not death itself.

Yeah, somehow I think a fountain of blood "promoting martyrdom" (something the Roman Catholic Church does, better hope no Catholics get nukes...) means martyrdom in the name of defeating an invading army as opposed to martyrdom for the fuck of it. But I have no graphs, so I could be wrong.

[CrateriaA]

Of course Shroom hates the US. His country (the Phillipenes (sp?) was/is brutally opressed by America. Considering the shit we did there mirrors Iraq, I can't blame him.

And how am I supposed to know he is from the Philippines when his location is 'Bleeding breasts and stabbing dicks since 2003'?

And honestly, if you can't even spell the name of a relatively well known country...I'm not sure why I should even take you seriously. Its not like it is Burundi ffs.

Your post could have been just 'Hey, Shroom lives in a country oppressed (btw that is how you spell oppressed.) by the US. So he has a legitimate reason to hate the US.'

1. Ask Shroom where he lives. Jeeze. Or just look at various topics he posts at. He'll reference life in the Philippines every now and then.
2. So I screw up the name of a country that's barely in the news around here anymore (and is pretty long compared to other nations' names) and the word oppressed. Big deal. I've got a lot to think about during the day and I type fast as well as SD.Net's spellchecker being garbage. If you don't want to take me seriously, fine. But at least take my damn points seriously. Hell, if not for this post, maybe I was trying to hurt the Philippines' feelings by calling it another name. Adding insult to injury.

[Simon_Jester]

How far are people trying to go with leveling out cultural differences?

Is it somehow wrong to suppose that there may be significant differences between the way different populations can be expected to react to a given stimulus?

Is it really true that we have to dismiss as 'racist' or 'orientalist' any argument along the lines of "well, this government believes some things that we don't believe, and has attitudes we aren't sure we can model, and seems to have less trouble willing to find people to die en masse for it than most societies we're familiar with... maybe they're going to act different when faced with a hugely stressful and dangerous situation, in ways that you or I would not."

Because that's really all that's being said here. The stakes are so high when talking about nuclear war that any sane person has to consider low-order possibilities, because a 1% chance of a nuclear attack killing a million people is a pretty damn bad thing all by itself. Which means considering that maybe, just maybe, not everyone in the world is a Bakustra clone, or a Flagg clone, or a clone of whatever Bakustra and Flagg think is generic normal thinking.

What thinking person could be happy gambling on that, when there is already evidence that one is dealing with a culture that has different responses to threats, different ideas about what constitutes legitimate authority, and a different cultural background informing the behavior and perceptions of its citizens? Sure, you can say "everyone will agree that nuclear weapons are too dreadful to use, therefore they will not be used, concession accepted." But it takes incredible arrogance to just stop thinking there, shrug it off, and say "therefore, the existence of nuclear arsenals is irrelevant, symbolic, and nuclear proliferation is not a problem."

I shudder to imagine what the world would look like if we took that approach to other kinds of disaster planning, if we switched off our brains the moment we came up with a reassuring reason why the disaster probably won't happen. And demanded that any heretic who dared to question our reassuring reason prove that the reassuring reason would be wrong.

"There will probably not be an earthquake, therefore I don't need to worry about earthquakes. You disagree? Prove there will be an earthquake. There hasn't been an earthquake in X years, how could there be one now?"

[PeZook]

I'm sorry if my simple question confused you. I was trying to ascertain if Shroom hates the US, or is stupid. It appears to be the former with a reasonable justification.


(If the image doesn't show due to some stupid hotlinking thing, most people in the US think Iraq was a mistake...and have for the past 5 years)

1) It would seem Iraq taught the US that lesson, for anyone who is not a moron.
2) Anyone who thinks our foreign adventurism and invasionhappy policies is a 'good idea' is a moron (even before 9/11).

So, 41% of all Americans think going into Iraq was not a mistake. That's a frightening number, and more than enough to give an impression that the public supports more international violence, if they get out onto the streets.

See, I'd really rather not see another war. If, however, the US does plunge itself into it, I can only hope that when the dust settles and America is in even worse financial and military shape, that 41% becomes disillusioned towards invading countries at the first provocation in order to fix them or show them you're tough or whatever.

You seem to feel that the US needs to be 'taught a lesson' by a war that will cause death, both military and civilian. Are you really that much of a self-righteous piece of shit you can gleefully propose that?

Gleefully? No.

But if I was to chose between a war that will teach America nothing and a war that will make the craziest of Americans re-evaluate your international stance and approach to such problems in the future, I'd take the latter.