Israel Teams With Terror Group to Kill Irans Nuke Scientists

[Darth Wong]

By that argument, every use of violence anywhere is terrorism. Any time you make anyone nervous because they don't want to run into what happened to the next guy, it's "terrorism."

That's ridiculous.

Don't be an idiot. Not all uses of violence are part of a systematic plan to create and employ fear in order to achieve political coercion. Most uses of violence are not systematic at all, and are committed by idiots and assholes for individualistic reasons.

[Sea Skimmer]

Here, there's no political purpose. Israel isn't trying to make the Iranian government change its policy, or to make the Iranian people change their minds about the policy. They're just trying to make it harder to do something Israel doesn't want Iran to do.

First of all you are wrong about that, Israel blatantly does want the program to stop because the people in charge of the government right now think, and have said as much, that if Iran gets nukes the long term result will be an exodus of jews that collapses Israel. Second of all, trying to make something harder for someone is still political. If I file a lawsuit to block a political decision because I don't agree with it, and fail, does that mean I was not politically motivated in my lawsuit? Terrorism isn't terrorism if it doesn't succeed seems to be the basis of your argument; in which case almost no terrorism exists since it almost always fails.

And I don't see any convincing evidence that the use of violence is aimed at intimidating other nuclear scientists. Sure, the scientists are intimidated, who wouldn't be? But any act of violence will cause intimidation. Not all acts of violence are terrorism.

Right... you know that's just dumb as hell. Of course they are trying to intimidate other scientists. They CANT get at the really important ones who's specific deaths might matter because Iran is guarding them too heavily, so they kill low level guys to spread fear. I see no evidence what so ever that these attacks are aimed at anything else.

If I shell a machine-gun nest and kill the crew, then shell the nest again when a new crew moves in, and keep doing it until the enemy isn't willing to keep manning that gun when it'll just get them all killed... is that terrorism? It's violent intimidation, that's for sure.

That would be called combat. The part in which the other side has a gun and is on the battlefield fighting back is kind of important you know.

[MKSheppard]

Flagg, you left out the most important bit:

Link

An Iranian newspaper report claimed Monday that the bomb used to assassinate a nuclear scientist last month was "made in the USA."

The bomb used to kill Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, 32, was one of two that were delivered to Iran via members of PJAK, the Party for Free Life of Kurdistan, a Kurdish separatist group, the Resalat daily newspaper reported Monday.

The second bomb was discovered and defused by intelligence and security personnel deployed around Resalat Square in Tehran, according to the report.

Iran claimed last month it had arrested an unidentified number of unnamed suspects in connection with the assassination, saying the scientist's killers had been "identified."

The scientist, allegedly a chemical engineer, was killed on January 11 after a motorcyclist attached a magnetic bomb to his car. Iran claims that Roshan served as the deputy director of marketing at the Natanz nuclear facility. He was known as an oil industry expert at Sharif University of Technology, an institution linked with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Enraged Iranian officials vowed retaliation against Israel, the U.S. and the UK over the assassination.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor denied the United States had any involvement in the incident, saying the U.S. had "absolutely nothing to do" with the blast that killed Roshan.

Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed and wounded in recent years.

*cue long Lord of War-esque sequence showing a sticky bomb being manufactured in South Carolina, then being packed into a case and shipped to Israel, ultimately ending up on a Iranian Car*

American made products. When you have to absolutely positively kill someone.

[Aasharu]

I'm actually writing a paper on the interactions between national espionage agencies and international criminal organizations, and this article is an excellent source for it. I find it amazing, and somewhat frightening, how similar an espionage agency is to a criminal organization, and how often the two overlap.

[Sea Skimmer]

Well other then people with formal diplomatic cover just about all international espionage IS criminal. Its just more common to deport spies when caught then attempt to prove criminal charges because this can risk revealing even more information on your counter intelligence service to the other side.

[Omeganian]

Here, there's no political purpose. Israel isn't trying to make the Iranian government change its policy, or to make the Iranian people change their minds about the policy. They're just trying to make it harder to do something Israel doesn't want Iran to do.

And I don't see any convincing evidence that the use of violence is aimed at intimidating other nuclear scientists. Sure, the scientists are intimidated, who wouldn't be? But any act of violence will cause intimidation. Not all acts of violence are terrorism.

If I shell a machine-gun nest and kill the crew, then shell the nest again when a new crew moves in, and keep doing it until the enemy isn't willing to keep manning that gun when it'll just get them all killed... is that terrorism? It's violent intimidation, that's for sure.

You're a moron. By murdering Iranian nuclear scientists Israel is directly attempting to change Irans political ambitions of aquiring nuclear weapons by force. That's called terrorism, dumbshit. Moreover they are allying with Iranian terrorists to do so.

Errr... how is that different from routine covert operations?

[Thanas]

Errr... how is that different from routine covert operations?

It is when they attack scientists that have nothing to do with the program besides being nuclear physicists.

[LaCroix]

Isn't such an operation in peace time always by default an act of terrorism?

It's also obviously an act of war, as it is state-sponsored.

[Grumman]

By murdering Iranian nuclear scientists Israel is directly attempting to change Irans political ambitions of aquiring nuclear weapons by force. That's called terrorism, dumbshit.

The main way nuclear weapons serve Iran's political ambitions is because of their value as military assets. Anything can have political implications (heavy losses during WWI are credited with helping cause the Russian Revolution, for example), but that doesn't mean that attacking a country's capacity to wage war is terrorism.

[Thanas]

By murdering Iranian nuclear scientists Israel is directly attempting to change Irans political ambitions of aquiring nuclear weapons by force. That's called terrorism, dumbshit.

The main way nuclear weapons serve Iran's political ambitions is because of their value as military assets. Anything can have political implications (heavy losses during WWI are credited with helping cause the Russian Revolution, for example), but that doesn't mean that attacking a country's capacity to wage war is terrorism.

Not when attacks are unrelated to that capacity to wage war. Otherwise, the attacks of 9/11 were not terrorism either, as they clearly hurt the US economy and by extension its capacity to wage war.

[irishmick79]

I always thought that terrorism had to include a component of deliberately targeting civilians in the act of political coersion. Is that way off base? I would think that the civilian vs. military role of Iranian nuclear scientists would be murky and difficult to determine given the lack of transparency with Iranian nuclear research and activities. Clearly, the attacks are a provocation and an act of war, but it seems to me that to define the actions as terrorism gets a bit...muddy.

[Thanas]

I always thought that terrorism had to include a component of deliberately targeting civilians in the act of political coersion. Is that way off base? I would think that the civilian vs. military role of Iranian nuclear scientists would be murky and difficult to determine given the lack of transparency with Iranian nuclear research and activities. Clearly, the attacks are a provocation and an act of war, but it seems to me that to define the actions as terrorism gets a bit...muddy.

The RAF terror group for example targeted German police. Still terrorists.

And this is deliberately targeting civilians.

[Simon_Jester]

What bothers me here is that I see an inconsistency between the way people here are defining terrorism and the way people are using the word "terrorism." Terrorism is normally used as a word for something that is clearly wrong. We expect to be able to say "that would be terrorism" and have that be a good argument you shouldn't do it, just as with "that would be murder" or "that would be stealing."

If it really is an act of murder, you shouldn't do it- you don't need to have a second argument over whether this particular murder is wrong. Because murder isn't just killing, it's wrongful killing. If this particular killing matches the definitions of murder, you know it's wrong. Theft isn't just taking an object, it's wrongful taking of someone else's property.

By extension, given how we use it, terrorism can't just be "use of force," it has to be wrongful use of force.


So suppose we say that terrorism is "violence with a political goal-" and that's it, there is no more, that's good enough.

But almost all violence, right or wrong, has some goal. People do it for reasons, unless they're crazy. Sometimes the goal is personal (give me your wallet). But for large groups it's always political, because that's the sphere groups operate in. Anything Country A wants Country B to do is a political goal. Anything Organization C wants A and B to do is a political goal.

It's not hard to imagine a situation where Organization A wants Country B to do something, and wants to use violence to make it happen, but where C isn't obviously in the wrong. If someone says "No, A, you shouldn't do that because that would be terrorism," A is going to turn around and go "and that would be wrong because...?" And there may not be an easy answer. "It would be terrorism to blow up Gestapo headquarters" isn't a very good explanation for why you shouldn't blow up Gestapo headquarters.

And if we're going to use "terrorism" as a word for something that's always or nearly always wrong, that's a problem.


So to keep using "terrorism" as a word for something bad, there has to be something else- something inherent to the nature of terrorism that makes it nearly always wrong, even if your intentions are good. If terrorism means targeting innocent people, causing lots of collateral damage, or attacking in ways that do a lot of direct harm to innocent people without doing much direct harm to the people you're trying to fight, then you can say "that's always wrong," and by and large you're right.

And what I'm seeing here is a lot of opposition to the idea that these extra terms belong in there. I'm hearing, more or less: "Terrorism is violence with a political goal, and that's it."

So I have to ask: does everyone here think it's always wrong to use violence for a political goal? Or are there exceptions? Under what conditions does violence stop being terrorism?

Is a rebellion against a government terrorism? What if the government is oppressive? What if they're extremely oppressive, actively genocidal?

Is sabotaging an enemy's preparations to fight a war against you terrorism? Is fighting during a war terrorism, given that during war you have political goals like "win the war" in mind?

Is it ever terrorism to attack someone's military- as when Al Qaeda bombed the USS Cole? Is it always terrorism to do so?

Is it ever not terrorism to attack the military-industrial complex that makes war possible?

If the answer is "yes, it's always terrorism to use violence for a political goal, no matter what, end of story" then do people here believe terrorism is always wrong? Or am I mistaken about that, when I think others believe it to be wrong?

[Spoonist]

So what you are saying is that you think this particular killing was 'right'?

[irishmick79]

I always thought that terrorism had to include a component of deliberately targeting civilians in the act of political coersion. Is that way off base? I would think that the civilian vs. military role of Iranian nuclear scientists would be murky and difficult to determine given the lack of transparency with Iranian nuclear research and activities. Clearly, the attacks are a provocation and an act of war, but it seems to me that to define the actions as terrorism gets a bit...muddy.

The RAF terror group for example targeted German police. Still terrorists.

And this is deliberately targeting civilians.

I guess my hangup falls into the definition of nuclear scientists - if you're getting your paycheck from the military, you're doing work with military applications (presumably for the military), maybe living in housing provided for by the military, is it really fair to call you a civilian? This goes for the scientists at Los Alamos or elsewhere - sounds to me like they would be civilians in name only. Of course, it's a little premature to even get drawn into that argument when you can't even reliably judge if these scientists are in fact working on weapons or not.

And the RAF also did things like rob banks and take hostages. Not exactly a good comparison to a targeted assassination from a state intelligence service.

[Thanas]

I guess my hangup falls into the definition of nuclear scientists - if you're getting your paycheck from the military, you're doing work with military applications (presumably for the military), maybe living in housing provided for by the military, is it really fair to call you a civilian? This goes for the scientists at Los Alamos or elsewhere - sounds to me like they would be civilians in name only. Of course, it's a little premature to even get drawn into that argument when you can't even reliably judge if these scientists are in fact working on weapons or not.

The problem is that Israel allegedly is waging this campaign on universities as well, to discourage anybody from even getting into that field of study.

[Darth Wong]

What bothers me here is that I see an inconsistency between the way people here are defining terrorism and the way people are using the word "terrorism." Terrorism is normally used as a word for something that is clearly wrong. We expect to be able to say "that would be terrorism" and have that be a good argument you shouldn't do it, just as with "that would be murder" or "that would be stealing."

If it really is an act of murder, you shouldn't do it- you don't need to have a second argument over whether this particular murder is wrong. Because murder isn't just killing, it's wrongful killing. If this particular killing matches the definitions of murder, you know it's wrong. Theft isn't just taking an object, it's wrongful taking of someone else's property.

By extension, given how we use it, terrorism can't just be "use of force," it has to be wrongful use of force.

In other words, it's terrorism when the "bad guys" do something but it's not terrorism when the "good guys" do exactly the same thing. And of course, you repeat your asinine strawman conversion of "systematic use of fear" into "any kind of force".

Why don't you just quit digging this hole for yourself while you can still see daylight?

[Ryan Thunder]

In other words, it's terrorism when the "bad guys" do something but it's not terrorism when the "good guys do exactly the same thing.

Remove the quotes, and yeah, pretty much, though maybe not so much good and bad as better and worse.

In this situation we don't want Iran getting nukes while they're still a theocracy.

I figure there has to be a better way to do it than simply murdering scientists, though.

[LaCroix]

@Ryan Thunder

From the Iranian perspective, this is a case of one of the "bad boys" (Israel) trying to undermine the attempts of the "good guys" (Iran) to get the necessary weapon parity (nukes) to defend them against rogue theocracies (Israel and the United States of America) who are already preparing to attack the Iran.

[Simon_Jester]

In other words, it's terrorism when the "bad guys" do something but it's not terrorism when the "good guys" do exactly the same thing.

Damn it, I may be wrong on the general question but I never said that. Remember...

I think it is pretty easy to define whether an act is terrorism or not. Assume the US would be the victim of the attacks and the perpetrators Al-Quida. Think that is going to be classified as anything other than terrorism?

If Al Qaeda killed a scientist working on nuclear weapons at Los Alamos? No, I don't think that would be terrorism. It will be classified as terrorism, but that's because the US likes to call everything it doesn't like "terrorism."

As far as state propaganda (any state) is concerned, the word "terrorism" isn't a real word with a real definition. It's an insult, almost as meaningless as calling your opponent a motherfucker.

So I don't use it that way...

If you don't like my country, don't like my country's weapons programs, and decide to kill off my country's weapons scientists to stop them, I can call it a lot of things. I can call it a crime, I can call it an act of aggression, I can call it an act of war.

But I won't, and I certainly shouldn't, call it terrorism. It doesn't matter if it's the Russians, or Al Qaeda, or the Iranians, or anyone else. It doesn't matter who does the act. It matters what the act is, who it's done to, and what it's done for. Just like with "murder-" murder is still murder no matter who does it, but killing may not be murder depending on who it's done to, and why.

As far as I'm concerned, Israel killing Iranian weapon* scientists isn't terrorism, and it wouldn't be terrorism if the Iranians did it right back to the Israelis, either. Turnabout is fair play- which, come to think of it, is the reason I never favored going to war against Iran over their nuclear program, because it would be hypocritical for me to pretend they aren't allowed to have nuclear weapons just because I don't like their government.

*(I say nothing about killing civilian scientists- that I'm willing to call terrorism, because that's a different target.)

And of course, you repeat your asinine strawman conversion of "systematic use of fear" into "any kind of force".

"Systematic use of fear" has a clear meaning, but it includes a lot of borderline cases. What are the limits of it?

Is any deliberate attempt to scare a group of people "systematic use of fear?" I'd think so, there's a one to one relationship there.
Spoiler

Does it matter if the intimidation is secondary? What if you do something for reasons of your own, and it scares people enough that they give you what you want? Win a war with Country B in a dramatic fashion- Country C may view it as a deterrent. Maybe it was terrorism before the side effect happened- I'm not disputing that. But if winning the war dramatically wasn't terrorism before, would it become terrorism because now you're hoping that it will intimidate people into doing what you want, on top of your other motives?

If someone tries to intimidate an enemy using a harmless but scary display of force, something like holding military exercises on the border, that's a systematic use of fear to achieve a political objective. The violence isn't actively used, but everyone knows it's there- just as you can commit assault without actually hurting anyone. Is it terrorism? It would certainly be terrorism if you phoned in the bomb threats overtly, instead of leaving someone else to fill in the blanks.

Is it terrorism when the attack is meant to cause fear in a nation, but is directed solely against its military? Is it terrorism to blow up the barracks of an occupying army? Is it terrorism to blow up a warship at anchor?

Is a surprise attack, something like the British attack on Copenhagen or the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, an act of terrorism? There's always a psychological component to surprise attacks, even when the target itself is "knock out their weapons.

I can accept that the answers to all these questions are "yes." I can accept that it really is always terrorism to use violence to cause fear for a political objective, no matter what else is going on.

But if that's true... It's not hard for me to imagine times when scaring someone by the use of force is the lesser evil, compared to something like a long, bloody war or having your country occupied and pillaged. So if you think it's always terrorism to use violence to cause fear for a political objective, I'd really like to know: do you think terrorism is necessarily wrong?


I know why I think terrorism is always wrong: because I don't think it's terrorism if you're not attacking innocent targets, if you're not being indiscriminate and vicious about the way you plan the attacks, if the direct damage you do to your enemy is more important to you than the fear, and so on.

But I couldn't say "terrorism is always wrong" if I thought Iraqi guerillas blowing up American patrols were terrorists. If I thought they were terrorists, I'd have a hard time saying terrorism was always wrong, because guerilla warfare against an occupying army isn't always wrong- and if Iraqis are terrorists for doing it, then so is anyone else, whether they're right or wrong to be doing it.

So I really do think there's an inconsistency here, if you think both that "systematic use of force to cause fear" is enough to make an act of violence terrorism, and that terrorism is always wrong.

As far as I'm concerned, if you try to believe both of those, then you have to start being hypocritical about what you call terrorism- because you'll see times where you sympathize with the "terrorists" more than you do with their targets. If you think Iraqi guerillas killing US troops was terrorism- and it was certainly a systematic use of violence to cause fear- how do you not call the French Resistance terrorists, except by ignoring terrorism when the "good guys" are doing it?

[irishmick79]

I guess my hangup falls into the definition of nuclear scientists - if you're getting your paycheck from the military, you're doing work with military applications (presumably for the military), maybe living in housing provided for by the military, is it really fair to call you a civilian? This goes for the scientists at Los Alamos or elsewhere - sounds to me like they would be civilians in name only. Of course, it's a little premature to even get drawn into that argument when you can't even reliably judge if these scientists are in fact working on weapons or not.

The problem is that Israel allegedly is waging this campaign on universities as well, to discourage anybody from even getting into that field of study.

Aren't some Iranian universities on US and EU sanction lists because the government was suspected of using those university facilities for the alleged weapons program?

[Thanas]

I don't know and would ask you to provide evidence that the university the assassinated guy worked on was part of that, and whether it was just a "do not ship stuff there because the military might take it" affair or if they were noted as being directly involved with that.

[irishmick79]

I don't know and would ask you to provide evidence that the university the assassinated guy worked on was part of that, and whether it was just a "do not ship stuff there because the military might take it" affair or if they were noted as being directly involved with that.

Is the university he worked for listed anywhere? I've looked through a couple of news sources and so far haven't found it listed. That being said, there are several major Iranian universities that have been listed as possible suspect entities related to WMD development. A fairly comprehensive list can be found at www.iranwatch.org. Tehran University and Malek Ashtar University are on the list as having been entities of concern since 2008 or so.

[Thanas]

I skipped through that list. Apparently researching anything "related to nuclear power" is enough to land you on that list. I find that pretty bad proof as to whether guys are actually working on nuclear weapons or just doing their jobs as nuclear physicists.

[irishmick79]

I skipped through that list. Apparently researching anything "related to nuclear power" is enough to land you on that list. I find that pretty bad proof as to whether guys are actually working on nuclear weapons or just doing their jobs as nuclear physicists.

Each entity has different data. Some of the entries are definitely on the skimpy side, but there is a lot of detail in some others. The list is supposed to be as comprehensive a look at Iran's nuclear activities as possible. The entries for Tehran university, for instance, go into detail about Britain, Germany and Japan denying export licenses and some of the history.

Here's the text in the entry for Tehran University:

Listed by the British government in 2008 as an entity of potential concern for WMD-related procurement, and has had export licenses both granted and denied by that government; listed by the Japanese government in 2007 as an entity of concern for biological, chemical and nuclear weapon proliferation; intended recipient of a mass spectrometer, the procurement of which was denied on April 25, 2002, by a member state of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG); identified by the British government in February 1998 as having procured goods and/or technology for weapons of mass destruction programs (specifically nuclear), in "addition to doing non-proliferation related business;" in 2004, the National Council of Resistance of Iran identified three nuclear scientists affiliated with Tehran University: Dr. Ali Pazirandeh, a nuclear physics professor who "cooperates with the Special Industries in the Military Industries Organization under the Defense Ministry," Dr. Ali Muhammadi, a physics professor who "cooperates with the IRGC and Imam Hussein University," and Dr. Hedayati Pour, who "cooperates with the military forces."

Established in 1934; comprised of 17 faculties, two higher educational complexes, four educational centers or institutes, 14 research institutes and three information services institutes; consists of the Main Campus, North Kargar Campus, Karaj Campus, Varamin Campus, Qom Campus and Choka Campus; in 1992, its faculties of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmacology separated, forming the Tehran University of Medical Sciences (see separate entity record); as of January 2008, President is Ayatollah Amid Zanjani, reportedly an appointee and the first cleric to head the university.