Iran Cracks US Stealth Spy Drone’s Secrets, Shows Proof

[Aaron MkII]

No if Iran aspires to the bomb its because the Western nations have fucked about with them for decades. So they get nukes, big fucking deal, their less crazy then Pakistan whose had them for what, 30 years? And they backed the Taliban, branches of their government still do.

Dial down your fear dude, lest you have a heart attack.

[HMS Conqueror]

Fear is a useful defence mechanism. These kids would have been better served by being more afraid of the iran government than they were:

Disturbing photo here.

But fuck them imperialist amereichkkka must not be allowed to oppress this beautiful indigenous culture.

Photo placed in a link. Don't pull this again - SCRawl

[evilsoup]

You realise that the only way for real change to come about on that stuff is through internal movement, right? We can (and should) help in certain ways - help setting up education and infrastructure, and push to end censorship... but trying to force change will, if anything, make things worse (because the people there would react in a kneejerk way against imperialism, and that would force the issue to become even more ingrained).

And like Destructinator wrote, Iran is actually one of the less-bad countries in the middle east. I would certainly prefer to live there as a citizen than Saudi Arabia.

[Simon_Jester]

Frankly, Iran has all sorts of reasons for not wanting to rely on western sources of nuclear technology - like, say, the fact the west has supported coups and and armed their enemies with weapons of mass destruction, so who the fuck knows if they'll continue to support the reactors in the future?

And why? Because Iran is not a liberal democracy. This is part of their campaign to remain not a liberal democracy. I regard that as a bad thing.

This appears to me to be a non sequitur. I get that you believe what you are saying, but it doesn't seem like a logical reaction to what he said.

Really?

The reason we are worried about Iran having the capacity to make a bomb, and the alleged reason they want a bomb, is we think they might do Bad Things that we might want to stop, and if they have a bomb we will not be able to. We also worry they might do something crazy with the bomb. If we were dealing with some sort of mega-Belgium in central asia it might raise eyebrows and probably would be protested, but people wouldn't be that worried. Nor would mega-Belgium have much reason to fear being attacked to prompt it to make a bomb, at least not by the West.

The root cause of the problem is that Iran is a nutty quasi-dictatorship that publicly hangs gays and political dissenters from cranes mounted to the back of trucks.

What I don't get is the connection, why what you said is a response to what he said. Iran has reasons not to want to rely on outside sources for even peaceful nuclear technology.

Your counterargument seems to be "well, Iran is evil, so of course outsiders mess with them!"

Does that mean you think it is not true that Iran has reasons not to want to rely on outside sources? Or... something else? Or should your statement not actually be viewed as connected to the one you quote?

BTW: here's something that might blow your mind... Iran's policy toward transsexuals is relatively progressive, even when compared to most the United States. The government helps with the surgury costs and you can have all legal documents reassigned.

Do you know why? Because they regard it as a process of turning gay men into women, and they'd rather have a (conventional, oppressed) Iranian woman around than a gay Iranian man.

What's their policy on female-to-male transsexuals?

You realise that the only way for real change to come about on that stuff is through internal movement, right? We can (and should) help in certain ways - help setting up education and infrastructure, and push to end censorship... but trying to force change will, if anything, make things worse (because the people there would react in a kneejerk way against imperialism, and that would force the issue to become even more ingrained).

And like Destructinator wrote, Iran is actually one of the less-bad countries in the middle east. I would certainly prefer to live there as a citizen than Saudi Arabia.

The Iranian government has gotten good at blaming foreigners for things whether they really happened or not- it works on the Iranian people because they really have been interfered with in the past by foreigners so much, including events that took place before the US had even the slightest interest in the region.

I'm not at all sure that helping them improve their well-being on their government's present terms would be effective at shaking up that government's control. If you want to do it for other reasons fine, but don't pitch it as a way to bring democracy to Iran.

[Aaron MkII]

Fear is a useful defence mechanism. These kids would have been better served by being more afraid of the iran government than they were:



But fuck them imperialist amereichkkka must not be allowed to oppress this beautiful indigenous culture.

Who the hell said anything about "beautiful indigenous culture"?

But go ahead and demonstrate that hanging homosexuals means they'll be nuking people.

Edit; sorry didn't want to quote the image.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Also, thanks for posting the image. I really didn't want or need to see that. Asshole.

Ultimately, Iran is only going to be bombed to oblivion by the US/Israel if they attack first with nukes. And I seriosuly doubt anyone is that insane. Fundie or otherwise.

[SCRawl]

I've turned that photo into a link, so future generations won't have to see it if they don't want to be disturbed. Let's at least try to make things look like they're civilized here.

[Aaron MkII]

I'm enjoying this thread, I must say. First HMS pulls out "if they are innocent then they have nothing to fear", clearly proved false by Iraq. Now we believe that Iran has a beautiful and unique culture that can't be destroyed because we're liberals.

Maybe we just don't want another shifty war? And no I don't trust Iran, nor do I trust the US.

Shifty=shitty.

[evilsoup]

I'm not at all sure that helping them improve their well-being on their government's present terms would be effective at shaking up that government's control. If you want to do it for other reasons fine, but don't pitch it as a way to bring democracy to Iran.

I'm thinking quite long-term. Once people are sure where there next meal is going to come from, they can start arguing about gay rights and women's rights. When they have a higher level of education, you'll see more people making arguments for gay rights and so on; and with a more educated general population there will be a better chance of a hearing for those views. Contact with the outside world will speed up this process.

Trying to directly force them, while appealing (because we can see results right away), probably would be counter-productive because it would legitimise the reactionary anti-western elements in Iran. Homophobia-as-badge of anti-imperialism would not be a good outcome.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm enjoying this thread, I must say. First HMS pulls out "if they are innocent then they have nothing to fear", clearly proved false by Iraq. Now we believe that Iran has a beautiful and unique culture that can't be destroyed because we're liberals.

Maybe we just don't want another shifty war? And no I don't trust Iran, nor do I trust the US.

Shifty=shitty.

That's pretty much how I feel about the war-avoiding. I don't think it's wise, desirable, or right to fight a war with Iran specifically over their nuclear bomb program, even though I think they have such a program.

Because fighting a war over that comes down to "we might not be able to fight a war with you later at our convenience, so we'll fight a war with you now." Which is a horrible attitude.

But if you look at the position D-13 is staking out, I do not think he's really that far from "don't damage Iran's beautiful culture." I get that he's antiwar, but he's way too ready to take the Iranian side of stories in a way that would seem ridiculous to most of us if he took the US side the same way.

If you care more about being right than you do about an ideology, it's very dangerous to say "X lies, therefore people X hates are trustworthy." Or even "therefore people X hates are good."

But see, I don't think you and D-13 actually think the same thing about this.

I'm not at all sure that helping them improve their well-being on their government's present terms would be effective at shaking up that government's control. If you want to do it for other reasons fine, but don't pitch it as a way to bring democracy to Iran.

I'm thinking quite long-term. Once people are sure where there next meal is going to come from, they can start arguing about gay rights and women's rights. When they have a higher level of education, you'll see more people making arguments for gay rights and so on; and with a more educated general population there will be a better chance of a hearing for those views. Contact with the outside world will speed up this process.

Trying to directly force them, while appealing (because we can see results right away), probably would be counter-productive because it would legitimise the reactionary anti-western elements in Iran. Homophobia-as-badge of anti-imperialism would not be a good outcome.

Suffice to say that your model makes sense if all civilizations are evolving along the same track in the same direction, from "religious despotism" towards "secular democratic neoliberalism."

I'm not sure I buy that model. So I'm not so sure that if you just pile money into a civilization that is now brutal and relatively poor, you'll get something that doesn't have anything... "wrong" with it from our perspective. Adding money to a Shi'ite theocracy will not necessarily create a clone of a secular Western democracy, even assuming that's the outcome you'd want.

[evilsoup]

I think it's pretty clear that I'm not saying 'just give Iran loads of money' (they have enough oil to make enough money anyway). I'm talking about education, which is pretty clearly linked to better rights for women and gays and other repressed groups. And also to stop these inane sanctions and bullshit posturing; let them come in from the cold, treat them with the same respect we treat other countries. If we were acting in good faith, I don't think they'd go out of their way to antagonise us. OK they would try to extend influence over the region, but shit they're not actually going to invade anyone; and the terrorist groups they support only exist and have so much support because of legitimate grievances.

And when they are relaxed, their government won't keep playing the 'imperial west' card; and if they do it will increasingly ring hollow.

[Aaron MkII]

I'm enjoying this thread, I must say. First HMS pulls out "if they are innocent then they have nothing to fear", clearly proved false by Iraq. Now we believe that Iran has a beautiful and unique culture that can't be destroyed because we're liberals.

Maybe we just don't want another shifty war? And no I don't trust Iran, nor do I trust the US.

Shifty=shitty.

That's pretty much how I feel about the war-avoiding. I don't think it's wise, desirable, or right to fight a war with Iran specifically over their nuclear bomb program, even though I think they have such a program.

Because fighting a war over that comes down to "we might not be able to fight a war with you later at our convenience, so we'll fight a war with you now." Which is a horrible attitude.

But if you look at the position D-13 is staking out, I do not think he's really that far from "don't damage Iran's beautiful culture." I get that he's antiwar, but he's way too ready to take the Iranian side of stories in a way that would seem ridiculous to most of us if he took the US side the same way.

If you care more about being right than you do about an ideology, it's very dangerous to say "X lies, therefore people X hates are trustworthy." Or even "therefore people X hates are good."

But see, I don't think you and D-13 actually think the same thing about this.

I'm not at all sure that helping them improve their well-being on their government's present terms would be effective at shaking up that government's control. If you want to do it for other reasons fine, but don't pitch it as a way to bring democracy to Iran.

I'm thinking quite long-term. Once people are sure where there next meal is going to come from, they can start arguing about gay rights and women's rights. When they have a higher level of education, you'll see more people making arguments for gay rights and so on; and with a more educated general population there will be a better chance of a hearing for those views. Contact with the outside world will speed up this process.

Trying to directly force them, while appealing (because we can see results right away), probably would be counter-productive because it would legitimise the reactionary anti-western elements in Iran. Homophobia-as-badge of anti-imperialism would not be a good outcome.

Suffice to say that your model makes sense if all civilizations are evolving along the same track in the same direction, from "religious despotism" towards "secular democratic neoliberalism."

I'm not sure I buy that model. So I'm not so sure that if you just pile money into a civilization that is now brutal and relatively poor, you'll get something that doesn't have anything... "wrong" with it from our perspective. Adding money to a Shi'ite theocracy will not necessarily create a clone of a secular Western democracy, even assuming that's the outcome you'd want.

Yeah, I don't quite reach D13s level. I just don't want another bs war, partiallybecause I don't need more dead friends but I also don't think we have the right to tell them what to do.

[Simon_Jester]

And if we bomb "them", we're not just "changing a regime". We're killing regular people who do regular things. I know this sounds fucking obvious, but when you're swimming in war propaganda, it is all too easy to forget it.

That's pretty much why I think it would be a bad idea to fight the war.

But put this way, Iranian state TV is a mirror image. Which means that it's okay to listen to them being normal guys, but if they're talking politics and policy and shit, they're probably just as full of crap as White House press releases, which I wouldn't trust any farther than I can throw the podium these days.

So I figure the Iranians are basically normal people ruled by religious assholes as opposed to corporatist assholes or racial-supremacist assholes or bureaucratic assholes or kleptocrat assholes. And I don't think we should have illusions.

That's happened before, to people of pacifist leanings- they keep making excuses for the worst asshole on the block, or one of them, because it's easier than admitting "yeah, this time my usual rule doesn't really work." It's one of the ways that the left becomes most vulnerable to the right, too: the tendency to paint Mao Zedong as an "agrarian reformer" or the Stalinist purges as "what was necessary for progress" because you can't admit that the enemy of someone you don't like may be as bad or worse as the guy you don't like.

So maybe I'm hypersensitive to that, because it strikes me as one of the ways that decent and civilizing forces in modern society can subvert and neutralize themselves.

So I'm not so sure that if you just pile money into a civilization that is now brutal and relatively poor, you'll get something that doesn't have anything... "wrong" with it from our perspective.

America has a whole shitload of things that are "wrong" with it, but I'm sure most of us will agree it is a pretty good place to live.

To borrow Barack Obama's words, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

What I mean is, I'm not sure you'd get even that.

The argument makes sense if you think that all civilizations evolve along basically the same path- that there is no significant alternative way to be a modern society, one worse than the broadly self-similar models we've got in the US and Europe (and Asia). But I'm dubious of that, because we've got counterexamples in the form of what the planned economies might have evolved into. Counterexamples in the form of the 'surveillance state' that some suspect Britain (and other countries) may evolve into. And so on.

And that's just the set of possibilities that exist among Europe and the US, countries whose basic philosophical and cultural outlooks are closely tied, constantly cross-fertilizing, and which share a common point of departure less than two hundred years ago.

So I don't know what the Iranians might evolve into, if you throw money at them. Therefore, I consider it very illogical to say that throwing money at Iran is smart as a way to make the Iranians walk the path of righteousness (whatever that path may be). If you're going to do it, do it for other reasons.

[Vashon]

Afghanistan was invaded for harbouring Bin Laden, unless you think he doesn't exist/didn't do WTC.

Pakistan was "harbouring" him too. We haven't invaded them yet. Bloodlust was a big motivator for the Afghanistan invasion, regardless of whether you think offers to turn Bin Laden over by the various factions were legitimate.

Iraq was unfortunate, but do you think less reconnaissance would have made it less likely that Iraq would have been invaded? It was the doubt that gave ground for peoples' suspicions to predominate over the incomplete evidence.

No, it was avarice, expediency, greed and a base uncaring for the lives of brown people.

There wasn't "incomplete evidence" shithead, there was OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE AGAINST the existence of WMD programs.

But the US went out of their way to restructure all of their intelligence programs to create a special clearinghouse to only let through the stuff that Rummy and co. instructed them to.

I go this far into the thread before I stopped caring about the responses. Dude, the reason Pakistan hasnt gotten slapped down for an immeasurable amount of bullshit is because Pakistan has nuclear weapons and we dont onow where they all are.

As far as Iran goes, we should have headed it off and gave and built them Thorium reactors and other such reactors incapable of being used for nukes.

But now? Now they have the infrastructure in place to eventually become a nuclear power. Whether in this decade or the next, they will have them if for no other reason than for selfdefense. I doubt they will use them unless provked though. They know the consequences for doing so sums up to:extermination. Hopefully it will force Israel to cqlm down. But yeah, Pakistan has nukes and we dont know how many or the location of all of them. So yeah.

[weemadando]

Thank you for entirely missing the point.

[Simon_Jester]

I will admit that the US habit of moving the goalposts in negotiations with the Iranians over this stuff is... incredibly dumb. It's the sort of thing done by posturing idiots who care more about scoring points and situational looking-tough than about any kind of stable arrangement.

On the other hand, the entire point of the deal would be to prevent the Iranians from slowly sidling toward nuclear capability- so insisting that they stop enriching uranium makes a certain amount of sense in that context. The Brazil/Turkey-Iran 'swap' deal you discussed here (1200 kg of enriched uranium for some highly-enriched fuel rods) seems kind of pointless if the Iranians just keep turning out more enriched uranium.

Given what the US has been trying to accomplish from square one, I can't figure out why the US didn't include "and stop enriching uranium" as part of its list of requests in the first place.

[Stark]

The idea that 'stopping Iran sliding towards nuclear capability' is achievable is probably the biggest institutional problem whatever organisations conduct these negotiations have. You can't compromise when you are holding back the idea that they'll give it up entirely. So there are negotiations, agreements, and then someone says BUT CAN'T WE MAKE THEM STOP and it was all a waste of time because nobody wants to answer that with 'no, we can't'.

[Simon_Jester]

The idea that 'stopping Iran sliding towards nuclear capability' is achievable is probably the biggest institutional problem whatever organisations conduct these negotiations have. You can't compromise when you are holding back the idea that they'll give it up entirely. So there are negotiations, agreements, and then someone says BUT CAN'T WE MAKE THEM STOP and it was all a waste of time because nobody wants to answer that with 'no, we can't'.

I think this is true; I don't think anyone can really induce Iran to stop working on nuclear capability, and it probably is a waste of time to try. I don't know if it's worthwhile to simply try and delay an Iranian bomb through negotiations either; if it leads to endless rounds of sanctioning and huffing and puffing and posturing, probably not.

But if the US isn't demanding that Iran stop enriching uranium, then that doesn't line up with the US's stated (rather stupid) policy regarding Iran. Which, of course, would be no dumber than any of a dozen other things the US says and does about Iran. The whole thing is being totally mismanaged because it's more about face-saving and gestures made to ignorant jingoists on the domestic front than it is about peace in the Middle East.

I doubt the Iranians are doing much better on their end.

[Vashon]

I will admit that the US habit of moving the goalposts in negotiations with the Iranians over this stuff is... incredibly dumb. It's the sort of thing done by posturing idiots who care more about scoring points and situational looking-tough than about any kind of stable arrangement.

On the other hand, the entire point of the deal would be to prevent the Iranians from slowly sidling toward nuclear capability- so insisting that they stop enriching uranium makes a certain amount of sense in that context. The Brazil/Turkey-Iran 'swap' deal you discussed here (1200 kg of enriched uranium for some highly-enriched fuel rods) seems kind of pointless if the Iranians just keep turning out more enriched uranium.

Given what the US has been trying to accomplish from square one, I can't figure out why the US didn't include "and stop enriching uranium" as part of its list of requests in the first place.

What point? The one that is hardly legitimate in my eyes? This 'bloodlust' bullcrap is utterly pointless. Of course we we wanted revenge. It was the first successful attack on our home soil by Al-Qaeda. They rammed two planes into the towers, they commited an act of war.

That didnt end well for them.


As far as Des goes...dude Bin Laden took credit multiple times. The rest of your drivel is just you shouting your opinion with no intentions of hearing other arguements aside from something to yell at.

[Simon_Jester]

bin Laden absolutely did not take credit before we attacked. He denied it at first.

He tried to blow up the World Trade Center before. That's at least circumstantial evidence supporting the theory that he tried to do it again. Combined with the confession, and the fact that the US hasn't even tried to find another culprit for the attacks, I consider this one something of a slam-dunk.

Because it is really not credible that the US did it to itself (see trutherism). And if some entirely different party had done it, I don't think the US government would have just laughed that shit off and decided to go beat up Al Qaeda instead.

I will admit that the US habit of moving the goalposts in negotiations with the Iranians over this stuff is... incredibly dumb. It's the sort of thing done by posturing idiots who care more about scoring points and situational looking-tough than about any kind of stable arrangement.

On the other hand, the entire point of the deal would be to prevent the Iranians from slowly sidling toward nuclear capability- so insisting that they stop enriching uranium makes a certain amount of sense in that context. The Brazil/Turkey-Iran 'swap' deal you discussed here (1200 kg of enriched uranium for some highly-enriched fuel rods) seems kind of pointless if the Iranians just keep turning out more enriched uranium.

Given what the US has been trying to accomplish from square one, I can't figure out why the US didn't include "and stop enriching uranium" as part of its list of requests in the first place.

What point? The one that is hardly legitimate in my eyes? This 'bloodlust' bullcrap is utterly pointless. Of course we we wanted revenge. It was the first successful attack on our home soil by Al-Qaeda. They rammed two planes into the towers, they commited an act of war.

That didnt end well for them.

As far as Des goes...dude Bin Laden took credit multiple times. The rest of your drivel is just you shouting your opinion with no intentions of hearing other arguements aside from something to yell at.

...Are you talking to me?

'Cos see, I'm talking about Iran, and you're talking about Al-Qaeda and 9/11 and so on.

Do you... my God. Do you actually think Iran had anything whatsoever to do with 9/11 or Al-Qaeda?

Or are you just vaguely rambling about something the voices in your head told you?

[HMS Conqueror]

What I don't get is the connection, why what you said is a response to what he said. Iran has reasons not to want to rely on outside sources for even peaceful nuclear technology.

Your counterargument seems to be "well, Iran is evil, so of course outsiders mess with them!"

Does that mean you think it is not true that Iran has reasons not to want to rely on outside sources? Or... something else? Or should your statement not actually be viewed as connected to the one you quote?

The issues aren't separate. If Iran were part of the civilised world no one would be worried about them getting nuclear power plants and they would have no reason to worry about anyone attacking them. I completely agree that the present Iran has reason to fear being attacked - I just don't agree that this gives them moral justification to do what they're doing to stop it. If I hold up a bank I have reason to fear being attacked by the cops, but that doesn't mean I am morally justified in bringing a rocket launcher with me to stop them.

I'm enjoying this thread, I must say. First HMS pulls out "if they are innocent then they have nothing to fear", clearly proved false by Iraq.

Iraq obstructed inspectors and asserted sovereignty of its airspace. Collecting more information would have made that war less likely, not more.

Iraq also wasn't "innocent" is the more general sense of the term; I shed no tears for Saddam and his thugs.

[Stark]

Defending airspace from enemy spy planes is a hostile act; has been since the 60s. Jesus Aaron where have you BEEN?

Whistleblowers are traitors. Spies are heroes! But not of the revolution. Goddamn occupy communistas!

[HMS Conqueror]

If all they want is a string of nuclear power plants, they would accept an offer to help them build those plants, even if it denies them access to bomb-grade fissiles.

They did!

Here's the most recent deal's story, but it isn't the only one:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =126890138

The problem is we keep torpedoing these deals. We don't trust them, so we continue to push for sanctions despite these agreements, and still call them liars.

Keep in mind that Iran agreed to everything the US originally demanded, and we still pushed for more fucking sanctions.

But, it was still going to happen.

...until the United States backed out of it!

The reason they gave? It was bullshit.

The only one of these links that says anything like what you want it to say is a left wing blog post.

The others say that Iran accepted a deal negotiated with Turkey and Brazil, not the US, whereby it swaps low enriched uranium for high enriched uranium and keeps its centrifuge program. This gives it more high enriched fuel without removing its capability to produce bomb material. The "story", if it can be called that, is that Iran accepted a similar-sounding deal offered by other countries after rejecting a US deal, that furthermore does not even address the key point of their ability to domestically enrich uranium.

The whole point is to replace the domestic centrifuge program in exchange for powerplant grade (still higher than strictly necessary for powerplants anyway) uranium, which would allow them access to all civilian uses of nuclear power without access to bomb material.

[Aaron MkII]

What I don't get is the connection, why what you said is a response to what he said. Iran has reasons not to want to rely on outside sources for even peaceful nuclear technology.

Your counterargument seems to be "well, Iran is evil, so of course outsiders mess with them!"

Does that mean you think it is not true that Iran has reasons not to want to rely on outside sources? Or... something else? Or should your statement not actually be viewed as connected to the one you quote?

The issues aren't separate. If Iran were part of the civilised world no one would be worried about them getting nuclear power plants and they would have no reason to worry about anyone attacking them. I completely agree that the present Iran has reason to fear being attacked - I just don't agree that this gives them moral justification to do what they're doing to stop it. If I hold up a bank I have reason to fear being attacked by the cops, but that doesn't mean I am morally justified in bringing a rocket launcher with me to stop them.

I'm enjoying this thread, I must say. First HMS pulls out "if they are innocent then they have nothing to fear", clearly proved false by Iraq.

Iraq obstructed inspectors and asserted sovereignty of its airspace. Collecting more information would have made that war less likely, not more.

Iraq also wasn't "innocent" is the more general sense of the term; I shed no tears for Saddam and his thugs.

Find those WMDs yet dude? But hey Saddam was afraid of Iran and trying to keep them at bay. And while I shed no tears for him, him being bad doesn't make the war less illegal, or the reasons for it total bullshit.

[HMS Conqueror]

idk what moral weight should be assigned to international law, being as it is law written by and for criminals. To me the issue is this: while all states are guilty, some are more guilty than others. I'm on the side of the lesser evil surviving and spreading its values.