Comment by Manuel_D
17 hours ago
The idea is that incurring a few hundred civilians deaths to liberate Iranians from a regime that slaughtered them by the thousands or tens of thousands is a net positive for human life. Of course this only works as a justification if the Iranians actually are liberated front their regime, which I don't think they will.
But the justification, if the liberation actually transpires, is sound. An order of magnitude more French and Dutch died at the hands of Allied bombing and shelling in 1944. I think most agree the the upside of being liberated from Germany makes the Allied landings a net positive, though.
But to reiterate, I really doubt the revolutionary guard is going to lose control of Iran.
This aligns with conversations I’ve had with Iranians. They really do believe that the ends justify the means here if they can destroy the regime.
Iranians abroad or Iranians in Iran?
Because the ones abroad don't have a lot to lose and much to gain. The ones in Iran have a lot to lose as well.
Like being killed if they said they want regime change.
Congratulations for rediscovering Machiavelli. “The ends justify the means” is such a winning philosophy.
The ends do alter the acceptability of the means. E.g. if I offered you the means of “pay money to flip coin to make money as many times as possible” and the numbers involved were $50k if heads, lose $1k if tails and $50 buy in that’s way different if the numbers involved were $1k if heads, lose $50k if tails and $500k buy in.
If you can’t alter your reasoning to include outcomes then you will make poorer decisions.
The situation is hardly comparable.
The French and Dutch were members of the Allies, with Charles de Gaulle as leader of the Free-French forces and Queen Wilhelmina the head of the Dutch government-in-exile, both in London. Both wanted the allies to get the Germans out of their countries.
There is no government-in-exile calling for the bombing of Iran as a method for liberation.
Just as Laos did not call for the US to drop some 2 million tons on that country - more than were dropped on Japan, Germany and Britain during World War II - resulting in the deaths of over 200,000 people, as part of the US's ineffective attempt to "liberate" North Vietnam.
> Of course this only works as a justification
If killing those kids was instrumental in a greater good, only then is it worth being philosophical about. From what I've seen, they were too eager with the bang bang boom boom to actually double check that it was a valid target.
Double checked?
They fed ancient intelligence into an AI which spit out a target list that nobody seems to have checked, period.
No one wants to liberate Iran. Israel just wants to continue committing genocide and apartheid without any opposition. Iran arms Hezbollah and Hamas, the main forms of Palestinian resistance. The whole point of this operation is to decimate those groups so ethnic cleansing can continue without any resistance. Israel could care less about the Irani people.
You are very naive if you think the IRGC truly killed 10's of thousands of it's own people. Israel openly talks about Mossad organizing and supporting the coup, and good old Donny has admitted they have given weapons to organized resistance.
I estimate that many of the death numbers come from armed resistance being killed by the IRGC, not ordinary peaceful protestors. I also think armed resistance killed many Irani citizens. There is obviously fog of war here. The thousands of deaths were likely inflated and obfuscated.
Look at the coups we have backed in the middle east (including formerly in Iran which is what originally led to the Islamic revolution) -- and you will see a pattern. Both US and Israel provide material support to groups like ISIS or actors like Bin Laden. An Al-Qaeda fighter is literally the head of Syria now thanks to Israel.
I don't love Hamas, IRGC or Hezbollah, I don't like their ideology. But it is myopic to think they exist in a vaccum.
I wouldn't personally do so, but arguably those tens of thousands rest at our feet considering the current government was political blowback from the US and UK regime changing Iran back in the '50s.
It's even less likely to work because Trump has already claimed, publicly, to arming the protestors. That already makes any regime change illegitimate. They're all foreign backed agitators.
I bring it up because this shit is messy.