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from the We-have-always-been-at-war-with-Eurasia dept.
Iran Doesn't Have a Nuclear Weapons Program. Why Do Media Keep Saying It Does?
When it comes to Iran, do basic facts matter? Evidently not, since dozens and dozens of journalists keep casually reporting that Iran has a "nuclear weapons program" when it does not—a problem FAIR has reported on over the years (e.g., 9/9/15). Let's take a look at some of the outlets spreading this falsehood in just the past five days:
Business Insider (10/13/17): "The deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), aims to incentivize Iran to curb its nuclear weapons program by lifting crippling international economic sanctions."
New Yorker (10/16/17): "One afternoon in late September, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called a meeting of the six countries that came together in 2015 to limit Iran's nuclear weapons program."
Washington Post (10/16/17): "The administration is also considering changing or scrapping an international agreement regarding Iran's nuclear weapons program."
CNN (10/17/17): "In reopening the nuclear agreement, [Trump] risks having Iran advance its nuclear weapons program at a time when he confronts a far worse nuclear challenge from North Korea that he can't resolve."
The problem with all of these excerpts: There is no documentation that Iran has a nuclear weapons program.
(Score: 2) by n1 on Monday October 23 2017, @06:36AM (5 children)
The same with DPRK on their 'capabilities' ... What do they have to gain from actually attacking anything?
You blow your load once, then retaliation would be swift and decisive in such a situation, all that wealth and power gone, and probably before they even got to brag about it.
The defensive value of nuclear weapons is the main selling point, it's the geopolitical version of the right to bear arms. You carry a deadly, offensive weapon, for self-defense. You do not want to shoot a person, even if it was really expensive and you've spent hundreds of hours practicing using it. You want to be prepared and capable should a situation arise, primarily mostly you just want to be left alone.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Monday October 23 2017, @07:14AM
Why the scare quotes? North Korea has actually detonated several nuclear bombs. And in the worst case, where the NK leadership is going to die anyway (say because they're on the losing side of a revolt), it's one way to guarantee that your successors pay dearly for it (either with a direct attack by nukes or by the retaliatory strike from whoever you hit). I think aside from a few die-hard communists, there's little disagreement that the NK leadership is the most detached from reality in the world. It wouldn't make sense to treat their thinking as a normal person, particularly if they become very desperate.
It's also worth remembering that in any large-scale nuclear war, the best defense is to attack before your nuclear forces are destroyed by a first strike. At that point, false alarms, particularly from parties that have at most a few minutes to make decisions (such as Iran or Israel deciding whether they're being attacked by the other side), can be very deadly.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 23 2017, @12:20PM (1 child)
My reply pretty much echoes Khallow's post. The Iranians have done some stuff over the years that doesn't look especially rational to the west. But, they don't act irrationally. I hope I've distinguised between "doesn't look very rational" and batfuck crazy. NK leadership, in my books, is batfuck crazy. We could trust almost anyone from Iran to take care of your children - not so North Korean leadership. I wouldn't trust Kim or his family to care for any living thing on earth, let alone my kids.
Further, as Khallow suggests, NK has a proven history of antagonizing everyone in the region, as well as all the world powers with their detonations, missile overflights, and rhetoric. Iran may be a slow cooker, NK is the pot boiling over on the kitchen range.
There really isn't much comparison between the two.
If I had a choice in the matter - if I could play God, I would take all of NK's technical and warmaking capabilities, and give them to Iran. The world may not be a LOT better off, but it would be at least marginally better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @04:38PM
if I could play God, I would take all of NK's technical and warmaking capabilities, and give them to Iran.
Yeah, you're just a sucker for those big beautiful round eyes.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday October 23 2017, @01:55PM (1 child)
That's the bully vs bullied thing and the long term multi century history of countries and cultures thing.
So the Iranians, Germans (unified or not...), French, English, Israelis (when they had a country in the old days) have spent the last 3000 years periodically screwing over their neighbors and fighting for the sheer hell of it and generally smashing stuff up "because its there" similar to the old quote about why climb mountains. So nuclear arming those countries sounds really stupid and irresponsible from the perspective of world peace. Naturally, those are the countries we've armed with nukes LOL. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with giving such friendly and peaceful people nukes LOL?
On the other hand there's countries like Poland and Korea which have been brutalized speedbumps for large empires for most of recorded history. So you give them rifles and instead of invading Germany they kinda chill. So you give them tanks and instead of rolling thru Paris they chill out. Give them nukes and they'll sit on them until the next empire thinks it would be funny to run them over like a speed bump. I'm not really seeing a huge problem here? I mean, who are the least likely people on the planet to set off a nuke as a strategic or tactical military strike, the Poles, the Koreans, maybe Iceland or Costa Rica...
Much like American politics everyone knows sometimes whats said is the opposite of action, to appease. Likewise the norks talk a good game about how they'll kick everyones ass repeatedly every day of the week, but in practice they're one of the more peaceful countries out there, they have no bases all over the world, they haven't done an amphibious invasion of Japan, they don't even try to drive tanks up to Peking, they're like the drunk guy who can't even stand up to fight but hollers about kicking everyone's butt. I'm trying to think of the norks most impressive civilization-scale military victory... I guess they sat down during the Korean Police Action and let the Chinese retake their country for them. Or they do 007 spy stuff once in awhile.
The above was like semi-factual historical analysis. For anecdotes sake my Korean ex-coworker described the norks as hillbilly isolationists, I donno if this is universal among SK or just his political faction. The point of view expressed was if you leave the norks alone the odds are certain they'll leave you alone, kinda like the Swiss, its deeply ingrained in their temperament.
I mean, cross out the names to eliminate preconceived bias, and look at the dossier of the last couple thousand years of English foreign policy vs Korean, perhaps, and its kinda obvious which one makes the world relatively safer if they have nukes.
The hidden analogy of the Star Trek Universe isn't that the Ferengi are Jews, although that is pretty funny, its that the Klingons are Euros, not Africans. In Star Trek world the Africans are that stone age tribe from the recent action flick that were still pounding rocks together. The warlike Klingons are Prussians not Somalians. You can tell its a good SN post when the Trek analogies come out to play.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @06:08PM
In ST:DIS, Klingon culture has a striking resemblance to the alt-right, which dovetails nicely with the allusions to the N-word in earlier productions that take place later in the 23rd century.