NYT: Iran Nuclear Scientist Was Killed By an 'AI-Assisted, Remote-Control Killing Machine' (msn.com) 353
For 14 years Israel had wanted to kill Iran's chief military nuclear scientist and the father of its weapons program, who they suspected of leading Iran's quest to build nuclear weapons.
Then last November "they came up with a way to do it with no operatives present" using a "souped-up, remote-controlled machine gun," according to the New York Times:
(Thanks to Slashdot readers schwit1 and PolygamousRanchKid for sharing this story.) Since 2004, when the Israeli government ordered its foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, the agency had been carrying out a campaign of sabotage and cyberattacks on Iran's nuclear fuel enrichment facilities. It was also methodically picking off the experts thought to be leading Iran's nuclear weapons program. Since 2007, its agents had assassinated five Iranian nuclear scientists and wounded another. Most of the scientists worked directly for Fakhrizadeh on what Israeli intelligence officials said was a covert program to build a nuclear warhead, including overcoming the substantial technical challenges of making one small enough to fit atop one of Iran's long-range missiles. Israeli agents had also killed the Iranian general in charge of missile development and 16 members of his team.
But the man Israel said led the bomb program was elusive... This time they were going to try something new.
Iranian agents working for the Mossad had parked a blue Nissan Zamyad pickup truck on the side of the road connecting Absard to the main highway. The spot was on a slight elevation with a view of approaching vehicles. Hidden beneath tarpaulins and decoy construction material in the truck bed was a 7.62 mm sniper machine gun... The assassin, a skilled sniper, took up his position, calibrated the gun sights, cocked the weapon and lightly touched the trigger. He was nowhere near Absard, however. He was peering into a computer screen at an undisclosed location more than 1,000 miles away... Cameras pointing in multiple directions were mounted on the truck to give the command room a full picture not just of the target and his security detail, but of the surrounding environment...
The time it took for the camera images to reach the sniper and for the sniper's response to reach the machine gun, not including his reaction time, was estimated to be 1.6 seconds, enough of a lag for the best-aimed shot to go astray.The AI was programmed to compensate for the delay, the shake and the car's speed.
Ultimately 15 bullets were fired in less than 60 seconds. None of them hit Fakhrizadeh's wife, who was seated just inches away.
The whole remote-controlled apparatus "was smuggled into the country in small pieces over several months," reports the Jerusalem Post, "because, taken together, all of its components would have weighed around a full ton." One new detail in the report was that the explosives used to destroy evidence of the remote-gun partially failed, leaving enough of the gun intact for the Iranians to figure out what had happened...
While all Israeli intelligence and defense officials still praise the assassination for setting back Iran's nuclear weapons program dramatically, 10 months later and with the Islamic Republic an estimated one month away from producing sufficient enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb, the legacy of the operation is less clear... On the other hand, others say that even if Iran decides to move its uranium enrichment up to 90%, that is weaponized level, they still have to put together the other components of a nuclear weapon capability. These include tasks concerned with detonation and missile delivery. Fakhizadeh would have shone in these tasks and his loss will still be felt and slow down the ayatollahs.
Then last November "they came up with a way to do it with no operatives present" using a "souped-up, remote-controlled machine gun," according to the New York Times:
(Thanks to Slashdot readers schwit1 and PolygamousRanchKid for sharing this story.) Since 2004, when the Israeli government ordered its foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, the agency had been carrying out a campaign of sabotage and cyberattacks on Iran's nuclear fuel enrichment facilities. It was also methodically picking off the experts thought to be leading Iran's nuclear weapons program. Since 2007, its agents had assassinated five Iranian nuclear scientists and wounded another. Most of the scientists worked directly for Fakhrizadeh on what Israeli intelligence officials said was a covert program to build a nuclear warhead, including overcoming the substantial technical challenges of making one small enough to fit atop one of Iran's long-range missiles. Israeli agents had also killed the Iranian general in charge of missile development and 16 members of his team.
But the man Israel said led the bomb program was elusive... This time they were going to try something new.
Iranian agents working for the Mossad had parked a blue Nissan Zamyad pickup truck on the side of the road connecting Absard to the main highway. The spot was on a slight elevation with a view of approaching vehicles. Hidden beneath tarpaulins and decoy construction material in the truck bed was a 7.62 mm sniper machine gun... The assassin, a skilled sniper, took up his position, calibrated the gun sights, cocked the weapon and lightly touched the trigger. He was nowhere near Absard, however. He was peering into a computer screen at an undisclosed location more than 1,000 miles away... Cameras pointing in multiple directions were mounted on the truck to give the command room a full picture not just of the target and his security detail, but of the surrounding environment...
The time it took for the camera images to reach the sniper and for the sniper's response to reach the machine gun, not including his reaction time, was estimated to be 1.6 seconds, enough of a lag for the best-aimed shot to go astray.The AI was programmed to compensate for the delay, the shake and the car's speed.
Ultimately 15 bullets were fired in less than 60 seconds. None of them hit Fakhrizadeh's wife, who was seated just inches away.
The whole remote-controlled apparatus "was smuggled into the country in small pieces over several months," reports the Jerusalem Post, "because, taken together, all of its components would have weighed around a full ton." One new detail in the report was that the explosives used to destroy evidence of the remote-gun partially failed, leaving enough of the gun intact for the Iranians to figure out what had happened...
While all Israeli intelligence and defense officials still praise the assassination for setting back Iran's nuclear weapons program dramatically, 10 months later and with the Islamic Republic an estimated one month away from producing sufficient enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb, the legacy of the operation is less clear... On the other hand, others say that even if Iran decides to move its uranium enrichment up to 90%, that is weaponized level, they still have to put together the other components of a nuclear weapon capability. These include tasks concerned with detonation and missile delivery. Fakhizadeh would have shone in these tasks and his loss will still be felt and slow down the ayatollahs.
Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to think.. (Score:2, Interesting)
"On the other hand, others say that even if Iran decides to move its uranium enrichment up to 90%, that is weaponized level, they still have to put together the other components of a nuclear weapon capability."
Right. Didn't the Hiroshima bomb basically use the barrel of a mortar to fire one sub-critical chunk of U235 at another? Not exactly rocket science here. As far as delivery, drop it from an airliner? Or just have an airliner on autopilot with the crew bailing out? This isn't 1945, and aircraft wi
Re:Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to thin (Score:5, Interesting)
Didn't the Hiroshima bomb basically use the barrel of a mortar to fire one sub-critical chunk of U235 at another?
Indeed. If you have sufficient 90% enriched U-235, you are basically done. Everyone who has ever reached that milestone has gone on to successfully build a bomb on the first try.
As far as delivery, drop it from an airliner?
Or just put it in a standard shipping container and put it on a container ship heading to the targeted port.
Pack it in a few hundred kg of lithium deuteride for some extra kick.
Re:Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to thin (Score:5, Informative)
"If they're a month away from enriching enough uranium to make a critical mass, they're two months away from a functional bomb."
Are they. If they are why would they. If they did why would they drop it. Why the focus? Why would anyone.
And two. Why is Israel openly and without impunity assassinating citizens in other countries?
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Bin Laden was not in USA when it was assassinated by special forces of the USA. Neither was the head of African ISIS (for whose death the French special forces are probably responsible).
Israel is not alone in this.
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Let's not forget that Russia has also been assassinating people outside its borders, and essentially because they embarrassed the Russian government rather than because of any danger they posed. Also of note were Kim Jong-nam and Jamal Khashoggi. If we look at assassinations by Iran, Saeed Karimian [wikipedia.org] is a recent example.
Re:Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to thin (Score:4, Interesting)
Basically, you need a couple of hotshot scientists or engineers to be able to build one of these things. The challenges are non-obvious and both theoretical and practical. It's not as simple as shoving a block of uranium into a mortar barrel and flinging it at another block. So this is actually a big setback for Iran.
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Iran already has enough material to make a radiological weapon; they can grind it into dust and use a crop-duster to deploy it.
Making a bomb? That's harder, but the hard part is more in getting it to not blow up when you don't want it to. The thing is, they need to test it. AFAIK there's n o way to tell if your design works until you actually fire it off. Once Iran does that the world will have only a short while to deal with the Iran nuclear problem.
Re:Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to thin (Score:4, Insightful)
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You're forgetting that in Iran the ayatollahs have a lot of power. There are 'realists' who think Iran should have a nuclear weapons deterrence but the dominant point of view is the ayatollah's and they believe that nukes are out of bounds for moral reasons, period. Let's say that either you're a religious fundamentalist or you aren't. What can be considered is nuclear capability: the threat of being able to eventually build nukes if you at some point got really committed to it, as opposed to not being able
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If Iran weren't run by a religious fundamentalist theocracy one of whose major tenets is to wipe Israel and their other enemies off the map, you might have a reasonable argument. If Iran got the bomb, it would be in everyone's self interest to turn the place into a parking lot.
And FYI, you should include Ukraine in your example. They had a shit ton of nuclear weapons after the Soviet Union broke up, but gave them away in return for Russia, the USA, Britain, China, and France signing a memorandum [wikipedia.org] to help pro
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I wonder where do you go shopping?
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The B-29 development cost (according to Wikipedia) was larger than Project Manhattan ($3 billion vs $2 billion, in current money it would be some $40 billion USD). None of the pre-war powers would have been able to field it, and - after WW2 - only the Soviet Union would be able to engage in something similar.
Meanwhile, any country could buy a similar (or larger) capability in the Hercules C-130J, or simply use one of their civilian Airbus aircrafts (which has higher speed, ceiling, twice (or more) the paylo
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Re: Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to th (Score:4, Informative)
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And he is correct. Iran has ALL of the technological precursors, the knowledge, raw materials, and manufacturing precursors to building at least a simple gun-type bomb they could air drop with near certain reliability.
The bigger challenge would be for them get a bomber over a target anyone cares about.
The bigger worry would be them developing a miniaturized bomb that could be delivered by missile. They have most of what they need to do that too - having worked closely with DPRK for so long on that
Re: Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to t (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to t (Score:4, Informative)
I would think the actual death tolls should factor in to consideration of who is seeking to kill whom: https://www.statista.com/chart [statista.com]...
I believe those statistics show more incompetence on one side than anything. If Israel wanted to commit genocide against Palestinians then they have every opportunity to do so. Which side is launching unguided missiles into the territory of the other? It's not Israel. Israel has a very effective early warning system, bomb shelters, and anti-missile systems. Then comes the medical care of those being targeted, as those getting competent and sophisticated care will be less likely to die. Palestinians want to die in the war. They believe this grants them reward in the afterlife, and it grants them rewards to their surviving kin from the government because that's what a sick suicidal culture will do. They also believe the higher death count gains them a moral high ground in the international courts. They hide behind their own children and disabled, daring the Israelis to fire upon them. It turns out that the Israelis are very skilled at hitting kneecaps with rifles. Palestinians throw firebombs and in return they lose a kneecap. Seems fair to me. Don't throw firebombs at the Israeli guards and your chances of losing a kneecap just dropped.
Israel set up a wide and well marked "buffer zone" at the border. People know that going there is going to run the risk of being shot at. Palestinians go there, carrying their children and disabled as human shields, to taunt the guards into responding. They will claim to be going there for a picnic, soccer games, and flying kites. What they leave out are that the kites are carrying incendiary devices that will be set loose to be carried over the wall and set fire to crops and homes. Sometimes they get shot and killed for their attacks. Sometimes they set themselves on fire. Given the rewards for death in battle it could make some wonder how many of these deaths and injuries are intentionally self-inflicted as opposed to accidental.
The death tolls tell us nothing.
Re: Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to t (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to th (Score:3, Insightful)
There is vidéo documentation of Israeli killing, women, children, fathers, bombing random buildings with zero verifiable evidence of supposed terrorists. Meanwhile, I guess you believe vague whispers of genocide in China without any concrete evidence.
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Their iron done can work out where the bombs were launched from so the fact civilians are in launch sites isnâ(TM)t Israelâ(TM)s fault.
Making the informed decision to bomb the area and not give a rats ass about the collateral damage is Israel's fault. There are some problems that can't be solved by bombing them and that's something both Hamas and the Israeli right wing should take into account.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Maybe you should look up the meaning of the word "terrorist". The palestinians are an oppressed nation fighting their last stand before extermination.
Re: Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to thi (Score:4, Insightful)
And these terrorists intentionally hide among the civilians. So they share at least some of the blame.
First part of that seems to be true. The second part of that sounds like collective punishment, which is normally considered unjust. Most people learn about how unjust it is when they're in school and have to deal with teachers who use collective punishment of the whole class when they don't know who to blame for something. The reasoning from the teachers is usually an us vs. them worldview where the whole student body is just one big collective who are all aware of the actions of every member and act in unison. The reality is that most of the students being punished have absolutely no idea who did whatever the teacher is upset about. Hopefully, for most of us, that sort of thing stops once you get out of school. Minorities and people who live in poorer areas are pretty used to it as well though. Local crime rate goes up, and the police start treating people going about their normal business like criminals.
Re: Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to thi (Score:4, Insightful)
Baruch Kimmerling called it politicide: "the dissolution of the Palestinian people's existence as a legitimate social, political and economic entity.".
The malice involved in it cannot be underestimated. Rocket attacks are just tiny flareups in the constant process of making the palestinians disappear. If you can't just kill them all then at least organize it so you don't need to be aware of their existence.
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Nice try propaganda boy.
Hamas Rockets Found in Second United Nations School [theatlantic.com]
We're officially through the looking glass here with rockets and United Nations Relief and Works Agency schools in Gaza. For the second time in a week, the United Nations agency disclosed that rockets were discovered in one of their vacant schools. From the U.N.R.W.A. statement:
Today, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA discovered rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip. As soon as the rockets were discovered, UNRWA staff were withdrawn from the premises, and so we are unable to confirm the precise number of rockets.
This time, though, it was a little bit different. The rockets were being stored in a facility within close proximity of roughly 3,000 displaced Palestinians.
The school is situated between two other UNRWA schools that currently each accommodate 1,500 internally displaced persons.
If you're looking to confirm the oft-repeated Israeli narrative that Hamas and terrorist groups in Gaza endanger Gazans by hiding weapons among the civilian population, then this episode is your smoking missile. Throw in a second incident involving a United Nations agency that is criticized by Israel for its seeming bias and you've got absurdity that would make Samuel Beckett blush.
As the Israeli Foreign Ministry told The Times of Israel:
How many more schools will have to be abused by Hamas missile squads before the international community will intervene. How many times can it turn its head the other way and pretend that it just doesn’t see?”
As we noted yesterday, U.N.R.W.A. came under fire last week not only after rockets were discovered in a vacant school, but also as its critics accused the agency of turning the rockets over to "local authorities," which in Hamas-run Gaza, could mean the rockets went right back into circulation.
U.N.R.W.A. did not immediately return a request for comment.
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An alternative point of view is that Iran is just looking for nuclear parity with Israel.
No state that has become nuclear armed has gone on to use those nuclear arms against another nuclear armed state. This list includes Pakistan, and even North Korea (yet!!). Let's hope it stays that way.
Re: Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to thi (Score:2)
Israel's nuclear weapons have been public knowledge since 1967.
Joe Biden was VP in 2009.
Re: Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to thi (Score:2)
Ah, Israel's nuclear program has been the worlds worst kept secret since the early 80's.
Even the South Africans got a few bombs from tech transfer with the Israelis back in those days.
They really do tell you nothing over there, huh ?
Re:Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to thin (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. Truman simply kept applying maximum pressure in order to get a guaranteed complete surrender. He correctly assessed that the japanese hardliner generals could postpone/sabotage the surrender. He could not know that the new fact that drew the Japanese over the line was the Russians entering the war.
I'm not arguing Truman was right, merely that his perceptions of the situation were not as cynical as you make them.
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You must remember the Japanese soldier that continued to fight The War:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/wor... [bbc.co.uk]
He finally surrendered in 1974.
Based on the war reports, I'm somewhat surprised that only one soldier fought the war for so long after the official surrender.
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The two bombs dropped on Japan were an attempt to prove that the US was able to take on Stalin. The war would already have been over except that the US needed it to continue long enough to produce the bombs; Japan had already offered to surrender several times on the same terms that were in fact accepted in the end.
This is misinformation and history falsification. Japan did not offer an unconditional surrender. They offered a surrender in which:
1. Get to keep the emperor
2. Self-disarmament
3. No occupation of Japan
4. No trial of Japanese war criminals by the victors
Even after the atomic bombs they initially offered to surrender keeping condition 1 above.
Re:Iran is closer to a bomb than we'd like to thin (Score:5, Informative)
jlar is absolutely correct, other than keeping the emperor generally also meant no punishment for the current emperor (#4->#1). Even after the bombs they wouldn't surrender unconditionally, until the USA basically had to say under the table "look we need to call it unconditional but we'll be chill with the emperor" 1945 equivalent so they knew they could 'safely' surrender and not worry about the emperor.
Until recently I'd understood the USA used nukes based on Iwo Jima fighting, but now I understand that Okinawa invasion actually had a lot to do with it too. You can't read that story without coming away thinking, well yeah of course they decided to drop the bombs. Japan proved they would fight to the last, and the only other realistic choice was to starve the whole country until it wasn't a threat. (Not a lot of leeway between "too weak to hold a rifle" and "dead from starvation")
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wtf
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WW2 became so bloody because the allies insisted on unconditional surrenders. Both Germany and Japan had hoped for short successful wars but the allies refused to surrender when they were on the back foot and also refused to take surrenders except unconditionally when winning. Uptil then wars would be negotiated to an end without insisting on regime change. About the only rational allied country in WW2 was France who did surrender when the fight became untenable. If Churchill and Roosevelt hadnt been so bloody minded the war would have ended much earlier with a lot less dead people. WW2 taught the world you cant fight an honorable war against the US or UK. Only insurgencies. Since then US hasnt won a single war because no one will fight them openly and insurgencies are almost impossible to win.
Sure, the Allies could have negotiated a peace with the axis powers that left the Nazi party in power in Germany, the fascists in power in Italy, the fascist Japanese regime in power and so on. And that may have saved some million lives at the time. Just like they did so successfully in WW1. But what would the cost in lives of future generations have been? Another World war in 20 years?
Furthermore the US has of course won a number of wars and conflicts after WW2. See for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wi [wikipedia.org]
Hard to be sad about this (Score:2, Insightful)
The truth is that when Iran gets a nuclear weapon, they will use it.
Very likely the first target would be Israel, but just as likely would be a major U.S. port city.
Regardless of target, anything that slows that down is welcome, even though assassination is an unsavory thing. I just can't be too sad about saving 1 million+ innocent lives...
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Surprised the Pakistanis haven't helped them with their nuclear program. They seem to like terrorism otherwise. Maybe they realized arming fanatics has it's limits.
Re:Hard to be sad about this (Score:5, Informative)
Surprised the Pakistanis haven't helped them with their nuclear program.
Paks are Sunni. Iranians are Shia.
In general, they hate each other.
Pakistan has a history of anti-Shia persecution and pogroms.
Iran - Pakistan relations [wikipedia.org]
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The Pakistan Nuclear program was paid for, lock stock and barrel, by the Saudi's as a last-ditch counterpoint to the Iranians. The Saudi Ruling Family and the various tribes are Sunni; in the East it's Shias, which look to Iran for religious leadership. They are terrified of the Iranians gaining the upper hand in the region.
[The Saudi enemy isn't and never has been Israel]
In the event Iran has a pop at Saudi, Pakistani Nuclear weapons get flown to Riyadh.
Re:Hard to be sad about this (Score:5, Interesting)
The truth is that when Iran gets a nuclear weapon, they will use it.
Very likely the first target would be Israel, but just as likely would be a major U.S. port city.
Regardless of target, anything that slows that down is welcome, even though assassination is an unsavory thing. I just can't be too sad about saving 1 million+ innocent lives...
Extremely unlikely, as there would be a massive nuclear retaliation. However, Israel would face the same threat of retaliation if they used their nukes if Iran got theirs - so Israel would lose the ace up their sleeve.
Besides, Iran has plenty of other fights they are part of, against other powers in the region... The Shia vs Sunni conflict lines run deep
Re: Hard to be sad about this (Score:2)
Re: Hard to be sad about this (Score:4, Insightful)
Mostly correct, but the Shia vs Sunni conflict is vastly over stated. It's used to make the Middle East sound simplistic, barbaric and worthy of control and policing. Almost all of the sectarian violence can be explained through political and non-religious means. You just have to be willing to see how lines of power draw back to European and American sources and how instability in the Middle East benefits the capitalist class.
It is simplistic, but not wrong... it "just" happens that other conflict lines goes around the same lines, e.g. Persians vs Arabs, or Iran vs Saudi-Arabia in fight for regional influence. Those engage in "hot" proxy wars as well, e.g. the Shia Houthi faction in Yemen vs. the Sunni coalition backed by Saudi-Arabia.
With that in mind, the most scary part about Iran getting nuclear weapons is probably not against Israel - it will just put them on par with them - but expected race for the other regional players to get them as well.
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The Yemen war was not a Shia-Sunni conflict.
The Iran-Houthi link was invented by the Saudis in order to sell the war. When we hear 'proxy war with Iran' we instantly accept it as an unfortunate necessity and look away. Iran involvement started only years later and by then a lot of countries were heavily involved. It is not because they are also 'kinda Shia' that they have close links.
We're still looking away.
https://reliefweb.int/report/y... [reliefweb.int]
Re: Hard to be sad about this (Score:2)
Threat of retaliation works (Score:2)
Re: Hard to be sad about this (Score:2, Interesting)
To believe otherwise is orientalist chauvinism. Iran has extremely intelligent and cultured people. Some of the best engineers, scientists, poets, artist, musicians, and more. They want self determination and to end imperia
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Iran is beautiful place full of some of the friendliest people on the planet with a very deep culture.
It really should be a dynamic regional powerhouse but it's been beggared by the theocracy who are busy filling their pockets at the same time.
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Well, they got that theocracy filling its pocket with unearned riches after kicking out some puppet dictator that filled his pockets with unearned riches that a certain superpower installed...
Yet another revolution against a despot that ended up in no better place than you were before.
Re: Hard to be sad about this (Score:2)
I would love to visit Mecca but alas, not a Muslim...
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Iran is a brutal regime, but it is not a dictatorship. They have elections, and leaders of varying quality and insanity get elected and then unelected.
Dictators are basically irrational clowns who are suspicious of competence. Think of Putin firing cabinet members and hiring his judo instructor instead. As long as you don't get a dictator-lite like Ahmadinejad, the Iranian government
Re: Turns out there is a clue (Score:2)
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Then again the Iranian government doesn't call the shots, the clergy does.
Re: Turns out there is a clue (Score:2, Insightful)
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It's not doing anything like that.
Not from its own territory. But they are major supporters of the terrorist organizations that spend their days firing rockets on Israel and assassinating random Israelis.
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The number of people on Slashdot that attribute rational behaviour to an insane murderous regime is pretty incredible really.
"Insane murderous regime" describes the North Korean government much more accurately than the Iranian government.
The North Korean government already has nuclear weapons.
And yet, North Korea hasn't nuked anyone.
Perhaps, just maybe, even the worst governments in the world understand MAD and are not actively suicidal?
We trust the US (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Hard to be sad about this (Score:2)
"Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the men come and take you away"
How much evil has been done in the world that was justified by fear? We've been conditioned to accept the death of almost 1 million as acceptable to "stop terror." https://watson.brown.edu/costs... [brown.edu]
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The truth is that when Iran gets a nuclear weapon, they will use it. ...
Very likely the first target would be Israel,
Nuking a country that's basically next door doesn't seem like a bright idea as you'll probably be in the fallout area. Also Israel is "universally believed to possess nuclear arms" according to a quick Google search, so a first strike better be a total surprise and super successful. On the other hand, people be crazy ...
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Innocent? (Score:2)
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The truth is that when Iran gets a nuclear weapon, they will use it.
Like how when North Korea got their nukes, they immediately nuked South Korea and Japan? Oh, wait. That didn't happen. And now the US dared not invade NK no matter how Kim rattles his sabre.
The truth is, the US is the *only* country in the world which used nuclear bombs (plural) as soon as they got it.
The truth is, having nuke is the *only* thing that protects a country from US invasion. Iraq learned the hard way when they thought showing the world they didn't have nukes would have prevented US invasion
Fox News circa 2006 called (Score:2)
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The truth is that when Iran gets a nuclear weapon, they will use it.
you mean the truth you just pulled out of your ass with zero supporting evidence?
and you people call others "unstable fanatic morons" ...
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Were you expecting rationality and the middle east in the same sentence?
Bigot much?
So Israel is in favor of assassinations... (Score:2)
I wonder if any citizens of Israel are reasonable targets. And on what basis they could object to it being done.
How is it Israel gets a free pass? (Score:3, Insightful)
Whenever it does something that would be headline news if other countries did it.
Just add this to the crimes Israel commits.
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Whenever it does something that would be headline news if other countries did it.
A drone strike in Kabul last month [Aug 29th] killed as many as 10 civilians, including seven children, the U.S. military said on Friday, apologizing for what it called a "tragic mistake".
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Interesting example. After the US lied about the drone strike for weeks. And after the drone strike was done in retaliation for a foggy bomb attack in Kabul where most people died from bullets but which nobody cares to investigate.
The drone strike itself was already a diversion
Re:How is it Israel gets a free pass? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sure but what *were* those iranian scientists doing exactly?
I notice the "Fission is the only cure for climate change, we absolutely need new reactors" crew of nuke shills are mysteriously silent whenever there's a story on Iran.
Leave that nasty radioactive shit in the ground.
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I noticed the solar power shills get real quiet when Iran is the topic of discussion. If solar power is so great then why would a nation with so much sun and so little uranium want a nuclear power program? The answer is that they don't want a nuclear power program. Iran is using the veil of a civil nuclear power program to cover their weapon development.
The reason nuclear power is not mentioned when Iran is the topic of discussion is because nuclear power and nuclear weapons have very little in common wi
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Australia doesn't want a nuclear power program. And yet you quote dubious News Corporation sources to pretend that there is broad support.
Re:How is it Israel gets a free pass? (Score:4, Informative)
It also illustrates why Iran wants nuclear weapons. They are about the only thing that might make Israel think twice about attacking them.
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Nuclear weapons are supposed to be a defense against existential threats, not against general acts of war. Israel does not pose a direct existential threat to Iran.
There are a lot of reasons why countries choose to limit themselves to 'nuclear capable'(long time needed to build them) or 'nuclear threshold'(short time needed) instead of having them or having them on trigger alert.
China interestingly has stuck to a 'slow response' until now: They cannot shoot back on short notice.
Only the US wants to extend t
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Whenever it does something that would be headline news if other countries did it.
And we're discussing this why? Did a little squirrel tell you about it, or was it a headline on MSNBC?
Maybe you were distracted because this happened in December at a time when the USA had it's very real own issues to deal with, not the least of which was a direct attack on the democracy of the world's most powerful nation. But in case you did miss it, here is the headline news:
https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
https://apnews.com/article/dub... [apnews.com]
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
https://news.sky.com/story/the.. [sky.com]
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Asking such a question sets up a begged question of moral equivalency.
The comparison is not context free as you seem to imply.
Israel gets a free pass because Iran is a terrorist state. Iran cheerfully and rather openly supports Hezbollah, and for a decade funded, trained, armed, and supplied militias in Iraq dedicated to killing western soldiers and toppling the government. Iraq's own special operations troops (by some accounts) conducted these attacks.
I don't see Hezbollah spending a lot of time trying to
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Spiffy idea, the US sure has a hand for choosing tinpot dictators that rule in their favor. That has never caused any kind of problem in the long run and whatever followed those dictators sure was a great stabilizer for the region and the global peace.
Re: How is it Israel gets a free pass? (Score:2)
The illusion is that the US want peace or Stability. It profits off avoiding this and maintains it's power. People are learning.
I'm so glad to live in a world (Score:5, Insightful)
where everybody is so busy inventing ways to kill their fellow man - be it the fucking Israeli and their robotic machine gun or the fucking Iranian scientist and his nuclear bomb material.
If only they could exterminate each other and let the rest of us live in peace...
Is this not a terrorist act by Israel ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or at least an act of war ? No matter what they thought of Fakhrizadeh - he was living in another country. There were enough complaints when Russia poisoned Sergei and Yulia Skripal [wikipedia.org] or Alexander Litvinenko [wikipedia.org], North Korea killed Kim Jong-nam [wikipedia.org].
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Whether the US's real self interest lies in this direction is a different question.
I wish it were not this way.
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In other words, the attack on a German US-Military HQ by the Baader-Meinhof Terrorists in 1972 was not a terrorist attack?
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Since the Baader-Meinhof group received funding and support from the GDR, you can certainly call this attack an "act of war". Since the cold war was boiling at a quite unpleasant temperature at that time, with all the risk of going nuclear, the attack was essentially brushed under the carpet as "act of terrorism".
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But it was an attack on a military target, so I guess by today's standards it's a-ok?
Asking for a friend.
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You're contrasting "innocent people" with "weapons developer". Are you implying that people at Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and others are fair game to be killed by foreign countries?
Pointless assassination (Score:3)
Iran has been buying its nuclear technology from Pakistan. Killing a lead scientiest may actually speed up their programs if the scientist was not as competent as his next in command, which is common in long running federal programs.
Blasé (Score:3)
his loss will still be felt
Yeah. For instance, by his wife, the woman seared "who was seated just inches away"?
So, who am I supposed the cheer for? Both sides seem to be assholes. And, I'm an American, so I should know!
Track Record (Score:3)
The Israeli's do not piss about when it comes to threats. They have absolutely no compunction about reaching out and touching someone.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and most of the Gulf States make a quiet sigh of relief that the Iranian Genie has been kept in the box a bit longer.
anti-gun person writing a story about a gun (Score:3)
>sniper machine gun
The what now?
>NYT source
>Israel chose a special model of a Belgian-made FN MAG machine gun attached to an advanced robotic apparatus, according to an intelligence official familiar with the plot. The official said the system was not unlike the off-the-rack Sentinel 20 manufactured by the Spanish defense contractor Escribano.
https://static01.nyt.com/image... [nyt.com]
>The convoy slowed down for a speed bump just before the parked Zamyad. A stray dog began crossing the road.
>The machine gun fired a burst of bullets, hitting the front of the car below the windshield. It is not clear if these shots hit Mr. Fakhrizadeh but the car swerved and came to a stop.
>The shooter adjusted the sights and fired another burst, hitting the windshield at least three times and Mr. Fakhrizadeh at least once in the shoulder. He stepped out of the car and crouched behind the open front door.
So basically a stabilized remote controlled heavy mount with a satellite link and some lag compensation software firing near point blank. There is literally nothing "sniper" about it.
But it's a sniper machine gun. Because modern journalism.
Irony abounds (Score:2)
Launch on Warning (Score:2)
Once Iran gets a nuclear weapon Israel probably goes into a launch on warning posture. The first time they see a Iranian or Hezbollah rocket heading in they throw everything they've got at Iran. Goodbye Tehran, Qom, Tabriz, and other Iranian cities.
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The leadership of any small country knows that to actually use a nuke would be their own end in a very short time... probably within hours if not minutes.
Re:Iran blunder (Score:4, Interesting)
In other words, the world should be terribly afraid 'cause every president candidate ever in the history of the US invokes some deity in every speech?
Re: Iran blunder (Score:2)
Belief in God and being a fanatic are worlds apart. Shame on you for confounding that because you are part of the reason these people become more isolated and self-validated in their concept of being a persecuted group.
Now the relationship of US and Israel or using any Islamic ties to slander a president are both fair issues. Generating a country that is largely atheistic doesn't magically resolve all social issues or make a nation of supreme international peace, you can simply look at China to have a valid
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Iran can avoid this fear of invasion at any time. They only need to play nice with others.
Just like the U.S. plays nice with others [wikipedia.org]? The U.S. doesn't play nice with others, but it doesn't have to worry about being invaded, and that's unfortunate.
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What are you talking about? The USA is being invaded all the time. Invaders willing to do harm to Americans enter the nation all the time. Most of them come in through Mexico under the cover of darkness, but also by planes and other means in broad daylight.
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Yes, oil wars. First of all, oil is a commodity, if there is not enough of it on the global market, the prices will rise even in the oil exporting USA because if they won't, the US oil companies simply will export abroad instead of selling in the states. Second, not all oil is equal in quality,
Re: Perspective (Score:2)
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Which China?
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I've never seen the need to do that. It has happened one or twice, accidentally.