Stuxnet Allegedly Loaded By Iranian Double Agents

First time accepted submitter rainbo writes "According to a report from ISSSource, a saboteur who was likely a member of an Iranian dissident group loaded the Stuxnet virus on to a flash drive and infected machines at the Natanz nuclear facility. Iran's intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, said that an unspecified amount of 'nuclear spies' were arrested on ties to this attack. Some officials believe these spies belonged to Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), which is used as the assassination arm of the Israeli Mossad."

Comments

from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this is clearly done by some vigilance groups. There is nothing that would show US/Israel interest in this. Nothing at all!

Cheerfully yours from the nothing-happened department.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Kreigaffe]

The US and Israel aren't the only countries that would rather Iran not be a nuclear power.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

And who are against them, other than US or those who lick US' asses? Both Russia and China support them.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[ZeroSumHappiness]

TFS doesn't outright say it but TFA is pretty clear -- the /vector/ was an Iranian. The /source/ was Israel. This isn't some attempt to pull wool over your eyes, dude. Chill.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me old fashioned but I would rather lick US's asses than Iran's. Russia and China can have it, they're cesspools of countries anyway.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[demachina]

Saudi Arabia is probably as violently opposed to the Iranian's getting nukes as the Israelis. The Israelis have a large nuclear arsenal as a deterrent to Iran. The Saudi's don't have any deterrent of their own and would have to rely on the U.S. which could prove to be a fickle ally in a crisis, just ask Mubarak in Egypt.

The Iranians are Shia Muslims, the Saudis are Sunnis, the two hate each other with the passion you often find in long running sectarian conflicts.

There is a fair chance that if the Iranians get nukes the Saudi's will probably start developing their own to try to maintain the balance of power between Sunnis and Shia in the Middle East. The Saudi's getting nukes will probably not sit well with the Israelis.

The Middle East will become either more stable thanks to three way MAD or very, very dangerous, thanks to three fanatically religious countries, who really hate each other, are very close together and will have lots of apocalyptic weapons.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Xandrax]

The answer to this question will become obvious if Iran gets nukes. If Iran goes nuclear, expect a number of Middle East countries to start taking steps to acquire nuclear weapons themselves, as a deterent to a nuclear Iran. These will be the same counties that didn't have an issue with not having nuclear weapons when Isreal was the only country in the region to have them.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Black Parrot]

The Iranians are Shia Muslims, the Saudis are Sunnis, the two hate each other with the passion you often find in long running sectarian conflicts.

By some accounts, the strife in Syria is a proxy for a general sectarian war.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[anagama]

Not to mention that the MEK is a designated terrorist organization, and if you were a nobody, the Feds would rape you if provided any material support. However, our politicians being above the law, can support and be paid by the MEK with impunity.

http://www.salon.com/2012/03/12/washingtons_high_powered_terrorist_supporters/singleton/

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Moryath]

Arab shill group accuses Mossad of being involved in something they don't like.

In other news:
Dog bites man.
Water is wet.
Sky is blue.
Republicans are racist.
Clouds primarily composed of water vapor.
Ratio of circumference of circle to radius = tau.
Nickelback is lame.

Wake me when we get some real news?

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

And what's the problem with that? Do I need to remind you what country is the only one by far to ever used nuclear weapons, and against civilian targets no less?

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[amiga3D]

Almost all their neighbors are against Iran having nukes. That was part of the fallout from the State Department emails leaked to wikileaks. A lot of the traffic was Iran's neighbors asking the US to please do something before that crazy fucker running Iran got the Bomb. I remember how when Israel converted Iraq's reactors to smoking holes in the ground their was some griping in the Media from Arabs but mostly they all just looked the other way. In fact I'm sure the countries they overflew on the strike were informed ahead of time. No one wants a nutjob living next to them to have Nukes cause even if he doesn't blow you up he's bound to try it on someone and the backlash is sure to cause fallout.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is believed that Iran is behind Hezbollah which has been attacking Israel for years... there were also the recent attempted killing of embassy staff by what appears to be the Iranians.

Don't let semantics get in your war, a proxy war is still a war, despite not having actual classical armys on the ground.

That being said, I am not excusing Israel or America's actions in this situation, but Religious fanatics don't always foliow logic.

The Iranian people themselves are freaking awesome, I just can't stand their government.... actually, I can't stand most governments.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Moryath]

By all accounts, sectarian war is also how Saddam Hussein took power and ran his regime. Saddam was a Sunni, as were approximately 20% of the Iraqi population; meanwhile, he gassed the Kurds and engaged in major terror operations against the Shi'a.

Arab society runs roughly thus: (sorry I can't paste the arabic script, Slashdot doesn't like it much):
Me against my brothers until a cousin comes;
Me and my brothers against my cousins until a neighbor comes;
Me and my brother and my cousins against the neighbor until a foreigner comes;
all of us against the foreigners.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

And when was the last time Iran attacked some other country?

Iranian agents regular attack people around the world, such as in Argentina: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_AMIA_bombing

Iran has cannon fodder to do their dirty work (like Hizbullah).

and civilians killed in the process are no problem

In Iran's case, civilians killed in the process is the desired result.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia and China may make noise in support of Iran in public. But do you really think either one of them wants to see Iran and Israel flinging nukes at each other, disrupting middle eastern oil production, and screwing up the whole world's economy? That outcome is, after all, where a nuclear-armed Iran leads. Russia and China may enjoy publicly poking a stick in the eye of the US, (And after all, after the bush presidency, who can blame them?) but they're not idiots. And they don't want to see nuclear war in the middle east any more than anyone else.

In fact, It'd be well within the capabilities and quite pragmatic of either of them to have secretly fired off stuxnet while publicly making nice with Iran. After all it's pretty much assured that the US and/or Israel would be blamed whether they really did it or not.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[yuje]

Israel was hardly innocent in that conflict. Israel invaded southern Lebanon in response to the PLA having invaded there and used it as a base of operations to attack from. Israel then proceeded to occupy southern Lebanon for the next TWO DECADES, which also happened to have triggered the five-way civil war that pretty much tore apart the country, and continues to occupy a small strip of Lebanese land. Israel was also partially responsible for the notorious Sabra and Shtailla massacres during their occupation. Hezbollah was a Shii'ite (read, NOT Palestinian) militia formed during those years to combat the Israeli occupation. Wanting foreign invaders out of your country, or helping another people expel their occupies hardly requires religious fanaticism by any stretch of the imagination.

While Hezbollah has been accused of terrorism, for the most part they engage in military vs military combat, either as a conventional army or guerilla tactics, such as during the 2006 war, and they haven't been involved in suicide bombings since Israel left Lebanon. Some of their attacks, such as the rocket attacks during the 2006 war have hurt civilians, but their enemies are hardly innocent of that either and use tactics that, if done by non-countries, would be called terrorism. See the large amount of civilian damage in the bombings of Beirut, or assassinations of civilian Hezbollah politicians and leaders. Point being that the Lebanese were not the (initial) aggressors in the decades-long Israeli-Lebanese conflict.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[demachina]

Russia has absolutely no reason to care if oil production in the Middle East is disrupted. They are one of the world's largest oil and gas producers. If the Middle East blows up Russia, or rather Putin and the oligarchs running Russia, will get obscenely rich, more so than they already are.

Even if Iran does acquire nuclear weapons, and its very much open to debate if they are even trying, it doesn't follow at all that they would actually use them. Outside of the U.S. no one has ever used nukes, and its for a reason, they suck as actual weapons.

They suck because there are very few situations where you can use them where the consequences of using them wouldn't be worse than whatever problem you are facing. You use them and you become an instant pariah or you get incinerated yourself. If you are about to be overrun in a conventional war maybe you would use them as desperate last resort, but if you have nukes it unlikely anyone would have invaded you in the first place.

The only real value of nukes is as a deterrent, something that sits in a stockpile and is never used, but which discourages anyone from openly fucking with you, so they have to fuck with you through assymetric means instead. They are a pretty big win for countries like North Korea and Iran because they dramatically decrease the chances that a country like the U.S. which is increasingly fond of aggressive warfare and regime change won't fuck with you because it instantly becomes dangerous and messy invade a country with nukes.

If you have them and your adversary doesn't or you have massive nuclear superiority over your adversary they have a limited value in that you can try to bully your adversary using them as a threat but any adversary with any sense will call your bluff because they know you will never use them.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Simploid]

"The Iranians are Shia Muslims, the Saudis are Sunnis, the two hate each other with the passion you often find in long running sectarian conflicts."

That statement is a bit misleading. The hatred and conflict is not because of Sunni Vs Shia, but rather Wahabi/Salafy Vs Shia where Wahabi sect is considered a subset of Sunnie Islam. The distinction is important because even though there is unease between Sunnie and Shias in general, but it's not at the level of hatred with passion.

Just thought to point that out

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Ihmhi]

"All of us against the foreigners" is practically the American motto these days... and I say this as an American. From "They took our jobs!" to "lol eurotrash" to "gotta kill all them ter'rists", we've got a really overinflated sense of nationalism. That is never a good thing. =|

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Ihmhi]

In other news:

Zionists control the media!

Dog bites man.

Zionist dog!

Water is wet.

Zionist liquid!

Sky is blue.

Zionist atmospheric conditions!

Republicans are racist.

Zionist Christians!

Clouds primarily composed of water vapor.

Working in concert with the Zionest atmosphere!

Ratio of circumference of circle to radius = tau.

Heathen Zionest mathematics!

Nickelback is lame.

We agree.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia has plenty of reason to care about nuclear war in the middle east. It's not so much the direct consequences of the reduction in the world's supply. It's the disruption to the rest of the world's economy that eliminating that supply would entail. The major economies of the world are too intertwined these days for one nation to stand back, watch the rest of the world burn, and not suffer at all internally. What is Russia going to do with their oil and natural gas surpluses if the rest of the world doesn't have the Dollars, Euros, or Yen to buy them?

The problem with the rest of your entire line of reasoning is that you assume that Iran is a rational actor that can be safely relied upon to act within its own best interests. It's not. It's a nation of extreme right-wing religious nutters that wants to wipe a people off the map or out of history (It doesn't matter exactly how the statement translates. Either way it's a clear euphemism for extermination.) for not believing in the same "god" as them.

Oh sure, they'll try to claim some kind of plausible deniability by having a nuclear bomb "go missing" and fall into the hands of "unknown terrorists". Do you think that will really pass muster with the people who will be in charge once Tel Aviv is vaporized?

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm... In the region, the US and Israel are universally seen as the greatest threat to peace, not Iran.

Any informed, honest, observer would have to concur. Iran hasn't started a war in centuries.

Really? I think the victims from the AMIA bombing would disagree with you. Also the thousands of Kurds killed by Iran, and the Israelis used as targets for Iranian missiles, which is what sparked the 2006 war.

BTW, Israel is not a signatory of the non proliferation treaty, and Israel has an actual rogue nuclear weapons program that has produced hundreds of warheads that they have even tried to sell to pariah states like the apartheid government of South Africa in the '80s.

Exactly, Israel is not a signatory of the NPT, Iran is, therefore it enjoys the benefits but also has responsibilities that comes with that.
As for your claim of attempting to sell nuclear warheads to South Africa, do you have any credible source for that or are you making that up too?

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Gavagai80]

Russia and China oppose Iranian nukes -- obviously they prefer their nuclear club to remain exclusive and proliferation does not benefit them. They support Iranian nuclear energy, and oppose increasing sanctions on a country which has not even been proved to be perusing nuclear weapons, let alone actually built any yet. Russia and China prefer to wait until there's clear cause to apply punishment, perhaps realizing that a country which is punished because somebody thinks they're thinking about nukes has more to gain by actually making them so they can negotiate disarmament.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry. You're correct right up to your last sentence where you state that Israel is a "fanatically religious country". You're making intelligent arguments look bad.

Israel has a population of 25% non-Jewish. They are run by a secular democratically-elected government with an electorate selection skewed "against" the religious majority. They are a very small country which has not only not expanded it's borders through military might since its founding but shrunk it's borders. Their cities are under a near-constant rocket barrage and regularly (more regularly than earthquakes in California) have suicide bombers in their major cities which hold the Sharia brand of Islam in high esteem (the so-called 'radical Islamists').

They are a nuclear power. they have a conventional military which could take out the combined military force of several other countries in the region and still hold reserves - without touching the nuclear stockpile.

Calling Israel a 'religious extremist' country has about as much stock in reality as calling Twighlight an epic masterpiece of Kermit the Frog one of the best philosophers of the 18th century.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Iranians are Shia Muslims, the Saudis are Sunnis, the two hate each other with the passion you often find in long running sectarian conflicts.

There is a fair chance that if the Iranians get nukes the Saudi's will probably start developing their own to try to maintain the balance of power between Sunnis and Shia in the Middle East.

Oh dear fuck, this narrative again?

Look, spend some time in the middle east. The Shia and Sunnis are no more at each others throats than blacks and whites or Christians and Jews in the good ole US of A. Sure, there's extremists just like in the US, and those extremists do some pretty fucked up things. And some shithead leaders stir the pot, but the shitstorms in the ME revolve around politics and money, just like anywhere else. And guess who stirs up the pot more than anyone else? That's right, the good ole US of A and her buddies. It's long been the policy of the TLA's to create sectarian divisions where there was none... hell, even the lines drawn on the map and the dictators propped up are done largely with that intent.
Your juvenile analysis may earn you some mod points here, but it just goes to show how little most people know about the ME. You're an idiot... now go do some research and perhaps take a trip to make yourself a little less so.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[akboss]

The US is a signatory but has not lived up to its obligations to dismantle its stockpile of warheads.

Really?? So the nukes they haul into Pantec and then dismantle are all fake? I swear some of you really need some Thorazine and then just chill out in the corner...

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

How many wars has Iran instigated in modern history? Most arabs nations backed Iraq's invasion of Iran, they had the U.S. shoot a civilian aircraft out of the sky killing 260 Iranians (it's not a terrorist attack if performed by the U.S. of course), they've had Israel assassinate their people and airs strike their facilities, yet how many wars have they started?

Thinking they are evil and want to destroy the world is ignorant. The last thing they want is a war which they know they will lose, and lose badly. Look at history and try to see things from others' views. The Cold War almost became a nuclear war because both sides thought the other was insane and out to kill them.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[sonamchauhan]

Not confirmed if Iranian state actors are involved, but...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_attacks_on_Israeli_diplomats
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Bangkok_bombings

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[demachina]

"The Shia and Sunnis are no more at each others throats than. . ."

Actually they are. There is this place called Iraq where Sunnis and Shias spent much of the last decade ethnically cleansing their neighborhoods of each other, often by random killings and torture. Under Saddam a Sunni minority dominated and oppressed a Shia majority. After the first Gulf war the U.S. encouraged the Shia to rebel against Saddam, then the U.S. turned its back on them and Saddam slaughtered them. After the 2003 toppling of Saddam the Shia took power through the ballot box and have been exacting vengence on the Sunni and Bathist ever since. Iraq is now largely a Shia theocracy closely aligned with Iran which is pretty much the last thing the Saudis or the U.S. wanted. It dramatically enhanced Shia power in the Middle East. George W. Bush didn't think through the consequences of toppling Saddam at all, his dad did which is why he didn't topple Saddam in the first gulf war.

In Bahrain there is a Sunni minority which dominates and discriminates against a Shia majority, much like Saddams Iraq. The Shias launched their version of Arab Spring lobbying for more rights and more equality. It was an uprising that was brutally suppressed by the ruling Sunnis with the help of the Saudi Arabia which rolled tanks in to Bahrain to help. The Saudis were of the opinion it was an Iranian fomented uprising where Iranian provacateurs were encouraging the Shia in Bahrain to revolt.

In Syria the current civil war is largely Sunni's rebelling against an Alawite government aligned with Iran. Its another sectarian conflict which has lead to the deaths of thousands of people in the last year.

Sorry to say it. but you are the one that has no clue what you are talkling about.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea they say that pretty clear. So what?
They've been saying that repeatedly, but I've yet to hear any more evidence than
"There's a reference to myrtus, which is the latin name corresponding to Hadassah which was Queen Esther's Jewish name"
That certainly doesn't seem like an airtight case, especially when the myrtle was significant in several cultures and the word can be parsed differently (MyRTUs) while being quite appropriate for the purpose.

They also say that this was the result of a conspiracy involving Sergey Brin, Larry Ellison, and Bill Gates. Sound plausible?

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[hrtserpent6]

Citation?

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

What did Iran have to do in a conflict between Israel (Jewish) and Lebanon (Christian)? Oh right, asserting its Shiite influence! I could refute every line you wrote but I don't think it wouldn't make any difference. You, sir, are a shill.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Three way MAD?
Clearly the only way to stabilise that kind of situation is to unilaterally pump massive amounts of military aid and nuclear weapons to ONE of those three countries, encourage them to develop those weapons further without any international checks or criticism, and pat them on the shoulder when they threaten their neighbouring countries with preemptive nuclear strikes.

That should calm things down.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that a surprise? You are basically using the same brainwashing techniques on your children and population the nazi germany used. Real patriotism comes from understanding, not pledging allegiance to some piece of cloth.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[demachina]

"Their cities are under a near-constant rocket barrage"

I'll agree it sucks that Hamas lobs rockets in to Israel, no argument. But they are largely crude and ineffective weapons and they get even more so as the expensive, American funded, antimissile systems are deployed.

You know what probably sucks even worse. Living in Gaza in a walled ghetto with disturbing similarities to the ghettos Jews were forced to live in in Europe before and during World War II. It really sucks to live in a heavily populated urban area where Israel chokes off the most basic supplies and nearly all economic activity so people survive largely on the trickle of supplies from the tunnels. Where Isreale is draining 1.5 million people of all hope of having a life that doesn't suck. It also sucks when Israels military uses tanks, F-16's and attack helicopters to target Gaza because they are vastly more effective at killing people than the crummy rockets Hamas lobs in to Israel.

I don't condone shooting rockets in to Israel but I do understand how the miserable, desperate people in Gaza would want to strike back in such a totally futile way at the people who've been manning the walls of their ghetto for the last half century, even though its largely ineffective and invites periodic retaliation on the people of Gaza that is usually several orders of magnitude more deadly.

"has not only not expanded it's borders through military might"

Only if you choose to pretend that the permenent occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Golan Heights isn't expanding Israel's borders. You might make that case were it not for the massive settlement activity in which Israel is seeking to make the West bank and East Jerusalem a part of Israel in contravention of international law which forbids an occupier from settling in occupied territories. Either Isreal needs to withdraw from the occupied territories or fully annex them in to Israel and give Arabs full citizenship. Permenent occupation, with illegal settlements is purely abusive on the part of Israel.

Israel is only a "democratically-elected government" because they are actively disenfranchising Arabs. If you count all the disenfranchised Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, Golan and East Jerusalem who are under permanent occupation Arabs are fairly close to become a majority. I think the Arab population is growing faster than Jewish so its a near inevitability that Israel will eventually be a true apartheid state with a Jewish minority electing a government that dominates a largely disenfranchised Arab majority.

Listen, I know there are a lot of level headed, forward thinking moderate Jews living in Israel, I follow some of their blogs and on Twitter. But the fact is people like Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman are extremists, they dominate the current government's rhetoric, thinking and agenda, and they seem to go out of their way to provoke confrontation after confrontation. They give Israel a bad name and they put Israel in the pretty similar class to Saudi Arabia and Iran as far as the fanaticism and oppression goes.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[demachina]

All three countries have holy sites they value over just about everything. Saudi Arabia has Mecca and Medina, Iran has Qom, Israel has Jeruslaem which is as sacred to Muslims as it is Jews.

If you give all three nukes, so all three know their holy cities are at risk you could achieve a form of 3 way MAD for religious fanatics. Not like you can ever count on religious fanatics to not be fanatics but if they know their holy cities are the hostages its more likely than just about anything to make them behave.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[dwye]

By all accounts, sectarian war is also how Saddam Hussein took power and ran his regime. Saddam was a Sunni, as were approximately 20% of the Iraqi population; meanwhile, he gassed the Kurds and engaged in major terror operations against the Shi'a.

Um, the Kurds are Sunnis as well, just non-Persian Indo-Europeans. And like most dictators, he ran his regime by pitting each group against the others. If Tikrit had risen against him, he would have "engaged in major terror operations" against his home town, too.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[demachina]

Did you not follow the last decade in Iraq, it was brutal Sunni .vs. Shia sectarian violence, including ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods using executions and torture.

The uprising in Bahrain was also oppressed Shia revolting against a minorty Sunni monarchy and the Shia were largely crushed.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[demachina]

Lebanon is not "Christian", its currently 60% Muslim, 40% Christian. The Muslim population is evenly split between Shia and Sunni. Syria and Iran are active supporters of Hezbollah, they provide them with most of their weapons and funds. Hezbollah's founders were inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini and Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Hezbollah has a very powerful influence among the Shia community in Lebanon, both militarily and through community activities and charities.

You totally don't know what you are talking about AC.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you take the expat community into account you'll find the Christians make up about 50% of Lebanese world-wide, give or take a few percentage points - more Christians left during the 1975 war than Muslims..

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[yuje]

Two things:

1. Lebanon is not "Christian". The country was split out of the Ottoman Empire by the French, ostensibly for the purpose of protecting the Christian community there, but the French gerrymandered the territory to such an extent that Lebanon also ended up containing large Sunni, Shi'ite, and Druze communities. The Christians themselves are confusingly denominated among different branches, Catholic, Eastern (Greek) Orthodox, and Oriental (Syrian) Orthodox. Which explains why the whole Lebanese civil war was such a mess between Sunni vs Shiite vs Catholic vs Orthodox vs Druze vs Palestinian vs Israeli vs US vs communist.

2. What does the US (Christian) have to do in a conflict between Israel (Jewish) and Iran (Muslim)? Oh right, asserting its Christian influence! Oh wait....

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[gtall]

Oh, you mean the countries that lick Iran's asses support Iran. Wow! Film at 11!

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[gtall]

Yes, and Abbas claimed any peace deal with Israel was only interim until they were powerful enough to take over. When Israel turned Gaza over the Palestinian Authority, the missiles from Gaza soon followed. The Palestinians couldn't even run a strip of ground peacefully without using it to attack Israel. This only confirmed what Israel thinks of the Palestinians in general, i.e., they are incapable of running a peaceful state that is not dedicated to Israel's destruction.

There's no whitewashing the fact that Muslims hate Jews; the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was a Gruppenfuhrer in the Third Reich. He raised his own SS division in the Balkans from Bosnian muslims and rather thought Hitler should get on with job of wiping out the Jews. He also wanted the Third Reich to set up shop in the Middle East, ovens and all. Arafat was his nephew. He idolized the Grand Mufti.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[gtall]

Well reasoned. And how come you believe the nutjobs running Mid-Eastern countries are similarly disposed to such reasoning?

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't OD on your kool aid there, buddy.

You remind me of an idiot I saw on TV yesterday who claimed the US government has intentionally forced illegal immigrants to cross the border in the middle of the desert in an effort to commit genocide.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans don't care about race. I can't remember the last time I heard a Republican even talking about race.

If we want to end racism, stop focusing on race. At the end of the day, race doesn't matter. Competence, diligence, intelligence - those matter, and none of them has anything to do with race.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what probably sucks even worse. Living in Gaza in a walled ghetto with disturbing similarities to the ghettos Jews were forced to live in in Europe before and during World War II. It really sucks to live in a heavily populated urban area where Israel chokes off the most basic supplies

False. There are no restrictions on food & medicine, and only restrictions on supplies that the Gazans regularly use for violence.

Gaza used to have a thriving economy, until the Gazans began to regularly attack Israel in volume. As a result, Israel has to inspect people & goods crossing from Gaza to Israel.

It also sucks when Israels military uses tanks, F-16's and attack helicopters to target Gaza because they are vastly more effective at killing people than the crummy rockets Hamas lobs in to Israel.

You know, Arabs don't seem to be very good at this war business. Maybe they should think long & hard about whether war is the path they should follow.

In a normal country, senior military officers reach their position because they are good at what they do. In the Arab world, senior military officers reach their position because they are politically reliable and won't overthrow the dictatorship.

I don't condone shooting rockets in to Israel but I do understand how the miserable, desperate people in Gaza would want to strike back in such a totally futile way at the people who've been manning the walls of their ghetto for the last half century, even though its largely ineffective

There is an easy alternative - don't launch rockets. Before the rise of large scale terror activity, Gaza had a flourishing economy. The fact that Gaza is a shithole is entirely due to the fact that many Gazans wake up every morning and ask, "How can I kill Jews today?"

In fact, if you survey Palestinians and ask them if peace treaty is signed, would you prefer to live in Israel or Palestine, a majority would rather live in Israel.

You might make that case were it not for the massive settlement activity

Settlements are a not an issue. There were many Israeli communities in the Sinai. When Egypt & Israel signed a peace treaty and the Sinai was returned to Egypt, many Israelis didn't want to leave the Sinai - they were removed by force. When Israel decided to leave Gaza, the same thing occurred.

If a peace treaty is signed tomorrow, and the borders settled, Israel would remove any citizens (by force if necessary) on the wrong side of the line. After all, they have done it before.

in which Israel is seeking to make the West bank and East Jerusalem a part of Israel in contravention of international law which forbids an occupier from settling in occupied territories.

Actually, the international law you're referring to forbids an occupier from forcibly moving their own population into occupied territory.

Further, it isn't clear that these lands are occupied territories. They are disputed. The last group with reasonably clear title was the Turks, who ruled for centuries. If you're going to say that Arabs held these lands before the Turks, then you must agree that the Jews held these lands before the Arabs.

After the Turkish empire fell, the Brits held the Mandate of Palestine. The Brits split off most of the Palestine territory to create Jordan (so a Palestinian state already exists). When the Brits decided to give up the Mandate, they turned the question over to the nascent UN. The UN investigated, and determined that both Arabs & Jews had claims to the area.

The UN decided to create two states, with international status for Jerusalem (hey, I've heard that many times in the last 20 years too).

The Jews accepted this proposal, and the Arabs refused. The Arabs chose war instead of the UN proposal (or even negotiating changes to the proposal). Unfortunately, the Arabs aren't very good at the business of war, and they lost.

After the 1967 war (when the Arabs lost again), they had a meeting in

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Moryath]

The Kurds are (mostly) "Sunni" according to the classical definition, but they have a separate language and culture from the Arabs. Most Sunnis regard them as a separate sect because they follow the Shafi traditions whereas most Sunni today are Habali (the school most closely associated with the Saudis and Wahhabism).

To offer a christian level comparison, it's like the difference between being Catholic and Greek Orthodox. Both religions could be called "Orthodox", but there's a definitive split.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are literally a dozen countries who don't want Iran to become a nuclear power.

Hell, every country in the middle east, doesn't want Iran to become a nuclear power. Most of which have acitvely petitioned the US to stop Iran.

For people to insist only the US and Israel doesn't want them to become a nuclear power is to insist they are clueless of the subject matter and have absolutely nothing to offer to the discussion.

Sorry folks, but politics in that part of the world is extremely complex.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

"...thanks to three fanatically religious countries..."
Israel is fanatically religious?

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't remember the last time I heard a Republican even talking about race.

That's because you republican retards have the memories of goldfish and need your daily brainwashings from Limbaugh, Hannity, or the local subsidiary.

Oh hey, Rush was on making nasty remarks about the Trayvon Martin case yesterday and saying it would be great if blacks would "learn the value of work" and not "breed like rabbits." Guess you forgot that though, huh?

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

The nutjob, Israel, already has nukes. That's what's dangerous.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

To be honest, calling Saudi Arabia or Iran as religious extremist countries is actualyl a bit of a misnomer here too. While both Saudi Arabia and Iran have religious aspects to their governments, the reality is that religious extremism when it comes into power typically wilts when faced with the realities of geo-politics. The religious element in both countries is a tool of influence and control over their population, and is not a tool that they could remove very easily because it's so fundamental to who they are.

The difference here is that a religious extremist typically supports the values of their religion over their own survival or even the survival (and murder) of others. For an extremist, if it comes down to a question between their religious values and their own survival, they will pick their religious values and go out in a blaze of self-defined glory. For both Iran and Saudi Arabia, if it comes down to a question of religious values or regime (or national) survival, I think both will end up picking survival and sacrifice the religious aspects of their regime. It may not be possible to do that given the religious aspects of their governments, but still both countries' #1 goal is regime survival, not religion.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remind me, again, when exactly it was that the Arab's claim to the former Judea became absolutely unquestionable?

IIRC, that entire region surrounding Jerusalem was only taken over completely by Romans after the Jews were mostly killed and enslaved.

There never was a country called Palestine, nor Persia.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[amiga3D]

Stupid, they've had 'em for 3 decades and they haven't wasted any of their neighbors nor even threatened to. Just knowing they've got them prevents invasion by the hordes surrounding them and that's really all they wanted. Iran, with one of the largest standing armies in the world, is under no such threat so what do you suppose they want with them? Maybe to neutralize Israel's threat thus making invasion and or total annihilation of their enemy possible? Unless maybe they just want to recreate the Persian empire by subverting ALL their neighbors?

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[demachina]

"False. There are no restrictions on food & medicine, and only restrictions on supplies that the Gazans regularly use for violence."

That is bullshit and you know it. Israel still arbitrarily blocks large quantities of food and other supplies from entering Gaza. Its nearly impossible for the organizations who've tried to even figure out what Israel will and wont block on any given day.

The number of truckloads of supplies Israel allows in to Gaza fluctuates wildly and purely at the whim of Israel, and is a tiny fraction of the flow that occurred before Hamas took power and the blockade became draconian.

It often takes so long to get approval for medical supplies that they expire before they make it in to Gaza and are destroyed.

That "restriction on supplies" used for violence results in bizarre restrictions on things like food in tin cans because Hamas might melt down the tin to make weapons, and it blocks essentially all construction materials since Hamas might build bunkers with it instead.

You know as well as I do that blockade is designed to starve Gaza and Hamas in to submission. You also probably know it isn't going to work and it just makes Israel look bad and it makes the people in Gaza really hate Israel., All of Israel's concessions are shams for propaganda purposes so they can deny they are starving Gaza when in fact that is exactly what they are trying to do.

The only thing going in Gaza's favor is the collapse of Mubarak's regime and the likely election of an Islamic government which is going to allow substantial improvements in commerce and travel on the Egyptian border with Gaza at least until Israel decides to block it.

Not sure I have the time to rebutt all your other points which are all straight out of Israel's standard propaganda playbook.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[demachina]

"Arabs are enfranchised in Israel."

Yes, but none of the Arabs in the occupied territories are and Israel actively blocks any more Arabs from becoming enfranchised in Israel, by marriage, immigration or any other means. At the same time they throw their borders wide open to Jews from anywhere and immediately give them the vote in an effort to stack the ballot box against Arabs.

By your own argument Israel has a legitimate claim to the occupied territories so why doesn't Israel just annex them? One obvious answer is they don't want to give any more Arabs the right to vote. They know they will lose the demographic war unless they engage in apartheid. South Africa used the term bantustans for their self governing homelands where they shoved all the blacks they wanted to keep from voting, Israel does exactly the same thing with the occupied territories which they've now occupied for nearly a half century. They are places to shove Arabs so they can disenfranchise them and to insure the Arabs in Israel who are enfranchised will be in a sufficiently small minority that they will have absolutely no political power.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[demachina]

"You know, Arabs don't seem to be very good at this war business. Maybe they should think long & hard about whether war is the path they should follow"

You are such a tool. Israel very nearly lost the 1973 war. On October 8 the Israeli government and military were actively considering the use of nuclear weapons out of desperation and were using the threat of using them to blackmail the U.S. in to flooding Israel with emergency weapons shipments to replace Israel's steep loses of fighters in particular.

Israels record against Hezbollah is also not particularly impressive. Hezbollah manages to hold their own against Israel despite having vastly inferior weapons and numbers.

Israel's primary claim to military superiority is they are heavily supplied with advanced weapons from the U.S. and the U.S. floods Israel with money to support their military and internal weapons development. The Arabs by contrast have had to depend on inferior Soviet/Russian weapons on the two occasions they attacked Israel.

For the last 40 years Israel has mostly been attacking Gaza and Lebanon and they simply don't have the weaponry or money to match Israel's. Hezbollah does amazingly well considering they have no chance in a head to head fight. Just like Hamas they mostly lob inferior unguided missiles at Israel that do very little damage.

They mostly just piss off Israel and goad them in to doing stupid shit like killing large numbers of civilians in Gaza and Lebanon so they end up being even more hated by the Arab world.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[tinkerton]

Sunni .vs. Shia sectarian violence

I think it's very worthwile to overhaul the general description of middle east conflicts as sunni vs shia. Not that it's wrong, certainly not in Iraq, but it misleading. Iran's strategy in the region doesn't rely on it in any case. It's easier for them to connect with other shia but they won't stop there. The new egyptian government is sunni. It allowed iranian ships through the Suez canal. That's the first time in 30 years. Iran tries to have a good relationship with Turkey, also mostly sunni.
  I think the Saudis try to fuel sectarian divisions so that the conflict becomes Sunni vs Shia. But it follows from a containment strategy based on national interests. So you'll get salafist extremists trying to kill shia and people think that's because extremists. While it can also be "because it's in someone's (national) interest to support and incite those extremists". Shia|Sunni polarisation becomes a strategy, not a cause.

The role of Iran in Bahrain is distorted. The idea that the shia want to revolt because Iran put them up to it is outright silly. All Iran needs to do is try to establish a friendly relationship with the opposition. And then wait.

Re:from the who's-to-blame dept.

[Reservoir Penguin]

It's still not a secular country in the way France for instance is secular. Israeli government pays a significant percentage of it's Jewish population to basically sit at home and study Torah. And it's not possible for an Arab citizen of Israel to marry a Jewish citizen, the only workaround is to leave the country and get married abroad, then Israel will recognize the union.

The Shareef Don't Like IT

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuke the Casbah!

No matter who it was

[sqrt(2)]

No matter who was responsible, they pushed the world closer to war with that virus.

I'm not convinced by what we've seen so far, what little evidence there is, that Iran is producing nuclear weapons or wants to. Even if you could prove that to me, it wouldn't change my position that we shouldn't be involved in their affairs and have no right to punish or sanction a nation for doing the same thing we do. It's the US after all with the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and the only nation to have ever used them (we get sort of a pass since they were unprecedented at the time).

Iran is a sovereign nation and if they wish to produce nuclear weapons because they feel threatened by their neighbors (Israel, a nuclear power) or as a deterrent then that is their prerogative. Israel claims to feel threatened and vulnerable, that they're being menaced by Iran, yet they're the ones murdering scientists and sabotaging industries of other nations.

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia has more nuclear weapons than the US, by number of warheads

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a pass because the Japanese Empire was a vicious and aggressive power that constituted a threat to the rest of the world, and that an invasion would have been easily ten times more costly in loss of life?

The Nazis may have a more identifiable ideology but there was in Japan as well.

Re:No matter who it was

[caladine]

Iran is a sovereign nation and if they wish to produce nuclear weapons because they feel threatened by their neighbors (Israel, a nuclear power) or as a deterrent then that is their prerogative.

Not exactly. Iran is a signatory of the NPT.

Article II: Each non-NWS party undertakes not to receive, from any source, nuclear weapons, or other nuclear explosive devices; not to manufacture or acquire such weapons or devices; and not to receive any assistance in their manufacture.

It's their prerogative to do so should they first decide to withdraw from the NPT, similar to what North Korea did.

Re:No matter who it was

[PPH]

Yeah, maybe. But keep in mind that Ahmadinejad and Khamenei aren't beloved by even a majority of their own people. Look at the reaction to their latest presidential election. It doesn't take a large leap of faith to believe that there are probably a lot of Iranians who don't want this government to succeed. Or have nukes.

Re:No matter who it was

[frosty_tsm]

No matter who was responsible, they pushed the world closer to war with that virus.

I'm not convinced by what we've seen so far, what little evidence there is, that Iran is producing nuclear weapons or wants to. Even if you could prove that to me, it wouldn't change my position that we shouldn't be involved in their affairs and have no right to punish or sanction a nation for doing the same thing we do. It's the US after all with the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and the only nation to have ever used them (we get sort of a pass since they were unprecedented at the time).

Iran is a sovereign nation and if they wish to produce nuclear weapons because they feel threatened by their neighbors (Israel, a nuclear power) or as a deterrent then that is their prerogative. Israel claims to feel threatened and vulnerable, that they're being menaced by Iran, yet they're the ones murdering scientists and sabotaging industries of other nations.

Right now there is something of a balance between the powers that have nuclear weapons today. Iran's unpredictable nature and history of supporting terrorists poses a risk to the balance.

Speaking of WWII, 1) Germany would have used it if they attained it (their research didn't get that far) and 2) less Japanese died due to the bomb. A land invasion of Japan would have made Iwo Jima and Okinawa look like a cake walk for both the Allies and the Japanese as the Japanese population would have fought on until very few remained. Also, as horrifying as the bomb was fire bombing Tokyo and Dresden killed just as many.

Re:No matter who it was

[JoshuaZ]

There's a lot wrong with your remark. First of all, Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons so attempting to research or build nuclear weapons is a direct violation of their treaty obligations.

Second, the large US stockpile is a concern, and the US is (correctly) taking steps to reduce the size of that stockpile (indeed has been for the last twenty years, in cooperation with Russia which has done the same to their stockpile). But the US weapons (in addition to being under treat compliance) are very tightly guarded and have many safeguards against accidental or malicious use. There's no such guarantee that Iranian weapons would be that way, and likely wouldn't be.

Third, your remark about Israel doesn't reflect the actual geopolitical situation. Despite Israel and Iran not even sharing a border, Iran is one of the largest funders of Hezbollah and other groups which systematically engage in attacks on Israel. http://www.cfr.org/iran/state-sponsors-iran/p9362. In that context, Israel being afraid of what Iran, or elements in the Iranian government, would do with nuclear weapons makes sense. As for sabotaging industry- it is Iran, not Israel which refuses to recognize Israel's existence. At this point, Israel has peace treaties and functional relations with Egypt and Jordan (and a decent amount of tourism between the countries and commercial exchange). Israel is not on good terms with Syria, but they've at least had limited dialogue. Iran is pretty much the only country in the region which has both continued to sponsor attacks on Israel and has never sat down at the negotiating table. While one can argue that there's a large history of hostility and menacing on both sides, the essential facts are that Israel has sat down and signed treaties with other nations in the area, and Iran has never shown any indication or willingness to ever sit down. Israel is not at all blameless in the current situation, but it is Iran's belicose government that is the essential reason that Israel is concerned, quite legitimately, over Iranian nuclear ambitions.

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to have trouble distinguishing cause from effect.

It seems to me that first: without the threats that it has made against Israel and their nuclear program, that they would have no need to feel threatened by Israel (which is, in fact, not their neighbor). Any fear that they might have of actions by Israel is a result of their actions, not a reasonable cause for their actions.

On the other hand, Israel's fear of Iran is a logical result of Iran's actions, and their actions (assassinations and sabotage) are a logic result of that fear. These actions are a result of what Iran is doing, not a cause for it. And I strongly suspect that absent Iran's rhetoric and actions (including support of Israel's sworn enemies who are neighbors of Israel), that Israel would have no reason to have any ill feelings towards Iran.

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

We will never know for sure, but there is historical evidence that points to Japan's imminent surrender even before the atomic bombs were used. They were already utterly defeated as a military power.

Whether the war continued on in name only on the home islands would have made little difference to the rest of the world. They had no further means to wage war from their archipelago; few natural resources to fuel a modern economy or war machine, and had lost a great mass of manpower. A naval blockade could have achieved victory without the use of nuclear weapons, or weapons at all.

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

so attempting to research or build nuclear weapons is a direct violation of their treaty obligations.

Your trying to confuse the situation.
There is NO proof Iran is attempting reasearch into, or building nuclear weapons.

Here are some more facts you might not like:
1. Iran's formal notification to the IAEA of the planned construction of the backup fuel-rod facility underscores that Iran is playing by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which Iran has signed.
2. Iran allows IAEA inspections of all its facilities.
3. The IAEA and all 16 United States Intelligence Agencies are unanimous in agreement that Iran is not building and does not possess nuclear weapons.
4. Israel refuses to sign the same treaty Iran has signed.

Re:No matter who it was

[stevenfuzz]

Nuclear weapons for all! As humans we have the natural right to walk around with nuclear weapons sticking our of our pants at attention! Hell, let's send some to Nigeria. How about Nuclear weapon day, where we all paint cute bunnies and write all over them with things like "Human sovereignty, where my nuclear exposition is like way bigger than yours".

Come on bro, there has to be a limit to this kind of right-wing no government bs that you are trying to sell to me for an apocalypse and terrible hat fashions. If you can create a device which threatens humanity, than humanity has a right to band together and deiced not to allow it.

Re:No matter who it was

[JoshuaZ]

It isn't confusing an issue when the person I'm responding to said "Iran is a sovereign nation and if they wish to produce nuclear weapons because they feel threatened by their neighbors (Israel, a nuclear power) or as a deterrent then that is their prerogative." Context matters.

Re:No matter who it was

[sqrt(2)]

They are within striking distance of regional weapons. When Israel has nuclear weapons, missiles, and planes to deliver them, they can be considered neighbors.

Also, Israel seems to think they have a right or responsibility to stop Iran from developing any nuclear technology, peaceful or otherwise. If they were developing nuclear weapons that might even make them justified in certain cases, but so far we have no proof of that. They have absolutely no right to sabotage peaceful nuclear power production, and so far that's all Iran has been doing.

Israel will have ill-feelings toward Iran regardless of what Iran does because Israel is run by a group with the biggest persecution complex in the world--largely justified. Anything but fawning obsequiousness is taken as hostility. Look at the incredibly small movement away from Israel that the US has made in its foreign policy. The hardliners compare Obama to the appeasers of Hitler for having the audacity not to be completely in lockstep with Israel.

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

MAD only works if the person with the finger on the red button isn't a loon and thinks that they will be rewarded in the afterlife for killing alot of infidels even if it means all of their people die too. I trust the Iranian people but I don't trust the religious zealots in charge.

Ironic my word was warfare for submittal

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

Iran is a sovereign nation and if they wish to produce nuclear weapons ... then that is their prerogative

False.

Iran, a sovereign nation, has voluntarily signed (and reaffirmed multiple times) a treaty stating they will NOT produce nuclear weapons, AND will declare fully all their nuclear activity, AND agree to serious punishment if they don't live up to their obligations.

Iran has repeatedly violated the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and suffer the consequences of their actions.

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have proof that Iran has violated the non-proliferation treaty (they haven't, BTW, the US government says so and so does the IAEA) or are you just parroting what you've heard from right wing radio?

Re:No matter who it was

[sqrt(2)]

It's their prerogative to do so should they first decide to withdraw from the NPT, similar to what North Korea did.

That was what I meant. Curious that so many people didn't seem to understand that it would work that way, and that they'd be within their right as a sovereign nation to decide which treaties they'll be party to.

As it stands, they are party to that treaty, and are complying with it.

Re:No matter who it was

[Tancred]

sqrt(2)'s brought up production of nuclear weapons.
You (JoshuaZ) had a good point about the NPT in response to that.
AC had a good point as well that there's no evidence of weapons production, though the charge of trying to confuse the situation falls flat given what you were responding to.

If the roles were reversed, I think the U.S. would be trying to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent. Imagine Iran having the huge stockpile of nuclear weapons and being the only country having used them. Imagine Iran having overthrown the U.S. democratically elected government decades earlier. Imagine that over the last decade or so, they've invaded and set up new governments in Canada and Mexico. And finally, over the last few years, the drumbeats of war have been getting louder, with prominent voices calling for bombing the U.S.

Re:No matter who it was

[bmo]

Right now there is something of a balance between the powers that have nuclear weapons today. Iran's unpredictable nature and history of supporting terrorists poses a risk to the balance.

There is a solution to this.

Make it crystal clear and publicly, in no uncertain terms, that a nuclear detonation by a hostile country in any country allied with us or even merely friendly to us, or in our own country, the US, will be met with corresponding or superior-in-number nuclear detonations in their country.

In short, bring back MAD.

You want to play with the big boys and play with big boy toys? Play by the big boy rules or stfu and gtfo.

--
BMO

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

> I'm not convinced by what we've seen so far, what little evidence there is, that Iran is producing nuclear weapons or wants to.

Sure, a totalitarian, theocratic country with 15% of all the oil reserves in the world (100 years worth of production) just wants a little more peaceful energy, right? Seems totally legit.

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

Number of things the war heads are much more effective and the US military is not exactly truthful about it's agenda or capabilities.

Re:No matter who it was

[sqrt(2)]

So they should just squander it all right now as fast as they can? Burn up a resource that has many other uses than energy when there are alternatives?

That's the kind of thinking that is dooming mankind.

Re:No matter who it was

[rtb61]

That of course is the lie. Nobody is talking about banning nuclear weapons, no action is being taken against countries who have them, no sanctions are being applied to hoarders of them and nothing being done about countries who lie about and hide their existing weapons.

Nope this is about Iranian oil, the US military Industrial complex and the Israeli's government desire to dominate the middle east.

What is being done or said about the Israeli nuclear stockpile currently at between 200 and 300 warheads, obviously that number would indicate their use is for targets well beyond the middle east, what are those additional targets.

Sorry but the rule is, if you have nuclear weapons than you do not get a seat at the nuclear non-proliferation table and you should already be facing sanctions. Weapons designed to irradiate, blow up and then set on fire every man, women, child born and unborn in a geographic region and then render that region uninhabitable, already set you and yours apart from the rest of humanity.

In this case Israel has done everything possible in order to make Iran feel threatened by imminent attack up to and including the use of nuclear weapons. Israel has been the driver of violence in the region. As for the US, their efforts are a joke, they are just Israel's whipping boy sent stumbling from pillar to post by Israel control over US elections, with blatantly corrupt campaign contributions and treasonous mass media attacks.

The US itself triggered off unclear weapon proliferation when they promoted 'FIRST STRIKE' use of nuclear weapons. This specifically designed by the US military industrial complex to promote the proliferation of nuclear weapons so that more money will be spent on the defences against them.

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

Evidence please that Israel murdered scientists.

Meanwhile, Iran was caught red-handed bombing Israeli diplomat families a few months ago. Strange you don't care about that.

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh fuck you. the Japanese killed 6 million people. They were losing the war for 2 years when we fought in Okinawa, an island 20x20mi, and it cost 85,000 US soldiers. Japanese soldiers weren't even allowed to turn and run when out numbered -- they fought, or they committed suicide. They weren't going to surrender -- it was against their culture to surrender. They were there serving the emperor... who they believe was divine, was descended from the gods, and was able to communicate with them. To surrender would have meant defying their culture, leader (in the military and the emperor), and their version of Jesus (for all intents and purposes).

And those people that died in the nuclear bomb? 1/4th were soldiers. and the civilians were working in factories manufacturing weapons.

So once again... fuck you. 6 million people. The Japanese were not victims. They deserved every bit of how it ended because of what they started. If there is such a thing as evil, the Japanese and their Nazi allies, were the closest example of it that we've seen in centuries.

Re:No matter who it was

[tomhath]

Japan's strategy is well known and probably would have succeeded if the US didn't have nukes. They knew a military victory was not going to happen after the Battle of Midway. From then on their goal was to make the war so expensive in terms of men killed that the US would negotiate a ceasefire. 6000 Americans killed on Iwo Jima in a month long battle, 12000 Americans killed on Okinawa in thee months. By then an invasion of the Japanese mainland was unthinkable; the Japanese were waiting for the US to sit down and negotiate when the two nukes were dropped. No US casualties, two cities incinerated; only then were they convinced that total surrender was their only option.

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

Now imagine how we feel about the USA because I'm fucked if I can see the difference.

Wait I can. The USA HAS killed lots of infidenls!

Re:No matter who it was

[j. andrew rogers]

It's the US after all with the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons...

I see this stated often but it is factually incorrect. Russia has had the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons for decades, often by a large margin.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons

Re:No matter who it was

[hsalstond]

I don't think anyone would argue that Stalin or Mao were sane. Like so many leaders, they were homicidal psychopaths. MAD seems to have worked even despite insane leaders.

Re:No matter who it was

[Lehk228]

iran's current government did not sign that treaty, the now deposed government did, though they should formally withdraw if they do decide to build nukes

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

"First of all, Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty" yeah because the USA has a great history on its obligations with things like the Geneva Convention and even it's own Constitution. It's just like the South Park episode 'Simpsons did it'... any fingers you want to point can be replied with 'USA did it'. Overthrow democratically elected leaders and countries 'USA did it' drop nukes on another country 'USA did it' smuggle drugs to fund black ops 'USA did it' spy on its own people 'USA did it' put LSD in other countries drinking water 'USA did it'. Lie about WMD to its people and allies to justify a war 'USA did it'. Until the USA sorts its sh*t they should stop pointing fingers. As for Israel they need to get over this seige mentality and realise they are the agressor.

Re:No matter who it was

[caladine]

That was what I meant. Curious that so many people didn't seem to understand that it would work that way, and that they'd be within their right as a sovereign nation to decide which treaties they'll be party to.

This is /., you should know better! Iran should not, however, expect such a move to come without repercussions.

As it stands, they are party to that treaty, and are complying with it.

Sort of.

Article III: Each non-NWS party undertakes to conclude an agreement with the IAEA for the application of its safeguards to all nuclear material in all of the state's peaceful nuclear activities and to prevent diversion of such material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.

Iran has fun flaunting this one. See also: Natanz, Fordo

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

You get sort of a pass? WTF man. Tell that to the millions that died because of it, OH we didn't know it was going to be _THAT_ bad.

Jesus fucking christ you Americans are DELUSIONAL.

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

Who else was doing it, aliens trying to promote peace on earth? Iran's retaliation was justified.

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

They were never caught redhanded. It was never proved they were related to Iranian government. Exactly reverse those incidents were so stupid that it questions their relation to IR.

They were most probably related to MKO terrorist organization which fights with Iranian government (and used to fight under Saddam's flag against Iran).

Re:No matter who it was

[sqrt(2)]

Couldn't we have just blockaded Okinawa and waited a few months for them to starve to death? They weren't going to get resupplied and the island wasn't self sufficient, was it? Or it wouldn't be with constant bombardment. They wouldn't be growing crops on the surface. I know they had extensive cave systems but they weren't growing food down there. Even if they had stores, they wouldn't last forever. We could have just waited. We lost all those men by choice. Maybe it was the right choice, but we could have just blockaded and bombarded every island. Even the home islands.

Re:No matter who it was

[rgbrenner]

Stalin left office in 52. And China did not have ICBMs capable of reaching the US until the 2000's... about 20 years after Mao died.

Re:No matter who it was

[hrtserpent6]

Maybe.

The Iwo Jima and Okinawa invasions were planned as part of the same campaign. The goal was the airfields within 500 miles of the mainland. Our capture of Guam, Saipan, the Marianas and Tinian gave us long-range heavy bomber capability to carpet bomb Japanese factories, but the B-24s and B-29s had a rough time of it. It was a long flight: 3000 miles round trip, about 16 hours. Tokyo was right at the edge of the B-29s range, so a lot of planes made it back on fumes, or, if they took shrapnel through a fuel line, ditched in the middle of nowhere*. Plus, when they got over Japan, they had to contend with the Japanese air force all by themselves. They had no fighter escorts - the longest range U.S. fighter, the P47-N, only had a range of about 1800 miles (that's with drop tanks). The bomber wings were taking pretty high casualties, losing about 5% of all bombers sent out on each sortie, plus lots of dead gunners. We needed to have airfields much closer so we could have emergency landing places for the B-29s, SAR aircraft for downed crews, and those lovely fighter escorts. Air superiority wins wars, so the U.S. needed to capture islands much closer to the mainland.

Iwo Jima jumped off first (19 February – 26 March 1945). Iwo Jima had three airfields, but it's only 8 square miles, not a lot of room, and no deep anchorage ports for the Navy. Okinawa (1 April – 21 June 1945) had four existing airfields, plus it's 500 sq. mi. Bonus: it's in the Sea of Japan. This allowed us to attack from two directions and also support some of the Allied forces in China.

I don't think we realized how costly it was going to be to take the island. Plus we really REALLY wanted/needed those airfields. We thought we had figured out how to deal with the Japanese tunnel problem: flame tanks (M4A3R3 Zippo). We captured two of the four airbases within hours, and within a couple of days we held half of the island. It was taking the rest that was the problem.

Another aspect to this is the whole world was getting weird while this was going on. We invaded Okinawa Island on April 1. USSR entered the war against Japan on April 6. President Roosevelt died on April 12. Ernie Pyle, the famous and well-loved war correspondent, was killed on April 18th while accompanying a mop-up operation on one of the outlying Okinawan islands. Germany surrendered on May 8, and we hoped Japan might be demoralized and surrender as well. That didn't happen. We needed to end the war, fast. Momentum was on our side, morale was on our side. We had a new, 'unknown' president (Truman). The U.S. was running out of creative ways to raise money. Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt had already met in Yalta to carve up post-war Germany. The world was changing, a new order was arising. We were already looking beyond, and realized that we needed to be done with this whole thing.

* I highly recommend "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand. True story about a former U.S. Olympic runner who became a B-24 bombardier. Their plane developed serious mechanical problems on a long-range search mission. They ditched in the middle of the ocean, survived in a life raft for 47 days, then were captured by the Japanese and sent to one of the worst POW camps till the end of the war. Amazing story.

Re:No matter who it was

[dwye]

No, the Tokyo Fire Raids killed far more Japanese than the two atomic bombs, combined. More died in Dresden, too, but not by so large a ratio. Not that sqrt(2) cares, since he would be happy if we killed them all by starvation, just don't save Japanese lives by killing a small percentage with nukes.

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

No the Russians were about to enter that theater. If we did not bring about a quick end to the war Japan would have ended up divided like Germany.

Re:No matter who it was

[Xest]

"AC had a good point as well that there's no evidence of weapons production, though the charge of trying to confuse the situation falls flat given what you were responding to."

No he doesn't. Just about every single one of his points were wrong, and I don't know why every time this topic comes up these myths are repeated despite the fact that they also get debunked every single time. The AC's points were:

"1. Iran's formal notification to the IAEA of the planned construction of the backup fuel-rod facility underscores that Iran is playing by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which Iran has signed."

False. Iran has been deemed non-compliant by the IAEA since 2003. This is verifiable on the IAEA website.

"2. Iran allows IAEA inspections of all its facilities."

False. The most recent report (http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2012/gov2012-9.pdf) clearly states:

The Agency requested access to the Parchin site, but Iran did not grant access to the site at that time.

"3. The IAEA and all 16 United States Intelligence Agencies are unanimous in agreement that Iran is not building and does not possess nuclear weapons."

False. The most recent report (same link as above) also clearly states:

41. The Annex to the Director Generalâ(TM)s November 2011 report (GOV/2011/65) provided a detailed
analysis of the information available to the Agency indicating that Iran has carried out activities that are
relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. This information, which comes from a wide
variety of independent sources, including from a number of Member States, from the Agencyâ(TM)s own efforts
and from information provided by Iran itself, is assessed by the Agency to be, overall, credible. The
information indicates that: prior to the end of 2003 the activities took place under a structured programme;
that some continued after 2003; and that some may still be ongoing.

There is absolutely no agreement whatsoever that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. On the contrary, there is clearly great suspicion that they are.

"4. Israel refuses to sign the same treaty Iran has signed."

True. This is the only point the AC made that is true. I'm not sure what it matters though, I'm not convinced that openly accepting you're not supportive of the NPT because you want the freedom to make nuclear weapons is somehow worse than covertly pursuing them whilst pretending you're against them. At least we know Israel's position, and that they've not used them despite having had them for 40 years. Iran is still a complete unknown that has at very least claimed to want to whipe out a nation. I'd much rather favour the honest and defensive than the subversive and aggressive.

Also, this argument of trying to say "Well the US isn't perfect either" is so utterly pathetic, it doesn't matter what the fuck the US is or isn't, this is about a nation that has a long history of committing war by proxy. I don't really care about the US, I care about a nation that would quite arguably the most untrustworthy custodian of nuclear weapons to date, having nuclear weapons. For all Israel, America, Britain, France, China, and Russia's faults they've at least not shown any will to use nuclear weapons in anger since the devastation they caused was witnessed in World War II. We've not even had from any of these nations outright calls for the destruction of other nations, and yes yes I know that was a "mistranslation", was it, really? even when it was painted on the side of missiles? Even now the current Ayatollah running the show has just put forward what he believes is his legal justification for the whiping out of Israel and destruction of the Jews?

Whilst I've defended Israel in the past, I have not supported it for some years, it's current government is too aggressive, too right wing, too uncompromising and I believe it's continued settlement building is completely indefensible. Anyone whose read a decent amount of my pos

Re:No matter who it was

[DMiax]

You think there were no US casualties from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? How naive... There were prisoners of war.

Maybe only 11 of your soldiers are not worth giving up the opportunity to massacre the civilian population of an entire city. They could have dropped it on a deserted island, with warnings and it would have been just as effective in order to strike fear.

If Japan had used an atomic bomb and then lost the war anyone involved would have been tried and executed Nuremberg style. But US won the war, then it became fair game.

Re:No matter who it was

[evilviper]

we shouldn't be involved in their affairs and have no right to punish or sanction a nation for doing the same thing we do.

First of all, isolationism was tried, and failed spectacularly. The world political stability of the past half century is ample proof that isolationism is the exact wrong way to go.

As far as hypocracy, once the US turns into a theo-dictatorship, which has repeatedly threatened it's neighbors, we can talk. Besides, once they get nuclear weapons, there's no way to stop them from using them... doing things we don't do, so it sounds nice in theory, but practice is a bit different.

It's the US after all with the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and the only nation to have ever used them (we get sort of a pass since they were unprecedented at the time).

There aren't many large countries out there, so it just makes sense that the US would have one of the largest stockpiles. And the US' use of atomic weapons against Japan was basically unavoidable, and saved many lives on both the US and Japanese sides, not to mention likely having a large role in preventing WWIII.

. Israel claims to feel threatened and vulnerable, that they're being menaced by Iran, yet they're the ones murdering scientists and sabotaging industries of other nations.

And? Is every country that ever launched a premptive strike the guilty party? The aggressor nation? How far along does it have to be? Troops massing at the border? Missiles being launched, before it's okay to launch a defensive strike?

Your magical thinking an disconnection from reality probably make logical discussions unlikely, but at least I tried.

Re:No matter who it was

[supermank17]

~grumble~ Replying to undo a misclick moderation. It doesn't look like there's a way to undo an accidental misclick, and there's no confirmation or anything on the dropdown.
Anyway, informative post. And I highly recommend "Unbroken" as well. Even my wife, who has only a passing interest in World War II history, loved it.

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

What is being done or said about the Israeli nuclear stockpile currently at between 200 and 300 warheads, obviously that number would indicate their use is for targets well beyond the middle east, what are those additional targets.

Actually, Israel never signed the NPT, and as a result isn't bound by it.

Iran, a sovereign nation, voluntarily signed the NPT and has repeatedly affirmed it.

Re:No matter who it was

[timeOday]

Yeah, maybe. But keep in mind that Ahmadinejad and Khamenei aren't beloved by even a majority of their own people.

Why do you think the protesters were the majority and not a sizeable minority? I see this self-serving assumption repeated over and over again. It might be true, but why do you think it is?

Re:No matter who it was

[tinkerton]

It will depend on how you measure it. In a weighted count the modern weapons get a higher weight.

Re:No matter who it was

[timeOday]

First of all, isolationism was tried, and failed spectacularly.

It was interventionism/activism that was tried and failed, from Germany and Japan's perspective.

Re:No matter who it was

[PPH]

Why do you think the protesters were the majority and not a sizeable minority?

Polling.

And don't confuse popularity with votes. GW Bush was perceived to be an idiot by a large segment of the US population. But the old saying, "Don't change horses in the middle of the stream" got him re-elected. Mousavi might have won, but tossing Ahmadinejad out would have looked like a sign of weakness when Iran was (still is) under international pressure.

Re:No matter who it was

[Anonymous Coward]

>But the US weapons (in addition to being under treat compliance) are very tightly guarded and have many safeguards against accidental or malicious use.
Except when they are taken for a flight around the USA for no good reason and one goes missing:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7158
Or eight of them:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/10031

And when US leadership starts again to lobby for their pre-emptive use, including a nuclear first-strike doctrine, all to eliminate, e.g. "the Iranian nuclear threat." -- One just has to wonder how scared-shitless the americans really are?
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2005/3221conplan_8022.html

I would say Iran is justified in developing a nuclear weapon to be able to counter the american threat against them.
Americans need to disavow nuclear first strike doctrine and stop developing WMDs and let in UN inspectors to their bioweapons laboratories.
http://janetphelan.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=155:united-states-violates-international-bioweapons-treaty&catid=34:eugenics&Itemid=41

Not to talk about Israel's nuclear threats against Iran and Europe. For one, Israel has not signed on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, so their nutcases should be considered to be the bigger threat, as they have a long history of launching aggressive wars against neighbors.
Iran hasn't attacked anyone in it's history.
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/west-bank-rabbi-jews-can-kill-gentiles-who-threaten-israel-1.4496

MEK

[Tancred]

The same MEK that's on the U.S. terror list, and yet openly supported by several high ranking figures in national politics.

Re:MEK

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention, the same MEK who recently (2000s) recieved training from US forces in Nevada? http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/04/mek.html

Re:Poor Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

They need to do something. People are leaving. Saw this post earlier today: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2783085&cid=39663679

TL;DR:

[nimbius]

israel probably did this, and they went to great lengths to make sure it was clandestine. we all know the horrible political repercussions israel would face from america if it were caught doing something as nefarious as killing scientists or hacking into power plants in a foreign nation with the largest minority jewish population in the middle east.

its absolutely imperative that countries like iran be restricted access to develop their own power plants with their own fuel. they may divert their nuclear program for nefarious intent, like breaking away from western plutocratic foreign policy. a nation with more residents than the country of england couldnt possibly need nuclear fuel for medical imaging devices or academic research.

Re:TL;DR:

[deanklear]

israel probably did this, and they went to great lengths to make sure it was clandestine. we all know the horrible political repercussions israel would face from america if it were caught doing something as nefarious as killing scientists or hacking into power plants in a foreign nation with the largest minority jewish population in the middle east.

The same America that did nothing when they bombed Iraqi nuclear facilities in 1982? The same America that bombed those same facilities in 1991?

Why do you think we support Israel in the first place? We can train and equip them, and everyone once in a while they'll invade a non-aligned country, or carry out assassinations of suspected terrorists without having to get our hands dirty. They are a military client state that exists, for us at least, expressly for the purpose of carrying out matters of American national interest, including murdering people that we don't like.

"On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that's a wonderful thing, candidly... I think we should send a very clear message that if you are a scientist from Russia, North Korea, or from Iran, and you are going to work on a nuclear program to develop a bomb for Iran, you are not safe."

--Rick Santorum

Re:TL;DR:

[amiga3D]

I don't doubt that Israel has killed a lot of people involved in the Iranian Nuclear Program. Nations generally operate from an "The end justifies the means" kind of position. They'll need to kill many, many thousands more to catch up to what Iran's rulers are doing to her own people though. If you wonder what I'm talking about just wander over to Amnesty Internationals page. Israel has had the bomb for a few decades now and has used it primarily as a deterrent to invasion. I doubt that Iran with a nuclear arsenal will be that limited. I sincerely hope that if Iran does develop the bomb that both China and Russia will reap what they've sown.

Plausable deniability

[shuz]

This story is politically charged and what is never reported is how China and Russia, for the most part, do not have governments that accurately reflect the views of the majority of its' citizens. Much can probably be said about many if not most of the governments in the world. The USA for instance is a very diverse nation culturally and ideologically. It would surprise me greatly if the average Iranian wanted to cause a military nuclear device to be set off in another nation anymore than the average person in the USA. As far as Israel, what I really fail to understand is what reason any Muslim would want to damage the landscape. There are many locations within Israels borders that are considered holy to Muslims, Christians, and Jewish. Beyond that setting off a nuclear device in Israel would have extreme negative consequences for many surrounding Islamic nations! The only reason I can see to not allow a country to have Nuclear warheads is if that country has proven to the world that they are led by mentally unstable leaders that have shown that they don't have respect for their own people. I am not in a position to pass judgement on individuals in other countries without directly interacting with them. So I can not comment on Israel's or Iran's leaders.

MEK are Iranians willing to fight the Mullocracy.

[couchslug]

Good luck to them. Peaceful methods have no effect, but the MEK alone have the courage to fight to the death.

Ripped off

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet Iran feels gyped and/or jewed out of its nuclear research.

Cheerleading is becoming challenging

[macraig]

Damn, it's getting so hard to figure out who to cheer now. Who exactly are the good guys again? Who is my team? I can't tell any more.

Re:Cheerleading is becoming challenging

[Anonymous Coward]

America. America is always the good guys, because we're always the good guys.

Obviously.

Re:Cheerleading is becoming challenging

[crutchy]

fuck yeah!!!!




suck my balls

1.5 Million Jews in Iran

[Anonymous Coward]

Israel has lots of operatives in this population.

If Israel used a New York Jew to assassinate a US sitting president, it would still be Israel that assassinated the president, even if the US born Jew called himself a member of AIPAC or some such.

i bet it all started...

[alienzed]

...with:"Hey, can I check my email on that centrifuge?" -"Yeah sure!"

Re:i bet it all started...

[crutchy]

more like... nobody ever got fired for buying microsoft

Assassination arm of Mossad? Srsly?

[Anonymous Coward]

MEK is an organization of militant Islamic, Iranian leftists guerrillas. There are certainly a reasonable number of conspiracy nuts taking a break from their '9/11 was a Zionist Conspiracy using planted charges supplied by aliens' tirades who claim an association between them and Israel. But describing them as the assassination arm of Mossad seems to be a stretch based on the current available facts. If there's a clear tie - is there somewhere we can read about it? The conspiracy bloggers make my head hurt.

Re:Assassination arm of Mossad? Srsly?

[tokidokix]

I have no mod point but if somebody can, please mod this up. Writing that the MEK is an assassination arm of the Mossad is just repeating Iranian government propaganda. They are a Marxist movement that was fighting the Shah before the revolution and has been forced into exile by the islamists after the revolution. As one of the political opponent of the islamist government in Iran, they may have received support from countries opposing the iranian government (although I am not aware that they ever received specific help from Israel). But they are certainly not affiliated to Mossad.

They have sponsored violent actions in the past, but they are not considered a terrorist movement in Europe anymore ( although they still are in the US)

Re:Assassination arm of Mossad? Srsly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those conspiracy bloggers often make your eyes hurt, too.
  "I can't remember what I read, but it was green, on a black background."

Re:Assassination arm of Mossad? Srsly?

[crutchy]

wtf!!! are there really alien gorillas in israel?!!

i knew it

Re:Assassination arm of Mossad? Srsly?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is suspicion that the MEK (on the US terrorist list) is being supported by the US! Just too useful to have an armed opposition group near to Iran...
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/10/training_terrorists_in_nevada_seymour_hersh

you have it backwards

[schlachter]

They pushed the world further from war. Because various countries are able to sabotage and assassinate to slow down the Iranian nuclear project...an all out military option has not be used as of yet. You can bet your ass...that there would have been one by now had there not been options like Stuxnet.

Re:you have it backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would Iran start a war with Israel? They know they would lose.

WTG Israel

[Anonymous Coward]

Hit them hard, hopefully u can infiltrate again!

I pity the Geeks

[Taco Cowboy]

As a geek myself, there are times I can't help but feel disgusted at the way they treat my fellow geeks

Who were the ones doing all the new inventions?

The Geeks

Who were the ones reaping the benefits of the new inventions?

The Investors

On the other hand, whenever things go wrong, who do they blame?

The investors?

Don't be silly, nobody will blame those poor investors who have lost their life-savings

They will of course blame the GEEKS for the failings

Like in this Iranian case

Who invented the nuclear thingy? Geeks

Who use this nuclear thing to blackmail the world? The Politicians

Who invented the Stuxnet virus?

The Geeks

But who order the Geeks to invent the Stuxnet virus?

The Politicians

Now, about those "Nuclear Spies" the Iranians rounded up - and we can assume very brutal torture, killing, etc included - because of the Stuxnet virus?

The Politicians? No, nobody would touch the politicians

They rounded up and torture the Geeks

It's the Geeks who are being blamed for everything and anything when things gone south, but yet, never get to reap any benefit when things go north, way up north !

Re:I pity the Geeks

[gl4ss]

if you're an iranian opposition politic then you've already had your ass kicked or you're in hiding or you're just shutting up and taking part in underground resistance...

Re:I pity the Geeks

[Anonymous Coward]

replace geeks with serfs, and Iran can be any country--even the motherland of capitalism. those in power claim success for themselves, and failure of their minions. same story everywhere.

Re:I pity the Geeks

[Anonymous Coward]

I could care less about geeks, they are disgusting, pathetic, losers within the society. My concern will always be with the Scientists (individuals with excellent genetics, with exceptional intelligence, and whom chosen to go into research of their own accord, and whom would have been able to go just as easily into any other field. As opposed to geeks/losers, who were pressured out of every other civilised discipline, and whom only are able to do the job at an average level due to spending an extraordinary amount of time on it...).

Re:I pity the Geeks

[ArhcAngel]

This has more to do with the way people in general think. I suppose an extreme "example" would be the character Sheldon on Big Bang Theory. Sheldon believes himself superior to everyone due to his high IQ but fails miserably at interpersonal relationships. He also does not see wealth/power as things to be pursued. He is truly happy unraveling the mysteries of science/technology. And he perceives his intellectual superiority to be a form of power. People who become politicians usually do so precisely because they seek to control others. If you look at the truly great men in power throughout history most of them were either put there by someone else or forced into seeking power to prevent what they perceived as evil from getting it.

Re:I pity the Geeks

[Anonymous Coward]

i didn't vote for you

how did you become a geek?

Listen strange women lying in ponds is no basis for a foundation of government.

Witch Hunt?

[sl3xd]

Is stuxnet now being used as an excuse for a good ol' fashioned witch hunt? Just accuse your workplace foes of espionage, get them hauled away, and step into the guy's shoes with a pay raise?

Sadly we are sure

[Anonymous Coward]

There is plenty of evidence of nuclear weapons production. It's just that nobody wants to believe this while there is a one-in-a-trillion chance to deny it.

1) Their only nuclear reactor is an old design heavy-water reactor, while it is known they have designs for better ones
2) It is flanked by a building known to have an 8000 enrichment cascade
3) It's producing radiation that proves that they're producing large quantities of tritium
4) It doesn't have a decent power connection to the Iranian grid

1-2-3 combine, to anyone who has a basic introduction to nuclear technology, to proof that they're producing significant quantities of weapons-grade uranium and/or plutonium. But it's not a smoking gun.

ALL 4 are violations of the NPT by themselves. So sadly that's one thing we're absolutely sure about : Iran signed the NPT, and doesn't abide by it. Does that necessarily mean they're producing a nuclear weapon ? No. But it means that Iran respects the NPT only in words, and violates it in deeds. They further violate it by refusing full access for international inspectors with measurement equipment.

Could they be producing medical isotopes ? No, this doesn't require enrichment cascades, never mind ones that are that long. Research isotopes ? Again, doesn't require an enrichment cascade. Besides, why would they want to produce large quantities of either ? Nobody else does.

What may yet protect us is the way nuclear science is taught. Their data necessarily must mostly come from Iranians who studied abroad. Academics do sabotage this. If you buy books, or even restricted materials about weapons-grade uranium production, you'll find they're wrong. Except this is not a coincidence. Anyone in a course about this, whether in Canada, US or Europe will be told in class what a few of the mistakes are but not all of them, and they'll be told why they do this. If you follow the instructions academics teach, it won't work. You'll be generating radiation that ionizes the vaporized uranium, preventing it from crossing the enrichment chamber. You'll be taught to set them up so the uranium hits the wall of the enrichment chamber instead of the line that's supposed to take away the enriched material, the value for the electric field of a uranium atom listed in every mendeljev's table is a lie and there's several other problems with the designs of the equipment. Furthermore, the bomb production materials that leaked also contain a configuration that won't work. Well, it'll work enough to merge the bomb material with the nearest wall, making sure you have to restart from scratch, but it won't actually start a fission cascade. So presumably this is stopping them at least for the moment.

At some point, they'll have redone all the experiments that matter though, and found the errors, just like North Korea did. Let's hope their scientists are sane enough to keep teaching everyone the mistaken version, and just have the correct values and methods in their mind and nowhere else.

But you can be sure about one thing : Iran is trying to produce a weapon, this is blatantly obvious and denying it is moronic. It is only a matter of time until they get it if they just keep at it.

Re:Sadly we are sure

[Tancred]

You seem much more sure than the IAEA. Are you suggesting they're incompetent or not telling us the truth? I'm not denying they're working on weapons but I haven't seen the evidence. Evidence in this case meaning conclusions by trusted experts (not unsupported claims from an AC). But again, we would probably be working on weapons if we were in their shoes.

Re:Sadly we are sure

[bryan1945]

I'd go more with the IEAE is run by a bunch of politicos who bow down to international pressures easily. How many UN groups have been caught looking the other way over violations, or even profiting from it? Oil for food and such.
I'm not saying who has the correct information, I'm saying I have as much faith in international government and groups as I do in the US's. Which is roughly this >. (that's not meant to be a squeaky face, just a very very little amount)

Re:Sadly we are sure

[Troed]

I had a lot of faith in my fellow swede Hans Blix when he said that Saddam had no WMDs.

Hans Blix was right. The US was wrong.

"Fool me once .. shame on .. "

Re:MEK - trained in Nevada

[Anonymous Coward]

by Joint Special Operations Command
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/6/headlines/hersh_us_trained_iranian_terrorist_group_in_nevada

Re:MEK are Iranians willing to fight the Mullocrac

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a full blown moron.

MKO has assassinated hundreds of even normal people in Iran. It is no much different than AlQaeda. They are Marxists which used to perform forceful abortion on the women in their camp. They used to fight under Sadam's flag and killed large numbers of anti-Sadam Iraqis in Iraq.

people like you created Taliban in Afghanistan and thought they will just fight who US wants, but suddenly they bombed US.

Re:What next?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about Christian Lunatics which have killed at least 50 million in recent century?

a pound of spies...

[freeze128]

Iran's intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, said that an unspecified amount of 'nuclear spies' were arrested on ties to this attack.

Are they measuring the spies by weight or volume? Most people would indicate a NUMBER of spies.....

Re:a pound of spies...

[EnsilZah]

I believe the standard way of measuring nuclear spies is by their molar concentration in the whole population.
They are actually found by taking a sample from the population and shaking it violently.
Nuclear spies, being at a slightly higher energy state inevitably rise to the top and thus collected in a process referred to as reconnaissance refinement.

is it a virus then?

[crutchy]

if someone merely loads malware onto a computer? what's viral about that?

Innocents killed

[symbolset]

Stuxnet was seeded by CIA agents littering the playing fields of Iranian nuclear plant personnel with abandonded pen drives. I suggested it.

Re:What next?

[crutchy]

what sort of control could the US exercise over iran if the playing field was leveled a bit?

the real threat from iran having nukes originating from thew US being a global asshole wouldn't warrant a political rethink of its behavior on the world stage in the future. dammit we just have to stop them getting nukes right now!!! by any and all means necessary... as long as it requires dropping a fuckload of ammo all over iran.

america, fuck yeah!

to the bunkers people

US/Bush directly trained MEK in Nevada

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/04/mek.html

According to Seymour Hersh....

Return address

[ThatsNotPudding]

The thing every Chicken Little running around shouting 'Nukes' ignores is that the conventional weapons (missles) all have return addresses which would be visited a hundred-fold over. Even smaller, non-conventional ones can(?) be traced back based on their isotope signatures. A case could be made if everyone had nukes, MADD would make them rather irrelevant. The biggest concern is their theft or unauthorized launch by psychos.

Beware Geeks bearing gifts

[dmmiller2k]

Stuxnet - the gift that keeps on giving.

Re:Poor Slashdot...

[Troed]

Actually the quality has gone up considerably lately.

(but then, I'm European)

Dissidents, World Wide, American or otherwise.

[Anonymous Coward]

The question i find myself asking is, what is a Dissident? And would the Malcontents we talk to daily in the IT world be considered Dissidents? Is Anonymous in effect doing the bidding of foreign Governments, the same way Iranian dissidents who "loaded stuxnet" did the bidding of foreign governments? I often asked why anon never attacked china, north Korea etc. Is it because anon is the north American "IT everyman"- e.g. your co worker who has the firewall credentials. I did see that anon changed some Chinese government websites.. but cmon.. what about the really bad spankings they handed out prior, and why didn't they mess with china on that level? I think its because Anon are dissidents already inside American companies, frustrated, entitled, and attacking from the inside. Those Annoying grade 9 students who did outrageously stupid things, far worse than we would ever do, and with out any repercussions (like good old fashioned beating) have come of working age, and are actively fucking us over "for the LOLZ" as they say. Not a truly concerted effort.. but close enough.

MEK and Mossad do work together

[tinkerton]

"assassination arm" sounds so subordinate. But yes, there is sufficient confirmation that MEK and Mossad are working together. The US provided the training. Articles about US and Mossad involment are at foreignpolicy, msnbc and the newyorker(in order of publication):

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/13/false_flag
http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/08/10354553-israel-teams-with-terror-group-to-kill-irans-nuclear-scientists-us-officials-tell-nbc-news#star3
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/04/mek.html

Arab society runs roughly thus:

[dgharmon]

Me against my brothers until a cousin comes;

Me and my brothers against my cousins until a neighbor comes;

Me and my brother and my cousins against the neighbor until a foreigner comes;

and then we open up a Computer Shop on Tottenham Court Road and get rich.

MEK linked to Finnish Greens

[Anonymous Coward]

Mujahedeen-e-Khalq is also close friends with Finnish Green party, as their (wanted by Interpol at the time for terrorism) leaders visited Finland at the Green party's behest.