This is true, the USSR might have done 80% of the fighting, but the US still mobilized its entire economy for the war and had 12% of the total population in the actual military.
It’s even more ahistorical to say they mostly say out than that the US single-handedly fought WW2.
Ever hear the phrase an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? How about Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after all other options have been exhausted?
Like Britain, they would have almost certainly supported the nazis if Hitler invaded the USSR first. But that didn’t happen and instead the US dedicated its entire existence to doing something good for one brief moment.
Your analysis of geopolitics is about who are good guys and bad guys, but I’m sure you’re correct and anyone who thinks that’s weird is just being controlled by evil foreigners.
Nah just generally think of the systems countries have in place. When a country has an authoritarian system in place the country is capable of doing terrible things that are against the will of the people of the country. Iran has an authoritarian system in place, so they do all kinds of bullshit to maintain power and that includes executing people by the tens of thousands for protesting.
Iran is known to operate troll farms and are engaged in foreign influence operations in the west. You see how MAGAs fall for Russian influence campaigns, you’re not much different. General rule, if the internet is telling you an authoritarian government that operates troll farms are the good guys, maybe take it with a healthy grain of salt.
Also look at how women are treated in a country. That’s a fairly good barometer for how horrible a country’s government is.
Cuba and Venezuela are “authoritarian” because they won’t sell out their people’s resources and labor for pennies and also resist attemps to overthrow their governments are replace them with puppets. Iran is authoritarian because it is illegal to be gay. I have yet to see the UK get called authoritarian for what they do to trans people.
Its a useless word that just means “matches the values of rich, white, western liberals”.
When a country has an authoritarian system in place the country is capable of doing terrible things that are against the will of the people of the country.
Nations with elective leadership are just as capable of doing terrible things that are against the will of the people… It’s not like the war in Iran has been popular with either conservatives or liberals in America.
Since ww2 US major military conflicts have resulted in 3.5-4 million direct civilian deaths, and that total is multiplied several times including indirect deaths. Can you think of a modern authoritarian regime with the same body count during the same period?
No one is trying to claim that the Iranian government is “good”, just that the reasons America chose to invade the country are not morally or legally justified, and that it hasn’t been done with the intent to better the lives of the average Iranian citizen.
It was a problem that would have been solved much sooner if people who crave power and authority didn’t meddle and prolong the problem for their own benefit.
This is just making an argument based on distraction. Person A did something bad but hey look over here Person B also did something bad so stop thinking of the bad thing Person A did!
Why is it so hard just to admit Iran’s government sucks? They execute people on a massive scale, support terrorism across the Middle East, and are currently trying to hold the world’s economy hostage by breaking international law and targeting civilian shipping in an international waterway.
There’s abuser’s logic going on here where something bad happens to you and you think it makes it fine to hurt others. The US is responsible for their bad actions and Iran is responsible for their bad actions. Bad actions by the US doesn’t justify Iran’s bad actions towards others.
Sure, Reagan, Bush, Trump have done or are currently doing shitty things and stupid things. But that doesn’t make Iran’s government the good guys.
I am in no way saying either that Iran is by any measure better than the USA or that actions of the USA justify Irans actions… I am also neither a USA nor an Iranian citizen or have any connection to either state besides my country having commercial relations with both.
You need to wrap your head around the fact that the original post about remembering stuff about Iran is a distraction piece to pull focus away from the atrocities that the USA is committing.
Or to put it in your words: why is it so hard for you to just admit that the USA are killing people on a massive scale in places nowhere near their territory, topple democratically legitimized governments for their own gains, and let governmentally supported thugs roam their streets terrorizing and killing their own population? Not to mention holding the global economy hostage regularly. Why do you need to point to other countries? Do other countries being bad make these actions okay?
You need to wrap your head around the fact that the original post about remembering stuff about Iran is a distraction piece to pull focus away from the atrocities that the USA is committing.
The whole premise on the meme is to distract from the bad things Iran has done because “Reagan is bad.”
Or to put it in your words: why is it so hard for you to just admit that the USA are killing people on a massive scale in places nowhere near their territory, topple democratically legitimized governments for their own gains, and let governmentally supported thugs roam their streets terrorizing and killing their own population?
Because you didn’t admitted Iranian regime has murdered tens of thousands of Iranians, promoted terrorism, engaged in a a civil war that resulted in half a million people dead.
Yeah the US sucks. I’m a Canadian and I’m actively boycotting the US. But you’re thinking that when someone points out the horrible things that Iran has done and you just need to say “but Reagan did some shenanigans!” and you “got 'em”. It’s really silly and shows lack of critical thinking. It’s embarrassing that people think that this line of thinking is somehow a slam dunk argument for… what exactly? Why would you feel to make any kind of rebuttal against someone saying Iran’s regime is horrible? Especially one that’s so obviously fallacious?
So the people who took the hostages were the Islamic fundamentalists who only came to power because the US fucked over the communist movement. In the late 70’s, as the Shah’s regime was collapsing, the CIA chose to support the Islamists over the commies in Iran, and this was the predictable result.
There was an agreement with Iran about nuclear inspections, which they (mostly) followed. It was removed…by Trump. Less than 10 years later, we have a war to stop nuclear proliferation…started by Trump. I’m certainly not saying Iran is good, but we can certainly say America isn’t, either. It feels like yet another example of, “Is this the consequences of my own actions?”
As for the terrorism point, and the time of year, we have very good evidence that Saudi Arabia was involved in the 9/11 attacks, yet they are trading partners with America to the point of being sold arms. I feel like the terrorism excuse is used by America when convenient, not because of the terrorism itself, particularly with the current regime.
OK so you’ve bought into the 9/11 truther stuff. So does that mean you think Saudis are good because they used terrorism on the US?
You’re kind of all over the map on terrorism here. The only commonality I can see is that you think terrorism is good when it’s done by Iran and it’s proxies, but it’s bad if done by anyone else. So you’re just pro-Iran and trying to use socialist language to to make whatever Iran does sound appealing to leftists?
Iran is a theocratic authoritarian regime, you’d think Marxists wouldn’t like it all that much given the whole opiate of the masses thing. But socialism in the 21st century isn’t so much about ideology, is it?
The atrocities of the Saudis in a variety of situations are well documented. It’s also no secret that the majority of the terrorists on 9/11 were Saudi. Occam’s Razor indicates it was probably the Saudis, or a Saudi terrorist organization, that was behind the 9/11 attacks. There is also plenty of documentation to show that the people of many Middle East countries were happy it happened, whether or not they were involved.
As for the terrorism comment, I barely even spoke of it in this comment, and where I did, I mentioned America being very scattered on what they call terrorism. If you’re referring to other comments I’ve made, I’ve generally been against them, whoever commits them. Some may see me saying an event was unsurprising, predictable, or even inevitable as supporting, but that’s a failing on their part, and perhaps yours. I’m not happy Russians are getting killed in Ukraine, but I absolutely support Ukraine’s right to defend their sovereignty. I’m not happy with the Palestinian attack on Israeli targets, particularly civilians, but I’m not surprised it happened give the repression they’ve been living under for decades. I’m also not very surprised by Israel’s response, but I would have been much happier if they had chosen a solution other than genocide to achieve peace.
If you think ideology is why the Iran war started (this time around) you should read back a bit. The last two regimes were very authoritarian, one was backed by the Americans, and the one before that was leftist and democratic, which explains why the Americans interfered. Clearly, America has no trouble dealing with authoritarians, whether in Iran, in Saudi Arabia, or elsewhere, so long as the money and oil keeps flowing. And resistance to America is less than the money flowing in, which is literally why Saudis got a pass for assassinating an American journalist (and Trump doesn’t like journalists who actually do their job).
So given that Iran has supported terrorism for more than a decade, have made it abundantly clear their enemies are the US and Israel, why aren’t you similarly understanding about why the US and Israel would attack Iran?
The accusation of this post is that the US is being hypocritical by being against Iran while also occasionally negotiating with Iran. Aren’t you being hypocritical when you say you’re “not surprised” when “Palestinians” terrorism while also pretending to be outraged over the obvious response to such actions? I put Palestinians in quotes there because it’s how you said it, I personally find how you imply that all Palestinians are terrorists to be disrespectful to Palestinians. Hamas did the terrorism and they did so because of the support of Iran.
The last two regimes were very authoritarian, one was backed by the Americans, and the one before that was leftist and democratic, which explains why the Americans interfered.
You’re talking about a regime that hasn’t existed for over 70 years. That’s some really extreme tankie behaviour to feel sympathy for an authoritarian country because 70 years ago there existed a dodgy politician that tried to nationalize things in that country. You’re complaining about the realpolitik nature of international relations while engaging in that same kind of mindset yourself by jumping to the defense of any country that opposes countries you don’t like.
To me, there are reasons for countries need to deal with authoritarians by necessity. There is no necessity for an individual to pretend an authoritarian country is good simply because they’re in opposition to countries you don’t like.
While you’re being understanding of terrorist actions in response to oppression, maybe you should try to be understanding of a war in response to terrorism and who is ultimately responsible for those terrorist acts. It sure as hell isn’t the Palestinian people that are benefiting from actions of Iran and Hamas.
America has been supporting terrorism for decades in various places around the world, including the Middle East. So has Israel. There are no clean hands in this conflict. I would be happier if they all stopped it, less happy if only some of them would. I’m not holding my breath.
If by “occasionally negotiating” you mean a politician asking for his own citizens to continue to be held hostage for his own personal gain, then yes, I guess that’s correct. Likewise, if the obvious response to Hamas’s attack is to start shooting children in the street, then I would say your integrity is as compromised as the leadership of Israel’s is.
The regime I’m talking about was put in place in the 50s by Americans, and remained there until 1979. The people of Iran who are upset with America in large part had to live with the consequences of those actions which happened in their own lifetimes. Expecting them to just wave it off as a long time ago as you are is pretty disingenuous. As for the dodgy politician nationalizing things as an impetus to remove him, well, there have been far dodger politicians who haven’t been removed, and over 50 nations have nationalized things in the last couple centuries, including both Canada and the US in that same time frame. Why is it not only bad when this guy did it, but bad enough to start toppling governments?
I also agree with dealing with authoritarian governments, but there are about 80 in the world right now, and the only two America has invaded happen to have a lot of oil. Why is that? Moreover, there are other ways to deal with authoritarian regimes, such as sanctions, non-proliferation agreements, and supporting enemy nations should those authoritarian regimes try to step out of their borders. Of course, those other things were being done before this war came along, but I guess since they weren’t attacking their neighbors, things had to be stepped up. It’s absolutely a problem that Iran is repressing their opposition and have drastically curtailed freedoms as compared to most western nations, but bombing people rarely fixes that. It certainly hasn’t slowed the executions in this case.
Again, you’re trying to imply tacit approval of terrorist acts, as opposed to an amount of expectation that some subset of the oppressed population will respond in inappropriate ways, whether they be Hamas, Sinn Fein, or whoever else. But when you start shooting kids in the street, targeting journalists and aid vehicles, and torturing prisoners and protesters, you aren’t engaging in war, you’re engaging in war crimes. That distinction might be too subtle for some. And as for who is ultimately responsible, I’m not sure any of them are still alive, but killing a few tens of thousands more just might fix it all, right?
The issue is that you denounce some terrorist actions while not denouncing others. There’s inconsistencies in your denouncement of some acts while being unable to denounce others. There’s a “both sides” style of hypocrisy going on there. On one hand what Iran and Hamas does is fine because “both sides” do these things. On the other hand you only denounce these actions when done by the US and Israel. You say you “understand” the actions of Hamas and Iran.
I think there’s somewhat of a racist mentality happening where the actions of Iran and Hamas are excused because you don’t consider them to be responsible for their actions. The IRGC, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc. are not children, they are adults making decisions and they are responsible for those decisions. When they commit terrorist acts, they are responsible for the consequences of those acts. It’s very strange you thing the US is responsible for the consequences of something that happened 70 years ago, but Iran isn’t responsible for the things it’s doing today.
I also agree with dealing with authoritarian governments, but there are about 80 in the world right now, and the only two America has invaded happen to have a lot of oil. Why is that?
Because countries act in their interests. Again you’re trying to characterize everything as if some countries are required to be ideologically pure. No country is. But if an authoritarian country’s capability to promote terrorism regionally and globally is diminished, is it really important that for the decision making that led to that be ideologically pure? To me if there’s less terrorism in the world, the world is a better place. This isn’t a world police or global crusade kind of thing, it’s realpolitik.
But when you start shooting kids in the street, targeting journalists and aid vehicles, and torturing prisoners and protesters, you aren’t engaging in war, you’re engaging in war crimes. That distinction might be too subtle for some. And as for who is ultimately responsible, I’m not sure any of them are still alive, but killing a few tens of thousands more just might fix it all, right?
I think you may be a little naive about what a war is. War crimes happen in every major war. Yes, even in WWII (the good war!) the western allies (the good guys!) committed many war crimes. Most of those war crimes were never prosecuted.
October 7 was a clear act of war by Hamas. It was a genocidal act. Hamas started a war of choice. By taking hostages they chose a ground war in an urban environment.l It’s hard to process that if you felt like they were the freedom fighters that represent oppressed people (which you clearly do because you don’t distinguish between Hamas and Palestinians), but these are the facts. Sure the settlements in the West Bank are terrible, war crimes are terrible (I wish they’re all prosecuted, but realistically few will be), Netanyahu sucks, etc. But that doesn’t mean you have to pretend that Hamas are the good guys, and Iran’s support of Hamas is somehow helping Palestinians. Just look at Gaza right now, does it look like anything the IRGC and Hamas are doing is making anyone’s lives better?
You should think of the results of people’s actions a little more and worry about the bullshit ideological rationalizations for those actions a little less.
And as for who is ultimately responsible, I’m not sure any of them are still alive, but killing a few tens of thousands more just might fix it all, right?
Iran executes protesters by the tens of thousands. Hamas tortures people to death if they dare speak out against them. The Houthis literally crucify people for the crime of being gay. So I ask you, how many tens of thousands more people have to die by the hands of these psychopaths before you’ll stop making up bullshit ideological arguments to excuse their actions?
Does that mean Iran taking hostages wasn’t a problem?
Does Reagan making a deal with Iran mean that both Iran and Reagan are good guys? Or does it mean they’re both bad guys?
Not sure how “Reagan = bad” changes anything about the act of taking diplomats hostage.
Do you get your understanding of the world from Marvel movies?
'Murica has always treated action movies like documentaries
Remember how they didn’t mostly sit out of WWII, how they didn’t quite like the Nazis, and how they didn’t cause massive casualties to their allies?
Oh, and they totally didn’t give safe harbour to nazis when it suited them…
This is true, the USSR might have done 80% of the fighting, but the US still mobilized its entire economy for the war and had 12% of the total population in the actual military.
It’s even more ahistorical to say they mostly say out than that the US single-handedly fought WW2.
Ever hear the phrase an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? How about Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after all other options have been exhausted?
Like Britain, they would have almost certainly supported the nazis if Hitler invaded the USSR first. But that didn’t happen and instead the US dedicated its entire existence to doing something good for one brief moment.
No, did you?
I got my understanding from reading actual news, not from bullshit foreign influence campaigns on social media sites.
Your analysis of geopolitics is about who are good guys and bad guys, but I’m sure you’re correct and anyone who thinks that’s weird is just being controlled by evil foreigners.
Nah just generally think of the systems countries have in place. When a country has an authoritarian system in place the country is capable of doing terrible things that are against the will of the people of the country. Iran has an authoritarian system in place, so they do all kinds of bullshit to maintain power and that includes executing people by the tens of thousands for protesting.
Iran is known to operate troll farms and are engaged in foreign influence operations in the west. You see how MAGAs fall for Russian influence campaigns, you’re not much different. General rule, if the internet is telling you an authoritarian government that operates troll farms are the good guys, maybe take it with a healthy grain of salt.
Also look at how women are treated in a country. That’s a fairly good barometer for how horrible a country’s government is.
Cuba and Venezuela are “authoritarian” because they won’t sell out their people’s resources and labor for pennies and also resist attemps to overthrow their governments are replace them with puppets. Iran is authoritarian because it is illegal to be gay. I have yet to see the UK get called authoritarian for what they do to trans people.
Its a useless word that just means “matches the values of rich, white, western liberals”.
Nations with elective leadership are just as capable of doing terrible things that are against the will of the people… It’s not like the war in Iran has been popular with either conservatives or liberals in America.
Since ww2 US major military conflicts have resulted in 3.5-4 million direct civilian deaths, and that total is multiplied several times including indirect deaths. Can you think of a modern authoritarian regime with the same body count during the same period?
No one is trying to claim that the Iranian government is “good”, just that the reasons America chose to invade the country are not morally or legally justified, and that it hasn’t been done with the intent to better the lives of the average Iranian citizen.
Imagine simping for Ronald Reagan. Just wow.
It was a problem that would have been solved much sooner if people who crave power and authority didn’t meddle and prolong the problem for their own benefit.
It means that calling the Iran a “problem state” is pretty dishonest because most states, especially the USA are also problem states.
This is just making an argument based on distraction. Person A did something bad but hey look over here Person B also did something bad so stop thinking of the bad thing Person A did!
Why is it so hard just to admit Iran’s government sucks? They execute people on a massive scale, support terrorism across the Middle East, and are currently trying to hold the world’s economy hostage by breaking international law and targeting civilian shipping in an international waterway.
There’s abuser’s logic going on here where something bad happens to you and you think it makes it fine to hurt others. The US is responsible for their bad actions and Iran is responsible for their bad actions. Bad actions by the US doesn’t justify Iran’s bad actions towards others.
Sure, Reagan, Bush, Trump have done or are currently doing shitty things and stupid things. But that doesn’t make Iran’s government the good guys.
I am in no way saying either that Iran is by any measure better than the USA or that actions of the USA justify Irans actions… I am also neither a USA nor an Iranian citizen or have any connection to either state besides my country having commercial relations with both.
You need to wrap your head around the fact that the original post about remembering stuff about Iran is a distraction piece to pull focus away from the atrocities that the USA is committing.
Or to put it in your words: why is it so hard for you to just admit that the USA are killing people on a massive scale in places nowhere near their territory, topple democratically legitimized governments for their own gains, and let governmentally supported thugs roam their streets terrorizing and killing their own population? Not to mention holding the global economy hostage regularly. Why do you need to point to other countries? Do other countries being bad make these actions okay?
The whole premise on the meme is to distract from the bad things Iran has done because “Reagan is bad.”
Because you didn’t admitted Iranian regime has murdered tens of thousands of Iranians, promoted terrorism, engaged in a a civil war that resulted in half a million people dead.
Yeah the US sucks. I’m a Canadian and I’m actively boycotting the US. But you’re thinking that when someone points out the horrible things that Iran has done and you just need to say “but Reagan did some shenanigans!” and you “got 'em”. It’s really silly and shows lack of critical thinking. It’s embarrassing that people think that this line of thinking is somehow a slam dunk argument for… what exactly? Why would you feel to make any kind of rebuttal against someone saying Iran’s regime is horrible? Especially one that’s so obviously fallacious?
So the people who took the hostages were the Islamic fundamentalists who only came to power because the US fucked over the communist movement. In the late 70’s, as the Shah’s regime was collapsing, the CIA chose to support the Islamists over the commies in Iran, and this was the predictable result.
Do you also agree the US bombing Iran is a predicable result of Iran having a nuclear weapons program and supporting terrorism?
Or do you think some events should be considered in purely dialectical Marxist thinking while others should not be?
There was an agreement with Iran about nuclear inspections, which they (mostly) followed. It was removed…by Trump. Less than 10 years later, we have a war to stop nuclear proliferation…started by Trump. I’m certainly not saying Iran is good, but we can certainly say America isn’t, either. It feels like yet another example of, “Is this the consequences of my own actions?”
As for the terrorism point, and the time of year, we have very good evidence that Saudi Arabia was involved in the 9/11 attacks, yet they are trading partners with America to the point of being sold arms. I feel like the terrorism excuse is used by America when convenient, not because of the terrorism itself, particularly with the current regime.
OK so you’ve bought into the 9/11 truther stuff. So does that mean you think Saudis are good because they used terrorism on the US?
You’re kind of all over the map on terrorism here. The only commonality I can see is that you think terrorism is good when it’s done by Iran and it’s proxies, but it’s bad if done by anyone else. So you’re just pro-Iran and trying to use socialist language to to make whatever Iran does sound appealing to leftists?
Iran is a theocratic authoritarian regime, you’d think Marxists wouldn’t like it all that much given the whole opiate of the masses thing. But socialism in the 21st century isn’t so much about ideology, is it?
The atrocities of the Saudis in a variety of situations are well documented. It’s also no secret that the majority of the terrorists on 9/11 were Saudi. Occam’s Razor indicates it was probably the Saudis, or a Saudi terrorist organization, that was behind the 9/11 attacks. There is also plenty of documentation to show that the people of many Middle East countries were happy it happened, whether or not they were involved.
As for the terrorism comment, I barely even spoke of it in this comment, and where I did, I mentioned America being very scattered on what they call terrorism. If you’re referring to other comments I’ve made, I’ve generally been against them, whoever commits them. Some may see me saying an event was unsurprising, predictable, or even inevitable as supporting, but that’s a failing on their part, and perhaps yours. I’m not happy Russians are getting killed in Ukraine, but I absolutely support Ukraine’s right to defend their sovereignty. I’m not happy with the Palestinian attack on Israeli targets, particularly civilians, but I’m not surprised it happened give the repression they’ve been living under for decades. I’m also not very surprised by Israel’s response, but I would have been much happier if they had chosen a solution other than genocide to achieve peace.
If you think ideology is why the Iran war started (this time around) you should read back a bit. The last two regimes were very authoritarian, one was backed by the Americans, and the one before that was leftist and democratic, which explains why the Americans interfered. Clearly, America has no trouble dealing with authoritarians, whether in Iran, in Saudi Arabia, or elsewhere, so long as the money and oil keeps flowing. And resistance to America is less than the money flowing in, which is literally why Saudis got a pass for assassinating an American journalist (and Trump doesn’t like journalists who actually do their job).
So given that Iran has supported terrorism for more than a decade, have made it abundantly clear their enemies are the US and Israel, why aren’t you similarly understanding about why the US and Israel would attack Iran?
The accusation of this post is that the US is being hypocritical by being against Iran while also occasionally negotiating with Iran. Aren’t you being hypocritical when you say you’re “not surprised” when “Palestinians” terrorism while also pretending to be outraged over the obvious response to such actions? I put Palestinians in quotes there because it’s how you said it, I personally find how you imply that all Palestinians are terrorists to be disrespectful to Palestinians. Hamas did the terrorism and they did so because of the support of Iran.
You’re talking about a regime that hasn’t existed for over 70 years. That’s some really extreme tankie behaviour to feel sympathy for an authoritarian country because 70 years ago there existed a dodgy politician that tried to nationalize things in that country. You’re complaining about the realpolitik nature of international relations while engaging in that same kind of mindset yourself by jumping to the defense of any country that opposes countries you don’t like.
To me, there are reasons for countries need to deal with authoritarians by necessity. There is no necessity for an individual to pretend an authoritarian country is good simply because they’re in opposition to countries you don’t like.
While you’re being understanding of terrorist actions in response to oppression, maybe you should try to be understanding of a war in response to terrorism and who is ultimately responsible for those terrorist acts. It sure as hell isn’t the Palestinian people that are benefiting from actions of Iran and Hamas.
America has been supporting terrorism for decades in various places around the world, including the Middle East. So has Israel. There are no clean hands in this conflict. I would be happier if they all stopped it, less happy if only some of them would. I’m not holding my breath.
If by “occasionally negotiating” you mean a politician asking for his own citizens to continue to be held hostage for his own personal gain, then yes, I guess that’s correct. Likewise, if the obvious response to Hamas’s attack is to start shooting children in the street, then I would say your integrity is as compromised as the leadership of Israel’s is.
The regime I’m talking about was put in place in the 50s by Americans, and remained there until 1979. The people of Iran who are upset with America in large part had to live with the consequences of those actions which happened in their own lifetimes. Expecting them to just wave it off as a long time ago as you are is pretty disingenuous. As for the dodgy politician nationalizing things as an impetus to remove him, well, there have been far dodger politicians who haven’t been removed, and over 50 nations have nationalized things in the last couple centuries, including both Canada and the US in that same time frame. Why is it not only bad when this guy did it, but bad enough to start toppling governments?
I also agree with dealing with authoritarian governments, but there are about 80 in the world right now, and the only two America has invaded happen to have a lot of oil. Why is that? Moreover, there are other ways to deal with authoritarian regimes, such as sanctions, non-proliferation agreements, and supporting enemy nations should those authoritarian regimes try to step out of their borders. Of course, those other things were being done before this war came along, but I guess since they weren’t attacking their neighbors, things had to be stepped up. It’s absolutely a problem that Iran is repressing their opposition and have drastically curtailed freedoms as compared to most western nations, but bombing people rarely fixes that. It certainly hasn’t slowed the executions in this case.
Again, you’re trying to imply tacit approval of terrorist acts, as opposed to an amount of expectation that some subset of the oppressed population will respond in inappropriate ways, whether they be Hamas, Sinn Fein, or whoever else. But when you start shooting kids in the street, targeting journalists and aid vehicles, and torturing prisoners and protesters, you aren’t engaging in war, you’re engaging in war crimes. That distinction might be too subtle for some. And as for who is ultimately responsible, I’m not sure any of them are still alive, but killing a few tens of thousands more just might fix it all, right?
The issue is that you denounce some terrorist actions while not denouncing others. There’s inconsistencies in your denouncement of some acts while being unable to denounce others. There’s a “both sides” style of hypocrisy going on there. On one hand what Iran and Hamas does is fine because “both sides” do these things. On the other hand you only denounce these actions when done by the US and Israel. You say you “understand” the actions of Hamas and Iran.
I think there’s somewhat of a racist mentality happening where the actions of Iran and Hamas are excused because you don’t consider them to be responsible for their actions. The IRGC, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc. are not children, they are adults making decisions and they are responsible for those decisions. When they commit terrorist acts, they are responsible for the consequences of those acts. It’s very strange you thing the US is responsible for the consequences of something that happened 70 years ago, but Iran isn’t responsible for the things it’s doing today.
Because countries act in their interests. Again you’re trying to characterize everything as if some countries are required to be ideologically pure. No country is. But if an authoritarian country’s capability to promote terrorism regionally and globally is diminished, is it really important that for the decision making that led to that be ideologically pure? To me if there’s less terrorism in the world, the world is a better place. This isn’t a world police or global crusade kind of thing, it’s realpolitik.
I think you may be a little naive about what a war is. War crimes happen in every major war. Yes, even in WWII (the good war!) the western allies (the good guys!) committed many war crimes. Most of those war crimes were never prosecuted.
October 7 was a clear act of war by Hamas. It was a genocidal act. Hamas started a war of choice. By taking hostages they chose a ground war in an urban environment.l It’s hard to process that if you felt like they were the freedom fighters that represent oppressed people (which you clearly do because you don’t distinguish between Hamas and Palestinians), but these are the facts. Sure the settlements in the West Bank are terrible, war crimes are terrible (I wish they’re all prosecuted, but realistically few will be), Netanyahu sucks, etc. But that doesn’t mean you have to pretend that Hamas are the good guys, and Iran’s support of Hamas is somehow helping Palestinians. Just look at Gaza right now, does it look like anything the IRGC and Hamas are doing is making anyone’s lives better?
You should think of the results of people’s actions a little more and worry about the bullshit ideological rationalizations for those actions a little less.
Iran executes protesters by the tens of thousands. Hamas tortures people to death if they dare speak out against them. The Houthis literally crucify people for the crime of being gay. So I ask you, how many tens of thousands more people have to die by the hands of these psychopaths before you’ll stop making up bullshit ideological arguments to excuse their actions?