tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post3174064325968892685..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: Can The US Assassination Of Qasem Solemiani Be Justified?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-50570048071709265352020-01-19T08:02:59.098-05:002020-01-19T08:02:59.098-05:00It was a war crime. He did it because he could.It was a war crime. He did it because he could.ken melvinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-71977725352619903592020-01-14T14:36:38.589-05:002020-01-14T14:36:38.589-05:00"You can't retroactively legitimize a cla..."You can't retroactively legitimize a claim you have already lied about."<br /><br />Absolutely so.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-48922143183796425002020-01-12T16:27:41.198-05:002020-01-12T16:27:41.198-05:00Trump's "four embassies" embellishme...Trump's "four embassies" embellishment of the "imminent threat" combined with Esperanto's equivocation that he "didn't see" specific intelligence to that effect makes the question of justification moot. You can't retroactively legitimize a claim you have already lied about.Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-69488557367607303602020-01-11T20:52:22.393-05:002020-01-11T20:52:22.393-05:00The Iranian high “alert” levels contributed to the...The Iranian high “alert” levels contributed to the Ukrainian Airliner disaster , and would not have been so if the Suleimani /al Muhandis escalation had not occurred.<br /><br />No excuses for the awful mistake, however, the battery ‘fire controller’ probably had less than a minute to decide his protected area was at risk. I suspect the unit was on "high alert" since the Iranian missile strike was a few hours old. They were on the highest of 3 or 4 levels of air defense alert. Years ago US/NORAD had 4 levels.<br /><br />In the air defense and response business (threat warning attack assessment) the object is "don't miss the war, but don't start one". Those challenges require absolute reliability of people, equipment, integration of complex parts, fast analysis, rational thinking and luck. Iran being strained in many dimensions has a high probability of its command and control chain leaking to the point a relatively low level officer, without broader situational knowledge/awareness or even trust in the data he has, had to decide and erred on the side of “not missing the war”. <br /><br />If the reports are correct the surface to air missile was a derivative (copied or bought) of Russian SA-17, track vehicle mounted, shorter range surface to air missile system that "protects" a limited area, often a specific high value target or a large military unit in a set location. The radar on a tracked vehicle is also relatively short range. I suspect in Iranian concept of operations the fire battery controller locally had responsibility for the systems "kill chain". The ‘decision window’ for the controlled was likely very tight.<br />ilsmnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-36663855193437124782020-01-11T17:03:54.556-05:002020-01-11T17:03:54.556-05:00And US has now put more economic sanctions in plac...And US has now put more economic sanctions in place.<br /><br />Many Iranians have now protesteed their own government's bungled shooting down of the Ukrainian airliner. But I cannot stop thinking that they would not have been on such a high state of alert if Trump had not assassinated Soleinami, not to mention the others.rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-90929139460343826202020-01-11T11:52:48.967-05:002020-01-11T11:52:48.967-05:00Not justified, my pacifist inclination not withsta...Not justified, my pacifist inclination not withstanding, Aquinas' standard of "certainty" is not present.<br /><br />If Suleimani were carrying a diplomatic letter and scheduled to meet with the Iraqi PM, he should have been protected by "right of embassy".<br /><br />"Right of embassy" goes back to 17th century Europe (as fractured as the Middle East today?) , a time without nuclear weapons, and veto power in the UN Security Council. <br /><br />Another escalation in the US' immoral cycle of disrespect and violence.<br /><br />Economic sanctions are a blockade imposed by bankers and customs officials.ilsmnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-53020081335501038282020-01-09T23:00:43.601-05:002020-01-09T23:00:43.601-05:00We hear talk of asymmetric warfare. Economic sanc...We hear talk of asymmetric warfare. Economic sanctions, a most cruel form of warfare hitting the civilian populace hardest, are asymmetric in that those being sanctioned can hardly strike back in kind. Carter, I think, said, that in the end, all wars are economic. What do economists think of economic warfare?<br /><br />Surely, we've learned by now that you can't colonize, occupy, ..., bully nations into doing something they find antithetical. ken melvinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-65027076262939515492020-01-09T16:57:07.836-05:002020-01-09T16:57:07.836-05:00Revenge is an evil concept. I would have thought a...Revenge is an evil concept. I would have thought all Western nations would not enter there. <br /><br />If one person has ensured the future is with the hardliners it is Trump.<br />Not Trampishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12738633092867411422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-65888126514293138232020-01-09T07:07:35.214-05:002020-01-09T07:07:35.214-05:00The label terrorist has pretty much lost all meani...The label terrorist has pretty much lost all meaning, given the ubiquity of drone-strikes. Soleimani was a gifted general carrying out the policies of the Iranian government. Sometimes those policies aligned with those of the US (as in the fight against ISIS), sometimes they were opposed. That's Iran's right as a sovereign nation.<br /><br />From outside the US, the assassination marks another step down in US power. The reactions of France, Germany and China are all interesting; clearly these capitals accept that the US is now a rogue power, to be soothed but not trusted. They will all be looking to accelerate processes that limit US leverage through financial flows, maybe boosting defence and defence independence. I don't expect this to be a quick process, but 5-10 years down the track the world will look rather different as a result. Peter Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13289172253358199028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-72737998797730279962020-01-09T02:21:34.815-05:002020-01-09T02:21:34.815-05:00BTW, the figurw most identified with advocating th...BTW, the figurw most identified with advocating the French revolutionary Reign of Terror was Robespierre. While most of us view that Reign of Terror as an awful moment of excessive civic violence and extremism, that these matters remain debatable in deeply politically split France is seen by the fact that Robespierre remains an admired figure there in certain circles, and one can find towns and locations even now that have streets named for him.rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-61263297161167349222020-01-09T02:04:11.808-05:002020-01-09T02:04:11.808-05:00Three points, 2slug:
1) While Aquinas worried abo...Three points, 2slug:<br /><br />1) While Aquinas worried about these distinctions, the term "terrorist," or more precisely "terror" in a political violence context was first used during the height of the French Revolution by people who were for it, with the terror of the widespread use of the guillotine as a positive Reign of Terror to eliminate class enemies, although outside observers found it almost immediately to be terrible.<br /><br />2) While the Shia militias of Iraq supported by Soleimani have largely focused on military targets, there have been periods when some of the groups supported by the IGRC have targeted innocent civilians, in short, engaged in terrorism. The most prominent of those has been Lebanon's Hezbollah, and it has been largely because of its activities that Iran became designated by US intel as a it not the top state supporter of terrorism. However, it all but stopped doing that over 20 years ago, basically when it became a major player within the Lebanese government, and just to bring this back to Soleimani, all their terrorist activities predated Soleimani commanding al Quds.<br /><br />3) Regarding BN, his dad was in Irgun and also lived to be over 100, a great hero to BN, who indeed says little about him, this being pretty personal obviously. As it is,BN regularly engages in disproportional respoinses leading to the deaths of many civilians in Gaza in respoinse to provocations out of there against Israeli civilians, not properly terrorism per se, but looking perhaps somewhat like the Saudi bombing of civilians in Yemen that the US plays an important supporting role in.rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-18810441433358200822020-01-08T22:28:02.117-05:002020-01-08T22:28:02.117-05:00Agree that it's important to distinguish betwe...Agree that it's important to distinguish between US combatant soldiers in a combat zone and innocent civilian in a wedding party. This is a distinction that I thought was settled 800 years ago with St. Thomas Aquinas, but apparently Fox News didn't get the memo. But there's another problem with the "Solemaini was a terrorist" chant. Back in the old days when people actually thought it was important to be careful about terminologies, a terrorist was defined as a non-state actor trying to achieve political objectives by frightening civilians who were usually from the same country. But that old school definition of a terrorist doesn't really apply with Solemaini. Solemaini was a state actor who used violence against other combatant state actors from a different country. We've gotten very sloppy with our language and now we tend to define as "terrorist" any group that uses violence against US interests. Osama bin Laden was rightly called a terrorist. OTOH, Saddam Hussein was every bit as brutal and evil as OBL, but Saddam should not have been considered a terrorist. And isn't it funny how Benjamin NutAndYahoo never wants to talk about the Irgun. 2slugbaitshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14763897441056512506noreply@blogger.com