Attack on Iran inevitable?

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@Fel: The nukes were not employed against military targets. Military targets were available, but we elected to bomb two targets which served no strategic military purpose whatsoever. The intention of our attack was to frighten Japan into surrender. It worked.

 

Ah, I figured that was the distinction you were making, that we didn't even target a military installation with collateral civilian casualties but instead went straight at two civilian centers with no military value. It was a terrible thing to do, but as you said, it worked. And I definitely agree that it's a scary thing to think about, and I can only imagine what other countries think about it.

 

@Fel

This whole concept of avoiding civilian casualties is relatively new, I'm guessing maybe 20 years. Before that (and that means thousands of years) if you were the enemy you were the enemy.

 

It's older than 20 years. The formal law about it is barely older than that, but the US broke the generally accepted conventions for fighting war when they bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan kept their attacks on us to Military Targets, for example.

 

BTA:
Heh, I'm not old enough to remember (being born 9 years after that incident), but I did a quick search, and it is sounding quite similar to this situation, except we have an arrogant power hungry government that's sole purpose is to make the world better in the eyes of rich, white, christian, traditional, conservative, leaders.

Which means, the government doesn't care about the safety of anyone but itself, and would be bombing it because they feel a responsibility (unwanted, I might add, by everyone) to fix everything they think is bad.

Iran has the right to make nuclear power... just not the right to make weapons. But bombing them is not a good solution... how about trying diplomacy?

 

Well, I assume America isn't using Diplomacy... our government prefers bypassing all that helpful stuff

But, I am not an expert on nuclear weapons, governments, diplomacy, or Iran, so I think I'll keep any more comments to myself.

 

Ah, yes, the Imperial Japanese Army/Navy were big on following the rules of war as, oh, the folks in Nanking or their POW camps can attest.

Yes, that's sarcasm. No, I'm not saying "They did it too, so it's okay that we did". I am saying you want to be careful about putting the Japanese Empire up on any sort of moral pedestal.

You're right, bombing is an evil solution. It's just that sometimes it's the least evil solution. Whether this is one of those times...

 

What is a more evil solution than bombing, which will effectively do the job that they want to do with as little collateral? I am not necessarily refuting your statement, I just want to know what you find to me more ruthless.

 

It'd be less evil to launch airstrikes against the pleasant folks in Darfur than it would be to (continue to) stand by and say, "yeah, sure, genocide. Have fun."

 

I thought we were talking about Iran, and about how bombing is a lesser evil... lesser than what? Genocide, OK, but we aren't planning a genocide against the people of Iran...

 

Why cant Iran have nukes? I dont trust them any less than Israel or Pakistan or the US for that matter.

 

Yes.. Bush led America is arguably the most dangerous nation in the world.

 

From a purely personal risk point of view, I trust Iran less. I am (almost) 100% sure that Israel, US and Pakistan aren't going to launch Nukes at the UK. I would be a lot less sure about Iran, particularly given certain comments made by their president.
(Granted that they have neither nuclear weapons or the misile system capable of delivering them currently)

 

My point was merely that bombing can be a lesser evil, in response to your point that bombing is evil. Sudan/Darfur was merely an example I used to illustrate my point.

I made no claims about whether bombing would be a lesser evil with regard to Iran.

 

Well, bombing Iran using conventional weaponry seems a lesser than say, Iran detonating a nuclear warhead in Israel. With the assumption that the bombing would prevent Iran from producing nuclear materials.

 

Right-o, sorry, I thought you meant that in this situation, there was an alternative. In this case, we couldn't do too much worse than bombing that is more effective, could we?