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Comment by benbenbenjerry | Hacker News Reader

How bizarre for you to sidestep the issue and go after issues with the laws of Iran! In what country is it legal to assassinate a scientist?

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We considered shooting Werner Heisenberg during WW2 if there was convincing evidence he was moving a Nazi atomic weapons program along. Certainly that would have been against German or Swiss (this was during a visit to Switzerland) law.

A key factor there is the word 'war'.

Did Iran and Israel ever sign a peace treaty? In 2020, the UAE normalized relations with Israel, and many countries took the opportunity to remind everyone that even if we are all dying of COVID, they would prefer that Israel go first.

It's not fricking world war 2, no matter the technicalities.

If a country you're at war with and whose leadership has stated that they intend to annihilate you is on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, the stakes are arguably WW2-tier.

Conversely, American and Israeli politicians constantly talk about taking out Iran, making nukes a necessity for their self-defense.

In both cases it's mostly posturing, but killing scientists and saying we had to, it's self defense is especially disgusting to me.

GP asked if the fact it's illegal in Iran is not enough, and I say the Iranian code of law has no implications on what I think is moral or not.

Personally I think that it is not outside any moral boundaries to assassinate a scientist which is working on WMDs. In fact, I'll claim the opposite: if you are a leader of a country which you know is potentially targeted by WMDs and you have the strategic and tactical opportunity to assassinate the people working on that program, then you should.

Going back to laws, being a scientist doesn't give you any kind of immunity to any law. It shouldn’t grant you immunity here. Once you work on military programs, it's all fair game.

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