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Comment by Wytwwww | Hacker News Reader

So there are no circumstances where armed rebellion is justifiable and the only legitimate type of resistance to state violence is literally trying to drown the state forces in bodies of non-violent protestors?

At a certain point there ceases to be a middle path between violent resistance and complete surrender.

> Protesters which foreign states (China or Russia)

This type of relativism is dishonest. Of course US is speed running the path to authoritarianism but its not quite there. e.g. morally it would be perfectly acceptable to support weapons to protestors in Russia and not the other way around.

The Iranian regime is objectively evil, period. Regardless of what honest or dishonest motives foreign actors might or might not have.

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>So there are no circumstances where armed rebellion is justifiable

What circumstances has Iran created that demand armed rebellion?

Economic collapse, failed infrastructure, lack of human rights, ruthless religious dictatorship? All while spending 25% of their budget on military ventures.

Just to name a few.

The economic suffering has largely been inflicted deliberately by US sanctions.

This would seem to suggest that sinking an aircraft carrier and frigate or two would actually be justified according to your principles?

> The economic suffering has largely been inflicted deliberately by US sanctions.

Which were imposed for work on atomic bomb. These sanctions didn’t come out of the blue.

US intelligence assessments on the question of whether Iran is building one keep publicly coming out as negative. People who keep repeating that Iran is building one are people who want to see Iran torn apart. Had Iran ACTUALLY been working on one all these decades, we wouldn't be at war with them now because they would have the ultimate deterrence and we'd be too scared. The very fact that we are bombing them every now and then, and are about to launch another massive regime change war campaign against them, is the best confirmation that they are in fact NOT close to having nuclear-armed missiles. Otherwise it would be too risky to start bombing a country that is going to have them in a week, and that is going to also then be VERY pissed that you just bombed the shit out of them, and will want to show you once and for all never to mess with it again. Iran's government is actually REALLY stupid for not having got nuclear weapons already, and they may be about to pay for that mistake with their country's devastation.

Sanctions-wise... When you sanction a society to the degree that Iran has been sanctioned, you force that society to turn to smuggling, black markets, and forces operating outside of usual law and norms, in order for the society to prevent its collapse. That naturally causes corruption to spread because you are involving outlaws in fundamental processes of your economy. This is one of intended consequences of such harsh sanctions, in order to maximize the negative sentiment of the general populace of the targeted country towards their government. It impoverishes the country and makes the populace more likely to accept when approached by foreign agents offering monetary rewards for help in bringing the government down.

Obviously the commenter I responded to is not arguing in good faith so I don't expect anything but an NPC talking point response, so I wish to note that my answer is for a curious passerby.

US intelligence flip flopped on this issue every Friday. Given the high stakes situation, I personally believe that Iran did work on nuclear weapons.

There is no reason whatsoever to enrich uranium beyond like 20% if its not for military purposes in such quantities.

Saying that others are NPCs is interesting. How do you know that you are not an NPC?

I don't understand. If US, Israel, Pakistan, etc can all have nuclear weapons, why can't Iran?

Pakistan did it secretly. Today I doubt that Pakistan would have been allowed to have nukes. Moreover, just because they have nukes it is huge pain in the ass and that why the US and other countries support Pakistan financially — no one wants collapsing state with nuclear weapons.

If Iran gets nuclear weapons, all big Sunni countries will get them too: Saudis, Qatar, etc. we do not want it to happen, as the next Arab spring can collapse those governments, and you can count on any Muslim radical group getting hands on one of those.

Anyway, there are countries that have nuclear weapons, and this Jinny is out of the bottle. But, it doesn’t mean we want to have more of this crap lying around. We need less.

Because Iran has oil.

I think it has more to do with nukes than oil. North Korea is a good example that once you have nukes, no one can touch you. No one wants more nukes, especially in the hands of IR, in this world.

I have no sympathy for the Iranian regime but the US' unilateral actions are worse. At least the Iranians mind their own business.

At this point, every country which has natural resources which the US might want to steal should have nukes.

> At least the Iranians mind their own business

Except they don’t.

North Korea minds their own business.

Neither Iran nor NK interfere with India. I don't see how they interfere with the US. Last I checked it was the US which has bases in the Middle East.

When Iran builds a base in Mexico or Canada, we can talk.

My principals is that a government should do what's good for the people of their country.

Are your principals that a government should only focus on self preservation?

What would be better for the people of Iran, sinking an American aircraft carrier or just disbanding their nuclear and long range ballistic missile programs?

>The economic suffering has largely been inflicted deliberately by US sanctions.

I dunno. Is the United States required to bake them a cake if it offends our religious principles?

How about killing 30k people (vast majority unarmed as far as I can tell) in a week or two?

The US lies through their teeth in the run up to launching military action. What else is new?

Yeah. right. The Iranian regime is the truth teller sure.

I think beating women on the streets for refusal to wear hijab contributes to dissatisfaction of the populace with the government.

Uh, sorry, no. At the moment you start arguing by 'The Iranian regime is objectively evil, period', you have totally lost the plot.

The statement 'The USA regime is objectively evil, period' is much more justifiable. Measured, e.g. by the number of people it has killed (both directly, and indirectly by sanctions and support for brutal dictators - e.g. Pinochet, but also Saddam while he was waging war with Iran).

Meddling in internal affairs of other countries has a terrible track record, the world would be so much better off without it.

Armed resistance most often leads to a damn bloody affair in which everybody is worse off, unless the state is already so rotten that it has no will to fight for itself. Supporting such resistance just means more life losses, both on the resistance and on the state side (typically, much more on the resistance side). Hence, the true aim is not to help the resistance, but to weaken the state. No consideration for the life of the local people, the show (the grand game) must go on!

> Meddling in internal affairs of other countries has a terrible track record, the world would be so much better off without it

Wishing away "meddling" is on par with wishing away war. Nice in theory. Practically impossible in practice. (Sovereignty has a Schrödinger's element to it. You really only know you have it when you test its boundaries. And the only test of sovereignty is against another sovereign. The world is littered with sovereigns meddling in each others' affairs and those who aren't sovereign.)

The US is evil because it meddles in the affairs of other countries? Uh huh. Tell me about Iran.

The US is evil because of who it supports? Tell me about Iran.

And at least the US didn't murder thousands of anti-government demonstrators so far this year.

You're right in this: The US is not the shining example of goodness and purity that we wish it to be. But when you condemn the US compared to Iran, using those metrics, it looks suspiciously like motivated reasoning.

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