Trump says 'a whole civilization will die tonight' if Iran does not make a deal
reuters.com
reuters.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croesus#War_against_Persia_and...
Like you just posted a straight up lie
To accuse parent of lying is taking it much too far
The phrasing is "After Israel, it is home to the second-largest Jewish population in the Middle East."
The links you posted actually support my point rather than refute it.
The "Jewish population by country" page lists Iran at 8,500–20,000. Palestine is not listed as a separate entry with a larger Jewish population.
You may be referring to Israeli settlers in the West Bank, but those individuals are Israeli citizens counted under Israel's population in every demographic source I'm aware of.
Counting them under "Palestine" would require simultaneously recognizing Palestine as a sovereign state while attributing Israeli citizens to it, which no standard demographic dataset does.
If you have a source that counts a Jewish population in a recognized state called Palestine that exceeds Iran, I'd genuinely be interested to see it. But calling a direct Wikipedia/BBC citation a "straight up lie" is a strong claim that should probably come with a stronger source and also shows, you arrive with an ulterior agenda, that I at least, do not have.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Jews [2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5367892.stm
Ayatollah Khomeini himself wrote a personal note thanking the hospital for its help after the revolution succeeded.
https://www.csmonitor.com/1998/0203/020398.intl.intl.3.html
""" It comes as a surprise to many visitors to discover that Iran, a country so hostile to Israel and with a reputation for intolerance, is home to a small but vibrant Jewish community that is an officially recognized religious minority under Iran's 1979 Islamic Constitution.
"Khomeini didn't mix up our community with Israel and Zionism - he saw us as Iranians," says Haroun Yashyaei, a film producer and chairman of the Central Jewish Community in Iran."""
Iran's objection is not with Judaism but with the occupation and the meddling in their affairs through proxies.
But in this case, there's not really much ambiguity - Trump is openly threatening genocide and, as a result, is destroying any remaining moral authority that the USA might once have had.
At what point are the US military expected to refuse unlawful orders? Some form of high-level mutiny might actually be the best way forward for America right now.
They even send JD Vance to support Orban in his elections. The same Orban and Hungary which Xi Jinping supports and recently visited out of all the EU.
You cannot agree with someone on so many actions and keep pretending that you are against each other.
That said the general chaos of Russia vs the west and US against Iran makes China relatively stronger as it sits things out and watches.
I don’t think making unbased claims adds to the discussion; the facts are already severe enough to warrant their own critique.
Or if you put CO2 in the atmosphere you are contributing to toxicity and global warming?
We don’t know which infrastructure he wants to attack, and even if people do die, that is still not genocide.
Genocide is very clear intent to destroy a people.
Destroying infrastructure, or any war, is serious enough as is, we don’t need to fake arguments here.
Indeed we don't. So why make them?
I think you may be living under a rock. He has announced multiple times that he wants to go after oil processing, power plants, desalination plants, and bridges. His threat for today's deadline (made last week) is to destroy every power plant and bridge in the country.
"a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again."
where is the intent ambiguous to you? are you just one of those that says Trump blusters big to force negotiations? otherwise, he's quite clearly said the he wants to eliminate "a whole civilization" which is exactly what genocide is. not really sure how you can be confused on this other than willingly so
Such great deal making, love it.
Article IIc of the Genocide Convention would likely cover that particular case, but I'll note that that's just your reading of it - Trump hasn't actually given specifics.
What he definitely has done, though, is make a clear statement of intent. And, historically, the most difficult part in proving genocide has been with demonstrating intent. Trump's just made that bit easy.
"The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims."
It does not get much clearer than that.
The difference between terrorism and warfare is the degree of top-down control. Warfare is done in uniform, by people in a hierarchy.
The reason for the distinction is that there is somebody taking responsibility. You end a war by agreeing to a treaty with the top level. You can hold the top level responsible for violations of the rules of war.
Terrorism, by contrast, is harder to stop. There is no authority to end it. Even state-sponsored terrorism need not end when the sponsoring state agrees; they can find a different sponsor.
That doesn't make one morally worse or better than the other. It's just a distinction worth drawing, because it governs how you go about bringing an end to it.
The US law for terrorism is about attacks against it, and they combat those differently from how they'd go about fighting a war against a conventional enemy.
What the US is doing to Iran is almost certainly unlawful, but I think that calling it "terrorism" obscures the fact that there is an authority to end it. The attack is legal in its own terms -- it at least has a law, which terrorists do not.
Again, not better. Arguably, much worse. Which is why I find the definition problematic.
Just take Iran, they agreed to a treaty with the top level of the USA. But the next top level ripped up the agreement and now is threatening total destruction of their civilization. Should Iran sign a new deal with that guy, and what's to stop him from tearing that up and bombing them again?
There is nothing to stop the next guy from changing his mind, but it generally doesn't happen.
It certainly could, and yeah, there's a really strong case that with the current administration the US has gone completely off the rails. My last comment was speaking generally about civilized countries. It doesn't account for rogue states, and the US is increasingly fitting that definition.
Can a rogue state commit terrorism by my definition? Not with a uniformed army. That's another part of my definition of terrorism: it puts civilians in jeopardy by hiding its combatants among them. Uniformed soldiers are legitimate targets, which means it's possible to fight back only against legitimate targets, even if those legitimate targets are committing acts that would otherwise be terrorism.
I don't think targeting civilians is a sufficient definition for terrorism, because militaries have been doing that since forever. It's basically part of war, even if we wish to pretend otherwise.
Right, until they come back and attack again though. USA has invaded several countries multiple times including Iraq, Haiti, DR, Cuba, Panama, Nicaragua... Seems to me "terrorist" is just something states call the warriors of the people they themselves are terrorizing.
Frankly, the current administration is just recycling the propaganda and playbook of the bloodthirsty Neocons, so I don't see how this current administration is an aberration.
No, he's threatening to kill civilians because of the _price of gas_.
At what point is Congress going to realize that the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the world, with sole authority over _nuclear launch codes_, is mentally unstable and a threat to not only the rest of the world, but consequently, to the US as well.
1) US and Israel will throw everything they have (of conventional weapons) at Iran.
2) US will use (tactical) nuclear weapons on strategic targets.
Of the two evils, I truly hope it will be (1).
(Targeting civilian infrastructure is a war crime. Orders to commit war crimes are illegal by definition.)
Light investigation says it is selectively applied for national security. So... pretty big loophole.
This is true. The US gets creative when it wants to avoid adhering to the law. But international law is established through treaties, and the terms the US agrees to in treaties is US law.
Which according to your source the President is allowed to disregard within his "constitutional authority". A can of worms on its own.
It's one of the reasons why for a lot of the "everybody joins" treaties, a bunch of countries sign with a statement that they don't recognize the US as a signatory.
Hegseth came completely unhinged, going after Senator Mark Kelly’s retirement, etc.
Then a few weeks ago, Hegseth gave an interview where he literally argued that the United States doesn’t have to follow international law. He called the rules of engagement “stupid” and went on with a bunch of similar remarks.
It’s pretty clear that rather than trying to defend violations of international (and U.S.) law, the regime is now just saying they don’t have to follow them in the first place.
https://media.defense.gov/2023/Jul/31/2003271432/-1/-1/0/DOD...
I'm not sure which of 1 and 2 is least-bad. All depends on downstream consequences, because we're already past the point where everyone's looking at Trump (not just in Iran but also, and we already had this to an extent with Putin attacking Ukraine) and thinking they need a credible deterrent. OTOH, the USA getting suckered into a drawn-out war with Iran in the same way Russia is with Ukraine may be good for almost everyone else, because an exhausted USA is a manageable threat, in a way that the current USA almost certainly isn't.
I think we're well past that point.
2 is hundreds of thousands dead at a minimum. 1, even at its worst, would not come close to that. Worse, 2 breaks the "no actual use since Nagasaki" moratorium that has held for 80 years. Once it's broken, how long until the next use? Until Russia decides it can just start nuking cities in Ukraine, say?
Nuclear explosives are good. They are very good, as in, "the invention of fire" good. Once the cat is out of the bag on First Use, militaries around the world will put them in operational planning for literally anything that can carry 100kg and needs to strike a hard or spread out target.
That's assuming this conflict doesn't immediately escalate, which is not a given by any stretch.
At the start of WW1 everyone thought that Europeans would hold themselves to proper civilized weapons to use against Proper People. Then someone brought in the weapons reserved for colonized peoples - i.e. "half-people" - and found they work real good on Proper People as well. Uncorking nuclear first use will be like the introduction of the machine gun to the world of war, except every bullet is the most powerful device made by Man.
Breaking the first use taboo - for goddamn Iran of all people - would probably be the worst decision in human history.
I know what you mean. I guess we'll all find out in a few hours what the payloads are, given that while B-52s are nuclear-capable, that's not the only thing they're used for.
And I guess also, when it is a pick-one dichotomy, whether the USAF obeys either their orders or their oaths.
To wit: the war appears to be over. Iran won.
I honestly don't know what to believe, but I feel the doomsday clock is getting closer to midnight than in a long, long time
What you can't get anywhere else is the insight from the thoughtful commentators drawn from the unique and diverse corners of technology and business, with all the adjacent domain expertise, all in one place. Usually more informative than a number of other accomplished sources.
The occasional outlier having a gentleman's appearance and a Trump-like character is nothing new, about as old as the hills.
One of the most revealing things when it comes to digital tech and SV in particular, was the pop-up reversal where so many turned out to sheepishly start following the dumb money all of a sudden. Just because there wasn't any "smart money" to follow right that minute was no excuse.
That might be one of the things that too many frequent flagrant flaggers would rather not have serious commentary about. For some of the biggest capitalists it could be very embarrassing when things emphasize any glaring deficiencies in character judgment they might harbor, that can only be undeniable after falling behind Trump. When now the simple math can give an idea how much further their money would have gone if they backed the Democrats instead. And it's still early :(
Sure, the Democrats weren't that great but at least they weren't as abysmal as they could be.
I know how I would feel if I was a bright young college innovator having dreams of backing from a successful benevolent capitalist someday. And before you have your chance, you find out that so many of the capitalists you have been admiring and looking up to, are not actually that good with money instinctively, and can't even tell the difference between an honest person and a Trump.
smh
>Trump is for bad or for worse the US government in persona
This is what makes me ashamed and embarrassed about for quite some time to come. Along with the vast majority of Americans (too bad they didn't vote) and the entire rest of the world.
I've recognized this before, but every single day there is more emphasis from Trump himself showing why Obama was the final US President sophisticated enough to carry forward the hard-earned tradition of being the "leader of the free world."
I would have liked it if Obama did a better job, but Trump couldn't even pick up the torch.
A President of a significant world power threatening to destroy a civilization is politics in its ultimate form: the power to f** over anyone it wants to.
Any subsequent backtracking/negotiation/etc is also part of politicking.
It's the uncomfortable underbelly of some societal structures.
I know that this has been discussed several times, but I wish that the HN moderators would do more to unflag these stories. Yes, they will lead to flame wars and whatnot, but the collapse of the rule-based international order and repeated genocide by some Western nations is too big to ignore.
If WOIII happens, HN would still only be "How agents cooked my dinner" and "HN company This Is Fine raises 2B from a16z". How intellectually poor.
Even having a curated list of people that are not allowed to post on political-adjacent stories would help.
And no, I'm not a hypocrite, that list would help the quality of discussion here even if I am put on it. Now I won't like that, but, frankly, my contributions to the discussion on such topics are not all that vital.
'Uh, what kind of politics do you usually have here?'
'Oh we got both kinds -- Bay area zoning and Bay area homelessness.'
But yes, you're right. If there is an issue with BART it has 500 upvotes and stays on the homepage for at least a day.
Too many unthinkable things have come to pass in the last decade or so for me to find that reassuring.
Can you clarify what this would even mean? And could you provide a source (because I couldn't)?
I've stocked up on Potassium Iodide tablets for the child to avoid cancer after the nukes fly. I don't think we'll be hit soon in the US, but it's getting a lot more likely.
As someone who also thinks about the world a lot, I know it is easier said than done. But it helps to mentally separate the things that you can control and the things you cannot control. Then try to accept the things that you can't control.
You cannot directly control Trump or the US army. You can protest, go on strike, boycott, call your congressman/senator, love your neighbor, be there for your kids.
It's only really useful for nuclear accidents where the primary radioisotope release is I-131. It's not a magical radiation protection shield (for example against Cs-137 or Sr-90 released as a result of nuclear weapons).
If a foreign adversary killed John Bolton or Anthony Blinken by bombing their homes I'm sure it would be called terrorism.
That's all true. And we even have a mechanism for removing said lunatic. We call it the 25th Amendment[0] to our constitution. The only problem with using that mechanism is that the folks who are in line to succeed[1] the aforementioned lunatic are at least as un-serious, and are, in many cases, religious zealots who see nuclear war in the Middle East[2] as bringing on the second coming of their imaginary sky daddy.
As an American, I'd be even more afraid if a jackass like J.D. Vance became president, and heaven help us all if Mike Johnson or Marco Rubio became president. Or how about Scott Bessent or Pete Hegseth. Yeesh! Scary stuff!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_lin...
The United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East. Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE.....
Although... just looked at the date on that tweet. He was still in office for his first term at the time. So... yeah... modernity is not a place to look for consistent statements from political figures.
Everyone in the admin is a deeply unserious person being propped up by the paranoia and dumb “patriotism” created by 9/11. You could make an argument that Osama bin Laden was ultimately successful in destroying the US.
I can’t find the chapter about threatening the other party with genocide and how to follow up negotiations from that point.
Why invade when they come to you?
He sounds exactly like the peaceful Ayatollahs
Anyway, there is no sense to listen to Trump. TACO is a thing.
It's never a good idea to disregard something just because you want it to be true.
Trump's done a lot of shit that he said he'd do (tariffs, capturing foreign leaders, wars of choice). He's incredibly stupid. You can't predict stupid people.
The only thing I can do is to donate money to buy kamikaze drones for Ukraine to help defeat his dear friend vladimir.