hanikrummihundursvin
No bio...
User ID: 673
I'm not really in the market for a bridge, but if you can sell me an alternative explanation for what Iranians truly mean and feel that doesn't rely on blank otherization of them being blood thirsty animals with no rationality or reason, I'm all ears.
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
When people bring up 'Iran chants death to America, therefor they are a threat' they are making a much more visceral and stupid argument than 'we have rational but unresolved geopolitical issues.'
The fundamental premise being that Iranians are insane in some way and therefor giving them a nuke will lead to them nuking America.
It's otherizing and hysteric and such statements in any other context leveraged against any other group would warrant supporting argumentation. So far that has been lacking.
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
You are not a crowd of angry folks who just had their friends and relatives blown to bits by an American freedom dispenser.
In America post 9/11, verbiage in the line of 'just glass the place' was brought up quite a bit by disgruntled Americans. If that had become a slogan of sorts I'm confident people would understand the difference between emotional expression of the public and official statements.
What if I said that Shakes needs a 'regime change'?
It's not as direct, but rhetoric like that has been recognized for what it is. Like when online games started banning people who asked others to 'Please seek Canadian healthcare'.
Sounds like a classic motte and bailey pivot to me.
By who? The Iranian leadership? Are we supposing that they go in public, make a definitive statement of what 'Death to America' means, and every Iranian citizen knows to not take that statement seriously, and instead chant what they really mean. Which is to wish death on every American man woman and child, because Iranians are just subhuman and beastial like that and revel in suffering and death?
- Sure.
- Yes.
- The conflict between Israel and the muslim world has been rather vicious. I'd wager they wish for the same thing to happen to Israel as has happened to Gaza. And I'm sure they have elements similar to Israel, that gloat and cheer when civilians are being bombed. Insofar as there is a difference between the chants, I think they want Israel to stop existing as a country, and for the jews to be somewhere else.
- Is there a regime in this conflict that hasn't attacked civilians? Why would Tel Aviv looking like Gaza not be fair play? Not that the Iranians have done anything remotely close to that.
- I don't know how they think it is interpreted or if that even enters their minds.
But the again, why would I bother quote, answer or link anything? None of the anti-Iran hysteria does so. Post after post. Kind of crazy.
In fact nigh all of those posts are just a routine list of arbitrary accusations and arbitrary benchmarks. Why would Iran funding Hezbollah be a reason to not like Iran? Funding proxies that can be called terrorists is practically an American geopolitical hobby. Is it OK to cause suffering, chaos and death to achieve your political goals so long as you are not called Hezbollah?
In your view, is the United States deliberately targeting Iranian civilians?
No. But I think that US officials have shown a great lack of care towards civilian deaths. Including Hegseth defunding the division focused on reducing civilian harm. And how they handled the school bombing doesn't inspire confidence. So yeah, I think if we allow all parties in the conflict some wiggle room regarding collateral damage, I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be mad against.
Do you deny that Iran has been directing and supporting Hezbollah?
Listen, I'm not on trial here 'denying' things and you're not an authority on facts and knowledge. I'm sure Iran funds them along with a host of other groups. Why is funding proxies invalid when Iran does it, but not America or Israel?
Do you deny that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization?
If we apply the label fairly then I think they look like incompetent amateurs compared to Israel. As demonstrated in the footage of Gaza.
The Iranians chant death to America and the ayatollah has publicly gone to great length to explain that the slogan is not a direct wish for harm against American citizens, but a screed against their government and its belligerence and hostility towards Iran.
Which fits rather snugly as a contrast with the more Orwellian terminology of the west, like 'regime change', 'liberation' or other such verbiage. Which then translates to aerial bombing campaign with large amounts of civilians killed in practice.
Outside of drastic otherization and dehumanization, saying that Iran is exporting terrorism or spouting threatening rhetoric is functionally meaningless. In context their actions are a rational consequence to US and Israeli strategy in the region. Be that state sponsored invasions of Iran, the funding of terrorists in the region or other destabilizing actions such with Syria, Iraq and Libya.
And it's hard to pretend that Iran is hogging all the religious lunatics when Americans have decades of failed Zionist adjacent policies laying in their backyard. Along with theologians like Mike Huckabee, Pete Hegseth or Paula White.
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
Yeah, the outgroup is evil, irrational and can't be trusted. This is also my outgroup
As I already said, I too would prefer Massachusetts. But that's not what we are comparing. You act like because Iran is bad that the US must be good and therefor has the moral mandate to do whatever it wants over there as if Iran will turn into rainbows and sunshine after the US bomb or occupy them. It wont. And the millions fleeing their homes, hundreds of thousand Iraqis dead, the families blown to bits in Syria, the children starved or ground to innocent pulps in rubble all over the middle east over decades of barbaric US and Zionist geopolitical strategy are a testament to that.
You weave moral narratives through paragraphs that, much like you accused me of doing, don't look like much when put into context. There are plenty of moral failings, needless suffering and death happening within the US. Did you know that in the US 80 thousand men are raped in prison every year? Well, that's almost half the total prison population of Iran being raped annually. Does this mean I like Evin Prison in Iran? No. And I'd still take my chances in an American prison, but it's not a good vs bad. You can still get sentenced to a rape box with a hateful rapist torturer in the US and be tortured and raped to death. And the authorities will try to lie to your families face about what happened whilst they watch you on a hospital bed, obviously beaten and braindead.
I would rather be an enemy of the US than an ally of Iran. Iran has responded to attacks by bombing civilian infrastructure of previously friendly countries. Meanwhile, the US is very precisely (as far as these things go) targeting enemy combatants and the infrastructure of war.
Given the US's track record of bombing civilians, along with Israel doing the same. This is not a serious point by you. The US and Israel have killed almost 1500 Iranian civilians in this conflict alone. In a single strike the US killed more school girls than Iran has killed foreign civilians via airstrike in the Gulf states this war. Hell, the CIA has tortured more people than Iran has killed civilians in the Gulf States. To say you would rather be an enemy of the US than an ally of Iran is completely delusional and so far outside any realm of reason.
Iran bombed their 'friends' because their 'friends' had US army bases and personnel on their soil, and the US attacked Iran. Iran attacked the bases and the hotels where the US army personnel were hiding. This is not a complicated, morally outrageous or otherwise perplexing development. It was completely predictable and Iran even said that this would be their response prior to the conflict.
I mean yes, it is clearly a purpose of Iran to stockpile conventional weapons until the point where attacking them would be too costly to consider. You do not dispute that their long term goal is to make a nuclear weapon.
Again you do not deal with the original claim you made. But instead try to reframe it as something else. And when you do it just sounds like Iran stockpiles weapons like every country with an active military does. So we've worked our way back from your hyperbole to reality. Having your armed forces serve as a deterrent to invasion is not taking those who want to invade you hostage.
On top of that I never said Iran wanting nukes is a conspiracy. And I explicitly said exactly this in my previous comment. If I was Iran I would want nukes, given there are two nuclear powers in the process of bombing me.
The contention here is not 'is Iran trying to get nukes'. I'd assume they are. The question is why shouldn't they try to get nukes? Nuclear proliferation is bad. But when you push the regimes back against a wall, what is their recourse? Both the US and Israel have demonstrated hostile intent to the tune I described in my opening paragraph. They also have nukes and have been flirting with using them against Iran through talk of totally annihilating their civilization or take them out entirely in a matter of hours. So what do you want them to do? Have the Israelis or the US shown any mercy to their rivals in the past conflicts? Aren't they all hiding or dead at this point? Even the ones who were open to negotiations like Saddam Hussein? How can Iran maintain its sovereignty under these conditions?
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
America doesn't kill its own citizens directly. They kill other countries citizens and in far greater number than Iran. There's also plenty of death by American government inaction, such as with drug overdoses, and plenty of rapes in American prisons. And people can be freely tortured if the CIA wants to torture them.
No, that is to demonstrate how far their current delivery systems have been proven to reach, since most people don't know how far Diego Garcia is from Iran. They have been working on delivery systems to reach the US. That is the direction they are heading.
If Iran wanted an ICBM they could presumably just make one, or buy one from the N-Koreans. The notion that there is an ongoing race against time to get to Iran before they incrementally develop a missile that can reach further and further feels like childish propaganda.
And yeah, I feel comfortable saying I want the US to be able to attack wherever it needs to, and I do not want Iran to attack me. This is only hypocrisy if you view the US government and the IRGC on equal moral footing. You seem to. I don't.
What does this even mean? Nothing of what we were talking about relates to whether or not America should be able to attack where it needs to and no, I don't want Iran to attack you either.
I never claimed that the IRGC were good for Iran. The point was very simple: Considering the fates of Syria, Libya and Iraq, no one should have any faith that an intervention by the US and Israel would have a more positive result for the Iranian people than what they are suffering now. There is no need to attack Iran, there is no 'greater good' that can come of it and the US has no definitive moral high ground or mandate to necessitate their decision to attack Iran.
You are comparing the IRGC to some American ideal like Massachusetts. In which case, I agree, USA all the way! But I'm comparing the IRGC to war torn years long military occupied Iran. Which is better for the Iranian people? Which is better for the world?
It's not a conspiracy theory that Iran has nuclear material and is working towards making nukes. This is something everyone has known and the framework everyone has been operating under for the past 20+ years.
This is just not what was going on in the comment you wrote or the comment I replied with. You said Iran was stockpiling conventional weapons to take Israel hostage to buy time for themselves to make a nuclear weapon. Again, what is this? Why do you write this?
I noted that it would make sense for Iran to want nuclear weapons as a deterrent. What gain Iran would have from instigating a nuclear war against the holder of the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world remains to be explained.
If catastrophizing otherization and conspiracy theories are enough to invade a nation, we can just call it a day.
The US and Israel also talk like cartoon villains. They also kill civilians en masse along with rape, torture and executions of prisoners. They also fund terrorists. If that wasn't enough, have some theological doomsday prophesy mixed in with your US military.
I don't doubt that the IRGC stands for its own interest and keeping itself in power over the interest of the Iranian people. But that goes double for the US and Israel. Considering the fates of Syria, Libya and Iraq, no one should have any faith that an intervention by the US and Israel would have a more positive result for the Iranian people than what they are suffering now. And no one believes the Iranian people have a favorable view of the US or Israeli governments or want to be ruled by them either.
If we cared about the Iranian people, and I do, we would stop playing these games against their government, open trade, and slowly worm ourselves into their society through the soft power of prosperity.
What's left of your post is rather annoying. It makes me feel you did not read what I wrote. As an example, I mention implicitly that communism was a threat to Iran. However you write as if I didn't:
As far as the actions the US took during the Cold War, people forget that the Soviet Union and Communism were legitimately bad and that communists were and still are existential threats.
Iran had a secular nationalist in charge. The US labeled him a communist to justify the intervention but he never was and the factual basis for doing so at the time was shaky at best.
You also claim I am taking things out of context, but instead of showing where, what context I removed and how it is relevant, you make a conceptual argument for what taking things out of context looks like. What is the point of this?
Finally, for the nukes and why Iran should not have them, you don't explain why. You just float an ominous conspiracy theories in a way that reads rather mad.
Meanwhile, the IRGC has enough enriched uranium to make several nukes and had delivery systems that could reach Eastern Europe
Is Iran intending on nuking eastern Europe?
They were working rapidly on stockpiling conventional weapons to overwhelm Israel and hold them hostage the same way North Korea is able to hold Seoul hostage.
Again, this reads like a conspiracy theory fever dream. Israel has the largest military in the world backing it... Like... How would this even work?
There's only one reason to have these expensive and risky programs and to keep increasing the range.
To have a nuclear deterrent so the US and Israel stop bombing them? Or are they planning to nuke the entire world?
Sure, we launched a coup to secure the interests of a British oil company to syphon more profits from Iran. Since paying the Iranians the agreed upon 16% of profits was apparently too much for said company despite sizeable profits over 40 years.
We then overthrew the elected government, after Iran (who were otherwise at risk of losing the country to communists) voted to nationalize their oil in protest, and we install a monarch puppet that repressed any political organizing on the ground so the only non government organized forces were devout Islamists. And when the Islamists launched a revolt and take American hostages, demanding the US hand over the former dictator we are harboring in exchange, we refuse and instead finance a direct invasion into Iran via Iraq that kills ~250 thousand Iranians over 8 years.
Our greatest ally happens to be embroiled in a conflict in Lebanon around that time so to show support we deploy Marines to Beirut, where they are then bombed by a paramilitary group Iran started funding after we financed the invasion of their country. Which puts the newly Iranian funded proxy groups on our radar as an existential threat to America, despite them being the direct consequence of an unfair intervention solely intended to rob a people of their national resources.
Somehow this all boils down to Iran being a lunatic rogue state that is hellbent on killing Americans, despite their national leader in public and formal capacity stating the exact opposite.
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
The practical function of the JCPOA was to get investigators on the ground in Iran by officially bribing Iran via lifting sanctions. Which would have allowed inspectors to investigate around Iran for 8 of these past years. All whilst being able to monitor Iran's nuclear program on the ground as it developed along with eased limits on enrichment and stockpiles.
I think there's a clear difference between knowing exactly what Iran is doing with its nuclear material at all times and having on ground ability to discover if they have gotten farther along somewhere in secret, versus being completely in the dark. To that extent I don't see why one would need strict limits on all nuclear material in Iran so long as it is all earmarked and accounted for.
The alternative is murdering intelligent persons in Iran until they no longer have the human capital to sustain nuclear research, or do 'regime change'. I think that, with hindsight and how the current war is going, we can safely recognize that there was a lot of utility lost by rifting the agreement. And considering that the sanctions were not enough to declaw Iran, it's hard to tell what was gained.
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
That makes even less sense.
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
Why would they need a ceasefire to do that?
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
To further elevate your point, is Netanyahu the Messiah of Israel? Are there no political elements within Israel that look at this mess and think things should have been different? I genuinely don't know. Maybe every single Israeli voter really wants land from Lebanon. The underlying point here being, there would be no need for any of this if Israel had not pushed Trump into a bad war with Iran.
What should be very clear is that Kent has been a staunch zionist shill in the past much like Vance. The idea that they would 'scapegoat' Israel to save their own hides is just silly. How would their hides be saved if they went against the most powerful lobby in the country? Kent even went on Mark Levin's show to bare his belly.
The message seems to be a much clearer 'you're telling us to jump too high'. There's no reason to believe he is lying when he says 'Israel' pushed this war on the US, or that there were 'Israeli' elements laundering bad intel into the American decision making process. It's much more likely he genuinely believes the current Israeli influencers within the government are toxic and making bad decisions that harm both parties, which this Iran invasion certainly has done.
That being said, I wouldn't necessarily call him sincere, or at least it's not required. I think Kent has long hitched his wagon on the alleged new tech Thiel/JD Vance train. So dipping when he did can be explained similarly to how JD Vance has been distancing himself from the conflict, or positioning himself as a peaceful mediator. The Iran war was an obviously bad idea, with a lot of risk, and anyone with political aspirations for the future could feel their image being tarnished by proximity. Even if we assume everyone is on the same team in the admin, hedging your bets and keeping some of your elements away from the fire is a smart move. But voicing disagreement with Israel outside the toxic influence on display isn't needed to do that.
To that extent @DirtyWaterHotDog is not presenting the most plausible explanation at all and his rationale leaves me wanting.
Iran has been an American military goal for decades. Trump thought he could could a Venezuela 2.0 with Iran.
Kent's point was that the reason for why Trump pulled the trigger and believed he could Venezuela 2.0 with Iran was because of bad agenda driven Israeli intel. Like, the thing that needs explaining here is why this long time adversary needed to be dealt with now and why people now believed it to be feasible, which is a direct break from prior assessments. And please don't tell me Iran was two weeks away from building a nuclear weapon.
The US has 30x the military spend & apparatus of Israel. If Trump takes major geopolitical decisions based on power point presentations from Netanyahu, then that makes Trump look incompetent rather than making Israel look malicious.
This is just a logical non-sequitur. Yes, if Trump makes major geopolitical decisions based on obviously bad intel, including power point presentations by Israel's prime minister that had been in and out of the White House nigh every day in the leadup to the war, then that does make Trump look like an incompetent lap dog and it does make Israel and Netanyahu especially, look unbelievably arrogant, self centered and reckless with regards to US interest in the region. None of those facts preclude Kent from being truthful when he says 'Israel' has too much pull and is pulling in a bad direction. It just leaves everyone still bought in or involved with this charade looking foolish.
No republican candidate wants to separate from MAGA. It's practically half their electorate at this point. But they need be able to appeal to the other half as well. To do that they now need plausible deniability for Trumps and Netanyahu's errors along with support from the most powerful lobby in America.
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
Size and powerlifting movements are easily measurable, and if you only look at the spreadsheets and stats, it might look plausible. But strength is compounding in a lot of odd ways when the body is used in totality. Add in leverage through technique that compounds with your entire body and one should see why comparing raw strength numbers even between men can become a gross oversimplification of all the variables at play.
For example, it's not enough to presume that the reason why someone with a lot of grip strength feels strong is just because of their measured strength on a hand dynamometer. Until they are holding on to your wrists and you can't get them to let go you might not have considered that the size of their hand, or the thickness of their fingers is a clear advantage. Or how thin your own wrists are in comparison. Now compound that advantage with every single muscle and joint in their body as they hold on to your wrists and pull you around. From their bigger hands, longer limbs, broader shoulders... It literally does not stop at any point. From skeleton to skin. Even their feet and toes are larger, giving them bigger contact area with the ground.
To make a long story short, when you truly ask for a size equal woman to man, and look at that woman, you will not feel like you are looking at a woman. It's something that doesn't exist in any relevant number in the human species outside of complete anomalies or extreme growth hormone abuse. And even then it's often not enough. Categorically, men and women are different. And when we abstract ourselves away from reality with weight numbers and height measurements we are just playing a game on ourselves. If you want an answer to the question that is in any way relevant for normal humans, then you've already invalidated the effort with your caveats and hypotheticals.
To that extent the trans angle of the question is over and I'm not sure what else you were trying to get out of this.
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
I'm not sure if claiming to oppose a regime and expressing intent to bomb a civilization into oblivion are the same thing. That was kind of the game the US was playing with 'Regime Change'. Or the US claiming to stand for global order, instead of Hegseth going out there claiming no quarter would be given, which is just a random declaration of wanting to commit war crimes.
That being said, I'd accept the terms, if only to not ever have to listen to someone claim that Iranians shouting 'Death to America' represents an existential threat, rather than just being the same kind of empty bluster US officials are now want to put out on social media, assuming it's empty, of course.
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
Ali Khamenei made those objections already, stating that it means opposition to U.S. government policies, not the American people. Hard to imagine a greater authority on the matter.
Besides that, rhetoric coming from a protest or some mass gathering is slightly different than rhetoric coming from world leaders. 'Glassing the place' became a common term for what many Americans said should be done to the middle east, I don't suppose you think that's the same as an official statement from a national leader? Though Trump has now narrowed that gap.
1 I responded to that comment below.
2 If your free speech comes with the caveat that any sufficiently powerful person or group can effectively own the public square in part or whole and dictate what can and can't be said then I can only consider my original point, that Americans are far too quick to congratulate themselves on the topic of freedoms and rights, proven and demonstrated.
3 I'm not terribly interested in getting in the weeds on this nor do I see the relevance, but:
I don't see how Trump 2.0 can be considered to have given his voters what they wanted when there is an active middle east war and more foreign workers in the country now than before his second term began. But the MAGA base will cheer on literally anything as long as Trump does it so there's that.
If your free speech rights hinge on you becoming a billionaire to functionally buy the public square then, again, I feel I can't overstate my original point.
4 Isn't that a great refutation of your own point? He didn't compare himself to Europe and make that the barometer. He had ideological and philosophical values! He looked beyond just what's in the world and dared to dream of what was possible. Or something...
But how American are those values? The vast majority of the American elite is in favor of speech restrictions and controls. Illustrated by every other American platform having very clear speech and content restrictions that go beyond any law of the land. That's why Musk had to buy Twitter. Before that people had been getting banned for misgendering people or making political jokes that offended the ownership elite or the special interest groups that constantly drive for more censorship like the ADL. Musk's X is in a very clear minority among the elite and his platform still engages in censorship and backroom algorithmic manipulation.
How about we have our own ideologies and values and judge what's happening in the world of free speech by those? Rather than basing our barometer on what some billionaire came up with or what they are doing in Germany or wherever else.
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
There being a lot of pigs in the sty doesn't change the point.
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
That's a comparison revolving around being the cleanest pig in the sty. If the culmination of the freedom loving spirit of Americans can't reach beyond comparing themselves to the Germans then the point, that Americans are far too quick to congratulate themselves on the topic of freedom and rights, is very much made.
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
I feel Americans are far too quick to congratulate themselves on the topic of freedoms and rights. Not only has the US government worked to censor in recent years using big tech as a proxy, it has also done so historically, such as with the case of Schenck v. United States, Charles Coughlin, McCarthyism or COINTELPRO and similar.
If the government was the owner of all major communications platforms, then yeah, the first amendment would technically be super relevant. But when American law is willing to leverage the right of a single company owner to censor speech as being equal to the right of millions of people to express themselves on that companies platform, you have a state of affairs that is effectively no different from not having any free speech rights at all. Which is exactly the case for anyone wanting to color outside the lines of American powers that be. Maybe not by putting you in jail, as is the case in Europe. But via indirect means, such as with the examples given earlier or suddenly not having a bank account or not being able to freely choose an airline or host a website by any normal means.
I think a secondary part is that what a lot of Americans believe doesn't seem to matter a whole lot. And even if that wasn't the case, American media has had such a stranglehold on the public that it's not as if there was ever going to be a risk of anyone believing anything truly heterodox to begin with. And if that were ever a likely case, the American government can and has stepped in to get ahead of those movements. The sheer mass of the American media and political system has been too great for any popular grass roots movement to budge it until, arguably, 2016 Trump arrived.
But even after Trump, TPTB have learned their lesson, are course correcting and we are now only celebrating 'free speech' in America because a South African bought twitter.
I haven't felt this negative about America since Bush Jr. Along with exposure to Paula White I feel myself being dragged back to my New Atheist days.
This stuff sure cycles fast.
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
I don't think much of the modern gender wars rhetoric is aimed at such a goal. The modern manosphere types going on the Whatever podcast to talk at young women and call them stupid It's not about fixing women but telling men to recognize women as being the equivalent of a 'rapist'.
And if we're being honest, there's not much to argue against that from any self aware feminist perspective. 'Teach men not to rape' was never intended to teach men not to rape. It was just a hostile gender based expression directed at men by the most sheltered and privileged women on earth.
hanikrummihundursvin
2mo ago
Americans have a slightly mythological view of Europeans as a separate and independent culture, when in reality the European consensus is just what's on American TV told back to you in an exotic accent.
Simply not true.
Iran has shown through actions that it retaliates in measured and controlled ways to defend itself. Israel has demonstrated a complete disregard for human life time and time again. Which is demonstrable by Gaza looking like rubble.
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