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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.
Sounds like a classic motte and bailey pivot to me.
For starters, please quote and link these explanations.
Do you agree that Iranian leadership also chants "death to Israel"?
Do you maintain that "Death to Israel" is similarly not a direct wish for harm against Israeli citizens?
Do you agree that Iranian leadership has directed attacks against Israeli civilians?
Given that they know how "death to America" is interpreted, why do you think they continue with "death to America"?
In your view, is the United States deliberately targeting Iranian civilians?
Do you deny that Iran has been directing and supporting Hezbollah?
Do you deny that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization?
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?
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?
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.
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?
If we apply the label fairly then I think they look like incompetent amateurs compared to Israel. As demonstrated in the footage of Gaza.
Yeah we all know what “Death to America” means but the second Iran wants to mobilize American sympathy there’s a complicated explanation about how those words don’t mean what they appear to mean.
One imagines I would not get such sympathy if I were to say, “Death to hanikrummihundursvin”
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'.
America obviously poses a threat to Iran and nobody denies this. Denying the opposite, that Iran threatens America, is not sensible. It sometimes happens that two people hate each other for unfortunate, avoidable, and correct reasons.
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.
But it's not only that, and you are putting forth a strawman. I'm sure the men who drove a truck bomb into Beirut and killed two hundred Americans knew exactly what 'Death to America' meant: killing Americans.
They're not insane, but they are not rational. They are religious fanatics who hate the west and want to kill every American they get their hands on. An enemy, by definition, is an other. No special intellectualizing required. It is you who are making apologetics.
For the same reason the geniuses behind 'Abolish the Police' engaged in epicycles to say it actually meant [Liberal Slop], you are doing the same. Surely the Kantian PhD scholars would come up with a clarifying slogan and instruct their people to communicate what they actually mean, right?
No, this is quokka reasoning: you cannot define away enemies who identify as enemies. That's not how the world works. At least respect them enough to believe that they say what they mean, and not fall for obvious lies.
No, they didn't just kill two hundred random Americans, they very specifically killed two hundred Marines who were associated with the Israeli invaders of their country. Then when Reagan responded by withdrawing from Lebanon they ceased further attacks rather than pressing the advantage to start targeting defenseless tourists
Kind of proves the point of the fellow you're replying to: "Death to America" is shorthand for "Death to the American government", which is shorthand for "Death to the American Empire", which is shorthand for "Death to the American Empire in countries with Shia populations that are occupied against their will". If it just meant "kill Americans!" then they'd go for tourists rather than Marines and they'd do it all the time rather than almost exclusively against armed troops in Shia countries.
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