Computer worm hits Iranian nuclear facilities, biblical references

[Alsheriam]

  Alsheriam, that's all well and good, but you are missing the point. The muslin nations regard the land Israel sits on as theirs. If they conquered it, they own it forever. Israel is a jewish nation and religion is a very strong component in the nation's make up. Unlike Singapore.

Really? Are they so unique? How about these people? I somehow remember that they're also a very spiritual people.






American colonists gave smallpox-infested blankets to the indigenous, in an early form of germ warfare/counter-insurgency

There are very strong cultural ties with ancient Israel and the religion gives a strong sense nationhood and purpose. Plus the muslim nations around Israel have proven with physical force that they will act militarily to try and wipe out Israel. Iran is currently the worst and a lot of people believe that if they do get their nuke (you have to be naive to believer they are not trying for a nuclear weapon with their current president and clerical council in charge*), they will use it as a club on the nations around them or worse, slip it to a terrorist group like Hezbollah that would use it.

The invading people didn't even need to have a nuke. And given the amount of land that was taken away from them, and the proportion of their population killed off, doesn't that make the Holocaust the 2nd largest mass killing in history? An estimate by the US government put the figure at 1 - 4 million, but that official figure doesn't stand up to scrutiny and ergo ought to be discounted. Another study conducted by independent researchers put the figure between 10 - 114 million as a result of direct US actions. Nazi Holocaust are between 6 - 11 million.

American Holocaust: D. Stannard (Oxford Press, 1992) - "over 100 million killed" "[Christopher] Columbus personally murdered half a million Natives"
God, Greed and Genocide: The Holocaust Through the Centuries: Grenke (New Academia Publishing 2006)
Holocaust: Critical Concepts in Historical Studies: Cesarani, (Routledge 2004)

Does that mean that the indigenous American population have a legitimate claim to historical victimhood and deserve to have the entire territories of the US handed to them just because they've had 'strong cultural ties' with the land itself, and also possess a strong religiosity to prove it?

So, despite Ahmadinejad being some kind of a clown President of Iran, the guy lately has been facing a lot of personal challenges to his power by Iranian legislators and other people in positions of power lately. The only reason he's still there is because the Supreme Leader Khamenei supports him, but Ahmadinejad's days in office are numbered. Iran is not North Korea - they're not crazy and not prone to acts of crazy like shelling a neighboring country out of the blue for the sole sake of brinkmanship. As crazy as the state of Iran can turn out to be due to the portrayal by Western media, my analysis is that the Iranian nuclear thing is less of a worry than North Korea right now. I can only reckon that Iran has been pursuing nuclear weapons and not playing by the rules, because Israel, who is also in the neighborhood has never been playing by the rules, and Iran sees it fit to match Israel in that regard to secure its interests.

The logic of assigning legitimacy to Israel just because of 'ancient ties to ancient Israel' and religiosity does not add up. If that reason could be the case, it also gives the indigenous Malay population the legitimacy to evict me out of my own country, because I am Chinese and my grandfathers came from China, and the Malays have always had ties to the land after all.

[Jude]

The invading people didn't even need to have a nuke. And given the amount of land that was taken away from them, and the proportion of their population killed off, doesn't that make the Holocaust the 2nd largest mass killing in history? An estimate by the US government put the figure at 1 - 4 million, but that official figure doesn't stand up to scrutiny and ergo ought to be discounted. Another study conducted by independent researchers put the figure between 10 - 114 million as a result of direct US actions. Nazi Holocaust are between 6 - 11 million.

American Holocaust: D. Stannard (Oxford Press, 1992) - "over 100 million killed" "[Christopher] Columbus personally murdered half a million Natives"
God, Greed and Genocide: The Holocaust Through the Centuries: Grenke (New Academia Publishing 2006)
Holocaust: Critical Concepts in Historical Studies: Cesarani, (Routledge 2004)

I'm guessing you missed the part where Christopher Columbus was not a US citizen.  His ships sailed across the seas around 1492.  The United States declared independence in 1776.  I find your words kind of mystifying, "direct US actions."  The US was so badass that it was murdering Native Americans around 300 years before its existence?  That's a Real Ultimate Power style ninja trick.

The 100 million figure, I can only assume, refers to the actions of all Europeans regardless of what national banner they acted under.  Unfortunately you did not cite the source of the US estimate so I can't even begin to dig at your general misuse of the numbers -- which is fine, because all of this is beside the point really.

Does that mean that the indigenous American population have a legitimate claim to historical victimhood and deserve to have the entire territories of the US handed to them just because they've had 'strong cultural ties' with the land itself, and also possess a strong religiosity to prove it?

I agree that it makes little sense to prosecute descendants on the basis of the actions done by their ancestors, but this argument goes both ways.  Israel was established over 60 years ago, it's time to give up the questioning of its right to exist.  What's done is done in that regard.  That doesn't mean certain policies and further usurpation of power and territory shouldn't be questioned, but it should be questioned by the international community in a level-headed way, not by making threats of annihilation like Iran has.

So, despite Ahmadinejad being some kind of a clown President of Iran, the guy lately has been facing a lot of personal challenges to his power by Iranian legislators and other people in positions of power lately. The only reason he's still there is because the Supreme Leader Khamenei supports him, but Ahmadinejad's days in office are numbered. Iran is not North Korea - they're not crazy and not prone to acts of crazy like shelling a neighboring country out of the blue for the sole sake of brinkmanship. As crazy as the state of Iran can turn out to be due to the portrayal by Western media, my analysis is that the Iranian nuclear thing is less of a worry than North Korea right now. I can only reckon that Iran has been pursuing nuclear weapons and not playing by the rules, because Israel, who is also in the neighborhood has never been playing by the rules, and Iran sees it fit to match Israel in that regard to secure its interests.

But in what way is Israel a threat to Iran's existence?  Before the Iranian Revolution Israel and Iran had good relations.  When Khamenei took over, Iran's stance changed over night.  You can speculate on what the logic was behind this (identification with Palestine on the basis of racial and religious unity as a likely possibility for example), but it's quite clear that this didn't come about because of something Israel did to Iran.  In fact, in as much as Israel has sinned, their transgressions have nothing to do with Iran.  Recently they have made some military and symbolic overtures against Iran, of course, but that came after decades of provocation.

None of this strikes me as particularly sane behavior.  Sane would've been continuing on as an ally of Israel or at least adopting a stance of neutrality, not publicly hoping for (at best -- at worst calling for the annihilation of; this depends on translation of remarks however) the dissolution of Israel.

They could've done a number of things if Iran was actually interested in creating a better world for the Palestinians.  The Iran of 1978 was in an unique position as a bridge between the Jewish and Muslim world.  Most of the world now recognizes that the only way that Israel and Palestine will ever be at peace is through the formation of a two-state solution where both sides come to the table willing to make sacrifices.  But Iran has chosen to become part of the problem, certainly not the solution, while simultaneously defying the international community in their pursuit of weapons which are capable of threatening the entire world.

Gotta love how they do their press conferences too.  Yep, that looks like sanity to me.  Missiles are capable of diplomacy (if you consider such to be the creation of peace), and thus ambassadors, if you kill all of your enemies (since the dead can scarcely disrupt the peace) -- which I guess they'll soon have be able to do if we turn our back on their nuclear aspirations.  Personally I'm against this given their track record of relations with non-Muslim entities in the past few decades.

EDIT:  A quick Googling of American Holocaust by David Stannard exposes a lot of problems with using that as a resource.  For one, it's an estimation of the number of Native American deaths that Europeans settlers are responsible for, not the United States as I discussed above.  Secondly, the 100 million figure is considered to be overestimated by many even for what it is an estimation of.  Lastly, it adds into the death toll column any deaths that occurred as a result of the diseases that the Europeans brought with them.

Even if you were to argue that some transmissions were intentional and thus deserve to be considered murder (and some were, blankets with Smallpox were handed out in a few incidences for example), it's still quite dubious to associate all of the disease based deaths with those incidents when a lot of transmissions were bound to happen naturally as Europeans and Native Americans came into contact.

[Zeitgeist]

Bomb attacks have killed a prominent Iranian nuclear scientist and wounded another in Tehran, state TV reported today.

Attackers riding on motorcycles attached the bombs to the car windows of the scientists as they were driving to their workplaces this morning, the station's website said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/29/iran-nuclear-scientist-bomb-attack

Someone is keeping the pressure on Iran.