When war crimes rhetoric becomes battlefield reality (justsecurity.org)

by dogscatstrees 63 comments 47 points
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63 comments

[−] Amirh14123 38d ago
Iranian here, full internet blackout done here by the the Islamic state, connected through alot of efforts to read news and I came upon this.

By our ideas, hitting power plants and such infra will not effect IRGC by any means, IRGC hates it's own people ( aka Iranians who uprised against them so many times, last being less than 2 months ago leading to 40k+ civilian deaths), it'll just make the economy many times worse for us than it is. IRGC will run it's infra even if it means full blackout of the civilians.

At this point of time I'm getting ready to be laid off cuz our jobs are non existent now ( I am a fellow software engineer)

For next couple of months, life's gonna be shit, either the strikes will end it, or the IRGC. Wonder what we gotta do.

[−] CrzyLngPwd 38d ago
It's not the first time the USA has committed war crimes in its 222 to 230+ years of war, and it won't be the last either.
[−] readthenotes1 38d ago
I keep wondering what Iran planned to do with its 440kg of U-235 enriched to 60% when most nuclear reactors need only 5% and some needing only up to 20%.

https://armscontrolcenter.org/irans-stockpile-of-highly-enri...

https://armscontrolcenter.org/uranium-enrichment-for-peace-o...

[−] scotty79 38d ago
You can definitely guess what are they gonna do with it now since the inept US attack obliterated every incentive there was to not do that.
[−] amanaplanacanal 38d ago
If they were smart, build a defensive nuclear arsenal. It certainly seems to have worked for North Korea.
[−] karmakurtisaani 38d ago
A functional nuclear weapon would definitely have prevented the current war. Hard to blame them for trying.
[−] votepaunchy 34d ago
Circular reasoning. The current war is only because Iran was building a “functional nuclear weapon”.
[−] donkeybeer 38d ago
I don't care about hypotheticals, there is already a hyper violent belligerent country in the middle east with a few hundred "illegal" nukes. Their officials/thinkers have already stated insane things about using the nukes on eg innocent European capitals without anyone doing counter clarification or pushback. I'd worry much more about the nukes and fissile materials there.
[−] enjeyw 38d ago
What I find tricky to reason about here is that whether destroying infrastructure comes down to "whether the military advantage outweighs the impact to civilians", and as far as I can tell, there's no robust way to assess this.

Indeed, this seems to be what supporters of Trump are leaning on, as you can make the argument that _any_ bridge, or _any_ powerplant could hypothetically be used by the military, and that this conflict is sufficiently important for the livelihood of people in America/"The West" that doing anything that even slightly helps tips the odds is justifiable.

[−] noja 38d ago
Loophole finding. Again.
[−] globalnode 38d ago
dont worry as soon as trump is gone americas sycophant allies will be clamouring to get back to some sort of pre-trump status quo, but i doubt we're ever going back to 100% pre-trump prices.

whoops, was responding to someone but accidentally top levelled this comment, which id rather leave here even though it lacks context -- something about levies on ship transit, which isnt really that much different to global tariffs is it?

[−] drivebyhooting 38d ago
What’s the plan for opening transit through the strait? Let Iran hold it hostage and ransom tankers through? That seems absolutely unacceptable.

How about each country sets up a blockade and demands their toll for safe passage?

The only sensible strategy is to make IRGC capitulate.