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The Pentagon Says It Will Not Bomb Iranian Art Sites

21 points by ughitsaaron 7y ago

intsunny 7y ago
Off-topic for HN, but disgusting that any "leader" would ever recommend such.
aerodog 7y ago
they'll just bomb sites with innocent human beings instead. phew, i was worried for a second they'd commit war crimes!
rhombocombus 7y ago
That this is even a thing that needs to be said is a ghastly reflection of where we are as a species and a country.
- mam2 7y ago
  this is not the worst humanity has done though
henvic 7y ago
How the Pentagon plan to control what crimes their thugs commit overseas, so far away from home?
pavlov 7y ago
Just two weeks before the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the target for the second bomb wasn't going to be Nagasaki's industrial zone but instead Kyoto, a city of immense cultural value. Henry Stimson, the U.S. Secretary of War, had visited Kyoto several times including his honeymoon. He lobbied directly with the President to save Kyoto. "The military didn't want it removed so it kept putting Kyoto back on the list until late July but Stimson went directly to President Truman." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33755182 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33755182 Iran has many sites as important as Kyoto. I'm 99.9% sure there's nobody in the Trump administration who went to Iran for their honeymoon, however...
ddgflorida 7y ago
No one would expect them to. The US is not the Taliban.
- matthew-wegner 7y ago
  The context here is this: "import to Iran & the Iranian culture" https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213593975732527112 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12135939757325271...
- krapp 7y ago
  I would. I remember reading a Quora question about why New Yorkers hate Donald Trump[0], and one of the comments resonated with me when it described him as a thuggish hustler who doesn't know he's a thuggish hustler, the kind of guy who would "drop a ceiling in the Sistene Chapel." You can't make any claims about the integrity of the American military when it's being run by someone without integrity. If the Library of Alexandria existed today, Trump as Commander in Chief would probably have it burned to the ground just to spite academia. [0]https://www.quora.com/Why-do-residents-of-New-York-City-vehemently-dislike-Donald-Trump https://www.quora.com/Why-do-residents-of-New-York-City-vehe...
weberc2 7y ago
What are the Tweets in question. artnet.com keeps paraphrasing and quoting other tweets, but I can't find the actual Tweets that threaten to bomb art/cultural sites. Can someone please link me to them? EDIT: Why am I downvoted? This question isn't rhetorical. Did I miss something obvious in TFA?
- LyndsySimon 7y ago
  Here you go: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213593975732527112 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12135939757325271...
earlINmeyerkeg 7y ago
Can someone explain to me how bombing Iran benefits the US financially? I mean this is on HN so does that mean they have some Shia AI that we can benefit from?
- fragsworth 7y ago
  It doesn't benefit the general public, but it directly benefits Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and others. It's not clear to me how much influence they have in this.
- henvic 7y ago
  Statism in all of its vestments (like militarism) is not about benefiting citizens (of the USA or anywhere else) but about benefiting groups of interests of powerful people that gravitate around the state apparatus. Democracy isn't liberty, and these so-called wars aren't wars but massacres sponsored by the state benefiting only a few companies sometimes referred to as "the military complex" in spite of the rest of society. https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/83 https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/83 War as Spoliation https://mises.org/library/war-spoliation https://mises.org/library/war-spoliation
LyndsySimon 7y ago
Intuitively, I think there are several audiences at play here, each of which is reading something different into Trump's threat. For context, here is what he said: > Iran is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets as revenge for our ridding the world of their terrorist leader who had just killed an American, & badly wounded many others, not to mention all of the people he had killed over his lifetime, including recently.... > ....hundreds of Iranian protesters. He was already attacking our Embassy, and preparing for additional hits in other locations. Iran has been nothing but problems for many years. Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have..... > ....targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats! The first audience for this is obviously Trump himself. If I ask myself what he's trying to accomplish here, and I believe that he's trying to intimidate Iran into backing off, at least for the moment. He's telegraphing that there is a strike plan already prepared and that it's something that Iran really doesn't want to happen. In my opinion, Trump is very nuanced - almost machiavellian, in fact - in his overall strategies but is very straightforward in his communication. If he'd wanted Iran to believe that he would order the destruction of cultural sites, he was have said it plainly. The mention of "culture" is the last in a series of descriptors, not the central point. Also consider that Iran is a theocracy. As a result, presumably any attack on the Iranian government would target religious sites implicitly: there is no clear dividing line between "the government of Iran" and "Islam in Iran". Given that the government of Iran is the second audience, it seems that what he's saying is that his threat applies to government leadership instead of solely military targets. Trump's domestic opponents are another audience, and have different biases. They seem to expect Trump to act aggressively and in a way ignorant of both the status quo and international law. I get why they are interpreting "important to [...] the Iranian culture" as "Iranian cultural sites", but that strikes me as a particularly uncharitable reading. This creep in what was actually said versus what has been interpreted as having been meant continues; the article linked is from an art-centric site. It uses "heritage sites" in the headline, and "heritage sites" aren't mentioned at all in Trump's tweets. Further, the article quotes art directors, and then explicitly calls out Persepolis as have been "in all likelihood" "spared thanks to the backlash against Trump's threat." Persepolis. In fact, none of the heritage sites listed seem like they would have ever been on a strike list in the first place. I acknowledge that I don't share the biases of the article's author, but it doesn't seem at all reasonable to assume that ancient ruins are what were referenced in Trump's tweets. On the other hand, if my reading of Trump's intentions are accurate it would be unwise for Iranian leadership to be holding their press conferences in the Masjed-e Jāme’ in Isfahan or using the Shushtar hydraulic system as a convenient place to store centrifuges. It's unlawful (and immoral) to target a heritage site because it's a heritage site, but if the enemy attempts to use the site as a shield that's another story entirely.

21 points by ughitsaaron 7y ago

intsunny 7y ago

Off-topic for HN, but disgusting that any "leader" would ever recommend such.

aerodog 7y ago

they'll just bomb sites with innocent human beings instead. phew, i was worried for a second they'd commit war crimes!

rhombocombus 7y ago

That this is even a thing that needs to be said is a ghastly reflection of where we are as a species and a country.

mam2 7y ago
this is not the worst humanity has done though

henvic 7y ago

How the Pentagon plan to control what crimes their thugs commit overseas, so far away from home?

pavlov 7y ago

Just two weeks before the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the target for the second bomb wasn't going to be Nagasaki's industrial zone but instead Kyoto, a city of immense cultural value. Henry Stimson, the U.S. Secretary of War, had visited Kyoto several times including his honeymoon. He lobbied directly with the President to save Kyoto. "The military didn't want it removed so it kept putting Kyoto back on the list until late July but Stimson went directly to President Truman." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33755182 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33755182 Iran has many sites as important as Kyoto. I'm 99.9% sure there's nobody in the Trump administration who went to Iran for their honeymoon, however...

ddgflorida 7y ago

No one would expect them to. The US is not the Taliban.

matthew-wegner 7y ago
The context here is this: "import to Iran & the Iranian culture" https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213593975732527112 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12135939757325271...
krapp 7y ago
I would. I remember reading a Quora question about why New Yorkers hate Donald Trump[0], and one of the comments resonated with me when it described him as a thuggish hustler who doesn't know he's a thuggish hustler, the kind of guy who would "drop a ceiling in the Sistene Chapel." You can't make any claims about the integrity of the American military when it's being run by someone without integrity. If the Library of Alexandria existed today, Trump as Commander in Chief would probably have it burned to the ground just to spite academia. [0]https://www.quora.com/Why-do-residents-of-New-York-City-vehemently-dislike-Donald-Trump https://www.quora.com/Why-do-residents-of-New-York-City-vehe...

weberc2 7y ago

What are the Tweets in question. artnet.com keeps paraphrasing and quoting other tweets, but I can't find the actual Tweets that threaten to bomb art/cultural sites. Can someone please link me to them? EDIT: Why am I downvoted? This question isn't rhetorical. Did I miss something obvious in TFA?

LyndsySimon 7y ago
Here you go: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213593975732527112 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12135939757325271...

earlINmeyerkeg 7y ago

Can someone explain to me how bombing Iran benefits the US financially? I mean this is on HN so does that mean they have some Shia AI that we can benefit from?

fragsworth 7y ago
It doesn't benefit the general public, but it directly benefits Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and others. It's not clear to me how much influence they have in this.
henvic 7y ago
Statism in all of its vestments (like militarism) is not about benefiting citizens (of the USA or anywhere else) but about benefiting groups of interests of powerful people that gravitate around the state apparatus. Democracy isn't liberty, and these so-called wars aren't wars but massacres sponsored by the state benefiting only a few companies sometimes referred to as "the military complex" in spite of the rest of society. https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/83 https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/83 War as Spoliation https://mises.org/library/war-spoliation https://mises.org/library/war-spoliation

LyndsySimon 7y ago

Intuitively, I think there are several audiences at play here, each of which is reading something different into Trump's threat. For context, here is what he said: > Iran is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets as revenge for our ridding the world of their terrorist leader who had just killed an American, & badly wounded many others, not to mention all of the people he had killed over his lifetime, including recently.... > ....hundreds of Iranian protesters. He was already attacking our Embassy, and preparing for additional hits in other locations. Iran has been nothing but problems for many years. Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have..... > ....targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats! The first audience for this is obviously Trump himself. If I ask myself what he's trying to accomplish here, and I believe that he's trying to intimidate Iran into backing off, at least for the moment. He's telegraphing that there is a strike plan already prepared and that it's something that Iran really doesn't want to happen. In my opinion, Trump is very nuanced - almost machiavellian, in fact - in his overall strategies but is very straightforward in his communication. If he'd wanted Iran to believe that he would order the destruction of cultural sites, he was have said it plainly. The mention of "culture" is the last in a series of descriptors, not the central point. Also consider that Iran is a theocracy. As a result, presumably any attack on the Iranian government would target religious sites implicitly: there is no clear dividing line between "the government of Iran" and "Islam in Iran". Given that the government of Iran is the second audience, it seems that what he's saying is that his threat applies to government leadership instead of solely military targets. Trump's domestic opponents are another audience, and have different biases. They seem to expect Trump to act aggressively and in a way ignorant of both the status quo and international law. I get why they are interpreting "important to [...] the Iranian culture" as "Iranian cultural sites", but that strikes me as a particularly uncharitable reading. This creep in what was actually said versus what has been interpreted as having been meant continues; the article linked is from an art-centric site. It uses "heritage sites" in the headline, and "heritage sites" aren't mentioned at all in Trump's tweets. Further, the article quotes art directors, and then explicitly calls out Persepolis as have been "in all likelihood" "spared thanks to the backlash against Trump's threat." Persepolis. In fact, none of the heritage sites listed seem like they would have ever been on a strike list in the first place. I acknowledge that I don't share the biases of the article's author, but it doesn't seem at all reasonable to assume that ancient ruins are what were referenced in Trump's tweets. On the other hand, if my reading of Trump's intentions are accurate it would be unwise for Iranian leadership to be holding their press conferences in the Masjed-e Jāme’ in Isfahan or using the Shushtar hydraulic system as a convenient place to store centrifuges. It's unlawful (and immoral) to target a heritage site because it's a heritage site, but if the enemy attempts to use the site as a shield that's another story entirely.