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> The US and Israel have assassinated targets in the country of Iran recently, while the reverse has not been true. I presume you are referring to the US killi

> The US and Israel have assassinated targets in the country of Iran recently, while the reverse has not been true. I presume you are referring to the US killing of Soleimani, and the embassy bombing, though neither of those were in Iran. But you're missing the point. Why did those killings happen? Iran keeps arming proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, militias in Iraq, the Houthis, and maybe some others), and having those proxies attack Israel and the US. (In the case of Soleimani, he was meeting with militias in Iraq who were literally killing US military personnel.) Iran thinks this is a fun game of "we get to kill your people, and you don't get to kill us". Eventually the US and Israel got tired of the game. The US killed Soleimani at a time and place that made it explicitly clear what he was doing and why the US wasn't going to keep putting up with it. Israel lost patience with Iran's game after the Hamas attack; they are in no mood to allow Iran to be stirring up trouble with Hezbollah on their northern border. So I think it's rather unfair to point fingers at Israel and the US for killing Iranians, when the individual Iranians in question are deliberately trying to kill US and Israeli soldiers and citizens, and have been for quite some time.

aprilthird2021 3y ago
You presume wrong. I mean the killing of Iranian civilians such as Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The US arms Israel who conducts such extrajudicial assassinations. By your logic, this makes all American military personnel and proxy civilians fair targets for Iran
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  So, you mean like the Iranian attempt to assassinate John Bolton? (I mean, they didn't succeed, but does that make a real moral difference?)
  - enterprise_cog 3y ago
    [dead]
  - aprilthird2021 3y ago
    Wasn't this a retaliation to the killings Israel and the US did of it's people? Also, I am keeping military leaders aside. I think most would agree that they sign up for a level of targeting civilians should be exempt from.
    - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      First, Bolton was a civilian. (And if you're going to say that "he's an involved civilian", well, so is the nuclear scientist. Iran doesn't have a nuclear program just to produce reactors.) Second, of course it's a retaliation. But the killings Israel and the US did were also retaliations. And what they were retaliating for were also retaliations. If you condemn assassination-as-retaliation on the US and Israeli side, condemn it on Iran's side as well. (And, note that if this is ever going to end, some people who are guilty of atrocities are going to have to be unpunished. That feels morally wrong. But both sides punishing the authors of atrocities leads to the current situation, which also doesn't feel very moral.)

aprilthird2021 3y ago

You presume wrong. I mean the killing of Iranian civilians such as Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The US arms Israel who conducts such extrajudicial assassinations. By your logic, this makes all American military personnel and proxy civilians fair targets for Iran

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
So, you mean like the Iranian attempt to assassinate John Bolton? (I mean, they didn't succeed, but does that make a real moral difference?)
- enterprise_cog 3y ago
  [dead]
- aprilthird2021 3y ago
  Wasn't this a retaliation to the killings Israel and the US did of it's people? Also, I am keeping military leaders aside. I think most would agree that they sign up for a level of targeting civilians should be exempt from.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    First, Bolton was a civilian. (And if you're going to say that "he's an involved civilian", well, so is the nuclear scientist. Iran doesn't have a nuclear program just to produce reactors.) Second, of course it's a retaliation. But the killings Israel and the US did were also retaliations. And what they were retaliating for were also retaliations. If you condemn assassination-as-retaliation on the US and Israeli side, condemn it on Iran's side as well. (And, note that if this is ever going to end, some people who are guilty of atrocities are going to have to be unpunished. That feels morally wrong. But both sides punishing the authors of atrocities leads to the current situation, which also doesn't feel very moral.)