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What? Do you really believe the world seriously beholds itself to "do as I say not as I do"? There's no such thing as international law. There's just self-inter

by 827a 1y ago

What? Do you really believe the world seriously beholds itself to "do as I say not as I do"? There's no such thing as international law. There's just self-interested nations who have always only done what is in their best interest. There's no higher authority. So, in your reality, China says "but, but, you guys got to invade Iraq and attack Iran unprovoked, that means we get to invade Taiwan" and we just have to sit back and let it happen because... reasons. Nope. That's not how it works. We don't hold everyone to the same standards, and we certainly don't hold ourselves to the standards we police the world to hold itself to. That's the way it works. Life isn't fair. Get used to it.

nicce 1y ago
> There's no such thing as international law. There's just self-interested nations who have always only done what is in their best interest. If you think about that a little bit more, you may see that internal laws can change the best interests if coencequences are big enough. And maybe that is the point.
jmward01 1y ago
I don't believe in fair. I do however believe that maybe we can learn and change and expect our leadership to do the same. Cooperation and diplomacy lead to far higher long term returns than might makes right as we have seen time and time again. What we are seeing now however is a policy of maximizing the minimum which will force others to do the same and leads to everyone, including the US, being far worse off.
- 827a 1y ago
  Please do not lose grasp on what we're talking about here: These were nuclear enrichment facilities with the goal of enriching fissile material for nuclear weapons. These were not civilian, or even conventional military, targets. There is a gulf of difference between one overnight mission to dampen the nuclear prospects of a dictatorial, authoritarian, religious-extremist regime, and China launching a multi-modal invasion of a near-peer ally.
  - jmward01 1y ago
    I believe the complete dominance of the preemptive attacks shows how little capability they actually have to use any such weapons and that likely trickles down to any development of those weapons. I no longer believe in the 'They have WMD and will take over the world in days' wolf cries. Iran is not some nice country being picked on, but the entities attacking them also aren't being truthful in their reasons either. I have no love for any of the parties in this fight at the moment. They are all wrong, but one side did throw the first punch so they are, in my view, the most wrong here and the US just backed them.
    - 827a 1y ago
      And I believe that you don't need a modern weapons platform to smuggle one of these weapons into your enemy's territory and cause major damage. Iran has a documented and clear history of funding and outfitting organizations who would love to do exactly that. There's broad global agreement that Iran has the ambition to develop nuclear weapons, and that these facilities were key to that ambition. Its astounding to me that there's this much discord on these strikes. Sure; everyone sucks, politicians suck, blah blah blah, we're on the same page on that. That's not an excuse to do nothing and persistently disagree with every decision any government makes.
      - jmward01 1y ago
        Diplomacy isn't 'doing nothing'. Trump 1.0 destroyed efforts that were working and Israel has proven time and time again that they don't care about diplomacy so long as they have bombs to throw. My points are still valid, this strategy of preemptive attack is a terrible signal to the world and won't solve the long term problem.

by 827a 1y ago

nicce 1y ago

> There's no such thing as international law. There's just self-interested nations who have always only done what is in their best interest. If you think about that a little bit more, you may see that internal laws can change the best interests if coencequences are big enough. And maybe that is the point.

jmward01 1y ago

I don't believe in fair. I do however believe that maybe we can learn and change and expect our leadership to do the same. Cooperation and diplomacy lead to far higher long term returns than might makes right as we have seen time and time again. What we are seeing now however is a policy of maximizing the minimum which will force others to do the same and leads to everyone, including the US, being far worse off.

827a 1y ago
Please do not lose grasp on what we're talking about here: These were nuclear enrichment facilities with the goal of enriching fissile material for nuclear weapons. These were not civilian, or even conventional military, targets. There is a gulf of difference between one overnight mission to dampen the nuclear prospects of a dictatorial, authoritarian, religious-extremist regime, and China launching a multi-modal invasion of a near-peer ally.
- jmward01 1y ago
  I believe the complete dominance of the preemptive attacks shows how little capability they actually have to use any such weapons and that likely trickles down to any development of those weapons. I no longer believe in the 'They have WMD and will take over the world in days' wolf cries. Iran is not some nice country being picked on, but the entities attacking them also aren't being truthful in their reasons either. I have no love for any of the parties in this fight at the moment. They are all wrong, but one side did throw the first punch so they are, in my view, the most wrong here and the US just backed them.
  - 827a 1y ago
    And I believe that you don't need a modern weapons platform to smuggle one of these weapons into your enemy's territory and cause major damage. Iran has a documented and clear history of funding and outfitting organizations who would love to do exactly that. There's broad global agreement that Iran has the ambition to develop nuclear weapons, and that these facilities were key to that ambition. Its astounding to me that there's this much discord on these strikes. Sure; everyone sucks, politicians suck, blah blah blah, we're on the same page on that. That's not an excuse to do nothing and persistently disagree with every decision any government makes.
    - jmward01 1y ago
      Diplomacy isn't 'doing nothing'. Trump 1.0 destroyed efforts that were working and Israel has proven time and time again that they don't care about diplomacy so long as they have bombs to throw. My points are still valid, this strategy of preemptive attack is a terrible signal to the world and won't solve the long term problem.