Iran Threatens to Defend Itself

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Correct. I suppose if a T-Rex came along to try to eat them, or an even bigger gang of thugs came in to kill them and take the bank money themselves, you might have an argument.

But to defend themselves against the police, or any other free person for that matter, who's trying to take 'em out for being evil, no, they do not.

There is no such thing as the right to commit evil.



Correct. Which would apply if the hostage taker's opponents were the other group of thugs, but not the police.

Having said that, if some other thugs happened to take 'em out, I wouldn't shed a tear, although the situation might end up even worse.



Against other evil people. Not people who aren't evil. Attacking to free the hostages, or attacking to destroy the gun of those threatening you with it, is not evil, assuming you yourself are not evil.



This would speak to the propriety of the free people in making sure the argument they are using is accurate. The hostage takers have no right in and of itself. Free people are always within their rights in attempting to free other people, or at least keeping the hostage takers contained in their threat. Their choice.



Only because there are practical difficulties with sniping all of them at the same instance. They have 0% right to stay alive as long as they hold the hostages. The safety of the hostages claims 100% of the rights in this situation. Not 50% Not 98%. Not 99%. 100% If the safest and most likely to succeed method of freeing them involves killing the hostage takers, well, sucks to be them.



As practical matters, yes, the free side should judge it's own competency in carrying out its actions. It should also be introspective to make sure the leaders aren't also stirring things up "as an unfortunate side effect" to raise prices in the bubble gum market by attacking a dictatorship and producer of bubble gum, oh, coincidently.

Said everything I wanted to say.

 

[dudalb]

I see that Oliver is still a defender of the Iranian regime. No surprise there.

 

[lionking]

More to the point, resurrecting a thread like this is nothing else but trolling.

 

[Oliver]

More to the point, resurrecting a thread like this is nothing else but trolling.

Uhm, no starting several threads about the same issue is. That's why the rules in here expect that Members rather use existing threads, you know?

Anyway, that Ambassador obviously is a propaganda-tool. I have to look up his political past to see why he's arguing that outdated, fear-mongering way...

ETA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Oren

 

[Pardalis]

I have to look up his political past to see why he's arguing that outdated, fear-mongering way...

And?

 

[Oliver]

And?

Dillusional Bias.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Dillusional Bias.

I always thought he was a bit too pro-pickle...

 

[Brainster]

Biden gives Israel the green light; arguably not until 2010.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it pretty clear that he agreed with President Obama to give until the end of the year for this whole process of engagement to work. After that, he's prepared to make matters into his own hands.

Is that the right approach?

BIDEN: Look, Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.