[josteink]

This really makes you wonder at what point do you go from calling something "some digital nudging about between nations" to "war".

To me this seems to qualify as terrorism and sabotage on all accounts. I'm pretty sure I know how the US would react if they had been on the receiving end of this sort of attack.

[potatolicious]

Sabotage sure, but I have a hard time seeing this qualified as terrorism - terrorism is an a violent act against civilians designed to instill fear in the general population.

e.g., bombing trains, airports, buildings, poisoning food supplies, etc.

Actions against the military establishment of a country can hardly be qualified as terrorism.

That said, if the US had been on the pointy end of this stick I'm sure many politicians would not have hesitated to the use the T-word themselves...

[thaumaturgy]

> ...terrorism is an a violent act against civilians designed to instill fear in the general population.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/16/iran-sci...

http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/09/10354553-is...

[ars]

So I looked at your links and I don't see how those activities "instill fear in the general population". They instill fear in those working for the military, sure, but that's not the general population.

[thaumaturgy]

I intend no offense, but can we for once not be pedants? The January 11th incident happened in a public, civilian area (http://wikimapia.org/#lat=35.75663&lon=51.450485&z=1...), it was the fourth such incident (that I know of), and witnesses described a man on a motorbike that attached the bomb to the car.

I'm pretty sure that if you happened to be a block away when a Livermore Lab nuclear scientist was killed by a focused car bomb delivered by a motorcyclist, you'd get a little jumpy and U.S. news reports would call it terrorism.

And, U.S. officials are claiming that the bombings are being carried out by the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, a terrorist organization, and Iran's own vice-president called it an act of terrorism.

For us to call this anything other than terrorism would be hypocrisy.

[ars]

Actually if I knew the target was specifically targeted and killed by a careful operation I would be more relaxed knowing that my country's enemy was so careful about killing.

It's the same reason why people get in an uproar over a random murder, but barely care when the killing was targeting a specific person.

Terrorism is random. Killing a person because of how they help the military is not terrorism even if done in public. You can call it assassination if you wish (which plenty of people condemn), but it's not terrorism.

Remember Alexander Litvinenko? (The Russian spy who was killed with plutonium.) I don't remember any exclamations of terrorism.

[thaumaturgy]

When Nidal Malik Hasan shot and killed 13 soldiers and one civilian at Fort Hood in 2009, 60% of Americans wanted the crime prosecuted as a terrorist act [1], the Bipartisan Policy Center referred to it as a terrorist act in a report [2], and Wikipedia currently refers to it as a "non-state terrorist attack" [3].

While there is not an internationally-agreed-upon definition of "terrorism", according to U.S. law, terrorism is defined as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents" [4]. Premeditated, politically-motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by clandestine agents ... the Iranian car bombings would legally qualify as terrorism under U.S. law.

This is a very silly argument to be having here. I'd really rather be reading about some interesting technical aspect of the technological warfare against Iran, and I really don't want to keep on cluttering up the comments here with silliness.

[1]: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/gene...

[2]: http://www.scribd.com/doc/95190520/Assessing-the-Terrorist-T..., search for "Fort Hood"

[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_shooting

[4]: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/2656f, subsection (d), paragraph (2).

[royalpineapple]

Not to be pedantic, but it was Polonium not Plutonium that was used in Alexander Litvinenko's assassination.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium#Famous_poisoning_cases

[mseebach]

It's really not pedantic, it's about using the right word. Terror means fear. Assassination means killing a specific person.

Assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists has the concrete and (for the presumed perpetrators) desired effect of denying Iran the service of those persons. Instilling terror in other nuclear scientists is a much lower order side effect.

[rdtsc]

So assassinating any government officials by Iran in order to try to defend from future such assassinations of its scientists would also not be considered terrorism, as long as they claim it is a targeted response and if it happens to induce fear in the large number of government officials and others it is just a secondary effect?

[gaius]

It would more usually be qualified as an act of war.

[ktizo]

terrorism is an a violent act against civilians designed to instill fear in the general population.

It got legally redefined by the government. Is now the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

Is now any unlawful forceful act with any wider motive, basically.

[rdtsc]

The functioning definition is something like:

> the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce the US government its allies, the US civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

See, when US does it is called "exporting democracy", "conducting an operation", "liberating", "collateral damage" -- basically anything but terrorism.

[ForrestN]

Why is this downvoted? Seems relevant and fairly apt, if a bit too pointed.

[ars]

It becomes a war when you do it openly.

And this sort of thing is nothing new, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_pipeline_sabotage for example, and there is lots more.

The way you react is with total silence - you don't want anyone to know you were vulnerable. And that's also why these types of activities tend not to escalate.

Personally, if countries have to fight I'd prefer they do it quietly like this rather than open war. It's a lot easier to ratchet down the tensions when there has been no rhetoric about the enemy.

For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Israeli_airstrike_in_Syria - mostly silence on both parties part and no increase in hostilities.

[nyellin]

I don't know about the states, but we (Israel) have been on the receiving end of actual terrorism and sabotage through Iranian proxy groups. Stuxnet seems mild compared to funding suicide bombings.

[justsee]

Yes, I thought as an outside observer that if successful, Stuxnet would have been a great nonviolent approach to achieving geopolitical ends.

[sleepyhead]

And Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

[nyellin]

I could be wrong, but I don't think this is speculation:

* Iran funds Hezbolla: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_of_Hezbollah

* Iran funds the Islamic Jihad: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Jihad_Organization

* Iran funds Hamas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_relations#I...

* Example of suicide bombing by the Islamic Jihad: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2145621/Family-Danie...

I understand this is a highly-loaded political issue in the states, but, for Israel, Iranian funded terrorism is a threat in and of itself, nuclear weapon or not.

[derrida]

Both sides commit terrorism, where terrorism is defined as "politically motivated violence against civilians".

[hmottestad]

Wait 15 minutes and then check wikipedia.

[hmottestad]

Terrorism. What about this inflicts terror? I guess you might be a bit scared, but not really all that scared. It's not like someone developed a virus to slowly irradiate people having x-rays.

[Armbrs]

Swap the names of the countries, and think about how it would have been reported if Iran had done the exact same thing to Israel/US.

[chii]

"think about how it would have been reported"

so how something is reported changes its reality how? I think the spin media put on the facts creates the fear, not the facts itself. Breaking equipment is certainly not going to cause what the media might've spun it into (which is OMG nuclear meltdown OMG).

[briandear]

The difference is that the US doesn't threaten to wipe countries off the map. Iran is an evil theocracy and can't be trusted with nuclear weapons. Drawing moral equivalencies between the US and a totalitarian terrorist state is ridiculous. It's like comparing North Korea with Belgium.

[Historiopode]

I think that this comment bears a certain indulgent mixture of patriotism and naïvety. Dismissing Iran as an "evil theocracy" and a "a totalitarian terrorist state" is not entirely without grounds, but I would invite commenters to tone down their statements if geopolitics is not among their interests.

[ttt_]

>> Iran is an evil theocracy and can't be trusted with nuclear weapons.

As per history, I believe the US is the only nation that cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons.

[mseebach]

Yup. That totally extrapolates infinitely. No reason to worry.

[ttt_]

I find it does seriously put in question their self appointed authority to be the global nuclear police.

[mseebach]

Using your own logic, they have been 100% successful.

[k-mcgrady]

As far as I know the US is the ONLY country to ever have used nuclear weapons in war. And they may not have wiped countries off the map but they certainly did a lot of damage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Nobody can be trusted with nuclear weapons.

[adventureful]

The nukes were used at a time of ABSOLUTE WAR. Every major economy on earth was geared toward war; nearly all manufacturing capacity was put toward not being conquered by your enemies and dying. It's clear very few people understand what that means today, as it has been 70 years since an absolute war has occurred, in which the major nations of earth were fighting for their very existence.

Britain would have nuked Germany to save itself if it had the opportunity and the necessity to do so, and or to bring the war to an end and kill Hitler if the opportunity were there. France too would have nuked Germany to defend itself and kill Hitler if possible. Had the Jewish people been able to, they too would not have blinked at nuking Germany and trying to kill Hitler in the process.

Japan would have nuked the United States and the rest of the allies. Germany would have nuked everybody at their leisure to 'win.'

The Empire of Japan was an extraordinarily powerful nation. Their military technology was very advanced, and they demonstrated endlessly that they were willing to use it brutally in instigation of war. They slaughtered millions upon millions in their Chinese invasion. It took a very substantial portion of America's considerable industrial base to defeat Japan.

It took two nuclear bombs before Japan capitulated with an unconditional surrender. The first one wasn't enough, which more than proves they were willing to shed millions more lives to keep fighting. America would have had to invade Japan and would have killed millions in taking the island to stop the war.

America had nukes before everybody else, and if their desire had been to do so, could have wiped out every other capital and brought the entire planet to its knees, regularly nuking anybody that dared to twitch about a nuclear program.

America also could have allowed a war to proceed with the USSR immediately after WW2, and nuked the USSR repeatedly and instantly become the sole superpower.

And in the last 67 years, America has specifically chosen to not use nuclear weapons of any sort, despite the radical military advantage that it has possessed for most of that time. Nukes in Vietnam would have ended that conflict very quickly.

It's a tragedy that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked. Japan instigated war, both in general in the Pacific, and against America. Japan joined with Nazi Germany in a pact to destroy the allies. It was absolute war. I hope nobody reading this today ever has to really come to understand what that means.

[krschultz]

Many historians argue that dropping the bombs was unnecessary. With the USSR transitioning its army to the east and preparing to invade Japan, it was clear Japan was going to lose with or without nuclear weapons. There is evidence that the US sped up deployment of nuclear weapons so that their effectiveness could be demonstrated to the world before the war ended. This argument is usually used to point out that the bombs were used unnecessarily.

Obviously the bombs killed fewer people than a full scale invasion of Japan (and from the perspective of the US, the only casulities were Japanese, not American and Japanese). But many historians would argue that a full scale invasion of mainland Japan was never going to happen after the USSR decided to engage Japan as well. The writing was on the wall.

That said, I think you have a good point using the counterfactual of what would have happend if anyone else got to the nuclear weapon first. Germany would have absolutely nuked anyone and everyone if they could. Japan might have as well (not sure what they would have used it against, maybe the Panama canal? I don't see how they could have launched one against mainland USA without an ICBM). The UK and USSR probably would have if they could.

Basically anyone that showed the stomach to firebomb entire cities would also have used the nuclear weapons of the day if they could.

It also took a couple of years before the full appreciation of the dangers of nuclear fallout became apparent. Not to mention, the nuclear weapons used in WW2 have a tiny yield in comparison to modern nuclear weapons.

[petegrif]

This post makes an extremely important and very very very poorly understood point. You are absolutely correct that whilst the conventional wisdom is that the US nuked Japan to avoid the loss of 500,000 lives invading the mainland the historical record is rather different. Recent scholarship has made this plain. For those interested I recommend starting with Gar Alperovitz's 'The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb.'

On a point of detail, ironically it isn't true that 'the only casualties were Japanese." In Nagasaki there were a large number of conscripted foreign workers as well as the native Japanese population (mostly women and children).

Another good point about the firebombing. The US and UK airforce leaders were clear that if they lost the war the 1000 bomber raids onto civilian targets would likely be classified as war crimes and that they personally would be tried as war criminals.

[adventureful]

You're definitely right that it was a war of decimation and sheer destruction (eg the fire bombing). It was a fight to the death. It's what makes a war like that so damn scary, the gloves literally come off. WW1 of course had plenty of that as well (chemical weapons). The civilian population required to support the industry necessary to build the war machines are part of the targeting if your intention is to survive that sort of conflict and stop the opponent's ability to produce more tanks, planes and weapons.

[mturmon]

One other thing comes to mind -- the conflict in the Pacific had a more distinctly nasty racial and imperial cast than the conflict in Western Europe. The fighting was more savage, and the enemy more demonized (on both sides). This made it easier to carry out the destruction of a whole city.

[adventureful]

I suppose Japan could have used strategic nuclear attacks, against the island gains the US forces were making in the Pacific, and potentially nuking our fleet groups.

They probably could have nuked Hawaii as well with some effort, and pushed the US forces even further back to shore and reduced our visibility / force projection.

[btilly]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but WW2 was not actually an "ABSOLUTE WAR". Very, very intense? Of course. But not absolute.

For example during WW2 all of the major participants had chemical warfare weapons. Several, including Germany, had significant stockpiles. (Germany actually had the most effective stockpiles, though they seem to have not believed this at the time.)

The only significant use of chemical warfare was by the Japanese against other Asian countries that did not have chemical weapons. Nobody else dared use those weapons on each other for fear of the response.

And so it has remained. A lot of countries have chemical weapons. There have been a lot of wars between countries armed with them. There have been a number of threats that they would be used (for instance Iraq threatened to use them on Israel during the first Gulf war). And yet the only time they get used is against opponents who are not similarly armed. (For instance Iraq fought a bloody war against Iran without using chemical weapons - then used them on parts of its own population who they thought had been disloyal in the war.)

This fact gives me hope that we will continue to not use nuclear weapons as well.

[chii]

the main point i got was that retaliatory power was the disincentive to use weapons of mass destruction. Provided that relatiatory power exists, peace will ensure.

[moo]

Ever hear about King Leopold and the Congo. Belgium has a nasty history (U.S. estimates up to 15 million Congolese killed). Wikipedia shows "wiped off the map" propaganda by the west is just that. The real statement was a hope for regime change, something the U.S. calls for and instigates repeatedly.

[xaver]

Relevant: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/us/politics/01cyber.html

[3143]

Yes, this is an act of war. So what? Is Iran going to declare war on the US?

[Tangaroa]

Yes, but they do that every Friday. Iran has been openly at war with the United States for over thirty years and loudly reminding the world of that fact at every opportunity. The only surprise in the US now committing an act of war against Iran is that the US has finally retaliated in some form other than complaining or giving Iran money and weapons in the misguided belief they might become friends.

[chii]

they say they are at war, but they in their minds know they have no chance in hell to beat the USA in a conventional war.

They want to keep instigating hate towards the west. I believe the leaders of that country would like their population's rage to be directed at an external entity, and not cause unrest (among other things of course).

[kmfrk]

I'm sure China have done plenty of - successful - attacks already. The States don't have an interest in disclosing these findings, nor do the Chinese, though.