The most interesting thing about the Stuxnet story Mistermix discussed this morning is how long after a country openly admitted they had launched a cyberattack on a nuclear plant here in the United States would it be before we started bombing? And before the idiot apologists start chiming in about how I should go vote for Romney because he’d be worse or your usual shithouse lawyer nonsense, that is our official policy. You launch a cyberattack against us, we will respond however the fuck we want:
A damaging attack on the United States that comes via the Internet could be punished with missiles and bombs, the Pentagon confirmed Tuesday.
A Defense Department strategy for cybersecurity, to be released in June, points to “the idea that attacks in cyber would be viewed the same way that attacks in a kinetic form are now,” said Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan.
Unidentified military officials who spoke on background to The Wall Street Journal for a story in Tuesday’s editions were even more explicit.
“If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks,” one official told the paper.
So how many of you would find it acceptable for Iran to launch a missile at us in retaliation for our joint stuxnet cyberattack? They’d just be playing by our rules.
Todd
If we get Preznit Romney, I anticipate that you’ll see more things like this:
http://www.accstudios.com/f/comicpreview_page_covera.htm
Courageous pundits, saving ‘Murka and keeping the hordes of librul treasoners at bay. I’d forgotten how stupid things got in the middle double naughts.
David Koch
This is why I won’t vote for Tom Barrett in Wisconsin.
I won’t vote for the lesser of two evils.
Vote Green, Wisconisn!
Albert
John – you’re comparing apples and oranges here. We cyberattacked a military target. That’s OK. Our military has already been subject to cyberattacks from China, and we haven’t used that as an excuse to bomb China.
If another country attacked our power grid, that would cross a red line and we’d respond with bombs, as we should. If we attack Iran’s power grid, they will respond by attacking our shipping and military ships, as they should. But Stuxnet isn’t that case.
MikeJ
Wait. You’re telling me there’s a double standard about what powerful countries can do and what weak countries can do? You’re shittin’ me.
I think Thucydides already addressed this.
Hill Dweller
Iran is/was fighting a proxy war with us in both Iraq and Afghanistan. They’re also providing Assad plenty of support.
Moreover, Iran is free to attack us at any time.
arguingwithsignposts
I was troubled by that story this morning in so many ways. The problem with cyberwar is you don’t need a centrifuge to build a virus.
arguingwithsignposts
stupid double post
Dave
Better Stuxnet than B-52s raining bombs all over Iran.
Worth pointing out that if Iran would just play by that IAEA rules and quit acting all cute with their enrichment project, none of this would be happening.
JPL
My feelings are all over the place after reading the article in the Times. I know McCain wants bombs and bloodshed and this seems like an easier approach. This stuff is scary as hell though because the damage that one could do is far more than a nuke. You like your drinking water, electricity, traffic lights and never mind electronic money transfers. We are going to be cursed forever. The one think I had hoped that the President would do upon entering office, would be to crap all over anything Bush started. He didn’t.
david mizner
Yeah, the U.S and Israel are already waging war on Iran, which has shown restraint in response.
But yeah, most Americans like this stuff. Notice how administration officials are leaking info showing how ruthless Obama is in going after scary brown peeps. It’s past of the reelection strategy.
Scott
I’m cool with it as long as they give us time to round up all the teabaggers and put’em in the target area.
SatanicPanic
Acceptable? If I were looking on from some disinterested third party viewpoint, I suppose I would.
The Dangerman
@Dave:
Close, but Israel wouldn’t use B-52’s.
If Stuxnet pushed out an Israeli attack on Iran by a number of years no one should be complaining.
Marc
Jonh: You have been paying attention to the industrial espionage used by the Chinese, right? You’ve also noticed that we haven’t bombed them?
More to the point, isn’t a computer virus rather more benign than a bombing run? You can also complain about how sanctions harm innocents, and you’re then down a path where you’ve ruled out taking any action that might conceivably do anything. That isn’t always wise.
NCSteve
Silly question. Nations only get to play by the rules of other nations with whom they have rough parity in power. Thus has it always been since nation-states were invented and thus shall it always be because that’s how we roll when we aggregate into tribes.
“International law” is analogous to a set of rules negotiated out over time or created by precedent by two hundred people trapped on a desert island with limited resources, each of whom presumes that the other 199 are sociopaths because that’s how they all behave. When one of them acts like he or she has a moral code, it just makes all the others suspect a hidden agenda and most of the time, whether they’re subjectively right or wrong, that assumption provides a model with powerful explanatory and predictive value.
Not being snide and don’t intend to sneer, nor am I suggesting this is the way things ought to be. Just making an empirical observation.
But from a normative standpoint, what Marc says in the next comment.
Keith
They would be in their rights to retaliate, but we both know the result would be them getting fucked up.
RP
“could be punished”
“maybe we will put a missile down a smokestack”
Those weasel words are pretty important. Of course the US is going make the threat. I doubt they’d actually do it unless it was a cyberattack that caused serious, serious damage.
In any event, are you saying that using a cyberattack on something like iranian centrifuges is inherently bad? I don’t think Iran actually poses much of a threat, but if we’re going to attack I’d rather they use the cyber approach instead of the BOOM approach.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, if you’re going to look at this in an impartial manner (which most Americans, by their very nature, cannot) then of course it’s understandable.
I mean, look at the 9-11 attacks. Look at what was targeted. Look at the reaction in this country. No self examination, no actual discussion of why these attacks took place. No, just bullshit about “hating us for our freedom”. Never mind we’ve been mucking in Middle East politics for a solid 50 years, supporting a tiny state that repeatedly engages in gross violation of human rights as a matter of policy. Which launched an outright attack on one of our ships and we looked the other way at it.
JPL
War is hell but there is no need to go to war with Iran. Cyber warfare can cause economies all over the world to crash. I hope the administration is spending as much time studying security measures to prevent attacks as they are causing attacks .
Cato
@Villago Delenda Est:
Civilian aviation and office buildings?
Villago Delenda Est
@Hill Dweller:
Excuse me? Iran fighting a proxy war against the US in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Um, no. Iran BENEFITED from the utterly illegal US war of aggression in Iraq, and was happy to see the Taliban driven from power in Afghanistan.
As for support of Assad, I have no knowledge of that, but would be curious to know how you came by your certainty that Iran is supporting Assad.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Marc: Isn’t it also unfair that our military is so much bigger than every other country? Shouldn’t every other Navy have a chance to rule the ocean?
Cato
@Villago Delenda Est:
And by “illegal” you mean “an action I disagreed with”.
Davis X. Machina
How would shutting down a nation’s power grid by hacking into it differ from shutting down a nation’s power grid by flying over it and shorting it out with carbon-fiber chaff?
Which one, or both, is an act of war? Which one, or both, fails to warrant retaliation? What sort of retaliation is warranted?
Discuss.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cato:
No, cretin.
Symbols of US military and economic power. They didn’t fly those planes into the Statue of Liberty, or Times Square, or the Lincoln Memorial (although no one is quite sure what Flight 93’s fate was supposed to be).
Villago Delenda Est
@Cato:
Well, I disagree with Germany’s preemptive war against Poland in 1939. Which was the last time a major power launched an outright war of aggression on the basis of something the other country “might” do in the future.
However, I understand your affinity for such things.
boss bitch
@david mizner:
Yes, that’s Obama’s message: Look How I Blow Up Brown People.
(rolls eyes)
Cato
@Villago Delenda Est:
Like I said, civilian aviation and office buildings.
pragmatism
@The Dangerman:
nickelback then?
Anoniminous
The point, it is moot.
Iranian missiles have about a 1,200 mile radius so unless they launch them from the middle of Kansas I don’t think it will do them much good.
Cato
@Villago Delenda Est:
1939 was the last time that happened before Iraq? You can’t be fucking serious, right? Six Days War? Iran-Iraq War? The invasion of Kuwait? And that’s just in the Middle East since WWII.
Anyway, legally speaking, the war never ended in 1991..there was a cease fire, which Iraq repeatedly broke by doing things like firing on aircraft enforcing the No-Fly Zone and blocking inspections. Both are things they agreed to abide by in the cease fire.
butler
I suppose that the Pentagon is technically an office building.
Turgidson
@MikeJ:
In politics, we have IOKIYAR. In international affairs, it’s just IOKIYTUSA”
And yeah, Obama is still dramatically better than the alternative. But far from an angel.
Villago Delenda Est
@Anoniminous:
Well, the Iranians could launch those missiles against all sorts of US targets, to include our carriers loitering in and around the Persian Gulf.
I don’t think anyone would expect us to sit on our hands if that happened.
Weaselone
I’m going to parrot what others have already said. You’re comparing apples to oranges here. The US didn’t launch a cyber attack on a commercial nuclear power plant producing energy for orphans, puppies, and a teddy bear manufacturing facility. It shut down centrifuges producing weapon’s grade uranium in defiance of Iran’s international treaties. In addition,Iran actually has acted covertly against US military interests, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve tried their own cyber attacks and we have yet to respond with conventional weapons. Reserving the right to respond with a cruise missile is not the same thing as responding with an actual cruise missile.
Cato
I guess in the Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh merely targeted a “symbol of the federal government’s power” and that instead of condemning him we should have have taken his points about government policy seriously and adjusted to them.
fasteddie9318
@Cato:
What “major power” was involved in any of those? Oh, wait, I forgot, Iraq had the greatest assembled military force since Genghis Khan. My bad.
Cato
The next time an abortion clinic gets bombed, I’ll be sure to come on here and tell you guys it was merely “a symbol of the pro-choice movement” and that you ought to take the bomber’s points seriously.
Sentient Puddle
@Marc:
In most cases, yes, and I think people do tend to somewhat overestimate just what a cyberattack can really accomplish. The idea that a rogue virus can shut down our power grid is pretty far-fetched, as we’d recognize something was up and pull the ethernet cable, so to speak.
I say “in most cases” though because there’s a chance that we could be the victim of an extremely targeted attack, whereby knocking off one system somehow snowballs into something bigger. But (a) I’m having difficulty imagining what that would be, and (b) such an attack would have to be at least as sophisticated as Stuxnet was.
butler
@Turgidson:
Not quite. Its ok if you can get away with it, which the US can at the present time. But this is by no means a strictly US phenomenon.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cato:
Are you having reading comprehension problems? Did you see the words “major power” in my statement?
BTW, we put leaders of that country to death for their actions in planning and launching a war of aggression. Not to mention the crimes against humanity that the war of aggression predicated.
Cato
@fasteddie9318:
Uh, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan then? How bout that, moron?
And since when is Israel “not a major power”? I thought you think TEH JOOZ control everything?
Cato
Oh, and there was that whole Chinese occupation of Tibet in the 50s.
Both Sides Do It
@Dave:
The IAEA rules are part of the framework set up by the Non Proliferation Treaty. Israel is not a signatory to that treaty, does not submit to inspections, and has 100+ nuclear weapons. Iran allows partial inspection of its facilities by the IAEA which is required under a certain interpretation of the NPT (one which the US would probably share if the country in question were not in the Middle East and/or not Iran). If Iran were to submit to the fuller more intrusive set of inspections its nuclear energy infrastructure would be much more open to disruption by other countries, say countries which border the Mediterranean and have nuclear weapons and which do not require inspections of their nuclear facilities.
The “games” the Iranians are playing with the IAEA are actions that any state would take if it were in its situation no matter its ideology or structure or diplomatic temperament.
JGabriel
@david mizner:
… So far.
Before today, Iran would have had problems convincing the international community of their right to retaliate because of uncertainty as to the authors of the Stuxnet virus and their motives. Many people suspected US and/or Israeli involvement, but there was little proof or confirmation.
That’s no longer the case. This story gives Iran justification for cyberwarfare and/or terror attacks, and gives America’s enemies the world over justification to engage in cyberwarfare.
There’s a lot of troubling implications to this morning’s Times story on the Stuxnet virus, but those are the immediate concerns that are worrying me right now.
.
The Red Pen
Go vote for Romney because he’d be worse!
david mizner
@boss bitch:
Call them terrorists if you like, or terror, as in “Terror Tuesdays,” there’s no question that the White House is leaking to make Prez look ruthless.
fasteddie9318
@Cato:
Yes, better. But unless your reading comprehension improves, I’d not go throwing around words like “moron” too lightly.
Suffern ACE
@Villago Delenda Est: We’ve been looking for that Iran proxy war for ten years and haven’t found it. We are, however, fighting a proxy war with Pakistan’s ISI. Syria has been Iran’s closest friend in the mideast for a long time though. That’s not actually been in dispute.
patroclus
I don’t think it would be acceptable for Iran to launch missiles at U.S. targets in response to a cyber-attack, but if their Defense Ministry merely released a statement that it “might” do it and it “could” happen, I wouldn’t be tremendously bothered by such a statement.
MobiusKlein
There is a cold war going on against Iran, and their attempts to become a nuclear power.
Obama ran on his record against nuclear weapon proliferation. Did you think it was smoke? Stopping countries from getting the bomb often involves blowing shit up. Or making computer viruses as well.
Cato
It’s too bad Iran has a theocracy for their government, because geopolitically Israel is their natural ally.
Heliopause
@Marc:
Correct, the U.S. hasn’t bombed one of the more powerful countries on the planet, with an arsenal of several hundred nuclear warheads deliverable to the U.S. mainland. You are correct.
“attacks in cyber would be viewed the same way that attacks in a kinetic form are now,” said Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan.
eric
@MikeJ: no, there is no proven link between autism and Thucydides. You libtards just never give up.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cato:
Um, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was to prop up a client state. You know, like the US intervention in Vietnam? You remember that, don’t you?
Then again, China and Tibet is complicated because Tibet was under Chinese rule for centuries.
So you’re running out of analogies in your desperate attempt to deny the basic illegality and immorality of the invasion of Iraq.
Suffern ACE
@fasteddie9318: Well, the French and British did invade Egypt. Well just the Suez canal, but I guess the dispute was over who it belonged too.
driftglass
West Wing, season 2
Admiral Percy Fitzwallace: Can you tell when it’s peacetime and wartime anymore?
Leo McGarry: No.
Fitzwallace: I don’t know who the world’s leading expert on warfare is, but any list of the top has got to include me, and I can’t tell when it’s peacetime and wartime anymore.
taylormattd
What a deeply stupid post. jesus christ John, get a fucking grip.
arguingwithsignposts
@Cato: office buildings.
The Pentagon. Some office building.
arguingwithsignposts
double post again. sorry.
gordon schumway
@The Dangerman:
False dichotomy, dude. Those aren’t the only two options available.
JPL
blah blah blah cato blah blah blah cato blah blah blah
JGabriel
@Weaselone:
Do we know that Iran is producing weapons grade uranium? I was under the impression that, so far, they were only producing reactor and research grade uranium — the difference is 90% U235 vs. 4% U235. Research grade is usually in the 12%-20% purity range.
Either way, it’s quite a large difference.
For reference sake, naturally occurring uranium is about 0.7% U235.
.
Cato
@Villago Delenda Est:
Wow, so you think the Chinese invasion and annexation of Tibet was justified.
So?
Britain and France invaded in Egypt in 1956 but I guess they aren’t “major powers” either.
And you don’t consider Israel a major power anymore?
Stuck in the Funhouse
You are losing your mind John Cole. jeebus.
taylormattd
@david mizner: I heard John Edwards (when he was done tossing aside his cancer-stricken wife) would have sent flowers to Iran, and totally wouldn’t have bombed and/or invaded the country already.
Fucking hypocrite piece of shit.
Cato
@arguingwithsignposts:
The Murrah Federal Building–Oklahoma branch office of the ATF. Some “office building”.
Anoniminous
@Villago Delenda Est:
Long range missiles aren’t the weapon system of choice to attack warships.
They could fire Exocets and Silkworm anti-ship missiles if they knew where the ships were. For that they need reconnaissance assets, something I don’t think they have. Although, through the kindness of the USAF, they now have up to date drone technology to copy so they will have the capability in a couple of years.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Does everyone remember the espionage case involving the Russians a few years ago? It was pretty awesome how we leveled St. Petersburg.
Cato
And no response to my point that we were, legally, under a cease fire agreement with Iraq–which they violated repeatedly. Legally speaking, the 1991 war never ended.
FlipYrWhig
Ouch, my ears hurt from those sabers rattling so loudly!
Villago Delenda Est
@Anoniminous:
Well, they could also go after fixed US installations all over the Persian Gulf region. We’ve got a ton of them in places like Iraq (there’s that name again!) Kuwait, Qatar, Dubai, the UAE…well, plenty of places that can’t move out of the way.
You’re right though…in a few years, they’ll have greater capabilities than they have now.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cato:
Which is because your “point” is bullshit, chickenhawk scum.
arguingwithsignposts
@Cato: wait, you did not just compare the Pentagon, the nerve center of all U.S. military might, with a federal office building in OKC? WTF?
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
I missed that part where we went to war against North Korea when the USS Pueblo was taken.
Sudan was held liable for the atack on the USS Cole. We went to war there. Didn’t look the other way.
But yeah, I take your point about the USS Liberty. Do you think we should have gone to war against Israel?
And do you want a president who is brave enough to say that as long as we meddle in other nation’s affairs, then other nations and agents of other nations are free to kill as many US citizens as they wish?
And how much un-meddling do you want? Should we pull out of the United Nations and have a strict non-interventionist policy no matter what?
Yep. Totally unjustified. All efforts of any sort to prevent any nation from getting nukes should cease immediately. Who do we think we are?
Do you believe that there are only human rights violations when the US does it? I mean, if we don’t meddle with any other country at any time for any reason, doesn’t that mean that we don’t really care about human rights, we just don’t believe in meddling?
Cato
@Villago Delenda Est:
No legal arguments back–just name-calling and righteous fury.
@arguingwithsignposts:
It’s not just a “federal office building”, it’s a symbol of the power of the federal government. Timothy McVeigh had a point we should all listen to. If we followed his demands it would have never happened. (sarcasm)
taylormattd
Honestly John, you write a retarded fucking post, based on a hypothetical posted by some asshole in a comment thread about a remark Biden makes about a cyber virus, and gee what a surprise, you get psychopaths like david mizner popping in to say the U.S. and Israel are already waging war against Iran.
GOOD JOB TROLLING.
Fuck. It’s just blatantly clear why you voted for Bush twice: sometimes you are a fucking moron who goes off half-cocked.
FlipYrWhig
BTW, I would be totally fine with Iran having nuclear weapons. Balance of power in the Middle East and all that.
Cato
I think George Orwell had it nailed when he said:
Emphasis mine.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cato:
Justified? Where the fuck did I say that? I’m pointing out circumstances that exclude those conflicts from the “major power launches an invasion of some other country based on a clearly bogus casus belli“.
Note that the British/French intervention in ’56 was in reaction to the seizure of the Suez Canal. It also failed because the US wouldn’t support it. It wasn’t an unprovoked attack, like the invasion of Poland or the US invasion of Iraq.
butler
@Cato: Legally speaking, the 1991 war never started.
David Koch
Ahmadinejad should use the bully pulpit to stop this.
eemom
@taylormattd:
but… but….. 2+2=4 because Freddie sez so! And we’re all “wankers”!
Cato
Shroter @Villago Delenda Est:
“It wasn’t unprovoked because I’m going to re-define “unprovoked” to make it mean what I want it to”.
@butler:
Yes it did. An authorization for the use of military force, which Congress passed in 1991, is the legal equivalent of war. Every single national and international law treats it as such, regardless of your or Ron Paul’s opinions.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Seriously: Yes, John, I would be pissed if Iran bombed us. I would be pissed if they bombed anyone. I would be really pissed if they did it with a nuclear weapon.
I also consider the fact that Iran is producing nuclear weapons to be a product of two things: GWB’s rhetoric and actions against Iraq, and Israel’s owning nuclear weapons.
But, Iran does not have to pursue them, and it could show the world that it is not pursuing them.
arguingwithsignposts
@Cato: Keep building those strawmen and knocking them down, Taco. VICTORY!
Cato
@arguingwithsignposts:
Hit a little too close to home? There is a certain category of people that only cares about dead civilians if they’re killed with US weapons. And not because people died, but because it can be used to discredit the US.
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlipYrWhig:
Yep, and worse case scenario is a win-win for the rest of the world.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@FlipYrWhig:
If you are being serious, there are more players in the ME than just Israel v Muslims. There is the Sunni/Shia thingy, and you might as well give the Saudi’s a bomb too, or they will just buy one. And start handing nukes out for whoever wants one, cause every Sunni country will want one, if Iran has one.
I mean, I am all for fairness and sovereign status of countries, but do feel real the need to hurry along the apocalypse.
arguingwithsignposts
Proposition: If we hadn’t installed the Shah way back when, these chickens might not have come home to roost.
Cato
@arguingwithsignposts:
Do you think Islamist fundamentalists really give a shit about the deposing of a secular, social!st PM in the 50s? They’ve got other things on their mind that what western Leftists project onto them.
Cato
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-myth-operation-ajax-4761?page=show
taylormattd
@eemom: Another quote from that half-wit dumbshit Freddie:
Villago Delenda Est
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Well, yeah, this.
Iran doesn’t want to be invaded. Imagine that! They also don’t want to be nuked. They’re funny that way…they’re not like the Japanese, for example who declare holidays when nuclear bombs are dropped on their cities.
The notion that the crazy Iranians would start lobbing nukes just for shits and grins is the hallmark of dumbfuckery, exemplified in this thread by Cato the infinitely lesser, who is desperately seeking to find some razor thin legal justification for a war of aggression against Iraq.
The Germans in the 40’s were really good at finding legal justifications for every last one of their actions.
butler
@Cato: Would those be the same international laws which regards wars of aggression as illegal?
Hill Dweller
@Villago Delenda Est: Yes, Iran benefited from us going into Iraq, which was one of the worst foreign policy mistakes in our nation’s history. My point was Iran has been killing US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan for years.
As for Iran’s support of Assad, the Pentagon(granted, not the most objective source) has told them to stop, and Turkey’s Prime Minister purportedly told them that stopping their support for Assad would be in their best interest(because Assad will eventually lose power).
Cato
@Villago Delenda Est:
Please. If this were 1939 you’d be saying “It’s all Britain’s fault! We should have never had the Versailles Treaty! Our chickens are coming home to roost! What’s the difference between the Nazis and the British Empire, anyway?”
arguingwithsignposts
@Cato: Wow, they’ve got a RW think tank for everything.
butler
@Cato: Do you really think the overthrowing of that PM didn’t create any backlash which might have later found outlet in a theocratic revolution?
gaz
I’m giving up on any MIC and foreign policy reform in the short haul. With as much shit that’s going on on the domestic front I’ve got disappointment fatigue. I’m not saying it’s right, just that I’m tired.
Lobbing missiles or deploying soldiers for any reason (short of a full scale invasion of US Soil) is nothing short of nonsensical. I’m guessing it would prove pretty unpopular considering our extended forays in the middle east. But then again, I guess I shouldn’t underestimate the abject stupidity of both warmongers and rubes.
This is the only thing regarding the MIC that the administration should be discussing:
Massive foreign base closures, and reinvesting those dollars directly into our own infrastructure and education system.
Part of the problem with our MIC is that we have so many foreign bases and missile systems that the rest of the world doesn’t even need to maintain their own defense anymore. We are in essence, spending untold billions on “foreign-aid”, subsidizing foreign nations that DO NOT NEED IT.
Fuck all of this shit. Fuck war. Fuck the MIC. And fuck missiles, too. That is all.
ETA: I don’t like Obama’s positions on this, and I don’t like Romney’s. The main discernible difference I see between the two on this front is that Romney seems to believe that we are still fighting the Cold War. * facepalm *
Cato
@butler:
Read the link above.
Cato
So I guess liberals have adopted the same foreign policy as Charles Lindbergh and the America First Committee now. Who would have guessed that 50 years ago?
Villago Delenda Est
@Cato:
No, but nationalist ambitions were suppressed with the overthrow of Mossadegh which were reignited by the only group willing to oppose the Shah…the Mullahs. This gave them the popular support they needed. The Shah was hated because he sold out Iran to the west that arranged for Mossadgh to be overthrown…for putting Iran’s interest ahead of those of British Petroleum.
I remember the local Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade celebrating the fall of the Shah. When I pointed out that the Mullahs, who were anticommunist in nature, were in charge now, one of them said that the Mullahs were next. Well, didn’t happen. All this “after Khomeini, uns!” crap failed to happen.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cato:
The idiocy just keeps spewing from your keyboard. Are you sure your system hasn’t been coopted by the Cretin-A virus?
Cato
@Villago Delenda Est:
That’s untrue. The Mullahs were not the only people opposing the Shah and weren’t even the initial driving force of the Iranian Revolution. They hijacked it in a coup, much like the October “Revolution” of the Russian Bolsheviks hijacked the real Russian Revolution that took place in February.
Continental Op
This has been going on longer than you think. 1982 Siberian pipeline sabotage by computer
Villago Delenda Est
@Cato:
Yup, Cretin-A is on the rampage. Just too fucking stupid to be anything but an attack by dumbshit worms or trojans.
Comrade Dread
@Dave: Bull.
You’d still have the same crowd of hawks and neocons ginning up for war because they wouldn’t believe the reports from the IAEA that it was only being used for civilian purposes.
You’d still have the same media hyping up the war and breathlessly repeating anonymous citations from ‘senior officials’ about how the Persian menace is growing and threatening us all.
More importantly, you’d still have the Likud folks over in Israel who wouldn’t trust the IAEA reports and would probably still like to smack Iran down to prevent a possible regional rival from gaining strength.
Cato
But leftists of course always automatically assume the most anti-American faction of a foreign country MUST represent the True Voice of the People.
SatanicPanic
@Cato: you are pwning those strawmen! unhh get some
Cato
@SatanicPanic:
The foreign policy Gaz outlined is identical to Charles Lindbergh’s and Pat Buchanan’s.
AxelFoley
@MobiusKlein:
Thank you. Swear to God, I hate these whiny holier-than-thous. Fuckers get mad when Obama does what he said he would during the campaign. What, ya’ll thought he was bullshittin’?
Villago Delenda Est
@Cato:
The Mullahs were the main resistance. They played on all the other stupid things that the Shah did and formed a coalition to overthrow him, then they took command. The communists thought they had their own shot to remove the Mullahs. They were wrong. Then they hired old SAVAK hands to deal with their own crop of “undesirables”. To include those sluts wandering around without chadors.
butler
@Cato: And? Are you saying we gave no help or support to the Coup? Are you actually arguing that our relationship with the shah didn’t rile up anger against the US?
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
Not sure that I agree, but think it an imminently reasonable position, and it is interesting to note that someone is willing to take a stand on this.
eemom
@taylormattd:
heh. Yes, that was his debut performance. And we’re the “wankers.” Riiiiight.
ETA: I have to admit though, that “come to Greenwald” moment is absolutely priceless. May well be the most innocent self-parody I’ve ever seen.
Hsquared
How dare we try to avoid bombing they’re asses into oblivion?!?!
gaz
@Cato: Funny that neither is running for office.
I don’t give a shit about your strawmen, your masturbating over the past, or your painting of lines between me and people you know I despise. I don’t give a fuck that we’ve been in agreement on a couple of things, if that’s even true. It doesn’t matter one bit, and doesn’t change the fact that they are both loathsome fuckwits with no influence, or political office. News flash: Pat Buchanan is a racist fuck who is probably selling oranges on a street corner by now, and limbergh has been dead since 1974. Your argument is similar to Heartland’s bullshit (You know who else believed in global warming?)
Good god, you are a fucking moron, Taco.
FlipYrWhig
@Stuck in the Funhouse: I just don’t think that Iran’s government would be any more reckless with nuclear weapons than any other government. And I think putting a cock-block on Israel would have _immense_ positive ramifications. I know I’m being cavalier about it, and the best case would be a world where no one had them, but IMHO it would be a better situation than we have now if Iran _did_ already have them.
Soonergrunt
@David Koch: FTW
MobiusKlein
@FlipYrWhig: I’m against Nuke proliferation. I regard it an nearly miraculous that only two such bombs have been used in war.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: It’s totally pie in the sky, of course, because no American government would ever stand for it, and no American politician would survive the pounding he’d take for speaking up for it. But as a pure hypothetical, that’s the way I come down.
ShadeTail
It’s just a matter of time before another nation *does* attack us for one reason or another, and I’m fearing that day. Because unless things change a lot between now and then, we’re going to be in serious trouble. Our military is weak and paper-thin, thanks to both funding boondoggles and the misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. And our national infrastructure is even worse, literally falling apart around us. A properly planned and committed attack could put us in serious hurt.
celticdragonchick
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yes, the Iranians have been providing sniper rifles, self forging fragment anti tank mines and training to guerillas for the urpose of attacking Americans. We returned the favor (to a lesser degree) with anti Iranian Kurdish groups. So it goes.
Gopher2b
@Villago Delenda Est:
And 3000 people.
gaz
@ShadeTail:
Living in fear of an attack has always worked out so well for us, dontcha think?
ETA: I’ve got some canned goods, some bottled water, and some blueprints for a bunker to sell you.
Xboxershorts
Now you’re getting it. American foreign policy is wholly based upon the theory of Calvin Ball.
myiq2xu
Can you say “Scooter Libby?”
SatanicPanic
@Cato: I like and respect gaz, stop trying to make trouble. We don’t all agree on everything.
FlipYrWhig
@MobiusKlein: I’m against proliferation too, but if nukes had already been “proliferated” to Iran, it would thoroughly scramble Middle East policy, which has been ruining the modern world for about a century.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@FlipYrWhig:
Why would you need a cockblock on Israel? They’ve had nukes for at least 40 years, and haven’t used them. The only thing a nuke for Iran would do, would create the possibility they would use it, as well as other Arab countries that are Sunni getting their own bombs, and creating more possibility of also using them. Israel is not going to do anything different than it has been doing, for what they believe are local security issues, however much of that is misguided.
I don’t think you are being ‘cavalier’ so much as proposing madness.
I don’t support mil force for stopping Iran getting the bomb, but I sure as shit don’t want to see them, or anyone else getting them in ME. One player in this volatile region of the world having nukes, becomes exponentially more dangerous when two players have them. And that both hate each other.
And I don’t want to hear the fundies in this country say “told you so” about all that Revelations stuff of my childhood nightmares. Not if we can avoid it.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s not just an American politician thing. One of the themes of Rachel Maddow’s new book, Drift, is that the US indirectly encouraged the development of nuclear weapons by encouraging the use of almost any nuclear energy. And there have long been claims that some Western scientists deliberately leaked information about the bomb to Russia in order to spur a balance of power.
The idea that nuclear proliferation can be a good is a minority view.
One could make a case that India and Pakistan are willing to try to talk to each other because each country has a bomb. But it still does not feel like unicorns and lollipops.
@ShadeTail:
Sorry, I’m not seeing this at all. We still have more military shit than any nation or group of nations combined.
You’re joking, right?
ShadeTail
@gaz: Who said anything about living in fear? You assume too much.
@Brachiator: And all that military shit helped really well over in the middle east over the past 10 years. Oh, wait, no it didn’t, because most of that military shit is nearly worthless because of being both extremely expensive and prone to falling apart.
ruemara
I don’t care. I don’t see Iran as a friend, a potential ally, or even just a mild relationship where we buss each other at parties every so often. I see them as a threat. This program started under Bush, it continues now and I don’t see an end to it because I don’t see an end to issues that make oil producing nations and oil dependent nations butting heads. I don’t think this means you’re pro-Romney and that is just nonsense, people. But I’m pretty tired of people who don’t make a decision, don’t have all the facts and truly, don’t control a damned thing, armchair presidenting. I’m in this upcoming election because I think it’s a choice between decent and pure evil. All of the current noise about drones and Stuxnet-particularly after reading the articles that launch a thousand blog posts-often betray a level of skimming I’d be embarrassed to acknowledge. It ain’t pretty, it won’t be peaceful and I’d rather have a Democrat in office because they’re still basically human. I can fix those guys. Republicans, soulless evil. Flame away, usual people.
FlipYrWhig
@Stuck in the Funhouse: My impression is that Israel’s nukes give that nation a degree of swagger and belligerence that comes out as quick-on-the-trigger conventional war and intransigent politics both there and here. Israel has a kind of little-man syndrome writ large, and I think it’s amplified by their nuclear capability, even if they never use it.
Brachiator
@ShadeTail:
Ah, you are joking.
gaz
@ruemara: Iran has made it very clear that they intend to give us the finger no matter what we do. They’re sitting on all kinds of oil, and fully expect us to strike at their facilities.
Unless of course you can come up with a different solution than the same tired bullshit we’ve been engaging in in the middle east since time immemorial.
Maybe if we started holding Israel to the same human rights standards we hold other nations to we’d get somewhere, at least in the long haul.
We’ve got a problem in the middle east. All, or at least most of those problems trace back to our “ally” Israel (who’s been more of a moocher than an ally. The Israeli government has been happy to be imperialistic, knowing that we’ll support whatever they choose to do no matter what. FTR, I don’t feel that abandoning them is the answer, but enabling them even in the worst of their bullshit is certainly not either. They’ve created enough problems for us.
Cue accusations of anti-semetism in 5..4..3..
Getting sick of this bullshit sabre rattling.
Donald
“you get psychopaths like david mizner popping in to say the U.S. and Israel are already waging war against Iran.”
Israel has been assassinating Iranian scientists–well, either it was Israel or it was the US, but the US denies it and Israel acts cute about it, for whatever that proves.
Shabbazz
Nosir. If the inbound virus is anything like Stuxnet, we will have no idea it’s there. And “pull the ethernet cable” is extremely naive. Do you think the Iranian nuke plants were connected to the outside world via ethernet cable? Absolutely not, but it still got in there and it still spread to multiple sites.
Stuxnet was the bastard virus child of James Bond and Oceans 11. It may be the most impressive piece of software written in the history of computing. If someone hit us with an equivalent, we wouldn’t know what hit us until year later.
gaz
@ShadeTail: You did. I even quoted you.
Comrade Dread
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
It’s not a fun situation, but even the bitterest of enemies (USA/USSR; India/Pakistan) have managed to avoid engaging in a nuclear war because of the horrific devastation and cost involved.
Israel and Iran could learn to live with each other.
Not that there wouldn’t be any danger. There were quite a few near misses during the Cold War that only a sane soldier or politician kept from developing into the end of all life on Earth.
taylormattd
@myiq2xu: oh my fucking god, John, you’ve summoned a literal PUMA.
taylormattd
@ruemara: “often betray a level of skimming I’d be embarrassed to acknowledge.”
Amen.
gaz
@taylormattd: That moron was trolling salon long before it ever found it’s way here. Disregard anything it says, it’s even dumber than Taco, in case the the ridiculous screenname wasn’t a clue.
Stuck in the Funhouse
I got nothing more for this thread.
George Tierney, Jr. of Greenville, SC
@taylormattd:
OMFLOLG!
YOU come on Cole’s website and say “you are a fucking moron”
Are you trying to get banned from EVERY web site?
And HE is the one that is trolling?
Is that you Erik Son Of Erick?
gaz
@Stuck in the Funhouse: good call. this thread is giving me a headache.
cheers
Suffern ACE
Frankly, I think the chickens that are coming home to roost have a lot to do with allowing the Shah to come into the US for medical treatment, a very illegal embassy storming in response to that, short sighted support of Saddam Hussein’s war in the 1980s (which was about a water right treaty, but also kind of looked like someone was trying to grab some f the nicer parts of Iran). Of course, declaring that your Islamic revolution is the be all and end all that should be followed in all the countries around you, also tends to make the leaders of the countries around you a bit less friendly.
Anyway, were it not for the hostages in 1979, most Americans would have long since forgotten about Iran and it wouldn’t give them the heebeejeebees so easily to think they were working on a nuclear weapon. You would actually have to work to get them all worked up about it, despite what groups they sponsor in other mideast countries. I think we’d respond to a cyberattack with a “who the fuck are these guys?” The same way we’d react to a cyber attack from Sri Lanka or Laos.
existential fish
I like to consider myself very liberal/socialist, but even so I’m pretty sure whatever Iran’s incentives for launching or not launching weapons, the “rules” that America plays by don’t come into it.
That kind of stuff comes into play a bit with prisoner of war when both sides will capture them, but not really as to launching missiles.
Under certain situations, I absolutely would be confident trying to respond to a cyber attack with launching missiles.
That all said, care for civilians who are not Americans has to ramp up dramatically. But that will only happen if the public demands it, and not because a small group of people shame the President enough, regardless of which party the President is.
lacp
This is a very enlightening thread, given the number of commenters who are convinced that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons when our own intelligence services (and the Israelis’, as well) don’t think it is.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
Basically this.
Qualifiers: the revolution was pretty broad, usually simplified in popular memory as “the alliance between the bazaar [the merchant bourgeoisie that wasn’t doing so hot under the Shah] and the clergy [the mullahs].” Like all revolutions, there were a ton of different interests involved… The most popular and charismatic leader in it, however, was Khomeini.
Several things radicalized the regime, the single biggest one of them (even though things had been heading in a radical direction for a while) being the Iran-Iraq war. The closest analogy I can think of is the German invasion of Russia in 1941, in terms of the trauma it inflicted on the Iranian people and the defining nationalist revival it led to (which Khomeini, as the hero who led Iran through the war, nationally benefited from). And of course wartime mentalities are a fine context in which to solidify control under the cloak of national security.
As for the coup, it was a disaster for the simple reason that if democracy had been allowed to continue in Iran, the pent-up grievances that ultimately exploded into a revolution would probably have been handled within the system rather than suppressed. Khomeini might have been the same theocratic asshole, but he’d have had a hard time whipping up a revolution against a government that people saw as their own. But as you can see, to this very day you’ll have hordes of conservatives defending the coup. William F. Buckley’s love affair with right wing dictators wasn’t limited to him, or to Franco.
Brian R.
IOKIYTUSA
Martin
There have certainly been countless cyberattacks already launched against the US, yet we didn’t bomb anyone in retaliation. The US has always, and still believes in proportionate response. A cyberattack against a US government site that the UN has condemned (like the Iranian enrichment program) is unlikely to get any kind of a response from us of any kind. A cyberattack against a high-level US system – like the civilian power grid – that actually causes casualties and not just economic damage in the US is just as likely to get you bombed as if you caused those casualties by any other means.
I’d think someone who served would understand that the projection of military power is exceedingly nuanced, and not nearly as black/white as is being presented here. And if I have a criticism of Greenwald and other elements of both the left and right whose sole language is outrage, it’s that they take the most cynical view of any statement anyone issues, and then extends that view to pretty much anything else it can touch. I’m sorry God didn’t leave us an instruction manual for international affairs that would provide a definitive thumbs up or thumbs down, but that’s how it is.
Weaselone
@JGabriel: You’re correct. I overstated what we actually know about Iran’s uranium enrichment program.
stinkbait
So much ignorance in this latest screed by Leave Libya Alone Cole I don’t know where to begin.
This is what happens when you read Greenwald regularly.
Maude
@Martin:
I read the power grid remark months ago and it was in relation to China ant those cyber attacks.
Outrage seems to the rule of the day.
Corner Stone
@Hill Dweller:
It’s obvious this thread is going to make me very tired, if an answer this obtuse is present at the number 5 entry.
LanceThruster
But, but…our rules don’t work for the bad guys…, or the bad guys aren’t allowed to use them…or Shut up, that’s why!
LanceThruster
@Brian R.: Also, it’s IOKIYI (It’s OK If You’re Israel)
Xanthippas
Same reason why we’re allowed to topple their government but any attempt on their part to topple ours would result in war. The powerful make the rules…which is why Iran wants nukes, by the way.
magurakurin
my question, Who are the anonymous military officials? And are they now setting official policy and acting as spokespersons? Doesn’t seem worth getting worked up over the fact that some unnamed “official” made a tough guy remark to some reporter.
Seriously, let’s just focus on making sure Romney doesn’t become CIC and then stress about what some low level suit at the Pentagon said on his way out of the door.
patroclus
@magurakurin: That’s way too reasonable! John apparently believes that we have to go full Greenwald over anything a Pentagon spokesperson might say, and that statements by such spokespersons are equivalent to actual bombs falling.
Xboxershorts
Let’s play 3 dimensional chess and take over a workstation in Iran and attack our own infrastructure from there. Knowing how, when, where and what, the damage would be easily controlled but enough to justify initiation of hostilities.
Or lets add a 4th dimension and say….some other state hostile to Iran uses a compromised workstation in Iran to launch a limited damaging cyber attack…
I’m old enough to remember the Tonkin Gulf lies.
If you are not:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
nima
@Dave: Cute? http://is.gd/a2YZ14
Amir Khalid
With regard to John Coles’s question, Iran certainly has the moral right, maybe even the legal right, to launch missiles at the US or Israel as payback for Stuxnet. What Iran doesn’t have is the practical option to do so.
Having said that, I don’t believe that an Iran with nukes is much more of a threat than Iran without them. Here’s the thing about nukes. They aren’t for dropping on your enemies, not anymore. No nation has dared drop a nuke in war since 1945, when we saw what two small ones could do. These days, they’re a nation’s “don’t mess with me” card. That’s all Iran wants them for; theey don’t want to be messed with. Remember, their enemies, the US and Israel, do have nukes. Iraq, whom they went to war with, used to have a nuke program. If you want Iran to quit hankering after nukes, you have to get them to see that as a winning move. That means persuading Israel to give them up, just for starters.
Gus
Our rules are for us, not other people, silly. That’s what “American exceptionalism” means.
chopper
if we bombed everybody that managed to burrow into a military computer in the US and fucked around we’d have blown half the fucking world to shit by now.
try to figure out the difference between a military target and a civilian power grid next time, john.
Chris
@Amir Khalid:
DING DING DING DING DING!
All the right wing squealing that Obama’s diplomacy hasn’t worked ignores the fact that there has not, in fact, been even an attempt at diplomacy. What’ve we offered the Iranians, concretely? Have we offered them a guarantee that we won’t invade them as long as they don’t develop nukes, you know, same kind of thing Kennedy did after Cuba? Have we offered to cooperate with them on matters of mutual interest, e.g. against Sunni fanatics or the drug trade in Afghanistan? Have we offered them a deal wherein we turn over MEK terrorists to them in exchange for their pushing Hezbollah or Hamas in a more moderate direction?
I’m not even saying these things specifically are good ideas. My point is diplomacy has to involve something like them; you have to have something you’re willing to talk about, something you’re willing to compromise on, something you’re willing to give. So far all I’ve seen from us is a change in tone, but no change in substance.
(Not entirely Obama’s fault, as the climate in Washington makes it extremely difficult to do anything like that, but the fact remains).
Chris
@chopper:
And started two nuclear wars at least (Russia and China). Good times. Good. Times.
patroclus
What “we” have offered (the negotiations are being conducted by the Europeans) is dropping of the sanctions and bringing Iran back into the community of nations. The substantive change is that, after the talks broke off several years ago, they have restarted because the Iranians have concluded that the Western powers may actually be negotiating in good faith (together with some saber-rattling by the Israelis) whereas, under Bush, “we” apparently weren’t being serious.
Corner Stone
@Amir Khalid:
That’s a step too far. Given that no one has any way to prove Iran is actually actively trying to develop weaponized nukes.
chopper
@Chris:
i love this blog to death but i’m getting sick of all the FPers going off before they’ve had a chance to actually sit down and think about the fuckin issue first.
Corner Stone
@chopper:
Are you for fucking real?
Corner Stone
This whole thread stinks to high heaven of the American Exceptionalism mentioned in the thread title.
Yeah, we get to stick our thumb in your eye because we’re the biggest bully on the block.
Great. Thanks.
chopper
@Corner Stone:
says the ‘progressive on the internet’. go get pegged in a room, supper chunks.
Corner Stone
@chopper: It’s an act of war if some state actor takes down the Eastern corridor.
You’re more of a moron than I thought if you disregard that simple fact.
chopper
@Chris:
and the fact that we haven’t kinda goes to show that our government recognizes the difference between military computers and the civilian fucking power grid. has russia or china ever burrowed into our power grid and shut it down just for shits and giggles? of course not. anybody ever wonder why?
chopper
@Corner Stone:
yeah, if we took out iran’s power grid i’d expect they’d have reason to retaliate. was that actually in question? or are you just being an idiot again?
Corner Stone
@chopper: Do you even know how Iran powers its grid?
What do you think the result of stuxnet actually was, in real life?
BobS
@Martin: Proportionate and nuanced like a 10 year occupation of Afghanistan?
Amir Khalid
@Corner Stone:
Iran hasn’t been caught trying to build actual nuclear weapons, true, but I think there’s no dispute that it does hanker after them.
Corner Stone
@Amir Khalid: It hankers after nuclear weapons? Please provide a link, thanks.
chopper
@Corner Stone:
apparently through illegally purchased embargoed systems.
chopper
@Corner Stone:
iran has one nuclear power plant. the fuel for that plant comes from russia.
Corner Stone
@chopper: Ok, so you have no idea then. Thanks.
mapaghimagsik
wow, just wow.
Stuxnet is the old. Supposedly Flame is the new. I can’t tell you how many security companies say “if you had our product, we’d have stopped flame!”
Fuck them all.
Stux is wacky in that its not a bomb, unless a bomb could explode, and still be around to be taken apart so that the enemy leans the technology.
I can’t comment on the grid, cuz that’s. I just can’t. All I can say is. As far as preparedness goes, we’re well and truly fucked. I think its a lot like Deepwater horizon. We spent all the money on hookers and blow and not enough on good solid, disciplined security.
Thanks for harshing my buzz.
Heliopause
@Corner Stone:
The comments have featured an astronomical level of failure to grasp the point, which is far more about hypocrisy than anything else.
chopper
@Corner Stone:
you’re an idiot. Iran has one civilian nuke plant. Russia built it. Russia fuels it, and Russia takes the waste away. That’s by agreement. Thats the only way the international community will allow iran to even have that one plant. the plant started providing electricity to the grid a year and a half after stuxnet seized up their centrifuges. because the shit they were purifying didn’t go into Bushehr I.
siezing up their centrifuges didn’t do shit to their electrical production.
Corner Stone
@chopper: I at least hope you heard the “whooshing” noise as the point went flying by your incredibly dense head.
But somehow I doubt it, based on the stupidity of your repetitions here.
I asked, quite simply, if you knew how Iran powers its grid and if you knew what the result of stuxnet was in actual real life.
So far you have, with no surprise whatsoever, failed to address either of those simple questions.
Xboxershorts
@chopper:
I don’t think they could. Our power grid is pretty fucking archaic. Perhaps all they need to do is start sexting with the right teenaged driver and hope for the right pole to be taken out.
chopper
@Corner Stone:
I told you. Iran has one nuke plant on its grid. It’s been on for about 9 months. Stuxnet preceded its opening, and it is fueled not by Irans nuclear fuel purification system, but by Russia.
The rest of Irans grid is primarily fossil fuel based. far as I know stuxnet didn’t shut Irans electricity grid down at all.
Cheap Jim
Wow, lotta comments. But lots of them are folks like eemom and Cato who I ignore anyway, so I’m not readin’ any of them.
I thought the stuxnet thing was kinda neat for two reasons. First, this is the kinda crap I assume countries are always trying to pull on other countries, and second, it didn’t kill anyone.
Picking off selected nuclear engineers? Not cool.
chopper
@Cheap Jim:
stuxnet was neat because it was so specific. it only attacked certain siemens SCADA systems which directed motor drive systems from only two specific vendors, and only those that drove motors within a specific speed range. it was basically programmed to attack certain specific nuclear fuel purification systems. that and it was really aiming at getting the job done right, it used what, 4 exploits? insane.
Roy G.
I think a better metaphor for this would have been Bush II’s ‘Team B’ launching a proto-Stuxnet worm to destroy Iraq’s WMD program. Of course they would have been successful, but then again, the rooster doesn’t cause the dawn with his crowing.
Israel is working everybody over in the ME, mainly in an attempt to keep attention elsewhere while they continue to crush the Palestinians. Look at a map. Iran is so not proximate to Israel, and it’s a light possibility that their missiles could reach Israel. Not to mention Israel has teh nukes, which is an inconvenient truth that needs great work to hide, which is why the US has to perform jiu jitsu at every IAEA meeting, and have the balls to talk about a non-proliferation zone in the ME that magically doesn’t include the only country in the ME with nukes – Israel. And, to counter some fools upthread, don’t pretend Israel is somehow magnanimous or less dangerous than Iran – after all, they stole the secrets for the bomb from US, and it is on record that they were eager to sell South Africa nukes back in the Apartheid Era.
Isn’t it strange how all of a sudden the Iran ‘threat’ receded? Some may want to claim Stuxnet was the reason, but that is a crock. This is Sorcerer’s Apprentice stuff that will come back to bite, just like drones.
mapaghimagsik
@chopper:
If I’m not mistaken it used four 0 days, which basically once they’re spent, they’re spent, unless you’re in a large organization that doesn’t update often.
So yeah, expensive little bug for a singular purpose.
chopper
@Roy G.:
this software iran was using is very specific for gas centrifuges. it isn’t used to run natural gas turbogenerators creating electricity or oil-fired plants or anything else like that. it’s used to drive centrifuges at specific speeds.
it’s also illegal. the software is subject to an embargo. iran got its hands on it anyway by sneaking it into the country.
i think a good metaphor is like you’re on probation for some shit and part of the deal is you’re not allowed to have a smartphone, so you secretly buy a stolen iphone offa guy, and then you shit yourself in rage when apple remotely bricks the thing.
different-church-lady
Ah, another hypothetical situation to get all entrenched about. Joy.
IrishGirl
@Albert: While I agree with your point, I think you are missing John’s point, which is that the way the policy is worded or at least being communicated to us leaves too much wiggle room. Defining any cyber attack as worthy of a bomb is a BAD idea. Most cyberattacks are like getting hit with a spitball–annoying but not worthy of taking a baseball bat to the splitter’s head.
mapaghimagsik
I was the understanding the PLC Stux targetted could be used in centrifuges, but had other manufacturing applications as well, just as any other PLC does.
chopper
@mapaghimagsik:
yes, but the worm only kicked in when the PLC operated one of two motor driver company subsystems (one was iranian IIRC) and only those operating within a given rpm range. that doesn’t mean some manufacturing system somewhere might not have gotten the shaft, but it was a very surgical strike for malware.