There being no direct evidence for something is taken by most rational people to be a strong argument that it doesn’t exist.
Well, I disagree on several levels with that statement. First off, a LOT of rational people have belief in stuff that there is no direct evidence for. There are people of faith who believe in spiritual stuff. In physics and cosmology there are people who’s theories are built around the math with no direct physical evidence.
And on an international level I’m guessing there is no direct evidence that, say, Israel has nuclear weapons…yet MOST ‘rational people’ believe they do. There was no direct physical evidence that Pakistan was building a nuclear program until they were well into it. Same with the Soviets (came as rather a shock to the US, ehe?). When a nation state chooses to veil something in secrecy its very difficult to GET direct physical evidence for something they are trying to hide. Part of Saddam’s problem is that he kept people guessing about his own programs…and even after inspectors were allowed back in and they said they had seen no evidence of WMD anywhere, questions remained.
I’d say the circumstantial evidence in the case of Iran is enough to at least say that this isn’t an irrational or illogical belief that their program is at least partially oriented to weapons development. YMMV.
-XT
While I might quibble with a few of these, for the most part spot on. So, what has changed in the last month that would over ride these reason for why we haven’t attacked yet?
Certainly. In fact, at a guess the Pentagon and the Navy have all kinds of plans drawn up as to how they WOULD attack Iran. However, looking for an opening, or being ready for a contingency isn’t the same thing as ‘the attack is imminent’ as the OP is implying.
I guess we’ll see (which is what I said the last time this came up)…but my money is on Bush leaving office and STILL no attack on Iran happening. And the lefties will be going on about how the polar bear repellent works so well…
-XT
You say you disagree with my statement that “(lack of direct evidence) is taken by most rational people as a strong argument that something doesn’t exist.”
If you disagree with that then what you’re literally saying is that a failure to provide evidence something exists doesn’t establish an argument that it does not exist. If you literally disagree with that statement, then logically there can never be any rational disbelief in anything. Even if there’s no evidence to support a conclusion, you’re saying that doesn’t argue against it, because maybe we just haven’t found the evidence.
All I’m saying is that the lack of direct evidence makes it problematic to claim Iran is building the bomb. It IS, in fact, an argument against it. Doesn’t prove it beyond a doubt, but any smart person would be skeptical of claims that are not supported by evidence.
As you point out, some scientific theories are supported by no evidence, only mathematical conjecture… and the scientific community is, by design, skeptical of such claims until they are proven with evidence.
There was plenty of evidence of those things, though, wasn’t there? Eyewitnesses reports on all of those countries working on the bomb. They were known to have programs for enrichment sufficient to make weapons-grade materials. Those things are not true of Iran, are they?
Perhaps it would be best to keep this lesson in mind, hmm?
Well, I was mainly disagreeing with the ‘most rational people’ assertion…because this seems to be to be in error. I think MOST rational people DO believe things that have no physical evidence backing them up. I think its sort of tangential to the discussion though.
Was there hard evidence for these things? Do you have a cite to back that up? Afaik the evidence is about the same…at least the evidence we know of. However, if you have a cite showing we had hard evidence that is superior to what has been released to the public about Iran thus far I’d be interested in seeing it.
Certainly. Also though its best to keep an open mind about these things and not get locked in the other way…i.e. that its all bullshit because Bush et al cherry picked data about Iraq. Neither buying everything the serve up nor a knee jerk reaction against everything they serve up is beneficial.
-XT
They are not rational. That’s why it’s called faith. Which ties right into . . .
Among the people who were looking for an excuse to attack. Who were, in other words, irrational, at least as regards Saddam’s imaginary weapons.
They had faith that he had those weapons. Trying to convince the weapons believers that there was no evidence he had them has like trying to convince a creationist of evolution; anything you say just got twisted into evidence that there were weapons, and Bush was treated like he had a pipeline to God. Even no evidence was used as evidence; a lack of evidence just showed how good he was at hiding them ! And no matter the lack of evidence or how irrational and stupid Bush seemed, we had to trust him because he had Secret Knowledge that we didn’t. People were told to Have Faith in him, because he’s God’s Chosen, I mean President.
No, there was nothing rational about the whole “Saddam got WMDs !” pre war lunacy.
Meanwhile, the LA Times is reporting that nearly half the foreign fighters in Iraq are Saudi. Yet Cheney has a hard-on for Iran.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/07/unger-article/
2007
The think tanks and neo- con agenda was Iraq, Syria and Iran. Some of them with great power are real believers. They scare me.
If Iraq had gone like Pearl, Wolfowitz and Cheney predicted ,I think we would have been there already.
Since we’re speculating about attacking Iran, shouldn’t we be including Israel as well?
Couldn’t they be kind of a wild card and attack Iranian nuclear facilities on their own?
Israel has a good air force, but I doubt it is up to that. Iran also has a good air force and it is farther away than Iraq.
I was just thinking that if they could fly to Entebbe, Uganda, shouldn’t Iran be within their reach (with aerial refueling?)
IIRC, they don’t have the right weapons, unless they go nuclear. Neither do we as far as I know, which is one reason some people suspect Bush or his puppetmasters intends a nuclear strike. They’ve been persistantly unwilling to take nukes off the table, and have an unhealthy fascination with so called nuclear bunker busters. Plus, they’re insane idiots, which always helps.
Plus, I don’t see the point. It won’t divert blame from us; there will be plenty to go around. And why should Israel do that when they have an American government willing to do it’s dirty work ?
They could fly to Uganda without facing any hostile and formidable air force. Iran wouldn’t be so easy.
But the mention reminds me of this old SNL skit. 
Also, the Iranians have learned a lesson from the Osirak strike and have buried and hardened their nuclear plants – at least, against conventional explosives. Which is all Israel has – right? [wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more]
I wonder how effective those defenses would be against modern bunker buster type bombs, or a MOAB or two (which, were I too guess, Israel has or is developing, and which is a much more likely device they would use than a nuke…which they may or may not even have)…
-XT
Quite effective I’d expect; we aren’t talking about fifty year old fortifications. And given that we or Israel are such likely aggressors, they’d naturally build defenses designed to resist our weapons.
I think you are wrong, but concede that I don’t KNOW. Do you have a cite about how tough these defenses supposedly are? Or are they secret (again, I have no idea…I haven’t really ever looked into this aspect to be honest)? I know America has been developing some pretty heavy duty (non-nuclear) ground penetrating weapons…and my guess is, considering its Iran, Israel has been eye-ing its own capabilities wrt a possible necessary (from their perspective) strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
The only way I can see Iran REALLY defending its program would be to keep it completely hidden…i.e. you can’t hit what you don’t know about or can’t see. If it can be found, my guess is it can be wiped out if the US or Israel REALLY want to do it…and wiped out using non-nuclear means. But as I said before…thats only a guess on my part.
-XT