Thats kinda a good reason to not be an American hiking near the border near known trouble spots.
Those kids were fracking idiots. And they were old enough, smart enough, and educated enough to know better.
Its one thing to be stupid. Its another to be stupider than you should be.
Except he explicit said he didn’t agree with what you put in quotes as being his position:
Emphasis added.
His very subtle point of “If I were Iranian, I’d treat all Americans like spies, and I think those Americans are spies, and Iran isn’t doing anything wrong” isn’t a defense of Iran at all… oh, no.
Yes. There is no chance that they are spies. The only argument that’s been offered is this warped paranoid thinking – which you see to be subscribing to – that “there is no evidence that they are spies, THEREFORE THEY MUST BE!!!” which is just laughable. This is the kind of reasoning that’s derided on the Dope, but is sufficient for torture in Iran.
In any case, my point about asking you about foreign travel and police states is that it is silly difficult to get along in those types of countries without undergoing a lot of scrutiny. American-looking people get stopped on the street to have their passports checked. In some countries, I’ve seen policemen posted on literally every floor of hotels where foreigners are allowed to stay. There are checkpoints on highways, and I’ve been on buses that were pulled over to have police pull out and search luggage.
Now, I haven’t been to Iran, but the idea that rabble-rousing Americans could enter such a country and be able to succeed in a mission for any amount of time is just stupid. It’s laughable. With no visas, with American passports, with nothing to assist them? It’s a suicide mission. Anybody who would conceive of this being a good idea would be laughed out of the room.
In short, there is a complete lack of evidence that they are spies, and considerable evidence that they are just wandering hippies. They are not spies, and they are unjustly accused.
If we’re allowed to make up quotes, then I can prove that you are defending Iran.
So that caps it. They’ve crossed the line from bizarrely naive to intentionally reckless. They were playing with fire and got burned.
The reasoning I subscribe to is “there is no evidence that they are spies, therefore they might be.”
Out of curiosity, who else do you think couldn’t possibly be a spy? Journalists? Diplomats? That lady swathed in veils? That doctor with the relief effort? The youth who doesn’t look a day over fourteen? The beggar on the street corner? Who else falls into the There Is No Chance That They Are Spies category?
I am not rejecting the possibility that various occupations could not be covers for spies. I’m saying those three Americans are not spies, because there is no evidence that they are, and the contorted logic of why they must be spies is substantiated by paranoia or nonsense.
Furthermore, their families and friends seem quite credible that these were three anti-establishment activists with axes to grind against the US government. As Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Why they “must” be spies? Intriguing. You likewise used that “must” terminology in your previous post; you have no evidence for it; you’ve been corrected about your use of it; still you persist; what substantiates your logic?
The Other Waldo Pepper, is your assertion that these idiots actually COULD be spies, or that it’s plausible that the Iranians THINK (or thought I suppose) they were spies? Just trying to clarify exactly what you are getting at here. Is it one or the other or both…or neither, and I’m totally missing the point?
-XT
I can’t rule out the possibility that they were spies, and don’t see that Iran could either.
Does it seem plausible to you though? I can’t rule out the possibility that I’m actually a rain god, but it doesn’t seem very likely. As to the Iranians, I’m sure they did think these guys were spies initially, but after all the time they have them they have to at least question that by this time. You know they have been torturing the crap out of these guys, who are probably telling them ever secret they know, such as cheating on that exam in 1st grade or peeking in the girls locker room…vital national stuff like that.
-XT
Well, if you’re sure the Iranians “did think these guys were spies initially,” then I suppose it would’ve at least seemed plausible to me as well. You then go on to speculate about what the Americans have said and the Iranians have done since then; you assume the initial assessment can’t remain unchanged after all this time; I have no need of that hypothesis.
A fair point, since I was generally describing Iran’s position on the matter but responding to you. I should choose my words more carefully and not address Iran’s position and yours in the same stream of consciousness.
Surely to spy on something you actually have to be somewhere where there is worthwhile intelligence to be gained? I could buy that there was something fishy going on if they were accidentally hiking outside a nuclear power plant or something, but a remote border in the middle of nowhere? Nope, don’t buy it. They were reckless sure, some might say stupid, but spies they were not. Furthermore I don’t for one second believe the Iranian authorities think they are either.
I wouldn’t say there is literally no chance they aren’t aliens or creatures from a different dimension that have come to Earth to open the floodgates of an invasion.
So no, there’s a chance they are spies. What I’m saying is it is not rational to assume they are spies nor is it rational to treat every person who enters a country illegally as spies. Instead I would suggest that hey, those fancy agencies all countries have that specialize in counterintelligence be trusted to do their jobs. You probably haven’t followed this case all that closely, but you might be surprised to know that Ahmadinejad and several important people in Iran’s government don’t really seem to believe these people are spies and were working on their release. Hardliners under the Ayatollah quashed that. So there’s actually very good evidence Iran does not believe they are spies.
As another example let’s say I manage a consumer bank. I decide to treat every person who comes in as a potential bank robber, because some will be and I can’t say there is literally no chance that any individual customer is a bank robber. So I have 12 armed security guards at the front gate, which is a massive, bullet proof monstrosity. You have to enter the first bullet proof gate and then you are in a small corral where you are scanned by both a magnetometer and x-ray to insure you are carrying no weapons. Upon verifying that you are allowed through the second bullet proof gate into the main part of the bank, and 4 of the security guards escort you to the teller. At no time is more than one customer allowed to be inside at a time, to insure security has complete control of the situation.
That’s about how rational I feel the position of treating everyone who crosses a border as a spy is, and it is about as practical.
There’s already enough confusion in this thread without you getting things blatantly wrong. Waldo said this way back at the beginning:
This violates basic principles of logic, though. It’s essentially like the opposite of Occam’s Razor, you’re assuming “the most complicated and unlikely explanation must be the true one.”
So why do you feel stupid in this case deserve legal punishment? This isn’t like a bear mauling some twit who climbed in at the zoo. This is a willful action by self aware people for the crime of taking a walk.
Do you feel Sarah Palin should be arrested? She’s pretty stupid. I ask for clarification on when stupid does and does not legal correction.
Anyway, in all honesty the spy issue is irrelevant. It was so unlikely that even Iran doesn’t seriously maintain it any longer.
If you’ve been following the case you’ll note that Ahmadinejad has said he “hopes they can prove their innocence on the charge of espionage.” He has additionally said that it is irrelevant because they still deserve some punishment for illegally entering the country. By the way, I actually agree with that entirely. If they entered Iran, genuinely entered Iran (let’s not totally cloud the issue but there’s decent chance they never did until they were drug across the border) then they are subject to Iran’s legal system which will provide punishments for illegal entry. Iran is a sovereign state and has a right to secure borders and to punish people who violate them.
The Secretary General of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, Mohammad Larijani, has also said it is possible they entered accidentally. Iran has, in it slow judicial process been emphasizing the charges concerning illegal entry and trespassing, so I do not believe there is strong belief in the Iranian government-proper that these individuals are spies. The charges of espionage still remain but the addition of various charges relating to trespassing suggest to me the Iranians will probably eventually convict them on those charges and perhaps not the espionage charges. It would probably depend on whether they receive an actual trial or a show trial, of course.
Uh, no. Don’t project your mistakes onto me, bub. He was clearly talking about Iran in that post, as you yourself acknowledge in your reply:
I stick by my explicit quote from him that he is not talking about any border, but particularly about Iran. And I agree with him on that. If those kids were farting around on or near the board (and that’s an if, not a certainty), that I would expect Iran to detain and question them just as the US would in the inverse case.
Now, don’t confuse an agreement on that point with a sanction for what Iran has done subsequently.
You guys are reading way too much into Waldo’s posts on this issue. It’s one thing to say that Iran is probably within its rights to detain Americans crossing its border illegally, but another entirely to say they are still within their rights to continue to detain them.
But note that the US does exactly the same thing (see: Guantanamo), and it shouldn’t surprise us too much when we’re treated the same way by our adversaries.