Friday, January 13, 2012

Iranian scientist assasinations, crime, act of war, or act to provoke war?

Can scientists working on nuclear programs be considered legitimate targets, or are they civilians? If it would be acceptable (if an act of war) to target soldiers handling a weapon, why not the people building them? Though of course in my view the most legitimate targets are those giving the orders to develop them, i.e. the politicians.

But this of course assumes justifiable grounds for 'acts of war', and attacking the Iranians for developing the same weapons systems that Israel and the US have, and have pointed at them, is highly debatable.

Most worrying is the idea that this is known to have minimal real impact on the weapons programmes, but is being used by Israel as a means to 'provoke' Iran (and hence enable it to retalliate). This is surely the most questionable moral approach. If true..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/12/iran-nuclear-scientists-attacks

(update 16-Jan with link to this comment piece)

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