In this week’s episode I talk about the assassination of an Iranian nuclear physicist and how scientists are increasingly coming to be seen as military targets. In addition, I discuss the Stuxnet worm, and the devastating potential for solar storms, EMP, and botulinum attacks.
Tracks used in this episode:
Sepalcure: “Pencil Pimp”
Todd Terje: “Snnoze 4 Love”
Harald Grosskopf: “Synthesist” (Blondes remix)
The Reflecting Skin: “Traffikers”
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IEET Blog
Should this scientist, and the previous Iranian scientists, have been assassinated? don't know.
Assassination is a tough call, it isn't ethical or legal (per se) but assassination can be expedient. Was it right to assassinate a dangerous demagogue (even if the deed was done for personal reasons) as Huey Long? maybe. Obama said he "didn't lose any sleep" over assassinating Osama bin Laden; ought Obama's conscience bother him that he offed bin Laden? perhaps; though perhaps assassinating bin Laden was if not the moral thing to do maybe it was the correct judgment call at the time. Capturing bin Laden would have been the ethical choice to choose in the matter; however bin Laden's continuing existence might very well have inspired attacks to free him, retaliatory kidnappings, and so forth.
The real, obvious, overriding, relevant 'issue' is termed "imperialism", a sanitized way of saying nationalism; of saying nations don't give diddly about other nations, of saying:
"there is no 'us' in the world, only us versus them."
Thus international law is somewhat of an oxymoron.