Iranian president Mr. Ahmadinejad was quoted in today’s news as saying: “The jet, as well as being an ambassador of death for the enemies of humanity, has a main message of peace and friendship.”
This wonderfully oblique statement is in reference to the unveiling of Iran’s first “domestically built, unmanned bomber aircraft”. I get the “ambassador of death” bit, but where does the “peace and friendship”, (or as the NY Times translates it, “Salvation for humanity”) come into a play? It is a bomber after all, whose sole purpose is to rain death and destruction on a population somewhere.
The statement is absurd.
Unless Mr. Ahmadinejad sincerely equates his new bomber with both peace and death (in which case I’d really like to catch a glimpse of the thought process at work here), he is most likely attempting (and failing) to gloss over the fact that Iran is simply building up their capabilities for warfare.
This is a shame, because Iran sounds like a culturally fascinating nation (if the information on Wikipedia is anything to go on). I say it’s a shame, but again I kinda-sorta understand the need for a nation to be considered one of the “big boys”. I just hope that someday we’ll be able to get over associating a nation’s military capabilities with their perceived “worth” in terms of world affairs.
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4 Comments
Well, the thought process is actually pretty straight-forward. Why does the US have nukes? For deterrence. If you’re strong enough that other countries won’t consider starting a war on you, you get peace.
That wouldn’t be peace at all. It would be a war strategy. Ahmadinejad believes that the “enemies of humanity” ought to be wiped out via an “ambassador of death” in order to subjugate humanity under his order of governance; an order with inseparable ties to Islamic fundamentalism and an order he believes will establish universal “peace and friendship.” In simple terms, he wants to kill those who disagree with his worldview and then dominate everyone else. These are the ingredients of an oppressive dystopia, not a peaceful utopia. If Ahmadinejad instead said, “Hey, we’ve got a defense system to protect our people within our borders in case other countries try to attack us,” then we’d have much less cause for alarm.
Knowing Tal, I don’t think he’s literally advocating the arms race mentality as a means to achieving peace – he’s just pointing out the “logic” behind Ahmadinejad’s statements. Yes, it is a war strategy trying to hide behind the guise of peace, and unfortunately it’s a mindset that most governments seem to ascribe to (take North Korea as another extreme example). 🙁
I doubt anyone is going to argue that wars are a good thing. The arms race, though, is pretty much a necessary evil in today’s world. I mean, if we didn’t have nukes Israel wouldn’t be here (there, whatever) today.
Of course, the Iranians having nukes is a whole other matter :p
Besides, you have to make the distinction between peace and freedom – if they kill all their opposition and subjugate everyone else, they will have peace. No freedom, but peace… :s