Political science has the concept of externalities, other results of an action, often unintended.

Pakravan may have been right to urge the Shah as he did. We can’t really know because what we *believe* about creating a martyr is only speculation. The result of any action not taken can only be speculation… we can’t try all the different choices in parallel and see which one turns out the best.

There is a strong belief, today, that creating a martyr should be avoided at all costs. There is a strong belief today that any killing, even of combatants, will result in generations of retaliation.

But do people *really* act like that? Do they *never* blame their own leaders? Americans sure seem to be willing to blame their own leaders. They even seem to prefer it! But no one else in the world? Along with the “mother of martyrs” there are no women in south Lebanon who blame their stupid husbands for the hardship they face? There’s no one in Iran who blames their president for their situation instead of the Jews? No remnant of the Taliban that wishes that Osama Bin Laden had never been born?

WE do not think in these revenge terms. We are more than willing, HAPPY even, to place the blame at home. So is it just these Others, benighted savages, who live for nothing but revenge?

Is it really better to chose inaction and the result of inaction for fear of something that may not even be true?

Inaction has consequences. It comes at a price that will be paid by *someone*. Probably that someone isn’t going to be us, but if it’s someone else does that make it okay?

I suspect their might be more evidence in the above citation – it’s a .pdf and I don’t have time to read through it.

Off topic: In my brief search – I ran across this interesting article

The Sunday Telegraph
June 19, 2006
By: Philip Sherwell

The grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, the inspiration of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, has broken a three-year silence to back the United States military to overthrow the country’s clerical regime. Hossein Khomeini’s call is all the more startling as he made it from Qom, the spiritual home of Iran’s Shia strand of Islam, during an interview to mark the 17th anniversary of the ayatollah’s death. “My grandfather’s revolution has devoured its children and has strayed from its course,” he told Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language television station.…

If you believe that the intellectual and political elite are against the wars i.e the liberal media is sabatouging the war effort.

Which is a pretty hard sell for the reality-based crowd.

But it clearly has some takers whatever the facts….

And Yhamir is on, yet again, about how the “reality based crowd” recognizes that all the intellectual elites are on the side of Israel? How is negotiation or peace possible when so many people are convinced that beliefs dictate reality? I suppose you think that CNN is a conservative lap-dog too.

When the Jews were the “Palestinians”
I often wonder whether the Israelis would have been better off naming their country “Palestine” instead of Israel. This might have weakened the efforts of anti-Zionists to delegitimize Israel’s very existence and put a dent into the belated emergence of an Arab-oriented Palestinian nationalism. Until the UN partition of Britain’s mandated territory into separate Jewish and Arab nations, the name Palestine was probably associated as much, if not more, with Jews, who had no independent country of their own … In eastern Europe, anti-Semites would traditionally taunt Jews: “Go back to Palestine where you belong!”

More at this link: Octogenarian

After thoughts: After WWII, The natural logic was correct; re-locate Semitic people to their historical Semitic lands. Palestine, a region not a state, was the perfect solution. Infuse sophisticated Semitic people to this wasteland and they will very soon build a society that their living generation can be proud of. The only thing the Allies neglected was their knowledge of Islam “Destroy the non-believer”. Muslim’s evaluate themselves by criteria all the time, some sects of Shia don’t recognize some sects of Sunnis as true Muslims, and visa versa [and other minority Muslim sects…] The unfortunate paradox with Islam is that it is a religion of fear not peace – thank you for illustrating that fact.

By that logic than so is Judaism.

Thank you for illustrating that, er, ‘fact’…..

There’s always advantages to execution that people are unwilling to see until it is too late.

Since the Palestinians are willing to blow up their own children in order to kill Jewish children, and the Israelis fear the death of their children (and appear to fear the death of Palestinian children, moreso than the Palestinians), then perhaps you are right.

Is it true that Khomeini really killed someone who saved him? Well, seeing at his haggard face & fanatical believe it might be so….

BTW I heard rumours that his mausoleum costs $2.5B, is that true? I wonder if the Shi’ites has their own litany of saints & if Khomeini is already there?