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New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

reuters.com

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Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#131

Post by bootlooped »

rgbrenner wrote: post #22
austinheap wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of most sanctions, from a diplomatic perspective, is to place enormous financial pressure on an economy so that the population revolts agains the government in question. It's believed that when the "price of onions" becomes too high for a society to tolerate, revolution occurs. I'm not saying the world is/isn't a better place, just explaining the common beltway logic re: Iran sanctions.

The goal of the sanctions is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The sanctions cause economic harm, forcing Iran to the negotiating table. It's not anyone's goal to overthrow Iran. No one want to clean up the mess. There are already enough messes in that region already (afghanistan, iraq, syria, yemen).

Pompeo and Bolton probably both want to overthrow Iran.

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#132

Post by jessaustin »

Good job, warmongers. You've convinced me to buy Huawei. Maybe I can't do anything to encourage our politicians and media to seek peace and prosperity rather than war and kickbacks from armaments lobbyists. However, I can spend $229 on a mobile phone that definitely doesn't have an FBI backdoor installed at the factory. Maybe that's enough for now?

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#133

Post by 1024core »

dunpeal wrote: post #123
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s a few google results, but I haven’t checked them for accuracy: https://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/01/world/iraq-sanctions-kill... https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/27/magazine/were-sanctions-r... This one looks promising: https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/report/57jqa...

I skimmed some of these links. The main argument appears to be that the sanctions created economic hardship, and that in turns caused suffering and death. That's a natural result of any sanctions. You may decide to oppose any sanctions to avoid this result, but when the alternative is violent military, there's a good argument to why this is the lesser evil.

At least in military conflict, there is some lip-service paid to avoiding civilian casualties (Geneva Convention, etc.). But sanctions are not allowed even this little fig leaf.

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#134

Post by gerash »

ZainRiz wrote: post #111
rgbrenner wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computer equipment can be used to run simulations for nuclear weapons (in fact, this is how nuclear weapons have been tested for decades.. and why we don't detonate them any more), and therefore is prohibited under the UN sanctions. Additionally, the UN sanctions also prohibit banking services for prohibited items. This is what Meng is accused of: attempting to transfer HP computers to Iran, and using the US financia…

The sanctions should include pencils too, since they can be used to do math which can be used to figure out nuclear equations, thus violating the nuclear sanctions

and power cables because they can power those computers and are obviously dual purpose.

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#135

Post by philbo »

tivert wrote: post #50
curiousgal wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup we can only achieve world peace if it's just us who owns nuclear weapons. If the goal is really that, the U.S. wouldn't be flashing its nuclear arsenal.

The more people there are who can choose to use nuclear weapons, the greater the chance that someone will actually choose to use them.

Admittedly it's a very small sample size, but fwiw history directly contradicts this assertion.

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#136

Post by pasabagi »

dunpeal wrote: post #106
1024core wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's an effective method to hit them where it hurts (their pockets) without creating casualties directly. That's not always the case. The sanctions against Iraq, put in place around 1991 (after Gulf War 1), lead to the deaths of 1000s upon 1000s of children, as hospitals couldn't acquire critical supplies like incubators.

Reliable source for that claim? I'll be very surprised if the sanctions blocked hospitals from purchasing medical supplies. If anything, I'd suspect the problem was poverty.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

A study by Lancet - briefly, that hundreds of thousands of 'excess deaths' were caused by sanctions.

It's not something our intellectual culture is particularly comfortable with - drawing lines between death, and the policies that cause death, perhaps because we don't take statistics as seriously as we do causal stories.

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#137

Post by quantum_magpie »

EpicEng wrote: post #90
boomboomsubban wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The US has laws and I expect our justice department to arrest those who break our laws regardless of their nationality if they step into our country (or allies). Do you expect every citizen of a town to be punished because the store ownet broke the law then? As that's the equivalent of sanctions. >The WTO submitted a report last year about the efficacy of sanctions (and it happens to be on Iran) for those curious Th…

So what's your suggestion? Country X won't play nice, what do you do? given your moral stance on sanctions I can't imagine you would propose war. So what are the options? What tools do we have available to us to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and persuade bad actors? The world isn't some idyllic place where there's always a solution to every problem which harms no one. Yes, the citizenry often gets caught…

>So what's your suggestion? Country X won't play nice, what do you do?

Nothing!

>What tools do we have available to us to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and persuade bad actors?

Give up yours, or stop telling others what to do about theirs. The US is not a good actor either.

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#138

Post by berbec »

philbo wrote: post #135
tivert wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more people there are who can choose to use nuclear weapons, the greater the chance that someone will actually choose to use them.

Admittedly it's a very small sample size, but fwiw history directly contradicts this assertion.

Very true. When only one nation had atomic weapons, 100% of the nations with nuclear capabilities utilized them.

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#139

Post by solatic »

austinheap wrote: post #9
simplecomplex wrote: post #4

Can someone explain how the world is a better place by outlawing business with Iran? Remember, the crime here is selling telecom equipment...

The goal of most sanctions, from a diplomatic perspective, is to place enormous financial pressure on an economy so that the population revolts agains the government in question. It's believed that when the "price of onions" becomes too high for a society to tolerate, revolution occurs. I'm not saying the world is/isn't a better place, just explaining the common beltway logic re: Iran sanctions.

The point of sanctions is not necessarily to incite revolution; as duaoebg pointed out, regimes like their scapegoats, and anyways modern historical anecdotes show that popular unrest is insufficient to incite revolution if the military remains loyal to the regime e.g. Tehran summer 2009.

Rather, sanctions attempt to align financial incentives of those in power with the country issuing sanctions. It may seem (thankfully) foreign to those in the West, but in autocratic places like Russia, Iran, and China, the people who control the policy of the state are generally also the people who have large stakes in the major economic engines of the state. Given that autocrats tend to be motivated by wealth at least as much as they are motivated by power, sanctions can force autocrats to try to negotiate with sanctioning countries, wherein the autocrat tries to adopt his policy as little as possible to the sanctioning country (so as to keep a grip on power) in order to get wealth flowing again.

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#140

Post by dunpeal »

jessaustin wrote: post #127
dunpeal wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I skimmed some of these links. The main argument appears to be that the sanctions created economic hardship, and that in turns caused suffering and death. That's a natural result of any sanctions. You may decide to oppose any sanctions to avoid this result, but when the alternative is violent military, there's a good argument to why this is the lesser evil.

You seem a bit disingenuous here. Upthread you needed "a source" for the obvious fact that hospitals are part of a national economy. Now the deaths of children are "a natural result". Which is it, really? Maybe it's just good for USA policy to kill kids, by one way or another? Anyway, sanctions are usually just a pretext for war. (Every military disaster USA has perpetrated during my parents' lifetimes has been prece…

> Upthread you needed "a source" for the obvious fact that hospitals are part of a national economy.

No, I asked for a source for the claim that the US blocked essential medical supplies as part of the embargo.

> "The alternative" is what every president from Washington through Arthur would have advocated: stay on our own continent and mind our own business.

Wouldn't mind that at all! However, since I don't make these decisions, then I will persist: sanctions are better than the violent killing of war.

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