No intent to hurt, simply repeating your rhetoric back at you. In my honest opinion, every person killed in this war is a life that should not have been lost, notice how I don't need to do any mental gymnastics.
i actually do agree. i had this conversation today with a close friend. war is, in basically every case, no matter how immoral your enemy, in itself immoral. it's a war. it's why i don't like to celebrate anything but the deaths of people i know have spent a long time ordering others to die, especially when it's an injust death in my view. i don't see basically any of the iranians as terrorists. the problem is the IRGC and iran as a government entity are a theocratic one, which means that there is some serious issues with how they believe a country should be run. they had laws in place (as some states do disgustingly, bomb them too) for essentially selling your underage daughter (or son!) to someone else. their holy book advocates lying, putting everyone else to the sword, and spreading the theology, and that is their basis for government.
to say that the IRGC do not use terrorist tactics is to ignore that they absolutely intend to drive populations of people into fear to do what they say. they are, by definition, terrorists. if all they did was terrorize their own people, it would not be our business in any way, and there would be no reason for the US to do anything but maybe covertly fund anti-Regime groups (which doesn't work out well for us generally). this regime supports systematic killings, they support suppression of religious beliefs, and all that is whatever WHEN IT'S THEIR OWN PEOPLE they are forcing that on. morally, yes, it's abhorrent, but it's not our business in the realm of man and government.
what makes it our business is that they have made it EXTREMELY clear that they will be attacking us if they can. if iran had nuclear weapons, they would HAPPILY utilize terrorist tactics openly and brazenly, and even claim responsibility for those actions, if they knew they had a guaranteed deterrent to ever being retaliated against by us. it is why i do not agree that iran is not affecting us. maybe not significantly, right now, but they are already affecting allies, INCLUDING DA JOOZ, yes. but also, saudi arabia, qatar, syria, and a few other states. they have shown that their desire is to dominate that area, and eventually the world. it is genuinely naive to think that a regional power like Iran would not seek to become a global power, and if they became a global power, that they would not make use of that nuclear deterrent to start their own fires, including fires that would be on our soil.
they have been seeking nuclear weapons for decades, but unlike clinton and obama, trump was not willing to allow them to progress with nuclear enrichment beyond what was needed for civilian powerplants, and they refused all potential monitoring that other countries accept. they were very clearly trying to develop nuclear weaponry, and they have long had missile programs attempting to develop longer and longer range missiles. the fact that the iranians would have one day attacked us out of ideological hatred (we put them into power after all, and their death to america chants are religious ideology in action, the great satan, infidels, etc) which would then be TOO LATE to stop.
it comes down to the question of should the US simply stand by and let a nation who has assured us they will perform a nuclear strike on us if they are capable of it BECOME capable of it? or should we intervene beforehand, knowing that the outcome will be a glowing crater in central NYC (yes, i know, that would be wonderful and all liberals died and whatever, that's a horrifying thing to think about no matter who's dying.)
