Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 September 19

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September 19

Oil

Have Iran accepted responsibility for the attack on Saudi Arabia? Have they denied responsibility? All the Google searches I get provide propaganda and false results. What are the chances Iran now have Nukes? Thanks Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 15:15, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Iran has denied responsibility. That is most likely literally true. How far it is true in spirit is a matter of interpretation - as an example, the US sponsored the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan, but they did not directly control them and probably did not order any particular attack on the Russians. And it's even more complex - Iran has a number of somewhat independent groups that share control of the state, and one of them may (or may not) be behind the attack, without the others being involved. Again, if a number of rogue NID agents steal a Stargate and commit off-world crimes, is the US responsible? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:29, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

How it would be viewed would largely depend on the relations between the two nations before the event. If the nations were allies, then an attack by some small faction in one nation on the other would be taken as a criminal act, with expectations that the criminals be arrested and tried. If the nations were neutral toward each other, this attitude might still prevail. But if the nations are in a proxy war against each other already, then any such action would be taken in that context, with little hope of ever prosecuting the guilty parties. Thus, the only forms of justice available are a military strike (perhaps a precision strike against the guilty parties) or some action against the nation as a whole, like stricter sanctions/blockades. SinisterLefty (talk) 17:11, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

That mixes up two different things: One is a question of who is responsible (I assume in a fairly neutral moral system, e.g. based on the golden rule and/or the categorical imperative). The other is the question who should be held responsible by involved or semi-involved parties. Note, however, that proxy wars in the cold war did not usually escalate to a level where the principals became targets (though they might intervene more directly by attacking the other sides proxies). Neither the Vietnamese nor the Russians directly attacked the US, and neither the US nor the other Vietnamese directly attacked the Soviet Union. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:22, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

"Neither the Vietnamese nor the Russians directly attacked the US". Odd claim. Perhaps you mean didn't attack U.S. territory. They certainly attacked U.S. forces. Rmhermen (talk) 20:45, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Thats what I said, I think. The US is a country. There is a significant difference in escalation between attacking foreign forces on your own or your allies (at least claimed) ground, and attacking a foreign country directly. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:52, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

I was also confused by your wording, although I did figure out what you meant. SinisterLefty (talk) 22:14, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

There is also the concept of distributed responsibility: the idea that if the one actor did one aspect of an action, that does not preclude other people from varying levels of responsibility based on their level of participation in the action or in the lead-up to that action. If, as the Houthi movement claims, they launched the weapons themselves, that doesn't mean that no one else would have any responsibility at all. --Jayron32 17:41, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

You might consider Just war theory and Jus ad bellum of interest here. At least as western look on that (pretty sure middle East nations have a somewhat different view on the matter, if only because centralization of power is lower, as point out above, sort of like the US Air force could go to war of its own while the Marines wanted none of it...) Gem fr (talk) 20:32, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

I would think that the total clusterfuck of middle east politics over the last 100 or so years would be a challenge for any consistent "just war" theory.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 05:04, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

"Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" ? SinisterLefty (talk) 05:06, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

You mean 1000 or so years, don't you? Or was it 10000? Anyway, I think you disregard the universality of the questioning (even the smallest tribe has some tradition regarding the proper condition to go to war), and forget that Persia/Iran has continuously been a quite civilized local power of importance matching Egypt, India, or whatever power we know developed just war theory. So there would be something to be found, and that could actually help. Gem fr (talk) 07:50, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Well, I mean 100 or so - sure, there was a lot of trouble there from, say 3500 BCE to maybe 1500 CE, but then it became a backwater and got a bit of a rest. I'd think without the oil, it might still be a backwater... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:42, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. Having people who want to kill anyone with a slightly different religious belief would only be a problem for the locals and those crazy enough to visit, if it weren't for them having the oil wealth to create WMDs/delivery systems so they can threaten other nations, too. SinisterLefty (talk) 16:19, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

This is a summary of events so far, as of about 6.5 hours ago. This is likely to change as more information becomes available. --Jayron32 16:35, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Have they considered the possibility of it being 2 coordinated simultaneous operations, one by the Houthi rebels and another by Iran ? The rebels claimed to have launched 10 drones, but there were 17 hits, including use of missiles. Maybe Iran wanted the operation to succeed, hence their missiles, but also wanted deniability, hence the Houthi drones. SinisterLefty (talk) 18:41, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

We can only speculate, but this makes sense indeed. Now, our best option is to grab the pop corn or the xanax (depending on the mood), and watch. Gem fr (talk) 20:36, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Was Hirohito under the impression that Japan would be allowed to keep Korea following WW2 ?

In Surrender_of_Japan#Broadcast_of_the_Imperial_Rescript_on_surrender, he strangely referred to "Our one hundred million people", which would include the population of Korea. Japan's population was 72 million.

In the same speech there is the outright lie: "...it being far from Our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement", so perhaps he was just determined to deny reality completely ?SinisterLefty (talk) 18:17, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was not actually adopted until over 2 weeks later; presumably the actual terms of the surrender had not yet been negotiated and worked out. He may have not known one way or the other. --Jayron32 18:36, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Not sure the Emperor was really aware of everything going on. Beside, never before nor during the war Japan made any claim "to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement". The 1937 attack on China had some silly "you have trouble enforcing your sovereignty, I have to help you" official rationale, not "you belong to us and will be part of our empire afterward" (even though you have reason enough to believe this would be the ultimate goal). Likewise for Indochina, Philippines etc.

Also, notice that explicitly telling that is a way to deny any claim on other land. "no, I never claimed this to be mine, rest assured" is quite different of "ye well, you are stronger, so I have to forfeit my legitimate right but, still, mumble mumble"; for example of the difference, just watch the land that changed ownership between Russia and Poland (1920/1945), Germany and France (1871/1919/1940/1945), Germany and Czechia (1938/1945), as opposed to, say, situation of California or Texas (not claimed anymore by Mexico). Gem fr (talk) 20:24, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

The same phrase was used (not by Hirohito) in the announcement of Isoroku Yamamoto's death [1] and also in several articles in the Nippon Times Weekly (January 1944) and a in the Japan Year Book 1941 (p. 193). It seems to have been the way that the Japanese described themselves in wartime.

Hirohito in his rescript says that he has decided to accept "the provisions of the joint declaration of the powers". This is the Potsdam Declaration which clearly states that "Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine." So no, he really can't have been under that impression. However, at the time of the speech, Korea was Japanese territory. Alansplodge (talk) 20:39, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Interesting that Okinawa Island wasn't included, making me think the US contemplated keeping it entirely, but later settled for just covering it with US bases. SinisterLefty (talk) 05:56, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

I think "minor islands" was intended to potentially include Okinawa. As the article discusses, the intent was to draw a distinction between the four large "home islands" of Japan and other territories which Japan would surrender, including Korea, Sakhalin, Taiwan, and New Guinea. Although, the U.S. did end up occupying Okinawa and other islands until 1972, but, of course, the declaration was intentionally open-ended, to express that Japan's sovereignty beyond the four main islands would be at the determination of the Allied Powers. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 10:56, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Very open-ended in the case of the Kuril Islands, which the Russians have so far declined to return to Japan. Alansplodge (talk) 11:17, 22 September 2019 (UTC)