Death By A Thousand Cuts or Paradoxical Heroes
Death by a Thousand Cuts, or the Paradoxical Heroes
One old saying I constantly heard when I was growing up in North Central Texas was, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” Someone with interests in the Middle East has taken that saying to heart. While the UN sits on its hands and does nothing and the West fiddles like Nero, Iran is enabled to work unimpeded on a nuclear weapon. The UN is so useless, it doesn’t even qualify as a paper tiger—maybe a paper pussy cat. And the West is so obsessed with Political Correctness and other assorted diseases that lead to self-destruction that it either cannot, or will not do anything to stop Iran.
So someone, somewhere, has taken it upon themselves to stop Iran, regardless of what the UN and the West say or do. First, there was the Stuxnet worm or virus, the world’s first cyberweapon directly targeting Iran’s nuclear ambitions like a digital cruise missile. It is also a weapon nobody will claim, even though if you ask me, they are heroes. Instead of attempting to deny Iran the bomb through bloody, destructive conventional warfare, they did it with computer stealth, where no innocents were killed and no infrastructure destroyed, except maybe parts of Iran’s nuclear weapons production systems.
Then there are the extremely targeted killings, or what might be properly termed, assassinations, of the leading figures in Iran’s quest for the bomb. These assassinations are so cleverly planned and carefully carried out, that there are no traces left of either the assassins or those who sent them. On January 11, 2012, an Iranian scientist who was a director at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility was killed by a bomb magnetically attached to his car by assassins on a motorcycle, who sped away and were not caught. The scientist himself was on his way to a memorial service for yet another scientist mysteriously assassinated in 2010. These were only two of several researchers connected to Iran’s nuclear program that have either been outright murdered or died under unusual circumstances in recent years.
So somebody out there with the wherewithal to do something about it has come to the correct conclusion that the UN and the West will do nothing to stop Iran from joining the Nuclear Club and has decided to take matters into their own hands. Instead of using bunker-busting bombs that may or may not even work, but, assuredly, would cause a world of troubles for the country that dropped them, these people use carefully-crafted, covert operations to do the same thing. Instead of denying Iran the bomb with one big bomb of their own, they seek to deny Iran the bomb with a thousand pinpoint cuts.
Signs supposedly point to the US and Israel, which, naturally enough, deny any and all responsibility to avoid the undeserved wrath of a world that already hates them. It is said only a national entity would have the ability to mount such a covert campaign against another sovereign country, which would, in that case, rule out private vigilante groups, no matter how powerful or wealthy.
But whoever they are, the world owes these people their eternal gratitude, though we all know these heroes will never get it. While the rest of the world does nothing to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power, they would, no doubt, regret it if it did happen. Being an ostrich with your head in the sand does you no good when a madman with a bomb can blow up your behind. The world’s leaders are too blind to see that, and too gutless to do anything about it even if they did.
These people who do so well in slowing or stopping Iran’s quest for the bomb, including history’s first true cyberwarriors, should be regarded by future generations as the ones who prevented a potential nuclear war or third world war. But, if no war takes place, then they have done their job, even though there is nothing to prove it. The way time works, if something didn’t happen then it is impossible to prove it would have if something else hadn’t happened. Such, probably, will be the case of these Paradoxical Heroes. They most likely will just become a footnote in history, if anything at all, if they succeed at what they set out to do.
Jeff Vanderslice
One old saying I constantly heard when I was growing up in North Central Texas was, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” Someone with interests in the Middle East has taken that saying to heart. While the UN sits on its hands and does nothing and the West fiddles like Nero, Iran is enabled to work unimpeded on a nuclear weapon. The UN is so useless, it doesn’t even qualify as a paper tiger—maybe a paper pussy cat. And the West is so obsessed with Political Correctness and other assorted diseases that lead to self-destruction that it either cannot, or will not do anything to stop Iran.
So someone, somewhere, has taken it upon themselves to stop Iran, regardless of what the UN and the West say or do. First, there was the Stuxnet worm or virus, the world’s first cyberweapon directly targeting Iran’s nuclear ambitions like a digital cruise missile. It is also a weapon nobody will claim, even though if you ask me, they are heroes. Instead of attempting to deny Iran the bomb through bloody, destructive conventional warfare, they did it with computer stealth, where no innocents were killed and no infrastructure destroyed, except maybe parts of Iran’s nuclear weapons production systems.
Then there are the extremely targeted killings, or what might be properly termed, assassinations, of the leading figures in Iran’s quest for the bomb. These assassinations are so cleverly planned and carefully carried out, that there are no traces left of either the assassins or those who sent them. On January 11, 2012, an Iranian scientist who was a director at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility was killed by a bomb magnetically attached to his car by assassins on a motorcycle, who sped away and were not caught. The scientist himself was on his way to a memorial service for yet another scientist mysteriously assassinated in 2010. These were only two of several researchers connected to Iran’s nuclear program that have either been outright murdered or died under unusual circumstances in recent years.
So somebody out there with the wherewithal to do something about it has come to the correct conclusion that the UN and the West will do nothing to stop Iran from joining the Nuclear Club and has decided to take matters into their own hands. Instead of using bunker-busting bombs that may or may not even work, but, assuredly, would cause a world of troubles for the country that dropped them, these people use carefully-crafted, covert operations to do the same thing. Instead of denying Iran the bomb with one big bomb of their own, they seek to deny Iran the bomb with a thousand pinpoint cuts.
Signs supposedly point to the US and Israel, which, naturally enough, deny any and all responsibility to avoid the undeserved wrath of a world that already hates them. It is said only a national entity would have the ability to mount such a covert campaign against another sovereign country, which would, in that case, rule out private vigilante groups, no matter how powerful or wealthy.
But whoever they are, the world owes these people their eternal gratitude, though we all know these heroes will never get it. While the rest of the world does nothing to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power, they would, no doubt, regret it if it did happen. Being an ostrich with your head in the sand does you no good when a madman with a bomb can blow up your behind. The world’s leaders are too blind to see that, and too gutless to do anything about it even if they did.
These people who do so well in slowing or stopping Iran’s quest for the bomb, including history’s first true cyberwarriors, should be regarded by future generations as the ones who prevented a potential nuclear war or third world war. But, if no war takes place, then they have done their job, even though there is nothing to prove it. The way time works, if something didn’t happen then it is impossible to prove it would have if something else hadn’t happened. Such, probably, will be the case of these Paradoxical Heroes. They most likely will just become a footnote in history, if anything at all, if they succeed at what they set out to do.
Jeff Vanderslice