Sanctions Against Iran

The editor of Computer World wrote about Iran's heroic engineers managing to get around the technology embargo (he called it a darkness) of their country by assembling a 'super computer' from a large number of AMD processors.

They published my emailed response.

We're not the problem, as Don Tennant had it in his Dec. 17 Editor's Note, "They Were Like Us." Iran's political and religious leaders are the ones perpetuating the "darkness" by not agreeing to the world community's demands on many issues, including, but not limited to, civil liberties, uranium enrichment and support of worldwide terrorism. Tennant's heartfelt support of the scientists and engineers working hard in their day-to-day lives to make life better is genuine, but their actions in avoiding the repercussions of their government can only exacerbate the problem.

Any technological achievements deriving from their hard work using sanctioned technology will only empower and enable the Iranian government to continue its restrictions on the lives and liberties of those scientists and engineers our world so desperately needs.