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Iran Has Put a Satellite Into Orbit
Dekortage writes "'Dear Iranian nation, your children have placed the first indigenous satellite into orbit,' announced Iran's President Ahmadinejad yesterday. The satellite, named Omid ('hope'), was launched to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution. Video shown on Iranian television shows a Safir-2 rocket rising into the sky, as a follow-up to a test firing last August."
I dunno, but I'd like to see some third party confirmation before I believe that Iran has a satellite in orbit. Launching a satellite and putting it in orbit is a tricky thing to do; only a few countries have managed it, and none the size or technology level of Iran, IIRC.
Honestly, look at this list. One of these things in not like the others.
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If this is true and the satellite reached escape velocity you have just demonstrated that Iran can drop a warhead on any city worldwide.
Super happy fun times to come, good job on easing tensions.
Iraq: No ICBMs, no nukes, invaded and President executed after a mock trial.
Korea: Nukes, ICBMs (not worldwide range, but can hit California), currently negotiating in multilateral talks.
I think this move by Iran actually may ease tensions.
FYI: Canada has nuclear power stations AND has launched satellites. Are you scared now?
Canada is a responsible member of the international community that hasn't made threats to wipe neighbors off the map, allowed criminals within it's own population to overrun foreign embassies and supplied terrorist groups with financial support/weapons.
If Iran wants to be treated like a grown up member of the international community perhaps they could borrow a few lessons from our neighbors to the North? Besides which, ice hockey is way cooler than soccer anyway.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Why mess with a launch and guidance system able to withstand launch and reentry stresses when you could just build a Fat Man and put it in the back of a van?
Because the missile is better.
It doesn't take more than a half an hour to hit the USA. It doesn't have any risks in transportation. You can't practically recall a ballistic missile after it has been launched. You can launch a missile ad-hoc, and finally, a missile launched high above the USA fries all of our electrical shit. Fatman in the truck can't do any of that.
The smuggled weapon in the back of the truck, on the other hand, requires every single person on the way to not notice, or actively participate in the delivery of the weapon. And, it's less effective militarily.
The thing about container ships, is that there are not that many of them, as they are so big these days, that stopping them and tracking them is actually pretty practical. You can monitor a ship as its sailing all the way from Iran or an Arabian port all the way to the USA. You can fly geiger counters over it and around it to look for neutrons coming out of it. There's just way more risk for the delivery and its not a good deterrent.
Defense is not the solution, and security theater is just a waste
If defense is not the solution, then why preach birth control? Defense doesn't solve everything, but it does increase the probability of failure to an attacker, so that he or she won't attack, and also reduces the likelihood of the attacker of spreading that attack to other parties. To put it another way, if Hitler had been stopped in France, do you think he still invades Russia?
This is my sig.
Other attack vectors (smuggling in warheads by sea/land) may be technically easier and more likely, but (being cold about it) the end damage potential is much less. If terrorists set off a bomb or two, there's lots of damage, but the rest of the country is still intact. But if a missile launches, the end result is basically that all the missiles fly. And that ruins everyone's day.
To quote Stuart Slade, defense analyst (emphasis mine):
The problem with missiles is this; once they are fired, they are on their way. Nothing can stop them (in the sense that the launch decision is final; contrary to many people's opinion, ICBMs do not have a destruct system - ones fired on range testing do, but operational ones do not) and nothing can prevent them striking their targets. The other problem is that they are very fast-moving and give the forces on the other side very little chance to decide what is happening and why. If a launch is detected now, the President has less time to make his decision over future action than most people to chose their meal at a restaurant.
Thrown into that is the inevitability of the whole thing; a missile fired means a target hit. Unless the wretched thing malfunctions, of course, but nuclear weapons are not a good place to start relying on luck. So the simple fact that a missile is on its way means that a country is about to have some fairly catastrophic damage inflicted on it. But is that all? Is that first missile the start of a salvo? Is it aimed at the deterrent forces on the ground - so that any response will be ragged? Without going too deeply into the dynamics of the decision (that would take a book rather than an answer to a question on an essay), the odds stack so that if a missile is inbound, it requires immense faith and courage not to return fire. That's step one.
Now we go to step two. The nation that has let one fly either by accident or design. Its government knows that the "other side" has immense pressure on it to return fire, that the odds in the decision-making process stack in favor of opening fire. If they hang around and wait to see what will happen, the rest of their forces get caught on the ground - and destroyed. So they require immense faith and courage not to continue firing.
Step three - the nation that is being fired on knows that the other guys are working on the basis that the odds stack in favor of continuing firing. That ends it; they know the other guys will open fire, so even if they had decided not to, they will reverse that decision. The guys who fired first know that so, even if they had decided not to fire, they reverse that decision.
Everybody fires, everybody dies. More or less. Both sides know it so they don't bother with the question. One flies, they all fly. The only question is the timing.
How does BMD figure into this? It buys time. A single missile inbound can be shot down reasonably easily. So if a single inbound is detected, it can be shot down - stopped from reaching its target. That takes the dreadful time squeeze out - both sides can afford to wait to see what happens. The side that is being shot at can see what develops and also contact the other side and ask. Not a joke - that may be the most important single step. The side that let one fly by accident knows that the other side is going to wait so they can also afford to do so. And the whole situation is a lot cooler.
That's not to say we shouldn't secure ports and borders and all that. We certainly should. But we can't ignore the less-likely but potentially more catastrophic threat, either. The "we can't stop everything, so let's do nothing" approach is stupid, too.
It should also be noted that the US had a working missile defense system in the 70s.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
has nothing to do with being pro-israel, or pro-western, or anti-muslim
suspicion of iran has to do with it being a theocracy. doesn't matter that it is a muslim or christian theocracy, or whether it is located in the middle east, or south america, or antarctica. the issue is it being a theocracy. begnning of valid concern about iran, end of valid concern about iran
if someone is concerned about iran, it very well could be for mindless ethnocentrism, religious bigotry, or tibal chest thumping reasons. it is very easy to be concerned about iran for the lowest and most disgraceful reasons
but someone can also be concerned about iran simply from a strictly globalist, humanist, universal, highminded reason:
a theocracy is a very bad thing
why?
we are talking about a government that has, ensconced in its constituion, a bunch of grumpy old men, who are above all law or ability to be questioned, who act in the name of god, and have a monopoly on interpretting the will of god, according to law. that doesn't bother you?
power in iran is not ahmadinejad. power is in the ayatollahs. ahmadinejad is a figurehead. he does not hold the final power. the ayatollahs can freely choose to disavow any candidate form office, and have done so exorbitantly in past elections to disallow popular reform candidates from running
would you consider it a problem if the pope could, without any ability to question or veto his decision, walk into the elections in germany, or the usa, or great britain, and simply cherry pick the candidates he wants to run?
again, the problem is not islam. the problem is not the middle east. the problem is not being anti-israeli. the problem is not being anti-western. all of these instincts are perfectly valid and defensible world views
the problem is with iran being a THEOCRACY. on that issue alone, is suspicion of iran perfectly valid, from either a pro-western or anti-western point of view
pay attention to the below text... this government is going to get a nuclear warhead:
http://www.iranonline.com/iran/iran-info/Government/constitution-1.html
so these grumpy old men, with a monopoly on intepretting what the will of god is, are about to get control over a nuclear warhead
and people wish to say that if you are concerned about this, you must be some brain dead tribal pro-western muslim hater?
really?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
For those of us that worked in the Defense Industry, this is a classic. For those that are new, you can probably appreciate this.
This WAV is from a military training video on missile guidance.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Yeah, you're right, with the U.S. trade imbalances over the last umpteen years, what nerve of us to open our markets and buy all that stuff. And guess what happens when we stop buying the rest of the world's stuff? The current economic meltdown. That's some definition of imperialism, ya got there, son.
Gerry