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Iran Unveils Its First UAV Bomber
ms_gen writes "Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled today the first UAV bomber produced by Iran. The drone, named Karrar (farsi for Striker) can carry various types of bombs. It can reach up to 900 km/h in speed and has a range of 1000 kilometers (620 miles). The Iranian president mentions that 'Karrar is a symbol of the progress of defence technology in Iran.'"
Who cares?
That's good stuff, the Iranians should use that to bomb the shit out of the americans in the middle east. Turn them into foam toast.
How can one summarize this bit of news, and leave out the fact that Iran refers to this UAV as "The Ambassador Of Death?" I mean, come on. That's the best part.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
It's called Persian. You don't go around saying "in espanol it's called..." do you?
wtf does this have to do with 'news for nerds' /. is becoming less and less relevant
According to TFA. Diplomats are the same in all countries it seems.
Just what I'd expect from Iran, the use of UnAmerican Vile Bombers. So unlike the Righteous Holy American Bombers used by our own beloved military. It's like how Iraq stooped to deploying weapons of mass destruction; something we'd never dream of doing. At this rate we're going to have to liberate the entire world.
The US said it saw no "proliferation risk" from the plant, though Israel condemned the move.
Regarding the US's position, that pretty much contradicts everything I've been hearing in the news.
That's a good one. A bomber being a defensive weapon. Hahahaha
I suppose if you're interested in terrorizing people in your own country it works, but military applications pretty much require that the user control the skies. Otherwise they'll just get shot down in short order.
And numbers only count if you can crank them out, something I suspect Iran might have a hard time with.
And Iran just opened its first nuclear power plant. Hm, this thing has a range of 1000mi. Iran's stated objective is to discontinue the existence of the Israeli state.
1) Say you are going to blow up Israel
2) Build a nuke plant claiming its for peaceful purposes.
3) Build a UAV ("The Ambassador of Death") bomber with a range of 1000mi.
4) Blow the shit out of Israel
5) Face NCB retaliation from a country with absolutely nothing left to lose.
If you weren't paying attention Iran views 4 as the profit step and doesn't seem to care about 5. Note the lack of "???" step. These sure are interesting/frightening times.
Ok, really Iran? If you really want to be credible, you have to stop announcing military things when you have a "civilian" project going. So first off you make a nuclear reactor come online. No problem there, then on the same day you announce that you've upgraded your weaponry... I really, really want to believe that Iran just wants to use the energy for peaceful purposes... But with timing like this... it isn't going to make the west trust you anymore Iran.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Video of a test launch and production.
http://vodpod.com/watch/4282312-iranian-karrar-drone
Looks alot like a V-1 or Loon but with hard points on the wings and turbojet instead of pulse jet. So late 50s technology designed with CAD. Probably a 30-40% failure rate on them too, that's standard for first or second generation cruise missiles/drones.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
NUKE. THEM. NOW.
The US could bomb the shit out of the whole world if they really wanted to, and *everyone* knows that. A pathetic looking UAV isn't going to change one thing. Launch it, bomb Tel Aviv and find out just how irrelevant you are. Go ahead. Iran wiould be flattened in a matter of days. Launch the B-1 bombers from Missouri, they fly to Iran, drop their massive ordinances and fly back, all without hindrence. Anyone who doesn't understand just how powerful the US military is doesn't know how to read. The only reason why wars drag on is because the play kiddie war. If this were World War III you'd know it, because it would be over in 2 weeks.
Though I'm not sure about the ultimate purpose Bushehr, it does seem to be designed for producing electricity and not weapons grade plutonium, the timing is really bad. I mean, first they load Bushehr and two days later they announce the "ambasador of death". It's almost like a bad fiction novel. You simply couldn't make this stuff up. My guess, it's all for internal propaganda but possibly also for Hezbollah.
What this AC wrote really means, "I'm not interested in this, therefore nobody in the world is, either."
Good, inexpensive web hosting
I don't know why anyone is surprised at this latest development. We insisted on utilizing UAVs for more than "surveillance" purposes, so now everyone else is starting to get the same idea.
-Oz
Anyone else notice the irony of today also being when they announced their first /Nuclear/ Power Plant?
At least roll-out something more advanced than a V-1 before calling it a UAV...
The AI has been promised 72 virgin iPads after it completes it's mission.
Decent chance pretty much anyone could cobble something together these days. Or at least take a reasonable crack at it.
From the BBC photos it looks either to be 1) a first strike weapon as its not designed for reuse or 2) is part of a deadman switch retaliation for a strike against the iranian homeland.
Nazi V1 inspired rocket powered sled drones need not be rail based (iran has a few lines) but could be launched from modified SEA containers off semi-trucks (the drone quite stubby in wingspan) or dropped the wheeled carriage after takeoff.
Tactically in a moving / shooting war I doubt these are useful as they are easily destroyed on the ground after satellites and enemy surveillance drones pick them out of the other targets.
Denying lengthy roads, rail lines and destroying trucking depots would be the "counter offensive"
Now back to starcraft II.
The greatest difficulty so far is keeping the pilot with his Futaba radio within the quarter mile radio range of the plane to fly it.
Right? I mean, defensive missiles would be like SAMs and such, not a missile or bomb delivery system that can travel so far...
More BS from IRAN. It's getting to be that whatever they say, just take it in an opposite way.
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
This can only end well. I for one, can't WAIT to meet this new 'ambassador'.
This thing is a gimmick. It is a small cruise missile with remote capabilities. The bomb on it is a tiny little dumb thing that isn't going to hurt anyone unless it hits them directly, and I am going to go out on a limb and say that the avionics on that drone don't amount to much more than a camera bolted on. In defense against the presumed target, the US, this thing is a novelty. The US gets giddy over electronic warfare and this thing is asking have its connection severed. The fuel and explosives are better spent on a missile that doesn't bother to return home and doesn't need an operator to guide it in. This does nothing to help the defense of Iran against the style of combat the US uses.
If you are going to fight the US, and you are not China or Russia, you need to fight dispersed, hidden, and from cover. The only time it is worthwhile to fully stand and fight is if the victory you achieve is worth the destruction of the force you are having stand and fight. It is worthwhile to launch a massive simultaneous missile on a US carrier battle group with everything you have knowing that force will be destroyed. If you kill a carrier, the fact that you just destroyed your missile force is worth it. Outside of that though, you need to fight with the understanding that the US has the capability to glass the shit out of any arbitrary size of land using just conventional weapons. Your goal as the defender is to make it so that your forces are concealed and doing hit and runs, and so never standing around waiting to be glassed, or to fight from a position the US is unwilling to destroy. Namely, if you fight from a city the US won't level the city World War II style. They might knock down the buildings one by one trying to take out suspected military units, but the won't just level the place in one swipe like they could with a few MOABs. This glorified cruise missile doesn't help this style of fighting. It can't be launched by field units, and even if it could, it is going to lead the US back to your position assuming it even makes it back. You are better off to launch a missile that isn't expected to return or, even better, save the money to arm your city bound army with more and better RPGs.
Personally, if I had to organize the defense of Iran from the US, the only conventional forces I would bother with would be sea mines and easily concealed cruise missiles. The only point of those forces would be to try and sacrifice themselves in doing damage to the ocean going invasion force. The rest of my defense would involve the army stripping down into civilian clothing the second the invasion hits and dispersing into the population with a plan, and giving everyone a (civilians included) gun. Train the army in guerrilla tactics, cache weapons and explosives all over the place, and never even make the pretense of fighting with uniforms on. Encourage the civilians to fight in their own amateurish way not to inflict any real harm, but to blur the line between military and civilian in the eyes of the enemy as much as possible. The only military tech worthwhile would be the kind useful to guerrilla forces. Bike bombs, all manner of concealed explosives, easily concealed weapons, concealed body armor, methods of communicating across cells and receiving orders, methods of smuggling, modified civilian vehicles (that still look civilian) with military applications, and that sort of thing are the techs worth developing in earnest. You still need the capacity to fight a conventional war against your neighbors, but the real threat, the US, is a fight you don't want to do standing up. The US loves nothing more than to see massive troop formations all lined up nice and orderly in a big open desert. See Iraq War part 1 for what happens to armies that stand.
Wow - they invented a V1. What's next? Television?
The bad news is Iran is run by crazies.
The good news is this puts us one step closer to real life robot wars!
Ok come on. Iran is a very well developed nation. So we're talking about "color" television here.
Snide joke aside, they're an advanced nation. But I don't think UAVs will suit their military well.
It must just drop "friendship-bombs" then =)
This particular UAV doesn't have the range to threaten Israel (that would require another 500km at least)
You should probably invest in a world atlas (or just look at Google Earth). There are plenty of locations inside Israel that are significantly less than 1,000 kilometers from the Iranian border, if one assumes that you don't necessarily need to get the UAV itself back afterwards. That includes basically the whole of Haifa, and parts of both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, all three of their largest cities.
Now, this does of course also assume that the claimed 1,000 kilometer range is accurate, and doesn't consider prevailing winds, which would affect range, perhaps substantially. Just measuring distance as the crow flies, though, parts of Iran's Kermanshah and Ilam provinces are within 1,000 kilometers of multiple major Israeli cities, and overall quite a bit of Israel is significantly less than 1,000 kilometers from Iran.
China, North Korea, Burma, Lebanon, Pakistan, Gaza, Afghanistan, Somalia, Zimbabwe and Venezuela?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No coincidence that this device's range covers many of the nations over there that are 'friendly' to "the west". Jerusalem, Ankara, Riyadh are all potential targets, as is all of Qatar, UAE and most of Pakistan. Plus it can reach anywhere in Afghanistan, where many "western" military personnel are fighting against forces believed to be supported and partially funded by Iran.
Learn about your enemies
Iran has every right to develop whatever weapons and energy systems it wishes. She is a sovereign nation. As mush as I think they are lying about their intents, it does not change the fact that Iran is a sovereign nation and can do whatever she pleases in terms of military and energy development.
This is really part of the Pentagon's smaller budget. We're now getting the Iranians to build and launch new target drones for the US Navy.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
I've driven all those cars, and every year that rankings come out, the ones with best quality are the ones with least of local modifications (206 included). Every few years they announce a brand new "National Car" initiative which turns out to be a hybrid of several foreign designs put together usually poorly and then after it fails in the market, it becomes the mandatory car for government organizations. Considering 80% of economy is owned and run by the government, the manufacturing will survive with just one customer. In a few years, rinse, repeat, blah blah. Proof of the massive failure of auto industry in Iran is their constant lack of ability to penetrate even third world markets and even though they sell them to foreign markets at a fraction of the domestic price.
Generally speaking, while the state of industry in some areas is better than Iraq, Afghanistan and few neighbouring countries, it's nothing remotely comparable to west or even Turkey. Along with improving relations with China, the few barely competitive sectors are being bought one by one by the Chinese, then begin importing and labeling Chinese products to sell domestically as Iranian-made. The incompetence of government, powerful grip of Revolutionary Guards over virtually all industries and their profit at any cost MO as well as population's general ignorance are all contributors.
Iran's auto industry was founded almost the same time as South Korea. Saddens me to look at their global empire and our local disaster.
How is this thing piloted? Remote control? I doubt Iran will maintain the use of their electromagnetic spectrum during a conflict with the US or Israel. Inertial navigation? Maybe, but its doubtful they have the technology to hit small, hard targets. GPS? Good luck with that. We'll turn on encryption. Or worse yet, every potential target coordinate will resolve to downtown Tehran.
It's a neat little drone, but if it can't navigate, its useless for anything other then a terror weapon.
Have gnu, will travel.
You're totally missing the point in the US these days. Iran is fighting a Cold war, a propaganda war.
As long as they play it so that the US looks like the aggressor to Iran's target audience, and as long as they maintain a brave posture, but don't give outright reason to be attacked, they are winning.
Why do you think the US has so much trouble getting sanctions against Iran approved?
Whether you call it Farsi or Persian, Karrar is neither. It's Arabic and while many Arabic words and phrases are used in everyday Farsi, "Karrar" is definitely not one. As a native Farsi speaker with some knowledge of Arabic, I had to look the meaning up. Generally, the government has some fetish of putting Arabic names on everything, especially anything military related to make them sound more "holy" since Arabic is language of Islam.
I just found the following statement in an article (http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/ali_ettefagh/2008/04/stagnate_wages_for_high_prices_1.html)
"Most significant of all is that Iran has virtually no foreign debt and it can spend its currency reserves on capital goods, rather than import of food."
and also "The difference, however, is that the experiences of war, revolution and naked threats of aggression have pushed Iranians towards an attitude of self-sufficiency and a search for an independent path, as chosen by China and India some 30 - 40 years ago. As such, it is a work in progress and the Iranian economy is growing at Chinese and Indian rates."
I would have to say that Iran is somewhat backwards from a developmental point of view but they do have potential.
The food issue was a problem for Russia for instance and initially also for Germany before the second world war so I wouldn't underestimate it.
I'm wondering for how long Russia and China will be supporting Iran, both have some issues with Muslim populations but obviously the problems aren't big enough to prevent support for Iran, seems like the West is the bigger problem. I wonder how far their support will go.
Besides the support Iran has been getting from Russia and China, Iran is trying to develop its own military hardware. I'm wondering how far along they are in terms of independence, i.e. can they produce their own semiconductors? They seem to have the people but can they produce their own chips? The hardware is obviously flying but by what means?
If Iran is as far along as mentioned, they certainly aren't a real threat just yet, maybe if they were a puppet I would be somewhat concerned.
I guess the current posturing is meant to give Iran some breathing room to develop a credible opposition to the West. With the current involvements in the Middle East I doubt that the West is going to do anything about it.
Je me souviens.
Problem is Israel is more than 1000 miles away from Iran. FAIL!!!!
Can we just bomb their nuclear reactor and take all their oil already and quit with the fake reasons to do so?
I come here for the love
....too bad we invented these things in the early 90's, Iran. Your bombers wouldn't make it as far as Iraqi airspace before being taken out by a patriot missile.
Given that Iran's proxies Hezbollah have taken over Lebanon, it seems clear that the Iranians have invaded and occupied that country. Also consider than some of the great persian epic poems and ballads are about fighting in Afghanistan - Khorasan, as they call it. Certainly the Iranians have invaded that country, which is why there are so many Persian speakers there.
It's ironic that when Iran was politically benign during the 1950s, it was subjected to foreign meddling. But now that Iran is in the grip of an irredentist ideology and trying to build nuclear weapons, the Left are suddenly arguing they pose little threat.
It just goes to show how morally bankrupt the Left has become, when they scoff and sneer at some poor illiterate woman who's facing death by stoning, claiming that her case is over-hyped and overblown. That's not the kind of liberalism I was raised to respect - kids these days (sigh).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib9rofXQl6w
It is time to swat some bugs and sober Iran up a bit.
I figured they stole the design from the Intrepid Museum-the Submarine Growler has a first gen analog cruise missle right there in the harbor.
In 1982, Argentina caused major havoc in the war with Britain with just 5 exocet missiles. It nearly sank the Invincible, whicj probably would have made the war a draw. If Iran has these weapons that could have even a small chance of sinking or damaging a carrier, it will really complicate the war for the USA and could force it to restrict their use or keep even more forces dedicated to their defense. Dont underestimate countries like Iran, like the uk underestimated Argentina, or the USSR did with Finland in 1939, for instance...
Hi. We are Iran. We are friendly and wish only peace. Here is our new drone bomber! All we have to do is point and click and * boom *. Nice meeting you friend, we want to be pals!
How is this entry "news for nerds, stuff that matters"????
A complete waste of time, bandwidth and cpu cycles!!
Them persians make some mighty fine rugs, I tells ya. Where can I git me one a those there bombers? Will Mugadean's Rug Emporium carry these? I gots to have one for the brick house baday !!
List of carriers and nations, all classes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_carrier#Aircraft_carriers_in_service
I'm sure western politicians and weapons are portrayed similar by 'the orientals', as the were described by experts - flaunting power, arrogance, and foolish statements, all under an expert twist of 'objective', fact based journalism, with no bias. Everyone believes only what is true, on both sides. I'm glad to say I know the truth.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Watch out! That bomb is packing Care Bears!
They will probably fly a few dozen planes into Iran and bomb the snot out of every facility they have intelligence on.
Depending on the number of facilities and the general touchiness of Iran, which is not likely to be low...
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
"Iran's industrial sector is more advanced than you might think"
To be clear, you're talking about a country that sits on a giant reserve of oil, but has to import gasoline because they have no refining capacity. Iran's industrial sector is a fucking embarrassment.
You're talking about Tehran, a city whose building codes will be cited as the cause of the worst single humanitarian disaster in history when the big one finally hits NW Iran. 10 million dead is going to be an interesting psychic moment for the Islamic Republic.
Iran's great defense is their mountains. No one wants to fight from valley-to-valley killing thousands of poorly armed soldiers trying to fight a country that's one bad natural disaster away from being the next North Korea or Pakistan.
Even Saddam Hussein was only dumb enough to try it once.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Firing stuff into the expanses of the Iraqi desert is a wasteful proposition. American intelligence will jam this thing's controls into oblivion the first time they try to bomb Baghdad.
This thing is a far cry from an Exocet or a Tomahawk. And it's a really far cry from a Predator.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Until I hear Hezbollah taking interest in it, I will consider it a piece of crap. Although I could see Hugo Chavez wasting money on it. He's pretty damned nuts.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Iran's core military strategy is to send one guy with a rifle and ten unarmed guys behind him. The Iranians' grand military plan is to refight the Battle of Stalingrad. Even deploying this strategy, they basically fought Iraq to the ugliest stalemate since the trenches in France in 1915. A full-on war between the US and Iran would result in the equivalent of a one-sided Verdun every single week.
A couple missiles aren't going to mitigate the fact that Iran has no strategic petroleum reserve and zero refining capacity. Its transport would fail in the first week of any war and agriculture couldn't last a year. Probably less if the attacker(s) launched a prolonged ground war in late winter (as is US tradition in the region) before crops go in the ground.
A couple missiles are also not going to mitigate the fact that Iran would mostly depend on imported Hezbollah fighters to train its army how to fight a ground war the right way. And, frankly, you can't take a military modeled on the Red Army and convert it into a competent guerilla force like Hezbollah without years of advance planning. That planning hasn't happened. Iran doesn't have any commando force of any international reputation.
In short, Iran is not prepared to fight the war it would need to fight to take advantage of its rough terrain.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Ignore the girly peach fuzz on her face and kiss her pouty lips.
In every Board over on 4chan, there are 72 virgins trolling eachother night and day about how they have
big cox and neckbeards and can break-down any barrier with exception of the most-feared a hymen.
What kind of sadistic joke is to for a supposedly sinless suicide bomber to sacrifice his otherwise purity
to commit the sin of killing himself moments before causing the death of untold others, and then arrive
at a coveted place beyond space and time to meet these 72-virgins towering over him in all aspects of
Anonymous cruelty?
Something tells me, those vereses are being mis-interpreted to make the most spineless of jelly-fish
muster just enough blind bravery; with all the gang-rapes I hear that occur at the hands of muslims who
blame the beauty of a scantily-clad woman as to be the lady's fault for them raping her, that poor suicide
bomber is go'na git raped by those 72-virgin neckbeards. My question is, does God will it? God wills it??
GOD WILLS IT!!!!?????
And a range of 620 miles? Isn't that about the distance between Iran and Israel? How sweet of them.
(This "coincidence" is the surest sign to me that it doesn't have nearly the claimed range.)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
I thought the borders of Iran and her sky would've been well protected by the Burka-force Coverture renouned
by Arabs for erecting over their most feminine customs. I thought myself after seeing the "Modonnas" Nuclear-
reactors along PCH101 near San Diego CALIFORNIA to be the most perfect example of how more willing us nerds
are willing to come between them if ever we snuck on the premises for kicks and giggles, and the plant Employees
raised a security fence and alarm system to disuade such visits of my favorite peaks topped by seagull-shat.
Yet here we see of all mudslim countries, the same beautiful femininity lacking visual concealment than the
fancy goyim nations. In the words of their Prophet, they are responsible alone for the raping they are about
to commit against theirselves.
And worse, they got big cox and neckbeards and their faces as though staring into the abyss of darkness of
which has no end into the deep under their feet from which they troll the most horrendous of cruelities to
ever consume their adversaries.
Don't. mess. with. Anonymous.
Air war is as much about intelligence these days as anything else. Long gone are the days of the dog fights. Now, at least if you are talking the US, you engage targets beyond visual range with extremely smart guided missiles.
So if you want to have an airforce that can deal with the US you need four things:
1) Something to counter their AWACS. It might be stealthy jets, it might be good jamming hardware, whatever the case you have to have something to stop that. Otherwise, they'll know ever every single thing in the air is, with pinpoint accuracy. This can be crossdecked directly to new fighters, or simply told to older ones, so their jets can come in without ever turning on a radar. They don't even need them on to fire with AWACS coverage.
2) Something to pick up their planes. The US has a bunch of stealthy craft these days. Even the F/A-18Fs aren't easy to pick up and the F-22As are close to invisible unless the fire, never mind the B2-Bs. You need to have some technology to be able to find those, otherwise they'll pick off your planes, destroy your bases, etc and you won't be able to do anything about it. I don't know if there is such a technology, but you'd need to have some reasonable way to find their craft to kill them
3) Good night fighting ability. The US loves night attacks, because they are really good at it and most people are really bad at it. So you need the equipment and the training to have your jets as effective at night as during the day. Otherwise they'll simply wait until your air cover becomes weak at night and destroy the air bases.
4) Long range, highly effective missiles. Even if you can find their craft and so on you still have to engage them at a long range. The US has long range missiles that are hard to jam, you have to have the same if you are to have a realistic chance in air combat.
Without those four things, the US WILL have air superiority. They'll simply shoot down any fighters, bomb air bases (which can be done with extreme accuracy) and then blast SAM sites.
Assuming you could even pull such a thing off, it is signing your own death warrant. US doctrine about WMD is very explicit. They'll respond in kind. Blow up a bunch of cities and it'll result in the US removing your country from the map. While the US has greatly drawn down its nuclear weapon stores, it still has more than enough for anything. It also has a bunch of extremely hard to counter delivery mechanisms, like ICBMs, sub launched missiles, bombs from B-2s and so on.
Attacking the US with nuclear weapons, especially on a large scale, would be signing your national death warrant. The "Do what we say or we'll hurt you more," is just even more excuse for it. Kill everyone before they have the chance.
Also what you are proposing is difficult to the point of impossibility. It would require smuggling in lots of large weapons (the kind of thing that can take out a city is not small) unnoticed, hiding them and keeping them hidden, and having some remote triggering mechanism, again that goes undetected. All this considering that if they are found, it could be good cause for the US to simply say "Fuck it," and nuke you.
I wouldn't be surprised if in some nondescript office building in Virginia sits someone with nothing better to do than ponder the consequences of using some of the Iranian drones they just hacked to reduce Ahmadinejads presidential palace to rubble.
But seriously a jet powered UAV? Whats the point? Is there a network of invisible stealth refuling blimps to go with them? If you can't use them for spying they are basically mirv like missles except many many times slower and easier to defeat than a conventional missle. Whats the point in that?
It just goes to show how morally bankrupt the Left has become, when they scoff and sneer at some poor illiterate woman who's facing death by stoning, claiming that her case is over-hyped and overblown. That's not the kind of liberalism I was raised to respect - kids these days (sigh).
How about this for a liberal value: LEAVE SOVEREIGN NATIONS ALONE. If we have to invade Iran for stoning women, we've got about twenty other countries with worse human rights records - including some of our biggest allies like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan - that we'd have to invade. And those other allies I mentioned are far less democratic than Iran.
Hezbollah did not appear out of Iran's magic crystal ball. It appeared directly as a result of Israeli and American forces invading Lebanon in 1982. If you'll remember at the time, Iran was fighting an all out war against the US backed henchman Saddam Hussein, because we didn't like their chosen government back then either. I don't think they had time to form a commando unit and invade Lebanon while they were losing that war. (Gee, and that was around the time that Reagan and some current Fox News personalities were committing treason by selling weapons to sworn enemies, taking the money to Colombia, and playing the other side of the drug war to fund the unconstitutional CIA. Fascinating!)
We like destroying secular Arab nationalism and getting absolutely shocked when it turns into extreme islamic fundamentalism. We destroyed the Iranian government in 1953 and ended up with the Islamic Revolution in 1979. We destroyed the marxist government of Afghanistan and eventually got the Taliban. We destroyed the PLO and got Hamas. We destroyed Lebanese movements and we got Hezbollah. We destroyed Iraq and I'll guaran-fucking-tee you we're going to get some crazy Shia elements there as well. Amazing! It's like if you subject people with war and misery for decades, they come out the other side with some kind of chip on their shoulder.
Can we see a pattern here? Just like if you invaded South Carolina and took out their army, you'd have a bunch of fanatical Christians blowing themselves up trying to take just a piece out of whoever invaded. It's a rational response when you have no options left.
So, seriously, shut the fuck up about Iran. You can get all offended and moral about their religious laws when you stop Catholic priests from using their separate religious rules to rape children and get away with it. Oh, but I guess child-rape is morally sound in your sad, fucked up world, huh? Either that, or you think it's easier to go halfway around the world and start another war in the same spot for the third time this decade to stop some injustice.
If you really think that's the case, I have only one thing to say: go. fuck. yourself.
Sincerely,
A "Liberal" Who Has Values,
Including Calling A Spade A Spade
"This jet is a messenger of honour and human generosity and a saviour of mankind, before being a messenger of death for enemies of mankind,"
It must be me, but from this line i deduce that they're going to shoot this thing at aliens ? I'm pretty sure all the other enemies of Iran are also part of "mankind" ...
Was it just me who looked at the picture attached to the article and thought "Thunderbirds"? ...then I looked at the bunch of characters next to it and I swear I saw some puppet strings.
Despite what you might think, most Iranians hate the USA more than they hate their government.
do you *really* think this thing can fly? where's it's wings?
I sure didn't see any landing gear on this "UAV". It looks like a one way vehicle which would put it in the low budget cruise missile category that has to be remotely flown to the target by a human.
The rest of the region hates Iran. The Arabs have no affinity with the Persians. It's why Iraqis Shiites were glad to shoot at the Iranians during the war.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
"...a symbol of progress in defense technology for Iran."
Israel, US, Anyone attacks Iran and up go these 'bombers'. Where will they come down? Israel? Naw. Israel is too well defended and would never dream of blaming the US for collateral damage caused by an attack on Iran. But how about Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Kuwait? the UEA? Even Iraq would be a good target. Maybe Iran launches a dozen, maybe twenty, maybe fifty. These things are cheap. Maybe a quarter come down and, yeah, the governments that get bombed will hate Iran but they will hate Israel and the US even more. "You Jews! You Americans! If you hadn't attacked Iran this wouldn't have happened." Maybe we don't get the fly-over rights any longer. Maybe a few of our bases close. Maybe oil is a few dollars more expensive. Little things start happening and other little things stop. No country within striking range of Iran is safe and they know it. I bet there were a lot of angry messages on Mrs. Clinton's desk when this came out and I bet they all said 'don't touch Iran'.
It is now political suicide for Israel and the US to attack Iran and it won't matter a whit how much damage is inflicted because the real damage will be to the attackers.
*Defense
They went from flinging their own poop at each other to building a UAV in a matter of months!
Is it me, or does this thing resemble a V-1 just enough? I'm impressed that in 60+ years, there has been only minor advancement in this field. Apparently, Iran needs more German scientists. The biggest change is that the ordanance is now carried underneath so the vehicle is re-usable.
Usually, countries start out with a cruise missle platform, but Iran has leapfrogged right into UAV. It's probably controlled by a cell-phone too. Note the stubby wings that are reaward of midpoint, meaning the CG is probably somewhat more towards the rear as well, meaning the engine is heavier than the fuel supply and avionics. The V-1 was that way as well, even thought the pulse-jet engine on the V-1 wasn't much more than a tube and a set of flaps.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Not to mention how easily they'll show up to Patriot.
Someone wrote a book about it: The Confederate Dirty War
A short review.
The book details how elements within the Confederacy, acting officially or otherwise, developed and attempted numerous plans to inflict terror and death on the Union populace and bring down the government. Singer introduces the reader to such shadowy characters as Professor Richard Sears McCulloch, who resigned a faculty chair at Columbia College to assist the Confederacy in making a chemical weapon; Luke Pryor Blackburn, a physician and, later, governor of Kentucky, who allegedly spread smallpox and yellow fever throughout the North.
This is a war against other Christians and fellow countrymen. Imagine if South Carolinians were under the thumb of Muslim or Chinese forces.
Not to discount at all the terrorism inflicted on the South by the North. Most terrorism is committed by the powerful, but that doesn't mean the oppressed population just gives up without a fight.
"Neither party is wrong" perhaps but both are ironic: http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1937-unnatural-acts-breaking-the-fever-of-militarism.html (see my comment there on irony).
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1937-unnatural-acts-breaking-the-fever-of-militarism.html#comment-2450
"Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead? Likewise, nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land? "
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
If ground forces are clearing out the AA, that means that the grounds forces own the area and there is no need to bomb it! The US Air Force has specialized warcraft for taking out AA sites. Look up "Wild Weasels".
I agree with most part of your commentary. However, the term "little countries" is rather disturbing. As far as I know, the USA wasn't born a great country. And I don't think that it will ever be a great country. There was the Romans, where are they? And the Persians, and the Ottomans...
literacle.com