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Iran's Military Claims To Have Downed US Surveillance Drone
mrquagmire submits a link to the Jerusalem Post's report that an American reconnaissance UAV has been captured by the Iranian military. "'Iran's military has downed an intruding RQ-170 American drone in eastern Iran,' Iran's Arabic-language Al Alam state television network quoted the unnamed source as saying. 'The spy drone, which has been downed with little damage, was seized by the Iranian armed forces.' ... 'The Iranian military's response to the American spy drone's violation of our airspace will not be limited to Iran's borders any more,' Iran's Arabic language Al Alam television quoted the military source as saying, without giving details."
After all, the PRC would never invade any of its neighbors. Not Vietnam, not Korea, not India, not Russia, not Tibet. And they certainly wouldn't make constant menacing gestures against ROC-Taiwan or Japan...
The PRC is hated by every one of its neighbors except Pakistan and North Korea, which are pretty much rogue states.
Maybe they were just trying to slip something in, to see if it could be done? Like, how good are their air defenses really?
A good mission for an "expendable" probe.
Who knows if this is the first one that has been sent in already . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Allegedly. Given the amount of evidence and the history of the regime (last time they made this claim they backed off it) I'm skeptical. It wouldn't really surprise me either way. Iran was putting their equivalent of a drone into Iraq while US forces were there. Maybe they're just returning the favor.
The US is trying to fly as deep into Iran as they can before all the air defense sites 'light up', they're trying to locate all the air defence radars etc.
There is 0 incentive to fly into a territory to find radar sites *before* a conflict has started. Anti-radar munitions have been around since at least the 70's. If a conflict were to break out, the US could then send in aircraft / drones with ARMs and take out any sites that light up.
This is at least the 3rd time Iran has claimed to have downed a US drone. They have provided no proof for any of the claims.
Maybe it's because if you combined the 20 largest military budgets of the world excluding the USA, the USA's is still larger? Because the USA has half the world's aircraft carriers and every one is between 2-9 times the size of any other country's? Because their technology is far beyond anyone else's capability?
China's military budget is less than 17% of the USA's, and they're second in spending. Iran's is about 1%.
The USA thinks it can push other country's around militarily because it actually can. It's a good thing that they're not anywhere near as aggressive as nearly every country/empire with anywhere close to that kind of military dominance in history. Seriously, the world kinda lucked out with how this ended up when it did. That's not to say there aren't problems with this, and the US exerts a lot of undue influence, but most governments in history (and indeed, even today) would have expanded to directly control much of the world with that kind of power.
If you can reliably deliver even 20 warheads to the US on a second strike, you've got more than enough to keep even the most hawkish of politicians or generals from wanting to get into a nuclear slugging match.
For whatever reason, in USA - Iran battle I feel USA is somehow more evil and aggressive side... and given that Iran is theocracy, thats quite an achievement.
839*929
Forbidden? Really?
It actually says "This is forbidden!"?
Toss it under the "Aggressive acts" that countries do to each other all the time. For instance, Iran has been training and supplying people to fight in Iraq against US troops.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
A aerial reconnaissance is not an attack, much less a first strike by any definition.
Sure it's pisses off the target, and is subject to being shot down, but nobody considers it an act of war, that takes killing somebody or capturing/taking something/somewhere.
For that matter, until either the other side admits to losing the drone, or Iran coughs it up to a recognized 3rd party, like the UN for example, it's just propaganda on Irans part. I've seen the B.S. propaganda countries will say in an attempt to gain leverage. Remember the whole USA bombing Libya back in the 80s? I remember them showing an "unexploded bomb" that was actually only part of a high drag fin that wasn't even used in that operation. They also claimed bombing of civilian neighborhoods and showed photos of an area covered with potholes, but the bombs the USA used were larger than most of the potholes themselves and would have leveled the area instead of making potholes. Those holes, if they were caused during that incident, would have been from their own SAM falling down on the city due to stupidity in both the shooters (don't shoot into your own city), and the missile designers (on a miss, it should have self destructed).
I don't care what side you want to take (or not), but when it comes to countries and their propensity for propaganda, don't believe word of mouth, demand proof.
(Something which the article doesn't provide any of.)
There is 0 incentive to fly into a territory to find radar sites *before* a conflict has started.
Au contraire, mon frer. Only gamblers, gluttons and losers go into a fight without assessing their opponent's strengths and weaknesses first. There is a tangible variance between capability and practice; Mismanagement, ignorance, misinformation, unknowns...
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
Iran has a history of expandable borders when they want something that's just slightly over the border. Very much like North Korea in that respect. It's definitely possible that the drone was in their airspace, but it's also possible that there was no drone or that it wasn't in their airspace. Given the credibility that Iran has, I wouldn't necessarily assume that they're being above the board without more information.
Want to bet? I bet that majority people in USA believe that war against Iran is justifiable.
People are gullible by their very nature, and in large empires like USA, they are raised and taught to be more gullible then they would otherwise be, because the "needs of the motherland" require it.
I'm not the majority, but I have read about Operation Ajax. Yeah, I'm American, and I sorta think that we are special, and I like making money, yada yada yada. But, I can't justify what happened with Ajax. We destroyed a legitimate democracy, for the sake of a few cents per barrel of oil.
If I were Iranian, or Persian, or even Arabic, I'd be pretty pissed at the US too.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Military plans for ALL scenarios, and executes one that it's given an order to execute. Therefore preparation for all scenarios must be conducted when possible.
That was weeks ago. It's unrelated to the drone.
According to some, the covert war has already started:
* $400 million funding for CIA Iran covert ops program
* Assassinations of Iranian scientists (the ones we know about: Majid Shahriari, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, Majid Shahriari, Fereidoun Abbasi-Davani (survived), Darioush Rezaeinejad)
* Cyber attacks (Stuxnet etc.)
* Sabotage of military/industrial sites (bombing of Isfahan uranium plant)
* Assassinations of military personnel (the head of the Revolutionary Guards missile program)
* And now: 12 CIA operatives arrested in Iran
It's almost as if someone is trying to provoke a full on war...
Yes, fortunately for us on our moral high-ground, Iran and North Korea are the only nations that have a history of territorial ambitions. The United States would never do something like that. Neither would Britain.
No, it is Iran that escalates it to Women and Children. They have supported terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Israel that are bombing shopping centers LOADED with families. They are not even trying to come after the troops because we are to heavily guarded. So they butcher women and children. Hell, they SEND women and children to do their work for them. They are cowards like you.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There is 0 incentive to fly into a territory to find radar sites *before* a conflict has started.
Ah, no. False. 100% False.
Mapping radar ahead of time is very cost effective. There is no point is shooting a HARM at a remote radar towed behind a truck to some god forsaken mountain side with no coms to any air defense sites, and then losing aircraft approaching their targets to Radars that were there all along but turned on at the last possible instant. You want to know ahead of time which radars you need to kill and which are decoys.
What ever fools marked the parent as insightful, Thank You: for staying in your Mom's basement and not joining the Military.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Yes, pulling up stuff from the 19th century is extremely relevant to this conversation about an unmanned aerial drone.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
No biggie, we can cite the New York Times article lifted from the Wikipedia article the day after.
Pre Iraq, the Muslim world was united, Muslims would never attach Muslims, and attacking a Mosque was unthinkable.
Poppycock!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I assumed the OP was alluding to the past, since he used that "history" word. But if you want to talk about now, please do so.... how exactly has Iran tried to "expand its borders" in the last couple of years? I really would like to know. As far as I can see (and contrary to the images portrayed by some Western media) the Iranian government hasn't invaded anyone, hasn't "settled" or captured any land, and has in fact been praised by the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq for being a good and helpful neighbor.
The government of Iran were also a major regional enemy of the Taliban - after declaring opium unlawful, the Iranian government eradicated the domestic trade in 18 months, and started fighting the Taliban smugglers who use Iran as a transit route to Europe. Three Iranian security agents are killed every day in this "war"; the total killed numbers in the thousands, and they almost went to war with the Taliban when they governed Afghanistan. This is something that our media forget to mention when they try to to convince us that Iran is the bad guy allied with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
I am no apologist for the Iranian government. From our liberal west point of view, we may not like the religious society that they want to create, but compared to ourselves their territorial ambitions seem to have been remarkably limited. Are they the ones that have invaded our neighbors? Are they the ones with soldiers deployed along our borders? Are they the ones constantly meddling in the politics of north America or Europe? Did they ever overthrow a western government and install a dictator? No. And yet, we have done all of these things to them. No wonder they dislike us.
Disagreeing with a government is not a reason to go to war:
"Old men declare war because they have failed to solve complex political and economic problems."
"War is the most striking instance of the failure of intelligence to master the problem of human relationships."
Funnily enough, Christians have always been the majority of casualties in terror attacks by Christian fundamentalists too. The Catholic Church once ordered armies to wipe out the Cathars - another branch of Christianity - resulting in the massacre of over one million men, women and children. The Thirty Years War, the French Wars of Religion, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, hundreds of thousands dead, all carried out by feuding groups of Christians. Religion...
A aerial reconnaissance is not an attack, much less a first strike by any definition.
Try to imagine the roles reversed for a minute:
Iran has a large and powerful military with the latest high tech weapons, and could crush the US in a matter of weeks. Iranian politicians talk openly about the possibility of military strikes or invasion, and Iran is constantly spying on the US with satellites, drones and operatives on the ground. Iran invaded Canada on a lie and effected "regime change", and furthermore is widely seen in the west as being at war with Christianity and the American way of life. Mexico has nuclear weapons and is good friend of Iran, and is waging an active cold war against the US.
Iran is doing everything it can to prevent the US getting nuclear power or weapons. The US is determined to get nuclear weapons because they are the one thing that will definitely prevent Iran from invading, and to develop ICBMs to deliver them to Iranian soil and guarantee Mutually Assured Destruction. Iran keeps bringing new sanctions against the US via the UN, and ordinary US citizens are suffering because of it.
Maybe you can start to understand why Iran behaves the way it does, and why the actions of the US and Israel are just making the situation worse.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC