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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."
I mean I thought the whole idea is you send in unmanned drones to do a dangerous mission because losing a drone is preferable to losing a pilot.(Then again you'd hope the technology on the drone wouldn't be too advanced so the enemy doesn't get much out of shooting one down.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
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.
It was US that violated Iran's airspace. They have every right to shoot it down. It happens frequently with my country too and they never do anything about it - they just go "yes, we will demand answers from the this time, honestly we promise!". Kudos to Iran for taking a stance.
Not really. The US has been flying manned combat aircraft into Iran for several years probing air defences. My Persian cooworkers have a social app that tracks when people on the ground see the planes, I don't speak farsi (or understand the language) so I can't point you at it unfortunately. Searches for USAF probing iranian air defences gives some results along these lines.
The US is trying to fly as deep into Iran as they can before all the air defence sites 'light up', they're trying to locate all the air defence radars etc. It's illegal, but it's been going on for years, and everyone knows the game, the americans pretend 'this time is the time' they're going to attack natanz etc. and the Iranians call their bluff. Presumably one of these days the Israeli's or someone else will take this data and go after air defence sites along with the nuclear facilities but who knows.
Not saying this is what's happening, but there's a tactic of probing an enemy's air defenses to get them to switch on the radars they've been keeping hidden so you won't know to bomb them when the war starts.
It seems like there has been some effort from the US to further increase tensions with Iran - including a string of three catastrophic, improbable but still officially accidental explosions at various Iranian industrial facilities. Add that to Stuxnet and targeted assassinations of Iran's brightest nerds, and it paints a pretty clear picture that we the West are trying to ratchet up tensions. On the other side, there are probably hardliners who are happy to play along. I don't like any of this escalation.
Additionally, the technical specs of the radar systems are already known, because Russia probably makes the systems and American intelligence has the instruction manual.
Knowing the frequencies and techniques of the enemy radar is enough to build an operational flight program for our countermeasures to jam it. I'm pretty sure that it's in our best interests to jam and/or deceive the radars rather than deliberately "light them up" before we strike. I know because I was an avionics troop in the USAF, specializing in electronic warfare (TISS).
Lastly, though, I want to say that all this rhetoric in favor of war with Iran being shoved up our asses is disgusting. With public approval of government at an all-time low and protests in every major city, it is clear that the government have completely lost touch with reality. We are not buying this bullshit again, from the bullshit "WMD" excuse used to go to war with Iraq to the conspicuously missing pictures of Bin Laden ( the U.S. had no problem with proudly displaying Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay as if they were a science fair exhibit! ).
This is fucking bullshit. This shit-talking has to stop.
Someone just blew up (at least) one of their missile bases. There are reports of more attacks.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/image-shows-than-an-iranian-missile-site-was-destroyed/2011/11/28/gIQA7KZW5N_blog.html
Iran claimed it was an accident...
Course then the UK embassy then gets invaded and a drone is shot down. Or claimed. All a coincidence of course.
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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.)
What is there to "win" in Afghanistan? We had an opportunity to be their friends/ally after the Russians left but we didn't.
No one wins in Afghanistan, no one.
America has not won a single war since WW2.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
It was probably made in China.
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...
Actually Iran has signed the NPT and been verified in compliance with that treaty over and over again. Even the latest IAEA report continues to show them in compliance with their NPT obligations. They have no bomb, they have diverted no uranium, and the very worst accusation that has any credible evidence behind it is that they may be interested in developing the necessary technology so that they *could*, should they decide to do so later, develop a nuclear bomb relatively quickly. This ' break-out capability' is something that many other nations have and have had for years - Japan for instance reached this point many years ago, and should they ever decide to develop the bomb they could do it quickly. There is no obligation in international law or treaty for Iran to refrain from this, it is not in violation of the NPT, and many other countries have the same capability without anyone making an issue of it.
Iran signed the NPT as a non-nuclear power and has so far complied with it. They are regularly inspected and the inspectors have always found them in compliance, even in recent years after those inspectors have been thoroughly politicised and clearly aimed at finding the opposite. By comparison, the US signed the NPT as a nuclear power, which exempts it from those intrusive inspections (which we know the US government would never allow.) The obligations of a nuclear power under the NPT however are clear and the US is in constant violation, both in failing to pursue nuclear disarmament and in blatantly co-operating with nations that have not acceded to the NPT in their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Both Israel and India are non-NPT powers that have developed nuclear weapons with US assistance in blatant violation of the US obligations under the NPT. So the fact is that Iran has been playing by the rules and getting punished for it, while they watched their potentially hostile neighbors developing nuclear weapons in open defiance of those rules and being rewarded for it. Under the circumstances it doesnt seem possible for any fair-minded observer to conclude that the primary problem here is on their end.
I dont like the mullahs anymore than anyone else, but blatant war propaganda is still blatant war propaganda and fair is still fair. This dishonest demonisation of Iran and blatantly dishonest and unfair dealing with them doesnt harm the mullahs - in fact it helps them. The Iranian democratic opposition groups who the US claims to support are weakened with every rattle of the sabre. Threats of war, particularly ones based on such blatant dishonesty and double standards as are on display in this case, simply help unite the populace behind their current rulers and work to prevent democratic revolution in Iran, the only long-term solution to the problem of the mullahs.
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Pre Iraq, the Muslim world was united, Muslims would never attach Muslims
I'm not sure if this is sarcasm, but just in case it isn't... Iran-Iraq war, Invasion of Kuwait, Afghan civil war (plus pt2), ...
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."
It's also as though someone wants to prevent a full-out shooting or nuclear war. Israel is taking a more and more hostile stance towards Iran. There are stories leaking about how the Israelis are going to attack Iran without US permission. If you were the US, you have to talk the Israelis off the ledge. So what do you do? You have to do what you did in the First Gulf War to stop the Israelis from coming into the war: hunt Scuds and do other shit to show them that you're providing an alternative. Israeli isn't going to let Iran get nukes. They will do anything to stop that, including a shooting war. Crippling Iran's nuclear capabilities in a backdoor way (I mean, Stuxnet was awesome, right?!) delays that war.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
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