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Tensions Over Hormuz Raise Ugly Possibilities For War
Hugh Pickens writes "The high stakes standoff between Iran and the U.S. over the Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for one-fifth of the world's oil, escalated this week as Iran's navy claimed to have recorded video of a U.S. aircraft carrier entering the Port of Oman and the deputy chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Hossein Salami rejected U.S. claims that it could prevent Iran from closing the strait. To drive the point home, Iran has started a 10-day naval exercise in the Persian Gulf to show off how it could use small speedboats and a barrage of missiles to combat America's naval armada while in a report for the Naval War College, U.S. Navy Commander Daniel Dolan wrote that Iran has acquired 'thousands of sea mines, wake homing torpedoes, hundreds of advanced cruise missiles (PDF) and possibly more than one thousand small Fast Attack Craft and Fast Inshore Attack Craft.'" (Read more, below.)
Hugh Pickens continues: "The heart of the Iran's arsenal is its 200 small potential-suicide boats — fiberglass motorboats with a heavy machine gun, a multiple rocket-launcher, or a mine — and may also carry heavy explosives, rigged to ram and blow a hole in the hull of a larger ship. These boats will likely employ a strategy of 'swarming' — coming out of nowhere to ambush merchant convoys and American warships in narrow shipping lanes. But the U.S. Navy is not defenseless against kamikaze warfare. The U.S. has put more machine guns and 25-millimeter gyro-stabilized guns on the decks of warships, modified the 5-inch gun to make it more capable of dealing with high-speed boats, and improved the sensor suite of the Aegis computer-integrated combat system aboard destroyers and cruisers. 'We have been preparing for it for a number of years with changes in training and equipment,' says Vice Admiral (ret.) Kevin Cosgriff, former commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command."
The US should have spent the 500 Billion or so it wasted on lies about Iraq on researching renewable energy, and the Middle East would have returned to its peaceful irrelevance as oil would no longer have been strategically so important.
Even if the US whould have invested 500Billion in a meaninful way in the Region, the world would be better off.....
For 500 Billion they could have bought the Strait of Hormuz of built a pipeline.
I tend to hear this accusation a lot but still have no idea what exactly where it comes from. Could someone please tell me whose oil the US has stolen?
Their primary naval weapon is a missile that can get into ballistic mode before a ship's countermeasure can intercept it. From what I read, the strategy behing "suicide boats" is not the kamikaze strategy of crashing a boat inside an aircraft carrier but rather to be used as the launchpoint of a single anti-ship missile. The launching boat will be easy to sink, but very cheap to replace. If two or three of these boats can sink one large US ship, that is a net win for Iran.
You can't escape a missile with a ship, and no 100% efficient counter-measure exist yet. If Iran strikes first, no big US ship should expect to survive the first wave.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Given the US withdrawal in Iraq, engaging in a war with Iran won't be easy or popular. Lately they've managed to capture drones and threatening the shipping will let them achieve their own goals with the least risk of provoking a US response.
I guess the real question is, what will the US do if it is attacked? In all likelyhood, they will be buzzed by Iranian boats without actually being attacked. But how close will they let such boats approach?
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
For a start, read about how our CIA led a coup to overthrow an elected leader who wanted more profits from the oil companies to go to the people. It was called Operation Ajax. We have a history of meddling in nations when leaders nationalize resources we want (Vietnam and Nicaragua, too). In Saudi Arabia we support an oppressive *monarchy* (i.e., NOT a democracy), apparently because we like their oil. Our presence there was a stated motive of Al Qaeda. So it's not so much stealing the oil as it is trying to control the government which gives us a good deal on the oil.
Gee, I dunno, maybe because there are dozens of dictators, generally dangerous countries and places that really needed some help getting their revolution groove on...
But the US only seem to find a reason to get into armed conflict when there is oil involved. They don't literally steal, they just help you "conquer" your country back and then "request" "payment".
I know I'm going to get the flamebait mod, but this is actually the general opinion of the rest of the world about most of US wars.
Iran unlikely to block oil shipments through Strait of Hormuz, analysts say.
From the linked article: And Iran — which has enjoyed record oil profits over the past five years but is faced with a dwindling number of oil customers — relies on the Hormuz Strait as the departure gate for its biggest client: China.
“We would be committing economical suicide by closing off the Hormuz Strait,” said an Iranian Oil Ministry official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “Oil money is our only income, so we would be spectacularly shooting ourselves in the foot by doing that.”
Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani, a political scientist running for parliament from the camp of hard-line clerics and commanders opposing Ahmadinejad, said it is “good politics” for Iran to respond to U.S. threats with threats of its own.
“But our threat will not be realized,” Ardestani said. “We are just responding to the U.S., nothing more.”
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Malcolm Gladwell touches about a similar situation in his book Blink. He talks about the largest ever war exercise called the Millennium Challenge. In short, the US hired a badass ex-Marine named Paul Van Riper to command the OPFOR. This guy wrecked havoc on the US Navy by using speed boats and cruise missiles. It was so bad, the US had to stop the exercise, refloat their boats, changed the rules of engagement, then did the exercise ever again. Of course, the blue force won the second time and they claimed a huge success.
The sequence mentioned in the opening summary is wrong.
Iran announced their intention to block the strait if attacked. Then they announced a 10 day wargame in the straight. Then the US warship moved closer to the vicinity.
I agree, although the USA is not alone in misguided attempts at nation building (USA's biggest failures: Supporting Saddam, training Osama, supporting the Taliban etc). Britain (to pick one) has a fairly glorious history of screw-up in this department, who do you think carved up the Middle East to cause many of the preblem we now face? Basically when any nation for a very different culture tries to "help" (for relatives values of "Doing whatever Big Money wants") it seems to blow-up in their face about 15 years down the line.
Maybe there's a lesson here?
Do the Iranians realize that there are those in the US who think a war with Iran would be a good thing? Is it wise for the Iranians to give them an excuse to proceed?
Only one of the candidates hoping to run against Obama is happy that we're pulling out of Iraq. (And considering the size if the Iraqi embassy and the size of the staff there, "pulling out" is really a euphemism for withdrawing to the embassy.)
USA bad.
$my_country good.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/washington/12navy.html
Why did US enter into conflict in Libya but not Syria?
How telling.
I mean when Bush was president didn't we hear the scare story from Seymour Hersh for like 4 years how we're going to war with Iran and we never actually did.(I mean hell, even Jon Stewart mentioned that to his face.) So now when anybody claims we're going to war with them I just roll my eyes.(Since I've heard that one before and it didn't happen.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Take a look at a map. The UAE or Omar could build a sea level canal right through the peninsula . Heck the UAE is pretty good at earth moving. They could use the extra dirt to build even more islands.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
...and destroy every scrap of military infrastructure in Iran from 1000 miles out. USAF strikes from Diego Garcia.
Then clean the straits of mines.
This would take two weeks maximum.
Let us all hope this doesn't happen.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Is there really going to be a war between the USA and Iran?
I know there's a lot of saber rattling, but both sides seem to be smart enough to have avoided any conflict so far.
What's going to happen in the future? If a big terrorist attack should occur in the USA, will the government try to implicate Iran?
I doubt it. US would not use ground troops, simply knock Iran's military back to 1700 from the air.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
"Tensions Over Hormuz Raise Ugly Possibilities For War"
It's no wonder the Iranians are deeply upset by the sanctions. Surely some people do realise that economic sanctions will likely kill an awful lot of the poorest people in Iran and the sanctions are in themselves, a declaration of war. Theses sanctions worked so very well in Iraq with estimations of up to 1.7 million civilian deaths as a direct result of these sanctions by 1995. http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq17.html.
Like with Iraq, there is no direct evidence of a reason for war and we have already seen the political posturing and powers that be, who already have Iraqi blood on their hands are still lying to us with articles such as this http://www.adl.org/main_International_Affairs/ahmadinejad_words.htm.
For people who don't see how sanctions can kill so many people (taken from UNICEF report 1995 (sorry original link to the report is no longer working ) “Sanctions are inhibiting the importation of spare parts, chemicals, reagents, and the means of transportation required to provide water and sanitation services to the civilian population of Iraq... What has become increasingly clear is that no significant movement towards food security can be achieved so long as the embargo remains in place. All vital contributors to food availability - agricultural production, importation of foodstuffs, economic stability and income generation, are dependent on Iraq’s ability to purchase and import those items vital to the survival of the civilian population.”
You must be part of the Axis of Retarded.
You really can't be that stupid can you?
Did you ever here of the North African Campaign.
Why did you think the Germans were in Africa? Looking for the Lost Ark?
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Learn something about blowback and US involvement in destroying democracies around the world to install dictators starting all the way back in 1953
Imagine if it were Texas.
You can't handle the truth.
I think the point is that it doesn't have to. It just needs to survive long enough to launch a missile.
Also, I guess if fifty of these things are attacking a ship, only a few of them have to launch their missiles or come up alongside and detonate their explosives for the tactic to be effective.
You should have been getting out more... from your meth lab. The fumes are toxic and now the damage is done.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
I read articles like this and often wonder how those who respond with factual claims justify their own authority. I've also grown bored of the constant "I hate the United States" reaction constantly seen on things like this. I'm sorry, but with everything being the way it is, I find it next to impossible to assume that the world would be any better (especially in the Middle East) had the United States stayed out of it. In fact, I think it would be just as bad if not worse.
It would be nice to see the Middle East countries have 1 single day devoid of bombings or human rights atrocities, but unfortunately, this has yet to happen nor do we ever see this kind of mess not spill over into other countries somehow, hence why the United States has intervened so frequently (nobody wants another 911, for example).
I wouldn't be honest with myself if I avoided admitting that the U.S. probably takes advantage of whatever opportunities it gets along the way (i.e. - oil incentives, foreign interests, diplomatic quid pro quos, etc.) but any country in the United States' position during these situations would do the same thing whether they admit it or not. And for whatever it's worth, if this whole big campaign in the Middle East was for nothing but oil, well, I have yet to see any fruit of that labor. Gas prices are still just as high as they ever have been...
All things being equal, that sandy area over there is nothing but a religious cluster fuck full of closed-minded buffoons that do nothing but constantly dig their damn holes deeper and deeper... You can't pin that on the cowboys.
That war was neither good nor evil even if the reasons stated were dishonest and later recanted.
What made it irrelevant was the stupid, demented and criminally negligent notion that earts and minds would be instantly won. That was beyond moronic. If you want to change how people think and feel then you need to invest a whole generation into that. Europe after WW2 was a full success financially and culturally due to how freaking long US troops were stationed there(amongst other things like the US are a culturally descendant of Europe).
Imagine two persons. Their ultimate aspiration is to live a happy life but how they plan on doing that is different. Owning land and breathing free air for one, convenience for the other. Now imagine a whole room full of people. For each and every one of them their plan for their puruit of happyness is different. Now imagine a town square of peole. The mind starts to boggle. Now imagine millions and millions of them. Each from a cultural background so diverse it would take a lifetime to understand it all. Each has a different plan for life. Ranging from owning enough goats to feed the family to designing the ultimate iDevice. Each and every one of them is entitled to pursue their goals if it is not to the detriment of others.
If you elect people who claim to have easy answers and paint the world in black and white, this is what you don't get.
Those 500 billion could have been well spent for exactly the goal stated. Ineptitude did away with that.
20 minutes into the future
And you don't get that Americans are fucking crazy retards who include war costs as a plus in their measure of economic prosperity and the economy is doing poorly right now and it's an election year so *welp*
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Support of those dictators were in the context of the Cold War in jockeying for influence versus the Soviet Union. And, rather than "request payment" in oil as the accusation commonly goes, the US has bought oil from those nations at market price, even thought with its military presence in the region it could have just taken it without paying. The US could have easily gone to war in the Middle East during the 70's embargo to force the flow of oil, yet it did not. With its military presence, the US could also have demanded free oil from the weak interim Iraqi government as recompense, yet it chose again to buy that oil at market price, even relinquishing opportunities when outbid by China.
The evidence that the US uses its military to "steal" oil is not there, however the evidence the US uses its military to expand geopolitical influence and opportunity for American business is, but that's an entirely different set of arguments. We should all welcome legitimate debate on that front, but saying "the US steals oil" is a claim with no support.
They don't literally steal, they just help you "conquer" your country back and then "request" "payment".
But we don't. If only we did, to some extent -- the treasury could use the funds. I might go so far as to grant that we've helped some nasty people stay in power for various reasons over the years, but we still, always, pay MARKET PRICE for oil. About the only thing we insist on is that people sell it to SOMEONE (which admittedly, does help keep market prices down SOMEWHAT, but its still ridiculously high compared to the cost in most of the countries in the middle east)
Unfortunately you have to learn history for anything to make sense. I'll get you started.
Remember the British Empire? It was kind of like the US Empire today they had lots of troops and puppet leaders all over the world. Especially in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. Their oil company had lots of wells and equipment in Iran. Well the Iranians felt they should get more money from the oil so they elected a guy that nationalized the industry. Kind of like Chavez in Venezuela or Qaddafi in Libya. The British weren't happy about it so with the CIA's help they overthrew this guy (1953) and installed our own brutal dictator to keep the oil flowing and the oil dollars flowing.
So he was pretty brutal and eventually the people got pissed and overthrew him in 1979 and took some Americans hostage for a year. So they took their oil back. So sometimes when another country overthrows your government and installs their own that gives them great deals on your countries natural resources you tend to get pissed off.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
forced labor from Indian immigrants are good at earth moving.
the only thing the Emiraties are good at is whoring out eastern european prostitutes to hedge fund managers in exchange for massive bribes.
They don't literally steal, they just help you "conquer" your country back and then "request" "payment".
But we don't. If only we did, to some extent -- the treasury could use the funds. I might go so far as to grant that we've helped some nasty people stay in power for various reasons over the years, but we still, always, pay MARKET PRICE for oil. About the only thing we insist on is that people sell it to SOMEONE (which admittedly, does help keep market prices down SOMEWHAT, but its still ridiculously high compared to the cost in most of the countries in the middle east)
This, thank you. So many people like to talk about the US stealing oil, but no one can point me to a single incident of such. I'd almost support it if they did - at least the war would be paid for then!
"Bush is taking us to war with Iraq". those libs and protestors were always going on and on about this.
Well, we never did. We had a short, brief kinetic contingency operation.
Cheney said we would be greeted as liberators - we were.
Rumsfeld said it wouldn't be a big deal - it wasn't.
John McCain said it wouldn't take very long or cost very much - it didn't.
Unfortunately the U.S. politicians see money from oil industry as more important than renewable energy. It's a totally different "economy" in Washington -- pay for the campaign funds received from companies, with human lives. It's supply and demand. It's quite cheap for congress to get money that way really, since they're spending other people's lives and not their own. I often wonder just how patriotic congressmen & senators would be, if they had to be on the front line when they declare wars. Of course, that'll never be a law, 'cause they'd have to pass it.
You just never know how these things will unfold. Lots of posturing and a bit of "chicken." Iran, I believe, has more of a Navy than the article is letting on. But as a former US sailor myself, I can say it would not take much doing to coordinate some drones and install some extra CIWZ mounted around their ships and you will have a pretty fair defense against suicide speed boats. They wouldn't be able to get within 1000 yards... (2000 yard range)
I worked in OPS in a carrier group. We had the radar and sonar systems linked as a net to create a very large picture of everything in the area above, below and at sea level with every form of projectile defense capable of using that data to hit any target at any speed with pants-pissing accuracy.
"What about the Cole?" you ask? Well, at the time, people were worried about whether or not it was another green peace boat trying to spray paint on the hull again and they likely had a fire hose ready to spray them off at the time not expecting what really happened. You can bet that mistake will not happen again. The world has been warned that the US will not allow unknown, unannounced small craft anywhere near a US navy military vessel.
What's more, with today's level of target tracking, incidents like the Stark are unimaginable. That's not to say that some US targets won't take damage... they might... mines are still a threat... a minor threat really. The US ships don't have to be close to be deadly and putting mines into international waters? I don't think so. And we don't need to send landing craft in to invade.
Iran would be foolish to play too much chicken with the trigger-happy US military... a fight with the US would just "create more jobs" in the US bringing support for a war pretty quickly.
Bring it
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
The many people don't talk about the US stealing oil, they talk about Americans stealing it. Oil from middle-eastern countries doesn't magically end up as a government property, it's always in the hands of private corporations.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
He should not be uttering a single threat. Just move 1 or 2 new aircraft carriers and Ticonderoga's over there. Likewise, we should be building a set of pipelines through UAE. Finally, we should invest faster into electric and natural gas cars in the west.
Imagine if it were Texas.
I really liked that video until I got to the end and realized it was an ad for Insane Clown Posse's developmentally-challenged racist cousin.
Yes, if the US were occupied by a foreign army, you better believe I'd be fighting them in any way possible. Roadside bombs are highly effective, as are boobie-trapped home entrances.
I just hope I don't have to use whatever skills the Army gave me against American troops, even though Capos are just as bad—if not worse—than the "blackshirts" they take their orders from.
Yeah, right.
The day America goes Nuclear, is the day EVERY AMERICAN on the PLANET will be attacked. ON SIGHT.
I for one would welcome that and participate in that myself.
Really? You would attack me for something my government (who I didn't even vote for) did?
That's a very sophisticated attitude you've got there.... if only more people were like you (instead of being like us xenophobic war-mongering Americans), the world would be a better place...
"Stolen" is a confrontational term, but put it this way: if China backed an armed revolution inside the US which successfully overthrew the government and installed a military dictatorship, and then contracts were signed that gave Chinese corporations access and control over the natural resources of the US, would you consider this to be okay? Or would you consider that, somehow, the natural resources were being "stolen"?
There are many references claiming that this has happened, see war is a racket, the war on democracy etc. There was even an honest politician from one country who was vilified because he stated straight up that they were part of the Iraq coalition in exchange for corporate access to oil.
OR... The US could just stay the hell out of it and cut taxes by $500billion. Why does everyone always forget that option?
Odds are that they'll be attacking oil tankers, not so much the US military assets.
US naval self defense systems may be pretty good at keeping themselves from getting hit, but can they fire at a swarm of speedboats hugging the side of a supertanker?
Have gnu, will travel.
Perhaps they're remembering the near three decades of the Shah's rule in Iran, marked by murders, torture, SAVAK secret police -- all supported by the United States and Britain? That ended in 1979. Or maybe they're remembering the war we helped create that killed a million Iraqis and Iranians in the 1980s once the Shah fell from power, and we decided to crown Saddam Hussein as our new friend on the block. That ended around 1988.
But answer this question for me: how many decades would pass before you would forget having your government overthrown, controlled by an outside party, and then being subjected to three decades of a police state followed by an eight year war that wrecked your whole nation? I guess real men can watch their families and society get destroyed and just "get over it."
Where was the oil in Bosnia and Kosovo?
The US's been preparing for this kind of war? Van Riper says it bosh. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/aug/21/usa.julianborger
And how does that justifies toppling democratic regimes and replacing them with oppressive ones ? And your argument is that since other people got it harder the iranians must shut the hell up and take it up the ass ? What kind of a moron are you ?
It's the cheapest route, but it really isn't as necessary as Iran would have you believe. There's enough surplus pipeline capacity through Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, even Israel to offset about half of the closure [although admittedly not all of that capacity is ready to go immediately, as some of it has been mothballed]. That means world oil supply is reduced by 10% in the near term. A supply shock? Sure. However, the combination of fuel switching for electricity generation and oil already being stored elsewhere, plus the potential increase in production elsewhere (OPEC and otherwise) to grab extra profits suggests this isn't going to be terribly disruptive, and certainly not something worth going to war over.
In the mean time, it's worth noting that a sudden increase in petrol-energy-efficiency could shave off that last 10% in just a few years. Help avoid war: ride a bicycle | ride a bus | ride a subway | walk | telecommute | carpool.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Just build a pipeline that avoids the choke point. I hear there is lots of brand new pipe not going to be used for the Keystone project that could easily be shipped the mid-east and used to build a new lines to ports on the Arabian Sea..
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
I really liked that video until I got to the end and realized it was an ad for Insane Clown Posse's developmentally-challenged racist cousin.
- I don't know who you are talking about.
However if your bigoted statement is about Ron Paul , then you are a real ignoramus.
You can't handle the truth.
We should put more money into renewable sources of energy and building efficient electric cars! Do we really want another Iraq? i.e. the US govt flies planes into its own buildings to have an excuse to figth 'terror' in the middle-eastern (oil rich) countries.
First: This wouldn't be a war like Afghanistan or Iraq, because the US would most likely only be concerned with destroying the Iranian military and forcing them out of the strait of Hormuz. This would be largely an air war, and the US would likely suffer very few casualties as a result. We could destroy their navy, inflict massive military casualties, and cripple their ability to project force into the strait without more than a few boots on the ground, and most likely this is how it would go.
Second: None of that matters, because Iran does not gain from a war with the US. It would be an absolute disaster for their people and it would likely force their government out of power. The reason that they're doing this is because Ahmadinejad needs a scapegoat in order to keep his popularity up, and calling out the US and Israel at every opportunity is a lot easier than dealing with real issues. Hes been doing it for years, the only reason hes making more noise now is because his popularity is dwindling.
If the US cared about stealing oil, it would annex its main supplier ... which is, IIRC, Canada.
never put his failed excuse of a war onto the budget, so taxes were not raised for it. I personally think we should add an amendment to the constitution that every military excursion outside of the USA must be paid for with an immediate tax surcharge of all people and businesses, based on gross income. That would definitely clip the wings of most of the chickenhawks out there.
On January 10, Swiss-based Manas Petroleum Corporation broke the news. Gustavson Associates LLC's Resource Evaluation identified large prospects of oil and gas reserves in Albania, close to Kosovo. They are in areas called blocks A, B, C, D and E, encompassing about 780,000 acres along the northwest to southeast "trending (geological) fold belt of northwestern Albania."
A Discreet Deal in the Pipeline
In November 1998, Bill Richardson, then US energy secretary, spelt out his policy on the extraction and transport of Caspian oil. "This is about America's energy security," he explained. "It's also about preventing strategic inroads by those who don't share our values. We're trying to move these newly independent countries toward the west. "We would like to see them reliant on western commercial and political interests rather than going another way. We've made a substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it's very important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right."
I seem to remember people like you bitching about that one quite a bit. Since there was no oil, why care about the lives ov others.
As far as I understand it (and I'm European), Canada is already US' bitch.
read the above posts to you then. Do you actually think that anyone as insignificant as you would ever see the payments made after we "arrange" for a more profitable agreement. those profits go to the corporations that pay the bribes to the politicians. We just get to pay the costs.
Yup Iranian democracy in the same way Egyptian democracy is unfolding in Egypt. The same kind of democracy that exists in venezuela and in Russia too. Iran's democracy in the 50's is a figment of the modern left's sordid imagination.
I'm an american, and I know where the middle east is. I've seen lots of muslims, and I've never attacked any.
The WW2/Japanese situation was complicated, and while I think what the US did was wrong, I understand that the people doing it thought it was the best way to ensure that the US won the war.
But the point you're missing is that I (me, personally) didn't do ANY of these things! Nor did 99% of other americans! Yet still you'd attack us just because of the area in which we live. Gosh, if only there were a word for pre-judging people based on superficial attributes... oh, yeah - PREJUDICE.
P.S. And what's with the british? I'm not british! I've never persecuted an irishman! Are all americans now guilty of that too by virtue of, what, LANGUAGE? Your "logic" just keeps getting better and better.
The US should have spent the 500 Billion or so it wasted on lies about Iraq on researching renewable energy, and the Middle East would have returned to its peaceful irrelevance as oil would no longer have been strategically so important.
Great comment!
Sanctions don't kill people, people kill people. Really though, sanctions end up starving people who would have otherwise provided for themselves. Additionally, I don't like the government telling me who I can do business with, especially now that the economy is increasingly dependent on global trade.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Iran, I suspect, can block the strait, just as it says. Asymmetric power works. Ask the Vietnamese. Ask those upstart American colonists. Ask the Afghans. As another writer pointed out, Iran doesn't have to win, they just have to make the conflict too expensive to sustain. And we can't just nuke Iran. The Chinese and Russians might give us some trouble on that, you see, and they have real power, not bluster. We'd have to cut an expensive deal with them.
No good solution here.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Oh it's the sanctions that kill people. Sorry but it was the leaders of Iraq who refused to play nice with the world even after they invaded Kuwait and were subsequently forced back onto their own soil. It was the leaders of Iraq who murdered millions of their own people throughout the 80s and 90s. It was the leaders of Iraq who refused to deliver the UNICEF and other aid to those in need in their own country. It was the leaders of Iraq who plundered the revenues from the "oil for food" program instead of feeding their own population.
Your socialist revision of history is appalling. You are the type of person who believes guns kill people. Sorry people kill people as illustrated above.
It's easy, quit threatening people and play nice with the world, quit having a childlike temper tantrum and the sanctions will be lifted.
If by stealing you mean us paying $100 per barrel from the OPEC oil barons, then yes, maybe we should stop!
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
All the stuff you mentioned played out exactly how it was supposed to. There are no accidents in politics.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Patriotism is a tool used by politicians. They are NOT patriotic, they are practical, like Romans.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
If the Iranian government were so concerned over the deaths of their poor due to economic sanctions, then they would accede to their international obligations of forsaking Hezbollah and abandoning their nuclear weapon aspirations.
It is Iran's responsibility to care for its "poorest people". The rest of the world is under no legal or moral obligation to trade with Iran, in particular since Iran unquestionably is working on atomic bombs and has started several wars.
The welfare of their people is primarily the responsibility of their leaders. The leaders of Iraq and Iran could/can restore free trade by changing their behavior. The cause of the sanctions, and hence the cause of the suffering of their people, is their leaders, not the sanctions.
So, you construct a specious argument that "sanctions are war" and then claim that there is "no direct evidence of a reason for war". Well, you are wrong on both counts. Sanctions are not "war"; a war is when there are clashing troops and weapons fire. Furthermore, we have reasons and justification for going to war with Iran.
The reason we shouldn't go to war with Iran isn't your pseudo-humanitarian handwaving, but simply that it isn't in our financial and political interest; it doesn't survive a cost-benefit analysis: Iran isn't enough of a threat to the US, a lot of innocent Iranians would get killed, the US wouldn't recover its costs, and that the chances that it would improve the situation are small.
At the very beginning of the current Iraq war, there was a pretty scary time when politicians would be talking about the war in Iraq in one breath, and then move on to Iran as if, clearly, the next thing we were going to do was be at war with Iran.
I think some circles have been planning a war with Iran for quite a while.
I know you're a parent, and a grandparent, and hence why I used such example. It just seems like you're more easy at putting Iranians/Iraqis at that position and forgetting that they're people just like you. All with their family, history, loved ones and children.
That better be one hell of an explosive. These ships, hell any significant military hardware, can track multiple targets automatically and fire upon them accurately. I'm sure more than a couple people are dying to let an Aegis system cut loose on a bevy of targets. It would not be pretty.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Actually, this has the American military very worried. In the Millenium Challenge 2002, Red used exactly this tactic and wiped the floor with us in a wargame - 20,000 (virtual) service personnel dead. The military basically said "NUH UH! DO OVER DO OVER!" and restarted the exercise with new rules that would have made such tactics impossible. The leader of OPFOR (retired Marine Corps. Lt. General Paul K. Von Riper) resigned his position as commander of OPFOR in protest.
Then, of course, there was the Trillion Credit Challenge (start at the bolded "I"):
In 1981, a computer scientist from Stanford University named Doug Lenat entered the Traveller Trillion Credit Squadron tournament, in San Mateo, California. It was a war game. The contestants had been given several volumes of rules, well beforehand, and had been asked to design their own fleet of warships with a mythical budget of a trillion dollars. The fleets then squared off against one another in the course of a weekend. “Imagine this enormous auditorium area with tables, and at each table people are paired off,” Lenat said. “The winners go on and advance. The losers get eliminated, and the field gets smaller and smaller, and the audience gets larger and larger.”
Lenat had developed an artificial-intelligence program that he called Eurisko, and he decided to feed his program the rules of the tournament. Lenat did not give Eurisko any advice or steer the program in any particular strategic direction. He was not a war-gamer. He simply let Eurisko figure things out for itself. For about a month, for ten hours every night on a hundred computers at Xerox PARC, in Palo Alto, Eurisko ground away at the problem, until it came out with an answer. Most teams fielded some version of a traditional naval fleet—an array of ships of various sizes, each well defended against enemy attack. Eurisko thought differently. “The program came up with a strategy of spending the trillion on an astronomical number of small ships like P.T. boats, with powerful weapons but absolutely no defense and no mobility,” Lenat said. “They just sat there. Basically, if they were hit once they would sink. And what happened is that the enemy would take its shots, and every one of those shots would sink our ships. But it didn’t matter, because we had so many.” Lenat won the tournament in a runaway.
The next year, Lenat entered once more, only this time the rules had changed. Fleets could no longer just sit there. Now one of the criteria of success in battle was fleet “agility.” Eurisko went back to work. “What Eurisko did was say that if any of our ships got damaged it would sink itself—and that would raise fleet agility back up again,” Lenat said. Eurisko won again.
Eurisko was an underdog. The other gamers were people steeped in military strategy and history. They were the sort who could tell you how Wellington had outfoxed Napoleon at Waterloo, or what exactly happened at Antietam. They had been raised on Dungeons and Dragons. They were insiders. Eurisko, on the other hand, knew nothing but the rule book. It had no common sense. As Lenat points out, a human being understands the meaning of the sentences “Johnny robbed a bank. He is now serving twenty years in prison,” but Eurisko could not, because as a computer it was perfectly literal; it could not fill in the missing step—“Johnny was caught, tried, and convicted.” Eurisko was an outsider. But it was precisely that outsiderness that led to Eurisko’s victory: not knowing the conventions of the game turned out to be an advantage.
“Eurisko was exposing the fact that any finite set of rules is going to be a very incomplete approximation o
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Indeed. And where did those profits go? Great Britain. The CIA acted on behalf of Great Britain, because Great Britain asserted that this was necessary to keep communism out of Europe. Great Britain at the time was, of course, busy oppressing other nations and colonies.
That's almost right: we support an oppressive monarchy in Saudi Arabia because we like their oil to be available to the world economy; 80% of Saudi Arabia's oil exports go to Europe and Asia, after all.
Now, what do you suggest we do instead? Embargo Saudi Arabia? Invade Saudi Arabia? Subvert the Saudi government? It's not like the US has a choice between a democracy and a monarchy in Saudi Arabia, it has a choice between a monarchy and something even worse.
| The heart of the Iran's arsenal is its 200 small potential-suicide boats ...
Back when I was in the Army, that is what we would have referred to as a target-rich environment. Swarming is possible, but I doubt that the U. S. Navy would allow itself to be blindsided by the Iranians. Considering the threats that have been made, I expect that Iranian ports and sea traffic are under surveillance, and any potential threats are being tracked.
The more significant threat comes from Iran's 23 submarines, but they aren't particularly quiet, and the Navy is petty good at Anti-Submarine Warfare.
Other posters have commented on the ability of the U. S. to retaliate via air power. The Iranian Air Force would not last long going toe-to-toe with the USAF/Navy/Marine air power that could be brought to bear. Iran's naval and nuclear infrastructure would be eradicated. Iran could respond asymmetrically through terrorist attacks, but they would be fighting outside their weight class. And remembering the U. S. response to 9/11, one should expect such attacks to result in an even more devastating blow on Iran.
The Iranians know all this. Why are they some bellicose?
One possibility is that the regime is under enough pressure that it is trying to look powerful for internal reasons. Another possibility is that they are trying to create the world crisis that would lead to the return of the 12th Imam. If it's the first, all is bluster, and we will have no war. If it's something like the second, ouch!
to forget ones mistakes is to repeat them
You say that as if it's a bad thing.
Unfortunately, the direct "payment" never covers the cost of the military operations. Most of the benefits of these actions to the US are indirect: they ensure a continued steady flow of oil to Europe and Asia, and the health of those economies is essential to the US. That's also why the US often demands payment from Europe and Asian nations.
Personally, I think the US should stop those operations and let Europe and Asia deal with problems in their own backyard themselves.
I think our US Navy has been practicing for just this kind of warfare for several years because I've seen the boats they use as "enemies" - they sometimes stay at the marina where I live. The "enemy" boats are likely a step above what Iran would be able to field in large numbers; they are 25-35' LOA rigid inflatable craft powered by twin or triple 200+hp outboards, or glass-hulled fast sportfishers like Fountain or Donzi. The kind of boat where the crew is strapped in with 5-point harnesses because they *need* to be when a boat that size runs in excess of 50kts on open water. I would hope that crews trained against these extremely fast 'aggressors' would find it fairly easy to take out targets using slower, older, less capable craft. HITRON may well have a role in such a conflict scenario as well.
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
If oil money is so important to politicians, then why can't we drill in Alaska, or in the Gulf, or build a pipeline to bring in oil from Canada? Oh right, because politicians are assholes and incompetent. Maybe they like war for war's sake and the oil is just an excuse?
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
I understand what you're saying, very well. And, decades ago, I would have had to plead "guilty".
I haven't been guilty since I walked out in the streets of an African town, and looked real poverty in the face. Real poverty, that few Americans understand. I outgrew a lot of ignorance on Africa's east coast.
"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
It's almost here. 2012 and I feel this year, sans any end of the world scenario playing out, it's going to be one of the most exciting years in recent history. Strap in folks, it's going to be a wild ride.
Isn't one aircraft carrier group the equivalent to any 3rd world country in military power?
Oh well, it's not Iran that concerns me, it's China. Iran and China are classic bed buddies. Didn't China load up Iran on Silkworm missiles that can smoke our jets out of the air? Interesting enough though, China has switched into a Capitalistic mode and both us and them are locked in some grim fandango of economics. Will they back our play or Iran's is the question of the day.
China should, if they were smart, disarm all of their little buddies around them, leaving the US with no excuse to continue it's military spending. Then it all goes to Wal-Mart and then into their pockets, thus defeating the US at Capitalism. Oh the irony!
If we follow this hypothesis, we will not hear China say a peep when we decide to obliterate the Iranian military. Yes, we can do it. People forget how quickly we rolled in on Iraq. We were completely awesome about it. We are like that, we win wars, but lose the peace. The 10 years that followed overshadowed that stunning victory.
What we are looking at here from Iran I think is just more of their ballsy sabre rattling. Their people have discovered they can posture, bluster and sabre rattle thus putting up quite a show for the "rube Westerners." When this happens, we tend to just throw money at them and tell them to shut up. It's the classic "the mouse that roared" situation.
Iran is proving to be a bit retarded though it seems. The American war machine is facing being geared down. The war machine hates this and wants to keep munching on someone's ass. It gets fed well, gets to sleep in a warm bed at night and on the weekends it goes out partying. It really wants Iran to give it an excuse to chew them up into little bitty bits. If Iran doesn't think it's capable, then Iran is smoking some really good weed, and should share it with the rest of the world instead of just its oil.
Can't you imagine them dancing around with each other in glee, like the merry wee people in some film, down at the Pentagon? "Wooohoo!" They all cried in chorus. "The Iranians are going to give us a war!" There is a band with lutes and flutes in the corner, a bag pipe as well. From somewhere a big wooden keg of ale appears, and serving wenches carrying frothing mugs, bustle about. They end it all with a crescendo, singing like a choir "Oh Happy Day."
Then they all run off to their offices to pour over their list of war toys they want to play with. They have had a decade of a big trough of money to buy oodles of war toys, but nobody to play with. Fist fights break out at the water coolers as arguments over who gets to blow up the Iranians with what toy happen.
Hey Iran, posturing around the US during one of their crazy election years is seriously jumping the shark. Hilary will be on the phone soon to tell you what a collective bunch of retards you are, and you are going to have to take it. She's a woman. How do you like dealing with our female Secretary of State? Don't you love having a WOMAN come spell it out for you what you are going to do or else get crushed? Yeah, we did that on purpose. Think about it.
But then again, they might be a bit turned on by it.
Take the Red Pill.
Annex Canada? Obama just told them to sell their oil to China. We don't want to pipe it through our country! Maybe politicians like war, and the oil just gets in the way?
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Because that isn't how how deficit spending works. If they stop spending money they don't have they don't magically have money to give us as 'tax breaks', they just have less debt to pay back with our future taxes. Trust me, I'd love a tax break, but sound economics is important too.
Get a web developer
Or, closer to what actually happened, we could invade Iraq AND cut taxes by $500 billion.
In the case of Iran, it clearly did: the Iranian government was toppled by the CIA because Great Britain's BP didn't want to lose oil revenue. In the case of Iraq, it probably also contributed. But that's not the whole story.
US and European governments don't engage in those shenanigans just because of corporate cronyism (although that does play a role), but primarily because their economies really do depend on cheap oil. If the oil supply gets threatened and prices skyrocket, the economy will tank and they will get kicked out at the next election. This isn't a "war on democracy", instead it is politicians delivering what voters actually want. It is just that voters also don't want to know about the negative consequences of their choices.
Iran unquestionably,/b> is working on atomic bombs and has started several wars.
Bullshit. That's where everyone should stop reading this drivel. Oh, FYI Jews have nukes. Pakistan has nukes. For the sake of MAD balance Iran should as well, but the nukes aren't the problem here. This is.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Really? You would attack me for something my government (who I didn't even vote for) did?
Not saying that I agree with this, but that is the logic used by Osama bin Laden to justify attacking US citizens - if you have democracy, then all citizens are responsible for the actions of the government. Similarly, there appear to be many Americans who would be happy to nuke various cities in the Middle East, killing millions of innocent civilians, because of the behaviour of governments which the citizens of these non-democratic states didn't even get the chance to vote for. People are instinctively tribal, and nationalism is an easy mental justification for war, particularly when it is believed that there won't be any personal repercussions. (If we actually let the troops vote on whether they go to war, or if the middle classes were conscripted, then the picture might be quite different).
Wow. Talk about uneducated.
First off if you're going to spout off about over population, realize that WE (us citizens) use FAR MORE resources per capita than any 2nd ofr 3rd worlder could dream of. So if you're going to spout off about lack of resources for the people of the world, understand that reducing our population in half would conserve more resources than reducing developing populations by a billion or more. Not that I advocate for that, I'm just sick of seeing how wasteful we are (including me) but seeing the finger pointed at all the people in the world who have only a sliver of what we have.
If you're saying that Iran is overpopulated because their land can't support the number of people there, I'd agree with that. I'd also suggest that the same is true for us. But the answer is already there: trade. We have arable land. But we couldn't cultivate it to feed all of us if not for fertilizers, which oil is a key ingredient. We couldn't get it from the "breadbasket" region to the population centers on the coasts, which means oil. And once it's on the coasts, supermarket or fridge, it needs to be kept from spoiling. Via electricity, so much of which is supplied by oil.
So we have one thing. Land to grow on. Absent oil it would be useless to us. Iran and so much else of the middle east lacks that. But they have the oil that WE need in order to not suffer mass starvation. And trade is the solution. It could be direct (food for oil) or it could be indirect (food for dollars, dollars to euros, euros for food). But the point is that we're mutually dependent.
So when we talk about sanctions, realize that depriving the population of resources directly. Less dollars so less to be ent on imports. So us doing that to them is essentially the same as them blocking all the highways leading away from our agricultural areas
World resources aren't spread evenly. But trade fixes that problem.
So before you spout off about over population point your finger at yourself ,me, and The rest of us, as we are the resource hogs of the world. And realize that all of our own stuff would be useless if not for what we can import from overseas.
Actually there is a pipeline being built through the United Arab Emirates which is on the south side of the straight, with something like 2 million barrells/day capacity, which would lessen dependence on the straight.
Though I think Iran is threatening to attack the pipeline too if their oil is embargoed and they decide to close the straight.
Most people don't remember but the U.S., Britain and the Dutch embargoing oil going to Japan was the reason Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, it was neither a a surprise nor a sneak attack. FDR wanted Japan to attack the U.S. so he could overcome resistence from isolationists and enter World War II against Germany.
@de_machina
Countries like those of Eastern Europe got fucked much harder than Iran, they were invaded militarily and kept in submission for fifty years,
By USSR. If your argument boils down to "we were no worse than the Soviets", you should really look for a better one - especially for a country that posits itself as a leader of the free world.
Justification for obliterating a country on the opposite side of the planet? The Constitution doesn't say anything authorizing that. Part of the reason the United States exists is because our leaders at the time were fed up with the British government for several reasons. This includes imperialism and the fact that the British empire had its nose in too many places, including the colonies.
I think unless we have a country invading or attacking U.S. soil, we need to avoid war at all costs. Japan bombing Pearl Harbor? By all means, fight back, and take the fight to their allies (Germany, Italy) once we wrap up the Pacific theater. Specious arguments about a madman in Iraq allegedly having WMDs? Who cares? Not our problem. In that case, we didn't even declare war, but we should have. Congress alone has that authority, but ever since WW2, has been too eager to pass resolutions saying "the President can attack this other country, but we don't want to declare war and look like douchebags."
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Bullshit. Europe, Japan and USA are some of the most heavily populated areas on the planet, and yet they manage to feed their populations. As far as I remember, both the EU and the US export foodstuffs. The reason is a highly industrialized agricultural sector. The same countries have some of the longest life expectancies. This is due to access to clean water, ample food, warm homes and medicine. Exactly the things that the sanctions on Iraq removed from the Iraqi population. Saddam Hussein was rich, so he could pay to get whatever he needed smuggled into the country. The Iraqi masses could not, so they were dependent on the Iraqi state for whatever little they could get.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
How about investing that money in a meaningful way in the United States, not the middle east? Is the responsibility of our government not the voters and taxpayers of the United States?
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Hey one-liner, he is referring to this particular situation. I read some of Ben Fulford's writing some time ago and couldn't find a reason for him to lie no matter how crazy all this shit sounds. Unbelievable? Yes. Untrue? It is certainly easier to just say "yes" and bury your head back in the sand.
Maybe you should try to see which countries have actually very low natality rates. Hint: China isn't one of them.
Quality of life and wealth are extremely important to reduce natality, and economic embargos work against that.
Dilbert RSS feed
Take a camera. Please, take pix and post them here for all to see.
Look, I am not a fan of what my past presidents have done. reagan and W are some of the worst presidents going. And I do not have a clue what O is up to. HOWEVER, Iranian gov. is NOT what you want in place. The fact is, that even the vast majority of Iranians do not want them. Of course, they will not like us telling them that they can build a bomb. Can not say that I blame them. W/neo-cons showed the world that if you have a nuke that powerful nations do not do anything (that includes his actions with North Korea and Pakistan).
But if you oppose America's policy, you would be better off building up web sites objecting to it. Or come over here and protest (that is freedom speaking). BUT, if you think that by going over there and enlisting that you will help to stop America, well, you are sadly without a bit of reason.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Not sure which side you mean. The US govt has been itching for an excuse to crush Iran for a long while now, and closing the Straits of Hormuz is a casus belli that pretty much the entire international community would recognize.
Name a war that Iran started. Yeah. Didn't think so. Why don't you read something rather than watching fox news?
Furthermore, we have reasons and justification for going to war with Iran.
Name them. And when you do, be sure to exclude any reasons that would appear hypocritical - those which could as easily apply to the US or its allies.
If the Iranian government were so concerned over the deaths of their poor due to economic sanctions, then they would accede to their international obligations of forsaking Hezbollah and abandoning their nuclear weapon aspirations.
Perhaps if you could provide some direct evidence of their nuclear weapons aspiration. Perhaps I'm being a cynic but we heard the whole WMD line with Iraq and it was (at least in the UK) proven to be a complete fabrication. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/02/uk_dossier_on_iraq/html/full_dossier.stm) So when that line failed they tried to focus on the human rights abuses. Unfortunately we replaced one set of human rights abuses with another. We did no good there, just killed an awful lot of people.
Considering our constant threats of violent action for political and ecenomic purposes. /ter..r.zm//-.-/ [U] Definition (threats of) violent action for political purposes
(Cambridge online dictionary) terrorism noun
Then you probably also understand that it is the US and Europe that uses most of the resources on our planet. If you want to save as much lives as you can while preventing overpopulation, we westerners should be first ones to go. People from other places on Earth use far fewer resources per one person than we do.
Yah,.... I don't get it. If business owners want their shops to not burn down, then they should just pay their protection money. I don't see what their problem is, just take a knee already and bow down before your masters.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Why can't Jews forget the holocaust? Why will we never forget 9/11? Each impacted someone and vastly changed the tract of their history. Just like over throwing iran's democracy and replacing it with decades of dictatorship did to them. And then when they finally overthrew their tyrant , we unleashed our lapdog on them who showered them with chemical weapons, no less. With our lapdog being none other than saddam.
Do you really not read history? It's all right there in black and white.
Yeah! Like Britain is France's bitch!!
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
And the Japanese were being perfectly polite gentlemen in China and Mongolia at the time.
Take your revisionist BS elsewhere. War being inevitable and everybody knowing it is very different then war being a conspiracy.
Nobody has pointed out the for Iran to close the straits of Hormuz they would by definition _have_ to attack the UAE. Our Allie.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Saudi Arabia doesn't give us a good deal on oil. But what they do do is insure that most of the profits are turned around and invested back in the US, rather than "wasted" on their own people...
Puhleeeze, let go of that fucking Mossadegh!
It was the Cold War, both the US and the USSR conducted thousands of secret operations all over the world. The simple fact that operation Ajax was a viable proposition means Iran wasn't a stable democracy.
Countries like those of Eastern Europe got fucked much harder than Iran, they were invaded militarily and kept in submission for fifty years, yet they are recovering. Why cannot Iran forget Mossadegh? Or, rather, why cannot the childish American leftists forget him?
Seems like your mother never taught you that other persons bad actions does not justify you doing bad things.
Your unspoken assumption is that is _was_ a mistake.
Pawns being butt hurt 60 years later doesn't change the fact their was a cold war on. It was serious as a heart attack. Stalin was a big a threat as Hitler ever was.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Wow. your ignorance is just astounding. Majorit of the Americans know where the middle east is. And the fact that we have large populations of muslims here belies your statement. And yes, we DID lock up ppl in WW2, and apologized. We did not do it again. And as far as using a nuke, the only way that will happen is if Iran attacks with a nuke. IFF they do that, then you can expect that we WILL in fact send in a number of nukes into Iran.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You're right! It's George Bush's fault!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Ahm... actually part of the strategic reasoning behind sanctions is that they hurt the population. The idea is that if you make the lower population suffer enough that they will pressure their government to change behavior OR overthrow it. So when people rant about sanctions killing people, they are not just bleeding hearts.. the result is by design.
So? Because little Johnny has nuclear weapons, little Jack has a right to have them too? This isn't about rights, it's about threats.
The fact that Israel has nuclear weapons isn't a threat to the US or US allies. Hence, it doesn't concern us much. Given Iran's stated policies, Iranian nuclear weapons are a threat to the US and US allies.
Yes, we're overpopulated, and the fact that you and at least 6 billion other people on the planet would deny it has no bearing on the fact.
When you say "we" you should specify, because the world is not overpopulated, only portions of it. Out of 7 billion people on earth, 2 billion are in China, yet China is smaller than the US and our 300 million people. So china has 7 times more people and less land than the US. The US isn't growing very fast either, with 100,000 in 1915 and 200,000 in 1968. "We" have a long way to go before we are overpopulated.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
MAYBE everyone wouldn't hate U.S. so much?
It's not right this is moderated troll. The idea that if the U.S. were less confrontational on the world stage we might be more highly regarded is only controversial among the Fox News crowd.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Alternatively, these stories are publicized and spread because we have developed an effective strategy against this approach and WANT someone to think we can't win against them.
The U.S. equipped Afghanistan's mujahideen in their war against the Soviet Union which occupied Afghanistan for most of the 80's. It was called Operation Cyclone
Al Qaeda was formed by Bin Laden and others in a mujahideen camp in 1988 shortly before the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan. Both Al Qaeda and the Taliban were and probably still are extensively supported by Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, which was America's primary partner in Operation Cyclone.
The U.S. didn't exactly "train" Osama, but is pretty much a fact the U.S. did help equip, develop and nurture the mujahideen movement, a splinter of which would morph in to Al Qaeda. The ISI almost certainly aided Bin Laden throughout his career, which is probably why he was found in the middle of a Pakistani garrison city when he was killed, a few miles from the Pakistani equivalent of West Point.
Al Qaeda turned on the U.S. during the first Persian Gulf War against Iraq, when the U.S. established bases in Saudi Arabia, and started two decades of extensive military intervention in the Middle East. Al Qaeda was especially incensed at an infidel army camping in the middle of the Muslim holy land, Saudia Arabia.
@de_machina
Iran and Arabs hate each other.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Poverty is not due to lack of food or resources in the world.
You realize the shipping lanes are in UAE territorial waters.
Any attack on shipping is an act of war on our ally. Who do you thinks wins when you bring a speedboat to a helicopter fight?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Because there is not much oil in Alaska and don't worry, the pipeline will be built. War is about resources, always has been.
is that america has been toeing the line with war against iran for decades, just itching for a reason to inexplicably bombard a nation of 75 million peaceful civillians and arguably the largest jewish minority in the middle east.
that america, despite the fact that iran has captured our most sophisticated reconnosance robotics, still considers iran a soft and easy target is to awaken the memory of the cold war when we assumed the tupolev was nothing more than a biplane. . Iran has enjoyed american diplomacy first hand at the overthrow of their democratically elected government through sponsored terrorism; it understands america to be a fairweather friend at best. despite numerous invasive and exhaustive probes by the IAEA there is no evidence of a thermonuclear weapons program and given the size of the state, a nuclear energy program seems completely reasonable, justified and expected. Iran has roughly 1/4th the population of the united states.
but thanks to the carter doctrine of international diplomacy in the middle east, despite the fact that a minority of american oil is actually produced in the region we must still charge dick-first into the any arabian country in the region to appear even remotely modern, self sufficient, and untameable by antiquated american colonialist policy.
lets all agree the easiest thing to do to keep the straight clear is to admit the fact that we screwed up the spy game just as we had numerous times during the cold war, apologise and consider formal talks or a prisoner exchange if we want the drone, and move on to bigger problems like the utter financial collapse that keeps plaguing the country, or alternative energy sources to keep us from having to engage in this trite pedantic pissing contest we call a foreign policy.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Iraq was heavily supported by the US in its war against Iran, including arming Iraq with chemical weapons and turning a blind eye to atrocities against Iran and its own people. When Iraq consulted the US about invading Kuwait they were told that "[The US] took no position on these Arab affairs", basically telling them it was ok to go ahead and invade.
Your conservative revision of history is appalling. You are the type of person who believes that the USA has never supported tyrants and has never taken part in unjustified aggression.
It's easy, quit threatening people and play nice with the world, quit having a childlike temper tantrum and pretending that you have only ever been a force for good in the world.
So in other words, the Slashdot crowd is happy to claim "controlling the government for a good deal on oil" == stealing, but "downloading music and movies without permission for financial gain" != stealing.
Makes perfect sense.
Technically, I suppose you are right. In practice, Iran's policies and threats have contributed to wars in the region. Don't get me wrong: I think we should stay out of Iran, but we should continue sanctions.
(As for your Fox comment, stop being such a jerk.)
Boy that's what I was thinking, where's the "change we can believe in"? We were literally targeting Gadaffi even after we decided we were out of the assassination business decades ago. We basically told Gadaffi give up your nuclear and WMD ambitions, and pay the Lockerbie Settlement and we'll leave you alone, now since Obama and the EU went all cowboy on Gadaffi, what do you think the chance of anyone else ever listening? "Remember the Alamo" really meant since the Mexicans weren't taking prisoners, every fight with them would be a win or die situation and we saw how that turned out for Mexico, now Obama has made the same mistake.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Yeah right, it was just Britain, all on their own. Kermit Roosevelt was just there on vacation or something. Stop watching FOX.
There is no justification for "obliterating countries", but there can be for military action on the opposite side of the planet. Among other things, the US has allies and international commitments.
US military action isn't driven by "imperialism"; imperialism doesn't work, as Britain and France showed. The US is trying to convert other nations into trading partners with compatible economies and governments. That may or may not be a reasonable thing to do, but it is not "imperialism".
Unfortunately, you're still seeing the aftermath of WWII, with Europe politely refraining from military action and the US taking over Europe's protection and security needs. That should end.
And I tend to agree. But while you seem to think that we should refrain for moral and legal reasons, I just view it as a matter of utility: the low probability of democratizing and liberalizing Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan and the limited economic benefit to us doesn't justify the high human and financial cost. Furthermore, the Middle East should be Europe's financial and military responsibilitiy, not ours.
Two Sunburn hyper-sonic ship killer missiles, right into the reactor. I wonder how that steel and aluminum structure will hold up?
Politics, foreign policy, sanctions, blah blah...the real question is, are we going to get some new scenarios for Harpoon from this?
Advice: on VPS providers
There is no disputing that the oil embargo was imposed in an attempt to slow the Japanese occupation and war in China, which was certainly brutal.
But, it would have been incredibly naive for the U.S. to think that Japan wouldn't retaliate for the oil embargo. Without the oil supply from the U.S., Dutch and British East Indies(no Indonesia) Japan's economy and military was crippled. It was inevitable Japan would seize the Dutch and British East Indies to restore their oil supply. That would inevitably lead to war with the British and U.S. So to protect their oil supply they had to completely remove the British and U.S. from a large buffer around their oil fields and shipping lanes which is exactly what they did in the opening weaks of the war. The U.S. Pacific fleet was the one obstacle to Japan's seizing and holding the East Indies oil fields and shipping the oil to Japan. Everyone knew it so its no surprise the U.S. attacked it first thing. It was also no accident the U.S. carriers weren't at Pearl Harbor because they were priceless, while the battleships were expendable since they were nearly useless with the advent of aircraft carriers.
So FDR and the U.S. military knew war was inevitable with Japan the day the embargo was imposed. Claiming the attack on Pearl Harbor was a "surprise" was pure propaganda for the consumption of the American people. It was designed to whip American's in to frenzy of support for war against both Germany and Japan. It worked really well.
I'm not even really being critical of it, Pearl Harbor was a propaganda masterpiece by the Roosevelt administration, in fact I am almost admiring its genius.
@de_machina
The problem are not Iranian military ships, but box-cutters.
All the warnings you need about attacking Iran can be had from geopolitical analyst Dr. Gwynne Dyer, who has to tiredly write another article warning about it being a Bad Idea every couple of years. From the most recent one:
"The Noor anti-ship missile is a locally built version of the Chinese YJ-82. It has a 200-km. (140-mile) range, enough to cover all the major choke points in the Gulf. It flies at twice the speed of sound just meters above the sea’s surface, and it has a tiny radar profile. Its single-shot kill probability has been put as high as 98 percent.
Iran’s mountainous coastline extends along the whole northern side of the Gulf, and these missiles have easily concealed mobile launchers. They would sink tankers with ease, and in a few days insurance rates for tankers planning to enter the Gulf would become prohibitive, effectively shutting down the region’s oil exports completely."
Do they sound a little less "asymmetric" now? Yes, you could bombard the coastline heavily, but some caves can go pretty deep, particularly if the cavers bring mining equipment - 25 years ago. And do you really want to get into a shootin' match with 98% kill probability when they lose a 5-man missile crew and you lose a carrier?
I also like the point about the "insurance costs". You don't think of wars being one by accountants, but that's the way it goes. The Iranians have absolutely zero need to engage with the mighty US Navy at all; they just have to sink a couple of very fat, very slow oil tankers, just a few, then wait for Lloyd's to react, while the probably-unharmed crew are being fished from the lifeboats. And Lloyd's says to itself, "Can even the US Navy check out every goddamn cave the size of a 2-car garage in 200km of coastline? When the 90% that do not contain actual missiles do contain dummies? No, they cannot. Not this week, month, or, probably, year." And so the price of oil sits there at $250/bbl until everybody calms down.
I have to agree with you, particularly right now when domestic problem solving has to be our first priority if the system itself is to survive, but if we can get the economy back on a stable course, here's why I'd argue investing in other places can be worth it. ... with little red, white and blue pop-up flags, just to make them easier to find. Six months after you start, tell Hanoi they get a Pepsi plant and Saigon gets a Coca-Cola plant. By the projections, building those boxes to actually play the star spangled banner and filling those manuals with color pictures of smiling Americans saying (in Vietnamese): "We don't care if you're flirting with communism, we just want you to stop fighting, fix up your infrastructure, and feed all your people", and it was still expected to cost a lot less than making the same number of bombs as we actually dropped (raw estimates only, but the price per box was less than 10% of the price per unit bomb).
The sane argument for spending money on other people's nations is never that they deserve it more than your own citizens. It's that it saves larger costs elsewhere. We make that sort of argument all the time even in domestic politics, because where someone such as you tries to draw the line as citizen/non-citizen, many other people try to draw the lines other places. If you're going to frame things as American citizen/Foreign national, please note a huge part of making what you want happen for America is to get hundreds of millions of people not to redraw that us vrs. them line somewhere else, like "producers vs. consumers", or "The state that elected me" vs. "The other 49, the district, and Puerto Rico, too".
Why spend on educating your own poor, when education for just those who can afford it themselves may be fairer (by some people)? The answer is fairer or less fair, sometimes you can spend X on education or 6X on prisons. Why spend money finding a cure for AIDS, when we could spend it on diseases where the person's 'immoral lifestyle' didn't contribute? One answer might be, those other diseases don't have the same potential to become epidemics and don't tend to kill otherwise healthy young productive people in great numbers. For the international theatre, the argument is that wars cost a lot, and foreign aid actually saves money.
Can it, really? There's been cases that make good arguments for it, but often, foreign aid seems to get us nothing. Contrary to the people on the right who think foreign aid is a Liberal scheme, a lot of foreign aid gets earmarked for buying weapons, in which case, we aren't buying peace, we're simply buying delaying a war while giving both sides more nastiness for when that war can't be delayed any more (Counting the Israeli side of US foreign aid certainly includes a large portion that goes for military resources, well over 50% of total aid to the region.). What would happen if we specifically made all foreign aid targeted at actual peace, at building hospitals and clinics and paving roads and building bridges and feeding people? Less than 50% of foreign aid actually stays targeted at making things kinder and gentler, so how would we determine if taking that percentage up would actually win peace, or if various regional madmen would just use what we were saving their governments to prepare for more war?
But, if we were aggressively waging peace, I suspect there are ways to make sure the US got full credit from the populations we helped. There was a consulting firm during the Vietnam war, that said to the US government, in effect "It's cheaper just to buy their hearts and minds. We can make boxes full of seed grain, more boxes full of basic medical supplies, more boxes full of basic tools, and print manuals in Vietnamese for everything. Mark all the types so everyone knows what's in each kind. Then airdrop those boxes with parachutes all over both parts of Vietnam
Who is John Cabal?
You think this is even remotely sane (from the AC's link)?
A Chinese secret society with 6 million members, including 1.8 million Asian gangsters and 100,000 professional assassins, have targeted Illuminati members if they proceed with world depopulation plans, according to Tokyo-based journalist Benjamin Fulford, 46.
They contacted Fulford, a Canadian ex pat, after he warned that the Illuminati plan to reduce the Asian population to just 500 million by means of race-specific biological weapons.
"The Illuminati, with the exception of Japan, is very much a white man's game," Fulford says.
More power to you. Great drugs you've got there...
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Closing an international waterway is an official act of war. The UN, Russians and Chinese couldn't say a thing if Iran closes the straight because Iran will have committed an official act of war against any nation that uses that straight. Not to mention Oman, Saudi and a dozen all the other nations that have territorial waters or rights that overlap the straight would have a legitimate claim to retaliation.
Closing the straight would be akin to using a nuclear weapon as it something that's going to be dealt with very harshly. It would give the US and the US Navy a free hand to take Iran down. The US navy already has a operation manual for reopening the straight including an attack strategy that should keep them out of harms way for the majority of the fighting (keep the big ships in the Arabian sea and clear the Iranian coast along the straight of all military emplacements using subs, missiles and attack aircraft, then work up the coast systematically destroying every hostile force, this happens at the same time the US bases in the gulf begin offensive action against the nuclear sites and major military bases). I'm sure at this point the US has mapped the location of every sea worthy vessel in Iran. I wonder if Iran even knows how many attack vessels the US has in the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. I'd bet there could be as many as a dozen Los Angeles class attack subs sitting on the bottom of the gulf (they can stay submerged for a year) waiting for Iran to do something stupid.
God dammit. QUIT CURSING!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
No they don't. And they can't even PRONOUNCE the names of the countries they attack. Hint, it's not fucking EYERACK OR EYERAN. "Young adults in the United States fail to understand the world and their place in it, according to a survey-based report on geographic literacy released today. Take Iraq, for example. Despite nearly constant news coverage since the war there began in 2003, 63 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 failed to correctly locate the country on a map of the Middle East. Seventy percent could not find Iran or Israel." http://bit.ly/uPqQoX Your ignorance is just astounding.
And it goes to show that the enemy of your enemy is NOT automatically your friend.
You realize all those finds game after the Balkan War? The UN's and NATO's involvement in Kosovo and Yugoslavia were about preventing a European conflict spilling into the rest of Europe. WW1 was essentially started over the locals being stupid, and WW2 was just WW1 being properly finished. Europe has tried like hell since then to stop any local war.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Furthermore, we have reasons and justification for going to war with Iran.
Name them. And when you do, be sure to exclude any reasons that would appear hypocritical - those which could as easily apply to the US or its allies.
Israel. You know, that puppet Zionist state ostensibly made up of refugees from the Holocaust? The (believed) long overdue answer to all the centuries of pogroms visited on Jews by Xtians?
If the US fixed its campaign finance laws, its politicos would no longer be able to pander to the Jewish lobby and its money. Consequently, if Israel was no longer able to get away with bitch-slapping the Palestinians, maybe the Middle East would finally be able to get along with each other again. They did in the distant past, you know?
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Bosnia, Kosovo, Vietnam, Korea, Panama, Guatamala (sp?), Lebanon. Yep, there's oil in them thar hills, Jed load up the truck and move to Beverly, Hills that is, swimming pools, movie stars...
I never said the United States is engaging in imperialism: I was comparing what our government does to the old British imperialism, where they made everyone else's business their own. Regardless of the reason for the U.S. doing what it does, I believe it is wrong. Not only does our government install puppets around the globe (generally with spectacular failures), they do so at great cost to the taxpayers (of which I am one).
Correct, given the fact that the Middle East are not our neighbors. I think the case for intervening in Mexico is much stronger given the proximity, and the fact that the violence there does affect our shared border.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Yeah, from that known neo-con sympathizer, President Obama. Also, why would closing the strait be in the U.S. interest considering where most of the world gets a big chunk of their oil.
Actually, I heard about the Caspian oil during the war. Just because those finds came after the war doesn't mean people didn't realize there was oil there.
Chris Mesterharm
The fact that Israel has nuclear weapons isn't a threat to the US or US allies. Hence, it doesn't concern us much. Given Iran's stated policies, Iranian nuclear weapons are a threat to the US and US allies.
Given Israel's stated policies, Israel having nukes is a threat to Iran, most of Islamic world and Europe AND indirectly — the US. Iran's possession of nukes is a warranty of a zero sum game, otherwise known as M.A.D.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
They don't actually have to close the straights. They can ratchet tension up to $150 oil again.
Deleted
And the Japanese were being perfectly polite gentlemen in China and Mongolia at the time.
What does that have to do with anything?!? The US was infuriated about Yellow People being oppressed by Japan?!? Chyaa, right.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
LOL! This should be marked funny.
I guess we should sell all those nuclear powered supercarriers and buy speed boats!
ROFL
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Sounds to me like he took advantage of the technicalities of the rules, which they (rightfully and realistically) patched the next yet, and he took advantage of another technicality the next year. It was only coincidental that the way he took advantage of the rules coincided with a real-life tactic of using small ships in great numbers.
This is all a bunch of showmanship from Iran to help internal politics and nothing else. For them to close the straight they have to attack a US carrier group which in and of itself is insane and if by some freak miracle they mange to sink a ship let alone a carrier it would bring the entire US 5th fleet down on top of them immediately followed up shortly by every air asset in the Air Forces inventory. Iran's entire military would be all but wiped out in days if not weeks and on top of that all there nuclear production would be wiped out. The US has the abilities to win any war with Iran we just can't get caught up holding land to win the peace like in Iraq where we won the war and pissed the peace away with an inept civilian controlled follow up. Besides closing the straight would piss off China just as much as the US leaving Russia the only Super power offering token support
They'll be completely in the wrong.
So half of the strait is not in their territorial waters. The other half is Oman's waters. So to close it, they'd have to invade another country's waters, without provocation or justification. After all, they haven't said Oman has wronged them in any way.
Then there's the whole UNCLOS thing. Basically it establishes, among other things, the freedom of the sea meaning countries have the right to transit the oceans and that applies to places like the Strait of Hormuz too. Just because something is in your territorial waters doesn't mean you automatically get to make the rules. The ocean has international treaties governing it.
As such other than people who just want to see the US get it in the face, and who don't need the oil, everyone would be against Iran. Not only is it diplomatically stupid, it is legally stupid. They don't have any justification. The US would be the "good guys" in this situation.
Sinking ships would also be problematic for them because the more damage they do, the less the American public would care about the retaliation. They kill a few thousand serviceman in an illegal, unprovoked, attack (which is how it would get sold by the US government), the gloves are off. People will ignore a lot of shit.
I just can't see how it would be a win at all in any form for them. Hopefully they realize that and this is nothing but bluster to piss the US off. More war is never a good thing :P.
Taxes now, or taxes 10 years from now, it's really irrelevant. It gets paid for, by me, eventually.
Here's something you forget: What the American public will tolerate is based on how angry/scared they are. If Iran starts sinking American ships, and gas jumps up to $10, the American public won't care what it takes to fix that. Massive destruction will be just fine.
Also you confuse what was trying to be done in Iraq with what would need to be done in Iran. In Iraq the misguided goal was nation building. Go in, kill dictator, drive out terrorists, help people establish wonderful democratic society. That is a tall order (an impossible order I'd say) and requires long time occupation. The US military is bad at that. It has never been well designed as an army of conquest. For that you need lots of infantry troops and a willingness to spend them.
The goal with Iran would be to make them fuck off and leave the strait alone. Much easier. Just blow up enough shit until they pack it in. The US military is the best history has ever seen at that. The amount of destruction they can unleash is amazing, and it is precise too, they can hit the targets they need to take out.
The lesson to take away from Iraq with regards to this potential conflict is how fast and completely their military was crushed.
And then when they finally overthrew their tyrant , we unleashed our lapdog on them who showered them with chemical weapons, no less. With our lapdog being none other than saddam.
I wish some rich US-ian would take what you wrote (the whole post, not just what I quoted) and plaster it on every billboard he could buy in the USA. This is the lesson US-ians should be learning today. Better late than never.
Thanks for saying it.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
The USA has been violating Iranian airspace for quite a number of years now, and illegally threatening war (under international law, yet laws and treaties America continues to routinely break) any number of times, and let's not forget that Stuxnet virus unleashed with American cooperation, etc. Iran began developing its nuclear industry from the illegal consulting advice form CEO Dick Cheney-led Halliburton (Iran was under saction and illegal for Halliburton to involve themselves with both studies and materiel to Iran) because radium is the second resource after oil. America will continue their forever wars to continue to enrich the plutocracy, all excuses to the contrary.
Right people but wrong answer;
,
considering that Libya exports about 1.8 million barrels per day verses Every year, each square kilometre of desert receives solar energy equivalent to 1.5 million barrels of oil. I'd say Libyan open desert is worth much more than it's oil.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Exactly, this exercise was 10 years ago.
Anybody think that it wasn't studied and countermeasures developed?
A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
Forgot the cold war. We clearly won that. The USSR collapsed from internal pressure. Just like the right wingers predicted.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
There's a couple of reasons. The EPA wouldn't allow the oil sands to be harvested due to the massive pollution and how it would change the political landscape in the States, 10 more States of which probably 9 would never vote Republican.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
....
Why not, American's who have no idea where even the Middle East IS
... (the) Majorit(y) of the Americans know where the middle east is
(fixed an error due to dealing with a 5 y.o.)
So, the conversation was about the middle east, and yet, you switch it to specific nations there and use a 5 y.o. survey. Likewise, you hammer up about LOCAL pronunciations of nations. Hell, most ppl around here do not call iran. They call it Persia. But it is whatever YOU want to call it.
Likewise, is it Nippon to you? After all, that is the CORRECT name for that nation and that is what THEY call it. Or do you call it Japan thereby inflicting YOUR idea of what a nation should be called?
The ignorance is your own. When you get our of your parent's basement, then come back here.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Indeed. We found the technical solution to hunger when we invented agriculture. Before that, poverty wasn't even a concept. Poverty has always been artificial.
Yes, we're overpopulated, and the fact that you and at least 6 billion other people on the planet would deny it has no bearing on the fact.
Nor do your assertions have any bearing on the fact.
We are not overpopulated. The Earth could easily support seven billion people for many thousands of years. The problem of limited resources is purely social and political.
Iran was about British oil--specificaly, a company called "BP", as in "British Petroleum"--not US oil, period. To claim that US oil interests were the cause of US intervention in Iran is just ridiculous.
Well, I'm glad you are familiar with at least a little bit of ME history. Now read a bit more: the US intervened on behalf of, and on request of, Great Britain because Britain claimed that Iran was being taken over by the Soviets and because Britain was busy trying to keep its failing colonial empire together.
And "intervention" amounted to little more than organizing a protest; the Iranian government was on its last leg anyway.
I don't watch Fox. But you obviously should stop listening to European neo-Marxist propaganda.
Fact is, most of the trouble spots in the world are the result of European fascism, European colonialism and European socialism. The US is trying its best to keep things running, but Americans and American tax payers are running out of patience. If Europe doesn't like the way it's going, Europe should pay for its own damned military.
This will never happen, but not for the reasons you say.
There is a key factor that this entire comment thread seems to miss: The fact that Iran's economic infrastructure is incredibly vulnerable. Their entire economy relies on a fixed set of oil refineries and production platforms that, unlike the missiles, can't be moved or hidden. Iran can bluster all it wants, but attacking one US ship would lead to the destruction of their entire economy. They know this, and so does the U.S.
- aj
I can't wait to see WHAT will happen!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You realize the shipping lanes are in UAE territorial waters.
Any attack on shipping is an act of war on our ally. Who do you thinks wins when you bring a speedboat to a helicopter fight?
Actually, I'd consider that a draw... with sufficient heat dissipation,
a speedboat could avoid most dangerous missile fire and then only
come under rocket fire or machine gun... which would be matched
by an RPG or shoulder fired missile from a speedboat, or 50 cal fire.
Plus, the people in the helicopter have a lot longer ways to fall. If
you're in the boat and things don't look good... grab ur shit and bail.
Worst case scenario, a comrade picks you up and you have to fight
again. Best case, US picks you up and you get treated to 3 squares
until the fight is over. Then you get to decide if you want to go back
or ask to stay in the US. Of course by then, you'll be hooked on the
US TV and have to have your Kardashians, so.., you'll stay.
-AI
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion
"$500 billion or so," invested according to political calculations (by which I mean, not market-based analyses that invest according to promising lines of research) = 1,000 Solyndras.
- aj
Most people don't remember but the U.S., Britain and the Dutch embargoing oil going to Japan was the reason Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, it was neither a a surprise nor a sneak attack. FDR wanted Japan to attack the U.S. so he could overcome resistence from isolationists and enter World War II against Germany.
An embargo in place because Japan attacked China. If I stop selling things to you because you attacked my friend, am I at fault when you then attack me?
Besides, the attack was a surprise, in the most fundamental sense: We didn't know it was coming. Whether it was intended to be a sneak attack or not is up for debate, but there is no doubt that Japan was relying on surprise in their strategy. Even the people claiming Japan let us know about the attack beforehand admit they only intended at most a few hours of warning.
It is far from clear to me how this is "insightful." The Middle East is one long crescent of theocratic oppression, from Morocco to Malaysia. It's easy to glibly say, "Oh, well, we should just invest half a trillion dollars to make it a better place." How exactly would investing in Saddam's Iraq have made it "a better place?" How would investing in wealthy Saudi Arabia make it "a better place?" How would investing in the Taliban's 6th-Century religious dictatorship have made Afghanistan "a better place"? For that matter, why would the Taliban would have accepted, or allowed their countrymen to accept, your dirty western money?
It's part of the line of thinking that says, "Oh, there's a problem? We can just solve it by shoveling money at it!" In real life, things rarely work that way.
-aj
You really need to get out of your parent's basement. Subburn is supersonic at Mach 3. The US is closest to having hypersonic cruise missiles at this time is the X51 which will do Mach 5 to 10.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
But the analogy is a bad one. British imperialism just didn't work in the long run for anybody. But US military intervention has worked in the past and benefited both the US and the foreign nation.
"Wrong" is a moral judgment. I don't see anything "wrong" with intervening against undemocratic regimes.
But that's just not true. US intervention has often succeeded in liberating nations and turning them into prosperous trading partners, often liberating them in the process. US and European prosperity and security has depended on this system, in particular during the Cold War. If we had pulled back after WWII, the rest of the world would largely be communist and fascist, and both we and the rest of the world would be much poorer and less developed.
We should pull back and bring a lot of our military home. We should also get Europe to do more of its own dirty work. But isolationism isn't the answer because we know it doesn't work.
Well, given that analysis, you seem to agree then that it comes down to a cost/benefit analysis, not a question of rights. And while you may disagree with the cost/benefit calculation the US government makes vis-a-vis Israel and Iran, I think they are probably better at it than you or I. FWIW, I think US policies towards these nations is mostly right (pressure Iran, befriend Israel), but we should probably gradually reduce our level of involvement overall.
All the stuff you mentioned played out exactly how it was supposed to. There are no accidents in politics.
Wow, you have amazing faith in the intelligence of politicians! In my experience, most politicians are short-sighted imbeciles with little or no ability to engage in long-term planning, and pretty much everything that happens in politics, good or bad, seems to be mostly by accident. Maybe in your part of the world, politicians are superhuman creatures who can carefully plan out elaborate schemes that play out flawlessly, but somehow, I find this hard to believe. As far as I know, aliens have not actually taken over any countries in the world, which means that politicians the world over are human, and thus, not very smart.
The Navy doesn't use F-15s, those are Air Force jets. The Naval equivalent is the F-18.
Last I heard the USAF has fully fueled and stocked (ammo, spare parts) air bases in Saudi Arabia ready for the arrival of USAF F-15s in the event of regional conflict. The preceding was setup because of similar Iranian threats in the 1980s. This scenario is something the USAF and USN have been preparing for for decades.
Actually, we are overpopulated, once you take away all our technology. Most of the tech involved to feed 7 billion people requires cheap energy and chemicals for fertilizer. Most of those chemicals come from petroleum and other fossil fuels, the cheap energy also from fossil fuels. I've heard varying figures for the 'carrying capacity' of humans on Earth without technology that range from half a million to half a billion, depending on who's doing the figuring and how much tech they claim needs to 'go away'.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
"Via electricity, so much of which is supplied by oil."
Actually oil is too expensive to produce electricity everywhere in the world, except in subsidized petro-states.
There is little substitutions available for trucking, and none for shipping and aircraft.
Actually the evidence against Iran today is far more comprehensive than against Iraq in 2003.
In 2003 virtually all the international groups saw nothing significant in Iraq. By constrast even the open facts regarding Iran is far more suggestive of a breakout nuclear weapons capability. Read recent IAEA reports.
Iran has stated on the record that even if the Palestinians agree 100% to a peace agreement, they will still pursue the violent extermination of Israel.
"Why did US enter into conflict in Libya but not Syria?"
Because there was a viable military option with a good chance of success. Libya was geographically dispersed, with substantially armed and organized rebels with maneuver capability who could win with close air support.
The Syrian army is much stronger than the Libyan army and the conflict is internal urban warfare.
Peaceful? The Middle East? Since when?
Historically that entire area has always been a hotbed of hotheads wanting to slaughter someone. Whether it was a nearby nation, or several of their own 'tribes'.
And although there have been a great number of wonderful people who came from, or are unfortunately still trapped in Iran, those in charge really are a bunch of hateful rejects with medieval mindsets.
As much as I'd love for everyone in the world to just shun and ignore people like that, it's not feasible. You see, they really do have the ability to disrupt the entire worlds economy, which is rather fragile right now. If you want to imagine this will only hurt the USA, then you are severely deluded. As we are currently so dependent on oil (I wish we weren't, but that's an entirely different rant) an increase in the cost of that will increase the costs of virtually everything. All the shipping is reliant on that, a clear chunk of the power used by manufacturing is generated by oil, and the cost of farming is decidedly increased by fuel costs as well. If all luxury goods were ignored, and you just looked at food and nothing else, increasing oil prices jacks up the price of food. Sure other countries produce food, but they are just as reliant on oil, except for the non-mechanized farming which tends to be significantly more expensive for far lower yields. A very LARGE number of countries have to import food. If you increase the cost of that food, since those countries don't have more money to spend on it, they get less food. Less food than required means people go hungry, possibly even die of starvation. The USA is one of the worlds largest producers of food, and if it came to famine in the USA vs selling food to the rest of the world, the USA wouldn't be the ones starving. That may sound self centered, but do you know any country that would starve it's own population just to feed another countries people? (Yes, there are inequities in all nations, and there are starving everywhere, but what I'm talking about is mass famine due to food shortages.)
Ok, so an increase in oil costs increases costs for virtually everything else down the line, but with food, let's see... Maybe you have a measly 1% increase in world wide food prices. Any idea how many thousands of people will starve to death in that year, that probably wouldn't have if the price had remained stable? There are organizations and people that run those numbers every day, and yes, it's in the thousands.
So you say the USA taking action to prevent another country from drastically destabilizing and increasing the costs of oil is self serving and should be stopped. You seem to be conveniently ignoring that what they are stopping is something that will hurt everyone in the world, so even if it is for personal reasons, it has an indirect but decidedly observable, altruistic, and beneficial effect for the world in general.
I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if the USA were to find a means to fill all its energy needs domestically, and also withdrew all forces, military, political, charitable, etc, from the rest of the world. It would be a very illuminating experiment, but even if current politics allowed it, the morals of any sane rational person wouldn't, as it would undoubtably be the root cause of significant upheaval and death around the world. You may hate some of the current power structures, but there are no suitable replacements that would not be geosadistic.
I agree with this sentiment and the response saying that any meaningful investment in the region would also have generated more returns.
I think the number is waay above 500 billion. I don't have time to google the citations, but various credible parties have pegged the number well above a trillion and that doesn't even take into account the long term costs associated with disabilities, missed opportunities, ill will towards the US, interest on the trillion we borrowed to conduct the war, bad karma, etc.
And, no, I am not a delusional hippy or a communist, I am just smart - something we have not been as a country lately.
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
Have you ever ridden in a booking speedboat?
You can't even keep your head from hitting the dash if you are not strapped in. No chance of effectively aiming. Zero.
Which craft do you think is more affected by weather? Again: Have you ever been over 40mph in a boat? How about if the water is other then glass?
Finally: Worst case scenario. Your buddies boat is also sunk when it slows down to pick you up and you all drown or are eaten by sharks.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Reading this, it's hard to escape the impression that you are just grimly set on interpreting the entire scope of history in a way that simplistically blames the American bogeyman as much as possible.
To do this,you have to ignore all kinds of inconvenient facts -- like the fact that the alternative to the right-wing Shah came not from the democratic left, but from the even FARTHER right: Khomeini and his ilk.
Or this part, which is funny: "The war we helped create." "Helped create?" Huh? Newsflash: Saddam Hussein and the Ayatollahs were perfectly capable of doing this on their own. These were two aggressive, militaristic regimes, each bent on regional supremacy. Oh, but of course, it was the big, bad US that made them fight. Sure, ok.
- aj
Iraq invaded Kuwait for the oil and the access to the Gulf. After fighting the Iranians, their economy was a mess. Sanctions didn't help them a bit. Neither did the Israeli bombing of a light water power reactor the Israelis claimed was going to be used for a breeder reactor. As for the oil smuggling that went on in Iraq until the invasion, most of the money went for bribes to keep the Ba'ath Party in power.
Ya know, they never did find 'WMDs' in Iraq, and they never will. If the Iraqis had had any left over from the US-supplied weapons, they'dve used them on the US in '03. They had nothing to lose, the US had repeatedly claimed they were invading to force a regime change. And I for one find it interesting that those aluminum tubes reputedly scheduled for use in a seperator for enriching plutonium to weapons grade were pronounced perfect for the fusilages of the latest generation of SCUD missiles by US rocket scientists, said SCUDs which, if fired from just inside the western border of Iraq, could, with a minimal tailwind, drop their warheads inside the borders of Israel.
Makes you think, eh?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
...that was Ten. YEARS. Ago. You honestly think that the US Navy has been sitting around with their thumbs up their butts ever since? Especially since the attack of the USS Cole inside a 'friendly' harbor made it abundantly clear what can happen if the Navy didn't? Heck, the article even mentions specific changes in weaponry and defensive doctrine that would greatly blunt such an attack.
Finally, why is everyone assuming that the US Navy would even need to put a carrier at risk? A task force of a couple of cruisers and/or 2 or 3 destroyers would act as tempting bait, after all. If they weren't attacked, Iran's bluff would be called.
If Iran was stupid enough to attack such a force, air cover from carriers standing a couple of hundred miles offshore would simply start retaliating against every valid military target in reach. The southern half of the Gulf /and/ Iran would be neutralized before the carriers had to get anywhere near the Straits. Add a landing force of Marines to capture Bandar-e-Abbas, then start driving north to Tehran.
You don't think this EXACT scenario hasn't been gamed a thousand times since MC 2002 demonstrated the problem??? I can guarantee that Dick Cheney & Co. (Halliburton, for sure!) are salivating at the mere thought of Iran being stupid enough to attack the US Navy.
Stalin was a threat to the world. We should make no apologies for saving the planet (again).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
There will be no occupation. It will be more like Libya in the 1980s. Libya threatens navigation. US bombs Libya military bases, sinks Libyan ships, shoots down Libyan aircraft, etc. Although I expect the Iranian militias used to put down rioters will get a few bombs in their barracks as well.
The only boots on the ground will be there temporarily. There will probably be air assaults on the nuclear research processing facilities. Take the ground, blow stuff up, leave.
Iran's possession of nukes is a warranty of WMD in hands of theocracy which threatened to destroy other country. MAD implies that both sides are reasonable and have something to lose. Religious freak dreaming about 72 virgins in paradise or authoritarian regime on brink of collapse is not something reasonable.
If we go into stated policy things, then Iran is not developing any nuclear weapons. Right....
It isn't just the Jewish lobby, apocalyptic Christians support the Jews running the middle east to harken the return of JC, which some cynical Jews support at their peril, since phase 2 is conversion of said Jews to Christianity.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Hey, Mr. chrb, sir.
I know your post was modded insightful and all, but can you point me toward the original source of the Richardson quote? I can't seem to find it. Your link points toward an unsourced citation.
Thanks,
- aj
You underestimate the survivability of US naval ships
It's not about navy vs. navy. Iran is threatening to "close the straits". To do this they just have to make a credible threat to the oil tankers, and trade will stop. US naval ships aren't going to be delivering any oil.
This all happened in the 1980s. When the credible threats were made the US Navy began to escort convoys of oil tankers through the straits. Firing on an escorted convoy is equivalent to attacking the escorting warship.
Okay, supersonic. It will still take out a carrier. America has good weapons, no argument there. My point was about Iranian capability. Parent's basement. Fuck off.
Given the US withdrawal in Iraq, engaging in a war with Iran won't be easy or popular. Lately they've managed to capture drones and threatening the shipping will let them achieve their own goals with the least risk of provoking a US response. I guess the real question is, what will the US do if it is attacked? In all likelyhood, they will be buzzed by Iranian boats without actually being attacked. But how close will they let such boats approach?
In a post-Cole world the "buzzing" of a warship will be considered a hostile act and get you sunk. The US public will not be terribly upset over military action against Iran given that (1) it will seem somewhat justified and (2) there will not be boots on the ground except those air assault units who go in temporarily to destroy nuclear research and processing facilities and then leave. There will be no occupation. Invading countries and blowing the hell out of stuff is actually pretty popular with the American public. Its only the occupation that gets unpopular. You can have the former with the later.
Al Qaeda turned on the U.S. during the first Persian Gulf War against Iraq, when the U.S. established bases in Saudi Arabia, and started two decades of extensive military intervention in the Middle East. Al Qaeda was especially incensed at an infidel army camping in the middle of the Muslim holy land, Saudia Arabia.
Actually, Osama was pissed b/c the US c blocked his grand scheme to use his mujahadeen to remake the Mid East and overthrow the house of Saud.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Carrying capacity. Wow. I thought maybe I was the only guy outside of the game commissions to understand that term.
I'll give you my guess:
This planet could probably sustain about two billion people, comfortably, without pumping tons of oil out of the ground to support our appetite for energy. As I say, that's only a guess. Maybe a half educated guess, but still a guess.
Of course, without the petroleum, a much larger percentage of that population would have to actually work to produce the food necessary to sustain the population. No welfare for baby making do-nothings, for starters. It would be much more of a "no work, no eat" society.
"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
Given Israel's stated policies, Israel having nukes is a threat to Iran, most of Islamic world and Europe
Which Israeli policy makes nukes a threat to Iran? Or for that matter, Europe? Has Israel stated that they are going to try to get revenge for Auschwitz?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"Actually, I'd consider that a draw... with sufficient heat dissipation,
a speedboat could avoid most dangerous missile fire and then only
come under rocket fire or machine gun."
Come on. A speedboat on water is an obvious visual and IR target to any modern missile seeker. Attack helicopters are designed to eliminate tanks---contrast on sea is higher than on land. If it's daytime, look for the wake. If they're not moving fast enough to make a wake, they're a target.
If they have MANPADS, then the jets will attack those first. You can even use a bomber with laser-guided ordnance.
Really, air superiority prevents some pretty big barriers to Iran's operations except for submarines.
If that's directed to me, I was.
A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
The Pipeline was constructed with the promise that Alaskan oil wouldn't be diverted to Japan. So, the partners in the project ended up getting bought out by British Petroleum, which wasn't a signatory to that agreement, and a good portion of the oil was then shipped off to Japan.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
People spout this bullshit all the time. But they never go on to say that the U.S. and Europe produce most of the world's "resources" also.
America is a net food exporter and has been for a long time. Those ships filled with grain in all the third world ports? They came from the West. Those starving children you see on T.V.? They are the result of tin pot dictators, communist leftovers and various socialist utopian visionaries.
Just look at Zimbabwe. once, an exporter of food to the rest of the region, known as the breadbasket of Africa. Then Robert Mugabe came to power, lauded by all the leftists in the West as a man of the people. Now look at it. Inflation in the 1000%+, they can't feed themselves, oppression, and those children you see on late night TV.
Did America cause that? Did my having a second Big Mac cause that? My big screen TV? Nope.
Look at Venezuela. Same story, they just haven't reached the end game yet. Chavez is still the darling of the Hollywood left even as he slowly and relentlessly takes away their freedoms one bit at a time and destroys their economy. If an American President shut down CBS because of their editorial policies, people like you would be shitting bricks 24/7. Chavez does it and the response is, "well, they were fomenting rebellion."
Is the West "stealing" from Iran? not at $105 a barrel we're not.
We don't have a problem of not enough resources. We have a problem of uneven distribution. And that's not caused by Americans raising our own food and feeding ourselves, it's caused by authoritarian governments oppressing their citizens.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/world/8565077-418/israel-could-nuke-iran-with-newly-tested-missile.html http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x304864
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
"Exactly the things that Saddam Hussein removed from the Iraqi population."
TFIFY
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I don't know who originally reported it (it was over a decade ago), but if you check Google books or scholar you'll find references. books link scholar link
Other than Japan and Germany - name one.
Religious freak dreaming about 72 virgins in paradise or authoritarian regime on brink of collapse is not something reasonable.
And genocidal fundamentalist regime of Israel declaring Palestinians are less than animals, dropping Mtons of bombs on Lebanon and threatening Europe with nuclear strike lest they decline to support Israel in a potential conflict is reasonable, right?
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
... about this long...
*holding fingers really close together*
How long, you ask? Well, how long does it take a cruise missile to get from one of our destroyers to one of their ships? About that long.
And the US reacts by destroying Iran's navy, Iran's air force, and likely by taking Iran's ports and anything else within a 200km range of the coastline, then painstakingly DOES search every goddamn cave in the area. Who benefits from this, besides Saudi Arabia?
If you studied a little bit of history you'd know that calling Mossadegh "democratic" is a bit of a stretch. At the risk of invoking Godwin, let me remind you that Hitler was elected as well.
oil in the Caspian basin is estimated to be worth over US $12 trillion. The sudden collapse of the USSR and subsequent opening of the region has led to an intense investment and development scramble by international oil companies. In 1998 Dick Cheney commented that "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian."[29]
I'm not saying that the stability of Eastern Europe is not strategically important, just suggesting that $12 trillion of oil reserves is also pretty important, and a pretty big motivator for a government concerned with that kind of thing.
US intervention has often succeeded in liberating nations...
Yes- Ask the people of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Haiti and El Salvador how those interventions went for them. Here's a reference to US interventions in the 20th and 21st centuries. Turns out we've had a very busy 100 years. Hell- I had no idea that we actually stationed troops for years in China well before WWII. Some of the interventions in the list above were likely justified, but I think Marine Major General Smedley Butler had a pretty good handle on reality when he said:
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
Extending these examples into modern times, I think that Iraq and the 'stans (Caspian oil pipeline) are now relatively safer places for American / Global Oil and Bank Interests. Don't worry; there's more to come- I'm sure there will be several more wars in the near future to get our minds off of the pain of dismantling / rebuilding Europe's and America's economic systems.... ahem...excuse me: "making the world safe for Democracy and Prosperity".
Nobody knew for sure at the time there was oil there.
Besides, there were no brown people there to bomb, and the former Soviets haddn't had their big nuclear weapons garage sale yet, which is why we didn't do the big 'Invade for regime change' on the area.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Oh it's the sanctions that kill people. Sorry but it was the leaders of Iraq who refused to play nice with the world even after they invaded Kuwait and were subsequently forced back onto their own soil. It was the leaders of Iraq who murdered millions of their own people throughout the 80s and 90s. It was the leaders of Iraq who refused to deliver the UNICEF and other aid to those in need in their own country. It was the leaders of Iraq who plundered the revenues from the "oil for food" program instead of feeding their own population.
Your socialist revision of history is appalling. You are the type of person who believes guns kill people. Sorry people kill people as illustrated above.
It's easy, quit threatening people and play nice with the world, quit having a childlike temper tantrum and the sanctions will be lifted.
So you're ok with punishing innocent people for the crimes of their tyrants? It's not like the people who are suffering from the sanctions have any influence over the actions of their government. Their leaders aren't even democratically elected. Additionally, the people at the top who are actually responsible for the evil that the sanctions are in response to are incredibly well-insulated from the effects of those sanctions. In fact, the crazy dictators who run these countries actually use these foreign sanctions to their advantage, as a rallying cry to motivate their people to hate the "evil" western powers that are making them suffer.
Your incredibly short-sighted revision of history is appalling. You are the type of person who believes that corrupt dictators represent the will of their subjects, and that punishing their subjects somehow punishes them. I hope you're just a troll.
Knowledge != Intelligence
Yes they destroyed Iraq in days, but only because they followed up with ground forces. If you don't follow up it will be like Vietnam. After the bombing the Iranian's will rebuild underground and fight on. Even from ruins you can support terrorism and send out floating mines. Any US attack that doesn't follow up with an invasion will fail (long term).
Perhaps they're remembering the near three decades of the Shah's rule in Iran, marked by murders, torture, SAVAK secret police
You didn't even try to read what I posted. If East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania underwent four decades of dictatorship much worse than anything the Shah did, how come Iran has so much trouble moving forward?
AFAIK, there was no wall surrounding Iran. People were free to move away if they wanted. Different from East Europe. Dictatorship was what they had in East Europe, the Shah was a more or less authoritarian regime, but not nearly as bad as the Communist regimes.
+5, Informative, really? That should be -5, Blind Fanatic, mods.
And yet, as many of the comments attached to that article pointed out, the paragraph you quoted didn't appear in any of the original reporting but only in versions published on IndyMedia. No sourcing for it, no evidence for it, most likely to be nothing other than the usual Jew Hating you'll find all over IndyMedia.
Perhaps if you could provide some direct evidence of their nuclear weapons aspiration. Perhaps I'm being a cynic but we heard the whole WMD line with Iraq and it was (at least in the UK) proven to be a complete fabrication.
And perhaps if you could try actually reading the news? Here's a report from the New York Times from November 8th:
United Nations weapons inspectors have amassed a trove of new evidence that they say makes a “credible” case that “Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device,” and that the project may still be under way. The long-awaited report, released by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Tuesday, represents the strongest judgment the agency has issued in its decade-long struggle to pierce the secrecy surrounding the Iranian program. Knowing that their findings would be compared with the flawed Iraq intelligence that preceded the 2003 invasion — and has complicated American moves on Iran — the inspectors devoted a section of the report to “credibility of information.” The information was from more than 10 countries and from independent sources, they said; some was backed up by interviews with foreigners who had helped Iran.
Keep in mind, the U.N. weapons inspectors are the same guys who- under Hans Blix- said that there was no evidence that Iraq had any WMD. They made the right call on Iraq despite tremendous outside pressure, and now these same guys who were cautious on Iraq are saying that Iran has started a nuclear bomb program.
Okay, let's put it this way.
Let's say the only America naval power in the area is a carrier, a destroyer, a crusier, and a couple of patrol boats.
Meanwhile, the enemy sends 500 unarmored patrol boats at this fleet, loaded for bear with anti-armor weaponry and explosives.
The Americans sink 300 of the patrol boats but their entire battle group is lost with all hands. The enemy has a naval power of 200 boats. The Americans have a naval power of 0 boats.
Money matters in things like this, but cost efficiency won't count for shit if you don't have any boots on the ground or keels in the water.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
I forgot who said it first (and I'm paraphrasing), but one of the most insightful military quotes I've ever heard is, "The military is always preparing for the previous war."
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
I mean no disrespect, but those sources all seem to cite... each other. To be more specific, they all ultimately seem to rely on that George Monbiot article, which in turn -- provides no source.
I remain open to the possibility that Richardson actually said this, but at this point it's looking unlikely.
- aj
Of course it's been studied. The results and recommendations should be out around 2020 by the earliest.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
I don't disagree with your point, but we -don't- pay "market price" for the oil. Since Goldman Sachs took advantage of the repeal of Glass-Steagal, we've been paying speculator prices. Look here: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_09/b4217086779050.htm. Good read, even if not very tightly woven.
Why do I get this feeling that a Gulf of Tonkin incident is being manufactured?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
I think this is just the US helping Saudi Arabia with their Iran problem. The US is attempting to mess up Irans oil commerce via sanctions. Its hard to tell if it will work because Iran has elected insane people that would rather fuck up their population than acquiesce to US demands.
Great idea. The problem is, any country, or even group of people, can be considered a potential enemy. This grouping includes the citizenry of the United States, by the way.
So it looks like we'll have to invade the entire damned planet to make the world safe for American democracy^Wbusiness...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Banana republics don't work either as last century politics of some countries showed. For some reason USA don't have lots of friends in own continent.
Aftermath of WW2 is cold war and harassment of other countries by US. Cold war ended. Remnants of it still existing in Korean peninsula. Aggressive US politics continue.
Since when Middle East is only Europe's problem. Your country started two wars against independent countries and now you expect others to foot your overextended military budget. Persians hate Americans and not Europeans.
And yet, as many of the comments attached to that article pointed out, the paragraph you quoted didn't appear in any of the original reporting but only in versions published on IndyMedia. No sourcing for it, no evidence for it, most likely to be nothing other than the usual Jew Hating you'll find all over IndyMedia.
I'd just like to say this;
You don't have to hate Jews to hate Israel.
Unfortunately most of the Israeli Jews I have known have been raving xenophobic racists. The Israeli government and military policies seem horrific, they maintain a kill ratio of about 100-1 against Palestinians. They don't accept that the Palestinian people even exist; the way it was explained to me was this "They are Arabs, they should be happy to live anywhere in the Arab world. Israel is not part of the Arab world and they should leave."
Most of the NON-Israeli Jews I have known have been peaceful tolerant people and I'd count all that I've known among my friends.
Yes I hate Israel. No I don't hate JEWS.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Yes, America, with the world economy teetering on a knife-edge, this is the perfect time to provoke a nation you've been fucking with for decades to shut down one of the most economically important shipping routes on the planet.
And yeah, sanctions. Great idea. Starve the very people in Iran who don't hate you.
What could possibly go wrong with this plan!?
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
Do you have something to foot your words? When Israelis threatened somebody with nuclear strike? Europeans withdraw support in the middle of last century. Now Israel is supported only by US. Israelis never admit that they are nuclear. When did they do something genocidal or acted as fundamentalist regime. Last time I checked, Israelis was democracy. Palestinians can't establish own state without going into civil war. They live in region which formed multiple cultures and yet insist that they own whole region. If you exchange 1 Israelis of 1000 of Palestinians, people might start calculating values based on exchange rate. Before bombs went off in Lebanon, rockets exploded in Israel. Can you stop rockets without crossing the border?
Anyone remember the battles in the Falkland Islands in the 80s?
I grew up watching old WWII documentaries with destroyers pounding each other in epic battles for days.
Then on the news, I saw huge and expensive high tech ships last all of seconds going up against modern missiles and torpedos.
I think the age of epic navel battles with ever bigger and more powerful ships is over.
I remember that both sides in the Falkland Islands battle were shocked how quickly they were going through ships and quickly pulled their bigger, more expensive ones to the rear out of harms way.
Isn't that a violation of the Geneva Accords????
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
I think the point is that it doesn't have to. It just needs to survive long enough to launch a missile.
Missile-armed boats are relatively expensive. Iran has only about 20 of them, 10 of which date back to the 1970s. And probably a handful are out of service for repairs or maintenance at any given time.
Also, I guess if fifty of these things are attacking a ship, only a few of them have to launch their missiles or come up alongside and detonate their explosives for the tactic to be effective.
Boats like that are so fragile a .50 cal will tear them apart in a few seconds. After the USS Cole incident American warships were issued heavy machine guns that clip onto the rails and sailors were trained in their use. The only way the "pull up alongside and detonate" tactic will work is if the ROE won't allow the crew to fire until it's too late.
Also, frigates are fast - almost certainly faster than a speedboat packed with enough explosives to do actual damage. Attacking an alert (and they're surely alert at this point) crew in a ship underway is a whole different kettle of fish than attacking a ship in port.
Japan's battleships were nearly useless too. The Yamato, the most powerful battleship every built came to its end with a suicide mission to try to stop the invasion of Okinawa, where it was promptly sunk by carrier borne aircraft. Read the link above. The role the Yamato and its sister ship Musashi played in World War II was weak at best. They were mostly used at transports because they were big and well armored, and otherwise were anti aircraft batteries.
Countries built battle ships because they were the signature of powerful navies, and a source of national pride, BEFORE aircraft and aircraft carriers completely changed the dynamics. After the disruption occurred they were staggeringly expensive, and not very useful relics.
The Bismark likewise succumbed to a single torpedo from an ancient British biplane torpedo bomber. Germany's battleships and battlecruisers were an equally ineffective squandering of vast resources.
Billy Mitchell had started to prove how worthless battleships were in the face of aircraft as early as 1921 and 1923 when he sank three battleships from the air, though the tests were a bit rigged. The only only people who didn't know battleships were uselss by 1941 were backward thinking relic admirals.
Battleships were only of value in their original roles in ship to ship battles where there were no air forces in the vacinity, which was increasingly rare in World War II. Otherwise they were used for shore bombardment, armored transport and anti aircraft batteries because they tended to carry a lot of guns. None of those roles really justifed the huge expenditure of resources required to build or fuel them.
@de_machina
Aren't you forgetting that it was on behalf of Britain's Anglo-Iranian Oil Company? And we did it even though we had no strategic interests in Iran?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat
This was a British crisis.
i would be surprised if Iran was dumb enough to attack and oil tanker.. sure it would be a great photo op.. but for the surrounding countries it would be an environmental disaster - and completely Iran's fault.. if nothing it would pit the other countries against them..
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
"Your socialist revision of history is appalling. "
Sorry, I think you must've completely missed out an entire paragraph of your post explaining the connection between being anti-sanctions and being a socialist. Do you think you could kindly post this for us so we can all understand the link between being socialist and being anti-sanctions?
I don't really disagree with the point that sanctions can be effective, though I think they're important because people will only rise up against their leadership when their living standards become poor enough to justify the risk, and sanctions most certainly speed that up. They're an effective way of pursuing destabilisation without the inherent risks of backlash that boots on the ground cause.
But by implying anyone you disagree with is somehow socialist when no demonstration of their actual overall political leaning is demonstrated you simply show yourself up as even more ignorant and bigoted than the GP.
There are countless socialist countries in the world, many succesful nations in Europe like Norway and France make great examples. The idea that anyone who you believe is wrong is a lesser person because they must be socialist is intellectually bankrupt and is demonstrative of the type of anti-intellectualism that is rife within political leanings that truly have been historically problematic, like nationalism.
Oh, did I forget to mention that socialist countries like France have been some of the biggest drivers of sanctions against Iran?
For those of you who haven't figured out the allusion by now, I mentioned the role of the Japanese oil embargo in bringing the U.S. in to World War II, because the current situation with Iran is kind of an analog.
The U.S. is seeking to completely embargo Iran, not to peacefully starve Iran in to relenting on its nuclear ambitions, but to drive Iran in to a desperate corner and provoke them in to initiating the hostilites that the U.S., Israel and Sunni Arab's (i.e. Saudi Arabia) so desperately want. Tampering with oil, in this case Iran's oil revenues which are an enormous percentage of their economy, is certain to make them desperate.
The U.S. wants to be able to say that Iran started the war, because after the U.S. fabrications used to justify the Iraq invasion, it would be much more convenient if the Iranians would close the Strait of Hormuz and shoot first. Then the U.S. can bomb them in to the stone age without looking like the aggresor, as much, and without having to spend so much time ginning up a case against them like Iraq, a tactic to which the world is now completely jaded.
Overthrowing Saddam was such a great idea because it made Iran, and Shia muslims, vastly more powerful and they are now starting to threaten Sunni regimes across the Middle East from the now consolidated Shia bloc of Iran, Iraq and Lebanon. So much so that the Sunni's in Saudi Arabia are on the same side as Israel in wanting to wipe Iran off the map. When both Israel and Suadi Arabia are telling the U.S. to do something, the U.S. will inevitably do it, no matter what it costs the U.S. in the end.
@de_machina
Iran has stated on the record that even if the Palestinians agree 100% to a peace agreement, they will still pursue the violent extermination of Israel.
Arafat once said the same, yet he shook hands with an Israeli PM. I don't think anything I wrote implied that I thought the leadership of Iran was in any way sane. Ahmadinejad is a nutbar. Ayatollah Khomeini was a nutbar. Their future leadership *may* turn out to be sane (Allah Akbar!).
All parties in the Middle East appear to have learned to enjoy hating each other; it's their favourite game. Sunni vs. Shiite, PLO vs. Hezbollah, Muslims vs. Jews, Orthodox Jews vs. mere Israelis, Saudis vs. Iran, Muslim Brotherhood vs. infidels, ...
None of them need us to be poking our sticks into their hornets nest.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
MAD was Mutually Assured Destruction between two basically equal parties that almost failed several time. You propose that strategy in an N way relationship between inequal parties many of which have no internal checks and balances. Could we agree that nukes in the hands of those with a martyrdom complex would be a bad idea?
It isn't just the Jewish lobby, apocalyptic Christians support the Jews running the middle east to harken the return of JC ...
ACK. Good point.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
on the Earth. They are the right hand of vengeance, and the left hand of justice. Bow down before your capitalist democratic overlords and be free from the tyranny of ignorance and extremist dogma! Prepare for freedom arsenal!
It could be because the political structure of the country's rebels was different, because there was allied support and because Libya is on the edge of a powder-keg while Syria is in the middle of one next to a place that the US had already thrown into turmoil.
You just made a fatal mistake!!! You assume MAD will prevent the usage of nuclear weapons. When religious leaders speak of the 12th imam, there's an equal possibily of the desire to start global thermonuclear war, not prevent it.
Life is not for the lazy.
"Bullshit."
No really, it's almost certainly not.
Whilst I agree his use of the term "unquestionably" was probably a poor choice of words, because it is still questionable, the evidence is pretty strong and Iran's lack of will to allow international inspectors to prove that it isn't working on nuclear weapons is always going to be a cause for concern when many other countries routinely allow inspectors to demonstrate their nuclear programme is not designed for nuclear arms development. Iran isn't some super high-tech nation, so their allegation that the IAEA inspectors are spies and Iran has some nuclear technology to steal that no one else in the world has is laughably weak.
It's also completely false to suggest Iran hasn't started wars, whilst you may well be accurate in saying Iran hasn't sent tanks rolling across it's borders into it's neighbours backyard, there's no real question that wars between Israel and Lebanon are the result of Iranian stirring of tensions and arming, training, and inciting Hezbollah and in fact the destabilisation of Lebanon in general is Iran's fault, by creating a second military within it's borders it's allowed the Islamist militia in question to leave the secular military and civilian governmental administration powerless, despite the fact that the secular administration and military had the legitimate backing of the people. Iran has very much caused wars, but it does so by proxy.
Also, whilst I'm quite anti-Israel nowadays, particularly so since they elected their current overly right wing administration that has absolutely no interest in peace, and since they continue to prevent any hope of peace in the middle east by the continuation of settlement building your comments are a little disturbing, I mean, "Oh, FYI Jews have nukes." - really? they do? which ones? the ones living in Russia? the ones in New York? the Jewish lobby in California? Oh, you mean Israel the nation has nukes? You mean, the nation of which a quarter is not actually even Jewish?
"For the sake of MAD balance Iran should as well"
MAD only works when all people in control of the nukes are sensible enough to not want a nuclear war. Thus far, Iran's leadership has shown little evidence they're that smart. Specifically, there's a very real concern that Iran would continue it's tactics of proxy war and pass nuclear weaponry to the likes of Hezbollah and hope that plausible deniability is enough to prevent them from a retaliatory strike.
The Iranian oil bourse? it's a great conspiracy theory, but erm, the latest round of sanctions are threatening to specifically target Iran's oil, precisely because the West has figured out that it can actually get by without Iranian oil thanks to the likes of Saudi Arabia offering to increase production.
No, the situation in this part of the world is precisely what it says on the tin, it's concern of a nation running a covert nuclear weapons operation without having been able to demonstrate itself as a trustworthy citizen of the world capable of adhering to MAD principles even if it does acquire nuclear weapons. The lack of trust largely stemming from it's destabilisation of the middle east through proxy war including previously proven subversive actions in Lebanon, Israel, Palestinian territories, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as possible but as yet unproven subversive actions in Yemen, Egypt, and other parts of the Middle East and Africa. Finally yes, I realise you'll probably tell me that countries like America are guilty of this too - and yes, you're right. But that doesn't excuse Iran, and countries like America, Israel and so forth do at least have a 40+ year track record of demonstrating that they're not actually willing to use nukes unless their very existence is threatened, and even then possibly not.
If you want to save as much lives as you can while preventing overpopulation, we westerners should be first ones to go
Why do you ask others to do something you do not? Nothing is stopping you from killing yourself for the greater good. BTW Is Japan, China, or India in the West now? Population in the West isn't growing at alarming rates. We have enough food in the world for everyone, it's a distribution issue. Africa has lots of natural resources... what is the problem there? Oh it's the fucking people who live there like it's a giant crab bucket!
Then you probably also understand that it is the US and Europe that uses most of the resources on our planet.
How many people does Europe and the US feed? Why aren't these countries supporting themselves if they're such great places to live? Do you know what the US has done for wheat production? Norman Borlaug. Please don't mistake this for patriotism.
People from other places on Earth use far fewer resources per one person than we do.
Yeah because they're stuck in the dark ages? Let's rewind western civilization to the point where these other countries are at and see what the usage is like! So far every country which advances seems to do the same thing (minus the R&D expenditures) .
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
Can we downmod people using the insulting "US-ian", instead of the correct "American"? You don't denigrate other groups by not using the name that they use for themselves, do you?
Wow, you find that insulting?!? I just consider it descriptive. I've found that the only people offended by the use of "US-ian" is US-ians who ignore the fact that not all "Americans" are in the USA.
Cf. North America, Central America, South America.
No fucking sympathy for your point of view whatsoever from here, a North American in Canada!
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
during the Republican presidential candidate I watched, Ron Paul was the only one not saber-rattling about Iran...
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
"but saying "the US steals oil" is a claim with no support."
Actually it is totally supported, as has been said elsewhere here, by the case of Mossadegh and Iran. Mossadegh nationalized British operated oil fields in Iran because he felt Iran was being exploited and not being compensated sufficiently. The British teamed with the U.S. to topple Mossadegh soon after and replaced him with a ruthless despot, the Shah of Iran. Iran's oil fields were promptly handed over to the control of U.S. oil companies, so the U.S. stole those fields from either the Iranians or the British depending on how you look at it :)
The perception that the U.S. steals oil has been around ever since. It was also the turning point in history which drove Iran to be where it is today, and is their rationale for their rabid hatred of the U.S.
In fairness though, the U.S. doesn't start wars, overthrow governments, and support ruthless dictators just for oil. The U.S. does those things for bananas in Central America, sweat shops in Haiti and mob run casinos in Cuba. Its done because its good for business.
@de_machina
defenses on high-tech warships might get overwhelmed with a swarm of cheap missiles. that's probably what the US Navy is concerned about.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
If America armed a bunch of Americans to go over the border into Iran, or armed anti-government protesters in Iran with all the kit they need to create their own military which they then used to force their will onto the country, would you say America had started a war?
If your answer is no, then you're absolutely right, Iran has started no wars, if your answer is yes, then Iran is implicated in every war caused by Hezbollah's agression, both internal civil wars within Lebanon, and external wars with the likes of Israel.
Whatever your previous answer, if you think that to perform this type of action is wrong, then it's irrelevant as to whether Iran has technically started any direct wars, committing proxy wars is just as problematic, so saying Iran hasn't started any wars is irrelevant when the fundamental point is that it's still an aggressive destabilising force in the region. If you don't think this sort of action is wrong (whoever is doing it, whether it's Mossad, the CIA, or the Republican Guard) then, well, there's really no helping you as it would mean your understanding of the cause of serious international disputes is so dire you shouldn't even really be discussing the topic.
I do generally agree with you and sympathise with your point, but I think it's utterly naive to believe that solving the Palestinian/Israeli problem would somehow bring peace to the middle east. Syria and Iran absolutely hate the likes of Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and you'd still have the Turks invading Northern Iraq to kill Kurds, and vice versa if the hard line right wing AKP stay in power there.
Solving the Israel problem would sort a big chunk of the problems, but there'd still be a long way to go, and frankly the toppling of the Syrian and Iranian regimes is still part of what is required to stabilise the middle east, as is the toppling of the Saudi regime, and a return to secular moderate political leaning in Turkey. Yemen too needs to be pulled back from the brink of civil war and it's anyone's guess as to how to solve the Yemen problem as it's got too many warring factions, and is a borderline failed state - at that point you need to likely split it up and build a number of much smaller nations from scratch representing the separate factions whilst somehow eliminating the heightened level of zealous militancy there, and ensuring each new state was willing to work in a progressive manner with the other new states despite their population not seeing eye to eye. That's a pretty tall order.
The US Navy is probably concerned about how defenses on high-tech warships might get overwhelmed with a swarm of cheap missiles.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
They would still fight, but they would be safely ignored by the rest of the world, much like Africa.
Seems like your mother never taught you that other persons bad actions does not justify you doing bad things.
Study military history. Sometimes it does. If USSR tossed nuclear/chemical/biological our way, we'd not only be justified in doing the same back, we'd be remiss not to do so overwhelmingly.
Who is president?
Maybe a channel through the UAE could help, would be around 50-100km long.
Je me souviens.
You are easily fooled. Even the stupidest politician knows to do what their corporate backers tell them to do.
I'm not sure whether your analogy refers to "US meddling in the middle east" or "Iran provoking the US".
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I too sympathize with your point. I don't mean to belittle the magnitude of the problem.
However, they all did get along once, and I firmly believe they (in time) can again, if others would just stop sticking their noses into it. For me, it's like Cold War politics ("our puppet state" vs. "their puppet state") is still going on, long after the Soviets ceased to be a problem for anybody.
*ALL* of the Middle East's problems ought to be considered "an internal problem." It should be left up to all of them to work it out. Sunni vs. Shiite, Muslim vs. $blah, Palestinian vs. Zionism, ... We can't fix that !@#$
It shouldn't be any of $our business. They ought to be left alone to sort out their affairs, as that's the only way their affairs can be sorted. Unseating Mosadegh and installing the Shah was none of our business. Supporting Iraq against Iran was none of our business. Unseating Saddam Hussein was none of our business.
Okay, I think Afghanistan is our business, because I hate seeing women executed for wearing the wrong clothing or just offending some guy. That !@#$ sucks. I think we do have an obligation to at least attempt to export civilization to those who desperately need it.
The US should just stop fiddling with geopolitics, and get back to its own knitting. There are no Hitlers out there we need them to save us from today. Their own democracy is far more in need of their help than any of the rest of the world's peoples.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Do they sound a little less "asymmetric" now? Yes, you could bombard the coastline heavily, but some caves can go pretty deep, particularly if the cavers bring mining equipment - 25 years ago.
Good luck hiding the missile and launchers in a cave. And as soon as it's fired one of the drones circling over head will immediately identify the source and either launch it's own missile to destroy it or call in for help. Let's also not forget the destroyers will be continually shelling several miles of coastline and drones will be identifying any target that even gets CLOSE to the coast where jets and ship based artillery will hammer it.
As for a 98% "kill chance" - it has a 0% kill chance against the US Navy protected by lots of neat toys. The YJ-82 hasn't been "high-tech" for at least 20 years and only has a range of a little over 100km, far below the range of a Navy Aircraft Carrier. The only thing they'll be able to sink are unarmed tankers. And if they do, they're cutting off their own nose to spite their face. Most of their revenue is from oil and we'd be cutting off their delivery lanes.
So you're ok with punishing innocent people for the crimes of their tyrants? It's not like the people who are suffering from the sanctions have any influence over the actions of their government. Their leaders aren't even democratically elected.
Did you miss the recent events in Libya? If the majority population thinks things are bad enough, they will overthrow their leadership... it has happened many times throughout history.
In fact, the crazy dictators who run these countries actually use these foreign sanctions to their advantage, as a rallying cry to motivate their people to hate the "evil" western powers that are making them suffer.
Unfortunately, this is a possible outcome. Sanctions alone are not the answer. It also requires a massive propaganda war. That is where we usually fail.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
I have observed that over the past several months the number of stories about Iran in the media has been on the increase. The tone and frequency of what I have seen make me suspect the US is preparing the citizenry for a military conflict with Iran. Specifically, I refer to the number of media pieces covering Iran's nuclear capabilities. It is subtle but I don't think it is my imagination. Having watched the run-up to other wars, most especially the wars in Iraq, my intuition is that what I have seen in the media recently is similar to what I saw during the months preceding the other wars. These conflicts don't happen by accident. They require significant logistical planning, and the US would be crazy to jump into a conflict with Iran without devoting significant effort to detailed contingency planning. Part of that planning would very likely include preparing the minds of citizens for war with Iran.
I believe that the narrative of this war will be that we are acting to prevent Iran from developing a strong nuclear weapons program. It will be argued that Iran will become untouchable once it builds an arsenal of nuclear weapons. If it does happen, I don't think it will be easy. Iran is a mountainous territory, unlike western Iraq, which is flat desert. We will not be able to push columns of tanks clear across the country like we did in Iraq. Iran is also more technologically advanced than Iraq, as demonstrated by the possibility that they used GPS spoofing to force a US drone to land in their territory.
I am not sure of what I am saying, but I have found in the past, my instincts have often been correct in matters such as this. The nature of the narrative in TFA really makes me suspect that something will happen within the next few months. There is just too much probability that something will happen in the Strait of Hormuz that will precipitate a shooting war. The posturing. The ultimatums. The movement of military assets into the strait. I could be wrong. Check back in one year. I just don't think the US will let Iran become a nuclear armed state.
BTW, I think I made a post about Libya and Gaddafi a few months ago (June 2011 I think) that was quite correct, if you check my post history.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Iran used to be silent and contained. Their border hostilities with Iraq and Sadam Husein kept it that way. Then Bush 1 pissed on that because he had a recession and a lack luster presidency. Bush 2 further dismantled Iraq as Iranian cork because his family honour was offended.
I have no problem with what the US did to Japan - but that's not what I was referring to. I meant what the US did to tens of thousands of US citizens who happened to be of Japanese descent.
And 18-24 yo children can't vote, can they Mr Perry?
'ronpaulisanidiot'
Those sorts of user IDs are only used by frenzied and overzealous obsessives. No one will be swayed by anything you ever say.
It's easy to be xenophobic when all of your neighbors have been trying to destroy you for 50 years and the rest of the planet has been trying since last rebellion was crushed.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I'm not sure of that 2 billion figure. I do know that the Renaisance happened when people were able to grow enough food to free up other people to become educated and/or ask pointed questions about Life, the Universe, and Everything. That fueled the cycle to create the Industrial Revolution, industrialising food production in the First World enough to free even more people from the farm to develop even more technology. Take away enough technology to force enough people back to farming for a living and technology and its development will come to a complete stall.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
People that think that offering Israel up as a sacrificial lamb simply don't know history. Forgetting the internal struggles between real nations that exist in the Arab world (like Egyptians and Persians), there's also this long standing conflict between Islam and everyone else.
There's a lot of history that people gloss over when the engage in "religion of peace" rhetoric.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
In the case of the British Empire it wasn't a "screw up". They purposely divided nations to create hostility. This served to keep locals busy fighting each other and allowed the British to come in as peace makers. Your right thought in that a lot of our current issues in the middle east can be traced to tis policy.
The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Bild-Prayingmantis5sahand.jpg/800px-Bild-Prayingmantis5sahand.jpg
Second round, bring it on!
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
No 'self-respecting' Persian would ever consider a Kurd as being a member of 'their people'. It's like telling a Japanese that the Koreans living in Japan are Japanese as well. It just don't happen.
Bush Sr promised the Kurds in Iraq that he'd support them after the Coalition got through pushing the Iraqi army back to Bagdad in exchange for their help in doing just that, and conveniently forgot that promise as soon as it was convenient. Saddam of course found out about it and went batshit, turning 'Chemical Ali' loose on them as a national security measure.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
No. It is the business of a Afghans -- both the women and their male sympathizers -- to decide to do something about this. It is NOT our business. If you think it is, you are ALSO saying that is the Afghans business to export their ideas into OUR way of life by force. This is what national borders are for -- to allow different ideas to operate without interference. The people within, subject to the experiment, as it were, are the arbitrators of what to do, or not, about something, or even if something needs to be done. For our part, we have the legitimate option of deciding to trade with them, or not. Nothing else.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
So was Iraq. They even had elections and everything. Course, the only party on the ticket was the Ba'ath Party, just like the Soviet Union had elections as well, with only the Communist Party on the ballot. It even reminds me of the US, where we have two wings of the Party on the ballots here, the Kleptocrats and the Decepticons.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
There is no justification for "obliterating countries"
I can think of more than a few justifications.
A few of those are batshit insane, while others are pretty darn reasonable though certainly cold and calculating. Nice leaders don't always win.
"Surely some people do realise that economic sanctions will likely kill an awful lot of the poorest people in Iran and the sanctions are in themselves, a declaration of war. "
Sanctions don't kill people, the spending decisions by the SANCTIONED GOVERNMENTS kill people.
That's quite a difference. Note that even un-sanctioned governments can make the same decisions. Pakistan preferred nukes to reducing poverty.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
"Really though, sanctions end up starving people who would have otherwise provided for themselves."
Citation needed. Spending CHOICES by sanctioned GOVERNMENTS holding their own people hostage starve those people.
Not giving in to kidnappers is not abetting kidnappers.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
[quote]
But they have the oil that WE need in order to not suffer mass starvation.
[/quote]
NO.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/02/u-s-dependent-on-middle-east-oil-think-again/
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Yes the events in Libya is most likely largely due to the fact that Libya had general conscription and a very large part of the male population had atleast some limited experience handling weapons. But in the end a conscription based military means that the military is directly tied to the local population and as such the limit for what atrocities the military is willing to commit/allow comes fairly soon because it could just aswell be their mothers, sisters, sons and daughters etc.
When the situation is like in most of the countries ruled by a tyrant the military is closely tied to the tyrant, they and their families have much higher living standards than the average population and they generally live apart from the average population.
And since they derive all their wealth and security from the tyrant the military is more closely tied to the tyrant than the population and thus as long as the tyrant keep the military happy the atrocities will continue.
Another important thing is that without international support the rebellion in Libya would have been brutally crushed, the rebels and most able bodied males in the rebelling areas slaughtered and their wives, sisters and daughters brutally raped. Look instead at the situation in Syria, the population is trying to rebel and the result is that the tyrant sends in the military to mop up and the rebels are powerless to do anything about it because they lack enough weapons, training or international support to resist effectively.
True. The USA has huge deposits of tar sands.
The US government should not give a damn about the middle east, Mexico, or frankly any other country when it involves anything except trade. And even trade should be reduced to bilateral agreements instead of multi-country blocks. Pragmatism and amoral behavior should dictate the US government actions.
The United States is still the ONLY nation to have EVER used nukes, and against a predominantly civilian target at that. The US instigated the Cuban missile crisis(which is the closest the world has ever been to global thermonuclear war) by putting more than 100 nuclear armed missiles within striking distance of Moscow.
I would say that the US track record is definitely rather spotty.
oils just a commodity. once its pumped you can't tell where it came from. so take away middle eastern oil and that reduces OUR supplies as well.
"The government said China’s population was 1.34 billion, an increase of 73.9 million, or 5.8 percent, from the last tally in 2000. "
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/world/asia/29census.html?_r=1
Israel refuses to verify whether it has nuclear capabilities or not
Israel refuses to sign the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty.
Israel refuses to allow IAEA to determine whether it has nuclear capabilities or not
While Israel refuses to divulge any nuclear capabilities their military doctrine maintains the right to use a preemptive strike with any and all weapon systems.
Since Israel refuses to allow IAEA insight into it's nuclear capabilities any and all embargoes employed against Iran is by the same logic also reasonable against Israel and what do you think Israels response would be against an embargo that essentially amounts to prohibiting any trade either to or from Israel?
Sure Iran is not someone I would like to have nukes but I don't think they are any more likely to use them than Pakistan, North Korea or Israel are.
I doubt that the US is any more afraid that Iran would use any nukes than say North Korea, on the other hand if Iran gets nuclear capabilities it would force Israel to play a lot nicer and Israel would most likely have to stop occupying the Palestinian territories and it would change the entire balance of power in the middle east and Israel is pretty much an ally of the United States...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-162_ESSM
ESSM is designed to counter supersonic maneuvering anti-ship missiles.
That's just one of several layers of defense, which also include the RIM-161 and Phalanx CIWS (including the Block 1A and later which is designed to intercept supersonic missiles).
This is a military high command that not only re-floated their sunken fleet, but which told Von Rippers subordinates to ignore his orders and to do it "their way" - and those subordinates did just that. Von Ripper quit for that reason.
If anyone studied the results, I'm very sure they got the lesson and kept their mouths shut.
When you are dancing with wolves, never limp
Correct, given the fact that the Middle East are not our neighbors. I think the case for intervening in Mexico is much stronger given the proximity, and the fact that the violence there does affect our shared border.
You choose to make the Middle East your problem by invading Iraq and having such close ties with Israel. You could of course at any time easily choose to not make it your problem but don't expect Europe to do things the same way as you would.
You do know that the current issue isn't the USA stealing resources, it's Iran trying to develop nuclear weapons, right?
Or, in this particular case, nuclear bombs kill people. Remember, the only reason there are sanctions is that Iran is defying the United Nations (NOT the USA) and refusing to halt it's nuclear weapons program. Iran is determined to become a nuclear power, regardless of the cost to its own people.
"Your socialist revision of history is appalling."
You guys can mod me down all you want, but people who throw the word "Socialism" around as a slur come off sounding like they're confessing (crying out for help?) that their mind is dungeon where Rush Limbaugh and various Fox "news" hosts have taken turns torturing the intellectual and logical centers of their fettered consciousness. That, and that they have no idea what actual socialism is or means. It invokes feelings of pity and revulsion.
No, the money would have been stolen. The corrupt elites of the region would have been better off. The people, not so much. Iraq is unquestionably better after the US invasion. Not perfect for sure, but much better and a better global citizen. You might disagree with premise for the Second Iraq War, and the war itself, but the facts are the strategic outcome has been better than most predicted.
and it is just as clear that your unreasoned position is that there is no place for realpolitik. Where nasty dictators are supported if they are engaged in a fight with an even worse regime, and that aggression to remove the same bad dictator should never happen. In short, the world is a nasty brutal place. While countries should strive to uphold the highest morals, and sway the path of other countries with reasoned debate there are actually times when it makes sense to pick up the sword and sort things out in a way that asking to hold hands and sing kumbaya together doesn't. Basically, if you are not a democracy then expect to feel heat. If you are democracy and still to killing your own people and not anyone else's, then you have the right to 'self-determination' and get left alone (more or less). It's not a perfect world but this is how it is. Criticizing the realists makes you look like a dreamer - which is why you have had these rebuttals.
Stating that carriers had eclipsed battleships is really 20/20 hindsight. The reduced role of battleships was not generally recognized at the time. Certainly some data points had begun stacking up in the early part of WW2, e.g., the torpedo attack on the Bismarck, and the raid on the Italian fleet at Taranto. However, in the first case one could make the argument that the British had simply been extremely lucky to have made a crippling hit on the Bismarck. In the second case it could be argued that that the Italians had been idiots and failed at the most basic of defensive measures, allowing themselves to be surprised when they were ALREADY AT WAR for months.
I do not subscribe to the theory that FDR orchestrated Pearl Harbor. I believe Roosevelt and the senior brass expected the Philippines to be the primary target, and were surprised by the breadth and competence of the initial Japanese operations. The carriers being absent from Pearl at the time was a happy accident for the US. If the attack had gone in a couple of days either side of December 7, it would likely have found at least one carrier in port.
Finally, Hitler did the US a big favor by declaring war himself, relieving Roosevelt of the burden of convincing the public to go to war with all of the Axis powers at once.
Perscriptio in manibus tabellariorum est.
Darn it if my mod points hadn't expired. This is underrated, and hilarious. : )
Intelligent idiots are we. | Evil men do not understand justice.
Contrast that with Iran's position where it has *repeatedly* stated that Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth - even without any direct provocation by Israel. Even worse, Iran would probably try and use 'plausible deniability' by arming Hezbollah instead, so they could say "it wasn't us". Then there is the fact that Iran has threatened Europe as well. If you can't see evil just because it is more subtle and not in a Hollywood movie then I suggest you go an have a think - and please stop spreading your mis-informed lies about the Iraesli deterrent (how about you actually do some reading and check the facts and statements from the Israeli Defence Ministry and IDF, instead of reading bollox from anti-semetic sites).
And that highly industrialised agricultural sector is the tip of another iceberg - it is literally killing U.S. citizens, wrecking the economy with health care costs and showing the rest of the world exactly how it shouldn't be done. Such a good example...
Don't you think that Iran could be made a democratic country? Don't you think a significant number of Iranians want to be a democracy? Do you think the Persians would be unable to govern themselves if they were given the opportunity to have a democratic government? Your statements show you seem to be well-meaning but you actually have a cultural bias where you think that the Iranians couldn't effectively govern themselves if given a chance. I personally know a few Iranians and know that they are more than capable and willing if given the chance. They would have a government with problems and different from one the way most Western governments work, but I would say they would do a better job than the Iraqi government (which, despite its flaws, seems to be functioning well enough to prevent reversion to a dictatorship, for now). So, I would say that US isolationism has failed in the future just has it has failed miserably in the past. The World is now too interconnected and too 'small' to hide in Island America as was possible a century ago. No one else has the power to help the Iranians throw off their theocracy and transition to democracy except for America. If the time and opportunity came I would hope the Americans would make the selfless sacrifice (yes, it costs money and soldiers) to help drag Iran into this century. The rest of the World (eg. me, I'm not in the US) is too poor and weak to lead, but we help whenever we can. It sounds like you don't agree with this - but I have admired the energy that America has had (not a fan of GW Bush at all, but at least he had the balls to finish what was started - despite the naysayers - and it has worked out much better than if nothing had been done).
Israel has nuclear weapons and the got the fissile material from the good old U.S. of A. And in spite of their obstinate stand vis a vis monitoring and the non-proliferation treaty the U.S. still provides billions of dollars of military aid to Israel. If Israel was ever going to "play nicer" it would quit building those damned "settlements" and recognise Palestinian statehood. Isn't it interesting when the jackboot is on the other foot?
The Palestians also want to have nice life. However, their political parties are obsessed with destroying Israel and moving all Israelis (even if born there) into the sea. In English they will say they want peace, to get money from the sucker Europeans. Meanwhile in Arabic they will never ever say this, they want to destroy Israel. Basically you are being played and are too misinformed to understand - hence you spread lies about the Israelis. Disappointing bro, don't get played. How about you check these out to get a better picture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gzyeo1Z1I4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUXTPH5-IPQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca48ocpFBiE
The Israelis and Israeli Government are not perfect, but they are not the bad guys in the story - not by a long way from what I have seen from going there as a neutral observer. The terrorists (and utlra-othodox settlers) are the bad dudes.
Don't fall for the same propaganda tactics the Nazis used! and stop with the lies!
Israel having nukes is a threat to the US because that pushes Iran to get nukes.
In fact the whole conflict in the middle east is a threat to the US and the west, but we may be sacrificing our security for the sake of Israels security.
And if people like you ever get in charge the first war that comes to call, maybe a small border skirmish, would immediately develop into WWIII.
I hope you have the intelligence to see why this would happen. But the very, very short, extremely simplified, version goes like this : people attack because they believe they can win (for some definition of win), and obviously have decided to use force. If they do indeed win, they will not stop, they will switch to their secondary objectives. That's why if Iraq and Iran are fighting, the correct tactical action is to support the losing side, to the point that the balance between them is maintained (preferably while weakening both of them extremely). Had Iraq seriously advanced, the US would have supported Iran.
There is the faint hope in the back of my mind that maybe, just maybe, you'll see that this is indeed the right thing to do. It's not just a military decision.
You know pretty well what the evidence is. Iran has been confirmed as having a large scale tritium production facility.
So here's the deal :
either Iran knows more about the nuclear physics than we do, and has some weird use for large amounts of tritium
or they're making a bomb
The same argument is true for their reactor design. It's a horrible power producer, and a reasonably efficient enrichment facility.
The same is true about the site : it's electricity connection is pathetic, barely an afterthought. Why do they need a nuclear power plant that is not connected to the grid (not well enough to supply real amounts of power to the grid, obviously it is somewhat connected).
The same is true about the amount of centrifuges they need. For operation of this power plant, you need, say, a hundred. For making a bomb you'd need at least 5000. How much do they have ? Somewhere around 9000.
There are dozens more considerations like this. Sure all of these are like 99%-1% dividers. There is a small chance of "innocence" in all cases, looked at individually. Nobody believes the whole picture is anywhere near coincidental.
Why do you ?
Ok, but one condition.
From now on I get to pound your house with ill-aimed rockets aimed at you, your kids, your wife, your girlfriend. You do not get to initiate any kind of violence in response to this, not calling the police, not running out of that house, nothing. After a few months of that we can "talk" (by that I mean I'll shoot you the moment you enter the room).
Any action on your part will obviously make you a war criminal, by your own standards, agreed ? Since you clearly consider this reasonable conditions, let's get started.
democratic underground ? The batman comics are a more reliable news source ...
Man, you really don't have a clue what you're talking about. An aircraft could wipe out the boat from so far away the boat could hardly see it. What makes you think a cheap speedboat will have passive IR countermeasures? It's a stinking suicide speedboat. And what makes you think IR-guided missiles are the only or even best way to take one out? Ever heard of Hellfire missiles? Or one or two rounds from a 20 or 30 mm gun and it and its drivers are toast. FCSes on helicopters make aiming like a video game. It's like point-and-click-and-kill.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Some of what you say is true however we also have a trade strategy that punishes the developing world.
At world trade meetings the US and Europe constantly harp on about the importance of free trade. BUT then they claim that food is a strategic resource as a justification of their $40b subsidy of farms in the EU and $20b in the US.
So you see free trade means that I can buy your banks and phone companies but it does not mean that you can sell us your food.
What are small developing nations supposed to export? Fire engines and ice breakers? Let the poor bastards sell us food on a level playing field then talk to me about how it is their lack of character that is holding them back.
The West, like the rest, are hypocrites.
It's easy to be xenophobic when all of your neighbors have been trying to destroy you for 50 years and the rest of the planet has been trying since last rebellion was crushed.
I'm sure that if they carry on being xenophobic their neighbors will soon come to see how wrong they were. Maybe they need to be a bit more xenophobic though, so far it hasn't worked but more of the same has got to help.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I did not exclude that option. I just said: if you are interested in a peaceful region, then please have a plan like the Marshall Plan.
Sure, and many of the authoritarian governments which protect the rich and keep people in poverty have been backed by the U.S. See Pakistan or Mubarak in Egypt before he was overthrown, or the capitalist governments installed by the U.S. in Central America. You were modded a five? Slashdot really has a lot of ignorant right-wingers. Read up on the history of Columbia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, or El Salvador. The U.S.enforces an economic system where the farm workers earn slave wages growing coffee and bananas, while the bulk of the profits going to multinational corporations and rich landlords. According to Wikipedia
Colombia has the fourth largest economy in Latin America, but income and wealth are unevenly distributed.[37][38] In 1990, the income ratio between the richest and poorest 10% was 40-to-one, climbing to 80-to-one in 2000.[39] In 2009, Colombia had a Gini coefficient of 0.587, one of the highest in Latin America,[40] with 46% of Colombians living below the poverty line and 17% in "extreme poverty".[41][42][43]
That's the economic system the U.S. have given Columbia billions in military aid to protect. In short, your comment is bullshit. The U.S. is responsible as anyone for the poverty in the world.
This ad space for rent.
Land area is not a sensible constraint at all. Availability of the resources needed to support a population is.
This might be true with your government and many others, but is much less likely when said government is a military-backed dictatorship.
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
Oil provides the excuse. Once that problem is solved (or reduced) by other energy sources, fresh water will be the next.
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
Guys, have you ever considered that people in politics lie to get what they want?
The people running Iran don't give a shit about the Palestinians just as the Kuwaitis and Saudi Arabians showed that they were all talk and didn't mind killing a few Palestinians themselves.
It's almost 1984 stuff, rattle sabres over a country you can't reach and have no intention of doing anything about other than giving a 40 year old rockets to some guys that might end up running Lebanon some day and owe you a favour. If Iran attacks Israel and by some magic succeed beyond their wildest dreams then Syria etc get to carve it up and Iran gets nothing. It's just populist bullshit from guys that want to stir up popular support and keep their cushy jobs of being a bunch of advisors to the unelected Theocrats that really run the place. Remember that it is NOT the USA. When the President of Iran announces something it's like the Mayor of New York making some announcement on Federal policies that he cannot actually control and can not even directly influence.
So far the contact between the US Navy and Iran has been incredibly embarrassing - most likely since it was previously a highly political exercise of "showing the flag" instead of being treated like a military one.
The results were a large naval vessel getting badly damaged by reconditioned Tsar era mines that Iran had bought from the USSR (I'm not joking), and an airliner mistakenly shot down which led to payback on a Pan Am jet later.
The world is not scripted by Tom Clancy.
I'm sure even when it was full of dinosaurs they fought among themselves. The longest periods of peace in the region are when it's all ruled over by somebody else - Romans, Ottomans, British...
They're all fucking loonies.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Economic sanctions kill poor people? I don't think so. Just like most of the rest of the world, Iran is overpopulated. Overpopulation kills more poor people, than economic sanctions can.
It is the unstated mission of Unicef and organizations like them, to force the world to support as large a human population as possible. I can't get behind that mission.
Now, if Unicef's mission were to educate people, and to convince them to control the population, I could support them.
The entire world needs to team up with China, and their once child per couple thing for about 50 to 100 years.
There is an enormous, enormous difference between using birth control to curb population growth and the massacring of civilians to lower population (or lower the rise). That's where I, and almost any civilized person draw the line about what is acceptable.
Come on now, Persians attacked Greece 3000 years ago. They could do it again, you know.
[/sarcasm]
Palestinians can't establish own state without going into civil war.
Well, they had elections, but the genocidal maniacs from Israel didn't like the result.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Chavez is still the darling of the Hollywood left
Who? Who is he the darling of? I know quite a few people in the "Hollywood left," and he's no friend to them.
So you see free trade means that I can buy your banks and phone companies but it does not mean that you can sell us your food.
What are small developing nations supposed to export? Fire engines and ice breakers?
As many in the US could tell you now, free trade has worked fairly poorly for the US as a whole. Our entertainment industry is now the only healthy export industry. It's worked out great for the multi-national corporations, and worked for the US in the short term only, not so much for any individual Western country in the long run.
So was Iraq.
Well, last time Iran had a legitimate democracy, the UK and the US said, "HELL NO!" and 1953 happened.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
If you consider the entire gulf operation and not just that day then sadly it all evens out (due to the mine and Iraqi "friendly fire" attack) apart from the oil rigs and speedboats. Even the airliner was matched with a Pan Am flight with a Libyan bomb. The entire stupid political "show the flag" operation was a massive fuckup run out of Washington instead of by the Navy.
This might be true with your government and many others, but is much less likely when said government is a military-backed dictatorship.
Then there is little point to the sanctions, isn't it?
The sanctions will always hit those who are lowest in power. Military-backed dictatorships would crumble under pressure from the poor? Then why pressure the poor?
The reason for sanctions is to convince the people that their leaders are too much trouble, but it's very easy for said leaders to use propaganda to convince people that outsiders are suppressing them. So much easier to get people to do what you want when they have an external enemy to band together against.
Far East OPEC, will not be happy with that, that takes money out of their pockets.
The US doesn't need to research alternative energy, it already knows how.
The welfare-warfare state makes certain plutocrats rich, and it has more
to do with lining the pockets of the ppl Eisenhower warned us about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY
We can use non-arable land to grow algae oil at a rate of 100,000 gallons
per acre per year in the desert.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hioZ7C6HLs
We can use biological processes to grow hydrogen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohydrogen_reactor
1% of the jet streams on earth would replace all forms of power one earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_stream#Future_power_generation
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090615102038.htm
Just the flow of the Antarctic Circumpolar current has 125 times the flow
of all rivers on earth and we have know for years how to tap it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Circumpolar_Current
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquanator
Solar thermal of the world's deserts could power 100 earths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy#Energy_from_the_Sun
We know how to power the earth many times over not even
mentioning Geo thermal, but the ppl who make billions off war
are merely using oil security as an excuse to keep making billions
just as Eisenhower warned decades ago.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Yes but the point is in 40 years, despite the nation's very existence being threatened by 5 of it's neighbours launching a combined (but rapidly failed) assault against it, Israel has still never used nukes and that seems to be pretty promising.
The difference between Israel and Iran is that Israel prefers to go head on with things, if Israel is going to have a nuclear programme it'll just out and out refuse to sign up to the NPT, if Israel is going to go to war it'll just roll tanks and planes across the border.
In contrast, Iran plays things subversively, if Iran is going to have a nuclear programme it pretends it's an innocent member of the NPT and does it in secret, breaking the rules as an NPT signatory when inspectors catch it out. If Iran is going to go to war, it funds militias and insurgents to do the dirty work for it.
But the real shame is that Iran's tactic works - people like you see the nation that's at least forthright about it's actions as the bad guy, and actually remain oblivious to the nation that's arguably the real biggest destabilising force in the region.
Like I say, I really don't like Israel nowadays, it's become everything it claims to hate, but people's anti-Western hate has become so rediculous that they're actually willing to back up Iran's propaganda, when ironically most conflict in the middle east has actually been caused by Iran over the last 10 - 20 years. Israel only invaded Lebanon after an Iranian funded Hezbollah incursion. The US war in Iraq, and now Afghanistan only became such a bloodbath because Iran has tried to destabilise these nations funding multiple insurgent groups to ensure Iran isn't threatened by a neighbour as powerful as Iraq was. This doesn't make the US or Israeli actions right, but let's not pretend Iran is the innocent puppy people with an anti-Israeli/anti-US attitude like to play along that it is.
Fundamentally the point is this, Israel sticks to actions which are relevant to it's own state security, however right or wrong these actions might be. Iran, in contrast, is constantly playing games with other nations, be it funding insurgents in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and so on. Therein lies the reason Iran can't be trusted with nuclear weapons - whilst we know Israel would only use them defensively, we can't say the same for Iran, Iran has proven time and time again it's willing to carry out subversive actions in foreign nations to further it's own influence on the region, or to put it more simply, Israel only gives a fuck about making sure Israel is okay, Iran gives a fuck about trying to turn as much of the middle east as possible into puppet states, as in Lebanon, and as it's been trying with Iraq - if you want to see further what I'm talking about here, I suggest you read into the Mahdi army in Iraq, where it's save haven is, who it's biggest financial backers are, and it's role in the Iraqi violence. For Lebanon, it is of course Hezbollah. It's the fundamental difference between aggression and defence, Israel is a defensive nation (incursions into foreign territory have all been reactive), Iran is an aggressive nation - that's why Iran can't be trusted with nukes.
Whilst Mossad has assassinated people responsible for attacks on it's people in foreign states, can you really name any countries where Israel has installed a puppet militia stronger than the elected military and government to try and make it pro-Israel like Iran has? No? Didn't think so.
I think since the Repubmocrat coup last century, the constitution is an inconvenience to "getting in step with the rest of the world" or to Repubmocrat power, whichever side of it you see. Either way it is being re-interpreted by the corrupt group of hirelings that replaced our Supreme court last century, so don't give it a second thought.
Like a peekey? http://www.gpoaccess.gov/constitution/browse2002.html#2002 Knock yourself out brother.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I am certain that Iran and Iraq are two different situations. Iran has good agriculture, and is able to feed its population. Sanctions will not work as China and Russia, will say they are observing them, but will continue to provide (business is business) what Iran needs to wait out the sanctions. Sadly, in my view, there is only one way to stop Iran from getting the bomb. That way is obvious to me.
Happy New Year and hope for the best outcome.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
America did do it, with the tacit approval of the government. Instead of dealing with a parliment or house of government in these countries, you set up a deal with a strongman, who can pay armies. Shortly thereafter the strong man becomes a president for life. It is so much easier to deal with one man who lines his pockets than it is to deal with a government.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Israeli policy is to use all means in self-defence (since they never acknowledge whether they have nukes or not) if WMD have been used against them. In short they have stated a posture of strategic deterrence in the hope that enemies are smart enough never to try.
Who the fuck are you? Netanyahu?
First of all, since they don't make it clear that they in fact do have nukes, which they got from the US, why isn't the IAEA all over their backs investigating dilligently?
Second of all, what do you think they want to move with this, leaflets?
To help you out: they feel the should attack Iran first and let someone else ask questions later.
Idiot.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Ok, but one condition.
From now on I get to pound your house with ill-aimed rockets aimed at you, your kids, your wife, your girlfriend.
Let me first take your house away from you and move in, OK? Then the conditions would start looking somewhat similar.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
All it takes is one or two to get through to sink a billion dollar ship.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
As an alternative to large scale starvation, I expect that the effects of environmental damage to have negligible negative effect on human health care, but I do not know enough about the specifics. However, I do know that the industrialized agriculture could be run in a manner significantly more friendly to the environment. Pumping cattle with antibiotics, using too much herbicide, terminator genes etc. are significant problems that need to be addressed.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
If you read just a little bit deeper into these wars you listed, you will realize they were all fought with one hand behind our backs. Politicians and/or the American people did not have the stomach to do what it takes to really win.
If you are searching this space for something deep or profound, you will only be greeted with disappointment
As far as I can recall, the US dropped support for the Kurds after Turkey complained about the "risks" of having an independent Kurdish state. Turkey has a Kurd province bordering Iraq ands did not want to see its own internal Kurdish independence movement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3DIrXd33SI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWfwK3Xc_Y4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfQu5HFZQPY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmLB77-dwsc
Etcaetera... you zionist shill
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Poverty almost certainly IS due to lack of food or resources in the world.
Poverty may be reduced if some "optimal" resource allocation model would be obtained, with "optimal" allocation meaning totally different things for different people and even the same people during the course of their lifetimes.
In any case, the absolute number of mouths to feed, bodies to clothe, rest and shelter puts absolute requirements on finite physical resources. So no mode of allocation is possible to give every human on this planet more than 20 grams of gold. Even if these requirements may not be cleanly extrapolated from current resource use per capita by a Club of Rome and probably also aren't fix over time, they are certainly larger than zero. Even with perfect recycling and optimum use, there is a maximum of people to serve from any given amount of any resource. While it is tolerable to not have golden necklaces for everyone, there are other resources that cannot be left out so easily.
Unless poverty is defined only as "relative" poverty, i.e. "not poorer than 40% of the average", resources and mouths depend on each other, but not for infinity.
Hey one-liner, he is referring to this Green & Red Gangs particular situation.
Wow. Just wow. Especially when you look at its parent.
Some of us are *really* out there. /. can be quite oddly entertaining at times. Not putting you down or dissing you in any way, nor attempting to question or dispute anything here, just ... wow.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Second. One of the things you are wrong about is that the Israelis did not get their purported nukes from the US. They have a research facilty at Dimona and Merdechai Vanunu spilt the beans on. So, you are clearly misinformed and making stuff up in your own head to suit your preconception.
Third. If the Israelis really wanted to attack Iran it would have already happened. Years ago. They are trying not to attack Iran but folks like you don't get it all all. You always blame the Israelis because it fits your preconceived world view - and no matter what facts I come up with (or a recollection of my travels as a neutral throughout the Middle East - I've been on the ground there and seen what's going on for myself). For myself I try and collect facts and then assign blame where the facts take me. Sure, the Israelis do a lot of dumb and bad things (settlers, ugh!) but it is pretty clear that Iran possessing nuclear weapons is a very, very dangerous thing for everyone. Once you understand how the Iranian government factions work (do you?) then you'll understand that once they get nukes there will be a lot more trouble in the Middle East than now. Do you want that? Is your preconcieved notion of Israel as the Bad Guy so strong that you'll overlook all the worse things that Iran is doing?
Fourth. Regarding the missile firing. Any country has the right to build weapons for self-defence. What matters is how the weapons are intended to be used. Please tell me since when it has been official Israeli government policy to declare that "Iran should be wiped off the face of the Earth"? Yet it is official Iranian policy. It is not the building and testing of weapons that matters, it is what they are *intended* to be used for. Again, your preconceived notion that Israel is the Bad Guy is stopping you from collecting facts from all sides and only then taking an objective view.
Fifth. The article you posted has a legal opinion by a professor that it would be legal for Israel to conduct a disarming first strike on Iran. Big deal. How is this legal opinion of an independent academic become official government policy? Of that's right, you have a preconcived notion that Israel are always the Bad Guy (and by implication that whatever Iran does must be blameless).
What I'm trying to say is how about you take a step back. Do some more research and read it properly (exceeedingly bad form to mistake some academic's legal opinion as government policy). Whatever you do try and remind yourself that you have an existing bias, accept that you do (as I have to do) and look for evidence that *contradicts* your existing opinion. Looking for, and selectively remembering stuff that reinforces your existing view is not really helpful. As a scientist we're trained to try and find ways to falsify our existing view, and receive the counter-evidence with an *open mind*. That way we can make progress and rid ourselves of any incorrect views we have formed.
So, I'm prepared to hear with an open mind any valid reason why it would be good for the World that Iran should possess nuclear weapons? Please drop the anti-Israeli obsession (not strictly relevant to a discussion on why Iran should get WMD), cursing, and personal insults for the discussion and I'll be very interested to hear what you have to say.
Really? You do seem to ignore the fact that Anglo-Iranian lost it's oil monopoly and was forced into a joint venture with amongst others Gulf Oil, Socony-Mobil, Esso, Standard Oil of California, and Texaco after the coup?
Hardly. Mosaddegh was apparently viewed as a hero at the time. He would have easily won any new election.
Really? You sure sound like someone that watches Fox a lot. Please explain which trouble spots are caused by European Socialism.
The EU has a combined military budget of appx. 300 billion USD. That is about the same amount as the combined budgets of China, Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, India and Brazil together. Europe can defend itself just fine. It takes a whiny and ignorant American to pretend otherwise.
As I understand it, the sanctions are used to punish violations of international law. Yes, Iran is allowed to pursue civilian nuclear power under the NPT. At the same time, the NPT places obligations on them that they have been shirking.
This assumes that all new tactics are 100% effective. You can cherrypick examples where new tactics triumphed over old, but there's also a shitload of dead people out there who died because people tried new tactics that didn't work. Bringing the parent back to the real world, this means that Iran has crunched the rules of war and come up with a working strategy. What would have happened if the rules had changed in the middle of the game? In the Eurisko case, that doesn't make sense. But what if, in a USN vs. Iran tangle, the USN decides they've had enough and change the rules to target a refinery or shipping port or two and then withdraw.
ahh yes of course, the old, if Israel would just [play] nice, all the Arabs would magically get along with each other.
Nobody really believes that crap, do they? Why's there such animosity between Shiites and Sunnis, Saudis and Iran? Well, why's there such animosity between Irish Protestants and Catholics? I sense a pattern building here ...
When I was growing up, Arab nations were repeatedly attacking Israel, and Israel was only barely hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Israel wasn't attacking anyone, were they?
Since then, the Israelis appear to have had enough of that and now think nothing of obliterating suspected nuke weapons sites in Arab countries, exporting malware (Stuxnet) to fsck up same, yada, yada. I can't say I blame them one bit.
Frankly, I wish the Jews in Germany/Europe had learned this lesson prior to WWII. I doubt the Holocaust would have happened if they had. I also wish they'd consign Zionism to the dustbin of history, and take Sharia along with it. Unfortunately, wishing don't make it so.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Yes, mostly because Europe destroyed itself, its militaries and governments, and its colonies in an orgy of religious and ethnic hatred and violence, followed by half a century of an equally destructive cold war based on yet more twisted European ideologies. And the US was pretty much the only nation trying to stand up to that. And since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the US has mostly been concerned with radical Islam and terrorism.
Yes, that is clearly the point of most of these wars: to ensure that energy companies and banks have access to these countries. Why do you think that's a bad thing? Europe needs the gas and oil, and those countries need political stability, technologies, investment, and credit. What alternatives do you suggest?
The US didn't create banana republics, they were already there. But if it has to choose, it will choose banana republics that are friendly to its own interests.
And if you think that Europe is such a happy place where everybody loves each other, you haven't been paying attention to Europe's history since WWII or its current state.
Much of of the trade of the Middle East is with Europe and Asia, and Europe is within reach of Middle Eastern missiles.
Yes, we do. And European politicians are paying because they know that it's in their own interest to have the US take care of these dirty jobs. Personally, I think it's a bad deal for the US. I want the US to cut its military budget and let Europeans fight these wars themselves.
I'm not ignoring that at all. I'm merely saying that this wasn't the initial motivation or cause. The US motivation was to answer a call for help, and the cause was UK foreign ownership of Iranian oil.
Just about every place in the world that's run by socialist or communist governments, since they all are based on socialism, an ideology that originated in Europe.
You obviously haven't been paying much attention to what happened in Libya or Afghanistan.
Europe is more than welcome to leave NATO and ask US troops to leave any time.
No, I don't. I probably have about the same reaction to Fox news as you do. But that doesn't mean that I have any more respect for your position. I think you and European intellectuals like you are the perfect counterpart to Fox and their ilk: you are just as ignorant of history and just as elitist and distrustful of democracy and liberty.
Justification for obliterating a country on the opposite side of the planet? The Constitution doesn't say anything authorizing that.
I'm certainly not arguing for war, but for this point: Just because the constitution doesn't say anything authorizing it, doesn't mean it isn't legal. The U.S. constitution is a "liberal constitution", defining things that the government can't do. It doesn't have to explicitly list everything that the government can do.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
Although I disagree with your assessment, even assuming it's true.
Clearly in your mind theft justifies genocide of you and your children. And we all know you've stolen from someone at some point, so ... Yes if you want to move into my apartment and I get to blow you, your family, wife, girlfriend, children and generally anyone you know up for fun after that (don't worry I'll claim there's some religion involved).
But let's not even go there. You're one of the "moral equivalence" lefties. You've clearly done something wrong in your life, like lying for example. And you claim every crime justifies any kind of revenge. You've lied to me, is that not enough for me to massacre your family ? I mean why draw the line for justified massacring at theft, why not at mere lying. Or better yet, at mere irritation.
Oh wait, let's use the excuses the paedophile prophet used :
allah told me to massacre you
one of your children stole from me (from a village 25km away, kid had not a single mean of transport)
I no longer feel like respecting the peace treaty
allah forbade me from respecting the peace treaty
women (even without explicitly defining what exactly was done)
Because I can, you cannot defend yourself, and clearly by winning we're superior (says the guy who at one point ordered 4 women to carry him, unwounded just very fat, up a hill to escape a force defending a city he was attacking)
Oh and muslims were massacring Jews 1400 years before modern Israel existed. And they have not wasted the years in between either. In fact I seriously doubt there is any people on this planet that has not yet been on the receiving end of a muslim massacre.
I mean in order to give rationale to muslim massacres you'd not just have to explain what Jews or Americans have done, but
don't forget Black people living in the Sahara (Sudan and elsewhere)
Somalians
Buddhist Taiwanese
Christian Filipinos
Chinese Malaysians, I'm betting the large majority was communist
Chinese Indonesians, same
Hindu Pakistani
Hindu Bangladeshi
Hindu Indians
Tell me, have they all ... *shudder* ... stolen something ? Oh sure that justifies wiping them out then !
How about a simpler solution : let's wipe out islam, and end 95% of wars on this planet. I'm sure people will find a new excuse, but it'll be quiet for 200 years or so at least.
As far as I can tell, Muslim and Jewish claims are equally nutty. According to the Bible, Israel took that land because God told them so and exterminated the people who were living there before.
The flaw isn't with Islam, it's with the Abrahamic religions in genera. If you want to ennoble people and help them restrain their violent urges, you need religions and philosophies that are not based on the premise that whatever a powerful God tells you (told by his priesthood or dreamed up during prayer) is just, right, and moral.
Iran is a repressive theocracy that has made the destruction of other nations and religions their declared goal. I'd likely be killed by the regime if I lived there. There is no comparison or analogy between what Iran can do and what the US can do. Of course, I want the US to have nuclear weapons, I want the CIA to be able to hunt down people like bin Laden, and I want the US military to have spy drones and satellites watching the rest of the world. And I decidedly do not want Iran to be able to do any of those things, and if they try, I want the US to intervene. I am pretty sure the majority of American voters feel the same way (even if we think the US should use these tools more judiciously). If you think that's "hypocritical"... well, you'll just have to live with that.
Great idea. There is of course a tiny little difference here. islam claims the whole world as it's territory (split up in "already conquered" (dar al islam) and "to conquer" (dar al harb)). There's the tiny little issue of course that ideologies need territorial control to exist. Or at the very least, I hope you can see why ideologies don't share ground with islam and it's constant genocides. Communists ran extermination campaigns in some parts of the middle east just for this reason.
As for your idea of non-deistic ideologies ... they've not exactly provided us with peace either. Communism comes to mind as an obvious example. All sorts of dictatorial idelogies, of course. What else do we have ? Socialism has not exactly been peaceful, insofar it's even different from communism of course. Buddhism, insofar as it's a non-deistic religion (it's not imho, but you hear the argument often), has not exactly been peaceful. I mean when it comes to being peaceful ... euhm ... pure capitalism (if this exists) ? While I can't seem to come up with any specific wars caused by this, well maybe Iraq, anyway regardless of the cause of the Iraq war, consensus seems to be it's not exactly peaceful ... Is nazism non-deistic ? Hmmm.
So do tell, which ideology, preferably one that has actually run a state (ie. isn't totally in the realm of fantasy), would you suggest ?
How many of those are available purely in case Israel or the US blows half their centrifuges up/damages them?
I would expect a *lot* of overengineering in Iranian reactor & supply chain design, they could easily just start with the ones that are dual use and go from there.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Unfortunately we replaced one set of human rights abuses with another. We did no good there, just killed an awful lot of people.
A newly voting citizen of a democratic iraq might disagree. A disenfranchised kurdish population might actually enjoy having a say in what goes on in their country as opposed to violent repression and being gassed. An oppressed majority of Shias might not prefer the impressively evil regime it endured before. Many errors have been made in the invasion and transition of power to iraq, and it may yet implode in a mess of sectiarian violence, but if it does not undoubtedly good has been done. Iraq may yet come out on the other side a better nation than it was before the US invasion.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
So does Christianity.
That's a false dichotomy. Theism is the cause of the violence of Christianity; non-theism is simply all the other ideologies, which have nothing in common other than not being theistic (and deism is something else entirely; look it up). Furthermore, peace without liberty is insufficient. Catholicism and socialism both managed to deliver peace at times, but at a staggering cost in liberty and human development.
Communism, fascism, and socialism are very similar to Christianity (so similar, in fact, that American conservatives keep accusing European nations run by conservative Christians as being "socialist").
The US seems to have been doing pretty well with classical liberalism, and we should stick to that. That means keeping church and state separate, minimizing government services and the welfare state, keeping taxes low, promoting free trade and free markets, protecting free speech, and letting people do what they want with their lives as long as they aren't demonstrably harming others. It means rejecting the theocratic tendencies of the Republicans and the socialist tendencies of the Democrats.
Within such a liberal state, if you want to spend your time talking to an evil, genocidal sky-god like YHWE, that's your own business, as long as you don't put your theories into practice and start harming others.
Or maybe Israel is just a convenient proxy that lets us threaten Iran with nuclear weapons without having to stick our own necks out, because this conflict isn't over Israel, it is over oil, combined with Arab resentment over the collapse of their empire.
Quite to the contrary, I think the Iranian people are probably more ready than the rest of the Islamic world for democracy. The US made a big mistake in toppling the democratically elected government of Iran in the 50's. I'm just saying that it was a stupid mistake, not imperialism, and that Europe had a big hand in it too. Furthermore, much as I think the people of Iran are capable of democracy, I don't want the current government of Iran to have nuclear weapons.
If the US is forced to act, it will try to democratize a nation in the process, as it did in Germany, Japan, and is trying to do in Iraq. But despite some gung-ho right wing politicians, US governments, diplomats, and the US military are aware that trying that is costly, lengthy, and risky. Heck, in world history, this is really new territory.
The US is doing what it knows how to do: it talks to the democratic opposition and it imposes sanctions. But "democratic oppositions" often turn out to be the next dictator, and sanctions are slow and risky. In fact, I think there is a good chance that over the next few decades, Iran may reform and liberalize gradually all by itself.
Well, as an American, I don't want isolationism, but I sure would like other nations to bear more of the military burden.
Quite to the contrary, I think the Iranian people are probably more ready than the rest of the Islamic world for democracy. The US made a big mistake in toppling the democratically elected government of Iran in the 50's. I'm just saying that it was a stupid mistake, not imperialism, and that Europe had a big hand in it too. Furthermore, much as I think the people of Iran are capable of democracy, I don't want the current government of Iran to have nuclear weapons.
Thanks for clarifying. We are in agreement here.
If the US is forced to act, it will try to democratize a nation in the process, as it did in Germany, Japan, and is trying to do in Iraq. But despite some gung-ho right wing politicians, US governments, diplomats, and the US military are aware that trying that is costly, lengthy, and risky. Heck, in world history, this is really new territory.
The US is doing what it knows how to do: it talks to the democratic opposition and it imposes sanctions. But "democratic oppositions" often turn out to be the next dictator, and sanctions are slow and risky. In fact, I think there is a good chance that over the next few decades, Iran may reform and liberalize gradually all by itself.
Agreed. Although I'd say the democratic opposition is sometimes ineffectual and usurped by a dictator. Unfortunately given the current path of the Iranian government I don't think the World could wait on the timescale of organic reform in Iran - not with the current weapons program (which, unlike Iraq, appears to be real given the much more concrete evidence the IAEA is finding [and has been a lot more conservative this time, trying not to get egg on its face again]).
Well, as an American, I don't want isolationism, but I sure would like other nations to bear more of the military burden.
Totally with you on this one too (I'm not from the US, and think it is crap that the rest of the World sponges off you for defence - both morally [tut-tutting when only the US has the guts to act when it is clearly necessary] and financially). Thanks for clarifying, it looks like we're pretty much aligned on this.
So does Christianity.
No it doesn't. Well, only if you interpret it's goal of eventually converting every human, and "claim" the land they live on as a world-conquest goal. I suppose in some ways that's reasonable. But compare it to the islamic goal of militarily killing or converting every piece of land on the planet (yes, land, they have little interest in people. In fact there is discussion whether slaves, or conquered people, even when they claim to be part of the faith are muslims even today amongst institutions. E.g. the taliban, say "no", so do the salafists (which are still > 60% of all muslims worldwide). muslim ideology is all about conquering states) ... it's clearly not on the same level. Similarly, compare it to the communist goal of violent revolutions in every state structure across the globe, resulting in everything being controlled by a single communist party ... not quite on par, don't you agree ?
Communism, fascism, and socialism are very similar to Christianity (so similar, in fact, that American conservatives keep accusing European nations run by conservative Christians as being "socialist").
If you go by the names of the parties, perhaps (even there it'd be a stretch). But these were at best a tiny socialist veneer over a capitalist core. I doubt you could say the same about the Soviet Union, Southern America, or Eastern Europe. And it wouldn't apply to quite a few of even those European nations. Yes the core of Western Europe ... it probably applies there. Outside of that geographically small part of Europe ... not so much.
Besides I've been there. While it's true that there is some measure of conservative Christians there, the prevailing conservative political ideology is ex-communists who changed their minds when they saw what huge damage was done. They mostly were openly communist in their youth, and then saw what the Soviet union pulled. Needless to say, they didn't want that to happen there. They still like the idea of communism, but they ... well they don't want to live in a communist state. So they try to be as communist as possible without actually touching the basic operation of the economy, e.g. their pension systems, sick leave, etc really are an application of "from each according to ability, to each according to need". And these people are utterly disgusted by how young people sabotage these systems en-masse, and even more so by how "political refugees" do it. They really want to have this quiet life where you work, and are provided for, and they're abhorred because they understand perfectly well that it won't work with the way the new generation is using these systems, and they're desperately looking for solutions. Just read the history of the French government, like Bertrand Couchner, who is a really good example. At which point Christianity has any role in this, well ... you tell me.
These guys are opposed by the "progressive" parties, whose main role seems to be to maximally exploit the laws these conservatives made. They're all about making sure that people who just arrived from brazil or morocco as "political refugees" get their "right" to free health care, "living wages" and so on, despite them obviously moving to europe for free cancer care. The argument that this will obviously destroy the system that they depend on does not seem to even scare these people. They have "rights" you see, and the state must provide, getting money from whoever has it*, like their parents did before.
* the scary part of these parties, which they will deny screaming, is of course that this is exactly one step removed from "get it from our neighbors". Some of these parties actually advocate militarily attacking e.g. american corporations and raid them for money. Tell me, how far would that be removed from open war ? And the only thing those corporations (not exclusively American ones btw, Dutch Petr
Historically, Christianity has done it the other way around: first conquer, then conversions. That's how Christianity became the largest religion on the planet. Christianity and Islam are different by degrees, but both are too much focused on conquest and conversion.
That's what a Christian is: a communist who uses God to justify their policies. Merkel is an excellent example of that; she grew up in a religious family, made it big in the communist party, joined the Christian party, and became chancellor. Now she is pounding her shoe on the table saying that Germany should become more Christian, and further increasing state power and redistribution of wealth.
(Mind you, I'm not opposed to some social safety net and a reasonable degree of taxes; but when such policies become an ideological stance rather than a utilitarian decision, they become the source of corruption and abuse of power.)
What I meant is that Americans are wealthy and fairly secure. And a lot of other nations are wealthy and secure as a consequence.
And if Europe got its act together, liberalized, and started defending itself instead of relying on the US, the US would be fighting fewer wars. US politicians should push for that more.
Historically, Christianity has done it the other way around: first conquer, then conversions.
Cute thought. Read up on history. Not even the most rabid anti-christian historians claim any hint of violence during the first 4 centuries of Christianity. 4 centuries. In case you're confused, that would be between 10 and 12 generations. And this was under constant violence against Christians. Even after that, Christianity has always been spread by absurdly small numbers of people. It's all good and well to claim e.g. South America was converted by soldiers, but what I find sorely lacking in that explanation is how exactly ~ 2000 soldiers defeat tens of millions of people ? Well, let's just say either they had some serious divine help, or most of those conversions were at the very least not at the point of a gun. The same can be said about most (granted, not all) other "forced" conversions to Christianity. You can claim 200 soldiers defeated most of Northern Europe until the cows come home, but ...
Contrast this with how pakistan became muslim : the most modest death tolls are talking about 200 million corpses. How Xinjang became muslim : probably around 20 million corpses. How northern africa became muslim : ~ 30 million corpses (out of a population of less than 50 million). Iran : ~1 million corpses according to babylonian and persian sources (which again was a hell of a percentage of the local population) (they didn't even believe these numbers themselves. Neither nation even had a word denoting a million, so they had to use weird multiplication to describe it. Were they lying ? Perhaps about the number, not about how it spread). And let's not forget the constant massacres muslims committed in Spain, which are very well documented (starting with the granada, toledo and various massacres, starting immediately after the invasion). And the massacres today ...
Somehow where muslims go, genocide always follows. Whether we're talking Europe, South Africa, China, South Asia, Northern Asia, Russia, ... none of it matters.
Can we at the very least agree that there is a VERY clear difference here ? Sure it's not Christianity 100% innocent - islam 0%. It's more like Christianity 99.9% innocent - islam 0.1% (a few isolated lucky breaks). Moral equivalence is a dumb theory.
That's what a Christian is: a communist who uses God to justify their policies.
And the other choice is what, exactly ? An atheist socialist who acts like the Soviets, sees no reason to not kill a few hundred million people because he has some pseudo-scientific excuse (or military, or he just hates them, or doesn't like their ideology, or ... does anyone have an exhaustive list of reasons the Soviets committed genocide ? It's gonna be a long list).
In short I daresay that if this is the difference between a Christian communist and the atheist kind, then I'll take my chances with the Christian kind, thank you very much.
And if Europe got its act together, liberalized, and started defending itself instead of relying on the US, the US would be fighting fewer wars.
In reference to your above comment : make Europe a 90% Christian nation again, and this will happen in a matter of months. As long as atheist "progressives" run amok : not a chance in hell. After all, wars are caused by guns, aren't they ? And by Jews, of course ... (just parrotting the general progressive excuse for defunding militaries and explaining the immediate followup violence) (oh and if you accuse a european liberal of racism, then he scratches "Jews", replaces it by Israeli, and proceeds to say that he doesn't quite like the local brand of recognizable (also known as orthodox) "Israelis" either)
Show me a solar powered tank, ship, or plane. No? Well then it will still be strategically important. Convert every US car to solar tomorrow, and so long as you employ a war machine you need to feed it oil. Also global trade depends on massive container ships, which also depend on oil, no amount of sail, solar, wind is going to budge them. Commercial tourism is dependent on passenger plans, again not flying on solar beams and rainbows. We also make just about everything from it. Simply removing it from our grid, and personal transportation is a step, but we are far from independent.
Would it be less important? Sure only because you move the horizon back slightly. Anyway anyone that messes with the flow will be subject to trouble.
Oil is our Spice. Shaddam will not tolerate any disruption of the Spice!
says the warmonger, and your spice will be your downfall, but you can't see it.
Except it won't be. Assuming the significant element in your list is the carrier, it'll be supported by an entire carrier battle group: one to two cruisers, two to four destroyers, and assorted auxiliaries. It'll also be parked several hundred miles offshore.
If this is after the start of hostilities, the battle group commander will have the authority to initiate action against the attacking boats as soon as they're spotted (probably around 200-300 miles out), and in the four to six hours it takes the boats to close to within firing range (over-the-horizon attacks only work if you've got something - a submarine or an airplane - to act as a spotter), he'll be able to launch multiple fifty-aircraft sorties against them, as well as a couple hundred anti-ship or cruise missiles.
Of course, if all the ships in your list are significant, the US will have even more ships: a cruiser battle group and a destroyer squadron to support the carrier battle group. It's something most people don't realize: large ships never deploy alone. They're always part of a formation.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
That's because Christianity lacked the power, not the desire. As soon as it could, it used every means at it disposal to punish those that disagreed with the church, even on minor points. Arius and others were exiled in 325 over a disagreement on the nature of Christ's divinity. Priscillan was executed for doctrinal disagreement in 385, as soon as the Christian church was given the legal power to do so, the starting point for a long and extremely bloody history.
That's the fairy tale of lonely missionaries spreading the light to remote corners of the world, surrounded by admiring natives gazing up at them. It's historically false. Christianity was largely spread in two ways: conquest by already Christian empires and conversions of rulers (often related to marriage or alliances, sometimes by promises of power and rewards), whose subjects were then required to adopt the faith of their rulers. The initial spread of Christianity was piggy-backed on the Roman empire, and later the Spanish and British empires.
There are plenty of books on that. But I don't even understand the question. Fact is that the Americas were conquered, a large percentage of its population exterminated, and the rest forced to convert to Christianity.
The fact that modern Islam is even worse than modern Christianity doesn't make Christianity a benign or moral ideology. The lesser of two evils is still evil.
Do you really know so little about history that you think that the only two choices in the world are Christian theocracy or Stalinism?
And did you read anything I wrote? The problem is not with what kinds of beliefs you have in the privacy of your own home--no matter how stupid they may be--the problem is if you try to impose those beliefs through government, by turning nations into "Christian nations" or "communist nations". Christian government and Stalinist government both make that mistake, and the solution is not to make that mistake. Government should be secular and liberal (in the classical sense); it should neither promote theism nor oppose it, it should simply not meddle in religion at all.
The great majority of progressives are Christians in the US and Europe. Large parts of Europe are governed by Christian parties who justify what you would call "progressive" politics with Christian theology, and their government panels are stuffed to the gills with "experts" on ethics sent out by Christian churches. The problem with progressives isn't whether they are atheist or theist (they are some of each), it's that they are unified in their belief that the government should engage in social engineering.
Europe is an object
That's because Christianity lacked the power, not the desire.
Sure, after all, what power does e.g. the Roman Emperor have ?
It's all good and well to claim e.g. South America was converted by soldiers, but what I find sorely lacking in that explanation is how exactly ~ 2000 soldiers defeat tens of millions of people ?
There are plenty of books on that. But I don't even understand the question. Fact is that the Americas were conquered, a large percentage of its population exterminated, and the rest forced to convert to Christianity.
True, but you won't like what the primary historical sources tell of that event. If I were to tell that story you'd immediately point out that it was written by monks which were part of the invading army, with a few details coming from the ship's logs of the conquerors. There are no other sources. The primary sources tell that the "invasion army" was in fact joined by natives and only had to fight it's first fight with the inca "god". At that point their army was so large that it was >90% natives, and it actually had the numerical advantage. The causes for this were apparently related to the inca method of tax collection, which involved kidnapping people (for not paying enough tax perhaps ? It is not known why exactly), torturing them for months and then finally the famous procedure where they cut out their hearts. So now you can go ahead and scream about this being a description of infidels by Christian monks ... but ... there are no other sources. With their "god" dead, and no clear way to name a successor due to the sacking of the capital, the religion collapsed in a matter of years. Primary sources state that nobody was sorry to see it go.
Needless to say, these sources don't mesh very well with progressive ideology. The sad part is that these sorts of explanations mesh pretty well with the experience of pretty much any civilization that was more advanced than it's surroundings. Persians found their neighbours ... barbarians (and they would have had to walk the other way and 3x further to find the first group of humans with comparable technology and ethics to their own). Greeks did. Romans did. The Chinese did. All such primary sources describe finding primitive villages, ruled by direct violence. The people in those villages like nothing more than to join the advanced civilization, after they find that it isn't so easy to sack a technologically superior enemy. And in the cases where they do succeed in sacking them, due to logistical problems for example, like the muslims did to the romans and the jews, the experience is one of constant rabid and unpredictable violence on a massive scale. Despite what you may think, the myth of the noble savage is just that, a myth.
As for the "exterminated" part, I think that's massively unfair. First of all, it took quite a while for that to happen, and it actually largely happened after the conquest. As to the manner in which happened, how can you possibly give the impression that this was the intent ? This happened because European feet were washed in the same river as native feet. Blaming the "invaders" makes about as much sense as claiming meteorites are weapons of mass destruction. Sometimes things go horribly wrong, and a meteor can make millions of victims. But it is a mere phenomenon, and until at least the 20th century it was no more under the control of humans as hurricanes.
The phenomenon itself, those diseases, has a name. It's called "island species" and was described by Darwin himself. I've got more bad news for you : we're still doing that. Give it another 400-500 years and there will be no more black people, anywhere in the world. Are we massacring them ? Because this process will complete first in America. (island species is a ridiculous name for this btw, "island races" would be more accurate). African Americans will be about as different from the aver
First of all. No need to call me an idiot. It makes you look totally unreasonable.
Indeed, "raving lunatic" would be much closer. And no, it doesn't.
Plus, I have a PhD in Astrophysics so on relative terms I could call you the same thing
No, really, you've just proven my point. You could have 3 PhDs, Fields Medal and a Nobel and still be deficient. It's not unheard of and you're playing dirty tricks Schopenhauer wrote about.
Second. One of the things you are wrong about is that the Israelis did not get their purported nukes from the US. They have a research facilty at Dimona and Merdechai Vanunu spilt the beans on.
Yes they did just after 1948, when they got their new "state" up there. The US furbished them with all kinds of military equipment INCLUDING nukes in case Russians required some quick heating. That they have that facility is another issue that should mandate an IAEA investigation and some international sanctions, but the Israelis are sacred cows so what the hell. Let them.
So, you are clearly misinformed and making stuff up in your own head to suit your preconception.
No, I just remember some history and you're accusing me of lying/confabulation here, asshole. Also, I've talked to Jews, Arabs (i.e. from the Saudi Arabia and the UAE), Syrians, Persians (i.e. Iranians), Hindus, Pakistanis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Americans and (puke) US citizens - both religious and atheistic. See, I'm from where all these folks [can] come to study and I do have an open, inquisitive mind.
Third. If the Israelis really wanted to attack Iran it would have already happened. Years ago. They are trying not to attack Iran but folks like you don't get it all all.
No, they wouldn't, because they would lose their immunity forever. What folks like you don't get is that aside from the US's cold war agenda there was "religulous" extremism that placed Israel on the map at that spot in 1948. The initial place was further South near Sudan IIRC and should have been in either America (Argentina or the US). But hey, thet was their "promised land" which they had lost 2000 years before and they wanted that back.
You always blame the Israelis because it fits your preconceived world view - and no matter what facts I come up with (or a recollection of my travels as a neutral throughout the Middle East - I've been on the ground there and seen what's going on for myself). For myself I try and collect facts and then assign blame where the facts take me.
"Facts." You keep using that word... I don't think it means what you think it means. Let me give you some facts. The Israelis are waiting for the Messiah. Yes. They seem to have a "secular democracy" over there, but so does the US. That doesn't mean they don't have xenophobes and chauvinists in the government who won't blink before calling eradication of Islam[ic regimes] a mission from YHWH. Their history says so. The first time Israel was established it was by way of genocide. Hebrews were barbarians when Egyptians and Babylonians were developed beyond what Jews could even start to imagine - because of their religion. And even that very foundation of their "tradition" is plagiarized from Egyptians. Then they lost their state and all autonomy because they wouldn't appreciate their autonomy under the Imperial guidance.
Sure, the Israelis do a lot of dumb and bad things (settlers, ugh!) but it is pretty clear that Iran possessing nuclear weapons is a very, very dangerous thing for everyone. Once you understand how the Iranian government factions work (do you?) then you'll understand that once they get nukes there will be a lot more trouble in the Middle East than now. Do you want that? Is your preconcieved notion of Israel as the Bad Guy so strong that you'
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Most of all, I would like you to ask yourself why you are full of so much hate? to the Israelis (not all of whom are either Jews or Zionists, although you treat them all identically), and also why you have so much unreasoning venom for other Web users? Let go of the hate amigo, seriously - it'll ruin your life (I just hope it hasn't messed it up already - k :) ).
Wow! That is the biggest mis-informed rant I've seen on Slashdot in a long time.
Self-conceited verbiage.
I would call "Troll" if it wasn't for the fact you probably actually believe some of the crap you are espousing. Very, very sad in this day and age when a trvial investigation from trusted sources of the Web would reveal most of your rant to be incorrect
Right back at you.
- of course, you will selectively cherry-pick from the fringe to reinforce your pre-concieved (and incorrect) notions
Baseless and ad personam. Hypocrite.
Like I said, I've been there on the ground for real - have you?
Irrelevant - I have info from those who live there.
I cross-check my facts rather than rely only on my recollection.
Doesn't show, really.
to the Israelis (not all of whom are either Jews or Zionists, although you treat them all identically)
To unquestioning apologists and the chauvinistic genocidal sacred-cows.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
This is something I saw a lot while in University - a common flaw mostly among future lawyers and liberal arts types. Meanwhile, the true mega-minds that I encountered (world-class physicists and chemists) were amazingly open to new ideas, asked open questions far more than they took immovable positions, and didn't try to force their opinions solely by berating their opponent. I learned some good lessons as use it as a yardstick for posts I see online. I hoped to get some interesting points of view from you (and other posters) and reasons why I might be wrong. Facts I could cross-check are especially valuable. Lazy "I read once somewhere and it must be right" recollections don't cut for me. Unfortunately here all I got was insults and some statements that I know are actually libellously false (if you actually care to do the research about them) mixed in with some interesting points. It was disappointing that someone who has as wide a vocabulary as yourself can't frame or participate in reasoned debate. Next time perhaps.
As a scientist we're trained to try and find ways to falsify our existing view, and receive the counter-evidence with an *open mind*.
Start here and proceed through this.
And after you explain to yourself and admit that "wiping Israel from the face of the Earth" is a fabrication by right-wing nuts and Fox-grade sources (finding the correct sources for that I leave to you as an exercise in honesty) and properly apologizing to me for what you've accused me of, you may hope I'll reconsider who to regard you as. So far, you've presented no evidence to support your claims, which are based on nothing more than hearsay, or to contradict what I've said and shown. To add to injury, you also insulted me with accusations of lying and dilettantism, so it's you who spews unfounded crap and uses fallacious nonsense and dishonest tactics (ad hominem, ad personam, ad verecundiam, ad ignorantiam, ad auditorem).
Oh, and finally, YOUR MOTHER!
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.