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Iran Tests Naval Cruise Missile During War Games
Hugh Pickens writes "Iran says it has successfully test fired a cruise missile during naval exercises near the Strait of Hormuz, and the surface-to-sea missile, known as the Qader, struck its targets with precision and destroyed them. Iran had previously announced that it intended to test a missile during the exercises, raising fears that it might try to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for tougher international sanctions. The Qader missile is said to be capable of striking warships at a range of about 125 miles, a distance that would include some American forces in the Gulf region as Iran is about 140 miles at its nearest point from Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based. Analysts say Iran's increasingly strident rhetoric, which has pushed oil prices higher, is aimed at sending a message to the West that it should think twice about the economic cost of putting further pressure on Tehran. 'No order has been given for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,' Iran's state television quoted navy chief Habibollah Sayyari as saying. 'But we are prepared for various scenarios.'"
There was no good naval battle on CNN in a while. If it happens, it will be really exciting 1 hour, because that's how long it will take to destroy all Iran's fleet.
Read about small boats and aircraft did during US war games under Gen. Paul van Ripen.
U Sank My Carrier! By Gary Brecher
http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6779
"send everything at once"
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Do all of us a favour and go out with a bang? He/she should die as some kind of entertainment / service to society? Humans...
Ugh, the arrogance.
i know! why target the US fleet.
Just sink a couple of Oil Tankers or other commercial ships as they pass through the straits.
That would have a bigger impact on the US than trying to attack the fleet...
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
Why? Iran has a few cruise missiles and no way to strike at the US home base. The US has several complete navies and a home base in Iraq, right next door. They also have hundreds of cruise missiles available. I real military terms nobody can take on the US directly.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Yes so damn cool Iran. Too bad the US could most likely shoot those down miles away from target. So sorry Iran, we are only many, many more years technologically more advanced. Yeah, don't think the US thinks Iran is that scary.
s/Iran/Vietnam/
Oh, wait...
I think the message is more "Fuck with us and people die" rather than "We will conquer the Earth". Just my 2c.
Ugh, the arrogance.
Yah, also the ignorance
> then why dont you go fight in that fucking naval battle and die, yourself ?
how would i sit on my couch and enjoy watching other people die in a naval-action-battle, when i'd go myself to die there?
lol.. what other stupid questions do you have? :D
When there are so many too choose from abroad?
Iran is doing what all failing governments do, redirecting the ire of their people to someone other than itself. Granted they have had their "Great Satan" for many many years the uprisings and home grown terrorism does show the state cannot control all factions present within its borders.
So they need to have their people believe that all fault is outside of the country while at the same time explaining the lack of living standards and such is the great sacrifice needed to uphold Iranian values and freedom in the face of the great enemies abroad. Wow, sounds like North Korea as well.
Iran is the dog on the other side of the fence, barking and slavering to get at you. Yes it has teeth and yes it will hurt, but its going to get such an ass kicking it really enjoys that fence as much as you do.
With all the exaggerated press in the US about war mongering politicians its not exactly reassuring to see that there are still so many crazies abroad to give the locals reason. Iran is threatening more than the US with this boast of closing the straights. Perhaps they are trying to wake their Iman they so desperately need.... most likely a failing leader most likely needs the crisis and possibly the war to stay in power.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Also, related: http://xkcd.com/611/
Iran is running its mouth like it wants to get popped. They're going to look awfully impotent when that carrier steams right back into the Persian Gulf. It'll probably bring some buddies with it too.
Iran warns US carrier to stay out of Persian Gulf
Iran warns U.S. to keep ship out of Gulf
At end of drill, Iran army chief warns US aircraft carrier not to return to Persian Gulf
I know about the "risk" of nuclear proliferation, but as we did nothing about Kim Il Jong for decades in North Korea, I think the fears of Iran having nukes are over-rated. If a blustering blow-hard like Kim could threaten his neighbours repeatedly with invasion and war without reprise, why is the Iranian rhetoric considered any worse?
Certainly Iran executes a lot of people for violating a strict interpretation of Islamic law, so anyone who's against religion in government has a fundamental problem with Iran. But invasion is a poor way of protecting the people from a government that places dogma over reason. Surely diplomatic discourse would be more effective than the threat of invasion.
And that's really the problem I see. The US keeps beating the invasion and war drums. Iran refuses to back down, the mouse that roared at the lion. Neither side seems willing to act rationally.
If you're going to constantly go on about invading a nation, yeah, they're gonna get paranoid about BEING invaded. They're going to want to build up their military and their armaments to fight back, including nukes.
And with Israel and it's nukes so close to Iran and clearly a darling of US policy, the threat to Iran is imminent, at least from their perspective. Mind you, the Iranian government doesn't help that situation with their ongoing diatribe against Israel. More bluster that escalates instead of negotiates.
Recent US history is a track record of invasion and attack for reasons that turned out to be unjustified in the end. It doesn't give me a comfortable feeling to see them dictating policy to Iran when the US handling of Cuba has shown that appeasing the US does NOT mean the sanctions will be dropped.
Maybe if someone were to take a serious step like disarming Israel's nuclear arsenal, things could settle down in the middle east.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
This thread so far is like watching a special olympics boxing match.
I think the message is more "Fuck with us and people die" rather than "We will conquer the Earth". Just my 2c.
Or worse, "Fuck with us and your voters will be paying ten dollars a gallon for gasoline."
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The Qader missile is said to be capable of striking warships at a range of about 125 miles, a distance that would include some American forces in the Gulf region as Iran is about 140 miles at its nearest point from Bahrain.
So the missiles have a range of 125 miles and the closest part of the target is 140 miles... I don't want to downplay the significance of the situation, but from 15 miles outside the missile's effective range, you wouldn't even be able to see it when it splashes harmlessly into the water. The article was even claiming they could hit isreal at 625 miles away. What am i missing?
Do I get it right, that Iran just destroyed one of their ships with own rocket? How many ships they have left? And do they plan surface-to-air rocket launches?
US naval ships won't have to be at their base in Bahrain. They might be patrolling the gulf, half way to Iran. So about 70 miles. Possibly a lot less if they are close to Iranian territorial waters.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
This way, the US (good guys) can take out Tehran (bad guys) and stay out of it. True, the market for some types of rugs will collapse, but thta's the price we pay for Peace on Earth !! So, let's get this show on the road - no need for a 10- years' combat war like Iraq/Iran when Israel can take them out overNIGHT !!
Shove that up your iatola-assahola and rotate !!
I'm not sure there are any naval battles to be had anymore, unless we end up living to see WWIII. The sea-faring bits of our Navy really only exists as an aircraft and missile platform, not for serious confrontations with other naval vessels. We certainly have the equipment, but if we ever had to use it we'd already be looking at much more serious trouble. The countries that have real naval combat facility (that we couldn't safely annihilate from a long ways away) also have nukes and delivery technologies.
Are you a moron or do you just play one on /.?
Ships have goalkeepers. Or whatever the American equivalent is called.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
If you read the linked articles then they the Missiles hit the targets 125 miles away and they was thought to be the effective range, but no exact details are known. It's possible it could reach 140+ Miles putting the US 5th fleet within range.
They are claiming it as a "Long Range" weapon, though 125 Miles seems a bit short to be considered "Long Range" so the thinking is that the range might be longer or they are bluffing.
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
Blockades are defined by international law as an act of war. The moment you try to enforce this blockade, you'll have effectively declared war on every Persian Gulf state and anyone trading with them.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/01/03/iran-to-take-action-if-us-carrier-return-idINDEE80205820120103
"Iran will take action if a U.S. aircraft carrier which left the area because of Iranian naval exercises returns to the Gulf, the state news agency quoted army chief Ataollah Salehi as saying on Tuesday."
and the US is known for backing down and allowing Iran to dictate where and when it can the "high seas" even though it won't sign the the Law Of The Sea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_on_the_Law_of_the_Sea
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
* Caveat: In the last ten years, I have only spent 2 years in the Persian Gulf, transiting the Hormuz approximately 20 times.*
- The strait is approximately 12 miles wide at the "choke-point".
- A Qader has an maximum range of 125 miles.
- Most of the corporations that run tankers through the straits are extremely risk adverse. All it would take is one missile being "tested" in the vicinity of the shipping lanes to cause the number of tankers to plummet.
- There is a huge number of container ships that go from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea and into the Mediterranean via the Suez (and vice versa), and almost the same number of ships that "turn left" instead of "right" there.
- Jet-skis can and do transit the straits. The bigger smugglers use speedboats, but the intelligence agencies use the personal watercraft sized craft and semi-submersible planing hulls to move agents and for surveillance. What airborne surveillance aircraft that Iran does have are slow moving and could probably be best engaged by M-4's and SAWS.
- The US Navy presence in Iraq is rather small compared to the USN presence in Bahrain and the UAE.
- Iran's militarized coast guard regularly harasses ships that transit the strait anyway. Have to love the 'Great Satan Running Dog' rants that comes up on chan 16.
- Iran's air force could be wiped from the skies by a single squadron of F-18F's loaded for dedicated air to air. It is their waterborne forces that are actually a threat.
- Two Global Hawks at high-altitude would be able cover the entire Persian Gulf with real time targeting data.
- Sniper rifles work just as well at sea as they do on land.
They won't close the strait, they need the oil money, and couldn't stand doing a favor for their middle-eastern rivals by raising oil prices and driving western oil business to rival OPEC nations.
They won't get far showing off more powerful weapons, the Saudi's and the Pakistani's won't like it, and the Iranian's risk provoking military action from them, more than from the US.
The US media are a bunch of drama-thirsty morons who are looking to make a big deal out of this issue. Just ignore Iran, nothing will come of this. The Iranian government has nothing to gain from this, except the PR battle, saying "HA! we were strong enough to drive off the US!" even though we already know this is a total bluff.
If anything, they will start a conflict with neighboring nations, which in the most extreem of worst-case scenarios, could lead to a middle-eastern version of the Great War, and then the US can come in and support are already battle-fatigued allies against the Iranian aggressors with considerably less effort than what it took in Iraq these past 8 years.
And... it's on it's way up towards 110 now (the world pays brent, not wti).
Iran do have a multi stage ballistic missile which could probably hit southern Europe, though they claim it has a range of only 2000km. Pack that with yellowcake conventional warheads and even if not nuclear in the conventional sense, it's a problem for the recipient.
And they also have several thousand mines they could use to close the straits. Y'know, cheap explosives vs expensive "technologically advanced" floating castles.
Deleted
This is just more evidence that Iraq was a huge mistake, not like we needed any more but here it is. When Bush outlined his "axis of evil", he decided to go after the least "evil" country on the list, Iraq. Why? Well most people will say oil, or personal vendetta, and while there is some truth to that, the real answer is Iraq was the weakest of the 3. Bush needed a war to boost his poll numbers, so he chose the country that was least able to defend itself.
Had he gone after North Korea, the result would have been an unmitigated humanitarian crisis as North Korea would have unleashed a barrage of missiles and artillery fire(possibly with chemical and/or biological weapons) on Seoul, and the North Koreans are so dug in that there would be no way they could be neutralized without significant damage to Seoul and the surrounding areas. Kind of nice for your enemy to put half their population and probably around 2/3 of their economic output well in range of your artillery isn't it?
Now look at Iran, they have the strongest navy in the middle east(Iraq didn't have anything resembling a functioning navy when the US invaded). They also have decent missiles thanks in no small part to the North Koreans, and a relatively formidable ground force. US casualties in Iran would have been huge, and thats assuming Iran DOESNT have any chemical/biological capabilities....
Now look at Iraq. Saddam eventually disarmed and complied with almost all the UN regulations. His army was incredibly weakened by the embargoes and his air force crippled. And now he is dead. Gadaffi gave up WMD, and now he is dead. What message does this send to dictators? If you disarm, we kill you, if you can cause massive amounts of suffering, we negotiate.
Now look at the Iranian regime, there are only 2 things keeping them even remotely popular, and thus probably in power, in Iran.
1. Defending agains the US(Which thanks to the cowboy president many Iranians legitimately think might invade)
2. Oil revenues(which is why oil continued to plummet after the recession started, Ahmadinejad and Chavez, among others made so many promises to their people assuming oil was going to be over $150/barrel. When the price fell they had no choice but to continue to keep supply high in order to keep the money flowing in)
So now what is happening? The regime knows its running out of time, and has to get nukes fast or else risk being wiped out. Stopping Iranian oil exports would essentially cause chaos at home, so Iran is doing everything in it's power, including going to the brink of war, to keep those oil exports going. It wouldn't be nearly this paranoid about getting nukes if the man-child hadn't decided he wanted to play war hero for daddy and take out a guy that while certainly not, to borrow a phrase from Lewis Black, a snuggy bear, was not any worse than most regimes supported by the US(and the EU before Europeans start getting all self-righteous, France went after Libya and thus has a hand in this too, though not as big as the US's obviously). So instead of his fantasy of making the world safe from tyrants, Bush's actions have basically said, "if you want your regime to stay in power, get WMDs" Good one. The Iraq war will go down as the biggest foreign policy blunder in post-war American history. And while the actual Vietnam and Korean Wars were probably more savage, they were relatively self-contained. The Iraq war(and supporting the Libyan rebels) will have implications that will be felt for decades to come.
Monstar L
We were also technologically advanced over nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. America would suffer a bloody nose with a war on Iran. HOWEVER, if it is prolonged, it will become a draw quickly. The reason is that China will support them the same way that they did North Korea.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Those who control U.S. government, often in secret, want to build an oil pipeline through Iran to bring oil from the interior to an ocean. The U.S. has been threatening war with Iran, or interfering with Iranian politics for more than 60 years, mostly in secret. That's one of the underlying reasons for the problems now.
The U.S. government is, in many ways, VERY corrupt.
Would said analysts perhaps be of US origin?
Just asking.
Remind me -- who was threatening who with war lately?
bjd
Not really. If Iran oil is pulled from the market, the rest of opec can make it up. Our problem would be Venezuela. They might decide to leave the market in support (though not sure how long). THAT would hurt.
The one nice thing is that such a war would get us off of imported oil PDQ. Basically, we would push electric and natural gas vehicles very quickly. Likewise, Canada's pipeline would be sped up.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I keep thinking of USSR in its last days. They invaded Afghanistan, and everybody claimed that it was all about the oil. Sound familiar?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
And is selling it for Rial and Euros, not dollars. Their oil bourse just last year started trading crude.
That's why they have to be "liberated".
Deleted
I think that they are trying to buy time. Basically, they do not want us to blockade them. So, they do these threats, we do some back, and we do a meeting. Sad actually.
When Iran BSed that way, we should not have said a thing, simply moved in another carrrier group and kept very quiet.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hello, you must represent the "Empathy" party known for its "Love" for people and "Caring" attitude. I am sure a government of people like yourself would be very "Nice".
I must rephrase. In real military terms nobody can take on the US without resorting to attrition.
you can grind down the US but every opening move the US will wipe out all your supposed defenses of pretty much every country except Russia and China. Now can the USA stay and finish the job is another story.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
iran is posturing and threatening. its not like in the past 6 months united states of invaderica has not been trying to build up a war with iran, then sent spy drones, agents and whatnot into their country.
i see ignorance is as popular in america as ever.
Read radical news here
No? Or isn't that a blindingly obvious thing to do?
The quoted specs are speculative, so till they are used in anger fully fueled we won't necessarily know their capabilities.
Iran manufacture several classes of missile from cruise to multi stage ballistic. They even make them themselves which is better than most European countries are capable of.
HTH.
Deleted
When there are so many too choose from abroad?
Funnily enough, a lot of countries, for whom the USA is one of the "abroad" find themselves asking that very same question.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
it would also have quite an impact on Iran itself. The fact is that paradoxically the lunatics on persian side are dependent on fuel imports as they spent so much time building nukes that they did not manage to build enough refineries. So they would have a fuel problem themselves and this on top of the bombs that US and few their neighbours would drop on them.
I haven't heard any threats lately...though, to me it looks like Iran is recently painting a big bullseye into their backyard.
instead of other people dying for your enjoyment and corporations' profit
That's quite naive, you are more vested in keeping the sea lanes open than you might initially think. When the oil stops then so do the trucks that deliver food to your local grocery store.
Yes it would be great if we got off foreign oil and delivered food using local or renewable energy but that's not what is going to happen in the next two weeks, and IIRC two weeks is about all there is in the local stores and distribution centers on average.
You'll note that Iran waited until the US pulled every last infantryman out of Iraq on Dec 31st before making this proclomation (the next day), and the US turned around and agreed to sell Saudi Arabia essentially a $30 Billion Iranian Air Defense Kit the day after. We don't have a major base in the region that I'm aware of anymore. Turkey kicked us out in ~2006 or 2007, making Germany our closest base (besides the Carrier group)
moox. for a new generation.
You need to cut down on the revisionist hindsight. Saddam's Iraq was clearly the worst at that time.
Lets see:
Known to be working on nukes: Iraq, Iran & NK.
Pushing Terrorism: Iraq, Iran & NK
Attempted assassination of a former US President: Iraq
Had recently invaded a neighboring country: Iraq.
Had recently invades a second neighboring country: Iraq.
Nukes may indeed be a get out of jail free card for thuggish regimes preserving them from military action but the sanctions, now that just about everyone is agreeing to them and making sure that cheaters are getting punished may yet make the lesson "reneg on your signature of the the Non-proliferation treaty & lose all your international trading partners".
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
They don't have ICBMs
They have rockets that can get a payload to orbit. I'm not quite sure what the difference is.
They can't even get a monkey into space.
Yes they can. They just haven't yet. There's no reason to believe they don't have the basic technology since they've sent the module up and have sent smaller animals into space. Really they're a dirty third-world country that want to pretend to be "the great Persian Empire" except they forgot that Iran was NOT the heart or the meat of said empire.
Maybe. But it's a dirty third world country with a fair bit of money and some competent technology which probably gets a certain amount of respect from its neighbours for standing up to the US.
If you think Iran is much like Afghanistan, you are, to put it bluntly, mistaken. have the US fire the first missile against Iran, and what you know of the modern world stops. Not only because of oil, but also many many arabian interests in the US are on the line. You know, the same guys who fled away during a country.wide lockdown.
Does not only include the US Navy. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait etc would join the US in destroying the iranian threat. One of the world's biggest airbases (IIRC it is Dahran) is located in Saudi Arabia.
Lots of American and British warplanes would be based there and that is actually a much better base than any a/c carrier can ever be. Iran is big on propaganda and short on real threats. All the "asymmetric" threats are actually not more than funny. These little boats will be useless more than 200 miles offshore, especially when their bases are rubble and the replenishment ships are sunk.
As others said, the USAF and the USN would love to perform a life-fire exercise for a few days against live targets. Sorry Iranian soldiers/airmen/sailors - they will soon find the death of a warrior.
Well most people will say oil, or personal vendetta, and while there is some truth to that, the real answer is Iraq was the weakest of the 3. Bush needed a war to boost his poll numbers, so he chose the country that was least able to defend itself.
Sounds like why Obama was anxious to go into Libya if you ask me. The net effect of meddling in the Middle East seems to be an overall decrease in freedom as anti-West Islamists are being voted in everywhere. Despite our President's insinuation that everything going on in Egypt is wonderful, the effect of losing them as an ally can't be overstated. Pakistan is next.
Or, they spent so much time building nuclear plants BECAUSE they don't have enough refineries, and because they would rather sell the oil than use it themselves.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe the people lusting for a war with Iran might be the ones lying about nukes, rather than the Iranians? I mean, how's that search for WMDs in Iraq going? When are you guys finally going to admit that it was the US that lied, and not Saddam?
Oh yeah? That's why NK keeps getting food aid & SK keeps trying to appease them with promises of trade agreements, right?
No. The ugly fact is that WMD regimes have (NK, Pakistan) and will gain (Iran, others) the power to blackmail first world countries with relative impunity.
In the long run, we're fucked. We'll have to either keep paying and praying for "velvet revolutions" in those countries to disarm them, or risk a hugely dangerous first-strike WW3 (hopefully without getting the BRIC up in our faces).
Krusty, is that you?
The real reason is right there in the summary:
Analysts say Iran's increasingly strident rhetoric, which has pushed oil prices higher, is aimed at sending a message to the West that it
wants more money for its oil...
All other goals are secondary.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
To put it in perspective, It's about 3 times the range of an Exocet with solid proppelant. That's long.
I think you're forgetting about Bagram, Kandahar and Shindand. Then there's Sigonella and Aviano in Italy. AFAIK Incirlik in Turkey is still active and there are US forces at Bezmer and Graf Ignatievo in Bulgaria...
No there are several countries without nukes that the US navy could not annihilate at range with impunity. Take for example the Swedish Gotland-class submarine, it has on multiple occasions(at least 2 occasions) "sunk" US carriers during naval wargames.
I'd imagine that it would be a pretty big embarrassment to the US navy if they lost one or more of their Carriers to a country with an air force only twice the size of what you can fit on one of those carriers.
Actually, I think its "We get 90% of our revenues from the export of OIL, lets see what we can do to increase our budgets..."
Shutting down the strait would cut off the main source of revenue for Iran.. But, every time they say something stupid, the price goes up, and they make more money off the exports.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
In the UK we already do pay $10 a gallon
I've got some photographs, I'd like to show them to you. Though you don't know the girls You'll recognise the view..
Iran is like that third-world pimply kid next door who thinks he can date the head cheerleader.
They don't have ICBMs. They fake missile launches. They can't refine nuclear weapons. They can't even get a monkey into space. Their suckage is legendary.
Really they're a dirty third-world country that want to pretend to be "the great Persian Empire" except they forgot that Iran was NOT the heart or the meat of said empire.
Welcome to third-world ass pimplehood, Iran. Your supreme Ayatola is the head pimple.
E
And yet the armies of the supposedly great developed nations with their sophisticated and expensive technology is so easily defeated and negated by illiterate third world faggots and their IED fashioned out of old shell and mine munitions. Who is getting value for money out of their military spending?
Presented to U.S. officials by the Iraqi National Congress, a London-based exile group pushing for an American attack on Iraq, the defector says Saddam is close to finishing a long-range ballistic missile that could hit Cairo; Ankara; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Nicosia, Cyprus, or Tehran. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/658542/posts
That was what we were told in 2002. A decade on, we now know that those "intelligence" reports of WMDs from the INC were actually supplied by a double agent working for Iranian intelligence.
According to a US intelligence official, the CIA has hard evidence that Mr Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Karim Habib, passed US secrets to Tehran, and that Mr Habib has been a paid Iranian agent for several years, involved in passing intelligence in both directions. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/25/usa.iraq10
Oops. And what about those mobile bioweapon labs? It turned out that intelligence came from another unreliable source:
Despite warnings from the German Federal Intelligence Service questioning the authenticity of the claims, the US Government utilized them to build a rationale for military action in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, including in the 2003 State of the Union address, where President Bush said "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs", and Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council, which contained a computer generated image of a mobile biological weapons laboratory.[1][4] On November 4, 2007, 60 Minutes revealed Curveball's real identity.[5] Former CIA official Tyler Drumheller summed up Curveball as "a guy trying to get his green card essentially, in Germany, and playing the system for what it was worth." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant)
The whole story was made up by one guy who wanted his immigration card, and yet - without any verification - it was used by the Bush administration to justify a war.
And since you brought it up, alll of the intelligence that linked Iraq to 911 was lies as well.... There was no Iraq Islamist link (well, at least until the coalition invaded and plunged the country into a bloody sectarian civil war)
Sigonella and Aviano might be acceptable to run a long term war from, but the rest of those sites you listed don't look any more built up than a municipal civilian airport. Sigonella and Aviano are about 2,600 miles from the strait, while the much larger Ramstein (4 schools, a major regional millitary hospital, etc) is about 2,900 miles from the strait.
:-)
As for the Afghan bases, I'm not sure you'd want to run a war from an airfield in another active war zone
I'm not aware of any bases in India, but I don' think flying through/near Pakistan's airspace for months on end after the whole Osama debacle would improve our relations with them. Pakistan kicked us out of one of our airbases early last month, too.
moox. for a new generation.
Tried that, but subsection E of the law pertaining to eyesight said that since my eyesight was over 20/800 prior to lasik no matter how good it got I was sidelined. A pity since I had the Nuke guys talking to me and they had started me on paperwork before we found out about that. You know what really sucks, that law was lobbied for in the early 90's by a bunch of asshole progs who found it "unfair" that men and women were choosing to have lasik done in hopes of getting good enough eyesight to get in so they set limits. Of course, those limits were based on early 90's lasik and prk, and not even 2004's technology, when it went into effect, let alone 2008. Fucking busybodies.
they'll never dare to shoot first and worry about the consequences later... like a proper red-blooded Yank.
To quote the original text: "struck its targets with precision". But what precision exactly? 1mm? 1cm? 1m? Technically even 1km is a precision of some sort, but not that kind of sort that's ever going to be useful (unless USA build naval version of Death Star).
And by the way: what was its target? A boat? A ship? Ocean's bottom?
The carriers are last war's weapons. They are only useful if they can keep out of missile range and launch aircraft. The chinese and iran have medium range surface to surface missiles with longer reach than aircraft. The carrier is an obsolete strategy; the missile is the cannon of the 21st century and carrier groups are the castles.
This is therefore all theatre.
The US won't attack because they know the Iranians will wipe out the fleet and the purpose of the US fleet is to look good for the fanboys and keep the puppet states in line. Take a look at the makeup, small missile boats and subs. The iranian fleet is specifically designed to fight capital ships i.e. The US Navy.
The Iranians won't attack because they need to sell oil to China. The US sanctions are irrelevant because the US doesn't import anything from or export anything to Iran anyway. China will continue to ignore US sanctions because they need the oil.
So, all this political posturing is kabuki theatre:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabuki
I am however already long oil, so bring on the stupidity, the higher the better.
Deleted
I would also include the European Union nations in that statement as well, at least Sweden and Germany is well known to have extremely silent AIP submarines and Sweden has on at least 2 occasions "sunk" US carriers during naval war games.
The US depends on it's carriers for projecting air power overseas and I seriously doubt they'd consider going up against someone who has even a remote chance of sinking one, without it's carriers the US navy can't effectively project force in support of an amphibious assault.
Even if it's painful for us via oil price rises, any action by the leadership in Iran at this time would end up with them being overthrown just like half a dozen other regimes in the past year...which is something they can't fail to recognize.
I think this is really only saber rattling because the leadership of Iran would have to be really stupid to start a war.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Nukes being the only justification for GW2 is a straw horse that has been generally used by those such as yourself wanting to portray it as completely unjustified (much like you revise Iraq to not be the threat is was seen to be at that time using current knowledge).
The cease-fire Saddam signed at the cessation of hostilities after GW1 specified that the cease-fire was null unless he gave up his WMD & documented the progress he had made until that point. When Saddam buried as much as he could, destroyed what was left & impeded inspections Saddam did not magically make his work on WMD disappear, he just made it impossible to prove exactly what progress he had made. The situation is akin to athletes that are disqualified for using masking agents or politicians who are condemned for coverups. That is what made the invasion justified & indeed the ultimatum he was given on the eve of GW2 stated precisely that: Allow inspectors unimpeded access to your sites to document your WMD. He refused, GW2 on...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Ah, a point I omitted to address: Iraq was already in the midst of a bloody sectarian war, it's just that Saddam had the upper hand & it was "only" the kurds & the shia were being massacred mostly out of the western public's eye. Some seem to think that this makes it all better...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
In the UK we already do pay $10 a gallon
It also takes just a couple hours to drive across your island. Yesterday I drove 500 miles home from taking my daughter to Grandma's for Christmas, a trip we make 6-10 times a year for various holidays/weddings/events. The equivalent for you would essentially be driving from Scotland to London. Many, many folks in the US are in a similar situation and $10/gal gasoline would be quite a pain. Beyond my direct personal cost, the indirect costs would go up considerably as well ... simply due to shipping cost increases. Basically everything moves by truck in the US for the last mile, which can be a long distance from the train station to the shop. More by train less truck would be better ... but good luck getting more track laid anywhere reasonably close to a metropolitan area!
It's the cost of wide open spaces and why Europe and the US cannot reasonably be compared in such a manner.
Should we use less oil? Yes.
Can we do better? Yes.
Would crazy high gas taxes like the EU states have a much more damaging effect in the US than it does in Europe? Yes, much more than those in the old world realize.
Obama went into Libya because he is still convinced he is in high school and he can get everyone to like him if he just tries hard enough. He went into Libya for the same reasons he approved the Bush tax cuts and kowtows to the Republicans every demand, he is still convinced that *SOMEHOW* he can get the Republicans to like him, but the more he bends over, the deeper the Republicans plow him in the ass. The Republicans are convinced that Obama is the anti-christ and nothing he says or does can change their mind. Obama is like secret gay boyfriend of an evangelical, he is convinced that if he just tries hard enough he can get his "boyfriend" to admit his true feelings for him. But all the evangelical does is use the fact that the guy is willing to do anything for him to get his jollies off and then goes out the next day and declares that all homosexuals should be put to death. Obama needs to grow a pair and put the Republicans in their place, he hasn't, and if he loses in 2012(which I don't think he will, namely because of how buffoonish most of the Republican field is), he will only have himself to blame.
Monstar L
If ANYONE uses a nuke the entire world will go up. Once the first confirmed nuke launches, or a mushroom cloud is spotted the everyone will launch to try and get theirs up before they are taken out. The entire northern hemisphere will be gone, some parts of the southern will avoid direct bombardment but the fallout and dust clouds will get them in a few days or weeks at most.
US naval ships wouldn't even need to be in the right hemisphere to make things very, very uncomfortable for Iran. Google "Deigo Garcia" and know that we have a tendency to park a lot of B1s and B52s there ...
By the time the USS Whatever showed up near the strait, their ability to do anything but wave at it would be gone.
(Disclaimer: My father was in the Naval Construction Battalion that built the US Air/Naval base there in the early 70's.)
Your argument makes no sense, "he didn't give up his weapons program, all he did was destroy his weapons program". Yeah, that makes about as much sense as he man-child invading Iraq, i.e. none. He did allow inspectors in, in fact the inspectors that were there had a report, it was on the news, that stated that, guess what, Iraq got rid of the WMD. Thats why you didn't find......drumroll please......WMD in Iraq! There was no way they could have destroyed all those WMDs without leaving a trace, absolutely none. But then again, I guess I should expect such an argument coming from a Republican, remember never let facts get in the way of your beliefs.
Monstar L
Falklands
An Aussie "Collins" Class sub also "sank" two US nuke subs AND a carrier (Abraham Lincoln) during wargames in 2002.
The Yanks seem to think they're invulnerable..and against run down Third World level militaries they are....but in a serious shooting match between First World (and here we include the Ruskkies and the Chinese) powers the US would have its ass handed to it on a platter. It would probably win against a single other country, but would suffer grievous harm itself as a result.
What you are missing is that a medium range ballistic missile is VERY different from an anti ship missile. An anti ship missile weighs roughly 500-800kgs while a medium range ballistic missile will typically weigh several tonnes.
Yes those missiles might not reach US forces while they're at port in Bahrain but if this goes down those ships won't be in port, they'll be out in open waters probably protecting the oil shipments, and that would put them well within range of those missiles, if you want to hit stationary targets in port you use MIRVed versions of those MRBMäs mentioned previously.
Interesting article that seems to be plausible in its main thrust. But Gary Brecher can't resist bloviating about WW2 parallels, and in the process he reveals a pretty impressive degree of ignorance about the naval history of that era.
"The little biplanes buzzed out...and sank every ship. First a destroyer, then the huge German battleship, then all three US battleships. The Navy tried to ignore the results, but with Mitchell yapping at their heels, they finally started moving from battleship-based to aircraft-carrier-based battle groups".
1. Actually, the "little biplanes" that sank the German battleship Ostfriesland dropped 1-ton (2000 lb) bombs. Some of the worst damage was done by bombs that were deliberately dropped as near-misses, using massive water pressure pulses to rupture the vulnerable underwater part of the hull. Of course, Ostfriesland was unmanned and did not defend itself - there were none of the repair parties that would normally fight any breaches in the hull, and the aircraft could come as close as they liked. Amusingly, Mitchell himself told Congress that, "In my opinion, the Navy actually tried to prevent our sinking the Ostfriesland."
2. The British Royal Navy began using ship-launched aircraft in earnest during WW1 (1914-18). The Japanese also began experimenting with aircraft carriers at least as early as the USA. The reason why the USA built so many (and such big) carriers in the1930s and 1940s was mainly that it could - it had the huge wealth necessary to build over 100 carriers during WW2 alone, while other nations like Japan built hardly any. Also, aircraft carriers were very suitable for the Pacific war, with its vast expanses of open ocean and usually good flying weather.
"The British didn't pay any attention to Mitchell's demonstration. Their battleships were better made, better armed, and better manned".
This, too, is unfair. The British knew very well that their battleships were no better (to say the least) than those of the USA and Germany. Because Britain ended WW1 almost bankrupt, and owing huge amounts to the USA, its defence budgets were run on a shoestring right up to (and through) WW2. HMS Rodney and HMS Nelson, for example, were smaller and slower than battleships built between the wars by the USA, Germany, Italy, Japan, and France. The British knew very well that aircraft would be very dangerous to warships, but they couldn't stop building battleships because there was still a need for them.
"Why didn't the British think of it in 1940? There was plenty of evidence that battleships were nothing but giant coffins. They just decided not to think about it".
This is where Brecher gets altogether carried away and parts company with reality. Battleships were still necessary, in the Atlantic and Mediterranean theatres if less so in the Pacific. Although the German battleship Bismarck was crippled by a (very lucky) aerial torpedo hit, it took two British battleships to pound her into scrap before she was sent to the bottom by torpedoes. At the battle of Matapan, three British battleships sank three powerful Italian cruisers in a matter of minutes, changing the whole balance of the war in the Mediterranean. And the complex air, sea and land struggle for Guadalcanal was arguably settled when the battleship USS Washington smashed the less powerful Japanese battleship Kirishima, helping to give the USN supremacy in the waters around the strategic island. Certainly battleships were increasingly endangered, but until 1945 they still had important roles to play. The same is true about US carriers today. The fact that they may easily be sunk if they venture into a landlocked body of water like the Persian Gulf does not mean they are not enormously useful.
"In the Falklands War, the Argentine Air Force, which ain't exactly the A Team, managed to shred the British fleet, coming in low and fast to launch the Exocets".
In fact the Argentine Exocets sank exactly one British warship, HMS Sheffield. They also damaged three other ships (and admitte
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
How is it an international sanctions when it is only US, with condition to some of it's allies? That is biased summary!
Did it ever occur to you that maybe the people lusting for a war with Iran might be the ones lying about nukes, rather than the Iranians?
Of course it did. In this case, we know Iran is lying. If they simply wanted nuclear power, they could of had it without any contention whatsoever. Iran's goal is nuclear power - as an excuse - to hide their desire to develop nuclear weapons. No bones about it, their end game is nuclear weapons. Period.
The fact is that paradoxically the lunatics on persian side are dependent on fuel imports as they spent so much time building nukes that they did not manage to build enough refineries.
Can you justify "lunatics"? It is a strong word to use, presumably of the government of a sovereign nation. It is also redolent of the ancient technique of belittling potential enemies in order to make them seem less formidable, and undercut any possible objections to treating them badly (or killing them).
If by "lunatics" you mean "religious fanatics", and you disapprove of any government run or influenced by such people, can you explain how the Iranian government is more influenced by religious fanatics than those of (say) the USA or Israel? Or do you think that American politicians who claim to have fanatical religious beliefs in order to get elected, but in fact have few or no religious beliefs at all, are better in some way than politicians whose religious beliefs are sincerely held?
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
One could also say that he is trying to appease the undecided middle of the field voters who would otherwise be swayed to cast their vote to the right. It's not like the voters to the left of Obama has much choice or would vote for a Republican over a Democrat anyway. On the other hand, those who wished for leftist policies or real change in American politics may not be persuaded to even show up to the ballot in the next election, if they hardly can spot the difference between the candidates. My bet is that the next US election will have the lowest voter turnover in a very long time which is something that always favor the Republicans. In effect, I think you're completely right.
Football Odds
Luckily, no Asian nation is willing to buy oil from Iran or capable of refining it.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
in a serious shooting match between First World (and here we include the Ruskkies and the Chinese) powers the US would have its ass handed to it on a platter.
Seriously? You need to go and review the US naval force relative to China or Russia. It's not even close. In a nonnuclear fight the US loses battles but will inevitably win the war. If it then goes nuclear, well, we can bounce more rubble than anyone.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
"I'm sure China would be delighted to see us throw away a few trillion dollars"
Right now, the U.S. owes China something like 1.5 Trillion dollars. Why would they be delighted to make it less likely that we'd repay them?
Nukes being the only justification for GW2 is a straw horse that has been generally used by those such as yourself wanting to portray it as completely unjustified
It was completely unjustified. Quite apart from being a perfect example of aggressive war - described by the Nuremberg Tribunal as the ultimate war crime - the invaders killed some 1.5 million people, maimed many more, exiled more or less permanently 3-4 million, destroyed the national infrastructure and made sure that it would not be repaired, and virtually finished off Iraq as a viable nation.
If the "Western" nations were consistent or honest, the instigators of the invasion would all have been hanged by now.
'During the trial, the chief American prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, stated:
'"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole"'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_aggression
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
It makes perfect sense, you are forgetting one very important fact, Iran. Iran and Iraq had a very nasty war. Iraq removed their weapons as required but then made every effort to make it look like they were hiding something. How many times did Iraq let the inspectors into the country and then made the inspectors wait outside of a facility for 8 hours or so and/or just kick them out of the country all together?
The weapons were gone because the consequences would have been grave if the inspectors ever found them, every effort was made to make it look like they were hiding something to keep Iran at bay.
Yes, I'm sure foreign navies could sink US naval assets, but the overall US military capacity is sufficiently advanced that it would simply be an example of winning a battle and losing the war.
If Iran did sink or heavily damage some US ships, it would suck, but the US has the military capacity to devastate Iran, to wipe out much of its military capacity. Iran does not have the naval or support capacity to hold the strait.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Well... quite the American mentality right there huh? People dying (in OTHER countries) is a lesser evil to expensive gas!!
And you guys wonder why the rest of the world view you with contempt...
we can't also stop all oil export and keep it the USA.
Also shutting the Straits of Hormuz is a act of WAR and under WAR powers the US can take over the oil refinerys and force that oil to stay in the USA.
The US doesn't require Middle East oil to survive, and closure would be a needed boost for alternative energy.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
They are talking about wiping away the threat of its nuclear program.
This has been going on since 1974. You might think they would have something to show for it by now.
It didn't take the US, Russia, India, UK, France, China, Pakistan or even North Korea as long.
Deleted
And you prove my point about stupidity.
The US has eleven carriers.........China only needs eleven hyper velocity anti-ship missiles.....but lets triple that, to be on the safe side shall we ?
In a "proper" shooting match most of the US Navy will end up on the bottom of the ocean, maybe even radioactive. Of course, it will be joining the Russian and Chinese fleets too...but the damage will have been done.
It's a whole different ballgame when the enemy starts shooting back, ain't it boy ?
The US is in the last stages of exercising its preference for hegemony instead of survival.
If you don't know what I am referring to, Google "Noam Chomsky".
OBTW I am American, in case your tiny little redneck minds might have concluded otherwise.
" Iran has a few cruise missiles and no way to strike at the US home base. "
As far as you know ...
Well... quite the American mentality right there huh? People dying (in OTHER countries) is a lesser evil to expensive gas!!
And you guys wonder why the rest of the world view you with contempt...
No, I don't wonder at all. And the politicians don't give a damn about dead foreigners, unless it affects their reelection prospects.
Remember Cheney's "That's not a number we have a lot of interest in."? The wellbeing of natives has never mattered in colonial ventures.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Seriously?
CVN-72 is alive and well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Abraham_Lincoln_(CVN-72)
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?129340-Iranian-navy-reveals-new-missile-boat-class
http://hello.news352.lu/edito-64397-iran-starts-producing-missile-launching-assault-boats.html
Basically speedboats with missiles. Looks like they've been churning them out too.
Didn't you even Google "iran missile boat" before posting?
Deleted
in a serious shooting match between First World (and here we include the Ruskkies and the Chinese) powers the US would have its ass handed to it on a platter.
Not at all. It wouldn't be a cakewalk, but it would be clearly and massively one-sided. The only way the US could be seriously threatened is if it was attacked by a coalition of major powers.
And you prove my point about stupidity.
The US has eleven carriers.........China only needs eleven hyper velocity anti-ship missiles.....but lets triple that, to be on the safe side shall we ?
In a "proper" shooting match most of the US Navy will end up on the bottom of the ocean, maybe even radioactive. Of course, it will be joining the Russian and Chinese fleets too...but the damage will have been done.
It's a whole different ballgame when the enemy starts shooting back, ain't it boy ?
You vastly overestimate the capability of potential enemies and vastly underestimate the capabilities of the US Navy. I can't argue the point about stupidity as I don't know what your point was, posting as you are as an AC.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
It's not a whole other shooting match, you fail to recall that all US naval vessels have defenses against inbound missiles. It's called AWACS that's even the old way how about reading Phalanx systems.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Since you're knowledge of the future is so precise - care to tell me the Superbowl scores for the next decade? Seriously, it's easy to know true from false after the fact, not nearly so at the time.
No US carriers have been sunk via attack since the 40's accidentally or otherwise. The only ones that have been sunk were done on purpose to create artificial reefs.
http://geekswithblogs.net/mtreadwell/archive/2004/05/26/5423.aspx
From the US mil.
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/ships/carriers/cv-list.asp
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Approximately 70 cents on a gallon of gas in the USA is for the "market" to gamble with under the farce of creating stability. The price of oil never seems high enough to even mention this sacred cow; which should be the big elephant in the room. Every big jump we have to endure empty rhetoric about the miniscule gas taxes... or long term solutions we won't fully support, so they remain long term.
Iran has strong ties to China (oil) and that makes it too complicated for the USA to easily sell the mess it will create.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
This is just fearmongering. Every nation in the world do that kind of testings and exercises with -conventional- weapons. Only when it is Iran, everybody screams. I understand the nuclear program is worrisome, but lets keep a cool head please. We might be doing Irak all over again sooner than later if we do not. We are bankrupt, but our masters made plenty of money meanwhile, they'll get any other occasion to have us subsidize them with another costly war.
Talk to anyone in the Navy and you will find they are well aware that they will likely not last more than a number of minutes into a world war -- the sea based platforms are sitting ducks and everyone on them knows it.
And I suggest you wake up and smell the roses...
Try googling up DF-21 while you're at it.
Your Phalanx ain't gonna do shit against that bad boy. The carrier is just a great big target and there's nothing you can do about it except pray to your god.
Game over baby, game over!
You clearly were never in the navy (for the record neither was I however my best friend from childhood is active)
All carriers are surrounded by many many other battle ships and subs, We may lose one or 2, but after that sneak attack its pretty much over for anyone, even china currently
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
You opted not to address my point that no treaty was ever signed to end GW1 & the cease fire to GW1 explicitly specified that hostilities would recommence unless Saddam allowed unfettered access to his WMD sites (which he did not do). To many pacifists (a group among which I suspect you belong) no war is justified & in my opinion you are overly negatively weighting the results of the GW2 to justify that stance to yourself and others. Consider what Saddam's murderous sons (emboldened by the "victory" over the US had the US blinked) who would now be coming into power would have done to the region had they not been eliminated. Bashar's massacres would be sideshows. You probably won't, because that goes against blaming those you consider worse: Bush & the Republicans or just the US military as a whole. It's much easier to judge in hindsight that all alternatives to war were more plausible. FDR knew that Japan was about to bomb Pearl Harbor too, right?
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
it was a war game, no live ammo, but real world conditions.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
"His army was incredibly weakened by the embargoes and his air force crippled."
Citation needed. His air force was quite functional until much of it was destroyed in shelters or bugged out or got shot down attempting to attack. The aircraft he ordered BURIED were ruined by doing that and unable to fight.
His army had ample equipment, but was poorly run except for the Republican Guard who often stood their ground.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Did you miss the quotes on "sank"? It was a war-games exercise. No ships were actually sunk, but CVN-72 was declared "sunk" by the mock attack.
Known to be working on nukes: Iraq
I'm not interested in rehashing the whole Iraq war, but are you saying that it is true that Saddam had a current, ongoing WMD program at the time of the invasion?
Meanwhile in Iran:
Gaydokhtarie: *silence*
oops, she's hanging by the neck from a construction crane
They weren't hiding their WMD's just from Iran, They were hiding them from all those who feared that Saddam was just hiding the WMD somewhere where they could be dug up once the sanctions & other controls went away. antifuldus conveniently forgets that Saddam deliberately starved his own people to make it look like the sanctions were overbroad even while spending all his resources on playing shell games with international inspectors & building hundreds of presidential palaces. Pressure was mounting to remove all controls over Saddam.
Tell us antifuldus, who's fault is it if I play chicken on a bicycle with a guy in a truck? Saddam could have swallowed his pride, destroyed his WMD, let the inspectors prove it & there would have been no GW2. Instead he decided to play chicken & got flattened. It was a lesson Khadaffi took to heart. Too bad for him that he couldn't recognize that more was needed to sate the desires of those he oppressed.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I realize there's some margin of error in all these numbers, but how do you get from "about 125 miles range" and "at least 140 miles away" (assuming that point on the border is even feasible for a missile launch) to "in range"?
That is an entirely different kind of war. You can have overwhelming forces, and yet a guerrilla-style war will still leave a major power floundering. It happened to Napoleon in Spain, and aspects of the Vietnam War heavily resembled similar tactics. At the same time, you can kill an insurgency, The Brits did it in Malaysia, though it took years to do it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'm not aware of any bases in India, ....
Licking days are gone cowboys. India is a neutral and sovereign country. We have better terms with Iran than with US. We won't allow US air base in India which funded the Kargil War indirectly.
but the US has the military capacity to devastate Iran, to wipe out much of its military capacity
Don't forget that military capability alone is worthless without the political will to use it.
OK maybe not. However there are two main differences to the situation in NK and Iran.
1) NK as a state had nukes, but operates like a communist state, more so than normal even, and is closed and insular. They are also dirt poor but have a huge conventional army. The US would have to be insane to even think of invading NK, the losses would be... catastrophic. The only reason the NK even had a nuclear program is to counter another, as that is their only fear. That is what happened in Japan during WWII, the only time nuclear weapons were used in combat. Conventional war estimates put casualties for invasion at over 500,000+ US troops. It was basically argued that dropping the bombs would be the lesser evil. This would be a similar situation in NK. Also most of their bluster (as they don't really have the ICBM capability to hurt the USA), is really to get paid off in the form of "aid" money for them NOT to produce the bombs (which are expensive anyway, just ask the USA and Russia), so they can feed their people. So far as I know, other than to the "glorious leader" there is not religious fanaticism (which I think by definition isn't all that rational, and thus unpredictable) in NK either.
2) Iran sponsors terrorists. They also back other states. When I think of responsible states, I don't think of Iran. I don't think Iran has any more capability than Iraq had, and other than the occupation, look how that invasion went. So they would not be using it to simply counter nuclear attack, but any attack. A big distinction. Add the religious fanaticism. Iran other than sanctions (and further proposed sanctions), is a wealthy (if not shared) oil nation, so they are not looking to get a payoff. There is also the whole Israel thing (you know where they vowed to wipe them off the planet etc...). Add medium range missile capability (not too healthy to drop nuclear weapons too close to home). I see this as a, "we are going to do what we want, and if you dare to invade us, we will start flinging nuclear missiles in all directions (in a 125 mile radius)" kind of state.
Anyway I think one could argue that nuclear weapons in NK is somewhat safer than in Iran. I also see China as a "calming" force on NK, in that they have always backed up NK, are a huge conventional and nuclear power, and would likely change its tune should NK do something too stupid. Iran I don't think have any such "positive" influence.
If Iran blockades the Strait, political will won't be a problem. No matter what you think of war and peace, globalism and economics, the reality is that a blockade of one of the most important waterways on the planet will most assuredly bring a firestorm to Iran, one that that country could not hope to weather.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Dude, really? Seriously?
Bush and his lapdog Blair did not try to justify GW2 on the basis that the conditions of the ceasefire that stopped GW1 had been breached. At no stage were arguments explicitly being made that the war was to be a continuation of the earlier Gulf war. To attempt to use that as retrospective justification is poor.
Bush and Blair built a knowingly fraudulent case for war based on "intelligence" they knew to be unreliable, flimsy, and possibly faulty. Their case was that Iraq had WMDs and was a threat to the security of the world and needed to be removed. The weapons inspectors and nuclear inspectors were loudly proclaiming that there was no evidence at all that Iraq had any WMDs, but they were getting shouted down by Bush and his cronies and their evidence ignored. Those with more than half a brain could plainly see at the time that the war was not justified. Millions of people protested in the US, in the UK, and across Europe, against this proposed war.
Whether or not Iraq is better off for the removal of Saddam and his sons is irrelevant to this argument. That is not a justification for war.
One key difference between Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan (and to an extent, Somalia) is that we engaged in nation building. That requires an occupation, which isn't always seen as welcome. We invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan in a matter of days without much trouble. Because that's the easy part.
When it comes to just blowing crap up, it's a lot easier. If we engage Iran, it won't be nation building (I hope not).
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
IMHO the ongoing sectarian war in Iraq would have been a much better and stronger justification for going to war in Iraq.
That case was never even remotely attempted to be made by Bush or Blair. It was not presented as a justification, or a factor in the decision making.
Half of the Strait is in Oman's waters. So the only way to blockade it would be to invade Oman.
Known to be working on nukes: USA
Pushing Terrorism: USA
Attempted assassination leaders of other countries: USA
Had invaded a country: USA
Had recently invades a second country: USA
Saying that no "WMD's were found" is either ignorant or untrue. Please read the report on Iraq's WMDs itself & not just excerpts that others have cherry picked out of it. What wasn't found were functional WMDs yet there clearly had been WMDs in Iraq. Proof in the form of equipment sold to Iraq, traces found in sites that had been dismantled, cleaned up & then occulted by Saddam. Blueprints. Nuclear detonators recovered from the bottom of the Tigris. Other bits & pieces. The report is exhaustive. According to your logic I could kill your mother, yet were I able to dispose of her body good enough so that you couldn't hold up a femur with my tooth marks on it, she'd still be alive.
The GW1 cease fire terms were specifically worded to make Saddam relinquish his WMD & not just bury it or sell it off to someone who would just sell it back once sanctions wore off. That is why destroying his WMD & then destroying the proof that he had done so was so terminally stupid. He had already been condemned, all that was left was the sentencing.
As for your attempt to buttonhole me: Bzzzzt, try again. The first president I voted for was Carter, the last one was Obama & while I liked Bush I, Bush II wasn't to my liking. Nice to see that pacifists still predictably try to label anyone who calls BS on their wilder fantasies republicans.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Great, now that can fire back the next time the U.S. navy decides to blow up one of their passenger airlines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
Oh well, we can always come in and replace their government and steal their oil, again.
They couldn't because Russia & China would have auto-vetoed. Auto determination & free will do not go well with their current governments.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Much like antifoidulus mistakenly states that there were no traces of WMD's in Iraq, huh? I remember a few speeches by Colin Powell to the contrary but don't let my memories interfere with your revisionism, "Dude". However, were you to actually, you know, read>/b> the cease fire agreement to GW1 you might see a few photons of light. Nahhh, go back to what you're comfortable with...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Not saying that shutting down the straits wouldn't have an impact, but I don't know that life would grind to a halt in two weeks, either.
That's not the claim that I was trying to make. I was trying to educate a silly person that the global flow of oil is not about corporate profit, its about far more personal things like getting food from farm to city. That is why the US Navy escorted convoys of oil tankers in the past when Iran made similar threats.
... Although vehicles powered by combusting natural gas instead of gasoline would still produce CO2, they would produce about 25% less for the same amount of energy. Combustion of gasoline also produces much larger amounts of nitrogen oxides (NOx, which cause smog) and other air pollutants than combustion of natural gas."
That and its sad that we are addressing the same threat as 30 years ago. When "Pickens Plan" advocates talk about switching heavy trucks to natural gas and mention "national security" this is the sort of thing they are implicitly referring to. I'm not claiming this is the best plan out there but its certainly better than the current situation.
"The Pickens Plan is an energy policy proposal announced July 8, 2008 by American businessman T. Boone Pickens. Pickens wants to reduce American dependence on imported oil by investing approximately $US1 trillion in new wind turbine farms for power generation, which he believes would allow the natural gas currently used for power generation to be shifted to fuel CNG trucks and other heavy vehicles. Pickens thinks that his plan could reduce by $300 billion (43%) the amount the country spends annually on foreign oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickens_plan
No, that was unknown at the time. It was known that he had been working on them previously & was required by the terms of the cease fire agreement to render/destroy them & let the inspectors document it.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?129340-Iranian-navy-reveals-new-missile-boat-class
http://hello.news352.lu/edito-64397-iran-starts-producing-missile-launching-assault-boats.html
Basically speedboats with missiles. Looks like they've been churning them out too.
Didn't you even Google "iran missile boat" before posting?
Yes, yes, diesel-powered speedboats. Which need diesel. Frequently. Tell me, where do you think a few cruise missiles will be headed when you want to make their diesel-powered speedboats useless?
GPP They don't have ICBMs
They have rockets that can get a payload to orbit. I'm not quite sure what the difference is.
Umm, a V-2 vs Pershing II. Or perhaps Spaceship One vs Titan II.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Shotgun not flying one of the helicopters "mimicking" the US fleet.
Believe it or not there have been sufficient volunteers for such flights in the past.
"The Wild Weasel mission was to precede strike flights, sanitizing the target area of radar guided Surface-to-Air missile threats, leaving the threat area last, which sometimes would result in 3.5-hour missions, before returning to base. This was achieved by turning toward the air defense site in a threatening manner, firing radar homing missiles at the site, or visually locating the site to dive bomb it. These tactics were attempted while under attack by MiGs and anti-aircraft artillery."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Weasel
I think this ignores a strategic advantage that may come from allowing other nations underestimate your military might. If the US has capabilities that they don't want anyone to know about, it behooves them to throw a few of these wargames. Not saying that is necessarily the case, but it is not a possibility to be discounted.
Given enough time being under a blocade, I'm sure at least one of the countries on the other side of the Persian Gulf would be more than happy to lend an airfield or two if means opening up trade again and dealing with whatever problem that seriously interferes with their profits. I wouldn't even be surprised if they offered to lend support via their own air forces if the problem got all the way to the point of declaring a no-fly-zone. They're plenty happy to buy U.S. equipment and cross-train with U.S. armed forces, so why not?
Afterall, why should it just be considered a U.S. problem when Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, U.A.E., and Kuwait obviously have a much bigger economic stake in that region than the U.S. does. (Not to mention that if it were allowed to go long term, Saudi Arabia and/or Oman may profit by pipelines or over-land routes to alternate ports outside the Persian Gulf - as Iran shoots itself in the foot by being completely blocked off to any overseas shipping.)
You have YOUR lunatics, we have ours.
There's no shortage of them. Anywhere. But, if you're feeling generous, we'll send you a couple, postage paid.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Phalanx/CIWS is indeed very effective against slow incoming missiles, as are whatever those new Sea Sparrow missiles are called. The threat, however, is supersonic and now hypersonic anti-ship missiles, with the latter using scramjet engines and traveling at Mach 6. Has the Navy done any testing against threats traveling this fast?
I tend to be of two minds about the the second Gulf War. On the one hand, it's hard to justify in any legal sense, and the contortions the Bush Administration had to go through to justify it, including what amounted to deliberately misinterpreted intelligence data, undermined it early on. At the same time, I can't imagine anyone feeling bad that Hussein was taken out. The chief criticism I have of the Bush Administration isn't the invasion of Iraq, but rather that it was botched. There should have been far more troops sent in. In the grand scale of things, it's relatively easy for a Great Power to knock out a smaller country's government. Building a new government, however, requires the forces necessary to project the victor's will. There has to be substantial subjugation; as was the case of Germany and Japan after WWII. In both cases, the victors literally had the option of massive forces to stamp out any attempted uprising, not to mention being able to function as a government until such time as the civil government apparatus could be restored.
In Iraq, enough troops were sent in to smash Hussein's regime, but not enough were sent in to either stamp out an insurgency, or to serve in a sufficient capacity as a government (including, very importantly, serving as a proper police force). There weren't enough technical experts brought in to restore basic services in a timely manner, so that after the initial goodwill of the fall of Hussein, people found themselves in even worse shape than they had been before the invasion, which rapidly expended any goodwill that the US might have had. It was an incompetent invasion by what I would consider to be politically-masterful morons; quite capable of bamboozling Congress and the American people, at using all the techniques of media manipulation, but when push came to shove, being utterly and completely out of their depth in actually managing a proper occupation of a foreign state.
I don't think Bush, Cheney and their neo-con advisors should be taken out back and shot because they invaded Iraq, I think they should be taken out back and shot because they are profoundly stupid men. If you're going to invade and occupy, then bloody well do it, push the assets through to make it work, otherwise stay at home. Any one of these idiots could have opened up a history book and seen how it's been done successfully, and yet they were fools to a man.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Somehow I don't think Iran's intention is to start a shooting war with the US; its real intention is to be a thorn in our side and eventually cripple us economically. Looks like it's working too; they're using the Reagan strategy of bankrupting the enemy by forcing them to build up their arms, except they're doing it asymetrically: they build a fleet of tiny speedboats with missile launchers for peanuts, and we spend billions on super-high-tech countermeasures. All they have to do is keep presenting themselves as a threat that we need to expend tons of money and resources to be vigilant against, and eventually our house of cards will collapse.
Personally, I'm rooting for the Iranians. If we're so stupid that we can't keep our noses out of that part of the world, then we deserve to go bankrupt and have our economy destroyed. Maybe if we'd start electing politicians who actually downsize the bloated military and engage in diplomacy and making our nation energy-independent, we wouldn't have these problems.
If the US fleet is just passing by Iran then Iran could be assumed to be in range. That's basically knife range for these ships. What will concern the US navy is the speed and stealth of enemy missiles. The US has active missile defense. Those Phalanx cannons and anti missile missiles are pretty effective against cruise missiles. What they're squirrely on is hypersonic missiles. They've been upgrading the system to handle them but they're being closed mouthed about whether they're ready. If Iran can fire missiles that hit their target about ten seconds after launch then it won't give the system much time to respond. If the system has time then it's very hard for enemy missiles to get through. Not only are there interceptor missiles and close in computer guided Vulcan cannons but there is also area denial artillery shells. Basically they detonate bombs immediately around the ship in an attempt to blow up enemy missiles.
Anyway, range isn't the issue. If Iran is having range issues off their own coast then they're not even in the game.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
There is no-one, including Iran, genuinely interested in closing the straits.
But there are many, including Iran, interested in a pretext for raising the price of oil.
We've already blown over a trillion dollars on two wars, and you want us to blow another trillion on Iran?
That was due to the occupations. Its likely we would not occupy Iran. Well, except for a brief incursion by air assault forces to secure and destroy nuclear research and production facilities, and who would then leave.
Basically things would probably more closely resemble the first Gulf War of the 90s. Trash the military, leave, hope the locals do something about the government.
I'm not sure that China would offer any military support to Iran. I'd say they have a greater vested interest in keeping friendly relations with the USA and EU or their economy would plummet faster than Newton's Apple.
Do you think even an isolationist Administration would let a second-rate power basically put a choke hold on the Strait of Hormuz? One can well imagine just about any President ordering ships into the area to assure safe conduct of merchant traffic.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
See, that's the thing. I really doubt Iran would do such a thing, because it would provoke a military response. I think their tactic is just to keep annoying the hell out of us and keep our military occupied over there, doing exercises, thinking up strategies, spending tons of money just being prepared and arming itself.
Remember, this is exactly what the US did to cause the Soviet Union to collapse. They never provoked an actual war, but they kept tensions up for a long time so that the SU finally collapsed due to financial problems.
"can you explain how the Iranian government is more influenced by religious fanatics than those of (say) the USA or Israel?"
Sure. In Iran, ultimate political power is held by an unelected religious figure who explicitly and overtly uses religious ideology as the specific guidance regarding all aspects of government, lawmaking and policy. It's a good approximation that nearly everybody with power is close to a "religious fanatic".
In the USA it is forbidden to have any religious test as a requirement of office.
In Israel, there are small minority parties which are heavily religious, but the government is not explicitly religious and has policies and activities which are opposed by the highly religious.
I agree. The Strait is too important to US interests to allow any power, particularly one that is so ill-prepared to actually hold it, seize the Strait of Hormuz. Let's remember here that the US was largely isolationist in WWI right up until the point that the Germans refused to stop indiscriminate submarine attacks on trans-Atlantic shipping. Keeping one's nose out of foreign conflicts is only really possible where one has no dog in the race. The US since it's very foundation been a mercantile power, and whether it is the Royal Navy impressing American seaman, Barbary pirates raiding US merchant ships, or the Ayatollahs of Iran, US foreign policy has consistently boiled down to "don't fuck with our shipping."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Just line up a few dozen artillery in well shielded bunkers and shell the Straight of Hormuz and you
can close that down.
Are you kidding? The REAL intention is to drive up oil prices for the simple reason of making more money. Throw a little bluster in the mix and bam 10% more profits on all oil exports. They have good PR at home and make more money. Where's the downside???
Iran has no intention of doing any of these things it's talking about. The lies are so blatant. Let's quit pretending like this is a real pissing contest and just see it for what it is.
d
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
Let's remember here that the US was largely isolationist in WWI right up until the point that the Germans refused to stop indiscriminate submarine attacks on trans-Atlantic shipping.
Yes, the sinking of the Lusitania... you can't ship arms and war material to one side in a conflict and not expect the other side to attack those shipments. Putting civilians on that military transport was just like countries who use human shields to make their opponents look bad when the human shields get killed.
Keeping one's nose out of foreign conflicts is only really possible where one has no dog in the race.
No, you just have to stay neutral when things go bad between your trading partners. Just look at the Swiss: they've long been an exporter of high-value goods, but they don't get involved in anyone's conflicts.
Okay. I misinterpreted what you meant by "Known to be working on nukes: Iraq". To me, that implies that they were, in fact, currently (at the time) working on nukes, AND that we knew about it. I might have phrased it as "Known to have been working on nukes, known to have stopped working on nukes, all this verified by international inspections." I would say it that way because your way implies that it is a good reason to go to war, whereas really it was a good reason not to go to war. Strangely, you put a reason not to go to war as your first item in a list of reasons to go to war. Please excuse me for being confused.
Sorry, yes, you're absolutely right, except I think there's more to it than that. Driving up oil prices won't just make the Iranians a little more money, it'll bring the US closer to bankruptcy because we're so addicted to cheap oil, not only for our military but our entire society. Their work in trying to get oil traded in funds other than US Dollars is part of this, and is a large reason Iraq was invaded when Saddam did the same thing.
All of Iran's actions appear to be for the purpose of bankrupting us, IMO. I hope they succeed; it's probably the only way any real change is going to come to this place. The citizens of Russia and eastern Europe are far better off now than they were under that repressive regime, and we'll be better off when we're free of our repressive regime.
U.S. anti-missile technology has always been "iffy" at best and I have yet to hear of a successful test that didn't stack the deck in favor of the anti-missile hardware. The spray from the M61A1 Vulcan travels at 3600 feet per second and well below the velocity of a hypersonic cruise missile making interception an "interesting challenge" since the Phalanx was designed for slow flying birds (a good way to keep bird crap off the deck I'm told) typically aircraft.
The Phalanx was demonstrated a failure against what was believed to be an Iranian made C-802 Chinese anti-ship missile in 2006 when Hezbollah successfully attacked the Israeli Hanit. The official line of course is that the anti-missile systems were turned off in spite this running contrary to standard operating procedure even during peace-time war games such as was the case here. Believe what you want I guess.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
"That is why destroying his WMD & then destroying the proof that he had done so was so terminally stupid."
I think some interviews with Saddam's men said that Saddam intentionally wanted to maintain the uncertainty to deter its neighbors---but not overtly rebuild-- and I guess didn't think that would be sufficient to provoke the West further.
"They have rockets that can get a payload to orbit. I'm not quite sure what the difference is."
getting it to come down in the right place.
Oh, also forgot to mention that the CIWS systems are near worthless for multi-inbound due to their limited ammo capacity. Once again, another case of throwing a few thousand dollars out the window to cost the U.S. a few billion.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
I always wondered if this was a money making scam?
Did somebody indirectly go long oil right before Iran started with its new set of noise?
You know, a cold war can be self-financing if done sufficiently cleverly. The USA has a big deficit, maybe it should try the same thing.
It's not about things going bad between your trading partners, it's about your trade, your national lifeblood, being damaged by foreign conflicts. The US didn't become a wealthy powerful nation because it stayed home, it did so because it pursued foreign markets. Any state, particularly one so reliant on commerce, who just lets things happen while it remains theoretically neutral is going to become completely dependent on foreign powers (as the Swiss are, they have neither the population nor the economic base sufficient to support a mass military, and thus, as the saying goes, rely on the kindness of strangers).
The US cannot afford to stay out of the Strait of Hormuz. It cannot afford to allow one of the major oil transport routes to be cut off by Iran. Neither, for that matter, can anyone else. Oil is an international commodity, whether any of us like it or not, and as I said, no matter how isolationist any Administration is, those commerce choke points (like, for instance, the Suez or Panama Canals) must remain open or the national interest is severely compromised.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Major General Michael Laurie, one of those involved in producing the dossier wrote to the Chilcot inquiry in 2011 saying "the purpose of the dossier was precisely to make a case for war, rather than setting out the available intelligence, and that to make the best out of sparse and inconclusive intelligence the wording was developed with care."[2] On 26 June 2011, The Guardian reported on a memo from John Scarlett to Blair's foreign affairs adviser, released under the Freedom of Information Act, which referred to "the benefit of obscuring the fact that in terms of WMD Iraq is not that exceptional". The memo has been described as one of the most significant documents on the September dossier yet published as it is considered a proposal to mislead the public.[3]
... a senior British official - had told him that the September Dossier had been "sexed up", and that the intelligence agencies were concerned about some "dubious" information contained within it - specifically the claim that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of an order to use them.
I was OPFOR, as an Infantry officer. The "good guys" almost never won. Some of it is by design, the games can be designed that way. The idea is that every last soldier gets into the fight sooner or later because everybody else is dead. It also test junior leaders. They have to take charge, evaluate a rapidly changing situation and make decisions. Other factors include cheating. OPFOR fights the same games, over and over, doing nothing else. They know the simulation equipment, the rules of the game and the terrain very well. They sometimes exploit its technical shortcomings. They sometimes play to the game, where as BLUFOR is trying to play to a war-like scenario. Finally, you have to consider that OPFOR usually consists of more senior leaders. Company commanders, battalion commanders (or whatever their naval equivalents are) are often in their second command, which is a rarity in the military.
Ultimately, the games are not about winning and proving that we are better. They are about training. And you learn from mistakes while victories make you arrogant. So, the good guys always loose.
Much like antifoidulus mistakenly states that there were no traces of WMD's in Iraq, huh? I remember a few speeches by Colin Powell to the contrary but don't let my memories interfere with your revisionism, "Dude".
Please tell me you are joking about Colin Powell's speeches. See, to take just one example among hundreds, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZTLmOoPzjs Or maybe http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-09-08-powell-iraq_x.htm
Powell freely admitted that the information he presented to the UN was untrue, and that he was thoroughly ashamed of his role in justifying the war.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
The U.S. military might is indeed awesome. However, there's one little snag. That might is comprised of and inextricably dependent upon force multiplying hardware that is equally awesome in terms of cost and complexity. Cost that cannot be maintained absent financial assistance from China. Complexity that ensures a very substantial incident of failure mode operation. The U.S. never learned the lessons of Vietnam such as that of the AK-47 vs. the M16. While more expensive, in many categories the M16 technically outclasses the AK-47. But get the M16 wet it jams, the AK-47 keeps firing, drive over it the M16 shatters, the AK-47 keeps firing, get it dirty, the M16 doesn't work, the AK-47 keeps firing. Or, take the million dollar tank vs. a $30 anti-tank mine.
The U.S. cannot sustain wars against third-world nations much less the first. Sure the U.S. can blow massive craters into the sand and demonstrate that glorious "shock and awe" Bush liked to go on about but not without an equal shock to its economy. I wonder how long China will finance the U.S.' if it steps on the wrong toes. The U.S. is nothing but a paper tiger and various nations that once cowed in fear are starting to realize it.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Their response is "we will close the Strait of Hormuz" if your impose sanctions.
They know this would be another asymmetric situation we would be using valuable naval and air assets to fight cheap short range missile boats in the strait.
What we should do is simply say "Okay go ahead and harass commercial traffic in the strait but if you do we will consider any Iranian Naval vessel anywhere hostile, and deal with it accordingly." That we can hunt their valuable naval assets in the gulf and not get mired in an asymmetric conflict, sure the strait might remain closed to commercial traffic for a time but Iran will back down when it starts costing them war ships, and if the don't I propose the following.
We embrace the old idea of the privateer. We just start issuing letters of mark to any American who wants to buy one which make them immune to ANY and ALL civil or criminal prosecution related to crimes against Iranians or Iranian property while at sea. My guess is there are plenty of Americans crazy enough to put a crew together, cross an ocean to try their hand at seizing some Iranian merchant men, and yachts belonging to the ruling class there.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
You forget Russia, who does not want us on the coast of the Black sea. Ever. They would just supply enough lethal small arms to keep the conflict bleeding us for another decade like they did to us in Vietnam, we did to them in Afghanistan, Iran did to us in Iraq and we did to Iran in Iraq (in the 80's).
He was talking about war games. Last I knew we were never at war with Australia nor Sweden.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Your logic is what mystifies me: Choosing one of his speeches in which he does not mention point X does not mean that point X was not addressed in another speech. that is unless you can find a speech in which Colin Powell says that X is untrue/false. Yes, Colin Powell has stated that he felt betrayed by being the one who presented information that has been shown to be unreliable. The speeches I remember where he talked about the GW1 cease fire terms were from before his speech to the UN as SecState & I've never seen any video of him recanting them.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I just put the common elements to Irak, Iran & NK first, & then the Irak unique ones second. Sorry if that made it unclear.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Iran doesn't put us in a position to need to build up arms. They don't have anything threatening to cause us to panic. They just raise gas prices, which hurts every country in the world. When you are #1 and the world takes a hit economically because of a resource, you are still #1 just at a lower level along with everyone else. Iran will just upset the rest of the world with higher gas prices putting them in them in a worse position.
My thoughts are very close to yours. By pinching pennies on the follow up they guaranteed that the end cost would be much higher. Japan & specially Germany were also punished much harder through the massive bombardment & urban fighting which devastated much of their populations than what happened in Iraq which made the post WWII inclination to "never again" much higher. Another factor is that they had homogeneous populations & neither were undergoing internal conflict à la Shia/Sunni/Kurd.
I'm pretty picky about hindsight & revisionism by people pontificating as you might have noticed. I agree that military history has shown over & over that better than 3-1 forces are generally needed to avoid massive casualties on both sides. The book on nation building is much thinner & they made the mistake of thinking that the forces engaged were sufficient. The book on Nation building is thicker now after GW2 but then we have the benefit of hindsight to know what didn't work...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Well, if the US had wanted to do it properly, it would have invoked the Wilsonian Doctrine and split Iraq back into the constituent ethno-tribal parts whence it had came. The whole country was an artificial state to begin with, an artifact from a previous Great Power era when borders were redrawn at a whim by men in top hats, coats and tails. Of course, the situations in Turkey and Iran made this impossible; the Kurdish north would have become, like it or not, a state which would have been at eternal war with Turkey over the creation of a Greater Kurdistan, and the south would have fallen under the sway of Iran, and become little more than a puppet state.
But this isn't revisionism. As the first stages of the 2nd Gulf War were taking place, both American and foreign military experts and military historians were saying "You're not putting enough troops on the ground." The Bush Administration was warned repeatedly that the forces were insufficient to guarantee security, both for American troops and other American interests and for the Iraqi people. You didn't see the Romans marching into Gaul, Britain or North Africa with just enough legions to topple the local warlords and tribal chieftains. They marched enough with enough legions to impose the victors' rule. It may seem anachronistic to invoke successful conquering powers like Rome (or even later ones like the Ottomans, the French or the British), but whatever your rationale (and it's not like American motives were pure anyways), the rules stay the same. Victory and occupation are two different objectives, and you do not get from victory to occupation without the boots on the ground to impose it.
I don't think it's revisionism at all to say that GWB screwed it up. Experts said he was screwing it up, I suspect his own military advisers knew he was screwing it up. Considering that even as America withdraws, Iraq is poised on the brink of a civil war, we all can assuredly say that it would have been better if the invasion had never happened. An Iraq plunged into civil war will mean a huge amount of instability in a region already shaking from the Arab Spring and from a looming collision with Iran. Past Administrations, I think, would have been pragmatic, and continued with the devils they knew. Certainly GWB's father did, even as he watched Hussein gassing Kurds, because the alternatives were far worse. It's that alternative we have been witnessing for the last eight years, and likely will continue to witness for years to come.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
In real military terms, if the rest of the world that has been walked on by the US, even their allies, turned on the US. You would be HISTORY.
In fact all the rest of the world has to do is shut down airspace, waterways and all American ex-pat's from entering and you would have no choice but to sit in your own borders.
If the rest of the world stopped trading with the US, you would be in shit street.
On one hand you say you need oil, on the other you export more oil than you get in. Which is it? You need it or you don't?
American's have no money for consumer toys, China and the rest should just stop selling them there, oh wait, you do cry you are all hard done by, yet how come the stores are stocked pile high with iPods and Phones and what not?
Which is it? You say one thing and do another. Few people can trust a yank. I know I don't and that is not just hatred for the sake of it, it is from first hand experience being around them and their actions.
I side with Russia, China, Iran, in fact when your own people in your own country side with Iran, go figure, get the clue stick.
You sit there and do nothing, just cry patriotism and anti-patriotism over the internet to anybody who says anything against the US.
American's are jokes. The rest of the world doesn't have to stand up to you, we just turn our backs and walk away. That is the MOST POWERFUL WEAPON we have, and it will hurt you.
What you've been saying isn't revisionism IMO & you're making different points (to which I largely agree, figure that) than the OP.
I don't think that the Romans are an apt model. The Romans weren't Nation building, they were co-opting when possible, & conquering/exterminating when they had the military means to do so. Some rival tribes in Italy were wiped out to the last man, Carthage was sown with salt to stop it from arising again & the Gauls lost most of their population to Cesar. You read a lot about how brutal the Huns/Vandals & others who finished off the Romans were, yet most people are ignorant of just how bad the "good" guys were.
I do not agree that the necessary troop levels for the task at hand back then was quite as clear as you make it. Of course, some people were convinced that the force levels were too low & in hindsight they were. However, back then the picture was much murkier. Again, a chapter added to the book of History which will make similar problems easier if we can read the lessons learned correctly.
Part of the reason GWB went in was that support for the sanctions were eroding & controls on Saddam & family would have given him the freedom to start massacring & invading by now unless he was taken out quickly. Iraq certainly has it's problems today (in part because Obama pulled out before they had really learned to work with each other?) but at least it's a mostly internal matter & you don't have the problems spilling into Koweit & SA. I really do think that Saddam & progeny would have bathed the Middle East in blood.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
It's a whole different ballgame when the enemy starts shooting back, ain't it boy ?
Oh yeah?! Well my big brother can beat up your big brother. So there!
"had been"
as in, a long rusty time ago. it was proof Saddam had complied when he said he had.
(1) Present a minimal persistent threat; (2) The US will respond with overwhelming expensive force; (3) The US will protract the war because its presidents are unable or unwilling to curb its military-industrial complex; (4) wait.
Look at the Republican candidates. They are all banging the War/Defense drums hard. They want all that patronage and they want it bad. Same with Obama. But we're spending trillions to fight barefoot terrorists. . . .
I agree ACs are all stupid, but no over-estimation of Iran's capability is required.
They have an asymmetric naval warfare policy, with many thousands of small vessels outfitted with full-size anti-ship missiles. And if you check out the Straight of Hormuz on google maps, you'll see how narrow it is and that these small craft can dart out and the US fleet is well within their missile range as soon as they're on radar.
They have the "high ground" before even considering the mountains full of anti-ship missiles that also towers over the Straight.
And even a low level conflict in such close waters would completely shut down shipping.
in a serious shooting match between First World (and here we include the Ruskkies and the Chinese) powers the US would have its ass handed to it on a platter.
Seriously? You need to go and review the US naval force relative to China or Russia. It's not even close. In a nonnuclear fight the US loses battles but will inevitably win the war. If it then goes nuclear, well, we can bounce more rubble than anyone.
First point, army sizes are inconsequential. Other factors are more important. China or the US may have larger armies/air forces/navies but give either incompetent leadership and they'll quickly succumb to an inferior (on paper) force. Vietnam is a prime example, the US had every advantage on paper except they lost the war because they didn't fight according to what the enemy did, they fought according to what the textbook said.
In a war between US and China, I wouldn't make any bets based on the size of navies. One wrong move by bad admirals and that size could cut itself in half.
Second point, if it goes nuclear, it doesn't matter who has the most bombs, you'll lose anyway. It doesn't matter if China cant nuke the US thirteen thousand times as you only ever need to nuke anything once.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Yeah that approach worked reeeeeeeeeaal well just before WWII blew up in Europe's face.
Back then then american attitude was "America first", Europeans complained that the US was not enough involved.
Now, 60+ years later its the reverse.
Next time some mad dictator waltze into europe the US will know what to do.
Well, if you live in a world where Fox News reports on reality, then you are right. But for those of us who live in the real world, no, you are very, very wrong. The closest thing found to anything even resembling WMDs were some chemical residues left over from pre GW1 weapons. But again, trying to argue facts with a Republican is pointless, they just make up their own facts and reality.
Monstar L
The one nice thing is that such a war would get us off of imported oil PDQ. Basically, we would push electric and natural gas vehicles very quickly. Likewise, Canada's pipeline would be sped up.
The thing that gets me? All the efforts from the US automotive industry to bury high-efficiency technology, has possibly doomed us to be a non-star-faring, dying-as-we-run-out-of-oil species and planet. That's particularly tragic; especially because the sun won't explode again -- this section of the galaxy is (potentially) doomed.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Yeah, A phalanx missile defense gun isn't going to do any good against a ballistic missile.
But, assuming it works as well and China says it does, and assuming they can get real time targeting information on carrier location to know where to launch it, the US has deployed SM-3 anti-ballistic missile missiles on some of it's escorts. (Plus who knows exactly what sensors it and and what decoys, jamming, etc the battle group might have to screw up its targeting)
It's unknown how effective the DF-21D would be at beating the defenses of a carrier battle group and taking out the carrier. Probably not the automatic "game over" you seem to be claiming. (Any more than every other new military weapon was an automatic "game over" for all existing forces)
This whole Strait of Hormuz stuff is about other middle eastern nations' oil supplies, more specifically, their shipping access to the open ocean.
I don't really think it's in the cards that the U.S. is going to be able to start buying Iranian oil any time soon, it's more about whether Iran can interfere with international trade between other nations.
Strike one: I don't get fox news where I livee & my main source of US info is that noted extreme right wing journal the New York Times.
Strike two: I've already told you that I'm no republican but clearly you are not actually reading my posts.
Strike three: The nuclear detonators fished out of the Tigris and other WMD elements were described in the Iraq WMD report. Stop trying to blow smoke up everyones ass and read the damned report.
It is clear that you conflate what you belive in with facts even though the Iraq report says otherwise. None are so blind as those who refuse to see clearly applies to you.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
The weapons inspectors said he didn't have shit, I don't care what lies you make up to defend your stupid bullshit, the fucking weapons inspectors said no weapons, the Bush administration would have scored a huge victory if there were actually WMD in Iraq. There were none, case closed. Bush did it because he needed to bully a country, Iraq was the weakest. And before you point out that Iraq invaded 2 countries, you do realize that Bush and his cohorts were behind both of them. You can deny that you listen to Fox news all you want, but you obviously get your news from them.
Monstar L
you can sink one. we have what 10 more in active service.
rare and expensive yes, but taking out a carrier is a suicide run. Sweden did it by sitting on the floor and slowly sneaking up from behind but once said carrier was sunk, the carrier hunter/killer subs destroyed it.
The "game" was over at that point because it was a game, in real war the loss of one carrier is nothing, and only drives home the point that we must wipe you out.
While many in the european union have decent defenses they really aren't that good they have been cutting spending like mad for decades. you might be surprised at how small their armies are.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I rather afraid USA and their nuclear arsenal than Iran and their missiles. I know that USA want to control all oil fields on the Earth but is almost impossible.
Recipes for USA bankrupt - http://tinypaste.com/0d66f dd = dollar deluge (printed in the infinity)
In the USA it is forbidden to have any religious test as a requirement of office.
And yet no one who does not purport to be strongly religious - specifically, Christian - has the least shadow of a chance of being elected.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Get off your lazy ass and read the report: https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/index.html
Until you have done so & discovered that your third hand arguments are wrong shut the fuck up.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I absolutely did miss them, and I stand corrected.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
That's why they wouldn't just barge right in. They would start by eliminating the Iranian air force and anti-aircraft weaponry. This would be followed by an aerial bombing campaign to take out all of the land based anti-ship missiles that they can find. Likewise with the smaller vessels. Only once the majority of such targets are eliminated would the main naval battle group advance. Mind you, Iran is fairly well equipped, but not really any more so than Iraq was the first time around.
Has China sold some to Iran? Because China isn't going to declare war on the US. It would destroy their own economy. It's very likely that Chinese officials would be very grumpy about a US/Iran war, but they aren't going to join in.
It doesn't hurt that nearly every young man in the country is a trained militia-man, complete with combat weaponry. They can raise a relatively large army in a moments notice. I imagine that in addition to being officially neutral, is one of the main reasons they have not been invaded. I imagine it helps that they are almost entirely surrounded by mountains as well.
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2603836&cid=38588550
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2603836&cid=38588550
That's what the Arleigh Burke aka "Aegis" frigates are there for.
This happened around the end of the XIXth century beginning of the XXth century when torpedo boats were popular. They were gasoline powered and faster than the coal powered behemoths of the day. Eventually the behemoths got faster and destroyers were added to the fleet to screen these kinds of boats.
An Aegis missile *might* be able to stop one.
You can't screen for small boats with a destroyer... in small waters. The swarm is already surrounding you by the time you've identified the craft as hostile.
You can always check all the "off the record" and "leaked" information about our own military's assessment of the threat. That is after all where I'm getting this from. ;)
well it makes a difference if you can continue business as usual or you not only have to find new customers but also new ways of transporting the stuff. Apparently Saudis preemptively built an alternative i.e. pipe to the other side of their peninsula so the reduction of oil delivered to the markets will be less savage as Iran possibly hopes it to be. Granted if the straights will be blocked there will be a serious distraction. What I wanted to say is that the distraction will be likely to be more savage to Iran than to us. We depend on their oil much less than they do.