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Iran Reverse Engineers Cobra Attack Helicopter
Hugh Pickens writes "Continuing its tradition of reverse engineering and fabricating its stockpile of 40-year old American weaponry, Iran announced that it is about to unveil its first ever domestically produced Cobra attack choppers. Nearly 50 years after the U.S. introduced the legendary Bell AH-1 Cobra, once the backbone of the U.S. Army's attack helicopter fleet, Iran's locally-grown Cobras will be armed with 'different types of home-made caliber guns, rockets and missiles,' according to Iran's semi-official Fars news agency. 'All the phases of designing and manufacturing of the chopper have been done inside the country and the helicopter enjoys some capabilities which make it preferable to Apache Choppers,' says Brigadier General Kioumars Heidari. Iranian officials stress that Iran's military and arms programs serve defensive purposes and should not be perceived as a threat to any other country, reports the FARS news release. More photos available here."
One thing we can say for sure is that Nuclear bombs (fission or fusion), will always be beyond a last resort. The backlash of using one is so tremendous, that countries rather go to war in the traditional means (tanks, generals, the occasional trumpeteer) than anything involving massive genocide.
The arabs (well, muslim arabs) are famous for having far more genocides in their history than anyone else, and if you discount the latter part of the 20th century, they're in a completely unchallenged first position (no, the number 2 position has absolutely nothing to do with Germany). And yes, they generally used knives, not atomic bombs.
Their last 3 wars on israel were all attacks as muslims, all started by these muslims (involving multiple countries simultaneously, only really common factor is the paedophile prophet's faith), not as Egyptions or Syrians, and the goal was to start another genocide in all cases.
If these people get access to nuclear bombs, a nuclear war will start in a matter of months, how can you possibly interpret their history in any other way ? Iran is a tossup. It's muslim, has a history of aggression, but not nearly as bad as that of the arabs. But frankly, do we really want tossups here ? Besides, Israel is not going to risk it, if Iran goes nuclear Israel has shown in the past that they'll make the first strike.
In Iraq NATO got the regime changed, put in place a democracy, built up the military to defend the fledgeling regime from terrorists (sponsored from neighboring countries) and then left. There new regime is still shaky, but not really in danger of falling a part despite the Americans leaving Baghdad almost a year ago.
You have a pretty low bar for democracy. In Iraq we killed somewhere between 150,000 and 600,000 people, most of them civilians, and drove millions out of their homes and outside the country. There were entire neighborhoods in which Shiites massacred Sunni or vice versa, leaving segregated neighborhoods like the (Christian) Northern Ireland. The entire professional class left. Doctors were regularly being kidnapped for ransom and killed anyway. (Iraq had the best health care systems in the Arab mideast, and it was basically destroyed.) Political opponents are regularly assassinated. A lot of Iraqis are now saying that they wanted Saddam to leave, but things are now so bad that they wish he was back.
They don't have democratic votes as the founders of our country defined the term. People just vote for candidates of their religion or tribe (which is why the Sunnis are doing so badly). Millionaires and warlords run the country (OK, I admit millionaires run the US too).
George W. Bush was basically the dictator of Iraq. He could set up any kind of government he wanted. He thought he would be an FDR or Truman. He failed spectacularly.
GWB thought that it was easy. All you have to do is unleash the free market. “Think of Iraq as being like a computer. And think of Saddam as like a processor. We just take out the old processor, and put in a new one–Chalabi.” http://www.juancole.com/2007/02/3-month-record-for-us-troops-killed.html
You better hope the Republicans never get a chance to install their free-market solutions here.
I forgot one thing: Pearl Harbor being a sneak attack violated all aspect of diplomacy and civilized international law. So yes, wiping them off the map was warranted.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.