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Iran Claims To Have Downed Another US Drone
AmiMoJo writes "The Iranian military says it has captured an unmanned U.S. drone aircraft in its airspace over Gulf waters. The Revolutionary Guards said they had brought down a ScanEagle — one of the smaller, less sophisticated drones employed by the Americans. The U.S. said it was looking into the reports." (The U.S. response so far, also reported by Reuters and others, seems to be "We're not missing any drones.")
The Revolutionary Guards said they had brought down a ScanEagle
But the movie "Argo" taught me that Iranian Revolutionary Guards are just bumbling idiots who can't tell their heads from their asses in several completely fabricated scenes! Larry, Moe and Curly have more wherewithal than the Revolutionary Guard! No way they could outsmart American engineering!
CIA: [sounding official] Uh, everything's under control. Situation normal.
Pentagon: What happened?
CIA: [getting nervous] Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?
Pentagon: We're sending a squad up.
CIA: Uh, uh... negative, negative. We had a reactor leak here now. Give us a few minutes to lock it down. Large leak, very dangerous.
Pentagon: Who is this? What's your operating number?
CIA: Uh...
From the summary: "The U.S. response so far, also reported by Reuters and others, seems to be 'We're not missing any drones.'"
How could any one entity tell? At this point there's the CIA, the FBI, the ATF, the NSA, the SS, the regular Army, the Army Rangers, the Navy, the Marines, the Seals, the Air Force, the Coast Guard, the State Department, the DoD, Mercenaries (ie "Civilian Contractors"), and Sheriff Joe Arpaio all with drones. Could any one entity speak for all of those at this point?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
People lie; their religion is irrelevant.
Those aren't the drones we are looking for. Move along.
Isn't it drone season over there?
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Why does anyone care?
Sorry, I shouldn't be like that. So...let me get the facts straight here. A country that is well known for saber rattling without anything to back it up may or may not have shot down an incredibly slow flying, cheap, pilotless, unstealthed drone that is specifically purpose-built to get shot down so we don't have to risk more expensive planes and pilots. That's it, right?
Just out of curiosity, how are the Kardashians doing today? I mean as long as we're acting like unimpressive bullshit is news, might as well go all the way.
Let me know when they shoot down an F-22 Raptor or a B-2 Spirit. Until then, non-news. I mean hell, this is exactly why we use drones in the first place - so we don't have to risk either pilots or much more expensive planes to do this stuff. Let them shoot down 1,000 more for all I care. Just more american workers in american aircraft factories with more work to do. Nobody dies, and it benefits our domestic economy. By all means Iran, PLEASE, shoot down some more easy targets so we can mass-produce some more replacements for them.
It's not missing, it has stealth capabilities so advanced it can even affect inventory systems. The only known countermeasure is counting on your toes.
Or they'll parade around the drone on TV giving it premium fuel and coercing it to look grateful in an attempt to show how benevolent they are to their prisoners.
Yes, the previous copy they bought is in use. They are busy wiping Israel off the map.
Just to politely point out that the United States is not the only ScanEagle operator in the region. Several coalition nations including Canada, Poland, Australia and the Netherlands operate ScanEagle platforms and could very well be using them in theater to support operations in Afghanistan. Also, this particular type of drone is not as big of a deal; considering it was originally designed to help fishermen find schools of fish, this isn't exactly the pinnacle of drone technology.