Iran ramping up nuclear activities

[kapkomet]

Fixed that for you.

Funny, but you miss the point (well, you probably didn't but the conversation moved away from it, imagine that). The military can win any war it wants to, but 50% of Americans wouldn't stand for it.

[Balta1701]

Funny, but you miss the point (well, you probably didn't but the conversation moved away from it, imagine that). The military can win any war it wants to, but 50% of Americans wouldn't stand for it.

You know, I don't know right now if it actually could. 2/3 of the Army is literally not ready for wartime duty right now due to degredation of equipment and manpower from the war in Iraq, so basically, the only units we have capable of fighting such a war are the ones either deployed, about to be deployed, or returning from deployment already. Link.

 

Beyond that, we have 150,000 of our soldiers currently exposed within a population that we don't control, and which literally does have the ability to push us out if they were to want to do so, and who are fully engaged in preventing that government from falling to pieces.

 

If we were to have to engage Iran, we'd almost certainly face a full scale Shia revolt in Iraq (our army is only there because Sistani has prevented such an occurence thus far), combined with having to fight the Iranian armed forces, and potentially a much larger mobilized civilian force behind it in the Iranian population. These would be recipes for disaster...having to face down several million rioting Shia in Iraq, combined with having to face down the Iranian armed forces...we could kill a lot of people before it was all over, but I don't know if that's a fight we want to try.

 

The only thing that we have right now which is a clear advantage over anything Iran can bring to the table is airpower. In other words, we can do to Iran exactly what is happening in Lebanon...we can bomb that country into the ground, but have its military capacity not seriously degraded. But the only difference is, we wouldn't have a secure place to start off any attack, since our position in Iraq is so exposed. Israel's armed forces don't have anyone shooting at them from behidn while they're trying to push forwards.

 

The situation we'd probably want to wind up in is a retreat to Kuwait, followed by months of defensive struggle and attrition from the air before we attempt another breakout after massively reinforcing our army.

 

And if we're talking about eliminating the entire population of Iran in order to make sure we win a war, well, then I'd hope it wouldn't just be the left which would oppose that.

[StrangeSox]

And if we're talking about eliminating the entire population of Iran in order to make sure we win a war, well, then I'd hope it wouldn't just be the left which would oppose that.

 

 

To paraphrase a quote from a Vietnam Sgt.:

 

"The only way to save them is to kill them"

Edited August 7, 2006 by StrangeSox

[southsider2k5]

To paraphrase a quote from a Vietnam Sgt.:

 

"The only way to save them is to kill them"

 

If this quote actually was ever muttered by anyone besides Peter Arnett is an interesting discussion...

 

Arnett quoting a U.S. army officer in Vietnam, when asked about the background for the use of much heavy artillery against a small village.

"We had to destroy the village in order to save it."

(A number of researchers and observers, including prof. Victor Davis Hanson and Mona Charen, believes this quote is a fabrication of Arnett's. Arnett has refused to say anything about which officer he allegedly quoted. They have further pointed out that the village in question (Ben Tre) was destroyed by hostile Vietnamese forces rather than US forces.)

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Arnett

[Balta1701]

If this quote actually was ever muttered by anyone besides Peter Arnett is an interesting discussion...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Arnett

Hmm, interesting, I didn't know that.

[StrangeSox]

If this quote actually was ever muttered by anyone besides Peter Arnett is an interesting discussion...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Arnett

 

Interesting indeed. I remember reading it in a history textbook, of all places. Those things are poorly written pieces of trash.

 

Regardless, that still seems to be the mentality of some people.

[NorthSideSox72]

Funny, but you miss the point (well, you probably didn't but the conversation moved away from it, imagine that). The military can win any war it wants to, but 50% of Americans wouldn't stand for it.

Except that if you institute the draft as you hint at here, you will NOT have the same capabilities. Drafted soldiers and volunteer soldiers are not interchangeable - they aren't pods. There is a difference.

 

Besides, you need a lot more than bodies, training and knowledge as well - you also need a ton of hardware that we don't have yet.

 

We aren't ready.

[southsideirish71]

Except that if you institute the draft as you hint at here, you will NOT have the same capabilities. Drafted soldiers and volunteer soldiers are not interchangeable - they aren't pods. There is a difference.

 

Besides, you need a lot more than bodies, training and knowledge as well - you also need a ton of hardware that we don't have yet.

 

We aren't ready.

 

 

Well if we arent going to fight this war conventionally, we will be fighting it later with nukes. Because nutty that runs Iran, wants to see mohammed. And he figures if he makes Tel Aviv glow in the dark, that his buddy is on his way back. You are fighting this now or later. Later releases a lot more radioactive dust into the atmosphere than now. And how long before Al Queda or some other nutty islamofacist organization gets their hands on one of the iranian nukes. Nice shipping container with a 300 kiloton weapon in it would make for a big bang on the east or west coast.

 

The time to stop these morons is now. Not after they have the weapon. We tried this approach of using the UN, giving in to some of their demands and look where it got us with North Korea. Clinton gave them an appeasement, and he was getting the bird from them and didnt know it.

Look at North Korea, at what point do you think that they decided to invade South Korea and hold the west hostage saying well if you respond we will nuke Los Angeles.

 

I hope all of the liberals have the stomach for what is about to happen. Because if a nuke goes off in the US, that country needs to be destroyed, no ands ifs or butts on the matter. If we pussy foot around this, every country will have a nuke and will hold us hostage.

[mr_genius]

if a nuke goes off in the US, that country needs to be destroyed, no ands ifs or butts on the matter. If we pussy foot around this, every country will have a nuke and will hold us hostage.

 

 

c'mon shouthsideirish, that'll just means we need to get back to the negotiating table.

[southsider2k5]

Interesting indeed. I remember reading it in a history textbook, of all places. Those things are poorly written pieces of trash.

 

Regardless, that still seems to be the mentality of some people.

 

I hope you aren't telling me that you believe everything you read in a textbook...

[Rex Kickass]

Ever read "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen? Great read. He also did one about lies on historical markers that blew me away but I forget the title.

[southsider2k5]

Ever read "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen? Great read. He also did one about lies on historical markers that blew me away but I forget the title.

 

I've read something like that... I can't remember who by, but it was a great read.

[NorthSideSox72]

Well if we arent going to fight this war conventionally, we will be fighting it later with nukes. Because nutty that runs Iran, wants to see mohammed. And he figures if he makes Tel Aviv glow in the dark, that his buddy is on his way back. You are fighting this now or later. Later releases a lot more radioactive dust into the atmosphere than now. And how long before Al Queda or some other nutty islamofacist organization gets their hands on one of the iranian nukes. Nice shipping container with a 300 kiloton weapon in it would make for a big bang on the east or west coast.

 

The time to stop these morons is now. Not after they have the weapon. We tried this approach of using the UN, giving in to some of their demands and look where it got us with North Korea. Clinton gave them an appeasement, and he was getting the bird from them and didnt know it.

Look at North Korea, at what point do you think that they decided to invade South Korea and hold the west hostage saying well if you respond we will nuke Los Angeles.

 

I hope all of the liberals have the stomach for what is about to happen. Because if a nuke goes off in the US, that country needs to be destroyed, no ands ifs or butts on the matter. If we pussy foot around this, every country will have a nuke and will hold us hostage.

I actually tend to agree with you, for the most part. Iran is a fairly large threat - and I don't see a lot going well there.

 

What I was actually addressing, though, was Lebanon - and how we don't have the available military resources to act in force there. But true, the same goes for Iran.

 

Forget the UN for the moment. How about real coalition building? Use the UN or don't, but a truly multinational force (not the farce in Iraq that is 99% 2 countries' forces) means no one country needs to send tens of thousands of troops. Its about efficiency. Call Iran's proxy bluff. Show them we have the balls to act for real peace, even if it means a long term commitment to a multilateral peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. Heck, that might even result in some good will in the Middle East, translating to less support for the extremists.

[kapkomet]

Except that if you institute the draft as you hint at here, you will NOT have the same capabilities. Drafted soldiers and volunteer soldiers are not interchangeable - they aren't pods. There is a difference.

 

Besides, you need a lot more than bodies, training and knowledge as well - you also need a ton of hardware that we don't have yet.

 

We aren't ready.

I am NOT calling for a draft. We have the technology to destroy stuff but good with little man power. But. as I said, half (at least) of Americans couldn't stomach a real ass-kicking war "without justification".

 

THESE PEOPLE WANT TO KILL US. Is that justification enough?

[NorthSideSox72]

I am NOT calling for a draft. We have the technology to destroy stuff but good with little man power. But. as I said, half (at least) of Americans couldn't stomach a real ass-kicking war "without justification".

 

THESE PEOPLE WANT TO KILL US. Is that justification enough?

ohhhhhhhhh, THAT'S what you meant.

 

Yeah, I'd be in the 50% that say no. Probably more than 50% of us, too. No to nukes, no to indescriminate carpet bombing, no to erring on the side of s*** goes boom.

[kapkomet]

ohhhhhhhhh, THAT'S what you meant.

 

Yeah, I'd be in the 50% that say no. Probably more than 50% of us, too. No to nukes, no to indescriminate carpet bombing, no to erring on the side of s*** goes boom.

CONVENTIONAL warfare, on a mass scale (not carpet bombing, even) is all it would take. But, again, we still don't have the wherewithal to do it.

[StrangeSox]

I hope you aren't telling me that you believe everything you read in a textbook...

 

I did say that they're poorly written pieces of trash.

[NorthSideSox72]

CONVENTIONAL warfare, on a mass scale (not carpet bombing, even) is all it would take. But, again, we still don't have the wherewithal to do it.

We don't have the resources for war on a mass scale in any case.

[Jenksismyhero]

I'm failing to see why we couldn't stop Iran without using ANY ground troops. If the aim of the whole "war" is to stop Iran from building/using nukes, why couldn't we drop a few nicely placed 1000lb bombs on their plants/factories? We wouldn't have to invade them to reverse their nuclear capabilities. Just destroy any advancements they've made and it'll give the world another 10-15 years to deal with the crazy douche-bags hellbent on destroying anything anti fascist-islam.

 

As much as most people think the Iraq war was a "failure," it was actually proven, militarily speaking, to be quite a success on most fronts. New technology, new tactics and new systems were all used for the first time in Iraq with a lot of success. The whole "shock and awe" campaign would have been an amazing story had they not chosen to publicize, with a ridiculous phrase, what they were about to do. I think that whole campaign proved that we have the capabilities to pinpoint a target as small as a person or as big as a building and destroy it from hundreds of miles away. We could use the same type of campaign against Iran and negate any threat they might pose without sending any ground troops into the country.

Edited August 8, 2006 by Jenksismybitch

[NorthSideSox72]

I'm failing to see why we couldn't stop Iran without using ANY ground troops. If the aim of the whole "war" is to stop Iran from building/using nukes, why couldn't we drop a few nicely placed 1000lb bombs on their plants/factories? We wouldn't have to invade them to reverse their nuclear capabilities. Just destroy any advancements they've made and it'll give the world another 10-15 years to deal with the crazy douche-bags hellbent on destroying anything anti fascist-islam.

 

As much as most people think the Iraq war was a "failure," it was actually proven, militarily speaking, to be quite a success on most fronts. New technology, new tactics and new systems were all used for the first time in Iraq with a lot of success. The whole "shock and awe" campaign would have been an amazing story had they not chosen to publicize, with a ridiculous phrase, what they were about to do. I think that whole campaign proved that we have the capabilities to pinpoint a target as small as a person or as big as a building and destroy it from hundreds of miles away. We could use the same type of campaign against Iran and negate any threat they might pose without sending any ground troops into the country.

First, what you are suggesting for Iran is exactly what Israel is likely to do, if they were to attack. But that is because Israel could only do just that. Here is the problem with just bombing Iran - they aren't Libya. Iran has a large military, and the resources and motivation to strike back - in many, many ways. If you just bomb them and hope all is going to be fine and dandy, you are dreaming. Iran will do anything it can in response to get the US - attack its neighbors, further destabilize Iraq, redirect the Hezbollah funding to go after the West, etc. You bomb Iran, you sentence yourself to a large scale conflict. That in itself may not be a bad thing anyway, and maybe its needed. But a simple bomb-and-run like we did in Libya is not in the cards here.

 

As for the Iraq war's success, I would like to know what you think was successful. The fact that there was no military resistance to speak of? I think what is more telling is what you say about the miltary's marketing of the war. In the first Gulf War, Schwarzkopf and Powell talked up a long, involved war, how tough the Republican Guard were, etc. They played the worst case scenario in the press. Which is (duh) SMART. These bozos who planned this one were too busy telling people to expect parades in Baghdad to realize what an awful bog they were becoming mired in. They did the opposite, and sure enough, it bit them in the rear.

[Jenksismyhero]

First, what you are suggesting for Iran is exactly what Israel is likely to do, if they were to attack. But that is because Israel could only do just that. Here is the problem with just bombing Iran - they aren't Libya. Iran has a large military, and the resources and motivation to strike back - in many, many ways. If you just bomb them and hope all is going to be fine and dandy, you are dreaming. Iran will do anything it can in response to get the US - attack its neighbors, further destabilize Iraq, redirect the Hezbollah funding to go after the West, etc. You bomb Iran, you sentence yourself to a large scale conflict. That in itself may not be a bad thing anyway, and maybe its needed. But a simple bomb-and-run like we did in Libya is not in the cards here.

 

As for the Iraq war's success, I would like to know what you think was successful. The fact that there was no military resistance to speak of? I think what is more telling is what you say about the miltary's marketing of the war. In the first Gulf War, Schwarzkopf and Powell talked up a long, involved war, how tough the Republican Guard were, etc. They played the worst case scenario in the press. Which is (duh) SMART. These bozos who planned this one were too busy telling people to expect parades in Baghdad to realize what an awful bog they were becoming mired in. They did the opposite, and sure enough, it bit them in the rear.

 

 

Our only short-term goal with Iran is to keep them from becoming a nuclear power. My point was this could be achieved without a ground troop invasion of the country. Any action that would be necessary, in those terms, would not overextend our military nor be impossible due to limitations in military resources. We have stockpiles of ready-to-use missiles all over the country. As far as any retaliation goes, that’s fine. Let the people in the Middle East fight THEIR war. So long as Iran poses no threat to our security via the nuke or ubber-long range missiles, I could care less what they do. In a scenario in which the US (or hopefully the vagina-laden UN) would need to strike Iran, the rest of the world would be waiting to pounce on them for any sort of retaliation. I don't care how strong their army is (which I can't imagine is all that powerful, but admittedly I don't know anything about it); sending a global taskforce to the region would quickly diminish any threat they may pose.

 

I wasn't meaning their marketing of the war was bad, though admittedly the fear-factor was over played. I meant that they should never have coined the phrase “shock and awe.” As soon as they kept spouting that people were imagining some chaotic event whereby everyone in the world would be awed by what they saw. In reality it wasn't all that exciting unless you think about the logistics of the whole thing. Being able to send missiles from various points across the region and from different mediums (air, land, sea) and hit targets the size of a window was, for the lack of a better word, awesome. I still think the war, from a military perspective, was successful. And even though it’s still not going as everyone would hope (the instant-gratification that “hey we free’d you, go play nice”), the fact is we’re gaining much needed experience in street-to-street combat that is probably going to define the war against terrorism.

 

And not to rehash old arguments, but your point of the Gulf War doesn't really apply. They could have said we were going after the stockpile of cheese in the middle of Baghdad and people would have been excited about it because Saddam attacked a defenseless country that happens to harbor an interest in every industrialized nation’s oil. No matter what the real purpose of this war was (I'd imagine any pro-war argument I'd give would be met with a ton of counter-arguments, so I'm not even going to bother…), marketing it would be much more difficult than the Gulf War.

[NorthSideSox72]

Our only short-term goal with Iran is to keep them from becoming a nuclear power. My point was this could be achieved without a ground troop invasion of the country. Any action that would be necessary, in those terms, would not overextend our military nor be impossible due to limitations in military resources. We have stockpiles of ready-to-use missiles all over the country. As far as any retaliation goes, that’s fine. Let the people in the Middle East fight THEIR war. So long as Iran poses no threat to our security via the nuke or ubber-long range missiles, I could care less what they do. In a scenario in which the US (or hopefully the vagina-laden UN) would need to strike Iran, the rest of the world would be waiting to pounce on them for any sort of retaliation. I don't care how strong their army is (which I can't imagine is all that powerful, but admittedly I don't know anything about it); sending a global taskforce to the region would quickly diminish any threat they may pose.

 

I wasn't meaning their marketing of the war was bad, though admittedly the fear-factor was over played. I meant that they should never have coined the phrase “shock and awe.” As soon as they kept spouting that people were imagining some chaotic event whereby everyone in the world would be awed by what they saw. In reality it wasn't all that exciting unless you think about the logistics of the whole thing. Being able to send missiles from various points across the region and from different mediums (air, land, sea) and hit targets the size of a window was, for the lack of a better word, awesome. I still think the war, from a military perspective, was successful. And even though it’s still not going as everyone would hope (the instant-gratification that “hey we free’d you, go play nice”), the fact is we’re gaining much needed experience in street-to-street combat that is probably going to define the war against terrorism.

 

And not to rehash old arguments, but your point of the Gulf War doesn't really apply. They could have said we were going after the stockpile of cheese in the middle of Baghdad and people would have been excited about it because Saddam attacked a defenseless country that happens to harbor an interest in every industrialized nation’s oil. No matter what the real purpose of this war was (I'd imagine any pro-war argument I'd give would be met with a ton of counter-arguments, so I'm not even going to bother…), marketing it would be much more difficult than the Gulf War.

 

Your perception that Iran's distance from us would insulate us from the impact of retaliation isn't really realistic. They could do plenty - and they don't need missiles to do it.

[Jenksismyhero]

Your perception that Iran's distance from us would insulate us from the impact of retaliation isn't really realistic. They could do plenty - and they don't need missiles to do it.

 

 

But a nuclear attack was the subject of the thread and the most serious threat. And what could they do? This being a conversation of if's and but's, IF we were to bomb them in that way, and IF they retaliated, the entire world would rain down on them. Their retaliation would be mitigated I think.

Edited August 8, 2006 by Jenksismybitch

[Balta1701]

Your perception that Iran's distance from us would insulate us from the impact of retaliation isn't really realistic. They could do plenty - and they don't need missiles to do it.

I ain't givin' up my four wheel drive, that's for sure!

[NorthSideSox72]

I ain't givin' up my four wheel drive, that's for sure!

Some people don't want to think about the big picture.