Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Gank on January 27, 2005, 01:49:52 pm
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http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050126-iran-game.htm
Some more from Hersch too:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/26/1450204
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Fart?
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Useless sabre rattling, and they know it.
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No, its not, if you read through it again they'res named sources like "former CIA counterterrorism chief, Vince Cannistraro" confirming that the US is actually running ops inside Iran.
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The Hersch one is a good read - long, but worth it.
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Originally posted by Gank
No, its not, if you read through it again they'res named sources like "former CIA counterterrorism chief, Vince Cannistraro" confirming that the US is actually running ops inside Iran.
So? It´s nothing new. Tony Blair has already come forward and publicly reafirming his support for any US intervention in Iran.
The only thing preventing Bush from going after Iran today is the fact that Iraq is a sinkhole of manpower. As soon as they train a couple hundred iraqi "pseudo-soldiers", they will pull out of Iraq. Right into Iran, that is.
So, if you are a US soldier and you are currently eating dust in Iraq, don´t expect to see home soon. Your village idiot of a president is already cooking up new and improved ways for you to die 10.000 miles from home.
And if you are ripe and in the right age group, you better run for Canada, because there is an army letter with your name on it, coming to claim your arse for the "fight on terror". The draft is just months away.
:ha:
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I take it you're Canadian, then?
And Swamp_Thing, they don't want me. Trust me on this one. I'd fail the health test in at least one way and the psych test probably isn't going their way either...
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After doing a bit of research, it seems that college deferments are quite a bit less useful now than before, as they only last until the end of the semester.
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I wouldnt get me knickers in a twist just yet, they're talking about airstrikes, not an invasion. They have to find something worthwhile to bomb first too, though they'll probably get fed up after a while and hit something out of fustration.
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Like Iran? Or maybe North Korea?
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I meant find something worthwhile to bomb IN Iran.
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Blair has said he supports action but never endorsed invasion, certainly made clear we aren't gonna be involved this time.
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did that stop us in Iraq or afghanistan?
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Different circumstance. In Afghanistan, most of the West was on your side, both politically and militarilly. In Iraq, at least the American population strongly supported the war, and at least you had 1 major ally that is a world power. For Iran, there would be little domestic support, and absolutely no foreign support, neither political nor military.
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Domestic support seems less of an issue if some other communities can give a measure of it...
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Supporting action mighn't be bright with all those british troops in and around Basra.
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I figure if they went after Iran it'd be a more 1991 Gulf War style thing with lots of bombing and taking out of military targets (since Iran does have a functioning army to fight). Probably they'd go after those nuclear sites. But I remain hopeful...could be just sabre rattling....the diplomatic process goes on.
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Sabre rattling, uh? Everybody thought that too, when Bush started making threats at Saddam. And now look at it...
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With a small difference: He had (barely) the manpower to back ot up.
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Let the Israelis handle it. They've dealt with the atomic-bomb programs of their neighbors before.
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
Let the Israelis handle it. They've dealt with the atomic-bomb programs of their neighbors before.
Unfortunatly the Iranians realise this as well and have dispersed thier nuclear sites across the country instead of one active plant... :doubt:
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I was refering to the "we'll have to find something worht bombing first"
I'd take anything Bush says seriosly, realy I didn't think he'd be stupid enough to bomb a country (Iraq) for something they didn't actualy do (makeing weapons of mass distraction, er distruction) and look were that ended up. he went from a 90% aproval rateing to like 50.001%, only our opposition party's sheer and awsome incompetence allowed him to retain power.
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Yes, let's bomb Iran before they do something dramatic like engrave another vase!
(http://www.salamiran.org/IranInfo/Culture/Arts/engraving/engrav5_large.jpg)
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My God that's hideous! BEGIN THE ASSAULT! :p
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:lol:
I found some Iranian art while looking for something else - the paintings can go straight in the bin, but the stuff they do engraving metal is just awesome....
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
Let the Israelis handle it. They've dealt with the atomic-bomb programs of their neighbors before.
Actually the raid on Iraq didnt do anything to stop the Iraqi nuclear weapons program, in fact according to Israeli, US and IEIA (sp) reports it accelerated. Apparently the Iraqis were cunning enough to keep the weapons part of the program seperate from the reactor everybody knew they had. Who'd have thought.
Originally posted by Zarax
With a small difference: He had (barely) the manpower to back ot up.
How many times does it have to be said, they're planning airstrikes not an invasion.
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Airstrikes alone doesn't mean jack, doing anything without ground support means the iranian army going to make an unfriendly visit to the american troops stationed in iraq or afghanistan.
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Originally posted by Zarax
Airstrikes alone doesn't mean jack, doing anything without ground support means the iranian army going to make an unfriendly visit to the american troops stationed in iraq or afghanistan.
And get themselves slaughtered. If they want to throw away their troops, bring it on.
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You are overoptimistic my friend, overstretched as they are US troops right now are much easier pickings than usual.
Plus they don't have to mount a full scale offensive, just send a few platoons here and there so that air superiority won't make too much trouble...
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I think they proved in the Iran/Iraq war that they are prepared to spend troops recklessly. Many countries in that region have fanatical and unpredictable forces - whatever action is taken will result in more mess and chaos....
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But even airstrikes would clearly be considred by Iran, and probably most of the world, as a declaration of war. The US can't handle a ground-war with Iran, regardless of whether the US invades Iran or if Iran decides to protect itself and goes after the US forces conveniently stations across the border. You don't believe that Iran is just going to sit there and take it, do you? In the case of bombing, they would have world opinion squarely on their side (or rather not on their side, but opposed to their enemy which is pretty much the same thing), not to mention Russia and China having a significant stake in contidued stability in Iran, as well as their own AA defences which are probably significant (dunno about that, pulling stuff out of my ass, but its not unlikely.)
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were overextended to the point that we can't open a new front, I think the biggest impedement to us bombing Iran is not military.
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Global Security.org, for all your In-Depth news coverage...
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And we'll have fun fun fun till Daddy takes the H-Bomb away.....
:nervous:
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Iran wont attack the US overtly, they'll just send revolutionary guards into Iraq disguised as insurgents. US would slaughter an Iranian ground attack.
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If you think that the US doesn't have sufficient manpower to stage a ground invasion of Iran, why do you think they would have sufficient manpower to destroy an Iranian invasion? In both cases, the players and armies are more or less the same.
Though I think the prospect of Iran attacking is even more far-fetched than the US invading Iran.
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Because machine gunning down people running at you and running into someone elses machineguns are two entirely different things. Over simplified but thats the basic difference between attacking and defending.
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https://freeinternetpress.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2841
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404
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Originally posted by Rictor
If you think that the US doesn't have sufficient manpower to stage a ground invasion of Iran, why do you think they would have sufficient manpower to destroy an Iranian invasion? In both cases, the players and armies are more or less the same.
Though I think the prospect of Iran attacking is even more far-fetched than the US invading Iran.
Iran is much bigger and mountaineus than Iraq. It has an army which, though outdated when compared to 1st world armies, is still much stronger than Iraq's ruined wanna-be army before GW2 - though it wouldn't stand a chance against USA without some miracles, it's a fact worth considering. It is also very tribal area, and invasion of Iran would propably have some longterm political effects in Iraq - namely the Shiites becoming more hostile towards USA, and more destabilization of Afghanistan-Iran-Iraq axis would flame up the "Arab street" (Iranians are not arabs, btw) even more.
The manpower issue is also worth considering. Without some pretty big-scale redeployments the US doesn't have sufficient infantry forces for full-scale war and more importantly the propable insurgency problem afterwards. Air strikes are an option, but would propably just enforce the negative image of US round the world and could actually make the Iranians pursue nuclear weapons even more vigorously.
Draft? Not a chance - no one wants it. Military doesn't want it, those who want to continue their political career oppose it, population would quickly become more against the wars.
Of course neo-cons are complete ****heads and the truth has never stopped them from chasing their ideals.
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Originally posted by Zarax
You are overoptimistic my friend, overstretched as they are US troops right now are much easier pickings than usual.
Plus they don't have to mount a full scale offensive, just send a few platoons here and there so that air superiority won't make too much trouble...
Still, if the Iranian army tried to move tanks and vehicles across the border in any sort of combined force you'd be sure that there would be a line of Abrams tanks and A-10s ready to take them out wholesale...such is the disparity of technology. In the original gulf war an American tank group which I think was outnumbered 2:1 was able to successfully engage an Iraqi platoon and emerged with no losses. I can't remember the details, only the fact that the Abrams was able to engage the enemy well outside of their range.
Plus, in terms of manpower, the MBTs like the Abrams aren't much use in cities anyways so they aren't going to be depleting that type of force.
Not that im arguing for any sort of action either way....just that if it was a conventional battle it could be won even "against the odds". But in all likelyhood it would not be a conventional one...
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Yep, but you should assume that the iranians knows that too...
If i was in them i'd just have sent saboteur teams around, something that's quite difficult to counter.
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http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041129/news_1n29bombers.html
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Meh, the Yanks are training folk to follow their ideology, the Arabs are doing the same.
I just wish we (UK) could stay out of it. Meh.
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http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050129-iran-targets.htm
Love the last quote
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heh.
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woah, their reasoning skills just blow me away. Truly, this is ironclad proof that Hersh was making it all up.
edit: you know it just occured to me that even if Hersh was pulling it out of his ass, the Pentagon will be so scared to try anything now, cause everyone would be like "nya nya, see, he was totally right". This story has raised quite a little ****storm, due to Hersh's prior record for being right about these sorts of things.
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I dont think the hawks in the US administration are going to call off bombing Iran just to prove Hersch wrong :doubt:
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I'd like to see Iran take the initiative and bomb the Whitehouse.
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I'd expect more Bush having CIA or NSA putting a bomb there and then blaming Iran.
They will make such a move sooner or later,,,