Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kazan on October 17, 2006, 01:19:59 pm
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Billmon: Some Republican strategists are increasingly upset with what they consider the overconfidence of President Bush and his senior advisers about the midterm elections November 7 — a concern aggravated by the president's news conference this week. "They aren't even planning for if they lose," says a GOP insider who informally counsels the West Wing.
Digby: The aircraft carrier Eisenhower, accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Anzio, guided-missile destroyer USS Ramage, guided-missile destroyer USS Mason and the fast-attack submarine USS Newport News, is, as I write, making its way to the Straits of Hormuz off Iran. The ships will be in place to strike Iran by the end of the month. It may be a bluff. It may be a feint. It may be a simple show of American power. But I doubt it.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/10/15/uss-eisenhower-and-iran/
Ships
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Eisenhower) a Nimitz-class supercarrier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimitz_class_aircraft_carrier) (largest naval vessel class ever constructed [by displacement])
USS Anzio (CG-68) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Anzio_%28CG-68%29) a Ticonderoga class cruiser (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticonderoga_class_cruiser)
USS Ramage (DDG-61) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ramage) a Arleigh Burke class destroyer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke_class_destroyer)
USS Mason (DDG-87) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Mason_%28DDG-87%29) (same class as Rampage)
USS Newport News (SSN-750) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Newport_News_%28SSN-750%29) a Los Angeles-class submarine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_class_submarine)
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Grrrrrr, If they keep spreading the military out they'll have to bring back the draft, and if they do that I'll have to go to war, and I DON'T WANT TO! I guess I'll just have to go get Canadian citizenship... or go to jail maybe. What's the sentence for draft dodging or just refusing to go?
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What's the sentence for draft dodging or just refusing to go?
it's a class A felony I believe
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You get sent to jail for several years.
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Don't see the point, other than muscle-flexing. The US already has enough air assets in the area to deal with anything Iran has, and a surface warship in the Straits of Hormuz will just provide a vulnerable target, given that Iran does have submarines. Maybe they just want them for the cruise missiles, but then they'd be better off with several more submarines of their own as those are quiet enough to evade their Iranian counterparts. So imo, it's mostly a show of force.
Now, I could see parking one of the destroyers right next to friendly states in the area for missile protection in case Iran get any ideas, but that doesn't seem to be the plan.
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i'm betting you there are several heavier submarines with the group but their presence is being kept a secret - they're letting out the knowledge of one sub to make them less suspicious when they see a sub on sonar.
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Nice connection. Just before voting starts, another crisis and another war.
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Wag the dog (http://imdb.com/title/tt0120885/)!
of course.. good money is it would backfire :D
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Yeah, highly don't think so.
Public would eat it up all too nicely because they don't really care.
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Standard force rotation. This was planned ages ago.
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/navy_legacy.asp?id=146
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Public would eat it up all too nicely because they don't really care.
O'RLY? (http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/16/iraq.poll/)
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I like how nobody noticed or responded to Janos' post.
Aside from that, the carrier groups don't ever go into the Gulf itself. It's much too cramped. Carriers like to be able to turn into the wind for launch and recovery of aircraft. They don't have to anymore, but they like to. It's also too easily mined and puts them uncomfortably close to land-based SSM sites. JTFME, which is composed of surface warships, operates inside the Gulf itself. (That's Joint Task Force Middle East for the ignorant. It nominally includes British and French ships as well as craft from the local navies.)
The Iranian Kilo SSKs are something of a joke, they are not well-maintained and their crews are laughable. They often spend six months or more tied to the quay. (If memory serves, as of last year's World Navies issue of Proceedings they had not gone to sea in more than a year.) They are intimidation weapons; the other states in the Gulf have navies composed almost exculsively of fast-attack craft with no sonar or ASW weapons. They are not meant to be actually used.
I also question your source on the ship assignments. It's far too small for a CVBG. There ought to be at least another two ships assigned. (A Spruance and another Burke or a frigate probably.)
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I quite agree those subs are bottom of the (rusty) barrel, and as long as the carrier stays out of the gulf (which I expected I guess, but then I started thinking that if the administration wanted to send a message they might actually be stupid enough to send them in there over the objections of smarter people who actually understand what that would involve) those definitely won't be an issue.
In the gulf itself though, they could be a threat if they played smart, though I wouldn't rate the chances of them doing that too high either. Not a great threat, but even a small threat is too much really when it can be avoided completely by just moving 20 miles further away to give room for some decent ASW operations. Anyways, it appears to be academic, as you're making too much sense to be wrong and they likely just won't go there.
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I also question your source on the ship assignments. It's far too small for a CVBG. There ought to be at least another two ships assigned. (A Spruance and another Burke or a frigate probably.)
i don't think the list of ships was mean to be exhaustive
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We'll know when the **** is hitting in the fan when Bush starts parking Ohios off the coast.
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and what if he already is :eek2:
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Standard force rotation. This was planned ages ago.
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/navy_legacy.asp?id=146
Amazing how people will lahp things up when it strokes their paranoia. Remember the APC in LA Near those protesters.
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Funny news story...the paranoia I think even reached a BBC news story in relation to the Iranian president. They didn't mention the supercarrier deal...just that an American ship was headed out that way. But I thought that was pretty silly...they rotate carriers every so often along with some of their escorts. Not a big deal...
Unless something happens. Then its a big deal.
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Heh, the simple fact it was arranged ages ago does not mean it wasn't arranged to aggravate the situation in Iran.
That said, it could be perfectly normal, it does seem odd that it's happening now, and that there is a possibility that it could be taken in a bad way by Iran and bring on a crisis situation.
Without more info that we are never ever going to see, it's impossible to say, coincidence or not.
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Grrrrrr, If they keep spreading the military out they'll have to bring back the draft, and if they do that I'll have to go to war, and I DON'T WANT TO! I guess I'll just have to go get Canadian citizenship... or go to jail maybe. What's the sentence for draft dodging or just refusing to go?
Did you support going after Iraq?
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he changed his mind.
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Flip-flop! :p
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When we went to war with Iraq I was 14 and about 3/4 done with my freshman year of high school. Back then I still naively thought that the US was usually the good guys. I also thought that Iraq really had WMDs and that the "war" would be over within the year. If you look up my posts from back then I'm sure you'll find several cases of me arguing in favor of the war. However, I've matured since then and if the same situation were happening now, rather than 3 1/2 years ago, I would oppose it. That is all.
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When we went to war with Iraq I was 14 and about 3/4 done with my freshman year of high school. Back then I still naively thought that the US was usually the good guys. I also thought that Iraq really had WMDs and that the "war" would be over within the year. If you look up my posts from back then I'm sure you'll find several cases of me arguing in favor of the war. However, I've matured since then and if the same situation were happening now, rather than 3 1/2 years ago, I would oppose it. That is all.
Well, karma has a way of biting you in the ass for stupid **** like that. It would be interesting in a way if you did get drafted and sent to Iraq.
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It would be interesting to see how many people would still support the war when they're knee deep in it.
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kosh don't be so harsh - he was fourteen at the time!
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I find it interesting to see how many people have grown up with this forum and the information/opinions shown on it, and how it has affected how they think about the world - me included. I've been here forever and I can definately say it's had a profound impact on my life and the way I see things.
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kosh don't be so harsh - he was fourteen at the time!
It still is what I have been saying: Most people who wupported useless wars like Iraq would not be so quick to do so if it was their ass on the line.
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I was in eighth grade... and I didn't know what to think... if I get drafted I'll be pissed
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I knew it was BS from day 1. Why? Because I looked at news sources like the BBC, and also I knew better than to believe the Bush administration after the Enron fiasco (not like I ever believed him before that).
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I was...*counts*...14 at the time as well, and I knew it to be bull****. Although, I admit, if it had happened about 6 years earlier I probably would've supported it, considering I used to (while not saying I actually was) have the mindset of your typical Republican today.
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:sigh:
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I knew it was BS from day 1. Why? Because I looked at news sources like the BBC, and also I knew better than to believe the Bush administration after the Enron fiasco (not like I ever believed him before that).
You knew it was BS from Day 1 because you were mature enough to. Weren't you in your late high school years or early college years when this whole **** started? Of course you knew that going into Iraq was wrong; some of us were just too young to know any better. Redsniper was 14 when it happened, I was 13 and just about to go into high school. Bush managed to fool Senators into this mess; beg pardon that high school freshman believed it too!
You know, it's times like these that really make me disrespect you. If Kaz is telling you to ease up, doesn't that tell you anything? It's not as if redmenace's belief in Bush's casus belli was exactly influencing the decision; he wasn't even old enough to vote!
kosh don't be so harsh - he was fourteen at the time!
It still is what I have been saying: Most people who wupported useless wars like Iraq would not be so quick to do so if it was their ass on the line.
So would that make nearly every single retired or current military, Air Force/Army/Marines, that I've spoken to and who support the war bull****ters or something? They apparently support this useless war, and their asses are directly on the line.
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Exactly, lighten up. People make mistakes - if they admit that they made a mistake and move past it, it only makes them better. Red seems to be doing that, hm?
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Heh, the simple fact it was arranged ages ago does not mean it wasn't arranged to aggravate the situation in Iran.
That said, it could be perfectly normal, it does seem odd that it's happening now, and that there is a possibility that it could be taken in a bad way by Iran and bring on a crisis situation.
Without more info that we are never ever going to see, it's impossible to say, coincidence or not.
On the other hand probably not....it may send a message but nobody on either side is stupid enough to act on it. Governments send messages like these on what seems like a regular basis. A ship deploys a day early and its a nice little pointed message without having anyone say anything on either side. In reading history...lots of these little things going on. They never amount to anything on their own.
Doesn't hurt to have a fresh rotation with one of the largest Nimitz class carriers built and fresh crews and aircraft out there.
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I can understand the argument that people will support something until it puts them in direct danger and how hypocritical it is. When I was 14 I understood that if the war dragged on for 4+ years, and turned into such a huge mess as it has now, and that if the US decided to go and invade other countries, etc. that they might reinstate the draft to make up for the lack of soldiers.
The thing is, I never considered that happening. Most people didn't, because we supposedly had/have the best military in the world, we stomped Iraq ~10years prior to this war starting, and we should have stomped them again*. That's why support was high at first. But, of course, as the war dragged on and people realized this was going to take longer than they thought (not to mention a certain little memo), support dropped.
Had I known, at the time, that the war would go on for so long, and that the US would be looking at invading Iran while still trying to handle Iraq (and I guess Afghanistan too, but you don't hear about that much anymore), then even with my youthful naiveté I wouldn't have supported it.
*Well, when it came to army on army action, we did stomp them AFAIK. It's just all this insurgent, suicide bomber, IED, using the Army as police BS that's causing trouble.
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I find it interesting to see how many people have grown up with this forum and the information/opinions shown on it, and how it has affected how they think about the world - me included. I've been here forever and I can definately say it's had a profound impact on my life and the way I see things.
I can agree. The short time I have spent here has changed my views on religion, world affairs, and the human psyche(sp?).
Kinda is neat though, this place is truly a "Forum", I suppose, socially speaking. Everyone's ideas are muddled in together with very little moderation.
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Mhm :) That's why I've stuck around for so long. I have yet to find anywhere else with quite the same spirit :)
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I find it interesting to see how many people have grown up with this forum and the information/opinions shown on it, and how it has affected how they think about the world - me included. I've been here forever and I can definately say it's had a profound impact on my life and the way I see things.
I can agree. The short time I have spent here has changed my views on religion, world affairs, and the human psyche(sp?).
Kinda is neat though, this place is truly a "Forum", I suppose, socially speaking. Everyone's ideas are muddled in together with very little moderation.
I think this is why the HLP formula has done so well in the past few years. We've had our problems with this forum from time to time but I'm personally a fan of self moderation with as little intervention as required. Sometimes it is...if it weren't then this place would probably be a seething mass of flamewars. That stuff gets controlled but I think its been healthy to let some of the rest of it go. To a point of course.
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and, of course, the secret ingredient to that special HLP flavor is definitely an0n. :D
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I think this is why the HLP formula has done so well in the past few years. We've had our problems with this forum from time to time but I'm personally a fan of self moderation with as little intervention as required. Sometimes it is...if it weren't then this place would probably be a seething mass of flamewars. That stuff gets controlled but I think its been healthy to let some of the rest of it go. To a point of course.
I've found that more heavily-moderated forums [and i've been to a few ultra-heavily moderated forums in my time] tend to have the exact opposite effect that what they intend. There's more flamewars, more assholes, and more ****tards per capita than i've seen on HLP since I first got here a year and a half ago. Stronger moderation begets stronger resistance from idiots, it's as simple as that.
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and, of course, the secret ingredient to that special HLP flavor is definitely an0n. :D
Anon + Kazan + Liberator = HLP back in the day.......
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i feel that i haveta quote this.
"Only an idiot would fight a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts. "
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Ah, god I love Peter Jurasic as Londo.
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Ah, god I love Peter Jurasic as Londo.
indeed, and rather apt given the modern situation
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Well Bush opens another front maybe more so.
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I find it encouraging that a 14 year old american still can start using his own brain as he grows up. Not all hope is lost.
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are they making routine sound like nuclear holocaust again. i wish they would quit getting my hopes up, its depressing. :D