Iran - Page 5

I love how folks like GS Sego have the Iran war a done deal. There will be no war with Iran.

Say what? You're ignoring the fact the US and UK spent thousands of lives GETTING to the point where Dresden could be attacked successfully...and the Luftwaffe sent fighters to intercept the bombers going to Dresden. While AAA fire was light it was present and military targets were destroyed although the primary objective was to help the Russian advance.

Arguing that the Germans didn't resist or that the US attacked a sitting duck in WWII makes you look like a compete moron. Also mischaracterization of Dresden and Tokyo as "terrorism" makes you look like a fanatic. Especially to think that a Soviet supported terrorist group was formed because we helped the Russian army.

Vinea

Stimson was against strategic bombardment and there are documents that suggest that LeMay was acting on his own initiative to prove the strategic bombardment theory. In effect he was correct. The small cottage industry capability of the Japanese in decentralized little factories were producing components and other war material that "precision" bombing could not eliminate. Firebombing reduced Japan's ability to create war material.

It failed in convincing Japanese leaders in surrendering. That took atomic weapons.

There are two lessons here: first - starting wars is a bad idea. second - starting them in a fashion where the enemy will be resolute in your destruction is even worse.

Vinea

When neo-cons make these kinds of statements it's because they believe in a Roman Peace (They will make a desert and call it peace...) when their plans for "stabilizing" a region results in complete disaster. Yes, indeedy...we did fight a half assed war...because it was led by preponderance of asses who had NEVER BEEN IN COMBAT THEMSELVES.

Of course, neo-cons have proven that in terms of foriegn policy and military strategy they are complete morons. Same with fiscal responsibility and reduction of federal powers.

Vinea

This is pure lunacy. Terrorists delibrately target civilians for the purpose of effecting political change. They murder innocent people...not be accident....on purpose. They are also fighting for an extremeist ideology in many cases.. This is absolutely not the same as the US or other western nations. OK, so the US has lied, meddled, gone to war, any number of things. None of it can be compared to people that 1) Murder their own populations and 2) Murder innocent civilians. Anyone that argues otherwise is, well, insane.

Who has never been on combat? The President, VP and SoD? So what?

Feith. Perle. Wolfowitz.

I don't care that they've never been in combat. I care that everything for them seems to be some kind of friggin' chess game or wonky bit of game theory.

Fair enough.

I have the firm belief that folks that have been shot at and seen the horrors of war are somewhat less inclined to think its some sort of game or that things will go the way you want. Guys with dead buddies at least have some understanding of the costs.

This is why I'm less likely to vote for a lawyer than a veteran for the top seat. Perferably a vietnam vet who understands that firepower and technology does not always win the day.

That and I despise chickenhawks willing to send other people's kids into harms way when they themselves chickened out themselves in time of war. I can understand when there isn't a war on to pick other avenues of service.

In any case, we're hurting. I was called by a ANG recruiter and even though I'm 41 they said no problem. I do have a slight physical handicap that always washes me out (dunno why...I can be a clerk without depth perception...not like I need to land a plane) so I always wonder why younger talk show jerks advocating war and more war aren't in the service today.

Vinea

I got called by the ANG only a few months after retiring from the Navy last year! The Sgt. apologized for calling after I told him I was out on a disability retirement (which is true). He said they get lists of newly retired military to hit up for ANG duty...as if anyone who's been in and knows how things work would sign up for Guard duty while Iraq is still going on.

Tell them you're a gay quadriplegic . That usually stops it.

I'm missing parts, so I either don't get contacted at all or get told I couldn't join even if I wanted to.

Wait.

What's to stop anyone from claiming they're gay just to get out of service?

Having ideas, Shawn?

I understand that, but we do have a military overseen by civilians. I don't think military experience is required to do the job effectively, or to have a pro-war opinion.

Oh, and politicians lost Vietnam...not the military.

what's to stop someone from claiming not that they're gay, but that they're worried that sometimes they find some men attractive?

Well, in that case, you're just looking for a few good men and there is a certain branch...ah, I'll just stop right there!

Well heck...I wasn't looking to get OUT of it. I think the war is dumb as bricks but I believe in a functioning volunteer force. That requires, among other things, volunteers...even old fat ones. Okay, not so fat yet. I probably could pass the physical otherwise.

I didn't see any reason why I couldn't be a REMF in some NG unit shuffling papers to free up someone else. Obviously I can type on a computer...

Vinea

That actually stunned me when I was told that I *couldn't* join the military even if I wanted to. I mean, the only things I can't do, to my knowledge, are things like play the flute or shoot a bow and arrow.

Mmm...yeah...Johnson. Spent 90% of WWII either inspecting facilities or on the Hill. Got the silver star for not getting shot down while flying as a VIP in a bomber and was under fire for a whole 13 min...IF that since it's disputed that his bomber came under fire (yes, potentially 13 mins more than me but I'm not running for office).

That's slightly more useful than serving in the Air National Guard in CONUS during Vietnam. But evidently not enough. Texans that skip out on real combat tours when there is a war on should automatically get disqualified for POTUS*. Two military disasters from dillitantes is enough from that state.

Kennedy was thinking of pulling out of Vietnam as a bad deal and had ordered withdrawing 1,000 troops by the end of 1963. "Cutting and Running" as our operatives would say today.

Gee...the parallels are too obvious. See...it USED to be the Democrats that were idiots about foreign policy and war. Now we have democrats who served in a war zone while republican candidates that dodged combat.

With predictable results.

Vinea

* To be safe, I say we shouldn't let any Texans be President again for a long long long time.

Well...I know some recruiters. You can get a waiver for nearly anything...but its not worth the effort for old guys who have to sign a waiver in the first place (the waiver says you know you'll not serve long enough to get retirement benifits).

We'd have to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for me to get in. Not that I have some death wish or some mistaken desire for glory but there's always put up or shut up time. If we're really in a war then now's the time.

Too bad 99% of talk show hosts wont do either.

Vinea

A predator becomes more dangerous when wounded - a quick summary by Noam Chomsky.

No please! More from Mr. Wako's version of world history.

Perhaps if the politicians had stayed the course the military could have carpet bombed the entire country for a WIN..
Finished off and obtained lasting peace for generations with a full layer of agent orange on most SE Asia.

It was those yellow/green politicians that forced the US out. LOL!

Do you read any history or just sort of wing it? The fact is the politicians mismanaged the war and the ROEs were just insane. Rolling Thunder was plain stupid. It wasn't until Linebacker that the US showed "This is what happens in a real bombardment campaign". That and Linebacker II brought North Vietnam back to the table and got us out of the war.

Had we supported "vietnamization" with air support it is possible (but not too likely) that South Vietnam would have held. It was PAVN divisions rolling into the south...not small VC units...that took down S. Vietnam.

What's horrible to me is that I expect liberals not to read history, particularly war history, but "conservatives" don't either. Otherwise it wouldn't be surprising where Iraq is now. We're in the early phases of Vietnam. Keep down this dumb path and we're going to end up with Iranian divisions in Baghdad after we've pulled out.

Of course with the oil involved we wont be pulling out anytime soon. This isn't SE asia that didn't really have much to fight over.

Vinea

Alternatively could have just granted Vietnamese independence back in 1945 and save ~10 million people. Vietnam was supposed to be a lesson to US that it can not win wars where the other side is essentially fighting for freedom (given the enormous loss of human lives and birth defects still occurring there now).
Instead, we get a few armchair critics who say it was just a question of getting the tactics slightly wrong. LOL.

That would have to have been the French granting independence, they owned the country in 1945.

1) Not out colony to free.
2) Arguably N. Vietnam was not free...not even from "colonial" influences...just different ones: China and Russia. Not until Vietnam beat the crap out of China would I say they proved independence from "Colonial" influences.
3) The US offered to leave Vietnam to France in 1955 saying "Vietnam is not worth a quarrel with France". France waffled, we stayed. Too bad really BUT we did learn an important lesson. One forgotten because someone spent his learning time in the Alabama ANG.
4) Diem was a whack job. A religious whack job to boot. One the US should never have supported but Bao Dai was compromised (and uninterested really). Ho Chi Minh was communist right after the fall of China so could not have been supported.
5) Supporting the removal of Diem was dumb but not on our orders. Just "okay, if you guys are really going to coup we wont stop you because he IS a whack job".

The best thing the US could have done in hindsight was not to play. The problem was we HAD to play or write off all of Asia and western interests in Asia. Given that we had to play then we should have played that hand out a lot better. The strategic hand was screwed up long before we meddled. In a more perfect universe Bao Dai would have declared a constitutional monarchy and a someone not a whack job would have been in charge. Bao Long would have made a great (IMHO) constitutional monarch as he distinguished himself in the military (in the FFL) and has involved himself largely humanitarian and cultural affairs rather than political ones.

Given its not a more perfect universe if it is to be war then lets not do it in an exceedingly half assed way. Like the war in Iraq is and was being pursued because some idiot (*cough* POTUS *cough*) decided to abandon the Weinberger/Powell Doctrine in favor of the Rumsfeld Doctrine.

Shame about Powell. Never had any real influence in the administration that I could tell and tarred with the same failure that ignored his advice.

Vinea

OK now we're getting fairly off topic. But, I believe it was under Japanese control albeit with vichy France admin in 1945. Ho Chi Minh (resistance leader armed by US) declared independence thinking the US would support them - but unfortunately the allies didn't and at the Postdam conference decided to carve the place up with China, DOH!!..

And you people are upset about illegal immigrants. What is it about bombing the piss out of rice farmers that would make the U S attractive to the Viet Namese? Floggin' mentally challenged, that's what it is.

Surely even the lefities would agree Iran is the one doing the "poking with a stick" now.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070316/...madinejad_dc_3

We're talking about your boys at the UN here, Seg. It's not just the US at all. Russia is going along with this. China is. France is. Once again though, Iran can do whatever it pleases, while the US is the one instigating. That's just the way the world is to you.

1. Yes. However, they are also bound to follow IAEA and UN mandates. They have not done so.

2. Techically, yes. They are furiously upgrading their centrifuges, for example. Also, enriched uranium has been found in traces:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/...b.0901iran.php

Now, that's not exactly a smoking gun, I fully realize. But is there "any" evidence "whatsoever," yeah, I think there is if you put it like that.

3. No, but I am saying Iran has to comply with UN mandates. I hope you'd agree with that.

I want to resuscitate the impending attack on Iran because the other two major super powers have been sending some dubious and ominous signals...

Operation Bite: April 6 sneak attack by US forces against Iran planned, Russian military sources warn

"WASHINGTON DC, -- The long awaited US military attack on Iran is now on track for the first week of April, specifically for 4 am on April 6, the Good Friday opening of Easter weekend, writes the well-known Russian journalist Andrei Uglanov in the Moscow weekly “Argumenty Nedeli.” Uglanov cites Russian military experts close to the Russian General Staff for his account."

Another interesting quote...

"The first reactor at the Bushehr nuclear plant, where Russian engineers are working, is supposed to be spared from destruction. The US attack plan reportedly calls for the Iranian air defense system to be degraded, for numerous Iranian warships to be sunk in the Persian Gulf, and for the most important headquarters of the Iranian armed forces to be wiped out."

I guess the Russians got the word to the U.S. that it will have a very good reason to be informed of this mission for the very reason that this reactor was sold by them and is staffed by Russian scientists.

I'm a little wary of this author. He is a conspiracy nutter, but there is more to the story elsewhere.

Now today, guess what one major Chinese oil buyer is doing?

China shifts to euros for Iran oil.

"China's state-run Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp, the biggest buyer of Iranian crude worldwide, began paying for its oil in euros late last year as Tehran moves to diversify its foreign reserves away from U.S. dollars.

The Chinese firm, which buys more than a tenth of exports from the world's fourth-largest crude producer, has changed the payment currency for the bulk of its roughly 240,000 barrels per day (bpd) contract, Reuters reported Beijing-based sources as saying."

A small but significant step. And the effect it could have on the US dollar could be staggering.

The writing is on the wall for petrodollar hegemony. Sooner or later, the demand for all those little green pieces of paper is going to dry up, and the U.S. will have no choice but to address its $700,000,000 current accounts deficit.

And for Iran insisting on euros, Iran is giving the U.S. more of an incentive to attack them.

April 6th. Mark your calenders...maybe.

Interesting how other nations must follow UN guidelines but the US doesn't have to pay its UN bill on time nor does it need UN approval to invade another country. Sadly, the US has become so powerful that few stand against it, at least at the moment. Those that do are labeled the anti-Christ.

1. You're equating us not paying our UN bill on time with Iran's actions? Really?

2. This is such a tired and sad argument. There have been many military operations conducted in the last 50 years without UN approval, and you know it. We don't need specific sanctioning to invade a country. From a political perspective, it helps, as it shows a unified front. But that's all it is.

It's not as if the UN passed a security council resolution condemning or barring an attack. I suppose that might be different. Contrast this with Iran, who is openly defying UN sanctions and mandates.

Finally, why is that you only seem to care what the UN thinks when it's the U.S. actions in question. "There was no approval for the war!" is shouted and bantered about, but Iran can, to use my favorite phrase of late, "give the UN the finger"....and you're silent?

Who would you rather have as the global superpower? Communist China?

Pay our bill on time? We fscking fund most of the UN. We need to leave the UN, restore our sovereignty and leave all these communists and bullying dictators to their own lot. To hell with the United Nations, and their never-ending assault on the US and our Constitution. Where the hell would most of these nations be without the US? The ones that would not be speaking German or Japanese would be little more than tribal fiefdoms. We should not have to go to some mother-may-I group of chronic America-bashers to get "permission" for a damn thing. Who does the UN look to when they need enforcement? Yep, the good old US.

They can take their carbon tax, their internet tax, their economic freedom tax, and their desire to repeal the 2nd Amendment and shove it diiiii-rectly up their ass.

We don't need the UN. Period.

The Jubelum Has Spoken.

!!!!!!!!!!!

Precisely why we need the UN. Thanks for the explanation.