President Bush opens options for use of force on Iran!

[Dis]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov




I seem to remember your ilk proclaiming that the Iraqis would welcome us with open arms as liberators and that resistance would be minimal and short.

You know very little about the Iranians and what they're attitudes would be towards a U.S. invasion. Considering the horrible anti-American sentiment our past meddling conjured up there, any attempt at aggression will be met by very fierce resistance. And Iran is considerably larger than Iraq.

good point. I don't think they have forgotton us shooting down one of their planes in the 80's.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Dis


Sure we have. Toppling goverments is easy. It's building new goverments that's impossible for us to do.

Building new (puppet) governments is easy too. The hard part is to beat the rebels, which could take decades. But you can't truly claim victory until you have.

[Guynemer]

DD is right.

Not even this Administration is foolish enough to go charging into another war given our current commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq. We simply do not have the manpower (or international support) to attempt a similar invasion of Iran.

I'm not entirely sure just how this situation will be handled, but you can bet the farm that it'll be different than the way we are (man)handling Iraq.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Dis


We just had one in the 90's. He had a boner for fat chicks.

He had a hard-on for bombing campaigns too. He bombed Serbia and Iraq without hesitation and attacked some other places as well ( Sudan, Aftghanistan etc.) He was only afraid of putting troops on the ground, thus he pulled out of Somalia, the country that really needed troops on the ground.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Dis


good point. I don't think they have forgotton us shooting down one of their planes in the 80's.

Yeah, I remember that catastrophy and the pictures of innocent civilians floating upside down in the Persian gulf. Did the American ship captain even got punished? I would assume at least he didn't gain any further rank in his career, but you never know. There was a lot of fuzz about the Russians shooting down a jumbo from Korea, but then the yanks made the same idiotic mistake and used the excuse "How could we know they were not hostile?"

[Dis]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie


Yeah, I remember that catastrophy and the pictures of innocent civilians floating upside down in the Persian gulf. Did the American ship captain even got punished? I would assume at least he didn't gain any further rank in his career, but you never know. There was a lot of fuzz about the Russians shooting down a jumbo from Korea, but then the yanks made the same idiotic mistake and used the excuse "How could we know they were not hostile?"

then you aren't going to like what I've seen on Wikipedia. He got an award for shooting down an airliner. though it doesn't mention if he rose in rank after that. I doubt he made captain (the actual rank not the title as captain of the ship) or admiral.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

[Chemical Ollie]

As the American ship was not invited to the Persian Gulf by anyone, why would it be acceptable for it to defend itself against a percieved (non-existing) threath?

"Yeah, I was walking there, a drunk white guy, 4 in the morning in downtown Harlem, and a black guy was closing in on me, so I pulled a gun and killed him. Did I do anything wrong? "

That's the American way. Be on the wrong spot in the wrong time and use that as an excuse to commit an unexcusable crime.

[GePap]

Personally I see no pretext for the US to use any type of force against Iran. The way to handle Iran's transgretions of the NPT treaty is by snactions from the UN, thought Iran's position and status in the oil trade means real sanctions are basically off the books. Also, while most states certainly would not support Iran getting nukes, the US and European position is not very popular out there either-essentially, realizing that anyone with a peaceful nuclear program will eventually have what they need to make a nuclear weapon, the US and Europe are trying to curtail the rights of other states when it comes to nuclear power. This self-centered position of increasing the nuclear monopoly is obviously not popular, and I don't think sustainable either.

As for the weapons coming into Iraq. I can see plenty of reasons why the Iranians would pass along weapons to anti-american forces, I mean, why not? Sunni control of Iraq is no longer realistic. The bigger issue would be the disintegration of Iraq0while having a Shiite state next door would be great, having a free Kurdish state would be a problem for Iran, though not as much of a problem as for Turkey.

[Az]

As the American ship was not invited to the Persian Gulf by anyone, why would it be acceptable for it to defend itself against a percieved (non-existing) threath?

You don't have to be invited into Intl. borders, and IIRC, there are Intl. waters in the persian gulf.

[Dr Strangelove]

Might the weapons actually have come from some Al-Qaeda group in Pakistan or central Asia? Shipping across iran would be logical.

[Chemical Ollie]

You have to sail through very narrow straits to get into the Persian Gulf. That means you are not randomly passing by, you are actively there to harass someone. If your only purpose to be there at all is to harass someone, why would it be acceptable to kill innocent civilians to defend yourself against a percieved threath?

[Az]

You have to sail through very narrow straits to get into the Persian Gulf. That means you are not randomly passing by, you are actively there to harass someone. If your only purpose to be there at all is to harass someone, why would it be acceptable to kill innocent civilians to defend yourself against a percieved threath?

Why to harass? I don't think that harassing anyone is high on the US' list of interests in the Persian Gulf. The main, completely dominant reason the US Navy is in the Persian Gulf is to secure the flow of strategic energy resources such as oil and gas from it.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Az

You have to sail through very narrow straits to get into the Persian Gulf. That means you are not randomly passing by, you are actively there to harass someone. If your only purpose to be there at all is to harass someone, why would it be acceptable to kill innocent civilians to defend yourself against a percieved threath?

Why to harass? I don't think that harassing anyone is high on the US' list of interests in the Persian Gulf. The main, completely dominant reason the US Navy is in the Persian Gulf is to secure the flow of strategic energy resources such as oil and gas from it.

It wasn't an oil tanker that shot down the civilian airliner, was it?

[alva]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie


Yeah, I remember that catastrophy and the pictures of innocent civilians floating upside down in the Persian gulf. Did the American ship captain even got punished? I would assume at least he didn't gain any further rank in his career, but you never know. There was a lot of fuzz about the Russians shooting down a jumbo from Korea, but then the yanks made the same idiotic mistake and used the excuse "How could we know they were not hostile?"

Not a 100% certain if it's the same, is this the one leading up to Lockerby? If so, then he a medal when he got home.


EDIT: hadn't read page two before posting.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
You people are amusing. Letting your paranoia run wil rather than looking at realistic options.

This EXACT same series of events happened in the lead up to invading Iraq. The White House sent their people around the world on this diplomatic mission going around telling everyone how they had no plans to invade and that, "all options are on the table."

At one point, Rice even said they had no plans to invade Iraq. The exact same words were even used, "all options are on the table."

That tells me they're ready to do it.

There was an insider floating a rumor that the planned attack was to come in the summer of 2005. Coincidence?

With the sheer incompetence of these morons, I don't trust them with anything.