"Three-day blitz" plan for Iran

[Arne]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2369001.ece

Pentagon ‘three-day blitz’ plan for IranSarah Baxter, Washington
THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.

Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.

Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded: “Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same.” It was, he added, a “very legitimate strategic calculus”.

President George Bush intensified the rhetoric against Iran last week, accusing Tehran of putting the Middle East “under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust”. He warned that the US and its allies would confront Iran “before it is too late”.

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One Washington source said the “temperature was rising” inside the administration. Bush was “sending a message to a number of audiences”, he said � to the Iranians and to members of the United Nations security council who are trying to weaken a tough third resolution on sanctions against Iran for flouting a UN ban on uranium enrichment.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last week reported “significant” cooperation with Iran over its nuclear programme and said that uranium enrichment had slowed. Tehran has promised to answer most questions from the agency by November, but Washington fears it is stalling to prevent further sanctions. Iran continues to maintain it is merely developing civilian nuclear power.

Bush is committed for now to the diplomatic route but thinks Iran is moving towards acquiring a nuclear weapon. According to one well placed source, Washington believes it would be prudent to use rapid, overwhelming force, should military action become necessary.

Israel, which has warned it will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, has made its own preparations for airstrikes and is said to be ready to attack if the Americans back down.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which uncovered the existence of Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, said the IAEA was being strung along. “A number of nuclear sites have not even been visited by the IAEA,” he said. “They’re giving a clean bill of health to a regime that is known to have practised deception.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, irritated the Bush administration last week by vowing to fill a “power vacuum” in Iraq. But Washington believes Iran is already fighting a proxy war with the Americans in Iraq.

The Institute for the Study of War last week released a report by Kimberly Kagan that explicitly uses the term “proxy war” and claims that with the Sunni insurgency and Al-Qaeda in Iraq “increasingly under control”, Iranian intervention is the “next major problem the coalition must tackle”.

Bush noted that the number of attacks on US bases and troops by Iranian-supplied munitions had increased in recent months � “despite pledges by Iran to help stabilise the security situation in Iraq”.

It explains, in part, his lack of faith in diplomacy with the Iranians. But Debat believes the Pentagon’s plans for military action involve the use of so much force that they are unlikely to be used and would seriously stretch resources in Afghanistan and Iraq.

________________

Another article about troop movements:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...cle2953462.ece

The 'proxy war': UK troops are sent to Iranian border
British soldiers return to action as tensions between US and Iran grow
Exclusive by Kim Sengupta in Baghdad
Published: 12 September 2007
British forces have been sent from Basra to the volatile border with Iran amid warnings from the senior US commander in Iraq that Tehran is fomenting a "proxy war".

In signs of a fast-developing confrontation, the Iranians have threatened military action in response to attacks launched from Iraqi territory while the Pentagon has announced the building of a US base and fortified checkpoints at the frontier.

The UK operation, in which up to 350 troops are involved, has come at the request of the Americans, who say that elements close to the Iranian regime have stepped up supplies of weapons to Shia militias in recent weeks in preparation for attacks inside Iraq.

The deployment came within a week of British forces leaving Basra Palace, their last remaining base inside Basra city, and withdrawing to the airport for a widely expected final departure from Iraq. Brigadier James Bashall, commander of 1 Mechanised Brigade, based at Basra said: "We have been asked to help at the Iranian border to stop the flow of weapons and I am willing to do so. We know the points of entry and I am sure we can do what needs to be done. The US forces are, as we know, engaged in the 'surge' and the border is of particular concern to them."

The mission will include the King's Royal Hussars battle group, 250 of whom were told at the weekend that they would be returning to the UK as part of a drawdown of forces in Iraq.

The operation is regarded as a high-risk strategy which could lead to clashes with Iranian-backed Shia militias or even Iranian forces and also leaves open the possibility of Iranian retaliation in the form of attacks against British forces at the Basra air base or inciting violence to draw them back into Basra city. Relations between the two countries are already fraught after the Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized a British naval party in the Gulf earlier this year.

The move came as General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq, made some of the strongest accusations yet by US officials about Iranian activity. General Petraeus spoke on Monday of a "proxy war" in Iraq, while Mr Crocker accused the Iranian government of "providing lethal capabilities to the enemies of the Iraqi state".

In an interview after his appearance before a congressional panel on Monday, General Petraeus strongly implied that it would soon be necessary to obtain authorisation to take action against Iran within its own borders, rather than just inside Iraq. "There is a pretty hard look ongoing at that particular situation" he said.

The Royal Welsh battle group, with Challenger tanks and Warrior armoured vehicles, is conducting out regular exercises at the Basra air base in preparation for any re-entry into the city. No formal handover of Basra to the Iraqi government has yet taken place and the UK remains responsible for maintaining security in the region.

The Iraqi commander in charge of the southern part of the country, General Mohan al-Furayji, said he would not hesitate to call for British help if there was an emergency.

While previous US military action has been primarily directed against Sunni insurgents, it is Shia fighters, which the US accuses Iran of backing, who now account for 80 per cent of US casualties.

For the British military the move to the border is a change of policy. They had stopped patrols along the long border at Maysan despite US concerns at the time that the area would become a conduit for weapons into Iraq.

The decision to return to the frontier has been heavily influenced by the highly charged and very public dispute with the United States. British commanders feel that they cannot turn down the fresh American request for help after refusing to delay the withdrawal from Basra Palace. They also maintain that the operation will stop Iranian arms entering Basra.

Brigadier Bashall said: "We are not sitting here idly at the air bridge. The security of Basra is still our responsibility and we shall act where necessary. We are also prepared to restore order in Basra City if asked to do so."

The US decision to build fortifications at the Iranian border, after four years of presence in Iraq, shows, say American commanders, that the "Iranian threat" is now one of their main concerns.

Maj-Gen Rick Lynch, commander of the US Army's 3rd Infantry Division, said 48 Iranian-supplied roadside bombs had been used against his forces killing nine soldiers. "We've got a major problem with Iranian munitions streaming into Iraq. This Iranian interference is troubling and we have to stop it," he told The Wall Street Journal this week.

Meanwhile at a conference in Baghdad on regional co-operation, Iran claimed the US was supporting groups mounting attacks from Iraqi territory in the Kurdish north.

Said Jalili , Iran's deputy foreign minister, last night said: "I think [the US and its allies] are going to prevaricate with the truth because they know they have been defeated in Iraq and they have not been successful. And so they are going to put the blame on us, on the other side."

_____________

The war propaganda is running just like back in the days when they planned the Iraq invasion...

http://foxattacks.com/blog/10777-fox...ks-iran?play=1

http://foxattacks.com/blog/10751-fox...-t-work?play=1

http://foxattacks.com/blog/10755-fox...-threat?play=1

http://foxattacks.com/blog/10754-fox...s-crazy?play=1

[alexamenos]

i've kept my head firmly planted in the sand over the iran thing.....

i recall way back in very early '02 i was trying tell a guy that we were gearing up for an invasion and occupation of iraq. his reply was that there was no way we'd do such a thing because it would be profoundly stupid. while he was right (arguably at least) that an iraq occupation would be profoundly stupid, he was quite a moron in thinking the stupidity of an endeavor would keep us from doing it....

anyhoo....the iran thing is profoundly stupid, therefore I think it's most unlikely that we'll do it.

cheers

[DevinFuture]

hmmm... Doesn't it make more sense like this? (I sure hope not.)

1. An Iraq occupation would be profoundly stupid.
2. We did it.
Therefore,
3. We're profoundly stupid.

1. An Iran invasion would be profoundly stupid.
2. We're still profoundly stupid.
3. We will likely invade Iran

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by DevinFuture

hmmm... Doesn't it make more sense like this? (I sure hope not.)

Which is why I have my head buried firmly in the sand....

[Janett_Reno]

They say oil briefly hit $80.00 a barrell yesterday and then settled back down. If the Iran thing would happen, oil would shoot up over $100.00 a barrell. Our dollar yesterday sunk to all time lows. China is vested in Iran and even Russia. Let's hope things get better and not worse but we never know.

[Evilmav2]

Originally Posted by Janett_Reno

They say oil briefly hit $80.00 a barrell yesterday and then settled back down. If the Iran thing would happen, oil would shoot up over $100.00 a barrell.

They also say that Iran will probably have the ability to produce 10-20 nuclear weapons a year by the year 2009 or 2010. If that kind of 'Iran thing' happens, there'll be far more consequential 'things' to worry about for us all, than whether it costs us $3.00 a gallon to fill up our gas tanks or not...





Keep the Price of Oil Low! Leave Iran Alone!

[Arne]

Who says that kind of stuff? The same people who taught you about Al-Qaeda and WMD's and Saddam's intentions to get nuclear?

And now, tell me what would happen if Iran gained nuclear status?

There would be nothing to fear, because as soon as they start to attack anyone Israel, the US, Britain and even France would've made Iran look like a dessert...

There's no proof in the world that Iran has the intention to gain nuclear weapons. And even if they did, nobody has the right to start a war, nobody. By the way, the CIA says that Iran is incapable of building a nuclear weapon before 2017.

[Arne]

U.S. Bush administration ponders when to launch nuclear war against Iran

by John Pilger [Excerpted]

Mr. Pilger, who has written for the New Statesmen, describes American plans to attack Iran, possibly with nuclear weapons. Although the majority of Americans voted last November to end the war in Iraq, the Bush cabal remains undeterred by insipid protests from Democrats and is proceeding with another, even more dangerous adventure.

The United States is planning what will be a catastrophic attack on Iran. For the Bush cabal, the attack will be a way of “buying time” for its disaster in Iraq. In announcing what he called a “surge” of American troops in Iraq, George W Bush identified Iran as his real target. “We will interrupt the flow of support [to the insurgency in Iraq] from Iran and Syria”, he said. “And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

“Networks” means Iran. “There is solid evidence,” said a State Department spokesman on 24 January, “that Iranian agents are involved in these networks and that they are working with individuals and groups in Iraq and are being sent there by the Iranian government.” Like Bush’s and Blair’s claim that they had irrefutable evidence that Saddam Hussein was deploying weapons of mass destruction, the “evidence” lacks all credibility.

Iran has a natural affinity with the Shia majority of Iraq, and has been implacably opposed to al-Qaeda, condemning the 9/11 attacks and supporting the United States in Afghanistan. Syria has done the same. Investigations by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and others, including British military officials, have concluded that Iran is not engaged in the cross-border supply of weapons. General Peter Pace, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said no such evidence exists.

As the American disaster in Iraq deepens and domestic and foreign opposition grows, “neocon” fanatics such as Vice-President Cheney believe their opportunity to control Iran’s oil will pass unless they act in a very timely manner. For public consumption, there are potent myths. In concert with Israel and Washington’s Zionist and fundamentalist Christian lobbies, the Bushites say their “strategy” is to end Iran’s nuclear threat. In fact, Iran possesses not a single nuclear weapon nor has it ever threatened to build one; the CIA estimates that, even given the political will, Iran is incapable of building a nuclear weapon before 2017, at the earliest.

Unlike Israel and the United States, Iran has abided by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it was an original signatory and has allowed routine inspections under its legal obligations – until gratuitous, punitive measures were added in 2003, at the behest of Washington. No report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has ever cited Iran for diverting its civilian nuclear programme to military use.

The IAEA has said that for most of the past three years its inspectors have been able to “go anywhere and see anything”. They inspected the nuclear installations at Isfahan and Natanz on 10 and 12 January and will return on 2 to 6 February. The head of the IAEA, Mohamed El-Baradei says that an attack on Iran will have “catastrophic consequences” and only encourage the regime to become a nuclear power.

Unlike its two nemeses, the US and Israel, Iran has attacked no other countries. It last went to war in 1980 when invaded by Saddam Hussein, who was backed and equipped by the US, which supplied chemical and biological weapons produced at a factory in Maryland. Unlike Israel, the world’s fifth military power with thermo-nuclear weapons aimed at Middle-East targets, an unmatched record of defying UN resolutions and the enforcer of the world’s longest illegal occupation, Iran has a history of obeying international law and occupies no territory other than its own.

The “threat” from Iran is entirely manufactured, aided and abetted by familiar, compliant media language that refers to Iran’s “nuclear ambitions”, just as the vocabulary of Saddam’s non-existent WMD arsenal became common usage. Accompanying this is a demonising that has become standard practice. As Edward Herman has pointed out, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “has done yeoman service in facilitating this”; yet a close examination of his notorious remark about Israel in October 2005 reveals its distortion. According to Juan Cole, American professor of Modern Middle History, and other Farsi language analysts, Ahmadinejad did not call for Israel to be “wiped off the map”. He said, “The regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”. This, says Cole, “does not imply military action or killing anyone at all”. Ahmadinejad compared the demise of the Jerusalem regime to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Iranian ergime is repressive, but its power is diffuse and exercised by the mullahs, with whom Ahmadinejad is often at odds. An attack would surely unite them.

The one piece of “solid evidence” is the threat posed by the United States. An American naval buildup in the eastern Mediterranean has begun. This is almost certainly part of what the Pentagon calls CONPLAN 8022, which is the aerial bombing of Iran. In 2004, National Security Presidential Directive 35, entitled Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorisation, was issued. It is classified, of course, but the presumption has long been that NSPD 35 authorised the stockpiling and deployment of “tactical” nuclear weapons in the Middle East. This does not mean Bush will use them against Iran, but for the first time since the most dangerous years of the cold war, the use of what were then called “limited” nuclear weapons is being openly discussed in Washington. What they are debating is the prospect of other Hiroshimas and of radioactive fallout across the Middle East and Central Asia. Seymour Hersh disclosed in the New Yorker last year that American bombers “have been flying simulated nuclear weapons delivery missions . . . since last summer [2006]”.


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[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Arne

Who says that kind of stuff? The same people who taught you about Al-Qaeda and WMD's and Saddam's intentions to get nuclear?

You are saying they were not?

And now, tell me what would happen if Iran gained nuclear status?

There would be nothing to fear, because as soon as they start to attack anyone Israel, the US, Britain and even France would've made Iran look like a dessert...

Think so? If israel is bombed what do you think will happen? Nothing unless Israel can do it. Iraq has talked about wiping israel off the face of the earth for decades? When will you actually listen to what tyrants say. They usually (in fact have always it seems) meant it.

There's no proof in the world that Iran has the intention to gain nuclear weapons. And even if they did, nobody has the right to start a war, nobody. By the way, the CIA says that Iran is incapable of building a nuclear weapon before 2017.

Why even argue about whether they do or do not, since you don't feel there is any reason to ever stop them from having one?

All of a sudden you BELIEVE what the CIA says, right? Funny, but in your first paragraph you didn't.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Evilmav2

They also say that Iran will probably have the ability to produce 10-20 nuclear weapons a year by the year 2009 or 2010. If that kind of 'Iran thing' happens, there'll be far more consequential 'things' to worry about for us all, then whether it costs us $3.00 a gallon to fill up our gas tanks or not...

Some just want to go to sleep at night and pull the covers over their head.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Arne

U.S. Bush administration ponders when to launch nuclear war against Iran

by John Pilger [Excerpted]

This guy might have some credibility if his vocabulary and adjectives didn't come from the dailykos website. If he can't make his point without "cabal" then I don't think he will be that persuasive.

[rabbitproof]

Ah, nothing like the smell of potential huge mistake in the air.........

Attack first. When did the US started standing for that?

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by rabbitproof

Attack first. When did the US started standing for that?

we've gone from the country of "give me liberty or give me death" to the country of "please protect me, at any cost, from any possible threat, no matter how remote and distant that threat may be."

a bunch of bedwetters we are....

[rabbitproof]

EDIT:

... you nailed it, alexamenos.

[dude1394]

Yea let's let a country that continues to talk about wiping people off the face of the earth get the ability to do it.

Maybe if we then stop supporting israel, iraq, saudia arabia, etc. and get out of the middle east they won't start blowing things up.

[dude1394]

What guarantee can you give me that Iran won't threaten and/or drop nuclear weapons on their neighbors and/or our allies? What in their rhetoric guarantees that they are not going to do exactly what they say and wipe israel off the map? What guarantee can you give that they will not provide those nuclear weapons to terrorists to blow up millions of people?

When a palestinian sets off a nuclear bomb, who will we blame? Palestine?

[rabbitproof]

I'm going to kill you with my bare hands, dude.
.
.
.

Are you going to cut my hands off now?

Why do the principles we believe in and practice towards our neighbors become unimportant with our international neighbors?

EDIT: grammah purposes..

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by rabbitproof

I'm going to kill you with my bare hands, dude.
.
.
.

Are you going to cut my hands off now?

Why do the principles we believe in and practice towards our neighbors become unimportant with our international neighbors?

EDIT: grammah purposes..

No because it's not credible. However if you were in the same room as me, were a known homicidal lunatic (i.e. supported, armed and trained people who blew themselves up) and you said you had a explosive vest on and was going to blow up my home with my children in the next room, I would shoot you in the head before you could blow it up.

I.e. a sensible person would think that your threat was credible and it would be self-defense to kill you first.

[MavsX]

(thinking about iran)

we are f*cked.


"damned if you do, damned if you don"t"

meaning invasion.

i hope we dont....

[alexamenos]

I don't know that I can guarantee this, but I'd say it's likely that much of our armed forces will be slaughtered....picture Napoleon in Waterloo....much of the logistical lines supporting folks in baghdad and beyond run right through the heart of shia occupied (and Iran allied) southern Iraq....when those lines are completely cut, which they most certainly will be, the troops will be sitting ducks. you can comfort yourself in knowing that they'll kill a lot of folks before they get killed themselves, but it's small compensation if you ask me.

I can guarantee this much -- if we launch an unprovoked attack on Iraq we will rightly be judged as the bad guys of history -- like the Nazis in Poland who claimed they were just defending the fatherland.....

also...if such an attack is carried out without a congressional declaration of war, then we can safely give up even the pretense of the rule of law subject to the US Constitution or anything resembling a representative democracy and say that the US Government has become an out of control behometh, hell bent on asserting it's will regardless of the wishes or consequences to the people it ostensibly serves....

heaven forbid, it will be among the saddest days in American History, and the lingering consequences will be far more dire than anything caused by a handful fo Saudi Arabians with box cutters.

but hey, if sacrificing the rule of law, and perhaps the United States (as it has existed as a relatively free and civilized country) is what it takes to guarantee that no middle-easterner ever again does anything bad to another middle-easterner, then who am I to say that this is a profoundly foolish thing to do.

cheers

[alexamenos]

and I really hate the dammed signatures that cause this page to spread out endlessly so that I can't read a sentence without scrolling across the bottom. is this a problem only I am having....

[dude1394]

I'm not sure it would be a surprise attack to be honest. Why should it? Especially if it was a tremendous bombing campaign instead of an invasion for example.

How should we deal with iran's agents infilitrating iraq and supplying weapons to attack our soldiers as well as Iraq. I mean is that not an act of war by iran?

Or is it only when the US does it that it's aggression? Iraq is not threatening Iran except as an example of a democratic country.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

and I really hate the dammed signatures that cause this page to spread out endlessly so that I can't read a sentence without scrolling across the bottom. is this a problem only I am having....

I think so, in my browser everything is nice and one page wide.

[DevinFuture]

.

[DevinFuture]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

I don't know that I can guarantee this, but I'd say it's likely that much of our armed forces will be slaughtered....picture Napoleon in Waterloo....much of the logistical lines supporting folks in baghdad and beyond run right through the heart of shia occupied (and Iran allied) southern Iraq....when those lines are completely cut, which they most certainly will be, the troops will be sitting ducks. you can comfort yourself in knowing that they'll kill a lot of folks before they get killed themselves, but it's small compensation if you ask me.

I can guarantee this much -- if we launch an unprovoked attack on Iraq we will rightly be judged as the bad guys of history -- like the Nazis in Poland who claimed they were just defending the fatherland.....

also...if such an attack is carried out without a congressional declaration of war, then we can safely give up even the pretense of the rule of law subject to the US Constitution or anything resembling a representative democracy and say that the US Government has become an out of control behometh, hell bent on asserting it's will regardless of the wishes or consequences to the people it ostensibly serves....

heaven forbid, it will be among the saddest days in American History, and the lingering consequences will be far more dire than anything caused by a handful fo Saudi Arabians with box cutters.

but hey, if sacrificing the rule of law, and perhaps the United States (as it has existed as a relatively free and civilized country) is what it takes to guarantee that no middle-easterner ever again does anything bad to another middle-easterner, then who am I to say that this is a profoundly foolish thing to do.

cheers

I'll see your end to the rule of law in America and raise you.
Are we not now in the last stages of the American empire, and now seeing Bush/Nero burn it all down?
America is only shortly over 200 years old. I would say the democracy/republic ended after World War II and the empire began. Empires fall, and they usally deserve to. How long will it take? Depends on how quickly we make enemies of every other country in the world. Not long at the rate we're going.

[Janett_Reno]

I agree nothing but fear tactics. Do you want the real truth? If some of these people want to blow up other countries and go to war, then le's get real. Is China a nice friendly place and can't cause trouble? Is North Korea a nice vacation spot? How about Cuba and Venezuela? Alot of countries in Africa and Syria. Why we are at it, how about Russia?

I can go on and on and on and on. How about our nice friends in Pakistan? You don't go around threatening every country that is a threat or power. Plus the fear tactic is gone. Won't work anymore. The boogieman has left the building. Even the Republican base and people are demanding change and want to see change from these neocons. Why do you think Fred is ripping W and trying to distance himself from the neocon administration?

No going bankrupt is no good as a nation. $100.00 a barrell gas only helps this neocon administration and is not good for this country. No child left behind, well ask Fred Thompson, as the children have been left behind by the neocons. The dollar at it's all time low is no good. China running the whole entire world is not good. W has made us a slave to them. This neocon administration does nothing about our borders. The scare is our borders are bad and open. If it wasn't for great usa citizens guarding the borders, then we would have none at all.

I'll finish on this note. If you do not think oil is big and important i will give a little example. This is from someone that is getting a rain drop of oil and her check monthly from 25.00 to 12,000. That is before taxes are taken out. I won't say where the little tiny oil well is but the oil rights are split about umpteen times. Back in the early 80's, her check was 25.00 a month. Now it is 12 grand a month. Now people with oil wells, owns oil stocks, or has mineral rights off oil under the neocons is doing fine but just how many Americans own oil wells or have mineral rights and are making the neocon type money? Not many.

$100.00 a barrel oil hurts more than it helps. Invest in this great United States Of America and stop trying to police the world. Quit throwing our money away and invest in our borders, schools, bridges and roads. If a boogieman comes we will get the boogieman. Laden is the man we are suppose to be after. Did the neocons forget this?

[AxdemxO]

Originally Posted by DevinFuture

I'll see your end to the rule of law in America and raise you.
Are we not now in the last stages of the American empire, and now seeing Bush/Nero burn it all down?
America is only shortly over 200 years old. I would say the democracy/republic ended after World War II and the empire began. Empires fall, and they usally deserve to. How long will it take? Depends on how quickly we make enemies of every other country in the world. Not long at the rate we're going.

Agree

[AxdemxO]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

I don't know that I can guarantee this, but I'd say it's likely that much of our armed forces will be slaughtered....picture Napoleon in Waterloo....much of the logistical lines supporting folks in baghdad and beyond run right through the heart of shia occupied (and Iran allied) southern Iraq....when those lines are completely cut, which they most certainly will be, the troops will be sitting ducks. you can comfort yourself in knowing that they'll kill a lot of folks before they get killed themselves, but it's small compensation if you ask me.

I can guarantee this much -- if we launch an unprovoked attack on Iraq we will rightly be judged as the bad guys of history -- like the Nazis in Poland who claimed they were just defending the fatherland.....

also...if such an attack is carried out without a congressional declaration of war, then we can safely give up even the pretense of the rule of law subject to the US Constitution or anything resembling a representative democracy and say that the US Government has become an out of control behometh, hell bent on asserting it's will regardless of the wishes or consequences to the people it ostensibly serves....

heaven forbid, it will be among the saddest days in American History, and the lingering consequences will be far more dire than anything caused by a handful fo Saudi Arabians with box cutters.

but hey, if sacrificing the rule of law, and perhaps the United States (as it has existed as a relatively free and civilized country) is what it takes to guarantee that no middle-easterner ever again does anything bad to another middle-easterner, then who am I to say that this is a profoundly foolish thing to do.

cheers

Agreee

[AxdemxO]

Originally Posted by dude1394

What guarantee can you give me that Iran won't threaten and/or drop nuclear weapons on their neighbors and/or our allies? What in their rhetoric guarantees that they are not going to do exactly what they say and wipe israel off the map? What guarantee can you give that they will not provide those nuclear weapons to terrorists to blow up millions of people?

When a palestinian sets off a nuclear bomb, who will we blame? Palestine?

I am going to hope tht you are expressing yor views..because it seems that this problem always exists where you think that you know better than any1 on here and try to impose ur views on others....

can u give me a guarantee that they will do any of tht??

[Janett_Reno]

Originally Posted by dude1394

You are saying they were not?


Think so? If israel is bombed what do you think will happen? Nothing unless Israel can do it. Iraq has talked about wiping israel off the face of the earth for decades? When will you actually listen to what tyrants say. They usually (in fact have always it seems) meant it.

If, we are not playing checkers. If we would have finished Miami off and Wade wouldn't have been Michael Jordan like, we would have won a nba title. If, when do you start running the country on if's? So we went into Iraq because they was going to wipe Israel off the map? You do not play games on if and we don't police the world on "if" someone might hurt someone. You need a better stance than "if".


Why even argue about whether they do or do not, since you don't feel there is any reason to ever stop them from having one?

How many more you gonna stop? Next week NK, week after China, week after that Russia? Why not knock off Syria the next week? See the problem.

All of a sudden you BELIEVE what the CIA says, right? Funny, but in your first paragraph you didn't.

It's funny you support everything the neocons do and say if they do right or wrong and when someone speaks with sense like Fred Thompson, like John Warner, like Ron Paul, like Chuck Hagel, like Richard Lugar, your answers are if's and say but those poor souls are being led down the wrong path, while you and your neocon buddies know it all. Maybe you need to try to get a cut off Halliburton and ask ole Chains if they need a yes man.

[Arne]

Originally Posted by dude1394

All of a sudden you BELIEVE what the CIA says, right? Funny, but in your first paragraph you didn't.

Evilmav said: "they also say that Iran will probably have the ability to produce 10-20 nuclear weapons a year by the year 2009 or 2010"

If the CIA says that Iran is incapable of building a nuclear weapon before 2017, Evilmavs "information" cannot come from the CIA, right?

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by AxdemxO

I am going to hope tht you are expressing yor views..because it seems that this problem always exists where you think that you know better than any1 on here and try to impose ur views on others....

can u give me a guarantee that they will do any of tht??

No I cannot. But a guarantee that they WOULD NOT is much more useful in the real world. You cannot know what they WILL do, you can only know what they CAN do.

[Mavdog]

ahmadinejad as a big a threat as alqueda to the usa and the west. his group seems to not only acknowledge their goal of battle against the west, they acknowledge that a huge sacrifice, ie death of masses of people, will be paid to reach the first goal.

look how he tosses out israel's "destruction": Ahmadinejad: Israel's destruction close


at this point ion time, it would be impossible for the us to attack iran unilaterally. the numbers of free armed forces are not sufficient, nor does the military have the number of supplies available.

but around 2010.....and that is when the nuclear standoff will be at its height. that is when an attack could happen.

we cannot have a nuclear armed iran.

[dude1394]

Mavdog continues to be one of my favorite progressives. It's rare and unusual for a progressive to see both sides. I would say the same thing of conservatives. But security isn't something that can just be handled with rhetoric or a wave of the hand.

There are bad folks out there and sometimes you have to have a cop.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by DevinFuture

....Are we not now in the last stages of the American empire, and now seeing Bush/Nero burn it all down?
America is only shortly over 200 years old. I would say the democracy/republic ended after World War II and the empire began. Empires fall, and they usally deserve to. How long will it take?

this is as good of a guess as any i've got....predictions are tough, as they say, especially when they're predictions are about the future.

the logic of empire is an interesting thing in that an empire can't stop itself once it's started, even if stopping itself is necessary to prevent it's own demise......

an ever expanding empire will invariably crash under it's own weight, and the recent soviet experience reminds that such a crash can come quite quickly and without much warning.....

Depends on how quickly we make enemies of every other country in the world. Not long at the rate we're going

i don't know if this is the most important consideration -- i think empires are as likely to fall from within as they from assault from the outside....that is, we could probably manage an empire nicely for quite sometime if we went about it wisely, no matter how much the french and the other muslims hated us.....

more likely we'll fail because we want both an empire and bread and circuses, so to speak. running an empire is hard work....fat, stupid and unrealistic is no way to manage such a business.

[DevinFuture]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

more likely we'll fail because we want both an empire and bread and circuses, so to speak. running an empire is hard work....fat, stupid and unrealistic is no way to manage such a business.

Yes. I can understand how the production of a culture of McDonalds-eating, reality tv-watching citizens who are more interested in the election of the next American idol than in the election of their political leaders might be a problem.

[dalmations202]

I love people who stick their heads in the sand.

You can take their lunch money, scr3w their wives/sisters/daughters/mothers, and stab them in the back before they ever realize that their is a BAD DUDE out there that needs to be accounted for -- whether he is attacked, or placated by other means.
Most of the time they are so caught up in their own little selfish world that they never realize what has happened until it is too late. In fact often times they will turn off the security system because it costs too much for them, and they don't think anything could ever happen anyway. After all, if they scream loud enough, the government will come bail them out.


Sticking your head in the sand solves NO PROBLEMS.


<edit>
Also is this three day blitz the same plan Krokus had for the ballroom?

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Arne

Evilmav said: "they also say that Iran will probably have the ability to produce 10-20 nuclear weapons a year by the year 2009 or 2010"

If the CIA says that Iran is incapable of building a nuclear weapon before 2017, Evilmavs "information" cannot come from the CIA, right?

??? Beats me...One of the biggest shocks in my life was the absence of WMD in Iraq. I'm not sure I've ever seen such a "consensus" on a subject as that. Even global warming doesn't have nearly the consensus as wmd's in iraq did.

My post was how funny it was that in the first paragraph someone would deride the cia's credibility but then in the last one use it for their argument.

Iran is just about in the same boat as Iraq was. Iraq could have avoided invasion (and sanctions) by abiding by the agreement they signed after gulf 1. That they didn't was certainly confusing to me (and even saddam it appears).

Iran is on the same path. They are openly trying to acquire nuclear weapons in spite of sanctions and world-wide condemnation. If they were actually doing it for defensive purposes I imagine they would be a lot more quiet about it, however their intentions are pretty clear about what they plan on doing with them.

If a nuke goes off in the middle east and murders millions I expect the same actors decrying confronting Iran will be railing about how something should have been done.

You don't always get to pick your fights, iran seems like one of them.

[Janett_Reno]

The neocon invading more countries won't be an option alot longer as as soon as Chains leaves, W will have no more strings pulling the puppet. If an atomic bomb goes off in the middle east, then Israel will start wipping countries off the map. If the boogieman comes tonight and say's boo, it might scare us a few minutes. You do not run a country on if's and what if this one has wmd's, well then, let's go invade it.

It is over and done, the public doesn't believe the scare tactics and beware the boogieman is comming. Let me repeat what the bible says a book that was written before we was born, it will always be conflicks in the middle east and it will always be wars and up risings in the middle east. Who survives? The strong survives. If you screw with Israel, they will come and get you and along with your many "if's", if an atomic bomb goes off, then you better watch out, as Isreal is comming to wipe you out.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Janett_Reno

The neocon invading more countries won't be an option alot longer as as soon as Chains leaves, W will have no more strings pulling the puppet. If an atomic bomb goes off in the middle east, then Israel will start wipping countries off the map. If the boogieman comes tonight and say's boo, it might scare us a few minutes. You do not run a country on if's and what if this one has wmd's, well then, let's go invade it.

It is over and done, the public doesn't believe the scare tactics and beware the boogieman is comming. Let me repeat what the bible says a book that was written before we was born, it will always be conflicks in the middle east and it will always be wars and up risings in the middle east. Who survives? The strong survives. If you screw with Israel, they will come and get you and along with your many "if's", if an atomic bomb goes off, then you better watch out, as Isreal is comming to wipe you out.

Do you talk like this in real life? Is this your idea of persuasion? "Pulling the puppet".

So Janet if you are okay with Iran having nuclear weapons, fine, but many are not. Like France, Germany, Great Britain, UN for example. Why do you think they have agreed to those sanctions are all? I know that you 911 truthers think you are all that, but you are really just naive little children it seems to me.