Five Iranian Boats threaten 3 US Navy ships

The BBQ Pit
101

[QUOTE=elucidator]
Indeed, they had a lot of behavior to moderate. What was Saddam supposed to do to enter into select company, i.e., people we aren’t going to invade?
[/QUOTE]

You want a list?

Cooperation in the inspections regime - fully, without the fits and starts and blatant cheating that characterized their “cooperation” prior to 2003 and which, of course, drew a military response from the Clinton Administration.

An end to firing on our planes enforcing the No-Fly Zones, which had become an almost daily occurrence by 2002.

There was also the Bush assassination attempt, which drew a military response from the Clinton Administration (I wonder whether your skepticism is directed at them - it isn’t as if we were at peace with Iraq during the 1990s, you know).

There is more, but this is a good start.

You paint a picture of an Iraq that was not a problem to anyone - when the reality was something very different.

102

Actually, I paint no picture at all, I criticize your picture of a situation where war was inevitable. When offered expert testimony that contradicts you, first you demand a cite, and when you get it, you blow it off. Well, he’s just wrong. Kinda hard to argue with the World’s Foremost Authority.

The assassination thingy, as you surely know by now, is pretty weak tea. Kuwaiti Intelligence says so? Well, that settles that! No way they could have, like, an agenda.

And the shooting at our planes. You believe that? From people who lied to you on a daily basis, they tell you that they shot at our planes…what did Rummy say, over 700 times, and didn’t hit once! Not once! And you buy it, no problem, no doubt, no question, from people who…let me stress this…lied to you every fucking day!

You serious? No shit, you believe this crap? Man, don’t open any Nigerian e-mails, I’d hate to see you living in the dumpster behind the 7-11.

103

[QUOTE=elucidator]
Man, don’t open any Nigerian e-mails, I’d hate to see you living in the dumpster behind the 7-11.
[/QUOTE]

there are others who would pay to see that.

104

[QUOTE=elucidator]
The assassination thingy, as you surely know by now, is pretty weak tea. Kuwaiti Intelligence says so? Well, that settles that! No way they could have, like, an agenda.
[/QUOTE]

Well, as long as you’re talking about testimony, Madeline Albright presented this evidence on the floor of the UN.

Are you accusing her of lying now?

[QUOTE=elucidator]
And the shooting at our planes. You believe that? From people who lied to you on a daily basis, they tell you that they shot at our planes…what did Rummy say, over 700 times, and didn’t hit once! Not once! And you buy it, no problem, no doubt, no question, from people who…let me stress this…lied to you every fucking day!
[/QUOTE]

Again, this was a constant problem when I was in the Navy during the aforementioned Clinton Administration. Are you accusing him of lying? Rumsfeld wasn’t in the government at the time.

I don’t expect you to regard it as a cassus belli, but rest assured I have reason for feeling the way I do. You don’t agree. Fine. But it isn’t as if I formed my opinion out of thin air.

Meantime, you deliberately minimize the real problem Iraq posed.

We struck them militarily several times in the 1990s. Do you think this was justified? And if so, don’t you think that was because they posed a security threat of some kind?

Or if you think it wasn’t justified, then you really should denounce Clinton as a warmonger as well, especially as he kept up sanctions against Iraq that really did hurt an awful lot of ordinary people there.
[/QUOTE]

105

[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
An end to firing on our planes enforcing the No-Fly Zones, which had become an almost daily occurrence by 2002.
[/QUOTE]

Hardly. Our planes were being targeted daily, but certainly not fired upon daily - or even monthly.

106

[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
Hardly. Our planes were being targeted daily, but certainly not fired upon daily - or even monthly.
[/QUOTE]

Correction noted.

107

[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
Hardly. Our planes were being targeted daily, but certainly not fired upon daily - or even monthly.
[/QUOTE]

oh, so that makes it alright…huh?
So it’s okay if I wait for my local police car to make its daily cruise thru my neighborhood, point a pistol at the cop, but don’t actually pull the trigger?

108

Not quite that simple, old Chap. This whole thing is kinda murky, Rummy swore up down and sideways that the Iraqis were blasting away at our airplanes (IIRC, over “700” times) but for some reason, never seemed to hit anything. Strikes me as rather odd.

We discussed this at the time, various opinions. Someone suggested that the Iraqis were firing their missiles without turning on the radar, as this would fetch them a radar-seeking missile up the al-wazoo. Plausible, I suppose, but rather an expensive and useless display of pique.

109

[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
Well, as long as you’re talking about testimony, Madeline Albright presented this evidence on the floor of the UN.

Are you accusing her of lying now?..
[/quote]

I have no particular opinion about Ms Allbright. Her credibility, or lack thereof, is spectacularly irrelevent.

Is there some reason you keep bring up being in the Navy? So was Doggyknees, he’s on my side, does that make us even, military wise?

No doubt you have reasons, I just don’t happen to think they’re very good reasons, being as they are largely based on the assurances of people who have been lying to us wholesale for six-seven years now. If you want to believe them credible, I reckon that’s your beeswax. Have you noticed how few of the rest of us do? Well, there’s a reason for that.

Nope, that’s my actual opinion. No skullduggery involved. I don’t think Iraq posed much of a problem at all, certainly not a big enough problem to merit the solution, its like dealing with hemmorhoids by shoving a hand grenade up your Nixon and pulling the pin.

See above.

You seem to feel I’ve got some sort of connection to Bill the Cat, like if you can denigrate him, you prove my opinion biased. Yeah, Bill took some “military action”, so did GeeDub. You see, its a matter of scale, all military actions are not equal. The War of Jenkin’s Ear was not WWII, for instance. Scale, Moto, proportion! A BB gun is not a howitzer, you get my drift, here?

110

Maybe Moto could just change his handle to But, Clinton!?

-Joe

111

[QUOTE=elucidator]
We discussed this at the time, various opinions. Someone suggested that the Iraqis were firing their missiles without turning on the radar, as this would fetch them a radar-seeking missile up the al-wazoo. Plausible, I suppose, but rather an expensive and useless display of pique.
[/QUOTE]
One argument is that Saddam wanted to show that he was doing SOMETHING against the planes that were doing all the bombing ( IIRC about 100,000 bombs dropped ), but didn’t dare actually try to take down a plane.

112

Anyone who brings warships together to play games lacks the judgement required to skipper a man o’war. The US and the Soviets (and now China), have a Protocol on Preventing Incidents at Sea. Prohibited actions including;
==Manuevers interfering with carrier flight operations
==Manuvers designed to embarass another ship
==Training weapons on another ship*
==Training fire-control devices on another ship*
==Flying over another ship*

*WTF? You mean people did this stuff? What were they idiots? This is how wars start.

113

Curious about the No-Fly Zones, I looked it up in wikipedia. Wikipedia isn’t the best source in the best source in the world for this type of stuff, and the claims are cited, but here it is anyway:

Doesn’t say how often Iraqis shot at American and British aircraft.

I think they should have combined Operation Provide Comfort and Operation Southern Focus, though, and just made it Operation Southern Comfort.

It should also be noted that the No-Fly zones weren’t without controversy, and there is a good argument that could made that they were illegal (as in against international law). They certainly weren’t sanctioned by the UNSC and (from the wikipedia article):

114

Paul, that works well when you have two or more powers genuinely afraid of each other and afraid of igniting a fuse. Iran is not afraid, despite the fact that it’s Navy is of negligible threat.

Even with greater military threats, sometimes a country’s leader wakes up to find his cat has barfed in his slippers, and takes out his anger militarily. Less likely, IMO, is that the ship commander would do such a thing.

115

[QUOTE=BlackKnight]
Almost lose to the Canadians?
[/QUOTE]

Sure…but we sure kicked your Canadian Arse at New Orleans!

Man, you Canadians fought stupid there.

116

Bush warns Iran of consequences of any new naval crisis

US protests Iran harassment of US ships

117

The Iranians have released their own tapes of the incident (though incomplete). It raises doubts about the identity of the guy on the radio threatening the US ship.

Here.

118

This part sounds fishy to me personally:

I’ve never heard a US warship say something like that…though I wasn’t a communications tech either so take that with a grain of salt. Still sounds fishy to me.
I do find it interesting that this is ramping up. At first the US was saying that we would not even formally protest this…and now that it looks like it’s getting traction we are really milking this incident for all it’s worth. I take back some of the things I said earlier in the thread to 'luci et al. While I still think this was a serious incident it’s purely a political circus act now IMHO with Bush and his merry men playing it for all it’s worth.

-XT

119

USS Port Royal, is a Ticonderoga class cruiser with the hull/penant number of CG-73…

120

In the Iranian video, what was the gent in the boat requesting?

I couldn’t cut through his accent, sorry. I heard “Coalition vessel number 73… request side number (something) helo (something), over.”