IIRC a B-52 can carry a MOP and was even used in testing but only the B-2 is considered able to carry one today in combat operations. Why? Dunno.
Well, the B-52 requires modifications to carry it, apparently. I imagine we don’t have seven of those waiting and ready to go. Either way, Iran’s air defenses are almost certainly still in some sort of semi-useful state of disarray. I wouldn’t want to be in the B-52 trying to traverse their airspace.
I still do not understand why a MOP can’t be carried by a cargo plane and just shoved out the back. It has been done before and the bomb has some limited ability to guide itself to the target.
Granted, the cargo plane is probably an easy target but it is also something Israel could do if we gave them a few MOPs.
Well, I think in that case the limiting factor is the height you want to release a MOP from. A C-130 can only hit about 33K ft, and that’s empty. I understand you want to release a MOP at around 50K ft.
I got a C-47 out back. Wanna have a go?
It’d be interesting to see tried if only as a test to see if it can be done and work well enough that way.
I am sure I have seen it done before with other bombs (maybe the MOAB…mother of all bombs?).
ETA: Yup, the MOAB is dropped from cargo planes.
Yup. I agree. You can’t really separate the people from their government; if they cared enough, they’d throw out the assholes who are acting in their name.
I’m not advocating some sort of Arnaud Amalric approach to things, but you can’t wage war without accepting that you’re going to kill some innocents and make life uncomfortable for a bunch of people. It’s just the nature of things.
Yep, that’s how it works. The equipment’s the same, it’s just how it’s used.
I mean, I’m a bit confused as to how anyone defends Iran in this. They’ve been colossal dicks for decades, funding terrorism and enemies of the US since the fall of the Shah. And we’ve largely let them get away with it, These are the same assholes who cheered in the streets on 9/11 and have called us the Great Satan for decades as well. They’re the same dicks who mined the Persian Gulf, hijacked airliners, funded Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas.
Iran and state-sponsored terrorism - Wikipedia
They’re not our friends. They’re hardly innocent. I’m not feeling much sympathy for them, even if a boob such as Trump is the guy calling the shots. What’s that saying? FAFO? This could be the FO part.
You see, the Iranian people and leadership possess no agency whatsoever, all of this is America’s fault. /s
Say what?
IIRC Iran actually condemned the 9/11 attacks and I do not think there was widespread rejoicing in Iran over those attacks (not saying no one rejoiced but mostly was not a thing in Iran).
The rejoicing over the attacks happened in other places, not Iran.
Yes. The only way they could please us would be to install a new pro-American dictator who kills the old leaders and then institutes a reign of terror on the populace.
To be fair the current regime is using a reign of terror on its populace.
And we don’t care about that because it’s not our guys doing it.
Guys? I had guys? I didn’t know that.
There’s a long, long trail a-winding
Into the land of my dreams,
Where the nightingales are singing
And the white moon beams.
There’s a long, long night of waiting
Until my dreams all come true;
Till the day when I’ll be going down
That long, long trail with you.
It’s not about sympathy for Iran - it’s about lying, malevolent idiots like Netanyahu and Trump making snap decisions based on domestic politics and without real long-term thinking.
Liked I’ve asked before, with no answer - what if the attack failed, and Iran moved its expertise, material, and most equipment elsewhere? Then all we’ve done is supercharge their nuclear program, since they’ll know the only way to avoid another attack for certain is to get a nuke. In that case, should we invade? Drop our own nuke? Just give up?
The JCPOA was working before Trump ripped it up. Trusting that idiots like Netanyahu and Trump to stumble into a real and successful military solution with no blowback or unintended consequences is dumber than trusting that Bush and his team knew what they were doing in '03. Trump pulled us into a war because of his ego and we have no idea what’s going to happen next. Hundreds or thousands could die, including Americans, because of Netanyahu and Trump’s idiocy and shortsightedness.
A little more than a week ago Andrew O’Hehir (executive editor at Salon) wrote an Op-Ed about Netanyahu. There he speculates that
his obvious goal, which is twofold: Crushing any realistic possibility of an independent Palestinian state, and establishing Israel as the region’s unchallenged hegemonic power. If I had to guess right now, he’s gonna get both of them.
Are you seriously thinking that any state, apart from China, can be any kind of credible threat to the U.S. – including those with nukes – in any foreseeable timeframe? “Existential threat.” It’s not uncommon to see examples of American myopic, narcissistic paranoia, even on this board. But if history has shown us anything it’s that it’s a mirage, smoke and mirrors, probably connected to the “military-industrial complex.”
Because, it’s a common theme, both in autocracies and democracies, to use some imaginary threat (e.g. “They hate our freedoms”) in order to further a political agenda. Right wing parties all over Europe paint refugees as thugs, criminals and parasites. The Assad regime and the Ayatollahs made Israel and the U.S. into “existential threats” in order to keep arming, thereby being able to keep its own populations in check. Hell, my own country (Sweden) was able to paint Russia as an “existential threat” and we got conned into joining NATO, after 200 years of being neutral. And our local “military-industrial complex” is rejoicing, with stock prices booming..
That is just so much bullshit. Time and again people in different countries (including Iran) have tried to rise up against their rulers. But without guns and with the military supporting the regime, they tend to be killed in the streets and vanished.
Remember the Arab Spring? Yeah, that worked out fine, didn’t it? /s
I see your /s but it really is the U.K. and the U.S. who are the root of the current mess. And of course, ultimately it’s about oil. Pakistan, the country that hosted Bin Laden, has nukes. You claim that Israel has nukes (though officially it has not been confirmed). India, with Modi at the helm, has nukes.
Iran would never, ever nuke Israel. They are homicidal, terrorist hugging evil bastards. But they are not suicidal. Men in power seldom are. They know that if they lob one single tactical nuke, their whole country will be reduced to a 1 648 195 km2 lake of molten glass within hours.They want – foolishly – to achieve M.A .D. because to them, Israel is an “existential threat.” Which the last week has made very clear.
I know quite a few diaspora Iranians. They live here precisely because they fled Iran, not wanting to live in a theocratic hell hole. But they still have relatives in that hell hole that haven’t managed to escape. Real humans. People, who according to @bump only have themselves to blame. I can only assume that he feels the same about the Israelis getting killed by Iranian missiles because
if they cared enough, they’d throw out the assholes who are acting in their name
/s
Fuck you.
Before Trump pulled out of the jcpoa, Iran had less than 1% of its pre-deal 3.5% enriched uranium and had got rid of all of uranium with higher enrichment levels.
The warmongers are asking us to believe that Iranian leadership is ready and willing to commit personal and national suicide in order to harm Jews. Is that really more likely than, just like so much of the bullshit going on in America and Israel, it’s really more about domestic politics and internal propaganda (as well as about negotiations for sanctions and other relief)?
Which doesn’t make it okay, and of course doesn’t excuse Iran’s funding and aiding in terrorism against Israel. But that’s much, much different than an existential nuclear threat. Especially when Netanyahu has been making this same argument for thirty years.
And we have no reason to believe so far that these attacks even accomplished their goal. If not, then they’ve only made things worse (and maybe much, much worse). We still have no idea of the long term ramifications, consequences, and blowback will be. Even if they accomplished their goal, without toppling the regime, they may have only hardened the Iranian government’s resolve to get nukes.
All of these are reasonable concerns. And yet the warmongers would insist that we believe that Netanyahu and Trump, and their teams, somehow are threading all these needles and will get us to the other side without severe unintended consequences and blowback. How could anyone with half a brain have any trust in this?
I wouldn’t trust Netanyahu and Trump to accomplish a relatively easy international task, much less a hard one. And this one is not only very hard, but if screwed up could have massive and deadly ramifications for thousands or more.
It’s ludicrous to me that anyone except their toadies and cult worshippers would believe differently.