“…They’re definitely planning … But they need the intelligence first.”
No fucking comment.
Surely there are some idiocies beyond these arrogant morons. Please, there are, right?
Hey, everybody feel safer yet?
Veb
The only good thing I see in all this is an opportunity to welcome Kolack of Twilo and congratulate him(?) on a great choice of screen name. Yes, we are in the Twilo Zone. Unfortunately, we are showing no signs of waking up.
Maybe we should start checking the Bush administration for thumbs…
DU full?
So, wanna bet George will use his re-election as “proof” that the American people “approve” of Yet Another Meaningless War™?
Eh, he’d just get Condi to dust off those pre-Iraq-war speeches about the “smoking gun in the shape of a mushroom cloud.” Iraq, Iran, it’s just one letter…
I may take some shit for this…
… but I don’t really see the big deal. All Hirsch’s article mentoned was some recon ahead of a possible Tammuz-Reactor-style air raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Nothing about an actual ground invasion, just prep work for Air Force and Naval aviation - who, frankly, haven’t had much to do lately anyway.
Now, you may say this kind of operation is too risky. You may also say it’s an act of war (which it is) and morally wrong (which is debateable). And you may say that it will cause more trouble than it solves. These are good points of rational debate. But all this talk about sending in the Marines - not to mention reviving the draft (Dear me! The draft! What civilized nation has a draft!?) - is pretty much baseless, at least so far. I think we should all calm down just a little bit.
Well, thanks Tenar. “Him” is correct. Anyone want some walnuts?
I think the idea is that with all the rumbling and saber-rattling going on about Iran we either have to step up to the bar and do what we have said we will do or end up looking like we are full of hot air. And by “we” I mean the people who currently represent the U. S. of A. to the world. These folks have put us in a serious put up or shut up position.
Of course the idea of a draft is absurd. But we have already picked more fights than we can currently handle with the military personnal available. So what is the logical next step? Cut and run? Pulling out creates more problems than it solves. If overwhelming force is what it takes then it seems like a draft is going to become an issue at some point in the near future.
But as far as I know, the U.S. certainly has enough pilots and planes that they’re not currrently using to conduct a air-only campaign, witout resorting to a draft. It would cost billions of dollars in munitions, true, but the cost in U.S. lives would probably be pretty small.
The U.S. government may, in fact, be stupid enough to insist on “regime change” in Iran, or to send in troops to search for actual weapon stockpiles. If that happens then everything said in this thread is justified. I just don’t see any evidence for this in Hirsch’s article.
Precisely. What civilized nation enslaves its citizens and ships them off to fight and die in a war they don’t agree with? Furthermore, what army actually expects slaves to fight intelligently and bravely, and which soldiers would choose to trust their lives to people who didn’t want to be there and wanted to leave as soon as possible?
I guess I’m not one who believes in the surpemecy of air power. Most wars are won with a massive infusion of ground troops. I don’t even remotely think a draft would be popular, but I do believe this president and his cronies will get the U. S. into a spot where that is the only way the American people see a way out. Cut and run? I don’t think so.
What I find most scary about the Iran scenario is that Iran has something on the order of 3 time the amount of territory of Iraq. And something on the order or 3 to 4 times the population. We can’t even manage to get Afghanistan under control, how can we handle someplace as large and populated as Iran?
Not to drag this thread off on a tangeant, but I was being sarcastic.
And for the record, I was drafted, and the soldiers I served with were as highly skilled and as highly motivated as any in the world, including those in the so-called “professional” militaries. Furthermore, it is my belief that the best troops the U.S. armes forces ever had served between the years of 1942 and 1945, and would not have joined up if there was not a draft.
Of course, starting a draft in the U.S. now, for a war against Iran, would be just plain idiotic.
As a former infantryman I agree with you about the limits of air power. But nobody is talking about actually winning a war, not to mention occupying a county. All the U.S. is preparing to do (as far as we know) is to blow some stuff up. I think air power should suffice for that job.
I appreciate what you are saying and hope you are right, but as my initial post implies, I have a nagging sense that this doofus we have in office now and his pals see themselves as “instruments of God” in terms of bringing about the Apocolypse, Second Coming of Christ, etc. I know that seems looney to a rational person, but having been reared in The Great State of Texas (did you know it was once an independent nation? :rolleyes: ) and exposed to this sort of paranoia on a regular basis, I can assure you that there are multitudes of seemingly rational folk who would be thrilled to see those things come to pass.
This plan does make a bit more sense than half the crap posted in this thread. I can see some sort of air strike against possible nukewlar locations. It would back up our saber rattling in a tasteful, subtle way. It still comes with a bitter hint of war, and without some form of international support it would look like we are just going after muslims again.
Still, I can’t see it. Congress will not approve the draft since their jobs are still on the line. It’ll be a really hard sell in the media. The WMD claims are shaky as hell. Even if they are entirely true, they’ll be viewed as suspect. Internationally, this won’t fly.
Sorry kids, too many problems.
I have often thought that a lot of our current problems can be traced back to that bit of meddling … the installation of Shah Reza Pahlavi over the democratically elected government in Iran. I wasn’t around for that one, so I have no idea what the rationale may have been, but in those days it may have been something as simple as, “They’re towelheads gettin’ out of line, thinking democracy is for everyone and all.”
Basically America was just trying to help back the British who were upset with Mossadegh for nationalizing the oil industry and kicking the British out. The Shah at the time was an easily swayed idiot who signed a paper with no legal bearing to overthrow the democratically elected president. Basically Iran was looking at communism.
Any one who doesn’t know any history of Iran beyond the hostage crisis should read the book All the Shah’s Men. I believe it’s by Stephen Kinzer or something like that. It gives a good perspective on what Iranian people faced throughout the years, way before 1979 or even 1953.
Put me down in the “avance scouting for air strikes” camp. Bad enough, but invasion anytime in the next two or three years looks a non-starter. From a purely practical standpoint, I don’t believe the US has the resources to mount an invasion, let alone maintain yet another occupation, without a draft. If a draft were instituted today, it would take a year or two to get enough conscripts through the system to make a difference. And there will not be a draft today at least.
Unfortunately, I can easily see some excuse being generated to launch air strikes against Iran, probably related to cross-border assistance of Iraqi insurgents, with the President going before Congress to say that he regrets having to go back on his pre-election promise of no draft during his second term, but that Iran presents a Clear and Present Danger to US interests in the Gulf, etc…so the situation certainly bears watching.
Nah. This kind of shit has gone on for a long time. A decade ago, the parties were reversed: http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/news/9602/05/candidates.bosnia/index.shtml.
I’m not sure I follow you. Putting troops in Bosnia was ostensibly being done to stop genocidal behavior.
I’m suggesting that W. & Co. may be motivated by some fundamenatlist Christian ideas about what the book of Revelations in the New Testament says about the end of the world. Those folks sincerely believe it will invovle a large battle in the region where Iraq and Iran are. If you were to believe, like many of those folks do, that Bush is Prez at this time in history because God wants it that way, it isn’t too long before this idea would occur to you.
Or then again, it could just be that Bush is simply a king-sized jackass who wants to conquer the world.
Knowing what I know from some detailed reports I’ve seen, I would sadly forecast one thing:
If we go into Iran, we will find those weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, chemical, and biological.
Because they will be employed on Americans.
Tripler
I’ll go where I gotta go, but let’s not be hasty about such endeavors.