I'd suspect we blow the shit out a big portion of their military capability.
What a dumb decision by Iran.
What a dumb decision by Iran.
OT: Sounds like a war on Iran is imminent
- Thread starter ttowncoug
- Start date
ttown, the more you understand the theocratic dictatorship mindset, the more you understand that they did not have a choice. A single missile is probably the most moderate thing they could do.
All the histrionics, name calling and religious commentary aside, the theocrats needed someone upon which they could blame all of Iran's problems. The past 40 years have been an exercise in blaming Israel (and as time has passed, blaming them more as they blamed the US no more than they did during the Shah's time...and sometimes they even blamed us less, for their own reasons). Massive propaganda has been directed at their own people, which has been significantly circumvented by modern communication technology. All the various economic and diplomatic sanctions have significantly impacted the average Persian's quality of life. The dictators are one big mistake from being overthrown, and they know it. They wrote the playbook when they managed to dump the Shah, and they are verging on paranoid that the same will happen to them. So it is critical for their internal politics to keep the pressure on Israel. Hence their puppet armies in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere. Hence the drones they provide to Putin, since Ukraine has US and Israeli support. And now Israel takes out the top puppet in Lebanon? With the silent encouragement of the Sunni establishment? The Shiites are paranoid to begin with (and not without some good reason). They could not show submission or weakness. So they had to do something.
A big missile. But only one, as opposed to the last retaliatory attack on Israel with hundreds of smaller stuff.
A rat backed into a corner will bite. Silly to think otherwise. If they show weakness, they are afraid of what will happen within their own country. None of those guys wants to be Shah II. Israel will make noise, but this particular missile will not lead (in and of itself) to an escalation. Israel knew when it took out the guy in Lebanon that Iran would have to respond. I suspect they knew it would be something like this.
Update: the initial report I saw was one big missile. Subsequent reports are "hundreds", though Iran does not have "hundreds" of big ones. Again, though, Israel knew something would come. Let's see what they hit and what damage they do.
All the histrionics, name calling and religious commentary aside, the theocrats needed someone upon which they could blame all of Iran's problems. The past 40 years have been an exercise in blaming Israel (and as time has passed, blaming them more as they blamed the US no more than they did during the Shah's time...and sometimes they even blamed us less, for their own reasons). Massive propaganda has been directed at their own people, which has been significantly circumvented by modern communication technology. All the various economic and diplomatic sanctions have significantly impacted the average Persian's quality of life. The dictators are one big mistake from being overthrown, and they know it. They wrote the playbook when they managed to dump the Shah, and they are verging on paranoid that the same will happen to them. So it is critical for their internal politics to keep the pressure on Israel. Hence their puppet armies in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere. Hence the drones they provide to Putin, since Ukraine has US and Israeli support. And now Israel takes out the top puppet in Lebanon? With the silent encouragement of the Sunni establishment? The Shiites are paranoid to begin with (and not without some good reason). They could not show submission or weakness. So they had to do something.
A big missile. But only one, as opposed to the last retaliatory attack on Israel with hundreds of smaller stuff.
A rat backed into a corner will bite. Silly to think otherwise. If they show weakness, they are afraid of what will happen within their own country. None of those guys wants to be Shah II. Israel will make noise, but this particular missile will not lead (in and of itself) to an escalation. Israel knew when it took out the guy in Lebanon that Iran would have to respond. I suspect they knew it would be something like this.
Update: the initial report I saw was one big missile. Subsequent reports are "hundreds", though Iran does not have "hundreds" of big ones. Again, though, Israel knew something would come. Let's see what they hit and what damage they do.
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The problem is they are allies with Russia and maybe China so this has a chance to escalate quickly if war breaks out.
Apparently no one was hurt, and yes it was a barrage. Aside from our destroyers shooting down some of these missiles, I don't see the US getting directly involved at this point. If no one was hurt, maybe Israel will cool its jets, as they did way back when Iraq kept targeting them. If Iran thinks they have carried out their response, well fine then.
"The Iranian Mission to the United Nations said Tuesday afternoon that Tehran’s response has “been duly carried out”
It’s also interesting that:
- in spite of having relatively poor intelligence capabilities in the area - the US got plenty of heads up and was able to warn Israel this was coming, and position our navy to help intercept
- In spite of launching ~180 “projectiles”, it appears that very little damage and no reported injuries occurred. The same was true in Iran’s previous attack.
Me too - basically what I was inferring. The US cannot get "physically" immersed in this nightmare. And if the US can talk Israel down off the ledge there may be hope.
Well, and there's the problem. Israel has shown no interest in any form of restraint over the last year. Even when they've come to the table and the US has thought there was some sort of deal, Netanyahu keeps backing away. Based on their recent pattern, I expect that Israel - instead of accepting that no real harm was done, and that that was probably intentional - they're going to take a hard line and say that they have to retaliate...which will then mean Iran has to also.
At this point, I'd be 100% on board with telling Israel that yes, they have a right to defend themselves...but we can also choose not to provide them weapons.
Yeah, defense stocks are solid, but not surging...so investors don't seem to think we're on the brink.
We’ve sent the TN and OK National guard along with scores of troops and equipment.
It doesn’t seem like we’re talking anyone out of anything.
Pretty sure most of that is a result of Kamala becoming the Dem Nominee. Timing fits.
Haha - this is not an excuse to start that shit up again. just a fun joke. Keep your hands off your keyboard.......
Jokes aside, that is an interesting development. More on this...
Strange how both those states could actually use those troops to, you know, actually help their fellow US citizens.
Post when you aren’t drunk, Comrade.Pretty sure most of that is a result of Kamala becoming the Dem Nominee. Timing fits.
Haha - this is not an excuse to start that shit up again. just a fun joke. Keep your hands off your keyboard.......
Jokes aside, that is an interesting development. More on this...
Haven't had a drink yet today, but thanks for checking. If I post after 10PM? Well sometimes that is a different story.....
China buys 95% of Irans oil.
There is a reason they just torched off a nuclear capable ICBM capable of hitting Arizona.
It’s in Nut n’ Yahoo’s interest to prolong the conflict as long as possible for his political survival. Not unlike the boogeyman of Israel being a useful tool for the Iranian Revolutionaries to remain in power in Iran. Clearly Bennie doesn’t give an eff about bringing home the Israeli hostages.
Terrible what is happening to Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank and now the Lebanese but that said I’m quite happy to see Hezbollah finally pay just a little after chickenshit Ronnie Reagan didn’t do squat when their precursor, Islamic Jihad, murdered 241 US servicemen with Iran’s help back in 1983.
Yeah, I don’t mind seeing Hamas and Hezbollah get kicked in the nuts. Problem is that Israel is following the fallacious assumption that all Palestinians are either Hamas or Hezbollah…regardless of age, gender, location, or whether or not they are armed, fleeing, or in refugee camps. It’s making it pretty hard to tell which side is the terrorists.
I have some heartburn with how Israel is doing business but it's important to remember that there are a lot of villains in this story.
One thing that I'll say about Israel is that by doing what they feel that they need to do, they are making substantial progress towards their goals. Whether those goals are going to do any good? Well, that's a deeper more difficult discussion. Fighting a war based on other people's rules is why we ended up losing in Vietnam, it's why Ukraine is unable to inflict substantial harm to Russian troops within striking distance of their country and it's why Afghanistan is back in the hands of the Taliban. Half-assed tactics lead to half-assed results.
I think Israel has been guilty of war crimes in the past year and their decades long incursion into the West Bank is embarrassing for the United States to be turning a blind eye to. That said, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran and other Islamic extremist groups and countries have made it clear for almost 80 years that the demise of Israel is their goal. Israel feels that they have no choice but to strike boldly to discourage even more attacks. Millions of innocent people have been impacted, but their silent consent to the actions of the extremists in their midst is a huge problem in itself. There are no heroes in that part of the world...just different kinds of people acting in their own self interest even when their actions are harmful to themselves.
I think this makes a pretty decent summation of global politics - pretty much since we climbed down from the trees.
I mean, self-preservation in the face of genocide is kinda high on the self-interest list. Not sure I can fault any person or nation for defending themselves against those who wish them erased from existence.
And make no doubt - you could pick up the state of Israel, put it half way around the world and the tribal nations in the middle east would find something or someone else to place in their crosshairs, even each other. The religious fighting was happening before Mohammed floated down from heaven and will apparently continue forever.
As an aside, I did I little touch up on my history of "the troubles" in Northern Ireland since we were going to be in Belfast. Revisionist history now says that it had nothing to do with Protestants/Anglicans and Roman Catholics, it was all just political. Right. These opinions in the mid 2010's now redefining what ethnonationalism is, and seemingly removing religion as part of that equation. For what reason I could not tell you, but its a very curious way to redefine history.
Mitchell, Claire (2013). Religion, Identity and Politics in Northern Ireland. Ashgate Publishing. p. 5. The most popular school of thought on religion is encapsulated in McGarry and O'Leary's Explaining Northern Ireland (1995) and it is echoed by Coulter (1999) and Clayton (1998). The central argument is that religion is an ethnic marker but that it is not generally politically relevant in and of itself. Instead, ethnonationalism lies at the root of the conflict. Hayes and McAllister (1999a) point out that this represents something of an academic consensus.
Jenkins, Richard (1997). Rethinking Ethnicity: Arguments and Explorations. SAGE Publications. p. 120. It should, I think, be apparent that the Northern Irish conflict is not a religious conflict ... Although religion has a place – and indeed an important one – in the repertoire of conflict in Northern Ireland, the majority of participants see the situation as primarily concerned with matters of politics and nationalism, not religion. And there is no reason to disagree with them.
I guess the politics of "your king is not my pope" is completely non-religious according to these scholars.
But I digress.
Identifying safe zones for evacuees and then shelling them does not qualify as self-preservation.
Acting a lot like the white cavalry in the American west - taking land from the people who were there and barring them from it, mostly in the claim of some sort of self-defense. Refusing to acknowledge the right to exist of another people, implementing their own version of apartheid against them, making no concessions and basically escalating the conflict at every available opportunity. Yitzhak Rabin was the last one from Israel who actually tried any sort of compromise, and for his efforts he was assassinated. By an Israeli. Ever since, Israel's position has basically been "we'll stop killing you if you agree we can have whatever we want, and we can kill you if you don't do what we say."
A while back I did some reading on the post WWII Israel/Palestinian mess. Forgot most of it, may have to go back. I do recall Egypt's former involvement, and the fact that Gaza, for decades if not since inception, is basically just a giant welfare camp being supported by other countries. Kind of begs the question of why all these supportive Arab countries don't just take them in. I believe that was an option for Egypt way back when, and they refused. Correct me if I'm wrong.
October 7 was horrific, and I wish Americans would have been shown and told of the extent of what was done to the Israelis, particularly the women. I can only imagine what the women hostages went through, and are still going through if they aren't all dead by now. The Palestinians have done absolutely zero to combat Hamas' evil. So I hate to see the civilian deaths, but you know what? That's what you get for your silent acceptance of Hamas. Think of all the civilians who died in the carpet bombing of German cities. Well, very sad but they let Hitler rise to power. Not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki........
October 7 was horrific, and I wish Americans would have been shown and told of the extent of what was done to the Israelis, particularly the women. I can only imagine what the women hostages went through, and are still going through if they aren't all dead by now. The Palestinians have done absolutely zero to combat Hamas' evil. So I hate to see the civilian deaths, but you know what? That's what you get for your silent acceptance of Hamas. Think of all the civilians who died in the carpet bombing of German cities. Well, very sad but they let Hitler rise to power. Not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki........
Interesting post, Bleed. The following:
"Revisionist history now says that it had nothing to do with Protestants/Anglicans and Roman Catholics, it was all just political."
...is accurate if religious tribal identification is nothing more than politics. Of course, that is not the case, so the assumption that it has nothing to do with religious identification and a lot to do with politics is not correct. It would be closer to the truth to recognize that prejudice is seldom exclusive to one thing...be it religion, politics, wealth or lack thereof, social position, nationality, native language, local customs, etc. Humans often combine various prejudices to yield a complex response. In N Ireland's case, which was an outgrowth of hundreds of years of Irish/English history, religion became so entangled with the (many) other issues that it is impossible to parse it out of the equation. It is even very hard to try to fully understand how the various prejudices on both sides...religion, socio-economic status, educational background, employment opportunity, abuse of police authority, etc....were mutually connected. In any event, only someone in an ivory tower would suggest that religion had nothing to do with it. Only in the most simplistic & theoretical sense could you even say that with a straight face.
Exactly.
My question is why did the authors and the wiki make a point of stating it had nothing to do with religion? To what end? Motivations?
Occam's razor would suggest that they simply don't understand the situation fully. Just looking at the surface, you could probably try to separate religion from the situation. You could probably even find various religious figures decrying the situation. But the closer you got to the lives that were lived, the more obvious it becomes that it was one of the major ingredients in the stew.
Only a third of German voters supported Hitler. Political maneuvering, false propaganda, and back room (later backstabbing) deals with conservative nationalist groups is what really gave him power...with a lot of assistance from his own domestic terror organizations. My guess is that an awful lot of German citizens were pretty miserable even before the war started, knowing that things were not heading a good direction but that they couldn't say anything because their neighbors might rat them out to the Gestapo.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki paled in comparison to LeMay's firebombing campaign against Japanese cities. The same thinking we used to justify those raids in 1945 was rejected in 1942, but 3 years of all-out war created some significant creep in our collective moral compass and let us perform some mental gymnastics that we didn't accept a few years earlier.
Because some people think that if you disagree with anything that Israel and its supporters do/say, it means you hate Jews.
Not the case of course, and I'm not at all anti-Semitic. In fact I think that religion - any religion - is a pretty stupid reason to kill or die. Anything that's so completely unprovable or unknowable really isn't something it makes much sense take such a hard stance on.
Reality in the specific case of Israel/Palestine is that while parts of the Palestinian people and the general Arab world have been killing Israelis for 80 years and Jews for thousands, the present-day Israeli government has made it their policy that if you're not Jewish and you're on land they want, they can kill you. Worse than that, their policy is that if you're Palestinian, you're Hamas. That's the equivalent of saying in 1940 that if you speak German, you're a Nazi. Or in 1960, if you're white, you're a Klan member.
Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
While I don't disagree with your words, 95, I have to add that the island hopping to get to Japan gave us a good idea of what we'd face if we had to invade the home islands. There was an informed case to be made that casualties on both sides would be far greater with an invasion than they would be if a couple of nukes could induce the emperor to surrender. I think history has come down on the side of thinking that reasoning was pretty rational. Cold, perhaps, but taken in context it was probably a fair assessment.
Wrong.
True Story:
Once upon a time there was a man named Abraham. Abraham had 2 women, 1 wife, 1 mistress. The mistress was Hagar, and her son was Ishmael. When Abraham had son from his wife, Abraham gave inheritance to land to his Wife's son, and asked Hagar, Ishmael to leave with no inheritance.
Ever since then the descendents of Ishmael(Persians, Arabs, etc), have hated, been at war with descendants of Isaac, Jacob, Judah(Israel).
Israel was attacked by various ITES, and won, inherited promised land of Israel. Ever since then Palenstinians, Phoenician, Egyptians, Persians, Arabs, Nebuchaneezar, Babylonians, Syrians, descendents of Ishmael, Muslims, etc, have tried to exterminate, imprison, Israel, remove Israel from Israel's land. Sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding.
Israel got conquered by conqueror, over, over again, by Persians, Babylonians, Roman's, Nazi's, Germans, Egyptians, etc.
By the time of the Nazi, German haulocaust of 6 mil news, the Jews, Israelite, had been scattered all over face of earth.
In the mean time, the Palenstinians, Phoenician, Persians, etc, started taking over, and living in Israel's land.
Then in 1948 United Nation restored Israel's land back to Israel.
In about 1950 Israel became a nation again.
Then in 1967 the Arabs, Persians, Egyptians, Muslims, tried to exterminate Israel again in 6 day war, which Israel won, and retook the west bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, etc, which belonged to Israel anciently.
Then Israel worked out a agreement to let the Muslim Arabs, etc, administration, run, have possession of Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, and giving most of temple of Solomon to Arabs, Muslims, since Dome of Rock was built over Temple of Solomon, and the Jews, only got the Wailing wall.
Numerous times Israel tried to work out peace, etc, by moving Palenstinians to Gaza, and into Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and even gave govt parliament representation(Israel House of Reps, Senate, Congress) to Arabs, Muslims, Palentinians.
Over and Over Israel bent over backwards, and each time Israel did that, the Arabs, Persians, Muslims, Palenstinians sabotaged the peace process, Israel bending over backwards, and started attacking Israel, citizens, including even some Palenstinians, Arabs, Muslims, with guns, bombs, missiles, artillery, killing innocent civilians.
And then everybody, including LIBTARDS, etc, started telling Israel that Israel can't defend themselves, and siding with the Palenstinians, Arabs, Muslims, etc.
Time way past due for Israel, Repubs, Conservatives, Moderates in both USA, Israel to tell the LIBTARDS, Palenstinians, Arabs, Persians, Muslims to GO FCK OFF, FCK THEMSELVES.
That’s certainly true in reference to the decision to use the bomb. But the decision about bombing civilian populations had already been made before the bombs were ready…even before Roosevelt died. We were doing it in Germany already, and ramped it up in Japan.
Honestly though, I would argue that there never really was a decision about using the bomb. The Interim Committee only existed as a form of political cover, Truman made up his mind as soon as he was read into it. James Byrnes was on it to make sure it came to the right conclusion. The target cities were preserved and protected from bombing to make the effects more measurable, and that was done months ahead. We used those cities as living laboratories to measure and study the bomb effects and to provide notice to the world of what we had. Plus we’d just spent a couple billion dollars on development, so we were damn well going to use it.
And, for the record, I agree with using it. Maybe not with exactly how we used it - in Hiroshima our aiming point was a civilian bridge closer to schools and hospitals than any military target, and most of the military facilities and infrastructure were far enough away that they weren’t significantly affected. Nagasaki isn’t as clear a case because the bomb missed its target by 2 miles. Honestly I would have lobbied for dropping it on the imperial castle and cutting the head off the snake. Want to see what happens to a “living god” when he reaches 10,000 degrees? Watch while I burn his shadow onto the wall.
Found the “from da reever to da see” guy.
In 1942 the only way the US could bomb Japan was by sailing carriers to within striking distance. The USN had a total of 3 carriers in the Pacific. And we were a little busy getting our asses kicked. Strategic bombing started in earnest in mid 1944.
IMO, what is wrongfully omitted from the discussion is that Japanese were not surrendering. Guadalcanal- (1,000 estimate); Saipan- 921; Iwo Jima- 216; Okinawa- 11,250 (which included laborers). At Stalingrad 91,000 Germans surrendered.
My grandfather was in the Marines. I'm glad he didn't have to invade Japan.
