Are we hours away from war with Iran??

Originally posted by etshrtslr
The Iranian crackpot leader has his own fatalistic view of the end of the world and I think he is trying to bring that about.

I have a feeling he is going to get his... There are SIX USN carrier battle groups "in the area" and up to SEVEN Marine Carrier Groups "in the area"... hmmm... the U.S. Marines have little to do right now, with our new "small diameter bombs" a B-2 can carry up to 192 SDBs on a SINGLE SORTIE.... Good luck with that Iran. If they push us (or our pals across the pond) they are going to have 1,000 pre-selected targets hit basically simultaneously and with little or no warning (Tomahawks, SDBs, JDAMs, "Big BLU?", "MOABs" + Everything else we got). the coordination will be unprecedented and devastating, I do not believe we have seen real SHOCK AND AWE just yet. An EMP to take out their com just like in Iraq and their navy will last just as long as it did last time they dicked with the US.

Let the sailors/marines go Iran. It just isn't worth it. You may get a single BIG "win" via sneakiness (re: sink a carrier) but the consequences are NOT worth it.

news.sky.com...

[edit]

BREAKING!!

Iranian TV has released more footage that includes the operation. This is going to inflame the British even more.

[edit on 29-3-2007 by infinite]

Meaning behind captive's words?

Psychologists, body language analysts and military veterans have been studying the behaviour of Faye Turney, the British sailor captured by Iran and interviewed on television.
They say she shows obvious signs of unease, despite her claim on Iranian TV that the Royal Navy team's captives had been "friendly and very hospitable".

Psychologist Dr Peter Bull, of the University of York, examined her speech patterns.

He said the monotone nature of her speech, and her pauses, were "a sign that she's trying to choose her words carefully, or she's trying to remember what she should be saying".

looks like we have confirmed the obvious.

What are they waiting for??? how much time are they going to allow for this??

What are they waiting for???

NeoN.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Sick move by Iran, very sick and an insult.

The Iranians obviously think they are being very clever, but one only has to read the second letter to know there is no way those are the words of a British serviceperson:

I ask the representatives of the House of Commons after the government had promised that this type of incident would not happen again.

Ignoring the shoddy grammar, since when do Brits refer to MP's (Members of Parliament) as "representatives?!

Isn't it time for us to start withdrawing our forces from Iraq and let them determine their own future?

Of course Leading Seaman Faye Turney wrote that letter, of course she did...

Second Captive Letter

Cheers,
Zep

Originally posted by Zep Tepi
Ignoring the shoddy grammar, since when do Brits refer to MP's (Members of Parliament) as "representatives?!

See!!

we don't, we call them MP's

and what a suprise that Russia is being funny at the UN over this

For a country that keeps saying how they want to be seen as a world power and respected in the international community they sure have soiled themselves with this one. They're coming off looking like the disgruntled students in the '70s that took the US embassy personnel hostage. Way to go Iran... oooooooo you guys are SO scary.

War will not be started over the 15 detainees. All that would do is get them killed.

Originally posted by princeofpeace
War will not be started over the 15 detainees. All that would do is get them killed.

I take it you haven't seen this then...


I say the only action left now has to be strike with fury now and send in the SAS at the same time to rescue the captives.

All the best people,

NeoN HaZe.

[edit on 29-3-2007 by Neon Haze]

if they execute them....it would be suicide.
British public would be crying for blood (some are already)

Don't you also think it all looks like a nice flick with a bad plot, worse script and awful orchestration? It's so obvious the Iranians are teasing, mocking and provocing the Western World. Why would they do that? I read in a recent ATS thread somewhere they can't play chess - but Persia (like India, Arabia and China) has been playing that wargame long before Europe and America. They well know you have to sacrifice the Queen sometimes. The Towers have fallen already ;-)

This game looks so orchestrated... sick. I hope they prove me wrong and don't start a war over this. But hey - wasn't that our culture back when our ancestors lived in tents and castles and travelled on camels and horses? Take hostages and negotiate, take prisoners and ask what they know.

I think you have to ask yourself what any other country (Britain, USA etc.) would do if an Iranian military unit were edging across your border.

I havent seen anything from Iran, nor it's public that the British or Americans wouldn't themselves do if the roles were reversed.

They are calling for a withdrawl from a nearby country... yep, the British and Americans would definately do that if a neighboring country were under foreign control.
The public are calling for their executions. I've seen brits and americans calling for the executions of entire nations... the public is stupid, they are going to say and do stupid things. They don't speak for all of Iran.

Essentially, people in general do stupid things. Iranians are NO different from the rest of the world, including the UK and US. The only difference here is that the US and UK overspend on their military budget, which for some reason makes the public in those countries seem to think they are better, or more morally correct than other countries. An almost 'righteous' attitude.
In fact, you're human, just like the rest of them. No better, no worse. In their shoes, having lived through the things some of them have, you would likely do the same. Don't forget that.

I'm not saying action agains Iran isnt warranted... I'm neither saying it's justified. I'm just saying think before you speak. Think of what your own country would do if the roles were reversed. Typically you will realise it would do exactly the same thing.

Originally posted by johnsky
I think you have to ask yourself what any other country (Britain, USA etc.) would do if an Iranian military unit were edging across your border.

If that was the case we would have escorted the Iranian unit out of British waters and into international waters.

At that point we would have raised questions through the Iranian embassy as to why the Iranian unit was positioned where it was...

We would NOT Capture the crew of the unit and parade them in front of TV with False letters and disinformation!!

We would not allow the basic HUMAN rights of the individual to be eroded in such an outrageous way... And we WOULD NOT announce that we were going to release a woman captive only to say a few hours later and I’m paraphrasing... 'Actually because of your incorrect attitude we won't be releasing her'!!

One thing you said is correct though Johnsky... We are humans and we all deserve the same rights.... Unfortunately the Iranian government doesn't appear to want to give their citizens the rights they deserve...

It is for that reason that any action against the Iranian political and military infrastructure should be met with happiness by all those HUMANS in Iran that are sick of oppression and want Freedom!!!

All the best,

NeoN HaZe.

[edit on 30-3-2007 by Neon Haze]

1. The Iranians have been bagmen for Terrorism ever since Lebanon in the 1980s. The Embassy and the Marine Barracks were both their work with the Syrians supplying muscle and maybe bomb makers through their own Lebanese militias. That they have now brought the focus directly to themselves indicates a sea change whose nature is what should be troubling us.

2. All of Islam should have roundly decried and denounced 9/11. They should have opened their borders to an Interpol type taskforce and made it clear than anyone aiding or abetting UBL was themselves in danger of being held accountable as a criminal. This has not occured. Nor will it ever because these are religious wars in their public perspective as a quest for pan-muslim identity.

3. The more we yipe and yell and bark and growl, the less effective we seem to be because we question our own motives even as OUR public demands the extremes of action even as our governments say pretty words. One side should meet the other and unified face be presented, one way or the other.

4. If the SAS take anyone, it will be high ranking Iranian leadership targets. This is one way to make it clear whom we hold responsible while attacking ruling body-politick that cannot afford to be 'unheard or seen' in this trying time for them. The problem being that the Iranian governmental system is one of bought loyalties within very tight knit groups approaching that of a mafia driven system so that we would face a triple threat problem of:
a. Being unable to be certain that we had the right folks to end the threat.
b. Being certain that absent their covert control rod presence, the thugs of the IRG/AQ and other organizations would be able to exert self control or defend 'their' hostages against thievery by other militias.
c. Being able to convince the world that tit for tat was justified when our own defense is based on the LEGALITY of presence in Iraqi waters. For we truly have no right to be in Iran.

5. I doubt seriously if we have enough SDB to accomplish even a single mission. If this is to be the first of a small-IAM airwar, it will be GBU-38s not 39s which are used. In any case, the B-2 as presently configured cannot carry more than 64 of them because they are loaded onto BRU-61 SMERs using MPRL launcher stations (X4 X8 X2). You can drop more GBU-38 (80) from the CBM than you can small diameter bombs. Ordinarily, there would be a significant risk of overflight hazarding to the Spirit but the Iranian IADS, as advertised, is actually very primitive.

6. An LHA/LHS driven MAGTF is about a batallion's worth of landable expeditionary force. Driven hard with no stops for casualties or logistics (one of the principle advantages of wheeled over tracked onslaughts) we could easily put that many ashore and _drive_ to the nuclear facilities faster than the Iranians could defend them. We /might/ be able to put an airlanded force on-site long enough to keep them from evacuating key materiel, equipment and personnel until they go there. But to do so would mean an entire Air Wing assigned to each objective thrust. The key will be absolute and unrelenting preemptive BAI which obliterates all structures and approaches to the lines of march so that Iranian die hard forces can never gain prepositional contact with the Marines. The Navy can only sustain such a 'surge' conditioned operational scenario for a few days before they will need to restock and rest their ground crews and then only if the USAF supplies tanking. 'Bringing Fuel To The Fight' is THE KEY means of delineating how serious we are about projecting airpower. If tankers start to move up, it's game on.

7. In a part of the world where it is still okay to be so without being called 'racist', hypernationalism in Iran is a given. They will stage no revolution in place so long as they believe they face a communal threat. Anymore than we would. Add to this the phantom existence of a 'culturati' sensible-elite as anything more than window dressing in a political and cultural existence still driven by largely grass roots religious and political influence inherent to regional loyalties and the few 'decent' folk there are going to remain tight lipped lest they take more than a verbal lambasting for any belief which contravenes the official notion of their role as 'Young Kennedy' facade of Iranian sophistication.

8. The notion of defeating Iran, militarily is the same as that of defeating Iraq. The aftermath is as important as the conflict itself. If we humiliate but do not deviscerate the Iranians, we will have made enemies for life. They have a bug up their ass about Persia the Great Empire, despite the fact that it only persisted for a few hundred years almost 3,000 years ago. Losing that persistent self-image will be hard for them and the chipped-shoulder effect will lead them to make ever more dangerous alliances. OTOH, if we stay in Iran (and I frankly don't see how we can, at this point) we will equally lose face in the eyes of the UN which will either have to divorce itself from the U.S. and UK or be seen as impotent.
Specifically, we would have to secure Irans borders against any possible exportation of oil through FSU republics and that would be hard.

ARGUMENT:
War is about amalgamation of resources for most efficient exploitation by the whole. If you are not willing to fight for that, then entering the quagmire of threat-dictated vendettas of morality becomes a game of diminishing returns in which you imbed yourself in their own headgames of mental masturbatory 'justification for past ills'. If you ARE willing to fight for that, then 15 lives means nothing compared to the BILLIONS of dollars needed and gained in resecuring Iran as an icon of Western oil dominance as currency control.
In either case, having soldiers operate under 'restrained' ROE puts you in a position whereby acting in the interests of lowered tension merely makes them look weak enough to be taken. This is why soldiers make for lousy diplomacy.
Given this, the 15 Brits screwed themselves when they failed to fight back then allowed themselves to be exploited rather than face torture by refusing all attempts to exploit their capture or extort confessions. Because the perception of 'weak as a smoking woman' is already a given in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
So unless you are equally willing to secure a loss of Iranian face which precludes any perception of a 'technology wins where the righteous suffer' backlash (i.e. kill people, mano a mano, in numbers sufficient to prove that we ARE the stronger empire as much as technology base) that drives them onwards towards possession of nukes and other high tech toys, you are in a bad position by which to stage a smash and grab type forced entry operation.

Which is all that we can hope to do at this point. Do I think it's time to make the Iranians feel a physical twinge? Yep. And it should begin via another Praying Mantis type sinking of their Navy and destruction of their offshore assets. Along with deliberate hijacking of their telecomms so as to deny the population the comfort of propoganda from their leadership as a soothing reassurance of national integrity as much as war chant.

These things could be readily done with existing forces in place (and an EC-130 or three).

Past which we must create a scenario which drives them to madness wondering into which black hole of absent awareness of their own political landscape we will drive the first direct assault.

That this must happen /in spite/ of what may be done to the 15 is a given. Because, in the end, we must show these 'Persians' not how much we care for our own. But how readily we will sacrifice them to underline our position. Us big dawgs. You very little pups.

At the same time, we must prepare, globally, for assymetric counter attacks and in particular harden ourselves for ethnic/religious minority revolts in our own countries as 'terrorist' scenarios which make the Japanese internment in WWII actually seem like a good idea.

CONCLUSION:
It will get ugly. And it will get brutal. And much of whatever polished image we hold of ourselves and our moral motives in the world will have to be shed. But because it will be a stepped escalation process, it will seem like we are applying moderated force 'to prevent future specific equivalent events by rogue paramilitary forces' even as it shows in no small way that we /could/ do more to the national government which defacto backs them.

Originally posted by Neon Haze
Meaning behind captive's words?

Psychologists, body language analysts and military veterans have been studying the behaviour of Faye Turney, the British sailor captured by Iran and interviewed on television.
They say she shows obvious signs of unease, despite her claim on Iranian TV that the Royal Navy team's captives had been "friendly and very hospitable".

Psychologist Dr Peter Bull, of the University of York, examined her speech patterns.

He said the monotone nature of her speech, and her pauses, were "a sign that she's trying to choose her words carefully, or she's trying to remember what she should be saying".

looks like we have confirmed the obvious.

What are they waiting for??? how much time are they going to allow for this??

What are they waiting for???

NeoN.

You really would jump of a cliff if people said so wouldnt you.

What else do you honestly expect a 'psychologist' to say in this matter?
yet you take it as gospel.

Some people make me shake my head...
Even if they DIDNT tell her to say something specific, she's going to be chosing her words wiseley, have brocken speach, and look uneasy.

these psychologists make me laugh, they think they can understand every little thing, but miss the complete opposite.

the people that take this garbage and take it as PROOF of this that or the other, are obiviously easily fooled.


Personally, id like to see a psychologist present his views on the alqaeda dood, whom pleaded guilty to every terrorist attack in history.

Whoops, thats right.. we didnt allow him anything of the such.


[edit on 30-3-2007 by Kristol n Stauss]

You have voted ch1466 for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have two more votes this month.

Thank you so much for your insight. I read your entire post and I totally agree with you!!

You obviously have very good information and I am very happy that you could encapsulate the entire issue so completely.

Being a civilian I do not have the ability to understand most of the acronyms you used for the munitions but I understood the limitations you were expressing.

So far your words are the beacon of this thread and I salute you sir.

NeoN HaZe.

[edit on 30-3-2007 by Neon Haze]

Originally posted by Kristol n Stauss
These psychologists make me laugh, they think they can understand every little thing, but miss the complete opposite.

The people that take this garbage and take it as PROOF of this that or the other, are obliviously easily fooled.

This was not put forward as a proof of anything... More a case it was an informed opinion by a respected psychologist. An opinion I might add that confirmed what everyone was thinking.

Is there a conflicting opinion by an equally respected psychologist???

If you want actual hard evidence or proofs in this issue look at the GPS readings and sat images of the merchant vessels location...

All the best,

NeoN HaZe.

Erm, in relation to the British Sailors and Marines being "paraded" on TV I get the feeling that it's all being taken in a fairly hysterical manner. I hardly consider people sitting, eating and smoking to be considered "parading".

Okay, perhaps if they were cuffed and in lurid orange boiler-suits, I'd consider that parading.

I mean come on, everyone was panicking about their hellish treatment, at least they're alive.

Originally posted by ch1466
Given this, the 15 Brits screwed themselves when they failed to fight back then allowed themselves to be exploited rather than face torture by refusing all attempts to exploit their capture or extort confessions. Because the perception of 'weak as a smoking woman' is already a given in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

A very good post ch1466, but this point makes no sense. If those 15 had tried to fight off the Iranians, they would be dead and what hope for peace then? We heard gunshots on the latest video in an obvious attempt to scare, if the RN tried to make a dash for it, do you think Iran would have let them go, or shot a bit closer to the mark?

Originally posted by Muppetus Galacticus
A very good post ch1466, but this point makes no sense. If those 15 had tried to fight off the Iranians, they would be dead and what hope for peace then? We heard gunshots on the latest video in an obvious attempt to scare, if the RN tried to make a dash for it, do you think Iran would have let them go, or shot a bit closer to the mark?

They are soldiers... If they had made a run for it and had been fired upon then the course of action would have been clear.

Even if they were out numbered and out gunned, the fact they didn't fight when they were obviously within their rights was a fatal error on their part.

And ch1466 is right about non co-operation. All the captives should have said was name and rank. Nothing more nothing less.

NeoN.