A TV ad campaign on Iran has been launched in the DC area. I live in the DC area but haven't seen any of these ads yet. More details here.
When exactly has that happened? That Soviet Equipment did a real good job for the arab states vs Israel didn't they? Oh and saddam had such good success with his Soviet/Russian made stuff too against US made equipment. Don't you ever get tired of being wrong?
Okay #19, heres an example of your almighty super duper US tech: http://www.aeronautics.ru/f117down.htm And when you bring up Sadam, I don't know which war you're talking about, because the current one held no resistance against USArmy. Interception of few WWII equiped missiles is hardly a miracle. Next time you have something to say, just shut up.
I believe the example you cite shows Russia "occasionally" finding its way through defenses rather that "always" doing so.
Oh osi, you are such a clown. And not even a funny one at that. And yes our tech is super douper. It has no equal in the world. And when you look at all the successful missions that First Generation Plane completed and only lost 1 Aircraft that says quite a bit. Lets see, Desert Storm, easy US victory. Steamrolled over the 'vaunted' iraqi army. Then finished them off without breaking a sweat. In any fight the US Armed Forces really face no threat in the ME. I don't think the trench warfare/human wave WWI tactics will work for anyone against the US.
There were a couple of lopsided engagements between US forces and a couple of Iraqi Republican guards divisions. Those engagements took place at night, in open desert warfare, under circumstances that accentuated every US advantage and highlighted every Iraqi disadvantage. Otherwise, Desert Storm was mostly akin to a publicity stunt. Saddam had already made the decision to withdraw from Iraq through negotiations with Russia, his army was withdrawing from Kuwait, when US forces trapped them and killed them on the highway of death. I am not saying that the US would not have defeated Saddam's army easily even if they had not been ordered to withdraw. The majority of Iraqi troops, stripped of both the material and moral support they were accustomed to from the rest of the world, and now fighting merely for a unpopular dictator, were in no mood to sacrifice in a fight that would have nonetheless ultimately gone against them even if they had fought valiantly. As it were, they were ready to even surrender to unarmed journalists in any case. Not because of the real effect of US bombings and the attrition suffered by Iraqi units as a result, since US bombings (to the dismay of advocates of airpower) had in reality a marginal effects in terms of destroying material and equipment or inflicting casualties on Iraqi troops. No. The Iraqi troops, even during the Iran-Iraq war backed by the material and moral support of the international community, including very importantly from the psychological perspective the Arab world, had not shown willing to stand their ground and fight all that streneously. Stripped of it, and put in an opposite situation, fighting not just a superpower but practically the entire world during Desert Storm, the shia and Kurdish and even sunni soldiers in Iraq's army felt they had much better things they could do with their lives than to die for Saddam's meglomania. In purely military terms, the gimmicks notwithstanding, Desert Storm has very little to offer aside from obvious lessons that any tactitioner should have known even if Saddam had ignored. The two important lessons from Desert Storm, indeed, stand in opposite of what you would want to prove. First, Desert Storm proved the serious limits of air power. Second, Desert Storm showed that even in a relatively confined area (so-called "H3" in western Iraq), the US could not successfully hunt down even liquid fueled Scud missiles before they were launched! And, incidentally, those Scud missiles -- while packing very little punch due to Iraqi modifications to extend their range to allow them to hit Israel -- were generally not shot down by US patriot anti missile systems during Desert Storm. The US and Israelis lied about that too, only to admit the facts much later...
You keep spouting off but provide nothing to back up your silly assertions. Come back when you can actually prove what you are saying. You keep trying to downplay what the US was able to do to Iraq in both Desert Storm and in the Second Gulf War. I would say you are doing this to help make yourself feel better because you are afraid that the next time we are talking about US Military Dominance over their enemies it will be iran that is the loser.
OH YEA! The US soon will soon have freakin' laser beams!!! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16794717/wid/11915829?GT1=8921 (Just trying to add some humor to this conversation about WWIII. Carry on, as you were.)
I might even change "occasionally" to "once, maybe twice." Hell, if you shoot at something long enough you are bond to hit it every once in a while.
I don't get the sense that IM is saying Iraq's military didn't get the snot whipped out of them, but that the Iraqis didn't employ good strategy. Even then, I see him saying that the US would have won "going away," as it were. The point is more that Iraq retained missle capability, and that air power didn't work by itself. Essentially, strategic advantages and shortcomings are both valuable lessons to take from recent military actions in the region. It really isn't a question of which event of the many we've discussed on the board resulted in battles won; everything should be weighed when considering to act or not.
Troops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq in Friday's Washington Post. Apparently the December detentions of Iranians were not the first. This has been going on for a year -snip- -snip- (Emphasis mine) So apparently Elliott Abrams and his buddies in the Iran Syria Operations Group (OSP under a new name, anybody?) realizes that an American first strike would cause too much domestic political uproar. But now they have a plan in place that they hope will cause Iran to strike first. Once again American national interests are going to be weakened by fuckers who think they can maintain a unipolar world forever. Hagel in 2008. Elect an adult for a change. Take back the Republican Party realists!
Desert Storm involved very few real battles. Those few battles all took place in circumstances that favored the US greatly. Conversely, the battles which would have mitigated US advantages, including urban warfare in Kuwait City, were never fought. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of Iraqi troops and equipment were killed and destroyed as they were withdrawing out of Kuwait on the so-called highway of death. As you mention, I am not suggesting Iraq would not have lost anyway. But certainly, instead of adopting tactics that would accentuate their strengths while covering their weaknesses, they did the reverse. They opted out of the kind of fights where they might have bled the US, while two Republican guard divisions stood their ground to fight at night, in open desert, against tanks they could not see operating from a distance that was outside of the range of their T-72 but within the range of the the US Abrams tanks. The Iraqi tank crews, besides having limited night fighting capability, didn't have either adequate armor nor ERA protection either to even have a hope to face up to the challenge they faced. They were sitting ducks. Had Saddam adopted the proper tactics, Desert Storm would have been a far more costly fight for the US. At the end, however, the result would not have changed, in part because Iraq was simply not the kind of country to fight that kind of a war against the rest of the world. Just going against the kind of wide ranging international coalition that Iraq faced in Desert Storm, led by not only a superpower such as the United States but practically the entire world, can sap the morale of any army. The fact that the Iraqis were never a united bunch anyway, with many of the troops in Iraq's army more akin to Saddam's captives than soldiers, dented any willingness on their part to put up a fight even more. Militarily, there was little in Desert Storm to learn from. Except the lessons I highlighted regarding the limits to air power and its efficacy, both in truly degrading an opposing army's strength and, more specifically, in failing to destroy even liquid fueled missiles having to operate within a very confined area. Psychologically, however, and for better or worse, Desert Storm helped the US fully shed the its fear of foreign military adventures acquired from its Vietnam experience.
The US has 3 options here . The first one to is to attack Iran , if it is a air strike then Iran will retaliate and this will lead to an all out war and this will a worse case scenario for both sides but Iranian have the upper hand because they are fighting at home, they have Iraq , Afghanistan , Lebanon to play with and more importantly the Iranian people who will rise up as always and fight the aggressors . Iranians have suffered a lot and a war with America wont destroy the Iranian will . The second option is economic sanctions , again this will only hurt the Iranian people . I remember when we were fighting Iraq we had a bad economic situation and the government all kinds of capons to all people for daily things such as cooking oil . I doubt the economic situation will be worse then the 80’s if they do push hard with economic sanctions , but once again the Iranian people will rise up and fight these sanctions and hardships . The third and last option is the best one and that is a diplomatic solution , the American government should stop acting like a child and act like a leader which it claims to be . They should put all their differences aside and try to come up with a diplomatic solution that could potentially benefit all parties . At the end of the day , nothing is going to happen because all this media coverage and talk about Iran is benefiting the American government and the Iranian government .
If American politics was not so infested with special interest corruption, a person like Hagel would not only have a chance. But his ideas are the ones that could actually help the US extricate itself from the mess it has created in the Middle East, and in the process, help define a better future for the people of the region as well as the American people.
U.S. troops authorized to kill Iranians in Iraq Policy on operatives stirs concern among some U.S. officials Some latest developments in Iraq. With intentions aim on Iran. I don't see a problem here but I do think and in expert opinonization. USA should hold off of bombing any Iranian Nuclear Plants. I still think it is pre-mature but it might have to be done. Again that is for them shot callers though.
IMO, it's not just the special interest corruption, it's a deeper cultural problem. You've lived here and you were no doubt at times repulsed by the degree to which our culture is dominated by narcissism, materialism and hedonism. Believe me, I'm repulsed by it also. One could argue that these vices have always afflicted American culture, but never to the degree that they currently do. Since the average person is so preoccupied with those childish pursuits it's virtually impossible to engage in any kind of serious political discourse. Take a debate about the role of oil in our foreign policy, for example. There are only two sides in that debate -- there's the whiny, immature "no blood for oil" side that follows the Chomsky party line about how everything the US does in the Middle East is with the purpose of controlling the oil. Then there's the pseudo-patriotic jingoist side that claims oil has no role and we're fighting for freedom. There's no room in the media-slick, 30 second soundbite world to maturely acknowledge that access to oil is in our vital, national interest and once that obvious point is recognized debate how we maintain that access. Anyway, I'm oversimplifying and exaggerating (it is a rant after all ) but the central point is valid. It just amazes me the number of otherwise intelligent adults I meet who just don't have a grasp of the context in which American foreign policy exists. And so of course Hagel won't get the media attention he deserves. He's an adult who talks about boring subjects and doesn't want to pander to the Jon Stewart/Oprah crowd. Entertain me! Entertain me! Fucking children. So many complaints about Bush -- but he's just the sort of short attention span, ignorant leader we've come to deserve. America is on a rapid decline and we citizens are just as much to blame as our leaders. Rant over. I have nothing to add to this. You've hit the nail on the head. Well, actually I do have something to add. You used the word "ideas". Any discussion of ideas is overwhelmingly drowned out by the neanderthal grunting that passes for political discourse on any one of the gazillion "news" channels. I don't watch them -- I can hardly tell them apart from the gazillion MTV-like channels of perpetual orgasm.
The fact is the US wasn't lucky at all in Desert Storm. They set it up so that they fought the battles when we had the advantage. It is called strategy. Something that our Generals are very good at. As for ERA and other armor, they would not have helped against the US Sabot rounds. This has been proven time and again. As for looking for liquid fueled rockets, it makes no difference if they are liquid fueled or solid fuel, they are still moved and fired the same way. You seem to think there is some sort of major difference between the two. Except for the burn rates, there aren't. Being a solid fuel doesn't make it more stealthy or hide it better. Desert Storm showed that the US Military is far superior to any other conventional Military in the world. Better trained, better equipment, better troops, better period.
The decision to have Iraq's troops withdraw from Kuwait, line up on a crowded highway, so that the US could shoot the head and end of the convoy and then go on a "turkey shoot' was not made by the US. It was made by Saddam. He made many such mistakes during Desert Storm. Including in the way he had even aligned his forces, in a stationary position, trying to create various sorts of barriers for US troops, instead of working on the kind of 'swarming' techniques that can help offset the kind of advantages the US enjoys. A liquid fueled missile is much easier to track down and take out before it is fired simply because these missiles require a couple of hours of preparation and fueling before they are fired. A solid fueled missile can be launched instantaneously, giving the attacker no chance to take it out before it is launched. I should add that the range of Saddam's missiles forced him to have to fire them from a relatively confined geographic area called H3 by US planners. That meant that the US, which had mastery of the skies over Iraq (a country less than a third of Iran in size), could theoretically run patrols over that area and had some hopes of getting the Scuds before they were launched given the time required to fuel them and prepare them for launch. If the US couldn't get those Scuds, in a much smaller country, operating from a confined area within that country, using liquid fuel, and with much smaller arsenal of launchers and missiles, imagine the problems the US would have dealing with Iran's missiles. Incidentally, and not to be misleading, Iran's missiles are mostly liquid fueled as well, but Iran has some solid fuel missiles as well -- and is working to convert most of its major missiles to solid fuel.
I am very familiar with the Highway of Hell as I have seen actual footage from fighters and attack planes that were in that attack. Those 'swarming' techniques would have only succeeded in bringing about a higher body count for the iraqis. If you had actually served in a military and been a part of any war games you would know how foolish that type of thinking is. Those types of attacks worked in the past when rate of fire was about 1 shot per minute. That doesn't work in the modern world. And as you can read in my earlier posts, a smaller US force engaged and defeated quite easily an Iraqi armored brigade. And they did it without air support. A liquid fuel missile on the ground is no easier to find then a solid fuel missile. And you can prep and fire them pretty damn fast. As for finding them, mobile missile launchers are very hard to detect regardless of the area. But as we saw in iraq, and again with hezbollah, those misslies and rockets are pretty much useless.
Although I recall Mr. Boroujerdi (the chairman of the National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee of Iran's parliament) recanting the information that is reflected in this piece, possibly because the information he had shared was meant to be classified, nonetheless this report highlights work Iran is doing on preparing to launch its own satellites into space. The ability to launch a satellite into space is also indicative of a capability to build long range missiles, leading up to ICBMs down the line. http://www.gulfnews.com/region/Iran/10099644.html