Israeli, Iranian, and US Forces Converging
Sun June 27th, 2004 17:19 MSTFOX News is reporting that Israeli commando forces are in Northern Iraq, and that an excess of US carrier battlegroups are heading towards the Persian Gulf.
Today, Iran stated it was going to restart its Uranium enrichment programs. In the last year, it has constructed large facilities for nuclear processing, and then buried them to protect them from attack. A considerale number of defensive positions surround these facilities.
In addition, there have been several reports of Iranian force buildups along the Iraq border (3 battalions) and of Iranian forces penetrating into Iraq.
Just revealed: An Iranian airport has been closed for a couple of months because, intelligence analysis believe, a spill of weapons grade uranium from North Korea happened. Note that weapons grade uranium, in sufficient quantity (a few tens of kilograms) can be directly fabricated into a nuclear weapon.
Iran also has a serious internal unrest problem. Real power is exercised only by unelected Ayatollahs, but a democratic structure underlies it - a Potemkin democracy. It has a largely young population, who want freedom and specifically like the United States.
A commentator on FOX stated that if Iran were to have a nuclear weapon, it would use it. Ayatollah Rafsanjani made a statement 18 months ago that can be interpreted to mean that it would attack Israel if it had a nuke, and simply accept the huge retaliatory casualties, on the logic that there are few Israelis and many Muslims. While this commentator considers it unlikely that Iran would use a nuclear weapon against Israel, Israel cannot afford to take the chance. A single nuclear weapon would devastate Israel. A ground burst weapon, used under the right meteorological conditions, could kill 100,000 or more people, and make Tel Aviv and Jerusalem uninhabitable for many years. Another possibility is the weapon could be given to Al Qaeda and used against the United States or Moscow. Thus the US also cannot affort to take any chances.
Some reports have Israel aiding the Kurds under the assumption that the United States’ goals in Iraq will fail, and Iraq will fragment.
However, a possible shorter term scenario is an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. A commando attack would be the preferred method, as destruction can be assured. Also, employees can be captured and interrogated, and intelligence gathered showing the current state of progress, the details of the technology, and potential information on other, unknown sites.
Israel could also launch an air strike, but with much less assurance of success, and no intelligence payoff.
Presumably in either case, the US would need to be aware and approve of the operation. Since Iran has been the primary opponent in achieving peace in Iraq, both directly and through their cooperation with Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, the US may be ready to punish or neutralize Iran, and may welcome such an operation, or coordinate with Israel in a combined strike.
A successful operation might temporarily halt Iran’s nuclear program, but it could serve to unify the population behind the current government. Iranians, ethnic Persians, are a proud and ancient people, and, based on this observer’s sources, would put nationalism above freedom from the Ayatollahs.
Hence Iran may be attempting to provoke such an attack, to relieve the domestic unrest. It is also possible that there are several independent programs, with the expectation that one or more will be attacked (which could be encouraged by suitable leaks), unifying the people and yet not stopping the nuclear program.
This could explain Iran’s taunting of the United States and Israel by announcing a restart of its uranium enrichment program (which has probably been running continuously anyway)..
I sure would like an independent analysis of the integrity of our carrier task forces. It seems like these will be the primary element of force projection for us in the forseeable future and I would like them not to be vulnerable.
A carrier battle group is a pretty impressive operation. It has primary defenses against air and submarine attack. The screen ships, these days AEGIS equipped warships, are capable of both ASW and air missions simultanrously, and have very advanced and networked battle management systems.
They may be a bit more vulnerable now that the SAMs no longer have nuclear warheads, and there could be vulnerability to quiet diesel submarines, but they are pretty well defended.
Also, they are substantially beefing up ship security. I talked to a young man (a second cousin) a few nites ago who is just entering the Navy, but had been in some sort of junior ROTC before that, and he was headed for a Master At Arms slot. The schools for that are clogged, as the Navy increases the number of people who specialize in ship security.
Iran is certainly a problem. But I think they value their civilization enough to refrain from the use of nucs outright. It would spell the end of their cities.
The real threat comes from handing off the capability to terrorist groups. They definitely have the potential to play this game. It must be made abundantly clear that a Mideast attack with nucs means instant retaliation, no matter what.
N. Korea is more likely to be involved in some worldwide scheme to sell nucs to anyone with cash. They should be warned in a similar manner.
It will happen. Its just a matter of time.
Sammy,
With the great generals of the Abstract Army for the enemy like Jane Fonda, NYT etc. and the mental retard liberals demanding proof and civility dealing with terrorists who sawed man’s head on video and a nation worries about offending the NYT, CBS & CNN than the lives of their soldier defending the main stream media right to stab behind our back, a nuke explodes in a Long Beach port container or any likewise location throughout USA, without any claim or claim but having no national attachement, what country can you nuke? We are a sitting duck awaiting for that to happen.
Lan,
The answer has to be: anyone who hasn’t come clean. I would hope that we have made that policy clear.
In the modern world, one reason to stop proliferation is to reduce the number of people we have to kill if we are attacked! We don’t want to kill most of the Persians on earth because Al Qaeda got a nuke from North Korea. But once Iran joins the nuclear club, then as far as I’m concerned,it joins the list of countries that will be destroyed if we are hit.
Somehow I get the feeling that a nuclear armed Iran is not going to happen, unless both we and the Israelis have a major intelligence failure, and our intelligence is perfect, right?\
I was surprised that we allowed the Norks to get the bomb, especially since they have ICBM delivery capability to the US. On the other hand, they are deterrable. In fact, just by having weapons they are being remarkably stupid, because if we are hit with a nuke, North Korea will glow for a long time.
Great sources, dork, david letterman ? You believe what you want and vote for ‘Hanoi-john’ kerry the first traitor to run for president.
And Paul O’neill is your source for inside information YOU are a total f’ing idiot.
Mark
Call me crazy, but I think the reason that we went
into Iraq, was the fact that we couldn’t make our
mind up over which country to get next. I think that
Iran is now *next* and Syria will have to be bored
for awhile.
No, we went into Iraq in particular for a number of reasons:
1) It was about to get rid of the sanctions and resume WMD production
2) It was headed by a dangerously unstable family - the leader was irrational enough that we could not count on deterrence. After all, the idiot tried to kill a former President, which any sane US administration would have treated as a grave act of war. Furthermore, his two prior wars were disastrous for him, but he did them anyway. Hence he was the most dangerous person to have WMDs.
3) The position of Iraq is strategic. Our forces there threaten Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
4) He was daily committing acts of war against us - shooting at our aircraft. Sooner or later he was going to get lucky and bag an American or Brit.
5) It was expensive for us to keep him in his box - $8 billion per year.
6) He had a history of cooperating with terrorists, with a number of killers of Americans taking sanctuary in Iraq, and Al Qaeda operating in the NE part of the country with the leader of the group allowed to go to Baghdad for medical treatment. And as we are finding out (but long suspected) he had other ties to Al Qaeda.
7) He had a strong goal of hurting the United States and destroying Israel - achieving fame and glory by doing the latter.
His regime was an easy target, and could be taken down with a small American and small civilian death toll.
9) There was reason to believe that a regime which favored America could be implanted there, preferrably a democratic regime. The latter is an attempt to change the internal politics throughout the middle east by putting pressure on despots - especially in Iran.
Fuck all you right wing mother fuckers.
If you would just pull your head out of GW’s ass
for a minute and take a look around, you will see that this country is being destoyed by the very people who profess to love it the most. Why do you bastards always hide behind the flag when difficult questions are asked? Because that is the last refuge of scoundrels and conmen.
Bush Sucks
[FROM BLOGMASTER: I have decided to leave this posting here, to show what kind of rude idiots exist on the left in this country. I suggested to this fool that it is a good thing he doesn’t live close to me, or I would retaliate in kind - go into his house, crap on the floor, and leave.]
Why cant we ever find these moron’s in person, just once. I’d beat the crap out of him with my cane.
They haven’t got the guts to show up or leave their real name but leave their disgusting calling card, which never makes any sense and they never have an original thought…But then again why should I expect anything civil from a bunch that would support an admitted war criminal and traitor.
Mark
I’m not sure why God would choose to save anyone who disavows his name, or seeks to persecute his people. Your kind increasingly works to remove any mention of God from the public purview; you spare nothing to take down and dishonor the American flag; you continue to condone the illicit use of illicit drugs, and you’ve ceaselessly and systematically murdered more than 37 million unborn children within the past 30 years.
And you signed that last bit of propagandistic tripe, “God Help Us”?
I’d lay off drugs if I were you, stranger.
David Radtke. Raised by unhappy, disaffected and wildly incompetent parents. This isn’t about politics with David, it’s an expression of hatred for everything he isn’t. For everything he never had, for everything he never WILL have. Peace of mind, concern for himself and others, a place for himself in the world. When you have nothing, and no willpower to change yourself, this is what you get. A David Radtke.
David. Patriotism being the last refuge of scoundrels is a cliche, and doesn’t alloy your post with the intelligence you expect. You also haven’t asked any difficult questions, just opened your mouth and something stupid spilled out.
If this is what you expect us to contemplate, we have. You’re an empty-headed loser. Peace.
The survival instinct isn’t always rational. David is part of a world gone by and he doesn’t like it. Liberalism, its dreams and expectations dashed by events, can only thrash about and vilify those who they think caused it.
Actually, it ended itself. It mutated into something transient, silly and, at times, dangerous. It adored comfort of every kind. A quite peace insulated from reality, heroes to love (Gore, Kerry, Clinton and the rest), power to abuse, a comfy social arrangment with liberals at the top. A dream world.
The dream evaporated and the nightmare of reality has to be dealt with, understood, absorbed. David is having a hard time of it.
Wow. Talk about rapid-response! I just penned a reply to some communist-inspired idiot, and by the time I doubled-back to check my work, “Fast-Carrier John” Moore had struck like lightning. I suppose that while I was in the process of posting, John dispatched a couple of heavily-armed F-111’s, and one of our earlier posters’ goofy words quickly became chopped liver!
Nice work, John. Go Navy!
Peace through superior firepower!
By the way, speaking of fast carriers: I’m doing extensive research on the battle for Okinawa, and for quite some time have been beating the bush for a hardbound World War II ship’s record of USS BUNKER HILL, CV-17. The book has long been out-of-print, so if anyone out there knows where I can find an existing copy, feel free to let me know.
Very much obliged.
OK John, we differ, we’ll let history sort it out.
But I ain’t changin’ my mind. BTW have you been over
to Hugh Hewitt Today?
Mike,
I find the idea that we went into Iraq because we didn’t know what to do next is rather silly, especially given the long list of reasons I provided, the list the administration provided, and the situation we were faced with.
We couldn’t go anywhere else with Iraq just sitting there. History has spoken. The reasons we went in are clear.
As to where we go next… I almost agree with you, except the reaction to Iran may be more subtle than just rolling over them.
John the point wasn’t made to be silly. As in any
conflict there are long range goals…a number of
them. The question then becomes one of priority.
Which one would present the best opportunity to
achieve the overall goal.
I assume you are referring to the marine’s letter on Hugh Hewitt’s. I got that in the mail this morniing. Good sentiment.
The spammers are trying to advertise a site owned by painter1984@hotmail.com
Mike,
I agree that we had and have a complex situation. I gave the reasons that I think gave Iraq a high priority. In other words, I don’t think it was an arbitrary choice, but really a rather obvious choice.
Other nations of interest would be Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia. Any other country (like Syria) would have a lower priority, especially since we were already negotiating with Libya.
What should I see on Hugh Hewitt today?
Why all th hub-bub bub? Just ues those LGM-118A Peacekeeper missiles that were going to be retired anyway?
http://murdertheleft.blogspot.com
American policy toward muslim countries particularly Iran and Syria is that of hatred and an unjust open enimity.If israel can be allowed to manufacture and owned nuclear weapons,why all eyes are on Iran? it is absolutely unfair.American leaders need to know that there have been always a limit to injustice.
It’s really simple:
1)Israel is a democracy. The other countries are not. The other two countries support terrorists and are, today, sending fighters into Iraq to kill our soldiers. Be glad we don’t just destroy those countries. We could at the push of a button, but we don’t do that sort of thing.
2)We want to stop nuclear arms where we can.
3)Iran has declared itself to be our enemy. Iran supports terrorists. We cannot allow our enemy to get nuclear weapons. The people of Iran want to be free of their regime. We would like for that to happen, but I, for one, don’t know how to make it happen. It has to be more important to stop the nuclear weapons than to free the country, even though we would prefer to do the latter.
Here is why we have to do away with nuclear weapons held by potential enemies.
Imagine that Iran and North Korea have nuclear weapons. Now imagine that a nuke suddenly goes off in Washington, DC. What do we do?
The answer is probably to destroy both countries with thermonuclear weapons. This is not a good thing. The fewer countries with nuclear weapons, the less likely we are to be attacked, and the less likely that we will need to kill huge numbers of people in retaliation.
The other thing that would happen if a nuke went off here is that we would conquer and occupy any country where a nuke might be hidden or produced. Would you like to live in a world where that happens?
We have a lot of power. We are also very vulnerable. The wrong attack on us will result in that power being used against anybody who could possibly threaten us. Look at what we did in World War II in 4 years. We are much more powerful now. You don’t want us to be attacked, and that means you do not want the Ayatollahs of Iran to have nuclear weapons.
Abdul either hasn’t a clue about the “open enmity” of Iran and Syria to The West, or he’s been schooled by CAIR in the use of the word “injustice”. The Left grabbed onto this word years ago; it gives their arguments a spurious respectability. Good answer, John. I particularly agree with your view that an attack upon us will result in a wide and broad response against anyone who COULD have done it.
Anyone that thinks Fox is news should watch the new documentary “Outfoxed,” which explains how right-wing owner Rupert Murdock created Fox as a Republican propaganda machine. Many former employees and experts are interviewed and they clearly reveal how Republican talking points are distributed to employees, and anyone that doesn’t sufficiently slant the news can be fired. The DVD can be purchased for $10 at Amazon.com, and numerous clips are available online.
I used to be Republican, but I have recently switched to the Democrats, in part because of the the alarming amount of power a select few businesses are starting to have on our government and society. If we aren’t careful, we risk losing our democracy.
As far as Iran is concerned, can’t you people see that there are scary people in our own country that wouldn’t mind if we started another war? Isn’t it quite obvious that the Iraq war has been a complete disaster and that the motives for going in were false? Any bellicose statements about Iran at this point are deeply troubling and highly suspect, especially if Fox News or the Bush administration has anything to do with them.
Concerned Citizen:
Better renew that garlic necklace too. You’ve switched to the Democrats because of the enormous amount of power in a few businesses, but have no complaint about the enormous amount of power in the government or the courts.
No comment either about the bias of the major networks. Do you have any problem with Michael Moore? Until you comment, you ought to stay clear of any judgment on Fox News.
Your spooky opinions about warmongers is, well, spooky. If your opinion about Iraq isn’t more informed than it appears to be, then it is pointless to discuss the matter. We could go over the reasons for the war, but why bother?
It is always futile to argue persuasively with a person like you. Your misunderstanding is so dense and deep that facts simply can’t break through.
You were never a Republican. You’re a superstitious Lefty with the usual assortment of prejudices, fears, urges, and blind spots.
Concerned Citizen,
Please give us your list of “a few businesses” that have accumulated this power you fear.
I’ll give you a list of some the businesses and organizations which I believe have accumulated, and exercise, dangerous levels of power and influence: ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, AFL-CIO (includes AFGE), NEA, ACLU.
I fail to see any significant connection to the Republican party or the slightest concern for the United States as a nation or any level of acknowledgement (never mind a common courtesy level of respect) for the issues which concern those who these organizations identify as their opponents.
I await your list or businesses which threaten the nation.
Knucklehead:
Harley owner by any chance?
You’ll have a long wait. The nickname says it all…”Concerned Citizen” has that nice lofty and elegant Lefty ring to it. Typically, two opposing posts were enough to make him run away.