Iran

[Bill_Thompson]

This morning I was thinking that this must make 2 or 3 apologies that we owe Iran.

But I had a dentist appointment with my Persian dentist and all she talked about was the fact that if she ever went back to Iran, she would be arrested because they do not recognize women's rights in Iran. She was talking about "The Revolution". At first I thought she was talking about Kohmenie, but I was wrong. She was talking in favor of an upcoming Revolution. She wants the United States to invade and she feels that the majority of Iranians want this and urge this and are wanting to join the Americans in taking over their government.

Here I was thinking that our president was being too hard-headed and his saber raddling was too much. And then I spoke to someone from Iran and she was telling me that the USA is not doing enough and she was practically urging us to invade.

Then I hear on the news that the Democrats are taking the good news as an opportunity to attack the President. Wait one second. So, you disregard Intelligence when it does not fit your paradigm but you embrace it when ever it does. Are we this stupid? Furthermore, Hillary was talking that her policy toward Iran was diplomacy and negotiation. What? Wait a moment, if we have anything to thank for the fact that Iran had abandoned its desire for a nuclear arm, it is NOT DEPLOMACY AND NEGOTIATION!

So, I started this morning thinking like a liberal and I by noon I was thinking like a neocon.

William Thompson:
http://www.illuminati-r-us.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?t=3555
Marcel de Kruif:

good picture
William Thompson:

ha ha
is it like me?
Marcel de Kruif:

absolutely
William Thompson:
that is the actor, Robert De Nero from a movie called "Analyze This"
Marcel de Kruif:
so did her family leave Iran after the shah left?
William Thompson:
You say that the USA is not to police the world. Well, we loose either way. We still get criticized for not entering Germany early and saving 6 million Jews.
Marcel de Kruif:
(the shah was also an interference of the good ol' USA)
that is Israel probably
William Thompson:
I do not know when she left Iran but I am sure she supported the Shah as the lesser of 2 evils. I remember when this was going down during the Jimmy Carter administration, there were people in IRan that called themselves the silent majority who supported the Shah
If we do nothing, we are criticized, if we do something, we are criticized. THe difference between a liberal and a neocon is that the liberals have too much faith that things will work themselves out.
Marcel de Kruif:
no, just about enough faith.
William Thompson:
so I once thought
may I cut and paste this conversation. I will change your name to something like "Marcel de Kruif" so that no one will recognize you.
Marcel de Kruif:
absolutely

[Superluminal]

I think it's interesting to note that if the Iranians did halt their wmd program it happened in 2003. And what happened in 03? Khan, the father of Pakistans nuke program was place under house arrest, is black market of selling nuke secrets was put out of business. Also, we invaded Iraq because we had, what we believed was good intel at the time, that Iraq was developing wmd's. Could that have had anything with the Iranians at least putting their program on hold until the next U.S. presidential election, hoping to have a POTUS they could deal with?

The timing of the report, just a couple of months after Israel bombed an alledged nuke site in the Syrian desert. Could the Iranians have been hiding their program out side their borders?

[Enzo]

So, you disregard Intelligence when it does not fit your paradigm but you embrace it when ever it does. Are we this stupid?

Yes, I think we are that stupid, since we as a people twice elected a major perpetrator of such actions in George Bush.

George W [strike]Lysenko[/strike] Bush

[Heid the Ba]

Interesting concept of democracy Bill; you think the US should follow the wishes of one former citizen who no longer lives in Iran rather than the wishes of the majority of Iranians. My understanding of the position in Iran is that the opposition there may not like the government but they like the US less.

Remember all the US based Iraqi exiles who predicted an uprising against Hussein and a quick painless war?

[Bill_Thompson]

By the way, we all missed something. This same group that came out with this intelligence report receintly also came out with a report back in July. Back then, they said that Iran and North Korea were the most threatening countries to the world and were persuing nuclear weapons.

NOW, this same group comes out with a report that says that Iran has not been persuing nuclear weapons for the last 4 years.

WHA?!

Furthermore, the leader of this group produces an intelligence report that is loaded with political recomendations. He is also noted as being a strong Bush hater.

Yeah, yeah, so what? But the point is this. Which report is more accurate, the one now or the one back in July? One contradicts each other. They both cannot be accurate?

Are we only assuming that the one now is accurate because it is what we want to hear and it fits our political agenda?

[Superluminal]

Interesting concept of democracy Bill; you think the US should follow the wishes of one former citizen who no longer lives in Iran rather than the wishes of the majority of Iranians. My understanding of the position in Iran is that the opposition there may not like the government but they like the US less.

Remember all the US based Iraqi exiles who predicted an uprising against Hussein and a quick painless war?

Some of the things I've read indicate that about 70% of the Iranian people would be on our side. Up until the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran was one of the most modern, pro western country's in the middle east. To what extent they would welcome a U.S. invasion, is debatable.

It's my impression from having served in the middle east, that a lot of the people there may not be happy with their government, but would be willing to sit back and let the Americans fight their fight for them. Which explains why the Kuwaiti security we worked with only carried 4 rounds of ammunition, while we were armed to the teeth.

[Heid the Ba]

Some of the things I've read indicate that about 70% of the Iranian people

I'm curious if this figure came from an exile, one of the ones who will want to be in charge once the current regime is changed.

would be on our side.

And there in a nutshell is the US problem. There is no "us and them" anymore, that was a flawed rationale during the Cold War but has lost all merit since 1989. The Iranian opposition don't want to be on your side, though some may want your help, they have their own agenda. I think that the US based Iranian opposition may well turn out to have as much support (and as much idea of the true situation in the country) as their Iraqi counterparts. If you help the opposition you are on their side, and having seen the chaos and attempted asset stripping in Iraq very few groups in Iran can seek US help without alienating their support. Would the US continue to support the Iranian opposition in goverment when they side with their Islamic neighbours, or when they elect an Islamic government, or look to their northern former neighbour, or decline to sell the US cheap oil? Support for democracy in Iraq seemed to disappear quite quickly once the election produced the wrong government.

Up until the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran was one of the most modern, pro western country's in the middle east.

The leadership was certainly pro-western, the fact there was a popular revolution which immediately brought the ayatollahs back would suggest the public were less so.

To what extent they would welcome a U.S. invasion, is debatable.

And here we are. :D

It is a moot argument since the US doesn't have the spare military capacity to intervene.

[Bill_Thompson]

51% of americans would support an invasion of Iran.

That is scary. I think there must be lots of middle-aged and older folks still upset about the Iranian hostage crisis.

[Heid the Ba]

51% of americans would support an invasion of Iran.

That is scary. I think there must be lots of middle-aged and older folks still upset about the Iranian hostage crisis.

If they want an invasion they had better be prepared to go themselves since your Joint Chiefs of Staff say they don't have anyone else.

[Bill_Thompson]

51% of americans would support an invasion of Iran.

That is scary. I think there must be lots of middle-aged and older folks still upset about the Iranian hostage crisis.

If they want an invasion they had better be prepared to go themselves since your Joint Chiefs of Staff say they don't have anyone else.

Do you have a link for that? I think that idea of yours is from something taken out of context. We have a fraction of active duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.

We have yet to really take either war as seriously as we took Japan and Germany once and these lands have not felt the full force of the US military. I recall that the US military is at least a million strong in personnel.

The number of US deaths in the whole Iraq war has been less than the number of deaths in many battles in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.

We are far from stretched to capacity.

[Superluminal]

I don't think Americans have the stomach for an all out war. Can you imagine how people would react if we did invade and lost 7,000 in the first day. 10,000 in the next month? During WWII, loses such as that weren't unusual. Before the invasion of Normandy, we lost 700 in a training accident. The news media would love it. Twenty four-seven coverage of the death, maybe a brief mention at the end of the news, "Oh, by the way, we won."

My parents had several newspapers from WWII. Very little mention of casualties.

[Enzo]

For every million soldiers we have, only so many can be put on the battlefield. SOme if the million are in the Navy, which has support roles such as firing cruise missiles, but does not send in an occupation force such as Iran or Iraq would require. Likewise Airforce. Some of them are back here in the USA, training new recruits, and otherwise doing all the logistical support chores a deployed army needs. SOmeone has to box up the MREs and someone else has to transport them. We have standing armies all over the world, and unless we no longer value them, we plan to keep them fully staffed.

Note that many of our state National Guard units are deployed to Iraq. They are not doing that so the regular Army can sit around stateside and wait for work. They do it because they don't have the ground forces in numbers large enough for the task at hand. And the National Guard is now so heavily deployed that THEY are stretched thin. In various disasters here at home, the Guard was not able to fully involve themselves in relief efforts since too much of their equipment was overseas.

Entire nations were at war with us in WW2. Times were different then, and the Army drafted people left and right to fill their ranks. Our entire economy was converted to war efforts. Auto plants made tanks, machine shops made bullets, textile plants made uniforms. And consumers were heavily rationed. The so-called war on terror is not really a war.

So that million man army won't be large enough to occupy Iran too unless you want real war, real drafts, real rationing, and the NAtional Guard giving up any pretext at being anything other than the Army.

[Мастер]

Entire nations were at war with us in WW2. Times were different then, and the Army drafted people left and right to fill their ranks. Our entire economy was converted to war efforts. Auto plants made tanks, machine shops made bullets, textile plants made uniforms. And consumers were heavily rationed. The so-called war on terror is not really a war.

The first graph here is rather striking...

[Halcyon Dayz, FCD]

Entire nations were at war with us in WW2. Times were different then, and the Army drafted people left and right to fill their ranks. Our entire economy was converted to war efforts. Auto plants made tanks, machine shops made bullets, textile plants made uniforms. And consumers were heavily rationed. The so-called war on terror is not really a war.

The first graph here is rather striking...

Man! :o

America is the only country that could have afforded that.

[Heid the Ba]

The first graph here is rather striking...

Man! :o

America is the only country that could have afforded that.

My recollection is that Isreal spends a huge proportion of GDP every year on defence, but an interesting graph none the less. I don't think there is any doubt that the US can fund the current wars indefinitely.

Slightly out of date but the US military is no bigger now than then, if anything retention and recruiting is worse now than then.

I can't find a link for General Pace's comments, only references to them. I'll keep looking.

ETA: Military spending as % of GDP. The figure for the US is lower than the 3.7% elsewhere so I don't know how accurate the others are.

[Heid the Ba]

A twofer from a year ago, the then Chief of Staff saying the Army of 570k soldiers is going to "break" under current strains. It explains why there is no capacity left and how this will cause problems.

[Halcyon Dayz, FCD]

This should be the most reliable and up-to-date publicly available source.
The CIA World Factbook (If it isn't, somebody is spending way to much money.)

It has Israel at 7.3% (2006) and the US at 4.06% (2005 est.).
But I don't think it is adjusted for the aid Israel gets from the US.

Iceland has zero military expenditure, location is everything. ;)

The US has plenty of money, or plenty of credit, but it does have a manpower problem.
I understand there are a lot of non-US-citizens in it's military these days, and they have resorted to hiring civilian 'technical advisors' in Iraq.
Basically mercenaries.