Iran Super Thread- Merged

[Flip]

Obfuscation - they do it badly.

The Iranian government don't know or care to know their target
audience very well.  Unless - wait a minute - it's for the home audience!

It's all still ....ahem .... obfuscation.  ;D

 

[1feral1]

Their only audience and/or followers is the radical extreme side of their religion ( I hope). Sure we can throw in a few lunitic lefties too in our out societies, who hate our governments for some twisted reason.

I certainlly hope mainstreamers in these tortured states of terrorism, don't follow, and actually can think with proper reason, rather than being brainwashed by their regimes. If not, they too will reach their allah long before their time.

Followers such such crap beileve all what is said, and they are inspired by such ideals. Sadly, many in our own cities also do to.

Truly dangerous times are ahead for a long long time to come for us all.


Wes

 

[Flip]

Truly dangerous times are ahead for a long long time to come for us all.

Sadly - I agree.

The real danger is that the relatively liberal west will only catch on after it
gets really really painful.

 

[Long in the tooth]

The CIA spokesman who said it didn't deserve comment had better start to learn about propaganda and the 'hearts & minds' aspect.  This is another part of 'total war', and to leave the field free to your enemy in any aspect is a failure.

The Iranian's control of Nuclear Weapons is a critical issue.  Although conventional weapons (fuel air mixtures, Cruise missiles) can have terrible effects, just the prospect of an enemy having Nukes has an incredible effect on friends and enemies.  Should the Iranians announce a 'Nuclear Cap' against Israel for any real or perceived transgression, the Israeli Government would have to weigh that threat against any conventional action against Syria, Ha-mas or other power that has conventionally threatened it.

Destabilization of the region is not in the best interest for Syria, Jordan, Turkey or Egypt.  Israel will be accepting new variants of the F18 with better range and avionics soon (the first foreign deliveries from the US).  It's calculated that a 50 plane raid could set the Iranian plan back, even thought they are protected and dispersed.  Be prepared of problems with Turkish and Syrian radar problems when Israeli Jets 'surreptitiously' cross there borders.

Remember, the Israelis can win all the time - but cannot afford to lose once.

 

[a_majoor]

The NY Sun reports on further escalation by Islamic radicals on the internal organs of their home states. While in the short term the takeover would provide direct access to State power, the mid to long term results would be a further collapse of education, the economy and civil society in these nations:

http://www.nysun.com/article/64000?page_no=1

In ‘The Kingdom,' Darkness Deepens

By YOUSSEF IBRAHIM
October 5, 2007

A new movie is playing in theaters, and I recommend you see it. It's called "The Kingdom," and it reminds us of the scale of terror visited upon the world by Saudi Arabia's Islamist priesthood, its ruling family, its army, and many of its citizens.

Although it is an action picture, "The Kingdom," remarkably well-directed by Peter Berg, goes far beyond the usual fare and delves into the deep dysfunctions of Saudi society. Based on actual events surrounding the June 1996 terror bombings that left 19 American servicemen dead and seriously injured 372 other expatriates at a residential complex near Dhahran, the film captures the shocking degree of jihadist penetration into Saudi life — particularly into the Saudi National Guard, an army branch personally commanded by the country's current monarch, King Abdullah.

But in addition to the "The Kingdom," we got another glimpse into Saudi society this week — and an insight into how one step toward reform in that country is almost always accompanied by two steps back — when the grand mufti, Sheik Abdul-Aziz bin Abdullah bin Muhammad al-Sheik, issued a fatwa decreeing that Saudi Muslims should not fight in other people's wars — unless, of course, they are in "defense of Islam."

Given the fact that for two decades, Saudis have been fighting — and killing — in various countries, including Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, Lebanon, and Iraq, the grand mufti's effete decree left even residents of the kingdom wondering whether he lives on the planet Earth.

"Oh, grand sheik, what took you so long?" a pundit in a Saudi daily, Asharq al-Awsat, sarcastically exclaimed.

Another special moment was Monday's grandiose unveiling of Abdullah's much-anticipated judicial reform program. It dramatically expands the size and number of tribunals and courts in Saudi Arabia, adds judges, and opens new avenues for justice in civil and business matters.

There is just one hiccup: The reform failed to tackle the reason for all the current problems; namely, that Saudi judges are not lawyers nor even students of civil law, but religious priests who must be graduates of Islamic theological schools. In other words, the same folks who gave you broken justice can now expand it into new areas such as business and women's rights.

The move leaves the keys to modernization — in one of the richest countries, one sitting on nearly half the world's oil and natural gas reserves, and that has a thriving business community and a rapidly growing population of about 25 million men and women — firmly in the hands of bearded, sandaled men whose only knowledge consists of arcane interpretations of the Koran.

Elsewhere in the Arab world's steady march backward, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which represents the Islamists' most significant political opposition force, finally published its first detailed political program. The manifesto sent Arab progressives into deep shock.

Among its highlights:

• The revision of "every article" of Egypt's constitution in order to replace civil laws with Islamic sharia laws in "material, spiritual, financial, economic, psychological, and societal matters."

• The restriction of the government's top posts, including the presidency, the premiership, top army and police commands, and judicial posts to Muslim men.

Should the program be adopted, it would dispossess the 9 million Egyptians who are Christians (the largest such minority in the Arab world today) as well as nearly 40 million women, who are half the population.

But what really takes the cake in the Brotherhood's program, however, is its definition of who will arbitrate all laws and legislation: only "a committee of religious scholars as elders and guides" are qualified, the manifesto insists. And those "elders" are to be selected — as you might have guessed — by the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood (which itself is to be elected or chosen by none other than itself). There is no need to delve further into the entire 108-page document. If you've read Adolph Hitler's "Mein Kämpf," you have the idea.

ymibrahim@gmail.com

 

[Flip]

A_Majoor,

Nice post! I particularly like the punchline;

If you've read Adolph Hitler's "Mein Kämpf," you have the idea.

 

[tomahawk6]

Iran's nuclear negotiator has resigned. It appears that Iran doesnt care what the rest of the world thinks they are determined to obtain nuclear weapons. The US is at a crossroad. Do nothing and risk taking the road to nuclear war or take action against Iran with the potential for unintended consequences. If a decision is made to strike Iran then for the President timing is everything as we are heading into our primary season. I would favor striking in the Nov-Dec time frame so that the action has minimal impact on the race. If we dont strike now then the next best time would be next Nov-Dec after the election.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071020/ts_nm/iran_nuclear_dc

 

[Flip]

If the new "negotiator" is so hard-line that negotiations fail..........

Might this not accelerate the sanction cycle?

As Iran's strategy has been more about stalling and doing it's own thing
regardless of the UN, sanctions, and negotiations etc.

Maybe this is progress...........no more nonsense.
The talking can be appropriately blunt......Hmmmm.

 

[tomahawk6]

Great column by Jim Hoagland in the WP about how the Democrats,Russians and Chinese are forcing the military option on the administration.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201781.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

How to Rein in Iran Without War

By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, November 4, 2007; Page B07


Iran is working to produce a 20-to-50-pound stockpile of enriched uranium that it can use to build atomic weapons within eight to 10 weeks, once it decides to do so -- and has consistently lied to the United Nations about those efforts.

That headline conclusion is one of two basic points that I draw from a series of private meetings on Iran's nuclear ambitions involving diplomats, leading academic experts, senior military officers and experienced analysts from around the globe. The other: The impressive unity that the Bush administration has established in imposing sanctions on Iran is fraying because of war fears and commercial pressures and temptations.

Held over the course of this year in Europe, China and Russia, these unofficial traveling seminars provide a snapshot of international reaction to the unmistakable effort by Iran to develop nuclear weapons and to the threats by President Bush and Vice President Cheney to prevent that from happening.

The conversations, organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), have dealt in mind-numbing detail with Iran's uranium-enrichment program, diplomatic and military options open to the West, and more. In Moscow two weeks ago, I was treated to several hours of explication on precisely how a subclause in a recent Russia-Kazakhstan nuclear power treaty prevents Russia from demanding that Iran forsake enriching uranium on its own territory.

I feel like one of those poor geese on a foie gras farm in Alsace. Perversely, though, this information-stuffing has underlined for me the need to focus on the basic pieces of the complex Iranian mosaic. This is the time not to rush past the obvious -- not to get lost in self-interested political rhetoric, heavy-breathing sensationalist "reporting" about looming invasions or diplomatic flimflams such as the implausible Russian-Kazakh ploy offered in Moscow. It is a month to keep your hand on your wallet, your eye on the cards.

Bush holds talks on Iran with French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- another war-is-an-option fellow -- in Washington and then with German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- a firm waverer on military strikes -- in Crawford, Tex., this week. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin follows up on his mid-October visit to Iran, where he reportedly told the Iranians that he needed some concession from them, and fast, to enable him to keep protecting them from new U.N. condemnation.

And by mid-November, Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will report on whether the Iranians will now admit that they received and then developed P-2 centrifuges and got other nuclear technology from Pakistan, as was reported in this column in 1995 and as the IAEA has charged since 2002.

This is one basic that Bush critics frequently overlook -- in part because it gets lost in the overheated "World War III" rhetoric of the president: The IAEA and the U.N. Security Council have determined that Iran has lied about its nuclear activities and has therefore at least temporarily forfeited its right to enrichment for peaceful purposes. That Iran has gone to great, secretive lengths to create and push forward a bomb-building capability is not a Bush delusion.

But neither is it fantasy to say, as do Russia and China, that the Iranians have had great difficulty in getting their system of 2,952 centrifuges at Natanz, south of Tehran, to work effectively. The scenarios provided to Bush by U.S. and Israeli intelligence some years ago on what date Iran would get the bomb have not been validated. Bush does not face the pressure that he once anticipated for a binary, strike or no-strike, decision before he leaves office.

Paradoxically, time is running out on the diplomatic track, where Russia and China are blocking a third round of U.N. sanctions against Iran. This allows Cheney and other hawks to argue that waiting on diplomatic results is a waste of time. Blocking sanctions actually increases the pressure on Bush to move unilaterally and militarily.

China, blithely ignoring the potentially perverse effect of its actions, wants to maintain financial advantage and access to Iran's energy. Chinese participants emphasized that basic point to me at an IISS-sponsored gathering in Beijing in June. China would expect to be compensated if sanctions cost it business -- an attitude that would appall Germany's Merkel, Italy's leaders and other Europeans who have seen their trade with Iran plummet as a result of joining the U.S. financial campaign against Tehran.

The administration has too often pitched the confrontation with Iran as one that Bush alone will decide. Russia, China and Europe should do everything they can to prevent this from becoming necessary. Not backing the new U.N. sanctions brings it a scary step closer.

 

[CougarKing]

Great column by Jim Hoagland in the WP about how the Democrats,Russians and Chinese are forcing the military option on the administration.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201781.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

How to Rein in Iran Without War

By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, November 4, 2007; Page B07


Iran is working to produce a 20-to-50-pound stockpile of enriched uranium that it can use to build atomic weapons within eight to 10 weeks, once it decides to do so -- and has consistently lied to the United Nations about those efforts.

That headline conclusion is one of two basic points that I draw from a series of private meetings on Iran's nuclear ambitions involving diplomats, leading academic experts, senior military officers and experienced analysts from around the globe. The other: The impressive unity that the Bush administration has established in imposing sanctions on Iran is fraying because of war fears and commercial pressures and temptations.

Held over the course of this year in Europe, China and Russia, these unofficial traveling seminars provide a snapshot of international reaction to the unmistakable effort by Iran to develop nuclear weapons and to the threats by President Bush and Vice President Cheney to prevent that from happening.

The conversations, organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), have dealt in mind-numbing detail with Iran's uranium-enrichment program, diplomatic and military options open to the West, and more. In Moscow two weeks ago, I was treated to several hours of explication on precisely how a subclause in a recent Russia-Kazakhstan nuclear power treaty prevents Russia from demanding that Iran forsake enriching uranium on its own territory.

I feel like one of those poor geese on a foie gras farm in Alsace. Perversely, though, this information-stuffing has underlined for me the need to focus on the basic pieces of the complex Iranian mosaic. This is the time not to rush past the obvious -- not to get lost in self-interested political rhetoric, heavy-breathing sensationalist "reporting" about looming invasions or diplomatic flimflams such as the implausible Russian-Kazakh ploy offered in Moscow. It is a month to keep your hand on your wallet, your eye on the cards.

Bush holds talks on Iran with French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- another war-is-an-option fellow -- in Washington and then with German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- a firm waverer on military strikes -- in Crawford, Tex., this week. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin follows up on his mid-October visit to Iran, where he reportedly told the Iranians that he needed some concession from them, and fast, to enable him to keep protecting them from new U.N. condemnation.

And by mid-November, Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will report on whether the Iranians will now admit that they received and then developed P-2 centrifuges and got other nuclear technology from Pakistan, as was reported in this column in 1995 and as the IAEA has charged since 2002.

This is one basic that Bush critics frequently overlook -- in part because it gets lost in the overheated "World War III" rhetoric of the president: The IAEA and the U.N. Security Council have determined that Iran has lied about its nuclear activities and has therefore at least temporarily forfeited its right to enrichment for peaceful purposes. That Iran has gone to great, secretive lengths to create and push forward a bomb-building capability is not a Bush delusion.

Hmm, the article only mentions "Bush critics"- who may not necessarily always be US Democrats. But the part about the Chinese and the Russians trying to prevent UN sanctions on Iran is true and may push the Bush administration to the brink again, since we cannot have another nuclear-armed Islamic nation under the helm of nutbars like Iranian President Ahmedijinad.

The Russians obviously are siding with Iran partially because the Iranian military is still a customer for Russia's arms industry, while China's increasing demand for energy means they have to make sure one of their steady sources-Iran oil- is not threatened.

 

[FutureQYR]

To true, seems like the shit just keeps on comin' lately. I think alot of people don't see the bigger picture though, as was previously mentioned, it's hard to say what kind of a reaction allies of Iran (china, Russia) would have if the U.S and the rest of NATO invaded, and or bombed the ever loving s#!t out of Iran. Russia may place troops in Iran, and see an oportunity to "confinscate" the Arctic, China may take back Taiwan, nobody know, but the country's in question, that's the point. It's not so much the imminent threat of Iran's nuclear program that scares the Bush Administration it's the consequences of their actions to prevent set crisis, while the majority of their troops would already tied up in Iran.

 

[CougarKing]

Apparently, the US DoD has finished planning for possible attacks on Iran. Let's now wait and stay tuned on further developments and whether that nutbar Ahmedinjinad will continue past the point of no return...



http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,155821,00.html?wh=wh

U.S. Says Attack Plans for Iran Ready
Associated Press  |  November 08, 2007
WASHINGTON - U.S. defense officials have signaled that up-to-date attack plans are available if needed in the escalating crisis over Iran's nuclear aims, although no strike appears imminent.

The Army and Marine Corps are under enormous strain from years of heavy ground fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, the United States has ample air and naval power to strike Iran if President Bush decided to target nuclear sites or to retaliate for alleged Iranian meddling in neighboring Iraq.

Among the possible targets, in addition to nuclear installations like the centrifuge plant at Natanz: Iran's ballistic missile sites, Republican Guard bases, and naval warfare assets that Tehran could use in a retaliatory closure of the Straits of Hormuz, a vital artery for the flow of Gulf oil.

The Navy has an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf area with about 60 fighters and other aircraft that likely would feature prominently in a bombing campaign. And a contingent of about 2,200 Marines are on a standard deployment to the Gulf region aboard ships led by the USS Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship. Air Force fighters and bombers are available elsewhere in the Gulf area, including a variety of warplanes in Iraq and at a regional air operations center in Qatar.

But there has been no new buildup of U.S. firepower in the region. In fact there has been some shrinkage in recent months. After adding a second aircraft carrier in the Gulf early this year - a move that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said was designed to underscore U.S. long-term stakes in the region - the Navy has quietly returned to a one-carrier presence.

Talk of a possible U.S. attack on Iran has surfaced frequently this year, prompted in some cases by hard-line statements by White House officials. Vice President Dick Cheney, for example, stated on Oct. 21 that the United States would "not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon," and that Iran would face "serious consequences" if it continued in that direction. Gates, on the other hand, has emphasized diplomacy.

Bush suggested on Oct. 17 that Iran's continued pursuit of nuclear arms could lead to "World War III." Yet on Wednesday, in discussing Iran at a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Bush made no reference to the military option.

"The idea of Iran having a nuclear weapon is dangerous, and, therefore, now is the time for us to work together to diplomatically solve this problem," Bush said, adding that Sarkozy also wants a peaceful solution.

Iran's conventional military forces are generally viewed as limited, not among the strongest in the Middle East. But a leading expert on the subject, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says it would be a mistake to view the Islamic republic as a military weakling.

"Its strengths in overt conflict are more defensive than offensive, but Iran has already shown it has great capability to resist outside pressure and any form of invasion and done so under far more adverse and divisive conditions than exist in Iran today," Cordesman wrote earlier this year.

Cordesman estimates that Iran's army has an active strength of around 350,000 men.

At the moment, there are few indications of U.S. military leaders either advising offensive action against Iran or taking new steps to prepare for that possibility. Gates has repeatedly emphasized that while military action cannot be ruled out, the focus is on diplomacy and tougher economic sanctions.

Asked in late October whether war planning had been ramped up or was simply undergoing routine updates, Gates replied, "I would characterize it as routine." His description of new U.S. sanctions announced on Oct. 25 suggested they are not a harbinger of war, but an alternative.

A long-standing responsibility of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is to maintain and update what are called contingency plans for potential military action that a president might order against any conceivable foe. The secret plans, with a range of timelines and troop numbers, are based on a variety of potential scenarios - from an all-out invasion like the March 2003 march on Baghdad to less demanding missions.

Another military option for Washington would be limited, clandestine action by U.S. special operations commandos, such as Delta Force soldiers, against a small number of key nuclear installations.

The man whose responsibility it would be to design any conventional military action against Iran - and execute it if ordered by Bush - is Adm. William Fallon, the Central Command chief. He is playing down prospects of conflict, saying in a late September interview that there is too much talk of war.

"This constant drumbeat of conflict is what strikes me, which is not helpful and not useful," Fallon told Al-Jazeera television, adding that he does not expect a war against Iran. During a recent tour of the Gulf region, Fallon made a point of telling U.S. allies that Iran is not as strong as it portrays itself.

"Not militarily, economically or politically," he said.

Fallon's immediate predecessor, retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, raised eyebrows in September when he suggested that initiating a war against Iran would be a mistake. He urged vigorous efforts to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, but failing that, he said, "There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran." He also said he believed Iran's leaders could be dissuaded from using nuclear arms, once acquired.

The possibility of U.S. military action raises many tough questions, beginning perhaps with the practical issue of whether the United States knows enough about Iran's network of nuclear sites - declared sites as well as possible clandestine ones - to sufficiently set back or destroy their program.

Among other unknowns: Iran's capacity to retaliate by unleashing terrorist strikes against U.S. targets.

Nonmilitary specialists who have studied Iran's nuclear program are doubtful of U.S. military action.

"There is a nontrivial chance that there will be an attack, but it's not likely," said Jeffrey Lewis, director of a nuclear strategy project at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy group.

 

[midget-boyd91]

Among the possible targets, in addition to nuclear installations like the centrifuge plant at Natanz: Iran's ballistic missile sites, Republican Guard bases, and naval warfare assets that Tehran could use in a retaliatory closure of the Straits of Hormuz, a vital artery for the flow of Gulf oil.

The Navy has an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf area with about 60 fighters and other aircraft that likely would feature prominently in a bombing campaign. And a contingent of about 2,200 Marines are on a standard deployment to the Gulf region aboard ships led by the USS Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship. Air Force fighters and bombers are available elsewhere in the Gulf area, including a variety of warplanes in Iraq and at a regional air operations center in Qatar.

But there has been no new buildup of U.S. firepower in the region. In fact there has been some shrinkage in recent months. After adding a second aircraft carrier in the Gulf early this year - a move that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said was designed to underscore U.S. long-term stakes in the region - the Navy has quietly returned to a one-carrier presence.

Does the AP not know about ''loose lips?''

 

[duckman777]

Does the AP not know about ''loose lips?''

Of course they do! "Loose lips sink ships...and then we get a scoop."

 

[a_majoor]

Ralph Peters on the situation in Iraq. So long as these myths are propagated by the Left wing  "establishment" and the Jihadis to the mass audience, the Info Ops campaign will be firmly on their side. Many of the same tropes are parroted by Canadian groups, so this is good reading (in two parts):

This article by Ralph Peters in The American Legion Magazine struck me as useful reading for every American. I’ve pasted the entire article directly from The American Legion Magazine.

12 Myths of 21st-Century War

Unaware of the cost of freedom and served by leaders without military expertise, Americans have started to believe whatever’s comfortable
By Ralph Peters

We’re in trouble. We’re in danger of losing more wars. Our troops haven’t forgotten how to fight. We’ve never had better men and women in uniform. But our leaders and many of our fellow Americans no longer grasp what war means or what it takes to win.

Thanks to those who have served in uniform, we’ve lived in such safety and comfort for so long that for many Americans sacrifice means little more than skipping a second trip to the buffet table.

Two trends over the past four decades contributed to our national ignorance of the cost, and necessity, of victory. First, the most privileged Americans used the Vietnam War as an excuse to break their tradition of uniformed service. Ivy League universities once produced heroes. Now they resist Reserve Officer Training Corps representation on their campuses.

Yet, our leading universities still produce a disproportionate number of U.S. political leaders. The men and women destined to lead us in wartime dismiss military service as a waste of their time and talents. Delighted to pose for campaign photos with our troops, elected officials in private disdain the military. Only one serious presidential aspirant in either party is a veteran, while another presidential hopeful pays as much for a single haircut as I took home in a month as an Army private.

Second, we’ve stripped in-depth U.S. history classes out of our schools. Since the 1960s, one history course after another has been cut, while the content of those remaining focuses on social issues and our alleged misdeeds. Dumbed-down textbooks minimize the wars that kept us free. As a result, ignorance of the terrible price our troops had to pay for freedom in the past creates absurd expectations about our present conflicts. When the media offer flawed or biased analyses, the public lacks the knowledge to make informed judgments.

This combination of national leadership with no military expertise and a population that hasn’t been taught the cost of freedom leaves us with a government that does whatever seems expedient and a citizenry that believes whatever’s comfortable. Thus, myths about war thrive.

Myth No. 1: War doesn’t change anything.

This campus slogan contradicts all of human history. Over thousands of years, war has been the last resort - and all too frequently the first resort - of tribes, religions, dynasties, empires, states and demagogues driven by grievance, greed or a heartless quest for glory. No one believes that war is a good thing, but it is sometimes necessary. We need not agree in our politics or on the manner in which a given war is prosecuted, but we can’t pretend that if only we laid down our arms all others would do the same.
Wars, in fact, often change everything. Who would argue that the American Revolution, our Civil War or World War II changed nothing? Would the world be better today if we had been pacifists in the face of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan?

Certainly, not all of the changes warfare has wrought through the centuries have been positive. Even a just war may generate undesirable results, such as Soviet tyranny over half of Europe after 1945. But of one thing we may be certain: a U.S. defeat in any war is a defeat not only for freedom, but for civilization. Our enemies believe that war can change the world. And they won’t be deterred by bumper stickers.

Myth No. 2: Victory is impossible today.

Victory is always possible, if our nation is willing to do what it takes to win. But victory is, indeed, impossible if U.S. troops are placed under impossible restrictions, if their leaders refuse to act boldly, if every target must be approved by lawyers, and if the American people are disheartened by a constant barrage of negativity from the media. We don’t need generals who pop up behind microphones to apologize for every mistake our soldiers make. We need generals who win.
And you can’t win if you won’t fight. We’re at the start of a violent struggle that will ebb and flow for decades, yet our current generation of leaders, in and out of uniform, worries about hurting the enemy’s feelings.

One of the tragedies of our involvement in Iraq is that while we did a great thing by removing Saddam Hussein, we tried to do it on the cheap. It’s an iron law of warfare that those unwilling to pay the butcher’s bill up front will pay it with compound interest in the end. We not only didn’t want to pay that bill, but our leaders imagined that we could make friends with our enemies even before they were fully defeated. Killing a few hundred violent actors like Moqtada al-Sadr in 2003 would have prevented thousands of subsequent American deaths and tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths. We started something our national leadership lacked the guts to finish.

Despite our missteps, victory looked a great deal less likely in the early months of 1942 than it does against our enemies today. Should we have surrendered after the fall of the Philippines? Today’s opinionmakers and elected officials have lost their grip on what it takes to win. In the timeless words of Nathan Bedford Forrest, “War means fighting, and fighting means killing.”

And in the words of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, “It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.”

Myth No. 3: Insurgencies can never be defeated.

Historically, fewer than one in 20 major insurgencies succeeded. Virtually no minor ones survived. In the mid-20th century, insurgencies scored more wins than previously had been the case, but that was because the European colonial powers against which they rebelled had already decided to rid themselves of their imperial possessions. Even so, more insurgencies were defeated than not, from the Philippines to Kenya to Greece. In the entire 18th century, our war of independence was the only insurgency that defeated a major foreign power and drove it out for good.

The insurgencies we face today are, in fact, more lethal than the insurrections of the past century. We now face an international terrorist insurgency as well as local rebellions, all motivated by religious passion or ethnicity or a fatal compound of both. The good news is that in over 3,000 years of recorded history, insurgencies motivated by faith and blood overwhelmingly failed. The bad news is that they had to be put down with remorseless bloodshed.

Myth No. 4: There’s no military solution; only negotiations can solve our problems.

In most cases, the reverse is true. Negotiations solve nothing until a military decision has been reached and one side recognizes a peace agreement as its only hope of survival. It would be a welcome development if negotiations fixed the problems we face in Iraq, but we’re the only side interested in a negotiated solution. Every other faction - the terrorists, Sunni insurgents, Shia militias, Iran and Syria - is convinced it can win.

The only negotiations that produce lasting results are those conducted from positions of indisputable strength.

Myth No. 5: When we fight back, we only provoke our enemies.

When dealing with bullies, either in the schoolyard or in a global war, the opposite is true: if you don’t fight back, you encourage your enemy to behave more viciously.
Passive resistance only works when directed against rule-of-law states, such as the core English-speaking nations. It doesn’t work where silent protest is answered with a bayonet in the belly or a one-way trip to a political prison. We’ve allowed far too many myths about the “innate goodness of humanity” to creep up on us. Certainly, many humans would rather be good than bad. But if we’re unwilling to fight the fraction of humanity that’s evil, armed and determined to subjugate the rest, we’ll face even grimmer conflicts.

Myth No. 6: Killing terrorists only turns them into martyrs.

It’s an anomaly of today’s Western world that privileged individuals feel more sympathy for dictators, mass murderers and terrorists - consider the irrational protests against Guantanamo - than they do for their victims. We were told, over and over, that killing Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, hanging Saddam Hussein or targeting the Taliban’s Mullah Omar would only unite their followers. Well, we haven’t yet gotten Osama or Omar, but Zarqawi’s dead and forgotten by his own movement, whose members never invoke that butcher’s memory. And no one is fighting to avenge Saddam. The harsh truth is that when faced with true fanatics, killing them is the only way to end their influence. Imprisoned, they galvanize protests, kidnappings, bombings and attacks that seek to free them. Want to make a terrorist a martyr? Just lock him up. Attempts to try such monsters in a court of law turn into mockeries that only provide public platforms for their hate speech, which the global media is delighted to broadcast. Dead, they’re dead. And killing them is the ultimate proof that they lack divine protection. Dead terrorists don’t kill.

 

[a_majoor]

Part two:

Myth No. 7: If we fight as fiercely as our enemies, we’re no better than them.

Did the bombing campaign against Germany turn us into Nazis? Did dropping atomic bombs on Japan to end the war and save hundreds of thousands of American lives, as well as millions of Japanese lives, turn us into the beasts who conducted the Bataan Death March?

The greatest immorality is for the United States to lose a war. While we seek to be as humane as the path to victory permits, we cannot shrink from doing what it takes to win. At present, the media and influential elements of our society are obsessed with the small immoralities that are inevitable in wartime. Soldiers are human, and no matter how rigorous their training, a miniscule fraction of our troops will do vicious things and must be punished as a consequence. Not everyone in uniform will turn out to be a saint, and not every chain of command will do its job with equal effectiveness. But obsessing on tragic incidents - of which there have been remarkably few in Iraq or Afghanistan - obscures the greater moral issue: the need to defeat enemies who revel in butchering the innocent, who celebrate atrocities, and who claim their god wants blood.

Myth No. 8: The United States is more hated today than ever before.

Those who served in Europe during the Cold War remember enormous, often-violent protests against U.S. policy that dwarfed today’s let’s-have-fun-on-a-Sunday-afternoon rallies. Older readers recall the huge ban-the-bomb, pro-communist demonstrations of the 1950s and the vast seas of demonstrators filling the streets of Paris, Rome and Berlin to protest our commitment to Vietnam. Imagine if we’d had 24/7 news coverage of those rallies. I well remember serving in Germany in the wake of our withdrawal from Saigon, when U.S. soldiers were despised by the locals - who nonetheless were willing to take our money - and terrorists tried to assassinate U.S. generals.
The fashionable anti-Americanism of the chattering classes hasn’t stopped the world from seeking one big green card. As I’ve traveled around the globe since 9/11, I’ve found that below the government-spokesman/professional-radical level, the United States remains the great dream for university graduates from Berlin to Bangalore to Bogota.
On the domestic front, we hear ludicrous claims that our country has never been so divided. Well, that leaves out our Civil War. Our historical amnesia also erases the violent protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the mass confrontations, rioting and deaths. Is today’s America really more fractured than it was in 1968?

Myth No. 9: Our invasion of Iraq created our terrorist problems.

This claim rearranges the order of events, as if the attacks of 9/11 happened after Baghdad fell. Our terrorist problems have been created by the catastrophic failure of Middle Eastern civilization to compete on any front and were exacerbated by the determination of successive U.S. administrations, Democrat and Republican, to pretend that Islamist terrorism was a brief aberration. Refusing to respond to attacks, from the bombings in Beirut to Khobar Towers, from the first attack on the Twin Towers to the near-sinking of the USS Cole, we allowed our enemies to believe that we were weak and cowardly. Their unchallenged successes served as a powerful recruiting tool.
Did our mistakes on the ground in Iraq radicalize some new recruits for terror? Yes. But imagine how many more recruits there might have been and the damage they might have inflicted on our homeland had we not responded militarily in Afghanistan and then carried the fight to Iraq. Now Iraq is al-Qaeda’s Vietnam, not ours.
Myth No. 10: If we just leave, the Iraqis will patch up their differences on their own.

The point may come at which we have to accept that Iraqis are so determined to destroy their own future that there’s nothing more we can do. But we’re not there yet, and leaving immediately would guarantee not just one massacre but a series of slaughters and the delivery of a massive victory to the forces of terrorism. We must be open-minded about practical measures, from changes in strategy to troop reductions, if that’s what the developing situation warrants. But it’s grossly irresponsible to claim that our presence is the primary cause of the violence in Iraq - an allegation that ignores history.

Myth No. 11: It’s all Israel’s fault. Or the popular Washington corollary: “The Saudis are our friends.”

Israel is the Muslim world’s excuse for failure, not a reason for it. Even if we didn’t support Israel, Islamist extremists would blame us for countless other imagined wrongs, since they fear our freedoms and our culture even more than they do our military. All men and women of conscience must recognize the core difference between Israel and its neighbors: Israel genuinely wants to live in peace, while its genocidal neighbors want Israel erased from the map.

As for the mad belief that the Saudis are our friends, it endures only because the Saudis have spent so much money on both sides of the aisle in Washington. Saudi money continues to subsidize anti-Western extremism, to divide fragile societies, and encourage hatred between Muslims and all others. Saudi extremism has done far more damage to the Middle East than Israel ever did. The Saudis are our enemies.

Myth No. 12: The Middle East’s problems are all America’s fault.

Muslim extremists would like everyone to believe this, but it just isn’t true. The collapse of once great Middle Eastern civilizations has been under way for more than five centuries, and the region became a backwater before the United States became a country. For the first century and a half of our national existence, our relations with the people of the Middle East were largely beneficent and protective, notwithstanding our conflict with the Barbary Pirates in North Africa. But Islamic civilization was on a downward trajectory that could not be arrested. Its social and economic structures, its values, its neglect of education, its lack of scientific curiosity, the indolence of its ruling classes and its inability to produce a single modern state that served its people all guaranteed that, as the West’s progress accelerated, the Middle East would fall ever farther behind. The Middle East has itself to blame for its problems.

None of us knows what our strategic future holds, but we have no excuse for not knowing our own past. We need to challenge inaccurate assertions about our policies, about our past and about war itself. And we need to work within our community and state education systems to return balanced, comprehensive history programs to our schools. The unprecedented wealth and power of the United States allows us to afford many things denied to human beings throughout history. But we, the people, cannot afford ignorance.


Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer, strategist and author of 22 books, including the recent “Wars of Blood and Faith: The Conflicts That Will Shape the 21st Century.

 

[tomahawk6]

The IAEA finally got their head out of the sand to announce that Iran had 3000 centrifuges at Natanz, something the Iranians already had announced.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2212071,00.html

Iran has installed 3,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium - enough to begin industrial-scale production of nuclear fuel and build a warhead within a year, the UN's nuclear watchdog reported last night.

The report by Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will intensify US and European pressure for tighter sanctions and increase speculation of a potential military conflict.

The installation of 3,000 fully-functioning centrifuges at Iran's enrichment plant at Natanz is a "red line" drawn by the US across which Washington had said it would not let Iran pass. When spinning at full speed they are capable of producing sufficient weapons-grade uranium (enriched to over 90% purity) for a nuclear weapon within a year.

 

[TacticalW]

Looking over the news and seeing Russia, China and Iran get in so much conflict with the west is pretty worrying. With recent news of Chinas media being cut off from Western News, China having the ability to knock off satellites from the ground and the massive amounts of cash set to modernizing their military I can say it's pretty easy to start getting concerned. We see Russia supporting Iran and being close to allies, as well as China constantly pressuring Iran to go through with production on nuclear bombs and to me it seems like the staging grounds for another World War. Hell, the cold war has already rebooted and watching CNN is becoming mighty interesting as we see ourselves enter the same situation pre-WW1/2. From what I've read my perception is that the east is almost forcing us into more conflict using Iran and remembering how not only they supplied arms to insurgents in Iraq - but also Chinese and Russian arms were found. US is plunging into a recession and that is making things look a little more sour for our side as they are "the" key ally in all of this. Christ, considering Canada is sitting on very good rights to the oil opening up in the Arctic in times that energy is getting in dangerous demand - we "should" be pretty damn cautious. It seems like Russia and China are almost looking for a good excuse and any excuse to attack and get that precious energy which would turn them into "the" superpowers.

It really is getting fairly hostile out there and there are without a doubt some very dark times ahead.

 

[CougarKing]

Surprise, Surprise! The world's two greatest douchebags- aside from Kim Jong Il and Fidel Castro- unite. Well it's not a total loss, since King Juan Carlos I of Spain essentially did tell Hugo Chavez to essentially STHU when he went wouldn't shut up at some Pan-Hispanic countries' conference recently.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,156658,00.html?wh=news

Chavez, Ahmadinejad Unite Against U.S.
Associated Press  |  November 20, 2007
TEHRAN, Iran - The presidents of Venezuela and Iran boasted Monday that they will defeat U.S. imperialism together, saying the fall of the dollar is a prelude to the end of Washington's global dominance.

Hugo Chavez's visit to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran followed a failed weekend attempt by the firebrand duo to push the Organization of Petroleum Exporting States away from trading in the slumping greenback.

Their proposal at an OPEC summit was overruled by other cartel members led by Saudi Arabia, a strong U.S. ally. But the cartel agreed to have OPEC finance ministers discuss the idea, and the two allies' move showed their potential for stirring up problems for the U.S.

The alliance between Chavez and Ahmadinejad has blossomed with several exchanged visits - Monday's was Chavez's fourth time in Tehran in two years - a string of technical agreements and a torrent of rhetoric presenting their two countries as an example of how smaller nations can stand up to the superpower.

"Here are two brother countries, united like a single fist," Chavez said upon his arrival in Tehran, according to Venezuela's state-run Bolivarian News Agency.

"God willing, with the fall of the dollar, the deviant U.S. imperialism will fall as soon as possible, too," Chavez said after a two-hour closed meeting with Ahmadinejad, the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported.

As the dollar weakens, oil prices have soared toward $100 a barrel. Chavez said over the weekend at the OPEC meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that prices would more than double to $200 if the U.S. attacked Iran or Venezuela.

"The U.S. empire is coming down," Chavez told Venezuelan TV, calling the European Union's euro a better option and saying Latin American nations were also considering a common currency.

The leftist Venezuelan is a fierce critic of President Bush, and Iran's Islamic government is in a bitter standoff with Washington over Tehran's nuclear program. The U.S. accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, a claim Tehran denies, and Iran has been hit with two rounds of U.N. sanctions for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment.

Ahmadinejad backed his "dear brother" Chavez in their joint fight with the Bush administration.

"We have common viewpoints and we will stand by each other until we capture the high peaks. God is with us and victory is awaiting us," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by IRNA. He said he and Chavez would stick together to defend their "nations and ideals to the end."

During the OPEC meeting, Iran and Venezuela proposed that the cartel begins pricing its oil in a basket of currencies, rather than just the dollar, and wanted the summit to specifically express concern over the dollar's slide in its final statement.

Saudi Arabia blocked those moves. Saudi Arabia's foreign minister cautioned that even talking publicly about the currency's decline could further hurt its value.

Chavez repeated his warnings that attacking Iran would further increase oil prices. "It's very important that they leave us in peace, the major oil-producing countries," he said.

"If it occurs to Bush to invade Iran, I'm sure the Iranians will resist, and they aren't going to allow them to take away their oil, just as we Venezuelans wouldn't allow it," he said.

In Tehran, the two presidents signed four memorandums of understanding Monday to create a joint bank, a fund, an oil industry technical training program and an industrial agreement, Iranian state television said. It said Chavez then left after an official farewell ceremony.

On Chavez's previous visit in July, the two leaders broke ground for construction of a jointly owned petrochemical complex in Iran, with 51 percent of it in Iranian ownership and 49 percent to be owned by Venezuela. The two nations also began construction of a second petrochemical complex in Venezuela, at a total combined cost of $1.4 billion.

Chavez and Ahmadinejad believe their petrochemical partnership will help Iran win markets in Latin America and Venezuela to gain access to Asia's energy market, especially India.

Since 2001, the two countries have signed more than 180 trade agreements, worth more than $20 billion in potential investment, according to official reports.

Iran has partnered with Venezuela on several industrial projects in the South American nation, including the production of cars, tractors and plastic goods.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Chavez is an economic dolt.  What, exactly, does he figure is going to happen to his customers (and his cash flow) if oil goes to $200/barrel overnight?  And what is he going to do with his "worthless" US Dollars then?