[careinke]

If, as is being reported, there were no American casualties, then our response will be more muted than some people expect. There are some juicy targets in Iran that are purely military in nature, but IMO we won't be doing a Desert Storm type total war air campaign like we did in Iraq. Some selected military targets unless Iran goes full retard. This will not please the Neocons but it will be a prudent response to what the Iranians have done so far.

I'm hoping no Americans were killed. Some stations were reporting that Iran may have deliberately missed with their targeting. I hope so, it might give Trump a way to back out with both parties able to claim success.

On the other hand, do you think we could take out Iran's Nuclear Program through airstrikes? We would probably have to use some of DARPA's toys to do that.

[Plantagenet]

I'm hoping no Americans were killed. Some stations were reporting that Iran may have deliberately missed with their targeting. I hope so, it might give Trump a way to back out with both parties able to claim success.

On the other hand, do you think we could take out Iran's Nuclear Program through airstrikes? We would probably have to use some of DARPA's toys to do that.

This would be a good time to hit Iran's nuclear facilities. Some of them are deeply buried....but we've got bunker buster bombs designed to penetrate and destroy deep bunkers.


Trump said he had 52 targets.....perhaps a dozen of them are Iran's nuclear facilities.....

Cheers!

PS: Careinke.....I read your post about his experiences in the military and I appreciate you posting your thoughts on this subject. Your military background and involvement in the bombing campaign in Libya make you uniquely positioned to provide insights as to what may be going on in Iran...assuming the US actually does respond to the Iranian attacks with its own strikes on Iran.

[derhundistlos]

I find it mildly amusing, yet frightening to read the comments by posters giddy with the prospect of more death and destruction. It's Republican chicken-hawks like Trump and Cheney, having never served, who invariably push for the military option.
Israel's giddy arrogance caused a humiliating defeat at the hands of Iranian trained and armed Hezbollah fighters in 2006. Scores of Israel's "invincible" Merkava tanks were destroyed by cleverly concealed Hezbollah hunter-killer teams. Then, during a televised announcement, the Hezbollah supreme leader informed the audience of the imminent destruction of an Israeli naval vessel by a sophisticated Iranian anti-ship missile, which almost succeeded in sinking the ship. At this point, the Isa=raeli's retreated from Lebanon in defeat.
Obviously, these posters have never been warned to be careful what they wish for. Iran ain't Iraq, and as with Hezbollah, Iran and her committed allies throughout the Middle East have been preparing for years for a Trump-style attack.

As Osama outlined during the US invasion of Iraq, a primary objective is to bankrupt the US treasury by engaging the US in perpetual warfare. So far, it's mission accomplished as the US has "spent"- via deficit spending, of course- a staggering $12 TRILLION on warfare in the ME. There used to be a time when Republicons demanded that the country stop adding to the red ink, but not any longer now that Trump's in office. Matter of fact, the GAO estimates Trump's FY2019 budget deficit will surpass $1 TRILLION. The estimate for Trump's FY2020 budget deficit will be in the range of $1.5 TRILLION as the full effect of Trump's $1.5 Trillion tax-cut for the wealthy and unlimited military budget come into line. We're now being told by Republicons that deficits don't matter now that Trump's amassing the largest deficits in history-lol.

[asg70]

I find it mildly amusing, yet frightening to read the comments by posters giddy with the prospect of more death and destruction.

This. All it does is further validate my negative views on certain posters' ideologies and value-systems.

For instance, if there's one thing I take away from Armageddon's spamming of the stock market thread is that the federal debt matters. It might not be beyond the point of no return the way he portrays it to be, but it's worth paying attention to. The worst thing we could do is blow what little buffer we have left on a full out war. We can only afford a policy of low-level containment and deterrence. In other words "Speak softly and carry a big stick". Trump is incapable of speaking softly.

[Plantagenet]

It's Republican chicken-hawks like Trump and Cheney, having never served, who invariably push for the military option.

I don't think any of the Iranian Mullahs have served either, and if anyone is pushing "the military option" it is the Iranians. They are the ones who just fired off 15 missiles at US troops in two bases in Iraq.

Cheers!

[Sys1]

Popcorn time!
Oil is going up fast, it's just what we need to crash our western civilisation who tryed to survive since 2008 with ultra low interest rates. Now they will have to put up those rates... which will crash all the bubbles inflated for more than a decade...

[EnergyUnlimited]

I was not expecting this.
If any war proceed and is restricted to US and Iran then US will obviously win.
Still invasion of Iran is unlikely and its success (if undertaken) is uncertain.
On the other hand attack has demonstrated quality of american missile defences...
No wonder russian S-400 are selling very well.

Regarding possible american casualties:
Trump will need to decide how hard is he going to respond.
This will predetermine contents of any official statement regarding casualties.

[Cog]

So far the Iranians, during this particular fracas, have managed to kill no Americans but did manage to shoot down a civilian airliner killing all 170 people on board, kill 56 of their own people at a funeral stampede, and generally show how inaccurate their ballistic missiles are.

Pretty much par for the Iranian culture and military. By the way, Israeli and US warplanes routinely fly through Russian AA coverage in Syria. The S400 is junk and is useful only against civilian airliners but not our stealthy fighters.

[Newfie]

Fox News is reporting the airliner crash as a mechanical failure.

Remember this? Not our finest hour.

Iran Air Flight 655 was a scheduled passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai via Bandar Abbas, that was shot down on 3 July 1988 by an SM-2MR surface-to-air missile fired from USS Vincennes, a guided missile cruiser of the United States Navy. The aircraft, an Airbus A300, was destroyed and all 290 people on board, including 66 children, were killed.[1] The jet was hit while flying over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, along the flight's usual route, shortly after departing Bandar Abbas International Airport, the flight's stopover location. Vincennes had entered Iranian territory after one of its helicopters drew warning fire from Iranian speedboats operating within Iranian territorial limits.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

[Cog]

Pictures taken at the crash site show shrapnel punctures in the wings and fuselage. Iran has refused to turn over the black boxes to Boeing. Some over-eager Iranian AA missile officer killed that plane. Ukraine itself has back tracked on its initial claim of a mechanical failure and has cancelled all flights into Iran.

Fox is going with old news.

[Cog]

Regarding Iran's response to our killing of their terrorist general. They fired 22 missiles which hit nothing. So either they missed intentionally meaning they are petrified about our response. Or their ballistic missile technology is so bad, they can't hit anything valuable at long range.

[Yoshua]

DoD: Iran launched 15 missiles, 10 hit the Ayn Al-Asad air base, 4 blew up in air (intercepted?), one hit Erbil.

Iran is warning that if the U.S attacks Iran, then they will target all the oil installations in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and UAE.

The global economy would enter a depression.

[Newfie]

Cog;

RE: Airliner do you have a link?

RE: Missile accuracy, they could resolve it by picking a target, could be a piece of sand, restating what they were gonna do, and dropping a missile on it. Could when send over a dud.

[Tanada]

Nuclear capable bombers deployed to Diego Garcia
https://www.westernjournal.com/us-deplo ... n-reports/

Oh for pities sake! Any vehicle that can carry a weapon is "nuclear capable"! There is no magic involved in carrying a nuclear explosive device, you just have to have the lifting capacity to actually move it. At the most basic a WW II aircraft designed in 1942 could do it so just how difficult do you think it is? Even more so the ships that moved the bombs to aircraft range were designed and built a decade or more earlier. A wooden yacht would work just fine for suicide bombers to sail right up to you and make themselves go boom.

[Newfie]

Or a FedEx truck?

When you have the nicest house in a shitty neighborhood there is a good chance it will be vandalized while you are on vacation, just because.

So you worry and sweat and take measures to protect your pretty house. But you become a slave to protecting the house.

That’s asymmetric warfare on a simple level. We have a lot of assets to protect, including our population. Iran, maybe not so much?

[Newfie]

Here is a report from the Independent backing up Cog’s claim.

Various sources saying a purely mechanical failure is “unlikely” and positing either a middle or bomb.

The one thing I don’t get is saying there are clear signs of shrapnel punctures. The whole thing is shrapnel as near as I can tell.

No one claiming responsibility yet. Airlines avoiding Iranian air space.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 75051.html

[jedrider]

Does remind me of when a US war ship shot down an airliner full of passengers after takeoff from Iran. Iran let that go without starting a war at that time.

Maybe, someone has a long memory over there if allegations are true.

[Plantagenet]

Trump is giving a speech this morning. Once again he is saying he doesn't want a war with Iran, although he is imposing new sanctions.

In the middle of his speech Trump hailed US military forces, and then took a victory lap for the destruction of ISIS, and the killing of al Bagdadi, who styled himself a new Caliph.

At the end Trump again called on Iran to stop their nuclear program.

All in all, a non-bellicose speech.

It looks like the ball in back in Iran's court. If Iran really wants a war then they will have to be the ones who start it.

Cheers!

[Revi]

Not much in his speech. I really don't know what he was saying. Will we have more tit for tat? Will it turn into all out war? Who knows?

[Tanada]

Or a FedEx truck?

When you have the nicest house in a shitty neighborhood there is a good chance it will be vandalized while you are on vacation, just because.

So you worry and sweat and take measures to protect your pretty house. But you become a slave to protecting the house.

That’s asymmetric warfare on a simple level. We have a lot of assets to protect, including our population. Iran, maybe not so much?

Indeed, the key to asymmetric warfare has always been the same tactic. Make your powerful enemy waste their treasure and lives while you survive to annoy them. Being annoying is easy peasy, it doesn't take a lot of money or a lot of manpower.

The biggest fear about dealing with fanatics is that, for example, infiltrators attack American infrastructure like transformer farms scattered everywhere and never guarded. The USA is Cris-crossed with utility pipelines, high tension power lines, and so on and so forth. The idea of defending more than a tiny percentage of that is a fantasy and any infiltrators worth the name would wreck havoc until they were caught.