I made it clear they don’t have numerous ICBMs yet. I know the difference. They have the largest missile arsenal in the region with the capability of hitting European(and soon US) cities. They are an existential threat to us all.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I made it clear they don’t have numerous ICBMs yet. I know the difference.[/quote]
I see. I guess I was just confused by this statement:
Saying that Iran has more short- and medium-range missiles than Israel is like saying that the Zulus had more spears than the British. The British had the Maxim Gun, making the point of the spear a bit moot.
Uh huh. Well, I won’t hold my breath.
In the meantime, the Jericho ICBM system can deliver a nuclear warhead, today, to the capital cities of every capital city in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America.
Lucky for you, Canberra is out of range.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a wheelbarrow.
[/quote]
She would also need to be shaped like a bucket with a protruding pair of handles.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a wheelbarrow.
[/quote]
She would also need to be shaped like a bucket with a protruding pair of handles.[/quote]
Yeah, I kinda fucked that one up.
The expression is actually “she’d be a wagon”.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a wheelbarrow.
[/quote]
She would also need to be shaped like a bucket with a protruding pair of handles.[/quote]
Yeah, I kinda fucked that one up.
The expression is actually “she’d be a wagon”.
[/quote]
For some oblique reason, I’m reminded of a joke I heard once. To paraphrase:
“I loved carving jack-o’-lanterns as a kid. It was so much fun. It was always weird, though, when your friends would carve jack-o’-lanterns, but they’d make them really flat, and they’d use wood pulp instead of pumpkin. And instead of cutting into their jack-o’-lanterns with knives, they’d just use pencils to write stuff about science and books on them, and they’d call them ‘homework,’ and when they showed it to you you were like, ‘Dude, that’s a fuckin shitty jack-o’-lantern.'”
ISIS is already on the downturn.
"Reports of rising tensions between foreign and local fighters, aggressive and increasingly unsuccessful attempts to recruit local citizens for the front lines, and a growing incidence of guerrilla attacks against Islamic State targets suggest the militants are struggling to sustain their carefully cultivated image as a fearsome fighting force drawing Muslims together under the umbrella of a utopian Islamic state.
…
The bigger threat to the Islamic State?s capacity to endure, however, may come from within, as its grandiose promises collide with realities on the ground, said Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.
…
Most striking are the growing signs of friction between the foreigners lured by its state-building experiment and local recruits, who have grown resentful of the preferential treatment meted out to the expatriates, including higher salaries and better living conditions.
…
The bodies of between 30 and 40 men, many of whom appeared to be Asian, were found last month in the Raqqa town of Tabqa. They are thought to be the remains of a group of jihadist fighters who tried to flee but were caught, according to the activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, which monitors Islamic State activities.
…
Public executions, a core component of Islamic State discipline, have in recent weeks been extended to about 120 of the group?s own members, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Some were accused of spying and one of smoking, but suspicions are widespread that most were simply fighters caught trying to flee.
…
Intensified efforts to persuade Syrians to go to the front lines in Iraq include offers of up to $800 a month in salary…The Islamic State ?was never popular, but people supported them because they were scared or they needed money,? he said. ?Now people want nothing to do with them, and if the Islamic State puts pressure on them, they just flee.?
…
Many of the foreigners show little inclination to travel to the front lines, he said. ?They just want to live in the Islamic State,? he said. ?They didn?t come to fight.? How useful they would be to the Islamic State?s military efforts is also in question, said the Carnegie Middle East Center?s Khatib. ?Ultimately, they are only attracting people on the margins of society, without much education or useful skills,? she said. ?It?s not exactly bolstering their military capability.?
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Iran has more ICBMs than anyone else in the ME. More than Israel. They already have medium range ballistic missiles that can reach Europe and within a very short time they will be able to reach America. It does actually represent an existential threat. ICBMs aren’t for high explosives. They’re for nuclear warheads. The batshit crazy Mullahs in Iran will soon have nuclear weapons(may already) and a huge arsenal of ICBMs. That’s an existential threat.[/quote]
Iran has no ICBMs.
The only countries in the world known to possess land-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles are the United States, Russia, China, India and Israel. France and Britain also have submarine-based ICBMs.
“The U.S. Department of Defense no longer assesses that Iran could flight-test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of striking the United States by 2015, which had been the judgment held by U.S. intelligence since 1999. Instead, an unclassified summary of the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on Iranian military power from January 2014 noted that Iran has publicly stated it may deploy a space launch vehicle by 2015, and that such a space launch vehicle could be capable of ICBM ranges if configured as a ballistic missile.”
A public statement that a country “may deploy” a space launch vehicle which “may be capable” of ICBM ranges is not exactly the same as having “more ICBMs than anyone else in the ME”.
[/quote]
"Iran has the largest and most diverse ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East…
[/quote]
A ballistic missile is not the same thing as an intercontinental ballistic missile. The article you linked, which neither has a date of publication nor lists its sources, uses words like “could” and “might” and “theoretically” a lot when discussing ICBM capabilities.
I suppose if Iran wanted to launch a missile over the border into Turkey, and if you consider Turkey to be Europe, then technically you could consider that ballistic missile to be “inter-continental” but at this point, that’s about it.
Listen, Iran was being ballyhooed as an existential threat to the United States when I joined the Army nearly three decades ago. The song “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran” (to the tune of “Barbara Ann” was a hit on the radio. They might have rockets that could theoretically hit Tel Aviv from Tehran? OMG. We DEFINITELY have enough nuclear firepower in one submarine to turn every city in Iran into a slag heap. So does Israel, except they carry theirs on trucks, not submarines.
[/quote]
From Sexmachine’s same source:
“Iran is sometimes described as the â??Hegemon of the Gulf,â?? but it is a comparatively weak conventional military power with limited modernization since the Iranâ??Iraq War. It depends heavily on weapons acquired by the shah. Most key equipment in its army, navy and air force are obsolete or relatively low quality imports. Iran now makes some weapons, but production rates are limited and Tehran often exaggerates about its weapons designs.”
It’s military budget is paltry at best. I’m not even sure if it’s 1 percent of the US budget. Combining the US and a few of its allies and it’s a fraction of 1 percent. I’m only 30 and don’t remember much of the USSR but I’m wondering how all these people even left their homes to get groceries in the 80s if they’re this scarred of Iran.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
And if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a wheelbarrow.
[/quote]
She could be a wheel chair, a race car, or a segway…Well she could.
[quote]BPCorso wrote:
ISIS is already on the downturn.
"Reports of rising tensions between foreign and local fighters, aggressive and increasingly unsuccessful attempts to recruit local citizens for the front lines, and a growing incidence of guerrilla attacks against Islamic State targets suggest the militants are struggling to sustain their carefully cultivated image as a fearsome fighting force drawing Muslims together under the umbrella of a utopian Islamic state.
…
The bigger threat to the Islamic State?s capacity to endure, however, may come from within, as its grandiose promises collide with realities on the ground, said Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.
…
Most striking are the growing signs of friction between the foreigners lured by its state-building experiment and local recruits, who have grown resentful of the preferential treatment meted out to the expatriates, including higher salaries and better living conditions.
…
The bodies of between 30 and 40 men, many of whom appeared to be Asian, were found last month in the Raqqa town of Tabqa. They are thought to be the remains of a group of jihadist fighters who tried to flee but were caught, according to the activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, which monitors Islamic State activities.
…
Public executions, a core component of Islamic State discipline, have in recent weeks been extended to about 120 of the group?s own members, according to the ÂBritain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Some were accused of spying and one of smoking, but suspicions are widespread that most were simply fighters caught trying to flee.
…
Intensified efforts to persuade Syrians to go to the front lines in Iraq include offers of up to $800 a month in salary…The Islamic State ?was never popular, but people supported them because they were scared or they needed money,? he said. ?Now people want nothing to do with them, and if the Islamic State puts pressure on them, they just flee.?
…
Many of the foreigners show little inclination to travel to the front lines, he said. ?They just want to live in the Islamic State,? he said. ?They didn?t come to fight.? How useful they would be to the Islamic State?s military efforts is also in question, said the Carnegie Middle East Center?s Khatib. ?Ultimately, they are only attracting people on the margins of society, without much education or useful skills,? she said. ?It?s not exactly bolstering their military capability.?[/quote]
Well, if true that’s good news. I don’t care how they go away so long as they go away and stay away, permanently and forever.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Iran has more ICBMs than anyone else in the ME. More than Israel. They already have medium range ballistic missiles that can reach Europe and within a very short time they will be able to reach America. It does actually represent an existential threat. ICBMs aren’t for high explosives. They’re for nuclear warheads. The batshit crazy Mullahs in Iran will soon have nuclear weapons(may already) and a huge arsenal of ICBMs. That’s an existential threat.[/quote]
Iran has no ICBMs.
The only countries in the world known to possess land-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles are the United States, Russia, China, India and Israel. France and Britain also have submarine-based ICBMs.
“The U.S. Department of Defense no longer assesses that Iran could flight-test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of striking the United States by 2015, which had been the judgment held by U.S. intelligence since 1999. Instead, an unclassified summary of the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on Iranian military power from January 2014 noted that Iran has publicly stated it may deploy a space launch vehicle by 2015, and that such a space launch vehicle could be capable of ICBM ranges if configured as a ballistic missile.”
A public statement that a country “may deploy” a space launch vehicle which “may be capable” of ICBM ranges is not exactly the same as having “more ICBMs than anyone else in the ME”.
[/quote]
I love the picture…
Iran doesn’t need ICBM’s to be dangerous. Deployment systems aren’t the same thing as nuclear capability. The only use of the atomic bomb was not by means of ICBM. I’d rather they had the deployment technology rather than the payload. The payload is what counts. If they fill the ICBM with Nerds it’s doesn’t much matter. But if they have a row boat with a nuclear bomb on it, it matters, a lot. They don’t need advanced deployment systems to reek havoc with a nuclear bomb. Deployment is a matter of will if they have the payload.
[quote]pat wrote:
Well, if true that’s good news. I don’t care how they go away so long as they go away and stay away, permanently and forever. [/quote]
They’re certainly not done. But I think consensus is that its momentum is gone. Reality is setting in for ISIS. This is especially true for foreign fighters that were looking for an “adventure”. Hard to think that additional foreign fighters are going to keep pouring in at this point. These fools thought doctors and engineers were going to come to help set up this “state” but instead they got a bunch of bums and kids who don’t know how to do jack. Not trying to minimize their barbarity but this is definitely not going to become a functioning state.
Boko Haram did recently pledge allegiance to ISIS but it’s clear Boko Haram is also in a corner now and desperate.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I made it clear they don’t have numerous ICBMs yet. I know the difference. They have the largest missile arsenal in the region with the capability of hitting European(and soon US) cities. They are an existential threat to us all.[/quote]
If they have the bomb all they need is a Cessna to deploy it and basically start WW3. Deployment systems are the least of my concerns with Iran. Having the bomb is my paramount concern. At this point, I am totally willing to let Israel have their way with Iran.
[quote]BPCorso wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
Well, if true that’s good news. I don’t care how they go away so long as they go away and stay away, permanently and forever. [/quote]
They’re certainly not done. But I think consensus is that its momentum is gone. Reality is setting in for ISIS. This is especially true for foreign fighters that were looking for an “adventure”. Hard to think that additional foreign fighters are going to keep pouring in at this point. These fools thought doctors and engineers were going to come to help set up this “state” but instead they got a bunch of bums and kids who don’t know how to do jack. Not trying to minimize their barbarity but this is definitely not going to become a functioning state.
Boko Haram did recently pledge allegiance to ISIS but it’s clear Boko Haram is also in a corner now and desperate.[/quote]
Well, from a high level, they are so extreme and so far detached from any reality they set themselves up for failure. At the same time, we cannot take the chance that they would just fail, we had to make them fail.
Reality is setting in, I agree. Is it enough reality that they cannot recover and in the end use it to their advantage. I don’t know, and I don’t want to present them with the opportunity to find out. I want them destroyed, finished and humiliated. Not degraded, destroyed and humiliated. The latter part of that has more implications than merely destroyed. Even though al qaeda has been degraded, they have not been humiliated. They have victories to claim. They brought a super power to it’s knees. While they may be weak at the moment, they have things to be proud of which helps recruiting for extremism over all. Humiliation is a tactic that must be employed. Not just destroyed, humiliated. More important than destruction is humiliation. That’s how you keep people from joining and making like organizations, by making them a mark of embarrassment.
[quote]BPCorso wrote:
They’re certainly not done. But I think consensus is that its momentum is gone. Reality is setting in for ISIS. This is especially true for foreign fighters that were looking for an “adventure”. [/quote]
Interestingly enough, a few weeks back, maybe a month, a there was news of a Japanese man who traveled to Syria looking for adventure…he was captured and killed by ISIS. So, even if you go there to fight for them, if you’re not a muslim, you’re pretty much doomed.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
…They brought a super power to it’s knees…
[/quote]
They did no such thing.[/quote]
I didn’t put that well. I meant for a day. You can’t say they didn’t fuck us up with 911. That day, that day was something I will never forget.
[quote]pat wrote:
I really don’t care if a threat is existential or not. This seems to be were we are missing here. I don’t differentiate between the two. And technically your wrong anyway. Terror has already fundamentally changed our lives for the worse, further threats from it will cause even more changes. Just because a place call the United States of America will still exist and will still have a Republic for a government doesn’t mean they haven’t and won’t fundamentally change the way we live. They have already succeeded there. So yes, their very presence, and the threats they make are existential threats to us. They threaten our freedoms and the way we live our lives and what we believe in as a country.[/quote]
This isn’t because the terrorists attacked us. It’s because the citizens of the U.S. apparently decided that it’s worth sacrificing some freedom for security.
The U.S. could have just as easily gone on without increasing security in airports, requiring all cockpit doors to be locked during flight, the Patriot Act, the NSA being given the power to legally collect all manners of information and whatnot. It would have meant we were in greater peril, and likely would have meant that a number of terrorist attacks would have come after 9/11.
But we’d have less restrictions on us.
The point I want to make is- We did this to ourselves. And I personally believe that, had cooler heads prevailed in the months and years following 9/11, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now. If we had taken the time to genuinely gauge the damage they did to us (horrible in human tragedy, but ultimately irrelevant in the grand scheme of things), then perhaps we might not have enacted the Patriot Act and give the NSA a lot of scary legal powers.
And I am arguing much of the same here.
[quote]pat wrote:
As far as methodology, I don’t really care how they are taken care of. Whether it be land, sea or air so long as they are done away with and done away with quickly. Dragging it out is the sure fire way to ensure maximum casualties for all involved.
Now when I said we are going to need boots on the ground regardless, I also specified, that if not for combat then to better assign targets from the air. I didn’t specify we needed ground troops to do war. But we do need at the least somebody on the ground to tell us where to put the missiles.
We lack the intelligence to be successful completely by air without more targets. We don’t carpet bomb like we did in ww2.
In other words there’s no way to avoid boots on the ground. And we already have a small but growing contingent. It’s not my desire to put people in harms way, but when war comes knocking it has to be fought with conviction. Not half measures.[/quote]
See, I simply disagree that not sending in ground troops is resorting to half measures. I disagree because I don’t think the situation calls for it.
While ISIS is certainly holding onto its major places of power, it is being chipped away at more minor places. Furthermore, it is apparently suffering internal issues, as shown specifically by the article BPCorso posted.
Given what we as a public know, ISIS is slowly being defeated. Perhaps not as quickly as you would like, but being defeated nonetheless.
And if we go by the Atlantic article posted a while ago, ISIS’s claim to legitimacy depends largely on victories and the ability to actually hold onto its territory. Both of these are currently being undermined.
Our disagreement lies fundamentally on the fact that you believe sending in U.S. ground troops will have a positive effect. I don’t believe this is the case, and I’ve explained why before. As far as I recall, you’ve never explained why you think it’ll have a positive effect. Mind doing so now?
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
…They brought a super power to it’s knees…
[/quote]
They did no such thing.[/quote]
I’d say they brought us to our feet.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
[quote]BPCorso wrote:
They’re certainly not done. But I think consensus is that its momentum is gone. Reality is setting in for ISIS. This is especially true for foreign fighters that were looking for an “adventure”. [/quote]
Interestingly enough, a few weeks back, maybe a month, a there was news of a Japanese man who traveled to Syria looking for adventure…he was captured and killed by ISIS. So, even if you go there to fight for them, if you’re not a muslim, you’re pretty much doomed.[/quote]
And to quote myself…yesterday, ISIS, as the story goes, invited a Palestinian man to join their ranks. He goes there…and is executed as an Israeli spy. His family says he’s just a normal guy who was caught up in the hype and they can’t believe he’s dead.
This story has a lot more information from the Israeli Govt. than the one I originally saw which exclusively spoke to the victim’s family. But it backs up my statement.