Iran soon?

Originally Posted by Adamgian

The only people with a legitament fear of Iranian nukes are the Gulf states. Iran wouldn't use one on Israel since that basically ensures their own destruction, however the Gulf states don't have such a weapon to retaliate, and the US wouldn't be too keen on doing it for them either.

Why would the Gulf states have the most to fear? I was under the impression that Iran's hostile intentions are directed to the Western nations.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Arainach

This may just be my ignorance, but who exactly are the AFP? They claim to be a worldwide news agency (and are the [sole] source of this article), but I've never heard of them. It's entirely likely I've just missed them for a few years, but are they reliable? I usually stick to the AP and the other major networks (BBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox) myself. With how many people on both sides of the political fence are extremely angry with Bush right now, I doubt that he'd dare use nukes. That's just ASKING for an impeachment right there.

The Washington Post/MSNBC article about the topic, for instance, makes no mention of tactical nukes and suggests that the attack is not imminent.

According to their website the AFP is :

Quote:

AFP is the world's oldest established news agency, founded in 1835 by Charles-Louis Havas, the father of global journalism.
Today, the agency continues to expand its operations worldwide, reaching thousands of subscribers via radio, television, newspapers and companies from its main headquarters in Paris and regional centers in Washington, Hong Kong, Nicosia and Montevideo. All share the same goal: to guarantee top quality international service tailored to the specific needs of clients in each region.

Found here

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Cyrus XIII

Agreed, though I'd argue that China could be called a superpower as well while it messes a lot less with world affairs.

China can have their say in world affairs through the UN or whatnot, but being able to act independently on these affairs is totally another matter. Thats what seperates a superpower, to say a reigonal power, which is probably what China is right now.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Stoob

I don't know, the age of a "regional" anything is coming to an end. I think if you have the resources to be a regional power in this day and age, then you have the resources to be a world power.

There is actually still quite a difference between a reigonal power and a world power. With reigonal powers you can get away with only a brown-water/littoral navy. But in order to be a world power you'll need a blue-water navy. In addition you will need the means to project your power, done through America's some 12 aircraft carriers (not counting Marine carriers). We can simply park a carrier battle group off the coast of a nation and we'll instantly have a powerful naval and aerial presence in the area, which is more then enough to sway events in the reigon to our favor. Even after that you will need to have the means to sustain such a presence at any point in the world. Currently only the US has the capabilities to fullfill all of the above, thus the world's only world power.

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Originally Posted by Adamgian

The Charles De Gaulle is a formidable force.

Provided of course that the carrier works as intended once the carrier reaches its hotspot. There is a good reason why the French are considering to buy their next carrier from England instead of building it on their own.

Quote:

No rivals of the US, but the French can still stick a CBG almost anywhere relatively quickly.

I remember reading somewhere that the de Gaulle is actually slower than the carrier it replaced, the Foch. Of course its still quite fast, relative to slower than Foch ships.

However you are right about my word choice, should've used "Super power" instead.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Adamgian

Thats in general because the French have severe difficulties with all things nuclear it seems. They're nuclear deterrent (Force de Frappe) was and is the same bungled, absurdily expensive mess that the Chales De Gaulle is.

Its the massive nuclear clusterfucks like France has that seperates the real superpowers from the wanna-be superpowers, barring all other qualifications for superpower-dom.

Originally Posted by Adamgian

I will commend the French though, the Charles De Gaulle remains the most capable carrier outside of the US Navy, in which the Nimitz decimate almost anything else.

That I must agree with you, or at least until Britian finishes their new full-sized carriers.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Adamgian

Yeah, but Russia isn't exactly interested in doing the tango with the US Government either. Russian nuclear facilities are also secured in large part by US money, there was a fund set up if I remember correctly after the fall of the Soviet Union, but I forget its name. Regardless, the US helps secure it, so it would be hard to conceal it in any case.

Russia depends on the US too much to be willing to lose that relationship over selling weapons to nations like Iran. Theres too much at stake.

But at the same time the US is looking after itself by halting nuclear proliferation. We give the Russians money to lock up all of their old nuclear warheads nice and tight and to keep detailed records of where each warhead is so that none of it makes it to the black market or into the hands of terrorists and the like.

However just because we give them money to do this doesn't mean the Russians aren't going to deal with whatever country we don't like. In fact its never stopped the Russians from selling weapons to Iran before.

FELIPE NO

I was under the impression that we support Israel so much because otherwise all the Jews in America would cry about how we're going to let another holocaust happen, as impossible as it maybe, then proceed paint whoever proposes a withdrawl of support as a pro-Nazi/Anti-Semitisc. As evidenced by this article.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Watts

If you can think of another word for a state that receives the most military and economic aid from us in a mutual benefitial relationship I'd love to hear it.

Mutual? Could you elaborate a bit more on this? What exactly are we getting back from this "mutual" relationship?

Originally Posted by Watts

Mutually supporting each other's positions in the United Nations. Provided us with a armed military camp in a vital, yet political unstable region.

How is Israel "supporting" the US? We are a permanent member on the UNSC while they are not. So everytime the UN gets around to slaming Israel for defying whatever sanctions the rest of the security council has come up with its always up to the US to cast the veto for Israel. This in turn only generates more animosity towards the US.

Finally, whatever Israel could offer in us terms of an armed military camp probably isn't very valuable to us anyways. If we need airpower in the reigon we could just put a carrier in the Mediterranean sea or the gulf. This is in addition to the various military bases we have in Europe and Diego Garcia. And all of the above are out of reach of Palestinian rockets and suicide bombers. The only value I see in having a base in Israel is merely to field a heavily armed quick reaction force.

Originally Posted by watts

Israel is a integral part of our defense industries. Not from merely a sales conduct standpoint. But the research, manufacturing, and testing.

I don't see what Israel has that our various weapons testing sites here in the US don't have other than live targets.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Watts

Well I've already elaborated quite a bit. But eh I can keep going. It is illegal for the US to spy on it's own citizens. (Or it used to be) But it's not illegal for British intelligence or the Mossad to do it now is it? Once the domestic intelligence is gathered it's shared.

And obviously thats why our own intelligence agencies still have conducted illegal wire-tappings. You know, just to piss off the public and whatnot and to look like they're doing something.

Originally Posted by watts

Don't know much about the Iran-Contra affair do you? All the weapons sales went through Israel.

As far as the UN goes, Israel isn't the only country to do some very unpopular stuff in the United Nations. Bottom line, is that we're both there for each other. We look out for each other's interests no questions asked.

You're right, Israel certainly isn't the only country to do unpopular things. But I never said they were. Difference lies in what happens after they commit the act. Where other countries have to face the UN security council's rulings and whatever consequences there might have, all Israel has to do is to sit back and wait for the US to cast that veto. Israel has really nothing equivalent to offer us inside the UN building. Compared to the number of UN resolutions and sanctions the US has helped Israel veto, their support for us is a mere drop in the bucket, then throw in all the heat we get for supporting Israel from the Middle East and all the trouble its caused us, then it becomes a drop in the ocean. As for their bases or whatever...

Originally Posted by watts

Our Navy is limited. It can't be everywhere at once. Although it certainly tries to be. That aircraft carrier is best suited elsewhere. And why not? We hardly need it there when a close reliable strategic ally is present there for us. You're ignoring the fact that we'd have to violate somebody's airspace in the process of those bombing runs. Take a look at where Israel sits on a map.

Oh, and if we were satisfied with the amount of military bases we had in the Middle East we wouldn't have grudgingly withdrew from the bases we had in Saudi Arabia. Or depending on how you look at it, we wouldn't be building "temporary" bases in Iraq that look quite permanent to some people.

You have to keep in mind that while our navy cannot be everywhere at once its certainly unlikely that the rest of the world can come up with enough hotspots that we care about to occupy our entire fleet of carriers (I'm not just considering the CVN carriers but the Marine carriers as well). Israel sits on a tiny parcel of land next to the mediterranean on my maps, whatever airspace restrictions we might have in that area can be easily circumvented through passages over Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and now Iraq.

Originally Posted by watts

There you go. You said it yourself; live targets. Again, manufacturing is just as important, and having a deniable sales conduct is... essential.

"What? We're selling high tech weapons to China!? No we're not! We gave them to Israel..."

You might not like it, and I might not like it. We're not required too. It's just politics.

Well if live targets is what makes all the difference then so be it...

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Watts

Well the illegal wire taps are only a recent development. Pretty sure the domestic intel sharing has gone back as far as the end of the second World War. As far as our intelligence services go, we hear about their failures more then we hear about their successes. Who really knows what they're doing anyway? We only get leaks of information about what they're doing.

Do you have any evidence or proof to support what you've said?

Originally Posted by Watts

You put a awful lot of emphasis into the power and prestige of the UN. Way more then I do anyway. Let's be honest, if the UN could actually do anything of significance the Iranians right now wouldn't be openly taunting them to impose sanctions.

As for the trouble we get from supporting Israel, I figure the powers that be think it's a fair trade for what we receive in return. I don't subscribe to the notion that Israel uses the United States as some pawn they're in complete control of.

I am not particularly fond of the UN myself and while the UN certainly is lacking in power (and the backbone) to enforce and to do the things they say they want to do, nonetheless the UN is still a well known and in some ways well respected organization, and so therefore the significance of what we do for Israel inside the UN building isn't really affected by what we think of the UN, or for that matter Iran. Not to mention probably one of the biggest reasons Iran even dares to taunt the UN is because of its oil fields.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't believe in the whole US is Israel's pawn nonsense either, I'm merely doubting the whole notion of how we support each other equally (or somewhat equally).

Originally Posted by Watts

Nothing in life is certain. We have a awful lot of commitments worldwide. That's a pretty large stretch of my imagination to say that we could cover any possible situation that might arise.

The chances of there being enough situations around the world that would occupy all of our carriers all at once is slim. For the most part we can simply drop a Marine carrier in the reigon and deploy a few Marines to cool the hotspot (for the most part its what we do anyways). In addition the whole world does not need our constant attention. For example we don't constantly need a fleet off of Europe's shores.

Originally Posted by Watts

Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iraq. Exactly what I was thinking.

Saudi Arabia is an autocratic monarchy, an extremely unstable one. Yet they're a important ally to the US. Good thing we have troops in Iraq plus bases in Israel so we could support the royal family if they were overthrown in a Islamic fundamentalist revolution eh? See, Iraq isn't just about oil after all.

Turkey, well that depends on you what you think would happen if Iraq broke up and one of it's successor states happened to be Kurdistan. Given the fact they (the Turks) have been relatively swift in putting down their own Kurdish minority, I wouldn't be surprised if this prevoked some invasion. Regardless Iraq is under our care as some form of a protectorate. So bases to "keep the peace" seem ideal. Why waste a carrier group?

Iraq, uhh does anything really need to be said here on the benefits of the Israeli alliance when it involves Iraq?

You have a point in pointing out that each of the countries I named are rather unstable. However should something happen in those countries that we needed to take care of we would still need the permission of Israel's neighbors to really be able to deploy anything from our Israeli bases be it land or air. And even if we were to move our assets through the Mediterranean we would still need a Naval presence to carry all of our troops to the target area. Maintaining a forward presence in the area through bases in Israel is no good if we can't really move them.

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Originally Posted by Watts

Sure, not all of it I'd take to court so to say. Enough evidence for me though. A day or two after 9/11 President Putin was on MSNBC talking about how he was trying to warn the US about the possibility of the coming attacks. Russia isn't exactly our closest ally, but they still handed over domestic intelligence. How complete we'll never know. (Ugh, this is where conspiracies are born) It's still a quite recent example of domestic intelligence being shared. Even among not so close partners.

Maybe what/how I said it came off a little wrong. Is it really that surprising that we share important strategic information with our closest allies? Couple years back, there was a spat in the news about how American intelligence shared some very complete and accurate satallite intelligence with Britain during the Falklands War. I would rate that more important then just some irrelevant domestic intelligence wouldn't you? Especially if it wasn't on a pro-quo basis.

I don't know anything about the Russians handing over intelligence to us so I'm not really going to say anything about it. However as with us sharing intelligence with Britian I think its important to keep in mind that we were talking about other governments providing intelligence to us about our own citizens, domestic intelligence. During the Falkland Wars our intelligence was about Argentina, not about British citizens. What we gave Britian was foreign intelligence.

Originally Posted by Watts

Public opinion still counts in the world.

Unfortunately for us each time we help Israel veto a sanction or resolution against Israel public opinion about the US in the middle east takes a plunge.

Originally Posted by Watts

I've got no idea what our military thinks. But from West Africa, to Asia. To maybe even South America. (President Chavez comes to mind....) That's a heck of a lot of planet to cover. Especially if things go shitty all at once. Big 'if', but I don't doubt that our military has to prepare itself for such situations.

Our military does have a lot to keep an eye on, but not all hotspots that spring up will require the immediate attention of a carrier group. And even then, enough hotspots to take away all of our available carriers? I certainly admit it might happen, but I just don't think its very likely.

Originally Posted by Watts

Last time I checked we had 100,000+ troops in Iraq. Who knows whether that would be enough, but where in the world would the rest come from?

It's not just "presence" I'm talking about. It's the projection (intimidation?) of American power throughout of the region. Yes, a carrier group in the Persian Gulf would do that job quite well. But from where I'm sittin' that job appears to be done.

While our bases in Israel does help in the projection of our forces I remind you again that our presence will mean nothing if we can't use the presence and project our force. We still need permission from neighboring countries to use their airspace and what not in order to strike where we want from our bases. I understand that bases in Israel means freed up CBGs, however those bases are not absolutely essential, and now especially since we've got bases in Iraq and Afghanistan as well (Kuwait too I think? I'm not sure) and finally all this is on top of our permanent Mediterranean naval presence (I can't confirm this at the time of typing up this post but if I find evidence I'll post it). They have the same restraints as CBGs only difference is that if things get too hot a group of rouge gunmen can physically harm those bases.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Watts

I still consider foreign intelligence more important then domestic intelligence. Especially in an armed confrontation between two allies where we loudly proclaimed our neutrality. After all, that intel we gave them probably revealed how capable our satalites and other intelligence gathering was. I doubt any of our intelligence agencies liked that one bit.

But when you are asking other countries to do your domestic spying for you in order to circumvent whatever restrictions your own government has placed over domestic spying the situation changes, its no longer just a simple sharing of intelligence it becomes the executive branch trying to undermine the laws and restrictions set in place by the other two branches. And while foreign intelligence certainly is more important than domestic intelligence during times of war it doesn't mean domestic intelligence isn't any less important.

Originally Posted by Watts

I think worldwide public opinion of the 'States is already at rock bottom. What with the war in Iraq, the prison scandals, and numerous other reasons. Our actions involving Israel does not need to help kill our country's reputation or popularity any.

If world opinion of the US really is already at rock bottom then the only place it can go is up right? If so then we don't need any more issues weighing down our world opinion, especially when it comes to issues that really should be another country's issues.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Watts

Where is the line drawn though? This is basically what the debate is about. There has to be some fine balance between the respect and protection of our civil liberties, and cordinating law enforcement internationally. You say that this is the executive branch trying to undermine the laws, but the general concensus is that that current laws are not adequate. Laws cannot determine whims or motives. Again this is a very messy debate. I'm really not trying to take Bush's side. Sure sounds like it though.

I admit that our current laws are indeed sorely lacking but does that mean we can just start circumventing the laws? On that same basis would torture be justified because our current interrogation techniques are not adequate so we've instead opted to circumvent the interrogation guidelines and start to use torture? We have systems in place to change the laws, unfortunately however it is here that we see some of democracy's downsides where changing such laws under a democratic system takes some time. But we adhere to the system nonetheless.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Watts

Laws are circumvented all the time. What's the difference between an individual flaunting and/or circumventing the law as opposed to an agent of the government? It doesn't necessarily have to be a elected official. It could be a police officer. I guess this is just another way of saying at what point can we validate that the "spirit" of the law has been violated?

If the law is not treated seriously, then all legitimacy is lost. It was Martin Lurther King that said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." If all legitimacy is lost, then government is unjust. Like in the case of segregation. Is that really a bad thing? That's the only way a discussion or legal furry is going to be stirred up to affect any sort of change. People have to ignore the legitimacy and primacy of the laws/government before a positive change can even take root.

From what you are saying it seems we should just not have laws at all. And yes, people certainly are flaunting laws all the time, but thats why we have consequences and punishments. And again, there are ways to change the law without breaking them.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Watts

You misunderstand me. I don't really have a problem with the law per say. It's more or less with the centralized institutions that are authoritarian purely by their own nature in how they operate.


"Consequences and punishments?". Don't do this, or I'm gonna fucking spank you? That sounds more like extortion. Hardly democratic eh? I wish I could say people were afraid of the consequences, but I doubt people that commit murder who are clearly irrational think of the consequences.

Well if consequences and punishments sounds like extortion to you then what idea do you have in mind on how to keep the order? While irrational murderers certainly don't think of consequences when they pull the trigger but what are we supposed to do? Just let them go simply because they didn't have their head on straight?

Originally Posted by Watts

Mmm, there is. But what better way to change the law then to ignore it completely? By your rational we would still probably have prohibition, and we would still grovel for our right to alcohol. We need to live in a ideal and ordered world and play by the rules even if we don't agree with them. "What, you disagree? Don't question my authority." There's no room for meaningful dissent.

While breaking the law to change the law works, when it comes to matters such as exchanging domestic intelligence by our very own government to circumvent laws that itself had put there then its a new problem. The founding fathers created 3 branches of government for a reason, and when one branch of the government goes about to undermine the authority of the other 2 branches it isn't breaking laws to change laws, its breaking laws to change the government.

Double Post:
Shifting gears now...

While we were having a pleasant political conversation about laws and what not Iran has continued to defy the UNSC and the IAEA. And now Iran's religious leader (the guy who really holds the reigns) has just issued his own warning to the US and the UN. Now I'm pretty sure we all know that Iran blows a lot of hot air sometimes, but considering the possibility that Iran has terrorist connections that have cells in various parts of the world. Could this threat actually be carried out? And with only 2 days from the typing of this post before the IAEA reports to the UNSC about Iran's nuclear program might we actually see the UN do something?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?