1. Learn history:Yeah sure.
General Sherman would also have a quote for you. He wasn't very fond of armchair warriors.JS in a political policy disscussion it is really such a distraction
and waste of time to make the discusssion of public policy merits a personal one.
We are discusssing public policy not our personal lives. It would be like if
we were discusssing free health care for the poor and the person against it
kept saying to Nancy Pelosi "well Ms. Pelosi I dont think we should enact
this policy because you personally have not spent time administering health
care to the needy". Whether Pelosi has personally administered healthcare
has no real relevance as to whether it is good policy any more than discussing
military foriegn policy as being of greater or lesser value because I personally
am flying the B1 bomber.
"We" did not completely destroy Germany or Japan. Come on JS quit playing worthless semantic games.
I thought we had an understanding about that?
My point is my point and whether we or we with help of allies "destroyed"
or "completely destroyed" Germany/Japan doesn't change the point.
In fact, we placed former Nazis into key positions due to our fear of the Soviets, who followed Sherman's precept far more than the United States. In general, Germans weren't afraid of the United States - it was the Red Army that scared them. Atlanta was not destroyed. That is an historical myth. About 30% of it was burned, it was primarily the industry and storehouses and that cut to the heart of Southern productivity.More dribble non-sense distraction crap talk that has nothing to do with my point.
Such a waste of time.
Orally it would be ok, because you could dismiss it so easily,
but so time consuming to type.
Can we not accept even the most basic obvious so to move the discussion
as long as something does not alter the underlying major point?
The North "destroyed" the Confederacy.
Of course "destroyed" is a relative term.
When I wrecked my car, I told someone it was "destroyed".
Of course they could have pulled a "JS" and said "but was it completely destroyed?"
"You cant say the car is "destroyed" if the cigarette lighter and radio still works!"
Such a waste of time defining the obvious.
When we destroy Iran from air I would not object to placing behaving Iranians in key positions.
I dont care if the Germans "feared us" or the Iranians "fear us".
This isn't about ego or fear.
It's about forcing behavior change, just like it was with the Confederacy, Japan, and Germany.
We have the power to do that and I think we should.
The bottom line to this entire discussion between you and I is
You think the cost is too high, I think the cost of waiting is higher.You seem to want to imply I am dumb or someone that is not serious,
armchair warrior, takes war lightly, ect. It's an insult, but not unexpected.
You and your ilk have trouble accepting that someone honestly comes to
a different conclusion after looking at a situation. It can't be an intelligent
conclusion, it must be "armchair" "dont know history" or "I hope they are
smarter than you (implying dumbness). Look at my bottomline statement
above, I just accept you have a different conclusion, but I dont
question your sincerity, IQ, maturity, or manhood. JS you are actually
better than the tactics you use.
2. It is not "JS rules" it is reality. No it is not reality at all.
You like to set up the dynamic where the "US loses" either way.
We either must accept Iran Nukes/Iran Meddling or catch hell for attacking them.
The US doesn't have to play by those rules. Why? Because we dont have to. Thats reality.
I do not accept those rules for our country and would play by my different rules.
We don't live in a childish world of "destroying Iran through the air" and "we set the rules,
not them." The only way that we set the rules is for us to occupy their country. 100% wrong.
We dont want or need to occupy Iran.
Any more than we wanted or need to occupy Yugoslavia.
We just want changed bahavior.
Iran knows for a fact that we cannot possibly accomplish that. I know for a fact we can. See below. It's not complicated.
I know I know you'll have no answer to the military strategy and will cling to the
"what would the world think"?
Thats funny because you are among the bunch that already says the world doesnt like us,
but I guess you'll be so desperate you'll just say "well they wont like us more". Cry me a river!
Rough outline:Give diplomacy one last chance.
Inform Iran the rules have changed and there will be no more tolerance for their behavior and meddling.
Zero tolerance for arming Iraqi terrorist/militias that kill American troops
Zero tolerance for building nukes.
Zero tolerance for sending arms/support/training to Syria/Hezbollah/Hamas/and others
Give them a deadline. 3 months, 6 months, whatever.
To start tell Iran that "X behavior must stop"
It doesnt even have to be everything at first
Just give them one item like "no more support for Hezbollah"
if they do not change the behaviour after repeated warnings and the deadline
then finally and reluctantly an air bombing and cruise missle campaign would target an Iranian military base.
Iran at any point would have the power to "call off the dogs" and
stop the bombing with an agreement to drastically change the behaviour.
The behaviour change wouldn't be the end of the world.
It wouldnt be like we would take them over.
They would become a trade partner and accepted nation of good will.
We dont want them or anything they have.
We want behaviour change.
After the first bombing of a military base
Then start over, same process.
Give them a deadline and opportunity to change.
If they do not, target the next Iranian military base.
Then give diplomacy a chance again.
Start process again.
Give deadline, and opportunity to change.
If Iran does not respond bomb the next Iranian military facility.
Over the course of time if they do not respond to the measured requests
slowly all of their military bases, airfields, naval ships, military facilities would
be destroyed from the air.
With a military in chaos and all military infrastructure being destroyed the
Iranians would have much less time and money to meddle in foriegn affairs
and be consumed internally with a government regime trying to survive while
the military that protects the regime's survival is being destroyed from the air.
This type carrot and stick air campaign could go on as long as needed.
After destroying all military bases and infrastructure, you could move on to
ships, ports, nuclear facilities, weapons factories, and see if the regime
is ready to behave. If not just continue on to other high value targets.
If they try to rebuild the destroyed facilities just send in more stealth bombers
and do it all over again. They will soon realize their situation is hopeless.
They cant place an effective entire military underground.
They will be in survival mode not offensive mode any more.
Iraq is a training exercise compared to Iran. Not any where near the same goals or tactics.
As different as A-Z.
See above.
The terrain is far more difficult and the military more experienced in guerilla warfare (they taught the Hezbollah fighters).See above.
Terrain means basically nothing in an air destruction war.
Guerilla warfare would have ZERO VALUE.
ZERO!
Again you are trying to set the rules of a game that favors the enemy.
I do not and would not accept those rules.
3. We aren't a powerful Empire, no matter how much you and others think we can lay down law and dictate terms to any nation we damn well please. The truth is that we are not that strong. I agree we and no one else ever is powerful enough to occupy every country.
But we dont need or want to do that.
We dont want to run Iran, we dont run Germany, we dont run Japan
we want changed behaviour.
We are strong enough to get the behviour changed.
See above.
There is no reason we can not carry out the destruction from the air policy to change behaviour.
If you want an Empire then I suggest you start rallying for one. I dont want an empire, I dont want anything Iran has.
Like that dump has anything we want? Oil. We dont need their oil.
Those morons can hardly even refine their own oil.
They need help building almost everything.
"Oh can you build us a nuclear facility, we're too dumb to do it ourselves"
All I want is for Iran to behave.
And believe me they would if I were in charge.
Very very quickly they would behave.
O
therwise you need to join the real world where diplomacy takes place and the ramifications of war are profound. Oh quit your condescending preaching pretending I dont realize the ramifications of war, as if you do and I dont. I have already in this very post quoted Sherman's feeling about War being "
HELL". Do you understand
"HELL"? Those are my feelings exactly. War is HELL. War is horrible. So is getting a leg amputated, but sometimes
as a last resort it is necessary.
You're still thinking short-term, No I am thinking very long term.
and again that is the reason we're in the current crap we're in.No, pandering is the reason we are in the current crap.
We brought Milosevic to his knees from the air and need to the same to Syria and Iran.
It's going to happen.
If we give the Iranian people a chance they will retake their government from the hardliners. JS I wish that would happen.
It's really too bad the students in Iran can't overcome the MullahNazis.
maybe we coulda waited out Hitler being overthrowwn too. NOT
We cant keep hoping while they nuclear arm and will supply the Islamist too.
Sure it would be preferable if the IslamoNazis were overthrown.
But at some point it must be dealt with and not just keep "
hoping it will go away".
If you bomb them, the militants will become all the more popular.General Sherman if you burn Atlanta it's gonna make them even madder!
Hopefully our leaders are smarter than you. More personal shots?
Yeah letting the the Iranians get nukes is real smart.
You wouldnt have bombed the Syrian nuke factory.
Is that smart?
Yeah talk talk talk talk
Oh please Syria dont build nukes.
Oh please Syria/Iran dont pass nukes to Hezbollah and Hamas.
Oh boo whoo please, we can destroy you but wont, so we beg