Cause we're all getting drafted (except hooksaw)

Quote :

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration has launched a "significant escalation" of covert operations in Iran, sending U.S. commandos to spy on the country's nuclear facilities and undermine the Islamic republic's government, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday. White House, CIA and State Department officials declined comment on Hersh's report, which appears in this week's issue of The New Yorker. Hersh told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb and "do not want to leave Iran in place with a nuclear program," Hersh said. "They believe that their mission is to make sure that before they get out of office next year, either Iran is attacked or it stops its weapons program," Hersh said. The new article, "Preparing the Battlefield," is the latest in a series of articles accusing the Bush administration of preparing for war with Iran. He based the report on accounts from current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. "As usual with his quarterly pieces, we'll decline to comment," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told CNN. "The CIA, as a rule, does not comment on allegations regarding covert operations," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said. Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, denied U.S. raids were being launched from Iraq, where American commanders believe Iran is stoking sectarian warfare and fomenting attacks on U.S. troops. "I can tell you flatly that U.S. forces are not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran, in the south or anywhere else," Crocker said. Hersh said U.S. efforts were staged from Afghanistan, which also shares a border with Iran. He said the program resulted in "a dramatic increase in kinetic events and chaos" inside Iran, including attacks by Kurdish separatists in the country's north and a May attack on a mosque in Shiraz that killed 13 people. The United States has said it is trying to isolate Iran diplomatically in order to get it to come clean about its nuclear ambitions. But Bush has said "all options" are open in dealing with the issue. Iran insists its nuclear program is aimed at providing civilian electric power, and refuses to comply with U.N. Security Council demands that it halt uranium enrichment work. U.N. nuclear inspectors say Tehran held back critical information that could determine whether it is trying to make nuclear weapons. Israel, which is believed to have its own nuclear arsenal, conducted a military exercise in the eastern Mediterranean in early June involving dozens of warplanes and aerial tankers. The distance involved in the exercise was roughly the same as would be involved in a possible strike on the Iranian nuclear fuel plant at Natanz, Iran, a U.S. military official said. In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor. Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, warned other countries against moves that would "cost them heavily." In comments that appeared in the semi-official Mehr news agency Sunday, an Iranian general said his troops were digging more than 320,000 graves to bury troops from any invading force with "the respect they deserve." "Under the law of war and armed conflict, necessary preparations must be made for the burial of soldiers of aggressor nations," said Maj. Gen. Mirfaisal Baqerzadeh, an Iranian officer in charge of identifying soldiers missing in action"

6/29/2008 5:53:20 PM

big whoop....not surprising at all

6/29/2008 5:56:32 PM

We're so fucked. This is not all Bush's fault either. Congress is equally to blame for this.

[Edited on June 29, 2008 at 6:05 PM. Reason : ]

6/29/2008 6:02:11 PM

no draft.

6/29/2008 6:08:59 PM

Yeah Congress approved it because they're basically a bunch of tiny babies


^I hope you're right but I don't know how we're going to fight a 3-front war when we're already stretched so thin that we're letting mentally handicapped people enlist

6/29/2008 6:11:31 PM

If we go into Iran there is absolutely no way we could do it without a draft. ABSOLUTELY NO WAY.

6/29/2008 6:13:00 PM

No Draft.

6/29/2008 6:16:40 PM

if we or Isreal attack Iran I will go with the peacniks and march on washington (you know it will happen)

this has to stop

6/29/2008 6:24:28 PM

Quote :

"This is not all Bush's fault either. Congress is equally to blame for this."

Quote :

"This is not all Bush's fault either. Congress is equally to blame for this."

Quote :

"This is not all Bush's fault either. Congress is equally to blame for this."

6/29/2008 7:01:15 PM

If CNN is reporting on it, it has already been going on for a while.

We played spy games with the Soviets for 40 years and managed to avoid a nuclear war. We're still not that good at HUMINT, but just because we've got some secret squirrels in Iran doesn't mean we're going to war tomorrow.

6/29/2008 7:22:08 PM

Iran doesn't really have as much to lose by going to war with us as Russia did. Plus, they could goad us into attacking them and then get the entire world pissed off at us for sending oil up to $200/barrel. They're not in a particularly weak position as of right now.

I bet oil will hit $150 tomorrow just because this article came out.

6/29/2008 7:25:48 PM

we have secret squirrels in iran?? if so thats awesome

6/29/2008 7:31:30 PM

A major war with Iran wouldn't be started without substantial provocation and, probably, some measure of international support. While Iran's nuclear infrastructure is well protected by all accounts, a war would likely cripple it's petroleum industry with the resultant shock to an extent on the world market, but much more so on the internal Iranian market. This would devastate their economy. They're in a position of relative power compared to the past, but they aren't exactly wielding a big stick.

I doubt the Iranian government is that crazy.

6/29/2008 7:32:24 PM

I wouldn't put anything past these guys.

6/29/2008 7:35:27 PM

I feel you to a point, but the current Iranian government has been in power since 1979. These aren't the fire-breathing revolutionaries who stormed the US Embassy in Tehran. Nearly thirty years later, these guys are subject to the same pragmatic rules of politics and preservation of power that any established government is, they simply hawk the hard Islamist line as a means of justification. Couple that with the fact that the populace is increasingly dissatisfied with the current government (not saying they're pro-Western) and I don't think you have quite the powder keg that the administration made them out to be in 2001.

6/29/2008 7:53:11 PM

If only Congress mattered...

6/29/2008 8:33:21 PM

JEWS

Can't they just hack into Iranian banks, give everyone millions of dollars, and crash their economy due to inflation so someone less fanatical gets voted in. I thought they were good at banking.

[Edited on June 29, 2008 at 8:58 PM. Reason : .]

6/29/2008 8:57:11 PM

Hey, if you believe our press, we should be able to snap our fingers and have some new friendlier cats running that shithole.

But what does Congress have to do with war and invasions and shit anyway?

[Edited on June 29, 2008 at 9:01 PM. Reason : ...]

6/29/2008 9:00:56 PM

^^ ahaha, I laughed.

6/29/2008 9:02:05 PM

6/29/2008 10:37:34 PM

never fear

barak osama will handle all of your iranian woes.

6/29/2008 10:39:15 PM

Barack Saddam Hussein Osama Bin Laden

6/29/2008 11:16:15 PM

Barack Saddam Hussein Osama Bin Laden Chavez Castro Clinton

6/29/2008 11:17:40 PM

I'd much rather we do some regime changing to Mugabe than mess around with Iran, for now.

6/29/2008 11:21:30 PM

Barack Saddam Hussein Osama Bin Laden Chavez Castro Clinton Mugabe Hirohito Hitler Jimmy Carter

6/29/2008 11:25:57 PM

Quote :

"President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb "

so when the Straits of Hormuz are obstructed, and oil goes to $180/barrel, how much loot will Cheney & Company make?

6/29/2008 11:28:33 PM

Here's the article:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all

6/29/2008 11:39:25 PM

I want to change my screen name

joe_hussein_schmoe

6/30/2008 1:12:59 AM

Why can't we just drop a nuke on these fucks and be done with it Hiroshima style???

6/30/2008 1:36:53 AM

To be perfectly fair, if we go to war in Iran it won't be a three front war, it will be a war with one very long front.

So, I mean, there's that...

---

Still and all, I really don't see us starting a war in Iran. Where would the benefits outweigh the costs for anyone, including neocons and chickenhawks?

I think this time better sense is prevailing. As was the case a few years ago, there's concern about the potential for aggression, for terrorist support, and the development of WMDs. As it turns out, a fair number of people think that concern to be at least somewhat valid, but this time they aren't screaming for war. In fact, most people seem pretty adamant that these concerns don't warrant direct military action.

So what do you do when you think your concerns are valid but you can't just go bomb them? Something very close to exactly what we are doing. You apply political pressure in conjuncture with covert actions that stop short of being a real causus belli for Iran. In so doing you seek to reduce the chance that your concerns will become reality while preparing for the contingency that they might.

Using dissidents in a country we obviously don't like has been common practice for our entire history. We used it against every communist country at some point in the Cold War, including people on the ground in the Soviet Union and China, without things ever going hot.



[Edited on June 30, 2008 at 4:05 AM. Reason : ]

6/30/2008 3:49:53 AM

That is some pretty hawkish news, but the most Bush and Cheney would ever do is try to poke the Israelis with a stick and say "Hey, wouldn't you love to bomb Iran before fall rolls around? You know, just to show them who's boss... Come on... You know you want to!" I mean they have been doing actual military training maneuvers in the Mediterranean that were carried out over a distance that would seem to match the distance for a strike that went from Israel to the Iranian nuclear facility.

All I can see them doing is botching that and getting many of their people killed, having a few of their people flee into Iraq to do emergency landings on military bases, and then the US officially getting stuck in the middle as we have Israeli pilots on US military airbases on sovereign Iraqi soil (and we would probably have Iranian jets chasing their asses straight into Iraq, which would piss us off and piss the Iraqis off). Still, I could easily see Israel doing that as they always do crazy subversive shit like that and they get away with it.

I think Bush wouldn't risk carrying out a declaration of war with Iran as his term ends. If he did that, I can't see how the US public would be for it (in light of news like this), as there is a lot more skepticism about their justification for going to war since the Iraq war. It would essentially be a career-ending political move. As is he should just keep up with some of the rhetoric that keeps the Iranian government very suspicious and on their toes about the whole nuclear thing (while keeping it short of ridiculously hawkish language like "I'm sending carriers to the persian gulf to bomb you tomorrow"), then he should get his media contacts to do some positive pieces about changes in Iraq and Afghanistan (assuming Afghanistan improves a bit in the next few months instead of being destabilized more).

Now, if McCain goes into office with a Dick Cheney-like VP, I could see some ugly shenanigans happening. I don't care to speculate on that now, though.

6/30/2008 4:39:13 AM

If we did go to war with Iran I dont see how we would not have a draft. And if that happened, I really doubt that there will be college deferments like with the Vietnam War.

Where do I sign up as a conscientious objector???

6/30/2008 10:15:07 AM

i did my time so im good

6/30/2008 10:23:16 AM

Does anyone think that the current administration really has the political capital to pull off a draft-based war with Iran? I just don't buy it. I think the public outcry would dwarf the opposition to the Vietnam war.

6/30/2008 10:39:45 AM

Iran is actively trying to kill our troops. And has.

I see no reason for this to not happen.
And we will not fight Iran without lots of UN forces.

We cant.

[Edited on June 30, 2008 at 10:44 AM. Reason : dasd]

6/30/2008 10:41:57 AM

^http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=91705

We've heard a lot of government claims on this... but the government on the ground IN Iraq says there is no hard evidence to suggest this. Furthermore, about half of the insurgents on the ground in Iraq are coming in from Saudi Arabia (perhaps we're looking in the wrong direction here.) Since when to we go to war on this kind of half-baked information?

Oh yeah, I forget we live in a post 9-11 world.

6/30/2008 10:53:10 AM

i think this news about "significant escalation" of covert operations

was a deliberate leak by the Bush Administration. it may or may not even be true

i think the real goal here is just more FUD.

6/30/2008 10:59:19 AM

^^^ It would more than likely be EU troops going in with us. I don't see China or Russia supporting any kind of UN resolution that would weaken one of their prime oil suppliers and boost our reputation as leader of the free world.

^^ Because the daily star is such a reputable and highly respected media source.

6/30/2008 11:06:50 AM

^ The story it self came from the Agence France-Presse. (The oldest news agency in the world) but no doubt you don't trust anything from the Associated Press or Reuters either.

6/30/2008 11:16:19 AM

if something happens with Iran, dont look for much of our allies to help. Much of europe is being overrun with muslims(demographic shift).

Good call on saudi arabia.

6/30/2008 11:24:44 AM

I'm not a proponent of invading Iran, but if we do, let's try to leave out the occupation and nation building part.

Go in, defeat Iran's military, destroy any Nuclear facilities we find, then GTFO of there.

This would be quick, easy, and show the world we are still Gods of conventional warfare.

[Edited on June 30, 2008 at 11:29 AM. Reason : ]

6/30/2008 11:28:27 AM

^I agree.

6/30/2008 11:34:16 AM

war wooo!! means we can shoot our guns some more!

Not counting Israel; if iran is such a threat to world security then why are we the only ones sitting there poking a stick at them. Shouldn't russia/EU/china/india and all the other countries with significant military forces and large economies be outspoken critics too.

6/30/2008 12:13:22 PM

^ Those countries have mutually beneficial relationships with Iran. Plus if Iran provoked them, the gloves would come off. They wouldn't stop to care about human rights or Iranian citizens while retaliating.

And the larger members of the EU are outspoken critics of the Iranian regime.

[Edited on June 30, 2008 at 12:22 PM. Reason : asdf]

6/30/2008 12:21:44 PM

^^ Agreed. If anything, European nations like France and Germany have been leading the charge against Iranian nuclear ambitions, pressing for harsher sanctions, freezing accounts, etc.

I still don't understand where all this talk of invading Iran is coming from. Bombing Iran is a real possibility, so are covert actions, but even if we really wanted to, we don't have the manpower available to invade Iran. Assuming you could even get Congressional approval, you'd have to conscript another couple hundred thousand soldiers first, train and arm them, then get them in place.

Worst case: Israel bombs Iran. Iran gets pissed and uses its proxy states to go beat on the Israelis some more and throws more guns and money at Iraqi insurgents. Iraq gets worse, and our forces there get bloodied further. Maybe special forces troops get captured and paraded through Tehran, creating a diplomatic embarrassment. Yet none of these are on the same level as an all out war with Iran.

Also, Iran is not going to invade Iraq either. The Iraqis are fragmented and weakened, but nothing would probably pull that country together faster than a war against Iranian invaders. Heck, it was probably the invasion of Iran by Iraq that saved the Islamic Revolution in Iran, so maybe they're trying to repay the favor...

6/30/2008 1:17:01 PM

That whole article just seems too planned out with the anouncement of "covert" operations taking place. If anything this is a public announcement for Iran to come clean while putting pressure on them poltically through other countries who think we have something. As far as we know this could be an international version of "A Few Good Men."

7/1/2008 3:55:00 PM

Not a big fan of Fox News, but it looks like were getting closer and closer.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,374905,00.html

Looks like we're just looking for an excuse to attack.

7/2/2008 9:24:14 AM

looking for?

we've always had THE excuse/reason to attack them: our fucked up energy dependence

7/2/2008 11:46:11 AM

Quote :

"That is some pretty hawkish news, but the most Bush and Cheney would ever do is try to poke the Israelis with a stick and say "Hey, wouldn't you love to bomb Iran before fall rolls around? You know, just to show them who's boss... Come on... You know you want to!" I mean they have been doing actual military training maneuvers in the Mediterranean that were carried out over a distance that would seem to match the distance for a strike that went from Israel to the Iranian nuclear facility. All I can see them doing is botching that and getting many of their people killed, having a few of their people flee into Iraq to do emergency landings on military bases, and then the US officially getting stuck in the middle as we have Israeli pilots on US military airbases on sovereign Iraqi soil (and we would probably have Iranian jets chasing their asses straight into Iraq, which would piss us off and piss the Iraqis off). Still, I could easily see Israel doing that as they always do crazy subversive shit like that and they get away with it."

1. I seriously doubt we are prodding Israel into war with Iran. If anything, we are probably holding them back to a degree. History has shown that Israel does not fuck around if they feel threatened.

2. Again, study your history. Israel is quite capable of leveling most of Iran if it chooses to, without limping to us with their tail between their legs.

7/2/2008 2:01:37 PM

how much aid and weapons do we throw at Israel?

anyone know?

7/2/2008 2:32:31 PM