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More Hilarity - "Can I have my spy plane back?"

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rgdot:
Since that's the place I was born in I am tempted to post something political but since the green issue I am on the 'Limitpostus' pill  :P

IainB:
I reckon not! They know that they're going to be invaded soon, so that's not funny in the least.

It's just the sheer audacity of US officials to basically punch them in the face, then say that it's the Iranians that are being belligerent. It's just too much. I can't help but laugh.
-Renegade (December 13, 2011, 05:08 AM)
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Well, I read that, in the '80s, US military strategists based their scenarios for WW3 as likely to be triggered by instability/war in the Middle East.
You may well be right - maybe they actually are about to be invaded by the US. That could be the trigger.
I hope it's all posturing though - for all our sakes (e.g., Kennedy and Russians in the Cuba crisis).

I don't know about US "audacity" though - the US have been caught red-handed spying on the Iranians, and that's embarrassing, but it will come as no surprise to the Iranians. Many nations seem to be quietly spying on each other.
Is it a belligerent act, though - a punch in the face? Spying seems to be a kind of a military passive-strategic act - but not bellicose or an act of war in itself. It's not a Pearl Harbour type of event anyway.
Much as I rate the US military, I wonder if it isn't stupidity rather than audacity.

How so?
It was evidence of carelessness for the US to have a U-2 spyplane downed in 1960 - a risk that could have been predicted and mitigated - and they should have learned from that. So to have one of those unmanned high-tech spyplanes downed by the Iranians - well, it's unacceptably poor risk management - if those planes are really as valuable as is being made out.
They could surely have supposed that the Iranians probably had the Chinese and/or Russians helping them with the technology to knock one down intact, and then mitigated the risk. Or maybe the Iranians wing-tilted the drone in the same way as the Brits did to the German V-bombs in WW2?
In any event, I suspect heads may roll over this in the US military.

Similarly it was evidence of extreme carelessness and risk-taking of the British to lose 3 ships (I think it was) and large numbers of lives in the Falklands war by apparently losing sight of the fact that the enemy (the Argentinians) had French Exocet missile technology - which the British ships had no defence against (I think they belatedly fitted a defence system to vessels after those events). Also, because some of the boats hit were made of magnesium alloy, they burned up when they got hit. A magnesium fire can't be put out very easily, so the boats were a complete loss.

I don't know how warship designers could have overlooked such an elementary fact about magnesium alloys, but there you are.
Magnesium looks pretty in those bright flashes that you see in fireworks.

wraith808:
I nearly peed myself laughing at this:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2011-12-13/Iran-Obama-drone/51855044/1


-Renegade (December 13, 2011, 03:53 AM)
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What that doesn't include is the alternatives considered.  Considering the alternatives, this was a moderated approach. :(

Otherwise, we'd be at war.

J-Mac:
I reckon the Iranians would not consider this to be all that funny. It's probably a pretty serious business to them, never mind the US.
Déjà vu - 1960 U-2 incident
-IainB (December 13, 2011, 04:57 AM)
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And yet another oldie but goodie...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pueblo_(AGER-2)

I did not realize until I went to fetch the above link that the USS Pueblo is  STILL being held by North Korea! Since 1968! Guess we showed them...    :-\

Jim

f0dder:
An early christmas present, a little appetizer - a taste of the democracy that's to come.

As popular war advances, peace is closer.
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