I know this is totally beside the point, and completely selfish, but ...
If we nuke Iran, Americans will never be able to travel abroad. Ever. In our lifetimes.
We would disappear behind Fortress America, endure homegrown and foreign-planned terrorist attacks, and steadily weaken as an economic and cultural power. Our superpower status would disappear within decades.
i think you miss the point, if w nuke iran it achives at least two goals. whipd the racist base into a frenzy, causes a massive rise in the terrorist population, thus increasing the fear in this nation driveing more votes to the fear mongers
"And the more the Bush Administration keeps pissing everyone else off, the more the rest of the world will line up against the United States."
That's BRILLIANT! Well, it was brilliant when I said it in 2002 on TNB, but never got treated as anything other than a troll.
Queequeg - see "The Handmaidens Tale"
Yeah, well, the thing is, we tend to treat bitter anon's as if they are Trolls here at GNB as well.
That is, we ignore them.
I'm saying this as a curtesy. If you wish to come out of your closet, give us a name and stick to that name, you're certainly welcome to participate, right up to the point where you behave all troll-like. You, I and the community know where that point lies, even if it shifts from moment to moment.
Not trying to say don't participate. I'm saying, come participate and don't be a troll. *smiles* Also, don't be Anonymous.
We maintain the Anonymous option for people as a curtesy. We're a political blog which also covers the gauntlet of the human experience. People need the option of speaking knowing what they say isn't being archived by The Wayback Machine with their name.
We don't believe however that speaking anonymously generally is a good thing for communities. Building a public identity creates commitment and trust, honor and accountability. People need to know who you are in order to make assessments of who you are and what you're up to. Even if you choose to speak as Anon, that also becomes an identity -- a weak one to be sure -- which regular users will begin to recognize and identify as "you," especially coupled with your writing style, topics and concerns.
Better to simply say what your name is and build reputation and credibility, for batter or worse in your name.
"On the internet no one knows your a dog." Of course this isn't true. Over time, people will figure out your true doggy nature. Or troll nature. Or Buddha nature. Who you are speaks louder than the name you use.
So use a name and gather the benefits of being part of a community, unless what you are saying genuinely needs to be said behind a wall of safety. Otherwise, come play with us.
Best,
"We juggle priceless eggs in variable gravity." - Niven & Pournelle, "The Mote in God's Eye."
The 1200-target Opplan will cause a massive anti-American attack regardless of whether we use Da Bomb or not - if we use Da Bomb, however, we can expect even our erstwhile allies to run away from us like we were lepers.
Good post, Jesse. Thank you for following up, aggregating net commentaries and throwing in your 0.02$.
The national security elite's astonished that March 19, 2003 appears to be the empire's highwater mark. Increasingly panic stricken and desperate, it's reasonable to expect ever greater, feckless and counterproductive force to secure their objectives; it's all they believe in and truly understand.
Meanwhile, Pat Lang has noticed Bush/Cheney & Co's. Asian creditors have lost faith the empire's long range prospects:
"Prediction Validated - China and the Dollar" The National Interest
by Pat Lang, Sic Semper Tyrannis, 06 September 2007 http://turcopolier.typepad.com/s...ction-
vali.html
The comment thread's highly informative as well. It appears the empire's ended up where it was headed and every day's better than the next.
Although desperate times invite desperate measures and Freddo and Total Dick don't do long range planning, nuclear exchanges put their measly asses right on the front lines. Any money on who blinks first this time?
$10 says anon is "not an american" the american highscooler.
Doc,
I'm more worried about the fact that those nukes were "out of known control" for a few hours. I don't like that at all.
In fact, if I was to put on my tin-foil 10-gallon hat, I'd be worried that
(1) Not only are the nukes going to a known ME staging area
(2) Are they all accounted for? I haven't heard evidence that they weren't; I'm just curious
'Cuz I certainly don't put it past this administration to let one go missing and later on turn up vaporizing Duluth or Des Moines or wherever. Sure, sure, we can analyze the fallout and prove that the weapon is one of ours, but in the meantime, 'ol Undisclosed Location and his Boy Wonder sidekick will have locked down the U.S. of A. tighter than my sphincter on an Immodium binge, and appoint the Boy King Emperor for Life.
While I only give that about a 1% probability overall, it's sad that in my lifetime I even have to consider it at all.
"Does the administration think Americans believe their lies or support a new war? Seriously? There would be riots in the streets, not that they don't have that planed for. Can you say Blackwater guarded internment camp?"
hmmmmmm, I have my doubts since the korporate media have propped up Dear Leader since day one
Jesse,
Moves could be made on multiple fronts. Syria and Iran. Not that the outcome is good. Russia warned Israel about their overflight today.
China may speak up to the US later. Cha ching craaaaaaash!!
Also, the anti-war protest in DC also starts on Sept 15th. Will Blackwater be there?
This flight also occured on a day when russian bombers edged into Norwegian airspace.
Save the whale-killers.
Jesse:
Bingo, bingo and bingo. It's really something that those of us who have been talking about scenarios like this for, oh, the past five years have been marginalized.....but it's actually entering fairly mainstream thought now.
Yet still no one seems too concerned. I guess most people still think they wouldn't be stupid enough to actually do it.
I'm concerned.
If it happened at all, it was not a mistake. No way in hell.
Thanks Jesse for the update and your thoughts too. Good job 
JW,
Good catch on nuclear transport issues. Nuclear weapons aren't exactly guarded the same as a barrel of grenades. It is a high-level secure operation that ALWAYS includes special forces operators just the same as any sort of super sensitive operation. The aerial transport of these weapons is usually the least secure because containment issues are involved especially with the possibility of accidental crashing. To lose track of these weapons is simply not possible.
The Russians and the Chinese have the eyes in the sky to track the movement of these bombers. So much so that at aircraft museums B-52s are under special lockdown because by treaty obligation with Russia they cannot be moved lest they be under suspicion of being recommissioned.
This was a move to be sure, but I personally have never seen this administration be so subtle in their actions. They more or less are of the mentality that they might as well fucking bomb them as long as they have the weapon there. Speaking hypothetically though, if this were the prelude to an operation using nuclear weapons, would the air wing conduct the mission from American soil or would they move the weapons to an area closer to Iran due to the likely repercussions of such an act? Anyone have reports of heavy activity out of Diego Garcia?
This is fucked up shit either way.
Wengler! .. look who visited Diego Garcia a few days ago!
DIEGO GARCIA, British Indian Ocean Terrority (NNS) -- After spending most of Labor Day with U.S. troops serving in Iraq, President George W. Bush made a very brief morning visit Sept. 4 to one of the U.S. Navy
’s most remote duty stations in the world: the U.S. Navy Support Facility (NSF) on the island of Diego Garcia, in British Indian Ocean Territory.
The visit was scheduled with less than 12 hours of notice and a lot of work needed to be done in that short amount of time to prepare for the president’s arrival.
http://www.navy.mil/search/displ...?
story_id=31629
http://thetension.blogspot.com/2...ush-
visits.html
I decided to dig a little deeper into the story about nuclear weapons 'accidentally' loaded onto a B-52 and have found some disturbing information buried in an unclassified USAF budget document. Below you will find some of the significant text and a link to the entire ultra-dull report from the Pentagon. But here are some bullet points to consider (tin foil optional):
-- We were TOLD these weapons were being moved to be decomissioned. THAT IS NOT TRUE! This current USAF doc says the missiles are being 'refitted' to extend their service life until fiscal year 2030! These are state of the art weapons. The service plan even includes upgrading the W-80 warheads to keep them IN SERVICE.
-- If you read the first sentence below, you will see how the USAF decribes these weapons as "designed to evade air and ground-based defenses in order to strike heavily defended, hardened targets at any location within any enemy's territory." Humm... What sort of operation would require such ordanance?
-- We have only 38 of these weapons, so 5 of them is a large chunk of the inventory to move at once.
-- It is MY OPINION that some 'patriot' leaked the info about these weapons movements. A warning?
-- It is also my opinion these weapons were being moved for some other reason, to Barksdale, and then possibly on to Diego Garcia, for obvious reasons.
The UK intercepted 8 Russian bombers yesterday, which has not happened in about 15 years. Syria fired on 4 or 5 Israeli aircraft that violated that violated Syrian airspace and dropped fuel tanks in the desert...
Sound's like shits really starting to hit the fan... Russia is really starting to freak me out a bit too! o.0
As someone who in a previous life, oversaw a special weapons program for a military squadron, Im going to have to go with the BS option regarding the "it was a mistake" excuse. There are way to may checks and balances required, to accidently fly 5 or 6 special weapons across the country. This whole issue stinks to high heaven.
Many excellent comments here. Thanks to all.
Granted, none of us here are likely to have detailed knowledge of the procedures currently in use to manage or move these weapons, nor should that be discussed publicly if we do. So we can't really judge how error-proof they are. Insufficient data.
It does appear from the discussions on some informed military forums that the current procedures are not as ironclad as they were during the old SAC days. However they are still very, very tight. We should remember that there is always a way to make an unexpected sequence of small errors that produce a large "impossible" error.
Having said that, on the basis of what I know so far, I'm inclined to believe this was not an error, but that these weapons *were* loaded intentionally for unknown reasons and that the people involved thought they were doing what they were supposed to be doing. (There are alot of facts missing though, so I reserve the right to be wrong...)
If so, the "Why" is is a real puzzler. Any number of schemes can be dreamed up by those who have read enough Fiction, and are convinced that clinically insane people are in charge. I agree this administration has demonstrated their ability to willingly do patently dumb things, but if we stay in the middle of the Bell Curve of possible "Why"s for a sec, it remains a real mystery.
Two important points about the possibility of their intended use against Iran:
1) Someone in another blog, (dang I can't recall who/where now), made an excellent point: these were not deep penetrator style nukes, which are large, heavy and hard so that they can be dropped from high altitude, and bury deeply before detonation. ACMs are designed for air burst over surface targets, and not really a good choice against deep, hardened facilities. At least not if minimizing fallout is a calculation, which I thnk we can assume it is. Friendly states are just too close, and some of them remember Chernobyl a little too clearly.
2) If we *did* decide to use these types of nukes against Iran though, I doubt we would really need to move them from CONUS halfway across the world hanging off a B-52H. Similar weapons are already nearby in the form of submarine and ship-launched missles.
The Russians and Chinese (at least) would probably know a bomber strike from CONUS is enroute shortly after it launched, and are likely to (at least) warn the Iranians to evacuate key staff (the real target), and publicize the fact broadly to maximize the political damge to the US. If we wanted to mount a surprise nuclear attack, I would think a sub launched effort would make more sense, and might even be deniable. But what do I know...
I do agree that the trigger has probably been pulled on Iran, although who knows how long the barrel is. (Debka now says two more CBGs are now enroute, FWIW.) The risk of all this is obviously enormous, but the theory may be simple: they may have decided that the only way the US can exit Iraq is through Iran. We cannot redeploy without dialing back the Iranian military enough so that they are harmless for a few years, giving the Iraqis time to establish some sort of defense of their oil, ...errrr.. I mean "borders", in the aftermath of their civil war. This is almost certainly madness and a huge gamble, but when seen from the perspective of us not really having any good options after the troops run out next summer, the strategy may even be the one of the least bad available. I doubt nukes would be used unless the Iranians sank a carrier or two and cut the supply lines from Kuwait, stranding our forces and putting us in, (believe or not), a worse situation.
Sometimes I just can't believe that we are where we are. Puts Florida 2000 in a whole different light, doesn't it?
Puts Florida 2000 in a whole different light, doesn't it?
Got to wonder with the benefit of hindsight, if Justices Stevens and Kennedy would vote differently, given a mulligan.
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