Middle East conflict

[randomx]

l don't trust whatever Chumps motives are as far as l could kick them.

Suspect it's more like a distraction get the Epstein shyt off his back for awhile and if it goes well also boost his chances of staying in. 

Should hear Skye news here banging on about how magnificent Chump is now, turns the stomach.

Edited 16 hours ago by randomx

[Down East]

41 minutes ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Welcome to the forums, @Down East

 

I pretty well agree with the sentiment of the above, except universal health care and enlightenment doesn't necessarily mean giving up sovereignty, which much of Western Europe have done, as well as a lot of the rest of the western world. If you're not a superpower, you have to forge alliances through more compromises than the superpowers.. Post WWII, and with the EU, Europe did have a chance to become a superpower, but they dilly-dallied.

 

An old Chinese saying is that political power grows from the barrel of a gun. As much as we like to think it's not true, it is. Diplomacy works much better when you have a decent arsenal and those loyal who know how to use it. 

 

 

My entire point was that the Euro's have been constantly calling the USA warmongers for the past 50 years, but they are always the first ones to call the US President whenever there is a situation in the world that might affect their economies. They have been been neglecting their own militaries knowing that the Americans are stupid enough to keep bailing them out.  The Euro's had a royal meltdown when Trump called them out for not keeping their pledge of committing a few percentage points of their GDP to military spending.

 

 The EU should be its own power.  There are 29 countries in the EU and there is no excuse for them not making a joint effort to protect their economies and sovereignties.  

 

The US has done 75% of the heavy lifting in keeping the Persian Gulf open to world trade while Europeans and many other countries reap the benefits.  Then the Europeans turn right around and bash Americans to appease their left wing voters.

 

 

As far as my fellow Americans go, we should not be trusted any longer because there there is no continuity in foreign policy from one election cycle to the next.  On top of it all, we are in a non shooting civil war right now.  Might sound crazy to some but it's very true. We used to be country first.........but now days we are party first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Down East]

20 hours ago, onetrack said:

Lust for oil has been the root cause of many wars over the last 80 or 90 years - but in this case, I'm not so sure it plays as big a part in the attempted removal of the regime. But Trump and Americans in general nurse a long-held and extremely bitter grudge against Iran, largely due to the constant chants of "Death to America", the 1979-81 hostage crisis, the bombing of the USS Cole and the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon.

 

I'm guilty of this myself as a retired Navy guy.  A very large percentage of other retired military from my era are of the same mindset.

 

The hostage situation happened during my second year mark. Four years later, I was stationed in Roosevelt Roads Puerto Rico when the Marine Barracks blew up. The civilian secretary in my office came in one morning crying because CNN had just broadcasted that the Marine Barracks in Lebanon had just blown up.  Her husband was a Lieutenant Navy/Marine Liaison living on the second floor of the barracks at the time. Luckily, he wasn't inside when the explosion occurred, but It took 4 days for the poor lady to find out that he was OK due to the confusion.

 

I lost a good friend on the USS Cole.  Engineman 2nd Class Marc I. Nieto   He always called me "Dr. Diesel" and was constantly pestering me about technical issues with his gear. Great kid!

 

So yeah, I'm still bitter.

 

 

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

46 minutes ago, Down East said:

As far as my fellow Americans

I had a feeling you're from the US.. And ex-Navy, too.. I know a few ex US Navy people; I worked for a company that was founded by one of them. Best job I had and best company I worked for, by far.

 

 

[willedoo]

The US and the Shah were quite close. When you look at a map you can easily see the strategic importance of Iran to the US and understand why they've always regretted it's loss to the Islamic regime. Resources aside, the biggest importance is it geographical location and it's boundaries. It controls the straights, acts as a huge buffer zone, shares a boundary with Turkey, a major US ally, and is just across the ditch from several of their Middle East allies. It also shares the Caspian Sea with Russia who has a naval force there, and while the regime runs Iran, Russia has free use of their airspace for launching cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea fleet. That's the path Russian missiles were taking during the Syrian conflict. It's not all about oil.

[Litespeed]

Yes,

the Shah was close as he was i stalled by a CIA coup.

 

 

[willedoo]

Just as it's not all about oil, it's also not all about Trump. He's a bit like smoke and mirrors. He has an incredible knack of getting under people's skin, particularly those on the left who get almost hysterical at the mere mention of his name. I think a lot of people think a madman just woke up one day and decided to blow up Iran on impulse, well, ok, dream on. While people focus on Trump, they forget the strategic interest the US military and security people (and some politicians) have had for decades in trying to bring Iran back into their fold. The situation now is that a president finally took the gamble to try to do it, and it is a big gamble. The desire has been there since the regime deposed the Shah.

[willedoo]

Here's another thing. Have a real good look at where Iran sits on the map. In the real world, it will always be controlled by one of the three big powers, China, the US or Russia. You could say currently it's shared to a degree by Russia and China. So there's the choice. I know which one of the three I'd pick.

[Down East]

1 hour ago, willedoo said:

The US and the Shah were quite close. When you look at a map you can easily see the strategic importance of Iran to the US and understand why they've always regretted it's loss to the Islamic regime. Resources aside, the biggest importance is it geographical location and it's boundaries. It controls the straights, acts as a huge buffer zone, shares a boundary with Turkey, a major US ally, and is just across the ditch from several of their Middle East allies. It also shares the Caspian Sea with Russia who has a naval force there, and while the regime runs Iran, Russia has free use of their airspace for launching cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea fleet. That's the path Russian missiles were taking during the Syrian conflict. It's not all about oil.

 

A lot of people believe that it was entirely a CIA coup taking down Mosaddegh, but that isn't the entire story.  The CIA certainly played a role for sure, but it was British MI6 that initiated the coup because England was going to lose billions of dollars worth of oil machinery and oil contracts under Mosaddegh. 

 

It gets even more nuanced from there.

 

Mosaddegh reneged on the deal it had for years with the AOIC and was going to take over the oil fields under the guise of nationalization. England protested to the International court.  The International court (ICJ) sided with Iran on the oil fields because they stated that the AOIC was made up of civilian companies with no standing. The British government actually owned a controlling 51% of the AOIC and said "screw that".

 

Britain was bankrupt at the time due to WWII, and it was losing the last of its empire as well. The country was deeply in debt and trying to claw its way out of bankruptcy.  They were determined that there was no way that Iran was going renege on their deal with the oil fields and machinery.  The oil was basically a life saver for their economy at the time.

 

Meanwhile, the Soviets were waiting in the wings wanting to make a deal with Iran so they could buy into their oil. That was not going to happen if the USA had anything to do with it. The USA, Britain, and a lot of other European countries were in a panic about the Soviets back then.  

 

In the end........A lot of  countries didn't cry all that loudly over the coup because of the Soviets and the creep of communism.  And as a side note........some countries still resented Iran because they were a huge supplier raw materials to Hitler's Germany before and during the early parts of WWII.   

 

 

Edited 13 hours ago by Down East

[old man emu]

The problem we have in understanding current international affairs is that we, in general, do not know the history behind these affairs. That is because we grew up not having the knowledge of events happening as we grew up. We were never taught the history of affairs in distant places. Do you know the causes of the Iran-Iraqi war? Could you discuss the Balfour agreement, that is at the heart of the Palestinian conflict? 

[randomx]

Just saw Supreme Leaders son, has been elected to replace him.

lf he's anything like pop, congratulations, they've just created a new Bin Larden . Gee, didn't see that coming right , yeah right.

At any rate, it doesn't matter what they do from here now. They can only look forward to another 50yrs or so of the same and if they destroy the whole country, won't matter, this guys not gonna forget and they'll still be none the wiser.

He'll just do terrorist operations for as far as the eye can see, forever and the yank hate continues right.

Notttt, that l'm saying they should've or shouldn't have hell no bloody clue but the outcome was pretty clear day one even to blind Freddie.

 

 

 

 

 

[old man emu]

Somebody shouold tell the Yanks to keep their shovel in their own shit.

[onetrack]

The biggest problem is, typical of American adventurism with their finest military equipment, there appears to be little proper planning for a desirable outcome in operation Epic Fury.

It's like losing your temper with something that's not working properly, and hitting it with a hammer.

 

You might feel good about assuaging your frustration in the short term, but the item become completely buggered with the hammering, and it has to be replaced with a new one, simply because you became furious with it, and attacked it without any thought for the outcome.

 

Neither Trump, nor Hegseth, nor any of the MAGA mob running the show, can clearly articulate their long-term plan and satisfactory outcome for Iran. The messages they're sending are confused and confusing. Hegseth says his plan is not to carry out regime change. So, if the attacks are not about regime change, what are they about?

 

Epic Fury is quite likely to become Epic Failure, if Iranian civilian casualties continue to mount, American deaths continue to mount, and world opinion - and especially Middle-Eastern opinion (from those Middle-Eastern countries who are sitting on the fence, or initially U.S.-friendly), turns adverse towards America.

 

The Americans are very good at starting wars with a total lack of vision and planning, as regards the long-term outcome. It appears to me, they just feel the need to "kill a lot Muzzies, 'cos they hate us".

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

5 minutes ago, onetrack said:

It appears to me, they just feel the need to "kill a lot Muzzies, 'cos they hate us".

Well they kept chanting "Death to America" ... we'll see if that stops now.

[onetrack]

GON, do you really think that this current "Muzzie bombing" campaign will produce a highly satisfactory outcome? I'll wager it will only harden a lot of radical Muzzies to form more, "Death to America" groups.

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

2 hours ago, old man emu said:

The problem we have in understanding current international affairs is that we, in general, do not know the history behind these affairs. That is because we grew up not having the knowledge of events happening as we grew up. We were never taught the history of affairs in distant places. Do you know the causes of the Iran-Iraqi war? Could you discuss the Balfour agreement, that is at the heart of the Palestinian conflict? 

 

Like Vietnam - 95% of 20yr/old Aussie conscripts knew nothing about the North's determination to win at all costs. The North soundly whipped the French at Dien Bien Phu. Then they chased Australia and US military away for good.

 

Robert McNamara visited Vietnam after the war and said to them: "We didn't know who you were, what you were like."

 

After the deaths of 56 thousand US soldiers, and 500 Aussie troops, we see McNamara laughing and smiling with the Communists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 11 minutes ago by Grumpy Old Nasho