Bye-bye INF treaty?

On Feb 19, 1:06 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Hyper wrote:
On Feb 19, 1:28 am, Pat Flannery wrote:

I'm still amazed we fell for Chalabi's line... snip
Pat

Who said they "fell" for it?

The other alternative is that we have some vested interest in having
Iran take over Iraq.*
Chalabi was our Golden Boy, who assured us that all we had to do was
toss Saddam out on his rear, and miraculously the teeming masses
yearning to be free in Iraq would set up a democratic government overnight.
It didn't sink in until a couple of months after the invasion and
occupation that our friend Mr. Chalabi was peculiarly friendly with
Iran... so friendly in fact, that if one didn't know better you might
have thought him to be an Iranian agent.


I simply meant that the decision was already taken, and Chalabi just a
convenient rabble-rouser.
To be perfectly honest, I did believe Sadam had the "capability" to
build a nuke or two.

* Or is that the idea? to give us an excuse to invade Iran also?
Wheel-within-wheels plots, just like in Dune?
Just wait till the ghola of Ronald Reagan shows up, and St. Nancy Of The
Knife begins her reign of terror. :-)

Pat

LOL.
Eye-rakis will be purged by the great ex-communicator.

Hyper wrote:
I simply meant that the decision was already taken, and Chalabi just a
convenient rabble-rouser.

He was one of the ones pushing for the invasion option early on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Chalabi
He's quite the character.

Pat

On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 15:54:53 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:



Hyper wrote:
I simply meant that the decision was already taken, and Chalabi just a
convenient rabble-rouser.

He was one of the ones pushing for the invasion option early on:

Many were pushing for that early on. Regime change was the policy of
the Clinton administration...

Pat Flannery wrote:

Allen Thomson wrote:

Surprisingly enough, there's a not-bad discussion of possible Russian
worries in this regard from a Russian analyst at http://
www.kommersant.com/p741700/strategic_weapons/ . (Most such analysis
coming out of the FEE fails to impress.)


It's instructive to fire up Google Earth and draw great circles
between a site in Iran (I use central Iran, but choose your own launch
point), Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. Remember to lead the targets
by a few degrees to take earth rotation into account. The trajectory
to DC does run right over the proposed Polish GBI sites in the
vicinity of Slupsk, but those towards more westerly CONUS targets pass
over western Russia.

What hits me as odd about that is that it doesn't make any sense from an
Iranian first strike perspective, as we would simply nuke them off the
face of the earth if they fired at us with a few missiles.

Even if the missiles had conventional warheads? I don't think you can
respond to an incoming ICBM from Iran with a full retaliatory nuclear
strike until you know that Iran is attacking with WMDs. And if you find
out that they aren't, you certainly can't.



--
Bush say global warm-warm not real
Even though ice gone and no seals
Polar bears can't find their meals
Grow as thin as Ally McBeals

Pat Flannery wrote:

Rand Simberg wrote:

Yes, you can't imagine that they might actually believe the
apocalyptic rants that they spout daily, and are actually interested
in immanentizing the eschaton.

(Hint: MAD only works when both parties want to survive)


The ayatollahs may chant a lot, but they are as keen to get destroyed as
TV evangilists are to have Christ really show up and start passing out
the judgments on people.

Forget the parallel religious government in Iran for a second, the
supposed secular president has made enough comments that I think he
certainly seems to border on being a hypernihilist, someone who wants
die and take everyone else with him.



Imagine what people would think of America if they thought we really
were going to do things the way Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell wanted
us to.

I've never heard of them advocating nuking everyone. I've heard that
Robertson thinks he can pilot hurricanes, if I were ever likely to take
him seriously. It should be noted that he's not any part of the
government while the religious leaders in Iran certainly are in fact in
ultimate control.

Henry Spencer wrote:

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
What makes it so pointless is that 10 ABMs in Poland are worthless
against a North Korean attack and so would only be of any possible use
against a Iranian attack that overflew Europe on the way to the U.S..
Iran would realize an attack by that few missiles would be suicidal, so
that doesn't make sense either, so what's the point of all this?

We've been through this before, Pat: it makes no sense *if* you assume
that the leadership in Iran (and its neighbors) will always be rational
enough and secure enough that deterrence will work. Unfortunately, it's
easy to think of reasons why that might not be the case. Notably, in
countries where the consequences of political failure often include sudden
death, a leader who's backed himself into a corner may personally have
nothing to lose by playing nuclear Chicken with the US.

Which could easily involve firing off a few missiles that may or may not
have nuclear payloads.

"Bill Bonde" wrote in message
...
Even if the missiles had conventional warheads? I don't think you can
respond to an incoming ICBM from Iran with a full retaliatory nuclear
strike until you know that Iran is attacking with WMDs.

Sure I can. I'm *not* going to wait to find out. I'm going to do my best to
zap the warheads I can, and I'm going to make as many martyrs on their end
as I can. Best bet for them is to not launch any missiles my way, or give me
any other reason to open a case of whoop-ass on them.

Scott Hedrick wrote:

"Bill Bonde" wrote in message
...
Even if the missiles had conventional warheads? I don't think you can
respond to an incoming ICBM from Iran with a full retaliatory nuclear
strike until you know that Iran is attacking with WMDs.

Sure I can. I'm *not* going to wait to find out. I'm going to do my best to
zap the warheads I can, and I'm going to make as many martyrs on their end
as I can. Best bet for them is to not launch any missiles my way, or give me
any other reason to open a case of whoop-ass on them.

You can zap warheads, of course, if you have that technology. What I'm
saying is that you cannot retaliate with thermonuclear weapons just
because someone sends a missile your way. You need to wait to see if
it's a WMD attack or not.

Feel free to explain how Iraq could fire conventional missiles at Israel
and Saudi Arabia in the 1991 Gulf War and not risk getting nuked (as
long as it didn't use WMDs). Would missile attacks on Europe constitute
something materially different from those on Israel? So would Europe
retaliate while the missiles were in the air using its nuclear weapons,
assuming Europe even had such things. The next step is what makes it
different if an ICBM is fired at New York City.


--
Bush say global warm-warm not real
Even though ice gone and no seals
Polar bears can't find their meals
Grow as thin as Ally McBeals

On Feb 19, 4:08 pm, Bill Bonde wrote:

Pat Flannery wrote:


Imagine what people would think of America if they thought we really
were going to do things the way Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell wanted
us to.

I've never heard of them advocating nuking everyone.

See http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=35036

" wrote:

On Feb 19, 4:08 pm, Bill Bonde wrote:

Pat Flannery wrote:

Imagine what people would think of America if they thought we really
were going to do things the way Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell wanted
us to.

I've never heard of them advocating nuking everyone.

See http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=35036

OK, you trolled me. I hope you're proud. That text doesn't even mention
Iran.



--
Bush say global warm-warm not real
Even though ice gone and no seals
Polar bears can't find their meals
Grow as thin as Ally McBeals