Posted on 03/28/2007 3:42:33 AM PDT by maquiladora
We all hope and plan for the best possible situation. If history is to be a judge however, typically an aggressor does not give a defender much of a choice. Japan attacked the US. Germany attacked Europe. Initiative in war has tremendous advantages. Most aggressors utilize those advantages. The fact that the US and Britain are stretched thin with weak domestic support, helps to make us an easier target. We should expect the Iranian attack when we are at our weakest point.
It was posted elsewhere on FR that there had been a meeting of the Revolutionary Guard (or whatever they call themselves) 6 days prior to the "incident," where they planned the attack, with the approval of Ahmadinejad himself, of course.
In other words, it was also already planned that Ahmadinejad would not go to the UN. This was around the time he was demanding the visas for the 25 "security personell," which he knew he would not get, but which he intended to use as an excuse to blame us for his not going to the UN. The seizing of the British sailors gave him another excuse not to go to the UN. In other words, much of the timing of this incident had to do with the UN visit.
The question, of course, is why. The UN is pretty toothless, and it's hard to imagine that he was afraid of it. So perhaps it is really just a vast propaganda play, and he's holding fast because it is giving him lots of mileage in the ME at absolutely no cost to Iran. One of his objectives is dominance and leadership of the whole ME and Muslim world, and appearance is very important there.
"sound of crickets chirping"
...cat meowing in trash can,
...hubcap spiraling down to the pavement,
...car horn in distance,
...large wife yelling at skinny drunk husband.
Imagine that. I also expect they'll say it was "Bush's fault". ;-)
Thanks. The info that has been published here indicated that the sailors and Marines were unarmed and the ship's commander actually had to call Whitehall, not the US commander. But as I say, information has been sketchy at best here, except for jerks like Rosie O'Donnell who emerged immediately with Iranian-sponsored disinformation.
...tumbleweed blowing down an empty highway
...dog baying in the distance
:-)
"Such a system would make targets of all small unit activities in the area."
Especially now that everyone knows that. So, I guess Iran can just go grab some more.
That'll teach 'em. /s
I understand your feelings, but we have a CiC that has a track record and Constitutional powers to do what needs to be done... and he will!
LLS
True and sad nonetheless.
I can however see a slight reason for the weak defense posture. The Iranians may have wanted hostile fire. That could have been Plan A. Then Plan B was take the hostages. Perhaps the Iranians are and have been trying to provoke hostilities and we have been trying to avoid them. That does seem to fit the situation over there with regards to roadside bombs and Iranian insurgents infiltrating into Iraq.
Well he certainly has nothing to lose at this point but the clock is running. His time grows short. I hope you are not disappointed.
Perhaps they wanted to drive the price of oil upwards.
bttt
Just a final note from the Foreign Secretary. At the end of the Q&A after her statement she mentioned that there has been a hint that the captives will be shown on Iranian TV soon.
There's a lot of outcry in Britain, like the media here... you will not hear it.
Speaking of which, none of those yellow POS would be going on 'spring break' until the troops had their money. Can W sign something in lieu of their absence to fund them?
I have several friends in the British armed services. Universally they LOVE to train in America because the uniform they wear even as Allies garners them a level of respect and thanks that is virtually unknown in Great Britain. The British civilian population just loathes their own military forces! I don't know from whence this springs. It might be a reaction to an elitist officer corps that graduates from Sandhurst and is usually wealthy or connected or even Royal. It could be a sign of creeping socialism in the UK and Europe as a whole. It could be another sign of creeping Islamization of the UK, although I observed the phenomenon even back when I was on active duty in the 1980s.
At that time I made a lot of friends in the 1st PARA, 3rd Royal Anglian Infantry and 1st SAS when those outfits trained with mine at Fort Lewis. To the extent that I was invited by some of the officers to take leave, catch a "hop" over to the UK at Lakenheath AFB and deploy with the outfit to Northern Ireland (the schemes cooked up by Second Lieutenants all over the world are ASTOUNDING...& SCARY) where I would wear the uniform of a British private and run combat patrols in Belfast. LOL what an international incident THAT would have made! In the end, it wasn't common sense that took hold, it was God in the form of unbeatable logistics. But when those blokes left, they GAVE me all of their unexpended 9mm SUB GUN ammo, which was at the time, considerably "hotter" than standard ball ammo available stateside for 9mm handguns. That was nice. I probably got over a thousand rounds of the stuff.
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