Posted on 04/25/2008 8:03:09 AM PDT by jhpigott
A vessel contracted by the Navy in the Persian Gulf fired warning shots Thursday on two Iranian fast boats, FOX News has learned. The Westward Venture, a ship contracted by the Navy to carry military cargo to Kuwait, fired upon the boats Thursday after attempts to get Iranian boats' attention failed. The ship was about 50 miles off the coast of Iran when the fast boats approached. A Navy security team, armed with M16 rifles and .50-caliber machine guns, was onboard at the time the warning shots were fired.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
We're physically incapable of invading and occupying Iran. It's physically larger with worse terrain and almost the population of either WWII Germany or Japan.
Another good reason to concentrate on the existing fronts rather than taking on a third front.
You've got some strange ideas about Iranian national sentiment. Ahmedinejad is there because he won an election. Bombing him won't decrease his popularity -- it will increase it. People don't like getting bombed by foreign powers. Instead, they band together. Every time there's a confrontation with the West, his popularity goes higher.
You'd be surprised.
crippling their government infrastructure would set them back decades, if not forever.
At $110/barrel, the Iranians are doing just fine. Not sure, however, what your point is. The US could destroy Iran's infrastructure, sort of the way the USSR destroyed Afghanistan's. Did Afghanistan's lack of infrastructure prevent 19-Afghan based terrorists from flying planes into the Twin Towers?
Yeah, people don’t understand how many uneducated religiously fanatic goons and thugs there are in the Revolutionary Guard and Basij - millions.
Sure, there’s a big educated middle class in Tehran that would love to ditch the Iranian government, but I think people greatly overestimate the chances of regime change (a lot of it fed by over-optimistic reporting by a variety of Iranian exile opposition groups.)
Did Afghanistan’s lack of infrastructure prevent 19-Afghan based terrorists from flying planes into the Twin Towers?
LOL! It prevented them from flying NUKES into NYC!
Frankly, I can live with a bunch of 7th century nutjobs waving scimitars and hiding in the hills.
bomb them into the 7th century.
I hope they get Letters of Marque.
I’ll join them
Well, that's okay with me. As long as it's just some little ones. Nothing MT. Maybe smallish KT. Say Hiroshima size. That's a veritable firecracker to what's available today.
Except, as we found out on 9/11, one 7th century nutjob waving a scimitar can quickly learn to wave a boxcutter and can kill 3000 Americans.
There are 75 million people in Iran -- that's three Saudi Arabias in the world's 4th largest oil producer.
Not one of them has blown himself up on a street or in a subway car or on an aircraft in New York, Rome or Jerusalem in recent memory. I hope that continues, because if it doesn't, it's going to make Iraq and Afghanistan seem like a minor problem.
Except, as we found out on 9/11, one 7th century nutjob waving a scimitar can quickly learn to wave a boxcutter and can kill 3000 Americans.
There are 75 million people in Iran -- that's three Saudi Arabias in the world's 4th largest oil producer.
Not one of them has blown himself up on a street or in a subway car or on an aircraft in New York, Rome or Jerusalem in recent memory. I hope that continues, because if it doesn't, it's going to make Iraq and Afghanistan seem like a minor problem.
I HOPE these guys did not have their OWN machine guns...unlike the hapless Anerican citizens here. (Unless they were pre-86, of course.) There WERE some Army or Navy people on that ship, to have custody of those guns, RIGHT? Right????
THANKS THANKS
for your kind words of affirmation for the Biblical truths.
Oh dear.
Clearly a sign of Armageddon a-coming . . .
I find myself agreeing with you . . . again!
Goodness. I’d better sit down and calm myself.
They’re generally Maritime Expeditionary Security Force Teams on these ships.
What are you?
Like the only person on the internet that cannot figure out how Iran is involved in the War on Terror?
Every Marine Recruit can tell you that Iran is in between Iraq and Afghanistan and that having beaten both (and we have effectively beaten both no matter what the Media says) the next logical step is to attack the center from both flanks.
Unlike the invasion of Iraq, this time we have secured two routes into Iran, (four if you count the Persian Gulf and from our bases in Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan).
and to those that would say we don’t have enough troops to do so they need to crunch the numbers, at least a Million troops have been through both Afghanistan and Iraq and are BATTLE TESTED Veterans of both conflicts. That number may actually be low too, It is probably closer to two million that have actual time in the conflict. Every pundit said it would take more then ten years to beat the Taliban in Afghanistan, every talking head said we would lose 40,000 Killed in action before we even got to Baghdad and yet we succeeded to do both with less losses over past seven years then at Gettysburg or on Okinawa.
Iran has always been the real target because it is The Real source of terrorism from the Islamic world and the time is rapidly approaching when the battle will be joined against them.
a ship contracted by the Navy to carry military cargo to Kuwait, fired upon the boats Thursday after attempts to get Iranian boats' attention failedIf you can't get their attention, make sure the next trip you carry some kind of recoilless s-to-s missile system. ;') I really mean it this time, g'night all.
I respect your opinion, and you are probably more informed than I am on the specifics of this. To me, it looks like we are short on resources as it is, and I came to my opinion also because of the fact that I don’t want to sit here behind a keyboard and advocate putting more troops on another front. But, as I said, you might know more than I do on this topic.
I understand that size gun can take out tanks.
CONSIDER:
God’s heart is to save the most while hurting the fewest the least, and it will take every last microsecond of The Great Tribulation to accomplish that goal; including the part about “unless those days had been cut short, no flesh would have survived.”
As for us...
I have been a staunch pre-trib guy since the early 1970’s; I think I read Hal Lindsay’s “The Late, Great Planet Earth” three times, God bless him. But my ongoing reading in scripture these past decades has changed my thinking; especially the 2 Thessalonians 2 passage. There just aren’t any ways around a straight-up reading of 2 Thess. 2:3 that don’t leave a hermeneutical “Slick Willie” smell in the air.
So, I’ve come to the pace where I believe that us redeemed folk aren’t outbound until AT LEAST mid-trib, because of the two prerequisites plainly laid out:
There’s gotta be a huge apostasy, which is not local church attendance dropping 30%, but or hundreds of thousands — maybe millions — of long-time faithful Christians literally chucking it all and walking away from their Christian faith.
And “the man of lawlessness” — clearly The Antichrist — has to be revealed, and given the antics in v.4 I’m thinking this will be a global revealing.
I’m still in the middle of some of this, but it strikes me that, although during the Tribulation there will be this great apostasy, there will simultaneously be the greatest revival and ingathering of souls the world will ever see. A key aspect of The Tribulation is spiritual polarization; lukewarmness will be unheard of as people either get all the way in or all the way out. This coming move of God will outstrip every revival in recorded history by several orders of magnitude; some are believing God for a billion souls or more!! So, a HUGE bunch of chaff will get shaken OUT of The Church (great apostasy) to make room for good wheat coming IN (great revival).
So, what will we be doing??
Well, far from finding us huddled in some cave in Uttermost Montana, I’m all but completely convinced that The Great Tribulation period will be The Church’s finest hour; that by far her greatest work will be accomplished during those dark and difficult days. EVERYTHING you ever even dreamed that God might anoint you to accomplish for Him will be on the table during that time. During those days, those who love the Truth will be found doing the mightiest spiritual exploits ever recorded since The Resurrection. Being faithful will potentially cost more, but it will be more rewarding than at any time ever before.
Now, if I’m right; isn’t that outpouring of empowered ministry a move you want to be right smack in the middle of??
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.