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Pentagon weighs requesting several thousand more troops in Mideast amid Iran tensions: official
Fox News ^ | May 22, 2019

Posted on 05/22/2019 11:14:12 PM PDT by bobk333

The Pentagon is slated to request several thousand more U.S. troops be deployed to the Middle East amid escalating tensions with Iran, a senior U.S. defense official told Fox News on Wednesday.

No decision has been made, and it was not clear if the White House would give its blessing. The deployment could also include Patriot missile batteries and naval ships.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 4qdeepstate; just1say1no; letsyouandhimfight
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John Bolton is, as usual, completely right; and yes, Trump is wrong.

Something needs to be done about Iran. Sanctions will hurt them, but they, with the possible, even probable, help of Russ ia and China, will still be able to develop nuclear weapons.

Hit them hard. This will be much harder than Syria, but a Syria style aerial and high tech war could cripple Iran for decades to come.

First take out their military defenses: radar, anti-aircraft installations, runways, planes. Don’t tell or trust our so-called allies (who were part of Spygate, trying to take Trump down) until after the attacks begin.

Then take out the rest of the military and anything related to nuclear weapon development, still staying away from destroying non-military targets, so an alternative government can more smoothly take over.

If that’s enough, start taking out communications (cell phone and Internet), transportation (key bridges, highways, etc,) oil wells, refineries, depots, power stations, etc.

Then sit back and be ready to take out anything they try to rebuild.

It might take one or two hundred billion in spending, but it is well worth the investment.

John Bolton will have an even better plan. They should listen to him.

1 posted on 05/22/2019 11:14:12 PM PDT by bobk333
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To: bobk333; SkyPilot; Roman_War_Criminal; null and void; metmom

This will be a fun thread. :)

Ezekiel 38 is coming. I don’t pretend to know when.

IMHO, it happens before the Tribulation but it’s hard to prove.

Carry on.


2 posted on 05/22/2019 11:20:26 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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To: bobk333

Have you ever spent any time over there fighting? Have any buddies cough up their last breath in your arms?

The sweat, the flies, the Hell it is is probably just something you read about.

Try living it before you puff up your chest.

NO BOOTS ON THE GROUND!!!!


3 posted on 05/22/2019 11:23:10 PM PDT by datura
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To: bobk333

[It might take one or two hundred billion in spending, but it is well worth the investment. ]


$200b is 200,000 cruise missiles aka JASSM-ER’s at $1m a pop. I’d be surprised if it costs that much. Israel dropped 16 dumb bombs on Saddam’s Osirak reactor, of which 8 hit their target. My guess is something north of 1,000, but way less than 200,000 will do the job of completely dismantling Iran’s heavy weapons and nuclear program. Maybe 10,000 cruise missiles will do the trick. But I’d expect the Iranians to be sending ordnance our way as well, so those Patriot batteries are gonna be busy.


4 posted on 05/22/2019 11:23:48 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
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To: bobk333

No, Bolton and hi acolytes have sh¡t for brains, and if there were to be war with Iran then it should be leveled by airpower.

And by Israel.

Neocons need to slink back under the rock they crawled out of.


5 posted on 05/22/2019 11:26:39 PM PDT by MrEdd (Caveat Emptor)
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To: datura

[Have you ever spent any time over there fighting? Have any buddies cough up their last breath in your arms?

The sweat, the flies, the Hell it is is probably just something you read about.

Try living it before you puff up your chest.

NO BOOTS ON THE GROUND!!!!]


I’m advocating this policy in the same way I advocate arresting and putting murderers to death or having the exterminator eliminate a hornet’s nest. People who don’t want to fight the nation’s wars shouldn’t volunteer to join the military. Defense Department is just the politically-correct name they put up because the old, pre-WWII name, War Department, sounded too gauche. The real business of the “Defense” Department is to fight the nation’s wars. Because by the time our cities are inundated with nuclear warheads from MIRV’ed ballistic missiles, it will be too late.


6 posted on 05/22/2019 11:31:39 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
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To: MrEdd

Arm the resistance, let them fight for their own freedom.

No more wars over there unless we - or Israel - are attacked like in ‘67 or ‘73. Let the Saudis handle Yemen. Help the Iranians start a new revolution in their land.

Yes, the Bush era neocons need to be ignored and humiliated.


7 posted on 05/22/2019 11:32:52 PM PDT by datura
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To: MrEdd

[No, Bolton and hi acolytes have sh¡t for brains, and if there were to be war with Iran then it should be leveled by airpower.

And by Israel.

Neocons need to slink back under the rock they crawled out of.]


I’m not sure anyone is advocating ground troops, especially with our rules of engagement. If you read what the original poster wrote, it’s all about air power, with ordnance dropped at regular intervals to make sure Iran remains prostrate militarily, a lot like Saddam’s Iraq.


8 posted on 05/22/2019 11:34:45 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
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To: Zhang Fei

I did 9 years 11B fighting in lots of places, some I can’t mention here.

Neocons really piss me off.

My brother - who I talked into joining - lost a leg in Baghdad.

So yeah, I’ve got skin in the game.


9 posted on 05/22/2019 11:36:09 PM PDT by datura
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10 posted on 05/22/2019 11:37:20 PM PDT by proust (Justice delayed is injustice.)
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To: datura

[No more wars over there unless we - or Israel - are attacked like in ‘67 or ‘73. ]


The Iranians are building nukes and the ballistic missiles with which to deliver them. They are now showering the Saudi capital with ballistic missiles from Yemen. Those missiles will eventually be able to reach all of the US. Imagine if Saddam had nukes when he invaded Kuwait. He wouldn’t have stopped, and 40% of the world’s oil would have ended up under his rule.


11 posted on 05/22/2019 11:37:28 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
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To: Zhang Fei

Wan an Zhang. Hitting the hay.


12 posted on 05/22/2019 11:38:50 PM PDT by datura
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To: datura

[I did 9 years 11B fighting in lots of places, some I can’t mention here.

Neocons really piss me off.

My brother - who I talked into joining - lost a leg in Baghdad.

So yeah, I’ve got skin in the game.]


The nation owes you and your brother a great debt. Having said that, the military’s job is to fight the nation’s wars. And a good chunk of those wars involves preventing harm to the nation’s citizenry. If a universal draft ever comes into play, the military has failed. If nuclear warheads ever rain upon this nation’s cities, the military has failed.

Iran has used every weapon system it’s ever gotten its hands on. We would tempt fate by letting them develop nuclear weapons and mount them on ballistic missiles. These nutjobs are shooting ballistic missiles at Saudi cities because the Saudis are intervening against Yemeni rebels who are being supplied and trained by the Iranians, the way the Soviet supplied and trained the North Koreans and North Vietnamese. The Iranians lobbing ballistic missiles at the Saudis from Yemen is a lot like the Soviets lobbing ballistic missiles at American cities from North Korea or North Vietnam. Which the Soviet never did. The Iranians are nuts.

The Persians have a long history of empire. The Europeans who say Iran can be contained are full of crap. Non-Westerners don’t give a crap about Western ideas of sovereignty and the end of border changes. As far as they’re concerned, the West had its day in the sun, grabbed the Americas and Australia, and is trying to constrain non-Westerners from getting theirs for the rest of time. Euro dickheads are trying to hold us back because they figure if it goes sour, we’ll pay most of the price, as we probably will, if we have to take the Middle Eastern oilfields back from a nuclear-armed Iran doing a combo of (1) re-assembling the unitary Islamic empire that prevailed under Muhammad and (2) re-living the glory days of Persian empire, when Persia ruled everything from Afghanistan all the way to Greek Anatolia.


13 posted on 05/22/2019 11:50:53 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
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To: bobk333

I am seeing 120,000 troops tossed around as what is needed. WTF?


14 posted on 05/23/2019 1:15:23 AM PDT by sockmonkey (I am an America First, not Israel First FReeper.)
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To: bobk333; datura
About one week ago, I submitted a reply to a thread headlined:

John Bolton on the Warpath

That thread was about whether or not John Bolton was a warmonger because his voice was conceivably associated with a potential invasion of Venezuela. This time the question is whether John Bolton is right about allegedly advocating some sort of military action against Iran.

Today's thread bears the (partial) headline:

BOLTON IS RIGHT

These two threads arguing endlessly that foreign policy should turn on one's opinion of one man is anything but conservative. It is not conservative to conclude whether or not to wage war because one has a good or a bad opinion of an individual.

Should we invade Venezuela because John Bolton is smart? Should we not invade Iran because John Bolton is stupid?

This is not rational foreign policy turning on a careful and prudent analysis of America's national interests, it approaches idolatry, it is stupid and it is very dangerous.

Yet, I have the obligation to set forth by opinions and not just opine, so here is my reply on that thread of one week ago:

"Clearly, those who have replied in this thread have learned well the lessons of the Iraq war. That is all to the good. I published my own mea culpa some years ago outlining my disillusionment with the war and noting the futility of many of these incursions.

However, I also noted that one of the false lessons of Iraq was that all incursions are necessarily ill advised. That is to over learn the lessons of the Iraq war. If we abandon all use of military force, especially if we let the world know, as Obama did, that we have no intention of resorting to force, we have no leverage with bloodthirsty dictators who can smell weakness.

With respect to John Bolton, I think we ought to discount much of the treatment he received in this article considering the source. The New Yorker is hardly the place to find any support for rational foreign policy. Rather it is a place to find cheap and easy shots designed to insert a wedge into the Trump administration and between Trump and his base. If in the process The New Yorker can paint the Trump administration as incompetent, all the better for them.

Equally, I think we ought to understand that it is entirely within Trump's methods to employ a "good cop, bad cop" tactic in which Bolton plays the hardliner while Trump keeps his options open even as he enjoys leverage in negotiation because of Bolton's public hardline.

Finally, there is a political advantage in letting Bolton take the political hit for belligerent remarks while Trump gains the leverage."

-----------------------------------

I believe it is foolish to dismiss the lessons of the Iraq war (or to dismiss the lessons of the Vietnam War). Equally, I think it is foolish to dismiss the real-life experiences of datura and his brother. I also believe it is equally foolish to fail to understand that our tendency to fight the last war is not limited to strategy, tactics or technology but it involves taking the wrong lessons from the last war. For example, we took the wrong lessons from World War I and were forced into World War II utterly unprepared. The Democrats concluded from the Vietnam War that it was politically toxic to support war in general and, therefore, they mostly failed to support the first Gulf War. They took the wrong lesson out of the first Gulf War, that wars were as cheap and easy as video games and it was politically dangerous to look weak and not support the next video game, so Hillary and the rest of them voted for the Iraq war.

I think the discussion should begin with a look at the map and observe where is a Iran? What is the potential for a Muslim caliphate under Iran domination running from the border of China through Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Syria and onto the Mediterranean where Russian and Chinese warships are finding harbor? We should look at a geopolitical map and ask is there a potentially mortal combination of Russia, China and Iran and is Iran perhaps a keystone that would make the whole edifice crash if removed? What is the existential danger of Iran possessed of nuclear tipped ICBMs? How much damage will we sustain with our European allies if we take action against Iran? How viable our sanctions alone as a method to achieve rational national foreign policy goals concerning Iran? Can we obtain our goals and Iran by airpower alone? What are the opportunities for arming insurrectionist on the ground?

These questions are not easy, they are very difficult. But one thing is sure they do not turn one way or the other on the character or intelligence of John Bolton.


15 posted on 05/23/2019 1:16:37 AM PDT by nathanbedford (attack, repeat, attack! Bull Halsey)
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To: bobk333
John Bolton will have an even better plan. They should listen to him.

That's just what we need. Another State Department war because we're 0-5. Why ruin a perfect record.

16 posted on 05/23/2019 1:17:12 AM PDT by SanchoP (Why does DC hate Americans so much ?)
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To: datura

I agree. Uncle Nuke is your friend.


17 posted on 05/23/2019 1:25:27 AM PDT by MuttTheHoople
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To: Zhang Fei

I am the original poster. I see some here are getting upset without actually bothering to read the post.

I advocated waging a Syria style high tech and aerial war. No boots on the ground, we don’t want to occupy even a square inch of Iran.

I am not a neocon in the least bit. We need to be very careful about spending American lives (pilots will be lost.) I think this is a matter of short term pain versus long term disaster. Sanctions alone will probably mean Iran has nuclear power in 10 years. There could be massive nuclear destruction in Israel, the Middle East and quite possibly, the United States.

We *have* to stop the development of nuclear capabilities of rogue nations.

Turning a blind eye and leaning on a blind idealogical anti-war stance, will come back to bite us in a disastrous way.

There is a good chance we can force a change in regime. If not, we can wage a targetted high tech war suppressing the rebulding of anything militaristic by Iran.


18 posted on 05/23/2019 1:51:19 AM PDT by bobk333
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To: bobk333

John Bolton is a globalist who has no business in the Trump administration. If I wanted a Sunni Muslim running the country I would have voted for Jeb Bush.


19 posted on 05/23/2019 3:33:49 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.")
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To: bobk333

I would hope that nothing happens or decisions made before the election. This could be their salvation a conflict that will kill Trumps chances in 2020


20 posted on 05/23/2019 3:35:26 AM PDT by ronnie raygun (nicdip.com)
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