I've not claimed any explanation of motives (aside from the placement of the mines being indicative of a desire not to necessarily sink the ships), nor have I claimed any proof, I'm interested in the evidence.
Ships under attack in the middle east
- Thread starter XeNoN89
- Start date
I've not claimed any explanation of motives (aside from the placement of the mines being indicative of a desire not to necessarily sink the ships), nor have I claimed any proof, I'm interested in the evidence.
Agree. As I said happily corrected.
At present we have a group of men on a boat. In one picture one guy is practically waving at the drone.
Aside from a percentile shift in oil prices that lasted an hour. Iran (if they are the culprits) have gained absolutely nothing from this. If anything they've lost the Japan trade.
To be honest, it's gotten to the point now where IMO we should just give them our blessing to enrich their uranium if they genuinely only care about it for power generation, they need to go to 5%? have fun! They want to go to 20%, well that's 4x what France needs but I suppose they've been doing it longer so get stuck in! They want 50%, go for it!
But make sure to let them no in no uncertain terms that the second any of their facilities intentionally creates anything weapons grade it will be the target of a preemptive nuclear strike. Problem solved.
A summary of both **** shows is as follows:
The American screw up:
The captain of a US guided missile destroyer heard some chatter about a few Iranian gunboats hanging out together in Iranian waters (makes sense, that's where they should be) so he sent his ships helicopter to investigate, as the armed helicopter flew up to the boats they started shooting at it with rifles, it left and reported what happened to the US destroyed en route. The captain upon hearing this contacted his superiors to file a report and ask for further order-- lol of course he didn't, he sailed straight into Iranian waters and attacked the gunboats.
As this cluster was going on an Airbus took off from Iran and flew in towards the area in the standard commercial aviation air corridor, while gaining altitude and communication on standard commercial channels. The crew of the destroyer mis-identified it as an F-14 (they accidentally scanned one sitting at a nearby airport) and advised the captain that an F-14 was approaching while diving (the person looking at the screen believed the rising number to be falling as that's what he expected to see from an approaching F-14). The captain ordered them to lock onto it and start warning it to change course, the crew complied but only contacted the approaching Airbus via military channels which of course it didn't receive. The radar operator then realised his mistake and informed the captain he believed it to be a commercial airliner, the captain (busy saving the world from the evil gunboats) decided to err on the side of caution and ordered it shot down. The weapons officers then fired two surface to air missiles one of which destroyed the Airbus killing 290 people.
In the aftermath the US defence department was outraged beyond belief and ordered an immediate investigation into how one of their ships missiles had managed to miss an Airbus with zero defensive capability. They also blamed Iran for the incident and to this day have never apologised. The captain was given a medal for failing by the book.
As this cluster was going on an Airbus took off from Iran and flew in towards the area in the standard commercial aviation air corridor, while gaining altitude and communication on standard commercial channels. The crew of the destroyer mis-identified it as an F-14 (they accidentally scanned one sitting at a nearby airport) and advised the captain that an F-14 was approaching while diving (the person looking at the screen believed the rising number to be falling as that's what he expected to see from an approaching F-14). The captain ordered them to lock onto it and start warning it to change course, the crew complied but only contacted the approaching Airbus via military channels which of course it didn't receive. The radar operator then realised his mistake and informed the captain he believed it to be a commercial airliner, the captain (busy saving the world from the evil gunboats) decided to err on the side of caution and ordered it shot down. The weapons officers then fired two surface to air missiles one of which destroyed the Airbus killing 290 people.
In the aftermath the US defence department was outraged beyond belief and ordered an immediate investigation into how one of their ships missiles had managed to miss an Airbus with zero defensive capability. They also blamed Iran for the incident and to this day have never apologised. The captain was given a medal for failing by the book.
The Soviet screw up:
The crew of a Boeing 747 flying from Alaska to South Korea managed to mis-configure their planes systems and over the course of the flight the autopilot drifted off course towards and into the USSR. As it entered Soviet airspace it crossed paths with a US spy plane that had been doing reconissense on the USSR, to the Soviets the radar track appeared to show the airliner turning away from their airspace and the spy plane heading towards it. The Soviets then lost track of the airliner and didn't see it approaching their territory until it was practically over it because the radar that would have lit it up wasn't working (the local officials had lied to Moscow that it had been repaired following weather damage when in actually it was still non-functional) they then scrambled interceptors to intercept it.
Due to it's speed and heading the airliner was able to cross Soviet territory and get away back over international waters before the interceptors could reach it (you had one job interceptors lol). Sadly because the plane was flying a fairly predictable course the Soviets knew it would cross their airspace/land again as part of it's course and had another interceptor waiting to intercept it if it violated their airspace again. The commander of the air defences ordered that if it escaped over international waters it could only be shot down it it was positively identified as a spy plane (escaping with it's reconissense) however the sector commander below him instead ordered for it to be shot down if it flew near their airbase (no requirement for identification). When the airliner did indeed violate their airspace again and fly over the USSR the interceptors (four of them) visually identified it however none of them bothered to mention that it had airliner lights (concluding that an airliner derived spy plane could easily have them too). One of the interceptors was then ordered to meet it and attempted to communicate with it to force it to land, first by flashing his warning lights then when that failed he tried firing warning shots which (according to the cockpit voice recorder) they didn't notice as there were no tracer rounds.
It was at that point that disaster struck, immediately after the warning shots were fired the crew of the airliner pulled up to gain altitude, this caused the interceptor to slingshot past (it's Maverick's move from Top Gun). The interceptor believing it to be a deliberate evasive manoeuvre, the pilot notified his command who gave him the order to shoot it down, he then pulled around for a shot and launched missiles crippling the airliner. The interceptor pilot then notified his superiors the target had been destroyed, in reality it stayed airborne and the crew managed to maintain control for a while until too much of the plane had disintegrated and it spiralled into a crash.
In the aftermath the USSR lied about pretty much everything, what happened, where the plane was, who was responsible, etc etc. To this day the interceptor pilot believes he shot down a spy plane.
Due to it's speed and heading the airliner was able to cross Soviet territory and get away back over international waters before the interceptors could reach it (you had one job interceptors lol). Sadly because the plane was flying a fairly predictable course the Soviets knew it would cross their airspace/land again as part of it's course and had another interceptor waiting to intercept it if it violated their airspace again. The commander of the air defences ordered that if it escaped over international waters it could only be shot down it it was positively identified as a spy plane (escaping with it's reconissense) however the sector commander below him instead ordered for it to be shot down if it flew near their airbase (no requirement for identification). When the airliner did indeed violate their airspace again and fly over the USSR the interceptors (four of them) visually identified it however none of them bothered to mention that it had airliner lights (concluding that an airliner derived spy plane could easily have them too). One of the interceptors was then ordered to meet it and attempted to communicate with it to force it to land, first by flashing his warning lights then when that failed he tried firing warning shots which (according to the cockpit voice recorder) they didn't notice as there were no tracer rounds.
It was at that point that disaster struck, immediately after the warning shots were fired the crew of the airliner pulled up to gain altitude, this caused the interceptor to slingshot past (it's Maverick's move from Top Gun). The interceptor believing it to be a deliberate evasive manoeuvre, the pilot notified his command who gave him the order to shoot it down, he then pulled around for a shot and launched missiles crippling the airliner. The interceptor pilot then notified his superiors the target had been destroyed, in reality it stayed airborne and the crew managed to maintain control for a while until too much of the plane had disintegrated and it spiralled into a crash.
In the aftermath the USSR lied about pretty much everything, what happened, where the plane was, who was responsible, etc etc. To this day the interceptor pilot believes he shot down a spy plane.
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If only it wouldn't be seen as a double standard, there's already a despotic nation in the world that the US has promised to blow up on several occasions that has now on several occasions detonated literal nuclear weapons... as soon as said country was in a solid position to use their newfound power, the US all but ****** itself in capitulation?
Laughable, when is Trump going to realise he's been made a fool by the not-pooh-bear East Asian demon anyway?
Suppose we're just going to wait until Seoul is annihilated so we can do the "i told you so" trope?
Caporegime
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It's not bizarre, I don't think the US should have pulled out of the deal, but I don't think Iran should develop nuclear weapons irrespective of that fact and we have to enforce nuclear non-proliferation ultimately. Iran doesn't have to go down that route.
It clearly does.
Unfortunately North Korea has shown that the safest way to protect yourself against western powers is to get nuclear weapons, even if the sanctions pain hurts in the short term.
I think there is an overlooked aspect here actually that I'd forgotten as well. NK's recent advances in long range ballistic missile technology were, due to the sanctions, etc. they were under, made possible with the cooperation of Iran - if that tech sharing goes two way Iran actually isn't far from having the ability to strike atleast Israel possibly further afield.
Sorry don't know the background on the source of this article but first one I could quickly find that covered it:
https://thediplomat.com/2017/05/a-closer-look-at-iran-and-north-koreas-missile-cooperation/
A lot of NK's breakthroughs were only possible due to the cooperation of Iran.
Soldato
I think he made a really bad gamble that pulling out he'd be able to first scare Iran and then follow it up with some late-stage new deal that would be more to the USA and Israel's advantage. Maybe he'll still pull that off. But I have strong doubts. It's his favoured approach that worked with Mexico, is still uncertain with China and seems to have brought us to the lip of catastrophe with Iran.
Soldato
Look up the Israeli Operation Outside the Box.
Iran situation is looking like getting a lot worse before it gets better - seemingly Iranian proxy forces are ramping up operations though don't think there have been any serious casualties so far but IMO that will start to overspill to incidents outside the region if things continue to escalate.
Caporegime
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Worked with Mexico as in... didn't work at all? He just got a new deal that said Mexico would do what they were doing before and has fundamentally no changes in it. Oh I remember, he held up a piece of paper with amazing details on how favourable the deal was but he was keeping those details secret.
As for more hoping to gamble by pulling out and getting a better deal, again, that is not how the world works at all. The whole point of the first stage was too establish trust, prove both sides could stick to what was agreed before taking further steps, pulling out fundamentally breaks the entire purpose of the deal which destroys the foundation for creating a better deal. Also there has been not one moment before the deal or since they pulled out that they tried to push pressure on Iran to sign a better deal.
Trump has failed completely to make any good deals with any country since he's been in charge. He's harmed relationships with almost every major ally, but all his deals, like his deal with North Korea.... his work is laughable.
Soldato
Iran didn't ever adhere to the agreement... And neither did the US when they pulled out of it... Soooo
Caporegime
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Yes they did, literally everyone involved other than Trump has confirmed they did.
US claims Iran wasn't adhering to the "spirit" of the agreement and was going behind the backs of those monitoring their compliance only paying lip service to the agreement - I've not seen any evidence to back that up however.
Soldato
They just said they plan to enrich their uranium well beyond what is required for energy generation, what are they after then if they don't want weapons? (genuine question).