And how many Iranians have seen or known other than those on the TV?
We live in America, my freund. Quite a few. Including Iranian Jews.
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And how many Iranians have seen or known other than those on the TV?
We live in America, my freund. Quite a few. Including Iranian Jews.
Mil - stands for the countless MILlions of reasons not to work.
Sure, I'm just wondering where the "70 virgins waiting for them..." comes from.Originally Posted by Mil
Iranians don't like and don't want war with any nation. It's only one stupid president and his 2 million camera crowd that's causing all this political mess.
We know. But it does not make us, the Jews, feel any better.
Mil - stands for the countless MILlions of reasons not to work.
This isn't really the issue here - but before anyone starts willy nilly advocating the use of nuclear weapons of any kind - I suggest they view some documentaries or read some accounts of survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear weapons really have very little practical utility - even the newer types - with drastically reduced yields - I really fail to understand the apeal (when we can do most anything of this nature conventionaly) - because even if effective and even if we use them with discretion - just the fact that we use them will have negative conotations - and will increase the desire of the have nots to want them - and really this is not a good thing.
Believe me this whole situation doesn't make Iranians feel good either. Iran and Israel are potentially and naturally the best allies in the region.
The politics of the situation is of course much more complicated than what we see in the media. Here people are excited about a nuclear war or how IDF/USAF can destroy Iran, blow people up... and those living in Israel and Iran hate even thinking about a war because they know what it is.
In terms military capabilities and for those who like watching video clips of missiles hitting their targets (Iran in this case), let's assume IDF & US can bomb the entire country with 100% success and absolute zero loss.
Even the mullahs of Iran know an attack on Israel will be the end of their religious monarchy.
Iran will never attack Israel or any other country unless attacked. I just hope Israel's politicians will play the wiser party until Ahamadinejad's flame dies out.
There is still hope that Israel and Iran will become allies again and openly, but any preemptive strike by Israel will turn this around.
I'm very optimistic.
Posted by Parsi:
Believe me this whole situation doesn't make Iranians feel good either. Iran and Israel are potentially and naturally the best allies in the region.
Which they were until Iran decided to get involved in Arab politics. Pretty stupid.
The politics of the situation is of course much more complicated than what we see in the media. Here people are excited about a nuclear war or how IDF/USAF can destroy Iran, blow people up... and those living in Israel and Iran hate even thinking about a war because they know what it is.
I don't know about Israel but in Iran certain leaders are screaming and yelling for erasing certain countries off the map. Given Iran's population and territory size makes Israelis more then nervous. Especially given our Jewish history.
But don't warry Israel will not attack Iran.
Even the mullahs of Iran know an attack on Israel will be the end of their religious monarchy.
The mullah's of Iran are playing stupid politics, getting involved with the Arab causes and initiating such idiocy as what happened in Lebanon. Why the hell do mullah's need to be the most enthusiastic supporters for Arab causes is beyond me....
Iran will never attack Israel or any other country unless attacked. I just hope Israel's politicians will play the wiser party until Ahamadinejad's flame dies out.
? Iran was screaming for Israel's blood since the revolution. But Iran did attack Israel - through Hizbullah...
There is still hope that Israel and Iran will become allies again and openly, but any preemptive strike by Israel will turn this around.
I'm very optimistic.
Listen, the problem is not the harmless nature of mullahs but of what mullahs might do in the name of their own geo-political interests. Dictatorial regimes seem to make very stupid decisions... and given the unpredictability of such governments Israel cannot take chances. You never know what the consequences might be.... I agree Mahmud's talk is cheap and can be considered just that... "talk", however, many cannot really distinguish between talk and reality, and especially actions. Plus Iran does very many unsavory things to Israel - like involving itself with the Palestinians (when most of the Arabs stay out), Lebanon, Syria.... in fact Iran became the biggest enemy of Israel all done by Iran itself.
Mil - stands for the countless MILlions of reasons not to work.
"In terms military capabilities and for those who like watching video clips of missiles hitting their targets (Iran in this case), let's assume IDF & US can bomb the entire country with 100% success and absolute zero loss."
That is not a supportable assumption. I'll be gentle and call it absurd.
People who don't want to have themselves and their equipment destroyed use passive means like camouflage and discreet movement to make them hard to hit. When they have money, they buy things like air defense systems. If the Iranian Air Force does not run away (there is no evidence they would) like the Iraqi AF they can kill some of any attacking force. Hunting mobile Iranian missiles would be difficult. Note how hard it was to hunt Scud TELs in the Gulf War.
There are not enough stealth assets in the US inventory to take out Iran with conventional weapons, and Israel has no stealth aircraft (and would be at the limit of their range).
"Have you ever heard the term "Mutually Assured Destruction"?"
Yes, however I think more than buzzword-deep and actually paid attention during NBC training.
MAD required THOUSANDS of warheads and delivery systems, tens of thousands of people, and hundreds of billions of dollars.
Tactical nukes are PROVABLY not MAD weapons. "OOOH! Eeek! Nukeswillendeverythingifanyareused!"
is an emotional reaction. Nukes merely create larger explosions for less effort, and throw in a bit of radiation.
One hundred atmospheric tests were done at the Nevada test site alone. That means one hundred similar explosions could be overlayed on an enemy target matrix with a similar lack of harm to the surrounding area. These were normally in the low kiloton range.
Examples of very small nuclear warheads that could fit into penetrating munitions, be carried by fighter-bombers, and yield far more explosive power than any practical air-delivered conventional munition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W54
While those warheads are presumably out of service, building equivalents is certainly practical.
""Mutually Assured Destruction" only works against an enemy who loves life as much as you do. Not to a people who have 70 virgins waiting for them."
Then their failure to be deterred means that the options are surrender to them or destroy them. They chose to narrow the options.
"when we can do most anything of this nature conventionaly"
Of WHAT nature? We cannot match that kind of power against a buried target with anything that we can carry with a B-1/B-52/B-2. The trouble with modern precision munitions when bunker-busting is they have small payloads, and the average is a common 2000 pound bomb with various mission kits.
Our delivery systems are designed around this basic size. High quantities of gravity bombs can be carried by strategic bombers, but they don't all land in the same hole at once.
JDAM kit pics:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/jdam.htm
If you want to stop an enemy whose weapons threaten your cities, just rattling the silverware will not do.
Here is a bigger crater from a test explosion:
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Storax.html
Device sizes are listed, but of course they were not designed to be in an airdropped penetrating munition. No conventional explosive is going to move that much dirt in one shot.
Last edited by farmall; 01-12-2007 at 08:23 AM.
That's just nuts. No wonder Israel gets attacked all the time.
It's just brinksmanship. Never let a rhetorical point go unchallenged. The US Navy is bringing a second carrier group to the region. That's what, an additional 86 attack planes on top of the other carrier group and an unknown number of planes in Incirlik, Turkey, plus AWACS coverage? Clearly that's meant to intimidate them and remind them that the US can and will control the airspace over and around Iran if the need arises, and would easily drop the entire Iranian airforce in one day. They have upwards of 380 attack planes in their inventory of which, on average about 70% are mission capable.
See, WMD and other massive retaliations are not so much about use, but about the strategic employment of the threat of their use.
Uhh, I wonder how many GUIDED MISSILES Iran has? Think you can shoot all of them down, too? Doubtful.
Don't start wars you cannot finish. Bush is just now beginning to understand that fact.
Who said anything about starting anything. Look Iran has its own interests. They're not insane. They have their own country to defend no matter what kind of crackpot nonsense their 'president' babbles. They have to get shipping in and out of the the Oman Gulf, Straits of Hormuz and the Caspian Sea. They need to have international civilian air flights, cargo, etc. It's unlikely that Iran would intentionally start something if they believed that it would end in a immediate blockade of the country. So it's about making one's intentions clear from the onset instead of leaving them on a long leash and then worrying about it when hot shooting starts, if it starts.
Bush needs to understand what war actually is. Bush is fighting a "Politically Correct" war which cannot be won. Israel also fought a "Politically Correct" war in Labanon which it couldn't win. When we start fighting wars to win regardless of what the media or any other group says, then we will be fighting and winning.Bush is just now beginning to understand that fact.
http://www.cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/020408.htm
Conventional weapons are the least controversial option from a political viewpoint, but they are the least likely to destroy hardened and deeply buried targets, according to advocates of mini-nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, the U.S. military arsenal already has very powerful and precise conventional weapons, which could demolish hardened targets buried approximately 50 feet below the surface. During the Gulf War, for example, the U.S. Air Force used the 4,000-pound GBU-28 bomb to destroy a bunker north of Baghdad protected by more than 30 feet of earth, concrete, and steel. The GBU-37 guided bomb, an improved version of the GBU-28, might be able to obliterate silo-based inter-continental ballistic missiles. Such hardened targets were previously believed to only be vulnerable to nuclear attack.[4] Improvements in this class of conventional weapons are almost certain to follow.
All but one of the current U.S. nuclear weapons, if used as bunker busters, would undoubtedly result in massive amounts of radioactive fallout, potentially leading to huge civilian losses.
The one possible exception in the current nuclear arsenal worth exploring is the B61 bomb, which has a dial-a-yield between 0.3 to 170 kT. At the lower yields, weapons designers thought that this bomb could be modified to be a bunker buster that would minimize fallout. ... But this capability is limited. Tests showed that the B61-11 can only penetrate about 20 feet into dry earth when dropped from 40,000 feet. Not only would such a bomb be questionable for destroying very deeply buried bunkers, but it would produce tremendous lethal radioactive fallout even with its low explosive yields.
according to Dr. Robert Nelson, a physicist at Princeton University, "The goal of a benign earth-penetrating nuclear weapon is physically impossible."[8] His recent report shows that "EPWs cannot penetrate deeply enough to contain the nuclear explosion and will necessarily produce an especially intense and deadly radioactive fallout." Moreover, "A missile made of the hardest steels cannot survive the severe ground impact stresses at velocities greater than about [one kilometer per second] without destroying itself." Further, "This limits the maximum possible penetration depth into reinforced concrete to about four times the missile length -- approximately 12 meters for a missile 3 meters long." Even low-yield earth-penetrating nuclear weapons would excavate substantial craters, "throwing out a large amount of radioactive dirt and debris." His dose calculations indicate that "A one kiloton earth-penetrating ‘mini-nuke' used in a typical third-world urban environment [such as Baghdad] would spread a lethal dose of radioactive fallout over several square kilometers, resulting in tens of thousands of civilian fatalities."
The severe adverse consequences of nuclear weapons as earth-penetrators argue against their use. Weapons designers should instead shift development to conventional weapons that can render hardened and deeply buried bunkers inoperable. Though such weapons would be unlikely to destroy the bunkers, highly accurate conventional weapons could be used to seal up the entrances to these bunkers. As long as weapons of mass destruction (WMD) arsenals remain trapped inside closed bunkers, these arsenals pose no threat.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...articleId=1963
Proponents of building a new generation of small nuclear weapons have seldom been specific about situations where nuclear devices would be able to perform a unique mission. The one clear scenario is using these warheads as a substitute for conventional weapons to attack deeply buried facilities. Based on the analysis here, however, this mission does not appear possible without causing massive radioactive contamination. No American president would elect to use nuclear weapons in this situation — unless another country had already used nuclear weapons against us.
The end of the Cold War should allow us to place further limits on the development and use of nuclear weapons. The danger of moving from a conventional to a nuclear war is so enormous, that the US refrained from using nuclear weapons in Korea even when US troops were in danger of being overwhelmed. Attempts to develop a new generation of low-yield nuclear weapons would only make nuclear war more likely, and they seem cynically designed to provide legitimacy to nuclear testing - steps that would return us to the dangers of Cold War nuclear competition, but with a larger number of nations participating.
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_securit...g-weapons.html
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/on...RecordID=11282
http://www.inesap.org/bulletin17/bul17art17.htm
http://www.counterproliferation.org/conv/index.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...l/428892a.html
There is a contradiction here. The study claims that the inability of conventional weapons to deliver destruction is the main reason for needing nuclear arms. But to achieve nuclear destruction — rather than disablement — at the same distances, the bomb's power would have to increase 5- to 15-fold, making containment impossible. By seeking a fallout-free design, the study must accept a 50% or more reduction in destructive radius. But if a 'containable' nuclear bomb would deliver such reduced destructive power, might designers not better focus on delivering a conventional warhead to greater depths instead?
My comments:
EXACTLY! And none of these articles even discusses the latest (very effective) technics for such.
Conclusion - nuclear weapons (current technology/techniques) - even very small ones - do not really have any practicle combat role. They are perhaps of political use or have the possibility of being viewed (utilized?) as mass terror weapons (or as massive revenge weapons such as in Israel's case) - but other justifications for such are in fact very hard to come by.
"The severe adverse consequences of nuclear weapons as earth-penetrators argue against their use." ... next to anything worth saving...
50KT yield each (if required) is still acceptable against societies we must destroy to win the cultural war. We were prepared to erase Moscow and Beijing, so it is not unreasonable to prepare if necessary to destroy the enemy in the Middle East.
If that means WWII-level casualties, that is still better by far than losing.
The only alternative is slow surrender. Given the certainty of losing in "peace" or the chance of winning a massive war before we lose the technological edge, war looks good.
"they seem cynically designed to provide legitimacy to nuclear testing - steps that would return us to the dangers of Cold War nuclear competition, but with a larger number of nations participating."
Proliferation is inevitable now anyway, so I'm fine with resuming testing. Nuclear weapons are desirable, and effective for warfighting.
The genie is never going back in the bottle, so the only road to deterrence in future is (probably) to actually destroy an enemy who has them and is dedicated to the cultural struggle against the West. Proliferation is a good argument for a nuclear decapitation strike, especially when the alternative is eventual use of nukes against Israel and the West.
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