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Iran sending warships close to US borders[W:623]

Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

By then, it's too late. Don't you see that?

it would be much smarter to head them off several hundred miles away from our coastline and send a clear message that they won't be allowed to approach any closer.

Allowing them to patrol, 12.5 miles offshore is stupid.

Would you find that justification acceptable if Iran managed to sink one of our ships in the PG? Afterall our ships have nukes and are within spitting distance of Iranian territorial waters.
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

We barely know who was responsible. There is massively conflicting evidence over the exact identity of the attackers, let alone their would be state sponsors. Moreover even if we did have resounding evidence of Iranian culpability we are a responsible hegemonic democracy, we don't retaliate by wantonly slaughtering people at sea and then say "By the way this was for the Khobar Towers 20 years ago".

We prepare our retaliation, we plot possible consequences, we organize our contingencies, and then we act and we always make clear why we acted.

We aren't god damn pirates.

An American court established that Iran is responsible. Under our system, that makes it a fact.
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

Would you find that justification acceptable if Iran managed to sink one of our ships in the PG? Afterall our ships have nukes and are within spitting distance of Iranian territorial waters.

Iran is a terrorist state. They don't get special considerations. Why are you suggesting that they should?

And, American ships in The Persian Gulf aren't carrying nukes.
 
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Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

I was in Central America a few times, got deported twice.

I never got deported but I would have welcomed anything that would have got me out of there sooner. I was in El Salvador, and it sucked. Everybody...I mean everybody...was armed. It's real jungle down there. I woke up multiple times with tarantulas, scorpions, and snakes crawling around the tent. Mosquito netting and mesh laundry bags saved me daily. ****ing tarantulas can jump. High. The guy next to me fell asleep without netting around him in the middle of the day. Felt something crawling on his face and slapped it. Scorpion stung him through his eyelid. And gunfire every single night.

Twice was enough for me. Where were you at?
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

Iran is a terrorist state. They don't get special considerations. Why are you suggesting that they should?

They get the same consideration as any other sovereign state.
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

An American court established that Iran is responsible. Under our system, that makes it a fact.

No they didn't. The United States district court issued murder indictmentsagainst four named individuals all of whom were Saudi or Gulf Arabs, and also issued indictments against several unnamed persons including a Lebanese citizen. There was no criminal trial. What happened was that the victims enlisted the support of DLA Piper to file a federal lawsuit against Iran for damages related to the incident and won them.

The United States is hardly bound by the findings of a civil suit. Moreover the Judge in said case authorized the payment of $254 million in damages, not murder at sea.

Meanwhile the evidence remains unclear. While it is likely that Iran was responsible for the attack, the theory of al-Qaeda's involvement has won increasing prominence and cannot be discounted. The Secretary of Defense at the time and many high ranking officials in the CIA and INR believe it is increasingly possible that al-Qaeda played a major role, which was underlined by the 9/11 Commission Report on the subject.

In any event you failed to address the main point. Which was that this is not how a responsible democratic hegemon behaves for any number of reasons.
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

They get the same consideration as any other sovereign state.

what makes Iran a terrorist state, and not a sovereign? I agree with you... I thought that there were terrorist organisations in iran.... but the country itself is a sovereign state could someone help me understand this?
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

No they didn't. The United States district court issued murder indictmentsagainst four named individuals all of whom were Saudi or Gulf Arabs, and also issued indictments against several unnamed persons including a Lebanese citizen. There was no criminal trial. What happened was that the victims enlisted the support of DLA Piper to file a federal lawsuit against Iran for damages related to the incident and won them.

The United States is hardly bound by the findings of a civil suit. Moreover the Judge in said case authorized the payment of $254 million in damages, not murder at sea.

Meanwhile the evidence remains unclear. While it is likely that Iran was responsible for the attack, the theory of al-Qaeda's involvement has won increasing prominence and cannot be discounted. The Secretary of Defense at the time and many high ranking officials in the CIA and INR believe it is increasingly possible that al-Qaeda played a major role, which was underlined by the 9/11 Commission Report on the subject.

In any event you failed to address the main point. Which was that this is not how a responsible democratic hegemon behaves for any number of reasons.

Yes, Iran was found responsible...

A federal judge ruled yesterday that Iran is responsible for the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing and ordered that the government pay $254 million to the families of 17 Americans who died in the attack in Saudi Arabia.

Iran Held Liable In Khobar Attack
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

what makes Iran a terrorist state, and not a sovereign? I agree with you... I thought that there were terrorist organisations in iran.... but the country itself is a sovereign state could someone help me understand this?

They fund a terrorist army...that's what.
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

Yes, Iran was found responsible...

I addressed that word for word in my post. Either you didn't read it or you didn't understand it. You are also still dodging both the secondary and main points. I suspect because you know you've dug yourself into a really dumb position.
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

I addressed that word for word in my post. Either you didn't read it or you didn't understand it. You are also still dodging both the secondary and main points. I suspect because you know you've dug yourself into a really dumb position.

You made an erroneous statement. I corrected you. I know you hate being wrong, but there it is.
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

They fund a terrorist army...that's what.

Really? wow I am all mixed up for some reason I thought we were aiding the Iran government against terrorist groups in there country my bad
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

I never got deported but I would have welcomed anything that would have got me out of there sooner. I was in El Salvador, and it sucked. Everybody...I mean everybody...was armed. It's real jungle down there. I woke up multiple times with tarantulas, scorpions, and snakes crawling around the tent. Mosquito netting and mesh laundry bags saved me daily. ****ing tarantulas can jump. High. The guy next to me fell asleep without netting around him in the middle of the day. Felt something crawling on his face and slapped it. Scorpion stung him through his eyelid. And gunfire every single night.

Twice was enough for me. Where were you at?

Mosquitos, try bug juice.

Mosquitos, snakes, tarantulas, etc. are minor league, Camp Pendleton has them all.

Try 13 months in Vietnam with Burmese pythons that can eat a man, cobras that popped up a few feet from you while on patrol in the bush. Or the infamous "Two Step" bamboo pit viper, man eating tigers, leaches, giant mosquitos that discriminated and would turn over your dog tags while sleeping to see what your blood type was. Then you had Charley who was a pest. Then when you were in your hooch you had to deal with King Rat. :eek:

kingrat.jpg
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

Really? wow I am all mixed up for some reason I thought we were aiding the Iran government against terrorist groups in there country my bad

You must be thinking of Iraq.
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

You made an erroneous statement. I corrected you. I know you hate being wrong, but there it is.

Civil liability =/= Criminally Responsible AKA Why OJ went free and still paid a fine. The United States has never pursued a criminal case on the Khobar Towers against anyone. To restate:

1. We aren't pirates and the wanton slaughter of sailors at sea is not how we retaliate.
2. To do so would bring about enormous consequences that no preparation has been made for.
3. You haven't even acknowledged the possibility that there may be compelling reasons for the US to not want to attack Iran.
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

Mosquitos, try bug juice.

Mosquitos, snakes, tarantulas, etc. are minor league, Camp Pendleton has them all.

Try 13 months in Vietnam with Burmese pythons that can eat a man, cobras that popped up a few feet from you while on patrol in the bush. Or the infamous "Two Step" bamboo pit viper, man eating tigers, leaches, giant mosquitos that discriminated and would turn over your dog tags while sleeping to see what your blood type was. Then you had Charley who was a pest. Then when you were in your hooch you had to deal with King Rat. :eek:

View attachment 67161757

Whats the deal with the rat photo?
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

You must be thinking of Iraq.

I thought Iraq and Iran were allies, and it was the same sort of story. well this really Opened my eyes thank you
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

Mosquitos, try bug juice.

Mosquitos, snakes, tarantulas, etc. are minor league, Camp Pendleton has them all.

Try 13 months in Vietnam with Burmese pythons that can eat a man, cobras that popped up a few feet from you while on patrol in the bush. Or the infamous "Two Step" bamboo pit viper, man eating tigers, leaches, giant mosquitos that discriminated and would turn over your dog tags while sleeping to see what your blood type was. Then you had Charley who was a pest. Then when you were in your hooch you had to deal with King Rat. :eek:

View attachment 67161757

well I lived 22 years of my life in vietnam (before I moved to america) it's not THAAAAT bad :)
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

Civil liability =/= Criminally Responsible AKA Why OJ went free and still paid a fine. The United States has never pursued a criminal case on the Khobar Towers against anyone. To restate:

1. We aren't pirates and the wanton slaughter of sailors at sea is not how we retaliate.
2. To do so would bring about enormous consequences that no preparation has been made for.
3. You haven't even acknowledged the possibility that there may be compelling reasons for the US to not want to attack Iran.

You claimed that a court didn't hold Iran responsible for the Khobar Towers Bombing. I prove that your statement was in error.
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

An American court established that Iran is responsible. Under our system, that makes it a fact.
Indictments do not equate to convictions. Just to clarify. The case has not been proven in a court of law yet as the perpetrators are still at large. And those indicted were Saudi and Lebanese. Not Iranian.

There has since been additional information that has come out indicating that the allegations against the Iranian government may have been made in order to downplay the Saudi issue (that they had an active Islamist movement in their own country they were either unwilling or unable to contain effectively).

The organization responsible was Hezbollah Al-Hejaz (Saudi Hizballah). A Saudi Islamist group with ties to Iran. Certainly the link between the group and Iran is reasonable. Does that mean Iran directly sponsored the attack. Well that isn't so easy to determine in light of the new information that has come out.

Perry: U.S. eyed Iran attack after bombing - UPI.com
In 2001, the U.S. Justice Department announced a 46-count indictment against 13 Saudis and one Lebanese man in the bombing. All were allegedly connected to Hezbollah, a terrorist group the United States believes is linked to Iran.

Perry said the FBI strongly believed at the time the bombing was ordered by Iran, but Saudi officials tried to discourage that theory.

"They feared what action we would take. They rightly feared it. In fact, I had a contingency plan for a strike on Iran, if it had been if it had been clearly established. But it was never clearly established, and so we never did that," Perry said.

US Officials Leaked False Story Blaming Iran for Khobar Attack by Gareth Porter -- Antiwar.com

Despite that consistent denial by al-Sayegh, a Washington Post story on Apr. 14, 1997 quoted U.S. and Saudi officials as saying that al-Sayegh had met two years earlier with senior Iranian intelligence officer Brig. Gen. Ahmad Sherifi and that Iran was the "organizing force" behind the Khobar bombing. That story, leaked by officials supporting the Saudi version of the Khobar story, cited Canadian intercepts of al-Sayegh’s phone conversations in Ottawa before his arrest as allegedly incriminating evidence.

The story lent further credence to the general belief in Washington that Iran had masterminded the bombing, mainly because U.S. intelligence had observed the surveillance of U.S. military and civilian sites in Saudi Arabia by Iranians and their Saudi allies in 1994 and 1995.

What al-Sayegh actually told FBI agents in a series of interviews in Ottawa and Washington, however, contradicted the leaked story, according to sources familiar with those interviews.

Al-Sayegh admitted having carried out the surveillance of one military site other than Khobar for the Iranians, but insisted that it was not to prepare for a possible terrorist bombing but to identify potential targets for Iranian retaliation in the event of a U.S. attack on Iran.

His testimony was consistent with what Ambassador Ron Neumann, who was director of the Office for Iran and Iraq in the State Department’s Bureau of Near East Affairs from 1991 through 1994, had been saying about the Iranian reconnaissance of U.S. targets.

So Iran's fingerprints aren't necessarily on the Khobar Tower bombing.
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

I thought Iraq and Iran were allies, and it was the same sort of story. well this really Opened my eyes thank you

Iraq and Iran are allies now. Since Iraq has become democratic, since the majority of its population is Shiite, it has become an effective client state of Iran. So America and Iran are on the same side of the civil war going on in Iraq right now, but the America and Iran aren't directly cooperating in the area to my knowledge.
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

Mosquitos, try bug juice.

Mosquitos, snakes, tarantulas, etc. are minor league, Camp Pendleton has them all.

Try 13 months in Vietnam with Burmese pythons that can eat a man, cobras that popped up a few feet from you while on patrol in the bush. Or the infamous "Two Step" bamboo pit viper, man eating tigers, leaches, giant mosquitos that discriminated and would turn over your dog tags while sleeping to see what your blood type was. Then you had Charley who was a pest. Then when you were in your hooch you had to deal with King Rat. :eek:

View attachment 67161757

My father in law was in the AAC in the Pacific in WWII. His was an engineering battalion that dozed airfields, among other things, on islands that we were in the process of taking back from Japan. He had some horror of the nasty creatures that crawled around in those jungles. Also had some stories of drugged up, violent locals who wouldn't just lay down and die after being shot several times with an M1911.
 
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Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

Iraq and Iran are allies now. Since Iraq has become democratic, since the majority of its population is Shiite, it has become an effective client state of Iran. So America and Iran are on the same side of the civil war going on in Iraq right now, but the America and Iran aren't directly cooperating in the area to my knowledge.

Perhaps this is where my knowledge was mixed up, i'll have to look more into it, thank you so much for this great post it really was helpful
 
Re: Iran sending warships close to US borders

Mosquitos, try bug juice.

Mosquitos, snakes, tarantulas, etc. are minor league, Camp Pendleton has them all.

Try 13 months in Vietnam with Burmese pythons that can eat a man, cobras that popped up a few feet from you while on patrol in the bush. Or the infamous "Two Step" bamboo pit viper, man eating tigers, leaches, giant mosquitos that discriminated and would turn over your dog tags while sleeping to see what your blood type was. Then you had Charley who was a pest. Then when you were in your hooch you had to deal with King Rat. :eek:

View attachment 67161757

We had Cobras in Egypt. I don't **** with Cobras. I don't recall seeing any rats in El Salvador, but they were there. We were always told to police our food or we would wake up with them gnawing their way through our gear to get it. Mosquitos were bad down there but controllable with bug juice for sure. Scorpions and spiders are not minor league to me lol. But if you're living with Pythons and **** like that well then, hats off to you.
 
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