Why the US needs to go into Iran NOW with all guns blazing

I follow completely your post.... certainly the last three lines.

I like what The_Voice said. Aircraft Carriers are sadly, a thing of the past. No country could ever match them one on one, so they are developing weapons that would take them out and make the US Navy more akin to what it was prior to WWII: A pain, but not insurmountable to destroy.

I find it interesting that the US has over half of the total amount of carriers in the world. That forces anyone that wants to design a "carrier killer" to design it around US carrier specs, and the escorts with them.

Here's where I got the info on the active carriers for the countries that have them: Aircraft Carriers of the World

Also consider that the US is pretty much the only country that uses the Aircraft Carrier to "project power" into regions. I think the only reason that this is still used is because we haven't found an alternative to it. Maybe one day they'll just have Predator drones hover around a country like buzzards to tell them to back off

just a note on the rules of war and conduct

I believe--I could be wrong-- that Mr. Bush has opted the US out of the Geneva convention.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

So why don’t we just ditch all of our modern weapons and get black powder muskets. Then wear bright red BDU, then march in giant formations right into Iran?

The US would be blasted for using such an "inhumane" weapon. The lead balls frequently missed there target, insuring civilian casualties. They are known for maiming there targets, and letting them die slowly.

Or how about swords and pole arms? Even better.


Is there anything the US can do these days?

Originally posted by Sir Solomon

Also consider that the US is pretty much the only country that uses the Aircraft Carrier to "project power" into regions. I think the only reason that this is still used is because we haven't found an alternative to it. Maybe one day they'll just have Predator drones hover around a country like buzzards to tell them to back off

Wait, you're not actually saying we no longer need aircraft carriers, are you?

Without aircraft carriers we wouldn't be able to wage wars half around the world.
A US aircraft carrier is more powerful that many of the world's Navies. So yeah, it does project a lot of power and there's nothing besides nukes that project more power.

Some of these posts make me ashamed to be an American. I was born in 1962 and grew up watching WW2 movies, and was so proud of the way we were percieved by other nations and ourselves. We wore the white hats. We were supossed to be the guys that only attacked when we were attacked, becuase killing others is wrong unless you are defending yourself of being killed. We didnt torture people like the Nazi or the Empire of Japan did. Why?

Because we wore the white hats. America she was a proud girl wasnt she! She was strong, proud, and beautiful and we all loved her with all our hearts.

Look at her now. On the offence with countries that never attacked us. Even Afganistan didnt attack us on 911. Iraq certainly never attacked us. Yet we smashed her infrastucture, killed her children, shamed her men, raped her woman, and tortured them in the worst way, because to them, with the belief they have, our tortue ruined the soul. Pulling ther toenails would have been more humane in the eyes of most fundamental islamic people.

Now some of you want attack Iran. We got ourselves into this mess. All of us are guilty, if we demanded to get off the fossil fuel tit and didnt let the oil companies destroy any plans that could have changed things, alternative fuels, biodeisel was the reason Deisel engines were invented. We could have had a natural, replenishable fuel source long ago. Now we are attacking countries for there oil, so we can survive in a declining oil supply economy.

We are killing thousands of people for this. All that killing, it makes me wonder sometimes what the use of me putting my rear on the line to save yours is for.

Why? To make people feel safe? While we are on the offence like some huge Nazi war machine, using the TV as the propaganda machine that justifies what we are doing? What the hell happened to America?!

I want the old girl back! The one that would never have let the corporations run her to the point of invading other countries. I never, ever would have dreamed in my little patriotic head back in the old America, that I would be living in a country on the War offensive for resources, with most of my countrymen duped into going along with it.

Shame on US!!!

There are lots of things the US can do these days.




Try staying home for a while and work out some of the many domestic issues that threaten to tear apart the American economy in the very near future.

America can spend $400B a year creating jobs and balancing books, building schools, healthcare, ect. What good are tanks and jets doing YOU?

America can impeach the treasonist president and take their country back.

Shut down the war machine and win over a few friends.


There is alot America can do. Lots of good productive and industrious people who can turn this around, if they have the balls to stand up.

Everyone should get a nuke. Not only countries. Everyone. Yes. Your neighbour is to noisy? Nuke him. Get rid of all your problems once for ever. Get a nuke!

I think it is a joke people like Lanton saying America is weak. If America is weak then whatever country you are from must be dead and useless in comparison. Everybody hates the rich powerful people or countries. The hate that people have is pathetic, and I feel sorry for you. How come The US beat the Taliban with a few Special forces and some bombers. Oh yeah we are really weak. The cool thing about the USA is all the diversity we have. We are not perfect, but we are a better example than most. I think George Bush made up some crap to go into Iraq, and this pre-emptive warfare is not what the America I believe in. Afganistan deserved what it got, and that was justified in my opinion.

American people do not want war with Iran. But maybe George Bush does. But the Iranian government is just as stupid. It all comes down to where you are from, what race you are, and what religion you are that you form your misconception of other countries and people. (Yes I do too.)

Just get along, as we all have more in common than not.

Originally posted by NuclearHead

Originally posted by Sir Solomon

Also consider that the US is pretty much the only country that uses the Aircraft Carrier to "project power" into regions. I think the only reason that this is still used is because we haven't found an alternative to it. Maybe one day they'll just have Predator drones hover around a country like buzzards to tell them to back off

Wait, you're not actually saying we no longer need aircraft carriers, are you?

Without aircraft carriers we wouldn't be able to wage wars half around the world.
A US aircraft carrier is more powerful that many of the world's Navies. So yeah, it does project a lot of power and there's nothing besides nukes that project more power.

In the long term, yes, in the short term, no. When countries that don't have navies start developing missles to get around a carrier's defense, and you have terrorists who attack in small groups or individually, it really doesn't make sense to have a Billion dollar ship that carries million dollar aircraft to try and track down these guys.

But for the next couple years (while the world still decides to let the US police around), the Aircraft Carrier, and ultimately the planes on board will be able to project power. Yet I have to say that without a target to hit, a carrier is nothing more than a metal hull with a large bullseye on it. That's why I didn't join the US Navy that was hounding me to become a nuclear engineer, that and I'm too tall for a sub.

Well Sir Solomon, why do we put it this way. How many aircraft carriers have we lost to enemy fire lately? Ever? We barely lost any actual carriers in WW2. And that was a pretty big war my friend. I think these carriers are still good for anything you want them to do

And really when people say Americas sucks at winning wars, what countries are we even comparing them to? Are we considering all wars through human history? Do we take into account modern wars to wars of past?

I think the Middle East sucks at winning modern wars. Thats primarily because America is supplying or funding both sides of it, so either way they supply the victor. Israel held back practially at least half the Arab world thanks to American supplies and money. Iran and Iraq just screwed each opther up when they were at it, and both were being sold supplies by America.

I still havnt seen China invade Taiwan after years of talking smack. Did Russia ever dare to go at it for real with US? Nope they just tried to look bigger until they went broke. Kosovo was actually a pretty fair fight, it was just unfortunate they had all of NATO sending forces to bomb the hell outta them. Give them props though they seem to be the only ones in the past fifty years to bring down ANY western military jets.


Yea I am sorry I just seems funny when you say America sucks at fighting wars.

Originally posted by DYepes
Well Sir Solomon, why do we put it this way. How many aircraft carriers have we lost to enemy fire lately? Ever? We barely lost any actual carriers in WW2. And that was a pretty big war my friend. I think these carriers are still good for anything you want them to do

Yes, they are good, for now. But in the future they're role will become outmoded since we won't be able to protect them from missles like the Onyx or the older Sunburn. Like The_Voice said:

Though Sunburn can fly 150 kilometers at Mach 2.1 [1,520 mph] at an average altitude of 60 feet, Onyx leaves this performance for dead. Using the same launch tubes as Sunburn, Onyx streaks along its extended 200+ kilometer flight path at a blistering Mach 2.9 [2,100 mph], while hugging the ground even closer at an average altitude of only 45 feet. Onyx is 100% “Fire and Forget”, meaning that once out of the launch tube, flight management is entirely automatic, and you can forget the doomed 93,000-ton aircraft carrier sitting meekly down range, only minutes away from being converted into environmentally-friendly heat and light.

Though SS-N-25 deployment might seem like giant overkill, this is far from being the case, because Onyx differs from Sunburn in one utterly crucial way. So great is the kinetic energy at the point of impact on the target, that Onyx can sink an American aircraft carrier using only a conventional penetrating warhead. Those boffins who might doubt this should calculate the impact energy of 5,500 pounds of missile striking a carrier at a terminal velocity of 2,460 feet per second. Onyx means that Russia or China can sink American aircraft carriers at will without ever having to escalate to nuclear warfare, which gives both countries a massive strategic advantage.

I'd like to add two more parcels of information to this: 1) most carriers stand out of water more than 60 ft, and 2) the Phalanx systems must be turned on in order to detect and shoot down an incoming missle (since it doesn't recognize the internation IFF), which they usually aren't, and I don't think anyone is going to give their target a "heads up" that they are going to be shot at.

I highly disagree. The U.S. hasn't been getting enough respect lately because it went into war in Iraq without any evidence. More than 70 percent of the world is mad with the U.S. just because of that fact. The way to get more respect is to bring peace, avoid war for selfish reasons (oil,natural gas, production of weapons) and to invest more money in worldwide programs such as the attempt to abolish hunger in Africa and produce new methods of making fuel (such as solar and wind energy: true we have already started these but they aren't efficient enough). We should NOT go to war with Iran because we also have nuclear warheads in our possesion. What the U.S. really has to do is to discuss with Iran ways in which those nuclear warheads will remain in safe hands. War is not the answer.

Originally posted by llfrequencyll
What the U.S. really has to do is to discuss with Iran ways in which those nuclear warheads will remain in safe hands.

Safe hands? From what I seen and read the words of the President of Iran who has threaten as well as vow to destroy Israel, it sure don't sound like it would work.

I caught up this this thread late, so I'm going back to the original comment, in particular, China.

I do not think China is a treat.

Here is my reason: Money.

At present millions upon millions of Chinese youth are experiencing something their parents haven't: Freedom, money, consumerables, status, contact with outsiders, fun.

I work with Chinese students on a daily basis (am in New Zealand). Every year thousands come over here to get tertiary degrees. Once they experience, say, the thrill of driving a Nissan Skyline at 150k's down a motorway, it is very hard for them to come to terms with the fact that this right will not be readily available once they head back to China.

It is inherent within humans to seek freedom.

China is making the fatal mistake (fatal if you are still a chinese polititian who steadfastly believes in the power of a totalitarian state) of letting their youth experience an ideology that has been frwned upon for generations.

Even when you talk to the students regarding Taiwan, the reaction is usually muted and somewhat uninterested.

China's biggest treat is to itself. Rampant pollution, and a divided society between the rich east coast cities and the mainland cities where poverty is still rampant, will be the big issues determining their future.

Originally posted by llfrequencyll
We should NOT go to war with Iran because we also have nuclear warheads in our possesion. What the U.S. really has to do is to discuss with Iran ways in which those nuclear warheads will remain in safe hands. War is not the answer.

Exactly! I agree with you fully! I'm not against any country having nukes as long as they will only use them as a last resort, and vow not to harm another country's people.

But the question is still, what qulaifies as "safe hands"?

The_Voice

In total agreement

The argument being made:
"We" need resources and stability, the guarantor of which is "our" global preeminence militarily. Thus "we" must defeat "them," so that "they" cannot erode that preeminence. For that reason, among others, it is necessary for "us" to exert the full power of all the capabilities at "our" disposal to achieve "their" defeat or sufficient degradation. "We" have a greater right to the stability and survival this will provide "us" with than "they" do, and "we" will make better use of it than "them." In essence, the value of "our" lives is greater than that of "their" own. Survival of the fittest must rule the day, because that is the way of animal instinct, which is all we are governed by when it comes right down to it (for those who say that last bit isn’t part of your argument, I say this: if it isn’t, then you must believe we are governed by more than pure instinct alone, and accordingly, you should believe that we are capable of formulating solutions other than those available to animals i.e. isolate versus raid; flight versus fight; vanquished versus victor.)

My argument:
The above logic flows easily and makes perfect sense if you see the world in terms of "us" and "them." If you simply see it as "us," however, it becomes a bit more complicated, ethically...

Well you know Lanton at least your right to the point and no b.s. but I think your post overlooks a few things, some of which people generally forget about war. First war is never usually easy, even when you have military superiority. Wars in asia are definetly tough, and the U.S. isn't the only one who has suffered from problems with guerillas. What about Russia in Afghanistan, or Israel in Lebanon, Russia in Chechnya. Finally how far should the U.S. go, afterall there are consequences for every action the U.S. takes. Maybe things are not like they use to be, if there ever was a use to be.

Originally posted by AceWombat04

The argument being made: ...

My argument:
The above logic flows easily and makes perfect sense if you see the world in terms of "us" and "them." If you simply see it as "us," however, it becomes a bit more complicated, ethically...

Ok... that has got to be one of the best posts I've seen on ATS in a long time. You just managed to put into succinct words the way I understand the world.

Thank's for that!

Too bad it will fall on some deaf ears.
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