Invading Iran at this point is pretty much batshit insane. Much like Iraq but even moreso --- such an action means simultaneously pissing on all the values the leadership claims to support, while in all likelihood failing to achieve stated objective (and quite possibly unstated ones too). cf Iraq.
It says volumes about the state of affairs in the USA today that we both talk about this as a realistic possibility, even if a small one, and also go on about our days as usual.
A few days ago a colleague and fellow activist asked me "Does this look like a nation that has been at war for four years?" She's Bosnian, and has very different expectations of what a country should look like after four years of war.
Last weekend our campus activist group sponsored a film festival, showing movies like Road to Guantanamo and Iraq for Sale. After sitting through four of the seven movies we showed, I started to feel like I actually lived in a nation at war. What is wrong with our lives that some of us need to go to the movies to feel what is going on?
I don't think rank and file soldiers are told ahead of time when they're heading into theatres whose existence isn't common knowledge.
In my experience with military friends, they're typically not told much of anything at all.
We won't be able to say we haven't been warned, but much less of a case has been built publicly this time, and so we have the feeling that it can't be yet. Of course, just as with Afghanistan, we could get in the car and find the press conference already in progress.
What will the objectives be? where will the army deploy? Iraq boarder, I would guess, but after the long war that's got to be fortified. Airborne landing? Amphibious landing? The mind reels.
Not buying it. Even people worried about an attack on Iran don't usually conceive of it including soldiers on the ground.
I assume that one of the first moves in open warfare would be to barrage the hell out of the naval fortifications in the south.
It would be helpful if we knew what units these soldiers were with, though. If they're all Special Operations units, then maybe they're all going to help the Baluch separatist movement. (Sigh.)
I've been feeling optimistic recently that we would avoid a war with Iran. Higher level diplomatic talks are being held. Saber rattling in the last two weeks is down at least 20%.
I also don't get the concept of telling combat infantry, even officers, before you tell anybody in the public.
8 : that doesn't jibe with my (limited, 2nd hand) understanding either. How accurate is military scuttlebutt?
We need an Idealist bat-signal to provide a feasibility check.
A few weeks ago I listened to the beginning of an episode of The Story in which the wife of a National Guard member was telling how she found out that her husband's tour had been extended - via a Yahoo! news alert - before her husband had. Is this people's expectations/fears just manifesting itself as gossip? I sure as shit hope so.
None of us know anything. I am going to continue to be fatalistic, depressed and apathetic on the issue of American foreign policy.
I'm hoping it's nonsense, and I agree that I don't understand why soldiers would know reliably ahead of time (my guess is that if this is a real rumor, rather than something which McKelvey or her informants just made up, that it's trickled down from someone in the Army making what they think is an informed guess and advising people to act on that basis, rather than solid knowledge).
But at this point I'd rather protest unnecessarily and look foolish and easily frightened rather than let stuff like this pass by, in case it is real.
8,9: My guess would be that military folks are seeing the same things we are and gossiping about they mean. It would be nuts for the Army to be giving units any kind of official word that they should expect to be sent to Iran.
The previous sentence from the TAPPED post, suggesting maybe rumors are useful:
Back in 2002, months before U.S. troops arrived in Baghdad, American soldiers were told they would be heading for Iraq. At least that's what a soldier in Hinesville, Georgia, a town outside the army base of Fort Stewart, told me last weekend. Now the news is different.
We need an Idealist bat-signal to provide a feasibility check.
There is no way for me to tell for sure, obviously, but this sure sounds like people confusing what someone said someone thought might happen with the President having made some decision. For example, it is perfectly believable (indeed, I would assume it was the case) that there are units doing war games that involved fighting in Iran. One might deduce from that--and tell one's wife or a friend--that it looks like we are going to attack. Not a crazy guess, but still a guess (and maybe horrible security which might well be a crime). And the guess might not be very reasonable. I have planned and participated in lots of war games. Most were defensive. As far as I know (and when I was a war planner in Korea, my knowledge went a moderate ways up) none of those offensive phases I ever exercised were connected to any kind of concrete plan to attack anybody. On the other hand, we have attacked other countries. And I am sure that those attacks were war-gamed. So people make all sorts of guesses.
Finally, it really is hard for me to imagine the US seriously planning a ground invasion of Iran. Obviously, others have different views.
Teacher: Can you tell me where the Iraqi border is?
Student: In the park with my aunt, and my mom doesn't trust him!
But at this point I'd rather protest unnecessarily and look foolish and easily frightened rather than let stuff like this pass by, in case it is real.
This, absolutely, yes. I would much rather make a bunch of noise and be wrong than wake up to find out we've just destroyed anything good we might still have going for us.
this sure sounds like people confusing what someone said someone thought might happen with the President having made some decision
If language is a virus then gossip is a worm. I have all my toes & fingers crossed.
Hope this isn't a premonition of bad things to come. I have made 4 phone calls to my daughter in the past week. No return calls yet from her (this is not like her at all). Yup, you guessed it: She is at Fort Stewart.
(Please, tell me this is just irrational paranoia.)
"... But worrying about nothing is harmless ..."
Not really, if you worry about nothing this distracts you from the things you should be worrying about. Also there is the whole boy who cried wolf thing.
Unless this is some kind of playing-at-madman for purposes of credible saber-rattling, I don't see it. If there is seriously a plan to go into Iran with ground forces, I really don't think that the military's command structures would routinely be communicating that fact to the rank-and-file. I mean, do you think that in 1942, you'd have heard: "Welcome to the Army, son. You'll be invading North Africa some time in November through one of several invasion points, after which you can likely expect redeployment in the eastern Mediterranean preparatory for putting pressure on the Axis via Sicily, Greece and the Balkans."
Soldiers themselves certainly gossip about possible deployments, and sometimes their gossip is based on some genuinely overheard bit of scuttlebutt from their commanders, but this story as described has soldiers being programmatically told to expect deployment to Iran.
Loose lips sink ships. You people are not firing on all cylinders if you think someone's cousin's aunt who has a friend who knows this light colonel is in a position to know, let alone disclose an invasion. OPSEC violations will definately put you in jail. Scuttlebutt (military rumors) are notoriously wrong.
I like this idea of a "real rumor": a story that is widely circulated, but for which there is no evidence. Very often I hear people ask "is this real, or just a rumor?" I get weird looks when I say "its a real rumor" to at least establish the fact that this is not the first time I have heard the story.
14: But that paragraph is perfectly consistent with the idea that the military rumor mill, along with a whole lot of other people, correctly figured out that the Administration was dead set on invading Iraq well before they made it official.
As far as contingency plans go, it's not like there are tons of possibilities. Iran, Iraq, that's it. It's not an enormous theatre war. (Syria?)
When Reid chose Lieberman to speak for the Democrats, thta was a very strong signal to Bush that he could get away with anything and the Senate, at least, wouldn't interfere. And I've thought for a year that Bush's response to any setback will be to go double or nothing. There are all these trial ballons up saying "Plan B is to make sure that Plan A succeeds", together with other trial balloons by different people saying that Plan A is no better than a 25% chance.
Historically you can't say that batshit crazy military plans are never put into effect and Bush-Cheney is a prime suspect to be the next time that happens. The B-C team seems to get their basic philosophy from high-concept action movies.
I've been saying the same thing now for a full year (war with Iran) and I don't think I'm wrong yet. If it still hasn't happened 22 months from now, drinks are on me.
Do we have to go to Minnesota to collect?
Maybe I'll mail bottles of Leinenkugels to everyone.
Doesn't Minnesota have its own beer? Leinenkugel is from Wisconsin.
Minnesota is weak in the microbrew area. The few that there are don't get up this way. Grain Belt is a somewhat local beer but I don't like it any more.
Grain Belt is a somewhat local beer but I don't like it any more.
Too many bad memories?
We didn't need rumors from soldiers about the plans to invade Iraq, folks! Take yourselves back to that point: by January 2002, the administration was more or less saying so in the open. On Iran, it's a lot harder to read the tea leaves, though I freely concede this Administration's horror-inducing capacity to do the most stupidly unimaginable things.
No, it's changed. It's a clear-bottle beer and like all of them, has an off taste. The GB of yore no longer is bottled.
I regularly heard rumours, of the 'oh, yes, yes we are' variety, that we were going into Iraq (I mean, besides the OFFICIAL rumour mills like the Telegraph for a good year beforehand, which would be the time period that the WH was trying to find an acceptable cacus belli. They wanted a war, they just hadn't worked out how.
Now, of course, political conditions are different: Bush doesn't have to win an election.
m, but also...
If, if, if....it wouldn't be the occupation of pacification of Teheran and the Northern mntns.
Most of the oil and the heart of the economy is in a pretty small section along the coast that even Saddam thought he could take and control. In the context of a major bombing campaign, I would consider it not only a good idea, but probably essential to control that area. It will not take millions of troops.
I haven't a clue if it is going to happen either.
One rumor scratched. The deployment from Fort Stewart does not involve Iran. It is a rotational brigade going to Iraq, and there was apparantly some typical "hurry up and wait" panic as to whether it would take place in March or in May/June. Rumor only; crisis over.
Rumor only; crisis over.
One of these statements is true, and the other isn't.
What's the feeling around here about grammar pedantry? Someone said "none of us know" upthread, and it's stuck in my grammarcraw. If it helps, I could misuse "begs the question" to provoke comeuppance.
... there was this story. No, wait. What's that again?
Finally, it really is hard for me to imagine the US seriously planning a ground invasion of Iran.
The Pentagon agrees with you! On 2/17, WorldNetDaily (your reliable source for R flackery) published this story
WND Exclusive NUCLEAR WAR-FEAR - Pentagon rules out ground attack on Iran - Officials find rugged terrain makes invasion virtually impossibleHuh!
Democrat leaders in Congress vow they'll move to block President Bush from invading Iran, but Pentagon officials say that won't be necessary, because they have no active plans for a ground attack.Note use of 'Democrat leaders' indicating premium grade official Party-related BS.
In fact, officials tell WND they have war-gamed a full-blown invasion and ruled it out because of the difficult terrain in Iran, a mountainous fortress compared to Iraq.Shit, West Texas is a mountainous fortress compared to Iraq. Since Iraq is really really FLAT.
He explains Iran is ringed virtually 360 degrees by towering mountains, and even if they were passable by artillery units, unstable salt flats and high desert wastelands stand between those mountains and Tehran, the capital. "The Great Salt Desert outside Tehran is hundreds of miles of dry lakebeds that ooze a black sticky mud that's a lot like quicksand," he said. "It won't support tanks and artillery." It was in the Great Salt Desert, known locally as the Dasht-e Kavir, that the 1980 military mission to rescue American hostages in Tehran was aborted. Dust storms blinded pilots and caused a U.S. helicopter to crash into a C-130 transport plane, killing eight crew members.Worldnet Daily and an R political flack reaching back for a precedent from the Carter administration??? Whoa. FISHY.
[Giant mountains, deadly sandtraps, Par 12 holes, critics of the Bush administration and then] But even strong promoters of the war in Iraq are not talking seriously about going "into" Iran.Huh.
I do not think anyone in the U.S. is talking about invasion," said Josh Muravchik, a Middle East expert at the American Enterprise Institute who has argued for air strikes on Iran. "We have been chastened by the experience of Iraq, even a hawk like myself." If the initial march to Baghdad was a cake walk, a march to Tehran would be a logistical nightmare, experts agree.Experts agreed that Saddam Hussein was armed for bear. Experts agreed on a cakewalk in Iraq. Ex...oh, fuck it. 'Experts' couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with a thermonuclear weapon.
[Madonna, sand, deadly press conferences, more sand, dragons be here, more sand and then]And unlike Iraq, Iran lacks any sizable rivers, leaving most of the country arid and dry. (The Lut Desert, for example, experiences some of the world's hottest summers.) U.S. artillery forces would not have any indigenous means to keep engines cool.Would we be fighting in the summer? Why does artillery need engines? Say... aren't Saudi Arabia and Iraq pretty hot during the summer too?
That leaves air assault, which is a much more viable military option. Officials say the Pentagon has outlined a plan using satellite and laser-guided missiles to attack targets inside Iran in a preemptive action to destroy Iran's dual-use nuclear facilities or punish Iran for arming Shiite militias in Iraq, or both. Some of Iran's installations are underground, however, and protected by hardened bunkers, which may require nuclear-tipped "bunker-busters" to knock them out, officials say.Much more viable. Is it too much to point out that invading is saner than the use of thermonuclear weapons to take out thermonuclear weapons that probably don't exist?
Woo wee. Not to forget those 200,000 guys now piled up on the border of Iran. I mean, you move all your troopies over to Baghdad and that puts them either on the eastern side of the Tigris, or a hop, skip and one bridge away from the eastern side of the Tigris.There are several signs the U.S. is preparing to launch an air campaign against Iran, including [A bulleted list! How handy! -m]:
- Ordering a second battle group led by the aircraft carrier USS John Stennis to the Gulf in support of the USS Eisenhower. A third carrier may also be on the way. [They did recall the Enterprise. However there was an "unplanned" surge of the Ronald Reagan to support the Kitty Hawk while it underwent some form of unplanned repairs. (???) So RR is four days away from the Arabian Sea. -m]
- Shipping additional Patriot missiles and minesweepers to the Gulf.
- Ordering more oil reserves to be stockpiled in the U.S. strategic supply. [!!! -m]
- Deploying more troops on the other side of Iran in Afghanistan, which would help guard U.S. and coalition bases there against a flood of Iranian suicide bombers.
- Cutting a surprise deal with North Korea to cool tensions on that front in the "axis of evil."
Republicans in Congress also are reaching out to such groups - including the Mujahideen-e Khalq, or MEK, an armed faction that could provide an internal opposition to the Ayatollah's Revolutionary Guard. [Official crud. Less formal crud:] In a press conference earlier this week, Bush ratcheted up the tough talk, asserting, "We're going to do something about it, pure and simple." Still, Iran has fundamentally different geography and nearly three time more people than Iraq, and therefore does not present the soft conventional military target that its neighbor originally presented.Hrrmmmm. The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran was conducted by 3 Soviet armies (around 150,000 soldiers) and the British (who had 3 divisions and two brigades (around 70,000 soldiers)) and they got it done in 24 days, while absorbing 66 casualties. And that was using second-line tanks of types that would have been common in 1941. Granted, Iran has improved in relative terms since then. Granted guerilla warfare is more efficient than previously. I'm pretty sure the American army can pull that off. They're aren't bad at invading, they're bad at occupying. Surely civilian hacks at the Pentagon know that. So why did they float that particular story? It's basically an official, explicit given that the US is going to fight Iran (read the story). How we're going to fight Iran is the only question.
So why float a story whining about how difficult it would be to invade? The only reasons I can think of, is to throw sand, and cover for the fact that they are planning to invade (and this, abandon Iraq) or that they intend to soften up the faithful for the deployment of nukes, since we 'can't' invade Iran.
I can actually see the latter: out of all the possible choices, given the insistance on fighting with Iran, that's the dumbest possible choice. Which would keep the Bush administration track record perfect. When you get attacked by Osama bin Laden, of course you fuck up killing him and then go invade Iraq and take possession of a few hundred thousand square miles of sand and 29 million pissed off Muslims. That's the dumbest choice possible.
Likewise an air campaign that includes the eventual use of nukes. Since 'everybody agrees' that's the only thing you can do.
m, here we go 'round the mulberry bush...
Minnesota is weak in the microbrew area. The few that there are don't get up this way. Grain Belt is a somewhat local beer but I don't like it any more.
36. You are right, Rob. Rumor only. I stand corrected.
C., I didn't like the Summit and the Schell I've had. The third brewery I never had tried.
Schell has the advantage of being in New Ulm, which has a large patriotic statue of Herman the German, who destroyed several Roman Legions around 0 A.D.
My great-great grandfather founded one of the first breweries West of the Mississippi (Omaha, ~1850.) If I started a microbrewery I could pick up the name and brag about 150 discontinuous years of tradition.
Herman the German being Arminius?
December Iran war futures are at 20 cents on the dollar and haven't moved above 30 cents since November. The markets aren't expecting a war...
44. Not that anybody has a clue what the 1st century form in Cheruscian would have been. Wikipedia suggests something like Ermin (as in Ermintrude), and FWIW says the Hermann is actually a reverse formation from the Latin created during the renaissance.
We can do nothing about this. Absolutely nothing. This is all going to play out among the elites, and everything points toward the conclusion that they really don't give a fuck what we think -- otherwise troops would already be withdrawing from Iraq and Bush and Cheney would be up for impeachment. Options for private citizens, even large groups of private citizens, are almost non-existent.