U.S. Planes Are Already Making Practice Bombing Runs Along Iran's Borders

[acmavm]

By Chris Floyd
Posted: April 22, 2006

http://www.bushwatch.net/floyd.htm

<snip>Twelve hours. One circuit of the sun from horizon to horizon, one course of the moon from dusk to dawn. What was once a natural measurement for the daily round of human life is now a doom-laden interval between the voicing of an autocrat's brutal whim and the infliction of mass annihilation halfway around the world.

Twelve hours is the maximum time necessary for American bombers to gear up and launch an unprovoked sneak attack -- a Pearl Harbor in reverse -- against Iran, The Washington Post reports. The plan for this "global strike," which includes a very viable "nuclear option," was approved months ago and is now in operation. The planes are already on continuous alert, making "nuclear delivery" practice runs along the Iranian border, The New Yorker reports, and waiting only for the signal from President George W. Bush to drop their payloads of conventional and nuclear weapons on some 400 targets throughout the condemned land.

<snip>


Now this paranoid sect has at last seized the commanding heights of power. Two of its most venerable and faithful adherents are central players in the court of the Crawford Caligula: Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon warlord Donald Rumsfeld, and they've found an eager disciple in the peevish dullard strutting in the Oval Office. Under their tutelage, Bush has eviscerated 40 years' worth of arms control treaties; officially "normalized" the use of nuclear weapons, even against non-nuclear states; and rewarded outlaw proliferators like India, Israel and Pakistan. Now, he is destroying the last, most effective restraint on the spread of nuclear weapons: the Nonproliferation Treaty.

<snip>

So the treaty is dead. Like the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution, it now means only what Bush says it means. Force of arms, not rule of law, is the new world order. The attack on Iran is coming. And Bush insists that the nuclear option remain in the war plans, despite resistance from top military officers, The New Yorker reports. The obvious, murderous insanity of such a move in no way precludes its implementation by this gang -- as their invasion of Iraq clearly shows.
<snip>

[Roland99]

1. Nukes, WMDs, etc. are all chaff. Regime Change is the name of the game.

[benburch]

2. In warfare parlance...

this is Demonstrating before their lines.

The goal of Demonstrating is to fix the attention of the enemy and divert him from noticing a flanking move.

[HockeyMom]

3. Kid we know who enlisted

in the Marines. He was told that he would be flying a brand new type of plane in the future. He spent six months training. He was very secretive about it. They sent him to Iraq in January to fight on the ground, but told him that his new piloting skills would be used someday in the near future. Iran? You tell me.

[acmavm]

4. I sure wouldn't bet against it.

[benburch]

5. Brand new plane?

The only one I know of is the F-22A Raptor. And I was unaware that the USMC had any allocated!

[Solo_in_MD]

7. Enlisted personnel do not fly planes unless its a UAV in the USMC

[HockeyMom]

9. Kid not the usual recruit

He was rejected by the Army for being underweight. He worked as a Recruiter (has some college) for 6 months while trying to gain weight. He never gained the weight. For some reason, which we never learned why, he was "accepted" by the Marines. I have no clue how or why that came about. Even my husband who is a Vet, said something sounded very fishy with all this: rejected by Army, accepted by Marines? Then, as you say, he was promised by the Marines that he would fly planes. Yes, he spent six months in flight school (Pensacola), before he was sent to Iraq. They told him his duty in Iraq would only be for a short time. I only spoke to him myself a few times.

I really don't know what went on behind the scenes. He was my daughter's childhood friend and they had a falling out over the Iraq War and his going there.

At any rate, I hope he makes it out alive. I still wish him well.

[stillcool]

6. it seems so surreal...

I wonder if shock and awe will be broadcast live...

[Solo_in_MD]

8. From a military perspective

the blog entry is clueless drivel.

There is no need to rehearse by flying along the border...the strikes won't take place from those routes. IF there are flights along the border (how would he know) they would be reconnaissance including EO/IR and signals. 12 hours is not the maximum time line, instead it is the bare minimum for preplanned missions. Operations are normally planned 72 hours in advance. No mention of Tomahawks, the primary deep strike weapon. No mention or SEAD rollback, tactical vs strategic operations. The author is clueless at best.

His rant on the use of nukes is also telling. No US president, including Kennedy, Carter and Clinton every took the use of nuclear weapons off the table at any time. Nukes have been the center piece of strategic military thinking since they were invented. There is no indication that they are any more likely to be used now that in Iraq. If the speculation is that we are in it to seize control of oil fields, then nukes would be counter productive. I really don't think they are under consideration. If they were, I have no doubt it would be leaked.

All the above does not mean I support the current actions in the Middle East or military action against Iran. However, we need to look at real data, real possibilities, and real issues. Rants like this divert our resources and make us all look foolish.