Iran commits international suicide

[ThomWV]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090203/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_space

"Iran says it sent own satellite into orbit

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran has successfully sent its first domestically made satellite into orbit, the country's president announced Tuesday, claiming a significant step in an ambitious space program that has worried many international observers.

The satellite, called Omid, or hope in Farsi, was launched late Monday after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave the order to proceed, according to a report on state radio. State television showed footage of what it said was the nighttime liftoff of the rocket carrying the satellite at an unidentified location in Iran."

This folks, if true, will give them 'delivery' capacity and the US and Israel will not allow them to have it.

[BR_Parkway]

1. I'm surprised no one pulled a trigger when they saw a liftoff

[ThomWV]

5. It almost certainly proves that Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" is not functional

[Marrah_G]

They can still shoot it down.

[MNDemNY]

15. You think there was a "lift-off"? I kinda doubt it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. Why?

In Washington, a senior U.S. defense official said the U.S. military detected the launch of a missile into space. But it was not confirmed whether the missile was carrying a satellite, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak about the intelligence.

French officials in Paris also confirmed that a launch took place but declined to say where they received the information. France was "worried that there is ... the development capabilities that can be used in the ballistic framework," said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier.

Iran, the US and France are all conspiring to fool you? :tinfoilhat: What do you claim is The Real Truth?

[Subdivisions]

26. Notice how when we launch it's called a "rocket" and

when Iran launches it's called a "missile".

[bunnies]

2. ... will not allow them to have it?

A little late... dont you think? :shrug:

[ThomWV]

3. Not in the least. We could erase both the capacity and the nation in about 25 minutes

[bunnies]

10. Somehow, I dont see Obama 'erasing' Iran.

Nor do I see him starting another war we cant pay for OR fight.

[ThomWV]

14. Do you understand what the implications of Sputnick were?

Here is the basic problem, if you have an atom bomb and the only way you have to deliver it is a cargo ship or UPS then its only use is as a weapon of terror. However if you have delivery capability via ICBM (a very old acronym that is still useful) then the whole world is your potential target and you can deliver in minutes. Also, once you have a functional rocket capable of putting payloads in orbit you can also greatly improve you targeting ability. All in all it moves a rogue nation into the relm of seriously dangerous.

Make no mistake at all about it - if this is true first Israel will hit them and if that is ineffective we will do it on a scale that will make "shock and awe" look like a church picknick, and Barack Obama will not hesitate one second.

[MadHound]

16. And both Obama and Israel would be wrong in pursuing that course of action

Since Iran currently doesn't have atomic bomb capability, and is years away from atomic bomb capability.

[closeupready]

17. Wow. What, are you Michelle Obama or something, you seem to be able to read Obama's mind

:eyes:

[bunnies]

19. I understand the situation.

I simply dont see what gives us the right to decide who can have what in the world and I dont think (for a second) that Iran will attack the US.

If Israel wants to kill more people then let them go ahead and do it. They should have enough of our weapons, fighter jets, and money to do it on their own. But I would like to think that Americas thirst for blood has been quenched.

[iconicgnom]

21. and every generation has its blowhards

[JVS]

30. Well if Israel and Iran want to go to war, that's their problem.

[Terran]

32. You actually believe

that Obama would nuke Iran over a fucking satellite launch? Even Bush wouldn't have done that.

[SergeyDovlatov]

43. Rogue nation stops being a rogue nation if it can defend itself

[thewiseguy]

40. Too bad we can not erase stupidity on DU

[Marrah_G]

4. We do have the capability to take out satelites.

[ThomWV]

6. Correct - however we do have the capability to turn launch sites to glass almost instantly.

[Marrah_G]

7. yeah but that leaves a big mess

[ipfilter]

44. Are you in favor of such a thing?

[tekisui]

8. IF it is true.....

So far, only Iranian official news agencies have claimed it.

[KharmaTrain]

9. If I Were President Obama...

...who thankfully I'm not, here's what I'd do. I'd give a call to Teheran and get the top mullah on the phone. I'd then tell him to look off his coast...then bring up a Trident submarine to the surface...the one with multiple warheads. Then I'd say, "I hope that missile was purely for scientific purposes"...cause the second you try to tip one of those and launch it, you'll be vaporized faster than you can say "allah akbhar". Mutually assured destruction did a nice job with the Cold War.

[ThomWV]

11. Don't worry about mutually asured destruction. It would be very much a one way deal.

In a nuclear exchange at worst we would take one hit - and it would be horrible beyond the immagination of anyone but the Japanese - but what would happen to Iran would be, in a word, hell.

[KharmaTrain]

18. Even worse would be a hit on Israel

I agree...the real threat of any Iranian "bomb" is like that of the Iraqi "bomb". It's one thing to build a nuclear weapon...then to develop the "delivery system"...it's another thing making sure it works and is effective. We saw that with the North Koreans. There's far greater threat of a "dirty bomb" than anything Iran could develop. I grew up in the "duck and cover days"...and as a kid, I learned I was living close to one of the Soviet's big targets...after shaking off the fear (I was a little kid when I learned this), I figured, if it's my time to go, c'est la vie. I wouldn't want to be around in the aftermath.

The downside of a bomb on Israel, besides the sure massive retalitory atrikes by multiple Israeli bombs, would be the blowback. Drop it on Tel Aviv and if the winds blow to the east (prevailing winds) a good chance more Palestinians and even Jordanians would be killed than Israelis.

As you say...the end result for Iran would be hell.

[SidneyCarton]

37. I think the Iranians know this.

MAD is not new, nor is the knowledge of the massive American nuclear arsenal. The question depends on whether or not the Iranians are supported by either the Russians or the Chinese, and can therefore count on the deterrent power of either of those nation's arsenals to protect them.

[Zywiec]

12. "US and Israel will not allow them to have it."

Do you have a prediction?

Is there an imminent attack planned on Iran?

:shrug:

[iconicgnom]

22. Blowhard assholes have been reving for war with Iran for decades, now.

They've hated Iran ever since they had a revolution booting out the US backed Shah.
It irritates them that their military can't dictate over the whole world, and it irritates them even worse when countries like Iran and Venezuela, and China and others, break free.

[Lint Head]

13. It does not take a lot of push or force to crash a satellite.

The projectile just has to reach equal speed and veer into it's path.

[ThomWV]

25. The satellite itself is unimportant - it is the ability to put it in space that matters

What the satellite launch, if real, says is that Iran has the ability to put something heavy in space and once you can make it stay up there you can make it come down anywhere you want it to. Think about the implications.

[Blackhatjack]

38. Correct. It satisfies one of the two requirements of every warmaking disaster...

Every warmaking disaster has two elements: capability and intention.

A madman intent on wiping out Israel is no threat if deprived of capability.
A country with capability is no threat if it does not have the intention to use it.

It is a very dangerous situation as ThomWV points out, because Israel will certainly view this as an imminent threat by an enemy dedicated to destroying them.

Obama will certainly have his hands full here.

But IMHO the most dangerous situation lies in the India v. Pakistan conflict because they each possess both elements, and the threat of mutually assured destruction is all that is keeping their use of nuclear weapons on each other in check.

[iconicgnom]

20. Good for them! It shows what freedom and initiative can do.

Just 30 yrs after throwing out the US puppet "Shah" who spent Iran's birthright on US weapons to keep the population in line and the US master happy, they've already developed the industrial and manufacturing capacity to launch satellites.

What the US doesn't like is the example of freedom and pride that Iran is demonstrating esp. to the other mid-eastern countries, which also have the resources to break free if their citizens set their minds to it.

[paparush]

24. The guys in Cheyenne Mountain, who can track space debris the size of a glove,

will soon tell us if this thing is real or not.

[ThomWV]

27. Actually I think they would have known about it before it got itself up there.

[NNN0LHI]

28. They put their first satellite into orbit last August

http://www.itv.com/News/Articles/Iran-launches-dummy-satellite-409633012.html

17 August 2008

Iran 'launches' dummy satellite

Published: Sunday, 17 August 2008, 11:19PM
Iran said it has put a dummy satellite into orbit on a home-grown rocket for the first time - a move likely to increase Western concerns about its nuclear ambitions.

The long-range ballistic technology used to put satellites into space can also be used for launching weapons, although Iran says it has no plans to do so.

Reza Taghizadeh, head of the Iranian Aerospace Organisation, said: "The Safir (Ambassador) satellite carrier was launched and for the first time we successfully launched a dummy satellite into orbit."

Iran, embroiled in a standoff with the West over its nuclear ambitions, caused international concern in February by testing another domestically made rocket as part of its satellite programme.

Iran said at the time it needed two more similar launches before putting a domestically made satellite into orbit.

[wuushew]

29. Silly rabbit, nobody owns space

Are you eventually going to have a heart attack as more nations join the fraternity of space nations?

Nuclear India launched a satellite in 1980, I haven't lost any sleep. I don't get off judging the character of nations either.

[MicaelS]

31. "Nuclear India"

Doesn't have a leader who keeps spouting that Israel should be wiped from the face of the Earth. Iran does, BIG difference.

[wuushew]

33. I am sorry you are drinking the koolaid

Persia is one of the great and elder civilizations in the world. Ours is one of the youngest and also the only one that has ever used nuclear weapons.

The "crazy" leader you speak of does not yield that much actual power and is up for re-election this year in any case.

Don't you recall that Iran had a moderate President before Bush shot his mouth off?

[iconicgnom]

45. Oh noes! He said something we can misconstrue and endlessly repeat as our pretext for war!

But please! Don't examine how *we've* repeatedly said how "everything is on the table" in preemptively attacking *them*. And how we attacked their disarmed neighbor! That doesn't count. Y'see, it's totally different when we're the ones being belligerent assholes, since we're not the "axis of evil", they are!

This stuff couldn't be made up.

[LSK]

46. Iran has not attacked another country for over 200 years

[Peace Patriot]

34. "This will give them 'delivery' capacity." Of what? The Super Bowl?

The ability to launch a space satellite is hardly the same thing as a nuclear weapons program. You might as well say that just possessing a technical university, where people are trained in modern communications and engineering, is a threat to the "free world."

The Bushite codpiece thinking in this thread is a bit appalling. Did you ever think that Israel and the U.S. having nuclear weapons that could turn Iran to "glass" might be giving the Iranians the need for a deterrent? --especially with wackos like Bush have been in charge of the launch codes for the last eight years!

I don't think that the Iranians want to be turned to "glass" any more than anyone else does. But they have a lot of reason to be worried about it, with 150,000 U.S. troops camped on their border, and after the spectacle of a million Iraqis being slaughtered for their oil, right next door.

And I think it's ridiculous to start thinking like a dick, because Iran launched a satellite. "The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim." "Bomb them back to the Stone Age." "We have to destroy this village to save it." Can you hear yourselves? It's thinking like this that will get us ALL 'bombed back to the Stone Age.' Dickheads! Fools!

[acmavm]

35. Shhhhh! Why spoil a good case of hysterics?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

36. EEEK!! The bogeyman has wings!!!

[treestar]

39. Kind of goes against the idea they are backward and superstitious

religious fanatics.

The MSM lets their ceremonial president stand for the entire nation.

[SergeyDovlatov]

41. by acquiring an ability to defend itself?

Notice, US only attacks countries that cannot defend itself.

[iconicgnom]

47. Yup, the whole world has been put on notice of that.

You'd better believe everyone is aware of the sequence of events:
UN disarmament mission -> inspectors verify the country has been disarmed -> US lies right in the world's face about fictional "WMD" and absurd claims of an "eminent threat" -> US attacks and occupies disarmed country, takes their oil, leaves 100's of 1,000's dead, millions of refugees, destroyed infrastructure -> US demands that the Iraqi's "stand up" and clean up the mess, saying that the US has spent enough of their precious "blood and treasure" on bringing democracy and freedom to their benighted land.

And yet they *still* claim the moral standing to "lead the free world". Unbelievable.

[McCamy Taylor]

42. So what? I am not worried by Muslim clerics. Much more worried by Israel.

If I were Iran, and I had a country like Israel breathing down my neck, threatening to attack me at any moment with a bunch of other Muslim countries that also hate my guts I would launch a satellite, too. And ally with China. And get a nuke. And then feel safe.

[melm00se]

48. why didn't it get shot down?

probably because the expectation was that it would fail - a lot of early long range rockets didn't exactly perform as expected (*BOOM*).