cnn just reported we have two carriers in the gulf....

[spanone]

they are going to do it.......

off the coast of iran...'flexing military muscle'

[ThomWV]

1. Not a good day to be a country named Iran.

[DS1]

2. Or maybe one's tour is ending and the other is replacing it

the media leaves things like that out, and people jump to conclusions.

Last time I checked, according to DU we were invading during the last new moon which was a few weeks ago. :crazy: :eyes:

[spanone]

4. nope they mentioned that gates wanted two there....not a replacement

[CJCRANE]

19. Next new moon is 5/5...

[bushmeister0]

22. Sorry I'm not privy to the offical kick off date

but judging by the bellicose rhetoric coming from even relatively sane Sec Def Gates, the firing of Adm. Fallon and the promotion of Petreaus to his job, the overt blaming of everything going wrong in Iraq on Iran, in a big way, I'd say something is afoot.

Reason dictates they'd prefer to attack in the dark and before, or right after, the weather gets crappy in the summer. There is only a small window of time to get this business done.

And judgign by the behavior ofthis administration thus far, those of us who think we're going to go after Iran have the stronger arguement, me thinks.

[dkf]

3. Haven't we had 3 there before?

I was so sure we were going to do something stupid, but here we are same as we used to be.

[librechik]

9. yeah, what happened to #3? Those aren't easy to move around...

[Squatch]

10. Yeah...it's not like they have steering wheels and propellors and stuff.

Correction: I mean "helms"

[Sherman A1]

5. Before anything major happens

they will move at least 2 more into position. This might just be saber rattling, overlapping rotations or any of a bunch of other things.

[acmavm]

6. Yep. But Gates said it was just to keep an eye on the Iranians.

Like anyone with one functioning brain cell would believe Robert Gates.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. AND Iran just announced they are no longer trading in petrodollars -

trading in the Euro, instead.

Fasten your seatbelts.

[bushmeister0]

21. Wait! Didn't Saddam do the same thing just before . . .

"It would appear that any attempt by OPEC member states in the Middle East or Latin America to transition to the euro as their oil transaction currency standard shall be met with either overt U.S. military actions or covert U.S. intelligence agency interventions. Under the guise of the perpetual `war on terror' the Bush administration is manipulating the American people about the unspoken but very real macroeconomic reasons for this upcoming war with Iraq. This war in Iraq will not be based on any threat from Saddam's old WMD program, or from terrorism. This war will be over the global currency of oil. A war intended to prevent oil from being priced in euros."

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html#p2a

[leftchick]

8. yep, now Gates wants to get his war on.....

:puke:

Gates says 2nd carrier in Gulf is 'reminder' to Iran


I wonder if the tv newz has the new Iran war graphics ready.....

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080430/D90BTGPO0.html


MEXICO CITY (AP) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that sending a second U.S. aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf could serve as a "reminder" to Iran, but he said it's not an escalation of force.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with Mexican leaders, Gates said heightening U.S. criticism of Iran and its support for terror groups is not a signal that the administration is laying the groundwork for a strike against Tehran.

Still, he said Iran continues to back the Taliban in Afghanistan.


<snip>

In recent weeks, U.S. officials have ratcheted up their complaints that Iran is increasing its efforts to supply weapons and training to militants in Iraq.

Military commanders in Baghdad are expected to roll out evidence of that support soon - including date stamps on newly found weapons caches showing that recently made Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq at a steadily increasing rate.

Another senior military official said the evidence will include mortars, rockets, small arms, roadside bombs and armor-piercing explosives - known as explosively formed penetrators or EFPs - that troops have discovered in caches in recent months. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the evidence has not yet been made public, said that dates on some of the weapons were well after Tehran signaled late last year that it was scaling back aid to insurgents.

[Zodiak]

24. They will not put out the evidence

They will manufacture it like they have manufactured all of the rest. It is all inneundo.

This was 9 months ago, so why now are they changng their tune? Could it be that Iran has now changed over to trading for oil in Euros. Computer says "yes".

WASHINGTON, Jun 11 (IPS) - A media campaign portraying Iran as supplying arms to the Taliban guerrillas fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, orchestrated by advocates of a more confrontational stance toward Iran in the George W. Bush administration, appears to have backfired last week when Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan McNeil, issued unusually strong denials.

The allegation that Iran has reversed a decade-long policy and is now supporting the Taliban, conveyed in a series of press articles quoting "senior officials" in recent weeks, is related to a broader effort by officials aligned with Vice President Dick Cheney to portray Iran as supporting Sunni insurgents, including al Qaeda, to defeat the United States in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

An article in the Guardian published May 22 quoted an anonymous U.S. official as predicting an "Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive in Iraq, linking al Qaeda and Sunni insurgents to Tehran's Shia militia allies" and as referring to the alleged "Iran-al Qaeda linkup" as "very sinister".

That article and subsequent reports on CNN May 30, in the Washington Post Jun. 3 and on ABC news Jun. 6 all included an assertion by an unnamed U.S. official or a "senior coalition official" that Iran is following a deliberate policy of supplying the Taliban's campaign against U.S., British and other NATO forces.

In the most dramatic version of the story, ABC reported "NATO officials" as saying they had "caught Iran red-handed, shipping heavy arms, C4 explosives and advanced roadside bombs to the Taliban for use against NATO forces."

Far from showing that Iran had been "caught red-handed", however, the report quoted from an analysis which cited only the interception in Afghanistan of a total of four vehicles coming from Iran with arms and munitions of Iranian origin. The report failed to refer to any evidence of Iranian government involvement.

Both Gates and McNeill denied flatly last week that there is any evidence linking Iranian authorities to those arms. Gates told a press conference on Jun. 4, "We do not have any information about whether the government of Iran is supporting this, is behind it, or whether it's smuggling, or exactly what is behind it." Gates said that "some" of the arms in question might be going to Afghan drug smugglers.

[blues90]

28. I know we have heard this before.

However I heard Malloy mention it on the last two shows and it does seem with Fallon gone and betrayus in this time it might just happen.

This carrier was the one Fallon stopped for going there last time.

[L. Coyote]

11. Carriers are sitting ducks. Read about WW II anyone?? Pearl Harbor. Ships sink.

And the USG knows that they could lose all if the conflict widens.

Surely, they prefer coming home and staying afloat!

[Ian David]

15. One of the carriers might also get sucked back in time through a black hole. n/t

[high density]

18. Splash the zeros.

[leftchick]

16. I believe

they prefer doing what cheney says.

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. Maybe that's the whole idea.

What better excuse to nuke Iran than a missile strike on our carriers costing 1500 lives?

[bushmeister0]

25. If our good Russian buddies gave the Iranians their Sunburn anti-ship missile

we're in trouble.

"The Sunburn can deliver a 200-kiloton nuclear payload, or: a 750-pound conventional warhead, within a range of 100 miles, more than twice the range of the Exocet. The Sunburn combines a Mach 2.1 speed (two times the speed of sound) with a flight pattern that hugs the deck and includes "violent end maneuvers" to elude enemy defenses. The missile was specifically designed to defeat the US Aegis radar defense system. A single one of these missiles can sink a large warship, yet costs considerably less than a fighter jet.
The US Navy has never faced anything in combat as formidable as the Sunburn missile . . . with their Russian-supplied cruise missiles, the Iranians will close the lake's only outlet, the strategic Strait of Hormuz, cutting off the trapped and dying Americans from help and rescue. The US fleet massing in the Indian Ocean will stand by helplessly, unable to enter the Gulf to assist the survivors or bring logistical support to the other US forces on duty in Iraq. With enough anti-ship missiles, the Iranians can halt tanker traffic through Hormuz for weeks, even months. With the flow of oil from the Gulf curtailed, the price of a barrel of crude will skyrocket on the world market. Within days the global economy will begin to grind to a halt."

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopiranwar/message/98

[L. Coyote]

27. This is why everyone should realize the IRAN talk is distraction from FAILURE in Iraq!

How many times does that need repetition here daily? Geeeez!!

[Sheets of Easter]

12. Again?

Fearmongering works both ways...

[HereSince1628]

13. We can only watch and see...

5 May is the next new moon.

[Ian David]

14. From what I understand, there is barely enough room in the gulf for ONE carrier group to maneuver.

It's only a matter of time before there's going to be a collision of some sort.

[onenote]

17. is this a new thread or an old thread or a really old thread

Because I've seen this thread and the doomsday predictions (some with absolute guarantees of an attack by a date certain) so many times I can't keep track.

[Hobarticus]

20. Fairly typical...

We always send carriers cruising around the Gulf. Doesn't mean WW3 just yet.

[Zynx]

26. A broken clock is right more often than these Iran posts.