Three Harpoons and 2 1000lb bombs can really f$%k up your day.
Posted on 03/27/2007 12:49:52 PM PDT by SmithL
ABOARD THE USS JOHN C. STENNIS, (AP) -- American warplanes screamed off two aircraft carriers Tuesday as the U.S. Navy staged its largest show of force in the Persian Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, launching a mammoth exercise meant as a message to the Iranians.
The maneuvers with 15 warships and more than 100 aircraft were sure to heighten tensions with Iran, which has frequently condemned the U.S. military presence off its coast and is in a faceoff with the West over its nuclear program and its capture of a British naval team.
While they would not say when the war games were planned, U.S. commanders insisted the exercises were not a direct response to Friday's seizure of the 15 British sailors and marines, but they also made clear that the flexing of the Navy's military might was intended as a warning.
"If there is strong presence, then it sends a clear message that you better be careful about trying to intimidate others," said Capt. Bradley Johanson, commander of the Stennis.
"Iran has adopted a very escalatory posture with the things that they have done," he added.
The exercises began four days after Iranian forces detained the 15 Britons for allegedly being in Iranian territorial waters near the northern end of the Gulf. U.S. and British officials insist the team was properly searching cargo vessels inside Iraqi waters.
F/A-18 fighter jets roared off the Stennis' flight deck all day, mounting a dozen rapid-fire training sorties against imaginary enemy ships and aircraft. A second task force with the carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower also took part in the drills.
"These maneuvers demonstrate our flexibility and capability to respond to threats to maritime security," said Navy Lt. John Perkins, 32, of Louisville, Ky., as the Stennis cruised...
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
It is not the Navy who won't budge but the anti war congressmen & Senators who won't let them
My cousin is on that fleet. She doesn't put up with any kind of %$#^ on land and she sure won't out there.
Respectfully disagree. The Prez still calls the shots. One incident is all it will take. Maybe not.
Sadly you are probably right. They don't have to beat the Navy, few in the world can. They just have to hit on big ship and sink her and the war is over.
Didn't our Navy sink Iran's Navy in 1988?
Revvin up mah engines, shiftin' into overdrive... (dah dah dah-dah)
Sorry, my friend...you (and Zarf) are wrong. It would be the beginning of the war....then the end, at our choice of time and place.
Then we'll be victims.
"We are not a superpower."
What the hell are you talking about?
In a rational world, it would be the beggining of the end of Iran, as the next step we would be sending in the B-52's with Slim Pickin's at the controls. Instant parking lot.
In the new metrosexual US, Congress would demand we pull out and then try to cut the funds. And many people would support them.
Iraq and Iran are two entirely different military equations.
Iraq is ours to protect and feed. We have thousands of troops there. We conquered it, and are trying to make it into a viable modern nations. Rightly or wrongly - that is our mission now.
Iran is not ours to protect and feed. We can launch devastating destruction upon that nation almost at will. Roadside bombs are not in the equation. Our Navy can sink the entire Iranian Navy in a matter of days. Our Air Force and inflict pain on the Iranian infrastructure that will paralyze the nation in a matter of weeks.
Yours is an apples versus oranges argument.
.......BITCHEN......!
I see your ate your Defeatist Flakes for breakfast today.
"I see your ate your Defeatist Flakes for breakfast today."
With a side order of cheese and wine...and FRENCH fries.
WE HAVE A WINNNAAHHH!
YOU have correctly assessed the "toothless" comment.
Everyone else is crashing on zarf for saying it, but YOU have nailed the true villain to the tree: a gutless Congress.
In point of fact, we have the most powerful military force and the most admirable troops on the planet...
BUT...
...all of that means exactly ZERO if Congress won't back them up.
Unless our Congress acts like the legislative branch of a true superpower, we are not, in fact, a superpower. We are nothing more than the paper tiger that Bejing has always accused us of being.
That does not slander our men and women in uniform, nor does it discount the power of our implements of war.
It simply emphasizes that our superpower status relies upon these three supports: manpower, technological power, and political power.
Neutralize any one of those supports and we cease to be a superpower.
Because our Congress is the dominant body through which our national political power is implemented, the "political power" support for our superpower status is, arguably, neutralized.
Friends, we've got a whole lot of voting to do to fix this, and there's no easy way out, nor is there any short-term solution. We're a team in a rebuilding phase, and there will likely be some distasteful losses before we get back to superpower condition, again.
That's just the way it is.
I pray that each of you is doing the most you can to be part of the solution.
Gee, maybe this exercise will help the Iranian mullahs read up on the Geneva Convention. Think we'll be hearing less about interrogations and spy trials for uniformed British forces.
Is this supposed to be news or "analysis"?
Either way, it is nonsense. The authors are reading the tired old "Blame America First" script that the news media has followed since the start of the Cold War.
Capturing 15 British sailors and marines heightened tensions in the region, which is undoubtedly why the Iranians did it.
"Ours is a toothless navy."
That is the most stupid thing I have read lately. I am certain that being attacked by the U.S. Navy is NOT the equivalent of being bitten by something toothless.
Three Harpoons and 2 1000lb bombs can really f$%k up your day.
Nice post.
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