Not that I disagree with the sentiment but I was wondering about the actual consequences of a helicopter tail and a drone falling into "enemy" hands.
Didn't want to wait? Or you just went for the number one answer yourself? Or is it better that America acts like it doesn't have to respect any other nation's sovereign airspace and continues this type of provocation?
Been arguing about this with Anc for months now. Specifically in regards to Libya but this seems a good time to bring up the point again. I still feel free to take shots at Rick, though.
It probably wasn't. It was probably right up against the border but not across it especially since they use satnav to keep it's position updates continuously.
The Daily Show's take on the incident. Stewart makes some good points, and after watching it I got to thinking: What if this is the origin of "Stuxnet 2"? Given that we know Stuxnet was "delivered" to the Iranians via infected thumbdrives scattered all over the place, we can be fairly certain that the Iranians are going to be religious (as it were) about keeping random thumbdrives away from their computer systems. So, you'd need something really juicy to entice them to connect their computer systems to something dicey. Something which really looked like a US spydrone would fit the bill nicely, and if it infected the Chinese military computers at the same time, so much the better.
As someone who does/did comm for a living, I'm frankly surprised we haven't lost more UAVs than this. I know nothing about the communication technology for UAVs (and couldn't talk about it if I did) but it can be fucking tricky to talk to someone 20 miles away in a desert. Quite frankly it boggles my mind that guys in Nevada regularly pilot aircraft, real time, in Afghanistan.
I've wondered about that, but I had concluded that they weren't that hot at it because of their failure to reinitialize the F-14 fleet. Do you have any examples of their reverse engineering prowess?
It's good industrial policy as well. Instead of giving money to Russia and China, they invest it back into their own economy. This also has the benefit of translating into civilian export jobs as well, just look at how the Brazilians have over the decades become one of the few mainline jet producers in the world. And while there are obviously big steps from a Tucano to a Brasilia to an E195, a lot of the engineering work, production capacity, and most importantly human capital is transferable.
OK. Let's go back, then. You said this was better than Powers being shot down. I said Since you claim my comment was just ODS, then you must thing you're reading my mind. I made a factual statement. If not, show where I was wrong. Is this the same situation? Is there a lot of outspoken bipartisan Congressional support for this?
So you can't show where I was wrong, huh? OK, then. Different Congress. The Congress now was elected in 2010. The Congress then was elected in the 1950's. Congress then was more generally supportive of the Cold War against the Soviet Union than the partisan split against this president's incursions into Libya, et al. As for specific proof of the latter, I won't bother reposting the debate from the threads already extensively covering this split. Whether you agree with it is irrelevant, the split exists. Whether the wimpy Republicans choose to proceed with it in the face of a Democratic-controlled Senate, is also irrelevant, the split exists.
And the ODS comes out. Can't even keep on the subject, but got to try and swerve into another one. This drone wasn't shot down over Libya, it was shot down over Iran. Considering the Republicans as whole think we aren't doing enough to confront Iran I think it is fairely safe to say there is pretty bipartisan support for keeping an eye on what they are up to.
Well, 'splain it to me then. Why should the rest of the world tolerate America perpetually bearding the lion? Please don't give me that tired old "We're the tough rich kid" crap-that's been the swansong of every empire in it's death throes throughout history... often just before they cave in on themselves.
The "rest of the world" can either take the good with the bad, or go fuck itself. For the record, I fully support option B, "US takes its toys and heads home, rest of the world goes and fucks itself."
The subject here is about drones and their use in Iran. How can you not discuss Obama (since he's the president) in this context? You've got this one drum and you're beating it to death, even when it doesn't apply. Are you that desperate? Is that all they taught you in debate class? The point here is that this is an incursion, authorized by this president. If you can't see the relevance, then it's really not me with the problem. The connection to Libya, to spell it out for you is the same as I tried to spell out for you in the other threads. Once it becomes too easy for a president (any president) to violate another nation's sovereignty, he will do it and continue to do it. And, as I've pointed out before, it's not just his problem as there are many that should be opposing him on this that won't simply because it's not convenient poitically for them to do so. (In the 50's, it wasn't this easy to perform these incursions and there was much more support when it was done.) To reference another, current, thread, is this the type of strong government you trust? One that has no oversight and will send drones in anywhere to check things out and/or keep them in check?
First off, we have only the Iranians saying that we were in their airspace. It's possible we were, but it's also possible we were just flying on the edge of their airspace as others have suggested. Secondly, even if the drone was in their airspace there is certainly precident. I posted the example of Gary Powers. You said that had more support than this. Prove it. You can try and pull Libya into this all you want, but the fact is there is strong support for the containment of Iran in both parties in Congress. In fact in my estimation the Republicans want MORE efforts at containment.
We don't know where the drone was, so that point is kind of a dead end right now. I'm certainly not going to take the Iranian's word for it. I know they've got it and it looks to be in good shape. That's pretty much it. Containment doesn't necessarily equal incursion, though. I don't disagree that we sometimes need more information than spy satellites can provide. That's why I agreed with the Powers example but disagreed with your reasoning when you said it justified every incursion from then into the future. The situation's aren't the same. You can keep asking for support but I've already answered the question. Rebut or quit asking.
I'd like to see the quote where I did that. You have done no such thing. All you have done is try dodge and deflect by throwing up Libya as chaf.
BTW, The Associated Press is reporting that Obama has asked the Iranians to return the drone. No link, because it just came down as a news alert on my station's internal AP wires.
