WTF is a "Quick Air-Strike"?

[discoberry]

www.salon.com/2011/12/13/cheney_urges_a_quick_air_strike_against_iran/

n Monday night Burnett gave a platform to a man almost as loathed as his Wall Street buddies, former Vice President Dick Cheney. And Cheney, predictably but contemptibly, took the opportunity to bash President Obama for not authorizing “a quick air strike” to retrieve a predator drone that was recently downed in Iran.

Cheney told Burnett:

The right response to that would have been to go in immediately after it had gone down and destroy it. You can do that from the air. You can do that with a quick airstrike, and in effect make it impossible for them to benefit from having captured that drone. I was told that the president had three options on his desk. He rejected all of them. [...]

They all involved sending somebody in to try to recover it, or if you can’t do that, admittedly that would be a difficult operation, you certainly could have gone in and destroyed it on the ground with an airstrike. But he didn’t take any of the options. He asked for them to return it. And they aren’t going to do that.

[ironbite]

And if Obama had done that, the right would've been all over him for it.

Ironbite-Obama can't win.

[kzn02]

Negotiations it is.

[ltfred]

Obama provocatively violated Iranian airspace. That's already cassus beli for war- why make it a certainty by needlessly bombing them? That would wreck all sorts of bullshit in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention Israel and the Gulf.

Like oil to be 45 billion dollars a litre? Then start a war with Iran that you aren't prepared for.

There was a bugger up, it's nobody's fault. There was no way to easily solve the problem, so you've got to wear it. These sort of childish responses are beneath the office of the Vice President.

[Random Guy]

Am I the only one who imagines Dick Cheney as this paranoid guy who freaks out and brandishes a gun at every minor noise?

[davedan]

No imagine him brandishing the gun then turning it on the person next to him and peppering him with buckshot

[brendanrizzo]

At this point, since oil is the only thing which is causing the US to support Middle Eastern dictatorships while fighting endless wars on the flimsiest of excuses in other parts of the region, I wouldn't mind at all if the price of oil shot up to a gazillion dollars a barrel. Maybe then we would finally start getting some clean energy sources, and the dictatorships in the Middle East would no longer have any support from anyone.

[caseagainstfaith]

Dec 14, 2011 9:00:23 GMT -5 brendanrizzo said:

At this point, since oil is the only thing which is causing the US to support Middle Eastern dictatorships while fighting endless wars on the flimsiest of excuses in other parts of the region, I wouldn't mind at all if the price of oil shot up to a gazillion dollars a barrel. Maybe then we would finally start getting some clean energy sources, and the dictatorships in the Middle East would no longer have any support from anyone.

As nice of a idea as that is, you would have to look at the over all impact right now brendanrizzo. I would say what 97% of the world's vehicles run off of a type of gasoline/diesel? To have oil shoot up to a bazillion dollars a barrel would cause insane chaos imo. Let a lone lets say the for this example since it's in the making, the electric cars take off as a alternative, how many people right now in this recession would actually be able to afford to just go out and buy a electric car?

[murdin]

Dec 14, 2011 9:00:23 GMT -5 brendanrizzo said:

At this point, since oil is the only thing which is causing the US to support Middle Eastern dictatorships while fighting endless wars on the flimsiest of excuses in other parts of the region, I wouldn't mind at all if the price of oil shot up to a gazillion dollars a barrel. Maybe then we would finally start getting some clean energy sources, and the dictatorships in the Middle East would no longer have any support from anyone.

I'm sure the Iranian people will appreciate being liberated from their own culture. Along with the new status of their Iraqi neighbour as a beacon of civilization in the Middle East, it certainly will help them see through their government's propaganda and love America again. They won't think twice about siding with the foreign, infidel oppressors against the local, religious oppressors.

Western interventionism is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to the actual supporters of secularism, democracy and social progressivism in Muslim majority countries.

Also, solar power plants don't exactly come out of thin air. You need energy to build them. Lots of it. Sure, they will eventually produce much more than their initial investment, but if we had to rebuild society from our current renewable energy infrastructure, we would be in for a few decades of Dark Ages. In the best of cases, that is.

[carnotaurussastrei]

Can we stuff that asshole into an empty bomb casing and drop him on Iran? Or would that be a crime against humanity?

*edit* fixed some typos.

[brendanrizzo]

Dec 14, 2011 13:16:49 GMT -5 murdin said:

Dec 14, 2011 9:00:23 GMT -5 brendanrizzo said:

At this point, since oil is the only thing which is causing the US to support Middle Eastern dictatorships while fighting endless wars on the flimsiest of excuses in other parts of the region, I wouldn't mind at all if the price of oil shot up to a gazillion dollars a barrel. Maybe then we would finally start getting some clean energy sources, and the dictatorships in the Middle East would no longer have any support from anyone.

I'm sure the Iranian people will appreciate being liberated from their own culture. Along with the new status of their Iraqi neighbour as a beacon of civilization in the Middle East, it certainly will help them see through their government's propaganda and love America again. They won't think twice about siding with the foreign, infidel oppressors against the local, religious oppressors.

Western interventionism is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to the actual supporters of secularism, democracy and social progressivism in Muslim majority countries.

Also, solar power plants don't exactly come out of thin air. You need energy to build them. Lots of it. Sure, they will eventually produce much more than their initial investment, but if we had to rebuild society from our current renewable energy infrastructure, we would be in for a few decades of Dark Ages. In the best of cases, that is.

Don't quite know if you're for me or against me. I pretty much said that dependence on oil is what's causing the interventionism.

[murdin]

Dec 14, 2011 15:24:52 GMT -5 carnotaurussastrei said:

Can we stuff that asshole into an empty bomb casing and drop him on Iran? Or would that be a crime against humanity?

It would probably count as a crime against existence. There are things that even the most bloodthirsty, fanatical and depraved warmongers just can't weaponize. Humanity can deal with gas attacks, nukes, biological warfare and dirty bombs, but Dick Cheney's fallout would contaminate the ground with his evil for untold million years.

Dec 14, 2011 17:12:23 GMT -5 brendanrizzo said:

Don't quite know if you're for me or against me. I pretty much said that dependence on oil is what's causing the interventionism.

I was slightly antagonistic, and looking back at it, it was totally undeserved. Sorry about that.

[MaybeNever]

Dec 13, 2011 19:46:04 GMT -5 ltfred said:

Obama provocatively violated Iranian airspace. That's already cassus beli for war- why make it a certainty by needlessly bombing them? That would wreck all sorts of bullshit in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention Israel and the Gulf.

"Casus Belli for war" is redundant. </pedant>

But you're right.

There was a bugger up, it's nobody's fault. There was no way to easily solve the problem, so you've got to wear it. These sort of childish responses are beneath the office of the Vice President.

Maybe it's some sort of weird incipient bloodthirstiness in me, but when the President made a statement along the lines of "Iran has this drone, so we asked for it back," I cringed a little bit. It just seems so naive, but I really hope it works. I'm seeing the seeds of World War 3 everywhere these days.

[shykid]

Cheney would declare war against a waiter for getting his order wrong.

[brendanrizzo]

Dec 14, 2011 19:31:35 GMT -5 shykid said:

Cheney would declare war against a waiter for getting his order wrong.

...Which is why it's a very good thing that he has no power to influence ANYTHING anymore.