So when is US gonna invade Libya?

[philw]

the real question is..  can the US afford to though....  not cheep to run..

[tombogan03884]

The only time a marine should not have ammo is on the way home from a mission.   if they can't use/handle thier weapon safely.  They should not be a marine.

I have to Chastise you TAB.
I agree with you ,but Marine is supposed to be capitalized.
Thing is, there weren't any Marines there until trouble started and they were flown in.
This has to be something the State Dept came up with, it's to f*cking stupid to originate anywhere else.

[TAB]

Its a Marines job to protect said facilitys ( i forget if its in thier charter or just tradtion.)   there is no reason what so ever to leave that to a private contractor.

[fightingquaker13]

" Iraq was a buffer state between Iran and the Gulf."
Have you been drinking ? Or maybe dropping a little acid ?
FQ, now, right this minute, go to a map and take a REALLY good look at the Persian Gulf.
Come back and tell me what you see along the entire right side of it.

Don't be a pedant. You know damn well what I'm talking about.
FQ13

[tombogan03884]

Its a Marines job to protect said facilitys ( i forget if its in thier charter or just tradtion.)   there is no reason what so ever to leave that to a private contractor.

When I was in protecting embassies and Naval facilities were part of the Marine Corps mission statement as specified under the Nation Defense act of 1947 (might have been 49 ).
Both Missions have been shifted to other groups .
In the late 80's or early 90's Security at Naval facilities, (Stateside I'm sure, overseas, I'm not sure )was shifted to "Federal police agencies" later , within the last 10 years, Embassy security also was turned over to local security personnel.
Personally I think it's absolute stupidity.

Don't be a pedant. You know damn well what I'm talking about.
FQ13

If you meant Saudi Arabia and the Emirates your argument still falls apart since it was Iraq that invaded both, you may remember, it even made CNN back in the day.

[Sponsor]

[fightingquaker13]

Remember Saudi has their very own oppressed minority Shiite population. Their worst nightmare is an Iran Iraq alliance casting covetous eyes on their oilfields and stirring up sectarian dissent.
FQ13

[tombogan03884]

Remember Saudi has their very own oppressed minority Shiite population. Their worst nightmare is an Iran Iraq alliance casting covetous eyes on their oilfields and stirring up sectarian dissent.
FQ13

SA Also is the home of the radical Wahabi's.
But of far greater concern to the House of Saud is simple numbers .
In area they are on par with Iran, population wise they are about even with Rhode Island.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran

Area                                  636,372 sq mi
Population                      75,149,669
Density                                      124/sq mi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia

Area                                     870,000 sq mi
Population                         28,376,355
Density                                          31/sq mi

[jnevis]

" Iraq was a buffer state between Iran and the Gulf."
Have you been drinking ? Or maybe dropping a little acid ?
FQ, now, right this minute, go to a map and take a REALLY good look at the Persian Gulf.
Come back and tell me what you see along the entire right side of it.

Hate to say it Tom, but in this case FQ is basically right.  Saddam was seen as a "stabilizing" influence in the Gulf for a number of years.  He, through Iraq, kept Iran in balance with the other nations, similar to the US and USSR in the "Cold War."  Just enough force on both sides to have them look long and hard at making a push.  Sure we had to pop him in the nose periodically to stay in line, with inspections and keeping things within the Parallels, but it really wasn't a big deal and was great training.    With Iraq destabilized Iran doesn't have any reason to remain covert about it's desires to rule.  The US and Russia aren't going to do anything about it.  Israel is the only ones that have anything to loose, and they aren't getting any support from us.   

[tombogan03884]

Hate to say it Tom, but in this case FQ is basically right.  Saddam was seen as a "stabilizing" influence in the Gulf for a number of years.  He, through Iraq, kept Iran in balance with the other nations, similar to the US and USSR in the "Cold War."  Just enough force on both sides to have them look long and hard at making a push.  Sure we had to pop him in the nose periodically to stay in line, with inspections and keeping things within the Parallels, but it really wasn't a big deal and was great training.    With Iraq destabilized Iran doesn't have any reason to remain covert about it's desires to rule.  The US and Russia aren't going to do anything about it.  Israel is the only ones that have anything to loose, and they aren't getting any support from us.    

That's part of what I'm getting at, just because he "was seen as" doesn't make it so.
August 1991 proved that the people who did the seeing were dumb asses.
Not to mention that the earlier need to reflag oil tankers proved that the "Iraqi counter" was worthless.
We could eliminate all this trouble if we announced a major policy speech on relations with Iran and fired one missile, IIRC the sub launched MIRVs carry ten warheads, that's one for the location of the Iranian leadership and 9 for their nuke sites.
Problem solved and the whole rest of the world sits back and reevaluates their position, China Russia, and India have their own issues that could benefit from such action ( most being made worse by Iran ), Chechnya, Pakistan, and N Korea for starters. so they may bitch in the UN but they won't DO anything.
As for the rest of the world, they need us a lot more than we need them.
In order to stave off the bleeding hearts I will also point out that while a nuke strike would lead to civilian casualties, history has shown that the results are far less costly than waiting until conventional war is unavoidable.
Because of increased accurracy, and the fact the targets would most likely require ground bursts against bunkers, lets say there are 100,00  killed , military and civilian.
That's 1/10th the losses to just the military in the conventional war with Iraq, and it happens with destroying either nations economy or infrastructure which leads to faster recovery and normalization of daily life.

[Ulmus]

Holy crap did this spread.

http://goo.gl/maps/79HvR

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/9/14/1347656856953/-460.jpeg