Iran displays video footage of captured US spy drone Iranian state television has shown video of what it claims is a US spy drone that was hijacked by its army's electronic warfare unit. The government has shown footage of what appears to be a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, which the Iranians claim was flown from Afghanistan over the northern city of Kashmar when it was taken …
Lots of states have and still are using nuclear weapons. It used to be called mutually assured destruction, nowadays it is more simply called diplomacy.
Iran is using 'peaceful nuclear technology' or whatever , as an element in their diplomacy. Pakistan and India made and tested nuclear weapons as an element of diplomacy.
America dropped two nuclear weapons during a bloody war and hastened the end of that war. You may have strong feelings that they were wrong to do so but the alternatives would have been pretty bloody awful as well.
Also unknown to the Americans - the concept that there are some extremely smart people elsewhere in the world, including Iran, and dismissing out of hand the possibility that the drone really might have been take over by the Iranians is arrogant in the extreme.
Maybe some people in the US think the Iranians live in caves or mud huts and would be confounded by an iPad? Either Iran is a backward tinpot country that hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of hijacking a technologically advanced drone. or else it's a highly advanced country that's on the verge of getting nuclear weaponry. You can't have it both ways.
"The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth."
~ George Orwell, 1984
Damn right Chad. Except that as a British citizen I have to accept that my country is the most aggressive in history, that we have had a war with every other nation on earth (except Portugal), built the most extensive empire ever known, colonized or conquored left right and centre, including all 3 nations mentioned in this story, initiated oil exploitation in the middle east - ...etc etc. You get the point.
But go ahead, lecture the USA on soverignity.
A remark like that I might regard as reasonable from a Swiss. From a Briton, I'm force to fall back on--I can never remember whether it was Clive or Hastings, but certainly one of those noted sovereignty-respecters--and say
Considering your opportunities, I am not astonished at your moderation.
From the vid it appears as if they stripped the paint, and proceeded to replace the radar absorbent materials with paper mache. Also the lack of landing gear is pretty lame. Come to think of it I've built better RC kits as a kid. As for the remarks about landing the thing, quite sure all they pilot are camels and carpets.
Well, after the fairly abrupt and bloody confrontation in the early 90s to 'liberate' kuwait, the Iraqi armed forces were bombed daily by the coalition enforcement of the 'no fly zone'.
10 years of eliminating anti aircraft and radar facilities, and any build up or organisation of land forces.
So, all in all, about 20 years?
"quite sure all they pilot are camels and carpets."
Arab countries less tehno than the West but generally better at handling life. Eg. they don't have our alcoholism, obesety, family breakdown, crime and general misery. Perhaps we should pay more attention to their 7000 years of civilised experience. They were eating off marble tables while we were still painting our faces blue.
"Oh Dear, that is typical of the attitude of superiority that leads to very embarrassing consequences - Twin Towers anyone ? Never underestimate your enemy."
AQ was not an enemy of the USA before TT, and therefore not treated as such.
"....they don't have our alcoholism, obesety, family breakdown, crime and general misery...." Sorry, but you swallowed the marketting there! It's all a facade - just catch a flight out of Jeddah and watch the "devout" Mulsims start packing back the Scotch the minute they're in the air. Obesity is also a big (pun unintended) problem in many Arab countries. As for "family breakdown", just go read up on "honour killings" to understand why they don't advertise their own problems.
"....Perhaps we should pay more attention to their 7000 years of civilised experience...." Ah, that always makes me laugh! You forgot the bit where you left out the fact it wasn't one continual civillisation, but many different ones and often borrowing tech and knowledge from outside influences (Greece, Rome, India and even China), whilst being trampled on by a host of other "less advanced" nations (like the Greeks and Turks).
"....They were eating off marble tables while we were still painting our faces blue....." Yes, but they stayed with very few of them eating off marble, the rest living in poverty and illeducation, whilst we built the first industrialised nation and went out and conquered them. The current Iranian government also seems intent on going backwards.
"....AQ was not an enemy of the USA before TT...." The final and complete proof that you haven't a clue. For example, AQ had already tried blowing up the World Trade Center in 1993. I suggest you go read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_al-Qaeda_attacks before you make yourself look any more stupid.
It seems likely that someone operating a secret plane that might do a bellyflop on the enemy's desert might paint it in a sandy-coloured finish. The stealth-coating engineers are probably allowed to think outside of the Henry Ford paintbox, even if we don't normally see them like that on the telly.
Carpet comment arrogant and stupid.
If I were trying to make something like this _visibly_ stealthy, over a desert, I'd paint the bottom greyish-blue, and the top yellowish-brown. Just saying.
And as for the jingoistic idiot above posting about camels and carpets - the attitude of you and people like you is precisely why so many people in the middle east were seen to be celebrating when some fundamentalist nutjobs decided to fly planes into your buildings, rather than offering ther condolences. Also, you might like to note that fundamentalism is not unique to the one religion in question, but is also quite widespread amongst Christians. This does not magically make it some sort of 'good' fundamentalism.
Since no one really knows, this is open to speculation - and here's mine. It's probably the real deal, but it's most likely that control was lost and it went into a flat spin and crashed on it's belly (which is why they are covering that part).
If it is real, then the Chinese and Russians are definitely in a bidding war with Iran to get the thing. Of course, if I were the Iranians, I wouldn't stand to close to it - when the US destroys it with a missile, there is probably going to be quite the crater.
/Explosion icon, because it's likely to be the drones ultimate fate.
Considering the American's went to great lengths to destroy a chopper in the Osama raid, you'd of thought they'd fit unmanned drones with a similar system.
Perhaps they have and are waiting for the Iranians to transport it to one of their secret underground nuclear weapons facilities.
Paris, because Americans can't think that far ahead.
"...otherwise, why not just make a fake one with fake landing gear too?"
Because in all the sneaky pics taken of one in flight, the landing gear is retracted. Any attempt to fake it using guesswork would give the game away. The yanks could easily release a couple of shots of the real thing's gear (without giving away anything of importance) along with a PR mentioning Jimmy Hill. Worth it to see the barking loons with egg all over their faces...
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