Israel launches attack on Iran | US bombs Iran nuke sites

[MendotoManteo]

Bibi sat on the intelligence for months that a terrorist attack by Hamas was imminent. Deliberately.

He certainly did. I defer to Occam's Razor in most cases. Could be he was just wanting a distraction from all his crimes and prosecution. So he could defer it. But given what we know now about all their other operations (including somehow having a drone base in Iran?), the mind wonders.

Regarding Hamas and Oct. 7th, I don't know what they were hoping to accomplish, strategically. I get it as a mere reaction, like a wild, caged animal lashing out. Being a Palestinian is obviously a very difficult thing. I'm not defending Hamas. They're assholes. But I get the sense of wanting to finally "break out." But they're not dumb. They surely knew that wouldn't happen. I suspect that, knowing Israel would respond as it has (by which I mean, bombing the shit out of everything and committing a genocide), they were gambling that the world would turn against Israel. Provided there was any actual strategy involved in the decision. Europe largely has but America has not. If America doesn't turn against Israel, then it doesn't matter.

Hamas gambled and lost.

 

[stankeylegjones]

We had no idea until testing whether the chain reaction could or would be contained. We had an hypothesis.

Theoretically we knew it, before the 1940s. What you're talking about is what I referred to as "engineering." And, we didn't want it to be contained.

 

[stankeylegjones]

Well, it's not an important point but I suspect that our greater knowledge of nuclear forces eases the engineering challenges. The neutron was discovered in 1932 and I don't think we can meaningfully talk about nuclear physics before that date. So that puts the field at age 10 in 1942. It is now 90+ years old. I think that counts as infancy, but more importantly it doesn't matter.

The point is, as you say, that the physics is not terribly complicated, and the engineering problems have mostly been solved. It's just a question of running the centrifuges.

I completely agree with your last paragraph. Regarding "nuclear physics" perhaps I should have been more precise and prefaced everything with that I'm talking about theoretical aspects - more education was in theoretical physics, not experimental physics - of which I have only some knowledge. The neutron was predicted well before it was observed in experiment. We had a very solid understanding of the physics well before the 1940s.

 

[lawtig02]

HahaA sign of bad-faith arguing is conspiratorially believing that everyone who disagrees with you is somehow the same poster. That, combined with your intentional misreading or disregarding of articles that other posters have provided to us is your second strike here. Truly a horrible outing for you today, and I expected better. That's my bad.

Hit dog hollers. Nothing wrong with you posting here, Dr. Lynch. Just good for everyone to know who they’re dealing with.

 

[superrific]

I completely agree with your last paragraph. Regarding "nuclear physics" perhaps I should have been more precise and prefaced everything with that I'm talking about theoretical aspects - more education was in theoretical physics, not experimental physics - of which I have only some knowledge. The neutron was predicted well before it was observed in experiment. We had a very solid understanding of the physics well before the 1940s.

It was predicted by Rutherford but I'm not sure that model was very well accepted. It doesn't matter. We both agree that physics has come a long way since then. We didn't even know about quarks until the 60s.

 

[ZZLPHeels]

Hit dog hollers. Nothing wrong with you posting here, Dr. Lynch. Just good for everyone to know who they’re dealing with.

You really are embarrassing yourself. Responding to a false allegation does not make that allegation somehow true. Man, that's your third strike today. And you claim to be a lawyer? I feel horrible for any clients you might have. I've walked the dog with you all day today and haven't even had to try.

 

[Zoo_View]

Hit dog hollers. Nothing wrong with you posting here, Dr. Lynch. Just good for everyone to know who they’re dealing with.

Isn’t ZZLPHeels It’sBoTime?

 

[lawtig02]

I suspect the first 3 points are actually well-known to those with higher security clearances than anyone here has. Particularly numbers two and three. An0maly's link stated that Iran was probably less than a week from developing a bomb....I think that might be a little generous, but I notice how you didn't jump on that poster for putting that out there.

For points 4 and 5, you are correct that we can't predict that future with 100% certainty. We can and do know that Iran is weaker now than it ever has been, and that is capability to respond is more diminished now than it ever has been. Those aren't opinions. Those are facts. To go back to my sports analogy, if you are playing football and are up by 3 in the 2nd quarter and you see that the defense has completely forgotten to cover your best receiver, you go for the easy touchdown. It doesn't matter that you might not need those points in the 4th quarter. There is a good chance that you might. And there is always the slight risk that your receiver pulls a hamstring or something while running 80 yards to the house. But you take the points. Iran left our best receiver open. We took the points.

Ok, let’s get this back on track. You acknowledge here that you don’t actually know the answer to any of those five questions, all of which impact what happens next. And yet, the vast majority of this thread has been most of us (including me) saying there’s no way to know what will happen, and you disagreeing and assuring us nothing bad will happen. If you could just have had the humility to acknowledge you don’t really know what you claim to know (which you essentially did in the post above), this thread would probably only have 70 pages or so, but they would be far more useful.

And with that, I’m out. Feel free to have the last word. I’m happy to let the board judge our relative credibilities.

 

[lawtig02]

Isn’t ZZLPHeels It’sBoTime?

No clue. But just as Dr. Lynch kept pissing on our legs and telling us it was raining during Covid, that seems to be the tactic again here.

 

[ZZLPHeels]

Ok, let’s get this back on track. You acknowledge here that you don’t actually know the answer to any of those five questions, all of which impact what happens next. And yet, the vast majority of this thread has been most of us (including me) saying there’s no way to know what will happen, and you disagreeing and assuring us nothing bad will happen. If you could just have had the humility to acknowledge you don’t really know what you claim to know (which you essentially did in the post above), this thread would probably only have 70 pages or so, but they would be far more useful.

And with that, I’m out. Feel free to have the last word. I’m happy to let the board judge our relative credibilities.

I just find it interesting, once again, that these ground rules only apply to certain posters. For instance, no one seemed to mind another poster claiming that tens of thousands of American soldiers are going to die now. We're OK with alarmism but not the opposite.

Of course no one knows what is going to happen in the future. I posted my opinion, just like others did. But only some opinions are tolerated, it seems.

 

[lawtig02]

These two posts together are a great example of the point. NOBODY knows what will happen from here. Nobody on this board knows. Trump sure as hell doesn’t know. That’s terrifying to me, but anyone saying with certainly how this will turn out is just way, way premature.

Bumping for the guy with reading comprehension problems, whatever his prior username was.

 

[superrific]

You really are embarrassing yourself. Responding to a false allegation does not make that allegation somehow true. Man, that's your third strike today. And you claim to be a lawyer? I feel horrible for any clients you might have. I've walked the dog with you all day today and haven't even had to try.

This is an idiosyncratic view and not really supported by the evidence.

Also, you don't get to pull the "are you really a lawyer" card given that you're not a lawyer and generally know nothing about the law. Leave that shit to the rest of us.

I don't even know what you're arguing at this point. You were enlarging the five-to-six days stuff and also denying that you think Iran can build a nuke in a week. Honestly, your position is inscrutable and seems to be internally contradictory to me. Maybe that's because you're responding to many different posts, but I'm not slamming on you. I really don't know what point you think you're making.

The point is twofold:

1. If Iran was really 5 to 6 days away from enriching that much uranium, then none of these attacks are going to compromise their ability to produce a bomb because they are almost there. They don't need more than one centrifuge. Having many centrifuges speeds up the process, and that's all. So if they were 5 days away, maybe now they are 100 days away. They have not been crippled at all, on this theory.

2. As suggested previously, the 5 to 6 day claim beggars belief. If it's true, it means that they weren't enriching this whole time. If not, then well it's wrong. It doesn't help your case either way.

Generally speaking, your posts on this thread have cut against your argument as much as supporting it. You should stop to think a little bit. You're veering wildly, in my view.

 

[nycfan]

 

[superrific]

I just find it interesting, once again, that these ground rules only apply to certain posters. For instance, no one seemed to mind another poster claiming that tens of thousands of American soldiers are going to die now. We're OK with alarmism but not the opposite.

Of course no one knows what is going to happen in the future. I posted my opinion, just like others did. But only some opinions are tolerated, it seems.

Did anyone else endorse the tens of thousands of American soldiers view? I didn't see any of it. It's not a question about "minding" so much as whether the point continued to be argued for many pages.

 

[sringwal]

I think Hinton is lynch. He just pulled the tried and true “who are you?” lynch move on CFord.

Back to regularly scheduled programming:

PM: 'Fact, not conspiracy' Shin Bet chief knew Oct. 7 attack likely, didn't wake me | The Times of Israel

www.timesofisrael.com

I am not certain that Hinton is Lynch, but I'd bet on it over some of the other theories here.

 

[1moretimeagain]

“Hopefully Joe left a plan around here somewhere.”

 

[Zoo_View]

The US military war games the crap out of most any scenario.

 

[lawtig02]

This is an idiosyncratic view and not really supported by the evidence.

Also, you don't get to pull the "are you really a lawyer" card given that you're not a lawyer and generally know nothing about the law. Leave that shit to the rest of us.

I don't even know what you're arguing at this point. You were enlarging the five-to-six days stuff and also denying that you think Iran can build a nuke in a week. Honestly, your position is inscrutable and seems to be internally contradictory to me. Maybe that's because you're responding to many different posts, but I'm not slamming on you. I really don't know what point you think you're making.

The point is twofold:

1. If Iran was really 5 to 6 days away from enriching that much uranium, then none of these attacks are going to compromise their ability to produce a bomb because they are almost there. They don't need more than one centrifuge. Having many centrifuges speeds up the process, and that's all. So if they were 5 days away, maybe now they are 100 days away. They have not been crippled at all, on this theory.

2. As suggested previously, the 5 to 6 day claim beggars belief. If it's true, it means that they weren't enriching this whole time. If not, then well it's wrong. It doesn't help your case either way.

Generally speaking, your posts on this thread have cut against your argument as much as supporting it. You should stop to think a little bit. You're veering wildly, in my view.

Not that you asked for my opinion on this, but it’s all good. He only got his hackles raised because of some of the things I said to him. And he’s admitted now he doesn’t really know anything about all the things he claimed (for pages) to know all about, so I think we can put this all behind us now and move on to more interesting discussions of what comes next.

 

[ZZLPHeels]

This is an idiosyncratic view and not really supported by the evidence.

Also, you don't get to pull the "are you really a lawyer" card given that you're not a lawyer and generally know nothing about the law. Leave that shit to the rest of us.

I don't even know what you're arguing at this point. You were enlarging the five-to-six days stuff and also denying that you think Iran can build a nuke in a week. Honestly, your position is inscrutable and seems to be internally contradictory to me. Maybe that's because you're responding to many different posts, but I'm not slamming on you. I really don't know what point you think you're making.

The point is twofold:

1. If Iran was really 5 to 6 days away from enriching that much uranium, then none of these attacks are going to compromise their ability to produce a bomb because they are almost there. They don't need more than one centrifuge. Having many centrifuges speeds up the process, and that's all. So if they were 5 days away, maybe now they are 100 days away. They have not been crippled at all, on this theory.

2. As suggested previously, the 5 to 6 day claim beggars belief. If it's true, it means that they weren't enriching this whole time. If not, then well it's wrong. It doesn't help your case either way.

Generally speaking, your posts on this thread have cut against your argument as much as supporting it. You should stop to think a little bit. You're veering wildly, in my view.

I'm glad you are a lawyer, Super. Given that you claim to be an expert in this area, perhaps you can clear something up for the rest of us. If someone makes an allegation against someone else, and the person that the allegation is made against denies the allegation, does this denial in fact mean that the person issuing the denial is guilty? For example, if I say "my best friend John slept with my wife", and John says, "What? That's ridiculous, of course I didn't do that!", does that mean that John screwed my wife? Because that's what the "hit dog hollers" argument implies, and I have always found that this argument was incredibly stupid.

With regards to the actual topic being discussed in this thread:

Several posters claimed that Iran wasn't anywhere close to being able to produce a nuke. Others claimed that Iran wasn't even interested in developing nuclear weapons. According to these arguments, the airstrikes were not necessary because Iran wasn't actually close to being able to weaponize a nuclear device.

I initially did not take a position on this particular part of the argument, but stated that the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities likely substantially hindered or delayed Iran's ability to make a nuclear weapon. Another poster disagreed, but they did not elaborate on this disagreement. Instead, they posted the article that has now been linked to several times now. This article stated that Iran was less than a week away from being able to make a nuclear bomb, and that any military strategy aimed at destroying or diminishing this capacity would have to account for and destroy the facility that the US bombed last night. This article, if you believe it, directly supported the case for military intervention against Iran, as Iran being "a week away from a bomb" was a red line that Israel and the US would not accept. I stated that I did not believe this was the case, but if that other poster wanted us to accept the article he/she linked to without comment, then we'd have to accept all of it, including the "one week away" claim. I have stated several times that I didn't think Iran was a week away from a nuke, but that I was willing to go along with this argument to humor the poster who supplied the link that made that claim. My argument has always been that you take the opportunities that are in front of you, and this was the best chance we've had and likely will ever have to take out these nuclear facilities while Iran is in its hyperweakened state.

 

[ZZLPHeels]

Did anyone else endorse the tens of thousands of American soldiers view? I didn't see any of it. It's not a question about "minding" so much as whether the point continued to be argued for many pages.

No one endorsed it, and no one jumped all over that poster the way I was jumped on for stating that we're not all going to die tomorrow in World War III.