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Iran says it's 'completely ready for war' after US official confirms it shot down American drone
In a major provocation, Iran shot down an unarmed and unmanned U.S. Navy MQ-4C Triton drone while it was flying in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz Thursday, a U.S. official told ABC News.
The incident is sure to trigger serious discussions within the Trump administration about how to respond to a direct attack on a U.S. military asset that goes beyond recent attacks in the Middle East that the U.S. has blamed on Iran.
Gulf crisis: US confirms drone was shot down by Iranian missile
A US military surveillance drone has been shot down by Iranian forces while flying over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said the drone had violated Iranian airspace. But US military said it had been over international waters. IRGC commander-in-chief Maj-Gen Hossein Salami said the downing of the drone sent a "clear message to America" that Iran's borders were its "red line".
It comes at a time of escalating tension between the US and Iran. On Monday, the US defence department said it was deploying 1,000 extra troops to the region in response to "hostile behaviour" by Iranian forces. The US has also accused Iran of attacking two oil tankers with mines last Thursday just outside the Strait of Hormuz, in the Gulf of Oman. Iran rejects the allegation.
Previously: Two Oil Tankers Attacked, US Blames Iran
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Corelli's A on Thursday June 20 2019, @02:50PM (8 children)
Yawn. It looks like a stupid pretense for a stupid war. Banging the drums because a piece of equipment got destroyed? At least the Maine had dead sailors, even if it was purely accidental.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:28PM
The Maine was before the time of any human still alive, USS Liberty however...
(Score: 2, Funny) by fustakrakich on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:33PM
At least the Maine had dead sailors, even if it was purely accidental.
No, no, Iran did that one too.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Hartree on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:16PM (1 child)
The role of the media is apparent in both. For the Maine, Hearst and Pulitzer hyped (to the point of falsehood. Fake news, anyone?) the incident as it would increase newspaper sales.
The media has given Trump incredible coverage volume because his outrageous style gives them eyeballs on websites, TV screens and traditional print. "Channel T is all Trump all day forever!" Whether it's fawning or damning, it's all Trump.
We also have the phenomenon of fake news ( on both sides of the spectrum) today, too.
Add to this, we have the phenomenon of secular sainthood. Just look at some of the comments in this post. Whether it's the Trumpistas or the Obama acolytes they respond instantly when something less than glowing is said about their hero and nearly as quickly when something positive is said about their Satan substitute.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Friday June 21 2019, @05:43AM
Jimmy Fallon is now whimpering to all that he did the famous hair show" with me (where he seriously messed up my hair), & that he would have now done it differently because it is said to have "humanized" me -- he is taking heat. He called & said “monster ratings.” Be a man Jimmy!
(Score: 5, Informative) by AnonTechie on Thursday June 20 2019, @08:29PM (2 children)
Remember: Iran Air Flight 655
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 [wikipedia.org]
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday June 21 2019, @12:54AM
Shhhh! We don't want to hear TRUTHS here!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Friday June 21 2019, @05:50AM
Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly. Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT. I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better. Split second decisions are needed, and the complexity creates danger. All of this for great cost yet very little gain. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want Albert Einstein to be my pilot. I want great flying professionals that are allowed to EASILY AND QUICKLY take control of a plane!!!
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Friday June 21 2019, @07:05AM
They really like to overthrow governments in middle eastern countries. Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan. All were were overthrown and controlled, just to make oil contracts a bit more advantageous. For US each extra dollar of revenue is worth at least 10 lives of locals. They encourage anarchy to keep control to themselves. They have all the incentives to weaken those countries. Middle east is cradle of civilization, and it always has a potential to get their power and primacy back. Unless its governments are overthrown and control is transferred to "Islamists" who never have read Quran and even don't know how to pray properly. If they overthrow government in Iran who will come to power this time? Satanists?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by HiThere on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:29PM (1 child)
I suspect that the drone was probing the borders. Which side of the border it was on is probably uncertain to any observer. (Air space borders are a bit hard to pin down, and the things up there move pretty fast.)
Were some Iranian soldiers trigger happy? Perhaps. They were also being provoked and spied on.
And that's trusting the official statement.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @04:52PM
Yeah, I have a hard time accepting the official word of the US government.
Especially one with as loose a relationship with the truth as this one has shown itself to have.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bradley13 on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:32PM (14 children)
Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. Syria. Pakistan. Now it's Iran - not that any of the other wars are finished.
Granted, most of the above were started by The Shrub and Peace-Prize Obama. Guess Trump has decided to join the party, and get his name associated with a war or two...
Back in Vietnam days, the general population managed to apply enough political pressure to stop the war. Any chance of that happening again?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @04:30PM (1 child)
No, most of the above were started by the Bush duo, father and son.
God... some people really do live in their own little version of reality.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hartree on Thursday June 20 2019, @04:46PM
"God... some people really do live in their own little version of reality."
Indeed they do.
Since the first Libyan Civil War started in 2011 it's about as much a stretch to blame it on the Bushes as it is to exonerate Johnson by blaming Vietnam on Eisenhower. There's a kernel of reality there, but it's pretty small.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Hartree on Thursday June 20 2019, @04:40PM
"Any chance of that happening again?"
No.
Much of that concern about peace love and humanity during Vietnam was motivated by not wanting to get drafted/not wanting your boyfriend/brother/whatnot drafted.
Now it's a volunteer army and so the level of self interest... I mean "love and caring" isn't so high.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @04:44PM
Unlikely. We don't have the draft anymore, so middle class children are not being put at risk anymore. If I can be so crass, it is the poor and dumb that are enlisted and available as cannon fodder.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Freeman on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:10PM (3 children)
Maybe Trump will be in the running for a Peace-Prize too, now.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:19PM (2 children)
Well, the Nobel Peace Prize, after all, memorializes an arms manufacturer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @08:11PM (1 child)
Creator of dynamite (TNT in convenient stick form), actually.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Thursday June 20 2019, @09:24PM
Founder and owner of Nobel Company, later, one of the principle people of Dynamit Nobel LLC both of which were huge armaments manufacturers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:27PM
No, the system has repeatedly beaten down all protests and the control over mass media has marginalized every protest that actually gets some traction. I've heard about soooo many large protests only after they've been done for a while.
Vietnam broke the US in more ways than one. Even after MLK was assassinated the black community still tried to keep going, but the corrupt feds did them in. The lesson was clear, stand up to the powers-that-be and get murdered or imprisoned. Best case? Have your life and reputation ruined.
It will only stretch so far before the system breaks down and people are so desperate that the threatened consequences no longer matter. I really really hope we can fix the country before we get to the truly nasty parts, but as this site amply proves we have not reached a level of unification where we can get cohesive action.
I'm pretty sure there are some users around here that think the current immigrant concentration camps are totally fine cause "they're illegals!" as if that justifies human rights violations. The wheel of history is turning round again and there is nothing the average person is able to do about it. Get a big enough group to protest? It won't make the news and the officials fall back on "just following the legally issued orders" and the wheel keeps grinding. We have no mechanism for popular discontent, simply a very lengthy and easily subverted voting process.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:34PM (1 child)
The problem is that the MIC and their servants (the politicians on both sides of the aisle) learned some stuff from Vietnam, but the anti-war hippies mostly didn't. What the MIC learned:
1. Hide as much as you possibly can about what you are doing from the American public. Things you saw in Vietnam that turned public opinion that they went to great lengths to hide in subsequent wars: Images of killed or wounded US soldiers, killed or wounded Iraqi civilians, indeed any video footage where the military hasn't either provided the film or staged events for pliant reporters, total number of KIA and WIA and POW on both sides, and of course the total cost in money. If there are reporters in-country that aren't doing what you want them to be doing, kill them [wikileaks.org].
2. Don't draft people, because some of those people you draft and their parents are going to be educated and smart and rich enough to be able to organize effectively and start social movements. Instead, recruit people who are poor, non-white or white-trash rural folks, just out of high school, ambitious, and naive enough.
3. Make sure to have an ongoing propaganda campaign about how awesome the military is. Among the implementations of this policy are the NFL and the Captain America films. In short, any time you see US military equipment or personnel in popular media, you're viewing government propaganda.
4. Never let the anti-war people get on TV, or call them wimps or crazy if they somehow manage to get in front of the cameras. Congresscritters included. For instance, back in 2004, my thoroughly anti-war congressman was in a national debate and was asked not about policy but about his experiences with UFOs. This is also why the freedom of assembly basically no longer exists.
The hippies learned basically nothing from what worked and didn't work against the Vietnam War, and in particular didn't understand and still largely don't understand how to use popular media to tell the story they want to tell.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @08:02PM
For context, see for example https://medium.com/@barrettbrown/we-exposed-hbgary-hbgary-came-after-us-the-intercepts-sam-biddle-helped-85d8060b92c8 [medium.com]. From point 2 in the letter:
More context is the bibliography of Edward Bernays, marketing psychology, data mining and so on. The point being that immeasurable quantities of time and moneys have been spent on trying to figure out how to shape the direction that society should take, in the presence of adverse conditions (e.g. dissenting voices). From this point of view, it is almost a miracle that there still are dissenters. At the very least, the ownership class certainly seems to want the society we live in (i.e. resource grabs for feedstock), and the worker class is too inundated with work to achieve the level of organization that is necessary to effect change -- which doesn't even raise the question of whether they really want change.
Disclaimer: I am not a US or Iranian citizen. On a side note, I think globalism is an effort to pass imperialism over into legitimacy by unifying everyone, new-world-order style. Maybe people in power who think imperialism is a necessary evil -- and really a terrible thing -- find in globalism the next best thing. Unfinished thought, kind of.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @06:19PM
and it's nothing new, as the eminent philosopher noted [youtube.com].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Thursday June 20 2019, @09:28PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by realDonaldTrump on Friday June 21 2019, @05:53AM
You forgot Somalia. And, Yemen. I inherited an ABSOLUTE MESS!!!!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rupert Pupnick on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:39PM
Sounds like levels of munitions inventory for the US are overflowing again. That’s bad for business.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:46PM (25 children)
Big whoop. At most it's some overly noisy saber rattling by Iran. We're not going to war over a drone, no matter how expensive, and neither is Iran.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:49PM (15 children)
No, we'd be going to war because the U.S. wants a war and destroying the drone would be the excuse.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @04:07PM (6 children)
hmmm .. let's see: how far is it from the coast of N.Y. to the GPS-powered UN-manned drone flying near/at the iran coast?
how far is it from the iran coast to the aerial spy-robot?
you know ... you cannot really fault the iran for being a bit nervous and maybe trigger happy. also if the drone flew over the border, the interceptor was launched and in the mean time the drone totally computed that it went to far and flew back, meeting the interceptor and maybe falling outside the border lol.
nobody seems to be showing much restraint ... least of all 'murikans with precious unmanned flying telescopes half a globe away from home?
maybe it's a bit like a camera on public grounds pointed straight at your shower window?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @04:37PM (3 children)
Crazy Americans?
They haven't triggered explosives on oil tankers.
Who do you think did?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:07PM
*Shrug* The public photos showing the damage to the oil tankers way above the waterline are perfectly compatible with drone bombing.
Dunno, someone flying drones out there?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:11PM (1 child)
What would be the point of guessing? That would only add fuel to a fire or start a new one. I want proof and I'm not in a position to investigate the case.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @10:29PM
they should make tesla oil tankers. you know, the ones with "all around" cameras that show soccer moms "accidentally" scratching the paint whilst reloading the next batch of growing up yealousy...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:37PM (1 child)
The max speed of an RQ-9 is 340 knots. The Khordad 3 operates in excess of 2,000 knots speed. That's a differential of about 33 miles per minute, or the entire width of the Strait of Hormuz in about 40 seconds. Not a whole of of wiggle room to be on the right side of a border with that.
Then again, back in 1988 the US managed to down Iran Air 655 over Iranian territorial waters, so I wonder just how good the US is at knowing where the international border is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 21 2019, @02:42AM
It is a factor of 6 difference.
So in the time that the missile went 37 km, the drone went about 6. Would 6km put it back over the border?
That's assuming it was fired from the closest point on the coast. Quite likely that the missile traveled further, giving the drone more time.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:10PM (5 children)
It's not because the U.S. wants the war.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:15PM
It's just that Game of Thrones ended at you have nothing better to do?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:41PM (3 children)
The claim that the US doesn't want a war with Iran is ludicrous.
The US has been signalling a desire to attack Iran for at least 2 years now, when one of Trump's first acts as president was to break an agreement between the US and Iran over Iran's attempts to get nuclear weapons and the US basically stealing billions of dollars worth of assets from Iran. And of course the US's BFF Israel has been specifically calling for attacks on Iran for about a decade, and there have been covert actions that killed Iranian scientists and caused the Stuxnet worm. Oh, and National Security Advisor John Bolton was the same guy who lied the US into war with Iraq over nothing at all officially, and appointing him made the intent pretty clear.
I hope they're at least paying you decently.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 20 2019, @09:46PM (1 child)
The NeoCons have wanted to go to war with Iran for a long time. Project for a New American Century used to have it up on the front page of their web site. Dick Cheney and Wolfowitz and Perle and the schmuck who was the Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, were all members of PNAC. When they ginned up the pretext to invade Iraq, the butch saying making the rounds in DC at the time was, "Everyone wants to go to Bagdad. Real men want to go to Tehran."
I think we should carpet bomb the place with members of PNAC and the MIC in place of actual munitions. Let their splatting upon that soil send a message down through the ages through future members of organizations like PNAC and the MIC.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday June 21 2019, @02:45AM
Given the Muslim aversion to pork, that might be more effective than you think.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Friday June 21 2019, @05:58AM
Iran has been trying to go Nuclear, that's so true. And the One Sided Deal wasn't slowing them down at all. So I got very tough with them.
And, John. I'll tell you about John. I have John Bolton and other people that are a little more dovish than him. John, unfortunately, is always trying to get me into a war. But, he's not the boss. I am!!!!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday June 20 2019, @06:48PM (1 child)
No, it wouldn't. Idiot. It's far too thin an excuse for war even if we wanted one. Nobody back home cares if they broke our toy airplane, so it's massively insufficient pretext.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 22 2019, @03:13PM
Sure you're not a robot?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @04:28PM (3 children)
We've gone to war for far less than that in the past, like imaginary weapons of mass destruction, for example.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday June 20 2019, @06:52PM (2 children)
That isn't far less, you twit. People kill over ideas not remote control airplanes. Zip, zilch, nada has been done back home to get anyone to give a shit about Iran, so a pretextual war with Iran is not in the works.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @07:33PM
What have they been feeding you? The US has a very well-documented history of killing people over remote control airplanes.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday June 21 2019, @02:52AM
Downing a drone you claim to be violating your territory is not a sufficient excuse for a war, but it will probably provoke a 'show of strength' by the USA on the edge of Iran's territorial water. 'Accidentally' crossing that line and provoking escalations all the way up to a shooting war is certainly a possibility.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:32PM (4 children)
See kids ^ that is why you should stay in school!
You are an idiot. A fool. A knave of the worst sort. Self assured moron. Titanically Massively Birdbrained.
It is scary to realize that much of our country is run by people such as yourself, too stupid to see historical precedents set within your own adult lifetime.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday June 20 2019, @06:56PM (2 children)
Then look at the actual precedents, oh not-paying-attention sage. In pretty much every case of manufactured war, serious psyops were run back home in conjunction with a back-breaking straw. We have no psyops happening and losing a toy is not going to be a back-breaking straw to even folks who are of a daily opinion that we should go invade anyone who wears a towel on their head. You're being a hysterical fool.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday June 20 2019, @09:25PM
That said, I agree this is unlikely to be 'the straw.' But there's also a strong pattern and a tremendous amount of money committed here - just as before the most recent invasion of Iraq.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @10:22PM
Ah yes, so as we ramp up to war you want to dismiss every step as "meh no big deal."
Jesus you're dumb, and the kicker is you then go on to explain HOW you're dumb. It is frustrating to see someone with the capacity to be smart yet remaining completely fucking stupid.
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Friday June 21 2019, @06:01AM
I would have to say, Andrew Jackson is my favorite Historical President. If you can believe it, Abraham Lincoln was treated supposedly very badly. But nobody's been treated badly like me!!!!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:13PM
The first casualty is truth, the second is one of ours. Remember, meatbags that we are quite good at keeping the score.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:31PM (2 children)
I'm just saying....
http://10bennettave.blogspot.com/2019/06/saudi-arabia-is-in-trouble.html [blogspot.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:58PM
thanks
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @07:57PM
Not really a false flag, just a misrepresentation (or omission of key details) of events in order to create an anti-Iranian hysteria and casus belli
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SpockLogic on Thursday June 20 2019, @07:32PM (2 children)
Trump is facing the possibility of jail if he loses the next election. He needs a distant war to rally the country around him but not until the middle of next year. I can hear him saying "Stick with me as I am the
ignorant bully who started thisonly one who can lead us to victory. Now is not the time to change course".This period of sabre rattling is merely the prologue.
As a bonus :-
The MIC is ecstatic as profits increase.
US oil producers become more profitable.
Campaign
bribescontributions increase dramatically.https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120885/ [imdb.com]
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 21 2019, @01:00AM (1 child)
Trump is facing the possibility of jail? Wtf? No wonder its been so easy to make money...
(Score: 1, Informative) by realDonaldTrump on Friday June 21 2019, @06:03AM
S&P opened at RECORD HIGH today. You're welcome!!!!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 20 2019, @09:55PM
Israel and Saudi Arabia want this war. They are the ones pushing Trump to do it.
Trump has given Israel carte blanche so far. Will he go along with this? I have thought it might be possible that he has used Israel and its hard right leader Netanyahu to drive a wedge through a traditionally virulently Democratic constituency, American Jews. Very few of them have called Trump an anti-Semite, amid every other smear that's been employed, because it's so instantly disproven by his full-throated support for anything and everything Israeli hardliners have wanted.
But starting a stupid war with Iran is a dividing line between a president who really does dance to Israel's tune, and the one using it as a wedge as I suspected he might be. Will he have a choice to say no? So far he has used Israel and Saudi Arabia to warp against domestic political opponents, but I don't know whom he would use to warp against Israel and Saudi Arabia to back them off.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @11:19PM
So ... How do the simplest drones compare to Iran's missiles in terms of cost and supply/availability? Could the supply of missiles be depleted by using a large number of cheap drones?
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Friday June 21 2019, @05:46AM
Very very big mistake. And possibly it's the Official End of Iran. Our thoughts, prayers & WARMEST Condolences are with the families & survivors of the terrible Drone Shootdown!!!!