The war in the mid east is about to start..

[EagleEyes]

See Rule #5

[Gunston]

The USN is by far the biggest spender of the three main branches of the US Armed Forces.


I guess opinion is the answer unless you consider the following to be "by far"

US Navy budget 07-127.3 B
US Army budget 07-111.8 B
USAF budget 07- 105B

[EagleEyes]

Originally posted by Gunston
EagleEyes

First off I don�t believe the scenario you describe would happen. Israel is by far the pre-eminent military power in the Middle East and could defeat the combined forces of Syria and Iran.

Second push us out of Iraq and Afghanistan do you know who we are and what we are capable of. We are not only the most powerful nation on Earth at this moment we are the most powerful nation in the history of the world when compared to the rest of the world.

Before 9-11 the US spent in the neighborhood of 326 Billion every year on defense, the rest of the world combined Russia, China, England and every other nation big and small spent a combined total of around 100 Billion. (I had looked up the figures sometime around 2000 but these are from memory so when someone does a search and says I was off 10 Billion or so ok you got me) anyway.

Contrary to all the negative hype about the war, and the fact that the loss of even one solider is indeed tragic, we have lost 2500 + soldiers in a war that in November of this year will have been as long as US involvement in WWII. We had battles in that war that started at 6:00am and by 10:00 am that morning we had lost more men than that.

The US against any or all the Middle East countries would be like one of those Sci-Fi movies where the aliens with their advanced tech come to earth and the poor earthlings are powerless against them. (We saw a preview it was called the Gulf war, it was against the most powerful Arab country at that time remember)

Third a draft why? Our soldiers are brave well trained performing unbelievable well and committed to their mission. In the field re-enlistment is at an all time high. The left in this country may want to cut and run but the majority of our men in Iraq and Afghanistan don�t.

Oh and when someone claims that the re-enlistment rate I state is false just did a search here is a New York Post article on it.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/52321.htm

Though i mostly agree with what you are saying...... If this war did bring the US into it, there would be a draft.  Our military is so stretched that if we ended up in another big war at the moment, we simply would not have enough troops.  Between 60-70% of the US forces are in Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment.  Let us not forget that if war did come between the US and Syria/Iran, many people from other countries would entire the fight like they are in Iraq at this very moment.  So, i dont believe we have the man power to stop them right away, but after time we would.  Early in the war, we would have to use air power to its maximum.

I do agree that we would severly cripple both Syria and Iran, it would take time.  Syrai is est to have about 80 Mig-23s, 30 Mig-25s and perhaps as many as 42 Mig-29s, 60 Mig-23BN fighter bombers, 50 Su-22s and 20 Su-24MKs.  They also have around 40 reconnaissance-configured Mig-21s and about 8 Mig-25RBs.  And they have around 35 armed Gazelles, 36 MI-24 Hinds and about 100 Mi-8/17 attack helicopters.  Thier Air Force is about the same size as Iraq's was before the first Gulf war, but a little bigger.  Irans Air Force consists of 30 Chengdu F-7Ms and 24 Shenyang F-s.  Iran also has converted a Boeing 707 tanker into an RC-135 type Elint platform.  As well as 25 F-14 Tomcats and 50 F-4E Phantoms.  They also have a large number of Iraqi aircraft that flew to Iran during the first day of the Gulf war, which include 4-21 Mig 29s, 7 Su-25s, 44 Su-20/22s, 24 Mirage F1s and 24 Su-24s.  As the article that was writen where i got this information, Iran was continueing to buy arms from Russia and elsewhere.  They could very well have as many as 80 Mig-29s by this time.  They had ordered Mig-27s and Tu-22M "Backfires" from Russia, but again, as the time this article was writen, Iran had yet to recieve them.

Hope this proves to certain people, that im very immature in my ways, both mind and body!   *sarcasticly of course*

[Neubob]

Originally posted by EagleEyes
Wow, i must say, you know me VERY well.  Didnt know a 20 year old was a child.  But i guess i was wrong.  I learned something today, some people are so ignorent, they think they know YOU better then YOU KNOW YOURSELF!!  



 Congrats sir!

Physical maturity does not gaurantee mental maturity, nor is it a prerequisite for mental maturity. I've met 40 year olds who belong in cribs, as well as teenagers with more wisdom and perspective than their parents.

Anyone who directly equates years lived with wisdom accumulated usually belongs to the first group... As do most people who feel strongly about reinstating the draft.

Congrats, sir.

[lukster]

Originally posted by uvwpvW
Those numbers include transport and utility aircraft and helicopters. I specifically isolated fighter aircraft. I also noted the USAF’s dominance in air-mobility (transport planes and helicopters in Simpletonese).

Fair enough, what're your numbers on "fighters" then?

[EagleEyes]

Originally posted by Neubob
Physical maturity does not gaurantee mental maturity, nor is it a prerequisite for mental maturity. I've met 40 year olds who belong in cribs, as well as teenagers with more wisdom and perspective than their parents.

Anyone who directly equates years lived with wisdom accumulated usually belongs to the first group... As do most people who feel strongly about reinstating the draft.

Congrats, sir.

I was simply saying i was 20 years old, he said i was a child in the head and body.  Just simply said i was not a child by body.  Those who know me on a personal level know my maturity mentally.  I dont feel strongly about reinstating the draft, i simply commented that if we went to war with Syria and Iran, the draft was a realisitic possiblity.  Which, it is!

And a big Congrats to you sir!

[LePaul]

The fact you quote the NY Times as a valid news source had me laughing.  This went from a semi-good deabte about what's going into pure comedy.

Just what my Monday needed.  Thank You!

[EagleEyes]

Originally posted by LePaul
The fact you quote the NY Times as a valid news source had me laughing.  This went from a semi-good deabte about what's going into pure comedy.

Just what my Monday needed.  Thank You!

Who quoted the NY times??

[lukster]

By my count the USAF has 1893 F-15s and F-16s. I haven't counted any of the Navy's thousands of fighters nor did I include any of the many hundreds of air to ground or training aircraft which might be converted if needed.

[uvwpvW]

See Rule #4

[dmf]

Originally posted by Kurt
Did you just step off of a space ship from Alpha Centauri?  The war in the middle east has been going on for nearly 2000 years.  

And it will go for 2000 more.

No it won't eventually they'll all band togeather and try to kill us instead.

[Rino]

Two things I think the pee pee measurers have forgotten.  The first is
how do the relative training and force levels of the opposing forces
measure up?

     The second is operational readiness..it's all well and good to have nine
billion gazillion uber duber fighters, but can you man them, fuel them, arm
them..or even get them to where the action is?  One area I think the US
absolutely excels in is floating checks

[Gunston]

EagleEyes

Not sure but maybe you haven’t been reading the exchanges between Uvwpvw and myself, and while we’re not in agreement on every issue we have been debating, I think between the two of us we have quoted enough verifiable information sources to conclude that a war that involved the US against both Syria and Iran would be both short lived and have quite a bad outcome for those countries.

Contrary to the left controlled main stream anti-Bush media’s portrayal of the situation we are not “spread thin” because of Iraq. (See this site for troop strength and deployment numbers)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_armed_forces#Personnel_deployed

I also had a link in one of the above post concerning the record number of “in the field re-enlistments higher than even during WWII.

As to some of your other points the combined Air Force’s of Iran and Syria would not last past the morning of the first day against the USAF unless like Saddam they wisely found a neutral country to hide them in so they might still have one after the conflict ended (of course he never got his back… sucker)

With regards to Iran’s Air force we sold them F-14’s and Phantoms under the Shah but aircraft are very maintenance and part demanding to keep in the air. There would be only one source for those parts and that store has been closed since 1978.

Also although those pesky insurgents and their IED’s and sneaky mortar attacks do tragically cost American and Iraqi, lives as far as the requirement on US military strength it’s really more like policing  than fighting a war against a nation’s military power. In fact I would argue that our force in Iraq makes the whole scenario less likely to occur and the prospects of a quick victory if it did happen more certain simply because it would not require us to deploy forces to the region as we had to prior to both the wars in Iraq.

And as far as a draft I have no real opposition to the concept either now or in a time of peace, but the pentagon thinks differently than I do, they don’t want a military of conscripts. The current all volunteer system of people who chose to join because they want to defend the country has proven to be a far better system creating a vastly superior and motivated fighting force.

Again I invite you to review the post above for information and statistics provided by me, Uvwpvw and some others.

[Gunston]

Originally posted by LePaul
The fact you quote the NY Times as a valid news source had me laughing.  This went from a semi-good deabte about what's going into pure comedy.

Just what my Monday needed.  Thank You!

I think you might be mistakenly referring to my earlier link to the New York Post. I my self am not terribly familiar with the New York Post but found the article by doing a quick search of the web.

However in terms of your post I agree quoting anything from the New York Times as a valid news source,  that would go beyond funny that would border on the absurd

[EagleEyes]

Originally posted by Gunston
EagleEyes

Not sure but maybe you haven�t been reading the exchanges between Uvwpvw and myself, and while we�re not in agreement on every issue we have been debating, I think between the two of us we have quoted enough verifiable information sources to conclude that a war that involved the US against both Syria and Iran would be both short lived and have quite a bad outcome for those countries.

Contrary to the left controlled main stream anti-Bush media�s portrayal of the situation we are not �spread thin� because of Iraq. (See this site for troop strength and deployment numbers)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_armed_forces#Personnel_deployed

I also had a link in one of the above post concerning the record number of �in the field re-enlistments higher than even during WWII.

As to some of your other points the combined Air Force�s of Iran and Syria would not last past the morning of the first day against the USAF unless like Saddam they wisely found a neutral country to hide them in so they might still have one after the conflict ended (of course he never got his back� sucker)

With regards to Iran�s Air force we sold them F-14�s and Phantoms under the Shah but aircraft are very maintenance and part demanding to keep in the air. There would be only one source for those parts and that store has been closed since 1978.

Also although those pesky insurgents and their IED�s and sneaky mortar attacks do tragically cost American and Iraqi, lives as far as the requirement on US military strength it�s really more like policing  than fighting a war against a nation�s military power. In fact I would argue that our force in Iraq makes the whole scenario less likely to occur and the prospects of a quick victory if it did happen more certain simply because it would not require us to deploy forces to the region as we had to prior to both the wars in Iraq.

And as far as a draft I have no real opposition to the concept either now or in a time of peace, but the pentagon thinks differently than I do, they don�t want a military of conscripts. The current all volunteer system of people who chose to join because they want to defend the country has proven to be a far better system creating a vastly superior and motivated fighting force.

Again I invite you to review the post above for information and statistics provided by me, Uvwpvw and some others.

I understand what you guys are saying, but i was just putting my 2 cents in.  I agree that the US would eventually knock the crap outta both Syria and Iran.  I just disagree on how long it would take.  I believe it would take a little longer then the war did in Iraq.  Please do not get me wrong, i support President Bush and the War in Iraq 100%.  I have many friends and family in Iraq and Afganistan.  I just believe it will be much more difficult then Operation Iraqi Freedom was.  We took on Iraq which is a "small" country.  Iran is twice if not three times the size, and Syria is just as big as Iraq.  With the amount of troops we currently have, we would be unable to fight a war without a draft!  Just my 2 cents, im really not trying to argue with you guys.  I respect both of your opinions very much!!

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