Doakes Sunday: McHafezjian’s Navy

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Iran, fresh off its triumph getting President Obama to drop sanctions, is expanding its purview.  A desert nation sends its fleet into the Atlantic Ocean.

I’d be worried if I hadn’t looked closely at the photo (expand for a better view).  That boat is so low to the water, the fender is floating instead of hanging.  The curve of the hull makes it look about 25 feet long.  This isn’t even as large as a normal fishing vessel, it’s more like a Boston Whaler.

And the weapons those sailors are pointing have such short barrels they can’t possibly hit anything over 100 yards away, especially from the rolling deck of a boat on an ocean.  Okay, maybe it’s a Small Boat Repel Boarders drill, something they practice in case the Captain’s Launch is attacked.  But usually nations brag about the big ship that the Captain’s Launch comes from, not the little boat that ferries him to shore.  Unless that’s the biggest boat they have, in which case I’m doubly unimpressed.

On the other hand, President Obama just gave a nation of Islamic Fundamentalists the green light to develop nuclear weapons.  How big a boat do you need to float a nuke into Tel Aviv Harbor?

Joe Doakes

True about the nukes – and the general value of little boats in asymmetric warfare. The terrorists who killed 169 in Mumbai a few years back came to town on a stolen fishing boat.

But just in the interest of accuracy – I’m from North Dakota, and we’re a maritime people – the Iranians have been building a blue-water Navy.

The Iranian destroyer Samavand – a British-built ship from the early seventies. It wouldn’t even know what hit it in a battle with modern ships or, especially, submarines.

Iran is building modern warships – plenty of nations are selling them technology.  But the Iranian navy is the least of the west’s problems.

18 thoughts on “Doakes Sunday: McHafezjian’s Navy

  1. Which will be of great use when Israel carries out its decades long threat to obliterate Iran…

    …oh, where is the link to that?

  2. It bothers me that nations are selling technology to a nation that has, under the aegis of the government, sponsored Holocaust denial conferences. One would have thought that, at least among the civilized nations of the world, that would be a non-starter. Same basic thing with the PLO. We’re subsidizing regimes that mass produce copies of Mein Kampf in Arabic exactly why?

  3. Emery – give it a few extra seconds in your head before you let thoughts like those out ……… ugh

  4. Emery, the reason we’re sniping at your snark is you are blind to your own underlying premise: that Israel is equally as likely to launch on Iran as Iran is to launch on Israel. They are not equal and suggesting they are is worthy of ridicule.

    Consider a different example. Liberals say guns cause crime so they want to take guns off the streets to reduce crime. But not policemen’s guns, because those prevent crime. Wait – they are exactly the same guns – how can they cause opposite results? Because it’s not the Gun that is the probem, it’s the Hand Holding the Gun that’s the problem. The gun in the policeman’s hand is less likely to be used in crime than the gun in the criminal’s hand. We trust the former, we don’t trust the latter.

    So, too, with Israel and Iran, which is why pretending they’re equally likely to launch on each other is positing a transparently false equivalence that doesn’t earn you approval here, but scorn.
    .

  5. Mr. Doakes: Are you implying Israel does not possess nuclear weapons?

    Unfinished business > (thread interuptus) I was hoping you might reconcile this error for me.

    Mr. Doakes wrote:
    “The United States Supreme Court has decided abortion cannot be outlawed by state legislatures. Any attempt by Minnesota Republicans to do so would be instantly struck down as unconstitutional. Proposing such legislation would be pointless.”

    /Perhaps you might want to check the *facts* Mr. Doakes, before creating your own narrative.

    “States have passed unprecedented number of abortion restrictions since 2011″ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/01/03/states-have-passed-unprecedented-number-of-abortion-restrictions-since-2011/

    MN GOP legislators are and have been feckless when it comes to abortion./

  6. “It’s not as if the are any Israeli nuclear warheads are pointed towards Iran.”

    Allahu Akbar!, Emery. FTW.

  7. No, Emery, I’m assuming Israel does have nuclear weapons. And I assume they have do their nuclear weapons pointed at Iran. How does that affect the analysis?

  8. “Outlawed” and “restricted” are different. I said “outlawed” and I stand by it: no state has successfully outlawed abortion since Roe v. Wade.

    You talking about restrictions is moving the goal posts again (remember our prior discussion about asserting A, then offering to prove B, C or D?)

    I concede some states have attempted to restrict abortion with varying success (I highly recommend Justice Scalia’s dissent in Carhart v. Stenberg). Not relevant to the President’s cowardly refusal to Speak The Word that he’s giving a speach to celebrate. Which was what I was talking about. On a different thread.

  9. Swiftee: :^)

    I’m thinking, for what it’s worth, that the Israeli nuclear arsenal would be loaded onto planes, and is not specifically pointed at anyone in the way ballistic missiles are pre-programmed. And Emery, you are nuts to pretend that there is any equivalence between a Holocaust-denying regime and Israel.

  10. JD wrote: “Outlawed” and “restricted” are different.”

    Had me thinking that only applies to 2A restrictions. The cut and vacuum crowd will say that they are the same in abortion matters.

  11. Mr. Doakes: ‘If you want to assert A, then offering to prove B.. ‘ >
    My original comment is about “restricting” not “outlawing”. It is you sir that is moving the goal post or in fact switching the end–zone to the opposite side of the field.

    snip/”While I respect everyone’s right to posture on the the subject of abortion. I can’t remember the last time the MN GOP attempted abortion restricting legislation.”/snip
    http://www.shotinthedark.info/wp/?p=41354#comments

    I

  12. bikebubba: Please read more carefully before commenting. I point out that Israel has nuclear weapons and it’s fair to assume that one or more are pointed towards Iran. How is it you read “equivalence” into that one sentence?

    I wouldn’t want anyone to assume that Israel is a defenseless nation. Personally I would prefer that Iran not have a nuclear weapon. Is it worth going to war over? That’s the real question.

  13. Emery, the option of nuking Teheran is of dubious significance if Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are smoking craters, no? MAD only works if the opponents are basically sane, which is the very point one ought to bring up with a regime that denies the Holocaust.

  14. I have hesitated to reply to you, Emery, because I can’t tell if you’re truly not understanding this or if you’re intentionally being obtuse. On the off chance that a reasoned explanation might still be useful, here we go:

    Abortion was regulated by the states before Roe v. Wade and some states did outlaw it. Roe legalized abortion nation-wide. President Obama gave a speech celebrating the nation-wide legalization of abortion, but was too cowardly to say the word. I chided him for it. You implied Republicans were cowardly too, because they hadn’t tried to impose regulations on legal abortion. I pointed out that Republicans couldn’t outlaw abortion, which was the whole point of Roe v. Wade. You responded that other states have imposed trivial and meaningless regulations on legal abortion. I replied that imposing trivial and meaningless regulations wasn’t the same as outlawing abortion, which was the point of the court case the President was celebrating, so I accused you of moving the goalposts from outlawing to restricting. You rebut by accusing me of moving the goalposts from restricting to outlawing.

    Yes, I admit it: I moved the goalposts . . . back. Back to the original position, which was states being prevented from outlawing abortion because of Roe v. Wade and the President being afraid to say the name of the medical procedure he’s celebrating.

    I’m not going to respond further to you on this issue, Emery. Either you get it, or you don’t. Whether you admit it is immaterial.

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