The Conservative Cave

In the Twelve Day War, the Israelis understood that Iran's missile production had allowed the mullahs to conduct nearly unlimited ballistic warfare against them. Launchers were Tehran's vulnerability at that time – at least the one that the IDF could exploit with its own resources. Israel destroyed enough of them in June to slow down the massive barrages, although toward the end, more of the missiles leaked through their defenses.

This time, however, Israel has an ally with much more firepower. Launchers became a point of vulnerability again, with the US and Israel focusing on the mobile launchers in the first waves of attack. However, the boost in offensive capability has exposed an even more valuable vulnerability, as the Wall Street Journal reports, and it has had a more serious impact:

Quote

Iran spent decades constructing underground bunkers to shield its vast missile arsenal from destruction. Less than a week into the war with its two most powerful adversaries, the strategy is beginning to look like a blunder.

U.S. and Israeli war planes and armed drones are circling over the dozens of cavernous bases, striking missile-carrying launchers when they emerge to fire. Meanwhile, waves of heavy bombers have dropped munitions on the sites, apparently entombing the Iranian weapons below ground in some locations.

Satellite imagery taken in recent days shows the smoldering remains of several Iranian missiles and launchers destroyed in U.S. and Israeli airstrikes near entrances to the “missile cities,” as Iranian officials call the subterranean sites.

Essentially, the IRGC created ballistic-missile cemeteries. Bunkers made some sense during that period, but only if Iran wanted to defend itself from Israel alone. It paid off to some extent in the Twelve Day War, as the IDF did not have the resources to commit to these kinds of sorties, nor to track all of these potential sites with real-time surveillance by satellites and drones. ...

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if the in-law actually moved to get away from the DUchebag and others like them in the family, not for the reasons given by the DUchebag.

gopiscrap (24,680 posts)

When I was 7 years old on a snowy, icy morning I held my mom's hand

as we walked to my fathers new gravesite 3 days before Christmas. I sat there staring at my 38 year old father's flag draped coffin. I cried as I heard taps being played, trembled when the rifles sent out their volleys, and gasped in anguished grief as they lowered my father into the cold earth never to be seen again. It is a searing memory and one that is indelible in a child's mind even as he grows to adulthood.

Why did this happen, my father was shot in Vietnam and and died when he came stateside. He was one of those 58,000 US military victims.

But the one good thing was that his country and president honored him. They accorded him the respect he deserved and affirmed and grieved with his survivors.

I find it completely morally reprehensible and an affront to those families that must go through what I went through, but with the callousness of our leader (and mourner in chief) and his sycophant followers. Never had we had a president who is so unfeeling, so callous and so ignorant of what is required to be a leader. This soulless son of a bitch has no clue what it means to sacrifice, to empathise with another's grief. He will never apologize, he will never recognize their pain. A good start would be to lower the flag at a minimum.

I apologize (on behalf of trump) to those families who are feeling the beginning of this life long grief. This president will never apologize My heart is with you. I can identify with the road you are taking.

And to this administration: Shame on you, not only are you uncaring in a time of this immoral war, but you make the pain of the families who paid the ultimate price harder and with deeper scars!

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221070253