There was an article on the internet the other day about the endemic sandstorms that afflict much of the Middle East. An attack on the Iranian nuclear reactors will result in huge clouds of radioactive dust that will kill thousands or millions across the region, including in Israel. The moment the first bomb falls, say good bye to the automobile culture in the United States and to any products that come by truck or diesel train or ship.

Patrick, the US produces its own oil from Alaska-to Texas-to offshore and buys from nations around the world. The ME total is only 24%. In addition, any Israeli attack need not have to take out the reactor but the enrichment facilities and support facilities. Israel probably will hit targets of opportunity too like airbases, missile defense networks, and other Iranian military assets within range. IIRC, the US may have sent cluster munitions after all (or in secret). They have bunkerbusters, CMs, and JDAMs plus lots of old fashioned iron bombs to do the job. I wonder aloud WHY the US doesn't just GIVE Israel a portion of the aging B-52H fleet for carpet bombing the ME!!! But it turns out that the Germans of all people gave them the Dolphin subs. Can't wait for that SSK to launch CMs at Israel's enemies. The German Navy also is aligned with Israel on attacking Syria from the Med in case of conflict and just announced that Germany and Italy will be bolstering NATO forces for Afghan peacekeeping as the US pulls out of that loser war. Would be awesome if Germany joined Israel and attacked Lebanon and Syria. Can you imagine Leo IIA-6s and 7s with Merkava 4s and 5s side-by-side? And Eurofighters and Tornados mixed with F-15s and 16s? What a sight that would be! During OIF, the US requested powdered anthrax from Germany which delivered. I have heard that Israel asked the same. Note: only the newer German NBC "Butcher" suits can survive powdered anthrax. Germany did not sell the new suits to the US, nor authorize the licensed repro on the Rheinmetall 140mm gun retained for the future Leo III for use with a future M1 tank. Israel and Germany are co-operating on a stealth jet and advanced small arms tech.

"I wonder aloud WHY the US doesn't just GIVE Israel a portion of the aging B-52H fleet for carpet bombing the ME!!!" Sheer madness! You seem to revel in the horror of war and the minutiae of weapons systems. It's more than disgusting; it's dangerous. And you've drawn a couple of foolish acolytes into your caricature of the Prussian mentality.

Well Tim, you are free to express your opinions, of course... but ignore the reality of threats against Israel which is surrounded by enemies that seek its utter destruction and have said so. Egypt's peace with Israel is in jeopardy over the Pali situation, Lebanon is dominated by Hezbollah that vows to destroy Israel, Syria aligned with Iran seeks to destroy Israel, Iran's Ahmadinejad VOWs to hit Israel with a nuclear weapon, and the Russians sending S-300s to Syria is a major threat that requires immediate strikes. You seem to blame Israel as aggressor when since 1948 it has been attacked w/o provocation 5 times and their enemies lost b/c YHWH is on their side. Then there came the terrorists in the 1970s, the Munich Olympic massacre, the airliner take-over, Idi Amin, Entebbe, the Iraqi Osirik reactor that the Israels took out, Gerald Bull helping the Iraqis to build a supergun to bombard Israel with chemical rounds, the suicide bombers using men, women, and children to kill Jews, the Lebanon wars (pre-emptive and rocket), and daily cross-border rocket fire and sniper fire. Add two Intifadas and so on... is that enough factual history for you? What region of the world do you live in? The Germans gave them the Dolphins and modified the tubes for a purpose. Here's to Israel launching nuke-tipped CMs from their tubes aimed at Tehran. Good riddens terror sponsor state. I only wish the Shah had survived and ruled them with an iron hand. I do not revel in the horror of war- true Germans at heart embrace war as a constant and are not afraid of it. That is just not Prussian military history but German military history. Take a look closely at KSK's badge and motto. It is the occult Thule Germanic sword raised upright as with the 1919 Thule Gesellschaft and their motto is "By WILL Alone!" Sound familiar? Triumph of the will ring a bell? When in Afghanistan KSK's vehicles were painted with WW2 DAK palm tree minus the Hakenkreuz. Nazism never died, it went underground and lives to emerge within a Fourth Reich led by the prophesied Antichirist. Or do you think the Germans will give up 2000 years of aggression due to being occupied for 50 years? They have only been reunified 23 years and their military is being constantly upgraded. germany has plans for new warfare that the US even cannot compete in. Elektronische Krieg with fully integrated soldiers operating in Jaeger gruppen with ACRs, plasma weapons, UCAVs and UCADs, supersoldiers, and the successor to the Internet- the Quantum Q-Net of which they lead in tech. Read some military and tech journals. Don't tell me what you don't know. I support Israel and hope the ME is turned into a parking lot from Saudi Arabia to Persia. Bundeswehr is already operating off biodiesel. Germany is more than capable of making MIP and EMG engines independent of aviation fuel. just takes a will and a budget- or going to war :)

I am happy to let your Wagnerian opus of myth and götterdämmerung stand without comment for all to read.

Translation= antagonist has nothing to say and has been wiped out verbally. Is frantically searching Google and poor Wiki for acronym defs! Can't refute history recap and knows zero about current and future worldwide weapon systems.

What can I say about the following? "Here's to Israel launching nuke-tipped CMs [cruise missiles] from their tubes aimed at Tehran... I... hope the ME is turned into a parking lot from Saudi Arabia to Persia."

Inarguably, that's genocide and a Final Solution to the Arab Problem. One doesn't have to know the pitch of every screw thread on every weapons system to understand the difference between rational pre-emption and the extermination of more than 50 million civilians whose only crime is being Muslim.

Some things never change in the Fatherland. I find it interesting that you propose a new Holocaust in order to save the survivors of the last one, and that they themselves carry it out.

Historically, any sudden act of violence in the Middle East would raise the price of gas already in the underground tank at the station by 10 or 20 cents a gallon. Even if it came from Nigeria or Texas. My nephew is on his way to Afghanistan. What other nation has continued to commit troops to a war in which it has already effectively surrendered? We need to find ways to encourage the young people of Iran to continue the movement to displace the theocrats and mullahs and build a modern, civilisation once again. Mass destruction weapons such as nuclear, chemical or biological are non-discriminatory, and have a way of backfiring on the user. A cheaper solution would be to invite the Jewish population of Israel to immigrate to the US. We absorbed a lot of Vietnamese and Laotian and Cambodian refugees in the wake of that war. We have millions of Mexicans living here. Israeli Jews would bring tangible wealth, knowledge, and skills that would give them advantages that earlier immigrants didn't have, since many of the Israelis already speak English. The problems that would arise from accepting and assimilating them would be far less expensive than a global nuclear firestorm.

Patrick, you scored a bullseye on everything except the relocation of Israeli Jews to the U.S. I think you propose the uprooting of a whole People. Unlike the other nationalities you mention, Israel is a First-World country, proud, prosperous and solidly entrenched. They are not likely to, in effect, surrender and run away. The ancient religious attachment to their present location is a huge disincentive, even for the safety of the U.S. Geopolitically, it would be disastrous for our national security. Israel is our proxy in the Middle East, gives us a vast amount of military intelligence, and conducts airstrikes which redound to our benefit. As futile as it sounds, there is no option but negotiation leading to two states, with security guaranteed by a select international military presence.
Otherwise, your comment is a breath of fresh air.

Wassup Rob, why no response to Tim's comeback? Nothing to say because you've been wiped out verbally? You've really shown your Nazi tendencies with those comments about your wishes for genocide.

I could not see the Jews voluntarily leaving their lands. They spent too many millenia trying to gain them. For the sake of peace it would be better to have them here than existing as a pretext for war there. A two-state solution, if it could be guaranteed would be the only practical way to deal with the problem. The age of the big multi-ethnic empires may be coming to an end, downsizing nations so to speak. I can see plenty of evidence online every day that people are thinking, perhaps even advocating and hoping that the US begin to divide along political, regional, or ethnic lines. This would be a step toward the advancement of liberty, but I can't see that it would ever come about peacefully here, any more than it did in Yugoslavia or the old Soviet Union. If governments would limit themselves to the protection of everyone's rights, and perhaps a few infrastructure functions, and stop being the be all and end all of human existence, we could all "Just get along".

Germanic tribes certainly participated in the downfall of the Roman Empire, but so did every other civilization and culture on the periphery of the Empire. They swarmed the weakened remnants of the old Empire like vultures and hyenas swarm a mortally wounded wildebeest. And this was followed by 1200 years where German were no more aggressive than anybody else. So I think you're stretching things to say that Germany has been hyper aggressive for 2000 years ...... Prussian "Spartanism" only began at the beginning of the 17th century, and it's clear to me this was in reaction to the horrendous death and destruction of the Thirty Years War. And the line of causation from Prussian militarism to German hyper nationalism to World War I to Third Reich to World War II is also crystal clear to me .... And it's also clear that the revelations of the Holocaust and the camps instantly destroyed the old militaristic spirit as surely as the Thirty Years War created it. It seems to me that Germans of our generation are haunted by the ghosts of the past; they're always taking extended leaves and vacations from their own country