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October surprise dress rehearsal? US, UK begin war games in Persian Gulf

post #1 of 12
8/27/08 at 6:00pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
US Navy: joint exercise in Gulf to boost security
The Associated Press
Published: August 27, 2008

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: The U.S. Navy says American, British and Bahraini ships are carrying out a five-day exercise to improve security in the Persian Gulf and better protect coalition ships against vessels "deemed threatening."

The Navy statement released Wednesday by Bahrain headquarters of the 5th Fleet says the exercise is dubbed "Goalkeeper." It started Sunday and is led by Britain's Royal Navy Commodore Peter Hudson.

Hudson is quoted as saying the maneuvers will help fine-tune skills such as "locating and tracking" vessels that threaten ships patrolling the Gulf and "handling command and control" operations during a potential confrontation.

Gulf waters and the narrow Strait of Hormuz have seen close encounters between U.S. and Iranian vessels.
Source

The only other source so far reporting this story appears to be an Iranian site, which gives some background on US/UK/Iran tensions.

But by all means, US media, keep focusing on the manufactured PUMA story.
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post #2 of 12
8/27/08 at 6:09pm
Anything's possible of course, but back when I was in we did battle readiness training exercises all the time. Heck, I was in Guantanamo Bay for several weeks, pretending our ship was getting attacked by the Russian Navy.
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post #3 of 12
8/27/08 at 6:12pm
Yeah when i was in we did joint exercises all the time. If we were on deployment and not on special operations (I was on a sub), then one of these things were going on. We seemed to do a lot of war games pretending the Chinese Navy was up to no good (and some North Korean stuff). This stuff is always going.
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post #4 of 12
8/27/08 at 6:14pm
It's an exercise yt, is it such a big deal? Are you saying that they are claiming it is an exercise but they are getting ready to attack some ships? Is there really anything here?
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post #5 of 12
8/27/08 at 6:14pm
So, the theory is that a massively unpopular third front to the war would somehow help McCain? Or that we're going to stage a fake terrorist attack on ourselves to boost McCain's chances of winning?
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post #6 of 12
8/27/08 at 6:15pm
Thread Starter 
I hope you're right and this is just routine, not a foreshadowing of some destructive political stunt.
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post #7 of 12
8/27/08 at 7:00pm
The wargames mission objective is a bit weird, when you think of it. "Find and destroy Ramius" could mean anything.
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post #8 of 12
8/27/08 at 7:18pm
What's the big deal? Hasn't this sort of thing been done for decades?
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post #9 of 12
8/27/08 at 8:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg Clark View Post
"Find and destroy Ramius" could mean anything.



... is worried.
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post #10 of 12
8/27/08 at 10:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jacob Singer View Post



... is worried.
Damn I was so going to post that !

Its saber-rattling at its best. Exercise Maneuvres / Training in or near potentially hostile nations has a looooong tradition. Its not really the prelude to anything, just a way of showing off "Hey look, we can dance at your doorstep, and nobody can stop us."
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post #11 of 12
8/28/08 at 12:20am
The Russians have been doing scarier crap like this towards us. Launching long range bombers towards our Alaskan airbases just to test readiness levels. It's normal military stuff. I wouldn't sweat it.
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post #12 of 12
8/28/08 at 3:33am
If there's going to be an October surprise it's going to come from Israel. At the beginning of the summer the Greek air force helped the Israeli air force in an exercise, gave them airspace, acted as aggressors, provided bombing ranges etc. From what became known about the exercise's scenarios, the plane's payloads, and the flightpath it was pretty obvious it was a training run for an air attack against Iranian nuclear installations. You could pretty much rotate the exercise 180 degrees and you'd have a ready made battle plan for it.
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