[Bender]

I would expect more of this. Most of Iran's military infrastructure is deep under 500 to 800 meters of hard rock, heavily funded by US tax dollars bully lunch money and the oil industry. Most everyone else's military infrastructure is mostly on the surface just begging for attention.

My personal preference would have been that the US had built it's bases in the same manor is Iran or better. At least I think we could have possibly done better. Keeping most infrastructure under ground means less dependency on power for cooling, more surface land for other functions. Maybe put some earth-bermed greenhouses on the surface and grow some produce for the locals.

[philipwhiuk]

You can't rapidly scale up an FOB under 800m of rock and you can't land planes underground.

[Bender]

For sure no fast FOB but they can store planes underground and they can be towed out and prepped fast just as they are doing with their missiles today. The wings come off rather easily. My remote site ordered one by mistake from the old CAMS system. The driver was just as confused as we were.

I should add that one way to think of it is that Iran built those amazing underground missile cities just for the US to take over. It won't be easy and there will be mass casualties but I think that since we paid for them we should annex them. Some countries in northern Europe have similar underground bases. I would love to visit them. The closest to that I have been inside was NORAD.

[olelele]

So you are ready to sacrifice thousands of lives for that?

[Bender]

So you are ready to sacrifice thousands of lives for that?

It's not up to either of us but to your point I suspect that will occur regardless of what you or I desire. We stepped into the bog of eternal stench that is country #7 Iran. This has been planned for a very long time but every president has been able to back out of it.

Trump started it and only has authorization for about another 5 business days but I suspect congress will begrudgingly approve bipartisan authorization to not only keep our soldiers on the ground but to send another 500k to 700k as anything less would likely be ineffective against their defenses. This can not be solved by technology alone. I can only hope that we undo what we created 50 years ago and give Iran back to it's people and stop the endless proxy wars. Since I can spend hope it's free and nearly meaningless I also hope we welcome our soldiers back with more dignity than we did for the Vietnam veterans this time.

[olelele]

Is Iran yours to "give back" to its people?

[Bender]

Is Iran yours to "give back" to its people?

Obviously not me personally but is absolutely up to the USA that created the current Iranian government to do so. We made the mess and should clean up the mess. Iran used to be one of the top five most technologically advanced countries and one of the most progressive countries in the middle east up until the point we twerked it up by putting zealots in power and repeatedly funding them.