re: Black Monday - Iran says that it has fired first wave of Ballistic Missiles at Israel.

quote:

---

You tell me.

---

That's not an answer. I asked a legitimate question. If you don't know the answer, just say so.

From the attack on Israel, one young girl was severely injured, many others were slightly injured (shrapnel, falling while running for shelter, etc). The issue with the injury aspect is that when they landed bombs near the US bases, they did so knowing these were military personnel (ie: combatants or near/potential combatants). In the attack on Israel, they fired indiscriminately (largely because their targeting over distances that far is utter crap, but very likely they consider any dead or injured Israeli to be worthwhile).

quote:

---

They essentially telegraphed it the same way for this Israel attack - particularly given from how far away it was. I mean, there were articles all week about an impending attack.

---

Meh. It's not an attack until it's an attack. "Impending" can be a range on a spectrum from "they're in the air" to "I heard from a friend, who heard from a friend, who heard from a friend...". They called Iraq when they fired their 2020 missiles, but they didn't contact anyone this weekend (at least that we know of yet). You can claim their sending missiles over such a long distance is a telegraph (and it is, in a way), but it's nowhere near as purposeful as a warning phone call. They're simply not the same.

quote:

---

Could be. IMO, it's a bunch of showy stuff that everyone knew wasn't going to be all that impactful.

---

You and I see this from the exact opposite angles. I see 2020 as the dog-n-pony show. They lobbed a few missiles within a range where they have reasonable targeting and made sure US bases ended up on high alert. If they were wanting to do that with Israel, there are far easier methods.

1. Fire a dozen or so missiles from Lebanon or Syria. From that range their targeting is far better so they could have been more likely to restrict potential hits to military targets.
2. Send over a few dozen drones from Lebanon or Syria to target government installations. Again, the targeting is better and at such a low altitude (they were flying something like 50-100ft above the ground, I think), the missile defense system would have been worthless.
3. Call Jordan to let them know they are sending missiles and drones through their airspace (instead, they issued a blanket warning to anyone who aided in Israel's defense, which isn't sitting well with Abdullah, even though there is a large Palestinian population in Jordan), knowing Jordan would quickly get word to Israel through allies (thus mitigating possible civilian casualties).

Any one of those would have been clearer as only a "message", they did none thus I see it as being more than simple a message.