All Activity

Hey ya'll, long time. Its good to see the site is still up and running. I have a trip coming up, and am really excited as it is my first time out the door. However, with me still trying to fly raptors for my home squadron, It made me curious. what are some do's and don'ts? My supervisor who is also trying to fly raptors told me that the pilots like to take us out sometimes and I really don't want to mess anything up. Although I have built somewhat of a rapport the last couple years, I want to connect with the guys even further without hindering what I already have. I'm sure I am overthinking this, but was just wondering if any of you fighter or heavy guys could share your 2 cents. I appreciate the help as always gents! -vvikz

First time applicant as well! and Yes. Hopefully I'm able to submit a package this year. Been a busy year.

Again, this has already been addressed and answered so now we're just replaying the same song. Prices spike during conflict - we know this. The point is that things are trending in the right direction. Not getting worse. You're ignoring that. They still have ballistic missiles? Ok, why aren't they using them then? Why aren't they fighting with everything they've got to stop us from collapsing their economy and regime? If they're so strong, they'd be striking back - that they're not is the tell. If they thought they had a shot militarily, they'd be taking it. They're calling "uncle" is what it is. But you're ignoring that. The mullahs rule Iran? Says you. Currently it seems to me that there is a split developing between elements of the IRGC and the foreign ministry - as evidenced by Iranian authorities saying the straight is open, whilst elements of their "military" fire on ships. Seems like some sort of fracture may be presently developing internally. But what do I know? I'm only reading the news. You're ignoring that. What is the alternative history you'd like to have seen play out? You won't articulate it. You will reference past agreements which weren't working (October 7th anyone?), but point at it as if it were succeeding. You ignore that. By my calculus, we're knocking down foreign policy dominoes one after another. You clearly believe in the Obama/Jake Sullivan-style approach to foreign policy. I don't. That approach was never feasible and has been fully discredited. I get it. You don't like this war. Strange considering it's gone quite well given previous estimates as to how "difficult" an Iranian conflict would be. Do you not see them as our adversary? Do you not see the utility and sometimes necessary use of military force? That's what it seems like to me. You strike me as someone who'd rather be a politician than a soldier. What about this: what conflicts in the past, which we have engaged in did you agree or disagree with? You can put a simple +/- if you think our participation was good or bad on the whole. I just don't think you believe in just war. Bosnia? Desert Storm? Iraq II? Afghanistan? Libya? Korea? Somalia? You don't even need to do that. Just give a little expository about any modern conflict you think we were justified in our intervention. See, I'm beginning to suspect that you just don't believe in war as a means to an end. You're ignoring too many positives for it to be anything except that. That we have a current one going on is just the latest thing you get to come onto the internet and vent your butt hurt about.

I'm not very optimistic either. However, I do think slowly releasing funds, or as ClearedHot_AI states, "leverage" after conditions are met and continue to be met, is very different than dumping off pallets of hundreds. If we're gonna do that let's just pay them in pennies, released from high altitude. We're discontuing them anyways...

Most definitely a no dibs on goats and sheep.

Kind of like the “Maryland father”

I use AI to clean up my spelling errors...YMMV

If you’re gonna use AI, at least remove the Em-Dashes 😂 Have the robots taken over the old guy accounts?

I bet if you ask Obama, he would probably say he intended to accomplish the same goal by using money. How or where it comes from doesn't make this time different. It didn't work last time, I bet it won't work this time.

I recommended a slight change to the deal since some in Iran want to fuck around some more. Subtract our expenses so far from the $20B. Edit: I say the families of those killed by Iran get a nice fat check. Iran's gonna need a bigger pile of money.

The biggest contributor to that is our total force size. For the guys that weren't born yet: during Desert Storm we had at least one ANG fighter unit in just about every state. In the subsequent no-fly zone patrols, guard units did 30 day deployments and the part timers swapped out half way through. Our CAF is a little over 1/3 the size it was then. Now most ANG units that aren't on the coasts can't even train with other squadrons on a normal basis because they're too far apart for normal training.

As someone with a TS (who retired 6 years ago) and used to have some fun upper clearances: open source usually had around 80% of what we had total Intel for. I do not buy the Intel is completely different from open source game. Also strait is closed again 😅

Despite the sniping from the trolls I think there’s a difference between writing a check and unlocking leverage—and too many people are blurring that line when it comes to Iran. In 2016, the Barack Obama administration transferred roughly $1.7B to Iran. That wasn’t foreign aid—it was the settlement of a decades-old legal dispute over pre-1979 funds, including $400M that was literally delivered in cash because sanctions had cut Iran off from the global banking system. It looked bad. Optically, strategically it handed the regime a win with minimal immediate pressure tied to behavior. What’s being discussed now is fundamentally different. We’re not talking about pallets of cash showing up overnight. We’re talking about controlled, conditional access to Iranian funds—money that is already theirs, but frozen—and releasing it in phases tied to compliance, outcomes, and leverage. That distinction matters. I am not in favor of flooding Iran with cash they can redirect to proxy groups or destabilizing activities. That’s reckless. Economic power isn’t just about denial, it’s about calibration. If you only ever tighten the vise, eventually you lose the ability to trade relief for behavior. And then your only remaining tools are escalation or stalemate. The goal isn’t to “help Iran.” The goal is to shape outcomes in a way that serves U.S. interests and regional stability.

I made a comment about giving Iran money last time in relation to our letting them sell their sanctiined oil this time. I'm still against both of those actions At face value, I'm completely against allowing them access to $20 billion in frozen assets. However, if they agree to allow the IAEA come in and remove all of their nuclear material, and oversee the dismantling of their nuclear program, I think there's a case to be made for allowing them access to some or all of these funds. The release of funds wouldn't start until those actions occurred, and would be spread out over a period of say 10 years upon continued IAEA inspection access and "good behavior". I unfortunately doubt this will happen.

Sure, it’s MCO. The fact is we’ve been so used to GWOT-level risk for 30+ years, so MCO-level risk to infrastructure/our mil assets seems insane. The thing is we’ve actually done incredibly well and the impact has been extremely limited when looked at through an MCO lens. For sure. Lots of people, in addition to the Ford, have spent 10+ months deployed over the last year and change. I have some real problems with force apportionment at the operational level for both AD and Guard.

interesting change of tune here 🍿

That was a problem in the Desert Storm. We, gunships, were chopped to the conventional savages.

They have to have some money to feed the populace. If (and that's a big IF right now), we get the nuclear material that is IMHO a huge win. Navy = gone, AF = Gone, ability in the near-term to produce TBM's = gone, nuclear material = gone...in the aggregate it is a big win. Potentially a harder line government in place is not good, but it is not over yet. BTW - Oil is dropping like a rock. Time will tell.

A trinket to help them recover from the nearly $300B dollar loss they've suffered over the last 6 weeks of fighting? Not an attempt to buy them off. Encouragement to adhere to the dollar system? Who knows. Now, I'm not fully on board with handing them cash at this juncture, but it's a far cry from allowing them to hold us ransom while they thumb their nose at the previous "deal." Anyway. I get the gimmick being employed: point at something that looks the same (money going to Iran). Call it the same. Declare hypocrisy. Proceed to mock. Shallow, but fun I guess?

Too early to tell. IF money is transferred/released and if those figures are accurate, than it's not as bad as last time as last time was $50 billion. Still not good though. Also, they will likely need to spend a fair amount of that rebuilding all the stuff we blew up. Not trying to make it sound like it's good because it's not. But, in the big picture, it isn't as bad as last time. Hopefully the release of those funds would be contingent on the transfer of the uranium. If that were the case, that would be far better.

There are literally 30 different stories floating out there on every main sticking point of this war closing out. Strait is open/Strait is closed Money unfrozen/No money involved Peace in Middle East/No peace Take your pick right now.

Why did the Afghan take his sheep towards the edge of the cliff? So they would push back harder.

Wasn't there some here that objected to Obama giving Iran money and how that didn't solve anything? Any of those care to opine on this? Same? Different? Nany Nany boo boo?

Stock market - up (after the war tanked it) Oil - down (after the war spiked it) Straight - open (after the war closed it) The Dow, oil prices, and commerce in the straight were all humming along just fine before we started this boondoggle and now that we trashed all three and have begun to unf—-k the situation I’m supposed to admit some big win happened? We are slowly progressing to get back to square one. The mullahs and IRGC still run Iran. They still have nuclear material. They still have ballistic missiles that can hold our bases in the region at risk. Now we’re lifting sanctions on Iran to get a fragile ceasefire and commitments that they won’t develop a nuke—which is exactly what the JCPOA was the whole time…