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He’s getting defensive and taking things out of context, kinda embarrassing. You should know by now that by the time you’ve gone ad hominem you’ve already lost. Never said that there was literally only one oil price - in fact when you reread my words you’ll see I explicitly gave an example in which there is more than one price in the market. Never said that $100 futures meant anything specific, either. You okay, buddy? Also I love your “excellent” idea about how to spin this. Never realized - until you came along - you can boost the US economy by decreasing oil supply so that we can sell more natural gas. Absolute genius here - I think you’re qualified for a cabinet position!

Yes that's exactly the point. If you're France, any increase in the price of a barrel of oil is bad. They produce practically nothing, so they exist as a pure consumer. The United States is not even remotely similar. While the price of oil going up obviously increases the price of anything using that supply chain, we also have a gargantuan oil industry, and increases in oil prices are excellent for a huge parts of our economy. We've also increased our capacity to export natural gas, which becomes more valuable internationally when the price of oil goes up. I also have to point out that your understanding of the oil industry is fairly juvenile if you think that there's just one oil price. Just because the price on the news is $100 per barrel does not mean that's what everybody is paying, or buying, or refining. It's not the dumbest thing I've heard, but it's pretty dumb.

Entirely agree. Unfortunately that's basically a carbon copy of the definition of "International relations" (a.k.a. countries screwing over other countries). All that stuff never really goes away, it just moves from the battlefield to the diplomat's office and the stock exchanges...which is where I'd prefer it stay. My hope here is that our government stands by it's declaration that we won't be sending in conventional ground forces. If they do try to commit conventional troops, I think we can expect a significant uproar from every vet who served over the last 20 years, myself included. Short of that, I've seen enough of our strategic level to know that what the rank-and-file as well as the American public are seeing is either psyops or cloaked information at this stage in the game. We won't get to know what the full game plan was (or was not) until all the books are written in 20 years. Before that, to the trained eye, this op has many markers for an executed-as-planned campaign when compared with Iraq and Afghanistan. Some easy markers I see: Pakistan, Iraq, Syria are all playing along and even engaging directly in support No countries in the region have opposed or restricted US ops Trump actually when on record with an expected timeline (never done by Obama, Bush Jr, or even Bush Sr with Desert Shield) Cooperation and engagement from Allied countries AFTER the shooting started. Again, historically not normal in conflicts like this

There talking points are hilarious. Prices of oil reflect global demand on a global market that essentially everyone can play in relatively easily. So if China and Russia lose oil flows from Iran, it will absolutely end up increasing the cost of US oil based on their ability to pay for the same oil that we want. Supply and demand baby. It’s why the US, which uses no Iranian oil TODAY is still subject to the same $100 BBL costs everyone else is. It’s a global market - I guarantee Texas oil folks are going to export Crude to China if they’re paying $20 per barrel more. Turns out oil folks just care about money. Hindsight is 20-20, eh? Our national security council at the time definitely would have argued that Iraq was partially to blame for 9/11 and was supportive of WMD plots to attack Israel and the US. We had been in 13 years of constant operations over Iraq, because they were actively and pernicious attacking us - definitely doing the same things Iran has been and we would have the exact same narrative. Also, we probably created 1000 martyrs alone with the US killing of the 150-175 school girls. You remember ISIS right?

Yeah I think so. Just got my RIP as well so trying to figure all the things out

@Lord Ratner You’re correct that the sky isn’t falling, but to me that’s kinda the most key insight. Unless we have another 9/11 god forbid, these boondoggles never feel like the sky is falling at the time. They’re an incremental forward march of tit for tat strikes, dick measuring, and reprisals that get us entangled in these things for the long run. It’s hard to sniff out as it’s happening because we can get easily distracted by our dope ass military fucking shit up (admittedly awesome.) It’s much easier with the clarity 20 years of hindsight provides to see that Iraq/afghanistan were an exercise in futility. I genuinely hope this is wrapped up quick and I’m eating crow with you guys telling me I told you so on here in a few days.

That's life. We don't do nothing never we can't do everything. This isn't a Iraq, a country that was by and large doing nothing to the United States in the early 2000s. This is Iran, the country that has been actively and perniciously attacking us for decades. If your analogy holds, and the children of the Ayatollah attempt revenge, how is that materially different? In this case, the worst case scenario is the status quo. It's just not the same as the forever wars we were used to.

The problem is you didn’t execute his whole family, so years later his son puts a car bomb on your wife’s car and kills either her or both of you.

Im with you Lord Ratner.

Agreed, but the same logic applies. Forecasts of doom and chaos are worthless when the doom and chaos never comes. Your entire point is hypothetical. Maybe you'll be right. But so far the anti-interventionists have been wrong on basically every single Trump engagement, especially WRT Iran. And they can't spell out exactly how this goes sideways. What, we get another Islamo-fascist regime, but with no credibility or military might left by which to threaten the world? Oil goes up because the production of a country viral to our biggest enemy (China) was squashed and the American energy complex gets more money and power? That doesn't mean you should keep quiet. It just means there's not yet any reason to believe the sky-is-falling crowd. If we send in the infantry, I'll happily be the first to agree with you. As of yet there's no evidence we're planning that, and you can't hide troop movements like that. Too many people are still shell shocked from the failures of Afghanistan/Iraq that they are conflating all military intervention with nation-building. Now, if we send in the men with beards to capture and control Kharg Island, all the better. The message is pretty clear to anyone who is listening. Fuck with the US, and we will take your stuff and kill you. I for one am a big fan of that message. If my neighbor woke up every morning and threw rocks at my wife and kids while they left for school, promising to rape and murder them when they got home, I'd light his house on fire and execute him as he fled the flames.

@FourFans disagree on all points. -the Iranian navy was not “much vaunted” to anyone except the Iranian regime. now that we’re in this stupid boondoggle I’m happy to see it decimated, but I’m not particularly impressed that we could do it. Like I said I never had any doubt in our abilities to wreck shit.. but what is the plan now? -a small dog cornered can still do a lot of damage especially in their own back yard. And they’ll be hell bent on rebuilding with the express purpose of getting revenge. Has Middle East insurgent math just flown right past all your heads all these years? When you whack the top guy in a government and bomb everything to shit, it doesn’t just stop being a problem. You create a power vacuum where often the most violent and radical people then take over. Hmmm wonder if we’ve ever seen this before 🤔 -trump isn’t holding his cards close to disguise some 4-d chess plan. There is no plan. We are making this shit up as we go. Rubio and Johnson already accidentally admitted we got pulled into this by Israel who was gonna go with or without us, and WH and mil staff are now leaking trump is getting frustrated that this thing hasn’t wrapped up already. He’s the one offering off ramps to Iran and they are choosing not to take them. -lastly I think it’s perfectly within bounds to criticize foreign policy as it’s happening. I’m far more “in the arena” than trump ever has been or ever will be, so I don’t accept your “let it play out” suggestion. It’s our asses on the line and time away from our families to go fight the war of choice that trump explicitly campaigned against. And as with the rest of our middle eastern boondoggles this one looks like it’s going to drag on far longer than we initially intended and result in tons of money spent for negligible gain

Myself and a couple buddies are all still waiting to hear anything. We sent an email last week and got the same busy response other folks had gotten. Debating when I sent a follow up email like hey it's mid-March...

True. What's making a real dent in the oil market...is it the actual loss of oil, or the perception of loss? Not saying it doesn't hurt, but the bounce back will be faster than we think, at least in the USA. Moreover, the USA doesn't need anyone else's oil. The only people severely hurt by this are Russia and China, and even with that it'll be shorter lived than any pundit will acknowledge. We backed a small dog into a corner. Oh no. Their capabilities are insignificant. They'll try, but it will be feeble at best. Their much vaunted Navy of missile destroyers was bodied in a single day. Not that they can't hit, just that they can't actually hit hard. The biggest actual question mark is whatever sleep cells they have in the wind. That op targeted the hardware that man men were using to try and hold their adversaries (mostly middle eastern countries) at threat. They didn't stop, so now we've targeted the mad men themselves. You mean that we're in the middle of an active shooting war and our wild-card of a CinC isn't showing all his cards? Weird. It's almost like that's how he's operated every single time in the past. Definitely time to panic. There is clearly a ground element to this game (spelled in part 'Kurdish'), and I guarantee that it's been in the works for a while now. This is a long game that involves a LOT more players than the US and Iran. Critiquing the man in the arena while the swords are actively swinging is a game played by fools and universally leads to incorrect conclusions. Let it play out.

As far as I can tell there's no info about what IPT location we'll end up at on vMPF with just training dates and a RIP. The ETCA page for SV8IPT has possible IPT locations listed but no info about which dates/classes go with which location. I called the 71 STUS and they said they won't know which classes students are assigned to until 2-3 classes before the current class starts (i.e., if IPT 27-06 just started, the STUS should have just finished the roster for 27-08 and be finalizing 27-09). Mileage may vary by UPT base on this. I have the IPT class schedule-location roster for Vance (though it only has class numbers, not dates) if anyone wants to shoot me a dm with their DoD email I can teams it. Has anyone else gotten a RIP yet?

Brother Bill trying un-alive Hillary by pushing her into traffic. Break Break - why does she always dress like Charmian Mao? AQMnD1eaZ9nTx_usU7ZG9njlu_ozqA2WxUQTd-1fD5WSoCNwoLev7nJey670MQM8XbmDOupkxAoKDxMBQe8iVk4KXhHssDh_HEjNqiHPPQtVGA.mp4

Dude you post this like we’re out of the woods already, except: -Iran is striking civilian oil tankers as we speak -regime is not changed, in fact we now have a more hardline ayatollah in charge with nothing to live for but revenge -if midnight hammer was such a glowing success why are we back here doing the same shit 6 months later -nuclear material is still not secured (and probably won’t ever be without a catastrophic boots on the ground op) -regime is now backed into a corner in survival mode where their only real move left is terrorism, attacking soft target civilian infrastructure, and even more severe internal repression -trump admin has signaled off ramps now multiple times and the Iranian regime isn’t backing down -no discernible plan on our end other than to just keep blowing stuff up And none of this is to say the boys aren’t doing amazing work over there right now. They are. But wrecking shit was never our weakness, it’s having any semblance of a plan for what comes next

Did you happen to mean "SV" is projected IPT date? The education and training course announcements page (url in the RIP I got) shows "S-V8I-PT" as the course ID for the IPT courses and “P-V4A-B" as the ETCA course IDs for UPT.

Speechless...

State residents are already visiting the gun counter, as data from Virginia's adjusted NICS background checks in Feb. 2026 were 65,501 compared to 42,193 for Feb. 2025 – a jump of 55 percent.

VA politics is driven by the DC metro folks, which is really an extension of Maryland politics. It didn't go blue, it was just having an affair with a Republican.

This is what happens when stupid and/or completely uninformed people make up a majority of voters. Elections have consequences, as they say. And in many cases, it’s really the consequence of rational people being too damn lazy to go vote.

Good time to be a gun store owner in Virginia

Virginia goes back blue and full retard. Senate Bill 749 passed yesterday... SB 749, as passed, criminalizes the import, sale, manufacture, purchase, and transfer of so-called “assault firearms” and bans magazines capable of holding more than 15 rounds. The bill outlines an "assault firearm" as a semi-auto centerfire rifle that can accept a detachable magazine and has either a folding or collapsible stock, thumbhole or pistol grip, grenade launcher, or threaded barrel. Likewise, any semi-auto centerfire pistol with a detachable magazine and a second pistol grip, a shroud over the barrel, or a threaded barrel, would be outlawed. The measure also goes after semi-auto shotguns with a folding, thumbhole, or pistol grip stock, or if it accepts a detachable magazine. Guns and mags already owned by Virginians before July 1, 2026, would be grandfathered in, at least until future legislation is passed.

NRA-ILANRA-ILA | By George! Washington, D.C.’s Magazine Ban Inva...Even as its formerly more liberty-loving neighbor, Virginia, goes down the tyrannical path of unconstitutional bans on firearms and magazines, residents of the nation’s capital last week gained a measOf course, the anti-gunners in DC are crapping themselves pushing hard for a stay on the precedence and an en-banc review. If this stands it could give a circuit split (however this works in DC) and then on to SCOTUS which is absolutely the last thing any libs want to see. BREAKING NEWS! DC DECLARES EMERGENCY OVER HUGE FEDERAL COURT DECISION!

James Cameron/Skynet already designed that thing: