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Frog Slayer joined the community
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Well if anyone else is still waiting orders and hasn't attended MFS that is probably why. AFPC got back to me and told me I won't get an assignment until MFS complete, even though I went originally as an RPA Pilot a couple years ago. Was tracking this was not the case so this will be a fun bureaucratic mess to clean up. Follow up is if you went to MFS (RPA Pilot) but only got cleared for GBO you WILL have to reattend MFS to get cleared up to FC1. If you got cleared up to FC1 when you went originally it should be VFR direct to your UPT base. Since they sent all the folks to Laughlin short notice MFS is backed up so anyone awaiting an assignment may be in limbo until dates at wright patt become available.
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Sure, but I don't see behind any curtains anymore. In short, Russia is a dog we cornered that we have to be very careful with. We're probably doing this for the same reason the US Government limited Ukraine's starlink access as they tried to advance into Russian territory: Russia have nukes on functional ICBMs pointed at western nations. Cutting off Venezuela and Iran in Russian oil calculus has made our sanctions that much more effective. I'd imagine we now have to carefully meter just how tightly we squeeze. Too hard and we get nukes airborne. It's a position of power that has to be carefully managed. Again, that's from my non read-in perspective. If I've learned one thing, it's that open source media is never privy to the behind the scenes negotiations that end up changing all the diplomatic calculus of how, precisely, the US is screwing over other countries. I'd guess this article is us seeing 10% of what's actually going on.
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Looks like Bill is beginning to take on aspects of the Biden walk. Complete with what looks like dressed up tennis shoes.Correct…Canadian oil is still like $40 or $50 bbl, Venezuelan even cheaper. $70 is the us is very healthy. Creates enough profit for capx, hiring and future expansions. Brent at $70 and above….stupid profits I think what’s being ignored is the squeeze on china. They’re losing 50% of their oil imports, they’ve stopped exporting fuel, the longer this goes the richer irans neighbors get and china starts to bleed out. Read an article last yr how there is a push for a new economic zone with India being the manufacturing hub and moving away from china. They need a fuck load of oil and the products would flow west through the gulf and they railed to Europe. Iran was the only piece in the way.@Negat0ry @Pooter @Sua Sponte @gearhog You naysayers are something else, man. I'll tell you what. It doesn't matter if we can't install a democracy in Iran. If we turn them into Afghanistan, we win. Because they don't have nukes. Last time I checked, they already want to destroy us and our friends, so the bit about them becoming jihadis is a red herring. They're already jihadis. They already hate us. We didn't need to bomb them to achieve that. WhAt's ThE pLaN?? The plan is to destroy their government. This is specific, measurable, achievable, and realistic. I'd be far more concerned if I was hearing soothing sounds of "hearts and minds" and "girls' schools" and the like. Do you guys honestly think there was a different path forward? If you do, I'd love to hear it. And ISIS? Yeah, I remember ISIS. The terror group we bombed the shit out of? Yeah, where are they now? Oh that's right. Their caliphate is gone. Finished. Accomplished almost entirely with airpower. You people need to get it through your head that war is the state of human nature. It will never end. There will never be world peace. We will always be at war. Get over it.
- Yesterday
S-V8I-PT is the AETC course code for the IPT syllabus. P-V4A-B is the same for the new post-IPT T-6 syllabus (other examples being P-V4A-U for the dead 2.5 T-6 syllabus, P-V4A-M being the XPW syllabus, and F-V5A-F being the T-38C GPT syllabus). If you are showing dates for one or the other, those will either be IPT or UPT start dates based on what the course code that's showing is.Vance currently has the last XPW class ever going through. T-1 is most likely dead after they graduate in a few months.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 thisThere 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?@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.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
