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Last week I had what I can only describe as a "pure" ending to a flight, I live for those moments. Unfortunately as a ham-fisted pilot I don't get to realize them as often as I would like. The flight started off with weather that was not forecasted. Taxiing out there was a literal wall of fog approaching the field obscuring the trees. I hustled up and got airborne just before the field went below mins. I did not see the ground for the next 300 miles. I had extra gas and was now questioning the TAF at my destination, already planning divert options when 40 miles from home the sky opened up and I could see the coast. At 35 miles I could see the field and asked for lower. Surprisingly they cleared me the visual from 35 miles out. I did some quick pilot math and pulled the throttle back to just above idle and started down. I never touch the throttle again until I touched down. Blind squirrel found a nut, divine intervention or pure luck...It just felt good.

Who says WWII is the right analogy? What is the objective definition of "immoral/evil"? Is Iran more/less/same as likely to pursue a nuclear weapon now than before this operation commenced? Is there any merit in the idea of Iran having the credible capability to deter an Israeli invasion in the future? Is the global security picture more healthy or less healthy if Iran, lacking a deterrent, feels sufficiently threatened by an Israeli power imbalance that it continues to support and sponsor irregular warfare and terrorism in attempts to unsettle the internal politics of Israel and its partners/allies/gimps? Final question: which is the bigger security threat to the US -- Iran with a handful of nukes or US presidents who no longer have a requirement to make the case for war with the Congress and general public? Is Iran's terrorist sponsorship more or less dangerous than the risk to our own political solvency if our government is permitted to lie under oath, make stuff up, mislead, have no plan, piss away trillions, and then blame the Avon Lady? There are lots of answers. The questions are more important, in my opinion. I ask them to illustrate the chasm of space available for reasonable people to disagree (or in some cases, unreasonable people to expose their disdain for the rule of law). The fact we can disagree about whether and how this should be done double red underlines why we have a process of securing consent and funding as soon as possible after hostilities begin, or before initiating them where possible. None of which applies when we're Israel's bitch and they own our defense policy.

The US and the allies didn't think risking WWII was worth it when Hitler created the Luftwaffe and started conscription again in 1935, both of which violated the Treaty of Versailles. Neville Chamberlain and the French rolled over and let Germany take the Sudetenland in 1938 to avoid WWII, much good that did. The world still turns when immorale/evil governments attain great power and weaponry... until I doesn't. 6 million dead Jews alone can attest to that. I want us to have a viable strategy against Iran with acheivable objectives just like everyone else. If objective #1 is Iran can't have a nuke, and we have to send in a ground force/start a major regional war to confiscate their uranium, so be it. Better now then after they've built a nuke and are making demands the US and Israel won't meet.

With Iran and terrorism in general I always find it’s a chicken/egg scenario of circular logic. -Why do the they hate us? -Because of our bases and meddling in the region -Why do we have bases and meddle in the region? -Because there’s people there who hate us This is part of the reason I reject the good vs bad over-simplification. There are countries and groups in that region that have very legitimate and understandable beef with us and Israel. Not saying I like them or want them to win but if I put myself in their shoes I’d probably feel the same way they do. If they “hated us for our freedom” and secular liberal western values, like the tired old saying goes, they’d be attacking Denmark and Sweden just as much as they try to attack us. But they don’t do that, because Denmark and Sweden aren’t the world empire constantly dicking around in their back yard. My ultimate motivation is what’s good for the United States and our people which is why I’m fundamentally against most of these offensive war-of-choice interventions. When we go into the Middle East without a coherent plan, without goals aligned with our allies, without international support, and without an exit strategy we end up harming ourselves more than helping ourselves. We make more enemies than we kill, we create more new problems than we solve, and we harden populations and cultures against us for the long run. And this is all before even accounting for the loss of our own service members, civilian death tolls, and the monetary cost measured in trillions across the various decades terror wars. The only way any of this ever gets any support from the public is by invoking some grand existential threat.. “Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.” Well that’s cool, because they weren’t making one and not too long ago when real adults were doing the diplomacy we actually had an agreement with nuke enrichment limits that Iran was adhering to. That’s what ‘good guys’ do: intelligently apply leverage from previous sanctions to get the deal you want without firing a shot.

Sorry I’m referring to the nuclear proliferation treaty. Not a treaty between us and Iran per se, just something both of us have signed onto. https://disarmament.unoda.org/en/our-work/weapons-mass-destruction/nuclear-weapons/treaty-non-proliferation-nuclear-weapons It outlines limits and international goals to limit nuke proliferation, but also the rights of nations regarding their civilian programs. When the JCPOA was in effect my understanding is that it was kind of a stricter layer on top of the NPT in exchange for sanctions relief, but as soon as it was tossed out, the NPT became the prevailing law again.

Nice! Has your wing/group put out any suspenses yet? Haven't heard anything yet here so I am wondering what to expect given the board suspense is pushed back to October.

What’s this treaty with Iran that you’re referring to? Unless I’m misunderstanding you?

I'm not really arguing that they aren't justified in wanting it. It's logical for a refund that seeks the destruction of the US and Israel to want nukes. It's simply a matter of what we can or will allow. The country that proudly funds and executes attacks against the West is going to get what? Bored of attacking us once they have nukes? I'm what reality does Iran with nukes work out better for us? Ignore morality if you must. We have an obligation to our citizens to stop threats against them. Iran with a nuke is a medium threat to is and a huge threat to our allies. It's an existential threat to Israel. Again, fundamental philosophical disagreement. If we aren't the good guys, who is? And if there are no good guys, what's the point of all this. Boiling everything down to some post-modern nonsense where everyone is a player of equal worth measurable only in their power is... Pointless. Why care? Why have treaties or allies it conventions at all? If you can't reason your way to the Iranians being evil and the US being virtuous, and you can't at least reason your way to the Iranian impact on the world being generally bad and the US impact on the world being generally good, or at a bare minimum, Iran bad, US less bad, then why do you care at all? Why does it matter that we are beating up on Iran if there's no good guys? It's so completely at odds with the reality of existence that I'm puzzles as to why some people do desperately want to see all societies and cultures as equally valuable. They aren't. And yeah, the Shah was not a great dude. But it's not like the movement we defending him against was the peace corps with prayer rugs. The previous prime minister nationalized the oil which pissed off the Brits, but the US dis not share that rage. But the coalition between the communists and islamists threatening to take over was why we backed the Shah. And the islamists hated the shah for, amongst other modernizing efforts... women's rights. So it wasn't exactly as clean cut as the United States meddling in the innocuous affairs of the Iranians in order to defend our oil interests. Although that is absolutely what the Iranians want the world to believe now.

https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/4486565/920th-rescue-wing-assists-in-rescue-of-11-survivors-off-florida-coast/

I know sourced arguments are a rarity and have very limited effect around here, but here goes nothing. It is a fact that they were in compliance for the duration of and slightly after Trump tore up the deal. https://www.armscontrol.org/blog/2018-06-08/iaea-report-confirms-irans-compliance-jcpoa Here’s a report from our own congress on the JCPOA: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R40094#_Toc205812494 “Until July 2019, all official reports and statements from the United Nations, European Union, the IAEA, and the non-U.S. participating governments indicated that Iran had fulfilled its JCPOA and related Resolution 2231 requirements.” And another one CIPAssessing The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Iran Dea...The JCPOA must be properly understood as working before we can attempt to understand why the Trump administration left the deal.“The record shows that Iran complied with the terms of the JCPOA.”

You forgot about their terrorism for the past 50 years in your statement, but really went off the rails with this doozy. In no way imaginable was the agreement working. Iran continues to break every agreement we’ve ever had with them.

Disagree. The treaty we signed says they have a right to produce their own. Us offering to sell it to them cheap is still a form of leverage we hold where it could be cut off at any moment. It is completely understandable a country wouldn’t agree to that. Except they have agreed to compromises before. Like the one we had and then tore up. Or the negotiations we were in with them right before we used those negotiations as a cover for a surprise attack (twice) Maybe my writing wasn’t clear, I didn’t think you were. That’s a standard I believe should be a thing. On the debate about Israeli nukes and good guys vs. bad guys we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I think it’s naive to view ourselves as the perennial good guys. WRT Iran we’ve even tampered with their government in the past motivated mainly to stop nationalization of oil. We’ve armed, then betrayed, then armed again opposing nations and militant groups all over the Middle East to *theoretically* advance our interests for decades, all with virtually zero regard for moral or even strategic consistency. I’m not even impugning intentions.. mostly it’s the results I have an issue with. We start things because we think we can pull it off and then when it inevitably blows up in our face, we go “whoops, that sucks” and GTFO

If the United States commits to supplying cheap uranium fuel for any civilian nuclear power program, Iran has no leg to stand on. Funnily enough, we've done exactly that and Iran refused. I am baffled by people who twist themselves into pretzels pretending like Iran is interested in anything but nuclear weaponry. That's what they want, and that is why they refuse any compromise. I have not advocated for that standard at all. You will not find a sentence anywhere on the internet where I claim that no countries should have nukes. I have continued to advocate that some countries can absolutely not have nukes. Iran being top of list. I believe Israel is one of the most obvious countries to have nuclear weaponry. They are disproportionately small for their region, and they are disproportionately targeted for extermination. If Israel did not have nukes today I would advocate for giving them nukes tomorrow. The fact that they have had them for decades and have never used them is all the evidence you need that they are not a threat. Yes, I actually do think that's naive. At the end of the day you cannot act on this type of scale without a moral framework, and that is almost definitionally subjective. That is why some of the disagreements are so intractable, because they are fundamentally disagreements about moral ideologies on a global scale. I believe that the United States and Israel governments are, on the balance, moral actors. I believe that the Iranian government is evil. (I also do not believe in God or any sort of supernatural truth, before anybody goes down that rabbit hole.) We are, in fact, always the good guys. You don't become the bad guys just because you do a bad thing if the overall character of your actions is good. That's important, because another non-objective reality of global conflict is that it's different when the good guys do something bad versus when the bad guys do something bad. Intent matters. And the response to the bad action is in fact dependent on the intent. That is fundamental in our justice system. That puts us in exactly the position to tell other countries they can or can't have nukes. I do not think for one second that you hate your country.

Well under the JCPOA we had a regular inspection regimen, Iranian enrichment limited to ~3%, and up until Trump tossed it in 2018, the IAEA said Iran was operating within the bounds of the agreement. Part of my frustration with this war (and broader Iran strategy in general) is we keep blowing up the status quo, getting into a much worse situation, and then going “gee it sure would be nice to get back to the status quo we just had.” But the whole reason I brought up the civilian program in Iran is because Israel says it’s a no go for them. This is a big problem for two reasons. 1) it’s pretty unsat that Israel has secret nukes, didn’t sign the NPT, and now is trying to dictate the terms of another country’s nuclear program. We wouldn’t tolerate that behavior from literally anyone else. 2) the bigger problem is the “no enrichment” Israel wants so badly is a total poison pill for Iran as far as making a deal. So yet again, we have our intransigent welfare baby country dictating the terms of the war we’re fighting on their behalf. Not great. And It’s becoming increasingly evident Trump (to his credit) wants to find a way out of this thing while Israel seems to want anything but. Bibi knows he absolutely has the ability to stir the pot whenever he wants to bait an Iranian response, and then by default we’re dragged back into hostilities. No one said they’re deserving of nukes. I just don’t think Israel has the right to lecture anyone about nukes, and by extension we don’t either because we’re BFFs with a state that has them in secret and won’t sign the non-proliferation treaty. That’s not a tortured view of morality. That’s an objective standard. The standard is: nuclear proliferation is bad no matter if it’s Israel or Iran who does it. Maybe it’s naive of me but I try to look for objective standards like this to define my political stances. Sometimes it requires zooming out and looking at our actions from an international frame of reference. And yes, sometimes that does lead to some pretty uncomfy conclusions. Like: not every conflict is as simple as good vs evil, and sometimes we might not even be the good guys. And none of that is to say I hate my country or I’m rooting for failure or I think we’re always in the wrong. I just want us to do things that aren’t insanely dumb, and if we can sometimes throw in the added benefit of it not being morally backwards or hypocritical, that would be cool too.

@Pooter Yes many countries have nukes, but none of those countries are the #1 purveyor of terror. None of them have been complicit in the deaths of thousands of Americans, not to mention thousands more of other westerners. Civilian nuclear power, sure, but weapons are a hard no. Iran can easily solve this - build nuclear power facilities above ground and allow for a limited number of no-notice inspections (say, max of 2 per year).

Selling my 1979 A185F if anyone is looking for a great performer with the IO-550 and 88” Prop. STOL kit, Wing Extensions, VGs, etc.

Often flew a friend’s in the late 70s out of Woodring, OK. Wife (pilot) and I flew a two week XC from Enid, OK to OR to NV to AZ to TX and back to OK. Performed well at Hi Density and with full fuel in the Rockies. Climbed comfortably to 14-16k and flew IMC at times. Always felt comfortable in it Anyway, flown many other BOs. But for a couple with two small children it is a great performer.

Yeah, just another moderate Democrat sprinting to grab the flag of moderation on a bunch of issues only after they have been settled in the court of public opinion. Where was he 2 years ago when the trans issue was burning brightly and parents were mobbing school board meetings to stamp out the ideology from their schools? Where was he when the teachers unions were keeping schools closed during covid, resulting in those math and reading scores? Where was he when Latinx wasn't the punch line of a joke but another crazy attempt to cram fake racism into every corporate budget? If he has a recent interview talking about the evils of Hamas or how the Whitehouse Ballroom project isn't fascism, maybe he's the guy. But as far as I know the only prominent Democrat in the entire country that isn't blowing in the wind of progressive ideology is Fetterman. I definitely would have lost the bet if you told me that the most rational consistent politician in Washington would be the guy recovering from a stroke. 🤣😂 I'm waiting for after Trump's presidency ends, for Democrats to suddenly realize the value of overturning Roe v Wade. Anyone notice how absent abortion is from the national discourse since that ruling?

That's pretty much everything we need to know about your position. This is exactly the Obama/Mandami/Sanders position. Call it power-guilt or whatever, but it takes an absolutely tortured view of morality, statecraft, and human nature to find the Iranian regime (both the old Mullah-led regime and the current IRGC-led regime) somehow deserving of nukes because of the most unintelligent interpretation of US and Israeli histories. It's been fascinating to watch conspiracy-susceptible (and attention whoring) conservatives like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens fall into this rabbit hole and become indistinguishable from the progressive politicians they became famous by attacking.

Former Obama Chief of Staff clearly describes the self-emolument of the DNC. SnapInsta.to_AQO7GAc5KKmFfOMYo6mYq6VBNn2cRMqnTW_dfBtpgJpC1h2qIzZ6pKxLmCbAUns-A5gdw7Blmgda76Nm3xQUNO1zeO7lRrrMevPXN-c.mp4

Did anyone see the events around the King Air that crashed (ditched), 80 miles offshore? Sounds like a movie in the making as they ditched and all 11 people on board survived and were rescued by the Coast Guard and the 920th. Everyone surviving a ditching then being rescued...Well done

I think @EvilEagle owned a Bonanza, not sure if it was an FSSA or an A36, very similar as I understand.

Reading the financials California has a $29B deficit as of January that is projected to grow to $35B next year. The deficit, driven by high spending and lower-than-anticipated revenue (shocking result as people and businesses leave). While I do applaud that as of Jan of 26, undocumented adults who are not already enrolled can no longer apply for full-scope Medi-Cal, they have a new proposal to provide full scope dental care to illegals for FREE. Do the rest of Cali citizens get free dental?

Just to reattack on this, yes we all agree Iran having a nuke is a thing we don’t want. Is it something I’m willing to go to WW3 over? No, not particularly. North Korea got a nuke and the world kept turning. Pakistan and India have nukes pointed at each other as next door neighbors. Russia, and China have nukes. The world kept spinning. Iran is a pariah yes but their regime is also interested in self preservation, so I don’t think they just magically go suicidal the second they get a nuke. They want it as a deterrent just like everyone else. The other interesting question is whether people think Iran has a right to a civilian nuclear program. I think yes mainly because the NPT we are signatories on grants that right to all countries. Civilian development is bounded by IAEA limits which Iran has violated before, so their hands aren’t clean here either. You don’t build facilities under a mountain to make medical isotopes. Or maybe you do if you think some assholes are gonna keep trying to bomb you. Regardless, they’ve broken the rules and the one serious effort to rein them in (the JCPOA) which was working by the way.. is now in the shredder. But most interestingly, civilian development in Iran is a bright red line for Israel. This is particularly rich because Israel aren’t signatories on the NPT and are well known to have unacknowledged nuclear weapons.

I can see that. Two reasons: The media at large wants to paint anything Trump does as a failure. So, every American is bombarded with bullshit, half truths, and the legit info is typically suppressed significantly - it takes real effort to find it. For example, here’s a good example of clearly defined objectives (at unclass level): https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/trumps-4-objectives-in-iran-explained-1.500461406 Bottom line, the objectives have been pretty clear and not nebulous, but they also have been severely suppressed and therefore it makes sense that they seem non-existent/nebulous to a large portion of the population. Trump says all kinds of wild comments coming from left field that may or may not be true/fully accurate. He does this on purpose a lot - debatable how much it helps vs hurts his goals. So he is certainly a PCF to making it all seem nebulous at times when, in fact, it’s not nebulous at all. Bottom line, the admin could do better at clearer messaging, but it’s also hard to get clear messaging out when the “middle man” is doing everything possible to suppress or misconstrue that messaging.