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Appreciate the discussion on the Nordic model but my intent wasn’t to derail the thread. Rather, I wanted to present an example of how flawed the debate process is in our society as of late. Media, whether “liberal” or “conservative” tends to present extreme examples of the other side as representative of what that side is advocating. The BLM protests are a great example. Liberal media seems to focus on and present long standing deficiencies in police departments as representative of all police, all the time. Conservative media seems to want to present all protesters as a highly organized ANTIFA mob bent on systemically burning down the suburbs now that they’ve gutted downtown Seattle and Minneapolis. Of course, neither narrative is true. Media is shaping the debate based on its own interest: increasing viewership through sensationalism. We are all being played here and in the process we are losing the ability to have an effective debate and worse, losing the ability to be civil and treat each other with respect. I may lean to the liberal side of the spectrum, but I don’t see my conservative friends as the enemy. Just like me, they want this country to be In a better place. We just happen to disagree at times on how to get there.

Hmmm, unfortunately US troops have been in Afghanistan under now three US presidents. I'm betting that if Ivan is supporting the Taliban, as we did the muhjadin (sp?), it's not a recent phenomena. But only "orange man bad" and has to make a statement or he's Putin's puppet. A very convenient demand it would seem. I also remind the audience that the previous president ordered the extrajudicial killing via Hellfire of an American citizen and his 16 yr old son and was praised for it by those same voices clamoring for Trump to denounce the Russians. (Again, I'm not sorry that bastard is dead, but the precedent can and will be misused in the future)

We dont have a lot of moral high ground on this though considering we did the same thing times 1000X in the 1980s.

I can’t believe I’m weighing in on this thread, but I’m curious about opinions on this. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.amp.html Russians apparently offer bounties to Taliban to attack American troops in Afghanistan. Typical uproar about Trump not doing anything about it and his alleged Russian relationship and such. No verifiable proof that anything came of this and no linked casualties to the program. Of course this is along party lines. Ironically, the same people that are up in arms about this are the same that thought killing Qasem Soleimani was the worst thing ever. Of course there were literal hundreds of smoking guns tied directly to him and the Quds force. Hundreds of dead Americans and many more grievously wounded. But that doesn’t matter. I really hate weighing in on political shit online but this one is really pissing me off for some reason.

Cool - I would say I agree being at the party is great but so is also knowing when to leave the party. Agree on better use of soft power and not every problem is a nail requiring a hammer, perfect example being Venezuela. Maduro is an a-hole, his cronies are a-holes and they do a-hole things, but they do them in their country for the most part, they do not pose a threat to us but are a nuisance therefore don't think they are a nail to be hammered. Staying out militarily but engaging diplomatically, informational and in targeted assistance to supportable opposition factions to them is the winning COA, which we seem to be doing, let's repeat more of this.

Mine pays out as a single $1k line on my LES (pay split equally on mid-month and end of month). I'm on AD, and the pay amount increased for me back in Feb 20. They even got the prorated amount correct in the transition month. My LES showed that they stopped flight pay, then restarted it at the higher amount that month.

That made my fucking day.

Hm, violating a direct order from the SECDEF doesn’t have consequences? What ing military are you in?

F that keep zapping shit

This has quickly become one of the most useful threads in this forum. So much wisdom here. Should be required reading for new studs. Except the AOB/VSI thing.

For reference, I agree with your post and think you are on point. One specific item concerns me though: Dr Fauci as our expert physician. I'm an ER doc's kid, so I've witnessed the difference between doctor who "administrate" vs doctors who "do". I'm making no judgments on Fauci, I'm simply making inferences base on his background, how he presents his opinions, and the content of what he says. He's clearly been a "do" doctor, and appears to be an "administrate" doctor now. Take this for perspective: Would you call any 4-star general in the USAF as our BEST Pilot, Cyber Expert, Personnelist, etc? I wouldn't. They lead those people. They filter a LOT of data and present it in politically and socially palatable format. These people are leaders and politicians, and they are only in their spot for 3-4 years. Fauci has been in place advising the US government for 40 years. He leads NIAID. He understands what's going on, but he is no longer the line "do" expert. What a lot of people don't know how respond to is that line expert "doing" doctors are saying different things than Fauci and the political-health professional advisories coming from D.C. That means, just like in the USAF, there are often different messages coming from the line than are coming from the front office. Any pilot watching the USAF's pilot crisis has seen drastically different stories from the Top brass and the Line flyer voices. "Pretty Darn Good", right? Fauci is a politician and knows how to package information. He also recognizes that he MUST provide advice that is palatable by the mass populous by way of the violently slanted media. The problem with that is we all now have digital access to more voices than his, and we're hearing dissonance in the message. As a (relatively) rational creature, I decide my way through differences instead of blindly trusting "experts" because i've seen FAR too many experts who weren't. Do you trust every Instructor Pilot or Evaluator simply based on credentials? Yeah, neither do I. If the "expert's" message differs from rational principles, I look for truth elsewhere. What I've seen and heard from Fauci, tells me that he's driving a personal/private/political agenda that does NOT jive with ground truth. (I get it, ground truth leads to ill informed masses making dumb decisions...that's a whole different discussion.) So I discount him and the mass media and search elsewhere. That makes me highly skeptical of any message that blindly references him based on credentials alone. I don't think I'm alone in that...not by a long shot. How do you think we're supposed to address that problem? What do we do when reason pushes us to disregard experts like Fauci when we taste the political agenda?