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"We" are not going to pay off this $37 trillion debt. Our children and probably their children will not pay off this debt. Generations unborn will be taxed to pay off this debt and I don't think history will be kind looking back at some of the crap we wanted but they will have to pay for.

Shameful. Absolutely shameful. As a heavy Bubba the weapons lifts into Poland have been one of the highlights of my career. If not the highlight. I watched the live feeds of the Russians pouring across the border and next thing I knew I was in Poland. Watching pallets get moved off my planes onto trucks and knowing within the week it'd all be gone. Used to put a Russian into an early grave. It was an action that I can proudly share to any westerner. It was an action that put our country back into a well respected light with any European. We've nearly dismantled one of our two biggest geopolitical enemies of the last 80 years without costing a single American life. Spending a fraction of the snafu that was Afghanistan/Iraq. Boosting the American defense industry immensely both through our tax dollars being spent and through a massive influx of international sales. And now we're tossing it away? This war has been an Intel,strategy, and systems testing goldmine as well. A goldmine we're just going to walk away from. We're alienating ourselves from our closest allies. We're ceding soft power left and right all for what? A few billion in savings? Billions that were going to our own military industries. Check the stock market. LM, GD, etc. have all fallen 10% or more over the past month as a result while Rheinmetall, BAE, etc. are seeing 20% growth as Europe realizes they can't trust their oldest and strongest ally. Can't wait to see how many more skilled workers we add to the unemployed list next to the other 10s of thousands who've been fired recently. Don't even get me started on our brothers in arms that will die as a result. We've trained with many of those men and are abandoning them now for no reason. How we as a nation have come to the point where materially supporting a war against an undeniable tyrant is a bad thing astounds me. Can you imagine if we had stopped the lend-lease act and told the UK "good luck with the war buddy?" This is the nation that stuck with Afghanistan and Iraq for decades despite the lack of progress, yet we can't stomach 3 years of monetary support? Rant over. I'm off to go get drunk and pray that I don't have to explain to my grandkids one day why grandpa stopped helping. Why he stepped aside and let Russia walk across the fledgling democracy of Ukraine.

The war sucks and I wish Russia hadn't started it. But they did, and the limits of our ability to get them to "stop" have become quite evident. As someone whose views would likely get me labeled a Putin shill by much of this forum, I in fact think Trump has sounded too conciliatory in talking about a peace agreement, possibly for reasons outlined in the posts above. He and his administration should at least talk tough, as Russia i.e. Putin is a significant geopolitical rival, not someone to trust, and should not get the impression we'll easily hand him what he wants. All that said, it's been clear to me for quite some time that given what we (and to a much smaller extent the Europeans) are and are not willing to throw into this proxy war, it will end in a negotiation which will likely involve Russia keeping Crimea and giving back some portion of the Donbas. The raging against that reality by so much of BO.net has always struck me as a little bizarre. The best time to end this war was before it started, but now is a better time than X years in the future after more death and destruction.

What's the alternative? The Russians have been perfectly happy to massacre Ukrainians or conscript every man from 18-65 in occupied territories and use them to clear minefields with their feet. The Ukrainians should roll over and let bad things be done to them because at least then one side will survive (to invade the Baltics in a few years, at least)? Regimes that don't have moral compasses are often confused by those that do. The Russians and now the US government doesn't understand why the Ukrainians would fight for freedom when it will cost them so much. Much cheaper to accept a degree of oppression than to fight. We're lucky we felt differently when it was us against the British.

Have they named the hero crew yet? I mean, they saved 80 people.

convenient use of the word blackmail... much like the open blackmail biden did as VP in regards to firing the Ukrainian prosecutor? the same prosecutor looking into Burisma....which his crack head son was on the BoD? THAT type of blackmail?!

lol...facts=some random guy's tweet

Kash Confirmed. Reports of crowds scrambling to empty supermarket shelves of popcorn nationwide.

Random official talks out ass about meeting he doesn’t have front seat for. Go to Powidz right now and see the amount of money being poured into infrastructure on the front end of the EUCOM orbit. Remember this is the president that was celebrating the fact Poland wanted to build “Fort Trump.” That said there is absolutely no tactical necessity to forward base personnel in places with no strategic depth other than to use them as a pretext of “you killed our people! Article 5!” What we were leaving in the Baltics is specifically to telegraph visually and politically. It makes no sense militarily. Likewise to having a Corps headquarters in Poznan. Move that crap where it isn’t immediately needed to be evacuated in a shooting war and actually put it where I can do its job, Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This is the concise idea behind the pro-war movement and I applaud your brevity. Aside from its ghoulish nature, which I can get over, the pragmatic problem is you’re also feeding generations of Ukrainians into the wood chipper. Easy for us to accept that cost, but you’ve surrendered the moral high ground given Zelensky has suspended elections and imprisoned the opposition. It’s obvious to anyone this war will end with negotiated settlement allowing Russia to keep portions of Ukraine. break break Side note: it’s been infuriating to watch the same pussy US generals that wouldn’t sign off on structure strikes where we had 99% confidence it was all AQ inside now enthusiastically enabling UKR partner structure strikes with known civilians inside. They called off strikes on IS armed first responders pulling wounded HVIs out of vehicles but now cheer HD videos of surrendering unarmed Russians murdered by SUAS…. Where was this kill energy when we could have killed our way to victory in Afghanistan? The Taliban was way smaller than the Russian army, yet they shied away from attrition strategies which they now embrace on a larger and better armed/funded force? Our senior generals are total idiots. It’s clear they never fought to win the GWOT.

Cut 50% of DoD civilians and you’ll save $40B/yr (have to simul destroy the bureaucratic processes that “require” them). Burn the acquisition process to ashes and start over - will save a metric shit ton of billions over time. Those are two good places to start.

The VR and pilot training next stuff wasn't originally a problem in and of itself. If you added VR sims to the legacy UPT syllabus us old hats are familiar with, you would end up with a better product. Full stop. I'm all for trying to modernize sims/chairflying and I'm all for auditing the syllabus to make sure we aren't wasting time on things that don't matter operationally, like fingertip takeoffs and landings or serially hooking kids on ELPs. The problem arose when the brass started using the VR and PTN/UPT 2.5 syllabus cuts to mask the fact that they can't generate aircraft. That's when all the newfangled VR and syllabi basically became a trojan horse to cut hours while keeping slides green.

Their Constitution calls for no elections during a War? So, they're following their Constitution?

What is America's goal in Ukraine? What does victory look like to you in this war? Ukraine has absolutely zero chance of winning, with or without the aid we've been providing. You made the comparison to Afghanistan, aptly describing the decades of conflict without progress (but plenty of bloodshed and resources expended). Do you want to go through that whole process again? I thought hindsight was 20/20. And calling Ukraine a "fledgling democracy" is laughable. They've quite literally suspended democratic elections, and some sources even have Zelensky polling lower than one of his dismissed generals, Zaluzhniy, in the event that elections were to resume. Europe needs to expand its defense capabilities. It's not healthy for EU - USA relations -- or international security -- that the entire continent of Europe has to rely on the United States for its defense in perpetuity. But if European countries want to continue to exist as quasi-American vassal states, they need to stop offending American sensibilities with Orwellian censorship and destructive immigration policies, among other things. VP Vance touched on this at the Munich Security Conference and nobody in Europe has provided an intelligent response yet. Right now they're trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Fair question. Here's the alternative: let people vote on how to respond. Trump was very clear he wanted the war to end, and the US voted for him to execute those policies. Zelensky won't let his people vote, so they're stuck with forced conscription into the wood chipper. I'm not pro-Putin or condoning his actions. But explore this hypothetical with me: what if most Ukrainians would rather give ethnically Russian territory to the Russians than have their kids & grandkids die? Do they have a right to advocate politically for that? Zelenskyy says no.

If you want a quick run-down of the SFRA procedures for GA, this link has a kneeboard card explaining everything. It can get a little confusing if you haven't done the training. https://www.faasafety.gov/files/gslac/courses/content/405/1310/170301 Kneeboard - DC SFRA Checklist.pdf

I'm still disgusted. Such talk is incredibly incompetent. A 50,000 word rebuttal instantly formed in my mind on the subject of moral character, but I'm gonna set that aside for now because I hesitate to dignify the above. Instead, I want to approach this from a different, less controversial angle. A few ideas. Here are some basic concepts: Obviously, we are at a critical moment in history. The more we find out about our financial system, the more we realize it's afflicted with various cancers. I think we'd all like to see the United States continue to be the greatest country on Earth. The only way we can achieve that is through prosperity and excising the tumors (bad policies) that are holding us back. Prosperity requires technology, resources, and a capacity to produce. We're also embarking on a period of potential technological advancements that will fundamentally change our world. There's a race on for that technology. Problem 1: The race for that technology requires economic investment. Who has the capacity to challenge our ability to invest in it? Look at this chart and think about how we choose who is and isn't on our team. Who do we cooperate and not cooperate with? Who is already on our team? Who do we spend money on bringing into the fold or relegating to the other side? Problem 2: The energy required run our existing economy is massive. The technology coming from AI, quantum computing, chip manufacturing, and downstream techs require incredible amounts of additional energy. You can't have unlimited growth in a world of finite resources. Thus, competition. Where do we find that energy? We need it now, not however many years into the future it takes to build nuke plants. Where does it lie? Problem 3: Who poses an existential threat to the US? First, what makes the US the US? I'd say a way of life based upon the principles of the Constitution. To find out who our enemy is, ask which countries operate in ways that are the most far removed from the way we want to live. Isn't the most glaring answer to that question China? We don't want anything to do with that system of government. Do we want to live in an Islamic Caliphate, either? We're even watching Europe devolve a collection of leftist governments. The real threats to you and I should be calculated and sorted as: Economic power + Access to energy + System of government disparity. Russia has little economic power, but has massive energy reserves. Their system of government sucks, Putin sucks, but it is not nearly as shitty as others with greater economic power. Put Ukrainians, Russians, Europeans, Americans in room together. You'd have a very difficult time sorting who's who on the basis of the things they value. Russia's energy is going to flow somewhere. Do you think it's just going to stay in the ground? Say Russia collapses. What are we going to do, occupy Russia to deny China's access to energy when they share a border? We are driving Russia into the arms of China, with or without Putin. War destroys prosperity. A nation will gravitate towards relationships that give them prosperity. The most logical approach is to create a security agreement where we stand to gain prosperity from the ability to purchase energy while they stand to gain prosperity from selling it. Why do we want to make China more prosperous? There is a time and place for conflict. But for 20 years I was directly involved in wars that were fought, but never decisively won. Our country experienced a near-exponential increase in debt while our leadership saw a near-exponential increase in wealth while on a government paycheck, all while people here still believe it's all been a net-benefit for our citizens. That's a pretty impressive jedi mind trick. Negotiate an end to the conflict. Start from scratch. Create a comprehensive security agreement that guarantees mutual economic benefits and access to energy while denying China the ability to become and even greater threat.

I think we identified an AGR who DOGE might consider less than essential. That’s an awful lot of posting here during the duty day. Get back to faking work nsplayer. Elon is coming for your ass.

Same logic : We need to allow the tyrant to have what he wants so he doesn't destroy his own society. ETA: my impression is this was sarcasm. If serious, shrewd real-politic.

Nah, we have no interest in this war ending. We should continue to shovel weapons to Ukraine so Putin can slowly feed more and more of his society into the wood chipper.

I'm also MFS complete, nothing populated in my CDB. This wait is worse than waiting for the results.

You need to relax the grip on your pearls. If you're that shocked with an "OMG 8%!!! cuts to the DOD budget!" you should have been equally concerned with the cumulative 28.5% rise in the DOD budget from 2018 to 2022. An 8% cut in the DOD budget will bring us back down to - wait for it - the 2022 level.

I was enlisted, a good majority of officers are retarded.

Roger that If only an updated version of the T-6 existed that exceeded requirements and was available with a better availability rate https://defense.txtav.com/en/t-6c

You misspelled “Zelensky covered for Biden’s blatant corruption when Trump shined light on his illegal behavior.”

There is plenty of waste in the DoD we can cut without affecting ops or military personnel, the DoD is by and large the largest culprit of waste in the USG; if any of you have served time on a staff you know I’m right. I’d also offer that homeland defense should be the #1 priority of a military - I’m pretty sure it’s codified as such even in the previous admin’s NDS. I suspect we will retrograde from Syria pretty soon and Iraq to follow. If we cut down on some of the foreign skirmishes we are consistently involved in, there is more than enough resources to defend the southern border from let’s call them what they are, invaders. Now, will it be clean? Absolutely not, I expect some malicious compliance and it will end up being much more complicated than it needs to be. I’m hopeful that the culprits of any malicious compliance get the boot.

One thing that could have contributed to getting my dates so soon was being MFS complete. I populated on the losing roster.

I think it's also a direct response to SCOTUS getting rid of Chevron Deference (https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-chevron-curtailing-power-of-federal-agencies/) last year in the wake of agencies who were using their rule-making authority to create pseudo-carveouts in the law. One example was the ATF's bump-stock case which ultimately was found to violate the Administrative Procedures Act last summer (https://www.oyez.org/cases/2023/22-976). Now whenever a legal challenge comes up against these agencies, they can't just have government lawyers appease judges by saying "Trust us we're the experts." They have to show a legitimate attempt to remain within the guard-rails set by Congress, and Trump's administration is likely tired of these agencies making fools of themselves.

If you’ve paid attention to the facts instead of your feelings, there have been signposts since the beginning indicating the direction this is headed. As I said, you can oppose the reality of what’s happening with fantasies of complete Russian withdrawal/collapse, but you’ll only be upset/embarrassed when it never happens. The outcome is dictated by logic, not your notion of right/wrong.

Depends on how you are interpreting it. I can see a lot of people hyperventilating by claiming that this is some sort of attempt to bypass the judiciary, but there's no good evidence of that. This seems to be a memo declaring that within the executive branch, interpretations will be made at the highest level. Everything about that is a good thing.

He has to realize he has lost big time from a long term perspective (population make up, extremely diminished capacity for future power projection, etc.) He may be an evil POS, but he can’t be that stupid. He may have won some short term land gains and stopped NATO expansion on the border, but overall I don’t think it’ll have been worth the blood and treasure spent. If he recognizes this, he will negotiate, but we will have to give him something he can save face on (such as stating UKR will never be admitted to NATO, we’re not going back to pre-2014 borders, etc.) If we don’t the “forever war” continues, which only means more waste of resources and humanitarian crisis.

of course he's not....he's winning

A few more to the fire...

The upside down memes are out of control.

You underestimate how many people don’t give a shit what you have to think and say…

Yeah, but you gotta deploy the masses if you want to knock back the queep monster. The queep monster is a pussy at heart, it fears combat and hardship.

Turning with an engine out for non-terrain considerations. Aircraft with less than 500' vertical separation on final. Modified landing data for the shorter runway. That shit doesn't fly at other airfields. That's the deviance. Only a few select "special" places is it allowed. That's the normalization. The helo flying high is just "deviance."

I love the passive aggressive approach to BS like this. I was directly told by my DO in 2008 that if I didn't wear a reflective belt out the door for the night sortie then I'd get no-stepped. So I doubled it up and wore it like a Jap about to do a Banzai. When I got the WTF look from him, I responded that it was far more visible and safer that way. My harness didn't cover any of it and the higher elevation would give greater visibility, and since safer is better, this should become the new standard. He turned around and basically stormed out. I got to fly my sortie and morally got a draw since I made the DO leave me alone for a while but at the cost of actually kind of wearing that absurd thing.

the "stand up for democracy" shrilling is ridiculous. as this USAID and biden bribery scandal unfolds you will hardly see motives to "stand up for democracy" it's a smoke screen to disguise money laundering and criminal activity. but much like the phrase "conspiracy theorist" it has proven to be highly effective at stirring up emotions in the uneducated masses.

what power do you think 1 person on a BoD yields?

Facts like Ukraine is the source of one of his impeachments and Trump is never one to forgive, so he thinks Zelensky has it coming. Facts like Trump has "appeared" to like Putin. Look how he writes, "ending the War with Russia" as if Russia is the victim here. And "MILLIONS" is hyperbole. So many signs that he loves Putin. I'm just wondering when the 3-way happens between Trump, Putin, and Musk. EU still has plays and I can envision them going it alone to help Ukraine. Hell, maybe Ukraine signs a deal for EU help with those natural resource leases vs Trump getting them. I don't believe Trump can think 10 steps ahead chess style, he seems more like a modestly successful reality TV star.

Shameful. Absolutely shameful. As a heavy Bubba the weapons lifts into Poland have been one of the highlights of my career. If not the highlight. I watched the live feeds of the Russians pouring across the border and next thing I knew I was in Poland. Watching pallets get moved off my planes onto trucks and knowing within the week it'd all be gone. Used to put a Russian into an early grave. - How many Ukrs were put in an early grave? It was an action that I can proudly share to any westerner. It was an action that put our country back into a well respected light with any European. - Why are you so keen to please Europeans? Maybe consider your grandkids. We've nearly dismantled one of our two biggest geopolitical enemies of the last 80 years without costing a single American life. - What about those "brothers in arms" you're so bothered about? Inconsistent. Spending a fraction of the snafu that was Afghanistan/Iraq. Boosting the American defense industry immensely both through our tax dollars being spent and through a massive influx of international sales. "- We saved money! We made lots of sales!" And now we're tossing it away? This war has been an Intel,strategy, and systems testing goldmine as well. A goldmine we're just going to walk away from. - "The war was a gold mine!" We're alienating ourselves from our closest allies. We're ceding soft power left and right all for what? A few billion in savings? - Not a few lines earlier, you were concerned about cost savings. Which is it? Inconsistent. Billions that were going to our own military industries. Check the stock market. LM, GD, etc. have all fallen 10% or more over the past month as a result while Rheinmetall, BAE, etc. are seeing 20% growth as Europe realizes they can't trust their oldest and strongest ally. -"Oh, no! The stock market! Our defense contractors are suffering! What a tragedy!" Can't wait to see how many more skilled workers we add to the unemployed list next to the other 10s of thousands who've been fired recently. - "Oh, no! The defense industrial complex is shrinking!" (so is the population of Ukraine) Don't even get me started on our brothers in arms that will die as a result. We've trained with many of those men and are abandoning them now for no reason. - But you're happy to have them conscripted to fight for all the financial reasons you listed above? How we as a nation have come to the point where materially supporting a war against an undeniable tyrant is a bad thing astounds me. Can you imagine if we had stopped the lend-lease act and told the UK "good luck with the war buddy?" This is the nation that stuck with Afghanistan and Iraq for decades despite the lack of progress, yet we can't stomach 3 years of monetary support? - You mean a tyrant that cancels elections and forcibly removes his citizens from the street and sends them to the front lines? We pitched in to help the UK because we believed in effort enough to make sacrifices of our own. No one here is doing that. Rant over. I'm off to go get drunk and pray that I don't have to explain to my grandkids one day why grandpa stopped helping. Why he stepped aside and let Russia walk across the fledgling democracy of Ukraine. - Imagine their pain when they realize the inheritance they receive from grandpa's investment portfolio wasn't what it could have been because we stopped funding the death of millions in foreign conflicts. O! The unbearable shame of it all.