tac airlifter

https://sofrep.com/news/4-airmen-awarded-the-distinguished-flying-cross-for-rescue-and-evacuation-153-us-citizens-and-afghans-from-kabul/

We should all stop calling it a bonus. It’s a contract extention.

LOAC says you aren’t supposed to murder wounded prisoners. I notice some of the Russian victims are zip tied. There have been a lot of those videos— you can find Ukrainians killing tied up Russians with knives fairly easily. It’s terrible. War is terrible, and in this case neither side is innocent of wrong doing. That said, this was a war by Russian choice and for Ukrainian survival. If Russia invaded Florida and I was running around with a piecemeal group of volunteers while every other nation sat around watching atrocities inflicted on my family…. Well I have some bad news for the LOAC office.

All those intel chiefs who definitively stated the laptop was propaganda should be banned from government service ever again. They are permanently discredited.

Why’d you have to shit all over my happy rumor?

Side note and RUMINT only- timing no longer favorable for that member to take over the command. GO moves are palace intrigue/cloak & dagger stuff, so who knows, but it’s a good rumor.

Quick update- still no FDA approved vaccine available at my base clinic or local Walgreens. Our only option remains the EUA vaccine, accompanied by an unproven manufacturers claim it is the same.

Neither are common is AFSOC, but they aren’t particularly uncommon either. It’s not a big deal; if someone has 2 or more I do inquire if we need to get them some targeted training. Never in my life have I seen a silly policy about a mandatory number. Evaluators discretion works great… if you pick the right people to be evaluators. Which we mostly do.

Yes to your first question, although I’m tracking a bit sooner. There is a plan to get some use out of those three aircraft, I will decline to say further in this format. I thought a conversation about this might be interesting. What was going to happen was crystal clear to those of us outside the CAA world, but those inside simply didn’t see or believe the writing in the wall. I think there’s a cultural reason for that, but was curious what others thought.

Just curious how the A-29 for CAA thing is going. “Not according to 6SOS planning” is my charitable characterization of where we are now. We could have an interesting discussion on how and why this played out the way it did, lots of good lessons learned.

“Working” was defined as causing the populations to rise up. I agree NK is dark at night. Does that mean sanctions are working or does that mean civilians are miserable? I get it. Everyone disagrees with me, and that’s fine. I offer a perspective for consideration so that we think carefully and choose to do things deliberately. Laughing at hungry civilians is for pussies, not warriors.

Seeing as how both locations are decisively NOT resolved in our favor, I’ll disagree. None of the sanctions have caused the populace to rise up. They just suffer. I do not think this COA is wise.

Copy the idea. Has this particular method of pressuring a dictator ever worked? It didn’t on Saddam, and it didn’t on Ghadafi. Or Milosevek. It’s not working in Iran or N Korea. When you target civilians for suffering, all it really does is hurt civilians. If you have a counter example I’m game to hear it.

Have all the sanctions you want. I love the ones targeting their elite. But celebrating bread lines? Do you think that will make people hate the dictator or hate us? I know it’s an unpopular opinion. But I’m uninterested in hurting civilians. I don’t think it will be effective and I don’t think it’s a good look.

I think it’s a terrible idea to hurt Russia’s economy and their people just because we don’t like what Putin is doing. Mass punishment doesn’t work on me or you or anyone. Human beings hate that shit. i’m not sure what specific military effect we want to achieve by turning off some grandmother‘s credit card, or what we expect Russian civilians to do, but I’m not going to chuckle at starving civilians standing in food lines. They are innocent.

Because they aren’t. They’ve done everything possible to shit on domestic production. My brother works in the oil industry, it’s heartbreaking to see what this administration has done: appeal to domestic environmentalists by crushing domestic oil, simultaneously increasing reliance on brutal dictators. I love the environment, but green energy isn’t ready for the volume our nation requires. And sending money to OPEC instead of US based production has been awful for national security.

Welcome to Base ops. Knowing what one is talking about is widely admired, but not strictly required. It’s more fun with whiskey.

I don’t know about any of that bro. You asked a direct question and I gave you a direct answer in the form of a sourced quote from Ukraine’s president. Cheers.

Sure, you missed the quote from Ukraine’s president saying he wanted more than blankets from the aide package. The one I highlighted in my link. Blankets clearly weren’t all that was in the 2014 non-lethal aide package, but he was dissatisfied with the lack of helpful support which he said included blankets. Personally I think we stop nitpicking past mistakes & focus on the present— making policy decisions which maximize dead Russians while staying below the threshold of starting WW3.

“ Poroshenko said blankets and night-vision goggles from the USA are important, "but one cannot win a war with blankets!"” USA Today article from 2014.

9/11 happened because AQ were assholes who wanted violence. Ukraine invasion happening because Russia are assholes who want violence. Brainstorming ways current & past policies could have slowed or prevented things has value to future policy decisions. But Russians are responsible for Russian behavior. I get your point and it’s fair, but you also have TDS. Recommend pointing your anger at Putin; Trump is not relevant in this moment… and likely not ever again.

Flea, great post. I 100% agree with all your observations based on my brief time in NATO as well. Also agree on your comments WRT Gabbard’s post. It was foolish and naïve of us not to acquiesce diplomatically to Russia’s need for a land buffer between NATO & Russia. We need to stop calling every adversary evil because it makes fighting them the only answer. Not everybody is “literally Hitler.” We’ve definitely fought evil people where destroying them was our only option— ISIS, AQ, etc. But I think we could have negotiated better with Russia. Now there is real war which is horrible. To be clear- it’s Russia’s fault for the things they’re doing. But did our insistence Putin = Hitler blind is from taking seriously Russia’s desire for border security? Maybe.

Our “influence” has not been positive in many of those locations. Our history, especially our recent history in Afghanistan, should give you serious pause before committing to action. Here’s my actual opinion since it appears you want that: we the people are owed a debate about this topic in Congress before embarking upon a course we cannot change. I may or may not agree with your statements above, I don’t know because I lack a sufficient grasp of the facts. And we’ve been doing this a lot lately: rushing haphazardly from one decision to another without stopping, fact gathering, fact checking and thinking. It’s not working out great, and I propose a more methodical approach to serious issues.

1. As a factual matter the statement from Tucker is correct. Ukraine is not a democracy, the central government does not respect or protect rights of cultural Russians living in the east, and free speech and freedom of the press do not exist. 2. that does not mean Russia is good by any means, just that reality is complicated. 3. Love or hate Fox, they are expressing what CNN/MSNBC are ignoring: the majority of our country opposes US participation in conflict with Russia over Ukraine.

CDC intentionally withholding COVAX data. I’m so confused why this would be. I thought vaccine efficacy and booster necessity was settled science. If there’s one thing I’m 100% certain of because I’ve been told by the establishment, it’s these vaccines are safe and effective. True you still get C19 after taking the vaccine even though they told us we wouldn’t, but I’m faithful the symptoms are more mild for vaccinated individuals. Given all that, why aren’t the experts being completely forthright with all the data collected? I want to prove these anti-vax science deniers wrong; if the CDC could be more open I’m sure it would reinforce their messaging.