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tac airlifter

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Posts posted by tac airlifter

    World War III Updates

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    9 hours ago, HeloDude said:

    So the Dems supported Israel’s right to defend itself for about, what, 3.5 weeks?

    Liberals are 100% consistent: they want to defend the democracy in Palestine from the first-strike tyranny of Israel.  Hamas values trans-rights and Israel just wants to ban music festivals and gay people.  #freeukraine

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    World War III Updates

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by tac airlifter

    2 hours ago, Negatory said:

    Susceptibility to disinformation is a legitimate vulnerability of democratic societies. How do you fix that?

     

    49 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:

    Agree, but tough to control in our society where freedom of the press it literally the very first amendment in our Constitution.  I can tell you we do NOT put the government in charge like uncle Joe tried to do with the crazy show tunes singing bitch.  It would be great if the press would actually act like the fourth estate and did their job...too much to ask I know.

    Great discussion.  Agree with the identification of misinformation being a definite threat to our society, and agree with CH on all points; Covid proved we absolutely cannot have a government sponsored disinformation effort as it will 100% lie to advance a false narrative.

    As Thomas Sowell says "there are no solutions, only trade-offs."  Human issues are rarely solved, they are mostly managed.  Thinking like that is a good start on this problem set.  In that vein, the X construct of allowing added "community notes" to provide a counter-point is a decent compromise between allowing free speech while also real-time tagging it as propaganda.  We are allowed to consume both sides.

    I also think long-form style interviews (Joe Rogan) are healthier to view than the news, which is either constant arguing or a series of 10 second quips lacking any depth.  That style of information is no-shit rewiring our brains to make us dumber.  Great book if you'd like to read more: How the news makes us dumb.

    I'd love to see the fourth estate actually function & hold power accountable (on every side).  But they're hard core partisans and proud of it, they even view it as their duty.  

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    World War III Updates

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    21 hours ago, nsplayr said:

    Literally every generation since the dawn of time has done this, and predictably most people become a bit more reasonable when their brains finish forming.

    Agree, and a great reason why we shouldn't lower the voting age to 16.... as one of the parties is trying to do 

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    World War III Updates

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    42 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:

    When I say kill them all I am obviously talking about the terrorists not the Palestinians in general. 

    The "where do they go" question does not have an easy answer

    The other big question is what about Iran?  Will we turn another blind eye? 

    Great post.  Top line quoted for truth; I too, have said "kill them all" but assume mature people know that statement applies to combatants not civilians. But it's worth mentioning, as it is a key distinction between our side and theirs.  Radical jihadists mean "kill them all" in the genocidal sense.  That said, the definition of 'combatant' must be revised for wars against unconventional forces hiding behind civilians and collateral damage is inevitable.... the blame lies on Hamas for that result.

    I have no idea where an average Gaza resident is supposed to go.  Not to be harsh, but don't elect Hamas if you don't want to be in this position.  I realize their choice at the ballot box was an illusion as Hamas had the guns and wouldn't allow true opposition.  Unfortunate situation with no easy answer.  Hamas is willing to let every Palestinian child die... I hope it doesn't come to that but how do you fight an adversary bent on genocide without eradicating them?  
     

    As for Iran, a few days ago I was incorrectly hung up on the Sunni/shia divide and didn't realize how close the collaboration already was.  Hamas is proud of the Iranian support; wow.  I'm out of my depth, but I do think for the US part we won't do anything.  Could be wrong, but I'd guess we lack the appetite to hold Iran directly accountable for US deaths.

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    World War III Updates

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by tac airlifter

    Reports ranging from 700-1100 Israeli civilians KIA yesterday.  The videos are outrageous, terrorists driving around cities firing indiscriminately.  I thought Israeli civilians were all armed, but just learned that is no longer the case and the population has been disarmed over the past decade.  

    WSJ reporting that Iran was involved in tactical planning and formally approved the Hamas operation.

    Edited to add: US DoS continues looking like idiots by saying they’ve seen no Iranian link….

    World War III Updates

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Appreciate the analysis in this thread so far.  A lot of news is hyper partisan and has already censored videos I saw yesterday of atrocities against civilians.  
     

    The scale of this attack is impressive.  That it could be developed while intel agencies were unaware is mind boggling.  I understood 9/11 escaping notice of CIA; a small savvy force of disciplined folks is hard to track/assess.  In this case they missed an entire army assembling!  Holy shit. 
     

    And the Iran financial connection is out in the open, as is weapons from the AFG withdrawal.  Hamas is proud of it.  Not sure KJP can spin her way out of our bad decisions directly enabling these actors.

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    World War III Updates

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    37 minutes ago, DirkDiggler said:

    There’s a decent amount of chatter on the Twittersphere (so take with a grain of salt) that Hezbollah informed Israel via unofficial channels (through Egypt) that they will join the invasion if Israel initiates a ground incursion of Gaza.  Pretty sure Israel is going to do that, especially given the number of civilians Hamas has taken hostage.  Will be interesting to see if Hezbollah follows through.

    What does "join the invasion" mean?  I thought Hezbollah was more West Bank and wasn't even in the Gaza Strip.  But as I said, I'm certainly not an expert in the region.

    World War III Updates

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    5 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

    Hamas has an incredible ability to sacrifice its own people with efforts that hurt their cause.  Yes this will harden their base, yes this will garner funding from sympathetic lunatics in the region but no this will not help them regain the land of Palestine.  Standby for mass airstrikes in inside the Gaza strip that will likely kill hundreds of innocents now that the gloves are off.  I would not be surprised by a ground action, a perfect wag the dog moment for Netanyahu and the hardliners trying to pass legislation that will weaken and minimize the influence of their Supreme Court.

    I sort of agree, but would add couple things. First the phrase "wag the dog" implies the incident being responded to is false.  Great movie by the way.  In this case the incident is obviously true and Israel is surrounded on all sides by fanatics who want them dead.  And I'm not a fan of what Netanyahu is doing regarding internal politics; but we are hardly in a position to judge after own politics jumped the shark these past few years.
     

    The Israel/Palestine conflict has always been messy with dirty hands on both sides.  But supporting Israel is the only ethical option.  
     

    interesting that this is a Hamas action not Hezbollah; I'm curious what kind of cross-pollination might exists between those two since I'd guess Iran pushing this more than Arab states.  Anyone know if Hamas has previously aligned with Shia Iran for anti-Israel actions?  Seems strange, but I am not a regional expert.

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    What's wrong with the Air Force?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    On 9/30/2023 at 11:21 PM, Pooter said:

    Maybe you could pitch staying at a crash pad in the context of Agile Combat Employment and sell it like the dispersed basing of aircraft.  

    That’s actually genius bro.

    Interesting story relayed to me by NWC Dean: when the USSR fell a brief period of candor existed between our militaries and we sent various folks to Moscow who, among other things, got to read Soviet war plans.  Anyway, they assessed certain NATO (non-US) fighter units as particularly troublesome in the event of a Fulda Gap scenario so the Soviets developed an unconventional solution: send Spetsnaz pre-invasion to murder them.  Small commando teams burning down apartment buildings full of SQ pilots and families would neuter their combat effectiveness without jeopardizing the lesser skilled Soviet Air Forces.  
     

    so yea, for OPSEC you should stay in a random AirBnB on every TDY.  It’s worth a shot  🇺🇸

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    John Kelly goes on the record about his time with Trump

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    CH is 100% correct here.  If the idea of religious right supporting Trump doesn’t make sense to you, you don’t understand their beliefs or the depth of betrayal they feel by decades of Republicans who have moved none of their issues forward once in office.  He doesn’t pretend to be one of them, he clearly does not share all of their moral values. That’s OK for them.  Like Trump or not, he delivered on core promises to his constituencies. That’s why he is so popular while Kevin McCarthy (who made promises he failed to honor) is out on his ass.

    I’m not arguing merits here, but it’s important to understand why people think the way they do if you’re interacting with them.

    Combat Aviation Advisors

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by tac airlifter

    11 hours ago, Bigred said:

    Circa 2013-2016, I personally saw them doing a lot of good things in SE Asia. It was impactful on partner nation real world operations. 
     

    In my opinion, they were such a small part of AFSOC, and they operated so far outside of the normal scope of what AFSOC does, that it was easy to downplay and overlook what they did. 

    “Impactful on partner nation real world operations” is a great way to answer my question.  Well stated.  Your next sentence is equally as true.

    You’re right they employed like an ODA.  Except Army ODAs were doing the Lords work in AFG and accepting huge risk to help ANASOC commandos increase lethality.  If the CAAs had been helping the US Military do things we needed and asked them to do, they’d still exist today.  Instead they did one off GCC requests and DOS partnerships.  Ok, that’s not nothing, but in the world of finite resources they lacked a convincing articulation of benefits provided to those paying the bill.  Combine that with some odd cultural idiosyncrasies and their fate was unsurprising.

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    Combat Aviation Advisors

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by tac airlifter

    3 hours ago, cooterscout said:

    Can anyone with experience there comment on their time there? From the outside, it seems like it was a good time: unique deployments, lots of cool training for skills outside of the plane, and doing meaningful work. 

    Define "meaningful work."

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    Good Riddance, Mark Milley.

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    3 hours ago, dream big said:

    That’s not a bad thing. Combatant commanders should run their AORs, service chiefs their services, CJCS should be there to support those aforementioned and provide the best (apolitical) military advice to the National Command Authority. Somewhere along the line Mark Milley forgot all of that. 

    I agree with you 99%, my only input is I wonder if the combatant commander model (with its boundaries) should be revisited as our adversaries cross those boundaries without our level of bureaucratic thrash.  Regardless, 100% CJCS should not be involved tactically... which Milley was.  He was deeply involved with O6 level decisions in the AFG withdrawal.  The full depth of his personal touch on that disaster is not widely known.  

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    What's wrong with the Air Force?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    5 hours ago, HU&W said:

    Same article, no paywall - https://news.yahoo.com/old-again-air-force-special-201159107.html

    A few more interesting tidbits:

    "Going forward, Bauernfeind wants to use the first four years differently.  As he sees it, airmen would spend up to two years in initial qualification training before reaching their special ops squadron. Once there, they’d get up to 18 months of training time to learn more about their mission and the special operations culture before deploying."

    "Other tweaks, like dropping a requirement that students learn a particular type of landing that has never been used in combat, are streamlining the C-130 syllabus as well. And adding more simulators and virtual reality software can free up aircraft to fly combat missions instead of being tied up in training at home."

    Anyone know what he’s referring to here?

    Russian Ukraine shenanigans

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    20 hours ago, nsplayr said:

    Which pieces of your hometown / state / etc. would you be willing to negotiate away after you've been invaded by your belligerent neighbor? Please be specific.

    Quite a bit if the alternative was my family dying, and I would deeply resent a foreign power meddling in my business.  I’d bide my time and wage an insurgency when I felt I had the upper hand.  But I wouldn’t bleed my neighbors against an adversary so much larger than me, I’d play it smart like the Taliban and eventually gain my land back.  What were witnessing is just bad tactics.

    It is astounding to me how the warmonger crowd acknowledges they are sending kids into the meat grinder with no hope of victory yet they claim moral superiority for their stance.  All the while advocating for somebody else’s family die with the guns we give them.  I do enjoy war and I don’t mind killing Russians, but what is happening right now is just foolish. Brought to you by the same people who lost Afghanistan and gave Iraq to the Iranians, lol.

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