On 2/28/2025 at 1:01 AM, HuggyU2 said:

If you make it to the March Airshow, swing by and introduce yourself.  I'll be wearing the bright orange flight suit with the HUGGY name tag.

 

i've told Huggy this, but when I was in HS back in the early 2000s I went to Oshkosh and met huggy! didn't know it at the time, but fast forward 20 years later and connected the dots when going thru old pictures and saw him standing in front of the t-38. kind of cool and small world type of thing.

5 hours ago, LiquidSky said:

How convenient. And now that you have, still no reply. 

Because aggressors can always turn around and go home. Look at Afghanistan, we just quit. Look at Vietnam, same thing. Do I think Russia will? They did in their own Afghanistan. They can again.

 

Russia will not turn around and go home because home is at their backs. regardless of how you feel, the Russians perceive nato seducing Ukraine as a dire threat to their country. They have complained about NATO expanding east since the breakup of the USSR; I have cited numerous historical articles, speeches, intelligence assessments, and videos in this thread proving so.

it's a different sort of calculus for them than what we were operating under in vietnam, iraq, or afghanistan.

i predict you will disagree with their rationale and reasoning, but know thy enemy and such.

5 hours ago, VigilanteNav said:

Regarding the history of Ukraine that many on here are attempting to skew.  Putin could have very likely executed the "coup" in Ukraine in 2014...

 

bro you can't even spin it to be a "pro russian coup". the government removed in 2014 was pro russian. why would putin stage a coup on his own guy? lol. the evidence is overwhelming of western involvement.

from 2014: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia-ukraine-war-kiev-conflict

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/15/john-mccain-ukraine-protests-support-just-cause

 

"We are here to support your just cause, the sovereign right of Ukraine to determine its own destiny freely and independently. And the destiny you seek lies in Europe," said McCain, a leading Republican voice on US foreign policy. 

McCain is in Ukraine with a Connecticut Democrat, Senator Chris Murphy.

Speaking to CNN on Sunday, McCain said: “What we're trying to do is try to bring about a peaceful transition here, that would stop the violence and give the Ukrainian people what they unfortunately have not had, with different revolutions that have taken place – a real society. This is a grassroots revolution here – it's been peaceful except when the government tried to crack down on them, and the government hasn't tried that since.

 

Asked about Russian president Vladimir Putin's role in the crisis, McCain said: “There's no doubt that Ukraine is of vital importance to Putin. I think it was [Henry] Kissinger, I'm not sure, said that Russia, without Ukraine it's an eastern power, with Ukraine it's a western power. This is the beginning of Russia, right here in Kiev."

 

"The reality is that, after two decades of eastward Nato expansion, this crisis was triggered by the west's attempt to pull Ukraine decisively into its orbit and defence structure, via an explicitly anti-Moscow EU association agreement. Its rejection led to the Maidan protests and the installation of an anti-Russian administration – rejected by half the country – that went on to sign the EU and International Monetary Fund agreements regardless.

No Russian government could have acquiesced in such a threat from territory that was at the heart of both Russia and the Soviet Union. Putin's absorption of Crimea and support for the rebellion in eastern Ukraine is clearly defensive, and the red line now drawn: the east of Ukraine, at least, is not going to be swallowed up by Nato or the EU."

 

 

https://truthout.org/articles/the-ukraine-mess-that-nuland-made/

 

Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs “Toria” Nuland was the “mastermind” behind the Feb. 22, 2014 “regime change” in Ukraine, plotting the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych while convincing the ever-gullible US mainstream media that the coup wasn’t really a coup but a victory for “democracy.”

 

Much of what has happened, of course, was predictable and indeed was predicted, but neocon Nuland couldn’t resist the temptation to pull off a “regime change” that she could call her own.

Her husband (and arch-neocon) Robert Kagan had co-founded the Project for the New American Century in 1998 around a demand for “regime change” in Iraq, a project that was accomplished in 2003 with President George W. Bush’s invasion.

45 minutes ago, gearhog said:

Pickyourbattles.

 

15 minutes ago, StoleIt said:

 

Not saying there isn't a lot of valid criticism you can throw at this conflict, our involvement, and Zelensky...

i don't disagree about the election point.

this is a good step in the right direction...at the start of the conflict ANY dissent and you were labeled "pro putin". at least now some are acknowledging that this conflict is complicated and problematic.

much like during COVID...any push back on mandatory vaccines, masking, natural immunity effectiveness, or social distancing and you "wanted grandma to die" and instantly labeled "anti vaccine" and "conspiracy theorist".

 

the messaging propaganda used is the tell that you're on the wrong side

 

There are many questions to be answered on our involvement in Ukraine. It’s not black and white. 

at first glance this seems good...securing biological agents...all for it.

but what's the "modern, safe (key word that triggers my interest) and secure diagnostic health labrotory and a national NETWORK of epidemiological monitoring stations" part about?

like @tac airlifter says sometimes the most lethal and dangerous programs are concealed with the most generic sounding names and labels.

what's that all about? knowing how devious some of the federal power players like Fauci turned out to be during covid, i have a hard time believing our intentions setting up labs in ukraine were all rainbows and sunshine.

this is my problem with the ukraine situation. if the US hadn't been messing around in Ukraine, destabilizing governments, running coups, establishing bio labs, putting the crack head son of the Vice President on a Ukranian gas company's BOD, having the Vice President blackmailing Ukraine with 1 billion of USAID money...

if all that wasn't happening and russia invaded...that's a clean kill...id be all for supporting them against russian "aggression".

but the same government fucks that lied to us during covid and trampled the constitution in unprecedented ways are the same government fucks who were playing around in ukraine.

i'm sorry but they burned ANY trust i have in them...they DO NOT get the benefit of the doubt. and i assume they have bad intentions. so when guys like chris murphy and other democrats cry wolf about protecting ukraine from the russians it rings on deaf ears.

 

3 hours ago, 17D_guy said:

In addition to what @Biff_T said, they also got rid of those non-promotable majors...like 200 of them with like 90 days notice? I can't remember the timelines.

 

one of those was in my sq...got RIF'd, airline job, then a few years later came back under a bonus. or at least that's how my brain remembers it happening. anyway we were all pumped it worked out really well for him!

3 hours ago, McJay Pilot said:

Sorry! If Big Blue offers a Voluntary Separation Program, be very very cautious. They flagged the “volunteers” last time, cancelled their VSP and targeted them for the RIF. The powers that be have altered the deal waaaay too many times for anyone to trust them.

THIS!!! proceed with caution...two of my friends "volunteered" under the "no harm VSP, see if you get picked if not no worries" promise.

be very fucking careful. and read any fine print. make sure you have multiple COAs lined up to execute if you get burned.

4 hours ago, LiquidSky said:

The party of fiscal responsibility is too busy spending millions to own the liberals. "I PinKY pRoMIse It'S nOt AfTeR a CoNfEDeRaTe TrAiToR." 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/03/politics/fort-moore-fort-benning-defense-secretary/index.html

But once they run out of obscure corporals to allegedly rename stuff after and civvies to fire a RIF would be right in line with the continued self destruction of our agencies.

maybe bragg and benning shouldn't have ever been "renamed" in the first place

Talk about overplaying your losing hand zelensky!

 

 

10 minutes ago, RASH said:

State quals, or STFU


Sent from my iPad using Baseops Network mobile app

are you nsplayr's sock!? 🫢

3 hours ago, SurelySerious said:

Commissioned officer bro, OPM can’t fire me.

stunning and brave

7 minutes ago, icohftb said:

Or it might not be that farfetched that they all coordinated to send the same message... 

reminds me of covid

Your dad and granddad fought the soviets. My grandfathers fought the Germans, Japanese and Koreans. My uncles fought the Vietnamese. Things change. 
 

but I appreciate the acknowledgment that it isn’t black and white. I’m not a Putin fan. He’s a bad dude. But I don’t want US involvement…because as bad as Putin is WW3 is an order of magnitude worse. 

Committing air power to Ukraine won’t lead to escalation?