DirkDiggler
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Posts posted by DirkDiggler
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12 hours ago, JimNtexas said:
“ No US presidential administration has collapsed/resigned for a large military failure, attack, …”.
Tell that to President Carter.
Also
LBJ ending his bid for re-election in '68 is probably the closest the US Executive branch has come to a president resigning due to a massive foreign policy or military failure (the Tet offensive in '68 being what the media latched onto). LBJ also had several domestic issues brewing at the time that probably also played into his eventual decision to not seek re-election; tough to definitively say Vietnam was a single driving factor, though it was probably the biggest.
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44 minutes ago, DUNBAR said:
Lots of great insights, Dirk. I think where we will agree to disagree is:
1. I suspect this will hurt our long-term national security more than we want to admit. Securing the cooperation of NATO partners and regional partners in peacekeeping operations and small-to-mid-scale conflicts is going to be more challenging. This was a truly embarrassing sequence of events, and our friends and allies are giving us a well-deserved WTF. Can you imagine trying to depose the next Saddam or Al Qaeda? "Hey! Who's with us? France? Brits? Canada? C'mon everybody! Follow us! Guys? Hello?"
2. I harbor no illusions a president will ever resign (unless the impeachment votes are there). But I do wonder how catastrophic something can be before Senators and Congressmen gently nudge a president out the door.
3. I certainly don't expect our government to know exactly where every American is or was in a place like AFG, but if you followed the numbers coming from the administration, it was borderline absurd. How many Americans were there in mid-August? 4,000? 8,000? 12,000? Who the heck knows?
4. I don't believe this failure is comparable to Pearl Harbor, or Desert One, or Beirut, or any of the others. So many of those were diabolical surprise attacks, or immediate, short-term military setbacks. AFG was such a series of appalling failures that it's little wonder the conservative blogosphere is half-jokingly accusing the administration of working directly for China. This was simply horrible.
In the end, though, history never seems to follow that predictable, logical arc we expect it to.
Fair enough, I still like to think people can respectfully talk disagree, even in this day and age. To your point #2 though, I'd have a follow up. I hold/have very little for anything any member in Congress says about Afghanistan for the simple fact that most of them (too lazy to look up the exact number, but I know its small) have abdicated their collective duty to declare war.
Almost none of them were in Congress in 2001 and voted for the AUMF that put our guys into Afghanistan in the first place. So they all sit and make the rounds of the talking heads on whatever flavor of network they like, without being held accountable to their constituents for their views/beliefs on keeping us in combat. I'd have a lot more respect for the institution if there was a large scale push to re-visit the AUMF, declare war on the Taliban, or anything that puts them officially on the board with a vote that says they either support or do not support the war in Afghanistan.
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On 8/28/2021 at 8:27 AM, Clark Griswold said:
Just listened to this and would highly recommend.
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5 hours ago, DUNBAR said:
I find it weird that we accept the fact that we're allegedly the world hyperpower, and the Taliban are the ones giving all the orders.
I find it weird that the withdrawal was planned in such an appallingly catastrophic fashion.
I find it weird that the administration was absolutely obsessed with meeting some meaningless deadline.
I find it weird that no one can seem to nail down how many Americans were in Afghanistan, how many were airlifted, and how many were truly left behind.
I find it weird that the Taliban allegedly offered us the opportunity to police and secure Kabul, and we said, "No thanks."
I find it weird that leaving any number of Americans behind is acceptable to this administration.
I find it weird that so little effort was made to disable or destroy the military hardware left behind.
I find it weird that we seemingly made so little effort to prioritize American evacuees ahead of Afghanis.
I find it weird that a presidential administration could survive this calamity.
I find it weird that the administration claims they had no inkling the AFG government would collapse in this manner, but that is constantly being proven false.
I find it weird that the President told the press we are not leaving until every American who wants to leave is airlifted, and today...meh. What can you do? Americans are stranded overseas all the time.
I find it weird (no offense meant) that people like you think there is nothing weird about all of this.
I find it weird that we accept the fact that we're allegedly the world hyperpower, and the Taliban are the ones giving all the orders.
If we're being honest, this hasn't been the case for the last 10-15 years. Whether you use the term unipolar or "sole remaining superpower (haven't heard the term hyperpower used before) the US is no longer the single most dominant country across the entire globe anymore. Spending 20 years pissing away our blood, sweat, and treasure in places like Afghanistan and Iraq hasn't helped matters on this front at all (China has caught up and even surpassed us in many ways). Whether you agree with it or not, the USA decided to accept a negotiated settlement to get out of this war. The Taliban won (terrible on the tongue to say but true) and as such they're getting to dictate certain things.
I find it weird that the withdrawal was planned in such an appallingly catastrophic fashion.
Agreed, though the really difficult part for me to accept is how CENTCOM seemed so unprepared. CENTOM's staff is enormous, especially compared to some other COCOMs. CENTCOM also has more given/delegated authorities than any other COCOM. How did they not adequately plan for this and not see it coming. Did we as a military refuse to believe that Afghanistan would fall so quickly? After 10-15 years of "just give us another year, we'll turn the tide" etc etc, were we truly unable to see that the thing we invested 20 years worth of effort in would collapse so quickly?
I find it weird that the administration was absolutely obsessed with meeting some meaningless deadline.
Agreed, the arbitrary withdrawal date unfortunately accelerated the dicknannagans seen at the end.
I find it weird that no one can seem to nail down how many Americans were in Afghanistan, how many were airlifted, and how many were truly left behind.
This doesn't surprise me at all. Ever been part of a NEO? It's actually very difficult for State to track all the American citizens present in any country all the time. If they don't register with the Embassy and aren't part of any US government presence it's pretty hard to keep track of all American's in any country, especially a third world, limited comms shithole like Afghanistan that's collapsing on itself. Any number the US government comes up with is unfortunately always going to have a median associated with it.
I find it weird that the Taliban allegedly offered us the opportunity to police and secure Kabul, and we said, "No thanks."
I don't find this weird at all (I'm also honestly skeptical that this is even true). I'm not a ground guy, but how many troops do you think it would take to secure a city the size of Kabul? It took 5,000 just to secure the airport. 20-40,000 is my guess. How long would it take us to get that many troops in place. Sure isn't going to happen in a couple days. And then what? The Afghan government had already collapsed and fled. What are we going to do once our people are out? Try to install a new government? Give the keys to the Taliban? Continue to secure a large city where all the government workers are streaming for the exit while a massive humanitarian crisis brews? And what level of casualties would we have been willing to accept to make that happen?
I find it weird that leaving any number of Americans behind is acceptable to this administration.
Agreed, though see my 4th comment above. There was probably always still going to be some American still on the ground after the last C-17 was wheels up. Additionally, this isn't the first time Americans have been left behind in a conflict and, also unfortunately, probably won't be the last.
I find it weird that so little effort was made to disable or destroy the military hardware left behind.
I don't find this weird. We de-mil'ed the big ticket stuff (helicopters. airplanes) that were still in our control. Stuff they captured after the ANA folded like HUMMVEEs, MRAPs, the one UH-60 will be broken down and unserviceable within a year or sooner (my Army friends have gotten some good chuckles out of them parading that stuff around). Another 20,000 captured M-4s isn't going make the Taliban more or less capable. And honestly what was/is the alternative? Tank plink every captured vehicle, potentially inside cities surrounded by civilians? Keep the war going to destroy material that won't be usable soon anyway? The only way to truly make sure nothing was left to the Taliban would have been to either keep the war going or to never equip the ANA in the first place.
I find it weird that we seemingly made so little effort to prioritize American evacuees ahead of Afghanis.
Agreed, though I think some of the efforts to retrieve Americans was kept out the media/conducted clandestinely. BLUF is it was a planning failure and could/should have been done better.
I find it weird that a presidential administration could survive this calamity.
This has been one of the oddest talking points I've seen kicked around in the media and on social media since this withdrawal started going pear shaped. No US presidential administration has collapsed/resigned for a large military failure, attack, or loss of life since the transformation of the US into a global power. FDR didn't resign after Pearl Harbor. Truman didn't resign after the US forces in Korea were almost wiped out around Busan. JFK didn't resign after the Bay of Pigs. Ford didn't resign after Saigon and the SS Mayaguez incident (US Marines were left behind there). Carter didn't resign after Desert One. Reagan didn't resign after the Beirut barracks bombing. Clinton didn't resign after Mogadishu. Bush didn't resign after 9-11. Obama didn't resign after Benegazi. Trump didn't resign after Niger (admittedly those last two were smaller in scope, loss of life, and consequences on the world stage then some of the others I mentioned). BLUF is that there's a way things like this have been handled by the American people and government the past 75 years; its every four years at the ballot box.
I find it weird that the administration claims they had no inkling the AFG government would collapse in this manner, but that is constantly being proven false.
Agreed. Once again, were we truly unable to admit we had failed. Were we lying to ourselves?
I find it weird that the President told the press we are not leaving until every American who wants to leave is airlifted, and today...meh. What can you do? Americans are stranded overseas all the time.
Agreed, the flip-flopping of positions on this has been wrong and is bad.
I find it weird (no offense meant) that people like you think there is nothing weird about all of this.
As terrible as the last couple weeks have been, and as hard as it's been for me personally to start thinking about the fact that I'm going to be a veteran of a lost war, I don't think the sky is falling. Our allies aren't magically going to align themselves with Russia or China. The US economy isn't going to collapse from this loss. The US isn't going to fall into civil war or revolution over this. I've said it previously in this thread, moving forward, we (the US military) need to conduct a brutal debrief and maybe grow a generation of officers that will do everything in their collective power to stop us from ever getting involved in a war like this again.
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1 hour ago, busdriver said:
Please stop quoting the window licking moron. It defeats me blocking him.
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1 hour ago, torqued said:
This should get interesting.
"On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) has gone rogue to travel to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan on a rescue mission, in the face of multiple warnings not to do so from the Pentagon and State Department — and that nobody knows where he is."
https://www.rawstory.com/markwayne-mullin-afghanistan/
And Biden is probably done. He knew, and he wanted people to lie about it.
Interesting how? Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, if he gets rolled up trying some delusional one man Hollywood style "rescue mission" (without any military background whatsoever, according to the article) then I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't risk any of our guys' lives to get him back. All decisions have consequences.
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For anyone looking for solid books on our Afghanistan experience, I'd recommend the following:
The Outpost by Jake Trapper
The Hardest Place by Wesley Morgan
Directorate S by Steve Coll
All these can be very tough reads at times and since they were all written prior to us leaving the history/historiography may change with time but I found them all worth reading.
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12 minutes ago, jrizzell said:
One of the challenges we have as a nation, is our love of freedom, and assuming everyone in the world wants our version of society. Do I think there’s anything better, no. But if your country has never known “Western Democracy”, you won’t embrace it like we do.
I’m my opinion, the civilian and military leadership, ascribe to that US dominate worldview, and it shapes the decisions they support.
We need to divorce ourselves from endlessly “spreading democracy” across the globe. And just perform, limited and targeted ops.
Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile appI agree with you. I'm also hopeful (though it's way too early to tell) that maybe the experiences of the last 20 years in Afghanistan shape the next generation of military leaders (similar to Powell and Schwarzkopf after Vietnam) and that we don't get involved in nation building, "spreading democracy", etc anytime soon.
Unfortunately a lot of the retired generals that occupied top positions during OEF are already spouting "it was sustainable, if only we had another year", blah blah blah. I frankly think it's face saving bullshit and they don't want their names associated in the history books with commanding a lost war. I'll be very curious to see what the current sitting generals' narrative will be (if any) moving forward.
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15 minutes ago, jrizzell said:
This will 100% happen again…Why?
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https://time.com/6092818/iraq-afghanistan-unnecessary-wars/
Interesting opinion piece written by Karl Marlantes (if you haven't read the book Matterhorn I'd highly recommend it). I don't agree with everything he says in this piece but some of it definitely resonates with me.
Now that our brothers and sisters are finally out of that worthless excuse for a country, I truly hope the US military starts a serious, thorough internal look at why we went (fairly self explanatory), why we stayed, and why things ended the way they did. I don't believe history repeats itself but it does rhyme; if we don't generate an honest, brutal debrief this could happen again.
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14 minutes ago, Danger41 said:
I was going to let Guardian get to it but he’s not so I’ll just add the Paul Harvey rest of the story. The T-38 Sq/CC was fired for not wanting to give the Q-3’s, as well. I’ve got info from some folks there and there’s always more to the story but this is also an interesting detail that I’m sure will take this thread into a productive direction lol.
That's fucked up. Kuddos to the Sq/CC though for standing by his guys and not getting forced into giving Q3s he didn't believe were warranted.
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1 hour ago, MCO said:
I changed my settings so I don’t see his posts unless someone quotes him.
I’m still assuming he is MyCS/Shazam
I actually don't think its MyCS/Shazam. That guy was an idiot but he was really only paranoid about his immediate leadership and only on here to get some form of weird approval/acceptance that he was the smartest guy at his unit/base/the AF (which clearly wasn't the case). This guy's conspiracy theories are in a whole different galaxy of paranoia.
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2 hours ago, ClearedHot said:
Fair enough...some of those may be deserved in the Cud Chewing community.
However, was it in the middle when he crucified a U-28 bro with non-judicial punishment for losing his weapon then lost his own weapon in the shitter with ZERO consequences? How funny that his command chief found the weapon and returned it to him quietly.
Was it in the middle when he ran a CV-22 into the trees and tried to keep going...then almost dodged the Q-3 when everyone else got one? I've personally talked to someone on that flight who thought for sure "he was dead" when they almost flipped over into the trees.
I am far to close to the situation and know much of the inside baseball...He was toast but another maniac GO stepped in and told the boss "I can save and fix him." I was also in the room with that boss when he said "some people we can't let fail because they are so many years below the zone." They are so obsessed with making AFSOC/GOs they were willing to overlook a narcissistic lunatic.
Just so we don’t get it twisted, I’m not a fan of said individual. At all. Just saying that everyone always goes to the 28 CC directed Q3s as the primary reason he’s a raging asshole even though some of those were earned. He’s committed far greater douchebaggery above the Sq/CC level.
He actually gave NJP to 3 people for losing weapons, which made the karma on that one all the more amusing. Anyone else would’ve been done after crashing the CV-22 the way he did but some people really are Teflon I guess.
Tracking on how close you are to said situation/individual, if I’d been done that way I’d be pissed too. The one thing I can’t understand is how the current AFSOC/CC has tolerated his dicknannagans given that Slife is a pretty black and white guy on stuff like that. I think it’s real unfortunate that he’s probably going to be the next CC, cause he’s a pretty vindictive person and if/when he gets in the seat there will be blood.
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1 minute ago, ClearedHot said:
Sadly, yes. One of the worst humans I have ever met.
Agreed, and unfortunately my community has to claim him. Also unfortunate that he's most likely going to be the next AFSOC/CC.
I will say though that as with everything, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Some of those Q3s (duct taped antenna and flying over the red roofed inn specifically) were probably justified; if you ask the ACs on both those sorties they'll admit they fucked up.
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2 hours ago, ClearedHot said:
I see the toxicity continues.
A horrific sitting AFSOC three star gave double digit command directed Q-3s when he was a squadron commander.
Would you be referring to Cat 5?
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12 hours ago, Blue said:
This is likely inappropriate given the gravity of current events at Kabul today.
However, when I sit back here in my comfy office chair and daydream, I think about what could have happened over the past couple of weeks.
There was that brief several days (week?) after Kabul began to crumble, but before they closed the airport to commercial flights. Folks were getting on whatever they could. Watching FlightRadar24, a Turkish Airlines 777-300 seemed to be one of the last civi aircraft to get out (16 Aug).
Would have loved to see Trump have his 757 fly to Kabul to pick up a load of evacuees. The pics and video footage and accompanying chaos in the media would have been entertaining if nothing else.
I'm not an expert in 757-200 ops, but bet it could have done it in two legs from NYC.
Would be difficult, the plane in question is currently grounded in New Jersey missing an engine.
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Personal Opinion: Q3ing someone for that is fucking stupid/shortsighted.
What Big Blue is going to come back with: One of the Airfield Management AFIs (can't remember which one of the top of my head) specifically states that AF run airfields WILL have a controller available when aircraft are taking off or landing. I've seen this interpreted in different ways (I've seen STS meet the requirement, though they're actually controllers, I've also seen LZSOs been used as a substitute in limited cases) but at the end of the day that's probably what they're going to hang these guys on.
For some reason, outside of of AFSOC (and maybe AMC?) operations at uncontrolled airfields really gives AF leadership pause. I'm not sure why leadership doesn't believe in AF pilots' ability to operate at fields that solo student pilots routinely operate on but uncontrolled airfield ops just seems to give leadership pause. Even at Hurlburt right now, if the tower isn't open guys have to land at VPS or a another 24/7 airfield nearby even though we operate into/out of uncontrolled fields all the time (to be fair, HRT airfield management will always keep the tower open as late or early as needed to facilitate ops so long as they know about it ahead of time).
Quick relevant/sad story relating to this topic. When I was a young LT at Mildenhall, we did our ORI up at RAF Machrihanish (EGEC) which is an old RAF base, now a civilian field on an isolated peninsula in Scotland (if you're a Campbelltown Scotch fan this is the area it's from). We had a crew hit a really bad pocket of turbulence entering low level in the Highlands Restricted Area; it kicked one of the loadmasters up into the roof of the cargo compartment, when he came back down he landed on a roller and shattered his kneecap in 3 places. The AC elected to take the airplane back to RAF Lakenheath to get him to an American hospital (as I previously stated, Campeltown is a fairly remote area, the Brits would've had to taken him somewhere even if the crew landed back at EGEC). The Wg/CC at Lakenheath steadfastly refused to open the airfield for our airplane, stating it wasn't life, limb, or eyesight (which was very debatable), said to open the tower at Mildenhall and drive him by ambulance. When 352 SOG leadership told him our guys didn't care if the tower was open or not, he still refused, saying there was no one to turn on the airfield lights (we don't need them), no CFR (don't need that either), and no one to clear the runway (we can do that ourselves if need be). End of the day, we lost, our bird landed at Mildenhall, all because uncontrolled airfield ops was a bridge too far even in a medical emergency.
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6 hours ago, Prozac said:
Pics? Throw a little inspirational material to the rest of us bro!
Also FYI, don’t google hot COVID vaccinated squatting redhead from any government computer, it gets weird real quick.
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BLUF is its very possible, couple things to consider,
As SocialID mentioned, AETC will make you fill out a high-risk activities worksheet. Some UPT Flt/CCs may give you the stink eye about flying on your own time. Overall I wouldn't sweat this too much though.
Bigger issue is available time. You're gonna be pretty tired by the time Friday afternoon roles around and you most likely won't be able to get a sortie off the ground that day. If you're not studying at least half the day Sunday you're probably behind. So realistically, outside of long weekends/holidays there's just not that much time in the weekend for you to GA (Saturday is about it). Not saying you shouldn't do it, just that there's not all that much time off and your motivation some weekends might not be there.
Don't worry about GA flying interfering with UPT; the AF will teach you to fly the AF way and after a couple years it'll be refreshing to hop in a GA airplane and not deal with all the AF BS to snag a $100 hamburger.
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47 minutes ago, Prozac said:
Pics? Throw a little inspirational material to the rest of us bro!
Ask and yeh shall receive:
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35 minutes ago, D-ron said:
Why is this guy still here? Has he added even one positive contribution to a forum that is dedicated to air force pilots and aspiring pilots? Is he even a pilot? Don't feed the troll.
Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
Don’t let it get you you down man, do what most of us have done and block him on your user settings. And if that doesn’t center you, let this calming picture of a restrained beaver wash over you in an awesome wave.
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Guys,
I can't prove this 100% via science (but who listens to those nerds anyhow); I think that 4th COVID injection I got a couple days ago increased my girth!
So this morning I was getting in a quick pre-simulator jack and something just felt different. Fuller. More Bigger. Meatier. I'm about a solid 5/16" around on a good day but this morning things were really on the up and up. I've been maintaining my pretty standard diet of 1600 ounces of red meat/uncured bacon a week and nothing but pure unfiltered rainwater, or grain alcohol for fluids so I know its not diet related. Haven't changed my laundry detergent in awhile so I know its not that either.
Anywho, things were moving along in a pretty standard ops fashion when right as I was about to climax the woman who's three doors down from me in billeting (and who unbeknowst to me was silently watching from the bushes next to the window) yells out "oh what a lovely tea party" (I think she's got a head full of sick thoughts). Normally this would've been a complete turnoff for me but she's a ginger who looks like she can squat a good 300lbs so this really sent me to the next level.
In the immediate aftermath, you know, in the time where you're usually sitting there silently judging yourself for what you just did or watched, I thought, the world needs to know if its true. And things like this just don't get the right coverage in the MSM anymore. So I grabbed the tape measure I got for free from the FAC when they stopped doing abdominal circumference measurements on the PT tests (would've been a waste to have them throw it out) and quickly wrapped it around my still engorged member. Admittedly, it was a little difficult to read given that my vision was blurry from lack of O2 due to the belt still wrapped around my neck (always phenomenal to win the world's greatest race on a Monday right?) but I'm about 90% positive that it read a solid 0.5", or a total gain of 3/16" for all you public school grads out there.
I'll continue to provide updates here as I do more home "experimentation" but if anybody's still on the fence about this vaccine, after my morning all I can ask is what are you waiting for?
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48 minutes ago, uhhello said:
No issues with signals canceling themselves out?
Nah.
About 18 months ago I volunteered for a DoD pilot project to test body internal biometric dog tags/body location trackers. They surgically implanted 2 chips in me (primary and a backup). One of the nice things about the chips is they have an IBU function that deadens/CNXs other outside signals during uplink/downlink. I have no proof that that’s helping with the conflicting signals from the COVID vaccinations but that’s what I’m going with as a working hypothesis for now.-
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So I just got my forth COVID shot (2x Moderna through the military, 1x J&J, and just threw in 1xPfizer for the hell of it at the local Walgreens). No adverse side effects, got some extra solid gainz at the gym this morning, and honestly feel great. As an added bonus, my phone is currently crushing it on 6G.
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Finally done in Afghanistan?
in General Discussion
Posted
At this point I'm not sure whether there will be any resignations among the top brass. Several of the retired ones (McMaster and Petreaus specifically) associated with Afghanistan general officer leadership aren't currently taking any responsibility publicly. Right now the narrative seems to be "we did our duty, served honorably, if anyone's to blame its our civilian leadership" (the last part isn't being said openly by the active duty guys). There's probably an element of truth to this but in my opinion its far from the complete story.
Interesting book to read on the evolution of American generalship since WWII is The Generals by Thomas Ricks. The book only covers US Army generals and Ricks has some serious bias against the US military in many ways but its a very good read. I'll let you draw your own conclusions on what he has to say regarding US military senior leadership but I found it to be a pretty well researched and written study.