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soy posted:I’d bet they’d do more raids than bombing since collateral damage on a bordering nation would have some pretty bad optical qualities. Better or worse than locking kids in cages and letting some of them die?
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Dec 31, 2019 13:11
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Previous protests in Iraq were largely over corruption, lack of civil services, and protesting against too much Iranian influence in Iraqi government/forces. Iran blamed some of the protest on general Iraqi government incompetence and some on anti-Iran US -led agitation or info ops. Other reporting: Now a US contractor was killed in a volley of katyusha rocket attacks (rocket attacks have been getting more common in Iraq lately), and the US responded by bombing targets, including militias inside of Iraqi territory. Iraq’s PM was notified very shortly (minutes) before the strike and objected to the strikes, but the US carried them out anyway. Bonus: The Iraqi PM is the ultimate lame duck because he already offered to resign over the first round of protests, but there’s no identified replacement yet afaik. Regardless, Iraq has a real vested interest in not becoming the battlefield between US and Iranian forces, so they have a very rough and complicated hand to play.
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Dec 31, 2019 14:43
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Iran is by proxy attacking a US embassy? Everyone is getting into 80s nostalgia these days.
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Dec 31, 2019 15:00
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Ehhhhhh i doubt Iran called up KH and told them to storm the embassy, lotta ways for that to go wrong. KH has been doing their own thing for a while, they've been stealing, kidnapping, doing mafia type poo poo with little to no repercussions for a while. They really don't like the Tahir Square protesters. There's a bunch of English language Iraqi twitter accounts I follow which have way better explanations of what's going on. Edit: it's important to note that the previous Iraq protests and the current group storming the embassy hate each other.
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Dec 31, 2019 15:12
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This is an amusing story to end the year with: Released files show how Canadian Military dealt with Pokemon Go in 2016 Some choice bits: quote:Most of the emails expressed curiosity and confusion about the new game. also phrasing, my dude quote:When a man was stopped on CFB Borden, documents show he was playing Pokemon Go and told officers "I have to beat my kids [get more points]." Really the main gist of it after the initial confusion was fairly positive quote:At CFB Petawawa, one location where Pokemon Go players retrieved virtual items was at the Garrison Museum. quote:Rear Admiral Newton addressed the Pokemon generally in an email, writing: "Life and work are best accomplished if there is good fun, health and friendship.
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Dec 31, 2019 18:16
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That is a sickeningly wholesome perspective
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Dec 31, 2019 19:03
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aphid_licker posted:That is a sickeningly wholesome perspective Well its either that or sex cannibals with the CF
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Dec 31, 2019 19:05
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Did someone say SP-MAGTF-CR-CC? https://twitter.com/centcom/status/1212084008655446017?s=21
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Dec 31, 2019 20:52
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Is this going to be a Fall of Saigon airlift situation?
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Dec 31, 2019 20:57
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Kesper North posted:Is this going to be a Fall of Saigon airlift situation? If we're lucky, then yes and we can declare the whole thing a loss and move on. That's how it works with these wars, right?
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Dec 31, 2019 21:08
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I would be ok with the US saying gently caress it and getting out but we all know that’s not going to happen.
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Dec 31, 2019 23:04
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aphid_licker posted:That is a sickeningly wholesome perspective It's par for the course for RAdm Newton. He's a pretty decent man.
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Jan 1, 2020 03:21
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TK-42-1 posted:I would be ok with the US saying gently caress it and getting out but we all know that’s not going to happen. Already happened once when Obama withdrew pretty much everything. The Iraqi government cut out Sunni representation shortly after, poo poo all over them for years, and ended up with simmering rebellion and ISIS, leading to the current (invited) US presence. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Jan 1, 2020 |
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Jan 1, 2020 04:44
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Vietnam 2: The Sands of Time
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Jan 1, 2020 04:47
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Someone roll that MV-22 footage: https://twitter.com/scavino45/status/1212243829052624896?s=21
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Jan 2, 2020 00:33
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The black smudges under the rotors: is that soot from the engines or was this infrared video and that's hot pavement?
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Jan 2, 2020 03:17
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Kesper North posted:The black smudges under the rotors: is that soot from the engines or was this infrared video and that's hot pavement? Infrared video in black-hot mode (usually used at night). The jet blast from V22s is probably like ~400C at idle Edit: odds are that video comes from a PTDS surveillance balloon with a wescam MX-20 EO/IR ball LibCrusher fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Jan 2, 2020 |
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Jan 2, 2020 03:25
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Kesper North posted:The black smudges under the rotors: is that soot from the engines or was this infrared video and that's hot pavement? Hydraulic oil. (answer above mine is the boring correct version).
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Jan 2, 2020 04:00
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Not like they care at this point, but what is that doing to the roof of the embassy?
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Jan 2, 2020 04:07
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goatsestretchgoals posted:Not like they care at this point, but what is that doing to the roof of the embassy? That's not the roof.
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Jan 2, 2020 04:13
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Isn’t the green zone ridiculously huge
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Jan 2, 2020 04:13
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TK-42-1 posted:Isn’t the green zone ridiculously huge The green zone is huge, but the embassy compound itself is 140 acres or so, which is large enough for a few Ospreys. The
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Jan 2, 2020 04:27
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If they get inside the embassy, we'll be embareassed.
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Jan 2, 2020 04:39
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I'd be willing to bet that the embassy staff still on the ground have been shredding or burning the poo poo out of documents and computer systems just to be on the safe side.
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Jan 2, 2020 05:59
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Fearless posted:I'd be willing to bet that the embassy staff still on the ground have been shredding or burning the poo poo out of documents and computer systems just to be on the safe side. Made me think of that Scene in Argo where Sgt Gord goes HAM on the comms gear in his combats (with combat cap!) Similar to 
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Jan 2, 2020 07:21
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priznat posted:Made me think of that Scene in Argo where Sgt Gord goes HAM on the comms gear in his combats (with combat cap!) I hated wearing those damned caps.
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Jan 2, 2020 09:09
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Fearless posted:I hated wearing those damned caps. They look pretty goddamn useless for sun, rain, whatever.
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Jan 2, 2020 09:14
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priznat posted:They look pretty goddamn useless for sun, rain, whatever. They kept the sun out of your eyes a bit, and protected the tops of your ears too, but they weren't much good overall for rain. I seem to recall there were flaps inside that folded out to cover your ears more fully, but I could be thinking of a different stupid cap.
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Jan 2, 2020 09:22
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priznat posted:They look pretty goddamn useless for sun, rain, whatever. Those are great for keeping the sun off your ears.
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Jan 2, 2020 13:20
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The fact that they sent in those Ospreys means that they were reasonably confident that noone was gonna light them up with a Dushka or something? Flying in there with something like that seems pretty risky. Or is the situation not quite that bad yet?
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Jan 2, 2020 14:39
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aphid_licker posted:The fact that they sent in those Ospreys means that they were reasonably confident that noone was gonna light them up with a Dushka or something? Flying in there with something like that seems pretty risky. Or is the situation not quite that bad yet? I think they were more concerned about Benghazi 2.0 than anything else, and that the loss of another US embassy would be far worse than the loss of an Osprey and some Marines.
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Jan 2, 2020 15:12
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This is coming from the NYT, but the author backs up his assertion with news reports. It's very  quote:Pig speculators (“chao zhu tuan”) — yes, there is a specific term for them — traveled to various households and villages to collect these pigs and ship them to other localities, enabling the disease to cross administrative borders and disseminate. In northern and central China, some speculators even deliberately tried to spread the disease by using drones to drop contaminated pork products into farms. After causing an outbreak, or at least sparking fears about one, speculators could buy pigs for cheap — then stockpile the animals for a time to create shortages locally and sell them only after the prices had gone back up. e: sources Chinese language English e2: and the farms are fighting back by disrupting GPS Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Jan 2, 2020 |
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Jan 2, 2020 18:17
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Nebakenezzer posted:This is coming from the NYT, but the author backs up his assertion with news reports. It's very Does the rule of law exist even as an idea in China?
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Jan 2, 2020 19:34
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A.o.D. posted:Does the rule of law exist even as an idea in China? Explicitly. (But the name and the practice don't rectify)
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Jan 2, 2020 19:39
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A.o.D. posted:Does the rule of law exist even as an idea in China? Yes, but you can quite literally buy your way out of punishment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_zui
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Jan 2, 2020 19:46
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A.o.D. posted:Does the rule of law exist even as an idea in China? Meh, the people doing the gaming are gangster but likely very well connected gangsters, so.......I don't feel smug
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Jan 2, 2020 20:04
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BIG HEADLINE posted:Yes, but you can quite literally buy your way out of punishment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_zui America would never stoop so low The Chinese give a ton of lip service to the idea of a rule of law.... particularly the fact that they claim to have invented it. that being said, their laws have to coexist with a whole lot of other concepts like family honor and corruption culture and the Chinese equivalent of wasta, so the application of said laws is at best wildly inconsistent and often completely hypocritical.
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Jan 2, 2020 20:12
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aphid_licker posted:The fact that they sent in those Ospreys means that they were reasonably confident that noone was gonna light them up with a Dushka or something? Flying in there with something like that seems pretty risky. Or is the situation not quite that bad yet? In the Army risk is associated with level of command, I'm assuming the Marines work the same way. So someone had to assess the risk and the appropriate level of officer signed off on it. That said, in Iraq I literally had my Company Commander tell me to re-work the risk assessment values so that fewer of our missions came out to medium risk missions requiring the BN CDR's signature. 10 years later in Afghanistan and every mission we did was assessed as "high" risk and required an O6's approval, even though it was the same mission set and basically the same amount of expected opposition. The assessment process is supposed to identify risks and come up with ways to lessen those risks. In reality it's a bunch of CYA eyewash. And don't get me started on the Army's new digital aviation risk assessment.
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Jan 2, 2020 20:13
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SimonCat posted:In the Army risk is associated with level of command, I'm assuming the Marines work the same way. So someone had to assess the risk and the appropriate level of officer signed off on it. Having never heard of this until now, can I say that sounds awkward and non-trivially pointless Like, doesn't the command structure do this anyway? A fire team can be risked by a lance corporal (or whatev), but whatever constitutes a full armored formation can be risked by a Colonel - if it is not already being risked by a decision above them?
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Jan 2, 2020 20:39
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bewbies posted:America would never stoop so low
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Jan 2, 2020 20:43
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