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So the classified plan to attack Iran is apparently no where to be found, but do we know if it existed in the first place?
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Jun 4, 2023 16:28
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There ought to be a record of documents he checked out, I guess maybe one of those matches the description?
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Jun 4, 2023 16:47
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cr0y posted:So the classified plan to attack Iran is apparently no where to be found, but do we know if it existed in the first place? Pretty sure we have plans to attack everyone not in NATO and a few countries who are, and we've had plans like this for 50 years. Pretty sure most countries with a large military have the same thing. The military is supposed to be ready for anything.
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Jun 4, 2023 16:59
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If it does exist it may not be possible to publicly acknowledge it, which is kinda the entire point. The meeting is documented in Meadow's autobiography, even though only his assistants were at the meeting (?), but they wouldn't have been cleared for that information. Articles suggest it was discussed for 2min, that rustling papers can be heard, and that T claimed it suggested the Pentagon wanted to attack. Trump claims it was typed by Milley, but Milley presumably had informed military leadership to prevent Trump from issuing illegal orders at the end of his presidency. T therefore may have been falsely attributing, or just forgot and chose Milley's name, but it seems like the intent was "Ha Milley says he wants to wait but here's the report from he himself that says we should bomb the duck out of them, liar Liar! pants on fire! I want to bomb them don't listen to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs who doesn't agree with me me me!" Whatever the case, people in the room weren't cleared for the material being claimed, and T stated the security level, and that he wasn't supposed to have it, and that he should have declassified it, all of which point to knowledge of actions and intent. Note that for any country, there are likely dozens of attack plans from the Pentagon, CIA, etc.
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Jun 4, 2023 17:06
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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/grand-jury-trump-classified-documents-case-expected-meet-coming-week-h-rcna87599 Some are drawing parallels with the NY grand jury leading up to that indictment. The Smith Grand jury has been relatively inactive and historically information is reported after they act (deposed So-and-So). This announcement of "meeting”, with no stated purpose, could signal that work has concluded. Speculatively.
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Jun 4, 2023 17:15
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StumblyWumbly posted:Pretty sure we have plans to attack everyone not in NATO and a few countries who are, and we've had plans like this for 50 years. Slightly off-topic, but I recently heard a good point that one of the reasons the US uses it's military so much is because it has contingency plans for lots of things, and can rapidly develop plans it doesn't have. Contrast with other Federal agencies which just... don't. Heck, FEMA struggles to get toilet paper to states and territories in hurricane country. Policy makers will often grab at any plan over no plan, even if it's a bad plan.
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Jun 4, 2023 18:52
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Staff planning is also a deliberately cultivated skill so might as well get some collateral remits out of the effort already being expended.
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Jun 4, 2023 19:02
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StumblyWumbly posted:Pretty sure we have plans to attack everyone not in NATO and a few countries who are, and we've had plans like this for 50 years. the USA has plans to attack and invade the territory of every drat country on the face of the earth + antartica and probably the moon. Note I say territory, the US isn't planning on invading say the British Isles, but if somehow Russia or someone does a surprise gank invasion of the UK and actually pulls it off, the US wants to be ready to go right back in.
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Jun 4, 2023 20:22
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Ynglaur posted:Slightly off-topic, but I recently heard a good point that one of the reasons the US uses it's military so much is because it has contingency plans for lots of things, and can rapidly develop plans it doesn't have. Contrast with other Federal agencies which just... don't. Heck, FEMA struggles to get toilet paper to states and territories in hurricane country. Policy makers will often grab at any plan over no plan, even if it's a bad plan. I think it's more a function of funding. That is, even if it's not something the military knows how to do, it's willing to come up with a half-assed scheme and throw around a ton of money to contractors and sub-contractors with little worry about an audit that will have real consequences. Also, I think there's a functional difference between having a war plan and having the reports and information necessary to make a war plan. A war plan requires you to know what forces you'll have available and the reality is if you're planning a theoretical invasion, you can't really adequately plan if you don't know what forces you'll have at hand.
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Jun 4, 2023 20:40
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AtomikKrab posted:the USA has plans to attack and invade the territory of every drat country on the face of the earth + antartica and probably the moon. Note I say territory, the US isn't planning on invading say the British Isles, but if somehow Russia or someone does a surprise gank invasion of the UK and actually pulls it off, the US wants to be ready to go right back in. You don't have to go back that far to find the US with documented plans for invading Canada and Canada with corresponding plans to fight an American invasion. Designing that stuff is how you keep your military strategists busy and skilled in peacetime, and when you make the plan you write it down. It's rude to bring it up in public of course, and of worse to show off/sell/etc. But the question is just whether Trump did that, or if he just saw/heard of plans and thought it'd make a good story to tell.
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Jun 4, 2023 20:55
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Killer robot posted:You don't have to go back that far to find the US with documented plans for invading Canada and Canada with corresponding plans to fight an American invasion. Designing that stuff is how you keep your military strategists busy and skilled in peacetime, and when you make the plan you write it down. It's rude to bring it up in public of course, and of worse to show off/sell/etc. But the question is just whether Trump did that, or if he just saw/heard of plans and thought it'd make a good story to tell. There is some reporting that these plans weren’t just general thought problem stuff but specific plans to hit some targets as retribution for that missile attack Iran launched into Iraq at US forces toward the end of Trumps term. Don’t know what the targets were or how detailed the plan was but regardless it’s some sensitive stuff to walk around with and wave at people to brag about how big your dick used to be. Whether it’s actionable intel that’s now compromised or weapons capabilities that can be countered or just international relations being fubar’d, whatever it is, just makes the current and potentially future presidents jobs just that much harder.
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Jun 4, 2023 21:44
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Killer robot posted:You don't have to go back that far to find the US with documented plans for invading Canada and Canada with corresponding plans to fight an American invasion. Designing that stuff is how you keep your military strategists busy and skilled in peacetime, and when you make the plan you write it down. It's rude to bring it up in public of course, and of worse to show off/sell/etc. But the question is just whether Trump did that, or if he just saw/heard of plans and thought it'd make a good story to tell. I think Michael Moore made a documentary on this. “Canadian Bacon” if I recall the name properly.
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Jun 4, 2023 22:11
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Murgos posted:There is some reporting that these plans weren’t just general thought problem stuff but specific plans to hit some targets as retribution for that missile attack Iran launched into Iraq at US forces toward the end of Trumps term. Is there any evidence for them being discrete from the reported attack plans he had then, the ones that were 50-odd religious and cultural sites like a turn-one war crimes bingo blackout?
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Jun 4, 2023 23:06
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V-Men posted:I think it's more a function of funding. That is, even if it's not something the military knows how to do, it's willing to come up with a half-assed scheme and throw around a ton of money to contractors and sub-contractors with little worry about an audit that will have real consequences. I think the planning also tends to make things orderly and slow things down in a good way. I heard that the President can't just call up the military and tell them to nuke someone, he has to say "I order you to execute plan NK-Alpha, where we nuke North Korea". If he wants to do something where there is no plan, like bomb every mosque in Iran, he needs to first tell folks to make the plan, then order them to execute it. Maybe the plan needs to be updated based on present-day situation, too, idk. It could be that Trump got angry like a big dumb baby, asked the military to come up with war-crime plan, was talked down in the intervening time, and now he just has the plan. Or it could be he kept one of the standing plans we have for invading Iran. We probably have several.
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Jun 5, 2023 00:23
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V-Men posted:I think it's more a function of funding. That is, even if it's not something the military knows how to do, it's willing to come up with a half-assed scheme and throw around a ton of money to contractors and sub-contractors with little worry about an audit that will have real consequences. I disagree. I don't think it has to do with funding, but with culture. The US military has its challenges, but something it's very, very good at is planning on very large scales. The argument I've seen brought up is that the US State Department should be just as good at planning its activities. It is not.
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Jun 5, 2023 00:30
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Yeah, the US military doesn’t ever get enough credit for how well they logistically did when they pulled out of Afghanistan.
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Jun 5, 2023 00:43
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Well, the sustainment of the preceding couple decades was something
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Jun 5, 2023 01:38
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Ynglaur posted:I disagree. I don't think it has to do with funding, but with culture. The US military has its challenges, but something it's very, very good at is planning on very large scales. The argument I've seen brought up is that the US State Department should be just as good at planning its activities. It is not. Also, there is a clarity of mission (to a degree) with the military. Win a war with X country with our stuff and how do you go about it. If you are FEMA as the counter example is how do you deal with a natural disasters of unknown size, strength, and destruction and also get the locality to buy into what you are doing. FEMA, to their credit does run a tabletop programs across the states to get local people thinking about emergency situations but their mandate is fairly broad.
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Jun 5, 2023 01:58
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There’s also not an entire political party dedicated to never letting the Army do anything ever. If I could vote in some generals who love sending cavalry charges of tanks over a cliff, they might be significantly more comparable.
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Jun 5, 2023 02:37
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The military is more effective than the civilian government right now because it's not especially subject to political pressure, so it can do empirically smart things, that are well-reasoned and well-researched, instead of stupid political bullshit. They don't need to impress donors because their support from the public is so strong that their funding is never in question. It's also, you know, an authoritarian organization that strips most rights from its members and dictates every facet of their lives, and of which the explicit purpose is to kill people, so we wouldn't want them running the country, but yeah, they can get poo poo done. Xiahou Dun posted:There’s also not an entire political party dedicated to never letting the Army do anything ever. Some Gallup Stuff: - 88% think the military either should be stronger or is of the right amount of strength, with only 11% saying it should be weaker. - 68% of respondents think it is important that the US have the most powerful military in the world. - 64% of respondents have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the military, while 26% have "some" confidence. - In a good example of "Jesus Christ do people believe insane things," only 51% of respondents think the US is "the No. 1 military in the world," vs. 47% who think it's "one of several leaders." - In 2018, 45% preferred increased military spending, 31% thought it was a good level, and only 22% wanted it cut. - Perhaps somewhat problematically, the public holds Marines in much higher esteem than any other branch. (I suppose they do face the most physical danger, but they also commit the most violence and have the most toxic culture.) - 67% think the US will use its military to fight on a regular basis over the next 20 years. - 61% say war is "sometimes necessary" vs. only 37% who say it is an outdated and unnecessary form of conflict resolution. - Here's one of those poll results Leon loves that is totally in conflict with the others: 66% think the US should only engage its military if it's attacked first. Most of these numbers are better (as in, less pro-military) than they were in the Bush era, and much better than they were post-Vietnam, but yeah, don't expect pacifism to show up in either party platform any time soon. If we did have a pacifist party, they would likely perform very poorly. There are anti-interventionist politicians in both parties, and maybe they will gain a foothold eventually. Our relationships with China and Russia would have to vastly improve before people would be generally comfortable with a little austerity at the Pentagon. e: sorry, thought I was in USCE, this is pretty off-topic for this thread Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Jun 5, 2023 |
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Jun 5, 2023 15:42
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I think it was the Modern War Insitute podcast, or maybe it was the Social Science of War podcast (both out of West Point), but if you dig into the domestic popularity of the US military apparently a significant portion comes from the fact that it has been and remains one of the best means of socio-economic mobility in the US. It's not popular because it's the winningest or anything; it's popular because it gives the poor a path to the middle class (such as it still exists in the US). In a poor effort to reel my derail in and back to the thread, I think that's something Trump fundamentally misunderstood about the military. He simply has no concept of an egalitarian meritocracy, which the US military often is and usually aspires to be.
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Jun 5, 2023 15:56
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Ynglaur posted:I think it was the Modern War Insitute podcast, or maybe it was the Social Science of War podcast (both out of West Point), but if you dig into the domestic popularity of the US military apparently a significant portion comes from the fact that it has been and remains one of the best means of socio-economic mobility in the US. It's not popular because it's the winningest or anything; it's popular because it gives the poor a path to the middle class (such as it still exists in the US). I'd be interested to see sourcing on that, in part because there's a much simpler explanation for the military's popularity: enormous amounts of pro-military propaganda from pretty much all of our major institutions, combined with the active suppression and silencing of anti-military views whenever a significant war is happening. Remember the stories of people publicly thanking Iraq War vets for their service when they were home on leave, and poo poo like that? People weren't doing that because they admired the soldiers' economic mobility, they were doing that because they'd been influenced by decades of militaristic propaganda that lionizes soldiers as selfless citizen-heroes sacrificing themselves in the name of public service. The fact that you consider the US military to be an egalitarian meritocracy is an excellent example of just how effective this propaganda has been. In fact, the US military has massive discrimination issues, just like civilian life. It's just better at keeping those issues out of the public perception, thanks to its general separation from civilian life, restrictions placed on soldiers that make it difficult for them to cause a public ruckus about it, disciplinary systems with plenty of experience at covering up malfeasance, and a massive wall of public propaganda that drowns out any negative information. The officer corps is whiter than the enlisted ranks are, and the higher you look in the ranks, the more disproportionately white it becomes. That's not egalitarian or meritocratic, it's the same old poo poo you see in private life. Of course, racism is hardly the military's only discrimination issue. Sexism is rampant in the US military, and sexual assault is by all accounts extremely widespread and generally poorly addressed. The US military certainly likes to present itself as egalitarian and meritocratic, but so do most other US institutions - after all, those are values that are generally respected in US culture (though different people interpret them in different ways, of course) and therefore are excellent targets for propaganda campaigns.
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Jun 5, 2023 17:13
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Didn’t see this posted but it looks like things are getting close to resolution on the documents investigation. https://twitter.com/costareports/status/1665722395095605248?s=46&t=bfbUdXZ7wtKr5Ce8r1pCkQ
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Jun 5, 2023 17:27
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^^[beaten] Several factors coming together seem to have the news shows speculating this is an important week in the classified documents case. It's been about a month since the DC GJ activity ceased with some high-profile witnesses seen testifying and the information about the Trump tapes was leaked in the interim. The DC GJ is now reported to be meeting this week, after that break; and speculation is Jack Smith may be close to a charging decision. The GJ may be voting on those charges, which would then be released under seal, during the session this week. After the indictments are filed, you would expect arraignment, pre-trial motions, and the beginning of discovery to begin soon. Another hint comes from Trump's attorneys having a meeting with DOJ just now (literally in the last hour as I type this) in DC. Some believe this is another indication charging could be imminent, though to be fair the meeting is a result of Trump's lawyers' complaints (remember, some of them might be facing charges themselves for signing statements to DOJ which later proved to be false). Some are saying it's procedure for lawyers to be granted a meeting with DOJ as charging is close. It's obviously difficult to imagine actual indictments happening on any time-table, especially considering there is still no new information about Mark Meadows. That's the big one for me, as the one thing I really took away from the Jan. 6th Cmte. hearings was how central Meadows is to everything Trump did while in office. Less so in the documents case, but still. Trump’s lawyers meet with Justice Department officials following complaints about special counsel probe: quote:
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Jun 5, 2023 17:31
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My Attorneys Got Amunity
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Jun 5, 2023 17:41
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StumblyWumbly posted:Pretty sure we have plans to attack everyone not in NATO and a few countries who are, and we've had plans like this for 50 years. They do this for practice a lot fo the time. Drafting up a hypothetical plan to invade Canada involves most of the same skills as drafting a plan to invade Iran, so when US planners need to refine their plans, they'll often use allies as a target because they can then compare their plan to things like local troop strengths that they weren't given in the partial planning phase to see their accuracy.
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Jun 5, 2023 19:58
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Main Paineframe posted:I'd be interested to see sourcing on that, in part because there's a much simpler explanation for the military's popularity: enormous amounts of pro-military propaganda from pretty much all of our major institutions, combined with the active suppression and silencing of anti-military views whenever a significant war is happening. Remember the stories of people publicly thanking Iraq War vets for their service when they were home on leave, and poo poo like that? People weren't doing that because they admired the soldiers' economic mobility, they were doing that because they'd been influenced by decades of militaristic propaganda that lionizes soldiers as selfless citizen-heroes sacrificing themselves in the name of public service. I think this is an excellent point that is not going to come up on a podcast out of West Point.
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Jun 5, 2023 20:16
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Can you have prosecutorial misconduct without a prosecution? If they don't like the GJ subpoena's they should fight them in court. Oh, wait, they have and they keep losing so there doesn't seem to be anything that can be pointed to that could be characterized as 'unfair' when the court system seems to have ruled repeatedly that it's entirely fair. Anyway, the whole point of a special counsel is that the AG has minimal oversight over them other than their reports and the potential to maybe countermand a charging decision which Garland has said he will not do so whining to Garland that this is so unfair seems pretty pointless. Whining to someone not Garland himself seems even more pointless.
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Jun 5, 2023 21:12
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https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1665812869143748608
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Jun 5, 2023 21:31
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"Huh, whoopsiedoodle, had the drain valve set to "Purge all evidence" instead of "Purge to ocean". Ah well, mistakes happen, amIright?"
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Jun 5, 2023 21:38
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LMAO. Because that's how plumbing works.
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Jun 5, 2023 21:53
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Weird that the pool consisted entirely of hard drive melting acid, but I guess it makes sense why they had to drain it.
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Jun 5, 2023 22:01
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It’s even more ridiculous and damning the same maintenance worker was also helping Walt Nauta move those boxes.
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Jun 5, 2023 22:04
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DeadlyMuffin posted:I think this is an excellent point that is not going to come up on a podcast out of West Point. I think it was this one. https://mwi.usma.edu/army-service-and-talent-management-in-the-all-volunteer-era/ While the reply made some excellent points, I think "it's only racism" is an inaccurate reductionism for why the point that socio-economic mobility being one of the reasons for the military's popularity could itself be incorrect. There's more than one thing which can and does contribute to such support. If there's a better thread for this derail let me know and I'll move the conversation there.
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Jun 5, 2023 22:13
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This is what a small child would come up with.
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Jun 5, 2023 22:22
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But her emails But her servers But her wiping hard drives It's seriously ALWAYS projection. I seriously hope they were too stupid to properly destroy the drives and the data can be recovered.
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Jun 5, 2023 23:30
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Sorry for the double post but my app is completely loving borked at the moment and I can't edit for some reason. I'm seeing it start to be reported that Trump's lawyers were in fact meeting with Smiths people today and well.... 
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Jun 5, 2023 23:44
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cr0y posted:
It must be really bad because that meltdown doesn't even have any connective tissue between words.
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Jun 5, 2023 23:54
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He keeps calling it a witch hunt, so that's admission that he's a witch, and what do we do with witches? Hint, we don't build bridges out of them. (Having trouble finding a nice betting site, not to bet durr, just to see the over/unders on which day he gets indicted.)
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Jun 5, 2023 23:59
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You can't blame trump for misunderstanding "liquid cooled"
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