The US will lose WW3

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > The US will lose WW3

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

Raskolnikov38 posted:

basically nixon needed an excuse to delay the paris peace talks and continue bombing. one of his and kissenger's methods to accomplish this was to claim every person that was KIA - Body Not Recovered was actually MIA and then accuse North Vietnam of secretly holding them as prisoners and demanding their return before the talks could progress. North Vietnam was confused as to why the Americans were demanding them to turn over prisoners that they didnt have and never existed while Nixon got to go around saying he wanted to end the war but just couldn't until every American prisoner was returned. His administration also started doing massive media events of and with returned PoWs and these eventually coalesced into the PoW/MIA movement that continues today and still accuses Vietnam of holding long dead soldiers as prisoners.

Also this.

But the Epstein thread angle is that Nixon had done this before, manipulating the John Birch Society during the Korean War, over the issue of fictitious POWs.

# ? Sep 16, 2023 22:18

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# ? May 27, 2024 13:13

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Votskomit posted:

https://twitter.com/imetatronink/status/1702858454870941740?t=ybcHJeKLh49OniUGpbpwtg&s=19

I also said this in the Ukraine thread, but the US is not even remotely ready for a full-out conventional war with a peer competitor. Which is a huge loving problem because the US is also quite obviously attempting to provoke a war with China using Taiwan. It's insanity.

# ? Sep 16, 2023 22:24

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

Votskomit posted:

https://twitter.com/imetatronink/status/1702858454870941740?t=ybcHJeKLh49OniUGpbpwtg&s=19

i like how there's more words written about deception and ~~OSINT~~ unclassified intelligence then words written about industry (zero)

# ? Sep 17, 2023 00:02

500excf type r: Mar 7, 2013; I'm as annoying as the high-pitched whine of my motorcycle, desperately compensating for the lack of substance in my life.

Frosted Flake posted:

I can explain this if I have time this afternoon, but there were a bunch of decisions in the early 60's that led to this as they did not want to rotate actual combat units to Vietnam for "the duration", so they used the individual tours of duty. This ties into my earlier point because it's an absolutely garbage system from a military effectiveness, unit cohesion or soldier morale perspective, but politically bore the least cost. The rationale being that padding out troop numbers with a heterogeneous mix of draftees rotating home at irregular times would allow units to be in Vietnam for years, with only the headquarters staff actually having any sort of continuity, and so whole combat units from Germany would not have to be redeployed.

It led to there being, in a very real sense two US Armies in the 60's and 70's, as even the personal equipment, organization and weapons of troops in Germany differed from those in Vietnam, as well as personnel.

e: You can sort of compare this to the British Army in the 70's and 80's which had one army in Ireland and the BAOR, which were not mutually interchangeable.

ee: Or the French Army in Europe in the 50's and 60's which had entirely different equipment and organization, as well as personnel composition, than the one in Algeria and Indochina.

To date it has not worked for anyone but people keep attempting it.

eee: Or the Dutch KNIL, which went further and was officially different from the Royal Netherlands Army.

Seems to work for the french foreign legion

# ? Sep 17, 2023 00:15

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

500excf type r posted:

Seems to work for the french foreign legion

because the FFL has a self contained service culture and underlying ideology. The contemporary US Army has no Beau Geste, no romance of the sands, to draw the middle and upper classes disappointing sons, and no new name, new citizenship enticing Balkan war criminals.

# ? Sep 17, 2023 00:25

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

There have been plenty of high-profile cases of ICE deporting US veterans (or their families) who were either under the impression that service had made them citizens, had paperwork in the process to make them citizens, or were actually just citizens

# ? Sep 17, 2023 00:53

stephenthinkpad: Jan 2, 2020

So why did Nixon want to delay the peace talk, was it for re-election reason?

# ? Sep 17, 2023 01:41

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

stephenthinkpad posted:

So why did Nixon want to delay the peace talk, was it for re-election reason?

the North wanted the NLF to be part of a transitional government while Nixon was desperate to keep Thieu in power in order to claim that the US had successfully sustained South Vietnam. The North eventually had to drop this demand when Nixon launched rapprochement with the USSR and went to China in 1971-1972 and the North were faced with the possibility of their backers cutting ties.

# ? Sep 17, 2023 02:04

Mantis42: Jul 26, 2010

stephenthinkpad posted:

So why did Nixon want to delay the peace talk, was it for re-election reason?

I thought it was he wanted to re frame the negative narrative of losing a war into a positive narrative of the president standing firm for Are Troops

# ? Sep 17, 2023 04:45

stephenthinkpad: Jan 2, 2020

So you are saying Nixon wanted to have his cake and eat it, being one the first presidents to run from a war but didn't regarded as a loser.

# ? Sep 17, 2023 04:55

Officer Sandvich: Feb 14, 2010

Was watching NASCAR and one of the cars had BuildSubmarines.com as a sponsor. Relying on 15,000 different suppliers for submarine parts doesn't seem ideal but idk how that compares to other stuff.

# ? Sep 17, 2023 04:57

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

Mantis42 posted:

I thought it was he wanted to re frame the negative narrative of losing a war into a positive narrative of the president standing firm for Are Troops

Yeah, the POW thing explicitly became part of Nixon trying to reframe the war entirely. They had giant loving public events, it's surreal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6SqiGIlp6I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psxRjsHUS78

# ? Sep 17, 2023 05:24

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Mantis42 posted:

I thought it was he wanted to re frame the negative narrative of losing a war into a positive narrative of the president standing firm for Are Troops

Yeah it was supposed to create this image of North Vietnam being the aggressor against plucky little America

# ? Sep 17, 2023 05:36

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

Danann posted:

i like how there's more words written about deception and ~~OSINT~~ unclassified intelligence then words written about industry (zero)

That is not true. For example, it talks about how "transnational corporations" need to do the targeting and fires during war. That we need private-public partnerships on the battlefield. And that AI needs to train soldiers.

# ? Sep 17, 2023 09:41

Votskomit: Jun 26, 2013

A pretty long article with some interesting tidbits.

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-navy-spent-billions-littoral-combat-ship

Joaquin Sapien posted:

Our examination revealed new details on why the LCS never delivered on its promises. Top Navy leaders repeatedly dismissed or ignored warnings about the ships’ flaws. One Navy secretary and his allies in Congress fought to build more of the ships even as they broke down at sea and their weapons systems failed. Staunch advocates in the Navy circumvented checks meant to ensure that ships that cost billions can do what they are supposed to do.

Contractors who stood to profit spent millions lobbying Congress, whose members, in turn, fought to build more ships in their home districts than the Navy wanted. Scores of frustrated sailors recall spending more time fixing the ships than sailing them.

Our findings echo the conclusions of a half-century of internal and external critiques of America’s process for building new weapons systems. The saga of the LCS is a vivid illustration of how Congress, the Pentagon and defense contractors can work in concert — and often against the good of the taxpayers and America’s security — to spawn what President Dwight D. Eisenhower described in his farewell address as the “military industrial complex.”

Joaquin Sapien posted:

He was an unlikely candidate to begin a revolution in shipbuilding. With an undergraduate degree from Evangel College, a small Christian school in Missouri, and an MBA from the University of Arkansas, he hardly fit the mold of a prototypical chief of naval operations who was groomed for leadership from his earliest days at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

A self-professed “radical,” at times irreverent and impassioned, he wanted to run the Navy like a business, streamlining training, rooting out misspent dollars, retaining sailors who shined and getting rid of those who did not.

He believed the Navy needed a more cost-effective and technologically advanced fleet. Many of the Navy’s ships had been built during the Cold War. Massive carriers, destroyers, battleships and cruisers were facing retirement, in part because updating them with modern technology was prohibitively expensive, Clark said.

In keeping with his business background, Clark wanted as few people on the new ships as possible. “What I really want is an unmanned ship that’s got R2-D2 in it,” he said, recalling his thinking at the time.

quote:

In response to such concerns, the Navy lowered the price by pitting the two teams of contractors against each other in a bidding war. Austal and Lockheed Martin turned in two different ship designs with similar price tags. Navy leaders dithered over which to select.

quote:

Contrary to what Clark observed in Denmark, the various weapons systems would not be easy to swap out. The Navy hadn’t factored in the weeks it could take for all the contractors, sailors and others who were needed to fly in from around the world to help outfit the vessels for different missions.

# ? Sep 17, 2023 13:42

stephenthinkpad: Jan 2, 2020

Is it me or the navy is the only part of the US military that can push up some resistance to the MIC?

# ? Sep 17, 2023 13:49

DancingShade: Jul 26, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

stephenthinkpad posted:

Is it me or the navy is the only part of the US military that can push up some resistance to the MIC?

They built a ship that dissolved in water and current shipyard construction rate is basically below replacement level.

# ? Sep 17, 2023 15:25

Fish of hemp: Apr 1, 2011; A friendly little mouse!

Digital Jedi posted:

I would like to know more

Watch Rambo: First Blood part II.

# ? Sep 17, 2023 19:44

sullat: Jan 9, 2012

stephenthinkpad posted:

So why did Nixon want to delay the peace talk, was it for re-election reason?

I mean he had already sabotaged the peace process twice before, at that point it was just a tradition.

# ? Sep 17, 2023 20:22

galagazombie: Oct 31, 2011; A silly little mouse!

it�s so patently ridiculous that Vietnam would even want to have a thousands of dangerous prisoners they have to feed and house long after the war is over that it�s honestly depressing anyone could believe it.

# ? Sep 17, 2023 21:20

Mister Bates: Aug 4, 2010

people believed it so fanatically that there were multiple attempts in the 1980s to sneak into Vietnam or Laos to find and 'rescue' the prisoners they were allegedly still keeping, including one where they announced their starting location, date, and time, sold merch like flags and T-shirts to commemorate it, and were anticlimactically stopped by Laotian border police immediately and sent back

there were also Vietnam vets denouncing McCain as a traitor in 2008 for publicly stating he didn't think there were any live POWs still being held in Vietnam

Senator Jesse Helms went even further, and claimed in the early 1990s that not only was Vietnam still secretly holding American POWs, but that the Soviet Union - which was months away from ceasing to exist at that point - was also still secretly holding American POWs from the Korean War

# ? Sep 17, 2023 21:41

Slavvy: Dec 11, 2012

Mister Bates posted:

the Soviet Union - which was months away from ceasing to exist at that point - was also still secretly holding American POWs from the Korean War

Lol at the image of gorby running a retirement home for geriatric Korea vets

# ? Sep 17, 2023 21:45

stephenthinkpad: Jan 2, 2020

There are quite a few movies of cowboying into Vietnam to rescue POWs.

I am not into this genre so I can only name drop Rambo 2.

Also the entire Metal Slug franchises.

# ? Sep 17, 2023 22:16

Slavvy: Dec 11, 2012

Yeah I remember the time seal team 6 infiltrated Vietnam and shot down Saddam Hussein's mecha blimp

# ? Sep 17, 2023 22:21

Real hurthling!: Sep 11, 2001

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Joint Base Charleston says they are responding to a �mishap� involving a pilot being ejected from a plane on Sunday.

The incident involved a Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort F-35B Lighting II jet from Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 with the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, according to public affairs specialist Jeremy Huggins.

Huggins says the pilot was safely ejected and taken to a hospital where they are in stable condition.

In a tweet, the joint base also says they are looking for an F-35 that was involved and are asking for the public�s cooperation in locating it.

# ? Sep 18, 2023 00:10

Real hurthling!: Sep 11, 2001

have you seen this f-35?

# ? Sep 18, 2023 00:10

Slavvy: Dec 11, 2012

Real hurthling! posted:

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Joint Base Charleston says they are responding to a ‘mishap’ involving a pilot being ejected from a plane on Sunday.

The incident involved a Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort F-35B Lighting II jet from Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 with the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, according to public affairs specialist Jeremy Huggins.

Huggins says the pilot was safely ejected and taken to a hospital where they are in stable condition.

In a tweet, the joint base also says they are looking for an F-35 that was involved and are asking for the public’s cooperation in locating it.

Lol is this real? How did they lose a whole plane??

# ? Sep 18, 2023 00:21

Real hurthling!: Sep 11, 2001

a marine ejected by accident

# ? Sep 18, 2023 00:23

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

Should've put an air tag on it

# ? Sep 18, 2023 00:23

stephenthinkpad: Jan 2, 2020

It's a hit-and-run F35 with a fake license plate.

# ? Sep 18, 2023 00:24

ModernMajorGeneral: Jun 25, 2010

Real hurthling! posted:

have you seen this f-35?

Open Source SAR

# ? Sep 18, 2023 00:28

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

ModernMajorGeneral posted:

Open Source SAR

people in need of rescue have enough problems without you giving brown moses ideas

# ? Sep 18, 2023 00:43

Complications: Jun 19, 2014

Slavvy posted:

Lol is this real? How did they lose a whole plane??

it's a stealth plane innit

more seriously depending on what happened it might've gone down in the ocean so there'd be no giant pillar of fire marking the crash site

# ? Sep 18, 2023 00:44

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Slavvy posted:

Lol is this real? How did they lose a whole plane??

If they could find it, it wouldn't be very stealthy now would it

# ? Sep 18, 2023 00:50

Fell Mood: Jul 2, 2022; A terrible Fell look!

Real hurthling! posted:

a marine ejected by accident

We've all been there

# ? Sep 18, 2023 00:54

fits my needs: Jan 1, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Complications posted:

it's a stealth plane innit

more seriously depending on what happened it might've gone down in the ocean so there'd be no giant pillar of fire marking the crash site

maybe in a lake

https://twitter.com/TeamCharleston/status/1703541506915668242?s=20

# ? Sep 18, 2023 00:59

Horseshoe theory: Mar 7, 2005

Real hurthling! posted:

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Joint Base Charleston says they are responding to a �mishap� involving a pilot being ejected from a plane on Sunday.

The incident involved a Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort F-35B Lighting II jet from Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 with the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, according to public affairs specialist Jeremy Huggins.

Huggins says the pilot was safely ejected and taken to a hospital where they are in stable condition.

In a tweet, the joint base also says they are looking for an F-35 that was involved and are asking for the public�s cooperation in locating it.

"Broken Arrow" is reality, OP.

# ? Sep 18, 2023 01:04