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Anytime I see the word "decimated" applied to anything that is not roughly or exactly 1 in 10 I lose my poo poo. I am just screaming at the monitor right now. And everything else. And everyone else. Update I'm single now.
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Mar 26, 2014 05:35
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One thing I'm wondering about is the demographics of Ukraine's military. The rate of defections from the Navy seems to indicate that possibly most of their soldiers* come from Russian areas. Ukraine could have a situation going on where the westerners go to the EU to work and the easterners stay and some join the military. *CORRECTION: Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen! Proper Nouns for Proper Heroes! Snowdens Secret posted:Second, and I think that's part of the problem, to be trite they've been conditioned to find solidarity in misery, and to wholeheartedly blame the West for problems in no small part due to their own leaders. Not the rich people who run Russia though. Just like how blocking Hennessy to North Korea probably matters more than blocking food. Best Friends fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Mar 26, 2014 |
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Mar 26, 2014 21:50
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Norway wants to get things done, they know who to send. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn-oemgzlEU
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Mar 29, 2014 19:46
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Otto Skorzeny posted:Are there any non-tinfoil sources that talk about this, whether supporting the idea or debunking it? Prima facie it sounds plausible given that Russia's entire force was sans-insignia. They had a bunch of eotech sights and other super nice gear, some of which is apparently only given to spetsnaz. Also they seemed pretty good in general, looking professional and continuously de-escalating on the fly, neither of which a regular unit can be trusted with. There was one guy who left his name tag visible and via social media he got tied however accurately to special forces but then again, internet "investigation." So no firm proof, but lots of circumstantial evidence as far as I'm aware.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:59
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Snowdens Secret posted:This is what you get when you don't occupy for 50 years. You don't see anyone in Japan trying to make it with little kids I have bad news.
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Apr 10, 2014 01:03
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Snowdens Secret posted:Looks like the Russians have moved into East Ukraine. Coordinated attacks on government buildings in multiple cities, by the same 'little green men' in matched uniforms with expensive new gear as in Crimea. Reports of seizures of armories and key rail depots. Based on what pictures are out, I think it's just a handful of Russian operatives amongst a bunch of militia yahoos. Militia yahoos most definitely under Russian control, but not the same Spetsnaz dudes we saw in Crimea. Lots of older gear, mismatched uniforms, poorly laced boots, cool-guy poses, and old fat men. I think it's a variation of the Crimean strategy, ramping up with the lunatic fringe rather than their own special operations. As for why, I'd assume either they had no choice, or they want their lunatic militia to go off the rails and start something. Or, they expect them to get arrested and they need the deniability.
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Apr 12, 2014 22:07
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Snowdens Secret posted:It is speculative at this point but again like I said it seems like they're deliberately exercising media control, presumably to slow (Western) response. That picture is literally the only picture of a guy there who matches though. The rest look like standard militia idiots: http://www.interpretermag.com/ukraine-liveblog-day-54-gunmen-storm-police-buildings-in-east-ukraine/#1733 edit: also I'm not sure that picture is even verified to be recent. It matches so exactly to Crimea I wonder if it is just a Crimean picture. The source seems to be some random twitter account with an unknown backer / agenda. Best Friends fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Apr 12, 2014 |
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Apr 12, 2014 22:53
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Pretty much all the "mysterious gunmen" of Crimea looked bored, professional, uniform, and had the latest and greatest Russian gear. I think Russia is behind this new group of armed men as well but I do not think this new group of armed men is primarily Spetsnaz, unless Spetsnaz has started accepting old fat bearded men and young men who don't know how to tie boot laces.
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Apr 12, 2014 23:21
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Godholio posted:Honestly my guess was a few days ago.
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May 3, 2014 00:56
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"I will make the internet faster" is going to be the guns god and religion of future American politics.
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May 16, 2014 23:30
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Tide posted:Apparently, they can't grasp that they could work while going to school and take a lower course load and graduate in 6 years instead of 4. A lot of schools including my own state's schools you are either paying full time tuition or you aren't, so if you want to get out of there with the least cost you want to go as fast as possible. Also, in addition to paying just tuition, there are a lot of other college-associated costs that decrease the faster one gets done with it. Also working while going to school sucks especially if you need to work beyond just "paying for the fun stuff" levels and more like "paying for food and rent." 40+ hours is exhausting especially the completely lovely jobs a 21 year old is qualified for.
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May 20, 2014 18:27
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Tide posted:
uh Tide posted:
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May 20, 2014 18:29
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I've yet to see a good article on why college costs keep going up, especially undergraduate. 100 people in a room that got paid off 70 years ago being taught by some TA making 12 bucks an hour somehow = exponential rise in fees over time assessed to those 100 people. Even in those rare rare classes where you have maybe 12 people facing an actual professor, that professor sure as hell is not taking a significant fraction of that cost.
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May 20, 2014 23:34
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When state schools say "we need tuition to go up" to their legislatures though, and post costs accordingly. http://www.washington.edu/discover/budget/ http://www.washington.edu/externalaffairs/files/2012/10/12_UW_Tuition_Increase.pdf If tuition rises are driven purely through supply and demand, as in "we can get more from these fuckers," then State colleges and universities across the country are engaging in literal, actual fraud in saying that their costs are rising. I am skeptical of assuming a widespread criminal conspiracy.
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May 21, 2014 00:54
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How does the tech dude for a contractor get this much secret information. I'm a low level operations dude for a public company and I would get investigated and canned long before I saved that much corporate information. There is clearly a problem with data access ability going on there.
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May 22, 2014 21:42
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Dead Reckoning posted:I think the dude is just a little irritated that people keep trying to dismiss him as some low-level Geek Squad IT flunky while also saying that he caused irreparable damage to our national security. They did exactly this to Aldrich Ames to piss him off apparently. To this day there is a lot of back and forth on if he ever actually was important within the CIA. It's been long enough though that there has been a synthesis of these two ideas, and now his wikipedia entry describes a total drunken loser flunky who also had a lot of important assignments. edit - which actually seems pretty believable.
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May 29, 2014 17:56
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McCain might have been a bad pilot but he never ran for office on being a good pilot and his piloting ability had nothing to do with his actual real heroism. Talking about how many times he got shot down was just another very transparent political maneuver to attack him on a strength. Which is why that angle never ended up outside the internet's fever swamps anyway. Much better to attack him for being crazy and stupidly wealthy while praising his service and actual real life heroism.
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Jun 2, 2014 18:32
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Casimir Radon posted:CNN is reporting a rumor that the army is going to give him E-6. Wasn't there, out of shape, hates his teammates, it all checks out.
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Jun 2, 2014 23:54
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Snowdens Secret posted:
Part of my units job during the glorious and heroic Surge led by our lord and savior GWB was driving around actual lumps of cash to hand to the supposedly reformed terrorists, with whom we had negotiated payment and recruitment into the police in exchange for less of the whole killing us thing. And that's just last administration. For much of the cold war, we weren't just negotiating with terrorists, but actually supporting them 100%, whether of the Islamic radical variety or the more conventional brutal death squad sort. "Never negotiate with terrorists" has never been anything more than a catchy turn of phrase.
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Jun 4, 2014 00:08
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Snowdens Secret posted:I'm going to take a stab and say by 'doing nothing' they were bitching that he wasn't sending in Delta Force to cap everyone involved and pull Berghal out simpering in a burlap sack, not complaining that he wasn't freeing enough apparently important terrorists If you don't think 90% of the dudes on the right wouldn't be demanding we impeach Obummer for not doing everything to prevent leaving a man behind or whatever I have a bridge to sell you. If Vile Rat and our California hippie ambassador to Libya could be turned into Republican martyrs, so would Berg.
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Jun 5, 2014 01:23
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I'm not for or against the prisoner exchange at this point but I do love the codification that five skilled commanders are worth one shitbag American junior enlisted.
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Jun 6, 2014 06:06
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orange juche posted:Obligatory 'lol vietnam' moment. Perfected the sandwich, defeated the United States at war, now they make shirts for walmart, sometimes.
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Jun 10, 2014 07:56
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They couldn't make a good military with a legion of desperate unemployed men, unlimited U.S. money, American training, Iranian support, and a cohesive majority ethnic group. lol
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Jun 11, 2014 17:00
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I wonder how many miliseconds it took the Iraqi Police in Ramadi to decide to flip on the government. I haven't seen any news reports about them fighting the government yet, but when I was there those guys were basically working for the Sunni insurgency already and mostly got hired out of it so pretty much no chance they aren't wearing facemasks and cutting off heads right now. They probably have been the whole time, really. Some of the pictures on the news show ISIS dudes riding in IP trucks.
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Jun 11, 2014 17:58
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Zeroisanumber posted:
That, "complete loser" and "dude who wants to hurt people" compose over half our enlisted ground forces though, so good luck. Maybe we could start recruiting from the standpoint of "what positive attributes are we looking for" like every normal real job out there instead of just running candidates through a series of yes/no answer checklists and seeing if they meet a collection of absolute bare minimums and also making the environment appealing to the sort of recruits we want to attract and hahahahahaha sorry I can't finish
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Jun 11, 2014 20:22
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It's reassuring that at least there's someone out there not laying claim to Cyprus.
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Jun 11, 2014 23:56
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bulletsponge13 posted:I am well aware of how things went down- I should have been more clear. That was the intent on how to "fix" Iraq- topple Saddam then everything will be better. Too bad the war was run by mouth breathing retards. Cobra II is amazing on the planning for the war. Rumsfeld actually was pushing for just making an enclave near Kuwait, training those who showed up yearning for freedom, and then let freedom take its course. He had to be talked into invading the rest of the country. And he wasn't pushing for that from a risk limitation standpoint, just cost. It was idiots and ideologues top to bottom, even including Rumsfeld, a man described by Kissenger as one of the most ruthless he had ever met. Starry eyed and full of wonder, believing deep in the hearts of all men is an American. Though still penny pinching to the end. Remember pre-war, how when challenged on the cause for war they would get defensive, but when challenged on it being over estimated cost Rumsfeld and Cheney and the rest would melt down. An incredible time.
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Jun 12, 2014 22:24
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tuluk posted:link to this thing please. http://www.amazon.com/Cobra-II-Inside-Invasion-Occupation/dp/1400075394/ Here is a 2004 NRO (lol) article about the plan http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/210487/rumsfelds-war-powells-occupation/barbara-lerner quote:Rumsfeld’s plan was to train and equip–and then transport to Iraq–some 10,000 Shia and Sunni freedom fighters led by Shia exile leader Ahmed Chalabi and his cohorts in the INC, the multi-ethnic anti-Saddam coalition he created. There, they would have joined with thousands of experienced Kurdish freedom fighters, ably led, politically and militarily, by Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani. Working with our special forces, this trio would have sprung into action at the start of the war, striking from the north, helping to drive Baathist thugs from power, and joining Coalition forces in the liberation of Baghdad. That would have put a proud, victorious, multi-ethnic Iraqi face on the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and it would have given enormous prestige to three stubbornly independent and unashamedly pro-American Iraqi freedom fighters: Chalabi, Talabani, and Barzani. Naturally NRO thought that plan would have been a great idea if not for the fifth columnists and liberals who brought a great man down. This was the first google result for Rumsfeld Plan 10000 and as a bonus it's a great insight into the mindset of Bush era republicanism, which cannot fail, only be failed, no matter how stupid the idea.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:24
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ded posted:With all of the Iraqi security forces such huge pussies how did Saddam stay in power for so long? We fired the competent ones. Some came back after jihading to be Iraqi police and I bet most of those guys are growing out their beards and hanging out with their old friends again.
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Jun 13, 2014 05:09
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Snowdens Secret posted:
Uh, no http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_incidents_in_Iraq_in_2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_incidents_in_Iraq_in_2009 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_incidents_in_Iraq_in_2010 It's not Iranian agents bombing Shia shrines and the Iraqi government.
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Jun 14, 2014 10:16
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Snowdens Secret posted:But it was a bluff on Maliki's part to try to get Obama to commit to a higher troop number with more active involvement in security Oh a brand new and entirely made up Dolchstoss narrative for a new and happening generation, cool.
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Jun 14, 2014 10:21
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Snowdens Secret posted:Did you even look at what you linked? The 'terrorist incidents' listed are suicide bombings, which are pale shadows of the open sectarian war pre-Surge, and which essentially bottom out in '09. Weak groups sending out suicide bombers aren't seizing police stations or whole towns; by Mideast standards of chaos that's about as peaceful as it gets. US media was having fun pointing out how more Americans were dying in a normal weekend of Chicago violence than in months in Iraq. Guys in this very forum were griping about how boring deployments were getting, how they didn't have any chance to 'get some' etc. The ethnic lines had largely been redrawn by 2008 and we were paying favorable sheiks who had been bombing us to instead chill out, but the ongoing wave of ethnic suicide bombing and terrorism makes clear that the "sources of Sunni violence" had hardly "been eliminated." Their focus just shifted from attacking Americans do terrorizing their generally no-longer neighbor Shiites. And in Diyala, the neighbor on neighbor violence continued. Conflating a drop in attacks on U.S. forces with peaceful coexistence in Iraq is one of the many reasons we were so terrible at doing anything positive in that country. As for Maliki really wanting us to stay, I have never heard that but I am willing to bet it is coming from the same people who thought Chalabi was on the level and that we would be welcomed as liberators, given its freshness, political convenience, and rewriting of history. Articles and first person interviews contemporary to our actual departure talk about how Maliki definitely wanted us out, both from his mouth and from his aides and his government. 2008: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/as-soon-as-possible-iraq-leader-maliki-supports-obama-s-withdrawal-plans-a-566841.html quote:Maliki has long shown impatience with the open-ended presence of US troops in Iraq. In his conversation with SPIEGEL, he was once again candid about his frustration over the Bush administration's hesitancy about agreeing to a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops. But he did say he was optimistic that such a schedule would be drawn up before Bush leaves the White House next January -- a confidence that appeared justified following Friday's joint announcement in Baghdad and Washington that Bush has now, for the first time, spoken of "a general time horizon" for moving US troops out of Iraq. 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8020815.stm quote:Mr Maliki said the upsurge in violence had had no effect on the timetable for the withdrawal of US forces. 2010 http://www.usip.org/conversation-iraq-s-prime-minister-nuri-al-maliki/read-the-transcripted-remarks quote:Thank you. Spencer Ackerman with the Washington Independent. I was wondering, Mr. Prime Minister, what you think the U.S.-Iraqi security relationship ought to be after 2011. Should there be any form of residual U.S. military presence in Iraq? What size, and for what purpose, if so? And do you foresee a situation where the status report to the agreement might need to be renegotiated? 2011 http://www.npr.org/2011/01/04/132632709/in-surprise-iraq-may-enforce-withdrawal-deadline quote:
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Jun 14, 2014 21:00
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Snowdens Secret posted:Look bro I'm gonna lay this out to you, even though it frustrates me to have to type it out No kidding, which is why I am wondering where your special insight into the heart of Maliki comes from. It isn't reflected in any of your links below, which all seem to say that Maliki would not budge on the status of forces agreement. Also, in our society every agenda leaks to someone about everything, so I am very curious why there is such a lack of documentation or off the record talks about what you are saying. As for if violence reduced after the surge, yes, it did. Like I said and like the numbers bear out, it reduced from full on warfare to merely terrorism many levels beyond what America experienced on 9/11 monthly. This can be traced pretty clearly to our policy of delivering large quantities of cash to selected former enemy sheiks, increased U.S. troop presence, and most critically the bulk of the ethnic cleansing had already happened. If you are going to tell me that even post surge Iraq was more safe than U.S. cities for Iraqis you are huffing pure Weekly Standard farts. I was in Ramadi during the surge and gunfire and random explosions in the city was still a regular thing. It just wasn't happening to us which is why, like you point out, everyone was thrilled back in America and absurd articles about how Baghdad was safer than Detroit started circling in the right wing media. "Almost no Americans are being killed and open warfare stopped" does not equal "root causes fixed, Iraq is fine now." The root causes absolutely remained and that is why we are seeing what we are seeing right now. Any amount of reduced violence does not mean the "root cause" of the violence had been eliminated. Nothing had been eliminated, we were just paying people off and the killing had cooled. Those same guys are still alive and are currently cutting off heads right now with their old friends in ISIS.
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Jun 15, 2014 00:16
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chemosh6969 posted:I hear that a lot but then having actually served, I know it's wrong. Some things actually are kept secret. I learned what we were actually doing in Diyala when I was from the New York times online Snowdens Secret posted:Because you're talking 6-7 years ago and if you're not the NYT your archives probably don't last that long. Here's a direct quote from an Aswat al-Iraq article from '07 that's no longer online: This is super interesting, thanks. I missed all that at the time. Based on my experience there helping tear down a village school so the corrupt and useless Iraqi army could have a barracks, loving with people all day, hearing the people we were loving with complain to us about banditry from the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police, and threatening to kill them if they were not paying attention to traffic, I don't think our stay there actually did anything positive. And all this stuff we are seeing now was still under the surface, and would still be under the surface if we were still there. Also: http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iraq-Cleric-al-Sadr-calls-for-peaceful-protests quote:Iraqi Shi'ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr called for peaceful protests after the passage of a security pact that will let US forces stay in Iraq through 2011. The cleric's spokesman said al-Sadr also wants his followers to close his offices and affiliated institutions for three days "to show the tragedy that has befallen us." Sheik Salah al-Obeidi read al-Sadr's statement to reporters in the holy city of Najaf on Friday, a day after lawmakers approved the deal. Iraq's presidential council still needs to ratify it. Al-Sadr's statement called for "peaceful public protests" and the display of black banners as a sign of mourning. But it didn't repeat his threat to unleash militia fighters to attack US forces if they don't leave immediately. I think there is a good chance if we were still there, we'd be fighting Iran/Shiites openly.
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Jun 15, 2014 20:10
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The Iraqi army sucks because peasants join to be led by corrupt idiots in exchange for housing and
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Jun 18, 2014 19:19
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My favorite Iraqi Army story is the time a fellow platoon was tasked with escorting a delivery of supplies to an IA base and the IA general refused to let them deliver those supplies, for free, to the IA without he himself getting handed a wad of cash. Neither us nor the contractors had a wad of cash available or considered this a possibility, but then the local SF detachment talked to the IA general and either they set him straight or just as likely gave him something and in any case the delivery occurred so the platoon could go home. Yep, I'd say we were about three years from that place becoming a free and fair democratic ally, a real beacon of hope in the middle east, before obummer cutted and runned.
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Jun 18, 2014 19:22
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Basically if the problem with the IA was "incapable of firing or maintaining rifles" then yes, go ahead and blame the trainers, but if the problem is instead "soldiers run away at first sight of actual fighting, leadership absent, army has gone unpaid for months despite very generous US financial support" then that's more of a big picture issue.
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Jun 18, 2014 19:29
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Snowdens Secret posted:Or, Allah forbid, they'll look at who's pushing the Al-Qaeda side. Probably way too uncomfortable to bring up, though. We need the republicans back in charge to really confront Saudi hahahahahahahaahaha For real though the sooner America realizes that many of our "allies" actually range from "our problems" to "our enemies" the better off we will be. Also in exciting Iraq news, Chalabi is back in the headlines as lobbying to be put into power in Iraq. In what exact regard he is actually been taken seriously by Obama or Iran is hard to say at this point since he is basically the Albert Einstein of getting the media to say what he wants the media to say, but some news stories indicate the U.S. government may actually be having positive associations with the convicted con man and former sage and font of wisdom to the idiots who invaded the place in 2003.
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Jun 20, 2014 21:53
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Reverand maynard posted:At this point can we fire everyone and hire bill gates to lead the new VA If the problem is "incompetent people are getting paid too much and promoted too often" then Microsoft under Bill Gates is not the positive example you are looking for. Also same for the "our customers hate us" problem. For real it seems the VA has 3 very big issues: 1) Incapable of providing required services with available funding. With the surge in veterans needing help due to the wars, the economic doldrums forcing veterans to turn to the VA rather than employer health care, and the lack of commensurate funding increases no level of management genius can fix that particular problem. My girlfriend's stepdad is a VA doctor and his caseload just keeps increasing past what is possible to service and the only solution appears to be "pretend this isn't the case and don't talk about it." This is a political problem. 2) Lack of customer friendliness. This is a management problem. 3) Lack of efficiency. Fixing this is not even close to being enough to take care of 1 but it is something that impacts the bottom line and also makes 2 worse. This is also a management problem. The thing is even if you got some brilliant management that fixed 2 and 3, that would be great, but then all the people who they pissed off fixing 2 and 3 would have their knives out and blame them for 1, which they can't fix. That said it would be pretty cool if we started asking business innovators to step in to government service. Though the last time that was tried it didn't really work out too well with the whole Vietnam thing.
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Jun 22, 2014 00:04
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That is a good point. It is such a partisan issue it is hard to get a clear answer on it. I wonder if the CBO has dived into it. What is pretty clear is that there is not enough money spent on actual medical care provision but if that is because the money doesn't exist or the money gets lit on fire is unclear. Also on VA inefficiency, there is going to be some "positive" inefficiency in all the unemployed vets who get hired for jobs that could probably be outsourced or eliminated with greater efficiency. That said, the mission of providing health care comes first so if there is a lack of health care services provided due to this, then it by all rights still belongs on the chopping block.
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Jun 22, 2014 00:33
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