Political Discussions

@Wylaff said:

@genareddog said:
I hate to ask this and if you can please put your politcal party aside, why the hell are we in this middle east conflict?

Honestly I feel like it's because Trump can run for a 3rd term if we are in an active war.

2 1/2 years before the fact may be a bit early to pull the trigger on that ruse.

Interesting.

@TRayB said:

@Wylaff said:

@genareddog said:
I hate to ask this and if you can please put your politcal party aside, why the hell are we in this middle east conflict?

Honestly I feel like it's because Trump can run for a 3rd term if we are in an active war.

2 1/2 years before the fact may be a bit early to pull the trigger on that ruse.

Look at who he's poking at. It may take some time to ramp up, but they have nothing to lose by escalation.

@Amos_Umwhat said:
It was the Department of War until Harry Truman changed it in 1947. What's in a name? I wonder if that's why Korea was a "police action"? People were tired of war. Then came Vietnam, another "conflict", "police action", which Congress lost for us. People get tired of losing.

But, now we're in a different situation. The worst thing that could happen is to let Congress get involved. Congress cannot run a war, their only job is to fund it, or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAtEX76FLC8

If this is true, then our current dilemma is just in time.

If it's true, then Trump just saved the world.

If it's true, y'all still won't care.

Many people would rather die than admit Trump was right about anything. Seems strange to me.

Couple of points for consideration. I'll try to go in order of importance.

First, this narrative is largely unveirified by anyone other than those in the White House. Makes me wonder if it's actually true, but not saying that it's not. Once upon a Time there was a guy in the Middle East who ran a little fiefdom and he claimed to have metric tons of biological weapons. He continually shuffled cargo containers that un inspectors were not allowed to see all around the country. Everyone just knew that it was filled with mustard gas and nerve agent. We bombed the **** out of that guy and dug him out of his spider hole. Turns out he didn't have ****. He just wanted everyone to believe he had something. These anecdotal conversations with Iranians in the diplomatic room could have been the same thing. No one will know.

Secondly, there are no verified counts of Iran having suitable reflector material, such as uranium 238, which is crucial in directing neutrons back to the center Mass of the radioactive core, at least as I understand it, which isn't much LOL. From what I read about u-238, is also really hard to enrich.

Third, let's say they had all of the nuclear components in weapons grade they still lacked the technology to manufacture a delivery system. You just can't put a ball of uranium inside of a surface to surface missile and hope for the best. Ask North Korea. Further, the world powers who are nuclear enabled like Russia and China have continually refused to assist little brothers in designing or otherwise acquiring these delivery mechanisms.

4th and least important but maybe the most interesting aspect is that somehow the left and the right have both made this conflict about Trump. This conflict or war or police action in a purely political one expressly because the administration and its opposition demand that it be so. Obviously the only reason that they do this is to fill their coffers was nervous supporters who are engaged hyperactive and Pearl clutching. This war or conflict or action or operation is absolutely not about the safety of the world or securing freedom or anything else. It is about feeding the insatiable machine.

Fifth and even of lesser importance than four is the fact that this President is the guy who single-handedly eliminated truth and facts from public discourse. He did it on day one when lying about, of all things, inauguration attendance numbers. He lied about Guatemalans eating dogs in neighborhoods. He lied about the paths of hurricanes even being so bold as to take a weather service prediction map and modify it with a half-assed sharpie to demonstrate why Alabama's had to evacuate when they so didn't. Finally and most recently, he lies about the effectiveness of the previous Iranian operation, calling it a total success. If it was a total success, why did we go back? LOL never mind. If everything that Lindsey Grant says is true and if this war saved the world, why is it so important to say that Trump saved the world? See number four.

However if it is true, I find it quite ironic that the greatest thing that the guy ever did is something that half the country won't give him credit for because of his track record of lies. And interesting thought experiment would be imagining a world where Kamala Harris was the president and the exact same scenario played out in the exact same way with the exact same operation. It's not as far-fetched as you think because in the end, the military runs the military. The same guys would have planned it the same way. Would that be a clip of Corey what's his name instead of Lindsey Graham? Would it have run on CNN instead of Fox News? Would the same guys who are extolling the president and his virtues be burning the hypothetical president in effigy? Probably. That's why, **** politics and **** the news outlets.

Lastly, and if you are anyone but Peter and have made it this far, I suggest checking out the YouTube page of this fellow named Tyler Folse. He's a nuclear engineer or a former nuclear engineer who has an entire page that talks about fact-based nuclear situations, theory, operations, and more. I will leave it to you to see what he says about nuclear weaponry and delivery systems and uranium versus plutonium.

And before anyone says it, let me just say that Pete hegseth had 0.0% to do with the failures or successes of any of these missions. That guy couldn't beat my 14-year-old autistic son in fuçking Stratego bro. He couldn't beat my Labrador retriever at the game of risk if he had three extra dice and two extra turns every round. She was a total fraud of a human being before he was appointed SECDEF.

I am wondering that if the dod is in charge of military actions in Iran, what are they planning to do?

@Amos_Umwhat said:
I checked "insightful" on your long post above @Itsfine , and I meant it. I can't dispute anything you said about Trump, you're likely right.

I would like to add that the most popular media outlets have all been guilty of editing and omitting anything about Trump in order to put him in a bad light. This has been proven many times over. They will deliberately leave out part of a story, leading to a misunderstanding of the truth, and then propose an alternate reality "proving" that Trump is racist or xenophobic or whatever. Later on it comes to light that they were lying by omission, but no one who truly hates the man will believe or remember that.

I also think your underestimation of Hegseth is largely undeserved. Myself, and all the other combat arms veterans I know, many, to say the least, all think he's much much better than what he replaced. But then, combat arms soldiers think about these things a little differently.

At any rate, only time will tell. It's a scary landscape, very difficult to assess what is true when everyone telling the story, on both sides, has been proven to lie through their teeth at the drop of a hat.

Thanks Steve, and fair opinions. I can tell you that the combat war fighters who are my peers in the current active duty have little to no respect for him, almost to a person. These warriors, mostly pilots in the grades of O4-O6 obviously, find that the majority of his decisions incur unnecessary monetary costs, hape made the profession of arms more difficult, or in certain cases, have potentially endangered operators. Obviously, I intend no offense to the veterans of previous generations, but I defer to those who are in harm's way today or may be tomorrow. That clearly doesn't include me, as I fly a desk.

I also have 2 friends, one a golf buddy, who attended the nonsensical pep rally he held (at an almost 8 million dollar expense to you and me), and both said that 100 percent of the people in that audience were dumbfounded by the presentation, material, and implications of that boondoggle.

Maybe I am underestimating him and maybe that's unfair, but I saw him fire a cadre of senior flag officers who would and in many cases almost did die for this country. He fired them because, best all of us can tell, they were perceived political opponents or unwilling to be public political allies. Among them was General CQ Brown and General Arnie Bunch, both of whom were mentors of mine and both of whom i would schlep my 50 year old ass up a hill for. Neither of them were political AT ALL, either personally or in the workplace.

Further, he's the least qualified CABINET MEMBER, let alone SECDEF, in history. He is a part time major in the reserves who leads a team of dozens, but with multiple reprimands for alcohol abuse and inappropriate interactions. His only qualifications were his public loyalty to the POTUS and his ability to be a good puppet.

We can agree to disagree. Honestly, the world is a better place if you're right, so I'm rooting for you.

@Amos_Umwhat said:

@Itsfine said:
Funny, this just popped up in a text chain I have with some current active duty officers I know. None of us is impressed.

Read to the bottom. Not just the headline.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5800026-pete-hegseth-military-chaplains-faith-insignia/amp/

I grew up mostly on Army bases, the Chaplains were either Catholic, or Protestant, and I know that Jewish services were held, as well as Mormon, but I'm not sure about the status of the Chaplains in those cases.

Not displaying rank is a dumb idea, I think. 200 different religions is also a dumb proposition.

Trans? Too high maintenance. If you need medication to stay "normal", that seems impractical. Also, if you want to be trans I think you should pay for it yourself, not have me, the taxpayer do it for you.

As far as all that nonsense at the end about women not being able to vote etc., that's just stupid. At my church our last two pastors have been women. Why would God not call a woman into service? Did not Mary Magdalene go out in the streets and preach? Yes, she did.

The upper echelons of Greek and Roman society in the 1st century A.D. had two huge objections to Christians. You can find it in the texts of the time. "They treat women and slaves as equals". That really pissed some people off. Amazing how long such stupid ideas, that women and people forced into slavery are not actually equal, manage to hang on.

Agree.

Thing that caught my eye the most oat was the women in combat thing. I'd much rather have a competent female volunteer than a despondent male voluntold. Shows Pete's lack of combat experience (and leadership).

@Amos_Umwhat said:

@Itsfine said:
Funny, this just popped up in a text chain I have with some current active duty officers I know. None of us is impressed.

Read to the bottom. Not just the headline.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5800026-pete-hegseth-military-chaplains-faith-insignia/amp/

Looking into this church a little, The Hill seems to have perhaps not done all their research. The church in question says that while Hegseth and his wife have attended a few services that they are not members of the church, and regarding the church policy they had this to say:

...Rigney directed us to a blog post by Wilson, the senior pastor, in which he clarified that their doctrine on voting was not an outright ban on women voting. Rather, they sought to promote household unity by having the head of the household vote in the name of all of the household's members. While the church expects the head of the household to be the man, they said there were cases in which women acted as the head of the household. Wilson added that this was the model they followed at Christ Church:

At Christ Church, when we have our elections for elders and deacons, we vote by household. Membership is individual, but in any act of collective decision-making, we treat the household as a governmental entity. The person who casts the vote on behalf of the household is the head of that household, which ordinarily is the husband and father. But this means that when a woman is the head of the home (e.g. a widow), she is the one who casts the vote. When we have our Heads of Households meetings, the women who are heads of households attend them.

This is per Snopes.

I got curious, because I've seen some articles by The Hill before on Yahoo News, and they seem to be about as far left of center as FOX News is to the right. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle. At any rate, the truth seems rather less misogynistic than The Hill would have us think.

Funny thing, this makes me remember my grandmother, who refused to vote because she was afraid that her vote might cancel out my grandfather's vote. Everyone in the family told her that it was her right, and that she should vote for whoever she wanted to, but she stood firm until the day she died.

I think you're savvy enough to figure out what's going on here, Steve. They promote "voting by household" and automatically make the man the head of the household unless a man has died "(e.g. widow)" as a way to make publicly palatable an otherwise outrageous thing.

I've been married for 26 years I've made at least twice as much money as my wife has for our entire 26 years. We don't have a head of household. We don't have a person that makes decisions. we make decisions. We make them together. What happens when we disagree? We work it out. We're not Democrats and Republicans. We ultimately figure it out one way or the other. The whole head of household concept is as ridiculous as finding a crank handle and trying to start your car through a screw slot in the radiator.

I understand what you say about the hill and I'm not going to argue it. Most neutral media research firms calls the hill overall down the middle. That looks pretty far left from where the guardian sits, no doubt. I'll stand by the quantitative research.

Asking because I don't remember, but didn't we criticize the hell out of Clinton and or Obama for going to one sermon by one pastor or a few sermons from a few pastors that the other side found unsavory? "He's a racist" seemed to be a rallying cry. I guess misogyny is okay though I digress.

Old veterans and civilians who couldn't spot a military member if they were holding him by his chevrons seem to love what Petey boy does. Military members hate it. I think he puts lives at risk. I said that he would 3 days after he was confirmed.......on this very forum and in this very thread. A month later he breached the most sensitive plans in the world to a media member. If I released top secret information to a media member in a signal chat, I would literally go to jail. It never happened for him though, right?

The guy is a two-legged disaster waiting to destroy somebody's life. He will tell that somebody's family that they died for their country, but that somebody died because Pete hagseth is unqualified for this position.

@edz you might like chaplain's not wearing rank, but do you know who doesn't like it? The chaplains don't like it, and the people that the chaplains serve don't like it. I'm just going to guess that you're a veteran of some sort. If so, you understand that that rank insignia gives that person credibility without even knowing them. Now you've taken it away. Is this guy lieutenant? Is he a major? Is he a general? Is he a civilian working in a combat location who is wearing unmarked military uniforms? I've seen it before in Kuwait . Civil service engineers were distracted to wear uniforms for their own protection. Don't say you can tell because of age, because the chaplain core can begin serving with a 6-week OTS course starting at the ripe old age of 42.

Does the chaplain get a promotion ceremony? Does he get to have his family be there in the audience while his Commander stands up and says nice things about him? Do his constituents get to celebrate? Are they allowed to know? Is he allowed to sign documents with his rank? That chaplain is being told that he or she should not be proud of his or her rank. Petey the pumpkin eaty is making rank and pay grade for chaplains taboo for them. Would a load of horse ****.

And I don't know why Pete the meat took those colonels off of the flag officer list, but if it was because they were black or if it was because they were women or it was because that he doesn't think that they share his ideology, it doesn't matter what happens in Iran. We've lost the big war already.

@Itsfine Agree with much of what you said. As far as rank I want to believe that Chaplains feel a call to a higher power and not as interested in showing rank. Not all, as all is to vast of a statement. In action men don;t care as much (or seem to) but during times of peace or state side service many young men on base, esp. new in the service may feel more at ease without the rank.
As far as making rank or being proud , they most definitely should be able to move up. Some of your points are very valid, as signing documents using their title, I agree they should. This isn't an easy one or a situation that is strictly about them. As to your point there is a reason that many times a person with arm full of stripes gets more respect that a an officer just out of school.