The Unofficial *Official* Politics Thread

Mbkite said:
When our military took out Iraq the 4 largest army in the world in 12 days that is 12 days read that twice if you have to..
just how afraid do you think Trump is of Russia..
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I was in on the Desert Storm planning and after action reports as a staff officer with 3rd Army in Atlanta. Their forces were feeble. What we thought were tanks dug in waiting to attack were actually broken down tanks stuck in the sand. It was a great and wonderful win for the US. Lol. The Russians actually have nukes. Please don`t compare actions against Iraq to an actual war with the Soviets. Luckily the Soviets know that a war with the US would be a loss for both sides. Nuclear Armageddon, no one wins, and for what, Syria? Did Syria hurt someone on US soil or even threaten US interests? Next time their is a riot in the US and the police kill some protesters and some innocent bystanders should another country take action against us? Hell no. There was a presumed use of chemical weapons, but I never saw any PROOF from anyone. Proof is easily obtained. What Trump did was nothing but pure public relations trying to show he is not "soft". Assad is not Hitler threatening to take over the world. The Russians are backing Assad and we are backing the "good guy rebels" just like we did in Afghanistan. Now those "good guy rebels" are the Taliban. Supposedly NATO is around to handle world peacekeeping. NATO does not work well, but at least it looks as if other nations are on board with US actions. Chemical weapons (if they were used) are terrible. I also remember the US using napalm and Agent Orange in Vietnam a few years ago, we never apologized to the Vietnamese people and fought with US Veterans claiming Agent Orange exposure (still fighting claims). Those of you that think we should always "bomb the Hell out of someone" because we are the US and we are the world`s policemen and we are always right need to take a breath and revisit US history. I`m not even going to get into the economic ramifications of war for the US. I am climbing off my soap box now and I`m going to go detail a car.
 
It`s kind of scary to wonder what will come of this. If there is a Russian war ship headed to confront our ships, why only one? Decoy? I hope this isn`t the start of something bigger.
 
xspwrstang said:
It`s kind of scary to wonder what will come of this. If there is a Russian war ship headed to confront our ships, why only one? Decoy? I hope this isn`t the start of something bigger.
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We can only hope and pray that there is some other solution to this mess than dropping bombs. Bombing should be a last resort, yet we see it as the first response. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did during the whole of VWWII and where did that get us?
 
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rlmccarty2000 said:
The President must get Congressional approval before attacking Syria-big mistake if he does not!

Guess who said it. Lol.
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Unfortunately both parties have gotten used to the Executive branch making these decisions. Since the second Iraq war and the whole WDM fiasco, no one wants to be on record for voting on military action anymore. It definitely came back to bite a lot of senators/congressmen in the arse for several elections afterwards.
 
I would not want to wait for Congress to make decisions.

The strike was symbolic (show of force) and consider it appropriate. The US gave Russia 1 hour notice so wonder if the Syrians were informed?

If Obama did it, he would have been considered as weak by the cornflakes. Some of the more imaginative media were claiming it was staged -- similar to what happened in the movie Catch 22 when they let the Germans bomb the airbase.

In a week we have seen the Trump foreign policy SUPPOSEDLY (meaning is it all for show?) flip on Assad.
 
rlmccarty2000 said:
We can only hope and pray that there is some other solution to this mess than dropping bombs. Bombing should be a last resort, yet we see it as the first response. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did during the whole of VWWII and where did that get us?
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We only "lost" Vietnam because there was nothing to "win" so we quit. The fallacy of Vietnam wasn`t the bombing, it was the lies invented to get us in there in the first place.
 
Have we ever had a President that relied so much on his family for policy? I`m not saying it`s a bad thing necessarily. His family seems to have better values than he does. It`s just strange to me. Trump`s son-in-law and his daughter have a lot of sway in the White House. It`s got to be stressful to think about firing your family. The Federal Government has rules against nepotism, but there are also rules about the president making money from his position. This is not singling out Trump because I believe most presidents make money off their position. He may finally make enough money to actually pay taxes. Lol.
 
I think he has his family around him since he does not trust others and less likely to listen to others. He probably think they have agendas and full of it -- more seeing a reflection of himself. So. despite all the conflicts of interest. it may be for the best.
 
jrock645 said:
We only "lost" Vietnam because there was nothing to "win" so we quit. The fallacy of Vietnam wasn`t the bombing, it was the lies invented to get us in there in the first place.
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The "losers" were the soldiers and their friends and families and maybe the country as a whole. The real "winners" were the industrial war machine that still thrives today. A "good" war is good for the economy. The need for a large standing army is less than it ever has been, but we keep increasing the defense budget and very few ask why. Both Hillary and Donald said they would increase military spending and no one said anything. I`m not sure what those Tomahawk missiles cost for us to "show" Assad we mean business, but I`m sure the money could have been better spent on jobs and to fix crumbling infrastructure. If we really wanted to show Assad we were serious we should have dropped a few on his palace.
 
rlmccarty2000 said:
The "losers" were the soldiers and their friends and families and maybe the country as a whole. The real "winners" were the industrial war machine that still thrives today. A "good" war is good for the economy. The need for a large standing army is less than it ever has been, but we keep increasing the defense budget and very few ask why. Both Hillary and Donald said they would increase military spending and no one said anything. I`m not sure what those Tomahawk missiles cost for us to "show" Assad we mean business, but I`m sure the money could have been better spent on jobs and to fix crumbling infrastructure. If we really wanted to show Assad we were serious we should have dropped a few on his palace.
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Yeah, Id have preferred we just sent in Recon or Delta and ended his regime quietly by guys trained to get in and get out without anyone knowing they were there in the first place. Then again, I kinda say screw the entire middle east- let them blow each other up. We try to help but were imevitably hated for it. Nobody wins.
 
Ronkh said:
That was when we stopped fighting to win.
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Exactly. Changing of the guard at general, and ignoring body counts basically destroyed the effort. Despite being outnumbered, Marines were posting 5-1 body count rates. You can`t tell a Marine we weren`t winning in Vietnam. With numbers like that, and territory not being something that could be declared, what more could they have possibly done? It wasn`t even close. We just quit. Then again, we had no real reason to be there to begin with.
 
Like it or not we will always be the worlds policeman until we can remove long range balistic missles and the nuclear option from the madmen the Obama administration left in power. These guys have run amuck for the last 8 years and have viewed us a weak or afraid so they got wilder and more demonic. Going as far as to use chemical weapons on their own citizens.

Our biggest problem is our relations with Russia are strained and not it seems we are on opposite sides of this Syrian conflict. That is the real issue. If the US and Russia get into it, I`m not sure what the world looks like after that.

Not saying our military isn`t the greatest in the world but even if you win a war of that scale what is the final Price your pay in lives, damage and yeah cost.

The Middle East has always been a hot bed but israel and the US along with the OPEC nations have been able to keep things in check. Now that the crazy leaders have strengthened themselves due to bad peacekeeping deals or just by plain ignoring problems they did what they always do get worse. The can was kicked down the road and now it needs to be felt with.

Good luck to all of us. Tuff decisions ahead and I hope we can either broker a Ceice fire or get Russia to work with us in Syria. Not sure what they really want over there other than expansion of reach like they did several years ago.
 
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