@bareboards2

I've been operational in a war-zone. Shot at twice, and in a Mexican standoff once, but I never fired my own weapon.

Fact is, other developed nations manage just fine (for the most part) when it comes to things like this. It doesn't help that the US has never and probably will never allow any member of the forces to be prosecuted internationally for war crimes.

I know someone who was in Italy many years ago when a US plane decided to buzz underneath the wires of a gondola (the mountain kind, not the Venice kind, obviously). The tail of the plane caught on the wire and 12 people died, including a few children. There was no criminal prosecution for the pilot, crew, or commanding officers. I mean, just look at all the Wikileaks files on war crimes committed by US soldiers, barely any of them received any kind of judicial review (if any at all did, I never heard of them) including indiscriminate killing of random civilians.

Like it or not, that's a part of the US military culture and they worked hard to make things that way. In Vietnam it was estimated that one in a million shots fired from small arms actually HIT an enemy combatant. They learned it was because fewer than one in ten soldiers even TRIED to hit.

On top of that, the pay is so terrible, it's mostly those desperate to lift themselves and their family out of abject poverty that apply for enlisted positions. They are not well-educated and they are certainly not (for the most part) intelligent, hard-working individuals. The US chooses to spend the vast bulk of military spending on technology, rather than people (after all, it's easier to give kickbacks to your political donors that way).

Well, this is the result. A military with no fear of repercussions unless you're one of the poor scapegoats at Abu Ghraib (and if you think they represent even one tenth of the total personnel involved, you're out to lunch) and you're dumb enough to take pictures of yourself, there's pretty much nothing you can do to the 'enemy' that will get you in serious trouble.

Why do you think the Brits insisted on their own zones of Iraq for the second gulf war? In the first one they fought alongside Americans and suffered more casualties from American fire than they did from Iraqi fire. I talked to a Brit armored officer who was in the first gulf war. He went to introduce himself to the colonel of the American unit next to them, the Colonel stared in amazement at the Scorpion light tank and said, "What the hell kind of Bradley is that?" I can guarantee you, every soldier, from Private to the Colonel of my regiment could have identified every armored vehicle on the battlefield.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogfight

Dogfighting first appeared during World War I, shortly after the invention of the airplane. Until at least 1992, it was a component in every major war, despite beliefs after World War II that increasingly greater speeds and longer range weapons would make dogfighting obsolete.

In the Gulf War of 1990–91, dogfighting once again proved its usefulness when the Coalition Air Force had to face off against the Iraqi Air Force, which at the time was the fifth largest in the world. Many dogfights occurred during the short conflict, often involving many planes. By the end of January, 1991, the term "furball" became a popular word to describe the hectic situation of many dogfights, occurring at the same time within the same relatively small airspace. Oh, fun fact, most of those planes 'dogfighting' in that 'relatively small airspace' were F15's...

But you can ignore that if you want. I mean, ACM schools that teach dogfighting even today probably don't exist...

I linked earlier the marine test that certified the F35 even though it failed the test pretty much completely. http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/not-a-big-suprise-the-marines-f-35-operational-test-wa-1730583428

The F-35 can do everything better than any other plane. It's weapons are better, it's senors are better, and it's communication and situational awareness is much better. Thanks to the stealth, it has better survivability.

The only area it has some disadvantages in performance are the acceleration and maneuverability. Which is a small disadvantage, it still accelerates incredibly fast, just slower than a lighter plane, which is just physics. But it's not a slouch by any means. Plus the maneuverability is still being worked on, it's all fly by wire and they can do some really magic things with those systems once it's all tuned. They haven't started pushing it to the limits yet from what I've heard. (and honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this whole "our plane sucks" thing was another tactic of spreading misinformation).

Here's the other thing. The F-16 can out maneuver and out accelerate the F-35. But every Russian fighter can out accelerate and out maneuver the F-16, anyway. Yet the F-16 always comes out on top. Why is that? Superior sensors, weapons, comms and tactics.

The F-35 is the best plane to achieve air superiority, because not many pilots have a death wish. Air combat is about survival, not about kills. Even in the Gulf war, the Iraqi's didn't want to fly against the F-15s because they knew they'd get just get shot down. They never even took off. So imagine how they would feel against a plane that can't be detected, let alone locked onto. A plane that can lock onto you and fire without you knowing. Not a good feeling knowing that at any moment you could explode without warning.

The A-10 is bullet proof, but not missile proof. It's a sitting duck against shoulder mounted IGLA's. Only the cockpit is bullet proof BTW which is great for the pilot, but not so great for the rest of the plane

I agree that the F-35 for the current war is overkill, but electronics and technology keeps getting cheaper day by day, and in 10 years time, even the current enemies will start buying more sophisticated systems. It's better to be prepared. As being reactionary like in WW2 and Vietnam was quite costly to the lives of allied forces. The F-35 will probably be in service for another 30 years, so it needs to try to meet as many requirements as it can for that time period, until the next plane comes out shooting lasers instead of missiles.

Also close air support these days is already done mostly by soft skin planes like the F-16. So not much difference there. Apart from the expense I guess. It's not low and slow either. You have a plane fly at such speed and high altitude the people on the ground never even know about it.


If you feel like it I'll give you a game of DCS World some time. It's a free flight sim (also used to train US national guard and other nations too). It really demonstrates the value of good sensors and weapons over flight performance

Now when it comes to being a waste of money, only time will tell. I guess either way it's win win though, because if there is no conflict that needs this plane it's only a good thing. And if there is a conflict we have the plane ready. But for the time being it really does seem like it's a waste of money. A lot of money, especially in a time of debt.

The problem is that sets up what reminds me of the 2000 election. It absolutely astounded me half the country thought George W. Bush was a valid candidate, let alone the better candidate than Al Gore, not that I liked Gore, but given the choice between the two, Gore had viable plans for the budget, a cohesive foreign policy, etc.

It shouldn't have been a close election, but not only was it razor close, Gore lost. Countless times there have been in world history leaders who came about who generally wouldn't and shouldn't have, but they did. All it takes is a bad recession or other event to tilt the odds in their favor at the right time. Hitler doesn't come to power without the Great Depression and the Treaty of Versailles leaving Germany dependent on US loans.

And to me, Trump is absolutely frightening. I honestly have absolutely no idea what he would do as President, and not in a good way. I quite honestly don't even know if he's actually in line with the Tea Party or not. It is terrifying to me that he's on a course where potentially a recession at the wrong time could make him president because so many voters are absolutely ignorant or stupid enough to support him.

Screw the entertainment value of it. I keep thinking back to the George W. Bush Iraqi occupation and the crapshow that was Katrina and realize people's lives are literally at stake by botching the selection of the next President, and when you make one option completely invalid before the election even starts, it doesn't help.

1)As if they DID know what the future would hold when they left? EDIT: Those things you mention had not happened when the Jewish people invaded Palestine in the 30's, and NO ONE KNEW what was coming 10 years later.
2)Yes. The European Jews invaded FIRST. Before that, the Arabs and Jews lived peacefully in the region from all history I can find. There was no 'civil war', it was a war against invaders coming from all over Europe in an effort to 'create' a nation.
3)The Jewish population was not growing in relation to the Arab population, so it was still <8% when the European Jewish invasion began, an invasion of foreigners, not a native population boom which the Arabs had. Duh.
4)'standing army' is hardly a measure of applicable force. If it were, we would be Iraqis today. They had far more men in their army when we walked over them with advanced technology, exactly like the Jews did. I've been over that. We (the US) supplied them advanced weapons making enlisted numbers meaningless...
...also, you ignore that ALL 'Israeli' are in the army, 100%. The 'standing army' number is only the professional soldiers, not the entire force by far.
...AND....The Jews didn't need to mount any defense if they had not invaded.
5)What should they have done? Much better minds than mine have failed on a solution that pleases everyone, but stealing another people's property using deadly force, and then subjugating the survivors for decades to the stone age in concentration camps is absolutely NOT the right answer.
That said....If they were truly 'refugees', they should go to refugee camps (as should the Syrians, I don't get why they are spreading all over Europe, but I digress) until they can either be assimilated in other cultures or return home. Period.

Once again...things being bad at home does not give one the right to just move in on someone else's land and push them off. That's what Israel is, a land theft by overwhelming force, and an expansion of that theft continuing to this day. EDIT: It's akin to me stating 'my brother abuses me at home, so I'm moving into your house and you're moving out, and my buddy's with big guns gave me some to force that to happen.' Is that OK? If so, what's your address?

6)Have you seen the stuff right wingers used to wright about Jews...how about the KKK? How about Palin and her cohorts? If some idiot spouting hatred is a reason to run, the entire planet would be on the run all the time.
Would you support blacks invading any European countries they choose because they are treated poorly here in the US? With money and arms? Displacing the current residents and subjugating any that stay as sub human non citizens? I doubt it. EDIT: Would you also make the argument then that it's OK because the invaders are a smaller military than the country they invade, even though they have far better weapons and more of them? What's the difference?

Well, to be brutally honest, I knew that before we even set foot in Iraq that this type of stuff was going to happen (if not even worse stuff further down the road) simply because the ONLY two examples in history we really have that allowed for the successful creation of new countries after horrific wars were: Japan and Germany.

But, there were some major things that needed to be noticed, if indeed Iraq ended up being a successful story; though it would have taken a few generations and perhaps 30 years... It would require us to remain in Iraq for a VERY long time.

I called it before the war even started. I literally stated that if we pulled out before we succeed in "our" goal (and BTW, we STILL have not "pulled out" of Japan nor Germany, but we aren't enemies either; but it shows you the level of commitment we had in the 50's versus our, "...we have to see results in one year, otherwise we'll just drop the whole thing like hot bricks...", type of idiocy prevalent in our politicians and populous right now...

I don't think we should have EVER gone into Iraq, simply because we never had the backbone NOR the stomach to actually remain there and to see it ALL the way through. When Bush proposed this war, if he would have been a smart man, he would have told the entire nation that going there would be a new level of commitment we hadn't been used to for quite some time. IT WOULD get Americans killed; possibly even a fairly high amount...

Nobody simply wanted to face the truth and reality of what they wanted to achieve and WHAT it would actually take to get it done. Instead, we went to war, just long enough (and I really hope this wasn't the biggest reason; but, my EXTREMELY cynical and negative side wants to say it's true...) to line the pockets of the politicians that signed on and, of course, the banks, portfolios, and third parties all involved in stealing--literally--billions of taxpayer dollars and making billions more in revenue and other sources...

Truly making Cheney and Bush utterly despicable. By that point, that everything was realized to be an utter falsehood we had two choices: stick to the course created for a false reason (but turn it into on of history's greatest success stories; and WE COULD have done it, it just required...well...something Americans didn't wish to give Iraqis, sadly); and dropping the war as fast as possible with some sort of "transition" to the Iraqi government.

We took option two and we KNEW full well (at least if you were smart enough to know ANYTHING about history, just what was about to come eventually for Iraq) that their "peace" we created for them, to "save" them, was utter horse-shiat. They are now paying for the war crimes our leaders perpetrated against them...

Had we stayed, if we were still there and the media was patiently trying to explain to the American people WHY we had to stay--if we TRULY wish to FREE a country and make it into something great and new--it takes time and a lot of it.

Like I said, if you want to see what you have to do to pull this off, go look at Japan and Germany following WW2. It's not pretty; life WILL be lost. But, it might, just might, be better than this jihad social network that is in its infancy trying to become a true monster...



/political rant--because like the guy that Chomsky refers to, I saw this crap coming a long, long, long time ago
//I really had issues with the whole Iraq thing back in the day; but, I did say that if we went in, we should prepare to commit not for years, but for DECADES... I think THAT is where the American people, in general, didn't realize how truly long this fight would really be as it was indeed a "generational" fight... To me, it makes complete sense why we utterly FAILED, but ALSO why we were beginning to get things to actually work (and then flushed it all down the toilet--because a President sent us over to fight a war that I don't believe we were mentally prepared to REALLY win/fight; and as I said at the end, our soldiers (and their families) simply weren't ready for a war that would span a decade or more...
///Too many people think like the politicians do with war; war should be "nice and clean", "quick and simple", "profits and power"; as Sherman once said which applies to these type of politicians, but sadly many Americans in general who see war like a video game, not recognizing the true horror AND the true lengths men, woman, and children in those areas will need to change to make peace a word that can once again be common place in their society--not just for the hopeful: "I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers … it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated … that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation."

Hmm, let's see... Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a quarter of a million people murdered (to no end, the war was already effectively over).

Americans have killed more than that in subsequent years (in fact, some estimates place a higher death toll of Iraqi civilians alone at American feet). I remember during the invasion of Iraq, American forces shot heavy ordinance (M1 Tank main gun, I believe) at a hotel full of journalists.

As the man says, "I'm afraid of Americans...."

Yeah... it's Muslims who blow shit up around the world.

Wait, you think that servicemen didn't have to face children in Iraq that fought for the insurgency, be it bomb-strapped or not? Because honey, that shit's above board. If on the other hand you are suggesting that this woman is somehow glamorizing war and dismissing the importance of Iraqi lives, that's another matter, but converting children to your cause is the oldest and easiest trick in the book. It happened in Vietnam, it happens every single day in your pick of war-torn African nations, and it sure as shit is happening as we speak in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Is it just me or is Kathryn Bigelow really a c**t of the first order who would make up stories about iraqi children rigged to die just to sell movie tickets for her bulls**t made up story that every American thinks is real.

BIll Maher is an propagandist just like Bill'O Reilly is. I'm not much of a Ben Affleck fan but he showed this muppet and his puppet guests who's boss.

At least Obama put a stop to it. Except for the CIA facility at Mogadishu's airport where they held people in an underground dungeon and comforted them with some electric current through the genitals. Yeah, except for that.

Also, let's not talk about the torture camps run by the military, by contractors or by the Iraqi forces trained and instructed by folks like Colonels James Steele, who had already run Salvadoran death squads. And while we're at it, let's not talk about the outsourcing of torture to the goons of Gaddafi, Assad and Mubarak.

By the way, Brazil just published documents about 20 years of torture. Who trained the torturers? The usual suspects...

Because we find it abhorrent and we've been against massive deaths for awhile. After two World Wars Europe came together and basically decided if they have another one it would probably be the absolute death of everyone. So they started communicating, and I know everyone has problems with the Euro, and Politics and the EU and the UN. But this is the result, the end of massive war deaths. So that's Europe.

Second is the US, basically the lone super power after World War 2 controlling about half of all the worlds wealth. After the 1960s there was a civilizing effect because of all the protests. When Vietnam started nobody knew about the body counts, heck nobody knew that we attacked south vietnam at all. So suddenly there was a demand for information about this war where our kids were dying and we were finding out that they were doing a lot of things our consciousness couldn't tolerate.

So after a ton of protesting and upheaval in the country, so much so that troops were being rerouted to come back to the US to deal with the people the government went underground. They had secret wars, which of course are illegal and immoral however much MUCH less death. They just can't do whatever the hell they want anymore, we won't put up with it.

That's why when people try and compare Iraq to Vietnam I just laugh. There are hardly any comparisons that could be justified. The amount of deaths alone and the results aren't even in the same galaxy. And the reason is one thing, public protest and pressure. Iraq was the first war in human history where there was massive protests BEFORE the war even started.

Then even the Iraqi people protested because they weren't getting a chance to choose their own leaders, have their own democracy. There was nothing about us letting them vote for anything, we didn't want to allow though, and tried whatever we could to stop it. But too many people protested, there was too much reporting done on those protests.

So this is what it is, People. We stopped it, we got up and looked at these millions of dead bodies and said ENOUGH. We're not perfect we fuck up a lot, but if you want to look at what has affected the body counts in War more than anything it's peoples reaction to it. You could say weapons caused that reaction if you want but I prefer to give the people their fair do. We know when something is wrong and we're standing up to it. All over the world it's happening now, take part.

All-though that is true. The US has slaughtered many more Iraqi's. Hateful bags of shit like Judge Jeanine Pirro are trying to re-engage the US in renewed Middle East slaughter.

No they are not, innocent Iraqis are dead. *whew* Glad that's settled.

@newtboy,

Who'd of thought our back and forth would wind up the civil portion of the thread?

On veracity, accuracy and demonstrable evidence please note I twice provided external links beyond my own day so. The last being to a thoroughly researched and documented account from Human Rights Watch. The only claimed verbatim quote I included was italicized to make clear what was quote versus a shorten in my own words summary. I included a link to the full document so anyone questioning my summary is very to call me out on specifics. Thus far the only in accuracy in aware of has been corrected. If you believe I'm in any other way mischaracterizing events as HRW documented it ask you to point it more specifically or failing that cease insisting that my account is anything less than very thoroughly backed by very well evidenced research.

By way of declaring lesser evils, I would ask you to be specific about worst ISIS has done that you feel so trumps the million dead of the Iran Iraq war and Saddam's multiple genocidal campaigns.

Lastly on ISIL, I don't think they are specifically the ones to stay up at night over anyways. Nouri Al-Maliki's credentials as a brutal thug are underestimated quite widely IMO and I very much expect the real nastiness will come from his crushing of Sunni Iraqis in the guise of stopping ISIL. Ugly times ahead, but I fear the guys your worried about are going to be taking it more than dishing it out, sadly leaving more Sunni Iraqi civilians dead than anyone else.

Gassing them was considered the worst part of what he did by most, agreed he did evil for decades, and that equated to more than a single (or campaign) of gassing, but as far as single events go, it was the worst.
As I said, just give ISIS time, they are more hard line and eager to kill than Saddam seemed, and on the rise fast. If YOU want to champion ISIS as a lesser evil, you should bother to study what THEY are doing now, with an insanely smaller group and less power than Saddam, if they gain power and people, I see them as likely being worse.
American policy should concern anyone who's discussing it, which is what we've been doing. If American policy doesn't matter to you, why are you not on your way to the Sudan or Congo to remove those dictators that are committing genocide yourself? When discussing what America's military did and does, American policy matters.
All Iraqi's live in fear today, as do their neighboring countries.
Saddam wasn't 1/10th the 'evil dictator' Pol Pot or Hitler were, and was never a threat to anyone but his neighbors. If you really think he was (1) I must assume you spent the 90's in Iraq trying to assassinate him, right? and (2) you really need to read some history.