Actually no, I responded to what you said, which could be taken to mean many things.
I said I thought you meant the current state of Iraq when you said "blaming Sr. for Iraq"...and reading this it seems I was correct.
Imo, the current state or the region is mostly due to jr, not Sr.
Many people still blame Sr for the current state there. I disagree with that theory. That's all.

Sr hardly had a war in Iraq, his barely crossed the border and was mainly in Kuwait if memory serves. They chased the Iraqis out and bombed the shit out of them as they ran.
Kuwait was considered a sovereign nation, not a province of Iraq. Saddam invaded it. Sr never tried to remove Saddam, except from Kuwait. Since he understood the problem of creating a power vacuum there, I think leaving Saddam in power was smart with no feasible plan to replace him, even though it was clearly inhumane....and we have evidence now to support that. Iraq is absolutely worse off today than it was under Saddam, no matter which group you belong to.

Fortunately, all the WMD talk was pure fabricated fantasy...we never had evidence he continued those programs after the first gulf war/Kuwait. If he had had them, Bush Jr might have started ww3 by attacking him, knowing he would use them on his neighbors like he had before. Remember, it was Jr's administration's plan to convince the public he had wmds, so it's no surprise he also had people saying they're too dangerous to attack while he had many more saying he's too dangerous to leave in power....the same people claiming he was involved in 9/11, which was asinine.

@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.

"We need to find out how many vets are willing to do war crimes. Jesus."

You don't really follow current events, do you?

Since the Vietnam war, American soldiers have been rigorously trained to act instead of think. It's been very successful. So successful that the US is now the best country at the world when it comes to killing your own and accidentally targeting civilians. In the first gulf war, 12 Bradley AFVs were destroyed, NINE of them were by US troops. I saw a video during that war of a spotter for an A-10. Even on the poor-quality video we could see it was a Bradley (this was while I was working with an Armored regiment). The A-10 obliterates the Bradley and all the on board were certainly dead, he calls back over the radio, "I believe that was a friendly, over." To which the spotter says, "Oh shit, I was afraid of that."

Your soldiers kill eachother without fear of repercussions. Why the hell would they worry about war crimes against other people?

I think you will find that most veterans, and currently serving men and women, simply want a clear objective that allows them to win the conflict and return home. Unfortunately the nature of terrorism means that while we follow long held rules that prevent collateral damage, or seek to limit it, the enemy we are fighting do not.

Just as we learned to our sorrow in Vietnam, as the British learned in fighting the IRA, the Russians in fighting the Mujaheddin, and we are learning again in our current battles, terrorists do not feel the need to adhere to the laws of warfare. They use civilians to support them, protect targets, or provide them escape methods. They attack civilians gleefully, knowing we cannot respond in kind.

While I do not support Trump, I do think we seriously need to have a new Geneva Convention to clarify how to treat terrorists and their civilian supporters. I think that is what the ex-Seal meant at the heart of his argument, that fighting terrorists using the old "Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, we have rules here" is an absolute losing proposition. Even Obama found that we needed to work outside the rules sometimes to be successful, hence his invasion into a sovereign allied nation to kill or capture Bin Laden, and his current extremely heavy use of drone attacks on suspected targets.

As far as the second veteran, I feel it is absolutely valid to question his integrity. He could have claimed CO status prior to going to conflict or simply not joined the military in the first place. Instead, he decided to claim it after experiencing combat, something my friends who have served noticed happening in the first gulf war. You really don't want a recap of some of the things they called people who left the service after seeing combat.

Yes, you did. You said repeatedly that dogfighting capabilities are not needed at all because this fighter won't ever see dogfighting because it never happens since WW1, and all engagement happens at long range and stealth will protect it 100%.
You must have not read, the articles I linked were about air to air engagements, not bombing, and included up to the gulf war.
Again, the F-15 and F-4 as deployed today is not inferior to Russian planes. Only if you compare the original incarnation of the F-15 with the top of the line Russian planes of today, sometimes it comes out on top, sometimes it's specs are worse.
There's no such thing as a real F-35 pilot, only test pilots have ever flown it, and never in real life situations, only pre conceived situations where it still fails the test designed for it to pass.
The F-35 can't dogfight, and it's not even in the US arsenal. Jesus Christ!
The article I listed before cracked was the one with data, the cracked one was simply to show dogfights using guns have happened repeatedly since WW1, in fact at least up through Vietnam including one completely insane example of using the rotor wash of a helicopter and an AK-47 to take out a pair of fighters (which, agreed, sounded made up it was so insane), contrary to your repeated assertion that it hasn't happened at all and never will again. I notice you don't dispute their facts though.


Oh well. Here I thought perhaps reason and facts had finally permeated the fan boy shell. I guess I was wrong. I give up. If you're going to stick with ridiculous positions like 'there's been no dogfights since WW1', and 'the F-35 will out dogfight the F-4' after being proven wrong time and again with real data and test results, there's no logic or fact that will break the shell, so I quit. Don't feel bad, you're in good company with all of congress (but of course, they all got PAID to hold their positions). Enjoy your $2 trillion fleet of useless planes, since no amount of failure or expense can kill the project.

Well there you go, even Wikipedia says dogfights haven't existed for some 25 years So the F-35 doesn't need to have maneuverability as it's primary design feature.

I think I see why we are disagreeing - we have differing definitions of dogfights, if you read the air battle encounters from the gulf war you'll see that it wasn't dogfighting in the traditional sense where planes are doing all sorts of fancy aerobatics to try to use guns on each other like WW1.
(And wikipedia has this defintion problem too because it seems to call all air engagements a dogfight).

It was all BFM at a fairly long ranges in the order of 10 miles. (which is considered close range, since a plane takes several miles to make a turn at high speed).

Not one guns kill in the air. A few close range missile kills, but mostly long range AIM7's. (well techinically it's called medium range, but it's it's still like 20-30miles).
There's a good reason why fighter planes carry one about 7 seconds worth of bullets, and only 2 close range missiles vs 6+ long range missiles.

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

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.

Ugh, the F-35 is such a waste of money, and is costing the Canadian gov't so much. We did a no bid contract, which is the stupidest thing in the world unless you're the one getting it, and it doesn't even meet the needs our country demands from its fighter/bombers.

Of course I do have my love of the A-10, I think it's just an amazing plane. I still remember that footage from the first gulf war when an A-10 landed, and it looked like swiss cheese.

Here it is:

http://youtu.be/1BecNTYPYbU

And, it goes into action..

Greatest Tank Battles- M2 Bradley vs T-72 | Gulf War (3 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sum91rgJXkI

It wasn't just waterboarding, Hitchens admitted he was wrong on Iraq as well.

One of the things I admired most about him was that on taking a strong stance on his beliefs, he was still willing to put those beliefs to the test and if persuaded change them.

As you know, he was sketchy on condemning water boarding, tried it, and came back unreservedly declaring it as unqualified torture. He did the same thing with his position on Iraq, but I can see how many missed it. During the first gulf war Hitchens was very publicly vocal in his opposition to the invasion, even debating and destroying Carleton Heston. After the war, Hitchens went to Iraq to live with Kurdish people, and he promptly came back with his mind changed and advocated from that day forward for the removal of Saddam.

Off the start, there's a good chance I'm older than you .

My real problem isn't the moral relativism angle. It is the mindset of holding America to a higher standard not only when placing expectations on it, but when analyzing a situation and the expected results. The situation with the recent chemical weapons attack isn't at all special. War crimes are almost always committed within the fog of war. The trouble I have is people that are completely willing to accepted circumstantial evidence or even simply motive for accusations against America or an ally, but if it's the other side suddenly the burden of proof becomes much, much higher. List a heading that American forces were involved in a massacre of dozens in Iraq or Afghanistan and people just say yep, must be true. List the same heading that Assad has done the same and the response is show us the proof! That attitude and mindset is what I mean to oppose.

You asked who is 'more' evil, or which actions are more evil. Arming and training Syrian rebels, or Assad waging his campaign against them. Assad rules Syria because his father ruled Syria. His father held onto his control by massacring an entire town when the brotherhood spoke up. In the current conflict, the uprising started up as peaceful protests. Assad broke that peace by shooting the protesters when it became clear they weren't stopping.

When it comes to concern for international law, I don't understand if you've been paying attention to it for the last couple decades. When push comes to shove, NOBODY cares about international laws. Well, at least nobody making decisions on the international playing field. International laws did a great job protecting people in Darfur. International laws did a great job protecting Rwandans. International laws did a great job in Chechnya, Serbia, Somalia and on and on and on. Russia, China and Iran will respond to the situation in Syria based on the perceived benefit to them, just the same as America, Israel and everyone else, and not a one of them will waste a thought for international law at the end of the day. The only thing they will consider is what impact they expect their actions to have and they will choose the one they perceive to have the greatest benefit to them. Syria is long on it's way into a quagmire, and not a place of great value to Russia or China for long if the status quo continues. That is why you see their rhetoric softening, because they just have less to gain by maintaining their relationship with a regime that holds less and less control over it's resources.

What I would like to see if I got to play quarterback is the imposition of a no fly zone over regions of Syria, much like in Libya and northern Iraq after the first Gulf war. That alone could force enough of a line where neither Assad nor the rebels could hope to make serious in grounds upon each other. You might even persuade people to talk then but the 'cease fire', even then, would make the Israel/Palestine borders look pristine. I don't see Obama or Putin being dumb enough to each put their own boots on the ground to start anything over Syria. Neither one of them has reason to care enough. Putin, through Iran has strategic access to all of Iran and most of Iraq as it is, and solidifying relationships through Iraq is more than enough to keep Iran occupied.

i guess in the end I do not choose the non-intervention route because if you allow dictators to use chemical weapons to hold onto power, what exactly IS worth intervening for? During the Darfur genocide all the same arguments kept everyone out because you don't want to worsen a civil war. In Rwanda, same story. In Iraq it took 3 campaigns of murdering 100s of thousands before anyone finally took sides against Saddam, and even then his removal is held up as on of the worst violations of international laws and norms ever. It'd be nice for a change to at least find someone that figures starting the Iran-Iraq war and the Al-Anfal campaign against the Kurds where even worse. Far more people died, and the sole end game of them was to enhance the prestige and power of a mad man.

@bcglorf
there are a few things i dont understand about your position.i hope you can clear them up for me.

1.you state that there is conclusive evidence that it was the assad regime that executed the use of chemical weapons and that only russia and the syrian government are stating otherwise.
could you supply this evidence for us?
because as far as i can tell the only entity providing evidence is isreal and i have to admit being skeptical of their claims.they have been wrong before and often.

2.now lets address the hypothetical that it IS assads regime that is responsible for the chemical attacks.
how does this give the united states the right to unilaterally use military force?
where is the diplomatic option?
why are we not even attempting to bring the players on the ground in syria to the negotiating table?
sanctions?embargoes?
why are we jumping right over steps 3 and 4 and diving into bombings?
how is killing innocent civilians considered "humanitarian"?

3.if the reasoning that we are being given is that a syrian intervention is based on "humanitarian" grounds and that the assad regime has perpetrated "crimes against humanity" (which is possible).where is the united states deriving this moral authority?
when we consider that the united states itself used:phosphorous and depleted uranium in iraq,which IS indeed considered a war crime.
in fact the united states has pretty much broken international law in every conflict since 1950 in regards to war crimes.
so where is our supposed moral authority?

4.if we dismiss the questionable intelligence in regards to chemical weapons in syria AND we ignore the utter hypocrisy in using banned weaponry and we focus on JUST the crimes against humanity defense for intervention.that somehow the united states is doing all this for "humanitarian" reasons.
then we must ask the question:
"if the united states is such a beacon of moral purity and is the defender of the weak and helpless that it will strike at any sovereign nation that dares to kill its own citizens.why is it that the united states turned a blind eye in other countries that perpetrated almost mass genocide against its own people"?

what makes syria more special than the millions of human beings who were allowed to be murdered and slaughtered by its own government while the united states sat back and did nothing,and many times supplied the very weaponry USED to murder those people?

the hypocrisy is staggering.

the implication is that the united states is NOT interested in a stable syria but exactly the opposite.
maybe this thought is troubling for americans but i submit that if that is the case then they have not been paying attention.

*edit-as for your "iraq is the way it is due to saddam hussein" assertion.
really?reeeaaaally?
you do realize the united states armed saddam.we didnt pull the trigger when he went after the iranians and the kurds but we supplied the gun.
you do realize that we never left iraq after the first gulf war.
are you aware that even as reprehensible and venal saddam was,iraq had running water,hospitals,schools.even with the continued bombings and sanctions iraq had a functioning government?

are we to believe ,by your assertion,that iraq is in the state it is right now due to saddam hussein and america bears ZERO responsibility?
we have occupied iraq for TEN YEARS.saddam was executed 7 yrs ago.
the united states has failed on an epic scale in regards to iraq.

remember that whole "we will be greeted as liberators"
"the oil we confiscate will pay for the war"
maybe i am reading your commentary wrong but i cant wrap my head around your assertion.
it just does not hold up under the simplest of scrutiny.

You reflect a lot of peoples opinions with this. Those who are terrified of terrorist attacks and let themselves get whipped up into a panic state anytime they push the propaganda button.

Oh those aren't happy natives those are blood thirsty psychos redskins we have to destroy to feel safe.

Those aren't nice Chinese laundrymen they're trying to kill us, we need to launch a chemical attack against mainland China (true story).

Those aren't black slaves we're keeping under our boots, they want to rape your daughters we can't give them freedom!

Those aren't peaceful villagers they're Red Communist bastards that are coming for us like a HOARD!

And so on and so on and so on. This country is terrified of everything, and usually the boogie man it makes up is the very people or country that we have under our boot. If we take our boot away for even a second they'll destroy us and everything we hold dear. There were people arming themselves and wearing Camo during the FIRST Gulf War because they were terrified of Saddam Hussein showing up on our doorsteps.

This culture of fear is what they use to justify everything, it's all about Security. Guess what, it doesn't have anything to do with security, because they know very well what they can do to make us more secure, even more than our magical country already is. They're not doing it, they have never done it...they're not protecting us, they only protect themselves FROM US.

This isn't an attack or anything you bring up a very good point which tons of people do during these debates. I'm getting really tired of the most protected society in the world not responding to those who actually pose a threat to not just our survival, but humanities as a whole.

Hi.
I didn't actually think your "snuff" video was out of place, but I wanted to ask: you're not actually banned, are you? I only saw the comment, and ... you know what I mean.
I once had a coworker paste a video around the (3000+ person) company mailing list that was a video of a grainy black-blotch (guy) being mowed down by what was said to be the mini-gun of an Apache helicopter in the gulf war. Granted that the coworkers commentary was celebratory and offensive, but even that nearly-abstract video insulted me more than what you posted, and your tone clearly had no such intent.
I hope you stick around. Please don't take offense, and I'll be writing to those who flagged you later to hopefully calm them the fuck down too. This is the best community I've been a part of online in more than a decade, and I am sad to lose anyone who's a contributor.
I didn't think the video was snuff, and I don't think the majority of the community would think so either.