Or a typical day in the Dems/progs/leftist camp, duly supported by the MSM…
The progressives’ reactions to President Trump’s elimination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s blood-soaked chief of their foreign adventurism, covered the whole range of clichés we can predict whenever this country acts vigorously to defend its interests and security. Iran, however, is a special case. For forty years, with a few exceptions our leaders have preemptively cringed in the face of Iranian aggression, conjuring up the specter of a widescale war in order to justify inaction. This bad habit has led to appeasing policies that have emboldened the mullahs into ever-increasing aggression in the region from Iraq to Syria to Yemen.
Full article, HERE.
This has gone on for WAY too long… We ‘knew’ the chances of a nuclear war with the USSR, and they knew we were locked and loaded 24/7. They also knew we were tracking their subs and other assets world-wide and that none of them would survive more than three hours if push came to shove.
You may not like what I have to say, but I’m going to say it anyway. Having retired from 20+ years in the US Navy, and another 23 years as a Navy contractor, having walked the walk my adult life, I would say that as you read the above article, please try to understand the centuries old military wisdom, and my background, and the belief that if you must fight, either in self-defense or preemptively in self-defense, whether personally or as a nation, you must win decisively without remorse or you absolutely will lose in the end. The last real ‘win’ we’ve had was WWII, and that took nukes to make happen. Since then? Think Korea. Think Vietnam. Think Afghanistan. Think Iraq. Think of the human sacrifice of our precious youth that was unnecessary because of the lack of a will to win decisively! I believe a large part of this has been due to the ‘perception’ that we were beating up on the little guy and the diplomats ‘controlling’ the interactions. How many of our young people must die, or innocent here at home must die before decisive action is taken? This was the first step, and I for one am sad that they didn’t take out every one of those launchers.
The blood of 176 innocents that died are on Iranian hands because of the Iranians paranoia and SA-15 Gauntlet system in autonomous mode (Iran has 29 such systems). Early photos showed a number of dimpled penetrations indicative of shrapnel in various parts of the skin of the airplane. Those pictures have since disappeared. You can go HERE, and look down through the photos there are a number shrapnel dimples evident. My bet is that the real black box recordings will never see the light of day…
There is no such thing as a proportionate response, only a massively deterrent response irrespective of human life. The only peace that is enduring is the result of deterrence having proven that you will give no quarter to a belligerent and bellicose adversary.
Here, Here! Well said.
While I agree with the sentiment, I am glad Trump showed the measured response he did.
There are other things to occupy his attention right now.
The mullahs backed down for now and absent civil war, they’ll be there later. Right now, ratcheting up the sanctions (with Euro support) may cause the necessary regime change (civil war or a putsch) without our military intervention.
That hasn’t been tried earnestly until this administration.
And LL is reporting that Iran has fessed up.
The US was carefully tracking that patch of real estate and had the proof, black boxes notwithstanding. People on the ground video’d the missiles striking the doomed airliner. Bulldozing the debris field didn’t hide the truth and the Iranians gave up on the cover up.
I think that it was a mistake. I’m sure that the people who pushed the button will live (for a while) to regret it.
There is a lesson here for the Russians as well. Don’t give the kids matches and gasoline and send them in the back yard to play.
Bulldozing the debris field was also egregious on the level of denying retrieval of personal effects to relatives.
Unless as I posted, this was not an accidental shootdown and retrieval of personal effects might show that.
Or not.
Only problem with what you, Ed, said is that Iran and most other nations in the area don’t really give a darned about what the foreign relatives of the dead feel. Heck, if this was just an internal hop full of Iranians that got shot down the people in charge wouldn’t give a camel’s buttocks about Iranian relatives of the dead feel, except to find those who make the most noise and visit them…
Yes!!
Exactly!!
Overwhelming force is the only thing that some countries/people understand.
Ed- I think they are close to a civil war, this was supposed to be a distraction… sigh
LL- You know as well as I do how those ‘export’ systems are configured… dammit…
Ed- Yeah, not going to end well.
Suz- Concur
Hey Old NFO;
Very good rant, I remembered after Jimmy Carter tried to get our hostages back with operation “Eagle Claw” and it was a debacle and showcased the bad shape of the U.S Military after Vietnam and the subsequent policies since. Well President Reagan was a totally different president. He wouldn’t back down and when the Iranians got caught seeding the Persian Gulf with mines and one of our destroyers tripped over it. We went and sunk half of their navy and several of their oil platforms. And the subsequent Desert Storm a couple years later showed that we were not to trifle with, that is how Bubba was able to coast along and not get hassled. After 9-11 and we got involved hard and heavy, the Iranians saw a chance to strike back at the “Great Satan” and started teaching the insurgents against the United States and we knew that the Iranians were helping, but we had our hands full with Iraq and Afghanistan. Then Obungler got elected. did the “American Apology Tour” and unilaterally announced pullouts of Iraq and Afghanistan based on political timetables and not the reality on the ground. Then the seizure of the American Sailors was a humiliation for the United States. Then Trump got elected and he was a totally different president than Obungler and it showed by the policies of his Presidency.
Sorry for the Rant
Good review.
Two things the Dems and their MSM lackeys HATE, have kicked the foundations out from under the gulf plutarchs: fracking, and President Trump removing the drilling restrictions from public land, and offshore drilling, and allowing export of CONUS produced oil. Personal opinion: the first new exploratory permit should be for about 10 mi off the coast of Malibu.
OPEC’s Gulf members had to open their taps enough to make fracking not as economical, but this can bleed them out. Annoy the President enough, and face blockade or inexplicable terminal ‘accidents’, with America selling inexpensive oil to replace them. Leave them as a bypassed backwater for another few centuries.
Well said, sir. But I fear you’re preaching to the choir, and those who need to be convinced will pay no attention. Rarely (if ever) do they contemplate words of a different opinion; apparently that’s not done, anymore.
I think there are plenty of nominal conservatives that are a bit too far in the direction of trying to avoid hurting people.
Bob – it isn’t that we want to avoid hurting people, it is more that we want to insure that the correct people are the ones that get hurt. Case in point was the specifically targeted strike on queso salami – absolutely NO collateral damage nor innocents hurt.
If we intentionally injure innocents we are no better than they are.
It is possible that I go much too far in terms of ‘it is necessary’, ‘it is okay when it is necessary’, and ‘these are innocents we cannot avoid hurting’.
I have a tendency to try to make motte and bailey arguments on this issue.
My bailey is that my opinions are somewhat defensible as my personal opinions. They may in fact be wrong opinions, that I will eventually convince myself are wrong. But there are enough bullshit counterarguments floating around that I am justified in being selective about which ones I consider admissible. Forex, the end of the third Punic war. There are absolutely academics who would simply slot the Romans into the ‘white supremacist’ box of their model. So, I have the defense that the Republican Romans doing it makes it an integral part of western culture, and the disagreement is tainted with dishonest biased dislike of western civilization. But that defense is only valid in some circumstances, and there may be a solid counterargument that I have no choice but to consider admissible. So, my bailey is weak because I haven’t done anywhere near enough careful thinking and study.
What about my motte? Well, I get angry when people disagree, then I assume that there is a general case for my positions that applies to others, and try to argue it. There is no such general case. The same information warfare environment that justifies my own skepticism justifies others being skeptical of my positions.
Conservative covers a wide range of opinions, with subtle differences, some of which have profound consequences. Is ‘better than they are’ a valid goal, or a snare set by the adversary? Communists have definitely appealed to that desire in efforts to weaken us. What is the proper definition of innocent?
A couple of bombs stopped the Japanese portion of the war but it was 24/7 bombing with thousands of bombs oover Germany and the destruction of cities, civilians, and military making targets that stopped the ETO flat. I agree that to win you must play hard and do the most damage. ROE’s should be at a minimum, if at all. They hate us, they want to kill us, do it first to them.
Coffey – true enough but do not forget that the unrestricted bombing used by the Allies was a direct response to the indiscriminate bombing done by the axis – particularly in Europe. And yet – for the most part – we tried to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties.
What I like about President Trump, part the MMXXVVIILLsomething.
He understands that in business, one does better when arguing from a position of strength.
And he uses his business savvy towards politics. Which we are fascinated watching ‘career politicians of the USA,’ who are used to arguing from a position of weakness, freak as he succeeds, massively, in the international scene by arguing from a position of strength.
Muahahahahaha. Speak softly and use a big stick on your opponents, until they take their fingers out of their ears and start listening.
What a great post and true.
“…you must win decisively without remorse or you absolutely will lose in the end.”
Perhaps with that in mind, the Mullahs sure stood down quickly. And now there’s protests in Tehran; it seems the Persians are less fond of Islamic theocracy than, say, Congress.
Protests.
https://mobile.twitter.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1216004196077592579
I had 20 years in the AF, 17 of them in the missile biz, and 8 of those years in Launch Control Centers, of which two of them remain as museum sites. You know the saying that any day waking up above the grass is good? My estimate is I had about 270 below the gravel.
Sam – you may have been below ground level but at least you were – and still are – breathing 😉 just a wee bit of difference.
As always thank you for your service.
With you 100% – but ever notice that every decisive win has always been decried by the Left as a war “crime?”
Yes, there have been war crimes – the prisoners of war aboard the Oryoku Maru and other Japanese “hell ships,” Nazi concentration camps – we all know that.
But these @-holes start with the premise the existence of America is itself a crime, and so for our nation to defend itself is also inherently a “crime.”
Decisive American action and victory is thus a ‘crime’ to them, so when they’re in charge so they play war by rheostat (start slow, keep losing everything and all hands, and always undersupply until you are just close to enough’) rather than war by Big Brass Knife Switch, where the ‘ON’ position looks like Dresden, Magdeburg, Hiroshima. Bismarck SUNK. Yamato, Musashi, SUNK. This is what gets the enemy to surrender, both physically *and* emotionally. That’s what we need, and ‘it is mercy in the end.’
That last phrase comes from Maj. Henry Hitchcock, under Wm T Sherman’s March to the Sea, who wrote “[W]e must war upon and destroy the [enemy] forces – must cut off their supplies, destroy their communications … and produce among the people of [the enemy] a thorough conviction of the personal misery which attends war, and the utter helplessness and inability of their ‘rulers’ to protect them … If that terror and grief and even want shall help to paralyze their husbands and fathers who are fighting us … it is mercy in the end.”
Brings to mind what Adm Halsey always said: “Hit Hard, Hit Fast, and Hit Often”…..
Just to be contrary, some who opposed war as a solution had direct experience. George McGovern comes to mind. That said, I think President Trump is doing a good job.
Have believed for ages that fewer deaths and injuries would occur on BOTH sides if instead of dicking around you fight all out war with everything you’ve got from jump.
Or threaten to.
Ed – true enough – IF the threat(s) work AND can be delivered if needed.
From my earliest days, the words of my maternal gra dfather, a thoroughly mean, hard, old, man.
“Stomp a mudhole in them then stomp them till the mudhole is dry”.
Dan – I also heard something similar early on – my corollary is that you can’t just get even or even get ahead – you have to get ahead in spades – enough so that you do not have to reply again. Works well in dealing with bullies be they the school yard type or the nation state types.
All- Thanks for the comments. I appreciate them AND the civility!
Posted from my iPhone.