Politics

[bowjijohn]

Those shorts were all the rage

I still have a pair, kept from when I was a boy soldier of 17

sadly I can barely get them past my ankles today

Also a rugby shirt from that same era

treasured mementos

 

[spike.t]

Those shorts were all the rage

I still have a pair, kept from when I was a boy soldier of 17

sadly I can barely get them past my ankles today

Also a rugby shirt from that same era

treasured mementos

 

[Red Leg]

No, actually, lots of folks beyond Trump's base believe this according to several different polls. But as you say, the fact is that we will never know. What we do know is that it's an incredible coincidence that Russia planned it's invasion after Trump left office and after Brandon's Afghan debacle.. I would think out of all people, a former military leader like yourself would acknowledge the affect of the demonstration of weakness and fecklessness will have on an adversary. Trump was many things, but the portrayer of weakness, fecklessness, or indecisiveness in the eyes of our adversaries was not one of them.



I don't question Zenlensky's bravery or patriotism for his own country. However, bravery and reckless behavior or not mutually exclusive. In martialing support of his own cause, he has brought the rest of the free world dangerously close to WW3. His hyperbolic rhetoric is growing bolder each day with a call for escalation over this missile debacle being the latest example, and you call that credible, responsible leadership? Sorry, I simply do not agree with this perspective, and I'm kinda surprised you see it this way?



@WAB,
If you think I post bullshit, you must not have ever read much of my content here.. I'm the last guy that needs to be fact-checked.. Zelensky has made many crazy, inflammatory statements since the beginning. Obviously he does this to garner as much support as possible, but he has done so with false and dangerously hyperbolic statements and claims that scream for escalation. Then, just like Brandon's handlers, his public relations people attempt to walk-back his rhetoric as if he didn't actually mean what he just said as plain as day..

You can easily find several of his reckless, inflammatory sound bites all over the internet which I am not going to post. Feel free to do your own research as I do.. This clip is just one one of many.

This is his latest rhetoric on the missile strike.. This is not the kind of commentary to admire and respect.. This is irresponsible and reckless..

Thanks for the response. Let me first say that I am very comfortable drawing my own conclusions based upon my actual career as opposed to adopting them from those who deem what my conclusions should be based upon what they presume constitutes my experiences. For instance, while I strongly agreed with most of Trump's domestic agenda, and some of his international goals (with respect to China in particular). I think he is one of the poorer "leaders" we have put in the White House. That is based upon my experiences and conclusions with respect to the requirements of leadership.

With respect to Afghanistan, my professional assessment is that Trump's withdrawal plan was riskier than what Biden actually attempted to execute. My military experience tells me that the conditions that led to the fiasco in Kabul would have been magnified many times over by accelerating the time line by several months. Trump's apologists say that he wouldn't actually have implemented what he demanded DOD prepare to execute. Sure, I guess that could have happened. We'll never know.

With respect to Ukraine, I simply will say his comments have been all over the map since 24 February. The most ludicrous, based upon my military experience, is that he would have deterred Putin by sailing Ohio Class submarines, which he claimed to have "built," (first one deployed in the 1976 - but never mind), along the coast of Russia.

And we are upset by Putin's nuclear saber rattling.

I am hardly the first to suggest that Trump's somewhat mercurial personality and selective grasp of facts may indeed have introduced enough doubt into Putin's calculations to not have ordered the invasion. But I think it is equally reasonable to conclude Putin's assessment of Trump's disdain for Zelensky would have been as compelling as Biden's verbal confusion. Again, we will never know.

Ukraine has essentially been calling for first or preemptive strikes since the start of the war. The calls for a no fly zone carry with them the implied requirement to preemptively strike Russian air defense assets inside Russia and Belarus. We have not and will not do that. I listened to the out of context clip above a couple of times (those diabolical Indians), and missed where Zelensky called for a preemptive nuclear strike. It is worth remembering the context. During this period, a bevy of commentators including the likes of Patraeus were suggesting any use of a Russian tactical nuclear weapon would be met with an overwhelming conventional response by NATO (the jury is still out whether that was messaging approved by the NSC). I have no doubt Zelensky would be thrilled if we decided to execute such a strategy preemptively. We obviously won't.

With respect to the missile that struck Poland, just about everyone, with the exception of the White House and DOD (to their credit), assumed initially that the blast was caused by an errant Russian cruise missile. That Zelensky would quickly attempt to leverage it is hardly surprising.

He is acting consistently in the national interests of Ukraine - not ours. We are acting in the interests of the United States and secondarily those of NATO. All overlap with respect to stopping Russian territorial ambitions in Europe. They will often differ - sometimes profoundly - with respect to how that is accomplished.

 

[1dirthawker]

Europe's economy is about the size of America's yet America has given or committed more than twice, maybe three times as much to Ukraine as all of Europe. America is doing way more than it's share.

been a while since i have been on this thread, a couple thoughts tho,

remember when there was that tsunami in japan and russia, china and UAE all banded together and helped out the japanese.....oh wait, that was america.

remember when (you name the country) was in dire straights and so many african nations, china, brazil and russia came to the rescue? oh, wait, that was the USA, not the other countries.

like trump felt about funding NATO, i feel that the folks that are most affected should step up just a little extra to help themselves in the future.

i don't have a huge emotional investment in ukraine, i am impressed by their willingness and tenacity to defend their country. that said, i am a bit tired of the US being the world piggy bank to help/bail out these other nations that their own leaders don't do jack shit for. that money would go a long way in helping americans OR maybe lowering our national debt.

my 2 cents

 

[RTG]

been a while since i have been on this thread, a couple thoughts tho,

remember when there was that tsunami in japan and russia, china and UAE all banded together and helped out the japanese.....oh wait, that was america.

remember when (you name the country) was in dire straights and so many african nations, china, brazil and russia came to the rescue? oh, wait, that was the USA, not the other countries.

like trump felt about funding NATO, i feel that the folks that are most affected should step up just a little extra to help themselves in the future.

i don't have a huge emotional investment in ukraine, i am impressed by their willingness and tenacity to defend their country. that said, i am a bit tired of the US being the world piggy bank to help/bail out these other nations that their own leaders don't do jack shit for. that money would go a long way in helping americans OR maybe lowering our national debt.

my 2 cents

Strong 2 cents!

31 trillion in debt and around 200 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities nation wide. When we collapse due to our own stupidity, we'll see who our friends our. My prediction, we will have zero friends. I think only an idiot would suggest otherwise.

 

[Boyd Brooks]

Me looking for facts on the internet!

 

[BSO Dave]

I listened to the out of context clip above a couple of times (those diabolical Indians), and missed where Zelensky called for a preemptive nuclear strike.

So you missed the part where Zelensky said "We should call on NATO to preemptively strike Russia to exclude to possibility of nuclear weapons use by Russia"

Did you also miss Zelensky saying "We need preemptive strikes on Russia so they will know what will happen to them if they use nukes and not the other way around." So what part(s) exactly are vague or out of context in those statements?

You are welcome to mock the news source, but it's hard to dismiss the credibility of a video of the person saying it... There are at least another half dozen videos on the internet of the same thing from various world news sources if you don't find the interpreter of that particular one credible..

Just don't look for any of Zenlensky's videos on MSM because his rhetoric would obviously hinder support from the American sheeple.. FOX and Tucker Carlson in particular is the only media source that I have seen regularly air these videos of Zenlensky's dangerous rhetoric. I say this knowing you don't agree with Tucker's narrative on Ukraine, but you don't have to agree with his narrative to acknowledge the facts (unless you are a democrat)..

With respect to the missile that struck Poland, just about everyone, with the exception of the White House and DOD (to their credit), assumed initially that the blast was caused by an errant Russian cruise missile. That Zelensky would quickly attempt to leverage it is hardly surprising.

No it's not surprising, but it is also reckless, irresponsible, and dangerous. Inciting escalation is hardly what a responsible leader of a nation would do, and acting in his country's own best interest at any cost is hardly justification for trying to start a world war.. I am disappointed and surprised that you will not acknowledge that..

He is acting consistently in the national interests of Ukraine - not ours.

On this we agree 100%...!

 

[BSO Dave]

Not calling BS, just wanted the source as I did not know this to be true. I’m probably a little biased on Ukraine having spent a lot of time there through the process of adopting our daughter, and sponsoring another Ukrainian through a US education.

As an interesting aside, our adopted daughter is from Poltava, is Rus, and is no fan of Zelensky.

My apologies if I came off rude or defensive. That was not my intention. I honestly assumed what I said about Zenlensky's rhetoric throughout this war was common knowledge to all participating in this discussion..

I have been following the politics of this war very closely because I am trying very hard to understand the how and why this particular war at this particular point in time is such a severe existential threat to the U.S. as opposed to the many other existential threats the U.S. has faced or currently faces that does not garner the same financial and military commitment.

I have said many times that I also admire the Ukrainian people, and I feel for their human suffering. I have no issue with providing our fair share of humanitarian and LIMITED defensive support for the Ukrainian army. However, as much as I would like to be, I am just not on board with the explanation (or lack thereof) that has been provided by the U.S. government to this point to justify the level of our current or escalated involvement.

I have no doubt Zelensky is a brave Ukrainian patriot acting in his own countries best interest. However, the fact that he is willing to do or say anything to garner stronger military support is irresponsible and very dangerous in my opinion.

 

[Alistair]

been a while since i have been on this thread, a couple thoughts tho,

remember when there was that tsunami in japan and russia, china and UAE all banded together and helped out the japanese.....oh wait, that was america.

remember when (you name the country) was in dire straights and so many african nations, china, brazil and russia came to the rescue? oh, wait, that was the USA, not the other countries.

like trump felt about funding NATO, i feel that the folks that are most affected should step up just a little extra to help themselves in the future.

i don't have a huge emotional investment in ukraine, i am impressed by their willingness and tenacity to defend their country. that said, i am a bit tired of the US being the world piggy bank to help/bail out these other nations that their own leaders don't do jack shit for. that money would go a long way in helping americans OR maybe lowering our national debt.

my 2 cents

I find it's helpful to think in terms of cost/benefit when assessing foreign aid, not altruism. It makes more sense in that context.

My hypothesis; nations do not enter into foreign aid agreements for altruistic reasons like helping people, they do so to leverage benefit for their own citizens. Usually this is in terms of trade benefits, market access or political influence.

This is true of all nations, but is especially evident when considering America. America spends a lot on foreign aid because it has fingers in many pies and derives its power from its position as the fulcrum of the worldwide economy. It's the leader of the free world as it heads the world's biggest trade empire, just the same as Portugal was, or Britain, or Spain or the Dutch back in the day. As such, it has a vested interest in having influence in pretty much every nation in the world.

Taking the Japan example, America helps Japan not to help the Japanese, but to retain Japan as a client state / trade partner with which they have significant trade relations, strong political influence and a large amount of good will. If they do not, China would make overtures to do so in the hopes of gaining better relations themselves and pulling Japan into their sphere of influence instead. That is not desirable to America. It'd be a loss of prestige, a loss of world position, a financial hit to American companies and would gain China better access to a range of cutting edge technology (Gen 5 and 6 fighter technology for instance). To prevent that, the USA every now and again has to make concessions to Japan to keep them sweet. International aid is one such tool, as are favorable terms for foreign trade or immigration.

This is also evident in developing nations, where international aid has been demonstrated again and again to be a total failure in improving the lot of the people. In those countries, foreign aid is even more transactional, being used primarily as a method to launder bribe money to gain influence over the local regimes. See America's involvement with Egypt and Jordan, where they pay a lot in foreign aid, almost all of it stolen by government officials, to bribe those nations into leaving Israel alone. Or the attempts to do so in Cuba back in the day, or the current transactional approach with India or the offers made to Turkey in exchange for NATO airfield access during the Gulf War. In all these cases, 'foreign aid' is a cheaper way of gaining leverage than simply invading would be. More palatable to the other nations of the world also and lower risk.

Africa is also a good example of what happens when you don't offer 'foreign aid' or don't offer good enough terms. Contrary to your assumptions above, China is now the go to international money box for many of those regimes, paying large sums in 'foreign aid' to fund infrastructure through their 'belt and road' initiatives in places like Nigeria.

This has been an excellent investment. In turn, they've grown trade with those nations from $1bn back in the 80's to $128bn now, making them the largest African trade partner. That gains them wealth, it funds state owned industries, it gains them influence in many of the world's fastest growing economies and it lays the ground work for them to be the leader of the 'new world order' as those nations develop and grow to prominence (which they are doing and quickly). Nigeria for example will probably be one of the world's biggest economies by 2030 and due to a $28bn 'foreign aid' investment over the past 10 years, China will be their chief trade partner and financier. Not good for America.

In all of these cases foreign aid is not about helping foreigners. After all, foreigners don't get to vote in American elections and therefore do not matter in terms of keeping the governmental officials who approve these aid donations in office. They are designed and intended to help American citizens who do get to choose those leaders and therefore do matter. Any talk of 'helping the needy' is pure window dressing and moral appeasement to hide the dirty truth of why America (or any other nation) really makes that commitment. US financial support of Ukraine is done in a similar vein - keeping a significant source of food and natural resources (and a major trade partner with many of the middle eastern nations you source oil from) away from Russia and in the western sphere of influence, not to help the Ukrainian people.

 

[Red Leg]

So you missed the part where Zelensky said "We should call on NATO to preemptively strike Russia to exclude to possibility of nuclear weapons use by Russia"

Did you also miss Zelensky saying "We need preemptive strikes on Russia so they will know what will happen to them if they use nukes and not the other way around." So what part(s) exactly are vague or out of context in those statements?

You are welcome to mock the news source, but it's hard to dismiss the credibility of a video of the person saying it... There are at least another half dozen videos on the internet of the same thing from various world news sources if you don't find the interpreter of that particular one credible..

Just don't look for any of Zenlensky's videos on MSM because his rhetoric would obviously hinder support from the American sheeple.. FOX and Tucker Carlson in particular is the only media source that I have seen regularly air these videos of Zenlensky's dangerous rhetoric. I say this knowing you don't agree with Tucker's narrative on Ukraine, but you don't have to agree with his narrative to acknowledge the facts (unless you are a democrat)..



No it's not surprising, but it is also reckless, irresponsible, and dangerous. Inciting escalation is hardly what a responsible leader of a nation would do, and acting in his country's own best interest at any cost is hardly justification for trying to start a world war.. I am disappointed and surprised that you will not acknowledge that..



On this we agree 100%...!

I didn't miss anything. I think you have. I simply do not interpret what he said as a call for a preemptive strike using nuclear weapons. What is the logic of preventing Russian use if we have initiated such use? I believe he meant we should execute whatever NATO has planned as retaliation preemptively so that Russia will not even consider using nuclear weapons in the first place. I gave the context above. I still have never seen a clip where Zelensky argued for a nuclear strike against Russia. And yes, I do mock the news source, and no I have not been a democrat since the late seventies.

To be clear, I don't think a preemptive strike by NATO of any sort is wise. But were I Zelensky, I would certainly see such overt NATO action as potentially decisive. That is neither disappointing nor surprising he would hold that position. But a guppy is not going to dictate to a barracuda what its management strategy is during such a crisis.

Such diverging strategies between allies are very common though core shared interests still remain clear. Stalin demanded a second front in '42, then '43, and we finally conducted Overlord in '44. I am certain we were correct both with respect to timing and our national interests. But Stalin's position in the wake of Stalingrad or as he faced the massive German build up near Kursk in the spring of '43 is equally understandable. With respect to Ukraine, there is neither evil nor recklessness at work, merely the exercise of parochial interests in the larger context of the shared campaign to defeat Russian ambitions.

 

[Red Leg]

I find it's helpful to think in terms of cost/benefit when assessing foreign aid, not altruism. It makes more sense in that context.

My hypothesis; nations do not enter into foreign aid agreements for altruistic reasons like helping people, they do so to leverage benefit for their own citizens. Usually this is in terms of trade benefits, market access or political influence.

This is true of all nations, but is especially evident when considering America. America spends a lot on foreign aid because it has fingers in many pies and derives its power from its position as the fulcrum of the worldwide economy. It's the leader of the free world as it heads the world's biggest trade empire, just the same as Portugal was, or Britain, or Spain or the Dutch back in the day. As such, it has a vested interest in having influence in pretty much every nation in the world.

Taking the Japan example, America helps Japan not to help the Japanese, but to retain Japan as a client state / trade partner with which they have significant trade relations, strong political influence and a large amount of good will. If they do not, China would make overtures to do so in the hopes of gaining better relations themselves and pulling Japan into their sphere of influence instead. That is not desirable to America. It'd be a loss of prestige, a loss of world position, a financial hit to American companies and would gain China better access to a range of cutting edge technology (Gen 5 and 6 fighter technology for instance). To prevent that, the USA every now and again has to make concessions to Japan to keep them sweet. International aid is one such tool, as are favorable terms for foreign trade or immigration.

This is also evident in developing nations, where international aid has been demonstrated again and again to be a total failure in improving the lot of the people. In those countries, foreign aid is even more transactional, being used primarily as a method to launder bribe money to gain influence over the local regimes. See America's involvement with Egypt and Jordan, where they pay a lot in foreign aid, almost all of it stolen by government officials, to bribe those nations into leaving Israel alone. Or the attempts to do so in Cuba back in the day, or the current transactional approach with India or the offers made to Turkey in exchange for NATO airfield access during the Gulf War. In all these cases, 'foreign aid' is a cheaper way of gaining leverage than simply invading would be. More palatable to the other nations of the world also and lower risk.

Africa is also a good example of what happens when you don't offer 'foreign aid' or don't offer good enough terms. Contrary to your assumptions above, China is now the go to international money box for many of those regimes, paying large sums in 'foreign aid' to fund infrastructure through their 'belt and road' initiatives in places like Nigeria.

This has been an excellent investment. In turn, they've grown trade with those nations from $1bn back in the 80's to $128bn now, making them the largest African trade partner. That gains them wealth, it funds state owned industries, it gains them influence in many of the world's fastest growing economies and it lays the ground work for them to be the leader of the 'new world order' as those nations develop and grow to prominence (which they are doing and quickly). Nigeria for example will probably be one of the world's biggest economies by 2030 and due to a $28bn 'foreign aid' investment over the past 10 years, China will be their chief trade partner and financier. Not good for America.

In all of these cases foreign aid is not about helping foreigners. After all, foreigners don't get to vote in American elections and therefore do not matter in terms of keeping the governmental officials who approve these aid donations in office. They are designed and intended to help American citizens who do get to choose those leaders and therefore do matter. Any talk of 'helping the needy' is pure window dressing and moral appeasement to hide the dirty truth of why America (or any other nation) really makes that commitment. US financial support of Ukraine is done in a similar vein - keeping a significant source of food and natural resources (and a major trade partner with many of the middle eastern nations you source oil from) away from Russia and in the western sphere of influence, not to help the Ukrainian people.

One of the more reasoned and informed contributions to this discussion. Everything revolves around national interests.

 

[steve white]

Influence is seldom bought---more like rented.

 

[Ray B]

Three attacks on Ukraine have occurred when oil prices were high. If this is a correlation and not just a coincidence, I wonder what the results would be if the US returned to Trump oil policy and "opened the spigot"- restarting oil and LNG pipelines, granting leases & permits & cancelling the various impediments to oil production/sales. If suddenly the price of a barrel of oil dropped to $40 or less, what effect would that have on Russia's war machine?

 

[jpr9954]

 

[JOHN GRENZ]

 

[Red Leg]

Another of these interesting short clips that offer unique perspective. I have noted (sometimes argued ) that the capability gap - the correlation of forces - is widening between the Russian and Ukrainian armies the longer this conflict has lasted.

The artillery section being filmed by a Ukrainian forward observer drone is composed of a Russian M-46 130mm field gun. They were first fielded with the Red Army in 1954. They are the sort of kit one would expect to find in an artillery battery in Mozambique - or perhaps a museum. Our brigade eliminated quite a few batteries during the First Gulf War. Their employment now reflects the catastrophic artillery losses Russia has sustained in its self-propelled artillery over the last several months.

In contrast, the incoming round is a 155mm Excalibur with an accuracy CEP not much larger than the surface of the desk upon which I am typing. As noted in the artillery comments earlier in this dialogue, it is GPS guided, which means the Ukraine has developed a mapping mechanism to quickly turn a video image from a commercial UAV (drone) into very precise coordinates to tell the artillery shell where to hit. The Russians have undoubtedly taken enormous effort manhandling the big towed gun in place, and the ammunition truck has just dropped off ammo when a single Excalibur round destroys the section.

Moreover, this was a low air burst which means the shell produced a 100 meter casualty radius around the burst point. There is no longer much of an artillery section left to man other guns.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/z4dzqc

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

Another of these interesting short clips that offer unique perspective. I have noted (sometimes argued ) that the capability gap - the correlation of forces - is widening between the Russian and Ukrainian armies the longer this conflict has lasted.

The artillery section being filmed by a Ukrainian forward observer drone is composed of a Russian M-46 130mm field gun. They were first fielded with the Red Army in 1954. They are the sort of kit one would expect to find in an artillery battery in Mozambique - or perhaps a museum. Our brigade eliminated quite a few batteries during the First Gulf War. Their employment now reflects the catastrophic artillery losses Russia has sustained in its self-propelled artillery over the last several months.

In contrast, the incoming round is a 155mm Excalibur with an accuracy CEP not much larger than the surface of the desk upon which I am typing. As noted in the artillery comments earlier in this dialogue, it is GPS guided, which means the Ukraine has developed a mapping mechanism to quickly turn a video image from a commercial UAV (drone) into very precise coordinates to tell the artillery shell where to hit. The Russians have undoubtedly taken enormous effort manhandling the big towed gun in place, and the ammunition truck has just dropped off ammo when a single Excalibur round destroys the section.

Moreover, this was a low air burst which means the shell produced a 100 meter casualty radius around the burst point. There is no longer much of an artillery section left to man other guns.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/z4dzqc

Bet there was some dirty pants in that truck!

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

Influence is seldom bought---more like rented.

Just like beer.

 

[steve white]

Another of these interesting short clips that offer unique perspective. I have noted (sometimes argued ) that the capability gap - the correlation of forces - is widening between the Russian and Ukrainian armies the longer this conflict has lasted.

The artillery section being filmed by a Ukrainian forward observer drone is composed of a Russian M-46 130mm field gun. They were first fielded with the Red Army in 1954. They are the sort of kit one would expect to find in an artillery battery in Mozambique - or perhaps a museum. Our brigade eliminated quite a few batteries during the First Gulf War. Their employment now reflects the catastrophic artillery losses Russia has sustained in its self-propelled artillery over the last several months.

In contrast, the incoming round is a 155mm Excalibur with an accuracy CEP not much larger than the surface of the desk upon which I am typing. As noted in the artillery comments earlier in this dialogue, it is GPS guided, which means the Ukraine has developed a mapping mechanism to quickly turn a video image from a commercial UAV (drone) into very precise coordinates to tell the artillery shell where to hit. The Russians have undoubtedly taken enormous effort manhandling the big towed gun in place, and the ammunition truck has just dropped off ammo when a single Excalibur round destroys the section.

Moreover, this was a low air burst which means the shell produced a 100 meter casualty radius around the burst point. There is no longer much of an artillery section left to man other guns.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/z4dzqc

war is hell...

 

[Scott CWO]

been a while since i have been on this thread, a couple thoughts tho,

remember when there was that tsunami in japan and russia, china and UAE all banded together and helped out the japanese.....oh wait, that was america.

remember when (you name the country) was in dire straights and so many african nations, china, brazil and russia came to the rescue? oh, wait, that was the USA, not the other countries.

like trump felt about funding NATO, i feel that the folks that are most affected should step up just a little extra to help themselves in the future.

i don't have a huge emotional investment in ukraine, i am impressed by their willingness and tenacity to defend their country. that said, i am a bit tired of the US being the world piggy bank to help/bail out these other nations that their own leaders don't do jack shit for. that money would go a long way in helping americans OR maybe lowering our national debt.

my 2 cents

@1dirthawker you and I are friends and we definitely generally agree on almost everything we have ever discussed in person and on this site. However, I think you and most people are understandingly not completely informed about the DEEP involvement of the USA around the world in every region. In addition, it is this deep involvement that keeps the world a semi-safe place and keeps the USA homeland and its citizens so insulated and naive of the real threats. I have known about our deep involvement that occurs about everywhere in the world but my eyes have definitely been opened even more by a close friend.

This friend and employee was recently medically retired from the US military (shrapnel from an RPG) and retired as the most senior enlisted man from one of the special operation groups in JSOC. He was forced to retire after scoring an 87 on a combined mental and physical test where a 90 is required. Due to his injuries, his physical scores dropped too much. His resume is astonishing. He was an operator, team leader, instructor, ran the sniper school (his longest confirmed kill was at 2600 and change meters) for a time and was General Kelly’s highest ranking enlisted man in Afghanistan. Over his 21-year career in JSCO, he was deployed throughout South America, Eastern Europe, Iraq, and Afghanistan. There are several JSOC groups and each group covers a different part of the globe.

What the general population of the USA, and for that matter, the world, doesn’t understand is the DEEP involvement of JSOC in keeping the world a livable place for the rest of us. There are many dozens of countries who ask for our help, off the record, and we have teams operating across the globe, daily. These teams are in direct contact with enemies or if not, are training the operators of these other countries to deal with enemies, drug cartels and terrorists. If you think 911 was bad, just know that many, many groups are out there around the world trying to start the same types of things. I am a firm believer that without the JSOC operations that stifle potentially much larger problems, the “regular army” such as where @Red Leg served, would have a lot more work to do and be involved in even more large geopolitical conflicts, such as Ukraine.

The amazing artillery and advanced conventional weaponry that @Red Leg describes so eloquently are astounding to me. In addition, JSOC operators have smaller tools that even the regular army infantry troops are not allowed to use. Without knowing the specifics of these tools, I know they can jam cell communications, shut down electrical grids, send pulses that blow up IEDs buried in roads and other tools can see inside buildings.

It is naive to believe that we can just pull away from our responsibilities unless we want the entire western world to devolve into the third world. This is an unfortunate FACT. Russian aggression is just one of several problems we need to keep in check, regardless of Europe's weakness and feigned inability to do it without us. If you want your grandkids to have some sense of insulated, safe “normalcy”, we, unfortunately, have a distasteful job to do. This job is being done daily, even though most people are clueless and uniformed of the evil in this world.