Foreign Policy

Wild Bill

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I have no shame because this is not a war. It’s an operation. I was not angry when Democrats launched bombs to kill bad guys for the right reasons. That is consistent. I am similarly not angry here. The reflexive griping about going to Congress is stupid. Presidents shouldn’t signal attacks in the modern era. We don’t march in columns towards the enemy position anymore. If anything, it was signaled with the massive troop buildups and movement in the weeks prior, but I don’t give a shit if they do it for the right reasons and it’s short. I do think longer operations should have some approval.

I am only angry when they are incompetent (Afghanistan departure) and put our people at unnecessary risk. Stabilizing Iran is 100% worth it.

The first day of the operation against Iran, I joked to a family member that the leftists and the usual useful idiots would probably decry decapitating Iran's crazy regime and find a way to complain about us removing them as a threat. I was joking. I was sure even the worst of the bunch wouldn't actually do that. I stand before you admitting that I was so very very wrong.
Criticism of this war, or whatever we want to call it, isn’t coming only from the left. There is a very real critique grounded in observable outcomes. Just look at the cause and effect over the past twenty years.

Iraq - Overthrew Saddam Hussein, spent trillions of dollars, lost thousands of American lives, and the country has experienced two decades of instability
Libya - NATO intervention (effectively an american intervention), killed Gaddafi. After the regime collapsed, the country fractured and created chaos. Was teh catalyst for refugee crisis in Europe (exactly as Gaddafi predicted).
Syria - US and Israel effort to overthrow government. Led to long deadly civil war, total instability and millions of refugges into Europe
Afghanistan - Twenty years of war occupation ended with the Taliban returning to power. Trillions lost, American lives lost. No stability gained.
Gaza - The US provides billions of military aid and political support to Israel. Repeated wars and conflict. Result is outrageous levels of civilians dead and widespread destruction of infrastructure.
Yemen - US backed the Saudi-led war and I beleive did their own bombing as well. Years of fighting, no stability and enormous levels of civilian suffering.
Lebanon - US funds Israel bombing them. Many factors here but that's a huge component and country completely collapsed
Egypt - US meddling helped remove Mubarak. The great color revolution resulted in military governing, removal of political opposition, economic disaster, and American taxpayers giving their gov't over a billion a year to capitulate to Israel.

The US helped create the conditions that led to the current regime taking power in Iran, and now many of the same people who supported all the nonsense listed above are telling us we need to use our money, our weapons, and American lives to hammer Iran in the name of stability and American safety. That's what the same policymakers and politicians who promoted all of this shit claim now.

I don't believe them. I believe the opposite is true - they want instability and a result of that instabity is americans are less safe. I'm sure some will disagree, but does the motive really even matter? Let's just just use our fucking brains and examine the results, and it's very obvious how this ends if they topple Iran - decades of instability, millions of refugees and Americans eating a pile of shit and payin the tab.
 

NorthDakota

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I dont have a super strong opinion on war powers but I do find it disturbing that legislators are not more protective of their authority.

Seems like things are going well for us in Iran but I dont really care for our presidents just doing things without a green light from congress.
 

ozzman

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The Fact that the engagement was at PD has no correlation to whether or not the ship was incapacitated
Either that or they all but guaranteed they weren't detected. No reason to launch at periscope depth with any threat

Regardless. Super impressive vid
 

drayer54

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I dont have a super strong opinion on war powers but I do find it disturbing that legislators are not more protective of their authority.

Seems like things are going well for us in Iran but I dont really care for our presidents just doing things without a green light from congress.
Is that not everything though? We have alphabet agencies and executive orders for everything now. The only redeeming thing about it is that a lot of our legislators appear to be really dumb or corrupt, so it may be for the best.
 

NorthDakota

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Is that not everything though? We have alphabet agencies and executive orders for everything now. The only redeeming thing about it is that a lot of our legislators appear to be really dumb or corrupt, so it may be for the best.

Agencies have authority granted by congress. That authority should be much more narrowly defined. Congress is absolutely full of corrupt losers but they need to be running the show on this. It's not the end of the world obviously, things are probably working out fine. But yeah we need the legislators to do their job.
 

NDWarrior

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Meanwhile back to Latin America...

US, Ecuador launch joint operations targeting narco-terror groups: SOUTHCOM

Seems harmless enough and apparently key cities in Ecuador are very violent and are hubs for transporting cocaine from Colombia and Peru to Europe and the U.S.

Seems like the admin is also happy to work w/ Ecuador so they also can have them help put pressure on Cuba: On the same day as the joint operations...

Ecuador declares Cuba’s ambassador 'persona non grata,' orders mission to leave the country
 

drayer54

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there are plenty of reasons to launch at PD. Better weapons placement, classification for ROE purposes, immediate BDA
Imagine how insufferable that crew is going to be for years getting a torpedo kill.

Also- imagine how Democrats are in hell seeing this.
 

NDWarrior

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Apparently, now Israel and the US are training and equipping The Kurds to be able to attack Iran.

It will be interesting to see how that works out.
 

ozzman

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Apparently, now Israel and the US are training and equipping The Kurds to be able to attack Iran.

It will be interesting to see how that works out.
Can you believe the Kurds would trust us again? We've screwed those people so many times

It's like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football
 

calvegas04

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Can you believe the Kurds would trust us again? We've screwed those people so many times

It's like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football
That is what I'm thinking, we must give them some serious money for what they do for the US only for us to turn on them.
 
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