What is terrorism? and.....

[jim schmidt]

Originally Posted by flylooper

LOL. The American border guard? Really?

The Mexican border guard. There's no reason for an American to bribe the American one.

[Trash]

Originally Posted by Baldrick

I'd bet that, even with such clearly stated numbers and historical/political context, you're still going to get at least one "Yeah, but we gotta fight the turrists over there, so we don't gotta fight 'em over here!" response from somebody...

or "but.. but..I'm scared to death of Obama coming in and raising my taxes"

[Tripped1]

Originally Posted by flylooper

2. You make a great argument for leaving the troops in Iraq for "100 years"
by saying the country would be in flames except for our presence there. Is this what you want? Not me, dude.

Not what I want at all, but it's what we got.

Originally Posted by flylooper

3. Our immediate pullout would be an immediate signal to all parties to come to some kind of understanding, as a civil war in Iraq would/could screw up the flow of oil from all over the region. Now that would really hurt all those kleptos running the oil bid'ness there. Our Navy would probably play a passive role in securing the sea lanes into and out of the Arabian Gulf.

Thats putting it mildly. Now bear in mind I'm Navy and I can tell you first hand there is NOTHING passive about operating in the Persian Gulf, not in the best of times, and certainly not with half the shore in the throws of a civil war. As far as sea lanes go the Red Sea the Arabian Gulf, and Sea of Aden are as close to the wild west as it gets until you get over into the Sea of Japan. Between pirates and the 14 or so different Navies all operating in close quarters with fingers on the trigger it gets real wild, real fast real often.

Originally Posted by flylooper

4. $12 billion bucks a month to play policeman? Give me a break! We will have $2 trillion into that country before it's all done with, including rising costs of crude and gasoline. Just to give you a sense of what only 1/2 a trillion gets you.


Does this look a little stupid to you, in terms of what we're using our national credit card for?

Yes very stupid, here we agree. If the Bush administration had done it right instead of handling the reconstruction of Iraq like another political campaign getting out of there probably would be nearly as much of an issue. But we fucked it up and now we have to un-fuck it before we can go home.

[flylooper]

Originally Posted by Tripped1

Not what I want at all, but it's what we got.



Thats putting it mildly. Now bear in mind I'm Navy and I can tell you first hand there is NOTHING passive about operating in the Persian Gulf, not in the best of times, and certainly not with half the shore in the throws of a civil war. As far as sea lanes go the Red Sea the Arabian Gulf, and Sea of Aden are as close to the wild west as it gets until you get over into the Sea of Japan. Between pirates and the 14 or so different Navies all operating in close quarters with fingers on the trigger it gets real wild, real fast real often.

I meant "passive" in the sense that we're not engaging in naval warfare over there. At least not that I'm aware. And.....piracy in the Straits of Malacca has increased 10 times since American left the area. We can't be everywhere at once anymore.

Not with a 350 ship navy. Burke DDG class Destroyers cost 1 billion. The new Oscar Austin DDG class will be around $2B, they say. A/C carriers cost 8 billion (plus associated support ships' costs) We simply can't afford it anymore, not to mention that because of all the bureaucratic bullshit the navy has in getting from concept to completion, these damn things are obsolete when they hit the water. But I digress!

Yes very stupid, here we agree. If the Bush administration had done it right instead of handling the reconstruction of Iraq like another political campaign getting out of there probably would be nearly as much of an issue. But we fucked it up and now we have to un-fuck it before we can go home.

No, Tripped. THEY fucked it up. You and I had nothing to do with it. It was Bush & Co.'s fuckup. All we did was stand on the sidelines while the SCOTUS put them in power.

[Gaolee]

Originally Posted by Tripped1

But we fucked it up and now we have to un-fuck it before we can go home.

I would agree, except I don't see how we can un-fuck it except through diplomacy with Iran. They are the local power broker now, whether we like it or not, and we are going to have to deal with it before anything is going to settle down.

[Trash]

Originally Posted by Tripped1

Not what I want at all, but it's what we got.



Thats putting it mildly. Now bear in mind I'm Navy and I can tell you first hand there is NOTHING passive about operating in the Persian Gulf, not in the best of times, and certainly not with half the shore in the throws of a civil war. As far as sea lanes go the Red Sea the Arabian Gulf, and Sea of Aden are as close to the wild west as it gets until you get over into the Sea of Japan. Between pirates and the 14 or so different Navies all operating in close quarters with fingers on the trigger it gets real wild, real fast real often.




Yes very stupid, here we agree. If the Bush administration had done it right instead of handling the reconstruction of Iraq like another political campaign getting out of there probably would be nearly as much of an issue. But we fucked it up and now we have to un-fuck it before we can go home.

One problem is: Do we know what "un-fucked" looks like? If we relied on the current Administration it would be an ever moving target. With the goal of keeping us there as long as possible.

[flylooper]

Originally Posted by Gaolee

I would agree, except I don't see how we can un-fuck it except through diplomacy with Iran. They are the local power broker now, whether we like it or not, and we are going to have to deal with it before anything is going to settle down.

True dat.

[Tripped1]

Originally Posted by flylooper

I meant "passive" in the sense that we're not engaging in naval warfare over there. At least not that I'm aware. And.....piracy in the Straits of Malacca has increased 10 times since American left the area. We can't be everywhere at once anymore.

Not with a 350 ship navy. Burke DDG class Destroyers cost 1 billion. The new Oscar Austin DDG class will be around $2B, they say. A/C carriers cost 8 billion (plus associated support ships' costs) We simply can't afford it anymore, not to mention that because of all the bureaucratic bullshit the navy has in getting from concept to completion, these damn things are obsolete when they hit the water. But I digress!

If that it were 350 ships anymore. They are barely pushing three hundred last I checked, and at any time 20% of that is in the yards fixing all the crap we break every time they go out. Right now the Department of the Navy is pushing for a 313 ship fleet, IF it manages to meet ship building goals, which almost never happens.

The Austins are actually a LCS Liturgical Combat Ship 200 some-odd feet and only 3700 tons or so, and it'll be 20 years before they figure out how to make them work, the ships are a TOTAL break from a hundred years of making a warship run. Personally, I don't see how they are going to man these things with 55 sailors and keep them sea worthy.

We just had a Burke and a Tico deamed UNFIT FOR SUSTAINED OPERATIONS. Why? Jury is still out, but from friends I have that are out in the Fleet, most of the ships are MISSING 30% of their crew to IA, they are running around on the ground in Iraq. Now that being said I'm an Aegis Technician myself, and missing a third of the division everyone would be standing so many tactical watches that we wouldn't have time to keep the gear up. Sure Aegis is the most sophisticated weapon system on the water but with that sophistication comes complication and a very real need to baby the gear, or it doesn't work.

The new DDG1000 class is the Zumwalt, and they haven't laid the keel or figured out what they want it to do.

There is a new CG (CGX)in the works to, but like DDG1000 they are clueless other then it's going to be big. I haven't seen any development goals for it yet.

[Tripped1]

Originally Posted by Trash

One problem is: Do we know what "un-fucked" looks like? If we relied on the current Administration it would be an ever moving target. With the goal of keeping us there as long as possible.

Probably, since we have the most powerful VP ever...with nice strong ties to Haliburton....

...and we wonder how we get into this shit.

[Baldrick]

Originally Posted by Tripped1

The Austins are actually a LCS Liturgical Combat Ship

I thought it was Litoral (having to do with being able to operate in the shallower waters of coastal areas - inside the continental shelf). Liturgical would be something to do with the dogma and ceremonies of a church, wouldn't it? Just pulling your anchor chain, Tripped1.

During the current administration our military has been stretched to near breaking point, with elongated maintenance schedules, personnel retention issues (stop-loss), lack of replacement equipment, and on and on... How much longer can we really try to police the world? I don't know, but if we try, we're going to become progressively less effective.

[Tripped1]

Originally Posted by Baldrick

I thought it was Litoral (having to do with being able to operate in the shallower waters of coastal areas - inside the continental shelf). Liturgical would be something to do with the dogma and ceremonies of a church, wouldn't it? Just pulling your anchor chain, Tripped1.

During the current administration our military has been stretched to near breaking point, with elongated maintenance schedules, personnel retention issues (stop-loss), lack of replacement equipment, and on and on... How much longer can we really try to police the world? I don't know, but if we try, we're going to become progressively less effective.

You are right of course, on both points.

It's Litoral, thats what I get for trying to type before coffee....huukt on foniks wurkt four me...

On you second point the affect of the navy was pretty brutal. Since we deploy anyway, war or not, the DON decided that more ships need to be ready for deployment, all the time. So instead of one deployment every year and a half, we were picking up the training teams for the NEXT deployment at the end of the last one.

For me it was 275+ days out of homeport EACH of the 5 years I was in the fleet. So when we were in port it was 15+ hours days trying to fix the ship and get ready to roll right back out. This is why I'm sitting here on terminal leave. The Navy is shrinking the fleet to make room for new warships, many of which won't hit the water for the next 5-8 years and the entire time increasing the overall work load for the fleet.

Yeah, thanks, but no thanks.