"Let me be perfectly clear...make no mistake about it": Syria Edition

[DinoDoc]

Sure, at some point I'd expect significant US effort going into overthrowing the guilty regime. I'd also expect this to take time, and be done in a careful and calculated way to avoid creating wider regional issues and risking an unnecessarily large number of US and civilian lives.

And what is to be inferred by hemming and hawing on the part of the state that originally placed the bold marker down to begin with and the existence of a new red line to replace the old one that was crossed?

[kentonio]

And what is to be inferred by hemming and hawing on the part of the state that originally placed the bold marker down to begin with and the existence of a new red line to replace the old one that was crossed?

The 'hemming and hawing' is nothing more than an invention of right wing talk radio and Fox News. It's indicative of the recent ridiculousness where an administration is considered weak if cruise missiles aren't hitting the enemy 5 minutes after an incident.

[regexcellent]

Bull****. The president said chemical weapons are a red line, now they've used chemical weapons and it's not a red line anymore. Obama clearly felt that the threat alone was enough to deter it or that the possibility was already remote so he wouldn't have to do anything.

[giblets]

Aww bless, you're trying to challenge Reg for least informed person in the thread. You keep it up skippy, one day you'll take that coveted crown.

There are many, many statements made by national GOP figures that would destroy any political career in this country. Muslims, gays, immigrants the list is nearly endless.

Oh yes. If one member of a group (the GOP in this case) does something they are all to be judged for it.

[kentonio]

Oh yes. If one member of a group (the GOP in this case) does something they are all to be judged for it.

If it was an isolated case then you might have a point. It isn't one person though, or 10 people or 50 people, it's a series of established GOP positions that are endlessly and publicly repeated. Fearmongering over muslims and immigrants and gays and blacks is just part of todays GOP. If you can't see that then you're being either deliberately obtuse or simply stupid.

[Sava]

"make no mistake" is another one of these stupid ass phrases
it needs to go

[Hauldren Collider]

Yeah, let's start with that. The UK and France have meager air refueling fleets, not enough munitions stocks to carry on a war for more than a few days of combat, not enough UAVs or air-to-ground radar aircraft like JSTARS to collect information on targets, not enough ships and aircraft to defend against submarines, and not enough airlift and sealift to keep their forces supplied over long distances.

None of the European countries are really capable of operating in an expeditionary manner without our help. France is stuck relying on us for UAVs and airlift in Mali.

QFT. The brits nearly ran out of bombs. They don't have nearly enough JDAMs. They also don't have enough tankers to get their planes past the economic exclusion zone with a combat loadout in any substantial numbers. They also fell woefully short of Tomahawks almost immediately.

[kentonio]

QFT. The brits nearly ran out of bombs. They don't have nearly enough JDAMs. They also don't have enough tankers to get their planes past the economic exclusion zone with a combat loadout in any substantial numbers. They also fell woefully short of Tomahawks almost immediately.

Links please.

[Hauldren Collider]

http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/t...nscriptid=4803

And maybe we aren't flying the bulk of combat sorties anymore, but the U.S. is now providing nearly 80 percent of all air refueling, almost 75 percent of aerial surveillance hours and 100 percent of all electronic warfare missions.

I will find the stuff regarding ordinance later, but I assure you, it's true.

FACT: Euros can't even run an air war without Uncle Sam Sugar even when you all team up.

To think the Royal Navy once controlled the world's oceans. Now you don't even have any fixed-wing naval aviation. And France's only carrier spends a third of its time cooped up in port, unable to do anything. How far the mighty have fallen.

You guys are lucky we're willing to pony up to put airbases on your island so that we can defend you, because it's not obvious you could do it on your own.

[kentonio]

http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/t...nscriptid=4803

And maybe we aren't flying the bulk of combat sorties anymore, but the U.S. is now providing nearly 80 percent of all air refueling, almost 75 percent of aerial surveillance hours and 100 percent of all electronic warfare missions.

I'm not sure why you think this proves your point. The US is member of NATO and has vast military infrastructure. Why exactly wouldn't the US contribute to a mission against a tyrant who among other things murdered 189 Americans over Lockerbie?

I will find the stuff regarding ordinance later, but I assure you, it's true.

Feel free. You may find however that what you are referring to is the use of a particular bomb type which was found to be hugely effective and which led to an unexpected shortage. The worry was that the UK would have to fall back on using less effective ordinance while new stocks were built. Not that we were just going to run out of bombs altogether.

FACT: Euros can't even run an air war without Uncle Sam Sugar even when you all team up.

Fact: that's pretty damn stupid. The EU nations add up to the second largest military spenders on the planet after the US. Britain alone is number 4. Just because we don't keep spent at quite such a ridiculous rate as America does not mean that we are incapable of waging terrifying war against our enemies when the need arises.

It's cute that you buy into the whole talk radio idiocy about Europe being incapable of defending themselves because they waste their money on stupid crap like healthcare and the general welfare of their people though.

[kentonio]

DP

[DinoDoc]

I'm not sure why you think this proves your point. The US is member of NATO and has vast military infrastructure. Why exactly wouldn't the US contribute to a mission against a tyrant who among other things murdered 189 Americans over Lockerbie?

Nothing to gain from it.

[Hauldren Collider]

You guys have less than half the number of tankers we do in ratio to combat aircraft. Your tankers are what, Vickers VC-10s? Aren't those 60s-era jetliners?

And the entire continent teamed up to bomb libya and couldn't ****ing do it. You don't have enough AWACS. You don't have enough JSTARS. You don't have enough aerial refueling. You don't have the logistics pipeline. There's a reason the US has participated in every european intervention in the last decade. (The french might have done one or two without us from their many bases in Africa. They don't always talk about them.)

[kentonio]

Nothing to gain from it.

It appears Obama disagreed. Then again he does seem to be the only person genuinely interested in getting payback for atrocities against America.

[kentonio]

You guys have less than half the number of tankers we do in ratio to combat aircraft. Your tankers are what, Vickers VC-10s? Aren't those 60s-era jetliners?

And the entire continent teamed up to bomb libya and couldn't ****ing do it. You don't have enough AWACS. You don't have enough JSTARS. You don't have enough aerial refueling. You don't have the logistics pipeline. There's a reason the US has participated in every european intervention in the last decade. (The french might have done one or two without us from their many bases in Africa. They don't always talk about them.)

Do you genuinely believe some ridiculous fairy story that Europe started a war and then ran out of everything and so the US had to step in to save them? Do you realize how ****ing stupid that really is?