tac airlifter

Justice. B3 next.

Yea I don't bat an eye about Russian elections, I know they're BS since Russia is a dictatorship and we aren't their ally. Standard is higher for someone who wants my money to purportedly fight for my values. And the Afghans managed to hold elections, at our insistence, despite actual wartime conditions and an enemy who was actively conquering provinces. It's strange to hear from guys like nsplayr (who I personally like) about how UKR can't hold elections due to martial law and their constitution allows for that... and the constitution must always be followed of course. But that standard of strict adherence to the constitution doesn't apply to our 2nd amendment. Then I hear from other folks how elections would be so hard now, but we needed them in IZ/AFG because otherwise government is illegitimate. And of course UKR must be given cluster bombs and allowed to strike deep into Moscow but God forbid we strike structures in Yemen that might have terrorist kids inside. There's no logic to these inconsistencies. My sense is the pro-UKR war crowd lacks consistent application of principals they espouse. Which means they aren't principals, they're just feelings. And I get it, an unjust thing happened to Ukraine and Putin sucks. But damn dude, they have no path to victory. Zelenskyy outlaws opposition parties and has indefinitely suspended elections. He's asking for nukes. His military is posting hundreds of videos of them killing unarmed surrendering Russian soldiers (which is a war crime if I do it).... oh and we're broke. Time to negotiate peace and accept some territory lost. Table it for future reacquisition, it can't be defended anymore.

It's tough to reply to anything in this thread. You and others make good points & maybe we can have a good chat over whiskey sometime. Regarding the elections thing I'll just add I don't agree with your take above mainly because it's the opposite position our nation has had historically and no one explained why the change. The Afghans & iraqis both held elections during the height of their wars for survival. And we insisted because we knew the legitimacy of government directly correlates to the consent of the governed. We preached it loud for years, and I still agree with it.

Thanks for helping me understand their law better. Could you quote the applicable section of their constitution for my edification? I couldn't find it.

Fair question. Here's the alternative: let people vote on how to respond. Trump was very clear he wanted the war to end, and the US voted for him to execute those policies. Zelensky won't let his people vote, so they're stuck with forced conscription into the wood chipper. I'm not pro-Putin or condoning his actions. But explore this hypothetical with me: what if most Ukrainians would rather give ethnically Russian territory to the Russians than have their kids & grandkids die? Do they have a right to advocate politically for that? Zelenskyy says no.

This is the concise idea behind the pro-war movement and I applaud your brevity. Aside from its ghoulish nature, which I can get over, the pragmatic problem is you’re also feeding generations of Ukrainians into the wood chipper. Easy for us to accept that cost, but you’ve surrendered the moral high ground given Zelensky has suspended elections and imprisoned the opposition. It’s obvious to anyone this war will end with negotiated settlement allowing Russia to keep portions of Ukraine. break break Side note: it’s been infuriating to watch the same pussy US generals that wouldn’t sign off on structure strikes where we had 99% confidence it was all AQ inside now enthusiastically enabling UKR partner structure strikes with known civilians inside. They called off strikes on IS armed first responders pulling wounded HVIs out of vehicles but now cheer HD videos of surrendering unarmed Russians murdered by SUAS…. Where was this kill energy when we could have killed our way to victory in Afghanistan? The Taliban was way smaller than the Russian army, yet they shied away from attrition strategies which they now embrace on a larger and better armed/funded force? Our senior generals are total idiots. It’s clear they never fought to win the GWOT.

You misspelled “Zelensky covered for Biden’s blatant corruption when Trump shined light on his illegal behavior.”

Sure I'd entertain a conversation. You've seen me post here alot, I love entertaining conversations.

I disagree with the first (truncated) sentence; "no limits of evil" is an overstatement. He hasn't used artillery with chlorine, hasn't released weaponized plague...is he ordering mass rapes of sex slaves & posting it on the internet like ISIS? Hyperbole from the pro-UKR crowd turns off more listeners than gains converts. Putin is a murderous dictator for sure, and invading a sovereign country was wrong. Let's get over that and analyze COAs pragmatically because many mistakes thus far have been interwoven with grandiose moralism detracting from objectivity. I see zero evidence he wants a direct kinetic conflict with NATO. If anything, he has been reserved given what our side is doing. If RUS provided the Taliban major weapons systems, training right across the AFG border and live targeting the way we do... we'd have hit them directly. We would never accept from them what they are currently accepting from us. It's not from the goodness of his heart, it's because he's not strong enough to hit back or he knows he would lose a wider conflict or any number of reasons. But it shows a high degree of rational thought. I'm unwilling to pay anymore for Ukraine's defense and I'm unwilling to pay for Ukraine's reconstruction. I voted for somebody who is doing those things; it sucks for Ukraine, but life is unfair and my priority is my own country. Perhaps if UKR held elections or wasn't killing RUS civilians or hadn't blown the pipeline causing an environmental disaster I would entertain a conversation about "shared values" and "defending western norms" etc. but they're doing those things (admittedly in self-defense for a war they didn't start) so 🤷‍♂️

If Trump fires B3 I’m starting a petition for his face on Rushmore.

What lack of SA is the CRJ guilty of? The RW was on a different frequency, invisible via cockpit tools and they weren’t alerted to their presence. I’m seeing RW causal and ATC contributing but pretty tough to fault the dudes kept in the dark about conflicts while flying a night circle to short runway.

And this is why DEI is toxic, but moving on... I get your overall point about empathy for the young Capt-- but how do you suppose her unusual treatment is perceived by passenger families? I'm sorry for the family of Capt Lobach, it's terrible to lose a child and especially so having to hear her service disparaged. But if she did in fact cause this collision her privacy concerns are subordinate to victim family rights for accountability and Army transparency. We'll cross that bridge if the investigation validates what's been publicly released so far. I think it was a mistake for the Army to deviate from SOP.

The recent agreement is only a 30 day tariff pause, during which time we confirm Mexico & Canada are meeting terms.

Plot twist- the deep state isn't OGA or J2, or 3, or 35 or 5..... it's the J6! The one nobody ever expected! 🥃

This could be any of us at any moment. Live accordingly

“Nazi” is the new “racist:” a cheap attempt to win arguments by dismissing the messenger.

Disgusting.

lol, the universe doesn’t want you quoting me!

Palenske is the real thing, if anything he's better than his social media "fun boss" persona; he actually likes/enables mission hackers and killers. He is a real combat leader. But he's been a 1 star for a long time. I'd be surprised if he continues upwards.

One of the most pertinacious and wrong ideas which senior Air Force leadership has embraced is this: every standard is equally valuable therefore if your zeal for all standards isn't equal you are unprofessional. They believe a lack of rigidity about seemingly 'small' rules, like Friday patches, will result in negligent fratricide or crashing aircraft, etc. They see (based on faith) a direct link to extreme outcomes for overlooking small infractions. The idea you might ignore trivialities to prioritize important things like victory or safety is anathema and their minds are unable to process this situation. Those of us outside their bubble intuitively understand prioritization is a natural human phenomenon and should be embraced rather than shunned. We want young Captain ACs making decisions keeping missions on task & timeline rather than stopping a joint ROC drill because someone's sleeves are rolled up. But these cultists are like celebrate monks looking at sex, convinced it's the source of all ills and endlessly devising rules to guardrail us from it... not understanding it's literally necessary for the species. In combat prioritization is essential to success; even a cursory examination of military history would prove as much. Look no further than the Taliban and NVA for recent examples proving uniform compliance isn't tied to battlefield objectives; examples are numerous proving the absurdity of their core idea but they can't have the discussion. I've tried. Ask them for proof that selective standard enforcement will result in mission failure and they might have anecdotes but zero data. There is zero data supporting their belief. Ask them if standard compliance is so important, what is our process to test new standards before instituting and what is the process to repeal if data proves it isn't required? No answers. You'll go to SDE and study works from historic military minds, who all sported beards, then be told beards are incompatible with military success. Then you'll go on an exercise with Allied nations who have beards, call them our indispensable partners, then with a straight face tell ourselves beards are unserious for military professionals. This example is just beards but uniforms are the same. Go find paintings of the continental army defeating forces of the tyrant King George and tell me which military has the most standardized uniforms, lol. The answer to your question is the moment you embrace ideas asserted without proof, cannot rationally convince those who ask for proof, trust only those who share your idea and ignore your own obvious intellectual hypocrisy... that's the moment you've gone full retard in pursuit of rank. At that point even losing multiple wars is insufficient to free your mind, you've been captured and are unfit to lead despite what rank or position you hold. This is the unfortunate state of our Air Force.

2 same. Air Attack mission looks awesome.

They did, although maybe I'm articulating myself poorly. When the -22 first arrived operationally there were stakeholders pushing it to do missions it would not be paired with today. Results were suboptimal, resulting in the "loss" of those missions to assets more appropriately suited: the 160th. Today that does not happen and the Osprey has evolved into a distinct capability; but like a lot of things fielded during the GWOT "how do we use this?" was a work in progress. I'm sure you were around when they showed up in Afghanistan then left before coming back; the above was my observation watching staff decisions. Bold Moves: I'm not defending it, but it seemed like the least bad of several bad options. Status quo with the 22 was unfordable. MC rate is so unreliable, the Command had to do something. I linked the 2020 mission because it was bad ass and kudos to you guys for pulling it off. But calls for that are rare and with shrinking budgets everywhere something had to give. What do you think AFSOC should have done instead?

What everyone else said. Controversial take: their infil/exfil mission is cool but with a MX reliability rate forcing 3 to make 1, they lose a lot of great missions to the 160th and there aren’t any fixes to that situation. If you want to periodically fly a unique airframe and you’re good being an O-4 with 800 hours, a few deployments sitting alert, maybe one or two real world under your belt and tons of sim time… go CV22. If you want to fly a LOT in actual airplanes, do a LOT of awesome real world shit and be an O4 with 3500 hours… go any other AFSOC aircraft.

It’s official: Biden is the worst POTUS in our nations history.