Best-22

We're back up. https://breakingdefense.com/2022/09/exclusive-air-force-clears-cv-22-ospreys-to-fly-after-2-week-safety-shutdown/

That article was actually pretty good. We haven't heard anything yet beyond what was released publicly. Personally I'd start flying again today, but I'm not the one paying for repairs

Seconded.

This point of view is completely incompatible with military service. Did you forget what forum you're on? Yikes

https://www.pa.ng.mil/Site-Management/News-Article-View/Article/3103505/193rd-special-operations-wing-preps-for-mission-conversion/ "The 193rd Special Operations Wing is undergoing a substantial transformation of its primary mission. The wing is transitioning from its legacy EC-130J Commando Solo aircraft to the MC-130J Commando II." I can't find a source online that directly says the old EC's are being used for MAC testing so I guess you just have to trust me.

Well the thing with that is we're actually divesting the EC-130 as well.. they're using the airframes to test the MC-130 with floats idea

Damn, this guy nailed it 13 years ago.

For once I'm not let down by Air Force decision making.

What's the RUMINT on the new guy?

"Interesting" in the sense that you can show people this video as an example of everything we learned at SERE being applied in real life. The interviewer pretends to be an independent western journalist but is actually employed by and under armed guard of the FSB. He used to be an amateur blogger doing reviews of prostitutes before the FSB picked him up. He's done such a good job they even gave him a medal. https://m.censor.net/en/photo_news/349247/graham_phillips_british_pseudojournalist_as_a_tool_of_russias_fsb_and_kremlins_propaganda_photos https://www.stopfake.org/en/british-citizen-exposed-as-a-tool-of-russia-s-fsb/ Also, im pretty sure the dude isn't a mercenary he's a member of the Ukrainian military and has been for like 5 years. The interviewers constant prodding about "and everything you say is of your own free will right?? We aren't forcing you to say anything right??" To the guy literally wearing handcuffs should have been your first clue something wasn't right here.

You're refuting a point I didn't even make. My issue is with the broader themes you're trying to push. I even had a section in that comment that laid out specifically what I was talking about. Let's not get bogged down going in circles over the details.

I agree with you on all points. That portion of my comment was aimed more at the people who feel they need to remind everyone that Ukraine is actually corrupt and not a perfect democracy and therefore we might as well root for Russia. those same people would have told you a few weeks ago the stalled convoy NW of Kyiv was all part of the plan to build up forces and mass artillery. Now they say taking Kyiv was actually just a feint this whole time and we all got played. Or that Russias air force is notably absent because they are trying so hard to use restraint and avoid civilian casualties (not because they have failed to destroy Ukraines air defense) The point was that group isn't able to perceive this conflict accurately or honestly, and therefore can't/won't make realistic predictions.

No I'm just saying you're following the misinformation playbook exactly..With nearly every post you make on this forum regarding Russia (including this one). Specifically: you continue to double down on flimsy logic with this ridiculous theme pretending that since "America is bad too" then we can't fault Russia. Your insistence at this stage of the war that Putin is some brilliant geopolitical Chessmaster is laughable. Very rarely do I see accurate predictions regarding this war from the "both sides are the same" camp.

So essentially your point is "America is bad too and who's to say what the truth is because it's all so murky" , "Ukraine does propaganda too!" Your whole post is a real life example of method 2: It's like I predicted the future. I'm sure you're an expert on the LOAC and just war theory, but that doesn't mean we can chalk up all of Russias crimes to a simple targeting error because they don't have enough PGMs... do you think we're all stupid? The more details that come out the harder time you're going to have selling the "russias just acting in its own self interest like all rational states" line. I'm looking forward to seeing you flail around with that.

Russian misinformation seeks to: 1. Sow division between existing divides (political, racial, etc) 2. Introduce enough "noise" that you give up trying to find the objective ground truth, or start to feel that "both sides are the same anyways" (through false equivalency, historical revisionism, multiple conflicting reports or versions of the same event, and so on) It rarely is overtly pro Russian, and often aligns with some of our previously held beliefs in some way. This makes it hard to spot and easy to spread.. Some users on this site exclusively post things that align with one or both of the above. It doesn't mean they are part of the Russian propaganda machine, but they have likely fallen victim to it. I agree with everything you posted, calling out BS like this helps clear up some of the noise.

Because you rarely argue in good faith, and I disagree with the notion that if only we tiptoe around Putins feelings long enough then surely he'll stop doing bad things. Plus its been 2 days now and still no escalatory rhetoric in response, seems like it wasn't that big of deal

I don't think any rational adult would oppose everything "the other side" says just because they are the ones who said it. There is a middle ground between parroting everything RT says and just blindly saying the opposite though.

No political outrage from me, I'm just urging caution and awareness of what message you're spreading; you're obviously free to hold any opinion you like. Honestly I'm baffled at your emotional response here, you'd think I was attacking you or something. The Mitt Romney thing and your second paragraph is kind of my point.. the answers to the Ukraine conflict aren't going to be found looking at the American left vs the right. Try to look at the bigger picture and not get bogged down with how terrible the democratic party is.

Yes he did say it, but you are the one bleating about how the US president is inept and spreading panic about how this will escalate things. I'm not saying Putin is personally handing you talking points, just saying you have to be careful not to let US domestic politics be the only lense you're looking through. Always circling around to COVID policy and Hunter Bidens laptop and dunking on "crazy Joe" makes it seem like you might be in the partisan politics game a little too deep. I didn't think my last sentence would be controversial honestly. It's not even that hard to imagine considering we have American newscasters being featured on Russian state media and using nearly identical talking points on their own show: https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/russian-tv-uses-tucker-carlson-tulsi-gabbard-sell-putins-war/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.yahoo.com/amphtml/tucker-carlson-indistinguishable-russian-state-183629992.html Please tell me we all agree that hating Biden so much that you end up saying the same things as the Kremlin about your own president has potential to be taken too far?

You have to be careful not to become so anti-Biden that you stop looking at things objectively and instead just wait for any small mistake to pounce on and scream about how terrible he is. If you aren't careful you might find yourself accidentally spreading russian propaganda and Kremlin talking points simply because it makes you feel good to trash on Biden. Take it too far and you might find yourself more aligned with Russia's interests than America's.

For clarity, that is not the argument I'm making. Just contrasting it to the OAN/Fox News interpretation of Trump when he went off script. Judging by your post history, you likely watch those networks exclusively so I was just trying to find a common political language to talk to you in.

Well it's been a whole day now and the Russian response was: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded, “it’s not up to the president of the U.S. and not up to the Americans to decide who will remain in power in Russia." “Only Russians, who vote for their president, can decide that,” Peskov said. So you can stop having a meltdown over it. If those remarks were an unforgivable escalation by "crazy joe" Biden then this a a really weak response from the Russians. It gives credence to the theory that Putin only backs down when met with force vs appeasement. This could be seen as a veiled threat that now has Putin on his back foot, and is speaking directly to his number 1 fear. Therefore making this a brilliant 4D chess move, just like when the last guy went off script (according to the talking heads.) If it isn't an escalation, then you're just flailing about and raging at nothing. Feel free to change your story to "Putin doesn't take senile Joe seriously so that's why it isn't an escalation" if you want, but they had a stronger response to Putin being labeled a war criminal just a few days ago.

I'm really hoping the planes are already in Ukraine flying missions and we're just pretending we can't figure out how to get them there. It would avoid escalation but still help the Ukrainians; plus I think we could get away with it. We've already seen the Russians attacking deserted Ukrainian bases and wasting missiles on places where IADS used to be weeks ago.. so there's clearly a weak spot in Russian real time Intel gathering. I know global geopolitics is incredibly difficult, but i also know there is a lot of really smart diplomats and strategists on our side. I choose to believe the west is the one playing 4D chess here.

Fixed this for you: You misread my take and the situation very severely. I agree Putin overstepped with Ukraine. I'm not backing his decision. Im saying this could have been solved with diplomacy as recently as 3 weeks ago and Putin wasn't interested in doing that. We handed Putin a letter and told him what would prevent the sanctions, and he completely dismissed it. Now I'm not saying just cave to all of our demands, but certainly some of them were entertainable. Everyone thought we were bluffing, and we weren't. I dont think he was justified and I think this was preventable. The west didn't miscalculate, the vast majority of Intel shows he expected to quickly roll over Ukraine and be done before the sanctions really started to hurt. He miscalculated. When you're talking about the world's largest nuclear power and the lives of 10s of millions of civilians, you do not get to ride on a pass of "Russia feels threatened" You need to be a responsible player. Our interest is the lives of our citizens, that certainly becomes more important to me than Ukranian lives or freedoms any day. But there are far to many people on here that seem ready to just jump straight to appeasement believing Putin will stop if we just give him this one more thing. You already miscalculated once. Why are you so sure you won't do it again?

1. Quibbling 2. Haze yourself.