12 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

Lots of successful destruction of 100s and maybe 1000s of targets. So on the battlefield things are going very well. Our military is incredibly powerful and has super precision targeting these days. I'm fully convinced the basic military action has been an overwhelming success.

Overall though, I think it is going rather poorly. I tend to think the people who understand things from an overall strategic perspective were just told to shut the hell up and go sit in the corner. The nuke material is still there and Iran still has the capacity to cause havoc thru their drones which can overwhelm defenses in the nearby countries AND they have any number of ways to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed or severely limited which will cause significant damage to all the western economies. Also, in the best case we have an incredibly unstable country of 90M people in the midst of an internal civil war or similar. Finally, none of this is helping with the deficit and it is hard to see a logical offramp. Can we avoid boots on the ground and still both take out the uranium, keep the Strait open, and leave Iran with a reasonably stable internal govt structure? I'm hopeful but not confident.

Add to the above, we also have the dumbest collection of leaders in world history running things on our end.

5 minutes ago, Bill said:

Yeah I've watched a few of his vids since things kicked off, but he's not really saying much past the obvious. I think he's trying to push people to his Patreon or w/e to get the more in depth stuff.

He despises the Jones Act, he has a few You Tube rants about it from a couple of years ago. Agreed about the Patreon thing, I thought that was a b.s. move, but they all seem to do it eventually.

Senator Chris Murphy was just briefed on Trump’s Iran War and he’s all out of Fs to give:

"I was in a 2 hour briefing today on the Iran War. All the briefings are closed, because Trump can't defend this war in public. I obviously can't disclose classified info, but you deserve to know how incoherent and incomplete these war plans are.

Here's what I can share: The lead is that the war goals DO NOT involve destroying Iran's nuclear weapons program. This is, uh...surprising...since Trump says over and over this is a key goal. But then of course we already know air strikes can't wipe out their nuclear material.

Second, they confirmed "regime change" is also NOT on the list. So, they are going to spend hundreds of billions of your taxpayer dollars, get a whole bunch of Americans killed, and a hardline regime - probably a MORE anti-American hardline regime - will still be in charge.

Ok, so what ARE the goals? It seems, primarily, destroying lots of missiles and boats and drone factories. But the question that stumped them: what happens when you stop bombing and they restart production? They hinted at more bombing. Which is, of course, endless war.

And on the Strait of Hormuz, they had NO PLAN. I can't go into more detail about how Iran gums up the Strait, but suffice it to say, right now, they don't know how to get it safely back open. Which is unforgiveable, because this part of the disaster was 100% foreseeable.”

46 minutes ago, The_Omega said:

How do you think it's going? As well as the administration says? As badly as our conflicted media says? How can anyone really know? Knowing our military i'd wager closer to as well as the administration is saying but we'll find out soon enough. Really I just feel like I'm riding in the backseat, and just watched the driver switch places with the blind guy who was sitting in the passenger seat, and I know I should be frozen in white knuckle terror, but the combination of booze, weed, and cocaine is making me excited to see how it all turns out.

If that's your answer, it's going horrible.

Unfortunately this isn't the days of the Cold War with a 700 ship navy and large numbers of frigates that were designed for this type of mission.

The U.S. Navy will escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz as soon as it is militarily possible, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday. Speaking to Sky News, Bessent said: "My belief is that as soon as it is militarily possible, the U.S. Navy, perhaps with an international coalition, will be escorting vessels through.” "There are, in fact, tankers coming through now — Iranian tankers. I believe some Chinese-flagged tankers have come through. So we know that they have not mined the strait,” he added.

Bessent spoke on the 13th day of Operation Epic Fury after the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) initiated a joint military operation with Israel against Iran. The Strait of Hormuz has continued to see attacks by Iran on shipping, largely targeting oil and energy tankers

10 minutes ago, Mlodj said:

He despises the Jones Act, he has a few You Tube rants about it from a couple of years ago. Agreed about the Patreon thing, I thought that was a b.s. move, but they all seem to do it eventually.

Yeah I mean I get they need to make money, but at the same time would be nice to be able to get it regularly on youtube. Every so often he'll post a long form vid where he gives a talk somewhere and that's when you get a ton of info.

1 minute ago, Mlodj said:

Unfortunately this isn't the days of the Cold War with a 700 ship navy and large numbers of frigates that were designed for this type of mission.

The thing that I hate the most about GWOT is how far it a) put stress on existing equipment, and b) put us behind on procurement.

Seems like the LCS were a bust, and even if they weren't, we wouldn't have enough of them.

21 minutes ago, Bill said:

Yeah I've watched a few of his vids since things kicked off, but he's not really saying much past the obvious. I think he's trying to push people to his Patreon or w/e to get the more in depth stuff.

Shame. He does a really good job with overall analysis. I'm not paying for his Patreon stuff though.

2 minutes ago, Bill said:

Seems like the LCS were a bust, and even if they weren't, we wouldn't have enough of them.

I've never been a fan of the LCS, but the minesweeping mission was one of their originally intended roles, they're in place in the area, and unlike the Avenger Class their self defense capability consists of more than a bunch of sailors standing at the railings with M14s.

They obviously didn’t take that photo while he was saying that.

btw - A 48 minute vid just dropped where Zeihan is a guest on Scott Galloway's pod. Won't be a deeply technical discussion but might be some nuggets in there somewhere.

1 hour ago, Paul852 said:

Save that one for posterity. Surely he'll have a problem with other wars in the future.

On 3/9/2022 at 12:52 PM, The_Omega said:

I have family struggling with what they went through in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I'm not yet ready to subject other people's family to that.

But Iran is different because we have Trump and he is vewy smaht!

19 hours ago, NOTW said:

What a bunch of morons....and sadly, this sort of thing is why Trumplikins like @Diehardfan and @HazletonEagle love the fat F so much.

45 minutes ago, dawkins4prez said:

If that's your answer, it's going horrible.

Eh. As someone who's formative years were, largely, late '70's to the late '90's I think it's about f'ing time someone did something about Iran. I was also caught a bit off guard by US actually doing something and haven't entirely come to terms with it yet. I think we can destroy their regime, but I also realize that Iran has been important to a number of powerful bad actors who have been arming them for decades so there's always the possibility that it could take a lot longer than I (and many Americans) are comfortable with. I remember when Clinton decided on that air war over Yugoslavia rather than boots on the ground I didn't think there was anyway it would work, but it did, it just took a little while. I don't think Trump has that long here, but I could be wrong about that too.

6 minutes ago, The_Omega said:

I remember when Clinton decided on that air war over Yugoslavia rather than boots on the ground I didn't think there was anyway it would work, but it did

Sure, but there isn't a strategic resource there like there is in the Persian Gulf. The real threat to the US is economic. That and the fact that the winner of this conflict will be Russia, our long term #1 enemy.

1 minute ago, DrPhilly said:

Sure, but there isn't a strategic resource there like there is in the Persian Gulf. The real threat to the US is economic. That and the fact that the winner of this conflict will be Russia, our long term #1 enemy.

Russia is losing their drone source which will hurt them in Ukraine. Also, yes, it makes Russia more important to China but Russia needs much of their oil for their military actions, and Xi is too smart to be OK with being that dependent on Putin. Russia may ultimately benefit, but they're going to hurt first, and China is going to really suffer, which is, ultimately, the long term strategic goal here.

@Diehardfan after spending hours in CVON explaining why low gas prices, high gas prices, and pedophilia are all positive things for Americans.

42 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

But Iran is different because we have Trump and he is vewy smaht!

Girls between the ages of 7-12 get bombed

Zuker: Bombs away!

These aren't serious people.

Kash located the missing drones

3 hours ago, Paul852 said:

I was under the impression that America specifically voted against this type of stuff, no?

Yep pretty much everything he listed also applies to Russia, but for some strange mysterious reason, he was vehemently opposed to providing aid to Ukraine.

1 hour ago, The_Omega said:

Eh. As someone who's formative years were, largely, late '70's to the late '90's I think it's about f'ing time someone did something about Iran. I was also caught a bit off guard by US actually doing something and haven't entirely come to terms with it yet. I think we can destroy their regime, but I also realize that Iran has been important to a number of powerful bad actors who have been arming them for decades so there's always the possibility that it could take a lot longer than I (and many Americans) are comfortable with. I remember when Clinton decided on that air war over Yugoslavia rather than boots on the ground I didn't think there was anyway it would work, but it did, it just took a little while. I don't think Trump has that long here, but I could be wrong about that too.

We won’t destroy their regime without large numbers of US soldiers on the ground in Iran. And we are nowhere close to the type of build up for the troops that would be needed.

This "excursion” was warned against by all the major armed forces leaders. Trump was too stupid to listen. This will be a huge waste of money.

7 hours ago, VanHammersly said:

The Republican strategy at the moment seems to be desperately hope for a terrorist attack (and then desperately hope that whoever attacks us came into the country in a very specific time frame) so you can blame it on Biden and justify an invasion. Don't see any other way Trump puts boots on the ground without it, because otherwise he'd have no one blame it on.

It'd be great if Iran would go boob-for-tat and eliminate of some of the utter filth we have in lead we have for leaders, but I feel like Iranians are smart enough to know that that would actually be doing us a solid.

1 hour ago, The_Omega said:

Eh. As someone who's formative years were, largely, late '70's to the late '90's I think it's about f'ing time someone did something about Iran. I was also caught a bit off guard by US actually doing something and haven't entirely come to terms with it yet. I think we can destroy their regime, but I also realize that Iran has been important to a number of powerful bad actors who have been arming them for decades so there's always the possibility that it could take a lot longer than I (and many Americans) are comfortable with. I remember when Clinton decided on that air war over Yugoslavia rather than boots on the ground I didn't think there was anyway it would work, but it did, it just took a little while. I don't think Trump has that long here, but I could be wrong about that too.

Clinton drove Yugoslavia out of a country about the size of Connecticut. Iran’s 3 times the size of Texas and the goal is regime change. Completely different animal and 100% impossible strictly from the air.

1 hour ago, The_Omega said:

Eh. As someone who's formative years were, largely, late '70's to the late '90's I think it's about f'ing time someone did something about Iran. I was also caught a bit off guard by US actually doing something and haven't entirely come to terms with it yet. I think we can destroy their regime, but I also realize that Iran has been important to a number of powerful bad actors who have been arming them for decades so there's always the possibility that it could take a lot longer than I (and many Americans) are comfortable with. I remember when Clinton decided on that air war over Yugoslavia rather than boots on the ground I didn't think there was anyway it would work, but it did, it just took a little while. I don't think Trump has that long here, but I could be wrong about that too.

Fires alone cannot achieve strategic victory. There needs to be some type of maneuver element.

In the Balkans there were maneuver elements, it's just a lot of them weren't ours. In this case we do not have any maneuver elements as it stands right now, and it does not appear that there will be any.

I don't think this one's gonna be good. From the release sounds like a mid-air.