The Glade 4.0

I was thinking of that scene and now I'm kicking myself for not posting it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I am often called a liberal. I often criticize the US for playing world police. However I think this was an appropriate response. Chemical weapons are something that you can't turn a blind eye to. I have seen videos of people being decapitated, shot, tortured. The videos of those men, women, children twitching in the streets was worse than them all.

This wasn't about firing or not firing anything. This was about the message it sends regarding what the deep state can make even the President do when they've stated just months ago that this is not something they would do.

I get it, you want to imagine the world is a certain way and the US always has a certain heroic part to play in that stage act.

You don't need to have almost any of that if you have the intel on where an airstrike will be and have your own gas to go off, if you think the CIA can't procure chemical agents when it wants them and where it wants them then I don't know what to tell you.

The airstrike happens, you set off your agents concurrently...have video ready and imbeded people willing to make claims to press - and the ability to get them in front of the press. You control the initial information frame.

Assad isn't a stupid guy. He knows what would happen if he used non conventional arms especially on civilians - and what would happen would be some US and/or international response. He's winning right now he doesn't need to use desperate actions. There is no case that this would benefit him short or long term. I'll say it may not have been CIA it could have been Mossad or even remotely ISIS since we know they planned to execute a gas attack and let the blame fall on Assad in 2013 though I don't think they could pull it off now.

Your initial action is so odd it comes down to one of three possibilities, you believe the first, you believe the second, you believe both:
You think the CIA is incapable of doing this.
You think the CIA is capable but morally would not do this.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

None of qhich creates the ability to orchestrate an ariel bombing in a hostile country.

I get it, you want to imagine the world is a certain way and the US always has a certain heroic part to play in that stage act.[/quote]

This from the guy that wants to imagine the "deep state" can conjure an air force out of thin air.



A) Gas doesn't disperse in the same way when distributed from the ground
B) There's no reason to think we have intel that gives us precise times and targets for individual sorties
C) Getting "your own gas" in position in advance is a troublesome undertaking
D) There's no actual evidence any of this happened.



Yeah.. ok. How many people are you involving now without any leaks?



Taly already explained Assad's thinking. Assad thought we didn't care, because we were going to let him go. He didn't realize that chemical weapons would provoke us this time in a way they didn't the first.



The CIA is incapable of doing this. It is not a matter of what I think. It is a matter of you not knowing how overly complex something like this would actually be to do, and wanting to affirm your idiot worldview.

This is just straight up **** stupid. Really. Go find a dominatrix and get a spanking. You need it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That's because you've essentially just bug sprayed people to death. Nerve gas is human bug spray.

It is a truly barbarous weapon. It combines terrifying, painful death with a surprising lack of effectiveness against legitimate military targets. You can't pass off civilian deaths as collateral damage; if you're attacking a military target there's always an option that's more effective, and almost always one likely to produce civilian casualties. You can't pass it off as an act of national desperation; they cannot force an enemy to back down the way nuclear weapons can.

That's why Saddam didn't use it in 1991 - it's useless against armor. But there was only one response at the time

Just one response.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Assad has apparently been using chemical weapons against civilians for years now - he's just been using chlorine weapons because that wasn't on the list of items covered by the deal Obama/Putin brokered back in 2013. He has no compunction about it. And sure, he's not a stupid guy, but he's also not infallible. It's entirely possible he misjudged the response here. It's also entirely possible - in fact, probable - that he has correctly judged that the response won't go much beyond this initial strike, so it was worth it. Either of those possibilities is infinitely more likely than your evidence-free theory about CIA-planted weapons and disinformation campaigns waged against the US press.

How many people did D-Day take to plan without any leaks? The Manhattan project? What is troubling is you don't even see how shitty this is.

All your information is what...5th hand by now yet you don't even begin to question its obvious problems.

It doesn't have to be very high to be disperesed effectively which can be done from the ground now do we have any real knowledge of the area affected (5th hand remember).

Taly's entire thing is from the frame of view that it happened as presented and then trying to fit in what makes sense based on this. That is irrelevant in the consideration if one is considering that it may not have happened as presented.

You're really shitty about thinking from any view except the one you've been told to have. Of course we all knew this so (shrug).

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Why take the risk at all? There was literally no need to and the only results are negative and the negatives are HUGE. If he wanted to attack civilians he could use conventional arms.


Conversely the negatives for other actors are tiny if they exist at all, the positives are HUGE. For example: ISIS gets the US to attack it's enemy, it draws the US and Russia more agaisnt themselves. The other three are all in bed with each other as far as Syria is concerned and each move their game ahead in large steps while risking...dead people who have no power and aren't their citizens...so nothing at all.

And the evidence you have is hearsay. Which is to say, no actual evidence at all - it's just reported many times.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Tell me more about how the circumstances are similar to doing this in the heart of an enemy country, with the intent of subverting your own government rather than defeating an enemy.



There are no obvious problems. You're just coming up with wild hypotheticals, claiming "problems" exist, and trying to pretend that other people are being unreasonable for believeing the evidence that does exist over your total lack of it.


Yes, actually it does.



you have no evidence that it's other than as presented.



You're really shitty at thinking at all, which is why I'm right and you're wrong. There is no view that you're thinking from. It literally does not exist. You may as well be claiming pink unicorns orchestrated the whole thing. You are well into the territory of holocaust denial conspiracy theory here.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This isn't what hearsay means, and we're not in a court of law.

You have literally no evidence whatsoever. Produce some or shut up. Speculations and rhetorical questions are not evidence. You're just wrong. There was never any room for debate, there's only you acting like an idiot.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You have, at best, the words of reporters stating what people who claim to be witnesses saw plus speculation after that.

I have reason. I'll stick with reason.

And I don't know why you think getting hands on Sarin is hard. It's not hard to make, store, or transport.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Calling wild speculation reason does not make it reason. You don't have any. Witness accounts beat specualtion. Period. you are wrong.



Evidence.

Produce some.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Why take the risk of widespread attacks against civilians? Why take the risk of using chlorine weapons? Why take the risk of targeting medical facilities and aid convoys? Why take the risk of engaging in mass torture and executions? Why take the risk of any of these clear and flagrant violations of the laws of war that are guaranteed to generate negative international reactions, risk broader US intervention, and potentially alienate even Russia? Because he WANTS the world to see that he fears no reprisals and knows no limits when it comes to repressing and punishing those who oppose him. That's how dictators survive challenges to their power and guard against challenges in the future - by making sure everyone knows that opposition will trigger brutality on a massive and entirely wanton scale. You just don't think like a dictator, Elm, so you can't see the logic to it, but the logic is there, vicious and psychopathic as it is.

Man. We sure the **** showed them!

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/why-fi ... 1794113103

As well planned and executed as the Yemen strike. /golfclap.

60,000 pounds of explosives and... the airbase was back up and running in less than 24 hours.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Ahh, I see we're talking about military options we don't actually understand again. Not unlike your blog author

So, time for class.

The author suspiciously fails to mention that there's a better weapon - Durandal - thatn the retired JP233- somewhat easier to deliver, more destructive to the runway, still in service, and not unique to the Tornado. Even if JP233 still were in service, it was unique to a British aircraft the U.S. never purchased, so it's actually completely irrelevant

Either he does not know it exists, which wouldn't surprise me since this blog reeks of "enlisted guy who thinks he knows everything", or he's failing to mention it because he doesn't understand why it wasn't used.

The reason it wasn't used is that the pilot has to fly directly over the runway (the same was true for JP233) at low altitude. This exposes the aircraft to ground fire from even primitive anti-aircraft cannons. Standoff weapons are preferred for almost everything these days. Sending manned aircraft to attack the Syrian airbasae would have entailed a major SEAD effort against the Russian's air defense systems in the area in advance (which still doesn't address the aforementioned primitive cannon that Durandal exposes attack aircraft to.

Durandal creates large craters in the runway, in such a way that concrete slabs can't simply be pushed back into place. However, it's still not THAT hard to get a runway operational again, especially for fighter-sized aircraft. Pre-fab rapid repair equipment exists, and even the Syrians can get it or make it since it's essentially just steel sheets. A Syrian crew won't be as efficient as one of ours, but a runway is just a strip of asphalt or concrete.

Which is where the author is wrong. Counterintuitively, the usefulness of the runway isn't the best option to degrae an airfield's usefulness. If you can't repair, can't fuel, can't arm, and can't control aircraft at the airfield it's of little use for anything but emergency landings. More importantly, 20 aircraft were damaged or destroyed and after 5 years of civil war Assad hasn't got them to spare. The Russians aren't just going to give him more for free - they cost the Russians money to build, and the el cheapo stuff Assad had before would have to be replaced with expensive new planes because the Russians aren't building MiG-21s and -23s and the other planes that every dictator went on a spending spree for in the 1970s.

The reason we don't bother with newer replacements for runway denial weapons like Durandal (old) and JP233 (retired) is because destroying runways is pretty impractical. They're too big, and too easy to repair. JP233 was a very cumbersome weapon for the Tornado; it had to be purpose-made for that aircraft and it imposed unique burdens on the pilot and plane. Durandal is more versatile, but it's still a primitive "get over the target and drop the bomb" weapon. Trying to get something as effective as either of these into a missile that can be fired standoff gets you a really big and expensive missile that a lot of planes can't carry and that has very limited usefulness - you can't attack much besides runways (perhaps rail yards) with it.

If you actually want to destroy a runway permanently, you use a ground burst nuclear warhead - actually more than one. A runway is a very hard target and has to be scoured out of the ground like a missile silo.

The military knows how to target an airfield just fine. Airfield destruction is not new; it's an ongoing part of doctrinal development since WWII.

Moreover, the point of this strike was not "we are going to end the Syrian civil war for the cheap price of 59 Tomahawks" or even "we intend to permanently destroy this airfield beyond economical repair". It was, indeed, a political statement by military means. The statement was "It will cost you any time you use chemical weapons. This time, the cost was 20 aircraft and sundry other things. Next time it may be higher. Also, you just pissed away our willingness to back off." The statement to Russia was "Counselor, control your client." Trying to impose on it requirements that it accomplish things well beyond what it was intended to is dishonest.

As I pointed out in the thread on the Navy months ago, the military is replete with bloggers who resent the fact that they don't get to be Generals without doing what it takes to become a General. This blog is such an example. This guy has a mix of selective and uninformed going on, and his analysis is amateurish.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

From the reporting I heard, the aircraft that were destroyed were Sukhoi-22s, what the Soviets called the Su-17. The newest information I have on them is from the FM 100-2 series, published in 1991. According to what I have, the Su-17 has a max range of ~420 miles and does not have aerial refueling capability, though it can use drop tanks, extending the range to ~680 to 1100 miles, depending on model. And yeah, you're not going to replace those ancient things with current model aircraft cheaply.

I couldn't even finish the article Mus linked, it was laughable in it's "analysis". As you said, trying to make a runway inoperable for any length of time would require at least a tactical nuclear device, which the Army hasn't possessed since the early '90s. I'm not sure of the Navy's ability to deliver ordnance with that capability. The destruction of refueling and repair facilities, and the likely destruction of spare parts, has much more impact than trying to destroy a runway.

As for the loss of approximately 20 aircraft, the ability of the Syrian Air Force's to attack ground targets is severely impacted. According to http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/syria/airforce-equipment.htm there were only 50 in the inventory as of 2015. Assuming a readiness rate of 80%, which is probably high, that's only 40 operational aircraft. Also according to the link above, the Syrian Air Force also has 20 of the newer SU-24 aircraft. Again, using an 80% readiness rate, that's only 16 available aircraft.

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"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." - Alice R. Longworth

"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun." - Ash Williams

IIRC the -17 was the Soviet model, the -22 was the export model, which is a bit confusing because for most other platforms, there wasn't a completely separate model number for export versions.



This is probably still accurate as the -17 wasn't exactly new in 1991.



The NAvy hasn't had operationally deployed nuclear weapons since the 1990s, either, aside from those aboard SSBNs. W80 and W84 devices still exist, so a new version of TLAM-N could be produced, but it certainly isn't available at the moment. The F/A-18 is capable of dropping the B-61, which is the most logical choice for a runway attack anyhow, as a ground burst is required. Regardless, that article is **** garbage.



OR is a little hard to estimate, since the Russians might be willing to help with spare parts more than new aircraft, but Arab maintenance crews have always sucked - one of the big things that puts them at a disadvantage against Israel. I'm quite certain it's below 80%; if it's 50% that's probably generous.

The Su-24 is newer and better than the Su-22, but only relatively. It was a bad **** in the 1980s; now it's dated, though still useful. Russia still flies them, but their models are probably upgraded. It's a rough equivalent to the F-111. The Su-34 is the newest in the line, and is a much better airplane, but only Russia has them. An Su-24 is what the Turks shot down in 2015, and the Israelis shot down one of the Syrian ones in 2014.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This strike wasn't done for military effect. It was done as "coercive diplomacy" / "politics by other means". It was a message sent in the only language Assad was likely to listen to.

That, plus the fact that it's actually really hard to knock an airbase out of action. Note that in 1991, when Saddam's aircraft began fleeing to Iran, it was after a full week of fighting and efforts to knock out all aspects of the Iraqi military, yet over 100 aircraft were able to take off and fly to Iran.

Every air force has a plan for rapid recovery from an attack on its air bases.

The effectiveness of the Tomahawk as a weapon system has very little to do with Trump's decision to fire them. What happened was that his advisors presented him with several attack options and he picked one. None of the attack options would have included weapons unsuited to the effect that option was estimated to have. "Completely destroy the airfield" may have been one of the options, but it wasn't the goal of this one.

This is a complete red herring. The idea is to imply "lol look at dumbass Trump using the wrong weapon" but that's not how strikes are planned. The President tells the military what he wants done; the military comes up with options to do it. All this crowing about the airfield and how long it was out of action simply involves people using their uninformed intuition to arbitrarily ecide damage should have been more severe, and assigning goals to the strike that it didn't have.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I would have preferred a stronger response, myself, as well.

But, completely seriously here, your position seems inconsistent. In the opening post, you don't like that the USA responded to the chemical attacks at all. Now you are mocking the ineffectiveness of the response. If you don't want them to respond violently, perhaps a weak response is better than a strong one?

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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I don't like the response. Assad has done far more heinous things than kill a hundred people with sarin. We stood pat generally on those... so this smacks of posturing for the press/approval ratings to me.

That said, the response seems less than effective. Sure, we blew some **** up, but it seems to have been completely ineffective. Assad was up and flying planes later that same day. Russia gets a chance to accuse us of illegal unilateral action, and ISIS gets more recruits. We seem to have bought the worst of both worlds here in that nothing of import relating to Assad's actual warfighting capacity goes and we acted not in accordance with the agreement that was laid out beforehand insofar as getting consensus and approval to strike by the parties to said agreement.

If you're gonna respond, respond. Not dick around with "sending a message".

But, I'm sure DE will disagree here and call me a libtard snowflake again.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I'm not going to argue what I think the correct response is based on previous actions (or lack of them.) It may very well be we've let him get away with worse **** in the past without a reprisal. That changes nothing.

My argument is that we should have fired several more cruise missiles at the presidential palace in Damascus, in addition to whatever else was deemed effective.

Maybe it gets Assad. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it accidentally kills some of his family. That'd be too bad. Seriously, I wouldn't intentionally make them a target if I knew precisely where Bashar al-Assad was and they were somewhere else. But if that were to happen, maybe would-be tyrants would think twice before gassing their own people.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Carter kinda nixed the "Assassinate foreign heads of state" thing way back when.

I can see both sides of that (Honestly, fatty-jong Un needs a bullet or 50.) But... where does that stop? Start executing puppets, and the puppet masters get upset. Then... they may start going after our puppets. Or, even the puppet master.

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Holy shitsnacks!

So what you're saying is, political leaders might have to fear for their own safety and that of their family, rather than throwing away the lives of strangers' children?

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Let me see if I can follow this logic:

Take a shot at Assad, and Russia might take a shot at Trump.



Okay.



Still haven't come up with a downside yet.

****. Forgot Pence was the VP. Carry on.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █