Posted on 12/21/2013 5:47:18 AM PST by ilovesarah2012
Two US military aircraft have been fired at during an evacuation mission in South Sudan, wounding two service personnel.
One is said to be in a critical condition, and it is thought at least one of the planes was damaged.
South Sudan has blamed the attack on renegade troops.
Officials said the aircraft were heading to Bor, the capital of the state of Jonglei and the scene of some of the country's worst violence in the past week.
After being fired at the planes turned around and headed to Kampala in Uganda. From there the wounded service personnel were flown to Nairobi, Kenya for medical treatment.
Fighting broke out in the South Sudanese capital Juba between army factions last Sunday and has since spread to other regions.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
The New York Times and Washington Post are both leading with this story on their websites.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Wasn't Stevens trying to clean up some lost(?) grenade launchers .. and isn't this an account of planes being shot at while in the air ?
And how better to confuse anyone trying to connect dots than to have dots that would be absurd if they were connected ...
Unless you were caught and you HAD to flush millions of dollars of perfectly good, saleable drugs down the toilet ...
Just thinkin' outside of the box
My guess - none.
The Airfarce must have its own money mill. F-35’s are hugely expensive campared to Warthogs. And the Hogs are really good at what they do including being reliable-—something not proven for F-35’s yet. I’d hate to see them go but that’s just me. I think P-51’s still have a mission if we had a few but that’s just me——2,000 horsepower coming in low and slow with sixguns flaming was enough to back off the entire German and Jap armies. Should be enough to re-educate the occasional band of muzzie dirtbagz.
I suspect that they would rather just go with drones, than try and maintain the aged A-10 fleet.
[I suspect that they would rather just go with drones, than try and maintain the aged A-10 fleet.]
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It’s all going in that direction. Robotics will take over before we know it.
The Air Force has wanted to retire the A-10 since they got them. They should give them to the Army and Marine Corps where they belong. Grunts love the aircraft.
The Air Force will resist drones until the bitter end.
Most of the Air Force brass view themselves as Top Gun types and that is often far more important than the mission.
That is my .02. It’s been a problem for a long time and it will continue to be a problem.
I’ve long said that Congress should transfer the A-10 fleet and the budget for it to the Army and Marine Corps.
If they were modernized the A-10 would outperform any drones at the moment in terms of payload, firepower, and versatility. That might change soon, but the Air Force brass has never viewed the A-10 as having the “sex appeal” they desire.
I can tell you first-hand it was the favorite aircraft of the grunt and still is. The Hog is an awesome aircraft.
I am continually amazed by how ignorant most Americans are about tribalism. It’s so wired into the DNA that Americans with the same identity invented their own forms with modern street gangs such as bloods and crips.
In my opinion, tribalism is the primary reason most of the third world remains a dysfunctional mess.
There was a great editorial cartoon back during the heyday of apartheid. It showed a small mud & waddle, tin roofed building with bars on the doors & windows and a large sign reading “Apartheid”.
A black man, shovel in hand, clad in the rough shirt & shorts prison uniform common to Africa has just stuck his head out of the tunnel he has dug to escape the ramshackle jail, “Apartheid”.
He looks around at his new found freedom, only to see that the pathetic jail is located inside massive stone walls topped with concertina wire and machine gun equipped guard towers. This massive edifice is labeled “Tribalism”.
They all have as aspect of the ‘down low’
Obama could be heard as he flew off to Hawaii out of sight
“They were shot down by a bunch of terrorists out for a joy ride and decided to go kill some Americans, At this point, WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT REALLY MAKE?”
I hate even thinking about Obama. I still cannot understand how he was elected, much less re-elected. Knowing he still has an approval rating over 40% doesn’t give me much hope for this country.
Why?, if you don't mind my asking. They aren't sexy, but they are impressive in flight, and by accounts a durable and effective weapons platform.
One of the hallmarks of this administration has been the commission of outrageous acts, the only defense necessary being to say how outrageous the act would be and how it must be a "conspiracy theory".
What better way to rob/destroy a nation in broad daylight?
Well, that's what they tell us, anyway.
Remember a relatively small group of Communists overthrew a large (if dysfunctional) monarchy by first calling themselves "Bolsheviks"--the Majority Party.
I think Duh Won gets 20 points for just showing up...
China has the contracts with the Sudanese and the South Sudanese for the oil in the region. The Sudanese have the oil processing facilities, and the South Sudanese have the oil.
The oil must transit Sudan to be marketed.
There are several tribes in South Sudan, and until recently, the Dinka had the President and the Nuer Tribe had the Vice-Presidency.
While they fought the largely Muslim group for independence from Sudan, they were united.
They are now independent, and they now turn to each other to decide how to run the country.
The Nuer are a slight majority and now hold large areas. The Dinka are slightly less in number and hold the remaining parts.
The key, to me, is to stop the violence and create a stable government as a bulwork against the Islamists to the North, but the larger issue is the truly all-encompassing involvement in East Africa of the Chinese and their race to get all of the resources. They have already won.
Have we responded in kind with napalm or an AC-130? I somehow doubt we have done anything to disperse the muzzy scum.
I’ll bet they had another malfunction/accident with that flying coffin and are trying to blame it on enemy fire.
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