Posted on 08/30/2024 4:35:52 AM PDT by MtnClimber
First, the President of the United States left California on Sunday after a week of vacation time near Santa Barbara, and returned to… yes, his beach house in Delaware, where the NOTAMs suggest that he plans to spend nine days. His last trip to the beach house in Delaware? Two weeks ago. Taking bets on how many days Joe Biden sleeps in the White House between now and January 20. “The President of the United States.”
Second, here’s a headline in a British newspaper that makes a disturbingly plausible argument:
Read this well-written opinion piece, which carefully lays out the background for this development. In December of 2023, the US announced the formation of a major international military coalition to stop Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. As September closes in, the attacks continue:
Since January, not only have the attacks steadily increased in number, they have diversified too. Drones and cruise missiles were accompanied by hijackings and ballistic missiles. April saw the first use of a surface drone and there has been a steady increase in this method since…
The Greek flagged tanker Sounion is the latest victim, attacked four times on Wednesday, resulting in a fire on board.
The United States spends $900 billion a year on our military, not counting funding for the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. (Add the $849 billion DOD budget plus the Coast Guard budget, which is allocated to the Department of Transportation, and the funding for nuclear weapons programs in the Department of Energy. And that’s without adding the cost of the intelligence agencies.) And that shockingly expensive military can’t defeat…the Houthis.
The ship attacked last week is in bad shape, and has been abandoned by its crew — with 150,000 tons of crude oil aboard. That’s a potential environmental disaster, but we’ll see.
Last month, the CENTCOM commander warned in a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that the United States wasn’t defeating the Houthis, and wasn’t on track to destroy their ability to attack ships in the Red Sea. That letter doesn’t appear to have produced a course correction, given more recent events. But the dubiousness of an undeclared and unauthorized war makes escalation implausible, so what can possibly happen next?
Meanwhile, the Houthis — like the Taliban — are showing the world that the United States can be fought. If anyone can find what’s left of Joe Biden, it would be interesting to hear him slur his thoughts about this.
Third, and in a related story about military decline, three of the US Army logistics vessels that participated in the absurd Gaza aid pier operation can’t get home under their own power. The Military Sealift Command is soliciting bids from contractors who can bring the boats back to Norfolk on float-on/float-off vessels. So the JLOTS mission has rendered a portion of the “army’s navy” inoperative, or marginally operative, limiting the army’s logistics fleet for months — at least.
Fourth, the US Navy is considering a “great reset” in the Military Sealift Command, and is evaluating a plan to withdraw 17 civilian-crewed naval support vessels from service due to staffing shortages in the Merchant Marine. See the details at this US Naval Institute news story, or see this Twitter thread from naval historian Sal Mercogliano. The 600-ship US Navy of the 1980s is shriveling into the 200s.
You can watch the navy shrink by scrolling through these historical tables.
Meanwhile:
Hete, let’s just use the same sentence again: If anyone can find what’s left of Joe Biden, it would be interesting to hear him slur his thoughts about this.....SNIP
A really interesting writer I recently became aware of. Worth a visit to his Substack page.
"Coffee and a Mike" Chris Bray | RFK SPEECH WAS WATER IN THE DESERT
Very much worth the watch. Length 1:12:35
I’m getting Austro-Hungary vibes. Used to be great. Torn apart by too much diversity. Collapsed. Never recovered. Throw in a World War and you’ve got the whole package.
“If anyone can find what’s left of Joe Biden, it would be interesting to hear him slur his thoughts about this”
Slow Joe: “Thoughts? I don’t need no stinking thoughts. Now, where’s my three scoop cone?”
A country cannot survive when fully half of it cannot define a woman, nor a right to life for a child in the womb.....and now the other half is going there too.
Rome has already fallen. We just don’t accept it yet.
.
If a tanker can’t be defended against Iranian missiles, how will US Navy ships fare against Iranian missiles?
The US Navy should be able to knock out anything Iranian proxies might throw at it.
“Programmable ammunition of the 23mm caliber fired from the ZU-23-2, primed for air-burst modes in hundreds of rounds, can create a massive wall of shrapnel, enough to hit incoming cruise missiles’ front nose sections and the engine, disabling them mid-air.
“Mainland Russia, like Moscow and Belgorod, and even the Kremlin have come under Ukrainian drone attacks this way. The Russian capital is, however, already protected by the Pantsir and Tor medium and short-range point defense systems for the purpose.”
https://www.eurasiantimes.com/challenging-atacms-storm-shadow-russia-develops-gun-contro/
You say that like it's a bad thing. :-)
Maybe the GAE has fallen. Or is in the process of falling. But perhaps from its ashes the country itself can get back on its properly reoriented feet? I mean, isn't it "Make America Great Again," and not "Make the American Empire Great Again"?
That's the hope, right? The only true hope?
The answers to these very critical questions about our military preparedness is clear....we need more trans, gay and female military personnel. Once our military is truly diverse, it will be able to defeat the enemies of the 21st century.
Diversity is our strength.
Ships have to be designed to be impact resistant.
Ships should be able to take several cruise missile hits and remain operational, even if blasted in halves.
Speed in the water will have to take a backseat to survivability.
A competent Vice President is expected to be aware of America’s State of Readiness at any given time, just in case they are called upon to take over for the sitting president they serve. I cannot imagine any scenario where would be able to explain these areas of growing concern to the country, at least not without blaming Trump for events that happened long after he left office. That’s well above her pay grade.
“Diversity is our strength.”
Krazy Kamala:
Your leadershi* has caused us to migrate yet again.
Please do not follow us or send flying monkeys.
The U.S. can’t effectively protect oil tankers from Houthi missiles and drones because there is no legal or diplomatic reason to have the U.S. taxpayers protect someone else’s ships.
She sees her enemy as whites.
She knows how to deal with white females - get them to kill their babies.
As for white males, they’ll be economically and politically neutralized.
Don’t underestimate her ability and willingness to snuff out white people.
This will leave a mark! Ends with the answer. Not every problem in the world can be solved by Kumbaya……
While I agree with you here, Harris herself isn't the problem. Harris will only become President if lots and lots and lots of white people vote for her. They are the problem.
Or, rather, this reality points to the real problem we are now squarely facing.
Now, THAT sounds straight up “Diabolical”!
Stalin or Pol Pot, levels of diabolical.
I hope never to see my fellow countrymen felled in such a manner.
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