Posted on 04/04/2026 4:50:46 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Legacy media is doing what it does best – spread misinformation and confusion – in regard to Friday’s downing of a USAF F-15E Strike Eagle in western Iran.
Legacy media is doing what it does best -- spread misinformation and confusion -- in regard to Friday’s downing of a USAF F-15E Strike Eagle in western Iran. According to the usual suspects, this means that America has lost “air supremacy” and marks the moment when the tide turns completely in Iran’s favor and, sweeping all before them, enables them to achieve absolute victory by Sunday. Monday at the latest.
In truth, air supremacy (sometimes called “air dominance”) has nothing to do with anti-aircraft fire or the losses that it can incur. The USAF considers air supremacy to be the highest level of air superiority, when air assets can operate without meaningful opposition from enemy air forces. What this means is that the enemy will choose not to confront your air assets at all and will instead run like the wind, as has currently occurred in Iran. (With air superiority, while enemy aviation may attack, they can be easily dealt with and chased back where they came from.)
This does not mean that the enemy is totally helpless. If they possess anti-aircraft cannon and missiles, as the Iranians do, they can shoot down attacking aircraft, as we saw on Friday. But what does this have to do with air supremacy? Absolutely nothing. There is no way that flak (as the Germans called it) can dispute air dominance by a superior air force. In late 1944, when the U.S. achieved air superiority over Hitler’s Luftwaffe (apart from a handful of Me-262 jets), German flak was still taking down hundreds of Allied aircraft. In response, the USAAF assigned several wings of heavy bombers
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
What’s most important is to break the regime’s will fight, i.e. get unconditional surrender.
Cutting off their oil income and knocking out the grid will probably achieve that the quickest.
“My problem with getting into these wars is that we lack the will as a society to do what we have to do to win. If we aren’t going to do what is necessary, we shouldn’t get involved to begin with.”
What you say is, IMO, beyond dispute. The reason for the societal disconnect is that we are fighting wars across the globe that aren’t directly connected to national survival. Our constitutional form requires consent, and every administration since 1945 has sought ways around asking for that consent.
Then you have the institutional problem involved in a return to conditional war: a president asking for a “declaration” pretty much has a bank-check for the duration, and Congress must fund it. Anybody see the egos in Congress giving a formal Declaration these days?
So every war we are treated to a president who refuses to ask permission under The War Powers Act, and a Congress that is secretly glad he didn’t but mouths off all the same.
Rinse & repeat.
“Most Americans would probably tell you that another stupid war in the Middle East isn’t worth a single American life...”
Then most Americans are IDIOTS. It sure as hell IS worth fighting to stop Iran from gaining nukes and placing them in the hands of rulers who are not deterred by “Mutually Assured Destruction”. It is certainly worth fighting to prevent the USA from being subject to nuclear blackmail by Iran’s mullahs!
Hell, what we did in GW1 & GW2 WAS WORTH IT! No, we didn’t get everything we wanted but we killed huge numbers of terrorists OVER THERE. How many serious terror attacks have happened in the USA since 911? None. That isn’t because of “TSA”!
No, we did not turn Iraq & Afghanistan into good places. After serving in Afghanistan, I favoring nuking the damn country and the batshit crazy, EVIL people living there. Instead, Democrats and Europeans IMPORTED THEM! So we didn’t get all we wanted - or even all could have if GWB hadn’t trusted the State Department.
But we got no more major attacks in the USA. We got allies in the Gulf who are willing to cooperate with us, unlike before. Hell, the COLD WAR involved a series of hot wars that took 50 years to win.
But the big difference is we now have surrender monkeys in the USA, and “Hate America Democrats” who are possibly a majority of voters. And people like you, pushing their crap and swallowing it whole.
“Bottom line: Do I wish President Trump didn’t go into Iran? Yes.“
Only idiots want wars. 47 years in a row Iran declared war on the US. Trump just happened to notice.
To surrender implies they were once on our side. That is debatable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese-eating_surrender_monkeys
The term “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” first appeared in “’Round Springfield”, an April 1995 episode of The Simpsons, an American animated television show.[2] In the episode, budget cuts at Springfield Elementary School force the school’s Scottish janitor, Groundskeeper Willie, to teach French. Expressing his disdain for French people, he says in a heavy Scottish burr to the class: “Bonjourrrrrrrrr, you cheese-eating surrender monkeys!”[3][4][5]
Trump did not start this war. Trump is ending Jimmy Carter’s 47-year war.
780 guys killed at a D-day REHEARSAL in England in April 1944.
Imagine if that happened now!
All this bombing bullshit is simple evasion of what is required to conquer another people and impose your will on them.
“ America has only lost 13 brave soldiers in the Iranian war (more like an Iranian hammering). Everyone of those 13 soldiers a real loss, but massively low compared to Iraq and Afghanistan.”
That’s just because we are losing faster this time.
Do you believe the CIA and the Mossad lied to Trump about how close Iran was to having a nuclear weapon?
Free Republic is an open forum. Anyone can create an account and post their opinions. That does not make them a Freeper.
Trump needs to go on TV with the proverbial bowl of water, and ceremonially wash his hands, and say he heard the protests and that he will begin bringing all our military home. Never again will our military leave our shores to go to war.
Then the isolationist woke right, and Democrats can be all full of themselves. For a while. But when American cities get nuked by Iran don’t blame Trump.
It does. I saw disgusting podcast yesterday and the guest was practically overjoyed that a helicopter and two aircraft were shot down yesterday. History is that it was unheard of to send a helicopter to rescue a down pilot because helicopters are vulnerable. And he acted like it was some kind of pentagon incompetence to not simply abandon one pilot, and instead to risk several others to get him. It was a younger commentator who had no clue that since World War II at least, we did anything remotely feasible to rescue a pilot.
Submarine patrols, sea planes, extensive searching. We did a lot of things to bring back lost pilots. The Korean War had a massive effort. Michener described it in bridges of Toko Ri. The pair of rescue teams in Vietnam were legendary.
It’s a cornerstone of our aviation that a pilot knows if it’s humanly possible to rescue him we will. That pays the dividends big time. I couldn’t believe that podcast that actually said it was poor tactics to try to rescue them. And as far as I know, all the pilots were retrieved
The air fleet over there today is far smaller than what was deployed in Desert Storm. Not even close…you gotta remember, that was the very end of the Cold War before demobilization. The number of airframes was truly staggering.
“ Our society wasn’t complaining about casualties or questioning about exit strategies in Dec 1941.”
That was because of the sneak attack at Pearl Harbor. Now we did ye sneak attack and a wave of assassinations including the Shia pope.
That is why people today aren’t as enthused about the war. And it’s not reported much, but s as WWII ground on, America was becoming very fatigued by the human toll. War bond drives were getting difficult. Desertions in the ETO where it was more possible were becoming more widespread. We executed a Guy to try to send a message. There’s a book someone wrote about it. That areas of France were filled with malingerers and deserters who navigated the confusion by being with “some other unit”, etc.
Hard to get away with that in the Pacific. The bomb was very welcome for many reasons.
Three wild-eyed guesses on my part:
1) The "guest" has never served in uniform in any capacity.
2) None of the "guest's" family members, within living memory, has ever served in uniform in any capacity.
3) None of the "guest's" friends, acquaintances, or coworkers, has ever served in uniform in any capacity.
In such a situation where a society is driven by ideology, defeat is only possible by destroying the infrastructure. You can’t destroy the population fast enough to overcome the birth rate. I would be satisfied if they were left with a 1950’s infrastructure involving no capacity for nuclear weapons and no capacity to influence passage through the Straits of Hormuz. A terrorist organization cannot be allowed to dominate the world’s economies.
You will convince me that the U.S. is waging a necessary, existential war when I see Barron Trump and a bunch of Donald Trump’s older grandchildren in military uniforms.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.