Posted on 12/20/2015 9:47:23 AM PST by amorphous
NATO allies agreed on Friday to send aircraft and ships to Turkey to strengthen Ankara's air defenses on its border with Syria, the alliance's chief said.
Diplomats said the package is partly designed to avoid more shoot-downs of Russian planes.
Envoys to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization approved the plan and must now decide what military assets to send to Turkey, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told Reuters, stressing that it was a defensive measure.
"We have agreed on a package of assurance measures for Turkey in view of the volatile situation in the region," Stoltenberg said, although he avoided any reference to Russia's military involvement in Syria and its air incursions."
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Why would we encourage these friends of ISIS?
Could it that our government WANTS a shooting war? With that we print money like there’s no tomorrow, the military industry rakes in billions, and it takes the sad state of affairs at home off the front pages.
Yes. I think our current government wants to start a shooting war with Russia.
I think it is all about protecting ISIS and islamists on the Turkish side of the border, so Russia can't go after them as they cross back from Syria.
It was once said that the sun never sets on the British Empire. Britain was everywhere. It was meant as a brag, but it actually was a negative.
We are seeing the same thing today with the US.
“I think it is all about protecting ISIS and islamists on the Turkish side of the border, “
Exactly.
Obama’s DOD Rules of Engagement prevent our military from eradicating ISIS.
This is a note from an A-10 pilot currently deployed and involved in the “fight” against ISIS.
“The squadron is doing fine. Everybody is happy to be here and we are doing some good work. The A-10s are holding up well and the technology we have on the jets now (targeting pods, GPS guided bombs, laser guided bombs, laser guided missiles, tactical data link, satellite comms), and of course the gun, make the A-10 ideal for this conflict.
We are killing off as many ISIS as we can, mostly in ones and twos, working with the hand we are dealt. I’ve never been more convinced in my career that we’re facing an enemy that needs to be eradicated.
With that being said... I’ve never been more frustrated in my career. After 13 years of the mind-numbing low intensity conflict in Afghanistan, I’ve never seen the knife duller. All the hard lessons learned in Vietnam, and fixed during the first Gulf War, have been unlearned again.
The level of centralized execution, bureaucracy, and politics is staggering.
I basically do not have any decision-making authority in my cockpit. It sucks.
In most cases, unless a general officer can look at a video picture from a UAV over a satellite link, I cannot get authority to engage. I’ve spent many hours staring through a targeting pod screen in my own cockpit, watching ISIS shitheads perpetrate their acts until my eyes bleed, without being able to do anything about it.
The institutional fear of making a mistake that has crept into the central mindset of the military leadership, is endemic.
We have not taken the fight to these guys. We haven’t targeted their centers of gravity in Raqqa. All the roads between Syria and Iraq are still intact with trucks flowing freely.
The other night I watched a couple hundred small tanker trucks lined up at an oilfield in ISIS-held northeast Syria, presumably filling up with oil to be traded on the black market, go unfettered. It’s not uncommon to wait several hours overhead a suspected target for someone to make a decision to engage or not. It feels like we are simply using the constructs built up in Afghanistan, which was a very limited fight, in the same way here against ISIS, which is a much more sophisticated and numerically greater foe.
It’s embarrassing.
Be assured that the Hawg drivers are doing their best.”
no
Spain has been suckered to tow the target this time.
Maybe Spain can mess with the bull without getting the horn so they're gonna try the Bear.
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