"...."You claim it is tough talk to discuss carpet bombing," [Ted] Cruz said. "It is not tough talk. It is a different fundamental military strategy than what we've seen from Barack Obama."
Cruz continued to hammer Obama over his military strategy.
"Barack Obama right now, No. 1, over seven years, has dramatically degraded our military," he said.
He then invoked the Persian Gulf War, using it as justification of his strategy of increased air attacks:
Just two weeks ago was the 25th anniversary of the first Persian Gulf War. When that war began, we had 8,000 planes. Today we have about 4,000. When that war began, we had 529 ships, today we have 272. You want to know what carpet-bombing is? It's what we did in the first Persian Gulf War: 1,100 air attacks a day, saturation bombing that utterly destroyed the enemy. Right now Barack Obama is launching about 15 and 30 air attacks a day. He's not arming the Kurds. We need to define the enemy, we need to rebuild the military, to defeat the enemy, and we need to be focused and lift the rules of engagement so we're not sending our fighting men and women into combat with their arms tied behind their backs. Jan 28, 2016
Russia is doing the Lord’s work in the Middle East while we sit and criticize. Let’s postpone hating the USSR back into existence for a while, ‘mkay?
Russia is doing the Lord’s work in the Middle East while we sit and criticize. Let’s postpone hating the USSR back into existence for a while, ‘mkay?
Crazy talk. The Soviets can have Afghanistan.
Even after helping the muzzies, they turned and brought their sabres to our shores.
China helped to kill or harm more Americans post WWII than any other country. Yet the think tankers turn a blind eye to that and want us to focus on Russia.
A U.S. Navy destroyer carried out a second transit near a disputed South China Sea island claimed by China and two other nations, the Pentagon announced Saturday.
China's Defense Ministry denounced the warship transit and said its forces had forced the destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur out of the area.
Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Bill Urban said the freedom of navigation operation by the Wilbur took place Saturday near Triton Island in the Paracel Islands chain in the northern part of the sea "to challenge excessive maritime claims."...
"This operation was about challenging excessive maritime claims that restrict the rights and freedoms of the United States and others, not about territorial claims to land features," he added. While the U.S. government takes no position on the competing sovereignty claims, "the United States does take a strong position on protecting the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea and airspace guaranteed to all countries, and that all maritime claims must comply with international law," the spokesman said.
None of the three nations' governments were notified of the transit, the second time a U.S. warship has conducted a freedom of navigation operation after a hiatus in such operations of over three years.........
....China is claiming some 90 percent of the South China Sea as its maritime domain, and the Pentagon has said it rejects the claim. China has set up a vaguely defined "Nine Dash Line" covering most of the sea.
Navy officials have said the Chinese claims have threatened the transit of some $5 trillion in annual trade through the region, including an estimated in $1.2 trillion in trade bound for the United States.
President Barack Obama called on China in November to halt construction on some of the 3,000 acres of newly - created islands in the disputed waters that are now being militarized with airfields, deep water ports, and other military features.
Days later, China's government responded to the president's call by announcing that the construction of military facilities would continue.
China is building airstrips on three islands in the Spratlys that the Pentagon has said could be used to station warplanes capable of controlling the entire airspace over the sea.......
Urban, the Pentagon spokesman, said the latest operation demonstrated that "the United States will fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows."
"That is true in the South China Sea, as in other places around the globe," he said.
However, a senior military official said the failure to conduct the navigation operations between 2012 and last October was the result of bureaucratic opposition within the Obama administration that sought to avoid upsetting China.
The official said the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Samuel Locklear, had proposed conducting the close transit warship transits in the South China Sea but was overruled for years by officials in other agencies of government who blocked the requests by failing to respond to the admiral's requests.
After a while, [Locklear] stopped making the requests.
Last year, McCain disclosed during a committee hearing that the administration had restricted Pacific Command from conducting the operations for both aircraft and warships.
"The administration has continued to restrict our Navy ships from operating within 12 nautical miles of China's reclaimed islands," McCain said Sept. 17.
The hearing prompted the new Pacific Command chief, Adm. Harry Harris, to renew the transit requests and the first operation was carried out Oct. 26 near the Spratlys Islands, in the southern part of the sea........
You want to start WW-III now.
I cannot imagine a worse time to toss that “STUFF” on the forum.
This is just so much noise right now.
We have a caucus tomorrow, and this subject can be addressed anytime in the next ten months.
Bogus distraction from domestic tyranny and decline.
Retired Cold Warrior here.
My credentials: I graduated from the Hudson Trade School for Wayward Boys (service academy), studied nuke war strategy, contributed as an engineer to Reagan’s Star Wars programs, and had success forecasting the downfall of the Soviet Union over 10 years before it occurred.
My observations:
Russia wants their damned Empire back! The Czars spent hundreds of years expanding it, the Marxists continued this expansion, and the current leaders are just as nationalistic.
The USA and its allies need to let limits and make those clear to the Russians. For example, while the Russians could keep Crimea (which had been “given” to Ukraine), they cannot re-conquer Ukraine itself which was independent for much of its history and wishes to remain so.
As for Syria, keeping Assad in power and preventing Persian Gulf oil and gas pipelines from competing with Russia in Europe is clearly the Russian goal. Despite the protest from our Persian Gulf “allies”, I think we should leave this one alone. Maybe the pipelines should go through Jordan, Israel, and Lebanon instead? That could be very profitable for those countries.
There are no Good Guys in Syria to speak of. Furthermore, the USA is a major oil producer just like Russia, Saudi Arabia, et al. Why are we helping one competitor at the expense of another?
The best US strategy to deal with this is to COMPETE with Russia as a supplier of hydrocarbons to Europe. We should be shipping oil, coal, and LNG as fast as we can. Russia’s threatening posture against European customers can result in more profit for the USA. What’s not to like?
Reagan’s strategy against the USSR was to bankrupt them by lowering the prices for oil, gold, and diamonds which were their sources of hard currency. The current oil glut and Russia’s foolish decision to rely upon hydrocarbon exports has accomplished the same for us now. When Russia’s economy is smaller than Spain’s, they do not pose much of a threat to Europe.
As for defense, YES, we should maintain a commanding edge over all competitors. However, we need to be very careful about where we commit forces. In retrospect, it turns out that conventional victories in North Africa and the ME don’t always produce better end results.
One area that DOES pay rich dividends is a robust anti-missile capability.
Few people realize that the most important benefit of Star Wars was not to defend our cities against Russian nukes. That was the public window dressing.
With even a limited SDI, we could prioritize and defend Navy ships in port, air bases, and missile silos thus preserving a powerful second strike capability.
This is what drives the Russkis nuts. A limited missile defense checks the threat of a Russian first strike. They always planned to use a first strike BOOB (Bolt Out Of the Blue) attack to remove our nuke forces. This would leave our cities as hostages and force check mate.
At this time, Russia is only a super power in the area of nuke arsenal. If that is negated, they lack the threat to defeat Europe.
Reagan’s advisers, some of whom I worked with, understood this.
In summary, we need to find as much common ground as possible with the Russians. We have common enemies such as the islamonazis and common competitors. We should be working together when possible.
I vote for peace through strength.