Free Republic

I’ve have seen that opinion as well. I question with the air and naval assets they own why they would not have offensive power, but I haven’t got another source, at least on the weekend, to understand this better. I would concur that in many cases these regimes have military mostly to keep their own people in order. In that may be the answer. If you have a weapons platform but you never train with it to do anything but suppress your own people, then they may not have a viable offensive force.

I appreciate your reply. Thank you. While I respect your opinion and agree we should avoid another conflict, again sometimes we don’t have a choice if the other party continues to attack. As I posted to you earlier, I think in this case we should let the nation that was attacked lead in getting skin in this fight. But we also have to be prepared for further escalation now.

Only three things can happen now. 1) Iran caves peacefully, not likely 2) we, as in saudis, us, everybody, do nothing which will lead to Iran escalating, and 3) saudis counter punch with or without us, in which case we find ourselves in an escalation anyway as we have to many US interests (companies, workers, yes even oil) in the region that will be under attack.

It’s not a great set of choices. I am not looking forward to it, but we need to be ready and sober about the likely next steps. I don’t see any of those next steps involving sending in boots, but a very high probability, if we do get involved, of several days of strikes.

That’s actually pretty funny.

That is what you call an ad hominem. It is a way of name calling, shaming others because they don’t completely share your opinion. You have expressed your opinion often and it is known. Labeling people ‘globalist’ because on certain points they have a different opinions ad hominem, and it’s getting tiring.

CandyO. What else can I say?

What a load of crap. I didn’t say there are no conspiracies. I said everything is not a conspiracy.

Sheesh. Some of the posters here are unhinged. Are you amongst them?

Not everything is a conspiracy. Sheesh.

I can looked stone faced at death, particularly if it’s bad guys.

I can get choked up if it’s innocents or Americans.

I am never THRILLED by it.

Hmmm, not disputing you, but wondering why since they buy a lot of combat ships and aircraft from us, and other countries as well. Seems like they would have offensive capability. Just check out Janes.

1) I would not call this a staged event.

2) We certainly know if it was missiles or not. We, the US, can detect any rocket or missile launch pretty much any where in the world the instant it occurs and can track them as well. I suspect any inconsistency you see in reporting drone vs missile is a function of the media, not our national capability.

3) You might be surprised at my take, but as of the moment, I think it being an attack on the Saudis, it should be them to respond, not us. I think we have the role we have previously debated about keeping sea lanes open and that being in our interest, but without more info, I am inclined to say this is requires a Saudi response. They certainly have the capability, they should have skin in this game. So I am actually questioning why we would respond in this case. Not sure what obligations we are committed to if any.

So what’s new?

I guess in this case I am going to ask why Trump should be the one to respond. Why not the saudis who a quite capable of mounting a response? Our function should be to provide support intelligence and make sure any further Iranian interference in shipping lanes is short lived.

Grumpy, your post deserves a reply. I do have a life outside of the inter web so sorry it’s delayed. To answer your 95% question requires informing you how big the IC community really is, and maybe even some not taught reasoning behind certain branches of government as well.

The IC community consisted of tens of thousands of operators, analysts, engineers and developers, testers, acquisition specialists and more. These are the folks who build hardware and software that collect, sort, analyze, and disseminate the vital intel our warriors use to go down range after bad targets. The IC community was born out of WWII to help us prevent, and if needed fight and win wars with minimal loss of American lives in battle. It has evolved over decades as technology has evolved and truthfully it’s a task to keep up. Our enemies are always advancing despite treaties to the otherwise and we have to be prepared if we plan to avoid the next 911.

Many of the three letter agencies (though not all) folks here criticize for not being constitutional contribute to the the national defense and the IC support of that. As an example, NGA aka NIMA was born out of the military need for accurate mapping so artillery fire could be more effective. Today it supports much more as you can imagine what a smart bomb needs to hit a small target and not hurt troops just around the corner.

So I can easily say that with 10’s of thousands across the country doing their part in protecting our warriors and our nation, even a thousand assholes playing politics with these tools can create dangers and abuses, and be only 1%, much less 5% of the IC community.

I am critical of cops with bad shoots or getting off shooting dogs for no reason, but I know it’s a small percentage of cops that are giving a larger community a bad rap. It’s the same here. If the obama appointed chief of NSA wants to misuse a tool designed to find terrorists by employing it against Americans, you don’t blame the IC for that. You get the right folks in to investigate and you send the criminal packing or to jail.

I hope I’ve explained it better to you. I am tired of the ad hominem.

Snowden would not be dead. Snowden was a nobody compared to Epstein. He was a anti -American SJW hiding in the IC looking for his 15 minutes of fame and a payout. Like I said, traitorous POS. What he may have ‘exposed’ wrt domestic spying abuse came out independently in the Trump mueller fiasco.

By the time election rolls around, the only constituency voting democrat will be ANTIFA and gimmedats.

One should never ignore your enemies, especially when they tell you to your face their plans against you.

No, there is actually a legal process. People going outside of that process are breaking the laws. It doesn’t help when the system is corrupt from above (Clapper, Brennan,etc) but those in the business go into the business very clearly understanding the obligations of protecting the sources and methods, and the consequences of willfully violating that obligation. Again, Snowden compromised sources and methods that made it harder to track terrorists, harder to prep our troops to go do their mission and come home safely, and make Americans at home less safe. Again, not the act of a hero or patriot. Who exactly did Snowden attempt to legally express his concerns to before he downloaded basically everything he could using his bosses stolen password?