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An impossible ask . . . .

nodropinufaka

nodropinufaka

Well-Known Member
picklesuit said:
Afghanistan wasn’t “lost”, we left. There was no military defeat, we just left.

ISIS never defeated the US, we just left, created a power vacuum, which they filled, which we then crushed, leaving most of them to occupy prisons and IDP camps in Syria.

Viet-Nam wasn’t a war we lost as a military, it was a war the politicians didn’t have the guts to fight in an unlimited fashion, and which the media/societal elite abandoned because they couldn’t separate the footage from Tet from the military success we had through Tet.

Every one of your examples is wrong. If you want to find the culprit, look to the media and the politicians trying to take advantage of the pictures they were delivering, with no regard to the reality on the ground.

Once again, you show how shallow your understanding of the real world is…adults are talking @nodropinufaka you’re out of your element…

Pickle
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Hilarious you mention I have no real understanding. And you do? You been a pilot your entire career and that somehow makes you smarter and more experienced in geopolitical affairs?

you’re understanding and response is the exact verbatim response from almost all senior military officers.

“We didn’t lose…it was (insert excuse here)…”

“we left. We weren’t defeated”

If your country loses the political will to continue and leaves. That’s losing.
 
Hair Warrior

Hair Warrior

Well-Known Member
Contributor
My brother-in-law is a tree-hugging woke liberal lawyer who thinks we should all eat vegan and own self-driving electric cars that when parked provide free mobile Wifi hotspots to underprivileged variable-location persons who are temporarily housing-disadvantaged. Smilies an stuff.
 
MIDNJAC

MIDNJAC

is clara ship
pilot
Spekkio said:
I think that the differences are exagerated by media (both social and traditional) in order to sell ads / clicks. In particular, headlines are often extreme takes on what actually happened with outlandish adjectives like "slammed" or "blasted," and few people will bother to read the article for the nuances contained within. This was magnified during the Trump administration where the headline would make it sound like Trump said some ridiculous shit, and it turns out it was ridiculous because he never said it. Congress manages to pass bi-partisan bills on a regular basis, the most significant being the DoD budget. D's and R's are all friends and people cut from the same cloth.... when they're not grandstanding in front of Fox News / CNN / et al, they're drinking scotch together in a chic upscale DC bar / restaurant.

We've come a long way from duels among politicians and fist fights in Congressional sessions.
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I agree with all of this, but the inconsistencies I meant were less the grandstanding, and more the actual policy platforms over the years. The more hardline policy dreams of both sides of the aisle are hypocritical and inconsistent in many cases, IMO of course. Unfortunately, those hardliners are more and more becoming the only voices heard, and actually have pull within their parties. Long way of saying that I refuse to buy what any of them are selling, for different reasons in each case. I don't really have a political "home".
 
picklesuit

picklesuit

Dirty Hinge
pilot
Contributor
nodropinufaka said:
Hilarious you mention I have no real understanding. And you do? You been a pilot your entire career and that somehow makes you smarter and more experienced in geopolitical affairs?

you’re understanding and response is the exact verbatim response from almost all senior military officers.

“We didn’t lose…it was (insert excuse here)…”

“we left. We weren’t defeated”

If your country loses the political will to continue and leaves. That’s losing.
Click to expand...
Yes,
Being raised in the Eighties and Nineties by veterans from both world wars, VN, Korea, and having Frank conversations with the people who actually lived it left me more educated than you.

17+ years of living it myself leave me more educated on military affairs than you.

Years spent studying war, the shortcomings that we faced, and where we fucked up led me to the, not so hard to comprehend, conclusion that the problem isn’t coming from the people fighting the wars, rather the people who make the policy that guides how we fight those wars.

That hasn’t changed in the last hundred years of war-fighting, our weakest link comes from those most impacted by the headlines they make/fabricate/seek.

You said we were defeated by ISIS (your most dumbfounding statement) yet I’d challenge you to show me where/when ISIS defeated us…

You said we lost to a bunch of farmers in AFG, yet I have yet to see how you define “defeat” other than we left without the total Pyrrhic victory we enjoyed against Japan…an untenable way to win in today’s global environment.

Vietnam was a complete failure on the part of our politicians to allow a war to be correctly fought. Every time we managed to loosen the reins on the dogs of war, we pushed the VC and NVA, and more importantly, their communist leadership back.

We were not allowed to fight the war needed to defeat an insurgency, because it’s too ugly with a media presence. Sound familiar?

Your naïveté is astounding, stick to handing out happy meals to poor kids, or whatever the fuck you do.

You are, again, way out of your element.
 
nittany03

nittany03

Recovering NFO. Herder of Programmers.
pilot
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
picklesuit said:
I wasn’t debating that point…that would imply there were two sides to that argument…
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There are always two sides to an argument, even if one is completely, utterly wrong. If there weren't two sides, you don't have an argument, you have an agreement.

So let's talk about WHY an argument is completely wrong, and not why the person making it is allegedly naïve, out of their element, etc. etc.
 
nodropinufaka

nodropinufaka

Well-Known Member
picklesuit said:
Yes,
Being raised in the Eighties and Nineties by veterans from both world wars, VN, Korea, and having Frank conversations with the people who actually lived it left me more educated than you.

17+ years of living it myself leave me more educated on military affairs than you.

Years spent studying war, the shortcomings that we faced, and where we fucked up led me to the, not so hard to comprehend, conclusion that the problem isn’t coming from the people fighting the wars, rather the people who make the policy that guides how we fight those wars.

That hasn’t changed in the last hundred years of war-fighting, our weakest link comes from those most impacted by the headlines they make/fabricate/seek.

You said we were defeated by ISIS (your most dumbfounding statement) yet I’d challenge you to show me where/when ISIS defeated us…

You said we lost to a bunch of farmers in AFG, yet I have yet to see how you define “defeat” other than we left without the total Pyrrhic victory we enjoyed against Japan…an untenable way to win in today’s global environment.

Vietnam was a complete failure on the part of our politicians to allow a war to be correctly fought. Every time we managed to loosen the reins on the dogs of war, we pushed the VC and NVA, and more importantly, their communist leadership back.

We were not allowed to fight the war needed to defeat an insurgency, because it’s too ugly with a media presence. Sound familiar?

Your naïveté is astounding, stick to handing out happy meals to poor kids, or whatever the fuck you do.

You are, again, way out of your element.
Click to expand...

If we failed at maintaining what we said we were going to do- how is that not a loss?

Vietnam- Said we would stop North Vietnam. We failed. They took over and we lost. Saigon fell. We lost by every account.
Afghanistan- Said we would drive out the Taliban and implement a gov. Taliban is now in control and has everything. We lost by every account.
Iraq- Said we would overthrow Saddams Regime and implement a democracy. Almost immediately ISIS took over. Took going back in (OIR) to regain control. So yes, OIF was a lost.

I am confused how these are not losses?

It doesn't matter where the weakest link comes from. A loss is still a loss. We are a whole country of military and interagency. It makes zero difference if we could have done better and won had we got the approval. We still lost.
 
nittany03

nittany03

Recovering NFO. Herder of Programmers.
pilot
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
nodropinufaka said:
@nittany03

Anytime I make a statement that is outside a worldview of someone here they go to personal attacks right away. Its easier for them.
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OK, you just liked my post and then you did the exact same thing you accuse people who disagree with you of doing. You claimed that they "go to personal attacks right away" because it's "easier," implying that they don't have the intellectual horsepower to keep up with you. That's no better than what Pickle just did.

All of you people just stop. Argue ideas all day long, but stop implying that because someone disagrees with you that they're immoral, stupid, or unqualified to have an opinion. Just because I "call out" one person for doing this doesn't put me on the opposing side's tribe. There's plenty of ad hominem bullshit that needs to stop here on a bipartisan basis.
 
nodropinufaka

nodropinufaka

Well-Known Member
nittany03 said:
OK, you just liked my post and then you did the exact same thing you accuse people who disagree with you of doing. You claimed that they "go to personal attacks right away" because it's "easier," implying that they don't have the intellectual horsepower to keep up with you. That's no better than what Pickle just did.

All of you people just stop. Argue ideas all day long, but stop implying that because someone disagrees with you that they're immoral, stupid, or unqualified to have an opinion. Just because I "call out" one person for doing this doesn't put me on the opposing side's tribe. There's plenty of ad hominem bullshit that needs to stop here on a bipartisan basis.
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well id disagree. I am stating theyre going to personal attacks rather then debating points because they think my points are dumb without even given it a chance.
 
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