laxtonto

You want to solve all of the NATO, EU, and Russia/Ukraine all at once?

Close all European bases except for ones in Poland, UK, and Italy. Then have Ukraine build a massive subsidized base north of Odessa. Then cut the other US handouts to NATO and expect all NATO countries to meet the 5% GDP spending goal or pay an extra national security tariff. Take 50% of all of the troops and equipment from those closed bases and put them in Ukraine and put the 25% elsewhere globally and the other 25% deploy at home.

I don't have to like what will happen to the civilian population, but it is a necessary evil of conflict.

If you want regime change, this is the only way. If you don't keep the Basij and IRGC from being able to move heavy equipment and mechanized vehicles, any uprising has no chance. If you allow the power and infrastructure to stay intact, the mechanisms that the regime uses to stay in power stay in place. Not doing so means that you are sentencing any uprising to failure before it even has a chance to take hold.

The fact that the regime wants to essentially use its populace as a shield for infrastructure is a tactic as old as mechanized warfare. That is an unfortunate aspect of war that we have forgotten in the new modern surgical conflicts we tend to see on TV.

I get that the US and Israeli information gathering apparatus is so far above and beyond what the average person can come to grips with, but how in the hell did the IRGC think it was a good idea to have that many military leaders in one damn place to begin with?

I get that their chain of command is already horribly fractured, but did they not just see the US destroy their hardened ballistic missile facilities and deep cover nuclear site get destroyed? And yet they think that a facility in Tehran will be “safe”? It’s almost like the dangers of US targeted strikes are something that their churning leadership is either unwilling or unable to accept.

Thank the lord for stupid adversaries I guess…

I had my elementary age son and daughter watch it with me. Neither knew it was happening and both were fascinated by the launch.

That being said, it is concerning that it was not something discussed in their schools, but then again there is something to be said about waiting till the launch was successful before exposing it to a school of elementary kids…

Technology is moving so fast that many people do not understand or appreciate what a monumental of an achievement this is or how impactful this could be to the US and the globe. Just the idea that proving that H3 is readily available on the moon as a harvestable resource should should excite all fusion researchers. The potential long term impact of this and other mineral resources could have significant impacts on material science.


Instead it just another rocket launch (which it isn’t) and nothing special because they aren’t landing on the moon….

Funny enough, telling the rest of the world to figure out the Straits of Hormuz is more than likely driven by Trump wanting the rest of the world "to get their hands dirty" in helping push the internal part of the regime change through their regional contacts, proxies, and special forces. The US has a lot of soft power in the middle east, but so does the rest of the world. If the EU nations. India, Pakistan, and the Gulf States are limiting the engagement of their regional contacts, proxies, and supported militias, then this would then force them to put in some effort to get the ground game moving.

If you haven't noticed, most of the world's major militaries (beyond China, Russia, and the US) have atrophied to the point that large-scale force projection (both via land and sea) is almost impossible. The logical conclusion will be that it is easier to actually do the work to overthrow the regime than to do it militarily.

Also, this sets up the potential for a "pay for play" scenario in which the rest of the Gulf States provide financial incentives for the US to do the job instead.

So I guess FSU and VT are on the clock then? Only one spot makes it a bit more complicated…

Or go to 3 5 team divisions with one permanent rival and 4 rotating games…

So Iran is negotiating with the US…. So even though they were adamant that they weren’t, now they say that they have a counter proposal to the US demands….

Hopefully this help people realize how full of shite their propaganda arm is online.

People tend to forget that if we wanted to, we can meet our domestic demand for fuel purely on production in our part of the world and localized refining. The problem is that to do so would require some type of war powers act to force the oil and gas firms to only distribute locally and not to ship overseas.

On the flip side, Japan and the EU would implode, and local prices would spiral. In this scenario we can wait out the rest of the world, no problem.

So yeah, it sounds cool to talk tough about not helping the US but they know that if the US says "not my problem then you fix it yourself because we can just use our own local supplies" they are in even greater trouble because they don't have the sea power to do it on their own.

One of the saddest things the rest of the world is learning is that the great navies of Europe of old no longer exist. This is something people saw draw down on paper, but we are finally being forced to reckon with the realization of what that means with the abject inability of Europe to project any sea power to the level to mitigate an already defeated Iranian military.

So let me get this straight.

Iran fires of a bunch of missiles indiscriminately in the Gulf.

Pisses of their neighboring countries.

US and Israel decimate Iran’s ballistic missile launchers and stockpiles.

Gulf states start discussing seizing all of Iranian bank assets of the IRGC.

Iran, now with limited to no capability to attack anyone, says never mind we are sorry to the rest of the Gulf States, let just negotiate….

The mistake people are making is the idea of "spread democracy" once this is over. The goal is a non-theocratic Islamic state, and let the Iranian's decide what they want. If they want the Shah back, go for it. If you want a representative government, sure go ahead.

If you want another extremist Islamic government, Israel and the US will be back in 5 years.

The issue isn't regime change, but expecting all peoples wanting to be governed like we do. Democracy is a system that is counter to what many tribal cultures operates and they don't understand. Expecting to just to walk in and have an entire culture shift to just to "install democracy" is insane and probably why the longterm success is so low.

Look at it this way. What "play" does the Brits have besides doing it this way?

Epstein is dead, Guthrie is dead, and if there was video or even audio, it would already be released if it were ever coming out. If it does exist, it will never be released.
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This leaves the Brits with the problem of how to charge him with something, given the lack of evidence, to move the case forward.

Instead, they were given a gift in this release from the DOJ that allows them to still get him on white-collar crimes.