The U.S., for the first time, uses the MOAB bomb....So what?

[usmbguest5318]

I haven't read that book, but I would guess dropping bombs is an act that corresponds to some act of the negotiating process as Trump depicts it in his book. You'll need to read the book to figure that out. I have no desire to read that book and will not.

He didn't write that book, which was written to make him look like a better person than he is in real life, so I suspect it does not say that. I haven't read it either and don't care to.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box...art-of-the-deal-co-author-trump-is-terrifying

'Art of the Deal' Co-Author Says Trump Presidency Would Be 'Terrifying'

Art of the Deal co-writer says Trump could 'end civilisation' if elected

I suspect it does not say that. I haven't read it either and don't care to.

Perhaps it does not. It seems neither of us will ever know. I'm okay with that. I bet you are too.

 

[yiostheoy]

bump ...

 

[yiostheoy]

Do we need a Field Marshall to, "take the blame" for wrong policies by politicians?

No need for the military to take the blame for Vietnam since we all know the military was hamstrung by politicians.

Need or no need, it'd be inappropriate and disingenuous of them were they to do so. There's nothing productive to come of their doing such a thing.

The only thing that you could glean from Vietnam that would be productive is dont let politicians dictate how a war should be fought.

Well, that's not an option at all for the U.S. (unless you have in mind a military coup) because our nation is run by civilians, not the military, and those civilians are politicians. In terms of "day to day" operational decisions, sure, I agree with you. At the strategic and policy level, I don't. Even as Trump appears to be delegating more decision making authority to his generals, the fact remains that whatever they do tactically, he, like every POTUS before him, is still responsible for their actions.

I think generals are quite good at prosecuting militarized conflicts. I think that while they are cognizant of the higher level strategies Administration executives set, the generals are not empowered to set that policy, and I'm not convinced of their acumen as goes assessing the alignment of top level policy with one or several military actions. I don't see how they could be -- particularly with Trump who is a terrible communicator, he's far too imprecise, in terms of making clear what he does and does not, would or would not deem appropriate courses of action for achieving a given goal or set thereof -- as they are not mind readers, and that policy lies within the POTUS' mind and nowhere else.

You can type a long post but that doesnt mitigate the fact that politicians repeatedly step and dictate military strategy.

A lot of times causing needless deaths among our troops.

If you aren't willing to go whole hog stay at home.

Help me out here because this thread is going, if not already there, off topic, and I'd like to get back on the actual thread topic. I'm simply not seeing anyone clearly draw the correlation between Vietnam's events and prosecution and the announcement by the WH that we dropped the MOAB on a mountain in Afghanistan. If there is a legitimate (rather than specious) correlation, by all means, please state what it is, and I'll be fine with the continued line of "Vietnam" chatter. Otherwise, please, let's come back on topic.

Perhaps I missed the post where the connection was soundly and clearly made? If so, please point me to it.

Off Topic:

the fact that politicians repeatedly step and dictate military strategy.

Well, there's a subtle distinction one must make in that vein. Politicians, the POTUS, SecState and SecDef mostly, dictate political strategy/objectives and order military commanders to work within the constraints set by those objectives. The outcome of their doing so may or may not, depending on the situation, be precisely those you've noted below, as they were in Vietnam, but the distinction is critical to make and be mindful of as that distinction is enshrined in U.S. and military law which commanders must follow in prosecuting a war or other military actions.

A lot of times causing needless deaths among our troops. If you aren't willing to go whole hog stay at home.

The first of those statements can often be true. I wholly agree, as a matter of principle, with the second statement.

Already has.

 

[yiostheoy]

BTW Martha Raddatz reported this morning on "This Week" that the USA has an ever bigger MOAB than this MOAB.

So there is more to come.

 

[usmbguest5318]

BTW Martha Raddatz reported this morning on "This Week" that the USA has an ever bigger MOAB than this MOAB.

So there is more to come.

I'm not surprised that we have an even more destructive conventional bomb. Hopefully the Administration will just use it (if/when need be) and talk about the results it achieved rather than focusing on the size of the bomb. I would have thought Trump had learned after the campaign that "mine's bigger than yours" hijinks and rhetoric have no value in policy making. Just as adults must know when to simply ignore foolishness, they are too required not to be the sources of it, at least as goes serious matters like public policy.

 

[yiostheoy]

BTW Martha Raddatz reported this morning on "This Week" that the USA has an ever bigger MOAB than this MOAB.

So there is more to come.

I'm not surprised that we have an even more destructive conventional bomb. Hopefully the Administration will just use it (if/when need be) and talk about the results it achieved rather than focusing on the size of the bomb. I would have thought Trump had learned after the campaign that "mine's bigger than yours" hijinks and rhetoric has no value in policy making. Just as adults must know when to simply ignore foolishness, they are too required not to be the sources of it, at least as goes serious matters like public policy.

These conventional mega bombs are bunker busters.

Gadhafi led to the need for this technology, as did Saddam.

Now we have it and it is being used against caves.

The death toll from the first MOAB has been upgraded to over 90.

That's a lot of dead rats.

Death toll from ‘mother of all bombs’ in Afghanistan rises to over 90 militants - Afghan officials

 

[usmbguest5318]

BTW Martha Raddatz reported this morning on "This Week" that the USA has an ever bigger MOAB than this MOAB.

So there is more to come.

I'm not surprised that we have an even more destructive conventional bomb. Hopefully the Administration will just use it (if/when need be) and talk about the results it achieved rather than focusing on the size of the bomb. I would have thought Trump had learned after the campaign that "mine's bigger than yours" hijinks and rhetoric has no value in policy making. Just as adults must know when to simply ignore foolishness, they are too required not to be the sources of it, at least as goes serious matters like public policy.

These conventional mega bombs are bunker busters.

Gadhafi led to the need for this technology, as did Saddam.

Now we have it and it is being used against caves.

The death toll from the first MOAB has been upgraded to over 90.

That's a lot of dead rats.

Death toll from ‘mother of all bombs’ in Afghanistan rises to over 90 militants - Afghan officials

Maybe 90+ people were indeed killed by the blast. I don't know and the writer of the article you linked notes that plenty of others who matter similarly aren't. Moreover, the Afghan official who cited the figure of "94 militants" is someone who necessarily considers as militants more than just ISIS people because the war his government is fighting isn't, for the most part, against ISIS. For him, a dead Taliban member is just as good as a dead ISIS member, probably more good given the fleeting presence ISIS has in A-stan and that the war Khogyani's government is fighting is against the Taliban and their quest for control of the country.

At the moment, ISIS' presence in A-stan is opportunistic (They have to flee to somewhere from Syria and Iraq, and A-stan is a fairly good choice given that it's beset with chaos and has lots of very rugged and remote terrain -- there's a literally good reason for the saying "run for the hills." That tactic has been used to the great benefit of millions of besieged people for as long as there have been people.) and ancillary. The U.S. MOAB drop was an act aimed at keeping ISIS' presence at that status.

 

[yiostheoy]

BTW Martha Raddatz reported this morning on "This Week" that the USA has an ever bigger MOAB than this MOAB.

So there is more to come.

I'm not surprised that we have an even more destructive conventional bomb. Hopefully the Administration will just use it (if/when need be) and talk about the results it achieved rather than focusing on the size of the bomb. I would have thought Trump had learned after the campaign that "mine's bigger than yours" hijinks and rhetoric has no value in policy making. Just as adults must know when to simply ignore foolishness, they are too required not to be the sources of it, at least as goes serious matters like public policy.

These conventional mega bombs are bunker busters.

Gadhafi led to the need for this technology, as did Saddam.

Now we have it and it is being used against caves.

The death toll from the first MOAB has been upgraded to over 90.

That's a lot of dead rats.

Death toll from ‘mother of all bombs’ in Afghanistan rises to over 90 militants - Afghan officials

Maybe 90+ people were indeed killed by the blast. I don't know and the writer of the article you linked notes that plenty of others who matter similarly aren't. Moreover, the Afghan official who cited the figure of "94 militants" is someone who necessarily considers as militants more than just ISIS people because the war his government is fighting isn't, for the most part, against ISIS. For him, a dead Taliban member is just as good as a dead ISIS member, probably more good given the fleeting presence ISIS has in A-stan and that the war Khogyani's government is fighting is against the Taliban and their quest for control of the country.

At the moment, ISIS' presence in A-stan is opportunistic (They have to flee to somewhere from Syria and Iraq, and A-stan is a fairly good choice given that it's beset with chaos and has lots of very rugged and remote terrain -- there's a literally good reason for the saying "run for the hills." That tactic has been used to the great benefit of millions of besieged people for as long as there have been people.) and ancillary. The U.S. MOAB drop was an act aimed at keeping ISIS' presence at that status.

North Pakistan is another radical Islamist sh!t hole too.

That's where most of what is left of Al Qaeda is holed up.

 

[yiostheoy]

We need more jobs.

And we need to kill more Islamic terrorists.

MOAB's kill 2 birds with one stone.

 

[usmbguest5318]

BTW Martha Raddatz reported this morning on "This Week" that the USA has an ever bigger MOAB than this MOAB.

So there is more to come.

I'm not surprised that we have an even more destructive conventional bomb. Hopefully the Administration will just use it (if/when need be) and talk about the results it achieved rather than focusing on the size of the bomb. I would have thought Trump had learned after the campaign that "mine's bigger than yours" hijinks and rhetoric has no value in policy making. Just as adults must know when to simply ignore foolishness, they are too required not to be the sources of it, at least as goes serious matters like public policy.

These conventional mega bombs are bunker busters.

Gadhafi led to the need for this technology, as did Saddam.

Now we have it and it is being used against caves.

The death toll from the first MOAB has been upgraded to over 90.

That's a lot of dead rats.

Death toll from ‘mother of all bombs’ in Afghanistan rises to over 90 militants - Afghan officials

Maybe 90+ people were indeed killed by the blast. I don't know and the writer of the article you linked notes that plenty of others who matter similarly aren't. Moreover, the Afghan official who cited the figure of "94 militants" is someone who necessarily considers as militants more than just ISIS people because the war his government is fighting isn't, for the most part, against ISIS. For him, a dead Taliban member is just as good as a dead ISIS member, probably more good given the fleeting presence ISIS has in A-stan and that the war Khogyani's government is fighting is against the Taliban and their quest for control of the country.

At the moment, ISIS' presence in A-stan is opportunistic (They have to flee to somewhere from Syria and Iraq, and A-stan is a fairly good choice given that it's beset with chaos and has lots of very rugged and remote terrain -- there's a literally good reason for the saying "run for the hills." That tactic has been used to the great benefit of millions of besieged people for as long as there have been people.) and ancillary. The U.S. MOAB drop was an act aimed at keeping ISIS' presence at that status.

North Pakistan is another radical Islamist sh!t hole too.

That's where most of what is left of Al Qaeda is holed up.

Okay...fine...I doubt we're going to drop a bomb -- MOAB or otherwise -- there anytime soon. Indeed, I doubt we'll announce much of anything about what we're doing there, if we have operations going on there.

 

[Markle]

I provided the link in the original post that YOU quoted. PAY ATTENTION! US drops 'mother of all bombs' on ISIS forces in Afghanistan

]

Thank you. I apologize for my oversight.

So your stating that petulant former President Barack Hussein Obama had the bomb available for his entire term in office, the bomb had been in Afghanistan for "months" but never had the stones to pull the trigger. Got it!

 

[Markle]

I haven't read that book, but I would guess dropping bombs is an act that corresponds to some act of the negotiating process as Trump depicts it in his book. You'll need to read the book to figure that out. I have no desire to read that book and will not.

He didn't write that book, which was written to make him look like a better person than he is in real life, so I suspect it does not say that. I haven't read it either and don't care to.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box...art-of-the-deal-co-author-trump-is-terrifying

'Art of the Deal' Co-Author Says Trump Presidency Would Be 'Terrifying'

Art of the Deal co-writer says Trump could 'end civilisation' if elected

The book was written thirty years ago. He was a businessman, why would he write a book to make himself look better.

Now petulant former President Barack Hussein Obama had two books written for him by terrorist Bill Ayers. The purpose was to make him appear even more radical, bigoted and racist. They were successful.

 

[danielpalos]

I believe "regime change EBT cards" is more cost effective; especially if we can get the UN to do it.