Metal flinging...

[nsdp + 449]

11 hours ago, ArmySniper said:

No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy, they have their own plans too.

I think we should pull all of our troops out, remove our battle groups from the area of conflict and turn Iran and Iraq into a glass parking lot. After the dust settles so to speak, let the rest of them finish the civil wars that have been going on there forever.

Maybe after they get through killing each other off the rest of the world will be able help them establish a workable plan for peace and prosperity. 

We as a nation need to learn to mind our own business and stop interfering like we did in Korea and Viet Nam. We all know how well worked out.

I will suggest an exception to Korea. That was very much akin to Hitler invading Poland in 1939. Truman should have relieved dugout Doug  after Inchon and before he headed for the Yalu.

 Vietnam was Allen and John Foster Dulles' mistake in 1954. Their bosom buddy Roy Cohn was Trumps mentor.  What do you expect.

[nsdp + 449]

16 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Signals intelligence, for one.

Signals intelligence failed us at Pearl Harbor and 7 hours later at Clark Field in the Philippines.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

2 hours ago, nsdp said:

Signals intelligence failed us at Pearl Harbor and 7 hours later at Clark Field in the Philippines.

Really! We had broken the Japanese Naval code (I think that it was called the Purple Code). War with Japan was inevitable. Roosevelt now had a terrible decision to make, either alert Pearl Harbor (which was not a US state) and thereby letting the Japanese know that we had broken the code, and not have this advantage in the upcoming Pacific Campaign, or move the carriers out of Pearl Harbor and let the attack proceed.

Keep in mind that England was hanging by a thread and that with ‘Europe First’ being the strategy being discussed informally, the US would largely be left to confront Japan alone in the upcoming campaigns in the South and Southwest Pacific.

If Roosevelt had not made what had to be a soul crushing decision to keep the fact that we had broken the Japanese Naval code secret, without a doubt the war against Japan would have lasted far longer as opposed to reaching a turning point at Guadalcanal and Midway less than a year after Pearl Harbor.

So no, signals intelligence did not ‘fail’ at either Pearl Harbor or Clark Airbase.

[Dg56 + 16]

10 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

So no, signals intelligence did not ‘fail’ at either Pearl Harbor or Clark Airbase.

Hi Douglas, 

Agreed about (lack of) signals' intelligence "failure" during WW2. 

From what you are saying, I understand that it is OK for one's government to hide critical intelligence from its people (the imminent attack on pearl's harbor), for the greater good of the nation (give an incentive to fight the Japanese back). 

And you are OK with that? 

That is so far from what the US is about in terms of govenment accountability (not like shithole places).

Please, clarify. 

Is it OK for US government to hide critical intelligence from its people? 

[Dg56 + 16]

Hi Douglas, 

And what about failures of intelligence that I (me) can remember? 

In case you are old enough, do you remember US intell building a case for a war on iraq in 2003?

The WMDs, the 3rd biggest army in the world, the Hitler of the middle-east, etc.?

A decade later, nothing was true. 

Are you OK with that? No problem? Really? 

[Gregory Purcell + 94]

On 4/30/2020 at 12:12 PM, ArmySniper said:

No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy, they have their own plans too.

I think we should pull all of our troops out, remove our battle groups from the area of conflict and turn Iran and Iraq into a glass parking lot. After the dust settles so to speak, let the rest of them finish the civil wars that have been going on there forever.

Maybe after they get through killing each other off the rest of the world will be able help them establish a workable plan for peace and prosperity. 

We as a nation need to learn to mind our own business and stop interfering like we did in Korea and Viet Nam. We all know how well worked out.

Except for the part about nuking Iran and Iraq and turning those places into a glass parking lot, except for that I totally agree.  We should let them work it out for themselves, if we stay many forward bases are going to find themselves cut off and  out of supply.  Did you army dogs have the same saying, that we can fight forever as long as the front line has the three B's; Beans Bullets and Bandages.    And then boot camp shows history films about the units who fought until they were literately throwing rocks at the enemy.

[Marcin2 + 724]

On 4/30/2020 at 2:04 PM, RSD said:

 

Really?  You two need to pay a bit more attention... https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-navy-carrier-transits-strait-hormuz-deployment-67155596

Exactly, They visit Jebel Ali very often.

It is strange that somehow people at this forum think that Iran or any other country would ever attack the United States.

It does not have any sense strategically.

[nsdp + 449]

18 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Really! We had broken the Japanese Naval code (I think that it was called the Purple Code). War with Japan was inevitable. Roosevelt now had a terrible decision to make, either alert Pearl Harbor (which was not a US state) and thereby letting the Japanese know that we had broken the code, and not have this advantage in the upcoming Pacific Campaign, or move the carriers out of Pearl Harbor and let the attack proceed.

Keep in mind that England was hanging by a thread and that with ‘Europe First’ being the strategy being discussed informally, the US would largely be left to confront Japan alone in the upcoming campaigns in the South and Southwest Pacific.

If Roosevelt had not made what had to be a soul crushing decision to keep the fact that we had broken the Japanese Naval code secret, without a doubt the war against Japan would have lasted far longer as opposed to reaching a turning point at Guadalcanal and Midway less than a year after Pearl Harbor.

So no, signals intelligence did not ‘fail’ at either Pearl Harbor or Clark Airbase.

You buy into the myths of Pearl Harbor.  Purple was a code of the Japanese Foreign Ministry  and was broken by Arlington Hall and was a 14 point message but did not give time or place of attack. The real break down was at Naval signals Intel under Vice ADM. Richmond Kelly Turner that was a partial decrypt of the Pearl strike orders(Climb Mt Nititaka) in JN-25 giving time of day and IJA (Japanese Army Air Force code) broken by the Brits in New Dehli and passed to McArthur 4 hours BEFORE the arrival of the Japanese Air Force at Clark and Nichols..   Dogout Doug kept Brereton from launching a raid with the B-17E's at Clark which would have caught the IJA forming up on the taxi ways on Formosa for the Japanese planned strike on Clark and Nichols.   Classic promote  the incompetent and purge the innocent  at least in Kimmel's case.  Short had his fighters lined up wing tip to wing time at Wheeler, Bellows and Hickham.  Easy strafing targets.   Short, Turner and MacArthur should have all been relieved of command  and.  sent as liaison to Irkutsk, Tomsk and Baikal.  Nothing they could screwup there.

Edited May 2, 2020 by nsdp

[nsdp + 449]

Douglas read this

Disaster in the Philippines

  about how a military chain of command can screw things up royally.   Count the times Brereton tried to get MacArthur's approval to bomb Formosa before they bombed the Philippines.

https://www.airforcemag.com/article/Disaster-in-the-Philippines/

 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

8 hours ago, Dg56 said:

Hi Douglas, 

Agreed about (lack of) signals' intelligence "failure" during WW2. 

From what you are saying, I understand that it is OK for one's government to hide critical intelligence from its people (the imminent attack on pearl's harbor), for the greater good of the nation (give an incentive to fight the Japanese back). 

And you are OK with that? 

That is so far from what the US is about in terms of govenment accountability (not like shithole places).

Please, clarify. 

Is it OK for US government to hide critical intelligence from its people? 

Yes, I am okay with not revealing intelligence to civilians if it is critical to prosecuting a war, or a crime. Why would people have a ‘need to know’? Why give away any advantage.

Can you name a single nation which shares intelligence information with it’s people.

Would you willingly share military or industrial intelligence with the Chinese? It would end up there shortly after it was released.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

8 hours ago, Dg56 said:

Hi Douglas, 

And what about failures of intelligence that I (me) can remember? 

In case you are old enough, do you remember US intell building a case for a war on iraq in 2003?

The WMDs, the 3rd biggest army in the world, the Hitler of the middle-east, etc.?

A decade later, nothing was true. 

Are you OK with that? No problem? Really? 

Let me ask you a question before I reply.

Do you consider poison gas as a weapon of mass destruction?

[BillKidd + 139]

11 hours ago, Marcin2 said:

Exactly, They visit Jebel Ali very often.

It is strange that somehow people at this forum think that Iran or any other country would ever attack the United States.

It does not have any sense strategically.

Really? Saudi Arabia did on September 11, 2001.

[nsdp + 449]

16 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Let me ask you a question before I reply.

Do you consider poison gas as a weapon of mass destruction?

Logistics is the key to production of these items  and Bill McPeak and his aviators made the production of poison gas and nuclear materials impossible in Jan 1991.r   Production requires lots of electricity 24 hours a day and with 100% reliability.  McPeak and company destroyed the Iraqi grid in 1991 as far as reliability and quantity of generation for industrial base. For examplles of how obvious these plants are, Go SE of Houston and find where Hwy 225 dead ends into Hwy 146; go east of 146 and you will find the LaPorte Petrochemcial plant that makes Phosgene; stands out like a sore thumb.   You can't hid it in a basement somewhere.  It takes a very special design of substation to make that plant operate safely.  It is fed by three different power lines tied to three different power plants Cedar Bayou, Green's Bayou (it replaced PH Robinson in 2007) and Sam Berton.  Go to a Google map of the Laporte area  you cant miss it.    Go back west on Hwy 225 to the berth  of the Battleship Texas. it is flanked on both sides by Chlorine plants  which have similar substations as well as 400mw of internal power generation.  Takes a 30 in natural gas pipeline with a 16 inch back up to operate those plants safely.   138kv power lines and a 30 in pipeline are not something you can hide in a broom closet.   Same applies to nuclear processing except you are talking about 230kv or 345kv lines.

Bush and company played the American public who believed them for fools.

Edited May 2, 2020 by nsdp

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

A manufacturing plant would have been obvious, you are correct in this. But the purchasing from an outside manufacturer, then storing it ‘in a basement somewhere’, or burying it in the sand somewhere, becomes much more feasible.

There were many convoys leaving Iraq for Syria long before the ‘shock & awe’ campaign. Makes you curious as to where Syria got the poison gas they have been using lately...🤔

But I digress. You seem to categorize poison has as a WMD, and I agree with that. Saddam used poison gas on the Kurds, this is a historical fact. Ergo, Saddam not only possessed a weapon of mass destruction, he was willing to use it.

[0R0 + 6,251]

3 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

A manufacturing plant would have been obvious, you are correct in this. But the purchasing from an outside manufacturer, then storing it ‘in a basement somewhere’, or burying it in the sand somewhere, becomes much more feasible.

There were many convoys leaving Iraq for Syria long before the ‘shock & awe’ campaign. Makes you curious as to where Syria got the poison gas they have been using lately...🤔

But I digress. You seem to categorize poison has as a WMD, and I agree with that. Saddam used poison gas on the Kurds, this is a historical fact. Ergo, Saddam not only possessed a weapon of mass destruction, he was willing to use it.

I researched it for a book I ghost co wrote back then, It is not that the WMD (gas) didn't exist, but that it was handed over to Syria. The end of the convoys may have included the Syrian section of Eastern Lebanon and Hezbollah at the time.  The stuff doesn't last forever and has to be destroyed eventually. 

 

[Dg56 + 16]

On 5/1/2020 at 10:00 AM, Douglas Buckland said:

Roosevelt now had a terrible decision to make, either alert Pearl Harbor, or let the attack proceed. 

If Roosevelt had not made what had to be a soul crushing decision, without a doubt the war would have lasted far longer.

So no, signals intelligence did not ‘fail’ at either Pearl Harbor or Clark Airbase.

Hi Douglas,

The attack on Pearl Harbor killed 2335 US soldiers (I checked!), who were taken by surprise, no warning that an attack was imminent, no call for bunkering. (Unlike in the recent Iran reprisal missile attack on US bases in Iraq)

You thinking that the US knew of the attack (but did not warn soldiers based at Pearl Harbor) leads to the following: Roosevelt sacrificed 2335 US human lives, for nothing.

(Because he could have sheltered and saved these soldiers, while sacrificing a few ships, without compromising his ultimate goal, to go to war) 

Is it really what you think of Roosevelt and his administration, a President ok to sacrifice 2335 lives for nothing? 

Or did US intelligence fail? 

Please clarify. Because right now, you sound like kind of subversive. 

And what about the 2996 victims of 9/11? Intelligence failure, or "bigger plan"? 

Side note 1: nothing wrong with admitting failures (of intelligence), as admitting near-miss, miss, etc. is the first step towards improvement. 

Side note 2: I agree with you on chemical gas being a WMD. 

[William Toffenetti + 3]

 OIlprice.com Is one screwed up website. That should be the discussion. One article after another ... Oil will go up $100, oil will never come back,  oil supply shortages... oil supply gluts. You all a bunch of freaking wacko's!!    I'll get my oil prices elsewhere.    Instead of fling metal  we would have  monkeys fling Feces at this whole website,  I have never seen more garbage.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

18 minutes ago, William Toffenetti said:

 OIlprice.com Is one screwed up website. That should be the discussion. One article after another ... Oil will go up $100, oil will never come back,  oil supply shortages... oil supply gluts. You all a bunch of freaking wacko's!!    I'll get my oil prices elsewhere.    Instead of fling metal  we would have  monkeys fling Feces at this whole website,  I have never seen more garbage.

And yet, you have decided to add to it....odd.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

1 hour ago, William Toffenetti said:

 OIlprice.com Is one screwed up website. That should be the discussion. One article after another ... Oil will go up $100, oil will never come back,  oil supply shortages... oil supply gluts. You all a bunch of freaking wacko's!!    I'll get my oil prices elsewhere.    Instead of fling metal  we would have  monkeys fling Feces at this whole website,  I have never seen more garbage.

Welcome, William.  Bye!

[Ouallan + 2]

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Edited August 25, 2021 by Ouallan