via FoxNews.
US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has said that President Obama has asked the military to "prepare options for all contingencies" as the crisis in Syria deepens following reports of a chemical weapons attack by that country's government earlier this week.I'm ready for the tin foil hat allegations...but I'll put it out there anyway...Is Syria just what the Pentagon desperately desires?
Speaking in Malaysia Sunday, where he was starting a planned one-week tour of Asia, Hagel said that the administration was still weighing whether or not to use military force against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Among the factors being discussed, Hagel said, were an intelligence assessment of the attack as well as possible international support for a military operation and what he described as legal issues.
"President Obama has asked the Defense Department to prepare options for all contingencies. We have done that and we are prepared to exercise whatever option -- if he decides to employ one of those options,'' Hagel said.
* The President has sinking poll numbers...so does the Pentagon. They both need a boost in "patriotic" feelings.
* Sequester is hitting hard, and supplementals are a way that the Pentagon slid new spending into previous budgets. This could be just the ticket to prevent painful choices...at least for the near term.
* Its politically correct in the circles of the liberal elite to engage in warfare for purely humanitarian reasons. Whether there are clear policy objectives and an exit strategy be damned. We must do it for the children.
This is the wrong war for the wrong reasons and we're seeing something new here. Make no mistake about it. This is not a union of Tea Partiers and Liberal Democrats.
This is a union of Neo-Cons and Liberal Elite Democrats (note, Neo-Cons never went away they live happily in the form of McCain and the idiot from S. Carolina).
I never hope that a military mission fails, but I hope both these groups burn in hell.
UPDATE: Catching a few minutes of the Morning Joe Television Show and the talking heads are all parroting the phrase "we must do something". I don't know when that became the catchphrase for Washington but we heard the same for the passage of bills that the American people didn't want and now for action in a place where the American people don't want to become involved (only 25% of the American people want to become involved...only the liberal elite & neo-cons want action).
Personally I tend to lean toward interventions, I had been hoping for one in Syria a year or more ago but its just to late for us to do much good. The absolute most we should do is a no-fly zone and probably airstikes, but France and Britain and Turkey ought to be able to handle that much without us. With the Jihadis there we should not be giving them missiles. There's no way stingers or Javelins or whatever they send won't turn up somewhere shooting us and our allies. I kinda like the idea where they were giving the FSA old tanks, helps them fight Assad and they are a lot harder to carry with them when they go home to cause trouble. Either way we go the democrats bullshit excuse for foreign policy has got looking like shit again. Its "Speak softly but carry a big stick" not "run your dumb mouth on the international stage and not back anything up". Jerks.
ReplyDeletethe Middle East is not worthy of another cent of American blood or treasure. the entire region is ready to implode and we should sit back and watch it.
DeleteWhy stop Assad from killing Al Queerda and the MusBros forces?
DeleteThey are after all the ones who hit the WTC on 9/11 and we were at war with them prior to Obama.
It. Ain't. the. U.S. fight.
We'll just valiantly ignore the impact on world oil-prices, our economy, and tell the forces to do less exercises yet due to $5+/gal fuel-costs.
ReplyDeleteStiff upper lip, I'd say, ol' chum.
i hadn't even considered increased oil prices. stiff upper lip and a gas sipping car...
DeleteThe US has Strategic reserves and can if pressed drill and pump our own oil.
DeleteThe rest of the world, bless they's l'il peapickin' hearts are on their own.
As they have been since 2009.
So Sol, what will your opinion be should a limited series of strikes and no fly zones be put in place and a bunch of 4th gen fighters get shot down, before Syria's air defences are flattened?
ReplyDeleteStill going to rail against the need for the F-35?
Curious.
if the Pentagon or rather CENTCOM loses a bunch of fighters to Syria's air defenses then they need to put me in charge. they're hardly first rate and the proper application of force should see almost every site defeated.
Deleteso yeah. i don't care how this turns out i'm still "railing" against the over cost, under performing albatross around the neck of the USMC and USAF.
as a sidenote, i can't prove it but i'd almost bet that the Pentagon has been put in the position of condoning a public lie in order to get the airplane sold to the S. Koreans. savings found in the maintenance system my ass. it even sounds like bullshit.
Curious? Check out the Democrats idea of a war winning aircraft circa 1930's.
DeleteF2A3 Brewster Buffalo.the F2A-3 was derided by USMC pilots as a "flying coffin.one American observer wrote in late 1940 after visiting Britain that "The best American fighter planes already delivered to the British are used by them either as advanced trainers --or for fighting equally obsolete Italian planes in the Middle East. That is all they are good for"
The F-35 looks good...on paper....in peacetime flights. BUT, up against real world fighters instead of bureaucratic money saving politician's who care little about fighters, pilots or winning a fight it may become the next flying coffin and lose not just a fight but a battle.
If the democrats push the Pentagon to buy this jet there must be a reason because the democrats do not intend to win and war just break even with a tie.
Our enemies don't feel that way.
I think few doubt that Syria's air defences will be out of the fight in relatively short order and I don't think many fighters would be dropped, but IF they put up a fight and IF they manage to down few 4th Gen fighters, then some hard thinking about their utility in any more serious situation will really have to be done.
ReplyDeletePeople can waffle about standoff weapons all day long, but inventories of munitions are amongst the easiest of savings when Politicians are looking to make them after a conflict. It's why "urgent" shipments of same were required during and post the Libya campaign.
If your only chance is a SOW and you don't have any, er yeah. Good "strategic thinking"...
no orders for additional weapons will or should be necessary. quite honestly i wonder why you would even need to use fighters to enforce a no fly zone. patriots on the borders in Turkey and Jordan along with a burke or two off shore and nothing is flying in that country for very long and if they do get off the ground they aren't doing any real missions.
Deletelosing aircraft in a war in Syria, just like the loss of aircraft in Libya has more to do with the restrictive Rules of Engagement or mechanical failure than they have to do with enemy action.
Israel just call Jason...they are sorry not to listen to you and to have lost so many aircraft in their raids last year...oh whait...thats right...they didnt...
DeleteYou should read the news from time to time...
Nuno Compadre, IAF warplanes making a strike is suddenly with no warning is vastly different from US forces telegraphing a strike and attack 6 months from the ToT attack.
DeleteIAF simply doesn't telegraph it's moves as the Western politician's are proud to do either by leaks or outright espionage or loose mouth in front of the TV.
There is simply no comparison of IAF and US methods of a strike.
Look how long Saddam was given to prepare for the last Iraq war and the one before that.
This administration will phuc up any mission as it has every other mission and task it tried to accomplish.
ReplyDeleteExample: Benghazi.
I too have no wish for a Mission kill against our forces.
All we can hope for is a draw that doesn't dishonor or humiliate Islamo's so that the POTUS must bend over and apologize while we watch our aircrews beheaded and their hearts eaten on the TV.
Never get off the boat unless you are willing to go all the way, abso-phucing-loutly right.
Obama Inc. is not planning to go all the way and that will kill this mission faster than anything and I can imagine the Gorram RoE for it.