The Trump Presidency | Biden Inaugurated

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Adisa said:
If they were trying to blast through a deep and complex tunnel, I can understand why they'd resort to that.
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Could have just gassed the tunnels.

Too soon?
 
Raoul said:
He likely didn't even know it was being used. Decisions are made by the military commanders at CENTCOM and in Afghanistan.
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Why wasn't it used previously? I remember the test of this was about midway through Obama's years.
 
berbatrick said:
Why wasn't it used previously? I remember the test of this was about midway through Obama's years.
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Because war during the Obama years was reduced to special operations raids and drone strikes. This sort of thing would've been a candidate for use early on in Afghanistan, but it wasn't developed until a year or two later.
 
Raoul said:
Because war during the Obama years was reduced to special operations raids. This sort of thing would've been a candidate for use early on in Afghanistan, but it wasn't developed until a year or two later.
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So there has been some change from the executive which makes the use of these more likely? (Just like the number of officially acknowledged civilian casualties has shot up in the ME from US raids ever since Trump took over)
 
It's interesting that the discourse around this is being framed in discussion of technical details about the bomb. Complete blackout of any coverage on civilian casualties. How many people died? Is the death toll unknown?
 
berbatrick said:
So there has been some change from the executive which makes the use of these more likely? (Just like the number of officially acknowledged civilian casualties has shot up in the ME from US raids ever since Trump took over)
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Not really. Obama was just weary of this sort of thing because of the risk of civilian casualties. Drones, but comparison are far more efficient in just hitting the intended target (even though civilians do occasionally get hit as well).
 
Mciahel Goodman said:
It's interesting that the discourse around this is being framed in discussion of technical details about the bomb. Complete blackout of any coverage on civilian casualties. How many people died? Is the death toll unknown?
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Exactamundo mate, but they don't matter because of where they come from and of course Trump has pivoted now hasn't he? I mean pivoted from a narcissistic moron to a sociopathic one with bigger weapons, but he's pivoted enough for the media to fawn over him all the time. It's embarrassing.
 
Oh well, that's us due for a bombing then.
 
Mciahel Goodman said:
It's interesting that the discourse around this is being framed in discussion of technical details about the bomb. Complete blackout of any coverage on civilian casualties. How many people died? Is the death toll unknown?
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#brownlivesdon'tmatter
 
barros said:
Can't wait
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I don't want to sound offensive, but your posts have such a childish nature about them. I can almost see an excited teenager salivating at the prospect of explosions and expensive war machines on a far away land.

Let me tell you a story. When 9/11 happened me and quite a few of my friends shared some basic "anti-Americanism" which was pretty normal at the time among my demographics. Youthful naive politics and such, probably it boiled down to me hating Bush. I was in my grandmother's when the first plane hit and was glued to the TV. When the 2nd plane hit (and I saw it live on TV) and everyone realised it wasn't an accident I excitedly called my best friend celebrating that America was being attacked, telling him to turn on the TV because we were witnessing an historical moment. I wasn't really thinking about people, you couldn't even see them in those distant shots. I was just excited at the novelty and audacity of an attack on American soil, and was happy at the puzzled face of Bush being told about it.

I vividly remember driving home shortly afterwards and things were starting to feel a bit different. I recalled I had just been below those towers an year before, the most majestic thing I ever saw in my life. I arrived in NYC by subway and exited at WTC station so I hadn't even seen them approaching, when I looked behind at what I was coming out from and saw those majestic things disappearing in the heavy clouds it was one of the most wonderful experiences I had lived thus far. I started feeling guilty.

And then, on the same evening, it was not just two distant images of planes hitting a couple of towers. It was close up shots of people splattered on the ground, scared men and women running away from a cloud of dust on the street, many of them with blood on their faces and children on their laps, the nervousness in the face of emergency workers. I started to hate myself for that brief half hour of excitement some 12 hours before.

I still feel the embarrassment of that, such that I started writing this post saying I was with a "teenage friend" and describing things as if that really wasn't me. Because I think only a dumb teenager could think like that, and I was already 20 years old.

You are 45. War may sometimes be necessary but it's never something to be celebrated. And as annoying as a 20 year old soldier, excited because he's going to kill foreigners can look like, I think a 45 year old who won't even get up from his sofa to witness the killing looks even worse.
 
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Mciahel Goodman said:
It's interesting that the discourse around this is being framed in discussion of technical details about the bomb. Complete blackout of any coverage on civilian casualties. How many people died? Is the death toll unknown?
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Probably unknown until someone goes to the caves and looks.

Right now the information we have is that this took place in a remote area.
 
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What I do not understand...

Don't they not get it, that actions like this do not stop things like terrorism but even increasing it.
 
Mciahel Goodman said:
It's interesting that the discourse around this is being framed in discussion of technical details about the bomb. Complete blackout of any coverage on civilian casualties. How many people died? Is the death toll unknown?
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Likely will get footage, casualty estimates in a few hours.

Its like the middle of the night over there, so situation should be clearer when its gets to morning time.
 
A preemptive strike wouldn't accomplish much since Kim would merely attack US forces in South Korea which would instantly start a full on hot war.
 
Mciahel Goodman said:
If that happens it's WW3. So I refuse to get sucked into it. More likely that they're trying to see if they can deter the North Koreans with the perceived threat, after having bombed Syria and Afghanistan.
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Would China risk a war with US over North Korea? I'm not sure they have any allies left with their constant sabre-rattling.

Also, do North Koreans give a shit about the perceived threat? At this point it doesn't seem as they've much to lose.
 
MaxiPaxi said:
Would China risk a war with US over North Korea? I'm not sure they have any allies left with their constant sabre-rattling.

Also, do Korean give a shit about the perceived threat? At this point it doesn't seem as they've much to lose.
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If the US hits North Korea, North Korea hits South Korea, destroying Seoul, with the largest ever-ready fixed artillery formation in the world.

Even without nuclear weapons, North Korea has an ace in the hole. Most experts believe its claims to have enough conventional firepower from its artillery units to devastate the greater Seoul area, South Korea's bustling capital of 24 million. Such an attack would cause severe casualties — often estimated in the hundreds of thousands — in a very short period of time.

Many of these artillery batteries are already in place, dug in and very effectively camouflaged, which means that U.S. and South Korean forces cannot count on being able to take them out before they strike. Experts believe about 60 percent of North Korea's military assets are positioned relatively close to the Demilitarized Zone separating the countries.

North Korea's most threatening weapons are its 170 mm Koksan artillery guns, which are 14 meters long and can shoot conventional mortar ammunition 40 kilometers (25 miles). That's not quite enough to reach Seoul, which is 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the DMZ. But if they use rocket-assisted projectiles, the range increases to about 60 kilometers (37 miles). Chemical weapons fired from these guns could cause even greater mayhem.

North Korea experts Victor Cha and David Kang posted on the website of Foreign Policy magazine late last month that the North can fire 500,000 rounds of artillery on Seoul in the first hour of a conflict.
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This would all be happening right beside the Chinese border. That's instant World War material.
 
Raoul said:
A preemptive strike wouldn't accomplish much since Kim would merely attack US forces in South Korea which would instantly start a full on hot war.
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The only way to do it would be to go in with our stealth air fleet at night and flatten every military and command/communications asset they have in one fell swoop.

Otherwise, yeah, half the 2nd Infantry and my college buddy over there commanding a tank platoon are fecked.
 
Mciahel Goodman said:
If the US hits North Korea, North Korea hits South Korea, destroying Seoul, with the largest ever-ready fixed artillery formation in the world.



This would all be happening right beside the Chinese border. That's instant World War material.
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I see. But how would destroying Seoul would affect the Chinese? The only thing I can think of is that Chinese wouldn't want an American satellite state right next to their border. Other than that why would they give a shite what happens between the North and South at this point. Forgive me, I realise it's much more complex than that.
 
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And when the South Koreans see the US forces mobilising to evacuate ahead of Trump's planned action...???
 
MaxiPaxi said:
I see. But how would Destroying Seoul would affect the Chinese. The only thing I can think of is that Chinese wouldn't want an American satellite state right next to their border. Other than that why would they give a shite what happens between the North and South at this point. Forgive me, I realise it's much more complex than that.
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The Chinese wouldn't want another US proxy state on its border, with South Korea and Japan already playing this role. Aside from that, the Chinese are undergoing an expansionist policy. They're picking up islands in their immediate sphere of influence and fortifying them. War on their border, a potential nuclear war, would be devastating for their economy and their larger plans. Add to that the fact that no one knows how countries will react. In times of mass war, minor states tend to militarize because larger states usually look to grab land and whatever else they can.

In the best scenario, China would implicitly back the US, the US would hit North Korea, North Korea would respond with an attack on South Korea, possibly nuclear, and millions of people would die. Which is why I can't see the US carrying out any strike on North Korea.
 
Mciahel Goodman said:
The Chinese wouldn't want another US proxy state on its border, with South Korea and Japan already playing this role. Aside from that, the Chinese are undergoing an expansionist policy. They're picking up islands in their immediate sphere of influence and fortifying them. War on their border, a potential nuclear war, would be devastating for their economy and their larger plans. Add to that the fact that no one knows how countries will react. In times of mass war, minor states tend to militarize because larger states usually look to grab land and whatever else they can.

In the best scenario, China would implicitly back the US, the US would hit North Korea, North Korea would respond with an attack on South Korea, possibly nuclear, and millions of people would die. Which is why I can't see the US carrying out any strike on North Korea.
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Fair enough. Cheers for that. Very informative.
 
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