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Jim Geraghty wants someone to publish how many rounds we have in our critical munitions stockpiles.
During a shooting confrontation.
Something about "aid and comfort to the enemy" comes to mind about anyone who gives Jim the "straight answer" he seeks.
I might even go so far as to include Mr Geraghty as an accessory before the fact for soliciting the information from someone who would divulge the information.
81 years ago, Little Boy was released from Enola Gay over the Imperial Japanese city of Hiroshima.
The Iranians never stopped firing so it wasn't really a ceasefire, ceasefire is no longer in effect.
The Iranians were lying? PERSIANS lying?
OMG! Did the sun come up in the East?
Is water wet?
Does fire burn?
Who else is shocked that Iran is still shooting at ships?
The problem is we have not defeated them.
Curtis LeMay had the right of it, but it's Nixon who has the correct method.
We stop bombing when you sign the agreement and not before.
We resume bombing the moment it even appears you lied about what you signed.
What you are signing is entirely written by us, you don't get a voice in the terms, you're surrendering.
Sooner or later we're going to hit something they care about enough to stop fighting.
I don't care what it is, but defeat needs to be what they feel.
Yes, the current stoppage of hostilities is a memorandum of understanding.
To be BINDING on the US, it will have to pass Congress and THAT will be a treaty.
It should be a surrender document, but even if it was, it too would require Congress to sign off on it.
I thought it plain enough to not bore my readers with the trivial details, but the bigots insisted I be clearer.
A, valid, point they make using slurs is: Will Israel play ball? I predict that they won't and that will be Iran's excuse to start being their old selves. And we're going to have to drop some more bombs.
That this agreement with Iran can be made when they're saying they won't be bound by it says a great deal about the conspiracy theories that Zionists control the US Government.
But that's another story that I have never felt like typing out.
I'm reading that we're on the hook for $300 billion to rebuild Iran and there's fuck-all about getting the uranium out of their reach.
I can easily see Congress not ratifying this treaty.
Oh, did everyone forget that this is a treaty?
They sure as fuck remembered that Congress was supposed to authorize having a war.
This sure sounds like something, is this something?
He keeps saying "pogrom" but I keep hearing revolution.
Because the words that echo are, "That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
This is the portion of the social contract that has failed in Ireland and the UK.
Fascinating that it's the UK again that these words are appropriate about.
But this is the kind of thing that happens when you ignore the citizens and favor another demographic over them.
The news is full of a memorandum of understanding towards a formal end of hostilities between The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America.
Excellent!
Hopefully Iran means it this time and we can stop blowing them up.
I've said before that I would be far happier if our nations were friends.
I hope it's possible.
I doubt it will be as long as even a thread of the leadership from before we started dropping bombs is still in charge of the place.
82 years ago, the landings for D-Day, Operation Neptune, began.
On a single day, more than four thousand Allied troops killed and more than 10,000 wounded.
The history of pre-Columbian America is the history of war.
Pre-history of war?
History because we have the oral accounts of many of the tribes/nations of the American Indian. Oral history that turned out to be more accurate than US accounts in several case, not least of which was The Battle of the Greasy Grass, where the oral traditions were vindicated when an actual forensic analysis of the battlefield was done.
But the history of the North American Indian is one of conflict, conquest and war.
Brace yourself.
The history of the European White Man is one of conflict, conquest and war.
Speak the wrong language?
Worship the wrong God?
Worship the right God the wrong way?
Live next to a valuable resource?
Look sideways at the wrong person?
WAR!
The only difference between the conquest of the west by the USA and the wars between the Indians was the US was far better equipped and organized. Also, the US wasn't using a hunter-gatherer model for logistics.
The pros entered the chat in the economic depression following the Civil War and the amateurs used their superior tactics and knowledge of the terrain to lose against overwhelming numbers and Victorian era logistics.
There's account after account of the tribes trying to come to grips with what was happening and coming after them.
The white man was countless to them. A clear, decisive victory over a white settlement didn't lead to a year's respite, it led to reprisals withing a week.
Western Civ does war as if it has never done anything else, you piss it off at your peril.
What happened is not evil, it's just what happens when two incompatible civilizations rub against each other.
Yes I said, civilizations.
The Indians were very civilized by their own rules and moral after their own way.
That doesn't matter.
It has been 180 years since the USA last declared war on Mexico.
Not the last time we've fought, but it was the last time war were declared.
Apparently, allegedly, the Trump administration tried to get some small arms to the people of Iran so they could more effectively rebel against the theocracy.
Also, apparently and allegedly, they used Kurds as intermediaries to move the guns.
Apparently and allegedly, these same Kurds kept the guns for themselves.
Um.
Duh.
They've no reason to believe that the people of Iran, once the theocracy is deposed, will be any different than the Ottomans about letting them have an independent existence.
But I can see them trying to secede once the theocracy is weak enough.
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I am shocked that a Frenchman can't understand it.
French gives us the ultimate explanation in one short sentence, "Tous pour un et un pour tous!"
Heinlein explained it in Starship Troopers.
"Are a thousand unreleased prisoners sufficient reason to start or resume a war? Bear in mind that millions of innocent people may die, almost certainly will die, if war is started or resumed."
I didn't hesitate. "Yes, sir! More than enough reason."
"'More than enough.' Very well, is one prisoner unreleased by the enemy, enough reason to start or resume a war?"
I hesitated. I knew the M.I. answer -- but I didn't think that was the one he wanted. He said sharply, "Come, come, Mister! We have an upper limit of one thousand; I invited you to consider a lower limit of one. But you can't pay a promissory note which reads 'somewhere between one and one thousand pounds' -- and starting a war is much more serious than paying a trifle of money. Wouldn't it be criminal to endanger a country -- two countries, in fact -- to save one man? Especially as he may not deserve it? Or may die in the meantime? Thousands of people get killed every day in accidents ... so why hesitate over one man? Answer! Answer yes, or answer no -- you're holding up the class."
He got my goat. I gave him the cap trooper's answer. "Yes, sir!"
"'Yes' what?"
"It doesn't matter if it's a thousand -- or just one, sir. You fight."
"Aha! The number of prisoners is irrelevant. Good. Now prove your answer."
I was stuck. I knew it was the right answer. But I didn't know why. He kept hounding me. "Speak up, Mr. Rico. This is an exact science. You have made a mathematical statement; you must give proof. Someone may claim that you have asserted, by analogy, that one potato is worth the same price, no more, no less, as a thousand potatoes. No?"
"No, sir!"
"Why not? Prove it."
"Men are not potatoes."
I still say our policy about ANY American, ANYWHERE, is that it should be safer to eat white arsenic than to harm our citizens.
How long is this guy gonna last before something kills him?
Related: We decline your request to be fucking idiots about this little war.
There's a recurring theme about how the world should work in that the people living near where resources are extracted should benefit from said extraction.
That they should have wealth and comfort from it.
Here's one for y'all. It's not required.
If, say, France needs oil; then a French petroleum engineer can figure out where it is, bring a bunch of French roughnecks in to drill for it and then use a French team to set up pumps, pipelines and wharfs to get it on ships crewed by French sailors.
There's no need to pay a single, say, Iranian for any of this except out of common decency.
The world has seen what it gets for giving common decency to the regime of the past forty some years.
So, Mr Rezaee, you've been paid as much as you're going to get.
Perhaps some decent folks who will reciprocate with decency when they receive it will take your place. We might help THEM rebuild.
The US, technically, doesn't need the oil that comes through the Straits of Hormuz.
That means that it's someone else that needs that waterway open.
And several of the nations who NEED that oil are refusing to help keep it open.
It'd be funny as fuck if we decided to just keep all that oil for ourselves since we're the ones keeping the shipping lane open and used it to lower domestic oil prices and just mailed copies of "The Little Red Hen" to everyone.
Japan and Australia have decided to not send ships to support Operation Epic Fury.
There's been a bit of sturm und drang about that, but I think that they just don't have the capability to do it.
Their navies are tiny by our standards and they just don't appear to have the excess capability to send boats to the region while still maintaining their commitments closer to home.
Australia is sending some significant air assets though. It's not like they're refusing to help.
The press keeps repeating that we blew up a school on the first day of attacking Iran.
The way they report it, and the Iranian government keeps harping on it, you'd think it was on purpose.
Even if we accept that we did hit the school and there are really 157 dead Iranian civilians from it.
C'est la guerre.
Stuff like that happens in a shooting war.
So does fratricide.
You do what you can to prevent it, but you can never completely eliminate it.
Well, WE do what we can. Iran is flinging missiles willy-nilly and nobody seems to be whinging about civilian casualties from that.
Speaking of fratricide. There's some indication that the three F-15E's shot down by a Kuwaiti F/A-18C were shot down deliberately. Kuwait might have a traitor to execute here.
"Don't use that hand grenade, it's dangerous after it explodes!"
The Army has finally adopted a replacement for the Mk3A2 Offensive Grenade. The original Mk3 dates to 1918 and the A2 from 1945.
"Offensive" means it's a concussion grenade as opposed to a defensive grenade which is a fragmentation grenade.
In the war on Tara we rediscovered that fragmentation is a "to whom it may concern" item and we had some fratricide on the other side of walls from it.
We were laying off using the Mk3A2's in inventory because the fiber/asphalt case had asbestos in it, thus the quote at the opening."
The new M111 has a plastic case and the latest fuse. No more mesothelioma risk!
Huzzah!
The Beast has a 19 gallon gas tank.
Gas going up about 50 cents a gallon thanks to bombing Iran means that it will cost me $9.50 more for a full tank from empty.
WORTH IT!
Especially since I know it's going to be a short lived increase.
A great deal of noise is being made about the rate we're expending our fancy munitions in Iran.
One idea about its lavish employment early on is that by the time you've expended the last round, you could use dumb bombs from WW2 dive bombers because air supremacy had been irrevocably achieved.
In case that wasn't obvious, we found out that dive bombing is the most dangerous way to bomb with dumb bombs because of how predictable the bomber's flight path is.
It is also the most accurate means of employing dumb bombs, but the vulnerability is why we figured out stuff like CCRP and CCIP.
Besides, I'm not worried about our rate of consumption.
Shoot all you want, we'll make more.
I am also 95% certain that we're using "first in, first out" methodology and firing the oldest rounds first.
This gets forgotten when some pundits talk about us using or giving away munitions.
For example, Ukraine got a lot of Javelins that were going to expire and have to be either tossed or reworked extensively. We were going to have to buy new ones anyways...
Some munitions can be reworked affordably, some are cheaper to buy new and have a shoot-X of the old ones.
