President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Wait a sec. Didn't those 100 Russians have guns?

And they were still killed?

So much for guns keeping them safe.

 

That was great.

The Chris Christie one is spot-on. And I cracked up at the Marco Rubio one.

 

I hold everybody to the same standard WRT just telling the truth. It's something we are taught when we are 5.

 

Two top White House advisers may leave over tensions with Trump:...

 

Teachers need ARs too!

 

We outright flattened those Russian mercs. We did it the American way - we didn't risk much through the way of American lives, we expended millions of dollars of ordinance instead. We made our point... they won't try that again anytime soon. Everyone involved got greased, pretty much.

Trump had nothing to do with it, other than giving the final word on the forces used and tactics to the theater commander. Cadet Bone Spurs will get some credit because he sits in the Oval, but it will be more than he deserves.

 

Well that one makes sense. Police, for all their faults, have a legal monopoly on domestic force and should not be outgunned by civilians.

 

So I read John Ringo. He writes very bloody minded military science fiction. He's killed the entire population any number of times over in various series by now - alien invasion, runaway biological plague, zombie apocalypse, etc. Ex-82nd airborne, and a bestselling writer with lotsa military fanbois. He hears stuff backchannel. Here's his take on what happened with the Russians who threw up that bridge, courtesy of his Facebook post on the subject. I suspect that this description is highly accurate, subject to the revision in post two. Incoming!

"Soooo...

Further reporting, such as it is, on the Dair Ezzor Turkey Shoot.

1. Sov... err... Russians built a bridge over the Euphrates which was the designated 'deconfliction line'. Why? Reasons. 'Committee of Nations' or something.

2. 'Hybrid' force of mixed Russian contractors including multiple non-ethnic Russians (Serbs, Kossack, other non Slavics) as well as local Syrian Army 'commandos' attacked across temporary bridge. The 'Russian' side were 'Blackwater' equivalent mercenaries from a company generally called 'Wagner' which is the nom de plume of the boss. (Like if you called Blackwater 'Prince'.) {My note - Wagner is owned by a Russian billionaire who is in Putin's pocket}

3. Unit was partially mechanized, battalion strength. (One thing everyone agrees upon is 'about 600-700 personnel.') Had some towed artillery as well as 't-55 and T-72 MBT as well as armored personnel carriers.' (Type unknown.) Full on 'we're taking that position and you're not stopping us' full court press.

4. Unit crossed bridge, arty deployed.

5. Arty opened fire while most of unit was still in approach column formation. (Normal) One portion moved to flanking positions.

5A. Minute the arty opened fire SHIT GOT REAL REAL QUICK.

6. Reapers took out artillery and most of armor with Hellfire. From the few videos, pretty much before they knew what hit them. There had to be quite a few Reaper drones up or they were feeding guidance to Hellfire from Apaches (see below.)

7. F-15E Eagles came in for clean-up and to check for anti-air defenses.

8. Warthogs showed up just to go BRRRRRRT!

9. AC-130 Spectre started fucking up their day for the hell of it.

10. To add insult to injury, B-52s which, you know, just HAPPENED to be in the area, just minding our own business, just passing by from Diego Garcia which is a few thousand miles away, on their way to... somewhere... nothing to see here... decided to prove they could drop their entire load as precision guided weapons and just more or less DID A JDAM ARCLIGHT ON THEIR ASS. At that point, more or less because CENTCOM said 'Why not? ARCLIGHT is always pretty to watch...'

11. The whole thing being so over it was ridiculous, AH-64 Apaches basically did 'hostile Bomb Damage Assessment' and complained there were no targets left.

12. Oh, and then the Kurds, to just really FUCK with these guys, released water from a dam upstream and broke their bridge. So they had to ford back with their wounded.

13. Nobody knows how many dead and wounded. Russians are saying 'only 8 Russian citizens' but that doesn't quite cover the whole of who may have been involved. One repeated number is 200 dead (remember, mixed Syrians, Russians and other ethnics) as well as pretty much the rest of the force wounded. (Not to mention pretty thoroughly demoralized.) One Kurd wounded. Probably fell off a stool laughing to tell truth.

14. Military hospitals in Russia are reliably reported 'overflowing.'

This was much less a 'battle' than a message. Towards the end we had to just be pounding ground to make sure they got it.

Messages, really.

A. Don't fucking cross that river.
B. Hey, North Korea! LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!
C. Hey, Putin, about Donbas... This is what we can do to your 'freedom fighters' (AKA: mercenaries) at any time.
D. To everyone in general: You need to remember who's boss.

Mattis is playing dumb. 'What Russians? There were Russians? Really? I'm seeing that in the media but I got no briefing on there being Russians in that column. Our bad. Sorry about that.'

Then there's the fact that the strike was NOT approved by the President.

Because he gave CENTOM the approval on things like that.

And CENTCOM handled it like a BOSS.

Oh, and when the forces crossed the river the Russians were informed and informed that we intended to take 'self-defense' actions.

So they can't even say they weren't warned.

I'm not sure we warned them we'd be using BUFF.

This is more the sort of thing I'd expect in late summer.

'Shit! We haven't expended our budget! Are there any Russians we can fuck up very badly with all these unexpended munitions?'

Last thought: It had to be shitty being on the receiving end of that."

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Addition/correction post went up earlier today:


"Couple more comments on the Dair Ezzor (yeah, I know, it has about nineteen different spellings) Turkey Shoot.

I was corrected by a 'source' on the sequence.

The artillery (Syrian) opened fire at the SDF headquarters which houses quite a few SpecOps boomies. ('Boomies' can be substituted for 'operators.' 'Operators do it in the dark.' 'Boom-boom! Out go the lights.' Boomies.)

B-52s, (number unspecified by 'in excess of two') which just happened to be around, you know, minding their own damned... you read the other one...

Then basically dumped their loads (yes, JDAM and targeted) on the position. Buff counter-battery.

'Between the JDAM ARCLITE and secondary from Syrian artillery rounds, position was annihilated. Number of casualties uncertain as there was not enough left for accurate BDA of personnel remains.'

There is stuff that I'm seeing from a few different 'sources' which I suppose is technically CLASS but is being so widely distributed it's clearly intended to be 'CLASS BUT NOT CLASS' that is from radio intercepts of the Russian assault force.

I won't go over the whole thing but one of the last transmissions, paraphrase, went something like this:

'We are being slaughtered! There is no where to run, no where to hide! We cannot escape! We are being slaughtered!'

Rumor has it that one of the reasons that the radio intercepts are so... ahem... widely available is that they're INTENDED to make their way to various 'actors' (Kim Jong Un, Pakistani President whatever, Putin's already heard them..., Xi maybe?) as a warning:

'This is what we do when the chains come off our dogs of war. And the chains are off.'

/end quote