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13th April 2017, 07:23 PM | #41 |
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Last night the wind was whispering, I was trying to make out what it was
Last night the wind was whispering something, I was trying to make out what it was I tell myself something's coming But it never does -Bob Dylan |
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Disturbances of the semantic reactions in connection with faulty education and ignorance must be considered as sub-microscopic colloidal lesions - Alfred O. Korzybski |
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13th April 2017, 07:27 PM | #42 |
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Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB). the "Mother of all bombs" is slang that is a direct lampoon of Saddam Hussein's declaration before Operation Desert Storm (or Operation Kuwaiti Freedom, 1991 ish) that there would be "the mother of all battles" when the American led coalition crossed into Kuwait and Iraq when the attacked. As it worked out, it was MOAR, or, the Mother of All Routs.
If it was an FAE of that size, that would be a heck of a boom. See above. Analysis: Someone was sending a real subtle message to the leader of North Korea. A while back, when dealing with air ops and air strikes in Afghanistan was my daily lot, the RoE would never have allowed its use. Things have changed. |
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Helicopters don't so much fly as beat the air into submission. "Jesus wept, but did He laugh?"--F.H. Buckley____"There is one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth ... His mirth." --Chesterton__"If the barbarian in us is excised, so is our humanity."--D'rok__ "I only use my gun whenever kindness fails."-- Robert Earl Keen__"Sturgeon spares none.". -- The Marquis |
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13th April 2017, 07:31 PM | #43 |
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Basically, anyone who voted for, or supported Trump, cannot be surprised if he:
a) does what he says he would do in his election campaign b) tries to do what he says he would do in his election campaign c) does anything given his erratic verbal performances and apparent ignorance of the political culture he presides over now. He's someone who will apparently launch missiles when he sees something harrowing on TV, and who will drop big bombs because it's cool, and whose saying one thing one day will not prevent him doing the exact opposite thing the next day. Essentially he may do some astonishing things, astonishingly bad things that may be shocking, but which we cannot really be surprised by. |
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Слава Україні! **** Putin! |
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13th April 2017, 07:35 PM | #44 |
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Helicopters don't so much fly as beat the air into submission. "Jesus wept, but did He laugh?"--F.H. Buckley____"There is one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth ... His mirth." --Chesterton__"If the barbarian in us is excised, so is our humanity."--D'rok__ "I only use my gun whenever kindness fails."-- Robert Earl Keen__"Sturgeon spares none.". -- The Marquis |
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13th April 2017, 07:41 PM | #45 |
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Why does this bomb have its name painted on the side? Is that to make it easy to sort out from other bombs?
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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13th April 2017, 07:50 PM | #46 |
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13th April 2017, 10:23 PM | #47 |
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The strike is nowhere near to where ISIS is in actual combat - does it make sense that it would be used by ISIS?
I also wonder if Obama might have green-lighted this move! Trump won't say if he did, that battlefield personnel have latitude to do more than they could under Trump. Could be, but if he could have taken credit for it he would have been tempted. |
13th April 2017, 10:35 PM | #48 |
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14th April 2017, 02:03 AM | #49 |
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Do you even read the sources your hero cites? That cost is explained as being for twenty of the 15 ton Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs, mentioned up-thread), not the 11 ton MOAB used today, which I heard run about 12 million apiece. Both costs I consider egregious bilking of the federal budget by military contractors, but... the Republicans love them (and their profits) so what am I gonna do? And who cares that we built at least some of the mountain tunnel system In Afghanistan? We were kinda helping out in a bit of a skirmish round those parts back in the nineties (as usual for us... we screwed up the exit plan). We were hardly going to pack them up and take them home when we left. Much like the Vietnamese dams we first built ('50s) then destroyed during that war (mentioned in that Snowden tweet thread you cited). So other than MOPs being pricey (agreed)... did you think citing Snowden there was scoring you any points? |
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14th April 2017, 06:32 AM | #50 |
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Pentagon has released aerial video of this bomb drop. It's at DailyMail and probably elsewhere.
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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14th April 2017, 06:44 AM | #51 |
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What makes you say that? A car bomb can have a blast radius of more than 100m. The blast radius of the MK84 bomb is around 400m and the Blu82 is over 1.5km. The MOAB is more powerful than the latter but its radius is likely similar because of the way the blast is channelled. A one mile (1.6km) blast radius seems reasonable.
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14th April 2017, 06:58 AM | #52 |
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Here's a link to the Pentagon video of the bomb.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...orce-MOAB.html Concerning the one mile thing... I have been reading that what happens is that a person can feel the shock wave from this bomb up to a mile away. Not that it will destroy or kill at one mile distance. |
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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14th April 2017, 07:01 AM | #53 |
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14th April 2017, 07:35 AM | #54 |
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14th April 2017, 07:40 AM | #55 |
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BAIG BADA-BOOM!
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14th April 2017, 08:05 AM | #56 |
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It is worse than that.
Trump loves praise. Feeds off it. Trump got lots of praise for the cruise missile attack in Syria last week, and then again with the big boomie in A-stan. Now he is sending a fleet to North Korea and making noise about pre-emptive strikes. If people keep telling him he is presidential because he is blowing people up he will keep blowing people up. |
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So I'm going to tell you what the facts are, and the facts are the facts, but then we know the truth. That always overcomes facts. |
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14th April 2017, 08:14 AM | #57 |
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Music is what feelings sound like "Dulce bellum inexpertīs." - Erasmus |
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14th April 2017, 08:18 AM | #58 |
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---------------------- Anything goes in the Goblin hut... anything. "Suggesting spurious explanations isn't relevant to my work." -- WTC Dust. "Both cannot be simultaneously true, and so one may conclude neither is true, and if neither is true, then Apollo is fraudulent." -- Patrick1000. |
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14th April 2017, 09:59 AM | #59 |
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14th April 2017, 10:03 AM | #60 |
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14th April 2017, 10:11 AM | #61 |
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Listen to the first questions reporters asked Trump after they learned about the bomb. Trump had no idea what it was or how the drop was ordered. He stammered, then just said he empowered the military.
If there's a plan, it sure as hell isn't Trump's. I would say that's good, but when there's a vacuum of leadership on the top and lower level folks have been empowered, competing agendas tend to emerge. I'm not sure how likely it is that people charged with day to day operations in Afghanistan are thinking about North Korea. I would consider it impressive if they were thinking about ISIS in other areas of the Middle East. But who knows? Maybe there's some general with a big map of the globe believing subtle hints delivered thousands of miles away will affect North Korea's opinion on things. |
14th April 2017, 10:46 AM | #63 |
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FIRST VIDEO: US mega-bomb strike against ISIS targets in Afghanistan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwNu4-458Po |
14th April 2017, 10:47 AM | #64 |
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If Jim Mattis can pick his own people he would be very effective but there are too many areas of potential and actual engagement for one general to supervise - he'd have to have a big staff of his own people, but then wouldn't he have the whole apparatus under his SecDef label?
Judging by maps the tunnel complex is hundreds of miles away from ISIS territory so I wonder if they actually use it. Pakistani groups might. Strategic displays of overwhelming force are probably useful but trying to make the point all over the planet? There is a general with a big map of the globe - I hope he has the very best intelligence (in both senses) at his disposal? This isn't the 1950s. Things are more complicated now. Afghanistan and China actually share a border. Still thousands of miles to North Korea. |
14th April 2017, 10:55 AM | #65 |
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China is sane but it is not a "free" country by any Western standard and maybe by no global standard.
I'm not an expert but actually I've always been impressed by how China has managed to remain more or less a continuous civilization for so many centuries. Mongol and Manchu invaders were sort of absorbed into China. China goes out and gets what it wants in the global marketplace, no qualms about making deals with any dictatorships. I'm surprised they tolerate the butterball pipsqueak on their border. |
14th April 2017, 11:01 AM | #66 |
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This kinda sums up US gung ho attitude and is cringeworthy to say the least:
https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status/852862819913658369 |
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14th April 2017, 11:08 AM | #67 |
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I suppose, but is there any real doubt that we have a ton of big bombs? I mean, if North Korea is anything other than completely deluded and insane, they are well aware of our ability to annihilate them. They're relying on our restraint and desire to avoid war and likely millions of deaths and even more refugees -- which has previously been a reasonable bet.
If they're insane, then more bombs, even big ones, won't break through their bubble. I just find it hard to believe that one bomb in Afghanistan made them realize we have a big, powerful military. |
14th April 2017, 11:14 AM | #68 |
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"There's vastly more truth to be found in rocks than in holy books. Rocks are far superior, in fact, because you can DEMONSTRATE the truth found in rocks. Plus, they're pretty. Holy books are just heavy." - Dinwar "Let your ears hear this beautiful song that's hiding underneath the sound," Ed Kowalczyk. |
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14th April 2017, 11:18 AM | #69 |
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A brief, oversimplified and maybe the timeline is muddled, but nonetheless true history of stupidity (my opinion of why bombing will never resolve this disaster).
Anyone who thinks we can just "bomb the **** out of ISIS" (Trump's words) and that will be that, hasn't been paying attention to the last half century of warfare in that region. We were there for years fighting a proxy war with Russia, which eventually left Russia there for years backing their own installed government. It could be compared to them fighting their own Vietnam war until the Russian public pressured their leaders to withdraw. Then the Taliban took over after the Russians withdrew. Then after 9/11 we re-invaded, installed Karzai, who only ever ruled the Kabul area. Pakistan next door isn't much more unified, by the way. During all that time, there were plenty of attempts to bomb the **** out of the [fill in the blank with the terrorist group/warlord/faction du jour]. None of which moved the ball down the field. In the meantime, we could have resolved this whole thing had we funded schools instead of armies. But the right wing in our country or Russia's doesn't understand that. Why Exactly Does Saudi Arabia Fund the Spread of Wahhabism?
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All the while those madrassas offered food and education to the poor all over the Middle East and along with it, Muslim extremism. Iran on the other hand had it's own revolution, throwing out the dictator we installed after we crushed their democratically elected leader. And of course, the Sunni/Shia war is not going to end anytime soon. The ignorance of these cultural issues within our government and the dog whistle crowd that cheers them on boggles the mind. |
14th April 2017, 11:23 AM | #70 |
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I'm not a military guy, but is there really a lot of "planning" that goes into this?
You need an airbase to take off from. You need a target. I suspect it's laser guided so you point your laser at the target until it hits. It's not like you have two teams meeting up in the middle of the night that need to synchronize their watches or anything. I guess you could argue that having the bomb sent to the airfield in the first place is a sign of planning. |
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Gunter Haas, the 'leading British expert,' was a graphologist who advised couples, based on their handwriting characteristics, if they were compatible for marriage. I would submit that couples idiotic enough to do this are probably quite suitable for each other. It's nice when stupid people find love. - Ludovic Kennedy |
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14th April 2017, 11:48 AM | #71 |
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If $314 million is the cost for all 20 MOPs, then that puts the unit cost at $16 million.
But the MOP is a far more complex device than the MOAB. The bomb needs to survive incredible shock, surviving high-speed impact with solid rock/concrete, and penetrate deep into that before exploding. That's a wickedly hard engineering challenge, and the manufacturing is probably also pretty demanding. The MOAB just needs to go boom before it hits. I would be surprised if the MOAB came in at anywhere close to $12 million. But it turns out that even the Pentagon doesn't have a unit cost for the MOAB. http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/13/th...totally-wrong/ The MOAB was developed and manufactured in-house, not contracted out to private companies like most weapons systems. So there never was a separate budgeting process for it. But $12 million is almost certainly a huge overestimate. Tomohawk missiles are less than $1 million apiece, and while the MOAB is much, much larger, it's also much, much simpler. I'd bet it's less than $1 million each as well. |
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14th April 2017, 11:54 AM | #72 |
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First off, we DID fund schools in Afghanistan. Second, if you don't fund armies as well, what exactly do you think is going to happen to those schools? You think the Taliban considers them off-limits to attack?
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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14th April 2017, 12:03 PM | #73 |
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Seriously? This is what you want to go with?
We, along with Britain, lead a coup that deposed Mossadegh. We, along with Britain, chose General Fazlollah Zahedi to run the country as Prime Minister. We, along with Britain, supported the Shah as he took power from the Prime Minister. We didn't make him Shah, we made him ruler of Iran. |
14th April 2017, 12:04 PM | #74 |
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14th April 2017, 12:05 PM | #75 |
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14th April 2017, 12:10 PM | #76 |
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I came back in specifically because that MOAB unit price just seemed impossible to me as well... and though I hadn't considered how much more the MOPs hardening could raise its' cost, I'm not sure it could be as costly as you seem to feel. Just like you, I can't imagine a gravity bomb (MOAB) being several times the cost of the guided and rocket powered Tomahawk. Interesting though that an in-house product is proving so hard to track down costs for. Anyway... thanks for posting what you had. |
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---------------------- Anything goes in the Goblin hut... anything. "Suggesting spurious explanations isn't relevant to my work." -- WTC Dust. "Both cannot be simultaneously true, and so one may conclude neither is true, and if neither is true, then Apollo is fraudulent." -- Patrick1000. |
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14th April 2017, 12:12 PM | #77 |
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Music is what feelings sound like "Dulce bellum inexpertīs." - Erasmus |
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14th April 2017, 12:12 PM | #78 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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14th April 2017, 12:18 PM | #79 |
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14th April 2017, 12:20 PM | #80 |
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Why not? It's an incredible engineering challenge. The development costs must have been monstrous. Just think about what you need to do to actually test one of those things just once, even after you've done all the design work. You can't just drop it on the ground somewhere in your firing range. You need to construct a target 200 feet underground, so that you can confirm that it gets destroyed. I'm sure the per-unit cost would drop significantly if more of them were purchased, since those development costs have now been paid for, but they had to be paid for in full with the first batch.
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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