Military SNAFU's
- Thread starter Blondie
- Start date
herodotus
Well-known member
Invading Iraq in 2003. Thousands of our soldiers dead and tens of thousands wounded. Somewhere between 300,000 and 1.5 million Iraqi civilians dead and 3 to 5 times that number displaced. We destabilized an entire region. The refugee crisis that war triggered in Syria combined with poor harvests caused by climate change led to a horrible civil war there that killed hundreds of thousands more. A stable, albeit authoritarian, regime was replaced by a vacuum filled by religious extremism and terrorism. So Iraq.
Or do you mean just state side?
That would either be Little Big Horn, Fredericksburg, or Washington building a fort in a valley that made him extremely vulnerable to Indian attack.
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Blondie
Well-known member
@herodotus i started a new podcast… SNAFU
1st season was about Able Archer 83… which was apparently back in 1983, when we almost got into a real life nuclear war with Soviet Union, and SU shot down an American passenger plane because they thought it was a spy plane… apparently SU was paranoid because of a NATO exercise in Germany in case of a nuclear war, but they thought it was real.
I want to see if even Shiva knows about this so I toss him some bait on the zone.
1st season was about Able Archer 83… which was apparently back in 1983, when we almost got into a real life nuclear war with Soviet Union, and SU shot down an American passenger plane because they thought it was a spy plane… apparently SU was paranoid because of a NATO exercise in Germany in case of a nuclear war, but they thought it was real.
I want to see if even Shiva knows about this so I toss him some bait on the zone.
herodotus
Well-known member
There are two Soviet officers we have to thank for still being here. One is Vasili Arkhipov who refused to go along with his submarine captain and political officer in giving consent to launch a nuclear torpedo. The other is Stanislav Petrov who refused to believe what his radar scope was telling him, the computer was showing a couple dozen American missiles flying towards the USSR. Petrov dismissed the information by saying why would the US launch so few.
Able Archer was a fuck up, but thanks to Col. Petrov it wasn't THE Fuckup it could have been but unholy hell did we ever come close to not being here. As far as the Pan Am plane, god damn that airline was the Malaysian Air of the 1980s. If you wanted to have a destiny with death you took that flight.
Now about Able Archer, I will say it because it needs to be said, the reason I am against efforts to prolong and escalate the war in Ukraine is that well
1. I saw The Day After as a kid. It was 1989, the wall in Berlin fell and ABC was reairing it as we all breathed a sigh of relief that a massive bullet had been dodged. I was 6, mom tried to keep me from watching it and I watched it. For years every time I heard the emergency siren being tested I had a chill go up my back. You see Chickie, I grew up in Kansas City. Lawrence, an hour west. Sedalia and Whiteman AFB? 60 to 90 east. Yeah, those weren't abstract geographical places those were home. Those were me.
2. Fast forward to the present, there is a nuclear bomb components plant 10 miles south of my house. The Army war college in Leavenworth is an hour west. Ft. Riley, home of the big red 1 is a couple hours west. Whiteman, home of the B-2s is 60 minutes east. There are a shit load of strategic targets that would be ripe for a nuclear strike
3. We still have 8000 nukes and Russia still has 8000. Okay, so some such as Illiterateunstylish will insist we have an ABM shield that can take out 70 to 90 percent of these. Okay that's still around a 1000 nukes that get through.
4. You don't build all these nukes and sink billions to upgrade and build more of them if you don't have a scenario in mind for using them.
To my great relief, Putin and NATO have been very restrained so far on using nukes, but I don't know how much longer we can rely on that restraint.
Able Archer was a fuck up, but thanks to Col. Petrov it wasn't THE Fuckup it could have been but unholy hell did we ever come close to not being here. As far as the Pan Am plane, god damn that airline was the Malaysian Air of the 1980s. If you wanted to have a destiny with death you took that flight.
Now about Able Archer, I will say it because it needs to be said, the reason I am against efforts to prolong and escalate the war in Ukraine is that well
1. I saw The Day After as a kid. It was 1989, the wall in Berlin fell and ABC was reairing it as we all breathed a sigh of relief that a massive bullet had been dodged. I was 6, mom tried to keep me from watching it and I watched it. For years every time I heard the emergency siren being tested I had a chill go up my back. You see Chickie, I grew up in Kansas City. Lawrence, an hour west. Sedalia and Whiteman AFB? 60 to 90 east. Yeah, those weren't abstract geographical places those were home. Those were me.
2. Fast forward to the present, there is a nuclear bomb components plant 10 miles south of my house. The Army war college in Leavenworth is an hour west. Ft. Riley, home of the big red 1 is a couple hours west. Whiteman, home of the B-2s is 60 minutes east. There are a shit load of strategic targets that would be ripe for a nuclear strike
3. We still have 8000 nukes and Russia still has 8000. Okay, so some such as Illiterateunstylish will insist we have an ABM shield that can take out 70 to 90 percent of these. Okay that's still around a 1000 nukes that get through.
4. You don't build all these nukes and sink billions to upgrade and build more of them if you don't have a scenario in mind for using them.
To my great relief, Putin and NATO have been very restrained so far on using nukes, but I don't know how much longer we can rely on that restraint.
Blondie
Well-known member
So IYO, America or Russia is the ticking time bomb?
herodotus
Well-known member
IMVHO, both are.
Russia- Actually its not Putin we have to worry about. I don't think he has the cajones to use them. Who or what comes between now and 2036, or whenever he goes away? That's a whole other matter. We get a civil war there? Who knows. We get a hardliner who is tired of Putin pussy footing, and yes the proverbial woods over there are full of ultra nationalists who want Putin "to stop being a little bitch and destroy NATO." Hopefully, we get a new Khrushchev or Gorby who will work to restore relations with the west and I hope it comes soon, but way I see it, Russia is one hell of a ticking time bomb
USA- Orange Fuck has been asking since term one why can't we just use nukes? The good news is we just have to wait until 2029 before we get a cooler head in DC. The bad news? We have to survive until 2029 before bozo goes away. Until Trump goes we are a huge ticking time bomb.
There's also India and Pakistan, we are seeing the result of souring religious driven hostilities (Muslim v Hindu) and water wars. That one would theoretically not cause us too many direct problems but if we get involved because Russia or China get involved or if Russia and China get involved because we get involved a regional nuclear war could go global
Less likely but possible-
China- Its possible, they are up to about 1000 nukes now but they seem more interested in buying power than military confrontation, and Xi I am not worried about but if we get a Hardliner we could see it.
Israhell and North Korea, Britain and France- They have nukes but are the least likely to use them. Israel won't use use them unless Iran gets the bomb and Iran still doesn't have the means to build one. North Korea doesn't use the bomb unless we invade them. Britain and France don't use the bomb unless Russia attacks NATO countries in NATO terrritory, see Article V.
So right now, we have at least 2 and maybe 4, possibly 5, timebombs.
Like I said, until people from Moscow to Washington to Paris to Berlin to Beijing to Delhi to Islamabad come to their senses and stop shooting off fireworks in a room full of gasoline its only a matter of time before someone uses these.
I should hope we could get some Daniel Berrigan clones in these countries and beat these horrible things into plowshares.
Agreed. Vietnam is stride for stride with Iraq
You didn't know about this?? I was in the Army then.
Blondie
Well-known member
Not many people have even heard about this. I have asked many people since I learned about this podcast and I’m not alone here. Why do we even need to talk about conspiracies when real SNAFU’s exist!?!?!?