sherpa

My ass will never be on fire over anything here, especially the lunes you link to, or any nonsense that you post regarding someone's patriotism or character. Too stupid to consider. Regarding your "standing question," there is a great deal of stuff posted that I never read, especially tweets. I nearly never read them.

So far today you have provided links which quote some unknown clown claiming the US Army Delta Force is going to assist in an Israeli nerve gas/chemical warfare contamination of Gaza tunnels, and some unknow from the Hamas military wing reporting dead hostages. Anybody who pays any attention to those claims is a lunatic. Why do you bring this stuff here? Do you think it has any value whatsoever?

The problem with that is that orthodox Jews don't care for them either, so that could spin in an unknown direction. I like the "sponge bomb" thing, though I often wonder how high the coastal water level would be if sponges didn't grow in the ocean.

In other claims by the "source," the the US plans to place a carrier task force in the Sea of Galilee and rain thermobaric bombs on the west bank.

I'm not sure what you are claiming here but the presence of US forces on the ground in this is not required, nor desired by anybody. The Israelis can handle this on their own without any US ground troops, and frankly, I'm not sure how anyone can suggest such a thing.

Not a chance.

Well thought out and well posted. There is this "male" thing in Islam and the political entities they are bound to which seems to point compromise as weakness. Until a leader emerges in that group that is willing to acknowledge reality, we are going to replay this over and over. Until........weapon technology and ability to deploy that sends the entire thing over the cliff, and we are not that far off. I'm no genius on Israeli politics or posture, but having dealt a bit with the IAF, at a barroom and junior officer level, after a day of chatting I did conclude that they do not think they can survive a surprise attack, which has happened in the past, and will act first without remorse to prevent it. That just happened but on a relatively small scale. I think time is up. Their operations get really ugly coverage, because this is all ugly, but I think they have had enough.

And Israel is not. They are simply unwavering in the defense of their homeland, which has been recently invaded to include rape, killing, burning and beheading.

BS. The preemptive strike in 67 was because there was undeniable evidence that an invasion was coming, within hours if not days. Undeniable and never disputed. Positioning Ford, in no way, indicates a US posture to attack.

They will always find you. They will never provide any reasonable evidence, but they are everywhere. I'm in the process of waiting while my hvac system gets is seasonal service, so I'll relay kind of an interesting story about those helicopters in the failed rescue attempt. They were from a Norfolk, VA squadron, which deploys on sixth fleet, (Atlantic and Med) area. They were at a Monday morning normal squadron "quarters" in Norfolk where the entire squadron assembles in their hangar. At quarters, most, not all, were told to go home and pack for a few weeks. No details were given, but they were told to assemble at 1pm and be prepared to deploy. They all show up and board Air Force transports, who would not tell them where they were headed. During that day, their helicopters were disassembled and mounted on C-5's. They start their journey, and refuled in Anchorage. Again they ask where they were headed and told we can't say, but this isn't it. Eventually they land in Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and are told this was the place. Helicopters arrive and are reassembled in a secure hangar under extreme security. Kitty Hawk ditches the Soviets and heads south instead of north towards the northern IO, which we were told we were headed and prepare for stuff in Iran. Anyway, one morning, I get up and head down to the squadron ready room to read the overnight message traffic and then go to breakfast. My route was to go down a few levels and cross over to the other side of the ship on the hangar bay. I get to the hangar bay and there are four of these helicopters on the hangar bay, all ID marks painted over and sailors were bolting machine guns to the fuselage near the doors. I asked one guy what they were doing, and he said he didn't know, but they were told to mount them. I read the message traffic and head to the wardroom for breakfast. Carriers have two wardrooms for officers. One allows flight suites and the other doesn't, so we always went to the "airdale" wardroom. There are about six guys in flight suits with helicopter squadron patches on at a table that I didn't recognize, so I ask them who they were. They then relay to me their story of having no idea what was going on until they tested their helos the day prior and flew them aboard Kitty Hawk in pure darkness. Thankfully, none of these guys were involved in what ended up being the disaster at Desert One, but their helos did.

"It" was the fire fighting team.

Complete nonsense. You would benefit by doing reasonable research before posting stuff like this. The "Pull it" comment was made when it was obvious the building was going to be lost and it was in reference to a fire fighting team. All of this has been explained without dispute. The only people who screw it up are people aren't aware of it, and the people who have never read the very detailed Popular Mechanics article with a number of structural engineers. You know, guys who have actual knowledge about this stuff.

Ya. That's part of your job. We don't sit around and make up goofy call signs. We specifically came up with the strike plans to eliminate Bandar Abbas and Chahbahr air bases. Kind of silly, but as always, we take out the air defenses before the strike package arrives and both were protected by US Hawk (precursor to Patriot) sam batteries. Since Iran had been an ally, nobody knew exactly where they on the bases. Prior to repositioning satellites to get imagery, which takes time, they found one of the Raytheon guys who helped install them. Next day we get this hand drawn, by memory, diagram of where he thought they were. It was literally drawn in pencil on notebook paper. Anyway, we came up with the strike plans which include number and type of aircraft and weapons loadouts. Once we got there and started doing our normal ops, I got the first intercept of an Iranian airplane. got launched and was directed to the strike control frequency and told that our E2, the carrier early warning airplane had picked up an Iranian P3 headed towards us about 200 miles away. Got data linked up with the E2 who sent the intercept data to my heads up display and intercepted him at 100 miles. He never saw me until I joined on him and showed him my two Sidewinder missiles. Strike told me if he got within 25 miles I was going to get authorization to shoot him. I told them the Sidewinders were both good and if they gave me authorization there wasn't going to be any asking for verification; the missiles were coming off the rails. Anyway, he got within ten miles of Kitty Hawk and still no authorization, and he turned away. Would have made for quite a memory.

A fuzz buster is a device that alerts when a vehicle is being painted by a patrol car radar for speeding purposes.

Admirals don't plan stuff, they run stuff. When the Iranians seized the US Embassy in Tehran, we were in port at Subic Bay, Philippines. We had completed our six month western Pacific cruise and were to get underway for San Diego in two days. We were directed to go the northern Indian Ocean just south of Iran and prepare for whatever might happen. On the way, we ditched the Soviet Navy ship that always trailed us, and surreptitiously picked up the ill fated helicopters that were involved in the disastrous rescue attempt that Carter ran. They were stashed out of sight on the hangar deck, but that's another story. Anyway, on the way to our position east of Oman, which took us about seven days as I recall, we were directed to come up with plans to destroy the Iranian Air Force capability, so we came up with those strike plans. Lots of kind of funny stuff involved in that, including surreptitiously purchasing "Fuzz Busters" from Sears, who never figured out the US Navy was the buyer. After about three months on station we were relieved by Nimitz, who launched the rescue attempt a couple months later. When I was made aware of the actual plan by friends on Nimitz, obviously aborted after the disaster in the Iranian desert I was absolutely shocked.

I'm not interested in convincing you of anything, the process is called deterrence. If you deploy significant forces to an area it indicates your willingness to act if things get out of control. If certain things happen and you don't use those forces, it is worse than never deploying them. The positioning of sixth fleet forces in the Eastern Med is a lot less effective as a threat re Iran than assigning a carrier to the fifth fleet and positioning it in the Arabian Sea just east of Oman. Been there and planned that. As force deployment is now, if the US Navy was to act against Iran it would be a Tomahawk cruise missile thing more than a carrier airwing strike. I have no idea what the Saudi view is of permitting US Air Force aircraft to strike Iran from Saudi bases.

They always prepare. Wait until the Navy stations a carrier in the northern Indian Ocean, with a significant task force.

Ya, because it is far more humane to launch unguided explosives with motors attached to them into civilian areas other than hospitals.

I'm not sure where anybody got the idea that the Israelis were discussing getting rid of everybody in the Gaza. They said, and I believe they mean it and will try to do so, is to eliminate Hamas. This never ends until the Palestinians in the Gaza get Hamas gone or Hamas has a massive change of heart, which has near zero probability. Of course the other key to the equation is getting rid of the real source of this, which is the Iranian regime.

Are you out of your mind. It is your claim and your claim only that Israel is involved in ethnic cleansing. There is nothing "ethnic" about a terrorist organization. They are intent on once and for all, eliminating a political terrorist organization that has an expressed goal of eradicating them, which has recently participated in some of the most barbaric actions seen in history, and is the direct cause of massive misery for their own people, and they are run by a despotic regime and treated as human sacrifice to enable that distant, useless regime. In no way is that ethnic cleansing, and it is time it was dealt with.

It is particularly curious that he would suggest that the Israelis are engaged in "ethnic cleansing," since the Hamas Charter specifically calls for that regarding the Jews, who they also blame for WWI and WWII, as well as the Russian and French Revolutions.

Here's a list of countries that have expelled Palestinians since the creation of Israel. Iraq Saudi Arabia Libya Jordan Lebanon Kuwait In perhaps the largest displacement, (from over 400,000 to less than 20,000), Kuwait did so in 1991 following the US' and coalition forces forced the Iraqis out following their invasion of Kuwait. They did so because Arafat's PLO endorsed the Iraqi invasion. Looking at that list, and the undeniable history, I hold very little hope that Arab nations will resettle them in their lands.

2. Israel has just spun up a unit for that very purpose, which is to track down and kill those from Hamas who participated in the brutal massacre. 3. Been tried. Agreements proposed. Rejected by Arafat.

Simply reflecting on this horrible situation. Again, I've never supported Trump and never will, but when his name is constantly brought up by certain individuals in threads that really don't have to do with him, I note the following: There have been a number of accusations made against him by posts here that he "almost got us into a war with Iran." I never paid attention to them, but eventually I asked how, and the response was how he called off an offensive operation against Iran. Puzzled, but not surprised at the response. Now, we are in a war with Iran. Make no mistake, this thing by Hamas, some additional limited activity from Hezbollah, and now the latest missile and drone intercepts by US Naval forces from Iran's most recent franchise, he Houthi rebels in Yemen suggest that we are indeed in a war with Iran. Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels are in fact, Iran. We have two carrier battle groups positioned because of this, and have now been asked to contribute a fortune in aid. Yep. Is is indeed, a war.

I know who I'm rootin' for.