sherpa

You can forget about this crazy theory. The reason I am familiar with this stuff is because I was a Naval Aviator. I completed two carrier cruises. After that, you do your "shore duty." In my case I got selected for the Pacific Fleet Adversary Squadron. That is the best flying job in the Navy because you usually have to do that shore duty tour as an instructor of some sort either training student pilots or recently winged aviators in their assigned carrier aircraft. Back seat stuff. In the Adversaries you fight seasoned aviators from the Navy, Air Force and a number of other countries. It is full speed bad ass fun all the time. Went to Topgun and got designated an Adversary Instructor, which allows you to run these things and brief/debrief them. You also serve as enemy air in a host of complex exercises. In addition to that, while in the Adversaries, I was also on the LAWS, (Light Attack Weapons School) staff, and I was responsible for training experienced carrier pilots on the AIM Sidewinder missile and Soviet air to air missiles and SAMS, as well as fighting them in the exercises they plan and fly. You learn a lot and get very familiar with strike planning, Navy Fleet air defense, Air Force doctrine, and the tactics and capabilities of foreign air forces. Doing the airline career, and commuting from here to NY, Chicago and Miami for years, you spend a lot of time with copilots who flew in the two Gulf Wars, are still in the reserves, and ride in the jumpseats all the time, which allows you to stay up to speed on what is going on. I have many friends who stayed in, two made it to extremely senior positions. Both were Commanders of the US Pacific Fleet and eventually all military forces in the Pacific. One of them ran the entire Naval Air forces during the second Gulf war and who probably would have been appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs if Obama wasn't elected. Name available on request. Still have many friends who were involved in the F-35 program, some interesting stories there, but I have to admit that since retirement, I have lost contact with guys who fly the thing and because it is such a revolutionary platform in many ways, I don't know how they are tactically deploying it. It has a lot of advanced capability. Anyway, not from Lewiston. South Buffalo/West Seneca Courier Express paper boy.

Of course it is full of Jesus saying that various things would be better than denying a relationship with God. Jesus never recommended nor endorsed any of that. He merely pointed out, by exaggeration to the people he was talking to, in a manner they would understand, how separating oneself from fellowship with God was worse than the examples he provided. Show me where he ever commanded eyes be plucked out or hands cut off.

Do you understand the difference between the Old Testament and the New? Nobody does burnt offering sacrifices anymore. Nobody recommends animal sacrifice or blood atonement. The point is moot. The Old Testament stuff ended over 2000 year ago and is irrelevant. Interesting from a historical standpoint, as it is the story of a people preparing for something. But that something occurred, and has been moved on from, with the exception of a very small group.

Time to pay attention. Back on about page 20 of this thread, I mentioned to keep an eye on where these carriers go. If we send one to waters of the Northern Arabian Sea off Oman, it would be very noteworthy. New media reported, universally, that Eisenhower was going to deploy to join Ford in the eastern Med. I mentioned that the thing to watch for was if we deployed a carrier to Fifth Fleet in the Arabian Sea. Here's my quote from the US Navy Birthday thread on October 14: "On a related note, USS Eisenhower was supposed to get underway yesterday from Norfolk, but it has been delayed at least a day. All of the high visibility networks were claiming that it was going to join Ford in the eastern Med, but the Navy never discusses ship movements. She could certainly do that, or backfill the waters near Italy where Ford was supporting the Ukrainian thing, or she could sail through the Suez and join 5th fleet in the northern Indian Ocean to keep Iran in check. I can't imagine the alert level if she transits the Suez." Well.....Guess what? If current reposts are true, and they may not be, Eisenhower is sailing through the Suez the Northern Arabian Sea, as I suggested. This is extremely significant. https://news.usni.org/2023/10/23/uss-dwight-d-eisenhower-midway-across-atlantic-en-route-to-the-middle-east THE PENTAGON – The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean as it heads to the Middle East, instead of joining the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group in the Eastern Mediterranean. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin directed the Ike Carrier Strike Group to U.S. Central Command on Sunday. If this is to be believed, guess where it's going, though they don't mention it.

Great. Saves me time.

We are bombing dark skinned people? If you are talking about Hamas, who are not "dark skinned," we are not doing that. If you're talking about the Syrian strikes, there have been about 30 attacks on US troops by Iranian militia, (read surrogates), in the last three weeks. Should we not respond and simply let this continue? Should we simply ask our deployed forces to absorb these?

Not a chance. By the way, you post that phrase a lot, aimed at a lot of people. Realize how silly it is? You have zero chance to ever bring about any emotion from me, other than laughter and disdain.

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.