Bombings, Mass shootings & Domestic Security Issues in the US

[Todjaeger]

My understanding on the war on drugs is it is a hopeless failure. As long as immense profits can be had and the demand continues, total C-F is the result. Legalize and distribute via the health care system and at least eliminate the profit motive for the criminal element.

Not to be mean, but one would have to be naive to believe that legalizing and routing distribution through a healthcare system (esp. one as functional as the US...) would eliminate either the illicit trade in drugs, or the profits to be made in the illicit drug trade.

Take fentanyl as an example, it is a legally available controlled substance available via prescription from licensed pharmacies (chemists to you lot on the other side of the pond...) yet it has increasingly been smuggled into the US and used as an additive to heroin and other opioid drugs, to the point that US authorities in CBP had seized and was holding a total in excess of ~3,500 lbs. between 62 vaults across the country as of July 2019. To provide a bit more perspective on the dangers, the amount of fentanyl CBP had seized and was holding at the time was enough to administer a fatal dose to 794 mil. (yes million) people.

This really get into the issue where the issue of the demand for illicit substances really needs to be addressed and reduced, as there is simply too much demand for any attempts to control the supply-side to work. Another example of a legally available, yet controlled substance that is smuggled and in some cases sold illicitly is cigarettes of all things. There are some people who operate in gray or black market areas that manage to engage in profitable trade smuggling in cigarettes for resale, this is largely due to the high prices and taxes on cigarettes sold through legal vendors.

I make no claims as to what or how more people in America could be made into productive members of society who do not consume illicit substances and/or want to injure/kill others, but I do truly believe that at least some significant progress needs to be made towards such a goal, in one wishes to reduce the frequency and/or scope of things like mass shootings.

 

[OPSSG]

... I do truly believe that at least some significant progress needs to be made towards such a goal, in one wishes to reduce the frequency and/or scope of things like mass shootings.

Well said. Well said, my friend.

Increasingly, the biggest threat to American life, liberty and freedom is the decision made by another American. Over 333,000 Americans dead and 1 out of every 1,500 Americans (over the age of 25) hospitalized for Covid-19. Astonishing to me that Americans are still debating the necessity of masks or some form of sensible compromise on gun control and the running of ATF (while keeping the 2nd Amendment).

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1343527157532946434

Often times, the mainstreaming of agenda of a group of nutcases by an orange man on a podium, over the last 4 years seems to be the problem.

It is well past the point where foreigners like me can believe in Americans coming together, to provide solutions to your country’s problems — in areas like gun control — or reducing the scale and numbers of mass shootings. I am not even sure if President-elect Biden's gun control plan that outlines a buyback program for "assault weapons and high-capacity magazines," goes far enough to reduce mass shootings. The program is not a mandatory buyback and would not force people to give their up their guns. According to Biden's website, the buyback program "will give individuals who now possess assault weapons or high-capacity magazines two options: sell the weapons to the government, or register them under the National Firearms Act."

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1343810690578968576

I am an admirer of Tocqueville’s writing and his analysis of the United States. Tocqueville spent 9 months in the United States, from May 1831 till Feb 1832 when he left the country. Like him, the first time, I set foot in America in the mid-1990s, I was excited to see the land and people Tocqueville wrote about. Tocqueville describes as the restless activity of Americans to make a profit by working hard. I was so impressed; but today, what I see does not impress me. Or rather, America’s current governmental dysfunction is a cautionary tale of what not to do for any country trying to survive a pandemic.

 

[OPSSG]

Warner—63 years old—is aging loser in life who gave in to an obsessive-compulsive political fantasy. In this case, this bomber took remarkable pains to minimize injury to others. While we have not yet heard the message intended in Nashville, I suspect it will be made clear within this month.

Warner, was not like Paddock, an American mass murderer; and the perpetrator of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, in which he opened fire into a crowd of approximately 22,000 concertgoers attending a country music festival in Las Vegas. The incident is the deadliest mass shooting by a lone shooter in US history, with 61 fatalities (including Paddock) and 867 injuries, 411 of them by gunfire. Paddock committed suicide in his hotel room shortly after the shooting.

Still no idea of a motive though.

I think the FBI has a case theory and BAU has been working on his motive — but they are not willing to share it, yet.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1343318387502551046

 

[JohnWolf]

Well said. Well said, my friend.

Increasingly, the biggest threat to American life, liberty and freedom is the decision made by another American. Over 333,000 Americans dead and 1 out of every 1,500 Americans (over the age of 25) hospitalized for Covid-19. Astonishing to me that Americans are still debating the necessity of masks or

Whoa! Hold up there, boss.
I was going to stay out of this, but I can't let that go.

Anti-Lockdown protests have been going on all over the Western World. A few weeks ago in Germany they had to bring out those big nasty trucks with water-cannon on them to disperse the crowds, a cute trick when it's cold outside. People have also been raising hell in Spain and the UK so it's not as if the people of the USA are weird or stupid or totally removed from the mainstream for questioning the intelligence of trying to catch Mayflies with a chain-link fence.
Is fighting a disease that you have a 99.7% chance to survive worth the fragmentation of society and crushing the economic independence of the middle class?
The CDC has had to admit that 70% of the people listed as dead of COVID actually died of other causes, so let's get real.

Often times, the mainstreaming of agenda of a group of nutcases by an orange man on a podium, over the last 4 years seems to be the problem.

..... really?
Politics aside (hopefully) that is half the country that can be swept up with that very broad generalization. I realize that I will risk being banned for saying so, but I don't think that disenfranchising half the people in a Representative Republic will be very helpful.

It is well past the point where foreigners like me can believe in Americans coming together, to provide solutions to your country’s problems — in areas like gun control — or reducing the scale and numbers of mass shootings. I am not even sure if President-elect Biden's gun control plan that outlines a buyback program for "assault weapons and high-capacity magazines," goes far enough to reduce mass shootings. The program is not a mandatory buyback and would not force people to give their up their guns. According to Biden's website, the buyback program "will give individuals who now possess assault weapons or high-capacity magazines two options: sell the weapons to the government, or register them under the National Firearms Act."

And registration leads to confiscation, as has always been the case.

Can't Americans reserve the right to be different?

I am an admirer of Tocqueville’s writing and his analysis of the United States. Tocqueville spent 9 months in the United States, from May 1831 till Feb 1832 when he left the country. Like him, the first time, I set foot in America in the mid-1990s, I was excited to see the land and people Tocqueville wrote about. Tocqueville describes as the restless activity of Americans to make a profit by working hard. I was so impressed; but today, what I see does not impress me. Or rather, America’s current governmental dysfunction is a cautionary tale of what not to do for any country trying to survive a pandemic.

You were here, and you came away with a very positive view. What changed that, the media? Unless you have been here recently, I would guess that's what changed your mind.
With all due respect, I think we have earned the right to sort things out for ourselves.


EDIT -

On the motive for the Bombing--

The Motive for the Nashville Suicide Bomber Has Been Revealed

Why he did it

bongino.com

 

[swerve]

...
The CDC has had to admit that 70% of the people listed as dead of COVID actually died of other causes, so let's get real.
...

Bollocks.

Look at excess mortality. In the USA, the increase in deaths in 2020 is more than the officially recorded tally of CoViD-19 deaths. How do you explain that? You are confusing deaths where there was another factor with deaths from other causes. It's solidly established that where we have the information, most deaths of people with CoViD-19 also have other factors, but that doesn't mean they're not CoViD-19 deaths. It's bloody obvious from the statistics that they're extra deaths, deaths which would not have occurred without CoViD-19. That person with diabetes who caught CoViD-19 & died? Would probably have lived many more years without it. And so on.

When five times the number of people who died in x month last year die in the same month this year, even if most of them have a pre-existing condition, it's silly to say they all died of those conditions, & not CoViD-19. Almost every disease affects those with pre-existing conditions worse than those with perfect health. That doesn't mean that nobody dies of any disease, does it? At some point a judgement must be made as to the primary or proximate cause. In some cases that's hard, but errors on the margin don't make all such judgements automatically invalid. Everyone knows that someone who already has one disease can be pushed over the edge by catching another one. Some of those people would have died anyway - but when? Next week? Next year? Ten years from now? In most cases, it's not going to be tomorrow, or even next week. Why is it wrong to say that someone who caught CoViD-19 & died didn't die of it, because they had another condition which might (but not necessarily) have killed them next year?

BTW, Russia's official count of CoViD-19 deaths is done on your basis. Deaths have gone up by between four & five times the official CoViD-19 count. According to official numbers, there's an epidemic of pneumonia, & those pneumonia victims tested for SARS-Cov2 almost all seem to have tested positive. How would you explain that? Sheer coincidence? No connection at all? Or maybe those deaths might be related to that new virus?

Most people who've looked at it reckon the Russians are being dishonest, deliberately keeping down the headline CoViD-19 death figures by classifying every death with a co-morbidity as due to that, not CoViD-19. Is that what you think the USA should do? It'd be mocked for it, y'know. It would put the USA into the same category as dictatorships with dodgy numbers. Like that idea?

It's simple arithmetic, basic logic, & normal medical practice.

First, answer this question: if CoViD-19 didn't kill the hundreds of thousands of extra people who've died this year in the USA (& a couple of million counted around the world), then what did? Until you have an answer for that, I will continue to apply William of Ockham's razor.

[Edit] I've just read that the Russians have admitted what everyone who's looked at the numbers has known for months: their official death tally has been hugely understated. Rosstat (national statistical office) counted 229,700 more deaths between January & November than in the same period last year. The Russian government said today that 81% of those deaths were caused by CoViD-19, i.e. about 186,000. The previously published number of CoViD-19 deaths up to the end of November was 39,985. The new number is close to unofficial estimates.

I don't see that the Russian government has a motive for lying about covering up the true figure for several months. I suspect they've come clean because the cover up had failed, & had become an embarrassment.

 

[swerve]

This bombing seems to indicate a new kind of animal entering the game; one that broadcasts a warning for people to stay away before the blast?
Doesn't make them any less crazy, probably the opposite, but still something very new & unusual.

And as far as Defense issues go, an armed populace is a tremendous boon for the USA. It makes invasion & successful occupation of American territory an impossibility for an enemy power. "A gun behind every blade of grass", as some have noted, is a factual reality, and by comparison would make the Middle East seem like a vacation spot for an army of occupation.

And lastly; I thought that 5G was a dead issue.... ?

The IRA conducted economic warfare campaigns in which it usually gave warnings of bombs. It's not a new thing.

Other countries with "a gun behind every blade of grass" have been successfully invaded & occupied. When occupations have been successfully opposed, it's usually been with foreign support. The Red Army was winning in Afghanistan until its opponents got large-scale aid from abroad, for example.

There are always lunatics who imagine that x, y or z technology is dangerous, & being pushed by some evil conspiracy, whether it's mobile telephony, vaccines, or whatever. I recall when I worked for a mobile phone network there was a small riot in an Irish country town, opposing the installation of a 2G mobile phone mast on the local police station. It was part of a deal my employer had made with the Gardai (police): we paid for & installed the antennae (& IIRC more hardware) for their new digital radio system, & in return we got to use the masts for our transceivers, & put base stations in their buildings.

The demonstrators opposed it because, of course, mobile telephone transmitters were eeevil things which fried brains. The fact that both new systems together, operating at maximum capacity, would put out less RF energy than the old police system that was being replaced wasn't getting through their thick skulls.

 

[JohnWolf]

No.
Post deleted.
Haven't even been here a week yet, and this isn't what I came fore.
My bad.

 

[Boagrius]

No.
Post deleted.
Haven't even been here a week yet, and this isn't what I came fore.

Fair enough, response deleted in kind.

 

[ngatimozart]

@JohnWolf In New Zealand we have run a program of lockdowns of various degrees, compulsory border quarantine of all incoming people, closed the border to non nationals and non residents with the exception of very few in special circumstances on a case by case basis, have compulsory mask wearing on public transport, at all levels of restrictions except the lowest (which we are in at the moment) have social distancing of 2 metres and restrictions on numbers at public gatherings. We have a total of 25 deaths due to COVID-19 and something like 1,500 infections in total out of a population of 5 million. We have eliminated the spread of virus within the general population, but we still have it entering the country across the border. However it's contained within the border quarantine system. However we have to be very vigilant and like every human system, the quarantine system has its weaknesses. We just need to look at the events earlier this year in Sydney, NSW to reinforce that message. That was caused by 2 security guards shagging people in quarantine and it got out of hand from there. It took the NSW state govt a good couple of months to stamp that outbreak out and it caused significant hardship and disruption to people within the state.

 

[Boagrius]

@JohnWolf In New Zealand we have run a program of lockdowns of various degrees, compulsory border quarantine of all incoming people, closed the border to non nationals and non residents with the exception of very few in special circumstances on a case by case basis, have compulsory mask wearing on public transport, at all levels of restrictions except the lowest (which we are in at the moment) have social distancing of 2 metres and restrictions on numbers at public gatherings. We have a total of 25 deaths due to COVID-19 and something like 1,500 infections in total out of a population of 5 million. We have eliminated the spread of virus within the general population, but we still have it entering the country across the border. However it's contained within the border quarantine system. However we have to be very vigilant and like every human system, the quarantine system has its weaknesses. We just need to look at the events earlier this year in Sydney, NSW to reinforce that message. That was caused by 2 security guards shagging people in quarantine and it got out of hand from there. It took the NSW state govt a good couple of months to stamp that outbreak out and it caused significant hardship and disruption to people within the state.

Ahem, excuse me but that was in Melbourne. Please don't lump us in with that lot . That said I'm in part of Sydney where we have recently gone into lockdown again after a long period of having things essentially back to normal. Hopefully we can squash this latest flare up in short order too.

 

[ngatimozart]

Ahem, excuse me but that was in Melbourne. Please don't lump us in with that lot . That said I'm in part of Sydney where we have recently gone into lockdown again after a long period of having things essentially back to normal. Hopefully we can squash this latest flare up in short order too.

My apologies to Melburnians for lumping them in with the arch foe Sorry I forgot it was a Victorian SNAFU. Mind you I am a diehard Maroons supporter when it comes to State of Origin and a Broncos supporter for the NRL. I will not support that Auckland franchise. It's against my religion to support any Auckland team.

Yes I have been following the latest Sydney outbreak. Again it emphasises that it takes very little for an outbreak to occur and very difficult to bring it under control. It doesn't help matters much when people blatantly disregard instructions from the state government and health authorities. Mind you I reckon if one of the symptoms and outcomes was the dreaded incurable galloping knob rot people would be following the rules closely without complaint.

 

[Feanor]

No chance, 50 years from now? 100?
Try telling the PLA that the US is inviolable, they will take it as a personal insult.
And to clarify actual firepower; there is no easy access to Assault Rifles that can fire fully automatic. That kind of weapon costs tens of thousands of dollars with liscensing and fees and taxes and limited availability comes into it. Criminals don't go that route. In fact, Police use their weapons to commit crimes at triple the rate that Concealed Carry Permit holders do.
From a National Defense point of view, the real value of armed citizens is the sniper that can threaten a man-sized target from up to a Kilometer away, the urban ambushers, and the easy-looking victim that can turn the tables on an attacker in a heartbeat.
As things stand, even if the USA collapses into Civil War {an actual topic of discussion in some areas.... but the idiots indulging in that always fade away when I ask what they think a Civil War in a country with over 3,300 nuclear warheads would look like} there is still no chance of an enemy power taking a slice of America for themselves.
And that's all I have to say about it.

There's a lot to say to this, so I'll try to go in order.

From a National Defense point of view if a guerilla resistance movement was desirable the way to do that would not be to push for individuals to hoard private arsenals or even to socialize gun ownership as a desirable element of the culture. And you'll notice those things aren't actually being done. They're happening despite not thanks to efforts of the US government.

The way to do that would be to form territorial resistance units that work similar to the reserves, except they would train for guerilla warfare in their areas of residence, and keep their weapons stored in centralized locations. They would also have chains of command, available supply locations with food, water, and field-gear such as backpacks and tactical vests, for when they're needed. This would be far more effective than the lone gunman sniper taking potshots at Chinese paratroopers (a fantasy really).

But you'll notice this isn't being done either. That's because from a National Defense point of view planning to defeat the enemy through guerilla resistance is like planning to lose, or planning to win by taking horrific damage to your own country's infrastructure and population. Consider Vietnam. Arguably North Vietnam won against the US, but the human and economic cost is so high that it's a Pyrrhic victory at best, not dissimilar to the Mujahadeen "victory" in Afghanistan over Soviet forces, at the end of which Afghanistan turned into essentially a failed state and remains one to this day.

Planning for that kind of war is a questionable strategy at best, and downright idiotic at worst. Which brings me to the real point. In the modern world cases where another country successfully invades and annexes part of another state are relatively rare since WWII ended. The only recent example is Crimea, and it points in the direction of the real threat. Ukrainian civilians weren't taking potshots at Russian forces in Crimea not because they didn't have guns but because they didn't have the desire. Nevermind civilians, units of the MVD (troops of the interior) changed sides wholesale, and some Ukrainian military units even provided logistical support to Russian forces as they were occupying and annexing Crimea.

The real threat is not the Chinese marine or paratrooper marching on US soil, but the decay of the legitimacy of a state's government, and it's institutions. If the US government has the trust and support of its citizenry and it's organs and institutions are seen as legitimate, the US should plan to defeat a prospective invading force (be they Soviet or North Korean ) with conventional means, ideally at sea, given the geography, while keeping the nuclear option in it's back pocket. Whereas if the US as a nation-state decays to such a point that annexing a piece of it, or at least permanently occupying, becomes a realistic prospect, private gun ownership is unlikely to be the main problem the occupying forces will face. The biggest one will probably be the shipping costs of getting men and materiel across the ocean.

 

[JohnWolf]

There's a lot to say to this, so I'll try to go in order.

From a National Defense point of view if a guerilla resistance movement was desirable the way to do that would not be to push for individuals to hoard private arsenals or even to socialize gun ownership as a desirable element of the culture. And you'll notice those things aren't actually being done. They're happening despite not thanks to efforts of the US government.

The way to do that would be to form territorial resistance units that work similar to the reserves, except they would train for guerilla warfare in their areas of residence, and keep their weapons stored in centralized locations. They would also have chains of command, available supply locations with food, water, and field-gear such as backpacks and tactical vests, for when they're needed. This would be far more effective than the lone gunman sniper taking potshots at Chinese paratroopers (a fantasy really).

[Mod edit: Text deleted for trolling]

This centralized approach leaves the Guerrillas open to betrayal by Quislings (see Partisans in Europe during WW2) and is a needless complication given the situation in the US. Potential Partisans here already know each other, families and friends, and would be far harder to infiltrate ... as has been the case with so many insurgent operations in the Middle East.

Supplies have already been stockpiled, I don't know if you are aware of this but you just can't find ammo in the US these days for most calibers, at any price.

A de-centralized state of constant resistance is far harder to deal with than anything else, and M.I. will verify that be reason of their inability to deal with it. [Mod edit: Rubbish — what you say is untrue. And you must know that this statement is not true.

If resistance is conducted at group level, without coordination, any resistance of this sort of micro-scale resistance can be overcome in a meeting engagement by a platoon sized force.

But as insurgent/terror groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and so on have evolved, they have become more dangerous by behaving in a coordinated manner. Despite this mutation in insurgent lethality, American special forces in Iraq, the Israeli military (IDF) in her cross border conflicts have evolved deadly responses to insurgent groups. A quick review of the US military’s the Find, Fix, Finish, Exploit, Analyze, and Disseminate (F3EAD) process, may be useful for a layman reading about it for the first time. See also: Defense planning in preparation for foreign occupation

When a situation arises to which the US considers deploying military forces, the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) and President (POTUS) require a range of options from which to address the situation. The joint operation planning process or JOPP provides a framework for the war fighter to gain a better understanding of the nature of the problems and objectives (see also this article on 'Design and Joint Operation Planning'). The purpose of military planning is to provide military options to the SECDEF and POTUS. These military options are considered a long with other options like economic sanctions.

This F3EAD targeting methodology utilized by the US Special Operations Forces is responsible for some of the most highly-publicized missions in support of overseas contingency operations (likewise the IDF would have a very similar process).

• F3EAD is a system that allows the Commander of these forces to anticipate and predict enemy operations, identify, locate, and target enemy forces, and to perform intelligence exploitation and analysis of captured enemy personnel and materiel.
• Central to the F3EAD process is the functional fusion of operations and intelligence functions throughout the military organization. In F3EAD, commanders establish targeting priorities, the intelligence system provides the direction to the target, and the operations system performs the decisive operations necessary to accomplish the mission. ]

The only answer to it would be the wholesale genocide of everyone in sight, and you don't see many governments out there willing to be so open about being worse than the 3rd Reich. Pol Pot's Cambodia comes to mind, and for a brief time, Rwanda, but that's about all for the last half Century.

But you'll notice this isn't being done either. That's because from a National Defense point of view planning to defeat the enemy through guerilla resistance is like planning to lose, or planning to win by taking horrific damage to your own country's infrastructure and population. Consider Vietnam. Arguably North Vietnam won against the US, but the human and economic cost is so high that it's a Pyrrhic victory at best, not dissimilar to the Mujahadeen "victory" in Afghanistan over Soviet forces, at the end of which Afghanistan turned into essentially a failed state and remains one to this day.

I think that if you ask them, most of those two populations would say that winning was better than losing.

Planning for that kind of war is a questionable strategy at best, and downright idiotic at worst. Which brings me to the real point. In the modern world cases where another country successfully invades and annexes part of another state are relatively rare since WWII ended. The only recent example is Crimea, and it points in the direction of the real threat. Ukrainian civilians weren't taking potshots at Russian forces in Crimea not because they didn't have guns but because they didn't have the desire. Nevermind civilians, units of the MVD (troops of the interior) changed sides wholesale, and some Ukrainian military units even provided logistical support to Russian forces as they were occupying and annexing Crimea.

I doubt that they were ever very serious about holding on to "the canker on the nose of the Ukraine". So what is the point? That California would welcome their Chinese overlords the way Silicon Valley already is?

The real threat is not the Chinese marine or paratrooper marching on US soil, but the decay of the legitimacy of a state's government, and it's institutions. If the US government has the trust and support of its citizenry and it's organs and institutions are seen as legitimate, the US should plan to defeat a prospective invading force (be they Soviet or North Korean ) with conventional means, ideally at sea, given the geography, while keeping the nuclear option in it's back pocket. Whereas if the US as a nation-state decays to such a point that annexing a piece of it, or at least permanently occupying, becomes a realistic prospect, private gun ownership is unlikely to be the main problem the occupying forces will face. The biggest one will probably be the shipping costs of getting men and materiel across the ocean.

And here we come to the real issue; what is the 2nd amendment really about?

It is about allowing the people to resist tyranny.

The very phrase "American Exceptionalism" is treated like a joke these days, so let's go with that. Why should the USA think that it is impossible for this nation to devolve into tyranny just as every other nation on Earth with an older history has, at some point in it's history?

This is our last-ditch insurance policy against that, when all is said and done.

It is about the Defense of We The People, not a power structure in the richest city in the country. (four of the five richest counties in the US are the ones right next to Washington D.C.)

The reason my belief is not shaken by the deaths of 20 children in one incident, is because the fact that 200 million people have been murdered by their own Governments in the last 2 centuries weighs a bit heavier on my mind.

 

[OPSSG]

#Nashvillebombing Updates

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1343709566622720001

1. FBI presser on #Nashvillebombing:
- taskforce came together - teams of agents - started handling leads (around 500 tips came in)
- "That's the stage we are at in this investigation"
- FBI and ATF bomb technicians on sight
- Individual or individuals - don't know right now

2. No indication of additional explosive/bomb threats
- Investigative team is turning over every stone to find out who is responsible and why they did this
- Evidence is being processed at the scene so local businesses are not impacted

3. Questions & Answers from FBI
- Can't confirm any individuals FBI may have identified.
- No indication that FBI is looking for another subject but investigation continues
- AT&T question asked: FBI are looking at every possibility.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1343591729216286720

Arrest record of Anthony Quinn Warner, the apparent Nashville suicide bomber was released.

 

[ngatimozart]

...centralized approach leaves the Guerrillas open to betrayal by Quislings (see Partisans in Europe during WW2) and is a needless complication given the situation in the US. Potential Partisans here already know each other, families and friends, and would be far harder to infiltrate ... as has been the case with so many insurgent operations in the Middle East.
Supplies have already been stockpiled, I don't know if you are aware of this but you just can't find ammo in the US these days for most calibers, at any price.

A de-centralized state of constant resistance is far harder to deal with than anything else, and M.I. will verify that be reason of their inability to deal with it.
[Mod edit: Rubbish — what you say is untrue. And you must know that this statement is not true.

If resistance is conducted at group level, without coordination, any resistance of this sort of micro-scale resistance can be overcome in a meeting engagement by a platoon sized force.

But as insurgent/terror groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and so on have evolved, they have become more dangerous by behaving in a coordinated manner.

Despite this, American special forces in Iraq, the Israeli military (IDF) in her cross border conflicts have evolved to be more deadly to insurgent groups. A quick review of the US military’s the Find, Fix, Finish, Exploit, Analyze, and Disseminate (F3EAD) process, may be useful for a layman reading about it for the first time.

This version of the targeting methodology utilized by the US Special Operations Forces responsible for some of the most highly-publicized missions in support of overseas contingency operations (likewise the IDF would have a very similar process).

• F3EAD is a system that allows the Commander of these forces to anticipate and predict enemy operations, identify, locate, and target enemy forces, and to perform intelligence exploitation and analysis of captured enemy personnel and materiel.
• Central to the F3EAD process is the functional fusion of operations and intelligence functions throughout the military organization. In F3EAD, commanders establish targeting priorities, the intelligence system provides the direction to the target, and the operations system performs the decisive operations necessary to accomplish the mission. ]

The only answer to it would be the wholesale genocide of everyone in sight, and you don't see many governments out there willing to be so open about being worse than the 3rd Reich. Pol Pot's Cambodia comes to mind, and for a brief time, Rwanda, but that's about all for the last half Century.


I think that if you ask them, most of those two populations would say that winning was better than losing.



I doubt that they were ever very serious about holding on to "the canker on the nose of the Ukraine". So what is the point? That California would welcome their Chinese overlords the way Silicon Valley already is?


And here we come to the real issue; what is the 2nd amendment really about?
It is about allowing the people to resist tyranny.

The very phrase "American Exceptionalism" is treated like a joke these days, so let's go with that. Why should the USA think that it is impossible for this nation to devolve into tyranny just as every other nation on Earth with an older history has, at some point in it's history?
This is our last-ditch insurance policy against that, when all is said and done.
It is about the Defense of We The People, not a power structure in the richest city in the country. (four of the five richest counties in the US are the ones right next to Washington D.C.)

The reason my belief is not shaken by the deaths of 20 children in one incident, is because the fact that 200 million people have been murdered by their own Governments in the last 2 centuries weighs a bit heavier on my mind.

Well if you take the non US FVEY nations and Western Europe into account, we don't understand nor condone the US proclivity for gun violence within its borders, that leads to multiple shooting as a regular occurrences, especially in schools. How many school children have to die before the US government will curb the violence? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions?

To the rest of us it is symptomatic of a violent and barbaric society that doesn't care about its children and citizens.

The claims being used about second amendment rights and fear of the government are, to outsiders, just bullshit excuses because there are to many vested interests in not regulating firearms. How many of your citizens have died from the COVID-19 virus because of lack of leadership from POTUS and others? Last count I believe is 300,000. That's a huge amount of deaths with probably 80% of them preventable. A crime against humanity? Possibly, but the criminals won't be held to account will they, because your system is corrupt.

So where is your so called tyranny? Is it the government?

Or is it the groups who try to control the government and the people? You know religious groups, the NRA, PACs, lobbyists, Hollywood, businesses etc., anti govt groups? Or is it a figment of your imagination?

This brings me to my second point. A society that is supposed to be a democracy and living in freedom, must surely have a cankerous cancer within it, if its citizens live in fear of their own government and what it is capable of doing. Or is this just a conspiracy theory being put around by far right groups and religious conservatives? When you look at the much vaunted original founding pilgrims, who are memorialised every thanksgiving, it makes me wonder sometimes if the US is full of conspiracy theorists and fundamentalist oppressive religious groups. The original settlers on the Mayflower were an extremist religious sect that even Cromwell (he who executed Charles I), who was himself a zealous very conservative protestant, had the sect banned in England. So the US is basically founded on the teachings of a banned extremist religious sect. Maybe that explains its moral hangups and the christian extremism that appears to be taking over the government.

Yes I am being harsh but it's time to speak plainly. American exceptionalism was always a self created myth. The Americans are no more exceptional than any other peoples on this planet, and the way that they have treated their own people since the 18th Century is no advertisement for their good will to fellow humans, especially in the 20th Century and the 21st Century. You Americans preach human rights, well sort your own mess out first. In many ways, socially, you are still a backward nation compared to the other FVEY nations, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea and other non European nations.

The world doesn't revolve around the US. It never has. The US isn't the Gods gift to the world.

Sometimes I wish that my people had stuck to some of the old ways and the old Gods. Life was far simpler then. We just ate our enemies for combat rations.

 

[Redlands18]

Well if you take the non US FVEY nations and Western Europe into account, we don't understand nor condone the US proclivity for gun violence within its borders, that leads to multiple shooting as a regular occurrences, especially in schools. How many school children have to die before the US government will curb the violence? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions?

To the rest of us it is symptomatic of a violent and barbaric society that doesn't care about its children and citizens. The claims being used about second amendment rights and fear of the government are, to outsiders, just bullshit excuses because there are to many vested interests in not regulating firearms. How many of your citizens have died from the COVID-19 virus because of lack of leadership from POTUS and others? Last count I believe is 300,000. That's a huge amount of deaths with probably 80% of them preventable. A crime against humanity? Possibly, but the criminals won't be held to account will they, because your system is corrupt.

So where is your so called tyranny? Is it the government?

Or is it the groups who try to control the government and the people? You know religious groups, the NRA, PACs, lobbyists, Hollywood, businesses etc., anti govt groups? Or is it a figment of your imagination?

This brings me to my second point. A society that is supposed to be a democracy and living in freedom, must surely have a cankerous cancer within it, if its citizens live in fear of their own government and what it is capable of doing. Or is this just a conspiracy theory being put around by far right groups and religious conservatives? When you look at the much vaunted original founding pilgrims, who are memorialised every thanksgiving, it makes me wonder sometimes if the US is full of conspiracy theorists and fundamentalist oppressive religious groups. The original settlers on the Mayflower were an extremist religious sect that even Cromwell (he who executed Charles I), who was himself a zealous very conservative protestant, had the sect banned in England. So the US is basically founded on the teachings of a banned extremist religious sect. Maybe that explains its moral hangups and the christian extremism that appears to be taking over the government.

Yes I am being harsh but it's time to speak plainly. American exceptionalism was always a self created myth. The Americans are no more exceptional than any other peoples on this planet, and the way that they have treated their own people since the 18th Century is no advertisement for their good will to fellow humans, especially in the 20th Century and the 21st Century. You Americans preach human rights, well sort your own mess out first. In many ways, socially, you are still a backward nation compared to the other FVEY nations, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea and other non European nations.

The world doesn't revolve around the US. It never has. The US isn't the Gods gift to the world.

Sometimes I wish that my people had stuck to some of the old ways and the old Gods. Life was far simpler then. We just ate our enemies for combat rations.

We need to be able to put 100 likes up for a post, brilliantly written NG, agree with every word.

 

[OPSSG]

One last satire break.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1343198700215152640

General reminder to all, but directed at no one in particular — come back to the topic at hand, please. And if I go off-topic going forward, I may have to ban myself. Haha.

KEEP DISCUSSIONS GROUNDED IN REALITY — on issues related to bombings, mass shootings & domestic security in America, which would encompass policing by FBI, ATF, Secret Service and so on.

To keep on-topic

1. No civil war or coup scenario, please — the reality is frankly grim enough.

2. There is no plausible Russian/Chinese/North Korean invasion threat of the USA (eg. Red Dawn) — so that is also off-topic and will be immediately deleted.

3. No more off-topic discussion in this thread — if anyone wants to discuss China or Korea, there are other suitable threads available, elsewhere.

 

[Feanor]

All scenarios related to future developments are "fantasy" until they actually happen, such as an air raid on Pearl Harbor, for example, and I disagree.

I will try to provide a detailed reply when I'm home and in front of a computer, but for now please consider the following. Pearl Harbor was not thought impossible. Ideas about ship to ship naval strikes had been circulating in military circles for at least two decades, and the British carried out a smaller version of Pearl Harbor at Taranto. The Japanese built on and evolved a concept that was widely discussed and considered.

EDIT: To circle this back to the topic of the thread, military planning and ideas about possibilities for future conflicts rarely pop out of the vacuum. The US should, and in fact does, plan for real conflicts based on a variety of scenarios. Things thought impossible do sometimes occurr, but these are extremely rare outliers. There is room for a legitimate discussion on planning for low probability high impact outliers but this is not the thread for it.

 

[JohnWolf]

I will try to provide a detailed reply when...

Don't bother, I've been warned so I'm done with this!

Didn't really want to get into it in the first place.

 

[kato]

A few weeks ago in Germany they had to bring out those big nasty trucks with water-cannon on them to disperse the crowds, a cute trick when it's cold outside.

Since no one is going to address this:

Water cannons weren't used to disperse anti-lockdown crowds. They were used to wash potentially infectious aerosols out of the air within a crowd not observing mask requirements and minimum distancing for their own safety.

Also, anti-lockdown protests in Germany quickly vanished within a week in mid-December when:

1. the government declared their organizers an extremist organization influenced by neonazis and sovereign citizens - and placed them under observation by domestic intelligence.
2. courts started issuing restrictions to such protests (mask requirements, specific locations) or where violence or danger of transmission was to be expected banned them to ensure the safety of the general public
3. state governments, in order to combat Covid, started issuing hard lockdowns including nighttime curfews and daytime necessary-travel-only orders
4. police brought in the necessary gear (APCs, cavalry, water cannons, helicopters, dogs) to enforce such and applied policies as mandated by local governments (banning individuals taking part in banned protests from cities for a day, issueing fines for violations of anti-Covid laws, preemptive patrolling in force and in sufficient numbers for violators)