Destruction of our military forces

He needs to cut it all in half and change the mission to homeland defense

 

The founders wrote specifically that a standing army was a great danger to the Republic. Now we know why.

 

Right... the 3000 dead on 9/11 in your mind is but collateral damage in the USA's maintenance of its Global Supremacy. Perhaps you can send your own arse and sons/ daughters overseas for the maintenance of this Empire. I look forward to the day when rest of the world ditch the American dollar as the world's reserve currency, and when Americans have to pay $20 / gallon at the station.

 

I seriously doubt anyone here have read Sun Tzu, at best people here pick up a favorite quote, here or there from the book.

 

I read through it. What did I get wrong?

 

The founders lived in an era when if you had a good horseman who could shoot a musket effectively then you basically had cavalry. The equivalent of a tank force supported by helicopters today.

Needless to say things have changed.

 

You are about a 100 years out of date in your analysis.

The era of national empires has long since passed. Nations now function as the enforcement arm of liberal capitalism (possible exception of China, but that is likely to change over time). There is no US empire that operates in a perceived national interest, either collectively or individually.

Empires are now transnational. The fully co-opted governments (principally US, UK, Australia, Germany, Canada) routinely act against the interests of their citizens. These governments routinely disregard the national defense interests of their respective nations.

The transnational empires are no longer based on exploitation of natural resources. Those resources are now fully fungible, and fully available to these empires. Empires are now based on financial control of local economies, and the concomitant control of local governments. The use of military force is directed to governments that refuse to play by the rules. Governments that fail to surrender their sovereignty will subjected to "color revolutions", engineered coups, external pressure through the IMF & World Bank, etc, and as a last resort, direct military intervention.

The two foci of military intervention/destabilization are MENA and Russia. Middle East/North Africa (MENA) is targeted not because of oil, but because of money. The intent is chaos - the reduction of existing arrangements in this region to warring tribal units without cohesion. The ultimate target will be Saudi Arabia and the destruction of its current financial leverage.

The second focus is Russia. It's a target because it's big and it is able to defy the current world financial structure. Putin is the world's richest gangster. The CIA estimates he
is the world's first trillionaire. The problem is not that he is a gangster (transnational capital routinely deals with gangsters). The problem is that he is a nationalist gangster, and refuses to play by the rules. Business is business, however. They respect Putin's nuclear missiles and are not suicidal.

China is a separate issue. It is strongly embedded in the world trade structure. The main problem with China is that it took effective steps to keep its financial system under its government control. This is a big problem for the West. Again, there is only a limited amount of trouble the US can make for China, without shooting itself in the foot.

As a final note, the hysterical brouhaha over "reserve currency" is mind-numbingly silly. US economic strength is based on its output of goods and services, not its status as issuer of reserve currency. It is now self-sufficient in energy production. Once the price of oil start inching back up, US fracking becomes profitable and dormant infrastructure can be brought online quickly.

 

So you literally have nothing to actually say?

 

So why didn't it on 9/11 2001?
Where were the F-16s scrambling?

 

They were scrambled but too late. At the time of the attacks there were only a dozen USAF fighters airborne over the United States.

 

I have made my point quite clearly. If you have a question....ask it.

- - - Updated - - -

We had twice as much military as we need to defend ourselves on 9 11. Of course the military can not prevent a 9 11 attack

 

They arrived less than two minutes after the second plane hit the Towers. They scrambled immediately after the first hit but not knowing where they needed to be, it was kinda hard for them to do anything.

 

Absolutely.

And in a time of war such readiness issues would be quickly addressed.

But let's be realistic....no one...and I mean NO ONE....want's to get into a war against the U.S. Military.

The U.S. Military fights wars in an Integrated Service Manner and our ability to quickly confuse and destroy enemy command and control is legendary.

AA

 

I will tell you what happened.

F-15's out of Otis AFB on Cape Cod were scrambled but because they train to take off and head out over the Atlantic and then turn North to protect against incoming Russian Bombers....they got up there and when they received instructions they were already more than 100 miles out going the wrong way.

After the 2nd tower was hit I was ordered back to Langley however because we were flying CAP Missions...Combat Air Patrol the only way I could get there was to hop on a C-130 Military transport the next day as NOTHING was allowed to fly!

AA

 

And that has been confirmed by the 9/11 commission.

As you say, the nation's defense posture was towards Russia, meaning north east.

When the jets scrambled, they were over the Atlantic. Then the commercial air traffic and the military traffic operates on different radio frequencies. To locate the moving airliners that hit the towers, the pentagon and crashed, was super difficult since at the time there was enormous air traffic all over the USA.

For some odd reason, the crashes to Democrats meant the Bush admin messed up. But then the system was not focused on internal "war planes" but external war planes.

Good report by AA.

 

This was something no one was trained for.

Sadly a movie staring Kurt Russel was made depicting such an event years before this actually happened.

AA

 

And an episode of the X-Files spinoff "The Lone Gunman".

And a well known Tom Clancy novel.

And an attempted assassination of President Nixon.