Posts posted by atomheartbevo
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Edited by atomheartbevo
This morning after dropping my youngest off at school, I hung out with one of her classmates' dads, who served in the Navy. He was on a support ship for both invasions of Iraq, so he knows how the logistics for major invasions work, even if he was way in the rear and they weren't the full-on traditional Marines storming the beaches invasions with landing craft you think of when you think of this stuff.
Something that is bugging him, and me, and tying into something @Nice Guy Eddie mentioned in another thread - Where's the occupying force?
He (not Nice Guy Eddie) said that the only amphibious assault assets we've really deployed there are The USS San Antonio, Fort Lauderdale, and Iwo Jima, and the first two are apparently more like support docks. He said at max, we are talking 2,500 - maybe 2,800 or so Marines between the three and maybe on some other ships. He said we have around 20 of these ships (two classes) and it feels like we only brought the ones down that happened to be doing nothing. I looked around at lunch as well, and it's not like they can hide a bunch of ships in plain site in such a busy/populated area - all of the ships that have been announced have been spotted numerous times in the Caribbean, with no unknown ships. This is not the middle of the Indian Ocean or Diego Garcia. There were people taking photos of our fighters in Puerto Rico.
Now, to play devil's advocate, once can argue that the 82nd Airborne Division and 75th Ranger Regiment are not that far away by air, and they always have an alert component.
But Venezuela has 200,000+ in its military, another 20,000 or so Cubans, and millions in militias (which may not all actually exist, but you don't need but a few hundred thousand to make things hard).
It's a country of 25 million people, with 3.25 million in the capital area.
While Marines are badass, as are the 82nd and 75th, we ain't going to take over the country with a few thousand Marines and a few thousand airborne and a few hundred Rangers we fly in.
When we have invaded in the past where we know the target in advance (I don't count Afghanistan as that was pretty ad hoc initially), we do all of the prep work. It's why our operations have worked so well, and why we have a massive logistics chain.
It would seem logical that we would also have the 25th Infantry (Light, my old unit) because they are out of Hawaii and acclimated for tropical conditions (they even have a jungle warfare school out there). We would be staging the 101st Air Assault to Florida or even Puerto Rico and getting their helicopters loaded onto US Navy amphibious assault ships/transports/aircraft carriers or flying them to Trinidad & Tobago, because our troops are going to be using helicopters. We would have the 82nd and their larger gear in Puerto Rico, along with the 75th prepping to take over military airfields/airports. We would most likely have the 25th's airborne component getting ready as well (although instead of Hawaii they are in Alaska, it's a long story). Probably the 10th Mountain as well even though they are not technically a mountain-trained division, but they are a light infantry division. We would have a shitload more Marines sitting on Amphibious assault ships in the Caribbean.
TLDR: There's just so many things that need to happen for us to legitimately control Venezuela and we are doing none of that.
But on the other hand, all of the assets that were assembled were thrown together fairly fast and easy. Almost as if the DOD/Trump realized Congress would get involved in some way if they did a large-scale operation, so roll with something smaller - just gonna transition from drug interdiction to kidnapping Maduro and call it a win and hope the follow-up leadership does what we say.
Which is why, I think, Trump threatened to kill Rodriquez if she doesn't do what he says (fate worse than Maduro who is looking at life in prison). He's currently got no leverage.
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Pink Floyd
in Music
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2 hours ago, Sawbonz said: There it is
Also, a pretty good sign that this administration had no plan for what to do after capturing Maduro and probably didn't really talk to the oil companies, just told them that we were going to "run" Venezuela.
Normally, something as important as to whether or not the US taxpayers or private oil companies were going to fund the new/rebuilt o&g infrastructure to the tune of billions of dollars seems like something that would have already been worked out and already shared with Congress.
But..

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Edited by atomheartbevo
1 hour ago, Dnaguy said: Wife: I’m going to bed.
Me: I want off this ride. The simulation sucks. [cracks open another Axis IPA]
Hopefully, like most of us here, you have a backup wife (really you should have 4-5 in mind at any one time) ready to go in case you end up suddenly widowed or divorced.
Most wives have thought about backup husbands if their husbands keeled over or, or were caught fucking the babysitter.
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38 minutes ago, UpperWestside said: There isn’t enough piss from all the golden showers TFG has been a part of that would be enough for this guy. Threatening service members who defended this country with demotions in rank or anything else is what fascist cowards do. The racist alcoholic clown pretending to run the Defense Department is a special kind of moron. He deserves to have his citizenship stripped once this ends. I cannot really say fully what I think of this waste of a human he is. I’d have Adrian Peterson beat this guy like one of his children if I could.
He just needs to be demoted when the Democrats are back in power. Everything he tries to do to Kelly, do to him.
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This is supposed to intimidate Russia and Iran. Not sure why they are not posting this in Chinese...
And yes, the State Department accounts posting this are real.
(2) США по-русски on X: "Президент Трамп — человек дела. Не знали? — Теперь знаете. https://t.co/t5QvngATg2" / X
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5 hours ago, Wally Fairway said: I would hope most of us took over our neighborhood (wives) years ago.
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40 minutes ago, Gap03 said: If someone went The Sum of All Fears
If you had pitched Tom Clancy on this plot, of a President covering for a dead pedophile, and along the way he’s going to take us to war with our NATO allies over Greenland because Putin got the idea planted in his head, Clancy, for all crazy shit in his books while he was alive, would have turned it down as outlandish.
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Edited by atomheartbevo
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German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on Monday that Greenland belonged to Denmark and that the NATO alliance could discuss strengthening its protection if necessary.
On Greenland, Wadephul stressed it was part of Denmark.
"And since Denmark is a member of NATO, Greenland will, in principle, also be subject to NATO defence," he said.
"And if there are further requirements to strengthen defence efforts concerning Greenland, then we will have to discuss this within the framework of the alliance."
He did not elaborate on the nature of those discussions
11 minutes ago, DigglerontheHoof said: It's incredibly embarrassing.
So fucking embarrassing that Trump and Miller are talking about going to war against an allied nation that fought alongside us in Afghanistan.
So fucking pathetic.
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Greenland
in Daily Texan
in my little manifesto in the VZ thread about Trump and Whiskey Pete not putting together the forces needed to actually, physically take over just Caracas, let alone the rest of Venezuela, I mentioned that it looked like they threw together whatever was needed for a very short-term mission.
Like literally just went from drug interdiction to oil tankers to rolling on into capturing Maduro, which admittedly the Deltas trained for months to do. Only tying up a very small part of our amphibious assault forces and none of our large-scale air assault.
I think they didn’t bother with putting together what was needed to truly take over Venezuela (airborne, lots of helicopters, a lot more than a few thousand Marines on three ships) partly because deploying a force that large would have gotten Congress involved.
No, Congress isn’t going to impeach him until next year at the earliest, but I do think he is wary of Congress. If he thought they’d back him, we’d see Americans in downtown Caracas right now. And another Republican just bit the dust, so their majority is even slimmer.