I swear I posted a similar reminder not long ago but just in case it was lost in the ethers:
Lest we forget, Panama was a province of Colombia that was stolen in order to complete building the failed French canal. It was taken by threat of force.
Well there is the small matter that Trump stiffed his business partner / customer in Panama for income and employee social taxes and is seeming liable to that Gubbermint for some serious cash.
Nothing a little threatening or an invasion won’t cure …. Ahem.
Trump is not making mountains out of molehills he is just babbling nonsense and most people know that and ignore him. But he is an embarrassment for the US in world standings. I can accept that. He was elected largely because of immigration and ‘woke’ [WTF ever that is] . He didn’t match Obama’s deportation rate in his previous presidency so I don’t think he’ll do so great this time. That being said we must all remember he is not even president yet so we must wait until he takes office and helps all the the middle class as he promised. With Elon’s approval of course 
Merry Christmas
So if you hired me to fly you and your crew somewhere and I got on the intercom numerous times telling you to prepare for ditching, that the #1 engine was on fire, that the guy sitting behind you had Black Plague and spit in the food, went past the destination airport and had to turn around, and said the guy on the left had passed up a note saying he was suicidal and had a bomb, would you consider that a good flight if at the end I said that was all a joke? Would you ever want to let me near an airplane again?
If your answer is yes, your thought processes are so different I will just concede I have no idea WTF some people think.
I’m not sure I can tell what is “ludicrous nonsense” anymore and what isn’t, which is a problem in and of itself and a commentary on todays reality…but if it has to do with Maritime I think this is the venue to discuss it.
Drunks in bars get to comment on taking over foreign countries if they don’t behave. People in charge of actual armies don’t usually do shit like that unless they mean it.
Or, for those of us who have noticed a method to Trump’s madness,
- Trump makes some outrageous statement concerning another country
- Leftists and the media reeeeeeee about it
- The country in question make some bold statement in reply
- Negotiations are made, and Trump gets the concession that he really wanted in the first place
In this case it would be lower canal tolls for US military vessels and perhaps US flagged cargo ships.
Stayed tuned to see what happens!
I can’t answer your question because it is incomplete. What’s the other options? If the other options included US satellites & US guidance systems shooting US ATAMCS missles inside of Russia you’re hired. Sure, what you describe sounds like a big inconvenience but I have boys who will be signing Selective Service papers over the next few years & I’d be willing to make the sacrifice. What type of beer do you serve on your flights?
This is very well possible. I believed the media & lefties when they said Trump was going to start a nuclear war with North Korea over his “rocketman” rhetoric. 2 years later & it was 100% the opposite. He brought North & South Korea and the United States closer to peace than anyone ever. Then the left hates him for it. Even the left of center folks on this forum. They’d rather have millions of REAL people in North Korea tortured & starving, the 2 countries on the brink 24/7 than let Trump take credit for brokering a peace. I read comments from folks on here who ridiculed, mocked & attack Trump for pursuing peace with NK/SK. Pitiful.
I worked in S Korean and still have friends there. They to a person would disagree Trump did anything to promote peace. They think he sided with N. Korea by admiring their leader. I know no S.Korean that thinks Trump is on their side The S. Koreans are pretty smart about recognizing dictators and had their fill of them years ago. The recent brief martial law there proved that. Even the congress fought it physically. Lasted less than 24 hours
Me too! It was in the early 2000’s & I worked on Tug named the Hunter D, client was ATC if I recall correctly. We would pull a container barge with US/UN food donations from Pusan, Busan & Inchon to 4 different ports in North Korean. It was a blast. Always had a good time in SK which went too fast & okay time in NK. But it went too slow because the containers had to be offloaded by slave labor by hand. We couldn’t leave any containers there so it took a while. We couldn’t leave the port in NK but they had seaman centers to get warm nasty beer & play pingpong. All books sold at the gift shops had the same author, you guessed it, the Great Leader. Hundreds of them by the same guy supposedly. I still have a few. I snuke out some NK currency which is a crime. Coins made out of aluminum.
One of my 17 yr current best friend is from SK & has been here for 6 yrs. They still go back & forth. We know the family & they know ours. I’m on first name basis with a few other folks from SK for different reasons. Older a South Korean resident is, the more pro-Cold War they are. The younger, more likely not want to die or fight in a war. I hate to say this but I call B.S on the 100% your friends who you say are pro-ColdWar. There’s no sides or disagreements between the 2 countries really. The borders are set, niether is sueing the other for money or oil rights. There’s fishing waters that can be argued over but that shouldn’t lead to nuclear war. One is ran by a ruthless dictator & both countries just fears the other will attack the other. That cold war was begging to be solved when Trump was in office. Since NK & Russia has sign a mutual defense treaty under Biden it’s going to be near impossible to end it now though. My dad fought in Korea & is buried in a Military Cemetery btw. That cold war is useless except for the MIC. Many young SK’ers don’t want us there.
The opinion of socialist-lefty commentator Tucker Carlson, former Fox News talking head and TDS sufferer, in a private text made on Jan 4, 2021 to a friend. Released as part of discovery process in federal court:
“That’s the last four years. We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There isn’t really an upside to Trump.”
[Mind you, that’s what his friends say… ]
Not to mention what his former cabinet members say
In what alternate universe did peace break out in Korea? WTAF? All that happened was an unhinged toddler with nuclear weapons traded juvenile insults with the ruler of North Korea. Everything else is the same.
The ever-popular Neville Chamberlain technique of hoping the crocodiles eat everyone else first fails in the end, eventually you get the war you were trying to avoid but on much worse terms for you.
Or to quote Trotsky, you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.
Putins invasion is so unpopular in Russia he had to seal his borders to prevent fighting age men from escaping. He put some of his generals & upper officers family members in prison for protesting it on social media. Putins own distant family members are beating him up over it. He had to empty out prisons to find soldiers. He now has non-Russian speaking foriegn allies fighting for him. But you think a war with Russia is inevitable & support our bombs pre-emptive striking inside of Russia? Thats some keen geopolitical critical thinking you are using there. Then pull the 'ole Neville Chamberlain insults to imply those who disagree with you aren’t thinking it out or are cowards? That Neville Chamberlain insult stopped being effective after they built that black V shaped wall in DC & we destroyed Iraq over some empty flatbed trucks parked in a desert. Warmongers always use the Neville Chamberlain comparison, it’s your thing but doesn’t work anymore. People have smartened up to the US endless, useless warmongering.
…what did he actually accomplish? He shook some hands, Kim shook some hands… then Kim kept launching missiles and testing nukes… seems like the status quo for relations there.
Is this in regards to Ukraine using them? Because it’s not “preemptive” if Russia invaded first… it’s retaliatory.
Kind of. The ATAMCS missle system isn’t like a bottle rocket or AR15 where a soldier pulls a trigger or lights a fuse & lets the projectile do it’s thing. It’s a guided missle system that uses US/NATO satellites & command center to hit targets. The missels are guided, are supersonic & can maneuver to travel up to 190 miles before running out of fuel. While some NATO member countries have their own compatible satellites & command centers to control them, Ukraine does not. In the video linked below, pay attention at step IV at 5:33. The crew on the ground driving the trucks (HI MARs) really don’t do much. It’s someone in a NATO command center or on a ship somewhere picking targets blowing shit up & killing people in Russia. I know, I know, the Chuck Norris/Rocky Balboa inside the heart of every US warmonger is ecstatic we’re taking the fight onto Russia soil but I say fuck that. If Russia gave Manual Noriega, Gaddafi, Sadam Hussain or Al-Quida their versions of their ATAMCS to launch and kill Americans on US soil when we invaded Panama, Libya, Iraq or Afghanistan it would have been WW3. Criminal. Nothing is going to garner Putin more support from the Russian people than US bombs being controlled by the US military blowing up to kill Russians in Russia. Biden & his Democrat handlers really fucked things up by authorizing that. The Democrats & boomers are being played by the Military Industrial Complex, AGAIN. Warmongers.
You must not know many Russians.
What do you mean kind of? Who else is firing them into Russia currently?
Can you source this? I can’t find anywhere that says Ukraine doesn’t have control. They’re not always GPS controlled missiles.
The Brits and French authorized use of their missiles before we did. What’s the fuck up? That Ukraine gets to defend itself from invasion? The Russians provide plenty of other countries with arms, why can’t we do the same?
What’s your stance? Isolationist? If that’s the case, fine. Then don’t praise Trump for his alleged North and South Korea diplomacy (that you conveniently ignored from my previous post), stay out of this Panama Canal bullshit (that doesn’t help anyone but US companies that own/operate foreign flagged/operated ships), and start asking to close every foreign base we have as well as shutting down any operations we have elsewhere in the world. Otherwise you can’t have it both ways.
Yes. Look at 1st link, page iii. This is a US Gov peer reviewed doc & says Ukraine has no GPS satellites of their own. Better yet, can you show me a link saying Ukraine launched satellites into space? Besides, even if they did & never told anyone, the ATAMCS & other missles don’t use the same GPS’s your handheld Garmin or car uses. You should smart enough to know that.
And the UK & France are founding members of NATO. Blaming them does absolutely nothing to keep my sons or your neighbors grandkids from dieing in a WW3 that we keep escalating to.
As for your first question that was so moronic that I considered not answering any of your questions. I know a few Russians & they’re all proud people. But I do know thousands of humans & a little bit about history. Tribe leaders, Village Chiefs, Lords, Kings, Presidents etc. have been using planned/allowed attacks on the homeland to rally support for wars since the beginning of time. If you’re so conniving that you want me to defend those simple truths about human nature & history then forget about it. End of discussion. Putin IS using the NATO supplied/supported ATAMCS attacks on Russian soil to his advantage. End of story. If you can’t see it or won’t admit it then no use discussing. It’s happening.
Am I am isolationist? Not 100%. We should have Charlie Wilson Russia into collapse like we did in Afghanistan in the 80’s. Even if Ukraine fell, the NATO backef gorilla war afterwards could have collapsed Russia eventually. Escalating by using our bombs, our satellites & our guidance systems was a fatal mistake by Bidens Democratic handlers. Fuck those warmongers imo.