Willie Pete in Mosul
The handwringers at the Washington Post are concerned that we might be killing ISIS in Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria with White Phosphorous artillery rounds. Well, actually, in public they’re accusing the US and our allies of using Willy Pete in areas populated with civilians.
For the uninitiated, white phosphorus is generally used to screen attacks or withdrawals. It burns superhot, at about 1500 degrees Fahrenheit, and doesn’t stop burning until it runs out of fuel. It can burn through an engine block and through a body. But it has a thick white smoke that can cover troop movements. The US claims that the use in Iraq and Syria was to cover civilians trying to escape the battle.
The Post quotes human rights groups” like Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently and Human Rights Watch and a video which is supposedly taken by one of these groups. We’re told that the willie pete is detonating over populated areas. The picture at the tops of this page is from a screen shot of that video. I’m pretty sure that civilians aren’t flying ISIS flags over their homes.
Here’s another screen shot from the video;
That doesn’t look like a very densely populated area, either. This isn’t damage that would result from the application of white phosphorous to this particular battle space.
Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.
Category: Terror War
Since when do facts matter to the Pravda on the Potomac or the handwringer groups mentioned above.
Maybe we can get “Rage Boy” to protest.
And ISIS being taken out with WP? Fine. Mix in some napalm while you’re at it for a real laugh.
Napalm sticks to kids.
Napalm, napalm sticks like glue.
Sticks to mamas and their babies too.
See the old lady sitting on the porch, napalm turned her into a screaming torch, napalm sticks to kids.
napalm sticks to little children
all the little children of the world
red and yellow, black and white
they are torches in the night
napalm sticks to little children
among other cadences I learned as a private in 2-502…LOL
Yep, that and “yellow bird” were favorites of my DI’s
ROFLMFAO!!!!!!
We had an artillary officer (brown bar, ring knocker) that called in a short round that hit very close to all of us. Luckily, he was the only one hit; a slight scrape on his neck. He had the balls to tell me that I needed to put him in for a PH. I refused and he went to a radioman to get him to do it. The radioman asked me about it and I denied it.
From then on, when he was on duty at night, and taking sit reps, an anonymous voice would speak up ” be advised, napalm sticks to brass”.
Someone (grin) would have transmitted (Yogi Bear voice) “Hey Boo-Boo!”
I wanna go to Vietnam
I wanna kill ole charlie kong
Drop that napalm from the sky
Watch the little babies burn and die
I wanna be a fighter pilot;
I wanna fly an F-15!
I wanna ride with the cockpit open;
I wanna hear those commies scream!
I wanna drop a load of napalm
Right in the middle of old Red Square!
I wanna see those commies frying;
I wanna singe old Brezhnev’s hair!
Who is “rage boy”.
You’ve been cloistered in your mommy’s basement too long, comrade, if you never saw a pic of Islamic Rage Boy.
Don’t even get me started on Flat Fatima.
Now you’ve peaked my curiosity, SEA.
Oh crud – I had to look.
Really?
He is the one we would love to see a grenade stuffed in his big mouth with the pin pulled!!!
Do you happen to see the movie “Wanted Dead or Alive”. (Grin) (the one with Rutger Hauer and Gene Simmons)
Yes, and that was a great use for a hand grenade. 🙂
“F**k the bounty!”
Don’t mess with Rutger Hauer!
Looks like someone stole his goat..
The goat clenched an a bad moment.
Awesome. What’s the TAH code to post pictures? [IMG] ?
[img] and enter the url of the pic from the library. You’ll have to upload the pic there, first, unless you use an existing one.
Now how difficult was that, Dave Hardin?
*grin*
I’ve seen the pic, but didn’t associate it with the moniker.
Babbles McButthead, IMHO YOU are Impotent Rage:
Every time the US (or Brits, Israelis, etc) starts shooting this same claim is made. Websites even recycle the same pictures of “casualties.”
oh, and depleted uranium…they lubbs to put up pics attributed to the horrors of DU rounds
Came to mention this; which part of “Depleted” don’t they understand?
Rhetorical question, never mind.
Did you know a depleted uranium roof will protect you from the effects of chemtrails. Of course if you want to be completely protected you will get the new vaccine that protects you from Autism.
The real question is how racist is using “White Phosphorus” on little brown people?
I also understand that DU, when delivered in sufficient quantities by, say, a GAU-8 Avenger, will resolve any issues pertaining to armored vehicles. Or unarmored ones, for that matter.
You say that like a flying pig delivers those rounds…..
Just more intellectual and objective journalism from the great folks at the Washington Compost.
Will the media show videos of pigs eating roasted humans next?
I’m waiting for the antiwar and antidraft protests to start.
Yes, yes – I know: the draft ended 45 years ago. It’s just that someone will start a rumor and then it will expand, and then we’ll have another draft dodger protest at the next DNC convention, which I would hope will be in Chicago. Anyone think Rahmbo would issue a shoot to kill order? Nah, me neither.
You will never get the kind of protest numbers we had back in the draft/Vietnam war days. Gutless cowards were really motivated to protest back when they knew a rifle and a rucksack were a possibility for them personally in the Viet of the Nam.
True, but even the unwashed hippies of 50 years ago were made of stiffer stuff than today’s snowflakes.
“What do mean blood makes the grass grow? I resent your microaggresion! Where’s my safe space and binky?”
Snowflakes have binkies.
-Men- have Woobies.
If everyone was required to serve at least 2 years, we would have a shyt pot less of spoiled little panty waist mama’s boyz!
Make that 3 years, and I’d agree with you.
Yeah…because draftees were never subject to influence by political or the rich and the military never had trouble wasting millions of dollars chasing down deserters. The draft hasn’t historically been shown to solve those problems.
There’s enough snowflakes that come in already and never finish their first term, adding draftees to the mix with today’s rules….no thanks.
ShakeAndBake!
If I had to build a blithering idiot from scratch, I’d use a liberal mainstream media reporter as a blueprint.
How can you build what you already have? IT is already a blithering idiot?
White phosphorus…F*ck Yeah!
Willy Pete… Because nothing says fuck you like 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit…
Their basic complaint seems to be that the animals who wish to kill them are being killed before they can kill innocents in their own countries and the not so innocent collaborators in the US media.
Whatever.
Burn baby Burn!! ISIS Inferno….
Nice reference!
And WP and napalm…. hmm add in some bacon grease, and you’ve got an ISIS cocktail….
For those too young to catch the reference:
Thanks Hondo! Love your bacon grease idea. We should have WMP’s( Weapons of Mass Porkification) used along side our conventionals.
Bombs and arty that expells rancid pig viscera would make an awesome Area Denial Weapon.
Oops….belay last
Thanks for the link Hondo
Love the bacon grease idea Fyrfighter.
Gotta give credit when its due
Thank you sir!
Something odd about the WaPo story is the video that supposedly came from the so-called NGO for human rights Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently is also said to have originated with ISIS. The NGO claims to be objective, but also says it is against both the Assad government and the Islamic State.
What it might really be is a front for ISIS playing the pity card as the Raqqa tactical noose tightens.
The issue about the use of Willie Peter is not that complicated. Apparently under international treaty, white phosphorus is not approved as a strictly incendiary weapon, but is allowed for signals, smoke, etc. where the incendiary effect is incidental.
Oh come on. People never use NGOs for nefarious purposes. They are all upstanding and wonderful….
I’ll admit to maybe over-thinking this, and also to making the point badly.
One of the reasons I found the Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently connection strange is because ISIS is usually fairly sophisticated about how it handles news media. Whether it be social networks or quasi-MSM such as Al Jazeera, the Islamic State is mostly able to maintain layers to insulate itself.
In this instance, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently is apparently being used as a sock puppet but with a more thin veneer than normal. Why is that? It’s almost as though ISIS broke SOP, and can make you wonder if it was due to a desperation that can be exploited.
Trying to be predictive of their behavior or actions is a challenge in some cases. I concur that desperation is a reason, but I believe they also try to do things we don’t expect, even if it is something like propaganda or recruiting.
Or, maybe we just blew up enough of their social media smart guys and the new guy is still learning? haha.
“While international humanitarian law stipulates that civilians must be protected from all military operations…”
Last I checked neither the US, Iraq nor ISIS were party to the 1977 Protocol I. Yet the leftist media bring up this bullshit all the time (when an (R) is in office) as though it were a fact or even feasible.
There isn’t anyone left in Mosul at this point except combatants and their supporters anyway.
Major, it does not matter if ISI follows international law. We are a Larry to the treaty so we follow it.
And I response to your comment yesterday that criminal sexual assault always involved physical contact. In most jurisdictions Thayne’s not true. For instance; a pervert exposing himself to a child is criminal sexual assault.
In fact “assault” itself does not require contact. A threat constitutes an assault.
So I have no idea why you would think criminal sexual assault requires physical contact.
I don’t know what a “Larry to a treaty” is but the US is not party to Protocol I which is the one that is concerned with protecting “all citizens from all military operations”.
I see what you are saying about the Geneva protocol. Interesting. Protocols we are signatories to do require a great deal of consideration in the protection of civilians.
This does not seem to be a violation anyway. But the notion that we have a legal obligation to protect citizens is true. Whether ISIS follows international law has literally no beating on whether we should follow it.
Keep in mind the Geneva protocols and international law structure the laws of was such that it gives nation states with organized militaries a huge advantage when groups insurgency groups follow it, and a huge moral victory when they don’t.
It is a win win.
These Wars against non state entities are always strategically about winning the moral victory. We can win every battle and every engagement and still lose the strategic war if we never secure the moral victory since we are fighting an idea that frames the US as the evil empire.
ISIS claims statehood. That would be under their name:
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
They claim (shrinking) territory, government, officers, trade, taxes, etc. Now in reality they are an unrecognized proto-state but they still claim statehood.
There is no country in the world that openly supports them. From a world state standpoint they have no moral support.
Since they began their genocidal campaign of murder the only moral foundation they have is that of killing everyone that disagrees with them. That isn’t much to go on. Unclassified numbers put forced refugees at close to a million and murders in the low five figures. I’m going to guess it is quite a lot higher.
If they have a moral victory to claim it has to do with their establishment of fundamentalist state that makes the old Taliban look like culturally inclusive slackers and the Iranians look like libertarians.
The US and allies will never win those people over that want to live in a fundamentalist state. There is no moral victory to be won. Everyone else (who is smart) living in the area is terrified of them and would like them to go away as quickly as possible. Setting them in fire with WP is a good an option as any.
Sure, they claim statehood. But that is not my point about giving states an advantage. Merely calling yourself a state does not suddenly make following the Geneva convention advantageous. The more functional the state the more the warfare conducted according to the conventions favors the state. But most importantly it criminalized all warfare that was not conducted in a manner that gave functional states the greatest advantage. If ISIS was to wear uniforms and carry weapons openly at all times, have some sort of insignia that identified them as combatants at all times, and fight according to the Geneva convention we would destroy them easily. We certainly would be able to identify and stop every ISIS fighter outside the territory they currently control. Insurgencies have always fought in a way that countered the power of the state and its structures. The geneva convention criminalizes insurgent warfare not conducted in a manner that is advantageous to the states. And it simultaneously seized the moral high ground from the insurgent if they conducted warfare in a manner that violated the laws of war. Something states knew the insurgent could never effectively do. Allowing the state to label insurgents as criminals. A vital objective of fighting an insurgency is seizing and maintaining the moral high ground so that the majority of the public sees the insurgent as unworthy of their support. In most insurgencies the public is the insurgent’s center of gravity. Without public support the insurgency is doomed. With ISIS things are a bit different. ISIS center of gravity is a specific spectrum of interpretation of Islam. As long as there are those that interpret Islam in the same way ISIS argues it is to be interpreted then ISIS will continue to be able to recruit. Our actions in fighting ISIS should never be conducted in a way that seems to VALIDATE the ISIS narrative. By not conducting warfare in a manner that respects the lives of Muslim citizens we validate the ISIS narrative concerning this being a war by the west against Islam. Keep in mind that ISIS actions against Muslims… Read more »
That is quite nearly the dumbest thing I have ever heard and I have heard some dumb things through the years.
Firstly there are always going to be those that are going to want to martyr themselves on the battlefield. The culture, disposed underclass society fed by the Wahhabists and Salafi in the area is going to ensure more going in to the meat grinder until the end of days.
Secondly, the ISIS COG is not the war itself it is the establishment of the worldwide Caliphate. The “holy” war to do so is merely the way through. All of their propaganda focuses on that. That has been their purpose and goal since at least 2004. It has been the dream of the Wahbists and the Salafi since their founding. Hell, the Nazis used the concept to recruit back in WWII. It is so obvious, so pervasive, so overwhelming I’d say it is near impossible to miss but… there you have it.
Thirdly there is no way to convince hardliners that the war is NOT about West Vs. Islam. Wahhabists and these other groups will never reconcile with the West. It has been imbued in them since birth. Blaming the US and Israel for every possible woe, malady and tragedy that ever happens is simply how it is, it can not be otherwise.
The “hearts and minds” approach does not have much of a track record for defeating enemies of the USA.
The “extinguish the enemie’s winningness to fight” approach, however, does have a record of successes.
The goal of war is to end the enemy’s willingness and ability to wage war. Any value of “the moral high ground” is -only- found in the achievement of the end of ememy willingness and ability to wage war.
The over-focus on the “moral high ground” leads to an unwillingness do do what war requires for victory. In the case of insurgencies, such over-focus leads to a perpetuity of bloodshed, not an ending.
Yes, the propaganda front is a component of waging war. It must never handcuff the direct action needed for victory, else you conceed victory to the enemy. Thus you are defeated, and any slaughter is now pointless.
War is a whole bunch of ugly truths and obscene realities. Fighting not to win is moraly indefensable. For it assures endless war, not its end.
One must always consider that the enemies of the united states -seldom- agree with any premise as to what is moral. Some of them are clever enough to utilize our good nature against us, to make us squeamish. To make us restrained. That is their propaganda/high-ground effort.
Again, the moral high ground and propaganda points are -only- of value to the degree they -hasten- victory.
-Our- victory.
Typos typos typos!!! Gah….
“Extinguish the enemy’s willingness to fight”
(Bangs head on keyboard) (hmm. Result looks familiar….)
From basic cop school. “Assault is the attempt, battery is the act”
That depends again on where you went to cop school. Not trying to start anything with you just saying that the laws are different everywhere and not all code reads the same.
In my state for example there is no “battery” in the legal code. An assault is an assault and the degree varies with the injury (if any), weapon used and other factors.
You are also wrong about the legal definition of sexual assault as well. Legal definitions are precise things. They vary from jurisdiction.
An “assault” and a “sexual assault” do not have the same definition and are not used in the same way. According to UCMJ Article 120 paragraph “b” lines 1 through 3 “sexual assault” requires:
“a sexual act upon another person”
It is the same for all possible charges of that nature.
To be clear paragraph G(1) covers what is a sexual act for this puspose which is
In this section:
(1 )
Sexual act. The Term ‘sexual act’
means—
(A )
contact between the penis and the
vulva or anus or mouth, and for purposes of this subparagraph contact involving the penis occurs upon penetration, however slight; or
(B)
the penetration, however slight, of the vulva or anus or mouth of another by any part of the body or by any object, with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, or degrade any person or to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.”
Seems 100% straight forward and clear as a well rung bell to me. Feel free to read it yourself. I am not sure what your area of expertise is but you may want to stick with that.
http://www.sapr.mil/public/docs/ucmj/UCMJ_Article120_Rape_Sexual_Assault.pdf
Major, legal definitions are precise things in the jurisdiction they are applied but vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
I avoided listing a specific criminal definition because each jurisdiction has passed statutes that define criminal sexual assault themselves and these definitions vary.
For many jurisdictions do have distinct statutes that definitely e sexual assault and sexual battery differently. And in those jurisdictions the assault does not require actual physical contact and is often applied to things like exposing yourself to a person or invoking fear of being sexually nattered such as threatening to rape a woman.
Looky, looky, now he thinks he is a lawer, like that certain unnamed, disbarred one. Of course, our favorite comrade does not have a law license either. Next, he will be opining on piloting light aircraft.
I am not a lawyer but I was an academy trained and certified law enforcement officer.
Do you usually bitch when current and former law enforcement officers offer their opinion on what constitutes a crime?
“Academy trained”??? Think some substantiation or repudiation of a typo is in order.
Who cares what other jurisdictions do? This was a military court martial under UCMJ. I would think that UCMJ would be the only thing that would be germane to the discussion at hand.
Yep, Article 120 of the UCMJ.
Indecent liberties with a child and Indecent conduct with a child both fall under sexual abuse of a child and neither require physical contact.
I think the reason we are not finding agreement is that this article is poorly written and the description of the events does not match up with the charges the article reported to be on the charge sheet.
And the language of the charge sheet does not match up well with the language of the charges listed under Article 120.
I will say this; if the charge sheet includes a sexual assault the chances are it was physical contact and the article tastefully did not give any further mention or details on the nature of that contact or that it even happened.
That could be. We don’t know. That isn’t what the article stated or described.
At least you figured out what the rest of us already knew, it just took a while. Maybe there is hope.
Sadly, -someone- has to dot the legal “i” and cross the legal “t” or the miserable shitbags walk free.
We cant always defeat the evils of the world with a well executed combined arms deliberate attack. Sometimes a “Lawfare” approach is required.
*ISIS
*party to the treaty.
Babbles McButthead, You are UNBELIEVABLY shit-for-brained and I thank GOD that you’re no longer in.
I bet the real civilians would take their chances being accidentally killed by strikes against ISIS than live under their rule. Just a thought for the limp wrist pansies out there that complain about this type of stuff.
I bet the “real civilians” rolled a ball of chalk in 2014.
We are only “required” to protect civilians if we take charge of them. Not just because they are civilians and there are military operations going on.
If they become, in some defined subsection of Dislocated Civilians, and we are assisting them, then we have to protect them. If we are conducting operations in Afghanistan, we don’t go out and put guards on each n’ every civilian just because we have a military operation going on there.
If a gunfight starts and they are around, we do our best to get them to leave and go to safety on their own. If they get injured during a military operation (because of “us”), then we will medevac them to our hospital and fix them up. They’ll probably also get some monetary compensation for that as well. EVEN if the injury was caused by some dumbass trying to attack/kill us. (Dealt with that more than once in Afghanistan)
Granted, the European version is, “oh we just take care of anyone who comes here and give them everything they want!” But that isn’t our definition, or the legal definition.
That is not true. We signed the 1949 convention that defines citizens and non-combatants as “protected persons” and we have to protect them from unnecessary violence or unnecessary indignities.
This leaves a huge loophole. Since violence is necessary in war. So any civilians killed by operations deemed to be necessary in the conduct of war are not violations of the convention.
Usually the violations occur when civilians are murdered or raped or indiscriminately targeted or there is a pattern of gross indifference to the presence of civilians in targeting the enemy.
You are conflating the minimum responsibility we have to protect all non-combatants with the additional responsibilities we assume if we do something that triggers us to be responsible for their care. Such as direct them move to a refugee camp or detain them or directly remove them from their homes etc.
If we do these things were have additional responsibilities to protect them and provide for their basic needs because we have assumed direct responsibility for them.
Actually it is you have it backwards. I am starting to wonder if you are some kind of bizarre troll? It seems weird someone would claim to be former LEO would get this many legal facts so wrong, so fast.
What Eric wrote was 100% correct. This goes back to not to reading the actual law as it was written. Per the 4th Convention, Part I, Article IV
Protected Person –
“Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.”
That would be a protected person, not a general citizen or non-combatant. It also excludes people that are not parties to the convention… which could be interpreted to be those claiming to be members of ISIS, since they are members of a non-party state.
Babbles McButthead, IMHO it’s IDIOT excuses for Ossifers like you that write IDIOTIC ROE’s that get Grunts like me and my men killed and wounded.
I was more than happy to tell commanders to fucking destroy something if it was necessary. Roads were a biggie in Afghanistan. Some douche-knuckle up on high was always afraid of making holes in roads (even dirt/improved roads).
Repairing a couple holes in roads was ridiculously easy, but staff officers were so afraid of having to brief about roads being damaged. They’d prefer to brief about the 5 douchebags that got away after an IED emplacement, rather than brief that a route isn’t “green” because there’s a hole in it (filled with dead douchebag body parts).
No sir! We did not damage the road. We texturized it for traction, and and died some speed bumps for greater safety for speed control.
“…and added some…”
sheesh.. some days I should stick to …. idunno. fingerpaint?
Seeing as how I taught this stuff for 4 years and listened to JAG Lawyers spew it a dozen times a year, I’m pretty sure I didn’t hear/read/learn it wrong and then teach it wrong for all that time. (Not to mention all the times I reinforced it downrange.)
As much as it sucks that we can’t protect every civilian on earth, it isn’t our job, nor is it our responsibility. (Unless we directly/indirectly put them into that position)
I appreciate Old Maj reinforcing that.
I’m just a dumb NCO, but we are correct sometimes.
Creative interpretation of the law of Land Warfare is a cheap way to shackle a superpower, eh?
It is especially sad when some of our own folks do it, knowing full well it makes it that much harder to defeat the enemy, thus far, far, far more blood will be spilled. It is seldom those creative advocates who are patrolling, oddly.
I saw the video on Funker 530 this past week. There was an almost direct hit on that ISIS flag.
From what they said there, the noobz at IS tried to make it appear that the flag hadn’t been touched via a re-edit. So, I’m guessing this may have been an IS propaganda piece.
Not 100% on that though
They also did a thing a few months ago where ISIS packed all their POWs in to a building with bombs planted all around it. The AF dropped a 300# on it and the whole thing went boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Gas prices back at 2005 numbers and now the left is bringing back the same 2005 Bush era war on terror complaints to subvert our efforts of ridding the planet of scum. What a coincidence. We’ve gone from Obama warfare which included dropping pamphlets telling scum to abandoned their vehicles because they were targets to simply targeting the scum. Suddenly YUGE gains and a bunch of dead scum.
Gas prices are low because the US is poised to become the world’s largest producer of oil again.
That nasty old shale oil that Obama hated so much is now a huge chunk of the GDP of the country all by itself. Can you imagine if Clinton had been (re)elected? Recession forever.
Recession for most of the country that is. The clintons and their supporters would become billionaires about 25 minutes after she raised her hand.
Gas prices dropped in 2015.
And it is a disingenuous as hell to talk about prices being at “2005 numbers” when they rose throughout the Bush presidency and only had a brief drop into lows in 2005 only to rise again. Bush era prices ended at higher than the prices at the close of the Obama era.
When did gas prices start to skyrocket? When the Bush administration started making the case that we should invade Iraq.
http://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart
Geez, Piuperdink, you are so bleeping ignorant about the real world, I wonder how you can function sometimes.
Politics has ZERO, ZIP, NADA, NOTHING to do with the price of oil or the price of gas at the pump. When you blame Bush for something he wasn’t connected to, except by having the job he held, then why the effing hell aren’t you blaming Jimmie Carter for the spike in oil prices during his administration?
Oh, that’s right – your information load only goes back to when you learned how to find stuff online.
He was probably still in diapers in 1978.
This commie useful idiot never misses an opportunity to regurgitate the agit-prop twaddle from his Marxist perfessors. They have him convinced that there are a bunch of levers in the White House’s secret “Control Room” which merely need to be pulled by the President and they will control all aspects of the world economy.
I would be more likely to believe that North Korea could, through its hackers, cause the financial implosion of the entire civilized world in one fell swoop.
The really scary part? The Left plans to operate those imaginary levers -differently- in order to produce their planned economy Utopia.
Which may explain the usual Venezuela result. They never seem to find the imaginary levers in time.
Seems like everyone tries to blame oil and pump prices on politicians or presidents or Exxon, whatever, but the fact is that the price of oil, and subsequently RBOB gas (what you buy at the pump) is determined by the world price, NOT those other things. The Arab oil embargo is one of those precious 1970s memories I still have. Drove people nuts. Nixon’s notion was gas rationing. Yeah, that worked like a charm. The cost of gas at the pump went from $.359 overnight to $.509, then to $.759 and there was talk of (gasp!) $1.009 or more. OPEC came out of that. The Saudis tried to kill off OPEC in 1985, without much success, and they’ve been unable to control any of it since then. They told OPEC in 1980 that the price was too high (lower profits for the Saudis)m but that brought in North Sea and Alaskan crude. That hit the Saudis and US production prices, but the Saudis stole the market from OPEC, which tanked the price per barrel, and subsequently the cost of gas at the pump. OPEC wants a free ride from the Saudis now and they aren’t getting it. Maduro in Venezuela, and his idiot predecessor Chavez, counted on the 2008 price spike $140/bbl being permanent, showing their complete ignorance and lack of understanding of the commodities market. There’s a reason to keep the price low: alternative sources such as tar sands, fracking and so-called ‘green’ energy (ethanol, electric, fuel cells) will expand in the face of high oil and gas prices. The price of gas at the pump did not go over $1.15/gal (regular) in my area until 2003. The world market for crude oil was the cause of the July 2008 price spike at $140/bbl, not politics. It spiked in 2008 and then tanked shortly thereafter, and began to rise starting in 2009, continuing to do so until 2016. That was the OBAMA ADMINISTRATION. https://energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-915-march-7-2016-average-historical-annual-gasoline-pump-price-1929-2015 Personally, having seen the idiotic swings in the price of gas at the pump, I’d be heavily in favor of holding off developing our OWN… Read more »
They were in those Tom Hanks movies, Castaway and Captain Phillips, good flicks.
AH, the anti war protests in Manhatten during the late 60’S early 70’S brought in the NYPD TPF (tactical patrol force) with hats and bats to do the job. Always coming in on those green buses, exiting with helmets, batons and shields. One had to be 6 foot tall or over to get into the unit. I heard that in the mid 80’S they were disbanded because of what i heard from a PD friend of mine that it was a political move. I think they did their job may be too well??
I don’t want to offend anyone here but if you think napalm sticks to kids is funny, you have probably never seen combat.
so we’re touchy-feely today?
Macabre humor has its functions.
yes…and sarcasm
Soldiers in combat engaging in gallows humor? You don’t say? Who would have thought of such a thing?
If not mentioned yet, WP rounds are also used as spotter/marking rounds for call-for-fires to adjust fire before full salvos are shot. The WPs are easily seen. This is much safer, faster, and effective than just firing at targets which were not preplanned.
Really work well for marking targets for air to hit. I spent many a field op working SEAD missions.
The FO/FAC would call in Arty(or Mortars) to suppress a air defense location and then mark another target with WP.
I remember walking around some WP residue we had just shot as we moved up the Quackenbush in the Stumps.
Probably the felt wedge type… It differed from the older type of WP as it ejected burning “wedges” of materiel with burning white phosphorus. It built up smoke screens quicker and covered a larger area.
Tom Kratman touches on “law of war” in his various works.
His various non-fiction columns at EveryJoe.com are quire worth the read.
His commentary within the “Carrera” series are enlightening. (A desert called Peace and the immediate sequel Carnifex are most applicable to the thread at hand.)
(11B-mailclerk is not responsible for blood pressure of exploding heads after reading the works of Kratman. If you haven’t had a cherished notion strongly challenged by him, you missed something.)
I would also add, that our Comissar posted some conversational, reasoned rhetoric. For those of us who have slammed him for angry ranting, it is only fair to note the difference.
We may disagree on point, or on premise, but a reasoned respectful debate is beneficial.
True.
I am still trying to sort out how WP, sexual assault, and OPEC had to do with each other… this post reads more like WOT without recipes.
Yes, Lars is more rational and subdued than usual, a welcome relief.
Insidiis.
😂😂😂
It is pretty classic trolling; spew a bunch of shit to keep the focus off of a flawed argument. Strangely he brought three flawed arguments. Weird.
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