Nothing like letting 3 year olds hold machine guns. Your military dollars being well spent. We are only spending $1 trillion per year. Why not $2 trillion? Imagine how safe from invasion we’d be then.
A convoy of US Army military vehicles, mostly IAV Stryker armoured personnel carriers (APCs), departed the military base in Tapa, Saturday, on a 1,770 km (1,100 miles) tour through six European countries (Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Germany) in total, with the final destination Vilseck in Germany. The trek is being called the “Dragoon Ride,” after the unit’s name – the Dragoons. The tour is aimed at demonstrating strength and solidarity to US and NATO allies in eastern Europe, according to U.S. Army Europe spokesman Lt. Col. Craig Childs.
This NATO convoy will only accomplish one thing by the end of its 1,100 miles trek through Europe: the waste of 6,000 gallons of diesel fuel.
Gotta remind them fuckers who won WWII in case they are thinking of pulling a T4C and going gaga over Putin.
I thought Russia won WW2. They beat up the belligerant German and left him lying in the gutter. The Allies came along later and put the boot in while he was down, then stole his wallet, just like a misunderstood urban youth.
@indialantic:
I read your comment and thought…hmm I wonder how much fuel they really will waste. According to http://www.alu.army.mil/alog/issues/JanFeb04/LogisticsRiskintheStryker.htm the Stryker does about 5.7 mpg (better than I thought). Using a 7mpg average since there are HumVees and Deuce and a halfs get around 8 mpg and the observable split of the collumn was about half Strykers to about half support vehicles you get closer to 4600 gallons of fuel. Of course that doesn’t account for the police cars, vehicles that may exist off the video (including the almost certain to be there tanker trucks…HEMTTs average around 4mpg), and your guess looks pretty damn good. Just sayin’.
“I thought Russia won WW2. They beat up the belligerant German and left him lying in the gutter. The Allies came along later and put the boot in while he was down, then stole his wallet, just like a misunderstood urban youth.”
Spoken like a Soviet commie! The USSR (more than just Russia those days, btw) was within a hair’s width of being ended by the supremely capable, except for their supreme leader, Nazi Germans. Without the allies pounding the western flank and choking the supply of oil from the mideast and Africa, Germany would have taken everything to the Urals and been damn near unstoppable.
It’s not as if the US/UK won by themselves – Germany was more than a match for them (at least in 1942) if it hadn’t been devoting 3/4 of its resources to the east – but it’s a fiction to think that the US/UK had a cakewalk while the USSR did all the important work. Strategic bombing basically won the war in Europe, and there’s one and only one country that did the overwhelming majority of strategic bombing.
” … the waste of 6,000 gallons of diesel fuel.” ——— indialantic
Probably at the cost of $100+ per gallon.
I once read that in some parts of Afghanistan the USA!USA!USA! military was paying $1,000 Obongobucks per gallon.
“Spoken like a Soviet commie! The USSR … was within a hair’s width of being ended by the supremely capable, except for their supreme leader, Nazi Germans.” —– Persnickety
A “hair’s width”??? Are you daft, man? Where do you get your info from? The old “Combat” teevee show?
Let me direct you to a German military history research site website. From their intro;
“The focus of Feldgrau is on primary and secondary research regarding the technical, organizational and operational details of the German armed forces between 1918 and 1945. Feldgrau contains over 10,000 pages of information and is growing larger every day.”
Here is their opening line from the link below —–
“The Soviet Union was the single most important factor in the defeat of Nationalist Socialist Germany. Germany essentially lost the Second World War on the Eastern Front and the key to that loss can be directly attributed to the different economic and industrial factors of both the Soviet Union and the Third Reich.”
I’m not going to look it up, but going from memory something like 80% of German military hardware was lost in Russia, and almost as many men.
Judging from your “Spoken like a Soviet commie!” comment, it seems you have a need/desire to glorify the USA!USA!USA! military accomplishments as the primary cause for defeating Germany. Sadly, the facts speak otherwise.
oops …. here’s the link
http://www.feldgrau.com/econo.html
Hey, that Ukrainian oil isn’t going to liberate itself, and the Qatar-Turkey natural gas pipeline needs European customers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar-Turkey_pipeline
Stuckey, the Communists in our White House Harry Hopkins, Laughlin Currie and in treasure, harry Dexter White and State, Alger Hiss helped funnel OVER $300B in Lend lease to Stalin. While Papa Joe was starving 20,000,000 Ukranians, and throwing millions of his own countrymen in to gulags, we were feeding his armies, opening up a ridiculous “2nd front” in Normandy (instead of Italy, where we were set to sweep in).
The ramifications for our misplaced second front, Operation keelhaul which returned 2,000,000 Anti-Soviet Russians to Stalin, and for shutting Patton and others down, led to the disastrous Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. Within four years post WWII, half the world had gone Communist, including China, Poland, and the splintering of Germany, Korea and Vietnam.
Who nicked persnickety? His last sentence is dead on. AMERICAN precision bombing was the blow the germans couldn’t overcome. American industrial might meant an endless supply of bombers, fighters and munitions. Everyone has heard the old saw that we are safe behind two oceans. Didn’t help germany (or japan) we are the only fuckers capable of crossing oceans
Take a look at this rail of US military equipment rolling through Romania last week.
This posturing and our recent military positioning is just a prelude to a Showdown with Russia.
Later this Spring or in the early Summer the U.S. and NATO will press the “Go” button. Then Ukraine, with better trained troops and much more armament, will roll against Novorussia. U. S. aim is to get the Russians involved as apparent aggressors. Russia militarily involved will force the European countries to declare and act as our allies. With that we’ll peel them all away from any economic rapproachment with Russia. Russia won’t push any confrontation because she can’t. American weapons superiority is too great.
Most people think that the Russians now, like against Napoleon and Hitler, will survive. No, and there’s not a chance. The focused power of the United States is too great.
Prediction: Russia collapses and disintegrates before the end of 2016. Then we take down China.
Irak
Our military will win a great victory, just like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and now against the existential threat from 20,000 ragheaded ISIS army.
IraK
Maybe we can drown Russia with our fake dollars.
The supply line to the Ukraine is really long. Ethical and moral reasons aside, militarily not a good idea. I see a brutal slugfest if it happens. It will make casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan look pretty minor.
Our military in Europe isn’t the question at all. The question is why is our military pre-positioning itself in the SW U.S.: It’s called “Jade Helm 15”.
http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2015/03/18/the-jade-helm-15-drill-is-a-martial-law-civil-war-and-red-list-extraction-drill/
T4C
I think that was the original Pussy Riot.
Air raids don’t win wars. Precision bombing is an oxymoron. Indiscriminate slaughter of civilians and infrastructure prevents new hardware from buing built, it does nothing to stop the hardware already in the field. It will not deter locals from picking up arms in retaliation.
Soldiers win wars. The US does not have enough soldiers to win wars against small nations, so how on earth are they going to win a war with Russia, a nation that has the capacity to fight back?
If such a conflict starts, there will be no winners. Even the racketeers will come to realize their error.
Precision bombing is an oxymoron.
Anyone who thinks that the US can win a war with Russia is a fool. If a war between Russia and the US breaks out, there will be no winners. Even the racketeers will suffer.
NATO Launches “Wide-Scale” War Games Near Russian Border, Creates “Line Of Troops”
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/21/2015 19:00 -0400
Washington looks to be throwing more than the full faith and credit of the US government behind Ukraine. On the heels of news that the US is set to guarantee a Ukrainian international bond issue (while Greek pensioners implicitly subsidize the country’s natural gas exports), NATO is in the midst of conducting large scale military maneuvers along the Russian border in a move Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says encourages “Kiev to pursue a military solution.” Over the course of 10 days, NATO will parade 120 combat vehicles across the region in an effort to prove how quickly the West can confront perceived Russian aggression. Here’s more from Military News:
The [Russian] ministry warned that it hopes Europe “does see the risk of unconditionally following advice from U.S. generals and will not opt for approaches that will rule out the risk of a slide towards a military confrontation between Russia and NATO.”
While the U.S. Army acknowledges the convoy’s movement is “a highly visible demonstration of U.S. commitment to its NATO allies,” Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the commander of U.S. Army Europe, insists “the focus should be on what is the desired end state, and can we get there using diplomatic and economic pressure and support.”
So basically, the US is saying the following: “…although we’re intent on showing just how quickly we can deploy our forces in the event an armed confrontation becomes necessary, we hope you’ll see this for what it is which is our best effort demonstrate that we long for a peaceful solution.” We’ll let you judge for yourself how committed the West is to a peaceful resolution (note the US soldier teaching the small child how to fire a high caliber weapon):
And the US is particularly proud of the fact that it has created a wall of troops along the Russian border:
Meanwhile, US officials don’t understand why anyone would see this as hypocritical. As RT reports, the US State Department’s press official Jeff Rathe “would disagree” with the notion that the US is conductig precisely the types of exercises for which it has previsously condemned Russia:
When asked why the US was condemning Russian exercises inside Russia, State Department press official Jeff Rathke told RT no such statement had ever been made.
While the US has not criticized every military drill conducted by the Kremlin, last August State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Russia’s aviation exercises are “provocative and only serve to escalate tensions.”
“Wouldn’t US and NATO maneuvers on Russian borders, at a time when the West and Russia are at odds over the crisis in Ukraine, also “raise tensions?” asked AP diplomatic correspondent Matt Lee.
“We would disagree with that,” replied Rathke.
Indeed.
In the meantime, Moscow isn’t particularly pleased with Denmark’s eight month old move to join NATO’s missile defense shield, as Russia’s Ambassador to Denmark Mikhail Vanin subtly warned that joining the effort would subject Danish ships to strikes by Russian nuclear missiles and besides, the effort would ultimately be in vain as Moscow has nukes capable of infiltrating the West’s defenses. Here’s more from The Telegraph:
“I don’t think that Danes fully understand the consequence if Denmark joins the American-led missile defence shield. If they do, then Danish warships will be targets for Russian nuclear missiles,” said Mikhail Vanin, the Russian ambassador to Denmark, to the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
“Denmark would be part of the threat against Russia. It would be less peaceful and relations with Russia will suffer. It is, of course, your own decision – I just want to remind you that your finances and security will suffer. At the same time Russia has missiles that certainly can penetrate the future global missile defence system,” Mr Vanin said.
* * *
It would certainly appear from the above that geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe are now running at a fever pitch and with Washington prone to adopting an extra defensive position thanks to what appear to be shifting economic alliances among its staunchest allies, we wouldn’t expect the posturing to die down on either side in the foreseeable future.
Getting ready for reset,financial collapse.Dividing up the world NWO.What will gov pay soldiers with,whatever they can pillage?There has not been one dictator in history that has not used starvation to control its people.
The Nazis guns, tanks and men were stopped cold by the worst winter probably since Napoleon. The Russian designed and built T-34’s, Yak-3s, guns and soldiers out performed the Nazis beating them back from Moscow and then slaughtering them at Stalingrad, Kursk and all the way through Berlin. Our State Dept policies are more akin to Nazi aggression than to the Allies reestablishing peace. What lasting peace did we win in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya; Yemen; what victory in Syria? Iran is clearly a hornets nest that could start Armageddon. Is our Little Hitler kicking sand in Russia’s face for the sake of peace? All that equipment will die and rust in the Ukraine like the glory of the Nazis. Will our stupid Little Hitler get our boys senselessly slaughtered like the French boys at Waterloo and the Germans at Stalingrad?