Chimp goes to Naval War College and lectures on how to run a war???

Just now seeing this (replay on Cspan), what a fucking abomination. I can't watch any more, he's doing his little 'heh heh', 'aw shucks' schtick. Goddamnit I despise this little prick. :grr:

since BEFORE the First World War.

In what way? Manpower? Hulls? (Obviously not tonnage...)

I didn't know it had gone through any really significant shrinkage; I'd always been of the impression that the navy was the biggest branch.

Many of those close to retirement have been forced into the 'blue to green' program and found themselves in Iraq.

Others have found themselves doing convoy duty in Iraq as navy personnel after a few days' training with firearms at Ft. Bragg.

But in terms of hull numbers, it's at its smallest since before WWI.

It's crazy to keep spending almost as much on our military as the entire rest of the world combined.

Your claim about the size of our navy is misleading, particularly since you did not reveal it was based on hull numbers until pressed to do so. The number of hulls is not a legitimate comparison over that period of time. For example, all of our nine active Nimitz-class supercarriers displace 104,000 tons - three times that of Yorktown's 36,380 tons of displacement fully loaded. PT-109 displaced 56 tons. The USS Ronald Reagan, the supercarrier most recently placed in service, cost $4.3 billion to build. We have two other supercarriers in active service: USS Enterprise, at 93,500 tons; and the USS Kitty Hawk, at 82,200 tons.

And we're currently fitting out the 10th Nimitz-class carrier, the USS George H. W. Bush. Since we plan to keep a total of 11 carriers on active duty, she will probably replace Kitty Hawk. But don't put your checkbook away yet. If you think we don't already have enough monster aircraft carriers named after loser Republican presidents, help is on the way! Gerald Ford has a whole new class of supercarriers named after him. The first Ford-class carrier is to replace Enterprise at a cost of about $13 billion.

Oh, did I mention Jimmy Carter has a submarine named after him? 12,139 tons.

the costs of the Iraq War are off budget, so who knows?

We need a good sized navy to counter what China is churning out.

What is China churning out? They have zero carriers in service today. They posess the former Soviet aircraft carrier Varyag, which displaces only 67,500 tons. She was never completed and is in storage. There are rumors that they plan to build one but it would be nothing compared to just one of the current US supercarriers.

What exactly is it about China that we need to counter, and how would you propose that we do it? Blow their old diesel subs out of the water if they ever dare stray from Chinese territorial waters?

They are building submarines and amphibious assault ships.

And one of their subs got into the middle of one of our battle groups not long ago. We supposedly had only one sub in the group. That's not enough.

If we didn't have all those battle groups they couldn't get their diesel subs in the middle of them. And if you doubled the size of the US Navy you couldn't be certain that you could keep a Chinese junk out of a battle group. Say what, they're building more subs and amphibious assault ships? That's it? And for that, half the military expenditures of every single nation on earth is not enough?

But if you really think we should have more than one sub assigned to this battle group, don't you think we should send over one or two of the other 54 nuclear attack subs we have in commission right now (not counting the 18 boomers) before we start building more?

I wish you were right.

:banghead:

grrrrrrr

:spray: :rofl: :crazy: :silly:

I dearly hope that some of the officers and gentlemen (and gentlewomen, too) listening to The Decider are keeping their poker faces on and are taking notes on how Georgiekins is not only blowing the Iraq War, but also the one in Afghanistan, where the leaders of al Qaeda were based in September, 2001, and where the Taliban is threatening to regain control of that country.

:grr:

She said, "I know you say you talk with your commanders on the ground, but with all due respect, do you listen to them?" or words to that effect.

Was on NPR this afternoon.

That should work pretty well.

a vegetarian."

The only thing pissypants knows about war is that he likes to dress up and play war.

What a sorry excuse for a human...he is absolutely pathetic.

For a couple of days I've been trying to decide whether this idea for a thread is flamebait or not:


Title: The role of troops is to FOLLOW ORDERS, *not* to spread freedom or protect our freedoms.


Message: They are at the beck and call of whoever occupies the government, and whether the mission is noble as in WW II or NOT (Vietnam-Iraq) is totally outside of their control.

They don't choose the mission and shouldn't do so.

That way, screw ups, such as this one, are entirely the political 'leadership's fault.

oh wow. i cannot imagine the self-control those poor folks must have to NOT burst out laughing.

Thank you. Hey, you've been a great audience. I'll be here all week.