14 Comments
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Les Vitailles's avatar

One could add that after 3 years of Russian military clown show in Ukraine, there is no rational argument to be made that Russia poses a military threat to Western Europe. Russia's airforce can't even fly over the front line and is limited to launching stand-off attacks; not quite ready to take on the USAF and NATO.

The main argument for ending the war is to peel Russia off from China and Iran; a piece of land East of the Dneiper is a small price to pay for that.

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Stephen's avatar

A short list of US aircraft losses in the first 5 weeks of the 1991 Gulf War. I don’t suppose Putin is too worried about NATO

F/A Hornet shot down by an Iraqi MIG-25

A6E Intruder shot down by a SAM over western Iraq

F15 Eagle shot down by AAA

A6E Intruder shot down by AAA

OV-10 Bronco shot down by SAM

F-4 Phantom crashed in the Saudi Arabian desert after attacking Iraqi air defenses.

F-15 Eagle shot down by SAM

F-16 Fighting Falcon shot down by SAM

F-16 Fighting Falcon shot down by SAM

F-14 Tomcat shot down by SAM

AV-8B shot down by MANPADS.

AC-130H Hercules shot down by SAM

A6E Intruder shot down by AAA

A-10 Thunderbolt shot down by SAM

F-18 Hornet crashed in the Persian Gulf.

AV-8B shot down by surface SAM

F111A crashed into terrain while manoeuvring to evade a missile fired by an enemy Mirage

A-10 Thunderbolt shot down by SAM

A-10 Thunderbolt hiit by ground fire approximately 60 miles northwest of Kuwait city

A-10 Thunderbolt shot down by SAM

A-10 Thunderbolt made a wheels up, hard stick landing after being hit by a SAM

AV-8B crashed when it failed to recover from a high angle dive possibly hit by AAA or a MANPAD.

AV-8B was hit by MANPADS and crashed while trying to land at Al Jaber airfield, Kuwait

OV-10 Bronco shot down by SAM

An AV8B shot down by MANPADS.

A-10 Thunderbolt crashed after being hit by SAM after losing all its hydraulics

F-16C shot down by MANPADS.

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Les Vitailles's avatar

Anything known about the other 4,000+ US aircraft used?

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ForeignLocal's avatar

They all landed safely back on their bases once their mission was accomplished.

God bless all our men and women in uniform, and may His ire fall on the Leftist enemies of our country who disrespect our Nation, our flag, and our Veterans-POWs-MIA. In God’s name I pray. Amen.

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Will Hayden's avatar

The only people who will read this are ones unafraid to hear the truth.

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scott m's avatar

I just saw that I wrote uniformed instead of uninformed; but there are both types out there.

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scott m's avatar

I cannot express how much I appreciate your essay. When I see uniformed Americans holding little flags and "standing with Ukraine", a contemptuous laughter wells up inside me and explodes.

In my town there is a lawyer who never shuts up with his letters to the editor, explaining how Ukraine is vital to Americans' safety. He blathers on, year after year with a thought process and grammatical skills that demonstrate to me why I would not hire that goof to handle a traffic ticket.

He has a retired pediatrician at his side, waving the blue and yellow flag and screaming, "Russia! Russia! Russia!" They are two ignorant peas in a pod of egotistical nonsense.

Meanwhile, as Russia toys around with an insignificant little land of actual Nazis, China is steadily stretching its tentacles to every corner of the world.

As my dead friend said, "I ain't got time fer no stoopid sumbitch."

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ForeignLocal's avatar

The “stoopid sumbitches” have been at the wheel in our country far too long, Scott. No more, I say.

Welcome to ForeignLocal: common sense against the stoopid sumbitches!

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Nick Apel's avatar

Politicians are, in general, self involved thieves. How many lives are lost to achieve their goals is of no consequence.

Our predecessors wrote the constitution to tell us that absolute power absolutely corrupts. Not all, but most politicians are Godless. Self is their god and everyone and everything is expendable in the process of achieving their goals.

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ForeignLocal's avatar

Amen. Let's push the MAGA reform to try and fix that. God bless.

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Jim Brown's avatar

I was there in 1992.

What you say is so true.

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D. Williams's avatar

Can’t we all agree it’s time to move on from spending billions of taxpayer dollars to enrich the munitions manufacturers and defense contractors destroying Ukraine to spending billions of taxpayer dollars to enrich the multinational corporations anxiously waiting in the wings to rebuild Ukraine?

Retired Major General Smedley D. Butler (USMC) hit the nail on the head almost one hundred years ago when he wrote War Is a Racket.

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ForeignLocal's avatar

We'd wish, right? Major Butler was very right. Thanks for sharing, D.

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The Una_Bonger's avatar

You missed one in question 1

Reason is it’s a way to legally launder money back to politicians that support the military industrial complex. It also provides a means to selling our weapons to groups that hate us…another money grab. Example is of me getting paid fuck the rest of y’all

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