How many white GWOT vets airhole their family and then commit suicide by cop every week?

Turns out our non-white imperial auxiliaries get PTSD too, but they don't get book deals and an Eastwood movie to make up for it

Listen, I was there when the first afghans evacuees got off the plane at Dulles in late July 2021. But a few months later we had nice liberals in the community asking us if they could host a Ukrainian family. "What about Afghan or Congolese?"

"Oh, no thanks"

Racist fucking country, man

I think in hindsight (which is 20/20) the smarter gamble for Hezb and IR is to put as many S/MRBMs into Israeli airbases and strategic bases on the afternoon of Oct 7 as possible. Although easy for us who aren't at risk to forget the nuclear option for Israel.

Noteworthy that Israel killed off many of the 80s revolutionary Iran Iraq veterans, and they were replaced after a few days of remarkable silence by a lot of Army (not IRGC) officers who were largely not 80s vets, but younger officers who cut their teeth in the GWOT era

Yeah I think a lot of Western observers miss the fact that a lot of the disagreement within the Iranian deep state is about how ineffective at fighting Israel Khamenei and the old school have been. The new school is more aggressive and more jaded and more pragmatic.

Listen, nobody wants to be the one to start a risky war against a superior enemy, but Irans advantages (their missile and drone forces) were basically entirely neutered by the simple fact that Israel got to choose when and how to strike first, every time

Ansarallah was arguably the only AoR actor who understood this, but was the one with the least capability to escalate.

Not wishcasting, just thinking about how Iran (and AoR more broadly) had very timid and reactive strategy throughout, and how that was probably a strategic mistake. They allowed Israel to maintain control over the escalation ladder, and could only react instead of forcing reaction on their terms

Fuck it, should I do a full JLOTS write-up?

"if rusted old MiGs you see, inside a secured compound you will catch Z's"

Or as we say (said 😭) in the business,

"if you only see MiG-21s, it's not big sums. If you see MiG-23s, you'll be busy bees. If MiG-21s and MiG-23s, big per diems you shall seize."

On a slightly different topic, the number of rusted out MiG-21 and MiG-23s visible while landing at the capital city airport is a great measure of "how many 'supported by USAID' signs am I gonna see on my way to the One Hotel Every White Person Stays At"

Arleigh Burke still leading the Navy surface warfare fleet in the year 2100

It's a real bummer to keep shunting MBS further down the list of "worst middle eastern leaders"

Like, he's still up there, but there's at least a few above him

One thing I talked about in my comparison between the respective battles in Mosul and Gaza. The Iraqi Security Forces processed thousands of civilians who were forced or voluntary laborers for ISIS defensive works. But the ISF saw themselves as liberating these people, not defeating them.