Liam

I think the larger issue is we haven’t declared war on Iran

It’s also not enough money to lure the people you would be really interested in, just a way to hire the wash-outs and give them enough institutional authority to cause issues

The history of fitness is really fascinating and it's why I have no patience for the idolization of the physicality of people in the past. As a general rule, people were not in great shape for most of the past 4,000 years; there were plenty of exceptions, but by and large? You're better off now.

To be fair, the 82nd is probably saying exactly this

CENTCOM seeing a meaningless number you can put in a PowerPoint

I think the more cogent analysis is what does spending missiles/interceptors here mean you won’t be able to do in the near future, etc.

The missile math game always seems a little silly to me every time it’s trotted out.

I would be more concerned that as this language proliferates and is actively encouraged by the regime, there will be further drain of competency as personnel decide to take the out instead of re-upping, to be replaced by less competent but regime-aligned personnel

The way that guy responded to that whole scandal was so aggressive and non-apologetic that I really started questioning his story of getting it by accident

I don’t even really think this is fair. Iraq was heavily debated publicly, and there was a plan. It was a stupid and delusional plan based on unrealistic assumptions, but it was known publicly and voted on by Congress.

There was no public debate or Congressional authorization in this instance.

Honestly so was the UK if we’re going by numbers of lend lease support

member of a profession or partisan political prop?

Draped in a Venezuelan flag, Leonardo Angulo, 35, danced near a statue of Simon Bolivar, who helped free Venezuela from Spanish imperial rule. Mr. Angulo, who has lived in the United States for eight years, said he and his family came out “to celebrate, and gather with my people, because we share this feeling, this feeling of joy, of happiness, of hope most of all.” Still, there was an undercurrent of anxiety, which one person in the crowd attributed to concerns that federal agents would appear and detain the Venezuelans present at the rally.

a Venezuelan man celebrating what he hopes is a turning point for his home country's oppression but can only do so by hopscotching around a distinctly American form of Nazism

www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01...

One thing I took away from reading the Goebbels’ diaries this year was that Nazi decision makers were always so smugly self-satisfied with their foreign policy decisions and found the idea that their actions were setting Germany on the road to absolute catastrophe impossible to comprehend.

If you think about it, paying militants to not attack your convoys really is right up there with Cannae

The Yamato at least looked imposing

related to this a lot of people in the pundit class need to learn how to just be annoyed by someone or something without turning it into What’s Wrong With America

Trump sent Vance there twice. He threatened to cut off all federal spending to the state. He vowed to back primary challengers of any Republican who voted against him here. He posted their names online, prompting his fans to send them death threats.

But all that failed, so now he wasn't involved.

I was in ROTC when when the original torture memo came out, and still remember officers and NCOs dismissing the findings as “playing in the water” or “getting a bit hungry”. This stuff doesn’t go away unless there are active repercussions.

Not to be overly blithe but as a former SOF guy, SOF needs to have their entire population reduced by at least half while the remainder goes through re-education camps to 1)remove the influence of Iraq and Afghanistan and 2)build mission sets that actually support the joint force in LSCO

They’re wearing masks so they can’t be prosecuted later. As long as they think they can’t be prosecuted, their crimes will intensify. They will torture, starve and kill, as they have already, on greater and greater scale.

Signed, someone who’s covered the unaccountable War on Terror for 23 years.

Immigration and naturalization services vs Lopez-Mendoza, 1984. Ruled that 4th amendment protections do not extend to immigration law.

I now realize that for my entire adult life, I've had a very narrow conception of what "supporting and defending the Constitution" means. Standing on business when armed agents of the State are knocking on your door is way more important, by a country mile, than anything I did overseas

“Magical Thinking” etc

aaand we are officially in the hide-your-neighbors stage

There is something to this in that soldiers always seem to believe the enemy’s equipment is better. So even though the Sherman is by far the superior family of tanks, you can still find comments about their supposed weakness throughout oral testimonies from US and British tankers from the war.

the pope remains Catholic.

I also doubt that our defeat in Afghanistan had anything to do with service members being too fat.

That entire speech felt like a re-litigation of 20-teens era online military squabbles.

National Defense Ministry Honors 11 Soldiers for Refusing Illegal Orders National Defense Ministry Honors 11 Soldiers for Refusing Illegal Orders Honored for rejecting illegal orders during martial law, Marine death probe

The South Korean Ministry of Defense has awarded medals of merit to 11 officers for disobeying direct orders of superiors during the martial law fiasco, orders that they deemed to be contrary to the constitution and endangerment to democracy.
www.chosun.com/english/nati...