|
Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On April 03 2026 05:23 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2026 04:56 Biff The Understudy wrote:On April 03 2026 04:12 LightSpectra wrote:
Hegseth declaring no quarter is a war crime. Perfidy, which he bragged about before denying he did, is also a war crime. This guy being “minister of war” is just so fucking pathetic it will be a stain on the US for decades. He sounds like a 13 years old trying to be badass. + Show Spoiler +But that can be said about basically anyone in the current US administration. That is the sad thing. Hegseth is uniquely pathetic and silly as a minister in a historical context. But within this administration, you also got Trump, you got Kennedy. You even had Musk with his DOGE bullshit for a while. You get all these clowns at once.
Which might once again be a typical Trump play. If you only have one clown, it is easy to focus on that one. If everyone is a clown, you can't focus on one of them for long enough for it to matter before you get distracted by another of the clowns doing something even more insane. That seems to be the MAGA play. Do horrific, illegal, idiotic or plain insane things so quickly that no one can focus on a single thing long enough for there to be consequences. And so far, it has worked in some insane way.
It's not really a mystery why. Democrats are ostensibly the only viable opposition (they fight tooth and nail to keep it that way, consequences be damned) and they demonstrably don't have competent leadership with any semblance of a plan because their supporters can't demand it of them.
|
On April 03 2026 03:16 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2026 03:00 Billyboy wrote:On April 03 2026 02:30 oBlade wrote:On April 02 2026 23:40 Billyboy wrote:On April 02 2026 23:24 oBlade wrote:On April 02 2026 23:03 Billyboy wrote:
Markets don’t believe there is a quick exit coming. Oil prices up, dow down.
@olblade can we call the last Iran war a failure since it didn’t “obliterate “ their nuclear program and they needed to do it again so soon after?
And to anyone. What is the current price tag on this? Even moving all the stuff has huge costs. Huge strategic failure and disaster, @biblyob. Iran was shrewdly able to destroy 14 American bunker-busting bombs using two of its nuclear sites, reducing them to smithereens, while losing 0 bunker-busting bombs of its own. Flawless victory by the Iranians. Glad we agree that was a failure. Look, the US has successfully destroyed all of Irans anti air. They have destroyed Irans navy. They have killed mush of the senior leaderships. They have destroyed most of Irans radars if not all. They have destroyed many of Irans launchers. They have claimed to have obliterated their nuclear sites again. Sadly to paraphrase Trump, last time they just dug them up and they could use them again so we will see this time. This is information of generally useful resolution. Hold that thought. They probably didn't "dig up" the centrifuges. Those aren't fixable once blown up. They almost certainly just have/had many centrifuges in several places. What you'd need to dig up is the existing uranium stockpile because that's the whole game, otherwise your centrifuges have nothing to refine. On April 02 2026 23:40 Billyboy wrote:
What they have not accomplished, regime change. They sped up the transition and have put a more radical person in control. Two sentences directly after the other. They haven't accomplished regime change, and they put a more radical person in control. Sure just say anything. Sped up the transition to... what. On April 02 2026 23:40 Billyboy wrote:
Their proxy’s are still armed and dangerous, not even close to defeat.
They have not opened the strait. You can separately actually fight Hezbollah and the Houthis but anyway fighting Iran the point is to cut them off. When you stop serving a guy at a bar it doesn't un-drunk him instantly. On April 02 2026 23:40 Billyboy wrote:
They have not taken away Irans ability to strike countries around and don’t seem to have a good answer for the drones. This would be a problem if they wanted to accomplish the strategic goal of literally blow up every single missile before April 2nd when Billyboy has to post about it to oBlade. Remember before that information of generally useful resolution? You took it and reduced it to the lowest possible resolution meaningless binary state. You took their capabilities have been greatly reduced and continue to be, and summarized it as they still have the capability. Meaningless. Having 2 missiles you still have the "ability" to strike. If Iran had 10,000 missiles and lost 9,998 you could sit here and post editorialized NYT level "they still have the ability to strike countries around!" On April 02 2026 23:40 Billyboy wrote:
So basically all the strategic goals they wanted to accomplish, have been failures. But they have been very successful at destroying a bunch of conventional military equipment of Irans. I’m not sure how that comes close to a win when you consider the cost. Even if we are only talking money, with is like a quarter of the picture. Convert everything else to a cost if you want to compare apples to apples. Put a dollar price on Iran maintaining an expanding missile shield. Put a dollar price on them getting a nuclear weapon. Do the whole calculation or your ledger is incomplete. You can say it's impossible to compare apples to oranges, or you can try to convert apples to oranges to compare two piles of oranges, but if you just go to an apple tree and say look there's no oranges therefore the orange tree wins you started from an exclusionary biased assumption. A lot of the "strategic goals" are your brainstorm. Like regime change. The administration may not need any particular regime, just to have whatever one there is not get nukes and unlimited missiles and fund all the enemies of humanity. The closest unbiased sense of where the goals lie might be the reports we have of the 15-point conditions for ceasefire from this year and from the bombing ultimatum last year. + Show Spoiler +1. Iran must dismantle its existing nuclear capabilities.
2. Iran must commit never to pursue nuclear weapons.
3. There will be no uranium enrichment on Iranian territory.
4. Iran must hand its stockpile of some 450 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent to the International Atomic Energy Agency in the near future, in a timetable to be agreed.
5. The Natanz, Isfahan and Fordo nuclear facilities must be dismantled.
6. The IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, must be granted full access, transparency and oversight inside Iran.
7. Iran must abandon its regional proxy “paradigm.”
8. Iran must cease the funding, direction and arming of its regional proxies.
9. The Strait of Hormuz must remain open and function as a free maritime corridor.
10. Iran’s missile program must be limited in both range and quantity, with specific thresholds to be determined at a later stage.
11. Any future use of missiles would be restricted to self-defense.
In return, Iran would benefit as follows:
12. Iran would receive a full lifting of sanctions imposed by the international community.
13. The US would assist Iran in advancing its civilian nuclear program, including electricity generation at the Bushehr nuclear plant.
14. The so-called “snapback” mechanism, which allows for the automatic reimposition of sanctions if Iran fails to comply, would be removed. This is not the dunk you think it is. You arguing that it’s not the same regime but worse, but rather a new worse regime, uh sure you win. They succeeded in putting a worse regime in place. They have also failed in at least 8 of the 11 points. The cost on their degraded missile capacity I would put at 13 dollars. Since they can still destroy the worlds economies with what they have and now they are using less. The delaying of a nuke, I’ll put at 174 dollars because we’ll making sure Iran would never have a nuke is a worthwhile goal, they in no way have gauranteed that and simultaneously told every dictatorship, actually just everyone that you need a nuke. Hell, there are even now conversations about if Canada should get a nuke. This whole thing is an epic own goal. I look forward to reading why Trump is still winning in a few months, when they are still winning, just harder in Iran and Trumpflation has doubled gas a food prices. I think this is actually a victory for Trump. People basically stopped talking about the Epstein files after all. And also he probably made some money off of the market manipulation once again. Probably a loss for basically anyone else, though.
I don’t. Even with Bondi getting fired, Epstein was brought up. His base still cares and they were not clamouring for a war against Iran. Most were anti war . And MAGA not a fan of Israel other than the Christian Zionists that think this will bring end times.
But really the one thing that seems to actually move voters is costs of everyday items. And Ted states are getting hit just as hard or harder when it comes to the pumps. The same is going to be true for food and other products as their price goes up.
Epstein will be back as soon as the war is done, and prices keep going up as long as it’s on. It seems that the managed to do the only thing that would actually shake his supporters.
|
Such a weird firing of Bondi, maybe it got into his head since "the apprentice" because his hair-trigger firing seem very bad for him, in the government these firing send a message of instability while maybe he just does it out of impulse.
|
|
|
On April 02 2026 05:02 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2026 04:52 KT_Elwood wrote:
Do you feel with the future TRUMP®-FCA ban on all foreign routers (because every hack of routers always was aiming at foreign routers, because there haven't been commercially available all american routers) is done because the american regime needs an even easier way to spy on people and controll flow of information? IMO they're just fishing for bribes from ASUS and the rest. Backdooring every American-made router is not practical.
They argue with attacks that used american forced backdoors that made foreign made routers vulnurable (CISCO) - and with protection of interlectual property.
I just assume your router ratting you out for pirating something you should have paid Larry Ellision for $17,99/mo.
|
https://www.axios.com/2026/04/03/iran-us-fighter-shot-down
Looks like Iran shoot down an F-15E and captured the pilot.
Honestly, 1 shoot down in more then a month of operations, including low altitude strafing runs by A-10s and generally moving on to relatively lower altitude bombing runs, it's extremely impressive that this has not happened sooner, but now that it has, it does pierce the aura of invincibility USA and Israel enjoyed from the air.
In the grand scheme of things, I'm sure that the pilot will command a kings ransom sometime down the line, likely after the end of hostilities, but, you never know with Trump.
Him being famous for his "I like soldiers who don't get captured" statement on McCain and with Hegseth saying insane shit like "no quarter given to the enemy", perhaps they are fucked up enough to just tell the Iranians that they don't care and some insanity ensues.
|
On April 03 2026 23:26 Jankisa wrote:https://www.axios.com/2026/04/03/iran-us-fighter-shot-downLooks like Iran shoot down an F-15E and captured the pilot. Honestly, 1 shoot down in more then a month of operations, including low altitude strafing runs by A-10s and generally moving on to relatively lower altitude bombing runs, it's extremely impressive that this has not happened sooner, but now that it has, it does pierce the aura of invincibility USA and Israel enjoyed from the air. In the grand scheme of things, I'm sure that the pilot will command a kings ransom sometime down the line, likely after the end of hostilities, but, you never know with Trump. Him being famous for his "I like soldiers who don't get captured" statement on McCain and with Hegseth saying insane shit like "no quarter given to the enemy", perhaps they are fucked up enough to just tell the Iranians that they don't care and some insanity ensues.
Yeah. Good luck to the pilot.
|
On April 04 2026 00:01 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2026 23:26 Jankisa wrote:https://www.axios.com/2026/04/03/iran-us-fighter-shot-downLooks like Iran shoot down an F-15E and captured the pilot. Honestly, 1 shoot down in more then a month of operations, including low altitude strafing runs by A-10s and generally moving on to relatively lower altitude bombing runs, it's extremely impressive that this has not happened sooner, but now that it has, it does pierce the aura of invincibility USA and Israel enjoyed from the air. In the grand scheme of things, I'm sure that the pilot will command a kings ransom sometime down the line, likely after the end of hostilities, but, you never know with Trump. Him being famous for his "I like soldiers who don't get captured" statement on McCain and with Hegseth saying insane shit like "no quarter given to the enemy", perhaps they are fucked up enough to just tell the Iranians that they don't care and some insanity ensues. Yeah. Good luck to the pilot.
surprised trump has not yet suggested replacing ejectable seats and parachutes with cyanide pill. It'd lower the plane weight, increasing fuel efficiency and offset the higher cost of gas to run the missions
|
|
|
On April 03 2026 23:26 Jankisa wrote:https://www.axios.com/2026/04/03/iran-us-fighter-shot-downLooks like Iran shoot down an F-15E and captured the pilot. Honestly, 1 shoot down in more then a month of operations, including low altitude strafing runs by A-10s and generally moving on to relatively lower altitude bombing runs, it's extremely impressive that this has not happened sooner, but now that it has, it does pierce the aura of invincibility USA and Israel enjoyed from the air. In the grand scheme of things, I'm sure that the pilot will command a kings ransom sometime down the line, likely after the end of hostilities, but, you never know with Trump. Him being famous for his "I like soldiers who don't get captured" statement on McCain and with Hegseth saying insane shit like "no quarter given to the enemy", perhaps they are fucked up enough to just tell the Iranians that they don't care and some insanity ensues.
What? A-10 over Iran? Do You have any proof? As far as I know they are only being used in Iraq and Syria.
BTW: F15E is a two people aircraft so two airman most likely captured. Also this is 5th F15 lost in this war if I am not mistaken (in air, hard to say how much was lost on the ground).
|
United States44242 Posts
On April 04 2026 00:01 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2026 23:26 Jankisa wrote:https://www.axios.com/2026/04/03/iran-us-fighter-shot-downLooks like Iran shoot down an F-15E and captured the pilot. Honestly, 1 shoot down in more then a month of operations, including low altitude strafing runs by A-10s and generally moving on to relatively lower altitude bombing runs, it's extremely impressive that this has not happened sooner, but now that it has, it does pierce the aura of invincibility USA and Israel enjoyed from the air. In the grand scheme of things, I'm sure that the pilot will command a kings ransom sometime down the line, likely after the end of hostilities, but, you never know with Trump. Him being famous for his "I like soldiers who don't get captured" statement on McCain and with Hegseth saying insane shit like "no quarter given to the enemy", perhaps they are fucked up enough to just tell the Iranians that they don't care and some insanity ensues. Yeah. Good luck to the pilot.
Iran are likely to show more discipline and respect for law than the US with their “sink the boat, then bomb the life jacket floating survivors” policy.
|
On April 04 2026 00:36 Silvanel wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2026 23:26 Jankisa wrote:https://www.axios.com/2026/04/03/iran-us-fighter-shot-downLooks like Iran shoot down an F-15E and captured the pilot. Honestly, 1 shoot down in more then a month of operations, including low altitude strafing runs by A-10s and generally moving on to relatively lower altitude bombing runs, it's extremely impressive that this has not happened sooner, but now that it has, it does pierce the aura of invincibility USA and Israel enjoyed from the air. In the grand scheme of things, I'm sure that the pilot will command a kings ransom sometime down the line, likely after the end of hostilities, but, you never know with Trump. Him being famous for his "I like soldiers who don't get captured" statement on McCain and with Hegseth saying insane shit like "no quarter given to the enemy", perhaps they are fucked up enough to just tell the Iranians that they don't care and some insanity ensues. What? A-10 over Iran? Do You have any proof? As far as I know they are only being used in Iraq and Syria. BTW: F15E is a two people aircraft so two airman most likely captured. Also this is 5th F15 lost in this war if I am not mistaken (in air, hard to say how much was lost on the ground).
I saw a few posts over the past few weeks of A-10s doing strafing runs over Iran, the only leftover ones are the ones like this where they say it's attacking Iran based militias in Iraq:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1rxahf0/a10_doing_a_strafing_run_on_iran_backed_militias/
On the other hand, there is a report with a quote from US general here saying they are doing things over the gulf:
https://sofrep.com/news/the-a-10c-warthog-at-war-in-iran/
It's hard to know what exactly is going on with the fog of war, so I might have fallen for a fake video saying that the A-10 was potted in Iran, while the video was from Iraq runs against PMF forces.
For all that I know, sofrep.com article and quote might be bullshit as this is the first time I encountered this site, but it does look legit from what I can tell.
|
On April 04 2026 00:36 Silvanel wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2026 23:26 Jankisa wrote:https://www.axios.com/2026/04/03/iran-us-fighter-shot-downLooks like Iran shoot down an F-15E and captured the pilot. Honestly, 1 shoot down in more then a month of operations, including low altitude strafing runs by A-10s and generally moving on to relatively lower altitude bombing runs, it's extremely impressive that this has not happened sooner, but now that it has, it does pierce the aura of invincibility USA and Israel enjoyed from the air. In the grand scheme of things, I'm sure that the pilot will command a kings ransom sometime down the line, likely after the end of hostilities, but, you never know with Trump. Him being famous for his "I like soldiers who don't get captured" statement on McCain and with Hegseth saying insane shit like "no quarter given to the enemy", perhaps they are fucked up enough to just tell the Iranians that they don't care and some insanity ensues. What? A-10 over Iran? Do You have any proof? As far as I know they are only being used in Iraq and Syria. BTW: F15E is a two people aircraft so two airman most likely captured. Also this is 5th F15 lost in this war if I am not mistaken (in air, hard to say how much was lost on the ground). A-10s are reported as attacking ships in the Straits of Hormuz by General Caine.
One of the two crew members from the shot-down F15 is already reported as rescued (CNN Reporter. It's a good reminder that the US also has information on where they went down and operate very capable search and rescue teams.
|
United States44242 Posts
The A-10 has been considered not worth the cost in maintenance every year for 3 decades and the Air Force has been desperately trying to get rid of them so that they can allocate the resources to things they actually want. They’re a CAS airframe in a world of MANPADS, a death trap for pilots except for targets that have already been made defenceless by other better platforms. The expert opinion of the USAF is that they’d be more useful if you towed them out to the desert and left them there.
But someone in Congress thinks they’re cool and so every year the Air Force is told that they’re not allowed to scrap them.
|
Stait of Hormuz is rather large and is not Iran... I believe in them shooting at shaheds or boats or whatever. But flying over Iran proper? That does not seem very likely... precisely because of manpads.
|
Every single combat footage I have seen of A10s in this war have been strafing or bombing runs on shia PMF militia in Iraq.
I seriously doubt they are in Iran.
Anything in the air can shoot down a Shaheed so they might be doing that too.
|
Well, speaking of flying over Iran proper:
https://v.redd.it/9emrlln32zsg1
2 black hawks being refueled at low altitude during the search and rescue operation that (according to Israeli media) got one of the F-15E pilots out.
I got to say, hats off to these folks, this operation involved a lot of low flying over an hostile area where another plane was already shoot down, that takes some serious skills and balls.
|
On April 04 2026 02:05 KwarK wrote:
The A-10 has been considered not worth the cost in maintenance every year for 3 decades and the Air Force has been desperately trying to get rid of them so that they can allocate the resources to things they actually want. They’re a CAS airframe in a world of MANPADS, a death trap for pilots except for targets that have already been made defenceless by other better platforms. The expert opinion of the USAF is that they’d be more useful if you towed them out to the desert and left them there.
But someone in Congress thinks they’re cool and so every year the Air Force is told that they’re not allowed to scrap them.
McCain grilled some Airforce General over the A10 10 years ago while obviously playing dumb to the reason why A-10 needs to go.
"Is it the best plane for the job?"
"No, because it spents 3 times longer in maintainance and in the hangar it isn't supporting anyone"
"But if it works, it's the better plane"
"Yes, but I don't have the crews to keep them available"
"So you don't want to give our troops the best plane?"
"I can't because it's not in the budget, with the budget we have we can have multirole fighters with less maintainance that can do the job and are available when support is needed"
"But not as good?"
"Sir I explain..."
"Don't you love american soldiers general?"
|
On April 04 2026 02:05 Silvanel wrote:
Stait of Hormuz is rather large and is not Iran... I believe in them shooting at shaheds or boats or whatever. But flying over Iran proper? That does not seem very likely... precisely because of manpads. You have heard of territorial waters … such as Iranian territorial waters? Sinking Iranian vessels in Iranian territorial waters is attacking Iran and different than Iraq and Syria. They obviously also go out from there, just like Iranian boats do.
But it sounds like you meant to say just A-10 airstrikes onto Iranian land bases and personnel. Weird exclusion, but I don’t really know on that question.
|
A-10 shot down. Looks worse and worse for USAF. So much for "air domination" over Iran.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
