US Politics Thread 2021-24

[August]

Originally Posted by MaDef

you and I both know that's not true.

What else do you think the administration can get away with doing for Ukraine?

[Otto Harkaman]

[Rockstar]

What the hell kind of headline is this?

NBC reports: N.Y. grand jury not expected to vote on possible Trump indictment this week.

Maybe next week! Stay tuned any day now. Just believe

Still taking bets. It’s your chance to win big.

[MaDef]

Originally Posted by August

What else do you think the administration can get away with doing for Ukraine?

How about pulling the "funding" and telling Western Europe, that if they don't want Putin for a next door neighbor they need to step up and deal with the situation.

I've said this since the beginning, that war is a regional one, at this juncture The only thing the U.S. is getting in providing funding is a larger deficit.

[August]

Originally Posted by MaDef

How about pulling the "funding" and telling Western Europe, that if they don't want Putin for a next door neighbor they need to step up and deal with the situation.

I've said this since the beginning, that war is a regional one, at this juncture The only thing the U.S. is getting in providing funding is a larger deficit.

I'm sure that the Ukrainians appreciate our help, as without it they're the ones who will end up dead or sent off to the Gulag.

I can agree with you that the Europeans need to step up but at this point if we abandon Ukraine then the direct result is that we leave millions of innocent people to a horrible fate.

[Gorpet]

[QUOTE=August;2860436]I'm sure that the Ukrainians appreciate our help, as without it they're the ones who will end up dead or sent off to the Gulag.



I can agree with you that the Europeans need to step up but at this point if we abandon Ukraine then the direct result is that we leave millions of innocent people to a horrible fate.


Well ya know August . Joey was given the crown and millions of our fellow citizens voted for him and his Administration. Where those votes lead us.Only the survivor's in the future might be able to tell the story.

[em2nought]

Apparently there were lots of deep fake images of President Trump being arrested and crying in court that the mainstream media made sure to show everyone this week knowing full well that they were deep fakes. The main story was a deep fake of the Pope in a puffy jacket, but they made sure to throw President Trump in there too.

[Gorpet]

Originally Posted by Otto Harkaman

I'm sure that the Billions of dollars that the
Anti war Biden Administration has sent to Ukraine.Could have been invested into the social security that your parents paid into.

[August]

Originally Posted by Gorpet

I'm sure that the Billions of dollars that the
Anti war Biden Administration has sent to Ukraine.Could have been invested into the social security that your parents paid into.

Well I don't think so as I'm pretty sure that nobody would accept 155mm artillery shells in lieu of a Social Security payment.

[MaDef]

Originally Posted by August

I'm sure that the Ukrainians appreciate our help, as without it they're the ones who will end up dead or sent off to the Gulag.

I can agree with you that the Europeans need to step up but at this point if we abandon Ukraine then the direct result is that we leave millions of innocent people to a horrible fate.

So... If I understand you correctly, your support for Ukraine is based on emotion rather than objective assessment of what the U.S. gains or loses by our involvement.

[Rockstar]

Lifer Times article. Looks like the balance of power really is shifting east. Reading the history of Scholz and his political party’s attitude toward NATO and how obviously unreliable Germany is partnering with war criminals. This is good move.



Army’s new Poland garrison went from Warsaw’s wish list to high US priority
By JOHN VANDIVER
STARS AND STRIPES • March 28, 2023

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/eur...fc3d-296693640

POZNAN, Poland — The soldiers came here with duffel bags and clipboards, carrying out site surveys for a mission in Europe that was fast transforming from a Cold War relic to a high priority in the aftermath of Russia’s 2014 attack on Ukraine.

Many of the buildings were crumbling husks dating back at least to the Nazi occupation during World War II.

Six years after those U.S. soldiers arrived, this military post in the west-central city of Poznan has emerged as the nerve center for Army leaders overseeing troops from the Baltics to Bulgaria.

The evolution of Camp Kosciuszko, which last week formally became the first U.S. permanent base in Poland, showcases how events in Ukraine over the past nine years have overhauled the United States’ military mission in Europe.

“Everything that happened here in Poznan evolved with the real-world events that came along the way,” said Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Aleckna, a logistics coordinator who has aided the Army buildup in Poznan since 2018. “God knows what’s coming tomorrow.”

While Russia’s 2014 incursion in Crimea and eastern Ukraine saw the Army surge rotational units into Poland in response, the U.S. tiptoed around the idea of putting permanent bases in the former Warsaw Pact state.

But the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, changed all that, and now the Army is talking about what not long ago was little more than a Polish pipe dream: American military families calling Poznan home.

“It makes it a more attractive assignment if you can bring your family and have some stability,” said Maj. Gen. Timothy Thombleson, V Corps’ deputy commander for support.

A timeline hasn’t been pinned down for making that transition, but the first step will be accompanied tours with adult couples followed by tours with children, which are anticipated as support infrastructure improves, he said.


Many of the once-dilapidated buildings have been renovated at the post in Poznan, a city of about 530,000 people with a large college community. Big plans are in the works for further transformation of the site into a modern Army garrison.

V Corps Command Sgt. Maj. Raymond Harris said family tours are something the command wants.

“It’s not our decision, but we communicate that all the time and it’s something we want to continue to ask for,” Harris said.

Poland garrison’s roots

Six years ago, a contingent of 100 troops assigned to Mission Command Element arrived from Baumholder, Germany with the job of overseeing soldier maneuvers on NATO’s eastern flank.

Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, who commanded the Army in Europe at the time, said it was a combination of available facilities and the city’s developed transportation network, including an airport, that factored into the decision to set up shop in Poznan.

“We wanted to have an HQ, even if rotational, that was in Poland, which was already growing into our main hub for eastern flank (operations),” Hodges said.

But as U.S. Army Europe and Africa’s mission continued to expand, it became clear that more command-and-control capabilities were needed.

Enter V Corps, which was reestablished in 2021 to give the Army a new three-star headquarters to manage day-to-day activities from the Baltic Sea in the north down to the Black Sea region.

V Corps was getting situated just as Russia launched its full-scale war in Ukraine. As thousands of extra U.S. soldiers headed for Europe or repositioned from other parts of the Continent, V Corps was tasked with overseeing it all.

“It was a real-world validation,” Harris said. “You could almost say we were purpose-built for exactly what happened in February (2022). This is what the corps was built for: to give the four-star commander at USAREUR-AF a warfighting headquarters to control U.S. ground forces in the theater.”

In addition to coordinating troop movement, V Corps also is involved in ongoing training with U.S. and allied forces. Soldiers at Camp Kosciuszko are there to improve battlefield information sharing among allies.

The aim is to connect networks in such a way that all allied commanders are working off the same picture when coordinating multinational missions.

“Ultimately, you want to have a shared digital operational picture. That gives you that much more dominance on the battlefield,” said Col. John Hosey, the officer in charge of the V Corps learning lab.

Other new V Corps initiatives include an apprenticeship program in which foreign soldiers will embed with U.S. units to develop expertise on using high-mobility rocket systems, known as HIMARS, which have been put to effective use in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, garrison officials in Poznan oversee about a dozen Army sites in Poland to facilitate the V Corps mission. The sites include an aviation and logistics hub 90 minutes east of Poznan in Powidz, and a cluster of camps near Zagan, a town where an Army brigade operates not far from the southwestern border with Germany.

More than 100 infrastructure projects to support the U.S. military in Poland are in the works, ranging from dining facilities and barracks to training ranges.

The initiatives are part of a defense cooperation agreement with Warsaw in which Poland agreed to support the U.S.’s growing mission with heavy spending on military infrastructure.

Col. Jorge Fonseca, the garrison commander in Poznan, said that as the American footprint expands, part of his focus is ensuring sufficient off-base housing to support troops arriving on permanent change of station orders, he said.

Local leaders “understand that we are coming, that we are growing,” Fonseca said.

Getting by

V Corps earlier this year started assigning soldiers to the base on unaccompanied one-year tours, marking a milestone for the Army as it puts down deeper roots in Poland. Those soldiers are paid a housing allowance to live off post.

Still, most of the troops in the country are on nine-month rotational assignments for the time being.

“For single soldiers, people who don’t have a family, or don’t have a spouse or kids, I think it’s a phenomenal opportunity to get to live in a foreign country and get to do what we do every day,” said Sgt. Ann Hopkins, an intelligence analyst assigned to Poznan.

But with a 2-year-old son at home, being gone on a nine-month rotation makes things tough, she said.

An assignment in Poznan means having more freedom than the typical deployment offers, but there are limits.

Soldiers are permitted to go off post after work to enjoy the sights and dine out if they choose. While moderate drinking is allowed, getting drunk isn’t, Harris said.

For the Army, it comes down to establishing a balance between allowing soldiers to enjoy themselves while avoiding distraction from a mission that coincides with a real-world security crisis in Europe.

Overall, the conditions in Poznan are better than at some other locations in Poland, where living arrangements are more austere, such as the base in Powidz about 50 miles east.

The barracks at Poznan has each soldier with a roommate in a private room and shared bathrooms on each floor. A major project over the next several years will see the barracks replaced with a facility on par with contemporary U.S. base housing.

“I think any of the folks that have deployed to the desert over the last two decades, when you get to a place like this, it is pretty good,” said Maj. Ben Hall, a 101st Airborne Division liaison officer who is wrapping up a nine-month rotation in Poznan.

A common refrain from soldiers about conditions on post: “It could be worse.”

“Camp K” doesn’t have the amenities of a U.S. base or the big garrisons found in Germany. There is no PX and a mobile shoppette makes only periodic visits.

An upshot, said Hall, is that it gives soldiers more of an incentive to venture off post and explore a vibrant city with all the modern conveniences that accompany it.

“I think being immersed more in the local culture, that’s a real bonus,” Hall said.

[Skybird]

I said repeatedly that the European power centre IS shifting east, thats why Paris and Berlin are so very hesitent to want a real Ukrainian victory and a real Rzussian defeat. Scholz still rejects to talk of a victory for Ukraine. Macron still does much less than France could do - if he wanted.

Poland sees the war as a chance to form a strong Poliush-.Ukrainian-baltic block that could outclass the meaning of the Franco-German axis (which is overestimated anyway, I say).

For the same reason at least these two do not want Ukraine any time soon in the EU or in NATO.


Germany is busy with wanting to not be itself. Forget Germany. The German ideal would be to not exist as something German at all. German is evil. Everything foreign is better than just "Germaness".



I support a shift towards Eastern Europe and Baltic, due to the cultural destruction the EU is causing in and against Europe.

[les green01]

Originally Posted by August

Well I don't think so as I'm pretty sure that nobody would accept 155mm artillery shells in lieu of a Social Security payment.

maybe not but subsim could use a nuke sub or two maybe a ww2 battleship with the 16 inchers so if they got pay in them then donated to subsim we be set

[August]

Originally Posted by les green01

maybe not but subsim could use a nuke sub or two maybe a ww2 battleship with the 16 inchers so if they got pay in them then donated to subsim we be set

I just want a PT boat so I can cruise around Narragansett Bay playing the theme from McHales Navy.

[les green01]

biggest problem with eu is they got the pre pearl harbor menilty as we got these safe barriers but they don't don't