Trump...

[Xtractorfan]

US: MEX illegal immigration arrests- dropped from 250k (2016) to 150k (2017) for the first 6 months of the year. The director of the USBA specifically attributes this to the "get tough" policy that Trump instituted on taking office. .unquote
I think if you were from Mexico and had intended to enter America illegally, and there was an election campaig

 

[Frontstep]

I would love to be as unsuccessful as Trump.

We are descending into the bizarre labelling Trump as a failed businessman.
Its a comment that can only be made by those who don't want to or know about multiple business owning.
The detractors must take me round their bigger empires on their even bigger private jets sometimes to show how good they are at failing to.
I presume they must believe Amazon et al are failures to.
His failure is in his ability to unite(or con the nation) something that the much less divisive Obama failed at but presented it so much better than Trump.

 

[L John]

The detractors must take me round their bigger empires on their even bigger private jets sometimes to show how good they are at failing to.

That would only be a fair comparison if they had the same starting point of course.
How many $million did Trump get from his father? No one really knows because he lies about it.
Fact is the more money you start with, the better chance you have to make more money.

 

[AMGeed]

We are descending into the bizarre labelling Trump as a failed businessman.
Its a comment that can only be made by those who don't want to or know about multiple business owning.
The detractors must take me round their bigger empires on their even bigger private jets sometimes to show how good they are at failing to.
I presume they must believe Amazon et al are failures to.
His failure is in his ability to unite(or con the nation) something that the much less divisive Obama failed at but presented it so much better than Trump.

Successful or poor businessman? Doesn't really matter but the fact he took the easy way out and declared businesses bankrupt on no less than 6 occasions to avoid payment of taxes and debts leads me to believe he was not successful. Perhaps if your company was among those owed money and went bust because of Trumps actions you might think otherwise?
Sure, he made money, but that proves nothing.

Regarding his failure to unite his country, correct. It has never been more divisive in recent years.
And his record as POTUS is what is important, not his past business life.

 

[Craiglxviii]

On the "failure to unite the country", this needs some examination.

The issue here isn't that "TRUMP IS IN THE WHITE HOUSE RARRRRR". The issue is that regardless of who won the election, for any candidate other than Hilz the DNC were determined to prevent a peaceful transition of power- remember, they scuppered Bernie Sanders specifically in her favour. So, it's rather more a case that the country is being split by a very real Deep State/ Left/ DNC bias on the one hand and a Constitutionalist/ Right/ GOP bias on the other, with the vast majority of the population somewhere inbetween and finding things like belief/ racial/ class/ political leanings divides are cropping up where they never existed before.

So far his record as POTUS is, when one strips away the hyperbole, remarkably productive. If all he can do is any one or more of the following during his first term he will have done astoundingly well:

1. Depoliticise the Federal bureaucracy ("draining the swamp").
2. Return the Supreme Court to the Constitutionalists.
3. Remove political correctness from the Armed Forces.
4. Return America's global standing amongst its support base to pre-Obama levels.

Anything other than that is the icing on the cake. Make no mistake, the depths that the country had sunk to under Obama were shocking indeed.

 

[C350Carl]

There was a piece the other day on one of the news channels about Afghanistan. They were talking to local leaders about Americas role in Afghanistan... The overwhelming view was that The Yanks were shooting and bombing first then asking questions later, They just needed a whimper of suspicion to blow houses apart and kill families, from afar with tanks, as they did not wish to risk american lives... One local Commander said they had spent months trying to rout out the enemy from a particular valley.
He said there was little opposition there, ''give me 100 men and two helicopters and I will clear that valley in two hours''.
The general consensus is also that the Afghani people are turning against the Americans, and that they will be there for a long time

I too could achieve the clearance quite easily. The problem is keeping it clear. Bear in mind I and other coalition forces have been attacked heading back along a route cleared 15mins prior. Once you’re out of sight they quickly re-infiltrate. But it’s not like the media will spoil a good story with the truth or an understanding of tactics, knowing that the public who also don’t understand tactics won’t know any the wiser.

See below for the rest.

Now we get into the realms of rules of engagement and operational posture. This is a very, very complex area indeed and is nothing like as simple as you make out. Carl is the one to ask on this. However... as I understand it:

The Afghan forces are fairly riddled with Taliban informants, therefore any operations are carried out with full enemy knowledge and pre-warning.
The US RoE have been very highly restrictive for a long time- literally to the point where a pilot would be sat on the runway and get an order "Fly to XXX,YYY, drop a single Mk.82 on building XXXX,YYYY then return" direct from the White House. These are now being relaxed to more of a "Close with the enemy and destroy them".
The US SOP has been, since 1865, it is better to expend things and not the lives of their young men and women. Thus, use lots of ammunition and keep our soldiers alive.
The whole Hearts & Minds thing means that once a village begins to resist the insurgency, the insurgents around it become a target. So one needs to put as much support as possible into helping villages resist the insurgents' approaches. This has been very much lacking in the US approach- from what I've seen now it is being very much embraced, the Thais have significant advisor presence going to US forces to help them (the Thais are world class experts in combatting insurgencies).

Ok for a bit of clarity about the ‘shoot first ask questions later’ policy.

It has been for a long time that the US exercise extreme caution whilst operating in both Afghanistan and elsewhere. They learnt their lesson from the early days of Iraq. They also don’t routinely use Tanks in Afghanistan. They have them but didn’t use them as much as the media etc would have you believe.

Without going into too much detail. There has to be a 0/0 CDE (collateral damage estimate) before anything bigger than a direct fire weapon system is used. By that I mean anything up to .50 is fair game to be used and if you see what .50 does to an Afghan compound (which is next to naff all) then you can understand why.

The 0/0 means 0 risk to civilian life and 0 risk to property. However the catch is that (and this is the same for UK forces) there is no law that negates your right to self defence and the defence of designated personnel (that’s civilian designated persons so politicians etc) or other civilians. So if for example you have insurgents engaging you with PKM (Soviet belt fed 7.62mm machine gun) Dshk (Soviet belt fed 12.7mm machine gun) RPG etc from a civilian dwelling. You can flatten that dwelling quite legitimately with a 500lb’er. The downside comes if there is a risk to civilian life. So for example if you have another compound that is within the lethal radius of the 500lb’er then you can’t.

You also have to PID the enemy. That means positively identify. As they don’t wear a uniform as such this is why it can be a nightmare and requires many layers of ISR (intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance) to do pre-emptive strikes.

The Yanks have got it wrong in the past as have we. But it’s not due to a bomb first and ask questions later policy. In the early days the CDE was only for civilian life. I can’t remember the exact date it changed I’d have to look it up. But it changed to infrastructure and life.

The US have had a similar ROE to the UK since around 1994. They learnt a hard lesson during Op Gothic Serpent (most of you will know that as Blackhawk Down) in that you have to exercise mission command and allow the guys in the field to co-ordinate Offensive Support (that’s everything from mortars to naval gun fire and CAS/CCA). Not control it from a surveillance aircraft or ISR feed.

It is extremely rare for a US operation to bomb or kill etc to be given the green light from POTUS and it will only be for a Tier 1 SoF operation that isn’t reliant on a time sensitive decision but could have far reaching political ramifications. All other times the approval comes prior from the pentagon or one of the commands (USCENTCOM, USAFRICOM etc). By prior I mean days or even weeks in advance.

The UK developed the best counter insurgency tactics in the world. You’ll find most CI Doctrine (inc the Thai’s) is based around ours. The problem is that it takes time to work and todays political impatience doesn’t allow it to be used properly.

 

[Craiglxviii]

Carl,

Thanks for the clarification

On the high level political direction thing, this started with McNamara as SecDef (who came up with his "technical studies" on cost vs weapons effectiveness... a Ford accountant!) and literally did issue orders to specific pilots for specific payloads to specific coordinates. I understand that under Obama, this policy of very close SecDef control returned.

 

[C350Carl]

Sorry Craig I misunderstood your post.

SecDef will usually make a decision like that if it’s a non time sensitive strike and generally it’s happening in a country that the US ‘aren’t in’.

I misunderstood your post thinking you meant I’m in the sh!t and need to drop a GBU-12 and have to wait for the SecDef/POTUS to authorise.

Which has been the case in the past. But changed after Op Gothic Serpent.

 

[Xtractorfan]

It is really only enough for the afghan population to be of the opinion that the Americans are bombing and killing their fellow citizens, for a few of them to decide to take action and join with the 'insurgents', and see themselves as a lawful force against the
invading forces.... Civilian support, however garnered, by force, fear or misinformation, is essential for these guys to operate freely.
Whilst your text book explanation Carl is how it should be, as you will well know it never goes to plan and there is always those who will step outside the rules and see it as fair game to go Gung-ho

 

[C350Carl]

Whilst your text book explanation Carl is how it should be, as you will well know it never goes to plan and there is always those who will step outside the rules and see it as fair game to go Gung-ho

Whilst I couldn’t argue that it doesn’t happen. It’s extremely rare, even in American Forces, for people to go gung-ho. Those that do attempt to are quickly reigned in by others and removed.

As the saying goes. No plan survives contact with the enemy. But people don’t go gung-ho because of it.

The vast majority of the time (if I was to pluck a statistic out of my hoop I’d say 99%) soldiers abide by the ROE. Certainly in my experience with multiple tours around the world.

To put in perspective there has only been one UK soldier convicted of a war crime and one convicted of murder (later quashed) One was Don Payne the other was Alexander Blackman. That’s in the past 16yrs of conflict which UK forces have been involved in.

But we’re getting wayyyyy off topic now.

 

[davemercedes]

I've just been reading about the last two days of Trump's comments and the reactions etc. I also of course, watch the state of the currency markets and it seems to me that almost every time he opens his mouth, he drives the dollar downwards.

Given the at best, "fractious" state of the pound at present, that's beneficial for us but he's been used to doing cross-currency business for many years - so I just wonder if he has some personal agenda regarding the dollar's strength?

 

[Frontstep]

On the "failure to unite the country", this needs some examination.

The issue here isn't that "TRUMP IS IN THE WHITE HOUSE RARRRRR". The issue is that regardless of who won the election, for any candidate other than Hilz the DNC were determined to prevent a peaceful transition of power- remember, they scuppered Bernie Sanders specifically in her favour. So, it's rather more a case that the country is being split by a very real Deep State/ Left/ DNC bias on the one hand and a Constitutionalist/ Right/ GOP bias on the other, with the vast majority of the population somewhere inbetween and finding things like belief/ racial/ class/ political leanings divides are cropping up where they never existed before.

So far his record as POTUS is, when one strips away the hyperbole, remarkably productive. If all he can do is any one or more of the following during his first term he will have done astoundingly well:

1. Depoliticise the Federal bureaucracy ("draining the swamp").
2. Return the Supreme Court to the Constitutionalists.
3. Remove political correctness from the Armed Forces.
4. Return America's global standing amongst its support base to pre-Obama levels.

Anything other than that is the icing on the cake. Make no mistake, the depths that the country had sunk to under Obama were shocking indeed.

Yes on reflection I make a subtle change, his failure is more likely in not uniting the media, but that was never really on the cards.
They wanted Hilary who they saw as their Queen in waiting.
He has manipulated the media to follow his every utterance which might prove to be very useful for him.

 

[Craiglxviii]

Yes on reflection I make a subtle change, his failure is more likely in not uniting the media, but that was never really on the cards.
They wanted Hilary who they saw as their Queen in waiting.
He has manipulated the media to follow his every utterance which might prove to be very useful for him.

What is interesting is to see the depths to which the media have sunk in their anti- Trump/ Liberalist agenda.

Example. ESPN pulled a football commentator from a game within this week, after the unpleasantness in Charlottesville. They feared his name might further incite violence as he was the namesake to a famous Civil War Confederate general- Robert E. Lee.

ESPN sports anchor Robert Lee is of Korean ancestry.

Yes, it's got THAT crazy over there.

 

[Frontstep]

That's symptomatic of an impending failure, listening and acting to the PC siren voices smacks of weakness of thought.

 

[C350Carl]

Americans do have some daft crazy rules.

Imagine a country where in some states you can openly carry an M4 but you can't buy a kinder egg because it's too dangerous!

 

[Craiglxviii]

Americans do have some daft crazy rules.

Imagine a country where in some states you can openly carry an M4 but you can't buy a kinder egg because it's too dangerous!

Carl, kids can't choke on an M4 unless it's been stripped.

Them Kinder Eggs are chuffin lethal.

 

[C350Carl]

Carl, kids can't choke on an M4 unless it's been stripped.

Them Kinder Eggs are chuffin lethal.

They can if you stick the barrel in their mouth!

 

[Naraic]

Good day for bad news?

While the storm is raging Trump forgives Arpaio, signs the transgender ban and gets rid of Gorka (not necessarily bad that one).

 

[Frontstep]

I read about Arpaio as I had never heard of him, it appears he offended those who want free and unfettered access for Mexicans to cross the border.
He also upset lots of criminals.
His biggest "crime" was targeting likely illegals, *looking amongst the cakes for doughnuts instead of going through the whole shop.

*The vaguest possible analogy I could think of to describe racial profiling.

 

[Naraic]

He stopped and detained people because of the colour of their skin. Later to be released if they were found to be legal. You find that acceptable?

He was convicted of contempt of court.