Military

Airstrikes

The left is losing their collective shit over Trump’s bombing of Iran. They are claiming that it’s unconstitutional. There are, as usual, Democrats claiming he should be impeached for it. DJT can’t take a dump without someone trying to impeach him for it. As far as it being unconstitutional, I would simply point out that every President since at least Eisenhower has taken military action without seeking the permission of Congress. The law simply says that he has to notify Congress within 48 hours. It doesn’t say HOW he has to notify them. I would send them a letter by certified mail. The courts have ruled that, when the law requires a notification be sent or given, that notification is complete upon mailing. Done. Keep the receipt.

There are also those on both sides who are making the claim that Iran is peaceful, not pursuing nukes, and the US shouldn’t be doing Israel’s bidding. Let’s talk about that. First, on Iran being peaceful. I was in the military for many of these incidents, and was actually there for some of them:

They are constantly holding the world hostage by capturing shipping as it passes through the Persian Gulf, mining the Persian Gulf, and supporting terrorism.

The claim that Iran isn’t pursuing nukes is simply wrong. They have enriched Uranium to more than 60%. There is no use for that level of enrichment, except for use as a weapon. Even the IAEA reports that Iran had 2700 centrifuges in place there, which was a violation of the Obama nuclear agreement. Sure, the Obama administration had the Iranians pinky swear that they wouldn’t make a nuclear bomb, and the Iranians would never lie, would they?

As you can see, Iran has been attacking US forces for more than 50 years. In this case, Israeli interests and US interests happen to be the same in this case, and I don’t have a problem with someone finally dealing with those assholes. Sure, we need to try for peace, but you can’t let other nations continually attack you and pretend that it isn’t happening.

Trump has used the US military exactly four times: Against Iran in 2025, Isis in 2025, ISIS in 2020, and LA in 2025. That’s far fewer than any of the last Presidents going all the way back to Herbert Hoover.

To those who would tell me that if I support this, I should go serve? I already did. I was in for six years, and did 2 combat tours. In the late 80s, I was in a bar less than an hour before it was bombed by terrorists. (I couldn’t find a link to the story.) I’ve been there. Look, most of the times that the US military has been used in the past 70 years, it was an unnecessary use of military force, and that includes the 1990 Gulf War. This case? I don’t have a problem with it. Iran needs to be brought to heel. Instead of taking half measures designed to “teach them a lesson” which they obviously aren’t learning, they need to have their war making factories destroyed.

By Divemedic, ago

Article 88

Colonel Sheyla Baez Ramirez. Ramirez assumed command of the Fort McCoy Garrison in Wisconsin in 2024. Ramirez is a left wing political activist who refuses to display the official photographs of the Secretary of Defense, President, and the Vice President.

There is a growing movement in the US military of Commissioned officers who are refusing to display the photos of the President, Vice President, and SecDef. Many of them are being relieved of command. The left is claiming that the Free Speech rights of these officers is being violated to soothe Trump’s ego.

They are wrong. Military personnel are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Article 88 has this to say:

Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

This is important, because the US military MUST be subservient to civilian control. Allowing officers to oppose that civilian control carries with it a large risk of military coup. Seldom is it seen for Generals to engage in military coups. Usually, it is colonels who do those sorts of things.

  • olonel Reza Khan’s 1921 coup that brought the Pahlavi dynasty to power in Iran
  • The 1931 coup attempts by the Japanese Army (led by Lieutenant Colonel Kingoro Hashimoto)
  • The 1967 coup by a group of colonels in Greece that established the military junta
  • The 1969 Libyan coup d’état in which Colonel Muammar Gaddafi took power
  • The successful coup in Mali by Colonel Assimi Goita

Generals are inherently political creatures, and they are therefore close to the existing power structure the coup intends to overthrow. They got their position through connections, potentially through patronage, and they themselves enjoy powers of patronage and influence. In this case, many of the officers who oppose Trump are there because Biden put them there through DEI programs. They remain loyal to the left.

An example needs to be made of a couple of these mutinous assholes. Start an Article 31 investigation and court martial a couple of them. Reduce them in rank to the lowest you can get away with, toss them in jail for a year or so, and give them a BCD.

By Divemedic, ago

Barbary, Islam, and Jizya

Let me lay out a few thoughts with regard to the current conflict in the Red Sea.

The Quasi War

The very first test of the new United States was just a decade after the ratification of the Constitution. France was at war with England, as it seems they have been more often than not. When the Republic of France went to war with Great Britain and the European coalition in 1792, the United States declared its neutrality, and the French didn’t like the fact that the new nation was neutral.

This was made worse from the French point of view when the US signed the Jay treaty with Britain, opening trade between the new nation and the British colonies in the Carribbean. As a matter of policy, France began permitting privateering against US shipping. This sparked the formation of a new US Navy to take on French privateers in a conflict called the Quasi War. In the beginning, merchant ships were converted to Naval service while the US built its first six frigates. The conflict ended in 1800. This is an important conflict because it was waged by President George Washington until he retired in 1799 and Congress never declared war.

Jizya

It should be well known to my readers that non-Muslims living in areas controlled by Muslim rule are referred to as dhimmi. The term dhimmi means “one whose responsibility has been taken” and refers to those who must be ruled over by those of the Muslim faith. Muslims believe that dhimmi must convert to Islam, serve Muslims as laborers or in their military, or pay tribute referred to as jizya.

This was the premise behind the Barbary pirates. The Barbary states were a collection of Muslim nations on the north coast of Africa: Morocco was an independent kingdom, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli owed a loose allegiance to the Ottoman Empire. The naval forces of the Barbary states were capturing US ships and holding the crews for ransom, some for more than a decade. They were doing this because they were Muslim and were demanding the US pay jizya in exchange for their ships being protected from the Barbary states themselves.

As we have posted above, and in previous posts, the practice of state-supported piracy and ransoming of captives was not wholly unusual at the time. International law said that pirates could be executed on sight. Granting a letter of marque made a pirate a legitimate member of a nation’s policy and not a pirate. This is where the Constitutional clause allowing letters of Marque came from.

Since the US was busy fighting off the French privateers at the time, they decided that it was cheaper to pay the jizya to the Barbary states than it was to fight them as well as the French. That’s what they did until 1801, when the Pasha of Tripoli, Yusuf Qaramanli, citing late payments of tribute, demanded additional tribute and declared war on the United States. The US chose to stop paying the jizya and instead sent their new Navy. The Marines still sing about the resulting military action to this day. The US negotiated a halt to the raids in 1817, but they continued raiding shipping of other nations until the French finally invaded Algiers and leveled the place.

Continued Problems

What we are seeing in the Red Sea is a continuation of the Muslim desire to force everyone to either convert or pay tribute. That is why piracy is a problem in the Red Sea and in the Gulf of Aden. The Muslims in Yemen and Iran have decided that people either pay tribute or serve them in their desires. Those morons wouldn’t be able to do anything if it weren’t for the Iranians supplying them weapons. Note that European nations’ shipping is being left alone. I wonder what that is…

The US has long taken the position that the open ocean is free for navigation. We can either try to fight another forever war of insurgency against Yemen, or we can cut their weapons off at the source- tell Iran to stop supplying missiles to terrorists or else. No need to engage in a long war- tell them to stop selling weapons to them. If the weapons continue to flow, then take out the Iranian navy. If they want to continue after that, we can bomb the missile factories. If we don’t want to do it, all we have to do is tell Israel that we will no longer hold them back from doing it themselves.

By Divemedic, ago

PLAN

The Chinese, on the other hand, are a much more credible threat. PLAN (the Chinese Navy) is large, modern, and growing. Six modern, recent nuclear submarines. The diesel submarines that can’t do well in the open ocean work quite well in the shallow waters of the China sea, and PLAN has 45 of them.

They have 46 new destroyers, 44 frigates, and 3 carriers with more under construction.

Contrast that with the US Navy. We have :

  • 11 carriers (8 of them are more than 25 years old)
  • 9 amphibious assault ships (aka baby carriers, and half of them are more than 25 years old),
  • 9 cruisers (all of them are more than 30 years old),
  • 75 destroyers (a third of them are older than 25 years), and
  • 51 submarines (half of them are more than 25 years old, but all are nuclear).

Also keep in mind that we have to monitor 2 oceans. PLAN only has to cover one. Our Navy still has a decided advantage, but the Chinese are building a lot of ships, and the US isn’t.

Nuclear Weapons

The Chinese own an estimated 600 nuclear weapons and they are expected to have double that number by 2030. It is also estimated that only 24 of them are actually deployed on delivery devices. In both cases, I say estimated because no one really knows for sure. Since they are producing roughly 120 warheads a year, they are quickly growing in capability.

Contrast that with the US stockpile of 3700 operational warheads. That seems impressive until you realize that over 1900 of those warheads are in storage and are not available for use. While the tactical nuclear arsenal could once be deployed on NATO-designated aircraft within minutes, today the readiness level is measured in months. Since 2010, when Obama signed a new nuclear policy, the US has committed to not developing new warheads. He wanted to push us to a near unilateral nuclear disarmament.

For those reasons, China will be a near peer in deliverable nuclear warheads within the next 5 to 7 years.

Too Little, Too Late?

Forcing NATO to begin providing for their own defense and providing their own nuclear umbrella is a wise move, and one that I would like to see Trump continue to pursue. China is our most dangerous and most credible adversary. Russia is in the middle of asking for North Korean assistance in order to invade Ukraine. They just aren’t in a position to threaten the entire world.

China has all of the people it needs. They are in the middle of securing access to minerals and other natural resources worldwide. There are tons of natural resources just to their north, and the only reason that they haven’t gone to go get it is that those resources belong a strong nuclear power. Once Russia collapses, it is theirs for the taking. Opposing Russia and trying to get Europe and the US to fight them is exactly what China wants.

The time to begin producing systems to defend ourselves is now, but we are too busy seeing our tax money syphoned off by greedy, corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle for that to happen.

The largest threat to the US is, in my opinion, the internal threat posed by the insurgent movement being backed by our own intelligence agencies/bureaucrats. China is our largest external threat.

By Divemedic, ago

Praying Mantis, part II

The Houthis fired missiles at a US aircraft carrier. They have announced that no US ships will be permitted to sail through the Red Sea. Trump is a President who is doing all that he can to keep this nation out of conflict. However, the US cannot ignore a state sponsored terrorist group telling the US that they cannot sail in a given area. The first time this was done has caused the Marines to sing about it for over 200 years after President Madison ordered them to go kick some Barbary ass. The Navy has a long tradition of enforcing freedom of navigation. That is the entire reason why we have a Navy.

In response, Trump could probably order US aircraft to do some serious damage to the Houthi encampments. That will be time consuming and expensive, but he will probably do it. More effective in my opinion would be to go ahead and back up his warning to Iran. They are supplying the weapons, they pay the price.

Initiate Praying Mantis II. For those who don’t remember, Praying Mantis was a naval action in 1988 that saw the Iranian navy get its ass kicked over an 8 hour period by the US Navy. I don’t think that they learned their lesson the first time.

The Iranian navy has 6 submarines, 7 frigates, 3 corvettes, and a whole bunch of smaller craft. I think that sinking most of their Navy would perhaps be appropriate. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of days. If they try to defend those ships with aircraft, shooting most of them down would also be appropriate. If the UN and International court don’t like it, that’s just too damned bad.

By Divemedic, ago

The Real Problem

Why does the EU/UK need the US to be involved in the Ukraine affair? All you have to do is look at the numbers.

  • The EU has a population that is 50% larger than the US- 518 million, compared to our 340 million. (UK 68 million, EU 450 million).
  • The GDP of the UK/EU is $20.5 Trillion, compared to the US $27.2 Trillion.
  • The UK/EU spends $394 Billion (UK $68.3 Billion, EU $326 Billion) on defense. That is 1.9% of its GDP.
  • The UK/EU spends $1.2 trillion on medical care and $4.5 trillion on welfare benefits. That’s a total of $5.7 trillion, or more than a quarter of their GDP. That’s why they can’t afford a military, but that’s OK, the US will supply that, am I right?
  • The US spends $1 trillion on defense, or 3.7% of its GDP, with a fifth of that going to support the defense of Europe. A third of the money spent on Europe’s defense comes from the US, with the other 2/3s coming from the 32 countries of Europe.

While all of this is going on, while Europe is demanding that we the United States do something to stop Russia, they are busy buying Russian oil. So much oil that the Russians have received more European money over the past three years than has Ukraine.

Europe has been spending their money on free healthcare, vacations, and baubles because they can afford to. The US is taking care of the defense budget. That’s what Trump has been complaining about- the nations of Europe are, like teenagers, spending all of their money on music and fast food because the US is acting like parents, and taking care of the groceries and home expenses.

Now tell me why American money needs to go to Europe, why Americans have to enter a war and die, all so Europe can continue partying like it’s a Frat party funded by Europe and the US.

It’s time for that to end. There is no reason why the nations of Europe can’t take care of Russia. The US has a bigger problem to deal with- China. The thing is, what is going to be needed to deal with the Chinese threat isn’t going to be the same as needed for Russia.

Russia only has 8 surface warships in service that are less than 25 years old and larger than 1,000 tons, and they are all Frigates. The remainder of their surface Navy is more than 25 years old, in drydock, or a Corvette (similar to a Coast Guard cutter).

They have one nuclear attack submarine that was built this century, the rest are cold war relics. The only attack submarines they have that are less than 25 years old are diesels.

That’s OK for shallow water operations, but they are no longer a blue water navy. They can’t protect SLOCs, nor can they project power. The Russian navy is not really a force projecting service any longer.

I am not saying that the US has no business interests in Europe, because that is false. The US has business interests in every nation in the world. That isn’t the same thing as a vital national interest. Our military doesn’t exist to make sure that no business venture in the world has risks. No American should die just so some businessman somewhere doesn’t lose money. The US military isn’t here to provide a risk free business environment for all of the nations of the earth.

It’s time that we stop being Uncle Sugar, the World Police, and stop borrowing money that we don’t have to provide security to Europe while they enjoy all of the fruits of our labor, our blood, and our treasure.

By Divemedic, ago

Yeah, Stalemate

Joe Blow decides to call me stupid for stating that the Ukraine/Russia war is a stalemate. Normally, comments attacking me like that wouldn’t make the blog, but Joe is a long time commenter and has earned a bit of grace. He just needs some facts.

The fact is that Russia only controls 19% of Ukraine, and about a quarter of that was the territory in the Crimea that was taken a decade ago. The fact is that the front lines have been largely in the same place for the past three years. This is where the lines were in November of 2022:

Now look to see where the front lines are now:

Nearly two and a half years later, and there is virtually no difference. In fact, in terms of territory held, there have been no gains since the first year of the war.

You can see that the Russians made huge gains in the initial two months of the war, then Ukraine won back some territory within six months, then the lines have remained virtually stable since. That’s called a stalemate. In the meantime, over one million lives and half a trillion dollars have been lost, and for what?

I see absolutely no US national interest in this war. None. The “oh, we need to defend Ukraine or the Russians will take over Europe like Hitler did” is simply a weak imitation of the domino theory, a stupid holdover from the Cold War that has been used as justification for every stupid useless war that the US has been involved in for the past 80 years.

There is not a reason to spill a single drop of American blood, nor waste a single American dollar on a war that simply isn’t our problem. Let Europe worry about this one. I don’t think that Russia is going to go to war with the European Union unless the EU keeps beating war drums and trying to start one. We need to stop letting France, Britain, Russia, and Germany drag us into the wars that they have been fighting in Europe for over 1,300 years. If they want to keep fighting, let them, but there is no reason for us to be involved.

The fact that members of the EU have been refusing to allow US military units to purchase supplies is beyond the pale. For example, a Norway company recently refused to allow a US submarine to purchase diesel fuel for their backup generator, and called for other companies to do the same. The Norwegian government quickly backed away from this boycott, which is good for the EU, because if I were Trump, my first step would have been to pull all nuclear weapons from EU bases. All of them. It’s something that is quick and easy to do, and sends an unmistakable message to the EU: our military cooperation with your country can disappear overnight, if you want to fuck around.

The US is NATO and the EU has been taking advantage of the US security guarantee to increase social spending while ignoring defense. The number of main battle tanks in EU member states has decreased from 15,000 in 2000 to 5,000 today. The US has 4,657 main battle tanks in NATO territory, meaning that the US is 50% of NATO’s military strength. Even THAT statistic is misleading. Italy, for example, has about 200 Ariete tanks, but only 50 of them are fully operational, with the rest of them being in various stages of disrepair. If this is typical of NATO member states, the US forces in Europe make up 80% of the entire NATO force. What do we get in return for that?

This is why the EU has so much money to spend on social programs. The US military has 100,000 troops in Europe. That equals ten percent of our entire military, costing the US about $200 billion a year. What do we get in return for that?

The message being sent by Trump is unmistakable- the days of Uncle Sugar being exploited are over. The EU can screw around with Russia, but at the end of the day, they don’t have the forces to take on a large war.

By Divemedic, ago

Article 94

Donald Trump just fired a significant portion of the senior military leadership, and I don’t think that the bloodletting is finished yet. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, as well as the JAG officers for all three branches. The reason? The press would have you believe that it’s simply politics as usual. However, there are media outlets reporting that it was much more serious than that. The story goes that they, along with portions of the FBI, were engaged in a mutiny against the President of the United States, which means that we were on the verge of an actual military coup. This is HUGE.

The implications here are downright grave- we were on the cusp of having a nuclear armed military engaged in overthrowing civil authority. I can’t understate how serious this was and is. How did it come about?

James O’Keefe released a report just before the inauguration, where a former FBI agent was bragging to an undercover reporter about how he had been in the Tank (that is the Pentagon underground command post) meeting with a number of senior military Generals, and they were planning to resist the legitimate orders of the President upon his inauguration. This wasn’t a one time conversation- this FBI agent was a senior advisor to the Pentagon, and also a key player in the efforts to torpedo Trump’s 2016 campaign for the Clinton campaign.

During these meetings, according to the interview, high-level Pentagon officials were discussing in secret meetings defying and potentially overthrowing Trump if he issued orders deemed controversial by military leadership. If that sentence doesn’t send a shiver down your spine, you don’t understand the US military.

I believe that Biden knew about all of this, which is why Milley got a Presidential pardon. After all, we already knew that Milley had staged a coup back in 2021.

What’s important here going forward is in the title of this post: Article 94. Being that most of these players are in the military, they are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice: the UCMJ. It’s the law for all members of the US military that are in Federal Service that is second only to the Constitution. Article 94 of the UCMJ deals with mutiny and sedition. Read what it has to say:

Article 94:

(a)Any person subject to this chapter who—
(1)with intent to usurp or override lawful military authority, refuses, in concert with any other person, to obey orders or otherwise do his duty or creates any violence or disturbance is guilty of mutiny;
(2) with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of lawful civil authority, creates, in concert with any other person, revolt, violence, or other disturbance against that authority is guilty of sedition;
(3) fails to do his utmost to prevent and suppress a mutiny or sedition being committed in his presence, or fails to take all reasonable means to inform his superior commissioned officer or commanding officer of a mutiny or sedition which he knows or has reason to believe is taking place, is guilty of a failure to suppress or report a mutiny or sedition.
(b) A person who is found guilty of attempted mutiny, mutiny, sedition, or failure to suppress or report a mutiny or sedition shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.

You read that right- anyone who was involved, assisted, or who knew and didn’t report it can be given any penalty that a court martial directs, up to and including the death penalty.

What’s even more important here is the timing. Mark Milley was given an full and unconditional Presidential pardon on January 19, 2025 (pdf warning). If it can be proven that this mutiny was still being discussed on or after January 20, and especially if Milley was still discussing this with the plotters, his pardon means jack shit. He, along with the other plotters can (and in my opinion should) be lined up against the wall and shot. There is no other penalty that will suffice for playing with military officers overthrowing the legitimate civilian authority of the Presidency.

This is also why the three service’s JAG officers needed to be relieved. They cannot be impartial in investigating and prosecuting their bosses. Mutinies are a HUGE deal. Here are a few examples of US mutinies:

  • The Houston Riot of 1917 was an example of 156 Black troops disobeyed orders from their superiors, seized weapons and attempted to march on the City of Houston. Nineteen of them were executed, and 41 of them received life sentences.
  • In the wake of a magazine explosion in Port Chicago in 1944, black sailors (258 of them) refused to return to work, saying that it was unsafe. Fifty of them were charged with mutiny, and received 8 to 15 years of hard labor and dishonorable discharges.
  • Up to this point, nearly every mutiny involved black troops violently refusing to obey orders of white officers. To my knowledge, there has never been a case of an officer refusing to obey orders, and certainly never a case of a group of officers discussing overthrowing the President.

To be fair, the left is claiming that the FBI agent’s statements, while provocative, lack specific details about actionable plans, and some argue they reflect personal frustrations rather than an organized conspiracy. People who claim this don’t understand the military. Even rolling your eyes when given an order is sufficient to see a military member tossed in prison. There is no such thing as free speech in the US military. Want an example of just how harsh the military treats minor infractions? Read this story about how trials are done, than read this about a person making a small joke.

At the VERY least, the officers involved are guilty of Article 134, making disloyal statements. A conviction under Article 134 for Disloyal Statements can mean a maximum possible punishment of a dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances (meaning pension, as well), reduction in rank to E1, and confinement for three years. Upon release, the person would be a convicted felon. That would be the minimum if those excusing the meetings were taken in the light most favorable to them. Personally, I think that this goes far beyond that.

Now I don’t think that any full action should be taken until a complete investigation is carried out. This needs to be fully investigated and brought to a courts martial of all individuals with any involvement or knowledge. Perhaps a deal can be cut with one or more of them to testify against the others. Say, an offer of “plead guilty to Article 92, dereliction of duty, we will give you a BCD, 12 month’s confinement, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, but you testify against the others who were involved.” I promise that one or more staff officers who were in the room will sing like a bird.

It’s important that the entire government sees what happens when you engage in a mutiny. If this is investigated, who can be trusted to do the investigating? The steps that must be taken are immediate: Everyone who was even loosely involved needs to be relieved for loss of the trust of the chain of command. Then the President needs to request a special investigation team. That team should then begin an investigation, the results of which will be submitted to an Article 32 investigation. Those officers who are charged with offenses under the UCMJ should be held in military confinement until the conclusion of their courts martials.

There is no other way, unless you would like to see some general on TV with a shit load of ribbons on his chest, proclaiming himself to be the interim Supreme Commander, just until he can reestablish the government, of course.

By Divemedic, ago

Not A Conspiracy

There are many people who want to make the place crash in DC into some sort of deliberate attack. There is a saying- Don’t ascribe to conspiracy that which is adequately explained by incompetence. There is a video that I will embed below, where an instructor pilot explains how easily it would be to have such an accident with a relatively inexperienced pilot in crowded airspace. Some of the items he discusses are:

Her 500 hours of flight experience is laughably low. He points out that 500 hours is long enough for a pilot to THINK they know enough to handle everything, even when they don’t. I know from my own experience as a SCUBA diver that this is the case. There is a point, right around 40 to 50 logged dives, that a diver becomes confident in their abilities, but that usually comes to an end when the diver gets themselves into a situation that they shouldn’t have been in because they were overconfident in their abilities. That is where accidents happen. I think that was the case here.

Military people don’t have as much experience as their civilian counterparts. For example, the Captain of the last cruise ship I was on had been sailing as an officer for 45 years, and had been a captain for 25 of them. How many Navy captains have that level of experience? Zero, that’s how many. The same goes for pilots- the captain of a commercial airplane has thousands of hours as a copilot before taking command, then has thousands more as a captain. Your average airline pilot with 5 years’ experience will have between 3,000 and 5,000 hours of flight time.

He also says that the helicopter was going too fast for the conditions. When a helicopter is moving quickly, it is tilted forward, and in the UH60, this limits visibility of aircraft that are in front of you and at your same altitude.

He points out that the altimeter may have been set incorrectly, which an inexperienced pilot may easily forget to do, and this could account for the incorrect altitude.

It was a cascade of minor errors that an inexperienced pilot would make, and doesn’t require a conspiracy or a deliberate attack. I know that the video is half an hour long, but it is worth watching if you find this sort of thing at all interesting.

By Divemedic, ago