Tucker Carlson gone

[JRB]

Trump's term was largely a dud except for feeding his devout outrage red meat. Oh wait, he kicked the Syrian Kurds' asses by throwing them to the Turks while they patrolled with our SF. He wrecked them good. And he ruined our AFG ally by negotiating the surrender deal with the Taliban. He wrecked them good too. Those can't be what you meant.

Of all the lies CNN peddled hard while I was out there, this one pisses me off the most. The Turks fucked us and invited the Russians to help fuck us on that deal in Syria. How much Trump himself personally was involved I'll never know, but I met Mark Esper (and my buddy got a coin from him) around the same time when Mr. Esper visited my rank-heavy footprint out there in CENTCOM.

We did a LOT for those Kurds to get them off the proverbial X. While I was only a logistics dweeb I'm telling you some absolutely batshit insane ideas were getting tossed around to get us enough combat power in that region to get a proper Mexican standoff at least. End of the day the choice was stick up for that worthless land and die on that hill with those Kurds, and lose a lot of our SOF personnel to a wildly disadvantageous fight with whole armored columns and thousands of Soldiers from a Turkey -NATO signatory- and Russia and potentially no-shit cause WWIII.... OR.... Get those SOF elements and supporting elements out of the way and get most of the Kurds out of the way, or similarly displaced/concealed/obfuscated to minimize their losses.

Either way it's a catch-22 that'll get dragged by news anchors that don't know the slightest fucking thing about what they're talking about. Thereby getting people all huffy and indignant about not supporting our allies when they have no fucking goddamn clue how much we tried to support them. I had a full bird Colonel asking me if two Chinooks could sling load a single Abram's tank for fuck's sake.

There's plenty of shit to talk about Former President Trump, but how his administration dealt with the Syria/Kurd/Turkey/Russia situation is a flat out falsehood peddled by a media machine that was reaching for and outright fabricating everything they could find to disparage him.
I'm 100% convinced that if Former President Obama had been in office at that time, the MSM would have lauded his work in avoiding a massive clusterfuck of a fight while doing all we could to support our allies.


As for the AFG issue - what was negotiated and planned for is NOT the same as what was executed. The failures of the AFG withdrawl are 100% on the current administration and their lackeys that probably couldn't get a headcount of 5th graders on a schoolbus right, let alone manage a controlled withdrawl and asset denial plan. Being a public forum that's all I can say on that matter.

[JHC]

There's plenty of shit to talk about Former President Trump, but how his administration dealt with the Syria/Kurd/Turkey/Russia situation is a flat out falsehood peddled by a media machine that was reaching for and outright fabricating everything they could find to disparage him.


As for the AFG issue - what was negotiated and planned for is NOT the same as what was executed. The failures of the AFG withdrawl are 100% on the current administration and their lackeys that probably couldn't get a headcount of 5th graders on a schoolbus right, let alone manage a controlled withdrawl and asset denial plan. Being a public forum that's all I can say on that matter.

Syria - A senior SF NCO who worked for several years side by side with those Syrian Kurds whom I know sees it very differently. I don't believe there was is any credible threat from Turkey or especially Russia. Plenty of serious folks weighed in on that, that was not a big media exclusive indictment. Turkey and Russia were not going to war with the US for this. There's an Erdogan/Trump thing.

I've not seen a shred of evidence there was any pre-Biden "plan" to evac AFG other than it was supposed to be May of that year. If there were, not a shred of it has leaked. I suspect Milley and Miller were hoping to ramp it out a year with Trump and then they failed to stall Biden. Biden is a POS for sticking to that deal. But you don't have to be Stonewall Jackson to see what a ridiculous deal Trump signed off on, boxing out an offical ally from the negotiations.

I fault Biden for the evac. It's all Trump's fault for the surrender.

[YVK]

The banking crisis could be an interesting discussion; however, in a spirit of this thread, the important question is who told you that? At this point, I would judge the credibility of any political, economical, and cultural statements by where they are published and who make them.

A long-term friend who works in financial industry.

[blues]

I don't know if it's a thing still or not, but there was a time when quoting an article would get you a visit from the copyright police thanks to a certain predatory company. It was a real problem for online forums for a while, fair use be damned.

Chris

I can't remember any issues for a short snippet...ever.

[UNK]

Ive got my popcorn ready waiting to see how far this goes. So let me clarify again I dont watch TV except for movies Ive only seen clips of CT posted on the net Ive never watched his program. I would probably watch news if they actually broke stories theirselves but I think thats a pretty rare occurence. It is interesting to me to watch companies take a nose dive from moves they make. I would think at this point a CEO somewhere would say we are apolitical we make products/offer services not political declarations.

Night 1 https://www.tvinsider.com/1090644/tu...-ratings-oann/


According to The Hollywood Reporter, the debut of Fox News Tonight, which replaces Carlson’s slot at the 8 pm hour, pulled in just under 2.6 million viewers on Monday night. That is down around 21 percent from recent episodes of Tucker Carlson Tonight, which averaged 3.3 million over the past eight Mondays.

The show also saw a fall in the key news demographic of adults 25-54, reaching a 0.24 rating. This is 37 percent lower than the 0.38 that Carlson pulled in over the past eight weeks.
ETA this number is especially interesting because Id read that the under 40 crowd the only reason they watch Fox is because of TC.

That said, the numbers were still sizable enough to comfortably lead the 8 pm hour over rival cable news networks. Over on MSNBC, a Joe Scarborough Presents special reached 1.51 million viewers, while Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN drew 728,000 viewers.

OANN has said they would pay him $25 mil and Glenn Beck wants him for Blaze.

[JRB]

Syria - A senior SF NCO who worked for several years side by side with those Syrian Kurds whom I know sees it very differently. I don't believe there was is any credible threat from Turkey or especially Russia. Plenty of serious folks weighed in on that, that was not a big media exclusive indictment.

I've not seen a shred of evidence there was any pre-Biden "plan" to evac AFG other than it was supposed to be May of that year. If there were, not a shred of it has leaked. I suspect Milley and Miller were hoping to ramp it out a year with Trump and then they failed to. Biden is a POS for sticking to that deal. But you don't have to be Stonewall Jackson to see what a ridiculous deal Trump signed off on, boxing out an offical ally from the negotiations.

I fault Biden for the evac. It's all Trump's fault for the surrender.

Obviously I can't counter that SF NCO's personal experience. Doesn't take a genius to understand that guys on the ground working with our allies face to face would take it a lot more personally. But worthless REMF dweebs like me were working 22+hour days for weeks trying to come up with any other possible option for various groups of stars asking for every possible way to avoid doing it.
I wasn't read-in on all the details obviously, but my leadership and their senior leadership across ARCENT were convinced there was a credible threat from Turkey and Russia. Wish I could get into the details I do know but I'm not sure what if any of it is unclass at this point.
I can say it wasn't fun watching drone video of Turkish and Russian tanks occupying COPs guys like your friend were living in just hours before, and it wasn't fun seeing other SOF elements preparing seriously non-ideal positions and expecting to fight advancing armor with AT4's and sandbagged fighting positions. Maybe your buddy was part of that, maybe he wasn't.

I can speak on contingency options put into place in AFG to ensure asset denial. Honestly the only way I can imagine the AFG withdrawl going as poorly as it did, and leaving as much as we did, is if those commanders were ordered to leave it all in place, or if those options were removed despite the impending withdrawl. Either one seems to be a failure so spectacular it's hard to imagine it not being intentional from the top.

[JHC]

Obviously I can't counter that SF NCO's personal experience. Doesn't take a genius to understand that guys on the ground working with our allies face to face would take it a lot more personally. But worthless REMF dweebs like me were working 22+hour days for weeks trying to come up with any other possible option for various groups of stars asking for every possible way to avoid doing it.
I wasn't read-in on all the details obviously, but my leadership and their senior leadership across ARCENT were convinced there was a credible threat from Turkey and Russia. Wish I could get into the details I do know but I'm not sure what if any of it is unclass at this point.
I can say it wasn't fun watching drone video of Turkish and Russian tanks occupying COPs guys like your friend were living in just hours before, and it wasn't fun seeing other SOF elements preparing seriously non-ideal positions and expecting to fight advancing armor with AT4's and sandbagged fighting positions. Maybe your buddy was part of that, maybe he wasn't.

I can speak on contingency options put into place in AFG to ensure asset denial. Honestly the only way I can imagine the AFG withdrawl going as poorly as it did, and leaving as much as we did, is if those commanders were ordered to leave it all in place, or if those options were removed despite the impending withdrawl. Either one seems to be a failure so spectacular it's hard to imagine it not being intentional from the top.

So personal that he almost self-immolated a long career over it so you're definitely tracking.

But regardless of how staffs went into overdrive planning for the contingency of war with a major NATO ally plus Russia, at the same time, that was not going to happen.

I've been advised that when an order to evac that much material and staff in that span of time is given, there is a line of thinking that says, go as fast a you can, for force protection. I have to imagine the night time bugout of Bagram is a case in point. Now, me reading into that, and me alone hears, "this is so stupidly dumb-fast that it makes it stupidly dangerous, so give 'em what they asked for. Speed without getting shot in back."

Now, that's just about Mil material. DOS holds the bag for the SIV program (which had been sabotaged for years) and the personnel processing.

In my earlier post, I'm condemning Trump for the terms of his agreement. Not the evac fiasco.

[JRB]

So personal that he almost self-immolated a long career over it so you're definitely tracking.

But regardless of how staffs went into overdrive planning for the contingency of war with a major NATO ally plus Russia, at the same time, that was not going to happen.

I've been advised that when an order to evac that much material and staff in that span of time is given, there is a line of thinking that says, go as fast a you can, for force protection. I have to imagine the night time bugout of Bagram is a case in point. Now, me reading into that, and me alone hears, "this is so stupidly dumb-fast that it makes it stupidly dangerous, so give 'em what they asked for. Speed without getting shot in back."

Now, that's just about Mil material. DOS holds the bag for the SIV program (which had been sabotaged for years) and the personnel processing.

In my earlier post, I'm condemning Trump for the terms of his agreement. Not the evac fiasco.

Tracking all. Still disagree on the Turkey+Russia element there not looking for a fight - They were ideally positioned to embarrass the US and the administration at the time with either outcome.

Agreed on all about the AFG withdrawl. Hopefully someday we can talk about all this over cold beers, instead of posts in a thread about some bobblehead getting fired from Fox.

[wvincent]

Tracking all. Still disagree on the Turkey+Russia element there not looking for a fight - They were ideally positioned to embarrass the US and the administration at the time with either outcome.

Hard to imagine the Russians not wanting some payback for the ass-pounding they received 07FEB2018 at Deir al-Zour. But of course, THOSE were not Russian Troops, just Russian citizens possibly in the employ of an "unknown" PMC. "Unknown", wink, wink.


If ABC had half a brain, they would pay Tucker whatever he wants, and make him a special co-host on The View. The ratings would be epic as all sides of the political spectrum would tune in just to watch the worlds best verbal battles of all time.

[JRB]

Hard to imagine the Russians not wanting some payback for the ass-pounding they received 07FEB2018 at Deir al-Zour. But of course, THOSE were not Russian Troops, just Russian citizens possibly in the employ of an "unknown" PMC. "Unknown", wink, wink.

Yep, that was the first time Russia really learned all about HIMARs...

If ABC had half a brain, they would pay Tucker whatever he wants, and make him a special co-host on The View. The ratings would be epic as all sides of the political spectrum would tune in just to watch the worlds best verbal battles of all time.

That's one of the few things I can imagine that would get me to watch The View!