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An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

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Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything the UN says is unenforceable if it does not come from the member states themselves. My point was not to make UN the policeman, but to get countries to agree to change the founding principles of UN (which is exactly the sovereignity you mention). The cost involved should be big enough to discourage everyone and their uncle to claim a new state, obligations of signing all the UN resolutions and declarations sh…

> My point was not to make UN the policeman, but to get countries to agree to change the founding principles of UN No your point is to force your ideals onto others. Hence the overuse of the word “discourage”

Yes, my ideal being to stop or at least reduce wars between nation states.

I know it's a hard one to buy into, but if you did, what would you suggest?

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the ultimate solution needs to come down from UN in setting a legal framework for parts of the country to secede. I.e. it's generally an economic interest for separatists rise to power, and I wonder if we could stymie that by making it legal for parts of countries to secede under a certain set of terms (paying "damages" to the parent country, obligating parent country to allow free travel and similar for a pr…

But why the UN? Doesn’t this just create a one world gov?

United Nation rules that countries' borders are indisputable have led to more than one war. Heck, Kosovo today is still officially part of Serbia even though de facto it is not. And I worry if we'll get to see more wars out of it (Serbia is looking to reintroduce obligatory military service for all men).

UN was created to stop wars like the WW1 and WW2 happening again, but while one could argue it was successful in that (I believe other factors have come into play, mostly increased standard of living), it has anything but stopped separatist conflicts.

To me the UN sounds like the right place to extend the goal to stop wars even further: it's where countries come together and agree on shared values, goals and rules.

I don't care if it's UN or anything else, if we are worrying about corruption, we'd need to design for that too because it is inevitable in any organization.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My point was not to make UN the policeman, but to get countries to agree to change the founding principles of UN No your point is to force your ideals onto others. Hence the overuse of the word “discourage”

Yes, my ideal being to stop or at least reduce wars between nation states. I know it's a hard one to buy into, but if you did, what would you suggest?

Mandate gun ownership. Military weapons. So those in crap states / areas that need to sucede can just fix the problem with their gov. This doesn’t increase or force taxation or allow some external entity legal authority in your country.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why the UN? Doesn’t this just create a one world gov?

United Nation rules that countries' borders are indisputable have led to more than one war. Heck, Kosovo today is still officially part of Serbia even though de facto it is not. And I worry if we'll get to see more wars out of it (Serbia is looking to reintroduce obligatory military service for all men). UN was created to stop wars like the WW1 and WW2 happening again, but while one could argue it was successful in t…

You’re not going to stop wars, hard stop. An admirable goal but it will never happen. Rational minds are not the only ones on this planet. NK, China, these all still exist today despite the UN. The UN can cease to exist and nothing will change from our perspective.

Let’s take two examples. What’s goin on in Myanmar atm, they are supposed to sucede? From who? Who will tax them? Another example, let’s say hypothetically Texas decides the US is too liberal and sucedes. The liberal US will tax it at the liberal, starting a war. The US was even founded because of extreme taxation, which led to a war. Taxes = war. Give people away to defend themselves, then you’ll stop wars.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#175

The joke at that time was Serbs saying: "Sorry, we didn't know it was invisible."

It was based on a mistranslation though. In English these planes were never described as "invisible", it was always "stealth". Since other language don't have a separate word for "stealth", they became "invisible". A native English speaker would be a bit hard pressed to understand the humor of that joke.

I'm not sure. Trump recently talked about invisible F-35s and nobody really knew for sure what he meant.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a33658771...

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#176
post #9

This wasnt very surprising when it happened as historically The united states is its own worst enemy when it comes to military counterintelligence assessments. Id surmise no general wants to openly admit to the enemies asymmetric advantage. Francis Gary Powers was no doubt stunned to find his U2 spyplane tumbling from the skies in 1960 thanks to what I can only imagine is inherent bias in the war room against the ene…

Tupolev TU-95, Wikipedia: "First flown in 1952, the Tu-95 entered service with the Soviet Union in 1956 and is expected to serve the Russian Aerospace Forces until at least 2040" Yeesh, I guess they must have done something right with that plane.

Same for US bombers - the B52 also first flew in 1952 and is expected to serve into the 2050s. Bomb trucks don't need ultramodern stealth, supercruise, vectored thrust etc - they need air superiority provided by other aircraft, a big jet engine, and reliability.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#177
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad I'm not alone here. I can respect people in 2nd WW thinking "I believe they are evil and must be stopped and I will do anything to help that goal". I can't respect "I'm just working here".

Do you only respect that if you agree with their reasons as well? The kind of rah-rah patriotism for your country isn't one sided. Plenty of axis troops thought they were fighting against evil. Let's also not ignore the fact that service wasn't always voluntary. It really just seems like you're looking at this with a very limited, black and white perspective. That's your prerogative but it doesn't really line up with…

I am not saying everybody in military is "just working there". Some may genuinely believe they are doing something noble or at least necessary evil. But some enjoy shooting, killing, torturing people. And some are just taking the opportunity to get a good job or the benefits.

Shooting and killing other people is an enormity, unless there is a necessity or other justification. I'm just saying that "it was war, we had orders, I just worked there" is a false justification that some military men fool themselves with. To go to a foreign country and shoot people there, I would demand a much stronger reason than rhetoric, news coverage, free college, etc.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was based on a mistranslation though. In English these planes were never described as "invisible", it was always "stealth". Since other language don't have a separate word for "stealth", they became "invisible". A native English speaker would be a bit hard pressed to understand the humor of that joke.

I'm not sure. Trump recently talked about invisible F-35s and nobody really knew for sure what he meant. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a33658771...

Hahaha, that's a fantastic find. Thanks for brightening my day a little.

For those who are not sure whether to click on the link or not, here's a little pearl from the former Commander in Chief:

"I was asking the Air Force guys, I said, how good is this plane? They said, well, sir, you can't see it. I said, yeah, but in a fight — you know, a fight — like I watch in the movies — they fight, they're fighting. How good is this? They say, well, it wins every time because the enemy cannot see it. Even if it's right next to it, it can't see it. I said, that helps. That's a good thing."

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