Comments by "Tim Trewyn" (@timtrewyn453) on "NBC News" channel.

  1. It's the media. I don't think the Pentagon is overly concerned about this small task force.
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  2. Have to respect this man and the Ukrainian people.
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  3. Media goes for anything that look scary.
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  4. Increase security of other bridges. Maybe this was an accident. Maybe not.
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  5. It's not a big deal unless they go help Venezuela invade Guyana and to cut oil production off the Guyana coast. That's when it gets touchy. Those ships are no serious threat to the United States. They are a threat to Guyana when coupled with Venezuelan forces. I expect them to call in Venezuelan ports. They would act as a trip wire, as they did in Haiphong, to secure the resupply of arms to the Venezuelan military. This could be a drill for something further out in the future, like keeping the US busier in the Western Hemisphere.
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  6.  @thornil2231  No. This man is at his post. He is leading and advocating for his nation. He did not evacuate to save his own life. And his family is nearby. These are just a few reasons he is worthy of respect. There. I have supported my statement. Support yours, or rethink your statement and ideas.
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  7. And another day goes by, and it does not happen. Imagine Ukraine had nuclear weapons because the United States stepped in in 1994 and picked up the cost of upgrading their nuclear deterrent into something Ukraine could have maintained. Neither the United States nor Ukraine did that. What they did showed a measure of sensitivity to Russian "security concerns". If Russia was concerned about its security, it would not be exercising this kind of brinkmanship. The brinkmanship is indicative of . . . greed . . . and some weird concept of innocence and nostalgia . . . eternity politics. It's a belief in one's culture's superiority in brinkmanship. That's why Russia is in a fight. People violently disagree. Imagine 140 million Russians v. over a billion people in "The West". Is this getting the respect you seek?
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  8. Please don't pit the man against his outstanding general.
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  9. No. Russian navy in international waters and making an approved port call. They get to do that. They can expect to be "professionally" observed.
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  10. @You Tube And Ukraine can maintain its infrastructure because it has capable engineers and scientists. Russia never claimed that an objective of the special military operation was to restore electric service. Ukrainians were maintaining their system and the reactors. And you are moderately misinformed. The Ukrainian Army is paired with the California National Guard for training purposes. Also FSB trains all of its client state's like Cuba and Venezuela and Syria. What's new about that kind of stuff? The Russian economy cannot stand up to the West. If Russia attacks the West the West can tip the war in Ukraine more steeply against. It's Russia that needs to leave Ukraine, but they won't until they just cannot sustain this fight. Russia has plenty of land and food. I think climate change creates good prospects for Russia, increasing port access and arable land. Russia should focus on improving the lives of its people and trading peacefully with its neighbors, not threatening them.
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  11. @Kitty Cat No. Ukraine at the time was under economic stress and maintaining a nuclear arsenal was an additional burden. It was a win-win for Ukraine and Russia for Ukraine to not have a nuclear arsenal. The US hostility you imply could have expressed itself by underwriting the Ukrainian nuclear arsenal to support its commitment to Ukrainian security. What happened in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum actually had a measure of good will in it, hard as that may be for a cynic to believe. Dress up aggression anyway you care to in the media, true beliefs are shown by action. Russia believes in colonialism, like other empires. So it is in a fight until the Russian moms put their foot down.
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  12.  @rett1015  Russia should have left Ukraine alone. See 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Things really did not need to turn out this way.
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  13. Ask Steven Miller about this and State's capacity to process SIV's. Ask Congress. There were SIV applicants ready to leave in 2010. See article by George Packer. An aide to Mike Pence said at one point there was one person in State processing SIV's. It's a rough manhour calculation times known applicants plus near term forecasts. People did the math. Funding, training and filling the positions seems to have broken down somewhere until the ramp up earlier this year.
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  14. The USAF wants to retire its A-10s. Looks like we have found a place for them to retire to. Ukrainian pilots training with them in the month ahead might be another nudge for the Russians to let go of the idea of taking all of Ukraine. Still, drones and Javelin's are probably the safer way to take out Russian tanks, but A-10's could get to tanks before the tanks got close to Ukrainian infantry. Not safe for the pilot, but a real morale booster for the infantry.
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  15.  Laureen Helmaki  May they enjoy their land border with China.
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  16. The hospitality businesses look forward to the revenue if a port call is made. Local police are probably not as thrilled.
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  17. If inflation never goes negative, then yeah, prices are higher than ever. Rather than graphing percent inflation, one needs to graph income and expenses.
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  18. They should come in the winter next time. Get a break from Murmansk.
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  19. Do people watch Dr. Fauci so they can get mad? Go get a chore done and feel better for it.
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  20. Came for the summer instead of the winter. That's weird.
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  21. Imagery resolution always seems to have been modified to leave the object fuzzy. I hope the government has any hi definition imagery. And the whole matter of the USS Princeton having a particular radar detect the object for several days. Is the US Navy saying it used various radars and frequencies and only one particular radar configuration detected the object? The object was otherwise stealthy? When you are observing these kinds of phenomenon in the practice space off the Virginia coast for a period of two years, yeah they said two years in other pieces on this, are you not putting up aircraft and sending out ships with customized and varied sensors to gather every piece of information you can? Where's that data? No you brush it off as not worth the effort? This could be an unoccupied reconnaissance vehicle from another civilization, operated by its own AI, probably programmed not to be hostile, but probably programmed to report hostility. I'm glad we did not shoot at it. It's harder to believe that it is a human fabricated device. One wonders about sonic boom effects being recorded or not, or surface heating from the rapid speed and air friction. One wonders about the government creating a story to justify certain expenses.
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  22.  @howardj602  Let's wait until the official investigation is completed. I did use the word "maybe".
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  23. Putin is the one who meddles on borders like Georgia and Ukraine.
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  24.  @FirstLast.....  China wants a prevailing interest over Afghanistan's mineral wealth. Yes, it could use that as a powerful tool to influence other economies. We'll see what the Afghans think of that.
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  25. A local win for the empire. The fight goes on. Both sides in the field . . . weary, while the leaders back home dream on.
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  26. The main pressure on Russia is when oil prices are low.
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  27. I don't think the Taliban are just "the Taliban". Afghanistan has a wealth of minerals, additional ones having been discovered by the United States Geological Survey while we were there. Every neighbor of Afghanistan wants a piece of that, and they want the United States and its supported Afghan government out of their way. Don't give the Taliban so much credit. They have all kinds of help. If they prevail, it will not have been on their own dime. The Afghan government in truth faces a sort of coalition of forces (with internal rivalries) they cannot prevail against without NATO. The Taliban are the grunts for neighboring elites, who have the capability to enforce as much of a surveillance regime on Afghanistan as they need to to get what they want. The President decided to not mention that coalition, for all sorts of reasons of American interest. For example, he might find it advantageous to let China look a bit more west to Afghanistan than east to Taiwan. US units shift to the Pacific. Let China overextend itself into that mess.
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  28. You got it. Supplies in Russia might be running low. If nothing else happens, this will be a productive trip. Good call.
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  29. I don't know that troops that did multiple tours see it quite the same way as single tour generals who put in a year see it. Did any overall mission commander who served in Afghanistan strenuously volunteer to extend his or her tour of duty in Afghanistan if they also saw continuity of the commander as an issue? Does it really take 20 years to come up with this critique in hindsight? Bush, Obama, and Trump and their NSC's all missed this? Were Afghan Army losses over the last 5 years sustainable? I've heard they suffered over 60,000 fatalities. And the mechanism of payment of Afghan soldiers was wrong. A separate military unit with high integrity should be in charge of pay and soldiers should have to show up in person to draw their pay under those circumstances. How many Afghan prisoners did Trump send to Gitmo? McMaster did not convince me he learned much from this. The Afghan Army and its intelligence and counter-intelligence services needed to be advised to determine the quantity of provinces that they could sustainably hold, understanding those areas would be subject to Taliban espionage and hit and run strikes, and the capacity it needed to conduct espionage and hit and run warfare on the Taliban in territory it held. That might have created a sustainable stalemate with more balanced losses, creating at least a possibility of selected cease fire areas and provincial settlements. Both sides would have been on "Afghan time." But the whole matter of American "tribute" payments to Pakistan, with some of it being rerouted to the Taliban, would have had to have been minimized. Pakistan is seeing the US lean toward India, and they have to work against that for their own interests.
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  30. If the Russian Navy is smart they will load their ships up with cigars. The Captain and his crew could make a fortune. Of course, Mr. Putin gets his piece of the action.
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  31.  @texajp1946  Glad to hear supplies of Cuban cigars in Russia are ample. Hopefully the crew will find some other opportunity. Beware of Soviet innocence. Look what happened.
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  32.  @texajp1946  Where's your yacht these days?
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  33. Why not ask why unconditional surrender was required? What was the discussion about the necessity of regime change in 1945 Japan? Was the discussion of the unconditional surrender requirement very similar for Germany and Italy?
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  34.  @usul573  And the unconditional surrender meant key personnel of the defeated regime were no longer to be key personnel in the government. The very character of the leadership had to go through Allied supervised change. And for the common soldier, that meant fighting and maybe dying until the Allies achieved that capability to control their opponent.
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  35.  @inozz4c  Life is a zero sum game?
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  36. @Kitty Cat No. You do not support your assertions with any kind of third party evidence. See the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and associated reports. Isn't it Russia that is in the business of tricking others to serve its interests? Sounds like projection. And this is YouTube. We all get to be cheerleaders for our side.
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  37.  @inozz4c  Russia has left Ukraine no alternative. If the supply of weapons is ended without a cease fire and partial withdrawal, then Russia will be advantaged and will expand its control. The supply of weapons preserves Ukrainian sovereignty and most of its territory. The supply of weapons, by causing attrition of Russian forces in Ukraine, actually accelerates the day those forces are exhausted and sets the stage for a cease fire. Russian leadership has demonstrated for 8 years that they are determined to impose their jurisdiction on as much of Ukraine as they can. The war has been prolonged by choice by Russia, because its position is that it will perpetually attempt to acquire Ukraine. A nation with as much land and food as Russia that still engages in the violent expansion of its territory deserves strong opposition. Yes, this is a very vicious situation. Every day the US says Putin could stop this war. But Putin demonstrates he is quite willing to expend his forces and, as much as he can insulate the Russian population from the consequences. OK. It's YouTube. You get to lobby for your side. But consider the image of your side that you are perpetuating and ask what are the long term consequences of making unbalanced proposals. Whatever happens in Ukraine, the long term consequence is that Putin will face a more militarized and adversarial Europe for the rest of his life, and his successor is also likely to face that. Was not life better when billions of Euros of were coming into Russian banks for oil and gas? Was not life better when interventions were carried out on such a more subtle level that Western corporations were just fine being a part of the Russian economy and generating progress. Instead, Russia suffers due to its intransigence.
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  38.  @inozz4c  Fair points you make. Mearsheimer makes some good points, but I think he makes some bad ones, too, or just neglects to consider other important factors. True, one can only say so much in an hour. Russia has more land area than any other nation, and with a relatively small population. I grant that much of this land is not arable. Climate change may increase the amount of arable land in Russia, or perhaps just slide it north. Climate change may not be good for Ukrainian agriculture. I think this is a very important forecast for Russia to understand and talk to the world about, because much of the world relies on Russia for wheat, fertilizer, and other food. Russia has been demonstrating forecasting of climate change impacts with respect to planning military facilities for Arctic operations. This is to say that I don't think Russia needs Ukraine for Russia itself to be a flourishing country. If Russia simply held its 1994 borders, NATO membership might grow, but that does not mean that NATO would take land within those borders from Russia. If Russia simply held its 1994 borders, it would not be experiencing any sanctions at all, and likely would have continued to increase its wealth, even perhaps to the point that wealth inequality within the country might be better addressed. Historians often point to the classical routes of invasions from the West as a rationale for Russian geopolitics. I say Russia's 6500 nuclear warheads have dramatically made the notion of any existing Western European nation invading Russia patently absurd, rendering the historical geopolitical environment invalid. Nuclear weapons change geopolitics. Western European behavior has been to concentrate government budgets much more on social well being than defense. The US has been criticizing Western Europe on this subject for a long time, suffering in many domestic issue while Western Europe has the funds to better address those same issues, such as national health care. The perspective that "Biden" can stop the war implies that the US is the only significant player Russia faces in this conflict. The United States does not conduct the level of trade with Russia that Germany did. Russia may be gaining land full of destroyed buildings in Ukraine, but it is losing hard currency from Germany every day. Russia has proved it can miscalculate. It may be miscalculating the German people as much as the Ukrainians. The general consensus among the knowledgeable is that all governments are oppressive, but Russia is among the worst when it comes to forcing its citizens to mind their words very carefully. This sets up a spiral of poor morale, an unusual level of alcoholism, and self-defeat, and this has been made evident by the poor performance of a large, well equipped Russian military that should have won this war by now even in the face of the very gradual arming of Ukraine by the West. I have no doubt the FSB and other internal security agencies of Russia are ready to impose Russian jurisdiction on the totality of Ukraine, because they are the primary beneficiaries of the Russian system. They set up a system that talented middle class people seek to escape, forcing security services to focus on people try to leave the country. Bad as people may thing the US is, we have a problem with many people trying to get into our country. What seems to be at the root of Russian leadership dysfunction is a predominance of psychopathic values within it. These values explain the otherwise seemingly senseless need for periodic victories over its international neighbors, e.g. Donald Trump touting to his followers "We are going to win so much, you are going to get sick of winning." Yes, psychopathy is everywhere. The average citizen in the US has minimal power, but they do have a vote and they have an absurd number of guns. Russian leadership very much seems to lack the checks and balances that would improve the lot of average people. And there it is, much of my case for why it should be Russia that ends the war now and starts reforming its government and rebuilding what trade it can with the West. But I am not holding my breath.
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  39.  @tayler2396  It is Guyana and its oil that Maduro in Venezuela is after. Remember the Russian style referendum to annex western Guyana? The small task force is here to support him.
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  40.  @joeybaby6443  We already know they are not suicidal. Let them drop things off in Cuba, pick up a load of cigars, and move on to Venezuela. That's when it gets interesting.
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  41. Guess some of their oil refineries are still working. Maybe they're here to buy fuel. They brought a tanker. Maybe that happens in Venezuela, which could use the money.
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  42. Is anybody talking about an election standard that no one who goes to a polling station should have to wait more than 2 hours to vote? Each precinct would be obliged to have the necessary days and hours to have every one of its registered voters in and out in less than two hours. Polling stations should be open for seven days, with the final day being "Election Day". Registrants should be surveyed for the most convenient day and time for them to vote and polling stations should accommodate that. Voters generally will not need food if the line is not more than two hours long. They will need water, and the polling station should take care of that. I have never had to wait more than two hours. Precincts that can't do that need more money for more help and more voting stations. The more people that vote, the more legitimate the resulting government.
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  43. Maybe the Taliban and the Afghan Army would rather not see a decent city like Kabul be reduced to something like Aleppo, Syria. And I suspect the consistent message the Taliban are getting from US forces is that if they let us evacuate without incident, we will not pick some prized locations of theirs and turn them into Aleppo. They need to let the people who want to go, go in peace, or they will be right back to pariah state status like they were before. Some probably just can't help themselves from doing so.
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  44. Speaking of God, it is the spiritual leadership of Russia that needs to change.
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  45.  @buddymaddix  Most people come to Florida in the winter and then go back up north for the summer. Russia can try again in a few months. It's OK. Like I say, it's weird to come this time of year.
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  46. It is the spiritual leadership of Russia that needs to change.
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  47.  @howardj602  You are right that I make an inference of sabotage, because as an engineer I see the possibility. That ship's systems need to be gone over meticulously. They might have failed almost anywhere else on the ship's journey of hundreds of hours with minimal consequences. That they failed when they did should raise suspicion. If they had failed three minutes sooner or later that ship would not have harmed the bridge. Global tensions are high with Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, and African conflicts. It is in our adversaries' interests to weaken the American economy as theirs are also being weakened by missiles strikes and sabotage, e.g. Russian oil refineries.
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  48. Often the homeless I have dealt with value their freedom above all else, taking pride in their ability to survive, to make their own way until it catches up with them.
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  49. We think the sailors will eventually go back home to their families without firing a shot. We think they are lucky to be in the Navy instead of fighting in Ukraine. They might consider coming for the winter instead of the summer next time. Cuba is very pleasant in the winter compared to Murmansk.
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  50.  @AboubakarSidibe-k7q  That takes a carrier task force. Have a nice time in Cuba and Venezuela.
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