Apache helicopter crash in Afghanistan– incredibly no one was hurt.
Apparently this video was leaked, and we don’t hear about woundings, crashes and other negative news in the US military in Afghanistan, only actual deaths. Unfortunately, our press doesn’t report much on even those deaths, and most Americans seem not to know or care that the US is at war in Afghanistan.
Nice wingover, right up to that last part. I wonder what the pilot’s military future is now.
Why wasn’t this video confiscated for national security reasons? More than a few people weren’t quick enough.
Don’t hear anything, because “the US” AIN’T at war in Notagainistan.
A tiny little bit of “our” kleptocracy, using a quarter of our net national wealth, and a minuscule fraction of the populusque, has opened up a franchise from Milo Minderbinder Enterprises, buying billion-dollar faux “game changers” and $400-a-gallon gasoline (maybe the accounting includes bribes to “the enemy” to let the fuel and materiel migrate to “the front” before burning and destroying it?) with money borrowed from Chinese plutocrats against the possible future tax revenues on whatever Real Wealth that “ordinary Americans” might create) to send young volunteers (with myraid, mostly unhealthy motivations) to do stuff like that dumb-$hit helicopter crash (if you want more of same, go to Youtube and search for “military fails”) and Kill Teams and Kill Bills. Doing what they know how to do, which unfortunately for them, being subject to Doctrine and Orders, has not a freakin’ prayer now, any more than it did Way Back When in 1968, of moving hearts and minds in any direction but into more virulent opposition to “us.” Even killing off the residue of world affection that used to exist (without regard to the things people like Smedley Butler and IBM were up to) for the “Shining City on a Hill.” “We,” or the militokleptocrats pretending to speak and act for us, under a fraudulent claim of power of attorney, have blown through all our savings, all our earnings for maybe centuries to come, and set the stage for a weaponization of the whole stupid planet that stands fair to jump us into a parallel universe where the Terminators and Bolos are our only legacy. The press, as you know, is nothing but cheerleaders under orders to sell, sell, sell the whole stupid sheaf of fasces that is their stock footage and stock in trade.
“We” are a careless, heedless, feckless, shiftless, sorry excuse for a citizenry of a nominal democracy (sic.) This would be a great point at which to be able to us the “f” word…
An “Apache” helicopter? Are those made by the Native Americans? What about “Tomahawk” missiles?
Yeah–if they get so worked up about sports team mascots, what about all this stuff? Maybe there’s a lawsuit in it somewhere…
Except for being covered on the nightly news every single day, and being discussed by all of the leading presidential candidates every single day, the Afghanistan War is almost invisible in America.
Even if they hadn’t crashed it doesn’t seem like spontaneous airshows a prudent use of multi-million dollar aircraft. The fact that they did it in plain view of several witnesses apparently without fear of repercussions makes me wonder about the state of discipline with our “Troops”.
First of all, for the crowd, this maneuver is called a RTT, or “return to target”. It is a quasi-tactical move, but more often relegated to the trashbin of cool maneuvers and crowd pleasers (when performed properly). It is often done for the benefit of the ground pounders and wrench benders that have the mundane task of supporting these aircraft, yet not being able to fly in them. Machismo at its best. Sadly, performing this maneuver at 8,000 MSL and fully loaded didn’t work out as well as it did back home with a slick aircraft and signficantly less altitude. While this mishap represents stupidity on parade, I’m having a hard time figuring out JT McPhee’s psychobabble. Maybe that diatribe requires a secret decoder ring, because really…it makes no friggin sense.
Sorry if my contribution is hard to follow. The current state of the world is not particularly linear, and the blog-comment format is too compartmentalized to often make for clarity, unless all the important detail is whited out.
Maybe seeing the kind of stuff Army aircrews sometimes did in the Fog of War, Vietnam version, and what happens when jet jockeys fly through the cables supporting cable cars in Italy, link to nytimes.com , and YouTube videos of guys pooching Hellfires into family gatherings with a whoop and a holler, and stuff like that, did something to my little psychobrain. Yeah, I know: “[Stuff] happens, fog of war,” all that. Not much of an excuse, in my mind, but I guess that’s what humans do.
I’m dumb enough to actually still keep hoping that “we” can do better than buying hundreds of $3 or $60 million hammers to knock the heads off carpet tacks and silk pins, and applying “tactical moves” and Grand Strategies and Doctrines that have not a prayer, from the git-go, of accomplishing any sensible goal or mission, other than “We kill some of them, so they kill some of us, so we kill some different people over there, so they kill some of us downrange…” And the MIC participants get richer…
RTT, wingover, other names in other languages or times, it’s still a stunt that one doesn’t do at low altitude or high density altitude unless there is a very pressing need, or to showboat. This is showboating for the watchers not cool enough to be the pilot, who is no longer cool.
Psychobable is a derogatory label served up when the speaker wants to opt out of the conversation. It is less appropriate in this case than milbabble.
Well, if nothing else I got to learn a new word today: milbabble. Understood the concept, but thanks to google I now have a label for it, along with this interesting observation on one of the many sicknesses at the heart of our Imperial Forces: link to rumormillnews.com
Thirteen years with the US EPA exposed the seductions of Neologisms, Acronyms, Argottery Of All Sorts [NAAOAS], and of course there’s always this, if one is confused by parts of the mil.lingo: link to ra.defense.gov which also requires this, link to fas.org and of course since interservice rivalry is dead, but rules us from its grave, you need this, link to fas.org, etc, and this, link to ciehub.info.
And maybe this:
So much “interoperability,” so little “intelligence.”