• shalafi@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    This is not just an aircraft carrier. For starters, this is the USS Gerald Ford, a Gerald R. Ford-class carrier, the latest shit. A US aircraft carrier is a monstrous group of war machines, not a single boat (though it’s the size and population of a small town). We got 11 aircraft carriers in total, to cover planet Earth.

    For context, US aircraft carriers are sent to regions to project force. “We can ruin you if you fuck around and we don’t have to be in sight of land to do so. Also, good luck fending us off, because you can’t.” Short of a boomer (nuclear sub which you’ll never hear about) an aircraft carrier group is the deadliest thing mankind has ever deployed.

    So, we’re sending nearly 1/10th of our global naval warfighting machine, the very tip of the spear, to <checks notes> Venezuela?!

    I have no snarky comment or bullshit prediction here. I cannot imagine WTF is going on except to guess… what? A major escalation against… who? And why? There’s something going on here that’s not going to be obvious until it kicks off.

    • Inaminate_Carbon_Rod@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Carriers have been the be all and end all for 80 + years now.

      It’s only a matter of time before land based defences are just too good.

      The Chinese hypersonic missile seems to be the beginning of that.

      Once they have enough of those and have them perfected, they will move on Taiwan.

      Just my armchair opinion.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        Yeah I don’t see how giant aircraft carriers will exist in 20+ years. When it costs billions to make, shit tons of man hours, training and take forever to move around, and someone can put a giant hole in the side of it and sink every $100 million dollar plane that’s on it along with all the people for under $20 million, it’s just seems dumb.

        Like for scale, someone could sink every Aircraft carrier in the U.S. fleet for cheaper than the cost of 1 ballroom.

  • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Does anyone realize how much cocaine gets imported into the US everyday?

    This administration has done exactly zero to stymie it. Blowing up a few random boats of accused drug dealers amounts to murder and has to be the biggest clown shows ever.

    What is even worse is cocaine isn’t the drug killing Americans. If you were really trying to fix things you would be shutting down chemical plants in China.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      9 days ago

      I heard on TV your muppet VP say something about “300 thousand Americans dead from drugs a year” to justify this shit and one word immediately came to my mind:

      • Oxycodone

      The actions of this American Administration have nothing at all to do with protecting the potential victims of drugs.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      9 days ago

      the US everyday

      ‘Everyday’ means ‘unremarkable’ or ‘mundane’ and should precede the object as per adjective order. ‘Every day’ means ‘daily’.

      What part of the US is the Unremarkable US? The middle-South?

      • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        I work with people in recovery, I am acutely aware that people choose to do drugs. If you speak with a someone who has a substance use disorder they will often explain it is their right to do what they want with their body.

        I am not hurting anyone is something they will typically say. I have also found quite a few people on Lemmy that share this sentiment as well. Obviously this is a complex topic.

        To answer you, no I do not blame everyone else. I do recognize that environment, opportunity, and healthcare play a huge role in this equation.

        If you have not had the chance, look up the Rat Park Experiment. I think it highlights the concept that it is disconnection and a lack of opportunity that causes most addiction.

        https://youtube.com/shorts/XVFGEDs95MI

        https://www.usersnews.com.au/home/2017/4/10/the-view-from-rat-park

        • brendansimms@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          I appreciate your well thought out response to my rashly made comment. Also I looked through some rat park comics and I agree with their and your sentiments. Addiction is complex, and placing all the blame of addiction on the person is not just incorrect, but cruel and unhelpful. The thought process behind my comment was this: if environment, opportunity, and healthcare (also access to resources and just general compassion) are the ways to remedy addiction, than addressing drug problems by killing (alleged) drug traffickers or starting a trade war with china is completely off base. An addict WILL find their fix. I can also empathize with the need to ‘turn off the faucet’ of drugs in order to address the crisis levels of addiction in certain places, but to remove the drugs without also providing massive care\aid\resources is not going to solve the problem.

  • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 days ago

    Can’t the rest of the world just start boycotting trade with the US already? BRICS is a fine start but it needs to speed up and stop giving them any more support if they’re turning from the world’s police to its bully.

  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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    9 days ago

    This is a frankly absurd and comical waste of resources in an environment that absolutely does not call for the deployment of the newest, most advanced, and most expensive naval asset in the USN inventory.

    In no universe is it reasonable to deploy the Ford (or really any of our CVNs) to the Caribbean for combat operations. For disaster recovery, sure - you can probably hook up the reactor output to land lines in a pinch, if some hurricane came and wrecked a major city down there, and a stopgap power supply was needed. But for pretty much anything combat related, the absolute maximum of a reasonable naval asset to stick there would be an LHA/LHD - that is, a “landing ship” whose primary job in terms of aviation is to host a bunch of helicopters and a small handful of F-35Bs. As well as a bunch of smaller boats that could be used for, you know, patrol and boarding.

    It’s so fucking embarrassing, on so many levels, for so many reasons - the humanitarian aspect is just the first-order outrage. There’s multiple layers of rank idiocy.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      9 days ago

      This is a frankly absurd and comical waste of resources in an environment that absolutely does not call for the deployment of the newest, most advanced, and most expensive naval asset in the USN inventory.

      1. all that gear is going to go bad
      2. it worked for Israel

      I think that second point is very important, as I think violence has its own overton window and Israel and Russia have seriously pushed it with each of their respective belligerent invasions; Israel more effectively since Russia seems to have failed almost completely in its goals.

  • _stranger_@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Carriers are incredibly vulnerable, which is why they stay in deep water and are always escorted by a carrier group. What are the chances they override the people who know what they’re doing, send JUST the carrier, and we get to see a Venezuelan speed boat full of C4 reduce the US carrier fleet by a 10%?

  • melsaskca@lemmy.ca
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    9 days ago

    Just like China buzzes Taiwan every so often. (Darth Vader theme starts playing).