Zephyr Net

All

Well folks, I guess American Excellence won again!!

God Bless The Red, White and Blue and those in our military that use American weapons everyday in defense of world freedom
and peace!!

Best Regards,
Pappy

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Tally Ho Pappy's In!

In defense of world freedom and peace

you have American people like Edward Joseph Snowden who deserves American Excellence.

mlad

Snowden is a poster boy for leftist Commies.
That is why he fled to Russia for protection.

He is no American or world hero and you pervert the thread of American Excellance.

Pappy

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Tally Ho Pappy's In!

The problem with Snowden is he told us what we already knew but were too idiotic to believe. I'm glad he exposed the fact that Government is not your friend. At least with Snowden's revelations no CIs, undercover agents, et cetera were outed and put in harm's way - unlike Manning! He might be a poster child for anti-America but let's face it, our government does NOT abide by the Constitution.

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Centurian

QED. Thanks Centurian57_369th

I wouldn't misconstrue what I said as advocacy for traitors because traitors belong in prison; however, I do believe that our government needs to follow the Constitution and the laws. When a government stops following its own laws you're no longer dealing with a free or fair society. In the choice between security and liberty, I want the latter.

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Centurian

For me and for the rest of the world globally he is considered a hero of our time. As he says himself: "I do not want to live in a world where everything - what I say, what I do, to whom I speak, expressions of creation, love or friendship - be recorded."

Indeed we are getting closer and closer to George Orwell's 1984 book.

Big Brother is watching you... I agree with you Centurian57_369th . freedom has no price.

Cordially

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

https://www.edwardsnowden.com/

If you think that this sort of surveillance is limited to the United States you'd be very foolish. It's not even limited to the Five Eyes privy to the UK-USA Agreement. Surveillance on citizens has become universal in the western world for "insert reason here." However, beyond government surveillance, we invite private companies to gather intelligence and data on ourselves as well. Cell phones are always listening for that "Hey Siri" or "Google Find" and so on and so forth. Amazon's Echo listens as well. People willingly share every facet of their lives on Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr.

The governments of the world may very well be the purveyors of surveillance but it's we the citizens who have willingly allowed every details of our lives to be turned into data to be collected.

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Centurian

it must be recognized that in the field of listening,

the USA have the monopoly, very far behind are Russia and China even if it takes

Recognize them some progress in this area ...

When you talk about the western world, it is largely under American influence.

Europe more precisely this "European Union" does not have the tools to face the future challenges.

We Europeans, are subject to the NATO Policy, the armed arm of the USA.

We do not have our own continental army. We lack independence

and back when our interests diverge.

I want to emphasize that the US is the pioneer in the field of computers and electronics.(Microsoft, Google , Apple etc...)

They have an immeasurable budget in the defense. The record military budget of $ 686 billion just for 2019 ... very far from other countries.

Because of this, they have a lot of global surveillance systems like
XKeyscore PRISM ECHELON Carnivore DISHFIRE STONEGHOST Fairview MYSTIC DCSN Boundless Informant BULLRUN PINWALE Stingray etc ...

(see : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance)

American excellence is present but sometimes it is capable of the best as the worst.

Cordially

Cent.

Don't waste any words on this guy, that was CAG's best advice.
It does not do any good.

Best Regards,
Pappy

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Tally Ho Pappy's In!

eh he's not the worst.

He's right that the US is truly a world leader in the world of listening *but* one big distinction between the US and China right now listening is one thing, acting is another. China, Russia, North Korea, all of them world leaders in taking listening that one step further. Ethiopia & Eritrea are up there as well. Turkey's running full speed towards that thanks to Sultan Recep. And yet despite the fact that the US is listening and listening, the First Amendment continues to be upheld in courts.

Now mlad where you fall apart is assuming you Europeans do not have the tools. On the contrary, very recently Germany was taken to task over their surveillance of their own citizens. They're hardly an outlier in the EU. Insofar as NATO policy goes, well it would be nice if the US had more of a say in NATO but unfortunately we do not. If we did, ISAF wouldn't have been a boondoggle with 19 different sets of ROE because every country has their own misgivings on how to fight the bad guys. Remember, Germany for a time refused to engage the Taliban. Let's fast forward to Libya. For once, the US didn't want to bomb a country - remarkable I know. Yet Britain and France wanted to topple the regime in Libya. The US did its part for the first two weeks by neutralizing air defenses and providing the sophisticated war missions that we excel in over our NATO partners. After that, we handed it over to NATO and it took 6 months for NATO to defeat a regime that was losing ground to rebels so terrible they didn't even know how to use AAA guns? What does that say about NATO? During this war you had countries like France and the UK complaining it was too expensive, taking too long, or that they were running out of ordnance. Gates - who happened to be an actually good SecDef (remarkable for an Obama pick but remember he was a hawk) - lambasted NATO during the Libya operation precisely BECAUSE of their lack of commitment. Now if NATO were just an armed wing of the US they would have done a lot better but the truth of the matter is that NATO is far less the armed wing of the US since the end of the Cold War and the rampant disarmament since. Gates did bring NATO's partners to task over their inability to defend themselves during this time. European nations have disarmed at a much more rapid pace than the US has and that puts more of a burden on the US. Just look at the number of commitments the US has all over the world. How many nations have we committed to defend? If those nations refuse to carry the forces necessary to defend themselves that puts more of a burden on us.

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/worl ... gates.html
Defense Secretary Warns NATO of ‘Dim’ Future

Now in this regard, I think NATO needs to be taken to task. The US is shouldering much too much responsibility. Partners like Norway shouldered a considerable amount of weight for such a small nation whereas the larger nations did not. I would say that disbanding NATO wouldn't be an awful idea except that the US has unfortunately farmed out some of its missions to our NATO partners. That would leave us in a pickle but it might wake the DOD up to their own failures in policy and strategic planning. When push comes to shove, the US is left to shoulder responsibilities beyond what we can maintain in our climate and is it fair to the US that the nations we commit to defend won't even maintain the levels necessary to defend themselves? I don't think so.

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Centurian

About the F-35 Lightning II :



https://downmagaz.com/aviation_magazine_space/153226-f-35-lighting-ii-the-fighter-evolution.html




https://downmagaz.com/aviation_magazine_space/32683-f-35-lightning-ii-an-air-warfare-revolution.html



https://downmagaz.com/aviation_magazine_space/21370-air-international-special-f-35-lightning-ii.html