And you republicans are so much better

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8067881/Two-pilots-awarded-DFCS-flying-Spooky-Hercules-gunship-NINE-hours-hold-ISIS.html

*Aircrew of the AC-130U gunship 'Spooky 41' with Hurlburt Field's 4th Special Operations Squadron were honored at the military facility in Fort Walton Beach

*The 14-man crew received two Distinguished Flying Crosses and 12 Air Medals for for providing nine hours of fire support

*Crew helped U.S. and coalition forces during April 2019 mission in Afghanistan

*While allied forces battled ISIS on the ground, the crew of Spooky 41 helped to ensure the safe evacuation by helicopter of 15 injured ground personnel

*DFCs are awarded for 'Heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight'

The crew of a U.S. gunship have been awarded bravery medals at a ceremony in Florida after they rained fire down on Islamic State militants for hours, as allied soldiers on the ground were whisked to safety.

Forces on the ground came under heavy fire from ISIS militants in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan on April 3, 2019, in a ferocious fight which one Major on the ground likened to infamous WW2 battle Iwo Jima.

They called for backup from 'Spooky 41' - a AC-13OU gunship, and the Hercules-variant plane arrived within minutes to provide covering fire and ensure medical helicopters could safely evacuate the injured.

The crew were up in the air for nine hours and managed to suppress enemy fire during the evacuation of 15 wounded soldiers.

The ferocity of Spooky 41's firepower meant the enemy was unable to get a single shot off at the MedEvac helicopters, which were hovering in machine gun range of the dug-in militants for an hour.

At a ceremony on Monday, Spooky 41's Aircraft commander Capt. Neils Aberhalden and navigator Capt. John Crandall Jr. were awarded Distinguished Flying Crosses.

The airmen were with the 4th Special Operations Squadron based at Hurlburt Field, Florida.

The DFC is awarded to any officer or enlisted person of the U.S. Armed Forces who have distinguished themselves in actual combat in support of operations by heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight.

The remaining 12 airmen were each presented with Single Event Air Medals during the ceremony.

Air Medals are awarded to U.S. and civilian personnel for single acts of heroism or meritorious achievements while participating in aerial flight and foreign military personnel in actual combat in support of operations.

All of the medals awarded came with a 'C' device - which was established to distinguish an award earned for exceptionally meritorious service or achievement performed under combat conditions, according to DVIDS.

The AC-130 'Spooky' Gunship:

The AC-130's is a heavily armed ground-attack variant of the C-130 Hercules t***sport plane.

Its primary missions are close air support and armed reconnaissance.

They are often used to support troops in contact with enemy forces, convoy escort and point air defense.

The AC-130 is armed with a fearsome array of weaponry, including a 105 mm cannon and 25 or 40 mm gatling guns.

It has a combat history dating to Vietnam, where gunships destroyed more than 10,000 trucks and were credited with many life-saving close air support missions.

During Operation Desert Storm, AC-130s provided close air support and force protection (air base defense) for ground forces.

'The most lethal part of any gunship is not the 25 mm, the 40 mm or the 105 mm weapons sticking out of the side of this big beautiful airplane. The most lethal part of the gunship is the crew,' said Air Force Lt. Gen. Jim Slife, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command as he awarded the citations.

'There is nothing more complicated than the dance that goes on in a gunship to bring the kind of capability our teammates have described this morning to bear on our nation's adversaries,' said Slife. 'The orchestration that goes on is unlike anything you will see anyplace else in AFSOC or in the United States Air Force.'

The crew of the aircraft, an AC-13OU, known as a Spooky, is used by the Air Force for close air support and armed reconnaissance reports Stripes.com.

On the night of April 3rd, 2019, the crew of the aircraft were called upon to help assist with the evacuation of ground personnel, some of whom had been injured by an improvised explosive device (IED) on the ground.

American and coalition forces had come under fire by fighters from Islamic State during an attack on a mountainside near Nangarhar province.

'In my 20-plus years of training and experience in the art of attacking and defending ground objectives, I have seen few more formidable defensive positions – or ones more daunting to attack,' Maj. Jeffrey Wright, 24th Special Operations Wing, who led a seven-man special tactics team in the assault, said in an Air Force statement.

'I would have to reach for examples like Normandy, Iwo Jima or Hamburger Hill to appropriately convey the degree to which the enemy were prepared and ready for our assault.'

The ISIS fighters managed to stay hidden as the coalition assault force moved in.

And coalition forces were left exposed as firepower rained down on them from all directions.

'By using networks of subterranean passageways, the enemy would reappear behind our forces even after they'd cleared buildings,' Wright explained.

As the numbers of wounded increased, the ground force called for backup from the air.

'In short order, I heard the bark of the AC-130U's guns,' Wright said. 'I distinctly remember wondering whether they were shooting at the right target, given the speed of their reaction – in 10 years as a joint terminal attack controller, I'd never seen any kind of fire support as responsive. Sure enough, the first rounds were right on target – a good thing, because the enemy was so close to the assault force.'

Three helicopters then arrived on scene to assist with getting the wounded soldiers to safety.

The copters were unable to land so the injured were winched into the air.

'This entailed coming to a hover within machine gun range of dozens, if not hundreds, of enemy fighters keen to press home their advantage,' Wright explained, 'yet the enemy did not get off a single shot as the patients were evacuated.'

'The reason there will be no memorials for three separate medical evacuation aircrews is because Spooky 41's fires were so responsive and so precise that the enemy was effectively neutralized.'

During the ceremony on Monday, U.S. Army Capt. Benjamin Carnell, a Special Operations Force team member and one of the casualties who was evacuated thanked the crew of the Spooky for 'rising to the occasion.'

'From the regiment, from the assault force, and more specifically from my wife and my son and my daughter -- I want to thank you for your professionalism and for rising to the occasion' said Carnell.

'Without any of that I would not have been hoisted out of there and I wouldn't be standing here in front of you today, so I am indebted to you in a way that I can't describe.'

Another member of the ground force, U.S. Army Maj. Jared Tomberlin, of the Special Operations Forces also spoke: 'I have been nothing short of humbled by your commitment to your profession and your commitment to each other and though most will never hear your stories of service and sacrifice, I will always know what you did for my men and I will never forget it.'

'When every second mattered and lives were on the line, everybody was on top of their game in that aircraft -- 100 percent and then some.'

Airmen awarded the Air Medal were Capt. Micah T. Uvegas, Capt. Brian K. Yee, 1st Lt. Nicholas J. Maiolo, Tech. Sgt. Ryan A. Estes, Tech. Sgt. Jacob B. Griffen, Tech. Sgt. Austin L. Parrent, Staff Sgt. Samuel Mayfield, Staff Sgt. Michael S. Martinez, Staff Sgt. Omar J. Diaz, Staff Sgt. Jonathon M. Friesz, Senior Airman Jacob C. Bateman, Senior Airman Zadok N. Dean III.

The Hercules gunship has a long history with the US Military, and was first used during the Vietnam War.

The AC-130U Spooky Gunship used in this particular mission will soon retire as a new model, the AC-130J 'Ghostrider' Gunship, takes over.

'This is probably the last ceremony of this sort we will do for any AC-130U crew before the last aircraft departs Hurlburt Field later this year,' said Slife.

Doesn't matter if the post is a couple of months old. If trump gets in for another 4 years the US will be great

just like Russia.

Sometimes a picture doesn’t have to be worth a thousand words. Just a few will do. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov returned home from his visit with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last week, Russian state media were gloating over the spectacle. TV channel Rossiya 1 aired a segment entitled “Puppet Master and ‘Agent’—How to Understand Lavrov’s Meeting With Trump.”

Vesti Nedeli, a Sunday news show on the same network, pointed out that it was Trump, personally, who asked Lavrov to pose standing near as Trump sat at his desk. It’s almost the literal image of a power behind the throne.

True, it was God that insured that my parents stayed together to raise me, giving me a significant chance for success. It was true that God had me born and raised in places where others would not let people poop on the streets. It was also God that put sensible people in government that knew that money shouldn't be spent taking care of people who break the law. It was also God that instilled in me a work ethic, where I had to move where the jobs were, not live in a subhuman environment just because the weather was warm.

Peter Bergen wrote:

(CNN)Until now President Donald Trump has been lucky. During his first three years in office there was no major crisis on his watch of the type that has challenged every president in the half century before him.

There was nothing comparable to the Cuban missile crisis (John Kennedy); no Vietnam War (Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon); no hostage crisis in Iran (Jimmy Carter); no invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets (Carter and Ronald Reagan); no invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein (George H. W. Bush); no suicide bombings by al-Qaeda directed at two US embassies and an American warship (Bill Clinton); no 9/11 attacks (George W. Bush), and no global financial crisis (Barack Obama).

The nearest that Trump has come to a crisis is with Iran, which was largely self-created after he pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal two years ago and stoked tensions with that country.

Now comes the C****-** or novel c****av***s, a major crisis that combines elements of Hurricane Katrina—a natural event that could k**l a substantial number of Americans-- and also elements of the 2008 great recession, since the economic repercussions of the v***s on supply chains as well as on consumer and business confidence are already very troubling.

Some presidents rise to the occasion when a crisis emerges. Kennedy deftly avoided a possible nuclear war with the Soviets during the Cuban missile crisis, while George H. W. Bush assembled a massive international coalition to expel Saddam from Kuwait. And George W. Bush quickly responded to the 9/11 attacks by toppling the Taliban government in Afghanistan and destroying much of al Qaeda. (Two years after 9/11 Bush also made the disastrous decision to invade Iraq). Obama adeptly navigated the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Other presidents have fared less well when confronted by a crisis. In 1980 Carter presided over the deeply flawed effort to free the American hostages held in Iran-- the fiasco known as Desert One -- and it contributed to his one-term presidency. Johnson was overwhelmed by the carnage of Vietnam and he had no plausible plan to exit the war and so he chose not to run for ree******n in 1968.

In the early days, Trump hasn't risen to the occasion of the c****av***s crisis. And there are reasons to worry about whether he can do so, as the crisis underlines eight of his key failings as a leader.

First, Trump doesn't do any homework. As reported in my book, "Trump and his Generals," in early 2017 Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, told Trump's former national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, that Trump never studied an issue: "Trump is a guy who never went to class. Never got the syllabus. Never bought a book. Never took a note. He basically comes in the night before the final exams after partying all night, puts on a pot of coffee, takes your notes, memorizes what he's got to memorize. Walks in at eight o'clock in the morning and gets wh**ever grade he needs. That's the reason he doesn't like professors. He doesn't like being lectured to."

Related to Trump's first failing is his second: He always believes he knows more than the experts about any given subject. During his p**********l campaign, for instance, Trump said he knew more about fighting ISIS than the generals leading the fight, an absurd claim since Trump had avoided military service in Vietnam and his knowledge of ISIS and the Middle East was no deeper than the average newspaper reader.

Third, Trump trusts his own gut. This might work in a Manhattan real estate deal where Trump knows the players and the market, but going with your gut in a complex crisis when you don't do homework or listen to experts is not likely to produce relevant knowledge or coherent policy. On Wednesday at a White House press conference Trump claimed that the c****av***s was less lethal than influenza. CNN's Sanjay Gupta corrected him. In fact, the c****av***s appears to be far deadlier than influenza.

Fourth, Trump has increasingly surrounded himself with a team of acolytes who will not challenge him. When he came into office Trump assembled a cabinet that included McMaster, former Defense Secretary James Mattis, former chief of staff John Kelly, former chief economic adviser Gary Cohn and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, all of whom would challenge Trump on issues such as staying in the Iran nuclear deal, the need to maintain good relations with NATO, the merits of free trade and the imperative to stop cozying up to Vladimir Putin.

They are all long gone now, and they have been replaced by yes-men such as Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe, who Trump just nominated to be his Director of National Intelligence even though Ratcliffe's earlier nomination for the same job flamed out because of his scant qualifications for the gig and some unt***hful enhancements he had made to his resume.

Ratcliffe's main qualification for the job overseeing the 17 US intelligence agencies at a time when the Trump team faces its first real crisis seems to be his unswerving loyalty to the president.

His predecessor, Dan Coats, publicly testified last year that Iran was sticking to the terms of the nuclear deal, which deeply angered Trump. It's hard to imagine Ratcliffe telling any t***hs in public that don't fit Trump's preconceptions.

Similarly, Trump picked Vice President Mike Pence to lead the c****av***s effort. Pence's main qualification for the job appears to be his puppy-like adoration for the Great Leader. As has been widely noted, despite Trump's claims at Wednesday's press conference that Pence is some kind of public health guru, when Pence was governor of Indiana he opposed a scheme to hand out free, clean needles to drug addicts at a time that HIV was running rampant among drug users in his state. Two months went by and after praying, Pence finally relented and allowed the needles to be distributed, which dramatically slowed the spread of HIV.

Fifth, it's hard for the public to believe a President who has made more than 16,000 false or misleading claims in his first three years in office, according to the Washington Post, at a time when the administration desperately needs the trust of the American public.

What happens if Trump needs to make some tough decisions about who exactly to quarantine? We have already seen the Italian government completely cordon off towns in the north of the country. And a major Italian city, Milan, has now slowed to an almost complete halt. Might Trump have to make similar hard calls? And will what he says about those calls be believed if he does?

Sixth, Trump always blames the messenger for news he doesn't like, and he has been doing a lot of that when it comes to the c****av***s. In fact, organizations like CNN and the New York Times and many others have taken real risks to cover the outbreak of the v***s in China and elsewhere and should be commended for doing what they are supposed to be doing: Gathering and disseminating knowledge that is in the public interest.

Seventh, Trump is the reverse of President Harry Truman. The buck never stops at Trump's desk. If things are going well, he is always ready to take credit: Stock market up, it's because of Trump; stock market down, it's because of the media -- and the Fed. If things go poorly it's always someone else fault. Paging Mike Pence!

Trump's propensity to pass the buck was obvious the first week of his presidency when Trump approved a risky US Navy SEAL Team Six counterterrorism operation in Yemen. A SEAL operator was k**led during the mission and the commander-in-chief quickly and publicly blamed his own generals for the loss.

Eighth, Trump almost always plays the divider-in-chief, not the uniter-in chief. Now is surely not the time for Trump and his top cabinet officials (such as acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney) and proxies (Donald Trump Jr.) to claim that the c****av***s is being hyped by crazed Democrats. This is arguably the most serious health crisis that the world has faced in many years and to pass it off as a partisan issue is crass at best.

Trump officials did make a good decision a month ago to ban non-US citizens who had recently visited China from entering the United States and they also imposed two-week quarantines on Americans who had visited Hubei province where the v***s originated.

But Italy went even further, suspending all flights from China, yet the country still faces a significant health crisis with around 1,700 confirmed cases.

Trump should spend less time campaigning in places where he isn't even on the b****t (South Carolina) and bone up on some briefing books, start listening to some experts, including those who challenge his preconceptions, and start acting like the president of all Americans.

Of course, the likelihood of any of this happening is like the likelihood that we will find a v*****e for the c****av***s "rapidly" as Trump claimed Wednesday, when in fact there is little chance that will happen. Anthony F***i, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that developing such a v*****e for a c****av***s will in fact likely take "about a year to a year and a half."

By then Trump could be enjoying some quality retirement time at Mar-a-Lago because if he continues to treat this crisis in a cavalier manner, v**ers will likely not be forgiving.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/02/opinions/trump-failings-c****av***s-opinion-bergen/index.html