And why is that? Because I’m more concerned about US interests than I am about anyone elses?
Fuck off.
Oh my good gods… you are a servant of the people, not some banana republic enforcer. If America ever falls to a military coup, it’ll be at the hands of jingoistic idiots like you.
Again, shame should be your traveling companion.
You happen to share this planet with a great number of other people. Your actions can and will affect the survival of the Republic. You are a small minded jingoistic thug. You’re part of the reason much of the rest of the world views America as a mad dog rogue regime with no respect or consideration for anybody else. You’d be more comfortable as a centurion than a citizen soldier, I’m quite sure.
Is that an insult or a complement?
Here is the Oath that I took when I commissioned in the USAF.
“I, (state your full name), having been appointed a second lieutenant, in the United States Air Force, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter, so help me God”
Where in here does it say that I am a servant of the people? My sole job is to support and defend the Constitution of the US. This is why you, as a civilian, have ZERO authority over me. In fact, there is only 1 civilian in my chain of command and thats POTUS.
It’s not my job to be popular, nice or likable. My job is to execute the lawful orders of my superiors. Not to criticise or second guess them. Plain and simple.
When your superior mandates a certain policy, whatever it may be, and you disregard that policy you are violating a direct order.
I really don’t care how the rest of the world sees the US right now. Yes, we have made some big mistakes in the last few years, and we may have put ourselves in this position of “Us vs. the World” but I’m on the side of Us and I always will be.
We, the people… might have something to do with it?
[
](http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html)
Wrong, and yet another reason you’re one scary motherfucker. You have the responisibility to refuse any unlawful orders, including those which violate international law and are war crimes. “I was just following orders” does not cut it. Civilians, in case you missed it, establish laws.
Where am I wrong here again? You must have missed the part where I mentioned LAWFUL ORDERS.
Find me a single other Civilian in my CoC other than POTUS. Don’t look too hard because you won’t find one.
I am pretty sure the SECDEF is there.
and the Secretary of the AirForce, he is a civilian and in your chain of command.
You’ll notice, by the way, that the law lacks a paragraph saying “but 9/11 changed everything.”
The president can order whatever the fuck he wants, but if you do not consider what the civilians have set into law, then you can’t know if it’s a lawful order or not, eh? Law trumps orders.
So, yes, your thinking seems to be artifically constrained and muddled. While you may repeat the phrase ‘chain of command’ until you turn blue in the face, the final judge of whether or not you’re allowed to obey your orders are a) the civilians of the US government who make laws b) the civilians of the global organizations which make laws.
Lt AF: My troops love working for me because I don’t take shit from assholes who criticise their driving from the passenger seat and that’s exactly what’s happening here. […] My job is to execute the lawful orders of my superiors. Not to criticise or second guess them.
Okay, but you’re not on the job here, Loot. This is a thread in the SDMB BBQ Pit, where we criticize and second guess every damn thing under the sun. That’s what this place is for. If you don’t like it, stay out of it.
Alternatively, if you have a specific counter-criticism of someone else’s criticism, go ahead and post it. But when you bitch and whine just because Air Force policies are being criticized (and by—gasp! civilians!), you’re totally missing the point. Everything is fair game for criticism around here, and no military credentials or loyalty oaths are required to qualify somebody as a critic.
Now wait just a damn minute… the SDMB Loyalty Oath has been abandoned?
Yeah, it got too much criticism. 
Ooohhh, exxxcellent…
:: plots treason against all online discussion forums ::
So there were 4 explosions all over London, but as long as you were out of earshot of them, you weren’t somewhere that was in a state of emergency, and there was no need for extra caution? So if a year from now, there are 3 explosions on the underground at 8 a.m., they shouldn’t bother evacuating people from other underground trains and aboveground busses, because there are only three small, localized, states of emergency?
Not a prima facie ridiculous claim. But again, and you keep failing to respond to this, the question is not whether it might have made more sense for the Air Force to relax its travel restriction earlier, the question is whether NOT doing so is best described as:
(1) Beureaucratic wheels taking all of (gasp) 3 or 4 days to grind
vs
(2) An incredible insult highlighting US Military jingoism, arrogance, and stupidity
Naw, our guest did that. 
Lt AF: What the fuck is your buy-in here jackson?
Lt AF: There is no arguement here jackson.
It’s evil of me, but I’m kind of looking forward to the reaction when our new friend Lt AF gets horked off like this at Liberal.
Yes, I’m a bad person and I’m going to bed now…
‘Emergency’ and ‘State of Emergency’ are different things. Maybe my mistake in using slightly hyperbolic language. But they’re still different.
No, in most of London, there was no emergency at any point. Evacuations and closures were and remain precautions. Realistic precautions.
Neither. Clearly, it’s not the case that any decision by the USAF needs half a week to be implemented. And (2) is a strawman.
The travel ban in itself was reasonable, for the reasons so vocally and eloquently and imaginatively explained in this thread …the apparent failure to have any realistic ongoing assessment of the situation, including use of information from reliable outside sources, with an eye to removing the ban as soon as circumstances allowed, is (at the very least) a case of extremely poor planning.
Ya know… after people were talking about different current and former Dopers (and a crazed primate) that Scott Plaid might debate against… and now this, I wonder if I couldn’t make some money on a Doper Cage Match sort of thing. Two Dopers enter, and, um, two Dopers leave, but they beat the hell out of each other first.