abff08f4813c

It’s clearly an escalation. Of course the US feels more comfortable escalating here unfortunately, as they know there’s no risk of a nuclear armed power retaliating against them.

“the Israelis are clearly planning something for Iran that is going to cause a retaliation they know their own systems are unable to take.”

This has me very worried. What the heck are they planning that the US would send its troops to operate a THAAD? What are they going to do that would cause that severe of a response from Iranian forces?

“Nothing in current law authorizes the United States to conduct offensive military action against Iran.”

Alas, that’s technically wrong, because of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_of_2001#Efforts_for_repeal

The 2001 AUMF has been widely perceived as a bill that grants the President powers to unilaterally wage perpetual “worldwide wars”

Vance is right about one thing - the 2001 AUMF has got to be repealed.

Kyiv and Washington face difficulties solving the problem of Russian use of Starlink, analysts have said, especially … the technical challenge of denying access to the Starlink network without affecting Ukrainian troops.
SpaceX … said it deactivates terminals if used “by a sanctioned or unauthorized party.”

Not that I like Musk, but, this really seems like a tough case of whack-a-mole rather than Starlink deliberately helping Russia or looking the other way. Also,

Interrupting the software update process and tweaking GPS settings can get it working in Russia, said a Ukrainian drone pilot operating there.

So even using a whitelist of IDs may not be enough if the Russians are good enough to register a terminal in the EU and then forge the GPS to make it look like the terminal is still somewhere in the EU.

Basically it seems like Starlink is trying to cooperate but it’s just not a simple fix.

To activate a device, users need a foreign phone number, email and bank account to pay the monthly subscription fee, prompting suppliers to seek out people willing to lend their identities. Users in “client support” Telegram chats say it is easy to buy and register Starlink kits abroad. Most are obtained in Europe and transported through the United Arab Emirates. One page warns not to activate the terminal in Russia.

Wow, they are really going quite a long way to avoid detection!

Ah, ty. TIL!

Poland at least is a tiny bit more reasonable as they share a border with a somewhat hostile non-EU state, who has attempted effectively to weaponize the issue.

But what is driving the Dutch attempt here? Very disappointing.

They’ve been doing it since before the war started in Ukraine.

Unfortunately, there is a key distinguishing factor, as this was an explicit tactic by Belarus to hurt the EU by trying to overload it with asylum seekers (a lot of which were just tourists who wanted a cheap trip to Belarus and didn’t expect to get forced into Poland at gun point).

There was a movie about the situation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Border (which compares the handling unfavorably to the refugee situation caused by the war in Ukraine).

Ideally an agency of the EU would be able to directly step in here and vet and accept genuine asylum seekers and refugees (and transport them to other EU members to lower the burden on Poland) while allowing the rest to be given tickets home.

It’s very clear - I as the living survivor would feel bad if my parents died in an unavoidable and unpredictable and unpreventable accident or say due to old age.

I’d feel much much differently if my parents were murdered.

We should call it murder because murder is the more accurate and descriptive term here.

About time, too.

The way I see it, all genocides are humanitarian crises. Not all humanitarian crises rise to the same severity level of horror as a genocide, though, and genocide is the more descriptive and more accurate term of the two. If you only have time to mention one label, you should mention the genocide label.

So it really does depend. I’ve been on both sides of overseas hiring (getting hired from overseas on a work permit and helping choose folks to get hired from overseas) - generally, if someone is getting considered for hiring from overseas in a case where they don’t have a right to work (i.e. dual citizenship or similar) then their CV already has to be exceptional. So the odds of being given a chance to explain here - assuming it was questioned - are already very, very high. The other point here is that to actually be allowed to work in a case like this, USCIS or a similar gov’t agency has to vet the worker, so management could easily justify this as saying “well, the gov’t approved our candidate”

Now, if it’s a case of, e.g., a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen who is coming back to the US and finding a job here after finishing compulsory service in the IDF - afaik it wouldn’t actually be illegal to discriminate in this case, and people get fired or refused the job for actually illegal reasons in the US all the time. On the flip side, it’s easier to lie on your resume in this case (or at least create a gap and hide the real reason behind it).

Agreed. They are fine folks for what they do. Proud to have them represent the UN.

This is definitely one time when the bot is useful, correctly identifies a junk source.

Eh, China wouldn’t care so much about drones in Pyongyang.

Now, an invading army, perhaps is a different matter…

It was a tank firing an artillery shell…
It’s not like they can call in an airstrike bro.

There must be some tit-for-tat proportional response though, like having one of their own tanks fire its own artillery shell in their tank’s general direction or something.

They’re there because if a country fires on them, it’s supposed to mean a shit ton of sanctions and loss of aid and especially arms sales.

Having civilian officials there should be enough for that. These are actual military. They have the ability to use force, so they should be authorized to use it.

The problem is Biden has said repeatedly for decades that he’ll never ever lessen his support for Israel under any situation.
And Bibi is a big enough dick to take advantage of that.

The UN is under the direct control of either of these folks, however. Surely the UN agency that placed the Irish troops there has enough autonomy to order rules of engagement? Or perhaps, since these are Irish troops, Ireland might be able to do the same?

Harris is a sock pupet

Hard disagree. Harris has already distinguished herself on Gaza as compared to Biden here (in terms of how her policies would be different).

Biden would fuck around do a coup right before an election if it helped Israel

I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out that the article’s sources were inaccurate - and it’s Israel’s coup, with the US merely not taking an active opposition.

He obviously cares more about their right wing governments success than preventing trump

I think this is a tad unfair, considering how many of Biden’s red lines Israel has already crossed…

He made some wrong calls perhaps, but he is stuck between a rock and a hard place w.r.t. the election.

Yeah, the lack of boots on the ground is an important loophole. It’s just arms sales.

Indians fighting in Ukraine? I thought most of those were tricked into helping the Russian military though…

She said an exception was if a person was in their home in the area and under a doctor’s care when they died
then the service would not be notified.
Rustad told Tuesday’s party leaders’ debate that he saw someone die “from an overdose” on the corner of Robson and Hornby streets in Vancouver, later telling a news conference he watched first responders “pumping his chest” as an ambulance arrived.

Have to give benefit of the doubt here, unfortunately. The person may have walked out from his home and suffered a cardiac event there, where his doctor and assistant (mistaken as first responders) worked to revive him before taking him to his home in a special clinic car (mistaken as an ambulance with the emergency lights off/not flashing).

So if it was a case of “yeah I had to join because I was conscripted and it was the law but I just tried to keep my head down until it was over and didn’t do much there” then that’s one thing. Many countries like Ukraine also have compulsory military service, so it’s usually not held against you.

On the other hand, someone who is like “yeah I signed up as soon as I could so I could have a free hand in committing genocide” would almost certainly have a harder time landing that overseas job.

Agreed that Israel has no right to give the order here. As others have already commented, it’s more of a threat than official orders.

That said, in general legitimate evacuation orders have been given by foreigners before. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk_evacuation French soldiers were ordered to evacuate by the British officer in charge.