This is prob all factored in already. I do wonder how much China owns in Russian government bonds?

I thinking the economic MAD version is US defaults on all our bonds for US debt ($23T) that have been bought up by China. Japan owns about 17% of US debt, China 14%, UK 8%, Ireland & Luxembourg both at 4% (WTF?)

Who Owns US Debt? Top 5 Countries and How Much They Hold

Debt deadline and central bank hikes loom in Russia | Reuters

The blue helmets. Never feasible or at least militarily.

The Russian/Cuban invasion per Red Dawn is looking pretty weak now also.

The NK invasion per Red Dawn 2 was always ridiculous.

I think the more likely scenario is a release of a T-virus or whatever from China that causes a pandemic :)

If don't get why Israel would tell Zelenskyy to surrender in this war.


I do think there is a distinction between tactical nukes on the battlefield vs ICBM type nukes. If the latter, all bets are off on how individual countries will act.

If tactical nukes, I can see NATO joining the war. They'd have to because they know they'll be constantly threatened by it from a madman.

Because Putin is dictating the terms of the Iran deal. Last thing Israel wants is to piss off Putin right now. Biden won't help Israel so they're on their own. Bennett may have gotten exactly what he needed when Putin increased his ask. The deal is so ridiculously awful at this point that it's possible Biden will back off. It's basically, "pretend you're holding off a bit on the nukes, send us some oil, and we'll give you everything you want." But now Russia wants a little more sugar for itself. The getting's good there.



Channeling Obama... 1939 called and no one answered the telegraph. Europe may like to pretend everyone's besties and all, but when push comes to shove, Germany sends unusable moldly anti-tank trash from the days of the Holy Roman Empire and France has never even stood up for itself, let alone anyone else. Who knows which side Italy is on? Poland's trying (and the people of Poland have opened their homes to refugees in an inspiring manner), but it's still a relatively weak country.

They'll run from the Russian bear because they don't have to outrun the bear, they just have to outrun their neighbors until we can do enough to stop the bear.

Besides, despite the posturing, everyone seems fine with the thermobaric bombs and the hospital bombs and the let's-pretend-there's-a-cease-fire-so-we-can-bomb-the-people-trying-to-flee bombs. There is no line when it comes to Ukraine. We'll see if Putin continues into the Baltics, but I think NATO collapses if Putin tests that.

Invasion of Ukraine
 

I disagree

If they go into the Baltics you’ll see a coming together not seen in 80 years


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Haven't read up on the new deal. I assumed it was similar to last with some added incentives to Iran. UN inspects, Iran promises not to refine uranium to X point etc. I knew Russia was helping in the negotiations but didn't think Israel was more beholden to Russia vs US. Have to read up more here.


TBF we are talking nuclear war. I'd still contend with ICBM, all bets are off. For tactical nukes against Ukraine, NATO won't let that happen without a joint response. It won't be an invasion of Russia but my guess is a lot of cruise missiles and air power.


So why is the use of thermobaric bombs being called out? If used against Ukrainian military, I'd say its fair game. If used against civilians, its not the act of the bomb itself but the discriminate killing of civilians that is the problem.

On hospital bombs and innocent civilians, we know the US has frakked up before and bombed/killed innocents. I don't think majority of them were intentional vs fog of war, bad intel etc. but we've messed up before and can easily believe Russians have too. Now if there is a pattern (e.g. all 10 hospitals in Kyiv have been shelled), then that is a different story.

I do believe NATO should create a safe zone in western Ukraine for non-combatants. Russia seems to be getting more momentum now and if there are long "sieges", I can see NATO getting involved and creating a safe exit corridor for non-combatants (women, children, older men).

I hope you're right, because I think we're fighting for something more important than territory. Maybe fighting isn't the right word. More a way of life.


It's mostly that Iran has no need to comply with anything. They hand over some enriched uranium that they still own and get back. Sanctions are removed and they get money. They send us oil and get more money. That in turn funds attacks, because that's how Iran's worked for a long time now.

Israel isn't beholden to Russia. They just don't want to get on Putin's bad side when they don't seem to have any friends in the US or Europe. This despite the remarkable achievements with the Abraham Accords. If we could stick with the Iran sanctions and we just stopped doing dumb stuff in the Middle East, peace in that region seems almost fathomable. Now, not so much.


What is fair game? Sometimes you read the stuff that's out there and you wonder if there's some book called Robert's Rules of Combat, complete with illustrations of two lines of soldiers carrying muskets and firing and ducking and reloading while the other line fires - after Pinky Tuscadero waves a handkerchief to begin the proceedings.

So I see your point - if you're in active combat, you use your weaponry. However, when you're laying siege to a city, that means you do whatever you can to anyone defending the city and if you don't have weapons that can guide a missile down a chimney pipe from ten miles out, civilians are in the line of fire. And for that matter, maybe granny's packing heat? If she is, who would criticize her?

The problem then is whether Russia has any justification whatsoever in laying siege to Mariupol or Kharkiv or any other city outside of the "breakaway provinces" where it has sponsored war for the last eight years?

And so these lines become posturing unless we have other rules as well. We use the term "war crimes," and I guess we record just how the thermobaric bombs from hell are used against our fellow human beings and we politely request that Moscow hand Putin over for trial at some indeterminate point in the future.

We're not going to defend Ukraine. The people there have suffered, and will suffer a lot longer and a lot worse, if that seems possible. St. Petersburg was under siege for almost three years and a million-plus died. Russia knows both sides of this game.

You mention our rather disgusting adventures in Iraq, I think. OK, so we didn't go in there alone, but we did go in there under false pretenses (personally, I think Colin Powell's infamous vial contained the remains of Jimmy Hoffa). If I were Iraqi and my family hadn't personally suffered under Saddam Hussein (maybe both are mutually exclusive concepts), I'd never forgive or forget. I'd like to believe that our troops did everything possible to minimize loss of life. But mistakes were made and those can't easily be forgiven or forgotten, either.

So it's murky. The US isn't always right. And the US probably wasn't right when Yanukovych was deposed and Ukraine turned away from Russia in 2014. And then we let things fester after Putin took Crimea and no one really felt like telling him that was bad because we kind of understood why.

I don't think we've had a president capable of real diplomacy in a long, long time. Which is not to say Putin isn't a barbarian.

Oh, there are times these days when I'm glad I'm getting old.

Given the events of the last three weeks, I am not sure how any of the Baltic nations can be confident that someone will come and help them if Russia decides to invade them.

Well the original villians were suppose to be the Chinese, but that wouldn't have sold too many movie tickets in China.

Red Dawn remake swapped Chinese flags and insignia for North Korean ones for fear of losing out on billion-dollar box office | Daily Mail Online

There's a big difference between NATO countries and non-NATO countries. There's no doubt that an attack on a NATO country would be met with a NATO attack on Russian forces.

I don't understand this take. The United States gives Israel billions in aid each year. It has guaranteed billions more in loans they have taken out. We provide them with cutting-edge weaponry and intelligence. Fought wars for them. Supported them in the UN on just about every single issue and look the other way when they commit human rights abuses in the region.

In return, we receive nothing. Unless you count a few photo-ops every couple years. They have not fought by our side in a war and in fact have sold valuable military technology to our enemies.

In what way has Israel not been given support by the United States? And if that's the case, can we cut off the endless money supply to them?

Fought wars for them? Not sure what you mean there. Can you be specific about what wars you're talking about? Israel provides intelligence, its own technology and is the only democracy in the region.

Human rights abuses? You mean by existing? On a small portion of the land their people have had for thousands of years? We can definitely argue about Samaria and Judea, but it's fairly obvious Israel would trade those claims for peace. They've tried many times. When they just ceded land without peace (Gaza), it only made the violence against them worse.

They are entitled to defend themselves against bombings aimed at civilians. The accusations of human rights abuses are exactly why the UN is a joke and China can imprison and torture millions of Muslim people while Disney celebrates in the background.

The minute Iran and its proxies say that Israel has a right to exist is the minute there's peace in that region.

It looks as if Turkish drones are doing a decent job against a supposedly "modern" army.

Thinking about the next war, I sure hope we have anti-drone "stuff" figured out to protect the troops.

We're at the tipping point. When the images and videos of Mariupol combine with the major attack on Kyiv it's going to press NATO and the West's resolve to stay "out of it". That might be where we push the line... again.

Wish I collected stamps. I would definitely add this to a collection.

Ukraine reveals ‘Russian warship, go fuck yourself!’ postage stamp | Ukraine | The Guardian

What line are we pushing? As in intervene with NATO boots on the ground?

Dammit. MOEX closed again next week. How am I going to buy some Gazprom and do currency arbitrage with my Robinhood account?

I'm still trying to wrap my head around what is happening to the companies listed in the $500-$1T MOEX, and to the investors.

I started a collection when I was a kid. Added to it at times, but it's been about 20 years. I've been using the more modern US stamps as postage for ages now.

I don't think even the good stuff is worth as much as it was back at its height, but collectibles tend to do well in times of inflation. Just remember that practically nothing minted after 1920 is worth more than postage.

Still a ton of collectors on eBay and a couple of other auction sites. This will sell out very, very quickly. Get the artist to do signed panels and auction those. NFTs as well. They could raise an awful lot of money.

For someone who has actually served in war I would recommend we start figuring out how we don’t have a next war.:-(

Unquestionably that's the best goal, but I think it requires a change in human nature. There will always be wars as long as there are people who make the bad decisions which typically lead to them.

Please no. Let's not countenance contributing to that nonsense.

Mankind improves its ability to kill with every generation. We have to keep trying. The Cold War was a nice invention, but when we won, we conveniently forgot there was a loser.

Now, we have an opponent who understands it's his time on the stage. One who claims he has space lasers and we know he has hundreds of active nuclear warheads who knows where on submarines.

And I don't think he particularly cares that the Russian people can no longer binge on Coca Cola and Chicken McNuggets because we've put ourselves in a place where we're dependent on Asian energy and it will take years to get out of that place.

So, what's the price of peace? If it's living in a place where we don't have basic human rights, is it worth it?

If crypto-bros finally find meaning in NFTs that actually support something noble, then hurray for NFTs. I don't get it myself, either, but I think if you asked them, they'd say the same thing about my generation (and older) and stamp collecting.

I say talkin bout my g-g-g-g-generation...

The first Gulf War. We told them not to fight back and that we would handle it. I'd say our presence in Syria is primarily driven by our support of Israel.

Really not sure what them being a democracy has to do with your argument. And sharing intelligence is a sign of two countries who are on friendly terms. You're sort of arguing against yourself there.


None of this has anything to do with your assertion that the United States is not friendly with Israel.

I can see NFTs being like the tulip craze but can also see it being like dot-com where 99% fail but there will be some truly valuable NFTs.

But yeah, I personally don't get NFTs either. I rather have the $1M+ fine art/masterpiece that I bought to be truly a physical one-of-a-kind vs. some digital thingy. Give me the digital version as backup, but I want to see the paintbrush strokes, bits of paint jutting out some etc.

You know, I would have thought there would be more stuff about cyber warfare. I assume some stuff are going on but regular folks don't hear about it. There was that stuff with Anonymous hacking Russian stuff. You'd think Russian hackers would be very aggressive like with the US energy infrastructure, always read that was vulnerable.

The post mortem on what happen, how much above norm, what got attacked, how it was prevented etc. will be an interesting read.

Truly odd. I guess I'd have to see some analysis that the the US roles in the Gulf war and Syria had anything to do with Israel. It's not something I've ever seen before. Iraq took Kuwait and the US and dozens of other countries stepped in because... Israel? More than 1,000 miles away? Where did that come from?

Israel has no problems enforcing anything that comes by way of the Golan Heights. That has nothing to do with Assad using chemical weapons on its own people. Israel couldn't stop that.

Yeah, Obama threw a fit because Netanyahu gave a speech he didn't like and soon afterward was the ridiculous Iran deal, which helped Iran recover a lot of its power. Biden seems determined to return to this deal, under even worse terms because Iran now knows the US doesn't care what happens. Over a few barrels of oil.

I think Israel knows it's on its own when Iran gives the nukes Biden's helping them create (nowhere in these deals has there ever been any real requirement for Iran to allow inspections of key facilities) over to their fighters in Lebanon. Which is why they keep sabotaging Iranian facilities.

Apples and oranges.
Ukraine isn't part of the NATO, European Union or Euro zone. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are in all three.

Are those the countries that everyone is willing to start World War 3 over? Because that is the stated reason the West has not directly intervened in Ukraine, not because they are not in NATO.

My point is not that NATO won't help. I am saying that those nations would be silly not to have questions about the support they would receive given what has happened.

So we are cool with Russian soldier killing an American journalist?

I mean yes because we hate THE MEDIA in general. I suppose it would be good to know whether he was left or right wing just to confirm things.

They're not "those countries". It would politically be the same as invading Alaska. Will the NATO want to start WW3 over Alaska?

Remember Scud missiles? That's when I first learned about them, at least.

Anyway, during the Gulf War, Iraq repeatedly launched Scud missiles at Israel to try and get Israel to join the U.S. Coalition, assuming that if that happened, the Muslim countries that were already in the U.S. Coalition or otherwise supported the coalition politically, would drop said support, making the U.S.-led effort dramatically less legitimate (back when that sort of thing mattered).

A lot of this is false. The JCPOA had been negotiated for almost 2 years, well before the Netanyahu speech. And there absolutely were requirements for Iran to allow inspections. You can read the whole thing here.

DocumentCloud

How is Biden helping build nukes? Even Israel has admitted that uranium enrichment increased after the deal was squashed by Trump.

Israel was upset that the deal didn't go further. That it wasn't longer and didn't touch on conventional weapons and Iran's dabbling in proxy wars. And that the US was unwilling to put military options on the table. Fair points, but not related to the enrichment of Uranium, which was what the United States and other countries were most concerned about.

I guess Israel is "on it's own" if you don't count the billions in aid we send them each year and the mountains of military equipment we ship over. This has nothing to do with Ukraine so it shouldn't be in here, I just found the notion that the United States is not an ally of Israel to be ridiculous considering what we provide. And it seems you might be getting your information about it from the same places you get your COVID news.

Yup, we also gave Israel our new SAM systems to shoot them down (made by a company I worked for). The system was fairly new and the technology far ahead of other countries. So it was a big deal to provide them to Israel at the time. And much of Israel's Iron Dome is built off that technology.

Worth noting that the MIM-104 didn't really work well at that time, but we didn't know that. And that it was believed that Israel sold that technology to China afterwards.

I'm glad that later editions of Civilization fixed this issue.

Israel has always denied this. Periodically, various claims have been made that all sorts of technologies have been stolen from the US or sold by various entities. China has quite a bit it shouldn't have, and it's impossible to determine exactly how because they seem quite adept at spying or knowing who to approach.

Yes, I know what the Iran deal states. But Iran never agreed to the inspections, and never allowed them into the key facilities - which is something everyone knew would happen. The text says Iran would never pursue nuclear weapons, but I don't think even the most naive people out there believe they weren't and didn't continue to do so.

As you note, Israel strongly opposed the deal because it allowed Iran to continue to wage war against Israel (it's not "dabbling" to finance terrorists and send your own elite troops to train them). Do you think it's a good idea to remove sanctions from a country that pursues the elimination of an entire people? The idea of an Iran deal started before Netanyahu's speech, but the serious idea that the US would agree was all Obama.

According to wiki it did include inspections. Now something may have had happened back then but the Obama deal did have it.

Iran nuclear deal framework - Wikipedia

Edit: what an interesting choice of tags from the NYT, "bars", anyway, that's the edit

It remained in the text, but Iran never did allow the inspections in question here. Just the dog-and-pony shows.

I guess it comes down to what your goals are in the scenario. Is it to benefit the United States? If it is, preventing Iran from enriching uranium and allowing them to flood the market with oil is a net positive for us. But as you said, that's at the expense of innocent lives.

It's the same scenario with other countries. Saudi Arabia commits horrendous human rights abuses. They're committing genocide in Yemen and have extensive ties to terrorism (including 9/11). UAE has a horrible human rights record and allows criminals to launder money. Pakistan has a long history of supporting terrorists. Israel is an apartheid state. Heck, we won't even go after the Russian oligarchs because it might hurt our real estate market in some cities. So how do we decide which countries get a pass and which don't?

I should add that the deal wasn't just Obama. It included the UK and the EU. It was a global effort, not the whims of one man angry about a speech.

This article is from before the deal was even in place.

At that point, I stop reading you, period. That is not an acceptable view. I suggest you look at this link:

Defining Antisemitism - United States Department of State

This is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition, which our country has adopted. I just can't respond to bigotry. So I will stop now. Really, I should have done this a while back.

Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity - Amnesty International

Analyzing Amnesty’s Antisemitic Apartheid Attack » ngomonitor

I don't want to derail this too much, but even organizations like Amnesty International get caught up in this. It is bigotry to hold Israel to a double-standard that no other nation in the world would pass - particularly the nations that seek its destruction.

I urge you and others to read these arguments. The Arab citizens of Israel (who number about two million) have the exact same rights as every Israeli citizen. The same could not possibly be said about Christians and Jews in most Arab nations. Or Muslims in China. Yet you don't see groups like this throwing around the A-word about China or Iran.

What people call "occupied" territory is disputed, and includes the most holy sites in Jerusalem (as well as the Al Aqsa Mosque, which was built centuries later). The Palestinians do not have a country with defined borders and the minute that the rest of the region accepts that Israel can exist, that will be easy to settle - as it almost was decades ago when Arafat got almost everything he asked for, and then reneged at the last minute.

I do think this topic could delve into an interesting discussion (e.g. what is definition of apartheid etc.).

But com'on. We all get off on a tangent but this is way past. There are Biden, Trump, Racism etc. threads or create our own Apartheid thread.

Whatever.

Yeah, this isn't as topical as your deep dive into dual citizenship. My apologies.

LOL, it's funny cause you knew it would be coming Edward..

Toss Human Rights Watch on the bigoted list too.

Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution | HRW

I didn't make the definition of the word or implement policies that match it. Just pointing out that we decide what human rights abuses are sanctionable and which ones we ignore or excuse. It's not a simple decision.

Somewhat fair. And when asked to redirect back to topic at hand, I did.