War. War never changes. (Except when it does)

[Mongrel]

For reference, it's come out that Bush & Cheney were offered the option to do this exact same thing to the exact same guy and decided it wasn't worth it.

[Büge]

OTOH, we're in a much different place now than we were in 2003. Democrats (both in office and among the electorate) seem a lot less likely to go along with the Trump narrative than they were to go along with the Bush narrative. And whoever the Democratic nominee ends up being, it's going to be someone who can confront Trump more forcefully than Kerry confronted Bush.

Apparently military recruitment has been on the decline for years, too. The American kids who grew up post-9/11 have lived in a world engaged in a Forever War, so they don't see the Middle East as the nebulous Big Threat that our graduating class did. I don't know if this new development will cause a fresh influx of recruits, but I doubt it, barring another big attack on US soil.

[Grath]

OTOH, we're in a much different place now than we were in 2003. Democrats (both in office and among the electorate) seem a lot less likely to go along with the Trump narrative than they were to go along with the Bush narrative. And whoever the Democratic nominee ends up being, it's going to be someone who can confront Trump more forcefully than Kerry confronted Bush.

Apparently military recruitment has been on the decline for years, too. The American kids who grew up post-9/11 have lived in a world engaged in a Forever War, so they don't see the Middle East as the nebulous Big Threat that our graduating class did. I don't know if this new development will cause a fresh influx of recruits, but I doubt it, barring another big attack on US soil.

That's why we can't possibly afford free college, but we can totally afford this (potential) war that's gonna cost a couple Medicare For Alls, even if it doesn't turn into full war. Gotta coerce people into signing up for the military so they can (attempt to) escape poverty.

[Mongrel]

On the other hand, maybe it would be a bad idea for me to be travelling to the US anytime soon.

[bitter joke about it always being a bad idea for anyone to travel to the US these days]

[Joxam]

Ya'll remember that asshole whose entire family took out an Ad to stop him getting elected? He posted a photoshop of Obama shaking hands with Hassan Rouhani and when called out on it he added this little gem to the gaslighting hall of fame.



Also Rouhani is still in power.

[Thad]

Ya'll remember that asshole whose entire family took out and Ad to stop him getting elected?

Paul Gosar, one of the great dipshits in Congress, which is saying something. This is a man who, among other things, has claimed that the nazis marching in Charlottesville were a false flag operation by liberals to make Trump supporters look bad.

If you happened to catch that segment on Who Is America? where Cohen went to a Kingman City Council meeting to propose building a mosque? Those were Gosar's constituents.

Incidentally, he won reelection with 71% of the vote. After that ad where his siblings campaigned against him.

[Mongrel]

Apparently something like 2/5ths of the passengers on the Ukrainian Airlines plane which just crashed leaving Tehran were from Toronto's Persian community. Hoo boy.

[Thad]

[Mongrel]

Yeah, so the update is that the PM just announced that intel they have from our own sources and of various allies is that it was shot down by an Iranian missile defence system, probably by accident. So, pretty much what was expected.

(the most amazing part of this is that... we actually have our own satellite intel?!)

Also the plane wasn't 2/5th full of Canadians; those were just the ones who held citizenship. Once they included permanent residents, it turned out that basically the entire plane was full of Canadians.

[Blossom]

Yeah, so the update is that the PM just announced that intel they have from our own sources and of various allies is that it was shot down by an Iranian missile defence system, probably by accident. So, pretty much what was expected.

(the most amazing part of this is that... we actually have our own satellite intel?!)

Also the plane wasn't 2/5th full of Canadians; those were just the ones who held citizenship. Once they included permanent residents, it turned out that basically the entire plane was full of Canadians.

Yeah, Trudeau announced that he is a mouthpiece for the American intelligence community in this, big shock. And the official story is, Iran did it themselves somehow.

[Mongrel]

"Somehow"

I quite literally took a class (years ago, to be fair) where a third of the semester we did a study on the historical ways missile accuracy claims could be overstated. This sort of thing goes triple for missile defence systems. The possibility that a shoddy recognition system in Iran's missile defences caused an airliner to be mistaken for an enemy missile is perfectly plausible.

I'm even not sure that the thread you linked (or even your post) are alleging that someone else did it for some reason? He doesn't even seem to come to a conclusion and is certainly holding Iran's delaying tactics in providing the black boxes or access to the crash site to outside investigators (delaying stuff instead of saying no is a very common cultural quirk among Persians, but that's neither here nor there in this case, since I don't think they can put this off forever).

I mean, I'm not even sure what you're alleging here? Iran shot a plane full of Iranian-Canadians to get revenge... on the US? Is there some theory involving a target on board that no commentor or conspiracy nut has even mentioned yet?

Iran actually does have a habit of keeping wrongs done to it on the ledger to be repaid, but these usually take place much later, often in a seemingly unrelated incident, and often through proxies (Hezbollah is an old favourite there).



Immediately committing an incredibly embarrassing own goal shortly after the event does not seem to fit the pattern. It legitimately seems to me like a horrific fuck up which they're trying to pretend wasn't their fault.

[Mongrel]

:V

[Mongrel]

After weeks of even-higher-than-usual tension, 20 Indian soldiers have been killed in a border clash with Chinese troops

(There were also Chinese casualties, but I haven't seen a number for that in any other articles)

It's 2020, so who's up for a land war in Asia between nuclear powers?

Or as one wag put it several disasters ago, "So what page of the book of Revelations is it gonna be today?". Not a day goes by where that sentence doesn't cross my mind...

[Büge]

a land war in Asia

[Mongrel]

Nobody's ever gonna say 2020 was boring... if there's anyone still around afterwards!

EDIT:

never mind the roaring twenties, here's the screaming twenties

[Mongrel]

I just found out that apparently the border fight between Chinese and Indian forces was fought without any sort of military weapons at all. It was a giant brawl with nothing more than fists and bats with nails in them.

Granted it was on the side of a mountain, which I'm sure adds to the lethality, but holy shit... that many dead in an ersatz gang rumble takes some REAL bad blood. How many would have died if anyone had actually been SHOOTING?

[Friday]

Yeah when I learned that I was like

welp

And yeah there's no love lost between India and China.

[Mongrel]

I know right? Like you see that sort of story and you just immediately figure some idiots opened fire at each other, whether by mistake or not, which is what usually happens.

This is like, how do you even describe that level of antipathy?

Testosterone man, it's a helluva drug (everyone being low on Oxygen probably didn't help either...).

[Thad]

[Brantly B.]

I know right? Like you see that sort of story and you just immediately figure some idiots opened fire at each other, whether by mistake or not, which is what usually happens.

This is like, how do you even describe that level of antipathy?

Testosterone man, it's a helluva drug (everyone being low on Oxygen probably didn't help either...).

So first off the reason they were not carrying guns and shooting at each other was due to a previous agreement where the soldiers in the area would simply not carry guns, to keep them from deciding to shoot at each other. So that was all by design.

So instead of weapons the Chinese soldiers started carrying batons, and then they started wrapping their batons in barbed wire and shit because the entire M.O. of China's military (and government) is to fuck with agreements as much as they can get away with. Nobody called them out on what's obviously a goddamned weapon so they just kept carrying them.

India's troops, on the other hand, reportedly went around completely unarmed, either to take some sort of high ground or to try and look really badass, who knows.

As usual it's hard to say what exactly triggered the brawl but India's claim is that the Chinese troops were somewhere they had very explicitly agreed not to be, and China's claim is essentially "We can be wherever the fuck we say is our land even if we had previously agreed not to be there" so yeaaaaah that was probably a straight-up incursion. And when you're unarmed, per agreement, and in a place where you can be, per agreement, and some gang of soldiers rolls right on up on you with a bunch of maces they're not supposed to have and tell you you're in their spot, and you've been given orders by your government to punch anyone who tries to do that until they either go away or they die... yeah, that's fuckin' go time.

tl;dr That wasn't just some brawl, that was a straight-up border skirmish that happened to have an arms restriction on it.