Just shy of $18 billion for Israel. Nearly unlimited diplomatic cover and significant patron:client posturing that has Ukraine and Taiwan jealous. US troops, deployed using US weapons, to defend Israel.
Contrast that to hand wringing about “now that Haniyeh /Nasrallah /Sinwar/ ??? is dead, we need a ceasefire”, the refusal to demand more aid trucks daily and prevent famine, or hollow commitments to a two-state solution, without any action - of course it’s optics.
This activity unfortunately has a long history in the occupied territories.
Palestinians were forced to remove suspicious objects from roads, tell other Palestinians to come out and surrender themselves, physically shield soldiers while they fired, and more. In 2005, the High Court of Justice ruled the practice unlawful, yet… in most cases, no one was held accountable
Appreciate the info and link, but $168 for what is essentially a few dollars of SOLAS tape and a pair of IR laser safety glasses? Bruh.
Iran and Israel played their shadow war, mostly contained to Syria and the Golan Heights/Southern Lebanon for years.
Then after Oct7 Israel threw out the unspoken ‘rules of the game’ and started thwacking Iranian proxy force’s political and military leadership. A new tit-for-tat grew, with Hezbollah and the Houthis responding for Iran.
Israel strikes an Iranian embassy, killing Iranian diplomats and IRGC members. A new escalation.
Iran responds with their extremely telegraphed ‘show of force’ missile/drone attack, doing little damage to Israel, giving the IDF and IAF an easy PR win to shoot down all the Iranian missiles.
Israel quickly escalates again by killing Nasrallah and directly striking Hezbollah, before their ground invasion of Lebanon. Iran responds with a surprise missile attack, using the good missiles this time, and proves they can (and did) strike Israeli military facilities at will.
All of a sudden Israel delays a new escalation, but warns of severe consequences. Now that THAAD is deployed, Netanyahu approves strike plans as recently as last night purportedly.
The “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security” is directly enabling escalation in the region, and has a purported ally dog-walking the global leader. To quote Bill Clinton “Who the fuck does he think he is? Who’s the fucking superpower here?”.
The fact that this letter was leaked - unlike alleged similar communiques prior this year - screams that Israeli leadership doesn’t intend to comply, or wants to reinsert “leaving Israel defenseless ” into the US media cycle.
Biden proved with the JLOTS pier and aid airdrops that he wouldn’t couple significant aid distribution with continued weapons deliveries, and instead ran ineffectual workarounds to “be seen doing something”. Remember that 500 trucks a day was the purported minimum required aid in the spring/summer.
Cuz they print the money and set policing budgets astronomically high. A warrant requires paperwork and a judge (though FISA made that a joke), just buying it outright is far easier.
Not the first, wolnt be the last. I hate that “muh geopolitics” means our voices don’t meant shit, and Bibi gets to dog-walk the US into his wars.
I can’t find it now, but I’d swear to having read an anecdote from someone working with radiation who reported tingling teeth during exposure.
It definitely does a lot of nasty things to the body.
The Children of the Atom deem you a HERETIC! Embrace the holy atom!
“Mother, why do all my teeth feel itchy?”
Yeahhhh this one seems fishy. Unlike the “Handala Hacks” group (seemingly 100% an Iranian state affair) who basically doxxed Israeli citizens and security industry heads, where’s the play in this?
Psyops gonna psyop
If the management is so shook about financial stability, it’s time to act like the adults they pretend they are, and curb executive pay and buybacks:
President and Chief Executive Officer David L. Calhoun - $32,770,519
CEO of Commercial Airplanes, Stanley A. Deal - $12,200,851
Chief Financial Officer Brian J. West - $11,910,638
CEO of Global Services Stephanie F. Pope - $9,537,503
CEO of Defense, Space & Security Theodore Colbert III - $8,963,171
In each case, easily 75% of their pay package is from stock options - their loyalty is to the line going up, not steady and organic growth by restoring a solid foundation to the company and investing in their (little) people.
Especially so in parallel with the $68 billion in stock buyback Boeing leadership has done since 2010. All done to boost stock price by reducing the float - $68 billion that wasn’t spent investing in the company’s future, safety standards, quality controls, the end product, or workforce.
Maybe stop sending them billions in weapons then, eh?
I see at least three actions in that statement:
#1 should have happened a long time ago imo, if not used as a leverage to prevent an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah, the West Bank, Lebanon, striking enrichment at Natanz. “Free bombs for crimes against humanity” is a bad moral play, bad politics, and bad diplomacy outside the US:Israel sphere.
#2 Is politically hard normally, impossible in an election cycle. I hate it, but here we are in the house we built. Make FEC the only campaign funds - it’s OUR government, not the highest bidder’s.
#3 The US’s geopolitical track record shows that we’ll tolerate some awful, terrible people if they’ll get ‘on our side’ even if there’s a trend of massive and foreseeable blowback, the diplomatic corps don’t learn lessons.
So we throw away the “rules based international order” and return to the pre-1914 unilateral rules and all the brutal wars that bought? So much better, amirite? Might makes right, and we’ve got the might for now!
The US stance on Israeli leadership is decimating our ability to wield soft power influence. We are global hypocrites blocking ANY action, whilst expecting the world to fall in line to support Ukraine against Russian revanchism - even NATO members dissent from the US position. The global south is turning to China/OPEC+ trading blocs. They already tried to break the petrodollar, which would be a huge blow if successful.
Even taking a realpolitik approach, without soft power all those US military bases used for ‘power projection’ lose their local consent, and become occupation sites inside non-allied nations. The Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan is a chill spot for launching COIN drone missions - whereas the Conoco base in Syria is constantly under drone and rocket attack.
Supporting Bibi’s wars of aggression is a stupid play on multiple levels.
They already did surrender to both sides. UNFIL had/has a mandate to preserve the blue line, and afaik does not actively permit Hezbollah to cross - they’re just not too bothered about seeking them out. And they backed down from enforcing it against the Israelis…
On 31 October 2006, eight Israeli F-15s… came in at what was interpreted as an attack formation, and the peacekeepers were “two seconds away” from firing at the jets with an anti-aircraft missile.
Which clearly sparked some back-room diplomacy, because soon after:
On 6 September [2006], during a European Union meeting in Brussels, the French Defense Minister announced that the Israeli Air Force had stopped mock air attacks over UNIFIL positions. On 17 November, two Israeli F-15s overflew UN positions at low altitude and high speed while two reconnaissance planes circled the headquarters of the French battalion. French peacekeepers responded by readying their anti-aircraft batteries, and warned that Israeli warplanes conducting mock attacks could be fired on.
The IAF continued its reconnaissance flights over Lebanon, and despite strong protests, UNIFIL peacekeeping forces did not follow through on their threats to fire at Israeli aircraft.
Ahhh yes, the “only democracy in the Middle East” a bastion of individual and human rights, very aligned with our values, yes.
I don’t doubt at all that this media office closure is linked to the recent video of IDF troops desecrating Palestinian corpses by kicking the dead off rooftops. No association whatsoever, yessir.
The lesson he’s trying to teach, is that there is no ‘right’ lock, only ‘better’ locks. Layer your security and have an honest assessment of threats and replaceability. Locks really only:
#1 Can be achieved by the most bottom tier vendor-garbage stacked zinc/brass body lock #2 & 3 Is where most lock ratings come from, but nothing is perfect.
This monstrosity is what the military uses on secure ammo dumps, vehicle storage, etc and that thing still gets other dudes with guns protecting it. If the Army left it completely unguarded, things like thermite, oxy-acetylene, or grinding would not have any trouble getting past.
Inversely, your mid-to-good bicycle cable lock outside the corner store only really works because of the risk of exposure as people leave and enter the store. Bolt cutters might be a two-minute job all said and done, but there’s significant risk of discovery mid attempt.
Don’t worry, the IDF will investigate themselves and (yet again) find no deliberate wrongdoing but maybe admit that ‘regrettable mistakes’ were made. This legal fig leaf is required so that an actually independent judiciary cannot enforce international law.
Article 17 of the Rome Statute allows the ICC to step in and exercise jurisdiction where states are unable or unwilling genuinely to investigate or prosecute
As long as there’s some form of judicial action by an Israeli court, the IDF can push everything under the rug and get away with what they please.
When it’s in their backyard, absolutely. When it’s a condor habitat in California - that’s fair game for logging and agriculture.
It’s fraud. The company knows it’s unreliable and the investors know it’s unreliable, I wonder why NYC is still going to expand the trial run? 🤔