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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • Although it would explain why Israel is suddenly arranging to get dozens of jets from the US in the last month or so.

    Forgive what feels like a nitpick, but we should take a moment for wider historical scorn. WaPo at the end of March:

    Last week, the State Department authorized the transfer of 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines worth roughly $2.5 billion, U.S. officials said. The case was approved by Congress in 2008, so the department was not required to provide a new notification to lawmakers.

    Biden owns the fuckup, but it comes after all the shit Israel put the administrations of Dubya, Obama, and Individual 1 through, and after all the atrocities upon the Great March of Return and the other surges of conflict. The planes could fill another allies’ order, the MIC could get their warbucks, and Joey could have kicked the can down the road, but here we are.


  • Important legal context: the origin of this Geneva ban is not only that gas weapons are atrocious, but that your foe might doesn’t know what gas has been fired and may reply to CS with gnarlier chemical weapons. The treaty also names the issue that the offending forces may, inadvertently or perfidiously, not know or mix up what gas they’re sending downrange.

    This is a big fuckin’ deal in the current conflict. Russia uses a near-identical gas grenade for both CS and nerve gas, in Soviet era crates and stockpiles handled by the hard-luck HIMARS catchers in their logistics chain. If they fuck that up or a pissed off Buryat conscript wants vengeance via sabotage, a whiff of bad-boy gas on the wrong wind could make things extremely spicy.