Politics

[Tanks]

Meanwhile in Spain, after the barbarians crashed the gates...

Truth Social

Truth Social is America's "Big Tent" social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating on the basis of political ideology.

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You see the same thing in LA, SF etc. in downtown.

 

[Doug Hamilton]

Meanwhile in Spain, after the barbarians crashed the gates...

Truth Social

Truth Social is America's "Big Tent" social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating on the basis of political ideology.

truthsocial.com

Was that activity in Seattle?

 

[Doug Hamilton]

You see the same thing in LA, SF etc. in downtown.

Yep.

 

[Brent in Az]

You see the same thing in LA, SF etc. in downtown.

Same type of dystopian nightmare leadership here, and Spain , that have turned the streets into a third world shithole.

 

[Doug Hamilton]

Meanwhile in Spain, after the barbarians crashed the gates...

Truth Social

Truth Social is America's "Big Tent" social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating on the basis of political ideology.

truthsocial.com

Reminds me of the Southern US border during the Biden years.

 

[Brent in Az]

Reminds me of the Southern US border during the Biden years.

Shitting in the streets is the least thing to worry about with them. It's the ensuing crime, rape, and murder, that follows along with them.

 

[Doug Hamilton]

Shitting in the streets is the least thing to worry about with them. It's the ensuing crime, rape, and murder, that follows along with them.

Yep. Just like here.

 

[spike.t]

I hope you enjoy your visit to Ceuta, which is a pleasant small town with a lot of history.

Unfortunately, breaching the land border or swimming in is a daily ocurrence, which does not make the news, as it´s not in the same numbers as what happened recently.

I haven´t been there for a few years now.

Regarding our President, yes, he is a problem, to put it mildly

Seems other European countries aren't happy with him either......

Italy suspends Schengen with Spain over Ceuta migrant crisis

The temporary suspension of the Schengen agreement was prompted by concerns over the migrant crisis in Ceuta. #EuropeNews

www.euronews.com

 

[spike.t]

And seems another AI thing did its own thing.....

Anthropic says Claude AI hacked three companies during cyber tests

The breaches signal that AI’s expanding capabilities are already fueling the security threat experts long feared.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[spike.t]

Getting complicated up in space as to who is doing what and why.......Russia main instigator, but China there and even Iran and North Korea have the capabilities to take out satellites......

Satellite killers: What a war in space might look like

The satellites that orbit Earth have remained largely untouched in modern conflict. But in the 21st Century, space may no longer be a safe haven.

www.bbc.com

 

[deewayne2003]

You see the same thing in LA, SF etc. in downtown.

True and world news when tens of thousands pour over a European border border in a day; but we had that daily in Texas for years with Biden.

Morocco seems to be facilitating just like Mexico did for years.

Their all just peaceful asylum seekers right…..

 

[DieJager]

Only thing that is fortunate is that those enclaves are in Africa. The response by a lot of European politicians is refreshing, seems that more centrist politicians are abandoning ship.

 

[spike.t]

Fkn china

China Offered Somaliland More Than a Quarter of a Billion Dollars to Drop Taiwan. Somaliland Said No. - 19FortyFive https://share.google/6vFxWwGqQnoYAePCK

 

[Ontario Hunter]

I just read the federal prosecutor in D.C. has dropped charges against US former Olympic canoeist, acknowledging the damage to Lincoln Reflecting Pool was from "improper installation." Well, that's not news. We all knew it ... except Trump who likes to create his own reality. More egg on his face. He must keep a spatula in his back pocket to be able to see where he's walking. By Monday I'm betting there will be another federal lawyer in the unemployment line. Just as well. Too smart to make a fool of himself so he wasn't going anywhere in this administration anyway.

And now I see Trump wants to paint the Eisenhower Building white. Why? To destroy its historical integrity? It's natural grey stone looks fine. Painting it just means more maintenance as the paint will eventually peel (or maybe not eventually if the wading pool contractor lands the job). And look at that ornate structure. How easy do you think it will be to paint it. We are talking big bucks. Trump is such a thrifty guy, eh? Cans thirty percent of National Park Service employees and then squanders the savings on building edifices to himself.

Preservationists seek to stop Trump from painting the Eisenhower Executive Office Building white

The EEOB has stood next to the White House since the 1870s. Preservationists are seeking an injunction to prevent what they say would be a damaging paint job.

www.nbcnews.com

He can dig up the money to paint the Eisenhower Building to "make it beautiful" but months later and the scaffolding and tarps still render the Kennedy Center an eyesore. All because Trump pouts over losing that one in court too. What a child!

 

[Ontario Hunter]

Take a deep breath OH, your salvation is on its way.
View attachment 781078

No room. The tent is already full of clowns.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

Yep. Just like here.

Not like here. We are getting overrun with immigrants and I don't like it. But they are not the ones shitting in the streets. That would be the Native bums and white Canadian meth heads.

 

[Red Leg]

You make a lot of good points and I wish I had time to discuss them all with you. I will just focus down onto a couple.

One of your points, about not being allowed to criticize things, or "the enemy is here and we're not allowed to point a finger at it, speak against it, bully it, fight it, restrain it, or imprison it." Is a domestic political problem, not a military problem. You can't bomb your way out of that problem. You need to change your domestic politics if you believe those things to be true. In fact I think the United States does a lot of that work, by declaring various organizations as terrorist, or deporting people with radical ideologies etc. But sinking Iranian ships or invading a country won't solve those problems at home. Building a united nation, speaking and standing as one both against what it abhors, and in favour of what it admires is a very tough job. It can be done, but building that coalition is hard, and they don't tend to last too long.

And no matter how you change your view of risk or peril, the idea of civilians, or people who should not be targeted is baked into democracy and civilized countries. We don't punish people for having bad thoughts or not liking our way of life. Freedom of thought and freedom of expression is important, particularly when you disagree with what is being said.

One of the great sentiments of a constitutional democracy is "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

So, if you like, you could break down the categories of people who you could target into more categories of the sake of discussion:

1). People engaged in hostility against us (combatants)
2) People sympathetic to, or supportive of group 1) (civilians)
3) People who don't really care either way (civilians)
4) People who are sympathic to, or supportive of, our side (civilians)

If you decide to fundamentally change the rules and make group 2) legitimate military targets, you have abandoned the concepts of freedom of thought and freedom of speech, and you are asking your military to distinguish between group 2) and 3), a very difficult task in the real world.

And when you abandon your democratic principles like that you are now just asking young men to kill and die to make sure the rich and powerful stay rich and powerful, rather than to strive and sacrifice for noble principles. That is not my vision for a democratic nation. I hope the United States never sinks that low. I kind of like it when they at least try to be the House on the Hill.

Lastly I would argue that eliminating the distinction between military and civilian lengths hostility rather than shortens it, in the big picture. When you staring blowing up women and children etc you build generations of hate at a very primal level. Which is one of the reasons that the Israeli Palestinian conflict seems so intractable.

You both have left out a segment of the population that absolutely was "targeted" during the second world war - and primarily by the allies. These were the workers and their families that made up the industrial base as much as did the factories and machinery involved in war production. In fact, I would argue this target set was the heart of the strategic bombing campaign by the RAF against Germany and the US strategic air campaign against Japan.

In both Europe and against Japan the most destructive if not necessarily most effective tactical choice was firebombing during the ours of darkness. The first actual firestorm was created by the RAF in 1943 with the bombing of Hamburg. Large HE bombs were used to demolish buildings and destroy water mains which were followed by thousands of incendiary bomblets. These thousands of small fires quickly combined into a single firestorm that killed 40,000 people. The primary targeted area for the RAF were the residential areas adjacent to Hamburg's vast ship yards to eliminate the yards' supporting workforce. Naturally that included the families of those workers as well. The firestorm also tore the heart of the city and its civic infrastructure. Over a million people were left homeless. Other German cities such as Kassel. Darmstadt, and of course Dresden suffered similar fates.

In the Pacific, the US adopted a similar strategic doctrine with respect to Japan which had an extremely diversified industrial base scattered throughout major cities. US B-29 Super fortresses were stripped of all their defensive armament to increase speed and payload and were sent in relatively low level raids dropping hundreds of thousands of small incendiary bombs. 67 cities were struck with such raids and the level of destruction and casualties far surpassed the effects of the two atomic weapons which ended the war. For instance, during the raid in March, 80-100 thousand people were killed and another million plus made homeless. Half of Tokyo was burned to the ground.

Is such targeting a legitimate or "legal" strategy? I suppose it depends on the eye of the beholder. Certainly British leadership decided it had done enough after seeing the effects of the Dresden raid. The US continued its attacks to the collapse of the Japanese war effort with the two atomic weapons.

A debate has been waged by three generations of historians since the war as to the effectiveness of such a strategy. In no instance was the will of the German or Japanese people to wage war broken. As to the effectiveness of the destruction of the industrial base, Germany, under Albert Speer, was able to actually increase military armaments production through the summer of 1944 at which point it was more than twice higher than it was in 1942.

After a lot of debate, the US decided to move toward precision strikes in the decades following the war. That was the largely forlorn hope of the US 8th Air Force over Europe where technology did not yet match aspirations. I believe the question is still open to debate whether are not such strikes represent a war winning strategy. To date, and it is a cautionary note for our efforts over Iran, no war has been one by bombardment from the air - precision or area.

With respect to the targets themselves, the means of production, transport infrastructure, and the economic foundation of any belligerent will be the core of any strategic bombardment campaign. Those would be included in any target set of a general nuclear exchange between this country and any other nuclear capable foe, and none of the leadership of any of the belligerents would care an iota about the musings of an international court.

With respect to Iran and with the exception of the initial decapitation strikes, we have thus far carried out operational rather than strategic strikes. Normally such strikes are initiated to prepare the battle space for subsequent strategic action to end the conflict. This was done in both the Gulf War and the initial invasion of Iraq, both of which were successful in driving Iraqi forces from Kuwait and taking down the Baathist regime in Iraq respectively.

We will see if the operational campaign currently being waged is effective enough to force a settlement sufficiently in our favor to consider it "victory." I have my doubts. What this campaign can achieve is sufficient destruction of Iran's war making and nuclear programs to eliminate them as a regional threat for a meaningful period of time. Though that will be difficult to prove to the electorate and will leave Iran able to claim victory in withstanding the best efforts of the Great Satan. Perhaps there is a level of wisdom to Israel's retaliatory strategy with respect to Hamas. The WWII generation would certainly see no issue with it.

 

[Tanks]

We will see if the operational campaign currently being waged is effective enough to force a settlement sufficiently in our favor to consider it "victory." I have my doubts. What this campaign can achieve is sufficient destruction of Iran's war making and nuclear programs to eliminate them as a regional threat for a meaningful period of time.

I have my doubts as well. I am not even sure if the campaign can achieve sufficient destruction of Iran's missile and drone stockpiles to stop them from using them. It seems we might run out of defensive stockpiles of missiles faster than Iran runs out of offensive weapons or will.

The might not have full control of Hormuz, but as long as they can sling missiles/drones at ships they will still jeopardize shipping.

 

[Brent in Az]

Spain is one of many country around the world that was popular with expat retirees. Probably not so much anymore.
Just like American Democrats, Spains open borders policy prefers the unwashed masses

 

[thoma018]

1) what would one define as a "meaningful period of time" to "achieve sufficient destruction of Irans war making...nuclear programs....eliminate them as regional threat" the
2) would this not just put the "solution" what ever that is, to be faced with your children and grandchildren....future generations ?