Dude. I can name from memory the list of war crimes and genocidal acts that Russia has done, they’re on a speed run in their aggressive war of conquest. Bucha, Mariupol, perferdy, executing PoWs, torture, the kidnapped children being raised as Russian, deliberate bombing of civilians, Russification of the Donbas, chemical weapons use, the list goes on.

But the severity is not the same. Gazans can’t seek safety in western Ukraine, they have no missile defenses, they’re being deliberately starved to death as collective punishment, and are being kept inside a war zone by complete military encirclement and occupation.

Genocide is the ultimate crime huh?

Fucking yes. I cannot believe we’re even having this argument. Nothing comes close.

Or the genocide starting in America of people with skin the same color as I have

I am absolutely not trying to downplay the barbarity and wanton cruelty of the Trump administration’s policies, but what we’ve seen so far doesn’t match the definition. Extrajudicial disappearances and zero due process for perceived or actual migrants is not the same thing as genocide. There’s no forced sterilization, rote murder, mass displacement, or deliberate attempt to destroy a collective people. CECOT is an overseas concentration camp, not a death camp - yet.

I literally cannot find anything about “forum sliding” that isn’t re-re-re-reposts of the same text - and they’re almost universally tinfoil hat or ‘freethinker’ faux intellectual dross. If you’re that paranoid go read my comment history, it’s all public lol

If you want to live in a hugboxed information bubble where your ideas never get challenged, you can do that. But reality will come crashing through eventually.

You and everyone who repeats the “I hope you’re happy now” really are not helping. You’re mad, I’m mad, but please please get your fill of catharsis/smug self righteousness elsewhere please, blaming non/voters isn’t going to rebuild the Obama coalition that delivered a supermajority in Congress. The Democrats lost the youth turnout, Palestine (Russian/astroturf bots or no) were not the sole factor but a sharp tipping point that laid out reality bare.

Im not at all surprised that young voters who became politically aware during the Obama era or later were gradually disenchanted and sat this round out; when you look at it from their timeline they did all the right democracy things and got shit on over and over

• Organic enthusiasm for Bernie in the primary, sabotaged by superdelegates - your vote doesn’t matter, we pick not you plebs and in their mind that action brought Trump 2016
• George Floyd’s livestreamed murder and BLM protests - no structural change or even federal police reform passed
• The kids yet again come out and do the right thing by voting Biden in 2020, and watch more politicking and focus-tested soft liberalism rule the day. Rail strike busted. East Palestine spill without serious investigation or reform. Debt ceiling negotiations and kowtowing - everything will stay the same
• Oct 7 happens, then the Israeli bombing campaign begins and Biden openly castigates activists and doubles down on supplying the IDF - how dare you plebs question your leader
• Protests persist, organize and clearly make their demands known, even send a warning shot in the primary… receiving only empty words from leadership - they are not going to do what you want
• The DNC platforms two Jewish parents of a Hamas hostage at the convention, but refuses to allow a Dem Rep to speak with pre-vetted remarks - we don’t even want to hear from you

And nothing substantial happened that might change their mind. Kamala rode that same trajectory through her campaign, even as VP she had a harder stance on Israel that suddenly evaporated once she was appointed the nominee.

Its genocide - the crime of all crimes - and the Democratic Party refused to seriously discuss the topic in public. I cannot seriously blame them for giving up on a party that refused to listen to them in good faith, and disappointed them time after time. That’s on the DNC for throwing that demographic away, and we need to recognize that. They’re not voting for Republicans ffs but they’ve received the message that they and their vote, isn’t important to the Democrats.

Why patch out a bug that’s working in our favor?

Commit to renewables. I’d advocate for a nuclear powered off-ramp from fossils whilst renewable capacity and infrastructure is built, but I get that each nation has its own history with fission.

Energy security is fundamental for a robust society and economy - otherwise you’re subject to pipeline shutoffs/attacks, oil embargoes/quotas, or another angle for outside nations to influence or control you. For example, if you’re chill with the French and build your economic strategy around buying their surplus energy, that strategy predicated on the French having a surplus to sell you.

If you’re a (western) European leader returning to Russian energy is at best shortsighted amnesia, at worst blatant malfeasance. There’s several reasons to not go back to Russia:

• Official legal based sanctions on Russian energy
• Ukrainian drone based ‘sanctions’ on Russian energy
• Russia’s track record of energy blackmail/hybrid warfare
• LNG and oil production available in your EEZ/the EU, albeit at higher cost than imported
• Domestic solar, hydro, and wind manufacturing/generation is ramping up
• French nuclear energy exports
• Domestic politics ie. voters turning against Russian imperial aggression/expansionism

Eastern Europe has a slightly different incentive mix, but there’s still a lot of reasons to not

Devils advocate, but given the way they’ve been building metal sheds around the prior tanks and almost completely negating the main gun, a missing turret might just be a weatherproofing issue for the Orks Russians.

It’s not like a main gun helps you survive a mobility kill from the umpteenth TM-62 in the dirt that got replanted after the last assault failed.

Even one of the hostages who was rescued by the IDF called it out:

foreign /fôr′ĭn, fŏr′-/

adjective

1. Located away from one’s native country.  “on business in a foreign city.”
2. Of, characteristic of, or from a place or country other than the one being considered.  “a foreign custom.”
3. Conducted or involved with other nations or governments; not domestic.  “foreign trade.”

Don’t be disingenuous , even in native Russian it has distinction of worth:

…explanation of the concept [near abroad] in Russian: " ‘The term originally had an ironic nuance,’ said the historian Ivan Ivanovich. ‘People spoke of nastoyashchyeye za rubezhye, “the present-day abroad.” But now the words have acquired a purely informational meaning, in order to distinguish the new states of the C.I.S. [ Commonwealth of Independent States, a title now in the dustbin of history ] from the “original” abroad.’ “

Auto translation:

A promise from 382 OBMP 810 OGVBRMP to everyone who doubted the joint work of our guys with foreign colleagues! We work in a well-known area of ​​a well-known region

Seriously. Why the fuck else would your “top investigators” release these kind of details of an ongoing investigation when the normal comment is “we don’t discuss active investigations”?

1. They have no good leads and are hoping for more tips from the public (lol good luck with that $60k snitch line bounty you stiff people on).
2. They hope to rattle this purported individual to do something stupid like grant a media interview or send an email/letter
3. They are throwing a massive digital dragnet around this and are hoping this purported individual is manically F5’ing any and all stories for counterintelligence of their case.

Türkiye, if they’re still interested

Second biggest NATO defense spender, ‘developing economy’ for globalization and offshoring exploitation, major fossil fuel pipelines, significant ally who can shut off the Black Sea transit route legally and pen in the Russian warm water fleet, and a big geopolitical bridge to the Middle East. Erdogan is no saint mind you, but I would pick them as a strategic ally over Israel any day.

The UK has promise and a long history of cooperation unlike Türkiye, but they threw the baby out with the bath water and have maintained an outsized deference to the US. What doe Britain honestly bring the bloc economically aside from the London financial markets?

Why?

For the EU, it makes absolute sense to demand the UK checks off all the current membership criteria they demand - otherwise Romania and Croatia are going to feel like second class citizens, and the next EU enlargement is going to be a shitshow of negotiations with each member trying to pick and choose.

There’s also the spite/making an example argument, why should a former member get to create chaos in the union and dominate the debate (for YEARS) seeking a sweetheart exit deal, only to be let back in with all the rights and special privileges granted in the 70s?

Click through two links and there’s a video clip of him saying just that, with a smug smile flickering across his face, instead of an ashen expression one might expect if Lammy actually wanted to understand the context of why there are “no journalists” left in Gaza.

While Hansard doesn’t publish everything in text online, if you cared to look beyond dismissing a headline you don’t like, there’s transcripts from the chamber on the 26th, though Lammy is not credited/recorded.

They definitely report the spending levels to maintain a mixed arsenal, and tbh looking at Russian modernization decisions, they’re focusing on the ‘better’ delivery methods like sea and air launch.

Russian leadership’s apparent conviction that the US ballistic missile defense system constitutes a real future risk to the credibility of Russia’s retaliatory capability. The poor performance and loss of a significant portion of Russian conventional forces in the war against Ukraine and the depletion of its weapon stockpiles will likely deepen Russia’s reliance on nuclear weapons for its national defense.

They got drained hard in Ukraine and showed the world that Russia was a paper tiger - only good for a thunder run leadership decapitation or beating back irregular and militant forces. Nukes are their prestige weapon, and the hand wringing over escalation has only served to validate their faith.

Why did they kill Haniyeh when he was the guy they were negotiating with as Hamas’s head diplomat? All while both sides were apparently “days away from an agreement”?

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

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.

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.