https://nitter.net/GregAbbott_TX/status/1750235544951349275

lmao

lol

lmaolmao

Biden says India, unlike China, shares ‘democratic character’ with U.S. — WAPO

lol

America has hit that weird death spiral phase where a Trump vs Biden rerun isn’t the epitome of stagnation, but somehow accelerates the decline and Balkanization of it all.

~~Some reports in Gaza that an Apache helicopter got downed by Hamas next to a university, there's probably going to be some actual news reporting on it soon.~~

/=
Not confirmed

Speaking of Apaches, it's insulting irony that a helicopter named after an indigenous group is currently being used to kill another indigenous group.

whoops, missile machine broke (archived)

RTX Slow to Deliver Missiles to Defend US Carriers From China

RTX Corp. has fallen behind schedule delivering the Navy’s top air defense missile that’s meant to counter China’s “aircraft carrier killer” weapons, prompting a key House defense spending committee to block the Pentagon’s request for another $3.2 billion contract. RTX has delivered about half of the 625 Standard Missile-6 missiles required under a five-year, $1 billion contract from 2019, according to the Defense Contract Management Agency. This year, the Pentagon wants to buy another 825 of the missiles in a five-year deal from RTX, which changed its name from Raytheon Technologies in 2023.

The agency said supply-chain delays that began during the Covid-19 pandemic haven’t been fully resolved. “The extent to which those delays and cost impacts were fully within Raytheon’s control is not entirely clear,” DCMA said in a statement to Blomberg News. There have been delays of motors manufactured by Aerojet Rocketdyne and issues with third-tier suppliers all with unique challenges that new owner L3Harris Inc. is working to correct.

The SM-6 Block I/IA model is seen capable of intercepting China’s DF-21D missile, which is designed to attack US aircraft carriers, according to a US defense official who asked not to be identified discussing non-public information. RTX in a statement said its “in direct and frequent dialogue with Pentagon officials as well as congressional defense oversight committees to mitigate the delivery impact caused in large part by delays in solid rocket motor manufacturing.” The company is working with the Pentagon and Navy to find alternate sources for the motors, it said. Still, Rep. Ken Calvert, the California Republican who chairs the House defense appropriations committee, remains unconvinced. His panel has so far declined to approve the Pentagon’s next SM—6 procurement request, although the Senate panel has done so. The entire defense appropriations bill remains stalled on Capitol Hill.

“I believe there’s value in multi-year procurement when it’s appropriate, which is why the fiscal 2024 bill authorizes most of the other multi-year contracts requested,” he said in a statement. “But everything we approve has to be justified and scrutinized, and the fact is the performance on the previous multi-year contract for the SM-6 gives us concern” because it’s behind schedule, he said. L3Harris said that in the five months since closing on its Aerojet acquisition “we have continued investing in facility expansions and more efficient manufacturing processes, which have already led to increases in capacity for some key programs.”

The Navy’s top readiness official, Fleet Forces Command head Admiral Daryl Caudle, surprised attendees last January at a surface warfare symposium when he scolded the industry on lax delivery performance. “I need SM-6 delivered on time. I need MK-48 torpedoes delivered on time,” he said. Asked for an update, Caudle’s office said the SM-6 has marginally improved deliveries though it’s “not back to the required schedule.” The statement said the Navy and the Pentagon have “taken significant steps over the past year in support of this effort.”

you know, maybe if you want your military equipment delivered on time, you shouldn't be reliant on the private sector for literally everything? critical support to the American capitalist class in their anti-imperialist struggle against their own country's military

new slammer banger

The South African government expects a ruling from the ICJ in the Hague on provisional measures in genocide case against Israel on Friday, sources told News24

https://nitter.net/jeremyscahill/status/1750100017287680216#m

So the court said that the illegal zionist entity can continue its war against KHamas but it has to stop doing the genocide. How on earth are you supposed to make a distinction between the two?

So I'm reading the dissenting opinion of Ugandan Judge Sebutinde which you can find in full here.

WARNING: LONG EFFORT POST!

The primary arguement and summary is essentially that this is a "politcal and historical" issue that should be resolved by diplomacy amongst states and not brought before the court. Seemingly even when that's impossible:

Unfortunately, the failure, reluctance or inability of States to resolve political controversies such as this one through effective diplomacy or negotiations may sometimes lead them to resort to a pretextual invocation of treaties like the Genocide Convention, in a desperate bid to force a case into the context of such a treaty, in order to foster its judicial settlement: rather like the proverbial “Cinderella’s glass slipper”.

As far as I can tell she doesn't address the fact that this case is being brought by South Africa, not a party within the conflict or materially tied to the outcome. She certainly doesn't indicate what their motives might be for doing so.

She does restate that there is a process for arguing for the prosecution of genocide under Gendocide Convention, but the implication her seems to basically be 'get this off my desk' or perhaps 'stop wasting my time until you have incontrovertible evidence'. I'd argue there's a bit of a problem with that, as I'll get to shortly, given her reaction to the evidence presented.

But first, some 'context' around October 7th.

12. On 7 October 2023, thousands of members of the Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (“Islamic Resistance Movement” or “Hamas”), a Palestinian Sunni Islamic political and military organization governing the Gaza Strip, invaded the territory of the State of Israel under cover of thousands of rockets fired indiscriminately into Israel and committed massacres, mutilations, rapes and abductions of hundreds of Israeli civilians, including men, women and children. (Israel reports that over 1,200 people were murdered that day, more than 5,500 maimed, and over 240 hostages abducted, including infants, entire families, the elderly, the disabled, as well as Holocaust survivors.) According to Israel, most of the hostages remain in captivity or are simply unaccounted for and many have been tortured, sexually abused, starved or killed while in captivity.

13. Soon after the 7 October attack, Israel, in exercise of what it describes as “its right to defend itself”, launched a “military operation” into the Gaza Strip whose objective was, first, to defeat Hamas and its network and, secondly, to rescue the Israeli hostages. South Africa claims that as a result of the armed conflict that ensued between Israel and Hamas over the past 11 weeks, 1.9 million Palestinians living in Gaza (85 per cent of the population) have been internally displaced; over 22,000 Palestinians, including over 7,729 children, have been killed; over 7,780 are missing and/or presumed dead under the rubble; over 55,243 are severely injured or have suffered mental harm; and vast areas of Gaza, including entire neighbourhoods have been destroyed including 355,000 homes, places of worship, cemeteries, cultural and archaeological sites, hospitals and other critical infrastructure.

I find some of the language here interesting. South Africa "claims" while Israel "reports". The language in the description of of the October 7th Hamas operation is full of sensationalist and emotionally charged language. "Invaded ... indescriminately ... committed massacres, mutilations, rapes and abductions of hundreds of Israeli civilians, including men, women and children". Notice how different the tone is here to when she summarises the effects of Israel's military operation in Gaza right afterward. It's also worth noting that far more sensationalised and emotional langugage describing the Hamas operation are not given any sort of 'Israel claims' caveat, only the vague statistics Israel offers and theories about ongoing abuse of hostages.

Perhaps that's due a difference in the evidence? So let's look at her response to that and her summaries...

The intervening paragraphs largely lay out the long claims by South Africa detailling the systematic way in which Israel has targeted civilian infrastructure, hit targets South Africa says are 'not military targets', and failed to punish or condemn genocidal statements and incitements from citizens, media, and government figures (I agree with all of that obviously). It then lays out in short Israel's counter claims that the war is only about Hamas and it does not target Palestinians at large (which is obviously bollocks, in my view).

And then we get to her judgement and opinion on whether the evidence supports claims of a potential genocide (not an actual ruling on one, keep in mind, the potential for a one with more evidence brought):

21 ... I am not convinced that a prima facie showing of a genocidal intent, by way of indicators, has been made out against Israel. The war was not started by Israel but rather by Hamas who attacked Israel on 7 October 2023 thereby sparking off the military operation in Israel’s defence and in a bid to rescue its hostages. I also must agree that any “genocidal intent” alleged by the Applicant is negated by (1) Israel’s restricted and targeted attacks of legitimate military targets in Gaza; (2) its mitigation of civilian harm by warning them through leaflets, radio messages and telephone calls of impending attacks; and (3) its facilitation of humanitarian assistance. A careful examination of Israel’s war policy and of the full statements of the responsible government officials further demonstrates the absence of a genocidal intent ... the scale of suffering and death experienced in Gaza is exacerbated not by genocidal intent, but rather by several factors, including the tactics of the Hamas organization itself which often entails its forces embedding amongst the civilian population and installations, rendering them vulnerable to legitimate military attack.

Now this is where I start just straight up calling bullshit. It's just a grab bag of Israeli propaganda lines.

Nothing matters before October 7th. Warnings of strikes when those strikes were often on shelters, refugee camps, hospitals, and neighbourhoods where people could not leave either due to other factors or because when they tried to we've seen they were often bombed or shot at by snipers and tanks even on the so called 'safe routes'. Israel has to bomb everyone and everything because they use civilians as human shields which if you're here I don't need to explain what a crock of shit that has always been.

If I was a genocidal state my reading from this would be simple; print some leaflets telling people to leave for deniability and then you can murder and carpet bomb and target civilians to your hearts content.

This absurd logical loophole gets even more ludicrous when she summarises her opinion of whether Israeli officials held any 'genocidal intent':

22. Regarding the statements of Israeli top officials and politicians that South Africa cited as containing genocidal rhetoric, a careful examination of those statements, read in their proper and full context, shows that South Africa has either placed the quotations out of context or simply misunderstood the statements of those officials. The vast majority of the statements referred to the destruction of Hamas and not the Palestinian people as such. Certain renegade statements by officials who are not charged with prosecuting Israel’s military operations were subsequently highly criticized by the Israeli Government itself. More importantly, the official war policy of the Israeli Government, as presented to the Court, contains no indicators of a genocidal intent. In my assessment, there are also no indicators of incitement to commit genocide.

They only meant Hamas, is a ludicrous supposition in many, if not most cases.

Government officials, including some of those specifically named in the case, regularly refer to any and every Palestinian as being 'Hamas'. The even refer to non-Palestinians and foreign organisations as Hamas. While this has been going on members of the government have called protesters around the world, NGOs, lawyers, South African, the BBC, and the UN 'Hamas'.

You don't reference The Amalek - a biblical story about destroying an entire country and specifically all of it's inahbitents in revenge - if you're only talking about a specific "Palestinian Sunni Islamic political and military organization" as she described Hamas earlier.

There is no reference to or acknowledgement that historically these very same Israeli officials have used Hamas and 'terrorist' without any distinction between the provable or legal designations and just Palestinians or people Israel doesn't like in general.

And finally, for the absurd cherry on this shit-sundae of rationalisations, the fact that the *"official war policy of the Israeli government, as presented to the Court, contains no indicators of a genocidal intent." Has any official war policy of any government, accused of ethnic cleansing or genocide, since the introduction of the Genocide Convention in history, ever just said 'Yeah it's our official policy to do genocide'? That's like saying a serial killer can't have intended murder because his Facebook bio says 'pacifist' in it. Just absolutely fatuous.

Then we have the rationales for why the measures requested by South Africa cannot be 'linked' to the rights under the convention or approved in her view...

(Continued in next comment)

https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/19ehxaq/ru_pov_ru_assault_squad_used_an_underground_pipe/

The sudden Russian breakthrough in southern Avdiivka was supposedly achieved by sending soldiers through an underground pipe.

My dad's watching the BBC World News feed, and they've been going on about a British ship intercepting a Houthi drone for the past 20 minutes, non stop. Replaying the same grainy footage of the drone being shot down while "experts" talk.

Is this what counts as news these days?

https://archive.is/FnJNp

Some delicious brainworms relating to wunderweapons circlejerking dipshits love to do.

USAF Eagle pilot tells why a gun-only F-15 would win an aerial engagement against a fully armed Su-27 Flanker

Yes you correctly read that. Some dipshit pilot actually thinks he'd totally win a one-on-one battle with a peashooter against someone with fucking missiles.

The F-15 Eagle

The F-15 Eagle is an all-weather fighter designed to gain and maintain air supremacy. As the first US fighter with engine thrust greater than its basic weight, the F-15 can accelerate while in a vertical climb. In fact, the Eagle can climb 50,000 feet in less than 60 seconds.

The relatively low aircraft weight, compared to wing area, made the Eagle not just fast, but also highly maneuverable, creating a near perfect platform for air-to-air combat.

Which is why it got retired in favor of more shit planes.

F-15 Eagle Vs Su-27 Flanker

How would a gun-only F-15C Eagle cope against a fully armed Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker? ‘I’m going to assume the F-15C is gun-only and the [Su-27] Flanker has a combat load-out, perhaps minus a couple missiles he expended BVR. Also, assuming the F-15 has internal and expendable countermeasures onboard, both electronic and IR (perhaps BOL-IR and MJU-10),’ Marcus Cade, former F-15 Eagle pilot with the US Air Force (USAF), explains on Quora.

THATS RIGHT! ANOTHER DOGSHIT OPINION FROM QUORA!

‘The F-15 is in a tough spot, no doubt, and he can’t separate against a Flanker. His only option is to fight until he kills the Flanker or a wingman shows up and saves the day.

YOU JUST READ IT CORRECTLY! NO, AN F-15 EAGLE WOULD FUCKING STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE IF ITS DOWN TO IT'S GUNS AND ITS BEING CHASED BY A JET ARMED TO THE TEETH

‘Step 1 – see that yellow button with the black stripes I’ve circled? It reads “Emer Jett.” The Eagle Driver hits that button. If he’s out of missiles, the pylons and launchers under the wings are just weighing him down and creating drag. The Emer Jett button will blow every cart on the airplane, leaving the mighty-mighty Eagle a lean, clean, gun-killing machine. The Flanker won’t know what hit him: first, he’ll see sh*t falling off the Eagle and wonder if there’s combat damage or an ejection about to happen.

Translation: push button to hopefully make it easier to dodge missiles that are hunting it down faster than it flies.

The F-15 Eagle is NEVER doomed

‘Then, as the Eagle driver defends against IR missiles and min-ranges radar missiles, the Flanker will realize he’s losing the fight. “How is this possible?” he asks himself as he trades in all his smash to pull the Eagle in front of his 3/9 as he attempts one last Archer that the Eagle flares off. And now he’s jinking in front of the best air-to-air gun platform ever fielded, flown by a single-mission pilot who is a PhD at finishing this particular fight.

You can viscerally feel this dude just cranking his hog to this top gun level wet dream he's conjuring up

‘As the 20mm HEI rounds start pounding thru his speed-brake and wreaking carnage inside his jet, it’s up to him. Does he bow to the inevitable and eject, or does he stick it out until the Eagle-driver walks the pipper up to the canopy and watches the RATR pop up just as the plexiglass shatters and the Flanker-driver’s last sight is his heart being blown out of his chest and splattering across the instrument panel (I borrowed that particular visual).

It is literally more likely for the f-15 pilot to shit himself mid-flight than it is for him to score a dog fighter style kill on another jet.

Gun Only F-15 Eagle Vs fully armed Su-27 Flanker

He continues;

Oh no

‘I’ve flown this profile many times. While I was at Langley, each squadron would keep a couple jets “demo clean” to support the demo team during airshow season. The clean jets would be assigned to Red air, since they didn’t have a captive AIM-9 to allow full-up blue-air training. They also had a fuel disadvantage of 4–8K pounds. So, we’d fly the card and give blue-air the training they needed … and be lethal as F if we got in amongst them. More often, we’d die like we were meant to and Blue air would bingo out and RTB.

Screams "millennium challenge" forced handicap to me

‘Then we’d BFM or ACM amongst ourselves, to get some training with any fuel we had left. Trust me, a clean Eagle is enormously more maneuverable than a 1- or 2-bag Eagle, and surprisingly more maneuverable than a jet w/ no external tanks, but pylons and missiles on board. It’s a hot knife thru butter for the few minutes until fuel runs out. I wouldn’t walk into this no-missile scenario willingly … but the Flanker driver would have only a short window to get his kill before he was looking over his shoulder and hoping his life-insurance was paid up.’

From my understanding of aerial combat, actual engagements would always occur miles away, waaaaaayyyyyyyy out of eyesight, with modern "dogfighting" taking place closer but still far away as hell. Not even including the fact you would rarely be flying alone if you're in contested airspace.

F-15 Eagle Vs Su-27: Respecting the Flanker family

Cade concludes;

Please make it stop

‘Don’t mistake confidence for arrogance. Air superiority was my job for quite a while, and I was on the receiving end of the information stream provided by a very well-resourced intelligence community. I understand and respect many threat platforms’ strengths (esp. the Su-27 family), and have been part of a community that worked hard to find and exploit their weaknesses.

Okay dude. Totally not arrogant

‘I have flown the MiG-29, and flown against many modern weapons systems operated by various nations. I’ve seen my team rolled up by MiGs fighting in their own back yard after we made just one or two early mistakes. I’ve debriefed at length (occasionally ad nauseam) to understand why a mission failed, or why we took losses in an otherwise successful mission … and how to do better next time. Arrogant tacticians lose. You can only learn to win by beginning with humility and being open to learning (and re-learning) lessons. The end product of that process may come across as arrogance … but it’s actually a very hard-earned confidence.’

Translation: we've been rolled by our allies who were using older commercial versions of Soviet tech and we think we'd win now after getting our asses kicked.

maybe states shouldn't have militarized national guards

please bro just vote for biden bro one more time bro please i swear bro this is the most important election of our lifetimes bro i promise bro please dont look at gaza bro please vote for biden we need him to send more weapons to ukraine bro its very important bro

my non-boring 2024 bingo grid:

The COTW, NZ has deployed 6 soldiers to the Red Sea: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/507356/new-zealand-to-deploy-defence-force-to-red-sea

Need a :nz-cool: emote

ICJ news soon?

MR PUTIN THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS YEARN FOR FREEDOM

The colors of the Russian flag are said to be red for "Great Russia" (Russia itself), white for White Russia (Belarus), and blue for "Little Russia" (Ukraine).

Libs have been using a white-blue-white flag for resistance against Russia. That must mean they want a union of Ukraine and Belarus.

https://en.mehrnews.com/news/211106/Saudi-Arabia-targets-Yemen-with-artillery

https://www.almayadeen.net/latestnews/2024/1/21/اليمن--وكالة--سبأ--في-صنعاء--قصف-مدفعي-سعودي-يستهدف-مديرية-ب

On the 21st of January Saudi Arabia struck Baqim border town in Saada in Yemen.

more news from the architect of global capitalism and imperialism:

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-mail-deliveries-could-be-cut-three-days-week-regulator-says-2024-01-24/

UK mail deliveries could be cut to three days a week, regulator says

I wonder if British so-called "people" will do anything about their former "great" nation falling into irrelevance this way (voting in fascists doesn't count)

The evil empire has put its funding to UNWRA, the UN agency that provides aid for Palestinians in the zionist-created ghettos, on hold due to alleged "terrorism" connections.

What a curious coincidence that this happens on the same day that the ICJ tells the zionists to stop being genocidal.

The good thing is that the 2028 elections are not going to be between Trump and Biden, right?

Right?

every step towards destabilising and fragmenting is good

No fucking way

Bit of a mini news roundup from me so I'm not spamming the feed...

(& )

• Oh look, a British Zionist charity is actually a pipeline for funnelling troubled Brtish teens into going to help commit genocide with the IDF! Hopefully the ICJ adds the organisers and funders to the list of its criminal complaints submitted in the UK.

• Israeli tanks shelled a shelter of almost 1000 people and then blocked the route they'd agreed on for aid and emergency services with the UN and WHO with freshly made earth banks.

• Israeli military has now "isolated" the Al-Nasser hospital in Khan Younis. It's one of the only hospitals still sort of functioning even though it's extremely low on supplies and has had to transfer some patients elsewhere. The fact that it's operating at all means Israel has decided to seige it.

• There's a fancy gala dinner in London tonight for attendees of one of the UK's biggest arms sales expos. Naturally Israeli defence companies are featuring prominently, selling drone weapons designed for 'urban combat'. There has been a bit of a social faux-pas though when one of the most prominent speakers, Yossi Pinto - the Israeli reserve colonel who engaged in clearing Palestinian land for settlements - was pulled from the event last minute. He was due to speak next to some of the UK's most prominent soliders and military officers, despite the fact that his actions clearing settlements are in fact illegal under UK law. Oops! Of course he was only pulled after the British establishment realised that British media outlet Declassified had noticed, was reporting it, and asked for comment.

• And here's a UK politics focused look at just what an embarrassing (and potentially criminally prosecutatable by the ICJ) mess Labour and the Tories have done of trying to justify their ongoing support of genocide, by former political editor of the Telegraph Peter Obourne.

& YEMEN

• The UK called strikes in Yemen 'self-defense' of British ships. Although apparently, now that people are actually following up, it's hard to find any ships that actually were connected to the UK that were struck or taken by Houthi forces. Turns out the only connections were that lots of ships are registered in the Cayman Islands for tax avoidence and lack of regulation, which is still technically part of the commonwealth. Would the Houthi's be justfied in sinking UK ships? Absolutely. Are they, as was claimed as justification for bombing Yemen again? Doesn't look like it.

• Zelensky apparently signed a decree that a load of regions in Russia are 'historical Ukrainian land'. It won't actually do anything of course, but if you need to borrow some performative rhetoric from the Israel conflict (that your western 'allies' are now abandoning you for) to distract from the recent losses of ground, why not ey?

• What does the UK's new security agreement with Ukraine actually mean? Declassified has a simple breakdown. Spoiler: little of substance except UK profiteering from arms sales, anti-Russia propaganda mills, and privatisation deals when the war ends it seems.

& the

• Russian businessmen (very limited critcal support only) continue to successfully sue Western publishers of books and news who let their Russophobia get the better of them and make unsubstantiated claims about them being Putin puppets. This is the latest in a long line of oligarchs - that the West probably should have been incentivising against Russia rather than bundling them in as Putin's boys - winning these legal fights to reclaim properties and yachts (boo!) as well as force retractions from Western publishers (yeah!) for unfounded, unsourced claims, that the EU then used as a basis for sanctions without, you know, actually checking them (lol!)

& IRAQ

• China is building 1000 schools across Iraq, while the US tries to rebuild it's bases and pull out otherwise. It's not a totally charitable endevour, but part of a deal that allows Iraq to build critical infrastructure and pay for it from the proceeds from future oil sales to China. China gets oil, Iraq gets reconstruction, and they didn't have to destroy the country (then abandon it before reconstruction) to do it. It's an important deal in a country where 3.2million children don't have access to education.

George W. Bush getting extraordinarily renditioned from the Sovereign State of Texas to see the inside of the Hague would be among the funniest outcomes of all this.

Some initial conclusions from today's ruling;

Israel and its international supporters have been found guilty of committing genocide in occupied Palestine, on the basis of the 'no smoke without fire' precedent. Or, is plausibly suspected of, being pedantic.

Ansarallah & Hezbollah are both non state actors doing their respective countries proud by upholding committments they are only ethically, not actual signatories to, being non-state actors.

The US and UK are attacking Ansarallah without any legal justification, as China has said, and actually impeding their efforts to uphold the genocide convention.

of relevance to the UK, the leader of the Labour party has publically incited genocidal acts. And the Unions, by not supporting Hamas as requested, are also complicit. The Isreali ambassador needs to be sent home for her disgusting comments. Time to start filing lawsuits with the ICC i guess

South Africa (and co-signers) is now the vanguard of moral authority in the world, if it wasn't already, and should be listened to hereafter on matters of international ethics.

#NotMeUs

Fain and UAW endorse: "If our endorsements must be earned, Joe Biden has earned it."