For Russia: I would presume many of them would be hard to pay due to sanctions over the Ukraine situation, even if not sanctioned directly it's rather difficult to do business and they have no reason to grant an exemption to this particular industry compared to industries they can't replace like nuclear fuel.

For China: I'd also assume many of them don't do business with individuals and many may also be subject to US sanctions because they work with the PLA or they use the same catering firm the PLA uses via the US's 4 degrees of separation or guilty rules.

In short I can't say as I don't know but given the broader context I doubt it unless these companies are releasing this kind of data regularly for free in the open.

Oh yes we, the US will definitely not kill them, they have their official immunity cards. However we never said we could stop our rabid dog the zionist entity from killing them which it most certainly will.

That's talking about equally matched nuclear powers or else it's nonsense.

Fact is no one is sticking their neck out to get nuked for someone else. China and Russia are not going to launch all their nukes and have their civilizations and countries destroyed for Iran. Same as US wouldn't avenge Japan or Germany for example if they got nuked.

At best the issue is when dealing with two nuclear powers, the instant one strikes the other with a single nuke then all attacks from then on may be presumed to be nuclear attacks and how do you respond proportionately is the problem. The US war-planners as well as Russians have tables and scenarios for how to respond to limited nuclear weapon use including escalation options and mere equal response options. There is some sense that if you got hit with a single nuke, as long as it's not a city full of people you have to then avenge that you can limit things from spiraling into full nuclear war which no one wants because it's ultimately self-defeating. The hesitation on the part of people using them first is you can't be positive you can limit escalation, that is that your opponent won't escalate and force you into an escalation ladder you cannot escape which is why there is so much hesitancy. But again this is all with regards to nuclear powers striking each other.

The US will phone China and Russia central military commands and let them know 5 minutes or more before the detonation of such a device out of an abundance of caution to prevent them from assuming they'll be targeted. China and Russia will in the event of an ally being nuked express outrage and condemnation but will not launch themselves if there is no sign the US is moving to target them next. It'll certainly change the world and drive more countries to attempt to nuclearize which is another reason why internal strategic planners for the US and other nuclear powers look down on the use of such weapons because any use risks upsetting the status quo and creating an entirely more dangerous world where your nuclear primacy is less special.

Extracting a pilot and hypothetically extracting a bunch of nuclear material might roll in similar ways? (Or not, I actually have no idea).

A pilot weighs maybe 200 lbs and is not hazardous to other humans around them nor oddly weighted or shaped. For extracting the nuclear material they'd need something much less fast in and out and more sustained. They'd need to build a make-shift airfield, attempt to defend hundreds or a thousand or so troops on the ground while they operate heavy machinery over days or several weeks of time to excavate bombed and deliberately entombed bunkers, then land planes to get the material and then fly out with it and their troops. The only similarity would be heavy air support cover for the troops carrying out the operation but even then that would look different as they'd be defending a larger area and a huge number of troops compared to one very hot spot.

Frankly in that situation the US would be defending against lots of coordinated drone waves, missile strikes, etc. Whereas in this the situation was too fluid for Iran to get missile strikes rolling I presume and I assume their drone capabilities were also limited by the rapidly evolving situation and nature of their mosaic defense which doesn't lend itself to rapid coordinated response.

Sounds like cope. They're not lying about this but you're coping about it for some reason. Sticking your head in the sand when your enemies get a win isn't a good look. AJ is no less/more trustworthy than the AP who are reporting Trump says the rescued war criminal was injured but has been extracted.

People were doing this same cope over the Maduro kidnapping and such. West lies about a lot of things but not these types of situations so much because they're verifiable easily and cause anger and humiliation domestically which isn't acceptable in the way calling an enemy simultaneously weak and strong is.

Iranian government does engage in propaganda and deception as well especially for domestic audiences. I suppose if we can get names of these rescued pilots that I trust the US. If the US hides the names there is a chance then that they're lying and the dead will 'die' in a training accident later this month.

Anything short of Iran saying that they have captured them or that their people lynched them is likely just mincing words for propaganda purposes on Iran's part. US would lie about condition of the crew or about no casualties in rescuing or things like that but not likely about whether they actually rescued them or not. At least not for long. They could maybe bullshit it and justify lying to try and convince Iran to call off searching for them for a short while but it'll leak out within a week if that's not the case and they haven't actually rescued them by that time I think.

Frankly the whole being coy "US is lying" but not saying how says it all to me. If they know a definite lie then say what it is. It's so vague as to be useless except for propaganda purposes and encouraging positive thinking about what happened.

Fake. Second crewmember confirmed recovered by Al Jazeera. Stop repeating badly sourced randoms on social media I beg you people.

Now confirmed by Al Jazeera that the US indeed recovered both crew members successfully.

Al Jazeera as well as other agencies like Xinhua (citing Al Jazeera) say both war criminals have been "rescued". No real ambiguity in this reporting I'm seeing. They're out, they're safe, US succeeded.

I can see them declaring this an Easter miracle and a sign their wicked war god smiles on their vile crusade.

Even having to move from further away searching rough terrain with fast helicopters including with heavy machine-gun fire cover will always be more effective than trying to search on the ground slowly via cars and on foot. The Americans had a MASSIVE advantage in retrieving him due to having air assets while the Iranians were relegated to traversing tough terrain under enemy eyes in the sky via the ground and searching via same. US would have had satellites and other assets including drones searching and pilot would have been letting them know his position.

Short of an Amerikkkan child murderer dropping right on an Iranian city or right on a militia base any kind of remote area ditching always favored the Americans winning the race short of the pilot losing all their comms equipment in the process as well. Frustrating but it is what it is.

What's interesting though is it hasn't been confirmed yet by anyone major. No AP, Reuters, Fox News, etc. They could be waiting to make a big announcement while parading the guy around or it could be the rescue went bad and the guy is actually dead but they got his body or he could have been badly injured in the firefight and they're waiting to see if he makes it before announcing or it could be that the US took heavy casualties retrieving their child murderer so is trying to figure out how to spin this whole situation. And of course it could just be that we're waiting on Trump who wants to make a big pronouncement out of it.

Information in this war is being managed much more tightly than anything else in recent decades. The firing and hollowing out of the Pentagon, State Dept, etc has removed many of the people who would leak this stuff to the press and frightened a lot of the rest into silence.

I'm more than a little annoyed at how the Evangelical maniacs will spin this as an "Easter miracle" and proof god is on their side in their crusade.

Finally, a new Behind Enemy Lines sequel after the one about how heroic they were destroying Yugoslavia and the other one about how heroic they would totally be if they did attack the DPRK and got shot down.

But, but, but I thought private enterprises could act in their own interest! I thought they weren't just arms of the western government apparatus but independent actors! I thought this was one of the mechanisms ensuring we had freedom unlike those authoritarians!!!