Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari just held a televised address.
In it, he said the Israeli military is “fully prepared to defend and retaliate” to the Iranian attack, stressing that it would be in a “timely manner”.
Hmm...
Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari just held a televised address.
In it, he said the Israeli military is “fully prepared to defend and retaliate” to the Iranian attack, stressing that it would be in a “timely manner”.
Hmm...
The Washington Post is reporting, citing three anonymous Pentagon officials, that American troops in the Middle East were not targeted during the Iranian missile attack in Israel.
Iraqi group linked to Iran have previously fired rockets at military bases housing US soldiers in Iraq and Syria.
Another sign that Iran is trying to respond, as a deterrent, rather than with an intent to escalate. At least that's what it seems like so far.
Iran’s IRGC say attack on Israel response to killing of Nasrallah
Iran’s Fars news agency is reporting that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the missile attack under way on Israel is in response to the killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah last week as well as that of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh earlier this year.
“In response to the martyrdom of Ismail Haniyeh, Hassan Nasrallah and (IRGC Guards commander) Nilforoshan, we targeted the heart of the occupied territories,” the IRGC said in a statement.
So seems like Iran intends this to be a one and done response for everything Israel has done the last few months.
Depends on Israels response. When Iran did this in April in retaliation for Israel bombing an Iranean embassy, Iran was like "we have retaliated and are good now", Israel responded but it was limited, and status quo was restored.
If Israel decides to escalate (which is their default play lately), or if Iranean missiles hit forcing them to retaliate, there could be all out war, including involving the US.
If you want a hint of what's to come:
The far-right Israeli finance minister (Bezalel Smotrich) writes on social media: “Like Gaza, Hezbollah and the state of Lebanon, Iran will regret the moment.”
As someone else said, eminent domain is a legal process, and thus time consuming. If I remember correctly, CAHs plan or gimmick was they were going to divide up the land into very small pieces, like 1ft sq, and give it to customers. I think it might have been a black Friday sale gimmick. The idea being there would be hundreds of thousands of people with ownership of border wall land, requiring hundreds or thousands of eminent domain lawsuits to be filed. Not a ironclad solution but, in theory, an impressive way to jam up the wall project. I assume the land in question is part of this gimmick.
My guess is that scale and influence have a lot to do with
To break this down a little, first of all "my guess". You are guessing because the government which is literally enacting a speech restriction hasn't explained its rational for banning one potential source of disinformation vs actual sources of disinformation. So you are left in the position of guessing. To put a finer point on it, you are in the position of assuming the government is acting with good intentions and doing the labor of searching for a justification that fits with that assumption. Reminds me of the Iraq war when so many conversations I had with people had their default argument be "the government wouldn't do this if they didn't have a good reason". I don't like to be cynical, and I don't want to be a "both sides, all politicians are corrupt" kind of guy, but I think it's pretty clear in this case there is every reason to be cynical. This was just an unfortunate confluence of anti Chinese hate and fear, anti young people hate, and big tech donations that resulted in the government banning a platform used by millions of Americans to disseminate speech. But because Dems helped do it, so many people feel the need to reflexively defend it, even forcing them to "guess" and make up rationales.
As far as influence and reach, obviously that's not in the bill. Influence is straight out, RT is highly influential in right wing spaces. In terms of numbers of users, that just goes to the profit potential that our good ol American firms are missing out on.
If the US was concerned with propaganda or whatever, they could just regulate the content available on all platforms. They could require all platforms to have transparency around algorithms for recommending content. They could require oversight of how all social media companies operate, much like they do with financial firms or are trying to do with big AI platforms.
But they didn't. Because they are not attacking a specific problem, they are attacking a specific company.
Also RT has been removed from most broadcasters and App Stores in the US.
Broadcasters voluntarily dropped it after 2016, I think it's still available on some including dish. As far as app stores, that's just false, I just checked the Play store and it's right there ready to download and fill my head with propaganda.
The US owns and regulates the frequencies TV and radio are broadcast on. The Internet is not the same. If the threat of foreign propaganda is the purpose, why can I download the official RT (Russia Today, government run propaganda outlet) app in the Play Store? If the US is worried about a foreign government spreading propaganda, why are they targeting the popular social media app that could theoretically (but no evidence it's been done yet) be used for propaganda, instead of the actual Russian propaganda app? Hell I can download the south china morning post right from the Play store, straight Chinese propaganda! There are also dozens of Chinese and other foreign adversary run social media platforms, and other apps that could "micro target political messaging campaigns" available. So why did the US Congress single out one single app for punishment?
Money. The problem isn't propaganda. The problem is money. The problem is tik Tok is or is on the course to be more popular than our American social media platforms. The problem is American firms are being outcompeted in the marketplace, and the government is stepping in to protect the American data mining market. The problem is young people are trading their data for tik toks, instead of giving that data over to be sold to us advertising networks in exchange for YouTube shorts and Instagram stories. If the problem was propaganda, the US would go after propaganda. If the problem is just a Chinese company offers a better product than US companies, then there's no reason to draft nuanced legislation that goes after all potential foreign influence vectors, you just ban the one app that is hurting the share price of your donors.
That's generally true, and if I'm going to be stuck with an American government excusing Israels war crimes, it might as well be one that protects abortion, but there is a big stupid "but" to go with that. Trump hates bibi. Not because of any considered foreign policy thing, but because Trump is mad bibi called biden to congratulate him on winning the election. Trump never has forgiven bibi for this, and has been criticizing bibi on the trail because of it. Our politics are fucked, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
My little sister was the special one, deserving of all the praise and the you can do anything attitude. I was the fuckup, who would be lucky to graduate high school. I wasn't discouraged, just not encouraged. A lost cause I guess, ignored mostly except when I needed the occasional bail or whatnot. My sister wanted to pursue her dream of being an actor, but never made it, worked at a theme park to pay the bills while doing student films (long after she was a student), eventually getting divorced and working some copy editing or marketing type gig for a small company. She is not on speaking terms with the family, something about accusing mom of writing a negative comment on the YouTube video of one of those student films. I meanwhile had bungled through college, but with the help of my then girlfriend and now wife ended up as a fairly successful attorney. I'm not the "the" of anything really, but I'm doing pretty good considering my background and low expectations.
I remember having dinner with my family at one point when I was in college. I had started as a music major, but switched to poli sci before going to law school route. I remember my sister saying it was "sad and depressing" that I gave up my dreams of playing music, while she was pursuing her dream of being an actor. Ten years later I have a good income, a job I generally enjoy, a good family, etc. my sister is divorced, never achieved her dreams, is working a soul sucking dead end job, seems close to broke, and is isolated from her family.
I think about that a lot now that I have a baby of my own. I want to encourage the kid, follow your dreams, you can be anything etc. But at the same time I don't want my kid to end up like my sister. I don't know the answer. Maybe it's a middle ground of "chase your dreams, but be reasonable, and life isn't just about fake and racking up accomplishments, enjoy normal things, don't pursue fame and fortune as if it's the only thing that will bring happiness".
It is such a handmaid's tale view of the world, that all of society should be ordered around producing children. Dogs are bad because they become substitute children and distract us from having human children. IVF is bad because it gives people the option to delay having children. Contraception is bad, because duh no children. Every policy or institution or thing of any kind in society is judged solely on its impact of generating more children as often as possible.
I just can't get my head around what is motivating this world view. I usually try to make it a point of understanding where the other side is coming from, but Waltz is right, these people are just weird.
That's an interesting point. I wonder if it works better for Harris, having been in DC so long, does she claim that as her residence?
There is a significant difference between proxies and a direct missile attack launched by a nation-state. Just as there is a significant difference between the US arming a genocidal state, and the US actually dropping bombs directly on civilians. Not to say Iran and the US are not blameless for the actions of their proxies, but there are degrees here that are significant. You kneejerk "Iran bad, Israel good" view of the world is devoid of nuance. Maybe you should get yourself a twitch stream.