The US lost two planes today. First an F-15 was shot down over Western Iran, with the pilot ejecting and reaching the ground. A rescue operation was launched. The rescue operation included some A-10s for ground support. The Iranians managed to hit one of the A10s, but the pilot was able to get back to the Strait before he had to bail out. But apparently the rescue mission was successful, and they were able to get him out safely.

Though it’s still embarrassing for the White House, as they’ve repeatedly claimed that the war was already basically one, and that the Iranian Air Force was already completely decimated.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3r395l91l3o

I think there may be a kernel of truth to the White House’s claim, a claim that ultimately misses the point. A core assumption of Iranian military strategy has long been that they can’t go up against the US directly. They never had a hope of defeating the US directly, so their fall back plan has always been to resist an invasion by having their military dissolve into a vast insurgency force. They train their soldiers on how, in the event of a regime decapitation, to keep operating independently and transition into independent resistance insurgent cells. Like, their official doctrine, and what they teach their soldiers is, “if the Americans invade and topple the government, your job is to all go form al-Qaeda like cells and start fucking shit up. Also, we made sure to teach a bunch of you how to make improvised explosive devices. Become a martyr and free your people! If you kill just one American in the process, you win. We vastly outnumber any number of potential soldiers they could send. If each of us just took out one of them…”

They may have truly greatly devastated the Iranian Air Force. Maybe every Iranian fighter craft is now a pile of flaming wreckage. Maybe all their big radars are knocked out. But that’s just the big stuff. There’s also the small stuff. Small anti-air missile batteries hidden in the backs of delivery vans. ManPADS and other man-portable systems. Maybe they can’t shoot down an F-35 flying at peak altitude, but these lesser systems can shoot down older planes or those flying at lower altitudes. A similar dynamic happened in Ukraine. The Russian Air Force largely flies its planes far from Ukrainian territory, attacking with standoff munitions from extreme range. And the Iranians certainly have tens of thousands of these small anti-aircraft systems scattered across the country. They’re probably keeping them in random barns and random urban apartments. We’re talking something like this:

You’re not sneaking that thing past airport security. But you’re also not tracking that thing via spy satellite. There’s probably systems like these stashed in the personal homes of thousands of IRGC members. Units distributed on a vast scale to trustworthy regime-loyal people.

Remember, the Iranians have been preparing for this for 40 years. Their whole strategy is based on asymmetric warfare. They were never intending to sail and fly out and take on the US Navy and Air Force in direct combat. That’s never been the goal.

The Iranian Air Force may very well have been destroyed. Yet Ukraine managed to sink most of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, even though Ukraine currently lacks any navy of its own.

Imperialism is wrong. Expansionism is perfectly fine. There’s nothing wrong with a nation or people improving their standard of living by gathering more resources and increasing their capabilities. It’s only wrong when that expansion is at the cost of other human beings or the environment.

I’m all in favor of space expansion. Maybe some day we can move our most polluting industries off the Earth’s surface. Hell, my dream would be a world where most people don’t even live on the planet itself. You want to live a big resource intensive life, the equivalent of modern suburban living? Do it in space. Want to do industrial agriculture? Do it in space. Want to run a giant factory? Do it in space. If you want to live on Earth, you have to abide by strict resource utilization and environmental impact rules. Everything else goes to space. The Earth becomes one big nature preserve with a few dense cities and organic farms scattered about.

Only anti-Semites confuse anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.

Genocide should be reserved for actual attempts to remove certain genetic lines from the gene pool, which includes going after the diaspora, the way the Nazis did with Jews in WW2.

So what was the real death toll for the Nazi Jewish genocide? Because while some Jewish groups have distinct genetic lines, many don’t. And Jewish people who were simply ethnic Germans also got sent to the camps. Do they not get counted as part of the Holocaust, as they were only targeted for their religion, not their genetics?

In practice, because human beings tend to marry and have kids at much higher rates within their religious and cultural groups than without, a genocide against a religious group is indistinguishable from a genocide against a genetic lineage. Also, your definition allows for a lot of genocide apologia. Those who want to downplay a genocide can simply say that an ethnic group was merely targeted for some action among that ethnic group. “They weren’t killed for their race. We just made it a capital offense to listen to the music most commonly listened to by members of that race. They were killed for their musical taste, not their race. So it’s not a genocide.”

Literally doing the classic narcissist “look what you made me do!”

Running automated hacking and blackmail campaigns against AI companies.

The UAE and Oman should take the most chaotic approach possible. They should ALSO start blowing up ships in the Straight and demanding they pay tolls!

Somewhere, there’s someone out there that thinks “firing” means “this person was literally thrown into a bonfire.”

Trump pulled a Stalin and purged all his competent generals. He surrounds himself with yes men. It’s the fatal flaw of all authoritarian governments. Turns out it’s a really bad idea to give one person absolute power and to never question their decisions.

And do you think “white people” in the West are a monolith as well? The concept of “Han” sounds pretty damn similar to the concept of “white” in the United States.

That’s not what we’re discussing here. Please stay on topic.

China IS an imperialist country. For fuck’s sake, it was ruled by a literal emperor for millennia. How do you think all those ethnic minorities ended up in China’s borders?

It mandates that all children should be taught Mandarin before kindergarten and up until the end of high school. Previously students could study most of the curriculum in their native language such as Tibetan, Uyghur or Mongolian.

Liar.

My local DMV has forms in all sorts of languages. What are you smoking?

Why can’t I move to China and assimilate into the Uighur or Tibetan population, if that’s something I really want to do? Why does only the dominant imperialist ethnicity get to expect immigrants to learn the language? Maybe it should be the opposite. Maybe every Han person who moves to Western China should have to learn Uighur or Tibetan. After all, they’re immigrants.

but teaching the native population the language of the colonizers

And you don’t think China is a colonial empire that expanded its borders in the exact same way the US or Russia did? Just how exactly do you think China ended up being a majority Han nation ruling over a bunch of ethnic minorities? Skin color or ethnicity is not a prerequisite for imperialism.

Please provide a source for this ridiculous claim. And don’t be lazy and just list countries that have official languages for government business. You said “force.” You can still get by in a place with an official language by doing business at government offices through interpreters. What we’re talking about here is far beyond an official language (which is just the language used in government paperwork.) We’re talking about laws that actually require people to know and speak a specific language.

Prove that even a majority of countries legally require people to know how to speak a specific language, let alone all of them.

Otherwise, I have to conclude that you’re just spreading fascist propaganda.

…The great project you were referring to was a neoliberal one…

I’m an American. I want nukes. Not for my country, me specifically. We should legalize the private ownership of nuclear bombs!

How would the Canadians possibly smuggle a nuke across the border?

“Mr. President, the Canadians have called to apologize for insulting you. They’re also sending an apology gift. It’s a large, golden, 20 foot tall statue in the shape of a moose!”

“Wow, that’s amazing. Bring it to DC at once!”