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D F Barr's avatar

Mark made the big time again. Just noticed Mark is a guest on the gold goats and guns podcast today. Time to give it a listen.

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Ray-SoCa's avatar

Alexander Mercoulis posited the North Korean missiles are being hyped as a way to justify more Western Ukraine support.

Since North Korea is so vilified.

Makes sense to me.

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Jan 7, 2024
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Steghorn21's avatar

Beat me to it. The road has to come out somewhere in Ukraine, and the Russians have the capability to hit anything coming out of it.

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Ray-SoCa's avatar

Russians are hitting the long supply line hard, I think it’s 450 miles long.

The loss of the black sea supply's route is huge for the Ukrainians.

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Mark Wauck's avatar

That's only the entry point. If significant stock came in it would have to be stored, then moved east. It can be tracked. Long shot: Belarus is much closer than the eastern front. But they definitely have the missiles to reach it.

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Jan 8, 2024
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Mark Wauck's avatar

I share your doubts. Granted, many shipments could be coming in disguised as civilian use stuff. But hiding tanks and other armored vehicles? Not so easy. Even hiding truckloads of, say, 155mm shells, would not be easy--to move that kind of stuff in bulk for any distance would require trains or special duty trucks, IMO. Not practical to support a military the size and type of the UA one using "clandestine" means over the kind of distances we're talking about. Let alone mass it for use in an offensive. I did read a tweet thread this morning that discussed a bit how the Russians have worked over the behind the front traffic. The Russians have had satellite surveillance capabilities going back to the Cold War, and they've only gotten better. But the disconnect can come in taking practical measures. Ukraine is a very large place, Putin has refrained from "big arrow" offensives, preferring an attritional approach that requires lower numbers of troops and equipment per mile of border (v. active fronts). That is changing, as we see from the higher intensity attacks lately.

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Jan 7, 2024
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Kieran Telo's avatar

Aw, so it has all been infantile tantrums taken in bad faith..?

<<... [Israel] reportedly plans to argue at the ICJ that some of the officials quoted in South Africa's application "are not decision-makers"—and those who are "didn't mean what they said." >>

I'm guessing the latter would not be all that keen to stand up and say that "... actually, I was just being a big silly and what I had meant to say was [insert soothing words here]"....

... any more than the merely influential ones, y'know like the Zaka volunteers who found the deep fried baby, and held press conferences saying so, would be prepared to admit otherwise.

Is Boris "...mistakes were made..." Johnson advising the legal team perhaps?

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Jan 8, 2024
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Mark Wauck's avatar

For normal people that's a problem.

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Kieran Telo's avatar

No dispute there Frances.

Stepping outside of ideology is not possible (or so said Louis Althusser) but maybe that won't cut it as a defence, so they are going to have to try and prove that the wicked deeds themselves aren't the salient point, but merely how they are classified. Tricky approach to take when appearing before a court established by United Nations Charter when you have demonstrably caused the deaths of 136 of their employees since 23/10/07. (Not including family members, etc)

My memory may be fooling me but didn't Bibi say that no actions taken by members of the IOF would leave them vulnerable to prosecution? And, in any case, more recently, that there can't be an unvestigation until "the war is over". Quoting Haaretz "State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government that he was set to start examining a series of issues related to the war this week"

Here's the link while I toddle off to see what a Comptroller actually is ;-)

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-06/ty-article/.premium/as-netanyahu-tries-to-delay-idf-probe-state-watchdog-begins-review-of-armys-gaza-conduct/0000018c-dfc6-daf6-a5df-dffe871c0000

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Kieran Telo's avatar

Unvestigation was a typo but I quite like it

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