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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On June 06 2017 02:05 riotjune wrote:
20 shots 1 kill!
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/us/2-years-after-116-police-bullets-flew-few-answers.html
Never forget. 116 bullets into a drunk driver's car that crashed. Sure, the man was a criminal and put people in danger. But that doesn't mean they should dump entire clips into the car for a full minute.
Shortly before 4 a.m., police radio reports streamed in of a “fleeing” vehicle traveling at “a high rate of speed” down Collins Avenue. The police later said the driver was on the wrong side of the road, driving recklessly, endangering pedestrians and almost slamming into several officers on bike patrol. One officer was injured, the police said.
A police officer tried to stop the fleeing Hyundai. When it continued, four Hialeah officers fired shots toward it.
“Shots fired. Shots fired,” officers are heard saying over the radio. But nobody said anything about who fired the shots — officers, bystanders, Mr. Herisse — leaving officers to guess.
As the car traveled another two blocks down Collins Avenue, eight Miami Beach police officers saw it coming toward them, which is when the YouTube video starts. The car’s windows are tinted, and they cannot see inside.
Nobody has yet explained what set off the barrage of gunfire a full minute after the car stopped.
“He fled from four other officers, and one is hurt,” said Alex Bello, the president of the Miami Beach Fraternal Order of Police. “Whether he put his hands underneath the seat to grab his gun or not, the officers all saw something.”
If there is a threat, he said: “We don’t try to shoot them in the knee. We shoot to stop the threat.”
But Bradley Winston, a lawyer whose client, Sarah Garcia, was shot twice, sees it differently.
“The police response was so disproportionate,” he said. “It’s the dictionary definition of overkill.”
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On June 06 2017 01:57 LegalLord wrote:
So, though this might lead to a regretful direction, I think it's on the line of the current discussion: I wonder if reducing gun ownership would also help get rid of George Zimmerman figures. Sure, that was a use of self defense and he was not guilty legally, but I'm pretty sure all of us by now can agree that he was a scummy guy who put himself in a situation that led to the danger to his life. What do people think of the "guns empower stupid wannabe heroes" issue?
I think it's true to a fair degree that that occurs, and reducing guns would presumptively cut down on it. I haven't seen hard data, or even decent soft data on it.
it'd also help if there were simply more required training/standards for gun ownership; a la driver's license.
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On June 06 2017 02:09 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2017 02:01 On_Slaught wrote:
Outside of tier 2 and up special operations guys and select SWAT teams, there is basically nobody in this country I would trust in a shootout to be accurate and effective. We don't need to turn every shooting into the O.K. corral. And I say this as someone with a CCW. You can trust me. I'll save the day with my 4 years USMC training with rifles. As long as the target is paper and not moving and we have ideal wind conditions. /s (but not really)
Wait, is the /s tag for the "as long as the target is paper" etc and you can in fact hit people while they're on the move? Or does the "(but not really)" negate the /s and you can't do that after all? Or does the /s refer to "you can trust me" and is THAT negated by the "(but not really)"?
I'm so confused...
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Four months into his presidency, Donald Trump has filled only five of the 53 top jobs at the Pentagon – the slowest pace for nominations and confirmations in over half a century.
Several of his high-profile picks, including Navy and Army secretary nominees, have had to withdraw because of their business entanglements. In other cases, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has clashed with the White House, which has blacklisted national security and defense leaders who publicly disagreed with Trump during the 2016 campaign, according to several current and former defense officials.
“In the vetting process there is a lot of scrutiny of social media accounts, Twitter . . . any hint of something negative about Trump as a candidate can be disqualifying, and a lot of people haven’t made it through that filter,” said Christine Wormuth, who served as the Pentagon’s top policy official from 2014 to 2016, under former President Barack Obama’s administration.
The investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials is also scaring off people who had been on the fence about joining the administration. Even the opportunity to work under Mattis, who many of the potential picks know and respect, may not be enough.
“With, frankly, the chaos that is happening, people who might have been open to it are asking themselves ‘Do I want to join this administration? How much of an impact will I have? Will I have to get a lawyer?’” Wormuth said.
Trump’s nominees for top Pentagon posts have taken an average of 38 days to be confirmed, compared to 22 days under Obama, 23 during George W. Bush’s administration and 17 during Bill Clinton’s tenure, according to an analysis provided to McClatchy by the Partnership for Public Service, a non-partisan nonprofit that runs programs aimed at improving government hiring.
By this point in Obama’s presidency, 16 appointees had been confirmed and 24 nominated. By June 2, 2001, Bush had 12 confirmed and nominated 17. Trump has seen five confirmed after nominating 12.
The problem isn’t that the Senate isn’t confirming Trump’s picks, but that dozens of national security posts still don’t have nominees. In the meantime, a skeleton crew of holdovers from the Obama administration and career civil servants are doing the day-to-day work at the Defense Department.
“It’s not as if these jobs are in fact vacant, but it’s the equivalent of a substitute teacher,” said Max Stier, who leads the Partnership for Public Service. “Since they are not perceived as having long-term authority, they don’t view their role as addressing those long-term issues and this leads to important decisions being kicked down the road.”
The same issue is mirrored at the State Department, which has eight confirmed appointees out of 120 positions to fill. With the vacancies there and at the Pentagon, policy roles are in limbo at a time when the U.S. faces challenges on multiple fronts, from the Islamic State to Russia, North Korea and China. Trump has filled two of the 16 top jobs at the Department of Homeland Security.
Until early May, Mattis was the the only Pentagon appointee who had been confirmed. Since then, the Senate has confirmed four other appointees: former New Mexico Rep. Heather Wilson as secretary of the Air Force, David Norquist to be comptroller, Robert Story Karem as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, and Kari Bingen as principal deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence.
Even if the White House picks up the pace, there will be a significant backlog.
“The Senate can only review so many people at any given time,” Stier said. “It has to deal with competing priorities, healthcare, tax reform . . . Part of the challenge is that by not moving quickly at the beginning you wind up blocking the tracks.”
Trump’s loyalty snag is widely discussed within the national security community, but few defense and security experts will talk about it on the record. Privately, they say the White House is working with a much shorter list of candidates than usual, given that a large number of senior Republican national security officials signed the so-called “Never Trump” letters before the election.
Dozens of experienced national security officials who would have been natural fits for leadership posts, many of them former cabinet members or top aides to Bush, signed a public letter last August saying they would not vote for Trump.
“We are convinced that he would be a dangerous president and would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being,” they wrote in the letter.
Between them and the more than 120 national security leaders who had signed another letter a few months earlier, there are roughly 150 top Republican national security and defense officials that the Trump administration won’t consider.
Mattis wanted Michèle Flournoy, the former undersecretary of defense under Obama, to consider becoming his deputy. When she was interviewed by Trump aides, she was asked “What would it take for you to resign?” she told the New Yorker in an interview. She told Mattis she couldn’t take the job.
Trump ended up tapping Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan for the No. 2 spot in the Pentagon, but two months after his appointment was announced his nomination still has not been submitted formally to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
As with other leaders Trump has tapped from the private sector, the stringent scrutiny of their finances causes a delay. Nominees who go through the process with the Defense Department and the Senate Armed Services Committee have to adhere to strict guidelines that bar them from owning stock and bonds in companies that have Pentagon contracts.
Army secretary nominee Vincent Viola and Navy secretary nominee Philip Bilden withdrew their names after citing difficulties disentangling from their businesses. The second Army secretary nominee, Tennessee state senator Mark Green, withdrew after a fierce backlash because of anti-gay and anti-Muslim remarks he had made.
“Even if you have all your paperwork in order, it’s a really lengthy, substantial process, especially coming from the business community,” said Katherine Kidder, a military personnel expert at the Center for a New American Security.
Given that so many nominees are experienced professionals between the ages of 50 and 65 “if you are facing down retirement it can also be risky to divest,” said Kidder, who served on the defense policy team for Marco Rubio’s 2016 campaign.
When it comes to the military, Trump “has said with his budget it’s a priority, he’s said with his rhetoric it’s a priority, but he has not gone about making [these appointments] a priority,” Kidder said.
This has resulted in several communications mishaps on the international stage. In one case cited by defense officials that could easily have been prevented by effective communication, Trump announced that the U.S. was sending a naval “armada” as a powerful deterrent to North Korea. Meanwhile, the USS Carl Vinson was actually on its way to participate in military exercises 3,500 miles in the opposite direction.
In another, Mattis was taken by surprise when Gen. John Nicholson, the Army general commanding forces in Afghanistan, decided to drop the largest nonnuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal on Islamic State targets.
More seriously, the near-standstill in filling the empty positions is hampering the Pentagon’s ability to plan long-term policy. The National Defense Strategy review, which attempts a cohesive U.S. defense strategy and policy, would usually be led at the undersecretary or assistant secretary level. It’s a complicated process in the best of circumstances, and not having a full team in place will hinder Mattis’ ability to lay out strategic guidance early on.
Source
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On June 06 2017 02:12 a_flayer wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2017 02:09 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On June 06 2017 02:01 On_Slaught wrote:
Outside of tier 2 and up special operations guys and select SWAT teams, there is basically nobody in this country I would trust in a shootout to be accurate and effective. We don't need to turn every shooting into the O.K. corral. And I say this as someone with a CCW. You can trust me. I'll save the day with my 4 years USMC training with rifles. As long as the target is paper and not moving and we have ideal wind conditions. /s (but not really) Wait, is the /s tag for the "as long as the target is paper" etc and you can in fact hit people while they're on the move? Or does the "(but not really)" negate the /s and you can't do that after all? Or does the /s refer to "you can trust me"? I'm so confused...
I'm going with flippant, but really could save us if our attackers were stationary and made of paper, with minimal interference from the wind.
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Ok, predictions now:
Poll: Does the White House ever address it's staffing problems?They give it the old college try: 70% by 2018 (13) 65% We still don't have and FBI director by 2018 (7) 35% Of course 90% staff up by 2018 (0) 0% Close enough for horse shoes. 80% by 2018 (0) 0% 20 total votes Your vote: Does the White House ever address it's staffing problems? (Vote): Of course 90% staff up by 2018
(Vote): Close enough for horse shoes. 80% by 2018
(Vote): They give it the old college try: 70% by 2018
(Vote): We still don't have and FBI director by 2018
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Going with 70 percent. He will get around to it eventually. Mostly.
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are we talking like staffing across the executive branch (ambassadors and deputy secretaries) or like the white house staff (gardeners and janitors)?
70% but they will have undergone extreme vetting and be the most qualified staff of all history.
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How about ambassadors? Still no ambassador to the EU afaik.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On June 06 2017 02:21 a_flayer wrote:
How about ambassadors? Still no ambassador to the EU afaik.
Honestly, that doesn't sound like something Trump would consider a priority. Why bother? We only negotiate bilaterally anyways (Trump logic).
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Of course, it is impossible to measure any accuracy. But lets keep it broad enough to cover jobs that executive branch should be filling, including ambassadors.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Montenegro is now officially part of NATO. Kind of a liability, but eh. I don't think it would be consequential one way or the other.
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Is Serbia the only one left in that immediate area that isn't a member? It seems a little redundant since Romania is a member anyways.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia aren't members as well. Nor Kosovo.
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On June 06 2017 02:12 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +Four months into his presidency, Donald Trump has filled only five of the 53 top jobs at the Pentagon – the slowest pace for nominations and confirmations in over half a century.
Several of his high-profile picks, including Navy and Army secretary nominees, have had to withdraw because of their business entanglements. In other cases, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has clashed with the White House, which has blacklisted national security and defense leaders who publicly disagreed with Trump during the 2016 campaign, according to several current and former defense officials.
“In the vetting process there is a lot of scrutiny of social media accounts, Twitter . . . any hint of something negative about Trump as a candidate can be disqualifying, and a lot of people haven’t made it through that filter,” said Christine Wormuth, who served as the Pentagon’s top policy official from 2014 to 2016, under former President Barack Obama’s administration.
The investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials is also scaring off people who had been on the fence about joining the administration. Even the opportunity to work under Mattis, who many of the potential picks know and respect, may not be enough.
“With, frankly, the chaos that is happening, people who might have been open to it are asking themselves ‘Do I want to join this administration? How much of an impact will I have? Will I have to get a lawyer?’” Wormuth said.
Trump’s nominees for top Pentagon posts have taken an average of 38 days to be confirmed, compared to 22 days under Obama, 23 during George W. Bush’s administration and 17 during Bill Clinton’s tenure, according to an analysis provided to McClatchy by the Partnership for Public Service, a non-partisan nonprofit that runs programs aimed at improving government hiring.
By this point in Obama’s presidency, 16 appointees had been confirmed and 24 nominated. By June 2, 2001, Bush had 12 confirmed and nominated 17. Trump has seen five confirmed after nominating 12.
The problem isn’t that the Senate isn’t confirming Trump’s picks, but that dozens of national security posts still don’t have nominees. In the meantime, a skeleton crew of holdovers from the Obama administration and career civil servants are doing the day-to-day work at the Defense Department.
“It’s not as if these jobs are in fact vacant, but it’s the equivalent of a substitute teacher,” said Max Stier, who leads the Partnership for Public Service. “Since they are not perceived as having long-term authority, they don’t view their role as addressing those long-term issues and this leads to important decisions being kicked down the road.”
The same issue is mirrored at the State Department, which has eight confirmed appointees out of 120 positions to fill. With the vacancies there and at the Pentagon, policy roles are in limbo at a time when the U.S. faces challenges on multiple fronts, from the Islamic State to Russia, North Korea and China. Trump has filled two of the 16 top jobs at the Department of Homeland Security.
Until early May, Mattis was the the only Pentagon appointee who had been confirmed. Since then, the Senate has confirmed four other appointees: former New Mexico Rep. Heather Wilson as secretary of the Air Force, David Norquist to be comptroller, Robert Story Karem as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, and Kari Bingen as principal deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence.
Even if the White House picks up the pace, there will be a significant backlog.
“The Senate can only review so many people at any given time,” Stier said. “It has to deal with competing priorities, healthcare, tax reform . . . Part of the challenge is that by not moving quickly at the beginning you wind up blocking the tracks.”
Trump’s loyalty snag is widely discussed within the national security community, but few defense and security experts will talk about it on the record. Privately, they say the White House is working with a much shorter list of candidates than usual, given that a large number of senior Republican national security officials signed the so-called “Never Trump” letters before the election.
Dozens of experienced national security officials who would have been natural fits for leadership posts, many of them former cabinet members or top aides to Bush, signed a public letter last August saying they would not vote for Trump.
“We are convinced that he would be a dangerous president and would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being,” they wrote in the letter.
Between them and the more than 120 national security leaders who had signed another letter a few months earlier, there are roughly 150 top Republican national security and defense officials that the Trump administration won’t consider.
Mattis wanted Michèle Flournoy, the former undersecretary of defense under Obama, to consider becoming his deputy. When she was interviewed by Trump aides, she was asked “What would it take for you to resign?” she told the New Yorker in an interview. She told Mattis she couldn’t take the job.
Trump ended up tapping Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan for the No. 2 spot in the Pentagon, but two months after his appointment was announced his nomination still has not been submitted formally to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
As with other leaders Trump has tapped from the private sector, the stringent scrutiny of their finances causes a delay. Nominees who go through the process with the Defense Department and the Senate Armed Services Committee have to adhere to strict guidelines that bar them from owning stock and bonds in companies that have Pentagon contracts.
Army secretary nominee Vincent Viola and Navy secretary nominee Philip Bilden withdrew their names after citing difficulties disentangling from their businesses. The second Army secretary nominee, Tennessee state senator Mark Green, withdrew after a fierce backlash because of anti-gay and anti-Muslim remarks he had made.
“Even if you have all your paperwork in order, it’s a really lengthy, substantial process, especially coming from the business community,” said Katherine Kidder, a military personnel expert at the Center for a New American Security.
Given that so many nominees are experienced professionals between the ages of 50 and 65 “if you are facing down retirement it can also be risky to divest,” said Kidder, who served on the defense policy team for Marco Rubio’s 2016 campaign.
When it comes to the military, Trump “has said with his budget it’s a priority, he’s said with his rhetoric it’s a priority, but he has not gone about making [these appointments] a priority,” Kidder said.
This has resulted in several communications mishaps on the international stage. In one case cited by defense officials that could easily have been prevented by effective communication, Trump announced that the U.S. was sending a naval “armada” as a powerful deterrent to North Korea. Meanwhile, the USS Carl Vinson was actually on its way to participate in military exercises 3,500 miles in the opposite direction.
In another, Mattis was taken by surprise when Gen. John Nicholson, the Army general commanding forces in Afghanistan, decided to drop the largest nonnuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal on Islamic State targets.
More seriously, the near-standstill in filling the empty positions is hampering the Pentagon’s ability to plan long-term policy. The National Defense Strategy review, which attempts a cohesive U.S. defense strategy and policy, would usually be led at the undersecretary or assistant secretary level. It’s a complicated process in the best of circumstances, and not having a full team in place will hinder Mattis’ ability to lay out strategic guidance early on. Source
Huh. I wonder if they also look at prospective candidates' postings on sites like TL. Would not surprise me (then again, I'm not sure Trump knows about online social interaction beyond Twitter and Facebook).
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On June 06 2017 02:39 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2017 02:12 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Four months into his presidency, Donald Trump has filled only five of the 53 top jobs at the Pentagon – the slowest pace for nominations and confirmations in over half a century.
Several of his high-profile picks, including Navy and Army secretary nominees, have had to withdraw because of their business entanglements. In other cases, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has clashed with the White House, which has blacklisted national security and defense leaders who publicly disagreed with Trump during the 2016 campaign, according to several current and former defense officials.
“In the vetting process there is a lot of scrutiny of social media accounts, Twitter . . . any hint of something negative about Trump as a candidate can be disqualifying, and a lot of people haven’t made it through that filter,” said Christine Wormuth, who served as the Pentagon’s top policy official from 2014 to 2016, under former President Barack Obama’s administration.
The investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials is also scaring off people who had been on the fence about joining the administration. Even the opportunity to work under Mattis, who many of the potential picks know and respect, may not be enough.
“With, frankly, the chaos that is happening, people who might have been open to it are asking themselves ‘Do I want to join this administration? How much of an impact will I have? Will I have to get a lawyer?’” Wormuth said.
Trump’s nominees for top Pentagon posts have taken an average of 38 days to be confirmed, compared to 22 days under Obama, 23 during George W. Bush’s administration and 17 during Bill Clinton’s tenure, according to an analysis provided to McClatchy by the Partnership for Public Service, a non-partisan nonprofit that runs programs aimed at improving government hiring.
By this point in Obama’s presidency, 16 appointees had been confirmed and 24 nominated. By June 2, 2001, Bush had 12 confirmed and nominated 17. Trump has seen five confirmed after nominating 12.
The problem isn’t that the Senate isn’t confirming Trump’s picks, but that dozens of national security posts still don’t have nominees. In the meantime, a skeleton crew of holdovers from the Obama administration and career civil servants are doing the day-to-day work at the Defense Department.
“It’s not as if these jobs are in fact vacant, but it’s the equivalent of a substitute teacher,” said Max Stier, who leads the Partnership for Public Service. “Since they are not perceived as having long-term authority, they don’t view their role as addressing those long-term issues and this leads to important decisions being kicked down the road.”
The same issue is mirrored at the State Department, which has eight confirmed appointees out of 120 positions to fill. With the vacancies there and at the Pentagon, policy roles are in limbo at a time when the U.S. faces challenges on multiple fronts, from the Islamic State to Russia, North Korea and China. Trump has filled two of the 16 top jobs at the Department of Homeland Security.
Until early May, Mattis was the the only Pentagon appointee who had been confirmed. Since then, the Senate has confirmed four other appointees: former New Mexico Rep. Heather Wilson as secretary of the Air Force, David Norquist to be comptroller, Robert Story Karem as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, and Kari Bingen as principal deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence.
Even if the White House picks up the pace, there will be a significant backlog.
“The Senate can only review so many people at any given time,” Stier said. “It has to deal with competing priorities, healthcare, tax reform . . . Part of the challenge is that by not moving quickly at the beginning you wind up blocking the tracks.”
Trump’s loyalty snag is widely discussed within the national security community, but few defense and security experts will talk about it on the record. Privately, they say the White House is working with a much shorter list of candidates than usual, given that a large number of senior Republican national security officials signed the so-called “Never Trump” letters before the election.
Dozens of experienced national security officials who would have been natural fits for leadership posts, many of them former cabinet members or top aides to Bush, signed a public letter last August saying they would not vote for Trump.
“We are convinced that he would be a dangerous president and would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being,” they wrote in the letter.
Between them and the more than 120 national security leaders who had signed another letter a few months earlier, there are roughly 150 top Republican national security and defense officials that the Trump administration won’t consider.
Mattis wanted Michèle Flournoy, the former undersecretary of defense under Obama, to consider becoming his deputy. When she was interviewed by Trump aides, she was asked “What would it take for you to resign?” she told the New Yorker in an interview. She told Mattis she couldn’t take the job.
Trump ended up tapping Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan for the No. 2 spot in the Pentagon, but two months after his appointment was announced his nomination still has not been submitted formally to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
As with other leaders Trump has tapped from the private sector, the stringent scrutiny of their finances causes a delay. Nominees who go through the process with the Defense Department and the Senate Armed Services Committee have to adhere to strict guidelines that bar them from owning stock and bonds in companies that have Pentagon contracts.
Army secretary nominee Vincent Viola and Navy secretary nominee Philip Bilden withdrew their names after citing difficulties disentangling from their businesses. The second Army secretary nominee, Tennessee state senator Mark Green, withdrew after a fierce backlash because of anti-gay and anti-Muslim remarks he had made.
“Even if you have all your paperwork in order, it’s a really lengthy, substantial process, especially coming from the business community,” said Katherine Kidder, a military personnel expert at the Center for a New American Security.
Given that so many nominees are experienced professionals between the ages of 50 and 65 “if you are facing down retirement it can also be risky to divest,” said Kidder, who served on the defense policy team for Marco Rubio’s 2016 campaign.
When it comes to the military, Trump “has said with his budget it’s a priority, he’s said with his rhetoric it’s a priority, but he has not gone about making [these appointments] a priority,” Kidder said.
This has resulted in several communications mishaps on the international stage. In one case cited by defense officials that could easily have been prevented by effective communication, Trump announced that the U.S. was sending a naval “armada” as a powerful deterrent to North Korea. Meanwhile, the USS Carl Vinson was actually on its way to participate in military exercises 3,500 miles in the opposite direction.
In another, Mattis was taken by surprise when Gen. John Nicholson, the Army general commanding forces in Afghanistan, decided to drop the largest nonnuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal on Islamic State targets.
More seriously, the near-standstill in filling the empty positions is hampering the Pentagon’s ability to plan long-term policy. The National Defense Strategy review, which attempts a cohesive U.S. defense strategy and policy, would usually be led at the undersecretary or assistant secretary level. It’s a complicated process in the best of circumstances, and not having a full team in place will hinder Mattis’ ability to lay out strategic guidance early on. Source Huh. I wonder if they also look at prospective candidates' postings on sites like TL. Would not surprise me (then again, I'm not sure Trump knows about online social interaction beyond Twitter and Facebook).
Ideally, remain anonymous enough while posting online so that no one can find RL you from it. Rarely would people look goodly upon you for posts on a gaming forum if they stumbled upon your posts there.
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Did we talk about the Qatar thing yet? I can't help but thing that Trump's visit and attacking Iran during it weirdly emboldened Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Or maybe they just made the call that there would be no consequences after meeting him.
It is going to get weird if we need to give up that air base if Qatar decides Iran is their new buddy.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
In the Iraq thread it was mentioned. Not much discussion though; honestly the issue is that most of us just don't know much about what happened there.
Al Jazeera is Qatari though, right?
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On June 06 2017 02:48 LegalLord wrote:
In the Iraq thread it was mentioned. Not much discussion though; honestly the issue is that most of us just don't know much about what happened there.
Al Jazeera is Qatari though, right?
aye; I think we're mostly in a wait and see mode right now to see what shakes out of all this.
and it hasn't turned into a political football yet.
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I am reserving judgment as well. It is really hard to read what our allies are doing and everyone from the State department seems to be taking a soft touch. Cutting off all diplomatic ties would be a big move in EU/US/Asia, but I don’t know if it is seen the same way in the Middle East.
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EPT
