https://archive.ph/OrJKT

Germany sees surge in conscientious objectors amid new conscription law

Germany has seen a spike in conscientious objector applications after new conscription laws, as debate over military service and security continues to intensify.

the Aq Tekeh-Khan bridge, bombed on the 9th (https://xcancel.com/bonzerbarry/status/2075002479176028644) is back in action https://xcancel.com/bonzerbarry/status/2077006678633947273

Back in service. Seems like the whole point of this deep strike really was to just stop mourners from reaching Mashhad. I bet it was Trump’s idea. He was not happy about all the mourners.

https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/2077005538311684096/vid/avc1/1280x720/5yLU6v0dslYw_IfG.mp4

https://x.com/ripplebrain/status/2076673598169702460 (privated account so you may not be able to open it, and xcancel doesn't really do any good in this case)

Let's say the US and Iran are both serious about the strait - it would require the US to have a huge permanently deployed (but not too close) force to play whack a drone and whack a missile in perpetuity. The end result would be much less petroleum throughput through the strait, structurally higher shipping costs, ships getting hit at least monthly despite best efforts and of course putting people in harm's way on a daily basis. I am not sure how you spin that as a win if we are still here in six month or a year.

Whack a drone doesn't work. The force currently deployed to the region is around half of the USN's deployed assets, includes two CSGs, and has significant support from ground-based AD. And yet, Iran has struck around half a dozen commercial vessels in the past few days. If that force is incapable of protecting shipping from drones, no force on earth is. This position is checkmate. The rest of the war is mostly a distraction.

The current US strategy is based around the idea that you can pull some lever to get the Iranians to give up this absolute advantage. A counter-blockade, more standoff strikes, and additional abortive ground operations out of Kurdistan seem to be the only tools they have. There's no reason to think any of those will work. At the time the Iranians resumed strikes on commercial vessels, the Bush and Lincoln groups were closer than they've ever been to the strait. That was the test, if the USN was capable of scoring a 100% interception rate on drones over the strait it would be with those assets in that position, after 30,000 strikes on Iran. They failed. This was effortless to predict. "The drone will always get through" is a reasonable conclusion a casual observer could glean from watching the war in Ukraine. The Russians do put up some impressive performances and have occasionally achieved 100% interception rates on drone waves numbering in the hundreds, but this is because they have hundreds of miles of their own territory to shoot them down over. The geography of the Persian Gulf is a worst case scenario for this.

https://xcancel.com/lukeisamazing/status/2076682855380312207

De Beers is shuttering its South African diamond mine for two years in order to save costs, while the industry faces plunging prices and an extreme glut

China crashing the blood diamond industry is such a great story, really brings a tear to my eye

https://xcancel.com/hueoops/status/2076690376048431283

Over the past 34 years, healthcare has replaced manufacturing as the top employer in the vast majority of states.

the only real economic engine for amerika B are all these necropolises sprouting up (“retirement communities” and hospice “care”) for the geriatrics. This country is about to be a giant ghost town once this dries up lol

https://xcancel.com/Goofposter/status/2076696268676767752

I have been job hunting for months and literally the only places offering graveyard shifts anymore are assisted living places that all look comically sketchy

my grandma friend spends $6000 a month on her retirement community and it’s hell on earth

My grandmothers rent at her assisted living facility was 16,000 a month...

https://x.com/ripplebrain/status/2076837541559373879 (privated account so you may not be able to open it, and xcancel doesn't really do any good in this case)

Just to give a frame of reference for what's at stake with a renewed conflict between Ansar Allah and KSA: in 2019 AA hit the Abqaiq oil stabilization facility and Khurais oil field with drones. The attack did ~$2 billion in damage and spiked Brent by 20% on market open, the largest spike in history. It knocked out half of KSA's oil output (5% of world supply) and delayed Aramco's IPO. The spike was brief because there were no follow-up attacks, but if the Saudis keep pushing Ansar Allah that's the road we're headed down.

https://xcancel.com/MenchOsint/status/2076704415470207305

Clear footage of the moment Saudi Arabia carried out airstrikes on Sana'a Airport. High likely Air-Launched cruise missiles (ALCM) were fired from a safe distance. Likely UK-supplied $2 million Storm Shadow Cruise Missile (range 500km)

Yes you read that right, Saudi Arabia used around ten $2 million Storm Shadow Cruise Missile to hit Sana'a airport runway from a safe distance, yet failed to achieve the main objective. It says a lot about their fear of Yemeni Air Defenses...

The most telling detail about this attack: Saudi Arabia deny to have attacked... their proxy in Aden claims to have done it... as if they had Storm Shadow Cruise Missiles, or fighter jets. Saudi Arabia is clearly afraid of retaliation.. and it should imo.

https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/2076700857089863680/pu/vid/avc1/1920x1080/C_lfqzWBc0wZzmj7.mp4

https://xcancel.com/MenchOsint/status/2076318889890185657

USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) spotted by @MoloWarMonitor

• Red 📍: July 10th
• Blue📍: July 12th

"Where are you going?"

well, guess the carriers trying to stay close to Iran didn't last long

https://xcancel.com/MenchOsint/status/2076905943934124348

⭕️ 🇯🇴 IRGC sent a message to the people of Jordan, first time i see this:

"Noble and Muslim people of Jordan; This morning, the warriors of Islam, in the third stage of the second wave of Operation "Promised Victory 2," targeted important facilities and the location of the American enemy in an air base occupied by the child-killing American army on your soil. This base was being used to attack us, and the American criminals were held accountable for their actions. On the first day of these attacks, the arrogant American regime, using these same bases, brutally murdered 168 innocent school children and their teachers in Minab. You know very well that we not only have no animosity towards your country, but we also deeply love you, the noble people. You understand the suffering and injustice of the Palestinian people better than any other nation, and you are aware of the crimes of the Zionist regime in the massacre of seventy thousand Palestinians, including twenty thousand children in Gaza, which was carried out with the direct involvement of the United States. Your serious demand for the removal of American occupation bases from the region would be a great help in saving the people of Palestine and restoring security to the region. We wish Jordan success."

Two offending supertankers, deceived by the United States

Honestly, at this point, we kinda have to stop cutting the tanker crews any slack. We're at, what, "fool me a dozen times, what the fuck am I even doing" by now?

("Operation Freedom" started on May 4, so we're counting the ones since then)

I can empathize that being stuck in the middle of the sea, far away from friends and family, can be stressful and lead one to making decisions out of desperation, but how many ships have to get hit in front of you before any lessons are learned? When you get struck, aside from the risk of dying, you're likely to end up stuck in the strait even longer due to the damage! What are the Iranians supposed to do, start putting heads on spikes or gibbeting people across the strait, medieval-style?

The Iranian route was open for a decent length of time, hundreds of ships transited it - why didn't you go then? (admittedly, there are thousands in the strait, and there's probably some plain old logistical limitations to how many ships the Iranians could process a day, but still, a lot of the ships that are now trying to flee are probably ones that didn't even try to transit back then since they didn't want to pay up).

This was supposed to be a joke

but apparently tanker captains are actually willing to participate in the "unironically doing the kind of shit that anti-communists think the Soviets were doing in WW2" scheme

this is democracy manifest what is the charge? enjoying an anti-ship missile? a succulent Iranian anti-ship missile?

Every time we hear about it, we blow it up

uh... casually admitting that American bombardment isn't actually very effective, given that they've apparently struck it many times and it still needs to be hit more?