Before we get started, Tim Ellis: I saw your comment, send me an email and we can go from there.
And now we return you to our regularly scheduled update.
Despite the ongoing attempts to crack down within Iran and to provide weaponry and trainers to Russia for the war effort in Ukraine, the IRGC decided to reach out and touch the headquarters of the Iraqi Kurdish Democratic Party in Iraqi Kurdistan this evening:
— Hangaw Faisal (@FaisalHangaw) November 20, 2022
The IRGC has been pounding the area for several days now in the belief that the women’s revolution in Iran is being at least partially coordinated from there. The Iranian attacks appear to be coordinated, at least partially, with Turkey and includes attacks in Syria and in Iranian Kurdistan as well:
Iran and Turkey have now launched attacks against Kurds in Syria, Turkey, and Iraq. https://t.co/WV5sBNeSWD
— Alex Plitsas 🇺🇸 (@alexplitsas) November 20, 2022
The Wall Street Journal has some of the details:
Iranian security forces swept through the country’s Kurdish region with helicopters and armored vehicles, firing live ammunition and raiding homes in search of opponents, a show of force that demonstrates how the government’s response to a two-month-old protest movement is taking a more violent turn.
Protesters in Mahabad and surrounding areas filled city streets Saturday, according to authorities and witnesses. After rumors swirled on social media that authorities were gearing up to attack, balaclava-clad protesters wearing makeshift helmets set bins on fire, according to footage posted by Tavaana, a U.S.-based Iranian civic organization, and other social media accounts. Protesters then barricaded a key artery in Mahabad with cinder blocks and wooden doors, according to witnesses and the footage.
In response, Iranian authorities deployed heavily armed military forces into the city, according to media close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, human-rights groups and witnesses. Local activists and human-rights groups said troops had fired at civilians and raided homes looking for opponents.
“I have witnessed hundreds of people being shot at [by the regime forces] and they have been severely injured,” said Soma, 29, a nurse in Mahabad who said she had treated many of the wounded in the past two days. Soma said the city was “militarized,” describing how armored vehicles and tanks had entered the city. Regime forces “have told the people that anyone who leaves the house will be fired at,” she said.
Much more at the link!
While this is important in and of itself, it is important in regard to Ukraine because the Iranians are selling Russia weapons and providing IRGC trainers. The Washington Post has some of those details:
After weeks of savaging Ukrainian cities with Iranian-made drones, Moscow has quietly reached an agreement with Tehran to begin manufacturing hundreds of unmanned weaponized aircraft on Russian soil, according to new intelligence seen by U.S. and other Western security agencies.
Russian and Iranian officials finalized the deal during a meeting in Iran in early November, and the two countries are moving rapidly to transfer designs and key components that could allow production to begin within months, three officials familiar with the matter said in interviews.
The agreement, if fully realized, would represent a further deepening of a Russia-Iran alliance that already has provided crucial support for Moscow’s faltering military campaign in Ukraine, the officials said. By acquiring its own assembly line, Russia could dramatically increase its stockpile of relatively inexpensive but highly destructive weapons systems that, in recent weeks, have changed the character of the Ukraine war.
Russia has deployed more than 400 Iranian-made attack drones against Ukraine since August, intelligence officials say, with many of the aircraft used in strikes against civilian infrastructure targets such as power plants. After being forced to abandon Ukrainian territory its forces captured early in the war, Moscow has shifted to a strategy of relentless air assaults on Ukrainian cities, using a combination of cruise missiles and self-detonating drones packed with explosives to knock out electricity and running water for millions of people.
For Moscow, the agreement could fill a critical need for precision-guided munitions, which are in short supply after nine months of fighting. The arrangement also offers substantial economic and political benefits for Iran, the officials say. While Tehran has sought to portray itself as neutral in the Ukraine war, the appearance of Iranian-made drones over Ukrainian cities has triggered threats of new economic sanctions from Europe. Iran’s leaders may believe that they can avert new sanctions if the drones are physically assembled in Russia, the officials said.
Details of the Iran-Russia deal were finalized in the early November meeting, which involved a team of Russian defense industry negotiators who traveled to Tehran to work out the logistics, according to security officials from two countries that monitored the events. The officials agreed to discuss the matter on the condition that their identities and nationalities not be revealed, citing the need to protect sensitive and ongoing intelligence-collection efforts.
A separate delegation headed by Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev traveled to Tehran on Nov. 9 to discuss, among other topics, economic sanctions and other “Western interference” in their governments’ affairs, according to state-run Russian and Iranian news media.
One of the officials briefed on the secret agreement described an aggressive effort by both countries to facilitate production of Iranian-designed drones inside Russia.
“It is proceeding quickly from decision-making to implementation,” the official said. “It is moving fast and it has lot of steam.”
Much, much more at the link!
What we need to be worried about here is the overlap in Russo-Iranian and Turkish-Iranian relationships. The latter is about the Kurds, including in Syria where Turkey and Iran can only operate as long as Russia allows it. The former is about Russia’s re-invasion of Ukraine.
Here’s President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:
Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!
This day is coming to an end – already the 270th day of the full-scale war. I will report briefly.
The first topic is the frontline. The fiercest battles, as before, are in the Donetsk region. Although there are fewer attacks today due to the deterioration of the weather, the number of Russian shelling occasions remains, unfortunately, extremely high.
Luhansk region – little by little we are moving forward with battles. As of now, there have been almost 400 shelling occasions in the east since the beginning of the day. Thank you to each and everyone who holds positions and helps our defense forces.
South – we are holding the line, consistently and very calculatedly destroying the potential of the occupiers.
The second topic is energy. Restoration of networks and technical supply capabilities, demining of power transmission lines, repairs – everything goes on round the clock.
We managed to alleviate the situation in some regions where there were a lot of real problems yesterday. This evening there are stabilization shutdowns in 15 regions and in Kyiv as well. The largest are Vinnytsia, Sumy, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv regions and the capital. We are doing everything possible and impossible to return normal life to Odesa, Kharkiv and all our cities and communities.
And I thank all energy workers, utility workers, regional administrations – everyone who works for the sake of Ukrainians.
The third topic is foreign policy. Today I addressed the participants of the summit of the International Organization of La Francophonie. These are more than 50 participating countries, and more than 20 observer countries. Africa, Asia, America, Europe – everywhere they hear Ukraine, everywhere they know our proposals on how to restore peace to Ukraine and how to restore stability to the world.
I will say right away that the Ukrainian peace formula is perceived extremely positively in the world. It is quite constructive and realistic – in contrast to the empty and mendacious Russian rhetoric about their alleged readiness for some kind of negotiations.
We will do everything to make the world accept the Ukrainian peace formula.
There will be several important international addresses in the upcoming week. And we are already preparing.
And one more thing.
Traditionally, the Day of Agricultural Workers is celebrated in Ukraine on the third Sunday of November. Was there ever an international context to this day? This year it’s definitely there.
This year, many people in the world saw how important the contribution of Ukrainians to global food security is. The lives of millions of people in different countries directly depend on our agricultural sector.
I thank all our people who work on the ground, who provide Ukraine and the world with the essentials. Thanks to you and your work, we can find support for our state in those countries with which we do not yet have traditional relations. But we will have them, trust me.
Glory to all who fight for Ukraine!
Glory to everyone who works and helps!
Glory to Ukraine!
Here is former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessments of the situations in Bakhmut and Zaporizhzhia:
BAKHMUT/1315 UTC 20 NOV/ RU forces continue costly, unsuccessful assaults on Bakhmut. Overhead imagery confirms that RU fontal attacks in the vicinity of the NE suburbs of Bakhmutske & Pidhorodne have resulted in the deaths of 100s of RU mobniks. pic.twitter.com/tIHOla4Az7
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) November 20, 2022
NUCLEAR ROULETTE: UN, IAEA and UKR Energoatom sources report that overnight on 19-20 NOV, the RU military shelled areas of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power facility. Citing the plant’s manager, IAEA stated that RU indirect fire munitions damaged buildings, systems, and equipment. pic.twitter.com/zL6IMetc7e
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) November 20, 2022
Speaking of Russian stupidity regarding nuclear power facilities:
According to intelligence data, Russia traditionally plans to appoint citizens of NATO countries and Ukraine as "responsible for terrorist attacks", who will supposedly be dressed in Belarusian military uniforms pic.twitter.com/0RdYjvtNWD
— Ukrainska Pravda in English (@pravda_eng) November 20, 2022
Always nice when they come right out and explain what they’re doing in the maskirovka:
Meanwhile in Russia: accused war criminal Zakhar Prilepin—who spends a lot of time on the frontlines and previously boasted of "killing many" in Ukraine—admits that Russia wants to negotiate merely to regroup and finish fighting later, any potential peace accords notwithstanding. pic.twitter.com/WyuvASO9Ru
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) November 20, 2022
This won’t silence the Mearsheimers or Chomskys or Sackses or Mates or Greenwalds or any of their fellow travelers. It won’t even change their minds. They have their positions regardless of reality showing them they’re wrong over and over and over again. It doesn’t matter that the Russians are genocidal towards the Ukrainians. It doesn’t matter that the Russians admit it. It doesn’t matter that the Russians admit they’re weaponizing diplomacy. It doesn’t matter how much evidence of Russian atrocities are published. These people have made up their minds and that’s all that matters.
Retreating from the Mykolaiv region, russians destroyed one of the oldest Roman Catholic churches in southern Ukraine. The Chapel of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Kyselivka was built in 1852. pic.twitter.com/GghQiWj8Tu
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) November 20, 2022
“Great Russian culture” in a nutshell. Completely empty museum after the liberation of Kherson. Cultural and historical items looted from the Kherson regional museum soon find their place in the Hermitage pic.twitter.com/3oS9PITZjm
— Yarema Dukh (@yarko) November 20, 2022
Today, on #WorldChildrensDay, let us remind you that since the beginning of the large scale invasion at least 437 children were killed and more than 837 were injured as a result of russian attacks on Ukraine.#russiaisaterroriststate
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) November 20, 2022
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
Patron became a UNICEF goodwill dog. The first task that Ukraine assigned to him was to use all international legal instruments to release Ukrainian intelligence officer Senior Lieutenant Racoon. pic.twitter.com/HkxxSTWfnk
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) November 20, 2022
And after the victory, I will start taking care of the children of the whole world.
— Patron (@PatronDsns) November 20, 2022
And a new video from Patron’s official TikTok of his work with children in Ukraine’s hospitals:
@patron__dsns 🥹
Hopefully G&T or Dr Luba will be around to translate the thought bubbles in the video for us.
Open thread!
Kyle Rayner
You sort of expect to see stolen pieces in most Western museums, but not like… stolen last week. (…and from a European country.)
Anonymous At Work
It’ll take coordination among allies, granted, but what can the US do to choke off Iranian support for Russia? Ditto with Turkish support of Iranian anti-Kurdish efforts (much harder to do, given Turkey’s veto over NATO expansion).
If there’s too many “neutral players” opening holes in the sanctions regime, would escalation work? Treat oligarch/kakistocrat possessions like France treats Greenpeace boats?
Sister Golden Bear
Obviously tonight things are still uncertain, Adam, but when there’s more details, I’d be interested on your take about the Club Q shooting. The right-wing protests against LGBTQ+ people is clearly escalating exponentially (as documented here) as is actual violence.
Jay
Alison Rose
God, some days Zelenskyy just seems so exhausted. And I mean, obviously, of course, but it just drives home that even though he isn’t on the front lines and of course those people have infinitely more difficult and awful days, there is so much on his shoulders and so much he has to be aware of and involved with and doing…I don’t know how he does it.
I do hope that as the invaders were retreating from Mykolaiv after destroying the church, someone screamed at them “No on steps on a church in my town!” while blasting them.
That Patron news is wonderful, and just the kind of smile I needed.
Thank you as always, Adam.
Jay
Geminid
I do not think it is certain that the Turkish attacks are coordinated with Iran. Every report I have found says they are retaliation by Turkiye for the November 13 bombing in Istanbul that killed six people and injured 80. Rightly or wrongly, Turkiye blames Kurdish resistance forces that are based across the border.
Iran has been striking Kurdish exile groups in northeast Iraq on and off since the latter part of September. The latest escalation happened to coincide with the Turkish strikes, but I think the latter was a one-off, not part of a coordinated effort. I guess the events of the next few days will show if Turkiye and Iran are aligning in this area.
Renie
This may seem like a paranoid question – probably cuz it is – but I’ve been getting this guy who keeps calling my house, leaves messages on the answering machine and, if I catch the call I tell him it’s the wrong number. The issue is he is calling from Iran. Am I going to have the gov’t monitoring my calls now? (Assuming the gov’t isn’t already doing that to everyone)
Winston
So open thread? Watching Sunday night football. Haven’t for years, but, the adds are just as many, but what the hell are they advertising?
Carlo Graziani
@Anonymous At Work: At a guess: there are US Department of Commerce officials with a set of fresh strap marks on their asses who are currently reworking the export control regs targeting Iran so as to shut down the flow of Western parts that were found in those drones, which would potentially be more effective than direct interdiction.
The US has the power to forbid any company found to have supplied such parts to Iran from doing business with any US business or financial institution, which is basically a death sentence. It’s a matter of getting serious about it, the way that they’ve gotten serious about semiconductor manufacturing tooling and software exports to China. Different kind of problem, but the same basic approach should work.
trollhattan
@Geminid: Doubt they coordinate but both will go after Kurds whenever they see an opening. Poor Kurds, pretty much everyone seems hellbent on eliminating them from the planet.
Winston
Also. I read a couple weeks ago the 101st Air Mobile Division has been stationed in Romania a couple miles from their border with Ukraine.
Andrya
@trollhattan: “Poor Kurds, pretty much everyone seems hellbent on eliminating them from the planet.”
Including Henry Kissinger and Donald Trump.
bbleh
@Anonymous At Work: @Geminid: And let us recall, Türkiye — as Zelensky carefully calls them — have provided very significant assistance to recent Ukrainian grain shipments. And they’re a member of NATO. And … Byzantium was/is located there, and “Byzantine” has meaning for a reason.
It’s the Middle East, Jake.
trollhattan
Meanwhile
BBC has also been reporting that Iranian police have begun seizing bodies of protestors they kill and burying them in secret, in order to avoid graveside protests over the victims. If there’s a more perfectly cynical initiative, I can’t name it.
Ohio Mom
@Renie: Here’s what google says to do: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&hl=en-us&sxsrf=ALiCzsb2h70lhXy7NfyGvJTrTBl9q-BLsw:1668996769414&q=How+to+block+international+calls+on+landline&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjIosm8mb77AhUEmWoFHUwrB1cQ1QJ6BAhMEAE&biw=375&bih=623&dpr=2
Obviously you are not the only one being harrassed out there.
Anonymous At Work
@Carlo Graziani: Which is why the coordination with Turkey concerns me. Edrogan is authoritarian like Putin, and clearly willing to gum up the works to get what he wants like Orban. And Turkey controls the Bosporus unless we want to force matters with a NATO member.
Our best leverage on Turkey is how we side with Turkey over the Kurds, so we have no room to escalate beyond a serious redline for Turkey, either.
Hence, I think/fear we’re kinda stuck. And yes, redrawing the sanctions regime might help unless Turkey opens a channel up front or a visible back channel for Iran to exploit.
coin operated
deleted…not really appropriate for a Ukraine update
Renie
@Ohio Mom: Thanks. It’s on my landline which is through Cablevision. They have a feature to block calls but it doesn’t work with international. I guess I’ll call them tomorrow and see what to do.
Adam L Silverman
@Sister Golden Bear: The right framing here is that this was an act of domestic terrorism. The method was a gun. And the ideology/doctrine/theology that the terrorist radicalized to identifies lgbtq as appropriate targets. So more fear of them than hatred. When they get into the suspects social media/Internet usage and history it’s going to be full of Libs of TikTok, Matt Walsh, Chris Rufo, Ben Shapiro and the like. I expect he’s a Boebert supporter and would not be surprised if there aren’t pictures of him at her events.
Adam L Silverman
@Renie: Moat likely no. If you have the ability to block the number, do so.
Gin & Tonic
I don’t do TikTok, sorry. I believe the good doctor does.
But hey, shoutout to my friend @yarko.
Kent
Wait….you still have a landline and answering machine?
I think we can pinpoint what your real problem is here.
Geminid
@trollhattan: The Kurdish Regional Government seems to have decent relations with Turkiye. There is a lot of trade between Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkiye, and Turkish engineering and construction companies have done a lot of work in the three Kurdish provinces of Iraq that are ruled by the semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government.
I don’t think todays bombings will upset that working relationship. The Turks are describing today’s attacks as payback for the Istanbul bombing, but they are not promising more.
bbleh
@Renie: cc @Kent: if he calls again, thank him profusely for responding to your email, remind him that your status in the Nigerian royal family is precarious, and explain that you need his bank account information and the fully refundable payment of a transfer fee immediately in order to transfer the $25 million to you to hold, in return for which he will receive a commission of 5%.
Alison Rose
@Adam L Silverman: Boebert had the audacity to tweet her damn tots and pears about it, and AOC read her for the mendacious filth she is.
Renie
@Kent: HAHA You get a big discount on your cable & internet if you get the phone portion, so even though we don’t really use it, the phone is worth it for the discount.
Another Scott
@Renie: I would assume that it’s most likely some sort of scam. It’s probably safest not to respond.
FCC.gov – one ring phone scam.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
bbleh
@Alison Rose: Aw she doesn’t really care, and the majority of her supporters don’t really care either. (Some of them are entirely satisfied with the outcome, in fact.) She’s just making the expected noises so nobody can criticize her for not doing so (and she can sneer as she’s doing it).
Carlo Graziani
I have to confess that at this point I’m mystified at what positive gain the Russians expect from their amateurish, transparent cover stories for their inscrutably stupid actions around Zaporizhzhia NPP, and for their alleged planned feigned terrorist attack at a Belorussan nuclear plant.
Originally, they seemed to have the idea that they could connect Zaporizhzhia to the Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine electrical net, and get IAEA acquiescence. Then IAEA didn’t cooperate, and the war went sideways on them anyways, so they seemed mostly satisfied with denying the plant’s power to Ukraine, except when they wanted to create anxiety about a nuclear event of some sort.
Now they’re dropping shells in the complex — for why? And a “Ukraine/NATO-sponsored terrorist attack on Belarusan nuclear infrastructure” pantomime benefits them how? I mean, who is the audience, and what are they to be persuaded of? What kind of a clown show plans this nonsense anyway?
bbleh
@Carlo Graziani:
I’ll raise again a hypothesis that the Russian command structure is not entirely unified and that the C2 mechanisms are not entirely reliable, and as a consequence really dumb — self-own dumb — things may be happening because some idiot orders them and nobody with good sense stops it, &/or because orders get garbled or don’t get through, or just because lower-level people start doing things on their own (as contrary as that is to doctrine). IOW, I do not know whether the word “plan” is necessarily appropriate.
Omnes Omnibus
@Renie: I keep getting voicemails in Chinese. I hope it’s nothing important.
sdhays
@Carlo Graziani: Pretext to get Belarus into the war?
Still pretty stupid – from the sounds of it, after a week or two of direct contact with a real military in Ukraine, there wouldn’t be anything left of the Belarussian military to prop up its current government.
bbleh
@Omnes Omnibus: I get those all the time, but the music is so nice…
sdhays
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve gotten those before, and they typically are saying something about your visa. Of course, since they’re in Chinese, they’re obviously targeting people who can speak Chinese and have visa issues with the PRC.
Very weird. I hardly answer any phone number I don’t recognize anymore. As far as I’m concerned, the phone system is mostly completely broken, at least in reference to what it used to be.
Geminid
@Geminid: The U.S. has already played a small part in the Iranian bombing campaign in Northeast Iraq. In late September, Iran launched a number of drones and most struck targets in the border area inside Iraq. One kept going, though and it was headed for the regional capital of Irbil when a U.S. F-15 shot it down.
The U.S. has a military training mission based near Irbil. We have been a sort of informal guarantor of Kurdish autonomy ever since the aftermath of the first Gulf War, when we established a no-fly zone over northern Iraq. This has been a sore point with the Iraqi government, and might have been a topic for discussion when the Iranians offocials visited Baghdad recently
Adding to the complexity of the region’s politics, Turkiye supports Azerbaijan and Iran backs Armenia in those two countries’ conflict. Iran supports Armenia despite it’s own large Azeri population, which at nearly 15% is Iran’s largest non-Persian minority.
Sister Golden Bear
@Adam L Silverman: Definitely agree. It was meant to convey a message that they’ll massacre us even in places of refuse from the haters.
FWIW, the shooter is the grandchild of an outgoing MAGA state rep in CA, who lost his primary. There were calls to expel the grandfather from the state Assembly in 2021 after he made comments comparing the January 6 attacks to the Revolutionary War.
Carlo Graziani
@Geminid: I was meaning to mention: In yesterday’s thread, you brought up finding the Critical Threats Project (CTP) as a useful source on the Iranian crisis. CTP is in fact the source of ISW’s nightly Iran Crisis Updates, which I’ve been reading lately, in part to attempt to correct my sadly deficient understanding of Iran’s and of the region’s politics and statecraft. Your posts have been quite helpful in that respect as well.
Ohio Mom
@Renie: That is why we have a landline as well. But we ditched the answering machine. Anyone who needs to get in touch with us has our cell numbers.
Martin
@Sister Golden Bear: So, I said that Uvalde was a watershed moment. Not because the deaths would be unacceptable and the public would rise up – hell no, a million deaths after Covid I think we can establish there can never be enough blood for the blood god – but because it put the lie to ‘run hide fight’. You were supposed to run and hide to give police time to stop the shooter. Well, that went out the fucking window because the cops aren’t going to show up to save your ass.
We’re now seeing calls to just shorten that to ‘fight’, because what other fucking choice do we have? I’ve long had the policy if I even see a gun not carried by a badge I call 911. Everyone should do that, even in open carry states.
A Streeter
@Martin: While I totally agree with the idea of calling 911 on every open carry — it’s pure fucking intimidation — I have the feeling that very soon that would be prosecuted as “frivolous” or some such.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kyle Rayner: Yes, you wonder how much of those looted museum pieces are going to end up on the black market.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@A Streeter:
The answer to that is simple: “How am I supposed to tell a ‘good guy’ and a ‘bad guy’ with a gun from the other? QED.”
dr. luba
Patron’s TikTok: Not long ago on my Twitter I suggested to my foreign subscribers to”purchase” t-shirts of the children in the Oncological hospital for a small donation. They donated enough money for 200 t-shirts, which I personally delivered with joy to the children in the hospital.
All the funds that were raised were delivered to the sappers of the state Emergency Service of Ukraine.
I always knew that my followers were the best!
Anoniminous
@sdhays:
Belarus Army is a joke and they’ve been sending equipment to Russia making them an ill-equipped joke.
Andrya
One comment on the destroyed Catholic church (full disclosure- I’m Catholic). Unlike russia, Ukraine has religious diversity, with significant numbers of Eastern Rite Catholics, a small number of Protestants, and very small (but real) numbers of Jews and Muslims. And remember, in 2019, the Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (more or less corresponding to the pope in Catholicism) declared the Ukrainian Orthodox Church “autocephalous” (independent of Moscow). And also remember, most of the Muslims are Crimean Tatars, whom Stalin deported from their original homeland, Crimea.
Unlike Ukraine, russia does NOT have religious freedom. It is illegal to have a home church. And to have a church building, a congregation must get a license from a board dominated by the russian Orthodox clergy- and it’s very hard for non-russian Orthodox to get a license. A small number of Protestants are today in russian prisons simply for practicing their faith.
If (G-d forbid) russia were to seize Ukraine, we can assume that Muslims, Jews, followers of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Protestants, and Eastern Rite Catholics would face significant religious persecution, including in some cases imprisonment. American conservatives who claim to be all in on religious freedom need to recognize this.
Sister Golden Bear
@Martin:
For years I did shows at gay dive bar in an old building in the Tenderloin which only had a single entrance/exit. Ever since Pulse I’ve thought about that. A lot. Especially since there have been firebombings at similar types of gay bars that caused horrific death tolls.
Sister Golden Bear
@Martin: FWIW, I replied to your question in the downstairs thread.
Chetan Murthy
@Sister Golden Bear: When I hear of incidents like this, I’m reminded of why I consider all of that land to be UnGovernable Tribal Regions: no-go zones. B/c even if usually nothing bad happens, there are a few crazies out there, and they can ruin your day. Or life. But then I remember that I used to think SF was “safe” for Asian-Americans, too, until during the pandemic even little old Asian-American ladies started getting attacked in the city. So yes: you’re right to wonder and fear about that, as are we all.
It’s frustrating and crazy-making, that these terrorists can do this to us, that our government cannot or has decided not to protect us
P.S. And obvs. I used to think of SF as safe for LGBTQ folks, too. But I’m probably wrong about that, too.
daveNYC
For certain values of ‘only’ and ‘allow’. It’s certainly easier for Iran and Turkiye (and Israel too, while we’re at it) if Syria and Russia let them do what they want, but from what we’ve seen in Ukraine it doesn’t seem likely that Russia actually has the ability to stop anyone from doing what they want in Syria.
I mean how does that play out? Country X tries to bomb some stuff in Syria. Syria lights them up with some SAM/AA action. Country X then gets their SEAD on and then Russia either needs to replace the exploded stuff (dipping into stuff they need in Ukraine) or leave Syria hanging, potentially losing them an important ally.
zhena gogolia
@dr. luba: Thanks!
Geminid
@daveNYC: Turkiye and Israel used to be strategic allies until they fell out ten years ago over the Palestinian question. This year Turkish President Erdogan took his country’s relations with Israel (and others) out of the freezer and stuck them in the microwave.
In March, Israeli President Herzog became the first high level Israeli official to visit Turkiye in a decade. Erdogan warmly received Mr. Herzog and proclaimed “a new era” in relations between the two countries.
Since then Turkiye and Israel have exchanged ambassadors, filling posts that had been empty for years. And a few weeks ago, Israeli Defense Minister (and former IDF chief) Benny Gantz visited his Turkish counterpart and the two discussed areas of possible military cooperation.
This is not to say that Turkiye and Israel will together squash the Russian military presence in Syria anytime soon. They are both major regional military powers though, and they could if they decided to.
Erdogan’s rapprochement with Israel is part of his larger effort to mend relations in the region. A few weeks before Herzog’s visit, Erdogan hosted Saudi Prince “Bonesaw” and proclaimed “a new era” of relations between Turkiye and formerly estranged Saudi Arabia. The two leaders also announced major Saudi investments in Turkiye’s troubled economy.
Geminid
@daveNYC: Israel has attacked Iranian targets in Syria hundreds of times since 2018. There is an IDF intelligence unit devoted to this “war between wars.” This command develops targeting information for the air force.
Israeli does not acknowledge these raids, except when they are retaliating for a particular cross border attack. Most of the strikes are preventive, intended to destroy shipments of rockets to Hezbollah in south Lebanon.
The Israelis are careful to observe “deconfliction” procedures with their Russian counterparts in Syria. They also seem not to actually fly over Syria much, typically firing air-to-ground missiles from Lebanese or Israeli airspace.
J R in WV
@Kent:
Actually, many of us out here in flyover country still need landlines, because cell service is geographically impossible due to the surrounding terrain in mountainous regions. Our house is surrounded nearly 360 degrees by very beautiful rock formations which also block electromagnetic transmissions of all sorts.
And of course cell service requires line-of-sight between cell towers and the hand held device one uses to connect to the cell network. In rural areas and areas with strong vertical relief, there will never be cell service adequate for connecting to the outside world.
Otherwise your remark is a successful joke. haha
dr. luba
@dr. luba: Arrgh. Typo.
“I suggested to my foreign subscribers to”purchase” t-shirts FOR the children in the Oncological hospital”
Translating after midnight has its risks.
J R in WV
@Ohio Mom:
We do have cell phones, of course. We keep them in the cars, turned off, for the most part. You would be amazed at the battery life you can achieve with a cell phone you leave turned off most of the time!