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Recent Posts
32
Politics & Religion / Re: Law Enforcement
« Last post by Crafty_Dog on May 21, 2024, 10:26:18 AM »Quite the tale!
And yes I sometimes forget how annoying many non-lawyers find being subjected to Socratic lines of questioning whereas for me it is simply a search for getting to definition of terms and clarity in what is being asserted.
In addition to my various misadventures in interaction with law enforcement (nowhere near those of your brother!) I regularly work with law enforcement during which I am exposed quite a bit to what the world looks like from an LEO perspective.
I do not deny the potency of your argument, but in equal measure as a general principle I find it quite implausible to suggest that police need to be as subject to lawsuits as anyone just walking around. I could be mistaken, but it seems like that is where you are or are heading.
It's not a justice system, it is a legal system.
Even when one "wins" litigation is a significant emotional event with high costs in emotion, time, energy, and money. The plaintiff gets his lawyer with a contingency agreement, but someone must pay for the defendant's representation.
And yes I sometimes forget how annoying many non-lawyers find being subjected to Socratic lines of questioning whereas for me it is simply a search for getting to definition of terms and clarity in what is being asserted.
In addition to my various misadventures in interaction with law enforcement (nowhere near those of your brother!) I regularly work with law enforcement during which I am exposed quite a bit to what the world looks like from an LEO perspective.
I do not deny the potency of your argument, but in equal measure as a general principle I find it quite implausible to suggest that police need to be as subject to lawsuits as anyone just walking around. I could be mistaken, but it seems like that is where you are or are heading.
It's not a justice system, it is a legal system.
Even when one "wins" litigation is a significant emotional event with high costs in emotion, time, energy, and money. The plaintiff gets his lawyer with a contingency agreement, but someone must pay for the defendant's representation.
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Politics & Religion / Re: Argentina Milei
« Last post by Crafty_Dog on May 21, 2024, 10:14:22 AM »A good and bright friend recently sent me some clippings, a few of which were from The Economist. I used to read it back in the 70s and 80s, but the bias you describe oozes from its all-knowing aura of condescension.
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Politics & Religion / GPF: The rift between Iran and Syria
« Last post by Crafty_Dog on May 21, 2024, 10:10:48 AM »May 21, 2024
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The Rift Between Iran and Syria
There is a desire shared by many to get Tehran out of Damascus.
By: Hilal Khashan
Syrian President Bashar Assad has reason to distance himself from his erstwhile ally Iran. It’s true that Iran helped stabilize the government in Damascus and was instrumental in putting down a rebel uprising, but its continued presence on Syrian territory is a threat to Assad – not least because it invites occasional strikes from Israel. Assad sees Israeli pressure as an opportunity to get rid of Iran for good, and to that end he has signaled an interest in meeting with the United States, which sees ousting Iran as a necessary step in rehabilitating the Syrian regime. Given the escalation between Iran and Israel, it is unlikely that Assad would have made such signals if he were not sincere in his desire to draw closer to the U.S. and further from Iran.
A Worn-Out Welcome
Although Iran still has significant influence in Damascus, Assad's government is no puppet state. Like all Syrian rulers before him, Assad wants political autonomy, giving priority to the preservation of his regime. He admits that Iran and Hezbollah helped his government survive, but he had hoped they would withdraw after defeating the rebels. Instead, Iran has intensified its military and intelligence presence without Assad's consent and against his plans to retake parts of the country controlled by radical Islamic movements. Iran's strategic project is to consolidate its presence in Syria regardless of who occupies the presidency. After taking control of so much Syrian territory, Assad no longer needs Iran, and he has no problem getting rid of it. Assad understands that Iran's presence will discourage Western countries from contributing to Syria's reconstruction, and their absence will allow Tehran to retrieve the vast resources that it expended to shore up the regime. Assad knows that Iran is ready to abandon him and work with his successor if it reaches an agreement with Washington to achieve its ambitions in the Middle East.
In truth, Syrian-Iranian relations have been deteriorating for some time. Trust and common purpose have been replaced by disagreements and suspicion, especially over Iran’s propensity to dictate terms of Syrian policy concerning the Gulf Cooperation Council. Then there is the simple matter of resentment. Even before Hezbollah opened a new front against Israel, the Syrian theater was responsible for a significant amount of Iranian attrition. Hezbollah lost some of its most able commanders in Syria – in part to rebels, in part to Israel, and in part to Syrian forces themselves, with whom they repeatedly clashed over suspicious deals with the president’s brother, proceeds from illicit smuggling and general distrust. With Israel's liquidation of many senior Iranian officers who fought in defense of the Syrian regime and Assad's dismissal of ranking Syrian security and military personnel who appreciated what Iran did for their country, the Syrian-Iranian relationship began to deteriorate.
Arab states, and particularly Arab Gulf states, also want to see Iran leave Syria. They have even made demands to that end, and given that they will be the ones to finance Syria's reconstruction, it’s not a demand Assad can ignore. Over the past year, Damascus has thus resumed diplomatic relations with several Arab countries, especially the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and regained its seat in the Arab League. Assad also participated in the Arab summit in Jeddah for the first time since the beginning of the Syrian uprising in 2011. Notably, Assad exchanged congratulatory messages with many Arab heads of state on the advent of Ramadan, while Syrian and Iranian media were unusually quiet about similar exchanges between Assad and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
Iran suspects that the Syrian government is ready to make a deal with the West. After the Israeli airstrike that destroyed its consulate, Iran decided to move the headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the suburbs of Damascus to areas near Lebanon – a move made out of concern that Assad was not interested in ensuring the safety of Iranian officers. Over the past year, Iranian officials have visited Syria more than ever because no Syrian personnel reporting directly to Tehran remain in positions of influence. These structural changes confirm that Assad began moving long ago to eliminate Iranian influence gradually.
In September 2020, for example, Assad moved to expel Arab fighters from the National Defense Forces, an Iranian-controlled group of militias formed in 2013 that included fighters from Egypt, Tunisia and other Arab countries. Despite Iranian penetration into the Syrian army, Assad has recently worked to limit Tehran's influence, especially regarding its use of militias to create parallel security structures not affiliated with his regime. As a first step, Assad authorized military intelligence to deal directly with Iranian-backed militias, Hezbollah and the notorious auxiliary forces. Assad wanted to organize combat forces on the ground under the supervision of military intelligence to limit Iran's control.
The Politics of Distrust
The rapport of the past years between Damascus and Tehran has disappeared and been overshadowed by mounting disagreements and suspicion, especially with Iran's increasing pressure on the Syrian government out of its desire to impose restrictions on Assad's regime to prevent it from engaging the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Even before Hezbollah's decision to open a secondary front against Israel last October, Hezbollah was suffering from a shortage of well-trained field commanders. Those of them who received advanced training from the IRGC are no longer around, systematically eliminated by the rebels or members of other regime militias. Hezbollah lost in Syria its most able commanders, who gained great military experience during its wars with Israel. However, its involvement in the war mafias and suspicious deals with the president's brother eliminated most of these officers. The lack of trust between the Syrian regime and its Hezbollah-led Shiite allies caused violent confrontations between them due to recurring disputes over the sharing of drug smuggling proceeds. With Israel's liquidation of many senior Iranian officers who fought in defense of the Syrian regime and Assad's dismissal of ranking Syrian security and military personnel who cooperated with Iran, the strength of the Syrian-Iranian relationship began to fade.
Russia, another Syrian ally, is on board with ousting a potential competitor like Iran too. Maher Assad, the commander of the Fourth Division, which is the strongest in the regime's army and whose mission is to protect Damascus, deliberately got rid of Hezbollah fighters in collaboration with a certain Russian unit that monitored the movements of Hezbollah's personnel and informed the Fourth Division of their whereabouts. Sometimes, the Fourth Division provided the rebel forces with classified information about Hezbollah's commanders to ambush them.
Iran is concerned that Russia, which intervened on Assad's side with decisive air power in 2015, may compete with it for postwar reconstruction contracts. These concerns escalated in 2016, when Damascus agreed to give Russia priority in reconstruction contracts, and in 2019, when Assad granted Russia exclusive rights to operate Syria's hydrocarbon fields. Recent bilateral agreements between Syria and Russia have further heightened Iran's concerns about its interests in postwar Syria. Assad’s extending such privilege to Moscow has alarmed Tehran, which believes, given its financial and economic contributions to Damascus and direct participation in the war, that it deserves commensurate compensation without competing with Moscow. For Assad, Moscow's influence counters Tehran's desire to make Syria a client state. In the long term, Iran poses a threat to Russia's military and political intentions in Syria. While Moscow prefers Syria to be a secular, federal state capable of maintaining its coastal military bases, Tehran is interested in expanding its regional influence through a fragmented and sectarian Syria.
Regardless of Assad's preference to get rid of Iran's influence, replacing it with Russia might not be more appealing since Arab countries that worked with Soviet leaders in the 1950s and 1960s had difficulty communicating with them or getting them to honor mutual agreements. Even before the 2011 Syrian uprising, Iran was actively laying the ground for permanently positioning itself in the country. Even though Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been working on rehabilitating Assad's regime in the Arab region, he still has doubts about them. In a speech delivered in 2006, Assad described the GCC rulers as "half men," viewing them as "indentured slaves" of the United States.
It’s unclear how the U.S., for its part, feels about a possible rapprochement with Syria. It would relish any opportunity to isolate Iran, but it is also leading the charge in opposing normalization between Syria and the Arab world. Still, the war in Gaza has accentuated some of the differences between Iran and Syria such that Damascus believes there is now an opportunity to make its move.
Syria is an improbable country, severely divided along sectarian, ethnic and regional lines. In the 1950s, it was an arena for regional power competition. Bashar’s father, Hafez Assad, used excessive repression to control and transform it into a modest regional power. The Assads are minority rulers, and many see Bashar as paranoid and conspiracist. Even so, Bashar allowed Iranian influence in the country after he pulled out the Syrian army from Lebanon in 2005. Despite the rift between the Assad regime and Iran, the odds are that postwar Syria will reemerge into a weak state dominated by other countries, including Iran, which will be one of several states meddling in its domestic affairs.
We value your though
View On Website
Open as PDF
The Rift Between Iran and Syria
There is a desire shared by many to get Tehran out of Damascus.
By: Hilal Khashan
Syrian President Bashar Assad has reason to distance himself from his erstwhile ally Iran. It’s true that Iran helped stabilize the government in Damascus and was instrumental in putting down a rebel uprising, but its continued presence on Syrian territory is a threat to Assad – not least because it invites occasional strikes from Israel. Assad sees Israeli pressure as an opportunity to get rid of Iran for good, and to that end he has signaled an interest in meeting with the United States, which sees ousting Iran as a necessary step in rehabilitating the Syrian regime. Given the escalation between Iran and Israel, it is unlikely that Assad would have made such signals if he were not sincere in his desire to draw closer to the U.S. and further from Iran.
A Worn-Out Welcome
Although Iran still has significant influence in Damascus, Assad's government is no puppet state. Like all Syrian rulers before him, Assad wants political autonomy, giving priority to the preservation of his regime. He admits that Iran and Hezbollah helped his government survive, but he had hoped they would withdraw after defeating the rebels. Instead, Iran has intensified its military and intelligence presence without Assad's consent and against his plans to retake parts of the country controlled by radical Islamic movements. Iran's strategic project is to consolidate its presence in Syria regardless of who occupies the presidency. After taking control of so much Syrian territory, Assad no longer needs Iran, and he has no problem getting rid of it. Assad understands that Iran's presence will discourage Western countries from contributing to Syria's reconstruction, and their absence will allow Tehran to retrieve the vast resources that it expended to shore up the regime. Assad knows that Iran is ready to abandon him and work with his successor if it reaches an agreement with Washington to achieve its ambitions in the Middle East.
In truth, Syrian-Iranian relations have been deteriorating for some time. Trust and common purpose have been replaced by disagreements and suspicion, especially over Iran’s propensity to dictate terms of Syrian policy concerning the Gulf Cooperation Council. Then there is the simple matter of resentment. Even before Hezbollah opened a new front against Israel, the Syrian theater was responsible for a significant amount of Iranian attrition. Hezbollah lost some of its most able commanders in Syria – in part to rebels, in part to Israel, and in part to Syrian forces themselves, with whom they repeatedly clashed over suspicious deals with the president’s brother, proceeds from illicit smuggling and general distrust. With Israel's liquidation of many senior Iranian officers who fought in defense of the Syrian regime and Assad's dismissal of ranking Syrian security and military personnel who appreciated what Iran did for their country, the Syrian-Iranian relationship began to deteriorate.
Arab states, and particularly Arab Gulf states, also want to see Iran leave Syria. They have even made demands to that end, and given that they will be the ones to finance Syria's reconstruction, it’s not a demand Assad can ignore. Over the past year, Damascus has thus resumed diplomatic relations with several Arab countries, especially the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and regained its seat in the Arab League. Assad also participated in the Arab summit in Jeddah for the first time since the beginning of the Syrian uprising in 2011. Notably, Assad exchanged congratulatory messages with many Arab heads of state on the advent of Ramadan, while Syrian and Iranian media were unusually quiet about similar exchanges between Assad and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
Iran suspects that the Syrian government is ready to make a deal with the West. After the Israeli airstrike that destroyed its consulate, Iran decided to move the headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the suburbs of Damascus to areas near Lebanon – a move made out of concern that Assad was not interested in ensuring the safety of Iranian officers. Over the past year, Iranian officials have visited Syria more than ever because no Syrian personnel reporting directly to Tehran remain in positions of influence. These structural changes confirm that Assad began moving long ago to eliminate Iranian influence gradually.
In September 2020, for example, Assad moved to expel Arab fighters from the National Defense Forces, an Iranian-controlled group of militias formed in 2013 that included fighters from Egypt, Tunisia and other Arab countries. Despite Iranian penetration into the Syrian army, Assad has recently worked to limit Tehran's influence, especially regarding its use of militias to create parallel security structures not affiliated with his regime. As a first step, Assad authorized military intelligence to deal directly with Iranian-backed militias, Hezbollah and the notorious auxiliary forces. Assad wanted to organize combat forces on the ground under the supervision of military intelligence to limit Iran's control.
The Politics of Distrust
The rapport of the past years between Damascus and Tehran has disappeared and been overshadowed by mounting disagreements and suspicion, especially with Iran's increasing pressure on the Syrian government out of its desire to impose restrictions on Assad's regime to prevent it from engaging the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Even before Hezbollah's decision to open a secondary front against Israel last October, Hezbollah was suffering from a shortage of well-trained field commanders. Those of them who received advanced training from the IRGC are no longer around, systematically eliminated by the rebels or members of other regime militias. Hezbollah lost in Syria its most able commanders, who gained great military experience during its wars with Israel. However, its involvement in the war mafias and suspicious deals with the president's brother eliminated most of these officers. The lack of trust between the Syrian regime and its Hezbollah-led Shiite allies caused violent confrontations between them due to recurring disputes over the sharing of drug smuggling proceeds. With Israel's liquidation of many senior Iranian officers who fought in defense of the Syrian regime and Assad's dismissal of ranking Syrian security and military personnel who cooperated with Iran, the strength of the Syrian-Iranian relationship began to fade.
Russia, another Syrian ally, is on board with ousting a potential competitor like Iran too. Maher Assad, the commander of the Fourth Division, which is the strongest in the regime's army and whose mission is to protect Damascus, deliberately got rid of Hezbollah fighters in collaboration with a certain Russian unit that monitored the movements of Hezbollah's personnel and informed the Fourth Division of their whereabouts. Sometimes, the Fourth Division provided the rebel forces with classified information about Hezbollah's commanders to ambush them.
Iran is concerned that Russia, which intervened on Assad's side with decisive air power in 2015, may compete with it for postwar reconstruction contracts. These concerns escalated in 2016, when Damascus agreed to give Russia priority in reconstruction contracts, and in 2019, when Assad granted Russia exclusive rights to operate Syria's hydrocarbon fields. Recent bilateral agreements between Syria and Russia have further heightened Iran's concerns about its interests in postwar Syria. Assad’s extending such privilege to Moscow has alarmed Tehran, which believes, given its financial and economic contributions to Damascus and direct participation in the war, that it deserves commensurate compensation without competing with Moscow. For Assad, Moscow's influence counters Tehran's desire to make Syria a client state. In the long term, Iran poses a threat to Russia's military and political intentions in Syria. While Moscow prefers Syria to be a secular, federal state capable of maintaining its coastal military bases, Tehran is interested in expanding its regional influence through a fragmented and sectarian Syria.
Regardless of Assad's preference to get rid of Iran's influence, replacing it with Russia might not be more appealing since Arab countries that worked with Soviet leaders in the 1950s and 1960s had difficulty communicating with them or getting them to honor mutual agreements. Even before the 2011 Syrian uprising, Iran was actively laying the ground for permanently positioning itself in the country. Even though Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been working on rehabilitating Assad's regime in the Arab region, he still has doubts about them. In a speech delivered in 2006, Assad described the GCC rulers as "half men," viewing them as "indentured slaves" of the United States.
It’s unclear how the U.S., for its part, feels about a possible rapprochement with Syria. It would relish any opportunity to isolate Iran, but it is also leading the charge in opposing normalization between Syria and the Arab world. Still, the war in Gaza has accentuated some of the differences between Iran and Syria such that Damascus believes there is now an opportunity to make its move.
Syria is an improbable country, severely divided along sectarian, ethnic and regional lines. In the 1950s, it was an arena for regional power competition. Bashar’s father, Hafez Assad, used excessive repression to control and transform it into a modest regional power. The Assads are minority rulers, and many see Bashar as paranoid and conspiracist. Even so, Bashar allowed Iranian influence in the country after he pulled out the Syrian army from Lebanon in 2005. Despite the rift between the Assad regime and Iran, the odds are that postwar Syria will reemerge into a weak state dominated by other countries, including Iran, which will be one of several states meddling in its domestic affairs.
We value your though
35
Politics & Religion / Gender: From Academia to Advocacy
« Last post by Body-by-Guinness on May 21, 2024, 09:23:08 AM »This piece contains some deeply subversive to the "Progressive" point of view elements. I'd paste it here, but there is more italicized text than I can format at the moment, and seeing the italics are important to understanding the piece:
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/05/21/what-is-sex/
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/05/21/what-is-sex/
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Politics & Religion / Re: Media, Ministry of Truth Issues, "Far Right"
« Last post by DougMacG on May 21, 2024, 09:00:29 AM »Here and in the West they call conservatives 'far right', but if you kill enough people in and around Iran they are happy to call you a 'conservative'.
http://economist.com/
"Mr Raisi has a long list of internal enemies, from the relative moderates he has marginalised to the fellow conservatives who think he has been an inept president. It is not unreasonable to wonder if domestic foes conspired to kill him."
http://economist.com/
"Mr Raisi has a long list of internal enemies, from the relative moderates he has marginalised to the fellow conservatives who think he has been an inept president. It is not unreasonable to wonder if domestic foes conspired to kill him."
37
Politics & Religion / Iran, helicopter crash
« Last post by DougMacG on May 21, 2024, 08:15:23 AM »What kind of condolence do you send to a country that just lost a murderous, oppressive, war starting tyrant?
https://nypost.com/2024/05/20/us-news/state-department-nato-un-criticized-for-offering-condolences-to-iran-over-dead-butcher-of-tehran/
https://nypost.com/2024/05/20/us-news/state-department-nato-un-criticized-for-offering-condolences-to-iran-over-dead-butcher-of-tehran/
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Science, Culture, & Humanities / Scientist left out full truth to get published
« Last post by DougMacG on May 21, 2024, 08:11:38 AM »39
Politics & Religion / About that Helicopter Crash....
« Last post by Body-by-Guinness on May 21, 2024, 07:55:11 AM »Someone I follow posted this re the recent crash death of Iran's president:
"William of Ockham would like you to know that flying a helicopter in pea soup fog in the mountains is all you need for a crash. Mossad didn't bag Kobe Bryant and they didn't bag Raisi, either. Get-There-itis kills more people than any other factor in general aviation."
BBG again; I'd add Steve Ray Vaughn to that list, who very tragically died in a fog shrouded helicopter crash in the flatland of IL into what would amount to less than a bunny hill most places at a downhill ski place in Northern Illinois called "Wilmot Mountain." I wouldn't bet the mortgage that Israel had no role, but Ockham's Razor perhaps ought to be applied when evaluating the nefarious claims.
"William of Ockham would like you to know that flying a helicopter in pea soup fog in the mountains is all you need for a crash. Mossad didn't bag Kobe Bryant and they didn't bag Raisi, either. Get-There-itis kills more people than any other factor in general aviation."
BBG again; I'd add Steve Ray Vaughn to that list, who very tragically died in a fog shrouded helicopter crash in the flatland of IL into what would amount to less than a bunny hill most places at a downhill ski place in Northern Illinois called "Wilmot Mountain." I wouldn't bet the mortgage that Israel had no role, but Ockham's Razor perhaps ought to be applied when evaluating the nefarious claims.
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Science, Culture, & Humanities / Graceland being sold
« Last post by ccp on May 21, 2024, 06:51:50 AM »reason I post here is I was there as a visitor - as a benefit for going to the Asheville NC Gilder Tech Report meeting circa 1999.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/celebrity/elvis-presley-s-home-graceland-to-be-sold-off-at-foreclosure-auction/ss-BB1mM2gh?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=fa9cd6bb7d48471cbd7af7e41d3cc8a1&ei=12
I recall standing next to Carver Mead looking at an exhibit of sequin jump suits Elvis wore during his shows.
He was buried with some relatives in a small plot next to the house.
There was something touching about that.
We also went to the Memphis Fedex facility which had its own airport.
About 9 months later came the tech crash of 2000.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/celebrity/elvis-presley-s-home-graceland-to-be-sold-off-at-foreclosure-auction/ss-BB1mM2gh?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=fa9cd6bb7d48471cbd7af7e41d3cc8a1&ei=12
I recall standing next to Carver Mead looking at an exhibit of sequin jump suits Elvis wore during his shows.
He was buried with some relatives in a small plot next to the house.
There was something touching about that.
We also went to the Memphis Fedex facility which had its own airport.
About 9 months later came the tech crash of 2000.