Base32

Get your own facts right. You are confused ISIS-K prisoners with the 5000 Taliban terrorists that Trump got released, including thoses on death row. Trump agreed with the Taliban to release 5000 Taliban prisoners. The Afghan President complained, but pressure brought on him saw 1500 released, in 100 tranches. with 5000 released by the end of 2020, following an acceleration in November 2020 (ie. once he lost the election, Trump made siure more murderers were released, to potentially attack Americans. He must have really hated people who didn't vote for him). Trump negotiated to get thousands terrorists released without telling the Afghan government, with zero checks. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-53775035 The 5000 released were Taliban, not ISIS-K The full quote you selectively quoted to confer a false impression: ISIS_K was a common enemy of the ANA and taliban, and not part of the the Trump Surrender Agreement (that's what it was; the US negotiated with the taliban terrorists a conditional withdrawal, pretty much a surrender. As much a betrayal of the Afghans as Nixon's betrayal of the South Vietnamese. During the whole of 2020, the Taliban harried the US forces and their allies. I think Kirby didn't have any notion of the strength of ISIS-K; It peaked at 3000, but 1500 were eliminated by 2021, so there was never 5000 ISIS-K at Bagram. Contempary news sources, citing a regional counter terrorism source, from the period, estimate that Bagram, along with the Pul-e-Charkhi prison housed a few hundred ISIS-K, along with a few thousand ordinary criminals. That seems inline with the vast majority of estimates for the total peak size of this group.

True. Rasputitsa/Bezdorizhzhia, or the muddy season, is in about 6 weeks. The action to take Pokrovsk is likely the last Russian offensive of the season. If they don't, before General Mud turns up, they will be left with a narrow salient, with resupply across muddy fields. Empires look stable right up until the moment they collapse. Fight the war according to the Russian plan means fighting over a few grubby flattened mining towns, and the front line moving only a few kms. Importantly, the Russian KIAs are "contractors"; conscripts are not being sent to that front line. But they are in Kursk, and seem a rather different kind of POW.

Is he having a stroke, or re-enacting his half hour of passion with Storm?

The TA was not the equivalent to the NG. This would confuse Americans, who will then believe that the TA in Northern Ireland had a oath of Loyalty to the head of SF. The TA no longer exists; its the UK Army Reserve. The UK Army Reserve is directly analogous to the US Army Reserve, which also consists of a mixture of former regulars, who have obligitatory service, and those with no prior military experience. Since 2001, the deployment of the NG overseas has been deeply contentious in a way activation in the UK has not been. The closest the UK has had to the NG was the British Militia; these existed until just before the Great War, and were essentially private armies raised by some landowner, who would kit them out and arm them, and place them at the service of the Crown, principally for the defence of the Home Nation. Another term was Volunteer Force, which might trigger recognition, through the "Ulster Volunteer Force", which during the Irish Civil War, and before, was organising in Northern Ireland to counter the Republicans, and ended up smuggling in Mausers after the British decided enough of this. The name was obviously used to give some quasi-legitimacy. You chose to leave the armed forces at a time of your choosing. You decided that you no longer wanted to serve in uniform. My brother is coming up to 25 years; he decided that he should serve in uniform. You were lucky it just didn't happen to coincide with a front line posting, so no one could cast dout on your motives 15 years later. Lots of servicemen leave the armed forces at random times in their careers. My father left after 26 years a few months before the Falklands War. He didn't resign his commission because of the Falklands. He left for a variety of reasons to do with his age, career and family. He had done his service. He was activated for GW1 as a BCR, but it was all over by the time he left Aldershot on the train.

I assume this is satire. 2020 Biden: 81,283,501 Trump: 74,223,975 2016 Clinton: 65,853,514 Trump: 62,984,828

Bloody hell. Politics happens outside of the US. You have gone to the wrong forum. Its not a forum about life in America. It must have been really puzzling to you about all these articles about Prime Ministers and Generals who's name you couldn't pronounce, and wondering who Big Jok was.

Trump blames the families

Trump blames the Gold Star families for the Arlington incident:

Given in other posts you state you are a neutral, not particularly supporting the other lot, could you apply your sleuthing skills to work out with business JD and his brother smashed up? I assuming you are spending hours and hours of research on this, and not actually being fed the sources by a third party. And dig in to why JD was investing in fetal stem cell research, which seems at odds with his Pro-Life viewpoints. Ta.

Irrelevant? A deputy head teacher pleading guilty to robbing a Walmart store, and somehow keeping his job? Depends if you are judging character. Plus the Queen of Scoops never tracked down the older sister. So Walz has a familiy member he doesn't see eye to eye with. Trumpf has a few, such as his nephew, which came about after Donald wished his grand-nephew to die, and his niece who called Uncle Donald a sociopath who should be banned from office. RFK, has family members disagree with him, though I see on this forum some thinking its more important that there are family members who apparently support him. Maybe all those opinions should be dismissed. As the opinions of Hamel-Vance's sister, Lindsay, and his older drug addict brother, Travis, plus the 10-ish other siblings out there (Hamel doesn't know how many). The Public demands details of when JD and Travis went on a bender and wrecked a car. And did JD inhale? WTF is Laura Loomer. Remarkably MTG has called her "mentally unstable and a documented liar". That's going some within MAGA. She has described herself as a "proud Islamophobe" and a "pro-white nationalis(t)". She claimed to be going out with some bloke called Tim Gionet (another MAGA supporter), who meanwhile was posting pictures of his girlfriend journalist being executed in a gas chamber. She downplayed COVID-19, saying its no worse than food poisoning. Then she actually got COVID-19 and asked her social media followers to pray for her.

Another topic deliberately picked to promote discord and discussion, to create traffic for a Forum format that's on its knees. Quelle surprise. The responses are predictable, and inconquential (except in one important aspect).

I think history makes a distinction between German civilians, Polish Civilians, Soviet (mostly Ukrainian, Belarusian), Yugoslav civilians and British civilians. You are an apologist for Putin, with your mental gymnastics to defend his actions.

So Boris Johnson was as American as they come.

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2016/02/20/from-the-tower-to-the-white-house https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/29/the-myth-and-the-reality-of-donald-trumps-business-empire/ https://news.temple.edu/news/2016-10-25/bankruptcy-expert-studies-trump-casinos I actually do work for a business genius, who took a £3000 Barclaycard and turned it into a £2 billion personal fortune, plus a Plc, in about 20 years. He's a pretty clever bloke, PhD in Physics from Oxford, who early on recognised the potential of the Internet. CAGR wise, he's done better than trump. Now, I reckon there are some even clever entrepreneurs out there, who know how to build a business. Trump doesn't really know how to do that. https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/as-a-businessman-trump-was-the-biggest-loser-of-all

He needs to choose better company

World leaders checking watches Of course, Biden glanced as a watch during a coffin transfer ceremony, rather than a formal moment of silence. At least he went. During Trumpf's period in office, there were 96 such ceremonies Trumpf went to 4 of them. During one of those, he invited a Holloywood actor, Jon Voight, to come and have a look. Of course we know Biden checked the time during a ceremony, because a photographer was gawping at him taking that shot that he hoped he could sell. Is the fact that there are no photos of Trumpf checking a watch, picking nose, gobbing on the floor, picking his arse, rubbing his crotch during such a ceremony proof that he never did any of that? Does a photo like this mean Trumpf has no respect for the disabled? Between 1991 and 2009, the media were not allowed to attend the "Dignified Transfer", with the ban lifted by Robert Gates, which also allowed families to attend. The US military's definition states is a process, not a ceremony. It was right to allow the families to attend, but probably misplaced to allow the media, who are generally not interested in the process being carried out, except photos that can be symbolic; a President checking a watch as evidence of disrespect (its not, its someone checking the time), or flag draped caskets being symbolic of US failure/weakness (its not), or a President self consciously saluting as proof of respect (its not, its an ex-Hollywood president self aware of the cameras). Then same happened in the UK; it was bordering on the ridiculous with the lined of Jaguar, Volvo, Vauxhall etc hearses parading through Royal Wootton Bassett, with the Repatriations moving from a private act to a public spectacle.

Ah, but you can cherry pick quotes to paint a different picture There's a Reddit on the whole subject of whether Trumpf is the Antichrist. In reality, he's a grifter seeing an opportunity. Apparently, people here are Hailing Satan in the photo They go nuts over photos like this An entire thesis on the topic of whether Trumpf is the Antichrist or Messiah. https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1474&context=thesis

I'm guessing a few sticky keyboard clicks on Google. Or Truth Social.

Putin off on his hols to Mongolia https://kyivindependent.com/putin-to-visit-icc-member-mongolia-next-week/ Earlier in the year, the former Prez of Mongolia trolled Russia

Went well https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/sc-viral-pageant-star-claps-back-jd-vance/article_eb85f2a2-66e2-11ef-8723-eb491138f0b4.html

Governor Cox apologises

The AZ vaccine was based around an adenovirus that was used to replicate part of the coronavirus spike protein, to induce the immune response, and hence immunity (or prime the body to respond to a real infection). A young child was admitted to hospital in Canada with an adenovirus infection (adenovirus is better known as the Common Cold) and a developing blood clot on the brain. The doctors had heard about similar injuries related to the adenovirus vaccine, but the child was not vaccinated. There was nothing in the literature suggesting this had been observed when developing a cold. But within the medical community, other cases began to emerge. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2307721 This is a brand new observed clinical manifestation of common cold infection. The problem is the vast majority of common colds are never reported or diagnosed, and people can get a blood clot that is apparently unexplained. There is a pipeline of adenovirus-based vaccines in the pipeline, vaccines against HIV, Ebola virus, influenza virus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Plasmodium falciparum, rabies virus, dengue virus and MERS. There is going to some concern about establishing risk. Risk being, going back to the article, a combination of the hazard that that might be caused (eg death) and likelihood (how often does death, or the injury, occur. COVID-19 might give the numbers for a previously under reported condition. When people complain they didn't know the risk, that's because no one knew the risk (of any new vaccine). Thats why the UK government assumes liability for all vaccines. Without that, no vaccine will ever be made. Vaccines are unlike other pharmaceuticals, because they are always needed quickly and at scale. The Polio vaccine, based on formaldehyde inactivated polio viruses, was invented by Jonas Salk. It never underwent clinical trials, because at the time, clinical trials, as we know them, didn't exist. Developed in the lab, tested on a few subjects, hundreds of thousands of batches were made and went into the arms of American kids. Unfortunately, one of the companies contracted to make the vaccine didn't really know how to make formaldehyde properly, so batches went out with live virus. Polio cases resulted. That didn't dampen enthusiasm for the vaccine. As a result of this, the FDA was created, to oversee companies making drugs, to make sure they were following proper, tested processes. Also clinical trials. When news about this discovery becomes better known (when we can start assessing the actual risk), perhaps people won't be so blase about the Common Cold.

I don't think you understood what was being proposed.