There was just a story about a group of surrendering Russian soldiers getting shelled by Russian artillery. It isn’t 100% clear that it was intentional, but its hard to not envision it as a throwback to the Soviet penal legions of old.
I’m sure by now they have figured out (or rediscovered, more likely) tactics to minimize the risk of their conscripts folding, sadly.
Or they just keep quiet and lie and do whatever they want. Hard to prove guilt in the sticks if there isn’t a game warden nearby.
Here’s an anecdote from an American outdoors industry leader where he admits he doesn’t give a shit about conservation laws and admits to seeking out and killing at least one bear, against the advice of fish and wildlife, because he deemed it to be dangerous. https://www.buffalobore.com/index.php?l=product_list&c=108
One, it does give some room to dismiss accusations, even if just rhetorically.
Two, when you are able to coerce your subjects to say the sky is green, the sun sets in the East, and Dear Leader won the election, its an exercise of power over them. It feeds the ego and it becomes a litmus test for the disloyal.
It probably was fake. I’d imagine the people who are selected for these assignments are borderline or complete sociopaths who don’t have problems putting their mission above their entanglements.
If these kids are old enough to have any sense they aught to flee the first chance they get.
As an American I think that would all be reasonable…if the official US position was that Mexico has no right to exist, the Mexican people should be forcibly integrated into our society as 2nd class citizens, and the US Army was in the process of a “peacekeeping operation” in Mexico to carry all this out.
For all our flaws, we respect the borders of our neighbors and don’t have irridentist aspirations that belong in the 19th century. Russia is the aggressor here, and they have demonstrated that they have little interest in global peace or human rights, only increasing their sphere of influence.
Continually rolling over for thugs because it’s what avoids nuclear conflict will only lead to a global order based on thuggery, and it likely won’t even avoid nuclear conflict in the end.
And conservative voters see any measure to tackle this issue, no matter how benign, as “weak liberal nonsense” and “a waste of time” that cheapens our fighting ability. Of course I’m sure their hearts are set on what’s best for our military, and not that they’re sexist, racist abusers who don’t want their sexist, racist abuse to be challenged.
This issue goes back at least as far as living memory for the US. We were particularly vicious to German women at the end of WWII. GI’s having illegitimate children with local women in Asia during our multiple wars there was so common it’s basically a trope.
They wanted to impede the soft power of China in the region. It does make sense in a realpolitik kind of way, but someone with a fucking conscience in the command chain should have stopped this.
No, they absolutely used it as a ground-attack incendiary and have admitted as such. They were not flushed out by being illuminated, they were flushed out with choking smoke and burning shit raining down on their positions.
Even if they did only use illumination flares, there are considerations against using them in civilian areas in ways that can start fires or otherwise cause injury to civilians.
The legal issue is moot because the US was not an adherent to these laws until 2009.
The US used the same weapons in Fallujah and likely elsewhere. They called it “shake and bake” when they first fired WP artillery to draw enemy fighters out, then followed up with conventional artillery to kill them.
Nobody can hold the US accountable, so they’re not going to hold their rabid dog accountable either.
Imagine ripping off the fucking US Army for…9mm handguns.
And naturally it’s a reverse-engineered BD Spot, likely even down to the software. Why put money into R&D when your adversaries do it for you?
A lot of the pilgrims were the fundamentalist crazies that Europe didn’t want, and the towns they founded had laws like this and more.
To me, the wording of the Israeli statement implies it was them, though of course it’s not 100% certain. If they had even the flimsiest proof to pin it on Hamas they would go public with it immediately.
A solar storm of that scale wouldn’t just take down Facebook and Twitter for a while, it could destroy critical power infrastructure around the globe that would take months to repair. People would die.
Didn’t the Serbian legislative body fucking gas themselves with CS a few years back?
They need to get people to believe that the security theater is working to protect them (it doesn’t), otherwise they might start to question why it’s there in the first place. Hint: it’s not to protect the public from terrorists.
That specifically is a valid concern for training ammunition where massive quantities end up being fired into relatively small firing ranges over the years, making the land more or less permanently contaminated with heavy metals and toxic residues from explosives. I doubt ammo for the “real world” will have the same requirements.
I think DPRK’s hope is that at least some soldiers and officers will return with some modern combat experience, something that their military organization is dreadfully lacking. It could end up being a bigger problem down the road for ROK even if they lose a few thousand bodies.