I’ve come across many a users here who don’t know VOA is US State Department propaganda.

In the literal sense, it is an organization funded fully by the US government with the purpose of publishing information that is helpful towards their policy objectives.

That doesn’t mean they’re spreading lies, or somehow equivalent to RT, it’s just a statement of fact. It is the organization’s purpose.

As to your question, maybe they intentionally degraded the quality or substituted a synthetic image for counterintelligence purposes, or maybe it’s just a bad photo, I don’t know.

If I was support, had a list to work through because my calls were monitored and recorded, and you were being a complete know-it-all asshole, I would walk through them as slow as possible, and repeat as many as I could plausibly get away with.

Because that’s the actual job: following instructions from their boss, which means following their processes. Why would they deviate from that, and risk their job, for someone who’s rude, and/or self-important?

As someone who’s also technically competent and rarely calls support, when I do, I’ve never had to repeat the same steps 17 times, or even 3 times.

I let them tell me to turn off and on again, confirm it’s done, explain why I need a level 2 support or escalation. Then they’ll typically ask me one or two more questions, which I’ll politely answer, reiterate my polite request for level 2, and they will escalate for me.

Yes

I’ve heard it both ways.

People here get really uppity when you point out that Ukraine’s enemy lossss and casualty reports are likely inflated, because that’s what all militaries do in all conflicts. It doesn’t even always have to do with wartime propaganda, but because it’s hard to accurately tally enemy losses during active conflict.

Anyways, when you point that out the usual responses to point out the patently ridiculous reports on Ukrainian losses that the Russian MoD puts out, as if somehow that means Ukraine’s are accurate.

The best I can say is that Ukrainian reports are almost certainly exponentially closer to reality than Russia’s comically absurd and fantastical figures.

I will finish it up by saying that there are good independent sources who open source intelligence to track verified losses, and air on the conservative side.

That of course means their loss reports aren’t accurate either, but they provide a good figures to be used as a floor for any estimate ranges.

Casualties are not the same as KIA, and not all WIA are permanently combat ineffective.

Someone who got shrapnel in the leg or abdomen and requires 6-8 weeks of recovery, before returning to combat, is a single casualty.

That same soldier can return to combat, catch a bullet in their arm, and be a casualty again.

That same soldier can return to service three months later, etc.

If after returning to service a 3rd time, they’re eventually KIA, then they would have been counted as a casualty three times.

Not saying this is typical, or that this is indicative of the normal WIA casualty. Just pointing out that a single soldier can be counted as a casualty more than once, and it’s not uncommon.

So I won’t use the Iraq war as a marker of morality…

In other words, you’ve nullified the murder of 1 million innocent people by Bush, in order to rationalize why Trump is worse.

But please, write another five paragraphs justifying why those deaths shouldn’t count here. I’m sure eventually you’ll figure out the right semantic argument that almost passes muster for someone of slightly below average intelligence.

I’d actually respect you more if you just said that you care about the danger Trump poses to American democracy more than a million dead Arabs. At least you’d finally be open and honest about the political and moral views you clearly hold.

That’s a lot of words to basically justify why the extermination of one million people isn’t that bad relative to myriad of shitfuckery Trump did.

Oh, and Incase you forgot, Bush did actually succeed at stealing an election. So…there’s that.

1 stolen election + 1 million dead arabs < Stormy Daniels and a failed attempt at stealing an election.

Your politics and sense of humanity have to be so so broken and destroyed by social media consumption to even entertain that idea, but you’re full on tripling down on it.

Damn. I hope you touch grass and see the light someday.

You’re comparing tangibles to intangibles, hypotheticals, and combining it with a very confused sense of morality.

The fact that you can’t see past Trump to understand that actually killing one million human beings is worse then anything he did, is depressing.

Do you not understand that Trump can be a malignant tumor and dangerous all on his own, without having to pretend that anything he did even remotely compares to directly killing 1 million innocent people?

Or maybe you don’t care because they’re Arab? I know you’ll balk at that, throw out all the right signifiers, and maybe even throw a “how dare you” my way, but I’m not left with many other options to understand to your rational.

Well it’s good to see that a million dead Iraqis is definitely not worse than fucking pornstars and embezzlement…

That’s dark dude, like holy shit your sense of morality and justice is so bent that I’m blown away.

You’re the type of liberal who actually believes Dubya is a good man, or a better president than Trump.

Nevermind that he killed over a million people in Iraq.

Trump is a malignant tumor, no doubt.

But so are people who campaign alongside Dick Cheney.

Don’t assume that the majority of people who vote for Trump, are MAGA.

Many, if not most, are the same as many Biden/Harris voters in that they hate both candidates, and are voting for who they view as the lesser of two evils.

As I’m a Lemmy user, you can safely assume I’m not one of them, but the point stands.

But, if you’re talking about people who have gone full on MAGA insanity, well they probably got there somewhere between 2016 and 2020, so there’s not a a ton of new converts to deal with.

And even with then, they’re the minority of a minority.

Of course, if someone is of the opinion that anyone who votes for Trump, no matter the reason, must be excised from their life, well that’s their choice, but I kind of pity them.

Trump is not Hitler. He’s too lazy and stupid to be Hitler. Let’s not pretend that voting for Trump is the same as supporting Hitler, it’s not.

He’s a piece of shit authoritarian, but on the scale of American Presidents, the areas where he deviates the most from the norm, is how stupid and crass his corruption and racism is, not that he was corrupt and racist.

No, I’m referring to back channel reports where Iran was relaying something along the lines of the “acceptable targets” where they would not retaliate, or at least not escalate. Including certain types of military bases and facilities.

I don’t believe the IRGC headquarters was included on that list, but as it’s “proportional” to targeting Mossad HQ, I think it’s possible they could lump it in with the other acceptable strikes.

That is, assuming that reporting was even accurate, and if it was, that they’ll extend additional restraint for the IRGC strike.

Again, if that reporting was correct, and if this attack was more or less in line with it, I think it’s extremely likely that the reasoning would be that the US government applied real pressure for the first time during this conflict.

However, that is a lot of what ifs, and assumptions, and it’s probably just as likely, if not more likely, that they’re all shit.

Guess we’ll see.

That might indicate that this really is a proportional response, the kind that Iran has already signaled they would not retaliate against.

By giving the market the weekend to confirm that Israel has not significantly escalated over Iran’s attack, it could very well temper market movement. Especially if it’s confirmed they did not strike any energy infrastructure.

Of course this is israel, so unless America behind the scenes is actually applying pressure for once, they could decide to strike all of their oil facilities tomorrow.

I guess we’ll see soon enough.

The situation in Haiti is directly attributable to Western powers, specifically France and America…

You don’t have to pretend the gangs and their violence aren’t real, in order to acknowledge the historical realities of how Western powers have fucked that country up beyond belief. A tradition that has continued into the modern era.

The YPG is not the same as the PKK. Kurds and Kurdish militias aren’t a monolith…

Unfortunately the USA has classified the PKK as a terrorist organization, so no, it is highly unlikely they coordinate much, especially involving Turkey.

I agree that the person you’re responding to is wrong, and pretty dim, but that doesn’t mean you should counter their bad takes, with possibly even worse ones.

Of course, I never said otherwise. But there is a big difference, politically speaking, between providing K2 tanks and anti-personnel drones, then ballistic missiles intended for strikes deep inside of Russia.

This has nothing to do with South Korean capabilities. I’m well aware that they are a premium first world arms exporter, and high tech weapons manufacturer.

As Americans we like to joke about Russian threats of retaliation, and how we aren’t worried about it. There is truth to that, at least enough truth that I think restrictions on our weapons platforms should be lifted, or at least eased.

That’s what I mean when I say South Korea is not America. They do have to consider the ramifications and implications about how they approach something like enabling deep strikes into Russia. For that reason, I am skeptical they would provide weapons for use inside Russia.

I never said they wouldn’t provide weapons to be used inside Ukraine, but that is different than providing weapons to strike deep inside of Russia.

South Korea is not the United States.

South Korea is highly unlikely to provide weapons for deep strikes into Russia.

For that matter, the only countries that would likely provide that weaponry would be the USA, UK, and maybe France.

But probably just the USA, as both the UK and France have significantly less secure and defensively sound positions relative to the United States, both physically and militarily.

But you could see capital flow from any number of countries purposed, or repurposed, for what Ukraine is requesting.