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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   1186 thread views

Transnational Thursday for July 25, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Anybody got a take on the stuff in Israel about soldiers arrested for rape resisting arrest resulting in riots or something? My Twitter timeline is full of it but I can't honestly decode what's going on from the propaganda.

It’s all rather embarrassing. The MKs involved are from the coalition parties, which makes things even worse. It seems like Likud et al just can’t get past their revisionist roots so they must always play the revolutionary underdog role, even when they’re supposed to be the rulers.

In any case, everyone involved is from the Israeli Jewish mainstream, so real violence isn’t likely.

Edit: forgot to answer, as far as I understand the prisoner had a broomstick shoved up his ass. Pretty sick.

It's remarkable how fractious and divisive these people are in the face of external dangers. Normal people fighting a dirty war try to hush up their crimes, sweep things under the rug... You see this in Germany and the Holocaust, you had higher ups in the Posen speeches saying to a selected audience of elites 'alright this is wartime we can get away with stuff we can't do in peacetime, once we win this won't be spoken of in public'.

But the Israelis are screaming at eachother in Parliament "Is it legitimate to insert a stick in someone's rectum?" and someone goes "Yes everything is permitted, they're Nukhba!" (A Hamas unit).

https://x.com/CensoredMen/status/1818143620098081123

Hm. WaPo, Haaretz (2), Al J.

It's kinda interesting that both Haaretz and ALJ describe the victim in this case as "he" -- were it one, I might think translation issues, and that's still possible, but it's a lot less likely. There's a lot of demographic reasons for a lot of violence against prisoners to target men, and I've seen 'gang-rape' used to describe the situation, but doesn't exclude the Abu Ghraib or Oncale-style sexualized-violence-as-humiliation option. Which is still bad!

At least from the public reporting, the accused soldiers were arrested. While some (and/or some other soldiers stationed at the facility?) resisted, they didn't do so very long or very successfully. A separate problem came about when external protestors, including some Israeli politicians, started protesting outside the base and then pushed their way inside, before being redirected back out. This is absolutely embarrassing for a military power, but it's more shoving contests gone dumber than a serious riot.

I think some of the right-wing protest comes about because there have been a number of high-profile exaggerated examples of IDF abuse, but a lot of the criticisms of treatment in other cases do have real foundation. Whether the underlying allegations here are Oncale-style abuse or more conventional gang-rape of a prisoner, they're going to need serious investigation to prove whether they happened or not.

What exactly is going on in Venezuela and why does it mean there were police barricades in my neighborhood last night preventing me from driving home?

They had an election. Officially, Maduro (the socialist encumbrant) won. Unofficially, it's sketchy even by the standards of Venezuelan elections (Jimmy Carter's seal of approval twenty-five years ago!), with a massive swing from recent polling, bans on political candidates, Maduro claiming a massive foreign cyberattack (echoing 2019 claims after that mess), so on. Add in background of the oil stuff and a broad ban on firearms mostly unenforced against Maduro's supporters, and there's a lot of room for things to get Messy.

((In theory, if any irregularities could be proven, it would be a major embarrassment for the Biden administration, since they removed a lot of sanctions on Venezuela's oil exports on the basis of free and fair elections. But I don't think anyone who cares will hear about it, and the [agreement officially had collapsed in April anyway.))

No idea where you live, so can't say on police barricades.

EDIT: some alleged but hilarious return numbers.

EDIT2: the Maduro government is announcing prosecution of said banned political candidate, among others..

((In theory, if any irregularities could be proven, it would be a major embarrassment for the Biden administration, since they removed a lot of sanctions on Venezuela's oil exports on the basis of free and fair elections. But I don't think anyone who cares will hear about it, and the [agreement officially had collapsed in April anyway.))

I'll just note that some of the reasons you won't hear much about it is that the elections-for-sanctions had at least three... let's not call them ulterior motives, but ancilliary benefits.

One was that it allowed the US a face-saving way to readjust the sanctions-format between what was originally there and what has/will snap back. Even on its own terms, not all sanctions (including energy) worked as desired, and so while fundamentals are shared, not all the technicalities will be the same.

This, in turn, gave a second benefit, which was a diplomatic bone to US allies struggling with high energy/oil prices. While Venezuela isn't so much a gas producer, and its oil market contributions aren't market-shaping, there are a lot of regional and global countries- especially US European and Asian partners- for whom any energy relief matters more than Latin American politics. Letting themselves get 'persuaded' into sanctions relaxation in turn gives that little bit of 'I'm reasonable' trading card in the conduct of other relations for those who care more about the energy econ dynamics than the US. This means that those countries who appreciated the energy boost are much, much less likely to criticize the decision.

Third, this was also a... not a trade, but a card with Brazil in particular, especially after the role the US played in the Venezuela-Guyana Essequibo dispute over the winter. While the elections deal was announced in October 23, and thus negotiated before the crisis began to rise in visibility also in October, one of the major regional proponents was Brazil, where Lula has mixed feelings (sympathetic but only so far) for Venezuela, especially vis-a-vis the US sanctions. Agreeing to the sanctions relaxation was a Brazilian 'win' that demonstrated Lula's regional influence and the US's responsiveness to/respect for Brazilian efforts- even as the sanctions jump-back meant that the Brazilians lost grounds to critique a deal they supported when the Venezuelans broke it. Further, in that interim the US's earned political favors could be leveraged to... not pacify, but mitigate some of the potential pushback when the US fully backed Guyana in Venezuela's late-year pressure campaign. This let the US do something Brazil might have pushed back more directly, the military relationshp building in northern S. America, as the US both was (technically) on the same side of Brazil in opposing the border pressure, and had proved it's 'reasonableness' by maintain the same sanctions relief.

By making a concession that would be only temporary if Venezuela broke the general spirit, the Biden administration largely set up a win-win. If Venezuela went along with an election it didn't control all the processes of (which was a possibility in the pre-deal context), it would likely lose (as it did) due to the uncontrolled polling-exposure effect, and that would be a US win in and of itself. But even if it renenged (as it did at the very end), Venezuela going along with an election but renenging on the free or fair parts legitimaized a number of US policy positions, increased US access to the region, and diplomatically separated Venezuela from its more conditional regional supporters.

Power has gone out in Paris in a likely cyberattack.

There’s just been a mass causality Hezbollah rocket attack in the Golan Heights. Multiple dead including children. I think the Israel/Hezbollah tinderbox has just been lit.

Though the lens of US politics: In recent days the Biden admin has been pushing hard for a Gaza ceasefire. (My interpretation sees this as part of the fresh burst to win the 2024 election now that Biden has withdrawn.) Does this keep Israel-Palestine a live issue through election day?

Last week Wall Street Journal writer Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years for espionage charges. The trial was closed so evidence was not available to the public; the WSJ and the US government have denied the charges (All the WSJ articles on Gershkovich are free from paywalls and other restrictions).

A list of other notable Americans imprisoned or formerly imprisoned in Russia includes:

Paul Whelan (former Marine charged with espionage for 16 years, arrested in 2018, his family denies he is a spy).

Trevor Reed (former Marine charged with assaulting a police officer while drunk arrested 2019, sentenced for 9 years, released in exchange for Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was convicted for drug smuggling [for cocaine was arrested in Liberia in 2010 and sentenced in the US to 20 years]).

Marc Fogel (schoolteacher at the Anglo-American School of Moscow, arrested 2021 for entering Russia with 0.6 grams of medical marijuana sentenced to 14 years).

Britney Griner (WNBA player arrested entering Russia with a hash oil vaporizer arrested Aug 2022 sentenced to 9 years, released Dec 2022 in exchange for Viktor Bout [arrested 2008 in Thailand extradited 2010 to US, sentenced 2011 to 25 years by the US for conspiring to provide arms to Columbian rebel group FARC]).

Alsu Kurmasheva (journalist for Radio-Free Europe, holds Russian and American citizenship, arrested 2023 for failing to register as a foreign agent, sentenced to 6.5 years for spreading false information, relating to a book she edited 'Saying No To War').

Biden gets a lot of flack for trading Viktor Bout for Britney Griner, but I suspect it was actually for Britney Griner and several dozen American advisors that were captured in Mariupol.

There was simply no major reason to keep a GRU officer in captivity after outing him.

... sentenced to 16 years for espionage charges. The trial was closed so evidence was not available to the public ...

Sadly, just as our invasion of Iraq makes our complaints about Russia's illegal invasions ring somewhat hypocritical, our embrace of closed trials with secret evidence in the past 20 years puts Americans in an embarrassing position when Putin uses same.

Let's not forget Belarus forcing that plane down to capture that dissident journalist vs the US forcing a plane down over Europe because the USG thought Snowden was on it. (thankfully he wasn't)

There's no shortage of examples of American hypocrisy in the exercise of power...

Although I think more and more that reflects the nature of the exercise of power than the nature of America. The nation's founders were wiser when they checked or limited it than when they exercised it.

So what's more transnational than... the Olympics? The Olympics in Paris begin in less than 24 hours. So far a Japanese gymnast has already been put on a plane back to Tokyo before her first somersault. Why? She admitted to smoking and drinking. Notably the age of doing either in Japan is 20. She's 19. The issue I believe is the Japan Gymnastics Association bylaws which forbid these vices. (As far as I know she only admitted to drinking in Japan.) Also at least one Russian man has been arrested for plotting to disrupt the games, and an Australian woman (not an athlete) has aid she was gang-raped by men who "looked African." Also sex is back on the list of possibilities for athletes, after the rather celibate Tokyo games due to COVID restrictions (no word on whether that Japanese gymnast also ever had sex during training.)

Edit: Breaking: Arson attacks on French rail lines.

Edit: Breaking: Arson attacks on French rail lines.

Luckily it looks like some lines are already back up and running.

Also sex is back on the list of possibilities for athletes

I mean, if you were a person with a literally top 0.0001% body on the first deserved break of the year surrounded by 10000 more people in identical circumstances, why wouldn't you have sex that would put Dionysius to shame?

even being at top doesn't eliminate big disparity between male and female libidos

Athletes have more attractive bodies than average, but they don't have the most attractive bodies- those are models and actors. In fact the revealed preference is for most people, not the most athletic body available- men in particular seem to prefer more body fat than an Olympic athlete.

A bigger factor is probably that Olympic athletes are basically all young(often literal teenagers) and single, with supervisory authorities who don't really care if they get it on.

Not models or actors either, unless we're talking about softcore porn models.

I believe there is a view supported by certain talmudists that celibacy is not required within the bounds of marriage and the perimeter of the Olympic Village

An erotic eruv is erected!

American military personnel in Japan are expected to obey local drinking laws. While I was 24 when I was first stationed there, there were quite a few of my younger shipmates who were in America on their 20th birthday and Japan on their 21st and thereby deprived of the (profoundly vapid) drinking birthday celebration.

My sister was 20 when she and my dad flew over to see me and so she got to enjoy a legal pint of Kirin Ichiban in a Yokohama jazz club with us.

The issue I believe is the Japan Gymnastics Association bylaws which forbid these vices.

It's certainly not French laws; isn't the Parisian drinking age second trimester?

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