🧵 Let’s talk Israel.

There have been several important developments related to Israel in the last 24 hours.

Biden and Netanyahu spoke for the first time in a long time, and all accounts of the conversation suggest it was tense. Biden gave Bibi an ultimatum:

Protect civilians, or else.

He told Netanyahu that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is unacceptable, and that future aid was conditioned on the US seeing an immediate — and marked — improvement.

Just because you had your head in the sand for the entire Trump presidency doesn’t mean there was “peace everywhere”

Kids were getting gassed in Syria.

There were 2,243 drone strikes in the first two years of Trump.

There was a failed coup in Venezuela. Trump’s policy of deterrence by tweet allowed North Korea to fully develop ICBMs.

He pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. Now, Iran could enrich enough uranium for multiple nukes in as little as 2 weeks.

Trump pulled out of the INF and Open Skies.

He didn’t extend New START.

You should read Biden’s OpEd on Israel and Gaza.

It’s accurate, nuanced, articulate, and — most importantly — actually includes a plan.

wapo.st/47jWaIC “The Palestinian people deserve a state of their own and a future free from Hamas. I, too, am heartbroken by the images out of Gaza and the deaths of many thousands of civilians, including children. Palestinian children are crying for lost parents.”

It’s possible to be pro-Israel and still want what’s best for the Palestinian people.

It’s possible to be pro-Palestinian and still want what’s best for the Israeli people.

If you think October 7 was a legitimate act of resistance, get a psychiatric evaluation. If you think Israel has the right to indiscriminately bomb Gaza because of October 7, get a psychiatric evaluation.

Civilian casualties should be avoided at all costs.

Civilian casualties are part of the Hamas war plan.

Israel isn’t doing enough to prevent civilian casualties.

I question the logic behind this.

One, Russia has already lost several (4+) S-400 air defense systems in Ukraine *this week* and they’re (according to UK intelligence) already being forced to reduce air defense coverage in other areas in order to meet their basic needs. 1/X

https://twitter.com/wsj/status/1720105006643167293

Two, the Pantsir-S1 system that Wagner is reportedly preparing to send to Hezbollah is primarily a close-in air defense system, with a maximum engagement range of around 12 miles. This is woefully inadequate for defending against just about anything Israel has to offer. 2/X

Journalists were shown videos of Hamas massacring Israeli civilians on 10/7.

Here’s what they saw.

🧵

cnn.com/2023/10/29/wor… “The scenes include a Hamas fighter standing on a dead man and continuing to fire into the body at close range. They show Hamas members arguing over who gets to attempt to decapitate a Thai laborer with a garden hoe, shouting, “Allahu akbar” with each swing.”

What’s next in the Israel-Hamas war?

I think it’s unlikely that Israel will be able to achieve their objectives with military force alone.

Let’s dig in. 🧵 I’m sure many of you have heard the maxim “you can’t kill your way out of an insurgency”

While that’s not a perfect fit here, it’s not far off, either.

Reminder: the Palestinian people are not Hamas. Hamas *is* a terrorist organization and should be destroyed. But how?

More thoughts on the Garland piece that came out in WaPo this morning.

Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis are both fantastic reporters. My irritation with the piece was more how I knew it would play on Twitter vs the actual content of the piece. 1/X The never-Garland folks are going all in demanding that he be fired 🙄 after a 37 count indictment of Donald Trump.

The same people who were *pissed* (rightfully so) that Trump politicized DOJ are mad that Biden didn’t do the same thing.

On my commute today, a podcast was talking about leadership and integrity, and I got to thinking about one of the most impressive examples of both that I’ve ever seen.

Story time with Angry: 1/X In August of 2011, the remains of the servicemen lost on Extortion 17 were returned to the United States. They were received in the same place they always are — Dover AFB in Delaware.

Obama came out to pay his respects, and a couple things will always stick with me: 2/X

That was always going to be the case — this is quite literally how the threat spectrum works. Let’s dig in a little bit.

1/X

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1649824545069494272

Think of the threat spectrum like a sliding scale. It always changes, but it generally ranges from “no threat” on the left (the good side of the scale) to “terrorists have weapons of mass destruction” on the right (bad side of the scale). 2/X

I don’t like to armchair quarterback deadly force encounters, but there’s something we need to talk about.

Police training.

The results were very different, but what we saw in Uvalde and in Tennessee were both examples of just really bad small unit / close quarters tactics. 1/3 In Tennessee, the officers did the right thing: they went straight for (and neutralized) the threat.

They also made entirely too much noise, flagged their buddies with their muzzles about 10 times and committed errors that would have gotten them killed in most situations. 2/3

Politicians are openly discussing a conspiracy theory—that, if true, would amount to an act of war—that was published on Substack.

Folks realize Hersh has been an authoritarian-curious ambulance chaser for a long time, right? For a pretty good history on Hersh being awful, read this thread:

https://twitter.com/eliothiggins/status/1623693699224829952?s=46&t=oC7qWoPMYkjaINeBqQA6mw

This is the most important story you might have missed (both in November and last week).

The “Mariupol Plan” is brazen and disgusting, but let’s look at it with the hindsight of knowing how Putin’s war has played out so far. 1/X

https://twitter.com/cathy2nottoday/status/1607483785792360449

Mariupol would have been more than just industrial cash-flow for Putin and the separatists territories — it was also vital if he wanted a land bridge to Crimea, which we know was a major goal in the early part of his 2022 invasion.

Brookings in 2015: 2/X

brookings.edu/blog/order-fro…

Thread: Let’s talk midterms, shall we?

There’s a lot of analysis out there that, in my view, is completely missing the point about both the stakes of this election *and* the GOP’s platform.

Let’s dig in. 1/X Yes, the GOP wants to go after Women’s Rights, Social Security, Voting Rights, Medicare, Medicaid, and the separation of church and state.

That’s all unpopular stuff.

The GOP does *not* care about electability anymore — they envision a future in which votes don’t matter. 2/X

This article on the counteroffensive is excellent.

“Time was of the essence… To mount an effective counterattack, the Ukrainians needed to move before the first snow, when Putin would be able to use his control of gas supplies to pressure Europe.”

nytimes.com/2022/09/13/us/… “One critical moment this summer came during a war game with U.S. and Ukrainian officials aimed at testing the success of a broad offensive across the south. The exercise… suggested such an offensive would fail.”

I’ve read the Trump response to DOJ’s motion. Allow me to summarize:

WAAAAAAH!

Election interference!

WAAAAAHHH!

Presidential Records Act!

WAAAAHHHH!!! If you’d like to read it:

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

I’ve seen a lot of folks suggest the Dugina assassination was staged because they had an open casket funeral.

It’s certainly possible it *was* staged, but before you jump to conclusions, it’s important to understand that bodies do weird things in explosions. 1/X There’s a well-known phenomenon with suicide bombers where the detonation over pressure causes their heads to literally pop off. These heads can be found yards away, fully intact.

Apologies for anyone eating breakfast. 2/X

Story time:

This evening, I was walking into a local grocery store to pick up a couple of things for Mrs. Angry. A lady was wandering between cars, holding a sign, and asking for money for diapers and formula. She didn’t speak much English, and I wasn’t carrying any cash. 1/X I found out what size diapers she needed, went into the store, picked up a case of diapers, some wipes, and a can of formula.

When I came out to give her the items, there was a lady in a MAGA hat giving her some money, and playing with her baby. 2/X

In light of Iranian social media threatening to build nukes and turn New York into “hellish ruins,” I’ve seen some *really* bad missile defense analysis.

Naturally, that means it’s thread time. 1/X First, I have to say that I’m highly skeptical that Iran has any plans to try to turn New York into hellish ruins — they’re a lot of things, but dumb isn’t one of them. 2/X

I keep seeing this story circulating as supposed evidence that Trump won’t be charged, and have a couple things I need to add to the commentary. 1/4

sports.yahoo.com/justice-depart… “Not a criminal investigation of Trump himself” is DC doublespeak that seems to be confusing people who should know better.

1. Yahoo is the *only* outlet reporting it this way.

2. All of the questions being asked make it clear Trump is a target. 2/4

This meshes with estimates I’ve seen.

Something that isn’t often talked about is Russia’s reconstitution process.

They’re trying to rebuild units with troops who have never worked together, who are flat-out exhausted, and who don’t want to be there in the first place. 1/4

https://twitter.com/natashabertrand/status/1552399068722257920

This further lowers combat effectiveness for units that are already suffering from a major leadership deficit.

Couple this with the fact that everyone knows Russia is covering up combat losses back home, and morale is awful. 2/4