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Ominae Since: Jul, 2010
#63951: May 5th 2022 at 5:19:36 AM

https://mobile.twitter.com/Emran_Feroz/status/1511112342876078084

Overlooked by most media reports, but an Afghan (long settled in Ukraine) is fighting in Ukraine, although there are some refugees in Ukraine who decided to offer their combat experience with the legion.

eagleoftheninth Shop all day, greed is free from a dreamed portrait, imperfect Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Shop all day, greed is free
#63952: May 5th 2022 at 5:35:18 AM

One of the leading activists at Euromaidan was actually an Afghan-Ukrainian journalist (ex-Kommersant) named Mustafa Nayyem.

One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.
Ominae Since: Jul, 2010
#63953: May 5th 2022 at 5:50:55 AM

Heard his brother Masi is a paratrooper vet.

Also, some of the Afghan refugees Jalal talked to wanted to fight the Russians. From what I know, mixed bag of infantry/Commandos/Special Forces.

eagleoftheninth Shop all day, greed is free from a dreamed portrait, imperfect Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Shop all day, greed is free
#63954: May 5th 2022 at 5:57:08 AM

Ah, the side effect of the US and EU processing Afghan refugee cases at a glacial pace while leaving them stranded in third countries.

One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.
Ominae Since: Jul, 2010
#63955: May 5th 2022 at 6:05:31 AM

Sad. Although from the Afghan watchers/Afghans in Afghanistan who kept an eye on Ukraine, they support those guys fighting against the Russians since it's the "right way".

Pendrake That Guy from "Sweet Something of.... Someplace!" (Canada) Since: Jan, 2017 Relationship Status: Betrayed by Delilah
That Guy
#63956: May 5th 2022 at 6:18:16 AM

Not surprising, though. Russia's got no shortage of folks they've stomped on who want some payback. Afghans, Chechens, Georgians, nearly ever other former Soviet state...

Semper Fi. Semper Paratus. Vigilo Confido.
Imca (Veteran)
#63957: May 5th 2022 at 5:22:56 PM

Ah, so it's the Nokia of trucks.

Essentially yes, box frame means it is more prone to rusting but a lot more durable then c frames, relatively simple engine that's fixable with common parts and a toolbox....

And just in general it does not like to die.

I really do, recomend watching top gear try to break one, its three parts of about 5 minutes each, and easily among there best work.

TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#63958: May 5th 2022 at 7:43:58 PM

They are pretty durable for a body of troops that has low expertise and tiny logistics capability. That and you just about mount anything on them.

Technical with freaking Vulcan in its bed via Reeperfeed.

Who watches the watchmen?
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#63959: May 5th 2022 at 7:49:38 PM

That is another big plus for the Hilux, it does pass the ZSU-23 test.

Not a lot of pickup trucks can actually do that.

Oh really when?
eagleoftheninth Shop all day, greed is free from a dreamed portrait, imperfect Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Shop all day, greed is free
#63960: May 6th 2022 at 2:47:08 AM

AP: Ruling threatens US power as world's high-seas drug police.

    Article 
MIAMI (AP) — Jeffri Dávila-Reyes says he’s still mystified how he ended up serving hard time in a U.S. federal prison.

His cocaine bust at sea was closer to his homeland of Costa Rica than the United States, and the few kilos of drugs he was carrying were bound for Jamaica rather than American shores.

His plight is similar to hundreds of foreigners swept up by the U.S. Coast Guard in international waters every year, most of them poor, semiliterate fishermen from Central and South America driven to smuggling with offers of more money than they’ve ever seen — in Dávila-Reyes’ case $6,000.

“Nobody can be blamed for being born poor,” he wrote in a recent letter to The Associated Press.

But now, seven years into his 10-year sentence, Dávila-Reyes’ conviction has been thrown out in a little-noticed ruling that threatens a key weapon in the United States’ war on drugs: A decades-old law that gives the U.S. broad authority to make arrests on the high seas anywhere in the world, even if the drugs aren’t bound for the U.S.

It’s a law that helps the U.S. bolster its drug-interdiction numbers and flex its maritime muscle in a region where drugs are trafficked most. But since it often targets smugglers at the lowest rungs of the drug trade, it has yet to make a dent in the huge volumes of narcotics flowing into the U.S.

“It is a waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars to have these costly misadventures as we play drug police to the world,” said Eric Vos, head of the public defender’s office in Puerto Rico where Dávila-Reyes’ case began. “Our enforcement efforts and multibillion-dollar expenditures should concentrate exclusively on drugs actually entering America.”

At issue is the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, passed by Congress in 1986 at the height of the crack epidemic. It defines drug smuggling in international waters as a crime against the United States and gives the U.S. unique law enforcement powers anywhere on the seas — whenever it determines a vessel is “without nationality.”

But how a vessel is deemed stateless sometimes gets messy.

When the Coast Guard chased down Dávila-Reyes’ speedboat in the western Caribbean in 2015, he and two cousins who were seen frantically trying to dump packages of cocaine overboard identified their vessel as hailing from Costa Rica, according to the FBI’s summary of the investigation.

But other than the markings on the boat’s side resembling Costa Rica’s flag, the men lacked any documentation proving its nationality. When the U.S. asked the Costa Rican government to confirm the vessel’s registry, it responded 12 weeks after the bust that it could neither confirm nor refute the claim.

A few weeks later the men were charged and eventually pleaded guilty to possessing narcotics “on board a vessel subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.”

The conviction would have gone unnoticed if not for a challenge brought by a group of dedicated public defenders in Puerto Rico, where many of the drug cases are tried.

A three-judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled in January that the law’s provisions — equating a nation’s equivocal response to an outright denial of a captain’s claim of nationality — were an unconstitutional extension of U.S. policing powers beyond America’s borders.

Tellingly, almost none of those prosecuted under the law had ever set foot in the U.S. nor were they charged with trying to import cocaine. In Dávila-Reyes’ case, the five to 15 kilograms of cocaine he was convicted of transporting were purportedly bound for dealers in Jamaica.

Despite the ruling, Dávila-Reyes remains behind bars as the Justice Department seeks reconsideration by all of the First Circuit’s nine judges. His two co-defendants were released in 2018 and 2020 after completing sentences of around five years each.

Endless war

From the moment President Richard Nixon declared “war on drugs” in 1971, the U.S. Coast Guard has been at the forefront of the campaign to stop illegal narcotics from entering the U.S. Today, it spends more than $2 billion annually as part of that effort. Other federal agencies — the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs and Border Patrol, the Departments of State and Justice — kick in billions more.

The aim of the high-seas busts is to seize cocaine at a vulnerable choke point and inflict heavy losses on traffickers, limiting the amount of drugs that make it onto U.S. streets.

But, almost from the start, that goal has proven elusive.

Cocaine prices, a gauge of supply, have been hovering at historical lows for more than a decade as cocaine production from Colombia has soared to record highs. In a good year, barely 10% of cocaine shipments in the waters off Central and South America — where the bulk of the world’s cocaine is trafficked — are actually seized or destroyed, according to the U.S. government’s own estimates.

Despite that poor record, U.S. officials continue to tout their success at sea.

A 2020 Coast Guard report said at-sea interdictions are the most effective way to combat cartels and criminal networks. Since 2017, the amount of cocaine it has seized or destroyed exceeds 959 metric tons.

“We are hitting the drug traffickers where it hits them most — in their pocketbooks,” Rahul Gupta, the White House drug czar, said at news conference earlier this year in Fort Lauderdale to welcome a U.S. Coast Guard cutter home from a three-month deployment that yielded seizures of 30 metric tons of cocaine and marijuana worth $1 billion.

But nowhere to be seen among the drugs piled neatly on deck were the 86 foreign drug runners responsible for the contraband, some of whom had been offloaded and jailed the day before.

Prosecutions under the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act exploded last fiscal year to 296 — nearly five times the number a decade ago, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which collects Justice Department data. But since each case involves multiple defendants, the actual number of foreigners detained at sea last year was 635 — the highest tally since 2017.

Each offense carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years because of the large amounts of cocaine involved.

Critics of U.S. drug policy say most such smugglers fell into the job because of poverty and are hardly worth locking up for so long when legions of their poor compatriots stand ready to take their place. Davila-Reyes, for example, had to quit school in the third grade to help support his family, eventually finding hand-blistering construction work for $10 a day.

“These are not masterminds like Pablo Escobar or Chapo Guzman,” said Kendra McSweeney, an Ohio State University geographer who has spent years researching U.S. drug policies.

“But if you’re trying to hit numbers, and nobody is measuring the importance of those numbers, then all the incentives are there to keep going,” she said. “It makes people feel good about themselves but it’s egregiously ineffective.”

Floating prisons

After Dávila-Reyes’ bust, he said he was mistreated while adrift at sea, allowed to bathe just once a week, and served spoiled, foul-smelling plates of beans.

“I couldn’t eat this food,” he wrote in a series of letters in Spanish to the AP from his West Virginia prison.

AP was unable to verify Dávila-Reyes’ account but attorneys appointed by the courts to represent foreign drug runners say such tales are commonplace.

Miami defense attorney Bert Dominguez pointed to courtroom testimony last year in which a Coast Guard officer described how detainees are shackled by their leg to the deck of a cutter. The restraints are removed only to allow the detainees to use the bathroom, take a shower or for a short amount of daily exercise.

“They’re treated like warehoused fruit,” Dominguez said.

The U.S. Coast Guard rejects that characterization and says all suspects have regular access to medical treatment, personal hygiene products, shelter from the elements and regular meals after being detained.

“The Coast Guard treats each person entrusted to our care with dignity and respect,” said Cmdr. Matt Kroll, a spokesman.

What’s undisputed is that 19 days passed from the time of Dávila-Reyes’ detention until he made his initial appearance before a federal magistrate in Puerto Rico. By the standards of justice in drug boat cases, that’s actually fast: nationwide, the average delay is more than 23 days, according to an AP analysis of 28 cases this year involving 89 foreign nationals. In one case, the wait lasted 46 days.

U.S. criminal proceedings mandate that suspects, even those apprehended outside the country, be brought before a judge “without unnecessary delay.” Typically, that means no more than 48 hours after arrest.

Kroll said the Coast Guard seeks to ensure a “timely” transfer of suspects but justified the prolonged detentions because of the need to maintain ongoing law enforcement operations across vast geographical distances.

“The government is operating under this fiction that they’re not really arrested when they’re taken into custody and chained to a deck of a Coast Guard cutter,” Miami public defender Tracy Dreispul said during the hearing last year where the Coast Guard witness testified. “But we all know what arrest means.”

Legal fallout

Neither the Coast Guard nor Justice Department would comment on Dávila-Reyes’ appeal but experts say it’s too early to judge the fallout from the landmark ruling.

Currently Vos’ office in Puerto Rico is preparing 14 motions for dismissal in other boat cases on behalf of jailed defendants from Colombia, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic. The ruling has also been cited in at least five proceedings outside the First Circuit.

Of the 28 interdictions on the high seas this year, 10 involve a claim of nationality for the vessel that a foreign government was unable to confirm or deny, according to an AP analysis of court records. In only five cases there was no nationality claimed and in the remaining 13 the court records did not say.

“It’s definitely a chink in the armor,” said Roger Cabrera, a court-appointed attorney in Miami seeking to leverage Dávila-Reyes to appeal his own client’s conviction. “But like most chinks, I’m sure the federal government is already looking for a workaround.”

For now, U.S. law enforcement continues to conduct regular search and seizures on the high seas with little indication of concern.

In court filings, attorneys for the U.S. government have argued that the procedures for boarding a vessel and determining whether a claim of nationality is legitimate are governed by bilateral treaties, including one with Costa Rica, which has never complained that its sovereignty was being violated.

Further, they said holding up interdictions to wait for an unequivocal denial of registry from a foreign nation before declaring a vessel stateless would be impractical and quickly encourage traffickers to claim their vessels are from small Micronesian states, or North Korea, where diplomatic contacts are limited.

“Anyone involved with bringing dangerous drugs into the United States will be held accountable, no matter their position in the drug distribution network,” said Justice Department spokeswoman Nicole Navas Oxman. “These offenders are an intricate part of drug-trafficking networks, which pose a direct threat to the health and safety of American communities.”

One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.
Pendrake That Guy from "Sweet Something of.... Someplace!" (Canada) Since: Jan, 2017 Relationship Status: Betrayed by Delilah
That Guy
#63961: May 6th 2022 at 6:14:29 AM

https://twitter.com/war_noir/status/1522547359107923970

Think this is the first vid of a Ukrainian 155mm 2S22 Bohdana SPG in action during the war.

Guess they're getting field-tested now.

Course, could also be an example of sending in everything they got, and given the US and several other countries have supplied 155mm Rounds in large number, it's got rounds to fire in abundance. Question is whether it turns out to be a Flawed Prototype (it was noted to have a few bugs previously, they may've been fixed) or a Super Prototype.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1522573394855743488 Reportedly first Switchblade 300 use on video on the Ukrainian Frontlines.

Edited by Pendrake on May 6th 2022 at 7:58:28 AM

Semper Fi. Semper Paratus. Vigilo Confido.
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#63962: May 6th 2022 at 9:50:58 AM

[up] That's a CAESAR. The 2S22 has an enclosed recoil assembly and uses a different chassis.

They should have sent a poet.
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#63963: May 6th 2022 at 12:13:57 PM

Been looking through long ranged ballistic missiles and it struck me how much India's and Pakistan's ones resemble giant pencils. Especially when they are in parade colours.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Pendrake That Guy from "Sweet Something of.... Someplace!" (Canada) Since: Jan, 2017 Relationship Status: Betrayed by Delilah
That Guy
#63964: May 6th 2022 at 7:51:43 PM

[up][up] Well, if nothing else, that proves the CAESA Rs arrived, at least.

Semper Fi. Semper Paratus. Vigilo Confido.
nrjxll Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Not war
#63966: May 6th 2022 at 8:07:17 PM

Uh, isn't NonCredibleDefense... specifically non-credible?

Pendrake That Guy from "Sweet Something of.... Someplace!" (Canada) Since: Jan, 2017 Relationship Status: Betrayed by Delilah
That Guy
#63967: May 6th 2022 at 8:18:11 PM

It might be more the signatures from three Congresspeople on the shown document.

Semper Fi. Semper Paratus. Vigilo Confido.
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#63968: May 6th 2022 at 8:20:42 PM

So what I'm hearing is the Ukrainian Airforce has lost it's entire Su-25 fleet

Oh really when?
Pendrake That Guy from "Sweet Something of.... Someplace!" (Canada) Since: Jan, 2017 Relationship Status: Betrayed by Delilah
That Guy
#63969: May 6th 2022 at 8:32:47 PM

[up] Per the Russians, they supposedly lost their entire Airforce and twice as many T B2s as they had. So I'd take that with a grain of salt.

Also, they had 17 in February. They recently got spare parts to get more birds in the air. That, and there's still their Su-24 Fencers and Su-27s for Close air support as well.

Edited by Pendrake on May 6th 2022 at 8:38:57 AM

Semper Fi. Semper Paratus. Vigilo Confido.
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#63970: May 6th 2022 at 9:16:59 PM

Pictured: Senators who don't know a damn thing about military aircraft.

In case anyone isn't aware, the FY20222 budget requires the DoD by law to retain all 281 of its A-10s. The Air Force was planning on retiring a bunch of them and ended up having to put those plans on hold because of that. The idea is a non-starter, but even if it were somehow legal to transfer A-10s to Ukraine it would be a terrible idea, they'd get chewed up and spat out in short order over there. They weren't meant to be survivable aircraft when they were designed 50 years ago, and they're definitely not now. Basically the only thing they're really good for these days is blowing up dudes in pickup trucks.

Edited by archonspeaks on May 6th 2022 at 9:17:42 AM

They should have sent a poet.
Imca (Veteran)
#63971: May 6th 2022 at 9:24:29 PM

Non credible defense is a humor thing guys.... Its a joke.

Its right there in the name.

Edited by Imca on May 6th 2022 at 9:24:45 AM

Pendrake That Guy from "Sweet Something of.... Someplace!" (Canada) Since: Jan, 2017 Relationship Status: Betrayed by Delilah
That Guy
#63972: May 6th 2022 at 9:40:52 PM

[up][up] Eh, an A-10 IS still good at blowing up tanks nowadays.

Prob is it really is meant for mostly doing so when you have air superiority, which for most of its service history has never been an issue thanks to the USAF and the Battlefields it's seen action over. Not really a good idea in Ukraine where the Airspace is contested as well. Its Soviet contemporary, the Su-25, while less heavily armed, is a hell of a lot faster from what I understand, not to mention more capable of defending itself against other aircraft.

That, and A-10s aren't exactly cheap to use or maintain either.

What Ukraine honestly needs the most is stuff that's efficient. Hence the massive utility of low-cost Drones among their forces.

Edited by Pendrake on May 6th 2022 at 9:42:12 AM

Semper Fi. Semper Paratus. Vigilo Confido.
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#63973: May 6th 2022 at 11:01:58 PM

Eh, an A-10 IS still good at blowing up tanks nowadays.

Slight correction: an A-10 is actually not really that great at blowing up tanks. The GAU-8 is able to penetrate 55-76mm of RHA. That is not a lot. It also has a standard dispersion wide enough that at normal combat ranges less than half the rounds it fires will land on a tank-sized target. You can see here the results of an exercise done in the 80s where A-10s attacked a simulated Russian armored convoy. [1] Despite firing 289 API rounds with 98 impacts, they only managed to achieve 3 mobility kills and zero catastrophic kills. Even lower-end modern tanks are considerably better protected than the targets in that test, for example modern Russian tanks have enough RHA equivalent even on their top armor to take hits from an A-10 at combat range, and that’s before even getting into things like reactive armor. The A-10 would have to get inside 200-300 meters to have any kind of reliable chance at penetrating that armor, and that’s obviously not really a great idea considering the A-10 would be making a landing one way or another after getting that close. That’s just the top armor too, the front and side armor is even more durable.

Without the gun, an A-10 is basically just a really slow way to to get Mavericks and GB Us to the battlefield. Those weapons account for the majority of the A-10’s air to ground kills, and can be put to much better use by newer airframes. As it currently stands, basically every fast jet with an air to ground capability is better at blowing up tanks than the A-10.

People like the A-10 because it’s cool, and soldiers like the A-10 because it’s loud and makes them feel like the Air Force hasn’t forgotten about the guys down in the shit. The breathless praise journalists and politicians heap on it stem from a misinterpretation of those two things.

Edited by archonspeaks on May 6th 2022 at 11:10:08 AM

They should have sent a poet.
TairaMai rollin' on dubs from El Paso Tx Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Mu
rollin' on dubs
#63974: May 7th 2022 at 12:47:11 AM

The idea that aircraft can just be "given" to anyone to fly is risible. Ukrainian pilots aren't trained on Western Jets - I don't care what any Congress Critter thinks is happening.

I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....
Last_Hussar Since: Nov, 2013
#63975: May 7th 2022 at 3:50:44 AM

[up]this

The reason the US is trying to get former War Pac countries to give aircraft to Ukraine, then back filling with US aircraft is the Ukrainians have no experience with US aircraft, but do with MI Gs etc. You can't just jump cockpits.


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