tankies running defense for China is literally just that one old joke about the Soviet Union over and over again

I sell this all day to skeptical conservatives who think USAID is staffed by crunchy, Birkenstocked do-gooders - the Democratic Party can sell it to the American public like Kennedy did.

So fuck Elon is what I guess I'm saying, and fuck spineless, soulless energy vampires like Marco Rubio.

A better world is possible and we should demand our leaders rebuild these critical national capabilities for the future. So squishing out when folks start calling for USAID to be restored.

And its staff were certified badasses. They knew how to work with US and foreign militaries, they knew how to tread lightly to overcome sensitivities, they were as comfortable (often more) operating in austere, dangerous places than mil. Those capabilities would've been leveraged in big boy war too.

Even the foreign disaster assistance process hasn't been put back together yet since all those dipshits stood by and let Elon gleefully nuke the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. All those experts, all the contacts with US domestic capabilities, the civ-mil cord system that helped DoD get involved

Of course the admin did eventually have a minor panic attack bc we had kneecapped our foreign disaster response and critical program capabilities, and tried to retain some parts at State, but we're nowhere near the capabilities pre-USAID. Civ-mil coordination specialists at the CCMDs are all gone.

DoD was generally only requested to support at most 10% of validated foreign disaster response missions annually, just to give a sense of how massive the USAID effort was. It leveraged domestic and int'l partners, brought private industry in, provided technical expertise to impacted countries.

this is an extremely common and well understood surgery, obviously this was not a real number, but what the fuck

healthcare costs are an absurd kabuki theater between insurance and providers and no human being can possibly be expected to manage this shit

anyone who says otherwise is lying to you

Did everyone remember to bring their consumables?

Potions, food, weapon oils, patriot missiles.

I'm looking at you, air defense battery covering the Black Sea.

there were a lot of 'eccentric' British figures who were just full blown Nazis (*cough* Alan Clark *cough*)