Yet, Saudi Arabia is an ally of US and purchases billion dollars of American weapons that kills civilians. You know very well that the sanctions has nothing to do with the democracy index. It is just another tool in the toolbox of the empire to force its hegemony throughout the world.
I feel this is becoming a geopolitical conversation. I can go on and on, so do you. I don't want to hijack the main discussion of the thread any longer which was the human aspect of the sanctions to a geo-strategical game.
Yes, you are right they didn't literally say that because in that case it would be legally troublesome. I think it is childish to think that this is not pure coercion either to the negotiation/surrender table or public unrest.
By the way, Bolton didn't just advocate war/unrest years ago. It was last year [1].
I understand the importance of being exact, but by being pedantic in a political context without considering motivations and effects is trivialization.
What they mean by negotiation is sever limit on Iran missile program. They ask Iran to limit its missile range very considerably. At first you may say missile is not defensive but offensive.
But the fact is that Iran has no air force or any other serious military hardware to defend itself. Because simply they wouldn't sell them to Iran. Most Persian gulf countries have military budget per capita orders of magnitude larger than Iran. In addition they have the might of US military behind them. Missiles are the only reason that Iran is not like Iraq or Libya right now. Iran has been on the hit list of Neocons since long time (you can refer to General Wesley Clark)
Iran experienced a very bloody war with Iraq during 80s where everybody was supporting Saddam Hussein from Soviets to the US and persian gulf monarchies. I know personally people that where harmed by Saddam chemical weapons but international community remained silent for too long. I remember seeing Saddam's missile on the Tehran skies but we had no means of stopping them or retaliating because again nobody cared.
About annihilating another state: How can Iran annihilate a state which has 200 nuclear warheads? It might be other way around.
I didn't say it is "Terrorism" I said "Economic Terrorism". Economic sanctions by definition are indiscriminate. Now there is a shortage of some cancer and MS medication in Iran and people are dying because of it. Even though the medications are not sanctioned, the financial transactions are sanctioned and these medications cannot be purchased easily. How isn't this violence? According to the UN, sanctions on food and medication is a crime against humanity. We have seen this period of sever sanctions on Iraq in the disguise of oil for food program. We know how it ended.
I don't want to justify the actions of Iranian government, in my opinion most governments are evil and power hungry. I am just pointing out that the goal of sanctions, even according to the US officials is to cause suffering for people ultimately in the goal of regime change.
Sever economic sanctions are just another tool in the empire toolbox. Be it against Iran or Cuba for example.
"Terrorism is, in the broadest sense, the use of intentionally indiscriminate violence as a means to create terror among masses of people; or fear to achieve a religious or political aim."
How economic sanctions and maximum pressure different from terrorism? Putting a lot of pressure and pain on ordinary people to achieve political goal, which in this case is surrender of Iran. This is economic terrorism, plain and simple.
This might be due to the involvement of Panthera Corporation in the conservation effort. The founder of Panthera,Thomas S. Kaplan, is also the main donor to United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). UANI aggressively lobbied for sever sanctions on Iran and if I am not mistaking was against JCPOA.
Of course this just could be a simple coincidence, but also a possible and reasonable suspicion for further investigation.
Online Codes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_codes) are very similar to Raptor codes for rateless erasure coding. The construction consists of an inner an outer code. However unlike RaptorQ, they are not optimized for an entire range of block lengths.
I think the recruiting process is designed to minimize type II errors (false negatives), namely someone who passes the process but would later turn out to be a bad recruit. Inevitably, the type I error (false positives) grows, those who are good but rejected in the process.
I don't understand this risk averseness in the recruiting process by the employers. Especially, in countries with favorable dismissal laws for employers.
Glad to see that someone puts condition on the interview process and doesn't submit to their rules.
The point is not that is 86K is low. In fact it is an interesting salary if you consider all salaries in the US among all jobs. The point is that it is lower than US software engineer average salary. This leads to wage compression for the local population whom or their parent have been paying taxes hence the prosperity and attractiveness of the US.
Nobody says that the fault is with the Visa holder who happily work for less than average wage. The problem is with companies exploiting this law which was designed to attract best talents who wouldn't work for less than average because they know their worth.
As a foreigner, I say this is not fair to local population (including those immigrant after they obtain their permanent residency) whose wages are kept low by companies who abuse these laws.
As a side note, I've lived both in San Diego and Berlin for a short period. It's true, in Germany total deduction of salary can go as high as 40 percent. But you get full health care coverage, child care, paternity and maternity leave, free university for your children and good public transport and infrastructure. This also covers unemployment and disability insurance plus the pension.
In contrast in California, one pays as high as 33% tax rate and get a fraction of these services.
I wouldn't be tempted to change my 60K euros Berlin salary with 110K $ San Diego salary. I would have a much better life quality in Berlin.
https://www.rts.ch/dossiers/la-suisse-sous-couverture/
It's in French and may not be accessible outside Switzerland but I highly recommend it.