Argentine paleoartist reconstructing prehistoric animals

Online News EditorMarch 10, 2022

 

By Julieta Barrera

Buenos Aires, Mar 10 (EFE).- Merging science with art, Argentine paleoartist Santiago Reuil, starting with fossil fragments, reconstructs the morphology of animals that went extinct thousands or millions of years ago.

It’s a task that he began almost three decades ago for museums and universities, and which today he is pursuing via his “Paleocarton” audiovisual project, where he invites people to replicate his professional work with everyday materials.

With a passionate interest in paleontology, not to mention being precocious and persevering, Reuil began his career at age 14 when he volunteered at Argentina’s Bernardino Rivadavia Museum of Natural Sciences (MACN), something that he had wanted to do since he was 10.

He worked there for a long time, moving through different laboratories, learning the trade and, later, he began working with different museums and universities around the country and abroad, putting his skills to use in technical and artistic work.

For some years now, Santiago has had his surname attached to a species of sauropod from Argentina’s Patagonia region – Puertasaurus reuili – fossilized remains of which were found by his colleague Pablo Puerta, and for which he reconstructed a vertebra from a mass of tiny bone fragments.

“Many hours of jigsaw puzzle work, trying one fragment against another, and finally I was able to assemble a neck vertebra, which up to that point (had not been done),” the paleoartist told EFE.

Regarding the distinction honoring Puerta and Reuil that comes with the ancient animal’s name, a name bestowed on the beast by MACN paleontologist Fernando Novas, who is in charge of the project, the artist said that “It was one of the most incredible things that had happened to me in my career.”

“In recent years, not many months have passed without our receiving news of a new dinosaur species,” Reuil said, noting that right now he is working on two more reconstructions: an herbivore from Patagonia and a carnivore with the Abelisaurus family that was found in northern Argentina, where its remains had never been uncovered before.

Regarding the scientific study of the latter dino’s fossils, Reuil was invited by his colleagues to participate and he will also be featuring his reconstruction of it in his audiovisual project.

Before fossilized remains can be exhibited in a museums, there are several stages starting with extracting the fossils themselves and proceeding through the reconstruction process, including cleaning and restoring all the bone fragments.

Since it is very rare for a complete skeleton to be found, many of the reconstructions of the dinosaurs’ and other animals’ body structures in museums are prepared with a mixture of fossils and artificial parts, a task that is not as easy as it might sound.

“To make that reconstruction a phylogenetic study is made, that is, we examine what other animals were related to it, what the anatomy of the group to which it belongs is … to see how that general anatomy is adapted to the remains we have and then we do what’s called a parsimonious reconstruction,” he said.

The specialists look for the “simplest” reconstruction that coincides with the anatomy of the group, and “that’s not always easy,” Reuil said. “Depending on the animal with which we’re working or how many remains we have, (that will govern) whether the work is more speculative or more solid.”

In Paleocarton, the audiovisual project that will be made available via Youtube, Reuil is replicating the work he undertakes at museums, but instead of using museum-supplied materials, he uses cardboard: “a material that everyone has access to.”

The paleoartist is taking advantage of the project to explain, among other things that are of interest to him in his work, the details of the theoretical and practical process of reconstruction. “I want it to be understood what it is that we know and what we suppose. When you make a piece of cardboard, nobody’s going to think that it’s a real fossil,” he said.

In every episode of the audiovisual project, paleontologists who are experts in the various groups of animals being worked on help – for intance – to explain the reconstruction of the cranium and provide a detailed scientific discussion about the state of the science on various subjects.

Since he started his career, Reuil said he has noticed a marked increase in the number of people who are devoting themselves to paleontology, an expansion he considered to be excellent since it “increases the speed of knowledge but also the plurality of views or types of research that is being done.”

“Paleontology in Argentina has a great future. There’s a lot to discover. We have a very fossil-rich territory, with lots of paleontological potential,” he said.

EFE mjbd/rgm/cpy/bp

Pepper the robot offers friendly face tackling crimes against children

Online News EditorMarch 2, 2022

 

Barcelona, Spain, Mar 2 (EFE-EPA).- The semi-humanoid robot Pepper is being used by police in the United Arab Emirates to uncover crimes against children such as abuse and exploitation, a sensitive area where a friendly android face could prove more approachable and less traumatic for those involved.

The project from the multinational IT company Inetum uses Pepper’s artificial intelligence-driven ability to read emotions and understand human behavior to interact with the children and assess their responses to questioning when faced with a potentially distressing or even life threatening situation.

“It is one of our most beautiful and resilient projects,” head of innovation at Inetum Spain, Jesus Otero, told Efe at the Mobile World Congress taking place in Barcelona.

“The presence of the robot helps the children to open up and be more expressive in therapy despite the fear they are experiencing,” Otero said.

“It is interesting how this solution, that looks like a toy, actually has some very powerful user cases.”

The robot can either accompany a psychologist during individual therapy or act as an avatar for the children, who often feel more comfortable talking about their experience with the robot and may be more forthcoming about the details of a particular case.

“The robot can recognize faces and interact with people in human language,” Otero said.

Inetum, which is present in 26 countries and employs over 27,000 people, aims to deploy the robot to more police stations to help resolve crimes that involve children.

Pepper the robot was developed by Japanese firm Softbank Production and was first unveiled back in 2014.

While child abuse rates in the UAE are low according to official records, the Acta Scientific Paediatrics journal cited legal experts who warned that 90% of cases could go unreported.

Forty percent of child abuse cases in the UAE involve maids and 45% of child harassment cases are committed by relatives, according to the journal.

The 17th edition of the Mobile World Congress opened its doors on Monday to bustling crowds after it was reigned in last year and canceled in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

This year the MWC brings together 1,500 businesses in the industry and is expected to draw in between 40,000 to 60,000 visitors. EFE

mp/jt

Future of legal weed in Thailand still hazy amid murky laws

Online News EditorMarch 11, 2022

Bangkok, Mar 11 (EFE-EPA).- Thailand in 2018 became the first country to legalize cannabis for medical use in southeast Asia, a region with some of the world’s harshest narcotics laws. Thai authorities went a step further this year by decriminalizing the drug for recreational use, a historic move that ended nearly a century of tough prohibition of a plant that was once widely used in traditional Thai medicine and cuisine.

While small businesses have sprouted and some are even flourishing, the legislation around cannabis is still murky and the path forward for weed advocates and entrepreneurs alike remains hazy.

“Even though medical marijuana is legal in Thailand, accessibility as a consumer or as a business owner is still difficult,” says Chokwan “Kitty” Chopaka, Thai cannabis advocate and Founder & CEO of Elevated Estate, an industry-leading cannabis-focused expo, fund and consulting firm.

LEGAL UNCERTAINTY

“With recreational use being illegal, the black market is growing. Basically, most problems are about regulations, difficult accessibility, and a lack of knowledge,” Kitty says.

Thai Health Minister and leader of the Bumjaithai Party, Anutin Charnvirakul, signed a measure last month officially dropping cannabis from the list of controlled drugs, paving the way for people to grow plants at home.

But commercial licenses are still hard to come by, and even though recreational use has been decriminalized, demand is still higher on the black market as people are forced to turn to criminal sources because legal distributors have not been established.

“Access to legal cannabis is difficult, and (…) smoking and vaping are not acceptable legally. There is only medical cannabis,” Kitty says.

“Even with medical cannabis, which is being promoted a lot, people don’t want to put up with the difficulties in accessing (the drug legally), so they also turn to black market.

“Legal accessibility is limited. There are also more supplies on the illegal side.”

While people can grow cannabis and hemp for personal consumption, extracted content containing more than 0.2 percent tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive ingredient THC, is, for the time being, still illegal.

The changes have sparked confusion across the board, from potential consumers to police and officials.

Those who want to grow cannabis for household consumption have to inform the local government before germinating their seeds, and must report the cultivation details to officials. People who grow it without notifying the authorities can face fines while those found selling marijuana products without a license can also face a prison sentence.

“I’m afraid to be arrested. I grow only one plant of marijuana and it’s hidden in the backyard garden of my home,” says a Thai villager who calls himself Saman.

“I feel uncertain that the possession of marijuana is still an offense because some parts of it can be used for recreational use.”

Saman uses leaves to cook a popular Thai dish, Tom Yum soup, and a hemp omelet as he thinks it makes the dishes taste better.

GREEN RUSH

The response to cannabis-related business sectors to the recent decriminalized marijuana has been mostly positive.

Many players in Thailand, from big business to small-to-medium enterprises, are jumping on the legal weed train, with many cannabis restaurants and cafes popping up, offering drinks and food made with the leaves.

“I believe this is a good sign for the local cannabis industry. Although the big enterprises will gain the biggest advantage, small-scale businesses like us also get benefits to expand our market chance,” says Vorrapat Artmangkorn, a co-owner of Treekings OG, a small edibles company.

Mexican female-operated auto repair shop helping to shatter stereotypes

Online News EditorMarch 10, 2022

By Sergio Adrian Angeles

Queretaro, Mexico, Mar 10 (EFE)- Maria Fernanda Ornelas checks under the hood of a car and tightens some screws at the W Racing Point Garage in this central highland city, one of the few auto repair shops in Mexico that is entirely female-owned and operated.

After inspecting the engine, she uses a hydraulic jack to raise the vehicle and then lies down on a wheel-driven creeper to get under its belly.

Once she’s properly positioned, Ornelas stretches her arms and gets to work repairing the car – an Audi that a customer will be picking up that afternoon.

Although just over 20 years of age, her experienced hands are the key to keeping customers of W Racing Point Garage happy and getting their vehicles back in tip-top shape.

Ornelas says the presence of that garage in a country where male-chauvinist attitudes and labor discrimination are still commonplace sends a message to the entire population about women’s mechanical capabilities.

“Yes, we can (do car repair). We often need to learn some tricks and have tools on hand that help us exert more force, and things like that. But, yes we can. Anyone who studies and works at it can do it,” the young woman told Efe.

The mere existence of that Queretaro-based garage, where six women are employed, serves to smash stereotypes that perpetuate the idea that auto repair is the exclusive domain of men.

The founder of W Racing Point Garage is Sonia Luna Chavez, who told Efe in an interview that she worked for 37 years at the Mexico City-based National Polytechnic Institute.

She spent almost a third of that time contributing to a gender studies unit that looks to promote a culture of equality and reflects on the challenges women face in a male-dominated labor market.

Luna Chavez noted that hundreds of women study mechanical engineering in Mexico but end up leaving that profession when they seek work in the automotive industry and are only offered low-level administrative positions.

She added that those women find the doors are closed to them even when they have the same degrees and qualifications as male applicants.

“I feel very proud … because six months after opening this repair shop we’ve broken the mold. The idea is to come up with something different, to innovate,” Luna Chavez said on International Women’s Day, which was celebrated on Tuesday.

She added that her garage also offers a workshop where women can train to be automobile mechanics.

“They come to us for practical (guidance) because they say schools give them lots of theory but they don’t feel like they learn enough,” the garage’s founding director said.

Ornelas, for her part, has found in the W Racing Point Garage the ideal place to pursue a passion that dates back to when her father would buy old cars and repair them at home.

Besides delivering high-quality service to customers, W Racing Point Garage also offers a free basic auto mechanics course to all women interested in learning more about their vehicles.

“In this workshop, women of all ages are taught to be in control of their car, to know (how it works), know how to change a tire, how to check oil levels,” Luna Chavez said. EFE

sa/mc

Motherhood and the work-life balance ‘myth’

Online News EditorMarch 8, 2022

 

Madrid, Mar 8 (EFE-EPA).- A radical shift in the way we work due to the Covid-19 pandemic placed a disproportionate burden on working mothers and cast a light on the “myth” of striking a work-life balance, leading Spanish entrepreneurs and campaigners tell Efe.

Laura Baena, founder of Club de Malasmadres (“Bad mothers club,” in English), adds: “In the last two years women have paid for a lack of balance with their salaries and their mental health and this has dealt a heavy blow to equality.”

Spain’s swift enforcement of a strict lockdown and the closure of schools as the pandemic first sank its teeth into the country in March 2020 not only set work and childcare on a collision course for many parents but also highlighted persistent inadequate support structures, given that families were not provided the tools to achieve a work-life balance, Baena says.

“Women have borne the burden of care to a greater extent, as always, and many have had to quit their jobs to be care-givers,” the Malasmadres founder adds.

BURNOUT & MIDNIGHT OIL

Mariona Salvia, founder of Moth Studio, which offers handbags and accessories inspired by motherhood, says that during the pandemic her husband’s work was much more demanding, meaning she had to fit her business around greater childcare demands.

“I was forced to focus on my son,” Salvia adds. “I ended up working in the evening and at night, after the entire day, and at that stage, I did not have much energy nor drive to do so.”

“The emotional burnout was huge (…) I later realized the efforts we made.”

She is not alone.

During Spain’s initial three-month lockdown, “we witnessed many women working into the early hours,’ Eva Serrano Cavero, president of the Spanish Association of Businesswomen (ASEME) tells Efe.

In Spain 34,683 women registered as entrepreneurs between October 2019 to October 2021, 1,456 more than their male counterparts during the same period, according to the ministry of inclusion and social security.

The pressures of the pandemic forced many women out of work, to shutter businesses and, in some cases, to launch new projects to survive, according to Baena, from Club de Malasmadres.

Victoria Gabaldon, editor of Mamagazine, concurs.

“A percentage of mothers start a business out of a need, not out of a commitment to start a business, but simply because they need to work in another way that fits around their current situation,” Victoria Gabaldon, editor of Mamagazine, tells Efe.

“Socially and politically, I think we are light years away from what we need for women to strike a work-life balance,” she adds.

“In fact, I believe that a work-life balance is the great lie of our times.”

RESILIENCE

“I think women in business encounter the same challenges we find in society just because we are women,” Maku Fernández, founder of the Naves de Papel bookstore, says.

Women entrepreneurs and campaigners have, nonetheless, found strength in solidarity.

Serrano Cavero, the ASEME president, tells Efe: “Very strong ties of sisterhood have been forged, which is a very positive and gratifying thing that we have taken from this period.”

Women of Negev desert fight for equality, emancipation

Online News EditorMarch 7, 2022

 

Negev, Israel (EFE).- Women in Negev, a patriarchal community in a vast desert region in southern Israel, are treated as a minority.

Bedouin Amal Elsana and Sephardic Shula Knafo know too well what it feels like to be ignored and silenced, but this has not stopped them from fighting for women’s justice and equality.

Growing up in the arid desert of Negev, a harsh habitat and marginalized region since the birth of the Jewish state, molded Amal and Shula into strong, resilient women.

“Since I was a child I understood what it meant to be a second-class citizen in Israel, being treated differently from the Jewish population,” Amal, the community leader of Lakiya, a Bedouin village of 15,000 people, tells Efe.

“And what it meant to be a woman in a patriarchal system, considered different from men within my own society,” she adds.

THE BEDOUINS – AMAL ELSANA

At just five years old, Amal rebelled against society and became a shepherdess.

Today, she is the leader of her community and founder of ‘Embroidery of the Desert’, an organization that fights for women’s rights, including equal access to education and the labor market.

“We started with seven women and now there are 150 of us,” she says.

Many women have been abandoned by their husbands for second wives or have no citizenship status since the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Bedouins account for 30% of the Negev region but only occupy 3% of the territory.

“Out of the 112 communities recognized by Israel in the 1950s, only 11 were for us, the real indigenous people of this land, which is not recognized as ours, so we suffered demolitions, confiscations and displacement,” Amal says.

Amal’s daughter Adan Alhjooj, 19, has followed her mother’s footsteps.

“I am fighting for our land and I am fighting for our rights but because I am a woman I should be ashamed and be silent and it is sad I still had to go through these things even though the generation of my mother fought against them,” she tells Efe.

Adan says that while many things have changed thanks to her mother’s work, “as women not only are oppressed by the (Israeli) occupation but then we are oppressed by our own com,unity simky because we are women”

THE SEPHARDICS – SHULA KNAFO

Fifty kilometers south of Lakiya is Yeruham, a town founded in the 1950s to welcome Jewish communities migrating to Israel.

Most of the migrants were Sephardic Jews from North Africa, like Shula Knafo, who arrived in 1962 at the age of six with her family from Casablanca.

While Shula and Amal come from very different backgrounds, the patriarchy which they grew up and endure is very similar.

“My husband was as primitive as my father,” Shula, who married at 18 to escape from her strict father, tells Efe.

UKRAINE

LGBT activist: They will find us, and they will kill us

Online News EditorMarch 11, 2022

 

By Isaac J. Martin

Lviv, Ukraine, Mar 11 (EFE).- In downtown Lviv, western Ukraine, Tymur Levchuk manages a shelter that has become a safe space for 13 gay men who have fled from different cities in the country after Russian troops invaded on February 24.

“All the official shelters are managed by the city council, and they only take in women, children and the elderly. For gays and especially trans people it is difficult,” Levchuk, executive director at Fulcrum UA, one of the few LGTB NGOs in Ukraine, tells Efe.

All men over the age of 18 have been called to go to the frontlines, which is “a big problem” for those who do not “know how to fight” or do not want to go to war, Anton Levdik, Fulcrum’s senior director of program management, adds.

BLACKLISTED

Days before the start of the conflict, the United States sent a letter to the United Nations warning that Russian forces had drawn up a kill-list of Ukrainian citizens. Moscow branded the allegations a “hoax”.

Likely targets included people who oppose the Russian government, including dissidents from Russia and Belarus living in Ukraine, journalists, anti-corruption activists, members of ethnic and religious minorities and the LGBT community.

“If the Putin regime comes to Ukraine, no LGBT organizations will exist and no LGBT rights will exist. It is just a matter of time. The most well-known activists, they will find us and they will kill us,” he says.

Yura Dvizhon, co-founder of Ukraine Pride, tells Efe that he is “sure” that his name is on the list, as he is one of the best-known activists in Ukraine.

But he says he is not afraid: “Since the start of this war, there are different levels of my fear. Today, for example, I am not afraid of Russia and I am ready to fight as much as I can.”

PROGRESS PARALYZED

Dvizhon says Ukraine “has changed a lot in the last five years” and has become a refuge for homosexuals and trans people from former Soviet nations, such as Belarus.

Before the Russian invasion, activists were pushing for lawmakers to pass Bill 5488, which addresses legal issues related to LGBT hate crimes.

“I have seen how the situation has improved in the country and that is why I have stayed here,” says Dvizhon, who is hopeful that the anti-discrimination law will be approved once the war is over.

MORE SUPPORT

Levchuk and his organization Fulcrum are working to raise funds for a second shelter.

Some donations go towards the Ukrainian Army which has an “LGTB military” group that is defending the nation on the frontlines.

“Of course we need support, more capacity for more shelters to provide basic food, but this is a temporary action that could not help us in the long term. We need international support (…) and first of all, for the Army,” he says.

Levdik says the international community “needs to understand” that it is “time to act.”

“We have to stop Putin. If they don’t start doing something right now, I don’t know what will happen,” he says. EFE

Fukushima spill plan goes ahead despite local opposition

Online News EditorMarch 10, 2022

By Antonio Hermosin Gandul

Tokyo, March 10 (EFE).- Japanese authorities continued with their plan to dump contaminated and processed water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean in 2023, despite the rejection of local communities suffering the consequences of the nuclear disaster 11 years on.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant, damaged by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, faces an uncertain dismantling process that will last beyond 2050, and in which the growing accumulation of radioactive water is the most urgent problem due to sort out.

TEPCO, the plant operator, and the Japanese government approved in April a plan to pour thousands of tons of water into the Pacific Ocean from 2023 after being treated. It’s a measure supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency that has generated strong opposition from local fishermen’s groups and environmental organizations.

Fukushima Daiichi faces a long list of unprecedented challenges in the history of nuclear energy, among which the removal of highly radioactive fuels from the reactors stands out, or the storage of these and other residues that represent a great risk to human health and the environment.

The most pressing of these headaches is what to do with the water contaminated with radioactive waste after it is used to cool reactors or leak into nuclear facilities, of which some 1.29 million cubic meters are accumulated in drums inside atomic facilities where space has run out.

After analyzing with a scientific panel a series of possible solutions of enormous technical complexity, including methods of evaporation or underground injection, authorities and TEPCO opted to dump all the water into the sea in front of the plant after decontaminating it.

The operator said the water will not represent any danger to human health or the environment, since its level of radioactivity will be “well below” the limits established by both Japan and the World Health Organization.

The water is subjected to a succession of filters that eliminate all radioactive materials considered dangerous with the exception of tritium, an isotope present in nature, although in low concentration.When diluted in seawater, this would generate negligible levels of radiation, according to TEPCO and Japan’s government. EFE

ahg-yk/lds

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 

Edmonton city staffer's abuse of power reported in audit, but city silent on details

A city staffer was caught abusing the public bidding process for personal gain but the city is remaining tight-lipped on the scandal

.

Edmonton City Council meeting, Monday Nov. 1, 2021.

Lauren Boothby

Edmonton Journal 

Last year, the auditor’s office was tipped off about an employee who manipulated the procurement process to land their business a city contract. The auditor’s investigation found the allegations were true, according to the office’s 2021 report .

“The employee did not disclose to the city that they own a business, as required by the code of conduct. The employee obtained work for their business, due to their position with the city. The employee also violated the procurement directive by taking part in the procurement process that awarded the company a city contract,” states the report which will be discussed at a council committee meeting next Friday .

The staffer was given a non-compliance memo and the city held a follow-up meeting with the contractor and put some safeguards in place, the auditor said.

But the city is refusing to answer questions from Postmedia on details surrounding the scandal, including how much money changed hands, what the contract was for, names of the employee and their business, if the person still works for the city, and if any legal action was taken.

In an email, the city only stated safeguards to prevent abuse are in place such as a code of conduct for employees and suppliers.

“The city has procedures to ensure that conflicts of interest are declared and employees who may be in conflict recuse themselves from participating in the procurement process. All members of a procurement evaluation team are required to sign off that they do not have any potential conflicts, whether real or perceived,” spokeswoman Lori Yanish wrote in an email.

“As a result of this investigation, both the vendor and city administration have agreed to reinforce messaging about conflicts of interest and the codes of conduct regularly with employees.”

Edmonton police say there isn’t a criminal investigation into the matter.

An interview with the mayor was not granted Thursday, but in an email Amarjeet Sohi said safeguards are in place and council shouldn’t get involved.

“In this case, there was a complaint that led to an investigation, and changes have now been made,” he said. “It’s not appropriate for elected officials to get into the personnel matters of administration, and council’s discussions at audit committee will be important to review whether the processes are appropriate.”

Public deserves to know

But Andrew Sancton, a retired Western University political scientist who specializes in municipal governments, said this appears to be a “serious violation” that demands transparency.

“The public is entitled to know what happened to the person who was involved in this … and what kind of disciplinary action (was) taken,” he said. “If it is a small amount, that might be somewhat reassuring for the public … If it’s a large amount of money, that’s all the more reason why people should know about it.”

For its part, Sancton said it appears the city properly addressed the situation internally and, with its anonymous tip line and code of conduct policies, seems to have adequate safeguards in place. However, a lack of transparency in this situation could erode public confidence.

“Every time people learn that the procurement processes are potentially biased in some way, it makes them more likely to think that the whole process of municipal government and spending money is inefficient at least, and possibly, likely corrupt,” Sancton said. “It just encourages cynicism and disrespect.”

Contacted by Postmedia, integrity commissioner Jamie Pytel said her position only governs the conduct of elected officials.

Last year, the auditor also found one employee was napping on shift and spending too much time on the computer, another had a conflict of interest because his wife was reporting to him, and another was idling their vehicle for too long.

Another tipster reported a staffer was taking too many smoke breaks but the investigation found the number of breaks adequate.

lboothby@postmedia.com

@laurby

The absurd push to send unusable military hardware to Ukraine

Critics would rather that the US be seen ‘doing something bold’ but useless, rather than providing Ukraine with effective assistance.

A special painted German Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 fighter (s/n 29+10) flown by German Luftwaffe (Air Force) over the Gulf of Mexico during a joint training exercise on 14 May 2003. (TSgt. Michael Ammons, USAF/US Air Force photo)


MARCH 11, 2022
Written by
Daniel Larison

The Biden administration has rebuffed a Polish proposal to transfer Poland’s 28 MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine by way of delivering them to U.S. control at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. U.S. and allied European officials were reportedly blindsided by the surprise Polish announcement, and the Pentagon shot down the proposal in public statements earlier this week.

The German government likewise wanted no part of it. The Polish government may have been acting on the “green light” that the Biden administration gave to European allies to provide Ukraine with additional military hardware, including fighter jets, but it failed to coordinate its effort with Washington and other NATO allies. Just days earlier, Poland had denied any intention of providing the jets.

The public spat between the allies over the jets reflects the difficulties in coordinating allied military assistance to Ukraine, and it also shows how the Biden administration is trying to balance its support for Ukraine’s war effort with the need to avoid direct NATO involvement in the conflict.

This is the second time since the start of the war that the possibility of transferring jets to Ukraine from eastern European allied countries has been raised publicly only to be nixed upon further consideration. The first scheme was floated by the European Union’s foreign policy and security chief Josep Borrell in late February, but the EU member states that were supposed to provide the jets said that it wasn’t happening. The Polish government doesn’t appear to have to thought through how its transfer plan was going to work, either. It fell to U.S. officials to point out the impracticality and limited value of what they were trying to do.

Providing Ukraine with high-profile, prestige military hardware may make for good headlines, but it isn’t likely to have much of a positive effect on the course of the war and might very well backfire. Transferring these jets runs the risk of potential escalation of the war while offering Ukraine very limited benefits. The Pentagon concluded that the transfer would be relatively “high risk,” and Pentagon spokesman John Kirby explained, “We believe that the gain from transferring those MiG-29s is low.”

The Russian air force has been remarkably absent from the war so far, so much so that it has raised questions about whether it is even able to conduct complex operations in wartime. Whatever the reason for that strange absence, it means that the principal threat to Ukrainian civilians is not coming from the air. Ukraine still retains a large percentage of its own air force because it has not been using its own planes very much. Sending more fighter jets that aren’t needed and can’t be readily used doesn’t do much to provide real help to Ukraine’s defense. Like the much-discussed proposals for a no-fly zone, providing Ukraine with additional fighters is largely irrelevant in addressing the main military problems that Ukrainian forces face.

In addition to all this, transferring these jets would not just be a simple matter of transporting them onto Ukrainian territory and handing them over. Before any NATO jets could be delivered to Ukraine’s custody, they would have to go through a significant overhaul to remove equipment upgrades that are specific to the alliance and can’t be given to non-members. As one American defense industry official told The Wall Street Journal, “If there were a plan to do so, this would be at least a multi-month project, even operating at warp speed.”

The Biden administration’s position on this issue seems sound and its reasoning is difficult to dispute, but that hasn’t stopped hardline interventionists from denouncing the decision. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a vocal advocate of setting up a no-fly zone over Ukraine, said, “This is an utterly insane and unbelievable response from the Pentagon.” In typically hyperbolic fashion, Garry Kasparov commented, “Ukrainian civilians are being massacred and NATO is still wondering how to keep the man massacring them happy.” As he does with everything, Sen. Tom Cotton predictably accused Biden of “weakness.” The Atlantic Council’s Melinda Haring bashed the administration for supposed cowardice: “Could someone send some courage to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue now?” Former Trump administration official Marshall Billingslea absurdly called the decision “self-deterrence.” Sen. Ben Sasse chimed in with some empty bravado, saying, “Load these MiGs up and get them to Ukrainian pilots who can still make a difference.”

For all their blustering, none of the administration’s hawkish critics was able to explain why sending these jets was so critical or what practical difference they would make. They would rather that the U.S. and NATO be seen doing something bold but useless rather than providing Ukraine with effective assistance in more prudent, inconspicuous ways.

As with other more aggressive options, sending Ukraine more jets has become a hawkish litmus test of “doing more” and it doesn’t matter to them whether that “more” is wise or useful. The hawks have the advantage that their demands for foolish action will be ignored for now, so they can continue to agitate for irresponsible and ill-conceived policies without having to worry about or own the consequences of putting them into practice. The danger is that the constant agitation for reckless policies we have been seeing over the last two weeks will gradually wear down the administration’s resistance. Writing about the possibility of escalation, Spencer Ackerman warns that “this sort of elite irresponsibility is going to intensify and look for an outlet.”

Instead of looking for new and dangerous ways to escalate the conflict, the U.S. and its allies should be working with every willing government to secure a ceasefire and to press for a diplomatic compromise that could end the war before it causes any more devastation. If the Ukrainian government is open to a compromise, that is the option that the U.S. should be encouraging them to pursue. There is always a temptation in Washington to pour an endless supply of weapons into an ongoing conflict, especially when it can be presented as a way of weakening a rival or hostile state, but it needs to be remembered that Ukraine is the country that will be damaged most severely the longer that this war continues.

Imagining that Ukraine might be turned into “another Afghanistan” is to pave the way for what could be decades of violence and deprivation for the people of Ukraine.

The untenable, escalatory proposals keep coming up in large part because the Ukrainian government keeps demanding forms of military support from the U.S. and NATO that go beyond what the alliance is prepared to give. While it is understandable that the Ukrainian government would like all the support it can get, there are some options that simply make no sense for NATO if the alliance is going to avoid direct involvement in the war. The U.S. and its allies have already gone to considerable lengths to aid Ukraine’s defense, but there are limits to how far they are going to go and that has to be understood by all concerned.