OctaMurk posted:

Bombed what hospital? Bombing a hospital is mentioned nowhere in that tweet or in the link you provided. They talk about bombing a convoy of ambulances leaving the hospital.

Also, is it really so impossible that it was in fact full of weapons/Hamas? If I were Hamas, I'd probably use ambulances to move things around so as to not attract attention and deter strikes. That incentive seems pretty clear to me. I don't see the incentive for Israel to bomb ambulances carrying non-combatants or not carrying key infrastructure of Hamas, other than to terrorize the population. But given how many eyes are on this conflict I find it hard to believe that some IDF commander is calling shots like that. That's not to say that mistakes can't happen, and that sick and extreme people who hold sway over the lives of innocents don't exist. But I just can't see most IDF leaders waking up and going "ok let's bomb some drat ambulances today!" as a policy.

Ardennes posted:

I don't think Hezbollah could do that much to the IAF without the US getting involved, but they probably do need to press the ground more if only to acceleration the attrition they are doing to Israeli armor.

Now the Israelis are committed to a ground fight, a lot of is going to depend about having trained crews and fully serviced equipment, Hezbollah would do Hamas a big favor but forcing more armor to be taken from the south.

I do think Hezbollah only by playing by US' rules is going to lead to only a strategic loss, the US sets rules for a reason. I don't know if a huge public speech with a bunch of fanfare was the right call if they aren't going to be stepping up in any real way or allowing the US to dictate the outcome. Hezbollah has the ground capacity to press into the Israelis even if they aren't going to be marching to Tel Aviv.

Also, btw, Hezbollah does have a armor corps, they were using it in Syria. It is mostly T-55/T-72s, but the T-72s specifically probably to match a Merkava with the right upgrades. They don't have a air force, but they have a huge missile/drone corps (which honestly is in some ways replacing traditional strike craft anyway).

They have ways to put a lot of pressure on the Israelis, the question is what is the calibration.

HallelujahLee posted:

houthis need to get military access through sa

PoontifexMacksimus posted:

It can be hard to find good sources (in English...) about how the enormous empires of the early Caliphates actually worked, but from my understanding, once a more regular imperial governance was implemented after the initial period of expansion it was all about (for the new imperial elites) securing governorships of provinces, so that you could extract tax revenues, and hopefully get out before your successor would accuse you of stealing said tax revenues and try to extort your hard-gotten wealth from you; in some ways very much like the Roman senatorial governorship system. I wonder if anyone has written anything about the similarities between Rome and the early Caliphate from that perspective?

stumblebum posted:

im not sure we would be able to prevent dnd from shutting down crossings through the forum

Confusedslight posted:

https://twitter.com/itranslate123/status/1720557414527668358?s=20

PawParole posted:

Contrary to the popular narrative of Islam spreading by the sword, the ummayads banned all conversion to Islam expect for Umar 2 and wanted to make Islam an ethno-religion for the Arab conquerors.

A good book on this would be “Black Banners from the East”, about the abbasid revolution

Maya Fey posted:

Cuttlefush posted:

maya i'd really not post that embedded tweet

Grilled Beef posted:

look, not mocking you for not knowing this, appreciate that you asked, but that you are too young to have watched and know one of the classic golden era Simpsons bits just aged me 10,000 years in a second, like the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

mdemone posted:

wait why are we not posting tweets? I missed something

Confusedslight posted:

https://twitter.com/itranslate123/status/1720557414527668358?s=20

mdemone posted:

is it because of the gore?

mdemone posted:

wait why are we not posting tweets? I missed something

snack soul posted:

dead children. at least I think (didn’t start the vid. no thanks)

HallelujahLee posted:

why is the plo even invited the have literally no supporters anywhere or any actual power

VoicesCanBe posted:

imo one of the most effective methods of putting pressure on US-Israel is turning up the heat in Syria and Iraq. Keep attacking US bases, and perhaps with luck make the situations there truly untenable. Maybe, just maybe the US would force Israel to back off if sufficiently pressured, if the alternative was the complete collapse of their military position in the region.

Socialized posted:

If it helps, I’m in my 30s, I just never watched the Simpsons

dead gay comedy forums posted:

paging frosted flake

from the little I came across in political economic history of the period, Islam could be regarded as a a systematic, aggregated social innovation in comparison to the previous social mode. An interwoven state/organized religion with an ethos of law and justice, anchored in communalism (as an absolute necessary social condition to prosper in harsh climates) and then subsequently catapulting forward by absorbing Greek, Roman, Persian and Indian philosophical developments and sciences. Iirc, Islamic practices of governance were the actual anti-Roman superweapons: the guys doing the conquering were not only politically but also religiously tasked to do a basic of fair ruling, seen in fundamental principles like zakat and sadaqah, which outright offered a much better social contract than the Roman one

(also this seems to be a good moment to ask if anyone knows some solid reading recs about the end of the Islamic golden age: I remember coming across that a school of thought won and had a very different interpretation of scientific development unlike the then-dominant line, or something like that, which contributed for fragmentation as the polities turned inward on their matters)

VoicesCanBe posted:

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1720218011120894347

The replies to this are loving garbage

carcinofuck posted:

Destiny Disrupted by Tamim Ansary talks about this a bit.

PawParole posted:

https://twitter.com/ArthurDelaneyHP/status/1720517194243551638

PhilippAchtel posted:

[P v I] Bombed what hospital?

Dokapon Findom posted:

Q: What's the only thing that separates OSINT guys from run of the mill comment trolls?

A: The National Endowment for Democracy