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Borscht posted:What are the war goals of Israel? Punishing and terrorizing a civilian population can be a war goal unto itself, especially for a state whose long term national dreams include ethnic cleansing. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 13, 2023 15:57
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Cythereal posted:Confirmed, Israel is bombing the evacuation convoys. I almost cannot believe that this is real. Does.... does this feel way more brazen this time around? Between the PM, the defense minister, various generals, Hamas.... nobody is even bothering to use coded language for killing civilians. It's not subtext, it's just text.
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Oct 14, 2023 03:44
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Borscht posted:The amount of propaganda flooding every single media outlet is unreal. I've never seen it this bad before except maybe post 9-11. I don't feel like I can trust anything right now. Every third YouTube ad my household has been getting is someone explaining "sorry, but Facts and Logic say that a two state solution will never work" and other talking points. I should have started recording some of these, it's shocking. Anyway I bought YouTube Premium to shut it all up; well played, Google. Well played.
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Oct 14, 2023 15:05
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bulletsponge13 posted:Military planners target civilians targets as a strategy in war. Every single military to ever get fielded. This is trivially ahistorical. Strategic bombing as a policy is less than a century old, and you bet your rear end that much of the history of warfare involved actors dogmatically avoiding civilian casualties, to the extent that there are even terms for military action that specifically targets or spills violence onto civilian populations for various deliberate or accidental reasons. "This is just how militaries get fielded" is a relatively recent, very narrow read. Factoring the economic effect of actually hitting a civilian population--rather than just conquering and ruling it--is pretty modern prospective. It has not always been like this, it does not have to be like this, and it quite possibly shouldn't be like this outside total warfare. tl;dr I think you're trying to make the argument that these actions are historically necessary or normal when it comes to military deployment, and that is actually very much not the case Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Oct 14, 2023 |
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Oct 14, 2023 16:53
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You even demonstrate in this post specific terminology for when a military needs to live off the Let's not even get into the questionable rhetorical usefulness of drawing comparisons to the actions of literally the Mongolian hordes You know drat well that Western military history, Indian military history, Chinese military history, etc all include long periods where the standards of conduct regarding civilian populations are quite high, to the extent that states that specifically targeted civilians or battles where significant punitive actions were taken are notable in the historical record in how they stand out. I don't know if it's worth arguing this since I'm fairly sure you are aware of this historical context. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Oct 14, 2023 |
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Oct 14, 2023 16:59
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I don't think we're going to be able to agree. The history of warfare overwhelmingly involves war made for the purposes of statecraft where preservation and even creating favor with a civilian population is the entire war goal, even between ethnicities with longstanding grudges *points toward AD 900 through the Renaissance in Western Europe* some of the oldest remaining records of human language -- dating to the Sumerians -- involve written accounts of conduct of war between cities. Avoiding non-combatants is an ancient, ancient practice. it's going to be one of those cases where two people can live on the same planet but have completely different takeaways regarding a major part of the history of that planet Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Oct 14, 2023 |
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Oct 14, 2023 17:08
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bulletsponge13 posted:The rape, pillage, and murder of the civilian populace was part of a soldiers pay for much of History in every area of pre-modern conflict. If we pull this back to the original context of the thread: what is the point you are trying to make anyway? Is it still that there is a component of necessity with respect to cruelty towards civilian populations in order to achieve war goals, arbitrarily? Scrolling back up and rereading a little bit, I'm trying to figure out what your point was or how that pertains to acceptability of action against civilians in the current conflict. To wit, why does anything Ghengis Khan did to advance his goals have anything to do with I/P, especially when there is ample counterexample of Western mercenary / city-state warfare in Italy, or the fifty years history around the English civil wars to consider regarding the benefits and norms around not targeting civilians?
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Oct 14, 2023 17:15
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Cugel the Clever posted:So about Bibi getting the boot... Was there something more than the corruption suits? I'm out of the loop on his (mostly wrapped-up?) legal problems / financial crimes.
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Oct 16, 2023 18:14
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Gaza has a population just a little over 2 million people. A population of that size is going to require a scale of logistics that is going to be essentially impossible to inspect 100% faultlessly all the time every time. Whether by land or sea or air, enterprising persons are going to be able to get things smuggled in, just by the sheer scale of materials that must enter and exit Gaza.
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Oct 18, 2023 03:06
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I'm kind of wondering if the Speaker deadlock in Congress was a factor in the time frame for Hamas or if that's just a coincidence. I'm leaning towards coincidence because this action obviously took a lot of premeditation, but I do still wonder if the Go button was pressed on an accelerated basis once Gatez kicked McCarthy out and it became obvious that this would become a drawn-out stalemate chaining American hands. Really, I'm kind of wondering to what degree American incapacity to call upon pursestrings right now factors into either side's playbooks
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Oct 18, 2023 04:27
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PurpleXVI posted:I've found that even OSINT'ers need to be taken with a bucketful of salt in this case, even ones that have been doing very reliable and well-researched work on other conflicts have jumped headfirst into ideologically motivated full support for extremely poorly sourced poo poo coming out of this conflict. Ding ding ding. There's a lot of people out there who are calling themselves OSINT wonks because they find and comment on images of events from social media. That's not at all what high quality OSINT is all about. Stick to what is actually valuable from OSINT: write-ups that are thoroughly researched and with so much evidence that you really can't debate it. Anyone can give a gut reaction to a random post, but an actual honest to God researcher who is trying to convince the public of something is going to give a substantial report that, if researched right, leaves very little wiggle room for reinterpretation.
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Oct 18, 2023 20:25
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Regarding the hospital crater: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/10/18/identifying-possible-crater-from-gaza-hospital-blast/ -There is indeed a crater -Photography of that crater correctly geolocates to the right site -It really doesn't look like a JDAM of any weight -Just going off of video that can be found so far, Bellingcat counts two dozen visible bodies -More research is needed Also, quote:One of the images that [IDF Spokesperson] Hagari held up during the press conference to support the claim that there were no craters at the site shows what appears to be a crater in a location corresponding with the Instagram video. The IDF did not immediately reply to a request for comment.  Edit vv it's worth pointing out that any speculation about what it could be is deliberately absent. My read: these authors tend to be circumspect like this when it's not clear what the ordinance could be. More footage needs to be found. Frustratingly, this takes time. Hopefully someone somewhere relatively nearby has an alley camera or pet monitor and notices the anomaly. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Oct 18, 2023 |
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Oct 18, 2023 22:37
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I want to propose a question / filter for discussion about racial prejudice in I/P context: In what way does the racial prejudice that you want to post about affect the acceptability of violence visited upon the civilian population in question, whether Israeli or Palestinian noncombatant civilians? Is there a way in which, for example, the Protocols remarks above affect the way in which a neutrally-toned thread ought to steer discussion about attacks on civilians? Is there any difference in how an Arabic man who regurgitates Protocols ought to be treated from how we treat an American who regurgitates the same? This isn't a hypothetical, rhetorical question: we just left a 20 year long war and occupation where severe racial prejudices have become embedded in non-trivial fractions of both parties' cultures. A discussion on the matter of war and racial prejudice can rapidly turn inward. {Edit: actually that discussion frequently does, in fact, rapidly turn inward, and that horse has been dissected, beaten to death, resurrected, and beaten over and over so many times....} What's the point of it, if it can't add meaningfully anything to our understanding of what's transpiring? To wit, "yeah no poo poo, varying peoples practicing Abrahamic faiths are at each other's throats in the Middle East." Woohoo. How is that remotely novel? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Oct 21, 2023 |
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Oct 21, 2023 17:54
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I'm more than happy to have been in the splash zone of the carpet bombing if it means we don't keep. bringing. up. that. subject.
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Oct 22, 2023 01:26
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If Israel wanted to get serious about durable security for its civilians, there's an option on the table that would immediately cut a massive share of Hamas' support out from under it. All it takes is a willingness to neither purge Palestinians from their homeland nor legally treat them as second class citizens. It's functionally free. Remember this at any time the Israeli State elects--for little material upside--not to pay this cost for peace. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Oct 27, 2023 |
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Oct 27, 2023 05:56
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Borscht posted:I agree with you on first steps but I think you’re underestimating how deep the hatred of Jews goes in the Levant. This same story has played itself out thousands of times already but with swords and sticks instead of precision guided munitions and ultralights. It's challenging to take this kind of opinion at face value because I usually see it wielded as advocacy for the status quo--basically "the right kind of fix has to fit the framing that both parties are equally to blame." That framing produces no results because it does not match reality: one of these parties has a national policy of pushing the other into the equivalent of reservations or concentration camps, then deliberately creating mass civilian casualties and crushing, oppressive poverty. As others point out, It's not symmetric. Basically, I distrust "the fix needs to reflect both sides' blame" because it asks for solutions that don't reflect reality and thus never results in change. After this much time has passed with nothing materially improving for Palestinians and only worsening, that both sides stump speech can start to be criticized as simply a political diversion intended to buy more time for the status quo and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine to be completed. That's how it often comes across when our political leadership tries to both-sides the issue without qualifications or recognizing the power disparity and forced displacement already embedded in the status quo. You and I and other goons are small fry just talking and venting and seeking understanding, so I'm not accusing anyone in here of being sus with it. Borscht posted:That’s a pretty assured position you have on a improbable hypothetical. I just don’t see how it would reverse 4000 years of religious violence. In good faith, here and in prior posts, I get the sense that you do kinda recognize that the situation is not symmetric -- I am definitely not accusing you of being one of the people who weild the both sides thing as a stalemating tactic. If I'm reading you right, you want to point out that embedded religious/ethnic hatreds will present extreme challenges no matter what is tried. I do agree with you there. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Oct 27, 2023 |
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Oct 27, 2023 14:53
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Likewise.
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Oct 27, 2023 15:06
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Someone once suggested Utah and I haven't really been able to stop thinking about that option. v yes in all seriousness, displacing people from settled land is the core issue 
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Oct 27, 2023 19:01
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I'll be straight with you, there are few less surprising contributions that could be made to this thread than "Quite a few of the involved persons are sincere about their national policy of ethnic displacement and ethnic cleansing." Yes, we know. Believe me, much of the world is aware of--and agonizes about--exactly this thing. There's no need to post on Facebook even more about it.
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Oct 27, 2023 20:51
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I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but if we're keeping tragedies onto the pile of human misery, climate change is making the region practicably inhospitable One way to look at the eruption of the Syrian Civil War is a streak of horrible famine that put Syrian farmers functionally out of business and locked out of capital market. I don't have the link on hand, but in one publication Department of Defense labels climate changes that worsen existing regional instabilities as "Unrest Aggravation Factors" and I'm really, really not looking forward to what the medium term future has to hold for us.
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Oct 27, 2023 21:12
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Khashoggi moment 
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Oct 28, 2023 07:28
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orange juche posted:But something something rapture Armageddon. I'm never going to forget the "The evangelicals know I'm doing this [escalation with Iran] for them, right?" moment. That Works posted:Did they forget the part where ultimately ALL nations must turn against Israel to usher in the next steps in Revalations etc? A cornerstone of my political reading is that people are going to do what they want to do. A whole and complete reading of text has not prevented people from cherry picking whatever lets them do what they want, and that's not going to change any time soon. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Oct 28, 2023 |
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Oct 28, 2023 18:54
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"The Israeli State and its enablers" potentially includes US-domestic political sects that enable the ongoing policy of Palestinian displacement and second rate citizenship. The US sits on the Security Council, so it's challenging to separate US domestic political issues from its foreign policy outcomes. As these atrocities continue to flow from recent days and we now stand at the precipice of the land invasion of the few places on this planet where Palestinians are still allowed exist, I'm seeing previous few differences between the Palestinian struggle for the right to continue to exist and other historical peoples' struggles for their right to continue to exist in the face of a genocidal foe. Despite how many times genocides like this have played out in history, we do not seem to be prepared or willing to prevent yet another, and that's really really sad.
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Oct 28, 2023 19:12
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Quackles posted:So how do you think this ends? It seems unlikely that the world has the willpower to cease this genocide. Outside of severe international pressure to cease this tragedy--pressure that is completely failing to materialize right now--I cannot practicably guess under what circumstances the Israeli State is going to stop. Edit: come to think of it, I haven't seen any level-headed reporter or party propose a way that this could end without the US wanting it to end. The Security Council veto is an extremely powerful procedural pass, and US funding and arms export is a massive boon. A lot of other western states seem to have politically opened a path for carte blanche reprisal against Hamas and "Hamas." Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Nov 5, 2023 |
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Nov 5, 2023 01:52
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Lum_ posted:That is such a non-starter politically in the US there are literally some state laws prohibiting BDS-style boycotts of Israel. if I moved my career to Texas like some of my coworkers, I would be required to sign a loyalty pledge to Israel, which would be really loving weird given that I am professionally and legally forbidden to have loyalties or make any pledges to any nation other than the United States. "What the actual gently caress" isn't a fun thing to hear from one of my mentors who is of the 50 members of the Defense Trade Advisory Group. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Nov 5, 2023 |
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Nov 5, 2023 07:12
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PittTheElder posted:What the actual gently caress. How/why would you be required to do this? they have a bill requiring loyalty pledges for certain public service sectors I should follow up on this because it's been a few years, but I think the solution for my mentor was basically to call their facility security officer and clarify that (1) they were coerced to signing a pledge by a state law that should be submissive to federal policy in their understanding (2) they absolutely do not have any loyalties outside of the United States and are not a traitor edit: recalling more, it's essentially handled with "this is obviously illegal / bunk hick horseshit and we won't care" quite often is it the case that there are incompatibilities between state law and defense law / policy, and if you're smart you'll swing with the feds every time Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Nov 5, 2023 |
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Nov 5, 2023 07:19
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Alchenar posted:Israel's neighbours are all a stiff breeze away from being failed states, there is zero risk of Israel having to fight a conventional war and in fact it is far more likely that the trend of normalisation continues after current events settle down because the primary foreign policy goal of everyone in the region is dealing with the psychotic theocracy that's handing out weapons to every reactionary terrorist group it can find. I am seriously not trying to throw any shade to anyone: which "psychotic theocracy handing out weapons" are you talking about? There's a few of them. vv Thank you Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Nov 5, 2023 |
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Nov 5, 2023 10:42
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mrmcd posted:If your idea of Israel is synonymous with a nation where Jewish people have political, social, and economic privileges that aren't available to everybody-- even people who have lived in that place their whole lives and have no other nationality-- then any advocacy for not that is technically a call for "the destruction of Israel". I read that to be Congress's intent as well. Part spite, part planting a flag in the ground to say "Anything other than unequivocal support for the second-rate citizen status of Palestinians is terrorism."
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Nov 8, 2023 15:19
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Chiming in to say that I'm appreciating the tone and gravitas this thread is taking with I/P. I've linked it to a few people in the last week and two have  because it's literally the only place on the Internet that you can have this level of serious conversation about it without some hothead constantly trying to Well Actually the whole thing.
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Nov 9, 2023 17:02
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Laughing Zealot posted:Boy, things are truly gone to hell when this guy is making sensible points. I believe the parsimonious read here is "the effects of piling violence on violence are so obvious even this idiot understands it."
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Nov 11, 2023 00:01
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Never, not once in a dozen lifetimes over a thousand years, would I have guessed  would be relevant for a contemporary Middle East issues thread.What is happening on this planet.
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Nov 15, 2023 04:20
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Lovely Joe Stalin posted:Turns out the body count at the rave was, at least in part, the result of an IDF gunship lighting up party goers. The more that comes out about the IDF response on that day the more it seems they really did just not give a gently caress about separating their own people from the hostiles. Blue on blue between disparate infantry units stumbling over each other while there was no clear C&C I can understand, but stuff like this or the tanks apparently firing on houses with hostages in as prelim to clearing them, it's nuts. what the gently caress That footage was real?
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Nov 19, 2023 00:59
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Double post but jesus christ, the knee-jerk reaction from a lot of rather bright people was that it was possibly misattributed footage because it seemed unlikely even a green pilot would be that supremely stupid Oh boy, the Israeli State may have been in awful lot of trouble before but this, this is going to cement a level of generational skepticism against the state that is not going to be easily dislodged Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Nov 19, 2023 |
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Nov 19, 2023 01:01
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Lovely Joe Stalin posted:I hesitate to ask, but was he just firing into the crowd? it is occurring to me that it is now necessary to determine precisely what footage is real, there have been several videos Lord knows that there will now going to be way more fake clip shows making it even more challenging for common people to find which was actually true Edit: understanding your question a bit more, he was firing at structures (concert things like pop up tents) and packs of people acting in ways that really only scared civilians would, if the video I have in mind ends up being verified. How this make it into the public's hands, who knows. Someone with a horrified conscience, maybe. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 01:09 on Nov 19, 2023 |
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Nov 19, 2023 01:05
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algebra testes posted:Mods change my name to Hamas.com I'm sorry, they're talking about the #massacre where an IDF gunship killed a bunch of Israelis? What am I missing here
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Nov 26, 2023 02:59
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Google Jeb Bush posted:hamas.com is a bunch of really stupidly put together Israeli propaganda but if your take on the music festival attack is that all the casualties were caused by Israel you should really check your sources where did I make that claim good lord, people. A.o.D. posted:Where was that said in the last 41 pages of posts? Lovely Joe Stalin posted:I've said gently caress all about the majority of anything. Don't put words in my mouth. Like, where is this invective coming from, why are people tilting at windmills that don't exist just engage with the words that are on the page, there's enough content here without having to make something up Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Nov 27, 2023 |
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Nov 27, 2023 11:01
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bulletsponge13 posted:Y'all can definitely blame me for this recent debate. I hardly think you're entirely to blame, also it takes a big man to step back and offer to hug it out.
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Nov 28, 2023 03:34
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raminasi posted:It is possible that we're seeing the beginning of such a drastic change, though. Money is horribly overweight in US politics, but it's not literally the only thing that matters. If Netanyahu continues down this path of loudly disparaging both peace and the United States electorate, it's conceivable that he could make US politicians genuinely more scared of their own voters than they are of AIPAC. our voters would have to hear about this, as in it would need broad coverage
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Nov 28, 2023 23:13
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BrutalistMcDonalds posted:Okay, but there were a bunch of survivors who said that the Hamas guys were just shooting people left and right. I saw one video that was probably taken from a surveillance camera of a guy actually shooting people in the back as they ran away from that festival. And you can disbelieve the witness accounts, but the basic problem -- as I look at it -- isn't convincing me of that, it's convincing the Israelis that Hamas isn't trying to kill them. You know? What are they going to say? "Oh sorry we didn't realize that it was our own guys who did the festival attack and not Hamas" and then stop trying to destroy them? Doesn't seem likely to me. I'm trying to understand what you think you're arguing against. I'm reading your post over and over, and it kind of comes across that you think that you are arguing against somebody who flat out denies Hamas' involvement? If that's the case, be aware that that is not who you are arguing against. If that is not the case, boy howdy some clarification would be useful, because it is not at all clear what you're trying to debunk.
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Nov 30, 2023 19:47
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This is far from the first or even second time that somebody started flurrying against another poster as though they outright denied Hamas' involvement despite nothing in their posting coming close to hinting as much. Is there an advertising campaign out there saying that a consequential volume of people are just flat out denying Hamas exists or something? Is this some kind of talking point flaring through certain media spheres, "Omg the radical left that makes up 48% of your countrymen denies Hamas' involvement" or similar? What is prejudicing some people so thoroughly that they readily infer such an extreme position, the gay stalin avatar? it's not just happening here, I'm seeing it elsewhere and I am wondering if there is something preconditioning these people to presume the worst out of anything conventionally left of center on the I/P issue. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Nov 30, 2023 |
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Nov 30, 2023 19:55
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