Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I have no doubt that there are Israelis who have committed war crimes, but completely agree that what Hamas did was different from individual acts crossing the line. As I said, and you agreed, what Hamas was rational in its way. Depraved, also. And Hank says they're bad, so we all seem to be in agreement about that.

I'm just not clear what you think you're establishing. Movements that resort to terrorism do so because they can't fight by conventional means. Ideologies that justify terrorism take root among populations that don't see alternatives.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I'm not saying you're equating them. I'm saying you are, bizarrely, refusing to recognize that Hamas did something way more grievous than almost any group, even any terrorist organization, would ever do.

Forget Israelis. Imagine the IRA, during the Troubles (possibly one of the most bloodthirsty terrorist organizations in modern history) stomping into Northern Ireland and raping and murdering Protestants in the streets. It's near impossible to do so.

When Hank draws a distinction between taking someone's land by abusive legal proceedings and raping/killing, and you say "Thanks for letting me know Hamas is bad," you're ducking. You know damn well that Hamas took things to the proverbial "next level" X10.

You're not conceding any of your other points - well made and true - regarding the history on both sides, to acknowledge the unique perversity of Hamas' recent attack, and how and why its not like all the rest, from both sides, that preceded it.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Disregard my post that crossed with this one. Your post here moots it.

Your second point gets to mine. I think that even in terrorism, there are lines. The murder of Israelis at the '72 Olympics was horrific. But even there, it was due to blundering. And it was just shooting.

When I saw the Berg beheading video from Iraq, I recall thinking it was gratuitous. A hostage has value. And yet instead of trading him, they butchered him, in something like a medieval sacrifice.

There is little rational thinking involved in killing a person one can trade for something one wants. It makes no sense. It is the behavior not of a terrorist but of a zealot who wants nothing but to satisfy a blood lust.

Hamas' wretched recent behavior indicates a desire for total war and self-annihilation just as ISIS's beheadings had. Of course, you can say they've been at total war with Israel from the start, which indeed their charter states. But it's been cold, warm, cold, and not terribly dramatic. Bombs here and there. This new thing is a step beyond... an action they know will not end Israel, but all but assuredly will end them (at least in their current incarnation). And they clearly don't care.

"Blow it all up!" I guess if you've no hope and would rather die than live as you are, well, there's a logic in doing what they're doing. But it's an awfully twisted one.

(Kinda like MAGA dead enders here.)

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I'm not sure if you are a trolling sock, a twit or if your education included something experimental where they taught you different meanings for common English words. But you said "Hamas comes back over the fence and massacres the settlers. You say, this is uniquely awful! Uh, no it is isn't." To the common folk like me that is equating the two actors as being equally bad. I'm done on this because I like you and I really am bothered by what you post on the topic, year after year.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

If they just killed people in such ways, that would be one thing. They are killing people in such ways, and publicizing it. The depravity and willingness to go beyond the pale is part of a communications strategy. It's all about the message.

At the risk of overstating the similarities, MAGA dead-enders and Hamas each understand they are minority movements that losing their larger struggle, and each signal a scary commitment and a willingness to break norms. They know that if they play by the rules, they'll lose.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Buy a dictionary and learn the English language. Unlike you, many common folk can read what I wrote and understand that I'm not equating the two. Many common folk would read the times I've said I'm not equating the two to understand that I'm not equating the two, but not you.

If you're done on this topic, fine, because you're not really responding to me at all. You don't have the same problems with reading comprehension on other topics. Did you read anything that I wrote in that post after "no it isn't" where I explained what I meant? Obviously not.

eta:

When I said that wasn't uniquely awful, did you think I meant

a) What Hamas did wasn't awful
b) What Hamas did was awful, but not uniquely so
c) What Hamas did is no better or worse than other things Israel has done

Based on, you know, reading what I actually wrote, common folk understand that the right answer is not a) and not c). But you're a smart guy, what did you think?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Got it. I do get the message.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

C. Anyone reading it has to think C.

And maybe it's just me, but when I hear someone say "I have black friends. But RACIST THING." I weigh one of those sentences higher than the other.

you might consider taking a step back. But I am now done.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

That's a good point. I'm inclined to view that as counterproductive, as it can only galvanize disgust at them. But then I go back to my earlier point. They don't care. They want total war. And publicizing it as they have puts them across the Rubicon.

It's refusal to deal with reality. Reality dictates that one must compromise. The US cannot be run or controlled by MAGA policies. It is not possible. There must be compromise. Hamas cannot push Israel into the sea. It has just signed its own death warrant in attempting to do so.

And yet, here it appears Trump will nevertheless be the candidate, or the third party spoiler with 30 million votes of hardcore dead enders in his pocket. And Hamas will be all but obliterated.

The lack of compromise in Israel/Palestine accrues largely from geography, which cannot be reconciled, and goes back a long way. But the refusal to deal with others that is appearing here and in right wing movements in Europe is part of a global trend. People write it off as a passing fad of nationalism. But it seems more than that. There's an "I want my reality and I'll have it, actual reality be damned" attitude that persists. It's like a large chunk of humanity has decided its their way or the highway, and being reasonable and horse trading to have functional societies is anathema. Everything's a zero sum game.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

What they want isn't exactly total "war," because they're not a state actor. It's asymmetric conflict. They do things like taking hostages (including everyone in Gaza, among whom they are hiding). They understand that they are going to provoke a massive response from Israel -- you have to see that as part of their plan, a feature not a bug from their perspective.

If the current status quo is stacked against you, one strategy is to totally disrupt the status quo. And now people are worried about a much wider conflict across the region.

Look, I agree with you, but a huge part of the US population likes the idea that although they are a minority, they do not need to compromise, and can do things like gerrymander, strike people from the voter rolls, subvert elections, and otherwise maintain disproportionate power. If you think it doesn't work, take another look at the Wisconsin legislature, the redistricting plan that North Carolina passed this week, the composition of the US Senate, the election-denying background of the man just elected Speaker of the House, and so on. Again, I agree with you about how problematic this is, but the task of the majority, politically, is to make the minority pay for these tactics, and I wish Democrats were more successful at that. Part of the problem is so-called centrists who will bemoan fringe Republicans without supporting the alternative to them, not that I am pointing any fingers.

No, the point you're making is that it doesn't need to be a zero-sum game. When people cooperate through politics, they can make deals that make everyone better off. When there is trust in the political system, it's not just a zero-sum game. (There are many places in the world where the political system doesn't work that way -- e.g., oil-rich countries where the leadership keeps the gains from resource-extraction. But Western democracies have mostly escaped that trap.) When MAGA conservatives try to maintain their own power at the expense of others and the system itself, they turn it into a zero-sum game, or worse.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You do common folk a discredit. He said what Hamas did was not uniquely awful. That is undeniably true.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Mongolian horde?

Conf to Less: I be damned if I prove Godwin's law.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I can understand it but that doesn't mean it was the right response.

A couple of the lessons I take from the last twenty plus years of wars in the Middle East:

1. You eliminate terrorists through police action, special forces operations, and good diplomatic relations with countries that might otherwise be hosts for them (or that are hosts for them, like Pakistan)

2. You create more terrorists through ground wars with a lot of collateral damage - it's pretty clear that the Iraq war played a big role in the emergence of Daesh.

3. Active civ ops can play a huge role in minimizing support for terrorists.

It would be nice to see these lessons applied today.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I'm confused about what you thought Hamas was before Oct. 7.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Right. The brutality required to eliminate insurgency through force is not palatable to the modern world, even as a reaction to the grossest atrocity.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

A nimble, surgical response takes too much time. The delay is taking some of the heat out of the event, but I don't see Israel satisfied with anything less than a spectacular repayment of the atrocity.

Even if we knew exactly where Bin Laden was prior to attacking Afghanistan, we were going to drop those enormous bombs that bored into caves and collapsed the lungs of anyone within a quarter mile of the blast. The horror show was the message - "You've fucked around; here's what finding out looks like."

But yes, inevitably it just breeds more terrorists. But what doesn't? What policy gets rid of them permanently? The only ones I've heard of that worked were: (1) Putin's handling of the Chechens. He'd start sending fingers, toes, and more of terrorists' families' to them until they stood down. And (2) Hafez Assad's playbook in the Hama Massacre - ring the terrorist neighborhood, kill literally everyone in it, and pave it flat afterward. Neither of these are available to Israel. Or any other sane nation.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

A terrorist organization. Now, it is a death cult, like ISIS. Ty is correct there is a rationale to what Hamas just did. But once a group goes to those extremes, it becomes uncontrollable, a madness takes over.

ISIS went from mere knife beheadings to throwing people off buildings, drowning people in cages, beheading children publicly (yep, it happened) and lighting a Jordanian pilot on fire inside a cage. Expect the same from Hamas in the future.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

It's also a fantasy.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

A year ago, PLF and I were swapping emails both happy with the successful conclusion of our chemo rounds.

A year later, he's gone, and I'm finishing up my next chemo round, with no idea why I am so lucky.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Happy you are though. Are you counseled to not exercise to extreme? Because I think PLF exercised to extreme, which I could see could be problematic given a weakened system.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

There are estimates of 20,000 Hamas fighters in Gaza. What would a surgical strike be?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

In my case it's not possible, because my treatments have put me in a wheelchair whenever I need to go more than a few feet.

Yes, PLF was chasing vitality and probably pushed himself harder than he should have - it's hard to know what the right amount is and what too much is, but I'm pretty sure I'll be more cautious than he was. But he loved especially the mountain biking.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I think the learning from the last 20 years is you need a lot of surgical strikes and an awful lot of intel and you need to keep at it a long time. And we made a lot of mistakes in our surgical strikes - hit a number of weddings, for example. But looking back, we know we theoretically "won" the battle of Fallujah but in the long term it played a huge role in the growth of Daesh and was really a setback long term.

One of the most hopeful things I have seen for the long term is that the US and Qatar are apparently talking about Qatar pulling its support from Hamas; if we could do that with the UAE, too, I think it would have a much bigger impact long term than what Israel is doing right now in Gaza. But there is an emotional call for vengeance, just as we had after 9/11.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

This interview does such a good job of expressing many things I think:

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

It's immaterial, because it appears we've chosen "war, war, war" of the two options provided.

But I'm not sure the alternative isn't a trap in which Neville Chamberlain would be quite comfortable. De Villepin rightly views the conflict as bigger, global. The struggle against Western control is real, and it's been on open display since 1979. But one can't make peace with its leading edge because that edge - Radical Islam - desires total control, domination.

The West can easily abide the rising East. The Chinese may be diabolical in numerous regards, but they are rational. Indonesia, Vietnam, India... they are all transactional. Even Russia is transactional (if we'd not fiddled in Ukraine and left it as a Russian buffer state, Putin would not have felt the need to do what he did).

Radical Islam, which is metastasizing throughout Europe, is not transactional. Extreme Islam should be take at its literal word, because its followers are generally lacking formal education and cannot behave or interpret scripture in anything but a literal sense. And the literal scripture of Islam is this:

Any land once held by Islam is always property of Islam and if lost must be reclaimed.

Hence, one hears Imams in Gaza right now calling for removal of not only the Jews, Christians, Hindus, and any other non-Muslim in Israel, but also for the re-annexation of Spain, Italy, Turkey, and all other nations once under Islamic control. (One also hears them at the moment in speeches at protests in downtown NYC. Look it up.)

Hamas follows this dictate.

The writings of that semi-illiterate seventh century Joseph Smith known as Muhammed are very clear - Islam's is the final word on all things regarding the Universe. Full stop.

So, how does one "negotiate" a world peace with a half billion or so near illiterate people streaming into other countries who believe they have the final revealed truth, and that truth directs that they must compel all people they see to follow Sharia or die?

It's a cult of suicide bombers. No attempt to find common ground will come to anything ultimately because their raison d'etre is prosecution of the position that There Is No Common Ground - There Is Only Islamic Ground.

As technology leaves even more of these dumb young jihadists without constructive endeavors, we can expect more and more of this sort of thing. Israel is just the start, the threshold. This leads to a not unpersuasive argument that the only way to deal with these hordes of radical idiots is to treat them like an infestation. De Villepin should understand this, as France has seen the wages of dithering about the problem of Radical Islam firsthand quite a bit.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

This is crazy talk 22 years after 9/11. As though there has been nothing to learn.

I know you like a theme, but it isn't technology that is leaving Gazans without constructive endeavors.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Can anyone explain to me Israel's military strategy?

If their goal is to kill Hamas fighters, they are very very bad at it. High estimates from Israeli sources are running to 400 dead, and both Israeli and US sources are now saying the 10,000 estimated dead from the Gazan health folks is likely significantly low. That's a stunningly bad ratio (for example, in the battle of Mosul, the battle with the highest civilian death count during the war on terror, we killed 10,000 combatants and about 10,000 civilians died - and in that case, there were a lot of civilians killed by IS, not us).

They are now explicitly targeting both journalists and hospitals with bombs - these aren't even vaguely defensible, and is a great way to isolate themselves internationally.

They seem to have no traction on either recapturing or negotiating for the release of hostages, and have almost certainly put hostages at risk with indiscriminate bombing.

There are only two explanations I see - one is that their military just isn't very good, the other is that their strategy is something other than freeing the hostages and killing Hamas combatants.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

As to hostages, they pretty clearly have written them off as likely dead. I would say if they didn't do that they'd see more hostages? And as hostages who are citizens of other countries turn up dead Hamas will be tarnished (their hope, I do not know that will go that way).

When my daughter was in Israel during one of the flare ups there was a pre-visit group call. The people organizing her Birth Right trip were strong that Hamas or Hezbollah or whoever it was that time would not harm Americans as the fall out would be too great. This time they crossed that line, way crossed it. And the fallout has mainly been Jewish kids getting beaten on college campuses.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Hamas is pretty damn tarnished already. I hope to hell many of them are still alive, and it seems like they are from Barak Ravid's reporting today on US negotiations trying to free them.

I have to say, my son's experience of college is quite different, he's seen more of the cancel culture and attempts to silence people, especially at two of the four colleges in their cluster. He's especially seen it targeted at one of his apartment mates who is active in Jewish Voice for Peace.

But none of this answers my question: what is Israel's military strategy here? I spent the day today in the hospital reading MSF's dispatches from a hospital under siege - what is that accomplishing?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Netanyahu was on a Sunday morning news show earlier and just kept repeating “the destruction of Hamas” as its objective.

It looks a lot like what we did in Afghanistan right after 9/11. A cathartic display of might and ruthlessness, but ultimately of dubious effectiveness.

A better angle, IMO, is a policy of assassination of all Hamas members. Deem their lives forfeit and start killing then, regardless of whether they’ve done anything, from this day forward. And start assassinating them in Doha as well. Pre-emptive murder. That’s the only way to even attempt to “destroy Hamas” w/o mass innocent casualties like what we’re seeing now.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I have read that the Hamas combatants are mostly hiding below ground in tunnel complexes, and that the Israeli military is waiting for them to run out of fuel for their ventilators because then they will have to emerge.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

If you ignore the violence against others, then the fallout is mainly Jewish kids getting beaten. All of it is awful.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Glad I went running in Grindavik when I did, because it may not be an option much longer.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

The long term slow process of killing off terrorists through special ops and police action is how we got rid of the Islamic State. It works.

The strategy Israel is using looks more like what the Russians and Syrians are doing in Syria. Not sure it ever works to meet its objective, but it can certainly leave a local population terrorized and careful.

I don't know if you saw the leaked memo from the Dutch Defense ministry, but apparently the Dutch at least believe they have info from the IDF suggesting that they have explicitly targeted Gaza infrastructure, making Gaza into an unlivable place for a long time to come and resulting in many more civilian deaths than if they were targeting Hamas.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

There's absolutely no doubt there is a rise in antisemitism and a rise in crimes against people who are Islamic or who, regardless of religion, are from any part of MENA.

But there's also an attempt to use antisemitism in particular as a cudgel to silence people and enable conduct that lies somewhere between ethnic cleansing and genocide today. In connection with this, of course, there is always a hypocritical article by Bari Weiss.

I listened in on a really great webinar today sponsored by Jewish Currents on the Holocaust and Gaza. In times like these I really appreciate my feisty Jewish dissident friends and family.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

3 crazy people acting on their own are the same as group attacks of seemingly sane, but strident, people attacking Jews? SMH.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Interesting development in my fam's political world.

The Jewish members of my family are all deeply upset with Israel, and have been for a long time. Indeed, our closest Israeli friends kids have all emigrated to the US and a couple of them work in businesses started by members of the family.

On the other hand, one of the Islamic members of the family posted a bunch of photos tonight of herself proudly waving a huge Israeli flag at the rally in Washington. And I understand why - her own birth mother, before she was adopted by my sister, was killed by Islamic terrorists. She empathizes very very deeply with the families of the people killed on Oct. 7.

I'm filing this in the category of, we need empathy for everyone.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You really think Islamaphobia and bias against people from the Middle East is limited to three crazy people?

Really?

Remember, this isn't a competition, it's possible to be opposed to multiple forms of bigotry at once.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I'm from a place with a very large Middle Eastern population so I do not see much of it. But of course I know there is a lot of it, especially in Trumpian circles.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You should make friends with some of your Middle Eastern population and ask them about their experiences.

There were a bunch of very Islamaphobic signs, some of them genocidal, at the Israel rally yesterday. Here I think that genocidal stuff is a fringe, even if that fringe includes a bunch of billionaires; in Israel, of course, genocidal statements towards Palestinians are made by government ministers.