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

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

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.

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.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

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

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.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

A nimble, surgical response takes too much time.

It's also a fantasy.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

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.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

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.

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.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

A nimble, surgical response takes too much time.

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

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

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.

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.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

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

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.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

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

Absolutely masterful interview on Gaza of Dominique De Villepin, former Prime Minister of France, who famously led France's opposition to the Iraq war and who, IMHO is the best diplomat the West has produced in decades.

This is so important, so incredibly well argued, that I decided to translate it in full:

"Hamas has set a trap for us, and this trap is one of maximum horror, of maximum cruelty. And so there's a risk of an escalation in militarism, of more military interventions, as if we could with armies solve a problem as serious as the Palestinian question.

There's also a second major trap, which is that of Occidentalism. We find ourselves trapped, with Israel, in this western bloc which today is being challenged by most of the international community.

[Presenter: What is Occidentalism?]

Occidentalism is the idea that the West, which for 5 centuries managed the world's affairs, will be able to quietly continue to do so. And we can clearly see, even in the debates of the French political class, that there is the idea that, faced with what is currently happening in the Middle East, we must continue the fight even more, towards what might resemble a religious or a civilizational war. That is to say, to isolate ourselves even more on the international stage.

This is not the way, especially since there's a third trap, which is that of moralism. And here we have in a way the proof, through what is happening in Ukraine and what is happening in the Middle East, of this double standard that is denounced everywhere in the world, including in recent weeks when I travel to Africa, the Middle East, or Latin America. The criticism is always the same: look at how civilian populations are treated in Gaza, you denounce what happened in Ukraine, and you are very timid in the face of the tragedy unfolding in Gaza.

Consider international law, the second criticism that is made by the global south. We sanction Russia when it aggresses Ukraine, we sanction Russia when it doesn't respect the resolutions of the United Nations, and it's been 70 years that the resolutions of the United Nations have been voted in vain and that Israel doesn't respect them.

[Presenter: Do you believe that the Westerners are currently guilty of hubris?]

Westerners must open their eyes to the extent of the historical drama unfolding before us to find the right answers.

[Presenter: What is the historical drama? I mean, we're talking about the tragedy of October 7th first and foremost, right?]

Of course, there are these horrors happening, but the way to respond to them is crucial. Are we going to kill the future by finding the wrong answers...

[Presenter: Kill the future?]

Kill the future, yes! Why?

[Presenter: But who is killing whom?]

You are in a game of causes and effects. Faced with the tragedy of history, one cannot take this 'chain of causality' analytical grid, simply because if you do you can't escape from it. Once we understand that there is a trap, once we realize that behind this trap there has also been a change in the Middle East regarding the Palestinian issue... The situation today is profoundly different [from what it was in the past]. The Palestinian cause was a political and secular cause. Today we are faced with an Islamist cause, led by Hamas. Obviously, this kind of cause is absolute and allows no form of negotiation. On the Israeli side, there has also been a development. Zionism was secular and political, championed by Theodor Herzl in the late 19th century. It has largely become messianic, biblical today. This means that they too do not want to compromise, and everything that the far-right Israeli government does, continuing to encourage colonization, obviously makes things worse, including since October 7th. So in this context, understand that we are already in this region facing a problem that seems profoundly insoluble.

Added to this is the hardening of states. Diplomatically, look at the statements of the King of Jordan, they are not the same as six months ago. Look at the statements of Erdogan in Turkey.

[Presenter: Precisely, these are extremely harsh statements...]

Extremely worrying. Why? Because if the Palestinian cause, the Palestinian issue, hasn't been brought to the forefront, hasn't been put on stage [for a while], and if most of the youth today in Europe have often never even heard of it, it remains for the Arab peoples the mother of all battles. All the progress made towards an attempt to stabilize the Middle East, where one could believe...

[Presenter: Yes, but whose fault is it? I have a hard time following you, is it Hamas's fault?]

But Ms. Malherbe, I am trained as a diplomat. The question of fault will be addressed by historians and philosophers.

[Presenter: But you can't remain neutral, it's difficult, it's complicated, isn't it?]

I am not neutral, I am in action. I am simply telling you that every day that passes, we can ensure that this horrific cycle stops... that's why I speak of a trap and that's why it's so important to know what response we are going to give. We stand alone before history today. And we do not treat this new world the way we currently do, knowing that today we are no longer in a position of strength, we are not able to manage on our own, as the world's policemen.

[Presenter: So what do we do?]

Exactly, what should we do? This is where it is essential not to cut off anyone on the international stage.

[Presenter: Including the Russians?]

Everyone.

[Presenter: Everyone? Should we ask the Russians for help?]

I'm not saying we should ask the Russians for help. I'm saying: if the Russians can contribute by calming some factions in this region, then it will be a step in the right direction.

[Presenter: How can we proportionally respond to barbarism? It's no longer army against army.]

But listen, Appolline de Malherbe, the civilian populations that are dying in Gaza, don't they exist? So because horror was committed on one side, horror must be committed on the other?

[Presenter: Do we indeed need to equate the two?]

No, it's you who are doing that. I'm not saying I equate the faults. I try to take into account what a large part of humanity thinks. There is certainly a realistic objective to pursue, which is to eradicate the Hamas leaders who committed this horror. And not to confuse the Palestinians with Hamas, that's a realistic goal.

The second thing is a targeted response. Let's define realistic political objectives. And the third thing is a combined response. Because there is no effective use of force without a political strategy. We are not in 1973 or in 1967. There are things no army in the world knows how to do, which is to win in an asymmetrical battle against terrorists. The war on terror has never been won anywhere. And it instead triggers extremely dramatic misdeeds, cycles, and escalations. If America lost in Afghanistan, if America lost in Iraq, if we lost in the Sahel, it's because it's a battle that can't be won simply, it's not like you have a hammer that strikes a nail and the problem is solved. So we need to mobilize the international community, get out of this Western entrapment in which we are.

[Presenter: But when Emmanuel Macron talks about an international coalition…]

Yes, and what was the response?

[Presenter: None.]

Exactly. We need a political perspective, and this is challenging because the two-state solution has been removed from the Israeli political and diplomatic program. Israel needs to understand that for a country with a territory of 20,000 square kilometers, a population of 9 million inhabitants, facing 1.5 billion people... Peoples have never forgotten that the Palestinian cause and the injustice done to the Palestinians was a significant source of mobilization. We must consider this situation, and I believe it is essential to help Israel, to guide... some say impose, but I think it's better to convince, to move in this direction. The challenge is that there is no interlocutor today, neither on the Israeli side nor the Palestinian side. We need to bring out interlocutors.

[Presenter: It's not for us to choose who will be the leaders of Palestine.]

The Israeli policy over recent years did not necessarily want to cultivate a Palestinian leadership... Many are in prison, and Israel's interest - because I repeat: it was not in their program or in Israel's interest at the time, or so they thought - was instead to divide the Palestinians and ensure that the Palestinian question fades. This Palestinian question will not fade. And so we must address it and find an answer. This is where we need courage. The use of force is a dead end. The moral condemnation of what Hamas did - and there's no "but" in my words regarding the moral condemnation of this horror - must not prevent us from moving forward politically and diplomatically in an enlightened manner. The law of retaliation is a never-ending cycle.

[Presenter: The "eye for an eye, tooth for tooth".]

Yes. That's why the political response must be defended by us. Israel has a right to self-defense, but this right cannot be indiscriminate vengeance. And there cannot be collective responsibility of the Palestinian people for the actions of a terrorist minority from Hamas.

When you get into this cycle of finding faults, one side's memories clash with the other's. Some will juxtapose Israel's memories with the memories of the Nakba, the 1948 catastrophe, which is a disaster that the Palestinians still experience every day. So you can't break these cycles. We must have the strength, of course, to understand and denounce what happened, and from this standpoint, there's no doubt about our position. But we must also have the courage, and that's what diplomacy is... diplomacy is about being able to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel. And that's the cunning of history; when you're at the bottom, something can happen that gives hope. After the 1973 war, who would have thought that before the end of the decade, Egypt would sign a peace treaty with Israel?

The debate shouldn't be about rhetoric or word choice. The debate today is about action; we must act. And when you think about action, there are two options. Either it's war, war, war. Or it's about trying to move towards peace, and I'll say it again, it's in Israel's interest. It's in Israel's interest!"

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

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

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.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

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.

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

As technology leaves even more of these dumb young jihadists without constructive endeavors

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

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

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.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

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.

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.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

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.

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?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

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?

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.