Gaza - conflict, war, land, water rights, bad colonional legacies...

[Zoraptor]

Should have left in the "don't bother replying part" in. The trouble with someone who always believes they're right is they're utterly pointless to engage with because their only actual purpose is maintaining their ego.

Good laugh quoting someone from Bellingcat. They still have articles up insisting that the Khan Sheikoun CW attack was from a missile (ctrl f 'rocket': all the eyewitnesses), and that anyone who said it was a missile was a Russian plant spreading disinformation. Physician heal thyself.

5 hours ago, BruceVC said:

But the much of the anti-US rhetoric is around things like " the US wants eternal war  in the ME " and there is a  constant expectation that the US needs to help find peace in the conflict

At this point is it really rhetoric? You can certainly argue the 'want' part, but comes a point where if you're continually making things worse the 'want' becomes irrelevant.

To use an analogy the practical difference between a surgeon who is incompetent and one who fails deliberately is non existent, for the victims.

[Gromnir]

2 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

The trouble with someone who always believes they're right is they're utterly pointless to engage with because their only actual purpose is maintaining their ego.

*chuckle*

am knowing that were not meant as a self own, but...

made even more amusing 'cause again, zor misses the important part: what reasonable person would argue against waiting for more/better info before making accusations and casting aspersions?  curious, and beyond the ordinary reasonable we got at least one advocate o' the irrational and obdurate.

moving on, and regarding the recent US veto, 

"Thomas-Greenfield said the United States was disappointed the draft resolution made no mention of Israel's rights of self defense and she blamed Hamas for the Gaza humanitarian crisis."

am disappointed 'cause am not thinking a humanitarian ceasefire requires the establishment o' blame. sure, israel wants it to be understood that they is responding to the murder and kidnapping o' its citizens, but to make a ceasefire contingent upon such a recognition does strike us as... inhumane. 

the ownership o' the moral high ground territory is extreme subjective, but refusing a humanitarian ceasefire does not look good for those claiming such a lofty perch.

HA! Good Fun!

 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Gromnir

[Gfted1]

US Navy destroyer in Red Sea shoots down cruise missiles fired by Houthis in Yemen: Pentagon - ABC News

[Zoraptor]

Had a chance to look at Israel's evidence on the Al Ahli strike in more detail and... they have the missiles launching from two different places 4km apart. Pretty much zero doubt about it to, completely mismatched description and location provided*.

The cemetery mentioned is almost next door to the Ah-Ahli hospital. Its furthest extent is ~120m away. Their trajectory info however shows launches from about 4km away, in a ?Olive Grove? next to the coast (rough location; the Israeli circle is not exactly precise, the cemetery is just visible at the northern extent on a 1440uw monitor, so that will vary as resolution does). Something agricultural anyway, and there are no cemeteries nearby.

We now also have confirmation from the Archbishop of Canterbury that Israel ordered the hospital evacuated the day before, a point that was in dispute with some.

Credit to Britain's Channel 4 too, for remembering that Israel also has air burst munitions, not just ones that leave big craters.

*The reason for the mismatched locations are pretty obvious and already stated: the launch has to be close by or the propellant has all been burnt up accelerating the rocket and you don't get the big immediate fire observed. Hence the nearby cemetery as location. But that doesn't match any other details since the rocket would not be moving quickly if it had traveled only 120m, so no whistling sound- maybe an active rocket sound, but we didn't get that- hence the more distant location. Build your own scenario out of bits, even if they're mutually contradictory. May also be a vestige of their previous release of missile launches with a failure that was meant to show the incident but was actually from 40 minutes after.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Zoraptor

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, Gfted1 said:

US Navy destroyer in Red Sea shoots down cruise missiles fired by Houthis in Yemen: Pentagon - ABC News

That's bold of them to try it at that distance

[BruceVC]

9 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

 

At this point is it really rhetoric? You can certainly argue the 'want' part, but comes a point where if you're continually making things worse the 'want' becomes irrelevant.

To use an analogy the practical difference between a surgeon who is incompetent and one who fails deliberately is non existent, for the victims.

Its exaggerated, misplaced and doesn't accurately represent the US interests in the ME or the reasons for its military interventions. If anything its to ensure stability for economic interests but no-one wants eternal war in the ME because how does it benefit anyone ? And the US has always supported Israel since its creation and I would argue the US has put more effort into trying to find a peaceful solution to the conflict than anyone else. But end of the day it cant force Israel or the Palestinians to agree to a 2 state solution. Only leadership from both sides can do that 

It reminds  me of some of these Islamic extremists who in their manifesto claim the US are crusaders who want to destroy the Islamic world, why would the US want to destroy the Islamic world?

[HoonDing]

Schrödinger's War.

Rules-based order nations commit and don't commit war crimes at the same time.

[uuuhhii]

that is a interesting way of making things sound good

pretty sure spain wanted to ensure stability for economic interest in their colony before they all went independent

so did britain

stability under whose authority

[BruceVC]

34 minutes ago, uuuhhii said:

that is a interesting way of making things sound good

pretty sure spain wanted to ensure stability for economic interest in their colony before they all went independent

so did britain

stability under whose authority

Under no ones authority, most the world wants a stable and prosperous ME. It doesn't really  benefit anyone in the long-term the suggestion of any  "endless war" in the ME 

Because if the entire ME erupts into civil war it will have a direct impact on the oil price which will negatively impact every single country in the world . You remember how the oil price got to $120 after Covid ended and how that impacted our economies 

So even if someone doesn't care about the humanitarian reasons of wars in the ME you should care about the stability of the ME because it directly can influence the global economy 

So to repeat my point, no it doesn't make sense that the US would want endless wars in the ME because at the very least its not in its own economic interests 

 

[HoonDing]

It's not about the Middle East

Western countries will nuke the world rather than allow the so-called "****hole" countries to overtake them.

[Malcador]

Wonder how long until IDF intelligence claims Hamas is seizing the 12 trucks and JDAMs them.

[Gromnir]

40 minutes ago, HoonDing said:

It's not about the Middle East

Western countries will nuke the world rather than allow the so-called "****hole" countries to overtake them.

*snort*

and we thought Gromnir were old. hoon is so stuck in 20th century thinking. never read a cyberpunk novel? multinationals is not near concerned with the old power politics models as they is with the bottom line. when the inevitable amazon-berkshire hathaway-johnson & johnson and microsoft-disney mergers final and inevitable occur...

HA! Good Fun!

[Gromnir]

Israel-Hamas War Day 14 | Red Cross Says It Has Two American Hostages Released by Hamas

 

[BruceVC]

https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2023/10/19/kill-the-difficult-ones-hamas-had-a-hostage-taking-manual-n586192?utm_source=ground.news&utm_medium=referral 

This  article  is mostly from  Graeme Wood a journalist from The Atlantic, its behind a paywall so this is for easy access

In summary its about how Hamas didnt expect to have  the initial success from the attack and they werent intending to take hostages back to Gaza but rather use them as human shields as part of the immediate  expected Israeli military response which didnt happen. Hamas even had a manual on how to torture and kill Israeli hostages within Israel

[ComradeYellow]

US has not been on Israel's side since around 1987.  Since then US has become increasingly partisan on the side of Israel, which is going causing long term problems to US role in world.  First Ukraine now Israel, US just blindly chooses a side w/o adequate tact.

China, meanwhile is playing the adult here in BOTH conflicts and is actually considering both sides POV in conflicts and wants peace and both sides to achieve a peaceful 2 state solution and has never reflexively took a side as the case with recent US impulses.  US is very insecure nation for the past few decades and doesn't know how to use their wealth and power to achieve proper peace in global conflicts.  It's sad really, US really comes off as bad news in today's world when it did not have to happen.  The Global South is continuously being alienated by US.

[Gromnir]

HA! Good Fun!

[Malcador]

Convenient.

[Sarex]

17 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Convenient.

They wouldn't dress like that if they weren't terrorist.

[Malcador]

8 minutes ago, Sarex said:

They wouldn't dress like that if they weren't terrorist.

One of the rules in the rules based order.

[uuuhhii]

this is getting worse than when spain exile all their islam population

500 years ago

[Zoraptor]

They did the same to their Jewish population as well. Irony being that a lot of them went to Muslim countries since they were more tolerant. Still pretty relevant, since Israel is clearly trying to remove Palestinian Christians just as much as Muslims hence their systematic bombing of churches as well as mosques.

(actually a pretty good example of history based propaganda too: a lot of sources say many of the Jews expelled from Spain went to 'Greece', which didn't exist for another 300 years. They went to the Ottoman Empire, but it sounds better saying 'Greece and Italy' since they're Christians and show how tolerant Christianity 'really' is. Of course, England and France had already expelled their Jews to steal their money/ cancel loans...)

[Sarex]

8 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

They did the same to their Jewish population as well. Irony being that a lot of them went to Muslim countries since they were more tolerant. Still pretty relevant, since Israel is clearly trying to remove Palestinian Christians just as much as Muslims hence their systematic bombing of churches as well as mosques.

(actually a pretty good example of history based propaganda too: a lot of sources say many of the Jews expelled from Spain went to 'Greece', which didn't exist for another 300 years. They went to the Ottoman Empire, but it sounds better saying 'Greece and Italy' since they're Christians and show how tolerant Christianity 'really' is. Of course, England and France had already expelled their Jews to steal their money/ cancel loans...)

People don't understand that Jews were not tolerated in the western world before WW2.

[Lexx]

Funny, we learned about the whole WW2 thing a lot in school, but I never really grasped the background of it all until I've read Umberto Eco's Prague Cemetery. At first the book highly confused me, so I started reading up on it more until it finally really clicked for me, that jews weren't just hated by Germany back then. It goes so damn far back in time. In hindsight it is obvious, but it really wasn't in my mind like that. Literally everyone hated jews and they were commonly used as scapegoats. Chances are high that if germany wouldn't have started with the death camps, someone else for sure would have.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Lexx said:

Funny, we learned about the whole WW2 thing a lot in school, but I never really grasped the background of it all until I've read Umberto Eco's Prague Cemetery. At first the book highly confused me, so I started reading up on it more until it finally really clicked for me, that jews weren't just hated by Germany back then. It goes so damn far back in time. In hindsight it is obvious, but it really wasn't in my mind like that. Literally everyone hated jews and they were commonly used as scapegoats. Chances are high that if germany wouldn't have started with the death camps, someone else for sure would have.

Thats interesting,  I thought   most  people knew that  European  anti-semitism goes  back  hundreds of   years. The NAZI were   just  one example of it and they successfully implemented a program of genocide  around it with the Final  Solution

Thats  why  most Jews are so sensitive  to anti-semitism, its historic  and generational  and the response to the  Hamas  attack lets   bigots  rage about it again and of course the Israeli strategy doesn't help either

And I  posted  this link  earlier  but you should  read  about  the historical  pogroms  in Russia where  Russian  Jews  get  blamed  for  events and then killed and attacked , even if they weren't responsible

https://www.britannica.com/topic/pogrom

This is why Israel  and  its  belief  in the significance of  a  single  Israeli  Jewish life  matters, thats   why  I  will never believe they knew the Hamas attack  was really going to happen.  It would be the ultimate betrayal of  what  Israel stands  for

 

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by BruceVC

[Sarex]

1 hour ago, Lexx said:

Funny, we learned about the whole WW2 thing a lot in school, but I never really grasped the background of it all until I've read Umberto Eco's Prague Cemetery. At first the book highly confused me, so I started reading up on it more until it finally really clicked for me, that jews weren't just hated by Germany back then. It goes so damn far back in time. In hindsight it is obvious, but it really wasn't in my mind like that. Literally everyone hated jews and they were commonly used as scapegoats. Chances are high that if germany wouldn't have started with the death camps, someone else for sure would have.

The Croats were competing with all they had.