DavidTC: Joining with someone who is also at war with Israel does not magically make their _their_ purpose for the war.
Just a few posts ago you were claiming we should listen to what the group is claiming.
Hezbollah is threatening to go to war with Israel (meaning before by their standards they weren't at war). They're also claiming their terrorism against Northern Israeli civilians is because of the war in Gaza.
Following the departure of the PLO and international peacekeepers, Islamist militants began launching guerrilla attacks against Israeli forces.... In a vacuum left with eradication of PLO, the disorganized Islamic militants in South Lebanon began to consolidate. The emerging Hezbollah, soon to become the preeminent Islamic militia, evolved during this period.
What "borders" have they been violating? They don't have set borders with the Palestinians because they don't have a peace agreement after the war when the borders moved.
"No set borders" and "no peace" created a power and legal vacuum that the settlers have exploited.
That's toxic, but "no peace/borders" predates the settlers by decades.
We have "no set borders" because of the Palestinian insistence on a Right to Return. A serious RoR means all of Israel is a settlement that should be undone.
InMD: The question is always what your goal is and whether what you are doing is helping to achieve it.
That's the sane, non-emotional reaction. Voters telling their elected representatives to "do something" isn't that.
IMHO there is no way prevent anti-Jewish terrorism from Gaza short of ethnic cleansing and/or genocide.
That doesn't change that Israel has the right to go to war. Nor does it change that a serious war will be brutal and nasty for the Palestinian civilians.
What Israel is trying to do won't work. Since they answer to their civilians they have to try.
And I get that this logic and ethics is seriously brutal and nasty. The ethical way to resolve all this is for Hamas to surrender. If they don't that then their people will suffer, but that seems to be the plan.
Our misadventure in Afghanistan should be no one’s guide to proportional or appropriate response.
Our body count ratio was something like 1000:1. Exclude 90% of that (from us failing to stand up their gov) and we'd still have something like 100:1.
As a general rule of thumb, democracies over react to this sort of thing.
"Proportional" means "enough force to make them stop even if that means putting their host country through a wood chipper". If making them stop isn't possible, then see the part about the "wood chipper".
On day one I figured Israel would end up killing 100 for every 1 that died. By that metric the war isn't even half way done.
Israel's reaction is normal and even expected by democratic standards.
Hezbollah is stronger than their army. Whatever the politics, they literally can't make them disarm. Ergo the gov doesn't have a monopoly on the use of force.
DavidTC: If Israel hadn’t been there, Hezbollah never would have existed in the first place for Iran to take over.
And why was Israel there? Various armed groups were attacking Israel from Lebanon. The PLO in '68 and them or others after that.
Israel didn't want the land for itself, it just didn't want it used as a base of terror operations against it's citizens.
That's a reasonable request, especially when the alternative is war. We're seeing that same dynamic played out now.
If you engage in terrorism against a democracy, then you will end up at war with the country. Hezbollah is currently in the process of dragging Israel into war with Lebanon if they aren't there yet.
When I look at the numbers, I see a brutal war but not genocide.
The average number of people dying per day is going down, not up. That is the opposite of how starvation (etc) works. We don't know what percentage of the dead are military.
Note "not genocide" doesn't mean there are no war crimes going on.
The numbers not backing up genocide suggests the rhetoric is pearl clutching. Rather than a reasonable evaluation of what is going on, this seems "all urban war is genocide", or "civilians should not die in war", or even "there should be no war".
Philip: Routinely invading Lebanon is doing what it should?
And why is that happening?
The Lebanese government is so weak it doesn't have a monopoly on the use of force.
When Lebanese groups try to drive all the Jews from the Middle East by terrorizing Israeli civilians, that is inviting Israel to step in and deal with the problem.
Lots of people have dedicated their lives to this and/or have had their lives on hold. Worse, lots of jobs and job networks are connected to keeping the "resistance" going.
The Palestinians have gotten their resistance on the cheap, or even made a profit with it. They're internationally funded, even by the UN, and also have serious ideological & religious backing.
This issue reminds me of the whole "why did the South resist dropping slavery" debate. Huge parts of their GDP and thus jobs depend on the current setup.
There's also the problem that the true believers have a habit of killing anyone who proclaims they're reasonable and willing to make peace.
Jay: When it comes to the beepers blowing up, the military forces weren’t hiding behind the children.
True that. However they're supporting Hamas who is famous for it and they're insisting that their conflict with Israel will go on until the Gaza war stops.
It's not the rhetoric. Presidents attract lunatic shooters.
Arguably the first attempt got as far as it did because the Secret Service dropped the ball.
The second was mostly Trump ignoring the Secret Service's advice on playing golf on an unsecured field. He's done that repeatedly and they've warned him repeatedly.
There is a ton of evidence that they intended to prevent the peaceful transition of power. That evidence includes a lot of social media and we have had trials on this subject.
The most troubling part is they were doing this because of Trump's instigation and as part of a plan to overturn the election.
It is correct to say that there was more violence in Baltimore (etc) than there was at the capital. It's also correct to point out that attempting to overturn an election is a bigger deal.
RE: the ignition is the sudden heat of the battery.
They don't go off every time they're used. They need a message sent to them saying "boom now".
Thus they need to open the case, add/remove stuff, move wires around, add wires, reprogram chips, and/or so on. Setting it up might have involved a soldering iron. It certainly involves a high level of skill.
If we're doing this to 1000 units then it means we have 1000 units of explosives around.
It involves testing them to make sure that they work. That testing includes putting them in a bomb proof container so if they go off accidently the developer doesn't get killed.
At this scale you will break some of the pagers that you're trying to alter and thus bomb disposal.
This requires a high degree of control over the surroundings. Ideally it happened at the lab/machine shop which developed this technology.
Modifying them at the factory seems unlikely and unneeded. You're one soldering iron away from killing random factory workers and you're also running the risk of factory workers posting this on youtube.
My guess is they bought a batch of them, modified them, then swapped them. That swap might be in the warehouse but it might also be on the ship going to the middle east.
In terms of "spook" infrastructure I'd think it more useful to have guys on ships that service the Middle East than some warehouse.
The death of a child is a tragedy. Whether it's a war crime depends on whether or not that child was targeted. It is heinous to target them. It's beyond heinous for military forces to hide behind them.
On “Open Mic for the week of 9/16/2024”
DavidTC: Joining with someone who is also at war with Israel does not magically make their _their_ purpose for the war.
Just a few posts ago you were claiming we should listen to what the group is claiming.
Hezbollah is threatening to go to war with Israel (meaning before by their standards they weren't at war). They're also claiming their terrorism against Northern Israeli civilians is because of the war in Gaza.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Lebanon_War#Further_conflict_and_Israeli_withdrawal
Following the departure of the PLO and international peacekeepers, Islamist militants began launching guerrilla attacks against Israeli forces.... In a vacuum left with eradication of PLO, the disorganized Islamic militants in South Lebanon began to consolidate. The emerging Hezbollah, soon to become the preeminent Islamic militia, evolved during this period.
"
So you’re totally ok with paid sex work?
I think it's a bad idea, just like tattoos and body piercings are a bad idea. You can put nicotine, alcohol and drug abuse in there too.
Having said that, I think it's a bad idea to outlaw any of those. My morality, lifestyle, and common sense aren't for everyone.
"
DavidTC: without once actually mentioning their _stated_ problem with Israel?
Their current "stated problem" with Israel is the war in Gaza. I guess that's fine, but "joining the war" means "joining the war".
Instead we have this weird situation where Hezbollah thinks it should be able to terrorize Israeli civilians without actually going to war.
"
What "borders" have they been violating? They don't have set borders with the Palestinians because they don't have a peace agreement after the war when the borders moved.
"No set borders" and "no peace" created a power and legal vacuum that the settlers have exploited.
That's toxic, but "no peace/borders" predates the settlers by decades.
We have "no set borders" because of the Palestinian insistence on a Right to Return. A serious RoR means all of Israel is a settlement that should be undone.
"
InMD: The question is always what your goal is and whether what you are doing is helping to achieve it.
That's the sane, non-emotional reaction. Voters telling their elected representatives to "do something" isn't that.
IMHO there is no way prevent anti-Jewish terrorism from Gaza short of ethnic cleansing and/or genocide.
That doesn't change that Israel has the right to go to war. Nor does it change that a serious war will be brutal and nasty for the Palestinian civilians.
What Israel is trying to do won't work. Since they answer to their civilians they have to try.
And I get that this logic and ethics is seriously brutal and nasty. The ethical way to resolve all this is for Hamas to surrender. If they don't that then their people will suffer, but that seems to be the plan.
"
Our misadventure in Afghanistan should be no one’s guide to proportional or appropriate response.
Our body count ratio was something like 1000:1. Exclude 90% of that (from us failing to stand up their gov) and we'd still have something like 100:1.
As a general rule of thumb, democracies over react to this sort of thing.
"Proportional" means "enough force to make them stop even if that means putting their host country through a wood chipper". If making them stop isn't possible, then see the part about the "wood chipper".
On day one I figured Israel would end up killing 100 for every 1 that died. By that metric the war isn't even half way done.
Israel's reaction is normal and even expected by democratic standards.
"
Hezbollah is stronger than their army. Whatever the politics, they literally can't make them disarm. Ergo the gov doesn't have a monopoly on the use of force.
"
DavidTC: If Israel hadn’t been there, Hezbollah never would have existed in the first place for Iran to take over.
And why was Israel there? Various armed groups were attacking Israel from Lebanon. The PLO in '68 and them or others after that.
Israel didn't want the land for itself, it just didn't want it used as a base of terror operations against it's citizens.
That's a reasonable request, especially when the alternative is war. We're seeing that same dynamic played out now.
If you engage in terrorism against a democracy, then you will end up at war with the country. Hezbollah is currently in the process of dragging Israel into war with Lebanon if they aren't there yet.
"
Jesse: being a first world nation with responsibilities means you don’t get to strike back as hard and tough as you want to
We lost 3k people in 911. We killed about 2 million people in the Afghan conflict.
Our gov has a responsibility to our people. Theirs doesn't.
Ergo it takes lopsided causality ratios to make it clear that attacking us is a bad idea even by their standards.
Israel has only killed about 40 people for every civilian they lost in 10-7. They probably aren't there yet.
"
He could own several adult websites.
"
Source for my claim that the average number of deaths doesn't support genocide:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war#/media/File:Gaza_death_graph.png
"
When I look at the numbers, I see a brutal war but not genocide.
The average number of people dying per day is going down, not up. That is the opposite of how starvation (etc) works. We don't know what percentage of the dead are military.
Note "not genocide" doesn't mean there are no war crimes going on.
The numbers not backing up genocide suggests the rhetoric is pearl clutching. Rather than a reasonable evaluation of what is going on, this seems "all urban war is genocide", or "civilians should not die in war", or even "there should be no war".
"
Philip: Routinely invading Lebanon is doing what it should?
And why is that happening?
The Lebanese government is so weak it doesn't have a monopoly on the use of force.
When Lebanese groups try to drive all the Jews from the Middle East by terrorizing Israeli civilians, that is inviting Israel to step in and deal with the problem.
"
Everyone is like me and my circle of friends/family.
"
The other approaches involve "them losing".
Lots of people have dedicated their lives to this and/or have had their lives on hold. Worse, lots of jobs and job networks are connected to keeping the "resistance" going.
The Palestinians have gotten their resistance on the cheap, or even made a profit with it. They're internationally funded, even by the UN, and also have serious ideological & religious backing.
This issue reminds me of the whole "why did the South resist dropping slavery" debate. Huge parts of their GDP and thus jobs depend on the current setup.
There's also the problem that the true believers have a habit of killing anyone who proclaims they're reasonable and willing to make peace.
"
Death toll is now 32 (google robot), with 3200 people injured.
Thousands of pages. Sounds like they didn't use much explosives.
Probably supposed to go off in your hand and just cripple you.
"
JayBird: Which brings us to how persuasive “your side should turn down the heat!” arguments are.
Most "turn down the heat" arguments come down to "don't target people attacking civilians if you might kill civilians".
Or to put it differently, "don't go to war over terrorism".
JayBird: the military forces weren’t using human shields. They were just, you know, buying bananas.
The beepers are military communication gear. Boobie trapping and/or blowing up military gear is fair play.
"
Jay: When it comes to the beepers blowing up, the military forces weren’t hiding behind the children.
True that. However they're supporting Hamas who is famous for it and they're insisting that their conflict with Israel will go on until the Gaza war stops.
On “The Unspoken Truth About The Trump Assassination Attempts”
It's not the rhetoric. Presidents attract lunatic shooters.
Arguably the first attempt got as far as it did because the Secret Service dropped the ball.
The second was mostly Trump ignoring the Secret Service's advice on playing golf on an unsecured field. He's done that repeatedly and they've warned him repeatedly.
On “Open Mic for the week of 9/16/2024”
There is a ton of evidence that they intended to prevent the peaceful transition of power. That evidence includes a lot of social media and we have had trials on this subject.
The most troubling part is they were doing this because of Trump's instigation and as part of a plan to overturn the election.
It is correct to say that there was more violence in Baltimore (etc) than there was at the capital. It's also correct to point out that attempting to overturn an election is a bigger deal.
"
RE: the ignition is the sudden heat of the battery.
They don't go off every time they're used. They need a message sent to them saying "boom now".
Thus they need to open the case, add/remove stuff, move wires around, add wires, reprogram chips, and/or so on. Setting it up might have involved a soldering iron. It certainly involves a high level of skill.
If we're doing this to 1000 units then it means we have 1000 units of explosives around.
It involves testing them to make sure that they work. That testing includes putting them in a bomb proof container so if they go off accidently the developer doesn't get killed.
At this scale you will break some of the pagers that you're trying to alter and thus bomb disposal.
This requires a high degree of control over the surroundings. Ideally it happened at the lab/machine shop which developed this technology.
"
Modifying them at the factory seems unlikely and unneeded. You're one soldering iron away from killing random factory workers and you're also running the risk of factory workers posting this on youtube.
My guess is they bought a batch of them, modified them, then swapped them. That swap might be in the warehouse but it might also be on the ship going to the middle east.
In terms of "spook" infrastructure I'd think it more useful to have guys on ships that service the Middle East than some warehouse.
"
The death of a child is a tragedy. Whether it's a war crime depends on whether or not that child was targeted. It is heinous to target them. It's beyond heinous for military forces to hide behind them.
"
It's less "they can't understand" and more "you're supposed to lose".
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.