ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
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User ID: 2935
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
Harris seems to be polling quite significantly better than Biden. Nate Silver is giving her close to 50%. It could be Netanyahu felt the way the wind was starting to blow and felt that waiting until after the election would risk losing the chance to strike while the iron is hot, so to speak.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
From the linked article
Israel could have killed Haniyeh anywhere in the Middle East, yet deliberately chose to do so in Iran during the inauguration.
Is this true? My impression was that Hamas leaders were mostly staying in Qatar, where Israel would be very unwilling to try an assassination attempt.
Does Netanyahu actually want to drag the US into a much larger war with Iran?
I've seen various takes on Twitter pointing out how much Israel has escalated recently since Netanyahu's meeting with Harris. It seems very possible he realised/had confirmed that her administration would be much less friendly than Biden's, and that the time to try and draw the US in was now.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
You've seemed to be a generally smart guy and good poster
Much appreciated (and you).
At no point in either the European or Pacific theaters were the Americans or Russians flailing about randomly. Throughout the process, they had specific aims and plans they were working towards. Their intention was to occupy Germany and Japan, and institute by force a government which they would sustain by force for however long it took for those nations to be trustworthy self-governing members of the international community again.
They definitely had plans, but I'm sure those plans were secondary to their prime objective (military victory). We'll never know, but I can't imagine that the allies would have stopped the war effort if for any reason they couldn't agree on what to do with Germany and Japan once they'd surrendered. Forcing surrender was the ultimate goal.
Importantly, the Allies understood that after victory, after surrender, they would take on responsibility for Japanese and German (and other national) civilian populations. They would take on responsibility for the administration of the territory, the provision of necessary goods, and the healing of the harms of the war. At no point was this in doubt. The Battle of the Bulge, won or lost, wouldn't have changed the intended outcome of the war for the Allies.
Israel has no intention of occupying Gaza and providing administration or aid to the population. They have no plan to institute a government, nor even a publicly stated outline of what an acceptable government would look like.
Maybe our disagreement is just semantic in nature (and I might have misunderstood some deliberate hyperbole), but I wouldn't equate Israel not wanting to administer Gaza as "random flailing". Their campaign definitely hasn't followed a straight line from A to B, which they bear a certain amount of responsibility for, but they've made strategic advances.
Their win conditions are something like Gazans stop hating us, unlikely to be advanced by their current strategy, or all the Gazans are dead, which they will presumably reach eventually though I doubt they've made significant progress towards extinction during the current war.
I don't agree with this. I think their win condition is that Hamas is largely neutralized (probably defined as breaking their organisational structure too much to be able to maintain truly operational as a coherent military entity) and that Israel control the main points that can be used to smuggle weapons back into Gaza, such as the Philadelphi corridor. At that point I imagine they'll leave Gazans to their own devices, conducting occasional raids like they do in the West Bank to stop any terrorist group that looks like it's building up too much power.
I don't see how anything beyond this, such as taking a more active hand in administering the region, is feasible. Even if we assume that Israel has the money and manpower to try and nation-build, it would be a diplomatic impossibility. Israel hasn't been in Gaza since the mid 2000s, and most of the world still thinks/acts as though Gaza has been under oppressive occupation for the last several decades. Imagine what would happen to their global reputation under an actual occupation. There would be constant protests or acts of rebellion and it's not hard to imagine how the international media/NGO complex would cover even the gentlest attempts to maintain order. So they would be forced to leave, at best putting Israel back where they were once the war had ended, at worst leaving Gaza with much of its infrastructure rebuilt and ready for use as military infrastructure by Hamas or a new terrorist group.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
I think most "mens" sports events are technically open?
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
Serbian? Belarussian?
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
An alternative is to work for a company that produces tech for police departments (i.e. mobile forensics, visual recognition, cybersecurity etc). These will probably pay you decently (if not at FAANG-level, although what do I know?) and the work will probably be pretty interesting.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
None of these goals are realistic, or at least they aren't working towards them in any meaningful way.
I don't know, Hamas have lost huge numbers of soldiers, commanders, vital parts of their infrastructure and ability to smuggle weapons. Some sources suggest they've basically stopped firing rockets into Israel, even after Haniyeh's killing. That all seems pretty meaningful.
I agree with Trump, and anyway the deaths of 100,000 to rescue a few hundred is so desperately out of proportion it has lost all sense
The central thesis of the article you mentioned - that Hamas are undercounting the number of dead Gazans by a factor of anywhere between 2 to 4, seems wildly unrealistic, especially given that Hamas' main strategy is to use negative propaganda to bring international condemnation and pressure on Israel.
Talk of proportionality is also meaningless - nations generally speaking don't respond to wars of aggression by seeking to inflict the exact same damages that were inflicted on them. I've never heard anyone argue that the correct response to Pearl Harbour was for the US to kill an equal number of Japanese soldiers and civilians, then go home.
At this point Israel has bombed and marched across all of Gaza multiple times, if they haven't neutralized Hamas yet color me skeptical that the next 100,000 corpses will solve the problem.
I'm not sure why you're so skeptical, they seem to be making solid progress. This sounds a bit like like saying if the D-Day landings didn't completely neutralize Germany then there's little reason for anyone to have thought further fighting would achieve anything.
And working out a plan for a future government of Gaza was a good idea to work out before the war, as Israel was repeatedly urged to do by the international community, not after.
It sure helps to know exactly what to aim for, but you can come up with plans during the war and after. And pretty much any outcome is better for Israel than what was there before.
As it is they are engaged in an orgy of violence with no realistic goal.
Except that this isn't true. Retrieve as many hostages as possible, neutralize Hamas, work out a some arrangement where Gaza is less of a threat than it was before (most likely involving other nations, or just leaving Gaza disunited enough that Hamas or another similar organisation can't completely militarise it again). Any or all of those things might be (very) difficult, but that's quite a different thing from what you said.
One big organisation means co-ordination, unity and economies of scale. Five hundred separate cells are more likely to be a danger to themselves than neighboring nations.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
I think this tweet is a pretty effective summary of the recent direct Iran-Israel hostilities that started with April's missile attack.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
I don't see this as having much to do with wokeness or identity politics (at least from Harris' end). I think this has common elements with the various Latinos/Blacks for Trump groups, with the main parallels being:
- Defiance: A way to say "fuck you, I'm going to vote for the guy/gal you're all telling me is racist/hates my ethnic group"
- Image laundering: A way of communicating that someone is less scary or hostile to your particular group than they're presented as being.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
The goal of gang warfare isn't to win, it's to show personal courage in the face of danger.
Don't gang members jump their victims pretty regularly? I'm not sure honor culture is the (whole) answer here.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
I take it from this that Peter Zeihan isn't particularly well thought of around here?
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
Is an idea radical if it's 2000 years old?
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
Well, I'll at least say your the first consistent prescriptivist I've come across!
Omg, I would love a way to distinguish between reflexive and non-reflexive possessive pronouns.
If you ever find yourself in the unlikely position of having to pick up a Nordic language, you'll have that to look forward to.
I think these sorts of theories are much more plausible than those involving deliberate sabotage.
Israel created massive refugee camps of the native population of its lands and then tried to dump the problem onto the neighbouring Arab states. I can’t gather a lot of sympathy for them for failing at this and having to deal with the consequences of its actions.
I'd say it was the invading Arab armies in 1948 encouraging Arabs to leave their homes to make fighting the Israelis easier that are more responsible for the "massive refugee camps". But even if, for the sake of argument, we put all the blame on Israel, it's significantly less brutal than what the colonialists in Australia or the USA did. Maybe you wouldn't have much sympathy for them either if Native Americans started massacring thousands of American civilians. But I'm skeptical you'd be as energised about that as you are about Israel.
Also it lost Sinai in a war (incidentally: a war that displayed how extremely vulnerable the country is if its enemies can act with even a tiny bit coordination. Israel’s short sighted and frantic actions are pushing its enemies into such coordination right now)
AFAIK Sinai was given back in the 1979 Camp David accord, 6 years after the Yom Kippur war ended with the international community begging Israel not to march into Cairo and occupy it militarily. I guess you could look at that and reduce it to "Israel lost Sinai in the war" but that's a pretty motivated description of events. In any case, I wouldn't look at that as an example of how much danger the Arabs pose to Israel.
If the world started operating on pre-20th century assumptions of ethnic conflict again, Israel would have a free hand to exile or kill the Arab population of course. But then it could also not expect much sympathy or support from the West when the hundred fold more populous enemy surrounding it did the same to Israel. So be careful what you wish for.
Is your suggestion that Arabs are holding back from trying to destroy Israel due to respect for 20th century norms of handling ethnic conflict?
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
I'm skeptical the US ever provided nuclear deterrence for Israel. Even without the current hard pivot away from Israel that the Democrats are performing I can't imagine there's any world where the US would have nuked Iran in return if they try to nuke Israel.
Because it means the remaining Arabs will have to either be somehow deported, or live under a permanent apartheid/occupation regime.
The words occupied and apartheid don't mean what you seem to think they mean. Gaza wasn't occupied or under any form of apartheid under the standard definition of those terms between 2005 and 2023. And who was planning to deport them before recent hostilities?
No Iran doesn't want a 20% Jewish population I am sure. But then Iranians didn't settle in a land exclusively inhabited by Jews in the 20th century and then spent the last century in a struggle to take over the said land. So the comparison is really pointless and distracting.
Israel tried to give Gaza to Egypt, and the West Bank to Jordan. It unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. It gave the Sinai back to Egypt. That's not the behavior of a country consistently struggling to take over land. Again, these words don't mean what you seem to think they do.
In fact there are approximately zero comparable cases to Israel's ethnic problems in the last century which is the exact thing that makes it such a hot-button issue.
The only thing that makes Israel's case unique is how benevolently they treat the other ethnic groups they share the region with. I can't think of a single other nation in history that, were they in the same position as Israel is now, wouldn't have crushed the Palestinians decades ago. I can only assume you're aware of how the Romans or Ottomans handled hostile activity in the Holy Land. Do you honestly think the case of Israel is the first time in history one ethnic group has achieved dominance in a particular region at the expense of another? How do you think Australia and America became full of white people?
Modern IDF has not proven itself capable of fighting anything other than severely resource constrained urban insurgents. It failed badly the last time it tried to act against Hezbollah, which has much more in common with a proper army than an insurgent group. There is little indication that IDF’s ground forces have actually increased in quality since the last war.
This is cope. Hezbollah losses were twice as high as Israel ones during 2006 according to wikipedia, and that's with Hezbollah hiding behind civilian shields, having an extensive tunnel network to hide and move around in, and fighting on home territory. They also don't have an airforce.
Israeli military depends almost entirely on western supplies and cutting edge technology.
Israel has one of the most advanced defense sectors on the planet. Part of why the west sells Israel weapons is because they want to buy Israeli military hardware for themselves. The types of arms that Israel buys are often highly precision-based and used to minimize battlefield casualties. Cutting them off from that wouldn't handicap Israel war efforts, it would just make them a lot more indiscriminate.
The main problem with the Israeli political chaos is that Israel is making many suboptimal decisions, prioritising Netanyahu’s political survival and the populace’s thirst for vengeance over Hamas.
This is concern trolling. There's no country on earth where it would be viable for a government to do nothing in response to an Oct 7th style-attack, or to the thousands of rockets Hezbollah keeps firing at them. Complaining that Israel's response is "suboptimal" is just a way to launder the actual wish for Israel to simply not respond at all and accept being constantly under siege.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
That would be totally suicidal, nobody in the country supports such a thing and it’s simply a fake solution made up by westerners (just like the “2-state solution”) to avoid thinking too hard about the unpleasant implications of the Israeli state.
Why is it an "unpleasant implication of the Israeli state" that Israel wants to keep its Arab population from not growing much beyond 20%? Is it an unpleasant implication of the Iranian state that they probably don't want a 20% Jewish population?
I'm sure this argument applies in some cases but proves too much when applied to English IMO. If we accept that English's minimal conjugations for person and number (limited in almost all cases to the '-s' suffix for third-person singular) encode useful redundancy in any real sense, we'd have to accept that modern English is monumentally inferior to languages with fuller inflectional profiles like Old English or Proto-Germanic for reliable communication. And we should subsequently advocate for far more extensive language reforms, like a complete re-introduction of the case system, than e.g. telling people off for using double negatives or whatever.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is still good, but you can already tell the series has lost the spark that went with Patrice Désilets.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2mo ago
I assume "elites" here refers to journalists, democratic party workers etc.
Do you expect he'd provide much of a boost to the Harris campaign?
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