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That's a good point, although I'm not sure how much to put on NATO's current escalation, and how much to put on the Russian military's surprising weakness. I'd been solidly in the "Putin won't invade, but if he does it would be over fast" camp, so that's two big things I was wrong about, which shows you how much I knew.
I think Hamas are religious fanatics, and have found a coordination mechanism that's strong enough to allow for suicide attacks, and which justifies "holding their own people hostage" as being in those people's long-term best interest (72 virgins for martyrs and all that). I'm still on the fence as to whether that attitude is a new category of "hostis humani generis", or whether "give me liberty or give me death" is a useful bulwark against oppression. It's hard to draw the line.
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