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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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Physically and academically weak? What on earth are you talking about?

Are you imagining like woody Allen in combat boots, kvetching about the quality of the food in the mess hall? Your mental image of the average Israeli is a bit off.

An IDF soldier can go toe to toe with just about any soldier in the world except the Americans and maybe the British on a good day. They’ve been actively waging war for large portions of the last fifty years and are an actual developed country with a martial tradition that is as hardcore as any of the advanced war fighting nations.

I’m having a hard time explaining this level of copium outside of a dose of anti-semitism that could kill a horse and which subsequently leaves the taker mentally retarded.

An IDF soldier can go toe to toe with just about any soldier in the world except the Americans and maybe the British on a good day.

Where is the evidence that the Americans or the British are particularly effective soldiers? They haven't fought a war that didn't amount to clicking targets on a screen in a context of absolute air superiority for over half a century. In a 1v1 setting like paintball with real guns, I'd bet on the average Russian, Ukrainian or even North Korean (assuming they get to eat full meals for a month prior) soldier, and, yes, of course on an average Israeli one, over the average American.

where is the evidence that the American or British are particularly effective soldiers.

Time on task.

Frankly if a country gets sneak-attacked twice on the same religious holiday within living memory they have to give up the mantle of super high-IQ warrior nation. You would've thought that after Yom Kippur the Israelis would've learnt something but apparently not!

This is a nuclear level cope, I have a hard time taking this seriously. Sneak attacks work, that’s why people use them.

If Israel had even close to population parity in any of those wars some of the nations that had waged war against them in the past likely wouldn’t even exist today.

How hard is it to keep up military readiness even on a religious holiday? This does not happen to proper armies, they don't lower their guard in predictable annual patterns.

The Israelis have been fighting this war in frankly amateurish ways. They keep clustering up in ways that would get them massacred on a real battlefield in Ukraine - fortunately for them their opponents don't have much in the way of artillery or heavy equipment. Israeli urban combat performance has been pretty poor, they've failed to take and hold ground. They go on these glorified chevauchees into Gaza and Hamas just sweeps back in once they leave. There doesn't seem to be any real plan for victory, only (impressive) tactical ploys like the pager trick.

If the US weren't constantly bailing them out with weapons shipments, diplomatic and air cover they would be in a very unpleasant position.