naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
A lot of terrorism has no deep political motive beyond bloodlust. Yes you can argue that Islamist attacks on civilians in the West had the motive of killing enough people that the US pulled out of the Middle East, but there’s a lot of ‘Step 2: ???’ involved with this even if you accept the premise that attacking a people doesn’t create a lust for vengeance. Much of it just desire to hurt another people as much as you think yours have been hurt.
I've read a fair amount about the IRA's guerrilla war / terrorism campaign. One of the things I noted is that quite a lot of the violence they carried out was not executed with a great deal of care - things like, making sure you're killing the right person, making sure there aren't any bystanders who you would also have to kill in addition to the planned target, making sure it's done at a time and place without too much witnesses or evidence, etc. There was only a relatively small number of hardcore members who were capable of carrying out savage violence with careful planning. I concluded from this that it's genuinely hard to find people who are both prepared to carry out gruesome acts against innocent-seeming targets and also sane and rational enough to be intelligent and careful about it.
9/11 looks slightly more defensible in historical context I think. At the time America pulled out of Somalia over comparatively minor losses, and refused to engage with the Rwandan genocide that they probably could have stopped relatively easily.
I'm honestly not even sure if Osama's plan - as opposed to post-hoc cope - was the conflict that happened. Yes, America bled and arguably has not recovered from the loss of trust in institutions and the cost but it wasn't bleeding out from the conflict. Hindsight makes it clear that the US could absorb such a loss.
He may have expected either to shock and awe the US or some sort of invasion followed by a general uprising of Muslims* or the US giving up relatively quickly. After all, it has the entire Western hemisphere to itself. Just how many Americans are willing to die in the Middle East?
This? I dunno. America stayed in the ME for a generation, and Israel has nowhere to go and is even more determined. Hamas knows this better than anyone else.
Much of it just desire to hurt another people as much as you think yours have been hurt.
Islam is a triumphalist religion. Muslims aren't supposed to be in this position. If they are, they always have the Khalid bin al-Walid out: love death more than the infidel loves life. You fight and win, or you die and "win". Either way you don't have to sit around wondering how you went from ruling the world to...this.
* Maybe some weird vanguard party logic of "lighting the spark". Not the first time it's failed.
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Notes -
A lot of terrorism has no deep political motive beyond bloodlust. Yes you can argue that Islamist attacks on civilians in the West had the motive of killing enough people that the US pulled out of the Middle East, but there’s a lot of ‘Step 2: ???’ involved with this even if you accept the premise that attacking a people doesn’t create a lust for vengeance. Much of it just desire to hurt another people as much as you think yours have been hurt.
I've read a fair amount about the IRA's guerrilla war / terrorism campaign. One of the things I noted is that quite a lot of the violence they carried out was not executed with a great deal of care - things like, making sure you're killing the right person, making sure there aren't any bystanders who you would also have to kill in addition to the planned target, making sure it's done at a time and place without too much witnesses or evidence, etc. There was only a relatively small number of hardcore members who were capable of carrying out savage violence with careful planning. I concluded from this that it's genuinely hard to find people who are both prepared to carry out gruesome acts against innocent-seeming targets and also sane and rational enough to be intelligent and careful about it.
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9/11 looks slightly more defensible in historical context I think. At the time America pulled out of Somalia over comparatively minor losses, and refused to engage with the Rwandan genocide that they probably could have stopped relatively easily.
I'm honestly not even sure if Osama's plan - as opposed to post-hoc cope - was the conflict that happened. Yes, America bled and arguably has not recovered from the loss of trust in institutions and the cost but it wasn't bleeding out from the conflict. Hindsight makes it clear that the US could absorb such a loss.
He may have expected either to shock and awe the US or some sort of invasion followed by a general uprising of Muslims* or the US giving up relatively quickly. After all, it has the entire Western hemisphere to itself. Just how many Americans are willing to die in the Middle East?
This? I dunno. America stayed in the ME for a generation, and Israel has nowhere to go and is even more determined. Hamas knows this better than anyone else.
Islam is a triumphalist religion. Muslims aren't supposed to be in this position. If they are, they always have the Khalid bin al-Walid out: love death more than the infidel loves life. You fight and win, or you die and "win". Either way you don't have to sit around wondering how you went from ruling the world to...this.
* Maybe some weird vanguard party logic of "lighting the spark". Not the first time it's failed.
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