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.
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Notes -
It's remarkable to me how often the comparison to 9/11 has been made here and in the broader conversation, yet nobody has ever bothered to carry that thought through to it's conclusion. Yes, the direct analogy where hundreds/thousands of Americans/Israelis were murdered by terrorists in their home countries is obvious. But why stop there and leave out the fact that the next twenty years saw a massive belligerent overcorrection and self-destructive wars abroad? Wars that nobody, even conservatives who presumably voted for Bush twice and raked Obama over the coals for being soft on terror/homeland security, will currently defend? It's all too easy to see a future where Israel will regret the actions it takes over the next few months as the entire nation is baying for Palestinian blood.
The local growing consensus around what is effectively genocide is also a mistake. Your personal DR pro-HBD/white supremacist bubbles are blinding you to what the normies think. If Israel 'does a genocide,' as people here have been saying, they're finished in the eyes of normies for at least a few decades. Not to mention the rank hypocrisy inherent in a nation and people who spent decades saying 'never again' will have changed their tune to 'never again, to us.'
The funniest thing about this entire debacle has been the overnight dissolution of the standard battle lines. Suddenly pro-Palestine leftist protestors flashing swastikas at Jews are shoulder-to-shoulder with stormfront White Nationalists. Center-left/center-right politicians and normies are largely united in condemning Hamas, hypocrisy around military aid and foreign interventionism be damned. Even here, there's a consensus that 'the media' is biased trash written by subhuman retards who were too low-IQ to code or do STEM in college, but half the comments claim they're bought and paid for by our Jewish overlords whilst the other half accuse them of institutional capture by pro-Palestinian leftists who will propagandize every civilian casualty due to a righteous freedom bomb dropped by the IDF. Neither bother to do a cursory check of the NYT cover page which would largely falsify both claims, but there's also nobody left to push back or call them on it.
Lest I be accused of being a dirty Muslim-loving commie anti-semite, I made the conscious decision to do my best to ignore Israel/Palestine over a decade ago after watching protestors rage at each other on a weekly basis at my college campus. Obligatory Hamas bad, rape and murder of civilians bad, what happened to innocent civilians in Israel was an atrocity, by all means go decapitate Hamas. But be careful in how far you go in the heat of the moment.
Good. Why should I shed a tear for the passing of ethnic favoritism in my home country? I'll take national unity over sinecures and in-grouping based on religion anyday.
Because our error was not extracting Afghani blood. There should not be a single tribesman ever associated with the Taliban alive today. The error of the US following 9/11 was caused by the same sort of people who sent out tweets from Biden admin accounts (SOS IIRC) calling for a ceasefire even before the raping in Israeli territory had stopped. Those people robbed us of victory in Afghanistan. The Y chromosome lineage in that country should look like there was a black death that affected only men. Baying for blood is not the problem, the problem is people who think that "civilians" actually exist in a theater where most of Hamas's military operations are based in schools, mosques, and hospitals.
The Taliban did not attack the United States. The leaders of the Taliban protected (and possibly assisted) the people who did. In hindsight, the US should have gone in, killed the incumbent Taliban leaders, held parts of the country long enough to kill the terrorists and destroy their camps (which was done early in the invasion, IIRC), and then left. Basically a massive punitive raid. Whoever took over afterwards would get the message that if you aid the enemies of the United States, the United States will kill you. (Said message could also be delivered by an actual diplomat if it didn't seem like the new leaders could connect the dots). No need to hold the place for decades.
Not nearly far enough.
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