Israel and Iran

GEN. Petraeus has a book out (some of you have commented on it elsewhere). NPR was interviewing him, quoted him as saying that an incursion into Gaza was like Mogadishu a million-fold and was leading him into condemning Israel's forthcoming offensive.

He did not take the bait, be basically said 'yeah, that's true, but they have to do it; they do not have a choice.' When she (interviewer) asked then what was different from Mog or, say, Baghdad, he said 'Israel has to kill off Hamas, and they can't do it by not going into Gaza.' He would not give her the satisfaction.
 
Everything the military do is a failure to the softies.

Lets not mention the billions of dollars in schemes they've pushed over the last several decade that havent made life better for anyone.

In my public health program, the textbook literally says there is little evidence to support most public health spending. It just doesnt produce any measurable increase in actual health. Vaccines and anti smoking campaigns being skme of the outliers.

War isnt about a $ value. Its about killing people who kill people, to show them killing is wrong.
 
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Headline says it all: Hamas, “The Invisible Gorilla,” and What the Media-Political Complex is Doing to America • The Havok Journal

excerpt:
There was a quote that I started this article off with, and you may have noticed that I didn’t attribute it to anyone. That was deliberate. And it wasn’t written by Scott Faith, it was from Malcolm X. Malcolm and I are very different people, and our politics are (well, “were,” in his case since he’s dead now) very different. But he foresaw, long before I did, the dangers of the alignment between the media and politics. And his words were prescient; whether the bad actors are intranational or domestic, we do indeed have a situation where the crybullies are the system convinced that they are the victims, and we are loving the real oppressors…

…because we’re all too busy looking at what the media-political complex is telling to look at, and not seeing the gorilla that’s right there in front of our faces.

1698152247321.png
 
Everything the military do is a failure to the softies.

Lets not mention the billions of dollars in schemes they've pushed over the last several decade that havent made life better for anyone.

In my public health program, the textbook literally says there is little evidence to support most public health spending. It just doesnt produce any measurable increase in actual health. Vaccines and anti smoking campaigns being skme of the outliers.

War isnt about a $ value. Its about killing people who kill people, to show them killing is wrong.

 
@Marauder06 , we have a 200+ year history of seeing what is essentially 'state-sponsored' media, or at the very least, state-backed, throughout the world. It's not like this is a new concept, but I would say relative new to us. It was not that long ago that the news media was generally adversarial to the government (although there have always been specific periodicals/networks etc sympathetic). The advent of electronic media and inability to vet who funds and supports what sites just makes it all the worse.

In other thoughts, on another forum there is a lot of convo about who would use a nuke and under what conditions. I went to an old poli sci book I still had from college and dusted off game theory, notably the Nash Equilibrium. No one wants to use a nuke, and each side knows what's at stake.
 
@Marauder06

In other thoughts, on another forum there is a lot of convo about who would use a nuke and under what conditions. I went to an old poli sci book I still had from college and dusted off game theory, notably the Nash Equilibrium. No one wants to use a nuke, and each side knows what's at stake.
Nash is great. I normally just teach Prisoner's Dilemma because I think it's easier to understand.

There's a whole body of IR theory related to the "Nuclear Taboo," as part of the lesson on that (when I used to teach IR), we would talk about who would use nukes, and under which circumstances. Because of the taboo, which first use would almost certainly result in national annihilation, most countries who have them won't use them until or unless there is an existential crisis.

The exception, IMO, is a country like Iran, who would absolutely use them pre-emptively and unapologetically. That's one of the reasons people like Waltz who argue that allowing Iran to have nukes would somehow make them more responsible are, in this case, idiots.

In related news, we had a couple of meeting with Jibril Rajoub, a terrorist Palestinian Authority (PA) senior executive, who specifically said that he would nuke Israel if he had the capacity. We met with him in Bethlehem, and in Ramallah, years later. When we asked him about this, he refused to walk it back. This is what he had to say in 2013:
1698156405839.png
Just as a reminder, Fatah/the PA is the "peaceful alternative" to Hamas.
 
Nash is great. I normally just teach Prisoner's Dilemma because I think it's easier to understand.

There's a whole body of IR theory related to the "Nuclear Taboo," as part of the lesson on that (when I used to teach IR), we would talk about who would use nukes, and under which circumstances. Because of the taboo, which first use would almost certainly result in national annihilation, most countries who have them won't use them until or unless there is an existential crisis.

The exception, IMO, is a country like Iran, who would absolutely use them pre-emptively and unapologetically. That's one of the reasons people like Waltz who argue that allowing Iran to have nukes would somehow make them more responsible are, in this case, idiots.

In related news, we had a couple of meeting with Jibril Rajoub, a terrorist Palestinian Authority (PA) senior executive, who specifically said that he would nuke Israel if he had the capacity. We met with him in Bethlehem, and in Ramallah, years later. When we asked him about this, he refused to walk it back. This is what he had to say in 2013:
View attachment 43342
Just as a reminder, Fatah/the PA is the "peaceful alternative" to Hamas.
Iran needs anuke exchange inorder to bring the 12th (?) Imam back.

Obama's nuke agreement didn't slow their program.
Israel's killing scientists has slowed the program.
 
Nash is great. I normally just teach Prisoner's Dilemma because I think it's easier to understand.

There's a whole body of IR theory related to the "Nuclear Taboo," as part of the lesson on that (when I used to teach IR), we would talk about who would use nukes, and under which circumstances. Because of the taboo, which first use would almost certainly result in national annihilation, most countries who have them won't use them until or unless there is an existential crisis.

The exception, IMO, is a country like Iran, who would absolutely use them pre-emptively and unapologetically. That's one of the reasons people like Waltz who argue that allowing Iran to have nukes would somehow make them more responsible are, in this case, idiots.

In related news, we had a couple of meeting with Jibril Rajoub, a terrorist Palestinian Authority (PA) senior executive, who specifically said that he would nuke Israel if he had the capacity. We met with him in Bethlehem, and in Ramallah, years later. When we asked him about this, he refused to walk it back. This is what he had to say in 2013:
View attachment 43342
Just as a reminder, Fatah/the PA is the "peaceful alternative" to Hamas.

The only reason I did not bring up Prisoner's Dilemma is because it usually refers to participants' decisions have to be collectively optimal but ends up being individually suboptimal. But to be honest, I have not had to think about game theory in a very long time and my memory is buried under pounds of fog, so I could be wrong.
 


This is hilarious. I have seen no crackdown of pro-palestinian speech. What I have seen? A rise in anti-semitic events and speech. Many of these protests that seem to happen weekly with tens of thousands of useless idiots are calling for hate crimes against Jews, are carte blanche saying more Jews need to die. "From the River to the Sea" means one thing. Universities may be able to crack down on speech that is violent, as they should, but I haven't seen any pro-palestinian speech anywhere. What I have seen is pro-Hamas and pro-Genocide speech from these protests.
 


This is hilarious. I have seen no crackdown of pro-palestinian speech. What I have seen? A rise in anti-semitic events and speech. Many of these protests that seem to happen weekly with tens of thousands of useless idiots are calling for hate crimes against Jews, are carte blanche saying more Jews need to die. "From the River to the Sea" means one thing. Universities may be able to crack down on speech that is violent, as they should, but I haven't seen any pro-palestinian speech anywhere. What I have seen is pro-Hamas and pro-Genocide speech from these protests.
That article was a very interesting read, thank you for posting the link.

I do think it's important for people to understand that just because a military strike kills civilians, doesn't automatically make it a war crime under the Law of War.
 
"The laws of war prohibit direct attacks on civilian objects, like schools. They also prohibit direct attacks against hospitals and medical staff, which are specially protected under IHL. That said, a hospital or school may become a legitimate military target if it contributes to specific military operations of the enemy and if its destruction offers a definite military advantage for the attacking side.

If there is any doubt, they cannot be attacked. Hospitals only lose their protection in certain circumstances - for example if a hospital is being used as a base from which to launch an attack, as a weapons depot, or to hide healthy soldiers/fighters. And there are certain conditions too."

https://www.icrc.org/en/document/ihl-rules-of-war-faq-geneva-conventions

The use of apartments, schools, hospitals, whatever is just a tactic. That's why you don't hear that many statements from major countries on the strikes, they know better. It's to fool the jihads around the world, and it works on leftists too.
 
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