Israel and Iran

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Maybe we can bypass this whole ordeal by just paying Iran $1bill per U.S. hostage.

We'll have peace in our time.

Or maybe, we can handle an uptick in attacks that have already been occurring to our bases and facilities in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere while Israel runs through the Hammies on one side and the Lezbollahs on the other.

At the end, Israel kicks the fuckers out of town, puts up some more 18 ft. walls then starts building condos. How about that??
 
So... lets do a little thought experiment.

Who bombed Pearl Harbor?
Score yourself two extra bonus points if you said "the 140,000 innocent men women and children living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki" because those are the ones that took the full force of American vengeance when the politicians in Tokyo refused to surrender. Not only did we NOT punish Hirohito, he kept power for another 40+ years after we nuked two of his cities.

Wait - what?
What does THAT have to do with the situation in Gaza?
Well, why are we all in such a hurry to demand restraint from the Israelis considering that it was the people of Gaza that elected Hamas as their representative power brokers?
Is it because we are worried that somebody might drop ** the bomb ** and kill tens of thousands of innocent men women and children?

Before anyone gets all judgmental - keep in mind, I am not suggesting ANY degree of aggression nor am I discounting any degree of restraint. I am just advancing a philosophical word game to provide some much needed context for what is going on in the middle east.

We the people dropped somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 tons of incendiary explosive on Dresden. Not only did we set countless numbers of German men, women, and children on fire - it also killed countless refugees as well as some allied POWs.
...and by many accounts, the war in Europe was pretty much over at that point. D-Day was already a six month old chapter in the history books.

Everyone says you cannot kill an idea - well - there may be "some" truth to that - bit you can however, unapologetically mete out so much death and destruction on a people that they submit to unconditional surrender.

Are we there yet?
Of course not - because here in America - we are civilized and righteous - we NEVER go to such barbaric extremes - unless we have to. Besides, when we DO take things to their barbaric extremes, it is for the betterment of mankind. It is because our choices are moral and just.
Every time.

As far as this shit show playing out on our college campuses - suck it investors - suck it hard. You've been funding this institutional brainwashing for generations now.
Freedom of Speech.
Free expression.
Healthy debate.
Yet, here we are - seemingly saying its ok to be antisemitic as far as you are religiously or culturally qualified to be antisemitic.
NOW - out of nowhere - after it becomes a public relations issue - administrators and investors of all stripes want to use their checkbooks to impact free speech on campus.

I am EMBRACING the nonbinary America these assholes have foisted upon us.
Russia= Bad / Ukraine = hm, seems that nonbinary thinking now allows me to say 'Ukraine bad too'
It would then, only seem fair that we could point fingers at the Palestinians for being a bunch of terrorists, and at the Israelis for being terrible hosts.
Unless we are going to declare that we MUST pick a side no matter what the other side has (or has not) already done.

...and now, I'm right back to the situation in Gaza. This is an group that has openly flaunted their hatred for America for as long as I can remember. This is an group that has taken to the streets to celebrate every time the USA suffers any degree of national tragedy. This is an group that has directly supported - and accepted support from Hezbolla and other terrorist organizations funded through the government of Iran.

So - somebody help me understand whgich group of war criminals gets the bull horn first when it is time for every one to exercise their rights to free speech.
 
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.
Click to expand...

1698152247321.png
 
BlackSmokeRisinG said:
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.
Click to expand...

 
@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.
 
Devildoc said:
@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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
Marauder06 said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
Marauder06 said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 

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