Whether the CIA is interested in the guy is one thing, they’re probably interested in a lot of things. The guy working for them is another.
Spies being interested in you, and being a spy, are not the same thing.
Whether the CIA is interested in the guy is one thing, they’re probably interested in a lot of things. The guy working for them is another.
Spies being interested in you, and being a spy, are not the same thing.
He specifically withheld an order of cluster munitions over concerns the Israelis were using them improperly, well after the invasion was underway.
Not too different from Biden withholding the bomb shipments over Rafah.
Pretty sure that if you’re a spy, reporter is probably the worst possible cover, since a reporter is already someone that very clearly snoops, and snooping people get watched closely.
I think a much better spy would be a native born Russian, working in a lower-level job where people don’t pay a whole lot of attention to them.
People like saying Israel can’t genocide Gazans on their own. They need the US help, just because they say that and they’re getting it. Are you sure they’re not just lying about really needing it, and couldn’t use other, lower-tech methods like starvation or napalm to do it if they were forced to? Or even trebuchets if they really, really felt like it?
It’s a very tiring line. I understand wanting to pressure the US to halt military assistance, but do not think that would magically save Gaza. Biden has to deal with the harsh reality that it would not, because this isn’t a movie, or a peer-peer war where 1000lb bombs are actually genuinely necessary.
The IDF would take more casualties without 1000lb bombs 155mm artillery shells, definitely. But that’s it. They are human beings capable of adaptation and problem-solving, and could solve the problem of how to accomplish a goal without enough explosives.
Now, to fight Hezbollah on the other hand, that’s a pretty big army. Probably do need the big bombs for that.
A politician loyal to his own laws and courts, sure, I absolutely trust them more. They’re aren’t all, though. Ultimately a terrorist and a politician with no regard for their own law are very similar. Power-mad. A terrorist can even become a politician, it happens sometimes.
Yes, hamas is not good people, I do not trust them. I don’t trust politicians either though, especially the more extreme ones.
That’s why I say what sort of people the Israelis are remains to be seen. We don’t know yet. We won’t know until this is all over and we see what has become of those Gazans that are innocent. Will they be alive or dead? That will be telling.
I’m sorry for upsetting you, but don’t put words in my mouth. I’m not arguing to let Gazans “do whatever they want”, I have not said that or anything similar. If you remember, I said earlier that terrorists need to be dealt with, right?
It’s those innocents, those that are not part of hamas, that’s the sticking point. For whatever good or bad reasons they cannot leave, the fact is that today, they 100% cannot leave. So, they should not be callously butchered and/or starved simply because of what their fathers and neighbors have done.
My guess would be self-replicating biological organisms capable of significant rates of mutation.
But then my preferred solution to the paradox as a whole is basically the “nobody tries” idea.
I don’t think there’s tremendous reason to try to make ones-self detectable at long distances. It’s an expenditure of non-trivial resources for an uncertain result. Since there isn’t really any robustly sound logic for making the attempt outside of dramatized sci fi stories, I imagine a vanishingly small percentage of occurrences of intelligent life would make a serious, high-powered attempt at any point.
Not hamas, Gazans that have no hamas affiliation. Could they enter Egypt? Could they enter Israel? Are there any other neighboring countries? Could they get on a boat, or a plane?
While yes, some always stay behind, a great many flee. Most do not stick around. Mariupol was encircled quickly, look at the towns in Eastern Ukraine where they had a lot of warning before the enemy arrived. Jews usually fled, that’s why Israel was founded in the first place, right? A place to flee to.
At any rate, in Gaza, almost nobody has fled. Some should flee, right? But they actually cannot. Physically cannot, prevented by other people.
There’s immigrants moving all over the world, right? Going to Europe, America, etc. Why are Gazans still there, where there’s not enough food, fresh water, there’s only tents to live in, and a war rages around them? Millions of them. Don’t the mothers want their babies to live? Why don’t they flee like everyone else in the same sort of situation?
It’s not hard to answer, just look it up when you get around to it.
I’d say, but I’m trying to wind down the conversation.
You should actually look into why they’re all still there then, even though self-preservation says that’s a terrible idea.
Probably not that many, actually, most of the Russian casualties are uniformed soldiers. All the Russians would need to do to stop the death would be withdraw anyway. Can the Gazans withdraw anywhere, or no?
Israel isn’t fighting just the bad neighbor though, they’re using that bad neighbor as an excuse to kill many good neighbors too. All Palestinians are not all bad, some are innocent.
They actually weren’t given it by Britain after WW2 either, that’s not even close. Fresh Jewish settlement in the area began somewhere around the 1900s-1920s, and they actually purchased the land with gathered funds for the purpose. Life between the Jewish settlers and the Palestinians was initially peaceful. I’ll warn you, I’m a history guy, I love this stuff.
History is an ugly thing, certainly, the important thing is that we do better, and learn from the errors. This is how we can avoid living in such miserable times as our ancestors were often forced to, so often making foolish choices and burning their own countries to the ground out of hubris, like Germany or Japan in WW2 did.
The first Arab-Israeli War was a little more complicated than that. Jewish militias were actually conquering land at that point in something called Plan Dalet, it was something of a civil war in the broader region between the Jewish and Palestinian factions. After the Israeli declaration of independence, yes, a large coalition of countries did try to eject them. It was won by the Israelis though, and they were rewarded for that with gains. These wars do not give excuse to kill the descendents of those people, though, right? Each person should be judged for what they do, not their fathers, or their neighbors.
Don’t think the Israelis are innocent angels that never conquered or committed atrocities in their early history either. It was a very ugly time with both sides being pretty horrendous at different points. Modern Israel has taken steps at different points to be better than that though, returning to the peaceful ways of the original settlers under people like Rabin, before Netanyahu took over. They can do that again, it is not too late.
Oh, I see. I don’t know about genocide back then, it was really just various wars after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Some atrocities, but nothing into the thousands.
No, if your “enough” is just taking living space over the bones and ashes of others, you are commiting evil. There are other ways.
No, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict began far, far earlier than Oct 7th, that was just the most recent flare-up. It’s complicated, remember?
The key is to not be evil, and to try not to kill too many people. You cannot escape the evil of killing innocent people, there is no acceptable justification. Some would be war. But too many is bad. Are the Israelis good people, or are they Huns? We shall see.
Yes, terrorists do do those things. But some collateral damage is one thing. All the possible collateral damage is genocide. If Netanyahu tries to drive all the Palestinians away, he has become as bad as what the Jewish people fled.
Just because some bad people are doing bad things does not give you an excuse to drop bombs on everyone. That is no good.
You do not want to become just as bad as what you hate, doing whatever it takes. Or you become them. A good person must try harder.
I do agree that terrorism is a problem that needs to be dealt with. The problem is when innocents get caught up in the middle. If you just call a whole people or whole religion terrorist as an excuse to get rid of them, you’re just a generic conquerer, and a liar on top.
The only issue with that is Israel’s wish to remain a Jewish state. If they added all of those Palestinians as free and equal citizens, then that would shift the demographics of Israel sufficiently to put that at risk. So, they have to choose between values of freedom and equality, vs being a Jewish state, vs giving up that land.
Or they could attempt to remove all the people somehow.
No easy solutions, unfortunately. As usual for the Middle East.
Extremely complicated, certainly. But I hope my point that the apartheid claim, very specifically, is pretty hard to argue with comes through. It does not refer to any Israeli citizens, that’s a separate topic. It is not strictly hamas propaganda, it’s just a criticism of one part of a very complicated and difficult situation. The line that it is propaganda is actually itself, propaganda.
The only way to make it untrue was if Palestinians had full legal control over the West Bank, which they do not. Gaza is a murkier situation. It’s really about the West Bank though, not hamas or Gaza.
Yeah, I think it’s pretty easy to say he’s not a spy. If he was, he’s the dumbest spy in the history of spies.