Iran War

[crazy canuck]

I wonder if he realizes where that logic originates

Ashurbanipal could have said it 3000 years ago.

And well before collective punishment was a war crime

Which never has stopped anyone in de middle east, or most anywhere outside of the west.
Which is my point: they're behaving live everyone there behaves and has always behaved. Don't bother expecting better, it's not going to happen.

I have absolutely no expectations that the state of Israel will be acting any differently in the near future.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I know you're thinking what I'm thinking .... Uri Geller is still alive?

No - I was thinking: "Why would Uri Geller think that a device that targets brain activity would work on Donald Trump?"

It might make it work better.

[Razgovory]

I wonder if he realizes where that logic originates

Ashurbanipal could have said it 3000 years ago.

And well before collective punishment was a war crime

Which never has stopped anyone in de middle east, or most anywhere outside of the west.
Which is my point: they're behaving live everyone there behaves and has always behaved. Don't bother expecting better, it's not going to happen.

Yeah, but it's okay when they do it.  We don't expect as much from other non-westerners.  Ain't racism great?

[Valmy]

I wonder if he realizes where that logic originates

Ashurbanipal could have said it 3000 years ago.

And well before collective punishment was a war crime

Which never has stopped anyone in de middle east, or most anywhere outside of the west.
Which is my point: they're behaving live everyone there behaves and has always behaved. Don't bother expecting better, it's not going to happen.

Yeah, but it's okay when they do it.  We don't expect as much from other non-westerners.  Ain't racism great?

Well I don't think it is ok when they do it.

[Syt]

Would be cool if nobody did it. I'm a big fan of live and let live.

[Razgovory]

Well I don't think it is ok when they do it.

Yeah, we don't wring our hands when it occurs among non-Westerners. It may not get approval (though a surprising number of people do approve!), but it's not something to we concern ourselves about.  If we worried every time an Arab politician talked about destroying Israel, we'd wring our hands to the bone.  For example, Ben Gvir is an asshole, and many people call him a fascist.  His rhetoric is very similar to someone like the late Nasrallah of Hezbollah. Take his statement from 2013

The leader of Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, rallied hundreds of cheering supporters Friday with pledges of support for Palestinians and vicious anti-Israel rhetoric. Israel was "a cancerous growth" that had to be wiped out, he said. "The only solution is to destroy it without giving it the opportunity to surrender."

https://www.timesofisrael.com/hezbollah-leader-rallies-shiites-with-highly-sectarian-speech/

Pretty similar, but people didn't call him a fascist, or Hezbollah fascist.  Mostly we ignored it.  Hell, now lots of people root for Hezbollah.  I can't imagine many people we take such a lax attitude to a White Christian Army of God lobbing rockets at cities.  Destroying such an organization would be the top priority, no matter the collateral damage.   I can bring up many, many other examples, such as the anti-immigrant riots in South Africa compared to one in the UK.  Destroying civilian infrastructure is a terrible war crime.  If some people do it.  For others it is no big deal.  Concepts such as fascist or even war crimes are based on identity these days.  Or sometimes what is politically convenient.

[Valmy]

We do though, everybody freaked the fuck out when those comedians went and did a show for the Saudi government. People freaked out over the sports washing efforts of Qatar and Saudi.

The rhetoric of the Israelis isn't that much better, but do you ever freak out over that? I have stated numerous times we should not be involved in the Middle East because nobody is on our side. I think then overwhelming majority of people who want to stop being Israel's ally agree with me. I also no longer want us to give money to the disastrously incompetent Egyptian government or be involved with Saudi or any of the Gulf states. They are all terrible countries to be friends with, now we can have a nuanced discussion about who sucks the most I guess but none of them that I can see suck a sufficiently small amount to be judged the lesser evil here.

[Valmy]

I guess I should say that it is good to see you back on the board Raz

[Razgovory]

Yeah, when people freaked out about the comedians in Saudi Arabia, the anger was at the comedians, not the Saudis.  Nobody expected much from the Saudi Arabs, they expected more from the Westerners.  Certainly there were no calls for Saudi Arabia destroyed and it's people to drive out or ruled over by another people.  Nobody calls them fascist or genocidal.  Certainly Israel is flawed, but so is Ukraine.  The Russians and the hard left have a point that Ukraine does a fascist problem, but we are able to look past it because the good outweighs the bad.  When CC called me out when he was going on about how hitting civilian infrastructure was a war crime, I was very tempted to respond by agreeing with him and posting news stories about Ukrainian strikes against power plants and bridges in Russia or the drone strike against student housing.  Don't take this to mean I don't support Ukraine and want the US to send more weapons there, but I am pointing out the the concept of war crimes is rooted in identity and political expediency.  The US accidently blowing up a school in Iran is a war crime because the Iran war is stupid, wrong the and US terrible.  Ukraine blowing up dorm is not a war crime because the Ukraine is fighting for it's independence and they are better than Russia.
I kinda want to see US abandoning Israel.  The resulting nuclear conflagration would certainly be interesting. Sometimes you just have to give people what they want, good and hard.  The antizionists would probably considered it a victory if all the Palestinians are dead so long as Israel no long pollutes region with it's precedence.  Nuclear winter might be a bit more of a problem, but I'm sure there is a silver lining to that cloud.  Or at least a green one.

I doubt I will post here for very long.  My life is fairly terrible.

[Valmy]

Yeah, when people freaked out about the comedians in Saudi Arabia, the anger was at the comedians, not the Saudis.  Nobody expected much from the Saudi Arabs, they expected more from the Westerners.  Certainly there were no calls for Saudi Arabia destroyed and it's people to drive out or ruled over by another people.  Nobody calls them fascist or genocidal.  Certainly Israel is flawed, but so is Ukraine.  The Russians and the hard left have a point that Ukraine does a fascist problem, but we are able to look past it because the good outweighs the bad.  When CC called me out when he was going on about how hitting civilian infrastructure was a war crime, I was very tempted to respond by agreeing with him and posting news stories about Ukrainian strikes against power plants and bridges in Russia or the drone strike against student housing.  Don't take this to mean I don't support Ukraine and want the US to send more weapons there, but I am pointing out the the concept of war crimes is rooted in identity and political expediency.  The US accidently blowing up a school in Iran is a war crime because the Iran war is stupid, wrong the and US terrible.  Ukraine blowing up dorm is not a war crime because the Ukraine is fighting for it's independence and they are better than Russia.
I kinda want to see US abandoning Israel.  The resulting nuclear conflagration would certainly be interesting. Sometimes you just have to give people what they want, good and hard.  The antizionists would probably considered it a victory if all the Palestinians are dead so long as Israel no long pollutes region with it's precedence.  Nuclear winter might be a bit more of a problem, but I'm sure there is a silver lining to that cloud.  Or at least a green one.

I doubt I will post here for very long.  My life is fairly terrible.

I think calls for Israel to be destroyed and ruled over by somebody else are something entirely different than what we are talking about. People were pissed when Qatar gave our President a big plane for a bribe. People are pissed when Israel influences our politicians for the same reason. I would rather we not murder kids in war, especially not in a war as stupid as the one we are currently fighting.

Personally, I cannot speak for anybody else, do not see any particular reason to consider Israel separate from any other country in the Middle East. They seem perfectly at home in that neighborhood with their peers. I would rather we left them to it than continue to get involved in one disastrous quagmire after another. If I thought we could do some good over there I would feed differently.

But yeah people calling for ethnic cleansing or genocide of Israelis are no better than people cheering on what is happening in Lebanon.

Anyway I am really sorry your life has been so terrible lately. I have missed our discussions. I hope things turn around.

[Razgovory]

Calls for a one state solution are calls for Israelis to be ruled over by another people.  It's very common position, and the moderate antizionist one.

People are pissed about Trump getting a plane because it is a bribe.  People are remarkably cool with Qatar influence on the left.  At least those who went to schools that got funding from Qatar.

[Valmy]

Calls for a one state solution are calls for Israelis to be ruled over by another people.  It's very common position, and the moderate antizionist one.

People are pissed about Trump getting a plane because it is a bribe.  People are remarkably cool with Qatar influence on the left.  At least those who went to schools that got funding from Qatar.

I think you are imagining things. I think the moderate anti-zionist position is simply to stop funding them and considering them a close ally. Wanting to get in there any shape the Middle East by setting up states here and organizing political entities there is a radical position so extreme only nutjobs actually want to do it.

Sure some anti-zionists might say there should be one state solution but they aren't actually going to do shit to make that happen.

I am slightly offended by the notion that allowing equal rights to people means that one group will rule over another. Oppression of one group is necessary for freedom for another. That is a bit too Balkan Serb type shit for my taste. But the fact that people in that part of the world think like that is exacty why we shouldn't be involved. There is no space in our principles for that kind of nonsense.

[Razgovory]

The definition of antizionism is opposition to Jewish self-determination.  A one state solution is state where Palestinians have a majority over Jews.  They will effectively rule over them in a democratic state.  I doubt it would be a democratic state for long, but long enough to have government majority.  If the current Palestinian factions or treatment of Jewish communities in any of the other Muslim states are any indication of how such a government would be, it would not be a gentle rule.