The president of peace btw.
I'm baffled at the lack of calls to boycott the Fifa world cup in US.
And at the double standards applied to Russians and Israelis in their wars of aggression.
I guess Israel can play the "October 7th" card at least which was an insane horror.
I don't want to insult you but your president is a populist and a TV personality. He is not a policy maker, he is more like an actor. So your country went into war mode by changing the name of the Department of Defence to Department of War. This was not a cosmetic change. This means peace times are over and you are in war. Your government acts accordingly.
Since you are still a democracy find those people who make your policy decisions. It's not that yellow man.
> find those people who make your policy decisions
Genuine question: who put Iran in their policy portfolio?
AIPAC is a thing...
And now of course you're going to label me an AIPAC nutter, but in this particular case I think the evidence is fairly plain given the collaboration between the two countries on this. If Israel had done this by their lonesome or if the US had not involved Israel then you could make the case that they reached this point independently, right now it looks to me as if collusion is a 100% certainty and that the US is executing a foreign policy that will not benefit it but that will benefit Israel. It also makes me wonder whether this will end up as a Venzuela re-run where the top names change but everything else remains the same, just with US companies the beneficiaries of the oil, which is, besides policy the main driver behind these things anyway.
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There is no comparison between Iran and Venezuela. Maduro had Cuban guards because his people seem to dislike him more than the US; his administration included. Also Maduro is hated by both neighboring countries elites and peasants. Situation couldn’t be more different in Iran, there are hundreds of thousands of committed supporters in Iran and Arabic countries (watch some videos where the Arabs celebrates the strikes at their own countries)
Also in power balance, Venezuela is a joke militarily. Iran has the capacity to end calm life in the GCC and possibly disrupt oil flows. Really an orange and apple comparison. Case in point today, Iran was able to project its missile to several countries in a couple hours.
> Iran has the capacity to end calm life in the GCC and possibly disrupt oil flows
I'm genuinely surprised the mines haven't rolled out, to the point that I believe they won't be. (They were–in the initial strikes–destroyed or incapacitated, or they never existed.)
> Iran was able to project its missile to several countries in a couple hours
To minimal effect. And every launch exposes a missile and firing team to American and Israeli jets flyig in uncontested airspace.
There is credible reporting (Reuters etc.) that ships are being turned around, so it does appear that the mines (or at least threat thereof) have been deployed. Either way, as long as the threat of sinking is alive the strait is uninsurable and is for all practical purposes closed.
> ships are being turned around, so it does appear that the mines (or at least threat thereof) have been deployed
I'd assume, until further evidence, it's because the Strait is an active war zone.
Fair point, but the IRGC telling ships to turn around, as opposed to the ships themselves doing it (as per reporting) would imply that the Strait has been blockaded in some fashion. It remains to be seen if this is all a bluff, I'm just as skeptical as this would be their last option, but given the strikes on other Gulf countries, the threat seems a bit more plausible of actually being real.
That regime has absolutely nothing to lose at this point and they will use whatever they've got.
Agreed that you can't compare Venezuela and Iran. But I challenge you to check which are the top three countries in the world by oil reserves.
Israel needs it, Trump wants it, this was going to happen either now or next year. The potential for escalation is massive and I sincerely hope that it will not. Iran is a problem, but Israel is also a problem and the United States is becoming a bigger problem every day. It would be nice if the people in charge of this planet could hold back from throwing matches into the powder kegs for a while.
Reserves are irrelevant, you can’t pump oil from the ground at a moment notice and building the infrastructure requires long-term stability especially for oil infrastructure which is large and hard to protect. Iran does x4 times the volume of Venezuela in oil and x10 in gas.
The issue with Iran is that it’s selling energy outside of the US system. This was less of an issue 20 years ago when the persians needed to funnel the money back to the Western system at a cost so that they can access world trade. The situation changed today as they can mostly survive on China imports and completely bypass the US financial system. Iran has half the exports (in total value!) of Tunisia at x8-9 the population. Something doesn’t add up.
> It would be nice if the people in charge of this planet could hold back from throwing matches into the powder kegs for a while
That’s not how the world works. The relative peace of the last 20 years or so was mostly because US hegemony was uncontested. This might be no longer the case. Someone in the far East will be watching for opportunities.
> Reserves are irrelevant, you can’t pump oil from the ground at a moment notice and building the infrastructure requires long-term stability especially for oil infrastructure which is large and hard to protect.
Who says these are rational actors. I think it is a bit much for coincidence.
> Iran does x4 times the volume of Venezuela in oil and x10 in gas.
Until yesterday. We'll see whether their infrastructure is going to survive this war.
> The issue with Iran is that it’s selling energy outside of the US system.
I'm well aware of that.
> This was less of an issue 20 years ago when the persians needed to funnel the money back to the Western system at a cost so that they can access world trade. The situation changed today as they can mostly survive on China imports and completely bypass the US financial system. Iran has half the exports (in total value!) of Tunisia at x8-9 the population. Something doesn’t add up.
What doesn't add up is that there are a lot of parties that would like to see regime change in Iran, including a lot of Iranians. The question always is whether the fire that you light remains contained or not and Iran is very much not like Venezuela in that sense.
> That’s not how the world works.
I'm well aware of that too. But that doesn't change how I feel about it.
> The relative peace of the last 20 years or so was mostly because US hegemony was uncontested. This might be no longer the case.
In no small part because of the idiot-in-charge.
> Someone in the far East will be watching for opportunities.
And that's precisely why I think there is a massive potential for escalation here.
> Until yesterday. We'll see whether their infrastructure is going to survive this war.
None of their energy infra. was hit and I don’t see it happening. Hitting their energy infra. will result in them hitting the GCC oil infra. This is more likely, in my opinion, part of the negotiations. They couldn’t agree to the terms of their power projection, so they went to the field to test it out.
> What doesn't add up is that there are a lot of parties that would like to see regime change in Iran, including a lot of Iranians.
You are buying into Western propaganda. Not that I know about the conditions on Iran and the Mullah popularity. It’s not possible to gauge that since freedom of information is limited there but I wouldn’t trust the latest campaign either. Only time will tell on this one.
> In no small part because of the idiot-in-charge.
This is where we disagree; though I could agree that the democrats will have handled this differently but not necessarily in a non-violent way.
> And that's precisely why I think there is a massive potential for escalation here.
I still think this one will pass. Though China will probably stick to its own deadlines when it’s ready on its own terms.
ah here come the jews run the USA conspiracy. HN does not dissapoint. Well, no I am dissapointed. But not surprised.
Reddit and HN have been taken over by leftie tankie zoomers and thridies who want to see the West fall while then dream of a life in Europe or worse, live here.
Even CNN is reporting that this unprovoked attack was lined up with a Jewish holiday celebrating the killing of non-jews: https://x.com/chrisbrunet/status/2027665287982502195
The first thing the US/Israel did was murder 80+ children with an attack on a girl's elementary school (warning graphic): https://x.com/ME_Observer_/status/2027787999409266991
Meanwhile, jewish israelis are celebrating the attack in their bunkers: https://x.com/SZade15/status/2027695217286189363
The attack was reportedly timed for a surprise attack on Iranian leaders who happened to be in the same location at this time. They even attacked during the daytime for a risky surprise attack. To suggest the attack had anything to do with the holiday is beyond ridiculous. Also ridiculous to think they would intentionally attack a random school.
There is a lot of breaking news, much of it not verified. wrt bombing schools, people should be cautious about claims like this, this early.
There's lots of footage already, I just posted one link. You can see many dead children for yourself.
We should wait for more corroboration before we jump to conclusions about circumstance and attribution. In the Russia/Ukraine conflict, I've seen Russian's use footage and images from other conflicts to claim Ukraine is doing something underhanded.
We've already seen Israel do this over and over again in Gaza. We've seen Zionist media try to lie about it, but if you've been following what Israel has been doing for the past two years, you'll know that this is how they operate.
These days kinetic wars are accompanied by online information wars. What's the harm in waiting for corroboration and more evidence in a rapidly evolving situation?
You can follow the reporting here, and this is by western outlets that have proven to be unreliable when it comes to reporting about Israel: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=iran+school&t=brave&ia=news&iar=ne...
Those all cite Iranian government sources.
It's certainly credible that US/Israel bombed a school. But it's also credible that Iran would lie about US/Israel bombing a school. In these situations we need a higher standard of evidence than "credible". I don't think that's a radical position.
I find Iranian government sources far more credible than Zionist sources. Believe what you want, but this was an unprovoked act of aggression following two years of genocide and 75 years of ethnic cleansing. It's crystal clear who is responsible for all of the death and destruction.
You've been uncritically supportive of Israel in plenty of other threads on HN already so I'm not sure if your exaggeration of my comment should even be taken serious.
Israel has a massive lobbying effort in the United States and that's not exactly news, on top of that there have been many documented pieces of interaction between Trump and Nethanyahu that seem to be evidence that Trump is doing a lot of things to please Israel, besides that they are actively collaborating on these attacks.
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> Are you a tankie or socialist?
FFS man.
As for stalking your account: if you don't want your comment history to be visible then don't participate on HN.
Well, we're certainly not collaborating with West Africa to bomb France. Not even the Philippines, Taiwan, and Uyghur and Hong Kong dissidents to bomb China.
I mean, it could just be the evangelicals hoping to start a holy war that heralds the End of Days. And now that I type that out, I have to agree with your implicit position that it's definitely the more rational catalyst.
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Make a genuine guess…
The current Israeli government obviously has a great deal of influence in the US government. That much is not conspiracy theory. The evangelicals involved in project 2025 have a very real interest in middle eastern conflict from an ideological standpoint. If you want a cynical follow the money villain look no farther than Al Saud and friends. Also, this weakens Russia and further restricts oil reaching China from anywhere. Every oil feed reaching China over water is at this point being curtailed. Looking for a single reason is very hollywood, enough interests aligned.
The US president hasn't required a new war resolution since Afghanistan. They each keep stretching it farther and farther. It cannot be rescinded without a veto-proof majority. If there was a veto proof majority willing to stand up to the executive, a conviction and removal would have already occurred.
The assertion that the US is a democracy is nisguided. It will be downgraded by vdem this month to an electoral autocracy. It is also worth noting that it only takes senators receiving the votes of <7% of the total population to filibuster all legislation, prevent overriding any vetos, and halt all impeachment trials. The fact it has looked like a democracy for so long is astounding.
> Looking for a single reason is very hollywood, enough interests aligned
Correct. But interests need to be animated to have power. Who was arguing that this should be a priority, and a priority now, who is familiar in the White House?
> The assertion that the US is a democracy is nisguided. It will be downgraded by vdem this month to an electoral autocracy
This is nonsense.
> halt all impeachment trials
False. Senate Rule 193 sets time limits on debate for impeachment trials [1].
[1] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDOC-117sdoc1/pdf/CDOC-1...
You seem to have a singular villain ready to point at. I do not see it. The president reportedly thinks whatever the last person to speak said. So are you proposing a mastermind or simply a catalyst?
As far as vdem goes, Lindberg has recently as much as confirmed they will down grade the us below democracy status.
> Lindberg has recently as much as confirmed they will down grade the us below democracy status
I mean, that's interesting from a political theoretical perspective. And if you want to put sacred meaning into it, sure. I'm not sure most people would take a decade-old Swedish institute as a harbinger of whether or not America is a demoracy too seriously (versus other sources, to be clear).
You are right that unless the eiu or others follow suit it would be less meaningful. On the senate conviction, my point is that only 33 senators need to oppose a conviction to stop it. Or to let a veto stand. The smallest states get the same number of senators. If those votes were evenly split, and it was the typical 50-60% turnout. It would actually only be 2-3% of the populace needed.
I do want to know who the bad guy is though.
> unless the eiu or others follow suit it would be less meaningful
Even if they do it's book reports.
> On the senate conviction, my point is that only 33 senators need to oppose a conviction to stop it
Yes. The bar is high for removing an elected executive. That's not a sign of not being a democracy.
We got too deep in the tree. Nixon could have gone a different way. Many of the senators that asked him to leave had constituencies that would have supported their refusal to convict. The 33 gop senators representing the smallest states only represent less than 20% of the population, and they usually win by less than 60% in elections with turnouts less than 60%. That is where I get the 90% from.
Even taking into account that not all small states are right leaning, and theoretically there could be 100% turnout, we are still talking about a situation wjere it takes over 90% agreement among the population to remove a president. That isn't a high bar, that is a complete lack of accountability. It isn't just removal. The whole system was designed by people so terrified of the tyranny of the majority that they neglected to forsee such uneven populations leading to the potential for a tyranny of the minority. The lack of any meaningful consensus for judiciary appointments is also a solid sign of competitive authoritarianism. But we are getting far off on a tangent. I really am intrigued that I'm missing some actor or faction. Will you get downvoted for the hypothesis? Or have you already replied with it and it got shadow blocked?
> wjere it takes over 90% agreement among the population to remove a president
...no? Majority of the House and two thirds of Senators doesn't require 90%. Nixon still had way more than 10% of support in the country when his removal from office was imminent.
> have you already replied with it and it got shadow blocked?
I don't think I've written anything that got shadow blocked for many years.
My best guess at who you mean is Netanyahu or Miller? I still think the SA benefits so greatly we should assume their advocacy.
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I can certainly see potential positive outcomes as you say. Also, this stretches the original war powers resolution from Afghanistan a lot less than most US attacks. Iran does actually support terrorism across the globe. I do worry about implementation.
I was hoping someone serious (versus the everything is AIPAC nutters) had put thought into it.
Rubio and Walz have been Iran hawks. But I’m not yet convinced they were unilateral. Instead, it looks like a Rice-Powell alignment of vague interests with enough groupthink that dissenters weren't in the room.
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> it literally is the AIPAC
AIPAC isn't a person. Who is the person who convinced the President to order these strikes? It could be someone at AIPAC. There is no evidence for that, I suspect, because it's highly unlikely.
Lindsey Graham and cronies. Tons of evidence, he travels to israel every month or so.
> Lindsey Graham and cronies
Lindsey Graham doesn't have that kind of pull in the White House. I'm not saying he didn't influence someone with it. But he isn't the power player.
I wouldn’t think so, but obviously things have changed significantly in the last few months.
> obviously things have changed significantly in the last few months
Not to the point that Graham makes such calls. (Hint: the person will be in the Situation Room with Trump.)
The "convincers" and those directing military operations are obviously different folks. I'd follow the money from Graham and Trump backward.
Oh, and by the way you don't have to quote single sentences from my responses when they consist of one or two sentences. ;-)
I see this as Trump going after governments that were close to Russia and China. Which is why he is going after Iran, Venezuela and Cuba.
Also there are many countries in the middle east that we are friends with which would be happy if Iran falls.
The countries in middle east want Iran to be weak, not to fall.
I think that from the point of the neighbouring countries, Iran is fine as it is. Israel and the USA keep it in check, it is under sanctions, which are both beneficial for its adversaries.
If the regime in Iran were to fall, first of all you would have repercussions on the neighbors, (refugees and the like), and instability. But also, in the longer run, the chance of a more better government, which could make the country stronger than it is.
> ...would be happy if Iran falls.
Literally, perhaps true...at least initially. But:
- Take a look at how poorly the fall of the Iraqi gov't in 2003 actually worked out for the U.S. and its regional friends.
- Iran has 92 million people, very deep issues with being able to support that large a population, and very long borders. If things really went to crap there, it could produce tens of millions of desperate refugees.
> take a look at how poorly the fall of the Iraqi gov't in 2003 actually worked out
This is an immensely risky operation. But part of the reason for Iraq being a shitshow was De-Ba'athification. You don't need to clean house to effect regime change. My guess would be we're hoping someone in the IRGC disappears Khamenei and a few senior commanders and then makes a call to Geneva.
This is assuming a coherent national security strategy, which is unlikely. We know a lot of generals disagree with the attack on Iran, and none of the geopolitical experts I trust think it is a good idea, be they conservative, realist, liberal, leftist or something else.
There's a number of reasons this is happening now that I think are more plausible than American interest:
- Saudis want Iran weak as they are primary geopolitical rivals. There are deep ties between the Saudi dynasty and the Trump dynasty. Without Iranian support, the Houthis will have a much tougher time. (Although they should not be underestimated regardless. They are not an Iranian proxy, but an ally, and field one of the strongest armies in the whole region.)
- Israel wants Iran weak, and pro-zionism is a strong wedge in American politics. Again, there's also a lot of personal business interests involved. Iranian allies and proxies are the chief causes of grief for Israel's expansionist agenda, and a very credible threat to their national security.
- This war conveniently moves the headlines away from a faltering economy, the Epstein files, and ICE overreach. There's probably hope that it will improve chances with the 'war president bonus' in the mid-terms. It could also be a convenient cover for and excuse to increase rigging in the elections.
Expecting positive regime change after bombing a school full of little girls is... naive. This is not how you turn an enemy into a friend.
I know a lot of Americans who remember 1979 and don't care if they are ever friends again. I agree, I also don't think this is a coherent national security strategy.
The voters
The rumor I heard was that high-level Pentagon generals had subtly suggested that Trump target Iran. The reason was to distract his attention from Greenland. Logic goes that if you have a reality TV star who built his brand on being a tough guy in the White House, it's far better that he attack a theocratic dictatorship that funds a host of terrorist organizations and whose country is already on the verge of collapse than a NATO ally and fellow democracy that didn't do anything to us.
He's been talking about Iran since 2011
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7s5pT3Rris
From where did you hear this rumor?
Was a news article from a reputable source (Reuters or PBS?), around the time of the Greenland flap in early January, but Google Search now sucks and the results are all polluted with news articles from the strikes today so I wasn't able to find it again.
Indeed, the permanent bureaucracies and think tanks have advised all administrations:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7864/j.ctt6wpgvg
This is bipartisan. The long term goals were to start with Libya, Iraq, Syria and then Iran. The latter two required Russia to be tied up in another conflict.
They don't explicitly put Iran in their portfolio because for Reality TV it is better to be a peace lover.
Now, undoubtedly the Democrats will pretend to complain, but Schumer and Pelosi want this, too.
[I am expanding on your comment, not trying to contradict anything.]
>I don't want to insult you but your president is a populist and a TV personality. He is not a policy maker, he is more like an actor.
All of them are, even those that haven't had a show on TV.
I'm not disagreeing with you but "Dept of War" is ENTIRELY a cosmetic change. It's literally just a name. There are people, mostly with desk jobs, who really want to feel like badasses and they really want the Dept of War. The real human consequences of this are unimportant to them and sadly unimportant to the rest of us also.
Cosmetic changes are frequently decisive in politics. "literally just a name" discounts the genuine power of names.
Agreed 100%
If you go to https://www.war.gov/ it says Department of War. The person in charge calls himself the Secretary of War. Warfighters are being sent into Iran. Presumably to engage in warfare. People are gonna die.
What's cosmetic about this?
Agree, essentially the Department of War is the Department of Defense with a little less makeup.
It's cosmetic because it is business as usual.
And the DoW was the original name from 1789 to 1947.
Wasn’t it originally called the department of war also? If anything “department of defense” was doublespeak, as it was already primarily for war.
Indeed it was, from 1789 to 1947. It was then changed to Departments of Army and Air Force, later the National Military Establishment, and finally the Department of Defense in 1949.
Ukraine’s TV personality leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy seems to be doing alright. Also went into war, but not of their own doing, and he has been measured, insightful, aware, throughout this whole war.
There’s more to it than Trump being a TV show personality. Far too complex and insidious than a simple quip.
I don't think the American people can change their country's policy oriented toward a constant state of war, aggression, and invasions of other countries under the current system. This is a constant state policy, regardless of the party or the president. So it can be said that the United States is not a democracy. Money and capital rule, not the people.This can only be changed by a fundamental shift that empowers people over capital.
Of course, I agree that Trump is worse because, by removing the mask of civility and attacking others without first bothering to create propaganda and a narrative about how it is for the greater good and justice, he made the plundering and crimes faster and more efficient.
> don't think the American people can change their country's policy oriented toward a constant state of war, aggression, and invasions of other countries under the current system
Of course we can. People disagreeing with you doesn't mean they don't exist.
These are the Senate seats in play this cycle [1]. How many of those do you think would be flipped based on any foreign policy item?
If you're on this thread you pay attention to foreign policy. The notion that someone doesn't–not isn't informed, but literally doesn't to any degree–is almost more foreign than the strangest countries we read about. But the truth is most Americans have never ranked any foreign policy item as being in their top three issues since the Vietnam War.
We could change it if we wanted to. We don't because it's not personally pertinent or worse, it's boring. (And, I'd argue, because a lot of foreign-policy oriented activists are preaching for the choir versus trying to actually effect change.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_Senate_elec...
Americans ranked foreign policy as the third most relevant issue for them in 2016, tied with immigration. [1] It's disingenuous to ignore that both parties have traditionally had mostly the same foreign policy stance. So you're voting for forever war, or forever war. How can it be a deciding factor for voters in this context?
But 2016 was different because Trump was the first candidate in some time to run on something even vaguely flirting with being anti-war, as he actively called out the endless wars of the political establishment, and argued that America first should not involve us wasting our money bombing countries half-way around the world. It was a relatively weak position but even that was enough to get 13% of voters to declare foreign policy as their key issue, tied with immigration. And Trump ended up winning their vote by an 18 point margin.
Anti-war is one of the relatively large number of issues that Americans largely agree on, but the political establishment makes it impossible to vote for, because you'll never find a mainstream candidate running on a platform that aligns with public interest. So for instance 84% of Americans think that "the American military should be used only as a last resort", that Congressional approval should be required for military action, and so on. [2]
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia...
[2] - https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/new-poll-shows-pub...
> 84% of Americans think that "the American military should be used only as a last resort", that Congressional approval should be required for military action, and so on
In general, yes. What fraction of Trump voters do you think would agree that Trump should face any consequences for bypassing the Congress?
That's assuming the people don't vote for this because they want this.
Many Americans have a hero complex. Their national mythology post World War II includes them being the "good guys" against the "bad guys." That mythology needs a bad guy.
Trump ran on "no wars" because he was going to spend all his focus on America instead of burning taxpayer money dropping bombs overseas. I'm sure some people voted for him at least in part for that reason. You can argue that they should have known he was liar, but there is support for it. Also, with the new concentration camps, the soldiers in our streets, and the nazi salutes I'm not sure the whole "good guys" against the "bad guys" narrative is something trump voters care about at all. They seem pretty comfortable playing the "bad guys" part anyway.
The moment they made that name change and stated their expansionist agenda it finally became clear to me that this wasn't just MAGA anymore, this was actual fascism.
Whether you think the current targets are legitimate or not, the fact that the U.S. is going to war without seeking any democratic approval anymore is deeply troubling.
> The moment they made that name change and stated their expansionist agenda it finally became clear to me that this wasn't just MAGA anymore, this was actual fascism.
I'm pretty sure MAGA was always fascism. I mean, all the signs were there and people were sounding alarm bells almost immediately.
This is clearly not fascism, and not very different from what the US is accustomed to. Let's not waste the meaning of words by throwing them at any occasion.
What do you think fascism is? What we have is a populist, nationalist, racist, far-right regime headed by a man that our highest court has ruled can't be held accountable for his "official" actions and who acts like a dictator (as further evidenced in this case by going to war without congress) who uses to the power of the government to attack/threaten/suppress his "enemies" here in the US. If this isn't textbook fascism you must admit that it at least checks a lot of the same boxes
Well this is not fascism, this is, as you said, a populist regime.
The far left loves to categorize everything at its right as "fascist". The infamous Berlin wall was the "antifascist protection wall". In Yugoslavia, you'd hear every day at the radio a rant about the "fascists", even though the country was communist.
There are many definitions of what "fascism" is. The best I think is to refer to the historical italian fascist government, to understand it.
Btw presidential immunity is not fascist, many countries have similar laws.
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> Let's not waste the meaning of words by throwing them at any occasion.
Honest question, but if this is not fascism, then what is? Aren't you also wasting the meaning of a word by refusing to acknowledge any application of that word?
There isn't a single accepted definition of what fascism is. The USSR and their left-wing allies in Western Europe would define everything that wasn't communist as “fascist”. It still continues to this day.
I'd suggest you read about fascist Italy to get a sense of what fascism is. So far I haven't seen Democrats repeatedly kicked out of cars in Times Square after drinking a bottle of castor oil. Trump said that he wouldn't look to be reelected for a third mandate.
The Iran war is mainly a consequence of the Israeli influence on US politics; it has nothing to do with fascism, and it is in continuity with the previous administration.
So yeah, populism likely, a plutocracy (evidenced by the role of AIPAC in elections) but not fascism.
Are you claiming Harris or Biden would have bombed Iran like this? That does not sound credible, but if the other party wouldn’t have attached Iran then this is not business as usual, it’s the GOP as usual.
Maybe not exactly but Dems have started many wars, often to look tough due to the perception of them being weaker.
Biden and Harris didn't have any problems shipping tons of bombs to Israel, aimed at being exploded on dense civilian zones so I don't think that there is are dramatic differences between the two parties.
from 2024:
"Harris to Jewish voters: ‘All options on the table’ to stop Iran from going nuclear In pre-election High Holidays call, US vice president says diplomatic solution still preferable to keep Islamic Republic from the bomb, charges Trump won’t stand by Israel"
https://www.timesofisrael.com/harris-to-jewish-voters-all-op...
I an opposed to Trump's unhinged offensive, but let's not fall prey to media narrative. Nobody called similar actions "fascism" before (or they did, as the word is thrown around casually in the US, but then nothing has changed). Similarly, when Obama vastly expanded deportations and the like, nobody cared.
I don't like Trump. At all. I think he's a terrible president on the whole and a shameless opportunist. But I don't like one-sided politics and hypocrisy even more so, and I dislike hysteria. History and long term trends paint us a different picture of current events. Most people's horizons are limited to the shallow, tendentious, cherry-picked, and sensationalist news cycle, unfortunately, regardless of outlet. Should we criticize Trump? Yes. But we should criticize all leadership when they do what they should not be doing.
BTW, the Dept. of War was the original name from 1789 to 1947. Curiously, it was soon after the change to Dept. of Defense that people like Eisenhower began to worry about the Military-Industrial Complex. That should give us pause. The name change conceals the intention, and coincides with a hungry imperial war machine that WWII helped bring into existence. Recall that Americans were largely isolationist before that.
But the Iranian regime isn’t at all fascist, right?
The existence of fascism elsewhere doesn't excuse its existence here.
I'm not American.
The Trump admin would sooner drop nukes on LA then cede a fair election.
An honest discussion about this cannot be had on this site, it's kinda funny how pointless all the comments are here. Yours is the closest anyone is allowed to get and I wonder if yours will stay up.
The guy’s in the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame. He’s been seeking or serving in office for over ten years. We all know. It’s old ground.
No I'm talking about who is responsible for all of this. You're allowed to misunderstand (as you did here), you're allowed to downvote (as they do to me), you're allowed to lie, and allowed to be mistaken. But truth is nowhere to be found on Hacker News on this subject. There can be a million comments. All of them varying degrees of wrong or closer to the money and then removed.
It is funny that the AIPAC influence narrative is allowed now, but think tank papers are greyed out and will disappear soon. So I guess "blame Bibi" is one of the desired narratives now.
Ukraine is a democracy with a legitimate leadership that was not planning to acquire nukes and has no history of planning to remove Russia from the map. To suggest that this attack on Iran is the same as the Russian invasion of Ukraine is very misguided.
Iran has been "a week away" from acquiring nukes since Netanyahu first claimed it in the 90s.
Not six months ago, Trump launched a strike that "completely obliterated" Iran's ability to obtain nukes. And then, either because he has the memory of a goldfish, or thinks that we do (both are somewhat true), he pulled out "a week away", again, at the SOTU. "We must attack Iran to destroy what I told you we destroyed last year."
Iran may be planning to do so. But this is just a boogeyman being used (again) by Israel and the US.
Ukraine got rid of nukes and it was massive collosal mistake. In alternative universe where they win and get territory back and get economy on track, they would be 100% warranted to get the nukes.
My point is, Ukraine war and the way it evolved shows that not having nukes is a bad position.
> Ukraine got rid of nukes and it was massive collosal mistake.
They couldn't operate them, all electronics were in Moscow anyway, nor afford to maintain them or even guard them.
At the very same time Ukraine's corrupted military sold out on the black market tens of billions of weaponry.
In your alternate universe, bad actors acquire and reverse engineer those nuclear weapons resulting in a world that's much more dangerous.
No it would not be more dangerous then current. Lets not pretend Russia is mot more currupt then Ukraine used to be. I dont particularly care whether it is Russia selling them, Ukraine or USA.
Ukraine would be better off keeping them and all of us would be safer.
Because as of now, bad actors (Russia, USA, China) have nukes. Ukraine does not and that is making Russia expand. Meanwhile USA is run entirely but bad actors.
> My point is, Ukraine war and the way it evolved shows that not having nukes is a bad position.
Israel (allegedly? idk) has nukes. Did it stop October 7th? Did it stop Iran from firing ballistic missiles?
The war of today is not an open war (the war in Ukraine did not start on February 24 2022, but in 2014) where nuclear deterrence matters. Nuke will never help if the war is waged through proxies.
To be fair, nuking a piece of land that you claim you own and is also just a few miles away and downwind of your own citizens is a fairly difficult thing to do. Nukes are a great deterrent when it's a place at least 100 miles from your borders, and better if even farther. They're useless in your own backyard.
That's probably not the main reason.
Citing:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47157393
> I've spoken with engineers who worked on nuclear weapons systems, the consensus is that the public is deeply misinformed about how they work, the dangers, and the implications of weapons being used. (...)
> The biggest danger of a nuclear weapon is being hit by flying debris.
> Fusion airburst bombs of the modern era are incredibly clean and radiation is only a risk in a very small area (tens of miles) for a short time (days to weeks). (...)
Your own quotes contradict you. Gaza isn't even 10 miles wide. If nukes are safe from over 10s of miles away, then nuking Gaza would without a doubt endanger Israel since there's no place they could irradiate that would be sufficiently far from them.
Plus if Israel thinks it's fine to use them, then countries that don't like Israel will be glad to get that approval to go ahead with using their own
> Plus if Israel thinks it's fine to use them, then countries that don't like Israel will be glad to get that approval to go ahead with using their own
Now you're getting closer to the real reason ...
Ukraine never had operational control of the missiles in its territory
I am sure Ukrainians who built said nukes wouldn't have much problems figuring it out and building own nuclear program.
Instead believing in bright and peaceful future USA, France and UK promised. As Ukrainian who lived in Ukraine in 90s that felt like being on a frontier of the modern world, giving up the nukes. Oh, how full of hope we were.
By now the nukes would have been useless. You need to have a continuous ballistic and nuclear program to manufacture new nukes and missiles as the old ones become stale.
I think Ukraine would have no problem maintaining it's own nuclear program from purely technical perspective, considering they have a number of nuclear plants and expertise. Plutonium is a byproduct of a nuclear plant, they wouldn't even have to bother with uranium enrichment.
Presumably if you kept your nukes you’d built that capacity
That takes money. Ukraine was very poor in 1993. It's even poorer now.
What an awful take devoid of context. Russia literally defaulted in 1998, and 'somehow' kept the nukes.
And today Ukraine is doing quite amazing, considering 12 years of war. I can only dream what it would be if russians didn't steal a generation. Giving up nukes was a giant mistake.
Back then, giving up on nukes never was about compromising security. In 1993, I remember being full of hope and opportunity to live in peaceful world with less nukes. It felt like we had our backs by France, UK and USA. That was a move full of betrayed optimism, not desperation - giving up third world arsenal because the future is bright.
You also need to maintain vectors, at least functioning ICBMs, which cost quite dearly. And Russia had much more ressources than Ukraine at the time, by the way.
Ukraine absolutely had fleet of functioning ICBMs and strategic bombers. Unlike russia, Ukraine didn't declare bankruptcy.
And pretty sure people who built those ICBMs and strategic bombers would have no issue maintaining them.
USA didn't pressure Ukraine into giving up nukes, at the same time bankrolling russian nuclear program for 'security' reasons.
Ukraine didn't declare bankruptcy because Russia chose to assume 100% of the USSR external debt. Meanwhile, in 1998, Russia had a GDP PPP 80% higher than Ukraine.
This is why usa had to bankroll russki nuclear security program?
It was a non-proliferation issue, I believe? The same could have been said about the pressure for Ukrainians to renounce the nukes. I agree that in retrospect Ukraine would have been safer with nuclear weapons.
However, a lot could have happened in two decades, and Ukraine had to go through many issues typical of post-Soviet countries at the time. The risk associated with warheads being sold by generals or oligarchs was seen as a real one, see for instance:
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997-09/press-releases/russi...
You forgot the genocide they have going and the current attempt to starve Cuba into submission with their little "blockade"
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50% as in the barely armed males that were killed like fish in a barrel
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-1...
> Women, children (ie, younger than 18 years), and older people (ie, older than 64 years) comprised 56·2% (95% CI 50·4–61·9) of violent deaths
How many of those people under 18 are boys over 15?
Militias rarely have age restrictions.
Which still doesn't justify the slaughter or starvation of children
I didn't say it did. I just think it's either naive or disengenuous to assume under 18 isn't a militant.
To a lesser extent, the same is true of women and elderly.
I am not sure what is the point you are trying to make with these stats.
It is clear that if half of the killed were militants, the other half is not by definition.
50% of casualties being civilians does not mean it is a genocide.
if you slaughter civilians and label all males as combatants you conveniently get a near 50% militant death rate
don't play dumb, there's a reason israel is not letting foreign media into gaza and slaughtering local journalists at a rate never seen in history of war
> if you slaughter civilians and label all males as combatants you conveniently get a near 50% militant death rate
Say the ratio is 1:4, then what?
> don't play dumb, there's a reason israel is not letting foreign media into gaza and slaughtering local journalists at a rate never seen in history of war
And, at the same time, they keep all the internet links alive so that Palestinians can show the whole world the "genocide"? Like, do you really think that Israelis are that dumb? Islamic Republic shut down the internet to hide the scope of butchery, but Israelis did not figure it out?
yes poor israel with it's nukes and iron dome is being oppressed by a bunch of women and children living in an open prison
now please tell me what you'd like to see happen with the remaining palestinians and what you expect to happen in the middle east after you destabilize another major country in the region
> yes poor israel with it's nukes and iron dome is being oppressed by a bunch of women and children living in an open prison
This is "open prison": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYCWjYBsr8M?
Truly oppressed people do not blow up themselves in cafes, busses, and schools. People in Iran are oppressed, their women are beaten for not covering their hair in the street, and yet, they do not blow up themselves.
answer my questions
also heres some nice footage of markets in warsaw ghetto for you https://youtu.be/a2a5qRkOqP4?si=twZ9zFYL3xh6Ms0h
as a Pole its sad to see so many jews get behind a fascist like Bibi. living in NYC i don't feel safer today and i don't see how the whole world turning on israel is good for jews long term
Trump shredding NATO and taking our random world leaders is also not making countries like Poland safer
> answer my questions
Which ones?
You provided a 50:50 stats without any sort of reasoning or an argument. I asked what does it mean, and you completely ignored my question, but mentioned that Gaza is an open prison (which is not, as Palestinians can leave and come back, as many did pre-2023 war), and somehow said that if people are “oppressed”, it is okay for them to commit atrocities.
Now, I would expect that you as a Pole would be able to tell the difference between Warsaw ghetto and Gaza. I wonder why you choose this false equivalence: Jews did not attack Germany from Warsaw Ghetto, they did not launch rockets, kidnapped German civilians and kept them in captivity, jews could not leave.
> as a Pole its sad to see so many jews get behind a fascist like Bibi. living in NYC i don't feel safer today and i don't see how the whole world turning on israel is good for jews long term
And this is the fault of the jews, right? And not the people who make jews not safe?
They're engaged in willful destruction of hospitals, they kill journalists on purpose, they have systematically blocked aid. Their friend minister recently declared an intent to eliminate all Palestinian territory.
You're just lying.
> They're engaged in willful destruction of hospitals
If a civilian facility is used for military purposes it is a legitimate target. Ukranians also bomb schools and hospitals. Are Ukranians commit genocide?
If a hospital is never be attacked, what prevents militaries simply use hospitals as military bases? It's like the ultimate "get out of jail" free card.
> they kill journalists on purpose
US also did in Iraq. And? Does it make US's invasion of Iraq a genocide? Ukranians killed Russian journalists too. Does it make the war in Ukraine a genocide?
> they have systematically blocked aid
Egypt did so as well. Moreover, despite its international obligations, Egypt refused to accept Palestinian refugees as if it wanted a lot of civilians to die.
> Their friend minister recently declared an intent to eliminate all Palestinian territory.
You mean politicians pandering to their base?
> You're just lying.
Sure.
Please provide sources. Genocide is not a matter of cherry-picking or of opinion. People who take this debate seriously look into context and evidence with a level of detail that goes beyond what can be covered here. Anyone interested in arguments and counterarguments will inevitable have to refer to authorities in the matter who have the background, time and resources.
Don't bother. He just effectively argued that there are no illegitimate targets in war because soldiers can be anywhere and that hospitals must be targeted or else they are "get out of jail free cards" whatever the fuck that means. War is war, but war crimes are still war crimes. No point trying to have rational discourse with someone advocating for war crimes.
> He just effectively argued that there are no illegitimate targets in war
No, this is not what I've said.
> because soldiers can be anywhere and that hospitals must be targeted or else they are "get out of jail free cards" whatever the fuck that means.
The law is clear in this regard. If you use hospital for military purposes, it is a valid target.
> War is war, but war crimes are still war crimes.
When a hospital is used for military purposes and then attacked, it is not a war crime from the PoV of international law. You may not like it, but it is a fact.
> No point trying to have rational discourse with someone advocating for war crimes.
I think you are irrational here. Your reasoning is based on emotions, and not facts.
> The law is clear in this regard. If you use hospital for military purposes, it is a valid target.
This is wrong. Hospitals can only be valid targets if they are used to launch "acts harmful to the enemy". There are countless military purposes that still don't rise to that level. Sheltering soldiers, even using floors as war rooms for planning is not enough. Any response taken against a hospital must also be proportionate to the harm. Small arms fire from a hospital window does not justify bombing the entire building into rubble.
> This is wrong.
No, it is not. Even hiding in the hospital make the hospital loose its protection (see here: https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-protection-hospitals-duri...)
This piece in particular:
> The ICRC’s Commentary cites as examples “firing at the enemy for reasons other than individual self-defence, installing a firing position in a medical post, the use of a hospital as a shelter for able-bodied combatants, as an arms or ammunition dump, or as a military observation post.” It also states that “transmitting information of military value” or being used “as a centre for liaison with fighting troops” results in loss of protection.
> Sheltering soldiers, even using floors as war rooms for planning is not enough.
It is enough for the hospital to loose its protection.
> Any response taken against a hospital must also be proportionate to the harm.
This is completely different question though: proportionality of response vs. protected status of various institutions and buildings at war.
> Please provide sources.
Sources to what? Laws of war?
W.r.t. hospitals, you can read this article: https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-protection-hospitals-duri...
This piece in particular:
> The ICRC’s Commentary cites as examples “firing at the enemy for reasons other than individual self-defence, installing a firing position in a medical post, the use of a hospital as a shelter for able-bodied combatants, as an arms or ammunition dump, or as a military observation post.” It also states that “transmitting information of military value” or being used “as a centre for liaison with fighting troops” results in loss of protection.
So, given that Palestinians used schools consistently to hide weapons, are you saying that it never happens? It seems to me completely unreasonable to claim that Israelis destroyed "all the schools, hospitals, universities because they want genocide" very questionable given that Palestinians used civilian infrastructure and NGOs for its resistance in the past. If they did it, why won't they do it again?
Link: https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/unrwa-condemns...
> Genocide is not a matter of cherry-picking or of opinion.
Of course not. It is also not a a single %.
> People who take this debate seriously look into context and evidence with a level of detail that goes beyond what can be covered here. Anyone interested in arguments and counterarguments will inevitable have to refer to authorities in the matter who have the background, time and resources.
Absolutely. However, people here are using the term genocide as it is a settled matter. Moreover, their whole reasoning boils down to metrics that either show that any war is a genocide, or have no bearing at all.
Russian invasion of Ukraine is absolutely a genocidal war, with genocidal claims spoken out loud and actions documented, tens of thousands of times.
Never heard someone in USA claiming that Iraqis or Iranians had no right to exist, saying that they are not a real country and/or nation. This rhetoric is pretty much main stream in russia and used to justify ongoing genocide.
It's not the same as all, whatever you think of the Ukraine, it used to be part of the Soviet Union. Russia and the Ukraine fighting is a "normal" war. The US has absolutely no business attacking Iran. It's entirely unprovoked and at the behest of the terrorist "nation" of Israel, which also should have nothing to do with the US.
> The US has absolutely no business attacking Iran.
Iran's theocratic regime just murdered tens of thousands of protestors, regularly organizes chants of "Death to America", calls the US "The Great Satan", sponsors terror organizations all around the region, has (through their Houthi proxies) cut off critical sea lanes in one of the most strategic areas, is very close to developing nuclear weapons (with enough HEU already to build maybe a dozen bombs), has extensive ballistic missile magazines and expertise, and is working on ICBMs explicitly to reach the US homeland.
But oh yeah, this is totally unprovoked and the US has no business attacking Iran. Right.
1. There's absolutely no proof that happened.
2. Maybe if we weren't killing millions of Arabs on behalf of Israel, they wouldn't hate us.
3. I would absolutely want Iran to have nuclear weapons to put Israel in check.
Israel is a terrorist nation controlling my country and Iran is an ally in the fight against them.
> There's absolutely no proof that happened.
Pathetic.
What I said is factual. We're already seeing pictures of murdered children coming out of Iran, just like we did with Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon... Not a single shred of evidence has been produced to back the claim that Iran murdered anyone, let alone tens of thousands of people.
What you said is a pathetic lie. The regime itself claims they killed over 3000.
https://apnews.com/article/iran-protests-memorials-chehelom-... https://apnews.com/article/iran-protests-crackdown-hospitals... https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2026/02/20/how-man... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62v248xkl5o
Honestly I don't even know why I bother. You're not debating in good faith.
I'll save everyone the clicks: there's no evidence of Iran claiming they killed over 3000 people in any of these articles. There's a claim they said this, but as with all reporting about Iran, no proof. Also, 3000 is not "tens of thousands".
It looks like you saved yourself the clicks.
"The Human Rights Activists News Agency says it confirmed more than 7,000 deaths and that it is investigating thousands more. The government has acknowledged more than 3,000 killed, though it has undercounted or not reported fatalities from past unrest." - https://apnews.com/article/iran-campus-protests-crackdown-54...
'"I would put the minimum estimates to be 5,000 plus," Mai Soto, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on Iran, said in an interview with ABC Australia. Soto noted 5,000 dead is a "conservative" or "the minimum" estimate. Other credible estimates, she said, indicate as many as 20,000.' - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2026/02/20/how-man...
> as with all reporting about Iran, no proof.
In the same way there's no proof humans ever walked on the moon, I suppose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Activists_in_Iran
> the organization is based in Fairfax, Virginia, United States
It's constant deflection with you people. You can never actually address the facts head on; just deflect with "there's no evidence", pivot to "there's no proof", then cast aspersions on the most disagreeable messenger.
You have previously intimated that you are also in the United States. Should I dismiss your arguments because you're allegedly based in the US, too?
It's amazing to see the justification done by some people to attack other sovereign countries. Did not america learn from the fake WMD fiasco with Iraq?
> fake WMD fiasco
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-stored-highly...
I seem to have missed the IAEA report on Iraq's 400+ kilos of HEU.Jm2c but I wonder how people can be surprised that Iran wanted to build a nuclear weapon, especially after the US under Trump's first presidency pulled out the nuclear deal struck under Obama and cornered Iran even more.
Like do people in US realize that countries around the world take notes about what happened to the Libyas and Iraqs and many others (like Colombia recently) and see that the US will attack other countries with impunity.
Who cares what the mullahs want?
The US feels threatened by Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and has the military force to stop them, probably. Diplomatic avenues bore no fruit. Military force is now being used to--hopefully--end the threat definitively.
Yes, of course we are aware of what happened to Ghaddafi. It's very en vogue to point out the game theoretical incentives to develop nuclear weapons.
But seemingly people never bring up South Africa's disarmament. And nobody ever mentions that game theory also incentivizes the US prevent their adversaries from developing nuclear weapons where possible.
Giving up or stopping development of nukes may invite attack. Refusing to stop developing them may also invite attack.
>> *if enriched further*
Keyword there. They said they were not pursuing weapon enrichment.
Let's also not pretend that the US and israel care about international law, after all, there are arrest warrants by the ICC against israeli officials.
60% is very close to 93%; see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47198239
> They said they were not pursuing weapon enrichment.
There is literally no other reason for Iran to enrich to 60% U235 than for weapons.
https://youtu.be/MG93nnyxY1g?t=457
> And at the double standards applied to Russians and Israelis in their wars of aggression.
I would argue that funding Axis of Resistance from Hezbollah to Houthis is aggression too. Let’s not pretend that IR minded their own business, and suddenly was under attack.
There was literally a puppet regime in the 70s backed and promoted by the US.
And since then Iran has always been in US and Israeli crossfire.
You also need to try to understand their point of view.
There's no doubt Iran has promoted armed resistance and terrorism, don't get me wrong, but ask yourself how much of this is about their own safety and defence. It's not 0%, far from it.
Just FYI, Chomsky, answering "Is Iran a Threat?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdxxVxtHK2M
It's called R2P.
I support resistance against Zionist terror, that's in the best interest of US citizens. They're literally fighting the Epstein people.
Not to mention all the numerous threats to wipe Israel off the map by Iran, Hez etc.
Let's not pretend Iran is innocent please. Or Hamas either.
Meanwhile "from the river to the sea" was actual Likud's election slogan before Hamas co-opted it. There are absolutely elements in Israel - and to be clear, in its government, with the ability to and motivation to make it happen, not just extremists posting on their forums - what are quite happy with the idea of razing both Gaza and the West Bank to the ground for settling. And their idea of what to do with the people displaced by this ranges from collateral damage to a shrug of the shoulders and making them someone else's problem.
> Not to mention all the numerous threats to wipe Israel off the map by Iran, Hez etc.
That's a well debunked lie told by zionists for decades. Nobody cares anymore. Besides it's "israel" wiping palestine off the map.
> Let's not pretend Iran is innocent please. Or Hamas either.
Far more innocent than israel.
> That's a well debunked lie told by zionists for decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Square_Countdown_Clo...
> That's a well debunked lie told by zionists for decades. Nobody cares anymore. Besides it's "israel" wiping palestine off the map.
How can you debunk something that the officials of Islamic Republic, Hezbollah, and various Palestinian fractions were saying out in the open for years? Ddi you just make it disappear?
The war started in 1948 by Europeans attempting to attack and invade Palestine to grab their land to build their mediterranean resort homes. The war never stopped. There was no surrender documents signed. The foreign invaders have always been in the state of war. It's why their colonial outposts are required to have bomb shelters.
Not sure why you would consider October 7 an "insane horror" when the foreign invaders literally burned children alive in 1948 by throwing them into ovens, as happened in the Deir Yassin massacre. Or the rape camps of Tantura. There were 15,000 innocent civilians killed by the invaders when they started this war.
I still can't believe we have to fight Israel's war for them. First the Iraq war and now the Iran war.
> The war started in 1948 by Europeans attempting to attack and invade Palestine to grab their land to build their mediterranean resort homes.
Jewish people lived there for the past two thousands years. Hebron massacre by Arabs happened in 1929.
> It's why their colonial outposts are required to have bomb shelters.
I think they have bomb shelters to save their civilians from bombs.
> Not sure why you would consider October 7 an "insane horror" when the foreign invaders literally burned children alive in 1948 by throwing them into ovens, as happened in the Deir Yassin massacre. Or the rape camps of Tantura. There were 15,000 innocent civilians killed by the invaders when they started this war.
Interesting how you are totally fine with murder of civilians as long as they are the "right" kind of civilians.
> war started in 1948
It's the Middle East. The birthplace of civilisation. Everyone can legitimately claim everyone else started every conflict in the region because war in Mesopotamia and the Levant literally predates history.
At the end of the day I believe in the primacy of the living. Crimes committed by and against those alive today are infinitely more imporant than those committed by and against their ancestors. I've seen folks take this shit back to King Herod and the Parthians, and it's not a bad historical argument. (The Romans intervened.) It's practically counterproductive, however, inasmuch as focussing on blame versus harm reduction and prevention is counterproductive in any conflict resolution.
One of the separations between the rich and peaceful and the poor and permanently warring is in capacities to forgive. Japan wouldn't be a better place if they committed terrorist attacks against their American occupiers, or decided that they needed blood for Nagasaki and Hiroshima. And Americans wouldn't be happier if we decided to lob a nuke at the British in WWII for burning down our White House in the War of 1812. (France didn't ultimately profit from the Treaty of Versailles.)
> Not sure why you would consider October 7 an "insane horror" when
No. Don't do this to yourself. I get the temptation. But it is the path to becoming a monster. October 7 was an insane horror. So were other things. Atrocities aren't signed; they don't cancel out, just accumulate.
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> (lots of word salad normalizing genocide)
If you're reading what I wrote as endorsing Israel's war you're exhibiting the problem with blind hate. You stop seeing the world as it is.
> It's OK to hate an entity
Sure. Hating an entity doesn't require you to endorse atrocities against its people.
> October 7 was not an insane horror. It was a perfectly fine response to such a monstrous foreign entity
One, you could literally change "October 7" to "the war in Gaza" and have the Israeli far right in a nutshell.
Two, I guess I respect you for being honest about what you believe. It's a clear position. Even if it's morally abhorrent. (You're saying killing children is okay if it's politically expedient.) But I guess there are enough people in that region who believe what you've said across various conflicts; herego this.
Since you are so concerned by October 7. Do you know how many of those killed were soldiers? Do you know how many were killed by the IDF?
> Do you know how many of those killed were soldiers and security personnel?
Do I need to?
If October 7 had solely engaged military targets, the moral contours of the war would have be clear. It didn't. I'd argue it couldn't. The political forces that sustained Hamas and Sinwar did not allow for targeted, strategic strikes. Just acts of vengeance played out for an audience. (Hamas doesn't have a place in a peaceful, prosperous Palestine.)
Like, let's reverse it. Do you know how many of those killed by the IDF are bona fide militants? I don't. But I also don't think that's germane to e.g. "the Israeli military opening fire on crowds of Palestinians as they tried to make their way to the fenced enclosure to get food" [1].
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/04/middleeast/israel-military-ga...
Yeah, that attitude is not new.
> "The point is that as soon as fear, hatred, jealousy and power worship are involved, the sense of reality becomes unhinged. And, as I have pointed out already, the sense of right and wrong becomes unhinged also. There is no crime, absolutely none, that cannot be condoned when ‘our’ side commits it. Even if one does not deny that the crime has happened, even if one knows that it is exactly the same crime as one has condemned in some other case, even if one admits in an intellectual sense that it is unjustified – still one cannot feel that it is wrong. Loyalty is involved, and so pity ceases to function."
It's not. It's the first time I'm seeing it so clearly–and, again, credit where it's due, honestly–on HN.
You two lovebirds should get a room. I'm sure Tel Aviv has some empty hotel rooms available.
But you're going to be shocked, SHOCKED, to find out that 28% of Americans now support Hamas. Not Palestine, but Hamas itself, as the poll was worded by a conservative pollster to specifically avoid support for Palestine: https://harvardharrispoll.com
This doubled over the last 2 years, and that support for Hamas will only grow stronger as the elderly Americans that are still largely against Hamas die off and replaced by younger Americans that support Hamas.
> you're going to be shocked, SHOCKED, to find out that 28% of Americans now support Hamas
No. The question is "in the Israel-Hamas conflict do you support more Israel or more Hamas?" That's different from supporting Hamas. Even I'd be on the fence about answering "more Hamas" over "more Israel," though I'd mostly be irritated at the false dichotomy and false equivalence the question implies.
(I'd guess 10 to 20% of Americans support Hamas because that's the fraction that support just about anything, from the flat Earth to the genocide of penguins or whatever.)
> that support for Hamas will only grow stronger as the elderly Americans that are still largely against Hamas die off and replaced by younger Americans that support Hamas
Dig deeper into the polls. It's a strong minority in Gen Z and Alpha. It's not commanding. And it reveals itself for what it is when you ask people to name their No. 1 issue.
I respect folks who have turned this into their pet issue. Ultimately, foreign policy isn't going to be front and centre in American politics unless there is a draft. (And most Americans aren't monsters.)
It doesn't matter if it's the #1 issue or not. What matters is the few % of people that cause tight elections to shift. And it was enough to cause Kamala Harris to lose the election. Israel's attack on Gaza was the primary reason Biden 2020 voters chose not to vote for Harris, per scientific polls (YouGov). And that was from 2 years ago. America has only become more pro-Hamas since.
You can defend the existence of the foreign genocidal state all you want but you really have to understand that Israel is cooked. There is no turning back. It's a dead state walking. And the vast majority of their base of support is in the elderly, which will all die off in 20 years.
> And at the double standards applied to Russians and Israelis in their wars of aggression
To be fair, this is the new standard. Russia has promulgated it through its actions in Georgia and Ukraine. China with Tibet and Taiwan. America with Iraq, Venezuela and Iran. The old rules-based international order is dead, and with it Pax Americana.
> the old rules-based international order
At most that was a couple of decades, it's not like that's an ancient status quo.
> that was a couple of decades, it's not like that's an ancient status quo
Sure. The century-long peace following the Napoleonic Wars was also some decades.
Our default state, unfortunately, is war. But we sought to change that after the horrors of WWII (and the nuclear bomb), and it's worth nothing where those noble goals succeeded. It's sad that project is over. But something being sad doesn't mean it isn't true.
"worth nothing" -> "worth noting"
!!
Lol. Yes.
The wishes of a small group of people aren't the default for the majority. This is why the small group of people say that strong leaders for life, with no checks, are normal and natural.
> wishes of a small group of people aren't the default for the majority
In a geopolitical context, the words and actions of the powerful are what count. And those words and actions currently point–uniformly–towards sovereign borders not being a red line.
I'm certain that Persians will remain in Iran, Arabs in Palestine, and Jews in Germany for any reasonable number of lifetimes we could count. The wishes of a few fascists don't outlast their death.
> To be fair, this is the new standard.
It's not. It's the same standard that existed forever.
> Russia has promulgated it through its actions in Georgia and Ukraine. China with Tibet and Taiwan. America with Iraq, Venezuela and Iran.
Don't forget India with Goa and pakistan, bangladesh, etc.
You are my favorite hindu zionist. I mean you are my favourite hindu zionist.
Goa was part of India before colonized and Pakistan is the epic center of terrorism.
> Don't forget India with Goa and pakistan, bangladesh, etc.
Literally down thread (well, up now–I commented before you got downvoted) [1].
> You are my favorite hindu
You're a recurring racist troll. News at 11.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47195844
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> insane that the West commits war crimes and people still comment: “It’s china’s fault”
Insane that people see a list of common actions by Russia, China and America and still conclude Chinese victimhood.
Name one country China has attacked/invaded in the last 40 years.
India, Russia, Philippines, Vietnam (south China sea island taking), Russia (their last border skirmish was in the 90s), itself (PLA soldiers were used and killed people in TS 1989).
(EDIT in lieu of multiple replies - a random border fuckup is not an invasion in my book)
And the body count from all of those tiny border skirmishes together? Its less than these 24 hours in Iran, right?
You asked for names of countries. That was provided. What you're doing here is called moving the goalposts.
Are you seriously asking us for the PLA accrued body count in the last 40 years? You can just ask that directly, you won’t like the answer though.
If you include TS 1989 then the body count is much higher than that last 24 hours in Iran.
Where are you gonna move the goalposts to next?
A fuckup at the border is not an "attack/invasion". If China/Russia/India attacked each other for real, it would not look like a fuckup.
I'm being consistent with my goalposts.
The idea that China hasn't 'attacked anyone' in 40 years is factually incorrect. In 1988, they engaged in a deadly naval skirmish with Vietnam over the Johnson South Reef. More recently, the PLA engaged in fatal border clashes with India in the Galwan Valley (2020). On top of direct skirmishes, they have engaged in constant gray-zone aggression: violently ramming Philippine and Vietnamese vessels in the South China Sea, firing water cannons at supply ships, and surrounding Taiwan with live-fire military blockades. That doesn't even touch on the internal human rights abuses against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Multiple international bodies and governments have recognized what they are doing to Uyghurs since 2014 as genocide. Finally, it's hard to ignore their devastating handling of COVID-19. The active suppression of information, punishment of early whistleblowers, and refusal to cooperate with international investigations resulted in unprecedented worldwide damage, amounting to an act of gross global endangerment.
> Name one country China has attacked/invaded in the last 40 years
India [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%80%...
I said "attacked/invaded", not "had some fistfights at the border". Could we set the standard at "at least one piece of military equipment fired on people"?
Bear in mind that we're comparing this to the USA and Israel's military record over the last 40 years.
> I said "attacked/invaded", not "had some fistfights at the border"
Disputed border region. Used military force to intervene. That's an attack.
> Could we set the standard at "at least one piece of military equipment fired on people"?
Why not tens of soldiers killed? (And on what planet do "the 4th (Highland) Motorised Infantry and 6th (Highland) Mechanised Infantry Divisions" of the PLA not contain military equipment?)
> we're comparing this to the USA and Israel's military record over the last 40 years
No, you are. The list I stated was China, Russia and America. You're trying to argue that China upholds the rules-based international order around respecting sovereign borders. That would be news in Taipei.
I'm arguing that China has, generously, inflicted maybe 1k military casualties in the last 40 years if we round everything all the way up.
You're arguing that China is the real bad guy while USA/Israel are doing 10x that in the current 24 hours.
> I'm arguing that China has, generously, a 3-4 figure body count in the last 40 years
If we ignore proxy wars, sure.
And you're still arguing a straw man. Nobody in this thread ever said that China was as warlike as Russia and America (and Israel and Iran). Just that it has embraced the same geopolitical philosphy and standard.
> Small scale melee combat at the border.
> Casualties: 35 combatants killed
Uh-huh.
So, half of the number of people we killed in our Venezuela attack. Of which half were innocent civilians.
Hey, could you really quick remind me how many civilians the US killed in Afghanistan? Something like 500,000 right?
Not here to say China is a good guy by any means, but your example was so bad I laughed out loud.
> your example
The examples I gave were Tibet and Taiwan. I was asked to give "one country China has attacked/invaded in the last 40 years," a timeline chosen to exlude the Sino-Vietnamese war [1] and encompass the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse. I did, prioritizing directness, recency and death toll.
I'm not saying China is as militarily forward as Russia or America (or Israel or Iran). I'm saying that the double standard isn't a double standard, it's one Xi explicilty embraces with his rhetoric around Taiwan.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War
No one here is saying this is China fault, they’re saying the current situation is on par for how the USA, China and Russia treat the world.
In this thread the only reason people have brought up Chinese issues are because the strong defensiveness of others like China is some saint. They’re not.
Also I think two more examples were missed, how Ukraine wouldn’t have been invaded without china’s tolerance of their ally doing it, and Hong Kong repression. Also how Iran and Ukraine make it much more likely they finally go for Taiwan like they’ve been posturing to do.
To deny China isn’t like Russia and the US in this regards is like thinking Trump was going to be the peace president as he claimed
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> only major country/culture that has never been aggressive towards it's neighbors is India
I have Indian heritage, and I heard this take growing up, and I'll concede that India is on the peaceful side of the international median. That said, the folks in Sri Lanka [1][2] and Bangladesh [3] would aggressively disagree. (Book recommendation: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida [4]. Also, anything by Assamese authors.)
And this thesis really only applies to modern India. Pre-EIC India was a subcontinent of warring states. And even for the "modern India" designation, we have to ignore the violence of political integration [5][6].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_intervention_in_the_Sri...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffna_hospital_massacre
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Liberation_War
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Moons_of_Maali_Almei...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_India
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Hyderabad
India saved Bangladesh from genocide at the hands of Pakistan. Those ungrateful bastards still stand with Pakistan on everything against India. I don't know why you would bring that up. India could have easily took over Bangladesh after Pakistani forces surrendered, but they chose to let them be independent.
Sri Lanka is more complicated, but India was never directly involved in the conflict. Except for the peace keeping forces it sent, and those too targeted the Indian Tamils, which was the reason they assassinated Rajeev Gandhi.
> Those ungrateful bastards
Well yes, we turned them into a suzerainty. The Iranians didn't like it when America did it through the Shah. The Bangladeshis don't like it when Indians think they should be a supplicant sovereign. (Sheikh Hassina was to New Delhi what the Shah was to D.C.)
Like, America rescued Japan from a ruinous autocracy. It would still be mean and violent to demand their gratitude for us nuking them.
> India could have easily took over Bangladesh
And it would have had another Kashmir. In practice, buffer state was the only correct play. (Arguably, it's what China should have done with Tibet.)
> India was never directly involved in the conflict. Except for the peace keeping forces
Yeah. The entire American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan was done with "peacekeeping" forces. The peacekeepers in both cases committed documented atrocities.
> The peacekeepers in both cases committed documented atrocities.
The huge part you are missing is, India did the atrocities against it's own people. LTTE were Tamils of Indian origin. My original comment said India has never been an aggressor to it's neighbors.
> India did the atrocities against it's own people
Everyone always says this. Taiwanese are ethnically Chinese. Ukrainians aren't real. And India wasn't subjugated by the British, it was part of the British Empire and thus a domestic concern.
> LTTE were Tamils of Indian origin. My original comment said India has never been an aggressor to it's neighbors
If you redefine neighbors to being inside India, and then excuse atrocities inside India, sure. By that definition, nobody has ever been an aggresor to its neighbors.
1971: India intervened militarily in East Pakistan, leading to the creation of Bangladesh.
1987–1990: India deployed ~70,000 troops to Sri Lanka and engaged in combat during the civil war.
1971: India saved Bangladesh from absolute genocide.
1987-1990: Indian peace keeping troops only targeted Indian Tamils, which was the primary reason they assassinated Rajeev Gandhi.
Sure:
https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/conflic...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93Pakistan_wars_an...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy6w6507wqo
In which one of these India was the aggressor?
All of them. It turns out there's plenty of blame to go around.
That's always been the nature of partition.
Because it's only existed since 1947?
Indian culture is over 5000 years old. It was a British colony for only about a century.
You said country/culture. If you're counting the Mughal empire, the Mughals were warlike.
Mughals were not Indian. They were invaders from central Asia. Do some reading.
I dunno, I've been reading for hours, I might play some games.
So the Mughals defeated and assimilated the Sultanate of Delhi ruled by the Afghan Lodi dynasty. Then they defeated and assimilated the Rajput Kingdom of Mewar ... who were Hindu ... ah, I've got it, you must mean Hindus. So excluding Shah Jahan and the Taj Mahal from being Indian I guess. I'll figure this out eventually.
Right then: Rana Sanga (the Rajput Maharana of Mewar) invaded and captured lots of territory belonging to the Malwa Sultanate, the Gujurat Sultanate, and the Lodi dynasty (again). So there you go. You can't say that those places were India at the time, and you can't say he was from the wrong culture, checkmate.
Rana sangha took back his territory. And the other conflicts you mention were against fellow "Indians". I put it in quotes, because as you mention there was no India back then. But there was a shared culture and off course religion. I never said Indians were never violent. My original comment was that India (as a whole) has never been the aggressor against it's neighbors. And you still haven't disproved that. I don't know what you are checkmating.
But we agree there was no India to ascribe this non-invasive nature to, before unification. With the result that India-as-a-whole is the product of aggression against neighbors, where all those neighbors became India, but only quite recently, meaning that there hasn't been much time for India as a whole to be aggressive against further neighbors.
It's like saying that the English never invaded anywhere before 927. Of course they didn't, because the first English king was crowned in 927, and before that the English were the West Saxons, South Saxons, East Angles, Middle Angles, South Angles, Men of Kent, two flavors of Northumbrians and a few stray Welsh, and they were all busy invading one another.
What? Kashmir, Pakistan, China, Sri lanka... I don't think has any neighbors it hasn't been aggressive towards. Was this sarcasm and I missed it?
> Kashmir, Pakistan, China, Sri lanka
China doesn't belong on this list. Nehru's government was aggressively pro China. China returned the favour by invading Tibet and then attacking India [1].
If Mao hadn't done that, we'd probably be living in a Sino-Indian world order today. (India and China have surprisingly few fundamental geopolitical overlaps, the Himalayas neatly partitioning their spheres.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War
They had some recent border scuffles, I think, on the level of pulling faces at the foreigners or something like that. Yeah, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%80%...
Hmm, so in eastern Kashmir, in fact. Versus Tibet!
China's invasion and annexation of Tibet (versus making it a bufffer state) set the geopolitical board. There was a world in which China and India could have peacefully co-existed, and the historical record shows India trying for that before China attacked.
India never attacked Pakistan. Every war was started by Pakistan. India took over vast swathes of Pakistan in 1971 but unilaterally returned all the land. Kashmir is integral part of India. India didn't attack china, China attacked it.
Your turn.
Returning the land doesn't make 1971 ok. There are no excuses for sri lanka and sikkim. The 2019 strikes on Pakistan seem unwarranted from the outside. I'll conceed China's claims India was the aggressor are very questionable.
From Wikipedia on 1971 war: "The war began with Pakistan's Operation Chengiz Khan, consisting of preemptive aerial strikes on eight Indian air stations." India has never started a war. Period. In 2019 again Pakistan attacked first through it's terrorist proxies. In Sri Lanka Indian forces only killed LTTE who were Tamils of Indian origin. Nothing ever happened in sikkim.
The conflicts with Pakistan always do start with Pakistan, but the response is always disproportionate, and seeds future similar conflicts. Its not starting a war. The Sri lanka conflict is not so simple. If you invade a country that doesn't consent to you being there, but only kill a non-governmental group while there, and then leave, I think that is essentially a war. Likewise when you set up fake referendums to annex Sikkim that is just conquest by other means. India has not behaved as badly as many other powers, but that foes not mean we shouldn't point out where it missteps.
Cannot reply to the comment below, so I'll comment here.
I see you had shifted the goal posts from being aggressor to "disproportionate response". My original comment said India has never been the aggressor and thanks for finally agreeing to that. I will not comment on the response being disproportionate or not, because that is just an attempt to derail the original conversation.
Yeah after reading more on each of the Pakistani conflicts it does seem that the immediate cause in each case was Pakistan. You made me change my mind on that one. I'm sure the whole thing is far more complicated than anyone who didn't live through the split could understand, but it does seem India is not the aggressor in any of those cases. Sri lanka seems like India's equivalent to Afghanistan or at worst Gaza, so relatively speaking it isn't on par with Ukraine for instance. Sikkim I don't fully understand, but it seems analogous to conquest.
> China with Tibet and Taiwan
What do you mean? China has bought Tibet from the British. And what have they done with Taiwan?
> China has bought Tibet from the British
China invaded and annexed Tibet in 1951 [1].
You may be thinking of Hong Kong, which the British invaded and annexed from the Qing dynasty [2] and then handed back to China in 1997 [3] under conditions that Beijing defaulted on in 2019 [4].
> what have they done with Taiwan?
Same as America has been doing with Greenland.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Tibet_by_the_Peo...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hong_Kong
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handover_of_Hong_Kong
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932020_Hong_Kong_pr...
>Same as America has been doing with Greenland.
So, nothing?
> So, nothing?
No. Threatening to invade a sovereign country, and then staging materiel to do it, is not "nothing." At the every least, it's something the U.S. (and China and Russia) once criticised others for doing. And it's something we've each done.
I know I left that Nobel Peace Prize somewhere … but I can't find it because there's so much America First lying around. I know, I'll ask the aliens and the US men's hockey team if they've seen it.
surely you mean the coveted FIFA Peace Prize!
Laser pointers are to cats as sparkly objects are to Trump.
covfefe
Being attacked should rule out 'war of aggression', but I guess the phrase seems to have lost any meaning in modern discourse. Apparently you can spend all the time calling 'death to X' and then get shocked when others take you seriously.
You seem to have forgotten that the US attacked Iran first, which made this regime even possible in the first place.
> You seem to have forgotten that the US attacked Iran first, which made this regime even possible in the first place.
Bombing of US marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 was funded, and organized by Iran. Just take half day off, and read a bit on the role of Islamic Republic in Middle East in the past 40 years. I guarantee your stance of "US attacked first" will change to the "unclear" at the least.
Yeah and the 1953 coup to overthrow the Iranian prime minister and install a US puppet (the Shah) was organized by the CIA. We could also add that in the 1980's the US was actively supporting Iraq in its war against Iran.
This kind of thinking won't get you very far and won't ensure peace in the region.
That is not clear at all!
The Lebanese Muslims at the time were furious that the Sixth Fleet was constantly shelling Shouf. At the time the Phalangists, with Israeli help, had recently murdered 3500 women and children at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.
There were and are plenty of grievances to go around in Lebanon.
> The Lebanese Muslims at the time were furious that the Sixth Fleet was constantly shelling Shouf.
Lebanese muslims are not a monolith. Shia and Sunni have very different opinions on things, and the 1983 barracks bombing was not done by the sunnis.
Anyway, what I am trying to say is that treating war with Islamic Republic today as some sort of consequence of the June 2025 is a mistake.
40 years is an interesting cutoff of where to start history. Did Iran show any aggression to the USA before the Coup d'etat organized by the CIA and MI6?
You do know that the people and groups that started the revolution in 1979 were basically all imprisoned and murdered by the islamists that rule Iran now?
I did not say that Iran started its war in the shadows with US in 1983, I just showed that the scope of the conflict is not limited to the past two years.
You're moving the goalpost now. This started with US imperialism in 1953. Iran wouldn't do what the US wanted, so they installed a puppet, like they always do all over the world.
It seems you needed more than half a day because you needed to go back further than 40 years.
> Being attacked should rule out 'war of aggression'
It usually does. The argument here is about the proportion of the response.
There were tens of thousands of Iranian rockets fired at Israel just since Oct 7. Hezbollah did the majority of the launches, but there's no doubt about who sent the rockets or for what purpose. What would be a proportional response to that?
>I guess Israel can play the "October 7th" card at least which was an insane horror.
If October 7th is an "insane horror", what words will suffice to describe the decades of far worse crimes committed by Israel?
Considering the scale of suffering caused by this conflict, October 7th was just a small blip.
Can you provide some support for your moral position? You’ve also put “insane horror” in scare quotes, which honestly I find troubling.
Does your moral account provide some justificatory, non-antisemitic framework based on colonialism or oppression that allows us to sidestep the issues with Gazans’ support of Jihad, other extremist doctrines, and the extermination of Jews?
It’s kind of a rhetorical question, but it’s the least I would expect for someone to argue credibly about the morality of the conflict.
Yeah, they're just quotes. It's a quote.
>Can you provide some support for your moral position?
Yes, of course. A bunch of people from Europe decided to move to Palestine and start a religious ethnostate there. In doing so they expelled and murdered lots of local residents.
The surviving locals are understandably less than happy about this, and have continued to fight to defend their lands to this day.
Since then, the those people have caused far more harm to non-jewish Palestinians than non-jewish Palestinians have caused to the those people.
>allows us to sidestep the issues with Gazans’ support of Jihad, other extremist doctrines, and the extermination of Jews?
It's perfectly natural that Gazans would support the extermination of jews. In the extreme environment that Israeli jews force Palestinians to live in, it's fundamentally ridiculous to even describe it as an extremist position.
In a comfortable European context it's certainly extreme, but that's a fundamentally dishonest way of portraying it.
"It's perfectly natural that Gazans would support the extermination of Jews."
That's not a point about colonialism or occupation; that's a justification for ethnic extermination based on the conditions of the people holding the position. By that logic there is no floor: any atrocity becomes "perfectly natural" if the grievance is large enough.
In your broader argument you're describing a blood debt with no statute of limitations and no mechanism for resolution. Skåne (where I live) was Danish. Alsace was German. Most of Europe was Roman. At some point borders exist, people live within them, and the only available direction is forward. You haven't described a political framework- you've described a permanent state of war with no exit condition except one side's disappearance.
You just said it's perfectly natural to want to exterminate an ethnic group. Read that back.
>By that logic there is no floor: any atrocity becomes "perfectly natural" if the grievance is large enough.
This is mostly true, yeah. Do you not believe that humans act like that?
>In your broader argument you're describing a blood debt with no statute of limitations and no mechanism for resolution
Nonsense.
>Skåne (where I live) was Danish. Alsace was German. Most of Europe was Roman. At some point borders exist, people live within them, and the only available direction is forward.
Except Israel does not want Palestine to move forward.
There are approximately zero living people that give a shit about the things you mentioned, there are millions of living Palestinians who do care and suffer at the hands of Israeli state every single day.
How did you intend for this comparison to be even vaguely relevant?
>you've described a permanent state of war with no exit condition except one side's disappearance.
This is deliberately obtuse, Israel has had a plenty of ways to largely exit this conflict. At the very least they could've given all Palestinians Israeli citizenship and equal rights decades ago.
Of course, that's not really compatible with the ideals of the jewish ethnostate. I'm sure the Palestinians wouldn't seriously object though.
>You just said it's perfectly natural to want to exterminate an ethnic group. Read that back.
I'll repeat it if you want me to. We've seen it over and over again in history, it's hardly a new thing.
Considering how the jewish people choose to treat the Palestinians, it is not surprising that Palestinians want to exterminate the jewish people. It is a perfectly predictable reaction, and not some special quirk of the Palestinians.
Since I already wrote a reply to your now-deleted comment:
>You've just made my point. The reason Skåne isn't contested is that there are no living people suffering under Danish occupation of it. You've described the mechanism yourself: time plus resolution. That's exactly what a two-state settlement would produce. You've argued for the process without noticing.
Israel has explicitly rejected that over and over again, and continues to do so every day through ongoing annexations.
There will never be moral high ground for the state of Israel as long as it allows the settlements to exist and doesn't at the very least honor it's internationally recognized borders.
>On citizenship: Israel granting full citizenship to all Palestinians would mean the end of a Jewish majority state within a generation, by demographics alone. You know that. Proposing it as a "simple solution Israel refused" is not a good faith argument; it's describing the dissolution of Israel but painting it as moderation.
A jewish ethnostate is as morally unacceptable as an aryan ethnostate.
>On extermination: you've moved from "perfectly natural" to "perfectly predictable." Those aren't the same thing. Predictable means understandable given the circumstances. Natural means it requires no further justification. You've retreated and you haven't noticed.
No, it's both. It's predictable because it's a natural reaction.
Deleted it, yeah, I've decided it wasn't worth it. Still isn't, mostly.
This will be my last comment to you, I don't want to engage with someone so comfortable at defending genocide.
One final fact check for you: a state with 20% Arab citizens who vote, sit in the Knesset and serve on the Supreme Court is not comparable to a state founded on racial extermination. That comparison doesn't survive contact with the facts.
The settlements are illegal and indefensible. I said so already in this thread.
Everything else you've written today you can own.
>One final fact check for you: a state with 20% Arab citizens who vote, sit in the Knesset and serve on the Supreme Court is not comparable to a state founded on racial extermination. That comparison doesn't survive contact with the facts.
It is an indisputable historical fact that jewish zionists expelled vast amounts of Palestinians from their homes and forced them out of the territory of what is now modern Israel.
>This will be my last comment to you, I don't want to engage with someone so comfortable at defending genocide.
I'm not defending genocide, that's a ridiculous interpretation of my words. I'm just pointing out the fact that if you keep poking someone long or hard enough, you shouldn't be surprised when they eventually want to get rid of you.
I certainly don't think the extermination of Israeli jews would in any way be a positive outcome.
Israel has been at the table at Oslo, Camp David, Taba and Annapolis. Palestinian leadership walked away from each without a counter-proposal. That's not a secret.
No one disagrees that the Gazans feel the way they do. But your position is a stronger one. You seem to be excusing or justifying the moral behavior of Gazans in a way that looks self-undermining.
It’s not morally credible to focus on the Jews’ actions alone, given the broader context of the conflict, Islamic conquest and domination. I don’t want to be patronizing and give history lessons, but antisemitism, Jihadism, and other Islamicist extremist doctrines predate the state of Israel by centuries.
So, are you saying that it's not justified for Gazans to feel the way they do? Why not?
> It’s not morally credible to focus on the Jews’ actions alone, given the broader context of the conflict, Islamic conquest and domination. I don’t want to be patronizing and give history lessons, but antisemitism, Jihadism, and other Islamicist extremist doctrines predate the state of Israel by centuries.
That's just whataboutism and has approximately nothing to do with the conflict started by the creation of the modern state of Israel.
The only people who you could reasonably blame besides the zionist jews are the other Europeans.
They're not "scare quotes", they're quotes.
Huh? In English orthography, quotes can serve multiple purposes.
Most native English speakers wouldn’t see the parent’s use of quotes (quotation marks) as merely mention.
This isn't the least bit confusing man. The author confirms the purpose of the quotes, which is effortlessly understandable by native and non-native speakers alike. They were used to quote and comment on a direct phrase from the parent comment.
You absolutely do not need to double down on whatever it is you are doing here lol. Say you were wrong and move on.
"small blip" isn't a political take, it's just wrong.
October 7th was the deadliest per capita terrorist attack since the Global Terrorism Database started recording in 1970 [1]. Globally, it's third on the all-time list (behind only 9/11 and one IS attack [1]. The confirmed death toll from Israeli social security data (not government press releases) is 1,139, which still makes it 31 times deadlier than the next worst attack in Israeli history [2][3].
You invoked scale. Those are the numbers. They don't say what you wanted them to say.
And for the record: one atrocity not excusing another cuts both ways. Nobody here argued otherwise. What was actually said (by the person you're replying to) is that you cannot use scale as your framework whilst hand-waving away the single largest data point in the argument.
If you mean the Nakba, Sabra and Shatila, or the current death toll in Gaza — those are serious. But "decades of far worse crimes" doing the work of making October 7th a "small blip" doesn't follow. You can have a long ledger of serious grievances and still recognise that one morning where 1,139 people were massacred (including at a music festival, in kibbutz bedrooms, in bomb shelters) was not a blip. It was the deadliest single terrorist attack per capita since records began.
There is no moral argument for October 7th, and the reaction is disproportionate and unjustifiable - but inevitable. We should all be so unlucky to have neighbours like those, and nobody knows how we would all act if we did.
[1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/hamass-october-7-attack-visual...
[2] https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social...
[3] https://www.csis.org/analysis/hamass-october-7-attack-visual...
I notice that your database does not for whatever reason contain any of the actions taken by the Israeli government, why is that?
How are we supposed to get an understanding of the scale of these events while totally disregarding Israeli actions?
Because the Global Terrorism Database records non-state terrorist attacks.
State military action is categorised separately: that's not an omission, it's a definition, but you know that- you're playing stupid. The same database doesn't record US drone strikes or Russian artillery either, weird, right? Must be suppression!!!
If you want Israeli state violence, OCHA tracks it. That data has been cited in this thread already.
I know that, but why are you referring to this database then? It's just not really relevant in this particular context.
You're saying that the numbers don't say what I want them to say, but then you choose a rather weird set of numbers to demonstrate this with. It's weird!
> October 7th was the deadliest per capita terrorist attack since the Global Terrorism Database started recording in 1970
> You invoked scale. Those are the numbers. They don't say what you wanted them to say.
1200 Oct7 vs tens of thousands in annexation and retaliation.
The numbers speak for themselves. No need to cherry pick.
Nobody cherry-picked anything. Per capita, single-event, it's the number that answers the claim that was actually made — that October 7th was a "blip."
What you're doing now is a different argument entirely: aggregate conflict deaths over 77 years vs. one morning. That's not context, it's a category error dressed up as one.
For what it's worth, the full Palestinian death toll since 1948 is ~136,000 [1] — a Palestinian source, so spare me the bias complaint. That's across eight decades, multiple Arab-Israeli wars, three intifadas, and several state actors. October 7th still isn't a blip. It's a massacre inside a war.
Which is exactly what everyone's been saying.
[1] https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/145161
> What you're doing now is a different argument entirely:
I've not made an argument. I've provided the proper context that supports the original point.
>> Considering the scale of suffering caused by this conflict, - Jasonadrury
your response:
> That's not context, it's a category error dressed up as one.
You have shifted goalposts in every post. The context was the conflict in aggregate. Continue arguing with yourself. It's not compelling.
"I've not made an argument" is a fascinating claim immediately after quoting someone who used aggregate scale to call October 7th a "blip"- and agreeing with them.
Providing context in support of a conclusion is making an argument. That's what arguments are.
The goalposts that moved: "blip" (single event framing) -> "scale of the conflict" (aggregate framing) -> "I wasn't arguing anything." Three posts, three different claims, now apparently none of them count.
Noted.
What’s an ‘event’?
...
A discrete incident with a defined start, end, perpetrator and location.
(As opposed to a 77-year conflict involving multiple states, wars and actors.)
Now ask me one on sport.
That is pretty much the definition of cherry picking right there.
You sure have a big stake in defending a genocide, Jan.
The OCHA data is linked above. Read it or don't.
Rockets regularly target Israel. If that happened to USA the war would start with the first one no matter if it was intercepted or not. Same with any other self-respecting country. Israel is fully justified trying to eliminate threats to itself. It's not only about October 7th.
The reaction by the Israelis against the Palestinians is even worse
The reaction is worse in what sense, exactly? Raw numbers? Then you're back to the same argument as above, where October 7th (again, the third deadliest terrorist attack since records began in 1970) somehow doesn't count.
Nobody serious disputes that Gazan civilians are suffering enormously. The argument isn't about that. It's about whether Hamas represents them, and the answer is: less and less, given that Hamas hasn't held an election since 2006, has siphoned aid money into tunnels and rockets for two decades [1], and on October 7th sent men with garden tools to decapitate Thai agricultural workers [2] and film themselves doing it.
You can condemn Israel's conduct (and there's plenty to condemn) without pretending the people who started this particular escalation were freedom fighters having a bad day.
[1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/hamass-october-7-attack-visual...
[2] https://www.nationthailand.com/world/middle-east-africa/4003...
I think wholesale genocide of an entire population by the Israeli state is worse. The plan is obviously drive the Palestinians onto the sea (metaphorically) and make the place uninhabitable.
Israel (and I want to be clear, I am referring to Israel the state) has blood on their hands. This went way beyond a "self defense" thing - flattening the entire country, indiscriminate killing of civilians and children, murdering paramedics and bombing ambulances, destroying schools hospitals apartment buildings etc. By a modern democratic state with the most accurate smart weapons available. It's simply unbelievable to me that they are getting away with it.
>I think wholesale genocide of an entire population by the Israeli state is worse
would be worse, but wasn't contemplated nor attempted so contributes no weight to the balance.
"from the river to the sea" on the other hand is a statement of genocidal intent.
Most of what you say I don't disagree with. Israel's conduct since October 8th (the civilian death toll, the aid blockade, the flattening of hospitals) is legitimate to call out. The ICJ found the genocide claim plausible enough to issue binding provisional measures, which Israel then ignored [1]. That's not nothing.
But "wholesale genocide" and "the plan is obviously to drive them into the sea" are stronger claims than the evidence supports right now, and that matters a lot because the moment you overreach, everyone who wants to dismiss Palestinian suffering has a rhetorical exit. The ICJ's own careful language exists for a reason.
None of that touches the original argument anyway: that October 7th was not a "small blip." Israel's conduct after October 8th doesn't retroactively change what happened on October 7th. Both things are true simultaneously. That's the whole point I'm making.
[1] https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/26/israel-not-complying-wor...
No, I think I have to respectfully disagree: in the continuum of the Palestine-Israel conflict, this was a small blip. Israel has been killing civilians indiscriminately for years/decades, annexing territory, bulldozing homes etc.
What was different this time was that it was Israel who was the victim, not the Palestinians. And the only way that Israel knows how to respond to these kinds of things is to kill and to destroy.
"What was different this time was that it was Israel who was the victim."
You've just described the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust [1] as a blip because, in your accounting, it was Israel's turn to absorb one.
The "continuum" framing doesn't hold up numerically either. In non-war years, OCHA records roughly 100–200 Palestinian deaths annually at Israeli hands [2]. Hamas killed 1,139 people before lunchtime. That's not a blip in a continuum, it's five to ten years of equivalent deaths in eight hours.
The youngest victim was 14 hours old [3]. The oldest was a 92-year-old Holocaust survivor [3]. None of those facts change based on who you think had it coming.
[1] https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-releases/museu...
[2] https://www.ochaopt.org/content/casualties-thousands-killed-...
[3] https://www.yahoo.com/news/youngest-october-7-victim-just-00...
I would have figured the families of the Jews who built Israel would have realized "holocaust bad, never again".
What they learned was "never again to us".
Just because your family had a holocaust executed against them, doesnt give you any (legal, ethical, moral) right to run your own holocaust.
And Israel is running a holocaust in Palestine, and has been for decades.
Everything is a holocaust or genocide to pro-Islamist lefties. Y'all've so discredited those terms that if at some point Israel actually does start a genocide, people will just shrug.
"There's a genocide going on in Gaza? Yeah I know, you've been whining about it for years now."
You do realize that there were live Israeli hostages Hamas held up until the last ceasefire?
> Nobody serious disputes that Gazan civilians are suffering enormously. The argument isn't about that.
Why isn’t it?
Because it's a different argument to the one being made, and addressing seventeen things at once is how threads become unreadable.
But since you're asking: go up four comments and you'll find it already addressed there in some detail. Keep up.
"Nobody serious disputes that Gazan civilians are suffering enormously."
This is blatantly untrue. There are people who are saying there's no such thing as a "Gazan civilian".
Come off it, that's a technicality and everyone knows the meaning.
An uncharitable person would easily debunk this by making claims about the idea that 'because of israel they can't have a state to be civilian of' and then the topic gets super muddy because that's technically not true and we go around and around and around.
The Israeli government has been dehumanising the Gazan population in rhetoric for decades. Claiming that no one would deny their suffering is straight up false. It's not a technicality, it's a deliberate technique.
It's one of the things that could be stopped to prevent us going "around and around and around."
How can you claim this with a straight face, when Israel has slaughtered Palestinians like cattle every chance they have. And when they're not killing them with direct violence, they are robbing them of basic necessities and human dignity.
And how can you claim October 7th wasn't an act if war? The main thrust of the attacks were targeting military installations. Much more than Israeli actions in Gaza before or since, which have clearly been done in service of genocide since Israel was created.
The Palestinian genocide has not been a regular war, it has been an absolute extermination campaign that is still ongoing.
"The main thrust targeted military installations"— of 1,139 confirmed dead, 828 were civilians. That's 72%. They also massacred 364 people at a music festival, which Hamas later described as a "coincidence" because they "may have thought" ravers were soldiers "resting". That's the defence you're endorsing.
Nobody serious disputes that Gaza's suffering is real or that Israel's conduct warrants scrutiny. But "genocide since Israel was created" is doing a lot of work for you; the ICJ found Palestinian rights were "plausibly" at risk, not that 1948 was a genocide.
Words mean things. Overreaching doesn't help the people you're claiming to defend, it just makes it easier for the other side to dismiss everything else you say.
A reminder: Israel counts Hamas soldiers as military targets, even when they are out of uniform and in civilian life.
If we apply the civilized world's standards of war then yes, Israelis who are also off-duty soldiers or reservists don't count as military targets.
If we apply Israel's standards, however, they are.
Are Gazans not allowed to apply the same standards to their adversaries that their adversaries openly apply to them? Would you be this courteous, in their position?
Of the 378 people killed at and around Nova, 16 were off-duty soldiers attending the rave and 4 were killed fighting [1]. That's 20 out of 378 ... so about 5%.
So even by the standard you're proposing, Hamas massacred around 358 people who wouldn't qualify as military targets under anyone's rules of engagement. Including theirs, apparently, since Hamas's own explanation was that they "may have thought" the ravers were soldiers "resting"; i.e. they didn't know and killed them anyway.
The argument you've constructed requires Hamas to have been applying a targeting framework. The evidence is that they found a large crowd of Israelis and opened fire.
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-okayed-nova-music-festival...
Ah, so they'd only previously been members of the IDF?
Do you suppose Israel doesn't consider previous members of Hamas legitimate targets?
>The argument you've constructed requires Hamas to have been applying a targeting framework. The evidence is that they found a large crowd of Israelis and opened fire.
But that's effectively indistinguishable from the Israeli targeting framework where everyone connected to Hamas is a legitimate target.
This is settled in international humanitarian law. Per Human Rights Watch, citing ICRC guidance: "reservists of national armed forces are considered civilians except when they go on duty." [1] Off-duty at a music festival unambiguously qualifies as not on duty.
The argument that prior military service permanently strips civilian status has no basis in IHL. If it did, every Israeli who'd ever served (which is nearly all of them, given conscription) would be a legitimate target forever.
So: not a targeting framework, more like a justification for killing the entire population.
On your second point: Israel's targeting decisions are also subject to IHL, and where they kill civilians unlawfully that's also a war crime. That's not a defence of Hamas... it's the same standard applied consistently.
"They do it too" doesn't make either lawful.
For what it's worth, joining Hamas is a choice; IDF service is compulsory. The cases aren't analogous.
[1] https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/09/questions-and-answers-oc...
> This is settled in international humanitarian law
Neither participant in the Israel-Hamas conflict subscribes to that.
And I'm not really sure how you could expect the small resistance group to follow international humanitarian law when the big state they're fighting doesn't either? That seems absurd.
> This is settled in international humanitarian law.
Many things are settled in international humanitarian law, thus far it hasn't stopped either side from ignoring it wholesale.
A wonderful quote that demonstrates how Israel applies different standards to itself: even its active duty combatants are painted as helpless innocents!
“Nimrod Cohen was abducted from Tank 3”
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hjzgyg9txg
Israel has to apply that standard because Hamas operates without uniforms unlike IDF. So yeah, Gazans shouldn't apply the same standard because unlike them Israeli military operates in uniforms so it's easy to distinguish between them and civilians. That Gazans do the opposite is on them.
Are you sure? Israel is kind of notorious for having people in civilian clothes kill its enemies.
Sure, if that happens then it needs to be investigated as a potential war crime. It still doesn't change the fact that Israel is in no position to apply that standard because fighting Gazans don't use uniforms. Obviously they will not treat people shooting at them and launching rockets at them as civilians.
So the best you can say about Israel’s conduct over the course of the past 2.5 years is that it “warrants scrutiny”?
And if you want to play the number of victims game, even pre Oct 7 one side has always had it significantly worse than the other. After all, one side is a sovereign state that has a technologically advanced military, an air force, a navy, and air defense systems.
Remarkable. You've managed to read a comment that cited the ICJ, called out Israel's non-compliance with binding provisional measures, and explicitly said there's "plenty to condemn"; and concluded the position is that Israeli conduct merely "warrants scrutiny."
This isn't a conversation, it's not even engagement: that's just not reading.
On asymmetry: you've accidentally made the case for holding Israel to a higher standard. A nuclear-capable state with F-35s, Iron Dome and a $3.8bn annual US military subsidy [1] bears more responsibility for its choices than a militia in a blockaded strip of land; not less. That's what asymmetry actually means.
What it doesn't mean is that a music festival full of civilians somehow doesn't count. But nice try.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12587
> that Israel's conduct warrants scrutiny.
Was this not your choice of words?
> On asymmetry: you've accidentally made the case for holding Israel to a higher standard.
Huh? Are you replying to someone else?
Israel has killed 10s of thousands of civilians, a large portion of which are children. This along with many other factors - in addition to the higher standard expected from a sovereign state fighting an occupied people - is the reason we call it a genocide.
No, I think you're accusing me of a position I don't really have because I don't like Hamas or Israel, but you think my condemnation of Hamas is support of Israel or that by pointing out Israeli suffering I am turning a blind eye to Palestinian suffering.
It's almost as if we genuinely believe that because there are more deaths on one side, that the other is deserving and should not be condemned despite innocence.
Isn't that interesting.
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For onlookers: the final paragraph is in Swedish. It calls me a far-right nationalist and racist. Draw your own conclusions about how that fits the pattern of this exchange.
On substance: 72% of October 7th victims were civilians by Israel's own social security data [1]. tovej's argument that this was primarily a military operation depends on not counting them.
The Hannibal directive is a separate and legitimate concern. It has nothing to do with whether Hamas targeted civilians — it addresses what Israel did in response.
[1] https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social...
I'm going to call a racist a racist when I see it. I've had enough interactions with you on this site (and have given you many second chances to show good faith) to see a blatant pattern.
You're playing devils advocate any time a white supremacist, Israel, or racist bigot is under scrutiny.
And every time you deploy bad faith debate tactics. E.g. here you're strawmanning my argument to say I ignore the percentage of civilians dead. That's not true at all. My argument does not depend on not counting civilian victims. October 7th was a military operation, a guerilla warfare operation.
Most of the Supernova ravers Hamas killed on October 7th who died that day did not die at the rave, but at ad hoc checkpoints far away from the rave. Military checkpoints set up to intercept military re-inforcements.
The rave was not announced until the 6th of October, and Hamas was not aware of it. When people fled the rave, this triggered a massive flow of car traffic. And based on Hamas' limited intelligence, it is not unreasonable to assume that a sudden rush of car traffic could be related to the conflict.
The IDF also set up a road block near the rave, which led to a huge throng (3000 ravers) being caught near the site of the firefight.
In other words, the biggest tragedy of October 7th, the Supernova rave, was not a target, and the deaths in this tragedy seem to have been due to an unfortunate coincidence.
And the Hannibal directive absolutely plays a role. We don't actually know how many civilians died due to it. It could easily be hundreds. The only actor who could verify this is Israel, and they are not keen to do so.
Playing devil's advocate for consistency isn't racism. I'm not Israeli, not Jewish, this isn't my nation. I object to the reasoning.
You're defending a position that doesn't actually care about Palestinian lives. Iran has funded Hamas for decades not because it wants a Palestinian state: it wants the end of Israel. Those aren't the same goal. You've let a theocracy that hangs gay people and flogs women position itself as the voice of Palestinian liberation and you haven't noticed.
I've seen the footage of Shani Louk. German tattoo artist, half-naked, paraded on a truck while people celebrated. Then months of stories she was alive in a Gazan hospital, used to extort money from her family. I saw a Thai farmer gruesomely beheaded by a shovel while the perpetrator screamed with joy on camera. You want to call that resistance? Go ahead. I'll call it what it is.
Criticising Hamas doesn't mean supporting the IDF. Find one line in this thread where I defended an Israeli war crime. One.
You called me far-right. The far-right wants ethnic cleansing. I want a two-state settlement and both sides held to the same legal standard... which is apparently a controversial position in this thread.
Palestinians are people. Israelis are people. The children dying in Gaza are a catastrophe. So is raising children to believe their highest calling is killing their neighbour. You can hold both of those thoughts unless you've decided one side's dead children count and the other's don't.
While I agree, and I find that Israel is on the wrong side of history, I'm not entirely into seeing this whole matter as black and white.
I have the opinion that modern world history is mostly shaped around each countries/population traumas that echo through society till today.
E.g. the biggest trauma of Ukrainians aren't even the events that are playing recently, but the Holodomor that happened 100 years ago. On the other hand the biggest trauma on Russian side is still the German invasion and war of annihilation happened during the second world war. As both sides see themselves as the victims and see the other side as the aggressor (or collaborator) and none has ever taken a step back to recognize their actions, they simply cannot communicate.
The biggest trauma of China is the century of humiliation where western powers and Japan went above and beyond any decency in their actions. Thus, Chinese society and leadership is all about never being dictated conditions and terms by foreign powers. They see themselves as victims of events that they don't want to see ever again.
The jewish Israeli population biggest trauma are centuries if not millenia of animosity, racism and violence coming from any side, last but definitely not least the Holocaust. Thus Israel is all about security at all costs, even if it means bending any sign of human decency. Again, they see themselves as victims and their actions will always go in that direction.
Sadly many parts of the world, many countries, many societies, are simply too scarred and unable to take a step back from the victim mentality and recognize their own actions.
Israelis are unable to recognize they are Goliath and not David from the longest time, they are unable and unwilling to say sorry, the last Israeli leader that tried, got assassinated by one of his own.
The arabic/muslim population in the area too see themselves as victims of the post world war 2 events, and they are as well unable to recognize how scarred and traumatized is Israeli society from centuries of events, including modern ones where they had to survive against hostile Arab coalitions aimed to annihilate them.
So, without a generation of leaders able to recognize and understand the role of history and those traumas and empathize with the other sides we're trapped in those loops of aggression.
You’ve just explained my own thoughts better than I ever have been able to, especially what with the political minefield that is literally anything mentioned in your post. Brilliantly articulate. I have half a mind to commit your entire comments text to memory and just repeat it ad verbatim whenever I am asked about my opinions on these things.
you are simplifying too much - whats then US trauma in this case and all other cases of invasion and coups in the lat 75 years?
Maybe trauma you are talking about it's just excuse to control opinion of voters and manufacture consent but under the hood its just all about power and being rich (not always but in many cases).
I am not simplifying, and my lenses aren't an explanation for every world event.
Humoring the notion, America is a capitalist enterprise that put on the religious and humanist airs that were conveniently en vogue at the time of its founding, and which it always goes back to when its economic reality becomes too onerous. The contradiction baked into our existence is felt subconsciously by most, and there is a psychological toll taken in knowing that your society is built, in part, on hypocrisy, and having to be vigilant for when the other shoe inevitably drops, so that you can at least get out alive.
This is a great post. It really sheds light to basically all the modern conflicts. Thanks.
This really puts so many modern conflicts into perspective. Everyone sees themselves as victims. Unfortunately, a consensus on who is and isn't a victim will always be highly elusive.
One of the most sane and dispassionate takes I've seen. Kudos.
I agree that we should remember historical traumas, but I don't agree they suffice to explain international politics.
Take the Greeks (that's my people! Us!) and the Turkish. I guess people in the West don't remember this but the Israelis are not the only people in the Middle East who have a word that means "disaster" (Shoah, for the Israelis; Καταστροφή- Catastrophe for us), that when anyone says it everyone knows exactly which disaster is spoken of. They are not the only people who lost the land their ancestors inhabited for thousands of years (Ionia, for us Greeks), who lost their greatest city (Constantinople, the City), who lost their greatest temple that was turned into a Mosque (the Hagia Sophia). Us, Greeks, too, have suffered these ignominies at the hand of the Turkish. Our common history with the Turkish is one of war, destruction, violence and blood. So much blood.
Genocide? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide Check. Ethnic cleansing? Check. Death marches through the deserts? Check, check, check.
And yet, since the Catastrophe, in 1922, we have been at peace with the Turkish, even through serious hot episodes in the Mediterrannean, like Cyprus. That's 100 years of peace, after 1500 years of history of war.
It can be done. The trauma can be overcome, if both sides agree to it. To quote none other than Moshe Dayan: if you want to make peace you talk to your enemies, not your friends.
I wonder how Greek-Turkish relations would look like if both nations were stuck in a relatively small piece of land - say, the size of the European part of Turkey. And with Constantinople/Istanbul ethnically mixed in about 50:50 ratio.
It is a lot easier to conclude peace if both adversaries have a plenty of "their own" land to live on and can sorta-kinda ignore each other while doing so.
Preach brother. Collective trauma traps us all
> The jewish Israeli population biggest trauma are centuries if not millenia of animosity, racism and violence coming from any side ... is all about security at all costs, even if it means bending any sign of human decency. Again, they see themselves as victims and their actions will always go in that direction.
I don't see this any different to terrorism apologia (the trauma of 1mn dead in Iraq and another million in Afghanistan, for example). I guess, if the leaders wear suits & ties and hide behind the garb of democracy, then we should all understand why military they command commit crimes against humanity.
- Bessel van der Kolk (author, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma).The problem isn't the "trauma". The problem is the excuse.
> they are as well unable to recognize how scarred and traumatized is Israeli society from centuries of events
First, 400mn Arabs (or 2bn+ muslims) aren't a monolith or brainless zombies. Second, the "centuries of events" is just European guilt. Nothing to do with the Arab world.
Extremely great post with detailed examples
> So, without a generation of leaders able to recognize and understand the role of history and those traumas and empathize with the other sides we're trapped in those loops of aggression.
The sad reality (imo) about this truth is that the qualities needed to be a leader aren't empathy. There was a vid about it which went more into detail but When you observe leaders, you find that they are extremely weird and sometimes psychopathic.
To me it also feels like if a leader is emphatetic towards the other part, other leaders more extreme would spring up saying that he's an enemy from within or something equivalent to it.
The empathy of the leader is one of the most disregarded qualities. I would go so far as to say that leaders aren't even empathetic towards the general population of their own nations/community sometimes.
It's really sad but the Empathy you mention and cowardice can look the same to many & the Empathatic leader would get booted out of/not given a chance.
For example, within America itself, I feel like John mccain was a good guy and I would consider him empathetic in the sense that I remember seeing interviews of him saying that he and Obama just have some minor differences in policy making when there were people attending his rallies asking that they don't feel safe about Obama.
I am just gonna say that This leader of republican party was lost for what is now Donald Trump.
Oh I just watched the rally/interview again[0], when he said that you don't have to be scared of Obama, he was audibly booed by the public. (But also they clapped once when he said later in the campaign that Obama was decent person?)
It isn't impossible to have empathetic leaders but I do think that perhaps as a civilization, we would need to take class act/honesty/integrity more into account than we take in the current system which to me all across the world sometimes feel like picking the lesser evil/not-greater-good at times though I can only speak for myself.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIjenjANqAk
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I don't think parent is presenting an excuse. They are suggesting that generational trauma is one cause of conflict.
what US trauma supposed to be in this case? Only Americal Civil War and American Revolutionary War comes to my mind but have no clue how middle east mess could trigger those traumas?
The only traumas maybe related to money is ... Great Depression but it's not like somebody else was responsible for that
epolanski didn't mention US?
Well what I guess what else do you really do without historical materialism? Playing pop psychology on billions of people, its always quite bizarre.
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> The president of peace btw.
Europe is to blame, according to him.
FIFA might be the one organization that can go toe to toe with Trump I’m corruption. And I mean that in the worst way possible. Qatar was using literal slave labor to get stadiums built and the organization just shrugged when informed like it was just another Tuesday.
He could drop a nuke on Greenland tomorrow and they’d probably say they don’t want the sport to be tangled in political disagreements and if anything the World Cup can help everyone heal.
I can't believe the winner of the FIFA Peace Prize would do such a thing.
I for one can no longer take the FIFA Peace Prize seriously.
Pax Romana peace.
As Ukrainian, I don't remember launching missiles on russia, or, in fact, any aggression towards russia. In its turn russia did recognize borders with Ukraine in multiple treaties, and on top of that security guarantees promised in exchange of 3rd by the size world nuclear arsenal.
Just a quick reminder, that Iranian and Hamas policy towards Israel is extermination. Palestine was never recognized by Israel or USA. Israel is not recognized by Iran.
So tell me, what parallels do you see between these conflicts? Human misery and destruction is hardly a common ground, and even in that, scale is incomparable.
Look up what the Iranian regime has done to his people and to others, including US and European countries, since 1979 and you'll understand that the only reason US allies are cautious and not fully behind this campaign is that toppling the regime means high uncertainty as to what would replace it...
I know some people weren't alive then, but the invasion of Iraq started off pretty good for the US... Sort of how Russia imagined it's march on Kiev would go (!3) 4 years ago.
What replaced Sadaam was the US, and that went horribly for everyone.
If you know the history of the Iraq War you would know a lot of the reasons it went bad was Iranian involvement
People still believe October 7th attacks weren't intentionally allowed? There is a lot of legitimate debate on this topic as the security failures are unusual and are still officially being discussed in Israel.
I see no "smoking gun" for this yet, but yeah, there are a lot of indicators, such as alarm calls by military observers being ignored beforehand, IDF units having been moved from the Gaza envelope to the West Bank before, etc.
Of course, Netanyahu could counter those rumors by establishing a state commission if inquiry, but instead he fights tooth and nail to prevent this from happening...
Also, the official explanation how October 7 could have happened honestly makes no sense to me. Somehow Hamas suddenly gained super powers on that day and could break through the "containment" that ostensibly had been perfectly adequate before. And because of their mysterious newfound strength, it was also imperative to bomb Gaza to bits and impossible to go back to the security situation as it was before...
The one I can't get over is that when Netanyahu was speaking at the UN, he claimed they have hacked mobile phones in Gaza to force broadcast the speech.
Yet months of co-ordination and training between various disconnected groups / gangs / militias, was completely undetectable.
It's a well documented fact that Netanyahu has always wanted and actively supported Hamas leadership in order to have no reasons to sit at the table of with the PLA.
When the other side is led by what you can easily sell to the world as terrorists, you're by default the good guys.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas
> well documented fact that Netanyahu has always wanted and actively supported Hamas leadership
To be fair, this is also explained by the Delcy Rodriguez strategy: the bastard you know trumps the bastard you don't. Israel could have become complacent thinking they had a deal with Hamas and, as long as they kept the money flowing, the Palestinians had no rational reason to attack. (Which they didn't. October 7 was a stupid move.)
If that was an attitude of Israel towards its people they wouldn't go to such length to return the hostages home.
Israel obviously consists of different groups with different incentives. We shouldn't undermine the years of protests by many citizens, some of which are still seeking justice from those responsible for the security failures (particularly Netanyahu).
What a pile of non-sense. I despise literally everyone in the Israeli government, but suggesting this was allowed by anyone in the government/military/intelligence is the lowest low form of ridiculous conspiracy theory.
Nothing like this is "officially discussed in Israel", unless you mean "repeatedly officially denied".
People like you still spread stupid lies about it, but no one with any sense believes them. There is no legitimate debate on the subject, only propaganda, and it comes from Benjamin Netanyahu directly.
Obviously, it’s the same stupidity that “allowed” the 7th of October attacks to happen. These people are way too scared and hateful of Palestinians to conspire with them like this. They allowed it to happen through sheer incompetence. They just let their guard down, quite literally.
If they could actually cooperate well enough to work together on something like the 7th of October of attacks, which were under active planning for at least two years and involved thousands of highly trained men, don’t you think they’d be able to cooperate on something positive too?
Well either utter incompetence of every part of military of israel, or planned to allow it to happen. They even removed most of the guards spread across the region, those who were left were often only with pistols from what I've heard. They were closely monitoring hamas training for exactly this just before it happened.
Sure, some incompetent russian fsb officer who got his place thanks to nepotism may miss that, but mosad, on border with one's mortal enemy? Give me a break, there is 0 logic and knowledge of the involved parties in such thinking.
But its expected, say soviet union went to great lengths to make state terror official and legal, justified and all by th books. Not sure for whom since all knew what chaotic terror was happening all the time and there was often no logic in who was next, but the face of the regime needed to have everything straight and square.
Anyway, those who actually care about the topic understand it well, its not some superbly hidden scheming bur rather facts in plain sight. The rest of folks simply don't care
> on border with one's mortal enemy
I have no special stake or knowledge of this, but Israel hasn't treated Gaza or Palestinians as their "mortal enemy"... more of a problematic-but-largely-contained source of rockets and hateful rhetoric, at least until 2023.
They have treated Palestinians as a pest to be exterminated since before Israel existed. Israels entire existence is based on the erasure of the Palestinian people.
There are five times as many Palestinians in Palestine-the-region as there were in 1960.
Incompetence can't be ruled out.
I've listened to podcasts discussing the Israel military. One thing that people need to realize is that the IDF and it's leaders are skewed incredibly young. The mandatory service paired with the fact that people often don't stay in service means that they have 30 year old colonels and 35 year old generals.
They don't have the sort of career and institution knowledge like the US military has.
Careful people will call you an antisemite for even bringing this topic.
In Italy a famous jewish actor commenting a law that wants to make antisemitism illegal said it's a bit weird a former fascist minister gets to decide that he's antisemite.
https://www.ilgiornaleditalia.it/news/politica/765547/ddl-an...
Do you support the Iranian regime?
> I guess Israel can play the "October 7th" card at least which was an insane horror.
The islamic republic of Iran has been slaughtering tens of thousands of peaceful protesters who don't want to live under sharia laws anymore. Hunting wounded in hospitals and executing them.
It's obvious there's a movement in Iran that tries to topple the islamist regime. In my city, in the EU, I see cars with iranian flags and I've seen iranian in exile call for the international community to do targetted strikes.
I'm not defending the strikes but let's not make it sound like the US is launching nukes on peaceful monks in Tibet either: we're talking about evil islamist regime that slaughtered tens of thousands of unarmed people a few weeks ago.
I was going to say it's false equivalence to compare the Russian attack on Ukraine which was peaceful with a newly installed democratic leader and Iran which has an iffy dictatorship slaughtering thousands of unarmed protestors and exporting terrorism all over with aspirations to make that nuclear.
That was obviously exaggerated, think about the planning and resources needed to execute a stadium worth of people across a country. Not possible in a few days without extreme preparation, or bodies rotting everywhere.
if he has no consequences for this, and he won't
it would be very bad to be Cuba right now
considering when the midterms are and about how long it would take afterwards to move all the ships
I mean why would he stop with Iran?
All of the US is now a "constitution-free zone"
> it would be very bad to be Cuba right now
Yesterday Trump proposed that the US take over Cuba. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-...
Trump is basically a glorified realtor with the intellect of a single celled organism.
Do Americans even read or care about Constitution anymore?
Congress declares War.
Even Bush sought out Congressional approval and had a resolution passed before invading Iraq.
These guys are speed running the fascist playbook. Disregarding laws is one step.
What does it matter? There won't be any consequences for it. He can just do this now and then later the supreme court or congress will say something that also won't matter. The trade war wasn't legal, was struck down, yet is still happening.
> Do Americans even read or care about Constitution anymore?
Supreme court does not, so why should random Americans?
It is not like the high but malleable ideals in it mattered. Its only use is to be able to claim in abstract "we have these freedoms and protection" while the court system renders them void in practice.
The hope would be if more Americans were reading it, and understanding, then they would hold leaders more accountable and we wouldn't even get in this situation. The founding fathers kind of assumed an educated population, even if debating and disagreeing, would come to better conclusions. This current method of "lets cut education so the population doesn't know what is going on" is really a long term plan for the religious right to take over. But they are thinking in decades and generations.
The core issue with constitutional irrelevan e is highly educated suprem court justices put in by highly educated heretage foundation.
Issue is not lack of education among people, it is ideology they sign up to.
Almost a quarter of Americans are functional illiterate, and it's getting worse for new generations
50%+ have below sixth grade reading comprehension
This thing is not actually getting worst "for generations". By available data, it was improving a lot for generations with only minor drop.
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Surely this was approved by the Board of Peace. /s
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"We haven't killed as many as the totalitarian religious fundamentalists" is a really shitty justification for your behavior.
So what? You still believe you're the world police?
You don't?
idk, some people start to describe your actions as "theatrical micro militarism", big words, big missiles, big postures, 0 impacts on anything meaningful... unless it comes to bully your allies, there you're very strong. Trump and his friends still live in the 60s and haven't noticed the world is changing fast, especially when it comes to how the US is perceived
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6 million kids? whole palestine has less total population, gaza has less than 1 million total population, no?
2 mil, actually. But not 6 million kids...
true, palestine 5m+, west bank 3m+, gaza strip 2m+, gaza city <1m.
palestine = west bank + gaza strip
gaza city ⊂ gaza strip
gaza = gaza strip
And all that Israel did to the Palestinians before October 7th.
why do you stop at 6 million, sir holocaust inverter? why not say israel killed 6 billion?
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> Working towards war with Iran has been bipartisan US policy for decades now
Obama signed the Iran nuclear deal in July 2015 [1].
Biden didn't put any policy focus on Iran, in part becase, with the benefit of hindsight, it's difficult to distill any policy focus from that Presidency following Covid. But he also didn't ratchet up pressure in any material way [2]. (And to be clear, I'm not saying that's good.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Ac...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93United_States_rel...
Obama is the one outlier here. As far as I'm aware, all other presidents since '79 saw this as inevitable if not desirable.
> all other presidents since '79 saw this as inevitable if not desirable
I think it's helpful to distinguish Cold War-era Presidents from the others, but that obviously limits the sample.
That only cuts Carter and Reagan, and I have a hard time ignoring Carter given all the Iran issues he had to deal with.
Islamic lunatic ayatollahs, who've shown a willingness to massacre their own people, with nukes?
Can't imagine why that would be a bad thing ...
I don't much understand that about this thread. Yes Trump bad. Yes, US should not get into another war (although in here, arguably this may avoid war, and yes, that's been said before)
But when it comes to the ayatollahs at the business end of the missiles: defending them? I mean, I understand socialists brought them to power, but still: for these particular ayatollahs, having their insides spread over a few football fields ... can't happen to a more deserving bunch.
AFAIK the only country that dropped a nuke on their own soil (that luckily didn't explode) is the USA.
If Iran is unhappy with their government, they can deal with it. It is not a US problem in the slightest. Going to war with another country puts Americans at risk.
> if Iran is unhappy with their government, they can deal with it. It is not a US problem
If Tehran contented itself with oppressing its own, it probably wouldn't garner too much attention. The problem is its regional proxies constantly causing a mess. It lacks anyone willing to come to its aid right now in large part because of that foreign policy.
Small not, but the US hasn't declared war. That requires an act of congress, and congress has continued to neutered itself more and more for decades.
Not sure how you can say that considering that he did it without Congressional approval? It’s literally all him.
Congress hasn't publicly supported the attack. That is an extremely important step, and required for any operation lasting more than 30 days if I'm not mistaken, but it doesn't mean a majority of Congress hasn't already made clear they do support this.
Even some of the most "left" Dems, like Elizabeth Warren, were giving Trump an emphatic standing ovation as he talked about Iran in the SotU [0].
That was literally days after Warren posted on social media about "not sending our military into another endless war in the Middle East" [1]. Look at the comments on the post - they all believe her. It's really very silly.
0 - https://x.com/i/trending/2026793972086222987
1 - https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethWarren/posts/pfbid0BCLJaUv...
Yup. The Jeffries and Schumer have also signaled not that they don't support war with Iran, but they don't like being left out of the loop on planning.
This is an unfortunately a bipartisan and well supported action by congress. Dems seem to mostly just be mad about procedure rather than the results. Very similar to how they protested the Venezuela actions.
You gotta be kidding
He's right though. He's calling out that this is policy, not just Trump.
Still however pulls the trigger commits the crime.
Yes both parties are war mongers but I don't think that lets Trump off the hook even a little. This wasn't necessary or inevitable. Trump's not even really trying to justify it.
What I would like people to understand is that this isn't a partisan issue. As bad as Trump is, American foreign policy is uniparty. Just look at the rhetoric from the Democratic Party leadership on an Iran strike. You have the likes of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries quibbling over the procedure not the policy, saying Congress needs to approve action, not that that action is belligerent or unwarranted.
October 7 happened under a Democratic president and continued essentially unchanged under Trump. Biden consistently lied about "red lines" and seeing a ceasefire [1].
The problem here isn't one party or one persident, it's America's commitment to imperialism, of which Iran is just one aspect. Since WW2 especially there has been so much regime change done or aided by the US as well as military action, it has it's own Wikipedia page [2].
And what did Kamala Harris promise to change about Biden's Middle East policy? Absolutely nothing [3]. It's a big part of why she lost and the DNC don't want to admit that so they're trying to cover up the 2024 autopsy [4].
Don't fool yourself into thinking anything would be different under a Kamala Harris administration.
[1]: https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/the-biden-admin...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
[3]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/8/8/biden-vs-harris-...
[4]: https://www.axios.com/2026/02/22/dnc-2024-autopsy-harris-gaz...
> The problem here isn't one party or one persident, it's America's commitment to imperialism, of which Iran is just one aspect.
Iran is as imperialistic if not more. Why you are against US "imperialism" but for Islamic Republic's one?
The current Iranian regime is in power thanks to US imperial interests. Comical amount of ignorance.
Does it make Iran less imperialist because of that?
Its the irony that US imperialism is the cause for this iranian "imperialistic" regime.
Resisting the imperialist goals of the US itx proxies doesn't make you imperialist. It's not only moral. It's generaly permissible under international law.
Take for example the UAE, which has been hit by the Iranian response, who is essentially singlehandedly responsible for the genocide in South Sudan and it does so with the blessing of the US.
The UAE arms the RSF using arms they get from the US and steal Sudanese gold, which they launder through Dubai and Switzerland.
But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that everything Iran has done and is doing is "imperialism" (which, again, it is not), how do you even begin to argue "if not more [than the United States]"? US imperialism touches virtually every country on Earth. Iran at best has regional influence.
> It's generaly permissible under international law.
This is false, and you know it. But I will challenge you for others to see. Please point me to a statue of the international law that makes this "resistance" legal.
> Take for example the UAE, which has been hit by the Iranian response, who is essentially singlehandedly responsible for the genocide in South Sudan and it does so with the blessing of the US.
Interesting. You completely ignored that Saudis back the other side (SAF), which committed no fewer atrocities than RSF and co. Why do you single out UAE?
> The UAE arms the RSF using arms they get from the US and steal Sudanese gold, which they launder through Dubai and Switzerland.
I won't argue with that, but this is not the complete picture, and the two main warring sides in Sudan are supported by US-friendly regimes in the region.
> But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that everything Iran has done and is doing is "imperialism" (which, again, it is not), how do you even begin to argue "if not more [than the United States]"? US imperialism touches virtually every country on Earth. Iran at best has regional influence.
Two things:
1. Does the fact that IR's imperialism is regional, and anti-US, and not global makes it good?
2. It is imperialism -- IR through its militant proxies suppresses independent development of multiple states in the region. Can you explain to me how this is a good thing?
> This is false, and you know it. But I will challenge you for others to see
Sorry but it's 100% true [1][2][3]. REsisting foreign occupation and colonialism is well-recognized in several UN conventions.
> Interesting. You completely ignored that Saudis back the other side (SAF),
You mean the saudis back the actual government of South Sudan and not the rebels who are looting the country? Are you really trying to equate the two?
But let's, for the sake of argument, also condemn the Saudis in this case. This should convince you that the US only cares about selling arms and doesn't give a rats ass about genocide. That's my point.
> Does the fact that IR's imperialism is regional, and anti-US, and not global makes it good?
No, it makes it lesser. "If not more" was your quote. Definitionally, it's not. It's Middle East vs the entire globe.
> It is imperialism
It's resistance. Iran up until 1953 was a liberal democracy and the only reason it isn't is because of US interference, imperialism and adventurism.
> Can you explain to me how this is a good thing?
Resisting the imperial ambitions of a global hegemonic superpower is definitionally good.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_resist
[2]: https://www.un.org/dppa/decolonization/en/about
[3]: https://treaties.un.org/doc/source/docs/A_RES_2625-Eng.pdf
> Sorry but it's 100% true [1][2][3]. REsisting foreign occupation and colonialism is well-recognized in several UN conventions.
Colonization and occupation is not the same as "imperialism". Please show me where "imperialism" is regulated by the international law. Second, resistance still has to comply with international laws. So, blowing up a bus with kids going to school is not resistance, but terrorism.
> You mean the saudis back the actual government of South Sudan
The government of South Sudan committed atrocities of the same scope as the RSF! Are you letting it slide because SAF is official government of Sudan??
> No, it makes it lesser. "If not more" was your quote. Definitionally, it's not. It's Middle East vs the entire globe.
I would argue it is more.
> It's resistance. Iran up until 1953 was a liberal democracy and the only reason it isn't is because of US interference, imperialism and adventurism. > Resisting the imperial ambitions of a global hegemonic superpower is definitionally good.
I see now. As long as it opposes US, it does not matter who are the victims of the opposition because the opposition is against the US.
I’m not sure what would have happened under a Dem administration. I’m not sure I’m against action in Iran.
But one the whole like precedents of the Trump Administration, was that we were going to ignore foreign entanglements, even if they could be perceived as being in our interests.
It’s wild to me how much Trump seems like Bush 2.0 when I think Trump was something of a reaction to Bush 1.0.
"I’m not sure what would have happened under a Dem administration."
Hard to say. Under Obama we got the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
It is amazing that anyone took his campaign claims at face value. There's an extensive record of him just saying whatever gets cheers/votes/money.
The dirty little secret here is that the Democratic establishment and thus many Democratic politicians like what's happening. They just don't like how it's being done.
What's they're doing is both bad policy (IMHO) and bad politics. Why is it bad politics? Because this military action is deeply unpopular and you cannot outflank the Republican Party on the right about American imperialism. Remember when Kamala Harris promised the "most lethal" military? What does that mean? And why?
But hte other reason this is bad politics is for the reason you state: it cedes the political ground of being the "peace president" to Trump. Memories are short because he did exactly the same thing in 2015 eg [1][2] and again in 2020 eg [3]. The last one is particularly funny because Biden did exactly what Trump promised to do but the Trump still beat Biden over the head for it.
There's no consistency in any of this. Trump was never a peace president. We knew it was a lie at the time. We know it's a lie now. Nobody cares.
But when the supposed opposition party mirrors his policy positions and offers no resistance to anything that's happening, who are voters going to listen to? The guy who talks about peace, even though he's lying, or the guy who says nothing about peace and just thinks Trump should've consulted with Congress but nothing otherwise should change? Or, worse, sometimes Trump isn't being tough enough?
Then Senator Joe Biden in 1986 called Israel "the best $3 billion we make" and if Israel didn't exist we'd invent on to protect our interests [4] while Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State called Israel an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the region.
The JCPOA was a rare W for Obama (who was otherwise the Deporter-in-Chief and the Drone King). Trump of course dismantled it at the behest of the Adelsons. Did Biden reinstate it? Of course not.
The best case for an establishment Democratic administration now is to do nothing while promising nothing and reversing nothing that ultimately brings in the next Trump, just as Biden/Harris did in 2024.
That's the long version of why I say there's no difference. In the short term there might be. Even that's debatable of course. But long term the ratchet effect only gets worse.
[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/donald-...
[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/13/donald-trump...
[3]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/08/donald-trump...
[4]: https://www.c-span.org/clip/senate-highlight/user-clip-joe-b...
What planet do you live on that you think it’s a secret? It’s bright as day. It’s why I support the Democratic Party. Of course they support this action, it’s probably the right thing to do.(Though you’re right I don’t Trust Hegseth to do this right. He’s like Hubris walking and at least one report said the didn’t have the support of the generals)
One of the reasons I didn’t support Trump because he was the America First non-interventionist. I’m lamenting the fact that Trump’s supporters who were betrayed. It’s Trump who’s the one who did nothing and will bring in more Democrats, or the other way around.
Trump has been publicly mulling over an attack on Iran for several weeks. It’s been headline news everywhere.
I did not not notice any opinions, one way or the other, from other American politicians. Correct me if I’m wrong ( with link, of course. )
I guess we can laud Rep. Jim McGovern [1].
[1] https://archive.is/LvDf2
Thank you for that, I hadn’t seen it.
So much of both parties is actually alike, underneath a window dressing of differences (eg woke/anti woke), and a complicit media which does its best to amplify and brainwash people into believing. When it comes to policies that actually affect the elites, the deep state military industrial complex/intelligence services or financial interests, it is a uniparty. Look at how Obama continued the war on terror for example, after running on “hope and change”.
I am curious what your plan would be for Obama to extricate us from the GWOT and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Several military leaders expressed surprise at how gung-ho Obama was with foreign policy regarding the gwot. He literally executed an American citizen via drone. He didn’t even pay lip service to hope and change. Dubya also ran on a non-interventionist platform, and Trump ran on “drain the swap” and non-interventionism as well.
Anyway this is missing the wood for the trees. The point is, the uniparty very much exists, despite the downvotes. Foreign policy, bailing out banks, bowing down to the military industrial complex are very much remarkably consistent uniparty positions.
I am curious what your plan would be for Obama to extricate us from the GWOT and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
How about just bailing and having people falling of planes? Why would there need to be a good way to "extricate" from a ludicrous mess?
Without a doubt it's a "least worst" scenario. The best solution is to not empower the people who got us there. A distant second is to not give them back control eight years later.
I'm still interested to hear of a better c.2009 peace plan.
You say that like US and Israel hit Iceland or Portugal. Like, Iran wasn't source of terror on Middle East, funding terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbolla and Houthi. Like, Iran didn't make "death to Israel, death to America" their national idea.
Remind us of Ukrainian rocket attacks on Russian cities, that provoked Ruso-Ukrainian war.
You can't not know all of this, so you're either a hamas/russian shill or a useful idiot.
Israel makes sure Hamas is funded, are they a valid target now?
I really hope our Government seeks out all these terrorists and Iran boosters on Hacker News who work in high tech. It’s a supply chain risk and none of them should be working.
>I guess Israel can play the "October 7th" card at least which was an insane horror.
More than twice as many people died in Puerto Rico during Hurricane Maria than on October 7th.
My regard is thus: lobs less than half an intercontinental ballistic roll of paper towels at Tel Aviv
>And at the double standards applied to Russians and Israelis in their wars of aggression.
Russians invading Ukraine is NOT the same at all. You lefties are running Reddit and now HN. I am done. So done.
"Peace through strength"
That's the policy being followed here. If you remember back a few weeks, Iran killed likely 30,000 of its own citizens. On top of that, they will not negotiate about medium and short-range missiles or stopping of nuclear production.
A power like that that happily goes after it's neighbors, directly or indirectly is a threat to everyone.
Applying those particular criticisms to Iran and not Israel is a special kind of irony given the past ~75 years (but especially the last 2-3), and when the latter is presently attacking the former unprovoked.
> and when the latter is presently attacking the former unprovoked.
Did you miss the whole “axis of resistance” funded and driven by Iran?
And what exactly does Iran feel the need to "resist" against?
Islamic Republic sees itself as a vehicle to spread Islamic revolution around the world.
Just listen to their internal rhetoric, watch who they find and why, and it is clear. However, since it’s Trump who is bombing IR, people will defend the IR regardless of what the IR stands for.
>A power like that that happily goes after it's neighbors, directly or indirectly is a threat to everyone.
Is the US a threat because of its actions towards Venezuela?
Yes