Jump to content

956 Worldwide

Full Members
  • Posts

    8094
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    23

Posts posted by 956 Worldwide

  1. 33 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

    It would be disingenuous to cite that without a clear indication of who the receiving end of that "Final Solution" is. Is the sign simply pointing out the hypocrisy and parallels between what Israel is doing to a class of people it perceives as "undesirables" and what Nazis did? If so, that's very different from calling for a Holocaust.

    You be the judge:

    GMCXFrOXkAAALXH?format=jpg&name=large

    The United States thankfully has very wide discretion of freedom of speech, which allows us to identify the true pieces of shit like you who can find ways to justify tossing out “Final Solution” at Jews.  This is garbage person shit, go crawl back in your fucking dumpster. 

  2. 2 minutes ago, B00M said:

    what aid package is Ukraine going to get that’s going to turn the war? The only way this war turns is if russias economy craters and/or their war machine runs out of fuel. All the aid packages do is buy time. Ukraine has no choice but to be short sighted WRT US support, particularly given that our support is demonstrably unreliable. 

    We should put into perspective that Russia’s defense budget for their entire military (not the war) is around 140 billion dollars. The U.S. and Europe easily match that just in the value of what we send to Ukraine let alone the rest of our defense spending.

    We could absorb a lot more and there was a time Ukraine could have made much larger gains. The concern is manpower in the long run. 
     

    • Hook 'Em 1
    • Like 1
    • Rage+1 2
  3. 5 minutes ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

    not wrong at all.  

    thanks for the google effort too. I knew my stuff off hand, off by a couple years, but still prime.

    You “just asked the question” of why Hamas was not designated as an FTO for the first 8 (10) years of its existence and suggested that maybe Israel was pulling the strings.

     

    Quote

    Hamas was founded in 1987 and was officially put on the US terror list in 1995.  In the 8 year span they blew up many buses, killing hundreds of Israeli Jews. So why the long wait to be on the terror list? Makes on wonder who is directing whom. 

     

    The actual answer is simple— the law creating a U.S. FTO designation did not pass until 1996 and Hamas was one of the first groups so designated. Anyway this is wasted effort, I can’t dumb down this enough, obviously.  Back to your hot takes about how Gaza should be ethnically cleansed for the good of Palestinians, somehow. 

    • Hook 'Em 1
    • Like 2
  4. Just now, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

    so i was off by a couple of years. Big deal. Keep scratching. 

    Well, that and completely wrong about whatever dumbass theory you have.

  5. 48 minutes ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

    Hamas was founded in 1987 and was officially put on the US terror list in 1995.  In the 8 year span they blew up many buses, killing hundreds of Israeli Jews. So why the long wait to be on the terror list? Makes on wonder who is directing whom. 

    Hamas was put on the FTO list in 1997 (not 1995) because that list and the authority to designate foreign terror organizations was authorized by an act passed in 1996 (The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996). Prior to that there was no official FTO designation. Hamas was in the first tranche of designations, on October 8, along with Hizbollah and shining path all-stars.

    https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations/

    Although I suppose that could be because Israel/the Jews just waited to have that act passed, as you insinuate. Thanks for offering your deep and well-researched takes on the Middle East. Clearly you spent those 40 years usefully. 

    • Like 2
    • Haha 1
  6. I lived in Karachi and while I realize that comparing India and Pakistan can start fights, the fact is the subcontinent has a lot of similar characteristics. In a broad brush, Pakistan and Karachi is likely cleaner than large Indian cities (astonishing after you see the level of pollution and trash in Karachi) while the security environment is worse in Pakistan. I know India is bad for women travelers, I don’t think that Pakistan is better so much as women travelers basically don’t try it alone; there are no yoga retreats or gurus or backpacking infrastructure. Rape and assault of local women was a constant drumbeat in the news. 
     

    My gut has never recovered, and while I was there low-grade discomfort was the norm and true good poisoning happened about once a month. Sweats, shits, vomits, sleeping hugging the toilet.  The smell of the city was unreal  when the wind came off of the lagoon where sewage and runoff drained (most of the time); the sky was a flint gray and filled with small raptors (kites) scavenging carrion and garbage. I went to a city beach and it was covered in garbage and it seemed to be garbage with a layer of sand mixed in all the way down. People offered camel rides and horse rides and the animals shit on the beach. No one was swimming, exactly, but lots of wading in oil-slicked surf with garbage and the occasional visible turd floating by. 
     

    The homes in elite areas and dedicated military housing were clean and tidy with well-maintained streets and gardens. There is an awe and love of the military, which maintains British customs and unit naming conventions and order. It is everything the rest of Pakistan is not and almost all Pakistanis save the Islamists love it deeply. After military bases, madrassas and rigorous Islamic schools are also the cleanest and most orderly oases.  The local unauthorized shrines and mosques are oases of tolerance but also complete chaos and grime. One can see the appeal of militant nationalism or Islam.

    Eid-Al-Adha, when Muslims sacrifice, is a time of joy and celebration and fun but to an outsider is a horror movie. The animals are simply slaughtered in the street with a dull knife and entrails left behind foe dust men in some neighborhoods and dogs or kites in most. I saw the city of 20 million from a rooftop in the late afternoon and understood what the sack of Jerusalem must have looked like after the first crusade when you read about knights wading through blood. 
     

    Provincial cities were if anything dirtier.  Only the desperately poor villages of straw and mud huts were tidy. Almost every town and neighborhood flew flags on every rooftop declaring loyalty to one or another political party or Islamic school. You did not see different flags next to each other. 
     

    I understand some of the high mountain villages and towns in the north, in Gilgit-Baltistan are truly lovely and pristine. One of the most beautiful, sophisticated, smart, and tolerant women I have met anywhere hailed from there; they share much with Tajiks and other Central Asians. Quite safe and welcoming if you can get there, which is the whole rub.  But I cannot recommend Karachi or Sindh for much all. And I didnt love what I saw of Punjab. Lahore is quite historical and has good food.

    • Hook 'Em 1
    • Like 1
  7. 3 minutes ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

    of course the creators of Zionism, European Ashkenazi Jews, formed Israel and are still the dominant political force (see Netanyahu's family).  The Sephardic / Mizrahi arrived much later, as did the Ethiopian Jews. 

    Why did all the Mizrahi go there? 

  8. 1 hour ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

    lolz, it's all about land and fighting the invading Zionists.  Simple really.  Yes, they hate Jews because of what they did to them , which btw is a lot worse than the relatively minor Pearl Harbor attack which cause massive hatred of the Japs.  

    Jew hatred arises out of political events.  Jews are the enemy but they are not the enemy simply because they are Jews (your incorrect mindset). 

    Jews are doing business in many Muslim lands and like I said even live in Iran.   You are a rookie but you have lots of company.  

    It really is dumb as hell to type something out like “the minor Pearl Harbor attack.”  That type of attack on a fleet would likely result in a nuclear strike from the United States or China if the equivalent happened today. 

  9. 2 minutes ago, Dirk X West said:

    This is the point so many people in the US struggle with when it comes to just about any conflict in the Middle East, i.e., "it don't matter, they've been killing each other for centuries!"

    It's also probably worth mentioning that the Jewish people that co-existed with their Muslim (and Christian) neighbors prior to the establishment of Israel are not the same people that make up the majority of current day Israelis.  Israel is a settler colony, not a resettlement of an indigenous population.

    The largest sub-group of Jews in Israel are the Mizrahi Jews— ie, Jews from the Middle East.  And then of course there’s all sorts of intermarriage. 
     

    Keep going, all the experts are doing great here! 

  10. 18 minutes ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

    i'm completely right.  Very few of you have the perspective of the Arab position, but stupidly blame anti-semitism which is wholly inaccurate. Hamas wasn't even formed until 1987 , previously Arafat was the ruler and still was until his death in 2005 , shortly thereafter Hamas took Gaza. It's NEVER been about anti-semitism . Never ever, yet rookies think I am making a mistake. Rookies have strength in numbers though, and this is one of the better political forums in the entire internet (I've been on about 75). Sad really. I made the same mistake when I was younger, the guilt shaming of so called "Jew hatred", but that does not exist in the classic anti-semitic form.

    Yes, Arabs hate Jews, cannot be denied, but they don't hate Jews simply because they are Jews.  Turks and Kurds hate each other, again it's about territory.  It happens.  Don't read more into that, it's actually simple. 

    I’m guessing that you’re bringing a lot firepower to this— ME professional with languages, credentials, time on the ground, professional or advance academic background as a regional expert, CT expert, historian, etc? 

  11. 45 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

    Brush up on your critical thinking a bit. There's a reason why Hamas is the only available option for people seeking emancipation. That is one of many reasons why I made sure to remind readers that nothing in the Middle East happens in a vacuum.

    Ok. Abbot says that the everyone protesting for Palestinian emancipation is supporting Hamas. You say that people seeking Palestinian emancipation have no choice but to support Hamas. 
     

    Lean into that, I guess?  Good luck. 

    • Haha 1
  12. 15 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

    Dude, the only thing I asked was for reflection and it's clear from your mechanical pushback and accusations that some people aren't ready to accept that Palestinians are human beings worthy of human rights or capable of experiencing the same kind of anger we're feeling. If you think there existed any emancipatory alternatives to Hamas in 2023, by all means, enlighten us.

    There were and remain a world of options open to Palestinians and people who support Palestinians other than “join Hamas or support Hamas.”  Trying to sneak that sort of binary in here is, ironically, the same binary that Abbott and Co. are pushing. 

    • Like 2
  13. 8 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

    He's responding to chainsaw. And while that should certainly be done because chainsaw says some crazy stuff, he's also dealing with internal conflict right now because right before his eyes he is seeing that the work done by him and others to convince the world that any anti-Israel sentiment after Hamas's disgusting attack is inherently anti-semitic has enabled and encouraged fascist government violence. Exactly like many here told him it would and he refused to believe. 

    I basically agree with @Chuckie Finster’s post word for word.  Plenty of room for self-reflection to go around, I’d say. 

  14. 3 minutes ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

    who are you quoting?  Also the correlation in the bold doesn't make sense. 

     

    3 minutes ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

    who are you quoting?  Also the correlation in the bold doesn't make sense. 

    It makes zero sense which is why I am calling out the prattle you have to wade through in Chainsaw’s post:

    Quote

    However upset we are about seeing our fellow Longhorns briefly subjected to unprovoked violence by the state, I hope we also reflect on how those valid feelings are and for generations have been elicited by the people of Gaza and the West Bank. They, too, are motivated to protest, to change things, and to resist. Those people are not free and have never known freedom, so they are drawn to emancipatory forces.

    I think we should reflect on how it's all too easy for us, living in our "free" (relative to Gaza) countries, to tsk tsk at Palestinians for sympathizing with (and in a few cases, providing material support to) a particular emancipatory force of which we disapprove. 

    “A particular emancipatory force of which we disapprove,” LOL.  That’s Hamas. Just type Hamas. 

  15. Hamas is a terrorist and criminal religious extremist group. It is not an “emancipatory force.” Don’t try to sneak that bullshit in here.

    Also your post is complete pseudo-intellectual twaddle that tries to make a stupid point sound smart:

    ”Since you’re angry at cops for beating up and arresting peaceful protestors, shouldn’t you also be more open to sympathizing with Hamas.” 
     

    No, we shouldn’t. That’s dumb AF. Just type what you mean, leftist communication is the WORST. 

    • Hook 'Em 2
    • Like 1
  16. I feel like there are a lot of threads being tied together that don’t necessarily belong getting tied together. This stuff exploded across the nation.  There have absolutely been some vile anti-Semitic activities that went beyond the pale on college campuses. And it seems like that got conflated to what was planned at UT, which was just speech, and that probably exploited by bad-faith actors who deliberately wanted to confuse the matter and posture as hard asses. 

    • Like 1
  17. 3 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

    So it was mid February of this year, and it was specifically about Russia nuclear capabilities in space with regards to anti satellite stuff. If they put an EMP in orbit to destroy some or one of our satellites you don't think we'd shoot it down as a matter of course to show we won't tolerate that sort of stuff?

    So it was mid February of this year, and it was specifically about Russia nuclear capabilities in space with regards to anti satellite stuff. If they put an EMP in orbit to destroy some or one of our satellites you don't think we'd shoot it down as a matter of course to show we won't tolerate that sort of stuff?

    I think we’re on a very public shame and deter campaign and that as long as that’s going on, it means that there hasn’t been a need to use other measures. Hard to speculate on what would happen if the Russians went through with it.  The UN vote and press leaks are all tactics to deter/pressure Russia not to launch. I think this vote is about the February tempest, I don’t think anything has gone up yet. 

    • Hook 'Em 2
  18. 7 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

    A month or two ago, there was a news story I happened across on one of the UFO subreddits that there was something in space that was gravely concerning to the US government. A week or so later, there was a news story about a satellite deorbitting and burning up in the atmosphere. Of course they said it was some ordinary satellite, but I wonder if that was a cover for us shooting down a satellite with a nuke or maybe an EMP. Prime tinfoil hat stuff, yes, but certainly not out of the realm of possibility. 

    I would take seriously the grave warnings but wouldn’t get too excited about any alleged U.S. kinetic action in space— which would undermine the warnings we are sending out. 

  19. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/04/24/statement-from-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-on-russias-veto-of-the-un-security-council-resolution-on-the-outer-space-treaty/
     

    Quote

    Today, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution, proposed jointly by the United States and Japan, that would have reaffirmed the fundamental obligation of States Parties to the Outer Space Treaty not to place nuclear weapons in orbit around the Earth. The resolution also would have called on all Member States not to develop nuclear weapons specifically designed to be placed in orbit. Placement by a State Party of a nuclear weapon in orbit would not only violate the Outer Space Treaty, but would threaten the vital communications, scientific, meteorological, agricultural, commercial, and national security services that any and all satellites provide to societies around the globe. As we have noted previously, the United States assesses that Russia is developing a new satellite carrying a nuclear device. We have heard President Putin say publicly that Russia has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space. If that were the case, Russia would not have vetoed this resolution.

     

    • Rage+1 4
    • Fuck Around and Find Out 4
×
×
  • Create New...