Jump to content

statsman

Full Members
  • Posts

    2660
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by statsman

  1. Israeli society is divided over how to prioritize the country’s two main war aims—destroying Hamas and freeing 130 hostages kidnapped on Oct. 7 last year—and many say the goals are irreconcilable https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-set-out-to-destroy-hamas-and-free-hostagesbut-worries-it-cant-do-both-f6b6fc9d?st=7x4l01krsdbf6xz&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
  2. Russia has gone into overdrive advancing a narrative that pins the blame on Ukraine for last week’s attack on concertgoers in Moscow https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/russia-doubles-down-on-bid-to-link-concert-massacre-to-ukraine-and-the-west-b44f8e2b?st=38q7rk3irugu7gx&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
  3. So, to recap- Goines creates a pretense to charge in, falsely. He has heroin in his vehicle, ready to plant. The police bust in, shoot the Tuttles and each other, killing the Tuttles and injuring Goines enough that he couldn’t plant the heroin. Goines retires with his pension and dodges criminal charges. Way, to go, Houston, way to go.
  4. Yeah. I would argue that whoever a society or people gets it into their heads that they are innately superior to another, really shitty things happen. That’s why I think we Americans should embrace an identity as the mongrels and castoffs of the world.
  5. No intent to derail thread; I hope this adds perspective on making horrible decisions (when the question itself is horrible and all the options are horrible). Imperial Japan had a bio weapon research unit in China, Unit 731. They killed 200-300k, but they were almost entirely Chinese populations, so the west took little notice. They were working on a plan to spread pestilence to California. Their operation shut down immediately upon the post Nagasaki surrender. The army leaders went to the pens where human test subjects were kept, popped a cap into each of them, and abandoned the base. Unit 731 did not factor into the atom bomb decision, but I can be persuaded that almost anything that expedited its end was worthwhile.
  6. I have a line I use in discussions about the U.S. using nukes to end the war in the pacific. “We were at war with monsters (Imperial Japan could match Hamas, atrocity for atrocity), and in order to defeat them, we did monstrous things”.
  7. I think that’s in the future.
  8. There is a little more to this. During the Holocaust, the western nations had opportunities to help, by taking in refugee Jews. Some individuals helped, bending rules and skirting regulations, to help some escape. They had to break rules, because western governments were more concerned about keeping another war from breaking out, and dealing with domestic issues. For example, see the ship that FDR sent away from Miami, full of German Jews trying to find sanctuary in America, pre-war. After the war, there were survivors of the camps. Some tried to return home, and reclaim property. Many were killed, notably in Poland. It turns out that murderous anti-Semitism was not purely a German feature. This played a big part in the creation of modern Israel. The western nations were trying to settle down, and really didn’t want the agitation of dealing with “them” (check out contemporary news accounts of Jewish post war refugees in the NYT archives; they are jarring in their anti-Semitism). When the Zionist proposed the Levant, the western powers couldn’t believe their luck. “Never again” to the Gentile world means “we’ll never stand aside and watch a genocide again”, which clearly, is bullshit (ask the Rohingyas and Uighers, among others). The world absolutely will stand aside and watch. “Never again” to Jews means “we’ll never count on Gentiles to save us or even do simply the right thing again. We’ll take care of our protection ourselves” and they mean it. So, here we are. There is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel could do more to help. Hamas is actively trying to keep aid from civilians, because this disaster is their best chance of survival as an organization. And if Hamas does survive as an organization? They will be seen as the victors, and the leaders of the Palestinian people. Goodbye, Fatah and Palestinian Authority. A couple of things that could be discussed more: Iran is bankrolling Hamas’ military ventures. Their hands are far more involved in this than Qatar’s. Oh, for a coherent Iran policy. I don’t know if Israel has an end game strategy for Hamas, but it will have to involve killing a lot of Hamas militants and leaders. They “declared war” on Hamas, but any ending that looks like a conventional war ending (surrender, detentions of leaders, occupation) isn’t a real ending at all, but merely a stay in the conflict. We know from experience with Guantanamo releases that nobody gets reformed and rehabilitated in ME conflicts. So, part of me wonders if Israel has thought this ending through, and part of me fears that it has and we might see it.
  9. As the WSJ's Gershkovich reaches a grim anniversary in a Russian jail, an inside look at the secret prison swaps between Putin and Washington. https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/russia-u-s-prisoner-swaps-gershkovich-whelan-be4576f8?st=1h56b1x8non1xhv&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
  10. The future of Unwra, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, is in the air as Arab countries fail to fill the funding gap left by the U.S.https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/arab-nations-balk-at-funding-u-n-aid-agency-vital-to-palestinians-5f79a5e9?st=l91wr88i2nbgp23&reflink=share_mobilewebshare Shitty situation. Gazan civilians need humanitarian aid. UNRWA is hobbled by lack of funding, due to ties to Hamas. Israel is prioritizing security over getting the aid there (fear of weapons smuggling, fear of aid getting to Hamas). Hamas is the enemy of the aid getting to the civilian populace (humanitarian suffering increases international pressure on Israel to cease fire). In short-Israel is ambivalent about Gazan suffering (at best, alleviating it is very much a lesser priority) and Hamas wants the suffering to worsen in the near term, in support of getting a cease fire. Shitty situation.
  11. This may or may not add perspective- My dad was a career, 26 years enlisted man in the U.S. Army. He was proud of serving and proud of his country. He went to Vietnam in 1969, a 32 years old SFC, with a wife and three kids back home. He had a tough duty, running a sniper school in the Mekong Delta, and getting plenty of duty in the field, as well (and sometimes the CIA would pick him up because they got info and needed him for a “shoot”). He told me recently that in his tour over there, about halfway through, he and his peers realized that we (the U.S.) weren’t fighting to win, and thus, weren’t going to win. He says that his attitude and approach changed with that revelation, and he became much less willing to take on risks to further the mission. He said, “No one wanted to be the last one to die for a mistake” (the ‘mistake’ being the war). Ukraine is on track to lose this war, at best losing the areas Russia claims, at worst losing more. It didn’t have to be that way, but that’s where it’s heading because Russia is on a wartime production footing and Ukraine can’t match it. The west could match it, but “we” hoped instead to support Ukraine the cheap and easy way, giving them a bunch of old and not very functional (talking about the French here) ordnance. I posted on this thread a year and a half ago, that we could give Ukraine all we have to spare, or we could give them what they need to win. We chose the former. More people are going to suggest that Ukraine negotiate a new border. Once that starts, the western politicians will jump on that opportunity to stop worrying about paying for guns instead of butter, and it really will be all over for Ukraine.
  12. You’re recommending they handle her medical situation the same way as King Charles’, and that went fine for him. Why wouldn’t/couldn’t they do the same for her?
  13. I think a big part of their problem is that their soldiers get sent to the front, and rarely get rotated out. There is corruption; men can bribe their way out of the draft, or bribe their way to better assignments. Now that they are being driven backwards, and rationing bullets and shells, being a Ukrainian soldier looks like a pretty awful option.
  14. If this war is about the size of Ukraine’s military, they do not have a chance of winning. Thats the war Russia wants to fight, where soldiers are just numbers, and they are expended as needed. Ukraine’s only chance is to fight as a western army, but they need the advantages of a western army- the top weapons, and functioning supply chains. But, here we are. Two years in, and nobody in the west has gone into wartime production of artillery shells. They have been given various defunct missile systems, and they are running out. Frankly, the western governments are not acting seriously. We act as if it is a strategy to give them three different tank systems, in various states of disrepair, and say, “MacGyver this into a victory”.
  15. Damn. My autocorrect let me down
  16. So, where do the royals get their healthcare? It’s not the NHS, is it?
  17. Ukraine’s armed forces desperately need fresh troops to hold back massed Russian offensives—but political dithering is leaving front-line units threadbarehttps://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukraines-battered-army-grapples-with-growing-troop-shortage-6d695eba?st=pq9g1pwjmrmycmt&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
  18. What a fucking idiot. L-O-fucking-L! This moron doesn’t get it- he’s wondering why they just flipped the 2024 schedule, instead of playing the other half of the league in 2025. Texas and OU are playing each year. Arkansas wants one thing- an annual game with Texas. Now, the Aggies may not want that game every year, but ESPN does. OU may have a tough adjustment.
  19. We saw them at the 1991 SXSW, really enjoyed their cover of “Shattered” (I think they played in the Texas Union).
  20. Wait,…didn’t Argentina beat England? Or, are we not talking about 1989 World Cup?
  21. Thank you for the example. I think a more accurate summation of her career is “she was a mid to high level state department employee for thirty years”.
  22. I wondered the same, before. I think he is some tech guy, connected to Musk somehow. There is a funny type of intelligence that wants to see patterns and conspiracies where there really aren’t any. These are the people who get honestly sucked in by the Russian propaganda nonsense. You can spot them by their pet responses: ”That’s what they’d like you to think.” ”You really believe that’s a coincidence?” It seems to be a real desire to demonstrate being smarter than everyone else There is a poor woman, named Victoria Nuland, an under-secretary of state, who by all accounts does a hard working and merit-worthy job. This poor woman’s career is nearly ruined by these conspiracy mongers. They claim she is the chess piece mover controlling US foreign policy behind the scenes.
  23. Can someone save me from a shitload of googling? OK, I get that the king of England, 500 years ago, was filthy rich, primarily through owning a bunch of property. So, they had Crimwelk’s revolution, and executed the king. Q1: did they then have the state take the property? Or a bunch of barons take it? Or a combination? (I’m guessing that it wasn’t put in a blind trust, but I could be wrong) Then, a couple of decades later, they decided they needed a king again, and brought this German guy over to be king (and thus, the Windsors). W2: Did they then just give him a bunch of property? Was it pretty much what the executed king had? Thanks
  24. WSJ article just says Washington has requested they not do anything to drive up energy costs. https://www.wsj.com/world/zelensky-criticizes-u-s-military-aid-delays-as-russia-strikes-power-plants-957342b4?st=vpt2egp5hlzsavt&reflink=mobilewebshare_permalink
×
×
  • Create New...