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Posted
2 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

It is not my fault that literally all of them spun up in direct response to Israeli/US/Saudi Arabian actions.

Response for some.  Pretext for others.  When it comes to Iranian militarization of same, almost ENTIRELY pretext.  There is no reason for Iran to be fomenting war against Israel (and save me any "well, Iran really cares about the Palestinian people" -- that's utter bullshit and everyone knows it).

I just find perpetual victim-blaming -- which your hatred of Israel inevitably becomes and is -- infuriating.  Note that goes for Gaza too, and the people who shrug their shoulders at the ethnic cleansing there saying "well, they shouldn't live where Hamas is" or some shit.  A lot of fucking excuses for hatred and atrocities, with zero fucking ownership of any human solutions.  It's fucking sickening and exhausting, and it's only going to lead to more dead Israelis and jews (because the Palestinian cause and grievances are "righteous") and more dead Palestinians (because Israel's defense against/response to attacks by Hamas etc. is "righteous").  Gonna "righteous" themselves both right into fucking extinction, so one of you can claim moral superiority over the blood-soaked rubble.  What a victory to look forward to.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

I just find perpetual victim-blaming -- which your hatred of Israel inevitably becomes and is

Holy shit, what an obnoxiously terrible take. 

Posted
2 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

And that's why you don't order an airstrike because you think it will play well on the teevee.

We learned a long time ago - and Ukraine has proven a stark example of that in modern warfare - airstrikes don't "win" shit.  You don't accomplish real goals on the ground without....boots on the ground.  Want to take out Iran's nuclear sites?  It's going to take troops going into each of those facilities to do so.

Anything less is mostly a show that results in buying some time, maybe.

Countdown to Trump being outraged that people are questioning his tactical and strategic brilliance, and ordering a ground invasion because goddammit he said so?

Posted (edited)
2 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

Holy shit, what an obnoxiously terrible take. 

 

2 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

simon cowell facepalm GIF

Yeah I'm done responding, good luck with all that buddy.

Cool.  You've seen my posts.  You know that I am regularly and often "on your side," offer positive rep for a decent take, etc.  I'm just telling you that I -- as that same person who agrees with much of your reasoning -- finds the constant "but Israel" shit exhausting and frustrating as hell.  I find it no less exhausting than the counterpart "everything Israel does is justified because Israel good Hamas bad" shit takes we see plenty of around here.

Edited by Brisketexan
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Posted
1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

We learned a long time ago - and Ukraine has proven a stark example of that in modern warfare - airstrikes don't "win" shit.  You don't accomplish real goals on the ground without....boots on the ground.  Want to take out Iran's nuclear sites?  It's going to take troops going into each of those facilities to do so.

Anything less is mostly a show that results in buying some time, maybe.

Countdown to Trump being outraged that people are questioning his tactical and strategic brilliance, and ordering a ground invasion because goddammit he said so?

The one thing Trump has always had good instincts on is that he doesn't want to put American boots on the ground. But tons of people around him and everyone on Fox News is going to be coaxing him to do so and I don't think he's got the self control to say no at the end of the day. 

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

 

Cool.  You've seen my posts.  You know that I am regularly and often "on your side," offer positive rep for a decent take, etc.  I'm just telling you that I -- as that same person who agrees with much of your reasoning -- finds the constant "but Israel" shit exhausting and frustrating as hell.  I find it no less exhausting than the counterpart "everything Israel does is justified because Israel good Hamas bad" shit takes we see plenty of around here.

I know man but that is just a really bad take that isn't in alignment with what I actually believe and you should know better. Like I have fucking family in Israel, I don't hate it, I want it to be better than it is.

Posted (edited)
7 minutes ago, Ted Lange said:

 

Looks like the NYT accidentally got added to our drunk Sec Def signal chat. 

and Israel doesn’t just buy Congress people to get its way.  

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
Posted (edited)
7 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

I know man but that is just a really bad take that isn't in alignment with what I actually believe and you should know better. Like I have fucking family in Israel, I don't hate it, I want it to be better than it is.

I actually do believe that you believe what you say in your stated conclusion.  I just find the "all roads lead to Rome" approach of "nothing shitty happening in the ME happens without bad guy Israel and their butt buddy the US" lazy, overbroad, and thus incorrect.  Which is frustrating, because Israeli shittiness and US bullshittery unquestionably ARE material factors in much ME shit, but when everything comes back to those being THE "but-for" cause, it necessarily absolves all the other players of responsibility, no matter how much you say that's not what you're doing.  "Sure, Hamas and Assad and the Iranian regime are bad, but, but-for Israeli shittiness, they wouldn't be an issue" absolves the other players.  Being a factor vs. being the but-for cause are two different things, and the distinction matters.  

I am not unsympathetic to you, the things you have stated concerns about, etc. - again, you can read my posting history.  I'm just telling you that a one-note message of "sure, X is bad, but but-for Israel, we wouldn't have X" is a lazy message that necessarily dismisses any complexity and absolves all other parties of blame or agency.  And that's frustrating as shit, especially from someone who arguably does not believe that.

Edited by Brisketexan
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Posted
3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Those groups would EXIST without Iran, most likely.   However, they would not have existed as a material fighting/disruptive force without Iran.  Iranian support -- dollars, training, weapons -- is absolutely what enabled Hezbollah to wage war for decades (as just one example).  Sure, Israel and its bullshit were an impetus for the existence of many of these groups, I don't think anyone has argued otherwise.  But the difference between Hezbollah a group of people pissed at Israel and able to cause a bit of chaos here and there vs. Hezbollah a group of people capable of controlling the Lebanese government and waging actual war against Israel is a big one.  And Iran was the difference-maker.

You might say the relationship between Iran and terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas is sort of like the relationship between the United States and Israel. 

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Posted
1 minute ago, WhatTheBuck said:

You might say the relationship between Iran and terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas is sort of like the relationship between the United States and Israel. 

You might indeed.  The analogy is far from perfect, but it doesn't completely miss the mark, either.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

"Sure, Hamas and Assad and the Iranian regime are bad, but, but-for Israeli shittiness, they wouldn't be an issue" absolves the other players.

Actually, my position on Iran has been all along that they likely wouldn't be led a regime this shitty in the first place had we not deposed their democratically elected leadership at the behest of British oil interests. I don't think I've ever once blamed Israel for the way Iran is today. Sure, they have their own agency, they could have just sat around, allowed the Pahlavi dynasty continue to brutally oppress them in perpetuity, and not done the Iranian Revolution, but is that a fair criticism?

I make the same argument about Mexican drug cartels. Yes, they are horrifying monsters with plenty of agency to not be the way they are, but it's unlikely they would have had the opportunity to become as powerful and ubiquitous as they are if it weren't for the insanely idiotic American War on Drugs. Similar to how it's very unlikely that the Ayatollah could have become as powerful as he did without the pressure cooker created by the monarchy that we [re]installed in their country.

Hamas is a different animal, because at its inception it appeared to be a grassroots movement in response to the perceived corruption and growing unpopularity of the PLO, heavily (and discreetly) supported by Israel, I might add. It's patently ridiculous to blame its existence or its continued existence on Iran, as well, considering we know how it was continually propped up by Israel, and even received lots of outside support from other countries at the behest of Israel.

The things you continually call a "but-for" are just necessary historical context.

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Posted
21 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

and Israel doesn’t just buy Congress people to get its way.  

It is funny how not even 10 days after Elon Musk tweeted out to the world that Trump is on the Epstein files, Trump agrees to drop some bigass bombs on the country fighting Epstein's (ALLEGED) employer that definitely (ALLEGEDLY) has those files

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Posted
35 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I'm just telling you that I -- as that same person who agrees with much of your reasoning -- finds the constant "but Israel" shit exhausting and frustrating as hell.

You’re also the same guy who, for fucking years, carried GOP water like a loyal Reaganist soldier on these boards. 

But you’re smart and you eventually saw the light once you took a breath and actually thought about things. I trust you’ll eventually do the same on this issue, too. 

Posted (edited)
34 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

You might say the relationship between Iran and terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas is sort of like the relationship between the United States and Israel. 

This is an Anastasis-level #bothsides take, wow. 
 

No, and I can’t believe I even have to type these words, the relationship between Iran and her two terrorist clients/proxies in the Levant is in no respect like the relationship between the United States and Israel. 
 

good grief. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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Posted
3 hours ago, Vegas64 said:

Just read the article. What jumps out to me is this:

A) "We know that social inequality and hierarchy was central to society"

B) "However, we've found some ancient ruins that suggest an alternative egalitarian set up"

This reads to me like if in the future archeologists said, "Listen we know America 4000 years ago was very stratified and oligarchical and increasingly fascist and there was great income and life inequality, but based on us digging up the spiritual camp and hippie commune in the desert outside of Bakersfield, maybe they were actually not this way!"

We digress...

The narrative you will like is that stratification endured, not the egalitarian model. Which was much more extensive than you have yet credited, see link. My point is that we can dispense with the idea that stratification is a human constant from “time immemorial.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04216-1

Posted (edited)

I would just like to point out how an unbelievable shit show this whole thing was, had you told me that Trump, Bibi, and the Ayotollah would all conspire with each other to stage a show on how to cement themselves in power I might have believed you.

As it stands Israel went to war without a realistic objective or a realistic means to achieve their objectives. Trump put on a show flexing military power to a supposed isolationist fanbase, and the Supreme Leader got the excuse to triple down on getting nukes and root out Mossad assets. Aside from the people that died/maimed/lost everything, the biggest losers are the ones who were exposed to this farce, us.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-said-weighing-snap-elections-in-light-of-popular-iran-offensive/

 

Edited by linux
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Posted
12 minutes ago, linux said:

I would just like to point out how an unbelievable shit show this whole thing was, had you told me that Trump, Bibi, and the Ayotollah would all conspire with each other to stage a show on how to cement themselves in power I might have believed you.

As it stands Israel went to war without a realistic objective or a realistic means to achieve their objectives. Trump put on a show flexing military power to a supposed isolationist fanbase, and the Supreme Leader got the excuse to triple down on getting nukes and root out Mossad assets. Aside from the people that died/maimed/lost everything, the biggest losers are the ones who were exposed to this farce, us.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-said-weighing-snap-elections-in-light-of-popular-iran-offensive/

 

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRXDsjbovK8gXh9NxeSqlJ

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Posted
3 hours ago, The Original Greaser Bob said:

Sure.  And our strategy to defeat Japan did not equate to a commitment to nuke Japan, despite how rhetoric is generally presented.  

Same with the Russian nukes on Cuba. There was no commitment when N. Kruschevchev said "we will bury you.".  Despite how that rhetoric was gnerally presented.

I don't think one can ever say that a developed nuke will or won't be used.  I do think that Israel's justification for fearing nuclear weapons, given the history of the 20th and 21st century, is way more rational than your sanguinity.

 

Did Kruschevchev nuke the US?

I would be convinced that Bibi's fear of getting nuked was more genuine if actually did something, anything, to deescalate the conflict with Iran.  His one and only response to that fear is to attack them - their uranium operations, ok, but also their leadership, their TV stations, etc.  Those actions obviously continue to harden and deepen the conflict. Even Reagan negotiated with the USSR.  Bibi pushes hard against any deal between the US and Iran. And despite this terror of a glowing Tel Aviv, they continue to expand their territory with illegal settlements and brutalize the Palestinians living there.  These are not the actions of a frightened government. Yeah, no one wants a nuclear Iran, but to me it's pretty clear that Bibi wants to keep that threat always 6 months to two years aways so he always has an excuse.  

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Posted
11 minutes ago, Tuco said:

Did Kruschevchev nuke the US?

I would be convinced that Bibi's fear of getting nuked was more genuine if actually did something, anything, to deescalate the conflict with Iran.  His one and only response to that fear is to attack them - their uranium operations, ok, but also their leadership, their TV stations, etc.  Those actions obviously continue to harden and deepen the conflict. Even Reagan negotiated with the USSR.  Bibi pushes hard against any deal between the US and Iran. And despite this terror of a glowing Tel Aviv, they continue to expand their territory with illegal settlements and brutalize the Palestinians living there.  These are not the actions of a frightened government. Yeah, no one wants a nuclear Iran, but to me it's pretty clear that Bibi wants to keep that threat always 6 months to two years aways so he always has an excuse.  

Not to mention they are currently colonizing Syria, they have the leader they always wanted and their response is that they own the territory south of Damascus.

https://www.voanews.com/a/netanyahu-says-israel-won-t-allow-syrian-forces-south-of-damascus-/7985248.html

If the Israeli public is stupid enough to continue down this path then they are the same death cult they portray islam as.

Posted
54 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

This is an Anastasis-level #bothsides take, wow. 
 

No, and I can’t believe I even have to type these words, the relationship between Iran and her two terrorist clients/proxies in the Levant is in no respect like the relationship between the United States and Israel. 
 

good grief. 

United States and Contras?

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Posted
22 minutes ago, Ted Lange said:

These rubes are getting pissed and arguing with Grok again.

 

image.png.1a5fe8afbf9463650c2caf460fd8269c.png

I love how "woke" is now just a word that means "anything that doesn't support the Trump narrative."  The MAGA ability to just make up definitions for things that has no tie to reality: woke, DEI, CRT...it's impressive to watch.

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Tuco said:

Did Kruschevchev nuke the US?

The question is whether you would have ignored the threat.  Would you have?

 

1 hour ago, Tuco said:

I would be convinced that Bibi's fear of getting nuked was more genuine if actually did something, anything, to deescalate the conflict with Iran. 

I think he is.  He's assassinating their leaders and destroying their defenses.  I think they are move likely to deescalate their hostilities now than they a few months ago.  But it was always inevitable as long as Iran continued to be and support Israel's enemies.  

Edited by The Original Greaser Bob
Posted
2 hours ago, HenryJames said:

 

I once took two Midnight Hammers and washed them down with an OG 4Loko. Snapped out of it 18 hours later locked up in Debo's chicken coop. 

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Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, HenryJames said:

 

Wow we spent tons of money and made ourselves hated around the world and achieved basically nothing. America ladies and gentlemen.

Look I hate to be captain obvious here but Iran is inevitably going to get a nuke if they want one. If you want to stop them you have to do something a little more drastic than just drop a few bombs.

Or, you know, negotiate and sign a deal like Obama did. 

Edited by Valmy77
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Posted
43 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

United States and Contras?

I don’t know if there’s a good comparison available.

when I was at UT during the troubles the IRA/Sinn Fein sent this young lady to recruit Irish Americans and American leftists of all stripes and our money to the cause of a free and Independent Irish Republic.
It made no difference that most of us were not Roman Catholic or even Irish. Ireland and the world beckoned us to join the struggle! Further, the solidarity of purpose between a free Ireland and a free Palestine (and, sotto voce, against the unholy alliance of great power imperialism and international Jewry) was repeatedly and strongly emphasized. 

Anyway she was a knockout. Thick auburn hair, freckles, green eyes, and built to be painted on a B-29. Sort of a mix between prime Lindsey Lohan and Michelle Monaghan.
 

I didn’t volunteer to go fight and I didn’t have any money to give but I did shoot my shot and went down in flames. I feel that in my own way I did my part as a martyr for the cause. 

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Posted
29 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

I once took two Midnight Hammers and washed them down with an OG 4Loko. Snapped out of it 18 hours later locked up in Debo's chicken coop. 

I smoked a bowl after a Midnight Hammer once; got the munchies so bad I ate an entire Dessert Storm.  

 



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