Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Mike]

Blood thirsty Israelis executed an unprovoked attack on a Gaza hospital and kidnapped 70 medics!

https://www.newarab.com/news/gaza-alarm-over-israels-detention-70-medics-hospital

WHO calls for Gaza hospital to be protected after reported raid

https://news.yahoo.com/calls-gaza-hospital-protected-reported-185854872.html

As Israel Besieges al-Awda Hospital, War Crimes in Gaza Have Become Unremarkable

https://jacobin.com/2023/12/israel-besiege-al-awda-hospital-war-crimes-deliberate-attack-civilians

What a bunch of evil bastards.

https://nypost.com/2023/12/14/news/moment-idf-soldiers-capture-70-armed-hamas-terrorists/

Oh.

[Hannibal]

He is the candidate of the really, really online Right and speaks pretty much only to them. It's why he'll never win because those people aren't nearly as numerous as their online echo chambers might convince them they are.

All of his positions are very popular ones across the Republican Party. He gets negative scores from the debates solely because he's a meanyhead who attacks Nikki Haley, the current favorite of the old guard Neocons and people who otherwise hate Republicans, and those people are massively overrepresented in the debate audience because the debates are nothing more than an intellectual exercise between people who have no chance of winning the nomination at this point.

"Popular position, unpopular personality" is a very common split for Republicans now that a variety of common sense positions have been declared off limits for discussion.

[Mike]

[THE_WIZARD_]

Mostly peaceful.

[Jeff Buchanan]

On it's face, it is difficult to reconcile upwards of 10K "civilian" deaths as reported by Hamas authorities associated with the IDF's "indiscriminate" bombing in Gaza. The concept of indiscriminate bombing causing civilian deaths is, for the most part, the global narrative and explains the decreasing support of Israel's battle to eliminate Hamas as a governing authority. It is very wrong headed.

We're in an age of new warfare where the rule of law in the conduct of a war (Internationally accepted rules of what is acceptable conduct in the use of force) has huge holes when it comes to applicability. Hammurabi's Babylonian Code initiated rules of war and these have evolved over time ..... up to now. The military arm of Hamas (along with multiple other terrorist organizations and some conventional armies) violates multiple established rules of conduct governing the use of force. I don't have to list these as most here are familiar with them to some extent. The IDF has taken a hard stance on Hama's military wing. They do not abide by the laws of war. They don't wear uniforms allowing an opposing force to distinguish between civilians and soldiers, they operate from all the kinds of places that the rules of war identify as off limits for conducting warfare. They don't treat POWs in accordance with the Geneva Conventions - the list goes on.

Why then should the IDF restrain itself, comply with the rules of war when it places their forces at a distinct military disadvantage? The public has little understanding of the shit sandwich that the IDF militarily and Israel politically is in. It's be damned if you do and damned if you don't and it's pretty clear what COA the Israelis have embraced to defeat a combatant that seeks their elimination - they will seek out and destroy the Hamas leadership wherever they are hiding, including the schools and hospitals, and will kill their soldiers, often dressed as and hiding out with civilians. One simply cannot insist the the IDF operate within the constraints of the rules of war when Hamas violates all of them.

This war is different. It is being fought outside of established tenants of lawful warfare. It is different because as in past wars, nation v. nation applied. It does not here but you still have a combatant organization with military and political arms, not entirely unlike a nation state. Hamas' stated goal is the elimination of the state of Israel. The IDF is fighting Hamas within an evolving set of rules that don't resemble those that have prevailed for centuries and involved armies of nation states that failed to achieve political objectives and chose to use force to obtain them. Non-state actors like Hamas have no claim to seek protection under prohibitive rules of war. and for humanitarian reasons. Fuck them.

[crashcourse]

more vivek

https://twitter.com/i/status/1735129481134616869

[Hannibal]

Hamas is trying to pull a lot of the same tricks that guerilla armies have been pulling since right after World War II. The first and foremost of those being the use of civilians as human shields and then pinning the deaths of those civilians on the aggressor. Only problem is -- they are trying it against a country that doesn't give a fuck and is operating on the rules of warfare that predate WWII, not the ones that came about after. Israel has their own bank of Oppression Points to draw from and that's something that Hamas likely wasn't counting on. That's not to say that it's having zero effect, but there are other dynamics at play here that haven't been there for any of the US's foreign wars.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Slipped into the NDAA (that just passed) is a provision that requires the President to get approval from Congress to withdraw from NATO. Wonder who that was aimed at???

Congress approves bill barring any president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO | The Hill

[THE_WIZARD_]

STFU

[Jeff Buchanan]

More on Israel's battle against Hamas. In a NYT's piece .......

The Biden administration wants Israel to adopt a more precise strategy in its war against Hamas, using smaller elite forces to rescue hostages, kill Hamas leaders and destroy tunnels, senior U.S. officials said.

This is a politically required and expedient stand for the Biden administration to take. I doubt it amounts to a kind of ultimatum. It's very clear the Israeli government does not care about the carefully crafted global narrative that the political wing of Hamas and its facilitator, Iran, have produced.

Let's be clear. The US has pursued a failed strategy of "targeted killings" in the Sahel region of northern Africa. Where is the stability the US and friendly Arab states have pursued? It is non-existent and is a ill-conceived extension of US foreign policy the US pursued successfully with al Qaida. There are reasons why this was effective - one of them being an extensive conventional military presence involving extensive special operations in the affected region under Al Qaida control.

There is no parallel in the Sahel and it is why this is a hot bed of terrorist activity funded mostly by Iran that seeks to disrupt any pathway to peace and regional stability, antithetical to their strategic objectives, i.e., the elimination of Israel and US presence in the ME.

There will be no stability in the ME until Hamas is eliminated as a governing and military authority, an Iranian proxy along with Hezbollah and other minor terrorist operations under the umbrella of Iran. Arab states need to politically marginalize Iran with a key intent to stymie Iran's nuclear weapons programs as leverage against the west and their Aram enemies. The question of what to do after Hamas is a pressing and legitimate one. The present narrative involves the re-establishment of a two state solution advanced via the Abraham Accords. IMO, there will be no two state solution acceptable to the current Israeli government and its right wing nationalist advocates. The Israeli government needs to change. Both Hamas and the PA need to be replaced as governing authorities. I have no problem with a military administration of Gaza and the West Bank made up of a joint force of Arab states NOT including a US military or IDF presence with the IDF assigned at an absolute minimum in a border control and protection role. Both sides, the PA and Israel, under new leadership, have to eliminate or marginalize the extremist components within their governments. The one good thing about this war between Hamas and Israel is that it re-enforces global willingness on finding a solution, acceptable on Israel's terms, of the Palestinian issue.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Hahaha…one of the absolute dumbest people in Congress

[THE_WIZARD_]

die

[Dr. Strangelove]

Someone at the Supreme Court is still leaking stuff related to the Dobbs decision. This time it's a lot of internal communication.

Inside the Supreme Court’s Dismantling of Roe - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

[Mike]

Higgins and Giuliani have the goods. They're just waiting for the right time to release it.

[CGVT]

Higgins and Giuliani have the goods. They're just waiting for the right time to release it.

They'll release it about the same time Trump releases his health care plan