Chucktshoes

While there have been many arguments made that the fire bombing of cities like Tokyo and Dresden constituted war crimes committed by the allies, it was the situation of state actors involved in declared warfare. It’s not a one to one comparison with a state actor, going after nonstate actor combatants embedded in civilian populations. I think a more comparable situation can be found in Iraq. When US forces leveled Falluja, they set up a civilian humanitarian corridor to allow noncombatants and innocence to escape prior to invading. This is required by the laws of warfare and failure to do so constitutes a war crime. It’s not a hard question. It’s one we all know the answer to. But the question I ask is does that justify a death sentence against those children now?

Not really. You keep using metaphors to avoid using plain language. Gaza has a median age of 19 years old. The majority of the population are children. Are they considered snakes in that den? Are they deserving of being wiped out? So once again, I will ask my question in plain English, and would hope for an answer in plain English. Am I understanding your position correctly that you are advocating for a genocide of the Palestinians?

To be clear, what you’re advocating here is genocide. There are 2.2 million inhabitants of Gaza city. It is the third most densely populated place on the planet in. am I understanding your position correctly?

The question to ask at that point is “at what cost?” Is there a price that is too high to pay to achieve these ends? Who will pay that cost, and who will benefit? The cost of vengeance rarely exacts a lesser toll on the person seeking it than the person receiving it.

As is always the case with something like this happens, a great question to ask yourself is “are you being manipulated, and by whom for what ends?”

Looks like you might be getting your wish.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/former-mossad-chief-israel-enforcing-apartheid-system-west-102957888

Even Israeli human rights organizations have labeled it an apartheid state along with Amnesty Intl., the UN and basically every other human rights org on the planet. You are 100% correct that their security situation as a nation drives their policy. The name for that policy is apartheid. https://www.wordnik.com/words/apartheid noun An official policy of racial segregation formerly practiced in the Republic of South Africa, involving political, legal, and economic discrimination against nonwhites. noun A policy or practice of separating or segregating groups. noun The condition of being separated from others; segregation.

True, but the Jews living there weren’t enforcing an apartheid ethno-state at the time. That tends to change the dynamic a bit. It is a broad brush because the subject is broad. I’m not attempting to single out Israel as being especially evil or anything, simply speaking of practicalities. You just can’t set up an ethno-state in the middle of a large non-ingroup population without keeping them fully under the thumb. Look at the history of European colonization and the end of that era for example after example of how it goes. I may not support the concept of Zionism, but I don’t blame the Zionists for understanding the assignment. To bring it closer to home, look at the history of this nation as it relates to the native Americans. Native tribes had to be thoroughly subjugated to allow for the creation of what became the United States. Folks get squeamish talking about it these days, but it is empirically the truth. *When I refer to Zionism and Zionists, that’s not an antisemitic shorthand for “the Jews”. I’m speaking of it in the definitional terms of it as a nationalist movement. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism Equating criticisms of Zionism or Israel with antisemitism or hatred of Jewish people as a whole is a reductive position that I think harms the ability to substantively discuss the issues involved.*

I’m of the view that the creation of Israel as it was done in the aftermath of WWII was done with the best of intentions, but there’s a saying about that path’s destination. Attempts for Israel to be at peace will never succeed because you can’t conquer territory in the manner required to form a nation within the post-WWII rules based western order. It’s entire design has been setup to prevent that. At the same time, Zionism, if it is to be successful, requires the full subjugation or expulsion of any dissident minority people groups along with the understanding of potential antagonist entities that there are zero restraints on retaliation to attacks. In an attempt to right the wrongs committed against Jews in Europe, Europeans took land outside of Europe that had belonged to folks who weren’t guilty of those wrongs. Land they had been on for over a thousand years. I don’t see how that situation will ever work. Imagine if your neighbors had a family living in their home and killed half of them. Then your other neighbors went in and kicked their butts and afterwards came to your house and said, “hey, we know you didn’t have anything to do with that whole mess but these folks said they used to live here before they got evicted a long time ago. You’re gonna give up half your house to them. Then over the next few years your new housemates took over more and more of your house. As to the second half (and primary point) of your post, I don’t see how your fears are unfounded. We had 80ish years of the liberal rules based order that kept things mostly peaceful. I strongly feel as if that time is quickly passing into the history books.

Air Force. Didn’t do much militarying, but I did sit around in comfortable digs thinking about stuff.

Just like those that called me a racist when I condemned the BLM riots had no sway over me, I won’t be cowed by charges of anti-semitism because I question if our alliance with the nation-state of Israel actually serves our interests. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, if you’d like to get back to making the case that supporting Israel in their military response IS in the best interests of the American people, I’d love to get back to that conversation.

You’re right that the prohibition only completely works when the ban is complete. It always leaks in around the edges though and sometimes something gets big enough that we have to at least attempt to make space for it. I’m personally always hopeful that things remain respectful. Sadly, I’m mostly wrong. Sometimes I’m not though. I think I remember the Ukraine thread dying out instead of being closed even with some widely diverging opinions there. That was a pretty good one. You are wrong about the first part of your first sentence. Your opinion does matter here.

This is a hilariously bad twisting of the things I’ve actually said combined with a supremely sillier attempt to put some things in my mouth I didn’t even come close to saying. It’s also hilarious to me how even the mildest criticism of Israel, or questioning if the US’s absolute support is actually in our best interest or not gets one labeled as an anti-Semite or worse. It’s ok though. I’m used to this tactic as I’ve been dealing with it from arguing with leftists for years on the internet. “Maybe we should deal with our logistics and energy infrastructure before we send tens of billions to Ukraine in a proxy war.” ”Why do you want Russia to win, you Putin stooge?” “Maybe we should put our citizens first and secure our borders?” ”Why do you hate Mexicans, you racist?” ”I’m not sure our domestic social safety net is sustainable.” “Why do you want old and poor people to starve you heartless SOB?” It’s just plain funny to me.

Two of them are our business. One of them ain’t.

9 dead, unknown number missing and unaccounted for. Now I’m gonna come off a bit heartless sounding here. For any Americans that have found themselves dead or captured by Hamas, they have my sympathy, but that doesn’t extend enough to risk the lives of service members or further escalations of hostilities to rescue them. When one travels abroad they need to understand that the risks involved. Sure, they went to some rave for peace or whatever, but if you are in Israel you have a significantly more than non-zero chance of getting caught up in the crossfire between Israelis and Palestinians. They rolled the dice and it came up craps. Sorry for their luck.

I’m just able to understand the distinction between Israel of the Scriptures, the modern day apartheid state of Israel, and Jews, as a descriptor of people who hold a religion though made up of various cultural and ethnic backgrounds. One of those three groups is a direct participant in creation of, and partly responsible for creating the situation going on today. Two of them are not, those some of the third will suffer the consequences as well.

This is Israel’s chickens coming home to roost. They created Hamas. (I don’t mean in an esoteric fashion like creating the general mood and circumstances in settlement policy, but directly by funding the organizations since the 70s that joined together and formed it in 87.) They now have their excuse to go through and commit genocide. I expect that Gaza will cease to exist as a Palestinian entity after this. Israel’s southern land grab will likely now become complete. They’ve been doing it piecemeal through the settlements, but now they can do it in one fell swoop. The modern day nation state of Israel has taken great advantage of the American evangelicals’ continued conflation with it and the biblical naming of God’s people as Israel. They’ve used this affinity borne of confusion to subvert our foreign policy to support those who are not true allies though they wear the masks of one. There is no special interest lobby even close to as powerful as the Israel lobby. They have done as much to bend American foreign policy to their will and against our actual interests far beyond even the House of Saud.

There is a third option.

Y’all should take note of this. @OMCHamlin is fully on point here. Let’s all try really hard to remain on topic instead of devolving into petty non-sequitur partisan barbs that add exactly zero to the conversation.

His lawyers have filed a motion that the acquittal on grounds of self defense on the primary charge precludes the guilty verdict on that particular charge. There will be a hearing about having that verdict set aside at a later date. Personally, I hope it goes his way. It’s a good idea to remember that we are able to look at this with the full knowledge of who Cook is. Colie didn’t have that luxury in the moment. An often repeated mantra in the EDC/Self-Defense world is “better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6”. So that’s the situation he’s found himself in, getting judged by 12. It may be a little simplistic, but it’s good to remember that it’s essentially the choice he argued he was making in the moment. I think that the real takeaway for folks here is that you need to have something in your arsenal between a harsh word and a bullet.

Cook played a game of FA and he FO. Colie was in a position of being advanced upon by two people, one of which was significantly larger and acting in a very confusing, undeniably aggressive and abnormal manner. He was retreating and voicing his desire for Cook to stop. Fear and confusion were evident in his voice to me on the tape. I believe the jury made the right decision as Colie was in a position of being on the negative end of a disparity of force equation. His belief of being at risk of great bodily harm or death I view as entirely reasonable.

@Omegasummed it up well. You’re GTG in both your home of record and duty station.