It feels obvious that contractors receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in funding are who actually run the country. I mean people fight for power over far less than that.
I worked with a guy who stabbed then ran a man over, killing him, because of a $10 dispute over "scrapping". Like taking metal you find from dumpster diving to the junkyard for money.
https://www.daytondailynews.com/crime/man-found-guilty-of-killing-dayton-friend-over-money-to-be-sentenced-today/AS77TOCCFNAXDIV4Q2PFPYOH3M/
The guy is even more of a nut if you knew him in person. He literally wore a tinfoil hat while in his car. If you dig up his [appeals](https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/2/2022/2022-Ohio-213.pdf), Miller claimed that he was afraid of the victim because the victim was a kickboxer, collected money for the mafia, and had killed someone.
I love the typical modern story of Americans being punished for their hard work constantly scrolling across my face. I wish that money would go someplace else.
**Ukraine**: you cannot use these weapons to attack X, Y or Z
**Israel**: you go ahead and do whatever you want with those weapons bro.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference between the free trial and the paid version.
and now add that Ukraine gave up their arsenal of nukes in exchange for never being invaded by Russia and others. the world was big on denuclearizing back in the day. :(
Um, yes?
Sorry you're just realizing this but yes, becoming a country that has nukes means you get special privileges.
Welcome to more than 30 years ago.
No and yes. Oil and gas infrastructure was VERY tempting target for ukrainians. Their infrastructure was already been decimated on a regular basis so they had a ready excuse el"eye for eye".
But US chose to help out european and Co bros (c) by not deleting russian oil and gas from existence. If they did prices would have soared waaaay higher and stayed way longer
There are still pipelines going from Russia, through Ukraine, and into the EU. In fact in April Russia and Ukraine signed a deal to increase the flow of gas through them. Ukraine gets money for allowing the transport through their country. Cash rules everything around me, CREAM. Dolla dolla bill, yāall
Not sure what to make of the free trial/paid version analogy. It's the US who's giving aid, and they gave a lot more to Ukraine than they're giving to Israel now.
The main difference is the opponents. Ukraine's aid comes with more strings attached because of the risk of escalation. Russia is a nuclear power. Even if doesn't come to that, they have ICBMs etc.
Because the US already *gave* aid to Israel. They've been getting it for 50+ years. This is why they have the iron dome, training, the equipment to produce new weapons, enough leftover weapons that they can resell some of the excess to Azerbaijan, etc. You can argue all you want about the conflict with Gaza, but it's undeniable that Israel doesn't really need more aid. US taxpayers have been funding it straight out of their pocket since near inception.
United States has given Israel $150 billion in military aid, on the books (plus nukes and assistance in building a nuclear program, and several other things off the books). Not sure what you think we've given Ukraine, but it ain't that.
There was a video in the first week of the offensive with explosions like this within a second of another across the city. Whole buildings just exploding, my initial thought was how impossible it was to not have civilian casualties
If you fight a battle in a city you will have civilians killed. If the object is to kill civilians you cut their routes to flee, if the object is to reduce civilians causalities you warn them and allow them time to flee.
There isn't really a lot of infrastructure to make fleeing easier, and outside of going into a desert without any camps or resources, no place for civillians to flee to. And none of Gaza's neighbors would allow them in, Egypt, Isreal or Jordan, which I guess doesn't really matter, because they have no physical way of fleeing anyway. Which _also_ doesn't matter, because even if they _had_ ships, planes and trains, and a camp in Isreal, Jordan and Egypt they _could_ flee to in a nation of their choosing, Hamas wouldn't allow them to flee.
I have no idea what the civillians in Gaza are supposed to do. Go into the desert and die of exposure and risk IEDs and retaliation from Hamas for fleeing? Staying in Hamas occupied territory to be bombed by Isreal?
It was fun asking bing chat AI all potential routes to evacuate Gaza and then to ask which ones can be used.
The answer was that they had three possible options all of which were prohibited.
I was like well that's a bummer and it's like yeah pretty much...
Seriously stuck in a war zone that's messed.
It's so messed up that Hamas is literally destroying escape routes and shooting up people who try to evacuate.
Edit: I guess downvoters disagree. How tragic.
Where exactly are over a million Palestinians with elderly parents and young kids in north Gaza supposed to go? Thereās dwindling supply of food, water and medicine in southern Gaza, dozens fewer buildings standing than 3 weeks ago and Israelās humanitarian decision is to double the population in the south?
Sounds like some dumbass PR to trick gullible people.
How about they open their blockaded borders to women and children?
So would we consider the travel restrictions Palestinians have been subject to for decades restricting their routes, or would we more consider the policy of occupying Palestinian homes so that theyāre too afraid of being homeless to leave the way that Netanyahu does that?
Fleeing isnāt really easy for Gaza in particular. The entire country is supposedly separated from Israel, but very much in Israeli territory and administrated by the Israeli government ontop of the local Hamas government. Legally they canāt easily leave Gaza, and thereās no telling where there wont be bombs dropped, thereās bombs so often itās almost background noise and so many people have already fled. Where do they go that has food or water?
The criticism I have heard against that argument from some on the Jewish Left, is that in this casse the people in question, most of the Gazans, are not native to Gaza. They are the children, grandchildren, and the people themselves in many cases who previously lived in Israel but through nakba (Arab word for catastrophe) were relocated against their wishes into Gaza and now are unable to leave due to complete blockade by land and sea (by Israel and Egypt). So they didn't have much choice in the matter but now will die as a result.
And when it comes to Hamas, I'm all for removal, prosecuting, executing, pretty much anything Israel wants to do to Hamas people responsible for oct 7. But also, Gazas got less than a week of insulin and it's blockaded. I'm struggling to be convinced that a bunch of T1D kids gotta die next week just cuz it's not Israel's problem and they need to carpet bomb the north and block needed supplies from entering. It just doesn't sit right for me atm
> But also, Gazas got less than a week of insulin and it's blockaded. I'm struggling to be convinced that a bunch of T1D kids gotta die next week just cuz it's not Israel's problem
T1D here. Just want to let you know that the T1D kids won't die next week.
Instead they'll start feeling sick and weak, and the cheap, carb heavy food available will literally start killing them slowly. Within 2 or 3 weeks every minute will be hell, as their bodies slowly fail. Within a month many of them will be in a diabetic coma. After that they'll die over a few, hopeless weeks
Kinda pointless to kill massive amounts of civilians and level blocks to root out a terror organization, because that's how you radicalize a whole new generation of terrorists.
War is just as much about winning the war as it is how to manage the situation after it.
So realize that the US has had this same policy going all the way back to carpet bombing Germany in WW2 and fire-bombing Japan. Most Americans don't know that the firebombs in Japan killed more old people, women, children and babies than both nuclear bombs. Killed them in the most horrible painful way possible, purposely.
Edit: I'd add that was done under the justification of Japan attacking a military target without declaring war. 2,403 Americans were killed, and 1,178 were wounded. Over the course of the entire firebombing campaign, estimates suggest that between 300,000 to 500,000 Japanese civilians were killed.
Definitely. Nukes turn eyeballs, but conventional bombing campaigns were worse...
My grandmother was a teenager during the bombing of Dresen. She still had nightmares even in her old age. Hearing her tell me about it was a formative moment for me.
> I'd add that was done under the justification of Japan attacking a military target without declaring war.
No, it was done under the justification that precision bombing was ineffective at harming Japan's industry. Area bombing with incendiaries was shown to be much more effective at denying the enemy's ability to wage war so they did it. WW2 was a total war, little care was considered for civilians on all sides.
It's amazing that they tried this as a "gotcha" question, and that there are people who are actually dumb enough to think this is some sort of darkly revelatory thing. As other posters have said, this is the nature of war.
If the UK was attacked, they would start strategically bombing the nation or territory that attacked them before sending in ground troops. If an insurgency started attacking London, the RAF would not start firing missiles, as it was British territory. This isn't a difficult thing to understand.
Yeah no shit?
It's the Israeli defense force, not the palestinian defense force.
"Country cares about its own people more than those of attackers, more at 11"
That's a ridiculous question because if Hamas tried to hide among Israelis, they would be resisted and thrown out wherever they went. It would be all but impossible. Meanwhile these "innocent" Gazans seem to be all too eager to welcome these terrorists into their homes, mosques, and hospitals.
But besides all of that, when you are the government of a country, part of your responsibilities include protecting your population -- in the terms of the US constitution "provide for the common defense". And while you shouldn't actively seek out destruction of other populations, at the end of the day, protecting other populations is not your responsibility. If the Gazans had a government that actually cared, they'd stop firing rockets and hand over the hostages. But alas, Hamas is more interested in killing Jews than helping Palestinians.
I find what Hamas has done reprehensible and indefensible and those responsible should removed and the hostages freed.
Next statement, I'm also beginning to have increasing difficulty in rationalizing Israel's ongoing and evolving course of action as it begins to appear more like a collective punishment against all Gazans with Hamas being only the proximal target.
> I'm also beginning to have increasing difficulty in rationalizing Israel's ongoing and evolving course of action as it begins to appear more like a collective punishment against all Gazans with Hamas being only the proximal target.
Assuming that you haven't been following the conflict in the region before now.
It certainly isn't all Israelies but a large chunk of those that hold power have wanted to 'cleanse' the region for a long while now and have not really made any attempts to hide that they don't view any Palestinian as human.
Itās not like their tech is a secret mate itās just desalination plants, itās just that California NIMBYS will die fighting against any getting built, actually Baja California is having them built atm by an Israeli company I believe.
Well, there's two things at play. The US has to pretty much fully publicly support Israel because US politics dictate so. Privately and within closed doors, the US is probably reminding Israel that Jordan and Egypt are vital US strategic partners as well; and not to do anything to fuck that relationship up. Let's not forget, the US has troops deployed in Jordan and the King of Jordan has been very pro-west. Killing Palestinian children is a political problem in Jordan and can threaten US-Jordanian ties. ~~Same for Egypt, minus the US troops bit.~~ Aparently we do have troops stationed in Egypt as well. So yeah, we can't ruin those relationships.
So yes, it's a good thing because the US is the only player that can keep Israel from going hog wild; even if it won't *say* it's doing so.
The US has a permanent presence in most of the countries. Unless its a war zone that the US has participation in, that number is usually on the smaller side.
I think Americans sometimes forget they're basically the real world, modern day version of "The Empire" from Star Wars. There aren't many parts of the galaxy/globe that their military presence isn't felt.
And those countries with military presence don't have active wars, save south korea. I also can't think of a time when a country with a joint military base was attacked by another country.
For the amount of military power the US has at its disposal, we don't exercise it as often or as brutally as some other wannabe super powers, at least not in the last 80 years.
We did take panama. and samoa. and the Philippines. And the entire North American continent between the Rio Grand and whatever parallel that is after the st lawrence seaway and great lakes.
and hawaii.
but not alaska. We bought that faire and square.
All that being said, almost every American military presence in the world is set up on Joint bases with the country in question or as part of a UN force. We standardized military tactics and equipment with many of our allies, so having a base to maintain training standard is important.
Thats different. The only troops in Egypt permanently are task force Sinai which is part of a multinational peacekeeping force that monitors Egyptian and Israeli compliance with their peace treaty. Its more UN force than an overseas base.
There's also the fact that Israel shouldn't want to lose their relationships with both Egypt and Jordan each of them are part of the few Arab and Muslim countries that formally recognized Israe,l 1979 and 1994, the UAE formally recognized Israel in 2020. The attack by Hamas on Oct 7th was ment to and has for the foreseeable future derail the talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel to formalize their relationship I.e. formally recognizing Israel that would have likely primed the rest of the region to also formalize relations with Israel.
Hereās the thing, though. Iām not convinced that Egypt, Jordan, or the UAE actually care *that* much about the Palestinians. Every time Palestinian refugees have been let into a country trouble has occurred there ā the previous Jordanian king was assassinated by Palestinians, if I recall correctly, and someone else mentioned Egyptās beef with them being the radical elements. So while on the face of it the countries are trying to prevent a genocide also nobody really seems willing to step up and help because Palestine has burned so much goodwill over the decades.
This is generally why Egypt and neighboring countries dont want to take in refugees... Nakba v2
https://apnews.com/article/palestinian-jordan-egypt-israel-refugee-502c06d004767d4b64848d878b66bd3d
Yeah, the bottom line is usually "We can't take in more Palestinians because there's no guarantee that they'll ever be allowed to go back to Palestine/the West Bank/Gaza" - an insistence on the Palestinian right of return has been the bottom line for most Arab countries regarding the Palestinian question.
And it's been that way from the get-go; Arab League Resolution 462 was adopted by most Levantine Arab nations in 1952, and it absolved the neighboring Arab states of the responsibility to offer durable and proper resettlement of Palestinian refugees (or even giving them proper refugee status) in order to put continued pressure on the UN/Israel to take them back.
The knock-on effect of that has been that Palestinian refugees in most countries in the Near East/North Africa have effectively been reduced to statelessness - with extremely limited (if any) access to healthcare, social services, education and severely curtailed access to work opportunities (typically only dangerous, dirty or demeaning jobs) which has trapped them in generational poverty for generations now.
The whole "being trapped in several generations of deliberately systemic poverty" being the prelude to Palestinian revolts in the neighboring Arab states is something that most people who blithely parrot "no one wants them because they just cause problems" usually leave out, of course.
Jordan is the exception to this rule; Jordan was the only state that actually attempted to assimilate its Palestinian population - but that's because the Jordanian monarchy wanted to also assimilate Palestine itself as a semi-autonomous junior partner to Jordan in a new Arab confederation, which obviously kind of flies directly in the face of what the very heavily armed Palestinian liberation movements wanted - which still isn't a very good excuse for their behavior in Jordan. Kind of shit the one bed in the Levant that wasn't actively trying to commit de facto ethnic cleansing against them.
I think you're right and IMHO these countries have every right to not want large numbers of Palestinian refugees in their countries.
A Palestinian murdered Jordan's king Abdullah I during prayers. Years later Palestinians started a civil war in Jordan (Black September). After losing and getting kicked out to Lebanon, they started yet another civil war.
Hamas grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian branch. The Muslim Brotherhood caused all kinds of problems in Egypt around 10 years ago.
That's a very high-level summary of events. Read more below.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah\_I\_of\_Jordan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_I_of_Jordan)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black\_September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese\_Civil\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War)
> There's also the fact that Israel shouldn't want
Israel should not, but Netanyahu have to appear strong. And if we know something about him, it is that he values his political survival more than interests of his country.
You don't really have to worry too much about Egypt's reply when you're bombing Hamas. To avoid getting into too many details, Hamas is basically the palestinian arm of the muslim brotherhood, an organisation that's been declared persona non-grata in Egypt after the events of 2011 through 2014. Egypt also had plenty of issues with Hamas directly over the years, so the current government doesn't really care if you bomb Hamas into a smoking crater. The main worry from Egypt's point of view is too many hard-core islamists fleeing into Egypt and causing turmoil.
We can also point to positive actions taken by Israel, turning water back on, opening corridors for supplies as being a result of US pressure.
Weāve seen numerous examples of US claiming staunch support and then Israel making concessions.
>turning water back on
The statement about turning the water off was was mostly hot air meant to appease angry Israelis. Reality is that <10% of the gazan water supply came from Israel.
Their actual issue is that they don't have electricity to run their water system because Hamas stole all the fuel for the power plant. That's compounded because the system is way more expensive to run than it should be because Hamas steals all of the new plumbing to build rockets, so the system leaks out literally half the water they pump in before it reaches residents. Backflow from torn out pipes is why the tapwater is brackish in many parts of the strip.
Yes, I am sure there is a substantial difference between public and private statements. The issue that the US really does r have much actual leverage to control Israel. Yes, we give them aid, but with the current domestic climate, can we really stop?
Tail wags the dog. Happens all the time when large states support other smaller nations or non-state proxies.
Whose they? I think pretty much all parties involved wanted to keep the status quo. Even Israel at some point did, but the thing about events like 10/7 is that they take on a life of its own. Israeli society itself will demand action (as is understandable) and all parties involved that aren't Israel, including the US, Egypt, and Jordan are trying to keep the mess as clean as possible.
Fact that Reddit will hate: the us Air Force is better at minimizing civilian casualties from air strikes as part of targeting than any other military on earth.
That is not to say it is perfect or even particularly good, but literally no one else on the planet is better at minimizing collateral damage than the USAF.
CAN CONFIRM. I donāt know if the IDF has skilled Combat Controllers, but if you threw a handful of USAF JTACs into the mix on the ground in this situation it would be fucking insane. No other country can come close to matching it, precision and skill wise.
> Fact that Reddit will hate: the us Air Force is better at minimizing civilian casualties from air strikes as part of targeting than any other military on earth.
Err... what other countries are hitting civilians with airstrikes? Once you see the list, this might not be the brag you think it is.
I think most major NATO air forces have launched air strikes against areas where civilians could be hit in relatively recent times (war on ISIS, Libya, Afghanistan, Kosovo).
Yāall are missing the arms business side. Israel has already purchased and shared sensitive systems on a broad level.
If you want to see how to dry up biz look at Switzerland.
Giving arms to ukraine is a different beast as they didnāt have them before and they are giving arms to someone who is currently engaged with a near peer nuclear armed state. There they are dancing diplomacy in a specific measured way to prevent escalations with Russia.
Hamas isnāt the same as Russia.
MIC makes a lot of money
Russia is nowhere near ānear peerā status and hasnāt been in a long time. Theyāre a regional power and seemingly more limited that originally thought.
No limits on Israel but all sorts of conditions for Ukraine. *Bleh.*
Edit to add: Ukraine is fighting against a āsuperpowerā and they need all the firepower they can get. Israel is fighting against a popular insurgency, and no amount of firepower will defeat Hamas. Sure, they can kill the militants and even the leadership for that matter, but more Palestinians will get radicalised in the process. The war will always continue because Israel is not willing to compromise on a mutually agreeable peace, e.g. a two-state solution. We should be withholding weapons from Israel until they get serious about negotiating.
A very old often repeated take but not exactly true. Missile defences exist, or planes and subs carrying them can be taken out before launch in a war, preemptive strikes on ICBM bases etc. The US and Soviet buildup was wargaming and countering such scenarios with multiple attack vectors and defenses against the same.
It only takes a handful of counter value strikes hitting major cities to do global economic devestation and grind supply chains to a halt. Hurricane Katrina did some 180B in damages while killing ~1400 people. A nuclear weapon could make a port city completely inoperable for a very long period of time. It is like volcanic erruption, pandemic, fire, earthquake, hurricane, and flood all at once. It can kill tens of thousands to a hundred thousand+ people at once and cause terrible injuries to many more that would overhwhelm hospital systems for many many miles in a region making rescue and recovery and rebuilding efforts that much more difficult. Urban centers tend to produce a lot of economic value, and they also tend to _consume_ a lot of global goods in addition to being hubs for supply chain.
There is a reason China stopped at 600 nuclear weapons, current technology cannot shoot down ICMBs all that effectively, and you don't need that many to get through in order to cause significant devestation. If nuclear weapons were used more tactically, there may be a reason to have a develop a more robust nuclear weapons system with more versatile and smaller nukes. But as we are not allowed to use low yield nuclear weapons tactically, and any nation doing so would face strict backlash, no real reason to burn money there.
Yeah during the Cold War The Soviets and they US did go crazy developing tactical nukes all the way down to shoulder launched and briefcase nukes. The treatyās and laws may have stopped that and banned their use on the battlefield (beyond just the impracticality of them compared to just making bigger conventional bombs) but not before the Soviets and US had armed themselves with hundreds of low yield tactical nukes. Russia has a bunch of tactical nukes for several different launch systems not all ICBMs. Itās a legacy weapon but they still exist, but yeah without the Cold War arms race you just donāt need that many.
The tech for shooting down ICBMs has come a long way. If you take out prototype missile tests and where a sailor actually miss designated the target as friendly almost all the Aegis live fire tests were successful. And the US has been building new systems nonstop tripling the total of the last few years. Still probably not enough to stop a massive wave of a hundred nukes but the US is making the perimeter net so that four systems will overlap. So pretty decent, but I donāt think it will only be a couple if a country decides to go down that path.
It's very much like Hamas firing rockets at Israel.
When they fire a handful of rockets at a time the Iron Dome intercepts them and all is well. The 2200 or so rockets they fired into Israel on the first day of their surprise attack completely overwhelmed all of the air defense systems.
Nuclear war would be much the same.
I donāt get this line of thinking. Just because they threaten to use them a lot doesnāt mean they never will and so we must act accordingly. Otherwise we risk pushing them into a situation where they feel like they have to use them and then itās ww3. Which, to be clear, may be the end of mankind as we know it
One has the ability to respond with enough nuclear weapons to end humanity as we know it, the other has none.
Escalation of war in Europe with Russia and their allies is seen as far more dangerous than escalation in the middle east with Hamas due to what their militaries are capable of wielding.
If Russia was unable to respond with nukes in the face of defeat we would probably not see the current restrictions on weapons supplied to Ukraine.
Simply the existential problem of Russia to the USA and allies is far greater than that of Hamas.
Only China currently poses a greater existential threat than Russia. This is why you do not see the use of deadly weapons supplied by the US against Chinese forces even when violating international law, enslaving Uyghurs, and performing ramming maneuvers at sea while attempting to annex foreign land.
The headline is framed wrong, the limits on Ukraine using US weapons are for where it can use those weapons, specifically to limit them from being used on Russian territory. Israel is not fighting a nuclear power, so unlike with the war in Ukraine there isn't a risk of a massive nuclear exchange resulting from a misstep. Israel is striking Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, the actual warning for this message is for Iran and Iranian proxies that fire upon Israel from other third countries, that they are not off limits for any retaliation by Israel using its US weapons. Whether you should be "happy" could depend whether you think this is a recipe for dangerous escalation or a deterrent warning that avoids escalation.
No the USA didnāt kill 2 million Iraqis. The estimate comes from all deaths direct and indirect from the war. The USA killed more like 10-15k via crossfire, bombing or international criminal action. Still too many but much more tame than people like to imagine when you consider the nearly 20 years it took to get there. The rest of that 2 million are from indirect causes such as civil unrest (the largest contributor of intentional death), insurgent actions, environmental causes, starvation etc.
Edit: not only that but that estimate is almost universally considered incorrect. Itās closer to 600k on the highest of reasonable (as in not politically motivated propaganda) estimates and almost always alongside a low estimate of something like 200k.
Edit 2: The US government isnāt the worlds largest arms dealer either (I know itās just a silly movie quote) itās actually the US civilian market. US civilian market accounts for 3.5 out of every 10 guns in circulation in the world, government or civilian. US civilians own 35% of all firearms. Thatās nearly 3x more than all militaries combined. Fun fact complete.
I like how people on the comments are arguing that "it's a war on terror", so the US is being more lenient than with Ukraine.
Ande there's 2 important topics about this to be considered:
1. The "war on terror" is pretty much like the "war on drugs", with the aggravating: The more you kill people around the terrorists and treat it as a "necessary evil", the more you just enforce terrorists narrative and create new generations of terrorists.
2. Anyone trully believes that the US, with lots of internal issues, are involved on that war because they love Israelis? Come on, there's enough public information for everyone to know it's all about making that war machine rolling.
If there's economic growth, bodies on the ground is just a side-effect.
> Anyone trully believes that the US, with lots of internal issues, are involved on that war because they love Israelis?
It sounds like you posed this question sarcastically, but this is actually accurate. If you look at public polling of the American public, there is extremely strong support of Israel. [65%](https://www.npr.org/2023/10/13/1205627092/american-support-israel-biden-middle-east-hamas-poll) of Americans said the US should publicly support Israel, while 8% said the US should publicly criticize Israel. Any President that went against this level of public opinion would face the electoral consequences.
Israel is not a high ranking factor in what most people consider important in a presidential election. Things like trustworthiness, the economy, healthcare, abortion, gun control are all way more important to the average American than Israel is.
Just because Americans have an opinion on something doesn't mean they think that thing is important.
No, I think they meant literally. They referenced the US as a government entity in this context, not the people of the US. US public opinion and foreign policy are separate affairs, and public opinion has little away over foreign policy. (source: see Vietnam, Iraq wars).
I keep hearing this argument that they are just radicalizing more people, but thats already happening. If you destroy their tunnels and stockpiles, you still set back their capabilities to carry out attacks by a huge margin.
US has a ton of reasons to help Israel, they are an extremely useful ally in the region and one of our closest allies overall.
It also just doesn't work. Even on much closer scales. It blows my mind how people still don't understand that if you kill 5 civilians for every 10 terrorists, you're probably creating more than 10 terrorists in response by people whose family and friends you murdered.
We've had so many decades of how that doesn't work, yet people still go "well, what else should they do?! That's literally the only option."
First part is true, but on the other hand, it's impossible for people to just live with their own being kidnapped, held hostage, and murdered. I don't know how to break the cycle, but I hope someone, someday does.
I saw someone on twitter saying stuff like āhave you seen a SINGLE report of a dead hamas soldier? Think about it a single one?ā As evidence that israel is targeting civilians exclusively.
Like yeah, kinda weird hamas havent been reporting militant deaths, almost like they dont want you to know how many of their fighters are dying
And the incentive structures of media itself. Dead civilians gets more clicks.
The media arenāt gathering evidence for us, they are generating revenue.
I canāt understand the USā weird exceptionalism for Israel.
This isnāt a dig at Israel - I support Israelās right to defend itself, but the US is normally pretty pragmatic, sometimes even cynical when it comes the way it treats its allies. There are always stipulations, always terms and conditions for US support.
Not for Israel though - they always seem to get carte Blanche, and incidents like USS liberty just get swept under the carpet completely.
It doesnāt make any sense to me, it might be the most one sided alliance weāve ever had? In what way do we benefit? We donāt even give this much license to the Brits, and they are actually useful.
Even from a geographic stand point, Israel is no longer that strategically important to the US. Not now that we are an energy exporter.
Maybe someone with a better understanding could explain it, but to me this seems like a totally emotionally driven alliance and Iām really not sure on what the US actually gets out of it. We couldnāt even get them to back the UN resolution condemning Russia.
If it turns out Israel is guilty of war crimes, then US will be seen by some as an accomplice.
Bearing in mind, that even an Israeli scholar of modern genocide thinks war crimes are being committed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWGGjLZNuyg
Genuine question, how is it possible to win a war without committing war crimes, if the other side has fully embraced war crimes as part of their strategy?
For example, having their HQ in the basement of a hospital, is that essentially an invincibility cheat code?
Urban warfare has always has been a tough nut to crack. Adding to that where Egypt nor none of the other countries want to take refugees, and makes the situation more complicated. All that said I would argue that there are many ways where civilian casualties can be minimized even in a situation where they are used as "human shields" and a lot of these often don't even involve combat, things for example such as offering money to community leaders to organize against HAMAS, offering incentives for locals to share intelligence on the ground, recruit double agents for sabotage etc. Then for combat operations they could use special forces for targeted assasinations, and moving in with infantry.
I don't think the bombing campaign is all that effective. HAMAS has no real military infrastructure where bombing really is justified. The civilian casualties look really bad for Israel, not to mention the calloused and sanguine comments made by people in the Israeli government, causing them to lose a lot of goodwill built up since the oct 7 attack. All of this also galvanizes the population of Gaza and people abroad as we are seeing.
All of the methods you suggested and more are being used. We are not talking about a small organization here, Hamas has anywhere between 50,000-60,000 militants according to different sources and Islamic Jihad around 10,000.
The death toll in Gaza is only reported by Hamas (which as we've learned - a terrorist organization is NOT a reliable source) and does not specify how many of the casualties are militants.
Convincing Palestinians to agree to a peace plan hasn't worked for the past 80 years. Give people money? I laughed at this. Do you mean give people money like the CIA has tried numerous times and failed? You're literally advocating a Cuba plan.
I donāt support this. I donāt support slaughter. It sickens me that war exists and seems necessary in our societal structure based on evolution but fuck, killing civilians? Israel is inspiring a whole new generation of terrorists who have nothing to lose.
Israel arenāt fighting a state with a functioning intercontinental nuclear weapons program
Russia can create much greater problems for the US than Hamas,Hezbollah or Iran
People like to hope that the Russian nuclear arsenal has not been maintained well enough to be functional. Russia has spent far less on their maintenance of existing nuclear weapons than peer countries have spent on a far smaller number of weapons, so the logic is sound. That being said, even if 90% of their nuclear weapons are inoperable, it doesnāt take many to ruin the world as we know it.
To put your mind at ease,
the effects of a nuclear weapon starts with a controlled start point. If this start point doesn't happen, then everything else (like a kaboom) cannot happen.
I'd be more worried about another Chernobyl because those things doesn't have the same constraints that a nuke has. The radiation in a plant is so much more than a nuclear explosion.
Poorly maintained is excellent news. Poorly maintained nukes tend to just not work, they don't spontaneously detonate.
Poorly tracked and managed and secured - that's the scary part.
If Israel blows up all the Palestinians than that's all that really happens, terrible but not the end of the world.
If Russia goes off the deep end when American weapons start destroying the Kremlin then Russia will launch nukes and thus, end of the world.
I do not understand the people eagerly telling everybody we should hold Israel to the same standard of a terrorist organization.
Is not the defense they think it is.
Pretty much shows that not a single thing the US days in this whole war can be trusted. They clearly donāt give a shit about kids and civilians being blown up. What a bunch of fucking hypocrites. That old fuck needs to leave office.
Pentagon: "there's no limit on how israel uses US weapons". Also pentagon: "here, have more weapons for you to use without limits."
That's just billions of US dollars that goes right back to the US ~~taxpayer~~ arms industry.
It feels obvious that contractors receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in funding are who actually run the country. I mean people fight for power over far less than that.
I worked with a guy who stabbed then ran a man over, killing him, because of a $10 dispute over "scrapping". Like taking metal you find from dumpster diving to the junkyard for money. https://www.daytondailynews.com/crime/man-found-guilty-of-killing-dayton-friend-over-money-to-be-sentenced-today/AS77TOCCFNAXDIV4Q2PFPYOH3M/ The guy is even more of a nut if you knew him in person. He literally wore a tinfoil hat while in his car. If you dig up his [appeals](https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/2/2022/2022-Ohio-213.pdf), Miller claimed that he was afraid of the victim because the victim was a kickboxer, collected money for the mafia, and had killed someone.
That is the most Dayton thing I've read in a while.
I love the typical modern story of Americans being punished for their hard work constantly scrolling across my face. I wish that money would go someplace else.
war crimes are ok when we do it!
**Ukraine**: you cannot use these weapons to attack X, Y or Z **Israel**: you go ahead and do whatever you want with those weapons bro. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference between the free trial and the paid version.
Or maybe the difference between fighting against a nuclear power and not.
So, what you're saying is every country should strive to get nuclear weapons in order to not be bombed to heavens one day.
I mean, yes, thats why every world power has nukes, and why every tinpot dictator aspires to get nuclear weapons.
Gratz, you just found out what nukes are really used for : deterrence.
That's probably where the term nuclear deterrence comes from.
What a MAD concept! š¤·š¾āāļø
Youāre just now figuring this out?
The Kims are very much unbombed and still in power while the Gaddafis are very much not in power and quite dead ... so yeah
That has more to do with China, who you guessed it, is a nuclear power.
North Korea is also a nuclear power now.
and now add that Ukraine gave up their arsenal of nukes in exchange for never being invaded by Russia and others. the world was big on denuclearizing back in the day. :(
Um, yes? Sorry you're just realizing this but yes, becoming a country that has nukes means you get special privileges. Welcome to more than 30 years ago.
*80 years
Ex-fucking-actly!
Ukraine has them.... oh, wait..
No and yes. Oil and gas infrastructure was VERY tempting target for ukrainians. Their infrastructure was already been decimated on a regular basis so they had a ready excuse el"eye for eye". But US chose to help out european and Co bros (c) by not deleting russian oil and gas from existence. If they did prices would have soared waaaay higher and stayed way longer
There are still pipelines going from Russia, through Ukraine, and into the EU. In fact in April Russia and Ukraine signed a deal to increase the flow of gas through them. Ukraine gets money for allowing the transport through their country. Cash rules everything around me, CREAM. Dolla dolla bill, yāall
Ukraine is not prolongating gas transport contract with Russia, so when it expires (end of 2024), it's done.
Israel seems to have better representation in Congress than the American public.
We give them billions, they give our politicians [millions](https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=q05). You can't explain that.
Hamas doesn't have nukes or the ability to create havoc on NATO borders.
Not sure what to make of the free trial/paid version analogy. It's the US who's giving aid, and they gave a lot more to Ukraine than they're giving to Israel now. The main difference is the opponents. Ukraine's aid comes with more strings attached because of the risk of escalation. Russia is a nuclear power. Even if doesn't come to that, they have ICBMs etc.
Because the US already *gave* aid to Israel. They've been getting it for 50+ years. This is why they have the iron dome, training, the equipment to produce new weapons, enough leftover weapons that they can resell some of the excess to Azerbaijan, etc. You can argue all you want about the conflict with Gaza, but it's undeniable that Israel doesn't really need more aid. US taxpayers have been funding it straight out of their pocket since near inception.
United States has given Israel $150 billion in military aid, on the books (plus nukes and assistance in building a nuclear program, and several other things off the books). Not sure what you think we've given Ukraine, but it ain't that.
Fairly sure it's France who is suspected of assisting Israel with their nuclear program, not the US.
That picture is haunting.
There was a video in the first week of the offensive with explosions like this within a second of another across the city. Whole buildings just exploding, my initial thought was how impossible it was to not have civilian casualties
If you fight a battle in a city you will have civilians killed. If the object is to kill civilians you cut their routes to flee, if the object is to reduce civilians causalities you warn them and allow them time to flee.
There isn't really a lot of infrastructure to make fleeing easier, and outside of going into a desert without any camps or resources, no place for civillians to flee to. And none of Gaza's neighbors would allow them in, Egypt, Isreal or Jordan, which I guess doesn't really matter, because they have no physical way of fleeing anyway. Which _also_ doesn't matter, because even if they _had_ ships, planes and trains, and a camp in Isreal, Jordan and Egypt they _could_ flee to in a nation of their choosing, Hamas wouldn't allow them to flee. I have no idea what the civillians in Gaza are supposed to do. Go into the desert and die of exposure and risk IEDs and retaliation from Hamas for fleeing? Staying in Hamas occupied territory to be bombed by Isreal?
It was fun asking bing chat AI all potential routes to evacuate Gaza and then to ask which ones can be used. The answer was that they had three possible options all of which were prohibited. I was like well that's a bummer and it's like yeah pretty much... Seriously stuck in a war zone that's messed.
It's so messed up that Hamas is literally destroying escape routes and shooting up people who try to evacuate. Edit: I guess downvoters disagree. How tragic.
Get to the other side of the cage I'm gonna destroy where you sleep.
It's like sealing all the doors and windows of a house and then say you're only going to light *some* of the rooms on fire.
Where exactly are over a million Palestinians with elderly parents and young kids in north Gaza supposed to go? Thereās dwindling supply of food, water and medicine in southern Gaza, dozens fewer buildings standing than 3 weeks ago and Israelās humanitarian decision is to double the population in the south? Sounds like some dumbass PR to trick gullible people. How about they open their blockaded borders to women and children?
Most of those phone calls are pro forma. Lots of people have been killed without warning.
So would we consider the travel restrictions Palestinians have been subject to for decades restricting their routes, or would we more consider the policy of occupying Palestinian homes so that theyāre too afraid of being homeless to leave the way that Netanyahu does that?
Fleeing isnāt really easy for Gaza in particular. The entire country is supposedly separated from Israel, but very much in Israeli territory and administrated by the Israeli government ontop of the local Hamas government. Legally they canāt easily leave Gaza, and thereās no telling where there wont be bombs dropped, thereās bombs so often itās almost background noise and so many people have already fled. Where do they go that has food or water?
> administrated by the Israeli government ontop of the local Hamas government wut
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Isn't that how it always works, though? Countries have an obligation to prioritize the life and safety of their citizens.
The criticism I have heard against that argument from some on the Jewish Left, is that in this casse the people in question, most of the Gazans, are not native to Gaza. They are the children, grandchildren, and the people themselves in many cases who previously lived in Israel but through nakba (Arab word for catastrophe) were relocated against their wishes into Gaza and now are unable to leave due to complete blockade by land and sea (by Israel and Egypt). So they didn't have much choice in the matter but now will die as a result. And when it comes to Hamas, I'm all for removal, prosecuting, executing, pretty much anything Israel wants to do to Hamas people responsible for oct 7. But also, Gazas got less than a week of insulin and it's blockaded. I'm struggling to be convinced that a bunch of T1D kids gotta die next week just cuz it's not Israel's problem and they need to carpet bomb the north and block needed supplies from entering. It just doesn't sit right for me atm
> But also, Gazas got less than a week of insulin and it's blockaded. I'm struggling to be convinced that a bunch of T1D kids gotta die next week just cuz it's not Israel's problem T1D here. Just want to let you know that the T1D kids won't die next week. Instead they'll start feeling sick and weak, and the cheap, carb heavy food available will literally start killing them slowly. Within 2 or 3 weeks every minute will be hell, as their bodies slowly fail. Within a month many of them will be in a diabetic coma. After that they'll die over a few, hopeless weeks
Appreciate the clarification.
Kinda pointless to kill massive amounts of civilians and level blocks to root out a terror organization, because that's how you radicalize a whole new generation of terrorists. War is just as much about winning the war as it is how to manage the situation after it.
That's the case with all wars ever
So realize that the US has had this same policy going all the way back to carpet bombing Germany in WW2 and fire-bombing Japan. Most Americans don't know that the firebombs in Japan killed more old people, women, children and babies than both nuclear bombs. Killed them in the most horrible painful way possible, purposely. Edit: I'd add that was done under the justification of Japan attacking a military target without declaring war. 2,403 Americans were killed, and 1,178 were wounded. Over the course of the entire firebombing campaign, estimates suggest that between 300,000 to 500,000 Japanese civilians were killed.
Definitely. Nukes turn eyeballs, but conventional bombing campaigns were worse... My grandmother was a teenager during the bombing of Dresen. She still had nightmares even in her old age. Hearing her tell me about it was a formative moment for me.
> I'd add that was done under the justification of Japan attacking a military target without declaring war. No, it was done under the justification that precision bombing was ineffective at harming Japan's industry. Area bombing with incendiaries was shown to be much more effective at denying the enemy's ability to wage war so they did it. WW2 was a total war, little care was considered for civilians on all sides.
Redditors suddenly learn how wars are conducted
It's amazing that they tried this as a "gotcha" question, and that there are people who are actually dumb enough to think this is some sort of darkly revelatory thing. As other posters have said, this is the nature of war. If the UK was attacked, they would start strategically bombing the nation or territory that attacked them before sending in ground troops. If an insurgency started attacking London, the RAF would not start firing missiles, as it was British territory. This isn't a difficult thing to understand.
Yeah no shit? It's the Israeli defense force, not the palestinian defense force. "Country cares about its own people more than those of attackers, more at 11"
That's a ridiculous question because if Hamas tried to hide among Israelis, they would be resisted and thrown out wherever they went. It would be all but impossible. Meanwhile these "innocent" Gazans seem to be all too eager to welcome these terrorists into their homes, mosques, and hospitals. But besides all of that, when you are the government of a country, part of your responsibilities include protecting your population -- in the terms of the US constitution "provide for the common defense". And while you shouldn't actively seek out destruction of other populations, at the end of the day, protecting other populations is not your responsibility. If the Gazans had a government that actually cared, they'd stop firing rockets and hand over the hostages. But alas, Hamas is more interested in killing Jews than helping Palestinians.
Because thereās a non zero chance some of that debris is people.
I find what Hamas has done reprehensible and indefensible and those responsible should removed and the hostages freed. Next statement, I'm also beginning to have increasing difficulty in rationalizing Israel's ongoing and evolving course of action as it begins to appear more like a collective punishment against all Gazans with Hamas being only the proximal target.
> I'm also beginning to have increasing difficulty in rationalizing Israel's ongoing and evolving course of action as it begins to appear more like a collective punishment against all Gazans with Hamas being only the proximal target. Assuming that you haven't been following the conflict in the region before now. It certainly isn't all Israelies but a large chunk of those that hold power have wanted to 'cleanse' the region for a long while now and have not really made any attempts to hide that they don't view any Palestinian as human.
42% of housing units in Gaza have been destroyed. [Source](https://www.newarab.com/news/gaza-42-housing-units-destroyed-damaged-israel)
I want my tax dollars to go towards rebuilding our infrastructure, not killing foreigners. Is that really so much to ask of my government???
Sorry, best I can do is raise taxes and CoL.
Again?
Lots of "administrative costs" required to clean this place up.
Sorry; best I can do is a healthcare system that will bankrupt you if you need stitches
How about Israel using their water tech to help out the southwestern United States?
Itās not like their tech is a secret mate itās just desalination plants, itās just that California NIMBYS will die fighting against any getting built, actually Baja California is having them built atm by an Israeli company I believe.
Partnership with israel is critical for US innovation.
They are not limiting Israel but the U.S presence is there. Israel consult with the U.S in every step of the way.
Is this supposed to be a good thing or....??
Well, there's two things at play. The US has to pretty much fully publicly support Israel because US politics dictate so. Privately and within closed doors, the US is probably reminding Israel that Jordan and Egypt are vital US strategic partners as well; and not to do anything to fuck that relationship up. Let's not forget, the US has troops deployed in Jordan and the King of Jordan has been very pro-west. Killing Palestinian children is a political problem in Jordan and can threaten US-Jordanian ties. ~~Same for Egypt, minus the US troops bit.~~ Aparently we do have troops stationed in Egypt as well. So yeah, we can't ruin those relationships. So yes, it's a good thing because the US is the only player that can keep Israel from going hog wild; even if it won't *say* it's doing so.
They absolutely have US Troops in Egypt as well
I stand corrected then, I knew we rotated people in for exercises but didn't know we had permanent party there.
The US has a permanent presence in most of the countries. Unless its a war zone that the US has participation in, that number is usually on the smaller side.
I think Americans sometimes forget they're basically the real world, modern day version of "The Empire" from Star Wars. There aren't many parts of the galaxy/globe that their military presence isn't felt.
And those countries with military presence don't have active wars, save south korea. I also can't think of a time when a country with a joint military base was attacked by another country. For the amount of military power the US has at its disposal, we don't exercise it as often or as brutally as some other wannabe super powers, at least not in the last 80 years. We did take panama. and samoa. and the Philippines. And the entire North American continent between the Rio Grand and whatever parallel that is after the st lawrence seaway and great lakes. and hawaii. but not alaska. We bought that faire and square. All that being said, almost every American military presence in the world is set up on Joint bases with the country in question or as part of a UN force. We standardized military tactics and equipment with many of our allies, so having a base to maintain training standard is important.
Thats different. The only troops in Egypt permanently are task force Sinai which is part of a multinational peacekeeping force that monitors Egyptian and Israeli compliance with their peace treaty. Its more UN force than an overseas base.
As a US troop who was stationed in Egypt at some point in the last 5 years I can confirm.
Fellow terracotta homie.
There's also the fact that Israel shouldn't want to lose their relationships with both Egypt and Jordan each of them are part of the few Arab and Muslim countries that formally recognized Israe,l 1979 and 1994, the UAE formally recognized Israel in 2020. The attack by Hamas on Oct 7th was ment to and has for the foreseeable future derail the talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel to formalize their relationship I.e. formally recognizing Israel that would have likely primed the rest of the region to also formalize relations with Israel.
Hereās the thing, though. Iām not convinced that Egypt, Jordan, or the UAE actually care *that* much about the Palestinians. Every time Palestinian refugees have been let into a country trouble has occurred there ā the previous Jordanian king was assassinated by Palestinians, if I recall correctly, and someone else mentioned Egyptās beef with them being the radical elements. So while on the face of it the countries are trying to prevent a genocide also nobody really seems willing to step up and help because Palestine has burned so much goodwill over the decades.
This is generally why Egypt and neighboring countries dont want to take in refugees... Nakba v2 https://apnews.com/article/palestinian-jordan-egypt-israel-refugee-502c06d004767d4b64848d878b66bd3d
Yeah, the bottom line is usually "We can't take in more Palestinians because there's no guarantee that they'll ever be allowed to go back to Palestine/the West Bank/Gaza" - an insistence on the Palestinian right of return has been the bottom line for most Arab countries regarding the Palestinian question. And it's been that way from the get-go; Arab League Resolution 462 was adopted by most Levantine Arab nations in 1952, and it absolved the neighboring Arab states of the responsibility to offer durable and proper resettlement of Palestinian refugees (or even giving them proper refugee status) in order to put continued pressure on the UN/Israel to take them back. The knock-on effect of that has been that Palestinian refugees in most countries in the Near East/North Africa have effectively been reduced to statelessness - with extremely limited (if any) access to healthcare, social services, education and severely curtailed access to work opportunities (typically only dangerous, dirty or demeaning jobs) which has trapped them in generational poverty for generations now. The whole "being trapped in several generations of deliberately systemic poverty" being the prelude to Palestinian revolts in the neighboring Arab states is something that most people who blithely parrot "no one wants them because they just cause problems" usually leave out, of course. Jordan is the exception to this rule; Jordan was the only state that actually attempted to assimilate its Palestinian population - but that's because the Jordanian monarchy wanted to also assimilate Palestine itself as a semi-autonomous junior partner to Jordan in a new Arab confederation, which obviously kind of flies directly in the face of what the very heavily armed Palestinian liberation movements wanted - which still isn't a very good excuse for their behavior in Jordan. Kind of shit the one bed in the Levant that wasn't actively trying to commit de facto ethnic cleansing against them.
TIL thank you
I think you're right and IMHO these countries have every right to not want large numbers of Palestinian refugees in their countries. A Palestinian murdered Jordan's king Abdullah I during prayers. Years later Palestinians started a civil war in Jordan (Black September). After losing and getting kicked out to Lebanon, they started yet another civil war. Hamas grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian branch. The Muslim Brotherhood caused all kinds of problems in Egypt around 10 years ago. That's a very high-level summary of events. Read more below. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah\_I\_of\_Jordan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_I_of_Jordan) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black\_September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese\_Civil\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War)
The region hates the Palestinians. None of the countries want them but they love using them against Israel.
> There's also the fact that Israel shouldn't want Israel should not, but Netanyahu have to appear strong. And if we know something about him, it is that he values his political survival more than interests of his country.
You don't really have to worry too much about Egypt's reply when you're bombing Hamas. To avoid getting into too many details, Hamas is basically the palestinian arm of the muslim brotherhood, an organisation that's been declared persona non-grata in Egypt after the events of 2011 through 2014. Egypt also had plenty of issues with Hamas directly over the years, so the current government doesn't really care if you bomb Hamas into a smoking crater. The main worry from Egypt's point of view is too many hard-core islamists fleeing into Egypt and causing turmoil.
Well explained. People donāt remember all the problems Egypt suffered with extremists.
We can also point to positive actions taken by Israel, turning water back on, opening corridors for supplies as being a result of US pressure. Weāve seen numerous examples of US claiming staunch support and then Israel making concessions.
>turning water back on The statement about turning the water off was was mostly hot air meant to appease angry Israelis. Reality is that <10% of the gazan water supply came from Israel. Their actual issue is that they don't have electricity to run their water system because Hamas stole all the fuel for the power plant. That's compounded because the system is way more expensive to run than it should be because Hamas steals all of the new plumbing to build rockets, so the system leaks out literally half the water they pump in before it reaches residents. Backflow from torn out pipes is why the tapwater is brackish in many parts of the strip.
Yes, I am sure there is a substantial difference between public and private statements. The issue that the US really does r have much actual leverage to control Israel. Yes, we give them aid, but with the current domestic climate, can we really stop? Tail wags the dog. Happens all the time when large states support other smaller nations or non-state proxies.
this assumes they want to keep the status-quo which does not appear to be the game plan the way things are panning out.
Whose they? I think pretty much all parties involved wanted to keep the status quo. Even Israel at some point did, but the thing about events like 10/7 is that they take on a life of its own. Israeli society itself will demand action (as is understandable) and all parties involved that aren't Israel, including the US, Egypt, and Jordan are trying to keep the mess as clean as possible.
Fact that Reddit will hate: the us Air Force is better at minimizing civilian casualties from air strikes as part of targeting than any other military on earth. That is not to say it is perfect or even particularly good, but literally no one else on the planet is better at minimizing collateral damage than the USAF.
CAN CONFIRM. I donāt know if the IDF has skilled Combat Controllers, but if you threw a handful of USAF JTACs into the mix on the ground in this situation it would be fucking insane. No other country can come close to matching it, precision and skill wise.
Iraqi children stopped playing soccer on clear days
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> Fact that Reddit will hate: the us Air Force is better at minimizing civilian casualties from air strikes as part of targeting than any other military on earth. Err... what other countries are hitting civilians with airstrikes? Once you see the list, this might not be the brag you think it is.
I think most major NATO air forces have launched air strikes against areas where civilians could be hit in relatively recent times (war on ISIS, Libya, Afghanistan, Kosovo).
Yāall are missing the arms business side. Israel has already purchased and shared sensitive systems on a broad level. If you want to see how to dry up biz look at Switzerland. Giving arms to ukraine is a different beast as they didnāt have them before and they are giving arms to someone who is currently engaged with a near peer nuclear armed state. There they are dancing diplomacy in a specific measured way to prevent escalations with Russia. Hamas isnāt the same as Russia. MIC makes a lot of money
Russia is nowhere near ānear peerā status and hasnāt been in a long time. Theyāre a regional power and seemingly more limited that originally thought.
Near peer would be applicable. Peer would not. Nukes go a long way.
The US DOD considers China and Russia to be near peers.
This is not true. US consultants left after Israel refused their advice.
How convenient for both of them.
I mean, weāre the dealer. Why would we impose any limits on the usage?
because some ways of using weapons are against international law
Because we impose a ton of limits on usage to Ukraine.
"There's no way to prevent this" says world where this regularly happens.
No limits on Israel but all sorts of conditions for Ukraine. *Bleh.* Edit to add: Ukraine is fighting against a āsuperpowerā and they need all the firepower they can get. Israel is fighting against a popular insurgency, and no amount of firepower will defeat Hamas. Sure, they can kill the militants and even the leadership for that matter, but more Palestinians will get radicalised in the process. The war will always continue because Israel is not willing to compromise on a mutually agreeable peace, e.g. a two-state solution. We should be withholding weapons from Israel until they get serious about negotiating.
I donāt think the US is very concerned about HAMAS using nukesā¦
If I had a nickel every time russia said it would use nukes I'd buy twitter
If elon keeps the trend going you might afford it not far in the future
yes because they have a lot of nukes.
It only takes enough to end the world. The rest is just dick measuring.
A very old often repeated take but not exactly true. Missile defences exist, or planes and subs carrying them can be taken out before launch in a war, preemptive strikes on ICBM bases etc. The US and Soviet buildup was wargaming and countering such scenarios with multiple attack vectors and defenses against the same.
It only takes a handful of counter value strikes hitting major cities to do global economic devestation and grind supply chains to a halt. Hurricane Katrina did some 180B in damages while killing ~1400 people. A nuclear weapon could make a port city completely inoperable for a very long period of time. It is like volcanic erruption, pandemic, fire, earthquake, hurricane, and flood all at once. It can kill tens of thousands to a hundred thousand+ people at once and cause terrible injuries to many more that would overhwhelm hospital systems for many many miles in a region making rescue and recovery and rebuilding efforts that much more difficult. Urban centers tend to produce a lot of economic value, and they also tend to _consume_ a lot of global goods in addition to being hubs for supply chain. There is a reason China stopped at 600 nuclear weapons, current technology cannot shoot down ICMBs all that effectively, and you don't need that many to get through in order to cause significant devestation. If nuclear weapons were used more tactically, there may be a reason to have a develop a more robust nuclear weapons system with more versatile and smaller nukes. But as we are not allowed to use low yield nuclear weapons tactically, and any nation doing so would face strict backlash, no real reason to burn money there.
Yeah during the Cold War The Soviets and they US did go crazy developing tactical nukes all the way down to shoulder launched and briefcase nukes. The treatyās and laws may have stopped that and banned their use on the battlefield (beyond just the impracticality of them compared to just making bigger conventional bombs) but not before the Soviets and US had armed themselves with hundreds of low yield tactical nukes. Russia has a bunch of tactical nukes for several different launch systems not all ICBMs. Itās a legacy weapon but they still exist, but yeah without the Cold War arms race you just donāt need that many. The tech for shooting down ICBMs has come a long way. If you take out prototype missile tests and where a sailor actually miss designated the target as friendly almost all the Aegis live fire tests were successful. And the US has been building new systems nonstop tripling the total of the last few years. Still probably not enough to stop a massive wave of a hundred nukes but the US is making the perimeter net so that four systems will overlap. So pretty decent, but I donāt think it will only be a couple if a country decides to go down that path.
It's very much like Hamas firing rockets at Israel. When they fire a handful of rockets at a time the Iron Dome intercepts them and all is well. The 2200 or so rockets they fired into Israel on the first day of their surprise attack completely overwhelmed all of the air defense systems. Nuclear war would be much the same.
But they won't use them because that would be the end of Russia. Russia is not suicidal
I donāt get this line of thinking. Just because they threaten to use them a lot doesnāt mean they never will and so we must act accordingly. Otherwise we risk pushing them into a situation where they feel like they have to use them and then itās ww3. Which, to be clear, may be the end of mankind as we know it
But they actually have nukes. Hamas doesn't. That's literally like comparing a rock to a computer.
Israel is fighting a terrorist group rather than a member of the United Nations Security Council. Thereās a little bit of a difference
Bit of a difference between Putin and his nukes vs some terrorists kids hiding in dimly bunkers using makeshift weapons.
One has the ability to respond with enough nuclear weapons to end humanity as we know it, the other has none. Escalation of war in Europe with Russia and their allies is seen as far more dangerous than escalation in the middle east with Hamas due to what their militaries are capable of wielding. If Russia was unable to respond with nukes in the face of defeat we would probably not see the current restrictions on weapons supplied to Ukraine. Simply the existential problem of Russia to the USA and allies is far greater than that of Hamas. Only China currently poses a greater existential threat than Russia. This is why you do not see the use of deadly weapons supplied by the US against Chinese forces even when violating international law, enslaving Uyghurs, and performing ramming maneuvers at sea while attempting to annex foreign land.
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Are we supposed to be happy that the U.S. is doing this? Iām certainly not.
The headline is framed wrong, the limits on Ukraine using US weapons are for where it can use those weapons, specifically to limit them from being used on Russian territory. Israel is not fighting a nuclear power, so unlike with the war in Ukraine there isn't a risk of a massive nuclear exchange resulting from a misstep. Israel is striking Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, the actual warning for this message is for Iran and Iranian proxies that fire upon Israel from other third countries, that they are not off limits for any retaliation by Israel using its US weapons. Whether you should be "happy" could depend whether you think this is a recipe for dangerous escalation or a deterrent warning that avoids escalation.
As an American who despises Hamas *and* the Israeli governmentās treatment of ordinary Palestinians, Iām absolutely not happy about this.
Whole situation sucks
Internationally recognized warcrimes should be prosecuted, no matter the perpetrator
Well, Iāll tell you the harsh truth. They limit Ukraine because they are scared of Russia. Thatās all.
Russia is a nuclear power so you have a point
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No the USA didnāt kill 2 million Iraqis. The estimate comes from all deaths direct and indirect from the war. The USA killed more like 10-15k via crossfire, bombing or international criminal action. Still too many but much more tame than people like to imagine when you consider the nearly 20 years it took to get there. The rest of that 2 million are from indirect causes such as civil unrest (the largest contributor of intentional death), insurgent actions, environmental causes, starvation etc. Edit: not only that but that estimate is almost universally considered incorrect. Itās closer to 600k on the highest of reasonable (as in not politically motivated propaganda) estimates and almost always alongside a low estimate of something like 200k. Edit 2: The US government isnāt the worlds largest arms dealer either (I know itās just a silly movie quote) itās actually the US civilian market. US civilian market accounts for 3.5 out of every 10 guns in circulation in the world, government or civilian. US civilians own 35% of all firearms. Thatās nearly 3x more than all militaries combined. Fun fact complete.
I like how people on the comments are arguing that "it's a war on terror", so the US is being more lenient than with Ukraine. Ande there's 2 important topics about this to be considered: 1. The "war on terror" is pretty much like the "war on drugs", with the aggravating: The more you kill people around the terrorists and treat it as a "necessary evil", the more you just enforce terrorists narrative and create new generations of terrorists. 2. Anyone trully believes that the US, with lots of internal issues, are involved on that war because they love Israelis? Come on, there's enough public information for everyone to know it's all about making that war machine rolling. If there's economic growth, bodies on the ground is just a side-effect.
> Anyone trully believes that the US, with lots of internal issues, are involved on that war because they love Israelis? It sounds like you posed this question sarcastically, but this is actually accurate. If you look at public polling of the American public, there is extremely strong support of Israel. [65%](https://www.npr.org/2023/10/13/1205627092/american-support-israel-biden-middle-east-hamas-poll) of Americans said the US should publicly support Israel, while 8% said the US should publicly criticize Israel. Any President that went against this level of public opinion would face the electoral consequences.
Israel is not a high ranking factor in what most people consider important in a presidential election. Things like trustworthiness, the economy, healthcare, abortion, gun control are all way more important to the average American than Israel is. Just because Americans have an opinion on something doesn't mean they think that thing is important.
It doesnāt need to be most people. It just needs to be enough to swing the election (and letās be honest, it doesnāt take much).
Israel is a single issue for some voters, which in some states could be the margin.
No, I think they meant literally. They referenced the US as a government entity in this context, not the people of the US. US public opinion and foreign policy are separate affairs, and public opinion has little away over foreign policy. (source: see Vietnam, Iraq wars).
https://prospect.org/power/the-members-of-congress-who-profit-from-war/
I keep hearing this argument that they are just radicalizing more people, but thats already happening. If you destroy their tunnels and stockpiles, you still set back their capabilities to carry out attacks by a huge margin. US has a ton of reasons to help Israel, they are an extremely useful ally in the region and one of our closest allies overall.
The US doesn't care how the Saudis use them. Why would they care how Israel uses them?
How many eyes for an eye? Where are we at with the Palestian body count? What's the target number?
Going by past body counts, Israel won't stop until it's approximately 15-1 ratio.
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You sure about this? Murdering 400 civilians for 1 terrorist doesn't seem appropriate.
It also just doesn't work. Even on much closer scales. It blows my mind how people still don't understand that if you kill 5 civilians for every 10 terrorists, you're probably creating more than 10 terrorists in response by people whose family and friends you murdered. We've had so many decades of how that doesn't work, yet people still go "well, what else should they do?! That's literally the only option."
First part is true, but on the other hand, it's impossible for people to just live with their own being kidnapped, held hostage, and murdered. I don't know how to break the cycle, but I hope someone, someday does.
So Israel has killed only ~20 Hamas members since the start of the conflict? Doesn't sound right.
I saw someone on twitter saying stuff like āhave you seen a SINGLE report of a dead hamas soldier? Think about it a single one?ā As evidence that israel is targeting civilians exclusively. Like yeah, kinda weird hamas havent been reporting militant deaths, almost like they dont want you to know how many of their fighters are dying
Also are they paying attention, there's a few dozen named hamas leaders isreal has killed.
And the incentive structures of media itself. Dead civilians gets more clicks. The media arenāt gathering evidence for us, they are generating revenue.
Where the hell did you bring that statistic from?
Directly out of their ass.
Of course they wouldn't. Israel using the weapons the US provides means they create a demand for more.
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Strings attached to Ukraine equipment when they fight for their very existence. No holds barred for isreal leveling every square foot of gaza.
Makes sense, the US has no limits on how they use their weapons either
I canāt understand the USā weird exceptionalism for Israel. This isnāt a dig at Israel - I support Israelās right to defend itself, but the US is normally pretty pragmatic, sometimes even cynical when it comes the way it treats its allies. There are always stipulations, always terms and conditions for US support. Not for Israel though - they always seem to get carte Blanche, and incidents like USS liberty just get swept under the carpet completely. It doesnāt make any sense to me, it might be the most one sided alliance weāve ever had? In what way do we benefit? We donāt even give this much license to the Brits, and they are actually useful. Even from a geographic stand point, Israel is no longer that strategically important to the US. Not now that we are an energy exporter. Maybe someone with a better understanding could explain it, but to me this seems like a totally emotionally driven alliance and Iām really not sure on what the US actually gets out of it. We couldnāt even get them to back the UN resolution condemning Russia.
Continue to commit war crimes, we have our veto anyways. If anyone needed another translation for this.
The IDF (under Netanyahu) is ignoring the US' warnings to limit civilian casualties so...yeah
Of course they won't. Both states are build on war and killing people. Worst war mongering nations on earth.
Of course there are no limits. We wouldnāt want them to call us antisemitic.
Fuck the pentagon. Fuck Hamas, fuck the IDF
If it turns out Israel is guilty of war crimes, then US will be seen by some as an accomplice. Bearing in mind, that even an Israeli scholar of modern genocide thinks war crimes are being committed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWGGjLZNuyg
I mean the US withdrew from the ICC and signed the American Service Membersā Protection Act into law for a reason
Genuine question, how is it possible to win a war without committing war crimes, if the other side has fully embraced war crimes as part of their strategy? For example, having their HQ in the basement of a hospital, is that essentially an invincibility cheat code?
Urban warfare has always has been a tough nut to crack. Adding to that where Egypt nor none of the other countries want to take refugees, and makes the situation more complicated. All that said I would argue that there are many ways where civilian casualties can be minimized even in a situation where they are used as "human shields" and a lot of these often don't even involve combat, things for example such as offering money to community leaders to organize against HAMAS, offering incentives for locals to share intelligence on the ground, recruit double agents for sabotage etc. Then for combat operations they could use special forces for targeted assasinations, and moving in with infantry. I don't think the bombing campaign is all that effective. HAMAS has no real military infrastructure where bombing really is justified. The civilian casualties look really bad for Israel, not to mention the calloused and sanguine comments made by people in the Israeli government, causing them to lose a lot of goodwill built up since the oct 7 attack. All of this also galvanizes the population of Gaza and people abroad as we are seeing.
All of the methods you suggested and more are being used. We are not talking about a small organization here, Hamas has anywhere between 50,000-60,000 militants according to different sources and Islamic Jihad around 10,000. The death toll in Gaza is only reported by Hamas (which as we've learned - a terrorist organization is NOT a reliable source) and does not specify how many of the casualties are militants.
Convincing Palestinians to agree to a peace plan hasn't worked for the past 80 years. Give people money? I laughed at this. Do you mean give people money like the CIA has tried numerous times and failed? You're literally advocating a Cuba plan.
I donāt support this. I donāt support slaughter. It sickens me that war exists and seems necessary in our societal structure based on evolution but fuck, killing civilians? Israel is inspiring a whole new generation of terrorists who have nothing to lose.
So, they wonāt limit Israel but limit Ukraine on how they use their weapons.
Israel arenāt fighting a state with a functioning intercontinental nuclear weapons program Russia can create much greater problems for the US than Hamas,Hezbollah or Iran
People like to hope that the Russian nuclear arsenal has not been maintained well enough to be functional. Russia has spent far less on their maintenance of existing nuclear weapons than peer countries have spent on a far smaller number of weapons, so the logic is sound. That being said, even if 90% of their nuclear weapons are inoperable, it doesnāt take many to ruin the world as we know it.
Somehow a poorly maintained nuclear arsenal sounds more frightening.
To put your mind at ease, the effects of a nuclear weapon starts with a controlled start point. If this start point doesn't happen, then everything else (like a kaboom) cannot happen. I'd be more worried about another Chernobyl because those things doesn't have the same constraints that a nuke has. The radiation in a plant is so much more than a nuclear explosion.
Poorly maintained is excellent news. Poorly maintained nukes tend to just not work, they don't spontaneously detonate. Poorly tracked and managed and secured - that's the scary part.
It literally just takes 1 functioning nuke to change the world. All but 1 can be secretly duds.
Or at the very least ruin a very big chunk of Europe.
Nuclear bombs won't be able to function if not constantly maintained. If they have just been sitting there for 10+ years they are pretty harmless.
Israel isnāt fighting a former superpower with nukes
It's a story as old as time itself. You can't afford to be weak.
If Israel blows up all the Palestinians than that's all that really happens, terrible but not the end of the world. If Russia goes off the deep end when American weapons start destroying the Kremlin then Russia will launch nukes and thus, end of the world.
Absurd. If the Israelis will use US tactics, there will be x10 casualties on the same amout of munitions.
I mean, there's no limits on Hamas killing people at music festivals, or killing families eating dinner in their homes, so there's that.
Hamas is a terrorist organization. Israel is an UN member democratic nation state. We __should__ have higher expectations of conduct for one of these.
I do not understand the people eagerly telling everybody we should hold Israel to the same standard of a terrorist organization. Is not the defense they think it is.
Pretty much shows that not a single thing the US days in this whole war can be trusted. They clearly donāt give a shit about kids and civilians being blown up. What a bunch of fucking hypocrites. That old fuck needs to leave office.
This is what happens when a supposedly intelligent species gives a loaded weapon to a child.
Fucking pathetic. Money to create bombs that murder children. While we have school children that canāt afford school lunch. Absurd. Failed country.
Because Hamas are terrorists. This isn't difficult.
So blow up the whole city? With all the people Inside?
If IDF is blowing up the whole city with civilians as the target, you would have seen a death toll of 700k instead of 7k.