War in the Middle East, again

[Torco]

if terrorism means anything other than "le bad thing bad people do", it means this, yeah.

sooo.. we think they're going to end up invading lebanon or not?

[Travis B.]

The question is have they learned from the Israeli intervention in the Lebanon Civil War how well that went...

[Torco]

how do you mean? israel came out on top in that conflict, with much lower casualties than its adversaries iirc, and it doesn't look like it'd be very different right now.

[Raphael]

how do you mean? israel came out on top in that conflict, with much lower casualties than its adversaries iirc, and it doesn't look like it'd be very different right now.

Well, they never managed it to permanently control Lebanon, were faced with, from their perspective, an endless quagmire, and had to leave in the end.

[Torco]

sure, but it's the same script that, say, the US enacts every couple of years: come up with some flimsy excuse, invade a random country, kill a million innocent civilians or so, say everyone who doesn't support the "our boys" is a terrorist, give a couple more gorillion dollars to defense contractors, do extensive war crimes and then withdraw from said country. it seems to keep the population nice and supportive of the government and megacorpos have a new country to pillage for a while... like it's not a failure if it works for the people making the decisions, is what I'm saying.

[Raphael]

sure, but it's the same script that, say, the US enacts every couple of years: come up with some flimsy excuse, invade a random country, kill a million innocent civilians or so, say everyone who doesn't support the "our boys" is a terrorist, give a couple more gorillion dollars to defense contractors, do extensive war crimes and then withdraw from said country. it seems to keep the population nice and supportive of the government and megacorpos have a new country to pillage for a while... like it's not a failure if it works for the people making the decisions, is what I'm saying.

It's usually generally seen as a failure afterwards, though.

[Travis B.]

sure, but it's the same script that, say, the US enacts every couple of years: come up with some flimsy excuse, invade a random country, kill a million innocent civilians or so, say everyone who doesn't support the "our boys" is a terrorist, give a couple more gorillion dollars to defense contractors, do extensive war crimes and then withdraw from said country. it seems to keep the population nice and supportive of the government and megacorpos have a new country to pillage for a while... like it's not a failure if it works for the people making the decisions, is what I'm saying.

It's usually generally seen as a failure afterwards, though.

The Iraq War, Afghanistan War, and Vietnam War are all remembered here in the US as failures or at least as pointless causes of the deaths and lasting injuries of many American servicepeople. Note that there today is a strong dichotomy between how people who served are seen and how the political leaders who sent them to fight are seen here; the former are seen in a positive light (unlike in the days of Vietnam) while the latter are seen in a negative light, as sending soldiers in harm's way for their own political goals and often making things worse than before in the long run (my parents seriously were nostalgic for the days of Saddam Hussein after it was clear that the invasion of Iraq was a clusterfuck entirely of the US gov't's own making, and that is even though Saddam Hussein was an absolutely horrible man ─ just google "Anfal").

(One note to be made is that the Iraq War is seen in a worse light than the Afghanistan War, as the latter is seen as at least having been necessary ─ after all, it was the Taliban, which sponsored Al Qaeda, who brought down the Twin Towers, who made it necessary even if it turned into a "forever war", while the former was built on a lie from the start, was completely unnecessary, and was solely for the sake of George W. Bush's political ambitions, and which turned a relatively stable if highly authoritarian country into a complete disaster.)

[Torco]

*we* remember it as failures. they're probably great successes from the perspective of boeing, lockheed-martin, blackrock or vanguard. I don't think the people making these decisions care very much whether the media or the population see these things as failures or successes decades down the line, ultimately: obama still has his nobel peace prize and so on.

[keenir]

sooo.. we think they're going to end up invading lebanon or not?

The question is have they learned from the Israeli intervention in the Lebanon Civil War how well that went...

how do you mean? israel came out on top in that conflict, with much lower casualties than its adversaries iirc, and it doesn't look like it'd be very different right now.

Well, they never managed it to permanently control Lebanon, were faced with, from their perspective, an endless quagmire, and had to leave in the end.

Hmm...well, lets just hope that nobody over there is thinking "Welp, it can't get worse, so lets see it we can try again."

[Travis B.]

*we* remember it as failures. they're probably great successes from the perspective of boeing, lockheed-martin, blackrock or vanguard. I don't think the people making these decisions care very much whether the media or the population see these things as failures or successes decades down the line, ultimately: obama still has his nobel peace prize and so on.

Even Obama didn't think he deserved a Nobel Peace Prize, and he isn't blamed for the wars nearly as much as Dubya, as he didn't start them.

[Travis B.]

sooo.. we think they're going to end up invading lebanon or not?

The question is have they learned from the Israeli intervention in the Lebanon Civil War how well that went...

how do you mean? israel came out on top in that conflict, with much lower casualties than its adversaries iirc, and it doesn't look like it'd be very different right now.

Well, they never managed it to permanently control Lebanon, were faced with, from their perspective, an endless quagmire, and had to leave in the end.

Hmm...well, lets just hope that nobody over there is thinking "Welp, it can't get worse, so lets see it we can try again."

I bet that Netanyahu thinks Sabra and Shatila was a good thing, and given the opportunity would do it again.

(Disclaimer: Yes, I know Netanyahu was not responsible for Sabra and Shatila - that was Sharon.)

[Travis B.]

Netanyahu really wants a greater regional war, does he?

[Torco]

told you, it's about the lebensraum, was never about any hostages. and this time they have all the support of the sole planetary superpower.

[Linguoboy]

I tried posting this thought-experiment to FB and Meta flagged it for "violating community standards". Fortunately that's unlikely to happen here.

DEA: We have evidence that Banco Azteca is laundering money for the cartels.
Feds: Okay, what are you planning in terms of next steps?
DEA: We're gonna take some armored vehicles across the border and shoot up a bunch of retail branches in Sinaloa.
Feds: ...
Feds: ...
Feds: We were thinking more like maybe sanctions.
DEA: What are those?

(If you're unclear how this relates to the topic of the thread, here's a helpful link: https://www.npr.org/2024/10/21/nx-s1-51 ... -al-hassan.)

[bradrn]

I tried posting this thought-experiment to FB and Meta flagged it for "violating community standards". Fortunately that's unlikely to happen here.

DEA: We have evidence that Banco Azteca is laundering money for the cartels.
Feds: Okay, what are you planning in terms of next steps?
DEA: We're gonna take some armored vehicles across the border and shoot up a bunch of retail branches in Sinaloa.
Feds: ...
Feds: ...
Feds: We were thinking more like maybe sanctions.
DEA: What are those?

(If you're unclear how this relates to the topic of the thread, here's a helpful link: https://www.npr.org/2024/10/21/nx-s1-51 ... -al-hassan.)

Genuine question: how effective would further sanctions be? After all, Hezbollah is already a listed terrorist group in most Western countries, so it should already be prohibited to fund. My understanding is that its funding comes mostly from Iran nowadays, which of course is itself sanctioned.

(Contrast it to terrorist groups in Israel, which are funded indirectly by Western money. In this case, sanctions are clearly effective and I heartily endorse them.)

[Torco]

honestly the threat of sanctions by the empire is growing less and less onerous. this is due to many factors, including china becoming more and more important in countries' trade balance, countries turning inwards and distancing themselves from the laissez-faire international trade model towards a sort of neo-protectionist vibe, and the fact that something like a third of the planet's surface is controlled by states under sanction already. (i was surprised too), and, you know, the fact that it is transparently a planetwide program of collective punishment for anyone ruled by a government not aligned/subservient with the us. the world is still covered in us military bases, of course, but the economic power the us can leverage is decreasing steadily.

[rotting bones]

china becoming more and more important in countries' trade balance

I hope you realize that in China, reading the works of Marx puts you under the suspicion of being a rebel. There are many factions within the country, but they apparently love Carl Schmitt over there these days.

[Torco]

sure, china bad: but as I think i've said before, I haven't seen the chinese nuke civilians, or establish fascist governments in my country and those countries around me, or wage economic war costing millions of civilian lives against one third of the world. they do seem like the lesser evil. and even if they're not, again, last time capitalism worked in such a way as not to make workers poorer much pooorer while making the ruling class richer was when there was two superpowers, even though the west was much more powerful than the warsaw pact: it's not good to have the world be owned by just one country.

also, how's that relevant to the point? i'm saying sanctions are becoming less powerful of a tool

[Travis B.]

About China, China is basically what we get when fascism manages to survive in the long term and become semi-stable. And the reason why China may seem more benevolent than the US is not that they are better, but rather that they haven't been capable of doing as much -- this will change if China gets more powerful. And please, do you seriously think that a Uighur or a Tibetan or a Taiwanese person really sees China as better than the US?

[Raphael]

About China, China is basically what we get when fascism manages to survive in the long term and become semi-stable. And the reason why China may seem more benevolent than the US is not that they are better, but rather that they haven't been capable of doing as much -- this will change if China gets more powerful. And please, do you seriously think that a Uighur or a Tibetan or a Taiwanese person really sees China as better than the US?

We're having a debate about whether China or the USA is worse on an online forum openly, under the owner's well-known pseudonym, hosted in the USA.

What are the chances of a similar debate happening on an online forum non-clandestinely hosted in China, without any of the participants risking legal trouble or disappearance in the process?

How many protests against Chinese government policies are openly tolerated on Chinese campuses right now?