Sunni Islam and Shia Islam Together Again…And Against Us!

[jakelafort]

Autumn, i think you downplay the threat from Islamic terrorism. To this point it is in relation to civilization a minor risk. But i don’t think it is reasonable to extrapolate the threat of terrorism to Canadians, Americans and Europeans continuing at the same rate which is i assume somewhere in the neighborhood of being struck by lightening.

[—]

jakelafort wrote:

Autumn, i think you downplay the threat from Islamic terrorism.

The death tolls to date tell a story of who the biggest threats are to whom. I don’t know what magical thinking lets us jump to a scenario where that suddenly reverses. Even if the will was there, the mechanics largely aren’t. The only thing keeping such a fantasy alive is WMD, but Palestine doesn’t make a dent in that scenario. It just doesn’t.

[jakelafort]

Yes to date the death toll is miniscule. That is why i said it is not fair to extrapolate the death rate.

It is not magical thinking. Obtain nukes. Use nukes.

Hamas infiltration into Israel attacking people with guard down at a public event is perhaps the new paradigm. Israel is a tiny tiny place and yet never even saw it coming in spite of having the putative best security in the world. Imagine in the west what they could do? How could any country possibly prepare and defend such acts? And if they don’t mind dying as martyrs and that is encouraged i have no clue what would stop them.

[Unseen]

jakelafort wrote:

Israel is a tiny tiny place and yet never even saw it coming in spite of having the putative best security in the world.

And hopefully it’s what will cost Netanyahu—who is a Trump-esque believer in the Strong Man theory of government—his job.

[—]

jakelafort wrote:

Yes to date the death toll is miniscule. That is why i said it is not fair to extrapolate the death rate.

It is. Nuclear warfare isn’t a new variable. It’s been in the equation since before any of us were born, though of course the technology has improved since Hiroshima/ Nagasaki. If you operate based on evidence, up to this point extremists are subject to one of three scenarios: they have had the motive but not the means, the means but not the motive, or they’ve had neither.

Alleviating the suffering of Palestinians adds nothing to either means or motivation. It’s not a people of deep resources. If anything, Islamic states backing Palestinians only diminishes their available resources. The path to a free Palestine is tenuous at best, and any newly created state would have a lot of attention on it. Even if the new state emerged as the result of the total destruction of Israel—a scenario powerful foreign backers really don’t support and will seek to prevent, this doesn’t automatically make this hypothetical state a nation of means neither does it make it an ally of surrounding states, even if they do have certain objectives in common.

Palestinians are, ultimately, people not cartoon characters in a G.I. Joe plot.

[jakelafort]

Autumn i disagree.

Ever hear the warning about the stock market? Can’t remember the specific language but it is to the effect: past performances are not an assurance of future performance. Things happen for the first time. 78 years not a long span either. And we know it is just luck that the right people have been in right place to stop the launch.

And it is not the threat of nucs alone. As i indicated it is conceivable that Hamas’ invasion is the new paradigm. You don’t have to land a plane into a building. There are other ways to cause terror. Many many ways. Chemically, biologically and simply doing what Hamas did. Go to any sporting event, social gathering, school, hospital etc. Shoot it up. Detonate explosives. Kill many, take hostages. Vulnerability of states to terrorism is outstanding.

I think we are talking at cross purposes. You seem to be thinking of Hamas alone. I am thinking of Islamic terrorism broadly. Dozens of terror groups. At a minimum Afghanistan and Iran states that support terrorism. I suspect this war will be the impetus for more terrorism. Copy cat and or revenge motives. There is also the threat of individuals unassociated with terror groups but with warped Islamic jihad fire in the belly that cause terrorism. Imagine what even a few dozen special ops soldiers could do to any state before being detected? It is not a fun thing to contemplate.

As to the plight of the Palestinians..yes of course they’re real. But will they learn? Will they continue to vote against their interest? To act against their interest? I have not read or heard anyone who has good vibes on their future. Arabs don’t want them. No clear path exists to a good future.

[—]

jakelafort wrote:

past performances are not an assurance of future performance.

No one is making such an argument. If that were the extent of my thinking, I’d propose we wipe America off the map first and then address terrorist cells and the nations that fund them after. But I don’t because a) that’s not the limit of my thinking and b) it’s not relevant.

I think we are talking at cross purposes. You seem to be thinking of Hamas alone.

I am not thinking of Hamas alone. I am thinking of Palestinians and not constantly letting the innocents that are being slain get lost in smoke screens and wild tangents, ifs and buts. The status quo for Gaza is pretty bad. Leaving the status quo where it is or worsening it definitely increases human suffering. Alleviating it has very low percentage odds of worsening our personal risk. That alone doesn’t mean support for Palestine. It means adding in our risk profile is noise, not signal. I am not going to weigh my extremely low level of risk against the actual death of kids and innocent civilians. What Palestine adds to the already existing risk profile has not been demonstrated. Gaza doesn’t have money or vast resources to fund terrorism. It’s a territory dependent on foreign aid. And even achieving statehood and removing blockades might help them, but it’s not going to rocket that state into anything more than developing nation status in the most optimistic scenario.

[Unseen]

GOING ALL-IN FOR ISRAEL MAY MAKE BIDEN COMPLICIT IN GENOCIDE

Oh, the irony! The nation created for the victims of genocide is now working a little holocaust of its own.

Lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the dire warning to President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in a 44-page emergency brief on Wednesday, on the heels of Biden’s trip to the Middle East. There, Biden reiterated his administration’s unwavering support for Israel — even as the Israeli government wages an unprecedented bombing campaign on the occupied Gaza Strip in retaliation for a horrific attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,400 Israeli citizens.

 “Israel’s mass bombings and denial of food, water, and electricity are calculated to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza,” Katherine Gallagher, senior attorney with CCR and a legal representative for victims in the pending ICC investigation in Palestine, told The Intercept. “U.S. officials can be held responsible for their failure to prevent Israel’s unfolding genocide, as well as for their complicity, by encouraging it and materially supporting it.”

“We recognize that we make serious charges in this document — but they are not unfounded,” she added. “There is a credible basis for these claims.”

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Unseen.

[_Robert_]

Atheists like us can have these rational debates. Unfortunately, the fundamentalist believers have different priorities other than rationality or least-harm solutions. No, they have prophesies and souls in the balance. The US is also driven by xtians and their view of the Holy Land.

If HAMAS held the might and power instead of Israel, there would have been another holocaust or worse by now. I am fairly certain of that. As fucked up as the treatment of these Arabs has become, at least Israel doesn’t go full HAMAS on them.

Israel can’t afford to let them get strong, therefore this apartheid-like system.

[TheEncogitationer]

Unseen,

I don’t care why the Evangelical Christians support Israel and Jews would tell Evangelical Christians to go screw if said Evangelicals demanded conversion of the Jews as a condition of support too.

Hell, I don’t even shop at “The Family’s” GoodWill Industries thrift stores. My favorite thrift is Value Village, who benefits National Kidney Services.

I’m going to the side of the bread that is best buttered for the ideals Secularism and Freedom. I’m not seeing any equivalents to The Center For Inquiry or The Cato Institute in Mecca or Tehran or among their respective allies. I do, however, see a multi-party Knesset and a free press and media that are open to the ideals of Secularism and Freedom in Israel. If Muslims, whether Arabs, Persians, or otherwise, want that to change, they can show improve.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: Capitalization

[TheEncogitationer]

Autumn,

Islam once held two-thirds of the world that they knew of, without, mind you, the benefit of oil revenues or NBC weapons.

Their Barbary Corsair pirates kidnapped and enslaved 1.5 million Europeans just from the 1500s to the 1800s C.E. and the Muslim pirates sailed on slave raids as far from their homes as Ireland and Iceland.

Had they sailed just a few hundred miles Southwest of Iceland, Muslim pirates could have easily done their own version of Manifest Destiny on our Contenent.

And nowadays, as 9/11 demonstrated, we are no longer protected by the vastness of two Oceans.

Petulent stupid little girls who don’t understand that are the ones who are “chickenshit” to face reality.

[—]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Autumn, Islam…

Isn’t an excuse for the fucked up situation in Gaza.

And nowadays, as 9/11 demonstrated, we are no longer protected by the vastness of two Oceans.

As a singular event, it was tragic. But in the span from 1995-2015* the number of deaths due to terrorist incidents was 3322. That’s around 150-160 per year. If we remove 2001, it goes down to about 15-16. When we look at the casualties from the resulting wars, there were 46,000 civilian deaths in Afghanistan alone.

It is true that something could happen to the US. It could be something catastrophic. Your nearest neighbour could also cut off your head and eat your spleen. Shit happens. One of the liabilities of being alive is that you can be horrifically killed or maimed or traumatized. But arguing what could happen in the face of what does happen gets silly after awhile, especially when every time the US is pissing its pants in fear like the widdle cry babies you are, it becomes nearly half the fucking world’s problem. The response was so brutally disproportionate in cost of life and limb to not just Afghanistan’s people, but to people in coalition nations as well. If terrorism is a threat to Americans it’s less so from the terrorists and more so from the potential American response.

I understand the OP is about more than Palestine. But I am talking about Palestine and responding to your remarks regarding Gaza and the West Bank and how you’ve somehow twisted it into an issue of your personal security when there are innocents facing actual harm right now. I’m not going to ignore them to coddle the hyperactive fear centre of your brain.

*I went with one of the first data sets I found. I’m not digging deep just for a paltry point. We could pull up more data, but this set included two of the largest body counts for terrorist acts in American history, which is being pretty generous of me since one of them was the Oklahoma city bombing, so not even at attack from Islamic extremists.

[_Robert_]

Death toll is a poor measure considering the fog of war. The intent of each warring faction is what matters. The intent of the ruling party of Gazi is death to Israel. There is no ambiguity about this. The intent of Israel is to survive.

This leaves two solid solutions.

(1) Israel packs up and leaves the Levant

(2) Hamas is destroyed

Anything else requires compromise.

[Unseen]

Why we support Israel so religiously:

[—]

_Robert_ wrote:

Death toll is a poor measure considering the fog of war. The intent of each warring faction is what matters.

The fog of war? No when you have a prolonged policy that accepts civilian deaths, those deaths are on your hands. Dressing it up in idealism doesn’t undo the barbarism of it.

[Author]

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