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whYNOT

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Everything posted by whYNOT

  1. One would think so. I'm not one of those calling for such a declaration, especially one justified to 'help Israel' (which will fight its own regional battles, hopefully without interference) but for "calibrated" retaliation against any "clear and present danger", such as the intolerable attacks on international shipping by the Houthis which the US led consortium has firmly responded to and has to permanently stop. I believe Iran is "testing the waters", so to speak, seeing how far they can push the West through its proxy terror groups while avoiding confrontation. They must be met resolutely on an ad hoc basis while not (yet) maximally. https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/2024-03-16/live-updates-792187
  2. A return to clarity, by a proper expert on urban warfare. Increasing dismissal of the "numbers" put out by the Gazan Ministry of Death. Nothing new, Hamas' strategy was all-dependent on large civilian casualties, real or fictional, to "win" the political war.
  3. Monart, here's a link to Brownstone Institute and their many articles https://brownstone.org/ the gold standard for all things pandemic, good science, optimal health and freedom-orientated, fronted by the heroic Jeffrey Tucker ("Liberty or Lockdown?"). They have been my bright reference point
  4. "Prevarication" = non-stop lying and distraction It's your minds they own. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-ukraine-war-runs-on-lies/
  5. You could do with some education on the false alternative/dichotomy. The fanatical (Western) propaganda is which made for: either "pro-Putin" OR "Slava Ukraini!" Like children's games, with us or against us. Third way, for/against neither - and an early negotiations route to a peaceable resolution. They and their triumphalist indoctrinating of a "weak Russia" have (predictably) got Ukrainians killed in masses with Russia still solidly unbudged from its positions inside Ukraine, so, so much for pretending to be "for" Ukrainians. It was a murderously callous war policy foisted on the people. It makes one wonder just how little were leaders and populations caring "for Ukraine", and how much more hating/fearing of Russians. Obviously, exposed now is the rank failure of (colluding, censoring) western propaganda up against reality. "Putinist propaganda", I've said, was much more bluntly realistic. Still in denial, the Western govt's won't admit their deceptions and failure. They will keep doubling down.
  6. An interview that's long overdue - why? Perhaps because one like it reaching a large audience could have earlier curtailed this war. Yaron was morally appalled with Tucker. But that's what professional journalists must do: find us information, motivations, objectives, etc. - approve of the interviewees (and interviewer) or not. And two years of the one-sided and brushed-under info keeping Westerners semi-informed to promote and extend an avoidable war at Ukraine's final cost, has been horribly wrong. "Judge, and..." when you know the basic FACTS. Which most still don't. YB https://youtu.be/tF79RI7_cGA?si=I1pJoW208HICPOXF and Redacted: https://youtu.be/EcpHS0qBuOk?si=lOiqRY6V0M7LCyVu
  7. The urgent imperative to maintain NATO’s nuclear deterrence "The dismal performance of Russia’s conventional forces in the early days of the war in Ukraine risks convincing some in NATO that the future Russian threat to the Alliance can be deterred primarily via NATO’s conventional superiority, and that enhancing deterrence of Russian nuclear use in a future conflict is therefore no longer a high priority. This is a dangerous fallacy". Well, no. All wrong. The "dismal performance" by Russia in the first months is fully predicated upon a belief in total 'invasion' that the West saw (or pretended to see and promoted). I.E. The Russian comprehensive conquest of Ukraine--and countries beyond Ukraine. The fact of the matter - as any proper military analyst could tell: this was never remotely likely, with the size of the initial Russian force and other factors. The 'invasion' was a police action by a small expeditionary force to show Russia was deadly serious and was intended to drive Zelensky to negotiations. It worked, Z agreed to security/neutrality concessions, until Boris Johnson intervened: The fighting must go on. (And none of this intervention was publicly exposed until much later when there was no going back ). Only months after did the forces get increased by 300k men in Russia's mobilization when it became apparent there would not be talks allowed by the West and full war would go ahead. Shrewd of NATO. An organization based on mutual self-defence, which had no hostile enemy to 'defend' against for 30 years and may as well have packed up, finally rediscovered its raison d'etre and mojo by goading Russia into ITS self-defense. "We told you Russia would try to rise again!!". Vindicated at last. Because wherever or who you are, no citizen nor leaders will abide the permanent threats of ICBM's parked just over your border and your neighbor transformed into a huge military (NATO) arsenal. Europe may fool themselves they are safer now; I think NATO's "nuclear deterrence" escalation signal has made things distinctly unsafe. They continue beating the same drum to instill fear and obedience into Europe. To date, acting without knowledge of Putin/Russia's objectives (and non-objectives) and making false assumptions, because officials are too high and mighty to meet and talk.
  8. Israel's critics hoped there would be an order to end the war and withdraw the IDF. https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-783874 A PR victory, a pro forma rap on the knuckles. I venture the judges are awake to the repetitive, plain-as-day Hamas strategy a) incite the war and the inevitable IDF backlash b) which, in those difficult conditions, predictably brings about many civilian deaths (real/fabricated) and the misery of displaced Gazans c) the reliable international outcry would have Israel censured and ordered to withdraw. d) Hamas survives to do it again. A terror gang gains recognition from the Hague... In the mean time, the pathetic SA Govt is celebrating international attention for its upstanding moral stance, and no doubt, the several million dollars donated to ANC's private coffers from Qatar.
  9. Aiding, sponsoring, encouraging? Placing was imprecise. There was then as now a reasonable argument for fresh political opposition to the PA. A one-party system will become autocratic-dictatorial, and for sure Israel intended to play one off against the other. But I find no malicious intent. Hamas presented themselves to be a tamer organization to begin with, it appears. The neo-mystics and consequentialists will accuse or belittle the Israel Govt. for promoting Hamas (unknowing of its later character), so "deserving" what occurred. If not also for planning for Hamas to brutally attack, which is pretty sick. (it is a small, very tight society, and for all their differences, the bulk of Israelis are unified in esteem for their country and lives, and insist on loudly arguing with each other and constantly criticizing their Gvt. So the logistical magnitude of an Oct 7 "conspiracy" involving many people of all positions, indisputably would have been very shortlived, publicly exposed and condemned.
  10. Confirming exactly what I posited. "You deserved it; alternately, you planned it". no other options. Very much the conventional narrative, but useful to hear confirmed. All in denial of the fact that the 'heroic freedom fighters' many side with might be monsters.
  11. This by a "Muslim Arab" and regular correspondent. Tawil - and other silent Muslim Arabs - know what nobody in the West wants to know (evades): the Palestinians (for now) cannot be trusted to have self-rule. https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20325/palestinian-leaders-terrorism
  12. Old news, Jon. There was admitted by Israelis that Israel had a hand in placing Hamas - before it showed its true colors - in Gaza to be the political opponent to the more secular PA. No one thought they could win. Why did he bring this up now? Would Borrell have us believe B.N. 1). "had it coming" by his assistance in creating Hamas - or 2). a Grand Master Plan was set in motion by Israel which 'knew" Hamas would violently and electorally overturn Fatah, and knew it would become a terror group that vowed to annihilate Israel, and 'knew' it would keep attacking and provoking many conflicts --until the last and most savage? Therefore, now Israel can justify going in, defeating Hamas, ethnical - cleansing the population and annexing Gaza for its expansionist aims...? A conspiracist fantasy. The conspiracy propaganda against Israel, 'blaming the victim', has been widespread. And Borrell fresh from his mishandling of the Ukraine war is not too bright, I gather.
  13. A change of government, from Netanyahu's "far-right", would a) shorten the war and b) facilitate the "two-state solution"? Nothing is further from the truth. A left government would hardly do anything less in Gaza. Too, Israelis all know that first Hamas must be comprehensively beaten, and, afterward, the 2-state is far away, after a major ideological mindset change. Not because of Israel, which avidly wanted peaceful relations with surrounding states, it's the Palestinians who never wanted a solution, but the PA will pretend to play along for now to entrench power. The ignorance of these experts touting the formula that failed many times - only because of Palestinian "rejectionism". Allowing the PA to govern Gaza will be a repeat of recent events, when terrorists take over again, every Israeli kid knows this. The decisions should be left to Israel to decide and implement and Borrell, Biden and Blinken back off. https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20323/biden-threatens-netanyahu-drive
  14. For a long while I'd hear most people claim to be against Zionism/existence of Israel, (and having ignorance of any background) while claiming they have nothing against and/or like Jews. Continuing mob actions around the West, in the free, civilized capitals, reveal their lies and hypocrisy. They loathed both. (Those selfish Jews have escaped from us to the safety of a strong homeland). View their pleasure now that its invincible image has been compromised. Here is an old monster out in the open. If Israel is to be disallowed its moral right of self-defense, the physical basis of the individual right to "freedom of action", so already it is disallowed to the world's Jews. So will be everybody else. I hear conservatives alone who can see and call this new iteration of Jew-hatred, Islamo-Marxism, for what it is - evil. "Israel" was the earliest symptom of the disease, not the cause of it. Coming to a place near you. https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-782166
  15. Approx 9,000 Hamas dead (IDF reported numbers) out of the total 22,000+ (Gazan-Hamas ministry of health recently reported). "Collateral damage" - 40:60 per cent. Some say that's (deliberate) "genocide", not even close. That is how to defeat urban terrorists at minimal cost to others. With Hamas placing/forcing civilians into the firing line - cannon fodder to gain worldwide sympathy and for terrorists' self-protection from the IDF soldiers - the figures should be worse. Such irony. For the war they induced, and their inhumane abuses of their Gazan civilians, it is for Hamas that their noisy support in other nations is demanding "humanitarian" relief! So a decision of the Hague to pressure the IDF into 'humanely' halting their invasion is crucial, or the Hamas killers still alive realize, they are on borrowed time. And pandering, self-righteous South Africans lead the way. A new term enters law, "genocidal rhetoric". Words kill? Rhetoric legally demonstrates intent? At those Israeli pols who stupidly and publicly shoot off their mouths. Not here: "You wanted hell, you'll get hell". Who is that logically and justly aimed at?--Hamas, naturally. No indication here of genocidal intent on Gazans at large. https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-781705
  16. If I may add, the (objective) value of specific items, persons and activities (etc.) is, also, not static. Corresponding with one's reasoning process, those concrete values - 'evolve' - and expand, hierarchically. A childhood toy, a sport, a pastime, one's tastes ... one's love partner. Some put aside, some consciously accomodated lower/higher into one's value hierarchy, some subconciously through less attention given them. What IS timeless and "universal" is the objective value OF value, inseparable from and presupposed by "man's life". ["Values cannot exist (cannot be valued) outside the full context of a man’s life, needs, goals, and knowledge". AR] It took me a while to get to grips with Rand's "Indestructible, immortal robot" analogy. Yes - something that lives forever, feels no pain and pleasure, has no needs, no concepts, no goals, no virtues and is endangered by nothing - is incapable of valuing.
  17. Not for the first time, a response to belligerence, the forceful reaction to force-initiation, or preventive, self-defensive, military actions--have been causally twisted to turn the real victims into the aggressor, the aggressor into the victim. Maybe - on the basis of the last committed and most recent or present 'force' broadcast today, is the only one of significance (to the short-attention-span challenged, i.e., concretists. The northern Hezbollah offensive was intended to be coordinated with Oct 7. Hezbollah (and Hamas) wouldn't be propagating such nonsense if it had not been shown to be effective on large numbers of indoctrinated fools. https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20295/lebanon-hosts-terrorists
  18. I'll state my position for the last time: there are necessary and moral wars and inessential, avoidable ~and sacrificial~ wars. The rational person or government knows the difference, and will go to lengths to prevent hostilities and their consequences. Rational-value priorities: "This" is not worth ... "that". I care little for what you think of my arguments against the militant posture by US and Western governments to advance, and prolong, the disastrous Ukraine war, but since argument from authority is your thing, show me how the body of Objectivism - and Rand - would have supported the gvt. actions and inactions and evasions. You can't. So shut up. Stay on topic. Leave 'personalities' out of the debate.
  19. How does my presence and input on this thread deserve such a harsh rejection? Has what I argued in -objective- defense of Israel offended you? These constant personal references to others. Leave me (and D_W) out of it. Maybe it is you who should retire from the discussion, with whoever is prompting your slurs. You certainly have added no value, just negations without validation. "The second-hander acts, but the source of his actions is scattered in every other living person. It’s everywhere and nowhere and you can’t reason with him. He’s not open to reason".
  20. The comment: "Let that sink in". This sort of story purports to show that Jews are not accepted - anywhere, by even the most primitive people. Either disseminated as part of the anti-Jewish propaganda campaign that's gone global, or sympathetic to their plight - I don't know. For certain, unlike Muslims and maybe Christians, they would not force or proselytize their religion on the locals. But you illogically want to define a collective by an individual and/or by a splinter group of the Orthodox in Guatemala. This tells nothing about general, Jewish "behavior"- instead: self-determination. (Reminds me of the libertarian group who tried settling in Costa Rica). Anyone who spent time in Israel could report on how divergent are the Jews there, in behavior and opinions. Secular v. religious is just one angle. Freedom of opinion is secure. Try reports from Iran on the hair-raising monolithic controls and punishments meted out by that regime on citizens, if you want to see submissive behavior. Beyond Hamas, Iran, in every way, is Israel's primary foe and opposite. And Iran is the main enemy of the Western Enlightenment, knowing free-ish Israel is its closest threat but not its main one. Whatever one's (irrelevant) feeling-perceptions about Jews, a little moral support is called for here for Israel, in the interests of (moral) justice. The quibbles and skepticism about its politics, religion and so on, are - also - undermining the free West and playing into the enemies hands. The "Pro-Palestinians" screaming about 'genocide' should be told that we know what they are advocating - the ethnic cleansing of Israel - and told exactly which illiberal and cruel theocracy they are ultimately supporting and cravenly trying to appease, that would discard or murder them as easily as they would the Zionists. . . .
  21. Congrats, you've found out that a black President can be as racist as anyone! Fittingly, considering Cyril Ramaphosa's ANC party and its cadres are essentially neo-Marxist. I guess you thought this miscarriage of justice prompted by our virtue-signaler President reflected on me.
  22. Rather -- collectivist. "Behavior" per group is a hard one to pin down, it's logic that every group has its obnoxious to likable to admirable folk, and one can't fault "the group". Or conclude that one person ~defines~ the group. The Jews seem to be "out there" and more successful, so many esp. Lefties in politics, media, academia and entertainment are annoying, I admit. The *ethnic* non religious Jews-by-birth who have been and would at present again be identified, targeted and violated by racist, anti-semites--for having no more than a Jewish name? As would be the many ethnic Jewish intellectuals who are well-represented in Objectivism. One Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum? I think it's more that Jews are made keenly aware early on of their small and vulnerable tribe's repressed history and know there forever will be prejudices against them, individually and collectively, making them be convenient go-to culprits for outsiders' failures, varying only in how covert or overt the prejudice is. The effect, often one of acute sensitivity to others, over-compensation or pushiness.
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