International Events : How I learnt to stop worrying and love the-

[polishgenius]

1 minute ago, kissdbyfire said:

It doesn’t but it was super keen on funding and installing US-friendly military dictatorships all over the place not that long ago. 

 

Absolutely. I was just sticking to direct military conflict but yes. 

There's also the heinous amount of destruction caused by economic exploitation by Western companies that aren't a result of any official government policy but could be curtailed by it if Western governments had the will for it. 

[DMC]

13 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

ETA: I don't see a new HQ as meaningful leverage when the proposed agreement leads to their destruction.

I don’t understand why you think the proposal will lead to the Hamas leadership’s destruction.

9 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

Yeah, I edited my post to address that.  If Israel's proposal included a term that allowed leadership to exit Gaza safely in return for the hostages, that would be something, although everything I've read suggests Sinwar has no interest in leaving and would prefer to be become a martyr.  But if that's not in the proposal, it's meaningless if they move their HQ to Egypt if Israel just destroys Hamas after they get all their hostages back.

Egypt’s cooperation is critical to actually delivering the aid such an agreement would provide.  Hamas may only care about that for selfish reasons, sure, but these aren’t hypotheticals I’m pulling out of my ass.  There are very obvious and realpolitik reasons the state department is engaging with Egypt and Qatar as proxies.

[Mudguard]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

I don’t understand why you think the proposal will lead to the Hamas leadership’s destruction.

Egypt’s cooperation is critical to actually delivering the aid such an agreement would provide.  Hamas may only care about that for selfish reasons, sure, but these aren’t hypotheticals I’m pulling out of my ass.  There are very obvious and realpolitik reasons the state department is engaging with Egypt and Qatar as proxies.

The proposal will lead to the destruction of Hamas as an organization.  Under the current proposal on the table now, the Hamas leadership currently outside of Gaza will live on, but be in charge of nothing.  Israel's stated goal is to destroy Hamas, which they will be able to complete much more easily once they have all the hostages back.  It will be trivial to flood all the tunnels, which they have already telegraphed that they want to do.  After that, it will just be a matter of time for them to functionally eliminate Hamas from Gaza.  They will have to essentially occupy Gaza indefinitely afterwards, which is something else they've stated that they will do.

Sure, of course the US needs to work through Egypt and Qatar, because we don't have a direct line of communication with Hamas.  But I don't think either Egypt or Qatar has meaningful leverage that they can apply to Hamas to force them to accept the current agreement that is being proposed.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Mudguard said:

The proposal will lead to the destruction of Hamas as an organization.  Under the current proposal on the table now, the Hamas leadership currently outside of Gaza will live on, but be in charge of nothing.  Israel's stated goal is to destroy Hamas, which they will be able to complete much more easily once they have all the hostages back.  It will be trivial to flood all the tunnels, which they have already telegraphed that they want to do.  After that, it will just be a matter of time for them to functionally eliminate Hamas from Gaza.  They will have to essentially occupy Gaza indefinitely afterwards, which is something else they've stated that they will do.

This is based on assumptions that don’t consider the stark reality that Israel’s actions have created willing and able replacements.  Regardless, I’m not sure how a six week ceasefire as opposed to Israel’s explicitly intended next action leads to more dead Hamas.

4 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

But I don't think either Egypt or Qatar has meaningful leverage that they can apply to Hamas to force them to accept the current agreement that is being proposed.

They can’t force them, no, but they have the practical means to apply pressure.  Hence, leverage.

[Mudguard]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

This is based on assumptions that don’t consider the stark reality that Israel’s actions have created willing and able replacements.  Regardless, I’m not sure how a six week ceasefire as opposed to Israel’s explicitly intended next action leads to more dead Hamas.

They can’t force them, no, but they have the practical means to apply pressure.  Hence, leverage.

That's why Israel needs to occupy Gaza indefinitely, to continually suppress these new Hamas replacement groups.  Israel is well aware of this.

They have meaningless leverage, which is functionally no leverage.  Hamas is facing an existential threat, and any meaningful leverage needs address that.  Something that ensures the survival of the group, otherwise what is the point?

Which is why I can't see Hamas accepting the current proposal.  Why would they agree to a proposal that leads to their destruction?

[DMC]

Just now, Mudguard said:

Which is why I can't see Hamas accepting the current proposal.  Why would they agree to a proposal that leads to their destruction?

You’re plainly under a wrong impression here.  No point in arguing a flagrantly false premise.

[Conflicting Thought]

31 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

America typically doesn't do that to its central and south american neighbours 

Doesnt typically invade, but they do interfiere whenever they can in subtle and not so subtle ways. And the efects of those interventions lasting decades and still being felt today

[polishgenius]

1 minute ago, Conflicting Thought said:

Doesnt typically invade, but they do interfiere whenever they can in subtle and not so subtle ways. And the efects of those interventions lasting decades and still being felt today

 

28 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

Absolutely. I was just sticking to direct military conflict but yes. 

There's also the heinous amount of destruction caused by economic exploitation by Western companies that aren't a result of any official government policy but could be curtailed by it if Western governments had the will for it. 

 

[Mudguard]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

You’re plainly under a wrong impression here.  No point in arguing a flagrantly false premise.

What false premise?  That Israel is going to destroy Hamas, which is their stated goal?

[Conflicting Thought]

1 minute ago, polishgenius said:

 

 

Yeah i saw it after i posted, my b

[Conflicting Thought]

7 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

That's why Israel needs to occupy Gaza indefinitely, to continually suppress these new Hamas replacement groups.  Israel is well aware of this.

And to do that they need to genocide the palestinian people, awesome, and who is going to do something about israrl, wich country should occupy them to stop them.

[Mudguard]

Just now, Conflicting Thought said:

And to do that they need to genocide the palestinian people, awesome, and who is going to do something about israrl, wich country should occupy them to stop them.

To be clear, I don't support what Israel is doing in Gaza, but this is currently where I see things heading.  Israel and Netanyahu in particular have every incentive to destroy Hamas, regardless of the cost to the Palestinian people.  The only thing that would change this is if Israel agrees to a permanent ceasefire, which I don't see happening.  Netanyahu's coalition would collapse if he tried going down that route, and there has been no indication that they are even willing to consider a permanent ceasefire. 

[DMC]

11 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

What false premise?  That Israel is going to destroy Hamas, which is their stated goal?

That they can actually achieve that goal, yes, it’s plainly false.  If it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be any negotiations between the parties in the first place.

[Mudguard]

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

That they can actually achieve that goal, yes, it’s plainly false.  If it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be any negotiations between the parties in the first place.

I don't think Israel can actually eliminate every single member of Hamas.  But I think they can functionally eliminate Hamas as a power in Gaza, and that they can eventually eliminate Sinwar and the other leadership that remains in Gaza.  It's clear that Israel's goal is to destroy Hamas as a group functionally, and not literally every single member.  Do you think Israel can functionally destroy Hamas?

As for the negotiations, I think a short term deal for some, but not all, of the hostages is possible.  Also, Israel has incentives to go through the motions with the negotiations, even if they know that it's ultimately pointless, in order to appease internal groups that are demanding that they do everything possible to get back the hostages.  It's going to take a while to recover the hostages by force, so they are going to have to keep participating in these negotiations, while continually blaming Hamas for being unreasonable for rejecting their proposals, in order to keep these groups at bay.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Mudguard said:

Do you think Israel can functionally destroy Hamas?

No.

[Mudguard]

9 minutes ago, DMC said:

No.

OK.  Do you think that Israel can defeat Hamas so that Hamas is no longer a power in Gaza?  Just want to make sure this isn't a matter of semantics.  To me, destroy and defeat are the same in this context.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

Do you think that Israel can defeat Hamas so that Hamas is no longer a power in Gaza?

No.  If they did think that, they wouldn’t still be negotiating.  And frankly, this would’ve been over by now if that was possible.  There will always be an insurgent force in Gaza as long as it is occupied and blockaded.  That should be pretty obvious.

[Zorral]

10 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

OK.  Do you think that Israel can defeat Hamas so that Hamas is no longer a power in Gaza?  Just want to make sure this isn't a matter of semantics.  To me, destroy and defeat are the same in this context.

Whether Hamas is extremely weakened or not, at this point there are millions who will never, can never, forget what Israel has done to their families and Gaza.  This means even more powerful, and some very sophisticated, power or even powers, will emerge, dependent upon damaging Israel.

Israel has made itself more unsafe than it has ever been before -- this particularly is so because it's lost support from the rest of the world.  Except US, but when stinkin' pile and his ilks take over, Israel -- fergedd 'bout it!  These ilks are using Israel in exactly the same way that Hamas has been said to use Palestinians.

Edited May 1 by Zorral

[TheLastWolf]

2 hours ago, Padraig said:

How is what is quoted above different from "they are also telling them not to commit too much violence because they don't want to sell too many weapons."

Argh, because that isn't the analogy at all in the first place! Normally I wouldn't bother but considering you being civil and all- you can't sell any weapons when conflicts aren't prolonged and end with mass destruction very soon. Which leads to further public condemnation that leads to appeasement policies which is detrimental to their profits. Drawn out war can be milked for all its worth. Armaments aren't the only things being sold or bought, wartime logistics are far bigger. 

2 hours ago, Padraig said:

But you can push it too far, where people become puppetmasters.  Puppetmasters are very rare.  It is often incompetence, misguided beliefs, lack of power etc

When billion of dollars are involved, I can't share your certainty. 

2 hours ago, Padraig said:

And I wasn't sure were you actually talking about the Pentagon.  Good to know you were.

Umm, I wasn't. It was just an illustrative example. The West no longer enjoys an unchallenged monopoly in such affairs for me to restrict discussion to specifics.

[TheLastWolf]

2 hours ago, Padraig said:

I think many countries are willing to get away with a lot of terrible things but the West has more money and can thus cause more dangerous mischief in aggregate.  But morally, Russia (for example) is far more dangerous.  It just lacks the means (relatively speaking).

I'd advise ranking danger not on the basis of who has the bigger larder but the one with the biggest appetite. Both were the same person till a while ago, but now I'm not so sure anymore. Agendas are muddled to me but the horrors are clear.