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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   31853 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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Iran has launched hypersonic missiles into the center of Tel Aviv.

This is shocking to me - I knew things were heating up in the Middle East, but now Iran is officially firing back at Israel. To be frank I was kind of not paying attention to the situation much until this happened, but seems like a major inflection point.

What are the implications of this for further war? For nuclear action in the area? Other countries getting invovled?

What are the implications for the U.S. election, and what do you think the U.S. will do in response?

How do we find a way towards peace now that Israel has been bombed in a civilian area?

EDIT: Almost goes without saying, but Iran has officially declared war on Israel.

Tehran does not have the capabilities to launch a serious war against Israel. They wouldn't get an army to Baghdad, and their airforce would be lucky to get 50% of any attempted strike further than that as well.

Like their proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, their entire goal is to lose spectacularly and hope American and European leftists get extra mad at Israel for being competent at warfare.

Like their proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, their entire goal is to lose spectacularly and hope American and European leftists get extra mad at Israel for being competent at warfare

Their strategy is simple. Israel has the non ultra orthodox population of Wisconsin and the area of El Salvador. It is a tiny country with abysmal natural resources that is deeply fractured. Israel needs to be kept in a permanent state of crisis as this will effectively make the country infeasible. Israel is going to be in a permanent state of chaos.

Europe has nothing to gain by Israel creating another refugee crisis. The support for Israel is low in Europe.

Isreal is a country of neurotic people with abysmal school results. They aren't competent at war, they are just exceptionally brutal while fighting people who barely have weapons.

  • -13

I have no idea how you can analyze this conflict and not see immense Israeli competence. The pager attack, the elimination of all Hezbollah's top leaders, the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, these are all impressive results.

IMO, Israel has by far the most competent military and secret service of any country. The United States? We can't even successfully fight the Houthis in the Red Sea. China? They haven't fought a war in decades and were last seen brawling against India with melee weapons. Russia? Don't make me laugh. Europe? Competent fighters but hamstrung by effete leadership.

Isreal is a country of neurotic people with abysmal school results.

This is just... bizarre. This isn't a math test, this is war.

I mean just yesterday former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that the head of Iranian counterintelligence was found in 2021 to be a Mossad double agent (alongside about 20 others in the unit). The head of counterintelligence! Pardon my swearing, but the one guy whose job it was to find spies was a fucking spy himself! Assuming it's true, and I don't see why it wouldn't be as it's massively shameful for Iranians to admit it, it's an absurd level of superiority and dominance Israel is showing. Israeli intelligence is so ahead of them that Iranians were unable to meaningfully vet that ONE guy at the top of the pyramid.

Didn't the same thing happen with the head of British counterintelligence being a Soviet double agent? And look how that turned out.

An aside, and I don't mean to pick on you, but I'd like to kill the trend of relying on a a single historical anecdote when making an argument.

The two biggest fallacies I see are this:

  • Chamberlain appeased Hitler in 1938 therefore all appeasement is bad.

  • Prohibition in the United States led to more crime therefore all drugs must be legalized

There are huge differences between Israel today and the Soviet Union then. Yes, the Soviet Union's secret service was elite, just like Israel's. So why did the West win despite an inferior secret service? It's simple, Russians willingly defected to the West and then just gave us all their secrets.

To make the parallel work, we'd have to see Israelis defecting to Iran or other Muslim countries. Since this isn't happening, I just don't think the analogy works.

My point is just that I don't think intelligence and counterintelligence are all they're cracked up to be. The Soviets won the intelligence war, but their little victory was swept away by the uncaring maelstrom of socioeconomic forces, along with their country and their ideology. They should have spent less on guns and more on butter.

Israel is far and away the wealthiest country in the region that earned it(Dubai did not). It's unclear what socioeconomic forces are going to get them got.

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