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Do you have a conception of what the original US plan might have been; and how it might have changed due to events thus far? Just curious.
That's something that's bothering me about this entire enterprise. I'm not the most plugged-in person when it comes to geopolitical events, but I like to think I can read and understand the news, at least.
As it stands, I don't know quite why we're there, or what we want to accomplish, or how we plan to do it, or what our win condition is.
It makes me long for the days of desert storm, when that was all clearly laid out before lead started flying.
Why?
Look what Iran is doing - shutting down the global economy, launching missiles at and deliberately attacking civilian infrastructure and the economy (oil, travel, etc etc) of its neighbors. They've always been interested in doing this in all likelihood, but didn't think they could get away with it. They also had their civilian terror networks temporarily defanged.
What happens if they get the bomb? What happens if they rebuild the missile capacity and expand the drone capacity?
What if two years from now they wanted to close Hormuz and were a nuclear state? We'd have to just accept it or much riskier things.
The U.S. and Israel absolutely have classified timelines on missile production, they may have timelines on the nuclear stuff.
Iran can't be allowed to do what it wants to do, because it would do this. We know this, we can see now exactly why that is.
It just happened Trump was sitting in the chair instead of a cowardly president who might end up just waiting and praying.
Why now, specifically?
Trump made his threats and it was clear something was going to happen eventually, it appears to have gone off a bit half cocked but I imagine that's because the Iranians foolishly put enough of the government in one room together.
Why don't people understand this?
The government has been very explicit with stated public war aims and reasons, and has a number of private elements that are easily guessable. The media has landed on a meme to criticize this conflict as "they weren't clear" so people think it isn't clear when it is.
Iran can’t be blamed for defending themselves from an unjust attack by Israel. I would hope Americans would do the same if they were in Iran’s place; if they wouldn’t, I think they lack courage and a moral compass. If Israel decided to start targeting the homes of every American service member, and our only hope was to shut it down, then that’s what America should do. This is the proper response to an Israeli attempt at your national annihilation, something they have a track record of doing in the past 80 years.
Israel does this
This applies to Israel
Israel has the bomb. Every accusation is an admission when it comes to Israel. The Israelis, with a straight face, will tell you we should “help the Iranian people have their voices heard” while they keep three million Palestinians under a military occupation and prevent them from voting and moving freely in violation of international law.
I appreciate your response but I won't be engaging with you on this. I've personally found the anti-Israel/anti-Jewish posters to be too laser focused on that end of the conflict to the point where it makes the conclusions questionable and discussion unrewarding.
My apologies if I have you pegged incorrectly on the Jewish front.
What a coincidence! I too find people who post on the topic of Israel to be incapable of rational discussion because they fail to agree with me and my obviously correct points - just with the opposite political valence to you.
As I made clear down thread, I'm perfectly willing to engage with criticism of Jews, Israel, and this war. I find plenty of people capable of rational discussion about this topic including people I deeply disagree with.
However some of the posters here are clearly just angry, hateful, and blinded by some sort of intense and specific dislike that will never make sense to me and is clearly objectively irrational despite being historically common.
What's the value in discussion with someone who is going to blame the Jews every time? You already know they are going to blame the Jews. They aren't going to say anything novel. They might even be right occasionally but you won't be able to tell because they say the same thing every time.
I've never had any significant interaction with anti-semites in person or in real life prior to this conflict and I now get while growing up the Jewish people I know just automatically assumed anyone who was anti-Israel was anti-semitic.
If someone was criticising the actions of the Nazi regime, would you discount their critiques on the basis that there is no value in discussion with someone who is going to blame the Germans every time? How many people in the upper echelons of the Israeli government, with the ability and authority to make serious decisions, are not Jewish?
What, exactly, is irrational about Coffee Enjoyer's post? Are you going to deny that Israel has nuclear weapons? Are you going to deny that they have, in the past, engaged in both espionage and direct attacks on the US? The most significant intelligence theft in US history (at least to my knowledge) was committed by an Israeli spy, Jonathan Pollard.
The kind of low-intelligence antisemitism that you're describing, the kind that belongs to people who just look for some kind of external force they can blame for the problems in their life so they don't have to do anything about, have always existed and will always exist. If it wasn't the Jews it would be the Feminists or the Man or the Illuminati etc. Those people aren't worth talking to, but I'd argue that it isn't the specific target of that kind of mental pathology that distinguishes them.
But you're doing your own thinking a great disservice by shoving every single person with an antipathy towards Israel into that rather cramped box. Have you paid any attention to the recent conflict or the actions Israel has actually taken in the Middle East? Do you think the family of Rachel Corrie are motivated by an "objectively irrational" dislike when they criticise the state of Israel? As someone on the left I can assure you that most people who criticise Israel in my circles have a gigantic list of incredibly specific grievances and problems they have with the state of Israel, and it is in fact the state of Israel which goes out of its way to conflate all criticism of it with criticism of Jews in general, and plenty of prominent organisations do the same (like the ADL).
I'm perfect willing to talk to someone who is anti-nazi, or anti-semitic, or anti-racism.
The problem is that quite a few people who these descriptions apply to are not worth talking to. I'd bet most people in Israeli leadership circles are very aware of how WWI created WWII, and therefore have awareness of the impact of what they do in Palestine has for the future. They'd be willing to discuss these tensions (at least previously).
Woke types? No. The Nazis are Satan if you try and argue that Cambodia or the USSR represent worse regimes you'll be labeled a Nazi or hear a bunch of talking points that are all soldiers or weak-men.
We've spent the last ten years getting used to how these people argue.
Anti-jew posters are often like them. For this specific poster - he recently had a conversation with one of our mods who handled it better and more eloquently than I could.
If you always blame the jews for everything in predictable ways, I'm just going to assume that's what you are going to do. You may eventually be right but that's not through predictive power it's through repetition.
Although - credit to SS for actually posting interesting things about other topics, although it took a bunch of redirection from the mods to get there.
Additionally if you disagree you typically get downvotes, personal attacks, and accusations of being a sheep. Everyone still here is sufficiently heterodox to make that an embarrassing accusation.
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