Here's an analogy for you. We committed genocide upon Native Americans for centuries. We took their land and worse. If some Indigenous People started sending rockets from their reservations at Las Vegas and kidnapped a couple hundred innocent tourists after killing about 1400 on the way to the casinos...what would Ameri…
Here's an analogy for you. We committed genocide upon Native Americans for centuries. We took their land and worse. If some Indigenous People started sending rockets from their reservations at Las Vegas and kidnapped a couple hundred innocent tourists after killing about 1400 on the way to the casinos...what would Americans expect the authorities to do?
Hamas was elected by Gazans - they were an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. They replaced a weak and incompetent PLA. They promised social services which they did a little better than the PLA. But then they invested the billions they got from Qatar and others to build a war machine. That's not a recipe for helping their people. That's a prescription for suicide.
Gazans could end this thing right now if they turned over the Hamas monsters who perpetrated October 7th. Tom: Never again.
So you’re down with genocide, ethic cleansing, and collective punishment. Gotcha.
As far as your analogy, Americans would expect the ‘authorities’ to kill as many Native Americans, including innocents, as possible, until our revenge bloodlust is sated, just like we did after 9/11, and continue to do as the world’s greatest terrorist organization. We’re just like the Israelis, only with more bombs.
Never again? That’s as pathetic a justification for war crimes as it gets.
Here is the difference between our comments. I describe my opinions and toss in some facts or history. This last response from you is a personal attack - not a discussion. Your first line here is more than insulting. You are suggesting that what I am opposed to is what I want to happen. Classic projection bully tactics. And not very effective.
As to war crimes? Hiroshima and Dresden. Were those war crimes - or a war on two evil fascist nations that committed "genocide, ethnic cleansing, and collective punishment" and would not stop until they were vanquished?
I am weary of your consistent demonization of the United States. You KNOW that I have big problems with lot's of America's history and American policy. But the US is still the best nation to have ever existed. We can be a positive influence on the future of this experiment or we can endlessly whine about the past. If you think America is the "world's greatest terrorists organization" then I realize now that I may have been talking with a visitor from a Russian Troll Farm. Tend your crops elsewhere, sir. And please visit a holocaust museum before you call "Never Again" pathetic.
You tell me what I am "really saying". Which is not at all what's in my heart or head. That's not a conversation. This will be our last. I'll take the advice of the other commenters.
I’m just connecting dots. You can rationalize the look in the mirror however you want. Hiroshima and Dresden were war crimes, as is what is going on in Gaza. All were/are terrorist acts, specifically designed to indiscriminately target innocent civilians in order to break a population’s will. Now, you might not want the mass killing of civilians to happen, but, it seems to me, you accept it as a price necessary to counter ‘evil’ entities/nations. I do not.
As to your declarative statement that the U.S. is the best nation to have ever existed; that is your nationalist, propagandized, opinion. Ask most any disinterested, intelligent individual given a legitimate accounting of the misery and happiness provided by U.S. around the World, especially since WWI, and they could name several nations with a better happiness/misery ratio. I am weary of U.S. demonization of the rest of the world in pursuit of hegemony; and in the propaganda narrative that allows its citizens to blame, say, Russia, China, Hamas/Gaza, etc. for sins we commit in pursuit of hegemony. To use your phrasing, classic bully tactics.
As to never again. I’ve been to the holocaust museum in DC. I also have studied the history of Zionism, and leave it to several Jewish scholars who have made the connection of the Israeli government treatment of Palestinians to the Nazis, absent the actual gas chambers. Many examples in history of oppressed becoming oppressors. Imo, the Zionists in Israel qualify. And your constant attempt to mitigate the slaughter in Gaza by constantly trying to return the focus to Hamas is illustrative. See Dresden. See Hiroshima.
Sad to see you reduced to throwing out the Russian Troll Farm/Putin apologist/Amurica, Love it or Leave it ‘personal attack’. I don’t take it personally. Have enjoyed the give and take. Take the advice of other commenters if you wish. Your choice.
“As we all know, in a proper genocide the perpetrators have no reasons for carrying out their mass extermination programs and ethnic cleansing plans; they do it solely because they are evil and like doing evil things. In a proper genocide the perpetrators historically spend most of their time cackling like cartoon supervillains and talking about how delightfully evil their genocidal actions are.
This isn’t like that at all. You see, the Israelis sincerely feel that the population they are eliminating is very bad, and they believe removing that population will make the land a much better and safer place to live. They see the Palestinians as a major problem, and, unlike a proper genocide, they are simply trying to find a solution to that problem which will be permanent and final.
So when you see Israel apologists defending Israel’s actions in Gaza, please try to keep in mind that they’re just helpfully explaining that the Israeli government has reasons and motives for doing what it’s doing, and that it believes what it is doing is correct. If this were a proper genocide, that wouldn’t be the case.
You’ve seen what genocide looks like. It looks like Nazis rounding up Jews and killing them. Are the Israelis wearing swastikas? Are the Palestinians Jewish? No? Okay then. That proves this cannot possibly be a genocide, because if it was, it would look exactly the same as a previous historical instance of genocide in every conceivable way. It’s not even the early 1940s right now, it’s a completely different time period. Like, duh.”
Hamas is a cancer.
Here's an analogy for you. We committed genocide upon Native Americans for centuries. We took their land and worse. If some Indigenous People started sending rockets from their reservations at Las Vegas and kidnapped a couple hundred innocent tourists after killing about 1400 on the way to the casinos...what would Americans expect the authorities to do?
Hamas was elected by Gazans - they were an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. They replaced a weak and incompetent PLA. They promised social services which they did a little better than the PLA. But then they invested the billions they got from Qatar and others to build a war machine. That's not a recipe for helping their people. That's a prescription for suicide.
Gazans could end this thing right now if they turned over the Hamas monsters who perpetrated October 7th. Tom: Never again.
So you’re down with genocide, ethic cleansing, and collective punishment. Gotcha.
As far as your analogy, Americans would expect the ‘authorities’ to kill as many Native Americans, including innocents, as possible, until our revenge bloodlust is sated, just like we did after 9/11, and continue to do as the world’s greatest terrorist organization. We’re just like the Israelis, only with more bombs.
Never again? That’s as pathetic a justification for war crimes as it gets.
Tom,
Here is the difference between our comments. I describe my opinions and toss in some facts or history. This last response from you is a personal attack - not a discussion. Your first line here is more than insulting. You are suggesting that what I am opposed to is what I want to happen. Classic projection bully tactics. And not very effective.
As to war crimes? Hiroshima and Dresden. Were those war crimes - or a war on two evil fascist nations that committed "genocide, ethnic cleansing, and collective punishment" and would not stop until they were vanquished?
I am weary of your consistent demonization of the United States. You KNOW that I have big problems with lot's of America's history and American policy. But the US is still the best nation to have ever existed. We can be a positive influence on the future of this experiment or we can endlessly whine about the past. If you think America is the "world's greatest terrorists organization" then I realize now that I may have been talking with a visitor from a Russian Troll Farm. Tend your crops elsewhere, sir. And please visit a holocaust museum before you call "Never Again" pathetic.
You tell me what I am "really saying". Which is not at all what's in my heart or head. That's not a conversation. This will be our last. I'll take the advice of the other commenters.
Bill,
I’m just connecting dots. You can rationalize the look in the mirror however you want. Hiroshima and Dresden were war crimes, as is what is going on in Gaza. All were/are terrorist acts, specifically designed to indiscriminately target innocent civilians in order to break a population’s will. Now, you might not want the mass killing of civilians to happen, but, it seems to me, you accept it as a price necessary to counter ‘evil’ entities/nations. I do not.
As to your declarative statement that the U.S. is the best nation to have ever existed; that is your nationalist, propagandized, opinion. Ask most any disinterested, intelligent individual given a legitimate accounting of the misery and happiness provided by U.S. around the World, especially since WWI, and they could name several nations with a better happiness/misery ratio. I am weary of U.S. demonization of the rest of the world in pursuit of hegemony; and in the propaganda narrative that allows its citizens to blame, say, Russia, China, Hamas/Gaza, etc. for sins we commit in pursuit of hegemony. To use your phrasing, classic bully tactics.
As to never again. I’ve been to the holocaust museum in DC. I also have studied the history of Zionism, and leave it to several Jewish scholars who have made the connection of the Israeli government treatment of Palestinians to the Nazis, absent the actual gas chambers. Many examples in history of oppressed becoming oppressors. Imo, the Zionists in Israel qualify. And your constant attempt to mitigate the slaughter in Gaza by constantly trying to return the focus to Hamas is illustrative. See Dresden. See Hiroshima.
Sad to see you reduced to throwing out the Russian Troll Farm/Putin apologist/Amurica, Love it or Leave it ‘personal attack’. I don’t take it personally. Have enjoyed the give and take. Take the advice of other commenters if you wish. Your choice.
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/this-cant-be-another-instance-of?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=140103303&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=eov1&utm_medium=email
“As we all know, in a proper genocide the perpetrators have no reasons for carrying out their mass extermination programs and ethnic cleansing plans; they do it solely because they are evil and like doing evil things. In a proper genocide the perpetrators historically spend most of their time cackling like cartoon supervillains and talking about how delightfully evil their genocidal actions are.
This isn’t like that at all. You see, the Israelis sincerely feel that the population they are eliminating is very bad, and they believe removing that population will make the land a much better and safer place to live. They see the Palestinians as a major problem, and, unlike a proper genocide, they are simply trying to find a solution to that problem which will be permanent and final.
So when you see Israel apologists defending Israel’s actions in Gaza, please try to keep in mind that they’re just helpfully explaining that the Israeli government has reasons and motives for doing what it’s doing, and that it believes what it is doing is correct. If this were a proper genocide, that wouldn’t be the case.
You’ve seen what genocide looks like. It looks like Nazis rounding up Jews and killing them. Are the Israelis wearing swastikas? Are the Palestinians Jewish? No? Okay then. That proves this cannot possibly be a genocide, because if it was, it would look exactly the same as a previous historical instance of genocide in every conceivable way. It’s not even the early 1940s right now, it’s a completely different time period. Like, duh.”