weird how wars just keep popping out of nowhere to "face" Israel. Definitely nothing to do with Israel's behavior
Literally "if that guy that's always trying to start fights was a country"
"lebensbraun" instead of "lebensraum" is like my mom saying "chubiyosha" instead of "chunibyo"
Edit: editing it to say "lebensraun" instead of "lebensraum" is like my mom saying "chunubiyo" instead of "chunibyo"
LebensBraun!
Everyone knows that Eva Braun died in Hitler's bunker. What this book presupposes is . . . maybe she didn't?
I always wonder about those sudden, stomach hollowing moments of bleak gut warning you get sometimes. Like when you're about to go through a normal doorway at night that youve wqlked through a thousand times, but this time the lighting of the place just seems off, flat and cold and uncaring, and an insistent sickly tickle at the base of your spine whispers that something horrible will happen to you if you go through that door tonight. Even describing the feeling sends shivers down my back.
I wonder if she had a moment like that the last time she went underground, the sudden certainty, chilling in it's stark plainness, that she was going to die down there.
When I was in college, my group of friends were mostly libs and libertarians (I know) and the mother of one of these people once went on a rant in front of us about how Hamas and Hezbollah were going to team up and destroy Israel and kill all the Jews. After we left the house, I remember all of us just laughing at her and saying "what a fucking stupid take that was" despite not necessarily having the same opinions about Israel or having good opinions on anything else. But, we all knew this was stupid.
Having not read the article or knowing much about Lebanon, I'm going to assume this is still an extremely stupid and desperate thing to posit?
Israel just announced they've finalized invasion plans for Lebanon, so, more like Israel typically starting some shit and then being treated like unwitting victims in the blowback for their own actions yet again
The US can't even keep Ukraine adequately supplied and IOF troops keep getting humiliated in Gaza but yeah sure why not invade Lebanon what could possibly go wrong?
Israel is desperate to record a win.
They have not been able to demonstrate victory in Gaza despite taking over practically the entire territory. They have not been able to demonstrate a win against Hezbollah despite lobbing missiles back and forth for months. They have not been able to record a win against Iran despite blowing up an oil pipeline and (mabie) assassinating a president.
Even assuming the political leadership in Israel wanted to end this conflict (they don't) they can't really de-escalate until they've "won" something.
If Netanyahu were truly a statesman and a Patriot, he could in this conflict and shoulder the burden of defeat. Give Israel away to deescalate the situation and save face. Unfortunately for everyone involved Netanyahu may be a nationalist but he's not a patriot.
I think Netanyahu would be assassinated if he tried to end the conflict. Replace Netanyahu with any other viable "Israeli" politician and the actions would be the same.
If Israel keeps on its bullshit, it's not out of the question. They seem intent on driving their country off a cliff.
A nation acting rationally would be able to take stock of the current situation and negotiate a ceasefire, ending its problems immediately, but Israel is so deep in its own fundamenalist ideology that there's no room for that sort of rational assesment. They're going to have to hit rock bottom before they start considering peace. I'm not sure how far down rock bottom is for them.
Genocide of Israeli people seems unlikely in any event, but that's what it took for Haiti to shake France. Hopefully it doesnt come to that.
overheard some ex-military types (one a co-worker, others customers) at my job talking about getting jobs as contractors and being flabbergasted how quickly and urgently they need them to deploy
i mean it's just a couple of people but the first place my brain goes to is "oh fuck the U.S. knows whats about to go down and is getting ready to join in"
I was surprised the the NYT put the link at the top of the homepage and the title was free of sugarcoating and euphemisms. We are headed for who-knows-what.
I'd love for a liberal to explain to me how people need to support Biden while he aids, funds, and arms Israel's continuing genocide that might result in a war with Hezbollah and then the war could lead to a war with Iran that the US would fight too. There's no way the US stands back if Israel and Iran go to war. The libs favorite go-to is some variation on "Trump would be worse" but that's a hard sell when you actually consider that the US must support a genocide so it could lead to a second war vastly bigger and dangerous war and that war could spiral out of control to involve yet another American forever war. This time with Iran. That would be three contiguous countries. Do we get a free sub sandwich?
Why I am supposed to support a genocide again? The logic really doesn't make any sense even to an American ghoul who doesn't care if 10,000s more Palestinians suffer, starve, and die.
Free of sugar coating? If war with Hezbollah starts, it's because Israel attacked lmao. Perfect example of "police involved shooting" type article
Something can be aggressively decontextualized and still not sugar-coated
these were navy people. so could be operation Amazon Prime or something worse
This tracks with the news yesterday that the US has been quietly deploying a record number of troops in Jordan.
The war in the Middle East is turning hot.
yeah good luck lmao
Even Israel thinks it's still 1982. Like I don't even know what Iran would do at this point. They're one of Hezbollah's major allies. The telegraphed missile barrage was really out of character for Iran who typically tries to play it cool.
Israel is having a hard enough time fighting ragtag Al-Qassam militants with homemade RPGs. Hezbollah actually has funding and infrastructure. They have technical trucks and artillery. Why would Israel try to do this? Do they really need this much of a reality check? Maybe they're stuck in 2006 where Israel kept indiscriminately shooting civilian targets in Lebanon to the point Hezbollah got justifiably terrified of just how evil Israel could be, so they called for a ceasefire after a month.
How would it go over if Israel tries to do the 2006 Lebanon war again? Like with cluster munitions and white phosphorous launched at civilians. Am I gonna be reading "Hezbollah also hiding behind human shields"?
Iran showed they could and did hit Israel's secret military sites with, not even their best missiles
Netanyahu needs endless war to prevent himself from seeing prison. He will always try to expand the conflict.
Much moreso than Zelensky. If he could end it without being killed for doing so then he could probably walk away a millionaire. His problem is the people that would kill him for doing so.
As much as I would love to see the destruction of the IDF, I really fear for the Lebanese people.
An all out war means massive bombing in all major cities including Beirut and Tel Aviv. The range of artillery and drones mean nowhere would be safe in either country. IDF ground forces, battle-hardened against unarmed civilians, would likely lose to Hezbollah. But Israel would likely control the skies, leading to a protracted, bloody stalemate. Like the battlefields of Ukraine, but worse.
The people of Lebanon are already suffering so much, but this would bring about a new level of devastation.
But I believe the logic of mutually assured destruction applies here. Even the most bloodthirsty Likudniks, despite their saber rattling, will not force an all out war.
hezbollah has been upping its air defense game, just recently its shot down multiple israeli drones, and scared an idf fighter out of its airspace with SAMs. Additionally israel does not have the best control of its own airspace, demonstrated very recently by this 10 minute video of hezbollah drones flying over haifa https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1803048374809084179
I think that in a war between Israel and Hezbollah two things are certain.
Hezbollah would eventually win.
The people of Lebanon would suffer greatly.
The ideal solution to all this is for Israel to stop its genocide. If it comes to war between Hezbollah and Israel I have no doubt about who the final victor would be, but just like the last war, while the IDF will lose, they will extract a horrific price.
This reads like the geopolitical version of the Graft versus Host video from Arrested Development
But what's Israel to do? Stop their genocide?
The leaders of the factions opposing us say we'd be completely safe if we were to do that-
They just need to stop their Genocide?!
There is a great part of the movie The Battle of Algiers where the French commander basically says this too. "What would you have us do, leave Algeria?!?" And it's like, uh, yeah? Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
If this comes to protracted fighting I very much see Israel exercising a nuclear option as they stop being able to continue fighting/cant drag the US further into it
I don't see how the fuck Israel can nuke their neighbor with whom they share major water sources. They would essentially be nuking themselves.
They would essentially be nuking themselves.
The most critical support possible to Israel.
If Israel uses nuclear weapons on Lebanon it will become a perpetual pariah state and I think even the EU will flip to at least neutrality. Might even make further US support for Israel so unpopular that people will riot and troops will desert before boots on the ground in support of Israel.
See that's how you know that they're absolutely gonna try to do it soon. And when they do:
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