I think the reason that last Saturday’s massacre in Israel hits so close to the nerve of Americans like my daughter and I, is because we can look at the pictures and video of the victims and the aftermath and see ourselves. My daughter and I look at pictures of the blood-spattered crib and the baby carrier and see Wee Jamie. Hear him crying in pain and bewilderment. We see pictures of the pleasant little houses, the tree-planted neighborhoods targeted by the Hamas savages, and see our own neighborhood, as a bullet-riddled, blood-spattered smoking ruin. I look at pictures of the audience at the all-night music rave, and see my daughter among them, dancing with her friends and having fun, the next minute dragged away dead, or for treatment that used to be described as worse than death. My daughter can look at me or consider her memories of her bed-ridden invalid grandmother, and readily imagine either or both of us cut down mercilessly … and the murderers recording the whole bloody cruelty for posting to social media for the approval and cheers of their friends.
This is an organized and sponsored pogrom the cruelty and viciousness of which hasn’t been seen since medieval times, although the Nazis and Imperial Japanese certainly did their best in Europe and China within the memory of elderly people still alive today.
Eventually whoever was responsible in the Israeli intelligence and defense organizations for last weekend’s failure will be identified and chastened. The Gaza strip will be a sea of bouncing, smoking rubble, regardless. Whichever state actor looking at you, Iran aided and abetted will likewise have some kind of retaliation meted out to them. I am also pretty certain that those Hamas operatives who were braggart and foolish enough to be videotaped or photographed on social media with recognizable faces will also be identified, as various Antifa dirtbags here in the US were identified by the weaponized autistics of 4-Chan. I am certain that in coming days we will be treated to a succession of adorable dirty-faced moppets rescued from bombed buildings, and poor abaya-clad women of a certain age wailing about their ruined homes. I am also certain that members of the Greatest Generation vaguely regretted the necessities of war which meant scenes of adorable dirty-faced Japanese moppets rescued from the ruins of their homes, or the good German frauen lamenting the ruins of their cottages or apartments in Berlin or Hamburg. But we couldn’t then allow Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan to continue as they were. Neither can Israel continue living with the proven threat posed by Hamas in Gaza. (Or anywhere else.)
The Gaza strip will be a sea of bouncing rubble. Any country, not just Israel can’t endure the cruelty of what happened last Saturday morning. A long time ago, I would have felt sorry for the residents of Gaza. They wasted every chance, every opportunity to be a combination of Singapore, the Maldives, and the Marbella of that corner of the Mediterranean. Yes, they lost a war in 1947, a war they didn’t expect to lose, but hey … ask Japan, Germany, Argentina, the southern US or Mexico how it feels to lose a war that they all thought was in the bag. A lovely stretch of coast, with marvelous beaches, which could have drawn free-spending tourists and vacationers all across Europe, even day-trippers from Israel and Egypt itself. Such wasted potential, potential sabotaged by poisonous rage and resentment. Bernard Lewis wrote years ago, an explanation for Muslim rage and envy. Everything that Allah promised good observant Muslims seemed to have been withheld from them and lavished upon the unbelievers. Riches, power, happy successful societies, military might, beautiful women dancing the night away at an outdoor concert … all of that. Muslims must look around, and see that almost without exception, strictly Muslim-ruled countries were pits of dysfunctional, wretched despair and poverty. And so, they raged and went rabid-mad.
Since last weekend, there have been a number of organizations and individuals pledging their true allyship and support of Hamas and the Palestinians looking at you, BLM. I can only assume that these people and groups are perfectly OK with mass murder of defenseless audiences at an outdoor concert, slaughtering families wholesale, decapitating babies and gang-raping women until they hemorrhage. Good of you to let us all know where you stand, and what you stand for. Noted.
(Although a number of individuals have walked back from such statements of support for Hamas. I’d like to think that they realized how awful it made them look, personally, but suspect such regrets may have more to do with employers declining current or future employment.)
Discuss as you wish, and have the heart.
1) The walkbacks by people who openly supported HAMAS are purely CYA. This is not the only time that they nave made ideological statements, and they have a certain consistency. No Quarter.
2) I have heard but not yet confirmed that there is a second front opening from Lebanon. May it not be so, but if it is, once again No Quarter. [addendum: have not yet confirmed the Lebanese attack but there are reports now of Jordanian Army armored units approaching the border. 1700 hrs my time, 10-11-23]
3) Just in passing, something to think about. Those who are involved in strategic affairs know that Israel does have nuclear weapons [and an amazing amount of restraint]. They have had them since the 1970’s, and their minimum arsenal is estimated at 80, but with Israeli strategic operational security being as good as it is there could be multiples of that.
Without going into details, if you can launch a satellite of a certain mass into an orbit with a certain apogee, and can accurately pick the orbit; y’all [family is from South China] have an ICBM capability for at least a counter-value strike. Israel has been doing that for decades. And they have an awful lot of shorter ranged, accurate missiles with that payload capacity too.
3a) If Israel is getting defeated, I would not bet a whole lot of money on that amazing restraint holding. They are not going down alone.
3b) Let me toss a question out to ponder. If you were in charge of the Israeli SIOP and your assignment was to remove the strategic threat to Israel from the Ummah, noting that such an effort would surely bring about a worldwide genocidal Jihad against Israel and the West; how many weapons from the Israeli arsenal would be needed and where would they best be used? No, don’t post it here. Just think about it. I have studied such matters for a long time and I have my ideas, but they are not necessarily ideal. And they [and all such projections] necessarily involve mass death on an unprecedented scale. That is reality. It is what we are dealing with here; ideological and religious fantasies otherwise not effecting reality.
3c) Such an effort would definitely involve the US, Russia, China, and all other nuclear powers. What would their reactions be, AND assuming that Israel did NOT expend its entire arsenal, how much risk of damage to the US, Russia, China, and all other nuclear powers would it take to deter them from turning Israel into a glowing Grand Canyon? And you can bet that all of them would be willing to if it comes to that point.
4) Sarge, I believe I have mentioned that I am not a nice person. But I am pragmatic, akin to my online namesake.
Strategic realities are not always what the actors think they are at any given time. We in the US cling to some sadly outdated notions of our own capabilities and competitive position in the world, as do the other major powers.
The Covid experience is still not fully understood, and ever advancing technologies such as information warfare, AI, drones, and others make previous strengths vulnerable in ways not immediately grasped. Surface ships may be useless in war, tanks can be defeated with inexpensive improvised weaponry. Space assets may become useless or misleading at a moment’s notice. Alliances can flip or collapse in response to surprising events, or loss of will.
I would hesitate to make any predictions about Israel’s prospects in navigating the present realities where they find themselves friendless when push comes to shove, and the US certainly cannot be counted upon to have their back. Israel and the West are strategically vulnerable, it feels like a huge and cascading series of threats could be unfolding as we flounder for responses. Best to invoke divine guidance and intervention.
Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany ceased to be Imperial and Nazi because the people they attacked killed enough of them to motivate the populace to abandon what was effectively their state religions. Their prior leadership was obliterated and replaced.
The inhabitants of Gaza and certain other places have not been so motivated to abandon their state religion. They continually plot, scheme, and murder non-Muslims with near impunity.
I would hope this attack motivates Israel enough to do what needs to be done- but I also would have thought the 9/11 attack would have similarly motivated the US regime back then.
Instead we got a multi-trillion dollar foreign aid expedition to the Middle East with no lasting results- except perhaps the millions of military-aged men the regime has now let into the country.
Interesting times…
Interesting indeed.
I am glad to see pushback against those so-called Americans who are lauding Hamas, and cheering for brutal rape, and slaughter of the unarmed and innocent. I want to see people shunned socially for allying themselves with Hamas because they are woke, stupid and easily led by the nose.
One might suspect that the pogrom would not have achieved the popularity it did in Russia had the Jews had been supplied with F-16’s and tanks.
One might even be perversely tempted to admire the palestinians for maintaining a more than 70 year record of perfect stupidity. There’s the reason that palestinian is synonymous with poverty. Strangely, a record of provoking retaliatory bombing and occupations has not attracted outside investment either.
Yet, now they seem to have hit the jackpot, success beyond their dreams. They have achieved a secure, effectively permanent grasp on the tiger’s tail. So good that even their cheerleaders in Tehran are trying to disown them. Their “leadership” has lit the fuse and retired, as is their habit, out of the line of fire. In Qatar by reports. The occupants of Gaza will now learn again, just how impotent they are. I hope the knowledge that their “leaders” are supposed to be safely out of reach is a consolation.
Were I in Qatar, I would be counting the air miles between me and Israel and not liking the answer. There are likely to be a number of newly cleared beach side lots available in the near future. Mosad might have screwed this pooch but I’m pretty sure they know the address of every one of them.
@Subotai Bahadur,
A wise person would take a strong hint from the name Israel has given its counterstrike program: the Samson Option.
They go down? They’re taking the Temple with them. Interpret that as you chose; my belief is that they’re going to be very liberal about which parts of the Temple need to come down…
Given the 150 billion dollars that the Obama/Biden clique gave unto Iran to enable all of this, I wouldn’t be real surprised if one of the things they’re going to shake down wouldn’t be Washington DC. We might be in for a bit of urban renewal…
Kirk
October 13, 2023 at 6:53 pm
That hint was taken by me long ago. The majority of people are under the impression that Israel will in the end go down passively. I contend that it is an unhealthy practice to convince a nuclear armed entity that there is no hope for survival. Especially if the reason that said entity is in that position is because of the actions of an ally that turned on them.
Subotai Bahadur
Hamas has also killed off the two-state solution. Would anyone permit a sovereign state headed by such genocidal lunatics on their border? A state that can contract alliances and raise armies?
The two-state solution was never more than a delusion that lived in the minds of stupid pols. For a start, there were never fewer than than seven “states” involved, only one of which was willing to include Israel as one of the “two-states”.
Apparently, we have let all the blood and bodies blind us to what’s really at stake here:
https://nypost.com/2023/10/19/hamas-attacks-threaten-pga-tours-merger-with-liv-sources/
This may put the LIV-PGA merger in jeopardy, depriving the Saudis of a ready supply of celebrities to push out front to camouflage whatever the next outrage they have in train.