Comment by nojvek
2 years ago
I really wished Israel didn’t blatantly start airbombing Gaza civilian infrastructure and blockade food, water, gas.
When Russia does this on Ukraine, we call them war criminals but when Israel does it on Palestinians we call it business as usual.
The idea of military revenge doesn’t get us anywhere.
Defense is the best offense. Little gains the world made in Middle East stability have now been reversed for decades.
As technology progresses, the drones and missiles will become cheaper and more destructive.
An eye for an eye makes the world blind.
I really wished US provided weapons based on condition of only making precise targeted attacks for specific terrorists.
That means our a big chunk of $800B defense money, funded by our tax money is used to obliterate civilians in Gaza. That makes me sad.
It’s likely this turns into another Afghanistan multi decade war with trillions spent and nothing to show for it. The only winners are defense contractors.
US could have played peace maker role. Be the party to stop missiles flying everywhere. Provided humanitarian and medical aid.
Demilitarize and deescalate.
The current strategy of destroying hamas by destroying Gaza and its inhabitants is pretty stupid.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
very interesting to see the contrast between the two conflicts in terms of economic sanctions, or the lack thereof.
to me this topic goes to show that if you remove the US-centric discourse out of a world event, you get to actually see the real nuances in what the direct parties are doing.
What, specifically, should they have done instead?
After an initial military response, take their time and specifically plan and target the terrorists who were responsible and organized the attacks on the 7.10. Yeah this will obviously take way longer and is harder than levelling Gaza but would avoid eventually bringing the entire world against you and producing much more terrorists than before. At the same time also try to make sure that the civilians in Gaza get humanitarian aid, so you remove the breeding ground for terrorism. This approach was also suggested by Jocko Willink retured Navy Seal (https://youtu.be/3O4dW24az98)
But the mistakes happened way before by moving troops away from the Gaza border to West Bank to protect illegal settlements and also supporting Hamas as an opposition to PLO. Don't get me wrong. Don't get me wrong the world would be a better place without Hamas however your policy has to be strategic and not emotional (i.e. revenge)
The problem is that Gaza is a hornet's nest
Hamas members are entrenched in civilian buildings and tunnels, and they are well equipped to attack tanks, and they wouldn't hesitate to blow themselves up
it would be suicide for the IDF to do a slow invasion of Gaza, the IDF doesn't have such a big army, and this would drag along and allow hamas leaders to run away, and would allow hamas to regroup.
also, the more time passes, the more it gives hezbollah and other actors to attack.
maybe the US army would have enough foot soldiers to invade by foot and check every street, but again, with human shields and guerilla tactics, it's not sure it would be that much better, because US militaries are probably not really trained enough to deal with such a big hornet's nest that is gaza.
What about the hostages?
What about border security?
Doing what you say would basically be letting Hamas have their win. It would absolutely embolden them to plan an execute further attacks.
The game theory is absolutely clear here. When an attack of this magnitude is carried out, you need to respond with overwhelming force to cutoff the possibility of further escalation. Stop it cold.
When Hamas invaded Israel and massacred civilians en masse, an invasion of Gaza was made inevitable. Restraint here is the significant effort that has been taken by the IDF to minimize civilian casualties.
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It's Incredible how many people here are ok with genocide and ethnic cleansing.