Brian Fantana

Yep yep, I wholeheartedly agree with all of this. Especially the bit about Afghanistan.

Agreed, I'm just slightly pushing back on the implication that democracy is incompatible with Islam. It's only incompatible with extremists and/or authoritarians. Also, the number is closer to 20% but that's just quibbling.

Support for democracy in the Arab world has steadily increased year over year, and remains very popular. Only a small percentage believe that Islam is incompatible with democracy, according to the largest public opinion surveys in the Arab world. But, of course, it doesn't really make a shit what the people want or believe, and the situation is far more complicated than that. The reality is, allowing functional democracies in the Middle East runs counter to US interests. Excluding Israel's [very] flawed democracy, Iraq is the closest, and it leans heavily toward the "very authoritarian" side of the scale. Our past/current actions and the policies we maintain on the region, while not explicitly, effectively prohibit such a thing from ever occurring. We allow Israel to present itself a sort of beacon of democracy, and maintain the facade that we represent some sort of a bulwark against authoritarian forces, but it's basically all a lie. A functioning Middle East democracy can act autonomously against US interests, and that cannot be allowed. Our history in the region entirely backs up that assertion, and you can bet your ass the minute Israel started acting in a way contrary to US interests, their leaders would discover what FAFO really means, really quickly. I'm not saying they're ever going to do that, but I'm just using them as an example of how shit can go south real quick for any Middle Eastern country that crosses us in the wrong way. People think that Israel is the real darling over there, but the only country that can really get away with shit like that is Saudi Arabia. For now. At any rate, you're right, the whole world could see through the lie about Afghanistan and Iraq. It was goofy as hell to try and pretend we gave a shit about establishing democracy. I share your pessimism, albeit for different reasons it seems. e: I will also say that there's a lot of CR in this post [and yours] and I don't give a single shit. You can't discuss this kind of thing without delving into regional geopolitics, so whoever's going to cry about that, suck my dick.

Yeah, this is what I mean when I say that terrorist groups ultimately have to be defeated politically, and why I've often said it's a difficult path but a feasible one. Good post, thank you.

Then why are you even posting in this thread and what are we arguing about?

Man I wish Rex the CR poster would stop shitting up the thread

It probably has something to do with the ads but it's not a big deal. Can always just use another browser for this site since I refuse to use Tapa.

Again, this is just a lazy, unserious, blanket justification for anything Israel does. It's the same kind of tepid bullshit diarrhea we had to listen to coming out of George W. Bush's mouth to justify the Iraq war. Not a single person in this thread is saying they shouldn't go after Hezbollah, just that if their goal is to actually end that organization, doing the exact same shit that caused it to form in the first place might not be a great idea.

Hezbollah exists as a direct response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Decapitating their leadership is a good thing, and Israel has been doing a good job of doing so with these targeted operations. Yet another invasion of Lebanon would likely ultimately be counterproductive.

Shit like this is so funny, because it's always the same 3-4 posters that post absolutely pudding brained nonsense like this in this thread and then run to immamac when the "CR posters" "ruin the thread" by offering painfully obvious rebuttals like "Hey, maybe if you altered the environment that caused the terrorists to exist in the first place, then they wouldn't come back - see, for example, the IRA".

This topic would be so much better if certain posters read just one or two history books after high school. I was trying to hammer this point home in the CR thread months ago about how defeating (perhaps destroying is a better word) terrorist organizations militarily is next to impossible for the reasons you're outlining here, in addition to some other stuff. It just doesn't sink in to some people that direct, even overwhelming force can't end every conflict.

Why can't Megan Fox be as obsessed with me as Rex is?

Agreed! But my point was I hope that Israel has learned from the mistakes of the past. Previous invasions of Lebanon haven't yielded good results. So far, they're killing it going after Hezbollah leadership. It's still possible to fumble this, though, so they need to keep executing.

How can anyone possibly be this stupid and not have Trump as a last name?

You seem to be confused.

I wouldn't celebrate before crossing the goal line. Israeli invasions of Lebanon have not exactly gone well in the past.

Not sure what can be done, but this site is still intermittently extremely sluggish/choppy on mobile Firefox (Android). Perfectly smooth on mobile Edge. I haven't been able to pin down a specific thing that looks like it might be causing it...thought it might be Twitter embeds at first but that doesn't seem to be it.

This is W Israel shit I can get behind

I know, I was just unsure lol, seen people post BB articles without realizing it's satire.

Uh

I will, I already ordered it lol. And yeah, you're 100% right, every media outlet has an agenda. I try to do exactly that.

Human beings are shades of grey. Rex consistently has, and is right now, showing a very basic human tendency to try and analyze everything in a very black and white way. Grey is too complex and too uncertain. Black and white is simpler, even if it's not a true reflection of reality. It's a very simple, yet very powerful, defense mechanism called splitting in therapeutic terms. In some ways, I'm sympathetic to his point of view. It's much easier, as a denizen of a Western country, to view Israel as an unambiguous good that must be championed and Palestinians (and by extension, the Arab world at large) as an unambiguous bad that must be destroyed. Drilling down past the surface, past what we've all been fed by Western media for our entire lives (or in Armybrat's case, a small percentage of his) uncovers a lot of uncomfortable truths about the situation in Israel, and the region in general, that paint everyone involved (including us, especially us) with many different shades of grey. At some point, it becomes far too difficult to view the conflict in such black and white terms. Most people are either content to simply lap up the mixture of truths, half-truths, deflections, and flat out bald-faced lies that Western media feeds us, and shove every actor involved into neat little black and white boxes. I try to stay as informed as I have time to in order to keep myself seeing the shades of grey rather than the black and white. I try to take as optimistic an approach as I can to the future of Israel and occupied Palestine, but it's difficult to say the least. Most people, again, choose to see only the black and white and conclude that some kind of nebulously defined total victory is necessary, hence the multiple posters in this thread that advocate for ethnic cleansing with their full chest (some without even realizing it, it seems). As if repeating the mistakes of the past is a way to a better future. I will say that I greatly appreciate @InkaUtexas's posting, yours, @bolverk and others, and @956 Worldwide though we frequently disagree. Inka in particular is extremely well read on the subject and the history of the region and I enjoy his insights every day. You yourself held a fairly black and white view of this subject nearly a year ago, albeit a more sympathetic and humane view than a lot of other people do, but you're smart/humble enough to seek out knowledge that may alter your world view when you're unsure of yourself. People like Rex purposefully avoid knowledge that may alter their world view, because it's too upsetting. I don't even necessarily fault them all that much for it, because it is a demonstrably hard thing to do. Hell, I should know, 15-20 years ago I was a dumbass central TX hillbilly, listening to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark fuckin' dumbshit Levin. Hooting and hollering when we were slaughtering a million people in Iraq based on a pure lie. I don't even like to think about all the dumb shit I believed. This is not to place myself on a pedestal above. I have plenty of faults, blind spots, and knowledge gaps. I learn shit every day reading this board. I am usually very bad at articulating my thoughts in a way that isn't frequently abrasive or otherwise difficult to digest by others. I frequently think I'm a lot more well read on a particular aspect of X subject than I am, and often have to stop and take a break to better inform myself or collect myself. I wish I had a fraction of your, or Inkas, or @SL Xpress, or any number of other posters' ability to elucidate my thoughts in any sort of consistently palatable way. Anyway, I have no idea why I wrote this post.

I'm gonna fucking piss myself

I mean Bibi has literally said the words out loud. He doesn't wanna know, you're not gonna get through that fat head.