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Top-level
 @AndiPopp @Duncan For some insight into de-escalation in this sitch, consider the USA's post-9/11 psychotic break, which lasted about 5 years; by 2011 sanity had more or less resumed. October 6th was an order of magnitude higher per-capita death toll than 9/11 … I'm pretty sure Hamas weren't aiming that high, any more than Mohammed Atta seriously expected to drop the twin towers. They achieved overkill, again probably by an order of magnitude. So the current crisis was unplanned. 6 comments
@drdirtbag @cstross @Duncan Absurdity is a strong word. While the death toll was painful and the aftermath costly, 🇺🇸 did manage to crush Al Qaeda. It's somewhat similar for 🇮🇱. They did manage to militarily defeat Hamas for now, take out Nasrallah (who ruled for decades) and at least severely cripple Hisbollah. So far they do lack a plan for what comes after (again because Bibi can't form one for political reasons). But it's not like they did not achieve some of their goals. @drdirtbag @Duncan I would even go as far as to say the absurdity lies with 🇮🇷 and it's proxies. While 🇮🇱 has somewhat achievable goals (wether we agree with them or not), I can't see any for their opponents. They can't actually think they can wipe 🇮🇱 of the map. So what do they want to achieve? I think they dug themselves into a hole because of the overkill they achieved, like @cstross described. And now they can't find a way out. @AndiPopp Fair enough. Al Quaeda never had a chance of "destroying America" or whatever, but they sure managed to (cause us to) seriously damage our international reputation and domestic politics. The parallels continue. @drdirtbag True, that was a result for the US and probably is a result for Israel. I can't argue with that. Yet I still fail to see how Al Qaeda/Iran benefit from that. None of these answers really deal with the question I of relevance. In fact they are just getting further into the weeds of armchair political science. I can just imagine some bully kicking the shit out of a kid on the playground and everyone here sitting around discussing the bully's troubled childhood, violent computer games, lead exposure and aggression... We were talking about how Netanyahu is on a rampage to stay in power. That feels like the only salient point here. |
Gregory's Server
@cstross @AndiPopp @Duncan It's a sobering comparison. It took the US 20 years and four presidents to get out of Afghanistan, after killing around 200,000 Afghans, or 1% of the prewar population. Israel is already well ahead of that killing-wise, but has much farther to go to recognize the absurdity of its war.
Whatever he has said and done since, Biden was right when one of the first things he did after October 7 was warn Bibi not to go down the road we did after 9/11.