Icarus27k

Despite all of this, there is a more alarming situation in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is watching this war and could be tempted to join. I can tell the U.S. is more concerned about it than they are about Gaza and Hamas. Escalation could happen with a third party entering the war, and the U.S. is putting a lot of resources toward deterring that from happening. Hezbollah makes Hamas look that a disorganized group. It's an actual army with 100,000 unguided rockets. P.S. I'm concerned about it too.

What is the plan? Is it to destroy Hamas? Okay, but how are you going to do that? Do you have a list of all the people in Hamas and you're going to start killing them? How far down the list do we go until Hamas itself is considered destroyed? And what's the larger goal of destroying Hamas? To protect Israel from them? If so, then why can't you just park your military on the border of Gaza and use Iron Dome to stop rockets? Would that also achieve the larger goal of protecting Israel. So many questions that seems like they should be answered before doing anything.

I am thinking in terms of Israel trying to make the case for why it needs to launch an attack on Gaza.

This isn't useful for war aims. "This is good versus evil" isn't good enough to launch a war. That's how you get 20 years in Afghanistan.

We're all kind of waiting for Israel to do something, to unleash some fury. But capability is thing. Israel's military is strong but it's not magic either. I have doubts about whether they are able to occupy the entire Gaza Strip or destroy Hamas. At least soon that is.

Democratic voters wouldn't fall for a Democratic version of the Trump Show. I'm kind of proud of them for that. I personally know a few party activists who would be like, "how stupid do you think I am? to think that would work on me?"

Twitter (X or whatever) is the worst I've ever seen it right now. The new war in Israel-Palestine broke it. There's a TON of fake information about the event being thrown at you. Amateur "news" accounts just making stuff up. Randos sharing years-old videos and saying it's from the current war. And respectable accounts getting fooled by it and spreading it. Now would be the time to ditch that website if you haven't done so already. I would advise not believing ANYTHING you read on it. You may think it's from an official source, but that doesn't mean it's real.

The White House has called a lid for today, meaning the president won't be making any public appearances. Understandably the anti-Biden partisan fanatics are attacking Biden for it. But to anyone who pays closes attention to any POTUS knows that things tend to be serious whenever you don't see him. Whenever he's out, giving speeches and attending events, that's when things are calm. I'm sure it has to do with Israel.

Edited

I'm going to go out on a limb and say no, that's not the way to go, with the war crimes and the dehumanizing. "We've got all of our land back in 48 hours. We've got our Iron Dome air defense to protect us from rockets. We DO have to get our hostages back and may have to do something additional to stop rocket launches. But they're not barbarians. They're just people like us who are twisted with hatred and fanaticism. But still people. Also, invading a densely packed urban area of millions of people sounds hard. Our military may not be capable of doing it. So let's not." That's not so hard.

Hey! Let's solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in just one message board thread! The two-state solution is still the goal, right? I think Netanyahu and the entire Iranian government will have to disappear for that to happen. Which could happen. Neither are going to last forever.

You really should not follow those two Twitter accounts. They are notoriously wrong about facts and notoriously self-interested in likes, retweets and followers. I'm sure they monetize it in some way. The world is bad enough without disinformation.

Its prime directive is never to harm people.

I think you misread my words.

On the other hand, Kurt Cobain died around this time, and that's what we were focused on.

I guess my point is human beings have always been evil and genocides happen all the time.

On the top of war and worst things ever, the 1994 Rwandan genocide was one of the worst things that happened. I'm always amazed how we never even noticed it. 1994, when we enjoying our 90s and not paying attention to anything outside of the USA.

There is no way I'm clicking a link described that way.

Stop with the wars, humans.

There is no migrant crisis. There are migrants who try to come to the U.S. and claim asylum, but the U.S. has always had that problem. It's only called a "crisis" because people are being xenophobic. Also, migration to the U.S. closely corresponds to how well the economy is doing relative to that of other countries. When the U.S. economy is great, there are more migrants. One of the highest periods of migration, including illegal immigration, was around 2000 when the 1990s economy was at its peak. We didn't really consider it a crisis back then though.. Edit: I should specify that I am talking about individuals granted asylum in the U.S. when I say "highest periods of migration, including illegal immigration, was around 2000". Annual legal permanent residents approved was indeed high in 2000 but that number has been higher in following years.

On the issue of Venezuelan migrants, the AP articles explain that the cutoff point is July 31, 2023. Those who arrived before that date are being granted stay, while those arriving after that date are subject to deportation. Not a sudden reversal of policy as the full implications of the policy. One could certainly argue against the arbitrary cutoff point, but such temporary legal statuses often have them.

Master-Debater's mistake was posting the tweet from Karine Jean-Pierre. That January 20, 2019, tweet is from the government shutdown during the Trump administration and it expresses an opinion most Americans at the time agreed with. It also lead me to check the sources of the funds for this new "border wall" and I found out it's not Trump's border wall at all. But the bipartisan alternative that Trump opposed because it wasn't wall enough.

Come to think of it, fact checking is important. When you read the Fox News link that MD provided on this "border wall", you discover it's funds from the FY 2019 appropriations bill. This is the bill that passed Congress in Feb. 2019, immediately AFTER the government re-opened after being shut down for 35 days due to a clash between Trump demanding funding for a border wall to be included and Democrats in Congress saying no. This is the bill that was passed as an alternative to Trump's demand for border wall funding. Trump was angered by this bipartisan FY 2019 appropriations bill, and proceeded to declare a national emergency over migration because he didn't get the border wall funds. This money is the bipartisan compromise that was the alternative to the border wall, not the border wall itself. As Congress Passes Spending Bill, Trump Plans National Emergency to Build Border Wall The border security compromise tucked into the bill is perhaps the most stinging legislative defeat of Mr. Trump’s presidency. It provides money for 55 miles of steel-post fencing, essentially the same deal that Mr. Trump rejected in December. The measure prohibits construction in certain areas along the Rio Grande Valley and includes a provision, pushed by Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, granting communities on the border time to weigh in on the location and design of the fencing. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/us/politics/trump-national-emergency-border.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

I'll never understand people who think complaining about migrants is NOT bigoted.

I find the subject of Russian wonder weapons, a traditional thing Russia does, to be obnoxious. It's done for jingoism not actual utility in war.