54 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

The only genocide in Gaza was a genocide of shitty concrete buildings and tunnels.

64,000 children killed or maimed in 2 years. That includes 1,000 infants. For the sin of being born in the wrong place.

That's what you're championing.

And people are still mystified when I explain that the USAF is not a dependable firewall vs genocidal political intent or unlawful orders.

With that comment, you demonstrate that the door to your mind is closed and effort to pry it open will fail unless you are somehow de-radicalized, which usually only happens with mortal shock.

Just remember, anything you let your government do to someone else, it will eventually do to you.

1 hour ago, Moose said:

64,000 children killed or maimed in 2 years. That includes 1,000 infants. For the sin of being born in the wrong place.

That's what you're championing.

And people are still mystified when I explain that the USAF is not a dependable firewall vs genocidal political intent or unlawful orders.

With that comment, you demonstrate that the door to your mind is closed and effort to pry it open will fail unless you are somehow de-radicalized, which usually only happens with mortal shock.

Just remember, anything you let your government do to someone else, it will eventually do to you.

Well you're on a roll. "Championing."

They're dead because their parents love Islam more than they love their children. They're dead because the leadership in Gaza, that's Hamas, has created an environment so unfathomably miserable by spending every penny the world has given them on tunnels and rockets and guns instead of food and shelter, that the idea of Islamic Paradise is more appealing than the idea of survival. They're dead because the overwhelming majority of Palestinian sentiment was elated by the rape and murder of other innocent children who have a different religion than theirs. They're dead because boys between the age of 12 and 17 were disproportionately likely to be holding an AK-47 when their life was ended by an Israeli strike.

Show me one Israeli parade over those dead Palestinian children. Just one. Send me the recording of one Israeli man calling his parents in orgasmic elation because he had just murdered a Palestinian family.

I don't think you're evil. I think you're highly emotional, and not intelligent enough to filter out the incredible deluge of propaganda and lies that you are exposed to.

Unfortunately, they need you to think that I'm evil. Because if you were able to think clearly for more than 4 seconds, you would see the insanity of the things that you're posting here. You would stop and consider how the things you're suggesting have no historical precedent, and no basis in reality whatsoever. You would see that you're asking other people to accept the death of their innocent children in order to protect the innocent children of others who wish them nothing but annihilation.

Or it could be this:

Edit: Not directly related to Gaza but also in 2024, Israel remotely detonated thousands of pagers/walkie talkies which I will admit was a badass logistical and tradecraft achievement. But when you remotely blow up thousands of PED’d with no possible way of knowing where they all are/who’s around at the time the side effect is obvious. They maimed dozens of children and killed a few, and hurt/killed dozens of unrelated adults as well. I think this pretty well sums up the IDF’s level of collateral damage concern.

But zooming out back to the Iran conflict I think this discussion has kinda circled back on itself. Some here like myself are trying to evaluate the actions of the US/Israel/Iran/Hamas from a neutral observer perspective to try to figure out what’s actually going on and if any of this is a good idea. Others view it as a pure good guys vs bad guys dynamic. Everything the US/Israel do is a justified response to past transgressions by the bad guys. Everything Iran/Hamas do happened in a vacuum with no historical context or justification, because they’re the bad guys and that’s just how they are.

There’s not much that can be said to bridge the gap between these two viewpoints, but I have no doubt we will keep trying.

Edited 6 hours ago6 hr by Pooter

1 hour ago, Pooter said:

Or it could be this:

Edit: Not directly related to Gaza but also in 2024, Israel remotely detonated thousands of pagers/walkie talkies which I will admit was a badass logistical and tradecraft achievement. But when you remotely blow up thousands of PED’d with no possible way of knowing where they all are/who’s around at the time the side effect is obvious. They maimed dozens of children and killed a few, and hurt/killed dozens of unrelated adults as well. I think this pretty well sums up the IDF’s level of collateral damage concern.

But zooming out back to the Iran conflict I think this discussion has kinda circled back on itself. Some here like myself are trying to evaluate the actions of the US/Israel/Iran/Hamas from a neutral observer perspective to try to figure out what’s actually going on and if any of this is a good idea. Others view it as a pure good guys vs bad guys dynamic. Everything the US/Israel do is a justified response to past transgressions by the bad guys. Everything Iran/Hamas do happened in a vacuum with no historical context or justification, because they’re the bad guys and that’s just how they are.

There’s not much that can be said to bridge the gap between these two viewpoints, but I have no doubt we will keep trying.

Neat. None of that is genocide.

33 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

Neat. None of that is genocide.

Never said it was. Genocide is a specific word with a specific meaning and I don’t think it’s applicable here. The hyperbole the far left uses on this topic very often torpedoes rational debate. But I think we are having a rational debate and we can both agree that something can be bad, even deeply immoral, without being a genocide.

My point was simply that all the child deaths in Gaza aren’t 100% on Hamas because they built tunnels or launched rockets or had meetings in hospital basements. Someone still has to drop the bombs. And Israel was using AI to deliberately target family residences, never mind the rest of the people living in those buildings. That is not only not OK, I would argue It’s a form of terrorism, akin what Hamas does. If Iran was tracking IDF soldiers cell phones and TBM striking their neighborhood once they got home from work we would rightly call that terrorism. Inconvenient details like this really cloud the good guys versus bad guys narrative.

2 minutes ago, Pooter said:

My point was simply that all the child deaths in Gaza aren’t 100% on Hamas because they built tunnels or launched rockets or had meetings in hospital basements. Someone still has to drop the bombs. And Israel was using AI to deliberately target family residences, never mind the rest of the people living in those buildings. That is not only not OK, I would argue It’s a form of terrorism, akin what Hamas does. If Iran was tracking IDF soldiers cell phones and TBM striking their neighborhood once they got home from work we would rightly call that terrorism. Inconvenient details like this really cloud the good guys versus bad guys narrative.

Well, on one hand you believe in the actual definition of genocide, but then on the other you twist terrorism into fitting something that it is not.

We just keep coming back to this world of utopian hypotheticals. There has never been a war waged on the scale of what Israel did in Gaza with so few casualties. Ever. Not even close. There are no wars where women and children are spared. Even the concept of innocent children is wildly inflated. If a 14-year-old is holding an AK-47, is he innocent? Is he a child?

You keep trying to frame the action itself as the key element of moral versus immoral. Blowing up pagers for example. I'm baffled that someone could be in the military and not understand how obviously useless that framing is. Distinction, necessity, and proportionality are loac concepts specifically for determining whether an action, murder, is moral or immoral.

None of the women or children killed on October 7th needed to die to protect the Palestinians from a lethal threat. Not only that, it put them at far greater danger.

I just keep going back to how crazy it is the amount of effort you put into excusing the actions of groups like Hamas or the IRGC when they don't even believe in the nonsense you're spouting. They are not defending their wives and daughters against the Israelis. They believe that it is a religious catastrophe of the highest word that Israel exists. They are completely uninterested in peaceful coexistence, and they do not pretend and be interested in it.

It's so curious when people get indignant at being called anti-semitic, when they are carrying the water of groups that are openly and proudly call for the actual genocide of the Jewish people. It's akin to saying "I'm not racist, but I think the KKK has an interesting point, and you should at least be able to see things from their perspective."

If a man straps his daughter to his chest, breaks into your house and attempts to kill your family, putting a bullet through the girl to stop the murderer is a tragedy. But it is not a immoral.

2 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

Well, on one hand you believe in the actual definition of genocide, but then on the other you twist terrorism into fitting something that it is not.

We just keep coming back to this world of utopian hypotheticals. There has never been a war waged on the scale of what Israel did in Gaza with so few casualties. Ever. Not even close. There are no wars where women and children are spared. Even the concept of innocent children is wildly inflated. If a 14-year-old is holding an AK-47, is he innocent? Is he a child?

You keep trying to frame the action itself as the key element of moral versus immoral. Blowing up pagers for example. I'm baffled that someone could be in the military and not understand how obviously useless that framing is. Distinction, necessity, and proportionality are loac concepts specifically for determining whether an action, murder, is moral or immoral.

None of the women or children killed on October 7th needed to die to protect the Palestinians from a lethal threat. Not only that, it put them at far greater danger.

I just keep going back to how crazy it is the amount of effort you put into excusing the actions of groups like Hamas or the IRGC when they don't even believe in the nonsense you're spouting. They are not defending their wives and daughters against the Israelis. They believe that it is a religious catastrophe of the highest word that Israel exists. They are completely uninterested in peaceful coexistence, and they do not pretend and be interested in it.

It's so curious when people get indignant at being called anti-semitic, when they are carrying the water of groups that are openly and proudly call for the actual genocide of the Jewish people. It's akin to saying "I'm not racist, but I think the KKK has an interesting point, and you should at least be able to see things from their perspective."

If a man straps his daughter to his chest, breaks into your house and attempts to kill your family, putting a bullet through the girl to stop the murderer is a tragedy. But it is not a immoral.

Everything you argue depends on non-combatants in Gaza and Iran being culpable for October 7th.

They are non-combatants. They have no agency. Collective punishment is antithetical both distinction and necessity.

You're answering the question "how can I justify this?" But the right answer to the wrong question is still the wrong answer.

The right question is "why are pretending to be great while settling for being Israel's military gimp?"

3 minutes ago, Moose said:

Everything you argue depends on non-combatants in Gaza and Iran being culpable for October 7th.

They are non-combatants. They have no agency. Collective punishment is antithetical both distinction and necessity.

You're answering the question "how can I justify this?" But the right answer to the wrong question is still the wrong answer.

The right question is "why are pretending to be great while settling for being Israel's military gimp?"

Your entire point relies on mischaracterizing every element of the war. Israel has not targeted civilian non-combatants. At any point. However terrorist combatants, or military combatants depending on how you want to characterize Hamas, have absolutely hidden themselves and their equipment under and behind civilians. Which, as anybody who stayed awake during a law of armed conflict class would remember, makes them viable targets.

Hamas did not Target Israeli military installations on October 7th. They targeted a music festival and a bunch of pacifist towns. They didn't walk away from women and children who were alone in the house unarmed, they raped and killed them. The women and children were the target, not collateral damage.

So you're either a troll, an anti-semite, or an idiot. I suspect all three.

1 hour ago, Lord Ratner said:

So you're either a troll, an anti-semite, or an idiot. I suspect all three.

Now see, it's been awhile since I posted here. But I seem to recall a policy about refraining from personal attacks. Not that I expect it will be enforced, but you have to live with yourself. I hope your conscience can bear it.

You're not too bright. But that's normal for USAF officers. The service stopped allowing us to make high-judgement decisions as CGOs, which prevented those of us with sufficient humility from getting things wrong, learning, and improving so we could exercise better judgement with time. Because who needs all that when you can issue micromanagerial directives from a CAOC and have your authoritarian wishes enforced by FGO toadies who live for your approval.

It's that authoritarian acculturation which has led you to the mistaken idea that disagreement with you, Lord Rat, makes someone unintelligent. But you managed to wedge underneath your toxic upbringing by accusing someone of racism without proper foundation. That marks you as a low-rent piece of shit incapable of the shame you ought to feel for saying it.

Not all animals are elephants, but all elephants are animals.
Not everyone who criticizes Israel is an anti-semite, but all anti-semites criticize Israel.
Not all idiots are lawyers, but all lawyers are idiots. I am a lawyer and an idiot. It's the one correct thing you've said.

But it means I was able to sleep through LOAC and still grasp the law of targeting. Whereas you were allegedly awake and still missed the entire meaning. Let me help.

When a combatant shelters in a civilian dwelling, the children who live there do not become fair game. The house becomes a lawful target and loses protected status only if/when it makes a substantial contribution to military activity. Like, it becomes a sniper's nest or a comm center or a storage facility for combatant munitions. The fact of a combatant sheltering in a building does not make it a valid target. If this is not what you extracted by drunk-clicking through your LOAC CBT after a Tuesday night Elmer's freebasing session, I'm sorry to make your mental process more complicated. But your obvious ignorance will not be a valid defense, nor does it clothe you in the glory you apparently self-entitle.

But wait. There's more.

Even if you determine a target co-opted by combatants is valid, you can only attack it if the anticipated military advantage outweighs the harm expected to befall non-combatants. This relies on good faith. That doesn't mean it's a free-for-all. Because you must also take all possible precautions to minimize civilian harm.

Anyone in the chain of command who fails to do the above can be personally named in a criminal or civil proceeding. Which assumes a world of laws, and I know we're in a world of men. Which, amusingly, also disqualifies you from participating.

64,000 killed or maimed. 1,000 infants. You don't even think it's wrong. If it was your son, your daughter, your grandchild, you probably still wouldn't, because reptiles just lay more eggs and move on.

Wrap whatever pretty bow you want around this turd. But if you want to pretend it's chocolate, you have to eat it.

Here's a fork. Because if one thing is clear, it's that you deserve to be forked.

58 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

Your entire point relies on mischaracterizing every element of the war. Israel has not targeted civilian non-combatants. At any point. However terrorist combatants, or military combatants depending on how you want to characterize Hamas, have absolutely hidden themselves and their equipment under and behind civilians. Which, as anybody who stayed awake during a law of armed conflict class would remember, makes them viable targets.

Hamas did not Target Israeli military installations on October 7th. They targeted a music festival and a bunch of pacifist towns. They didn't walk away from women and children who were alone in the house unarmed, they raped and killed them. The women and children were the target, not collateral damage.

So you're either a troll, an anti-semite, or an idiot. I suspect all three.

We are all tracking October 7th = Bad

But also, using AI to target low level Hamas dudes when they return to their residence based on cell data and then leveling the whole apartment complex is bad, disproportionate, and yes probably feels a lot like terrorism to the other people who lived in that building and weren’t combatants, if they survive at all.

October 7th was horrible but it doesn’t give Israel a blank check to do whatever it wants for all time. I think there was significant sympathy and support for Israel immediately afterward. But we are going on 3 years since the attack, and they’ve leveled Gaza and killed tens of thousands of children. People are, rightly, starting to have an issue with it.

It’s not anti-semitism to criticize IDF tactics or specific wartime policies of the Israeli government. Israel critics didn’t just start randomly multiplying in 2024/25. It is directly correlated to how egregious this war has become and the attempts to dismiss any substantive criticism of it as bigotry.