Sudan Massacre

[Bomb#20]

In reality, neither the left nor the right give a rat's ass about Jews, Judaism, or anti-semitism per se. The left has a blatant double-standard about Israel because they classify Israelis as Europeans, Europeans rank lower than Arabs on the progressive stack because white progressives feel siding against their own ethnicity proves how non-racist they are, and progressivism is all about self-congratulation.

... the majority of the US "left" are centre right Democrats ...

I don't doubt it seems that way to you, but you're looking at them from too far away for your eyes to resolve the difference between center-right and center-left, Mr. "Capitalists don't build factories; Workers build factories. Seizing the worker's product for the workers is not theft, it's recovering stolen goods.".

... I don't have a double-standard about Israel; I hold both sides in that conflict to the exact same standards,...

Maybe you do and maybe you don't; but as noted, the overall left's blatant double-standard about Israel isn't special to Israel, merely an expression of the left's blatant double-standard about the West -- a double-standard about the West that you share.

it would be perfectly feasible for our military to operate in the north with the cooperation of the Nigerian government and kill an awful lot of Boko Haram fighters.

... "Just kill all of the enemy" is a (usually unachievable) simplistic solution, and not only doesn't usually work, but also is the very genocide against which we are supposedly standing.

If the Nigerian Army went after an American terrorist organization and killed an awful lot of them you would not call it "genocide". And if the overall left didn't have a double standard about the West then four other leftists wouldn't have Liked your post.

 

[TSwizzle]

How about we decry atrocities wherever and whenever they occur?

I’m not seeing any decrying of atrocities against the slaughter in Sudan as I observed on university campuses in various parts of the world. Strangely muted in fact. Well not really.

 

[laughing dog]

In reality, neither the left nor the right give a rat's ass about Jews, Judaism, or anti-semitism per se. The left has a blatant double-standard about Israel because they classify Israelis as Europeans, Europeans rank lower than Arabs on the progressive stack because white progressives feel siding against their own ethnicity proves how non-racist they are, and progressivism is all about self-congratulation.

... the majority of the US "left" are centre right Democrats ...

I don't doubt it seems that way to you, but you're looking at them from too far away for your eyes to resolve the difference between center-right and center-left, Mr. "Capitalists don't build factories; Workers build factories. Seizing the worker's product for the workers is not theft, it's recovering stolen goods.".

It is difficult for this reader to take any argument over whether someone(s) are CENTER-right or CENTER-left as serious.

... I don't have a double-standard about Israel; I hold both sides in that conflict to the exact same standards,...

Maybe you do and maybe you don't; but as noted, the overall left's blatant double-standard about Israel isn't special to Israel, merely an expression of the left's blatant double-standard about the West -- a double-standard about the West that you share.

To quote someone - show your work.

​

it would be perfectly feasible for our military to operate in the north with the cooperation of the Nigerian government and kill an awful lot of Boko Haram fighters.

... "Just kill all of the enemy" is a (usually unachievable) simplistic solution, and not only doesn't usually work, but also is the very genocide against which we are supposedly standing.​

If the Nigerian Army went after an American terrorist organization and killed an awful lot of them you would not call it "genocide".

Of all people, you ought to grasp that the current use of "genocide" is metaphorical. I happen to disagree with metaphorical uses of terms like genocide, fascism or Nazis, but that's life.

The issue is not that Israel is defending itself, but the methods by which they do it. Going after terrorists encompasses a wide range of choices from capturing suspected terrorists for trial to wiping out the entire population in the hopes of getting all the terrorists. In you example, is the Nigerian army;s hypothetical tactics closer to the capture and try model or the Israeli Army approach? If the latter, then I could see people using "genocide" metaphorically, expecially if the Nigerian Army was acting on US soil.

And if the overall left didn't have a double standard about the West then four other leftists wouldn't have Liked your post.

Show your work, because that appears more as classic right wing reactionary psycho babble than intelligent fact-based analysis.

 

[Bomb#20]

It is difficult for this reader to take any argument over whether someone(s) are CENTER-right or CENTER-left as serious.

That sounds like a you problem.

To quote someone - show your work.

I showed it, and you quoted it back to me.

If the Nigerian Army went after an American terrorist organization and killed an awful lot of them you would not call it "genocide".

Of all people, you ought to grasp that the current use of "genocide" is metaphorical.

And? If it's a metaphor, it's a metaphor he uses on Americans and would not use on Nigerians.

I happen to disagree with metaphorical uses of terms like genocide, fascism or Nazis, but that's life.

True that.

The issue is not that Israel is defending itself, but the methods by which they do it. Going after terrorists encompasses a wide range of choices from capturing suspected terrorists for trial to wiping out the entire population in the hopes of getting all the terrorists. In you example, is the Nigerian army;s hypothetical tactics closer to the capture and try model or the Israeli Army approach? If the latter, then I could see people using "genocide" metaphorically, expecially if the Nigerian Army was acting on US soil.

And if the overall left didn't have a double standard about the West then four other leftists wouldn't have Liked your post.

Show your work, because that appears more as classic right wing reactionary psycho babble than intelligent fact-based analysis.

You just showed my work. You would not insinuate that the Israeli Army approach is "wiping out the entire population in the hopes of getting all the terrorists" if you didn't share the classic left-wing double-standard about the West.

 

[laughing dog]

It is difficult for this reader to take any argument over whether someone(s) are CENTER-right or CENTER-left as serious.

That sounds like a you problem.

Perhaps. Then again, it could be a problem who insist that their contextual view is the only one. From the Australian experience, US Democrats are central right.

To quote someone - show your work.

I showed it, and you quoted it back to me.

Proof by assertion is not work - it is hand-waving.

If the Nigerian Army went after an American terrorist organization and killed an awful lot of them you would not call it "genocide".

Of all people, you ought to grasp that the current use of "genocide" is metaphorical.

And? If it's a metaphor, it's a metaphor he uses on Americans and would not use on Nigerians.

You know that because.....?

The issue is not that Israel is defending itself, but the methods by which they do it. Going after terrorists encompasses a wide range of choices from capturing suspected terrorists for trial to wiping out the entire population in the hopes of getting all the terrorists. In you example, is the Nigerian army;s hypothetical tactics closer to the capture and try model or the Israeli Army approach? If the latter, then I could see people using "genocide" metaphorically, expecially if the Nigerian Army was acting on US soil.

And if the overall left didn't have a double standard about the West then four other leftists wouldn't have Liked your post.

Show your work, because that appears more as classic right wing reactionary psycho babble than intelligent fact-based analysis.

You just showed my work. You would not insinuate that the Israeli Army approach is "wiping out the entire population in the hopes of getting all the terrorists" if you didn't share the classic left-wing double-standard about the West.

I insinuated nothing. I used the wording of the lower policy extreme (capture and trial) but avoided using the upper policy extreme ("wiping out the entire population"). I presumption a careful reader would conclude the Israeli Army approach was not the extreme. I apologize for that presumption.

Please try again and show the basis for seemingly right wing reactionary conclusion in bold-face.

 

[Toni]

If I were to venture a guess, I would say that TSwizzle's overarching point is that while a whole lot of people put forth a whole lot of effort to protest the 'genocide' of palestinians in gaza at the hands of jewish military during a military conflict... nobody seems to give much of a fuck at all about the actual genocide of christians at the hands of muslims in an almost entirely civilian context.

But I could be wrong.

I think it is more simple than that: Most Americans have a passing familiarity of Israel and fewer know of the existence of Sudan and only may be vaguely aware that it is in Africa and therefore full of black people.

 

[Toni]

I also think that there is always so much terrible/horrific going on that the human mind and heart can only comprehend so much before it must shit out more.

Israel seems less…mysterious, more connected to the US and at least parts of Europe, at least in part because of WWII and some ( justified) collective guilt over not giving enough support or soon enough to European Jews in the days leading up to and during and even after the second WW. There are obvious shared religious values as well that are more obvious to Americans. Collective guilt inspires a bit of blindness.

My personal belief is that the Hamas attack of Oct 7 2023 was not organic but was motivated by a desire to manipulate US presidential elections.

 

[bilby]

My personal belief is that the Hamas attack of Oct 7 2023 was not organic but was motivated by a desire to manipulate US presidential elections.

The timing strongly suggests that the motive was to distract the US from events in Ukraine; In the first week of October, Ukraine was front-page news, and there was a growing support amongst the public for more assistance to Ukraine from the US.

Russia has close ties to Iran, and at the time was spending a lot of Roubles on Iranian drones and other weapons systems; It wouldn't have been difficult for Moscow to influence Tehran to egg on Hamas to do something spectacular, and spectacularly stupid.

And whether intentional or not, the effect on US public interest in Ukraine was massive - within hours, Ukraine went from front-page headline news, to two column inches on page 15.

I think you are absolutely right, that the underlying purpose was to influence the US, and had nothing at all to do with Israel or Palestine. But the Presidential election was more than a year away at that time, so seems to me like a less plausible target.

 

[Toni]

My personal belief is that the Hamas attack of Oct 7 2023 was not organic but was motivated by a desire to manipulate US presidential elections.

The timing strongly suggests that the motive was to distract the US from events in Ukraine; In the first week of October, Ukraine was front-page news, and there was a growing support amongst the public for more assistance to Ukraine from the US.

Russia has close ties to Iran, and at the time was spending a lot of Roubles on Iranian drones and other weapons systems; It wouldn't have been difficult for Moscow to influence Tehran to egg on Hamas to do something spectacular, and spectacularly stupid.

And whether intentional or not, the effect on US public interest in Ukraine was massive - within hours, Ukraine went from front-page headline news, to two column inches on page 15.

I think you are absolutely right, that the underlying purpose was to influence the US, and had nothing at all to do with Israel or Palestine. But the Presidential election was more than a year away at that time, so seems to me like a less plausible target.

I think the motive re: timing was yes, to distract from Ukraine but imo, more importantly to fracture the progressive movements. Perhaps less so with younger people but for those of my generation station, there is a lot of collective guilt and recognition of the horrors committed in the years leading up to and during WW2. People of my generation grew up reading The Diary of Anne Frank, one of the few/only works in the school curriculum that did not center on a male protagonist/male author. For me, it was my introduction to anti-demotion and the Holocaust and quite…moving is an understatement.

Whereas many Americans conflate Iran with Arabs and condemn Islam without knowing a thing about either Iran, Arab nations, or Islam. They remember the taking of the hostages by Iran, and Ayatollah Komeini.

 

[Bomb#20]

My personal belief is that the Hamas attack of Oct 7 2023 was not organic but was motivated by a desire to manipulate US presidential elections.

The timing strongly suggests that the motive was to distract the US from events in Ukraine; In the first week of October, Ukraine was front-page news, and there was a growing support amongst the public for more assistance to Ukraine from the US.
...
I think you are absolutely right, that the underlying purpose was to influence the US, and had nothing at all to do with Israel or Palestine. But the Presidential election was more than a year away at that time, so seems to me like a less plausible target.

Not everything is about us. Neither theory is plausible. Hamas doesn't have much reason to give a rat's ass who is President or whether Russia conquers Ukraine. If the attack had any strategic objective beyond "Looks like we can pull off killing a lot of Jews and taking a lot of hostages and getting a lot of attention and keeping the money flowing in", it's a lot more likely to have been the strategic objective they actually achieved with the attack: provoking Israel into a response so severe it derailed the incipient peace treaty with Saudi Arabia.

 

[ZiprHead]

My personal belief is that the Hamas attack of Oct 7 2023 was not organic but was motivated by a desire to manipulate US presidential elections.

The timing strongly suggests that the motive was to distract the US from events in Ukraine; In the first week of October, Ukraine was front-page news, and there was a growing support amongst the public for more assistance to Ukraine from the US.

Russia has close ties to Iran, and at the time was spending a lot of Roubles on Iranian drones and other weapons systems; It wouldn't have been difficult for Moscow to influence Tehran to egg on Hamas to do something spectacular, and spectacularly stupid.

And whether intentional or not, the effect on US public interest in Ukraine was massive - within hours, Ukraine went from front-page headline news, to two column inches on page 15.

I think you are absolutely right, that the underlying purpose was to influence the US, and had nothing at all to do with Israel or Palestine. But the Presidential election was more than a year away at that time, so seems to me like a less plausible target.

Doubtful since the planning for the attack started months before hand.

 

[bilby]

My personal belief is that the Hamas attack of Oct 7 2023 was not organic but was motivated by a desire to manipulate US presidential elections.

The timing strongly suggests that the motive was to distract the US from events in Ukraine; In the first week of October, Ukraine was front-page news, and there was a growing support amongst the public for more assistance to Ukraine from the US.

Russia has close ties to Iran, and at the time was spending a lot of Roubles on Iranian drones and other weapons systems; It wouldn't have been difficult for Moscow to influence Tehran to egg on Hamas to do something spectacular, and spectacularly stupid.

And whether intentional or not, the effect on US public interest in Ukraine was massive - within hours, Ukraine went from front-page headline news, to two column inches on page 15.

I think you are absolutely right, that the underlying purpose was to influence the US, and had nothing at all to do with Israel or Palestine. But the Presidential election was more than a year away at that time, so seems to me like a less plausible target.

Doubtful since the planning for the attack started months before hand.

So did the swelling of support for Ukraine.

 

[Emily Lake]

I suppose you don't remember (or never knew) that the United States provides about 3.8 billion dollars in aid to Israel annually and sent an additional 16.3 billion in military aid since the October 2023 attack while it sends an average of about 500 million per year to Sudan, largely through food or health programs.

And I suppose you don't remember (or never knew) how many US Presidents and presidential candidates have visited Israel and why they did so, while none of them have visited Sudan.

I mean, yes? Israel has been a treaty ally of the US kind of since Britain gave that land to dispossessed jews. The US is not a treaty ally of Sudan. I don't think it should be any kind of a gotcha to recognize that the US tends to provide more support to our allies than to non-allies, and that our leaders visit the lands of our allies and rarely visit the leaders of non-allied countries.

 

[Emily Lake]

What is needed is the far more difficult and expensive task of arresting, trying, and (if convicted) imprisoning or otherwise punishing, a small but well protected number of Boko Haram leaders.

Who is supposed to be doing the arresting, trying, and punishing in this hypothetical?

 

[godincarnate.me]

It’s a shame some people don’t know the truth about life. They’re always concerned with the long-term. There is no long-term.

 

[Emily Lake]

If I were to venture a guess, I would say that TSwizzle's overarching point is that while a whole lot of people put forth a whole lot of effort to protest the 'genocide' of palestinians in gaza at the hands of jewish military during a military conflict... nobody seems to give much of a fuck at all about the actual genocide of christians at the hands of muslims in an almost entirely civilian context.

But I could be wrong.

I think it is more simple than that: Most Americans have a passing familiarity of Israel and fewer know of the existence of Sudan and only may be vaguely aware that it is in Africa and therefore full of black people.

I think you're oversimplifying this in a way that ends up being malicious, albeit perhaps inadvertently so.

I would say that most Americans personally know some jewish people, work with them, are friends with them, and in a rather large number of cases, those Americans ARE jewish people. How many Sudanese people do you know, or people fo Sudanese descent?

If Oaxaca launched an attack against Mexico, and Mexico and Oaxaca got into a massive bloody war with a ton of casualties on both sides, I suspect that a whole lot of Americans would be highly aware of the issue. Mexico is a long-standing ally of the US (despite many tensions and issues) with complex ties that go back a long time. Lots of Americans would probably side with Mexico as a defined nation-state, but some might very well support Oaxaca's hypothetical desire for independence from Mexico. Undoubtedly, some would raise placards in protest of the many Oaxacan deaths that would result, despite Oaxaca being supplied and backed by Colombian drug cartels, because lots of civilians end up dead.

On the other hand, if a group of Protestant Uruguayans started trying to kill all of the Catholic Uruguayans, it might not get as much notice or comment. Simply because most of us don't know any Uruguayans.

 

[Emily Lake]

It’s a shame some people don’t know the truth about life. They’re always concerned with the long-term. There is no long-term.

Hmm.


This should be fun. How long do we give this guy?

 

[Toni]

If I were to venture a guess, I would say that TSwizzle's overarching point is that while a whole lot of people put forth a whole lot of effort to protest the 'genocide' of palestinians in gaza at the hands of jewish military during a military conflict... nobody seems to give much of a fuck at all about the actual genocide of christians at the hands of muslims in an almost entirely civilian context.

But I could be wrong.

I think it is more simple than that: Most Americans have a passing familiarity of Israel and fewer know of the existence of Sudan and only may be vaguely aware that it is in Africa and therefore full of black people.

I think you're oversimplifying this in a way that ends up being malicious, albeit perhaps inadvertently so.

I would say that most Americans personally know some jewish people, work with them, are friends with them, and in a rather large number of cases, those Americans ARE jewish people. How many Sudanese people do you know, or people fo Sudanese descent?

If Oaxaca launched an attack against Mexico, and Mexico and Oaxaca got into a massive bloody war with a ton of casualties on both sides, I suspect that a whole lot of Americans would be highly aware of the issue. Mexico is a long-standing ally of the US (despite many tensions and issues) with complex ties that go back a long time. Lots of Americans would probably side with Mexico as a defined nation-state, but some might very well support Oaxaca's hypothetical desire for independence from Mexico. Undoubtedly, some would raise placards in protest of the many Oaxacan deaths that would result, despite Oaxaca being supplied and backed by Colombian drug cartels, because lots of civilians end up dead.

On the other hand, if a group of Protestant Uruguayans started trying to kill all of the Catholic Uruguayans, it might not get as much notice or comment. Simply because most of us don't know any Uruguayans.

The malicious you are detecting must be your reflection blinding you to the fact that not everyone lives in a major urban area or suburb. And if they do, they do not necessarily have your shared life experiences. This is not hostility. It is reality.

I did not meet anyone who was Jewish until I went to college. Or who was Arab, or Muslim or who was not born in the US. I’ve known significantly more Muslims than Jews—and my husband’s grandfather was Jewish.

Because I lived in the Washington DC area for a while, I learned a lot more geography and met a lot of people from all over the world, especially the mid-east and from African countries and from S. Asia, specifically the Indian subcontinent. But most of my life has been spent in various parts of the Midwest, in some cases in suburbs of major cities but usually in small towns surrounded by farmland.

Fundamental Christians have a greater understanding, in theory of Judaism and Israel than with Islam. The New Testament is the final Word, after all.

 

[Arctish]

I suppose you don't remember (or never knew) that the United States provides about 3.8 billion dollars in aid to Israel annually and sent an additional 16.3 billion in military aid since the October 2023 attack while it sends an average of about 500 million per year to Sudan, largely through food or health programs.

And I suppose you don't remember (or never knew) how many US Presidents and presidential candidates have visited Israel and why they did so, while none of them have visited Sudan.

I mean, yes? Israel has been a treaty ally of the US kind of since Britain gave that land to dispossessed jews. The US is not a treaty ally of Sudan. I don't think it should be any kind of a gotcha to recognize that the US tends to provide more support to our allies than to non-allies, and that our leaders visit the lands of our allies and rarely visit the leaders of non-allied countries.

It's not a gotcha. It's context.

Supporters of Israel are going to have to pick a lane. Either Israel is just a "a tiny sliver of land on the Med" that people who don't obsess over Jews should pay no more attention to than they do to places like Sudan or Djibouti, or it's an important ally deserving of the multi-billions of annual aid, the visible and vocal support of US presidents and members of Congress, and regular reporting in US media.

Some folks here seem to think we're supposed to be mindful of Israel's needs but pay no mind to its flaws. We're supposed to send Israel billions of dollars worth of military aid but not care what military actions it undertakes. We're supposed to use our wealth to entice others into signing treaties we help Israel negotiate but ignore Israel doing things that inflame the conflict. We're supposed to just shrug when Republican Presidential candidates make obligatory visits to Israel in order to secure their Party's nomination and to keep Israel in mind when we cast our votes for Mayor of New York City, but not think Israel has an outsized influence on US politics. We're supposed to have standards but not hold Israel to the same standards as every other country.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If I were to venture a guess, I would say that TSwizzle's overarching point is that while a whole lot of people put forth a whole lot of effort to protest the 'genocide' of palestinians in gaza at the hands of jewish military during a military conflict... nobody seems to give much of a fuck at all about the actual genocide of christians at the hands of muslims in an almost entirely civilian context.

But I could be wrong.

I think it is more simple than that: Most Americans have a passing familiarity of Israel and fewer know of the existence of Sudan and only may be vaguely aware that it is in Africa and therefore full of black people.

It'd be the same for SE Asia and South America as well. Ultimately, it is about what is portrayed in the news. One needs to look deeper for news on Africa, South America, SE Asia. Why I like watching Reuters which provides more news about areas that aren't particularly noted in the news media in the US. What happens in Yemen only matters if it impacts US interests.