tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44103620645258298252024-03-18T12:56:49.356-04:00l'idiot de l'escalierI am rubber and you are glue and something something something... wait here while I google it.Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.comBlogger345125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-86433716901084672942024-03-18T12:56:00.000-04:002024-03-18T12:56:11.263-04:00The Purpose of Blogging is What it Does<p><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #202122;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"></span></span></p><p>A point I was trying to make earlier - stated intents and motives aren't as important as results. It's like when the US told Kataib Hezbollah "actions speak louder than words". For reference, Kataib Hezbollah has followed up on their words (from January) to refrain from attacking in order to not embarass the Iraqi government by not attacking despite the US assassinating one of their leaders.</p><p>Anyways, the US' constant refrain of Israel having to do more to protect civilians while supplying the very bombs being used to slaughter them is one of those examples of bullshitting about motives. As is just about everything that the IDF and Israeli regime says about protecting civilians.</p><p>But a lot of people refuse to believe this. They are the "good guys" - how can they be doing the war crimes? Only other people commit crimes, certainly not the Forces of Justice! I mean, Hamas is a terrorist organization - therefore anyone opposing them has got to be good and incapable of doing anything wrong - right? Of course this infantile moronic worldview is ridiculous, but it is also widely accepted.</p><p>Here's how I want to refute it. Facts matter. Results matter. And if you accept that, then there are some important consequences:</p><blockquote><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #202122;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does">According to the cybernetician</a>, the purpose of a system is what it does. This is a basic dictum. It stands for bald fact, which makes a better starting point in seeking understanding than the familiar attributions of good intention, prejudices about expectations, moral judgment, or sheer ignorance of circumstances.</span></blockquote><p><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #202122;">Sure "cybernetician" is a pretty wanky word, but the principle here is a pretty good one. Results matter. If a system is doing something - starving children to death for example - then it can only be one of two things - an "unintended consequence" or it is being done on purpose.</span></p><p><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #202122;">With that, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-asks-world-court-not-order-new-measures-over-gaza-hunger-2024-03-18/">let me note the following</a>:</span></p><p><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #202122;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #202122;">Israel has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) not to issue emergency orders for it to step up humanitarian aid to Gaza to address a looming famine, dismissing South Africa's request to do so as "morally repugnant". </span></p><p><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #202122;">In a legal filing to the United Nations' top court, made public on Monday, Israel said it "has real concern for the humanitarian situation and innocent lives, as demonstrated by the actions it has and is taking" in Gaza during the war.</span></p></blockquote><p>Children have been dying of malnutrition for weeks now. Warnings of starvation were issued by international aid groups last year. What has been demonstrated by Israel's actions is that they are starving children on purpose. If this was an "unintended consequence" - they would have changed their approach a long time ago.</p><p>Their excuse for this - the only thing they have to explain their genocidal actions other than just pure eliminationist hatred - is that these are collateral damages in their righteous mission to "destroy Hamas". <b>Just so we are clear - the best case scenario, the kindest take you can have to defend Israel's actions - is that they are intentionally starving children to death over the span of months but that these are acceptable losses</b>.</p><p>Israel has now killed more children by starvation in the past month than all children killed by Hamas in any way throughout their entire existence.</p><p>And it is only going to get worse.</p><p>And this is all intentional on Israel's part. It is what they want to happen.</p><p><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #202122;"></span></p><p></p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-47479105519698676032024-03-15T13:22:00.004-04:002024-03-15T13:25:40.694-04:00Two Things Can Be True<p>Speaking of being late to the party, following is my entry into the "Two Things Can Be True About the Israel-Palestine Crisis" body of work.</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Hamas is a terrorist organization that brutally murdered hundreds of non-combatants and violently kidnapped hundreds more - including women, children, and the elderly.</li><li>The IDF and the Israeli government are worse than Hamas. By A LOT. It is not even remotely close.</li></ol><div>Facts have to matter. Results have to matter. What Israel has done to Gaza since October 7th is at least an order of magnitude worse than everything that Hamas has ever managed in its entire existence combined.</div><div><br /></div><div>The only argument I've seen that might bring the comparison close is where you start speculating about motives. "Hamas is worse because their intent is worse" - as if the people making this argument had magical mind reading powers. And even here - any fair accounting that doesn't make bullshit excuses for clear statements of genocidal intent from Israeli leaders would get you to about a draw. I mean, it's a qualitative comparison - you can't put a number on "how anti-social are these motives" - it's just "they aren't", "they are", and "holy shit - are they ever!" And both sides are firmly in category 3. So even when you discard actual results and the actual outcomes of actions from either side - at best, the Israeli government is about as bad as a terrorist organization. Hell, even if you give the genocide deniers their special pleading of "but the Prime Minister, President, Defense Minister, and senior military officers don't speak for Israel" nonsense - <b>the fact that Israel is continuing their murderous campaign despite the civilian casualties and destruction - this demonstrates that their intentions are fucking horrible</b>.</div><div><br /></div><div>But let's not deal with "intent" that you can only demonstrate at this point with indirect observations and speculation. On every quantifiable measure, by any reasonable standard, the government and military of Israel is worse than Hamas - and usually by a huge amount. Let's just consider a few metrics:</div><div><br /></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Number of civilians killed</li><li>Number of children killed</li><li>Ratio of non-combatants to combatants killed</li><li>Number of people injured</li><li>Number of non-combatants injured</li><li>Number of hostages taken</li><li>Duration that hostages have been held</li><li>Number of hostages or prisoners injured</li><li>Number of people who have claimed to have been tortured by each group</li><li>Number of children taken hostage</li><li>Damage to property and civilian infrastructure</li></ul></div><p></p><p></p><div>And this isn't even considering the current starvation crisis. Which gets us to the even more damning part - the damage that Hamas has inflicted is basically done - and has been done for months. There have been two attacks by Hamas gunmen outside of Gaza since the original mass killing terrorist strike. resulting in I believe five Israelis killed (one of whom was killed by the IDF). OTOH, Israel's campaign of genocide continues vigorously and with new flavours of war crimes being introduced nearly constantly.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's a big part of why Gaza is still a big fucking deal to so many people - the scale and scope of what has happened in Gaza is just unbelievable. It's so much horror and suffering that the murderous attack of October 7 is dwarfed to the point of being round-off error. AND - the destruction of Gaza is still ongoing - it's literally still happening right now.</div><div><br /></div><div>So yes, Hamas is a terrorist organization that committed mass crimes against humanity - in cold blood with ample premeditation. But as bad as Hamas is, the IDF and the government of Israel is objectively worse - and worse by a huge margin.</div><p></p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-90389884951810197772024-03-15T08:20:00.001-04:002024-03-15T08:20:23.299-04:00Starvation as a Weapon of Blogging<p>The Flour Massacre on Leap Day was horrible enough on its own. It had been nearly five months of the military operation, with insufficient amounts of food and water getting into Gaza. Especially Northern Gaza which by then had not received any humanitarian aid at all for over a month. There were reports of people eating animal feed and grass. Children were already dying to malnutrition. A slow and horrific way to die - starved while literally thousands of aid trucks are being held up at the fence.</p><p>In the backlash to that crime and the mounting death toll of starved children, finally more aid trucks were being let through. Only for the IDF to open fire on these aid seekers too. There have been at least four incidents where aid seekers have been mass murdered by IDF fire since the Flour Massacre. It is almost as if the inability of the international community to punish blatant and obvious war crimes prompts the war criminals to continue doing war crimes.</p><p>People trying to get humanitarian aid - food and water to keep their kids from starving to death - what threat do they pose? Even the incredibly immoral and stupid automatic defense of the genocide deniers - the whining of "BUT HAMAS!" is meaningless here. Unless the goal is to starve enough of Gaza that Hamas also runs out of food? This is a clear and obvious war crime - it is not merely collective punishment, but it is such a depraved and monstrous view of the Palestinian people that it should disgust the entire world.</p><p>No, obviously this is insane. Hamas is a terrorist organization and they have the guns. The last people in Gaza to starve will be the Hamas terrorist gunmen. Trying to starve Hamas into surrendering means first starving two million people to death.</p><p>Perhaps the goal is to discourage starving Gazans from seeking aid? That Israel realizes that they will eventually be forced to allow more aid in - which is very slowly happening now - and that they can maximize the number of dead children by scaring Gazans into not seeking the paltry aid they let through. Even if that's not the intention, it's the result. An easily predictable result. That it continues to happen means that either Israel does intend to frighten starving people away from aid delivery or that they just don't give a shit about children starving to death.</p><p>Gaza is facing a man made famine. People have been dying of starvation for weeks now and still the level of aid reaching Gaza is woefully insufficient. What possible explanation could there be for this other than genocide? What possible threat could there be to allowing more food and water in? Not even the most contrived fever dreams of the genocide denialists can justify this.</p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-42745283273549100172024-03-13T21:46:00.014-04:002024-03-14T10:39:50.008-04:00The Hamas Blogging Plan<p>I know I've mentioned this before, but it definitely bears repeating. Quite likely the biggest reason for the scope and extent of the death and kidnapping on October 7th is that the Israeli security apparatus sucks shit at protecting Israelis. It really does. Just so we are clear on how bad they suck, they had Hamas' Battle Plan for over a year before October 7. It's been a while since I noted this, so let me return to exactly how fucking useless and incompetent these assholes are.</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Despite the Battle Plan contained sensitive Israeli military secret information, Israeli intelligence dismissed it as being "aspirational". Sure they could steal secret military intelligence from Israel, but surely these terrorist gunmen couldn't, I don't know, carry an assault rifle while riding a motorcycle?</li><li>They had reports of dry runs being carried out in the summer. This is unsurprising - the people of Gaza, especially those suspected of being Hamas, are very tightly scrutinized and surveilled. So if a large number of Hamas fighters were doing training exercises, Israeli intelligence would have gotten reports of it. And it turns out that the training exercises matched the Battle Plan exactly. But still, the Hamas Battle Plan was dismissed as not being serious.</li><li>October 7 was the 50th anniversary of the surprise attack that started the Yom Kippur War. And the Hamas Battle Plan was for a surprise attack. It's almost as if someone paying attention could have guessed what the attack as going to be and when it would happen.</li><li>The number 4 is unlucky.</li><li>Despite all of that - what did the IDF do in advance of October 7th? They literally transferred troops away from Gaza so they could use them to bolster their support of Israeli settler terrorism in the West Bank.</li></ol><div>The bullshit nonsense about "security guarantees" for Israel? Quite clearly and obviously, the biggest threat to Israel is the genocidal psychopaths running the country and the fact that gross incompetence results in zero consequences. There's a word that's been getting thrown around a lot - <b>impunity</b>. Mostly in relation to how the US refuses to do anything to hold Israel to account even when there are rampant and blatant war crimes being committed. But that lack of accountability is not solely a gutless American government issue. So much of the world is just letting this slide - just ignoring it completely.</div><div><br /></div><div>If Hamas is not destroyed, this does not materially harm Israel's security. I know that sounds crazy - but it's the truth. Even if Hamas wants to destroy Israel (and they absolutely say that they do - so we should believe them) - they can only do what they are capable of. Surely Hamas has been wanting to destroy Israel for many years now! And their huge success in mass murdering Israelis would have been prevented if Israeli security wasn't such pure garbage. More importantly - Hamas is not what's causing terrorist gunmen to want to take up arms and commit mass atrocities in Israel. That would be the occupation. An occupied people will want to be free - and the harsher and worse the conditions of occupation are, the more likely it is for violent terrorist movements to come from it. "Destroying Hamas" will not make Gazans suddenly interested in ensuring Israelis feel safe - especially not now after months of the most intense military siege since World War 2.</div><p></p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-58742288313331268182024-03-08T13:20:00.007-05:002024-03-08T13:24:42.095-05:00Nobody Needs 5 kg of Blogging per Day<p>I know I said the starvation stuff was going to get posted on another day, but I put together a pretty good comment on it and thought I'd pop it up here too.</p><p>Ryan Grim is usually pretty good, <a href="https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1766091364012298286">so it's surprising he made this mistake</a>. The capacity of a 40 foot container truck is just about 20 tons. Israeli spokesperson Eylon Levy isn't saying that they would eat the trucks - 20 tons is what each truck could theoretically haul.</p><p>That said - yes, 5 kg per day is barely subsistence. <b>Because Israel cut off Gaza's water supply, bombed the water mains, bombed the wells, and then pumped sea water into the aquifers and ground water.</b> Hey, a package of dried pasta weighs almost nothing! You can get loads of meals out of a measley 5 kg. Who says you need to cook it? You can probably get even more nutrition by shoving fistfuls of flour straight into your mouth!</p><p>5 kg is the weight of 5 litres of water - the UN notes that basic needs for drinking and sanitation is between 50 to 100 litres per person per day. So 5 kg is less than a tenth of the minimum required amount for basic needs. 5 kg per day assumes a continued absence of sanitation and hygiene. In Eylon Levy's opinion, Gazans don't deserve access to showers or toilets or even hand washing. They can wash their hands when they lick the flour off their fingers I guess. But don't you dare accuse him of dehumanizing the Palestinians.</p><p>Back to the trucks. Let's say they are hauling MREs. An MRE is between a pound and a pound and a half. 1 MRE is around 1,250 calories - so if you are going through 3 MREs per 2 days you will still be in calorie deficit.<a href="https://www.military.com/kitup/2016/01/how-to-live-on-mres-for-21-days-lots-of-water-expert-says.html"> Here's an article with a Navy SEAL explaining what to do if you have to survive on MRE's</a>.</p><p></p><blockquote>"You definitely want to drink water," Smith told Military.com. "Depending on how much you weigh, anywhere from a half-gallon to a gallon a day."</blockquote><p></p><p>So between the drinking water and the MRE, we're already closing in on 4 kg. That's assuming no packaging weight and never washing anything. Just what gets eaten and drunk on a diet that still results in calorie deficit. For a population where people are already dying of malnutrition. The current top reply to Levy is a doctor who notes that <i>since October 7, Gaza has been short half a million tons of food</i> - so the needs are heightened even more.</p><p>This water requirement is probably around right only because it's still winter. If it gets hotter down there in the Middle East, the water needs are going to increase substantially - and that's still assuming no showers or washing or flushable toilets - and it's already been five months of this.</p><p>TL;DR: 500 trucks per day would still result in conditions that North Americans would not tolerate in for-profit prisons. But an official spokesperson for the Israeli government wants you to believe that this is extravagant.</p><p><b><i>The average number of trucks entering Gaza in February was less than 50 per day</i>.</b></p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-46532382801061305192024-03-08T09:17:00.003-05:002024-03-08T09:17:59.877-05:00Another Update on How the Blogging is GoingI have a lot to say about all of the intentional starvation and the grotesque kabuki of air drops and a floating pier, but that's going to be a post for another day. I was going to do some SOTU stuff - but I'm kind of torn bout which way to go with it. On the plus side, a very aggressive and confrontational SOTU that directly attacked Republicans and the "predecessor" relentlessly - that's good. OTOH, the stuff about Gaza was painfully bad.<div><br /></div><div>So I will retreat back to playing with numbers.</div><div><br /></div><div>The IDF claims that<a href="https://aje.io/bg1i94?update=2758044"> they killed 30 Hamas fighters in the past 24 hours</a>. We need to remember that the IDF lies - including about the number of Hamas they kill. Of the 30K official dead, the IDF claims that 12K of them are Hamas fighters, even though some 70% are women and children. It's just not even remotely credible.</div><div><br /></div><div>Still, let's indulge their fantasy numbers. If the IDF is managing to kill an average of 30 Hamas terrorists per day, how much longer do we have? Oh, I guess we also have to assume that somehow, in the midst of all the fighting, that Hamas recruitment is zero. Also totally not credible. But, we're still humouring the insane fairy tale land of the "eradicate Hamas" lunatics like the Israeli government and people like Joe Biden.</div><div><br /></div><div>The number of Hamas fighters was estimated at between 20K and 30K before the war. We're also using the obviously bullshit 12K already killed. So there might be as few as 8K left to mop up. Now remember, this is leaning heavily on the scale where we take obvious IDF lies and assume they are true (because that's the standard operating procedure of much of the West) and weight every assumption in favour of the military operation as much as possible.</div><div><br /></div><div>267 more days. The actual number is probably infinite since the brutal campaign of genocide is obviously creating more Hamas supporters. But even in the world of the genocidal maniacs who think "BUT HAAAMMMAAASSS!!!11!1eleventy-one!" is a full and complete rebuttal to any argument, the killing will go on at least until the end of November.</div>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-5783408944827081462024-03-01T05:18:00.001-05:002024-03-01T05:18:18.811-05:00When Will It Be Enough Blogging<p>From the early days of the conflict, the question was asked - how many Palestinians will have to die? We've had some pretty horrific answers, many documented in South Africa's ICJ case - but also answers from the US as well. <a href="https://weartv.com/news/local/all-of-them-rep-michelle-salzman-facing-backlash-for-israel-hamas-war-comment">All of them</a>. <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/179177/republican-congressman-andy-ogles-kill-them-all-palestinian-children-gaza">Kill them all</a>. You know, your normal every day regular non-genocidal speech. Except for the "non" part.<br /></p><p>But it's those patchouli reeking SJWs that ask this question - as some sort of gotcha. Almost as if they don't recognize that there apparently is nothing Israel can do which would justify any degree of Palestinian response - and also that anything Palestinians do is full justification for any measures Israel pursues, up to and including genocide. Under these rules, it's quite simple - just like Michelle Salzman and Andy Ogles have explicitly stated.</p><p>Unfortunately for the morality-free assholes who agree to this murderous standard - there are other parties asking. Specifically Israel is asking "how many dead Palestinians will be enough?" Only Israel is asking it like this "is this batch of war crimes enough for you to withdraw support - No? Well how about this brand new batch of war crimes - Are you uncomfortable enough to actually do something or do you kick the can down the road further?</p><p>The latest round is the Flour Massacre. The first convoy of trucks headed to northern Gaza in over a month was fired upon by the IDF. Over a hundred dead, hundreds more wounded. Is that enough? Cutting off any humanitarian aid delivery to northern Gaza for over a month, and then shooting people when they line up to get flour?</p><p>Every day, IDF soldiers upload videos of themselves committing war crimes - and that has never been enough. Not even when the IDF admitted that they used to run a channel that curated hundreds of these videos, snuff videos captioned with some of the most genocidal language imaginable. That didn't even get any acknowledgement.</p><p>So this latest horrific massacre won't do it. It's conceivable that some of the murderous sociopaths running the State Department are delighted with the slaughter - Stuart Seldowitz would have been.</p><p>The next round of "is this enough yet?" is coming soon. Children have been dying of malnutrition from this intentional starvation campaign. That's not going to slow down. We've been warned that famine an disease are going to eclipse the toll from violent deaths, with the official count already over 30K. That's now on the horizon, and the reports of the numbers of malnourished children dying is going to start coming in.</p><p>Will that be enough? Will that finally motivate the US to stop enabling this genocide?</p><p>No. It won't. We've been told how many Palestinians have to die. And if this was wrong - some sort of exaggeration, then there would have been consequences for Salzman and Ogles.</p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-69606016411272631372024-02-27T19:47:00.000-05:002024-02-27T19:47:04.889-05:00Primarily Uncommitted<p>It's a weird one in Michigan tonight. Here's some "just before numbers come in" thoughts. Note - a lot of this is random ass speculation and really is just me talking a lot because I have a lot of anxious energy around the starvation deaths that are about to swamp Gaza in the midst of the Rafah invasion. Maybe it's all nonsense - maybe it's just mindless chatter to keep my thoughts out of the dark space. Probably is - but it's my blog and quieting the voices in my head is why I do this.</p><p>Anywho - first off, the percentages are going to be meaningless. Biden is essentially an uncontested incumbent, so his turnout is going to be depressed. Why would primary voters bother when they know Joe has it in the bag? That said, primary voters are pretty committed voters, so a lot of them will turn out - it's just that whatever numbers Joe gets won't really be reflective of his support or of the enthusiasm of his supporters. The only thing the percentages are going to impact is the narrative in the next news cycle. </p><p>The raw numbers will make a difference though. 2012 also had an uncontested incumbent, although one more popular than Joe is now. Obama pulled 170K in 2012 (and he won that general election) - so that's the danger level for Biden. If he doesn't break 170K, that's a red flag. Remember that the issue isn't just people pissed off enough that they want to register a protest vote of Uncommitted - in fact, these votes are less problematic as many of them will support Biden in the general. The issue is depressed enthusiasm and support - people who will stay home in November.</p><p>If Joe breaks half a million, that would be a good sign for him. Sure he got 840K in 2020 - but that was a semi-competitive contest. It was a week after the Super Tuesday coalescing around Biden to stop Bernie - so Biden was the huge favourite by then, but had only been in that position for a week. It was certainly possible to believe that Sanders was still viable then. And while a split of 56% to 36% is a blowout, it's not the 90% you expect for uncontested incumbents. So the 2020 turnout was stronger than we would expect for this year.</p><p>Anything in between there - probably not meaningful. My expectation is that Biden breaks 500K and fairly easily. If he breaks a million that would be a crazy strong signal of support. At least IMO.</p><p>On the Uncommitted side - the base level for this vote is 20K. It was 20.8K in 2012 and 21.6K in 2016 and 19.1K in 2020. So the first 20K Uncommitted votes are just votes that would have been Uncommitted anyways. The rest are the protests votes - and while this is still not a competitive primary, people voting Uncommitted as a protest are engaged and will likely turnout as if it were a contested primary.</p><p>The ratio of general election votes to Democratic primary votes was just under 4:1 in 2016 and just over 4:1 in 2020. So 4:1 seems like a reasonable guess. That said - it's a wild ass guess.</p><p>Note that I'm not considering 2008 because that was a screwed up Democratic primary because Michigan wanted to jump the gun and got the New Hampshire treatment.</p><p>Anyways, Biden edged out Trump in Michigan's 2020 general by 155K votes. So we now have a shape of what would be bad news for Biden - although the biggest factor is what percentage of Uncommitteds will stay home in November versus how many will swallow their anti-genocide principles and vote for Genocide Joe.</p><p>If it's 75% of Uncommitteds who see Trump as being worse enough that they will vote for Biden, that balances out the 4:1 general:primary factor. This is my guess at it.</p><p>So the target for Uncommitted to mean anything is 155K plus the background 20K. If Uncommitted breaks around 175K votes, that's the (much larger error bars) level that's the red flag.</p><p>Summary - bad news for Biden is if he doesn't break 170K or Uncommitted does. Good news for Biden if he breaks half a million. Great news if he breaks a million. And yes, it is possible that Biden will get more than half a million and Uncommitted breaks 170K. That would be good news - it's would represent high turnout which implies high engagement on the Democratic side which is good.</p><p>On the minus side - it is the end of February. None of this means anything because holy shit can things go really bad in the next few months.</p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-5796034945045914642024-02-27T14:29:00.002-05:002024-02-27T14:29:31.677-05:00Will Trump be Worse on Gaza?My gut reaction is the same as everybody else's. Of course Trump will be worse. "Will Trump be worse?" is a question that can always be answered with "Absolutely." He is just that bad.<div><br /></div><div>But then I thought about it, and now I am not so sure. There's two items where Trump might actually be better than Biden - and one of them is Gaza. The other, shockingly, is the border. Everything else, no contest - Trump is worse and will be worse, without a doubt. Also, I'm not entirely convinced that Biden will be worse on those two issues - just that there's a pretty decent argument that it is possible. Whereas with Trump on every other issue, there is no argument. Trump is just so bad that he would be worse than anything Biden could manage. On climate change, the environment, energy, emergency preparedness, inequality, criminal justice, strength of democracies, corruption, trust in institutions, the performance of those institutions, social safety nets, health care, the opioid epidemic, housing, the economy, jobs, science, literally every other possible thing - Trump would be worse.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, here are the arguments. On Gaza - the assholes who say that supporting Palestine and opposing Genocide Joe is just enabling MAGA, they also claim "but what can Biden do?" They say that you cannot blame Biden for the choices that Netanyahu makes. This of course is bullshit - Biden has a LOT of tools to impact Israeli policy. He could follow the law and cut Israel off from a resupply of bombs and artillery shells. He could refrain from vetoing Security Council resolutions. He could impose sanctions just like civilized countries do when rogue states engage in militaristic aggression. But relevant to the actual point, Biden does none of these things. And he positions himself as never even possibly considering any of them.</div><div><br /></div><div>Instead, Biden unconditionally supports Israel. No red flags. Pretends that there is no evidence of war crimes even in the face of the thousands of videos of war crimes uploaded by IDF soldiers. You cannot support someone more than 100%. 100% is everything - it's the most extreme position. What can Trump possibly do to make this worse?</div><div><br /></div><div>So it is as the assholes claim - Biden is not making Netanyahu commit genocide. Netanyahu is doing that of his own free will - and Biden is merely enabling it with no restrictions or limits. But in this case, <b>Trump cannot make it worse</b>. The horrors we're seeing in Gaza are not limited in any way by any action taken by the US president (because no US president is willing to prevent genocide from happening), therefore a much worse US president (and Trump would be a much worse president than Biden) will not make Gaza worse.</div><div><br /></div><div>OTOH, a Republican president will allow a whole mass of people who oppose what's happening in Gaza to actually oppose it. There will be actual opposition instead of people biting their tongues because "omg what if Trump gets elected?!"</div><div><br /></div><div>This is like the War on Terror. Bush started it, yes. But Obama did not rein it in. In some countries, <a href="https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-17/obamas-covert-drone-war-in-numbers-ten-times-more-strikes-than-bush/">the Drone War program was ten times more active</a> under the Democratic president than under W. I mean, you would imagine that Afghanistan was safer when Obama was in charge as compared to "War Preznit Bush". <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/06/03/149000-people-have-died-in-war-in-afghanistan-and-pakistan-since-2001-report-says/">You would be seriously mistaken</a>. And maybe this is driven by how the US electorate responds to having each of the parties controlling the White House. A sort of "only Nixon could have gone to China" thing. IOW, only "anti-war" and "progressive" and "vaguely possibly Muslim-ish" (/s) presidents like Barack Obama could expand the global campaign to bomb Muslims into hating the West.</div><div><br /></div><div>So Trump cannot make things worse (because Israel apparently can never be constrained). But he will galvanize opposition to genocide, so maybe this is a net plus for Palestine. Maybe not, this argument relies on a lot of hypotheticals - but I believe that the actual results from the War on Terror under each of Bush and Obama are at least somewhat relevant.</div><div><br /></div><div>The other argument here is also that Trump is incompetent and a big boob. He'll be too distracted with petty revenge to make any actual policy. And an environment like that - ruled by grievances where everyone is fighting for the favour of the brain-worm addled baby - it's not conducive to actually getting any shit done. If the choice is between two pro-genocide presidents, I think I would prefer the less competent and more easily distracted one.</div><div><br /></div><div>As for the border - this is another thing where Biden faces no real opposition because - omg, what if you're enabling Trump, who would be much worse. Only, this doesn't seem to be true either. And it is the Democrats themselves that are pitching this angle, about how Biden has made the border much more "secure" and the treatment of migrants much more harsh and unforgiving. <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveRattner/status/1762254817471463610">Here's Steve Rattner making the case that Biden deported way more people than Trump did</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>I think results matter. Data matters. And the Democrats themselves are saying that the data shows that they are much harsher on the border. And the data they cite sure seems relevant. So if Biden can be worse than Donald "not sending their best" Trump on immigration - then I think it is reasonable to believe that Biden may well be worse for Palestine than Trump.</div>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-42172430520007140732024-02-26T16:34:00.002-05:002024-02-26T16:34:23.371-05:00Hind Rajab and her Family<p>It's impossible to post every time the IDF lies. They lie so much you would need a team of thousands of bloggers to catalogue it all. Just mendacious lying assholes. All. The. Time.</p><p>But the case of Hind Rajab deserves mention as she has caught the attention of the world. To be clear - there's harm in doing this as well. One of the reasons we are so taken with Hind's story is so that we can focus on this one little girl, instead of acknowledging that there are literally thousands of little girls who have been slaughtered by Israeli ordnance. It is not my intent to erase or ignore those many other deaths.</p><p>Sometimes one of these many incidents where the IDF murders children - it causes a backlash. <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israel-carried-out-gaza-strike-that-killed-5-children-report-says">In the ancient days of August 2022</a>, this was most of the cases where multiple children were blown to smithereens. The IDF denied that they bombed these kids, but had to backtrack when presented with shrapnel bearing a serial number from their missile.</p><p>More recently, the IDF said that it was impossible for their airstrikes to have killed the three hostages that Hamas claimed were victims of IDF bombs. You see, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-hostage-yossi-sharabi-was-likely-killed-as-a-result-of-idf-strike/">the IDF wasn't actively striking the area</a> - only, oops - yes, they were. They did in fact bomb the area the hostages were in.</p><p>It's reflex. They claim credit for all their kills, unless there's a backlash to those specific kills in which case they were nowhere near the area and it had to be a misfiring PIJ rocket.</p><p>Hind said she saw the tanks. Her sister said she saw the tanks. The IDF says "impossible, we were nowhere near there. It could not have been IDF tanks." Never mind that the damage done to the vehicle and to the ambulance crew were substantial - I guess the IDF is claiming that Hamas hit it with antitank rockets or something.</p><p>Unfortunately for the IDF, there's satellite imagery of the region. <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/26/hind-rajab-were-israeli-troops-in-the-area-where-6-year-old-was-killed">Here's a detailed AlJazeera investigation into it</a>. Maybe this will all be forgotten - maybe the IDF will never have to admit that it was in fact their forces which slaughtered this young girl, her family, and the medics who tried to save her. It's possible that this just disappears down the memory hole.</p><p>But here's the sad part - it would not make any difference either way. If the IDF was forced to admit their guilt in this act, it changes nothing. They were eventually forced into admitting other blatant lies and still allowed to carry on in their murderous ways. They were forced to concede that they assassinated Shireen Abu Akleh, and yet if anything their approach to journalists in Gaza has only become more murderous.</p><p>And it brings us back to the start of it all. The IDF murdered Hind and her family and the medics that tried to save her. But one of the drivers of us caring about this one is so that we don't have to think about the thousands of other cases which are all basically the same. This is what the IDF does - they kill Palestinians. Innocent children, their families, adults, civilians - and also maybe some Hamas fighters too. It's just massive amounts of wholesale slaughter.</p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-90781345401737105642024-02-26T07:31:00.002-05:002024-02-26T07:31:50.296-05:00Slow News DayIsrael is supposed to submit their report to the ICJ today. It is supposed to explain how they are protecting Palestinians in Gaza and complying with the order to increase humanitarian aid. The back drop for this - the ICJ is also wrapping up hearings on how illegal the settlements and occupation is and the Palestinian Authority PM and government has just resigned. Meanwhile in the US, the New York Times is trying to figure out how to sweep the Anat Schwartz thing under the rug.<div><br /></div><div>Also, Aaron Bushnell - the airman who lit himself on fire to protest the genocide - has died. I'm going to let his words close out this post.</div><div><blockquote>Many of us like to ask ourselves, "What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?"</blockquote><blockquote>The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.</blockquote><p> </p></div>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-21884314473321548962024-02-25T20:12:00.001-05:002024-02-25T20:12:32.567-05:00Evacuate! Evacuate! Evacuate!<p> Someone’s going to do the cartoon with Bibi as Davros and the Israeli Dalek Forces screaming “Evacuate!” I can’t draw, so it won’t be me. </p><p>There’s something like 1.2 million people in Rafah now. The thing people have been saying to this ludicrous notion of evacuating Rafah is that there is nowhere left to go. Because there is nowhere left to go. But here’s some other things to consider. </p><p>Evacuating a million people is not easy. Like, crazy not easy. Hurricane Katrina resulted in a million people being evacuated - and that was a fiasco. Over a thousand people died. But - it could have been a lot worse. Heckuva job Broenie may have dropped the ball and W might have been too busy with birthday cakes to engage, but there was a response and people did mobilize to help. That’s not happening in Gaza. Also, evacuees had the ability to evacuate. Not only did they have places to go, but they also had fuel and vehicles to get there. Those things are also not true of Gaza. Also, the population of Rafah has been starved for an extended period. Disease and malnutrition are rampant. Civil order is mostly broken. Civilian infrastructure has been bombed into uselessness. An evacuation of Rafah is going to make the government response to Katrina </p><p>Here’s another mass evacuation that’s happened since Katrina - Fukushima Prefecture. Something like 200,000 people had to be evacuated. It took several days. 2,000 people died in the evacuation. Now the population of Fukushima is much older and thus less resilient to shocks like this. But the population of Gaza has had most of their resiliency already used up. A 1% death toll might actually be the type of thing we might expect from a forced evacuation of Rafah. That would be over ten thousand people. And again - this was somewhere with existing services and agencies and equipment and vehicles with fuel and food and clean water. Maybe that 1% rate is optimistic. </p><p>So this idea that evacuating Rafah is going to protect civilians from mass casualty events in the ground invasion - well, the evacuation itself would be a massive mass casualty event. </p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-74020872857808958222024-02-25T07:24:00.001-05:002024-02-25T07:24:31.662-05:00The New York Times Blogging is Not Good<p>So turns out that the Hamas rape story is more problematic even then we thought after learning <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/family-of-key-case-in-new-york-times-october-7-sexual-violence-report-renounces-story-says-reporters-manipulated-them/">details of the Gal Abdush case</a>. That's the one where they identified the "woman in the black dress" and Israeli security forces said she was raped before she was murdered. And the New York Times mislead the family about what type of story they were writing (one focused on Hamas being rape monsters instead of memorializing victims) to get interviews. And then it turns out that it is incredibly unlikely that she was raped. In the words of the victim's sister:</p><p></p><blockquote>At 6:51, Gal sent us a message on WhatsApp saying ‘we are at the border, and you can’t imagine sounds of explosions around us.’ At 7 o’clock, my brother-in-law called his brother and said they shot Gal and she’s dying. It doesn’t make any sense that in four minutes, they raped her, slaughtered her, and burned her?</blockquote><p>Now to be clear - Hamas did brutally murder her. An innocent civilian. This is already a very serious crime that should be denounced - it is a clear act of terrorism and was one of many that were committed that day. But it sure looks like the IDF just made up some bullshit story to make it seem even worse and then the Times misled and took advantage of the victim's family in order to catapult that lie.</p><p>Anyways, how could this be more problematic? Well, <a href="https://twitter.com/LailaAlarian/status/1761367812583444891">some more information has come out about one of the authors of the piece</a>. Turns out that Anat Schwartz's Twitter account had liked at least a couple of very problematic posts. One with language bad enough that it got included in South Africa's ICJ case accusing Israel of genocide and the other about propaganda strategies to get the West to fear Hamas. There may have been more, but her social media got locked down immediately and then scrubbed before being restored.</p><p>It's been repeated so many times - the Hamas rape machine, all of the rapes that Hamas perpetrated on October 7, those dirty Arabs are sexual predators who wallow in rape and violence. Based on stories like the ones Anat Schwartz fed into the discourse. And it is really starting to look like those stories are all bullshit. </p><p>AFAICT, they still have not found any survivors who say they were a victim of rape. Now this isn't proof that it didn't happen. Supposedly, as per the hasbara, most of the victims were also murdered. And survivors quite reasonably have trouble reporting these horrific violations against them in less fraught circumstances - but to know that the accusation will be accompanied by a mountain of global scrutiny and coverage is probably also off-putting. In the case of rape and sexual violence, the adage that absence of evidence not being evidence of absence is especially true. BUT - when you factor in the incredibly bad faith bullshit being engaged in by Israel and outlets like the New York Times, well maybe some skepticism is warranted. Believe women - this holds. But maybe also don't automatically believe people using those women to justify genocide.</p><p>Let me note - I found the accusations against Hamas credible despite my automatic skepticism of anything the IDF says. The IDF lies. All the time. That skepticism is something the IDF has earned. They are more shameless about spreading propaganda than conservative politicians. BUT - I am deeply anti-war. War is hell. It is literally human beings doing their utmost to kill and destroy one another. It is bad and it has bad repercussions that spread everywhere and affect everything. So I am primed to believe accusations of misconduct against people engaged in war. In this particular case - even more so, as the Hamas fighters were also clearly engaged in terrorism - in the wholesale murder of defenseless civilians. So when you suggest that they are also rapists, my skepticism gets put on hold.</p><p>But now, it really does look like these accusations are just bullshit. Israeli propaganda or hasbara. It's lies. I should have understood this much earlier - the explanation that Hamas gave as to why it was untrue was solid. See, Hamas noted that their fighters are deeply religious fanatical zealots that were engaged in what they saw as a glorious struggle, likely a suicide mission where they would be martyred. And fundamental to that bizarre religious doctrine is the usual religious hang-ups about sex and how it is forbidden except for making babies. Of course, Hamas didn't phrase it like that - but that was the crux of their claim. And it fits in with what we have observed. And, to people outside of Hamas, it does not paint them in a good light. The excuse is basically - they didn't rape anyone because that would get in the way of their murdering of civilians.</p><p>Anyways, with Israel on the verge of invading Rafah, the Times is probably warming up another "Israel is so progressive - check out this group of brave Israeli women fighting in Gaza".<a href="https://twitter.com/EmilioMorenatti/status/1759669676810904020"> There's even a perfect photo for it that was taken this past week</a>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGuaPhRXoAIiHZM?format=jpg&name=small" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="454" data-original-width="680" height="215" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGuaPhRXoAIiHZM?format=jpg&name=small" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p></p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-53428535935604272162024-02-23T13:00:00.002-05:002024-02-23T13:00:42.989-05:00They Cannot Remain Consistent Even During a Single Week<p> I mean maybe I shouldn't pick on them because <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/blinken-disappointed-to-hear-of-plans-to-advance-3000-settlement-homes/">Blinken is factually correct on this</a>:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>“New settlements are counterproductive to reaching an enduring peace,” Blinken says during a news conference in Buenos Aires. </p><p>“They’re also inconsistent with international law. Our administration maintains a firm opposition to settlement expansion. In our judgement this only weakens, it doesn’t strengthen, Israel’s security.”</p></blockquote><p></p><p>Compared to <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240221-us-urges-un-court-not-to-order-israel-out-of-palestinian-lands">their submission to the ICJ earlier this week</a>:</p><p></p><blockquote>"The court should not find that Israel is legally obligated to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from occupied territory," said Richard Visek, legal advisor at the US State Department. </blockquote><blockquote>"Any movement towards Israel withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza requires consideration of Israel's very real security needs," he argued. </blockquote><blockquote>"We were all reminded of those security needs on October 7," he said, referring to the Hamas attacks that sparked the current conflict.</blockquote><p></p><p>I guess the number of Israeli settlements in the West Bank is in the Goldilocks Zone for maximum security. Any more - weakens Israeli security. Any reduction - weakens Israeli security.</p><p>Or maybe the US is full of shit and they are just making noises to not look like they are as contemptuous of international law as Israel is - but in fact are 100% cool with more settlements in the West Bank.</p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-88045979286275764342024-02-23T11:06:00.004-05:002024-02-23T11:06:54.851-05:00Not Blogging has not Improved the Blogging SituationWell, trying to not talk about it has not had any effect than blogging about it constantly. Shit is all fucked up and - as I started noting incessantly way back in October - going to get worse.<div><br /></div><div>There's no good news. The closest thing to good news is the ICJ is nearing the end of a week-long hearing on how illegal the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is. Over 50 countries wanted to present and sll seemed to agree - even the US - that the occupation was illegal. The US however also believed that Israel is allowed to break the law and the ICJ has no jurisdiction, so we have been clearly told what impact any ruling might have. Zero.</div><div><br /></div><div>The IDF is going to invade Rafah. The last remaining city in the Gaza Strip, where a million displaced persons are sheltering in tents. You know that homeless encampment in the park that's bothering the fuck out of all the affluent downtown residents? Imagine that - but with a million people. Also, none of them have had regular meals for months.</div><div><br /></div><div>I had mentioned before that the thing which fucking pushed me over the edge on the disaster unfolding before our eyes was when Biden questioned the death toll by calling the "Hamas run" Gaza Ministry of Health not worthy of trust. The Gaza Ministry of Health is the doctors and nurses and other hospital workers who have been trying to save lives in the bombed out hospitals of Gaza. The ones who have stayed in facilities they know the murderous IDF is obsessed with out of loyalty to their communities and patients. Fucking godamned heroes and Biden isn't worthy of being shat on by them. That's the thing that aggravated me into obsession myself.</div><div><br /></div><div>So it should not have come as a surprise that UNRWA was the next target. The relief workers trying to distribute humanitarian aid in the conditions that exist in Gaza right now. Also fucking goddamned heroes. Gaza is not merely a "war zone". It's all four horsemen of the apocalypse - War, Death, Famine, and Pestilence - just riding free. And it's UNRWA that's been trying to slow their progress through the population of Gaza. And Biden thinks they should just fucking disappear. UNRWA funding is going to be exhausted in maybe a couple of weeks because Joe Biden is a genocidal monster. Maybe Joe doesn't want to commit genocide himself - but he cares so little about preventing it that he will do his utmost best to ensure that the genocide is not impeded and can move along at the fastest speed allowable.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the topic of Genocide Joe - apparently, <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1760812355204592101">he won't mince words</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Many of the replies to him were about how he absolutely is mincing words - by only identifying one source of all that suffering. "But HAAAMMMOOSSE!". And that's a good observation. "I won't mince words - bad shit is happening, but let's not think about who is doing it or what anyone can do to prevent it from getting worse - which it has been - for four and a half months."</div><div><br /></div><div>BUT here's the thing that isn't being noticed. This is the statement that Joe thinks is some brave and controversial position - something that's "not mincing words":</div><div><blockquote>The overwhelming majority of Palestinians are not Hamas. And Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.</blockquote><p>That's the statement he thinks is so shocking and controversial that he needs to preface it with "I won't mince words." </p><p>Fuck you Genocide Joe. Just go fuck yourself.</p></div>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-53339717963544446952024-02-09T10:12:00.000-05:002024-02-09T10:12:08.739-05:00Wild Speculation - the Stakes of Blogging Ceasefires<p>Remember the ICJ ruling? That was January 26. So, two weeks ago the world court said that Israel is plausibly accused of committing genocide. There were a number of provisional measures ordered - and it's plainly obvious that Israel has ignored them. And no one is surprised by this - that Israel would show zero respect for international law and legally binding rulings from the world court. But it is still a small minority of people who acknowledge that this is unsurprising because Israel is a rogue state. Because Israel IS a rogue state. </p><p>Anyways, in the week that followed the ruling, Algeria indicated that they would bring a ceasefire motion to the Security Council. The US opposed this - as they apparently do whenever anybody calls for an end to the violence. Their excuse was that they believed a Security Council resolution for a ceasefire would interfere with the ongoing ceasefire negotiations. IOW, the current batch of negotiations around the Paris Framework are likely the reason the US wasn't forced into another immoral and gross veto at the Security Council. IOW, the stakes are pretty high here - the ceasefire negotiation is the only thing keeping the US from flipping off the International Court of Justice.</p><p>Which brings us to the change in tone from Biden. The "over the top" comment about Israel's military response. You know - the one that people are using to call Biden senile because he confused Egypt with Mexico*. What's the change? Hasn't Biden already noted before that Israel needs to do more to minimize civilian casualties? Here's the change - <i>his answer does not invoke Israel's right to self-defense and does not reference October 7th at all</i>. If it wasn't the guy supplying ammunition to the IDF, he would have been called an antisemite for this. He criticized Israel without condemning Hamas first! The change is that Biden acknowledged that the situation in Gaza is incredibly bad and indicated that this was due to Israel's "over-the-top" military campaign - and did so without excusing it by screaming "BUT HAAMMAAAS!!11!eleventy-one!" - and yes, I think this is a big deal.</p><p>Maybe I'm being too optimistic. Huffing on hopium and trying to grab any indication that policy might actually change. Biden does also say that he hopes the "pause" can be expanded and get Israel to change the way they fight the war - so he's still opposed to any type of ceasefire and wants more military action in Gaza. That's a HUGE fucking problem.</p><p>But it looks to me like he may also be concerned that this actually is genocide (because it actually is genocide) - and that evidence indicating such is going to be undeniable soon - especially if Israel moves on to Rafah as they are saying they will do.</p><p>*Biden does this all the time. He has ALWAYS done this sort of thing. Getting hung up on a brainfart from Joe "Gaffe Machine" Biden is a bit precious. That said - dude is ancient, so the possibility that he's got the brainworms is definitely non-zero. But Biden mixing up words or names? This is standard for Uncle Joe and has been for a long time.</p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-44938998594181027672024-02-09T08:42:00.001-05:002024-02-09T08:42:22.081-05:00The Children of Refugees<p>I have been seeing a new anti-UNRWA talking point. That the UNRWA is engaged in some huge conspiracy to perpetuate its collection of donor money - based on defining the children of refugees as refugees. The claim is that it is only the UNRWA that does this and no other refugees have children that inherit refugee status. </p><p>Like I’ve said before, the genocide deniers seem to honestly believe that everyone they talk to is as stupid as they are. I mean, what the actual fuck? How does it work then? The children of non-UNRWA mandate refugees are what? Citizens of the world? Sovereign states on their own? No seriously - if a refugee in say, Kakuma Camp in Kenya has a baby - what happens to that baby? I mean if it doesn’t inherit refugee status - then it’s what? Magically disappeared into the ether?</p><p>Just so fucking stupid. The stupidest shit ever. Fucking dumb nonsense that doesn’t even begin to make sense at any point. </p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-89114571306248225252024-02-08T09:34:00.006-05:002024-02-08T09:34:53.440-05:00The End of Blogging... is Unacceptable<p>The Paris Framework for a negotiated end to the War in Gaza was fundamentally broken - <a href="https://staircasetwit.blogspot.com/2024/02/when-is-ceasefire-not-ceasefire.html">as I noted a few days ago</a>. When the "negotiation" has one side starting from "you must be completely destroyed. Eradicated. This only ends when you no longer exist. This is non-negotiable" - well, I mean I think you can see how this might be problematic.</p><p>Since then, Hamas has responded. When I first heard about the Hamas response being "positive" - I was confused and thought that I had lost my mind. Thus far, Hamas is winning this war. Their prominence and influence, not only in Gaza but across the entire region - has massively increased. Their opponents - Israel and the US - increasingly marginalized on the world stage. Their ability to strike back at Israel? Some people have noted that fewer rockets have been launched than earlier in the war - so perhaps their rocket firing capabilities have been degraded. But these are almost entirely ineffectual in the first place - the Iron Dome actually works quite well - so there's hardly any change there. Where there has been a change is in Hamas' ability to fight IDF forces on the ground - and going by casualty numbers, this ability has only increased.</p><p>Well, details about that response are being covered now. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68225663">BBC has a good summary of what Hamas is demanding</a>, quoted below:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>A draft of the Hamas document seen by the Reuters news agency suggests:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Phase one</b>: A 45-day pause in fighting during which all Israeli women hostages, males under 19, the elderly and sick would be exchanged for Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails. Israeli forces would withdraw from populated areas of Gaza, and the reconstruction of hospitals and refugee camps would begin</li><li><b>Phase two</b>: Remaining male Israeli hostages would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners and Israeli forces leave Gaza completely</li><li><b>Phase three</b>: Both sides would exchange remains and bodies</li></ul><p></p><p>The deal would also see deliveries of food and other aid to Gaza increase. By the end of the 135-day pause in fighting, Hamas says negotiations to end the war would have concluded.</p></blockquote><p>The summary I saw from Al Jazeera included other details like restoring access to Al Aqsa mosque and free movement for Palestinians within Gaza. Also, they asked for something like a quarter million temporary shelters to be included in the humanitarian aid - which sounds like a lot, but is a much smaller number than the amount of homes that Israel has destroyed over these past four months.</p><p>Biden has said that Hamas' demands are "over the top". What is over the top here? What is the unreasonable demand that Hamas is making? Very clearly and obviously it is this - Hamas is not agreeing to accepting that Israel pursue them to complete destruction with military force regardless of collateral damage to Gazans. That is the single "over the top" item in the response. Netanyahu has called the Hamas response "delusional" - because it calls for Israel leaving Gaza without eradicating Hamas.</p><p>Herein lies the trap that the West has built around themselves. Hamas was relatively popular before October 7 despite being a violent terrorist organization that was credibly charged with having a deeply entrenched culture of corruption. But afterwards? </p><p>Hamas is the only group to effectively strike back at Israel. To be clear - I condemn the attacks of October 7th. Hundreds of civilians were violently murdered and hundreds more were kidnapped. This is a mass atrocity and I do not pretend that it didn't happen or that there was justification for it. BUT - since October 7, Israel has shown itself to be worse. There is no objective measure where the attacks of October 7 are anywhere close to as bad as what Israel has inflicted upon Gaza since then. And if you are Palestinian or have empathy for Palestinians? Well Israel has conducted itself as the villain here. Not to say that Hamas are heroes - they are also villains - but they are the ones that are inheriting the good will for standing up to the monster.</p><p>Moreover - Israel's campaign of what the ICJ has said is plausibly called genocide - is ongoing. It is happening right now - at this very minute. And Hamas is actively fighting it on the streets and exacting a toll in killed and injured IDF soldiers. Of course Hamas is more popular now then it ever has been before. If you were in Gaza, how could you not see Israel as the enemy? And Hamas is the only force that is fighting them.</p><p>This is the first massive pile of shit that the US and Israel are going to have to eat. The insistence that there be "no Hamas in a post-war Gaza" is unbelievably naive. Do they honestly think that there can be a post-war Gaza government that has any legitimacy if they exclude Hamas? It's farcical. Perhaps in the long term - after a Palestinian state is recognized and that state has been free from the need for a resistance (against outside interference) movement for some time - maybe then it is possible, but in the near term? This is delusional.</p><p>And it's not like we're opposed to having terrorists controlling governments. The obvious example is the US being forced to hand Afghanistan back to the Taliban, but there are many others. I think the most relevant example is that Ben-Gvir, the current Israeli Minister of National Security, literally has been convicted of supporting terrorism and incitement of racism.</p><p>Also too - "first massive pile of shit" implies that there will be more. And there will. BDS as a movement was picking up steam before all of this broke out. Does anyone think BDS has been weakened by this at all? Or the Israeli project in the West Bank? Will this continue the way it has been going? The US presence in the Middle East, with their various military bases all across the region - this is looking less and less welcome to the host nations.</p><p>The ICJ case is going to continue - and South Africa has announced that they will be taking the US among other western nations to court over complicity in genocide. And the facts of the case look really strong for South Africa's case. How is this going to turn out - and what will it mean for Israel's culture of unaccountable impunity?</p><p>That said - the folks running this show are very powerful and have no shame and will pursue their objectives with no thought given to morality or basic human rights other than for PR purposes. They will refuse the massive piles of shit they have to eat with all their might, and they have a lot of might. So we'll see how this shakes out as we go forward.</p><p></p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-84905010796249069622024-02-06T08:49:00.002-05:002024-02-06T08:49:26.358-05:00Is It Genocide Yet?<p></p><blockquote><a href="https://aje.io/sffhkg?update=2682900">Residents of the Gaza Strip will be evacuated from Rafah</a> before initiating military operations there</blockquote><p>How is this supposed to work? They’ve already evacuated the entire population of Gaza into Rafah. They were forced out of Gaza City into Central Gaza. Then from Central Gaza to Khan Younis. Now they are being pushed from Khan Younis to Rafah. And the plan is u to o further evacuate them out of Rafah? Where to? They cannot go any further south without leaving Gaza. And Israel sure as fuck won’t let large numbers of people out of Gaza because some of those people are Hamas. Nevermind the fact that this forcible displacement out of Gaza is a war crime that even the US has declared unacceptable. So what is supposed to happen here? </p><p></p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-11482514050383022942024-02-05T07:08:00.004-05:002024-02-05T07:45:08.687-05:00The Kids These Days Blogging Their Ticks and Tocks<p>Back on December 12, Ha'aretz published a story accusing the IDF of running a snuff channel called "72 Virgins - Uncensored" on Telegram. They of course denied it at the time. Yesterday they had a different story. Turns out, yes - the IDF was indeed running a snuff channel. but it was "unauthorized" - just some rogue senior officers in the "Influencing Unit" of the IDF Operations Directorate. Anyways, Israel has said that they have dealt with the matter. Apparently someone is going to be asked to retire! What more consequences can there be than that?</p><p>For clarity - that channel is now defunct and I have never seen the videos on it. I call it a "snuff channel" based on the reporting of the shit that was posted. You can look it up yourself if you want to check but I'm not going into any more depth about what was on there.<br /></p><p>EDIT: I've reconsidered this point. The labour people have put in to investigating and documenting this behaviour should not be ignored. And while I did cite Ha'aretz earlier and they should be recognized for highlighting these things as a newspaper in Israel, there are others it is also important to recognize. In particular, there's one Twitter account that I think is very important - so <a href="https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1734490336708214848">here is their thread on this channel from Dec. 12</a>. /EDIT</p><p>Some points I'd like to make. Firstly - the IDF lies. They do. All the time. These claims that they weren't involved, followed by a reversal later - this is just incredibly common. The one that gets cited a lot is the assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh, where IDF denials of any involvement were supplemented by a faked video. The IDF is just a fountain of propaganda and disinformation - and they are absolutely 100% shameless about it. When they toured the BBC through Al Shifa Hospital - you know, the Hamas Pentagon where they found a box of dates - the one "go bag" hidden behind an MRI machine (yes, that should have been enough to confirm that this was pure bullshit) had it's contents changed from an earlier video. When confronted with this, the IDF admitted to putting more stuff in there. The evidence they were citing to justify attacking a hospital - they just casually admitted to tampering with and expected no one to care.<br /></p><p>Secondly - Israel's military operations including psych warfare aimed at their own citizens - has no restrictions. The IDF was running a snuff channel but the matter has been "dealt with" - by having one guy maybe retire early. Maybe - the reports I've read are just that someone is expected to retire. Or with Abu Akleh? Israel admitted that they likely killed her. There were no consequences - not even a reprimand. Even when it is the one crime that Israel itself sees as so vile that it warrants genocide - the crime of killing Israeli civilians - there are no consequences if the accused is with the IDF. The countless Israeli victims of IDF hellfire missiles on October 7 - killed by the IDF? Well apparently, it would be immoral to even look into it. The guys that shot the escaped hostages? No punishment. One of the reasons why IDF soldiers keep posting TikToks of their war crimes is because they are encouraged to do so and there is zero penalty for it.<br /></p><p>Relatedly - Israel claimed at the ICJ hearing that the proper place to look at any possible misconduct by IDF soldiers is in their robust and independent judicial system. It is a testament to the professionalism of South Africa's legal team that this claim was not met with outright laughter.</p><p>Thirdly - that IDF channel wasn't the biggest one. Nor the worst. IDF soldiers post snuff videos - it's just a thing they do (but don't you dare call it genocide). And are continuing to do. And yet - there is no reporting on it. I opened this post noting that the IDF was accused of running a snuff channel - and then had to reverse their denial. There are snuff videos coming out of Gaza.</p><p>I remember when Abu Ghraib made the news. It really made the news. Soldiers filming themselves doing war crimes was newsworthy. This apparently is no longer true.</p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-54458395736993077042024-02-04T18:50:00.001-05:002024-02-04T18:50:10.111-05:00When is a Ceasefire not a Ceasefire<p>Which would be more troubling about the fucking useless sociopathic monsters running the show - that they are stupid or that they are evil?</p><p>Apparently there’s been negotiations on a new round of hostage releases and prisoner exchange. Currently the sticking point is that Hamas wants a full ceasefire and an end to hostilities. Israel is only willing to accept a 35 day long break in their active genocide campaign. </p><p>The true brilliant brain genius that is Jake Sullivan has said that the ball is now in Hamas’ court - basically pretending like there’s a real ceasefire deal but it is being stymied by Hamas. This is bullshit. To be clear - Hamas is a terrorist organization. They are terrible. But this story that is being crafted? Just pure fucking nonsense. </p><p>The real sticking point is that Israel and the US will not agree to a ceasefire because this would be a failure for them. From almost two decades before October 7, the stated goal is to eradicate Hamas. They need to be completely destroyed. The US is on record as saying that there can be no Hamas in post-wat Gaza. And really, Hamas is a terrorist organization - so of course this is the official position. </p><p>And yet. Evil enough that they must be eradicated no matter the cost in civilian lives (even genocide is on the table) - but not evil enough that you can negotiate with them. It’s like they are trying to find more outlandish ways to tell us they think we’re morons that will believe anything. </p><p>Furthermore - what kind of stupid fucking “bargaining” position is this? “Look, we can give you some pause in the bombing - but the total eradication of your group is non-negotiable for us. Is there some consolation prize we can offer instead?</p><p>Really? Hamas isn’t biting on such a wonderfully generous deal? /eyeroll</p><p>Just the stupidest fucking morons that ever ate paste are these assholes. Just so fucking stupid. </p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-56722485042822818172024-02-02T14:49:00.000-05:002024-02-02T14:49:06.965-05:00Never Again Will I Read Jesse Singal<p> <a href="https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1753479410013913295">Jesse Singal has asked a really stupid question.</a></p><p></p><blockquote>Can someone explain the connection to me? What does being a unionized auto worker have to do with Israel-Palestine?</blockquote><p>A lot of great answers about how the labour movement has always cared about social justice and the well being of people other than just their members. BUT this is buying in to his game. It's buying into his framing - that only people who are directly affected could possibly have feelings about Gaza.</p><p>Fuck. That. Noise.</p><p>It's genocide. Everybody is justified in opposing genocide. That's not negotiable. That's international law. That's just a basic fucking part of being human.</p><p>Never Again. This doesn't mean "never again will we allow people to try to eradicate Jews" it means "never again will we allow people to eradicate another people". The Genocide Convention is about preventing genocide - it's so powerful because whenever there is a risk of genocide happening, all signatories have a positive obligation to prevent it. Even if it is happening to people other than Jews. Even if it is being perpetrated by Jews. The rule is No Genocide. And everybody is supposed to enforce that rule.</p><p>Here's the answer for Jesse. Here is the explanation he is looking for:</p><p>Jesse Singal, you are a stupid piece of shit. Just because you are incapable of granting basic fucking human dignity to those you don't like - that doesn't mean those hateful views are relevant outside your odious shrivelled little world. Hope that helps!</p><p></p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-53149139714453428532024-02-02T07:40:00.005-05:002024-02-02T07:40:43.338-05:00Groundhog Day<p> Israel must do more to minimize civilian casualties.</p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-12203936005428975182024-02-01T07:16:00.004-05:002024-02-01T07:16:26.827-05:00Update on the UNRWA Rwelve<p>Sometimes typos can be traditions too. IOW, it's intentional and not because I'm posting before I've had a covfefe.</p><p>Anywho, this is about how the US, Canada, and a bunch of other countries who filed condemnations of Myanmar during the Gambia's genocide case against them at the ICJ decided to respond to the ICJ provisional measures order <b>by cutting off funding to UNRWA</b>. IOW, by fully participating in the genocide.</p><p>Anyways, the move was because the IDF had "evidence" that 12 UNRWA employees were part of the Hamas attack on October 7. Evidence they got from "questioning" people they have had in custody since October 7. <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/israeli-intelligence-report-claims-four-unrwa-staff-in-gaza-involved-in-hamas-kidnappings-13059967">Here's the update</a>. It's now four, and maybe two more. Allegedly.</p><p>A reminder - most of the defunding countries have acknowledged that the UNRWA has been doing an amazing job, that it has saved countless lives, and that with famine and disease so widespread it is needed more than ever. Also, they have noted that it is impossible to replace them - that no one else could distribute humanitarian at the scale UNRWA manages. But if the IDF says they should be defunded, well that's what a Western democracy just has to do.</p><p>Another reminder - the ICJ decision cited the convention (and South Africa's written submission) in one of the orders. Israel is supposed to prevent many things including the following:</p><p></p><blockquote>deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part</blockquote><p>Cutting off aid to the group while they are in famine and ravaged by disease? When they have no access to food or water? In fact - the ICJ ruling specifically addresses this component:</p><p></p><blockquote>The State of Israel shall take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of
urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life
faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip; </blockquote><p>At this point - the countries cutting off funding might have crossed the line. The line separating complicity from active participation.</p><p></p><p></p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4410362064525829825.post-9712060858301179512024-01-29T09:12:00.003-05:002024-01-29T12:35:08.674-05:00Denial - Preserving Hockey and Blogging<p>There's a reason why Trump crowing "FAKE NEWS" is so effective. The urge to deny things which make us uncomfortable is immense. Avoiding it and pretending like it's not real is a coping mechanism that everybody uses - even if we know that doing this only makes shit worse.</p><p>Let me tell you about the one example that I keeps rolling over and over in mind. Way back in 2018, Nora Loreto made the one tweet that got her blacklisted from mainstream media and painted a target on herself for angry white assholes to rage against non-stop. <a href="https://twitter.com/NoLore/status/983159952264003584">It was the Humboldt crash tweet</a>.</p><p>For context - the Humboldt bus crash was an accident in Saskatchewan where a transport truck wiped out a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos, a junior A ice hockey team. 16 people were killed and 13 more were injured in the crash. It was a horrific and tragic accident.</p><p>But, Loreto was bang on in her assessment. Her comment was exactly right - the whiteness and maleness of the victims - the fact that this was a junior hockey team - absolutely 100% impacted the response, and it's mind boggling how people refuse to acknowledge this fact. But people are assholes, and will wallow in their own decrepitude basically forever if allowed. And often, if not allowed too.</p><p>Anyways - the reason why this is sticks out in my mind so much is that the deranged Humboldt bus tweet avengers have not let up after half a decade - despite what has happened in the intervening period. It was the same year of that tweet that Canada entered into a moment of introspection after the discovery of about 200 unmarked graves at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. The unmarked graves of children stolen from their families and communities to have the Indian forced out of them so they could become good God fearing cheap farm labour. </p><p>That wasn't the only one. The Kamloops discovery was through the use of ground-penetrating radar, a non-invasive approach that allows a search to be made without disturbing the interred remains. This approach would be used on additional residential school sites and they started finding new batches of the unmarked graves of children every other month for a couple years. Sometimes only a dozen or so, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/cowessess-marieval-indian-residential-school-news-1.6078375">but one of them had several hundred</a>.</p><p>These findings did not lead to the same sort of national mourning that the Humboldt bus crash did. In fact, there was a concerted effort to discredit the findings - to cast doubt on whether there were any bodies under the earth. Despite the fact that we knew these bodies were there - we had a Truth and Reconcilliation Committee review the records showing that thousands of Indigenous children died in these residential schools. There was just a nation-wide effort to "Fake News" it all - to flush away the uncomfortable fact of Canada's century long genocide.</p><p>Incidentally, some people say that this isn't "ancient history" since the residential schools were in operation into the 1990s. That's a flawed understanding of what happened. We phased out residential schools not because they were genocide factories, but they just didn't fit into the modern world. Training cheap farm labour in the 1990s? What happened instead is we just shifted where we were putting the children we stole from Indigenous communities.</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1541187352297/1541187392851">In Canada, 53.8% of children in foster care are Indigenous</a>, but account for only 7.7% of the child population according to Census 2021.</blockquote><p></p><p>Those weren't the only relevant stories to break since 2018. In 2022, we found out about Hockey Canada's approach to dealing with sexual assault allegations. Apparently, Hockey Canada was taking part of the money they collected from hockey families across the country and putting millions of dollars away into multiple slush funds - which were mainly used to settle claims against junior hockey players of sexual assault. One specific case also happened in 2018 - where a group of championship junior hockey players gang raped a woman they got passing-put drunk. the assault was reported to the police, which closed the case - and were forced to re-open it after news that Hockey Canada paid out millions in hush money over it. Charges have only just been laid this week - five years after the fact.</p><p>Now to be clear - I am most certainly not trying to suggest that the Humboldt Broncos were rapists or villains of any sort. They were and are just a hockey team - and there is not even the barest suggestion that they were monsters of any sort. But the revelations from the fallout of the Hockey Canada scandal was that hockey itself as a sport in Canada has some very severe cultural problems. Whether it is the stubborn persistence of long since banned hazing rituals or just the deeply seated culture of misogyny and homophobia, the utterly garbage moral cesspit that is hockey culture was finally getting spoken about in public. And one of the key findings of this introspection was that Canadian culture treats young hockey players like little gods free to act upon their worst impulses with impunity.</p><p>But Hockey (with a capital H) is a core aspect of the identity of a lot of Canadians - so the denial was there and the moment of actually talking about it came and went and we're all now just hoping that things have all been fixed so we never have to think about it again.</p><p>And yet - even while the Hockey Canada scandal was at its peak in the news cycle - there were assholes whining about the Humboldt crash tweet. Completely oblivious to the things they have denied so hard.</p><p>That denial is just core to how we as human beings behave. Of course we deny genocide when we're complicit in it. It's the crime of crimes - only monsters do it, and we're not monsters - therefore genocide cannot be happening and cannot have happened. Of course we deny wrongdoing by the people who represent out values and beliefs. If those people can engage in criminal behaviour, that would reflect negatively on the things we cherish and have incorporated into our identity. And it all just happens to us without our noticing. I've pointed out these examples because they are obvious to me - because I'm not in the group that's caught up in it. I have never ever liked hockey - even from before I knew about the types of people the sport attracts. Because it's easy to see this stuff from the outside - because the reflex to deny these things isn't there. I probably have a lot of things about which I am in denial myself. But that's the thing about denial this deep - you have denied it so much, sometimes you cannot even see it anymore.</p><p>As to the timing of this post - is it because the first charge in the 2018 gang rape was announced and this is relevant again? Or am I referencing something else - another bout of genocide denialism and the reflexive defense of the guys who wave the flag of Our Team?</p><p>Yes.</p><p>EDIT - to add: No word from Hockey Canada about the criminal sexual assault charges being laid on someone they protected with a secret slush fund payout. There's all that change and accountability we got promised in order to woo back sponsors and repair their image. But again - so much of the tastemakers in Canuckistan have hockey as a core part of their identity - so this is going to slide. Only to be noted by obscure and unread blogs like mine.</p>Dragon-King Wangchuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15661002686346571531noreply@blogger.com0