@sailingbythelee
@lemmy.worldWhen I say "clever", I dont necessarily mean it was a good move toward their long-term goals. I mean that it was ingenious and skillfully executed, requiring the coordination of many parts, and displaying deft trade craft.
Frankly, arguing whether "ethno-fascist Zionists" or "Muslim fundamentalists" are worse is kind of pointless. Neither is high on the list of things I support.
Most Israelis are not "ethno-fascist Zionists" any more than most Gazans or Lebanese, or even Iranians, are Muslim fundamentalist theocrats. All of those populations are caught in bad situations that were set in motion decades ago. On balance, if forced to choose a side to support, I would support Israel, like most other Westerners. At least they have a functioning democracy and largely adhere to Western values. The Israeli religious right wing is extremely problematic, of course, but it looks to me like they are headed for defeat in the next election. We can't say the same about Hezbollah or the Iranian theocracy or any of Iran's other proxies.
The bottom line is: FUCK ALL RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM. Doesn't matter whether it is Muslim, Jewish, Christian, or Hindu. They all suck.
Well sure. Modern war is all about adaptation. Exploding pagers were never going to be a knock-out blow, just a clever psy-op. One among many, I'm sure.
Good point. I should have qualified what I said by saying that the Israeli operation may have the effects I listed. But, as you say, it might backfire and have the opposite of the intended effect. I guess that is always a risk with these types of operations.
This is the conclusion I've come to as well. I used to be frustrated at how stupid Trump supporters are. I would wonder how anyone could be so gullible, cynical, racist, or mysogynist as to vote for Trump. How does he get away with, even prosper, saying such crazy and harmful things? But I've come to the conclusion that Trump voters are just extremely unhappy. A vote for Trump is a big fuck-you to the establishment. Both parties were basically run by a modern day aristocracy. The Kennedys, the Clintons, and the Bushes are the most obvious dynasties, but they also have many, many surrogates. More importantly, they defined a kind of cursus honorum for becoming president, including all of the right schools, fraternities, clubs, contacts, donors, etc that you have to follow to move up through the various offices to get to the top. The Tea Party disrupted the Republican aristocracy, but then Trump came along and just obliterated it.
Now, on the one hand, we can probably all get behind the idea that breaking up the aristocratic hold on political parties is a good thing. However, history has also shown that supporting populist demagogues who specialize in chaos and hateful rhetoric often leads to a bad time for the country and the people.
These last five years are the first time in my life that I'm genuinely worried for the stability of the republic. It has been said many times by people who have lived through it that people never think civil war will actually happen until it does. And then they look back and the signs were obvious. Whoever actually wins, when half of the population is voting for a hateful chaos candidate, that's a big red flag.
It wasn't "stupid". As a psy-op, it further complicates Hezbollah's communications, sows fear among Hezbollah members, demonstrates Israel's far-reaching capabilities, makes civilians suspicious of Hezbollah officials, etc. If Israel does something similar a couple more times, Hezbollah will have to resort to bicycle couriers and smoke signals.
It also undermines Hezbollah's credibility. The Lebanese people are not stupid. They know that Hezbollah is a shadow government allowing Iran to control Lebanon and use it as a staging ground for attacks on Israel. That leaves Lebanon in a permanent state of semi-war with Israel, not to mention its involvement in multiple other external conflicts. None of which is helpful for the health and prosperity of Lebanon.
Lebanon is a natural trading nation and always has been. It is a beautiful country full of kind people with excellent commercial instincts. They are held down as a nation by the fact that Hezbollah has turned the country into a pawn of the Ayatollah.
My guess is that assassination isn't as easy as it is made out to be in the movies. The CIA, the best funded intelligence agency in the world, tried to take out Castro hundreds of times and failed. They couldn't find Osama for a decade, either, and even then the US used Seals, not the CIA. Sure, killing some rando is probably easy, but not a government leader who is actively avoiding assassination, as I'm sure Hamas leaders are doing.
It isn't such a simple question and I don't remember all of Scaramucci's points, which is why I gave the reference. Also, given how long OP's post was, I figure they probably do want the longer explanation in the podcast. But since you ask (even though you claim its not important to you), here's what I recall:
That's all I can remember right now.
It's not an advertisement, dumbass. I found the last two episodes of that podcast pretty much exactly answered the question that OP posed.
If you really want to know why Trump is still competitive, listen to Anthony Scaramucci, a.k.a. The Mooch. He worked for Trump for a couple of weeks before being fired by him. The Mooch is a long-time conservative investor-type who knows Trump well and can't stand him, so he has been helping the Democrats. Thr Mooch really understands Trump and his followers. I'm pretty sure he helped with Harris's debate prep, especially helping her understand how to get under Trump's skin.
He hosts a great podcast along with Katty Kay called The Rest Is Politics US (as opposed to the parent program The Rest Is Politics UK). https://tripus.supportingcast.fm
In particular, check out the last two post-debate episodes:
#27 Trump vs. Harris: What You Didn't See
#28 Why Kamala Harris Still Has a Problem